Constitutional Amendment

The Midterm Elections Of 2018 Come Down To A Referendum On Donald Trump

Ronald 4 Comments

It is now certain that the Midterm Elections of 2018 are a referendum on Donald Trump, in a way unseen since at least when Richard Nixon went out and campaigned in the midterm 1970 elections.

Donald Trump is becoming more unstable and reckless by the day, and by his nonstop campaigning in states with Democrats in the Senate, but support for Donald Trump in 2016, the results will be seen as either a repudiation or an endorsement of the President.

Trump is behaving in a more erratic manner than ever before, including talk about ending birthright citizenship by executive order, even though even conservatives make it clear that cannot be accomplished other than by a constitutional amendment.

Trump is also claiming he is sending thousands of soldiers to the Mexico border, more than we have seen since Woodrow Wilson was President a century ago, during the Mexican Revolution, although it seems the Pentagon has no such plans actually to do so.

Trump is making Central American refugees, mostly women and children, seem like a terrorist, drug dealing, criminal mob, and now has even stated that if any refugees show any sign of throwing rocks at soldiers, then he will order the troops to use firearms against these people.

This would remind us of what happened at Kent State University in 1970, when National Guardsmen opened up fire with live ammunition against a demonstration of students against the invasion of Cambodia, and killed four and wounded nine.

Trump is lying to scare voters, instill fear, and make people hate migrants (poor women and their children) who are simply escaping bloodshed, violence, and gangs trying to recruit their children in nations that have fallen into disarray by American policy over the last few decades.

If this awful scenario were ever to occur, it would be grounds for nationwide marches and demonstrations, as to shoot and kill unarmed people who just have rocks, would be a war crime.

This is yet another reason why it is urgent that Donald Trump be repudiated next Tuesday, and that the Republicans be defeated nationwide, as otherwise, the horrors of a declaration of martial law, and the establishment of a Fascist dictatorship will be on us, and our democracy will be destroyed.

Future generations will look at such an event as the most horrific possible moment in US history, and it is possible to imagine a civil war breaking out, which our rivals in the world would love to see happen, as it would destroy the world leadership of the United States in a way that would not be retrievable for decades.

Time To Move Against Electoral College Distorting Popular Vote, Through National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Agreement

Ronald Leave a comment

The issue of the Electoral College having failed to elect the popular vote winner of the Presidency for a total of five times now, and twice in the last 16 years, continues to plague us, particularly when the present incumbent of the White House lost the popular vote by the biggest margin yet, 2.85 million votes.

There is no other political election in America where the person with the most popular votes is not the winner of the election.

The Founding Fathers might have seen the Electoral College as a necessary bulwark against mass popular control at the time, but once we began having popular votes in the 1824 Presidential election, it was an advancement of democracy, and the idea that a popular vote loser would win the Presidency was appalling.

It happened in 1824 in a four person race, but then, it occurred in 1876 with a two person race, and then in 1888, again with a two person race.

Since it did not happen again for more than a century, it was assumed to be flukes that would not happen again, and over the years of my teaching career, I was often asked whether it would happen again, and I responded, that while it could happen, it was highly unlikely that it would.

And then came the Presidential Election of 2000, where George W. Bush won with Supreme Court intervention stopping the recount in the state of Florida, winning that state over Al Gore by 537 votes out of six million cast, and therefore barely winning the Electoral College, despite a 540,000 popular vote lead nationally of Al Gore.

In 2016, the situation was even worse, as Donald Trump won by very small margins in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton nationally by 2.85 million popular votes, so five and a half times the popular vote lead for Clinton over Trump as compared to Gore over Bush in 2000, but Trump winning the Electoral College, but only 12 national elections with a smaller electoral vote majority out of a total number of 58 national elections.

The problem is trying to end the Electoral College by constitutional amendment is dead upon arrival, as it requires a two thirds vote of the House of Representatives and a two thirds vote of the Senate, followed by a majority vote in both houses of state legislatures (except in the one house of Nebraska) in three fourths of the states (38 out of 50). Clearly, that will never happen, particularly with Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, and four of the five times that the Electoral College failed, the ultimate winner was a Republican, and the loser each time was a Democrat.

But the alternative is the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact Agreement, developed in recent years, with 10 states and Washington DC with 165 electoral votes agreeing by legislation that they would support the popular vote winner nationally, instructing their electors to do so. The problem is that the 10 states and DC are clearly, at this point, Democratic or “Blue” states—California, DC, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington State.

Once states with 105 additional electoral votes agree to pass such legislation, it would go into effect, but that is the more difficult matter. At this point, 12 states with 96 electoral votes have had one house of the state legislature agree to such a law—Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, Oklahoma,and Oregon. Also, two other states have had committees in the state legislature approve it unanimously, with these two states—Georgia and Missouri—having 27 additional electoral votes.

So if all these states that have taken partial action completed the process in the next few years, we would have 24 states and DC, with a majority of the total popular vote and population, being capable of awarding the Presidency to the winner of the national popular vote, and this would end the idea of a popular vote loser becoming President.

Republican reliable states—Arkansas, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Missouri—are part of this group, but the question is whether they will take the steps to put it into effect.

While there is no certainty this will ever happen, there is optimism that it will eventually occur, as otherwise, the possibility of a return of 2000 and 2016 is highly likely in the future, and not just once.

If this were to occur, it would promote a truly national Presidential campaign, instead of the present focus in recent decades on 12-15 states, and ignoring the clear cut “Blue” and “Red” states in favor of the “Purple” or “Swing” states alone.

National Popular Vote Bill A Major Electoral College Reform That Can Overcome 5 Times Where Popular Vote Winner Has Lost Presidency

Ronald 1 Comment

In the midst of the great disillusionment over having a popular vote winner losing the Presidency for the second time in 16 years, and 5 times in American history, attention is being brought to a method to overcome that travesty without the need for a constitutional amendment to end the Electoral College.

