Annie Leow's Government Blog

Nancy is the Speaker of the House. He is alleged to have tried to get Ukraine to interfere with the 2020 election by contacting the Ukrainian president. She wanted to pass a law that would explicitly state how to indict a sitting president. She said that the Executive branch has been unwilling to cooperate with Congress and that they justify this behavior by saying they have executive privileges. Joseph Maguire declined to relay the whistleblower's message to Congress, which is illegal. He is the House Intelligence Committee chair. They fear this will alienate their voters. Like the Democrats, they are divided on the issue. 37% support impeachment, but the others still oppose it.

Majority of the House must agree, and two-thirds supermajority of the Senate. Yes, the House has gone through the process of impeachment. One person has been impeached but not removed. If all goes well, Kavanaugh will be the first to be impeached and removed.  In Article II, Section 4, the Constitution discusses the removal of "civil officers."  Harry Claiborne was removed for falsifying income tax returns. Alcee Hastings was removed for tampering with evidence and perjury regarding his case of accepting bribes to reduce prison sentences for mob members. Walter Nixon was removed for perjury. Samuel Kent was removed for obstruction of justice and lying about sexually abusing his female employees. G. Thomas Porteous was not convicted of a crime before he was removed.  The Senate is currently Republican, which means these people support them and would not favor removing Kavanaugh or Thomas.  Since the definition of "high crime or misdemeanor" is not clear, an im...

In addition to a regular caucus, they wanted to add a virtual caucus. This would be operated over a phone system. The DNC rejected the idea because they were afraid using phones would make the system accessible to hackers. Questions over security and reliability prevented the DNC from supporting a virtual caucus. The idea of a virtual caucus was a response to complaints that Iowa caucus was not accessible to people who could not show up in person. It was proposed as a way to be more available to the people. As David Redlawsk put it, Iowa is very influential in which candidate is definitely not going to be elected. It is important that Iowa, as the first state to vote in the primary, is the first to contest because the first caucus sets the tone for the rest of candidates, showing who has momentum and who does not.  Caucuses are controversial as a nomination process because they are very long and tedious and do not compensate for people with disabilities, elderly people, and o...

37 states allow legal access to marijuana, which is the majority of the population. Colorado and Washington were the first states to legalize. Some states do not allow recreational use of marijuana, instead only allowing it for medical purposes. Others do not have marijuana fully legalized, but it is decriminalized, which means possession or usage would not be technically illegal. Vermont and DC do not allow sales, but people can grow their own. Decriminalization means offenses are treated more like a traffic violation than a felony. Jail time or prison time would be eliminated, but minor penalties would still apply. Legalization removes all government-enforced penalty for possession and usage. They said arrests relating to something as common and victimless as marijuana usage causes loss of resources, money, and credibility. Arresting people for marijuana usage could cause resentment against cops because smokers do not harm anyone. They fear that the market would target aggress...