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The short answer is that these laws do not 'make it illegal to grow food.' Primarily, it's targeted against Chinese pet food killing little Fluffy the cat. It is the first comprehensive update to the nation's food safety laws since 1938, in the tail end of the New Deal. Significant exemptions are carved out for small, local, and organic food-growing operations, as well as those that primarily sell directly to consumers.Also, thanks User-9479191553426700399 for getting me to do an hour and change of research on the bill and related topics :)Long answer:For the 111th Congress, here is the THOMAS info for the House Bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:h.r.00875:And the Senate equivalent: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:s.00510:It appears that the bill was passed in the House 21 December 2010, as part of an amendment to this bill: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d111:HR02751:Following which, it became Public Law no: 111-353 after being signed by the President on 4 January 2011, so during the lame duck session.One major change to the bill before it was passed was the inclusion of the Tester-Hagan amendment, the text of which can be found here:http://farmandranchfreedom.org/sff/Tester-Hagan-amendment-Sept-2010.pdfand a summary here, via the Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance, whichrepresents small and independent farmers and ranchers:http://farmandranchfreedom.org/sff/Tester-Hagan-amendment-Sept-2010.pdfHere is some extensive discussion about the bill as of 15 November 2010: http://www.grist.org/article/food-2010-11-15-food-fight-safety-modernization-act-harm-small-farms/PALLPart of the summary:As you will read in the following pages (yes, that's plural; please note that there are three pages for this epic discussion), they disagree, sometimes violently, about whether S. 510 will do more harm than good. Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Kay Hagan (D-N.C.) were concerned enough about the answer to propose the Tester-Hagan amendment to S. 510, which exempts certain small farms and food-processing businesses from the requirements. (PDFs available http://tester.senate.gov/Legislation/upload/tester_small_facilities_amendment.pdf and http://tester.senate.gov/Legislation/upload/tester_direct_market_amendment.pdf from Tester's office.) Problem solved, right? Well no. Some think that the Tester amendment dilutes the bill or would let risky farms slip through thesafety nets.As a counter-argument re: the Tester-Hagan small farm exemption, this author believes that the regulations will provide a "chilling effect" on family farmers due to the complexity of provided necessary documentation to secure the exemption:Source: http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/why-tester-amendment-does-not-help.htmlThis is a constituent response letter from Senator McCaskill with an FAQ on the subject:Recently, the Senate passed and the President signed into law the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (P.L. 111-353). This bipartisan legislation, which I supported, provides important new protections for American consumers while also ensuring that family farmers, small producers, farmers' markets, and local gardeners are not subject to new federal requirements.I know that many Missourians have concerns about this legislation. For instance, many have raised questions about how this legislation will affect local organic farmers, their neighborhood farmer's market, or the garden in their back yard. As a lifelong Missourian whose family worked at a feed mill, I understand that agriculture is more than a primary driver of Missouri's economy; it is a part of our state's cultural fabric. I would not have supported any legislation that jeopardized this culture and this legislation does not.Finally, from the FAQ:Will P.L. 111-353 outlaw home gardens and family farms? NO.P.L. 111-353 does not outlaw home gardens or family farms. In fact, the bill explicitly states that the produce standards “shall not apply to produce that is produced by an individual for personal consumption.” In addition, the bill also contains an exemption from regulations for small facilities and small farms, which was purposefully included to protect America’s family farms. This includes food sold through farmers‟ markets, bake sales, road side stands, public events, community supported agriculture, and organizational fundraisers.Source: http://kevinforcongress.blogspot.com/2011/01/fda-food-safety-modernization-act.htmlMy take on this legislation is that is it primarily targeted against international food--read: China--that does not meet American standards. It gives the right to the FDA to initiate mandatory recalls if and only if a corporation fails to do so voluntarily, which was previously limited to infant formula.For the most part, this question is appropriately tagged with "Conspiracy Theories," as far as I can tell. It specifically exempts small farms and personal food growing by Americans from any additional laws or regulations.Another site argues that the impetus for the bill was the tainted pet food incident several months back:Also in December, Congress passed a major food safety bill(P.L. 111-353), led by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, Judd Gregg, R-N.H., Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and Reps. John Dingell, D-Mich., Henry Waxman, D-Calif., Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Bart Stupak, D-Mich., Frank Pallone, D-N.J., Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., which should provide much-needed additional safeguards for pet food and could strengthen the Food and Drug Administration’s oversight of the egg industry. Among its many provisions, the new law sets safety standards for imported foods, requires importers to verify compliance, and gives the FDA better access to records and authority to impose mandatory recalls of contaminated products. This could help prevent problems such as occurred in 2007 when massive amounts of imported pet food tainted with melamine killed or sickened many pets. P.L. 111-353 passed the Senate in the wake of numerous recent outbreaks of food poisoning, including scandals involving egg contamination and filthy, inhumane conditions on factory farms, revealed in investigations conducted by the FDA and The HSUSSource: http://hslf.typepad.com/political_animal/Still to come is three years of implementation, according to United Fresh, the fresh produce association. Quoted:Implementing this law will require over a dozen separate rulemakings and at least 10 guidance documents. The implementation of the legislation will take more than three years.Source: http://www2.unitedfresh.org/forms/store/ProductFormPublic/ (FDA Food Safety Modernization Act White Paper)Apparently, this is the first major overhaul of the food safety regulations since 1938, in the middle of the New Deal.According to Ruell Chappell, the founder of the Well Fed Neighbor Alliance, which supports local food growing at scale--aka somewhere between Big Ag and local gardens--this legislation makes family-based farming more difficult. Ruell states:To be totally honest, they fear this will prove to be yet another example of Big AG supported legislation resulting in further elimination of Small Producers. My good friend and my General Counsel, Joe Maxwell, and my friend Russ Kremer, are working with me to try to make our local food system example a template for duplication . It is our goal to re-establish local food security ( there are only three days of food in Springfield at any given time), give birth to a sustainable local economy with jobs, improve the health of the community and reduce the amount of fuel needed to transport food ( currently our food comes a minimum of 1500 miles).Source: http://wellfedneighbor.ning.com/profiles/blogs/my-response-to-senatorAs far as the law itself goes, it is comprised of four different titles and honestly, I'm not really feeling jazzed about reading the 89-page bill. Real quick, though,. the titles are as follows:Improving capacity to prevent food safety problemsImproving capacity to detect and respond to food safety problemsImproving the safety of imported foodMiscellaneous provisionsLegalese, naturally, but still useful for figuring out the broad focus of the bill. Of course, big government watchdogs should totally fear the "Requirement for guidance relating to post harvest processing of raw oysters." DUN DUN DUNNNN!! /grinI'll rely on the CRS summary found here: http://opencrs.com/document/R40443/2010-10-07/ Naturally, this paper is 90 pages, one more than the law itself *sigh* well, 39 pages of text and the rest of tables and supporting data.Also, OpenCRS is an amazing site, if you're interested in doing legislative research. The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is responsive to congressional staff and members, and it is unfortunately opaque to constituents, except through their congressional office, who respond to constituent requests to provide reports. Luckily, OpenCRS works to gather CRS reports and post them online. However, most constituents are unaware of CRS, which is a shame.In the CRS summary, it states the follow:The bills seek to increase frequency of inspections, tighten record-keeping requirements, extend more oversight to certain farms, and mandate product recalls if a firm fails to do so voluntarily. Major portions of the bills are devoted to more scrutiny of food imports, which account for an increasing share of U.S. consumption; food import shipments would have to be accompanied by documentation that they can meet safety standards that are at least equivalent to U.S. standards. Such certifications might be provided by foreign governments or other so-called third parties accredited in advance. The House-passed bill and Senate amendment differ in how to accomplish these objectives. The bills have provisions for certifying or accrediting laboratories, including private laboratories, to conduct sampling and testing of food.This agrees with my earlier statement that at least one major focus of the bill is to provide oversight over food imports. In 1938, refrigeration was just coming into play, so shipment of quickly-spoiling food like fresh produce was much less common than it is today.Additionally:Food safety legislation is a response to a number of perceived problems with the current food safety system. For example, a growing consensus is that the FDA’s current programs are not proactively designed to emphasize prevention, evaluate hazards, and focus inspection resources on areas of greatest risk to public health.This talks about another major focus on current perceptions to limitations of the FDA, which is something the bill probably addresses.Now, none of this is directly relevant to the question about "making it illegal to grow food."The relevant section seems to be titled, "Mitigating Effects on Small Business and Farming Operations," pg. 22-26 in the PDF or as labeled pg. 17-22. As follows:Concerns among farm and rural groups about the potential effects of new food safety requirements on farms and food processors surfaced early in the debate over how to reform U.S. food safety laws. Most vocal were small farms and processors; organizations representing small, organic, direct-to-market, and sustainable farming operations; and small livestock operations.Atissue is whether numerous proposed requirements would be more costly and burdensome to small farms and other small businesses than could be justified by the potential public health protections such requirements are intended to provide.Several provisions in the House-passed bill and Senate amendment could potentially affect agricultural producers, including smaller farms and food processors, as well as organic, direct-to-market, and sustainable farming operations. The provisions that could have the most direct effect on on-farm activity, especially produce growers, would be the establishment of new standards for produce safety (§ 104 and § 105, respectively). In addition, both bills would require the issuance of updated good agricultural practices, among other bill provisions that could potentially affect small businesses and farming operations. These include facility registration requirements (§ 101 of the House-passed bill; § 102 of the Senate amendment); records access and/or inspection requirements (§ 106 of H.R. 2749; § 101 and § 204 of the Senate amendment); food traceability requirements (§ 107 of H.R. 2749; § 204 of the Senate amendment); hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls (§ 103 of the Senate amendment); targeting of inspection resources (Section 201 of the Senate amendment); and changes in the reportable food registry (§ 112 of H.R. 2749). For more information, see CRS Report RL34612, Food Safety on the Farm: Federal Programs and Legislative Action.The extent to which these other provisions might actually affect small business and farming operations remains unclear, since the specific business requirements under these provisions would be subject to agency rulemaking, as well as the discretion of the HHS Secretary.Considerations for small business could take many forms, including waiving certain requirements, providing additional time for compliance, providing grants and/or technical assistance to aid in compliance, and exempting certain types of businesses from meeting the requirements. Currently the FFDCA exempts some types of businesses from certain food safety requirements. For example, farms, restaurants, other retail food establishments, and certain nonprofit food establishments and fishing vessels are exempt from facility registration requirements under FFDCA § 415.Various approaches might be used to define whether a farm or food processor is a “small” business. Often, a definition may be based on a particular threshold value for a financial or business measure, such as gross cash income (or sales receipts), adjusted gross income (AGI), numbers of employees, or other measures. Gross cash income refers to the sum of all receipts from the sale of crops, livestock, and farm-related goods and services, including any direct payments from the government. For purposes of classifying farms, USDA defines a “small commercial farm” as an operation with gross cash income of $10,000 to less than $250,000 annually; “large farms” are defined as farms with gross cash income of $250,000 to less than $1 million. Under these definitions, USDA data indicate that 22% of all crop and livestock producers were considered to be small commercial farms. The share of small farms will vary depending on commodity. For example, among fruit and vegetable producers who might be affected by requirements under the House and Senate food safety measures, the share of small farms is roughly 10% of all growers in this category. Small business definitions for farms, established by the Small Business Administration (SBA), also are based on annual sales receipts but vary considerably from USDA’s definitions: among most crop producers, SBA defines as a small business those who make no more than $750,000 in sales per year.47 By these standards, more farms would be considered small businesses, with up to one-half of all crop and livestock producers defined as small.Elsewhere in farm legislation, adjusted gross income (AGI) is used to differentiate farm size. AGI is a common measure of income for tax purposes, combining income from all sources. Business income contributes to AGI on a net basis, that is, after business expenses. Thus, it is comparable to profit: sales minus expenses and also taxable deductions. In the periodic omnibus farm bill, an AGI limit is used to differentiate wealthier farm households as a means test for the maximum amount of income that an individual can earn and still remain eligible for commodity program benefits, including any direct payments from the government. The 2008 farm bill tightened these limits by reducing the AGI limit to $500,000 of non-farm AGI and $750,000 of farm AGI. Given that most business information is proprietary, data are limited on the share of commodity producers (farms and food processors) that have an annual AGI of less than $500,000. Information for U.S. farms indicate that farms with less than $500,000 AGI account for the vast majority (more than 95%) of farm numbers.For food processors, often different business measures are used to define small businesses. SBA definitions of small food processors are based on the number of employees at a business. Among most food processors, a small business is defined by the SBA as a business with no more than 500 employees. By this definition, nearly all (97%) of all food manufacturers would be considered small businesses based on U.S. Census Bureau data.FDA regulations also define certain small food processing businesses, but they are case by case and not inclusive. For example, FDA’s current HACCP regulations exempt small juice processors “employing fewer than 500 persons." Accordingly, available data indicate that as many as 84% of businesses that make juice would be not be covered by the HAACP requirements. Very small businesses would also be exempt, and