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Beyond the presidential and congressional candidates whose names will appear on ballots this year, there are two state constitutional amendments to vote on, as well. The first has been nearly 20 years in the making and it could reshape voting for the next decade.

The amendment to Virginias constitution could create a nonpartisan commission to draft new voting district maps based on 2020 census data. The need, advocates say, stems from the states legislative body tending to draw unfair maps designed to push out or keep in various voter demographics, keeping some legislators safely in their seats.

We deserve to have voting districts that reflect our communities and allow voters to make the decision on who represents them, said Brian Cannon, director of OneVirginia2021, an advocacy group that lobbied for the amendment. The current system is unfair because it robs voters of that choice and creates districts that reflect some incumbent politicians re-election strategy. This carves up our communities and insulates legislators from the will of the people.

The amendment, if passed, would create a commission will:

If the process fails to reach a consensus, the Supreme Court of Virginia would then assume control and draw the lines.

Designed to be as nonpartisan as possible, the proposed commission aims to create fairer maps that are more representative of communities across the state. Cannon said that once established, the commissions work will take place from January to March of next year to create district maps for both the states general assembly and its congressional districts that represent Virginia at the federal level.

Having ultimately garnered bipartisan support from current legislators, the efforts have been nearly 20 years in the making with republicans and democrats alike balking at various ideas to redraw voting maps.

After a previous decade of advocacy leading up to it, a 2011 commission from former governor Robert McDonell yielded recommendations that the general assembly discarded.

In older days we fought with fists and swords. Today we fight with computer programs that can allow us to draw a house out of a district, said Quentin Kidd, dean of Christopher Newport Universitys College of Social Sciences and director of the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy. So much information about voters can be used to draw a house out of a district. Its the power of information that has made redistricting so much more lethal.

In a once republican-majority legislature, there was a strong push by democrats for redistricting that has somewhat cooled. Some recent hesitancy surrounding the amendment stems in the democratic party due to the fact that if the commission fails to produce maps, responsibility shifts to the supreme court of the state.

Kidd said more progressive democrats are leery of the possibility of the maps going to the Supreme court because the court has largely been appointed by republicans over the years.

Cannon critiques the current court for being too deferential to the legislature but said the members are not party hacks.

Cannon notes recent cases that have run through the supreme court of Virginia that democrats would favor, such as upholding restrictions during the Second Amendment rally in Jan. 2020, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoneys removal of Confederate statues, and the extension of eviction moratorium during the pandemic.

None of us will know until something happens, but the broad structure of the reform could work really well, Kidd said. Presumably, those citizens [on the commission] are not going to have the same incentives to draw partisan maps like an elected official would.

Ultimately, Kidd is more hopeful of the amendment for its impact on redistricting reform for its enhanced transparency.

Our biggest obstacle is the I dont know vote, Cannon said. If we tell them what this amendment does, we win.

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What you need to know about the first of two constitutional amendments on this year's ballot - Charlottesville Tomorrow

President Trump: If I Wasn't Here You Would not Have a Second Amendment Right Now

U.S.A. -(AmmoLand.com)- On 9 September 2020 in an interview on the Shawn Hannity show on Fox news.com, President Trump made a bold assertion. He said if he were not in the office, the Second Amendment would have become essentially meaningless, because of the different judges who would have been appointed. From the transcript:

And also, Supreme Court judges or justices.

And you the whole country, it depends on these decisions, which way you go, whether you have a Second Amendment or not. I mean, the Second Amendment would be under siege.

If I wasn't here, you wouldn't have a Second Amendment right now. You wouldn't have a right to guns. You would whether you had it or it was just almost totally obliterated, but it would be in a very different form than you have right now.

I've kept it totally as it was, and it's, you know, something I'm very proud of, and people I think it's a real voting issue, Second Amendment.

Life, you look at that. So these judges are going to be making massive decisions. And the next president is going to get one, two, three, or four justices of the Supreme Court.

The President is correct in his statement. If Hillary would have become President, the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights would have been interpreted out of any significance. We already have several circuit courts who are working hard to interpret the Second Amendment as of little consequence. If a President Hillary would have appointed replacements for Justice Scalia and Kennedy, the ten Second Amendment cases the Supreme Court has refused to hear, would have been granted writs of certiorari at the Supreme Court. Second Amendment supporters would not have liked the results.

Very likely, the Supreme Court would have confirmed the Second Amendment does not apply outside the home; that bans on semi-automatic rifles are permissible; that ammunition bans are permissible; that bans on magazines are permissible; that not all commonly available handguns are protected by the Second Amendment, or, they may be covered by the Second Amendment, but the state can still regulate them out of existence.

The ban on butterfly knives in a Hawaii District Court, or the ban on semi-automatic rifles and magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds in the New York Rifle and Pistol Association, are templates for that interpretation of a toothless Second Amendment.

President Trump has appointed about 200 judges to the lower federal courts. Without Trump appointees, it is likely the three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit would have held the California magazine ban to be constitutional.

