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A Shocking Voter Purge Crisis Is Underway
An increasingly desperate GOP is doing this because they know their policies are unpopular: racism, pollution, privatizing Medicare, ending Social Security, criminalizing abortion, etc.
Aug 11, 2023
If you live in the Blue part of a Red state, Republicans don’t want you to vote. And their latest strategy is their most brute-force method: simply remove you from the voting rolls.
A shocking new study from Demos lays out the dimensions of this voter purge crisis of democracy brought to us by an increasingly desperate GOP.
Republicans are doing this because they know that their policies are unpopular: most Americans aren’t fans of tax cuts for billionaires, more pollution, deregulation, high-priced drugs, privatizing Medicare, ending Social Security, criminalizing abortion and birth control, student debt, hating on Black and queer people, and the GOP’s war on unions and working people.
So, the GOP does everything it can to make voting difficult or even impossible, particularly for people in heavily Democratic neighborhoods (which are usually college towns, big cities, and Black neighborhoods).
When Republicans run elections in such areas (typically Blue cities in Red states), they’ll close or change polling places at the last minute to sow confusion and cause people to give up when they show up at their normal polling place and find it closed.
For example, in this week’s election in Ohio the state changed polling places for mostly Black voters in Cuyahoga and Summit counties just five days before the election, as Newsweek noted in an article titled:
“Ohio GOP Changing Polling Locations Days Before Election Raises Questions”
Ohio voters were outraged, and that outrage spread across X (formerly Twitter) with comments like this:
“The Ohio GOP is playing ‘Your polling place has moved’ with 47,000 voters in the largest African American voting county in Ohio—just five days before the election. Making it harder to vote—in the crucial August 8th special election (deciding if a majority of voters still can amend Ohio's state constitution)—is wrong.”
Another X user noted:
“Ohio Republicans are so damn shady! … This stinks to high heaven. At the last minute, before Ohio’s special election, polling locations were changed in Cuyahoga and Summit counties. More than 47,000 voters are affected by changes to 50 voting precincts.”
The fact that this little trick in Ohio this week got virtually no national press coverage guarantees Red states will be doing more of it in the upcoming 2023 and 2024 elections.
But that’s just the beginning.
Knowing that working-class people are less likely to vote Republican than white upper-class suburbanites, Republicans also engineer polling situations so people paid by the hour will have to wait for hours in line just to vote, losing out on income.
Every year, we’re treated to pictures and videos of hours-long lines to vote in Blue cities in Red states, while lines in white suburbs typically run less than 10 to 15 minutes.
Similarly, many Red states have imposed draconian penalties on people conducting voter registration drives for making even the smallest mistakes, or for failing to “properly register” themselves with the state. This has shut down many voter registration programs, including some from long-term organizations like the League of Women’s Voters.
As The Kansas Reflector newspaper noted, the penalty for even a minor, inadvertent error is now 17 months in the state prison and a $100,000 fine:
“The League of Women Voters of Kansas and other nonprofits are suspending voter registration drives for fear of criminal prosecution under a new state law.”
The League has sued Florida, Tennessee, and Texas for their criminalization of voter registration drives as well.
But purging voters — by the tens of millions every election cycle — is where the GOP finds their best result. As the Demos report notes:
“Between the close of registration for the 2020 general election and the close of registration for the 2022 general election, states reported removing 19,260,000 records from their voter registration rolls. This was equal to 8.5% of the total number of voters who were registered in the United States as of the close of registration for the 2022 general election.”
Additionally, seventeen million voters were purged in the two years leading up to the 2018 election, fully ten percent of America’s voting population, according to the Brennan Center.
Given that the most radical purges took place among Black and youth voters in Republican-controlled Red states, those 8.5 percent and 10 percent “national averages” could well be twice or three times that percentage in the states where these purges are concentrated.
They added, most of the purge activity was taking place in former Confederate Red states that — before five Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act in their 2013 Shelby County decision — had to have purges pre-cleared by the federal government:
“The median purge rate over the 2016–2018 period in jurisdictions previously subject to preclearance was 40 percent higher than the purge rate in jurisdictions that were not covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.”
More than a quarter of those purged during this period from 2016-2022 were removed from the rolls either because they failed to vote in the previous election or because they failed to return a postcard mailed out by a Republican secretary of state (that is usually designed to look like junk mail).
This is called “caging” and used to be illegal, but Sam Alito broke the tie and wrote the 5-4 decision in their 2018 Husted v A Phillip Randolph Institute when the five Republicans on the Court ruled that Ohio Republican Secretary of State Husted could continue his practice of mailing the postcards into Ohio cities with the largest Black populations.
In his dissent, Justice Stephen Breyer pointed out that only around 4 percent of Americans move out of their county every year. Yet, he wrote:
“The record shows that in 2012 Ohio identified about 1.5 million registered voters—nearly 20% of its 8 million registered voters—as ineligible to remain on the federal voter roll because [Husted said that] they changed their residences.”
The Brennan Center found that just between 2014 and 2016, in the two years leading up to the Hillary/Trump presidential election, over 14 million people were purged from voter rolls, largely in Republican-controlled states. Then-Secretary of State Brian Kemp purged over a million in Georgia alone leading up to his 50,000 vote 2018 election win against Stacey Abrams.
Calling the findings “disturbing,” the Brennan Center noted, “Almost 4 million more names were purged from the rolls between 2014 and 2016 [just after the Supreme Court legalized large-scale no-oversight voter purges in 2013] than between 2006 and 2008. This growth in the number of removed voters represented an increase of 33 percent—far outstripping growth in both total registered voters (18 percent) and total population (6 percent).”
Another strategy that the GOP has rolled out in a big way to suppress the vote in Blue areas of Red states is “strict signature matching.” They primarily use this against voters who’ve succeeded in obtaining vote-by-mail ballots, which are authenticated by comparing the signature on the envelope with the voter’s registration card.