so defined if they meet one of the following three criteria: “annual sales of less than $500,000, total annual sales greater than $500,000 but total food sales less than $50,000, or operations that employ fewer than an average of 100 full-time equivalent employees and sell fewer than 100,000 units of juice in the United States.” Producers of “raw agricultural ingredients of juice,” such as fruit and vegetable growers, would not be covered by the HAACP requirements.This section is talking about the definitions of small farms that would be exempted from most of the regulations, seemingly addressing the concerns raised by the Well Fed Neighbor Alliance. I'm not an expert of the subject, though. It primarily addresses the current state of things, while the next section covers proposed legislative action, subtitled "Legislative Proposals":Although both the House-passed bill and the Senate amendment contain requirements that might affect small business and farming operations, both bills also seek to take into account the needs of small businesses and provide for coordination of enforcement and education activities with others such as USDA and state authorities.The House-passed bill contains additional provisions that are intended to address potential effects of the food safety requirements on small, organic, direct-to-market, and sustainable farming operations, among other related provisions. In particular, it would exempt from the facility registration requirements most commodity producers that sell directly to consumers, including an “operation that sells food directly to consumers if the annual monetary value of sales of the food products from the farm or by an agent of the farm to consumers exceeds the annual monetary value of sales of the food products to all other buyers” (§ 101(b)(1)). The House-passed bill also would require that any regulations governing performance standards “take into consideration, consistent with ensuring enforceable public health protection, the impact on small-scale and diversified farms, and on wildlife habitat, conservation practices, watershed-protection efforts, and organic production methods” (§ 104(b)).Initially, S. 510 was modified by the Senate HELP Committee to require that the HHS Secretary “provide sufficient flexibility to be applicable to various types of entities engaged in the production and harvesting of raw agricultural commodities, including small businesses and entities that sell directly to consumers, and be appropriate to the scale and diversity of the production and harvesting of such commodities” (§ 103 and § 105, among other sections). Other committee modifications require consideration of federal conservation and environmental standards and policies including wildlife conservation, and assurances that these provisions will not conflict with or duplicate those of the national Organic Foods Production Act (also § 105).The Senate amendment includes additional provisions intended to address the potential effects of the food safety requirements on small business and other farming operations. These include allowances for HHS to exempt or limit compliance requirements for certain types of farming operations and food processors, along with provisions that would allow the HHS Secretary the discretion to exclude certain operations, if it is determined that these are low risk and/or do not present a risk of “serious adverse health consequences or death”; and assurances that any new regulations do not conflict with or duplicate other federal policies and standards, and that they minimize regulatory burden and unnecessary paperwork and the number of separate standards imposed on the facility (for example, the registration, HACCP, produce standards, and traceability requirements in §§ 101, 103, 105, and 204). In addition, HHS would be required to publish “small entity compliance policy guides” to assist small entities in complying with some proposed requirements, such as those regarding registration, HACCP, produce standards, and traceability. Implementation would be delayed for small and very small businesses (as defined by the Secretary) for the HACCP and produce standards requirements, and there would be assurances of “sufficient flexibility” for producers, including small businesses and entities that sell directly to consumers, for the HACCP, produce standards, and traceability provisions.Despite these additional considerations in the Senate amendment, Senator Jon Tester has stated that he intends to offer further amendments to address small farm interests if the Senate food safety measure reaches the Senate floor in the 111th Congress. Senator Tester first announced in spring 2010 that he planned to introduce two amendments to the Senate committee-reported bill, S. 510. Under one amendment, certain commodity producers would face limited trace-back and record-keeping requirements if the “average annual adjusted gross income [AGI] of such facility for the previous 3-year period is less than $500,000”; another amendment would exempt producers who sell directly to market if “the annual value of sales of food directly to consumers, hotels, restaurants, or institutions exceeds the annual value of sales of food to all other buyers.” These amendments were not ultimately included in the Senate manager’s amendment.In September 2010, Senator Tester, along with Senator Kay Hagan, announced an updated version of this amendment. The modified Tester-Hagan amendment would establish “modified requirements for qualified facilities” for so-called “very small” businesses, among other provisions for both small and very small businesses (to be defined in regulation). Under this proposed amendment, qualified facilities would not be subject to the facility registration requirements under FFDCA § 415; instead they would be required to submit to HHS relevant documentation showing that they have implemented preventative food safety controls and evidence that they are in compliance with state, local, county, or other applicable non-federal food safety laws, among other documentation. Such modified requirements would apply to producers considered “very small” and would include operations that have annual sales of less than $500,000 (defined not as AGI, but as the three-year average “annual monetary value of sales,” adjusted for inflation) and whose value of sales directly to “qualified end-users” exceeds all other sales. Qualified end-users would include consumers or a restaurant or retail food establishment that is located in the same state or less than 400 miles from the qualified facility, or that is buying food for sale directly to consumers. Implementation deadlines would also be delayed for small and very small businesses, following promulgation of any applicable regulations under the newly enacted law. The Tester-Hagan amendment also includes other clarifying language with respect to the exemption for direct farm marketing and sales. The provision further would require that HHS conduct a study of the food processing sector, in conjunction with USDA.Many farm groups have expressed support for these proposed amendments. However, one of the leading produce industry groups, United Fresh Produce Association (UFPA), is urging the Senate not to add “exemptions based on the size of the operation, production practices, or geographic location for food being sold in the commercial market” to its food safety proposal. In addition to broader industry concerns about the need to preserve consumer confidence in the safety of all marketed produce, another industry concern is whether small foreign producers might also be exempt, if small U.S. producers were to be exempt (given prevailing U.S. equivalency standards). Some consumer groups, including the Consumers Union, have expressed concern that the proposed amendments would create “too great a loophole” in the food safety requirements, among other concerns.The key paragraph seems to be the second one, specifically talking about "small, organic, direct-to-market, and sustainable farming operations, among other related provisions." These food-growing operations would be exempt if they sell directly to consumers, meaning your kids' road-side stands or the farm stands in Gilroy, CA would both be excluded from any of these regulations, as long as a majority of their sales came from direct-to-consumer sales. Additionally, I believe the Tester-Hagan amendment referenced in the final two paragraphs did eventually pass. EDIT: Re: Bill McDonald in the comments and inflation-adjusting AGI:Adds a new exemption for businesses that gross less than half a milliondollars (adjusted for inflation) and that sell more than half of their products directly to consumers or to local restaurants and retail establishments. These businesses must submit paperwork showing that they qualify for the exemption and that they comply with state and local laws in order to be exempt from the new HACCP-type requirements.Source: http://farmandranchfreedom.org/Tester-Hagan-explanationConclusionTo reiterate, it seems extremely unlikely that the scenario described by the question will come to pass through the passage of these bills into law. The primary focus is to prevent Chinese pet food from killing Fluffy, not stopping little Johnny from growing some fruits and veggies in the backyard and becoming little entrepreneurial Johnny by selling them on the roadside in home sweet neighborhood.

