“Our Democracy Is Drowning In Big Money”: JP Morgan Chase, The Foreign Corrupt Practice Act, And The Corruption Of America
The Justice Department has just obtained documents showing that JPMorgan Chase, Wall Street’s biggest bank, has been hiring the children of China’s ruling elite in order to secure “existing and potential business opportunities” from Chinese government-run companies. “You all know I have always been a big believer of the Sons and Daughters program,” says one JP Morgan executive in an email, because “it almost has a linear relationship” to winning assignments to advise Chinese companies. The documents even include spreadsheets that list the bank’s “track record” for converting hires into business deals.
It’s a serious offense. But let’s get real. How different is bribing China’s “princelings,” as they’re called there, from Wall Street’s ongoing program of hiring departing U.S. Treasury officials, presumably in order to grease the wheels of official Washington? Timothy Geithner, Obama’s first Treasury Secretary, is now president of the private-equity firm Warburg Pincus; Obama’s budget director Peter Orszag is now a top executive at Citigroup.
Or, for that matter, how different is what JP Morgan did in China from Wall Street’s habit of hiring the children of powerful American politicians? (I don’t mean to suggest Chelsea Clinton got her hedge-fund job at Avenue Capital LLC, where she worked from 2006 to 2009, on the basis of anything other than her financial talents.)
And how much worse is JP Morgan’s putative offense in China than the torrent of money JP Morgan and every other major Wall Street bank is pouring into the campaign coffers of American politicians — making the Street one of the major backers of Democrats as well as Republicans?
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, under which JP Morgan could be indicted for the favors it has bestowed in China, is quite strict. It prohibits American companies from paying money or offering anything of value to foreign officials for the purpose of “securing any improper advantage.” Hiring one of their children can certainly qualify as a gift, even without any direct benefit to the official.
JP Morgan couldn’t even defend itself by arguing it didn’t make any particular deal or get any specific advantage as a result of the hires. Under the Act, the gift doesn’t have to be linked to any particular benefit to the American firm as long as it’s intended to generate an advantage its competitors don’t enjoy.
Compared to this, corruption of American officials is a breeze. Consider, for example, Countrywide Financial’s generous “Friends of Angelo” lending program, named after its chief executive, Angelo R. Mozilo, that gave discounted mortgages to influential members of Congress and their staffs before the housing bubble burst. No criminal or civil charges have ever been filed related to these loans.
Even before the Supreme Court’s shameful 2010 “Citizens United” decision — equating corporations with human beings under the First Amendment, and thereby shielding much corporate political spending – Republican appointees to the Court had done everything they could to blunt anti-bribery laws in the United States. In 1999, in “United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers,” Justice Scalia, writing for the Court, interpreted an anti-bribery law so loosely as to allow corporations to give gifts to public officials unless the gifts are linked to specific policies.
We don’t even require that American corporations disclose to their own shareholders the largesse they bestow on our politicians. Last year around this time, when the Securities and Exchange Commission released its 2013 to-do list, it signaled it might formally propose a rule to require corporations to disclose their political spending. The idea had attracted more than 600,000 mostly favorable comments from the public, a record response for the agency.
But the idea mysteriously slipped off the 2014 agenda released last week, without explanation. Could it have anything to do with the fact that, soon after becoming SEC chair last April, Mary Jo White was pressed by Republican lawmakers to abandon the idea, which was fiercely opposed by business groups.
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is important, and JP Morgan should be nailed for bribing Chinese officials. But, if you’ll pardon me for asking, why isn’t there a Domestic Corrupt Practices Act?
Never before has so much U.S. corporate and Wall-Street money poured into our nation’s capital, as well as into our state capitals. Never before have so many Washington officials taken jobs in corporations, lobbying firms, trade associations, and on the Street immediately after leaving office. Our democracy is drowning in big money.
Corruption is corruption, and bribery is bribery, in whatever country or language it’s transacted in.
