Month: September 2015

California on verge of enacting universal (automatic) voter registration

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Update to California following Oregon’s lead on universal (automatic) voter registration.

Screenshot from 2015-09-13 13:49:14The California Senate approved a universal (automatic) voter registration bill last week with some minor amendments that will require the Assembly to vote on the amended version of the bill. Final approval of the bill could come as early as this week. California moving toward automatic voter registration:

The nation’s largest state may be about to make it much easier to register and vote.

California’s Senate passed a bill Thursday by a 24-15 vote that would automatically register to vote anyone who gets or renews a driver’s license, unless they chose to opt out. The state Assembly already passed a similar bill in June. If the Senate version passes an Assembly vote, as expected, the measure would head to the desk of Gov. Jerry Brown.

Brown, a Democrat, hasn’t taken a public position on the bill, and a spokesman for his office declined to comment on pending legislation. But in 2012 he signed legislation allowing Californians to register and vote on the same day.

Another provision that Arizona should enact to eliminate the use of provisional and conditional provisional ballots, thousands of which are never counted.

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Review: ‘Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America’, by Ari Berman

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Representative John Lewis (D-GA), an icon of the Civil Rights Movement, reviews Ari Berman’s new book, “Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America.” John Lewis: How we won, and are losing, the right to vote:

Voting-Rights[The 1963 March on Washington and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech] is the starting point of Ari Berman’s must-read book that documents the long, hard struggle for the equal right to vote in America. It begins with the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement, the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Berman clarifies beyond any doubt President Lyndon Johnson’s commitment to voting rights and skillfully describes the complex political landscape he faced in a Congress populated by legendary opponents of equality such as Sens. James Eastland of Mississippi, then chairman of the Judiciary Committee; Sam Ervin of North Carolina; and Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.

This book should become a primer for every American, but especially for congressional lawmakers and staffers, because it so capably describes the intricate interplay between grass-roots activism and the halls of Congress. Berman evenhandedly recounts how the success of the nonviolent Selma march empowered Johnson to act. But he also discusses the role that violence played in the history of the Voting Rights Act. The Ku Klux Klan murder of Viola Liuzzo, a Detroit housewife who assisted in the Selma march, paved the way for passage of the bill; but the Watts riots, which ignited just five days after the law was signed, fueled a cynical, destructive backlash against the legislation.

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Update on ‘dual election system’ lawsuit in Kansas

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NoVoteAt the end of June I posted about the status of Belenky v. Kobach (2013-CV-001331), the lawsuit in Kansas state court challenging the “dual election system” imposed by Secretary of State Kris Kobach after he lost his legal challenge to the federal voter registration form. Arizona Secretary of State Ken “Birther” Bennett imposed the same “dual election system” here in Arizona, which has been continued by Arizona’s queen of voter suppression, Secretary of State Michele Reagan. Now about that dual election system in Kansas and Arizona.

There is finally some movement in this long-pending lawsuit. The Kansas City Star reports, Kris Kobach’s dual voter registration system in Kansas is illegal and should be dumped, ACLU says:

An odd repercussion has arisen over Kansas’ proof-of-citizenship requirement for residents who register to vote.

So odd that the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas has asked a state court to put an end to the two-tiered voter registration system that Secretary of State Kris Kobach has created, a system that critics call the law’s “unintended consequence” or, less kindly, “collateral damage.”

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Pope Francis: Coming to America

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popeAll the TV networks are promising wall-to-wall coverage of Pope Francis’ visit to Cuba and the United States, but I do not recall seeing the Pope’s itinerary and schedule of events in our local newspapers yet, so here you go (subject to change). Full schedule of Pope’s visit to Cuba and the US released:

Pope Francis will take his vision of a Catholic’s approach to family life, economics, immigration and good governance to Cuba and the United States during a September 19-27 visit.

The Vatican published the detailed schedule of Pope Francis’ September 19-22 visit to Cuba and his September 22-27 visit to the United States.

Full schedule of the Pope’s visit to Cuba and the US (September 19-27):

September 19 (Rome, Havana)

10.15am Departure from Rome’s Fiumicino airport for Havana.
4.05pm Arrival ceremony at Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport. Speech by pope.

September 20 (Havana)

9am Mass in Havana’s Revolution Square. Homily by Pope. Recitation of the Angelus.
4pm Courtesy visit with Cuba’s President Raul Castro in Havana’s Palace of the Revolution.
5.15pm Celebration of vespers with priests, religious and seminarians in Havana’s cathedral. Homily by Pope.
6.30pm Greeting to young people at the Father Felix Varela cultural center in Havana. Remarks by Pope.

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Dystopia in Seattle and the Perverse Productivity Effect

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Developments related to Seattle’s recent decision to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour epitomize the ineptitude of our political discourse from both the right and the left, and reveal a dangerous disconnect from reality.

A few days ago, a Twitter attack on the left erupted, as conservatives celebrated the replacement of human cashiers at Seattle McDonalds with kiosks, which was presumed to be a reaction to the minimum wage hike. The message? “Hey you stupid liberals, see what you accomplished with your $15 per hour minimum wage? Now those McDonalds workers have no jobs at all. Ha ha.”

Step back and consider what’s going on here.

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