No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.
This law keeps Senators and Representatives from raising their own salary while in office.
Public divided on how to attack deficit
By: CNN Associate Producer Rebecca Stewart
(CNN) – Americans are at odds over how to tighten the country's fiscal belt and that's reflected in a similar conflict in leaders of government.
Ninety percent of the public can agree that the economy is the most important issue right now. But according to a new Associated Press-CNBC poll, the nation is divided over how to resolve the expanding deficit, which already exceeds one trillion dollars.
The poll reveals that 46 percent of the country would prefer increasing government spending on education, health care reform, and the development of alternative energy sources, even if it means that the deficit will grow. But, 47 percent say that reducing the deficit by cutting spending is the most important priority, even if it means the government could not implement new programs in the same areas. These findings echo the results from a CNN poll released two weeks ago; when asked if the government should spend more or less for domestic programs, half responded that it should spend more and half said it should spend less.
Despite the split, eight out of 10 believe that government services will have to be cut to balance the federal government, and almost two-thirds say some taxes will have to be increased. According to the AP-CNBC poll, the public agrees on what sacrifice will be needed. They also agree on cuts as six out of 10 say the government should reduce the number of federal workers and freeze their salaries and half of those surveyed say eliminating the tax deduction for mortgage interest is favorable if the overall income tax rate is lowered. Findings from the CNN poll are similar, as 68 percent of the public agreed that reducing the federal deficit is more important than preventing salary cuts for federal government workers.
Reducing education spending, the number of people in the military, and eliminating the child tax cut are, however, non-negotiable to over 60 percent of Americans, according to the survey. Just under half favor reducing Medicare and under half oppose reducing it. There is a similar divide among those in favor and those opposed to reducing Social Security benefits for seniors with higher incomes. The CNN poll underscores the finding that over half of the country said they were in favor of reducing Social Security for the wealthy to reduce the deficit.
Adding to the list of subjects over which the nation disagrees, Obama's approval rating similarly reflects a country divided; 48 percent both approve and disapprove of how he's handling his job. Though four in ten trust Democrats to handle the economy, the same amount trust the GOP to manage the deficit.
The mood of the nation continues to be solemn since 61 percent say the country is headed in the wrong direction. When asked to look toward the future, almost half expect that life for the next generation of Americans to be worse and more than half fear the federal deficit will cause a major economic crisis for this country in the next ten years.
Actions to address the federal deficit are currently underway. The president announced a plan to freeze pay for federal workers on Monday, a move in line with the majority of public opinion. The bipartisan debt commission appointed by President Obama to recommend solutions for balancing the budget is also due to issue a report this week, and has discussed targeting Social Security and Medicare to increase savings.
The AP-CNBC survey was conducted by GfK Roper from November 18-22 among 1,000 adults on landline and cellular phones. It has a sampling error of plus-or-minus 4.3 percentage points.
This article discusses the national deficit and methods for decreasing it. One possible method is decreasing government officials salary. This decrease could not occur during the middle of a term.
This video includes a description of the typical Nigerian senators salary breakdown.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Amendment 26
1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment grants those, at lease 18 years of age, the right to vote.
State Welcomes Voting Rights for NRIs
CNN.com
Punjab Education Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Political Affairs Committee Member Sewa Singh Sekhwan today welcomed the Central notification granting voting rights to non-resident Indians (NRIs) and described it as a historic decision aimed at involving millions of NRIs in Indian politics.
Sekhwan said more than 11 million Indians were living outside the country for employment, education and other reasons without acquiring the citizenship of their adoptive countries.
With this new notification, he said, they would become eligible to register their names in the electoral rolls of their hometowns.
The minister said this decision would have a greater impact in Punjab, as a very large number of Punjabis have settled abroad. “The Punjab government had taken up this issue with the Union government several times,” he said in a statement issued here.
In Punjab voting rights are being granted to non resident Indians. This resembles absentee voting in the United States. People in the United States are not denied voting rights because they are absent from their registered resident.
In this speech Presdient Lyndon Johnson discusses the importance of every individual being given the right to vote.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment grants those, at lease 18 years of age, the right to vote.
State Welcomes Voting Rights for NRIs
CNN.com
Punjab Education Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Political Affairs Committee Member Sewa Singh Sekhwan today welcomed the Central notification granting voting rights to non-resident Indians (NRIs) and described it as a historic decision aimed at involving millions of NRIs in Indian politics.
Sekhwan said more than 11 million Indians were living outside the country for employment, education and other reasons without acquiring the citizenship of their adoptive countries.
With this new notification, he said, they would become eligible to register their names in the electoral rolls of their hometowns.
The minister said this decision would have a greater impact in Punjab, as a very large number of Punjabis have settled abroad. “The Punjab government had taken up this issue with the Union government several times,” he said in a statement issued here.
In Punjab voting rights are being granted to non resident Indians. This resembles absentee voting in the United States. People in the United States are not denied voting rights because they are absent from their registered resident.
In this speech Presdient Lyndon Johnson discusses the importance of every individual being given the right to vote.
Amendment 25
1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.
2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
This amendment discusses a sucession plan should the president be unable to perform his duties. It was a necessay amendment and written because of the assasinaition of JFK.
Pakistan minister survives attack
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The chief minister of the western Pakistani province of Baluchistan has survived an assassination attempt in Khuzdar, government officials told CNN.
Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousaaf, a member of President Pervez Musharraf's ruling party, was not hurt in Monday's attack, the officials said.
A policeman was killed and two others were wounded, however.
On Sunday, gunmen opened fire on shoppers in a Khuzdar market, killing six people, five of them Pakistani soldiers.
Officials said they have not received a claim of responsibility for either attack.
A group calling itself the Islamabouli Brigades of al Qaeda claimed responsibility Saturday for a bomb attack on Shauket Aziz, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's hand-picked choice for the next prime minister.
Aziz survived, but the suicide attack, in Fateh Jang about 72 kilometers (45 miles) north of Islamabad, killed nine people and wounded 25.
The group warned Pakistan to stop cooperating with the United States or face more attacks.
The claim of responsibility said: "One of our blessed battalions tried to hunt a head of one of the American infidels in Pakistan while he was returning from Fateh Jang, but God wanted him to live."
It said the attack "will be followed by a series of painful strikes if you don't stop complying to the wicked (President) Bush's orders.
"We will give you the chance to stop these actions. Otherwise, we will behave in a different way in Pakistan and turn it into a bloody war against you and whoever supports your policies.
"This is our last warning to you if you don't comply. We will have a different answer to you. Our brigades will talk to you in the language of blood in the coming days -- the language you understand very well."
