No Longer Chained Down

This post may deviate from the goal of my blog because, shockingly, involves supporting a Republican, albeit hopefully a more moderate one.

I responded with my thoughts to the petition for the Electoral College to choose Clinton.

But, I was reading about the Hamilton Electors: A few Democratic Electors trying to convince the Electoral College to not vote for trump. 

Their name refers to an Alexander Hamilton(a Founding Father and first Secretary of the Treasury) quote from No. 68 of the Federalist Papers in 1788: “the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications.”

Their argument makes sense because trump obviously does not have enough qualifications for the Presidency from temperament, no conflicts of interest, experiences with governing and politics, eloquent speaking, Presidential manners, etc.. The list goes on. While these are not actual requirements, these have been expected from every President.

So, note, that if they don’t vote as pledged, they’re not voting for Clinton, who I and most Americans that voted want(By over 2 million votes and counting.).

While, Clinton being President is preferable, it’s unlikely that Republican Electors would vote for her. However, the idea the HE’s have proposed is more likely: get Republican electors to vote for a more moderate Republican, instead.

Such candidate might entice Republicans who don’t like trump.

If some Democratic Electors get on board, then perhaps this could actually happen.

Again, as always, there are challenges to this idea: 

A candidate would have to be agreed on by all Electors involved, which could be difficult for both Democrats and Republicans. Not only that, the candidate would have to go along with this. This has never been done, so this candidate may not even accept the Presidency. 

Again, states could replace the electors that become “faithless,” this may give no one 270 electoral votes required and then the whole thing would go to the US House of Representatives, with each state getting one vote. Here’s the makeup of the House delegation from each state:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_party_strength_in_U.S._states#/media/File:114th_US_Congress_House.png

So, an issue would be getting the evenly divided, “purple” states to decide who to vote for. 

Also, some Democratic Electors might have to abandon voting for Clinton.

But the focus is on the Republican Electors. We would need to convince them to abandon trump and vote for the new candidate.

Again, faithless Electors could face fines($500-1000,) jail(in a few states), and/or trouble with their party. 

This also could cause public outrage, legal debate and appeals, and get disapproval. 

This would be undemocratic, but so is the EC itself.

So, far, only about 6 Democratic Electors have agreed to this. No Republican Electors yet.

This could be feasible and certainly more so than the stuff I wrote in my post about the petition.

This won’t make Clinton President. But it might take the country in a less horrible direction. 

Just food for thought.

All of you can read more about the Hamilton Electors here:

http://www.hamiltonelectors.com/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/meet-the-hamilton-electors-hoping-for-an-electoral-college-revolt/508433/

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/23/politics/faithless-electors-donald-trump/

I call for a mass boycott of all of trump’s businesses and all companies he has stakes in. This was not my idea. This was from Thomas W. Wexler, who wrote in the Reader’s Write section of the Star Tribune, which I read. 

Here are all companies with trump’s name on it:

http://qz.com/461688/a-list-of-everything-donald-trump-runs-that-has-his-name-on-it/

Here are the top companies trump has investments in:

http://fortune.com/2016/08/09/here-are-donald-trumps-14-biggest-stock-market-investments/

The Equal Rights Amendment was proposed in 1923 by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman to constitutionally ensure equality of all genders. It is very shocking that this is not already in our Constitution.

In 1972, Congress passed this in both houses. If one is not aware of this, an amendment after being passed by Congress, must be ratified by 3/4 of the states. The really stupid part is that they set a deadline of 7 years(though they extended it 3 more years.) 

Ratification deadlines have been around since the 18th Amendment. However, this deadline serves no purpose but to fail the amendment. The SCOTUS’s most recent decision about this, Coleman v. Miller, in 1939, states that this is up to Congress, not the court, and that the Constitution does not say anything about such deadlines. 

So, back to the ERA. Thirty five states ratified it. Only three states more were needed. And then the deadline came. And five states even rescinded their ratification. This is really horrible.

But there is something we can do. Representative Jackie Speier from California and Senator Benjamin Cardin from Maryland introduced bills, in the House and Senate respectively, about a year ago that would remove the ratification deadline for the ERA. Then we need to push for state legislatures to approve the ERA. The states that still have to do this are Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. We only need eight states but the more the better.

First, tell your legislators in Congress to push S.J. Res. 15:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/15/text

And H.J. Res. 51

So, I’m referencing this petition: https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-electors-electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19

I support it but it’s not that simple. I will try to give a detailed way to achieve what the signers want to do:

I responded a little bit to the comments about the Electoral College petition. I don't mean to shoot down the idea, I just would like to say that it's not that simple. So, I would like to explain this. I want to do all this but we need to put in serious effort.

So, the electors sent from “red” states this year are picked by the GOP: http://www.vox.com/…/electoral-college-petition-clinton-tru… This is how electors are selected, if you're curious: https://www.bustle.com/…/191096-what-is-a-short-ballot-the-… They are most likely die-hard Republicans. We would need to convince at least 37 of them to vote for Clinton. They probably don’t like Clinton to begin with and in some states, risk a fine, criminal charges, breaking pledges, and getting in trouble with their party: https://www.archives.gov/fe…/electoral-college/electors.htmly

There was only one time that a faithless elector voted for another party, which was in 1972 when a Republican elector voted for the Libertarian ticket. 

I hope all of you are feeling persuasive. We would have to appeal to their better senses. Here’s a list of all electors: https://en.wikipedia.org/…/List_of_United_States_presidenti… This is for all parties of all states. So, just pick the GOP electors from “red” states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ElectoralCollege2016.svg But challenges arise with this: Some states could simply replace the electors with ones that would vote as pledged.