Some Florida Election Supervisors Stunned By New Voter Restrictions

By Igor Volsky on November 26, 2013 at 11:16 am

"Some Florida Election Supervisors Stunned By New Voter Restrictions"

Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s (R) chief election official issued new rules Monday night that could hamper absentee voting, just months before Floridians in the state’s 13th Congressional district take part in a special election to replace the late Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R). The seat was held by Republicans for decades, but is now considered a tossup.
The move surprised some election supervisors, who confirmed to ThinkProgress that Secretary of State Ken Detzner had not consulted them before announcing the change. Under the new rule, Floridians will be prohibited from dropping off their absentee ballots at “libraries, tax collectors’ branch offices and other places” and will only be allowed to mail-in their selections or deposit them at local election offices.
Detzner claims that the rule change clarifies established statutory language and establishes “uniformity,” but some supervisors fear that it could have the effect of suppressing voter turnout.
“I was surprised, to say the least,” Ann McFall, Volusia’s Supervisor of Elections told ThinkProgress. “I just have one office and no ‘drop boxes.” Under the new rules, “people who like to save postage and drop it off at an early voting site” could no longer do so. “Why create a problem when none currently exists?” she asked. “If the Secretary of State were to call me, I would ask why not wait until the winter conference in a few weeks to get ideas from the [Supervisors of Elections]?”
Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Deborah Clark had a similar reaction. She told The Tampa Bay Times, “I’m very worried about this. I’m just stunned.” Pinellas county “has used dropoff sites since 2008 and used 14 in the 2012 general election,” when 42 percent of the county’s absentee ballot total were left at dropoff sites.
Duval County Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland added that the rule would not impact his county, as Duval is one of two that pays for a return postage on an absentee ballot, and disputed charges of voter suppression. “[V]oters will overcome any obstacle and vote, the ballot is designed to be mailed and the voter has not lost that option,” he said.
Detzner has a history of limiting voters’ access, however. In 2012, the state created a voter purge list full of suspected non-citizens, which was mainly comprised of Latino, African and Asian Americans. The list was full of mistakes, targeting U.S. citizens because of a misspelled name or outdated address. County election supervisors refused to go along with the purge, and the Justice Department sued over possible racial discrimination. Detzner eventually apologized for the effort.

Why Do Douche Waffles Get Elected?

Why Do Douche Waffles Get Elected?  

The full campaign spoofing the Direct TV commercials, produced by Acronym TV for Move To Amend. All six spots, each about 30 seconds, are included here in this single video.

Written by Lee Camp and Dennis Trainor, Jr, and Directed by Trainor, these spots aim to hijack a popular meme to shine a seriously unserious light on the issues of corporate person-hood and money as free speech.

Move to Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests.

We are calling for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.

Over 300,00 people have signed the Move To Amend statement that states:
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling and other related cases, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.  

Move To Amend’s Direct TV Parody Compilation
Written by Lee Camp and Dennis Trainor, Jr
Produced and Directed by Dennis Trainor, Jr.
Editing, graphics, keying and color correction by AJ Russo
Associate Producer Christopher Webb
Costumes Lara de Bruijn

Scott Walker's 2016 Ambitions May Hit 2014 Roadblock

Wisconsin governor testing national appeal with book tour centered around 2012 recall victory

By David Catanese

November 25, 2013

 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is eyeing the White House, but faces a tough re-election in 2014 first.

