Blog
Democracy
By Brennan Center for Justice – 04/11/10
by Deborah J. Vagins and Erika Wood
Originally published at ACS Blog.
In our recent Issue Brief for the American Constitution Society, The Democracy Restoration Act: Addressing a Centuries-Old Injustice, we examine an ongoing and deeply problematic barrier to the fundamental right to vote for millions of Americans. Currently, 5.3 million American citizens are denied this right because of a criminal conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of those who are disfranchised are out of prison, working, paying taxes, and raising families, yet they are without a political voice.
With their roots in the Jim Crow era, many of these laws were originally enacted as a way to prevent African Americans from exercising their newly-won rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Their intended effects continue today. While 2.5% of the total U.S. voting age population is currently disfranchised, over 13% of African-American men are denied the right to vote on account of past criminal convictions -- this rate is seven times the national average.
Although in the past decade there have been significant reforms of these laws in the states, there is a compelling need for a federal standard. Some states disfranchise persons on parole or probation while others permanently disfranchise some or all who have completed their sentences. Several states even deny voting rights to persons who have incurred legal financial obligations or have only been convicted of misdemeanors.
This patchwork of laws governing voter qualifications often leads to confusion among both election and criminal justice officials about who is eligible to vote. As a result, countless individuals with convictions who are eligible to vote have been misinformed that they cannot vote, making the number of Americans impacted by criminal disfranchisement even greater. As we discuss in our Issue Brief, a federal standard is the only way to prevent future instances of this de facto disfranchisement and to ensure that all qualified Americans are able exercise their right to vote.
On March 16, 2010, the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties heard testimony from a broad group of experts, election officials, and advocates in support of such federal standard -- the Democracy Restoration Act (DRA). This legislation would restore voting rights in federal elections to the nearly 4 million Americans who have been released from prison; ensure that people on probation never lose their right to vote in federal elections; and notify people coming out of prison about their right to vote in federal elections. By establishing a federal standard for voter qualifications, the DRA would ensure that all citizens have a say in their communities, while at the same time, providing a bright line for government officials who provide voter registration information.
There has been incredible momentum behind reforming criminal disfranchisement laws in recent years. Law enforcement officials, members of the faith community, civil rights and legal organizations, and governors of both political parties have all advocated for the restoration of voting rights. Recently, The New York Times editorialized in favor of the DRA, writing that "it goes against one of democracy's most fundamental principles: that governments should rule with the consent of the governed."
However, without a national standard, the United States remains one of the only industrialized democracies where significant portions of its voting-age population are denied the ability to participate in civic life. International covenants and declarations recognize the right to vote as a fundamental human right and many countries' have determined that denying citizens with criminal convictions their fundamental rights is incompatible with the principle of equality in the protection of civil and political rights.
As we conclude in our Issue Brief, if passed, the Democracy Restoration Act would not just restore voting rights to millions of Americans; it would finally correct a centuries-old injustice.
The new Issue Brief for the American Constitution Society, The Democracy Restoration Act: Addressing a Centuries-Old Injustice [pdf], by Deborah J. Vagins and Erika Wood, examines an ongoing and deeply problematic barrier to the fundamental right to vote for millions of Americans. Currently, 5.3 million American citizens are denied this right because of a criminal conviction in their past. Nearly 4 million of those who are disfranchised are out of prison, working, paying taxes, and raising families, yet they are without a political voice.
With their roots in the Jim Crow era, many of these laws were originally enacted as a way to prevent African Americans from exercising their newly-won rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Their intended effects continue today. While 2.5% of the total U.S. voting age population is currently disfranchised, over 13% of African-American men [pdf] are denied the right to vote on account of past criminal convictions -- this rate is seven times the national average.
Although in the past decade there have been significant reforms of these laws [pdf] in the states,there is a compelling need for a federal standard. Some states disfranchise persons on parole or probation while others permanently disfranchise some or all who have completed their sentences. Several states even deny voting rights to persons who have incurred legal financial obligations or have only been convicted of misdemeanors.
