Late in the session, I had an online exchange with Texas Monthly's Paul Burka regarding the fight over voter suppression/voter I.D. In the course of that argument, Burka mocked concerns over fundamental voting rights. "Principles, Schminciples," he said, leading TM's president, Evan Smith, to refer to his lead political writer as "Mr. Schminciple."
I bet Burka would like to take back that comment, betraying as it does the emptiness of a focus on process. Burka loves politics, as do I. But I love it because it's full of people and it's about people, whether they live or die or get an education or an opportunity to succeed. Burka loves the mechanics of politics. In Burka's world, end results, as measured by the lives of Texans, matter little so long as the proper form is followed.
Burka is not alone in his approach. Many experienced and inexperienced political journalists believe a focus on process guards against bias in their reporting. Also, Burka writes in good faith. I just disagree, and I think the issue at stake is a critical one.
Post-session, legislators are waiting breathlessly for TM's infamous Ten Best/Ten Worst list of legislators. While they wait, I wonder if they could answer the question, ten best and ten worst at what exactly?
I respect Burka's experience, and the online reporting of Burka and his colleague, Patricia Kilday Hart, was terrific. But over the years Burka has reduced the Ten Best/Ten Worst to a hollow ritual.
If Burka reported on the 10 best or worst surgeons in Texas, he wouldn't give much attention to the patients who lived or died. Instead, he'd hold forth on operating room technique. We'd learn who had scalpel envy, whose surgical team had the most panache.
Now, it's true that Burka will be especially kind to the surgeon with polished scalpels who is lucky enough to save a patient. And Burka's wrath will come down on bumbling fools who can recite the Hippocratic oath backwards but kill patient after patient with rusty saws.
It's in the non-obvious middle ground that Burka fails. The legislator who puts principle over process precisely because he or she is concerned about saving lives - that person scores low on the Burka scale. There's a particular group who also is uneasy around this kind of person - lobbyists. Lobbyists adore, how shall we put it, "flexibility of conscience."
It's the attachment to the ideals of process that leads to legislative cowardice and failure. It has proven impossible in Texas to fix public education, build roads, make college affordable, and get health care to kids. You know why? Because "process" is the last refuge of scoundrels.
Unsurprisingly, sacrificing principles to process gives an enormous advantage to the unprincipled.
The good news is that voters know all this in their guts, and that's one reason why Burka's Ten Best/Ten Worst makes little difference in campaigns. Sure, people have attacked their opponents unlucky enough to have the scarlet W for Worst sewed to their jacket. And the gold B for Best finds its away into the lucky winners' ads. It's like checking off a box, and voters aren't moved either way.
For voters, what's it really mean? Again, ten best or ten worst at what exactly?
Being best at the process that has led Texas into its current mess can't really be much to brag about.
Well, if Rick Perry, Joe Straus, David Dewhurst and their GOP conspirators couldn't successfully deny the vote to hundreds of thousands of Texans, they succeeded in denying them unemployment benefits.
I've seen a lot of black-hearted things in the Capitol, but I've never been as disgusted as I was when I saw GOP House Caucus Chair Larry Taylor grinning like the Cheshire Cat as Straus and his henchmen used the very device they'd been whining about -- slow talking -- to kill the unemployment insurance bill.
They were grinning like cats, but they were behaving like wee, witless errand-folk for Perry. Perry opposed the UI bill because he had to object to something in the federal stimulus package. Refusing a few hundred million from Barack Obama seemed just the ticket to raise his creep-cred with the far right. Even if it raised taxes on businesses about $700 million. Even if it increased the suffering of 200,000 Texans who've lost their jobs because G.W. Bush and Perry almost destroyed the economy.
Straus and the Republicans used their majority power to rig the House calendar. They should have made the calendar by cutting letters from newspapers and magazines and pasting them on plain paper like a blackmail note in the movies. You want your voting rights? Then we'll let our friends in the insurance industry steal more of your money, etc. etc.
Republicans thought Democrats would blink. They didn't. It was the Republicans who refused over and over again to place insurance reform and the unemployment bill ahead of the voter I.D. measure. They rigged this blackmail from the beginning, and they will pay the price in 2010.