-- CNN producer Syed Mohsin Naqvi in Islamabad contributed to this story
This article is about an assasination attempt on leader in Pakistan. If this happened in America we would have a plan to move a new leader into power.
This video is of President Reagan's assassination attempt. Had he been killed the vice president would have been made president.
2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
This amendment discusses a sucession plan should the president be unable to perform his duties. It was a necessay amendment and written because of the assasinaition of JFK.
Pakistan minister survives attack
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- The chief minister of the western Pakistani province of Baluchistan has survived an assassination attempt in Khuzdar, government officials told CNN.
Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousaaf, a member of President Pervez Musharraf's ruling party, was not hurt in Monday's attack, the officials said.
A policeman was killed and two others were wounded, however.
On Sunday, gunmen opened fire on shoppers in a Khuzdar market, killing six people, five of them Pakistani soldiers.
Officials said they have not received a claim of responsibility for either attack.
A group calling itself the Islamabouli Brigades of al Qaeda claimed responsibility Saturday for a bomb attack on Shauket Aziz, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's hand-picked choice for the next prime minister.
Aziz survived, but the suicide attack, in Fateh Jang about 72 kilometers (45 miles) north of Islamabad, killed nine people and wounded 25.
The group warned Pakistan to stop cooperating with the United States or face more attacks.
The claim of responsibility said: "One of our blessed battalions tried to hunt a head of one of the American infidels in Pakistan while he was returning from Fateh Jang, but God wanted him to live."
It said the attack "will be followed by a series of painful strikes if you don't stop complying to the wicked (President) Bush's orders.
"We will give you the chance to stop these actions. Otherwise, we will behave in a different way in Pakistan and turn it into a bloody war against you and whoever supports your policies.
"This is our last warning to you if you don't comply. We will have a different answer to you. Our brigades will talk to you in the language of blood in the coming days -- the language you understand very well."
-- CNN producer Syed Mohsin Naqvi in Islamabad contributed to this story
This article is about an assasination attempt on leader in Pakistan. If this happened in America we would have a plan to move a new leader into power.
This video is of President Reagan's assassination attempt. Had he been killed the vice president would have been made president.
Amendment 24
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment essentially protects the poor right to vote. In the south poll taxes were still being placed on African Americans. This amendment finally protects them from the poll tax.
J. Whyatt Mondesire
Excerpted from: J. Whyatt Mondesire, Felon Disenfranchisement: the Modern Day Poll Tax, 10 Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review 435-441 (Spring 2001)(32 Footnotes)
Introduction
The generally accepted proposition that vote populi symbolizes democratic governments is more myth than reality. Historically speaking, democracies actually are quite stingy with whom they share the right to vote. Beginning with the ancient plutocratic Athenian democracy more than 5,000 years ago, citizens were paid to attend assembly meetings and vote. To be sure, knowing the paymaster (or his cousin) obviously was a plus.
Qualifications to vote in the period between the French Revolution and Napoleon often were so quixotic; most French citizens stayed off the streets either out for fear of the guillotine or of what the Emperor held in his famous blue waistcoat. Even the Vatican for a period placed itself in the midst of a crusade against universal suffrage when in pre-Facist Italy in the 1920s it banned all political activity by Catholics, a fact which has been seen by several historians as a contributing factor in the rise of Mussolini.
In this country, the history of the gradually widening of the franchise coincides directly with our internal (and sometimes violent) discourse on race. Loyal to their slave holding legacies, the Founding Fathers limited the franchise to property-owning white men when they met in Philadelphia to draft the original Constitution in 1787. And it would take almost two centuries, a civil war, a protracted women's Suffrage movement and several constitutional amendments to slowly extend the franchise to something approximating the universality that most of us have come to accept as today's embodiment of "We The People."
The evolution of the American democracy, though unlike Darwinian theory, has no natural protections against reversion, i.e., a constriction in the steady march toward true universal suffrage. Most emphatically, in the past dozen years just such a reversal has occurred with the rapid erosion of the franchise among the nearly four million Americans--more than all of our armed forces combined--who have been released recently from either state or federal prisons. Four million ex-offenders, many of whom work and pay taxes, have lost the right to vote, constituting for the first time since slavery, a voteless caste.
One California ex-inmate recently told a congressional hearing just how it felt to be forced to live under this 21st century version of the poll tax: "Without a vote, a voice, I am a ghost inhabiting a citizen's space." Continuing his testimony, Joe Loya, added, "I want to walk calmly into a polling place with other citizens to carry my placid ballot into the booth, check off my choices, then drop my conscience in the common box."
I. A Life Long Poll Tax
According to the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C. based organization that studies criminal justice policies, an estimated 3.9 million Americans, or one in fifty adults, have lost the right to vote as a result of a felony conviction. Thirty-two states ban parolees from voting. Two states ban former inmates from voting after the second felony. And fourteen states effectively strip ex-offenders of their franchise for life, unless reversed by a gubernatorial pardon.
Restoration of the franchise is so onerous in one state--Alabama--that applicants must submit to a DNA test at a state approved facility. Extra hardships are routinely encountered since there are only four approved testing labs in the whole state.
It cannot be over-emphasized that these figures do not reflect the disenfranchisement of men and women who are currently behind bars, these figures reflect the number of voteless people who cannot exercise their basic democratic rights after they've been released. A host of civil rights groups estimate that almost half of the voteless caste--about 1.4 million--are African American men. The impact Alabama's felon disenfranchisement laws had reached such massive proportions that legislators last year considered repealing their statutes when published reports showed that nearly one-third of that state's black male population was barred from voting essentially forever. Felon disenfranchisement is significant not only because of the number of citizens it affects, but also because of its disproportionate impact on the voting power of racial minorities. Nationwide, thirteen percent of black men suffer felon disenfranchisement.
Such egregious consequences of this "modern day poll tax" have persuaded the national NAACP office to support H.R. 906, introduced by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, to restore the voting rights of ex-offenders in federal elections. In his congressional testimony supporting H.R. 906, NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton pointed out that "African Americans and other Americans of color are being kept out of the electoral process at an unequal rate, even after they have paid their debt to society." Added Mr. Shelton:
America expects felons to come out of our penal system prepared to act as productive members of society. We believe ex-felons should support their families and their communities. This is not an unreasonable expectation, but we need in turn to support them in their efforts. Because voting is such an integral part of being a productive member of American society, we should be encouraging ex-felons to vote, not prohibiting them . . . . Felony restrictions are the last vestige of voting prohibitions in the United States.
II. Skyrocketing Imprisonment of Black Males
The rate of black imprisonment rose forty percent between 1980 and 1985. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, on a typical day in 1985, 310,000 (about three and a half percent) were in prison or jail. The figure out for incarcerated black men more than doubled by 1996 to 714,000, fully 6.6% of all black men.