Cross-posted at ACS blog.
Download the brief [pdf].
Deborah J. Vagins is Legislative Counsel for the Washington Legislative Office of the American Civil Liberties Union; Wood is Deputy Director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Tags: Democracy, Voting After Criminal Conviction, Post-Incarceration Restoration of Voting Rights, Racial Justice
By ReformNY – 04/07/10
Today, the Senate democrats unveiled a series of proposals to reform the state’s budget process, which this year has dragged on a week beyond the mandated deadline with no apparent end in sight.
Most of the proposals – which are outlined in six separate bills – focus on better long-term financial planning and external oversight of the budget designed to eliminate waste. One bill would move the budget deadline back to May 31, following the recommendations made by the Senate’s Select Committee on Budget and Tax Reform in a report also released today.
While we have not yet analyzed the legislation in detail, we’re glad to see the Senate thinking constructively about ways to reform the state’s broken budget process and we hope that the Assembly also seriously considers reform. If the Senate does not have the cooperation of the lower chamber, it should at the very least demonstrate its commitment to a better budget by continuing to build upon the steps it has taken toward greater transparency. New Yorkers certainly deserve to have their tax dollars managed more wisely, but they also have a right to be privy to the decisions made about how their money is to be spent.
Originally posted at ReformNY.
Tags: Democracy, NY Reform
By Adam Skaggs – 04/03/10
Originally published in The New Republic.
Illinois is home to the nation’s costliest judicial election ever: the 2004 contest between Lloyd Karmeier and Gordon Maag. The two candidates in Illinois's fifth judicial district together raised almost $9.4 million, nearly double the previous national record. It topped the money raised in 18 of 34 U.S. Senate races decided that year. Even Karmeier, the winner of the race, described the money poured into the campaign as “obscene.”
The eye-popping fundraising resulted from a parade of special interests on both sides of the “tort wars." The fifth district had been known for large damage awards against corporate interests, and the election’s winner was expected to play a crucial role on a closely divided Illinois supreme court. Trial lawyers funneled millions to Maag, while Karmeier got buckets of cash from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Karmeier also got a boost from a company with a very real interest in the race's outcome: State Farm Insurance Company, which happened to be appealing a damage award of more than $450 million. Karmeier got $350,000 in contributions from employees, lawyers, and others directly involved with State Farm and another $1 million from larger groups affiliated with the company. After he won the election, Karmeier cast the deciding vote that saved State Farm roughly a half-billion dollars.
The Illinois election wasn’t an anomaly. In the last decade, state judicial elections across the country have evolved from quiet, civil contests into extravagant affairs with exorbitant spending, mud-slinging, and bitter personal attacks. Special interests in particular have helped engineer many of these races, pouring money into campaign coffers and negative TV ads. For instance, in a 2006 race in Washington—the most expensive judicial election that state had ever seen—every TV spot was paid for by a special interest group. As an Ohio AFL-CIO official put it, “We figured out a long time ago that it’s easier to elect seven judges than to elect one hundred and thirty-two legislators.”
And now, the problem is likely to get a lot worse. Much has been made about how Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (FEC), the recent Supreme Court decision that lifted the ban on corporate spending in elections, will allow special interests to dump money into presidential and congressional races as never before. But the decision was handed down, in the words of Justice John Paul Stevens, just “when concerns about the conduct of judicial elections have reached a fever pitch.” Indeed, thanks to Citizens United, the likely explosion of special-interest spending in this year's judicial races threatens to further erode the judiciary's independence.
This year, candidates in 18 states will face off to fill 34 supreme court seats. More than 30 other high court judges will sit for unopposed “retention” elections, in which voters will vote “yes or no” to keep them on the bench. And, because of Citizens United, many legal observers are expecting that these elections will be special-interest spending frenzies. Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said at a conference at Georgetown University Law Center in January that “Citizens United has signaled that the problem of campaign contributions in judicial elections might get considerably worse and quite soon.”
