SC Governor Eliminates Funding for 2012 Republican Presidential Primary

On June 28, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, a Republican, deleted funds from the state budget that were intended to help pay for the first-in-the-South 2012 Republican presidential primary. Haley said primaries didn't merit state money because they are not a core government function. Nonetheless, Haley said the primary would go on.

"We are going to have the best South Carolina presidential primary we have ever had," Haley said. "And we're going to do it in the way that it was intended to be, which is with private funds where each party goes and raises the money that they're supposed to raise," Haley said.

State GOP Chairman Chad Connelly said Monday the party will raise money to put on the contest that the state Election Commission estimates will cost $1.5 million.

Haley said she'd help raise money. "Whenever they have a fundraiser and I'm needed, I will be there," Haley said.

The Republican Party will now raise the primary costs from private sources. The party already has collected $160,000 from filing fees and expects more from candidates who want to take part.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

NY Districts Held Hostage by Prisoners

As part of New York's redistricting an unlikely group of nonvoters, prisoners, will affect new district political lines.

In early 2010, about 62% of the state's prisoners hailed from NYC but were housed upstate. But under a law signed by the last Governor, David Paterson, the state's prison population will be counted from were they lived before heading to prison and not were they are housed. This law change will cause vote dilution of certain upstate communities by moving this phantom population from upstate Republican districts to downstate Democratic districts. So upstate Republican State Senators have filed a lawsuit in April and asked an Albany judge to invalidate the law change. This change will shape the Republicans' efforts to retain the State Senate.

In passing the law, New York was one of the first states, along with Maryland and Delaware, to mandate counting prisoners in their home district.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

Democratic Governors Fight Voter ID Bills

A wave of voter suppression legislation is emerging from newly elected GOP governors and Republican legislators that would make it much more difficult for traditional Democratic constituencies to vote, just in time for the 2012 election. About a dozen states are are actively considering legislation that would make voting much more difficult for college students, minorities, the elderly and the disabled.

Wisconsin
The law would would require a photo ID for the first time in Wisconsin history and only a very narrow range of ID's would qualify. Voters would have to show a Wisconsin driver's licenses, state-issued ID cards, military IDs, passports, naturalization certificates, IDs issued by a Native American tribe based in Wisconsin or certain student IDs. Students not living in dorms would have to show fee payment receipts. Common Cause Wisconsin characterizes the Wisconsin measure as "the most restrictive, blatantly partisan and ill-conceived voter identification legislation in the nation."

While Governor Scott Walker has pushed forward an anti-union agenda with gusto and justified the push by repeating that "Wisconsin is broke," money is apparently not a concern when it comes to voter suppression. AB-7 is expected to cost the state some $5.7 million. That includes $2.2 million for the Government Accountability Board, almost $2 million for the Transportation Department (to cover employee expenses and the cost of free IDs) and more than $1.6 million if universities chose to remake student IDs.

The Isthmus reports that there were some modest changes to the bill in committee: "Most significantly, the Assembly version would include university-issued student identification cards as an acceptable form of ID. But there's a catch: the student IDs must include a current address, birth date, signature and expiration date, requirements no college or university in Wisconsin currently meets."

Ohio
House Bill 159 was passed on March 23, 2011 by the Republican led Assembly and is now awaiting a Senate vote. HB 159 would require all voters to show a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot in person. Five forms of photo identification make the bill's list: an Ohio driver's license, state ID card, military ID, U.S. passport or a new photo ID being issued by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles to citizens who qualify. College IDs would be unacceptable.

Those who oppose the bill say close to 1 million voters in Ohio will be disenfranchised. Rock The Vote, a campaign protesting the changes, says: "Under this bill, more than 600,000 students in Ohio would be restricted from using their student IDs to vote and over 40,000 out-of-state students who are legally registered Ohio voters would be out-of-luck. An estimated 25 percent of African Americans and 18percent of seniors wouldn't have the right kind of photo ID under HB 159."