Because signatures change over time and often vary a lot when people are in a hurry, this is low-hanging fruit for the GOP. Last year they started a program to field an “army” of 50,000 “poll watchers,” including interviewing candidates from among white supremacist militia groups, for the 2024 election.
While some of these poll watchers will be on hand to try to intimidate or challenge Black and young voters (a practice that’s legal in most Red states), many will be overseeing the counting of mail-in ballots, which are generally more Democratic than Republican.
All they have to do is claim that, in their opinion, a signature doesn’t match and the ballot goes into the “provisional” pile and won’t be counted until or unless the voter shows up in person at the county elections office. Most people never even know their ballot was challenged and not counted.
Meanwhile, the GOP in Texas is quietly recruiting 10,000 white volunteers “courageous” enough to go into Black and Hispanic polling places and confront people trying to vote.
As Jessica Corbett reported for Common Dreams:
“Common Cause Texas on Thursday shared a leaked video of a Harris County GOP official discussing plans to ‘build an army’ of 10,000 election workers and poll watchers, including some who ‘will have the confidence and courage’ to go into Black and Brown communities to address alleged voter fraud that analyses show does not actually exist.”
Voting in Red states has become difficult, and registering voters is now treacherous since five Republicans on the Supreme Court legalized all these little tricks and strategies to purge or discourage Democratic voters.
If you live in a Blue area of a Red state, get ready: the GOP plans to pull out all the stops for the 2024 election.
Double-check your voter registration every month or two, and be sure to double-check it in the weeks just before the deadline for registration, as Republican Secretaries of State prefer to purge people in this window so by the time people discovered they’re purged it’s too late to re-register.
Forewarned is forearmed. Pass it on to your friends in Red states.
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'End the Absurdity': Experts Say Biden Must Not Let GOP Force 'Catastrophic' Default
"This default would be a crisis for our economy and our democracy, and it threatens to devastate communities across the country."
May 09, 2023
Ahead of congressional leaders' Tuesday meeting at the White House, economists and other experts have renewed warnings about what the GOP's threatened first-ever U.S. default—or even coming precariously close to it—could mean for the country.
"Any time would be a bad time to default, but right now, in particular, would be pretty catastrophic," said Mike Konczal, director of macroeconomic analysis at the Roosevelt Institute, during a Monday press conference. "The conservative agenda right now is to try to reduce the standard of living for many people without having to have their fingerprints on it."
Openly backed by most Senate Republicans, the House GOP—led by Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)—is pushing for sizable cuts to federal spending, as made clear in the so-called Limit, Save, Grow Act they passed last month. The bill, which Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called "dead on arrival," would raise the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion or until March 31, 2024, either way with severe austerity and on the backs of working people.
After months of zero progress on increasing the debt limit and amid estimates from Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and others that the U.S. government could run out of money to pay its bills as soon as June 1, President Joe Biden is set to host McCarthy, Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) at 4:00 pm ET.
"We cannot allow extremists in the House to make devastating ransom demands in exchange for not cratering our economy."
"President Biden will discuss the urgency of preventing default and stress that Congress must take action to avoid default without conditions," Michael Kikukawa, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement to The Washington Post early Tuesday. "He will discuss how to initiate a separate process to address the budget and FY2024 appropriations."
Despite similar votes under GOP presidents, House Republicans keep refusing to pass a clean bill raising the nation's arbitrary borrowing limit—and the budget blueprint Biden unveiled in March, featuring major social investments paid for with tax hikes targeting rich individuals and corporations, differs dramatically from GOP priorities, leaving few optimistic about the meeting.
Still, Claire Guzdar, a spokesperson for the ProsperUS coalition—which is made up of over 85 progressive groups—declared Tuesday that "Congress and the White House must move quickly to pass a clean debt limit bill before it's too late. We cannot allow extremists in the House to make devastating ransom demands in exchange for not cratering our economy—period."
"The Republican House majority's shameful default bill is completely unworkable. Their plan is full of wildly unpopular and damaging cuts to healthcare, food assistance, clean energy jobs, and more," said Guzdar. "This bill would be devastating for workers and the economy while doing nothing to make corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share. Negotiating on the debt limit should be a nonstarter at any time and rejected immediately as an egregious attempt to push our economy into crisis."
Experts warn that "we can't afford to undo the extraordinary economic progress we've made in the last two years," as Groundwork Collaborative executive director Lindsay Owens said during the Monday media briefing with other economists.
"President Biden should not agree to negotiate a deal on the debt ceiling that increases unemployment or slows growth—not when there [is] a myriad of easier and softer ways to avoid default," she argued. "We're at a 53-year record low in unemployment. It would be an incredible tragedy to undermine the gains that we're finally seeing in the labor market, particularly for marginalized workers."
Similarly stressing that "the labor market is actually starting to produce gains for workers who tend to be the last hired and first fired," Demos chief of programs Angela Hanks said that "the dangerous brinkmanship over the debt ceiling and the extremist position that Speaker McCarthy has staked out really poses a deep threat to that progress and threatens to trigger a recession."
Republicans' proposed spending cuts "will be borne by people who are already marginalized… who cannot afford to have another economic crisis triggered by our politics," Hanks warned. "This default would be a crisis for our economy and our democracy, and it threatens to devastate communities across the country."
"The dangerous brinkmanship over the debt ceiling and the extremist position that Speaker McCarthy has staked out really poses a deep threat to that progress and threatens to trigger a recession."
The high stakes have led some to urge the White House to take unilateral action if GOP lawmakers continue to hold the global economy hostage. Options include minting a platinum coin worth $1 trillion and invoking a section of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states the validity of the national debt "shall not be questioned."
Proponents and opponents of the 14th Amendment route have suggested that Biden invoking it could lead to a consequential decision by the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court. Such a ruling could already be in the works, thanks to a federal lawsuit filed Monday by the National Association of Government Employees, which aims to have the debt limit law declared unconstitutional.
