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Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Oct 20, 2020 16:13:21 GMT -5
Amendment 1?
Annnnnd go?
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Post by minx on Oct 21, 2020 9:24:42 GMT -5
I'm wishy-washy on it right now.
I like the idea of citizen input greatly, and think it's needed.
But I don't like the whole process of choosing the citizens
The eight citizen commissioners are picked by a committee of five retired circuit court judges.
Four of the retired judges are selected by party leaders in the Senate and the House from a list compiled by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia.
These four judges pick the fifth judge from the same list.
This selection committee then chooses citizen commissioners from lists created by party leaders in the Senate and the House.
Members and employees of Congress or the General Assembly cannot be citizen commissioners.
Each party leader in each house gives the selection committee a list of at least 16 candidates, and the committee picks two from each list for a total of eight citizen commissioners.
What I'm reading is that there are 16 folks doing this
8 elected representatives split between both parties in power
8 others that are hand-selected by the elected representatives
That's where I call Bullshit big time. Have some sort of application process
1) You have to have resided in VA for a minimum of xx years (lets say 2)
2) You must be over 18, registered to vote and have voted in the past xx elections (let's say 4 here - that would give you two 'big' ones for federal office, and two 'little' ones for state offices)
3) You must be able to pass a basic civics test on how the federal and Virginia state government is elected and what the basic responsibilities of the elected officials are
4) You must be able to show availability for a period of xx months, with the ability to travel to Richmond (hotel and transportation to be reimbursed by the state)
Divide all the applicants by region (Northern, Central, Western and Southern) - then throw them into a barrel, and draw 4 names per region - first two are delegates, second two are alternates. One for each party. So if they draw two democrats on the first try, one's a delegate, one's the alternate. Then they keep drawing till they get two republicans.
Of course this all shuts out independents and third party candidates, but so does the amendment itself.
Long-winded way of saying I'm not sure what way I'm going on this one yet.
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Post by Dave's Not Here Man on Oct 21, 2020 9:52:03 GMT -5
Well... you just affirmed my instincts being correct. I glanced at it but have a bit of an ADD thing when it comes to legalese, but even still was able to see the bullshit they're using as the bricks to seal up the 2 party system, and the rest as smoke and mirrors to give the illusion that "citizens" would be somehow making decisions about redistricting. "Now it's all fixed" they will say and it will be worse than ever.
I was wishy washy too, now I'm a hard NO on A1. Thank you for taking the time to clarify.
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Post by bobathon on Oct 22, 2020 4:11:50 GMT -5
I voted NO. It's a constitutional change, so a mistake will stick with us, and as minx pointed out, not actually independent in any meaningful way.
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