The post What the Left Can Learn from the Tea Party appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Joe Biden has been elected the 46th President of the United States of America but not without any costs. Biden’s electoral theory as many warned was not watertight and while he was able to notch a convincing victory nationwide, Democrats down ballot were not so lucky. The majority in the US House of Representatives has been greatly diminished after leadership all but guaranteed an expanded majority. The balance of power in the US Senate will now be decided by a double-barreled runoff election in Georgia, a state trending purple which Biden won but only within a recount margin. The news was worse in non-federal elections where candidates for statewide office and state legislatures were defeated handily. This is all to say that this election simultaneously served as a rejection of Donald Trump and the Democratic establishment.
Much ink has been spilled about what went wrong for Democrats including a patronizingly racist campaign to Latinos that assumed monolithic political attitudes, tens of millions wasted on consultants like the Lincoln Project who failed to materialize GOP support for Democrats (Trump won a higher share of the GOP vote than 4 years ago), the disappearance of in-person direct voter contact, and of course another campaign about Donald Trump’s vulgarities as opposed to uplifting policy. What has not been discussed is what opportunities lay ahead for the Democrats, especially those on the populist left if they are willing to do the work.
The reduced House majority came exclusively at the expense of centrist Democrats, progressives were consistently able to win re-election. Rep. Katie Porter whose district is +3% GOP leaning, won re-election after endorsing Medicare-for-All. So did Reps Josh Harder, Ann Kirkpatrick, Matt Cartwright, Mike Levin, Peter DeFazio, Jared Golden (endorses in 2018), and Susan Wild who represent districts that are more GOP leaning than the nation as a whole. Meanwhile in less GOP leaning and even Democratic leaning districts, like FL-29, FL-27, IA-01, and NY-11 Democrats lost. The center has attempted to blame activist rhetoric about “Defund the Police”, even though nearly 80% of Americans understood the actual meaning of “Defund the Police”. Whatever the reason for this disparity, we know progressives in swing districts won re-election more often than not.
The Left has found themselves in a position not too dissimilar to that of the Tea Party in 2012. Their candidate of choice had twice been denied the Presidency in favor of more establishment candidates. Huckabee in 2008 and Santorum in 2012 for the Tea Party, Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020 for the Left. It was clear that their policy positions were the majority view of base voters even as their candidates of choice failed to capture support. They were ridiculed and written off by party elites, the mass media, and academics who claim to have turned politics into a science. However, what the Tea Party had then is what the Left has now, enough members to block legislation, a mastery of social media where most Americans get their news, and a dedicated base of reliable donors and voters.
The House majority is narrow, so narrow that the newly expanded squad (welcome Reps. Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Marie Newman, and Ritchie Torres) can torpedo legislation that is insufficiently progressive. John Boehner too faced this problem with the Freedom Caucus (a spiritual successor to the Tea Party caucus) and eventually became so ineffective at holding his coalition together that he resigned. The defeat of House majority leader Eric Cantor by Tea Party professor Dave Brat in 2014 too was then appropriately seen as the beginning of a new era in GOP party politics. The same should be recognized by the defeat of Joe Crowley by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018. The Left will and should challenge the party consensus, it is the only way to maintain relevancy and voters deserve a choice as opposed to an echo.
The reason the Tea Party was and continues to be so successful in its takeover of the Republican Party is simple. We can look at white cultural resentment or economic anxiety and that has its place, but what separates the Tea Party from the establishment in either party is that they consistently materially reward their voters with wins on issues they care about and they are unapologetic in the fights on these issues. The Tea Party voters wanted a hardline immigration policy, deregulated gun laws, restrictions on abortion, tax cuts, and for their politicians to actively fight the culture war. With every election they achieved more of those goals by replacing the old guard in primaries and abandoning old party affiliations and after 6 years, the Tea Party elected the obvious heir to their movement in Donald Trump and the takeover was completed. The Left with its ability to stall the Congress and extract concessions should focus on materially rewarding it’s voters too because while making peace with the establishment might make the Left more popular in Washington, the real battle is in every city and suburb outside of the beltway where the base desires more.
Some argue this comparison of the tea party and the Left is not perfect, first because they say the tea party was devoid of true ideology and was simply a bad faith movement inspired by racial resentment towards the first black president. However, the Tea party was meaningfully different from the establishment Republican party, and those differences extended beyond race and materialized in policy from trade to education to infrastructure. Another argument against this parallel is the Tea party came of age as an opposition party, and the left is about to find themselves with a Democrat president. I challenge that with a simple question, was Mitt Romney of the Tea Party? I should say no he was not, and had he been elected those on the right still would’ve seen themselves in opposition as they were opposed to his candidacy for the nomination and ambivalent about him as a general election candidate. This is also true of the Left which makes no secret of their distaste for Joe Biden who many see as a marginally less worse alternative to Donald Trump in terms of temperament and policy. The Left may not be the opposition party for the mainstream Democrats, but they are a opposition party and that has become clear in the post-election rhetoric from party elites. Finally, some will say “oh but what of the moderates and the middle class?”. I say that these people are the rearguard of political movements and historically have been very mailable in their beliefs and have already begun to conform to new party dynamics as they are not organized or aggrieved enough to challenge the Left or the Right.
