It’s really hard to be a Democrat these days. Yes, at the moment, we have a slim majority in the House of Representatives and the slenderest of margins in the Senate. Joe Biden is our president. All of this contributes to why it is especially important now for Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to join their fellow Democrats and support the Build Back Better Act.

Everything comes with difficulty for Democrats. It’s not like with the Republicans where there is a myriad of ways to say no, to obstruct, to negate, to undermine. Democrats have to deal with a real diversity of opinions within their ranks and focus on constructing policy rather than destructing programs.

In 2009-10, Democrats had a slim workable majority in Congress and were able to pass the Affordable Care Act. It was a significant step forward, but because of literally no help from Republicans and some dissension within their ranks, it was a watered-down version of the bill that President Barack Obama wanted. It did not include the public option which would have given citizens the right to choose a government-sponsored health care program that would have been more affordable than others because unlike private plans, it did not involve make a profit for the insurer. Despite the absence of the public option, the ACA was the biggest new federal program passed since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Right now, there is an opportunity for Democrats to once again pass major legislation. They have done so with the COVID-related American Rescue Plan and then the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. But there is a third piece of legislation that will really strengthen the social and economic safety net that was created in President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and then the Great Society. It is the Build Back Better Act.

This omnibus bill is a remarkable proposal that provides comprehensive benefits for everyone from infants to the very elderly. Once again, it appears that there will be no help in the Senate in passing the bill. And, if history serves us right, next year’s mid-term elections will see one or both houses of Congress revert to the Republicans. That will put an end to any meaningful social, economic and human rights legislation that Joe Biden wants to pass.

This is why now is not the time for Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to not jack around Biden, Congressional Democrats and the American people. We have a window of opportunity that is almost certain to shut after next year’s elections. Currently, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and others can go to Manchin and Sinema and ask them to support the Build Back Better Act. Manchin in particular has shown a willingness to meet, even at inconvenient hours. He hears, though we don’t know how well he listens. But this is the time for him to accept the wins that he has already accomplished (including reduction of the bill by more than a trillion dollars). He could still qualify to be TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year because he has perhaps had more influence of the US, if not the world, than any other person. TIME awards the honor whether the change effected by the recipient is positive or negative.

After the 2022 mid-terms, Democrats will likely be in the minority. Any talks between Biden and Congressional leaders with Manchin or Sinema will be meaningless. As the political pendulum has swung in recent years, there may not be another opportunity for a decade or more.

So, Joe and Kyrsten, whether your really are Democrats or not, now is the time to at least pretend to be one and help the party in this infrequent window of opportunity. Tomorrow’s next chance is far too far off.

The post Another reason why Manchin and Sinema should vote like Dems, at least for now appeared first on Occasional Planet.

There were over seventy million Americans who voted for Donald Trump. They will not simply go away. If Biden supporters condemn them, it will only raise the Trumpsters’ ire. Liberals need to develop new strategies to reach the Trump voters with the hope they will over time see the benefits that can accrue from progressive policies. It will take a whole new strategy from what most Democrats have tried to date. Central to this approach will be for Democrats to embrace alienated poor white citizens as an essential part of the party; a collection of citizens whose agenda is as important as any other identity group.

Joe Biden can help himself, the party, and the American people by taking a radical approach to filling certain cabinet positions. Key to this will be filling certain positions with “real people;” the kind of individuals with whom alienated poor white voters, and many others, can easily relate.

How about filling the Department of Education with a teacher rather than an educator? Better yet, fill it with a student (I’m not being facetious). How about the Secretary of Labor being a line worker, a truck driver, or a nurse? What about the Secretary of Agriculture being a family farmer?

This would not work for every cabinet position; clearly the Secretary of Energy must be a scientist and the Secretary of State must have an extensive history of studying foreign affairs and traveling abroad.

There are several reasons why I suggest that wherever possible Biden’s cabinet nominees be from the grass roots. Clearly, not everyone in the grass roots would be capable of being a cabinet member. However, throughout the country, there are very thoughtful well-read individuals doing regular jobs who have ideas for reform that would truly advance the condition of people in their profession.

There are people in the trenches of fields like education, labor and agriculture who clearly know best what the current challenges are. They have ideas on what the federal government can do to improve their industry, including the people who work in it and who are served by it. This person may not have had a great deal of administrative experience, but she could have the necessary skills and personal attributes to develop strategies to help others in the grass roots. Naturally, they will have to hire assistants who are skilled managers as well as savvy budgetary gurus.

In addition to skilled grass roots individual making excellent cabinet members, there is another reason to take this approach. Political observers have recently been drilling down to learn why so many members of the Trump base do not like Democrats. For many Trumpsters, it is their disdain for and their separation from the so-called meritocracy.

