Secretary of State Brian Kemp of Georgia just stole the election for Governor, and got away scot-free. He beat Democrat Stacy Abrams by about 55,000 votes out of nearly four million cast. Kemp stole the election by using the power of his office to make sure that voters unlikely to support him in his gubernatorial race lost their franchise. The scheme went like this:
* In 2017, (from Greg Palast of Truthout), "Brian Kemp, Georgia’s secretary of state canceled the registrations of over half a million Georgians because they left the state or moved to another county. Except they didn’t. The nation’s top experts in address location reviewed Kemp’s list of purged voters — and returned the names and addresses of 340,134 who never moved at all."
How does the scam work? It's "purge by postcard," used in Georgia and other mostly Republican-controlled states, and it disproportionately affects poor and minority voters who tend to vote Democratic. Again from Greg Palast: "If you miss an election, Kemp sends you a postcard. It looks like junk mail. But if you read the block of print carefully, it asks you to return the card to Kemp after you’ve filled in the address that’s already on the front of the card."
"However, in June of this year, the Supreme Court said election officials can purge voters if they miss elections and don’t return that postcard, but only if the failure to return the postcard is a reasonable indication the voter has moved."
"Kemp has steadfastly refused to look at evidence that would show a voter has not moved. (Heck, Kemp didn’t even wonder why the purged voters paid Georgia taxes if they had left the state.)"
Note that voters do not receive any notification when they are purged.
* Kemp put 53,000 new voter registration applications, mostly from black voters, on hold using Georgia's "exact match" registration verification process, which requires information on voter applications to precisely match information on file with the Georgia Department of Driver Services or the Social Security Administration. "Mismatches" occur under the law, (from Shannon Van Sant of NPR, "for such reasons as missing hyphens, accent marks and middle initials. Those who are flagged can still vote ("provisonally") if they settle the discrepancy by providing proof of identity."
So let's say you try to vote provisionally. Guess what? That system is broken. When Phoebe Einzig-Roth went to vote in Georgia, from Eliza Carney of The American Prospect, "Einzig-Roth —who was born in New York and grew up in Boston—was told that "she might not be a citizen of the United States," and was directed to a supervising official. That official ultimately handed her a provisional ballot, but gave her no receipt, and no instructions on how to ensure that it would be counted. Einzig-Roth’s confusion turned to anger when she later tried to verify her eligibility, and was rebuffed for the lack of a receipt. "THIS is what voter suppression looks like in Georgia,” she fumed in a widely-circulated Facebook post."
More problems: (Again from Greg Palast on Salon.com)
"My team went to the campus of Emory University on Tuesday night, where nearly all the students who showed up to vote were black (although Emory is not a historically or predominantly black institution). Long lines kept the polls open until 10 p.m., and they ran out of provisional ballots by 4. When Kemp’s office sent over a stack, students filled out more than 100 provisionals in this precinct alone. And that was just one of thousands in the state."
"How many provisional ballots were cast in this election? Given the number of purged voters, given the arcane rule of "exact match" of driver’s license data and voter forms, given Georgia’s racially targeted voter ID laws – I could go on – it’s reasonable to project provisional ballots reaching 50,000."
"Then there are voters like Yasmin Bakhtiari of Atlanta, who tried to vote and was flatly denied even a provisional ballot — she asked three times within two hours — in direct violation of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
They tried to do that to Ashlee Jones in DeKalb County. She had registered to vote twice on Kemp’s website and got no confirmation. Jones was told she could not even get a provisional ballot. (I admit I got a little heavy with the precinct officials, and turned on the cameras. Jones got her provisional ballot. But that tiny victory was Pyrrhic: She knows Kemp or his replacement is likely to shred it.) Our researcher Rachel Garbus called several rural counties whose supervisors told her that no purged voter would get a provisional ballot, only those who "deserved" it. Having witnessed the scary Kemp-Trump rally last Sunday, I can tell you the color of "deserving" voters.
So far, it appears that most provisional ballots, and stacks of absentee ballots, have simply been rejected. Yet there is zero evidence that even one of these voters who signed their ballot envelopes under penalty of perjury is not a qualified voter."
Were Georgia's provisional ballots ultimately counted in a legal manner? It's not entirely clear. On the one hand, the state, to its credit, instructed county election officials to count absentee ballots even if they lack a voter’s date of birth, as long as the voter’s identity can be verified. But State Election Board member David Worley, a Democrat, said he was, "deeply disturbed" by the Secretary of State's instructions . "It makes it sound permissive, that counties can reject an absentee ballot if they want to," Worley said. "It’s a cheap, underhanded trick to allow some counties to reject ballots that federal law requires that they count. Frankly, I think it’s despicable."
* Finally Georgia doesn't ignore the classic voter suppression tactics. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "One-third of Georgia’s counties — 53 of 159 — have fewer precincts today than they did in 2012, according to the AJC’s count. Of the counties that have closed voting locations, 39 have poverty rates that are higher than the state average. Thirty have significant African-American populations, making up at least 25 percent of residents."
Though Stacy Abrams lost her race for Governor, she isn't giving up the fight for the right to vote in Georgia. From Richard Fausset of the New York Times, "Allies of Stacey Abrams, the Democrat who narrowly lost the Georgia governor’s race, filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday calling for sweeping changes to the state’s election procedures, and accusing Brian Kemp, the Republican victor, of systematically disenfranchising poor and minority voters when he was secretary of state."
"The lawsuit...would seek "wide, large-scale reforms" to improve future elections. One of its demands is for renewed federal oversight to protect minority voting rights."
Lack of federal oversight is definitely a problem. In 2013, the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Acts, and the outcome has been predictable. Rob Arthur and Allison McCann of VICE.com noted recently that the end of federal oversight has precipitated the widespread closing of polling places in states where voter suppression was the norm during the 20th century:
"VICE News found that for every 10 polling places that closed in the rest of the country, 13 closed within the jurisdictions once under oversight. Policies that introduce barriers to voting — like Texas’ strict voter ID requirements and North Carolina’s elimination of same-day registration and limits on early voting — have been widely criticized for discouraging minority voters, who disproportionately vote Democratic. The vast majority of the jurisdictions once under federal supervision are in states with GOP leadership."
On a separate note, there's good news from another southern state with a long history of disenfranchising minority voters. Did you know that one out of every ten voting-age residents of Florida is a convicted felon? In that state "grand theft" of $300 or more is a felony, and felons permanently lose the right to vote. This has long been an easy way for Florida Republicans to keep the poor and minorities from voting. In November, Florida voters approved a ballot measure restoring voting rights to citizens convicted of certain felonies after they have served their sentences, including prison terms, parole and probationary periods. Florida Republicans are dragging their feet about implementing the new law, but appear to be resigned to let it go into effect.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Saturday, December 22, 2018
Predictions: 2020 US Senate Races
Recent Updates: AK, GA-special, IA, MI
Current Senate: 53 Republicans, 47 Democrats
Current Prediction: 52 Democrats, 48 Republicans
Republicans to pickup AL
Democrats to pickup AZ, CO, ME, NC and two of the following:
AK, GA, IA, KS, KY, MT, SC
Overview: (12/22/18) To gain control of the Senate in 2020, Democrats need to net at least four seats. That is, given that there's nearly a 100% chance that incumbent Democrat Doug Jones will lose in Alabama, four pickups for the blue team would mean 50 Senators each for both parties, with Democrats holding the tie-breaker presuming they win the Presidency. A very difficult task, but not impossible.Current Senate: 53 Republicans, 47 Democrats
Current Prediction: 52 Democrats, 48 Republicans
Republicans to pickup AL
Democrats to pickup AZ, CO, ME, NC and two of the following:
AK, GA, IA, KS, KY, MT, SC
If you'd like to read what I wrote about this same class of Senators the last time they were up for reelection in 2014, click here. Races are categorized as either likely or unlikely to be competitive. This post will be updated continuously through election day.
Races likely to be competitive:
Alabama
Rating: Likely Republican pickup
Democrat: Doug Jones (incumbent)
Republican: Former Senator Jeff Sessions or football coach Tommy Tuberville
Overview: (12/22/18) Doug Jones ran in a special election to fill Alabama's open seat in 2017, and in a year that favored Democrats and against a Republican who is an insane, criminal pedophile, Jones still won by only 1.7%. There just isn't a plausible scenario where Jones wins this race.
(7/11/19) Republicans aren't thrilled that pedophile Roy Moore is running for this seat again, but I think they have little to worry about it. The chances of Moore getting the nomination are small, and I think if he someone got, he'd probably win.
(12/9/19) Jeff Sessions wants his old job back. He'll probably get it.
(5/10/20) The race for the GOP nomination is a runoff, with Sessions and Tuberville tied in polls. This race is more about Jones being able to keep the race close enough (will certainly still losing) to force Republicans to burn some capital here.
Alaska
Rating: Leans Republican hold
Republican: Dan Sullivan (incumbent)
Democrat: Dr. Al Gross
Overview: (7/10/20) Cool! I almost never get to move a race from the 'noncompetitive' list to the 'competitive' list just a few month before the election. A new poll shows that Alaska is another state where the Republican ticket has reached a tipping point: Biden trails Trump by only 3, and little-known surgeon Dr. Al Gross trails Dan Sullivan by only 5. The same poll tantalizingly shows Democrat Alyse Galvin actually leading Don Young for Alaska's lone US House seat. (Young is the "Dean" of the House, having been in office since 1973.)
Arizona (special to fill the remaining two years of John McCain's term)
Rating: Leans Democratic pickup
Republican: Appointed incumbent Martha McSally
Democrat: Astronaut Mark Kelly (likely)
Overview: (12/22/18) McSally was appointed to this seat despite losing the open Senate seat race in Arizona in 2018, a somewhat odd choice given that she ran a poor campaign and the voters took a pass on her. I expect Arizona to be competitive at the Presidential level.
(7/11/19) The field seems to be clear for astronaut and husband of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords to capture this nomination. I'm skeptical of the idea of a political novice running for US Senate, but polling shows this race a toss up and Kelly has a good chance to win.
(5/10/20) Arizona turning blue: Kelly and Biden both lead in current polls.
Colorado
Rating: Likely Democratic pickup
Republican: Cory Gardner (incumbent)
Democrat: Former Governor John Hickenlooper (likely)
Overview: (12/22/18) In 2014, Democratic heavyweight picked the wrong year to run a bad campaign, and lost to right-winger Cory Gardner by 2% in what is increasingly a blue state. Colorado is the number one Democratic target.
(12/9/19) Former Govenor John Hickenlooper is in. He's almost a lock to win this race.
Georgia
Rating: Leans Republican hold
Republican: David Perdue (incumbent)
Democrat: Journalist Jon Ossoff (likely)
Overview: (12/22/18) Democrats have been making a lot of noise in trying to turn red-state Georgia more competitive, yet they continue to lose. A strong candidate for the blue team will make this a competitive race, but again, Georgia is still a red state, and incredibly effective in suppressing the Democratic vote.
(12/9/19) No top-tier Democrat has announced; should be easy for Perdue.
