About Those Referenda….

Lots of encouraging things happened Tuesday.

Elections are always dicey propositions. People’s votes are affected by so many imponderables—I’d love to think, as someone who teaches public policy, that voters make their decisions after considering contending positions and evaluating them, but we all know better. Especially when measures affecting the lives of GLBT people are at issue, fear and homophobia and religious fanaticism have historically made a noxious—and effective—brew.

But not this year.

On Tuesday, same-sex marriage referenda were on the ballots in four states. In Washington, Maine and Maryland, voters endorsed marriage equality. In Minnesota, for the first time ever, they defeated an anti-marriage amendment.

Voters also reelected the first President who ever publicly supported the freedom to marry, along with a number of gay and gay-friendly legislators. In Wisconsin, they elected the first “out” United States Senator in American history. In a victory that particularly pleased me, Iowa voters rejected an effort to retire another of the Supreme Court justices who voted with the majority in that state’s freedom to marry case.

Now, let me be clear about one thing: fundamental rights should never be put to a vote of the electorate in the first place.  No one got to vote on whether the government should recognize my marriage, and it is constitutionally improper to give me the power to vote on anyone else’s. But since, as usual, no one listens to me and my “ilk,” those decisions were put to a vote. They had to be dealt with.

Before November 6th, I think it is fair to say that most GLBT activists would have been happy to see a win of just one of these four ballot measures. The advance of marriage rights has thus far depended primarily upon the courts and occasionally legislatures—before now, every time the issue has been put to a popular vote, the gay community has lost. Winning one of these measures would have been hailed as real progress, a break in the drumbeat of constant popular defeat. Two would have been real cause for celebration. I think it is accurate to say that no one expected to win all four.

So there was a lot to cheer about in this year’s election. Bigotry lost across the board, not just anti-gay bigotry. Despite a distressing amount of racism directed toward the President, he won handily. Latinos flexed their electoral muscles. Women refused to be sent barefoot and pregnant back to the kitchen.

As elated as many of us are, however, it is well to remember that elections are just signals of change, not change agents. A lot of people who thought that Obama’s 2008 election would usher in a new era were disappointed because they failed to understand the way the system (not to mention reality) works. We don’t elect monarchs in the United States. Checks and balances mean that no matter what the intentions of the people we put in office, in order to implement the policies they champion, they must work through systems that were intended to force negotiation and compromise—systems that aren’t working very well right now. Voting was just the beginning. Changing the world takes time—and more effort than most of us realize.

But right now, we’re entitled to take some time to savor the results of this election. We’re entitled to entertain the possibility—indeed, the probability—that America has turned an important corner, and that genuine equality for gays and lesbians is closer than it has ever been.

Right now, it’s time for high fives.

Comments

A Lot to Cheer About

Indiana proved to be an outlier. Except for the (predicted) victory by Mike Pence–and the fact that Republican extremists will have pretty much total control of Indiana government for at least the next two years–last night was satisfying. And even here, there were bright spots: Mourdock proved that even in Indiana, crazy doesn’t sell. (He should have taken a page from Pence’s book and refused to talk until after the election). Glenda Ritz defeated Tony Bennett, who never learned to play nice with other children. IPS got three new Commissioners who are likely to take the job of improving the schools seriously–and who are unlikely to rubber-stamp Eugene White’s decisions.

The best news was national. I’m still sifting through results, but I’m no longer waiting to exhale. The President won comfortably–a blowout in the electoral vote and a comfortable margin in the popular vote. The Democrats actually increased their margin in the Senate–something that really shouldn’t have happened, given the seats that were in play. And for the first time ever, marriage equality measures won at the ballot box.

It will be a few days until all the details are available, but Republican strategists should have listened to whoever it was who said “demography is destiny.” Or as Lindsay Graham put it a couple of months ago, there aren’t enough old white men to keep the Republican party afloat.

Comments

Two Governors and an Election

Okay–no big post today. Today is fingernail-biting/pundit-watching/whatever-happens-it’s- finally-over day. There will be time to chew over the results later.

A friend sent me an email with a small medallion attached; it said “Stay calm and trust Nate Silver.” Good advice–if not for the nagging concerns raised by the widespread efforts at voter suppression and intimidation. I can’t help contrasting two governors: Andrew Cuomo in New York, and Rick Scott in Florida. In the wake of storm Sandy, Cuomo has issued an executive order allowing New Yorkers to vote at any polling place. They just need to submit an affidavit that they are registered, and that the storm damaged their usual voting site. In contrast, Florida Governor Rick Scott has “purged” voter rolls of thousands of properly registered citizens, mostly minorities, and closed down early voting sites.

I hope the response to Scott and the others, like Ohio Secretary of State Husted, is a greater determination to exercise the franchise they are trying so hard to deny to the “wrong kind” of voters.

We’ll know later tonight.

Comments

Those Unintended Consequences

Tomorrow is election day–and I plan to breathe a sigh of relief, not just because the polls suggest generally albeit not totally sane consequences, but because we’ll have a respite from the incessant ads, if not from the punditry. (The effect of Hurricane Sandy, the impact of Facebook and Twitter, the various Wars on women, immigrants, poor people….the one prediction I am utterly sure of is that there will be two favored theories for every one talking head.)

I’m actually working on a theory of my own. It doesn’t explain any election result, and it may well be proven wrong when all is said and done, but I think it’s worth considering. I think Citizens United may have backfired on some of the people who were most elated when the decision was handed down, the people who were so certain the decision would give them the wherewithal to win big.

What do we know now about the unbelievable piles of money that were thrown at this year’s election?

