By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, September 23, 2011
The Real Voter Fraud Scandal: Conservatives Are Trying To Restrict And Distort The Will Of The Voters
Well over a year before the 2012 presidential election, there’s a battle going on over next year’s ballots—how they’ll count and who will get to cast them. At stake is an attempt to distort the voters’ will by twisting the rule of law.
Most recently, Pennsylvania has been the focus of this battle. Dominic Pileggi, the state Senate majority leader, wants to change the way the Keystone State distributes its electoral votes, divvying them up according to how each presidential candidate performed in each congressional district, with the remaining two electoral votes going to the candidate who won the popular vote.
So while Barack Obama’s 55 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania in 2008 netted him all 21 of its electoral votes, the Pileggi plan would have shaved that figure to 11 electors. (Nationwide, Obama won 242 congressional districts while John McCain got 193.) The change would be even sharper as Pennsylvania’s new congressional map is expected to have 12 of the state’s 18 seats drawn to favor the GOP. Obama could win a majority of the Keystone vote again but only score eight of the state’s 20 electors. Do we really want to bring gerrymandering into presidential elections?
The politics here aren’t obscure: Every Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 has won Pennsylvania. This is a naked attempt to undercut Democratic nominees. (And while Pennsylvania would join Nebraska and Maine with such a law, Nebraska Republicans are trying to return to the unit rule after Obama won a single elector there in 2008.) But the Pennsylvania gerrymander gambit is only one aspect of a broader push to rig the game.
The 2010 elections marked a huge shift in control of state legislatures from Democrats to Republicans. The result, according to Tova Wang, a Senior Democracy Fellow at the progressive think tank Demos, has been “an attack on voting rights in this country like we haven’t seen in years and years.”
So far this year, bills have been introduced in at least 38 state legislatures designed to make it harder for Americans to exercise their right to vote. Fourteen have actually enacted such laws, according to a report released this week by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, which found that the new rules could make it “significantly harder for more than five million eligible voters to cast ballots in 2012.” As Rolling Stone reported recently, Kansas and Alabama, for example, now require proof of citizenship to register to vote; Florida and Texas have raised barriers to groups like the League of Women Voters conducting voter registration drives; Florida and Iowa barred ex-felons from voting, instantly removing nearly 200,000 voters from their states’ rolls; Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia have cut back on early voting; and Maine repealed its law allowing citizens to register and vote on Election Day or on the two business days immediately preceding it (even though GOP Gov. Paul LePage had himself used that law to register the day before the 1982 election).
Perhaps the GOP’s most popular vote suppression tool is a set of new laws requiring voters to present photo identification before they cast ballots. Seven states—Alabama, Kansas, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin—have enacted such measures this year. At first glance this may seem reasonable. Who doesn’t have a valid photo ID? The answer may surprise you. A 2006 study by the Brennan Center found that 11 percent of U.S. citizens lack one, a figure in line with a 2005 report by an election reform federal commission which suggested 12 percent of U.S. citizens lack driver’s licenses. Drilling down, the Brennan Center found that the groups worst off in this regard tend to be core Democratic constituencies: 25 percent of voting age African-Americans and 15 percent of voting age citizens who make less than $35,000 annually lack valid photo IDs.
In Ohio, where such a law is pending, roughly 940,000 citizens lack valid IDs, according to a study by a nonpartisan voters group. Or take Wisconsin: Less than half of Milwaukee County African-Americans and Hispanics have driver’s licenses, according to a study from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and the figures are worse for younger voters. Indeed, the Wisconsin law is especially pernicious, specifically not accepting student IDs, even from state institutions. Texas’s voter ID law is even more blatant in who it’s aimed at. State gun permits are acceptable, but student IDs and government employment cards are not.
And these laws are a solution searching for a problem. Conservatives have long bemoaned the menace of voter impersonation, but the evidence for this threat is nonexistent. George W. Bush’s Justice Department spent years ferreting out voter fraud and managed to prosecute not one voter for impersonating another. “Out of the 300 million votes cast [between 2002 and 2007] federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for voter fraud,” Rolling Stone reported. A 2007 study by the Brennan Center found the instances of voter fraud to be literally infinitesimal. “You’re more likely to get killed by lightning than commit in-person voter fraud,” says the Brennan Center’s Michael Waldman. Which only makes sense: That thousands of people are casting illegal votes in others’ names while evading determined detection (always managing to choose people who weren’t going to vote anyway) doesn’t pass the smell test.
