September 27, 2007
UPDATE: Butt Biter Behind Plan to Split State's Electoral Votes
Charles Hurth, city attorney for the tiny town of New Haven, Mo., is one of the main men behind the push to make California Electoral College votes more Republican-y, a confusing ploy that would split the votes by congressional districts. But Hurth also has another claim to fame:
Charles "Chep" Hurth III was best known for a headline-grabbing incident a decade ago in which he bit a young female law student on the butt in a bar...Hurth, then a third-year law student at St. Louis University, was taken to court by a young woman who said he grabbed her in a bar and bit her on the buttocks so hard she required medical attention - then laughed and high-fived his friends...Hurth testified that he had told her she should take it as a compliment...The female attorney sued him and took something else instead - a jury's award of $27,500 for damages.
It's fascinating to see how far the GOP can fall without bottoming out.
UPDATE: Andrew Malcolm of the LA Times reports that the Electoral vote initiative backers are calling it quits. Alas. But, Charles, look at the bright side: more time for you to sink your teeth into more ass. Yay! Anyway, read more about it here. (Thanks for the tip, reader.)
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I had no idea Marv Albert was in California politics.
Butt biters, toilet tappers; Golly, what's next?
what's confusing about this? it would turn the electoral college back into a match of the popular vote. i think this is something we should seriously consider. imagine the popular vote actually electing the president. that's what this is about. the normal process of granting all the electoral votes for a large state like ours would be split among the most popular votes within our state.
Be honest Brock, you'd be jumping up & down enthusiastically applauding the proposal if California was a majority Republican state where only San Fran & L.A. were Democratic strongholds.
mmmmaybe.
We live in a federal system, suckafree. The votes of individual people aren't supposed to matter as much as the aggregate vote of a state (at least in presidential elections). That's the whole theoretical underpinning of our nation.
Just because there's been some garbage recently about the electoral college "not reflecting" the popular vote doesn't mean it's a system that should be wholesaled through the (no doubt well-funded) efforts of scheming, ass-biting political entrepreneurs.
And, let's not get stupid. We're not talking about every state doing this. We're talking about California doing this. We split California's electoral votes without doing it elsewhere, and what happens? The Republicans win every time. That may be what you want to see, but doing it this way is cynical and sleazy.
Agree with #6. Anyone who looks at this in terms of "which party do I want to win?" is taking a dangerously limited viewpoint.
That includes the butt-biters behind it (who want the Republicans to win) and many of the people against it (who oppose it for the wrong reasons - because they want Democrats to win - as opposed to because it introduces a major inequity into the system).
We're talking about the way this country elects a President. If it's changed just to favor a particular candidate in the next election...that's just bogus...
The LA Times is reporting that backers of this plan have now abandoned it. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2007/09/breaking-news-e.html
Haplito 6,
One minor correction- under Bushie we are actually living under a monarchy.
May Queen Clinton with the guidance of her royal consort Prince William, return many of the powers stolen by King George back to her subjects. May there be many beheadings of this royal family and their evil ministers and warriors and scribes.
Yes this is an excellent idea Suckafree, give more votes to the Republicans, really clever. The money trail for this leads right back to Guliani, if you dig a bit deeper. Douchebag Hurth gave him $2,000 a few months ago, but has never contributed to anyone elses campaign before. Now he suddenly puts $175,000 behind this? It's sleazy bullshit that even Arnold can see a mile off. Fortunately he doesn't like the idea, so it's kind of dead in the water.
I'm impressed that he was able to do $27,500 worth of damage to an ass with just his teeth.
you guys aren't getting the big picture. kerry or gore could have won if we did it this way. two states do it today, i forget who.
it doesn't matter. the constitution clearly says that only the legislature can make that change.
But besides that, can you imagine how much more money it would take to campaign? more money, more problems.
Well, look, it's an empirical question (albeit, an experimental one at this point...) of whether or not a nation-wide system like this would be more "representative."
BUT... for the time being we're only talking about California. And only doing it in California would be disastrous.
This is a perfect example of why the ballot initiative system sucks... Rich douchebags making policy through their pocketbooks, not the merit of their ideas.
But, suckafree, I'm hoping for a little bit of reginal justice as well. However, this approach to presidential politics has nothing to do with that.
Kerry and Gore would not have won if it was done this way. It would only have been good for Bush.