The Tea Party very quickly gained an appreciation for the power of grassroots organization and how that can translate into electoral success. The Tea Party also was patient and persistent, withstanding hard loses but staying uncompromising in their policy goals essentially forcing the rest of the party to move towards them or continue to lose influence. We can see this most clearly in the 2012 US Senate race in Missouri compared to the 2018 race. Todd Akin failed where Josh Hawley succeeded, and it wasn’t because those candidates had any major ideological differences or radically different views on gender. Josh Hawley won because the grassroots infiltrated the party and voters had a sense of ownership and buy-in and therefore were self-motivated enough to ignore the obvious shortcomings of their new candidate. The Tea Party’s greatest achievement was convincing its voters that the old neoconservatives and country club moderates were not just in disagreement but an active roadblock that needed to be disempowered. That is the task ahead of The Left, showing its voters that their interests are not the interests of Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer and that those leaders cannot be pushed. It’s going to require a hard-nosed approach and seemingly being everywhere in terms of organizing but it can be done. Democrats won 80 seats in 2018 categorized as “Urban” or “Urban-Suburban”. The Tea Party saw the immediate path of least resistance through rural districts, the Left must recognize their opportunity in cities using Rep. Cori Bush as a model.
The Left can learn from these successes, but it should also learn from the consequences. Yes, the conservative movement is at its most successful, dominating rural states and creating a multiracial coalition of politicians and voters. We are living through a political realignment that will last for a generation if not longer. However, it has also activated the worst of our country and elevated a lunatic demagogue who has irreparably damaged our country. Militant vigilantes march through American cities and gun down protesters while law enforcement passively looks on. True believers are present at every level of government but their commitment to democracy and equal justice is sometimes little to nonexistent. A critical mass of people has become unreachable, so detached from reality that they live and breathe conspiracy. Meanwhile a media ecosphere has developed where propaganda is reported as fact and dissenters are labeled traitors. In this age of ideology defined by twin crises of income inequality and coronavirus, Americans will become more desperate in their genuine desire for relief. The Left must be careful to not let themselves be totally consumed by these illiberal elements who always appear in populist movements. This will be difficult as grift can often be subversive and some popular figures can be credibly accused of being pretenders. There’s also the matter of moral relativism, we’ve seen a leftist state house candidate in Kansas be elected despite admitting to revenge porn. Values matter if we say they do, and there will be something permanently lost if we decide that they don’t.
I don’t know if the Left can succeed in this country and I don’t know if the same fervor that carried the Tea Party can be recreated. What I do know is neoliberalism is one the way out and if the Democrats cannot reorient themselves and do it soon, we will be left behind as we’re lapped by a charismatic but destructive force that will remake America in its image. Those are the stakes of this decade, and god willing the Left will rise to the occasion.
The post What the Left Can Learn from the Tea Party appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Ballot initiatives: Downside of uptick in voter turnout appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>If you are frustrated with gridlock and/or intransigence in your state legislature, as many voters are, one way to get your issue considered is to gather signatures and take your proposal directly to voters with a ballot initiative. But that grassroots process—which has proliferated in recent years, as you may have noticed by measuring the length of your November 2018 ballot—is becoming much more difficult in many states.
Currently, 24 states—mostly in the Western half of the country—enable citizens to bypass the legislature with ballot initiatives. Here’s a list of who allows what.
Requirements vary. In general, if you want the next statewide ballot to include, for example, an anti-gerrymandering proposal, or an increase in the tax on gasoline, or an amendment to your state’s constitution, you must get a minimum number of registered voters to sign petitions.
In most states where this direct-democracy process is available, the number of signatures required to qualify for inclusion on the ballot is pegged to the number of voters who voted in the most recent governor’s race.
And that’s the problem. Voter turnout is the key. Low turnout in a governor’s election makes it easier to get petition signatures in later elections. While high turnout—ironically, something that we normally view as a fundamental [small-d] democratic value—works against grassroots signature-gathering efforts.
California offers an instructive example. To get an issue on the ballot in California, you must gather signatures equal to or greater than 8 percent of the number of ballots cast in the preceding gubernatorial election. In the 2014 election, only 30 percent of voters cast ballots. That meant that, in the next two election cycles (when there was no governor’s race scheduled), supporters of any ballot measure needed just 365,880 valid signatures. “The bar was so low,” reports The Hill, “that California’s ballots were inundated by initiatives: 15 citizen-sponsored ballot measures in 2016 and 8 more in 2018.”
But voters came out in much higher numbers in the 2018 election. “The result is that in 2020 and 2022, using the same 8 percent threshold, initiative supporters will need to collect more than 623,000 valid signatures, a 70 percent increase,” according to the Hill’s reporting.
