Author Archives: Sheila

Ron DeSantis: Poster Child For Today’s GOP

In the wake of his pathetic performance in the presidential primaries, coverage of Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida, has faded from the national media. A recent exception was an article last week in The Guardian, explaining how he’s lost the support of many Florida Republicans

Ironically, that support didn’t diminish due to his appalling and seemingly endless assaults on civil liberties– some of which were enumerated in the first two paragraphs of the article.

In the end, it wasn’t culture war feuding over restricting LGBTQ+ rights, thwarting Black voters or vilifying immigrants that finally broke Republicans’ DeSantis fever in Florida.

Nor was it his rightwing takeover of higher education, the banning of books from school libraries, his restriction of drag shows, or passive assent of neo-Nazis parading outside Disney World waving flags bearing the extremist governor’s name that caused them to finally stand up to him.

It wasn’t even his bill scrubbing the term “climate change” from all Florida state laws. Evidently, none of those things upset Florida’s Republicans. The step too far was DeSantis’ effort to pave over the state’s parks.

It was, instead, a love of vulnerable Florida scrub jays; a passion to preserve threatened gopher tortoises; and above all a unanimous desire to speak up for nature in defiance of Ron DeSantis’s mind-boggling plan to pave over thousands of unspoiled acres at nine state parks and erect 350-room hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.

Thousands of environmentalists, former allies and GOP elected officials denounced the plan. Even the Republican state legislators who have dutifully rubber-stamped anything DeSantis proposed, denounced the projects. Many pointed to the evidence of intended corruption, since the plans–devised in secret– contemplated “no-bid contracts destined for mysteriously pre-chosen developers outside the requirements of Florida law.”

Faced with that blowback, DeSantis copied Trump, pretending that he was unaware of the proposal.

Desperately trying to pin blame elsewhere for a misadventure that was very demonstrably his own, he continued: “This is something that was leaked. It was not approved by me, I never saw that. It was intentionally leaked to a leftwing group to try and create a narrative.”

Tsk tsk. Those pesky “left-wing” groups…..

The rest of the article details the fallout in Florida, and speculates that DeSantis is “losing his grip” on Florida’s voters. While that’s interesting (although not as interesting as the question “why did this awkward fascist ever have a grip”), the article was far more intriguing for its parallels with Donald Trump and the national GOP. The opening recitation of DeSantis’ priorities mimics the agenda of today’s Republican Party and Project 2025. His effort to distance himself when it became obvious that those priorities were unpopular (to say the least) mimics Trump’s insistence that he knows nothing about Projecct 2025.

Take a good look at those priorities.

DeSantis and Trump and today’s No-Longer-Grand Old Party are one big hate-fest. It isn’t simply the war on women’s autonomy. The party wants gays back in the closet. It wants Black Americans returned to a subservient status, and Brown immigrants deported. It exalts Hitler for his effort to eradicate Jewish people. And today’s GOP has an incredible, seething animosity to the life of the mind–seen in its determination to turn higher education into indoctrination, to dictate what can and cannot be taught in public schools, and its persistent efforts to prevent people from accessing books of which its White Christian Nationalists disapprove.

The devolution of the Republican Party into the party of racial grievance and nostalgia for a past that never existed has occurred gradually over a period of time. For that reason, a lot of people have failed to recognize the GOP’s transformation into a neo-fascist movement–a hodge-podge of chauvinist, xenophobic, theocratic, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, and reactionary views.

What struck me about the opening paragraphs of the cited article was the enumeration of those very unAmerican goals as DeSantis has pursued them in his state–with the acquiescence (nay, the enthusiasm) of that state’s GOP.

It is telling that the break between DeSantis and the state’s Republicans came only when his authoritarianism threatened the parks they enjoy. Only then, evidently, did Florida’s “good Germans” recognize that an autocratic agenda eventually targets everyone.

A Martin Niemoller paraphrase seems apt–if a bit awkward and with a less tragic ending:

First they came for the intellectuals, and I did not speak out—because I was not an intellectual.

Then they came for the gays, and I did not speak out—because I was not gay.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for my parks—so I finally spoke up.

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Minding Our Own Business

The brilliance of Tim Walz’ response to the GOP’s culture war is that it put a foundational element of the Bill of Rights into everyday language.

