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[on the way to the end of our democracy djf] Voting official seeks process for canceling Election Day over terrorism
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 02 Jul 2004 09:05:24 -0400
Begin forwarded message: From: Brad Templeton <btm () templetons com> Date: July 2, 2004 3:22:11 AM EDT To: David Farber <dave () farber net>Subject: Re: [IP] Voting official seeks process for canceling Election Day over terrorism
Funny, people laughed at me when I pushed this idea after the Spanish election. Not just delaying the election, but also putting an automatic sunset on any laws passed shortly after terrorist attacks. I have little doubt that this requires a constitutional amendment, however. The date of the election being set in the constitution as it is, the party who feels put out by the delay would have a pretty good constitutional case over the matter. In my blog entry on the matter... http://ideas.4brad.com/archives/000050.html I proposed the amendment as follows: This amendment would first set to declare a major violent event -- a terrorist attack, or the start or major escalation of war hostilities within the country. The supreme court would get to declare when such an event had taken place. Then the following rules would apply: a) Should the event take place within one week of an election, said election shall be delayed by 2 weeks, such delay to be done no more than twice. b) Any law passed by congress within 30 days of the event which significantly relates to the event, including any law relating to expansion of police or military powers shall remain in force for no more than 6 months. After 5 months congress may elect to renew or redraft the law. ------------------ Key is you need a formal system for declaring the event such as the court. My view is that you want to define it to make the events quite rare. In recent history, I would list Pearl Harbor, Death of JFK and 9/11 as the only such events. Possibly the killing of Dr. King and the takeover of the Iranian Embassy, but probably not. ------------------------------------- You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/
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- [on the way to the end of our democracy djf] Voting official seeks process for canceling Election Day over terrorism David Farber (Jul 02)