“The GOP Won’t Stop Suppressing Our Votes”: Access To The Ballot Has Become A Feverishly Partisan Issue
For me, voting rights aren’t a partisan matter. They are a fundamental right that all adult citizens should enjoy without restriction. I don’t even think there should be such a thing as “getting out the vote” because I think all citizens should be required to participate, even if it is just to express their lack of endorsement for any candidates, initiatives, or referendums. People should get themselves to the polls and political parties should focus exclusively on winning over their support. That’s how I feel, but I recognize that access to the ballot has become a feverishly partisan issue. And, I wonder if restricting ballot access was actually successful enough in these midterms that it changed the outcome of some elections. Perhaps in North Carolina?
Voters in fourteen states faced new voting restrictions at the polls for first time in 2014—in the first election in nearly fifty years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. The number of voters impacted by the new restrictions exceeded the margin of victory in close races for senate and governor in North Carolina, Kansas, Virginia and Florida, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
In the North Carolina senate race, Republican Thom Tillis, who as speaker of the North Carolina General Assembly oversaw the state’s new voting law, defeated Democrat Kay Hagan by 50,000 votes. Nearly five times as many voters in 2010 used the voting reforms eliminated by the North Carolina GOP—200,000 voted during the now-eliminated first week of early voting, 20,000 used same-day registration and 7,000 cast out-of-precinct ballots.
The intention in placing these new roadblocks to voting was to change the outcome of elections. Only the worst dupe in the world thinks that the intent was to increase the integrity of the count. Even if these restrictions didn’t change any actual outcomes, the perception that they did in Republican circles assures that they will keep at it since they think it’s a winning strategy.
And it probably is.
By: Martin Longman, Political Animal, The Washington Monthly, November 9, 2014
“One Silver Lining For Liberals”: As Democrats Fall, Minimum Wage Thrives On Election Night
Democrats suffered a series of disastrous defeats on election night, decisively losing their Senate majority and falling short in several gubernatorial races in which they hoped to defeat Republican incumbents. But there was one silver lining for liberals: Tuesday’s elections proved, once again, that the minimum wage is a winning issue.
Initiatives to raise the minimum wage appeared on the ballot in four reliably Republican states. In all four, they passed easily.
Even as Alaskans appeared to boot Democratic senator Mark Begich out of office — he has declined to concede the race — they still overwhelmingly voted to raise their state’s minimum wage to $9.75 per hour. Tellingly, although his future colleagues in the Senate have steadfastly opposed any efforts to raise the federal minimum wage, Republican senator-elect Dan Sullivan announced in September that he would support the state initiative. This was a flip-flop from his position in the Republican primaries, and probably had something to do with polls showing the measure’s overwhelming popularity in the Last Frontier.
Similarly, Republican Tom Cotton’s easy victory over Democratic senator Mark Pryor didn’t stop Arkansans from boosting their minimum wage to $8.50 per hour. Like Sullivan, Cotton decided not to oppose the overwhelmingly popular measure. Although he voted against raising the federal minimum wage as a congressman, he announced in September that he would support the state hike “as a citizen.”
In South Dakota, Republican Mike Rounds easily defeated Democrat Rick Weiland and Independent Larry Pressler. But voters still raised their state’s minimum wage to $8.50 per hour. Rounds opposed the measure, while his opponents supported it.
And in Nebraska, Republican Ben Sasse defeated Democrat Dave Domina in a landslide, even as voters raised the state’s minimum wage to $9 per hour. Although Sasse opposed the measure, he avoided discussing the issue on the campaign trail.
More than half of the states in the nation now have minimum wages higher than the federal level.
Clearly, even in red states, there is broad support for one of the key planks of the Democratic economic agenda. But, just as obviously, it was not a determining factor in how midterm voters cast their ballots. This presents an opportunity for congressional Republicans.
The next round of Senate campaigns will take place in a far more liberal battleground than Tuesday’s elections did — and, if history is a guide, they will feature a more liberal electorate. This will put blue-state Republicans like Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Mark Kirk (R-IL), and Pat Toomey (R-PA) in jeopardy. One easy way for them to blunt the economic attacks sure to come their way on the campaign trail would be joining with Democrats to raise the federal minimum wage.
While the House of Representatives has refused to consider a minimum-wage hike in the past, they may have a different attitude when the bill is coming from a Republican-controlled Senate. After all, they supposedly want to prove that they can govern. And, as Tuesday’s elections prove, conservative voters are unlikely to punish them for giving working families a boost.