A similar scenario is playing out in other initiative-petition states. Here are some examples:
ARIZONA
COLORADO
OKLAHOMA
Getting signatures on statewide initiatives is not free. And the need for more signatures means a need for more money. According to Ballotpedia, the average cost to get one signature varies from state to state, but signature-gathering consulting firms [yes, they exist—it’s not all high-minded volunteers] charge about $6 per valid signature. So, for example, if you want to get signatures in Colorado in 2020, you’re going to need around an additional $156,000. [Most petition gatherers try to get approximately 75 percent more signatures than the requirement, in order to account for signatures that will inevitably be ruled invalid.]
Some state legislators are ticked off about the uptick in ballot initiatives, and they’re working on placing more obstacles in the way. “What we’re seeing is death by a thousand paper cuts, says Lauren Simpson, of Americans for a Better Utah, “making it incrementally more difficult for citizens to pass laws on their own through ballot initiatives Our legislature, as a whole, is uncomfortable with citizen ballot initiatives.”
But, while legislative ploys may be devious and undemocratic, and while increased voter turnout has had the unintended consequence of raising the bar for citizen initiatives, at least this trend is happening in states where citizens have the option to get needed changes by grassroots efforts. In 26 other states, there’s no option at all for ballot measures, and no sign that politicians are eager to create one. That’s the biggest hurdle of all.
The post Ballot initiatives: Downside of uptick in voter turnout appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post New York votes in unified government and goes full-on progressive appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Elections matter. If there’s any doubt about why, take a look at what’s happening right now in New York State. In the 2018 election, Democrats took control of the New York State Senate for the first time in a decade. This long sought-after victory means that New Yorkers can now boast of having unified government—with a Democratic governor, Senate, and Assembly.
Taking full advantage of their overwhelming mandate, New York State Democrats are barreling ahead with legislative priorities on hot-button issues like reproductive rights and gun control. Stalled for years by the Republican majority in the Senate, these are previously drafted progressive reforms that were ready to go once Democrats took back the Senate. Even Governor Andrew Cuomo appears to be unpacking his more progressive instincts.
We’re just at the beginning of New York’s new political adventure but already the Democratic majority has demonstrated that they can get their act together and pass major pieces of legislation that are sure to make progressives giddy, while making New York State a healthier, safer, and more just place to live for everyone. On the red side of the aisle, I imagine that conservative pols and their constituencies must be seething. If anything can be said with certainty in the world of politics, it’s that New York’s Democrats and progressives should savor the moment and make the most out of the next two years because the backlash is surely waiting in the wings.
Reproductive rights
After passing easily through the state’s Senate and Assembly, on January 22nd, marking the 46th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade, Governor Cuomo signed into law The Reproductive Health Act (RHA). RHA protects New Yorkers’ right to choose no matter what happens on the federal level as legal challenges to Roe v. Wade make their way to the new conservative majority now sitting on the Supreme Court.
The Reproductive Health Act, which takes effect immediately, updates and codifies New York State law with federal case law and puts New York’s reproductive laws (not updated since 1970) in accordance with the original decision in Roe v. Wade (1973). The bill maintains the legality of abortion within twenty-four weeks of a pregnancy or at “any time when necessary to protect a woman’s life or health.” Breaking with past precedent and breaking new ground, the bill expands access to abortion by authorizing healthcare professionals besides physicians—like nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants—to legally perform the procedure.
Gun control
An astounding six gun-control bills passed in the state’s Senate and Assembly since the swearing in of the new Democratic majorities. Praising New York State’s legislators, Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit organization founded and led by parents and family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, called the legislation “monumental gun violence prevention measures.” Those measures include:
The post New York votes in unified government and goes full-on progressive appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post What I learned about Campaign Financing When I ran for Congress appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>We need public financing. And we need it immediately.
When I began my very long-shot campaign for the Democratic party’s nomination in Missouri’s 2nd Congressional district, I knew that my campaign would concentrate on political reform. I spoke ad nauseam whenever I had the chance about our need for fundamental reform across elections, ethics, and, in particular, the way we fund our campaigns.
I went into this campaign already convinced that money was a corrupting influence that we should not ignore. My experience across the 216 days I campaigned only solidified my already strong opinion that money is a corruption and that political reform must be our priority.
In fact, money isn’t just an ordinary run-of-the-mill corruption, it’s a catastrophic corruption. The 2018 Democratic primary in Missouri’s 2nd District proves it.
Cort VanOstran was a fine candidate. He worked hard. He campaigned with passion and conviction. You can say he deserved to win the Democratic nomination. But you can’t say that he deserved to win by as much as he did. Nor can you say that the process was fair.
His campaign had a lot of things going for it. But the tragedy that we can’t ignore is that only one of those things really mattered: the amount of money he was able to raise – an amount that dwarfed the amount raised by this closest competitor, Mark Osmack.
By the time the August 7th primary was held, the battle for money wasn’t even close.
Cort raised and spent a little more than $800,000. Mark was only able to raise a quarter of that.
Both Cort and Mark announced their candidacies over a year earlier – in the summer of 2017. But after just a couple of months, the winner was already crowned. Cort had won the most important primary of all, the “money primary.”
Recall, by the way, that there was another very popular candidate in this race, Kelli Dunaway. As the only woman running for the Democratic nomination, Kelli should have been a favorite. But after just a few months of campaigning, Kelli dropped out. Chief among her reasons for her exit, “I was getting my ass kicked in fundraising.” (her words).
