I don’t have a good opinion of the New Black Panthers. I think they’re racist hate mongers, lower than pond scum; as low as the lying right wing who’d try to use them to damage the President.
A Bush appointee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights denounced allegations by some pundits that the Justice Department is refusing to pursue a voting rights case against members of the New Black Panther Party because of race, and suggested that the charges being made by right-wing figures are politically motivated.
Conservative broadcasters and websites have claimed that the Obama administration is dropping prosecution of New Black Panther activists who were videotaped outside a Philadelphia polling station on Election Day 2008, making intimidating remarks; one man was carrying a nightstick.
Earlier this month former Justice Department lawyer and Republican activist J. Christian Adams testified to the commission that senior officials in the department are not applying voting rights laws in a race-neutral way, by refusing to press charges against African Americans on these issues.
A recent Media Matters investigation has debunked charges that the Obama administration withdrew criminal charges against the Panthers (in fact, the Bush administration decided not to pursue criminal charges, with Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez testifying that the Bush Justice Department “determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes”; a civil lawsuit was filed in the last days of the Bush administration, and a judgment won by the Obama Justice Department in May 2009).
Illinois’ own Orly Taitz, Chalice Jackson aka Sharon Meroni, continues to harass independent and third party candidates for public office to conform to her ballot and show her their American-ness by submitting to her their birth certificates.
Chalice won the backing of Birther lawyer Gary Kreep and his US Justice Foundation, one of two organizations listed as “Patriot Partners” on The Liberty Chalice–a newly established website activated in April–during an interview on her blogtalk radio show in March.
The only other listed “Patriot Partner” is Tea Party Express, the group recently expelled from the National Tea Party Federation for racist online writings, which Chalice praises, by its former chairman and current national spokesman, Mark Williams.
On yet another new website, Patriot’s Heart Townsquare Forums, she expresses her appreciation: “Thank you, US Justice Foundation And the Tea Party Express.” Chalice never misses a chance to brag that she traveled this past March and last year with Tea Party Express on its national bus tours, where not-racist signs such as this one were plentifully on display:
So it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that the racial tone reflected in her paper terrorist campaign in Illinois is what it is. So far, four cowardly candidates have caved to pressure exerted by the not-racist hostess with the mostest of Patriot’s Heart Network.
Scott Lee Cohen, for Governor
Baxter Swilley, for Lt. Governor
Sally Wiggins, for District Judge
ShonTiyon Horton, for US Senator
Grandly captioning her administrative objection Meroni v. Illinois State Board of Elections, as if it were a real case at law, instead of a 21st century witch hunt, Chalice relies on a “Chart of Prediction” she’s developed for each candidate; incomprehensibly called “Luck of the Draw Ballot Form.”
Illinois election law does not require candidates to provide a birth certificate to prove citizenship. The law can be changed, but not by the Board of Elections. Chalice chooses to go this route, disrupting elections and besmirching candidates’ reputations, wasting taxpayer money and government resources, rather than working to have the election code changed.
It will never occur to Chalice that if the candidates she objects to followed the law when they filed their candidacies, she is the one out of line here. She knows full well the BOE can’t give her what she’s asking for, anyhow, and she is shirking her rightful burden of proof. Rather than showing the system in place has resulted in the election of unqualified candidates to office, if that is true, and addressing the problem legislatively, where it can make a difference, Chalice uses a particularly childish sort of blackmail to get what she wants.
Candidates who are successfully intimidated and extorted, receive a reward, something like a lollypop, certified by Chalice Jackson as a lollypop.
Meanwhile, Chalice gives 8 points on her chart if she has seen a birth certificate or naturalization papers; 7 points if she knows the candidate personally; 3 points if a “friend of a friend” knows the candidate personally; 5 points if he or she has a public bio showing citizenship; 2 points if the candidate has a website she has read personally; only 1 point for being a registered voter.
Then comes the hard part, all +3 points: Does the candidate “look American”? Does the candidate “sound American”? Does the candidate have an “American sounding” name? Is the candidate an “American ethnic”?
