Making Voting Hard

A fear often expressed by members of the Resistance is the possibility that Trump will declare a “national emergency” of some sort and use that declaration to cancel the midterm election. I don’t entirely discount that possibility, but I do think it is unlikely, for a number of reasons.

That said, the fear is reasonable, based on the GOP’s persistent assault on voters’ rights, and on its long history of vote suppression. The Brennan Center recently shared their study of the effects of those efforts, and the conclusions are depressing. It turns out that there are multiple ways of invalidating an election without actually cancelling it.

States have enacted dozens of laws that make it harder for citizens to vote. What impact will they have in next year’s vital midterm elections?

The Brennan Center has provided compelling evidence that these laws directly suppress the vote. And our newest research shows, even more significantly, that eligible voters turned away from casting a ballot once are much less likely to try again in later elections. They give up, it seems. Voter suppression can last years, perhaps a lifetime. That is a deeply disturbing finding, suggesting that even small effects of these new laws can cascade over time.  

Researchers looked at the results of S.B. 1, a Texas law making it more difficult to vote by mail. The state rejected thousands of mail ballot requests and mail-in votes during the 2022 primary. (Unsurprisingly the rejections were disproportionately those of nonwhite voters.)

They found that the voters whose ballots were rejected were 16 percentage points less likely to vote in the 2022 general election. “And the trend continued for the 2024 primary election — a full two years later.” As the report emphasized, “These citizens are not disinterested slackers. These are routine voters who have properly cast ballots year after year — 85 percent of those whose mail-in votes or ballot requests were rejected voted in the 2016, 2018, and 2020 general elections.”

This is one more strong piece of evidence that the recent wave of restrictive voting laws will have a great and growing impact. Last year, a Brennan Center study relying on a voter file with nearly 1 billion records showed that the gap between the participation rates of white voters and nonwhite voters has grown across the country — but grew at twice the rate in counties once monitored by a robust Voting Rights Act.

Some have suggested that the tumult over these new voting laws was sound and fury that ultimately signified little. Sure, they say, these laws may have had bad intent, but the impact was negligible.

As it turns out, voter suppression laws . . . suppress the vote. Who’d have thought it? 

If readers from central Indiana are interested in learning more about the impact of the GOP’s ongoing effort to suppress the vote, Common Cause is screening an important film at the Kan Kan theater on June 12th at 7:00 pm.

The documentary film, Vigilantes Inc, is based upon reporting done by investigative journalist Greg Palast, and it reveals how self-appointed “vote-fraud hunters” challenge the ballots of millions of voters–with a special emphasis on young voters and voters of color. There will be a discussion following the screening, featuring the filmmaker and Indiana advocates fighting voter suppression. 

You can buy tickets here.

As the Brennan Center article points out, the effects of long lines at a polling place, requirements to produce birth certificates or proof of citizenship, or “errors” disqualifying a ballot can effectively suppress an individual’s motivation to vote for years–even a lifetime.

Political analyst Michael Podhorzer has astutely observed that a “generational replacement” is being engineered: “Older and established voters keep up their voting habits, while new restrictions stymie younger voters.” Our research shows the effects of voter suppression on older voters, but it underscores how potent silent disenfranchisement can be…

The right kind of national legislation would expand access while strengthening election administration and security. The Freedom to Vote Act would set baseline national standards to ensure that ballots cannot be discarded for minor errors and discrepancies, and it would bar many state restrictions on mail and early voting. The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act would restore the strength of the Voting Rights Act.

These reforms came achingly close to enactment a few years ago. We predicted then that if the federal courts and Congress did not protect the freedom to vote, states would be left unchecked to abuse the rights of their people. Sadly, that has happened. Congress should once again be prepared to act.

If your schedule permits, go see “Vigilantes” on June 12th. And vote for Democrats to take Congress next year, assuming there’s an election…

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The Would-Be King

Phil Gulley is a Quaker pastor in Indiana and a clear-eyed observer of the human condition. Quakers value peace, integrity, community, and stewardship of the Earth–values that our mad would-be king disdains and desecrates. Phil recently shared an essay in which he described the multiple ways in which Trump and his MAGA base offend Quaker, American and human values, and he graciously allowed me to share it. It’s below. (He also has a Substack, for those of us who follow him.)

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A Criminal Syndicate

         Have you ever met someone who reminded you of someone else? When I first heard Pete Buttigieg, I was reminded of Richard Lugar, another well-spoken, intelligent Hoosier. When I met my wife, she reminded me of Katharine Hepburn, with whom she shared a classy, no-nonsense manner. I’m sure my rugged good looks reminded her of Spencer Tracy. When Donald Trump emerged on the political scene, I felt a spark of recognition. I know that man from somewhere else, I told myself. Then I remembered. Donald Trump reminds me of Tony Soprano. Both are swaggering bullies. Both are vicious, violent, and rapacious criminals, heading up criminal syndicates. Except one is fictional and one is not.