“Mind your own damn business” is a more direct expression of that underlying philosophy than the one that I used in my classroom–“Live and let live.” As I have posted innumerable times on this blog, the Bill of Rights, taken as a whole, is based on the libertarian premise that individuals should be free to pursue their own ends–their own life goals–so long as they do not thereby harm the person or property of someone else, and so long as they are willing to accord an equal liberty to their fellow citizens.

Government’s role is to protect our individual liberties while keeping the strong from abusing the weak.

Adherence to that philosophy means that even if you strongly disagree with your neighbor’s choice of religion or life partner or reading material, you mind your own damn business. You don’t try to get the government involved in the absence of harm to nonconsenting others. You don’t try to use the power of the state to impose your own religious or lifestyle preferences on your neighbor–and he doesn’t get to impose his on you.

Live and let live.

The current iteration of the GOP has utterly abandoned fidelity to that limited government principal. The culture war being waged by the MAGA Christian Nationalists is all about punishing–or at least burdening–life choices with which they disagree. The latest–and yes, weirdest–example is JD Vance’s insistence that women who don’t produce biological children should be socially and legally disfavored. (Vance has even proposed that people with children be rewarded by giving them “extra” votes.)

These very unAmerican approaches to policy disputes also tend to be delivered in the nastiest possible way. As the Bulwark recently noted,

Consider the latest weird statement by JD Vance to emerge. Vance disagrees with the education policies pushed by the American Federation of Teachers and its president, Randi Weingarten. He doesn’t like Weingarten’s political activities either. Fine. That hardly makes him unique among Republicans.

But apparently he can’t just say that. He has to attack her personally. Weingarten, it seems, doesn’t have children. And Vance has a view on that. What’s more, he has a view on the character and effectiveness of teachers who have kids and those who don’t, and has decided he’s “disturbed” by those who don’t.

One could ask, are the private lives of millions of teachers any of JD Vance’s damn business?

As the article proceeded to note, Vance obviously thinks so. But it isn’t just Vance–it’s a core belief of MAGA world that everything is their business.

For MAGA—as for other authoritarian movements of the left and right—the personal is the political. MAGA is about judging and disparaging other people, whole classes of people, whole groups of our fellow Americans…The routine slander of individuals and groups is part of the essence of the movement.

It is true that political disputes often get nasty. History is replete with examples of unfair accusations and various slanders leveled by candidates for office and their supporters. What the Bulwark reports in this particular case, however, gets to the essence of what is wrong with today’s GOP, and its devolution into White Christian Nationalism. There are a number of reasons to label that movement unAmerican, of course–any fair reading of the First Amendment and the Founders’ insistence on Separation of Church and State will provide the most obvious one. What is less obvious, but equally shocking, is the MAGA movement’s manifest belief that government should be able to dictate the personal behaviors of individuals even when those behaviors do not affect others.

So MAGA says government can force women to give birth. That government can prevent medical personnel from helping trans children. That government can remove library books that offend MAGA sensibilities, even though many other citizens want access to those books and no one is forcing the censors or their children to read them.

MAGA Republicans want government as busybody, despite the fact that such a role is entirely contrary to the foundational philosophy of this nation.

If, as I believe, real patriotism requires fidelity to our foundational philosophy– if it requires citizens to mind our own damn business in the absence of harm to unconsenting others– then MAGA culture warriors must be ranked as the most unpatriotic of all Americans.

We all need to listen to Tim Walz.

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The Right Kind Of Prosecutor

During my years as a practicing lawyer, I came in contact with several impressive Black lawyers with degrees from prestigious schools. Almost all of them were–like me–practitioners of civil or corporate law, usually with one of the larger law firms. The Blacks I knew who did practice criminal law were all defense lawyers. And it goes without saying (so I’ll say it), during those years, they all encountered considerable discrimination. 

So what made Kamala Harris decide to be a prosecutor? I think that early decision sheds considerable light on her judgement, her capacity to analyze the legal landscape and determine how best to seek justice.

The politics of criminal justice have inured most of us to a lopsided view of a prosecutor’s role. In communities large and small, lawyers have for years run for the office on promises to bring “law and order,” to be “tough on crime” and to “put the bad guys away.” We do want to put bad guys away, but we also want to be sure that the guys we’re putting away are really the bad guys. And even a cursory attention to the news confirms that–in too many places–innocent people have been imprisoned or worse. (Also in too many places, those errors have been the result of prosecutorial misconduct.)

It’s important that a prosecutor be concerned with justice–not simply with a win/loss ratio.