(5/10/20) Democrat Jon Ossoff is a good fundraiser and good at seizing the news cycle. This race will be competitive but it will take a Democratic tidal wave (including Biden carrying Georgia) for Ossoff to win.
Georgia (special to fill the remaining two years of Johnny Isakson's term)
Rating: Leans Republican hold
Republican: appointed incumbent Kelly Loeffler Or Congressman Doug Collins (likely)
Democrat: The Reverend Ralph Warnock?
Overview: (1/29/20) Democrats are sanguine about running a competitive race against Trump in Georgia. On paper, that should also make this Senate race competitive. But until a top-tier Democrat announces for this race, Republicans are favored. One thing to make this interesting: The November election will be "jungle" style, with all candidates on one ticket and the top-two finishers forced to a runoff if no one gets 50% of the vote. A runoff is likely with two Republicans in the race.
(5/10/20) Collins is the likely nominee for the GOP, as Loeffler is mired in an insider stock trading scandal. The Democrats running are nobodies (Senator Joe Lieberman's son?); this seat is safe for the GOP.
(7/10/20) Democrat Ralph Warnock is polling pretty well vs. the scandal-plagued Kelly Loeffler, but I'm not sanguine about Democrats' chances here. First there's some possibility that Republicans Loeffler and Collins will actually finish first and second in the November primary, creating a runoff between the two. Second, a runoff election between a Republican and a Democrat will tend to favor the GOP.
Iowa
Rating: Toss up
Republican: Joni Ernst (incumbent)
Democrat: Businesswoman Theresa Greenfield
Overview: (12/22/18) Senator Tom Harkin was a hero of mine. When he retired in 2014, it looked at first like this would be an easy hold for Democrats. Then we were introduced to Joni Ernst. Among her many fine qualities, she opposed the Farm Bill, and she wants to abolish minimum wage, privatize social security, and prohibit same-sex marriage. On paper Ernst is beatable. On the other hand, Iowa's incredibly bad Republican Governor Kim Reynolds was just reelected, so I really don't have much hope for this race.
(7/11/19) Trump's trade war is deeply unpopular in Iowa. That should give hope to the Democratic Presidential nominee in 2020, but I'm not holding out for that to spell trouble for Joni Ernst. Ernst is a very adept politician with a surprisingly high approval rating, and it increasingly appears that she'll face a third-tier opponent in 2020.
(12/9/19) Ernst has been revealed as flagrantly violating campaign finance law. But I'm not holding out an hope that Iowans are going to get their sanity back any time soon. How's that trade war working out for you?
(5/10/20) A recent poll shows the virtually unknown Theresa Greenfield only a point behind Ernst, and Biden trailing Trump by only two in Iowa. With Trump's reelection prospects starting to look like those of Iowa's own Herbert Hoover in 1932, I'm starting to have hope for this seat to go blue.
(7/29/20) Interesting thing about the last Des Moines Register poll. I've assumed that the only way for Greenfield to win is for Biden to carry Iowa for a big enough margin to compensate for conservative voters who refuse to support Trump but still vote for Ernst. But the DMR poll suggests this is not a concern - it shows Trump leading Biden by 1, but Greenfield leading Ernst by 3. If Ernst is that unpopular, I've reason to be optimistic Greenfield will win.
Kansas
Rating: Leans Republican hold
Republican: State Treasurer Jake LaTurner or former Secretary of State Kris Kobach (incumbent Pat Roberts retiring)
Democrat: State Senator Barbara Bollier (likely)
Overview: (12/22/18) Democrats haven't elected a Senator in Kansas since 1932. There is however a possibility that Roberts will retire, and while even an open-seat race is unlikely to be competitive, a strong third-party candidacy could shake things up. In 2014, Roberts was widely expected to lose to independent Greg Orman, but alas that was not to be.
(7/11/19) A lot of Kansas Republicans would like to be rid of Kris Kobach, who lost them to 2018 gubernatorial race and who has been fined by a federal judge for making "patently misleading representations to the court" regarding his insane theories about voter fraud. But like a bad penny, Kobach keeps turning up and may capture the Senate nomination. For the Democrats to have a chance here it will probably require Kobach as the GOP nominee, a Democrat who runs a flawless campaign, and probably a third-party candidacy that draws disaffected Republicans away from Kobach. Don't count on all that happening.
(5/10/20) There's every indication Kobach will be the GOP nominee. Democrat Bollier leads him in two recent polls. We could see polls showing the Democratic nominee leading right up to election day and I'd be disinclined to believe them.
Kentucky
Rating: Likely Republican hold
Republican: Mitch McConnell (incumbent)
Democrat: Marine Corps pilot Amy McGrath
Overview: (12/22/18) In 2008 McConnell was nearly beaten by third-tier candidate Democrat Bruce Lunsford. If the blue team had nominated a stronger candidate, they would have won. Too bad. And in 2014 McConnell faced a surprisingly strong challenge from Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. But Kentucky has moved hard to the right, and McConnell is Senate majority leader.
(7/11/19) It's great to see Amy McGrath challenge McConnell. I'm sure she'll give him a run for his money. But while McConnell has an approval rating lower than most diseases, he's still highly likely to win.
Maine:
Rating: Leans Democratic pickup
Republican: Susan Collins (incumbent).
Democrat: State Speaker of the House Sarah Gideon
Overview: (12/22/18) Democrats think Collins is vulnerable. They've thought that before, and always been wrong.
(12/9/19) Collins' approval rating has plummeted. An October poll showed her trailing a generic Democrat. Democrats should finally get the competitive race against Collins they've been hoping for.
(5/10/20) Gideon is polling well. Polls are also suggesting Biden could carry Maine by double digits; a 10-point margin at the top of the ticket would virtually guarantee a Democratic victory in this race.
Michigan
Rating: Likely Democratic hold
Democrat: Gary Peters (incumbent)
Republican: Businessman John James
Overview: (12/9/19) This race is probably a lock, but that's what they said about Hillary Clinton winning Michigan in 2016.
(7/29/20) The GOP has a good candidate in John James. If this were the 2014 election, there's a good chance he'd win. But polls indicate that Biden is ahead about 8 points in Michigan so Peters is pretty safe.
Minnesota
Rating: Likely Democratic hold
Democrat: Tina Smith (incumbent)
Republican: ?
Overview: Donald Trump nearly carried Minnesota in 2016, but in 2018 the state seemed to recover from its swing to the right, and I doubt Smith will be in trouble in 2020.
Montana
Rating: Toss up
Republican: Steve Daines (incumbent)
Democrat: Governor Steve Bullock
Overview: (12/9/19) Democrats somewhat improbably hold the Governor's office and the other Senate seat in Montana, so maybe a really great candidate could beat Daines? It's not impossible.
(5/10/20): Democratic Governor Steve Bullock is owning the news cycle every day with his state's excellent response to the covid crisis. He's ahead in recent polls. If Biden can lose Montana by only a few points to Trump (and polls suggest he can), Bullock look good to win this race.
North Carolina
Rating: Leans Democratic pickup
Republican: State House Speaker Thom Tillis
Democrat: Former state Senator Cal Cunningham (likely)
Libertarian: ?
Overview: (12/22/18) North Carolina incumbent Senators lose a lot when they run for reelection. Democrats intend to pull out all the stops to win this one, as there just aren't a lot of incumbent Republicans who appear vulnerable.
(7/11/19) Tillis must be unpopular indeed; two recent polls show him losing to two Democrats who don't have particularly high name recognition.
(5/10/20) North Carolina's other Republican Senator Richard Burr is mired in a stock trading scandal. Burr isn't Tillis, but some of the negativity of the Burr scandal may be spreading, as Cunningham is showing large leads in the polls against Tillis. Recent polls even show Biden carrying North Carolina. Feeling good about this one.
South Carolina
Rating: Likely Republican hold
Republican: Lindsey Graham (incumbent)
Democrat: DNC Associate Chairman Jaime Harrison
Overview: (7/11/19) If this race is competitive, it's probably the Republican primary that makes it so. Lindsey Graham seems to have lost his mind. Of course, since when do Republicans care about that? Possibly a big name will emerge to challenge him for the nomination.
(5/10/20) Jaime Harrison is running a fine campaign. He's not going to win, but I think he'll force Republicans to waste resources here that they'd rather spend somewhere else.
Tennessee:
Rating: Likely Republican hold
Republican: ? (incumbent Lamar Alexander retiring)
Democrat: ?
Overview: This open-seat race is competitive in name only. Democrats thought they finally had a chance in Tennessee in 2018 when popular former Governor Phil Bredesen ran in the open-seat Senate race against ultra-righ-winger Marsha Blackburn. Yet Bredesen lost by over 10%.
Wyoming:
Rating: Likely Republican hold
Republican: ? (incumbent Mike Enzi retiring)
Democrat: ?
Overview: (7/11/19) Another open-seat race competitive in name only. The sun may go red giant before the Democrats win a Senate race in Wyoming. The fact that not one of the Democrats being talked about for this nomination is a current office holder should tell you something.
Races unlikely to become competitive:
Arkansas: Republican Tom Cotton incumbent. Unbeatable.
Delaware: Democrat Chris Coons incumbent. The Republican party is no longer much of a competitor in Delaware.
Hawai'i: Democrat Brian Schatz incumbent. Unbeatable.
Idaho: Republican Jim Risch incumbent. Unbeatable.
Illinois: Democrat Dick Durbin incumbent. Unbeatable.
Louisiana: Republican Bill Cassidy incumbent. It's funny that Cassidy is the first Republican to hold this seat since reconstruction, because it's hard to imagine a Democrat ever winning here again.
Massachusetts: Democrat Ed Markey incumbent. Unbeatable.
Mississippi: Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith incumbent. Hyde-Smith just won a special election to this seat in 2018, and now that the voters have gotten used to her there's no chance the Democrats are going to make this one competitive.
Nebraska: Republican Ben Sasse incumbent. Sasse is a "moderate", in that he supports everything Trump does while criticizing him on Twitter. Democrats did worse than hoped in Nebraska in 2018, and I think it will be a long time before we win a statewide election there.
New Hampshire: Democrat: Jeanne Shaheen incumbent. New Hampshire is trending blue.
New Jersey: Democrat: Cory Booker incumbent. Unbeatable.
New Mexico: Democrat Tom Udall incumbent. Udall has avoided any controversies that would tend to bring his approval ratings down, and the Republican bench in New Mexico is so thin you practically can’t see it.
Oklahoma: Republican James Inhofe incumbent. Inhofe will be 86 years old. Can't we please, please be spared another six years of the man who calls climate change the, "greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people"?
Oregon: Democrat Jeff Merkley incumbent. The Oregon GOP is totally inept, and Trump unpopularity on the west coast isn't doing them any favors.
Rhode Island: Democrat Jack Reed incumbent. Blue-state Rhode Island is, if possible, becoming even more blue. Reed is one of the most popular, if least talked about, members of the Senate.
South Dakota: Republican Mike Rounds incumbent. Barring some kind of third-party candidacy that can take a lot of Republican votes from Rounds, I can't see a scenario where he loses.
Texas: Republican John Cornyn incumbent. Texas is slowly moving from red-state to purple-state, but Cornyn has little to worry about. As Republican Senators go, his crazy-quotient is fairly low.
