Is Obama Administration Targeting Republican Car Dealerships?
May 29, 2009
Both Investor’s Business Daily and Washington Examiner have articles that suggest “the Obama administration has systematically targeted for closing Chrysler dealers who contributed to Republicans” as part of the federal government’s plan to bring Chrysler out of bankruptcy. Congressman Vern Buchanan (R/FL) learned from a House colleague his dealership would be shuttered, while former Clinton Chief of Staff Mack McLarty’s dealerships appear to be fine. Said Rep. Buchanan:
“It’s an outrage. It’s not about me. I’m going to be fine. You’re talking over 100,000 jobs. We’re supposed to be in the business of creating jobs, not killing jobs.”
So far, only one Democratic-leaning dealer is on the Obama Administration’s hit list.
Roundup On The Sotomayor Nomination
May 29, 2009
Ed Whelan at NRO has the facts on Judge Sotomayor’s controversial decision in Ricci and the extraordinary dissent by Judge Jose Cabranes that helped propel this case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Whelan speculates that Judge Sotomayor’s unsigned, unpublished opinion, which Judge Cabranes dismissed as “containing a single substantive paragraph,” was designed to fly under the radar and escape further judicial review. Over at Slate, Emily Bazelon also asks why Judge Sotomayor “didn’t explain herself”:
“If Sotomayor and her colleagues were trying to shield the case from Supreme Court review, her punt had the opposite effect. It drew Cabranes’ ire, and he hung a big red flag on the case, which the Supreme Court grabbed.”
“The problem for Sotomayor … is why she didn’t grapple with the difficult constitutional issues, the ones Cabranes pointed to. Did she really have nothing to add to the district court’s opinion? In a case of this magnitude and intricacy, why would that be?”
The Ricci case stems from a decision by the City of New Haven to disregard the results of a promotion exam for firefighters – a exam “carefully constructed to ensure race-neutrality” according to Judge Cabranes – because not enough minority candidates qualified for promotion. Several white firefighters and two Hispanic firefighters were denied promotion, even though they qualified based on their test performance, and they later sued the city.
Judge Cabranes wrote that the appeal “raises important questions of first impression in our Circuit – and indeed, in the nation” … that the Constitutional questions “are indisputably complex and far from well-settled” … that Judge Sotomayor and her two colleagues “failed to grapple with the questions of exceptional importance raised in this appeal” with an opinion that “contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case” and that he hoped “the Supreme Court will resolve the issues of great significance raised by this case.”
Much has been made of Judge Sotomayor’s history-making nomination as the first Hispanic chosen for the Supreme Court. Perhaps that honor should have been reserved for her Second Circuit Court of Appeals colleague Judge Jose Cabranes.
Will ACORN Be Put In Charge Of Internet Voting?
May 26, 2009
Jim Pinkerton speculates on the Fox News blog about the future of Internet voting in national elections. Some highlights:
“So if vote fraud is already a problem, what will happen when the ‘vote’ is simply an electronic impulse, that could have come, potentially, from anywhere in the U.S. – or around the world. Who will oversee the e-voting process? And who will oversee the overseers?
“In 30 states, the chief elections officer is the state’s secretary of state. In the wake of the 2004 elections, smart Democrats launched the Secretary of State Project …. The [website] tells visitors – and, more to the point, potential donors – that a ‘modest political investment in electing clean Secretaries of State is an efficient way to stop voter suppression.’
“ … Internet voting is coming. If Democratic techies dominate the research and development of new processes, that will be fine with Democrats. If Democratic secretaries of state adjudicate the implementation process, and the vote-counting, that, too, will be fine with Democrats. And if Net voting comes quicker to Democrat-leaning places than Republican-leaning places, well, that will likely be A-OK with Democrats.
“But for Republicans, a Democrat-dominated e-vote system would be a swift road to political extinction.”
Turning Secretaries Of State Into Partisan Political Hacks
May 21, 2009
The Secretary of State Project poses as a reform-minded effort to promote clean elections. But their real agenda is to turn what’s supposed to be a non-political office into a partisan tool to ensure Democrats prevail in any close or contested election (see Minnesota). Take this breathtakingly partisan appeal for funds by SOS Project official Michael Kieshnick in 2008 (emphasis added):
It’s time to act once again to stop the next Katherine Harris.
