Reform the Primaries and Save Democracy

The direct primary was a democratic reform instituted at the turn of the twentieth century so that the voters could choose their candidates and not be faced with choices in the election made in back rooms by party bosses. The idea worked well as long as voters paid attention and still works in the case of high visibility contests e.g. President (the Obama/Clinton primaries) or Governors and Senators and Congressmen.  But in many elections it has become simply another drag on the political system that in fact may be eroding popular belief in and support for the democratic system.

Yesterday, May 21 was Primary Day in Pennsylvania.  There was a statewide contest for Superior Court and many county and municipal as well as school district contests. The turnout of registered Democrats in my county of Delaware was 9%; in my borough of Folcroft 7%.  One can no longer make the argument that 10% or less of the registered party voters are measurably more democratic than having nominees chosen by party conventions (delegates often being chosen by the voters).

I believe that my state of Pennsylvania has a number of election law provisions that far from encouraging participation (which they were intended to do) actually help keep down the interest.  There are a number of practices used in other states that I believe might increase the popular participation in primaries in our state.

First would be to adopt the Oregon system of voting by mail - including fax and online and use that method of voting in primaries, particularly those in odd numbered years which have the lowest turnout.

Second would be to do away with cross-filing, which we now have in judicial and school director races. Instead of fostering bipartisanship in these contests it has created a system where money can now lock up both nominations and thereby end any choice in the general election.

Third would be to hold the primary after Labor Day with the general election in November. (This is done in many states including New York).  Interest is greater and petitioning and campaigning is done in the summer not the winter months.

Ballot access is important but allowing anyone with ten signatures to get on a local ballot hasn’t encouraged participation it has simply created a class of candidates who have no organization and little popular support so of course no turnout on primary day.  Let the political parties hold conventions, with requirements that assure popular voice in who attends, and then let any candidate who opposes the choice of the party get substantial signatures e.g. 5% of the party voters in the district to show that there is interest and organization behind the primary effort

Another reform would be to clear up the cluttered ballot by providing that when only one candidate is nominated or petitioned for a position (or the minimum number of candidates in a group contest) they are declared nominated and there is no need for a primary unless a write-in  candidate files a petition again with some signature requirement of substance.

Reduce the number of positions that need to be filled by providing for the appointment by the parties of the election inspectors (rather than their nomination and election) two per precinct per party with rotation as to Judge of Elections (e.g. odd number precincts a Democrat inspector as Judge of Elections and even number precincts a Republican Judge of Elections).  This would also have the added benefit of allowing the county board of elections to require the party to replace anyone who fails to attend training classes or messes up on voting day.

If we are save our democracy we need to streamline it and make it relevant to the culture of the twenty first century: elect offices that voters can relate to; use modern means of communication (e.g. mail, online, faxes) to allow voters to register and to cast their votes.  We can bemoan the lack of interest by the people in all these elections and we can insist that only those who show interest should be enabled to participate.  Or, we can recognize the changes in our culture that reduce participation in collective group activities and adjust our democratic system accordingly so that we retain democracy as the means by which our people govern themselves. Those who died in the wars since 1776 did so that their descendants and future generation would be free and enjoy liberty and equality.  They didn’t fight for a particular method of voting.  And since that Revolution there have been numerous changes in the way and when we vote and what we vote for. The changes at the turn of the twentieth century are no more sacred than the practices they changed were. To save democracy we may have to simplify and modernize and adjust to the convenience of the voter.

22 May 2013  

Establish a Religion - Nullify - Secede -- “There They Go Again”

A group of radical right-wing Tea Party Republicans in the North Carolina legislature has decided to move directly to dismantle the Union known as the United States of America.  They have proposed to adopt a state religion in contravention of the constitution of the United States and the traditions of liberty of conscience so strongly defended by Patrick Henry when he successfully fought the Virginia practice of taxing citizens to pay only Anglican (Episcopal) ministers.  Many of our ancestors came to the colonies to escape persecution in England and Europe because of their religious convictions.  Pilgrims, Puritans, Catholics, French Huguenots, Pennsylvania Dutch, Jews and later American Baptists and Methodists became strong advocates of freedom of conscience and the right of the individual to seek and worship God in his or her own way.