Read the rest of the article at TNR online.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Fair Courts, Independence & Accountability, Judicial Advertising, State Judicial Elections
By Ciara Torres-Spelliscy – 03/30/10
On March 27, 2010, the Brennan Center hosted a symposium of some of the nation’s leading constitutional thinkers to work toward a new jurisprudence of money and politics in the wake of Citizens United. Participants largely agreed on the need to place voters back at the center of our politics, and the desirability of restoring the concept of equality to its rightful place in our constitutional jurisprudence.
Throughout the day, Justice Brennan’s legacy of deep concern for social justice combined with his respect for First Amendment freedoms was a touchstone for many speakers. One of the questions that we didn’t get a chance to discuss at the symposium was: what would Justice Brennan have done in the case of Citizens United v. F.E.C.?
While we can’t be 100% certain, his own decisions indicate that Justice Brennan would have sided with reasonable campaign finance restrictions including restrictions on electoral spending by business corporations. He would have voted with Justice Steven’s passionate dissent. Why am I so sure? The answer is in Justice Brennan’s concurring opinion in Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, one of the cases summarily overruled by Citizens United.
In his Austin concurrence which quoted liberally from his Massachusetts Citizens for Life majority opinion, Justice Brennan explained that the restrictions on corporate independent expenditures upheld in the case were supported by the need for protecting the shareholders footing the bill. Justice Brennan noted, “[a] stockholder might oppose the use of corporate funds drawn from the general treasury - which represents, after all, his money - in support of a particular political candidate.”
Justice Brennan was particularly concerned with the potential for individual business or trade associations to use other people’s money in politics. He wrote,
“The Michigan statute … prevent[s] both the Chamber and other business corporations from using the funds of other persons for purposes that those persons may not support….In addition, the Michigan law protects dissenting shareholders of business corporations that are members of the Chamber to the extent that such shareholders oppose the use of their money, paid as dues to the Chamber out of general corporate treasury funds, for political campaigns.”
He wasn’t shy about the governmental interest in stopping a corporation from hijacking investments for use in politics. Justice Brennan argued in Austin, “the State surely has a compelling interest in preventing a corporation it has chartered from exploiting those who do not wish to contribute to the Chamber’s political message.”
Justice Brennan shared the Austin majority’s worry that corporate money could be distorting in the political process, reiterating “the legitimacy of Congress’ concern that organizations that amass great wealth in the economic marketplace not gain unfair advantage in the political marketplace”.
So it is in the spirit of Justice Brennan that the Brennan Center has urged Congress to take strong policy responses to Citizens United including adopting public financing for congressional elections through the Fair Elections Now Act (H.R. 1826). But we have also urged another approach which is consistent with Justice Brennan’s clearly stated belief in shareholder protection: providing shareholders a vote on future corporate political spending as embodied in the Shareholder Protection Act (H.R. 4790). This is a constitutional way to honor the rights of the investors who may be otherwise pulled into political battles after Citizens United against their will. This is precisely what Justice Brennan would do.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms
By Justin Levitt & Garima Malhotra – 03/25/10
As Americans, we like to think that voters choose their politicians — but in reality, through the redistricting process, politicians mostly choose their voters. This week, Rep. John Tanner (D-TN) and Rep. Michael Castle (R-DE) introduced powerful legislation that tries to return more of a voice to the voters themselves. This bill, appropriately named the “Redistricting Transparency Act of 2010,” opens Congressional redistricting to allow for meaningful public access, input, and feedback. It’s the first necessary step to holding our representatives accountable for an act ostensibly undertaken on our behalf.
Soon after the 2010 Census, the district lines used to decide which voters elect which members of Congress will be redrawn, block by block. As we’ve recently discussed, most Congressional districts are drawn by state legislators, who may seek to please — or hope to become — their Congressional colleagues. And when the lines are drawn in back rooms far from public view, it’s too easy to conflate personal or partisan interest with public interest. By the time the plans are made available to the public, the deals are done and the decisions are made. There is little opportunity for the public to access the pertinent data and no chance to comment on the draft plans. At no time are legislators asked to explain or justify the lines they draw.