Virginia: Democrat Mark Warner incumbent. Warner’s popularity makes him a good bet for another term, Virginia continues to trend blue.
West Virginia: Republican Shelley Moore Capito incumbent. Few West Virginians vote Democratic in Presidential election years.
Sunday, December 16, 2018
The Eclipse of American Democracy, Lucky Part Thirteen: Republican Sore-Loser Power Grabs
In an earlier post in this series, I discussed how in the mid-20th century, the nation of South Africa transformed from a country people thought of as a democracy (at least for whites) into a dictatorial, fascist junta supported by only a small fraction of the population. What happened in South Africa was not supposed to be a model for 21st-century America, but in the wake of November's elections several states dominated by Republicans are doing everything they can think of to continue to spite the will of the people.
One of my favorite observations on these recent developments comes from Jason Sattler in USA Today, "Republicans have given up on voters. America's future depends on whether Democrats can expand voting rights faster than the GOP can restrict them."
This is the thread that ties together everything I've discussed in this series on the many threats to America's democratic institutions. White, conservative Americans now see that in their lifetimes people of color will become a majority in this country, and they also see that the new multicultural majority is rejecting the neo-liberal politics of Ronald Reagan that seek to perpetually grow power for the wealthy while brutalizing the poor. And the old conservative white hegemony does not intend to let a little thing like democracy curtail their power.
Back to Jason Sattler for an overview of what Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan since Democrats were elected as the next Governors of those two states:
"The GOP’s smash-and-grab "lame duck" agenda in the Badger and Wolverine states has unfolded rapidly and is blatantly aimed at keeping the right’s rejected policies in place long after Democrats are sworn in. This sort of disdain for the will of voters is possible in large part due the scourge of partisan gerrymandering that's likely illegal.
These unfair electoral maps gave the GOP huge majorities in the Wisconsin and Michigan legislatures when the party barely carried the states in 2016. Last month those maps helped them keep control of both state legislatures, even as Democrats won statewide offices from governor on down."
The changes in the law just signed by defeated incumbent Governor Scott Walker weaken incoming Democratic Governor Tony Evers' ability to put in place rules that enact laws and shield the state jobs agency from his control. They also weaken the attorney general's office (voters elected a Democrat to that office too) and handcuff the ability of the incoming administration to implement the Affordable Care Act. The icing on the cake: Republicans also decided to limit early voting, of course. And Republicans in the state legislature have little to fear from the voters in term of possible backlash to their power grab; gerrymandering of state House districts locks most of them in for as long as they care to stay in office. In last month's election, Republicans held 63 of 99 seats despite Democratic candidates receiving 190,000 more votes statewide.
And say, what justifications have Wisconsin Republican suggested for these power grabs? Well, Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the Assembly said that in the past, "we made mistakes where we granted too much power to the executive." Yes, he's suddenly realized the Governor has too much power just as a Republican is about to be replaced by a Democrat. But it's all justified as, "We are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in."
Meanwhile, (back to Jason Sattler again):
"Republicans in Michigan, where I live, are also trying to deny Democrats elected to statewide constitutional offices the powers that their GOP predecessors took for granted. For instance, they’re trying to take away the secretary of state’s ability to enforce campaign finance laws after (Democrat) Jocelyn Benson was elected secretary of state on a platform of — you guessed it! — better oversight of campaign finance.
But that’s not nearly the most rotten thing going on in Michigan.
Faced with ballot initiatives that would have raised the minimum wage and established earned sick leave for all the state’s workers, Republicans instead passed both proposals last summer as a way to keep them off the ballot and make them easier to change. Now, surprise, they have amended those laws to deny the sick leave to 1 million workers, and slow the rise of the lowest acceptable wage to $12 by 2030 instead of 2022 and, for tipped workers, to $4.58 by 2030 instead of $12 by 2024."
Paul Krugman of the New York Times has also recently discussed how Wisconsin has become, "a state that may hold elections, but where elections don’t matter, because the ruling party retains control no matter what voters do." And he offers the significant observation that, "As far as I can tell, not a single prominent Republican in Washington has condemned the power grab in Wisconsin, the similar grab in Michigan, or even what looks like outright electoral fraud in North Carolina. Elected Republicans don’t just increasingly share the values of white nationalist parties like (Hungary's) Fidesz or Poland’s Law and Justice; they also share those parties’ contempt for democracy. The G.O.P. is an authoritarian party in waiting."
Krugman mentioned North Carolina. Yes, once again we turn to the state where Republicans seem most determined to destroy any semblance of democratic process. A new election is expected in the district in which Republican Mark Harris is credibly accused of hiring operatives who altered and illegally handled ballots.
But last month's election produced some good news regarding the continuing efforts of the Republican legislature to cement control of North Carolina despite the election of a Democratic governor last year. From Tierney Sneed of Talking Points Memo: "A Democrat beat the GOP incumbent for the state Supreme Court, after a failed Republican attempt to rig the election in favor of the incumbent judge. The GOP ballot initiatives that sought to usurp executive power from the Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper were defeated. Whether the GOP will maintain control of both legislative chambers is still too close to call. But it appears that the Republican super-majority— which has allowed the legislature to override Cooper’s vetoes — has been broken."
Finally a suggestion from Paul Krugman on how Democrats can take advantage of public disapproval of the sore-loser power grabs:
"If Democrats can offer a unifying indictment tying Republican attacks on democratic norms to Trump administration abuses, along with a coherent package of serious proposals to restore procedural fairness, voters will have a way of making sense of new examples of Republican sharp dealing. Proposals to shorten lame duck legislative sessions and to constrain their authority, for example, would reinforce the idea that Republicans have been the party of procedural abuses and unfairness while still setting forth a good neutral rule.
This is the alternative to doing nothing or making things worse: seek to punish Republicans in 2020 by offering a vision of how to make things better."
One of my favorite observations on these recent developments comes from Jason Sattler in USA Today, "Republicans have given up on voters. America's future depends on whether Democrats can expand voting rights faster than the GOP can restrict them."
This is the thread that ties together everything I've discussed in this series on the many threats to America's democratic institutions. White, conservative Americans now see that in their lifetimes people of color will become a majority in this country, and they also see that the new multicultural majority is rejecting the neo-liberal politics of Ronald Reagan that seek to perpetually grow power for the wealthy while brutalizing the poor. And the old conservative white hegemony does not intend to let a little thing like democracy curtail their power.
Back to Jason Sattler for an overview of what Republicans in Wisconsin and Michigan since Democrats were elected as the next Governors of those two states:
"The GOP’s smash-and-grab "lame duck" agenda in the Badger and Wolverine states has unfolded rapidly and is blatantly aimed at keeping the right’s rejected policies in place long after Democrats are sworn in. This sort of disdain for the will of voters is possible in large part due the scourge of partisan gerrymandering that's likely illegal.
These unfair electoral maps gave the GOP huge majorities in the Wisconsin and Michigan legislatures when the party barely carried the states in 2016. Last month those maps helped them keep control of both state legislatures, even as Democrats won statewide offices from governor on down."
The changes in the law just signed by defeated incumbent Governor Scott Walker weaken incoming Democratic Governor Tony Evers' ability to put in place rules that enact laws and shield the state jobs agency from his control. They also weaken the attorney general's office (voters elected a Democrat to that office too) and handcuff the ability of the incoming administration to implement the Affordable Care Act. The icing on the cake: Republicans also decided to limit early voting, of course. And Republicans in the state legislature have little to fear from the voters in term of possible backlash to their power grab; gerrymandering of state House districts locks most of them in for as long as they care to stay in office. In last month's election, Republicans held 63 of 99 seats despite Democratic candidates receiving 190,000 more votes statewide.
And say, what justifications have Wisconsin Republican suggested for these power grabs? Well, Robin Vos, the Republican speaker of the Assembly said that in the past, "we made mistakes where we granted too much power to the executive." Yes, he's suddenly realized the Governor has too much power just as a Republican is about to be replaced by a Democrat. But it's all justified as, "We are going to have a very liberal governor who is going to enact policies that are in direct contrast to what many of us believe in."
Meanwhile, (back to Jason Sattler again):
"Republicans in Michigan, where I live, are also trying to deny Democrats elected to statewide constitutional offices the powers that their GOP predecessors took for granted. For instance, they’re trying to take away the secretary of state’s ability to enforce campaign finance laws after (Democrat) Jocelyn Benson was elected secretary of state on a platform of — you guessed it! — better oversight of campaign finance.
But that’s not nearly the most rotten thing going on in Michigan.
Faced with ballot initiatives that would have raised the minimum wage and established earned sick leave for all the state’s workers, Republicans instead passed both proposals last summer as a way to keep them off the ballot and make them easier to change. Now, surprise, they have amended those laws to deny the sick leave to 1 million workers, and slow the rise of the lowest acceptable wage to $12 by 2030 instead of 2022 and, for tipped workers, to $4.58 by 2030 instead of $12 by 2024."
Paul Krugman of the New York Times has also recently discussed how Wisconsin has become, "a state that may hold elections, but where elections don’t matter, because the ruling party retains control no matter what voters do." And he offers the significant observation that, "As far as I can tell, not a single prominent Republican in Washington has condemned the power grab in Wisconsin, the similar grab in Michigan, or even what looks like outright electoral fraud in North Carolina. Elected Republicans don’t just increasingly share the values of white nationalist parties like (Hungary's) Fidesz or Poland’s Law and Justice; they also share those parties’ contempt for democracy. The G.O.P. is an authoritarian party in waiting."
Krugman mentioned North Carolina. Yes, once again we turn to the state where Republicans seem most determined to destroy any semblance of democratic process. A new election is expected in the district in which Republican Mark Harris is credibly accused of hiring operatives who altered and illegally handled ballots.
But last month's election produced some good news regarding the continuing efforts of the Republican legislature to cement control of North Carolina despite the election of a Democratic governor last year. From Tierney Sneed of Talking Points Memo: "A Democrat beat the GOP incumbent for the state Supreme Court, after a failed Republican attempt to rig the election in favor of the incumbent judge. The GOP ballot initiatives that sought to usurp executive power from the Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper were defeated. Whether the GOP will maintain control of both legislative chambers is still too close to call. But it appears that the Republican super-majority— which has allowed the legislature to override Cooper’s vetoes — has been broken."
Finally a suggestion from Paul Krugman on how Democrats can take advantage of public disapproval of the sore-loser power grabs:
"If Democrats can offer a unifying indictment tying Republican attacks on democratic norms to Trump administration abuses, along with a coherent package of serious proposals to restore procedural fairness, voters will have a way of making sense of new examples of Republican sharp dealing. Proposals to shorten lame duck legislative sessions and to constrain their authority, for example, would reinforce the idea that Republicans have been the party of procedural abuses and unfairness while still setting forth a good neutral rule.
This is the alternative to doing nothing or making things worse: seek to punish Republicans in 2020 by offering a vision of how to make things better."
Friday, November 23, 2018
The Eclipse of American Democracy, Part Twelve: Wisconsin and Organized Labor (Good Riddance Scott Walker!)