Those early numbers are pretty shocking. By the time Kelli dropped out (November 2017), Cort had already raised over $200,000. This included 20 donations from contributors donating the maximum amount, $2700. And 71 individuals contributing over $1000!
Compare that to Kelli. At the time of her withdrawal, Kelli had raised just 18% as much as Cort (about $38,000). That included only three maximum contributors and 10 contributions of over $1000.
Mark’s numbers at that point were even worse. Four months after starting his campaign, Mark had raised a paltry 8% of what Cort had (about $16,000). This included just one $2700 individual contribution and only two donations of over $1000.
Let’s not fool ourselves. Cort won by as much as he did because he was able to do what Mark and the other candidates couldn’t: advertise on TV and bombard mailboxes with campaign literature. Only he had contributors with that kind of money.
Two fine candidates. But only one had the finances to significantly amplify his message. Two fine candidates. But only one had the means to thoroughly advertise throughout the district. Two fine candidates. But given these differences, only one had any real chance to win.
Three days into my campaign a Missouri Democratic party leader approached me and told me to drop out. One month later, that same party leader approached Mark and strongly encouraged him to drop out. Mark’s supporters weren’t as generous with their ActBlue donations as Cort’s. And to the Missouri Democratic party, that was a high crime that deserved impeachment.
Please don’t misconstrue my point. I know that Cort was a fine candidate who worked tirelessly. But the same can be said of Mark. Shouldn’t both men have been given an equal opportunity to make their cases?
As a candidate myself in this race I enjoyed a front-row seat to the campaigns of both Cort and Mark. They worked their rears off! They each had great ideas. And they each attracted a large number of passionate supporters to their ranks. But what I learned most from my experience is that the passion of one’s supporters isn’t important if those supporters are not wealthy. In this corrupted process, we’re fooling ourselves when we talk about passion. The wealth of one’s campaign contributors is what matters overwhelmingly.
Cort didn’t crush Mark because he was a superior candidate. He crushed Mark because he had a lot more wealth on his side. The nomination wasn’t won by Cort. It was purchased.
I pity the American that doesn’t see the tragic injustice in that and who doesn’t want to do something about it.
And let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that the amount of money that you raise is a direct reflection of your hard work, perseverance, or some other heavenly virtue. Yes, you have to work hard to raise money and I’m sure Cort worked tremendously hard.
But Cort raised and spent FOUR times more than Mark. Does anyone really think Cort worked FOUR times harder than Mark? Does anyone believe that his ideas were FOUR times more popular than Mark’s? Is there anyone that can legitimately argue that Cort’s supporters were FOUR times more passionate than Mark’s? Does anyone who paid close attention to this campaign think that Cort deserved FOUR times the opportunity to win?
Most troubling is this question: How much of Cort’s fundraising superiority was a product of unique external factors – factors not available to Mark or other candidates? Factors related to Cort’s position in a prestigious law firm and his connections with Democratic party insiders? Factors that blocked Mark and Kelli from the same resources necessary to get their message across to voters? Mark and Kelli didn’t know the secret handshake. And for that, their campaigns were doomed.
The Public Financing Solution
The Democratic primary in MO-2 proved our process is tragically unfair. Nothing will change until we demand real reform. And that is where public financing comes in. I’ve never been more convinced of this.
Imagine a system where qualified candidates are given an equal opportunity to make their cases. A system that rewards candidates that work hard but doesn’t show favoritism to those that just happen to have access to wealthy contributors. A system that says that the candidate that has the support of those that give $27 contributions should be taken as seriously as the candidate that is the darling of those that can make $2700 contributions.
In such a system, each of the candidates would be allowed to prove their viability by going out and raising “seed money” – thus demonstrating their seriousness. Taxpayers would grant qualifying candidates with vouchers that would allow them the opportunity to broadcast TV commercials and to send out mass mailings.
Candidates that would want to forego public financing and raise and spend money the old fashioned way would still be allowed to. But candidates without those same deep-pocketed enablers would now be given more of a fighting chance. Public financing levels the playing field.
Imagine the 2018 Democratic primary again but under a public financing system. Mark and Kelli would probably have still been outspent – but with public financing, they would have had a much greater opportunity to compete with Cort.
Given the passion that I saw in their supporters and the vigor I saw in their campaigns, this was an opportunity Mark and Kelli deserved – an opportunity that was cheated them in our current system.
Wealthy Americans should be afforded many privileges in America. But a monopoly to determine which candidates are viable and which are not, should not be one of them. Public financing gives qualified candidates with great ideas but without wealthy connections a chance to compete.
Most importantly, a public financing system would change our political campaigns for the better; transforming them from the farces for funding that they’ve become and into the contests of character and position that true democratic republics require.
The post What I learned about Campaign Financing When I ran for Congress appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Reverse the vote: Undoing the will of the people is now official Republican policy appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Republican governors, state legislators and secretaries of state have become shameless in their attempts to reverse the results of legitimately passed ballot initiatives. What they’re doing goes far beyond the coy, clever, clandestine dirty tricks that Republicans have honed over many years. They’re not just working behind the scenes: they’re out in the open, declaring publicly their intention to undo what voters have officially said they want.
