This Machine of Mine

Syracuse Utah Meet the Candidates Event Counters

Syracuse Mayoral Debate

Syracuse City Council Forum

South Carolina GOP tries to close primaries, and fails (thankfully)

IndependentVoting.org, a national association of independent voters and a defender of South Carolina's open primary system, hailed a federal court judge's ruling in Spartanburg today that the Greenville Republican Party did not have standing to sue to close the South Carolina primaries. In June, the State Republican Party withdrew from the lawsuit leaving the Greenville GOP as the sole plaintiff in the case which has been pending since 2010. IndependentVoting.org and a coalition of defendant/intervenors argued that without the state Republican Party's involvement, the Greenville plaintiffs did not have standing. Judge Mary G. Lewis agreed and granted the motion to dismiss.

Harry Kresky, Esq., who appeared with local counsel Fletcher N. Smith, argued the standing issue on behalf of the intervenors and said, "Today's ruling was a setback for the Greenville faction of the South Carolina Republican Party which hoped to use the court to strengthen its influence in the state party. The voters would have paid a price."

Jacqueline Salit, president of IndependentVoting.org which assembled the defendant/intervenor coalition said, "Political crossfire inside the Republican Party gave rise to this lawsuit but African American and independent voters would have been the big losers if the primaries had been closed as a result."

State Representative Joe Neal, part of the defendant/intervenor coalition added, "Today the South Carolina federal court has upheld the rights of voters in South Carolina, especially the minority community, to free and unfettered access to the polls."

Salit added "The common interest between African American and independent voters is becoming pivotal in the next wave of voting rights struggles in America."

In addition to IndependentVoting.org, the coalition of defendant/intervenors included: thirteen members of the South Carolina Black Legislative Caucus, the South Carolina Independence Party, the Progressive Network, the Constitution Party and the Columbia Tea Party.

"South Carolinians have always been fiercely independent.  As an intervenor, I am proud that we stopped the Republican Party from closing our state's primary elections," stated Wayne Griffin chair of the South Carolina Independence Party.

The Other Salt Lake Comic Con

If any non-fictional character has the power to push the Earth off its axis, it had to be some of the talented artists at the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists' convention in Salt Lake City this week.
I had a chance to visit with Daryl Cagle, Bill Day, Howard Tayler, Steve Benson, and of course Pat Bagley. I was lucky enough to get a photo with a couple of the celebs; Daryl Cagle on the left and Pat Bagley in the photo on the right (on my left).

Daryl Cagle is the mastermind behind caglecartoons.com a clearinghouse for editorial cartoons worldwide. Pat Bagley doodled his first political cartoon while in a finance class at Brigham Young University. The school paper published it and shortly afterwards it ran in Time Magazine. I guess that's a pretty good way to start off. He works primarily for the Salt Lake Tribune currently.

Independents and the Voting Rights Act

The Supreme Court didn't exactly gut the Voting Rights Act today, rather, they ruled that the antiquated tabulation metrics are unconstitutional. So Congress must act or the Voting Rights Act sits like a beached whale. But will they? Approval for congress is at historic lows, something has got to give. Among other things the VRA needs to address apparent discrimination based on partisan loyalty that has supplanted racial discrimination in elections.

In the video on the right, this Wall Street Journal reporter can't hide her giddiness. The Fox News guest makes some good points and some that don't get to the real issues of how election prejudice has evolved away from racial prejudice to ideological prejudice. The video on the left is titled "Court guts voting rights act" and also brings up some good points but still does not get to the meat of the matter.

Bipartisanship Fails Again

Bipartisanship is not a de facto virtue. Ever. Partisanship leads to a reality where public policies and institutions are manipulated to benefit the priveleged or powerful few at the expense of We The People.

Headline photo courtesy of The Salt Lake Tribune

Republicans doubling down?

Well, it appears so. "There are not enough 50-year-old white guys who are mad (at the world) to win elections.” Yet that’s the audience House Republicans are playing to in the way they craft legislation
Read more at The Moderate Voice

And locally the Democrats appear to be doubling down on a similar bet. The Tribune is reporting that at the Democratic Party State convention, delegates rejected a measure to support a switch to an open primary [full story]

Utah Legiswatch 2013--SB66

It seems the Utah Legislature tests the limits of what it can get away with every year it is in session. Two years ago in 2011 it was the showdown between the Legislature and We the People over HB477 which sought to make all correspondence with legislators secret. This year, the legislature is seeking to double or even triple the signature requirement for municipal Initiatives and Referenda (I and R) depending on location. Was this bill drafted because of the outcry of constituents? Who does the Utah Legislature actually work for? Link to SB66

Let your legislator know they work for you.

Partisan Game Ends in Sequestermate

2013 Conference of independent Voters

Independent voters and organizers from around the country gathered for a conference in New York City last Saturday. Fun was had by all and this is a small sample of the many friendly and independent faces.

Take Me to your Non-partisan Leader Earthling

A REAL political solution

This month...

19   
This month in 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, finally recognizing the right of women to vote.
"Through the activism of suffrage organizations and independent political parties, women's suffrage was established in the newly formed constitutions of Wyoming Territory (1869), Utah (1870), and Washington Territory (1883)." www.wikipedia.org
Initiated at the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, pursued for a lifetime by Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and many others, electoral equality for women was obtained on 18 August 1920 when Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment.
Well done, Sister Suffragettes!

Utah's 1000 for Election Reform

We are assembling a coalition of 1,000 volunteers to gather 100 signatures for non-partisan election reforms in Utah. Click add to place your pin on the map. In the comments for your map pin please specify if you would like to gather signatures for redistricting, open primaries, recall elections or all of them. Thanks!


Be sure to visit us at http://www.uliv.org and http://www.facebook.com/groups/uliv.org.

ROMNEY'$ unconditional guarantee

Still Overcoming

Vexed indeed

Don't Let Up!

Utah's own Abel Maldonado--Sheryl Allen

I think Utah may have found it's own Abel Maldonado. Sheryl Allen who appears in this KCPW radio program was a Republican representative in the Utah legislature. She did not run for re-election in 2010 but instead ran as a Republican Lt. Governor with Democrat Peter Corroon for Governor. Corroon did not support open primaries and predictably lost. In this program Allen indicates that just like the 17th amendment allows the people to directly elect US Senators, the voters now are plentifully informed and grown up enough to vote directly on who will appear on the general election ballot.

kcpw.org podcast link 15DEC11

First Party to 1 million in Utah is No Party

Not to be confused with the party of no, the first bloc of Utah voters to amass 1 million voters will be the unaffiliated or as we prefer independent voters--no party or party of no thanks. On May 31 the independent voter total was 987,244. Today, October 21, 2011 the total is 998,069. Harold Camping may be predicting that the end of the world is today, but Microsoft Excel is telling me that independents will officially reach the 1 million mark at 8:22 am on December 13, 2011.

Independent voter growth was roughly twice that of republican voters during the period.

Snapshot of growth: