Time to re-fight the most recent battle. Ready to Rumble?
This essay represents another of my political epiphanies from 2016. Politicians/government cost us a freaking fortune, in blood, treasure, time and energy. After all that, do we get brilliant public "servants?" Or just low level thinkers who are always just re-fighting the last battle? For example, do they imagine a new form a terrorist attack might take and take preventative measures? Or do they just do stuff like making us take off our shoes at airports (but not train or bus stations) forever because, on one single occasion, one clown loaded his sweaty kicks with explosives before boarding a plane? Are they clever or just forever fighting the last battle? IOW, how much bang are we actually getting for all our many bucks, anyway? You already know the answers to all my rhetorical questions, don't you, you clever minxes, you!
But... what about.....us? (I'm finally about to get to the point! I would have done sooner, but I was rolling.1) Are we even doing as little as re-fighting our most recent battle? And, by our most recent battle, I, of course, mean the primary and general elections of our (snort) "representatives." That is the one and only lonely, almost meaningless power we have in what we love to refer to incorrectly as our "democracy." http://caucus99percent.com/content/sleights-santa-and-republic At that, many of us suspect that someone(s) or some thing(s) may be messing with our ballots and/or the counting thereof. Why should our alleged representatives, whom we pay, be allowed to restrict and/or mess with our one and only, lonely power? And, perhaps most importantly, what, if anything, are you and I prepared to do about any of this?
1. Open versus closed primaries. For openers, taxpayers pay every penny of the expense of holding primary elections. However, political parties, private organizatons that are not answerable to taxpayers or even to judges in lawsuits. We can sue a state government for violating our right to vote and may or may not win the lawsuit. However, if a political party violates our rights in a primary, the suit will be dismissed because they are private associations. Yet, these untouchable parties get to set rules for primaries for which state taxpayers pay 100% of the expense and that determine who will govern us!
Does any part of that seem fair and reasonable? Yet, more and more Democrats are talking about holding only closed primaries to make it even more difficult for anyone to defeat the anointee of the Party's PTB. (BTW, how ironic is it that that a party called the "Democratic" Party is the party of anointings; of super delegates, including big donors; of seeking closed primaries; of a National Committee that sees nothing wrong with disregarding its own charter; of scheduling debates against ball games; and to reduce the number of viewers nationawide and the number people in NY who might change their registration to Democrat?)
Whatever happened to the Golden Rule? No, no ,"not the do unto others" Golden Rule in the NT. The Golden Rule that one of my employers taught me; i.e., "Whoever has the gold makes the rules." Put another way, whoever is paying also gets to make the rules. Who's footing all these bills again? Ah, yes. Us. So why, in an alleged democracy do we not get to make the rules for primaries, rather than our so-called public servants whom we pay or the political parties that even courts cannot touch.
How about this: Either (a) each political party pays for its own primary and therefore gets to do whatever it wants (with no government/taxpayer money or government imprimatur), or (b) taxpayers pay the costs of primaries and make all the rules? In fact, no, disregard the options I've just stated: Odds are the winner of either the Republican Presidential primary or the Democratic Presidential primary will be the President of all us, at the expense of all of us. All political primaries should be fully open to all citizens, full stop.. On edit: Pressure on the political Parties themselves may be the only the only way to accomplish this. Please see my reply to sojourns below, especially the bolded part near the end. http://caucus99percent.com/comment/231289#comment-231289
2. Voter registration (including changing voter registration). Shouldn't registering and changing registration be as easy as it possibly can be? Are deadlines in your state for registering and for changing registration reasonable? Should all primaries just be totally open, as they are in Vermont, so that a registered voter never needs to worry about being able to vote for the candidate of his or her choice? Does government reach out to register and inform voters, or is the one silly little power citizens have in the massive bureaucracies that rules their lives relegated solely to efforts of ad hoc and often unpaid and untrained volunteers? Tea Party organizations to register and educated voters proliferated during the Obama administration. Who on the left is registering and educating voters these days? We can no longer rely on ACORN. A Democratic Congress and Democratic President were in such a hurry to kill off ACORN that they got sued about a bill of attainder. (IIRC, ACORN lost on appeal, even though ACORN's name was visible all over the bill.)
