Friday, November 10, 2017 the Colorado Independent, an online Colorado political news magazine published my announcement that I registered as an Unaffiliated voter, there by no longer able to function as a member of the Democratic Party. http://www.
Below is the longer version of the original article that was submitted before editing and explains in greater detail the circumstances.
Colorado 'Hamilton Elector': Why I'm leaving the Democratic Party
After 12 years of being a loyal registered member of the Democratic Party in Colorado, and a decade of working as a party functionary in various roles, I am, today, registering as an unaffiliated voter in and joining the ranks of the state’s largest voting population.
It is not because of a policy dispute, or a personal dispute, or because now even unaffiliated voters can vote in party primaries in Colorado.
Instead, it is because a year ago this week, as one of the 538 members of our nation’s Electoral College, I was suddenly thrust into an exceptionally historic and unprecedented circumstance.
The nature of that circumstance was that the presidential election, though over, was as the time engulfed by allegations that an apparent demagogue had partnered with a foreign enemy to gain the presidency. Previously, such circumstances might have been unimaginable beyond the pages of a Tom Clancy novel.
But in the current reality of American politics, that a corrupt and openly misogynistic, race-baiting demagogue might have allowed his campaign to conspire with a century-long adversary was unfortunately all too easy enough to believe.
This was perhaps the greatest fear of what our nation's founders, specifically Alexander Hamilton, had when they devised the process we now call the Electoral College. It is that process that still remains the official instrument that elects our country's president.
I was one of 538 American citizens with an actual official vote.
Early on I knew these circumstances demanded a serious review of conscience, and, under the duties set forth in the U.S. Constitution's Amendment XII, I was, along with eight other electors from Colorado, to travel to the state Capitol in Denver and cast my official vote on December 19.
I sought counsel from esteemed presidential academics, constitutional lawyers, ordinary friends and neighbors— most importantly my family— and, ultimately, fellow electors from around the country. Electors in Colorado, and some from other states, both Democrat and Republican were also so moved by the emerging unprecedented circumstances that they, too, told me they were morally torn by their looming decision. Some believed a dissenting vote was in order. One: to try and stop the election of Donald Trump. Two: at the least to give a voice of dissent, holding that this election was corrupted.
Collectively, we were crossing over from being loyal party activists to non-partisan patriots attempting, in our own limited means, to try to protect our nation from a seriously corrupted election.
It was torturous.
But it was also a moving personal experience. At times I felt personal pressure from all fields of crazed partisans— even from my fellow Democratic Party officials with whom I had stood shoulder to shoulder in plenty of previous battles as a good Democrat, a precinct organizer, and elected member of executive and central committees. Veiled warnings were made that if I failed to vote for Hillary Clinton, I would be kicked out my official roles in the party.
Even more pressure came from Colorado's Secretary of State, Republican Wayne Williams who lives in my county and who openly rejected our conscience effort as electors. He said out plans were “odious” and “evil.” Along with the Republican Attorney General Cynthia Coffman, who is now running for governor, Williams rejected the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution as it pertained Colorado's state laws regarding presidential electors actually voting.
The two not only vigorously defended Colorado's state law, arguing that actual votes of conscience would ensue chaos, but they created new provisions in the law. Then they continued to pile on ever more. In a last-second closed court hearing just before we were to cast our official ballots for president they declared that our potential dissent warranted a state emergency. This allowed the Secretary of State to craft a new, special oath of office for us, the 2016 the Presidential Electors.
Their aim was to absolutely bind our votes with virtual handcuffs, regardless of conscience or circumstances. If we were to do otherwise we would face charges of felony perjury.
This is what George Washington specifically feared about partisan party politics gone to the extreme. Saying that “the very real capacity of political parties to destroy the fragile unity holding the nation together,” he warned of the possibility fearing they could distract the government from its required duty to the people and even lead to the “eradication of the freedoms established by the founding.”
We then witnessed in horror how the government stripped one of our elector's vote as he actually dissented.