In the context of a legal agreement—which is what a term sheet is—a “schedule” is a list of things that are referenced in the agreement. Often, for complex agreements, there are many things that need to be listed. Examples might be:Names and salaries of employeesNames and ownership interests of shareholdersSoftware licensesPatents and intellectual propertyComputers and other owned equipmentLeases the company has signedEtc.Instead of putting all this directly into the agreement, they will instead be listed separately and attached to the end, with the agreement itself just saying something like “the employees as listed in Schedule A”.There is no particular order in which schedules are attached, although it is typically in the order in which they are referenced in the document. And for purposes of clarity, each schedule is numbered (or, more often, lettered, starting with “Schedule A”.)To give you an idea of the kind of schedules you might find in the actual closing documents of an investment (although likely not the term sheet), take a look at this typical due diligence list:A. Organization of the Company1. Describe the corporate or other structure of the legal entities that comprise the Company. Include any helpful diagrams or charts. Provide a list of the officers and directors of the Company and a brief description of their duties.2. Long-form certificate of good standing and articles or certificate of incorporation from Secretary of State or other appropriate official in the Company's jurisdiction of incorporation, listing all documents on file with respect to the Company, and a copy of all documents listed therein.3. Current by-laws of the Company.4. List of all jurisdictions in which the Company is qualified to do business and list of all other jurisdictions in which the Company owns or leases real property or maintains an office and a description of business in each such jurisdiction. Copies of the certificate of authority, good standing certificates and tax status certificates from all jurisdictions in which the Company is qualified to do business.5. All minutes for meetings of the Company's board of directors, board committees and stockholders for the last five years, and all written actions or consents in lieu of meetings thereof.6. List of all subsidiaries and other entities (including partnerships) in which the Company has an equity interest; organizational chart showing ownership of such entities; and any agreements relating to the Company's interest in any such entity.B. Ownership and Control of the Company1. Capitalization of the Company, including all outstanding capital stock, convertible securities, options, warrants and similar instruments.2. List of securityholders of the Company (including option and warrant holders), setting forth class and number of securities held.3. Copies of any voting agreements, stockholder agreements, proxies, transfer restriction agreements, rights of first offer or refusal, preemptive rights, registration agreements or other agreements regarding the ownership or control of the Company.C. Assets and Operations1. Annual financial statements with notes thereto for the past three fiscal years of the Company, and the latest interim financial statements since the end of the last fiscal year and product sales and cost of sales (including royalties) analysis for each product which is part of assets to be sold.2. All current budgets and projections including projections for product sales and cost of sales.3. Any auditors (internal and external) letters and reports to management for the past five years (and management's responses thereto).4. Provide a detailed breakdown of the basis for the allowance for doubtful accounts.5. Inventory valuation, including turnover rates and statistics, gross profit percentages and obsolescence analyses including inventory of each product which is part of assets to be sold.6. Letters to auditors from outside counsel.7. Description of any real estate owned by the Company and copies of related deeds, surveys, title insurance policies (and all documents referred to therein), title opinions, certificates of occupancy, easements, zoning variances, condemnation or eminent domain orders or proceedings, deeds of trust, mortgages and fixture lien filings.8. Schedule of significant fixed assets, owned or used by the Company, including the identification of the person holding title to such assets and any material liens or restrictions on such assets.9. Without duplication from Section D below, or separate intellectual property due diligence checklist, schedule of all intangible assets (including customer lists and goodwill) and proprietary or intellectual properties owned or used in the Company, including a statement as to the entity holding title or right to such assets and any material liens or restrictions on such assets. Include on and off balance sheet items.D. Intellectual PropertyList of all patents, trademarks, tradenames, service marks and copyrights owned or used by the Company, all applications therefor and copies thereof, search reports related thereto and information about any liens or other restrictions and agreements on or related to any of the foregoing (without duplication from attached intellectual property due diligence checklist).E. Reports1. Copies of any studies, appraisals, reports, analyses or memoranda within the last three years relating to the Company (i.e., competition, products, pricing, technological developments, software developments, etc.).2. Current descriptions of the Company that may have been prepared for any purpose, including any brochures used in soliciting or advertising.3. Descriptions of any customer quality awards, plant qualification/certification distinctions, ISO certifications or other awards or certificates viewed by the Company as significant or reflective of superior performance.4. Copies of any analyst or other market reports concerning the Company known to have been issued within the last three years.5. Copies of any studies prepared by the Company regarding the Company's insurance currently in effect and self-insurance program (if any), together with information on the claim and loss experience thereunder.6. Any of the following documents filed by the Company or affiliates of the Company and which contain information concerning the Company: annual reports on SEC Form 10-K; quarterly reports on SEC Form 10-Q; current reports on SEC Form 8-K.F. Compliance with Laws1. Copies of all licenses, permits, certificates, authorizations, registrations, concessions, approvals, exemptions and other operating authorities from all governmental authorities and any applications therefor, and a description of any pending contemplated or threatened changes in the foregoing.2. A description of any pending or threatened proceedings or investigations before any court or any regulatory authority.3. Describe any circumstance where the Company has been or may be accused of violating any law or failing to possess any material license, permit or other authorization. List all citations and notices from governmental or regulatory authorities.4. Schedule of the latest dates of inspection of the Company's facilities by each regulatory authority that has inspected such facilities.5. Description of the potential effect on the Company of any pending or proposed regulatory changes of which the Company is aware.6. Copies of any information requests from, correspondence with, reports of or to, filings with or other material information with respect to any regulatory bodies which regulate a material portion of the Company's business. Limit response to the last five years unless an older document has a continuing impact on the Company.7. Copies of all other studies, surveys, memoranda or other data on regulatory compliance including: spill control, environmental clean-up