What is the meritocracy and who are these people? The meritocracy is those people whose standing in life is determined by their professional credentialed achievements. They are the architects, doctors, lawyers, scientists, teachers, city planners, university professors, journalists – the people who ascended to their positions by doing well in school, scoring well on standardized tests, doing what was necessary to make it through college, and in some cases, learned a few things along the way. To many Americans, these professionals are the backbone of our society, the real strength of the American populace. But to a multitude of Trumpsters; these are the people who have had unfair advantages in life, and live in a cloud in which they can neither see the Trumpsters nor care about them.

Those in the meritocracy have high standing in our society. Their prestige is at a level far above the auto-worker, the warehouse worker at Amazon, the bagger at the grocery store, the clerk at the dry cleaners.

In the world of the meritocracy, others within the clique are to be greatly admired and respected. But in the world of the Trump base, these “achievers” are the “others;” the people who got all the breaks in life.

The Trump base are the people who have been susceptible to misinformation on their social media feeds and have no idea how they are being manipulated. It is true that those in the meritocracy suffer from the same malady of manipulation, but to a lesser degree. In any society, there is a balance of power, or imbalance of power. Currently in the United States, alienated poor white people have considerably less power than those in the meritocracy. They are the “out crowd,” and have enormous resentment towards those in the meritocracy.

Those who are traditional achievers may say that they deserve everything that they have, in work, wealth and status. In the traditional way of looking at human achievement, they are spot on. But by viewing their achievements this way, they alienate those who have not made it to the level that those in the meritocracy have reached.

If we are going to achieve a greater modicum of unity in this country, we are going to have to find ways to respect where each of us stands. It’s not just a matter of accepting where others are. It is a realization that each of us has achieved, or in some cases not achieved, because of factors which go beyond the content of our character. They involve the status of the family in which we were born and other factors of luck.

If you are religious, you would say “there but for the grace of God go I.” If you’re not religious, you might say that some get better breaks than others.

Humanizing cabinet selections is a great way to start. A family farmer knows well how he is constantly under pressure from agri-businesses to sell his land and essentially become a tenant farmer. This family farmer needs more protection for his family and thousands of others who retain independent entrepreneurs in America’s first industry. Putting a family farmer in the cabinet would go a long way in preserving a competitive economy and strengthening American culture.

A teacher who has not aspired to move up the bureaucratic ladder, but instead to stay in the classroom, may have the most innovative ideas for improving education. Why not appoint her to be Secretary of Education and help her bring in a team of innovative administrators.

An auto worker who does not know from one day to the next if her plant will be shut could bring excellent insight to the Department of Labor. She would personally be impacted by job transitions, and could provide innovative ideas that would allow herself and her fellow workers to continue to have gainful employment if their plants shut down.

Not only could grass-roots workers make excellent Cabinet secretaries, but they would represent extending a hand to many Trump voters. Biden would bring into government people “like them” who would have a better chance to understand their challenges, frustrations, and opportunities for advancement.

We know Joe Biden will innovate. Bringing some “regular Joes and Janes” into the Cabinet would be a great way to advance the country and open the eyes of Trumpsters to what Democrats can do for them.

The post Biden Can Gain Trust from Trump Voters with Clever Cabinet Nominees appeared first on Occasional Planet.

While the Trump administration blusters and tries to discredit the brave staffer who blew the whistle on Trump’s politically motivated extortion of the president of Ukraine, 90 former top brass in national security have issued an open letter in support of the whistle-blower. Released on Oct. 7, 2019—just before a second whistle-blower came forward—the letter emphasizes that revealing wrongdoing is the right thing to do, and that the individual involved deserves protection from retaliation.

The people who signed on to the letter are a who’s who of national security — some who are refugees from the current administration that doesn’t value expertise, thoughtful decision-making or moral responsibility, and many from previous administrations that — for the most part — did (or pretended to). Listed among them are marquee names like Brennan and Clapper, who had served in different roles under both the Obama and Bush administrations. The letter isalso signed by former Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and former Senior Director for Counterterrorism on the National Security Council Javed Ali, along with a number of other former Defense Department, State Department and CIA officials.

Some of the signatories had even worked under the Trump administration, including James Nealon, who served as the assistant secretary for international engagement at the Department of Homeland Security until he resigned in February 2018 over the government’s immigration policies, as well as Roberta Jacobson, who served as the U.S. ambassador to Mexico until she resigned in May 2018, and Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who was a deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia until resigning in July 2018.