By: Robert Reich, The Robert Reich Blog, December 8, 2013
“We Have To Do Better”: We Can’t Just Play Defense On Voting Access, It’s Time To Make Voting Easier
When I think of the 2012 Obama campaign, I am proud of so many things we accomplished. But one thing I wasn’t totally satisfied with was voter turnout.
It’s not that we didn’t meet our goals—we actually surpassed them, especially in key states. The numbers were stark: We won nine of the ten battleground states, registered 1.8 million new voters, and built a grassroots army of more than 2 million volunteers who made 146 million calls and door knocks over the course of the electoral cycle. Yet the really telling stats are the ones no one is discussing—specifically who failed to cast his or her vote in either this past election or any election in the last decade.
In 2012, 60 percent of eligible voters (129 million American citizens) headed to the polling booth, including the largest number of voters ever among African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans, and large numbers of women and young people—many of whom voted for the first time ever. But when 40 percent (86 million American citizen adults) are not voting, the simple fact is our society—and democracy writ large—suffers.
The fundamental problem is that the way we exercise our right to vote remains trapped in the 19th century. Some election officials still use unwieldy reams of paper to check off voters, voting machines vary from precinct to precinct and frequently break, and voters are driving to city hall or the public library to get their voter registration forms in many states.
What’s more, it’s costing Americans to participate in the process both in terms of the time and effort they must invest in order to register and vote—and in taxpayer dollars. In Oregon, where voter turnout is remarkably high in comparison with the rest of the nation, the state spends $4.11 to process each voter registration form. Meanwhile in Canada, the average cost is less than thirty-five cents.
At the same time, lines to cast a ballot have been getting longer and longer, especially in urban and minority communities. Analytical studies of the 2012 election show the problem extends far beyond the anecdotal evidence of Florida early voters waiting for hours to enter the polling booth. In fact, MIT scholar Charles Stewart III found that while two-thirds of American voters waited less than ten minutes to vote, voters in low-income neighborhoods with high percentages of minorities often waited more than an hour. On average, African American voters across the country waited two times as long to vote as whites. Similarly, Hispanic voters waited a third longer than white voters.
The good news is the same innovative spirit and technological savvy that is making so many aspects of our lives easier—from travelling paper-free, to banking from home, to tracking on our smartphones how miles we’ve run or how many calories we’ve consumed—can also fix the problems with the way we vote. Digital technology and big data systems are continuing to change the world in which we live by helping us track massive amounts of data, protect against fraud, and democratize things that used to be the sole property of the elite and well-connected. It makes sense that those tools can help lead us to a more just and effective voting system as well.
The solutions already exist, and the policies are simply waiting to be adopted and enacted. In particular, by expanding online and automated voter registration, permitting no-excuse vote-by-mail, extending early voting, and implementing portable and Election Day registration, we can finally bring our voting system into the 21st century
If we do all these things we will not only improve democracy in America—we will save significant taxpayer dollars in the process.
One state leading the way on making voting both easier and more accessible is Colorado. In May, Governor John Hickenlooper signed a sweeping measure passed by both houses of the legislature that not only requires ballots be mailed to every single registered voter in Colorado but also permits registration through Election Day. Among the provisions included are a longer early voting period, a shorter time required for state residency to qualify to vote, and the ability to vote at any precinct within the voter’s county. What’s more, the law leaves it up to voters how they choose to cast their ballots during early vote or on Election Day—by mail, by dropping off the ballot, or in-person if that’s their preference.
We’re also seeing results in places like Washington State, which is a great case study on the benefits of expanding online and automated voter registration. Thanks to automated opt-in voter registration in the state’s Department of Licensing (DOL) offices, Washington saw cost savings amounting to $126,000 in 2008 alone, according to studies conducted by the Brennan Center. In addition, voters saved more than $90,000 in postage that would have been required to mail in their registration forms. It’s no wonder that Washington’s system has been popular with both the state and voters. In 2004, 15 percent of total registrations were completed at DOLs. By 2009, just a year after the state fully adopted and implemented online and automated registration, that number had jumped to 70 percent of total registrations.
