8 Weeks Until Election Day: Clinton 0.682, Trump 0.318

It's that time again! 56 days from today (8 weeks) we will learn who will be the 45th President of the United Status as Americans in every state go to the polls on November 8. My current employment status as a federal employee does not allow me to comment publicly on partisan races but it doesn't preclude me from sharing information. I did this last time in the Obama-Romney election as well, but I started much earlier and used the Talking Points Memo Electoral College Scoreboard.

Periodically for the next eight weeks I will post election forecasts, probably from Nate Silver's fivethirtyeight.com. Instead of posting estimated electoral vote tallies, Five Thirty Eight comes up with a probability (i.e. a number between 0 and 1) of who will win the presidential race if it were held right now. That is the information I will post regularly here. Enjoy the next 8 weeks!

SATURDAY POLITICS: Duke Mathematicians Show How Heinously NC Republicans Gerrymandered Congressional Districts

This is an interesting study from two Duke mathematicians which demonstrates the truly heinous nature of the partisan gerrymander perpetrated by North Carolina Republicans to gain a majority of the state's Congressional districts despite getting a minority of votes.

During the 2012 elections in North Carolina, Republicans took nine of the state’s 13 U.S. House seats although 51 percent of the two-party vote went to Democratic candidates. 

The gerrymandering that led to these results isn’t unique to North Carolina or any specific party. Both Democrats and Republicans have used it for political advantage over the years. However, new technology makes it possible to draw partisan districts with increasing precision.

[...] 

They used a statistical algorithm to randomly redraw the boundaries of North Carolina’s 13 congressional districts. The model produced thousands of versions of the redrawn map. All of them were based only on the legal requirements of redistricting, ensuring the districts represented roughly equal numbers of voters and were as geographically compact as possible, without accounting for race or political affiliation.

[...] 

After re-running the election 100 times, with a randomly drawn nonpartisan map each time, the average simulated election result was 7 or 8 U.S. House seats for the Democrats and 5 or 6 for Republicans. The maximum number of Republican seats that emerged from any of the simulations was eight. The actual outcome of the election -- four Democratic representatives and nine Republicans – did not occur in any of the simulations. 

Feel free to re-read that again. Using ONE HUNDRED simulations of randomly drawn district lines but the same votes cast in the 2012 election NONE of those simulations produced the results of the actual 2012 election results of 9 Republicans and 4 Democrats, while the most likely simulated result was between 7 and 8 Democrats and 6 or 5 Republicans.

This result demonstrates how heinously the Republican legislature gerrymandered North Carolina's congressional districts to thwart the political will of the majority of voters.

GODLESS WEDNESDAY: Religious Profiles of Democratic and Republican Voters Very Different

The Brookings Foundation released a report which analyzes the religious affiliations of the electoral coalition of the Romney-Ryan (Republican) and Obama-Biden (Democratic) presidential tickets in the 2012 elections.

John Hudak summarizes:

While diversity has been a key to Democratic success in recent presidential elections, it can also make coalition management difficult. The Democratic coalition is made up of the least religious Americans (17 percent of Democrats are religiously unaffiliated) and the most religious Americans (African-Americans). This is reflected in the religious and theological orientation of the parties. The relative homogeneity of the Republican Party means there are fewer tensions but points to long-term challenges, since younger voters are less religiously affiliated and more progressive on many social issues, particularly marriage equality.

The reports points out that there are advantages and disadvantages to the religious diversity found in both coalitions. As an atheist, I am happy that the Democrats are orienting themselves towards the least religious Americans.

Partisanship in State Legislatures At All-Time High

The Washington Post has a fascinating story in the Sunday paper which documents the increased partisanship at the state legislative level. In 37 states a single party completely controls the levers of power: 23 states are controlled by Republicans and 14 are controlled by Democrats (12 states have split control and Nebraska has a nonpartisan unicameral).

The values that underpin these governing strategies reflect contrasting political visions, and the differences can be seen in stark terms in the states. In a red state such as Texas, government exists mostly to get out of the way of the private sector while holding to traditional social values. In blue states such as California and Maryland, government takes more from taxpayers, particularly the wealthy, to spend on domestic priorities while advancing a cultural agenda that reflects the country’s growing diversity. 