The letter speaks for itself. Here it is in its entirety:

We are former national security officials who proudly served in a wide array of roles throughout the U.S. Government,” they wrote. “We are writing about the Intelligence Community whistleblower’s lawful disclosure, which was recently made public. While the identity of the whistleblower is not publicly known, we do know that he or she is an employee of the U.S. Government. As such, he or she has by law the right — and indeed the responsibility — to make known, through appropriate channels, indications of serious wrongdoing. That is precisely what this whistleblower did; and we applaud the whistleblower not only for living up to that responsibility but also for using precisely the channels made available by federal law for raising such concerns.

“A responsible whistleblower makes all Americans safer by ensuring that serious wrongdoing can be investigated and addressed, thus advancing the cause of national security to which we have devoted our careers. What’s more, being a responsible whistleblower means that, by law, one is protected from certain egregious forms of retaliation. Whatever one’s view of the matters discussed in the whistleblower’s complaint, all Americans should be united in demanding that all branches of our government and all outlets of our media protect this whistleblower and his or her identity. Simply put, he or she has done what our law demands; now he or she deserves our protection.”

The post 90 top US national security pros say whistle-blower did the right thing appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Reflecting can often be a good thing. Ralph Northam is still governor of Virginia, though it seemed that he would be run out on a rail when the story or stories of him being blackface surfaced on Friday, Feb. 1. Just about every progressive with a PC bone in his or her body called for him to immediately resign.

The situation became further complicated when shortly thereafter accusations were made public that Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax had sexually assaulted two women, one while they were both students at Duke University. To further compound, Virginia’s Attorney-General Mark Herring acknowledged that he too had worn black face.

As of now, all three are still in office and if you don’t live in or near Virginia, you hear very little about it. What does it mean that they remain in office. Here are a few hypotheses:

1. Each, or perhaps all, is very lucky.
2. Each has his own reason for trying to weather the storm, and it’s working:
   1. Northam believes that what he did was not a disqualifier to stay in office and by remaining, he can walk along the “road to redemption.”
   2. Fairfax did not do what he is accused of, or he did them but does not consider them serious, or he is trying to run out the clock until evidence is presented.
   3. Herring got a reasonable break because what he did was not that unusual, not illegal, and he owned up to it rather than being the target of accusations.
3. By taking a chance that the storm would pass, Northam and Fairfax won their bets and for now are in office. The storm was just breezy for Herring.
4. One, two or three of them will have to resign or will be otherwise removed from office once more information comes forward.

Truth be told, none of us on the outside really knows what happened, except in the case of Attorney-General Herring. The fact that we don’t know should be reason alone to keep us from hastily jumping to conclusions. But that does not seem to be the way it frequently works.

Most of us believe in the axiom of innocent until proven guilty. But we also know that in cases of urgency, we cannot afford to operate that way. If a bus driver causes an accident and he is found to have been drinking, he should be fired, or at least put in a rehab program and not allowed to return to work until he successfully completed the program. If a president shoots and kills someone on 5^th Avenue in New York, he/she should be impeached and convicted as quickly as possible, even if the case has not been fully adjudicated in court.

Should Ralph Northam, Justin Fairfax and Mark Herring still be in office? The answer is murky. What is clear is that none of them should be forced to leave office because of a loud and frenzied outcry at the time of the initial accusations. As real evidence grows, then their vulnerability should increase.

This conversation cannot end without mention of former Minnesota Senator Al Franken. It was if he was surrounded by a lynching crowd in his own Senate. His “possible” answers did not count. Some were anxious to wipe him off their radar screen.

Maybe that was good, maybe it was hasty and we lost “one of the good ones.”

Kudos to Northam, Fairfax and Herring for not succumbing to the noise. But if evidence and reason gets them, then they have to go.

The post Do you remember Virginia Governor Ralph Northam? 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 covert, state demographer gambit

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.

Donald Trump is making us sick—and I mean that literally. Some food experts are claiming that the recent outbreak of E.Coli contamination in Romaine lettuce may be directly linked to the Trump administration’s disdain for the Food and Drug Administration,  and particularly its health-ensuring regulations.

Specifically, the regulations in play in the Romaine lettuce issue are the ones pertaining to the safety of water used to irrigate and wash crops. Okay, I’m just going to say it: This is about poop, feces, pig shit, horse manure and other animal excreta — the sources of the E. Coli bacteria that have rendered Caesar salad an outcast in American kitchens and restaurants in 2018 and caused hundreds–maybe thousands–of people to vomit, have diarrhea even come close to death. .

It’s all happening, some food-safety experts say, because last year, Trump overturned Obama-era rules to test farm water for E. coli as well as for pesticides and other contaminants.

Let’s review.