President Trump has appointed ten judges to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit has 29 active judges.

President Trump is correct in saying that next to war and peace, the appointment of federal judges is the most consequential act a president can perform. President Trump has been appointing judges who respect the Constitution as written.

President Trump has done better in this regard than any other president since Calvin Coolidge. It is one of the reasons the Left in this country fear him so much. The judges he is appointing are showing a willingness to reverse decades of unconstitutional decisions by Progressive judges who have worked hard to undermine the Constitution and the rule of law.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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President Trump: If I Wasn't Here You Would not Have a Second Amendment Right Now - AmmoLand Shooting Sports News

In the 2020 campaign, President Donald Trump has used religion to attack his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

During an August speech at an Ohio manufacturing plant, Trump suggested that Biden would harm religious interests. Linking religion to several conservative interests, the president claimed his opponent would take away your guns, take away your Second Amendment and hurt the Bible. Hurt God.

In comments the following week, Trump again invoked Bidens religion as he criticized recommendations on climate and health policy made by the joint policy task force of Biden and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. I dont think a man of deep religion would be agreeing to the Bernie Sanders plan, Trump said at a news conference.

As a historian who studies religion in the early 20th century United States, I am reminded by Trumps attacks of a similar earlier episode.

In the 1908 presidential campaign, the religious beliefs of the Republican Party nominee, William Howard Taft, came under attack. In response, another prominent Republican the outgoing President Theodore Roosevelt sounded the alarm about such attacks.

In that years election, Theodore Roosevelt declined to seek another term as president. Republicans nominated Secretary of War William Howard Taft to succeed him.

As the historian Edgar Albert Hornig chronicled, no sooner had Taft secured the nomination than various elements of the Democratic campaign organization attempted to exploit the religious issue for political gain.

Unlike in other instances the politicization of John F. Kennedys Catholicism in 1960, for example this was not a case of a candidates being criticized for one aspect of his faith. Taft was attacked on religious grounds, but for two very different reasons.

Some observers suggested that his wife and brother were both Roman Catholics and accused Taft himself of secretly practicing Catholicism. Given the anti-Catholic attitudes of the day, one voter privately expressed anxiety to Theodore Roosevelt that this would be objectionable to a sufficient number of voters to defeat Taft.

But there was another, more serious line of attack against Taft: He was a Unitarian. Taft refused to publicly discuss his own views. His opponents nevertheless emphasized that Unitarians typically rejected the divinity of Jesus and did not believe in such phenomena as miracles. Thus, these critics suggested, he was an unbeliever and would be actively hostile to Christianity as most Protestants understood it.

One voter insisted in a letter to Theodore Roosevelt that being a Unitarian was akin to being an infidel. Throughout U.S. history, being seen as an unbeliever has proved disqualifying for politicians.

In pamphlets published during the 1908 campaign, W.A. Cuddy, a Protestant minister, insisted that the religion of Jesus Christ was at stake in the coming election.

In the same pamphlet, which was reported on in local and national publications, Cuddy further suggested that the United States insults God by electing Taft.

Tafts specific beliefs mattered little. Perceived religious difference was enough to prompt partisan attacks. Roosevelt lamented this fact, noting, it is claimed almost universally that religion should not enter into politics, yet there is no denying that it does.

Pronounced as these attacks were, they did not cost Taft the election. With the help of religious Republicans who defended his faith convictions, Taft defeated William Jennings Bryan, his Democratic opponent, by a comfortable margin.

Late in 1908, after the election, President Roosevelt published a letter in newspapers nationwide responding to the attacks made on Taft. Though he had long defended religious freedom and diversity, Roosevelt justified not speaking out during the campaign.

As he noted, he considered it an outrage even to agitate such a question as a mans religious convictions for the purpose of influencing a political election.

Yet Roosevelt had come to recognize the need to respond. In doing so, he offered two critical assessments.

First, he denounced discussions of a candidates religious views as an invasion of privacy. According to Roosevelt, Tafts beliefs were his own private concern between him and his Maker. Opening a candidates religion to public debate, he wrote, was a rejection of the first principles of our government, which guarantee complete religious liberty and the right to each man to act in religious affairs as his own conscience dictates.

Beyond this appeal to religious liberty, Roosevelt offered a dire warning about the effect of these attacks on civic life. He feared that discrimination against the holder of one faith means retaliatory discrimination against men of other faiths. Attacks on a candidates religion would only inspire more such attacks.

Roosevelts greatest fear was that this cycle of attack would poison civic life. Once attacks on a candidates beliefs became a normal part of campaigning, he warned, there is absolutely no limit at which you can legitimately stop.

In this election campaign, Joe Biden has been the victim of political attacks marked by vague questions of his own faith and suggestions that his policies would hurt Christians. While such rhetoric could be seen as meaningless, it could also have real consequences. As Theodore Roosevelt recognized over a century ago, it could poison the political discourse.

