In the last 30 days, only two election law bills in the U.S. House of Representatives have gained any additional co-sponsors. HR1826, to provide non-discriminatory public funding for candidates for Congress, now has 124 co-sponsors, up six compared to a month ago. HR3957, to require the states to permit election-day registration in federal elections, now has 16 co-sponsors, up two in the last month.
Bills to hold a plebescite on the future status of Puerto Rico, to let ex-felons in all states vote in federal elections, to outlaw certain kinds of vote-counting machines in federal elections, and to require the states to use bipartisan commissions for drawing U.S. House boundaries, have not gained any co-sponsors in the last 30 days.
I think any right explicitly described in the constitution should be abridged, in no way shape or form especially if that right does not directly endanger or harm the liberties of others. Therefore restricting violent felons from carrying guns away from their homes should and is constitutional because they have demonstrated that can or have been violent…. check out this article about a ruling that would make felons vote:
http://keironjackman.wordpress.com/2010/01/10/lights-out-but-don%E2%80%99t-forget-to-vote/
Actually . . . HR1826 (called the “Fair Elections Now Act”) *isn’t* _entirely_ non-partisan.
Oh, it isn’t quite as bad as HR2056 (named the “Clean Money, Clean Elections Now Act of 2009”). That one’s more explicitly partisan — it defines major-party, minor-party, and independent candidates . . . and says that, if your party isn’t in a primary, you’re an independent candidate. Unless you later get at least 25% of the votes cast — that’s the HR2056 standard for being a major party: having a candidate for US Rep, President, or Governor in the past 5 years get at least 25% of the vote for that office.
Then, too, HR2056 doesn’t talk about debates at all. But HR1826 isn’t all that much better — it has an unspoken partisan assumption built in that, before a primary, people only need to hear about candidates on the primary ballot(s). They don’t get to hear about other candidates they might like better — alternatives who might convince them to vote differently in the primary, or even not to vote in the primary at all.
Primary elections are also behind another bit of imbalance in HR1826. Even if a third-party or independent candidate can qualify for the fund by reaching the dual threshold of 1,500 contributions and $50,000 — while perhaps facing harder petition or other requirements to get on the ballot — they can’t get an allocation of money from the fund for their non-primary selection processes. And in many states (Michigan being one of them), the laws keep minor parties out of primaries. So the funding mechanism of HR1826 would reinforce the duopoly’s hammerlock on attention with a matching monopoly on matching funds until after the primary.
Again, HR2056 is even worse. It imposes on minor-party and independent candidates a 50% higher threshold for the minimum number of donations required. And again, even if you’re a candidate of a party, if the party doesn’t have a primary, then by definition you’re an independent candidate to HR2056. If your party does have a primary, but it hasn’t had that 25% in the past 5 years to qualify as a major party, then it’s a minor party. But that doesn’t get you the lower threshold.
So HR1826 is less unfair, less unclean, than HR2056.
But neither one is really fair, clean, impartial, or non-partisan.
I’ve skimmed over HR1826 and it’s far from being a silver bullet to “fair” elections. The system is optional, no candidates are forced to participate, there’s no guarantee 3rd party candidates could take advantage of this program, and the matching funds provision only increases the differences in fundraising.
As for HR3957, does Congress believe it has jurisdiction over everything (a somewhat rhetorical question)? It’s not that hard to register in the first place, why should we let all the layabouts wait until election day to register? They already wait that long to decide who they’re voting for.