Alison Lundergan Grimes now fighting Rand Paul
How bitter is Grimes? This bitter.
Alison Lundergan Grimes was to be the Wendy Davis of Kentucky.
And you know what? It worked. She was crushed by Mitch McConnell.
Now Grimes is lashing out, trying to prevent Rand Paul from being able to run for both President and Senate on the same ballot.
From ABC11, Grimes pledges legal challenge if Paul attempts simultaneous races:
Six weeks after she lost her own bid for the U-S Senate, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes (D-Kentucky) tells WHAS11 if U.S. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) tries to appear on the same ballot for both Senate and President in 2016, she will challenge him in court.
“The law is clear,” Grimes said. “You can’t be on the ballot twice for two offices.”
Kentucky Democrats are not cooperating as Paul considers mounting simultaneous campaigns for Senate and President. Democrats maintained control of the Kentucky House in last month’s election, a roadblock to legislation favored by the Republican Senate to remove the prohibition. House Speaker Greg Stumbo (D-Prestonsburg) declined to consider a Senate bill to that effect earlier this year.
Paul may challenge the law in court as the Republican Party of Kentucky also discusses whether to hold a presidential caucus rather than a primary, which would allow Paul to follow the letter of the law by not appearing on the primary ballot, twice.
Now, I understand, Grimes is just standing up for principles.
Like when she wouldn’t reveal, ahem, whether she voted for Obama:
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Comments
Sour grapes!
Pander Paul is off my list as a presidential contender this cycle.
I’ll take anything to prevent Rand Paul from running for President. Just cannot stand him.
Now on the one hand, Grimes was a laughably weak candidate that stood for nothing, outright lied about her intentions, and engaged in cringe-worthy pussyfooting about her obvious previous Presidential vote.
That being said, I have always found the idea that in some states you can’t be on two ballots ridiculous, mainly because it gives a free pass to Senators and Governors that are elected in off years. If you actually want a fair law, it needs to be that if you run for a federally elected office, you CANNOT run for another office until the election winner’s term is up.
i.e. if you run for a Congress seat you have to wait 2 years, if you run for a Senate seat you have to wait 6.
Otherwise you get things like McCain failing his Presidential bid and then going back to the Senate and being re-elected 2 years later.
Why did I start thinking of that Elvis Costello song?
Lieberman did the same thing years ago – running for VP with Gore, and running for Senate in CT simultaneously.
That was Connecticut, not Kentucky. Joy of each state having it’s own election laws.
“I heard you laughed at that little friend of mine…” I know this world is killing you…
walls, whether Rand can do it or not depends on state law (it varies). I think Rubio has the same issue on running for Senate and President in Florida. I am not sure what the rule is in Kentucky.
Technically, Rand Paul wouldn’t be on the ballot for President. Electors who are pledged to vote for Rand Paul would be on the ballot.
That’s the point of considering the “Caucus” instead of a primary. That way they can follow the letter of the law, without following the spirit, which is that you’re not supposed to run for more than one office at once.
No one told us she only got 14 minutes of her 15 minutes of fame last November. Man are we lucky! [sarcasm off]
OK, I think we’re off-base here, Prof.
Grimes has a job to do, and that is to follow Kentucky law, and see to it that it is followed by Paul.
There seems to be no serious question that Paul is running up against a provision in Kentucky that is clear, and he hasn’t been able to get the law changed for his convenience. He’s going to try an end run via the courts, which is his right.
But Grimes holds an office in which she’s duty-bound to act. And her position is right.
Gotta say though.. there’s a lot of irony in Grimes, who ran for Senator while remaining in her position as Secretary of State, in which she remains to this day, throwing down the gauntlet and promising to sue Rand Paul for running for President as well as for Senator.
I would fully agree with that IF I knew all the pee-cular worf and woof of Kentucky laws. And they DO have some pee-cular laws.
She may have been on sound legal ground in her own case.
But if not…yeah, totally hypocritical. But she’s a Collectivist, so…
Oh I’m sure the law is on her side. Who bothers to write a law stopping a mere Secretary of State from running for Senate at the same time? And if someone did, she started her term in 2012 so if it’s a 4-year term it wouldn’t matter.