According to EcoWatch, in 2006, a major outbreak of E. coli linked to Dole baby spinach was eventually traced back to water contaminated with cattle and wild pig feces. By that year, foodborne illness had become a full-blown epidemic, affecting 1 in 6 Americans. In response to that and many other outbreaks connected to foods such as peanuts, fruit and vegetables, Congress passed the landmark 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The law includes requirements that the FDA develop rules governing produce safety, including the water quality used to grow, harvest and pack produce.

But the FDA dragged its feet in implementing the rules. After numerous lawsuits from food-safety groups, the FDA decided to allow growers to phase in water quality and testing requirements between 2018 and 2022.

That sounded like progress. But then, Trump came along—Trump and his anti-regulatory business cronies and Big Agriculture political donors. That’s when things started going south for food safety, turning us backward, toward the good old golden, anything-goes days of the unregulated food industry of 100+ years ago.

Ecowatch reports that, “in March 2017, Trump announced billions in dollars of cuts to USDA and FDA, undermining their ability to keep our food safe. In November 2017, the Trump administration proposed a delay in enforcement of urgently needed rules aimed at keeping produce free from fecal contamination. Under the Trump administration’s delay, growers would not have to test water for E. coli contamination until between 2022 and 2014—11 to 13 years after FSMA’s passage.”

The Center for Food Safety says that, based on FDA estimates, delaying enforcement of the rule could lead to more than 730,000 additional cases of foodborne illness and countless deaths.

FDA’s own economic analysis estimates that those illnesses and deaths would cost consumers between $96 million and $822 million more than the industry would save from a delay in enforcing the rule. The groups point to at least seven deadly outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to produce, including cantaloupes, apples, cucumbers, and papayas, since the passage of FSMA in 2011. Some of those outbreaks might have been prevented if the water safety rule had been in effect.

At the Center for Science in the Public Interest, deputy director for legislative affairs Sarah Sorcher said:

“Americans deserve to know that their produce wasn’t grown or rinsed in water contaminated with animal feces. Testing water that is used to grow and harvest produce for E. coli will save both lives and money. Consumers should be outraged that the Trump administration intends to defy Congress by delaying enforcement of these safeguards for many years more.”

The post Trump delays farm-water testing. Americans get E. Coli appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Sponsors of Missouri Amendment 1—aptly nicknamed Clean Missouri—aims to increase fairness, integrity and transparency in Missouri politics. With the length and complexity of the 2018 midterm ballot, it’s fortunate that this good-government proposal is first on the ballot, because many voters may fall victim to ballot fatigue long before they get to some of the other issues.

What’s in the Clean Missouri amendment? Here’s a plain-English summary published by the perpetually knowledgeable and helpful League of Women Voters of Metropolitan St. Louis.

Amendment 1 would do the following:

• Reduce campaign contribution limits to $2,500 for state Senate candidates and to $2,000 for state House candidates.
• Eliminate almost all lobbyist gifts to members of the General Assembly
• Require that all legislative records be open to the public, including committee reports, correspondence and electronic communications, and allow taping of all meetings open to the public.
• Require politicians to wait two years after leaving office before becoming paid lobbyists.
• Ensure that neither political party receives an unfair advantage when new legislative district maps are drawn after each census—also known as “gerrymandering.”
• An independent demographer would draw maps that would then be reviewed by a citizen commission that must hold public meetings. Currently, politicians draw the maps to protect incumbents and their parties.

Those final two bullet points are crucial. They are the anti-gerrymandering provisions of Amendment 1. Contending that democracy depends on creating a level playing field in the way districts are drawn, Amendment 1 specifies that when districts are constructed they need to meet the following criteria, in order of priority:

• Make districts as equal in population as practicable
• Comply with the U.S. Constitution, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and other federal laws
• Promote partisan fairness and competitiveness
• Be composed of contiguous territory, coincide with the boundaries of cities, towns and municipalities, and be compact.

The League of Women Voters has been advocating for the kind of redistricting reform specified in Amendment 1 [more details here] and, therefore, supports the proposal.

Here are some illustrations of a few, crazily gerrymandered Congressional districts in other states:

The post Missouri Amendment 1: Cleaning up Missouri politics appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Ten days before the high-stakes 2018 midterm election in Missouri, Eric Fey, St Louis County’s director of elections, led a group of high-schoolers on a back-stage tour of election headquarters. Three months from now, he’ll be in the warehouse, overseeing the de-tangling and re-rolling of miles of orange extension cords used to power up the Nov. 6 election. The highs of making big-news elections work, and the lows of post-election mop-up are the bookends of a job that few voters understand.