or environmental preventive or remedial matters, employee safety compliance, import or export licenses, common carrier licenses, problems, potential violations, expenditures, etc.8. State whether any consent is necessary from any governmental authority to embark upon or consummate the proposed transaction.9. Schedule of any significant U.S. import or export restrictions that relate to the Company's operations.10. List of any export, import or customs permits or authorizations, certificates, registrations, concessions, exemptions, etc., that are required in order for the Company to conduct its business and copies of all approvals, etc. granted to the Company that are currently in effect or pending renewal.11. Any correspondence with or complaints from third parties relating to the marketing, sales or promotion practices of the Company.G. Environmental Matters1. A list of facilities or other properties currently or formerly owned, leased, or operated by the Company and its predecessors, if any.2. Reports of environmental audits or site assessments in the possession of the Company, including any Phase I or Phase II assessments or asbestos surveys, relating to any such facilities or properties.3. Copies of any inspection reports prepared by any governmental agency or insurance carrier in connection with environmental or workplace safety and health regulations relating to any such facilities or properties.4. Copies of all environmental and workplace safety and health notices of violations, complaints, consent decrees, and other documents indicating noncompliance with environmental or workplace safety and health laws or regulations, received by the Company from local, state, or federal governmental authorities. If available, include documentation indicating how such situations were resolved.5. Copies of any private party complaints, claims, lawsuits or other documents relating to potential environmental liability of the Company to private parties.6. Listing of underground storage tanks currently or previously present at the properties and facilities listed in response to Item 1 above, copies of permits, licenses or registrations relating to such tanks, and documentation of underground storage tank removals and any associated remediation work.7. Descriptions of any release of hazardous substances or petroleum known by the Company to have occurred at the properties and facilities listed in response to Item 1, if such release has not otherwise been described in the documents provided in response to Items 1-6 above.8. Copies of any information requests, PRP notices, "106 orders," or other notices received by the Company pursuant to CERCLA or similar state or foreign laws relating to liability for hazardous substance releases at off-site facilities.9. Copies of any notices or requests described in Item 8 above, relating to potential liability for hazardous substance releases at any properties or facilities described in response to Item 1.10. Copies of material correspondence or other documents (including any relating to the Company's share of liability) with respect to any matters identified in response to Items 8 and 9.11. Copies of any written analyses conducted by the Company or an outside consultant relating to future environmental activities (i.e., upgrades to control equipment, improvements in waste disposal practices, materials substitution) for which expenditure of funds greater than $10,000 is either certain or reasonably anticipated within the next five years and an estimate of the costs associated with such activities.12. Description of the workplace safety and health programs currently in place for the Company's business, with particular emphasis on chemical handling practices.H. Litigation1. List of all litigation, arbitration and governmental proceedings relating to the Company to which the Company or any of its directors, officers or employees is or has been a party, or which is threatened against any of them, indicating the name of the court, agency or other body before whom pending, date instituted, amount involved, insurance coverage and current status. Also describe any similar matters which were material to the Company and which were adjudicated or settled in the last ten years.2. Information as to any past or present governmental investigation of or proceeding involving the Company or the Company's directors, officers or employees.3. Copies of all attorneys' responses to audit inquiries.4. Copies of any consent decrees, orders (including applicable injunctions) or similar documents to which the Company is a party, and a brief description of the circumstances surrounding such document.5. Copies of all letters of counsel to independent public accountants concerning pending or threatened litigation.6. Any reports or correspondence related to the infringement by the Company or a third party of intellectual property rights.I. Significant Contracts and Commitments1. Contracts relating to any completed (during the past 10 years) or proposed reorganization, acquisition, merger, or purchase or sale of substantial assets (including all agreements relating to the sale, proposed acquisition or disposition of any and all divisions, subsidiaries or businesses) of or with respect to the Company.2. All joint venture and partnership agreements to which the Company is a party.3. All material agreements encumbering real or personal property owned by the Company including mortgages, pledges, security agreements or financing statements.4. Copies of all real property leases relating to the Company (whether the Company is lessor or lessee), and all leasehold title insurance policies (if any).5. Copies of all leases of personal property and fixtures relating to the Company (whether the Company is lessor or lessee), including, without limitation, all equipment rental agreements.6. Guarantees or similar commitments by or on behalf of the Company, other than endorsements for collection in the ordinary course and consistent with past practice.7. Indemnification contracts or arrangements insuring or indemnifying any director, officer, employee or agent against any liability incurred in such capacity.8. Loan agreements, notes, industrial revenue bonds, compensating balance arrangements, lines of credit, lease financing arrangements, installment purchases, etc. relating to the Company or its assets and copies of any security interests or other liens securing such obligations.9. No-default certificates and similar documents delivered to lenders for the last five (or shorter period, if applicable) years evidencing compliance with financing agreements.10. Documentation used internally for the last five years (or shorter time period, if applicable) to monitor compliance with financial covenants contained in financing agreements.11. Any correspondence or documentation for the last five years (or shorter period, if applicable) relating to any defaults or potential defaults under financing agreements.12. Contracts involving cooperation with other companies or restricting competition.13. Contracts relating to other material business relationships, including:a. any current service, operation or maintenance contracts;b. any current contracts with customers;c. any current contracts for the purchase of fixed assets; andd. any franchise, distributor or agency contracts.14. Without duplicating Section D above or the intellectual property due diligence schedule hereto, contracts involving licensing, know-how or technical assistance arrangements including contracts relating to any patent, trademark, service mark and copyright registrations or other proprietary rights used by the Company and any other agreement under which royalties are to be paid or received.15. Description of any circumstances under which the Company may be required to repurchase or repossess assets or properties previously sold.16. Data processing agreements relating to the Company.17. Copies of any contract by which any broker or finder is entitled to a fee for facilitating the proposed transaction or any other transactions involving the Company or its properties or assets.18. Management, service or support agreements relating to the Company, or any power of attorney with respect to any material assets or aspects of the Company.19. List of significant vendor and service providers (if any) who, for whatever reason, expressly decline to do business with the Company.20. Samples of all forms, including purchase orders, invoices, supply agreements, etc.21. Any agreements or arrangements relating to any other transactions between the Company and any director, officer, stockholder or affiliate of