This may be the first TV ad ever regarding the Seventeenth Amendment
Hat tip to ColoradoPols via Enik Rising
The saddest thing is the reason I came across this….I can’t fall asleep because I can’t stop thinking about a puzzle my Seventeenth Amendment paper is presenting.
Finally, out in California, the special election runoff to fill Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado’s state senate seat looks like a probable win for Republican Sam Blakeslee over Democrat John Laird. I mention this not only because I happen to live in Senate District 15, but because more votes were cast in this special state legislative election than in today’s entire Wyoming primary. This central coast district, which runs from Santa Clara all the way to Santa Barbara, is represented by one state senator. Wyoming, as you may know, is represented by two United States Senators.
…also interpreted as California could be an outlier when it comes to state legislatures.
From Congressman Louie Gohmert via TPM with a hat tip to Sarah Binder
Gohmert: Fight Health Care Bill By Repealing Popular Election Of Senators
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is calling for a strong re-assertion of states rights against Congress — in the form of a Constitutional amendment to eliminate the direct popular election of Senators, and go back to the pre-17th Amendment setup of state legislatures appointing them.
“Ever since the safeguard of State legislatures electing U.S. Senators was removed by the 17th Amendment in 1913, there has been no check or balance on the Federal power grab for the last 97 years,” Gohmert said in a press release, calling for a constitutional convention of the states. “Article V requires a minimum of 34 states to request a Convention which in this case, would be an Amendment Convention for only ONE amendment.”
And once again, the mainstream miscalculates how many Senators would be indirectly elected. Dan Weigel incorrectly reports:
For what it’s worth, Democrats currently control 27 state legislatures, so this would be a pretty bad deal for them at present, sending them back to 54 senators. Media Matters Action has video and points out how this conflicts with the “Massachusetts elected Scott Brown, thus health care reform should die” argument of a week ago.
He is pretty close though. Democrats would have at least 54 seats. No idea how Nebraska or some tied legislatures would go.
Supreme Court Justices, law professor play with words
Tuesday, January 12, 2010; A03
Supreme Court justices deal in words, and they are always on the lookout for new ones.
University of Michigan law professor Richard D. Friedman discovered that Monday when he answered a question from Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, but added that it was “entirely orthogonal” to the argument he was making in Briscoe v. Virginia.
Friedman attempted to move on, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stopped him.
“I’m sorry,” Roberts said. “Entirely what?”
“Orthogonal,” Friedman repeated, and then defined the word: “Right angle. Unrelated. Irrelevant.”
“Oh,” Roberts replied.
Friedman again tried to continue, but he had caught the interest of Justice Antonin Scalia, who considers himself the court’s wordsmith. Scalia recently criticized a lawyer for using “choate” to mean the opposite of “inchoate,” a word that has created a debate in the dictionary world.
“What was that adjective?” Scalia asked Monday. “I liked that.”
“Orthogonal,” Friedman said.
“Orthogonal,” Roberts said.
“Orthogonal,” Scalia said. “Ooh.”
Friedman seemed to start to regret the whole thing, saying the use of the word was “a bit of professorship creeping in, I suppose,” but Scalia was happy.
“I think we should use that in the opinion,” he said.
“Or the dissent,” added Roberts, who in this case was in rare disagreement with Scalia.
via the folks at the DLCC…
…Alaska State Senate District C is the size of Texas….Texas
Well…My my….Worlds collide.
Today, the DLCC made a post about the Seventeenth Amendment, referencing this Arkansas Senate candidate who said:
“I’m not sure that the 17th amendment was a smart thing to do… We need to go back and get like the founding fathers suggested.”
Now, I am a little disappointed in my DLCC friends. They claimed that the US Senate would have 62 Democrats without number 17. Now, I have yet to thoroughly run the numbers (c’mon Minnesoata), but I believe Democrats would only have 55 seats in the Senate without the 17th Amendment. The DLCC Communications team (looking at you Matthew) really should have referenced The Southern Seventeenth Amendment Swing . If they wanted numbers, simply seek the older version posted here.