Those post-unemployment bill podium grins from Republican Larry Taylor, Warren Chisum and Phil King were sinister. They were actually happy to increase the unearned suffering of their fellow Texans.
Still, congratulations to House Democrats and all who helped you defeat the voter suppression measure. Take a few moments to celebrate, even while you continue to work overtime to save insurance reform and other critical bills the Republicans booby trapped.
Back in January, Senate Democrats rightly argued that the Legislature should take up serious issues -- unemployment, insurance reform, etc. -- before getting bogged down in the GOP's top 2009 priority: protecting their power by building a wall between Texans and the ballot box with burdensome, multiple-ID requirements for voters. Republicans even trashed the Senate rules in order to protect themselves.
Now, House Republicans have once again made voter suppression their priority. It was placed at the top of the calendar, ahead of Texas Department of Insurance Sunset, ahead of unemployment insurance, ahead of windstorm. House Dems have made several good faith efforts to get on with work on these issues. They attempted several times to suspend the rules to move these issues ahead of Voter I.D. Republicans said no. Over and over and over again.
In other words, the GOP is holding these important bills hostage while claiming that it's their opponents' fault. They've kidnapped insurance reform, then called the police (the press) to report the kidnapping, claiming its others doing the hostage-taking. And right there in broad daylight they're refusing over and over again to release their hostages. It's just a version of the old story about the adulterer caught red-handed, "Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?"
The GOP Strategy: Our Way Or the Highway.
We've seen this before. Under Tom Craddick. You know, the former speaker chased from office because of his disregard for his own members, the state's interests, or any interest other than his own.
Craddick's back. The Strausian waltz of good feeling, never much more than a tenuous hope, has disappeared altogether into Craddick-driven ugliness and ill-will. Make no mistake, Craddick is pulling the strings, and he is greatly enjoying the fact that he has organized an impasse that's making Straus squirm.
This is a case of a very old and mangey tail wagging a young dog.
Straus can cut off that tail. And return the House to more pressing matters. This is Straus' first real opportunity to show he's not Craddick. He can, if he will find a way to put the critical bills ahead of voter I.D., demonstrate that the interests of Texans and the membership of the House come before partisanship. Or, he can catch the Craddick Mange.
A reminder: At stake in the House proceedings this weekend is a proposal that will disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, voters in the cities, voters in the country, voters along the coast, voters in Austin.
The fight over voter I.D. is this era's civil rights fight. Republicans want to diminish voting by the elderly, the poor, people of color, by women -- in other words, voters who tend to vote for Democrats.
Richard Posner, the federal appeals court judge who wrote the opinion approving an Indiana voter I.D. law admitted it: the law will diminish votes for Democrats. Posner said he just didn't care.
There is no more fundamental issue in a Democracy than the right to vote. Republicans deny they want to suppress votes. They say they want to diminish voter impersonation. There are no cases of voter impersonation. Their argument is laughable. Their intent is to return Texas to the era of poll taxes and segregation. This time, the segregated will be women, the elderly, and those who, like my daughter before this year's city election, have their license stolen two days before an election.
These last few days the fight has been carried out through procedural means. Legitimate procedural means. That can lead people to forget the moral stakes. Tactics take focus and planning, and the core issue can temporarily be lost in such an effort.
This is an issue that defines who we are. It's no less than that. Do any legislators really want to be known as members of the Legislature that returned our state to a pre-civil rights era? I don't think so.
Paul Burka asked me to tell him what the "end game" was of the Democrats' valiant effort this weekend. I asked him how Martin Luther King Jr. would have answered that question in 1960. Because the answer to that, evidenced by today's legislative fight, is that we have still not reached the end of King's historic battle.
(Wanted to make sure everyone saw this. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
We have an opportunity to take a big step in favor of promoting a fairer judiciary with less influence from big-money donors. Polling has indicated a strong sentiment in favor of separating judges from having to solicit contributions. HB 3146, sponsored by Rep. Rafael Anchia (D)-Dallas, provides for a basic system of optional public financing for judicial campaigns. Considering the reputation of Texas' judiciary, this is a no-brainer.
Your support is needed this Wednesday April 15th at the Elections Committee hearing for HB 3146. Contact committee members here.
Here is the schedule for Wednesday's hearing on HB 3146 - the Judicial Clean Elections Bill.