Robert Hockett, a Cornell University law professor of law and Westwood Capital senior counsel who previously worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the International Monetary Fund, told the Post Monday that "I don't think the Supreme Court is prepared to bring on global financial calamity by finding in favor of the congressional Republicans."
"I think the Supreme Court would expedite review very quickly on this, and for that reason, I don't think we'd see terrible turmoil in the markets," he said. "I think we'd have more turmoil if we have to wait to see if McCarthy and Biden will come to an accommodation."
In a Tuesday opinion piece for The New York Times, Hockett wrote that if the U.S. defaults, "we would see a great tottering—if not worse—of U.S. banking, U.S. financial markets, and the world's capital markets."
Hockett continued:
For one thing, U.S. Treasury securities, valued at over $24 trillion (by far, the largest asset market in the world), are the primary safe asset held in banking, pension fund, mutual fund, and other business portfolios. Our present regional bank crisis involving Silicon Valley Bank and others is occurring in response to a relatively slight, temporary drop in the value of low-yield Treasuries largely because of the Fed's interest rate hikes. An outright default would leave us nostalgic for the comparable placidity of this troubled moment.
We would also probably see a rapid plunge in the value of the dollar worldwide as a global reserve asset. Our currency's value in relation to others' is rooted primarily in global demand for dollar-denominated financial assets, since we have relinquished our primacy as a goods exporter to China. Since Treasury securities are by far the most voluminous asset, their slide would be the dollar’s slide. This would quickly render imports, on which we continue to rely, far more expensive. Inflation could look more like that of Argentina or Russia 20 years ago than that of the present or even the 1970s.
This is to say nothing of our subsequent incapacity to maintain our military bases and other assets abroad and pay thousands of U.S. military personnel.
"Even the serious prospect of U.S. default would quickly raise debt-servicing costs, rendering our deficit larger than it currently is—a consequence dramatically at odds with Republicans' professed concerns about tying the debt ceiling hike to massive budget cuts," he added, advocating an end to the debt limit, which comes from a 1917 law. "Let us now end the absurdity."'
After outlining the impacts of a default—including cuts to Inflation Reduction Act climate provisions that "would be literally catastrophic"—Economic Policy Institute experts Josh Bivens and Samantha Sanders also asserted Tuesday that "all of this clearly calls for abolishing the debt limit to keep irresponsible congressional majorities from holding the nation's economy hostage to its policy preferences in the future."
"But what makes today's debt limit showdown so bad is how normalized it has become—often with the encouragement of too many in D.C. policymaking circles who should know better," the pair added. "If this drive to normalize debt limit brinkmanship does not spark an economic meltdown this time, we all know where it leads next time."
This post has been updated with comment from the Economic Policy Institute.
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Democrats Introduce Right to Vote Act to Beat GOP Voter Suppression Blitz
"As Republican-led legislatures weaponize the Big Lie to attack our free and fair elections, it is more important than ever for Congress to affirm that voters have a right to participate in our elections."
Aug 05, 2021
Amid ongoing nationwide Republican voter suppression efforts, a trio of congressional Democrats on Wednesday introduced a bill described by its lead Senate sponsor as the "first-ever affirmative federal voting rights guarantee for all U.S. citizens."
"In recent years, states like Georgia have launched an all-out assault on our democracy. The Right to Vote Act would stop this attack and prevent a new era of Jim Crow."
--Rep. Mondaire Jones
The Right to Vote Act, introduced in the House by Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) and in the upper chamber by Sens. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) and Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), would for the first time establish a statutory right to vote in federal elections, shielding Americans from laws making it harder to cast ballots.
If passed, the bill would allow Americans to mount legal challenges to any policies that restrict ballot access, and would counter governments' efforts to suppress the franchise by compelling them to prove claims of voter fraud--a statistically insignificant occurrence.
"The right to vote is foundational in our democracy, and must be protected as such," Jones said in a statement. "But in recent years, states like Georgia have launched an all-out assault on our democracy. The Right to Vote Act would stop this attack and prevent a new era of Jim Crow by requiring states to prove that any proposed restrictions on the right to vote advance an important interest in the least restrictive way possible."
"In this defining moment for our country, I'm proud to introduce this important legislation to secure the sacred right of every American to make their voice heard in our democracy," he added.
The measure was first put forth by Jones in March as an amendment (pdf) to the For the People Act, a sweeping pro-democracy bill that would expand voting rights including for former felons, curtail partisan gerrymandering, strengthen ethics rules, limit money in politics, implement the DISCLOSE Act, and make Washington, D.C. a state--among other reforms.
Speaking about the Right to Vote Act, Jones told HuffPost he is "focused on getting this passed as a stand-alone bill."
Harvard law professor and election law expert Nicholas Stephanopoulos warned earlier this year that the For the People Act "doesn't include any catch-all provision applicable to all voting limits," and that it "leaves open the door to novel barriers erected by wily vote suppressors."
Since former President Donald Trump and his GOP congressional supporters unsuccessfully attempted to reverse the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, Republican lawmakers in 49 states have introduced over 400 bills with provisions that restrict voting access, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. At least 18 of the measures have been signed into law.
"As Republican-led legislatures weaponize the Big Lie to attack our free and fair elections, it is more important than ever for Congress to affirm that voters have a right to participate in our elections," Padilla said in a statement, referencing the false claim the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent.
"The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy," he added. "When that foundation is undermined, Americans must have a clear standard that enables them to defend their right in court."
"The right to vote is the foundation of our democracy. When that foundation is undermined, Americans must have a clear standard that enables them to defend their right in court."
--Sen. Alex Padilla
One of the more high-profile voter suppression measures, Georgia's Senate Bill 202 (pdf)--signed into law by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in March--imposed new identification requirements for voters casting ballots by mail, limited the use of absentee ballot drop boxes, introduced new challenges to voting eligibility, prohibited mobile voting vans, barred local governments from receiving private sector grants, and outlawed handing out food and water to people waiting in what can be notoriously long lines to vote.
