Surprise: West Virginia says no election to fill Byrd’s seat until 2012 June 29, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , 1 comment so farby Allahpundit
C’mon. You didn’t honestly think a Democratic governor and Democratic secretary of state would risk a Scott Brown reprise, did you? Here’s the state statute:
Any vacancy occurring in the office of secretary of state, auditor, treasurer, attorney general, commissioner of agriculture, United States senator, judge of the supreme court of appeals, or in any office created or made elective, to be filled by the voters of the entire state, or judge of a circuit court, shall be filled by the governor of the state by appointment. If the unexpired term of a judge of the supreme court of appeals, or a judge of the circuit court, be for less than two years; or if the unexpired term of any other office named in this section be for a period of less than two years and six months, the appointment to fill the vacancy shall be for the unexpired term. If the unexpired term of any office be for a longer period than above specified, the appointment shall be until a successor to the office has timely filed a certificate of candidacy, has been nominated at the primary election next following such timely filing and has thereafter been elected and qualified to fill the unexpired term.
In other words, it’s not merely a question of whether the seat is vacated before or after the midway point of the term. It has to be vacated before that year’s filing deadline, primary, etc.; otherwise, the governor gets to appoint someone and that person stays in office until the next filing deadline rolls around — i.e. 2012. The ruling from the secretary of state:
“The State Code is an interesting document. Within Chapter 3 that focuses on elections, there are several sections that determine how vacancies are filled.
“Section 3-10-3 states that for terms with more than two years and six months remaining, such as this one with Senator Byrd, the Governor will appoint a replacement who serves the unexpired term until a successor has been elected.
“But that election will not be the 2010 General election. Part of this same section of code, requires the candidate to have filed during the filing period. That filing period has already passed. There was a legal case in 1994 decided by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals that up held that position of requiring candidates to file during the filing period.
“That means the election for the unexpired term would be the next election cycle which would take place in 2012. Candidates will be nominated in the primary and elected in the general of 2012.
Here’s the court case she mentions. The West Virginia primary was May 11, and evidently they don’t usually hold any odd-year elections there. So the effect of this very stupid law is that had Byrd died in another week or two, past the midway point of the term, the governor could have appointed a successor to finish his term; as it is, thanks to the caveats about special-election candidates having to qualify for primaries under the normal election timetable, he gets to appoint someone for the remainder of Byrd’s term anyway. Not dumb enough for you? Try this on for size: According to the SoS, they’ll actually have to hold two elections in 2012, one the special election mandated by Byrd’s death and the other the normal general election. The winner of the special election will be seated immediately and will serve two months from November 2012 to January 2013, when the winner of the general election is seated as part of the new Congress. Not a huge deal since the winner is bound to be the same in both elections, but stupid nonetheless.
Via Ace, your exit quotation from the SoS website: “The West Virginia State Constitution provides a clear mandate that all elective state and local offices should be filled by the voters as soon as possible after a vacancy occurs.”
Update: The likely appointee? West Virginia’s governor, Joe Manchin:
It has been an open secret in the Mountineer State for years that Manchin covets a Senate seat, and his second term as the state’s chief executive expires after the ‘12 elections — meaning he could very likely appoint himself.
Manchin is hugely popular — the latest survey, conducted Aug. 27-30 of last year by Mark Blankenship Enterprises, gave Manchin a 78% approval rating, 9 points higher than Byrd’s — and his candidacy would give Dems a good chance of holding a seat that, at a presidential level, has trended away from them in recent years.
Big Government, Bad Journalism June 28, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Doctor Zero
Just the other day, I was discussing the challenge of maintaining cordial relationships in a highly politicized society with a friend of mine. When politics have infused every aspect of our lives, right down to the menus at fast-food restaurants, our political opinions are often interpreted as judgments of character. The conservative sees a diehard Obama supporter as an accomplice to tyranny, while the Obama supporter sees the opponents of socialized medicine as accessories to the murder of the uninsured. No matter which side of the debate you come down on, it’s easy to see that the stakes are high, and participation has become mandatory. The option to stay out of the argument no longer exists, because regardless of your station in life, this vast and activist government is not going to leave you alone.
I found myself thinking along these lines while watching JournoList, the electronic locker room for liberal reporters, collapse beneath the weight of Dave Weigel’s spleen.
