Category: election law

Categories
crime and punishment election law partisanship

Threshold Crossed

Donald Trump, indictments, convictions, law, court, judge

We’ve seen many sad days for our republic. But now the country has crossed a certain horrible threshold of banana-republic-hood.

Guided by a corrupt judge, a New York City jury has found former President Trump guilty of all 34 of the District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s bogus charges. Something or other to do with Stormy Daniels, an alleged affair, paying off an extortionist, federal election laws, and bookkeeping.

With Trump targeted by so many show trials launched solely to punish his ascendancy and prevent his reelection, chances were that at least one of these elephantine efforts would extract a conviction. Even people lousy at darts hit the dartboard sooner or later if they throw a thousand darts.

As Katie Pavlich notes, during the trial prosecutors didn’t “focus on proving the fraud charges” but on “hush-​money payments” and “irrelevant salacious details of an alleged affair.” Who needs a definable crime when Being Trump is crime enough?

The verdict made one reader at Instapundit “realize just how dependent the Democrats have become on appearing legitimate. Where there is no substance, form must take precedence. [So we’re] offered oppression as ‘democracy’ and Stalinist show trials as ‘justice.’”

There are so many irregularities in the charges and the conduct of the trial that the verdict is bound to be overturned on appeal.

By some court. Somewhere. No?

But the damage has been done. The worst politicos and operators are now high-​fiving each other, little caring about implications and long-​range effects. As if they cannot see the next step. 

As if they cannot see they are behaving like the caciques of a banana dictatorship.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with ChatGPT4o and Firefly 

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ballot access election law judiciary

A Done Decision

rock climber

We probably needn’t feel suspense about whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court will let certain sloppy voting practices continue.

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty and the chairman of the Racine County Republican Party filed a lawsuit alleging that Racine city officials illegally used a van to collect absentee ballots in 2022. A circuit court ruled that such mobile voting sites violate state law.

Now, “without allowing any lower appellate courts to rule first,” the state’s supreme court will decide whether the circuit court is right about that.

The high court voted 4 to 3 to accept the case. The three justices who opposed end-​running the appellate courts are conservative (read: Republican); the other four are liberal (read: Democrat).

The Democrat justices voted to take the case at the request of the Democratic National Committee, which leads a political party known to be a proponent of slapdash voting procedures, slapdashery that observers tend to agree favors Democrats.

Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, who is part of the conservative bloc, has stated that the “liberal” justices proceeded in this way in order to help the Democrats politically. Ziegler knows her “liberal” colleagues, and I guess they must be the sort of progressives who don’t make conscientious adherence to the law in the service of election integrity a top priority.

So I think what’s about to happen is more of a foregone conclusion than it is a cliffhanger.

We know how the court will decide — but wouldn’t we love a surprise ending?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with Midjourney

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ballot access election law

More Is Less

citizen voting, democracy, elections, immigration, illegal

Jose Barrios was “quite happy to hear we’re going to have more democracy, not less in the District of Columbia.”

Barrios, the president of D.C. Latino Caucus, was reacting to a federal judge’s ruling to toss out the legal challenge, brought by several city voters, to the D.C. Noncitizen Voting Act.

That underlying law, passed by the DC City Council in 2022, certainly puts the “more” into democracy, allowing anyone residing in our nation’s capital for 30 days, even if in the country illegally, to legally vote for mayor, city council and local ballot measures. 

And I do mean “anyone.” China’s ambassador to the U.S. and other Chinese nationals working at their embassy are today eligible voters in Washington. Same for the FSB agents and other Russian nationals working out of their embassy. 

Federal Judge Amy Berman Jackson dismissed the lawsuit on the grounds that plaintiffs “were simply raising a generalized grievance.” She elaborated: “They may object as a matter of policy to the fact that immigrants get to vote at all, but their votes will not receive less weight or be treated differently than noncitizens’ votes.”

I object to her poor choice of terms. “Immigrants” have been voting in this country for the last century and hopefully always will: By becoming citizens. 

The judge’s ruling also highlights that who votes is a pretty fundamental constitutional question, one that voters should decide. 

Yesterday, Idaho’s legislature voted to place a Citizen Only Voting Amendment on this November’s ballot — joining Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kentucky, which have similar amendments on the ballot. 

Certainly, yes, bestowing the vote on foreign citizens residing in the city for 30 days is an expansion of democracy. But sometimes more is less.

So, let’s ask voters.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ballot access election law ideological culture

The Colorado Gambit Crushed

Colorado, Trump, election, democracy

The Supreme Court unanimously nixed the clever scheme to keep Donald Trump off the Colorado ballot. The court explained its actions in the second paragraph of its anonymously written March 4th ruling: “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse.”

That’s it. The 14th Amendment, which the Colorado gambit relied upon, does make Congress the instrument for preventing “an insurrectionist” from serving in office.