"As voting rights are under attack in Georgia and across the country, the Right to Vote Act protects American citizens' fundamental right to vote," a statement from Ossoff's office said.
Adriel Cepeda Derieux, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Voting Rights Project, said: "As we've seen in recent months, voter suppression is alive and well, with over 18 states passing bills making it harder for people to cast a ballot. The ACLU supports this bill because we need new legal tools to fight those efforts and ensure that all voters have equal access to the ballot."
In addition to the ACLU, leading voting and civil rights groups including the Campaign Legal Center, Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law, Demos, Fair Fight Action, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, People for the American Way, Protect Democracy, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice support the Right to Vote Act.
"In recent years, federal courts have failed to use existing constitutional and statutory protections to safeguard the freedom to vote, especially for Black and brown voters," Demos senior counsel Adam Lioz said in a statement.
"In addition to reversing the Supreme Court's attacks on the Voting Rights Act and implementing nationwide minimum standards for access to the ballot, creating a statutory right to vote freely in federal elections with clear standards for courts to safeguard this right adds a critical layer of protection," added Lioz, "which voters desperately need in the face of a racist, full frontal attack on their freedoms."
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115+ Groups Unveil 'Transformational' Actions for Next President to Kick Off Climate Justice Agenda
"We demand the next president commits to end fossil fuels, hold polluters accountable, and stand up for climate justice and human rights."
Jul 22, 2020
The national think tank Demos and 115 progressive organizations on Wednesday unveiled the Frontlines Climate Justice Executive Action Platform, which urges the next president of the United States to urgently take steps that "address continuing disparities, establish greater accountability for a just transition, and lay groundwork for systemic changes needed to end fossil fuel dependency and build a just and equitable renewable energy future."
"This Frontlines Climate Justice Executive Action Platform provides urgently needed, actionable policies that an administration must implement in order to ensure that we meet the challenge of climate change by dismantling environmental racism, and centering the needs and voices of the communities most affected."
--K. Sabeel Rahman, Demos
The presidential policy agenda, directed at President Donald Trump or presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, comes with just over three months left until the November general election and in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. The United States remains a global hotspot for the crisis, with more than 3.9 million confirmed cases--which is likely far below the number of actual infections--and over 142,000 deaths nationwide.
"In the face of continued crises of police violence, a global pandemic, and economic collapse, one lesson is clear: Black and brown communities are consistently marginalized and subjected to chronic and deadly inequities, so long as they remain excluded from public investment and decision-making power," Demos president K. Sabeel Rahman said in statement Wednesday.
Rahman explained that "the looming climate crisis raises the same stakes. It is Black and brown communities who are already bearing the brunt of the costs of our climate crisis and these are the communities whose voices and needs are consistently ignored."
"Built in deep collaboration with the grassroots movement signatories," he continued, "this Frontlines Climate Justice Executive Action Platform provides urgently needed, actionable policies that an administration must implement in order to ensure that we meet the challenge of climate change by dismantling environmental racism, and centering the needs and voices of the communities most affected."
The new platform details possible regulatory rulemakings, executive orders, and other presidential actions that aim to "advance an equitable climate agenda from day one." All of the actions fall into four key categories "that speak to the policy work and movement-building that frontline leaders in the climate movement have developed over many years, as they have forged a clear vision of equitable and resilient social and economic transformation."
- Environmental Justice: Protecting frontline communities from continuing harms of fossil fuel, industrial, and built environment pollution.
- Just Recovery: Ensuring just and equitable recovery from, and resiliency against, climate disasters.
- Climate Equity Accountability: Elevating equity and stakeholder decision-making in federal climate rules and programmatic investments.
- Energy Democracy: Remaking the monopoly fossil fuel energy system as a clean, renewably-sourced, and democratically-controlled commons.
The platform's preamble recognizes the related work of some previous proposals--specifically, the Equitable and Just National Climate Platform, the Climate Justice Alliance's Just Transition: A Framework for Change, the Indigenous Principles of a Just Transition, the Climate President Action Plan, and "the emerging paradigm of Green New Deal."
The preamble also says:
The promise of climate policy for frontline communities lies in targeted policy design that prioritizes protections, direct emissions reductions, job creation and other economic benefits, and resiliency gains for the most impacted communities, including greater control of decision-making--all of which animates the executive action platform that follows. It also lies in addressing deeply interconnected crises of housing affordability, gentrifying economic development, and financial extraction of labor, community, and natural resources. Those challenges cannot be solved by the executive branch on its own and will require extensive state and local action, major federal legislation in some cases, and massive public investment through appropriations, bonding, and other means.
The platform, said 350.org North America director Tamara Toles O'Laughlin, "speaks to the climate movement's commitment to justice and equity. We are holding fast to our demand for the next president to take immediate and transformative action."
"The compound crises of Covid-19, racial injustice, and climate change are being paid for in struggle throughout the lives and livelihoods of Black and Indigenous Peoples, and poor families on every frontline, many of whom are already surviving on mutual aid, and a unified demand that democracy delivers," she said. "From a responsive civil structure and executive, to federal agencies that provide resources and empower the people, we demand the next president commits to end fossil fuels, hold polluters accountable, and stand up for climate justice and human rights."
Specific policy recommendations include directing the Environmental Protection Agency to impose a "No Hotspots Policy" to limit local pollution, establishing a Climate Equity Accountability System based in the Office of Management and Budget, creating a Presidential Commission on Energy Democracy and Renewable Energy Futures, and institutionalizing "strong federal standards and procedural requirements of federal agencies respecting self-determination and consent of tribal nations."
Although he did not name the president, Vijay Das of Greenpeace USA's Climate Leadership Project took aim at Trump's track record on Wednesday.
