Republicans in Clark County have been up in arms over some new election regulations being pushed through by the Secretary of State’s Office over the holidays. I admit, the timing is very suspicious, and should alone raise all kinds of red flags. But the article on it is frustrating, because nowhere is there any hint of the actual substance of what is being protested. What, exactly, are the proposed changes and how will they harm Republicans/Democrats/minorities/America/what- or whoever? The most specific thing in the article I could find was a proposal to make people show photo ID, which I think is a very good idea, and a rule that would make it easier to vote if you’re registered but officially “inactive,” which I think is a very bad one.
The protests may well have merit – I just don’t know (please feel free to elucidate me in the comments – I legitimately would like to hear the arguments without the filter of the Associated Press). But here’s a free piece of advice to the Republicans – if you want your arguments to have any credibility whatsoever, please, please, please stop with the “Sharron Angle had the election stolen from her” ridiculousness. In order for this to hold weight, you have to imagine that Reid had this conversation with his minions:
“OK, guys. I want you to all go double vote and rig the machines for me. And also for Brian Sandoval. What? No, I know he’s a Republican. Oh, also go vote for Joe Heck over Dina Titus. What’s that? Yeah, he’s a Republican, too, and will further weaken my power amongst the Nevada delegation even if I win, but I want you to do it anyway. No, I understand the Sandoval thing could be explained as cover but the Heck thing is unnecessary. Oh, and I know it’s a long drive, but I want you all to go do the same thing in Washoe County. Yeah – and hit Mineral County, too, while you’re at it. No, no, Sandoval there, too. Just do as I say.”
Sharron Angle lost because she failed to convince a plurality of Nevadans that she could be an effective Senator, period. She spent her political career playing the politics of subtraction and burning unnecessary bridges. She was only the nominee because out-of-state groups who did not know these things about her funded her when Nevadans wouldn’t. If we ignore the lessons from her flawed campaign, we are doomed to repeat them.
And since I’m feeling the Christmas spirit still resonate, I’ll hand out the gift of free advice to the left, too. If you want to have any credibility on these election issues, quit denying that election/voter fraud takes place. It very obviously does – I’ve written this before:
In 2004, 725 King County (Seattle, WA) precincts had hundreds more ballots than voters, with 3,539 more votes than voters. That mattered that year, when the governor was decided by less than 200 votes. In 2008, several kids got busted voting in Ohio (without actually living there) while registered in other states. That same year hundreds of felons voted illegally in Minnesota, very likely throwing an incredibly tight election to Al Franken. In Massachusetts at the time of the January special Senate election last year, a state where photo ID is not required to vote, 116,483 dead people and another 538,567 people who were no longer living at the addresses on their registrations were still registered as active voters. In Florida, fraud involving absentee ballots has been uncovered, including stealing ballots from mailboxes.
I don’t like to assume nefarious motives. But denials in the face of pretty obvious and consequential fraud (always seeming to benefit Democrats, by the way) while supporting policies that allow such fraud to continue don’t exactly lead to very savory conclusions…
And Now Let’s Throw In a Little First Amendment Caselaw…
Thomas Mitchell at 4TH ST8 is trying to make a First Amendment martyr out of Citizen Outreach, claiming that the state is trying to “gag political free speech” with the AG’s attempt to fine that organization after Secretary of State Ross Miller investigated the issue. But while it’s fair to be suspicious of any government agency coming down on any political advocacy group, there was no speech suppression here. No one prevented mailers from going out. No one was gagged. There was no prior restraint. Voters still learned what they needed to learn about the candidate in question, John Oceguera, before they went to the ballot box.
The complaint is over a failure to properly disclose the expenditure.
The important and welcome Citizens United v. FEC was closely decided (5-4), but 8 of the 9 Justices, from Atonin Scalia to Ruth Bader Ginsberg, all agreed that disclosure and transparency requirements were Constitutionally OK, and I agree. (Mitchell cited Citizens United in his piece, but didn’t include that critically important piece of the opinion.) The justices all also seemed to agree that Citizens United’s anti-Hillary movie was, in fact, an express exhortation to vote for or against a certain candidate (duh), regardless of the presence or absence of “magic words” (which would be an absurd legal standard). And look – a mailer bashing one candidate shortly before that candidate is up before the voters is obviously an exhortation to vote against that candidate. To say otherwise is to whizz on my leg and tell me it’s raining.
We owe the adoption of our Constitution to anonymous political speech, and I welcome it. But when it comes to individual candidates, I frankly want to know who they’re beholden to, and I agree with the overwhelming majority of the Court that there is nothing in the First Amendment that prohibits requiring such a disclosure.
Consider – when Rory Reid set up 91 separate PACs to sidestep campaign donation limits, Citizen Outreach’s Chuck Muth justifiably called him a “lying sh*t-weasel”. But had Reid been able to hide those PACs behind a curtain of anonymity, that corruption would never have come to light, and more of it would have been invited down the road.
Consider further the outrage many of us felt when Obama was almost certainly getting illegal campaign contributions from overseas by taking advantage of loopholes in disclosure laws. Consider the outrage we would and do feel when “community organizing” groups, most of which are non-profits, try to inject themselves into campaigns, and now imagine their income sources (like George Soros or guys like William Ayers) can be secret and unlimited, when direct donations to a candidate himself would have to be disclosed.
I’m glad Citizen Outreach helped better inform the voters about Oceguera, and my distaste for that group’s president aside, I’ll fight for their right to continue doing so to the bitter end. But there was no reason for them to not comply with various campaign disclosure laws, and they hurt their efforts to prevent Oceguera from holding future political office as a result. It was a dumb thing to do, and the First Amendment won’t – and shouldn’t – protect them from the consequences.
If conservatives want to have credibility when (justly) attacking various liberal groups for being secretive and fraudulent when it comes to their election activities, our own hands have to be clean.
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I’ve always liked Secretary of State Ross Miller – remember, this is the guy who – as a Democrat – went after ACORN and actually secured some fraud convictions. And I have a LOT of very conservative friends that I trust explicitly who have known Miller well for years, and who hold him in very high regard. Whether I agree with his policies or not, that’s enough for me to give him the benefit of the doubt with regard to his motives. (And frankly, civil discourse in this country would be a whole lot further along if we didn’t automatically assume secret and nefarious conspiracy every time we have a policy disagreement with an elected official.)
But both of the above stories show why his decision to go with that “Ballot Royale” in September’s special election was so damaging. Whether his motives were partisan or not, it certainly LOOKED that way, and that perception alone undermined the credibility of his office as a fair, non-partisan arbiter of our elections.
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But stoking those flames on the other side helps no one, either, and indeed can have scary consequences. We cannot have a free society with limited government without (ironically) some measure of faith in that government. As soon as a critical mass of people believe their government is no longer legitimate or hopelessly corrupt, and rigged such that they can never change it, they start ignoring it – and that pretty quickly leads to a full on breakdown of civil society. The veneer of civilization is a thin one – ask anyone who was still in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
That isn’t to say we shouldn’t be skeptical, vigilant, and outspoken when it comes to our government officials – obviously we should. But before we start throwing out accusations of evil motives, we ought to be damned sure those accusations are fully vetted and warranted. From everythign I know so far, the above accusations against the SoS’s Office do not meet that standard.
We all live here – salting the fields and scorching the earth in a political fight – no matter how morally outraged we may feel – will starve our entire society to death.
