Opinion A4 Monday, November 23, 2020 — DAILY REPUBLIC
This week’s question:
Should Fairfield police have arrested those who disrupted the City Council meeting? Go to www.dailyrepublic.com/pulsepoll to vote.
on the left
Are we now a banana republic?
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here was a rally Nov. 14 in Washington, D.C., named variously the Million MAGA March, or Stop the Steal, drawing maybe 20,000 avid Donald Trump supporters who came to protest voter fraud. Videos showed joyous participants. When the president drove by on the way to play golf, those close enough to see him through the limo window shrieked with ecstasy, reminding me of an early concert by The Beatles. No matter what facts are explained to them, when they hear from their president, they will believe. A supporter from South Carolina came to “demand the truth. I don’t understand how Jack Batson the country went to bed with Trump up by tons of votes on Election Night then days later Biden is called the winner. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said, reflecting the major widespread complaint expressed by most Trumpsters. Of course, the appearance of voter fraud is the exact objective of the president’s plan – ignore the “corrupt” results and have states with Republican legislatures send Republican electors to the Electoral College, as happened in the disputed 1876 election. Three major Midwestern swing states, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, fell in line with the president’s plan, purposefully restricting their mail-in vote counting to after Election Day so the president could claim victory on Election Night, which he did. As one Pennsylvania state senator said, “. . . our leaders . . . are coordinating with the Trump campaign, and so far Pennsylvania has done everything that the Trump campaign has asked them to do.” Later, after the mail-in ballots were counted, the president had clearly lost, but the reversal of fortune suggested fraud. A lone man near Freedom Plaza held a sign that said, “Trump is the fraud.” A protestor screamed, “Why didn’t your mother abort you? I hope you get AIDS!” Another protestor said, “We feel bad for you that you can’t see the truth.” “I feel the same way about you,” he replied. So there you have it – a preview of our future. Trump’s believers believe and many or most will still believe 10 and 20 years from now – the election was stolen. Even out of office, he will continue his monstrous lies and his followers, supported by the right-wing scream machine, will likely fight anything that a Democratic Party leader proposes. As Americans snarl endlessly at each other, Vladimir Putin will smile. Without firing a shot, he and his friend in the White House have split a great nation. It is difficult to face the fact that a president of the United States has lied about the election in a planned and calculated way in order to hold on to power like a dictator in a banana republic. But he has plotted allegations about election fraud before. He had a commission formed in 2017 to investigate alleged “missing ballots” that were to explain his embarrassing loss of the popular vote in 2016. This year, he called for poll watchers and instructed them, “When you go there, watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do.” Trump’s supporters will not listen to facts from normal sources. They will not hear that The New York Times called every state’s secretary of state and not even one could report any major fraud issues. They will not read the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s report, which concluded, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, . . . changed votes, or was in any way compromised” . . . and that this election was the “most secure in American history.” They won’t even hear that old right-wing schemer Karl Rove say, “It would require a conspiracy on the scale of a James Bond movie,” to defraud a presidential election. The GOP’s top election attorney, Ben Ginsberg, said, “Proof of systematic fraud has become the Loch Ness Monster of the Republican Party – it doesn’t exist.” They won’t hear that. Former President George W. Bush wrote, “The American people can have confidence that this election was fundamentally fair.” No, what they will hear is a modern King Lear, howling on the heath, “I won this election by a lot.” Jack Batson is a former member of the Fairfield City Council. Reach him by email at jsbatson@prodigy.net.
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the right stuff
Founders saw wisdom of Electoral College
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he 2020 election camto assemble and vote in the paign is finished except State . . . expose them less to for U.S. senators in heats and ferments . . .” Georgia. An attempt may Another ramification arise to severely alter future driving the Founders was elections. To avoid that their studies confirmed that a attempt, I suggest Solano democracy has a limited life. County voters consider America is a republic and any ramifications. government official who calls The subject will be the America a democracy is ignoEarl Heal Electoral College method of rant of the Constitution or determining the presidential elecdeceiving his or her constituents. A tions as required by Article 2 of the more easily understood title is indiU.S. Constitution. rect democracy or representative As we know, Hillary Clinton democracy. The Founders guarded lost the 2016 presidential Electoral against their fear of democracy with College vote even though she won federalism, separation of powers, and the popular vote. The popular vote equality of large and small states. was Clinton 65.8 million and Donald Hillary Clinton provided a perfect Trump 63 million. The electoral vote example of the need for the Elecwas Clinton 227 and Trump 304. This toral College. She campaigned only was the fifth election in which the in densely populated states and overelectoral vote was inconsistent with looked the “flyover states.” With a the popular vote. popular vote controlling the outcome, Apparently, not everyone undera candidate could lose every vote in stands the logic of the Founders to 35 states and become president. establish the electoral system. A progressive argument is that The number of electors for each the Electoral College concept was state is the total of its members in the a concession to slaveholding states. U.S. House of Representatives and Federalist