Category: election law

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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.

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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.

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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.

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crime and punishment election law general freedom

Free to Petition

Georgia, voting, elections, verification, eligibility

In December 2020, True the Vote helped Georgians to file elector challenges “based on data showing over 364,000 voters appeared to be ineligible to vote due to change in residency.”

Section 21-2-230 of Georgia Code Title 21 states that any elector “of the county or municipality may challenge the right of any other elector of the county or municipality, whose name appears on the list of electors, to vote in an election.”

Nevertheless, Fair Fight Action, the group founded by Stacey Abrams, sued True the Vote for allegedly intimidating voters.

That suit has now been thrown out.

In a 145-page ruling, Judge Steve Jones questioned aspects of TTV’s strategy. But he concluded that “there is no evidence that Defendants’ actions caused (or attempted to cause) any voter to be intimidated, coerced, or threatened in voting.”

According to True the Vote attorney Jake Evans, the decision “establishes that eligibility challenges under Section 230 are a proper method to ensure voter rolls are accurate.”

In a formal statement, True the Vote said that the court has “affirmed that citizens have the right to lawfully petition their government in support of election integrity without fear of persecution or prosecution.”

Critics of the decision bemoan the encouragement that it will give to organizations seeking to expose voter fraud. And the problem is . . . ? 

It’s not as if filing a challenge under 230 guarantees success; a board of registrars must still determine whether the challenge is valid. Besides, fighting actual ballot fraud is not an attack upon democracy, but a shoring up.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law Voting

Voting Unbound, Democracy Unhinged

voting, democracy, elections, corruption, power

In our nation’s capital, local voting rights are expanding and metastasizing so fast it is hard to keep up.

Exhibit A, a 12-1 vote of the City Council last year, telling the world: It is absolutely crucial to our democracy that China’s ambassador to the United States be given the same vote on who should be mayor, council member, or decide ballot measures, that any American citizen living in the District of Columbia would be entitled. 

Hey, let’s not disenfranchise the spies working out of the Russian embassy, either. Let ’em all vote! 

After all, they pay taxes. Might have their kids in the schools. 

In the country illegally? Fuhgeddaboudit! You can vote in DC. In fact, if an invading army took Washington by military force, and then held it for 30 days, the enemy soldiers could legally vote themselves into office. 

If only this were hyperbole!

A year ago, all the Republicans — along with 1 in 5 Democrats — in the U.S. House voted to nix the District’s crazy foreign citizen voting plan, as is Congress’s constitutional authority. But the Democrat-controlled Senate refuses to act.

Last week, Abel Amene, whose Ethiopian family was granted asylum more than 20 years ago, became the first non-citizen to be elected to a D.C. office. Abel won one of nearly 300 seats on the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, where the average district contains roughly 2,000 residents. 

My only question: why hasn’t he become a citizen? 

While the ANC has absolutely no power whatsoever, it is likely that its commissioner, Vanessa Rubio, lusts for more power and authority. Earlier this week she was fined $500 for voting twice in the 2020 election — once in Maryland and another time in Washington, D.C. 

She originally told authorities she did not recall voting twice. Later she suggested that because D.C. isn’t a state, voting there didn’t count . . . as if everyone gets one vote in Washington and another where they actually live.

Rubio’s 2020 fraud reminds us that not every vote should count.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access election law judiciary

Democratic Mountain High

Donald Trump, Colorado Supreme Court, election, insurrection

How to spark a civil war?

“A divided Colorado Supreme Court on Tuesday declared former President Donald Trump ineligible for the White House under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause and removed him from the state’s presidential primary ballot,” wrote David Knowles for Yahoo News. This will, of course, induce a “showdown in the nation’s highest court to decide whether the front-runner for the GOP nomination can remain in the race.”

The idea — half plausible, I suppose — is that President Trump’s actions on January 6 spurred an insurrection attempt, therefore he is ineligible to run for any federal office.

But emphasize the half-plausible, since, no matter how often Democrats repeat it, the rally-turned-mini-riot-turned-incursion into the Capitol Building did not amount to anything like an insurrection. Capitol Hill interlopers on January 6 were neither prepared nor demonstrating a plan to overthrow the peaceful succession of power. 

They certainly didn’t try to take over the government.

Nor has Mr. Trump been convicted of any such thing.

But, as we all know, this is a controversial matter falling mostly on partisan lines (the Colorado State Supreme Court being made up entirely of Democratic appointees) . . . which makes interpretation of the third section of the 14th Amendment rather tricky.

The state-by-state lawsuits have been sponsored by progressive interest groups trying, desperately, to stop Donald Trump from pulling off a Grover Cleveland: returning to office after a fluke one-term “pause.”

Yet, even if the Supreme Court balks at putting down this too-clever-by-half-plausible scheme, the best Democrats could hope for is preventing Trump from running in blue states with blue courts. Trump might still win despite not being on some state ballots. 

Or lose in an election obviously rigged because he is barred. 

A recipe for deep distrust, resentment and anger.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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ballot access crime and punishment election law

Elections Overturned & Undermined

elections, democracy, cheating, voting, trust

Sure, democracy is a messy affair. But it does require several fine balances. One of them is that elections must be trustworthy: neither rigged nor gamed.

In recent years, many elections have been charged to be somehow “stolen.” Hillary Clinton accused Donald Trump of “stealing” the 2016 presidential election; Donald Trump, in turn, accused the Democrats of stealing the 2020 election, in which he was given his walking papers.

Now reports by Roman Balmakov, at Epoch TV, show that election irregularities at the local level can not only be contested, but elections overturned. 