Williams summarily removed and replaced him from his position, done without a process or a hearing by a government employee and executed through newly crafted emergency powers.
All this was done in open defiance of the Federal 10th Circuit Appellate Court's written warning on the matter. In the court’s order, the Appellate Court stated any attempt by Colorado’s Secretary of State to remove electors “after voting has begun” would be “unlikely in light of the text of the Twelfth Amendment.”
Today, we are back in Federal Court seeking the courts to answer the question about whether presidential electors have the ability to vote their conscience.
Back in December, both partisan sides accused us, the dissenting Hamilton Electors, and the Secretary of State, as acting for reasons that were partisan. We were accused of trying to find a way to get Hillary Clinton elected through some mechanism in the Electoral College where Republicans held an overwhelming advantage—while Wayne Williams was accused of hypocritically protecting the popular vote in Colorado while ensuring the process be done without dissent as to elect Donald Trump in the Electoral College.
I cannot speak authoritatively as to Williams' motives, but if viewed strictly through the prism that consumes today's politics, all actions by political players, government officials or citizens alike, can be and are defined by, others as expressing an overarching partisan motive.
Therefore, I have come to the conscientious decision, that as a litigant in our Federal lawsuit, as a believer in democracy over partisanship, as a patriot over any political party or ideology, I will be now registering as an Unaffiliated voter and therefore, resigning my official positions within the Democratic Party.
This is not a decision I take lightly.
Reactions from some of my fellow party friends and compatriots have not been welcoming. I had volunteered for important party chores, and elected officials and future candidates respect my campaign knowledge and abilities. But in my mind, the act of voting is far more important than a political initiative or participating in party activities.
If a state government official can intimidate and coerce presidential electors, even in the face of unprecedented historic circumstances, when the Constitution holds that electors indeed do vote, where even previous a Supreme Court decision; (Ray vs Blair) states “we consider the argument that the Twelfth Amendment demands absolute freedom for the elector to vote his own choice, uninhibited by pledge,” than Washington was correct, predicting partisan politics would destroy the fragile freedoms binding our democracy. Where as, Hamilton also feared foreign and domestic enemies would seek to bring down its government in the corrupted election of the president where he sought an independent Electoral College.
In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld an Alabama state law requiring electors to pledge how they would vote, but seemed to take care to leave open the question whether such pledges could be enforced, consistent with what the Court was willing to assume was the “constitutional freedom of the elector … to vote as he may choose in the electoral college. Requiring a pledge is one thing; controlling or punishing an elector’s actual vote is something altogether different?" Yet that is what we witnessed where state officials imposed that control and punishment onto voting electors.
This leads me to ask: How far is this apparent abuse of power we experienced by the current partisan government officials from them imposing their control on ordinary voters in general elections?
Unthinkable you might say. But was it unthinkable before 2016 that a presidential campaign partnered with a foreign enemy to gain the presidency? Alexander Hamilton did, and that’s why he created the Electoral College.
This past year's experience has brought me to this new found perspective.
To fight for voting equality it must be a nonpartisan effort and I see now the only path to resurrecting our nation's democracy is through the protection of all aspects of voting. Being unaffiliated also precludes the accusation that our effort is somehow partisan, even as Williams seeks re-election. Williams will have to stand on his own defending his actions in 2016, but that is not our question. Our question is whether an elector possesses constitutional freedom in Colorado to vote their free will, and that cannot be muddied by partisan charges.
The contemporary perspective of viewing all political activities under the prism of party partisanship is omnipresent. It mostly is means to sling mud at any or all opponents, including democracy movements.
It even is used to attack respected and accomplished neutral professionals, like judges, scientists, prosecutors who are practiced in non-partisan activities—including a special counsel who is a registered Republican, where his special office possesses a staff of esteemed prosecutors and investigators from all sides of the aisle. Yet, there are those who scream and holler that somehow there is some appearance of bias—because of nothing else, but the accuser's own unbridled partisanship.
Therefore, to remove any hint of that bias or partisanship, my continued participation in this democracy I am now, a non-partisan— unaffiliated, and independent.