While online and automated registration are key to easing the process for new voters, we know that increasing overall electoral participation can only happen if we improve the accessibility and convenience of voting, particularly for low-income and minority communities. That’s where policies that permit vote-by-mail and expand early voting come into play.
Oregon, Colorado, and Washington have already shown us what vote-by-mail can do for turnout. Oregon and Washington have instituted universal vote-by-mail, and both states have experienced voter participation rates that are significantly higher than the national average. Similarly, Colorado instituted the vote-by-mail option in 1992, and as awareness and education for this option increased, so has turnout. In 2012, Colorado had 70 percent turnout—and fully 82 percent of those voters cast their ballots before Election Day.
Instituting in-person early voting is another important piece that will help make it easier to vote, but this approach must go hand-in-hand with increasing early voting administrative resources and hours. In most states, early voting hours coincide with business hours and are shorter than Election Day hours. There are typically far fewer voting locations than on Election Day, and they are staffed with fewer poll workers and fewer machines. As a result, early voters have no choice but to travel greater distances to vote, and the expanded opportunity can be offset by the inconvenience.
One state that showcases how early voting can work well is Nevada. In 2008, 67 percent of Nevada voters voted early and 90 percent of Nevada early voters lived within 2.5 miles of an early vote site, further demonstrating the correlation between voting convenience and turnout. In 2012, Nevada offered two full weeks of early voting prior to Election Day with both permanent and mobile locations. Instead of the typical handful of staffers, mobile locations were run by teams of 10-12 election workers—and these locations changed sites every few days to ease the geographic burden on would-be voters. It’s not surprising then that in 2012, 69 percent of Nevadan voters cast their ballots prior to Election Day.
Finally, a crucial element of fixing our voting system is expanding portable and Election Day registration. Twenty-nine million voting age Americans move each year—that’s approximately one in eight people who would be eligible to vote—and 45 percent of voting age Americans move every five years. Yet most states require voters to re-register when they move to a new address. Portable voter registration would allow voters to keep their registration when they move.
Ten states currently allow voters to register and vote on Election Day: Colorado, Connecticut, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming—and when California’s new law goes into effect it will bring the total to 11. There is no reason why that number should be less than 50.
Fortunately, organizations like Turbovote are working to make this process easier for voters: Their goal is to ensure voters only have to register once in their lifetime. But if we want to modernize our voting system to reflect both our values as a nation and our technological capabilities, we will need to build the political will to do it.
Last November, former Florida Republican Party chair Jim Greer came clean about efforts to suppress the Democratic vote in his home state by reducing early voting hours, saying, “the Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates…It’s done for one reason and one reason only…We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us.”
We heard similar things in Pennsylvania when State House Republican leader Mike Turzai touted passing a law with serious voting restrictions, including “voter ID, which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania.”
And it’s no coincidence that Texas Attorney General and presumed Republican gubernatorial candidate Greg Abbott put that state’s voter ID law into effect just hours after the Supreme Court struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act this past June. What’s clear is the Texas voter ID law is designed to make it easier for certain people to vote and harder for others—under this law, a concealed handgun license is considered acceptable identification for voting while a student ID issued by a Texas university is not. It’s no wonder U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has already announced plans by the Department of Justice to fight the Texas law and other efforts by states seeking to capitalize on the court’s decision.
In North Carolina, the state’s new Republican governor and Republican state legislature approved a sweeping law last month to reduce early voting, eliminate voter registration during early voting, require voters to obtain photo ID, and impose a tax on parents of students who choose to vote on campus. Like Texas, the North Carolina law further discriminates against students by prohibiting them from using their North Carolina student ID to vote.
What these extreme comments and actions indicate is that we need a “common sense caucus” on voting rights. There are moderate Republicans who believe that elections should be about who has the best ideas—not who can change the laws to make it more difficult for their opponents to vote. We need to lift up those voices.
