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High Crimes and Misdemeanors

November 26, 2017 in , , , /by

Impeachment of the President has occurred twice in American history and was preempted in a third case by the resignation of the President. This little-used mechanism of republican government has recently been on the lips of many, fueled by an unpopular President and a special counsel investigation into the conduct of his subordinates. If a President is impeached by the House of Representatives and convicted by the Senate, he or she is removed from office, but may be subject to later criminal prosecution. The constitutional grounds for impeachment are “Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Treason is defined in the Constitution itself and bribery has a clear legal meaning. But what are high crimes and misdemeanors?

Delegate Riley Moore and Business Tax Cuts

November 8, 2017 in , , , , /by

On October 19, 2017 Delegate Riley Moore, who represents the Shepherdstown District in the West Virginia House of Delegates, published an opinion piece in the Charleston Daily Mail. The piece urged Congress to pass the Trump “tax reform” bill for the sake of economic growth, particularly in West Virginia. Putting aside that Del. Moore could not have known the details of the Republican tax bill on October 19 because it had not yet been made public, he extolled the virtues of various tax cuts he expected the plan to contain. In particular, Del. Moore is fond of tax cuts for business. His logic is the following. The desirable end result is more economic activity and good jobs for everyone. So far, so good. The means of achieving that desirable end result is to give over a trillion taxpayer dollars to corporations — with no strings attached — and hope that they spend this money in productive ways. What could possibly go wrong here?

Partisan Gerrymandering and the Constitution III

November 1, 2017 in , /by

The Supreme Court recently heard argument in Gill v. Whitford, a case from Wisconsin challenging gross partisan gerrymandering. In that case the Republican majority of the legislature intentionally redrew state district boundaries to ensure that in the future Republicans won a majority of seats even when Democrats prevailed in the state-wide popular vote. The Democrat challengers in court claimed that their rights to free association and speech under the First Amendment and their right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment were violated by this. How the Supreme Court resolves this case will determine how well our democracy works for decades.

Partisan Gerrymandering and the Constitution II

October 2, 2017 in , /by

Today the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Gill v. Whitford, in which the Wisconsin legislature was caught red-handed manipulating the state’s voting districts to ensure that Republicans retain control for a decade, even if they lose the state-wide popular vote. The process by which the legislature did this was secret – the redistricting plan was drafted in a conference room of a private law firm with the aid of sophisticated software. Democrats were totally excluded from the process. Much of the damning evidence came to light when recall elections involving several state senators briefly put the Democrats back in control. Since the law firm represented the legislature itself, not the former Republican majority, the new Democratic majority instructed the lawyers to release the records of how the gerrymandering was done. What spilled forth should make the hair stand on the back of your neck.

Partisan Gerrymandering and the Constitution

September 25, 2017 in , , , /by

On October 3, 2017, the United States Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case of Gill v. Whitford. The case raises the question of whether gross partisan gerrymandering by the Wisconsin state legislature in creating state voting districts violates any provision of the U.S. Constitution. Partisan gerrymandering – intentionally drawing voting district lines to favor one party or the other – has seen a sharp increase since the redistricting that followed the 2010 census. Many observers believe that partisan gerrymandering is to blame for much of the gridlock in Congress and the state legislatures because highly partisan districts elect highly partisan representatives who have no political room to compromise. The old legal wisdom is that for every wrong there is a remedy, so you would expect that this case would be a slam-dunk for those challenging the Wisconsin redistricting in the Supreme Court. But you would be wrong.

Congressman Alex Mooney Fails Economics

September 11, 2017 in , /by

President Trump recently cut a deal with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government for three months. Republican leadership had wanted a deal to fund the government for eighteen months so they would not have to revisit the issue before the 2018 mid-term elections. When the components of this deal reached the House for a vote, 90 Republicans voted against raising the debt ceiling, including Rep. Alex Mooney (WV 2d). Mooney issued a statement, saying “I voted against raising the debt limit because our national debt is already too high. West Virginian families have to balance their budgets each month and the federal government should do the same.” Really? Balance the federal budget each month? This statement shows that Mooney misunderstands the issues of public debt and deficit spending, or assumes that his constituents do. It is probably both.

Jeff Flake’s Conservative Conscience

September 4, 2017 in , , /by

Jeff Flake is the junior United States Senator from Arizona. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in International Relations and spent time as a missionary in South Africa. Later he served as the Executive Director of the Goldwater Institute, a conservative think tank, and was elected to the House of Representatives six times beginning in 2000 before his run for the Senate. Flake is very conservative, believing that government’s involvement in the lives of individual citizens should be minimized and that strangling tax revenues and spending is the best way to ensure this. He is pro-life, opposed to gun control and voted against disaster relief spending for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy. So one would not expect Jeff Flake to be openly critical of a Republican President whose election in 2016 made this conservative nirvana more likely. But Jeff Flake is a man of principle and he has unloaded on Donald Trump.

West Virginia’s Other Public Health Crisis

August 28, 2017 in , /by

Now that President Trump has declared that the opioid epidemic in this country is a national disaster, we may soon see more attention being paid to that health crisis in West Virginia. But there’s another health crisis in West Virginia that’s been festering under the radar: the epidemic of chronic disease and general poor health. According to the most recent report by the West Virginia Health Statistics Center, West Virginians have the second highest obesity rate in the country, the fifth highest rate of inactivity or lack of exercise, and the fifth highest rate of cancer. The state ranks first in the country for heart attacks, second for the prevalence of mental health problems and fourth for diabetes. Panhandle counties, particularly Jefferson, generally fare better than the rest of the state on these measures. Yet from any viewpoint, these statistics are troubling. But unlike with opioids, recent science has shown there’s a quick, inexpensive, and certain cure for this crisis of poor health: it is our feet.

Charlottesville

August 13, 2017 in /by

I have spent a lot of time in Charlottesville, first for college and then numerous visits later. It is a lovely city, home to a fine university that pursues reason in the Enlightenment tradition of its founder. So it was that yesterday, as I saw the still photographs of the violent demonstration by white supremacists and alt-right thugs in Charlottesville, I sobbed. How can this kind of thing happen in our country, much less in Charlottesville? Something has changed. That something is Donald Trump.

The Old Bait And Switch

August 8, 2017 in , , /by

West Virginia voters have just been made the victims of a fraud — we were sold one thing by Jim Justice and he has now delivered another. It did not take him long to reveal the fraud, suggesting that it was intended from the beginning. On a stage with Donald Trump on August 3, 2017, Justice announced that he was switching parties from Democrat to Republican. Recall that this is a man who switched party affiliations from Republican to Democrat in 2015 so he could run for Governor on the Democrat ticket. He was elected in November 2016, a mere nine months before switching back again. In front of a cheering crowd who had booed him just moments before, Justice explained that “I just can’t help you anymore being a Democrat governor.” This bait and switch had far less to do with Justice’s desire to be an effective governor than with his lack of character.