In recent weeks, we have seen Mitt Romney win Illinois and then Rick Santorum take Louisiana by a wide margin. Tomorrow, Romney is all but certain to win Maryland and the District of Columbia while he’s likely to carry Wisconsin. This raises a question I see a lot in the comments section: Why do blue states get to pick the Republican nominee? Take a look at the remaining primary calendar. The states that look best for Romney are mostly blue. Santorum’s best remaining opportunities remain in red states, with the significant exception of his home state of Pennsylvania. This leads many people to ask: Who cares if Romney wins states that Republicans are never going to carry in November? I understand the sentiment, but there are a few things in play here. First, the GOP delegate allocation process already does reward states with a recent history of voting Republican. Perhaps that formula could be modified or the rewards increased, but states that voted for John McCain in 2008 or elected a Republican governor since then get a boost from their GOP voting habits. Second, even in blue states with open primaries most of the Republican primary voters will end up supporting the eventual nominee. They are red voters within blue states. In some cases, like California, they can be rather conservative. Do we want to punish or disenfranchise Republicans who live in the wrong states? Third, how would you handle swing states? Should Ohio’s primary have counted for significantly less after voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 and 1996? What about Florida after it went for Barack Obama in 2008? West Virginia wasn’t a reliably red state until George W. Bush, voting for Michael Dukakis in 1988 and then for Clinton twice. It seems to me that too heavy-handed an approach to swing states that recently voted Democratic would make their Democratic voting habits a self-fulfilling prophecy. And shouldn’t the party’s goal be to make more states Republican? California once regularly voted for Republican presidential candidates while most Southern states did not. The idea is to be a national, not regional party. Finally, a sweep of the early red and purple states — Iowa, South Carolina, and Florida — by a single conservative candidate may have hobbled Romney’s candidacy long before the larger blue states even voted.
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Red States, Blue States
The left is fear-mongering on the issue of the filibuster. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid filed cloture on 17 nominees today and the left was quick to parrot the Reid talking points claiming Republican “obstruction” of these nominees. The fact of the matter is that there is no filibuster and Reid is merely setting the table so he can make hysterical arguments about Republican obstructionism. Republicans, nor Democrats, have uttered one word of debate on any of these nominations. There is no filibuster going on right now and there never was. This is a fake filibuster created by Reid. A filibuster is when a Senator takes to the floor to speak without allowing a final vote on a nominee or legislation. After a period of debate, the leader files a motion to shut off debate and then there is a vote on ending a filibuster. That is not happening in this circumstance. What is happening is that Senator Reid is invoking the Senate rules to shut down a non-existent filibuster for purely political purposes. Think Progress argues that Reid needs to file cloture on seventeen nominees to “break a filibuster.” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) announced this afternoon that he will file cloture — the Senate procedure to break a filibuster — on seventeen judicial nominees currently being blocked by Republican obstructionism . Nearly all of these nominees were either unanimously approved in the Senate Judiciary Committee or were approved with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) as the only objection. Lee, of course, promised to block all of President Obama’s nominees and he also believes that Medicare and Social Security are unconstitutional . First of all, these nominees were never blocked by any obstructionism. They were never debated. There has not been one word of debate on the Senate floor. Furthermore, if many Republicans voted for the bulk of these nominees in the Senate Judiciary Committee, it is likely that they will pass pretty easily. Reid is trying to break the back of Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) for objecting to President Obama’s unconstitutional recess appointments . Reid today filed cloture on the following nominees to the federal courts: Gina M. Groh to be U.S. District Judge for the N. District of West Virginia; David Nuffer to be U.S. District Judge for Utah; Michael W. Fitzgerald to be U.S. District Judge for the Cent. District of California; Ronnie Abrams to be U.S. District Judge for the S. District of New York; Rudolph Contreras to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia; Miranda Du to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Nevada; Susie Morgan to be U.S. District Judge for the E. District of Louisiana; Gregg J. Costa to be U.S. District Judge for the S. District of Texas; David C. Guaderrama to be U.S. District Judge for the W. District of Texas; Brian C. Wimes to be U.S. District Judge for the E. and W. Districts of Missouri; Kristine G. Baker to be U.S. District Judge for the E. District of Arkansas; John Z. Lee to be U.S. District Judge for the N. District of Illinois; George L. Russell to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Maryland; John J. Tharp to be U.S. District Judge for the N. District of Illinois; Jeffrey J. Helmick to be U.S. District Judge for the N. District of Ohio; Mary G. Lewis to be U.S. District Judge for the District of South Carolina; and, Timothy S. Hillman to be U.S. District Judge for the District of Massachusetts. This is a bold attempt to circumvent the constitutional requirement that the Senate “consent” to nominees pursuant to Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. The executive branch, in alliance with members of the same party in the Senate, can’t merely ignore the requirement in the constitution allowing the Senate to make its own rules (Article I, Sec. 5), then follow Rule 22 of the Senate’s rules that establishes a procedure to vote on nominees. What Reid wants to do is to toss out the Senate’s rules and steamroll the above referenced seventeen nominees through the Senate to prove a point and to create a talking point that Republicans are obstructionists. Thankfully, the American people will see through the rhetoric. There is no filibuster going on, yet Reid may have caused one by virtue of the fact that he is trying to bully Republicans into rubber stamping these nominees. It is important to note that the filibuster