When the constitution was adopted in 1787/89 for the purpose of forming a more perfect union, than the one begun in 1781 with the Articles of Confederation, two states withheld their approval and others conditioned theirs on the subsequent introduction of amendments that would constitute a federal bill of rights.  As most of those rights were already enshrined in the post Revolution state constitutions the need was felt to restrict the federal government as the states already were.  The 1st Amendment to the Constitution and the first of the Bill of Rights proposed and adopted in 1789/91 began with the words “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.  Now these neo-politicians seize on the word Congress and say well we can establish a religion because we are a state. 

These same radical right wing Tea Party Republicans will tell you that states can’t adopt gun control nor can municipalities because of the 2nd Amendment.  So you see their way of reading the Constitution is when we want it to apply to the states or to the federal government it will and when we don’t it won’t.

After the Civil War the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution was adopted between 1866 and 1868.  The Supreme Court has held consistently since the adoption of that Amendment that the first section of that amendment applies the Bill of Rights to the state and local governments (unless their constitutions expand the rights even further).  The neo-pols of North Carolina should read Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment - “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States, nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws.” 

The North Carolina gang, of what Andrew Jackson would have called “Traitors”, seek to declare the right of the state to nullify any federal law they so desire to do and prevent it’s enforcement in that state.  In 1832 South Carolina tried this and when President Jackson threatened to hang them they backed down. Nullification quickly was replaced by Secession as the only way to stop the federal government from operating within a state.  In 1814 the Federalists of New England tried advocating Secession and their party imploded and disappeared. And, in 1861 when some states, including North Carolina (which by the way had joined the Union only when the Bill of Rights was going to be adopted) seceded, the United States led by then President Abraham Lincoln fought a great Civil War.  Over 600,000 men and boys, on both sides of the conflict, died in that war.  It was fought for two reasons: first, and primarily because this nation could not endure half slave and half free and, second because the vast majority of Americans believed in the Union and the One Nation it embodied.

When Americans died in the trenches of Europe during the First World War and when they landed and died on the beaches of Normandy they didn’t give their lives for North Carolina or Pennsylvania or Wyoming.  They died for their families, their freedoms and their country - the United States of America.  As long ago as the time of the American Revolution that great Virginia patriot Patrick Henry declaimed “We are not Massachusetts men, nor Yorkers nor Virginians we are Americans.”

We have a political system that allows those who would change laws and constitutions to do so peacefully by persuading the majority.  Those who would undermine that system as some tried in 1814 and again in 1832 and again in 1861 show no faith in the democratic system and total disdain for the principles of liberty that our Declaration of Independence so skillfully articulated. They may not be committing treason in the legal sense against this government but they are committing treason against our democratic values our principles of freedom and liberty and equality.  Foremost among those has been the freedom to practice or not practice a religion of one’s choice.  Our country has been free from the sectarian strife that has so bloodied other parts of the world.  Except for a brief war with Mormons in Missouri in 1838 the people of the United States have respected each other's religious freedom.  No one is forced to financially support a religion unless done voluntarily.  No one is required to attend a church unless they choose to do so of their own free will. 

The radical right wing Tea Party Republicans, sometime masquerading as Libertarians (which is the ultimate irony), have an agenda.  They wish to impose their own morality on all the citizenry.  They oppose marriage equality for LGBT citizens; they support restrictions on access to the franchise to discourage minorities and poor and elderly folks from voting; they enact restrictions on women’s access to reproductive health care; they would make a mockery of the words on the Statue of Liberty and if they could would restrict access to citizenship; they proclaim the 2nd amendment as a guarantee that citizens can combat a government that tries to infringe on their rights and then they attempt to infringe on all the other rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights.

I do not believe they will succeed.  I believe Americans will rally around the Bill of Rights and the Union as they did one hundred and fifty years ago.  I believe with Lincoln that they will take back this government from both the radical ideologue extremists and the moneyed interests and again restore a government of the people to the people.  I believe the American people will reject this radical right wing attempt to either breakdown the federal government in Washington DC, and end the many people helping programs adopted over the past two hundred years, or failing that to break down this Union.  The federal government, by the 14th Amendments’ application of the Bill of Rights to the individual states, will, as it has since the Jeffersonians defeated the Federalists, preserve and protect the liberties of the American people.   Lest these radical right wing Republicans forget it let me remind them that we are "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".

