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Democracy
By Renée Paradis & Theresa J. Lee – 07/03/08
When you work in election reform, often at the end of a panel discussion or a presentation you've just given, you'll look out at a sea of people you've thoroughly disheartened as to the health of the republic, one of whom has just asked you, "But what can I do to make a difference?" Usually, the answer is frustratingly remote - join an advocacy group, lobby your elected representatives, try to draw attention to the chronically ignored and un-sexy topic of election administration. But in an election year like this one, the answer can become gratifyingly immediate: Go become a poll worker. Poll workers are those overworked, undertrained, usually somewhat harried people who check you in at the polls on Election Day and shepherd you through the voting process. Poll workers usually have to be registered voters in the county they're serving in, and in many states, they must also be registered in one of the two major parties. It's hard to find qualified, dynamic poll workers, especially given how little most states pay for the day's work, and harder still to adequately train them in election law and procedures. Poll workers have to wake up at five in the morning to open the polls, stay at the polls late to process ballots, giving up an entire day, and spending a large part of that day being yelled at by disgruntled voters. But without poll workers nothing in the system works: Even if registration lists were perfectly managed, and voting machines 100% accurate, poorly trained poll workers can lose hundreds of votes in a single precinct.
In the long term, we need to figure out a way to recruit good poll workers. Current innovations include having high school students, many of whom would ordinarily be too young to serve as poll workers, staff the polls as part of their civics classes. We'd like to see other innovations: states could consider exempting poll workers from jury service for some period of time-surely many of you would rather serve one day than possibly get put on a weeks-long trial. Another innovation might be offering continuing legal education (CLE) credit for service at the polls. (Lawyers usually need to take some sort of continuing education classes to maintain their bar license, but often alternative activities such as judging moot courts or writing articles will count for credit as well.) Like jury service, CLE requirements can be a hassle to fulfill, and working the polls might be a nice alternative. In the credit framework, colleges and universities could also offer credit for work at the polls, either course credit or towards community service requirements.
But in the short term, anyone interested in electoral reform should consider taking that interest and dynamism and working the polls this fall. In a national election year, it can often seem like any real affect on the system or the outcome is out of the grasp of just one person, but there is something you can do to make real change now. Go become a poll worker.
Tags: Democracy, Voting Rights & Elections, Election Day Issues
By Thaddeus Kromelis – 06/25/08
Yesterday, I managed to catch Larry Lessig's latest "Change Congress" Power Point presentation at the Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) here in New York City. Addressing the distorting effects of money on goverment policy (oil industry influence on global warming research, pharma money at the FDA, the sugar lobby on recommended caloric intake), the Stanford professor's performance was easily one of the more rousing presentations that morning and sparked a discernable buzz from the bloggers gathered in Rose Hall, the home of Jazz at Lincoln Center.
It doesn't appear Lessig has posted yesterday's version on YouTube just yet, so I've gone ahead and included one that's pretty close. However, one notable bit of information missing in April's presentation at UCSB posted below are the numbers he cited from MAPlight.org (where he's a board member). Released yesterday, the organization points out that of the House Democrats who changed their votes from March to June clearing the way for a FISA bill with immunity for the phone companies to pass, on average, those politicians received $8,359 in PAC contributions. Specifically:
Comparing Democrats' Votes (March 14th and June 20th votes):
Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint gave PAC contributions averaging:
$8,359 to each Democrat who changed their position to support immunity for Telcos (94 Dems)
$4,987 to each Democrat who remained opposed to immunity for Telcos (116 Dems)
88 percent of the Dems who changed to supporting immunity (83 Dems of the 94) received PAC contributions from Verizon, AT&T, or Sprint during the last three years (Jan. 2005-Mar. 2008).
Now, no one can say those contributions caused recipients to change their votes. But it certainly doesn't project the appearance of an open, honest, and accountable government for the people.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Justice, Liberty & National Security
By Kahlil Williams – 06/20/08
Yesterday, Governor Charlie Crist (R) reported that Florida
has restored voting rights to 115,232 people with felony convictions since the
state revised its clemency procedure. The new clemency rules that Crist pushed
through in 2007 ease the restoration process for some who have committed lesser
offenses, like low-level drug dealing. The impact of the change is notable, and
Governor Crist should be acknowledged
for taking an important first step. But there is still much work to be done.
First, the total number of people stripped of their voting
rights because of a criminal conviction is about 950,000, meaning that only
about 12% of those who are disenfranchised have regained the right to vote
since the 2007 change. According to the Florida Department of Corrections,
nearly 300,000 of these people are "Level I" offenders convicted of crimes that
permit them to regain their voting rights under the new rules. But because of
backlogs created by the still cumbersome process, the majority of those
potential voters remains unable to cast a ballot in November.