There was no victory sweeter in this month's midterm election than the defeat of Wisconsin's Republican Governor Scott Walker by Democrat Tony Evers. If you're unfamiliar with why Walker was possibly the Republican leader most reviled by Democrats after Donald Trump, here's a summary from Scott Bauer of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
While Scott Walker's revolution signed into law many things that Republicans wanted, those changes have not brought the prosperity that conservatives promised (surprise, surprise). I recommend this article from David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute for a comparison between Scott Walker's failed policies in Wisconsin contrasted with the more liberal path chosen by Minnesota. Cooper notes:
"Since the 2010 election of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Governor Mark Dayton in Minnesota, lawmakers in these two neighboring states have enacted vastly different policy agendas. Governor Walker and the Wisconsin state legislature have pursued a highly conservative agenda centered on cutting taxes, shrinking government, and weakening unions. In contrast, Minnesota under Governor Dayton has enacted a slate of progressive priorities: raising the minimum wage, strengthening safety net programs and labor standards, and boosting public investments in infrastructure and education, financed through higher taxes (largely on the wealthy)."
Cooper goes onto note that between 2010 and 2018 job growth and overall economic growth has been markedly stronger in Minnesota than in Wisconsin. Minnesota also saw faster wage growth, greater shrinkage in gender wage gaps, greater increase in median household income and greater reduction in poverty. Minnesotans are also more likely to have health insurance.
There's a lot more to be said about the mess that Scott Walker made in Wisconsin, but I want to focus on the way his agenda has increased corporate and conservative power at the expense of working people and the democratic process. Here's what I said about Walker five years ago in a post called, Cheat to Win: The Republican Strategy to Stay in Power:
---
Old joke: A corporate executive, a union representative and a worker are sitting at a table with a chocolate cake on it. The executive cuts the cake into 8 slices and takes 7 for himself. He then turns to the worker and says, "Watch out for that union guy, he'll try to steal your share of the cake."
In January of 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the case of Citizens United v Federal Election Commission that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. This of course has been a giant gift to Republicans, who as a result of the ruling have seen a veritable tidal wave of money pour into their coffers from corporations and billionaires. In 2010, the first election after the Citizens United Decision, the top four fundraising groups, all of whom were created to give money to Republicans, contributed $97.7 million. In distant fifth place was the Service Employees International Union, which raised $15.7 million for Democrats. Similar to the old joke above, Republicans look at this situation and think, "We've got to stop these union contributions to elections."
Here's an example. In 2011, new Republican Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker went to a great deal of trouble to destroy the union representing state employees. Walker claimed that busting the union would save the state money, but was ultimately forced to admit that it did not. So what's the scheme? Republican State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald did everyone the courtesy of explaining the real goals of the plan in plain language, "If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin."
---
Like so many right-to-work states, Wisconsin has increased corporate power at the expense of everyone else. This strategy is ultimately self-defeating; a consumer economy can't function when working people don't have money to spend. But the damage Scott Walker has done is far deeper than that. Walker has taken a page from George Orwell's 1984: It isn't enough to be louder than the opposition; the point is to eliminate the voices of resistance entirely. Today's Republican party has achieved new heights in endlessly lying about, well, everything. According to the Washington Post, President Trump lies an average of 7.6 times per day, on every subject from the economy to immigration to the Mueller investigation.
We may know in our minds that Trump is lying, but the more Republicans dominate the media and eliminate organized labor and other voices on the left, the more it becomes impossible to refute Trump's lies. Or as the character Winston Smith observed in the novel 1984,
"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’."
Wisconsin is also, again thanks to Scott Walker, on the cutting edge of voter suppression. In my next post I'll be covering some of the latest developments in the Republican scheme to keeping voters from exercising their franchise.
"Walker blew into office as part of a red
wave in the 2010 election, with Republicans capturing control of the
state Legislature at the same time. Together they enacted a host of
conservative reforms, chiefly taking away nearly all collective
bargaining power from teachers and other public workers as part of a
fight in 2011 that put Wisconsin at the forefront of a new war over
union rights.
That battle that drew
protests as large as 100,000 people spurred the 2012 recall, which
Walker won. It raised his national profile and laid the groundwork for
his presidential bid. Along the way, Walker signed laws making Wisconsin
a right-to-work state, enacting a 20-week abortion ban, passing a
concealed-carry law and scaling back a host of environmental regulations
that businesses opposed."
While Scott Walker's revolution signed into law many things that Republicans wanted, those changes have not brought the prosperity that conservatives promised (surprise, surprise). I recommend this article from David Cooper of the Economic Policy Institute for a comparison between Scott Walker's failed policies in Wisconsin contrasted with the more liberal path chosen by Minnesota. Cooper notes:
"Since the 2010 election of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin and Governor Mark Dayton in Minnesota, lawmakers in these two neighboring states have enacted vastly different policy agendas. Governor Walker and the Wisconsin state legislature have pursued a highly conservative agenda centered on cutting taxes, shrinking government, and weakening unions. In contrast, Minnesota under Governor Dayton has enacted a slate of progressive priorities: raising the minimum wage, strengthening safety net programs and labor standards, and boosting public investments in infrastructure and education, financed through higher taxes (largely on the wealthy)."
Cooper goes onto note that between 2010 and 2018 job growth and overall economic growth has been markedly stronger in Minnesota than in Wisconsin. Minnesota also saw faster wage growth, greater shrinkage in gender wage gaps, greater increase in median household income and greater reduction in poverty. Minnesotans are also more likely to have health insurance.
There's a lot more to be said about the mess that Scott Walker made in Wisconsin, but I want to focus on the way his agenda has increased corporate and conservative power at the expense of working people and the democratic process. Here's what I said about Walker five years ago in a post called, Cheat to Win: The Republican Strategy to Stay in Power:
---
Old joke: A corporate executive, a union representative and a worker are sitting at a table with a chocolate cake on it. The executive cuts the cake into 8 slices and takes 7 for himself. He then turns to the worker and says, "Watch out for that union guy, he'll try to steal your share of the cake."
In January of 2010, the US Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the case of Citizens United v Federal Election Commission that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections. This of course has been a giant gift to Republicans, who as a result of the ruling have seen a veritable tidal wave of money pour into their coffers from corporations and billionaires. In 2010, the first election after the Citizens United Decision, the top four fundraising groups, all of whom were created to give money to Republicans, contributed $97.7 million. In distant fifth place was the Service Employees International Union, which raised $15.7 million for Democrats. Similar to the old joke above, Republicans look at this situation and think, "We've got to stop these union contributions to elections."
Here's an example. In 2011, new Republican Governor of Wisconsin Scott Walker went to a great deal of trouble to destroy the union representing state employees. Walker claimed that busting the union would save the state money, but was ultimately forced to admit that it did not. So what's the scheme? Republican State Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald did everyone the courtesy of explaining the real goals of the plan in plain language, "If we win this battle, and the money is not there under the auspices of the unions, certainly what you’re going to find is President Obama is going to have a much difficult, much more difficult time getting elected and winning the state of Wisconsin."
---
Like so many right-to-work states, Wisconsin has increased corporate power at the expense of everyone else. This strategy is ultimately self-defeating; a consumer economy can't function when working people don't have money to spend. But the damage Scott Walker has done is far deeper than that. Walker has taken a page from George Orwell's 1984: It isn't enough to be louder than the opposition; the point is to eliminate the voices of resistance entirely. Today's Republican party has achieved new heights in endlessly lying about, well, everything. According to the Washington Post, President Trump lies an average of 7.6 times per day, on every subject from the economy to immigration to the Mueller investigation.
We may know in our minds that Trump is lying, but the more Republicans dominate the media and eliminate organized labor and other voices on the left, the more it becomes impossible to refute Trump's lies. Or as the character Winston Smith observed in the novel 1984,
"The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past,’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ‘Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ‘doublethink’."
Wisconsin is also, again thanks to Scott Walker, on the cutting edge of voter suppression. In my next post I'll be covering some of the latest developments in the Republican scheme to keeping voters from exercising their franchise.
Sunday, November 04, 2018
2018 Election Predictions
US Senate:
Current Senate: 51 R and 49 D
Prediction: 50 D and 50 R
Democrats to pick up AZ and NV. Republicans to pickup ND.
Notes: Democrats need a medium-size miracle to win one more Senate seat and the majority. It's possible that North Dakota, Tennessee or Texas will go blue but I'm not counting on it.
US House:
Current House: 240 R and 195 D
Prediction: 233 D and 202 R
Governor's Races:
Democrats to pickup: Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Republicans: No pickups from Democrats, but Alaska will flip from independent Republican to regular Republican.
* Georgia, currently Republican, will go to a runoff.
Notes: Democrats may also pickup Kansas but the odds are slightly against it. Good discussion of the gubernatorial races here.
State legislatures:
Democrats to pickup a bunch of state houses. Good discussion here.
Ballot Initiatives: Good discussion here.
Thanks for reading!
Current Senate: 51 R and 49 D
Prediction: 50 D and 50 R
Democrats to pick up AZ and NV. Republicans to pickup ND.
Notes: Democrats need a medium-size miracle to win one more Senate seat and the majority. It's possible that North Dakota, Tennessee or Texas will go blue but I'm not counting on it.
US House:
Current House: 240 R and 195 D
Prediction: 233 D and 202 R
Governor's Races:
Democrats to pickup: Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin.
Republicans: No pickups from Democrats, but Alaska will flip from independent Republican to regular Republican.
* Georgia, currently Republican, will go to a runoff.
Notes: Democrats may also pickup Kansas but the odds are slightly against it. Good discussion of the gubernatorial races here.
State legislatures:
Democrats to pickup a bunch of state houses. Good discussion here.
Ballot Initiatives: Good discussion here.
Thanks for reading!
Sunday, September 30, 2018
The Eclipse of American Democracy, Part Eleven: Open Partisanship in the Judicial System
President Trump and his Republican enablers are not shy about their goal of dismantling public institutions as we have long understood them. Consider Trump's communication style. Many folks would consider it inappropriate for the President to begin each day by firing off personal insults against people who disagree with him, including people he appointed to government positions. But according to Trump he's just being, "modern day Presidential." And many folks probably thought that in the 21st century, we would have Presidents that respect the tradition of America as the great melting pot, whereas instead we have an administration that will cheerfully remind you that it is openly white-supremacist and religiously bigoted.
Another way in which we live in a world turned upside down: This week, a man appeared at a job interview and told a number of falsehoods while at times yelling, crying, talking about his love of alcohol, suggesting he is targeted by conspiracy and threatening those who have doubted him. That man was Brett Kavanaugh, appearing before the US Senate he hopes will appoint him to the Supreme Court, and responding to allegations of sexual misconduct. From Benjamin Wallace-Wells of the New Yorker, "The line between judicial independence and partisan politics is thin, often illusory—a pretense, really, but rigorously preserved. This afternoon, that line disappeared entirely. Kavanaugh, "claimed the Democrats were seeking "revenge for the Clintons" and invoked the Bible: "You sowed the wind, now I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind."" Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina went further, issuing the threat, "Let me tell you, my Democratic friends. If this is the new norm, you better watch out for your nominees."