Sans “insurrection.”

“In a shocking turn of events,” explains Balmakov, “a judge in Connecticut overturned a primary election because the evidence of fraud was just so overwhelming.” Video captured late-night ballot box stuffing, with identifiable government-employee perps. The judge overturned Bridgeport’s Democratic primary race for mayor.

In a sheriff’s race in a Louisiana parish an even more extraordinary set of events occurred. An election wherein a candidate lost by one vote was challenged; a recount adjusted the figures but the single-vote spread remained. Another challenge led the state Supreme Court to appoint a judge to look into the mess, and he found one: clear evidence of massive voting irregularities. He demanded a new election.

But Roman Balmakov’s report from yesterday may spark wider interest. It was about a thorough Rasmussen poll of 2020 voters: “1-in-5 people who voted by mail committed some type of voter fraud.” You might say they confessed as much in how they answered the poll. 

All three stories cast a dark light on the state of American democracy. But the poll may be the most troubling. 

If not how little interest the Rasmussen survey has garnered from major media.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment election law initiative, referendum, and recall

Methinks the Mayor

petition, private property, taxes, schools

“So, Walmart has no rights?!”

The frustration flowed from Yakima Mayor Janice Deccio to a 911 operator. Her compassionate heart bled profusely for the long-suffering stockholders and executives of one of the world’s richest companies. 

“Hi, this is Mayor Deccio. I know that this isn’t an emergency call, but I need to talk to somebody,” she told the dispatcher. “There are far rightwing petitioners at Walmart and they are not leaving after Walmart has asked them repeatedly to do so. And the police have not taken them off the premises.”

But, as the voice at 911 explained to the distraught officeholder, Washington State law requires that commercial property must make a public accommodation for First Amendment activity such as petitioning. 

The mayor’s thirst for a police solution to these “far rightwing” petitioners went unquenched.

“Obviously, the extreme left is freaked out by these initiatives,” offers Glen Morgan on his We the Governed podcast.

He’s referring to six conservative-oriented initiatives being promoted by Let’s Go Washington and petitioned onto Washington State’s 2024 ballot.

“Four of these initiatives reduce taxes,” Morgan points out. “One of them allows the police to actually chase violent criminals once again. And the other one confirms that parents have the right to know what strangers are doing to their kids at school or in unsupervised medical settings.”

Deccio now claims that mystery constituents told her the petitioners were aggressive and threatening . . . something she didn’t mention that on the call. The fact that her 911 plea has been made public might have something to do with her change of tune.

And don’t even mention ideology! “I don’t care,” she contends, “nor even know what they were petitioning about.”

The mayor added: “No one told the group they couldn’t petition, and it was certainly not my intention to stop them.”

No, of course not — she intended for the police to stop them.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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deficits and debt election law tax policy

Slasher Needs Slashing

California Assembly, tax, taxes

A perennial bill in the California Assembly, Constitutional Amendment 1, would make it harder for voters to block local tax increases in accordance with the provisions of Proposition 13, which voters passed in 1978.

ACA 1 would shrink the percentage of voters who must approve certain tax increases from two thirds to 55 percent in cases where the money would purportedly be used for infrastructure or public housing.

Passage would further erode the legacy of Prop 13, which in addition to cutting taxes, limiting tax increases, and requiring a two-thirds legislative majority to increase state taxes, also imposed a two-thirds threshold for voter approval for special local taxes.

In 2000, voters accepted a lower threshold for approval of school bonds — 55 percent instead of two thirds — enabling billions more in property taxes.

That’s bad enough, but things could easily get worse.

Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association observes that if enacted, ACA 1 would be used to raise taxes repeatedly in local elections by dint of dubbing all government spending “infrastructure.” 

The infrastructure exemption is an innovation of the 2023 version of the bill (the tricky tricksters never stop).

Moreover, if passed, the amendment would take effect immediately. “Billions of dollars in tax hikes will start that much faster.”

Coupal stresses that the new exactions would be added to property tax bills “above and beyond Prop 13’s one percent cap” on property taxes.

ACA 1 keeps getting reintroduced and, so far, keeps getting killed off, like the mad killer in a teen slasher movie. Only to be revived for the sequel.

Kill it again.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment election law partisanship

Election Challenge Criminalized?

Trump, election, indictment, votes, legitimacy

Another day, another indictment of former President Trump. This one, out of Georgia, would criminalize election challenges.

Jonathan Turley observes that in this fourth indictment, “every call, speech, and tweet appears a criminal step in the conspiracy. District Attorney Fani Willis appears to have elected to charge everything and everyone and let God sort them out.”

This is the kitchen-sink, banana-republic approach to “justice.” Facts? Plausibility? Irrelevant when the would-be one-party regime has a target in view.

In masterful understatement or point-missing, Turley writes that the “greatest challenge for Georgia is to offer a discernible limiting principle on when challenges in close elections are permissible and when they are criminal.”

But how can it ever be criminal simply to challenge election results or call for a recount or plead for further investigation of the flimsiest of allegations, even via imperfect phone call?

The “limiting principle” operative here is obvious. Is the challenger on our side or the other side? Our side, the challenge is legal. Other side, it’s illegal, prosecutable. This is Willis’s “principle.”

Per Turley, it’s important for campaigns to seek judicial review of an election “without fear of prosecution.” Yes, important. But from the perspective of those who want to prevent other-side campaigns from seeking recourse when an election is close or seems pockmarked by fraud, what’s important is making sure other-side campaigns do fully feel this fear.

The bad guys already understand what’s at stake, what Mr. Turley is so carefully explaining as if they are perhaps only a little confused.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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