North Carolina
The Republican General Assembly in North Carolina wants to pass a proposal that would require a state-issued ID at the time of voting, eliminate same day registration at early voting sites and disallow 16 and 17 year olds to pre-register.
Duke University's Student Free Press reports that Democrats in the Assembly say the changes would disenfranchise people who traditionally vote Democratic like African Americans, college students and the elderly. "State Sen. Martin Nesbitt, D-N.C., argued that these groups often do not have state-issued photo IDs, adding that the requirement serves as a partisan roadblock to keep these demographics from voting. 'It is blatant voter intimidation—there is absolutely no problem with voter fraud. It's a political bill,' Nesbitt said. "It's fine to play politics. It's not fine to disenfranchise people."

Maine
Citing problems with voter fraud as a reason to end election day registration and require people to present a photo ID prior to voting, Maine legislators are trying to pass two bills that would disenfranchise 11 percent of the state. Maine has one of the highest voter turnout rates in the country. Apparently, Maine Republicans think this is bad for democracy.

The Sun Journal reported that in early March, "A legislative panel [Joint Finance Committee] voted 6-6 along party lines to recommend LD 199 to the Legislature ... Same-day registration could soon come to an end under a bill [LD 203] proposed by Rep. Gary Knight (R-Livermore Falls). His bill, which has yet to be heard by the committee, would halt voter registration seven days before an election."

LD 199 and LD 203 would cost the state "millions of dollars as well." Neither bill has been voted on yet in the Senate or Assembly.

Florida
"Florida is on the verge of passing a law that will make it harder for groups like Rock the Vote and volunteers to register voters, harder for you to cast your ballot, and, ultimately, harder to have your ballot counted," states the Rock the Vote website. Bill HB 1355 would disallow address changes at the polls, end volunteer-run voter registration drives, limit early voting periods, as well as greatly increase the number of provisional ballots used.

Florida's League of Women Voters (LWV) said the bill "when taken as a whole, unduly burdens Supervisors of Elections and third-party voter registration groups and assumes that voters are guilty until proven innocent."

The New York Times reported that the bill "would tighten the rules on third-party voter registration and limit the number of days early voting can take place, an effort that Democrats portrayed as blatant voter suppression" The Florida Senate passed the bill last week, 25-13. It will most likely pass in the Assembly.

Texas
SB 14 is awaiting the governor's signature to become law. The bill amends the Texas Election Code to "require a voter to present an acceptable form of photo identification in order to cast a ballot. Acceptable identification includes a drivers license or personal identification card issued by the Department of Public Safety, a U.S. military card, a U.S. citizenship document with photograph, a U.S. passport, or a state-issued concealed handgun license. Exceptions to these requirements are made for those 70 years of age or older and who have a disability rating of 50 percent or greater."

As Republican governors implement unfair, unjust new voter suppression laws, two states with Democratic governors are championing Americans' basic voting rights.

Just this past week, Democratic Governors Jay Nixon of Missouri and Bev Perdue of North Carolina, leaders in two crucial swing states, vetoed laws pushed through by Republican controlled legislatures that would have severely hampered people’s ability to vote.

As this blog has consistently been fighting any kind of voting suppression, we all need to take part in our own way to allow every registered voter the opportunity to select their candidates and stop candidates selecting their voters.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

Election to Replace NY Rep. Anthony Weiner

Judging by vote tallies, Anthony Weiner's constituents were satisfied with his congressional service. In the most recent election, they backed him with 61% of the ballots. But he punished them with behavior that cost them both representation and seniority. Now, Gov. Cuomo should not double the penalty by handing the choice of Weiner's successor to the Queens and Brooklyn Democratic Party bosses.

It has been widely reported that voters will go to the polls in a "special election" to pick someone for the seat that Weiner is vacating. The implication is that district residents will get to consider a field of contenders. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The term "special election" has a particular meaning in New York. It signifies that the Democratic Party bosses will place one and only one candidate on the ballot and present just that person to the voters for ratification. There is another way to go about it. One that, by an accident of timing, fits expeditiously with the 2011 calendar for conducting a previously scheduled off-year election.