To digress for a moment, we need to ask: what is this dangerous precedent that Democrats are setting by suggesting that credible allegations of sexual misconduct be investigated before a man is appointed to an incredibly important lifetime position? From Anna North of Vox.com:
"The message of Kavanaugh’s threats was clear: If he wasn’t safe, then no one was. That message comes from a place of deep privilege. While women have never been safe when coming forward to report sexual misconduct, men like Kavanaugh — white, educated in the country’s most prestigious schools, groomed through high-profile jobs — have long been able to glide smoothly to the highest levels of our government and other arenas of power. That may still be true; the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation on Friday. But increasingly, these men are not safe from the testimony of women who come forward to share their stories."
Returning to the subject at hand: So then, gone are the days when candidates for federal and state Courts were not openly partisan. And gone are the days when the President might appoint a judge to the Supreme Court without being completely sure of his partisan leanings. Trump's candidates for the federal Courts are vetted and handpicked by the ultra-right-wing Federalist Society. These developments, as evidence by the Kavanaugh nomination, trouble legal scholars. From Matt Kwnong of CBC News:
"Sheldon Goldman was floored by what he heard. The Supreme Court expert with the University of Massachusetts Amherst saw Kavanaugh's aggressive style as a direct appeal to the party of Trump. "The support of the president, that's the name of the game," Goldman said. "It's short-term consideration to keep the support of the Republicans or the president, at the expense of public perception of him and of the court." Except that public perception is vital for the sanctity of a neutral Supreme Court, he said. "It matters to the extent that people will want to accept the court's ruling as legitimate," Goldman said. "And if the court is considered simply another political body, people are going to ask: Why should we insulate these lifetime appointments from politics when they're so heavily involved in politics?"
But once judges are appointed to lifetime positions, at least they can, and hopefully will, adjudicate the law in a non-partisan manner, right? Not if Republicans have their way. Republicans don't care about that old school textbook stuff, the separation of powers in government. Recently, they've discovered that, with legislative majorities locked in by gerrymandering, they can dismantle and remake the Courts at will, and turn them into a system of rubber-stamps for whatever Republicans want. Why didn't anyone think of this before?
In August, the Repubican-dominated state legislature in West Virginia came up with a most novel approach to removing the current judges on a state Supreme Court so that the Republican Governor can appoint new judges: impeach the entire Court. From Doug Criss of CNN:
"The West Virginia House of Delegates' impeachment of the justices on the state's Supreme Court of Appeals is an unprecedented move spurred by an escalating scandal in the state's judicial system. But West Virginia Democrats charge it's just a ploy by Republicans to put more conservative judges on the bench in the state's highest court.
The court's justices -- Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justices Allen Loughry, Robin Davis and Elizabeth Walker -- are accused of failing to carry out the court's administrative duties and wasteful spending during office renovations."
But let's not be too cynical - perhaps the charges in question are legitimate? Well, the impeachment trial is going on this week, and currently the Justices on trial are being quizzed on "wasteful spending" such are ordering pizza rather than eating in the Capitol cafeteria. High crimes and misdemeanors? So far I'm not seeing them here.
Pennsylvania Republicans have also threatened to impeach their state Supreme Court. Ironically, the threatened impeachment is over another brazen Republican power grab, that's state heavily-gerrymandered map designed to maximize the number of Republicans elected to the US House. The state Supreme Court threw out that map and gave lawmakers a chance to draw fairer lines, but the legislature failed to do so. The call for impeachment never gained traction, so this past June, (from the Associated Press) "Republicans brought forward another plan that could limit the lifespan of the court's Democratic majority: changing the state's constitution to elect appellate court judges in districts, rather than in statewide elections." "The bill passed the Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday (June 17), blindsiding Democrats who called it a scheme to gerrymander the courts."
Finally, if you've read earlier articles in this series, you won't be surprised to learn that North Carolina Republicans are trying to remake the Courts in that state. It seems no public institution is safe in the state where the Republican legislature (heavily protected by gerrymandering itself) tries to tweak the law on practically a daily basis to thwart democracy and maximize its advantage.
From an August 28 article by Mark Joseph Stern on Slate.com:
"The tumult over North Carolina’s upcoming state Supreme Court election began in 2017, when the GOP-controlled state legislature abolished judicial primaries. Republican Justice Barbara Jackson is running for reelection in November, and GOP legislators hoped to shield her from competition. At the same time, they assumed multiple Democrats would run against each other in the general election, splitting the progressive vote and giving Jackson a smooth path to victory.
"That didn’t happen. Instead, Democrats coalesced around a single candidate, civil rights lawyer Anita Earls. Jackson, on the other hand, drew a Republican challenger: Chris Anglin."
"So Republicans changed the rules. During a hastily called special session, GOP legislators passed a law to strip Anglin of his party affiliation on the ballot. Anglin sued, and a state court blocked the law as a violation of his due process and associational rights under the North Carolina constitution. Speaker of the House of Representatives Tim Moore and President Pro Tempore of the Senate Phil Berger appealed, but an appellate court unanimously declined to reverse the ruling. Rather than appeal to the state Supreme Court—where Democrats currently hold a 4–3 majority—Moore and Berger gave up."
---
Next time I'll be writing about the disaster that is Republican Scott Walker's administration in Wisconsin. Hopefully, I'll be writing about his defeat by Democrat Tony Evers. Keep your fingers crossed.
Another way in which we live in a world turned upside down: This week, a man appeared at a job interview and told a number of falsehoods while at times yelling, crying, talking about his love of alcohol, suggesting he is targeted by conspiracy and threatening those who have doubted him. That man was Brett Kavanaugh, appearing before the US Senate he hopes will appoint him to the Supreme Court, and responding to allegations of sexual misconduct. From Benjamin Wallace-Wells of the New Yorker, "The line between judicial independence and partisan politics is thin, often illusory—a pretense, really, but rigorously preserved. This afternoon, that line disappeared entirely. Kavanaugh, "claimed the Democrats were seeking "revenge for the Clintons" and invoked the Bible: "You sowed the wind, now I fear that the whole country will reap the whirlwind."" Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina went further, issuing the threat, "Let me tell you, my Democratic friends. If this is the new norm, you better watch out for your nominees."
To digress for a moment, we need to ask: what is this dangerous precedent that Democrats are setting by suggesting that credible allegations of sexual misconduct be investigated before a man is appointed to an incredibly important lifetime position? From Anna North of Vox.com:
"The message of Kavanaugh’s threats was clear: If he wasn’t safe, then no one was. That message comes from a place of deep privilege. While women have never been safe when coming forward to report sexual misconduct, men like Kavanaugh — white, educated in the country’s most prestigious schools, groomed through high-profile jobs — have long been able to glide smoothly to the highest levels of our government and other arenas of power. That may still be true; the Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation on Friday. But increasingly, these men are not safe from the testimony of women who come forward to share their stories."
Returning to the subject at hand: So then, gone are the days when candidates for federal and state Courts were not openly partisan. And gone are the days when the President might appoint a judge to the Supreme Court without being completely sure of his partisan leanings. Trump's candidates for the federal Courts are vetted and handpicked by the ultra-right-wing Federalist Society. These developments, as evidence by the Kavanaugh nomination, trouble legal scholars. From Matt Kwnong of CBC News:
"Sheldon Goldman was floored by what he heard. The Supreme Court expert with the University of Massachusetts Amherst saw Kavanaugh's aggressive style as a direct appeal to the party of Trump. "The support of the president, that's the name of the game," Goldman said. "It's short-term consideration to keep the support of the Republicans or the president, at the expense of public perception of him and of the court." Except that public perception is vital for the sanctity of a neutral Supreme Court, he said. "It matters to the extent that people will want to accept the court's ruling as legitimate," Goldman said. "And if the court is considered simply another political body, people are going to ask: Why should we insulate these lifetime appointments from politics when they're so heavily involved in politics?"
But once judges are appointed to lifetime positions, at least they can, and hopefully will, adjudicate the law in a non-partisan manner, right? Not if Republicans have their way. Republicans don't care about that old school textbook stuff, the separation of powers in government. Recently, they've discovered that, with legislative majorities locked in by gerrymandering, they can dismantle and remake the Courts at will, and turn them into a system of rubber-stamps for whatever Republicans want. Why didn't anyone think of this before?
In August, the Repubican-dominated state legislature in West Virginia came up with a most novel approach to removing the current judges on a state Supreme Court so that the Republican Governor can appoint new judges: impeach the entire Court. From Doug Criss of CNN:
"The West Virginia House of Delegates' impeachment of the justices on the state's Supreme Court of Appeals is an unprecedented move spurred by an escalating scandal in the state's judicial system. But West Virginia Democrats charge it's just a ploy by Republicans to put more conservative judges on the bench in the state's highest court.
The court's justices -- Chief Justice Margaret Workman and Justices Allen Loughry, Robin Davis and Elizabeth Walker -- are accused of failing to carry out the court's administrative duties and wasteful spending during office renovations."
But let's not be too cynical - perhaps the charges in question are legitimate? Well, the impeachment trial is going on this week, and currently the Justices on trial are being quizzed on "wasteful spending" such are ordering pizza rather than eating in the Capitol cafeteria. High crimes and misdemeanors? So far I'm not seeing them here.
Pennsylvania Republicans have also threatened to impeach their state Supreme Court. Ironically, the threatened impeachment is over another brazen Republican power grab, that's state heavily-gerrymandered map designed to maximize the number of Republicans elected to the US House. The state Supreme Court threw out that map and gave lawmakers a chance to draw fairer lines, but the legislature failed to do so. The call for impeachment never gained traction, so this past June, (from the Associated Press) "Republicans brought forward another plan that could limit the lifespan of the court's Democratic majority: changing the state's constitution to elect appellate court judges in districts, rather than in statewide elections." "The bill passed the Republican-controlled Senate on Wednesday (June 17), blindsiding Democrats who called it a scheme to gerrymander the courts."
Finally, if you've read earlier articles in this series, you won't be surprised to learn that North Carolina Republicans are trying to remake the Courts in that state. It seems no public institution is safe in the state where the Republican legislature (heavily protected by gerrymandering itself) tries to tweak the law on practically a daily basis to thwart democracy and maximize its advantage.
From an August 28 article by Mark Joseph Stern on Slate.com:
"The tumult over North Carolina’s upcoming state Supreme Court election began in 2017, when the GOP-controlled state legislature abolished judicial primaries. Republican Justice Barbara Jackson is running for reelection in November, and GOP legislators hoped to shield her from competition. At the same time, they assumed multiple Democrats would run against each other in the general election, splitting the progressive vote and giving Jackson a smooth path to victory.
"That didn’t happen. Instead, Democrats coalesced around a single candidate, civil rights lawyer Anita Earls. Jackson, on the other hand, drew a Republican challenger: Chris Anglin."
"So Republicans changed the rules. During a hastily called special session, GOP legislators passed a law to strip Anglin of his party affiliation on the ballot. Anglin sued, and a state court blocked the law as a violation of his due process and associational rights under the North Carolina constitution. Speaker of the House of Representatives Tim Moore and President Pro Tempore of the Senate Phil Berger appealed, but an appellate court unanimously declined to reverse the ruling. Rather than appeal to the state Supreme Court—where Democrats currently hold a 4–3 majority—Moore and Berger gave up."
