Tag Archives: GOP

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.

Comments

Family Values

What are “family values?”

To hear Republicans describe them, family values are a traditional, a backward-facing insistence on sexual “purity” (for women) and heterosexuality: mom in the home watching the children (no pre-school or day care), gays in the closet, no access to abortion. Occasionally, there will be a nod to the importance of dad’s fidelity, but that gets awkward these days, given GOP allegiance to a male sexual predator.

Democratic policies illustrate a very different approach to valuing families.

For one thing, Democrats emphasize job creation, so that families can adequately care for the children they may–or may not–choose to have. (On that score, the GOP’s performance has been dismal: during the DNC, Bill Clinton noted that, since 1989, America has created about 51 million new jobs. Fifty million were created during Democratic administrations, one million under Republicans. This jaw-dropping statistic turned out to be true, albeit slightly misleading.)

Even if you discount the importance of a robust economy to the health of the American family, a glance at the policies pursued by the parties confirms that Democrats are far more family-friendly. Nicholas Kristof recently made that case. Calling Republican efforts to paint themselves as the “pro-family” party “chutzpah,” Kristof wrote

Children are more likely to be poor, to die young and to drop out of high school in red states than in blue states. The states with the highest divorce rates are mostly Republican, and with some exceptions like Utah, it’s in red states that babies are more likely to be born to unmarried mothers (partly because of lack of access to reliable contraception).

One of President Biden’s greatest achievements was to cut the child poverty rate by almost half, largely with the refundable child tax credit. Then Republicans killed the program, sending child poverty soaring again.

Can anything be more anti-child?

Well, maybe our firearms policy is. Guns are the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers, largely because of Republican intransigence and refusal to pass meaningful gun safety laws.

It’s because of the G.O.P. that the United States is one of only a few countries in the world without guaranteed paid maternity leave. Republicans fought universal health care and resisted the expansion of Medicaid; that’s one reason a child in the United States is three times as likely to die by the age of 5 as a child in, say, Slovenia or Estonia.

Kristof also noted several of the anti-child policies advanced in Project 2025, including ending Head Start–which has been a lifeline for low-income children– and dismantling the Department of Education.

Banning abortion and requiring women to give birth whether or not they can afford to feed and clothe a child is hardly “pro family”– even ignoring the fact that when women with dangerous pregnancies cannot access adequate care, they often die, leaving existing children motherless. And Republican extremism on abortion and birth control has led to obstacles to in vitro fertilization–for some families, the only avenue to producing those children Republicans want women to keep turning out.

Kristof also recognized the importance of the economy in supporting families. If marriage rates are important–and he agrees that they are–the evidence of economic influence is compelling.

Union membership among men raises their marriage rates, for example, apparently because they then earn more money and become more stable and appealing as partners. But Republicans have worked for decades to undermine unions.

And while marriage is important, so is access to divorce. Before easy access to divorce, large numbers of women were trapped in violent marriages that terrorized them and their children. (JD Vance is on record counseling women to remain in such marriages.) As Kristof notes,

One careful study by the economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers found that the introduction of no-fault divorce in America was associated with about a 20 percent reduction in female suicides, at least a 25 percent reduction in wife-beating and an apparent decline in husbands murdering wives.

Which raises the question: can an anti-women party be pro family values?

In this policy arena–as in so many others–the fundamental difference between today’s GOP and the Democratic Party really does get back to dramatic differences in values. That’s why calls to “bridge our differences” and “achieve compromise” ring so hollow. If the debate is about the best way to achieve result X–say, feeding hungry children–then we can absolutely come to some sort of mutual agreement. But when one party wants to feed children and the other party doesn’t, compromise isn’t likely. 

Americans aren’t divided over policy; we are divided over values–and not just family values.

 
Comments

That Electoral College

There’s been no lack of political commentary as the Presidential campaign has heated up, much of it thoughtful (and lots of it not), but I was struck with a point made in the Bulwark–a point about the systemic, structural issues that so often muffle or stymie the electoral voice of We the People.

In a commentary on the competing theories of the two campaigns, Jonathan Van Last noted that

Trump is running to get to 47 percent. Harris is running to get to 52 percent.

But there’s something deeper going on here.

The reason Trump is aiming for 47 percent is because the Electoral College makes minority rule possible for the rural party. Which incentivizes the rural party to be insular and to focus on energizing—not expanding—its coalition.

By disadvantaging the urban party, the Electoral College incentivizes it to broaden its coalition. Which means that the Democratic party of this moment must be constantly seeking to expand its reach and bring in new constituencies if it is to have a chance at holding executive power.

In other words: The Electoral College distorts the character of our parties, nudging one of them to be a majority-seeking organism and the other to be a base-pleasing organism. The character of our two parties today flows from the system architecture used to allocate power.

Which explains why Trump’s campaign is focused on maneuvering to win the Electoral College, not on trying to build a national majority. Trump doesn’t think he needs to expand his base, despite the fact that it is a minority of American voters. He just needs to energize them. America’s systemic “allocation of power” protects government by the minority. That’s what allowed Donald J. Trump to “win” the Presidency while losing the popular vote by some three million votes.

