Ex-coal exec chases US Senate seat despite GOP primary loss

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Ex-coal exec chases US Senate seat despite GOP primary loss

2018-05-22 12:05 Last Updated At：18:38

Despite losing the Republican primary in a distant third place, convicted ex-coal baron Don Blankenship announced Monday that he will continue his bid for U.S. Senate as a third-party candidate, though it's unclear if the move violates West Virginia's "sore loser" law.

Blankenship will run as a member of the Constitution Party, which nominated him by a unanimous vote, his campaign said in a news release.

West Virginia secretary of state spokesman Steve Adams said Blankenship has officially switched his party affiliation to the Constitution Party. But Adams has said West Virginia's "sore loser" or "sour grapes" law prohibits candidates affiliated with a major party who lose in a primary from changing their registration to a minor party to take advantage of later filing deadlines.

In comments made before Monday's announcement, Mike Queen, who is communications director for Secretary of State Mac Warner, said Blankenship wouldn't be allowed to run in a general election.

Blankenship would "most likely have to bring a legal action to force the secretary to approve his candidacy," Queen told the Charleston Gazette-Mail in a story published Saturday.

On Monday, the office referred questions to its chief legal counsel, Steve Connolly, who said it was premature to focus on the legality of Blankenship's third-party candidacy.

"The only tangible thing we have right now is a party registry," Connolly said. "We don't have certificates of nomination or anything more than his press release. Once somebody files, then we'll come to a decision. As of right now, we don't have anything in front of us to decide."

Earlier this year, the Legislature strengthened state election code by specifying that candidates who fail to win their party's primary cannot become a candidate for the same office through a nomination or certificate process. That change is effective June 5.

Connolly said state code also requires anyone seeking elected office to be registered with their political party 60 days prior to the certificate of announcement.

West Virginia University constitutional law professor Robert Bastress said the "sore loser" law "is ambiguous" and is "subject to an interpretation which would say he could do it and one that says he could not."

To get Blankenship on the ballot, the Constitution Party would be required to obtain enough signatures equal to at least 1 percent of all votes in the most recent U.S. Senate race. That was in 2014, when 453,659 ballots were cast. The signatures must be submitted to the secretary of state by Aug. 1.

The race is expected to be highly competitive and could help decide control of the Senate as Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin seeks re-election. West Virginia gave President Donald Trump his largest margin of victory in 2016 and has trended hard toward Republicans in recent years.

In his statement, Blankenship said, "Although the establishment will likely begin their efforts against us by mounting a legal challenge to my candidacy, we are confident that — if challenged — our legal position will prevail, absent a politically motivated decision by the courts."

Blankenship said his personal views align with those of the Constitution Party, whose goal is to restore U.S. government philosophy to its biblical foundations and to limit the federal government to its constitutional boundaries.

A former Massey Energy CEO, Blankenship spent a year in federal prison for violating safety regulations in a 2010 mine explosion that killed 29 miners.

More recently, he took swipes at "China people" and referred to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell as "Cocaine Mitch" in campaign ads during the Republican primary. Blankenship sold himself as "Trumpier than Trump" during the race, but the president opposed him.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey claimed the GOP nomination instead, setting up what's expected to be the most difficult re-election campaign of Manchin's career.

If Blankenship is successful in making it a three-way race, West Virginia Wesleyan College political history professor Robert Rupp said it "throws everything into uncertainty."

Rupp said the self-funded Blankenship's goal is to unseat Manchin, but a Blankenship candidacy could help the Democrats by potentially taking conservative Republican votes away from Morrisey.

Blankenship has "got means and he's got motive," Rupp said. "He's got millions of dollars to spend, he's got a cause he wants to fight for, and also he wants to be the center of attention. He was not going to yield being the center of attention in West Virginia politics just because he only got 20 percent" of the primary vote.

Venice tests a 5-euro entry fee for day-trippers as the Italian city grapples with overtourism

2024-04-26 00:14 Last Updated At：00:20

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Under the gaze of the world’s media, the fragile lagoon city of Venice launched a pilot program Thursday to charge day-trippers a 5-euro ($5.35) entry fee that authorities hope will discourage visitors from arriving on peak days and make the city more livable for its dwindling residents.

Visitors arriving at Venice's main train station were greeted with large signs listing the 29 dates through July of the plan's test phase that also designated separate entrances for tourists, and residents, students and workers.

