Florida and Michigan:
Fairness Demands That You Reward Us For Breaking The Rules That We Ourselves Agreed To
[Much of what's below is wrong--see Colin's comment below]
Boy, am I ever tired of Clinton's toadies coming on the teevee to whine about the Michigan and Florida situations. First, the sheer dishonesty of it is nauseating. But equally infuriating is that fact that the time to complain about this was before the primaries. My God. I mean, I would never dream of complaining after the fact. If you acquiesce to an early primary knowing that the national party has said that that will mean your delegation won't be seated, then you can't complain when, well, your delegation is not seated.
This reminds me, unsurprisingly, of the GOP working to change the rules after the fact in the election of 2000. Everybody--Democrats, Republicans and the voting machine manufacturers--had agreed ahead of time that hand counts were more accurate than machine counts, and that hand counts would be used should the difference in votes fall below the machine's threshold of accuracy. They'd also tacitly agreed that different methods of counting could be used in different places, so long as all methods used were fair. These positions were all perfectly reasonable. But then, when push came to shove, the GOP suddenly realized that the perfectly reasonable general methods they'd agreed to in the past might not win them the election in this particular case. So they pushed to change it all. This is almost the definition of unfairness: abandoning a well-supported general principle because it won't get you what you want in a specific case.
Florida and Michigan need to suck it up and shut up. There's no way they can reasonably cry foul at this point. This is like me acquiescing to a law and realizing full well what the punishment is, then intentionally engaging in the proscribed activities...and then objecting to the punishment. So damn infuriating I can't even listen to these people anymore.
None of this has anything to do with my sympathy for Obama, either. I'd take just the same position if the shoe were on the other foot. I'd even be fine with a do-over (or "re-do" as they keep saying on tv...though I've never heard that term before in my life), even though that would in essence let FL and MI off scott free.
But I keep hearing Clinton folks who are saying, in essence, that the ONLY thing that would be fair is to count the delegates as they are now--that is, to change the rules post facto and reward Clinton for doing what she wasn't supposed to do...and not give Obama a chance to campaign. This falls under no concept of fairness I'm familiar with.
I really am fed up with these Clinton people. It's as if they're setting out to make certain that I will never, ever vote for HRC no matter what. If so, then they're getting pretty close to achieving their goal.
A final point: since this stuff does have to be dealt with before, not after the fact, this is why we need to clean up our elections and electoral laws NOW. For example: recall that the Florida state legislature asserted that, even if Gore won a recount, it wouldn't honor the decision, and would appoint a slate of electors that would vote for Bush. That is, they claimed that, if the Republican didn't win, they'd ignore the votes and make sure a Republican was installed in power anyway.
Now, this is perfectly legal given our current system. And, again: this is the kind of thing that must be changed now, in a cool hour, not in the heat of the moment after it becomes practically important.
Fairness Demands That You Reward Us For Breaking The Rules That We Ourselves Agreed To
[Much of what's below is wrong--see Colin's comment below]
Boy, am I ever tired of Clinton's toadies coming on the teevee to whine about the Michigan and Florida situations. First, the sheer dishonesty of it is nauseating. But equally infuriating is that fact that the time to complain about this was before the primaries. My God. I mean, I would never dream of complaining after the fact. If you acquiesce to an early primary knowing that the national party has said that that will mean your delegation won't be seated, then you can't complain when, well, your delegation is not seated.
This reminds me, unsurprisingly, of the GOP working to change the rules after the fact in the election of 2000. Everybody--Democrats, Republicans and the voting machine manufacturers--had agreed ahead of time that hand counts were more accurate than machine counts, and that hand counts would be used should the difference in votes fall below the machine's threshold of accuracy. They'd also tacitly agreed that different methods of counting could be used in different places, so long as all methods used were fair. These positions were all perfectly reasonable. But then, when push came to shove, the GOP suddenly realized that the perfectly reasonable general methods they'd agreed to in the past might not win them the election in this particular case. So they pushed to change it all. This is almost the definition of unfairness: abandoning a well-supported general principle because it won't get you what you want in a specific case.
Florida and Michigan need to suck it up and shut up. There's no way they can reasonably cry foul at this point. This is like me acquiescing to a law and realizing full well what the punishment is, then intentionally engaging in the proscribed activities...and then objecting to the punishment. So damn infuriating I can't even listen to these people anymore.
None of this has anything to do with my sympathy for Obama, either. I'd take just the same position if the shoe were on the other foot. I'd even be fine with a do-over (or "re-do" as they keep saying on tv...though I've never heard that term before in my life), even though that would in essence let FL and MI off scott free.
But I keep hearing Clinton folks who are saying, in essence, that the ONLY thing that would be fair is to count the delegates as they are now--that is, to change the rules post facto and reward Clinton for doing what she wasn't supposed to do...and not give Obama a chance to campaign. This falls under no concept of fairness I'm familiar with.
I really am fed up with these Clinton people. It's as if they're setting out to make certain that I will never, ever vote for HRC no matter what. If so, then they're getting pretty close to achieving their goal.