The parallel figure that year--1996--for white men was 760,000 (0.9%) of all white men. Thus, even though black men are only about twelve percent of the male population, they accounted for roughly half of all incarcerated men. The proportion of black men incarcerated is about eight times greater than the proportion of white males incarcerated. For Hispanic males, the proportion incarcerated is about three and a half times the white male proportion.
The concurrent increase in the rate of imprisonment of black females-- currently growing faster than that of white men--means we face a national catastrophe whose negative impact will be felt for several generations. According to a Justice Department study released in late August, nearly one and a half million of our nation's children have a mother or father in federal or state prison. This is a sixty percent increase since 1991 of children under the age of eighteen who face these circumstances.
And if it is generally accepted that voting is a learned behavior most often taught by parents who either take their children into the voting booth or who talk to their offspring about why they are voting, thus it is not hard to foresee several generations of black and brown children growing up without ever seeing their parent(s) pull a lever in a voting machine. A majority of the children with imprisoned parents--fifty-eight percent--were under the age of ten, and the average age was eight years old. As of December 31, 1999, they represented 2.1 % of the nation's seventy-two million minor children.
III. Poll Tax--Then and Now
The 1965 Voting Rights Act is generally regarded by most analysts and historians as one of the most seminal accomplishments of the modern Civil Rights Movement, not only because it finally employed the full weight and power of the federal government to extend the franchise to a whole class of previously disenfranchised citizens of the South, but also because it became the springboard for the final legal assault on the Jim Crow laws which had deprived African Americans the vote since Reconstruction, a pivotal part of the foundation of their economic exploitation for more than a century.
To comprehend just how effectively 19th century poll taxes excluded Southern blacks from the franchise, consider the evidence of black voter registration rates in the states of the Old Confederacy at the beginning of the last century. In 1927, only 847 blacks were registered to vote in Mississippi out of a total population of 188,000. By 1940, registrations had inched up to five percent while in Alabama less than fifteen percent were listed on the rolls.
Meeting in a special convention in 1890, called specifically to address the "problem" of the "Negro vote" in Mississippi (where blacks made up the majority of the population), white delegates passed a suffrage resolution imposing a poll tax of two dollars, excluding voters convicted of bribery, burglary, theft, arson, perjury, murder and bigamy, while also barring those who could not read any section of the state constitution, or understand it when read, or give a reasonable interpretation.
South Carolina followed in 1895 with a bill calling for a two-year residency requirement, a poll tax of one dollar, the ability to read and write the Constitution or to own property worth three hundred dollars and the disqualification of convicts. Florida had succumbed in 1889, setting up a device that required the voter to deposit separate ballots in each of the different boxes marked for different candidates, making it virtually impossible for the illiterate to navigate the balloting process.
This problem improved little for the first half of the next century. At the time of the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, fewer than three out of ten Southern blacks--1.4 million--were eligible to vote. The 24th Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing poll taxes in national elections, was ratified in 1964. By the mid-term elections two years later, an additional 750,000 blacks were registered. Black registration soared even higher a year later when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case brought by Lyndon Johnson's White House, voided the poll tax in all elections.
IV. Economic Dimension
Lurking behind all of this chicanery with ballot boxes and trumped up taxes was the not to subtle intent by southern whites to utilize disenfranchisement to create a class of peons who would supply the economic muscle for the region's agricultural infrastructure, but which would be unable to mount any serious challenge over the distribution of resources and wealth, even when these tenant farmers and sharecroppers were in the majority. "Disenfranchisement was part of the broader effort by the southern planter class to erect a system of political, economic and social coercion over blacks that would permit the re-establishment of a quasi-feudal labor system. Experience (during Reconstruction) showed that black suffrage interfered with this objective."
Today's modern multi-billion-dollar prison-industrial complex, which has inmates manufacturing every conceivable kind of product as well as doing business on the worldwide web, thus, must be examined in this broader context. By even the most basic standard it is obvious to predict that the long term effects of felon disenfranchisement will mean that this burgeoning voteless caste will continue to be at the mercy of exploitative economic interests for many generations yet unborn.
V. The Legal Counterattack
Igniting an effective counter strategy clearly is in the interest of the modern NAACP, the very same organization that was in the vanguard of the anti-poll tax movement in the early years of the last century. The first volley in the modern strategy was begun last December in Pennsylvania, which bans ex-felons from registering to vote for five years after release, when the Philadelphia NAACP Branch filed suit in state court to overturn that state's disenfranchisement statute, approved hastily in 1995.
Pennsylvania's notoriously corrupt and backward courts are even more glacial in their pace than are many other large states, a fact which prompted the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP to bring a separate action in the spring of this year in federal court. Both actions attack the Pennsylvania disenfranchisement law as a clear violation of both the state and federal constitutions guarantees of one man, one vote. "Undeniably felon disenfranchisement in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is racially discriminatory," the Philadelphia Branch declared at a news conference announcing its two-pronged legal counter-strategy.
What's more, felon disenfranchisement is cruel and mean spirited, clearly designed to be hurtful even as these men and women are trying to work their way back into society's all too often less than welcoming arms . . . . Its long term effects are so overwhelming as to be beyond simple quantification. At a time when the fastest growing prison population are African American Women, most of whom have families, how is it possible that their offspring will ever vote since they probably will never see their mothers or fathers walk into a polling booth? By denying these ex-inmates the right to register to vote for five years after release, the state really is stealing rights from their offspring as well; stealing, most probably for a lifetime, one of our nation's most fundamental rights--the right of the governed to choose their leaders, even as it taxes them and continues to be able to call upon them to lay down their lives in a time of a national emergency or conflict.
VI. A History of Valor
Having watched his fellow Mississippians march off to join the "war to protect democracy," most probably was one of the issues which persuaded Harrisburg NAACP President Vernon Dahmer that something had to be done to address the poll tax that deprived so many of the returning black vets of their right to vote. The owner of a successful grocery store in his hometown, Dahmer decided in the 1950s to begin to pay the poll taxes of any black state resident with the courage to show up at the county registrar's office. Back then, taking up Vernon Dahmer's offer was no spur of the moment decision.