"We must not tolerate anyone who will exploit a pandemic to further a racist, pro-polluter agenda, one that bails out oil CEOs and corporate polluters while Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities remain under attack."
--Vijay Das, Greenpeace USA
"People across the country are rising up to confront the interwoven crises of climate change, racial injustice, and Covid-19. They deserve an ally in the White House who is going to fight alongside them in advancing the transformational policies outlined in this platform," Das declared.
"We must not tolerate anyone who will exploit a pandemic to further a racist, pro-polluter agenda, one that bails out oil CEOs and corporate polluters while Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities remain under attack," Das said. "Our next president must reject an economy that profits off destruction in favor of one that puts the people and planet first."
Along with 350.org and Greenpeace USA, the initial signatories were Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Democracy Collaborative, GreenFaith, Hip Hop Caucus, Indigenous Environmental Network, Institute for Policy Studies Climate Policy Program, Maine People's Alliance, Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, MoveOn, National LGBTQ Task Force, New Economy Coalition, New Florida Majority, Oil Change U.S., People's Action, Sunrise Movement, and Working Families Party.
Nearly 100 other groups also endorsed the proposal, including multiple local 350 chapters, Center for International Environmental Law, Climate Hawks Vote, CodePink, Data for Progress, Earth Day Initiative, Friends of the Earth US, Rainforest Action Network, SustainUS, the Climate Mobilization, the Solutions Project, and UPROSE.
"The president has the power to move us forward to a society where we are closer to achieving true environmental and climate justice," said Sunrise Movement co-founder and executive director Varshini Prakash. "This platform provides a well-researched and legally sound roadmap for some of the Executive Actions that will get us there, and should be implemented as soon as possible."
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'This Funding Should Be Non-Negotiable': CPC Co-Chair Pocan Joins Progressives to Demand Congress Allocate $4 Billion for Election Assistance
"Failing to act now would put our democracy and the 2020 election at risk."
May 06, 2020
Rep. Mark Pocan added his legislative weight to demands from progressives that Congress include in the next coronavirus relief package $4 billion for election assistance as the disease continues to make in-person voting potentially hazardous, necessitating reforms.
"Voting shouldn't be a risk you have to choose to take," Pocan said in a statement Wednesday. "The health of the election and the health of the nation will be at stake in November--and we think this funding should be non-negotiable."
The Wisconsin Democrat joined groups like Stand Up America and Demos Action in a press call promoting their demand that federal lawmakers act to protect the right to vote and avoid debacles like that in Wisconsin in April, where officials pushed forward with in-person voting despite the health risks--resulting in dozens in the aftermath becoming ill with Covid-19.
"The Wisconsin election is the poster child for everything that can go wrong if we don't act fast," said Pocan.
As Common Dreams reported, over 150 advocacy groups, including Stand Up America and Demos, demanded in an open letter on April 13 that Congress take action to protect elections because "time is of the essence" as shown by the "the election fiasco in Wisconsin--where voters were forced to risk their health and safety in order to exercise their fundamental right to vote."
The spread of the disease in Wisconsin and other states through polling places, said Demos senior policy analyst Laura Williamson, shows that "crowded polling places and waiting hours in long lines do not serve the public interest."
"The bottom line here is that Covid-19 presents an existential threat to our democracy--especially for Black and brown voters who have always faced higher barriers to the ballot box," said Williamson.
Stand Up America founder Sean Eldridge declared that inaction "would put our democracy and the 2020 election at risk."
"We know that Democrats have leverage in negotiating the next coronavirus package, and we are calling on them to use it to ensure that election assistance funding is included," said Eldridge. "States need funding right now for upcoming primaries, and there are fewer than 200 days until the general election in November. Congress must act by providing $4 billion."
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Calling for 'Climate President,' 500+ Groups Demand Next Administration Take Immediate Action
"Swift action to confront the climate emergency has to start the moment the next president enters the Oval Office."
Dec 08, 2019
Over 500 groups on Monday rolled out an an action plan for the next president's first days of office to address the climate emergency and set the nation on a transformative path towards zero emissions and a just transition in their first days in office.
"Swift action to confront the climate emergency has to start the moment the next president enters the Oval Office," said attorney Kassie Siegel, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute.
The set of 10 actions, which together "form the necessary foundation for the country's true transformation to a safer, healthier, and more equitable world for everyone," are featured on the new Climate President website. The actions--which "touch the lives of every person living in America and those beyond who are harmed by the climate crisis"--can all be taken by the president without Congressional, thus can, and should, happen immediately, the document argues.
The new effort is convened by advocacy groups representing a range of issues, including the Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, Democracy Collaborative, and Labor Network for Sustainability. Other backers include Physicians for Social Responsibility, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, and Demos.
The groups' roadmap kicks off with a demand for the next president to declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act. It includes a demand to direct "relevant federal agencies to reverse all Trump administration executive climate rollbacks and replace with sufficiently strong action."
Asserting authority the National Emergencies Act, Siegel and Center for Biological Diversity energy director Jean Su wrote in a legal analysis supporting the action plan, is necessary in order for the next president to reinstate the crude oil export ban and redirect "military spending towards the construction of clean renewable energy projects and infrastructure."
Declaring a climate emergency, the analysis adds, would also "set the appropriate tone of urgency for climate action."
The other nine steps for the nation's next leader to take within their first 10 days of office are, as noted in the document:
- Keep fossil fuels in the ground.
- Stop fossil fuel exports and infrastructure approval.
- Shift financial flows from fossil fuels to climate solutions.
- Use the Clean Air Act to set a science- based national pollution cap for greenhouse pollutants.
- Power the electricity sector with 100% clean and renew-able energy by 2030 and promote energy democracy.
- Launch a just transition to protect our communities, workers, and economy.
