Volunteers for a Better America

Republican Dirty Tricks

USA Today ran a story about the New Hampshire Republican scheme to jam the phones to keep the New Hampshire Democrats from voting in 2002.  Here's an excerpt from the story.

The records show that Bush campaign operative James Tobin, who recently was convicted in the case, made two dozen calls to the White House within a three-day period around Election Day 2002--as the phone jamming operation was finalized, carried out and then abruptly shut down.  The national Republican Party, which paid millions in legal bills to defend Tobin, says the contacts involved routine election business and that it was 'preposterous' to suggest the calls involved phone jamming.  The Justice Department has secured three convictions in the case but hasn't accused any White House or national Republican officials of wrongdoing.... The phone records of calls to the White House were exhibits in Tobin's trial but prosecutors did not make them part of their case.  ...  Virtually al lthe calls to the White House went to the same number, which currently rings inside the political affairs office.  In 2002, White House political affairs was led by now-RNC chairman Ken Mehlman.

You can find the full story at this link.

What this story suggests is just one more tawdry detail in the Republican Party's willingness to trade integrity for power, competence for chronyism, and sound governmental policies for corporate welfare.  Why is it that these factually proven cases of corruption are not being talked about on the television and radio news channels day after day?  The media spend hours talking about sensational crimes, but not about these sensational political crimes that so direly threaten democracy across the country.  The potential involvement of White House personnel in election dirty tricks out to be explored.  Why aren't reporters asking about this story at White House press conferences?

Clean Elections or Abramoff-Style Politics--Which Shall It Be?

The continuing corruption scandal involving Jack Abramoff and his Republican "K Street Project" (see this story by Anne E. Kornblut in the New York Times) has toppled or threatens to topple various Republican members of Congress, such as Randy Cunningham, Robert Ney and Tom DeLay.   It is an incredible story of greed and power-lust, one that illustrates the worst fears of special interest groups that control so much wealth and power that they can essentially buy legislation.  As the Times story notes, the goal of Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm established by DeLay's close personal friend and former chief of staff Edwin Buckham, was "for Republican lobbyists to harness the power of their corporate cleints to help keep the party in power for years to come."  Id.  DeLay's rise in power meant money for the firm--$8.8 million dollars in 2004.  Delay was known to "respond[] more quickly to calls from Alexander Strategy than any other firm."  Id.

Abramoff has now pled guilty to three felong counts and become the star witness against others involved.  As Newt Gingrich told a Rotary Club in Washington, "You can't have a corrupt lobbyist unless you have a corrupt member (of Congress) or a corrup staff.  This was a team effort."  The News-Gazette, Jan 8, 2006, at B1.

Yesterday's New York Times ran a lengthy feature article by Todd Purdum, Go Ahead, Try to Stop K Street,  that compared power-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's operation to the rampant influence peddling in Ulysses S. Grant's 1870s administration.  Back then, he notes, Republican elders claimed that Grant had "used the public service of the government as a machinery of corruption and personal influence...and shown himself deplorably unequal to the task imposed on him by the necessities of the country."    Id.  The report goes on to show how the K Street Project has increased Republicans' ability to garner huge sums from corporations.  Since 1999, spending by lobbyists has increased 46%, to more than $2 billions annually, while the number of reigstered lobbyists (there are lots that are not registered) has doubled from 14, 690 in 1999 to 32,890 in 2005.  Id.  The revolving door has worsened as well.

"Since 1998, ... more than 2,200 former federal employees had registered as federal lobbyists, as had nearly 275 former White House aides and nearly 250 former members of Congress."  Id.

The ethical rules are particularly conducive to the kind of scandal that has broken out.  Former members of Congress have floor privileges, and exercise them to buttonhole their old friends to try to get them to vote for their clients' interests.  One can bet that those interests do not coincide with the greatest public good.  The Times article goes on to note:

"Entrenched industries--and extrenched incumbents of both parties--can be expected to resist change that would threaten the way they know how to do business."

The best solution is to increase transparency around the money and the power.  Congress should enact legislation that would require every member to publicly disclose every contact (phone or in person or by email) with lobbyists.  Lobbyists should likewise have to post their contacts with any member of the government on a single government-run site that is easily available for all Americans and easily searchable by name of the lobbyists, topic of the meeting, and name or title of the person lobbied.  Congress must act to make influence peddling harder to do and more damaging for members of Congress when they are found out.