Paper No. 68 exposes that the U.S. Senate. With the exception of lie. “The mode of appointment of Maine and Nebraska, all electors vote electors . . . escaped without severe based on the majority vote of their censure . . . election of the President state, as winner take all. is well guarded.” The nation’s Founding Fathers The Constitution will never were concerned about “tyranny of be amended to remove the Electhe majority.” Federalist Paper No. toral College requirement as many 68 states, “the sense of the people states would voluntarily lose voting should operate in the choice of the strength. Because of that diffiperson to whom so important a trust culty, several states are attempting was to be confided,” (and should) to subvert the Electoral College by answer that trust by committing joining a National Popular Vote Inter“not to any pre-established body but state Compact that would direct by men chosen by the people for the their electors to vote according to the special purpose,” and “. . . electors . . . national popular vote. They believe
that when they increase strength to represent 270 electoral votes, their plan will effectively overrule the Electoral College. That seems doubtful for two reasons. Would not the voters of a state rebel if the vote for a candidate was reversed to match the national popular vote? Would not the Supreme Court overrule the Interstate Compact and direct the electors to vote in accordance with the state’s popular vote? The Interstate Compact has now been approved by Washington, D.C. and 15 states representing 196 electoral votes. Now, let’s assume the Supreme Court does not intervene. The favoring states, mostly high-density states, would work to maximize their popular vote count so as few as 10 states dictate the election of the president. This would be maximum “tyranny of the majority.” Now consider that the final vote is close and someone calls for a recount. When that happened in 2020, only Florida was requested to recount, which required 37 days and had Supreme Court involvement. With popular vote only, any recount will be required in 50 states. In 37 days? Can we explain this wisdom over ignorance of human nature to John Garamendi, Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris? Please try! Earl Heal is a retired Air Force officer, Vacaville resident and a member of The Right Stuff Committee of the Solano County Republican Party. Reach him at healearlniki@att.net.
calmatters commentary
Why are taxpayers footing dam removal cost?
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ecades of political conPower and Light Co., which flict over the fate of four serves huge swaths of several obsolete dams on the states in the Pacific NorthKlamath River reached west, in 1961. Pacific Power a turning point last week with and Light eventually changed a multiple-party, two-state its name to PacificCorp and “memorandum of understandin 2005 was acquired by biling” to remove them in hopes lionaire Buffett through of restoring salmon runs. his Berkshire Hathaway California Gov. Gavin Dan Walters investment company. Newsom, Oregon Gov. Kate Indian tribes who live Brown, heads of two Indian tribes along the river have long complained that depend on the river for susteabout the dams choking off salmon nance, and an executive of Warren runs, and their complaints finally Buffett’s PacificCorp that owns the began to register a couple of decades dams announced agreement on a ago as the dams’ federal licenses $450 million removal project. neared a 2006 expiration date. Once the Federal Energy RegPacificCorp said it would seek ulatory Commission approves, license renewals but that appeared ownership of the dams will pass from to be a political ploy, given the dams’ PacificCorp to the states and the age and relatively small output. It Klamath River Renewal Corporation was fairly obvious that threatening for demolition. renewal might persuade state and/ If everything goes according to the or federal officials to intervene with new plan, which replaces an earlier demolition money. agreement that didn’t pass federal Opposition from the tribes and muster, within a few years, the dams anti-dam environmental groups made will be gone and much-depleted runs removal of the dams a cause célèbre of salmon and other anadromous fish and, in effect, bolstered Pacificwill presumably prosper. Corp’s unspoken effort to shed four Getting rid of the Klamath River white elephants. Former Gov. Arnold dams, which today generate relatively Schwarzenegger, a close friend of small amounts of power for PacificBuffett, fostered efforts to settle Corp, is long overdue. the issue and offered a $250 million The dams were built many sweetener. The dams continued to decades ago by the California Oregon operate on year-to-year license extenPower Co. (COPCO), a local utility sions after 2006. founded in 1911 to supply residents Initially, removal was to cost and businesses in the southernmost $1 billion with a three-way financOregon counties and the northerning division. The federal government most California counties. would put up half of the money and PacificCorp and CaliforCOPCO merged with Pacific
nia’s state government would split the remainder. However, Congress balked, in large measure because of opposition from Republican members from California, so a revised plan emerged during Jerry Brown’s governorship – $450 million with California paying $250 million and PacificCorp $200 million – but it also stalled due to conflicts over ownership during the removal project. The final version announced last week maintains the cost number, but adds a $45 million contingency account to which Oregon will contribute, and settles the ownership issue. The dams should go because they serve no real purpose, devastate what were once one of the largest salmon fisheries on the West Coast and damage the native peoples who live along its banks. However, one must ask why California taxpayers should pay more than half the cost, a $250 million chunk of state water bonds whose repayment with interest will double the eventual bite. PacificCorp had virtually no chance of relicensing the dams, and would have been on the hook for their demolition. Instead, Buffett’s company and its customers in other states get a $250 million gift from California taxpayers. CALmatters is a public interest journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters. For more columns by Dan Walters, go to calmatters.org/commentary.