This is not a rogue strategy: Judging from news reports from a variety of states, this is a trending Republican policy. According to the Washington post,
“In the past two years alone, legislators have filed more than 100 bills across 24 states aimed at reversing ballot measures, according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which focuses on advancing progressive priorities through ballot initiatives.
“It’s a power grab,” the center’s executive director Chris Melody Fields Figueredo said last month. “It’s an attempt to take that power away from the people. It is counter to why we have democracy in the first place.”
“The ballot-measure process is under attack,” said Justine Sarver, the executive director of the center. “There were many successful measures in 2016, and we’re seeing many conservative governors saying, ‘I’m not going to implement that.’”
In November 2018, Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved [62% to 38%] a constitutional amendment—dubbed “Clean Missouri”—that will impose campaign-contribution limits, restrict gifts to legislators, and change the way state legislative districts are drawn, to eliminate partisan gerrymandering.
But almost before the last vote was counted on the Clean Missouri initiative, Republican Governor Mike Parson vowed to get behind a legislative effort to repeal it—even though, he acknowledges, his support of a reversal doesn’t look good to voters. [This isn’t Parson’s first screw-the-voters effort: After Missouri voters approved a 2011 initiative that would have shut down inhumane “puppy mills,” Parson—then a state legislator—led a successful legislative drive that put puppy mills back in business even before the new law could take effect.]
Rumor has it that one Republican legislator is preparing to pre-file a bill in the 2019 Missouri legislative session that would undo Clean Missouri immediately. And within days of Clean Missouri’s decisive victory, a new group—with the Orwellian name “Fair Missouri”—began raising money for a new ballot initiative that would erase what voters had just approved.
Missouri is not new to this game. The state has a sordid recent history of undermining, invalidating and/or sabotaging voter-approved initiatives. Here are a few examples:
For the record, it’s not illegal for Missouri’s legislature to pass laws that reverse the provisions of voter-approved ballot initiatives. According to Ballotpedia, only two states—Arizona and California—have actually made it illegal to change an initiative substantively without sending it back to the voters. In fact, 11 states (and D.C.) can change or repeal initiatives at will, without any restrictions on how soon, or with what majority the legislative body can act.
But, while it may be legal, thumbing your legislative nose at voters reeks of unfairness and a sore-loser, anti-democracy mentality.
“There’s little disagreement that, after offering the choice up to people at the ballot boxes, it’s symbolically fraught to take it away,” writes Sarah Holder, at CityLab. Holder quotes former Washington DC mayor Anthony Williams as saying, “We are facing a situation that is never good for a democracy. The people appear to have spoken, and yet their elected officials are saying, ‘Thanks, but no thanks.”
As we learned in eighth-grade Civics class, ballot initiatives came about as a way for citizens to be a final check and balance on their representatives. That’s an important principle, and it should be respected. Unfortunately, in Missouri as in too many other states, too many elected officials clearly regard “the will of the people” as merely a suggestion, rather than as a right, and they’re making it their official policy to salute voters with their middle-fingers.
The post Reverse the vote: Undoing the will of the people is now official Republican policy appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post MO GOP’s overt / covert plots to undermine new anti-gerrymandering law appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>After the November 2018 midterm election, Missouri voters could congratulate themselves on being ahead of the curve in the nationwide drive for anti-gerrymandering laws. But the elation was short-lived. One day after voters passed Constitutional Amendment 1—nicknamed “Clean Missouri”— by an overwhelming 61% margin, Republicans in the “Show Me” state showed their true colors and began a cynical effort to undermine the new law.
The Clean Missouri amendment includes sweeping new provisions aimed at reducing government corruption at the state level. The new law limits gifts to legislators and bans elected lawmakers from becoming lobbyists immediately after serving in office, among other restrictions.
But the biggest news in the new law is how it revises the process for redrawing congressional district boundaries after each national census. And that’s the provision that Missouri Republicans are targeting.
Here’s what is different about Missouri’s new approach to congressional redistricting. According to AP,
Other states have created independent commissions and required bipartisan votes to redraw legislative and congressional districts. Missouri will be the first to rely on a new mathematical formula to try to engineer “partisan fairness” and “competitiveness” in its state legislative districts; the Legislature will continue drawing the state’s congressional districts.
It’s an experiment—one that Missouri Republicans want no part of because, according to an AP analysis:
…it has the potential to end the Republicans’ super-majorities in the state House and state Senate and move the chambers closer to the more even partisan division that is often reflected in statewide races. But the size of the likely Democratic gains remains uncertain, partly because the formula has never been put to a test.
[Also, there’s science, analysis and factual information involved. Those things apparently turn off Missouri Republicans as well.]
So, without missing a beat, Missouri Republicans declared war on Amendment 1. According to the New York Times,
The day after the election, the Republican speaker of the Missouri House, Elijah Haahr, said that he wanted “to strike up conversations with African-American lawmakers who have expressed misgivings that Clean Missouri could reduce the [number] of black lawmakers,” Jason Rosenbaum of St. Louis Public Radio reported. That’s a classic strategy for Republican gerrymandering: Effectively guarantee black-held seats in exchange for reducing the overall number of Democratic seats.