By this illustrative exercise Chalice demonstrates that the system is unfair to her, because she is forced to show her true self as a paranoid racist, by asking these tawdry questions and violating the civil rights of the candidates. This is a violation of her civil rights as a voter, when all she needs is to see a candidate’s birth certificate (and President Obama’s in 2012).
According to her chart, the bio of Will Boyd, running as an independent for the US Senate, is “not detailed,” but his bio is detailed enough, by her own criteria. An archbishop of his church, a former college dean and city councilman in Greenville, Illinois, Boyd’s bio says he was born in South Carolina, but he gets only 2 points out of a possible 5 for that.
Carl Officer, once mayor of East St. Louis, Illinois, loses 5 points because his bio is “not available,” though here it is, and gets 0 points for a picture that is also there.
Hector Maldonado, a naturalized American citizen born in Mexico, running as a Republican from Missouri for the US Senate, is making a big show of having been asked to verify his citizenship in order to be placed on the ballot. It turns out Missouri election officials had checked the voter registration rolls, which sounds like a fairly routine thing, and found he hadn’t registered to vote before 2008.
The qualifications:
U. S. Senator – Art. I § 3 U. S. Constitution
* At least 30 years of age
* Citizen of United States for 9 years
* Resident of Missouri
Since the office of US Senator requires nine years as a citizen constitutionally, which couldn’t be determined by voter registration, since he only showed two of the necessary nine years, he was asked to provide proof of citizenship.
Big whoopy-doo.
I hope he does sue the Secretary of State of Missouri. The more Republicans making fools out of themselves this year, the better. Hector Maldonado candidate for US Senate
Damon Dunn beat Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. 3-1 in the Republican primary for California Secretary of State, but we can pretend he didn’t, in order to fully appreciate this transcript, courtesy of Friends of Politijab, of the emergency ex-parte hearing in California Superior Court on July 1, in Orange County, when a third attempt by her to stop certification of his election was denied.
The county elections offices were to submit their final official results to the Secretary of State’s office by July 9, 2010. Secretary of State Debra Bowen will certify the elections on July 16.
Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. did not make a good first impression on Judge Geoffrey Glass and received an ongoing lecture from the judge on adhering to state rules, properly serving notice and citing case law. For only one of several examples, she neglected, as she very often does, to fill in her California Bar Number, which is required by the rules.
THE COURT: BECAUSE THAT IS THE WAY THAT I WOULD REPORT ANY ACTIVITIES OF A BAR MEMBER TO THE STATE BAR.
Words to make her blood run cold.
It went pretty much this way, though, all the way through:
MS. TAITZ: I UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE SAYING, YOUR HONOR. LET’S FIND A SOLUTION. CLEARLY, YOU WOULDN’T WANT SOMEBODY COMMITTING FRAUD AND CERTIFIED AS A WINNER OF THE ELECTION. SO I THINK WE’RE ON THE SAME PAGE HERE. WHAT DO YOU SUGGEST?
THE COURT: NO, MS. TAITZ, WE’RE NOT ON THE SAME PAGE.
And it ended badly:
MS. TAITZ: MAY I RESPOND, YOUR HONOR? YOUR HONOR, MAY I RESPOND TO THIS?
THE COURT: NO. I’VE RULED. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.
In between times, it might, I say might, have gotten through the thick skull of Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq. that to stop the vote certification in all 50 counties of California, as she wanted (but didn’t have the sense to ask for in her brief), it would have been a mite helpful to her case to sue the county Registrars of Voters, or the Secretary of State, rather than suing Damon Dunn, who couldn’t, even if he went temporarily insane and wanted to, stop his own election from being certified.
MS. TAITZ: WELL, NOW IT IS ABOUT A HALF A MILLION VOTES.
THE COURT: OKAY. WELL, THAT HAS CHANGED, THEN. I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T KNOW. WHAT IF THE REGISTRARS — WHAT IF, AT THE END OF THE DAY, THEY SAY YOU WIN?
MS. TAITZ: NO, THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE.
Interesting admission, since she’s been insisting all along the opposite.
THE COURT: WELL, THEN, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE IF I HOLD UP THE CERTIFICATION OR NOT?