11 states with 165 electoral votes have passed legislation that provides that their states’ electoral votes will go to the national winner of the popular vote.

The bill has passed one house in 12 additional states with 96 electoral votes, and would take place once states with a total of 105 electoral votes take such action.

It passed overwhelmingly in three Republican chambers, in Arizona, Oklahoma and New York, and in one Democratic chamber in Oregon.

More than 70 percent in polls on the topic support this change in the Electoral College, as a true example of democracy, so that never again do we have the horrible situation that has now occurred twice in a generation.

We would have a true national campaign every four years if this was enacted, instead of having only about 12 states gaining visits by the major party Presidential candidates.

Why should North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Nevada. along with a few other states, have the privilege of crowds being able to see the Presidential candidates, while, for example, New York, Texas, California, Illinois, and other states with large populations are denied visits, along with many other states?

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and former Congressman Bob Barr, both of Georgia, both Republicans, have endorsed the change, even though each of the five times the popular vote winner in American history was a Democrat, and four times the Republicans won without the popular vote! So they have displayed bipartisanship on this issue.

This needs to be accomplished before 2020! There needs to be a national demand by the American people that the present situation never happens again!

Mike Huckabee, The Supreme Court, And The “Supreme Being”!

Ronald 1 Comment

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a candidate for the Presidency, and a former preacher as well, is going off the deep end in his vehement opposition to gay marriage.

Apparently, Mike Huckabee believes that the American people do not need to obey judges and the federal courts, and the Supreme Court, if they do not like or agree with their decisions.

If Barack Obama were to say this, he would be pushed toward impeachment, but Mike Huckabee is promoting disobedience of the judiciary, and shows total ignorance of our legal history!

What he is advocating, taken to its extreme, would mean that the Citizens United case would be ignored, and that billionaires would not be able to distort our election process, something any sensible person would advocate, but the only way to overcome this is by constitutional amendment!

So if gay marriage is made legal in all of America at the end of June, the only way to overcome it is to bring about a similar constitutional amendment.

The same goes for those who are upset about interracial marriage, civil rights laws, the lax enforcement of the Voting Rights Act, racial integration, and a whole host of other “objectionable” decisions made by the courts and the Supreme Court over 226 years of our history!

Mike Huckabee demonstrates his ignorance of our history, and of the significance of Chief Justice John Marshall, and of “judicial review” and the famous Supreme Court case, Marbury V. Madison in 1803.

Presidents, including Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and really ALL Presidents; and many other government figures over the years; and citizens of America throughout its history, have denounced Supreme Court decisions!

BUT the only alternative is a constitutional amendment, ladies and gentlemen, and for any Presidential candidate or President to call for defiance of the Supreme Court is grounds for impeachment and removal from office.

In America, the Supreme Court is the final arbiter, good or bad, and really, it is both, depending on the issue and how people perceive it!

We are NOT a theocracy, and the “Supreme Being”, that Mike Huckabee advocates, is NOT the final arbiter of constitutional cases, and never has been! Thank goodness for that, as it would take away the democracy that America has evolved into over more than two centuries of American history!

Justices Scalia, Thomas, Alito MUST Go!

Ronald Leave a comment

Three members of the Supreme Court live in their own parallel world of the Founding Fathers and the Gilded Age and the 1920s, and refuse to consider modernization as a factor in their judicial judgments!

Antonin Scalia, appointed in 1986 by Ronald Reagan; Clarence Thomas, appointed in 1991 by George H. W. Bush; and Samuel Alito, appointed in 2006 by George W. Bush are a team of three, which has worked against gender equality,racial equality, fair treatment to immigrants, and gay rights, among other modern controversies.

Often, Chief Justice John Roberts joins them, and sometimes, but less often than Roberts, Justice Anthony Kennedy also joins to make a right wing five on the Court.

But Roberts and Kennedy have also taken stands with the four liberal justices on the Court lately–Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan.

It is time to demand that Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito adjust to modern times, or else leave the Court, and there is a dire need to have a constitutional amendment to limit the terms of all federal judges at all levels, to promote open mindedness and diversity, and allow for change after, at most 18-20 years!

Two Year Anniversary Of Citizens United Supreme Court Case: The Corruption Of American Politics A National Tragedy

Ronald Leave a comment

Two years ago, the Supreme Court, controlled by a conservative majority of 5-4, made a decision considered among the worst ever in their history.

After a century of regulation of corporate involvement in political campaign fundraising and advertising, the majority, claiming freedom of speech, allowed corporations and labor unions to have totally free access to spend and promote candidates and parties.

On first blush, some might have thought that it was not such a bad decision, as labor unions were permitted to do the same as corporations. On second thought, it became noticeable that labor unions could not compete with corporate money, and the result was the distorted political atmosphere of the midterm 2010 Congressional and state elections, which led to the success of the Tea Party Movement and the right wing direction of many state governments and the US House of Representatives. This has created a stalemate in Congress, and attacks on labor, the elderly, the poor, minorities, and the environment in many state legislatures, and the widespread attempt to limit the right to vote by discriminatory voter registration laws.

We have witnessed the damage done, and the continual enrichment of the top one percent in America, and the Super PACs are in operation, poisoning the political atmosphere for the 2012 election campaigns for President and the Congress, as well as many state governments.

Our democracy is being lost, negating a century of reforms under the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Great Society.

A move is on to attempt a constitutional amendment to overrule the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, but that is not going to be easy, and meanwhile, or maybe for good, we are seeing corporations regain complete control of government at all levels, and bringing us back to the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.

This is a national tragedy of massive proportions!