The procedure calls for candidates to gather ballot petition signatures, present them to the Board of Elections by July 14 and face one another in a Democratic primary on Sept. 13, followed by a Nov. 8 general election. That's what Weiner did in first running for City Council in 1991, a primary in which he won by only 200 votes. That's what Weiner did in his initial 1998 House campaign, a primary contest in which he bested the competition by fewer than 500 votes. And that is what the law allows when an elective office is vacated in New York.

Gov. Cuomo has two choices as to how he will fill The seat, and the other four seats, in the coming months: He can call a boss-driven "special election" or he can allow candidates to vie in open primaries.

No one disputes that the law gives the governor the power to go with either option. In the case of filling a vacant congressional seat, however, some argue that Article I of the U.S. Constitution ties Cuomo's hands. They point to a provision mandating that governors "shall issue Writs of Election to fill" vacancies in the House of Representatives instead of appointing a new member. They then say a) that this requires Cuomo to issue an order; b) that he can only "order" a special election; and c) that the Constitution thus bars full voter participation.

Cuomo should not insult Weiner's constituents to the benefit of bosses Joe Crowley of Queens and Vito Lopez of Brooklyn. Nor should he impose "special elections" on residents of the legislative districts where seats are vacant. The governor should give all the voters the complete say they deserve.

Even before the disgraced Democrat finished his resignation speech Thursday, elected officials and political operatives were jockeying for his congressional seat - even though it could come with an eviction notice. Redistricting could knock Weiner's Queens-Brooklyn district off the map, but it's still a seat in Congress - and at least nine Democrats and two Republicans are said to be mulling the job.

"You'd be a congressman and anything can happen if you're a congressman," said Assemblyman David Weprin (D-Queens), who said he's "not actively lobbying" for the gig but "wouldn't rule it out." "At least for the next year and a half that that seat is in existence, the district is going to need a very capable, aggressive legislator to represent the needs of the district," added Assemblyman Rory Lancman (D-Queens). "The thought of doing it is very sobering."

Other Democrats in the mix include Queens Council members Jim Gennaro - who said he'd be "an excellent candidate," but hadn't made up his mind - Elizabeth Crowley, Peter Vallone, and Mark Weprin; former Council members Melinda Katz and Eric Gioia - and a labor lawyer named Cody McCone. All have said they've been approached about the job, though none actively declared their candidacies amid uncertainty over how the seat will be filled.

Meanwhile Republicans see an opportunity. Bob Turner, the GOPer who took nearly 40% of the vote against Weiner last year is mulling a run. So is Councilman Eric Ulrich and construction worker Andrew Sullivan, who was involved in protesting a proposed mosque near Ground Zero. "The district is trending Republican and with all that's going on, I believe we have a good chance to capture that seat," said Queens Republican boss Phil Ragusa.

The other options for the Governor is to wait until the General Election to save money or since NY will lose one seat of the two seats in downstate from the 2010 Census, this seat could be eliminated. Do the Dems put in a place holder, who would want that seat? The Repubs could use this to give a new candidate exposure for future elections.

With the theme of this blog, an Open Primary were all the registered voters in this district picking their next representative is the only option for the Governor.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

Independents Launch Campaign to Lobby Congress

Independentvoting.org has a new campaign calling on Congress to conduct hearings into the structural biases against independent voters has gotten off to a promising and eventful start. Democracy wins when independents are included.

The Bill of Particulars is a call for Congressional Hearings:

VOTER RIGHTS VS PARTY RIGHTS, INDEPENDENT VOTERS TREATED AS SECOND CLASS CITIZENS which highlights the various ways independents are disadvantaged. The Bill of Particulars was developed by a committee led by Steve Richardson of VA, and included Kim Wright, SD, Carl Farmer, RI; Bryan Puertas, NY and Catana Barnes, NV.