Correction: Fey is actually co-director of St. Louis County’s Board of Elections, and that’s important to know. He’s a Democrat. The other co-director is Rick Stream, a Republican. In St. Louis County, we get two directors, because, by Missouri law, all election administration has to be bi-partisan. Every function requires a Republican and a Democrat: You need an R and a D to open the door to the tabulation room. You need an R and a D to approve every absentee ballot. You need an R and a D to check voters’ IDs at every polling place.

“The only thing you can do here by yourself is go to the bathroom,” says Fey. “Everything else requires a bi-partisan team.”

In the world of election administration in the US, that’s unusual. Across the US, 70 percent of election officials are, themselves, elected, and there’s no requirement for party balance—which can lead to doubt about independence and fairness. “The person counting the votes is, him or herself, on the ballot,” comments Fey. “That doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world.”

That’s just one of the intriguing tidbits Fey shared during the two-hour tour that took us into places most people never get to see: the areas where election workers process voter registration cards, verify signatures on petitions, respond to requests for absentee ballots, sort out mailed-in ballots, electronically count the votes, and service voting machines—among myriad other election-critical tasks.

During the tour, Fey reeled off some key statistics that offer insight into the scope of the St. Louis County election operation. Here’s an annotated rundown:

Polling places in St. Louis County: 411  [The largest election district in Missouri]

Registered voters in St. Louis County:  750,000

Active voters in St. Louis County:  650,000

Workers employed on Election Day:  3,500

The election board is constantly recruiting election day workers—begging, really. The hours are terrible—5 am to 7 pm or later, depending on how things go. The pay is lousy — $125, which covers a separate two-hour training session plus the 14+ hour day. And it’s all one shift.

Election Day payroll:  $600,000  [The largest line item in the election board’s budget]

Petition signatures verified in 2018:  approximately 400,000

The 2018 midterm ballot in St. Louis County includes 4 amendments to the Missouri constitution, 3 statewide propositions, one countywide proposition, and  7 amendments to the St. Louis County charter. It’s the longest ballot ever produced in Missouri history, Fey noted. [His office, though not responsible for the wording on the ballot, had to negotiate with various sponsoring groups to edit the propositions, because, as originally written, they wouldn’t all fit on one piece of 8 1/2 x 19″ paper, which is the largest size that can be read by optical scanners.]

For every petition initiative, county election workers had to review each signature—to verify that the signer was a registered voter in St. Louis County and the signature matched—within reason—their original voter registration.

Early voting days in Missouri:  0

Missouri is one of just 13 states that do not allow early voting, notes Fey. Ninety-percent of voters cast their ballots on Election Day, putting a lot of pressure on Fey’s operation all in a single, 14-hour day.

The only “early voting” option is to vote absentee, either by mail or in person at headquarters or at a satellite location, if the jurisdiction opts to have one.  You have to provide a reason for voting absentee. Disability, being an election worker, or being outside of the voting jurisdiction on Election Day are acceptable reasons, so many people just say they’re going to be out of town. They are not required to show proof. “Our rules make liars out of a lot of voters,” says Fey.

In the cavernous, bare-bones warehouse that looks spookily like a set from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” Fey showed our tour the election-day equipment he manages, and explained the limitations of what he has to work with:

Touch-screen voting machines:  1,800

Optical-scanner voting machines:  500

St. Louis County uses touch-screen machines purchased in 2005, at a cost of $10 million. Fey noted that the technology is 20+ years old. The machines operate on the now-antique Windows XP, which is no longer supported. Replacing broken touch-screen machines is not possible, because a) they are no longer manufactured by the supplier, ES&S, and there is no additional inventory. Only about six companies make voting machines in the US, and they haven’t been interested in maintaining their older models as they roll out newer ones.  “It’s a racket,” says Fey; and b) You can’t fill in, incrementally, with newer machines, because they won’t work with Windows XP, which is also the operating system for the equipment that counts the votes.

Also, you can’t borrow replacement machines from other Missouri jurisdictions, because many don’t use this model: In Missouri, each county election board is its own fiefdom. There are no statewide standards for voting equipment, so each county decides, independently of others, which equipment to buy and from which vendor. [On the plus side, notes Fey, it could be argued that this decentralization of the voting process is a positive—a fortuitous defense against widespread tampering.]

A few years ago, Fey learned that the voting district in in Troy, MO experienced an equipment disaster, when the roof of their warehouse caved in in a rainstorm, soaking all of their ES & S voting machines. The district’s insurance policy covered the purchase of new equipment. Fey took in the salvageable machines and cannibalized them for spare parts.

“The dirty secret in election administration is that we hope for a crisis—but not here,” quips Fey. He further explains that the hanging-chad debacle in Florida, during the 2000 presidential election, created a national electoral nightmare—which, in turn, resulted in Congressional legislation and federal funding for more advanced voting equipment. Although Fey is constantly asking for money for better technology, the state legislature and the county council just won’t come up with the funds, citing other, more pressing priorities. As an aside, Fey notes that rural jurisdictions have found it easier to upgrade their equipment, because they need fewer machines, so the overall cost is less.