In addition,
…opponents of the amendment created a political group to undermine it, Tony Messenger, a metro columnist for The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has noted. The group has the Alice-in-Wonderland name of “Fair Missouri” and $150,000 in initial funding. Its goal is to place a new measure on the ballot that would sabotage parts of the amendment before they can take effect.
The most cynical anti-Amendment 1 strategy is one that will take place far out of the spotlight of ballot initiatives and special elections. Rumor has it that one Republican state representative is preparing a bill that would simply defund the newly created state demographer’s office.
How would that proposal affect Missouri’s anti-gerrymandering effort? Bigly. A report from KSDK-TV describes the impact:
Currently, state House and Senate districts in Missouri are redrawn after each census by bipartisan commissions. Members are appointed by the governor from nominees submitted by the Democratic and Republican parties.
Amendment 1 creates a new position of nonpartisan state demographer who would propose maps to commissioners that reflect the parties’ share of the statewide vote in previous elections for president, governor and U.S. senator. Criteria of “partisan fairness” and “competitiveness” would outrank more traditional criteria such as geographically compact districts.
De-funding the state demographer is a starve-the-beast, behind-the-scenes maneuver that would, essentially, kill the entire effort.
Interestingly, Missouri’s state website has duly posted a job opening for State Demographer and is accepting applicants. Among the duties of the job, the listing says that the state demographer:
Prepares periodic estimates and projections of the state population, and county-by-county population estimates and projections.
Serves as liaison with state agencies, the federal government, and local governments regarding population estimates and projections for the State of Missouri .
And, most importantly,
Supervises the decennial reapportionment project, including the supervision of professional, technical, and clerical personnel.
[Translation: the demographer is in charge of the data used in redistricting after every US Census.]
The pay scale is attractive: $50,000 – $80,000. The job could be a great landing place for a highly competent, non-partisan statistics nerd. The question is: With Republicans in a tizzy about the new law, and given their multi-pronged anti anti-gerrymandering effort, how long will that job posting—or the job itself, once filled—last?
These strategies show that the Show Me State — at least its Republican party — is not, as is popularly believed, out of step with the rest of the US. Undermining initiatives passed by voters [and even elections for high office] is quickly becoming a national Republican strategy. Looking to Wisconsin, Michigan and other states as role models for controverting the time-honored democratic concept of “the will of the people,” Missouri Republicans can now congratulate themselves for being right there in the ugly, sour-grapes, democracy-defying mainstream of the GOP.
The post MO GOP’s overt / covert plots to undermine new anti-gerrymandering law appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post The Superstructure Triumphant appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>One of the crucial trends in the 2016 election was the 80-plus percent of white evangelicals who voted for Trump. A likely explanation is Trump’s ostensibly pro-life position, but there’s more going on here. A particularly interesting article that came across my Facebook feed this morning suggests other reasons evangelicals might continue to support the far-right.
The piece is a Christian Post editorial from the Rev. Mark H Creech, entitled “Can a Christian Be a Democrat?”. Creech lists six reasons that the Republicans are more in line with Christianity than the Democrats, quoting from a tract by Wayne Grudem entitled Politics According to the Bible. They are as follows (I paraphrase and quote for brevity):
Before we tackle these principles, I’d like to note that my purpose here isn’t to prove that Creech is a hypocrite or politically and historically uneducated. I also don’t endeavor to prove that Democrats are better than Creech says; I’m a socialist, not a liberal, so I feel less obligated to defend liberals. The point, rather, is to illustrate how a certain type of Christian, generally older and white, reliably vote for hard-right candidates. I put it down to the superstructure.
In Marxist thought, the “base” refers to the physical forces and relations of production in society, i.e. how employers and employees interact and how people produce what they need to survive. The “superstructure” is cultural and political customs, power relations, institutions, and ultimately, the state itself. As Marx and Engels tell it, the superstructure is largely created to justify the base. In feudal society, the concept of divine right was created to justify serfdom. In capitalist societies, more complex mechanics are at work: racism, classical economics, and power dynamics help justify why our economy is normal or Panglossian. It’s a crude distinction but it works for our purposes here.
Creech and his ilk have given religious significance to every aspect of the superstructure, not just religion. When Creech talks about how “smaller government and allowing people to keep the fruits of their labor” is Godly, he only looks at the exact distribution of wealth in this exact moment. By this logic, progressive taxation and social programs are just stealing, which violates one of the Ten Commandments. But this assumes that the economic system is natural, the product of hard work and nothing else. It might surprise Creech to know that the entire world-system on which his economic beliefs rely is the result of five hundred years of outright slavery, the exploitation of poor farmers and workers, colonialism, and a century of American-led coups against regimes that might in any way disrupt the Western wealthy. Then again, Creech might see all of this as Godly, too: America had to enslave Africans and dominate Native Americans to bring them the light of Christ (though Christianity in Africa predates America’s very existence). He would probably also explain away the tens of millions of deaths from late European colonialism, roughly 1870 – 1970. But more likely Creech didn’t even think of the historical sources of wealth. With little emphasis on history, all he can do is to protest that redistributing the wealth squeezed from the workers of the world is anti-Christian. A certain passage about a camel passing through the eye of a needle comes to mind.