Shouldn't all public high school seniors be given a voter registration form before graduation? Shouldn't the forms also be available at college freshmen orientation and online in every state, along with the rules about college students voting where they attend school? As the time for voting approaches, shouldn't state government publicize the relevant deadlines for registering or changing registration, including by TV and radio PSAs? How about uniform voting rules in all states, just as there are uniform laws governing contracts, liens, etc. (the Uniform Commercial Code)? That way, someone from an open primary state with liberal voting laws will not get blindsided if they move to a state with undemocratic and repressive voting rules, like the (ironically) blue State of New York.
3. Caucuses. How about ending partisan control of caucuses? The outcomes of caucuses affect all of us. Why do partisan political functionaries get to be in sole charge of caucuses and any ballots? Shouldn't we all be confident that whoever tells caucusers to go home is so doing legitimately? Someone whose license plates read "Hillary 2016" shouldn't have gotten to zoom out of the parking lot alone with all the caucus ballots in his car, should he? Should caucuses be abolished?
4. Ballots: nature and counting. How about primary and general election ballots that voters fill out by hand and that are also counted by hand in some carefully-monitored process?Politicians and pundits sure got all irate on a bipartisan basis when Trump used the R word (rigged). Trump is far from the only one who thinks something's rotten. For just one example...http://bradblog.com/
So, instead of condemning Trump for using the R word, how about just fashioning a process that gives voters confidence that rigging a primary or a general election at least harder than cheating on a high school pop quiz under the watchful eye of Ms. Grundy? As an aside, the fauxrage at the "rigged" word was particularly entertaining coming from Democrats. Not only are Democrats the ones who claim every President election won by Republican was stolen, but Democrats (well, Waxman's committee) held hearings that proved how easy stealing elections is, then did absolutely nothing about that. http://electiondefensealliance.org/house_committee_on_oversight_and_gove...
5. Action. Now that the 2016 election and the frenetic year-end holidays are over, isn't this a good time for each of us to be at least starting to re-fight the most recent battle? How about speaking with your state representative and state senator? Drafting a petition and try to get signatures? Writing a letter to the editor of your state's newspapers? Looking into how bills get initiated in your state, then submiting a bill to this effect? Putting together one or more citizens' groups that will work on these things with you because you probably can't do all this on your own? Hosting some neighbors to get them fired up? (BTW, when I tried submitting a bill on another subject, I learned that, in my state, submitting a bill to a legislator or even advocating for legislation may be considered lobbying under my state's laws, so that needs to be checked, too, while you are googling state laws. In my state, I had to register as a lobbyist!) On edit: Please see my reply to sojourns below, especially the bolded part near the end: http://caucus99percent.com/comment/231289#comment-231289
This is one of those issues that I keep posting about that should be non-partisan--with the possible exception of that strain of Dembots that can't abide the thought that voters might interfere with a Party anointing. Less corrupt Democrats, Republicans who heard Trump talking about rigging for months, Greens, Libertarians, uncommitted--IMO, all sane citizens should be for ensuring the integrity of the vote and letting the ones who foot the bills make the rules, even if they themselves refuse to vote on principle.
Ready to rumble?
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZtQn-GAemQ]
1 I was rolling.. [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vtWB4owdE]
Comments
I don't understand what mechanism any legally chartered entity
can employ to gain immunity from an affected party or individual in seeking remedy from the courts? Heck, it doesn't matter if they are not legally chartered or not?
"However, if a political party violates our rights in a primary, the suit will be dismissed because they are private associations"
Not that I don't believe you, A judge can throw it out for a number of reasons, technical or simply frivolous, incorrect venue, etc. I'm speaking of the lower courts, not appeals or supreme.