Who can forget the devastating effect Katherine Harris had on the Florida election in 2000? As Secretary of State, she made crooked decisions about who was registered and who got to vote — decisions that delivered the White House to George W. Bush.
If you are concerned, as I am, about stolen elections this November and beyond, help two women — who are mirror opposites of Katherine Harris — defeat the GOP cronies who oppose them for Secretary of State.
Electing clean Secretaries of State is the least expensive, most surefire way to protect America’s elections. …
Days from now, thanks in part to the 2006 work of the Secretary of State Project, we will have five less GOP cronies running their state’s elections than we did in 2004. We helped elect reform-minded Democrats to the Secretary of State office in Ohio, Minnesota, Iowa, New Mexico and Nevada - all pivotal swing states. Imagine the dirty tricks we’d see if the Republicans still controlled those offices.
If you agree that we can’t sit by and continue to let the Katherine Harrises of the world suppress, steal and manipulate our votes, then join me in funding Secretary of State Project candidates today.
You can agree or disagree with the sentiments in that letter. But one thing that’s now beyond dispute: the Secretary of State Project (funded by ultra-liberal billionaire hedge fund tycoon George Soros) has nothing to do with clean elections and everything to do with using ruthless, power politics to tilt elections unfairly toward a single political party.
More ACORN Funny Business in Indiana
May 19, 2009
I’ve already written about ACORN’s suspicious (and possibly illegal) voter registration activities in Nevada, which have attracted the attention of the Secretary of State’s and Attorney General’s offices. But why stop there? ACORN’s activities don’t.
In Indiana last year, ACORN came under attack for filing over 2,000 voter registration forms that CNN described as “bogus.” As the Republican election board member for Lake County, Indiana, Ruthann Hoagland, noted, “All the signatures looked exactly the same. Everything on the card filled out looks exactly the same.”
You can believe that the schools of Lake County teach precise penmanship – or you can believe that ACORN was trying to register thousands of voters fraudulently. This is a state that Obama eventually carried by just over 26,000 votes, after a 20-point victory for Bush over Kerry in 2004.
Democrat member of the board Sally LaSota chimed in with this: “ACORN, with its intent, perhaps was good in the beginning, but went awry somewhere.” For her part, Hoagland, trying to be generous, said, “We have no idea what the motive behind it is. It is just overwhelming to us.”
I think I can guess.
Why Secretaries of State Matter
May 19, 2009
Over the last week ACORN has received a lot of press attention. But let’s take a closer look at an ACORN incident that happened during the 2008 campaign cycle.
If Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is a prime example of how these powerful, but little known public officials can tip the scales in tight elections (see my earlier post), then Nevada’s Ross Miller shows how they can and should operate to prevent voter fraud and ensure fair elections. Last year, Mary Pat Flaherty reported in the Washington Post that Ross’ and the Nevada AG’s office raided ACORN’s operation in Las Vegas. The state also filed criminal charges against ACORN and two former employees for allegedly paying employees to sign up voters, with quotas of new voters required to keep their jobs and a “blackjack” bonus for signing up 21 new voters (hey, it’s Nevada). According to Flaherty:
“The Nevada office of ACORN had planned a potluck dinner at its Las Vegas office Tuesday night to celebrate the 80,000 newly registered voters its staff had signed up in Clark County as part of its work with low-income communities nationwide.
“Instead, their office was raided Tuesday morning by agents of the Nevada Secretary of State and Attorney General who alleged in an application for a search warrant that ACORN had hired 59 felons through a work release program as canvassers and submitted nearly 300 apparently fraudulent voter registration cards as part of the drive.
“The submitted voter cards included addresses and names that do not exist in Nevada, duplicate registrations, names culled from telephone books and names of Dallas Cowboys players, an investigator for the Secretary of State alleged in his affidavit for a search warrant.
“One ex-employee of ACORN reached by the state investigator told him she began making up names for her forms on days when it was too hot to work outside. ACORN canvassers are paid by the hour. Ex-employees also said they were expected to collect 20 complete forms a shift or risk probation and termination, the investigator said in his affidavit.”
ACORN southwest regional director Matthew Henderson called the raid “a politically motivate stunt” undertaken because many voters registered through ACORN are “working people and people of color and there may be corners of the political world where a high injection of new voters like those is unsettling some.”
Give me a break.
Both Secretary of State Ross Miller and Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto are Democrats. Glad to see that combating registration fraud and enforcing election laws are being done honestly in Nevada.
