President Certified After Objection Delay

(From FOXNews.com)

When I first heard that Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) might participate in raising an objection to the Ohio electoral-vote count, I held my breath, and my peace. I waited to see what the Senator would actually do. Today she sunk to a new low and, I suggest, sullied not only her own reputation but that of the Senate. Her actions delayed the certification of President Bush's re-election by several hours but, other than that, accomplished nothing of substance.

The only reason I do not accuse Representative Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) of similarly sullying the reputation of the House is that Representative Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and his crew had already done that four years ago, when they presented objection after objection to the Florida certificate-of-vote, all of which then-Vice-President Gore rejected out-of-hand because no Senator had risked the reputation of the Senate in that case.)

It ill-befits a Senator or a Representative to waste Congress' time trying to contest an election on specious grounds, and especially when they know in advance that each House of Congress will inevitably over-rule the objection (as both the House and the Senate did, and decisively, too). I listened to several of the speeches on the floor of the House and Senate, as Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity occasionally cut to them. I heard some of the most hypocritical screeds that have ever polluted the air in either House' chamber. Many of these screeds involved the generation of paper-ballot backups in electronic voting. Hear this, Senator Boxer: I'll gladly see an electronic ballot terminal print out a paper back-up receipt any time you are really serious about any such reform. But I don't believe for one picosecond that you would be so concerned with a paper back-up if John F. Kerry had won the election.

In very closely-related news, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has said that she would propose a Constitutional amendment abolishing the electoral college--in other words, to elect a President directly by popular vote. I have news for her: this would also further weaken the foundations of republican government. The idea of a republic is that government at each level has a key role in choosing the leadership at the next level. Hence, the people of each State elect the electors, and the electors elect the President. I would prefer, frankly, that States allow for the election of uncommitted electors--or that electors run in their own names, which we all know that they do not. We might never get to that point. But let us hope that we never abolish the Electoral College, which is the only way that a Presidential candidate won't run roughshod over less-populous States and virtually ignore them.

Of course, I predict with 99 and 44/100 percent confidence (with apologizes to Procter and Gamble) that no such amendment will possibly achieve ratification, even if it garners the required two-thirds of the House and Senate. So why do I mention it at all? Simply to illustrate the rank hypocrisy of certain members of the Senate for all to see. After all, if their system had been in place in 1992 and 1996, Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush would have headed to a runoff in 1992. Would Bill Clinton have won the runoff? I doubt it. So why didn't they present their Constitutional amendment then? You decide.