In this vein, capitalist consumption becomes holy, and its end result, the destruction of global ecosystems, is only an “assumption that development of the earth’s resources will cause damage to the environment.” Never mind that the UN and David Attenborough warn us that the collapse of civilization and its natural resources are now within sight. Never mind the politics of how we get our fossil fuels. God put them there for us to consume, so go nuts.
That’s how economics is folded into religion: It’s only natural, not the result of human endeavor and malfeasance, and is therefore correct and Godly. But it’s not just economics: everything else gets sucked into the superstructure, which to Creech is righteous because it is simply the way things are. Take military force, which is necessary because “evil is something innate, which requires strong military and police forces”. Evil exists and must be combated. Thus, every bit of interventionist foreign policy is justified, from the Indian Wars to the Middle East. For instance, radical Islam, especially ISIS, must be fought tooth and nail. However, the righteous Christian should definitely not think about America’s support for the source of Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia, or the fact that Bin Laden himself was a US puppet in the Afghan rebellion against the USSR. Because if historical context is applied, the US foreign policy and intelligence apparatus never comes out looking Godly.
Domestically, it justifies police brutality. I’ve even seen a few Christians online who think Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling during the national anthem at NFL games was anti-Christian because “God Bless America” is sometimes played too.
In this way worship of God becomes the adoration of every aspect of currently existing society: The military, the police, the intelligence community, the uniformity of suburban life, gender roles, and on and on. It’s all holy, even if Gospel refutes it or the Jewish tradition from which evangelicals claim to take inspiration outright contradicts it. It would be amusing, for instance, to see hard-right evangelicals try to explain how the Jubilee Year promotes capitalism.
But this isn’t a Christianity with theological depth. This is a Christianity of cliché and pablum. It’s telling that in the article, Creech mentions that he told an elderly parishioner that her “use of tobacco wasn’t consistent with a better Christian walk.” Smoking is bad, he says, but I suspect his concern has less to do with lung cancer than it does with the aesthetic of smoking. Gangsters smoke. So do hippies. Therefore, the upright Christian should refrain from smoking or talking to smokers. Jesus would never stoop to associating with lepers or prostitutes.
In the same way, Creech and company say, we should vote for the normal, the traditional, the comforting, and not the foreign, the weird, the rabble-rousers. A retreat into an imagined past by making American great again; Politics as aesthetic normalcy. In this final stage, religion degenerates into the enforcement of conventional wisdom, the deployment of clichés: “socialism doesn’t work”, “Don’t worry about money”, “America is the greatest country”, “God bless our troops”, “Obama is vaguely foreign and dangerous,” and, ultimately, “Good Christians vote Republican”.
The post The Superstructure Triumphant appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Courage won the midterm elections appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>What were the deciding factors in the 2018 midterm elections in the U.S.? Was it youth and diversity? Or status quo, ignorance, and fear? Looking at the situation rom a safe distance in Canada, yet with a watchful eye over current events in the U.S., I propose it is neither. Instead, it is courage.
It takes courage to create a new, reformist, forward-looking vision for better politics and society. This vision has been channeled by the progressives who marched, mobilized, and voted. It manifested itself in candidates, both those who ran and won office, who are unafraid to challenge the system and put forward bold and ambitious policy proposals.
Courage in politics, especially in American politics, has often been in short supply. Much has been written on this by academics, businessmen and politicians of yore. John F. Kennedy’s ‘Profiles in Courage’ is a particularly eloquent example. Yet, few leaders and elected officials have practiced it.
Courage in practice is difficult, for it calls on candor, a firm sense of principle, resolution and vision. It also, as Kennedy himself noted, often comes at great expense: the loss of fortune, friends and esteem. Courage is exponentially more challenging to harness in 2018, when quick-fixes are in vogue.
Lack of courage among leaders and politicians has translated into specific policy dilemmas facing the U.S. and the world more broadly, including restrictive and inhumane immigration and trade policies, curtailment of mobility, and increasing instability in our integrated world.
Lack of courage is evidenced in our inability to tackle wealth disparity, among and within countries. That inequality is on full display in our cities, as growing cosmopolitan elites dwell alongside persistent evictions, economic precariousness and poverty.
Lack of courage has also meant the absence of political will and viable solutions to prevent the spread of radical, racist, and right-wing ideology gaining foothold in the U.S., as well as in countries like Brazil and Hungary.
There is no simple formula to imbue our leadership with more courage. The most sensible path, also the path taken by many Americans in these midterm elections, is to replace them. It is to replace the self-interested and spineless officials of yesteryear with new voices and new ideas.
The election of newcomers like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the squad of young female officials with bold political platforms was a step in the right direction. It is a reminder that courage still exists in America, and is in fact shared by the American people immune to provocations from profiteers of pain and peddlers of fear.