5 April 2013

LESSONS FROM THE ELECTION OF 2012 - NO REST FOR THE WINNERS

The first lesson liberals need to learn from the election of 2012 is that the battles are never over. The re-election of President Obama, the retention of the United States Senate and the increased Democratic presence in the House of Representatives does not mean that the Tea Party, the Libertarians and the Republican Party are in decline.  In 1964 with the incredible landslide re-election of President Johnson progressives prognosticated the demise of the Republican Party.  Four years later the Republicans took the White House and twelve years after that the Reagan Revolution began the war on the New Deal.  In 1936 the Republicans suffered their worst defeat since the Civil War - they didn’t go away.

Today the battles for gender equality, racial equality, women’s rights, voting rights, and governmental commitment to raising the standard of living of the poor and the elderly are still going on with strenuous efforts by a coalition of conservatives, Luddites and No-Nothings to repeal the twentieth century and return our country to the days of the Robber Barons immediately following the Civil War.

Women are being lulled to sleep with the deserved dream and hope that in 2016 the first woman will be elected President.  And, if Hillary Clinton runs that will most likely be the case.  But if she does not run what will women have done in 2013, 2014 and 2015 to increase the number of women in elected public office and the potential candidates for the nation's highest office in future Presidential elections.

This requires activity and commitment at every level.  In my communities, where I lead the local Democratic committee, we are running nine municipal and school board candidates and seven are women.  In the county I live in, Delaware County, Pennsylvania the most activity at the county level can be found in the Women’s Democratic Club and among the women elected officials.

While too many women wait for 2016 the yahoos in the states like North Dakota pass laws that will effectively negate Roe v. Wade and eliminate a woman’s right to determine all aspects of her reproductive health. 

While the nation focuses on the Supreme Court and the march toward marriage equality, (which when won will be another battle that will not end) Republican controlled states are passing laws for the express purpose of suppressing the constitutional equal protection of voters and reversing two hundred years of franchise expansion by substituting restrictions to make it more difficult and a more onerous task to vote.   These plots didn’t work in 2012 - but repeated every year they may stop resulting in backlash and result in apathetic compliance.

Democracy by its very nature means change can happen.  It also means that change can be undone and that generations that do not remember the reasons for change (for example the Great Depression leading to the New Deal programs to ameliorate the economic consequences of that catastrophe) may in fact support in the name of change undoing the earlier change (for example privatizing Social Security because today's generation doesn’t remember a time when the older folks had no income after retirement (didn’t have much retirement either.)

The battle for equal rights for African Americans was won in the 1960's but it is now being fought again.  It was first won in the 1860's and then lost in the 1880's.  It could be lost again.

The battle for equal rights for women was won in the 1970's with major court decisions.  Equal rights chipped away at become unequal treatment.  And that could happen now.

 In 1796 the Federalists revised the immigration laws to increase the number of years needed to become naturalized citizen form four to fourteen because the Europeans coming over in that decade were voting for the Jeffersonians.  Now there is a solid effort of the national Republican Party to prevent a path to citizenship for the twelve million undocumented residents in our country because that party believes that these persons wouldn’t vote for them.  (Personally I think they would have a better chance getting Latino votes if they treated them like first class citizens and passed comprehensive immigration reform)

Marriage Equality looks to be the great social reform of this decade and those of our citizens who find personal fulfillment in the love and commitment of someone of the same sex will have equal treatment with all others.  But it will become the next battle and will last as long as Democracy lasts.  Those opposed to marriage equality will continue to battle.  And if they see the equal rights won in the 60's, 70's and 80's undone they will be encouraged to fight to undo LGBT rights.

If anyone personified the political battles, often around social issues, of the decades between 1960 and 2010 it was the Senator from Massachusetts Edward M. Kennedy.  As he ended his quest for the Presidency in 1980, at a national Democratic convention I attended, he rallied the liberals of the party by reminding them that the cause endures and the dream never dies.  He also sounded the warning trumpet when he said “the work goes on”.

2 April 2013

Ed Koch The First "America's Mayor" I Knew.

