Archive for November 21st, 2007

Is it just me, or does sore loser Terre Haute Mayor Kevin Burke make Al Gore look polite?

Sing with me now, “Where in the world is Carmen San Diego?” I mean, Monroe Gray. Yeah, it just doesn’t fit with the right cadence. Anyway, if you were wondering what Sweet Pea was up to, Polis Politics has quite the interesting post here. Make sure to check it out!

For years now Birch Bayh has been trying to abolish the Electoral College. The Indiana Policy Review Foundation’s Andrea Neal just wrote a very interesting article about this debate that keeps resurfacing every so often:

The quadrennial debate over the Electoral College is back. Last month, a Pennsylvania House committee heard a bill that would change the way that state votes for president. If the bill became law, Pennsylvania would require its Electoral College delegates to vote for the candidate who wins the majority of the national popular vote, no matter how Pennsylvanians voted. If enough states did the same, we’d essentially get rid of the Electoral College without amending the Constitution.

National Popular Vote, an organization created last year to push this concept, says it’s gaining steam around the country. More than 350 state legislators have signed on as bill sponsors in 47 states. Another 391 have cast a recorded vote in favor of the legislation in committee or on the floor of a legislative chamber. Former Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh, who introduced a constitutional amendment to abolish the Electoral College way back in 1970, is one of the proposal’s key supporters.

To read the rest of the article click here.

I personally support the system our founding fathers put in place. The electoral college, now slightly modified to allow candidates of the same party to seek the office of president and vice-president, allows the states to play an important role in electing a president.

Unlike our modern perception of states, the founding fathers viewed states as important checks on the national government. The federal government was to regulate trade and provide for the national defense. While some moral issues are of necessity dealt with by the federal government (slavery, for example), a quick review an appropriations bill will tell you that the federal government isn’t exactly limited to it’s Constitutionally mandated role. States are not mere administrative jurisdictions, they are healthy and vibrant government bodies that should have the ability to supersede federal regulations on issues affecting only that state.

According a story in the NWI Times, Gary is now a little safer.  The conclusion comes from a study that found that the Steel City’s crime rate fell from 2005 to 2006.  Of course, there is the slight problem of this year’s homicide numbers being up and the year not being over yet.

When asked about the city’s higher homicide rate, Mayor Rudy Clay (D) had this answer: “That’s just paperwork.  But the reality is that the perception of Gary is not reality.”  Is Mayor Clay really thinking that the rise in homicides (51 last year, 64 so far this year) is simply the result of paperwork?  I didn’t know that paperwork kills…wait ’till my boss hears this.  Also, that last line there about the reality not being the perception and the perception not being the reality, well, that probably won’t go down as a very stellar clear statement about the state of the city.

Oh, those of you in Columbus may want to know that your city was ranked safest in the state.  Congratulations.