Now It Gets Tough

Recognize her? Didn't think so... but she's Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for President who has managed to impress me mightily by getting arrested (video at the link... it's AWESOME) trying to go to tonight's debate. I'd been meaning to check out her website to give her a fair shake before election and after I heard about her act of glorious civil disobedience, I checked it out.

The centerpiece of her campaign is a Green New Deal and it's very, verrrrrrrry interesting, kids. Instead of unemployment offices, she wants to create employment offices where people can go and get jobs in a new WPA type of Federal jobs program. Which isn't the worst idea I've ever heard. Things got a bit wobbly for me personally after that as I find the Greens a wee bit too left wing for my liking but then I got to Section IV, A Functioning Democracy and saw this:

3. Enact the Voter Bill of Rights that will:

• guarantee us a voter-marked paper ballot for all voting;

• require that all votes are counted before election results are released;

• replace partisan oversight of elections with non-partisan election commissions;

• celebrate our democratic aspirations by making Election Day a national holiday;

• bring simplified, safe same-day voter registration to the nation so that no qualified voter is barred from the polls;

• do away with so-called “winner take all” elections in which the “winner” does not have the support of most of the voters, and replace that system with instant runoff voting and proportional representation, systems most advanced countries now use to good effect;

• replace big money control of election campaigns with full public financing and free and equal access to the airwaves;

• guarantee equal access to the ballot and to the debates to all qualified candidates;

• abolish the Electoral College and implement direct election of the President;

• restore the vote to ex-offenders who’ve paid their debt to society; and,

• enact Statehood for the District of Columbia so that those Americans have representation in Congress and full rights to self rule like the rest of us.

Oh man oh man oh man... this Voter Bill of Rights is like my DREAM piece of legislation. I want all of these things and I'd be willing to overlook a lot to back a candidate willing to give me even a fraction of what's described above.

Gary Johnson, you've officially got competition for my endorsement (and my vote.) (There's pretty compelling video at his link, too.) Now it gets tough...