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Why Teddy Roosevelt's warning to lay off a candidate's religious beliefs is still relevant today - The Conversation US

Theresa Greenfield, who has yet to debate U.S. Senator Joni Ernst in Iowas U.S. Senate race, spent time discussing gun control measures withGiffords PAC.

Giffords PAC, the political action committee started by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., a victim of gun violence,held a virtual rallyfor universal background checks with Greenfield.

Giffords PAC executive director Peter Ambler asked Greenfield what message she gives to Iowans about gun control when she travels the state. Greenfield has not traveled the state and has not held a public, in-person event since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Evenher announced, virtual public campaign events are rare.

I have done over 250 events now around the state and were going to keep traveling the state as we work our way to victory on November 3, Greenfield stated.

Again, virtual events are not traveling the state.

Look, Iowans theyre a bunch of responsible gun owners, they really are. And I grew up on a farm. Thats where I learned to be responsible gun handler, eventually a gun owner, she said. Thats where I learned to shoot because Ill tell you what, filling up the freezer in the fall, thats a big deal. And it is with a lot of pride that you take your venison sausage to a winter card game or something. But I also had the responsibility as a teenager for protecting our livestock and making sure that you know the varmints didnt get our baby pigs.

They must have had quite a problem having Greenfield stand guard in the middle of the night, keeping coyotes out of their pig pens.

She also mentioned how she loved to shoot skeet with her dad, which Im sure is a great memory of her childhood.

She told Giffords PAC that she supports bipartisan background checks, closing the gun show loophole, and funding gun violence research. These are points she brought up duringa rare, in-person public event back before the primary.

Look, there is no gun show loophole. Licensed gun dealers at gun shows must do background checks just like they would if someone came to their store.

The loophole actually talks about private sales and transfers. In fact, those are the only gun sales where background checks are not required. In reality, I dont know how background checks of private gun sales and transfers would be implemented or enforced. I believe this is a trojan horse for banning private sales, something House Democratsvoted to do last year.

Its also a step toward a federal gun registry, something I vehemently oppose.

We have to keep guns out of the hands of criminals. We have to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and suspected terrorists. Absolutely. And but we have to make sure that responsible gun owners have that ability to hunt and to enjoy skeet with their children to like I grew up, Greenfield said.

So, she wants to make sure that responsible gun owners can continue to hunt and to enjoy skeet with their children.

Thats pretty telling. The Second Amendment is not about hunting and shooting skeet; its about the right to self-defense.

Giffords PAC has worked to repeal stand your ground legislation, so I think it is fair to ask, where does Greenfield stand on that?

Watch:

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Vander Hart: Greenfield Doesn't Understand What Second Amendment Is About - Caffeinated Thoughts

One of President Donald Trump's sons headed to New England to campaign on his behalf on Thursday. Eric Trump spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at the Trump campaign field office in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, before heading to the Camp Ellis Pier in Saco for an event entitled, "Fighting for Maine Lobster with Eric Trump." In Maine, Eric Trump, who was joined by former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, talked about how the Trump administration is now helping fishermen, some hurt by China's cutting imports of lobster in response to Trump trade tariffs. But Trump was quick to attack Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and the Democrats. "These are people who've never accomplished anything in their lives. You have Biden, who has been a politician for 47 years, the guy has never once signed a paycheck, he's never created a job," Trump said. The president's 36-year-old son criticized certain protesters and appealed to the crowd's support of Second Amendment rights. "It's not just the war on enforcement right now from the radical left, it's a war on Christianity, it's the war on religion, it's a war on family values," Trump said. "The same people that want to get rid of all law enforcement also want to take away your guns." Eric Trump was in Georgia earlier in the week before making the trek to New England. On Friday, he'll be appearing on his dad's behalf in Pennsylvania.

One of President Donald Trump's sons headed to New England to campaign on his behalf on Thursday.

Eric Trump spoke to an enthusiastic crowd at the Trump campaign field office in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, before heading to the Camp Ellis Pier in Saco for an event entitled, "Fighting for Maine Lobster with Eric Trump."

In Maine, Eric Trump, who was joined by former Maine Gov. Paul LePage, talked about how the Trump administration is now helping fishermen, some hurt by China's cutting imports of lobster in response to Trump trade tariffs. But Trump was quick to attack Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and the Democrats.

"These are people who've never accomplished anything in their lives. You have Biden, who has been a politician for 47 years, the guy has never once signed a paycheck, he's never created a job," Trump said.

The president's 36-year-old son criticized certain protesters and appealed to the crowd's support of Second Amendment rights.

"It's not just the war on enforcement right now from the radical left, it's a war on Christianity, it's the war on religion, it's a war on family values," Trump said. "The same people that want to get rid of all law enforcement also want to take away your guns."

Eric Trump was in Georgia earlier in the week before making the trek to New England. On Friday, he'll be appearing on his dad's behalf in Pennsylvania.

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Eric Trump makes appearances in NH, Maine on father's behalf - WMUR Manchester