Knock away the spurious reasons for the push to restrict voting and you’re left with bare-knuckled partisanship. “There has never been in my lifetime, since we got rid of the poll tax and all the Jim Crow burdens on voting, the determined effort to limit the franchise that we see today,” former President Bill Clinton told a group of young political activists over the summer. He’s right, and it must be fought at every level.
By: Robert Schlesinger, U. S. News and World Report, October 6, 2011
“We Are The 99%” But The 1% Buy Elections
As the “Occupy” protests spread across the country with the slogan “we are the ninety-nine percent,” two reports released this week demonstrate how the top one percent are playing an increasingly outsized role in American elections.
The New Yorker reports on a conservative multimillionaire’s successful efforts to buy North Carolina’s elections, and a report from campaign finance reform groups describe how an elite group of donors have laundered unlimited contributions to presidential campaigns. Much of this influence was made possible by the U.S. Supreme Court’s <a title="reference on Citizens United” href=”http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Citizens_United” target=”_self”>Citizens United decision, and anger over corporate influence in politics is helping fuel the populist uprisings in Manhattan, D.C., and around the country.
Dimestore Donor Dominates North Carolina Elections
James Arthur “Art” Pope, chairman and CEO of the Variety Wholesalers dimestore discount chain, has created a “singular influence machine” in North Carolina, using his family’s wealth to influence that state’s elections and promote right-wing ideology, according to a report by Jane Mayer in this week’s New Yorker magazine.
“The Republican agenda in North Carolina is really Art Pope’s agenda. He sets it, he funds it, and he directs the efforts to achieve it. The candidates are just fronting for him. There are so many people in North Carolina beholden to Art Pope—it undermines the democratic process,” says Marc Farinella, a Democratic political consultant.
Like the Koch brothers (whom Meyer profiled in the New Yorker last year), Pope grew up wealthy, inherited his family dimestore business, and has spent massive amounts of money funding organizations and candidates opposing environmental regulations, taxes, minimum wage laws, unions, and campaign-spending limits. In addition to their sizable personal fortunes, the Kochs and Pope can spend millions in corporate funds because their companies are privately held. Pope regards Charles and David Koch as friends, and is one of the four directors of the Koch-funded-and-founded Americans for Prosperity, to which he has donated over $2 million.
John Snow, a centrist Democrat who was defeated by Art Pope-funded attacks after three terms in state Senate, told the New Yorker, “[i]t’s getting to the point where, in politics, money is the most important thing.” Snow was expected to easily win reelection, but his Tea Party-affiliated candidate with no experience had a seemingly endless flow of money. “A lot of it was from corporations and outside groups related to Art Pope. He was their sugar daddy.”
Chris Heagerty was another Democratic candidate defeated by a flood of Pope-connected money. One ad depicted Heagerty, who is caucasian but has dark hair and complexion, as Hispanic. “They slapped a sombrero on a photo of me, and wrote, ‘Mucho Taxo! Adios, Señor!’” Heagerty told the magazine. “If you put all of the Pope groups together, they and the North Carolina G.O.P. spent more to defeat me than the guy who actually won.” According to the article, he fell silent, then added, “For an individual to have so much power is frightening. The government of North Carolina is for sale.”
“We didn’t have that before 2010,” said Bob Phillips, head of Common Cause North Carolina. “Citizens United opened up the door. Now a candidate can literally be outspent by independent groups. We saw it in North Carolina, and a lot of the money was traced back to Art Pope.”
According to an analysis by the Institute for Southern Studies, Pope, his family, and their organizations targeted twenty-two legislative races and won eighteen. The wins placed both chambers of North Carolina’s General Assembly under Republican majorities for the first time since 1870. Three-quarters of “independent expenditures” in North Carolina’s 2010 state races — spending made independently of a candidate or their committee — came from accounts linked to Pope.
Wealthy Elites’ Influence on Elections Grows, Post Citizens United
In the post Citizens United era, the outsize influence of a small group of wealthy donors making “independent” expenditures is not limited to North Carolina, according to a report released this week by Democracy 21, the Campaign Legal Center, and the Center for Responsive Politics. A handful of elite donors are capitalizing on the lawless campaign finance environment to exceed federal candidate contribution limits. Individuals have spent as much as a million dollars supporting Mitt Romney’s bid for president, and two million to support President Obama’s reelection.
“Super PACs” emerged in the wake of the Citizens United decision, which struck down limits on corporate independent expenditures. Super PACs can now raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations, and unions, and use it on political ads for or against federal candidates. They are not allowed to donate directly to candidates or coordinate with their campaigns.