In 1966 the Klan ruled Mississippi. The federal government rarely challenged their autonomy. And local governments never did, since more often than not their membership lists were practically synonymous. One chilly January night thirty-four years ago, Vernon Dahmer's wife, Ellie and the family awoke to the sounds of motor engines and honking horns. Two carloads of Klansmen, some armed with shotguns, others carrying cans of gasoline, burst from their vehicles outside the Dahmer home at two o'clock in the morning. They dumped their gasoline on the wooden farmhouse, setting it ablaze in just a few moments. Vernon aided his family's escape from the smoke and flames by holding the Klansmen at bay with his own repeated shotgun blasts. His two young children and wife would testify decades later that they could smell their father's burning flesh as they ran to safety beneath his outstretched arms holding the burning door ajar. Twelve hours later Vernon died from the injuries to his seared lungs.
It would not be until August 1998 that the man who ordered Vernon Dahmer's murder--Sam Bowers--was finally convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Bowers, who at the time was the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan was also at the center of the conspiracy of the infamous Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama three years earlier which killed four pre-teen black girls as they attended Sunday school.
Today's struggle against felon disenfranchisement is born of the valiant and sometimes very costly struggle Vernon Dahmer and other NAACP members waged against the poll tax of an earlier generation. Like Vernon Dahmer, today's NAACP knows that voteless people not only lose political freedom, but are certain to be sentenced to a life of servitude as well.
[a1]. J. Whyatt Mondesire is President of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP, as well as editor and publisher of The Philadelphia Sunday Sun newspaper.
This article is discussing felonies and the removal of their right to vote. Convicted felons with money can hire attorneys to get their right back. Some consider this a modern day poll tax.
This is a video of a poll tax riot in London. It occured after a working class outrage at poll taxes specifically being targeted upon them.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment essentially protects the poor right to vote. In the south poll taxes were still being placed on African Americans. This amendment finally protects them from the poll tax.
J. Whyatt Mondesire
Excerpted from: J. Whyatt Mondesire, Felon Disenfranchisement: the Modern Day Poll Tax, 10 Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review 435-441 (Spring 2001)(32 Footnotes)
Introduction
The generally accepted proposition that vote populi symbolizes democratic governments is more myth than reality. Historically speaking, democracies actually are quite stingy with whom they share the right to vote. Beginning with the ancient plutocratic Athenian democracy more than 5,000 years ago, citizens were paid to attend assembly meetings and vote. To be sure, knowing the paymaster (or his cousin) obviously was a plus.
Qualifications to vote in the period between the French Revolution and Napoleon often were so quixotic; most French citizens stayed off the streets either out for fear of the guillotine or of what the Emperor held in his famous blue waistcoat. Even the Vatican for a period placed itself in the midst of a crusade against universal suffrage when in pre-Facist Italy in the 1920s it banned all political activity by Catholics, a fact which has been seen by several historians as a contributing factor in the rise of Mussolini.
In this country, the history of the gradually widening of the franchise coincides directly with our internal (and sometimes violent) discourse on race. Loyal to their slave holding legacies, the Founding Fathers limited the franchise to property-owning white men when they met in Philadelphia to draft the original Constitution in 1787. And it would take almost two centuries, a civil war, a protracted women's Suffrage movement and several constitutional amendments to slowly extend the franchise to something approximating the universality that most of us have come to accept as today's embodiment of "We The People."
The evolution of the American democracy, though unlike Darwinian theory, has no natural protections against reversion, i.e., a constriction in the steady march toward true universal suffrage. Most emphatically, in the past dozen years just such a reversal has occurred with the rapid erosion of the franchise among the nearly four million Americans--more than all of our armed forces combined--who have been released recently from either state or federal prisons. Four million ex-offenders, many of whom work and pay taxes, have lost the right to vote, constituting for the first time since slavery, a voteless caste.
One California ex-inmate recently told a congressional hearing just how it felt to be forced to live under this 21st century version of the poll tax: "Without a vote, a voice, I am a ghost inhabiting a citizen's space." Continuing his testimony, Joe Loya, added, "I want to walk calmly into a polling place with other citizens to carry my placid ballot into the booth, check off my choices, then drop my conscience in the common box."
I. A Life Long Poll Tax
According to the Sentencing Project, a Washington, D.C. based organization that studies criminal justice policies, an estimated 3.9 million Americans, or one in fifty adults, have lost the right to vote as a result of a felony conviction. Thirty-two states ban parolees from voting. Two states ban former inmates from voting after the second felony. And fourteen states effectively strip ex-offenders of their franchise for life, unless reversed by a gubernatorial pardon.
Restoration of the franchise is so onerous in one state--Alabama--that applicants must submit to a DNA test at a state approved facility. Extra hardships are routinely encountered since there are only four approved testing labs in the whole state.
It cannot be over-emphasized that these figures do not reflect the disenfranchisement of men and women who are currently behind bars, these figures reflect the number of voteless people who cannot exercise their basic democratic rights after they've been released. A host of civil rights groups estimate that almost half of the voteless caste--about 1.4 million--are African American men. The impact Alabama's felon disenfranchisement laws had reached such massive proportions that legislators last year considered repealing their statutes when published reports showed that nearly one-third of that state's black male population was barred from voting essentially forever. Felon disenfranchisement is significant not only because of the number of citizens it affects, but also because of its disproportionate impact on the voting power of racial minorities. Nationwide, thirteen percent of black men suffer felon disenfranchisement.
Such egregious consequences of this "modern day poll tax" have persuaded the national NAACP office to support H.R. 906, introduced by Congressman John Conyers of Michigan, to restore the voting rights of ex-offenders in federal elections. In his congressional testimony supporting H.R. 906, NAACP Washington Bureau Director Hilary Shelton pointed out that "African Americans and other Americans of color are being kept out of the electoral process at an unequal rate, even after they have paid their debt to society." Added Mr. Shelton:
America expects felons to come out of our penal system prepared to act as productive members of society. We believe ex-felons should support their families and their communities. This is not an unreasonable expectation, but we need in turn to support them in their efforts. Because voting is such an integral part of being a productive member of American society, we should be encouraging ex-felons to vote, not prohibiting them . . . . Felony restrictions are the last vestige of voting prohibitions in the United States.
II. Skyrocketing Imprisonment of Black Males
The rate of black imprisonment rose forty percent between 1980 and 1985. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, on a typical day in 1985, 310,000 (about three and a half percent) were in prison or jail. The figure out for incarcerated black men more than doubled by 1996 to 714,000, fully 6.6% of all black men.
The parallel figure that year--1996--for white men was 760,000 (0.9%) of all white men. Thus, even though black men are only about twelve percent of the male population, they accounted for roughly half of all incarcerated men. The proportion of black men incarcerated is about eight times greater than the proportion of white males incarcerated. For Hispanic males, the proportion incarcerated is about three and a half times the white male proportion.
