A somewhat ranting question

[Paul Finkelman]

The fact is that if Nixon carried Illinois in 1960 JFK would have won; 
The idea that the Democrats stole the election is just a Republican Big 
Lie that has been repeated so many times that most people believe it. 
The outcome was 303 electoral votes for Kennedy; 219 for Nixon; Illinois 
had 27; move those 27 to Nixon and the outcome is
276 - JFK
246 - Nixon

Whether Mayor Dailey stole more votes in Chicago than the Republicans 
did downstate is another question
-- 
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, Oklahoma  74104-2499

918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)

paul-finkelman at utulsa.edu


Richard D. Friedman wrote:
> I think the only way Sandy's first assumption could plausibly be true 
> would be if, as measured "properly", whatever that means, the election 
> was really, really close, as it was in 2000.  And we learned in 2000 
> that our measurement devices for really, really close elections aren't 
> perfect, and also, I believe, that in such a case factors that ought not 
> enter in, like the political preferences of the people who happen to be 
> on the Supreme Court, might nevertheless prove decisive.  But it doesn't 
> mean that the government is illegitimate; had Al Gore gotten a few 
> thousand more votes in Florida, he would have been President without 
> question. Similarly, in 1960, maybe Democrats in Illinois did bad things 
> that threw the election to Kennedy.  If so, it's a terrible shame and it 
> shouldn't have happened.  But it's not as if Nixon or Gore won 60% of 
> the vote in the decisive state and was yet denied the Presidency -- then 
> there would be real question of legitimacy.
> 
> Rich Friedman
> 
> At 03:10 PM 10/26/2004, Sanford Levinson wrote:
> 
>>  a) Assume that George Bush is "re-elected" in the Electoral College
>> (having lost to John Kerry in the popular vote) because of one or
>> another judicial decision, by a Republican-dominated Court, in a split
>> vote, deciding a highly contested issue his way.  B) Assume further that
>> the House remains Republican only because of the Tom DeLay gerrymander
>> that, one can surmise, five justices of the US Supreme Court believe is
>> probably unconstitutional.  (I see no other explanation for returning
>> the case to the original district court, given that it would have been
>> altogether easy to say that it was covered by Veith and the five votes
>> that held that it was either nonjusticiable (4) or that no judicially
>> manageable standards had yet been discovered to apply to the situation
>> (Kennedy).)  (We can assume, for sake of the question, that the Court
>> ultimately does rule the DeLay gerrymander unconstitutional, sometime in
>> 2006.) c) Assume further that the Senate is 50-50, with Dick Cheney,
>> returned to the Presidency of the Senate because of "a" above.  So the
>> question, which is entirely serious, is why should any Democrat, under
>> these circumstances, view the United States as having a legitimate
>> government?  If you wish you can reverse the polarities and assume a
>> similar Kerry "election," and the Democrats taking the House only
>> because of a Democratic gerrymander (though I'm not aware that any of
>> the current gerrymanders even begin to compare with  DeLay's rape of
>> representative government in Texas).
>>
>> If any of you you think this question does not relate to "constitutional
>> law," please let me know why.
>>
>> sandy
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> 
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