Portland, Maine, has a city council of 9 members, and 3 of them are Green Party members. The June 28 issue of Portland’s daily newspaper, the Press Herald, has this insightful article about how the Green members have affected city government. Thanks to Dan Jenkins for the link.
A recent FairVote fund-raising letter points out that in U.S. history, major changes in elections occur every 50 years, at least since the period following the Civil War.
In the years 1868-1870, the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution were ratified. The 14th amendment is the closest the Constitution gets to including a right to vote, and the 15th amendment was the first amendment to the Constitution that expanded the franchise, regardless of the wishes of the individual states. It banned the denial of voting on the basis of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
The years 1913-1920 saw amendments to require the direct election of U.S. Senators, and to prevent states from denying voting on the basis of sex. That decade also saw the implementation of direct primaries in most states, although some states had started in the 1900’s decade.
The years 1965-1972 saw the federal Voting Rights Act (a tardy means of enforcing the 15th amendment), and U.S. Supreme Court decisions that said the 14th amendment does not permit the states to use unequal-population districts, does not permit the states to entirely prevent new political parties and independent candidates from getting on the ballot, and does not permit the states to prevent certain classes of people from voting (for example, people who move into a state fairly close to an election, or people who don’t own property).
If the 50-year cycle still holds, the U.S. may see significant election law changes during the 2010’s decade. There are still 3 significant groups of competent adult citizens who are denied the franchise in some parts of the nation: (1) residents of the territories and the District of Columbia; (2) members of parties other than the Democratic and Republican Parties, as well as supporters of independent candidates; (3) felons and ex-felons.
California held a statewide election on May 19, for six ballot questions. The Secretary of State has just released the official returns, which show that 62.2% of all the votes cast were cast by mail. That is a record in California. One wonders why legislators and the Secretary of State do not propose converting all future California elections to all-mail balloting, given the cost savings experienced by Oregon, which made a similar move in the 1990’s. Here is a link to the Secretary of State’s data for the May 19, 2009 election. Thanks to Election Updates.
CarbonCopyPRO issued a press release on June 27, to call attention to an interview with Wayne Allyn Root, in which Root endorses the company’s product. The CarbonCopyPRO release says that Root is “the expected Libertarian Party nominee for U.S. president in 2012”, and in the interview, Root is introduced as “the lead presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party in 2012.” The press release contains a link to the 13-minute interview.
Root does well in the interview, and he does not refer to himself as the front-runner for the nomination. Ever since individuals have been campaigning for the presidential nomination of various U.S. political parties (major and minor alike), it has been taboo for such individuals to assert that they are the front-runners, even if they are. Political wisdom says that such candidates deflect such labels, especially early in the process, because holding oneself out as the front-runner makes that individual a target of every other individual seeking the nomination.
CarbonCopyPRO issued a press release on June 27, to call attention to an interview with Wayne Allyn Root, in which Root endorses the company’s product. The CarbonCopyPRO release says that Root is “the expected Libertarian Party nominee for U.S. president in 2012”, and in the interview, Root is introduced as “the lead presidential candidate for the Libertarian Party in 2012.” The press release contains a link to the 13-minute interview.
Root does well in the interview, and he does not refer to himself as the front-runner for the nomination. Ever since individuals have been campaigning for the presidential nomination of various U.S. political parties (major and minor alike), it has been taboo for such individuals to assert that they are the front-runners, even if they are. Political wisdom says that such candidates deflect such labels, especially early in the process, because holding oneself out as the front-runner makes that individual a target of every other individual seeking the nomination.