[...] 

Control in the states today is more closely aligned with voting patterns in presidential elections than in the days when conservative Democrats dominated state and local elections in the South and moderate Republicans held greater sway in the North. 

Karl Kurtz, a political scientist at the National Conference of State Legislatures, noted in an article published this year that Republicans control both houses of the legislatures in 22 of the 24 states carried by Mitt Romney in 2012 and that Democrats hold majorities in 18 of the 26 states won by Obama. 

The eight Obama states that have full or partial Republican control are or recently have been presidential battlegrounds. These are Florida, Iowa, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

It's an interesting article. It will be very easy to take stock of the partisanship tally at the end of the 2014 midterm elections.

SCOTUS Fatally Wounds The 1965 Voting Right Act

Today the GOP's War on Voting was extended to the Supreme Court, when the 5 Republican justices (Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy) voted to effectively kill one of the most significant federal civil rights statutes in the United States, the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Just as the words "fatally wounded" are are used to deliberately obfuscate people from understanding that the subject has been killed, so did the majority opinion fatally wound the Voting Rights Act (VRA) in Shelby County v Holder. All attention was on Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, so the opinion upheld that section of the law but struck down Section 4 of the law. However, Section 5 can not be implemented without Section 4.

NBC News reports:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a key part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — the map that determines which states must get federal permission before they change their voting laws. The ruling, a 5-4 decision by Chief Justice John Roberts, leaves the future of the law deeply uncertain because it will be up to a sharply divided Congress to redraw the map. 

“Our country has changed, and while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions,” Roberts wrote for the court. Under the law, nine mostly Southern states must get permission from the Justice Department or a special panel of three federal judges before they make changes. The rule also applies to 12 cities and 57 counties elsewhere.

Basically, despite the fact the VRA was reauthorized nearly unanimously by Congress in 2006 (it passed 98-0 in the Senate) the Supreme Court GOP majority struck down the current formula found in VRA Section 4 that the Justice Department uses to determine which jurisdictions need to have their election laws "pre-cleared" before they can go into effect. Without that formula, the Justice Department will not be able to challenge provisions it suspects are being issued (primarily by Republican politicians) to dilute the voting rights of people of color throughout the United States. In the 2012 election the bizarre laws and procedures GOP governors and Secretaries of State attempted to enact to prevent racial and ethnic minorities from voting became increasingly obvious and resulted in a huge voter turnout by those groups, aiding President Obama's re-election  in the end.

This is a huge loss for people who believe in civil rights and an America where all citizens have equal rights. Chief Justice John Roberts knows that by giving this Congress the option to pass a new federal law with a formula to give the the federal government the right to intervene in elections where a majority of Republican House members represent is simply not going to happen any time soon. Most definitely not before the 2014 midterm elections, and probably not before the 2016 presidential election. (Note that the next Congress will most likely be even more hostile to the civil rights of racial and ethnic minorities and actions by the federal government to protect those rights than the current Congress is, and that's saying a lot!) So, basically the Court has killed the VRA while "keeping their fingerprints off the murder weapon" as MSNBC's Chris Hayes said on TV today.

Happily, the LGBT rights community is stepping up to the plate and denouncing the Supreme Court's actions in Shelby County with a joint statement:

We, America’s leading LGBT advocacy organizations, join civil rights organizations – and indeed, all Americans whom this law has served to protect – in expressing acute dismay at today’s ruling. Not only had Congress repeatedly reaffirmed the need for this bedrock civil rights protection, but authoritative voices from across America had filed amicus briefs urging the court not to undermine the law: the NAACP; the American Bar Association; the Navajo Nation; the states of New York, California, Mississippi and North Carolina; numerous former Justice Department officials charged with protecting voting rights; dozens of U.S. senators and representatives; and many others. 

These varied and powerful voices attest to the self-evident reality that racial protections are still needed in voting in this country. As recently as last year’s elections, political partisans resorted to voter suppression laws and tactics aimed at reducing the votes of people of color.  Voting rights protections, which have long served our nation’s commitment to equality and justice, should not be cast aside now. The court has done America a grave disservice, and we will work with our coalition partners to undo the damage inflicted by this retrogressive ruling.