Scott Walker's national tour promoting his new book recounting his vigorously contested 2012 recall win is essentially a belated victory lap designed to elevate his stature in anticipation of a White House run.
The 46-year-old Republican governor of Wisconsin has barely hidden the fact he's testing the waters for a 2016 presidential bid, a prospect only enhanced by his success in beating back the historic attempt to remove him from office midway through his term following a knock-down, drag-out fight with the state's public employee unions.
[READ: Some Governors Face Uphill Road to 2014 Re-election]
But standing between him and his unconcealed national ambition is yet another gubernatorial re-election campaign next year -- one that looks surprisingly more competitive than expected, especially given how demoralized Democrats were after Walker ran rings around them 17 months ago.
In the aftermath of that loss, Democrats whispered ruefully about how the recall process had botched their opportunity at upending arguably the most polarizing governor in the country.
That doom-and-gloom assumption has now evaporated in the wake of polling demonstrating Walker's consistent middling popularity and the emergence of a fresh-faced candidate who Democrats appear to be consolidating around.
Walker may already have one eye trained on a larger electoral prize, but operatives on both sides of the aisle are in agreement that his third gubernatorial race could shape up to be his toughest yet.
"This will be a close race for sure. No blowouts will occur here," said Democratic media strategist Jim Margolis, President Obama's adman who is now tasked with helping to defeat Walker.
"I believe he has a fight coming," said Brandon Scholz, a Madison-based consultant and former executive director of the Wisconsin Republican Party.
One woman who is certainly betting on Walker's vulnerability is his only announced Democratic opponent, Mary Burke, a 54-year-old former state Secretary of Commerce and school board member who is widely unknown in Democratic activist circles.
A former executive at her family-owned Trek Bicycle, Burke was recruited by Wisconsin Democratic Party officials to run after they conducted dozens of focus-groups designed to identify the traits best suited to contrast with Walker.
Burke checks virtually every box: a woman with a sterling business background and deep roots in the state who isn't a lifelong politician. It doesn't hurt that she's also a multimillionaire already plugging her own money into the endeavor.
"I spent time making sure if I got into it, I could win," Burke said.
But the same novelty that party leaders found attractive in the centrist Burke is raising red flags among some of the most ardent progressive activists in a state known for a historic streak of liberalism. Since her formal entrance into the race in October, assorted liberals have complained about her unwillingness to pledge to roll back Walker's collective bargaining reforms, her company's outsourcing of jobs overseas and her considerable personal wealth.
Grumbling aside, Burke's aides are cautiously optimistic she will avoid a divisive primary and slowly but surely win over skeptics who will swallow their ideological pride in the pursuit of defeating Walker and halting any presidential preparations squarely in their tracks.
[ALSO: Scott Walker Knocks Mitt Romney, Gives Advice to GOP]
In fact, Burke's unwillingness to revisit the collective bargaining issue will presumably make her more marketable to the smidgen of remaining persuadable Badger State voters she'll need to pull off the upset.
"Many moderates have no special interest in that issue, at least any more," said Paul Fanlund, a left-leaning columnist for the Madison-based Capital Times who is urging liberals to back Burke. "Her estrangement from the far left might be helpful later."
A Marquette University poll -- which accurately tracked the outcome of the 2012 recall -- provided additional heartening news for Democrats. Burke trailed Walker by only two points in the late October survey, even though a staggering 70 percent of respondents said they didn't have enough information about Burke to form an opinion.
A $1 million pro-Walker television ad blitz in September funded by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce appeared to have little effect on boosting the governor's popularity.
"I think Scott Walker has a ceiling and I think he's in the neighborhood of that ceiling right now," said Margolis, pointing to the governor's 47 percent in the Marquette poll to Burke's 45 percent. "It's an immediate wake-up call that Wisconsin's in play."
Walker's team appears not to be rattled about the prospect of a close race.
"A generic Dem will get 45 percent in this race," said a Walker adviser not authorized to speak on the record. "It's going to be close regardless."
The governor's playbook against Burke will be to label her as a throwback to Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle's eight-year reign -- a period of economic stagnation, high taxes and deficits.
"We're confident that voters want to continue moving Wisconsin forward, and have no desire to return to the failed policies of the past," said Walker campaign manager Stephan Thompson in a statement.
But even on the economy -- Walker's supposed sweet spot -- there's a gaping opening for an attack.
It's unlikely his administration will hit its 2010 campaign pledge of creating 250,000 new jobs in the state by 2015 and Democrats are seizing upon a Moody's report that says Wisconsin remains one of the worst states for projected job growth.
"He can't blame anybody else. He's called every shot. He's gotten his way on everything. He has woefully performed on jobs compared to the other states around him," said Pete Giangreco, a Burke adviser who will handle the direct mail campaign.
Then there's the ongoing John Doe investigation, in which Milwaukee prosecutors continue to subpoena Walker allies in order to investigate the relationship between the governor's campaign and the independent groups that backed him.
[MORE: GOP Savior? Not So Fast on Chris Christie, Say Dems]
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett made no headway raising the issue in 2012, but even the slight whiff of scandal is a detriment in a margin of error race.
"He should sue for harassment," sniffed consultant Scholz, who views the entire ordeal as a partisan witch hunt.
If Burke can keep the race close heading into next fall, national interest in the race will explode given Walker's White House dreams. Outside groups like EMILY's List and Planned Parenthood are already expected to invest heavily to counter Walker's fundraising juggernaut, which collected more than $30 million for the 2012 contest.
The cash-flush Republican Governors Association and the Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity can be expected to come to Walker's aid once again.
"I think he will spend ungodly sums," acknowledged Margolis. "But the spotlight lights up everything for everybody."
Assuming the GOP fundraising advantage isn't gargantuan, Democrats say the race will come down to two overriding factors, which are neither wholly separate nor completely intertwined.
The one largely out of their control is the overall national environment and the strength of the headwind they will face during a midterm year. That assessment will shift another half dozen times before Election Day based on President Obama's standing and the issue matrix driving the conversation.
The other factor well within their influence is reaching the Walker-Obama voters -- those who supported the governor in a recall effort who then returned to cast a ballot for the president five months later. There are more than 200,000 of them and Burke's team believes they are ripe for the picking, assuming their vote against the recall was largely protesting what they saw as an illegitimate process, not a full-fledged embrace of Walker.
As a result of the Obama team's robust effort to secure the state's 10 electoral votes last fall, invaluable campaign infrastructure like the state's voter file have been vastly improved, a boon for Burke.
"We know more than ever about not just where, but who the drop-off voters are, based on the Obama campaign," said a Democratic operative who has worked several Wisconsin campaigns.
Whether they can successfully reach them will not only determine Burke's fate, but could very well reshape the presidential field before it has even fully formed.
David Catanese is managing editor of TheRun2016.com.

 

Scott Walker: Forget toys for the kids and give money to me

 

Written by WiG
Dec 2, 2013

Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign emailed a gift suggestion to his supporters: Skip the long holiday shopping lines and send your money to his reelection campaign instead of spending it on presents for the kids.
“Instead of electronics or toys that will undoubtedly be outdated, broken, or lost by the next Holiday Season, help give your children the gift of a Wisconsin that we can all be proud of,” the governor’s campaign wrote.
As noted by the blog Cognitive Dissidence, Walker’s request comes during a holiday season that’s been characterized by unusual gift ideas. Walmart suggested holding a food drive for its own employees, who are paid only an average of $15,000 per year. Many must supplement their income with food stamps in order to feed their families.
Walmart showed a profit last year of $17 billion and the Walton family’s wealth is equal to 42 percent of the rest of the nation’s.
McDonald’s told its employees to sell their gifts and pay off their bills.
But Cognitive Dissidence said those suggestions “can’t hold a candle to Scott Walker.”
Walker, who’s launching a presidential bid, faces a reelection race next year for governor. Polls show him neck and neck with Mary Burke, the only Democrat who’s announced a run against him.
Walker has unlimited funds available through out-of-state tea party groups and energy companies who see his reelection as central to their future. Walker appeared yesterday on “Face the Nation,” where he tried to backtrack from his harsh record on women’s reproduction rights.