In striking down corporate independent expenditure limits, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld limits on individual contributions to candidates reasoning that “the potential for quid pro quo corruption distinguished direct contributions to candidates from independent expenditures.” The majority opinion stated “[t]he absence of prearrangement and coordination of an expenditure with the candidate or his agent not only undermines the value of the expenditure to the candidate, but also alleviates the danger that expenditures will be given as a quid pro quo for improper commitments.”
The first presidential race after Citizens United, though, reveals that the distinction between direct campaign contributions and “independent” expenditures has been eliminated — and with it, the idea that corruption follows one but not the other.
In the second quarter of 2011, over 50 individuals donated the legal maximum to Romney’s campaign ($2,500), then made around $6.4 million in additional contributions to Romney’s “Restore Our Future” Super PAC. Almost half of these individuals gave between $100,000 and $500,000 to the Super PAC, and one person donated $1 million. These donations made up half of the “Restore Our Future” funds.
Nine individuals donated to both President Obama’s reelection campaign and his “Priorities USA Action” Super PAC. The nine donors collectively gave $2.6 million to Obama’s Super PAC, primarily from Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg, who donated $2 million, and Chicago media mogul Fred Eychaner, who gave $500,000.
“This analysis offers yet more proof that these candidate-specific Super PACs are nothing more than an end-run around existing contribution limits,” said Paul S. Ryan, FEC Program Director at the Campaign Legal Center. “The Super PACs are simply shadow candidate committees. Million-dollar contributions to the Super PACs pose just as big a threat of corruption as would million-dollar contributions directly to candidates.”
In addition to Super PAC spending, corporations and corporate executives can also launder campaign spending through non-profit “social welfare” groups organized under section 501(c) of the tax code. Non-profits are not required to disclose their donors, preventing the public from knowing the source of a particular message. Last week, certain business leaders denounced this secret spending, and Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate this alleged abuse of the tax code.
Ninety-Nine Percent: Money Out of Politics
The Citizens United decision affirmed that “money is speech,” and declared that spending limits violate the 1st Amendment rights of corporations and the uber-wealthy. As the 2012 presidential election heats up and election spending ramps up, corporations and the top 1% will speak louder than everyone else. The money that flows into the 2012 elections will come overwhelmingly from the top one percent — only a tiny sliver of Americans donate to political campaigns, and the bottom ninety-nine percent who can afford to contribute will have their dollars drowned out by the million-dollar contributions made possible by Citizens United.
And money matters. In modern elections, 9 out of 10 races are decided by who raises more campaign cash. Given this reality, it stretches the imagination to believe elected officials won’t be indebted to those deep-pocketed donors who help them get the edge over their opponent.
With average Americans — the ninety nine percent — sidelined by a political process and an economy that increasingly benefits only those at the top, they have taken to the streets. It is little wonder, then, that as the nascent Occupy protests grow and gain shape, at least one message is becoming clear: get corporate money out of politics.
By: Brendan Fischer, Center For Media and Democracy, October 7, 2011
“See Spot Run”: Dick Morris Still Can’t Read
A few weeks ago, Dick Morris, the sleazy Republican consultant, wrote an entire print column built around a single observation: the economy lost 30,000 health care jobs in the month of August. There was, however, a small problem: the economy actually gained 30,000 health care jobs in August. Morris’ entire indictment was based on numbers he misunderstood.
This week, it happened again. Here’s the lede in Morris’ new print column, published yesterday.
Behind the president’s whining to the Black Caucus, begging them to “quit grumbling,” is a decline in his personal popularity among African-American voters that could portend catastrophe for his fading reelection chances.
According to a Washington Post/ABC News survey, his favorability rating among African-Americans has dropped off a cliff, plunging from 83 percent five months ago to a mere 58 percent today — a drop of 25 points, a bit more than a point per week!
If the president’s favorability rating among African Americans really had slipped to 58%, that would be a pretty significant development. But once again, Morris based an entire column on numbers he chose not to read carefully enough.
What the poll actually found is that President Obama enjoys an 86% favorability rating among African Americans — 28 points higher than Morris’ column claimed.
How’d he screw this up? The poll found that 58% of African Americans have a “strongly favorable” view of Obama, but that’s only part of the basis of a favorability rating. Morris apparently noticed one number, brushed past the relevant detail, and published a claim that’s plainly not true.
