Last Thursday, in a bid to force President Trump to turn over his tax returns, the California State Senate approved Bill 27, the Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act.
If the bill should become law, all presidential candidates will be required to submit their income tax returns from the past five years before their name can appear on the ballot. “The act would require the Secretary of State, within five days of receiving the returns, to make redacted versions of the returns available to the public on the Secretary of State’s internet website. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.”
The bill has been submitted to the California State House for consideration, and if it passes, it will go to Governor Gavin Newsom for his signature. However, his approval is not guaranteed.
According to the L.A. Times, the California State Senate and House passed an identical bill in 2017 which was vetoed by then-Governor Jerry Brown. He told state lawmakers it would likely be overturned in the courts.
In his veto message, Brown wrote, “The proposal could have led to other litmus tests for candidates. Today we require tax returns, but what would be next? Five years of health records? A certified birth certificate? High school report cards? And will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power?”
For the sake of argument, let’s assume it becomes law in the state.
Such laws actually demonstrate why our founders saw the need to set up the electoral college.
The National Review’s Dan McLaughlin makes the case better than most, and he does so with flair.
His response to a California political official’s tweet set off a twitterstorm that has liberal heads exploding.
I’ve included the entire thread, but it’s not necessary to read the whole thing to get the gist of it.
Dan McLaughlin: @baseballcrank
As I noted in my Electoral College piece, a presidential candidate who is not even on the ballot in politically homogenous states – as Lincoln wasn't in the South in 1860 – skews the national popular vote. https://t.co/Vsp0Gkci7f
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 3, 2019
Anyway, I believe the last incumbent president who wasn't on the ballot in all the states was Taft.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 3, 2019
6. The California Democrat who was celebrating this plan has blocked me, but you will notice that its explicit intention is to discourage Republican voters from the polls. Which of course is fine with these folks https://t.co/52JlxPKIUb
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
8. I see a bunch of folks on the Left have belatedly discovered this thread, so let's address some of the big ones here. This one is of the "but it's OK when we do it" variety. (Also, note: none of those efforts were ever passed by an entire State Senate) https://t.co/7Gmxx5lHAL
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
10. As I noted in my article, a candidate getting 54% of the vote in states he wins but almost zero in the states he loses is not simply a hypothetical. It is what actually happened in 1860 to a Republican named Abe Lincoln. https://t.co/Vsp0Gkci7f https://t.co/lBT0d0J7fh
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
12. When you drill down into these responses, this sort of thing is where you end up: abolishing the states https://t.co/1bB0lAlk2T
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
14. Again, as noted, we have a winner-take-all system, and the 54% hypothetical is based on the actual 1860 election https://t.co/ZPkJYq1fMy
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
16. This is a genre of response you get a lot from supposedly adult progressives:
Conservative: [argue policy or point out that a progressive has misstated the facts]
Progressive: Oh boo hoo you poor snowflake.— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
18. Again, this ignores the fact that the Electoral College is weighted by population. Texas, for example, has so many electoral votes because it has 28 million people https://t.co/j3R4yeGHMi
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
20. I don't see the need for that: not how it has historically been done & few states are as vast & diverse as the whole country. But not a terrible idea for, say, California if the districts were regularly re-weighted by pop like the EC. https://t.co/RPZnNDOpJ5
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
22. You: but if we eliminated winner-take-all states, what might the candidate field look like?
Me: Let's consider a real-world example: pic.twitter.com/Eoc8YPFLAS
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
24. I'll circle back another day to the Electoral College's historical roots, which tend to be oversimplified by the progressive narrative. This, from a liberal historian, is a useful partial corrective https://t.co/tipWxiRhiY https://t.co/tf2pe53nQ9
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
26. Also the Solid South from 1880 to 1944 is an important part of the history. I dealt in this thread with the example of 1888, when the Electoral College prevented the lockstep Jim Crow South from re-electing Grover Cleveland. https://t.co/flZ2MAk0Zh
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
28. All of that said, while the Electoral College resolves popular vote pluralities, we do face a realistic possibility in 2020 of facing the Electoral College's real weakness: a tie decided by the House. Which would likely go to Trump, depending how the 2020 House races go. pic.twitter.com/Pjr3Rqbm7g
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 4, 2019
30. I guess some folks are still doing the thing where they call a plurality a majority? The main practical effect of the Electoral College is to resolve elections where there is no majority, like 2016. https://t.co/ykgW1lYExn
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 5, 2019
32. One thing I discovered in reading the responses is quite how many people on Twitter are unaware that Texas and Florida each have more people than New York.
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 5, 2019
33. "Meaningless subgroups"? Massachusetts and Virginia have both existed more than twice as long as Germany or Italy. https://t.co/yuvpEl5biM
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) May 5, 2019
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