How GOP Oligarchs and the Christian Right Are Hiding Behind the 1st Amendment to Ram Through Their Political Agenda

  Tea Party and the Right  

AlterNet / By Steven Rosenfeld

The Tea Party is turning the Constitution’s most fundamental protections into a refuge for scoundrels and billionaires.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock.com/Vince Clements

November 30, 2013  |  

 

Once again, the First Amendment has become the latest refuge for America’s scoundrels and oligarchs: Republicans who only want to follow rules they like are declaring that their speech and religious freedoms are being violated unless they get their way.
This fraudulent flag-waving is unfolding in two high-profile fights. The first is the latest front in the ongoing war on Obamacare, where the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would hear two suits brought by Christian business owners who don’t want to include birth control in employee health plans.
The second is the GOP’s effort to block anti-corruption campaign finance laws. The GOP is screaming censorship after Obama’s Treasury Department proposed new rules that might deter political operators like Karl Rove from using non-profit charities as front groups for attacks on specific candidates—which goes beyond promoting issues.

In both instances, the scoundrels contend that the First Amendment lets them do what they want, and any contrary view—such as new laws or regulations from the Obama administration—is an affront to their fundamental freedom to do as they please.
The Obamacare challenge came out of dozens of suits filed soon after the Affordable Care Act became law. The Christian Right objected to including birth control options in health plans. The administration’s response was to issue rules noting that the minimum coverage standards for businesses, which included a full range of reproductive care, differed from houses of worship—which were given more latitude on including birth control.

However, the Christian-owned businesses whose challenges are coming to the Supreme Court argue that corporationsshare the same religious rights as citizens under the First Amendment. This is the latest effort by the Right to treat corporations as people with a complete complement of constitutional rights.
In the Supreme Court’s controversial Citizens United ruling in 2010, the Republican-appointed majority expanded the political speech rights of corporations, allowing them to spend money in certain political campaigns as if they were voters—which they’re not. This latest claim of corporate religious freedom could be even more significant, Lyle Denniston, who has covered the Supreme Court for a half-century recently noted.
“The Court is now poised to decide whether corporations also have a First Amendment right to exercise the freedom of religion, which can be thought of as another form of expression—that is, voicing or acting out one’s personal beliefs,” hewrote. “It may be too early to say so, but a decision by the justices recognizing such a corporate right may make the controversy over the Citizens United ruling pale by comparison.”
On Saturday, theWall Street Journal editorial page attacked the administration—which created an exception for houses of worship, religious schools, hospitals and charities. In its typical fashion of blurring details to buttress its view, it said, “The radical implication of the White House argument is that the Constitution doesn’t apply to commercial activity.” Their view is the radical one. Of course, the Constitution protects commerce, such as in contracts. But the Bill of Rights primarily protects individual rights.
The people who want to impose their religious beliefs regardless of cost or consequence are complaining not just that their freedom is threatened, but that corporate religious freedom exists, and must be elevated over the rights of people working for them. That’s radical. They conveniently forget that under Obamacare or any health plan, people can decide to take advantage of a medical procedure or not. These unruly Christian soldiers want to do away with that private choice from their employees, and have the audacity to argue their businesses are being deprived of religious liberty under the First Amendment.
Some legal blogs even go further in noting the hypocrisy and double standards at play. At Balkinization, Joey Fisherwrites that large employers have been “enlisted… as one part of an overall federal project of health insurance provision.” He noted that they even get subsidies to extend coverage to their low-paid or oldest employees, because some of those will end up in state-run Medicaid polls or be covered by Medicare. Their role is facilitating access to insurance, not “to hand out drugs.”
The religious liberty protests are not the only twisted view waving a fake First Amendment flag. The other newly prominent example concerns a legal loophole that flourished after the Supreme Court’s Citizen United ruling: political operators creating and using non-profits as fronts for anonymous, large-scale attacks on political candidates.
Karl Rove was the first to go big with this strategy, because under tax law, non-profits do not have to disclose their donors. The Koch brothers soon followed, as did the Democrats. The Center for Responsive Politics found that at least $240 million was spent this way in 2012, mostly on negative television ads. These were the nastiest and least factual attacks, because their backers evaded accountability by hiding behind blandly named groups.

Many public-interest groups protested this abuse of charitable status to the Internal Revenue Service, which licenses non-profits. This week, the IRS released a proposed rule change that would expand the definition of political activity to any communication to more than 500 people that mentions a candidate’s name in the runup to an election. The idea is to try to ensure that the primary activity of a non-profit is charitable, or public education on issues, but not explicitly working to elect or defeat candidates.

