Gov. Gavin Newsom said he and the Legislature are drafting a new bill that would make it a felony to seize ballots before state or local election officials have certified them.
“In California, we have a message for anyone considering helping Trump interfere with our election or our count. If you violate California’s laws, if you interfere with our voters, tamper with our ballots, or meddle in our election, you will be prosecuted. It does not matter who gave the order,” Newsom said in remarks given to reporters. “In this state, our vote is sacred.”
SCOTUS rules it’s too soon before any election to make any changes in laws if they don’t get six new motor coaches
Time to ignore SCOTUS
… Its not already?
It’s at least partially in response to a right wing sheriff seizing ballots; it wasn’t immediately clear whether it was illegal (he claimed it was part of an investigation, state AG said he didn’t have the authority), and the state Supreme Court had to tell him to knock it the fuck off. This makes what the sheriff did a felony, so any repeat attempts will at least land him a felony charge.
A prime example of “We didn’t need a law for this until some jackass did it”.
Well, it should be treason, but…
It probably didn’t seem necessary to explicitly legislate it before
Great. Now don’t stand in the way of voters mandating billionaires pay their fair share of taxes come November.
Listen, he will suck your dick only after he’s blown to completion every last person worth more than $50mil.
It saddens me that we live in a time in a country where this has to be a thing
It will be ICE confiscating them under trumps orders. So unless you are willing to prosecute and imprison ICE officers, this seems pretty pointless.
That’s what he’s saying. Whether he can go through with it or not we’ll have to wait and see.
I think we may be on the verge of a new civil war, honestly.
ICE will probably try to show up and do exactly that, and Im not sure how measured the response will be to such a power grab.
That’s exactly how I read it
I’m willing to.
A move that won’t stop anyone because no one as of yet has been held accountable for breaking the law. Case in point, 34 felony convictions and you get to he president.
That’s it guys, wrap it up. Time to stop trying cause previous attempts didn’t work.
State laws are enforced VERY differently than other crimes. And presidents (and expresidents) are (and should be) treated differently than other people.
If someone is charged with a crime, but the people vote them into office, the election should be more important than a conviction.
There are a lot of politicians that are currently being targeted by this administration, and if you claim that their charges (and possible convictions) disqualify them from office, then that’s just more reason to keep targeting political opponents.
And presidents (and expresidents) are (and should be) treated differently than other people.
Only if by that you mean held to a higher standard, not a lower one.
Ideal world, we’d just be talking about how presidents and other high ranking government officials get a privilege to generally force the other party to waive their right to a speedy trial. Not “well they’ve got 34 convictions but it would be a crime to punish them”
That’s it guys, wrap it up. Time to stop trying cause previous attempts didn’t work.
That’s the wrong takeaway. Trying the same thing repeatedly and facing failure every time doesn’t mean quit, it means try something different.
In this context, we have a presumed baseline of legal justice. The legal part isn’t working becuase the offender is above the law. So we can, as you suggested, wrap it up and do nothing; add more laws in the hopes that these people suddenly start being held legally accountable (which rhymes a lot with wrap it up and do nothing); or turn to vigilante justice.
So far we haven’t had the spine for the latter. I certainly don’t, and I’m assuming you’re in the same boat seeing as you’re doing the same thing (bitching fruitlessly into the void of the internet… what can I say, it’s therapeutic!).
As a glimmer of hope though, we did just see an active duty officer give a speech identifying Trump as a domestic enemy of the constitution, which they are oath-bound to engage the same way they do any other enemy of the US. That individual is probably in prison by now - that little maneuver broke a handful of laws under the UCMJ, but this is the first such act of defiance I’m aware of coming from an officer, so here’s hoping it prods other troops into actually taking their oath seriously instead of idly following the domestic enemy’s orders.
Probably still no, but, fingers crossed.
But laws? we’ve seen repeatedly that those don’t mean shit. We don’t need new laws. Actually enforcing the ones we already have would be plenty, but we’ve got years of precedent showing loud and clear that shit ain’t gonna happen.
Anywho, wishing anyone out there with the means and the spine the best of luck!
Sure. I have no faith personally in Newsom. He’s not the one to do it. However, if we can get better representatives elected (DSA) these types of things are what can draw lines between states and the federal government. If there is a resistance to Fascism in any meaningful way it will be done at this point of existing law. Or moreso the destruction of this existing law.
New York state, currently being the ground in which this fight is most likely going to our best form of resistance. Though New York will not be the first state they look to take full federal control. Unfortunately, the weak neoliberalism and lack of much motion for DSA makes California a good first target.
It starts in States resisting the fascist government in the political process, but will be fought if the state representatives are well liked and powerful enough to rally the people of their state behind them to physically stop the fascist federal government. Whether stopping them from stealing ballots; or stopping them from abducting its people.
The electoral system is still currently the best way to organize this resistance and legal points of contention give us more time. The fascist are not popular or powerful enough to not at least go through the motions and illusion of a democratic process. As they lose more popularity they will stop going through this motion all together and will become more dependent on violence.
When it is clear (even to the out of touch American) that they have no intentions of even pretend to follow the processes; that is when political delays will no longer matter. But, if we haven’t built popular support before then; we will be run over with the general population still completely unaware or seeing resistance as just “antifa”. We need to gain popular support and legitimacy in the minds of the average American. That’s why the “sewer socialism” in New York is so important right now.
Seeing is believing
Then you can expect a shitton of pardons to follow
The Governor pardons state crimes, not the President.
There is a felon in office right now and that PoS don’t care about adding another to the pile.
Because threat of felonies have been proven to stop this current batch of Nazis.
It’s a surprising it was not that way already.
Also, who enforces it when a rogue sheriff is the one committing said felony?
