Texas Elector Resigns Rather than Vote for Trump
His actions illustration how well the EC process is institutionalized.
Via the DMN: Texan quits Electoral College rather than vote for Trump, ‘bring dishonor to God’
A Texas Republican in the Electoral College has announced that he will quit rather than cast his vote for Donald Trump.
Art Sisneros, 40, said in a blog post over the weekend that “the best option I see at this time is to resign my position as an elector.”
[…]
“Voting for Trump would bring dishonor to God,” the welding supply salesman wrote. He said he was resigning so that he could be replaced with “someone that can vote for Trump.”
The other Texas electors will vote a replacement for Mr. Sisneros when they meet in Austin in December.
It is worth nothing that Texas state law does not bind the electors, so Mr. Sisneros could have voted for someone other than Trump so as to registered his distaste for the candidate. His resignation so that someone else would have the task of voting for Trump is a good illustration of how deeply institutionalized the EC processes are. Here is a citizen with 1/538th of the constitutional power to elect the president, and he has a moral objection to the candidate his state’s voters preferred. Instead of exercising his constitutional power he is stepping down so that the will of the state would be recorded, not his own.
This is one small illustration of why much of the discussion of the electoral college acting as some kind of firewall against Trump has been misguided. The functioning of the institution is well established and there is no evidence or reason to suggest that it will do anything other produce the same outcome as election night indicated that it would.
It’s that dang reality that keeps on messing up our lives!
Wow. Someone with moral fiber taking an actual stand. What’s he doing in the GOP to begin with?
@michael reynolds: It’s certainly an interesting ethical dilemma. I’m not sure I’d have the fortitude to step aside and enable Trump to be elected.
Perhaps an impassioned speech to the other Texas electors might have switched more votes? Trump can’t afford to lose Texas. But in the end, this elector simply honored historical precedent.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s no such thing as a “conscious vote”. It’s a nice little lie people tell themselves so they don’t have to personally feel dirty in a filthy process. We live in a binary system that likes to fantasize it has a third option but its far to chickensh^t to ever start down that path. The *second* it became obvious who the final choices were going to be it became a simple choice: him or her? No “hmmmm”, “errrrr”, “ummmmm”, or “wellllll”- him or her. Abstaining, write-ins, 3rd party votes…. all just mask the inevitable outcome and let people pretend they had nothing to do with this travesty. Don’t want to vote for a horrible candidate? Don’t let horrible candidates run for office! Stop it well before it gets to the vote stage and you don’t have these little crisis of nerves.
This elector knew that, has known for months that he would “have” to vote Trump since Texas swings that way. He can’t vote for Trump personally since it offends God but he’ll let someone else replace him to do? Isn’t that like not flipping God off but paying someone else to do it for you? Or refusing to shoot the prisoner but handing the gun over to someone that will?
Mr Sisneros, rest assured you’ll still be Judged the same and will now be held as a coward to boot. You should have stood firm against someone you felt unqualified. God’s not a fan of passing the buck on evil.
@KM:
Considering all the evil done in her name…are you saying she’d much prefer you actually do evil than pass the buck?
How is it that you know what god is thinking?
@Mr. Bluster:
When you make up an imaginary being you can make it think whatever you want.
I’d say it also illustrates the fundamental spinelessness of most of the NeverTrumpers. They’re willing to protest against Trump symbolically but refuse to do anything substantively that might stop or weaken him.
@KM: I thought that these “electors” go in knowing that they are supposed to vote based on the popular vote of the state. An elector has no way of knowing ahead of time who that person might be. They should not go through the process of becoming an elector if they are going to do that. It can’t be “I will vote for that person if I feel like it”.
@Tyrell:
in a strange way it’s somewhat like Jury Nullification
@Mr. Bluster :
My point is Art Sisneros clearly thinks he knows what God is thinking if he declares Trump “not biblically qualified” to be President. It’s totally passing the buck to say “It’s evil for me to do X” but be morally OK with standing aside so another can do it for you.