The concurrent increase in the rate of imprisonment of black females-- currently growing faster than that of white men--means we face a national catastrophe whose negative impact will be felt for several generations. According to a Justice Department study released in late August, nearly one and a half million of our nation's children have a mother or father in federal or state prison. This is a sixty percent increase since 1991 of children under the age of eighteen who face these circumstances.
And if it is generally accepted that voting is a learned behavior most often taught by parents who either take their children into the voting booth or who talk to their offspring about why they are voting, thus it is not hard to foresee several generations of black and brown children growing up without ever seeing their parent(s) pull a lever in a voting machine. A majority of the children with imprisoned parents--fifty-eight percent--were under the age of ten, and the average age was eight years old. As of December 31, 1999, they represented 2.1 % of the nation's seventy-two million minor children.
III. Poll Tax--Then and Now
The 1965 Voting Rights Act is generally regarded by most analysts and historians as one of the most seminal accomplishments of the modern Civil Rights Movement, not only because it finally employed the full weight and power of the federal government to extend the franchise to a whole class of previously disenfranchised citizens of the South, but also because it became the springboard for the final legal assault on the Jim Crow laws which had deprived African Americans the vote since Reconstruction, a pivotal part of the foundation of their economic exploitation for more than a century.
To comprehend just how effectively 19th century poll taxes excluded Southern blacks from the franchise, consider the evidence of black voter registration rates in the states of the Old Confederacy at the beginning of the last century. In 1927, only 847 blacks were registered to vote in Mississippi out of a total population of 188,000. By 1940, registrations had inched up to five percent while in Alabama less than fifteen percent were listed on the rolls.
Meeting in a special convention in 1890, called specifically to address the "problem" of the "Negro vote" in Mississippi (where blacks made up the majority of the population), white delegates passed a suffrage resolution imposing a poll tax of two dollars, excluding voters convicted of bribery, burglary, theft, arson, perjury, murder and bigamy, while also barring those who could not read any section of the state constitution, or understand it when read, or give a reasonable interpretation.
South Carolina followed in 1895 with a bill calling for a two-year residency requirement, a poll tax of one dollar, the ability to read and write the Constitution or to own property worth three hundred dollars and the disqualification of convicts. Florida had succumbed in 1889, setting up a device that required the voter to deposit separate ballots in each of the different boxes marked for different candidates, making it virtually impossible for the illiterate to navigate the balloting process.
This problem improved little for the first half of the next century. At the time of the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, fewer than three out of ten Southern blacks--1.4 million--were eligible to vote. The 24th Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing poll taxes in national elections, was ratified in 1964. By the mid-term elections two years later, an additional 750,000 blacks were registered. Black registration soared even higher a year later when the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case brought by Lyndon Johnson's White House, voided the poll tax in all elections.
IV. Economic Dimension
Lurking behind all of this chicanery with ballot boxes and trumped up taxes was the not to subtle intent by southern whites to utilize disenfranchisement to create a class of peons who would supply the economic muscle for the region's agricultural infrastructure, but which would be unable to mount any serious challenge over the distribution of resources and wealth, even when these tenant farmers and sharecroppers were in the majority. "Disenfranchisement was part of the broader effort by the southern planter class to erect a system of political, economic and social coercion over blacks that would permit the re-establishment of a quasi-feudal labor system. Experience (during Reconstruction) showed that black suffrage interfered with this objective."
Today's modern multi-billion-dollar prison-industrial complex, which has inmates manufacturing every conceivable kind of product as well as doing business on the worldwide web, thus, must be examined in this broader context. By even the most basic standard it is obvious to predict that the long term effects of felon disenfranchisement will mean that this burgeoning voteless caste will continue to be at the mercy of exploitative economic interests for many generations yet unborn.
V. The Legal Counterattack
Igniting an effective counter strategy clearly is in the interest of the modern NAACP, the very same organization that was in the vanguard of the anti-poll tax movement in the early years of the last century. The first volley in the modern strategy was begun last December in Pennsylvania, which bans ex-felons from registering to vote for five years after release, when the Philadelphia NAACP Branch filed suit in state court to overturn that state's disenfranchisement statute, approved hastily in 1995.
Pennsylvania's notoriously corrupt and backward courts are even more glacial in their pace than are many other large states, a fact which prompted the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP to bring a separate action in the spring of this year in federal court. Both actions attack the Pennsylvania disenfranchisement law as a clear violation of both the state and federal constitutions guarantees of one man, one vote. "Undeniably felon disenfranchisement in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is racially discriminatory," the Philadelphia Branch declared at a news conference announcing its two-pronged legal counter-strategy.
What's more, felon disenfranchisement is cruel and mean spirited, clearly designed to be hurtful even as these men and women are trying to work their way back into society's all too often less than welcoming arms . . . . Its long term effects are so overwhelming as to be beyond simple quantification. At a time when the fastest growing prison population are African American Women, most of whom have families, how is it possible that their offspring will ever vote since they probably will never see their mothers or fathers walk into a polling booth? By denying these ex-inmates the right to register to vote for five years after release, the state really is stealing rights from their offspring as well; stealing, most probably for a lifetime, one of our nation's most fundamental rights--the right of the governed to choose their leaders, even as it taxes them and continues to be able to call upon them to lay down their lives in a time of a national emergency or conflict.
VI. A History of Valor
Having watched his fellow Mississippians march off to join the "war to protect democracy," most probably was one of the issues which persuaded Harrisburg NAACP President Vernon Dahmer that something had to be done to address the poll tax that deprived so many of the returning black vets of their right to vote. The owner of a successful grocery store in his hometown, Dahmer decided in the 1950s to begin to pay the poll taxes of any black state resident with the courage to show up at the county registrar's office. Back then, taking up Vernon Dahmer's offer was no spur of the moment decision.
In 1966 the Klan ruled Mississippi. The federal government rarely challenged their autonomy. And local governments never did, since more often than not their membership lists were practically synonymous. One chilly January night thirty-four years ago, Vernon Dahmer's wife, Ellie and the family awoke to the sounds of motor engines and honking horns. Two carloads of Klansmen, some armed with shotguns, others carrying cans of gasoline, burst from their vehicles outside the Dahmer home at two o'clock in the morning. They dumped their gasoline on the wooden farmhouse, setting it ablaze in just a few moments. Vernon aided his family's escape from the smoke and flames by holding the Klansmen at bay with his own repeated shotgun blasts. His two young children and wife would testify decades later that they could smell their father's burning flesh as they ran to safety beneath his outstretched arms holding the burning door ajar. Twelve hours later Vernon died from the injuries to his seared lungs.
It would not be until August 1998 that the man who ordered Vernon Dahmer's murder--Sam Bowers--was finally convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Bowers, who at the time was the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Mississippi Ku Klux Klan was also at the center of the conspiracy of the infamous Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama three years earlier which killed four pre-teen black girls as they attended Sunday school.