Now, I believe that the DLCC was off because they did not consider staggered terms and classes of Senators. 2008 was an interesting year. In the indirectly elected Senate, Democrats gained seats in Iowa, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. But the Republicans took Tennessee, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Kentucky.
And who said that the Seventeenth Amendment was irrelevant!
The summer before I started this blog, I was a research assistant (fancy name for intern) for Christopher Fraser MP of Norfolk Southwest. It was a pretty fun gig. He was just recently elected and had no Parliamentary staff, so it meant I got to do a bit more than busy work.
We had a good time. We campaigned for another MP, went around his district, and celebrated the Fourth of July together (see picture below of Christopher enjoying a Budweiser and Apple Pie).
Also, here we are on the roof of Parliament (Don’t know if this was legal)
Unfortunately, Christopher announced yesterday that he would not seek reelection. His wife is in poor health, and it has gotten swept up in the Parliamentary Expense scandal….And well…. it made a few headlines…
Hopefully Lisa gets well soon, and the Fraser’s get to spend more time together with Christopher out of office. I wish them nothing but the best, but is was interesting to see Christopher Fraser from Norfolk Southwest in the news today.
June 3rd Update
Sort of got mentioned in a story!
He said his staffing costs had risen by 50pc since 2005/06 as he needed extra full-time staff to help after initially starting out with interns. But he declined to give an account for the £1,792 claimed for “spouse’s travel” in 2007/08 stating that “all spouses are entitled to claim for travel”.
Less of these since leaving DLCC, but….
Lampe legislation a ‘counter to hate’
Lawmakers renamed a section of highway in Springfield that a neo-Nazi group adopted to keep litter-free after a Jewish civil rights leader.Rep. Sara Lampe, D-Springfield, got an amendment added to a transportation bill to rename a portion of West Bypass from Farm Road 142 to West Sunshine the “Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway.” Heschel marched with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Selma, Ala., Civil Rights march in 1965.
Lampe said she asked Jewish groups to nominate a religious figure to counter the Springfield unit of the National Socialist Movement, which adopted the section of road.
“It’s a counter to hate,” Lampe said.
Two signs noting the National Socialist Movement’s participation in the Adopt-A-Highway program went up last October. The Missouri Department of Transportation could not turn down the group’s application to be in the program based of its views because of the group’s First Amendment right.
A Jewish organization in Kansas City will pay for signs marking the memorial highway along the same stretch of road maintained by volunteers from the neo-Nazi group. “I’m leveling the playing field,” Lampe said.
In HB683, Rep. Bob Dixon got a provision added to rename a one-mile portion of East Chestnut Expressway from the new airport entrance road to Interstate 44 the “Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Mile.”
As I avoid another formal model of legislative behavior, I share two items that gave me a chuckle today.
First, a cartoon
And from AJ’s copassenger this week, a quote (not from the airplane ride)
Football incorporates the two worst elements of American society: violence punctuated by committee meetings.
Lee Sigelman put it a little better I think (where I found the quote).
In discussing how football has overtaken baseball in popularity, he characterized it this way:
Moreover, I think George Will got it exactly right when he proclaimed football a perfect reflection of how we now organize our society: three seconds of action followed by a thirty-second committee meeting.
Okay. Back to models I barely follow.
As I have said before, some of my favorite things about Obama are the realistic traits that come out. Some of these come out in this video, whether it be him talking about his apartment in DC, his car when dating Michelle (I encourage my father to skip to that part at about 5:30 in the video), or him just wanting to take a walk. If you have 15 minutes that you are seeking to use to avoid productivity, take some time to watch the Obama 60 minutes interview that focuses on the Personal Transition.
Also my favorite Obama “being a dad” video. Skip ahead to 6:20, they talk about getting a dog.