Our Constitutional Nightmare

The Constitution gives state legislatures power to choose electors however they want. That’s the problem. Only two fixes: Amend the Constitution or Democrats get more serious about winning state legislative races.

For instance it would be constitutional for legislatures to not even hold a popular vote, which might be more solid legal ground than letting people vote and then overturn results.

Horrible but true: Bush v Gore: “The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States”.

Back when we amended Constitution for direct popular vote for senators, taking it away from legislatures, we did not extend that to presidential elections. Now we’re paying for that mistake.

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Author: craigcrawford

Trail Mix Host. Lapsed journalist, author & retired pundit happily promoting nothing but the truth for Social Security checks.

30 thoughts on “Our Constitutional Nightmare”

  2. from yesterday’s op ed Look to 14th Amendment to check GOP efforts to subvert popular vote | TheHill

    […]
    The 39th Congress wrote the Fourteenth Amendment in the wake of the Civil War, when the terms for readmission of the states that seceded were entirely unsettled and  passionately debated. The drafters of Section 2 conditioned state readmission on a specific guarantee that, for numerous public offices, states could not interfere with the vote by all those eligible: when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, this included Black men for the first time, as well as all other male citizens at least 21 years old “except for participation in rebellion, or other crime.” Their votes, the Constitution now proclaimed, could not thereafter be “denied … or in any way abridged.”
    In fact,  the first office specified within Section 2’s guarantee of an unimpeded popular vote was in “any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States.” And Section 2 dictated an explicit penalty: If a state “denied” or “in any way abridged” votes by any eligible voters, that stateʻs representation “shall be reduced.”
    This clause has never been invoked.
    Clearly it should have been used when states used multiple ways — some ingenious, a great many brutal — to block the votes of Black citizens over many decades. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was badly needed to address systemic barriers to free and fair voting processes. Recently, however, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated remarkable unconcern about burdens on voting — not least by refusing to intervene even against the most overt political gerrymandering. A majority has also invalidated or severely limited several key provisions of the Voting Rights Act. 
    It is noteworthy, however, that the Framers of the Constitution — following the fundamental principle that just powers derive from the consent of the governed — repeatedly affirmed that the people are to choose the electors. They so declared in the Federalist Papers and through the state ratifying conventions. Nonetheless, when Thomas Jefferson was elected president in 1800, John Adams sought to cling to power by relying on lame-duck state legislators, some elected as early as 1796. Adams’s strategy was roundly condemned as unconstitutional, and in several states voters directly rejected it.
    At that time, several state legislatures chose their electors. By the mid-1820s, however, this practice was denounced as contrary to the Founders’ intent and was abandoned. Only South Carolina held out, yet finally acknowledged in 1865 that this had been a “gross error” and “usurpation.” A plan in 1868 to revive the practice in southern states was similarly denounced. The national conclusion was that the people elect the electors. Nonetheless,  there is a clear and present danger that state legislators in the 21st Century will assert power to ignore the popular vote, as some have begun to do. It has become vital to underscore our nation’s commitment to direct popular voting.
    We need ways to repulse the anti-democratic ideas currently eviscerating our democratic commitments.
    [continues]

  3. in other news from flori-duh

    Florida teens held after crash leaves two alligators hanging from truck window | Florida | The Guardian

    Officers arriving at the scene of a Floridaroad accident involving an overturned truck were surprised to find that two of the “victims” were large alligators, captured by the teenage driver and a friend on a morning fishing expedition and thrown into the back of their vehicle.
    Details of the extraordinary incident appeared in a weekend Facebook posting by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC). The post chronicled how officers found the two alligators, measuring 8ft and more than 6ft, “hanging from the rear window of an SUV lying on its side” in Hardee county, about 70 miles south-east of Tampa.
    An FWC officer, Jerod Gadd, noticed one of the reptiles was moving. He “immediately removed them from the vehicle and, just to be safe, secured their mouths using electrical tape”, the post said.
    Sheriff’s deputies arrested the uninjured driver and his passenger, youths aged 18 and 17, and charged them with misdemeanors for taking alligators without a permit.
    The teenagers did not say what they planned to do with the alligators once they got them home, the FWC said, but the younger of the two confessed to using a large rock to try to kill the creatures before loading them into the truck.
    The youths told officers they were unhappy about the reptiles chasing their fishing lines.
    It was not clear what caused the vehicle to overturn. The alligators that was still alive at the time of the accident died shortly afterwards.

    photo from Florida officer finds 2 alligators hanging from SUV’s rear view window after crash (fox35orlando.com)

    a christmas present perhaps for their homies?

  6. Dem Congressional Campaign Committee heads into December debt free with $73.8 million cash on hand, nearly $26 million more than it had in November of 2019. Raised $12.6 million in November, its best off-year November in history by more than $3.6 million.