The ideas outlined above are just common sense solutions—and lawmakers in Washington should be taking action to implement them. Ultimately, driving up voter participation and making it easier to vote will help not only urban voters but provide greater access to the political process for voters in rural communities as well. That’s a goal leaders from both sides of the aisle should be able to support.
But we can’t wait for Washington.
States need to begin passing laws that reform and modernize our voting system—and begin seeing results the likes of those in Colorado, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada. In fact this kind of a decentralized approach—using the states as “laboratories of democracy”—may be the only way to solve the problem
In Silicon Valley, former Obama staffer Jim Green recently started a venture called Technology for America (T4A). This group brings together the best and brightest of Silicon Valley together with mayors and other elected officials of either party who want to solve the big problems of our day. Every Secretary of State in this country should be banging down Jim’s door asking how they can partner with Silicon Valley to come up with smart technology solutions to create a better voting system. If they don’t care or have the audacity to lead on this, we should fire them and vote in better Secretaries of State who do.
In the last election, 60 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, and many of those who did waited in unacceptably long lines to do so. As President Obama said in his acceptance speech on election night, “we have to fix that.”
The facts are clear on this front—we have the technology and the brilliant technologists to help us do just that. The question is whether or not national and state lawmakers have the political will. If not, we need to start electing political leaders who care about our democracy and understand that participation in it is critical to our success.
We made history in 2012—and in 2008—and I was deeply honored to be part of both amazing, transcendent campaigns. But history isn’t enough. We have to do better.
By: Jeremy Bird, the New Republic, November 30, 2013
“Gaining Even More Traction”: GOP-Backed Voting Laws Target And Hurt Young Minority Voters
A new report released by the Advancement Project highlights the numerous ways “young voters of color” are affected by restrictive voting laws that have been adopted by Republicans in several states across the nation.
The millennial generation, which is now between 18 and 29 years of age, is significantly more racially diverse than prior generations. Thus, the report explains, laws that suppress the youth vote also suppress voters of color. Restrictive laws affect particular demographics – in this case, young African-American and Latino voters – in different ways; some produce abnormally long lines on which voters must wait just to vote, while others implement barriers to actually getting to the polls.
On Election Day 2012, polling places in Florida counties with especially high numbers of minority youth voters closed on average 86 minutes after the 7 p.m. closing time, as a result of long lines. The obvious danger is that this will discourage young voters from voting. Others may “not be able to wait many hours to vote in future elections.”
A similar situation also occurred in Pennsylvania during the 2008 presidential election. Though local election officials petitioned for a larger polling space to cover the Lincoln University – a historically black university – district, the state’s Chester County Board of Elections denied the request, forcing voters to endure 6- to 8-hour wait times in the original “inadequately sized polling location.”
Also in Pennsylvania, and other states such as Texas, strict photo ID requirements directly affect specific groups’ ability to vote. A survey included in the report compares the disproportionately implemented voter ID requirements in both states to states without such laws. In states without voter ID laws, 65.5 percent of young black voters and 55.3 percent of young Latino voters were asked to present photo identification – a significantly greater share than the 42.8 percent of young white voters asked to present the same form of ID. In states with voter ID laws, however, 84.3 percent of young white voters were asked to produce specific photo ID, as opposed to 81.8 percent of young Latino voters asked to do the same.
An even greater 94.3 percent of young black voters were asked to present ID.
Strict photo ID laws – which typically require a voter to present a state-issued driver’s license or non-driver ID – account for why 17.3 percent of young black voters and 8.1 percent of young Latino voters could not vote in the 2012 presidential election. Fewer than 5 percent of young white voters were not able to vote for the same reason.
The measure is especially effective because many young voters in general don’t have a driver’s license. Even those who do, but attend an out-of-state college, do not have a state-issued driver’s license, and obtaining a standard state-issued photo ID usually requires a birth certificate – an obstacle that makes it more difficult for young voters. Furthermore, a larger percentage of young white voters have different forms of ID than young black and Latino voters. The report also mentions that several states – including Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Kansas and Pennsylvania, among others – have even attempted to ban student photo IDs as voter identification.