The statement was signed by the usual suspects: The Task Force, HRC, Pride at Work, Immigration Equality, Lambda Legal, Freedom To Marry, National Center for Lesbian Rights,  GMHC, GLAD, National Black Justice Coalition, Family Equality Council, PFLAG, and others.

The graphic at the top of this post is from the Williams Institute analysis of where African-American same-sex couples live throughout the United States. So, a diminution of the electoral rights and concomitant political power of racial and ethnic minorities does impact the LGBT community, because the LGBT community encompasses all racial and ethnic minorities.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Obama Names 2 Gay Men As Ambassadors To Spain & Denmark

Rufus Gifford	James Costos

Two important fundraisers to the President's re-election campaign Rufus Gifford and James Costos, were named on Friday by the White House to be Ambassador to Denmark and Spain, respectively.

James Costos, Nominee for Ambassador to Spain, Department of State
James Costos is Vice President of Global Licensing and Retail for Home Box Office (HBO).  Before joining HBO in 2006, he was President and CEO of Eight Cylinders, Inc., an entertainment marketing and licensing agency.  Previously, from 2002 to 2004, he was head of Promotions and Consumer Products at Revolution Studios in California.  He began his career in New York as a fashion and retail executive.  From 2001 to 2002, he was Vice President of Retail for Hermes in New York, and from 1991 to 2001, he was Vice President of Retail Operations for Tod’s in New York.  Mr. Costos currently serves on the Board of Directors of The Humane Society of the United States.  He received a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts.

Rufus Gifford, Nominee for Ambassador to Denmark, Department of State
Rufus Gifford most recently served as Finance Chair of the Presidential Inaugural Committee.  He served as Finance Director for Obama for America from 2011 to 2012, and as Finance Director for the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.  From 2008 to 2009, he was the California Finance Director for the Presidential Inaugural Committee, after working as a political consultant in California from 2004 to 2008.  From 1998 to 2004, Mr. Gifford was Creative Executive for Davis Entertainment, an independent film company based in Los Angeles.  He is currently a Federal Club Member of the Human Rights Campaign and a Partner in Conservation for the World Wildlife Fund.  He received a B.A. from Brown University.

Both men are openly gay, and the countries to which they are nominated happen to have enacted marriage equality and are considered gay-friendly destinations. Gifford's nomination to Denmark had long been rumored but Costos' nomination was something of a surprise. The two nominations come barely a week after the Obama administration announced it was nominating openly gay Daniel Baer to be Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the fourth out gay person to hold Ambassadorial rank. David Huebner, the current Ambassador to New Zealand is a gay man from Los Angeles.

Former Director of the Office of Personnel Management, John Berry, the former highest ranked openly LGBT member of the Obama administration who was rumored earlier this year to be considered for a Cabinet position, is still expected to be nominated to become Ambassador to Australia, perhaps in the pride month of June!

Hat/tip to TowleRoad

Latina Lesbian Confirmed To Federal Judgeship in PA!

By a voice vote, the United States Senate has unanimously confirmed the first (out!) lesbian of Hispanic heritage to a federal judgeship. Nitza Quiñones Alejandro will become a federal district court judge for the Eastern District of Pensuylvania when she is sworn in.

She is the sixth openly LGBT judge to be confirmed by the United States Senate during the administration of President Barack Obama. The previous five Obama-nominated federal judges confirmed by the Senate are:

J. Paul OetkenAli NathanMichael FitzgeraldPamela Ki Mai ChenMichael McShane

Prior to the Obama administration there was one openly LGBT federal judge confirmed by the Senate, Deborah Batts, nominated by President Clinton in the 1990s. Federal judges generally serve for life. All of the seven openly LGBT federal judges have served as district court judges, the lowest level in the federal judicial system.

There are still a number of pending nominations of openly LGBT individuals for federal judgeships. To date, no openly LGBT person has been confirmed for a federal appellate court. That is one level below the United States Supreme Court but Obama has nominated Todd Hughes and Edward Dumont to appellate position. Dumont withdrew his nomination after it was stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee in the previous Congress.

Lets hope the lavender ceiling will be broken soon and we'll have an openly LGBT appellate court judge confirmed by the U.S. Senate soon.