         There is no such thing as a Trump Administration. There is a Trump Syndicate, a crime family, a consortium of thugs, underlings, felons, and grifters, purporting to be public servants while carrying out a global campaign of theft, pilfering America’s treasury, peddling access to the Mobster-in-Chief, Donald Trump, while gutting the very agencies that would hold them accountable to the rule of law.

         Theirs is a master class in fraud, unparalleled in American history. The foxes are guarding the henhouse, which by the end of his term will be gutted. A democracy almost 250 years in the making has been stripped bare in one bleak and wintry season. The collective effort of twelve generations of Americans has been decimated by Hair Hitler and his Brownshirts. This is what I grieve the most, that tens of millions of Americans voted for a man who’d made no secret of his disdain for decency and duty. All his life, he has been the poster child of decadence—greedy, grasping, uncaring, and corrupt. He has never had a friend, only servile bootlickers collecting the crumbs that slip through his tiny hands, selling their souls for thirty pieces of silver. They, like he, merit a Judas death—abandoned and ashamed—their names a curse on the lips of history.

         He ventures from the White House only long enough to plunder, gathering jet planes and sweetheart deals from the sponsors of global terrorism, peddling his cryptocoins, favoring those who purchase them, tyrannizing those who don’t. Like all crime bosses, it is himself he is serving and no one else, so he will leave the presidency far richer than he entered it. His is a transactional presidency, our shared public treasure rummaged at fire-sale prices to his cronies.

         Anyone who dares protest is called out on middle-of-the-night tweets—Bruce Springsteen, Taylor Swift, colleges, professors, foreign presidents with the audacity to stand against tyranny, Mexico, Canada, and liberals. What an honor it would be to be singled out for attack by Donald Trump, to be labeled an enemy of his brutish ignorance. If we are known by the company we keep, we are also known by the company we find so repulsive we would dedicate our lives to resisting it. If he is naming his enemies, number me among them. I detest everything about him and all he represents−fascism, meanness, ignorance, and cruelty.

         Like all mob bosses, to remain in his good favor requires an envelope of cash slipped into his silken pocket. His goons rise each morning and go forth, strong-arming America, threatening, intimidating, collecting the daily take, promising safety to those who comply and ruination to those who refuse.  Now we are separating the men from the boys, and shame on the boys, shame on those who buckle under, the law firms and tech bros, whose donations fund this Thief-of-State. With billions of dollars at their disposal, with teams of lawyers at their beck and call, they tremble in fear of this strutting bully and what he might tweet about them. Their spinelessness is not only appalling, but traitorous. A pox upon them all.

         Washington and Lincoln have their memorials, but there will be no such marker for Trump. Should one be erected, it will be torn down by those who cannot bear to see such a man saluted. There won’t be enough tomatoes in the world to register history’s disgust, nor enough guards to safekeep his marker. He should enjoy the braying accolades he is receiving now, since his future will lack the faintest note of praise.

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About That “Abundance” Agenda

My middle son lived in Manhattan for ten years before relocating to Amsterdam, and during his tenure in the Big Apple he sprinkled numerous conversations with complaints (okay, rants) about the excessive costs of the city’s infrastructure. He couldn’t understand why other countries could extend their subway systems and railways at a fraction of America’s cost, and could complete projects far more rapidly.  He loved New York, but the glaring and costly inefficiency offended him.

I had no wisdom to impart. I didn’t know–and was unable to speculate– why a subway extension in the U.S. cost so much more–and took so much longer– than similar projects in other countries.

Until very recently, I was equally unaware of the policy war centered on something called  the abundance agenda, which turned out–despite what I still consider a weird label–to be an argument over that same question: why can’t America build things anymore?

As an article from The Atlantic explained:

The abundance agenda is a collection of policy reforms designed to make it easier to build housing and infrastructure and for government bureaucracy to work. Despite its cheerful name and earnest intention to find win-win solutions, the abundance agenda contains a radical critique of the past half century of American government. On top of that—and this is what has set off clanging alarms on the left—it is a direct attack on the constellation of activist organizations, often called “the groups,” that control progressive politics and have significant influence over the Democratic Party.

The article documented national examples that dovetailed with my son’s complaints. For example, the amount of time that elapsed between Biden’s signing of his infrastructure bill and actual construction meant that voters hadn’t seen the effects of that legislation by the next election.