In North Carolina, however, specific photo ID requirements are not the sole legislation hurting young minority voters; in August 2013, Governor Pat McCrory signed into law a ban on same-day voter registration during early voting – the law also decreases the early voting period by a week. Among other provisions, the law also eliminates pre-registration for 16- and 17-year-olds and a state mandate for voter registration in high schools. In October, a Republican precinct chair from Buncombe County, North Carolina, Don Yelton, admitted that the legislation hindered African-Americans’ and college students’ ability to vote.
According to Yelton, both demographics were targeted because they tend to vote Democratic.
These types of restrictive laws are only gaining more traction since June, when the Supreme Court struck down a crucial provision of the Voting Rights Act that required specific states known for passing discriminatory voting laws to first get “pre-clearance” from the federal government in order to change their voting laws.
The Advancement Project warns that “attacks on young voters” are “ongoing” and “threatening the voting rights of many across the country for future elections.”
The report also recommends “policy-makers and election officials…concentrate on positive measures that would help alleviate the woefully low percentage of voter participation rates seen…especially among young people, who are our future.” Besides eliminating laws that implement strict ID requirements, ban same-day voter registration and shorten early voting periods, the Advancement Project also suggests nationwide implementation of online voter registration, “uniform standards” for voting machines and poll workers, and institutionalizing voter registration.
Lastly, the report adds: “Congress must act immediately to update the Voting Rights Act.”
The problem, however, is not that politicians are unaware of how to increase voter turnout, but that there are many lawmakers who support these restrictive laws because they benefit their party.
By: Elissa Gomez, Featured Post, The National Memo, November 19, 2013
“The Lies That Will Kill America”: Pundits Run To The Defense Of A Massive Bank And Other Tales Of The Lapdog Media
Here in Manhattan the other day, you couldn’t miss it — the big bold headline across the front page of the tabloid New York Post, screaming one of those sick, slick lies that are a trademark of Rupert Murdoch’s right wing media empire. There was Uncle Sam, brandishing a revolver and wearing a burglar’s mask. “UNCLE SCAM,” the headline shouted. “U.S. robs bank of $13 billion.”
Say what? Pure whitewash, and Murdoch’s minions know it. That $13 billion dollars is the settlement JPMorgan Chase, the country’s biggest bank, is negotiating with the government to settle its own rip-off of American homeowners and investors — those shady practices that five years ago helped trigger the financial meltdown, including manipulating mortgages and sending millions of Americans into bankruptcy or foreclosure. If anybody’s been robbed it’s not JPMorgan Chase, which can absorb the loss and probably take a tax write-off for at least part of it. No, it’s the American public. In addition to financial heartache we still have been denied the satisfaction of seeing jail time for any of the banksters who put our feet in cement and pushed us off the cliff.
This isn’t the only scandal JPMorgan Chase is juggling. A $6 billion settlement with institutional investors is in the works and criminal charges may still be filed in California. The bank is under investigation on so many fronts it’s hard to keep them sorted out – everything from deceptive sales in its credit card unit to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme to the criminal manipulation of energy markets and bribing Chinese officials by offering jobs to their kids.
Nor is JPMorgan Chase the only culprit under scrutiny. Bank of America was found guilty just this week of civil fraud, and a gaggle of other banks is being investigated by the government for mortgage fraud. No wonder the camp followers at Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, CNBC and other cheerleaders have ganged up to whitewash the banks. If justice is somehow served, this could be the biggest egg yet across the smug face of unfettered, unchecked, unaccountable capitalism.
One face in particular: Jamie Dimon, the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase. One of Murdoch’s Fox Business News hosts, Charlie Gasparino, claims the Feds are on a witch hunt against Dimon for criticizing President Obama, whose administration, we are told, “is brutally determined and efficient when it comes to squashing those who oppose their policies.” But hold on: Dimon is a Democrat, said to be Obama’s favorite banker, with so much entree he’s been doing his own negotiating with the attorney general of the United States.