The Electoral College substantially advantages white rural voters. Research suggests that every rural vote is worth one and a third of every urban vote. Small states already exert disproportionate power by virtue of the fact that every state–no matter how thinly or densely populated–has two Senators. This system adds to that undemocratic advantage.

Trump likes to claim that our elections are rigged. They are–but thanks to the Electoral College and “winner take all” state election laws–they’re rigged in ways that unfairly benefit him. As legal scholars have reminded us, no other advanced democracy in the world uses anything like the Electoral College. 

It isn’t just the existence of the College–there’s also the way states implement it.

If we fall short in the current effort to neuter the Electoral College with the Popular Vote Compact, we should mount a national effort to address a less-understood aspect of it’s unfairness: statewide winner-take-all laws. Under these laws (which states adopted to gain political advantage in the nation’s early years, even though it was never suggested by the Founders) most states award all their electors to the candidate with the most popular votes in their state.

That erases all the voters in that state who didn’t vote for the winning candidate. Even if only 50.1% of voters in a state vote for candidate A, the 49.9% of voters who opted for candidate B are unrepresented–all of that state’s Electoral College votes will be cast for candidate A.

It would be far fairer to award Electoral votes proportionally. If 60% of the votes are cast for candidate A, candidate A should get 60% of the state’s electoral votes–not 100%. People in the political minority in a state would suddenly have an incentive to vote–an incentive that doesn’t exist now. Today, absent a “wave” election, a presidential vote by a Democrat in Indiana or a Republican in California simply doesn’t count.

Think about it.

Today, 48 states use winner-take-all. That’s why most are considered comfortably safe for one party or the other.  That “safety” leads to the current disenfranchisement of voters in states like Indiana. The only states that matter to either party in a national election are the so-called “battleground” states — especially bigger ones like Pennsylvania, where a swing of a few thousand or even a few hundred votes can shift the entire pot of electors from one candidate to the other. We saw this in 2016, where Trump’s incredibly thin wins in three states (just under 80,000 votes in total over the three states) gave him the White House.

If newly hopeful Democrats can produce a “wave election” in 2024–if they can manage a trifecta at the national level–this systemic unfairness can be changed. The John Lewis Act can be passed. Gerrymandering can be outlawed. Winner-take-all laws can be addressed.

If enough of us vote Blue, we can restore small-d democratic accountability.

Comments

Appalling..And Telling

Wow. Just…wow.

I have repeatedly attributed America’s polarization to my perception that MAGA folks occupy an alternate reality–an environment where Democrats drink kids’ blood in a pizza parlor’s (non-existent) basement and a mysterious figure known as “Q” will emerge to save the world from a nefarious (non-existent) “deep state.” But recently, the Guardian reported on an even more troubling refusal to confront a reality that is rapidly becoming too obvious for sane folks to ignore.

According to that report, nearly one in four members of Congress dismiss the reality of climate change. The paper identified a total of 123 elected federal representatives – 100 in the House of Representatives and 23 US senators – who continue to deny the existence of human-caused climate change.

You will not be surprised to learn that they are all Republicans. Every single one.

According to a Center for American Progress report, those climate-change-denying lawmakers have been rewarded with a combined $52m in lifetime campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, so it is difficult to tell whether they are profoundly anti-science (and, arguably, intellectually unfit to hold elective office) or simply corrupt.(Ethically unfit.)

Meanwhile, rational folks–especially those with children and grandchildren who will have to navagate an increasingly hostile environment–want government to take measures to ameliorate the threat.

And that threat–despite GOP insanity–is very real. In the same issue of the Guardian that contained the report on Republican climate denial, there was a brief story about photos taken by British tourists at the same spot in the Swiss Alps. The photos were taken almost exactly 15 years apart and highlighted the speed with which global heating is melting glaciers.

i talk a lot about culture war on this blog. Because I’m a recovering lawyer and a past Executive Director of Indiana’s ACLU, those discussions have disproportionately focused on the threat culture warriors like Micah Beckwith and Jim Banks pose to civil liberties, especially (but certainly not exclusively) the threat that these American theocrats pose to genuine religious liberty. That threat is very real, but–as the Guardian report makes abundantly clear–adherence to a worldview that excludes empirical evidence isn’t just an affront to the Constitution. It’s suicidal.

Over the past few years, we’ve read headlines like this one from the Telegraph: “Congressman says God will save us from climate change.” (At least he admitted that climate change exists, so I suppose that’s a point in his favor…)

A Republican congressman who believes that global warming is not a threat because God has promised not to destroy the Earth has put himself forward as chairman of a powerful committee that deals with energy policy and its effect on the environment.

John Shimkus, an evangelical Christian representing Illinois, quoted the Bible in a congressional hearing last year on a proposed “cap and trade” legislation designed to limit carbon emissions…

Shimkus isn’t the only Republican culture warrior who relies on God to fix those pesky climate problems. That reliancee is nothing new, either–in 2017, Time Magazine reported

A Republican congressman told his constituents that he believes God will “take care of” climate change if it proves to be a “real problem.”