Today's struggle against felon disenfranchisement is born of the valiant and sometimes very costly struggle Vernon Dahmer and other NAACP members waged against the poll tax of an earlier generation. Like Vernon Dahmer, today's NAACP knows that voteless people not only lose political freedom, but are certain to be sentenced to a life of servitude as well.
[a1]. J. Whyatt Mondesire is President of the Philadelphia Branch of the NAACP, as well as editor and publisher of The Philadelphia Sunday Sun newspaper.
This article is discussing felonies and the removal of their right to vote. Convicted felons with money can hire attorneys to get their right back. Some consider this a modern day poll tax.
This is a video of a poll tax riot in London. It occured after a working class outrage at poll taxes specifically being targeted upon them.
Amendment 23
1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment states that the District of Columbia will be given electoral votes. This amendment was very necessary because the District of Columbia is such a populated area. DC has 3 electoral votes, the same as the least populated state, Rhode Island.
2000
CNN.com
(Bush - Gore)
The 2000 Presidential Election was the most recent election where the popular vote winner was not elected. George W. Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush, ran on the Republican ticket against Democratic candidate, and the sitting Vice President, Al Gore.
Though Gore held a slim popular vote victory of 543,895 (0.5%), Bush won the Electoral College 271-266, with one Gore Elector abstaining.
The election was plagued with allegations of voter fraud and disenfranchisement. Rumors of illegal road blocks, unclear ballots, and uncounted votes, particularly in swing states like Missouri and Florida, were rampant.
Florida became the key state as the election drew to a close. Consisting of nearly 6 million voters, Florida was officially won by a margin of 537 votes, after a process of recounting the votes and a Supreme Court ruling.
Voters complained about confusing ballots and many Florida voters believed that they accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan, a conservative running on the Reform ticket, when they meant to vote for Al Gore.
Another significant candidate in the 2000 election was Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader. Nader attracted just under 3% of voters with a progressive platform focused on social and environmental issues.
Democratic supporters targeted Nader as being a “spoiler” for Al Gore. Since Nader was left-of-center, Democrats argued that most of his voters would have otherwise supported Gore. In such a close election, many believe that Gore would have won if Nader had dropped out of the race.
The 2000 election resulted in numerous court battles over contested ballots and recounts. These lawsuits escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court where the final, 5-4 decision was made, ending the recounts and giving the state of Florida's Electoral votes to George W. Bush.
In the end, Gore conceded the election publicly, though he did not hide his displeasure at the Supreme Court’s ruling.
This article discusses the 2000 in which the electoral votes determined a winner different than the popular vote. It is one example of why electoral votes are so important, giving more reasoning for why DC citizens are deserving of this right.
I watched this video in grade school when learning about the electoral college. It discusses electoral votes and why they have so much influence.
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
This amendment states that the District of Columbia will be given electoral votes. This amendment was very necessary because the District of Columbia is such a populated area. DC has 3 electoral votes, the same as the least populated state, Rhode Island.
2000
CNN.com
(Bush - Gore)
The 2000 Presidential Election was the most recent election where the popular vote winner was not elected. George W. Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush, ran on the Republican ticket against Democratic candidate, and the sitting Vice President, Al Gore.
Though Gore held a slim popular vote victory of 543,895 (0.5%), Bush won the Electoral College 271-266, with one Gore Elector abstaining.
The election was plagued with allegations of voter fraud and disenfranchisement. Rumors of illegal road blocks, unclear ballots, and uncounted votes, particularly in swing states like Missouri and Florida, were rampant.
Florida became the key state as the election drew to a close. Consisting of nearly 6 million voters, Florida was officially won by a margin of 537 votes, after a process of recounting the votes and a Supreme Court ruling.
Voters complained about confusing ballots and many Florida voters believed that they accidentally voted for Pat Buchanan, a conservative running on the Reform ticket, when they meant to vote for Al Gore.
Another significant candidate in the 2000 election was Green Party candidate, Ralph Nader. Nader attracted just under 3% of voters with a progressive platform focused on social and environmental issues.
Democratic supporters targeted Nader as being a “spoiler” for Al Gore. Since Nader was left-of-center, Democrats argued that most of his voters would have otherwise supported Gore. In such a close election, many believe that Gore would have won if Nader had dropped out of the race.
The 2000 election resulted in numerous court battles over contested ballots and recounts. These lawsuits escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court where the final, 5-4 decision was made, ending the recounts and giving the state of Florida's Electoral votes to George W. Bush.
In the end, Gore conceded the election publicly, though he did not hide his displeasure at the Supreme Court’s ruling.
This article discusses the 2000 in which the electoral votes determined a winner different than the popular vote. It is one example of why electoral votes are so important, giving more reasoning for why DC citizens are deserving of this right.
I watched this video in grade school when learning about the electoral college. It discusses electoral votes and why they have so much influence.
Amendment 22
1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
The Amendment guarentees that a president cannot be elected to more than two terms. It guarentees that no president will become a monarch.
Obama’s coup d’etat is coming in the form of 22nd Amendment repeal.
CNN.com
The president takes a page from the Chavez playbook and makes an end-around for dictator-for-life.
by Michael Naragon
Economic expert Milton Friedman long believed that one of the weaknesses of the American system was that Congressmen were not limited in the number of terms they can serve. With the right constituency and/or control of redistricting, some politicians have managed to stay in office for decades, thereby becoming entrenched in the politics of corruption and quid pro quo that Washington has become. Now, the president may receive the Constitutional right to remain in office just as long.
On January 6, 2009, days before Barack Obama was sworn in as president, amid the pomp and circumstance of his coronation, a resolution was quietly advanced in the House Judiciary Committee. The resolution, HJ Res. 5, reads as follows:
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:
In essence, what the resolution and a subsequent 28th Amendment would do, if passed, is make it feasible for a president of the United States to remain in office as often as he can win elections.
George Washington set a precedent by remaining in office for two terms. Every president following our Founding Father replicated this tradition.
Only a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, in a time of national crisis, dared to presume the American people needed more than eight years of his guidance and rule. Using the crisis, he was elected four times, convincing Americans not to “change horses in the middle of a river.”
Now, the man who would be Roosevelt and Lincoln rolled into a smooth, apologetic package, can seek to use his own crisis, including the parts of his own making, to continue his tenure in the highest office in the land.