But that’s crony capitalism for you, bipartisan to a fault. Rupert Murdoch has been defending Dimon in his media for a long time. Last spring, when it looked like there might be a stockholders revolt against Dimon, Murdoch was one of many bigwigs who rushed to his defense. He tweeted that JPMorgan would be “up a creek” without Dimon. “One of the smartest, toughest guys around,” Murdoch insisted. Whether Murdoch’s exaltation had an effect or not, Dimon was handily reelected.
Over the last few days, The Wall Street Journal, both Bible and supplicant of high finance as well one of Murdoch’s more reputable publications –at least in its reporting – echoed the “UNCLE SCAM” indignation of the more lowbrowPost. The government just wants “to appease their left wing populist allies,” its editorial writers raged, with a “political shakedown and wealth-redistribution scheme.” Perhaps, the paper suggested, the White House will distribute some of the JPMorgan Chase penalty to consumers and advocacy groups and “have the checks arrive in swing Congressional districts right before the 2014 election.” We can hear the closet Bolsheviks panting for their handouts now and getting ready to use their phony ID’s to stuff the box on Election Day with multiple illegal ballots .
Such fantasies are all part of the Murdoch News Corp pattern, an unending flow of falsehood and phony populism that in reality serves only the wealthy elite. Fox News is its ministry of misinformation, the fake jewel of the News Corp crown, a 24/7 purveyor of flimflam and the occasional selective truth. Look at the pounding they’ve given Obama’s healthcare reform right from the very start, whether the non-existent death panels or claims that it would cause the highest tax increase in history.
While it’s true that the startup of Obamacare has been plagued by its website nightmare and other problems, Fox News consistently has failed to mention Republican roadblocks that prevented the program from getting proper funding or the fact that so many states ruled by Republican governors and legislatures – more than 30 — have deliberately failed to set up the insurance marketplaces critical to making the new system work. Just the other day, Eric Stern atSalon.com fact-checked a segment on Sean Hannity’s show. “Average Americans are feeling the pain of Obamacare and the healthcare overhaul train wreck,” Hannity declared, “and six of them are here tonight to tell us their stories.”
Eric Stern tracked down each of the Hannity Six and found that while their questions about health reform may have been valid, the answers they received from Hannity or had decided for themselves were not. “I don’t doubt that these six individuals believe that Obamacare is a disaster,” Stern reported. “But none of them had even visited the insurance exchange.”
And there you have the problem: ideology and self-interest trump the facts or even caring about the facts, whether it’s banking, Obamacare or global warming. Ninety seven percent of climate scientists say that climate change is happening and that humans have made it so, but only four in ten Americans realize it’s true. According to a new study in the journal Public Understanding of Science, written by a team that includes Yale University’s Anthony Leiserowitz, the more that people listen to conservative media like Fox News or Limbaugh, the less sure they are that global warming is real. And even worse, the less they trust science.
Such ignorance will kill democracy as surely as the big money that funds and encourages the media outlets, parties and individuals who spew the lies and hate. The ground is all too fertile for those who will only believe whatever best fits their resentment or particular brand of paranoia. It is, as an old song lyric goes, “the self-deception that believes the lie.” The truth will set us free; the lie will make prisoners of us all.
By: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Salon, Originally Published in Bill Moyers Blog, October 25, 2013
“Our Democracy Is At Stake”: It’s Not Just Obamacare, President Obama Is Defending The Health Of Our Democracy
This time is different. What is at stake in this government shutdown forced by a radical Tea Party minority is nothing less than the principle upon which our democracy is based: majority rule. President Obama must not give in to this hostage taking — not just because Obamacare is at stake, but because the future of how we govern ourselves is at stake.