Click the above link to read the Bill of Particulars.

Michael Lewis and William Bowe from Independent Kentucky (IK) met with Congressman John Yarmouth. IK has been leading a fight to open the primaries. Said Lewis "We highlighted how Kentucky and other states in this nation are keeping willing voters out of the process. We informed him we are going to bring him petitions and postcards from people in his district who support these issues." Rep. Yarmouth acknowledged that open primaries create a more representative government.

New York County Independence Party Chair Cathy Stewart, and Vice Chair, Alvaader Frazier, Esq. met with Congressman Edolphus Towns on June 7th. Rep. Towns from Brooklyn, who is very familiar with the grassroots organizing record of the Independence Party in New York City, is a member of the Subcommittee on Government Organization, Efficiency and Financial Management. Towns unhesitantly said that he would like to help, that Congress should hold hearings to explore the barriers independents face, and that it is important to work to expand the number of people that are participating. He indicated that if he were still the chair of the committee, he would just hold the hearings, but since he is not, he has to request hearings. Frazier commented: "It is left to us ordinary Americans to work for a more perfect democracy and the inclusion of all citizens in the democratic processes of our government. This campaign will take us closer to the structural reforms we as progressive independent leaders have been working/fighting and demanding for decades. Congressman Towns support signals that this campaign can succeed and Congressional hearings are in reach."

Catana Barnes of Independent Voters of Nevada (IVON) met with the chief of staff for Senator Dean Heller who promised to brief Senator Heller about IVON's wishes for him to push for Congressional Hearings. The staffer confirmed that sending letters to the Senator will really make a difference, so Catana is hitting the streets to gather dozens of letters.

Mike Pickering and Murray Dabby of Georgia Independent Voters collected 24 signed letters in an hour and a half outside the Virginia-Highland Arts & Crafts Festival fairground in Atlanta. Dabby noted that many people, Democrats and Republicans included, were responsive to the call for hearings. They also met many strong independents who were glad to learn of a national effort to organize independents.

Summer fairs are in swing and Michael Lewis, Alex Kemble and the Independent Kentucky team set up a booth at both the New Castle Spring Fling and the Hillview City Fair. Housed with an attractive Independent Kentucky banner and a flat screen TV which featured Lewis on CNN talking about open primaries, the crew gathered dozens of signatures on letters to Congress and a petition to support open primaries.

There are countless ways to reach out to others and build this campaign. Bob Friedman of Independent Alabama sent an email to his network asking them to write to their Congress members.

At a house party held in San Francsico, California at the home of Aaron Hammon, Jason Olson of Independentvoice.org reported that most attendees signed letters on the spot and also promised to email the letter to their networks.

100 Letters were signed at the New York City Independence Party's Spring Reception last Monday which honored several South Carolina leaders for their role in litigation which stopped the Republican Party from closing the primaries.

Use this link:

http://library.constantcontact.com/download/get/file/1101755064926-303/Letter.to.Congress.pdf for a copy of the letter.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

Will NY Redistricting Go Independent?

This post from The New York morning roundup from City Hall and The Capitol, HEARD AROUND TOWN.

Former Mayor Ed Koch is counting on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to keep his pledge to veto any redistricting plan that doesn't include an independent commission. With independent redistricting going nowhere in the Capitol, Koch expects a veto will throw the issue to federal court, where a judge will draw the kind of rational lines advocates have long sought.

"I have the pledge of the governor - and I spoke with him recently - that he will veto it," Koch said. "He considers this one of his priorities."

With the results of the redistricting in CA from an Independent Commission, the pols are up in arms, I wonder what the Governor will do.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

Ruckus Political Social Network

I caught a small portion of an interview that Nathan gave about this new project.

Mike Allen has revealed in his daily Politico Playbook that Nathan Daschle — son of former Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) — is starting Ruckus, a social network for political organizing. The service will help parties “outside the two-party system” help organize themselves and campaign.