So Colorado’s ploy to rig the 2024 election out in the open has been stopped. And good thing, too, since the political repercussions could have been … harrowing. 

A lot of commentary and reporting on the ruling has been devoted to pushing what was not covered. Take the CNN article by John Fritz and Marshall Cohen, “Trump’s on the ballot, but the Supreme Court left key constitutional questions unanswered.” It is hard not to interpret such headlines as providing excuses to partisan Democrats — in this case those at CNN — who had put so much hope in Colorado’s (and other states’) taking of the Trump matter into their own hands. 

“But while the unsigned, 13-​page opinion the Supreme Court handed down Monday decisively resolved the uncertainty around Trump’s eligibility for a second term,” the article explains, “it left unsettled questions that could some day boomerang back to the justices.”

True enough, but so what? Take the first mentioned: “Could Democratic lawmakers, for instance, disqualify Trump next January when the electoral votes are counted if he wins the November election?”

Well, no. 

The 14th’s third section does not list presidents as barred by insurrection: “No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-​President,” it says. Electors of. But not the President and VP.

I’m sure the Supreme Court would be happy to expedite an opinion to that effect should the Democrats attempt anything that stupid.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
Accountability election law Tenth Amendment federalism

States Still Have a Role

Nancy Pelosi, Federalism, Nationalism

When asked what kind of government had been proposed at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Benjamin Franklin famously responded: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

But Old Ben did not clarify the nature of the republic. 

It was to be a federal republic. 

In the new Constitution — which was adopted by the states over the next few years — the States were sovereign, the general government given a concise and limited list of tasks to perform.

Since then, nationalism has won most of the big battles, but federalism remains vital as a principle, re-​asserting itself in interesting ways.

Most recent? “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton receives huge win with court ruling delivered on Tuesday deeming the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package passed in 2022 unconstitutional,” as Leading Report explained on Tuesday. “This victory marks a pivotal moment in Paxton’s challenge against the legislation, highlighting concerns over the bill’s approval process.”

At issue is Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, which President Biden signed in December 2022, with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Lubbock Division, concluding that “by including members [of U.S. Congress] who were indisputably absent in the quorum count, the Act at issue passed in violation of the Constitution’s Quorum Clause.”

As Paxton gleefully summarized, “Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi abused proxy voting under the pretext of COVID-​19 to pass this law, then Biden signed it, knowing they violated the Constitution.”

The story, as Leading Report argues, “showcases the role of state attorneys general in upholding constitutional principles and ensuring adherence to legal frameworks within the realm of federal governance.”

The States have some say. Still.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts

Categories
ballot access election law partisanship political challengers

Parties Demoted

voting, elections, primary, democracy, rules

Though “[s]everal left-​leaning groups have sued to block the former president from the state’s ballot on 14th Amendment grounds,” Tom Ozimek of The Epoch Times reported in November, “Trump Listed on Michigan Primary Ballot,” as the headline states.

The primary was yesterday. Trump won. As expected.

But he appeared on the primary ballot only with legal wrangling. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, was under a lot of pressure to keep Trump off the ballot. Which she resisted, explicitly stating that she thought the maneuver to allow state officials to prohibit Trump from appearing on ballots because of the 14th Amendment’s “insurrection” clause was a bad idea.

Michigan’s voting system is now quite complicated. First, it’s an open primary state, so there will always be strategic voting, where partisans will cross lines to sabotage opponent parties. Though in the case of Trump, there is some irony here, since Trump benefitted in 2016 from such voting by Democrats, thinking he was the candidate easiest to beat in the general election.

Michigan sports a hybrid system for selecting partisan candidates to appear on the general election ballot. “More of Michigan’s 55 delegates to the Republican National Convention (RNC) will be awarded,” explains Nathan Worcester, also of The Epoch Times, “through the caucus process than through the primary vote — 39 as opposed to just 16.” But there are dueling conventions for caucusing, and it’s quite a mess.*

Michigan also now offers early voting at special voting sites. Is it a sign of a healthy democracy that there are so many ways to vote?

It sure doesn’t seem healthy that national partisan politics almost kept a Republican candidate off a primary ballot. Could the solution be to take parties’ candidate selection entirely out of state balloting?

Demote major parties from their current favored position to paying their own way.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* In the Democratic Primary, President Biden won big against Dean Phillips, a largely unknown congressman from Minnesota, and author Marianne Williamson. But, with roughly half the vote counted, a not insignificant 14 percent of Democrats snubbed the president (and the field) by voting “Uncommitted.” Many were no doubt protesting the president’s policies concerning the Israel-​Hamas War; in the county containing the University of Michigan, 20 percent voted uncommitted. Yet, even in rural counties across Michigan, more than 10 percent of Democrats opted for uncommitted.

PDF for printing

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

—

See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)

See recent popular posts