What triggered this observation was a recent article in the Indianapolis Star about the exoneration of a man who’d spent 15 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit. The case against Anthony Bedolla had unraveled amid allegations of potential police misconduct and constitutional violations.

A re-examination of Bedolla’s murder conviction raised serious concerns about whether detectives arrested the wrong man, then failed to disclose evidence that someone else may have been the killer. Instead, they relied largely on the testimony of a compromised and unreliable eyewitness, according to Bedolla’s petition for post-conviction relief.

Last week, a Marion County judge granted the petition and dismissed the charges against Bedolla, who had been sentenced to 45 years in prison for the killing.

The lawyers who obtained Bedolla’s release worked for the Notre Dame Exoneration Justice Clinic and the Conviction Integrity Unit of the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office. I have been aware of the existence of that Unit, which was created by Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears. to “identify, remedy and prevent wrongful convictions” because my youngest granddaughter has interned with the Unit since her senior year in high school. (She’s now entering her junior year in college.) She will also be participating in the opening and operation of the Indiana affiliate of the national Innocence Project.

As Mirror Indy has reported, the establishment of that affiliate is something of a homecoming for its director, Fran Watson, and “will build on her decades-long career as the director of IU McKinney law school’s Wrongful Conviction Clinic, which was a founding member of the Innocence Network.” As she explained to the Mirror, while innocence work exposes the reality of  wrongful convictions, and the various reasons for them, it was really the science of DNA that made exonerations possible.

Without DNA, no one would ever believe public defender people like me who said they’re innocent. Then DNA comes along, and the math is the math, and the numbers are the numbers, and they don’t lie, you have the wrong man in prison, and you lied to put them there.

My granddaughter was present when Anthony Bedolla was released. She’s passionate about justice, and–at least at this point–intending to go to law school. (And yes, I am one proud grandma.) But the reason I mention her participation is that without it, I would not have had the opportunity to interact with Ryan Mears, who–like Kamala Harris–became a prosecutor for the right reasons.

It was Mears who established the “Integrity Unit” in the Marion County Prosecutors office. Mears is one of an emerging generation of prosecutors who understand that the justice system has two equally important tasks: to put away the people who pose a danger to public safety, and to ensure that the people being incarcerated are, indeed, the people who deserve that punishment– that the real “bad guy” isn’t still free to harm others.

Public respect for the criminal justice system requires attention to both tasks.

Marion County is fortunate to have someone in that office who understands the importance of both of those obligations. And if Kamala Harris becomes President, we will be incredibly fortunate to have a Chief Executive who understood the importance of systemic justice at a time when far fewer of us did.

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Ceding My Space

This is Labor Day weekend. There are just over two months to election day, so it seems important to share the recent opinion of patriotic Americans who have served the United States in the federal government.

The 230+ former officials who signed this letter all served in Republican administrations. They recently issued it to explain their unequivocal endorsement of the Democratic ticket–to explain why they will vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. I am reprinting their letter in its entirety–I don’t want to paraphrase, select portions, or otherwise alter its language.

The signatories are individuals who understand government–and the existential choice presented by this election.

I’ll return to my own commentary tomorrow. For today, here’s the letter, and a reminder that there are still some Republicans who put country over party.

_____________________

Bush, McCain, and Romney Alumni for Harris Statement

Four years ago, President George W. Bush, the late Sen. John McCain, and then-Gov. Mitt Romney alumni came together to warn fellow Republicans that re-electing President Trump would be a disaster for our nation. In those declarations we stated the plain truth, each predicting that another four years of a Trump presidency would irreparably damage our beloved democracy. We made those announcements months before lies about a stolen election became everyday talking points and six months before Trump incited an insurrection, cheering on a mob of sore losers and sycophants as they tried to use force to overturn the will of the American public.

We reunite today, joined by new George H.W. Bush alumni, to reinforce our 2020 statements and, for the first time, jointly declare that we’re voting for Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz this November. Of course, we have plenty of honest, ideological disagreements with Vice President Harris and Gov. Walz. That’s to be expected. The alternative, however, is simply untenable. At home, another four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership, this time focused on advancing the dangerous goals of Project 2025, will hurt real, everyday people and weaken our sacred institutions. Abroad, democratic movements will be irreparably jeopardized as Trump and his acolyte JD Vance kowtow to dictators like Vladimir Putin while turning their backs on our allies. We can’t let that happen. We know now, thanks to exit polling and voter data, that it was moderate Republicans and conservative independents in key swing states that ultimately delivered the presidency to Joe Biden—honest, hardworking Americans in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, and beyond that put country far before party. We’re heartfully calling on these friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family members to take a brave stand once more, to vote for leaders that will strive for consensus, not chaos; that will work to unite, not divide; that will make our country and our children proud.

