Ballot Box

ATLANTA -- Hans von Spakovsky is among the GOP hacks who perverted the U.S. Department of Justice - trashing constitutional principles, rewarding partisanship over competence and converting the entire machinery into an arm of the Republican Party. His specialty was suppressing voting by Americans of color, who are more likely to support Democrats; he played a starring role in a nationwide effort to disenfranchise poor blacks, Latinos and Native Americans. Now, Mr. von Spakovsky is seeking Senate approval for a six-year term on the Federal Election Commission, which enforces federal campaign finance laws.

ATLANTA -- There they go again. Seeking a seat in Congress, a Georgia GOP legislator is raising the specter of phony voters - illegal immigrants sneaking into the voting booth to cast ballots. In a letter to potential contributors, state Sen. Jim Whitehead wrote, "An illegal immigrant should no more be voting in our elections in Georgia than you or I should be voting in Mexico. That's just wrong!" according to Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporters Jim Galloway and Tom Baxter. Mr. Whitehead didn't give any examples of voting by illegal immigrants because he can't cite any. Said Thomas Patterson, an expert on elections at Harvard's Shorenstein Center: "If you are an illegal immigrant, the last thing you want to do is show up at a polling place.

Frankly, I can't believe that I was once a proponent of the system that determines home-field advantage for the World Series. I must have been in the midst of one of my several midlife crises and just didn't think it through when the idea was proposed to link it to the outcome of the All-Star Game. Maybe it seemed to make sense because the old system - which awarded home-field advantage to each league in alternating years - wasn't exactly devised by Archimedes. Maybe we were all just so upset after the infamous All-Star tie in Milwaukee in 2002 that we would have gone along with just about anything to make the midsummer classic more meaningful.

WASHINGTON -- With a burgeoning ethics scandal and fall elections looming, ideas about how to curtail the influence of lobbyists in Washington - and burnish the image of Congress - are suddenly popping up all over. Republicans and Democrats alike are talking about new ethics rules, such as banning free trips from outside interest groups for lawmakers and their staff. In a reaction to the crimes of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty this month to fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion charges, some are calling for a ban on gifts from lobbyists, plus faster and better public disclosure of lobby activities and an enforcement system with teeth.

WASHINGTON - When Rep. Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican, held a town-hall meeting this week to discuss Social Security and Medicare, the session quickly turned to an entirely different subject: high gas prices. When Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, toured a Veteran's Affairs clinic yesterday, the first question put to her was: "What are you going to do about the high price of gasoline?" For congressional Republicans, gas prices have suddenly become a political problem.

IF GOV. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. gets his way and his chief slots nemesis, House Speaker Michael E. Busch, is defeated at the ballot box next year, there will be no reason to shed tears for the Anne Arundel County Democrat. Life after the speakership can be lucrative, as Busch's immediate predecessor, Casper R. Taylor Jr., is demonstrating. Taylor became a lobbyist with the influential firm Alexander & Cleaver after his 2002 election defeat. The latest annual report from the Maryland State Ethics Commission, released this month, shows that Taylor earned $577,622 from Nov. 1, 2003, to Oct. 31, 2004, making him the seventh-best-paid lobbyist in Maryland.

NEW CARROLLTON - Some rode for hours on buses from New England, and others arrived in luxury sedans from nearby Virginia. Christians and Muslims, new immigrants and longtime U.S. citizens, the bunch was diverse in so many ways but one: the hope for a free Iraq. Iraqi immigrants living in the northeastern United States arrived by the hundreds at the New Carrollton Ramada Inn yesterday. Security was tight as they registered to vote in their native country's Jan. 30 election. As many as 22,000 Iraqis are expected to vote at the Ramada Inn here.

When she was caught in the middle of Maryland's disputed 1994 gubernatorial election and became fodder for talk-radio rants, when state and federal prosecutors were investigating claims that she helped Parris N. Glendening steal the governor's mansion, Barbara E. Jackson fought back with whisk and spatula. Too stressed out to sleep much, the city election administrator spent a year's worth of restless nights making cinnamon buns, cookies, pound cake, cheesecake, red velvet cake, German chocolate cake, apple cake and black-bottom cupcakes.

CHRISTIANS, IN politics as in evangelism, are not against people or the world. But we are against false ideas that hold good people captive. On Election Day, this nation rejected liberalism, primarily because liberalism has been taken captive by the left. Since 1968, the left has taken millions captive, and we must help those Democrats who truly want to be free to actually break free of this evil ideology. In the weeks and months to come, we will hear the voices of well-meaning people beseeching the victor to compromise with the vanquished.

THE CHOREOGRAPHY, impeccable to behold, begins yesterday on the sidewalk outside Shepherd Community Baptist Church. The TV cameras are lined up, and here comes Mayor Martin O'Malley, on a gloriously sunny election morning, with his wife, Katie, on one arm and his 2-year-old son, Jack, in his arms. What could go wrong? The TV people await a few words from the mayor of Baltimore as he slips inside to vote. O'Malley understands the dance. "The renewal of the United States of America has begun," he declares.