is essential for democracy and protected Americans from an even more intrusive and unpopular version of ObamaCare. The filibuster is essential for democracy, because it protects Americans from a tyranny of the majority, whether that majority be Democrats or Republicans. Right now, liberals are angry at Congress because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was not allowed to steamroll the minority party, and moderates within his own caucus, to pass a version of ObamaCare with a public option. The left wants to exterminate the only remaining tool for individual members of the Senate to slow down legislation. Now Reid is trying to steamroll Mike Lee, who is merely using his right as one Senator to force the Senate to follow it’s own rules. There is no filibuster going on yet, but the Democrats are assuming a filibuster by pre-emptively filing for cloture on a swath of nominees that may require some debate and some study before Senators “consent” to them all getting lifetime appointments to the federal courts. It should not be forgotten that the Center for American Progress (CAP) supported the filibuster when it served their purposes. In a post tiled ” The Nuclear Option ” CAP wrote “the filibuster is one of the only ways to encourage genuine bipartisan cooperation and compromise on important issues that come before the Senate.” CAP hosted a conference titled, Going Nuclear – The Threat to our System of Checks and Balances on April 25, 2005. John Podesta, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress, argued that the filibuster protected “deliberation and mutual respect.” By removing the safeguard offered by the filibuster, the nuclear option would seriously and perhaps irreparably damage an institution that has functioned since the its inception under customs and traditions that ensure an atmosphere of careful deliberation and mutual respect. Ultimately, this is not a dispute between the left and the right. It is a matter of right and wrong. It’s a choice between safeguarding our system of checks and balances or destabilizing it; between upholding the Senate’s coequal role in the confirmation progress or diminishing it. Hopefully Senator Reid and CAP are not setting the table for the same “Nuclear Option” they opposed back in 2005.
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Fake Filibuster Outrage From Left
Some old acquaintances in Carrollton, Ga., where Gingrich was a professor when he first won a House seat, revere the former Speaker as a visionary, while others focus on his personal foibles. View post: Gingrich Stirs Strong Feelings in Old District
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Gingrich Stirs Strong Feelings in Old District
OK, here’s the background: NY is losing two seats in Congress, thanks to the 2010 Census. Well, more accurately, thanks to the urban blue model of governance that has had folks fleeing those urban areas in droves – but never mind that now. As has been noted previously , the New York legislature is having a devil of a time coming up with a map that backstabs the right people and groups, which is why the courts have stepped in and may take over the process of drawing the actual maps . Given that the Republican Senate and the Democratic Assembly and whatever-gets-me-a-Presidential-nomination Governor Andrew Cuomo are currently engaged in a three-sided brawl on the subject , this may actually even happen. What makes this interesting is a report from earlier in the month that one potential plan to handle the downstate/upstate bloodletting – OK, let me explain that . The upstate districts in NY are where the GOP is strongest; the downstate districts are dominated by Democrats. The Democrats aren’t really in a position to eliminate two Republican-held seats, so the general assumption has been that one upstate GOP legislator and one downstate Democratic one will get worked over by this deal. How that would work is complicated by New York’s convoluted recent electoral history. Right now there are eight Republicans and twenty-one Democrats in the NY delegation. Of the Republicans, only one – Bob Turner, in Anthony Weiner’s old seat – is a really good pickup opportunity; the rest are either freshmen who took back established Republican seats, or Pete King (and thus probably invulnerable). Diluting Hinchley – which is what the courts may want to do – probably won’t kill the re-election chances of anybody on the GOP side. On the other hand, Democrats William Owens and Kathy Hochul are in trouble in the general election: the first one is in office because the Republicans/Conservatives decided to split their strength for two consecutive contests; and the second one is in office because Chris Lee tried to cheat on his wife using Craigslist. Shorter version: Hinchley’s retirement makes keeping Turner’s downstate seat intact a good thing for the Democratic party, because the GOP probably won’t sit still for eliminating two Republican-held seats AND NY Democrats will need something to offset two possible (and plausible) losses this fall. Believe me, trying to keep this stuff straight in my own head is difficult; I’m probably getting at least four critical details quite wrong. Anyway, the prime candidates for the downstate bloodletting would be Carolyn McCarthy and Gary Ackerman ; the two districts would be mashed together, the excess bits trimmed off and thrown at other districts, and the two Members of Congress would get to fight it out for the seat. Unless one of the two retires, of course. Rep. Ackerman, when asked , absolutely denied that he was going to retire – for that matter, he denied that his district was going to be redrawn. But there’s at least one interesting thing about Ackerman: his fundraising is reportedly in bad shape this cycle . Now, you can take that observation from the NRCC – plus, their observation that Ackerman’s sounding a lot like fellow NY Democratic Representative Maurice Hinchley , who ended up retiring- with as many grains of salt as you like. But here’s an important point; if the courts draw the maps then it doesn’t actually matter what Ackerman’s opinion is of what his district should look like. The question then becomes whether Gary Ackerman actually knows that, too… Moe Lane ( crosspost )
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NY redistricting may end in Gary Ackerman (D, NY) cutting and running?
Planned Parenthood cares so much about black babies that they will go to any length to make sure they are never born. (CNS News) – Pro-lifers including lawmakers seeking to outlaw abortions at 20 weeks or later in the District of Columbia voice concern for black babies while in the womb, but “could care less” about
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Planned Parenthood Official: Pro-Lifers “Could Care Less” About Black Babies After They Are Born…