A massive law had been enacted, yet Americans did not notice any difference, because indeed, very little had changed. Biden had anticipated, after quickly signing his infrastructure bill and then two more big laws pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into manufacturing and energy, that he would spend the rest of his presidency cutting ribbons at gleaming new bridges and plants. But only a fraction of the funds Biden had authorized were spent before he began his reelection campaign, and of those, hardly any yielded concrete results.

Only 58 of the “nationwide” electric-vehicle-charging stations were in service; completion dates for most road projects was mid-2027. Rural broadband access to had connected zero customers.

Policy wonks began to ask the same questions my son had asked. What was going on? American government used to construct engineering miracles like the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge ahead of schedule and under budget– Medicare had become available less than a year after it passed, but the Affordable Care Act’s exchange took nearly four years. And an embarrassing question: Why was everything slower, more expensive, and more dysfunctional in states and cities controlled by Democrats?

The policy wonks concluded that, over the years, a web of laws and regulations has turned any attempt to build public infrastructure into an expensive, agonizing nightmare. But removing excess regulations is highly controversial, because the limitations on building and government were largely imposed by interest groups that believed them necessary– interest groups that have dominated the Democratic Party for the last half century, and who saw their task as preventing an alliance of government, Big Business and Big Labor from subordinating the needs of citizens. They wanted to prevent the government from doing harm– but too often, they ended up preventing it from doing anything at all.

The National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, is an example. Passed in 1969, the law required the government to undertake environmental-impact studies before authorizing major projects and created elaborate legal hurdles to navigate.

Activist groups such as the Environmental Defense Fund saw NEPA as a potent tool to stop Washington (and, through state-level copycat laws, state and local governments) from building harmful projects. They pursued an energetic legal strategy to expand the law’s reach, turning it into a suffocating weapon against development. Over time, the environmental-impact statements required to start a project have ballooned from about 10 pages to hundreds; the process now takes more than four years on average to complete.

The article has many more examples, but the issue is so contentious because it isn’t “either/or”–it requires policymakers to find the mean between extremes. How much regulation is needed to safeguard the environment, or protect against government overreach–and how much is too much?

If and when we elect lawmakers who actually care about governing, it’s an issue they need to address.

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Don’t Let The Light Go Out

These are dark days for those of us who follow the news. Most of us need reassurance that we can do something–that we can make at least a modest contribution to what I’ve called the Resistance, that we can join with the millions of other Americans who are appalled and frightened by the insanity of the Trump administration.

In these difficult and challenging times, I read a lot of the pundits and pollsters and “wise men” who write for legacy media and issue Substack letters, and while I find many of them to be thought-provoking and analytically helpful, it is rare to read a column or essay that gives me hope and encourages activism.

On the other hand, although I’m embarrassed to admit it, I often do react positively to the lyrics of a song. (It’s especially embarrassing because I mostly listen when I’m on the treadmill, trying to keep my aging body moving..)

As my grandchildren will attest, my musical preferences are firmly anchored in the past. I know very few of the famous vocalists who came after the Rat Pack, my favorite songs from musical theater tend to be from oldies-and-goodies like “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Kiss Me Kate,” and I have a special fondness for the folk music of the 60s and 70s. While I’m sure more contemporary compositions also have life lessons to share, I’ve missed them.

These admissions are by way of explaining why I found a Peter Paul and Mary song so relevant to our times. I was grinding out my minutes on the treadmill by listening to folk songs when “Light One Candle” came into the rotation. Those of you who share my age cohort probably remember the lyrics. It began:

… Light one candle for the Maccabee children
Give thanks that their light didn’t die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied

… Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
And light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker’s time is at hand

And then the chorus–an admonition for our time if there ever was one:

… Don’t let the light go out!
It’s lasted for so many years
Don’t let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears

… Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suff’ring
Pain we learned so long ago

… Light one candle for all we believe in
Let anger not tear us apart!
Light one candle to bind us together
With peace as the song in our heart

… What is the memory that’s valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What’s the commitment to those who have died
When we cry out they’ve not died in vain

… We have come this far, always believing
That justice will somehow prevail
This is the burning, this is the promise
And this is why we will not fail

I know that many people are giving up and choosing to leave the United States right now. Scientists are being wooed by countries that still respect empirical reality; businesspeople are opting for countries where the rule of law protects commerce; growing numbers of retirees are becoming expats in places that combine warmth with fiscal stability and rational governance.

It is, after all, a difficult time to be a patriotic American.