  9. jamie, you read my mind. was just at grocery store and bought the requisite spaghetti TV dinner (the alternate is TV meat loaf which was last year’s choice). have already unpacked the festivus pole, a very very cheap home made one using an aluminum pie crust pan and foil – small and forlorn, it has a charlie-brown- christmas-tree type of feel about it.

  10. Ahhhh, the 14th – bane of racists’ miserable lives.  

    …But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

    Not sure how dicta in a per curiam opinion (B v G) from only 5 of the 7 justices who voted in the majority citing a case decided 76 years before passage of the 14th Amendment could be considered binding, particularly considering the language of Section 2 of the 14th and the fact that it is a PER CURIAM opinion.  However, here’s the paragraph that pronouncement appears in.

    The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the Electoral College. U. S. Const., Art. II, §1. This is the source for the statement in McPhersonv.Blacker,146 U. S. 1, 35 (1892), that the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution.Id., at 28–33. History has now favored the voter, and in each of the several States the citizens themselves vote for Presidential electors. When the state legislature vests the right to vote for President in its people, the right to vote as the legislature has prescribed is fundamental; and one source of its fundamental nature lies in the equal weight accorded to each vote and the equal dignity owed to each voter. The State, of course, after granting the franchise in the special context of Article II, can take back the power to appoint electors. Seeid.,at 35 (“[T]here is no doubt of the right of the legislature to resume the power at any time, for it can neither be taken away nor abdicated”) (quoting S. Rep. No. 395, 43d Cong., 1st Sess.).

    Troubling language from the B v. G Court.

  12. Bituminous  Brain Joe was asked about his coal business vs the BBB plan .
    His answer was textbook  GOP talking points for the last 20 years ………….. “Energy Independence ” blah blah blah , ….. ” National Security ”  blah blah blah ……………… “Foreign Oil ” blah blah blah …………… 
    The Fox Bear  didn’t bat an eye . 
     

  13. My hobby horse  about the small things  racing ahead of us on a rapidly changing Earth –
     

    Microbe sneaks past tomato defense system, advances evolutionary battle

     
    That’s the case for Xanthomonas, the organism that causes bacterial leaf spot disease in tomato and pepper plants. Like many microbes with short generation times, it can evolve at lightning speed to acquire beneficial traits, such as the ability to elude its host’s defense system.
    New research from the University of Illinois shows one Xanthomonas species, X. euvesicatoria (Xe), has evolved to avoid detection by the immune system of tomato plants.
     
    “It’s part of the evolutionary warfare between plants and pathogens, where the plant has some defense trait and then some portion of the pathogen population evolves to escape it. The plant has to develop or acquire a new defense trait, but the process is much slower in plants compared to microbes. This study is a great example of that ongoing battle in progress. It tells us we can’t completely rely on this trait to combat bacterial spot disease caused by Xe,” says Sarah Hind, assistant professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at Illinois and co-author on a pair of recent studies published in Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions and Physiological and Molecular Plant Pathology.
    The tomato defense system keeps tabs on Xanthomonas and other bacteria with immune receptors that chemically detect flagella, the long whip-like tail structures that allow bacteria to move or “swim” through soil and plant tissues. Hind and her colleagues used laboratory and genomic modeling techniques to show one of tomato’s receptors, FLS3, no longer works to detect flagellin proteins in Xe.
    https://phys.org/news/2021-12-microbe-tomato-defense-advances-evolutionary.html
    All of the “small things” are already living in this new world , or are hard at work  trying to adapt to it. 
    This is a field of climate change that no one is even thinking about . 
    Years ago ago Hanson before Congress warned of “Monsters Behind the Door” .  That is things coming we could not see ,  these tiny monsters are going to be a very big deal. 
     
     

  14. Electric vehicle stocks tumble after Manchin rejects Biden’s climate and social plan
     

    Shares of electric vehicle companies tumbled Monday following the apparent failure of President Joe Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan that includes significant incentives for the growing sector.
    The stocks of EV start-ups such as Lordstown Motors, Faraday Future and Nikola all shed more than 7% Monday.
    The EV incentives under the Build Back Better plan include up to $12,500 per vehicle and are viewed as critical to spur consumer demand.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/20/electric-vehicle-stocks-tumble-as-bidens-climate-and-social-plan-flops.html

  15. Energy Independence  101 –
    If a wind turbine on a mountain top that coal miners cut off  in West Virginia,  charges a Ford EV F 150  with wind that is “free”.  
     
    That’s Energy Independence.