Clean Elections, Voting Rights and American Justice

Volunteers for a Better America has consistently fought for clean elections at the local, state and national level.  We need voting machines that provide an auditable record that can be verified by the voter.   We need politicians who are beholden to the voters in the aggregate rather than to particular fat cats or corporate coffers.  In particular, we need restrictions on campaign financing by corporate interests that are essentially buying future legislation in their favor.

We will not achieve such clean elections by merely standing by and letting state legislatures hand contracts for voting equipment over to cronies or the lowest bidder.  We cannot continue to stand by and let money so taint elections that the voice of the people gets lost.  We need a concerted effort across each state, from hamlet to hamlet, county to county and city to city, to clean up the election process.  If the politicians can't get with the agenda, then we should kick them all out and start over again until they get the message.

There is a "clean elections" campaign going on now across the country.  The goal is to have states enact legislation that uses public funding at reasonable levels to finance all state-wide offices so that politicians can spend their time campaigning and talking about the issues that face the state rather than sitting in smoke-filled back rooms with big-money donors talking about their agendas.

This means we won't stand for continued dirty tricks during elections.  Remember the Bush campaign (and one time Republican National Committee) person who jammed phones in order to prevent Democratic get-out-the-vote drives?  Read the story here.  Those are the kinds of dirty tricks that cannot be tolerated.  Let's hope Mr. Tobin goes to jail, as a good lesson for future dirty tricksters. And let's hope that states like Illinois pass a "Clean Elections" law to ensure that state offices are not sold to the highest bidder.

It also means that we need a Justice Department that considers its charge to protect civil rights, including the right to a vote that counts, as one of its most sacred duties.  Sadly, that is quite clearly not the case in the current department headed by Attorney General Gonzalez. 

The Washington Post carries a story, here, about the politicization of the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department.  Historically, the analysis of career civil rights attorneys has been a highly regarded input into the decision process as to the position to be taken by the Justice Department.  No more.   In the Texas redistricting case, career attorneys interested in protecting the one person-one vote rule unanimously agreed, in a written memorandum, that the DeLay redistricting plan amounted to a plan to ride roughshod over voters and discriminate against minorities.  Political appointees in the department ignored that advise and supported the plan anyway.  Similarly, in the Georgia case requiring photo ID that for the predominantly poor black voters amounts to a modern-day version of the banned poll tax, career attorneys objected that it was a discriminatory provision that should not be allowed under the Voting Rights Act.  Again, political appointees overruled. 

Now we learn that Justice has nixed such analysis to ensure that political hacks can make their partisan decisions without the annoyance of sound legal analysis concerned with the protection of civil rights.  This is not justice.  This is politicization of the most important cabinet department in the line of fire protecting the civil rights of individual American citizens.   

DeLay Indictment; Blunt Ascent

Tom DeLay was one of the most powerful men in America until Wednesday, when he was indicted on charges alleging campaign financing violations in Texas.  As Republican Majority Leader in the House, he has used his corporate and political connections to raise huge sums for himself and fellow Republicans, cementing both the Republicans' control of the federal government and of the Texas state government by a brassy redistricting effort that even attempted to use the power of the federal government to herd reluctant Texas Democrats back to town.   He was already ethically challenged before the indictment, called before the House Ethics Committee on three different issues last year and up for another grilling on his golfing outing paid for by lobbyist Jack Abramoff (who is facing his own criminal woes).

At the base of his power are two organizations--Texans for a Republican Majority (Trmpac) and Americans for a Republican Majoirty (Armpac).  With Trmpac, DeLay is described as "[writing] a new chapter, which was exporting the federal power of his office back to his state."  How a Tested Campaign Tool Led to Conspiracy Charges, New York Times, Sept. 29.  The Times goes on to quote Fred Wertheimer, a long-time promoter of improved campaign finance laws, as saying:

"This was a classic example of the DeLay system at work, because you had corporations who really weren't interested in Texas politics giving large sums to Trmpac because they were interested in the power of House Majority leader DeLay."