Those leaders are Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Tim Walz.

_________________________

You can access the signatures–all eighteen pages of them–here.

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Another Rutabaga Election?

The reality of the Electoral College keeps Americans fixated on the “swing states.” National parties and the media routinely dismiss Indiana as a place where voters would elect a rutabaga if that vegetable had an “R” next to its name. That belief isn’t founded on actual voter preferences; it’s a result of extreme gerrymandering. Our legislative overlords draw lines that cram Democrats into a few urban districts while ensuring that a majority of districts include a greater number of (presumably reliable) Republican voters.

I’ve posted frequently about the negative consequences of that practice, but I’ve recently stumbled across an emerging positive–the discernable over-confidence it breeds in GOP candidates.

Take a look, for example, at the campaign for Indiana’s House of Representatives in District 88. That district covers Geist, Lawrence, Ingalls, McCordsville, Fortville, and Cumberland, and was clearly drawn to maximize Republican advantage. But it also contains a lot of educated voters, and in the wake of growing MAGA extremism and the Dobbs decision, is considerably less reliably Red.

Enter a serious Democratic candidate: Stephanie Jo Yocum, who is emphasizing her support for women’s reproductive rights, strong public education, safe and connected communities, workers rights and economic prosperity for all. (You can access her interpretations of those promises on the “issues” page of her website.)

After a conversation with a member of Yocum’s campaign, I went to the websites of the incumbent Republican, Chris Jeter–a campaign site and a personal one–and was astonished to find that neither site bothered with those silly things called issues. Instead, there were photos of his family, a biography (including an undergraduate Baptist College), and his reportedly active memberships in his church and the NRA.

The absence of policy positions seemed odd to me, but I assume Mr. Jeter feels it is sufficient to be a Republican running in a “safe” district. No need to defend his positions, which–after more googling–are unlikely to be widely popular even among non-MAGA Republican voters.

Jeter earned a ZERO rating from Indiana’s ACLU, for example. That rating was based upon several votes: he voted FOR Indiana’s ban on virtually all abortions; FOR a bill discriminating against trans girls (a bill vetoed by our Republican governor); FOR onerous limits on charitable bail organizations; and FOR a bill that would have limited how public schools and employees could address concepts related to an individual’s sex, race, ethnicity, religion, color, national origin, or political affiliation. (The vagueness of this bill would have effectively chilled discussion and instruction in Indiana classrooms.)

He also voted FOR new, onerous restrictions on absentee voting and voting by mail, and FOR a bill that would have given the Indiana Attorney General the power to request the appointment of a special prosecutor whenever county prosecutors exercise their (entirely lawful) discretion in ways the Attorney General disapproves, essentially allowing Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita to substitute his discretion for that of an elected county prosecutor.

My brief research into Jeter’s voting history told me two things: he is a Republican culture warrior, and he is relying on his district’s gerrymander rather than his performance to return him to the legislature. He evidently shares the belief that all he needs to prevail is that “R” next to his name.

My analysis of District 88 can be replicated around the state. But despite the smug assurance of the Republican operatives who drew the lines and the candidates who confidently expect to benefit from them once again, I think they are missing some significant danger signals.

Over the past several years, Republican reliance on the “rutabaga” theory of Hoosier elections has allowed the party and its candidates to become more and more extreme–to ignore the grind of actual governance and constituent service and to focus almost exclusively on waging culture war. Rather than the day-to-day business of ensuring that Indiana’s bridges and roads and parks are well-maintained, they’ve waged war on women’s reproductive rights and the LBGTQ+ community; rather than attracting business to the state by enhancing our quality of life, they’ve cut taxes for top earners and their donors. Rather than strengthening our public schools, they’ve siphoned off tax dollars and sent them to religious schools.

The basic question for Hoosier voters in November is whether we will continue to vote for the rutabagas–the empty suits and Christian Nationalists and gun extremists and “privatizers” who–thanks to the absence of competition ensured by gerrymandering– now represent virtually all of Indiana’s Republican candidates.

Stephanie Yocum’s positions are far more likely than Jeter’s to reflect those of voters in House District 88, Democrat OR Republican.

It’s really past time to retire the rutabaga vote.

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