Some will say, “You’re nuts. He’ll lose in 2012, much less three terms from now.” To that belief, I counter with some other nuts–specifically, ACORN. Now it has, hopefully, become more clear to you why ACORN has received millions of taxpayer dollars for its operating costs in the stimulus plan advanced by Obama and passed by Congress. Remember, the stimulus bill granting them that money was passed in February, more than a month after HJ Res. 5 had been advanced.
It should also start becoming painfully obvious why ACORN will be involved with the Census in 2010. This “nonpartisan,” now-taxpayer-funded group could/will be key to keeping Democrats, including Obama, in office indefinitely.
The Democratic machine in Minnesota has already managed to reverse the Senate election there in favor of Al Franken. How difficult would it be to do so on a national level? Throw in the potentiality of legalizing millions of illegal immigrants in the next year, and we could all grow old with Barack Obama as our caretaker-president, unless something is done to stem the tide that is washing us onto the desolate beach of Marxist communism, Soviet style.
While this article is a piece of propoganda it is very relevant to the 22nd amendment. It discusses the possible repealment of the amendment and the reasons we have it.
This video is about Adolf Hiltler. Hilter came into power through a democratic government.
2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
The Amendment guarentees that a president cannot be elected to more than two terms. It guarentees that no president will become a monarch.
Obama’s coup d’etat is coming in the form of 22nd Amendment repeal.
CNN.com
The president takes a page from the Chavez playbook and makes an end-around for dictator-for-life.
by Michael Naragon
Economic expert Milton Friedman long believed that one of the weaknesses of the American system was that Congressmen were not limited in the number of terms they can serve. With the right constituency and/or control of redistricting, some politicians have managed to stay in office for decades, thereby becoming entrenched in the politics of corruption and quid pro quo that Washington has become. Now, the president may receive the Constitutional right to remain in office just as long.
On January 6, 2009, days before Barack Obama was sworn in as president, amid the pomp and circumstance of his coronation, a resolution was quietly advanced in the House Judiciary Committee. The resolution, HJ Res. 5, reads as follows:
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the twenty-second article of amendment, thereby removing the limitation on the number of terms an individual may serve as President.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years after the date of its submission for ratification:
In essence, what the resolution and a subsequent 28th Amendment would do, if passed, is make it feasible for a president of the United States to remain in office as often as he can win elections.
George Washington set a precedent by remaining in office for two terms. Every president following our Founding Father replicated this tradition.
Only a Democrat, Franklin Roosevelt, in a time of national crisis, dared to presume the American people needed more than eight years of his guidance and rule. Using the crisis, he was elected four times, convincing Americans not to “change horses in the middle of a river.”
Now, the man who would be Roosevelt and Lincoln rolled into a smooth, apologetic package, can seek to use his own crisis, including the parts of his own making, to continue his tenure in the highest office in the land.
Some will say, “You’re nuts. He’ll lose in 2012, much less three terms from now.” To that belief, I counter with some other nuts–specifically, ACORN. Now it has, hopefully, become more clear to you why ACORN has received millions of taxpayer dollars for its operating costs in the stimulus plan advanced by Obama and passed by Congress. Remember, the stimulus bill granting them that money was passed in February, more than a month after HJ Res. 5 had been advanced.
It should also start becoming painfully obvious why ACORN will be involved with the Census in 2010. This “nonpartisan,” now-taxpayer-funded group could/will be key to keeping Democrats, including Obama, in office indefinitely.
The Democratic machine in Minnesota has already managed to reverse the Senate election there in favor of Al Franken. How difficult would it be to do so on a national level? Throw in the potentiality of legalizing millions of illegal immigrants in the next year, and we could all grow old with Barack Obama as our caretaker-president, unless something is done to stem the tide that is washing us onto the desolate beach of Marxist communism, Soviet style.
While this article is a piece of propoganda it is very relevant to the 22nd amendment. It discusses the possible repealment of the amendment and the reasons we have it.
This video is about Adolf Hiltler. Hilter came into power through a democratic government.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Amendment 21
1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.
2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
3. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress
This article repeals prohibition. Prohibition was not helping to lower the crime rate. In fact it was making crime more prevalent. By repealing the the 18th Amendment law makers were hoping to lower the rate again.
November 3, 2010
California Post
California Rejects Marijuana LegalizationBy MARC LACEY
OAKLAND — California voters rejected a ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have legalized marijuana for recreational use, but disappointed supporters of the measure lighted up anyway outside their campaign headquarters here and vowed to continue pushing for a day when cannabis is treated like tobacco and alcohol, not heroin and cocaine.
“There will be a few tears shed,” said Gregory Lyons, 63, a pastry chef who worked the phones throughout the day on Tuesday to rally support for the measure. “Demonizing a plant doesn’t make sense.”
Added Jeremy Daw, 30, who was puffing on a lengthy spliff as the returns came in: “I feel deflated.”
Across the country, voters in dozens of states weighed in not just on candidates but on all matter of issues large and small, more than 150 of them in all. In Rhode Island, voters decided not to change the name of the state, which is officially “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Arizona put an end to affirmative action programs. Oklahoma made English its official language. There were municipal initiatives as well, including a zany one in Denver that called on the city to set up a “extraterrestrial affairs committee” to look into UFOs.
The marijuana initiative would have allowed licensed retailers to sell up to one ounce at a time, with no doctor’s note required, to those over the age of 21. Advocates of legalization argued that it was already easier for young people to get a marijuana cigarette than a cigarette or beer.
“They can get it more easily than alcohol, more easily than tobacco,” said Hanna Dershowitz, a lawyer and mother of two from Southern California who backed the cannabis initiative. “Drug dealers don’t ask for ID.”
Legalizing marijuana, advocates had argued, would have had the added benefit of generating tax revenue and helping reduce the violence caused by Mexican organizations that traffic in illegal drugs. “When was the last time Coors Lite did a drive-by shooting on Budweiser because they didn’t like their marketing?” asked Nate Bradley, a former police officer who supported the measure. But opponents carried the day with their argument that lifting the ban on marijuana would translate into increased usage of the drug. Already, a recent change in the law categorizes possession of small amounts as an infraction, the lowest level of offense.
And even some marijuana smokers did not like the idea of cannabis, long a symbol of the counterculture, being regulated. “I don’t want Anheuser-Busch handling pot or to have to buy Marlboro marijuana,” said Shaun Ramos, 29, who spent Tuesday morning sticking “No on Prop 19” posters on light posts in downtown Oakland, only to see them quickly removed by supporters of legalization. “This is all about corporate control.”
Tuesday’s legalization effort was not the first attempt to decriminalize cannabis. California voters had rejected a similar legalization effort in 1972 and over the last decade voters in Alaska, Colorado, Nevada and South Dakota had all said no to marijuana.