---
Next time I'll be writing about the disaster that is Republican Scott Walker's administration in Wisconsin. Hopefully, I'll be writing about his defeat by Democrat Tony Evers. Keep your fingers crossed.
Sunday, July 29, 2018
The Eclipse of American Democracy, Part Ten: Republican Autocracy in Michigan and the Poisoned People of Flint
"In a glorious way that makes it easier to cram ALL of the Dem garbage in Wayne, Washtenaw, Oakland and Macomb counties into only four districts. Is there anyone on our side who doesn’t recognize that dynamic?" - Michigan Republican congressional aide Jack Daly, in a 2011 email describing the Republican strategy to solidify control of most of Michigan's congressional seats.
When the Republican state legislature redrew the state's 14 US House seats in 2011, it gave the work of drawing new borders to the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and other consultants. Publicly, the Chamber says it only seeks fairness and doesn’t support gerrymandering. Privately of course, it cheerfully assures Republicans, "We’ve spent a lot of time providing options to ensure we have a solid 9-5 delegation in 2012 and beyond." And the Republican party's State Leadership Committee isn't at all shy about boasting of their ability to gerrymander, noting, "Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress." It should also be noted that the state legislature itself is heavily gerrymandered, with large Republican majorities elected in 2012 despite despite the fact that voters preferred Democratic state legislative candidates over Republicans by an 8-point spread that year.
This is nothing we haven't seen in other Republican-led states. In Michigan however, stealing control of the state legislature and the state's congressional majority was not nearly enough for Republicans. In recent years Michigan Republicans have gone a long way towards concentrating unprecedented power in the hands of the state's Governor. And they've done so in a way that is deeply racist (surprise, surprise). From staff blogger Stephen Wolf of Daily Kos,
"Republicans therefore concocted a scheme to circumvent elected local governments by having the state appoint so-called "emergency managers" to take control of local financial decisions. It was a perfect display of cynicism: Republicans in the state capital have spent years starving Detroit and other cities financially, thus paving the way for these emergency managers to swoop in and undermine pensions, promote education privatization, and dismantle public services.
The emergency manager law proved so unpopular that Michigan voters repealed it at the ballot in 2012. In response, Republicans, with their gerrymander-protected majorities, simply passed the law a second time, and added a small fiscal appropriation that rendered it immune from a ballot-box veto. (Spending laws can’t be overturned by voters via referendum.) And that’s not the only case where Republicans have over-ridden the the public’s will: They recently passed—again, with a fig-leaf appropriation—a repeal of straight-ticket voting that would likely lengthen voting lines in urban, heavily minority precincts. Guess what? Voters had previously rejected precisely such an effort at the ballot box, just as they did with emergency managers.
So what do these anti-democratic measures have to do with Flint’s current crisis, where lead has poisoned children and made tap water unusable for 100,000 people? It turns out that (Republican Governor) Snyder’s government had installed an emergency manager to usurp Flint’s fiscal policy authority. At the state’s direction, that emergency manager made the decision to switch from Detroit’s water system to contaminated Flint River water, even though the move would not save money. Instead, it would help undermine Detroit’s water system and pave the way toward its eventual privatization."
The Michigan Civil Rights Commission concluded in 2017 that the emergency manager law is intrinsically discriminatory, and that it deepens the disparity between poor urban and affluent suburban communities. The Commission said, "If you live in Michigan, there is a 10 percent chance that you have lived under emergency management since 2009. But if you are a black Michigander, the odds are 50/50," "In short, the EM law as applied far too often addresses the problems of already financially stricken governments in second-class communities, segregated based on race, wealth and opportunity, by appointing an emergency manager whose toolbox is filled with short term solutions that are contrary to the long term interests of the people living there."
Despite all this, there's hope for a better future. Merrit Kennedy of NPR noted in late 2016, "Michigan's attorney general has announced felony charges against two former emergency managers of Flint, Mich., and two other former city officials. The charges are linked to the city's disastrous decision to switch water sources, ultimately resulting in widespread and dangerous lead contamination." Current polls also show that Democrat Gretchen Whitmer has a strong chance of being elected Governor this year. I wonder how Republican-dominated areas in Michigan feel about a new Governor abolishing home rule in their towns in favor of "emergency managers"?
When the Republican state legislature redrew the state's 14 US House seats in 2011, it gave the work of drawing new borders to the Michigan Chamber of Commerce and other consultants. Publicly, the Chamber says it only seeks fairness and doesn’t support gerrymandering. Privately of course, it cheerfully assures Republicans, "We’ve spent a lot of time providing options to ensure we have a solid 9-5 delegation in 2012 and beyond." And the Republican party's State Leadership Committee isn't at all shy about boasting of their ability to gerrymander, noting, "Michiganders cast over 240,000 more votes for Democratic congressional candidates than Republicans, but still elected a 9-5 Republican delegation to Congress." It should also be noted that the state legislature itself is heavily gerrymandered, with large Republican majorities elected in 2012 despite despite the fact that voters preferred Democratic state legislative candidates over Republicans by an 8-point spread that year.
This is nothing we haven't seen in other Republican-led states. In Michigan however, stealing control of the state legislature and the state's congressional majority was not nearly enough for Republicans. In recent years Michigan Republicans have gone a long way towards concentrating unprecedented power in the hands of the state's Governor. And they've done so in a way that is deeply racist (surprise, surprise). From staff blogger Stephen Wolf of Daily Kos,
"Republicans therefore concocted a scheme to circumvent elected local governments by having the state appoint so-called "emergency managers" to take control of local financial decisions. It was a perfect display of cynicism: Republicans in the state capital have spent years starving Detroit and other cities financially, thus paving the way for these emergency managers to swoop in and undermine pensions, promote education privatization, and dismantle public services.
The emergency manager law proved so unpopular that Michigan voters repealed it at the ballot in 2012. In response, Republicans, with their gerrymander-protected majorities, simply passed the law a second time, and added a small fiscal appropriation that rendered it immune from a ballot-box veto. (Spending laws can’t be overturned by voters via referendum.) And that’s not the only case where Republicans have over-ridden the the public’s will: They recently passed—again, with a fig-leaf appropriation—a repeal of straight-ticket voting that would likely lengthen voting lines in urban, heavily minority precincts. Guess what? Voters had previously rejected precisely such an effort at the ballot box, just as they did with emergency managers.
So what do these anti-democratic measures have to do with Flint’s current crisis, where lead has poisoned children and made tap water unusable for 100,000 people? It turns out that (Republican Governor) Snyder’s government had installed an emergency manager to usurp Flint’s fiscal policy authority. At the state’s direction, that emergency manager made the decision to switch from Detroit’s water system to contaminated Flint River water, even though the move would not save money. Instead, it would help undermine Detroit’s water system and pave the way toward its eventual privatization."
The Michigan Civil Rights Commission concluded in 2017 that the emergency manager law is intrinsically discriminatory, and that it deepens the disparity between poor urban and affluent suburban communities. The Commission said, "If you live in Michigan, there is a 10 percent chance that you have lived under emergency management since 2009. But if you are a black Michigander, the odds are 50/50," "In short, the EM law as applied far too often addresses the problems of already financially stricken governments in second-class communities, segregated based on race, wealth and opportunity, by appointing an emergency manager whose toolbox is filled with short term solutions that are contrary to the long term interests of the people living there."
Despite all this, there's hope for a better future. Merrit Kennedy of NPR noted in late 2016, "Michigan's attorney general has announced felony charges against two former emergency managers of Flint, Mich., and two other former city officials. The charges are linked to the city's disastrous decision to switch water sources, ultimately resulting in widespread and dangerous lead contamination." Current polls also show that Democrat Gretchen Whitmer has a strong chance of being elected Governor this year. I wonder how Republican-dominated areas in Michigan feel about a new Governor abolishing home rule in their towns in favor of "emergency managers"?
Wednesday, July 18, 2018
The Eclipse of American Democracy, Part Nine: Republican Tyranny in North Carolina
When it comes to destroying Democratic institutions, nobody does it quite like North Carolina Republicans. Gerrymandering, racist voter ID laws, closing the polling places - sure, Republicans are doing all that in the Tarheel state, but they're bringing so much more to the game.
From a Time magazine article by Wendy Weiser and Daniel Weiner called, Democracy in North Carolina Could Disappear. Is Your State Next?:
In 2016, "the incumbent Republican Governor lost his reelection bid to Democrat Roy Cooper. Then things turned ugly. Seventeen days before Cooper was to take office, the Republican-dominated legislature passed a package of sweeping changes designed to limit his authority, which the outgoing Republican governor signed into law. The centerpiece of this effort was a plan to ensure continued Republican dominance of powerful state and county boards of elections, which are responsible for running elections in the state and have been controlled by appointees from the Governor’s party for more than a century. (The original law was struck down by a state court in March but then reenacted over Cooper’s veto with only minor changes.)
The new law extends the tenure — indefinitely, for all intents and purposes — of the sitting Republican-appointed Executive Director of the State Board of Elections, North Carolina’s leading election official. She would otherwise have been supplanted by a new Democratic appointee. The law also awards half the seats on state and local election boards to Republicans, which allows them to block any changes to voting rules adopted by the previous Republican-controlled bodies. The law even says Republicans get to chair all election boards during every crucial election year when the President, Governor and all statewide officials are on the ballot.
These changes leave little doubt as to who would really be in charge of North Carolina’s election process — and that is the point. Some legislative leaders openly admitted that one of their main goals of the election board law was to keep Republicans in power."
So in other words, because a Democrat managed to get elected Governor, the Republican sate legislature changed the laws to keep other Republicans in power, and they weren't shy about it. Nor have Republicans limited recent changes to the powers delegated to the Governor to elections boards. They also passed a law that requires that all cabinet appointments be approved by the legislature and that limits the number of state employees the governor can hire and fire to 425. The old limit was 1,500 and was increased from 400 around the time Republican Gov. Pat McCrory took office. Yes, the Republican legislature will cheerfully increase the Governor's powers when a Republican takes over from a Democrat, they reduce them again when another Democrat wins the office.
What else have North Carolina Republicans been up to? How about:
* A 2013 law that made cuts to early voting, created a photo ID requirement and eliminated same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting and preregistration of high school students. North Carolina legislators had requested data on voting patterns by race and, with that data in hand, drafted a law that would "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision," according to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
* Gerrymandering so severe that Republicans control 10 of North Carolina's 13 US House seats despite the fact the state splits its vote nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats in Presidential elections.
* Packing the courts. From Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "The GOP attack on the courts began in 2013, when the legislature ended public financing for judicial elections, which had helped elect more minority and women judges. These efforts accelerated after liberal judges gained a 4-3 majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2016. The legislature promptly changed the judicial election system by requiring candidates to represent a political party, the first time a state has moved from nonpartisan to partisan judicial elections since 1921. Republicans reasoned that having to identify as a Democrat would make it harder for liberal judges to win in a GOP-leaning state. The legislature then canceled judicial primaries, giving incumbents (who were mostly Republicans) an advantage due to their name recognition in races where voters were asked to choose among many candidates." Paul Blest of vice.com also notes: "The legislature has passed a number of laws in recent years aimed at limiting the power of the courts, including one (over Cooper’s veto) that phased out three seats on the Court of Appeals, preventing Cooper from making any new appointments in the case of a retirement."