He’s trying to use his faith as a guilt-free escape clause. I’m pointing out the obvious flaw in his plan.
@KM: I do not think any God would approve of most of the people in government.
@Tyrell:
That’s not quite true – in some states, electors are nearly 100% certain they are going to be voting for the candidate of a certain party while not knowing the candidates’ name. California and New York electors knew they weren’t going to be voting for Trump/Bush/Cruz/Rubio/ Iforgettherest but for Hillary/Sanders. The reverse for Texas, Mississippi and Tennessee. They go through the process with the understanding they will most assuredly be voting a specific way be they Red or Blue state. Its only in swing states that “IDK who the popular vote will be for” even comes up.
I’m not surprised, but it’s pretty damn gutless for an elector to not behave like an elector. Have the cajones to abstain or to cast the vote for someone else.
It’s shameful that one of the only occasions when a significant number of electors made a unified effort to oppose a candidate was in 1836, when it was alleged that the VP Richard Johnson had fathered children with a black woman — the Virginia electors all chose to oppose Johnson, denying him a majority. Almost 200 years later, and that same institution will allow an inept bigot to become the president. Unbelievable.
@Pch101: Almost 200 years later, and that same institution will allow an inept bigot to become the president.
Worse yet, he will appoint countless inept amoral bigots to positions of importance. Here’s a perfect example:
Here’s Trump’s Commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, this guy is almost a caricature of the evil businessman. He sounds like a real life Montgomery Burns, from the Simpsons :
In 2012, Ross, clad in purple velvet slippers, took the stage at a black-tie induction ceremony for the secretive Wall Street fraternity Kappa Beta Phi and sang show tunes mocking poor people
But in 2002, after spending decades as an investment banker, Ross earned the nickname “bottom feeder” when he started buying up decaying steel mills and coal mines. In 2004, he began the process of purchasing some mines owned by the bankrupt coal giant Horizon Natural Resources ― but only after a bankruptcy judge stripped thousands of miners, some with black lung disease, of their medical coverage and union status.
Among the mines Ross bought was Sago Mine, where a dozen miners died after an early-morning explosion on Jan. 2, 2006.
Ross completed the purchase in March 2005, the same year the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration cited Sago for 208 violations, up from 68 a year earlier. More than half of those violations were labeled “serious and substantial,” including 20 dangerous roof falls, 14 power wire insulation problems and three cases of inadequate ventilation plans, according to The Christian Science Monitor.
“He certainly had the authority to try to make a difference and make sure those mines were operated differently. In my view, they were a bunch of dog-hole mines,” Oppegard said, using an Appalachian slang term for unsafe mines. “Bottom line is to get as much coal out as cheaply as possible and get as much coal as possible. That’s what a dog hole is.”
What a complete piece of excrement. Apparently, Trump drained the swamp and came up with Wilbur Ross, who is the human embodiment of swamp sediment.
I guess it’s just nice to see a Republican stand on some sort of principle for a change.
As opposed to Mitt Romney, the biggest whore on the planet today.
OT: As expected, Trump tapped Steve Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary.
Now, aside from the guy spending 20 years in Goldman’s mortgage backed securities division, he also worked for Soros.
I would wonder how this selection will play out in Real Uhmuhrka©, but somehow I doubt many of them are bright enough to grasp just how gigantic of a FU to them this is.
Oh, and he’s Jewish like me. Take that, white supremacists … 🙂
@KM: The *second* it became obvious who the final choices were going to be it became a simple choice: him or her?
It’s only a simple choice for a simple mind. People in a Democratic society have the absolute right to vote for anyone they want for any reason they want. They don’t have to justify that vote to anyone. If you want their vote, it is your job to persuade them. If you don’t, that is your failure.
Mike
@HarvardLaw92: I doubt many of them are bright enough
They are still smarter than you when it comes to picking Presidential candidates.
Mike
@MBunge:
So are you for faithless electors or not? That’s who we’re discussing – not the average voter.
Are they bound to the will of the voters of their state or do have to justify their vote to no man?