- Advance Climate Justice: Direct federal agencies to assess and mitigate environmental harms to disproportionately impacted Indigenous Peoples, People and Communities of Color, and low-wealth communities.
- Make polluters pay: Investigate and prosecute fossil fuel polluters for the damages they have caused. Commit to veto all legislation that grants legal immunity for polluters, undermines existing environmental laws, or advances false solutions.
- Rejoin the Paris Agreement and lead with science-based commitments that ensure that the United States, as the world's largest cumulative historical emitter, contributes its fair share and advances climate justice.
As part of this overall undertaking, groups say,
the next president must prioritize support for communities that historically have been harmed first and most by the extractive economy, including communities of color, Indigenous communities, and low-wealth communities. The next President must also take special care to ensure that the rights of Indigenous Peoples are upheld, which includes following the Indigenous Principles of Just Transition.
Moreover, climate policies must drive job growth and spur a new green economy that is designed and built by communities and workers and that provides union jobs with family-sustaining wages. These policies must ensure that workers in the energy sector and related industries, whose jobs will be fundamentally transformed, are not abandoned.
"We're also putting the next Congress on notice to get serious about dismantling this crisis, or the people will circumvent you with all available means."
--Anthony Rogers-Wright, Climate Justice Alliance
According to Anthony Rogers-Wright, policy coordinator for Climate Justice Alliance, "This set of executive actions puts the fossil fuel, and other iniquitous industries that treat our communities like sacrifice zones, on notice, while offering a suite of actions the next president can promulgate on day one to address systemic and institutionalized injustices. At the same time, we're also putting the next Congress on notice to get serious about dismantling this crisis, or the people will circumvent you with all available means."
In addition to executing the 10 steps, the Climate President action plan urges the next president to further tackle the crisis by working with Congress as well as state and local governments on appropriate plans. Those efforts must include working to pass the Green New Deal.
While the Trump administration has taken a sledgehammer to environmental protections, previous administrations also hold blame for failing to sufficiently act on the climate, said Sriram Madhusoodanan, climate campaign director of Corporate Accountability.
"The United States government has long acted to advance the interests of corporations over people, and under Trump the government has lowered the bar even further," he said. "The U.S. continues to act at the behest of big polluters like the fossil fuel industry by ignoring science, blocking climate policy, and putting big polluter profit over the needs and demands of people."
"The next administration," added Madhusoodanan, "must start a new chapter in U.S. history, kick polluters out of climate policy-making, make them pay for the damage they've knowingly caused, and take every action possible to advance urgently needed, internationally just climate action."
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Pelosi, After Railing Against AOC and Others in NYT Interview, Tells Critics in Caucus Not to Vent Criticism on Twitter
"You got a problem? See Maureen Dowd. Going off the past couple weeks, that seems to be the new complaint policy."
Jul 10, 2019
The war of words between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the more left-leaning members of her caucus intensified on Wednesday during a closed door meeting during which the Democratic leader admonished freshmen members of Congress for their use of social media.
"Nancy Pelosi is more worried about people tweeting about her than the looming destruction of human civilization."
--Kate Aronoff
According to reporting from Politico, Pelosi told members of her caucus that if they have problems they should come to her and not post publicly about their disagreements. A source in the room for the meeting told Politico that Pelosi delivered "stern" comments to members about the way they were handling fractures in the House.
"So, again, you got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it," said Pelosi. "But do not tweet about our members and expect us to think that that is just ok."
Critics of the Speaker were quick to point out that Pelosi gave an interview to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on July 6 in which the Speaker disparaged a number of members of her caucus, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), for their resistance to compromising with President Donald Trump's war on immigrants.
"You got a problem? See Maureen Dowd," wrote Splinter's Nick Martin. "Going off the past couple weeks, that seems to be the new complaint policy."
Others appropriately took to Twitter to vent their frustration at the Speaker's behavior.
Journalist Kate Aronoff questioned Pelosi's priorities.
"Nancy Pelosi is more worried about people tweeting about her than the looming destruction of human civilization," said Aronoff.
Boston-based activist Jonathan Cohn cited the support Pelosi had from progressive members of the caucus when members of the party attempted to force a change in leadership in January.
"Pelosi's condemnation and dismissal of the members who are responsible for her re-election as Speaker and praise of those who sought to oust her says so much," Cohn said.
Pelosi's spokesman Drew Hammill also took to Twitter to downplay hints at dissent in the ranks.
"The Speaker was not scolding progressives," tweeted Hammill. "She was saying to all members that we as a family should have our conversations together as a caucus not on Twitter. This was a general comment not aimed at any particular member or group. This was a unifying speech and well received."
Politico, however, reported that Pelosi's comment did appear to have a target:
Democrats inside the room said they interpreted that remark as a shot at Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who called moderate Democrats members of the "Child Abuse Caucus" in a tweet over their support for the Senate's version of the emergency humanitarian package.
Pelosi also delivered a defense of her shepherding through a bill on immigration that funneled billions of dollars to ICE, a move that sparked the row between the Speaker and progressive members of the House.
"I'm here to help the children when it's easy and when it's hard," said Pelosi. "Some of you are here to make a beautiful pate but we're making sausage most of the time."
Pressley, in comments to Boston radio affiliate WGBH Tuesday evening, said that in her opinion half-measures on immigration were harmful to the party and its ideology.
"I do not believe that that advances the cause, or helps our party or strengthens us going into 2020," said Pressley.
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Watchdog Groups Call on Congress and Federal Regulators to Impose Moratorium on Facebook's Proposed Cryptocurrency
According to 33 national organizations, the project "raises profound questions about national sovereignty, corporate power, consumer protection, competition policy, monetary policy, privacy, and more."
Jul 02, 2019
In a letter Tuesday, a coalition of 33 consumer, privacy, economic policy, and other groups called on congressional leaders and top federal regulators to impose a moratorium on Facebook's proposed global cryptocurrency "until the profound questions raised by the proposal are addressed."
