Sunday, November 30, 2008

Sarah Travels to the Peach State to Campaign for Senator Saxby Chambliss

by W. T. Howes

On Tuesday, Georgia voters will go to the polls to vote in a runoff election for United States Senate.  Senator Saxby Chambliss is the quintessential Republican.  He is a terrific spokesman for true American values.  Senator Chambliss has invited Sarah Palin to join him in the Peach State to help rally the Republican faithful.

Senator Saxby Chambliss is a true Georgia gentleman.  He is a great Republican.  He deserves six more years in Washington.  More importantly, Georgia needs him in the Senate.  And even more importantly, the nation needs the gentleman from Georgia to protect her from unchecked liberal Democrat rule.

It is best to hear Senator Chambliss tell us in his own words what values he brings to the Senate:

Senator Chambliss, rowing upstream in a tough Republican year, earned 49.8 per cent of the vote in the November 4, general election.  He outpolled his Democrat challenger by three points.  A Libertarian candidate pulled 3.5 per cent of the vote.  Georgia election law requires a runoff election between the top two vote getters when no one candidate breaks the fifty per cent mark.

The polling is favorable to Senator Chambliss.  The Real Clear Politics average of polls taken between November 18 and November 25 shows him earning 51 per cent to his 46.3 per cent for his challenger.  The Real Clear Politics average was only 0.8 points off the actual margin in the November 4, general election.

This runoff is crucial to all of us.  Senator Chambliss would be the 41st Republican if he wins.  With 41 (hopefully 42 when Norm Coleman’s re-election becomes final) Republicans in the Senate, the Republicans will be able to fillibuster liberal legislation.  The filibuster might be the only way to stop the liberal juggernaut inside the Beltway.

Sarah and Saxby will make four joint appearances:  Augusta (8:30 am), Savannah (11:00 am), Perry (1:30 am) and Metro Atlanta (4:00 pm).  When the game is on the line, Saxby is turning to the nation’s most popular Republican.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

To My Fellow Conservatives: The Legal Issue of BHO’s Citizenship is Moot (for now)

by W. T. Howes

The time to challenge President-elect Obama’s citizenship has long since passed.  Based on long-standing principles of election law, opponents must raise defects in nominating petitions, including the eligibility of the candidate, at the time of the filing of the nominating petition.  Petitions were filed in late 2007 and early 2008.  There were no legal challenges And not for nothing:  Don’t you think that Senator Clinton would have raised this issue in order to keep BHO off the ballot?  Citizenship will remain as a political issue, and may return as a legal issue in 2012.

In the weeks that have passed since the general election, there has been much legitimate debate in the conservative blogosphere about President-elect Obama’s citizenship.  The debate follows litigation filed by Phil Berg (Pennsylvania), Leo Donofrio (New Jersey) and Alan Keyes (California).  All three of those suits raise interesting points of law and fact.  The bottom line is that no court will - or should - now bar BHO from taking office in 2009.

Some well-established principles of election law have been at work in the Obama case:  Voter choice, ballot clarity and efficient administration of elections, to name three.  Unfortunately, none of the interested bloggers have discussed these principles.

President-elect Obama was nominated in each of the fifty states (except Michigan), Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia in the manner mandated by the election law established in each of those jurisdictions.  There are general principles of election law that underlie the process in each state and territory.  A nomination is established, with a few exceptions, by a nominating petition filed by the legal deadline with the chief election law in the state or territory.  There are a minimum number of signatures required, and qualifications for people who sign the nominating petition.

There are a number of ways that a petition can be deficient.  If a petition is deficient, the appropriate election officer can refuse to permit the candidate on the ballot.  If that does not happen, the petition is subject to legal challenge by opposing candidates.  There is a very short window of opportunity for such a challenge.  Bases for petition challenges fall into three basic categories:  (1) Insufficient number of qualified nominating signatures; (2) technical deficiencies; and (3) the nominee lacks legal or constitutional qualifications or suffers from a constitutional or legal bar to serve in the particular office.
The reasons for the short time period for petition challenges are clear:  The ballots must be prepared in a timely and orderly manner.  Once they are prepared, the voters and the candidates then can rely on the ballot as prepared by the election official.  In that time-honored manner, the voters know what their choices are and can be confident that their choice will be honored.

In the Obama case, not one of his opponents challenged any one of his petitions in any state or territory.  Election litigation is one of the hallmarks of the Democratic Party.  Indeed, President-elect Obama has benefitted from outstanding lawyering both in his initial State Senate election (in which his lawyers had the incumbent disqualified) and in his U.S. Senate election (in which his lawyers were able to push the incumbent out of the race).  Sentator Clinton had dozens of outstanding election lawyers on her team.  Some of her political allies served as chief election officers in the states and territories.  She had the knowledge.  She had the opportunity.  She had the ambition.  And Team Clinton is certainly capable of hardball politics.

Despite all that, Senator Clinton did not challenge any of the Obama petitions based on his legal or constitutional qualifications to hold office.  Why?  Lack of gumption?  No.  Lack of knowledge?  No.  Lack of resources?  No.  Perhaps Senator Clinton did not make such a challenge because her research indicated that BHO was legally and constitutionally qualified to hold the office.

Interested observers have asked:  Well, why didn’t Obama produce his vault birth certificate to be examined in a court of law?  The answer is easy:  Because the legal issue was never properly framed in a petition challenge.

Now that the general election has taken place, it is too late to disqualify a candidate.  The electorate in the states and territories had a very long period in which to consider their choices both in the primary and in the general.  No court should now reverse those elections and the choices of one hundred and twenty million people.  To do so would be to invite legal and civil chaos.  To do so would create a power vacuum which could be a national security threat.
Citizenship will remain as a political issue for many, and it may return as a legal issue once the future President Obama begins to file nominating petitions for his re-election.  But for now, the citizenship is moot as a legal issue where the 2008 election and 2009 inauguration is concerned.

W. T. Howes resides in New Jersey with his wife and two children.  He practices law with a specialty in election law.  He is a founder of Men for Palin.  He formerly published under the pen name Charles W. Fairbanks.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

Congratulations to “Draft Sarah Palin”!

by TheTruthSquad

Draft Sarah Palin for VP is the grandaddy of all pro-Palin sites in the blogosphere.  It is the Patient Zero of all Palin Blogs.  MFP has previously paid tribute to our colleagues, and would like to congratulate them now on the occasion of their selection by the Library of Congress as an historic blog for the 2008 election.  “Draft Sarah Palin for VP” showed how true and persistent grassroots blogging can change the course of an election, and thereby, history.