I'm ready to keep fighting. I wrote these people today, insisting that Walter Schaub, director of the OGE not let the Senate push the cabinet confirmations without proper vetting. Carry on Henry!
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
Thank you, sojourns. It's not that political Parties
employ a mechanism. It's that courts themselves have long held that (a) political parties are private organizations and (b)courts will not interfere in the internal affairs of private organizations. However, court-made law on some of this may be in flux, as detailed more below.
If an organization is truly private, we would not want courts interfering. Imagine a group of men that formed a club to, for example, go to all local football games, with a tailgate party before the game and a visit to a local pub after the game to "Monday morning quarterback" the game they had just attended. Then, let's say a man asks to join this group or club, but is politely declined. Meanwhile, the group expels a member has been getting drunk and obnoxious at the tailgate, which violates the rules the group. Both men sue.
We would want the courts to say, in effect, "This is none of our business. Individuals have rights. One of those rights is to "pal around" with whomever they chose in their social time and to stay away from whomever they choose during their social time." However, I appreciate your comment very much because it prompted me to google. I learned that two important things, the second of which is distressing.
1. Legal scholars have been writing that political parties are somewhere between a public or governmental organization and a purely private one. So, it may be that the law is in a state of flux
2. In 2000, the Surpremes decided an important case. Yet again, arguing against the will of the people was--you guessed it--Democrats. The people of California--not the state legislature, but the people--had voted for a lesser known (to me) form of primary called a blanket primary.
As I understand it--and I am not sure I have it right-- this means that you don't need to identify with any particular party when you register to vote, similar to an open primary state. You just need to register to vote. Also similar to an open primary, when you show up to vote, you can ask for any ballot you want. However, if you ask for a Democratic ballot, you will get a ballot with only Democrats on it. You will not be able to, for example, vote for a Democrat for President, then for a Republican for Senator. You will have no choice but to vote a straight Democratic ticket. I am not even sure if you get to leave blanks, but that is not relevant to this essay, anyway.
When the law changed, the Democratic Party of California sued the Secretary of State of California, claiming the law was unconstitutional and should be invalidated. (Invalidation of the new law would, I guess, have returned the state to a closed primary.) The Supremes agreed. Scalia wrote the majority opinion.
Scalia cited the Constitutional right of freedom of individuals, in this instance, the Democratic Party of California, to associate with whomever they wish--and to stay away from whomever they wish, much like my example of the football club. Even though the case was not thrown out, this is, in my opinion, a horrific example of what my essay stated. The Court let the State's Democratic Party, in effect, override the will of not only the legislature of California, but of the people of California. So much for states' rights and individual rights, protected by the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in the Bill of Rights, when it came to the rights of a political party in a primary. Damn!
Apparently, only three states had a blanket primaries because in his dissent, Justice Stevens wrote that the Court had invalidated the primary laws of three states and had cast doubt on the primary laws of 29 other states. OnlyJustice Ginsburg joined Stevens in the dissent (Stevens and Ginsburg being among my favorite Justices ever).
Under the rationals of this case, it may well be that, if a political party sued, it could indeed force closed primaries on every state. The case is described here. https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/530/567 (great website for legal stuff, btw). There is also a wiki, but I did not read it.
So, I will edit my essay to reference this reply. Ugh.
This is a very well written & thought provoking essay - thanks
As to the question about forcing open primaries on political parties, I think it's possible to argue that the two dominant parties maintain themselves de jure and there is no realistic possibility of a viable third party. The history of the Socialist Party is instructive here(to me anyway) when the SP polled up to 16% in races before WW1 and using the war as an excuse, the political establishment attacked the SP & its members reducing the party's electoral presence. Debs was not the only SP member jailed for long sentences and mob violence was used against the party.