MS. TAITZ: BECAUSE THE VOTES — EVEN THOUGH MR. DUNN GOT MORE VOTES, THOSE VOTES WERE OBTAINED BY VIRTUE OF FRAUD –
THE COURT: I UNDERSTAND THAT. BUT I DON’T THINK YOU ANSWERED MY QUESTION. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE TO YOUR LAWSUIT TO — IN EITHER CASE, I HAVE TO SAY THE VOTES DIDN’T COUNT. SO WHETHER THE — BECAUSE HE IS NOT ACTUALLY ELECTED TO AN OFFICE. ALL HE IS ENTITLED TO DO IS RUN IN THE GENERAL ELECTION.
SO I AM NOT — IT IS NOT A QUESTION OF HIM GETTING AN OFFICE. IT IS HIM HAVING AN OPPORTUNITY TO RUN FOR AN OFFICE. AND I AM NOT SURE WHAT CHANGES IF I LET THE CERTIFICATION GO THROUGH?
MS. TAITZ: IF I MAY EXPLAIN, I AM THE CONTENDER OF — I AM THE OPPONENT OF MR. DUNN. IF THE ELECTION IS CERTIFIED, THEN I WILL BE PREVENTED FROM PUTTING MY NAME ON THE BALLOT AS A CANDIDATE. I CANNOT PUT MY STATEMENT. I CANNOT PUT MY — MY NAME WILL NOT BE ON THE BALLOT. AND THEREFORE, VOTERS –
THE COURT: I AM SORRY. THEREFORE, VOTERS WILL WHAT?
MS. TAITZ: WILL BE PREVENTED FROM VOTING IN GENERAL ELECTION FOR A QUALIFIED CANDIDATE, WHICH WOULD BE ME.
So, Judge Glass burst one of Orly’s fondest bubbles here, informing her that even if Dunn were to be disqualified, she would not by default be the Republican candidate on November’s ballot, as anyone qualified to be Secretary of State would have known.
THE COURT: HOLD ON A SECOND. IF I WERE TO SAY TO ALL THE REGISTRARS DO NOT COUNT THE VOTES IN THIS — DO NOT CERTIFY THE VOTES IN THIS ELECTION, HOW WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO GO INTO THE GENERAL ELECTION? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN? THERE WOULD BE NO CANDIDATE, PERIOD.
BECAUSE THERE IS NO — THE ELECTION IS SUSPENDED. THERE IS NO WINNER FOR THE ELECTION. AND UNTIL WE DECIDE — UNTIL WE DECIDE WHETHER THE ELECTION — WHETHER THE ELECTION — THE VOTING SHOULD BE ANNULLED OR NOT. SO YOUR BASIS FOR SAYING YOU WANT TO HOLD UP THE REGISTRATION IS SO THAT THE VOTERS KNOW THAT YOU’RE GOING TO BE A CANDIDATE. BUT THAT WOULD NOT BE THE RELIEF. THE RELIEF IS NOT TO PUT YOU ON THE BALLOT. …
THE COURT: THE LAW WITH REGARD TO THIS IS CLEAR. IT IS WRONG IF I WERE TO SAY MR. DUNN — THE VOTES FOR MR. DUNN DON’T COUNT. I DON’T GIVE THE ELECTION TO YOU. IT IS A NEW ELECTION.
The transcript ends with the ruling, but following that, I understand from a reliable source, who witnessed the event, he walked off the bench, headed to his chambers, with her still hollering after him to the effect of, LET ME FINISH!!!
In spite of Sharon Meroni’s hopes for 32 separate hearings in her shenanigans coming up today with the Illinois State Elections Board, (at 2 PM CDT in Room 9-040 in the James R. Thompson Center, 100 W. Randolph, Chicago, IL, if you can make it), her 32 challenges to candidates’ eligibility have been consolidated under a single Hearing Officer named Ken Menzel. This should make swift work of what has to be one of the silliest Birther gambits evah.
Illinois law requires a declaration from candidates for public office to accompany nomination certification by a political party or signed petitions in the case of an independent candidate.