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Voting Rights & Elections
By Michael Waldman – 06/20/08
An edited version of this posting appeared as a guest post on the Anderson Cooper 360 blog June 20.
Barack Obama's decision to opt out of public funding for the general election is not a surprise. It was so well telegraphed, he should take out a patent.
The presidential public funding system worked well for three decades after it was enacted in the early 1970s. It leveled the playing field, boosted competition and reduced corruption. Think of it this way: in the first five elections under presidential public funding, a challenger beat an incumbent president three times. There's no congressional district in America with that much competition!
But the presidential system needs repair, for reasons among those prompting Obama to turn away the federal funds. Principally, candidates simply don't get enough money to mount a fully strong race in a modern election. The amount, when it was set, was about two thirds of the amount spent by the McGovern campaign of 1972—in other words, two thirds of the least successful presidential campaign in modern history!
The real question is what will Barack Obama—or John McCain—do to reform the system when one of them takes office?
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Contribution Limits, Other Reforms, Disclosure, Public Financing
By Kelly Williams – 06/16/08
Former lobbyist Jack Abramoff will be sentenced this September, according to papers filed by prosecutors and defense attorneys this week in federal court. Mr. Abramoff has been safely tucked away in a federal prison camp in Maryland since 2006 on bank fraud charges. Congress reacted to the scandal by passing reform legislation: This past January 1, the
Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) of 2007 went into effect, requiring more substantive and accessible disclosure of political and charitable contributions by registered lobbyists, among other changes. The first reports of these contributions are due on July 30 and should make for interesting reading.
With reform legislation in place and Mr. Abramoff's expense account out of reach, one might be tempted to breath a sigh of relief. One piece of this important legislation has yet to be implemented, however—HLOGA required the FEC to adopt rules for disclosing "bundling" by lobbyists. "Bundling" is the gathering of checks from multiple donors otherwise meeting the requirements of law which are then turned over "in bulk" to politicians—the virtues and risks of this practice should be self-evident to those who care about meaningful campaign finance reform. The lack of a quorum at the FEC has prevented the adoption of the rules, effectively neutering this part of the only ethics reform legislation to come out of Congress in recent years. True reformers should insist that passage of these rules is at the top of the agenda of a reinvigorated FEC.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Contribution Limits, Other Reforms, Disclosure
By Laura MacCleery – 06/13/08
Some cases are just too ugly even
for the Supreme Court, it appears. Last week it refused to grant review to a
claim from Washington State that challenged an important principle: the
requirement that outside groups disclose their electoral spending.
The group in question, called the
Voters Education Committee (VEC), was a classic astroturf 527 group (named thus
for a section of the tax code), that omitted to register with the state as a
political committee. Its one donor—the Chamber of Commerce—funneled it a
whopping $1.5 million as part of a 25-state campaign in 2004 to push
its agenda in key Attorney General and state Supreme Court races around
the country.
Read the rest of this story ...
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms, Disclosure
By Ciara Torres-Spelliscy – 06/10/08
Cross-posted from a Seattle Post-Intelligencer piece.
Whenever I admit to fellow guests at a dinner party that I work as a campaign finance lawyer, the following happens. Either their eyes glaze over, hoping for a rapid change of topic, or they launch into a heated discussion of why the case that decided "money is speech" is so wrongheaded—since after all, money is, well, money, and speech is something else entirely. Sad to say, the justices on the U.S. Supreme Court seem to be losing their grasp on this simple point.
Contrary to popular opinion, the landmark case, Buckley v. Valeo, never actually equated money with speech. Instead, the opinion analyzed political campaigns and concluded that lots of money is needed to get a candidate's message to voters. Buckley used gasoline as a metaphor for campaign cash. The fuel of contributions makes the campaign car go.
As Justice Stephen Breyer once wrote, "a decision to contribute money to a campaign is a matter of First Amendment concern not because money is speech (it is not); but because it enables speech." Despite this truth, the bumper sticker version—"money is speech"—has seeped into our collective unconscious.
> Read entire article here.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Fair Courts
By Thaddeus Kromelis – 06/09/08
In case you missed it, there is an inspiring piece in today's Providence Journal chronicling Andres Idarraga's remarkable change of course. In short, over the span of ten years, Idarraga has gone from has gone from prison to graduating from Brown University to finally being admitted to Yale Law School—A.T. Wall, director of the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, actually drove him to New Haven for a meeting with the law school's dean.
Andres Idarraga served as one of the primary spokespeople for the Rhode Island Right to Vote campaign, and he is one of 15,000 Rhode Islanders with a conviction in their past who had their right to vote restored when voters approved a ballot referendum in November 2006. He has written for this blog before. His personal account of having his right to vote restored in Rhode Island can be found here.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction
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