McDaniel Unveils Another Strategy Against Thad Cochran

Already underway.

> “It is possible (though unlikely to be decided by election) to challenge in court the sore losers law based on the fraud in the election.”

McDaniel can have a federal injunction against MS sore loser laws within a week.

There is a place for sore loser laws but not in this case, especially for one of the reasons you state, fraud and also for clear violation of state election law by Cochran and violation of federal election law. MS cannot allow Cochran to stand behind its sore loser laws and a federal court will see to that quickly.

Not according to what you posted.

According to what you previously posted, states can make their own laws about ballot access (which is what independent registration and write in candidacies are all about). The state laws matter because they exist. In order to challenge them, to either overthrow them, or to get a variance because of fraud, requires a court case and a ruling.

The laws are there, so they matter. Your opinion about them is actually irrelevant. So I revert to my original statement. Mississippi law prohibits write in candidates, (at least in the general election).

I posted clear federal cases that go against state laws like those of MS.

Don’t tell me what I posted. Go back to #119 yourself and read.

States are allowed to make their own ballot access laws but the keys to federal offices reside with federal courts. Many states have been smacked down for their poor lawmaking. Mississippi law with respect to McDaniel is poorly crafted and cannot stand against the case law I quoted.

McDaniel could have his lawyers in federal court next week and be granted a federal injunction barring MS from restricting him ballot access. So far he seeks to invalidate the election at the state level and he’s doing fine.

If the Barbour people continue to ‘slow walk’ the ballots and foreclose on McDaniel’s opportunity to count the vote fraud, then McDaniel has many options. One is that his people can get into federal court and get him on the ballot as an independent. To deny him that option would require the state to show a compelling interest which they can’t because of the clear violation of state election law by the Barbour camp and also the evidence of violation of federal election law.

For those that study and specialize in election law, they know the Feds hold all the cards. The states are only there to do ‘chores’ for the feds, and if they don’t do them properly, then the feds can come down on them. State election law never ever supersedes federal election law. Federal election law is an essential role for the federal government to be involved in and has been that way since the founding.

Primaries should be closed by any reasoning

Perhaps the McDaniel camp should consider this as well as invalidating the election.

The biggest problem with this avenue is that it is past time for filing to be on the ballot...

But maybe an injunction could be posted on that point as well.

A three way race would be interesting...

It doesn’t matter what other federal cases state - as long as the Mississippi law has not been overturned, it stands.

Currently, it stands.

I repeat what you repeated again here “States are allowed to make their own ballot access laws” - and since you don’t seem to understand what you wrote, I will tell you: This means that Mississippi (a state) is allowed to make its own ballot access laws (prohibiting write in candidates).

Those laws are still in effect - and will remain so unless and until they are struck down. Such would require a case and a ruling - as I stated.

I stated that Mississippi prohibits write in candidates. You challenged that assertion - and yet what you write repeatedly affirms my statement: “Mississippi law with respect to McDaniel is poorly crafted and cannot stand against the case law I quoted.” To have a law that is poorly crafted, one must have a law...which is what I said.

“McDaniel could have his lawyers in federal court next week and be granted a federal injunction barring MS from restricting him ballot access” First, you PRESUME he would be granted an injunction; you may or may not be correct in your presumption. Second, I have said that a write in candidacy would require a case and a ruling - see, his lawyers would bring their CASE, the judge would RULE granting an injunction to bypass existing LAW. Without the existing law, there is no need for the injunction.

So - once again, while arguing what I said, you confirm the truth of my statement. To wit:
Mississippi does not allow write in candidates.

The biggest problem with this avenue is that it is past time for filing to be on the ballot.

Federal case law is already clear on state laws for ballot access of federal office seekers. The state deadline for filing doesn't matter as long as there is plenty of time, the candidate is substantial and the state has no compelling interest to enforce their deadline which in this case it doesn't.

Basically state election law is allowed until the federal courts say it's not allowed. And in this case federal case law says the state deadline for filing as it applies to McDaniel is not allowed.

No street fixers in MS? They had to get one from GA?

That’s right, states are allowed to make their own law regarding ballot access but allowed by who? Federal law governs the states. Case law is solidly against MS in these types of cases. Within one week the McDaniel can obtain a federal injunction against MS and while waiting for a hearing they can get on the ballot as an independent or as a write-in.

To win MS would have to lay out a ‘state compelling interest’ argument and they won’t have one. Other states have tried and failed in many cases. There is no reason that MS can persuade a federal court that they will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters because MS says ‘because’.

That’s the way it works.

But McDaniel may get the election overturned at the state level because there is clear certain evidence of a violations in state election law by those in the Cochran camp. MS cannot allow a lawbreaker (Cochran) to hide behind their sore loser laws. If they do, which they won’t unless they’re stupid and want a federal judge to hang their asses out to dry, then it’s a short walk to federal court for an injunction.