Here, too, the GOP and its allies have been screaming censorship, saying that First Amendment freedoms are being violated. They’re saying, “How dare you?” That’s how dare you stop us from saying whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want, without any accountability or disclosure of who is behind attacks on candidates—even though we also are using government-granted benefits, namely non-profit tax status.
The Journal, as expected, called the proposed rule, “the latest IRS political crackdown.” It’s actually an overdue and sensible step to push political campaigns back into the political sphere, where, ironically, there’s barely any campaign finance regulation left that has teeth. For example, since the mid-1970s, any person could spend unlimited sums of their own money on a political campaign message. That was the result of the Supreme Court’s Buckley V. Valeo ruling. But the super-wealthy donors to non-profits set up and run by Rove and the Koch brothers don’t want to campaign that way.
It’s worth remembering that the GOP and conservative Christians have filed dozens of suits to try to blow up the little that remains of federal and state campaign finance laws. The Supreme Court heard a case this fall brought by the GOP that challenges a cap on the total contributions that any person can give to both candidates and political parties in a campaign season. The basis for that legal limit is preventing political corruption by essentially turning piles of campaign cash into legal bribes.
There are dozens of additional suits brought by the GOP and conservative Christians, especially surrounding same-sex marriage state ballot measures, to overturn disclosure laws that would list donors. Here, again, the party that is complaining the loudest about losing First Amendment freedom doesn’t want to stand in public next to its own words. Tea Party groups have sued to hide their funders, claiming they’re like black Americans in the worst of the Jim Crow era.
These self-serving abuses of the First Amendment are ridiculous and an insult to history. Nobody is stopping right-wing crusaders from following their religious beliefs at home or from reaching into their pockets to pay for their own political messages. But once they step into the public sphere, either though running government-chartered corporations or creating non-profit charities, there are legal obligations to employees and tax laws to be followed. I may be late for work, but that doesn’t mean I get to run red lights.
Waving the freedom flag is the right’s favorite argument. But claiming First Amendment rights as a way to evade uncomfortable laws and inconvenient legal standards—passed by an administration they intensely dislike—turns the Constitution’s most fundamental protections into a refuge for scoundrels and oligarchs.

Diebold Charged With Bribery, Falsifying Docs, "Worldwide Pattern of Criminal Conduct"

Diebold Charged With Bribery, Falsifying Docs, "Worldwide Pattern of Criminal Conduct"

Friday, 25 October 2013 11:00 By Brad Friedman, The Brad Blog | Report

One of the world's largest ATM manufacturers and, formerly, one of the largest manufacturers of electronic voting systems, has been indicted by federal prosecutors for bribery and falsification of documents.
The charges represent only the latest in a long series of criminal and/or unethical misconduct by Diebold, Inc. and their executives over the past decade.
According to Cleveland's Plain Dealer, a U.S. Attorney says the latest charges are in response to "a worldwide pattern of criminal conduct" by the company....

Federal prosecutors Tuesday filed charges against Diebold Inc., accusing the North Canton-based ATM and business machine manufacturer of bribing government officials and falsifying documents in China, Indonesia and Russia to obtain and retain contracts to provide ATMs to banks in those countries.

The two-count criminal information and deferred prosecution agreement calls for Diebold to pay nearly $50 million in penalties: $23 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and $25 million to the Department of Justice.

The agreement with federal prosecutors also calls for the implementation of rigorous internal controls that includes a compliance monitor for at least 18 months. The government agreed to defer criminal prosecution for three years, and drop the charges if Diebold abides by the terms of the agreement.

Despite at least $1.75 million in bribes said to have been paid the company around the globe, nobody will go to jail for what U.S. Attorney Steven Dettelbach describes as their "worldwide pattern of criminal conduct," because they are a corporation --- and you are not.

The $50 million the company has agreed to pay is a mere fraction of the firm's $3 billion in annual revenues. That, even though Diebold is a repeat offender --- which may be describing it mildly...

In 2010 the company settled an SEC fraud suit for $25 million. They also admitted in 2008 that they had overstated 2007 election division revenue by some 300% in hopes of manipulating stock prices.

As early as 2004, thanks to documents leaked by a whistleblower, it was discovered that Diebold had illegally used uncertified hardware and software in California election systems and planned to lie about it to state investigators. The e-voting systems, repeatedly found over the years to be easily hacked, were decertified for use by the state at the time (though they are still used widely around much of the country today.)

Still, nobody went to prison for any of Diebold's crimes.

Their most notorious infamy was tied to their often bumbling work as the nation's second largest e-voting company, which produced wildly insecure and often inaccurate voting systems and tabulators and which they proved willing to lie about. The Ohio-based firm first attracted the notice, and ire, of Democrats in 2003 when its then CEO, Walden O'Dell, penned a fundraising letter on behalf of George W. Bush and the Republican Party, promising that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

O'Dell, who many had blamed for Diebold's flagging stock prices and the sullying of the company's otherwise-excellent 150-year old reputation, was eventually forced to resign for "personal reasons" in late 2005. He was later required to pay back some $470,000 as part of the SEC's 2010 lawsuit after it had been found that Diebold had "manipulated the company's accounting to meet earnings forecasts from 2002 through 2007."

In 2007, Diebold, Inc., after nearly two years of attempting to sell off their elections division, renamed that portion of their business to Premier Election Solutions. Eventually, Premier, the second largest voting machine company in the country at the time, was sold to ES&S, the nation's largest. In turn, the U.S. Dept. of Justice forced ES&S to sell off many of the assets from the Diebold/Premier acquisition in response to anti-trust concerns. Those assets were eventually purchased by the Canadian firm, Dominion Voting which has since become the second largest voting machine company in the U.S. after their subsequent purchase of Sequoia Voting, a firm tied for years to the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Diebold's Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President, Kevin Krakora, stepped down in 2009 amidst the SEC's investigation at the time. As The BRAD BLOG reported exclusively in 2007, Krakora had been the top beneficiary of an apparent round of insider trading by a number of Diebold executives who unloaded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of company stock just before the announcement of the Diebold/Premier name change, and the subsequent plummeting of the parent company's stock price. In a mass sell-off, Krakora and other executives sold their shares at more than $53/share, a near-historic high, just prior to the price plunging more than 50% on the announcement of the elections division spin-off. Diebold, Inc.'s price has never recovered from the 2007 sell-off. It closed at less than $30/share on Wednesday.

