By STEPHEN LABATON
WASHINGTON — The mortgage industry, facing the prospect of tougher regulations for its central role in the housing crisis, has begun an intensive campaign to fight back.
As the Federal Reserve completes work on rules to root out abuses by lenders, its plan has run into a buzz saw of criticism from bankers, mortgage brokers and other parts of the housing industry. One common industry criticism is that at a time of tight credit, tighter rules could make many mortgages more expensive by creating more paperwork and potentially exposing lenders to more lawsuits.
To the chagrin of consumer groups that have complained that the proposed rules are not strong enough, the industry’s criticism has already prompted the Fed to consider narrowing the scope of the plan so it applies to fewer loans.
The debate over new mortgage standards comes in response to a severe crisis in the housing and financial markets that many economists trace back to overly loose credit and abusive loans. Those practices, combined with low interest rates, led to inflated market values that have declined rapidly in recent months as investors have begun to lose confidence in the financial instruments tied to those loans.
Four months ago, the Fed proposed the new standards on exotic mortgages and high-cost loans for people with weak credit. The Fed’s proposals came after it was criticized sharply as a captive of the mortgage lending industry that had failed over many years to supervise it adequately.
Proposals are pending in Congress on mortgage standards, but it is not clear whether they will be adopted this year. The Fed has its own authority under housing and lending laws to adopt mortgage standards.
The plan presented by the Fed was proposed by its chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, and Randall S. Kroszner, a former White House economist in the Bush administration who is now a Fed governor and leads the Fed’s consumer and community affairs committee.
The plan would not cover existing mortgages but would apply only to new ones. It would force mortgage companies to show that customers can realistically afford their mortgages. It would require lenders to disclose the hidden fees often rolled into interest payments. And it would prohibit certain types of advertising considered misleading.
The Fed is expected to issue final rules this summer.
Earlier this month, as the comment period was about to close, the Fed was deluged with more than 5,000 comments, mostly from lenders who said the proposals could affect loans that have not presented problems. Some bankers and brokers also said the rules would discourage them from lending to some creditworthy borrowers.
The plan was criticized in separate filings by three of the industry’s most influential trade groups — the American Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers Association and the Independent Community Bankers of America. More modest concerns about some of the provisions were also raised by the National Association of Home Builders and the National Association of Realtors.
Regulators have been meeting about the proposals with bankers, brokers and consumer groups in recent weeks and are continuing to do so.
Some of the groups seeking changes maintain that the proposals threaten to make borrowing for a home far more expensive and would unfairly deny mortgage brokers the right to earn certain fees.
Small community banks, which have played no significant role in the housing crisis, have urged the Fed to limit the scope of the proposed rules so that they do not discourage them from issuing loans. Lending groups have also raised concern that they would lead to frivolous and expensive litigation.
“We support many of the provisions in the proposed rule, but we do have concerns about the increased regulatory burden, liability and reputational risks that lenders might face,” said Kieran P. Quinn, chairman of Column Financial, Credit Suisse’s mortgage lending subsidiary in Atlanta, and the chairman of the Mortgage Bankers Association.
On at least one major aspect of the proposed restrictions — how broadly they should apply — the industry appears to be making headway. In a recent speech, Mr. Kroszner suggested that in response to criticism that the plan was including too many kinds of loans the Fed was considering whether to narrow the plan.
“We have heard from commenters who have expressed concern that in the current market environment, the proposed trigger could cover the market too broadly, and we will carefully consider the issues they raise and other possible approaches to achieve our objective,” Mr. Kroszner said last month at a conference of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals.
Before this year, the Fed had applied an extra set of protection from abusive lending practices to a subset of subprime borrowers under the Home Ownership Equity Protection Act of 1994. The Fed has applied the law to fewer than 1 percent of all mortgages — those with interest rates at least eight percentage points above prevailing rates on Treasury securities.
Some economists and housing experts say the Fed’s lax oversight helped enable lending companies to reap enormous profits by providing millions of unsuitable and abusive loans to homeowners who often did not fully understand the terms or appreciate their risk.
As of January, the most recent month of available data, about a quarter of all subprime adjustable mortgages were delinquent, twice the level of the same period last year. Lenders began foreclosure proceedings on about 190,000 of these mortgages in the last three months of 2007.
The new rules would apply extra protection to any mortgage with an interest rate three percentage points above Treasury rates. Officials said that they would cover all subprime loans, which accounted for about a quarter of all mortgages last year as well as many exotic mortgages known in the industry as “Alt-A” loans.
These loans are made to people with relatively good credit scores but who might provide little documentation of their income or assets, or who make smaller than usual down payments or purchase loans that have unusual terms, like interest-only payments for an initial period.
Many mortgage brokers and bankers complain that the lower threshold would unnecessarily include many borrowers who are not at risk from abusive practices.
“There are a lot of community banks that have shied away from these loans because nobody wants to be a higher-priced lender,” said Karen Thomas, a lobbyist for the Independent Community Bankers. “With the trigger being set so low, it is encroaching on traditional, common sense mortgages. Our fear is it will result in less credit availability, which is not what we need in an already tight credit market.”
But consumer groups say that the proposed rules are already weak and that efforts to further weaken them would render them all but useless.
“The Fed has accurately diagnosed that this is a brain tumor and responded by prescribing an aspirin,” said Kathleen E. Keest, a former state regulator who is now a senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, a group supporting home ownership. “In the industry, there is a fair amount of denial. They just don’t get it. There is a calamity within the industry, and they don’t have a new script yet, so they rely on the old script, which is that regulation will raise costs.”