During my career in politics in two states I’ve had the pleasure of working with two of America’s most effective and famous Mayors.  Ed Koch of New York City and Ed Rendell of Philadelphia, both of whom were born in the Bronx, a borough of NYC, but were raised and built their political careers elsewhere.  Both consummate political campaigners and they became the recognized symbols of their cities during the years they served. And, both were, while loyal Democrats, independent in their approach to government and willing to work with and sometimes assist officials from the other political party.

I met Ed Koch when he first ran for Mayor of New York City in 1977.  As a newly serving state assemblyman I stayed out of the fractious Democratic primary but when it resulted in a two person run-off I endorsed Koch.  He was an indefatigable campaigner.  He would walk into stores and shake hands with the customers.  He loved beauty parlors and the women sitting under their hair dryers were always both amazed and pleased.  He would enter a bank, especially on social security check day when there were lines for the tellers and he would shout out “This isn’t a hold up. It’s me Ed Koch and I’m running for Mayor.”  People loved it.  

I missed two opportunities to campaign with Koch.  Once in the summer of 1977 it was 104 degrees and he was going to walk the commercial strip of my home neighborhood - a fifteen block strip with no trees or shade.  I couldn’t do it.  He did.  And the second time was when after the primary I and a group of other leaders were preparing to endorse him for the run-off. Since his run-off opponent was from Queens he much wanted me there.  And I came for the press conference.  However my first daughter had just been born and I had a limited time to get back to the hospital.  Koch was late so I had to leave and get back to the hospital.  He was gracious enough to send flowers and always thereafter asked after her. 

Whenever I faced a primary contest he was always there to campaign for me.  As Mayor he was often irascible, he was sometimes infuriating, but, he was always independent. He kept his word when we differed he often tried to compromise. Once he asked Gov. Cuomo to veto a bill I had sponsored which was of tremendous importance to my neighborhood.  Cuomo obliged but said he would sign it the next year unless the Mayor compromised.  His staff wouldn't give in so we re-passed it and Cuomo signed it. At that point the Mayor sent a letter to my constituents saying I had passed the bill they wanted and done a great job for them.  He was in a word known to New Yorkers of all backgrounds a Mensch.

Once when we were campaigning in Astoria I told him he should take the show on the road and run for Governor.  He said “they’d never accept me upstate” Unfortunately, he didn’t listen to his own instincts; and, though almost the entire party establishment supported him he lost the gubernatorial primary to Mario Cuomo the man he had beaten in the Mayoral run-off.  Koch often joked that he was the only candidate who was 120 points ahead in the polls and then lost. He served twelve years as Mayor of New York City losing his fourth primary contest in 1989.

I had moved from NYC in 1987 to Delaware Co. PA.   Not living in Philadelphia all I knew of Ed Rendell was what I saw on the television news.  Until he ran for Governor and as Delaware County Democratic chairman I supported him for the party nomination.  Despite the long held belief that a Philadelphian couldn’t win statewide, Rendell did.  He defeated the front runner in the primary and then went on to win the general election against the Republican who was expected to beat the Philly Mayor.  He took his show on the road and the folks throughout the state reacted as did those in the suburbs - they loved him.  I remember his first foray into Nether Providence in our county at a house party where he told the assembled guests (none really active in politics) that as Mayor of Philadelphia he had visited a school in Tinicum (in our county not the city) and read to the school children.  The media dubbed him America’s Mayor he certainly was seen by the voters as Pennsylvania’s Mayor.

When Obama ran for President in 2008, Ed Koch offered to be a surrogate speaker. He came to Martin’s Run in Broomall to speak to a mostly Jewish audience about why they had nothing to worry about in Obama as President.  I saw him there and introduced him to the crowd.  He needed no introduction.  They all knew who he was and he did his usual stand-up terrific job. I’ve often thought that if I had the privilege of introducing Ed Rendell to a New York audience the same would be true - they would know who he was and he’d do a swell job. 

Ed Koch and Ed Rendell two Jewish boys who were born in the Bronx and then rose to be the symbols of the cities they grew up in and served for so long.  Neither was ever seen as a Jewish candidate. Both in their way transcended ethnicity and both surpassed partisanship. I knew one and know the other and campaigned for both. 

1 Feb. 2013