I,…., being first duly sworn, say that I reside at…. street, in the city (or village) of…. in the county of…. State of Illinois; and that I am a qualified voter therein; that I am a candidate for election to the office of…. to be voted upon at the election to be held on the…. day of….,…..; and that I am legally qualified to hold such office and that I have filed (or will file before the close of the petition filing period) a statement of economic interests as required by the Illinois Governmental Ethics Act, and I hereby request that my name be printed upon the official ballot for election to such office.
There is also an optional loyalty oath which may be submitted with the candidate statement:
I, ________________________________________, do swear (or affirm) that I am a citizen of the United States and the State of Illinois, that I am not affiliated directly or indirectly with any communist organization or any communist front organization, or any foreign political agency, party, organization or government which advocates the overthrow of constitutional government by force or other means not permitted under the Constitution of the United States or the Constitution of this State; that I do not directly or indirectly teach or advocate the overthrow of the government of the United States or of this State or any unlawful change in the form of the governments thereof by force or any unlawful means.
And that’s it. (Chalice, of course, advocates the overthrow of the US government every other day, but her own hypocrisy escapes her always.)
To change the procedure, you have to get the election law changed, but rather than do the hard work that would take, Chalice chooses to believe, with no legal basis whatsoever, that she can assert her preferences on everyone else, just because they are her preferences, and she can demand that candidates prove to her personal satisfaction that they are US citizens eligible for public office. Nothing but a “raised seal” birth certificate will do for Chalice.
She has now, with her grandiose sense of her own importance, had the nerve to send letters, improperly I would think, to the candidates she’s challenged, letting them off the hook if they do what she wants. Or she will continue to to harass them, I guess.
I am offering to each candidate I challenged that if you would add either a raised seal birth certificate or US Naturalization papers to your nomination papers for public access, and post a photographic link on your website – Then I will gladly withdraw my objection to your nomination papers.
It is not my intention to frustrate the process of ballot placement. I simply wish assurances my ballot has constitutionally eligible candidates on it.
I ask you, at this point- to please assist me in securing assurances that all candidates on my 2010 November ballot are constitutionally eligible by adding to your nomination papers a raised seal birth certificate and/or naturalization papers. In addition, I believe the public interest is served if you would also link to the same documents at your campaign website.
This is all in aid of eventually having President Obama prove his eligibility to the satisfaction of Chalice/Sharon Meroni in 2012, before he can appear on an Illinois ballot. But what she fails to grasp is, and it is the same for the Illinois candidates, the burden is on her to prove their ineligibility, not on them to prove their eligibility.
With regard to the substance of the objections, generally the objector must bear the burden of proving by operation of law and by a preponderance of the relevant and admissible evidence (“the burden of proof”) that the objections are true and that the candidate’s nomination papers are invalid.
The bodice-ripping Birther Queenlet of Illinois, the hostess with the mostest of Patriot’s Heart Network, Chalice Jackson, aka Sharon Meroni, has filed objections challenging the eligibility of a slew of candidates in Illinois.
The objection is based on the fact that there is no evidence that any of the candidates fit US and Illinois Constitutional mandates of age and citizenship requirements. For the most part, the age of a candidate is generally easy to discern. Citizenship status is not. Recent changes in HIPPA privacy laws prohibit the public access to records establishing citizenship status. As a consequence, a potential candidate can run for office without ever proving citizenship status.
The first hearing is set for July 6th to set up specific schedules for the hearings for each objection filed.
#phnm #sgp I am at the election board in. Chicago. We are filing 32 election challenges based on eligibility 14 minutes ago via txt
#phnm #sgp This is the full slate of candidates I can challenge. Grounds are they all failed to establish they are constitutionally eligible 9 minutes ago via txt
#phnm #sgp In state of Illinois the candidates who are running will have to address eligibiliy issues. Time to get back to court on ballots 7 minutes ago via txt
Of course, we know where all this is going, but she explains:
#phnm #sgp It will be fascinating to see this process. When/if Obama runs again we will use this process to force him to prove eligibility 3 minutes ago via txt
She’s got all the time in the world since, she’s said, she has a new right wing nutjob sugar daddy benefactor who is paying her to wage frivolity upon the courts of Illinois.
