April 6, 2024 - Epoch Times
11:32
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| Over in Nebraska, a senator has just flipped party affiliation, going from Democrat to Republican. | |
| This change gives the Republicans a filibuster-proof supermajority that they are now looking to use in order to change the way that the state doles out electoral college votes, and in so doing, they might actually swing the results of the 2024 presidential election. | |
| Although, let me back up for a quick moment in order to explain both how as well as why. | |
| To start with, there are two unique, you can say political quirks over in Nebraska that are relevant to our discussion today. | |
| The first is the fact that Nebraska is the only state in the nation that has a unicameral legislature, meaning that unlike every other state in the country that has a state assembly and a state senate, Nebraska has only one. | |
| They have a unified legislature with one single chamber consisting of 49 senators. | |
| And, as you would imagine, Nebraska is a conservative stronghold, with most of the Senators being Republicans. | |
| In fact, right after the 2022 midterms, the Republicans held 32 out of 49 seats. | |
| However, as of two days ago, that number actually changed. | |
| That's because on Wednesday of this week, Nebraska State Senator Michael McDonnell switched party affiliation and went from being a Democrat to instead being a registered Republican. | |
| in explaining why exactly he made the change. | |
| He cited his Catholic faith and the fact that he was being punished for his pro-life views. | |
| "Michael McDonald, a 40-year Democrat, ran for the legislature in 2016 in South Omaha as a Catholic who openly opposes abortion. | |
| He said the Nebraska Democratic Party no longer felt like a place where he could reconcile his faith with his political affiliation. | |
| He said that he had asked fellow Democrats to respect his religious-based pro-life position and that they had instead sought in recent months to punish him. | |
| The county party withdrew its support of him and the state party's leading committee censured him. | |
| And indeed, because of his pro-life views, Mr. McDonald's local, county-level Democrat party, they voted to not seat him as a delegate, as well as to not share their party resources with him. | |
| And then furthermore, the state-level Democrat party, they voted to censure him for his pro-life views. | |
| And so, because of all this, he decided to switch party affiliations and added the following in a public statement when doing so. | |
| "When I ran for re-election in 2020, I was pro-life. | |
| I've asked the Democratic Party to respect my religious-based pro-life position. | |
| Instead, over the last year, they have decided to punish me for being pro-life. | |
| Being a Christian member of the Roman Catholic Church and pro-life is more important to me than being a registered Democrat." And this is where things get very interesting, because with this senator flipping party affiliation, the Republicans now hold 33 Senate seats. | |
| And the reason that this number is so significant is because in Nebraska, you need 33 votes to overcome a filibuster, which the Republicans now have. | |
| Meaning, in practical terms, that if all Republican senators get on board with a certain bill, they can now push that bill through the state legislature, even if every single Democrat opposes it. | |
| And along that line, the governor of Nebraska, Mr. Jim Pillen, he's a Republican, he urged the state legislature to immediately begin work on changing the electoral college voting system in the state of Nebraska. | |
| Because you see, this is the second political quirk within the state. | |
| They are one of only two states that are not a winner-take-all system. | |
| Alongside the state of Maine, Nebraska assigns their electoral college votes based on the popular vote in each congressional district. | |
| And so, what this means in practice is that, typically, the Republican candidate gets four of the Electoral College votes, while the Democrat candidate gets one. | |
| That's exactly what happened in the year 2020. | |
| Nebraska, overall, they voted 58% for Trump and 39% for Joe Biden. | |
| But, because of Nebraska's unique system, Trump only got four of the Electoral College votes, and Biden got one, because they were split along congressional districts. | |
| However, this is the exact system that Nebraska Republicans are trying to change. | |
| Specifically, Senator Lauren Lippincott introduced a legislative bill, it's legislative bill number 764, you can see it up on your screen, and it would reinstate a winner-take-all system in the state of Nebraska. | |
| Effectively, with the passage of this bill, it will give Trump another guaranteed electoral college vote in the upcoming 2024 election. | |
| And three days ago, the governor of Nebraska, he came out in support of the bill, saying that he will sign it as soon as it hits his desk. | |
| Quote, I am a strong supporter of Senator Lippincott's winner-take-all bill and have been from the start. | |
| It will bring Nebraska into line with 48 of our fellow states, better reflect the founder's intent, and ensure our state speaks with one unified voice in presidential elections. | |
| I call upon fellow Republicans in the legislature to pass this bill to my desk so I can sign it into law. | |