Michigan Rep. Tim Walberg said during a town hall in Coldwater, Mich., on Friday that while he believes climate change is real, it is not something for humans to solve.

Subsequent evidence of intensifying bad weather hasn’t challenged Walberg’s belief that God will take care of the problem, so mankind need not bother. Not long after then-President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, Walberg told his constituents that if it turned into a “real” problem, God would “take care of” climate change.

So here we are, with an entire political party that rejects science and empirical evidence  (including the evidence of their own “lying eyes”) in favor of fundamentalist religious dogma. (It should go without saying that such dogma is hotly contested by more rational religious figures–the Pope, for one, has issued an Encyclical urging action on climate change.) 

This rejection of evidence–this wholesale dismissal of science and logic and expertise– is an underappreciated threat posed by MAGA culture warriors. Fully one-fourth of currently-serving American legislators have opted to live in–and defend–an alternate reality. These people shouldn’t be in government. To a significant extent, they owe their elections to Republican gerrymandering, but voter apathy has also been a contributor.

A Blue wave would sweep at least some of these people out of office, and would facilitate government action on the environment. By humans.

Another reason to vote Blue…..

Comments

A Rising Tide

A few nights ago, I cohosted a fundraiser for Jennifer McCormick, the Democratic candidate for governor of Indiana. I also had the privilege of introducing her to a large and enthusiastic crowd of attendees. As I said in those brief introductory remarks–and as I have previously noted here– this year, the Indiana Democratic Party is running an absolutely first-rate statewide ticket—a ticket that is an immense contrast to the Indiana Republican Party’s all-MAGA theocratic nightmare.

I first admired McCormick when she served as Superintendent of Public Instruction—a position that I will note gave her responsibility for managing half of the state budget. Jennifer came to that position with deep experience as a public school superintendent. She understood not just the importance of public education to the quality of civic life, but also the critical importance of an educated populace to successful economic development.

Her experience as Superintendent, serving in a Republican administration alongside our Republican super-majority legislature, also taught her something many others of us have come to understand— the current Republican Party is no longer a traditional political party. MAGA Republicans are a cult, and they are the enemy not just of public education, but of racial and religious inclusion and civil liberties— values that Jennifer and I support.

Those very American values require a vigorous defense of public education, the restoration of women’s reproductive rights, protection of workers’ right to unionize and demand fair wages, and an accountable and fiscally responsible state government.

Too many non-MAGA Republicans have simply gone along with the party’s transformation, despite displaying some level of discomfort. Instead, like many other former Republicans (including yours truly) Jennifer McCormick acted on the basis of her values, and left the GOP.

Every opinion survey I’ve seen confirms the fact that the values I share with Jennifer are also shared by a majority of Hoosiers. I am absolutely convinced that if she has the resources to get her message out, she will defeat MAGA Mike Braun.

And that brings me to a point I’ve previously emphasized: the greatest asset possessed by Braun and his merry band of theocrats is the defeatism of Indiana’s long-suffering Democrats. Several commenters have posted here about the relative lack of communication they have seen thus far from the Democratic ticket. The obvious reason for the imbalance is access to resources. Those shiny television ads touting Republicans like Jim Banks (while ignoring his offensive assaults on women and gay folks) are funded by the billionaires and their superPACs who stand to gain financially by a GOP victory. When Hoosier Democrats send their donations to campaigns in other states, where they think those dollars will make more of a difference, they play into Republican hands.

There is cause for hope, however. The recent change at the head of the national ticket, and the enormous outpouring of money and volunteers and enthusiasm for Kamala Harris has invigorated state-level tickets, too. (Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be as much misogyny as we saw when Hillary Clinton was the nominee–actually, women candidates may even have an advantage this year. Female voters may yet save America…)

Our fundraiser the other night raised close to our admittedly ambitious goal, and other scheduled events promise to match or exceed that amount. The Democrats running statewide in Indiana don’t need to match the millions that will be available to the GOP candidates who are wholly-owned by the plutocrats; they just need enough to communicate their positions to the voters. (And unlike state legislative candidates, statewide candidates cannot be gerrymandered by our self-serving legislators, which is a huge advantage.)

A timeless political theme is also appropriate here: it’s time for a change.

Indiana has been run by Republicans for some twenty years, and during that time, our economy has sputtered. We have a lower quality of life than our neighboring states. We have repeatedly failed to protect the most vulnerable of our citizens.  We’ve stripped women of their most fundamental right–the right to control their own bodies. Republicans in Indiana consistently work to benefit the haves and just as routinely ignore the needs of those  who have little. They criticise “welfare” while offering welfare to upper-middle class parents via vouchers, and welfare to businesses promising to locate here. (Evidently, it’s only “welfare” when it goes to “those people.”)

If you agree with me that it is definitely time for a change, donate to Jennifer. And vote Blue up and down the ballot.

Comments