the Company (collectively, "Related Persons"), including but not limited to:a. Contracts or understandings between the Company and any Related Person regarding the sharing of assets, liabilities, services, employee benefits, insurance, data processing, third-party consulting, professional services or intellectual property.b. Contracts or understandings between Related Persons and third parties who supply inventory or services through Related Persons to the Company.c. Contracts or understandings between the Company and any Related Person that contemplate favorable pricing or terms to such parties.d. Contracts or understandings between the Company and any Related Person regarding the use of hardware or software.e. Contracts or understandings regarding the maintenance of equipment of any Related Person that is either sold, rented, leased or used by the Company.f. Description of the percentage of business done by the Company with Related Persons.g. Covenants not to compete and confidentiality agreements between the Company and a Related Person.h. List of all accounts receivable, loans and other obligations owing to or by the Company from or to a Related Person, together with any agreements relating thereto.22. Copies of all insurance and indemnity policies and coverages carried by the Company including policies or coverages for products, properties, business risk, casualty and workers compensation. A description of any self-insurance or retro-premium plan or policy, together with the costs thereof for the last five years. A summary of all material claims for the last five years as well as aggregate claims experience data and studies.23. List of any other agreements or group of related agreements with the same party or group of affiliated parties continuing over a period of more than six months from the date or dates thereof, not terminable by the Company on 30 days' notice.24. Copies of all supply agreements relating to the Company and a description of any supply arrangements.25. Copies of all contracts relating to marketing and advertising.26. Copies of all construction agreements and performance guarantees.27. Copies of all secrecy, confidentiality and nondisclosure agreements.28. Copies of all agreements related to the development or acquisition of technology.29. Copies of all agreements outside the ordinary course of business.30. Copies of all warranties offered by the Company with respect to its product or services.31. List of all major contracts or understandings not otherwise previously disclosed under this section, indicating the material terms and parties.32. For any contract listed in this Section I, state whether any party is in default or claimed to be in default.33. For any contract listed in this Section I, state whether the contract requires the consent of any person to assign such contract or collaterally assign such contract to any lender.NOTE: Remember to include all amendments, schedules, exhibits and side letters. Also include brief description of any oral contract listed in this Section I.J. Employees, Benefits and Contracts1. Copies of the Company's employee benefit plans as most recently amended, including all pension, profit sharing, thrift, stock bonus, ESOPs, health and welfare plans (including retiree health), bonus, stock option plans, direct or deferred compensation plans and severance plans, together with the following documents:a. all applicable trust agreements for the foregoing plans;b. copies of all IRS determination letters for the foregoing qualified plans;c. latest IRS forms for the foregoing qualified plans, including all annual reports, schedules and attachments;d. latest copies of all summary plan descriptions, including modifications, for the foregoing plans;e. latest actuarial evaluations with respect to the foregoing defined benefit plans; andf. schedule of fund assets and unfunded liabilities under applicable plans.2. Copies of all employment contracts, consulting agreements, severance agreements, independent contractor agreements, non-disclosure agreements and non-compete agreements relating to any employees of the Company.3. Copies of any collective bargaining agreements and related plans and trusts relating to the Company (if any). Description of labor disputes relating to the Company within the last three years. List of current organizational efforts and projected schedule of future collective bargaining negotiations (if any).4. Copies of all employee handbooks and policy manuals (including affirmative action plans).5. Copies of all OSHA examinations, reports or complaints.6. The results of any formal employee surveys.K. Tax Matters1. Copies of returns for the three prior closed tax years and all open tax years for the Company (including all federal and state consolidated returns) together with a work paper therefor wherein each item is detailed and documented that reconciles net income as specified in the applicable financial statement with taxable income for the related period.2. Audit and revenue agents reports for the Company; audit adjustments proposed by the Internal Revenue Service for any audited tax year of the Company or by any other taxing authority; or protests filed by the Company.3. Settlement documents and correspondence for last six years involving the Company.4. Agreements waiving statute of limitations or extending time involving the Company.5. Description of accrued federal, state and local withholding taxes and FICA for the Company.6. List of all state, local and foreign jurisdictions in which the Company pays taxes or collects sales taxes from its retail customers (specifying which taxes are paid or collected in each jurisdiction).L. Miscellaneous1. Information regarding any material contingent liabilities and material unasserted claims and information regarding any asserted or unasserted violation of any employee safety and environmental laws and any asserted or unasserted pollution clean-up liability.2. List of the ten largest customers and suppliers for each product or service of the Company.3. List of major competitors for each business segment or product line.4. Any plan or arrangement filed or confirmed under the federal bankruptcy laws, if any.5. A list of all officers, directors and stockholders of the Company.6. All annual and interim reports to stockholders and any other communications with securityholders.7. Description of principal banking and credit relationships (excluding payroll matters), including the names of each bank or other financial institution, the nature, limit and current status of any outstanding indebtedness, loan or credit commitment and other financing arrangements.8. Summary and description of all product, property, business risk, employee health, group life and key-man insurance.9. Copies of any UCC or other lien, judgment or suit searches or filings related to the Company in relevant states conducted in the past three years.10. Copies of all filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, state blue sky authorities or foreign security regulators or exchanges.11. All other information material to the financial condition, businesses, assets, prospects or commercial relations of the Company.

Do you think the “Hoefeller Files,” now available online, exposing North Carolina’s Republican gerrymandering, will result in equitable nationwide American redistricting?The back story is that Thomas Hofeller's daughter found the files on her father's computer and USB drives.While looking for an attorney to represent her mother in 2018, Stephanie says she connected with the North Carolina chapter of Common Cause, an advocacy group that had brought a lawsuit against Republican state officials to overturn political maps Thomas Hofeller helped draw. After mentioning the hard drives to Common Cause, Stephanie received a court order to turn them over as potential evidence for the lawsuit. She did so in March after making a copy of some of the files for herself.Since then, the Hofeller files have led to bombshell developments in two major legal battles in the political world.Her decision to put the files online herself is just the latest twist in a series of one astonishing event after another.Deceased GOP Strategist's Daughter Makes Files Public That Republicans Wanted SealedThe Hofeller FilesEvidence obtained by Common Cause confirms how political operatives spent years plotting to rig our democracy with a Census citizenship question. GOP’s chief gerrymandering mastermind Thomas Hofeller laid out a plan to add the citizenship question to the Census. The purpose? Manipulating our Census and redistricting process to be, in Hofeller’s