The Plain Dealer reports that court documents filed this week by the U.S. Justice Department allege executive and company employees from Diebold's Asia Pacific region paid "$1.75 million in bribes, gifts and trips to dozens of employees of banks in China and Indonesia"...

The bribes were paid in order to secure and retain business with bank customers, including state-owned and state-controlled banks.

Diebold attempted to disguise the payments and benefits in various ways, including by making payments through third parties designated by the banks, and by inaccurately recording leisure trips for bank employees as "training."

The court documents also accuse Diebold employees, over a four-year period, of creating and entering into false contracts with a distributor in Russia for services that the distributor was not performing. The distributor, in turn, used the Diebold funds to pay bribes to employees of Diebold's privately-owned bank customers in Russia in order to obtain and retain ATM-related contracts with those customers.

Despite their years-long global crime spree, it seems Diebold will receive yet another slap on the wrist, and another polite request to please not to do that again. You and I should be so lucky next time we run into repeated trouble with the law. Good luck with that.

This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

Brad Friedman

Brad Friedman is an award-winning freelance investigative journalist, blogger, muckraker, author and broadcaster. He is the publisher and executive editor of BradBlog.com, a co-founder of the government accountability and election integrity watchdog organization VelvetRevolution.us and a fellow at the Commonweal Institute. He is also the co-host of the nationally syndicated radio feature "Green News Report" and the host of his own weekly radio program on Los Angeles' Pacifica Radio affiliate KPFK. More ...

Voter ID Gets Another Day in Court

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: November 30, 2013

A federal trial in Milwaukee on Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law concluded recently, and the verdict, when it comes, will help define the future of the Voting Rights Act, which has been in question since the Supreme Court gutted a core provision, Section 5, in June. This case could also set an important precedent for lawsuits recently filed against similar laws in Texas and North Carolina.

Related

• Judge in Landmark Case Disavows Support for Voter ID (October 16, 2013)

The Wisconsin law, which is now on hold, is among the strictest in the country. It requires a voter to show poll workers government-issued photo identification, like a driver’s license or passport.

The law’s challengers, which include the A.C.L.U., the League of United Latin American Citizens, the League of Young Voters and several private citizens, sued under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. That section, which survived the Supreme Court’s ruling, prohibits state and local governments from imposing any “voting qualification or prerequisite to voting” that has a racially discriminatory effect. The test is whether a law causes minority voters to have “less opportunity than other members of the electorate to participate in the political process.”

The plaintiffs presented substantial evidence that the Wisconsin statute had precisely that effect.

For example, a political scientist testified that it is likely that more than 63,000 residents of Milwaukee do not have the required photo ID, and that black residents are 40 percent more likely than whites not to have such ID. In addition, one-third of those without a photo ID do not have the underlying documents, like a birth certificate, needed to get one. The court heard testimony from several such witnesses, including Lorene Hutchins, a 93-year-old black woman who was born at home in Mississippi at a time when the state’s hospitals refused to accept black patients.

For those living in poverty or on a fixed income, who are disproportionately people of color, even the $20 charge to get a copy of a birth certificate can be unaffordable, and is in practice no different from a poll tax. As is typical in voter ID cases, the state presented virtually no evidence of voter fraud in defending the law. One election official could not recall a single case of identity fraud in his three decades of service to the state.

The law’s backers know their case is weak, and Republican legislators are scrambling to revise the statute to permit indigent voters to take a verbal oath and sign an affidavit that they cannot afford the paperwork needed for a photo ID. But the revision would set no guidelines for determining when someone is poor enough to qualify, and it would put residents in the embarrassing position of having to declare their poverty in public.

State voter ID laws may vary in their particulars, but their underlying purpose is to prevent eligible voters from voting. That point was reiterated when Judge Richard Posner of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit said recently that he had been wrong to uphold an Indiana voter-identification law in 2007.

Such laws are “now widely regarded as a means of voter suppression rather than of fraud prevention,” Judge Posner wrote in a memoir, adding that if he had been alert to the “trickery” of voter ID laws at the time, the case would have come out differently. He may soon have the chance for a do-over. Whichever way the trial court rules, the losing side is sure to appeal to the Seventh Circuit, which includes Judge Posner and his colleagues. Perhaps this time, they will not be fooled.

Why the Christian Right Believes It Has Once-in-a-Decade Chance to Impose Its Radical Worldview on America

Why the Christian Right Believes It Has Once-in-a-Decade Chance to Impose Its Radical Worldview on America

A change to obscure procedural rules in the U.S. Senate and the upcoming 2014 elections could be a dangerous window of opportunity.

November 26, 2013  

 