@MBunge:
And they’re still sitting in the Rust Belt unemployed & eating SPAM while one of the guys who helped them lose their houses is about to head Treasury.
Yea, I tell you what, they really showed us … 🙄
@KM: My understanding of the system is that each party puts up a panel of electors and the winning party’s electors go to the state capital to vote. Sisneros has known that he would be voting for Trump since about July.
But at least he got 15 minutes of fame and the chance to be kicked out of his congregation for not being a good Christian out of this little self-immolation, so more power to him.
@Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:
This is correct. Both parties select slates of electors. The winner of the statewide presidential election determines which slate of electors later votes.
@KM:
Now where have I heard of that before….
Oh yeah:
Looks like they both chose the same route to dodge that bullet.
Maybe he missed that part in his book?
@michael reynolds:
Hardly. The net effect of his action is to simultaneously register a vote for Trump while being able to claim he never cast a vote for Trump. @Kylopod nailed it: What could be more spineless?
I wondered if perhaps Mr Sisneros is such a workhorse-type of the Texas Republicans that he was named to the slate of Electors, perhaps he also attended the convention. Perhaps he is a Ted Cruz supporter? Could be his Theological explanation would make that supposition reasonable, eh? Pretty hard, those feelings that got stirred up.
@Pch101: Well, the way I understand the electoral college is that the members must vote according to who their state voted for. I do not think they have a choice. If they did, there could be some sort of insurrection or hostile action.
@Tyrell:
…wrong…the way you understand everything else.
@C. Clavin:
@Tyrell:
Tyrell – You may wish to read the actual expectations of an elector:
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/electors.html
.
Interesting news:
Four out of 9 Colorado Electoral College members agree: Revolt is necessary
ALSO:
C-SPAN wants to televise Colorado’s Electoral College members casting their votes
Just thought I’d point this out to the “Trump may be a billionaire who just defied all conventional wisdom and became President, but he’s still an inept clown” brigade around here.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/indiana-carrier-deal-federal-contracts-trump-232021
For the link averse, the owners of the Carrier plant took essentially the same deal they’d turned down before to keep 1,000 jobs in Indiana because they were afraid what President Trump might do to their federal contracts.
Amazing. Who would have ever thought the U.S. government could actually DO SOMETHING about outsourcing and not cause the entire global economy to collapse?
Mike
@MBunge:
Glad you are clear on that.
Good job Trump. 1000 jobs.
Not the 1400 positions that Carrier had announced that they would pay for retraining and job change support that those employees would have received over a show shutdown over the next three years.
Now, Trump only has 14,999,000 more jobs to create to equal Obama’s recovery in the last 7 years.
Let us know when he gets there. Hell, since he’ll only be around for 4 years, let me know when he it’s an easier target of 6 million.
We’ll wait for your update.
@MBunge:
Oh… One other thing:
http://money.cnn.com/2016/11/30/news/economy/trump-carrier-deal/index.html
So… when Obama loaned GM money to recover, that became “Government Motors”.
When Indiana gives money to Carrier … FREE … not a loan, then that’s OK?
And when Wal-Mart pays their employees so little they need to get government assistance (which Wal-Mart helps them do), then we all subsidize Wal-Mart by our taxes.
Tell me more about the Conservative support for the free market economy.
@Tyrell:
Alexander Hamilton shouldn’t have gone to the trouble of writing the Federalist papers and just taken a Hawaiian vacation, instead. Why did he waste all of that time when no one was going to read them?
@Liberal Capitalist:
All major corporations that endeavor to win cash and prizes from their state and local overlords can be expected to announce its plans to move 5 bazillion jobs to Mexichinastan so that they can use that to gain leverage and cut a deal. That’s how the game is played (and how buffoons like Bunge get played.)
Ironically, federalism encourages this situation. Companies have 50 states and numerous counties and cities to play off against each other, not to mention a large number of foreign countries. The US might get better deals if the states and the locals weren’t so easily divided and conquered.