Minnesota House Passes Marriage Equality Bill 75-59!

As expected, the Minnesota House of Representatives approved a marriage equality bill 75-59, less than 6 months after Minnesota voters narrowly rejected an anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment which would have disempowered the legislature from enacting such legislation.

According to Freedom To Marry, the bill will be voted on in the Senate on Tuesday May 13 (and is expected to pass). Governor Mark Dayton has said he will sign it into law if it passes the legislature.

Black Voter Turnout Won 2012 Election For Obama

A new report analyzing voter turnout in 2012 confirms that well-publicized efforts by Republicans to suppress voting by minorities (a.k.a. the GOP War on Voting) resulted in record Black turnout, handing the election to President Obama even though overall voter turnout was down over 2008 (and 2004). In fact, the most dramatic finding in the report is that turnout by Black voters surpassed turnout by White voters for the first time ever. For the second presidential election in a row, the Black percentage of the presidential vote (13%) exceeded the Black percentage of the electorate (12%).

This is the key excerpt from the Associated Press story:

Romney would have erased Obama's nearly 5 million-vote victory margin and narrowly won the popular vote if voters had turned out as they did in 2004, according to Frey's analysis. Then, white turnout was slightly higher and black voting lower.

More significantly, the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida and Colorado would have tipped in favor of Romney, handing him the presidency if the outcome of other states remained the same.

There is a  lot of interesting information in the article for both Democrats and Republicans. First, the article notes that only only political party (Republicans) have managed to win the presidency three consecutive times in the last 60 years (1980, 1984, 1988) so that Democrats should not be confident about 2016. It also notes that Romney was a particular weak candidates, failing to energize white voters while Obama successfully energized black voters. The much vaunted Latino vote is still  only a potential factor at the presidential level, with Latino voters making up 17% of the electorate but only 11% of the vote. This could change sooner rather than later, depending on how immigration reform ends up impacting the citizenship status of the millions of undocumented immigrants of Hispanic descent living in the United States.

However my favorite oart of the story is this description of Mitt Romney by an African American voter from Cleveland, Ohio:

"A white Mormon swimming in money with offshore accounts buying up companies and laying off their employees just doesn't quite fit my idea of a president," she said. "Bottom line, Romney was not someone I was willing to trust with my future."

And that is a summation of the 2012 Republican presidential candidate in a nutshell: "a white mormon swimming in money with offshore accounts buying up companies and laying off their employees." David Axelrod must be very proud!

The Future of Marriage Equality: Nate Silver Predicts

Poll guru and data cruncher extraordinaire Nate Silver has decided to use the occasion of the recent Gaytterdämmerung (oral arguments before the United States Supreme Court of not one but two caes involving gay rights and marriage equality) to analyze recent polls about marriage equality, finally reveal what his predictions were for the 2012 marriage equality ballot measures and make some future predictions about how marriage equality would fare at the ballot box in 2016 and beyond.

Silver's model predicts that the four states (Maine, Maryland, Washington and Minnesota) which voted on the side of marriage equality in November 2012 would have done so, including 16 others. More interestingly, the model also has predictions for 2016. If one assumes a linear relationship between the 2012 and 2016 results one can interpolate a 2014 prediction as well.

Note that Silver's predictions for the results in 2012 are greater than the actual results that occurred at the ballot box for Maryland (55.0% predicted versus 52.4% actual; +2.6), Minnesota (52.3% predicted versus 51.2% actual; +1.1), Washington (55.7% predicted versus 53.7% actual; +2.0) but not Maine (51.1% predicted versus 51.5% actual; -0.4).

But his model also has good news for LGBT activists who may want to move forward with a pro-marriage equality measures in California and Oregon in 2014. A linear interpolation would indicate that California's measure would pass with approximately 57.5% of the vote while Oregon's would pass with 56.8%. Oregon's measure is much more likely to actually appear on the 2014 ballot than California's.

Another thing to notice about the list of states is that Rhode Island is at the top of the list, yet that state has not enacted marriage equality yet. Other states, like Illinois and Delaware, which are considering marriage equality legislation this year are also well into the blue territory of majority support for marriage equality.