They are checking to see if a Cochran vote was cast by a Dem who voted Dem in the the Primary. Its not like the Hanging Chad (no pun) in 2000.

BUT - Mississippi prohibits write in candidates, doesn’t it?

There is nothing in post 119 about McDaniel declaring a write in campaign - which is what you alleged, and were asked to document.

You post your opinion that he could successfully challenge the existing law and thereby be allowed to run a write in candidacy. But nothing about him actually saying he’s going to do it.

In a bizarre turn of events, it seems that Bickers was in the middle of a bitterly contested Republican Senate primary. Two Atlanta-based entities affiliated with Bickers, The Bickers Group and the Pirouette Company, were paid thousands of dollars to make robo-calls on Senator Cochran’s behalf by a super PAC that backed Cochran in his bid for reelection. Documents filed with the Federal Election Commission show that Mississippi Conservatives, the political-action committee run by former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour’s nephew Henry, paid the groups a total of $44,000 for get-out-the-vote “phone services.”

When the June 3 primary election was thrown into a runoff, the Cochran campaign began looking to expand the electorate. That meant courting Mississippi’s large African-American population. The campaign deployed volunteers throughout the state’s Delta region, which has a concentrated African-American population, and even hired Democratic operative James “Scooby Doo” Watson to lend a hand. It worked: Turnout in the Delta increased nearly 40 percent on Tuesday.

Though not a Mississippi native, Bickers is no stranger to get-out-the-vote efforts. She has worked in Atlanta politics for years and, as a campaign operative for Kasim Reed, who came from behind to win the city’s mayoralty in 2009, Bickers, who is African American and openly gay, worked to get black voters to the polls.

Though the content of the robo-calls Bickers placed on Cochran’s behalf is unknown — Henry Barbour says he never heard the final calls, and that her efforts were “far more” about making live calls than robo-calls — it makes sense that the Barbour clan would reach out to her in an election that required Cochran and his allies to execute a near-perfect voter-turnout strategy, particularly among Democrats and African Americans. Henry Barbour says Bickers was referred to him by a local Mississippi mayor. Like Henry’s uncle Haley, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and the force that loomed over Cochran’s reelection effort, Bickers is a hardened, southern politician who has learned how to win political grudge matches in a city and a state with a reputation for corruption and double dealing.

The Cochran supporters’ arrangement with Bickers is especially notable, given the role of racial politicking generally and of one sketchy robo-call; in particular that raised the ire of tea-party voters as the race drew to a close. Near the end of the runoff campaign, a recording came to light — it was first reported by investigative reporter Charles Johnson – of a racially tinged call that urged voters to combat the Tea Party by casting a ballot for Cochran. It accused the Tea Party of “disrespectful treatment of the country’s first African-American president.” The Cochran campaign has denied any connection to the call, and Barbour says the call was not from the Mississippi Conservatives PAC or from Bickers. He believes, he says, that Bickers placed two automated calls to African-American households.

Neither Pirouette nor The Bickers Group appear to have operative websites. The 48-year-old pastor built a power base in Atlanta as president of the school board and later, in 2003, ran an unsuccessful campaign for the chairmanship of the Fulton County Commission.

She retired from public service in June of last year after Atlanta’s WSB-TV reported that, while serving as Reed’s director of human services, she failed to include on a financial-disclosure report, filed under penalty of perjury, thousands of dollars she had earned in political-consulting work.

While advising the mayor, Bickers was also working for the Pirouette Company, which in 2012 brought in over $500,000 in political-consulting fees from state and local campaigns. There was at least an appearance of conflict of interest in this work: Pirouette’s clients in 2012 included the Citizens for Transportation Mobility, a nonprofit group that lobbied for a transportation tax Reed strongly supported. Bickers amended her financial-disclosure form when confronted by reporters and retired from city government a month later.

Mississippi Conservatives, the pro-Cochran PAC, paid the Pirouette Company $19,660 for robo-calls in the last week of the runoff, and Pirouette has its own colorful history.

Another Pirouette client in 2012 was the magistrate judge Melynee Leftridge, a candidate for state-court judge, and Bickers worked on her behalf. Days before Leftridge’s July primary, a voter filed an ethics complaint against the candidate, accusing her of an “apparent elaborate scheme” to funnel thousands of dollars to Pirouette. Bizarrely, at the time, according to a contemporaneous account in the Georgia Voice, Pirouette was a dance company that offered classes on “strip teasing and pole dancing” as well as “boot camps and personal fitness training.”

And, apparently, for Thad Cochran. Federal Election Commission reports indicate that the Mississippi Conservatives PAC paid The Bickers Group $25,000 last week for “GOTV phone services” — even though, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s website, The Bickers Group dissolved in September 2012.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/381365/meet-mitzi-bickers-eliana-johnson

March 2013

ATLANTA —
A top aide to Atlanta’s Mayor Kasim Reed changed her financial disclosure statement after Channel 2 Action News raised questions about its accuracy.