What we’re seeing here is how three structural changes that have been building in American politics have now, together, reached a tipping point — creating a world in which a small minority in Congress can not only hold up their own party but the whole government. And this is the really scary part: The lawmakers doing this can do so with high confidence that they personally will not be politically punished, and may, in fact, be rewarded. When extremists feel that insulated from playing by the traditional rules of our system, if we do not defend those rules — namely majority rule and the fact that if you don’t like a policy passed by Congress, signed by the president and affirmed by the Supreme Court then you have to go out and win an election to overturn it; you can’t just put a fiscal gun to the country’s head — then our democracy is imperiled.
This danger was neatly captured by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank, when he wrote on Tuesday about the 11th-hour debate in Congress to avert the shutdown. Noting a shameful statement by Speaker John Boehner, Milbank wrote: “Democrats howled about ‘extortion’ and ‘hostage taking,’ which Boehner seemed to confirm when he came to the floor and offered: ‘All the Senate has to do is say ‘yes,’ and the government is funded tomorrow.’ It was the legislative equivalent of saying, ‘Give me the money and nobody gets hurt.’ ”
“Give me the money and nobody gets hurt.” How did we get here? First, by taking gerrymandering to a new level. The political analyst Charlie Cook, writing in The National Journal on March 16, noted that the 2010 election gave Republican state legislatures around the country unprecedented power to redraw political boundaries, which they used to create even more “safe, lily-white” Republican strongholds that are, in effect, an “alternative universe” to the country’s diverse reality.
“Between 2000 and 2010, the non-Hispanic white share of the population fell from 69 percent to 64 percent,” wrote Cook. “But after the post-census redistricting and the 2012 elections, the non-Hispanic white share of the average Republican House district jumped from 73 percent to 75 percent, and the average Democratic House district declined from 52 percent white to 51 percent white. In other words, while the country continues to grow more racially diverse, the average Republican district continues to get even whiter.”
According to Cook, the number of strongly Democratic districts decreased from 144 before redistricting to 136 afterward. The number of strongly Republican districts increased from 175 to 183. “When one party starts out with 47 more very strong districts than the other,” said Cook, “the numbers suggest that the fix is in for any election featuring a fairly neutral environment. Republicans would need to mess up pretty badly to lose their House majority in the near future.” In other words, there is little risk of political punishment for the Tea Party members now holding the country hostage.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s inane Citizens United decision allowed a single donor, Sheldon Adelson, to create his own alternative universe. He was able to contribute so much money to support Newt Gingrich’s candidacy that Gingrich was able to stay in the Republican presidential primary race longer than he would have under sane campaign finance rules. As a result, Gingrich was able to pull the G.O.P.’s leading candidate, Mitt Romney, farther to the right longer, making it harder for him to garner centrist votes. Last month, for the first time ever in Colorado, two state senators who voted for universal background checks on gun purchases lost their seats in a recall election engineered by gun extremists and reportedly financed with some $400,000 from the National Rifle Association. You’re elected, you vote your conscience on a narrow issue, but now determined opponents don’t have to wait for the next election. With enough money, they can get rid of you in weeks.
Finally, the rise of a separate G.O.P. (and a liberal) media universe — from talk-radio hosts, to Web sites to Fox News — has created another gravity-free zone, where there is no punishment for extreme behavior, but there’s 1,000 lashes on Twitter if you deviate from the hard-line and great coverage to those who are most extreme. When politicians only operate inside these bubbles, they lose the habit of persuasion and opt only for coercion. After all, they must be right. Rush Limbaugh told them so.
These “legal” structural changes in money, media and redistricting are not going away. They are superempowering small political movements to act in extreme ways without consequences and thereby stymie majority rule. If democracy means anything, it means that, if you are outvoted, you accept the results and prepare for the next election. Republicans are refusing to do that. It shows contempt for the democratic process.
President Obama is not defending health care. He’s defending the health of our democracy. Every American who cherishes that should stand with him.
By: Thomas L. Friedman, Op-Ed Columnist, the New York Times, October 2, 2013
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