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Saturday, February 5, 2005

No to SCotUS

There has been talk (on Sound Politics and on other local blogs) about a possible challenge of the results of the Washington gubernatorial race all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. I have a few thoughts on the matter.

Taking this case to the US Supreme Court is a bad idea. It's likely that they would decline to hear the case, because this case involves only the voters of Washington state, in a statewide (not national) contest. Unlike the Bush vs. Gore debacle of 2000, the outcome of this race does not impact the rest of the country in any way, and SCotUS is likely to decide that they don't have jurisdiction. (If Bush vs. Gore had been a state-level race, rather than federal, I believe they would not have interceded, despite the clearly illegal tactics being employed by the Dems and their SCoFla enablers.)

This case should go no higher than the Washington State Supreme Court; if the proper remedy is not forthcoming, the voters of the state need to be reminded, ad infinitum, of which party supports voting rights for the dead (this isn't Chicago or Miami), the criminals (felons who have not had their voting rights restored), the non-citizens (voting rights are one of the strongest incentives for pursuing citizenship), the dissociative (people who voted more than once) and the imaginary (ballots without voters). It won't matter to the extreme leftists in Seattle and on the university campuses, but it might resonate in the rest of the state. Remember the 1994 elections, in which Washington's congressional delegation went from 8 Dems and 1 Republican to 7 Republicans and 2 Dems. Voter anger can be an awesome thing, if properly channeled. The Washington Republican Party will need to nurture and harness this anger in 1996 and beyond.

posted at 12:01 PM |

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It's an open question whether the feds could step in; voting is a US right, so that suggests up front that the federal government has jurisdiction.

Plus, Bush v Gore was a bizarre and whacked-out decision, and is probably capable of sustaining a challenge to jurisdiction.

Given how quickly the GOP broke out the lawyers in the 2000 Florida debacle, I'm pretty surprised they haven't been as agressive in Washington.

posted by jpe on February 10, 2005 01:13 PM

Actually, the court specifically stated that Bush v Gore could not be used as a precedent (It stated that the findings were limited to the one case), so any of the cases since then that have cited it as a precedent have done so in error.

As to the slap against the GOP re: the 2000 election, it was the Democrats who mobilized their army of lawyers first. Bush filed the first lawsuit because of the uneven and capricious standards used for counting ballots in Palm Beach and Broward counties. They probably could have done the same thing again here but I believe they chose not to do so because of the PR boost it would have provided the Democratic Party, who surely would have used it as ammunition.

I can't disagree with your first point, but I'm still not sure that the court would agree with that line of argument. It's one of those questions that will likely remain hypothetical, however.

posted by timekeeper on February 10, 2005 10:04 PM

Friday, February 4, 2005

The WA revote debacle

For those who have been following the Washington Governor's race theft, today's rulings were of enormous significance. Nathan Azinger of Pajama Jihad has three lengthy posts (here, here, and here), which cover the text of each sides' arguments, and provides a brief, clear summation of what each ruling means. Be sure to check all three out, and don't forget to swing by Sound Politics for breaking news on the contest and other items of interest in the region.

posted at 07:04 PM |

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Sidebar update

Being the slug that I am about such things, I have finally updated the blog list. I have updated a few links and/or names, removed a few links (mostly to dead blogs), and added a bunch of Seattle-area blogs, people whom I met at the Sound Politics Blog Bash last weekend. Imagine my surprise at traveling 85 miles and discovering another blogger, at the same party, who lives three blocks away from me! Neither of us was aware of the other prior to the party, which is funny, although we blog about different subjects (I blog on politics, and his focuses on Pennsylvania, hence the name).

posted at 06:50 PM |

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Wednesday, February 2, 2005

First amendment and teens

Athena Runner points out this article, which notes a frightening number of high schoolers favor governmental regulation of the press:

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get "government approval" of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.

That's disturbing. While I really think that the news media need to do a better job of story selection and fact-checking, I know I don't want the government deciding what can and cannot be published. That is censorship, and I don't want it in this country. If I wanted press freedom like that, I would move to Cuba. The only things that should not be released relate to active criminal investigations, intelligence sources, and military data.

Some of the other data in the study indicate that civics classes, if they are part of the core curricula of these students, are failing to inform them of the constitution and the rights enumerated within. Three quarters of the students believe that burning the flag is illegal, and 74 percent believe that it should be prohibited. The first is factually incorrect, and the second is unconstitutional. A proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning has (rightfully) not gone anywhere in congress.

posted at 01:29 PM |

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That's exactly why the first amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights were necessary. Some of the founders understood that usually when something "goes without saying" it needs to be said or it will be forgotten.

posted by Doug Murray on February 7, 2005 05:40 PM

Oooooh, that's gonna leave a mark

Da Goddess (who is active in the San Diego chapter of Protest Warrior) has been having a running battle (in person and on her blog) with a San Diego communist/ANSWER leader named Carl. Today, she slapped him into submission with this fantastic takedown. RTWT; it's definitely worth the time and effort. I am so glad that I'm on her side...

(Link courtesy of Mad Mikey.)

posted at 12:37 PM |

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Thank you for the kind words.

Carl pushed the wrong button last night. The back was acting up, the nose was dripping, and well, he really ticked me off.

How can ANYONE deny the Iraqis their victory over evil? It boggles the mind.

posted by Da Goddess on February 2, 2005 01:08 PM

Tuesday, February 1, 2005

Trackback flood

Right now, my site is being targetted by a particularly aggressive trackback flood (90 trackback pings in the last couple of hours), but he's not going to get any benefit at all, since my archives don't display trackbacks. I had set mt-close to allow trackbacks to archived posts, but it looks like I'll have to rethink that policy. Bloody spammers.

posted at 05:57 AM |

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