"The Facebook proposal to create a new cryptocurrency as part of its broader Libra project raises profound questions about national sovereignty, corporate power, consumer protection, competition policy, monetary policy, privacy, and more," says the letter (pdf). "The U.S. regulatory system is not prepared to address these questions. Nor are the regulatory systems of other nations or international institutions."
The letter--which is also addressed to Facebook and Calibra, its newly formed subsidiary to provide financial services--urges the tech giant "to put its implementation of its plans for the new cryptocurrency, Libra, on hold until the Congress and regulators have an opportunity to assess and react to a far more detailed presentation than has yet been made public."
The organizations assert in the letter that there is "a very long list of questions" Facebook must publicly answer before moving forward with the project, and include more than two dozen examples--"a small subsect" of the full list--that are grouped into categories such as governance and privacy.
Public Citizen, one of the letter signatories, highlighted a few of the questions in a statement announcing the letter Tuesday:
- How will national consumer protection laws apply to, be enforced against, and prevent misconduct by global sellers and lenders on matters relating to required disclosures, civil remedies, usury rules, access to credit, unfair and deceptive practices, and more?
- Given Facebook's record and stated views on privacy, why should anyone believe that the company's claims and commitments about privacy will be upheld?
- Will Facebook be able to use Libra and Calibra (a subsidiary involved in its cryptocurrency program) to pull consumers into a closed Facebook ecosystem that will disadvantage competitors and consumers?
- Wouldn't Libra provide an easy mechanism for money laundering?
- Wouldn't Libra similarly facilitate tax evasion and tax fraud?
- What impact might Libra have on monetary policy in smaller and developing countries?
"We have too much recent experience with insufficiently regulated financial markets spinning out of control to let this happen again," the letter concludes. "The Facebook proposal must be put on hold until these numerous and fundamental questions are resolved."
Other signatories to the letter include Demos, the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. chapter of Friends of the Earth, Global Witness, the National Consumer Law Center, RootsAction.org, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).
The lawmakers addressed in the letter are the tops Republicans and Democrats on the U.S. Senate's finance and banking committees as well as the U.S. House's Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Financial Services committees. The regulatory entities named are the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission; U.S. Federal Trade Commission; Office of the United States Trade Representative; U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission; Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; Financial Stability Oversight Council; and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
The progressive organizations behind the new letter are far from alone in sounding the alarm about concerns related to Facebook's efforts to create a global cryptocurrency--among them, American economist and Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz, who charged in a piece for Project Syndicate Tuesday that "only a fool would trust Facebook with his or her financial wellbeing."
"In just a few short years, Facebook has earned a level of distrust that took the banking sector much longer to achieve," wrote Stiglitz, who also raised questions about Facebook's business model for Libra. "Time and again, Facebook's leaders, faced with a choice between money and honoring their promises, have grabbed the money. And nothing could be more about money than creating a new currency."
In an article produced by the Independent Media Institute's Economy for All project and published Sunday by Salon, market analyst Marshall Auerback argued that although U.S. regulators have largely failed to rein in Silicon Valley giants--especially Facebook--when it comes to social media platforms, "it's hardly likely" that financial regulators around the world will be "pussyfooting" around issues raised by the cryptocurrency project.
"If Facebook introduces a cryptocurrency that in effect seeks to privatize or displace existing central bank functions, it is inevitable that the company will face a ton of regulatory oversight crashing down on it," Auerback wrote. "Social media might be a newfangled type of business that doesn't lend itself easily to the regulatory strictures of the Sherman Act, but money is precisely the kind of thing guaranteed to bring the Federal Reserve, the IRS, and several other regulatory bodies crashing down on Facebook, given this systemic risk."
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America Needs a Long-Term Care Program for Seniors
By 2035, seniors will outnumber children. A new plan in Washington state shows how we can care for them — and for their caretakers.
May 22, 2019
By 2035, seniors are projected to outnumber children in the U.S. population.
Maybe then we'll look back and credit Washington state activists for being on the forefront of tackling America's elder care crisis. On May 13, the state became the first in the nation to adopt a social insurance program for long-term care benefits.
"This is a huge victory for organizing and people power, for care and caregiving, and for older adults and people with disabilities," said Josephine Kalipeni of Caring Across Generations, one of more than 20 groups that formed Washingtonians for a Responsible Future to push the path-breaking legislation.
Nationally, our long-term care financing system is broken. Medicare doesn't currently cover home care or nursing facility care, while Medicaid coverage varies widely by state. To qualify, you have to meet poverty criteria, which requires people to spend down nearly all of their savings before getting coverage.
"Nationally, our long-term care financing system is broken. Medicare doesn't currently cover home care or nursing facility care, while Medicaid coverage varies widely by state."
So what do people do?
For the richest 1 percent, there's a growing market for luxury care communities. Vi Living, for example, has 10 facilities across the country that feature 24-hour valets, gourmet meals, indoor pools, and other amenities. At their Palo Alto development in California, entrance fees run as high as $6.5 million.
Most families obviously can't afford that. Even typical out of pocket costs for professional home care, which run about $46,000 per year, are often out of reach. Many people who need care end up relying on family members, primarily women.
In fact, an estimated 60 percent of unpaid caregivers in the United States are women, and they pay much higher economic costs for taking on this role than men. More than a quarter of women caregivers who work are forced to shift to less demanding positions, or else give up their jobs entirely.
Even with support from family and friends, the lack of a strong long-term care system leaves many elderly and disabled Americans suffering a severely reduced quality of life. One survey found that nearly 60 percent of seniors with seriously compromised mobility weren't able to get out of their house. Another 25 percent said they often remained in bed, while 20 percent went without getting dressed.
The new Washington state program will use a paycheck deduction of 58 cents out of every $100 in income to pay for care in people's homes or nursing facilities, as well as other services like wheelchair ramps and rides to the doctor. Starting in 2025, eligible participants will receive up to $100 per day, with a lifetime maximum benefit of $36,500.
