So, I FINALLY got my mail in ballot. Finally, because it got lost in the mail, more or less. Well, the mail in general got lost because it messed up my vacation dates, so when I got home I had a huge pile of mail waiting for me, and then suddenly in october the mail went awol, but yeah, that delayed my ballot. And now I finally got it.
Anyway, I just wanna point out a really confusing issue going on with PA this year. If you're in PA and politically aware, maybe you know about it, but you may have been getting these mailers. And uh...yeah. To cut to the chase, they're funded by conservatives. Basically, they're trying to push the liberals off of the PA supreme court (and a few lower courts, looking at the ballots), and basically either replace them with their own, or at the very least do what mitch mcconnell did after scalia died and hold up the replacements. And this would take away the liberal supreme court advantage.
Now, this is important for a few reasons. back in the 2010s, the tea party HEAVILY gerrymandered PA to push a conservative majority. And the liberal supreme court overturned it, and gave us more fairly drawn maps. Given the GOP fears losing the house in 2026, they're trying to gerrymander again. And they are fighting court battles across the country to do it, like, you might be familiar with the push to overturn section 2 of the voting rights act so they can just gerrymander southern blacks out of existence again. But yeah, as long as we have liberals on the supreme court here in PA, we're pretty safe. BUT...remove the liberals and any future gerrymandering might go unchallenged.
Or, because Im talking mail in voting because im a mail in voter myself, the GOP wants to stop that. Because it gives people more access to voting, especially underprivileged people. it adds convenience to voting. The GOP wants voting to be hard. They want BS voter ID laws. They want to stop mail in voting claiming it's fraudulent. And even if the GOP doesn't shoot down mail in voting completely, they can still try to throw out more ballots over technicalities, blah blah blah.
Point is, the PA supreme court being 3 liberals and 2 conservatives is a thorn in the GOP's side. In this modern era of rising fascism and anti democratic tendencies, the GOP doesnt want everyone voting. They are trying to subvert democracy to impose permanent minority rule on the American people. But, the liberal supreme court here in PA rules against their nonsense. It also likely also protects other stuff related to other issues, like say, abortion rights. Point is, you dont want to vote no on those retentions. It would potentially kick liberal judges off the court, making it easier for the GOP to pass its dark agenda. So make sure you vote yes on these retentions.
We're in an era of realpolitik. Whatever your normal views would be on term limits for judges, whatever, throw that out. I mean, I can see arguments for why there should be term limits or age limits on judges. BUT...right now, again, look at what the GOP is doing this stuff for. It's doing this stuff to further its anti democratic agenda. Liberal judges our protecting our rights. Conservatives want to subvert them. That's a good enough reason to vote yes just as a means to an end. This isn't really a theoretical debate. This is one with real consequences and it's playing out in a bluntly partisan way. So...this is a time to be tribal. Protect your rights, and ours, and vote yes.
And yeah, that's my stance on this one.
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