Channel 2 investigative reporter Richard Belcher uncovered evidence that Mitzi Bickers was deeply involved in several political campaigns last year. Until Belcher started digging, Bickers had disclosed nothing about that work.

Bickers is a former Atlanta school board member and a well-known figure in local politics. A disclosure form for her position is required and states it is submitted under penalty of perjury. In other words, failing to tell the truth could result in criminal prosecution.

Bickers failed to mention her affiliation with a company that did half-a-million dollars in campaign work.

Bickers worked on Mayor Reed’s campaign in 2009 before taking a job as his director of human services. Last year, she took unpaid leave from her city job to work for Pirouette Companies.

State records show that 15 separate political campaigns paid campaign consulting firm Pirouette Companies, LLC $516,920 in 2012. Included in that figure is $193,000 by Citizens for Transportation Mobility, which supported the Transportation Sales Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (T-SPLOST).

The figure also includes $56,000 by Burrell Ellis’s re-election campaign as Dekalb County C.E.O, and it includes nearly $75,000 paid by the campaign of state Rep. Pat Gardner of Atlanta.

When Bickers filed her initial disclosure form, she denied working with any organization last year other than her job for Reed and her church. She did not mention earning any money from Pirouette Companies.

The disclosure form that Bickers signed and submitted states that false or misleading statement can result in sanctions or (other) penalties. The form specifically cites “under penalty of perjury.” After Channel 2 Action News made repeated inquiries to Reed’s office, Bickers did an about-face.

Last week, she submitted an amended form admitting that she had worked for Pirouette Companies and earned more than $5,000 from the campaign consulting firm.

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/top-aide-atlanta-mayor-changes-financial-disclosur/nW5YH/

I believe McDaniel’s campaign manager said they would definitely consider a write-in campaign if they are not successful with their election challenge.

He’s not talking about write-in yet because he’s working on other things first. In about a week we will know more.

But according to federal case law he has options. That’s the important thing. Whether he chooses to pursue his options is up to him.

Yes, it is good he has options; but we need to be clear about the nature of those options.

As I see it, every option that is open to him requires the intervention of a court. That doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies, but they should definitely be pursued.

This entire scenario was put into play by stupid state election laws...beginning with the Open Primary farce.

No they don’t prohibit write-in candidates. They prohibit losing primary candidates from running as write-ins but federal case law does not support these sore loser with respect to someone like McDaniel.

When a person runs for federal office, then that person has the federal body of law behind them. State law is not important. But in most cases state law conforms with federal law. When it does not conform, then federal courts can choose to ‘scrutinize’ the state laws in question and they rule on a case-by-case basis.

For example, Daffy Duck and Mickey Mouse are not allowed to run as write-ins. Even if there are real people named this way they are not established political players that represent large groups of voters.

An established political player like Chris McDaniel who represents hundreds of thousands of voters also will not be allowed to run as a write-in or to ignore a deadline for filing as an independent IF all the election laws in MS are otherwise constitutional. However, it is not constitutional for a candidate to cheat and violate law and then not be removed because the law fails to allow the opponent to run as a write-in or as an independent. That would make the state complicit in aiding and abetting the law violators.

READ - For example, say a black citizen files to run for a federal office. Suppose that a state election worker slow walks the filing application and fails to enter it for processing until after the filing deadline. Suppose later that someone close to the election workers discovers the reason for the late application is because the election worker does not like blacks. This is a clear violation of state and federal law. A federal court is not going to allow the state elections office to foreclose on the black citizen’s right to run for office by upholding the state law that the filing was late. An immediate (likely same day) injunction order will be issued ordering the state election office to accept the filing of the candidate.

The same can happen with Chris McDaniel if his election challenge gets stumped by the Barbour people slow-walking the ballots to the office where they can be examined. They are guilty of violating law by paying bribes to buy votes. That’s a fact. It’s not even questionable. There are also clear violations of federal law where election materials did not have federally mandated information on them. These clear violations point to a slam dunk federal injunction against the MS election office from restricting ballot access to the McDaniel campaign.

What I .ave read indicates that write ins are prohibited for federal elections in Mississippi.

Your statement that state law is nit important is just balderdash. State law stands until overturned. The Mississippi law has not been overturned and therefor stands. It is important in that it requires legal action in order to do what McDaniel needs to do.

You keep tossing lots of confetti around, but the fact remains Mississippi does not allow McDaniel to run a write in campaign.

Wow, who are you?

You have no clue what you’re talking about. McDaniel would have won the election by 8 or 9% if there hadn’t been fraud. I’d say he got his message out there pretty good.

As far as the Cantor race went, they were taken off-guard. It’s because of Brat’s victory that they poured millions into MS and resorted to every dirty trick in the book plus blatant voter fraud to get to the illusion of a win.