But millions of us can “light a candle and ensure that justice prevails.” We can take to the streets in large numbers, peacefully demonstrating our commitment to the Constitution, to the vision of America that so many have died to protect.  We can all participate in “No Kings Day,” June 14th, for example.

Indivisible and a huge coalition of pro-democracy partner organizations are planning a nationwide day of defiance on Flag Day (June 14). The protests are set to take place during Donald Trump’s grotesque military parade in Washington, D.C. Instead of allowing this military parade to be the center of national attention, activists will make national protest the story of America that day.  Alongside local organizers, partners, and leaders from across the pro-democracy and pro-worker movements, activists across the country will come together for marches, rallies, and demonstrations to reject the corrupt, authoritarian politics currently defiling the United States.

From city blocks to small towns, from courthouse steps to community parks, citizens will be taking action to reject Trump’s demented authoritarianism, to show the world that a united population is refusing to be ruled by a would-be monarch.

Participants will light a (metaphorical) candle. It mustn’t be the last.

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Economics And The Rule Of Law

One of the multiple failures of the not-very-bright people who are currently running/ruining our government is their inability to connect the dots, to understand that when they set out to undermine X, the consequences of that assault aren’t just limited to X. We live in a complex and interrelated world, and failure to understand those complexities can lead to unanticipated damage.

The Trump administration consistently displays enormous ignorance of the way the world actually works. That ignorance–that disdain for pesky things like expertise and evidence–is particularly evident in Trump’s approach to economic policy. It isn’t just his insane belief in tariffs (a belief shared by no economist, conservative or liberal). It isn’t just his echoing of longstanding Republican insistence that tax cuts for “job creators” will grow the economy–despite ample evidence to the contrary. (Of course, even if those tax cuts don’t lead to economic growth, they do lead to the growth of generous political contributions…)

It isn’t even the GOP’s failure to understand the dire economic and civic consequences of further impoverishing citizens who are already struggling in order to fatten the wallets of the already wealthy, a failure once again demonstrated by Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The most dangerous failure to connect the dots is the less-noted but even more consequential failure to understand the economic importance of the rule of law, or to recognize how Trump’s assaults on the law will dramatically and inevitably undermine the nation’s economy.

I’ve previously explained why widespread obedience to the rule of law is an essential underpinning of liberty and civic equality–why it is at the very basis of what I call “the American Idea.” But it is equally important to understand why the nation’s economic health is absolutely dependent upon a government that respects the rule of law.

Trump’s autocratic attacks on–and utter disregard for– the rule of law are a direct threat to the willingness of foreign investors to buy and hold American  stocks and bonds. When those investors see Trump and his administration unilaterally defaulting on contracts, arbitrarily withholding funds that have been properly and legally appropriated, ignoring court decisions and attacking judges, deporting people without even the pretense of due process–while at the same time providing special treatment for donors, favored companies, and White immigrants– those investors re-think the safety of their investments.

Why should we care?

Among other things, foreign investors inject capital for increased production and economic expansion. They create new employment opportunities and facilitate technology transfer. Foreign investors often bring in advanced technologies and expertise, fostering innovation and boosting productivity in local industries. When foreign businesses generate profits, they contribute to U.S. tax revenues, providing American government with resources to fund public services.

That investment is at risk. As one economist put it,

The erosion of the rule of law under Trump can have enormous economic significance for a foreign government, investor, or company with stakes in our economy. They now know that the U.S. government may ignore its contracts with them or decide not to enforce their agreements with others when it serves the political or personal interests of the president. That’s the way the world works in the kleptocratic dictatorships in Russia and Venezuela, and virtually no one invests in their stocks and bonds.

By following their lead, Trump and his apprentices risk devastating capital flight that could leave many of our leading financial institutions insolvent. In addition to his deeply destructive tariffs, Trump’s sweeping campaign against the rule of law in the United States has raised the economic stakes from a rocky business cycle to a potential financial and economic meltdown with terrible consequences.

America’s respect for the rule of law is the reason foreign investors have felt safe parking their money here, and all Americans have benefitted from our role as a safe place in the global economy.

Anyone who has taken Economics 101 understands that the rule of law is fundamental to business and investment. It creates the predictable, stable, and fair environment that economic activity depends upon. Without predictability and stability,
businesses and investors are unable to make long-term plans and commitments. Unless laws governing commerce are clear and consistently enforced– and not subject to arbitrary changes– companies can’t assess risks and returns.

You would think the Republicans who fancy themselves protectors of private property and capital would understand that it is the rule of law that protects that private property from seizure or infringement, and that investors–foreign or domestic– are highly unlikely to put money into an economy where assets can be seized or destroyed without due process.

When the GOP was a party, and not a cult, it understood that.

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