State Law on the Nomination, Election, and Instruction of Presidential Electors

1948 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 523-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth C. Silva

The Constitution of the United States provides that each state shall appoint, in such manner as its legislature may direct, a number of presidential electors equal to the number of Senators and Representatives to which the state is entitled in the Congress. The Supreme Court has ruled that this clause gives the state legislature exclusive power to decide the manner of choosing electors. Before 1832, several legislatures themselves selected the members of the state's electoral college, a practice followed by South Carolina until the Civil War. As every student of American government knows, in the period from 1788 to 1832, the popular selection of electors was established and real discretion on the part of electors in choosing a President and Vice President became a legal fiction. For a century, the practice has been for the electorate to choose a set of electors, who, it is understood, will legally confirm the decision already made at the polls.The automatic operation of the electoral college as a device for translating popular votes into electoral votes is now challenged, however, with the projection of the possibility of eighty “unpledged electors.” The governors of seven Southern states recently agreed that if the Democratic national convention nominates a presidential candidate advocating anti-segregation, anti-lynching, anti-poll tax, and fair employment practices legislation, they will attempt to keep the Democratic electoral votes of their states from being cast for such nominee. This possibility makes state laws regulating the nomination, election, and instruction of presidential electors of utmost interest and importance.

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 309
Author(s):  
Elena A. Mikhailova ◽  
Hamdi A. Zurqani ◽  
Christopher J. Post ◽  
Mark A. Schlautman ◽  
Gregory C. Post ◽  
...  

Sustainable management of soil carbon (C) at the state level requires valuation of soil C regulating ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED). The objective of this study was to assess the value of regulating ES from soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC), and total soil carbon (TSC) stocks, based on the concept of the avoided social cost of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the state of South Carolina (SC) in the United States of America (U.S.A.) by soil order, soil depth (0–200 cm), region and county using information from the State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) database. The total estimated monetary mid-point value for TSC in the state of South Carolina was $124.36B (i.e., $124.36 billion U.S. dollars, where B = billion = 109), $107.14B for SOC, and $17.22B for SIC. Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for SOC were: Ultisols ($64.35B), Histosols ($11.22B), and Inceptisols ($10.31B). Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for SIC were: Inceptisols ($5.91B), Entisols ($5.53B), and Alfisols ($5.0B). Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for TSC were: Ultisols ($64.35B), Inceptisols ($16.22B), and Entisols ($14.65B). The regions with the highest midpoint SOC values were: Pee Dee ($34.24B), Low Country ($32.17B), and Midlands ($29.24B). The regions with the highest midpoint SIC values were: Low Country ($5.69B), Midlands ($5.55B), and Pee Dee ($4.67B). The regions with the highest midpoint TSC values were: Low Country ($37.86B), Pee Dee ($36.91B), and Midlands ($34.79B). The counties with the highest midpoint SOC values were Colleton ($5.44B), Horry ($5.37B), and Berkeley ($4.12B). The counties with the highest midpoint SIC values were Charleston ($1.46B), Georgetown ($852.81M, where M = million = 106), and Horry ($843.18M). The counties with the highest midpoint TSC values were Horry ($6.22B), Colleton ($6.02B), and Georgetown ($4.87B). Administrative areas (e.g., counties, regions) combined with pedodiversity concepts can provide useful information to design cost-efficient policies to manage soil carbon regulating ES at the state level.


Author(s):  
Erik Mathisen

When southern states seceded from the United States, a fiery argument held that white southerners’ love of their home state would translate without trouble into love for a new southern nation. As a consequence of a Confederate nation that grew in size and power to fight a modern war, however, a southern nation would in time swallow southern states whole. This chapter focuses on Mississippi, where Governor John Pettus imagined a state government that would maintain its sovereignty and the loyalty of the populace. As he would discover, however, a combination of Union incursions into the state and the development of the Confederate nation, would together sap Pettus’ government of its power.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 229-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas J. Howe