Some good news, over the past two years the courts have not looked kindly on the Republican power grab. The 2013 voter ID law was thrown out by federal courts, and a federal panel has also thrown out the state's congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander (although the US Supreme Court has put this ruling on hold). A North Carolina court blocked much of the law limiting the Governor's powers of appointment, and another state court blocked the changes to elections boards.
So how are North Carolina Republicans reacting to these judicial rulings? By trying to get rid of the judges responsible, of course. From the Ari Berman article linked above, "Now the legislature has embarked on an unprecedented plan to transform the state’s courts by gerrymandering judicial maps to elect more Republican judges, preventing (Governor) Cooper from making key judicial appointments, and seeking to get rid of judicial elections altogether."
Next time we'll look at Michigan, where Republicans have come up with some novel ways to disenfranchise folks that we haven't discussed yet.
From a Time magazine article by Wendy Weiser and Daniel Weiner called, Democracy in North Carolina Could Disappear. Is Your State Next?:
In 2016, "the incumbent Republican Governor lost his reelection bid to Democrat Roy Cooper. Then things turned ugly. Seventeen days before Cooper was to take office, the Republican-dominated legislature passed a package of sweeping changes designed to limit his authority, which the outgoing Republican governor signed into law. The centerpiece of this effort was a plan to ensure continued Republican dominance of powerful state and county boards of elections, which are responsible for running elections in the state and have been controlled by appointees from the Governor’s party for more than a century. (The original law was struck down by a state court in March but then reenacted over Cooper’s veto with only minor changes.)
The new law extends the tenure — indefinitely, for all intents and purposes — of the sitting Republican-appointed Executive Director of the State Board of Elections, North Carolina’s leading election official. She would otherwise have been supplanted by a new Democratic appointee. The law also awards half the seats on state and local election boards to Republicans, which allows them to block any changes to voting rules adopted by the previous Republican-controlled bodies. The law even says Republicans get to chair all election boards during every crucial election year when the President, Governor and all statewide officials are on the ballot.
These changes leave little doubt as to who would really be in charge of North Carolina’s election process — and that is the point. Some legislative leaders openly admitted that one of their main goals of the election board law was to keep Republicans in power."
So in other words, because a Democrat managed to get elected Governor, the Republican sate legislature changed the laws to keep other Republicans in power, and they weren't shy about it. Nor have Republicans limited recent changes to the powers delegated to the Governor to elections boards. They also passed a law that requires that all cabinet appointments be approved by the legislature and that limits the number of state employees the governor can hire and fire to 425. The old limit was 1,500 and was increased from 400 around the time Republican Gov. Pat McCrory took office. Yes, the Republican legislature will cheerfully increase the Governor's powers when a Republican takes over from a Democrat, they reduce them again when another Democrat wins the office.
What else have North Carolina Republicans been up to? How about:
* A 2013 law that made cuts to early voting, created a photo ID requirement and eliminated same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting and preregistration of high school students. North Carolina legislators had requested data on voting patterns by race and, with that data in hand, drafted a law that would "target African-Americans with almost surgical precision," according to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
* Gerrymandering so severe that Republicans control 10 of North Carolina's 13 US House seats despite the fact the state splits its vote nearly evenly between Republicans and Democrats in Presidential elections.
* Packing the courts. From Ari Berman of Mother Jones: "The GOP attack on the courts began in 2013, when the legislature ended public financing for judicial elections, which had helped elect more minority and women judges. These efforts accelerated after liberal judges gained a 4-3 majority on the North Carolina Supreme Court in 2016. The legislature promptly changed the judicial election system by requiring candidates to represent a political party, the first time a state has moved from nonpartisan to partisan judicial elections since 1921. Republicans reasoned that having to identify as a Democrat would make it harder for liberal judges to win in a GOP-leaning state. The legislature then canceled judicial primaries, giving incumbents (who were mostly Republicans) an advantage due to their name recognition in races where voters were asked to choose among many candidates." Paul Blest of vice.com also notes: "The legislature has passed a number of laws in recent years aimed at limiting the power of the courts, including one (over Cooper’s veto) that phased out three seats on the Court of Appeals, preventing Cooper from making any new appointments in the case of a retirement."
Some good news, over the past two years the courts have not looked kindly on the Republican power grab. The 2013 voter ID law was thrown out by federal courts, and a federal panel has also thrown out the state's congressional map as an illegal racial gerrymander (although the US Supreme Court has put this ruling on hold). A North Carolina court blocked much of the law limiting the Governor's powers of appointment, and another state court blocked the changes to elections boards.
So how are North Carolina Republicans reacting to these judicial rulings? By trying to get rid of the judges responsible, of course. From the Ari Berman article linked above, "Now the legislature has embarked on an unprecedented plan to transform the state’s courts by gerrymandering judicial maps to elect more Republican judges, preventing (Governor) Cooper from making key judicial appointments, and seeking to get rid of judicial elections altogether."
Next time we'll look at Michigan, where Republicans have come up with some novel ways to disenfranchise folks that we haven't discussed yet.
Tuesday, June 12, 2018
The Eclipse of American Democracy, Part Eight: Republicans Closing Polling Places
Another headline that encapsulates a big problem in just a few words:
"GOPer opposes early voting because it will boost black turnout"
The headline refers to Georgia state Representative Fran Millar, who according to Zachary Roth of msnbc.com as linked above, "opposes new Sunday voting hours because they’ll primarily benefit African-Americans—then explaining that he simply "would prefer more educated voters." Millar is saying blacks are uneducated? Effectively yes. But he and other Republicans have created a torturous framework of faux-logic around the idea of ending early voting. This allows them to appear (in their own minds at least) to not be highly partisan and racist. You see, according to the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA), "When a voter in an early voting state casts his or her ballot weeks before Election Day, they’re putting convenience over thoughtful deliberation." Sure, because you can't possibly know a couple of weeks before election day that Donald Trump is an insane racist; you have to research that all the way to election day before you can cast an informed ballot.
Plenty of Republicans and conservatives however will be glad to tell you that they want to reduce the timeframe in which folks can vote because they don't like Democrats. Their justification is... well, I'm not sure really. All's fair in love, war and politics? Consider remarks made the late conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly in 2013, as analyzed by Jamelle Bouie of the Daily Beast:
"Here’s Schlafly: "The reduction in the number of days allowed for early voting is particularly important because early voting plays a major role in Obama’s ground game. The Democrats carried most states that allow many days of early voting, and Obama’s national field director admitted, shortly before last year’s election, that "early voting is giving us a solid lead in the battleground states that will decide this election."""
"The Obama technocrats have developed an efficient system of identifying prospective Obama voters and then nagging them (some might say harassing them) until they actually vote. It may take several days to accomplish this, so early voting is an essential component of the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote campaign."
"She later adds that early voting "violates the spirit of the Constitution" and facilitates "illegal votes" that "cancel out the votes of honest Americans." I’m not sure what she means by "illegal votes," but it sounds an awful lot like voting by Democratic constituencies: students, low-income people, and minorities."
As of 2018, Georgia Republicans are still trying to reduce the timeframe in which the polls are open. Democrats fortunately managed to defeat Senate Bill 363, which would have forced Atlanta’s polls to close at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. and would have allowed voting in advance of Election Day on only one Saturday or Sunday. OK, so why is this bill needed exactly? From Mark Niesse of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Republicans complained that (early voting) gave an advantage to Democratic areas, where African-American churches could help drive turnout."
But hey, why debate what hours polling places will be open when you can just get rid of them in minority areas? In 2013 the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 vote (surprise, surprise) gutted the Voting Rights Act, freeing nine states, mostly in the South where discrimination of minorities had historically occurred. This allowed those states for the first time in decades to change their election laws without advance federal approval. These same states of course wasted no time in making it harder for the poor and minorities to vote. From Ari Berman of the Nation: "The Leadership Conference for Civil Rights surveyed 381 of the 800 counties previously covered by Section 5 where polling place information was available in 2012 or 2014 and found there are 868 fewer places to cast a ballot in 2016 in these areas."
Berman notes that in the 2016 March primary voters waited five hours or more to cast a ballot, and that the closing of polling places in Arizona has occurred most heavily in minority areas that tend to vote Democratic:
"The lines were so long because Republican election officials in Phoenix’s Maricopa County, the largest in the state, reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent from 2012 to 2016, from 200 to just 60—one polling place per 21,000 registered voters."
"Tucson’s Pima County—the second largest in the state, which is 35 percent Latino and leans Democratic—"is the nation’s biggest closer of polling places," from 280 in 2012 to 218 in 2016."
"Many of these counties have been hot spots for voting discrimination. Cochise County, on the Mexico border, which is 30 percent Latino, was sued by the Justice Department in 2006 failing to print election materials in Spanish or have Spanish-speaking poll workers, in violation of the VRA. Today, the county "is the nation’s biggest closer by percentage," having shuttered 63 percent of its voting locations since Shelby. There will be only 18 polling places for 130,000 residents in 2016, down from 49 polling places in 2012."
According to a recent study from MIT, nationwide white voters have the shortest waits to vote at their polling place, followed by Latinos, followed by black Americans.
In my next post I'll have a special shout-out to the state to the state that's worked to hardest to disenfranchise everyone who doesn't usually vote Republican: North Carolina.
"GOPer opposes early voting because it will boost black turnout"
The headline refers to Georgia state Representative Fran Millar, who according to Zachary Roth of msnbc.com as linked above, "opposes new Sunday voting hours because they’ll primarily benefit African-Americans—then explaining that he simply "would prefer more educated voters." Millar is saying blacks are uneducated? Effectively yes. But he and other Republicans have created a torturous framework of faux-logic around the idea of ending early voting. This allows them to appear (in their own minds at least) to not be highly partisan and racist. You see, according to the Republican National Lawyers Association (RNLA), "When a voter in an early voting state casts his or her ballot weeks before Election Day, they’re putting convenience over thoughtful deliberation." Sure, because you can't possibly know a couple of weeks before election day that Donald Trump is an insane racist; you have to research that all the way to election day before you can cast an informed ballot.
Plenty of Republicans and conservatives however will be glad to tell you that they want to reduce the timeframe in which folks can vote because they don't like Democrats. Their justification is... well, I'm not sure really. All's fair in love, war and politics? Consider remarks made the late conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly in 2013, as analyzed by Jamelle Bouie of the Daily Beast:
"Here’s Schlafly: "The reduction in the number of days allowed for early voting is particularly important because early voting plays a major role in Obama’s ground game. The Democrats carried most states that allow many days of early voting, and Obama’s national field director admitted, shortly before last year’s election, that "early voting is giving us a solid lead in the battleground states that will decide this election."""