AlterNet / By CJ Werleman

Elections have consequences. The Senate Democrats’ detonation of the “nuclear option” has dramatically raised the stakes for secular progressives in 2014, because if there are two issues that juice the Christian Right the most, it’s women’s reproductive rights and judicial activism. On the latter, the Religious Right senses a once-in-a-decade opportunity to impose its radical worldview on America.
Last week, the Senate voted 52-48 to eliminate the ability of the minority party in the Senate to filibuster executive branch nominees and any judgeship below the Supreme Court by changing the requirements for passage to a simple majority vote. It was a historic move made because there was no other alternative, given the GOP’s unprecedented abuse of the filibuster. In the history of the United States, 168 presidential nominees have been filibustered. Half occurred under all presidents from Washington through to Bush. Remarkably, the other half has taken place under just one president: Obama.
Why such aggressive judicial obstructionism by the GOP?
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne Jr. writes, “This era’s conservatives will use any means at their disposal to win control of the courts. Their goal is to do all they can to limit Congress’s ability to enact social reforms.”
The Christian Right, which is the GOP’s most reliable and agitated voting bloc, is obsessed with the courts, and the Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit is the nation’s second most important judicial body, which is why Republicans “gave the game away when all but a few of them opposed Obama’s three most recent appointments.”
Now that Democrats were forced into limiting the filibuster, the Christian Right has its incentive to mobilize for 2014. A simple majority control of the Senate gives it an opportunity to pack the courts with judges straight out of the Justice Scalia mold, who once said that separation of church and state would come under scrutiny under a Supreme Court with a Scalia majority. If the Christian Right sweeps Republicans to control the Senate in next year’s midterms, the anti-secularists will take a big step forward toward their stated ideological goals.
The recent Values Voter Summit demonstrated that the likely 2016 GOP frontrunners have a base wish to transform America’s secular state into a tyrannical theocracy — a nirvana absent gays, liberals, immigrants, Muslims and science books. The right-wing media elites are already doing their bit to gin up the far right’s judicial activists with Rush Limbaugh comparing filibuster reform to rape.
Truth in Action Ministries recently released a film titled Freedom on Trial, which features Robert Bork, the failed Reagan Supreme Court nominee, Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly, and Heritage Foundation vice president Genevieve Wood. The general theme of the documentary is that Christianity is under attack thanks to liberal "activist judges." Bork warns that courts are “teaching the people that religion is evil,” while another conservative attorney claims decisions that go against the Ten Commandments will “destroy the country.”
President Obama’s judicial nominees were being filibustered because they threaten to alter the circuit court’s philosophical balance. The Republican Party has again demonstrated that nullification and obstruction are ready-made weapons to ensure the courts remain dominated by conservatives.

Cass R. Sunstein, author of Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts are Bad for America, writes, “Our courts now represents the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. These reformers include a number of federal judges—radicals in robes, fundamentalists on the bench….some of these judges do not hesitate to depart radically from longstanding understandings of constitutional meaning.” Political analyst James Fallows writes, “Add that to the simply unprecedented abuse of the filibuster in the years since the Democrats won control of the Senate and then took the White House, you have what we’d identify as a kind of long-term coup if we saw it happening anywhere else.”

The end of the filibuster threatens the far right’s stranglehold on our courts. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell warned, “The solution to this problem is at the ballot box. We look forward to having a great election in November 2014.” John McCain warned, “Democrats will regret this.”
For Republicans to take back the Senate, they’ll need to win six seats. Given Democrats will need to defend 21 seats, compared to just 14 for the GOP, and that seven of those 21 Democratic seats are in states that lean Republican, expect the Christian Right to be the party’s primary water carrier in the midterms.
Former Speaker Tip O’Neill liked to say that all politics is local. He was wrong. It’s tribal. The detonation of the nuclear option ensures the always-mobilized theological tribe will turn out in high numbers in 2014. This means America’s secular state will remain in the balance should the secular left tribe do no better than its impotency in 2010.
CJ Werleman is the author of Crucifying America and God Hates You, Hate Him Back. Follow him on Twitter @cjwerleman.

Twelve Times Scott Walker Was Terrible

Twelve Times Scott Walker Was Terrible

Oh, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, how are you terrible? Let us count the ways….  

posted on October 23, 2013 at 6:33pm EDT

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1. When he signed the mandatory ultrasound bill into law

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Walker signed into law a bill that will require “women seeking abortions to undergo an ultrasound and ban doctors who lack admitting privileges at nearby hospitals from performing the procedures.” Essentially, it would make it harder for a woman seeking a safe, legal abortion to get one. His law could force clinics to close and is being challenged by reproductive health advocates.

2. When he repealed the law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to press charges

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So basically, if you’re one of the women in Wisconsin who earns $0.75 for every dollar that your male colleagues make and you want to do something about losing that $4,000 every year, Scott Walker has made it more difficult. THANKS.

3. When he eliminated collective bargaining rights for all of Wisconsin’s public employees

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Scott Walker is no friend of unions. In 2011, he signed into law a bill that abolished collective bargaining rights for 175,000 public union employees in Wisconsin, leading to an attempt to recall him.

4. When he specifically targeted women workers while sticking it to unions

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As we mentioned, in 2011, when Scott Walker was stripping unions of their right to collective bargaining, he did exempt some groups: firefighter, police and state trooper unions. The majority of Wisconsin public workers are actually women, (teachers, nurses, child care workers, home health care workers, etc.) but the exempted groups were overwhelmingly male.

5. When he banned abortion coverage for policies in the ACA’s new health insurance exchange

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This is just another example of Scott Walker’s extreme, anti-woman agenda.

6. When he ruined Wisconsin sex education

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Scott Walker signed legislation that required teachers in schools that offered sex education to “stress abstinence as the only sure way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.” The legislation also declared that sex ed teachers were not required to address contraception. So that’s helpful.

7. When he eliminated all state funding for family planning services

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In 2011, Scott Walker proposed a budget that would have eliminated all state funding for family planning services for low-income residents, putting 50 clinics in jeopardy. 52,000 women in Wisconsin who received contraceptive care from those clinics would have to find alternative means.

8. When he forced 92,000 people off their health insurance and cost the state $119 million

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Scott Walker could have accepted federal money under the Affordable Care Act that would have expanded BadgerCare Plus insurance, which covers adults with children under 19 in households with incomes up to 200% of the federal poverty threshold, or $47,100 for a family of four. Instead, he rejected the money, kicked 92,000 people off their health insurance and forced them to buy a more expensive plan.

9. When he led Wisconsin to below-average job growth rates

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The Republican Party says they’re about jobs jobs jobs - except when Scott Walker runs things and the state ranks 34th in job growth. And consider this: Walker’s #1 campaign promise was to add 250,000 private-sector jobs by the end of his term. At last count, nearly three years later, he’s only about 25% there.