Regulation of utilities at the state level in the United States is undertaken by a commission on which anywhere from three to seven commissioners sit and must vote on virtually all significant utility actions, including rate requests, resource plans, acquisitions and mergers, and financing mechanisms. Public utility commissions (PUCs) are, in a very real sense, courts with adjudicatory responsibility over the area of state utility laws. In hearing a utility case, they must follow the state’s statutes and court rules. The commissioners function as judges in this court of public utility law. In a majority of states, commissioners are appointed by the state’s governor with the advice and consent of the state legislature. In a significant minority of states, commissioners are elected by popular vote. However, recent changes in US election law have made it easier for corporations and special interest groups, called political action committees, to influence elections through donations targeting direct voter outreach on behalf of specific candidates. This chapter examines what the entry of political spending in PUC elections means, and whether elected commissioners can adjudicate in the public interest, or will adjudicate for special interests. The chapter concludes that while both the appointment and election governance model can produce both “good” and “bad” commissioners, it is the elected commission that is most at risk of selecting commissioners that will not be truly independent and objective arbiters of the law.


1991 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Noll

In 1927, the biennial report of the State Board of Charities and Corrections of the Commonwealth of Kentucky warned that “the feeble-minded of the colored race present a greater menace than do the white.…We do desire to point out the utter lack of any provision for colored feeble-minded.” In spite of this admonition, southern states took little notice of their black feebleminded population. Nineteen years after the Kentucky report, the South Carolina Director of Public Welfare admitted that “the care of mentally deficient and mentally ill persons in the same institution is distinctly undesirable, but…the Hospital's efforts to secure provision of a separate training school for mentally deficient negroes have to date been unsuccessful.”


1948 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-510 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. Douglas Weeks

The closing chapter in the history of the white primary in the South has seemed since 1944 to be in process of being written. In that year, the United States Supreme Court, by invalidating in Smith v. Allwright the white primary rule of the Texas state Democratic convention, dealt a stunning, if not immediately mortal, blow to this most significant political custom or practice of the Southern states. The refusal of this court on April 19, 1948, to review a federal circuit court decision invalidating the white primary arrangements of South Carolina, created in 1944 to circumvent the effect of the Allwright decision, seems to have administered the judicial coup de grâce. It would, however, be unsafe to predict when “finis” may be set down for all states, political areas, counties, and voting precincts where by one means or another the Negro has long been barred from participation in the all-important primaries of the Democratic party. The remaining suffrage requirements, registration restrictions, and election provisions, and the political and administrative methods of applying them which still are employed in some Southern states and in parts of others in order to render it difficult for Negroes to vote will not be immediately eliminated. Moreover, the effects of political action have not been fully tested by the Democratic leaders of the South. At the present moment, plans for united efforts on their part are under consideration; and these could have far-reaching results before the end of the current presidential election year. Whatever the abstract justice of the situation, traditional attitudes and customs cannot be uprooted easily and have a way of resisting judicial or legislative fiat, particularly when it is honestly felt by many that such fiat has been imposed from the outside and by people unaware of the difficulties and adjustments involved.


2018 ◽  
Vol 217 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-134
Author(s):  
Haydar Shaker Khames ( Ph.D)

      This research deals with the political role of one of the pioneers of American policy in the nineteenth century,  John Caldwell Calhoun, and his ideas and philosophy in addressing the central issues in the domestic and foreign policy of the United States of America by virtue of the important sites that filled namely: Member of the Legislative Council of the State of South Carolina between 1807-1811 , a member of the House of Representatives between 1811-1817, Secretary of the Treasury between 1817 - 1825, Vice President between 1825-1832, a member of the Senate between 1833-1850, Foreign Minister between 1844-1845.


2006 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 563-565 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis J. Osborne ◽  
Douglas C. Sanders ◽  
Donn R. Ward ◽  
James W. Rushing

This paper summarizes the management framework, organizing plan, and results of a multi-state, multi-institutional partnership delivering a targeted “train-the-trainer” program addressing food chain security in the southeastern U.S. The partnership provided good agricultural practices (GAPs) and good manufacturing practices (GMPs) –based training to fresh fruit and vegetable (produce) growers and packers throughout the region. Twelve southern states cooperated in this project: Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. This 2000–04 work was funded by National Food Safety Initiative grants. Although proposed long before events of 11 Sept. 2001, the project and its results are increasingly relevant since that time. This is because consumer expectations regarding the nation's food supply now include a new security consciousness addressed in this project.


