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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[LarryBnDC]

Sisolak’s decision has nothing to do with standing firm on constitutional grounds. On a national level it was a face palm, locally, not so much.

“could diminish the role of smaller states like Nevada in national electoral contests and force Nevada’s electors to side with whoever wins the nationwide popular vote, rather than the candidate Nevadans choose.”

There was a lot of local money against the law and the Governor figured it was too early to blow up his local political capital over a symbolic gesture. Meanwhile Nevada Democrats have had a hell of a legislative session.

This is about political expediency and Red went trotting another constitutional rabbit hole.

[REDSTATEWARD]

The mere fact that electors can be faithless underscores that neither the nation nor the states have properly firmed up the legal structure of an EC, instead leaning on custom. Since its guiding ethos was to allow an elite (from which electors were meant to be drawn) to "correct" anything the stupid unwashed masses did, it's clearly time to scrap it. 

Living documents can be changed.   Dead ones only serve the cognitively dead.

Your post makes no sense.
The choosing of electors by the states has been changed many times and for various reasons.
But the Electoral College is rooted in Article 2 as an indirect election of the President. That cannot be changed by the states unless Congress approves.

[REDSTATEWARD]

Sisolak’s decision has nothing to do with standing firm on constitutional grounds.

Sisolak's decision was not based on Constitutional grounds.

[facilitatorn]

Republican turpitude leads to further economic failure

http://www.axios.com/private-sector-jobs-report-may-2019-adp-moodys-3f6d0163-3b05-4f66-82e2-b242468e5ee1.html

Republicans run government like trump ran his casinos before they were all taken away.

[Yankguy1]

You fail to understand the argument.
Nevada's law was vetoed because the Governor believed it was improper to force Nevadans' electoral college votes to go to someone who finished second  in the state's  winner-take-all election.

I wasn't addressing an argument about whether one person would think it "proper" or not.  I was addressing the Constitutionality of the change.

It is, in addition, blatantly unconstitutional since it violates Article 2 of the US Constitution that set uo the Electoral College and delegated the choosing of electors to the states.

As has been pointed out to you, the Nevada law would be exactly that.  The state is still choosing its electors.

No. The proposed law would have given the Nevada Electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Moreover, delegated rights cannot be overturned without Congressional action.

See above.  No rights are being overturned.

Only the rights of Nevada Voters to determine who gets the state's electoral votes.

This has nothing to do with whether there is a better system of selecting a President than the Electoral College. There is a constitutional path to change.  Nevada's law was not on that path.


I wasn't proposing a better system of selecting a President.  I was addressing your argument re: the purpose of the current one, which as I said was originally based on an antiquated notion of "Democracy" and which now could eventually reasonably be questioned on a nationwide level, but is a debate that States are constitutionally free to have at this very moment.

Not on the Electoral College. US Constitutional Changes have to start with Congress.

Have to? Really? Ask your idol Mark Levin

[LarryBnDC]

Sisolak’s decision has nothing to do with standing firm on constitutional grounds.

Sisolak's decision was not based on Constitutional grounds.

No shit.

[josh]

Led by the fucking nose

Too damn funny.

Led by the nose...by a completely factual and accurate recounting of an incident where DHS/ICE were dangerously unprepared to follow through with court-ordered reunification of families.

Court ordered, kiidcarter8.  Those heartwarming happy reunions would not have been necessary had DHS not separated them in the first place.  These weren't kids lost in the woods.  They were detained, without their parents, due to an intentionally cruel Trump Administration policy meant to deter asylum seekers.  But kiidcarter8 sees nothing of note here. 

Over your head apparently.  Maybe go back to discussing drunk Australian models misbehaving on flights.  That was a story that actually inspired you to do some research!

Our disagreement is not a matter of research.

Only because facts hold no sway over your opinions, as you have repeatedly demonstrated wrt politics. Kind of like Ward. Or with Bambi-ignorance when it comes to either protection from guns or the climate.

[josh]

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress" says nothing about how any determination for the Electors' voting.

Nor does anything in the 12th Amendment, or you would not have bitched and moaned about my not putting them in the same post.

You got bupkis.

No I have the Constitution.  The appointment of electors is a delegated right granted to the states by the Constitution and while that right can be amended( i.e.12th ) it cannot be amended without Congressional approval NOR  in any manner that changes the overall purpose of the presidential election system.  And that system is an indirect election carried out through the Electoral College.
What the Nevada Legislature was trying to do a was convert Nevada ELECTORS into agents of other states.
Blatantly unconstitutional.

You keep saying that, but the states that set up winner-take all *did* change things without a constitutional amendment. So, too, the states that changed it again, later. So, your premise has already been proven to be false.

And no, they are not trying to turn them into agents of other states. They are trying to have them respond to the national scenario, which is very different. Nobody said "If California votes X way, we will also vote X way." And, again, there is nothing in the Constitution that precludes such a thing. Nor does case law support you.

[josh]

What the Nevada Legislature was trying to do a was convert Nevada ELECTORS into agents of other states.
Blatantly unconstitutional.

Tenth amendment?  If the federal constitution doesn't expressly forbid states against some sort of popular vote conversion, then why wouldn't a state have that power to write it into their own laws?

The procedure  for naming electors in the Electoral College is defined in Article II of the  Constitution and delegated to the States.
The 10th Amendment reads:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

Therefore the states get to decide what to do. Thank you.

The states get to determine how they select their electors and whether or not to dictate distribution of them in certain ways. Indeed, it might even be that they could delegate their electors' selection to another state's legislature. Ought to be an interesting case!