| Now, at this point, you might be asking yourself, what is exactly the big deal here? | |
| I mean, after all, this is just one single Electoral College vote. | |
| Doesn't seem like that big of a deal on the surface. | |
| However, that's not how surrogates for the Biden campaign see it. | |
| Because the most recent polling that's come out has Trump leading Biden in six out of the seven swing states. | |
| As you can see up on your screen, this poll from the Wall Street Journal asked voters who they would pick if the election were held today. | |
| And the results are Arizona plus 5 Trump, Georgia plus 1 Trump, Michigan plus 3 Trump, North Carolina plus 6 Trump, Nevada plus 4 Trump, Pennsylvania plus 3 Trump, and Wisconsin was tied. | |
| And so, based on the calculations coming out of the Biden campaign, their best chance of victory right now has them winning the Electoral College by just a single vote. | |
| And so, flipping Nebraska is a major deal for them. | |
| In fact, just listen to how it was laid out over on MSNBC two days ago. | |
| For a second, because there's a little buzzing about Nebraska right now. | |
| The governor there has thrown his support behind an effort that would no longer allocate the electoral votes by congressional district. | |
| Because right now, it's five votes there. | |
| Republicans get four, and President Biden and Democrats get the one from Omaha. | |
| If that changes, and we don't know that it will, the state legislature is going to look at it, but if that changes, That takes away Biden's best path to win because if you get, if he wins, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, but loses the other swing states and no longer picks up the one in Nebraska, 269, that leads playbook this morning. | |
| The alarm among Democrats that this is possible. | |
| What do you think? | |
| I think this is what the modern Republican Party has become. | |
| They're now changing the rules in the middle, trying to benefit themselves. | |
| This is the hell that Donald Trump hath wrought. | |
| In the middle of this, changing the rules 200 days before the election is ridiculous. | |
| I think you're right. | |
| I think there are real simulation problems when you look at the map. | |
| That one electoral vote really matters in the combination of other things. | |
| Then you need another state. | |
| And so the easiest pathway to victory has always been the Midwestern three states combined with Nebraska. | |
| Now of course the idea that changing election laws last minute is an exclusively Republican activity is factually inaccurate. | |
| Over the past three election cycles, Democrat legislatures across the whole country have changed a plethora of laws relating to mail-in ballots, ballot harvesting, voter ID, and so on. | |
| But that's besides the point. | |
| The main point is that, as innocuous as it seems, there is a chance that this one Electoral College vote over in Nebraska might be the deciding factor in the upcoming 2024 election. | |
| And so, whether Nebraska makes this change suddenly becomes an important issue to the whole nation. | |
| However, never underestimate the ability of Republicans to be able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. | |
| Because despite them having a filibuster-proof supermajority in the state legislature, as well as a governor who is chomping at the bit to make this change and to sign it into law, it's actually still uncertain whether it's going to go through or not. | |
| Senator Lippincott said he likely lacked the five votes to get LB 764 out of the Government, Military and Veteran Affairs Committee as a stand-alone bill. | |
| The committee chair briefly scheduled an executive session of the committee to vote on Thursday on whether LB 764 would advance to the floor. | |
| He canceled the planned vote after a series of unfriendly amendments were added to that bill and to other potential vehicles for the change. | |
| Senator Lippincott also confirmed that by attaching these other proposals to the legislation, only 31 Senate Republicans are in support. | |
| That's two votes short of the 33 needed. | |
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| I'll also throw the link down into the description box below. | |
| Meaning, in plain English, that the bill had a bunch of random amendments added into it last minute, which is causing members of the Republican caucus to not support it. | |
| Furthermore, even without these amendments, it's not exactly clear whether State Senator Michael McDonnell, the one who just switched party affiliations from Democrat to Republican, will actually be supportive of a winner-take-all system. | |
| In the past, when he was a Democrat, he did vote against it. | |
| And so, the point here is that changing Nebraska's system is possible, but it's not certain. | |
| In fact, just as an aside, another Republican state senator, she tried to force the issue on the floor just two days ago on Wednesday, but she was shut down on technical grounds, on procedural grounds. | |
| However, before she was shut down, she managed to say the following on the floor, quote, Senate Republicans want to energize voters and donors with the issue. | |
| They want to talk the talk, but not walk the walk. | |
| And so, if in the coming days there are going to be any serious developments in this particular case, I'll let you know right away. | |
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