10. When he signed an unconstitutional voter ID law

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This law would require poll workers to immediately begin asking voters to show state-issued IDs before they vote - even though voters wouldn’t be required to show them until the next year. Yeah, we’re not sure either - but basically, Walker wanted to make it harder for people to vote.

11. When he was BFFs with the Koch Brothers

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The Koch Brothers are long-time Scott Walker supporters. With a $43,000 donation, their PAC was the second highest donor to Walker’s 2010 campaign. They also gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association, which streamed spending into Wisconsin on behalf of Walker. Ew.

12. When he wanted to pay teachers less

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Not only did Scott Walker nix the collective bargaining rights of Wisconsin teachers, but he capped future pay raises. Under Walker’s administrative rule change, he changed the pay schedule for experienced teachers. Some teachers could lose as much as 30% of their current salary under Walker’s targeted attacks.

So, in short, Scott Walker is the worst.

Luckily, EMILY’s List has endorsed Mary Burke for governor of Wisconsin

Mary Burke is an insightful problem solver who has worked in the private, government, and nonprofit sectors to grow Wisconsin’s economy and increase educational opportunities. Mary has an impressive commitment to economic justice and improving the lives of children and working families. Her intense and selfless commitment to her community will make for a striking contrast with Governor Scott Walker’s extremist agenda. Mary’s been quietly changing the world for the better for years - by breaking barriers herself and by making opportunities for others to get ahead.

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Scott Walker: Paul Ryan, Reince Priebus And I Are A 'Cheesehead Revolution'

The Huffington Post  |  By Chris Gentilviso Posted: 11/20/2013 10:34 am EST 

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) coined a spirited term over the weekend for a trio of high-powered Republicans from the Badger State.
In a Saturday interview with USA Today’s Capital Download, Walker talked about his friendship with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). When asked if both he and Ryan could run for president in 2016, Walker said it was an "interesting question," adding that "who knows what the future will bring?"
What he was sure of was the success of three big-name Wisconsin Republicans, remarking how he, Ryan and Reince Priebus all grew up within miles of one another.
"Paul grew up 15 miles to the west of me," Walker said. "Reince Priebus, who’s the RNC (Republican National Committee) chair, grew up about 20 miles to the east of me. There must have been something in the water at the time….We say it’s kind of a Cheesehead Revolution."
With nearly three years to go before the 2016 presidential picture hits its peak, HuffPost Pollster's latest compilation of 27 publicly available polls shows Ryan and Walker both in the mix as potential GOP candidates. Ryan, who served as the party's 2012 vice presidential candidate, netted 11 percent of the hypothetical vote, while Walker earned eight percent.

Voters sign in to vote at the Dr. Martin Luther King Community Center for the U.S. presidential election in Racine, Wisconsin on Nov. 6, 2012.

Sara Stathas/Reuters

Wisconsin GOP aims to scrap weekend voting

11/16/13 05:00 PM

By Zachary Roth Wisconsin Republicans are pushing a bill to end early voting on the weekend. The measure would make it harder for people in the state’s most populous areas to cast a ballot—and it would hit blacks especially hard.
But state Sen. Glenn Grothman, a Republican who is sponsoring a Senate version of the bill, told msnbc it’s already easy enough to vote.
“Between [early voting], mail absentee, and voting the day of election, you know, I mean anybody who can’t vote with all those options, they’ve really got a problem,” he said. “I really don’t think they care that much about voting in the first place, right?”
The measure, which passed the state assembly Thursday, would give municipalities two choices for early voting, known in the state as in-person absentee voting: they could offer it either from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekdays in the two weeks before an election; or at any time on a weekday, but not to exceed 30 hours per week, again in the two weeks before an election.
That would mean a reduction in early voting hours for the state’s two biggest cities, Milwaukee and Madison—which are also its most important Democratic strongholds.
Scott McDonell, the clerk for Dane County, where Madison is located, called the effort a “voter suppression initiative.”
“This is not unintentional,” McDonell told msnbc. “This is part of a whole strategy of limiting the large cities from their ability to vote.”
In 2011, Republicans eliminated early voting on the weekend directly before the election—part of a sweeping voting bill that also included a voter ID provision currently being challenged in court. But they left the weekend before that in place. Last year, around 7,000 voters in Madison and Milwaukee alone took advantage of those two days of voting, according to numbers provided by the election commissions for those cities.
And currently, cities and towns can set their own hours, based on local needs. That’s meant they’ve been able to make game-time decisions to keep polls open during weekdays evenings, if there’s a larger-than-expected number of voters, as Madison did for the 2010 governor’s race, Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl told MSNBC.
In 2012, the city saw more than 1,000 early voters per day, according to Witzel-Behl. She said the reduction in hours, and the loss of flexibility, would make life more difficult for her office – and for voters.
“We always have voters who let us know that if we hadn’t been open on Saturday, they wouldn’t have been able to come in to cast an absentee ballot,” said Witzel-Behl. “If we are not able to have absentee voting on the weekends, and we’re limited during the week as well, we’re going to be under a significant time crunch to get everybody through the lines.”
While hitting big cities hard, the bill leaves voting practices in small towns largely untouched. Many small towns in Wisconsin let people make appointments to cast their ballots at the local clerk’s house, McDonell explained—something they’ll be able to keep doing.
“What this does is, it leaves in place the ability for the small communities to set their hours in different ways, but it shuts down the big cities from having the ability to do that,” said McDonell.
Grothman said his bill is intended to establish “uniformity” between the large cities and small towns. Since it would be both expensive and unnecessary for small municipalities to increase voting hours, the only fix is to reduce the hours offered by big cities.
“We can have some of these ones that are completely out of control, doing maybe 80 hours a week, we can rein them in,” Grothman said.
Asked why uniformity is important if there’s less demand for early voting in more sparsely populated areas, Grothman was indignant.
“The idea of having one set of rules to apply to one municipality and another set of rules to apply to another goes against equal protection of the laws and is contrary to all our country stands for,” he said. “Isn’t it?”
But scrapping weekend voting will hit African-Americans particularly hard, Rev. Willie Brisco, who leads an alliance of Milwaukee churches, told msnbc.
“A lot of people in our community are working two or three jobs, odd hours, having difficulty with childcare,” said Brisco. “So the weekend and the early voting reaches a lot of those people.”
Brisco said his organization ran a “Souls to the Polls” drive last year, encouraging congregants to vote en masse after church on Sunday.
“We really need our community to stay engaged in the political process, and to be a determining factor,” Brisco said. “And there is a concerted effort to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
The measure wasn’t the only voting bill that the Republican-dominated Wisconsin Assembly passed Thursday night. On a party-line vote, it also approved a bill that would slightly modify the state’s controversial 2011 voter ID law, in an effort to boost its chances of surviving the court challenge that’s currently underway. Under the new GOP bill, voters would now be able to cast a ballot without ID—if they signed an affidavit swearing that they couldn’t afford ID or had no way of geting their birth certificate.
“This bill says that poor people need to declare their indigency,” Rep. JoCasta Zamarripa, a Democrat, told The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. “It’s a scarlet letter.