The point here isn’t that the president can ignore some of his key supporters, and win a second term with his current levels of support. Clearly Obama has a lot of work to do. The point is, The Hill keeps publishing Dick Morris claims that are demonstrably wrong. It’s not a matter of opinion — the columnist is making specific arguments about numbers that aren’t connected to reality.
Indeed, Morris said Obama was doing well when his favorability rating among African Americans was 83%. But right now, they’re 86%. By Morris’ reasoning, Obama is doing great with this constituency.
Also note, this wasn’t just some side detail Morris flubbed — just as with the clearly dishonest health care column a few weeks ago, the columnist is building entire print pieces around basic statistics that don’t exist.
Either Dick Morris can’t read or he’s assuming his readers won’t bother to check. Either way, maybe it’s time for The Hill’s editors to start taking a closer look at his pieces.
By: Steve Benen, Washington Monthly Political Animal, September 28, 2011
Mr. Nice Guys?: Will Republicans Practice What They Tweet?
It appeared, at first glance, as if Eric Cantor’s Twitter account had been hacked — by a really nice guy.
In recent days, the extravagantly combative GOP House majority leader has been tweeting a veritable sampler box of bipartisan bonbons.
Sept. 21: “People don’t expect Republicans and Democrats to agree on everything, but they do expect us to overcome our differences and work together.”
Sept. 16: “Good people can have honest disagreements without having their morals or commitment to country being called into question.”
Sept. 13: “We need to work together towards the solutions that will meet the challenges facing our country today.”
Sept. 12: “Let’s try and lower the volume of the rancor in Washington, and focus on what we can do together to grow this economy and create jobs.”
And that is just a taste.
But this was no case of malicious (or, in this instance, magnanimous) hacking. After one of the ugliest summers political Washington has ever seen, Republicans, looking at poll numbers showing voters are even angrier with them than they are with President Obama, have decided to try the Mr. Nice Guy approach, in word and (occasional) deed.
They agreed to pass legislation keeping the Federal Aviation Administration going, abandoning the contentious provisions that led to this summer’s partial shutdown of the agency. They avoided another confrontation by extending highway spending without repealing the federal gas tax, a Tea Party priority. On Thursday, Senate Republicans yielded to President Obama’s demands and passed a worker-assistance bill that clears the way for enacting new trade agreements.
None of this means we’ve entered some new era of harmony in the capital; Republicans remain unswervingly opposed to any new taxes to reduce debt. And GOP leaders can push their rank-and-file only so far.
After conservatives on Wednesday defeated their leaders’ legislation that would keep the government running for the next two months, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) attempted to negotiate with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in hopes of securing Democratic votes for the spending bill. But Boehner lost his nerve and decided instead to appease the recalcitrant conservatives.
Still, the shift in tone shows that Republicans have decided to pick their battles — a sensible response to the revulsion Americans felt watching this summer’s brinkmanship over the debt limit.
The Republicans seem to be heeding the advice of strategists such as Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster who, in a widely read memo earlier this month, warned that the debt standoff hurt consumer confidence much like the Iranian hostage crisis, the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Hurricane Katrina.
“The perception of how Washington handled the debt ceiling negotiation led to an immediate collapse of confidence in government and all the major players, including President Obama and Republicans in Congress,” McInturff wrote. He added that “this sharp a drop in consumer confidence is a direct consequence of the lack of confidence in our political system and its leaders.”
Fearing that voters will probably punish all incumbents — not just Obama — Republicans have softened their style in September, even as Obama has hardened his. “There is a recognition on the Hill that people are frustrated with Washington and want some results,” acknowledged Cantor’s spokesman, Brad Dayspring.
The Republicans’ experiment in conciliation has been aided by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who has brought up issues — patents, trade and transportation — that had bipartisan support from the start. But Democrats also claim some vindication in the new approach. As one Democratic leadership aide put it: “They’re picking their shots better so they don’t come across as complete [expletives].”
The question is: How much substance comes with that recalibration? After Obama’s address to Congress on job creation, Boehner replied with the conciliatory message that “it is our desire to work with you to find common ground.”
On the morning after his House conservatives defeated the legislation to keep the government running, Boehner went to the microphones to assure Americans: “Listen, there’s no threat of government shutdown. Let’s just get this out there.”
Privately, Democrats believe that, too. And though Obama’s jobs bill has no chance of passage (even many Democrats object to its tax increases), chances are good that Republicans will agree to extend the payroll tax cut and a tax credit for hiring wounded veterans.
“We want to join with our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, to find areas where we agree, to make sure the American economy succeeds,” Cantor announced via Twitter.
Well said. But how much will Republicans practice what they tweet?
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 