#phnm #sgp This means there will be 32 hearings that I will have to attend beginning on July 6th. Hmm I do believe this will be interesting 4 minutes ago via txt
She must be getting paid by the hour. If she were any kind of patriot, she would turn that money over to the State of Illinois to reimburse the taxpayers for at least some of the expense of 32 hearings. I hope she ends up bearing the cost of 32 defense lawyers in fines, actually, once she loses with the elections boards and moves on to courtroom antics; that would be a bit of justice.
Among the candidates she is challenging is Bill Malan, running on the Libertarian ticket for state attorney-general, who is pro-gun, anti-Social Security and Medicare, and wants totally free-market health care. So you can see dear Chalice is not philosophically prejudiced.
Chalice Jackson is, perhaps, the most boring person in Birfistan. But, I have to tell you, I can’t wait to see how Andy Martin takes this bit of perfidy.
Illinois corruption fighter Andy Martin today filed suit against U. S. Senate candidate Mark Kirk and “lizard lawyers” of the Illinois Republican Party, charging them with trumping up fraudulent election objections at the State Board of Elections. “John Fogarty is a sleazy lawyer who acts as a hatchet man for the Republican Party,” Martin said in announcing his new lawsuit which is also posted on the internet. Martin also sued Chicago attorney Andrew Finko and political whacko Sharon Meroni for filing election objections without even examining official records. “These people are abusing the system, and violating the law,” Martin said of his federal civil rights lawsuit. The lawsuit also named Republican Party stooges Donna and Andrew Heffernan.
From his Complaint:
d. Sharon Ann Meroni Meroni is a person who manifests an apparent personality disorder and sub clinical schizophrenia. Meroni believes government exists as a playground for her paranoid fantasies. She has sought to invoke an Illinois state grand jury to attack the president of the United States (see attached) and has indiscriminately filed challenges against 32 candidates for office simply on the basis that “she doesn’t know” whether these candidates are qualified. There is no way Meroni could engage in bona fide legal activity because she is incompetent to engage in rational legal activity. ….
C. Meroni is in a separate class since she appears to have delusional ideation as to her role in the governmental process. …
F. Meroni, Fogarty/the Heffernans and Sherman have filed dozens of challenges to almost every candidate for office, without any pre-filing inquiry in the case of Meroni and Finko and without any basis to do so. Fogarty engaged in pre-filing inquiry at the last minute as part of his recruitment of fraudulent clients to harass Plaintiff.
G. Meroni is in a separate class because she attacks everyone, thereby negating any possibility than any of her individual claims are based on personal knowledge or rational analysis. …
b. Plaintiff seeks money judgment as follows:
A. Donna and Andrew Heffernan in the amount of $250,000;
B. John Fogarty in the amount of $500,000;
C. Sharon Meroni in the amount of $500,000;
D. Robert Sherman in the amount of $250,000;
E. Andrew Finko in the amount of $250,000;
F. Mark Kirk in the amount of $2.5 million.
Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq.* is soliciting campaign funds in a very questionable manner:
Invitation to conference of the international criminal bar in Hague
Posted on | May 25, 2010 | 1 Comment
From Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq.:
I need to let people know that I was invited to participate in a conference of the international criminal bar in Hague, I can spread the word there about this Coup D’etat in the US, it will be June 25-26 in Hague, but I will need donations or sponsors and advertisers to help me with the cost of the trip and with my campaign expenses.
I would only donate if she promises never to return, but I wonder, aside from the ethics of a Republican candidate (or any candidate) going to another country and heaping calumny upon the United States, particularly in wartime, how can it be legal to solicit funds to send her there in the same piece in which she solicits campaign funds? Can a request for campaign donations be combined with a solicitation for funds to be used for unrelated foundation activities, in this case, Defend Our Freedoms Foundation? I think not, but I want to look into it further, so I may update later if I find anything.