“We need to find a new balance between the tourists and residents,’’ said Simone Venturini, the city’s top tourism official. “We need to safeguard the spaces of the residents, of course, and we need to discourage the arrival of day-trippers on some particular days.”

Not all residents, however, are persuaded of the efficacy of the new system in dissuading mass tourism, insisting that only a resurgence in the population will restore balance to a city where narrow alleyways and water buses are often clogged with tourists.

Hundreds of Venetians protested against the program, marching festively though the city's main bus terminal behind banners reading “No to Tickets, Yes to Services and Housing.” Protesters scuffled briefly with police with riot gear who blocked them from entering the city, before changing course and entering over another bridge escorted by plainclothes police officers. The demonstration wrapped up peacefully in a piazza.

Tourists arriving at the main station encountered almost as many journalists as stewards on hand to politely guide anyone unaware of the new requirements through the process of downloading the QR code to pay the fee.

Arianna Cecilia, a tourist from Rome visiting Venice for the first time, said she thought it was “strange” to have to pay to enter a city in her native country, and be funneled through separate entrance ways for tourists. She and her boyfriend were staying in nearby Treviso, and so downloaded the QR code as required. But she was still caught off-guard while soaking in her first view ever of Venice's canals by the sight of the entrance signs and her boyfriend telling her to get out the ticket.

On the other side of the entrance ways, workers in yellow vests carried out random checks at the train station. Transgressors face fines of 50 to 300 euros ($53 to $320), but officials said “common sense” was being applied for the launch.

The requirement applies only for people arriving between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. Outside of those hours, access is free and unchecked.

Venice has long suffered under the pressure of overtourism, and officials hope that the pilot project can help provide more exact figures to better manage the phenomenon.

The city can track the number of hotel visitors, which last year numbered 4.6 million and is down 16% from pre-pandemic highs. But the number of day visitors, which make up the majority of the crowds in Venice, could only be estimated until recently.

A Smart Control Room set up during the pandemic has been tracking arrivals from cellphone data, roughly confirming pre-pandemic estimates of 25 million to 30 million arrivals a year, said Michele Zuin, the city’s top economic official. That includes both day-trippers and overnight guests.

But Zuin said the data is incomplete.

“It’s clear we will get more reliable data from the contribution” being paid by day-trippers, he said.

Venturini said the city is strained when the number of day-trippers reaches 30,000 to 40,000. On peak days, local police set up one-way traffic for pedestrians to keep the crowds moving.

Residents opposing the day-tripper tax insist that the solution to Venice's woes are to boost the resident population and the services they need, limiting short-term rentals to make available more housing and attract families back from the mainland.

Last year, Venice passed a telling milestone when the number of tourist beds exceeded for the first time the number of official residents, which is now below 50,000 in the historic center with its picturesque canals.

“Putting a ticket to enter a city will not decrease not even by one single unit the number of visitors that are coming,’’ said Tommaso Cacciari, an activist who organized a protest Thursday against the measure.

“You pay a ticket to take the metro, to go to a museum, an amusement park. You don’t pay a ticket to enter a city. This is the last symbolic step of a project of an idea of this municipal administration to kick residents out of Venice,” he said.

Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro declared the launch day, coinciding with an Italian holiday, a success, registering 15,700 paying visitors, 50% more than anticipated.

More than 97,000 others had downloaded a QR code denoting an exemption, including to work in Venice or as a resident of the Veneto region. Hotels in Venice, including in mainland districts like Marghera or Mestre, provided a QR code for visitors to attest to their stay, which includes a hotel tax — accounting for 40,000 of those.

Venturini, the tourist official, said that interest in Venice’s pilot program has been keen from other places suffering from mass tourism, including other Italian art cities, and municipalities abroad such as Barcelona, Spain, and Amsterdam.

But Marina Rodino, who has lived in Venice for 30 years, doesn't see the fee as the cure-all. Neighboring apartments in her residential building near the famed Rialto Bridge once inhabited by families are now short-term apartment rentals.

The corner butcher shop closed. Yet she noted that the new entrance fee requirement will still allow young people to flood the city in the evening for the traditional aperitivo, which can grow rowdy.

She was passing out mock European Union passports for “Venice, Open City,” underlining the irony of the new system, and challenging its legal standing with citations from the Italian Constitution guaranteeing its citizens the right to “move or reside freely in any part of the national territory."

“This is not a natural oasis. This is not a museum. It is not Pompeii. It is a city, where we need to fight so the houses are inhabited by families, and stores reopen. That is what would counter this wild tourism,’’ Rodino said.