words, “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites."Common Cause has obtained evidence confirming how political operatives have spent years plotting to rig our democracy with a Census citizenship question.First, the New York Times publicized this shocking study, written by the GOP’s chief gerrymandering mastermind Thomas Hofeller, that laid out a plan to add the citizenship question to the Census. The purpose? Manipulating our Census and redistricting process to be, in Hofeller’s words, “advantageous to Republicans and Non-Hispanic Whites.”Then we found evidence that Hofeller communicated with a top Census official about citizenship when the department was preparing to re-engineer the 2020 census.Together, the documents undermined the Trump Administration’s explanation for why it wanted to add the citizenship question to the 2020 census. In July, the administration abandoned its attempt to add the question, after being blocked by the Supreme Court.Now the Hofeller files could reveal the extent of the gerrymandering schemes that Hofeller was involved in across the country.In early September, a Wake County Superior Court ruling in Common Cause v. Lewis stated the Hofeller files provided direct evidence of his interest in maximizing Republicans’ advantage in the 2017 legislative maps in North Carolina. The three-judge panel gave the state legislature two weeks to redraw new maps and mandated a fully transparent process.On November 4, the court lifted a confidentiality designation on more than 100,000 of the Hofeller files pertaining to Arizona, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Nassau County in New York, and Nueces County and Galveston in Texas. The court gave Hofeller’s former company, Geographic Strategies, more time to substantiate a claim on other files that it has said are proprietary.We know from our national redistricting advocacy that Hofeller orchestrated gerrymandering in multiple states, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. We believe that there is additional evidence that needs to come forward about the partisan motives and vote-stealing conducted in other states. A decision on whether to lift confidentiality on additional Hofeller documents to the public is expected this winter.The Hofeller Files - Common CauseDeceased G.O.P. Strategist’s Hard Drives Reveal New Details on the Census Citizenship QuestionMay 30, 2019WASHINGTON — Thomas B. Hofeller achieved near-mythic status in the Republican Party as the Michelangelo of gerrymandering, the architect of partisan political maps that cemented the party’s dominance across the country.But after he died last summer, his estranged daughter discovered hard drives in her father’s home that revealed something else: Mr. Hofeller had played a crucial role in the Trump administration’s decision to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.Files on those drives showed that he wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision.Those documents, cited in a federal court filing Thursday [1][1][1][1] by opponents seeking to block the citizenship question, have emerged only weeks before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the legality of the citizenship question. Critics say adding the question would deter many immigrants from being counted and shift political power to Republican areas.The disclosures represent the most explicit evidence to date that the Trump administration added the question to the 2020 census to advance Republican Party interests.[Inside the Trump administration’s fight to add a citizenship question to the census]In a statement issued on Thursday evening, the Justice Department said the accusations in the filing were baseless and amounted to “a last-ditch effort to derail the Supreme Court’s consideration of this case.” It said Mr. Hofeller’s 2015 study had “played no role in the department’s December 2017 request to reinstate a citizenship question to the 2020 decennial census.”In Supreme Court arguments in April over the legality of the decision, the Trump administration argued that the benefits of obtaining more accurate citizenship data offset any damage stemming from the likely depressed response to the census by minority groups and noncitizens. And it dismissed charges that the Commerce Department had simply invented a justification for adding the question to the census as unsupported by the evidence.Opponents said that the Justice Department’s rationale for seeking to add a citizenship question to the census was baldly contrived, a conclusion shared by federal judges in all three lawsuits opposing the administration’s action.But a majority of the Supreme Court justices seemed inclined to accept the department’s explanation the question was needed to enforce the Voting Rights Act, and appeared ready to uphold the administration’s authority to alter census questions as it sees fit. The justices are expected to issue a final ruling before the court’s term ends in late June.The filing on Thursday sought sanctions against the defendants in the lawsuit, led by Commerce Secretary Wilbur L. Ross Jr., who were accused of misrepresentations “on the central issues of this case.” Judge Jesse M. Furman of United States District Court in Manhattan set a hearing on the issue for Wednesday.In nearly 230 years, the census has never asked all respondents whether they are American citizens. But while adding such a question might appear uncontroversial on its face, opponents have argued that it is actually central to a Republican strategy to skew political boundaries to their advantage when redistricting begins in 2021.[How the Supreme Court’s decision on the census could alter American politics.]Until now, Mr. Hofeller seemed a bystander in the citizenship-question debate, mentioned but once in thousands of pages of lawsuit depositions and evidence. Proof of his deeper involvement surfaced only recently, and only after a remarkable string of events beginning after his death in August at age 75.Mr. Hofeller was survived by a daughter, Stephanie Hofeller, from whom he had been estranged since 2014. In an interview, Ms. Hofeller said she learned of her father’s death by accident after searching for his name on the internet, and returned to her parents’ retirement home in Raleigh, N.C., to see her mother, Kathleen Hofeller.Sorting through Mr. Hofeller’s personal effects, looking for items she had asked her father to save for her, Stephanie Hofeller came across a clear plastic bag holding four external hard drives and 18 thumb drives, backups of data on Mr. Hofeller’s Toshiba laptop. Her mother gave Ms. Hofeller the backups, which turned out to hold some 75,000 files — family photographs and other personal data, but also a huge trove of documents related to Mr. Hofeller’s work as a Republican consultant.Late last year, Ms. Hofeller said, she contacted the Raleigh office of the advocacy group Common Cause, seeking its help in finding a lawyer unconnected to her father to help settle his estate. Only after several conversations with a staff member there did she mention the hard drives in passing, she said, remarking almost jokingly that an expert on gerrymanders might find a lot in them that was of interest.“My understanding was that anything that would be on these hard drives was duplicative of things that had already been hashed out” in court challenges to Mr. Hofeller’s maps, she said.In fact, Common Cause had recently filed a new lawsuit in state court, challenging gerrymandered maps of North Carolina’s legislative districts drawn by Mr. Hofeller himself. When the staff member told her of the lawsuit, Ms. Hofeller said, she thought, “Wow — this might be of use.”Lawyers for Arnold & Porter, the law firm representing Common Cause in the North Carolina suit, subpoenaed the drives in February. By happenstance, the same firm was representing private plaintiffs pro bono in the principal lawsuit opposing the citizenship question, in Federal District Court in Manhattan.The documents cited in the Thursday court filing include an unpublished August 2015 analysis by Mr. Hofeller, who was hired by The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative news outlet financially backed by Paul Singer, a billionaire New York hedge fund manager and major Republican donor. Mr. Hofeller’s charge was to assess the impact of drawing political maps that were not based on a state’s total population — the current practice virtually everywhere in the nation — but on a slice of that population: American citizens of voting age.At the time, the study’s sponsor was considering whether to finance a lawsuit by conservative legal advocates [2][2][2][2] that argued that counting voting-age citizens was not merely acceptable, but required by the Constitution.Mr. Hofeller’s exhaustive analysis of Texas state legislative districts concluded that such maps “would be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites,” and would dilute the political power of the state’s Hispanics.The reason, he wrote, was that the maps would exclude traditionally Democratic Hispanics and their children from the population count. That would force Democratic districts to expand to meet the Constitution’s one person, one vote requirement. In turn, that would translate into fewer districts in traditionally Democratic areas, and a new opportunity for Republican mapmakers to create even stronger gerrymanders.The strategy carried a fatal flaw, however: The detailed citizenship data that was needed to draw the maps did not exist. The only existing tally of voting-age citizens, Mr. Hofeller's study stated, came from a statistical sample of the population largely used by the Justice Department to verify that the 1965 Voting Rights Act was ensuring the voting rights of minority groups.