“Our only hope is that money falls from the sky again, as it did after 2000,” says Fey.

So, with all of this creaky equipment, how does Fey know that votes are being recorded properly?

“We conduct a Logic and Accuracy test,” he explains. “We ‘vote’ on every machine in the warehouse, before they are sent out to polling places. This mock ‘vote’ has a pre-determined pattern that we can check for accuracy. This Thursday—five days before the election—is test day.”

Electronic poll books:  1,200

These i-Pad type tablets recently replaced the cumbersome, paper tomes that contained the names, addresses and precincts of all registered voters in St. Louis County. Election workers had to paw through hundreds of pages to find each voter as they came in to the polling place. Electronic poll books are a good-news, advanced technology update for Fey’s domain that are streamlining voter check-in. But a recent court fight over voter ID forced Fey’s IT department to reprogram the electronic poll books to match the new ruling [details, if you’re interested, here.] “We’re reprogramming 10 days before the election,” says Fey. “It’s a nightmare.”

Metal transport cases for Election Days supplies:  400+

These institutional-gray, banged up cases—an average-sized person could fit inside — look like they’ve been around for 50 years. Election workers stock them with all the standard paper forms and ancillary equipment [chargers, extension cords, pencils, pens, signs, forms and even American flags] needed at every polling place. It takes six days to deliver all of them. It takes three months—as noted before—to untangle the extension cords, clean out leftover materials and trash, and restock them for the next cycle.

“If you’re wondering what the heck we all do after the election, this is a big part of it,” says Fey.

Another stop on our tour was the tabulation room, where the actual votes are counted. Fey says that 98 percent of ballots in the US are counted electronically—as is also the case in St. Louis County. While some voting-rights purists wish that ballots were counted by hand, so that they cannot be electronically hacked, Fey contends that hand-counting itself can be subject to cheating, too.

Fey assured us that his tabulation machines are tamper-resistant, because they are not networked together [they are “air-gapped”] and are not linked to the internet. Nor are the electronic voting machines at polling places linked to each other or to the internet. Each voting machine records its votes separately from all others and stores the votes on a separate storage device. Election supervisors deliver the storage devices—in addition to paper votes recorded on optical scanners—to the tabulation room, where they are catalogued and entered into the tabulation machines.  Results are posted to the internet using what Fey calls a “sneaker net.” Wearing his election day sneakers, he walks the tabulated results to another room, where they are posted to the internet for public viewing.

At the end of our tour, Fey invited the high-school students to participate in an innovative, election-day internship program: While you must be 18 to be an election official, students 16 and older can work at polling places, timing the vote and conducting exit surveys to assess voters’ experiences of the process. Interns can be paid either in community-service hours or in real dollars [$120].  Nearly half of the 25 students on the tour took application forms—an encouraging sign about the next generation of voters.

The big stress test for Fey’s operation will, of course, come on November 6. I came away with the impression that with Fey in charge—equipped with his attitude of openness, fairness, bi-partisanship and transparency—we’re in good hands around here. But I’ll still be staffing a shift outside a polling place, as an Election Protection volunteer.

The post Back-stage tour of election headquarters: numbers tell the story appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In a truly just world, Brett Kavanaugh would not be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court for so many reasons. While the “he said – she said” conflict between Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford is stealing center stage, there are countless reasons why the process is flawed. Not the least is that Dr. Ford is already receiving the Anita Hill Treatment from many Republican Senators, both on the Judiciary Committee and in the rank and file.

Let’s deal quickly with this issue. It is possible that what Brett Kavanaugh “remembers” (which seems to be nothing) more accurately describes what happened between him and Christine Blasey thirty-six years ago than what she recalls (being attacked; experiencing trauma; and carrying it with her for the intervening years). It’s possible but far from a certainty.

Suppose that there are no credible witnesses. Is the winner Kavanaugh because (a) he’s a male, (b) he’s a Republican and that party holds the moral high ground, (c) his supporters like Orrin Hatch and Charles Grassley are more righteous? Or is the “winner” Dr. Ford because (a) she does not have the extensive history of shading the truth as Kavanaugh has revealed in the hearings for his nomination, (b) women are more believable than men, (c) in the history of these kinds of disputes, the man has been believed far more than the woman, and (d) it’s payback time for what happened to Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings.