I’m looking forward to the trial. Maybe we can find out why ACORN chose the Cowboys.
The SOS Project, Mark Ritchie and the Coleman-Franken Race
May 14, 2009
As I posted yesterday, I’ll be following the Secretary of State (SOS) Project – another organization bankrolled by billionaire hedge fund kingpin George Soros aimed at pushing American politics sharply to the left. Like Justice at Stake – which works to give special interest groups like the trial bar more influence over who sits on state courts – the SOS Project poses as a non-partisan, “good government” reform effort. The truth is, the SOS Project is committed to electing sharply partisan Democrats who they believe can help shift votes in close elections to their favored candidates.
Consider Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, elected in 2006 with the financial backing of the SOS Project. One of the critical roles for Secretaries of State is to oversee elections and serve as an impartial arbiter while overseeing recounts in disputed contests. Yet shortly it became obvious that the Coleman-Franken Senate race was headed for a long, drawn-out recount, Ritchie went on national TV and accused Coleman’s campaign of trying “to win at any price.”
The Coleman campaign said Ritchie’s partisan comments showed he couldn’t govern the recount process fairly, but don’t listen to them. Here’s what Minneapolis Star-Tribune columnist Katherine Kersten had to say (emphasis added):
“Let’s assume the 32 disputed ballots in Minneapolis were legitimate. Let’s assume the newly discovered 100 votes in Pine County — all for Al Franken — were just overlooked by a sleepy official, and the 100 votes found in Mountain Iron — again, all for Franken — were valid.
“Let’s suppose the trickle of votes moving inexorably in Franken’s direction is just a function of a normal process, as Secretary of State Mark Ritchie’s office assures us.
“One fact remains troubling. The referee in Minnesota’s hotly contested Senate race must act in a nonpartisan fashion, yet Ritchie came to office through a nationwide partisan strategy. He was elected in 2006 as part of a national campaign to ensure that Democrats could wield influence in precisely the sort of hair’s breadth race we now have here.
“Ritchie gained office with the help of the Secretary of State Project (SOS), an independent 527 group co-founded by former MoveOn.org leader James Rucker. SOS is based in San Francisco, and is funded in part by ultra-liberal kingmakers such as George Soros.
“Secretary of state positions are a “new front” in the “battle for political control,” the paper explained, because they are “the obscure but vital state offices that determine who votes and how those votes are counted.”
Ritchie has also come under attack for his ties to ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), the same group that figured in voting issues in Ohio in the Presidential election last year. Trent England in the pages of the Wall Street Journal described the group as “a group under investigation in several states for suspected voter registration chicanery.”
If any of this happened under a Republican watch, you can bet the Democrats would be crying “dirty tricks.” When it helps Democrats can get to the magic number of 60 seats in the U.S. Senate, no one seems to mind. Tilting close elections like Minnesota’s in their favor is exactly why the SOS Project is spending millions to assure that left-leaning Democrats control these offices.
Secretary Of State Watch
May 13, 2009
Readers of American Courthouse know that I (and many others) have often written about the role of groups funded by hedge fund billionaire George Soros in trying to abolish democratic judicial elections across America and to adopt “merit selection” systems that put lawyers in charge of choosing judges. But his influence in American politics doesn’t stop there. Soros and other prominent Democrats are also working to influence the conduct (and therefore the outcome) of elections under the guise of something called the “Secretary of State Project.”
In many states, the Secretary of State is responsible for the conduct of elections; some are elected, others appointed. Ever since the 2000 Florida recount, in which Secretary of State Katherine Harris played a prominent role, the office has assumed a higher prominence, particularly in swing states. As USA Today reported in 2006, “The political battle for control of the federal government has opened up a new front: the obscure but vital state offices that determine who votes and how those votes are counted.”
So after the 2004 Presidential election, in which some leftwing folklore blames John Kerry’s loss on then-Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, some major Democratic donors decided that they’d try to go after the Secretary of State positions in certain key states. Mathew Vadum of The American Spectator noted that “According to IRS 8872 disclosure forms, the Secretary of State Project received donations from Democracy Alliance members including [George] Soros, Rob Stein, Gail Furman, and Susie Tompkins Buell.”
And they’ve had some success. Down ballot races often attract fewer donors, so targeted donations can make a real difference. In 2006, the Project won five of the seven races they targeted. In 2006, the Project targeted seven states (Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio) and won five (all but Colorado and Michigan). In 2008, they went four for four (Missouri, Montana, Oregon, and West Virginia).