The fact that states make it nearly impossible to gain ballot access should be proof of the two parties using the law to maintain their dominant position.
There is a lack of mutuality in this rigged 2-party system between the Republicans and Democrats vs any group who wants to chart a new course via a 3rd party. In contract law, mutuality used to be something worthy of judicial notice - maybe still is. Whether this judicial construct would hold with a 3rd party challenge, Who knows? but it's defeatism to try if it hasn't already been argued.
The deck is stacked against democracy and the people. This fact should make it possible for judicial review.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
Thank you so much duckpin. I agree,
BUT: I am not sure if you saw my long reply to sojourns. If not, at least check the bolded part near the end, remembering it was a 7-2 decision, with only Stevens and Ginsburg displaying integrity, IMO.
With few exceptions for indies and members of of newer parties, everyone in all three branches of national government and in state government owe their careers, and all the perqs that come with them to some degree to the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, including the Supremes. So, as an edit to my essay says, it may be that our only realistic shot is pressure on the Parties themselves, for which we would have to be members of the Parties. (As one of my essays explains, I don't believe a Constitutional Amendment or a Constitutional Convention is a realistic possibility, not at all, but especially on an issue like this. http://caucus99percent.com/content/lets-amend-constitution) Another possibility may be deny them funds for a primary, but even that would be an uphill battle: Which state legislature, all of them being full or nearly full of nothing but Democrats and Republicans, will agree to that without tons of work by citizens?
I think you've made a convincing argument to go a route
that is mostly non-elective because of the hurdles. Also, if you have a party in formation, you are going to get internal sectarianism
that can mostly be avoided by concentrating on organizing around a few core issues.
"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"
About party formation:
No new party has succeed since the Republican Party, formed in 1854. And that was an entirely different time. In favor of not getting discouraged by that is the internet. If one manages to pull together a large enough email list (which costs) and hire a website creator and manager (which also costs), one can at least raise some money relatively cheaply, assuming one can persuade people to donate. And, one can put info on the website and message boards and people find their way there. So far, I must be honest, this is underwhelming. (Though I did not mention it above, a lawyer familiar with issues around the internet and political parties, lawyers like that, as a rule being the most expensive ones, would be a very good idea, along with a tax lawyer.)
Reasons to be discouraged by the fact that no political party has succeeded in a big way since 1854 are legion, including TV ad buys are both necessary and very expensive and that big donors like the Koch brothers or even Georges Soros and Clooney, are not likely to help out a party of the kind you and I are likely to want.
People are sometimes specific about what they want to a party to be, but most often don't even attempt to address a single practical issue concerning how to birth it and make it successful. Until I see practical specifics, I don't know how much time and energy I would or, in good conscience could, recommend putting into that venture.
People who are very interested in politics, but who are not in the business of politics, tend to post on political message boards, if they have time. Or, at least comment at sites where they cannot post their own essays. I've posted on about a half dozen message boards, usually focusing principally upon one at a time, as I have here and read on some others. Sooner or later, I learn that most of the posters are older and/or ill. They want to post, not take action that requires much more of them than sitting at a computer. And almost all of them have little, if any, money to donate to a leftist type political party. If anything, they need money themselves. So, to be flip, it gets to be something that, in essence, is"Let's you and him do what I'd like to see happen." I absolutely am not faulting anyone for any of those things, but the totality does present certain reality issues. And, I do not share the confidence that posting alone changed much IRL for the left of the left, other perhaps getting us scolded by the schoolmarm in chief, past, present or future. I get that most posters never want to hear that, but that is my view.
Those who are younger and healthy and have money also tend to be working, which also means little time and energy to devote to unpaid endeavors. People left of the Democratic Party tend to fall into one of those categories. And none of them seem to have really big bucks. I think we could get someone like Sarandon, maybe Rufalo, involved, if any of us knew how. However, beyond that, I have no ideas. And, I think Sanders "revolution" has, if anything, leached away many who might have been fired up enough to finally give up on LOTE voting. I type that knowing that on this board, any criticism of Sanders is likely to draw personal attacks from posters who resort to such things, but I am not going to self-censor because that might happen.