Key Provisions of Texas HB 3146
To qualify, judicial public financing candidates must show support by getting a fixed number of signatures and small qualifying donations ($5) from voters. Once they qualify, judicial public financing candidates stop gathering signatures and collecting qualifying donations; they can devote all of their time to building relationships with their constituency. Judicial public financing candidates who qualify get a competitive amount from a public fund and agree to abide by all campaign financing and elections rules and regulations.
This bill also provides for the Secretary of State to publish a statewide voter information pamphlet identifying and providing biographical information about the judicial publicly financed candidates.
This bill also contains provisions for setting limits on contributions to judicial candidate elections.
Contact Rep. Anchia’s office for further information or contact John Courage, Chairman of the Public Finance Committee for Common Cause of Texas, at (210)-216-5020 or johnc@truecourageaction.net with further questions about the legislation.
North Carlina's Judicial Public Finaning System
In 2002, the North Carolina General Assembly passed unprecedented legislation meant to reduce the influence of partisan politics and big contributions in judicial elections. As a result, judicial candidates can opt into a public financing program that provides them with funds to run their campaigns if they willingly forgo other contributions from PACs, attorneys, etc.
In 2004 and 2006, 20 of the 28 candidates running for NC Supreme Court and NC Court of Appeals opted into this public financing system. A total of nine of 11 winners in 2004 and 2006 were participants — a victory for North Carolina voters, and a step towards fulfilling the principle of 'one person, one vote'. North Carolina’s success is a blueprint for a court system with more integrity. In fact, the SMU chapter of the student organization Democracy Matters brought NC Court of Appeals Judge Donna Stroud to SMU in the Fall of 2007 to speak about her experience with the system. She emphasized the drastic reduction in attorney contributions to judicial campaigns, the reduction in judges' involvement in fundraising, and the increased public confidence in the judicial system.
Since the North Carolina judicial campaign program was enacted, the amount of attorney money and litigation-related special interest money has drastically declined. In 2004 judicial campaigns relied on attorneys and special-interest groups for less than 14% of their non-family funds. Two years before in 2002, when campaigns were entirely privately financed, 73% of campaign money came from attorneys. The NC system has been embraced by Democrats and Republicans alike. The program has also facilitated the participation of thousands of new North Carolinians in the political process. Thousands of registered voters – more than 4,000 in 2006 – provided the modest qualifying donations that authorize the candidates to qualify for the public funds. These voters often become the base of candidates' campaigns; furthering the grassroots transformation that public financing brings to state judicial campaigns.
This is too much. The first two GOP witnesses at the House Elections Committee identified their great threat to democracy: 12 Catholic nuns in Indiana who were not allowed to vote in 2008 because they lacked the proper, bureaucracy-approved, identification papers.
One of those two witnesses was John Fund, a partisan hack posing as a journalist. He's a fantasist and fabricator. Fund said, "I interviewed two of the nuns. One admitted to me it was a stunt intended to discredit the [Indiana voter restriction] law." He didn't mention a name. Maybe the "interview" was in Fund's private confession booth, protected by clergy confidentiality. Claiming he had to "catch a plane," Fund left before members could question him about ridiculous and documented errors in his partisan book on voter suppression, I mean voter fraud.
Anyway, a dozen nuns were turned away from the polls. It made all the news, as they say. Questioned about how bureaucratic restrictions disenfranchised, Fund said, "I interviewed two of those nuns. One of them admitted to me it was a stunt."
Nun stunts?
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita also blamed the nuns for the voting debacle that embarrassed Indiana backers of the new identification restrictions. "Those nuns weren't disenfranchised, they just didn't want to follow the law."
Oh, I bet these guys wouldn't say that to the faces of these spiritual leaders.Rulers, anyone? Back of the knuckles? Ring a bell?
There's a lot of sound and fury from Republicans about the need for new bureaucratic restrictions on the right to vote. They've never produced any evidence of a problem such burdens will fix. They can't explain how their complicated identification requirements for voters will be administered or enforced. They simply guarantee that all voters will face a lot more hassle dealing with underpaid federal and state bureaucrats. For instance, if one follows the law, a Texan can't get a new driver's license without a birth certificate, but you can't get a birth certificate without a driver's license.