The enormous political stakes and the coziness of large corporations and powerful Congressional positions suggests that the influence that corporations can gain with their contributions to campaigns is enormous.  It may not be that they are simply buying laws in their favor, but it looks and smells like something awfully close to it.  That is the reason that many are calling for politicians who have received some of the DeLay largesse to turn it back.  See, for example, this blog on Illinois 15th Congressional District Representative Tim Johnson.

The Republicans' pick as DeLay's successor is not much of an improvement.  While stylistically different from DeLay (described as approachable while DeLay is an in-your-face "Hammer"), Blunt has the same ties to the corporate lobbying bankrolls that DeLay exploits and came to his post on Mr. DeLay's coattails. He seems little likely to recognize the need to turn the Congress from their current  agenda for the wealthy to one that pays attention to the needs of ordinary Americans.   A Times editorial notes that the Republicans' talk of having selected a conciliatory personality suggests that Congress thought its challenge was to find "their own intramural peace rather than the nation's fraying commonweal."

Surely at some point the politicians who control the White House and both houses of Congress must realize that they are supposed to be governing for all Americans, and not just serving as lackeys for the wealthy corporations and owners who got them into office.  Governing for us all requires listening to the concerns we are expressing more strongly day by day--our belief that the loss of more lives and more billions in Iraq is meaningless and it is therefore time for an honorable exit so that the Iraqis can determine their own future without the terrorism that followed in the wake of our invasion and occupation; our desire to salvage what we can of this beautiful earth to share with future generations, rather than permit it to be ravaged for cheap, unsustainable profits that will merely line the pockets of the already wealthy; our conviction that we are morally required to care for the least among us as though they were the greatest among us, whether they are gay or lesbian, single mothers or proud families of four, poor and black or wealthy and white.   

Are they listening?  The appointment of Blunt, with everyone tacitly acknowledging that DeLay will retain his influence from the wings, suggests that they are not.

CLEAN MONEY/CLEAN ELECTIONS

by Cameron Satterthwaite
If you look at the numbers (50% spending increase in one election cycle in races for some offices) or the polls (run away campaign spending rates as first or second as a major concern), you must agree that financing of elections needs fixing. Well, Maine and Arizona have pioneered a solution. It's called Clean Money/ Clean Elections or just Clean Elections. They've tried it now for the last three election cycles for legislative and state wide races, with spectacular success.

Here's the way it works:

(1) First a candidate must declare that he/she wishes to run as a clean candidate and in all ways is eligible for the office.
(2) The candidate is allowed to raise for preliminary expenses, a fixed, small amount from eligible voters in his/her district or state in chunks of no more than $100.
(3) The candidate, then, must collect from his/her district or state a specified number of $5 "qualifying contributions" and signatures.
(4) He/she must pledge, on penalty of being disqualified for the office, to neither seek nor accept private money including from his/her own pocket (The constitutionality of this feature is currently being tested in Arizona.)
(5) The candidate is then awarded an amount specified for the office from a public Clean Elections fund. The source of this fund is defined in the Clean Elections law.
(6) If the candidate is challenged by a free spending non-clean candidate funds are made available for our candidate to match the opponent to a fixed limit, 2 or 3 times th specified amount.

It's as simple as that.

In Maine now serving, 83% in the State Senate and 77% in the House (up from 77% and 55% after the 2002 election) ran as Clean Elections candidates. In Arizona, in 2004, 58% of House winners and 23% in the Senate ran clean (up from 45% and 17% two years earlier) and, in addition, in Arizona 10 of 11 state wide officials were elected clean. Janet Napolitano, the sitting governor, who ran as a Clean Elections candidate, is a strong supporter of Clean Elections. In both states more minorities and women ran for office, there were more contested races and committed and capable people who could not stomach the fund raising hassle, threw their hats in the ring.

With Maine and Arizona leading the way, momentum for Clean Elections is building. In no less than twenty states and a few cities, including California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey and Portland, Oregon, action toward Clean Elections is stirring Clean Elections procedures for some offices have been introduced, (in North Carolina, judicial candidates have the option to run clean); bills are being crafted and introduced in many states (in Illinois, a bill to make the Clean Elections option available to candidates for the Supreme Court has passed in the Senate and is awaiting action in the House.)

Electoral reform with public funding is clearly the march to the future and the Clean Elections idea is leading the way.