A final point: since this stuff does have to be dealt with before, not after the fact, this is why we need to clean up our elections and electoral laws NOW. For example: recall that the Florida state legislature asserted that, even if Gore won a recount, it wouldn't honor the decision, and would appoint a slate of electors that would vote for Bush. That is, they claimed that, if the Republican didn't win, they'd ignore the votes and make sure a Republican was installed in power anyway.
Now, this is perfectly legal given our current system. And, again: this is the kind of thing that must be changed now, in a cool hour, not in the heat of the moment after it becomes practically important.
posted by Winston Smith at
9:02 AM
9 Comments:
Florida and Michigan need to suck it up and shut up. There's no way they can reasonably cry foul at this point. This is like me acquiescing to a law and realizing full well what the punishment is, then intentionally engaging in the proscribed activities...and then objecting to the punishment. So damn infuriating I can't even listen to these people anymore.
The choice to move the primary up was the decision of the (republican-controlled) state legislature and not the Michigan Democratic Party. The MDP, in fact, busted their asses to try and NOT hold the primary.
This is more like another guy making you break a law and then you objecting to being punished, at least in Michigan.
Good point, Colin, and I actually knew this, too, but it wasn't in my head. I am still rather inclined to think that the time for protest and action was before the fact. FL and MI should have appealed to the DNC ahead of time. To the extent it was out of their control, they shouldn't be punished for it...but this is exactly the kind of thing that has to be taken care of ahead of time.
Still, if they did do what they should have ahead of time, then they shouldn't be punished. This means some kind of do-over. The one option that's clearly out is to seat delegates on the basis of a primary in which only one person actually participated.
Thanks for the correction!
Winston, I haven't heard that story about the Michigan primary--in fact, I had thought that the dems had figured they would take a chance. But I know that the Florida dems made that claim, but it was a real dog and pony show. There's a video on youtube of the critical minutes in the committee meeting. I can't remember who the Democrat is--some big fat guy, pro tempore minority whip(?)
[BFG gets the message about the DNC threat, from the back of the room]
BFG: The minority leader just reported that the DNC will sanction us if we go ahead and have the primary early. So the minority wishes to formally protest this proceeding, for the record.
Chair: So you are objecting to an early primary?
BFG: Oh no, Mr Chairman, this is just a formal protest for the record. We really, really want this to happen. [chuckle]
Chair: OK, I see. Please don't throw me in that bramble patch.
[General laughter]
I can't remember it word for word, but this is pretty close.
-mac
recall that the Florida state legislature asserted that, even if Gore won a recount, it wouldn't honor the decision, and would appoint a slate of electors that would vote for Bush. That is, they claimed that, if the Republican didn't win, they'd ignore the votes and make sure a Republican was installed in power anyway.
Now, this is perfectly legal given our current system.
Very good. You understand Bush v. Gore after all, and why the majority simply made a pragmatic decision to ensure the 2001 inauguration went on according to schedule. They cut to the chase.
[And why they explicitly said their pragmatic---not principled---decision should never be used as precedent in the future.]
Of course, TVD can't grasp (or won't) the difference between the Florida legislature and the Bush campaign, nor between a visibly hijacked election and the false imprimatur of legitimacy that the unprincipled hacks on the Supreme Court gave to the Bushists. He'd believe anything that served to defend his ideology. That's what he prefers - facts are stupid things, as Atrios says.
TVD prefers the facts, just as WS stated them, and which you just ignored. As usual.
TVD prefers to speak of himself in the third person! Me, too.
WS made a perfectly reasonable complaint about the real threats in current law to legitimate elections that actually reflect the will of the voters. TVD, you then made some inchoate point that conflated various selected aspects of the law with other aspects in ways certainly never at issue in Bush v. Gore, and then you followed it up with your interpretation of events - as if you had been in chambers.
Yet you're just interested in the facts! Uh-huh. As you make them up.
Actually, WS brought up Florida 2000 in the course of his dizzying screed. Since he brought up the topic in a recent post---and there was an exchange of comments about it---I simply closed the circle.
But you're not interested in discussing this or anything else intelligently. You just like to fight.
Seven Justices of the Court agree that there are constitutional problems with the recount ordered by the Florida Supreme Court that demand a remedy. See post, at 6 (Souter, J., dissenting); post, at 2, 15 (Breyer, J., dissenting). The only disagreement is as to the remedy. Because the Florida Supreme Court has said that the Florida Legislature intended to obtain the safe-harbor benefits of 3 U.S.C. § 5 Justice Breyer’s proposed remedy–remanding to the Florida Supreme Court for its ordering of a constitutionally proper contest until December 18-contemplates action in violation of the Florida election code, and hence could not be part of an “appropriate” order authorized by Fla. Stat. §102.168(8) (2000).
For Florida, I refer you to the blog of Floridian Bryan Dumka, "Why Now?" He posted a review of his posts on the situation.
In the comments of this post he asserts that there is a lawsuit that could lead to the Democratic candidate being excluded from the ballot in Florida for the general election.
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