A Political Post

[melannen]

Tomorrow, as you probably know unless you're very, very lucky, is midterm election day in the good old US of A. My state has several very close races (due, as usual, to a combination of complacency and stupidity on the part of the local Democratic Party, who should've had an easy time of it).

I'm voting a straight party ticket.

I know that somehow or other, it's become fashionable in the past few years to not vote based on party, and to claim that makes you moderate or better informed or more rational or something.

I'm making this post to say that if you care at *all* about the direction this country's going to take in the next two years, you should be voting a straight party ticket, at least in the nationally relevant races (Congress, Senate, and Governor, minimally.)

Sure, in a perfect world, we would judge every candidate based on their individual merit and voting record alone, but it's not a perfect world. And with a midterm election, this one *especially*, the *overall* results will have a lot more effect on policy decisions in the next few years than any individual candidate's work. Both parties will be looking at the new make-up of the House and Senate and claiming that that result - by party - tells them the will of the American people.

I don't care if the local candidate in your party of choice is sleazy, slimy, boring, practically a member of the other party judging by his voting record, completely batshit insane, or even sleeping with your mother. In this election, it's going to be the *party* that matters, not the people. If the Republicans keep Congress, the President will take it as justification to keep doing what he's been doing. If the Democrats take Congress, they'll take it as justification to do everything in their power to block the President.

That is the *only* issue that really matters in this election: which party controls the Congress. Everything else is just distractions.

And both parties have been doing everything they can in the past few weeks to get you distracted, to convince you to vote based on other things. As muddy and irrelevant as possible. Because they know it's the people who claim to be moderates that will decide it all. Local issues, ancient history, political issues, personal issues, financial issues, ethical issues, whatever. Ignore them.

If you want your vote to really matter, vote based on whether you like the President or not.

(Also, just plain vote!!!!!) (Also, look up your local ballot questions and referendums. Those can be just as important as your local elected officials - in fact, they're often drafted for the sole purpose of getting around your elected officials - and the more boring they look, the tricksier and more dangerous they probably are. An overview of Maryland's is available through the state board of elections, here. And now, in the comments, the sparkling new lawyer lindentreeisle explains it all! For Marylanders, anyway.)

Comments

[lindentreeisle.livejournal.com]

Indeed! :)

I just got my sample ballot the other day, too.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Yay!

... so, umm, you wanna explain the ballot questions to me?

Uh, sure

[lindentreeisle.livejournal.com]

Although I must confess, I only understand them cuz I spent Friday morning researching them on the internet.

Also, I would take an id because the website's comments about who the Help America Vote Act requires to show id are realllllyyy vague and you don't want any election monitors, "up in your shit" as they say.

Question 1 - Disposition of Park Lands

This was inspired by the Board of Public Works' attempt to sell parkland to developers in 2004. The BPW, by the by, is chaired by the governor. This amendment would change the constitution so that the Board *cannot* sell, transfer, grant, etc. any public parkland without the approval of the General Assembly. So, essentially it's just giving the legislature oversight, so it will probably be harder for the BPW to sell land to developers. There was actually a fight over the wording of this; the Republicans tried to obfuscate it by adding a bunch of weird language, but finally had to back down and change it back to the original.

My understanding is that currently this procedure is in the law; but by putting it in the Constitution, it will be much harder for a future General Assembly to change it.

Vote FOR the amendment to put the requirement of General Assembly approval for parkland sales in the state constitution, meaning it could not be changed except by another amendment. Vote AGAINST the amendment to leave that procedure as a law, meaning it could be changed by the passage of another law.

Question 2 - Circuit Court In Banc Decisions

This one is more confusing. Really I don't think I can explain it any better than The League of Women Voters did. (The government's own explanation is here.) Basically it seems to be procedural changes to clean up some pre-Court of Special Appeals law. Evidently before the CSA (our intermediate appeals court) existed, most appeals were to the circuit court in banc- a group of 3 circuit court judges. The law provided that if you appealed to the court in banc, you couldn't then appeal THEIR decision. This amendment fixes that by allowing either side of the in banc decision to appeal. It also takes away the ability of the circuit court (a county institution) to set its own rules for in banc appeals, and makes all the circuit courts subject to in banc rules set in the Maryland Rules (a statewide set of court rules). The Maryland Bar Association approves of this amendment, if that helps at all; I don't think anyone is really opposed to this change, like I said, mostly just cleanup of the law.