All that said, nothing speaks so eloquently to the pathetic arguments of the Republican empty rhetoric as Sen. Troy Fraser's "worst-list" job trying to defend his proposal. Intent on ignoring Texas' major problems in health care, jobs, college tuition, public education and the environment to advance their power, Republicans are putting partisanship before progress. And that's sad. House hearings on voter restrictions begin today. It's a good time to review their argument, or lack of argument, in the Senate.
(Putting this excellent post back atop the page. - promoted by Phillip Martin)
Airport Security Checkpoint or Polling Place?
Here is an honest and easy-to-understand statement of a Republican belief that lies behind their efforts to place burdensome and bureaucratic barriers between citizens and the ballot box:
Few citizens have the formidable intellectual and moral capacities (let alone the time) required for the role that [popular democracy] assigns to the citizenry, although defenders of the concept believe that participation in democratic political activity strengthens these capacities, enabling a virtuous cycle.
That quote is from Judge Richard Posner, of the Seventh U.S. Court of Appeals. It's in his book, "Law, Pragmatism and Democracy." Posner wrote the appeals court opinion approving Indiana's restrictive voter identification requirements. The restrictions on voting, he said in that opinion, would harm many citizens. But we shouldn't care.
Let the quote sink in.
Because so many of us lack the intellectual and moral capacity to participate in our governance, restrictions on voting are no big deal to Posner and his ilk.
In Texas this week, debate opens on a proposal that places extraordinary identification requirements on citizens who wish to vote. The proposed law's ambiguous language appears to grant part-time, amateur polling place officials the absolute power to accept or reject a would-be voter based solely on that citizen's appearance or other subjective judgments. For the first time since women and blacks were granted the vote, appearance alone may disqualify a would-be voter. We'll return to this in a moment.
Posner is an open opponent of popular democracy. Most anti-democrats simply lie, not wishing to fuel what is the ultimate "wedge" issue in a democracy: should all citizens share equally in the decision-making of their communities and country? Some Republican backers of restrictions on voting may not share Posner's belief in the inferiority of many citizens. They simply want to use the law to reduce the number of people inclined to vote against them.
"Stop Voter Suppression Rally", Educational Forum and Film
What: Join legislators and our coalition of organizations against Voter Suppression Legislation for a rally, educational forum, and film explaining why we need to oppose Voter ID (Photo ID) legislation and how we'll win this fight.
No one should be confused about where many American right wingers are coming from when they limit access to the courts and propose new bureaucratic restrictions on voting. There's a line in U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's dissent in the landmark Wyeth [pharmaceutical] versus Levine case that proves the point. (A pdf of the opinion and Alito's dissent can be found here.)
In that case, the court held that federal bureaucracies could not trump the law. FDA approval of a drug didn't protect manufacturers of dangerous drugs from civil suits when their drugs hurt people.
This is a barrier to justice Big Pharma desperately wanted. It's a good sign that the Court turned them away. But Alito's dissent makes clear the real issue -- whether the financial and political elite can escape the judgment of citizens in a democracy -- is still with us.
The same right-wing logic is driving their desperate attempt to make voting a bureaucratic nightmare for all of us. Here's what Alito said:
This case illustrates that tragic facts make bad law. The Court [in its majority opinion] holds that a state court jury, rather than the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is ultimately responsible for regulating warning labels for prescription drugs.
Ignoring for a moment that human tragedy pretty much gave birth to the law, in ancient cultures, in Greece, Rome, English common law, the U.S. Constitution etc., Alito is arguing, as do many right-wing, elitist judges and politicians, that the people have no business meddling in matters of their own health and safety.
This is exactly why so many on the Right want to restrict the right to vote. As the debate opens next week in the Texas Legislature on a proposal to restrict our right to vote, everyone should keep this in mind. When rulers believe the people they would rule should be excluded or inhibited from participating in political decision-making, democracy itself is threatened.
It's no coincidence that new barriers to participation are proposed just as a significant majority of Texans realize that right wing policies have caused a global economic crisis, made health care and college education unaffordable for the middle class, empowered corporate thievery, and ruined the environment.
In other words, human tragedies threaten the power of the Right, and they don't want us to overcome the multiple tragedies with new laws. Which, in the minds of the Right, would be bad because it threatens their power.