This turns the representative process upside down. With no meaningful public input or accountability, legislators develop the bounds by which their friends are elected. District lines are drawn to protect incumbents from effective challenge and promote a political party’s fortunes. This helps to create a body of legislators that is not as responsive to their constituents’ concerns as it should be, and electoral districts that divide and weaken real communities.
The Redistricting Transparency Act of 2010 offers a basic federal fix to this federal problem. Among other things, the Act requires each state to create a comprehensive website that allows the public to monitor and comment on the redistricting process and the publication of the data that feeds it. It also requires each state to share its proposed Congressional redistricting plan before that plan is adopted, and to solicit public comment on the plan. A chance to review and comment on the legislation driving politics for a decade! It is alarming that such a fundamental step seems so novel.
This legislation would make legislators more accountable for their decisions, which is something we’ve supported for a long time. The more transparent the redistricting process, the less opportunity there will be to use line-drawing powers to serve narrow personal interests. We applaud Representatives Tanner and Castle for advancing this cause. With bipartisan support and the public’s interest in mind, this bill deserves the wind at its back.
Tags: Democracy, Redistricting
By Justin Levitt – 03/24/10
Originally published at Roll Call.
Karl Rove has lately been broadcasting the importance of downballot elections in places with names like Brushy Creek. This is not a lesson in civics. It is a lesson in power. And he’s right.
Races for state Representative don’t often get much local attention, much less national limelight. But in 2010, a few smaller races will have an outsized impact on the national political stage.
In 43 states, the state Legislature is primarily in charge of drawing the lines for Congressional districts. While some states meaningfully constrain this process, most do not. Together, this means that he who controls the state Legislature can control redistricting — and, as Rove recognized in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece, “He who controls redistricting can control Congress.”
The stakes are substantial. Here, I’ll quote Mr. Rove again: “To understand the broader political implications, consider that the GOP gained somewhere between 25 and 30 seats because of the redistricting that followed the 1990 census. Without those seats, Republicans would not have won the House in 1994.” That’s not to mention the narrower political implications of legislators picking some voters and punting others in order to reward friends and punish enemies.
Republicans are gearing up again, with a national strategy to win the state races that will drive redistricting. Democrats plan to vigorously fund the other side of the arms race.
The combat will be brutal. Consider this bit of candor, captured during an Illinois county’s 2001 redistricting process [hat tip for the pointer to Mark Rosen]: “We are going to shove [the map] up your f------ a-- and you are going to like it, and I'll f--- any Republican I can.”
If this is the view from the inside, perhaps it is time to rethink the process. There aren’t many good reasons to explain why control of a few local races should be able to rig the national Congressional field. Or why partisan players should be encouraged to “mov[e], say, 20 districts from competitive to out-of-reach,” as Mr. Rove suggests, so that campaigns won’t have to work as hard.
Some offer a Churchillian defense, asserting that giving state legislators the Congressional pen is the worst system we know . . . except for all others. And it is true that alternatives must be smart: A group that does not reflect the diversity of the state, or one that is naive about the many redistricting trade-offs, or one with its hands bound by inflexible rules, may produce worse results than the broken process we have now.
Yet smart exists: in a few states, balanced redistricting bodies limit the biggest conflicts of interest, even without forcing individuals to check their partisan preferences at the door. And the sky has not fallen, even in the Big Sky State. Indeed, as elections in places like Brushy Creek get more attention this fall for all the wrong reasons, more states may want to consider not whether Karl Rove’s advice is right, but whether it should be.
Tags: Democracy, Redistricting
By Susan Liss & Mimi Murray Digby Marziani – 03/23/10
Originally published at U.S. News & World Report.
