I don’t recommend saying that three times fast.
But, and in the spirit of my last post, Steve Benen’s note concerning “audits” or “reviews” of election results in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin reminds me that these are the next states which may see the Democrats take a stronger foothold in the State legislatures, following an Arizona that has borne painful witness to the stunts of a Republican Party that controls their state Senate. Here’s his comments on Pennsylvania:
Circling back to our earlier coverage, the state Senate’s top Republican, President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, recently told a conservative media personality that he and his GOP colleagues are justified in this partisan exercise, not because there’s evidence of wrongdoing, but because they think evidence of wrongdoing might emerge if they keep looking for it.
“I don’t necessarily have faith in the results,” Corman said last month. “I think that there were many problems in our election that we need to get to the bottom of.”
By all appearances, Corman lacks “faith in the results” because voters in his state had the audacity to support the Democratic ticket — just as Pennsylvania voters did in 2012. And 2008. And 2004. And 2000. And 1996. And 1992. His hunch has nevertheless led to expansive subpoenas for millions of voters’ personal information.
These audits are expensive, and they are a disgrace to the reputation of the State, which, granted, most people don’t care about – but some will.
More importantly, this is a consequence of the ideology-driven voting that has been inculcated in Republican voters: a pack of incompetent zealots who have no qualifications, no clue, and are convinced that they should win for one of several reasons, depending on locality. Reading about some state legislature members or wannabes in Kansas and Missouri suggests that it’s all about being fundamentalist Christian. Others? Just a naked, all-consuming lust for power.
These are not qualifications, to be frank.
How long will voters up with them put? So long as the single issue voters think competency doesn’t matter, that their pet issue of abortion, gun rights, or whatever, trumps an actual ability to do the job, to compromise, all that stuff that drives voters crazy.
But is literally the heartblood of politics. I do mean that. The driven purist is a toxin in the bloodstream of government, not only because people have differing views, but because governance is hard. Compromise is how to begin to solve difficult issues, along with going back and examining the results, etc etc.
Ideologically driven politicians don’t want to do that. It might disprove their beloved ideology. It might get them dumped out of office.
I’m hoping voters will look at their current legislators in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona, in Florida and Texas and Wyoming, and realize that the ideological champion is, almost inevitably, a loser and a failure.
And not who you want in your legislature.
