No. of Recommendations: 16
George Will is deluded if he thinks any person willing to remain associated with the current Republican party in the House or Senate is capable as serving as an honorable, principled "check and balance" against a Democratic President.
The current Republican caucus still contains most of the 106 people in the House who signed an amicus brief sent to the Supreme Court in 2020 supporting the proposition that the legitimate electoral votes from a given state can be rejected by other states who somehow suspect the legitimacy of another state's delegation with ZERO proof.
Republic elected officials in multiple states have purposely interfered with attempts of citizens to place Constitutional amendments on ballots to overcome prior Republican legislation. Some, like in Missouri, have repeatedly attempted to distort the language of ballot initiatives that gained enough signatures to appear, requiring MULTIPLE court interventions.
Republicans in Utah pushed to get Amendment D on the ballot to place the legislative branch above the people by giving the legislature the ability to reject or replace / rewrite any constitutional amenment enacted by the people. The legislature introduced Amendment D after citizens succeeded at getting a different initiative on the ballot. Here's what the Utah Supreme Court said:
https://utahnewsdispatch.com/2024/09/12/judge-void...--------------------
After hearing oral arguments less than 24 hours prior, 3rd District Court Judge Dianna Gibson sided with plaintiffs who alleged the ballot language of constitutional Amendment D (which would enshrine the Utah Legislature’s power to repeal and replace ballot initiatives), violated the Utah Constitution because it was "false and misleading" — written to trick voters into giving up their constitutional rights.
"The people are entitled to an accurate summary of any proposed constitutional amendment that impacts their fundamental rights and they are entitled to the constitutionally required notice, by publication in a newspaper two months before the election,” the judge wrote. “These requirements are fundamental to the integrity of our democracy."
--------------------What triggered this fight over Amendment D? A fight over a prior initiative in which the citizens voted for a non-partisan process to handle re-districting which was immediately fought by the Republican-dominated legislature. That initiative was passed in 2018 and the Legislature immediately worked to repeal it and ignore it. That triggered lawsuits that have been stuck in court ever since. As the above article cites...
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When the Utah Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion in July remanding the anti-gerrymandering case back to district court, that ruling set limits on the Utah Legislature’s power to repeal and replace government reform initiatives.
At the time, the Republican-controlled Utah Legislature reacted with defiance. The Legislature called itself into an "emergency" special session last month to sidestep the Utah Supreme Court’s interpretation of the constitution and instead ask voters to rewrite the Utah Constitution in favor of lawmakers’ interpretation of their power over ballot initiatives.
--------------------Does any of that sound remotely "democratic"?
George Will's decision to "support" Kamala Harris while still claiming support of Republicans as a majority in one branch of Congress demonstrates he has not learned the underlying lesson. The issue with the Republican Party is not one of a few bad apples at the top of the barrel. The party has become uniformly corrupt throughout across the entire country. The only solution is for it to be thoroughly THUMPED over multiple elections and lose all power to force something else to take its place. Until that happens, it will continue abusing powers we give to minority parties to obstruct actions desired by large majorities of the public.
WTH
