Well, Representative Liston made it (see previous post).
House Republicans were denied their one-vote majority for more than a week with the absence of Liston, R-Colorado Springs, who was recovering at his home from surgery to repair a detached retina.
But Liston, whose doctors told him he could not drive over Monument Hill because the altitude would injure his recovering left eye, made it to Denver today after taking State Highway 24 from Colorado Springs to Limon and then Interstate 70 to Denver.
Not one, but two state legislative tid bits today. For the first, I quote where I found the tid bit, Seth Masket‘s blog:
An amazing story out of the Colorado statehouse illustrating the dangers of narrow majorities: State Rep. Larry Liston, a Republican from Colorado Springs, just had surgery for a detached retina. His ophthalmologist told him he’s not allowed to go above 7,000 feet for the next two weeks while it heals. This means he can’t drive up to the Capitol in Denver, as I-25 exceeds that altitude at one point.
With Liston, the Republicans have a 33-32 majority. Now, the chamber has no majority party for the next two weeks, with just 2 1/2 weeks left in the legislative session. And there’s a lot of legislative business still to finish. Add to that the fact that Democrats control the state senate and the governor’s office, and there’s a lot of pressure on Liston’s retina.
Second, some of you may be aware of my love of PTI. This man is a national treasure
Well, he gave me state legislative news today. Carl Lewis cannot run for the New Jersey state senate. Go to ESPN, your source for state legislative news, to read more.
Its been a while since a state leg tid bit, so here are two…
One, did you know legislators strategically use prisons in redistricting. I actually find this extraordinarily clever. See here for more.
Second, the Oregon State Legislature:
Do you think a Harry Reid-John Boehner rendition of Rebecca Black’s Friday would prevent the shutdown? It would be hard though to sneak in “gotta have my cereal” into the congressional record. The “laboratories of democracy” should get on this.
In reading about Bernie Sanders’s filibuster today on Politico, I came across this:
Sanders’ office boasted that the Senate video servers had shut down after more than 12,000 people tried to tune in to his speech on their website.
Does it strike anyone else as odd that the Senate video servers can only serve 12,000 users at once? The Senate only needs to be able to be streamed to .004% of the population. I don’t know C-SPAN’s ratings, but this sort of seems pathetically sad that so few people watch our halls of Congress. (I fully admit, I have rarely done this myself.)
To put this in perspective, 1.15 million simultaneously streamed March Madness on CBS.com this year. To put it in sadder perspective, Billikens.com during the NIT selection show had about 5% of the simulatenous traffic that the Bernie Sanders’s filibuster today. At least America loves its basketball.
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.
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.
Gohmert: Fight Health Care Bill By Repealing Popular Election Of Senators