  16. Man gets 46 months on U.S. Capitol riot charges, among the longest sentences yet
     
    https://www.reuters.com/world/us/man-gets-46-months-us-capitol-riot-charges-among-longest-sentences-yet-2021-12-20/
     
    A Florida man who hurled a fire extinguisher at police officers during Capitol riots, Robert Palmer, was last week sentenced to more than five years in prison, the longest term handed down so far for any of the more than 700 people charged in the attack.
    Palmer was the second person to plead guilty to assaulting a police officer to be sentenced. Last month, Scott Fairlamb, a former New Jersey gym owner, received a sentence of 41 months in prison.
    Jacob Chansley, known as the “QAnon Shaman,” was also sentenced last month to 41 months in prison.

  17. Trump tells supporters ‘you’re playing right into their hands’ by doubting the COVID-19 vaccine

    Former President Donald Trump confronted a crowd of supporters over vaccine skepticism.
    Trump told his fans to “take credit” for the vaccines instead of being against them.
    “You’re playing right into their hands,” he said during his tour with Bill O’Reilly.

     
    https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-playing-right-into-their-hands-doubting-vaccines-boosters-2021-12
     
    They booed him when he said he got a booster shot. 
     
    Tough crowd in Houston. 

  19. Tiny Things  –
    The  Permian Extinction  formed one of the great oil and gas fields in Texas .  There were huge reefs  of life living there . You can visit them, the tallest mountains in Texas.  All once under water as a living reef , the Guadalupe Mountains . 
    Off to the East was a deep basin when the “Great Dying” began .  It killed 80% of all living things in the oceans . That is where Midland and Odessa are today . 
    I find it ironic  that mass extinction has led to this mass extinction.  All because the dance between “tiny things” and Co2. 
    By the way , this whole thing was set in motion  when the Earth  split open in Siberia , and spewed lava and gases out for thousands , and thousands of years . 
    Today we are the volcano, releasing those very same gases stored in the Earth for 250,000 Million years by “tiny things”. 
    But it gets worse , all that fracking Penn.  is gas from 340 Million  years ago doing the same thing. 
    So we are burning all that work of “tiny things” over hundreds  of millions of years.  All at once. 
     
     
     

  20. https://thehill.com/homenews/media/586694-bill-oreilly-says-trump-will-run-again

    “Appearing on Dan Abrams’s primetime show on NewsNation, O’Reilly said Trump called him after revealing he had gotten a booster shot, which elicited some boos from a crowd in Dallas during a speaking tour.”

    The p*55y -grabbers’ tour.

    Bill O’Reilly to discuss his, Trump’s vaccine revelation on ‘Dan Abrams Live’

    “During that appearance, O’Reilly said he “wouldn’t have” sent the types of messages Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity sent to former chief of staff Mark Meadows during the Capitol riot.”

    “He also claimed that Fox News is “a different place than it was when I was there” and “diminishing the Capitol riot could never have happened” while he was with the network.“

    ~Yeah, right.~

    https://www.salon.com/2021/10/01/dan-abrams-hopes-to-change-cable-news-chip-away-at-cnn-and-fox–with-pro-cop-agitprop/

    I see ads for News Nation every day (it’s over-the-air, not cable), but I have yet to watch it. TV is not how folks get their news anymore.

  22. Years ago while watching PBS  with my mother-
    About the great art in Rome. I forget just what we were watching.  She remarked on the genius of  Michelangelo. And I said , ” And he was gay “. 
    It was an offense to her world.  Which she rejected out of hand .
    And I said ,  ” Mom there was no  Mrs. Michelangelo “.
    Well PBS reran  the Mona Lisa  story  last week , and  Walter reminded us , that Da Vinci was born out of wedlock , left handed , and gay. 
    And I thought what a book  that could be , and what a title  to go with it.
    “There Was No Mrs. Michelangelo” 
    About all the people that saved  our bacon, and enriched our lives.  That book would be a light blub .
    Allen Turning saved the Western World , and gave us this camp fire.  Then they killed him. 
    There was no Mrs. Newton.
    He cat doors in his house.  
     
     
     

  27. OK, so, and in conclusion:
     
    …the “dipshit getting booed” news-item referenced by Bob, above, regarding the so-called (by assholes like me) “cult of personality” around said dipshit is actually evidence of the phenomenon being much less about actual personality and much more about the sentiments expressed and validated among pedestrian “conservatives” (relatively, and they hold no articulable political philosophies) by that dipshit.
     
    That is to say, every time you mention “[dipshit]”, you are feeding the beast.  
     
    Sometimes (most times) it seems like you love the beast, like you need the beast, like the beast gives  you purpose.
     
    Ok, tip your servers✌️

  29. bink, if there’s a voracious beast in one’s house, it’s incumbent on one not to ignore its whereabouts but to capture and cast it out before it consumes all within.

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