#ncga: More on the redistricting ruckus
Another important revision to the election process pushed through by the honorables: Runoffs are not just canceled for the congressional races. They are done away with for EVERYBODY.
So, you could very well have party nominees emerge from March or June with 25 to 30 percent of the vote. How democratic is THAT? I know the governing class will moan to us about the expense of runoff elections. I wish they were as concerned about the expense of so much of the utter CRAP they perpetrate during session.
It’s now to a primaried incumbent’s advantage to have a crowded race. It lowers the threshold he or she needs to cross in order to make it to November and 2/4/6 more years at the public trough.
Another interesting question involves campaign finance. With the passage of our new LBJ rule, candidates can run in one primary in March and another in June. How does that work in terms of campaign finance? Can Jones Street ”honorables” running for reelection in May also dip into their legislative campaign funds to pay for a run for Congress in June? Will they have to establish separate bank accounts? Can funds raised for a reelection bid to Jones Street be used to fund a congressional campaign? Can they simply be shifted from a legislative campaign account to a brand spanking new congressional campaign account?
This sucks big time. Whoever is responsible for this travesty needs to be primaried big time, but since the filing period is over, if they do not have a primary or if they survive that primary, they need a conservative independent running against them in November.
Until we real runoffs back, conservatives need to run our candidates as independents in the general election. Screw the GOP primary the way the lousy establishment has screwed it up. These despicable establishment incumbents have screwed the voters to feather their own political nests.
What makes this even worse is that unaffiliateds can vote in the GOP primary, so non-Republicans could push through a nominee and run over actual Republicans. Most of those going unaffiliated these days are Democrats and they are more liberal than the GOP base.
Is this a permanent change in our election law or something just for 2016? Who was really responsible? A sneaky underhanded trick like this reeks of the stench of David Lewis.
It seems that we have some in our own party in the legislature who are hell bent on fundamentally transforming our election procedures in a way that is very negative for the voters, although it may help certain politicians. These provisions with far reaching negative effects on our election process are slipped into bills, often at the last minute, where they do not get the rigorous debate that such changes demand. Not only are the voters blindsided, but so, I suspect, are the leaders of our own party who get no input on these matters.
This problem has been a hall mark of this legislative session, where we have seen it used to:
– gut the Voter ID bill by allowing affidavits
– change our longstanding proportional division of national convention delegates to a winner take all system (this was requested of a powerful state senator by the Scott Walker campaign; it was reversed by the state GOP executive committee, which fortunately had the power to do so)
– create ”affillated committees” to allow the legislative leadership to bypass the party structure and rules and get into primaries
– end runoff elections (an EXTREMELY undemocratic and very dastardly move)
– allow politicians to run for more than one office at a time
– move our non-presidential primaries to March, creating a disadvantage to challengers
Given that our own legislators are doing these things, maybe it is time to change the rules and allow the party to get into primaries. There should have been broad consultation with the party on all of these, or they should not have been done. There should also have been time for the public to learn about these proposals and have input.
I note a common excuse of ”saving money”. That is not a legitimate excuse for gutting democracy. There are plenty of other places in the budget to save money that do not compromise democracy.
My county already is getting into Primaries on the grounds that we shouldn’t be held to rules that NCGOP neither obeys nor enforces where our legislators are concerned. Time for everyone else to do the same.
As a teaparty conservative and an unaffiliated voter, I know that most UA voters are not former democrats but republicans. Yet, conservative democrats should be welcomed to the unaffiliated ranks. Considering all of the corruption being done to our electoral process by the GOP Ledership, it’s easy to understand why enlightened democrats would not want to switch to the Crony Capitalist party (GOP). The idea of real conservatives skipping the managed and controlled primaries and running in the general election is a sound strategy. Now, all we have to do is identify such candidates, create independent PAC’s to fund such campaigns and overcome the qualifications imposed by the Establishment.That is if there is a political solution to our problems?