"The Obama technocrats have developed an efficient system of identifying prospective Obama voters and then nagging them (some might say harassing them) until they actually vote. It may take several days to accomplish this, so early voting is an essential component of the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote campaign."
"She later adds that early voting "violates the spirit of the Constitution" and facilitates "illegal votes" that "cancel out the votes of honest Americans." I’m not sure what she means by "illegal votes," but it sounds an awful lot like voting by Democratic constituencies: students, low-income people, and minorities."
As of 2018, Georgia Republicans are still trying to reduce the timeframe in which the polls are open. Democrats fortunately managed to defeat Senate Bill 363, which would have forced Atlanta’s polls to close at 7 p.m. instead of 8 p.m. and would have allowed voting in advance of Election Day on only one Saturday or Sunday. OK, so why is this bill needed exactly? From Mark Niesse of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "Republicans complained that (early voting) gave an advantage to Democratic areas, where African-American churches could help drive turnout."
But hey, why debate what hours polling places will be open when you can just get rid of them in minority areas? In 2013 the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 vote (surprise, surprise) gutted the Voting Rights Act, freeing nine states, mostly in the South where discrimination of minorities had historically occurred. This allowed those states for the first time in decades to change their election laws without advance federal approval. These same states of course wasted no time in making it harder for the poor and minorities to vote. From Ari Berman of the Nation: "The Leadership Conference for Civil Rights surveyed 381 of the 800 counties previously covered by Section 5 where polling place information was available in 2012 or 2014 and found there are 868 fewer places to cast a ballot in 2016 in these areas."
Berman notes that in the 2016 March primary voters waited five hours or more to cast a ballot, and that the closing of polling places in Arizona has occurred most heavily in minority areas that tend to vote Democratic:
"The lines were so long because Republican election officials in Phoenix’s Maricopa County, the largest in the state, reduced the number of polling places by 70 percent from 2012 to 2016, from 200 to just 60—one polling place per 21,000 registered voters."
"Tucson’s Pima County—the second largest in the state, which is 35 percent Latino and leans Democratic—"is the nation’s biggest closer of polling places," from 280 in 2012 to 218 in 2016."
"Many of these counties have been hot spots for voting discrimination. Cochise County, on the Mexico border, which is 30 percent Latino, was sued by the Justice Department in 2006 failing to print election materials in Spanish or have Spanish-speaking poll workers, in violation of the VRA. Today, the county "is the nation’s biggest closer by percentage," having shuttered 63 percent of its voting locations since Shelby. There will be only 18 polling places for 130,000 residents in 2016, down from 49 polling places in 2012."
According to a recent study from MIT, nationwide white voters have the shortest waits to vote at their polling place, followed by Latinos, followed by black Americans.
In my next post I'll have a special shout-out to the state to the state that's worked to hardest to disenfranchise everyone who doesn't usually vote Republican: North Carolina.
Sunday, June 03, 2018
The Eclipse of American Democracy, Part Seven: Kris Kobach and Other Bad People
If there is one person in America besides Donald Trump who deserves his own article in a series about destroying democracy, it's Kris Kobach. Mister Kobach is the Secretary of State of Kansas, and was until recently vice chair of President Trump’s Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity.
I had sat down prepared to research and write a complete history of the trail of slime Kris Kobach has extruded over the country for the past few years, but as is often the case on the subject of politics, someone has already written that article for me. I urge you to read Kris Kobach is a Loser by Mark Joseph Stern of slate.com.
To summarize, upon his election in Kansas Mr. Kobach began a sustained campaign to convince America that vast numbers of people are voting fraudulently and that the country needs stricter voter ID laws. He got his voter ID law in Kansas all right, but his war on voters failed to identify any fraud. Never mind that, he's just the guy Donald Trump needed for a "Commission on Election Integrity" given that Trump believes that "millions" voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. Again Kobach failed miserably to identify any voter fraud. Then, (from the March, 2018 article linked above,) "Kobach limped home to Kansas to prepare for a bench trial over his proof-of-citizenship law. That trial, which began earlier this month and is ongoing, has been an unmitigated disaster for Kobach—a merciless rebuke of his professional life’s work. The trouble actually began well before the trial started, when a federal judge fined Kobach $1,000 in June for making "patently misleading representations to the court" about a document he’d taken to his initial meeting with Trump, one that proposed eviscerating a federal voting rights law." The author concludes, "Kobach’s national crusade against the phantom threat of voter fraud quickly collapsed under the weight of his own arrogance."
So has Kobach actually done more harm than good for the Republican case against "voter fraud"? Depends on how you look at it. As Republican strategist Karl Rove has pointed out, Republicans are no longer part of the "reality-based community". Do cigarettes cause cancer? We don't know; there's only a "controversy". Is the evolution of species a fact? How about global warming? Well, those elitist atheistic scientists say one thing, but who listens to them? So it goes with voter fraud. Donald Trump and Kris Kobach say one thing, and everyone else may say the opposite, but for the media and many Americans the only question is whom do they trust more, and who appears to be winning the argument.
For a few Americans, it must be noted, Kris Kobach and others like him really are a personal nightmare. That's because in their zealous campaign to prove that there is some "voter fraud" somewhere, Kobach and others have ruthlessly prosecuted people who have made innocent mistakes in attempting to vote. Kobach has pressed charges against several senior citizens who thought they could vote on local issues in each of the states where they owned homes. Interestingly, all but one of Kobach's cases have been filed against Republicans; remember, this entire campaign is based on the idea that Democrats are the ones voting illegally.
Pity poor Crystal Mason of Tarrant County, Texas. Ms. Mason voted in the 2016 presidential election while she was on supervised release from a 2011 fraud conviction. Although she was never made aware that she was not eligible to vote, a judge has sentenced her to five years in prison. I wonder how many people who are eligible vote but have past criminal convictions will look at cases like Crystal Mason's and become afraid to vote themselves. And I suspect that's exactly what Republicans hope will happen. People of color are more likely to have past criminal convictions that whites, and race certainly plays a factor in formal challenges to the right to vote in America. A Caltech/MIT study found that minority voters are more frequently questioned about ID than are white voters.
Here's another way to stop the poor and minorities from voting. In North Carolina, some Republicans with too much time on their hands have been challenging the voter registrations of black Democrats. In 2016, Grace Bell Hardison, a 100-year-old African-American woman, was informed that her voter-registration status had been challenged by Republicans because a piece of mail sent to her home address had been returned as undeliverable. Ms. Hardison normally receives mail at a PO Box. The NAACP has stated that the voter purge that targeted Hardison violates the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits the mass removal of voters from the rolls within the 90 days prior to the election. "These purges have a long history of being racial and inaccurate," says Penda Hair, a lawyer for the North Carolina NAACP.
All of these efforts have the same goal: to reduce Democratic turnout. Shortly before the 2016 election, Joshua Green and Sasha Issenberg of Bloomberg visited the Trump campaign and learned that, "Instead of expanding the electorate, (campaign chief executive Steve) Bannon and his team are trying to shrink it. "We have three major voter suppression operations under way," says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans."
Thank you, Mister Trump campaign guy, your candor is refreshing.
I had sat down prepared to research and write a complete history of the trail of slime Kris Kobach has extruded over the country for the past few years, but as is often the case on the subject of politics, someone has already written that article for me. I urge you to read Kris Kobach is a Loser by Mark Joseph Stern of slate.com.
To summarize, upon his election in Kansas Mr. Kobach began a sustained campaign to convince America that vast numbers of people are voting fraudulently and that the country needs stricter voter ID laws. He got his voter ID law in Kansas all right, but his war on voters failed to identify any fraud. Never mind that, he's just the guy Donald Trump needed for a "Commission on Election Integrity" given that Trump believes that "millions" voted illegally for Hillary Clinton. Again Kobach failed miserably to identify any voter fraud. Then, (from the March, 2018 article linked above,) "Kobach limped home to Kansas to prepare for a bench trial over his proof-of-citizenship law. That trial, which began earlier this month and is ongoing, has been an unmitigated disaster for Kobach—a merciless rebuke of his professional life’s work. The trouble actually began well before the trial started, when a federal judge fined Kobach $1,000 in June for making "patently misleading representations to the court" about a document he’d taken to his initial meeting with Trump, one that proposed eviscerating a federal voting rights law." The author concludes, "Kobach’s national crusade against the phantom threat of voter fraud quickly collapsed under the weight of his own arrogance."
So has Kobach actually done more harm than good for the Republican case against "voter fraud"? Depends on how you look at it. As Republican strategist Karl Rove has pointed out, Republicans are no longer part of the "reality-based community". Do cigarettes cause cancer? We don't know; there's only a "controversy". Is the evolution of species a fact? How about global warming? Well, those elitist atheistic scientists say one thing, but who listens to them? So it goes with voter fraud. Donald Trump and Kris Kobach say one thing, and everyone else may say the opposite, but for the media and many Americans the only question is whom do they trust more, and who appears to be winning the argument.
For a few Americans, it must be noted, Kris Kobach and others like him really are a personal nightmare. That's because in their zealous campaign to prove that there is some "voter fraud" somewhere, Kobach and others have ruthlessly prosecuted people who have made innocent mistakes in attempting to vote. Kobach has pressed charges against several senior citizens who thought they could vote on local issues in each of the states where they owned homes. Interestingly, all but one of Kobach's cases have been filed against Republicans; remember, this entire campaign is based on the idea that Democrats are the ones voting illegally.
Pity poor Crystal Mason of Tarrant County, Texas. Ms. Mason voted in the 2016 presidential election while she was on supervised release from a 2011 fraud conviction. Although she was never made aware that she was not eligible to vote, a judge has sentenced her to five years in prison. I wonder how many people who are eligible vote but have past criminal convictions will look at cases like Crystal Mason's and become afraid to vote themselves. And I suspect that's exactly what Republicans hope will happen. People of color are more likely to have past criminal convictions that whites, and race certainly plays a factor in formal challenges to the right to vote in America. A Caltech/MIT study found that minority voters are more frequently questioned about ID than are white voters.
Here's another way to stop the poor and minorities from voting. In North Carolina, some Republicans with too much time on their hands have been challenging the voter registrations of black Democrats. In 2016, Grace Bell Hardison, a 100-year-old African-American woman, was informed that her voter-registration status had been challenged by Republicans because a piece of mail sent to her home address had been returned as undeliverable. Ms. Hardison normally receives mail at a PO Box. The NAACP has stated that the voter purge that targeted Hardison violates the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits the mass removal of voters from the rolls within the 90 days prior to the election. "These purges have a long history of being racial and inaccurate," says Penda Hair, a lawyer for the North Carolina NAACP.
All of these efforts have the same goal: to reduce Democratic turnout. Shortly before the 2016 election, Joshua Green and Sasha Issenberg of Bloomberg visited the Trump campaign and learned that, "Instead of expanding the electorate, (campaign chief executive Steve) Bannon and his team are trying to shrink it. "We have three major voter suppression operations under way," says a senior official. They’re aimed at three groups Clinton needs to win overwhelmingly: idealistic white liberals, young women, and African Americans."
Thank you, Mister Trump campaign guy, your candor is refreshing.
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