As we move towards 2010, I’ll be keeping an eye on these races, and the role that the Secretary of State Project and major Democratic donors play in trying to be sure that partisan Democrats get to count the registrations and the votes.
The Battle Continues In Missouri
May 13, 2009
Better Courts for Missouri has launched an ad campaign calling for the legislature to pass HJR 10 – a measure designed to make the judicial selection process in Missouri more transparent, more accountable and less subject to special interest pressure. You can watch the ad here.
Elitist legal groups are pulling out all the stops to block HJR 10 and keep Missouri citizens in the dark about how their judges are picked and preserve what they’ve come to consider their divine right to decide who rules in our courtrooms. Whether they succeed or not, legal elites are clearly on the defensive. HJR 10 has put a permanent crack in the foundation of “merit” selection by exposing the absurdly anti-democratic nature of this system. Here’s a quick scorecard of the two sides in this debate:
- Proponents of HJR 10 want to apply Missouri’s Sunshine Law to the state’s judicial selection commission. Opponents believe the commission should continue meeting in secret.
- Proponents of HJR 10 want ordinary citizens to have a more prominent say in deciding who will control one-third of their state government. Opponents believe a single special interest group (lawyers) should keep picking judges.
- Proponents of HJR 10 want to increase accountability for judicial selection by requiring prospective judges to be confirmed by the Senate and allowing the Governor to pick from any of the qualified candidates, not just from the hand-picked list put together by lawyers. Opponents believe the judicial selection commission should be accountable to no one.
Even a die-hard Missouri Plan supporter like former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has endorsed a key provision of HJR 10, telling a group of Missouri law students back in March “you can’t have secret proceedings.” Apparently even this mild concession to transparency is too much for judicial selection star chambers to bear. I guess they figure if ordinary citizens see how lawyers are gaming the system to pick judges of their choosing, they might actually demand the restoration of their right to vote for judges in democratic elections. The horror!
Are Pennsylvanians Really Too Stupid To Elect Judges?
May 12, 2009
The Philadelphia Inquirer is out with a slate of judicial endorsements, but not before trashing the idea that judges should be chosen by the people through democratic elections. Voters, the editors grumble, “may well apply the usual uninformed criteria” when deciding who to put on the bench. (And these are the same folks who sit around scratching their heads wondering why newspapers are losing readers in droves – to bloggers, no less – and filing for bankruptcy.)
Judgesonmerit.org – part of the national campaign bankrolled by hedge fund billionaire George Soros to let legal special interests pick judges – also has a post highlighting the “flawed election process” that permits mere citizens to determine who will control one-third of Pennsylvania’s state government.
So what “informed” criteria does the Inquirer use to persuade voters about the merit of the candidates it’s endorsing? Well, one candidate, the Inquirer tells us, is the “the city’s ‘only openly gay judge’ and strives to keep all bias from his courtroom.” Another is a “distant cousin” of a jailed former City Council member who is recommended in part because of his “charitable works.” Yet another “served as chief of staff to his City Council president father and ran a bank branch” before turning to the law.
These prospective judges may well be fine, upstanding citizens who would be a credit to the bench. But is the Inquirer’s reasoning really so superior that the paper’s readers should cower at the thought of approaching local polling places with their “uninformed” opinions? Is it really any less arbitrary than the biases an ordinary citizen would bring to the voting booth?
Ah, but the Inquirer’s choices have all been vetted by the Philadelphia Bar Association, which should be a “major deciding factor” in voters’ decisions. Now we get to the heart of the matter. “For now,” the Inquirer writes, “voters have the first and last word” on choosing judges. That ominous “for now” is a plea for an end to democratic judicial elections. In the perfect world envisioned by the Inquirer and judgesonmerit.org, groups like the Philadelphia Bar Association and other legal special interests would be given a privileged position in deciding who should sit on the bench. In fact, the Inquirer and judgesonmerit.org are so infatuated with the views of lawyers they want to remove voters from the process and turn the whole job of picking judges over to legal elites.
Unfortunately, from their perspective, to reach this nirvana of lawyer-selected judges they need to revoke the Constitutional right of Pennsylvanians to choose jurists democratically. They’ve been pushing that rock up the hill for about 20 years, so far with little success. So “for now” democracy reigns in Pennsylvania and the people still have the right to pick their public servants on the bench.