Who is the current Representative for WA-05, my district?
Who are the Representatives for WV-01, WV-02 and WV-03?
Thank you, the heavy lifting was done by @lord caedus for his work in gaming out Election Night with the Congressional calls. Also top work on the Wikipedia boxes.I have liked the election stuff. You all did well.
If its an unanimous decisions shouldn't it be a 9-0 decision?
Friday, November 13th, 2020
Supreme Court rules states can curb "faithless electors"
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the 538 electors who select the president and vice president in the Electoral College must follow the laws of their respective states, upholding state laws that remove or penalize "faithless electors".
The Court ruled in a unanimous 8-0 decision in the case of Leach-Simmons v. Michigan that the state of Michigan's law that invalidated and removed an elector who attempted to vote against the ticket that had won the most votes in the state was constitutional. Justice Edward Appleton, who wrote the decision, said that "The Constitution's text and the Nation's history both support allowing a State to enforce an elector's pledge to support her party's nominees — and the state voters' choices — for President and Vice President."
Presidential elections are decided via the Electoral College, with the winner of the popular vote in each state (and the District of Columbia) being awarded all of that state's electors, who then cast their votes for president and vice president. Typically, electors are all party loyalists and almost always vote as directed, or "pledged". But "faithless" electors who fail to vote as directed have occurred, often as a protest vote. In the 2018 election, 118 Democratic electors revolted and picked someone other than the party's vice presidential nominee, businessman Franklin Hollis, denying any candidate the 270 electoral votes needed to be elected vice president. The Republican-controlled Senate then chose Republican vice presidential candidate Jack Hunter to be vice president instead of Hollis in a contingent election.
In the 2018 election, elector Paula Leach-Simmons attempted to vote for Sam Seaborn for president as pledged, but vote for New York senator Andrew Thorn for vice president instead of Hollis. Per state law, her vote was invalidated and Leach-Simmons was replaced by a new elector, who then voted as pledged. Leach-Simmons sued, alleging that the state law was unconstitutional and that electors cannot be bound to choose a party's nominee after being selected.
Election legal experts and officials in both the Democratic and Republican parties expressed relief at the decision, fearing an opposite ruling could lead to a second explosion of "faithless electors" that would have the potential to jeopardize the outcome of a presidential election after the votes have already been counted and a winner declared. Justice Olivia Emmett Franklin was not on the court for the case's oral arguments and did not participate in the deliberations for this case.
If its an unanimous decisions shouldn't it be a 9-0 decision?
Fair question, but it was the show itself, it mentioned Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh on a couple of occasions (Lionel Tribbey mentioned his cricket batwas given to him by the Queen & both the Queen and the Duke where mentioned during the "Wedding" episode). The Pope is mentioned during the show but not by name.What was the rationale for altering the papacy but keeping other things like the royal family the same?
What was the rationale for altering the papacy but keeping other things like the royal family the same?
From a meta perspective the rationale I had for Paul VII was that Victor IV was already established, and so was Paul’s name but very little about him. If Victor IV was a liberal reformer, and so was the John Paul II expy (As I didn’t like the implications of having JP2’s just never happening so an expy was needed in the immediate post-Vatican II period) then the pope between the two must have been very conservative. At the time Benedict XVI was pope and some labeled him Pope Palpatine, and I just leaned into that. My originally idea for casting of Ian McDiarmind was already taken so thus Pope Vader.How about some international infoboxes to break up the stories about American political squabbling? Hat tip to @Excelsior for the photo of Radebe.
Cast (all previously established)
Nikki Amuka-Bird as Andrea Benn
Vera Farmiga as Nastia Konanova
Fred Amugi as Calvin Radebe
Sebastian Shaw as Paul VII
Benn's biography was done here.
The only real thing I've added his her predecessor as MP for Darlington.Konanova was established as "Nastia Konanov", which isn't how patronymic names work in Ukrainian. I even referred to her as such in the infobox for her election, before realizing later that that was incorrect. No, I'm not editing the election infobox to add a single letter to Konanova's name, don't even ask.
I've constructed most of Konanova's career trajectory based off of Excelsior's post on post-Soviet Ukraine. Basically, she got elected to the Verkhovna Rada (Ukrainian parliament) in the first election after her father became president, then replaced Petrenko as justice minister after the Independence Day attacks mentioned in the write-up both as a show of defiance to the attackers who had killed her mother/Konanov's wife, but also because he needed someone he could rely on. From there, it dovetails with the write-up: she's sacked by Sobolevsky, starts her own party and then defeats him to become president.
I figured that she would have been married at some point, but reverted to her own name after divorcing her husband.Most of the information for South Africa was established here. Parts of Radebe's biography are inspired by OTL president Cyril Rampahosa's, including being on his third wife and graduating from the University of South Africa. Similarly, he was detained by the government during the uprisings in his home town of Soweto in 1976 despite not being involved, and was a trade union activist that led unions who fought against apartheid.
Unlike Ramaphosa, Radebe does not leave politics for the private sector, remaining an MP for the ANC until 2007, when he is elected to the party's National Executive Committee. From there, his career largely synchs up with Ramaphosa: he becomes deputy president of the ANC in 2012 and then becomes vice president in 2014 after new elections. He becomes president of both South Africa and the ANC when Tambo resigns.Yes, we decided making Darth Vader into a cabinet secretary and senator wasn't enough. He needed to be a pope.
Shaw was established as Victor IV (Sidney Poitier)'s predecessor way back in 2011 by Prometheus_2300 during his write-up of the Vatican, which I've relied on. Most of what I've added are basically his previous roles, with his role as Archbishop of Westminster taken from two of the English Catholic cardinals (John Heenan and Basil Hume) who were around IOTL when Whittaker/Paul VII would have been IOTL, with Whittaker/Paul VII replacing Hume as Heenan's successor in the role ITTL.
I established Paul VII's arms and explanation for his sainthood in this post (and notes). Paul VII's patronage of trachea and lung ailments is my reference to Prometheus establishing Paul VII having to rely on a device hooked up to his trachea to speak after a tracheotomy. Which, of course, is itself an allusion to Vader.