Trust me, I am not the least bit happy about a single thing I've put into this post. But, with such limited resources, including money, energy and health of the people who want a new party most, it seems to make sense to direct them to one or more of the courses I listed in the action section of my essay above. Also, the two are not mutually exclusive, at least in theory. Once can, for example, write a letter to the editor and form a new party.
Thanks for that Henry
I was looking at the parties as though they were a public accommodation, not at all as a private 'club'. That is something that should be addressed -- I don't see it happening though. They'd rather fall off the edge of a cliff.
Maybe all the election laws should be scrapped and replaced -- brought into modernity. I'm sure women weren't allowed to vote when most of the original laws were written.
"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage
P.S. As far as "fighting,"
I am not optimistic about the impact of letters, calls, emails, online petitions or the like to national level officials, which is why the Action section of my post did not suggest any of those thinngs as courses of action. I do some of that myself, but with no belief that it's going to change a thing.
Deleted by HenryWallace.
Sailing my Sunfish . . .
. . . I entered the tack maneuver running too slow. The Sunfish has stalled in the "no-go zone". "Stuck in irons", I see the Exxon Valdez bearing down on my position, at full speed, from a down wind position.
This is how I felt as I read your article.
I see no fault in your article. If my opinion is of any value: I detect an optimistic tone that could be quite helpful in moving toward a brighter future. So, of course you know what I am going to write next: I am not hopeful. The reason I am not hopeful is because I live in Nebraska.
Nebraska is the only state with a Unicameral, a single legislative nonpartisan body. Actually this nonpartisan body is saturated with republicans, no surprise, it's Nebraska. For more than 37 years Nebraska citizens have watched, petitioned, and "lobbied" as the Unicameral debated the death penalty issue to, well, death. Finally, on May 2015 the Unicameral passed its repeal of the death penalty over governor Pete Ricketts' veto.
Pete Ricketts and his father contributed more than $304,000 of the $913,000 raised by the "Nebraskans for the Death Penalty" organization to spearhead the effort to reinstate the death penalty. Sadly, the electorate voted to reinstate the death penalty on 8 November 2016.
I am a bitter old man. After, so much time getting a decent bit of legislation passed by the only Unicameral in the country. After, dealing with members (words, yes I had some words with these "petitioners") of this citizens group funded principally
buyby one verysick fuckpoor excuse for a human being. After, being let down by the citizens that live all about me. I am a bitter old man.So, while I appreciate your analysis and enthusiasm, I have a great deal of difficulty seeing how to escape the inevitable.
The fastest way to get out of irons is to sail backwards (that would be toward the Exxon Valdez) building to enough speed so as to sharply turn the boat as you reset the sail to reach (that would be running at a large angle to the Exxon Valdez's direction of travel) as you come to a stop. This is not a very desirable configuration of relative velocities as it takes time for the wind to get the sailboat going again. Likely outcome: Exxon Valdez (1) : Rip's Sunfish (0).
What the f**k kind of sick name is that for a "citizen's group"?
Never mind that the oligarchy is stealing our country and that we seem more and more doomed by climate change every day, lets form a group to kill people, because that's what's really important....killing people.
Beware the bullshit factories.
I confronted one with, "Sorry but I am pro-life."
This moron started to walk away, stopped, stared at me for a bit, then muttered with a quiver (I swear !) in his voice, "So am I." I just walked away shaking my head.
Every word must have "us vs them" connotations
The indoctrinators should carry at least as much of the blame as the indoctrinated IMO.
Beware the bullshit factories.
Thanks for the Corroboration.