Weigel has spent the last few months working as an observer of the conservative movement for the Washington Post, whose readers must wonder about the identity of the vast Tea Party crowds occasionally blocking their view of the IRS building. As it turns out, Weigel really hates the people he’s been covering, and sees himself precisely the way conservatives see most dinosaur-media reporters: as a partisan operative of the Democrat Party. He expressed his hatred, and loyalties, in a series of communications posted to JournoList. These emails became an embarrassing burst of digital flatulence when they were made public. Weigel is out of a job at theWashington Post, and JournoList is gone.
Blogger Ace of Spades wonders why the Post couldn’t find a sympathetic correspondent to cover the “conservative beat,” and answers his own question by pointing out the Post has no interest in publishing material that might lead its readers to begin grooving to that conservative beat. The last thing they want is for their right-wing avatar to come back with a horde of angry natives behind him and lead a successful insurrection.
Here we cross the line between editorial decisions and bias. Why would an unbiased newspaper be afraid to honestly report news that makes one side of a political debate look appealing, instead assigning a reporter to highlight fringe material to cast them in the most negative light possible? Of course, they are biased, but it’s even worse than that. They’re subjective. They pretend to be commentators, but they’re actually players in the game… just like everyone else. Our fates are all controlled by the immense central government worshipped by the Post. They have a vested interest in ensuring its sustained growth, so they can make their fortune writing epic tales of its heroic deeds.
Big Government makes for bad journalism. As I like to point out whenever someone like David Frum gushes over “moderates,” there is no meaningful way to be moderate when a carnivorous super-State is chowing down on huge portions of the private sector, while dismissing bedrock Constitutional rights with an irritated wave of its hand. You either resist the onslaught of the State with all your might, or bear passive witness to its expansion.
At this moment in American history, there is no functional difference between a genuine “centrist” and Dave Weigel’s right-wing “ratf**kers.” If you think you should be allowed to keep your own medical insurance, and see your own doctor, you’re taking an extreme partisan stance. If you don’t think the government should be able to revoke the First Amendment or due process rights of private corporations at its convenience, you are a declared enemy of the State.
For the same reason, journalists can only make the thinnest pretense of objectivity when covering the super-State. Merely reporting honestly on its past and current activities would qualify a journalist for associate membership in the Ratf**ker Pack. As my Green Room colleague Karl points out, some of Weigel’s most intellectually offensive emails concerned the kind of organized narrative manipulation that appears to have been the true purpose of JournoList all along. In the immense political struggle now under way, there is no room on the sidelines.
Mainstream media figures want to pose as friendly partners in an intelligent conversation, but the size and power of the government they cover makes it impossible to analyze dispassionately. In their hearts, journalists really hate the idea of seeing that exciting mega-government torn down, or they believe it’s impossible to do so. That’s why they see the new breed of aggressive, Tea Party-endorsed Republicans as either enemies or lunatics. It doesn’t help that they’re well aware of ongoing statist efforts to control or subsidize the media. Even those reporters who aren’t True Believers are reluctant to earn a spot on the enemies list of an eternally triumphant statist elite.
It’s striking how much venom Dave Weigel directed at people who never insulted him personally. In the pressure cooker of an overwhelming, and collapsing, centralized government, the personal and political are fused into a single identity. Asking uncomfortable questions is an act of rebellion, and effective resistance to the will of the elite is a declaration of war. Media operatives, who eat and drink politics with every meal, are just a little further down the spiral of bitterness and desperation that awaits us all.
Obama’s promise to bankrupt coal industry to cost 1,000 jobs in upper Midwest June 28, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , 2commentsby Ed Morrissey
During the campaign, Barack Obama promised to bankrupt any new coal-burning plants in the US through his global-warming policies. Congress has followed suit with a cap-and-trade bill that Harry Reid keeps promising to revive. One firm in Wisconsin shows exactly what happens when politicians intervene to attempt to conduct social engineering in the energy sector. Bucyrus just lost a $600 million project for a new coal-burning electricity plant in India, thanks to a decision by the Congressionally-funded US Export-Import Bank to deny the Wisconsin firm credit, based in part on Barack Obama’s policies:
Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India.
About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.
On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping out about $600 million in coal mining equipment sales for Bucyrus, chief executive Tim Sullivan said.
The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives.
“President Obama has made clear his administration’s commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future,” Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. “After careful deliberation, the Export-Import Bank board voted not to proceed with this project because of the projected adverse environmental impact.”