By: Henry Decker, The National Memo, November 5, 2014
“The GOP Didn’t Deserve To Win”: Congressional Republicans’ Behavior Over The Last Four Years Deserved No Reward
Voters on Tuesday gave Republicans control of the Senate. But the GOP did not earn this victory.
That’s not because Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), deserved to win in the GOP’s stead, and it’s not because this country can do without a sensibly conservative party. It is because the GOP has not been a sensibly conservative party. Congressional Republicans’ behavior over the last four years deserved no reward.
This is the party that repeatedly used the country’s full faith and credit as a bargaining chip during successive, manufactured budget crises.
This is the party that still cannot bring itself to admit that climate change is a risk that deserves a serious response.
This is the party that scuttled even modest immigration reform because elements of the GOP base will label seemingly any viable bill “amnesty.”
This is the party whose leaders resist bringing broadly popular bills up for an up-or-down vote because its right fringe is in constant preparation to stage a revolt.
This is the party so in thrall to comical anti-government activists that it treated simple lightbulb efficiency standards as severe attacks on personal liberty.
This is the party that voted dozens of times to dismantle Affordable Care Act — but never united behind a credible, or even a non-credible, alternative, despite promising for years to offer one.
This is the party that took its fixation with Obamacare so far that it shut down the government in a bizarre political tantrum.
This is the party that has styled its refusal to compromise as a virtue rather than as a pernicious insult to responsible leadership.
Unsurprisingly, exit polls showed little regard for the GOP. It is a measure of midterm voters’ dissatisfaction with the state of the country, President Obama and feckless Democratic candidates that they held their noses and empowered Republicans. The results also fit into a broader trend of red states becoming redder. Yet Republicans — and Democrats — might also take the message that reckless, shortsighted, counterproductive behavior makes for good politics — better, in fact, than having actual results to run on. If fully internalized, that lesson would shut down Congress most of the time.
With President Obama still in office, it is up to Republican leaders to conclude that voters outside the hardcore GOP base did not demand more pettiness in this year’s midterm elections. Among other things, they will have to reign in hectoring partisans such as Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the architect of the shutdown who, on CNN Tuesday night, argued that Washington can compromise over the next two years — if you define compromise as doing exactly what Republicans want.
And if GOP leaders fail at that, it will be up to voters to give them what they really deserve.
By: Stephen Stromberg, PostPartisan, The Washington Post, November 5, 2014
“A Consistently Destructive GOP”: Shame On Us! Giving Still More Power To Such A Party
Shame on us, the American People.
Giving more power to a Republican Party that has has been blatantly indifferent to the good of the nation.
Never in American history has there been a party so consistently destructive in its impact on America. Indeed, it is hard to find an instance these past six years when the Republicans have even tried to be constructive, tried to address our national problems.
Never in American history has there been a party so consistently dishonest in its communications to the people.
To know of this unprecedented betrayal of the nation, we have no need of secret tapes or conspirators coming forward to testify. It has been there undisguised, right in front of our eyes.
Yet, yesterday, tens of millions of Americans who are unhappy with “Congress” for its record-setting failure to take care of the nation’s business voted for the party that deliberately worked to make Congress fail.
Shame!
Shame on us, the Democratic Party.
Once again running timidly (2002, 2010), the Democrats have failed not only themselves but the nation.
Clearly, the American people need help in seeing the monstrosity the Republican Party has become. But the Democrats — either blind to that reality, or afraid to speak of it — did not give them that help.
The Democrats should have made this election about the Republicans’ betrayal of the nation, in choosing to make the government dysfunctional rather than seeking to solve the nation’s problems. This election should have been about the veritable wrecking crew that the once-respectable Republican Party has become.
The Democrats should have helped the American people see how wantonly the GOP has trampled upon the ideals and traditions of our American democracy.
But they didn’t. And now the Republican strategy of seeking more power for themselves by creating problems they can blame on their opponents has been rewarded.
We live in a time of great darkening.
If the people at the top of the Democratic Party are incapable of rescuing our democracy from (what FDR called) “the forces of selfishness and of lust for power,” we in the grassroots will need to find a way to take up the job ourselves.
See the evil. Call it out. Press the battle.
The stakes are just too high. Are we willing to work to save our democracy from this ongoing power grab from the plutocrats whose instrument the Republican Party has become? Are we willing to work to assure that our nation acts responsibly in the face of the mounting danger of environmental catastrophe from the disruption of our climate, which the Republican Party has made it dogma to deny?