I hate blaming the victim, that's one of the things I like about this site, as opposed to others that will not be named. In my more charitable moments I could imagine this guy was just scraping by and getting paid to do the governor's work was more out of necessity than principle, but there are limits. I suppose no one had challenged him before I walked by, because for the most part that is not the Nebraska way. But still he should understand his (at the very least complacent) role in a truly awful process.
But, then who am I to moralize, I am just a godless scientist after all.
Thanks! Having taken a break, I now post my reply:
My other replies on this thread show, I think, that I am far from a pollyanna. I like to think I am at least relatively practical about what I urge people to do and what I tell them I think is not worth the candle (whatever that means).
I've seen you post that we do one thing--the next thing. In politics, the vote is the next thing, IMO. The vote is not only the linchpin. It's also perhaps the one issue that no one will fight on, at least not publicly. No citizen and no politician is will say publicly that messing with the vote is okay, even if they are the ones who have been throwing away ballots every election. A clean vote is not going to generate anything like the controversy that the death penalty generates, so the two are not at all comparable. So, I would not assume that, because Nebraskans may fight for the death penalty, they will also fight against a clean vote. Politically, they just can't publicly oppose a clean vote.
As far as a unicameral legislature, I don't now why getting a vote out of one house would be harder than getting a vote out of two houses. If anything, I would less room for kabuki theater.
As far as Republicans, as a party, they have been far better on the vote than the Democratic Party. In my essay, the first section deals with open vs. closed primaries. Although the SCOTUS may be the problem there, I've advocated that, "The ones paying for the primaries (us) should make the rules." I cannot see Republican citizens having any problem with that concept. However, they may not know that, as things stand now, voters pay for primaries while parties make the rules for primaries.
In the second section if my essay, voter registration, please look again at the fact that Democrats in Congress killed ACORN while the Koch brothers are funding organizations to register voters.
In the fourth section, counting votes, please note that the current darling of Republican voters, Trump, spent about a year talking about rigged primaries and elections.
Among the action items in my essay are things ranging from writing a letter to the editor and sending it to the state's papers to writing a bill. If you don't think trying for a clean vote is worth even writing a letter, that's one thing--and I can empathize. Our efforts often go nowhere. Apart from that, IMO, you have a better shot at it in a red state than people in a blue state have. For example, AFAIK, New York and California are the two states with the worst primary policies in the country. Massachusetts, supposedly the archetypal blue state, went to more than one day to vote only in 2016, many years after, say, Florida.
I used a club as an example because it was the clearest
example that came to mind of situations in which we would not want the Supreme Court to insert government into our first amendment right of association. (There is a SCOTUS case involving a private club and racial discrimination, in which the SCOTUS cites things like a liquor license to show government involvement, but the Supreme Court always distinguishes that case, rather than either following it as precedent or overruling it. Moose Lodge v. Irvis https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/407/163/case.html) Of course, the Constitution says nothing expressly about freedom of association, but the SCOTUS found it implied in the First Amendment--in a zoning case (of all things)--from which Scalia surely would have dissented, had he been on the court at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_association
However, there are examples of associations that are a closer call than a purely private club, such as associations formed to change a law. The Temperance Society would be an example.
As a matter of reality, no matter how much the Court rationalizes to portray its holdings as objective or even quasi-objective, many of them are both arbitrary and politically motivated(as decisions when the Justices broke 5-4 along party lines would imply). If a lay person reads only the majority opinion, it seems persuasive. Same for reading only the dissenting opinion or opinions. When one reads all the opinions, however, one comes away shaking one's head. And, very likely, agreeing with one group of Justices or the other on the basis of politics, not facts or law. I have little doubt that is true of the 2000 case about political primaries in which Scalia wrote for the majority and Stevens wrote for himself and Ginsburg.
There are certainly more reasons to consider a political party as subject to regulation as a public accommodation, such as a hotel, if not more so. However, the original holding on a political party was that it was a private association and so the law of political parties has developed. As stated in my first reply, however, legal scholars have been arguing for another result. Here's hoping they succeed.