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John Hetherington: The Road to the Elections
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Written by John Hetherington
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We have reached the eve of the 2010 elections. In Connecticut, our entire Legislature, House and Senate, will be chosen as well as our Governor and all other constitutional offices. Currently our General Assembly, not to mention maybe some of its members, is critically unbalanced. Republicans are down 114 to 37 in the House and 24 to 12 in the Senate. That means that the Democrats now have the two-thirds needed to override a Governor's veto. If that level of control in the Legislature continues, and Dan Malloy is elected Governor, the Democrats will have a grand slam.
There is much at stake. We all know that our state has achieved world-class status in terms of taxes and debt, and that the majority is even now acquiring advanced weapons of wealth destruction. But there is more.
The new General Assembly will draw the new legislative districts based on the 2010 census. The re-apportionment will be with us for 10 years. So the results of the 2010 elections will decide who sets the district lines for both houses for a decade. With respect to New Canaan and Wilton, we could lose control of our present House seat by a further division of the district. I will, of course, fight to keep our town's seat in Hartford and work closely with Gail Lavielle to help her take the seat back.
We can also expect attempts to manipulate the election law. "Election Day Registration" is a fine objective, except when it effectively renders meaningless a verification of residency or even citizenship. Promoting democracy around the world shouldn't mean allowing worldwide participation in this democracy.
We also should be alert to a plan by the so-called National Popular Vote Movement that the Democrats passed in the Connecticut House this cycle. The plan is to have each participating state pledge to cast its electoral votes for the candidate with the most votes nationwide in terms of the popular vote. At the outset, the Constitution forbids compacts among states without the consent of Congress. Further, note carefully that the plan looks at who receives a plurality of the popular vote, not a majority of the popular vote. So, with several minor parties in the mix, we could routinely elect a President with less than a majority vote.
Do we see a pattern here? Is the "Democratic" party actually working to make your vote count less?
Stay focused on November 2. Thank you for all you do for me and our whole team.
John Hetherington is a candidate for state representative, 125th Assembly District (New Canaan and Wilton).
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