The future of marriage equality is blue skies ahead!

Now There Are 4: 2 Red-State Senators Embrace Marriage Equality

Sen. Heitkamp (D-ND)	Sen. Donnelly (D-IN)

The rate at which Senators are endorsing marriage equality for same-sex couples is a bit dizzying. Last Saturday I blogged about the 9 Democratic Senators who had not endorsed marriage equality, and primarily paid my attention to the Senators from blue states who had not taken the plunge, reserving my most scorn for Delaware's Tom Carper, noting that majority of his constituents supported marriage equality, according to recent polls.

In the last 7 days, 6 Senators have issued statements supporting marriage equality, and many of these have not been from the "easy-to-get" categories. Carper joined the "equality caucus" on Tuesday April 2nd, the same day that Republican Senator Mark Kirk from Illinois did. But, amazingly, this was two days after Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, generally considered one of the most socially conservative members of the Democratic caucus, had announced his support for marriage.

Just yesterday, I tried to predict who would the next Senators to endorse marriage equality, noting there were still 6 Democratic Senators who had not done so at that time, but that they were all from red states. Since then, two of those Red-State Democratic Senators have endorsed marriage equality with public statements.

U.S. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota) said:

“In speaking with North Dakotans from every corner of our great state, and much personal reflection, I have concluded the federal government should no longer discriminate against people who want to make lifelong, loving commitments to each other or interfere in personal, private, and intimate relationships.  I view the ability of anyone to marry as a logical extension of this belief. The makeup of families is changing, but the importance of family is enduring.” 

U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly said:

“In recent years, our country has been involved in an important discussion on the issue of marriage equality. While serving in the House of Representatives, I had the opportunity to act on a core belief of mine: we are a stronger country when we draw on the strengths of all Americans. I voted to repeal ‘don't ask, don't tell’ and was an original supporter of the bill that would make it illegal to discriminate against someone in the workplace because of their sexual orientation. It is also for that reason that I oppose amending either Indiana’s or our nation’s constitution to enshrine in those documents an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’ instead of a ‘we.’ With the recent Supreme Court arguments and accompanying public discussion of same-sex marriage, I have been thinking about my past positions and votes. In doing so, I have concluded that the right thing to do is to support marriage equality for all.”

Both Donnelly and Heitkamp are freshman Senators from conservative states who are not up for re-election until 2018. The four remaining Democratic Senators who have not (yet) endorsed marriage equality are Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who has announced that he will not face the voters again (and thus has nothing to lose if he wants to support marriage equality); Joe Manchin of West Virginia (who just got re-elected to a full 6-year term in November 2012); Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas (who are both running for re-election in 2014).

The most interesting question now is which members of the Republican caucus will join the marriage equality caucus. According to the Washington Post's The Fix blog, there are a number of Republicans who represent blue states who may consider endorsing marriage equality soon:

1. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) 
2. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) 
3. Sen. Richard Burr (R-North Carolina) 
4. Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-New Hampshire) 
5. Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) 
6. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) 
7. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) 
8. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nevada) 
9. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa)

In addition to these nine Blue-state Republican Senators, the most likely red-state Republican senator to endorse marriage equality is Deb Fisher (R-Nebraska) (because she's female and because she was just elected to a full term in November 2012).

Currently there are only two Republican Senators who support marriage equality, Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), who (not coincidentally) both represent blue states.

Interestingly, former U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) announced on Friday that she supports marriage equality. I wonder whether her "Maine twin" will follow suit someday soon?

Colorado Civil Unions Bill Signed Into Law

Primarily as a result of the 2012 elections which resulted in Democrats winning back control of the lower House, Colorado now has a civil unions law, joining other 8 states with "everything-but-marriage" statutes that attempt to give all the state-conferred rights and responsibilities of marriage without the use of the word.

Hat/tip to Joe.My.God

Queer Quote: Sen. Rob Portman Supports Marriage Equality

Rob Portman was the head of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) under President George W. Bush and is now an U.S. Senator from Ohio. He had supported DOMA and a federal constitutional amendment prohibiting recognition of same-sex marriage nationwide. His college-aged son, Will Portman, came out to him as gay two years ago and now Senator Portman has come out in support of marriage equality, the first sitting Republican Senator to do so.

