Four voters and two candidates filed a lawsuit last month to overturn two particular aspects of California’s top-two implementation. That case, Field v Bowen, has a hearing on the substantive issues on September 14. However, a preliminary skirmish in that lawsuit will occur on August 24, when a Superior Court in San Francisco will hold a hearing on whether three supporters of Proposition 14 may intervene in the lawsuit.
The three intervenors are California Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, the California Independent Voter Project, and the “Yes on 14” campaign committee. The plaintiffs have invited these three to submit an amicus curiae brief in the case, but plaintiffs oppose granting them intervenor status. The issue over whether intervention should be permitted is oddly similar to the current legal fight over who may intervene in the much-publicized case called Perry v Schwarzenegger, the federal lawsuit over the constitutionality of the ban on same-sex marriage.
You say it’s odd? I say it’s more like predictable.
Minister Winger’s [Libertarian] continual efforts to engage in the various pluralist’s fights have always been counter-productive. He’s so niave, he calls it odd. It was probably already planned out as a trap.
Richard if yoiu want to do something helpful, why don’t you vote for executives in the US Parliament who are going to do something?
http://www.usparliament.org/curvote.htm
–James O. Ogle [Free Parliamentary]
Why do you THINK they called it Google?
…today you threw a few gallons of gasoline on the pluralists fire, but in fifteen years you’d allotted enough drops of gasoline for the proportionalists to power a mouse’s motorcycle around a golf ball!
–James O. Ogle [Free Parliamentary]
Go(t)ogle?
http://www.usparliament.org/basic.htm
Join the Frees!
…and over at the Sacramento Bee’s Blog by Oot, we see John Laird [Democratic], Abel Maldonado [Republican] and Mark Hinkle [Libertarian] getting ink…the same old tired pluralists! Old John Laird [Democartic] …the same party boss from SCAN who shot us down in Santa Cruz in 1992…the “Environmentalist Coalition”. That’s right, party boss. Laird was the political writer for the Sentinal, owned by McPhereson. He’s a “SCANdroid”. Santa bCruz Action Network. Nothing’s changed in 18 years, and that’s how the pluralists like it.
http://www.usparliament.org/history.htm
How ’bout this one;
What’s Wells/Brown and Short?
Answer;
The Green, Libertarian and American Independent/Constitution Coalition in 2010!
(I’ll bet Michelle won’t tell ya.)
James,
A more effective way to promote your endeavor would be to make a (one) brief, yet helpful (or entertaining) post followed by your link. Comments on this site are intended to be relevant to the article, not for your own personal use. Thank you.
You have a dirty mind!
I’m talking about the gulf oil spill. Get it? The well was flowing with brown oil, and now it stopped.
You must not be from California. These are names and parties who truly are running for state office right now, not just my personal humor. Laura Wells [Green] is currently on the ballot for Governor, Pamela Brown [Libertarian] is on the ballot for Lt. Governor, and Merton Short [American Independent/Constitution] is on the ballot for Secretary of State.
It is relevent to the article, which is about proposition 14. Proposition 14 has to do with allowing only two parties/categories into a runoff, probably only those not mentioned in my joke, the Democratic and Republican ones. Like it better now that you know that?
One thing good about proposition 14, at least it does guarantee a majority winner with more than 50% of the vote every time. A majority instead of a plurality.
I voted no on 14. I’m for ranking multiple alternatives, I don’t like pluralistic yes/no decisions, like what the pluralists fight over.
Technically, Prop. 14 does not guarantee that a majority of the voters are needed to elect someone. The November ballot still has write-in space on it, so the November winner could be someone with less than 50% of the total vote cast. And you can believe that if a district has two Republicans only on the November ballot, there will be lots of write-ins cast in that race. Similarly for a race with two Democrats on the ballot. The fact that SB 6 says not to count the write-ins doesn’t mean that the write-ins weren’t cast.
In some states you have to file as write ins by a certain date. How does California work?
If the write in votes don’t get counted then it amounts to the same thing.It’s a distinction with out a difference.
Oh. Well the Pot Party’s write in campaign must go on…”write in Bouhlod Khembisai [Pot] for Governor!” and “make the opposite gender #1!”
If we could recruit Gail Nott for US Senate as write in, that’ll be helpful too. I’m trying to kick off a new top secret political search engine to find good candidates called Gonott.com, and her husband is the programmer. Gonott YOUR name for Governor. What do you think, catchy eh? …could even become a household name!
It’ll be a billion dollar gateway! Oh, people will be dancing in the streets!
–James Ogle [Free Parliamentary]
James, WTF are you talking about?
Discussions here are usually more reasonable than at IPR, where we have completely insane ramblings of people like Catholic Trotskyist, Robert Milnes, Don Lake, Don Grundman, Mark Seidenberg, Mike Kavlan, Green Party Conservative, Third Party Revolution, Eric Dondero, Andy, Jim Davidson, and a few others who are not quite all there in the head. You should join them over there; leave this site alone.
IPR is Independent Political Report.
…been reading IPR daily, lately. Maybe that’s what it is?
I’m not familiar with all the names, but we are looking for some movers in the Cabinet if you want to nominate anyone;
http://www.usparliament.org/cabinet1.htm
How come the party hacks in the CA regime [governor, attorney general, etc.] do NOT defend the laws of the party hack regime in the courts ???
Such party hacks like having a LAWLESS regime ???
P.R. and App.V. — regardless of all math morons on this list.
There is no reason to think the California Attorney General won’t defend Senate Bill 6.
#19-#20 By having activist judges wipe out laws (both those enacted by the People and legislative bodies) and the government party hacks NOT defending ALL of the laws (as in the P-S Prop 8 case), it is one more step on the road to anarchy / civil WAR — due to such EVIL party hacks — playing their EVIL party hack games.