Medical marijuana initiatives have fared better, with more than a dozen states allowing cannabis for those who get permission from their doctors. But voters in South Dakota rejected a measure allowing medical marijuana in that state, and Arizona appeared poised to do the same. Voters in Oregon, where about 40,000 people legally use medical marijuana, rejected a measure to set up state-regulated dispensaries.
The vote on legalizing marijuana in California was closely watched, especially in Mexico, where the government is engaged in a violent battle with drug traffickers who grow marijuana and sneak the profitable herb in bales across the border.
Also in California, voters rejected a measure to suspend the state’s curbs on greenhouse gas emissions while the economy was in the doldrums. Largely financed by out-of-state oil companies, the initiative sought to tap into voters’ economic woes to roll back landmark environmental legislation approved in 2006 that called for the state to curb emissions by 15 percent by 2020.
“This the first time ever that there’s been such a huge referendum on climate change and clean energy policy,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “This sends a clear message that people want a clean energy future.”
In Washington state, voters rejected an initiative creating the state’s first income tax, exclusively on individuals who earn more than $200,000. It was backed by Bill Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft founder who is the country’s richest man. In Massachusetts, voters endorsed wiping out the sales tax for alcohol, but rejected rolling back the 6.25 percent sales tax to 3 percent.
Three ballot measures in Colorado that would have cut the state income tax and sharply restricted government borrowing and property taxes for schools were overwhelmingly defeated. Voters also rejected an antiabortion amendment to the Colorado Constitution that would have conferred rights “to every human being from the beginning of the biological development.”
In Arizona and Oklahoma, voters approved measures aimed at preventing President Obama’s health care legislation from going into effect. Colorado voters rejected a similar measure.
This article is about the legalization of marijuana. Individuals often compare marijuana illegalization to prohibition, saying that if marijuana was made legal crime would decrease. And that legalization of marijuana would have the same effect as Amendment 21.
This video discusses the failure of prohibition.
2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.
3. The article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress
This article repeals prohibition. Prohibition was not helping to lower the crime rate. In fact it was making crime more prevalent. By repealing the the 18th Amendment law makers were hoping to lower the rate again.
November 3, 2010
California Post
California Rejects Marijuana LegalizationBy MARC LACEY
OAKLAND — California voters rejected a ballot initiative on Tuesday that would have legalized marijuana for recreational use, but disappointed supporters of the measure lighted up anyway outside their campaign headquarters here and vowed to continue pushing for a day when cannabis is treated like tobacco and alcohol, not heroin and cocaine.
“There will be a few tears shed,” said Gregory Lyons, 63, a pastry chef who worked the phones throughout the day on Tuesday to rally support for the measure. “Demonizing a plant doesn’t make sense.”
Added Jeremy Daw, 30, who was puffing on a lengthy spliff as the returns came in: “I feel deflated.”
Across the country, voters in dozens of states weighed in not just on candidates but on all matter of issues large and small, more than 150 of them in all. In Rhode Island, voters decided not to change the name of the state, which is officially “Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.” Arizona put an end to affirmative action programs. Oklahoma made English its official language. There were municipal initiatives as well, including a zany one in Denver that called on the city to set up a “extraterrestrial affairs committee” to look into UFOs.
The marijuana initiative would have allowed licensed retailers to sell up to one ounce at a time, with no doctor’s note required, to those over the age of 21. Advocates of legalization argued that it was already easier for young people to get a marijuana cigarette than a cigarette or beer.
“They can get it more easily than alcohol, more easily than tobacco,” said Hanna Dershowitz, a lawyer and mother of two from Southern California who backed the cannabis initiative. “Drug dealers don’t ask for ID.”
Legalizing marijuana, advocates had argued, would have had the added benefit of generating tax revenue and helping reduce the violence caused by Mexican organizations that traffic in illegal drugs. “When was the last time Coors Lite did a drive-by shooting on Budweiser because they didn’t like their marketing?” asked Nate Bradley, a former police officer who supported the measure. But opponents carried the day with their argument that lifting the ban on marijuana would translate into increased usage of the drug. Already, a recent change in the law categorizes possession of small amounts as an infraction, the lowest level of offense.
And even some marijuana smokers did not like the idea of cannabis, long a symbol of the counterculture, being regulated. “I don’t want Anheuser-Busch handling pot or to have to buy Marlboro marijuana,” said Shaun Ramos, 29, who spent Tuesday morning sticking “No on Prop 19” posters on light posts in downtown Oakland, only to see them quickly removed by supporters of legalization. “This is all about corporate control.”
Tuesday’s legalization effort was not the first attempt to decriminalize cannabis. California voters had rejected a similar legalization effort in 1972 and over the last decade voters in Alaska, Colorado, Nevada and South Dakota had all said no to marijuana.
Medical marijuana initiatives have fared better, with more than a dozen states allowing cannabis for those who get permission from their doctors. But voters in South Dakota rejected a measure allowing medical marijuana in that state, and Arizona appeared poised to do the same. Voters in Oregon, where about 40,000 people legally use medical marijuana, rejected a measure to set up state-regulated dispensaries.
The vote on legalizing marijuana in California was closely watched, especially in Mexico, where the government is engaged in a violent battle with drug traffickers who grow marijuana and sneak the profitable herb in bales across the border.
Also in California, voters rejected a measure to suspend the state’s curbs on greenhouse gas emissions while the economy was in the doldrums. Largely financed by out-of-state oil companies, the initiative sought to tap into voters’ economic woes to roll back landmark environmental legislation approved in 2006 that called for the state to curb emissions by 15 percent by 2020.
“This the first time ever that there’s been such a huge referendum on climate change and clean energy policy,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “This sends a clear message that people want a clean energy future.”
In Washington state, voters rejected an initiative creating the state’s first income tax, exclusively on individuals who earn more than $200,000. It was backed by Bill Gates Sr., father of the Microsoft founder who is the country’s richest man. In Massachusetts, voters endorsed wiping out the sales tax for alcohol, but rejected rolling back the 6.25 percent sales tax to 3 percent.
Three ballot measures in Colorado that would have cut the state income tax and sharply restricted government borrowing and property taxes for schools were overwhelmingly defeated. Voters also rejected an antiabortion amendment to the Colorado Constitution that would have conferred rights “to every human being from the beginning of the biological development.”
In Arizona and Oklahoma, voters approved measures aimed at preventing President Obama’s health care legislation from going into effect. Colorado voters rejected a similar measure.
This article is about the legalization of marijuana. Individuals often compare marijuana illegalization to prohibition, saying that if marijuana was made legal crime would decrease. And that legalization of marijuana would have the same effect as Amendment 21.
This video discusses the failure of prohibition.
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