His statement of support (published in today's Columbus Dispatch) is today's Queer Quote:

"I've come to the conclusion that for me, personally, I think this is something that we should allow people to do, to get married, and to have the joy and stability of marriage that I've had for over 26 years. That I want all of my children to have, including our son, who is gay."

Reactions to his statement have been mixed. LGBT activists are happy that a Republican senator is now supporting marriage equality, but some progressives are noting that he is only doing so because he has suddenly discovered that homophobic public policy can negatively impact his family, even though the argument for marriage equality supporters has always been that families all over the country are affected by the lack of empathy towards LGBT people's civil rights. Conservatives are claiming that one can love one's gay family members while still supporting public policies and legislation that discriminate against them and diminish LGBT citizens' civil rights.

It is also not going un-noticed that Portman was a finalist in the Veepstakes last year to be Mitt Romney and that even though Romney's people claim that they knew Sen. Portman's son was gay and that it did not impact their decision to choose Congressman Paul Ryan instead, the fact is that Portman has not publicized this change-of-heart on anti-gay legislation until it was going to have limited negative impact on his political career.

Portman's op-ed also takes a position on gay Götterdämmerung, stating that he thinks that the Supreme Court should leave the questions presented in the Hollingworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor (on the legalization to marriage equality) to the states.

Here's the important section of the piece, titled "Gay couples also deserve chance to get married":

The process of citizens persuading fellow citizens is how consensus is built and enduring change is forged. That’s why I believe change should come about through the democratic process in the states. Judicial intervention from Washington would circumvent that process as it’s moving in the direction of recognizing marriage for same-sex couples. An expansive court ruling would run the risk of deepening divisions rather than resolving them.

I’ve thought a great deal about this issue, and like millions of Americans in recent years, I’ve changed my mind on the question of marriage for same-sex couples. As we strive as a nation to form a more perfect union, I believe all of our sons and daughters ought to have the same opportunity to experience the joy and stability of marriage.

It's becoming clearer and clearer that opposition to LGBT equality is a more and more isolated (and rare) position. And that's a good thing!

POLL: US Marriage Equality Support Is Increasing Rapidly

Support for marriage equality in the United States is clearly now (and has been for quite awhile) a majority position, and polling data from the respected CBS/New York Times poll demonstrates the rapid change in popular opinion on this question in less than a year.

In July 2012, support for marriage equality outpolled opposition (46% to 44%) for the first time in the CBS/NYT poll, and by election day a majority of Americans (51%) supported making it legal for same-sex couples to marry.

Now comes word that the latest poll from February 2013 shows that opposition to marriage equality has fallen below 40% and majority support is outside of the margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Ex-Gov Jon Huntsman (R-UT) Supports Marriage Equality

Jon Huntsman is the former Governor of Utah and former U.S. Ambassador to China who ran for the Republican nomination for president in 2011. He was the person the Obama-Biden team feared the most but of course he was also considered absolutely unacceptable by theGOP base.

I don't know if Huntsman is thinking about running for President in 2016 but it is very interesting that he has become the first of the 2012 presidential contenders to come out publicly in favor of marriage equality.

While serving as governor of Utah, I pushed for civil unions and expanded reciprocal benefits for gay citizens. I did so not because of political pressure—indeed, at the time 70 percent of Utahns were opposed—but because as governor my role was to work for everybody, even those who didn’t have access to a powerful lobby. Civil unions, I believed, were a practical step that would bring all citizens more fully into the fabric of a state they already were—and always had been—a part of.

That was four years ago. Today we have an opportunity to do more: conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join the nine others that allow all their citizens to marry. I’ve been married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love.

All Americans should be treated equally by the law, whether they marry in a church, another religious institution, or a town hall. This does not mean that any religious group would be forced by the state to recognize relationships that run counter to their conscience. Civil equality is compatible with, and indeed promotes, freedom of conscience.

Marriage is not an issue that people rationalize through the abstract lens of the law; rather it is something understood emotionally through one’s own experience with family, neighbors, and friends. The party of Lincoln should stand with our best tradition of equality and support full civil marriage for all Americans.

