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“She’ll cut your head off, and you won’t even know you’re bleeding” – Alexandra Pelosi, documentary filmmaker and Nancy Pelosi’s daughter
During the recently concluded US elections, Democrats lost
some seats in the U.S. House, but not enough to throw the House into Republican
hands. Democrats also won sufficient seats in the U.S. Senate to tip votes in
the chamber in their favor; the Senate is now tied 50-50 among Republicans and
Democrats, but Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris will be able to cast a
deciding vote when necessary on any measure. And, of course, President-Elect
Joe Biden will be sworn into office on January 20. President Donald Trump is
due to leave office before that date; he has said he does not plan to attend
Biden’s inauguration ceremony.
The country now lies expectantly in Democrat hands; which is to say it
lies in the hands of Biden, Pelosi and most likely Senator Chuck Schumer of New
York, who may share Senate leadership with Republican Mitch McConnell. And
socialist U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ hand is apparent in both the Democrat
platform and current reform legislation.
At some point, assuming Connecticut’s media is curious
enough to question members of Connecticut’s all-Democrat U.S. Congressional
Delegation, House Resolution 1 (HR1) may come up for discussion – or not. Used
to jumping in lock step whenever Pelosi bangs her Speaker’s gavel, Connecticut’s
five Democrat Representatives in the delegation and its two U.S. Senators have
yet to weigh in on HR1, so called because it will be the first bill offered in
the House during the new legislative session.
The Wall Street Journal – whose reporters, editorial staff
and commentators did NOT participate in the recent illegal mob action at the
U.S. Capitol in Washington DC – tells us in an opinion piece, “Pelosi’s Top Priority: Consolidating
Power,” that the
Biden-Harris-Pelosi-Schumer-Sanders administration has listed its first major
reform bill, the innocuously titled HR1.
The voting and campaign finance reform bill would, according
to the Journal, “grease the Democratic voting machine nationwide and restrict
political opposition. They [Democrats] also introduced a bill to provide
statehood for the District of Columbia that would guarantee Democrats two new
Senate seats.” According to the Journal, “Since Nancy Pelosi retook the
speaker’s gavel in 2019, her top priority has been remaking the electoral
system.” HR1 is the legislative bill that will allow her, metaphorically, to
cut off Republican heads until the measure, if passed, can be amended by a
Republican insurgency that recovers the presidency and one of the two houses of
Congress.
“H.R.1 imposes
California-style election rules nationwide,” According to the Journal. “The
bill requires every state to register voters based on names in state and
federal databases—such as anyone receiving food stamps or who interacts with a
state DMV. It mandates same-day and online voter registration, expands mail and
early voting, and limits states’ ability to remove voters from rolls. Overall
the bill is designed to auto-enroll likely Democratic voters, [and] enhance
Democratic turnout, with no concern for ballot integrity.
“The bill also strips
state legislatures of their role in drawing congressional districts, replacing
them with commissions that are ostensibly independent. In practice, commissions
have turned out mostly to favor Democrats, as in New Jersey and California. If
states want such commissions, so be it. But this is an attempt to impose one
Pelosi standard from coast to coast.
“H.R.1’s
campaign-finance provisions would also limit the political speech of
conservatives and Republicans. The bill requires some nonprofits to disclose
publicly the names of donors who give more than $10,000, even if those groups
aren’t taking part in candidate elections. The left’s pressure groups and media
will then stigmatize donors. The bill also raises disclosure requirements for
political ads on radio and TV, requiring the head of an organization to approve
messages and list the group’s top donors by name.”
Removing the authority of state legislatures to set district
boundary lines within their own political precincts should catch the attention
of Connecticut’s state legislatures. The redrafting of district lines occurs
when a loss in population triggers a redrafting if districts, and we know that
Connecticut is losing population to other states.
In Connecticut law, district redrafting initially is plotted
by a reapportionment committee heavily weighted towards majority party Democrats, but the
reapportionment plan is advisory only. The advisory plan must then
be approved (emphasis mine) upon a roll call vote by a yea vote of at least two thirds of the
membership of each house of the General Assembly. This procedure
assures fairness, legislative participation, media overview, bipartisan representation and transparency in the redrawing
of district lines.
The redrawing of district lines by commission only
frustrates all the safeguards mentioned above and should be a matter of open
and transparent debate within the General Assembly before the Pelosi “reform
plan” is adopted by separate members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional
Delegation. There is no reason why members of the delegation, all Democrats, should be unable to declare immediately their
position on a measure that shifts legislative responsibility concerning the
redrawing of district lines from an elected and responsible state General
Assembly to an unelected and often partisan commission.
Any ensuing public debate should be monitored closely and
covered in full by Connecticut's objective, non-partisan, pro-democratic,
woke journalists.
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