Peggy Grande
Just when you think you’ve
seen it all in California,
there’s another surprise coming out of Sacramento. This one not only
displays unprecedented overreach, but also an absolute disregard for the United
States Constitution. The California state Senate [photo] approved a bill earlier
this month to require candidates appearing on the 2020 presidential
primary ballot — including President Trump — to release five years'
worth of income tax returns.
A timely and conveniently
biased bill, which if it becomes law, means that Trump’s name may not appear on
the California primary ballot during the upcoming presidential election cycle.
And an especially egregious bill since the United States Constitution clearly
states that there are only three requirements for holding the presidency.
Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution says to serve
as president, one must:
be a natural-born U.S.
citizen of the United States;
be at least thirty-five years old;
be a resident in the United
States for at least fourteen years.
These requirements have been
in place since George Washington became president, but all of a sudden a small
group of legislators in the Golden State have found a way to try and thwart the
democratic process for voters in their state to ensure their team wins. (As if
the overwhelming Democratic voter registration, the dubious practice of ballot
harvesting and the fact that California hasn’t voted for a Republican
presidential candidate since George H.W. Bush in 1988 doesn’t give them enough
confidence that whoever the Democratic candidate is, will likely carry
California and its 55 electoral votes.) I guess they don’t feel they can leave
anything to chance.
Although presidential
candidates traditionally release their tax returns, President Trump has not
done so, stating he is currently under audit. Tradition, however, is far
different than a Constitutional requirement. And if California, or any
other state, starts to add non-Constitutional requirements for office holders,
there’s no telling where that would end. Could they require a candidate
to be of a certain gender, or race, sexual orientation, or even size or shape
or set an arbitrary limit on a candidate’s age? Sounds discriminatory to
me. Preposterous? Not exactly. In fact, the state’s legislature
passed a similar bill in 2017, but then-Governor Jerry Brown, a Democrat, who
did not release his own tax returns, vetoed the bill.
If this bill passes now, it
sets an extremely dangerous precedent by which the rights of the voter are
hijacked. In essence the legislature could determine their preferred
candidate and ensure that the selection criteria for inclusion on the ballot
excludes everyone except that person. Sound crazy? Well California
is just crazy enough to do that. And has already started down that path.
True representative government
hasn’t existed in California for quite a while. The jungle primary system,
whereby voters can select any candidate, regardless of party, allows the top
two to advance to the general election. This provides a pathway for two
Democrats to advance from the primary to the general election, in essence
giving conservative voters in California the choice between two candidates,
neither of which truly represent them.
What if Texas, or all those
flyover states they mock and despise, decide to set their own criteria for
presidential candidate ballot qualification and tip the scales in their own
political favor to ensure their state stays red?
The practice of ballot
harvesting, illegal in several states, but recently passed in California,
allows for individuals to go door to door and collect ballots from voters and
submit them in bulk. In California now there’s no limit on the number of
ballots that one individual can turn in, nor are they subject to the same
verification process as other ballots. We saw six Congressional incumbents in
California lose their seats days, some even weeks, after the midterm elections
due to this practice which is a breeding ground for fraud.
In addition, the process of
ballot initiatives is becoming more uncertain due to some confusing and
conflicting rulings coming out of the California courts. California
allows for citizen-led signature gathering efforts to qualify a measure for
inclusion on the ballot, but those rules now seem increasingly subjective, not
objective, often leaving citizen groups who have legally followed the
prescribed process being disqualified for no legal reason. The Cal-3
initiative was the most recent victim of the court’s partisan and authoritarian
ruling.
California courts are now
unafraid to legislate political advantage rather than just apply and interpret
laws. They have a partisan agenda and are bold in advancing it, knowing
there is little or no recourse for doing so.
The rest of the nation should
watch this bill closely because California is often the testing ground for the
left to see how far they can go in usurping power from the people and
transferring it to the courts and to progressives in office. If it gets
any traction on the left coast it may seep eastward.
And for those on the left,
perhaps they should consider the potential boomerang effect of such
action. What if Texas, or all those flyover states they mock and despise,
decide to set their own criteria for presidential candidate ballot qualification
and tip the scales in their own political favor to ensure their state stays
red?
We are either states – and a
nation – of law and order, or we aren’t. We adhere to the Constitution,
or we don’t. Tragically, it appears as if the leaders of California have
made it their intention to pursue lawlessness.
Voters in California should be
both embarrassed about this political theater, and outraged that time is being
spent on foolish partisan hackery. California has enormous problems –
from immigration to homelessness to poverty to infrastructure to education to
cost of living to housing to oppressive taxes and onerous regulations which are
driving their own tax base out of the state – just to name a few. The
California legislature should be focused on these issues, not on a ridiculous
power play that provides no benefit to citizens of the state.
Although this California bill
will likely never advance, it’s a tipping of the cards of the left showing the
game they’re playing – and we know they won’t give up until they win one way or
another. Of course the losers in this, or any political stunt, are the
voters of California. When democracy is thrown aside, the Constitution
might as well be shredded. Regardless of your voting preference for 2020,
it would be an affront to us all if the rulers in California pre-determine our
choice. Once again, the tarnish of the once-Golden State is being
exposed, which should grieve and worry us all.
Peggy Grande, FOX News, 13-5-2019
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