Mr. President,

Every day the President is confronted with major issues that affect the life and prosperity of our nation and our planet. The decisions that the President makes often are collaborative with input needed from many players and the Constitution provides that some decisions require consent from another branch of government. However, there are moments when the decision belongs to the President and the President alone and these issues are often of the greatest consequence and shape the very identity of our nation. You are now faced with such a moment as Justice Breyer has announced his intention to retire from the United States Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has been at times the solitary mover of progress and it has often been the roadblock to advancement. It is the one branch of government that does not find itself accountable to voters, to the media, or to the wrath of political donors. The Supreme Court is accountable only to the Constitution of the United States of America and has the ultimate authority over what that Constitution means. This should mean that the awesome task of nominating and confirming a Justice should be taken seriously and not treated as another partisan exercise. However, this has not been the case in the last several nomination battles as Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney-Barrett have been confirmed in a process that has been totally outside of regular order. Furthermore, organizations like the Federalist Society have removed all pretense of judicial impartiality by poisoning the process with right-wing ideology disguised as constitutional reasoning. Regrettably, politics has become part of the process and will remain part of the process until the political will exists to enact the reforms necessary to restore public faith in the Supreme Court.

It is vital that we engage with reality as it exists, not as we wish it existed. The reality is our system of government is threatened by forces who do not believe in representative government or American democracy. The reality is that these forces are poised to gain a meaningful amount of political power over the next year and will exert that power to meet their ends of disrupting American democracy. The reality is that it is not guaranteed that these forces can be defeated without extraordinary action. Therefore, I am presenting an extraordinary action that could prove immeasurable in preventing our slide towards illiberal democracy.

Nominate Vice President Kamala Harris to fill this Supreme Court vacancy. The obvious should be stated that Harris is qualified for this position, she understands the constitution to be a living document, and she generally can be counted on as a liberal vote despite justified criticism of her past positions on criminal justice. There is something that is perhaps less obvious that must be said, the public generally does not expect nor at this current moment desire to see you seek re-election to a second term as President. It is assumed then by the public and by our party that the next Democratic nominee for President will be Vice President Harris. I believe given the increased risk of permanent and irreversible damage to the American system should authoritarian forces be successful in electing their candidate for President, it would be worse than irresponsible to have Vice President Harris lead our party into a general election.

The Vice President was unable to continue her 2020 campaign for President into 2020, dropping out well before her home state’s primary who’s polling placed her outside any hopes for victory. Vice President Harris, despite having a lower profile than yourself has been rated as significantly more unpopular by virtually every pollster. Candidly, I would not be surprised if the Vice President were the first Democrat to lose the popular vote in 20 years. Some of the opposition she faces is because of her race and gender, undoubtedly it must be in a country with as much fraught racial history and racism denialism as ours. However, it would be dishonest to suggest that all of her opposition comes from misogynists or racists.

This is not meant to disparage or attack the character of the Vice President; she would be a champion for the rights of so many and would likely establish a legacy rivaling the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg should she be nominated and confirmed. The Supreme Court allows an individual to make changes to our society not possible from the White House or Congress, it would not be a demotion but a vote of confidence in the Vice President’s ability to interpret law.  However, it is my sincere belief that she would be unable to win a general election for President of the United States even in the most favorable of circumstances. Nominating Vice President Harris would not only fulfill your promise to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, but it would also allow you to pick a successor who would have a greater chance of success in a campaign for President. It is my hope that you would select Rep. Karen Bass of California or Rep. Barbara Lee of California or Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin to succeed the Vice President. These distinguished women have shown themselves to be dedicated public servants, empathetic campaigners, and more than capable of being President of the United States. Furthermore, they have been champions of your agenda as President and progressive causes throughout their careers.

You have often stated that we are in “a battle for the soul of America”, I would counter that for the last 60 years we have been in “a war for the soul of America”. It is imperative that we are all doing what we can to pull this country back from the brink if it can in fact be pulled back. I do not know that the Vice President would accept a nomination to the Supreme Court, but I believe that she should be asked. Mr. President, ultimately the choice of a Supreme Court nominee is yours and I hope that you will consider all of your options.

Sincerely,

Reece Ellis

St. Louis, Missouri

The post An Open Letter to Joe Biden: Nominate Kamala appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Kudos to Senator Kamala Harris for regenerating the Obama spirit and his base in her Town Hall meeting at Drake University in Iowa on January 28. However, as time passed, it struck me that there was something missing in her words. There was a key base that she failed to touch.

Harris was speaking to an audience stacked in her favor. What was missing was representation of the voters that Hillary Clinton seemed to forget in the 2016 presidential election. The white blue-collar Reagan Democrats who were Donald Trump’s margin of victory in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Harris talked a great deal about the aspirations of those in the traditional Democratic coalition – racial minorities, women, young people, college graduates, recent immigrants, etc. She demonstrated that she is indeed an inspirational candidate, much as Barack Obama was in 2008.