Caring Across Generations, a national campaign co-chaired by Jobs With Justice and the National Domestic Workers Alliance, had already notched a long-term care victory in Hawaii.
While not an insurance trust like the Washington state model, the Kapuna Caregivers program, launched in 2017, provides subsidies of $70 per day for people who are both taking care of family members and working outside the home at least 30 hours a week. The funds can be used for services for the elderly, including professional home care.
At the national level, Senators Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren have all endorsed the Bernie Sanders Medicare for All plan. It includes long-term care coverage and provisions for assistance with daily activities, such as eating, bathing, preparing meals, and housekeeping, whether provided by nursing homes, professional home care workers, or a family caregiver.
Now Caring Across Generations aims to help build campaigns in more states for Washington-style insurance programs, as a way to help build momentum for federal reforms like these. As Kalipeni put it, "One state down, 49 to go!"
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The Remarkable Mothers of Social Security
In memory of those brilliant, hard-driving, creative, and compassionate Mothers of Social Security, all of us should commit to fighting to expand Social Security
May 11, 2019
This Mother's Day, let's celebrate the remarkable Mothers of Social Security. Without them, this essential program may never have been born. It certainly would be much less successful and effective.
The Mothers of Social Security pushed for an expansive, ambitious program. When necessary, they fiercely resisted men too cautious to embrace their bold vision. All of us benefit immensely from their work--particularly women, for whom Social Security's modest benefits are especially important.
Best known of Social Security's many mothers is Frances Perkins, the first female member of a presidential Cabinet in the history of the country. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt first asked Perkins to become Secretary of Labor, she told him that she would only accept his history-making offer if he agreed to fully support her fight for Social Security, as well as other significant measures to increase all of our economic security. He did. True to her principles and values, she was a driving force behind the healthy start of Social Security, from the system's conception to its birth and its early growth.
"As good as Social Security is, it can and should be better. Past generations of women and men have fought to improve it. Now it is our turn."
A less-known pathbreaker was Dr. Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong, the first tenured female law professor in the country. A Ph.D. economist, she taught both law and economics at Berkeley and authored a landmark treatise, Insuring the Essentials, an exhaustive study of social insurance and minimum wage programs around the world.
Armstrong chaired the Roosevelt administration working group that invented Social Security. Other policymakers, concerned about the constitutionality of Social Security, argued that it should be a state-based program. Armstrong successfully convinced them that only a federal program was workable. When those who oversaw her work contemplated dropping Social Security because they feared it was too big a lift, she leaked their plan to friendly journalists whose exposes got Social Security back on track.
Without Armstrong's bold leadership and keen intellect, Social Security might not even exist at all today. If that sounds hyperbolic, those same policymakers whom Armstrong outwitted later decided to not propose national, guaranteed health insurance. Cautiously, they decided it was better left for the future. Today, we are still fighting for improved and expanded Medicare for All.
Other remarkable Mothers included two members of the Social Security Board, which administered Social Security prior to a 1946 reorganization that replaced the Board with a single commissioner. Four other women were members of the 1938 Social Security Advisory Council, whose recommendations to add benefits for wives, widows, and dependent children were enacted into law in 1939.
Perhaps it is in part because these and other women were so important to the birth and early development of Social Security that it is so important to women today. Social Security is essential for virtually everyone, but it is particularly critical for women, as well as people of color, the LGBTQ community, and others who have been discriminated against in the workplace.
Even in 2019, women experience a substantial wage gap. It is commonly reported that, on average, a woman earns just 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Yet even that understates the facts. A recent report by the Institute for Women's Policy Research reveals that women today actually earn, on average, just 49 cents for every dollar earned by men.
Moreover, the same report exposes the drastic penalty for taking time out of the paid labor force. Women who take just one year off from work suffer 39 percent lower earnings than women who do not. This is especially detrimental since 60 percent of caregivers are female.
Social Security cannot offset all of the ills of society. However, it does seek to offset, to the extent it can, this kind of discrimination in the workplace. From the beginning, Social Security has employed a progressive benefit formula that provides larger benefits, as a percentage of pay, for those who have lower lifetime earnings.
Social Security is also especially important to women, because on average, women live longer than men. Unlike savings, you can't outlive Social Security, even if you live to be 110. It's no surprise that women are approximately two out of every three beneficiaries aged 85 and older.
Moreover, Social Security benefits are indexed to inflation, no matter how high inflation is. That is imperative to prevent benefits from eroding as you age. This automatic inflation adjustment, which needs updating, nevertheless is an extremely important feature for everyone, but particularly women. That is because, without adjustment, inflation causes the erosion of benefits to compound with each passing year.
As good as Social Security is, it can and should be better. Past generations of women and men have fought to improve it. Now it is our turn. Our elected Democratic policymakers in Congress are fighting to expand Social Security.
They are fighting to increase Social Security's modest benefits for all current and future beneficiaries. They are also fighting for targeted improvements. They want to restore the minimum benefit, which no longer provides a meaningful floor because it has eroded so substantially. They are also fighting to update the method of indexing benefits, because the current method under-measures the cost of living of seniors and people with disabilities, who have, on average, higher medical and other costs.
Updating both the minimum benefit and the automatic inflation index disproportionately benefits women. So do other improvements Democrats in Congress are fighting for. These include providing caregivers credit toward Social Security for their invaluable but unpaid caregiving work, and improving benefits for those who are divorced and widowed.
Historically, forward-looking women and men have improved Social Security for those who would follow. It is so appropriate that today's Democratic leaders, who are growing more diverse, have taken their place in the fight. Perhaps the best way to celebrate this Mother's Day is for all of us to commit to fighting to expand Social Security, in memory of those brilliant, hard-driving, creative, and compassionate Mothers of Social Security.
This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.
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