And the law isn’t outright loopy. I can see not having someone run for a baker’s dozen offices at the same time, just to hedge their bets, could avoid a multitude of sins.
Kentucky law is very clear. The same person cannot be listed for two different offices on either the primary or general election ballots.
Grimes is doing her job, although it actually hasn’t come up since it is over a year in the future. She does seem to be enjoying this part of it.
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The idea to move Kentucky to an earlier March caucus for President instead would get around the law, since there would be no Senate race at the time.
But if Paul were a contender, he would have to choose one or the other, or be willing to sacrifice Kentucky’s EC votes.
McConnell has agreed to support Paul if he seeks the change.
The thing is, state laws that bar double candidacies are almost certainly unconstitutional. I can’t think of an argument to make for them that wouldn’t be dismissed by any federal court in a second. The constitution lays down the eligibility requirements for federal offices, and it’s well-established law that neither Congress nor any state may change or add to them, and that states may not use their control of the ballot to do so. For instance, some states tried to impose term limits by decreeing that a person who has served two consecutive terms for an office may not appear on the ballot for that office a third time; the courts unanimously struck these attempts down. I can’t see how this restriction is any different.
Well, it is different enough that the terms limits provisions were struck down, but no dual candidacy or dual office-holding law has been struck down, and a good number of states have them.
Only because nobody’s challenged them yet. Unless you can point out a distinction between them, it seems obvious that any challenge to such a law must succeed.
OK, some clarification…
Kentucky law forbids any candidate’s name from appearing twice on the same ballot.
Grimes was not in violation of this law by virtue of the timing of the relative elective offices, since she was not up for re-election this year.
I see no constitutional conflict with this law, either.
It seems pretty clear to me too:
Article I Section 4.
The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
The constitution does not allow states to alter the qualifications for election to federal office. And the Supreme Court has ruled that keeping a candidate off the ballot amounts to declaring him unqualified for the office, which a state may not do. So the constitutional problem is obvious.
Poor Milhouse…
The Kentucky statute NEVER “disqualifies” anybody.
I simply requires a candidate make a choice about WHICH office he/she plans to stand for.
I wish she would have won. There were enough republican elected to balance the loss of Obama’s water boy.
Know who else wanted her to win? Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Schumer, Boxer, and all the other Democrats.
Barring some future screw-up, Mitch will be the senior Senator from Kentucky and the Republican leader in the Senate as long as he wants to be. If that bothers you, I hear the Democrats have openings – and they actually like whiners and complainers.
It bothers me. When do you plan on applying for one of those openings?
Is there not a legitimate right to expect 100% effort from someone who has received an endorsement from the rank and file of his party epically now in these troubled times?
Make up your mind Rand, do you want to be President or Senator?
Someone runs for the senate or a house seat. He gets elected to represent his constituents. Then, he decides to run for president and spends enormous amounts of time NOT doing the job he said he wanted in the first place and said he would do for his constituents. Does he refuse to take his pay when he’s NOT doing his job in congress? You better believe he doesn’t stop any part of his paycheck.
If you wanted to take time off from your job to run for a part time city council job, would your boss pay you? Hell, no! If a member of congress wants to run for president, quit first and take your chances. Politicians treat themselves like royalty on the taxpayer’s (their supposed bosses) dime.
Rand and Mitch have openly talked about going to a caucus to get around the law’s restriction, so they obviously believe it is constitutional. There’s been no talk of all of challenging that. The idea was to change the law, but Republicans failed to capture the lower house of the KY legislature, and the Democrats won’t go along, of course.
Grimes is definitely the frontrunner for the Democratic Senate nomination if she wants it. Kentucky Democrats have the same problem many red state Dems do, they have no bench anymore, which is how Grimes got her current job and the Senate nomination for this year.
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She is just doing her job, although she didn’t have to come out to make the point now. But why not? She gets to tweak both Rand and Mitch on an issue she knows she can win.
I don’t think legislative experience alone is a qualification for President, a management job. But Senators run for President every cycle. Some, like Bob Dole, did it without missing very many votes. Obama barely showed up.
Don’t attack the guy for not doing his job until he is not doing his job. Remember, Paul and McConnell have become friends and allies, and Mitch now controls the Senate schedule.