Representative Amash Sponsors Fair Election Bill

Representative Justin Amash (R- MIch.)  introduced bill HR 1681 earlier this month.  The bill description sates, "To require States to impose the same ballot access rules on all candidates in a general congressional election held in the State without regard to whether or not the candidates are nominees of a political party..."  Currently, candidates for the Republican and Democratic parties get a myriad of advantages over other candidates in most states.  In many states, no candidates but those of the Republican and Democratic party have a reasonable chance of even getting their name listed on the ballot.   For example, no third party candidate has appeared on the ballot for U.S. House of Representatives in Georgia since its current ballot access laws were passed in 1943.

Hopefully this bill will pass and get rid of "two largest" laws that exist across the country.  "Two largest" laws are always which state that candidates of the two largest parties, as determined by voter registration or prior election performance, get all sorts of advantages over other candidates.  These range from ability to put future candidates on the ballot or preferential placement on the ballot to public funding. 

The bill has been referred to the House Committee on House Administration.  The bill can be tracked here:

H.R.1681: To require States to impose the same ballot access rules on all candidates

Court Rules That Delaware Must Allow Independent Judges

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Delaware cannot require its judges to be members of a major political party (Adams v. Governor of Delaware, 18-1045). Delaware law stated that all Supreme Court Justices, plus all Superior and Chancery Court Judges must be members of the Republican or Democratic Parties. Delaware argued that this should be allowed because there were both Republican and Democratic judges.  The Third Circuit ruled that no state may hire anyone based on political affiliation.

One of the cornerstones of keeping the two party system in power is having partisan judges and elections officials.  It is difficult for independent or alternative candidates to get a fair shot at elections when the elections officials are members of an opposing party.  Add that the judges who hear their ballot discrimination cases are also partisan and it is little wonder as to why the two major parties control the election process.

Judge Julio Fuentes, who had the courage to write this decision as well as the judges who supported it, Theodore McKee and L. Felipe Restrepo should be applauded for making a decision outside of partisan affiliations. 

Supreme Court Rules Against Police Shakedowns

In a rare unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the practice by local governments of seizing property and using excessive fines to fund government operations was a violation of Eighth Amendment protections. Timbs v. Indiana

In this particular case, Indiana had taken a Range Rover (value about $42,000) from Timbs when he was accused of a minor drug charge.  This practice, known as civil forfeiture, has been used by law enforcement to confiscate billions of dollars worth of property from citizens.  Originally sold as a method to undermine the financial structures of large criminal organizations, in many jurisdictions this method is merely used to pad law enforcement coffers.  Some jurisdictions do not even require that formal charges be filed or a crime be proven in order to seize property.

In Mr. Timbs case, he did plead guilty.  However, the Supreme Court determined that taking the Land Rover was "grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Timb's offense." 

It appears that this case deals mainly with the amounts which may be seized rather than attacking the act of seizure itself.  Hopefully another case will make it to the court which protects the rights of people who have property seized who have not been charged with criminal acts.  So far all of these cases of which A Conscious Conservative is aware have been settled out of court at lower levels.  It will be interesting to see how states adjust their policies with regards to this ruling.