Via Rolling Stone:

Don’t mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta “rage” in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.

— Tom Morello, songwriter, activist, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine

(h/t Joel Connelly.)

The Libertarian Party of Washington State is suing to keep Mitt Romney off the ballot.

Their argument may be familiar to you…I wrote about it recently. By law, the Washington State Republican Party is a minor party and it hasn’t met the signature gathering requirements of a minor party for the fall Presidential election.

You can read the Libertarian’s complaint here. But let me briefly recap the argument.

In 2010, the WSRP didn’t nominate, or even endorse, anyone in the only statewide election. The reason, as I mentioned earlier, was that the Teabaggers were going to raise holy hell if Dino Rossi (who entered the race very late) got the nomination over uber-teabagger Clint Diddier for the U.S. Senate race.

Dino Rossi won a spot on the general election ballot by placing second in the primary. But, prior legal precedent has firmly established that our top-two primary is a “‘winnowing’ election designed to send only two candidates on to the general election without regard to political party nomination or affiliation,” rather than a nominating election.

So the Republicans failed to have a party nominee receive at least 5% of the vote in a 2010 statewide election as per RCW 29A.04.086:

“Major political party” means a political party of which at least one nominee for president, vice president, United States senator, or a statewide office received at least five percent of the total vote cast at the last preceding state general election in an even-numbered year.

They also failed to file the 1,000 signatures this year as is required for a minor party by RCW 29A.20.111 et seq.

Thus the Libertarians point out in their complaint:

Accordingly, the Washington State Republican Party is not entitled under the R.C.W. to have its nominee’s name printed on the November general election ballot, although its candidate (presumably Mr. Romney) is entitled to run as a write-in candidate.

In other words, the Libertarians (who are currently a minor party) want fair and equal treatment with the Republicans who, evidence suggests, is now a minor party.

And they have a point! It is how the law is written. And if the law is followed as written, there should be no Republican presidential ticket on our ballots this fall.

Here’s the thing. The relevant RCW actually predate the top-two primary. And, from one perspective, the major/minor party status law doesn’t quite jibe with a top-two primary system. In fact, in 2009, the SOS office pushed legislation that would have changed the major/minor party part of the law to better reflect a top-two primary. Alas, the bill (SB 5681) failed.

After my last post on this topic, I emailed the Secretary of State office to ask for their take on this issue. Dave Ammons respond with a helpful summary of the SOS position:

The Legislature has not repealed the old RCWs that were put in place for the old pick-a-party primary system, so many of the old definitions are still on the books. All three levels of federal courts (District Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court) have commented at some point in the 8 year litigation over the Top Two Primary system that Initiative 872 impliedly repealed the old party nomination procedures for the pick-a-party primary. The upshot is that we have adapted many procedures for the Top Two Primary in WAC.

WAC 434-208-130 define major and minor political parties. The relevant paragraphs of the WAC state:

(1) For purposes of RCW 29A.04.086, “major political party” means a political party whose nominees for president and vice-president received at least five percent of the total votes cast for that office at the last preceding presidential election. A political party that qualifies as a major political party retains such status until the next presidential election at which the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of that party do not receive at least five percent of the votes cast.

In other words, the SOS office is relying on a WAC that changes the RCW, under the argument that the RCW’s major/minor party definitions were implicitly “repealed” when the pick-a-party procedures were replaced for the top-two primary.

The argument might make sense, except for two things. First, the major/minor party definitions as they exist under RCW are a little awkward to deal with, but they are certainly not incompatible with a system that primarily has top two primaries (except for presidential elections). Therefore, an argument can (and will!) be made that the definitions were not implicitly repealed as suggested by the SOS office. And you cannot use the WAC to “override” the RCW.

The second point is that the legislature actually considered the issue in SB 5681. They had a chance to change the law to dovetail with the definitions in the WAC. And they declined to do so!

It is a fascinating problem! That said, I don’t relish the idea of Mitt Romney being kept off the ballot.

What I enjoy about this predicament is just how fucked up the Teabaggers have made things for the WSRP. In almost any other year, the Republicans would have had the clone-like unity to rally behind the “chosen” candidate. They would have proudly nominated him and, knowingly or not, maintained their legal eligibility as a major party under all definitions. But not in 2010.

This is why I always keep a good stock of popcorn in my pantry….

Update (11:45 pm): I modified the post to remove an extraneous quote that was accidentally left in the original. I clarified the language in a couple of spots, too.

Politics is a hot topic, even during these dog days of summer. So, please join us tonight for an evening of politics and conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters meet. The new Longview chapter holds their inaugural meeting at 6:00pm Wednesday at the Monticello Hotel. The new South Seattle chapter holds their inaugural meeting on Wednesday, 8:00pm at Lottie’s Lounge, 4900 Rainier Avenue. The Spokane chapter and Drinking Liberally Tacoma meet this Thursday. Finally, next Monday, the Yakima and Olympia chapters of DL meet.

With 233 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter near you.

Stephen: Gingrich is a baby-eating werewolf (via Crooks and Liars).

Roy Zimmerman: Iowa Edition of Vote Republican.