"There’s no doubt that political communication post-Obama has been rife with social networking strategies and campaigns, and to see a service start from within the political world is only a sign of things to come. Will we eventually see giant social networks dedicated to political parties? Demobook and Republitter? I wouldn’t be surprised, as the reaffirmation for users would be a social graph full of people that share your beliefs. People love that stuff."

"Nathan Daschle, executive director of the Democratic Governors Association for the past four years, is leaving to launch Ruckus, Inc., an online social-networking platform to give individuals the ability to organize themselves for political purposes outside the two-party system. The technology is being developed now, and Nathan is building an advisory board of independent-minded leaders in the political, technology and media worlds. He hopes to launch in late winter/early spring with Ray Glendening, the DGA’s political director."

The idea would be you would join and answer question about your interests and where you are. Then you could find others with those interest, what they are doing, who they support, etc.

Details are very scarce but we’ll keep an eye on the project.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

30% of Likely Voters Like Third-Party Option

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 30% of Likely U.S. Voters, given a choice between President Obama and one of the potential Republican presidential candidates, thinks 2012 would be a good year to consider electing a third-party candidate.

53% disagree and say electing a third-party candidate would not be a good option with the current likely candidates. Another 18% aren’t sure.

A plurality (46%) of voters not affiliated with either major political party favor the idea of electing a third-party candidate if faced with a match-up of Obama and one of the likely GOP candidates.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of Republicans and 69% of Democrats, on the other hand, don’t think 2012 is shaping up as a good year to consider electing a third-party nominee.

What do you think of a Third Party?









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

Notes on Getting Out of the Partisan Trap

Too of my good friends and associates wrote this article. Use the above link to read the entire article on HuffPost Politics.

"Here is a step outside the box. Have America empower a committee of independents, of non-partisans, from industry, from the communities, from academia and think tanks, from citizenry of all walks of life, to collectively consider these issues. Have this committee selected through an online, transparent, democratic process. This is not a forum to hammer out a "bi-partisan compromise." Its mission is to formulate an approach from outside the standard political alignments, one that gives support to the President to govern outside the partisan grid. That way, the process of dealing with such a problem notably chips away at the institutional arrangements which sustain special interest control of policy making. One final note: it would give Obama a freer hand to advocate for his most important constituency, the American people."

MICHAEL HARDY is counsel to the National Action Network and Reverend Al Sharpton.

HARRY KRESKY is general counsel to IndependentVoting.org and the country's leading legal advocate on behalf of independent voters.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us

NY Senate Passes Bill Setting Up the Initiative Process

This post is from Ballot Access News.

On June 7, the New York State Senate passed S709, which proposes a change to the New York State Constitution. It would create the initiative process in New York, for statewide laws, and also for local government. The vote was 47-15. All of the “no” votes were Democrats. Now the bill goes to the Assembly. If it passes there, because it is a proposed constitutional change, it must pass both houses of the legislature again in 2013. Then the voters would decide in November 2014 whether to pass the idea.

Ballot Access News says: "It will be interesting to see if Independent Voting, formerly known as the Committee for a Unified Independent Party, and before that the New Alliance Party, will support S709. That group is very well organized in New York City. Virtually all the “no” votes in the Senate were New York City Senators. The bill would require a statewide initiative to obtain a number of signatures equal to 5% of the last vote for Governor. Currently that number is 232,709."

A reader of Ballot Access News comment: "Unfortunately, this is not being proposed to actually provide for initiative in New York. It is the Republicans alternative to having to vote on same-sex marriage equality. They’ve been avoiding making commitments by saying that the voters should make the decision. So instead of implementing equality now, which is what the polls say NYers want, the Senate Republicans would make us wait 4 more years."

I wrote about I&R before. I do not think we want the version in CA. I want I&R but think we would need some type of independent board review to make sure the actual written law works.









NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
Technorati Tag in Del.icio.us