But things are different now than they were in 2008 when Obama ran his first presidential campaign. At that time, the country was going through a major recession. Obama’s semi-progressive message resonated with many white blue-collar workers who were suffering the pains of unemployment and under-employment. These disenfranchised people were willing to give him a chance, as generations of union members and other workers had given to Democrats in recent decades because the party of FDR, Truman, Kennedy and LBJ had consistently advocated their economic interests.

Eight years after Obama’s election, he had the economy booming. Ironically, his success became a bit of a disincentive for people to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. By that time, many were more economically secure. The social issues that Trump referenced (while not personally practicing) resonated with many of them.

The conventional wisdom was that Clinton assumed that white voters in these traditional Democratic states would provide her with the margin of victory as they had for Obama. But as we all know, that didn’t happen.

Even if Russian interference in the election played a significant role in turning these three states from blue to red in 2016, Clinton’s decision to not make special efforts to campaign in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in late October and early November made a difference. More important than where she campaigned was her omission of frequent references to these white voters who saw themselves as left out of the Democratic tent.

The same omission was apparent in Kamala Harris’ town hall meeting.  She effectively rallied her base but did little to build a bridge to the voters who will make a difference in whether or not she could be (a) a viable presidential nominee for the Democrats, and (b) able to defeat Donald Trump or some other Republican nominee in the 2020 presidential election.

Hopefully she will learn from Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Perhaps this will happen in different Q&A settings for her where she is directly asked about how she will address the needs of the so-called “forgotten voters;” the white middle- and lower-income citizens who carry a great deal of bitterness in them, particularly about what they consider to be preferential treatment for “other people,” i.e. the people not like them.

Franklin Roosevelt was able to cobble together a program and strategy that appealed to virtually all Americans who struggled economically. In a sense, it was easier then because race was not an issue at the forefront of political conversation. Kamala Harris needs to find a way in a climate of racial and ethnic tension to convince all Americans who face economic challenges that as president she would be thinking about them. The flawed Bill Clinton was able to do that and so was Barack Obama. Both Clinton and Obama were undercut by what Hillary Clinton accurately called the “vast right-wing conspiracy.” Kamala Harris has to work to build enough base that she can minimize the damage of extreme conservatives. That will not be easy, but the first step will be to be more inclusive to Reagan Democrats and Trump voters than she was in Monday night’s town hall in Iowa.

Full video of Town Hall Meeting

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Kamala Harris, California’s junior senator and perhaps a 2020 presidential candidate, is walking into the quagmire of political correctness with a nominee for the federal court in Nebraska. It has to do, in part, with religion. Most politicians tend to avoid questions related to religion because the risk of offending someone is far greater than the payoff of criticism, however justified.

In this particular case, Senator Harris, along with Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii are raising questions about Brian Buescher, who has been nominated by Donald Trump to serve on a federal district court in Nebraska. It turns out that Mr. Buescher is a member of the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal organization.

The Knights of Columbus is an all-male group, clearly an anachronism, but as a private organization, they have the right to restrict their membership in this way. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal quotes Senator Hirono as saying that the Knights “hold a number of extreme positions, particularly on same-sex marriage and abortion.”

But the question is should Mr. Buescher be disqualified because of guilt by association. After all, John F. Kennedy was also a member of the Knights, but he made compelling arguments that if elected president, he would separate church from state and make decisions based on the constitution and not the bible.

Mr. Buescher has somewhat followed President Kennedy’s strategy and has said that as a judge he would uphold precedent by both the Supreme Court and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.

It is certainly understandable that Senator Harris has concerns about the associations of any person being considered for a judgeship, or any number of other federal jobs. But the problem is, where do we draw the line?

The French historian Alexis de Tocqueville found that one of the unique characteristics of Americans is how they form groups, and strongly identify themselves with these groups. In one sense, a group provides support for individuals. In a different sense, a group provides baggage for individuals.

So, a key question becomes, how can someone belong to a group, enjoy the benefits, and not be responsible for those components of the group that are not in their comfort zone?

Some groups are very purposeful, such as a professional scientific organization. But others are based on beliefs, even myths. Religious groups tend to resemble the latter.

But religion is such an engrained part of our past, that it is unrealistic to limit those who are qualified to hold positions such as judgeships to those who do not have religious affiliations.

The bottom line seems to be that individuals can have religious affiliations, not necessarily because joining a religion was motivated by rational thinking or even an emotional need for community. Rather, it is something that is almost in their genes, at least in the recent history of them and their families. The question is whether or not, like John F. Kennedy, the individual can separate the secular from the religious. If they can, this is tantamount to an individual acknowledging that religion may serve a purpose for them, but when it comes to decisions that impact others, it has to sit on the sidelines.

I definitely want to see Kamala Harris succeed and not fall into rabbit-holes that can be avoided. She has had her own experiences with religion, growing up in both a black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. But as a public official, she is very comfortable taking the road of rationality. Our goal is to increase the number of humans who are comfortable with reason and empathy. In the process, we may have to forgive some people for how they got there.

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