No more Texas governors for president
This morning on ‘Meet the Press,’ Republican National Committee chair, Reince Priebus called for his party’s 2016 national convention to be held earlier in the summer.
I’m calling for a convention in June or July. We’re going to set up a commission that’s going to make that decision. I’m going to be a part of that. I’m going to chair that commission, but no more August conventions.
While interesting from a number of political perspectives, it also raises the prospect, if it happens, of having to have the Texas Legislature make changes to the Texas Election Code to enable that to happen.
That’s because, unlike a number of states, Texas election law currently tightly specifies the dates on which business of Texas political parties must take place. For example, section 174.063 of the Texas Election Code requires that both the Democratic and Republican parties have their county or senate district conventions on the third Saturday after the primary - unless that Saturday happens to be during Easter weekend of Passover.
The timing of the state convention, where delegates to the national convention are selected, isn’t as specifically spelled out in the Election Code, but section 174.092 requires that it be held in June or July.
Minnesota law, by contrast, only requires that party rules provide for holding of a convention in election years, though it contains a number of provisions about notice, access, and so forth.
And in Texas, for some time, a number of officials and activists in both major parties have asked, behind the scenes, whether the high degree to which the internal business of political parties in Texas is regulated by state law should give way to a more flexible regime.
This session, there’s at least some effort to go big on changes with the filing of HB 3012 by State Rep. Geanie Morrison (R-Victoria), chair of the House elections committee.
Under Morrison’s fairly sweeping bill, political parties would be given broad discretion in setting the dates and rules for their conventions. The bill would even allow precinct conventions in smaller counties to be held the same day as county conventions.
While the bill is still in the early stages, Priebus’ plans for a June or July 2016 primary could give it a push.
Stay tuned.
Just a thought to all the people that are screaming about God and how we’re all going to Hell because we just re-elected a great President: In 2008, a hurricane postponed the Republican Convention. This year, a hurricane postponed the Republican National Convention. Now, just one week before the election, a hurricane blew President Obama and Gov. Chris Christie together to show that two people from two different parties can work together. I think God has spoken!
Lulz.
Even if I don’t think God speaks via the weather.
Or at all.
:D
Todd Starnes doth protest too much.
God forbid the FLOTUS likes the POTUS in neither boxers nor briefs… but they’re married, so it’s all good. Jesus gives two thumbs up to the Obamas having a rollicking roll in the hay every now and again. </sarcasm>
Anyhow, maybe she likes him in boxer-briefs. Or a banana hammock. You’re the one imagining the POTUS nekkid, I’m guessing. Jesus, now that it’s out that Obama might wear neither boxers nor briefs, the terrorists have won! Or something.
Guess what? I like to see my husband in neither as well. Dammit, I shouldn’t have said that, it’s unbecoming. Note to self: Stop being unbecoming.
You know what’s unbecoming, Todd Starnes? Mom jeans. I saw you in Tampa at the RNC, bro.
Yes, FOR SHAME. SHAME SHAME SHAME. Now that the finger-wagging is out of your system for a married woman sort of answering a question about her husband’s underpants on a giggly morning show, maybe you can go back to being offended by South Park and calling for its blasphemy to be condemned.
A man who was being paid to register voters by the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested Thursday after he was seen dumping eight registration forms into a dumpster.
Colin Small, 31, was working as a supervisor as part of a registration operation in eight swing states financed by the Republican National Committee. Small, of Phoenixville, Pa., was first hired by Strategic Allied Consulting, a firm that was fired by the party after suspect voter forms surfaced in Florida and other states.
![demnewswire:
23 Days Until Election Day
How The GOP Destroyed Its Moderates [The New Republic]
Obama tops 4 million individual donors [Politico]
Bruce Springsteen to campaign for Obama in Ohio [NBC News]
RNC boss grilled on Romney abortion talk [CNN]
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23 Days Until Election Day
- How The GOP Destroyed Its Moderates [The New Republic]
- Obama tops 4 million individual donors [Politico]
- Bruce Springsteen to campaign for Obama in Ohio [NBC News]
- RNC boss grilled on Romney abortion talk [CNN]
Fraud scandal ends GOP registration effort.
The Republican National Committee ended efforts to sign up new voters before the deadline in key states for the presidential race because of questions raised over registration applications tied to the party.
Republican parties in Florida, Colorado, Nevada, North Carolina and Virginia — all states that both campaigns view as competitive — fired Glen Allen, Virginia-based Strategic Allied Consulting, the company in charge of registrations, said Kirsten Kukowski, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. The national committee also canceled its contract with the company, its only vendor signing up new voters, Kukowski said.
The five states have registration deadlines from Oct. 6 to Oct. 15. Stopping efforts before then could hurt Republican nominee Mitt Romney in his bid to unseat Democratic President Barack Obama, said Lance deHaven-Smith, a Florida State University political science professor in Tallahassee.
“In any swing state that’s going to be significant because these elections are so close,” deHaven-Smith said. “This gives an advantage to Obama.”
For their part, Republicans say this won’t hurt their chances at all, because coincidence is on their side. “It was wrapping up at the same time this happened, so there is no impact,” Kukowski told Bloomberg in an e-mail. That’s almost certainly BS, they’d keep registering voters until the last day they legally could.
It’s nice to see Republican cheating come back to bite them in the ass. They were trying to gain an unfair advantage against Democrats through trickery and fraud. The result: a disadvantage in several swing states in an election projected to be close. You really don’t often see irony and poetic justice this clearly outside of reruns of The Twilight Zone.
No voter fraud but that which the Republicans engaged in.
RNC Shocked That Firm Known For Voter Fraud Was Doing Voter Fraud For It
Rebecca Schoenkopf, wonkette.comBack in 2004 and 2008, GOP operative Nathan Sproul was constantly being accused of voter registration fraud — including having his workers misrepresent themselves as nonpartisan, and then having them throw away or destroy…
(via bostonreview)
Mitt Romney says that for his RNC speech, “you only talk about things you think are important.”
No other presidential candidate has ever failed to mention the troops during a convention in a time of war.
- Small-time donors — 1.1 million Americans, averaging $58 each — helped the Obama campaign outraise Romney in August
- and “Three national surveys released Sunday show President Obama getting a noticeable bounce in the wake of the Republican and Democratic conventions, opening a small lead in a race that has been essentially tied for months”
- and even Republicans love Obama enough to give him a lift.
(Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP via The New York Daily News)
Good news! :)
When Political Conventions Meet Star Wars
Relevant to our interests. On so many levels.
As Lucé Vela Fortuño appeared on stage at the RNC, the name her parents gave her did not.
When Lucé Vela Fortuño, the first lady of Puerto Rico, took the stage at the Republican National Convention to introduce Ann Romney last week, her name — or something like it — appeared above her in three-foot block letters.
SMH.
(via quickhits)
Frequency of climate change-related words in the Republican platform (left) and Democratic platform (right).
For a full rundown of how the environment fared in convention talk this week, check out this Climate Desk collaborative feature:
Obama: Climate Change Not a Hoax, Extreme Weather Not a Joke