If You're a Millennial, Black, or Latino, Good Luck Voting Quickly in 2016

—By Dana Liebelson

| Tue Nov. 19, 2013 3:00 AM PST

 

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When I voted last year in downtown Washington, DC, I was able to walk down the street, cast my ballot, and get back to the office in less than 30 minutes. But according to a new report by two voting rights groups, the Advancement Project and OurTime.org, plenty of American voters weren't so lucky. According to their research, African Americans, Latinos, and millennials in Virginia and Florida—two key battleground states—faced significantly longer wait times than older white voters in 2012. This was largely because the former groups are more inclined to utilize early voting, which was restricted in both states last year. And according to the report, this new "time tax"—along with other voting obstacles, like strict ID laws—will likely continue to dampen voter turnout among these groups in 2016.
In 2012, Florida cut early voting from 14 days to 8 days, and lines were so long, more than 200,000 Florida voters gave up and went home, according to data collected by the Orlando Sentinel. The Advancement Project and OurTime.org report focused on 5,196 of the 6,100 voting precincts that were used last November in Florida—which faced some of the longest voting lines in the country—and found that young voters spent a disproportionately longer time waiting to vote. For example, in Orange County, which has the highest percentage of voters younger than 30 in the state (22 percent), precincts closed an average of 86 minutes after the 7 p.m. deadline, with one precinct closing five hours late. The report found that in Orange County, the trend indicated that the more voters under 30 there were at a certain precinct, the later the closing time.
"Regarding the number of people willing to wait in line to vote in 2012, there were others who didn't vote, and there is no guarantee that voters will always be able to wait so long to exercise their fundamental rights," says Katherine Culliton-González, director of Advancement Project's Voter Protection Program. The report makes the case that young voters have less flexibility with their work schedules, and when early voting days are cut, as they were in Florida, lines get longer. Millennials (defined in the report as people between the ages of 18 and 29) are also more racially diverse than the rest of the population, meaning that there is often an overlap between young voters and voters of color. This 2013 MIT report found that voters of color are also more likely to wait in line than white voters:

The conservative Heritage Foundation maintains that African Americans face longer voting times than white voters because they "tend to be concentrated in large urban areas" and "the most populous areas had longer wait times than those living in areas with fewer voters." But Culliton-González, from the Advancement Project, tells Mother Jones that her group's study disproves this, since their research found that there wasn't a clear correlation between longer lines and precincts with dense populations. She says that, in Virginia, for example, "unless a voter can prove they are sick, otherwise disabled, or have to travel for work on Election Day, all voters must vote on the first Tuesday in November. These limits are probably what caused the disparities, as due to socioeconomic factors, many young voters of color have less flexibility in their work schedules." Voting rights groups argue that all states should offer flexible early voting—but some states have done the opposite: North Carolina, for example, is restricting early voting from 17 days to 10 days, starting in 2014.
Culliton-González adds, "We are concerned about 2014, but even more concerned about 2016," since Florida and other states will likely not have enough early voting time so that voters can avoid long lines. (The Advancement Project didn't find evidence of the "time tax" in the state elections earlier this month, partly because voter turnout was so low.)
But even if early voting is taken care of, young voters of color are also more likely to be turned away from the polls because of identification requirements. This was true in 2012, even in states that didn't have voter ID requirements on the books (see chart below). In the state elections that occurred earlier this month, numerous voters complained of being unable to vote because of real or perceived voter ID laws.

According to data collected by the Black Youth Project, an activist group that does research on issues that affect African American youth, only 67 percent of Latino youth and 71 percent of black youth possess driver's licenses, compared to 85 percent of white youth. Additionally, three times more young black voters than white voters said that lack of an ID was the reason they didn't vote in 2012. The Advancement Project and OurTime.org have submitted their report to the Presidential Committee on Election Administration, President Obama's group that is tasked with finding ways to improve voting.

Dana Liebelson

Reporter

Dana Liebelson is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington bureau. Her work has also appeared in The Week, TIME's Battleland, Truthout, OtherWords and Yahoo! News. RSS | Twitter