TGWB cares about The Voting Rights Act? That's like kosher pork sausage.

If you do care about voter's right, here's one of many ways to help. Get this man his public forum. Get him elected!:

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"SUPPORT CLINT CURTIS!"
__www.ClintCurtis.com__
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I had a hard time getting through to CA - those 5 people to call. I got mail box full and alot of ringing. That may be a good sign, or... Anyone else have the same. Maybe I'm calling from the east coast?? I will try e-mails.

Clint Curtis is running against republicans in the House of Representatives. They have held power for over a decade, and you are not as well off as you were when they took over the White House and Congress.

If you want to get back to sound government, and want to put the democrats back in the majority in the House, so the republicans can be slowed down or stopped, then ..

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The legal structure of our congress does not support a multi-party system, and is designed for a two party system.

It is a winner take all affair. This is not good, but it is reality.

Under the law of the House and Senate, "the Senate divides its tasks among 20 committees, 68 subcommittees, and 4 joint committees" ... "The chair of each committee and a majority of its members represent the majority party. The chair primarily controls a committee’s business" (link here).

Take an example where republicans win 30 seats, independents win 28 seats, greens win 29 seats, and democrats win 13 seats.

We can now easily see that this will not work well.

The republicans with 30 seats end up as the majority party. Remember that the majority party and the majority are not the same thing in our system. The majority, in this example, is 70 votes (greens, indys, and dems), but the majority party is the republicans because they got those 30 seats.

Therefore, they get the committee chair on each and every committee, and they get the majority number of members in each and every committee of congress.

So, in our system, the majority of seats would be governed by the minority republican 30 seats.

Anyone see any way to improve this?

I do. The polls show that the body politic favors democrats in the upcoming election, and voting democrats into the majority is the public will.

We would have an easier time prevailing upon them to change the rules than we would the republicans who have changed the rules the other way. Remember when they changed the rule that those who were indicted for a felony could not lead the majority party? DeLay got that changed to further their "unitary congress", and even threatened to do away with the filibuster, the only thing remaining for the minority.

Committee membership, and therefore congressional control, should be pro rata based upon percentage of seats.

Committees should be distributed to all parties based upon percentage of seats in a pro rata configuration.

Otherwise, when independents, greens, democrats, and other parties fight each other the republicans always remain the majority party and therefore always control the congress.

So ...

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I posted a while back the story of Russia cutting off petroleum resources to Europe. It was a shot across the bow.

Now Venezeula is threatening to cut of the same to the United States (link here).

And Iran and China signed an oil deal where China will be the beneficiary of Iranian oil.

This is the brink of disaster. Some have learned that oil started a world war, and will again if the rest of us do not learn the history.

The republican controlled White House and Congress have used harsh rhetoric when speaking to the world.

"You are for us or against us", "bring it on", "we have the right to pre-emptively strike any nation", and "you are evil" have been the heart of the republican "foreign policy".

The really foreign thing about the republican "policy" is that it is not the American way.

Meanwhile, civil war in Iraq comes to a place where even the republican controlled MSM may get it (link here).

Dredd, in re #4:

You are, of course, right that our current system doesn't work well with a multi-party Senate or House.

However, since the RULES of the house and senate can be changed by a simple majority, once we have that 30 Rep - 28 Ind - 29 Green - 13 Dem set-up, a voting coalition can easily be forrmed between 25 of the Greens, 18 of the Independents and 8 of the Democrats to produce the 51 votes needed to change how the seats on committees and even the chairs are allocated. Such a change wouldn't even require a signature by POTUS, as it would be a rules change and not a bill. It would be a small evolution towards a parlamentary system.

Vote for the best non-Republican and let the chips fall where they may. There are too many DINOs to hand your vote to the Dems for free. If the Dems will put up progressive candidates who will fight to the death for fair elections, then they deserve our votes. If they put up centrists who keep drifting to the right, then screw them.

Charlie L
Portland, OR
CLL2001@gmail.com

Charlie #6

In general I am glad you are checking into the law of the senate and the house.

You forget three things: 1) all consideration of the rules goes thru the rules committee. The rules committee is chaired by a member of the majority party, which is republican.

This committee governs activity that would change the rules, and a majority of the committee is republican and so they decide if rules are to be changed before it ever gets to a floor vote.

They can kill any suggestion to change who has the say about the rules.

2) their history is to change the rules to protect republicans and concentrate their power even more.

For example, when Tom DeLay sensed a danger of being indicted, they changed the rules to allow the leader to continue as leader even tho indicted.

The rule, for many years, had been that any leader indicted must step down.

3) the polls show that the public, the body politic, prefers that the democrats get the majority of congressional seats in the upcoming election.

So, the bottom line is that you are too cavalier in your estimation of this reality and how it can be improved.

I urge you, therefore, to ...

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