Be careful what you ask for

 State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware)just won't give up. After his plan to award Pennsylvania's electoral votes by Congressional District went no where he is back with a plan to divvy them up proportionally. If this system was in place last year President Obama would have received 12 EV's to Govenor Romney's 8 instead of all 20 going to the Democrats.

It's easy to see how this plan could backfire. Although PA has voted for the Dems in the last few elections it's not inconceivable that the GOP nominee could win the Commonwealth in 2016 but split the EV's with the Democrat and deny him/her the White House. The other danger is that the 2014 State Legislature races could be nationalized. If this bill passes I can see every Democratic interest group in the country getting involved pouring lot's of money into those races.

Pennsylvania Electoral College votes

Republican State Sen. Dominic Pileggi (pictured at right) is at it again. Last year he proposed that PA award its Electoral College votes by Congressional Districts that was predictably was opposed by Democrats and actually freaked out many Republicans. So his new idea is to divvy it up proportionally.

PoliticsPA: But instead of determining the votes by congressional district, they would be allocated according to percentage of the popular vote, plus two for the statewide winner.

His Memo:  Under the proportional system, two of Pennsylvania’s 20 electors are chosen on a statewide, at-large basis (representing the two senatorial electors).  The remaining 18 electors are chosen based on the percentage of the statewide vote earned by each candidate (rounded to the thousandths).  For example, President Obama won 52.088% of the vote in November.  Under this system, he would have received 12 of Pennsylvania’s 20 electors (the two statewide electors plus 10 of the 18 remaining electors, which would be distributed proportionately).

This doesn't work unless you can get the rest of country to adopt the same system. State Senator Daylin Leach tweeted:  How about when Texas does it too?

The Constitution leaves it up to the states to decide how to cast their electoral votes so the next proposal from Harrisburg might be to skip the election altogether and let the legislature decide the Electoral College votes. 

PA voter ID law

The Pennsylvania legislature recently enacted a voter suppression ID law that supporters say is a common sense measure to ensure that people who vote are who they say they are. After all a photo ID is required to buy alcohol or  fly on an airplane. Critics contend that this is another way that Republicans are trying to rig the next election since in person voter fraud is non existent. This is on top of the Citizens United decision that threw out the campaign finance laws that lets billionaires who make their money in China spend unlimited amounts of money in an American election. Foreign money in an American election used to be illegal. Before that PA Republicans wanted to change the way we cast our Electoral College votes changing winner take all to allocating them by Congressional District.

Locally there have been shenanigans with absentee ballots but the only case I remember of in-person voter fraud was when W-B Area  school director Joe Moran's kid was up for a seat on the WVW School board but it came out that he had been voting at his old man's address in the Miner's Mills section of Wilkes-Barre. Even then he only voted once but at the wrong address.

Before Tom Corbett became Governor he was the Attorney General of the Commonwealth but he didn't prosecute one case of voter fraud. He was busy with the Bonusgate investigation that put Democrats in in jail and  ignored the allegations against Jerry Sandusky.

To help sell this new law the Corbett Administration gave a contract to a Romney fundraiser.

TNC:  Republican Gov. Tom Corbett's administration has signed a $249,660 contract with a company run by Mitt Romney fundraiser, former state GOP party executive director, pharmaceutical lobbyist, and school voucher advocate Chris Bravacos to direct a media campaign promoting the state's Voter ID law.

Yes, that very same law, requiring that voters present identification at the polls, which critics contend will suppress Democratic-leaning non-white, poor, elderly and youth voters and which House Majority Leader Mike Turzai recently boasted (video) is “gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”

 See a video produced by this outfit of overly happy people showing a card that is supposed to resemble an ID.  Also confuses the issue by saying “other kind of photo id” will be accepted, without explaining what that means.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBQhp7dUkGE&feature=youtu.be

!7th CD candidate Gene Stilp is calling Bullshit and filed a lawsuit.

GENE STILP FILES FEDERAL AND STATE COMPLAINTS AND REQUESTS FOR INVESTIGATION INTO THE $249,000 VOTER IDENTIFICATION CONTRACT AWARDED TO THE BRAVO GROUP THROUGH THE PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF STATE.

Gene Stilp, today filed a complaint and a request for investigation with the United States Department of Justice at the Middle District federal offices. Stilp also filed similar complaints and requests for investigation with the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General and the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission.