Question 3 - Civil Jury Trials

For years now, the Maryland constitution has said (and I was taught this in class, actually) that you have the right to a civil jury trial only if the amount in controversy (ie the damages you're requesting) is greater than $10,000. Setting a minimum lets minor ("small claims") cases be heard by judges in district court, as opposed to allowing a jury demand in every case. (Jury trials can get quite expensive.) But apparently a recent decision by the Court of Appeals held that the constitutional amendment that introduced that rule contradicts but does not overrule ANOTHER part of the constitution that says you *always* have the right to a jury trial.

If you want to look, here's the declaration of rights. Article 23 is the one that sets the $10k minimum. Article 5(a) is the one in conflict, because the CoA says it establishes an absolute right to jury trial. Note that the amendment would NOT delete any of the language in 5(a), so there's no concern that it would otherwise weaken the rights article 5 guarantees; the amendment would just tack on a sentence that says the legislature may enact a law that limits jury trials in civil cases to cases where the amount in controversy is $10k or more.

More!

[lindentreeisle.livejournal.com]

Voting FOR the amendment would alter the part of the constitution in conflict and allow the $10,000 minimum for jury trials continue to be maintained. Voting AGAINST the amendment would mean that the $10,000 minimum cannot be enforced

Question 4 - Election Law Revisions

The note on the beginning just tells you that you're not voting on the parts of the law that allowed early voting, because those parts were unconstitutional. This is not a constitutional amendment, just a law, but because it deals with election law it requires voter approval. Big parts:

--Requires that the state budget for and put at each polling place electronic registries of county voters, to check in each voter and prevent people from voting multiple times. (Not to start politicizing this, but isn't it odd how much time politicians spend fretting about fraud by individual voters, a paranoia for which there seems little empirical basis, and how little time they spend fretting about systematic fraud committed by campaigns, electioneers and election board staff, as well as the well-known vulnerabilities in electronic voting machines? Anyway.)
--Requires the creation of new voting precincts for colleges with more than 500 students.
--Requires the board of elections to act only by supermajority (4/5 members; I guess the current law requires only a majority?)
--Requires local boards to do registration and absentee voting at nursing homes and the like by statewide rules.
--Sets up rules in particular jurisdictions (mostly Baltimore City) to prevent people from fucking around with elections. Really, it's probably best if you just read this.

I hope some of that was helpful, anyway.

Re: More!

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Yay, thank you! That clarified several things, even when I'd already read the LWV stuff. Totally above and beyond the call of duty!

I'm still kind of confused about a couple things, but I think I at least know enough to know how I'm voting. (giving the background of why this came up now is very helpful.) Which looks like it'll probably be all yeses, (the last one depending on how grumpy I am at the polling place in the morning.)

Re: More!

[lindentreeisle.livejournal.com]

:D

See, what I can never figure out are the city issues- it's all stuff about authorizing the mayor to issue bonds to raise money for this and such. And, you know, even if I gave a rat's ass about Baltimore fiscal policy, amongst the many other political issues I have to care about it rates very LOW. So...fuck it. You know?

[woap.livejournal.com]

It's hard to be informed about the candidates when all they're doing is slinging mud at each other and never saying anything about themselves. :/

[melannen.livejournal.com]

That's what parties are for! We all know that campaigns are all lies anyway, so instead of trying to judge *people*, you just look at the parties' platforms and decide which set of lies is more despicable!

Simple! They do exist for a reason.

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

The local questions for my (unnamed) county seem fairly harmless at first glance, with two claiming to be deleting "obsolete language" from the charter and one mirroring a change proposed by the second State question.. I'd like to know just how obsolete the deleted language is, but I'm definitely a yes on question A.

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

As far as the state questions go, I'm likely a "yes, yes, no, approve" voter. I like my parks, thankyewverymuch.

FYI

[lindentreeisle.livejournal.com]

You may want to check out my post above on the 3rd constitutional question. I originally opposed it myself, thinking it was an attempt to raise the amount in controversy that is the minimum to get a jury trial; then I realized that it's actually a response to a recent court decision, and all it would do is reinstate the minimum that's been in place for years.

Just thought I'd throw that out there in case you made the same mistake I did. :D

Re: FYI

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

So basically it's just cleaning up sloppy law-writing done in the past? That's fine, then. yes/yes/yes/approve, it is, then. Question 2 is the most important one for me, anyway. :)

Re: FYI

[lindentreeisle.livejournal.com]

But that's just another cleaning-up question, innit? Do you mean question 1, the parks thing? (If so, I agree.)

[katrianya.livejournal.com]

national by party, yes. but i _like_ the md general assembly all muddled up. neither side can get their overly annoying legislation through. and the more we dont vote along party lines, the worse we make that, frustrating the legislators and hopefully making the parties think more.