Hard to tell. Maybe an FBI investigation will turn up incontrovertible evidence. Maybe the questioning of Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford before the Committee will trip up one or the other. If we have to go by a “feeling in the gut,” I would say that the safe thing to do would be to side with Dr. Ford because the consequences of having two sitting members on the Supreme Court who have acted very inappropriately regarding sex is more than the country should have to bear. As said so eloquently by Anita Hill in an op-ed in today’s New York Times:

But, as Judge Kavanaugh stands to gain the lifetime privilege of serving on the country’s highest court, he has the burden of persuasion. And that is only fair.

Surely there is another conservative nominee who has not been charged with such and who may not have the same paper trail as Kavanaugh.

But let’s look at the broader picture of why this process is so flawed. What are we doing here? We’re selecting someone to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States? And what does he/she do? “Interpret” the laws made by extremely flawed individuals; our legislators in the federal, state and local legislatures. While there are some outstanding legislators, the nature of the job is that it attracts many who have excessive egos and who are comfortable asking for money with little to offer in return. That’s not the way in which healthy human beings interact with one another.

As a group, they are not the most qualified people we have in our society to fashion our laws. Yet we treat what they create as being sacrosanct and engraved in stone. The work of these legislators must be precisely interpreted. But what if what they made was crap, as often is the case. What do the judges do then?

If our judges are wise and capable, then their job should be to clean up the mess. That means more than interpreting what has been written. It means working to have our laws conform to the parts of our Constitution that promote democracy and fairness.

How do we know if a nominee is capable of helping us clean up legislative messes? It certainly is not from them providing bullshit like, “That is a hypothetical question and I don’t want to answer it because it’s a case that may come before the court.” Since nominees dodge most questions, we can only use conjecture to try to figure out what they support.

We need a system in which the nominees are fully vetted – and that information is available not only to the executive branch but also to Congress and ultimately to the American people. The nominees must be required to answer all questions, so we learn what their professed beliefs are.

Their skills in interpreting the laws are less important than their abilities to exercise common sense. That means being good at reasoning, having empathy and understanding irony and hypocrisy.

This system won’t change now. If we’re fortunate, Kavanaugh will not be confirmed and we’ll go through the same song and dance with the next nominee. But ultimately, we need to face reality and have Supreme Court Justices be individuals who have boots on the ground of the United States and who are more arbiters of fairness than presumed scholars of the law.

The post It’s not just Kavanaugh; it’s the whole process appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s appointee to head up [translation:destroy] the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau comes in for devastating criticism in a letter of resignation submitted by Seth Frotman, a seven-year veteran of the Bureau who served as its Student Loan Ombudsman.

In his letter, as published by NPR, Frotman describes the ways in which Mulvaney has undermined and essentially reversed the original mission of the CFPB in general, and the office of the student loan ombudsman in particular.

“…After 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side,” writes Frotman…” Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.”

From his letter, you can tell that Frotman liked his job and was passionate about helping student-loan borrowers get fair treatment from lenders. When Mulvaney took over as interim director, he quickly began turning the CFPB on its head, Frotman implies. Frotman charges Mulvaney with undermining the bureau’s mission, undercutting enforcement, and switching the focus from protecting consumers to “going above and beyond” to protect lenders’ interests.

Frotman cites several instances that demonstrate Mulvaney’s intent to wreck the CFPB from within—something that Republicans have wanted to do since Day 1 of the bureau conceived and promoted by Senator Elizabeth Warren [D-MA].

“For example” writes Frotman, “Late last year [2017], when new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were ripping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees, Bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by Bureau staff. When pressed by Congress about this, you chose to leave students vulnerable to predatory practices and deny any responsibility to bring this information to light.”

Frotman also calls some actions by the bureau, under Mulvaney’s leadership, as “unprecedented,” “illegal,” and designed to “shield the biggest financial institutions from accountability.”

“The current leadership of the Bureau has made its priorities clear—it will protect the misguided goals of the Trump Administration to the detriment of student loan borrowers,” writes Frotman. “…American families need an independent Consumer Bureau to look out for them when lenders push products they know cannot be repaid, when banks and debt collectors conspire to abuse the courts and force families out of their homes, and when student loan companies are allowed to drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.”

Frotman cannot be accused of making this stuff up. For a bit of context, it should be noted that when Mulvaney was in Congress, he sponsored legislation to abolish the CFPB. In June 2018, after being appointed acting director of the bureau by Trump, Mulvaney fired the agency’s consumer advisory council, which according to NPR,” is designed to help consumer groups work with the CFPB to identify problems facing Americans who are treated unfairly by financial firms.”