In the near future, I foresee many more courageous acts — by newly elected leaders in Congress, as well as by courageous American millennials who continue to storm the halls and corridors of power and influence.
I hope that progressives, especially those belonging to the generations who have championed the cause of justice for many decades, will be given the knowledge, support and chance to succeed.
Performing courageous acts in 2018 is exhausting, and resistance is immense. Despite those obstacles, as the midterm election results show, courage can still win. The new faces in the U.S. Congress might just show us how it can also be sustained and translated into practical gains for justice and fairness.
Progressive Americans are watching. The world is watching too, with hopes of following their lead.
Featured image: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D-NY] and Rashida Tlaib [D-MI], newly elected to U.S. Congress, 2018
The post Courage won the midterm elections appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Big winners in 2018 midterms? Every American with a pre-existing condition appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Regardless of party affiliation or which party’s candidates voters cast their ballots for on November 6, the big winners in the midterm elections are all Americans with pre-existing medical conditions.
That’s because as of January 3, 2019, when the 116th Congress convenes, Republican-led efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act will be blocked by a Democratic majority in the House. For at least the next two years, Americans can sleep more soundly and stop worrying about being denied healthcare insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition, or being charged more for coverage because of one or more pre-existing conditions, or discovering that their insurance denies coverage for services or treatments associated with a pre-existing condition.
Unfortunately, the news media and party pundits continue to waste valuable reporting time on which party was the biggest winner – Democrats for taking back the House or Republicans for holding on to the majority in the Senate. As the pundits continue to push the winner/loser line and who is up and who is down in the polls, they’re giving scant air time to the most important story that touches the lives of all Americans—affordable and dependable access to healthcare.
Democrats, in particular, are missing the opportunity to trumpet what might be the most consequential result of the midterm elections and drive home the message that Democrats have just won a victory that protects all Americans and their families. Incredibly, Democrats once again are failing to craft a unified message that reminds voters that Democrats belong to the party that conceived of and committed itself for more than eighty years to compassionate, life-saving, and family-affirming programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act.
Democrats, if you’re paying attention, here’s my suggestion for the most important message to drive home from now until 2020:
America, because of our steadfast commitment to your health and well-being, you can stop worrying about being denied health coverage if
And what are those pre-existing conditions? The list is long and encompasses most of the most common ailments. According to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, here are just some of the pre-existing conditions that insurers used to routinely deny coverage for prior to enactment in 2014 of the Affordable Care Act:
The post Big winners in 2018 midterms? Every American with a pre-existing condition appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>The post Why voters don’t trust Congress anymore appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>Before casting your vote on Tuesday, November 6, for the individuals who will be tasked with representing you in the House or the Senate, consider this shocking fact. The U.S. Constitution is nearly silent on the expected duties of members of Congress. The only formal rule requires that members be present to vote on the questions before their respective chambers.
What this means is that the way in which our representatives conduct the duties of their offices has simply evolved over time. In other words, our representatives have no printed road map for the major responsibilities of their jobs, such as the vital responsibility to interact with constituents. It’s difficult to imagine, but there’s no rulebook for the degree to which representatives must take into account the viewpoints and desires of constituents when voting on legislation. Think about it. Our representatives – those people who write and vote on the legislation that determines our taxes, our healthcare options, the rules of the workplace, the guarantees of our civil rights, the safety of our food and water, and much more — govern by adhering (or not) to what is often referred to these days as nothing more than norms and traditions.
It’s hardly shocking, then, that lacking clear guidelines those norms and traditions can be summarily tossed out the window and with them the assumptions about how our democracy works. In the past, those norms and traditions were respected. But times are changing. And the brazenness of some members of Congress to disregard those traditions and depart radically from what is called “regular order” should shock us to our very core. Of course, the most egregious example was the denial by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of a confirmation hearing for President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. This is where we are on the eve of the most consequential election of our lifetimes—deeply uncertain and justifiably distrustful about even the rules of the game, thanks to Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party.
With no set rules, it’s not surprising that the manner in which our elected officials approach representing our interests becomes a personal choice, depending on personality, outlook, or commitment or courage for the time, energy, and fortitude it takes to interact in person with individuals and interest groups and weigh their sometimes conflicting opinions. It’s generally accepted, however, that two main styles of representation have emerged over time. Some representatives see their job as responding directly to the viewpoints and instructions of their constituents. This is called the delegate style. Members of Congress who follow the delegate style are more apt to hold public town halls and to solicit directly the viewpoints of their constituents before casting their votes. Other representatives follow what’s called the trustee style, in which they rely primarily upon their own judgment and initiative.
The trustee style, which seems to predominate among the current Republican members of Congress, has most certainly led to a lack of accountability and to the perception by many Americans that their elected officials do not reflect nor represent their interests. Combine the trustee style with the influence of donors, lobbyists, and special interest groups and it’s easy to understand why the fundamentals of truly representational government are threatened and why, unfortunately, so many Americans question the relevance of voting and believe that politics has no place in their lives.
The post Why voters don’t trust Congress anymore appeared first on Occasional Planet.
]]>