Taitz loyalist and perennial Birther plaintiff Pamela Barnett, who is also Orly’s campaign manager, has filed suit against Damon Dunn and Debra Bowen, Taitz’s opponents in her sure-to-fail run for California Secretary of State. Various Jane and John Does, just in case, and California Attorney-General Jerry Brown are also defendants. The case was filed with the California Superior Court on May 10. The complaint is 68 pages, approximately half of which is Birfoonery, though President Obama is not named as a defendant.
Even before looking at the document’s properties you can tell it was written by somebody like Christopher Earl Strunk by all the “natural person” references, and sure enough. It would be hard to mistake, anyway, since anything Strunk writes inevitably brings in the diabolical Catholic Church, particularly the Jesuits.
In his case against the US Census Bureau, Strunk wrote:
Pope Paul VI from the early 1920’s developed a close friendship and collaboration with Jacques Maritain (18 November 1882–28 April 1973), a French Catholic philosopher and together both Pope Paul VI and Maritain were instrumental for the rise and success of Saul Alinsky and his community organizing networks across the country.
The evil of community organizing shows up in Barnett v. Dunn, where Damon Dunn is referred to as a “community organizer” (whose family lives in a trailer) and Debra Bowen is tied to Jacques Maritain, as well:
Arguendo, Defendant Bowen is at best a Progressive Social Democrat on the European model of social democracy, that was devised in the twentieth century by the Catholic scholar Jacques Maritain whose work for the Roman Catholic Church formed the socialist labor unions within a mixed feudal class system, in which governance is done without the consent of the collective social classes that are divided into an imaginary left and right wing, as a form of consumer/producer dialectical materialism; and whose European social fascist form of government controls a public dominated economic collective that diminishes private enterprise and is juxtaposed to the American model of a representative republic of limited government control over the private economy that with the U.S. Constitution and founding documents officials only serve by the consent of the sovereign individual(s) within. That there are no collective rights or class structure per se in the United States of America, despite the Euro-socialist tendency to create such; and in the USA the true dynamic between individuals is based upon either greater government interference versus less government interference in private economy that guarantees equal provision of justice for an individual without any collective per se – e.g. individual rights versus a collective left behind in feudal Europe.
Got that?
Pamela Barnett, who most recently was lead plaintiff in Barnett v. Obama and previously a plaintiff in Lightfoot v. Bowen, has brought the suit, obviously, as a beard for Dr. Orly Taitz, Esq., who explains* the goal:
Captain Barnett is seeking invalidation of candidacy of Damon Dunn and damages from Dunn, Secretary of state Bowen and Attorney General Jerry (Edmund) Brown. Additionally, since according to the complaint Bowen aided and abetted fraud committed by Dunn, she herself will be disqualified from the position of Ca Secretary of State. As a result the only remaining major party candidate is Dr. Orly Taitz. If Jerry Brown (the only Democrat party candidate) is convicted, only remaining major party candidates for Governor will be Republicans Steve Poizner or Meg Whitman.
How Pamela Barnett could possibly have standing in such a case is a mystery. Why Orly did not file on her own account, since for the first time in her legal history, as a candidate, she probably would have standing, is an even bigger mystery. You’d have to be a Birther, I guess, to understand.
Barnett claims:
Irreparable harm to Plaintiff along with those similarly situated includes: (i) the denial of Republican Party voters an accurate ballot and representation according to the law; (ii) the denial of an honest trustworthy SOS on the ballot for the General Voters at the Election were Mr. Dunn somehow to defeat SOS Candidate Orly Taitz at the Republican Primary; and (iii) cause the need for launching a petition effort for independent candidate ballot access were Dr. Taitz, who is the only qualified declared candidate for the Republican candidacy for the SOS.
Birthers can never just let elections happen and take the consequences. You know, like in a democracy.
We bet you didn’t know that the 17th Amendment was such a hot-button issue this year.
The issue has already made its way into the races of at least two of the GOP’s top 10 House recruits, and one of them has already stumbled over it.
The 17th Amendment provides for direct election of U.S. senators, and it turns out it isn’t too popular in the Tea Party movement. It’s a strange issue to be taking a position on, but when the base calls for something, it’s hard to say no.
Here is the 17th Amendment, which gave you the right to vote for the person you want representing you in the US Senate.
