Two Questions, Same Answer
After acting Secretary of State David Whitley’s disastrous publishing of THE LIST, there are two questions that must be asked:
- Is David Whitley a lying, radical partisan doing Greg Abbott’s bidding to suppress minority voters?
- Or is he just simply incompetent?
The answer to both of these questions is the same – Whitley must go. He should not be confirmed as the Secretary of State of Texas since one of that role’s prime jobs is to ensure full and fair elections. His first major act utterly failed to do that. Whitley is an Abbott acolyte who’s only actual government experience is deputy chief of staff and appointments maker. He rocketed into the Secretary of State role in December when Abbott put him in the job.
Let’s not beat around the bush – Whitley published this list with great fanfare for one reason and one reason only – to create the false impression that undocumented people are voting in Texas. That, of course, is a blatant lie. The only evidence you need of that conclusion is the coordinated media responses to the shocking announcement by Ken Paxton and even His Orangeness himself. The announcements didn’t say that the Secretary of State was asking counties to “study” the list, they declared that 95,000 non-citizens were registered to vote and that 58,000 did indeed vote in the 2018 election. They did that to de-legitimize Beto O’Rourke’s very strong showing against Worst Senator in the History of Texas, Ted Cruz and to set the table for this election cycle of legislating more voter suppression to stem the tide of changing demographics in Texas. And it was a gigantic lie, as is becoming more and more obvious.
David Whitley needs to be shown the door with the toe of the Senate’s boot. Even Republicans, the beneficiaries of the lies and voter suppression efforts in Texas, need to recognize that at some point cheating and lying won’t work effectively enough for them to maintain power and that they should rethink their radical partisan agenda.
Whitley must be rejected.
The correct answer is 3. ALL OF THE ABOVE.
1Circling back to the source of all stench, the DOJ as it exists in this maladministration does nothing about voter suppression. Worse yet, with the ‘aid’ of clowns like Kris K. Kobach, Dotard45 and gang have flipped the conversation to imaginary voter ‘fraud.’ Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia where the popular vote is not reflected by the number of seats represent a few of the states where election fraud/gerrymandering/voter suppression are flipping elections to the snacilbupeR. That’s election fraud, not voter fraud. When was the last time the snacilbupeR won the presidency by popular vote? Or, why is it that the Democrats need to win by a margin ~10% to win House seats?
Oh, and the Senate. That two senators per state is an ancient give away to the slave states. We need to change that, before we return to the 1800s.
2@Jane & PKM, the last time the GOP won the WH by popular vote was Baby Bush in 2004 by 2.46%, though I’d attribute much or all of that to the incumbent advantage, which he didn’t deserve. Prior to that, Papa Bush by 7.72% in 1988.
Five presidents have been elected with a negative percentage of the popular vote, not including those prior to 1824, when it wasn’t recorded. The folks living through the Gilded Age were lucky to have two of them in Hayes and Harrison, and so are we. Funny that all four of them are Republicans….. (The other is JQ Adams, a Democratic-Republican, in 1824.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_margin
Good luck getting the Senate dominated by small-population states to change the fact that the Senate is dominated by small-population states.
3According to this morning’s Houston Chronicle, always-on-the-lookout-for-#1 Ken Paxton says he doesn’t have the resources to investigate Whitley’s claim, even after tweeting about how outrageous it is. Not always the brightest around, at least he knows this ain’t gonna turn out well. This may be a first for him, though, as he’s always pretty willing to jump on any threat to his conservative base like the future of the world’s at stake.
4Rhea, thank you for the data and history. What you say about getting Constitutional changes past the “small-population states” is probably impossible. But the wingnutz want a convention, so we’re preparing a list of ‘negotiation points’ should that day ever arrive. No going back as they would have it to the slavery years, but modernizing wouldn’t hurt.
5