Mark Fiore: Dark Matters.

Sam Seder and Glenn Greenwald: The normalization of extremism.

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, Colorado edition:

SlateTV: Missouri “Right to Pray” amendment lets kids opt out of evolution .

Attack!!!!!

• SlateTV: The gloves are off!
• Young Turks: Romney attacks Obama with welfare ad.
• Bill Press: DNC says Romney Campaign is ‘hitting below the belt’
• Maddow: Welfare ad “dog-whistle” racism from Mitt Romney.
• Young Turks: ‘Son Of Boss’ Ad
• Newsy: Rep. Allen West fights ad.
• Sam Seder: Tasteless fear-mongering anti-Obama ad asks America “Are we safer?”
• Jon on Mitt’s flailing ‘Romneycare’ defense (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Newsy: Obama ad questions whether Obama has paid income tax.
• Buzz60: New Romney ad aims at Catholic swing state voters.
• Maddow: The SuperPAC political week
• Jon: mocks conservative freakout over ‘Priorities USA Action’ ad.
• Young Turks: Alan West punches woman in face in new ad.

Sam Seder: Mississippi church refuses a Black couple’s wedding.

Pap: Welcome to the era of Super PACs.

Roy Zimmerman: Montana Edition of Vote Republican.

NPR: Special Disaster Edition of It’s All Politics

Ann Telnaes: SuperPACs and their handlers put on a silly show.

Willard:

• Newsy: Rep. Ryan will be named Romney Running mate on Saturday Morning.
• SlateTV: Obama’s new nickname for his opponent.
• Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, New York edition.
• Bill Press: Mitt’s tax problem.
• Ed and Pap: Harry Reid is right about Mitt’s taxes
• The Spin Room: Romney’s running mate.
• Jenn with UW Prof. Matt Barreto: Can Romney make a dent in the Latino vote?
• Stephanie and Markos: Was Jon Huntsman Sr. Sen. Reid’s source?
• Young Turks: How you can stop paying so much in taxes—just like Mitt Romney
• Newsy: Can Romney recover from a very bad month?
• SlateTV: Some high profile endorsements for Romeny.
• Sam Seder: Mitt Romney doesn’t know anything about dressage? YEAH, RIGHT!
• Jenn with Democratic strategist Kiki McLean: Mitt’s running mate.

ONN: Onion Week in Review.

SlateTV: Will Ted Cruz’s prime time GOP convention speaking spot appease the Tea Party?

Stephen looks back on Obama’s war on pizza.

White House: West Wing Week.

This Week in GOP Voter Suppression:

• Pap: The Pennsylvania effort to suppress the vote.
• Maddow: New ID laws.
• Jon on GOP exaggerated voter fraud claims (via Crooks and Liars).
• Sam Seder: PA is the new FL in voter suppression.
• Sharpton: Republicans ramp up voter suppression effort.
• Sen. Scott Brown is disturbed by push to register welfare recipients to vote (via Crooks and Liars).
• Rep. Allen West defends disenfranchising Ohio voters (via Crooks and Liars).

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

For months now, there has been low-level speculation about Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA-5) being selected to be Mitt Romey’s VP (e.g. here).

It makes sense in that it doesn’t defy the laws of physics or anything (well…not that the laws of physics would hold back Republicans from attempting something). Rep. McMorris Rogers is over 35. She is the highest ranking Republican woman in the House. It’s not like she only served 1/2 a term as Governor in some low-population state, or anything. And, McMorris Rodgers did have one of the earliest Republican VP Nominee Intrade pages.

Alas, these days, she’s a Republican VP Nominee penny stock.

Still…even if it’s a long shot, I predict Mittens will pick Cathy for VP. What do I have to lose? If he picks her, I’ll look like a genius. And if not, my prediction will be lost in a sea of unsuccessful VP predictions from the chattering classes.

These days political pundit seem all hyped-up over Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI-1). I guess it makes sense….

For Republicans, having an actor in the White House is political comfort food.

As if we couldn’t tell. After Obama was elected, what was the Senate G.O.P. plan for governance? Make a public showing of wanting to work with Obama, but then oppose everything.

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) came to Bellevue yesterday to tell Republicans he’ll blame them when McKenna loses.

The Borowitz Report interviews Mitt Romney.

Complaint filed with PDC alleging that McKenna campaign broke disclosure laws.

Guess who else Romney murdered!

Puget Sound area traffic this weekend…is going to SUCK.

MoJo: Tea Party shoots itself in to foot again.

Connelly: The state Republican Party predicted, early this year, that it would “flip” enough Democratic-held seats to gain a majority in the 49-member Washington State Senate. The issue is now very much in doubt.

Tax experts assess how likely it is that Romney paid no taxes for a decade.

Eli Sanders attempts to interview Bruce Danielson.

Charges brought in an actual case of election fraud. Wanna guess which party?

Markos: We are winning! (Of course, HA readers have known this all along.)

Mini-essay. Which of our local papers actually wield some influence among the electorate? The Stranger endorses a third-party candidate against Frank Chopp…as a write-in, and she likely comes in second place. How did the Seattle Times do? Not so well.