“Without a question on citizenship being included on the 2020 Decennial Census questionnaire,” Mr. Hofeller wrote, “the use of citizen voting age population is functionally unworkable.”Roughly 16 months later, as President-elect Trump prepared to take office, Mr. Hofeller urged Mr. Trump’s transition team to consider adding a citizenship question to the census, the transition official responsible for census issues, Mark Neuman, said last year in a deposition in the Manhattan census lawsuit.Activists rallied outside the Supreme Court in April. The justices are expected to issue a final ruling on the census citizenship question before the court’s term ends in late June.Credit...J. Scott Applewhite/Associated PressMr. Neuman testified that Mr. Hofeller told him that using citizenship data from the census to enforce the Voting Rights Act would increase Latino political representation — the opposite of what Mr. Hofeller’s study had concluded months earlier.Court records show that Mr. Neuman, a decades-long friend of Mr. Hofeller’s, later became an informal adviser on census issues to Mr. Ross, the commerce secretary. By that summer, a top aide to Mr. Ross was pressing the Justice Department to say that it required detailed data from a census citizenship question to better enforce the Voting Rights Act.The court filing on Thursday describes two instances in which Mr. Hofeller’s digital fingerprints are clearly visible on Justice Department actions.The first involves a document from the Hofeller hard drives created on Aug. 30, 2017, as Mr. Ross’s wooing of the Justice Department was nearing a crescendo. The document’s single paragraph cited two court decisions supporting the premise that more detailed citizenship data would assist enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.That paragraph later appeared word for word in a draft letter from the Justice Department to the Census Bureau that sought a citizenship question on the 2020 census. In closed congressional testimony in March, John M. Gore, the assistant attorney general for civil rights and the Justice Department’s chief overseer of voting rights issues, said Mr. Neuman gave him the draft in an October 2017 meeting.The second instance involves the official version of the Justice Department’s request for a citizenship question, a longer and more detailed letter sent to the Census Bureau in December 2017. That letter presents nuanced and technical arguments that current citizenship data falls short of Voting Rights Act requirements — arguments that the plaintiffs say are presented in exactly the same order, and sometimes with identical descriptions like “building blocks” — as in Mr. Hofeller’s 2015 study.In their court filing on Thursday, lawyers for the plaintiffs said that “many striking similarities” between Mr. Hofeller’s study and the department’s request for a citizenship question indicated that the study was an important source document for the Justice Department’s request.The filing also says flatly that Mr. Gore and Mr. Neuman “falsely testified” under oath about the Justice Department’s actions on the citizenship question.In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Neuman denied the charge, and said he had worked for years to increase Hispanic representation in public office. “I gave complete and truthful testimony in my deposition,” he said. “My mother immigrated to this country from Central America. Any reference that I would advocate actions that harm the interests of the Latino community is wrong and deeply offensive.”The Departments of Justice and Commerce had no immediate comment on the filings. Common Cause, which first obtained the hard drives, said the revelations on them were a wake-up call to supporters of the American system. “Now that the plan has been revealed, it’s important for all of us — the courts, leaders and the people — to stand up for a democracy that includes every voice,” said Kathay Feng, the group’s national redistricting director.Ms. Hofeller said her decision to open her father’s files to his opponents was a bid for transparency, devoid of personal or political animus. Although she believed he was undermining American democracy, she said, their estrangement stemmed not from partisan differences, but a family dispute that ended up in court. Ms. Hofeller described herself as a political progressive who despises Republican partisanship, but also has scant respect for Democrats.Her father, she said, was a brilliant cartographer who was deeply committed to traditional conservative principles like free will and limited government. As a child, she said, she was schooled in those same principles, but every successive gerrymandered map he created only solidified her conviction that he had abandoned them in a quest to entrench his party in permanent control.“He had me with the idea that we are made to be free,” she said. “And then he lost me.”Deceased G.O.P. Strategist’s Hard Drives Reveal New Details on the Census Citizenship QuestionI think that both parties are guilty of gerrymandering, although The Republican party has gotten cheating down to perfection and are even more guilty than the Democrats, not that it excuses the Democrats of doing the same thing. Cheating is cheating no matter which party does it.I would love to see a panel of the least biased, able to compromise, people to redraw districts for each state and have it federally mandated as a federal law that cannot be changed unless a request by a state, to have their districts redrawn due to radical population change. Anything that involves federal elections, there needs to be a law that effects all states.I would also like to see, and I know some would agree, that we need a way to either notify voters that they are in danger of being purged from voter rolls. I imagine it would take a nationwide database but it could be done since the need to get a driver’s license after a move. Purging should be made long before an election. After all, the Constitution says that every person at the legal age has the right to vote and purging has taken place denying some people, usually minorities or opposite parties, their right to vote.Some states do not allow online registration, some allow same day registration, etc. By making it uniform across all 50 states it eliminates cheating by either party.I don’t know about any one else, but in my years of being of voting age and I am 80 now (21 back in my day, so voted for the first time in 1964), I am really tired of all the cheating that goes on in our federal and states government.Now we have some states denying their registered party voters to choose between two candidates of the same party by only allowing the parties choice on the ballot. This is taking away a voters choice and doesn’t seem legal to me.The constitution gives every legal voter the right to make their choice. That is another reason for a law that encompasses all states and take the ability to cheat out of the states hands. Enough is enough as it is only getting worse, especially when there are solutions to each cheating problem.Thank you Edward to let me post my rant in answer to your question.PatriciaA2AFootnotes[1] New Evidence Exposes GOP Census Rigging - Common Cause[1] New Evidence Exposes GOP Census Rigging - Common Cause[1] New Evidence Exposes GOP Census Rigging - Common Cause[1] New Evidence Exposes GOP Census Rigging - Common Cause[2] {{meta.pageTitle}}[2] {{meta.pageTitle}}[2] {{meta.pageTitle}}[2] {{meta.pageTitle}}