Huntsman makes the case for marriage equality from a conservative point of view, and is an important marker in the journey of this issue moving to a bipartisan cause, as the Respect for Marriage Coalition espouses.

Colorado Senate Passes Civil Unions Bill 21-14

Good news from Colorado! As expected, for the second time in as many legislative sessions, the Colorado State Senate has passed a civil unions bill. In 2011, the Republicans killed the same legislation in the State House and killed it again in 2012.

This year, however, as a result of the November 2012 elections the Speaker of the House is now an openly gay man, Mark Ferrandino, and the lower chamber is firmly in Democratic control. The bill is expected to pass the House and then be signed into law by Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper.

DENVER - A bill granting civil unions to same-sex Colorado couples has cleared the state Senate for the third and possibly final time.

The Senate approved civil unions 21-14 without debate Monday. All Democrats voted for the legal recognition for gay partners. Republican Sen. Ellen Roberts of Durango joined them. The other 14 Republicans voted against the measure.

[...]

Monday's vote will likely be the curtain call for civil unions in the State Senate because the House is now under Democratic control and is likely to approve the measure, sending it to the governor's desk. Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper has said he plans to sign civil unions into law.

Civil unions would grant gay couples rights similar to marriage. More than a dozen states allow either civil unions or gay marriage. Colorado's constitution currently bans gay marriage.

Hat/tip to Joe.M.God

Saturday Politics: Even GOP Supports Popular Vote

It appears as if the Republican plan to attempt to rig the 2016 presidential election by changing how certain blue states (that have Republican-controlled legislatures and Republican governors) like Virginia, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin assign electoral votes by congressional district is not working. Only Pennsylvania has not decisively rejected that idea, but they are currently proposing a similarly GOP-skewed scheme.

Interestingly, some Republicans are coming around to supporting a plan to change how electoral votes are allotted that I would support, the National Popular Vote or NPV.

That said, there is polling evidence that GOP voters are become more interested in a national popular vote as 2000 fades into the distance and Democrats expand their reach into more swing states. A Gallup poll this month found 63 percent of respondents supported replacing the Electoral College with a national vote. But the big news was that 61 percent of Republicans now favor the change, a huge shift in support since 2000, when only 41 percent said they were were pro-popular vote. Even in 2011, only a slight majority of GOPers wanted to ditch the current system. 

This might have something to do with the previous race. A week before the 2012 election, Republicans were a lot more worried that Mitt Romney might win the popular vote and lose the election than Democrats were about President Obama thanks to the latter’s relative strength in Ohio, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa. 

Meanwhile, the conservative movement’s electoral reformers may not have the biggest megaphone in the party, but it is getting louder. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) came out for a national popular vote shortly after the election, complaining it put too much attention on swing states. (So did Donald Trump, for what it’s worth.)

I don't know how I feel about supporting an idea that both Jan Brewer and Donald Trump both support! But that doesn't mean that NPV is a bad idea; if it passed then every single person's vote everywhere in the country would have equal weight in deciding the presidential election, which is a much more democratic system than the system we have now based on the electoral college.

Hat/tip to Talking Points Memo.

Queer Quote: James Dobson Laments 2012 Losses

Dr. James Dobson is well-known as one of the fierce warriors in the Culture Wars or kulturkampf that has been raging around the areas of LGBT equality, civil rights, reproductive freedom, secularism and marriage equality in this country for decades. He is the founder of Focus on the Family and has a conservative media empire which hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) are exposed to his ideas and ideals every day.

He has today's Queer Quote because in the aftermath of the 2012 elections Dobson realizes that his side is clearly losing the culture war and the more than 100 million people who voted in November 2012 delivered withering losses to his team. In his Queer Quote, Dobson laments on his defeat:

Now let me share my heart with you. I'm sure many of you are discouraged in the aftermath of the National Elections, especially in view of the moral and spiritual issues that took such a beating on November 6th. Nearly everything I have stood for these past 35 years went down to defeat.