Well, it muddled a lot of messages. All those SuperPacs, with their own consultants and PR “experts” didn’t necessarily adopt the messaging favored by the campaigns they weighed in on. The result in many places was a constant din of competing ads that didn’t reinforce any particular argument or advance a predetermined campaign theme. In some cases, this actually worked against the candidates the SuperPacs supported.

We also know that a lot of that money was wasted. (I don’t care, but I bet there are some corporate shareholders who do.) Not only was money wasted on inconsistent messaging, it  was wasted by being spent independently on radio and television advertising . Broadcasters have to sell time to candidates at a discounted rate; they don’t have to offer that favorable rate to SuperPacs and other independent entities, and they don’t. Giving money to the campaign and allowing the campaign to buy the air time (as was the case before the Court opened the money gates) thus produced a much greater “bang for the buck.”

There have also been a number of reports of last minute spending sprees by the SuperPacs in states that are uncontested–states where the Presidential vote is a given and there is no other high-profile race to be influenced. Maybe it’s a last minute effort to drive up popular vote totals, but I doubt it–at this point, everyone but Seamus the dog has decided who they are voting for, and even if they haven’t, the airwaves are so saturated, new ads are probably occupying that coveted 2:00 am slot that used to be Ronco’s. It’s more likely that this last minute spending binge is being promoted by the only people other than broadcasters who have really benefitted from Citizens United–the politicians, consultants and media buyers running the SuperPacs and 527s.

Perhaps the most ironic consequence of all, however, is slowly dawning on state political parties. As several pundits have pointed out, SuperPacs have nationalized the election to an unprecedented degree. One result is that state party chairs who initially welcomed the prospect of big bucks flowing into their coffers have found their own influence and control considerably diminished. (It’s the Golden Rule, fellas: he who has the gold, rules.)

When Citizens United was decided, there was considerable glee among Republicans, especially, who felt–not without reason–that the ensuing flood of dollars would mostly benefit the GOP. Many of the political people I know–on both sides of the aisle–believed that a virtually unlimited supply of corporate money would assure a Romney romp to victory and would grease the numerically probable Republican takeover of the Senate. Both outcomes look pretty dubious right now, although anything can happen between now and Tuesday; should Romney pull out a win, it will be by a hair, and at this writing, the Senate takeover looks pretty unlikely.

An old political friend of mine likes to remind me that, in contests where the opposing candidates both have sufficient resources to get their messages out, the guy with more money doesn’t necessarily win. If a candidate is gaffe-prone, clueless or generally unlikeable–or if he has a message that voters reject–campaign cash alone usually won’t fix that. Money can buy a lot of lipstick, but as a general rule, if people decide your candidate’s a pig, lipstick isn’t enough.

I hope he’s right. Right or wrong, we’ll know soon.

Comments

Turnout and Citizenship

We had an interesting exchange in my Media and Policy class this past Thursday night. I team-teach that class with John Mutz, who–among his numerous other distinctions–served as Indiana’s Lt. Governor. Former Indiana Supreme Court Justice Ted Boehm and Common Cause policy director Julia Vaughn were guest speakers. So the discussion (about the impact of money in politics) was informed–and informative.

Julia noted that Indiana ranked next to last among the states in voter turnout, according to the recent Civic Health Index, and John challenged her statement that we should be embarrassed by that low level of participation, saying it didn’t bother him.

Should it bother us? This is one of those questions where the correct response is “it depends.”

If the folks who are blowing off the political process are low-information, low-interest voters, then I agree with John that it isn’t a problem. Why should the votes of the uninformed dilute the votes of those of us who take the process seriously? If you don’t know who you support and why, then you should stay home and let more thoughtful people participate.

On the other hand, if  low turnout is due to one or more of the following reasons, we have a different problem and we need to do something about it.

We should be embarrassed if

We’ve made voting too difficult. If we’ve restricted the number of polling places, and/or limited the hours those polls are open so that voting is inconvenient for people with jobs and family obligations and actual lives, shame on us. Ditto if we’re requiring all sorts of documentation that older, poorer folks are unlikely to have.

We’ve made politics too nasty. If all voters hear are 30-second attacks on the integrity, brains and general humanity of those running for office, research suggests those voters tend to turn it all off and stay home on election day. (Some candidates will actually engage in nasty campaigning in order to evoke the “pox on both your houses” response and thus suppress turnout, if they think a larger turnout would benefit their opponent.)

We’ve made the ballot too daunting and complicated. Remind me again why we are voting for coroner, treasurer, recorder and dog-catcher? Who beside the candidates really cares who serves on township advisory boards?

We’ve failed to “connect the dots” between government policies and the reality of our daily lives, allowing voters to believe that candidates are all fungible. (Hurricane Sandy is just one example of why policies matter: if disaster relief had been turned back to state and local governments, does anyone really believe the result would have been the same for those who desperately needed help? Instead of throwing mud at each other, candidates need to make the case that their preferred policies matter, and how.)

We’ve constructed a system in which many votes really don’t matter. This is the most depressing reason of all, because it’s true. Yes, my vote for state and local offices still matters, more or less, but increasingly–thanks to gerrymandering and winner-take-all allocation of Electoral College votes–my votes for President and many other offices really don’t. (In this year’s Presidential election, those Hoosiers who vote for Obama might just as well flush those votes down the nearest toilet; Romney will win the state and take all of Indiana’s electoral college votes–even if the win is only by a point or two. A couple of states allocate their electoral votes to reflect the breakdown of the state’s popular vote–the constitution permits that–but Indiana and most others don’t.)

So–should we be embarrassed by our low turnout? Yes. If we institute changes that make voting more convenient, the ballot less daunting, the process less negative and/or fruitless and turnout is still low, then we can shrug it off and accuse the nonvoters among us of of poor citizenship. But not before.

Comments