Author(s):  
Ralph Wurbs

Effective water resources management requires assessments of water availability within a framework of complex institutions and infrastructure employed to manage extremely variable stream flow shared by numerous often competing water users and diverse types of use. The Water Rights Analysis Package (WRAP) modeling system is fundamental to water allocation and planning in the state of Texas in the United States. Integration of environmental flow standards into both the modeling system and comprehensive statewide water management is a high priority for continuing research and development. The public domain WRAP software and documentation are generalized for application any place in the world. Lessons learned in developing and implementing the modeling system in Texas are relevant worldwide. The modeling system combines: (1) detailed simulation of water right systems, interstate compacts, international treaties, federal/state/local agreements, and operations of storage and conveyance facilities; (2) simulation of river system hydrology; and (3) statistical frequency and reliability analyses. The continually evolving modeling system has been implemented in Texas by a water management community that includes the state legislature, planning and regulatory agencies, river authorities, water districts, cities, industries, engineering consulting firms, and university researchers. The shared modeling system contributes significantly to integration of water allocation, planning, system operations, and research.


Author(s):  
Peter Dunbar ◽  
Mike Haridopolos

The Modern Republican Party in Florida chronicles the emergence of the modern Republican Party in Florida. It provides the historic political foundation for the modern political era in Florida; it identifies the key elements of Republican Party organizations and structures that became the foundation for the current Republican network; and it contrasts the current political environment to the one-party era of the Democratic Pork Chop Gang. The narrative of the book describes the successes in the state-wide campaigns for governor and for positions on the Florida Cabinet. It provides an overview of the role of both Florida Republicans in national, presidential politics and Floridians serving in the United States House and Senate. It describes the decennial redistricting struggles and other obstacles that Republicans overcame as they became the majority in both Houses of the state Legislature, and it discusses the opportunities for women and minorities that accompanied this Republican emergence. Within the narrative are descriptions of the changes in state government made by Republicans or with their bipartisan cooperation. The book also provides an overview of the Republican influence on the state policies for public education and school choice; criminal justice and prison reform; taxation and business incentives; and consumer protection and environment preservation, including the protection of the Florida Everglades. The book identifies the officeholders, volunteers, and party officials who contributed to, and became part of, the Republican network. It also discusses the ever-changing elements of the Florida political arena, which includes voters with no party affiliation, soft money committees, and independent campaign consultants.


Author(s):  
Jody A. Roberts

The nationwide legal uprising against the chemical bisphenol A (more popularly known as BPA) began in Minnesota in 2009 when the state legislature there voted to ban the substance from children’s products—including sippy cups and baby bottles. Grassroots activism aimed at insti­tuting local and state-level legislation banning BPA in children’s products has since escalated as new players in the world of toxics activism have emerged with demands to remove the controversial chemical from products designed for use by children. Frustrated with inaction at the federal level following scores of health studies, a slew of ambiguous regulatory reviews, and staunch efforts by lobby organizations, these new groups have taken their fight about BPA and health to states, counties, cities, and local municipalities. As of this writing, eleven U.S. states now have legislation banning or restricting the use of BPA in products for kids. These actions in the United States followed actions taken by Canada to first identify BPA as a minimal health hazard to children (in 2008) and then to later officially recognized BPA as toxic (in 2010), a declaration that requires government action. Indeed, all of this action at the state level is having the intended effect: The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced in July of 2012 that BPA could no longer be used in baby bottles and children’s drinking cups. But that pronouncement has done little to quell the debate. As the president of the National Research Center for Women and Families noted about the July 2012 decision: “[The FDA is] instituting a ban that is already in effect voluntarily.” The sentiment is congruent with the statements made by the American Chemistry Council (the nation’s largest lobby group for the chemical industry) following the announcement. According to the statement, the American Chemistry Council requested that the FDA take action because of the patchwork of legislation taking shape at the state level and that had already encouraged most manufacturers to simply stop using BPA in these products (Tavernise 2012).


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