This decision won’t stop one carbon molecule from hitting the air. In fact, it will likely make carbon emissions worse. India will look for other vendors to supply the equipment, probably from neighboring Russia or China, as they will continue to build and operate the plant. Both nations compete in the same marketplace as Bucyrus, but they don’t work as cleanly as the American company does, which means the end result will be lower efficiency and more pollution.
Democrats like Obama keep talking about eeeeeevil corporations that export jobs overseas to save costs rather than keep them in the US. Well, Obama and his Congress just sent 1,000 jobs overseas — jobs Americans lost, and jobs that either Russian or Chinese workers will get instead. And instead of bankrupting this new coal plant, they just made it dirtier. Good job!
Two Democrats in Wisconsin, neither up for re-election, scrambled to find political cover in the wake of the devastating decision. Governor Jim Doyle and Senator Herb Kohl both publicly objected to the decision and promised to push for a reversal, even though there is no appeal at the Export-Import Bank. Senator Russ Feingold, who is running for re-election, has been quiet about the debacle thus far. The most liberal member of the Senate has expressed skepticism about cap-and-trade, but only in the way carbon allotments punish Wisconsin in order to benefit California and Massachusetts — the two states where the bill’s authors reside in both the House and Senate versions of the bill.
The best way to ensure that these kinds of decisions cease is to get rid of Democratic control in Washington DC. Wisconsin voters have the opportunity to signal their displeasure with the Bucyrus decision by canceling Feingold’s Senate career in the same way that the Export-Import Bank canceled a thousand jobs in the upper Midwest.
Ariz. Governor’s Comments Draw Fierce Criticism June 27, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Hugh Collins
Comments by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer that most illegal immigrants enter the United States to smuggle drugs rather than seek work have prompted a wave of criticism.
Speaking Friday, Brewer said that “the majority of illegal trespassers” entering Arizona “are bringing drugs in,” Fox News reported.
Now, representatives of the National Border Patrol, Mexican politicians and human rights groups are attacking her claim and calling on her to provide hard evidence to back it up.
“That governor is racist,” Francisco Loureiro, who runs an immigrant shelter in the Mexican city of Nogales, told Fox. “She has to look for a way to harm the image of migrants before American society.”
T.J. Bonner, president of the union that represents Border Patrol agents, told CNN that Brewer’s comments, don’t “comport with reality — that’s the nicest way to put it.”
In April, Brewer enacted a controversial law that grants the local police greater authority to check the legal status of people they stop. Brewer has seen her popularity soar since the bill and has traveled to the White House to discuss the law with President Barack Obama.
The White House plans to mount a legal challenge to the law, which Obama described as “misguided.”
Late on Friday, Brewer issued a statement defending her comments. The statement cited a report by the Los Angeles Times that highlighted the increasing roles of Mexican drug cartels in the business of smuggling people into the United States. Brewer added that “many federal government reports have drawn the same conclusions.”
The statement did not quell the criticism.
Jaime Farrant of the Tucson-based Border Action Network told Fox News that he has “no evidence” that most people are entering to smuggle drugs, while Mexican Senator Jesus Ramon Valdes, who represents the Mexican border state of Coahuila, said the comments were racist and ignorant.
“Traditionally, migrants have always been needy, humble people who in good faith go looking for a way to better the lives of their families,” Ramon Valdes told Fox News.
Still, some are in agreement with Brewer’s comments. On the Governor’s Facebook page, commenters described her as “gutsy”, and one called for her to run for president in 2012.
Jimmy Cuneo left a comment describing Brewer as “the only politician in the USA doing their job!”
Larry Birns, Director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, D.C., called Brewer’s comments “an exaggeration, but not by much,” as Mexican drug cartels become more and more influential in illegal immigration.
The people-smuggling industry “has gone from a sort of do-it-yourself, small guy operation, to big business,” Birns said. “There’s going to be a lot more violence on the border.”
Dodd on Financial Takeover: “No One Will Know Until It’s Actually In Place How It Works” June 26, 2010
Posted by seeineye in : Politics , add a commentby Jim Hoft
Chris Dodd told reporters this about his financial takeover bill today:
“No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.”
Let’s see… Where have we heard that line before?
What a nightmare.
Today’s piece of socialist trash passed through committee on straight party lines. House negotiators voted a party line 20-11 in favor of the final agreement; senators voted 7-5.