In any case, it should be no surprise that Pence in his role as governor has been talking to Carrier for months. He met with the company back in March:
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2016/03/02/pence-carrier-meet-jobs-heading-mexico/81220068/
@Pch101:
Looks like the deal is a real raping of the people of Indiana:
http://fortune.com/2016/11/30/donald-trump-carrier-deal-jobs/
So much for free market.
It seems off topic considering the last two or three posts, but when I heard this on El Rushbo this morning, it was too funny not to pass along. It seems that a caller was calling for Rush’s advice on how to explain the EC to her Millennial-aged children. During the conversation he explained to her that the reason that the EC exists and that winner-take-all voting was essential to the system was because the Electoral College was created to protect the nation against the deleterious effects of gerrymandering.
Wa!
@Liberal Capitalist:
Wow! 1400 jobs that would have lasted three whole years vs. 1000 jobs for much longer. That kind of insightful analysis is exactly what helped Hillary become our first female President.
Trump saved those jobs. He helped create a better life for those thousand people, their spouses and their children. To put it another way, Trump just did more good for more human beings than probably everybody else on this blog combined has in their entire lives.
Obama could have saved those jobs. Hillary could have saved those jobs. But they didn’t and they weren’t even going to try. Next time you wonder about how and why Trump became President, see if you can remember that.
Mike
@KM:
Everyone is bound to do what they think is right and let the chips fall where they may.
Mike
@HarvardLaw92:
And yet, you are still a nobody commenting on someone else’s blog. It’s funny how that’s always true, no matter what you say.
Mike
@Liberal Capitalist:
That’s impressive. I’ve never seen someone move the goalposts in so many different directions at the same time. Should we also start debating Reagan firing the air traffic controllers or do you think you’ve distracted us from the original subject enough?
Oh, and you do realize that Trump is not a conservative in any political sense of the world? It might be a good idea to remember that or you’ll wind up launching attacks that make you look stupid while missing targets where you really can score.
Mike
@Pch101:
It’s kind of cute how you think you are so much smarter than you actually you are. I just want to reach throug the screen and give you a smiley face sticker for the effort.
Everybody knows the con job these corporations play to extort benefits from their communities. The question is why did they take a deal now that they rejected in the past? What changed? Trump and his demonstration that the learned helplessness of neoliberalism isn’t the only option…which is precisely the kind of thinking necessary to change the rules of the game and stop this kind of big business blackmail.
Not that Trump would ever do that, but at least he might open the door for someone who will. Hillary would have kept that door nailed shut.
As for the AT&T/Time Warner merger, you do realize that you lower yourself to an entirely new level of ass when you have to be a little bitch even when Trump is doing the correct thing…right?
Mike
@MBunge:
The interesting thing about this observation, which is correct, is the degree to which is it unclear that many of those who voted for him understand this. Or, even, the degree to which many elected members of his own party have come to grips with it.
@Liberal Capitalist:
I’m sure that you know that giving away benefits to business is pretty common. Anyone who thinks that it is unique or heroic to swap freebies for jobs must be living under a rock — it’s how things get done.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Red states have been giving away incentives package for ages. They don’t have any ideological misgivings about luring in and retaining businesses by giving things away.
@MBunge:
Dude, believe me, I’m a Brazilian that has watched this movie lots of times. Industrial policy and subsidies is a crappy way of saving jobs.
@MBunge:
Tell that to the 400 who are still going to lose their jobs that they should be happy they couldn’t have had it for 3 more years or that they should be grateful most people still are employed when their house is being foreclosed on. Very insensitive to hard-working Americans who got screwed by a company only interested in profit. I’m sure the Trump voters who are still getting the pink slip for Xmas are truly grateful he saved somebody else and that the horrible Hillary wasn’t the one to do so.
No, it maintains a status quo at best. Their lives aren’t improved if they didn’t lose their jobs, it just didn’t get any worse. In fact, since the state is going to be losing major revenue on this (and thus their taxes may go up or quality of services may suffer), it can be argued their lives got slightly worse while keeping what was already theirs.