Perhaps this can be seen as an illustration of why the more America learns about the Tea Party, the less popular it becomes.
Conservative Republicans dominate the Tea Party movement, marking both its strengths in establishing a unified political message – and its challenges in attracting broader support.
Twenty-seven percent of Americans support the Tea Party, this ABC News/Washington Post poll finds, including 17 percent who back it “strongly” and just 2 percent who say they’re active participants. Its backers overwhelmingly reject the Obama administration, and many voice dissatisfaction with Washington, favor smaller government and express economic anxiety.
While that reflects a motivated political base, the movement’s broader appeal is in question. Nearly as many Americans oppose the Tea Party as support it. More say they like it less, rather than more, as they hear more about it. Far more are tuning it out than are highly interested. And association with the Tea Party may cost congressional candidates more votes than it attracts, particularly among better-educated Americans, whose election turnout tends to be high.
Texas bill would require birthplace proof for presidential candidates
FORTH WORTH, Texas — A state lawmaker wants to make sure that any candidate on the presidential ticket from now on can show proof they were born in the United States — or not be allowed on the Texas ballot.
State Rep. Leo Berman this week said he’s planning to file several immigration-related bills once Texas lawmakers get back to work in January, including one that requires presidential and vice presidential candidates to prove their citizenship to the Texas secretary of state before their names are added to the ballot. …
“We’ll do it,” said Berman, a Republican and a former Arlington, Texas, mayor pro tem. “We’ll do it from now on. If he can’t prove citizenship … he won’t have a place on the Texas ballot.”
Last weekend, Berman told a crowd in Tyler, Texas, that he believes “Barack Obama is God’s punishment on us today, but … we are going to make Obama a one-term president,” according to a report in the Tyler Morning Telegraph.
As I’ve said about the Arizona bill, which was shelved in the State Senate this week for lack of votes, I don’t have a problem with a state wanting future presidential and vice presidential candidates to show they meet the the Constitutional requirements of birthplace, age and length of residency, in order to be on the state’s ballot: It can’t hurt.
But as we saw with the Arizona bill, (and can get from Berman’s statement of political intent above in Texas), a certification by the state of birth, the legal authorizing body, would not be enough for these people. Though it would have to be, if the state law were not to violate federal law.
No state officer can legally determine citizenship, either, because that, too, is a federal matter. And what happens if one did? You’re talking lawsuit city here, for one thing, bringing huge costs to taxpayers, both for states who pass such laws and for states who don’t. Bottom line, no state government is ever going to be permitted to hijack a federal election and induce electoral chaos. So any state legislature considering such legislation needs to keep it very, very narrow: birthplace, age and length of residency.
That will never in a million years satisfy the litigious Birthers to whom these bills pander, so, realistically, the current system might just as well serve another couple hundred years.
I am thinking, lately, that state lawmakers might be required to show a mental health certificate before being allowed on the ballot. That would probably do some good.
Earlier this year, the conservative majority on the Supreme Court handed down the Citizens United decision wiping out restrictions on corporate expenditures in American elections — a decision that could open up the door to foreign money flowing into campaigns in this country. As it turns out, according to a Quinnipiac poll out today, voters are not at all happy with the decision.
Voters disapprove 79 – 14 percent of the Supreme Court’s January ruling removing limits on the amount corporations and unions could spend attacking or boosting political candidates, with consistently strong opposition across the political spectrum.
These numbers largely jibe with data released earlier this year by Pew, which found 68 percent of Americans disapproving of the decision, while just 17 percent approved. With margins like these, it is not out of the realm of possibility that a constitutional amendment seeking to overturn the decision is out of the question.
But looking more broadly, it is interesting to see the damage the decision has inflicted on the Court. Just last summer, Quinnipiac found the Supreme Court to have a +40 net approval rating, with 62 percent of the country rating the high court positively and just 22 percent rating it negatively. Today, however, the Court’s rating has fallen dramatically to just +16 (49 percent approve / 33 percent disapprove) — a statistically significant fall for the institution. It turns out that conservative judicial activism isn’t actually popular with Americans.