Frotman’s decision to resign with a bang echoes that of an ever-growing cadre of career government employees—dedicated to and passionate about the good things that good government can do—who have quit the Trump Administration on principle. His experience with Mulvaney also parallels what well-intentioned federal employees have encountered in other Trump-run agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

You have to wonder how many others, perhaps not as articulate as Frotman, in agencies whose missions are similarly threatened under Trump, are suffering in silence, keeping their heads down, trying to continue the mission they thought they were supporting, hoping that this is just an Orwellian nightmare from which America will wake up before it’s too late.

Here’s the full text of Frotman’s resignation letter, as published by NPR.

August 27, 2018

…

Acting Director Mulvaney:

It is with great regret that I tender my resignation as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Student Loan Ombudsman. It has been the honor of a lifetime to spend the past seven years working to protect American consumers; first under Holly Petraeus as the Bureau defended America’s military families from predatory lenders, for-profit colleges, and other unscrupulous businesses; and most recently leading the Bureau’s work on behalf of the 44 million Americans struggling with student loan debt. However, after 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side.

Each year, tens of millions of student loan borrowers struggle to stay afloat. For many, the CFPB has served as a lifeline—cutting through red tape, demanding systematic reforms when borrowers are harmed, and serving as the primary financial regulator tasked with holding student loan companies accountable when they break the law.

The hard work and commitment of the immensely talented Bureau staff has had a tremendous impact on students and families. Together, we returned more than $750 million to harmed student loan borrowers in communities across the country and halted predatory practices that targeted millions of people in pursuit of the American Dream.

The challenges of student debt affect borrowers young and old, urban and rural, in professions ranging from infantrymen to clergymen.  Tackling these challenges should know no ideology or political persuasion. I had hoped to continue this critical work in partnership with you and your staff by using our authority under law to stand up for student loand borrowers trapped in a broken system. Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.

As the Bureau official charged by Congress with overseeing the student loan market, I have seen how the current actions being taken by Bureau leadership are hurting families. In recent months, the Bureau has made sweeping changes, including:

Undercutting enforcement of the law. It is clear that the current leadership of the Bureau has abandoned its duty to fairly and robustly enforce the law. The Bureau’s new political leadership has repeatedly undercut and undermined career CFPB staff working to secure relief for consumers. These actions will affect millions of student loan borrowers, including those harmed by the company that dominates this market. In addition, when the Education Department unilaterally shut the door to routine CFPB oversight of the largest student loan companies, the Bureau’s current leadership folded to political pressure. By undermining the Bureau’s own authority to oversee the student loan market, the Bureau has failed borrowers who depend on independent oversight to halt bad practices and bring accountability to the student loan industry.

Undermining the Bureau’s independence. The current leadership of the Bureau has make its priorities clear—it will protect the misguided goals of the Trump Administration to the detriment of student loan borrowers. For nearly seven years, I was proud to be part of an agency that served no party and no administration; the Consumer Bureau focused solely on doing what was right for American consumers. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Recently, senior leadership at the Bureau blocked efforts to call attention to the ways in which the actions of this administration will hurt families ripped off by predatory for-profit schools. Similarly, senior leadership also blocked attempts to alert the Department of Education to the far-reaching harm borrowers will face due to the Department’s unprecedented and illegal attempts to preempt state consumer laws and shield student loan companies from accountability for widespread abuses. At every turn, your political appointees have silenced warnings by those of us tasked with standing up for servicemembers and students.

Shielding bad actors from scrutiny. The current leadership of the Bureau has turned its back on young people and their financial futures. Where we once found efficient and innovative ways to collaborate across government to protect consumers, the Bureau is now content doing the bare minimum for them while simultaneously going above and beyond to protect the interests of the biggest financial companies in America. For example, late last year, when new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were reipping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees. Bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by Bureau staff. When pressed by Congress about this, you chose to leave students vulnerable to predatory practices and deny any responsibility to bring this information to light.

American families need an independent Consumer Bureau to look out for them when lenders push products they know cannot be repaid, when banks and debt collectors conspire to abuse the courts and force families out of their homes, and when student loan companies are allowed to drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.

In my time at the Bureau I have traveled across the country, meeting with consumers in over three dozen states, and with military families from over 100 military units. I have met with dozens of state law enforcement officials and, more importantly, I have heard directly from tens of thousands of individual student loan borrowers.

A common thread ties these experiences together—the American Dream under siege, told through the hear wrenching stories of individuals caught in a system rigged to favor the most powerful financial interests. For seven years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fought to ensure these families received a fair shake as they strived for the American Dream.

For these reasons, I resign effective September 1, 2018. Although I will no longer be Student Loan Ombudsman, I remain committed to fighting on behalf of borrowers who are trapped in a broken student loan system.

 

Sincerely,

Seth Frotman

Assistant Director & Student Loan Ombudsman

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

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