Speak for yourself, please. Some of us have resumes that include a lot more literal lifesaving and quality of live improvement then the Donald. In fact, he’s still far in the negative for all the jobs he’s outsourced and cost America as a crappy businessman and will be working off that deficit for the next 4 years.
It’s a good thing a thousand Americans still have their jobs. However, it’s not a reason to get on your knees for His Orangeness. You assume Trump’s Awesome Business Skills of Awesome is what sealed the deal without any proof. Until Carrier comes out and explicitly says it was Trump’s ABSA, it’s only a guess on your part. There were deals already in the works – it’s entirely possible he’s stealing the credit from someone who actually deserve the praise for it.
It’s not as if Carrier and its parent company were unfamiliar with receiving incentives from Indiana:
In 2013, Carrier Corp. was awarded up to $200,000 in training grants based on the company’s job creation plans. UTEC was awarded up to $182,500 in training grants in 2010, and up to $300,000 in training grants in 2015.
http://wane.com/2016/02/15/pence-fights-back-against-carrier-utec-moves-to-mexico/
This is just their latest trip to the trough, not a startling development that came from out of the blue. Some folks need to catch a clue.
@Pch101:
Indeed. I was not commenting on that. I was commenting solely on the fact that Trump is hardly a conservative.
(Certainly not in the sense that many in his party want to think is that case).
@Steven L. Taylor:
American conservatives tend to bellyache about subsidies when they are provided by Democrats. But they don’t have a problem with subsidies that serve their own purposes. As is the case with budget deficits, the right’s relationship with subsidies is hypocritical.
The red state of Indiana provided this subsidy package. Indiana has been negotiating this since March and would have cut a deal with or without Trump. To claim that Trump’s support for subsidies proves that he isn’t a conservative doesn’t ring true when conservatives have no problem handing out subsidies when it suits them. The support of subsidies is not a litmus test for liberalism vs. conservatism.
@Pch101: I really was making a general statement and not making a specific comment about the subsidies in question.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Trump is a populist conservative who appeals to nostalgia as conservatives do, and is not particularly liberal about much of anything,
It is correct to say that Trump is not part of the GOP establishment, but that isn’t the same as not being conservative.
@Pch101: I consider his general approach to be reactionary,
Not like I’m up on my political science but a few names from recent history come to mind when I hear that word.
Spiro Agnew?
On criminals’ rights and police brutality, Agnew commented “It would be a tremendous deterrent if everyone who ran from arrest thought… he’s going to get shot.” His intemperate words allowed Nixon to pose as moderate statesman.
Pat Buchanan?
In State of Emergency, Buchanan proposes the following immigration policy:
10-year moratorium on all legal immigration at a level between 150,000 and 250,000 per year
A 2,000-mile (3,200 km) double-line security fence between the United States and Mexico
A federally legislated end to all social welfare benefits for illegal aliens, except for emergency medical services
A crackdown on major businesses that chronically hire illegal aliens and the elimination of deductibility for all wages paid to illegals
A federal law to “restate the true meaning of the 14th Amendment” and denial of automatic citizenship to “anchor babies” born to illegal aliens
A policy allowing immigrants to bring in only wives and non-adult children
An end to dual citizenship in the United States
A deportation program beginning with all aliens convicted of felonies and every gang member who is not a citizen of the United States
Richard J. Daley?
The year 1968 was a momentous year for Daley. In April, Daley was castigated by many for his sharp rhetoric in the aftermath of rioting that took place after Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. Displeased with what he saw as an over-cautious police response to the rioting, Daley chastised police superintendent James B. Conlisk and subsequently related that conversation at a City Hall press conference as follows:
“I said to him very emphatically and very definitely that an order be issued by him immediately to shoot to kill any arsonist or anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand, because they’re potential murderers, and to shoot to maim or cripple anyone looting.”
We can only hope President Pud will not be as venal as Agnew, for instance…
Who am I kidding. He will probably be worse.
@Steven L. Taylor: It’s harder for the GOP leadership to recognize that he’s not a conservative. That’s easy to understand when you realize that they’re not particularly conservative either.