[josh]

Sisolak’s decision has nothing to do with standing firm on constitutional grounds.

Sisolak's decision was not based on Constitutional grounds.

On that we agree.

What his reasoing was vs. what he says it was remains to be determined.

[whiskeypriest]

The appointment of electors is a delegated right granted to the states by the Constitution and while that right can be amended( i.e.12th ) it cannot be amended without Congressional approval NOR  in any manner that changes the overall purpose of the presidential election system.

The overall purpose of the presidential election system is to elect a President.  The rule change Nevada proposed would not change that.

The question, which you are unable to articulate, would be if the courts see this rule change as only an end run around the electoral college.  And even if they did, this would be a textbook case of how a deeper interpretation of the Constitution needs to come to play to make a decision vs. some literal reading of the words written in the document (which you erroneously seem to think supports your case.)

The original purpose of the EC was a buffer against the provincial and misinformed masses.  The Electors were originally able to vote for whoever they wanted. Only later did it become customary for those electors to vote for the first past the post winner of the statewide popular vote, making the voting process itself pure formality (for all but two states anyway.)

So what is it for now?  I fully understand the argument that the EC supports smaller states who normally would get no attention in a nationwide race.  No, I don’t agree with this argument, and think in practice it now slices the other way, where New York and California and Texas are ignored while swing states wield all the power.   But what is to prevent a state from voluntarily putting itself in that position?  Why can’t they say “We will cast our votes, but defer to the whole country to tell us who to vote for?”

Nothing, from what I can see.  Certainly not anything in the Constitution.

Sure, someone would bring it to the courts, but having a case, let alone a “blatant” one?  That’s REDSTATEWAD partisanship speaking.  An argument he wouldn’t be making if the two recent candidates denied the Presidency despite winning the popular vote were Republicans.

You fail to understand the argument.
Nevada's law was vetoed because the Governor believed it was improper to force Nevadans' electoral college votes to go to someone who finished second  in the state's  winner-take-all election.

It is, in addition, blatantly unconstitutional since it violates Article 2 of the US Constitution that set uo the Electoral College and delegated the choosing of electors to the states.Moreover, delegated rights cannot be overturned without Congressional action.
This has nothing to do with whether there is a better system of selecting a President than the Electoral College. There is a constitutional path to change.  Nevada's law was not on that path.

Your argument is an incoherent mush. Same as it ever was.

[REDSTATEWARD]

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress" says nothing about how any determination for the Electors' voting.

Nor does anything in the 12th Amendment, or you would not have bitched and moaned about my not putting them in the same post.

You got bupkis.

No I have the Constitution.  The appointment of electors is a delegated right granted to the states by the Constitution and while that right can be amended( i.e.12th ) it cannot be amended without Congressional approval NOR  in any manner that changes the overall purpose of the presidential election system.  And that system is an indirect election carried out through the Electoral College.
What the Nevada Legislature was trying to do a was convert Nevada ELECTORS into agents of other states.
Blatantly unconstitutional.

You keep saying that, but the states that set up winner-take all *did* change things without a constitutional amendment.

No. They didn’t. Article II gives the the right to elect electors anyway the states choose.
Nevada proposed doing away with electors effectively scrapping the Electoral College.
Blatantly unconstitutional

[LarryBnDC]

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress" says nothing about how any determination for the Electors' voting.

Nor does anything in the 12th Amendment, or you would not have bitched and moaned about my not putting them in the same post.

You got bupkis.

No I have the Constitution.  The appointment of electors is a delegated right granted to the states by the Constitution and while that right can be amended( i.e.12th ) it cannot be amended without Congressional approval NOR  in any manner that changes the overall purpose of the presidential election system.  And that system is an indirect election carried out through the Electoral College.
What the Nevada Legislature was trying to do a was convert Nevada ELECTORS into agents of other states.
Blatantly unconstitutional.

You keep saying that, but the states that set up winner-take all *did* change things without a constitutional amendment.

No. They didn’t. Article II gives the the right to elect electors anyway the states choose.
Nevada proposed doing away with electors effectively scrapping the Electoral College.
Blatantly unconstitutional

Dude, you pulled that one waaaaaaay out your ass!

[arafura]

The science...there is climate change.
True.
The climate is always changing, Ice Ages come and go, glaciers started melting 15,000 years ago.
Long ago sea levels rose, and flooded the land bridge between Australia and India.

Sydney's dam is down to 50% capacity...water restrictions have been introduced.

No1 radio host has been telling the politicians for decades to build more dams....did they listen?   no.
Wouldn't surprise me if this time Sydney does run out of water.

[REDSTATEWARD]

"Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress" says nothing about how any determination for the Electors' voting.

Nor does anything in the 12th Amendment, or you would not have bitched and moaned about my not putting them in the same post.

You got bupkis.

No I have the Constitution.  The appointment of electors is a delegated right granted to the states by the Constitution and while that right can be amended( i.e.12th ) it cannot be amended without Congressional approval NOR  in any manner that changes the overall purpose of the presidential election system.  And that system is an indirect election carried out through the Electoral College.
What the Nevada Legislature was trying to do a was convert Nevada ELECTORS into agents of other states.
Blatantly unconstitutional.

You keep saying that, but the states that set up winner-take all *did* change things without a constitutional amendment.

No. They didn’t. Article II gives the the right to elect electors anyway the states choose.
Nevada proposed doing away with electors effectively scrapping the Electoral College.
Blatantly unconstitutional

Dude, you pulled that one waaaaaaay out your ass!

Try reading the Constitution.