The complaints and requests for investigations concerns the use of federal taxpayer funds to pay certain Pennsylvania lobbyists who have a long history of Republican political involvement through a Pennsylvania State contract approved and administered by the administration of Republican Governor Tom Corbett.

Gene Stilp said, “There is a direct and substantial conflict of interest when Tom Corbett, the Republican governor of Pennsylvania, through his Department of State, awards a quarter of a million dollar contract utilizing federal funds to a Republican operative that as recently as April hosted a Mitt Romney event in Harrisburg. It is even more questionable when the contract involves the voter identification process which is under considerable criticism for a large number of Pennsylvania voters that are being disenfranchised in an admitted political effort to keep voters from voting in the upcoming elections only 118 days away.”

Stilp further called for the immediate return of all the federal HAVA funds involved in the contract.

The Pennsylvania Department of State contracted with the Bravo Group to develop and implement advertising related to the voter identification process.

 Pignelope is 7! 

  Don't miss the biggest, pinkest birthday party you've ever seen! Come celebrate the birth date of our beloved Pignelope!

In July 2005, the Pennsylvania Legislature voted themselves a illegal pay raise in the middle of the night.


Like many of us, Gene was outraged that our legislators could be so greedy. He wanted a symbol to show the waste and abuse of the system shown by these legislators.

From that, your favorite 25 foot pink pig was born and became famous!

American Legion Post 730

3813 Walnut St., Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17109

PA Electoral College votes-NEPA reaction

Bill O'Boyle has the reaction from some of our local legislators on Republican State Sen. Dominic Pileggi's (pictured at right) idea of changing the way Pennsylvania awards it's Electoral College votes. In short the Republicans like the idea and the Democrats hate it.

Congressman Lou Barletta: For me, it doesn’t matter, I’ve been targeted since the first day I was elected. It’s an interesting idea; I’m staying open minded on it.”

State Sen. Lisa Baker: “The proposal is an interesting attempt to find a middle ground between those who want to eliminate the Electoral College and those who want to keep the existing system.”

State Rep. Gerald Mullery: “It’s intended to rob many Pennsylvania voters of one of their most fundamental rights of citizenship – the right to have their vote for president count,”

State Sen. John Blake: “Job creation needs to be our number one priority and unfortunately, the proposed changes to the Electoral College will not put anyone back to work.”

State Rep. Phyllis Mundy: “This is an unfair attempt to stack the deck against Democrats,” she said. “I could never support it.”

State Sen. John Yudichak put it best: “It appears Republicans are not satisfied with comfortable majorities in Harrisburg,” he said. “They want a permanent majority beyond the approach of elections and will employ partisan tactics like gerrymandered districts, voter suppression measures, and now an assault on Pennsylvania’s right to vote for a president of the United States to achieve their ends.”

PA Electoral College votes

I am not usually in favor of amending the Constitution unlike some of my "conservative" friends who swear fealty to the document but want repeal the amendments they don't like and propose all sorts of changes.

After the 2000 election when Al Gore got 500,00 votes more than Bush I was disappointed that there wasn't a bigger push to scrap the Electoral College. The founders made it hard to change the process of electing a President as they didn't trust the people to elect the leader of our country and put it in the hands of state legislatures. The person with the most votes would be President and the the second place finisher would be Vice President. The election of 1800 revealed a flaw in the system when the ticket of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr both got the same amount of votes and the House of Representatives had to decide the thing after 20 something ballots. The 12th amendment was passed shortly after that. The constitution was a living document even then.

Now Republicans in the Pennsylvania Senate have to decided to try to game the system proposing to award Electoral Votes by congressional distinct instead of the winner take all standard that is used by 48 other states. Nebraska has the CD requirement and is looking at changing it because the President won one of five of the Electoral votes in 2008.

I actually like the idea of awarding the electoral college vote by congressional districts but every state has to sign up for it to work. It doesn't require a constitutional amendment If Texas. Mississippi, California, Utah, New York, etc agree to it I'm all for it but that is not going to happen.


Be careful what you ask for as it just might backfire.

Some people in the Pennsylvania Republican party are freaked out by this idea.

House GOP fret over new Pa. electoral plan

Capitol Ideas is all over it.

In this case I'm all for amending the constitution scrapping the Electoral College. The winner of the popular vote should be the President.