If not, then shame on us.
By: Andy Schmookler, The Huffington Post Blog, November 5, 2014
“In The Short Term, Absolutely Nothing”: Are GOP Donors Going To Get Anything In Return For Their Millions?
If you’re a liberal zillionaire who contributed lots of money this year to prevent a Republican takeover of the Senate, on Tuesday you’re probably going to be pretty unhappy. Which is why, Ken Vogel of Politico reports, the people who run the groups through which all those millions are being channeled are rushing to reassure their donors that it was still money well spent. Which got me thinking about the conservative donors who are probably going to be celebrating next week. For some of them, Republican victories are an end in themselves, but others have a more specific agenda in mind. They help Republicans get elected because they expect something in return.
To be clear, I’m not talking about quasi-legal bribery. If you’re an oil company or a Wall Street firm, you donate to Republicans not so that they’ll be forced to do what you want whether they like it or not, but because you know they like it quite well. Republicans want, deep in their hearts, to cut taxes and slash regulations and open up public lands to drilling and all the other things that would benefit their donors. But are they actually going to be able to deliver?
Those investments have been huge. Here are just a couple of details from the Center for Responsive Politics:
Wall Street as a whole has contributed $171.1 million, more than any other industry or interest group that CRP tracks. Of that total, $100.8 million has gone to candidates and party committees, with an overwhelming 62 percent of it winding up in the hands of Republicans and just 38 percent in the hands of Democrats. The remaining money, more than $70 million, went to outside groups, and $45.8 million of that went to conservative-leaning organizations.
But while securities and investment was the top donor industry for GOP candidates, for Democrats the No. 1 slot was occupied by lawyers and law firms. Overall, that was the third-ranking industry this election cycle, giving $66.4 million to Democrats and $28.4 to Republicans through the third quarter.
One grouping new to the top 10 is Environment—a category that includes a number of fairly small-spending groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council. What made the difference this year were contributions from Tom Steyer, a billionaire who made his money in hedge funds; he has contributed $73.7 million this cycle to outside groups, all focused on the environment or aligned with Democrats.
Steyer has said that his goals are long-term—specifically, he wants to elevate the place of climate change in public debate and elect people who will (eventually) do something about it. But if Wall Street has contributed over $100 million to Republicans this year, they want something in return. And what are they going to get? The answer is probably not too much. Republicans have no doubt been telling them, “Help us get elected, and then you’ll see!” But Barack Obama still has a veto pen, and the Treasury Department and the SEC are still staffed by his appointees (not that they’re unfriendly to Wall Street, but they’ll be no more friendly next year than they were this year). Republicans aren’t going to be passing any major legislation—or much legislation at all—that will actually reward their friends, because if the legislation they pass would meaningfully advance conservative goals, Obama would veto it.
But people all over the place may be overestimating just how much change is going to come. Look, for instance, at this article (also from Politico) about how all the K Street lobbying firms are getting ready for boom times:
GOP lobbyists and consultants are strategizing about landing new business and looking forward to advising clients if Republicans take control of the Senate—setting off rapid change in the political dynamics of Capitol Hill.
Several lobbyists said they expect a bump in business in the first half of 2015 when companies look to recalibrate their outside rosters to engage more heavily with Senate Republicans.
“There will be a burst of excitement and activity as a result of that change,” said former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), who now heads Squire Patton Boggs’ lobbying operation. “There is a lot of pent-up demand in the tax area, infrastructure, immigration, the budget and tax policy.”
Lott said he thinks it will be a shot in the arm to K Street with a much busier legislative agenda.
Lobbyists need legislation in order to do their jobs. They especially like big bills that can be larded with lots of obscure provisions they obtain on behalf of their clients but that few people notice. And these have indeed been lean times—I have one friend who’s been lobbying for years, who told me not long ago that he was considering a career change, because without any legislation going through Congress, his job had become all but irrelevant.
But what the hell is Trent Lott talking about here? Is a Republican Congress going to start passing bills on taxes, infrastructure, and immigration that Barack Obama will sign?
Of course they won’t. What they will do, however, is write, debate, and maybe even pass a lot of bills that are ultimately doomed. Some will get filibustered by Senate Democrats, others may be vetoed. But at least Lott will be able to go to his clients and say that he earned his six-figure monthly retainer, because he got things inserted into bills for them, and it isn’t really his fault if they never actually became law.
And that’s what they’ll get for their millions, at least in the short term: nothing.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, October 31, 2014
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 