Senate Democrats are poised to use the legislative process of reconciliation to complete healthcare reform. This would involve strictly limiting further debate and then deciding the legislation with a majority vote. Opponents of this move--many of them Republicans--are screaming foul, claiming that this process is illegitimate.
It is important not to lose sight of why Senate leaders have decided on this procedural strategy in spite of this (predictable) opposition. The threat of the filibuster--and the concurrent need for a super-majority vote to cut off debate--has ground government to a halt. The increasing use of this old Senate stalling tactic has changed all expectations about how Congress can, and should, work. For nearly all of the country's history, it was assumed that major legislation would need a majority, not a super-majority, to pass the Senate. Yes, there were delays and devices; the World's Greatest Deliberative Body never resembled a Fed Ex office for speed. But if passing legislation by majority vote is now considered off-key, it means that this creeping super-majority requirement has somehow become "normal."
The strategic use of delay to block legislative action has increased in frequency by over 90 percent since the start of the new millennium, according to UCLA political scientist Barbara Sinclair. And it's getting worse. From 2001 until 2007, about 50 percent of major legislation was affected by filibuster; in the 110th Congress (2007 to 2009), that percentage rose to 70 percent. Now, the threat of filibuster is so constant that a super-majority vote of 60 (the number of votes needed to invoke cloture and force a substantive vote under Senate Rules) is assumed necessary to conduct any Senate business. Even the press has stopped questioning this new world order. One example: A recent New York Times article reported, "to get the 60 votes needed to pass their bill, Democrats scrapped the idea of a government-run public insurance plan."
There is little question that this routine, even abusive use of the filibuster, establishing a de facto 60-vote requirement that inevitably leads to stalemate, defies the intent of those men in powdered wigs who carefully crafted our Constitution. This is not what the Framers had in mind.
After witnessing frequent gridlock in the Continental Congress due to the numerous super-majoritarian requirements imposed by the Articles of Confederation, the Framers decided that a super-majority vote was appropriate only in seven, extraordinary situations--which they specifically listed in the Constitution. For example, a two thirds vote is needed to override a presidential veto, to expel a member of the Senate, or to convict a federal officer of an impeachable offense. The Constitution also specifies that a simple majority "shall constitute a Quorum to do Business." Indeed, the Framers were so confident that majority-vote rules would typically be used that they even assigned a tie-breaker: Under article 1, Section 3, Clause 4, the vice president "shall have no Vote, unless [the Senate] be equally divided."
Lest the structure of the Constitution leave any doubts of the Framers' intention, Alexander Hamilton provided explicit explanation in Federalist No. 22:
To give a minority a negative upon the majority (which is always the case where more than a majority is requisite to a decision), is ... to subject the sense of the greater number to that of the lesser. ... [I]ts real operation is to embarrass the administration, to destroy the energy of the government, and to substitute the pleasure, caprice, or artifices of an insignificant, turbulent, or corrupt junto, to the regular deliberations and decisions of a respectable majority.
Sound familiar?
Read the rest of this article at U.S. News & World Report.
Tags: Democracy, Filibuster
By ReformNY – 03/22/10
Today, our friends at NYPIRG released their analysis of the legislature’s member items for the current fiscal year.
The bottom line is that the funds are still distributed inequitably. In the Assembly, a whopping 81 percent of districts receive less than the average disbursement, which means that a small number of members – usually those in or close to the leadership - receive a disproportionately large amount of the funds. In the Senate, fewer than one third of the chamber’s members control more than 75 percent of member item funds.
While many member items fund good causes in members’ home districts, they can also be a tool for chamber leadership to retain control over members and another pot of money into which corrupt legislators can dip – as was the case with Assemblyman Brian McLaughlin, who collected $95,000 from a little league that was included in his member item distribution.
Reform advocates (including NYPIRG and the Brennan Center) support a measure that would entitle members to the same amount of member item funding and place tighter controls on conflicts of interest.
Originally posted at ReformNY.
Tags: Democracy, NY Reform
Page 24 of 57 pages « First < 22 23 24 25 26 > Last »
Permalink