Then What?

 

Prediction is a popular sport right now – not just who will win the election, but what happens afterward. It can take the form of speculation, hopeful anticipation, or worry. Here’s what I’m wondering about.

What happens if there’s a win for Joe Biden? Will there be a giant celebration, virtual or otherwise? Will the stock market go up a couple thousand points when the result is clear? How dejected – or angry – might Trump supporters be, and what will they do about it?

Many think Mr. Trump will use any trick in the book to cling to power, even taking his case to the newly filled Supreme Court. If the result of the election is clear, though, I don’t believe he will do that, choosing instead to focus on his own personal situation, seeking ways to avoid prosecution. But it is likely he will not be a gracious loser, and that the transition to a new administration will not be a smooth one. It probably won’t be like a relay race, where the baton is easily passed from one runner to another. The Biden administration may have to start from a dead stop, picking up the baton from the ground

Will it feel like a new dawn in America? All I can say is, we are heading into the dead of winter now, when dawns come slowly. My biggest concern is the enormous pressure that would be on Biden and Harris to chart a new course when there is so much from the previous four years that will have to be reversed. I have already said that there should be a Department of Undo in the cabinet.

Patience does not appear to be an American virtue right now, and if change doesn’t come quickly enough, and water is not walked upon, will the early Biden administration turn into a huge disappointment, especially if COVID has an extended stay?

What if Mr. Trump wins? First, will those on the left react violently? I doubt it. Many might focus on migrating to another country, where things are more stable and predictable. The incumbent likes to keep everyone guessing, and maybe guessing will be too much work for some of us.

COVID will eventually end, just as the Spanish Flu did, and as would be true whoever wins, we will recover – but how soon, and to what? Will the rest of our ‘20s roar, like the last time? I think our major challenge going forward will be keeping our expectations realistic.

I Hate Ballot Propositions

 

I live in one of those states where almost anyone, with a little effort, can put almost any question to the voters to get a yes or no answer to a proposed change in the law. This time around there are 12 such measures here dealing with everything from digital privacy to allowing felons to vote, and from rent control to dialysis clinics.

Propositions, in the broadest sense, have the goal of doing what state legislators could not or would not do, or simply injecting fairness into an unfair situation. Most sound good, but they can be confusing, and the voter has to be careful. Many start with what seems like a worthy cause, but if you dig in a little bit, you find that the fine print includes zingers that protect certain institutions from being included or change the law in a not-so-good way. Yes can sometimes mean no, and vice versa. More often than not, a proposition is on the ballot to “fix” an unintended consequence of another ballot  measure that was approved five or 10 years ago or more. And finally, you have to read about who the major supporters and campaign funders of a measure are, and you say to yourself, yeah, no wonder they wanted THAT done.

This year, it hurts a little, because many of us are in a hurry to return our ballot or vote early where it’s permitted, but all those down-ballot items take time, and woe betide you if you’re voting in person and are stuck in line behind someone who hasn’t decided ahead of time how they’re going to vote on all that stuff. If you don’t vote on these things, you are leaving possible life-changing decisions up to others. An approved proposition may someday come back to bite you in a place you weren’t expecting. The sensible ones can lose and the crazy ones might win, or they may be challenged in court.

To be fair, there are positives about propositions. Sometimes a state legislature and the executive branch are dominated by the wrong party or people. A legislature can pass crazy laws under the radar, and with propositions, at least there is usually healthy debate about an issue, so we get educated. Even so, we have to put up with all the TV ads, and the better-funded side in a proposition campaign usually has more of them.

Maybe my real problem is, I’m just tired of all the extra noise that propositions add. I just want to tell all the ballot measure partisans, hey everyone, I know you mean well, but can’t we deal with all this a little later? In this election, I’ve got other fish to fry, like maybe the future of the republic.

 

 

Having It My Way

 

For a democracy, our system is pretty undemocratic in quite a few ways, and it starts with voting. Some states want to see as many people vote as legally possible, while others are bent on keeping those it deems unqualified from doing so. Even at this nation’s founding, only the "right” people could vote. They had to be men, to start with.

In my opinion, which I’m not always so humble about, I think it’s time we nationalized all general federal elections, applying the same set of rules to everything from registration to ballot-casting and counting. All deadlines would be the same, as would the rules for eligibility, with sufficient access points to ensure that voters wouldn’t have to stand in long lines, even in high-turnout races. These rules would apply to elections for federal offices -- the Senate and the House as well as for President. It would be the same in all 50 states and possessions where voting in such elections happens.

Now you will obviously say, that would deprive the states of the right to control their own election process. Well, not entirely. For the moment at least, they could continue with their current systems for in-state and local elections, from governor and state legislature on down.

Next you will say, that’s ridiculous, then there would be two different sets of elections. That’s enormously expensive and outrageously inefficient. Correct. But if the states simply adopted the federal rules for all the elections they conduct, it would save time, money, and paperwork.

If you are a constitutional lawyer, you are probably laughing so hard that you have spewed out your coffee and tears are rolling down your cheeks. But I’m not through! I think there should be a federal Department of Elections with its own cabinet secretary. States generally have this function; why shouldn’t the federal government?

Discrimination rears its head in many forms, but the one power that citizens share equally, at least in theory, is the right and the ability to vote. When we drive from one side of the country to the other, the rules of the road are similar enough that we can easily continue our journey without having to learn a new set of rules at each state border. Why can’t voting be like that?