Naw, the USA Parliament has already averted a violent civil war. Votes cast as proof, it’s a free, peaceful revolution. You should’ve seen Usenet in 1993! Now THAT was a violent civil war in the make.
–James O. Ogle [Free Parliamentary]
I’m the original joogle,
from which google, inc. derived its name
in October of ’97. It’s what google, inc.
doesn’t want you to know! They bought Usenet,
turned it into google groups, and deleted the
evidence forever. Few witnesses remain alive.
(last sentence slightly enhanced for dramatics)
http://www.usparliament.org/forum
#12 There were no claims that Proposition 14 would produce a majority winner.
Key principles:
1) All voters regardless of their party preference may vote for any candidate regardless of their party preference.
2) Two candidates with the most votes advance to the general election.
As a secondary benefit, it removed the almost-Georgian barriers to independent candidates or candidates registered with non-qualified candidates running for office. If your co-plaintiffs Jeff Mackler and Rodney Martin were to run for Congress in 2010, they would require 11,552 and 9,071 signatures, respectively. And they would not be permitted to run as the candidates of the Socialist Action or Reform parties. I wonder how much Gautum Dutta is charging them for the privilege of increasing their signature requirement by over 20,000 percent. They will have to cart their petitions in wheelbarrows.
Elections Code 8606 (as provided by SB 6) does not say anything about counting votes. Did Gautum Dutta fail to read what it actually says? Or did he deliberately underline certain words in the brief, so that others will infer that there is any mention of votes. But he claims that it is explicit – that no inference of missing words is needed.
Have any of the plaintiffs contacted their legislators about Section 8606, pointing out that it is nonsensical?
When you challenged San Francisco’s write-in election law in Edelstein, did you seek to have write-in voting implemented? Or did you seek to have runoffs for mayoral elections eliminated?
Is there any competent lawyer who does not think that Section 8606 is severable? Section 65 of SB 6 states (in part) “If any provision of this measure is held invalid as applied to any person or circumstance, such invalidity does not affect any application of this measure that can be given effect without the invalid application.”
(1) As written, it literally makes no sense. If Section 8606 read “The Red Queen causes 27 antelope to go forth”, would simply eliminating Section 8606 cause Top 2 to be unworkable? Of course not. And Section 8606 as written is as nonsensical.
There are two possible ways that it could be interpreted in a sensible fashion:
(2a) Votes cast for write-in candidates may not be counted. This is the interpretation that Gautum Dutta uses, though there is no reason to give it precedence. None of the defendants have promulgated any regulations that would support this interpretation. They have not submitted this change in election procedure to the USDOJ for VRA Section 5 preclearance.
But as Dutta points out this contradicts everything else in the Elections Code. In Edelstein, the City and County of San Francisco, did not permit candidates to file as write-in candidates, did not provide a space on ballots, and did not intend to count write-in votes. But the State of California provides procedures for candidates to file as write-in candidates, does provide a space on the ballot, and procedures to count write-in votes. If one were going to change the procedure for counting write-in votes, it would not be in that portion of the Elections Code.
If everything else is in conflict, you sever the part that is in conflict. If there is a loose thread from sutures following a heart transplant, you don’t rip out the heart. Thankfully, Dutta is not a surgeon.
(2b) Write-in votes may be counted, but even if a write-in candidate receives the most votes he may not be elected. This interpretation is consistent with the construction of Elections Code 8605, which specifies the effect of write-in votes on qualified candidates in primary elections (eg in certain instances, a candidate who receives the most votes in a partisan primary election may not advance to the general election ballot).
But this construction is also in conflict with the US and California constitutions. If a write-in candidate for Congress received the most votes, and California certified another candidate as being elected, there is no doubt in my mind that Congress would uphold a challenge by a contesting write-in candidate.
So if we adopt this construction, again the correct response is to sever Section 8606.
#13 In California, a write-in candidate for the general election must file a timely statement of write-in candidacy (by October 19 in 2010), including a petition, but no fee. He must otherwise be qualified to hold the office and must also comply with campaign finance regulations.
There is nothing in SB 6 that says that write-in votes cast for a qualified write-in candidate shall not be counted.
#20 There are 3 possible interpretations of Elections Code Section 8606.
(1) It is nonsensical;
(2) Votes for a qualified write-in candidate shall not be counted. Under California law, the purpose of becoming a qualified write-in candidate is to have write-in votes counted; or
(3) Even if a qualified write-in candidate receives the most votes he can not be elected.
If either interpretations 2 or 3 are used, then Elections Codes 8606 is clearly unconstitutional, and the Attorney General is under no obligation to defend it. If interpretation 1 is used, then it is legally void and can be ignored.
Presumably, the Attorney General will simply argue that Elections Code Section 8606 is severable.
I don’t understand why the plaintiffs didn’t simply contact their legislators and point out that Section 8606 is nonsensical, and have it removed from the California statutes. Is the California legislature so dysfunctional that such a simple solution can not be pursued?
RE: 8606
How about sending snail mail letters to the party hacks involved about the idiot language in 8606 ???
ALL New Age State legislatures are dysfunctional due to having ALL party hacks in party hack gerrymander districts — i.e. are filled with EVIL powermad gerrymander legislator monarchs / oligarchs — as EVIL crazy as the EVIL kings in the bad old days of divine right of kings — especially since 1929 and the start of 1929-1941 Great Depression I.
P.R. and App.V.
I would just like to point out to James Ogle that Google did not buy Usenet. They bought a large archive of Usenet posts and make them available via the Google Groups service. But they don’t own Usenet — no one individual, group, or institution does. In fact, there are other ways to post to and read Usenet other than via Google Groups.