The Stranger’s Eli Sanders has been on top of the Danielson-Gonzalez Supreme Court race for a long time now. In fact, I think he deserves some of the credit for raising awareness that led to an election result in which a highly qualified candidate with the Hispanic surname defeated the highly unqualified candidate with the lilly-White surname.

But even in victory, Eli has an important point to make about failure:

The results are now clear: rural voters, for the most part, pick the white guy over the Latino guy.

If Gonzalez hadn’t spent over $260,000 to combat this dynamic—and if urban Washingtonians hadn’t sounded the alarm—then we’d now have a Justice Bruce Danielson.

This is a disgracefully ignorant and dangerous way to pick our supreme court justices.

There is another point to make here as well.

The deal is this. Every single county East of the Cascades went for the white guy. Most of them did so by 60% or more, including Adams and Douglas counties that went for Danielson by over 70%.

The counties with the highest proportion of Hispanic population (from 2010 census data) are Franklin (63.8%), Adams (57.9%), Yakima (45.6%), Grant (39.5%), Chelan (27.5%), Douglas (26.7%), Walla Walla (21.4%), Okanogan (19.2%), and Benton (18.0%).

All of these counties but Benton voted for Danielson in excess of 60%. That’s right…Franklin county, with a 63.8% Hispanic population went for Danielson by 64.3%. And Adams county, with a 57.9% Hispanic population went for Danielson by 70.6%.

Now, there may be several reasons why counties with a high proportion of Hispanic individuals have voters that overwhelmingly vote Republican and vote against a highly qualified individual with a Hispanic surname running for Supreme Court.

The Hispanic population may be younger, so that many are not old enough to vote. A certain proportion may be non-citizens. A lower rate of English literacy among Hispanic voters may suppress voter turn-out. Hey, there may even be some fraction of Hispanic voters who really believe it’s in their best interest to vote Republican (yeah…right!).

What we can say is that the interests of the considerable Hispanic population in Washington state for whatever reasons are not being served by our electoral system.

I find that disgraceful!

I don’t know what the story is behind this failure. Frankly, this looks like a failure on the part of Democrats to conduct effective registration drives, voter education efforts, and put GOTV operations into the field in these counties.

Whatever the reason, it needs to change!

Election results:

• Whew! Gonzalez ahead in Supreme Court race
• First CD: DelBene and Koster
• Gov: “Inslee earned 46.8 percent of the vote and McKenna earned 42.9”
• Seattle libraries, county juvenile-justice levies are up
• Re: last night—Publicola election miscellanea
• WA SOS elections page
• Nationally, a rough night for incumbents

A brief history of that Badass Harry Reid

Washington fights to keep tourism alive.

The MittVeePstakes are heating up.

“Mitt Romney is laboring under the lowest personal popularity ratings for a presumptive presidential nominee in midsummer election-year polls back to 1984.”

Caught on video: Hillary Clinton dancing in South Africa!

It is election day in Washington state. So fill out that ballot, drop it in the mail or a drop box and then join us for an evening of politics, conversation, and election watching over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters meet, and Thursday night Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets.

With 231 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state four in Oregon and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter near you.

Curiosity didn’t kill the Rover. But controversy erupts.

Tomorrow is election day. Having difficulties completing your ballot? Here is the Progressive Voter’s Guide from Fuse.

Actual Headline: “Northwest ties to Hiroshima remembered on A-bomb anniversary”. Ummm…are we supposed to celebrate or something????

Sour note: Sikh Temple shooter was “a ‘frustrated neo-Nazi’ who led a racist white supremacist band.”

The good news for Mitt is that he “probably earned more than $50 million, and possibly as much as $60 million from the Italian directory sale of Seat Pagine Gialle SpA…. The deal turned into one of the biggest windfalls of his tenure.” The bad news: Mitt can’t really go to Italy anymore.

More science for the nutbaggers to deny: The impact of ocean acidification on shellfish.

Saving Town Hall: Stanwood edition

Saving Town Hall: Darrington edition

Romney outraises Obama for third month in a row.

WA-10 Republican candidate Stan Flemming’s “atypical loan pushed the boundaries of federal law.”

Folks interested in examining Electoral College scenarios may find Michael Tomasky’s Daily Beast article of interest:

So if Pennsylvania is off the boards, let’s look around. Imagine it’s election night, say 10:45 east coast time. Four eastern states haven’t been called yet: Ohio (18), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15), and Florida (29). Also, in some Western states, the polls haven’t closed, or the races are too tight to project just yet—Colorado and Nevada, say. Arizona has just been called for Romney. At this point, Romney actually leads, 188 to 182. In this scenario I’m assuming Obama has won Iowa (6), which is admittedly close but where his lead has been stable at three or four points, and New Hampshire (4), where Obama has a similar fairly small but stable lead, and Michigan (16), where the gap appears to be opening up a little.

So it’s a six-vote Romney edge. They’re feeling great up in Boston. Especially with the big Eastern four still up in the air. Right?

Not really. Let’s look at these West Coast states….

Read the rest here.