Dobson goes on to describe the four specific issues which he described as "four shocking components of the 2012 Democratic platform" (which he doesn't acknowledge received 5 million more votes than the Republican platform). These four issues are:

1. Abortion should be legalized through nine months of pregnancy. 

2. Same-sex marriages should be permitted by law in every state in the nation. 

3. Democrats took every reference to God out of their platform during the Convention. 

4. Finally, it was decided that Israel would not be permitted to locate its capital in the city of Jerusalem. 

Notice the order of the issues Dobson is concerned about and the way that he characterizes them in the most extreme way possible. Reproductive freedom, then marriage equality, then secularism and last the Israeli-Palestinian question (with Palestine ignored of course). Steveningen does a good job of responding to these arguments at DailyKos.com so I will not do so here, but I just wanted to note with pleasure how combatants on the other side of the culture war from myself are gnashing their teeth and renting their garments at the overwhelming rejection of their ideology by the voting American populace.

Saturday Politics: CA Dem's Fragile Supermajority

As a result of the 2012 elections California Democrats finally have a super-majority above the crucial two-thirds threshold in the California legislature. They have 55 seats in the 80-member Assembly and 29 seats in the 40-member Senate. Out of 120 California legislators, just 35 are  Republicans (10 in the state senate and 25 in the state assembly). A two-thirds majority in the Assembly is 54 seats and 27 seats in the Senate.

With a two-thirds majority in the legislature Democrats can completely control what legislation becomes law in California and can dictate all aspects of public policy.

However, the Democratic supermajority is likely to be short-lived and evanescent over the next year or so due the political musical chairs caused by politicians moving from Sacramento to Washington, D.C. as well as the impact of the upcoming Los Angeles municipal election. (Los Angeles City councilmembers have a salary which exceeds that of a state Assemblymember or state Senator.)

San Jose Mercury News reports:

"There will be a very short window that Democrats will have the supermajority," said Eric Bauman, vice chairman of the state Democratic Party. "So I've been cautioning party activists to be patient."

Assembly Democrats will lose their two-thirds majority in late April if, as expected, Assembly members Ben Hueso, D-Chula Vista, and Norma Torres, D-Pomona, win special elections for seats that open when two state senators leave for Congress. And the Assembly will likely lose two other members when one runs for the Los Angeles City Council and another leaps to the Senate after another senator also runs for the council. If that all happens, Assembly Democrats won't be able to recapture their supermajority until January 2014.

Even with the resignation of State Senators Gloria Negrete McLeod and Juan Vargas to join the 113th Congress, the Democrats still have a two-thirds majority in the senate, but will likely lose a two-thirds majority in the Assembly when Hueso and Torres run for those state senate seats. If they win, then the Democrats will no longer have a two-thirds majority in the Assembly, but after the Los Angeles municipal elections on May 21, 2013 it will become clearer when or if Democrats will regain their supermajority in the legislature.

Obama Beat Romney By 5M Votes, 51.1%-47.2%

The final vote tally in the 2012 presidential election shows that President Barack Obama won re-election by nearly 5 million votes (65,899,557 to 60,931,959, or a margin of 4,968,402) or 51.06% to 47.21%. Obama is the first president since Dwight Eisenhower to win re-election with more than 51% of the vote and the first Democratic president to do so since Franklin Roosevelt.

Bloomberg News analyzed the results:

The president won the popular vote in 26 states and the District of Columbia, totaling 332 electoral votes, or 62 more than the 270 needed to win the presidency. Romney won 24 states with 206 electoral votes. Obama won 365 electoral votes in 2008.

[...]

Turnout in this year’s presidential race was about 129.1 million, down from the record 131.3 million four years ago.

Obama’s national vote total fell by about 3.6 million votes from his record 69.5 million in 2008, when he was elected the nation’s first black president. In that race, he won 52.9 percent -- with a victory margin of more than 9.5 million votes over Republican John McCain -- amid a financial crisis that took hold at the end of Republican George W. Bush’s presidency.

The article notes that winning the presidency in 2016 will be difficult for Republicans because there are 18 states (plus DC) that have 242 electoral votes that have voted for the Democratic candidate for 6 consecutive presidential elections, while 22 states with 180 electoral votes have voted for the Republicans. So, just like in 2012, the 2016 presidential election will most likely be decided by the usual suspects: Ohio (18), Virginia (13), Florida (25), North Carolina (15) and Colorado (9).