But, she went on, “What we now see is that the unintended consequences of deregulation are worse. Their line is that regulation will cut back access to credit. That’s been their line ever since the small loan laws were adopted in the early 1900s.”
At the same time, letters urging the Fed to further tighten the rules were sent by Sheila C. Bair, the Republican head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, as well as senior members of the House Financial Services Committee.
In her letter, Ms. Bair, whose agency regulates many banks, urged the Fed to apply the proposed restrictions to loans that are three percentage points or higher than equivalent Treasuries. To prevent lenders from evading the limit by creatively structuring the loan and fees, she also suggested that the Fed impose the tighter restrictions if the loan fees exceeded a dollar amount.
While the Fed plan would require disclosures that could make it harder for lenders to include hidden sales fees that are usually paid to the mortgage broker, Ms. Bair suggested that the plan go further and ban some practices.
The plan, for instance, would require subprime lenders to explicitly describe fees that are now hidden. But Ms. Bair has proposed the elimination of such fees, saying such a ban would “eliminate compensation based on increasing the cost of credit and make the amount of the compensation more transparent to consumers.”
Ms. Bair also proposed making it easier for borrowers to sue lenders without having to show that they were engaged in a pattern of abusive practices, which is a requirement under the proposed Fed rules. She said that forcing borrowers to show a pattern of abuse “clearly favors lenders by limiting the number of individual consumer lawsuits and the ability of regulators to pursue individual violations.”
Ms. Bair also recommended that the Fed eliminate a so-called safe harbor provision in the proposal that protects lenders who fail to verify the income or assets of a borrower in some circumstances.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/business/28mortgage.html?exprod=myyahoo
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Monday, April 28, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Carter says Secretary Rice "not telling truth"
By Matthew Bigg
04/23/08
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of not telling the truth about warnings she said her department gave Carter not to speak to Hamas before a Middle East trip.
The State Department has said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, issued the warning before Carter, a veteran of Middle East diplomacy, went on his trip last week.
Rice said in Kuwait on Tuesday: "We counseled President Carter against going to the region and particularly against having contact with Hamas."
"President Carter has the greatest respect for ... Rice and believes her to be a truthful person. However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true," a statement issued by the Carter center in Atlanta said on Wednesday.
"No one in the State Department or any other department of the U.S. government ever asked him (Carter) to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President (Bashar) Assad or leaders of Hamas," it said.
It said Carter attempted to call Rice before making the trip and a deputy returned his call since Rice was in Europe.
"They had a very pleasant discussion for about 15 minutes, during which he never made any of the negative or cautionary comments described above. He never talked to anyone else," the statement said.
Carter had already on Monday, in an interview with National Public Radio, described as "absolutely false" any suggestion he had been warned not to meet Hamas.
"PRIVATE CITIZEN"
"The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we certainly told President Carter that we did not think that meeting with Hamas was going to help the Palestinians," Rice said Tuesday while attending a conference in Kuwait.
The White House backed Rice and said events after Carter's meeting showed Hamas' true character.
Carter "is a private citizen and he made a decision to not comply with what the State Department asked him to do," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters on Wednesday.
Perino made an apparent reference to an attack on Saturday in which a Palestinian suicide bomber and two other gunmen were killed when they attacked a border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, wounding 13 Israeli soldiers.
"Actions speak louder than words," said Perino of Hamas.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, is viewed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
Carter, who met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria over the weekend, is trying to draw the Islamist group into peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
But Rice and other senior U.S. officials are concerned that Carter's meeting could confuse U.S.-brokered peace talks already moving at a slow pace between Abbas and Olmert.
Hamas won a 2006 election and briefly formed a unity government with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It seized control of Gaza from Abbas' secular Fatah faction in fighting in June.
(Editing by Tom Brown)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080423/pl_nm/palestinians_israel_carter_dc
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited
04/23/08
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter on Wednesday accused Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of not telling the truth about warnings she said her department gave Carter not to speak to Hamas before a Middle East trip.
The State Department has said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Welch, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, issued the warning before Carter, a veteran of Middle East diplomacy, went on his trip last week.
Rice said in Kuwait on Tuesday: "We counseled President Carter against going to the region and particularly against having contact with Hamas."
"President Carter has the greatest respect for ... Rice and believes her to be a truthful person. However, perhaps inadvertently, she is continuing to make a statement that is not true," a statement issued by the Carter center in Atlanta said on Wednesday.
"No one in the State Department or any other department of the U.S. government ever asked him (Carter) to refrain from his recent visit to the Middle East or even suggested that he not meet with Syrian President (Bashar) Assad or leaders of Hamas," it said.
It said Carter attempted to call Rice before making the trip and a deputy returned his call since Rice was in Europe.
"They had a very pleasant discussion for about 15 minutes, during which he never made any of the negative or cautionary comments described above. He never talked to anyone else," the statement said.
Carter had already on Monday, in an interview with National Public Radio, described as "absolutely false" any suggestion he had been warned not to meet Hamas.
"PRIVATE CITIZEN"
"The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we certainly told President Carter that we did not think that meeting with Hamas was going to help the Palestinians," Rice said Tuesday while attending a conference in Kuwait.
The White House backed Rice and said events after Carter's meeting showed Hamas' true character.
Carter "is a private citizen and he made a decision to not comply with what the State Department asked him to do," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters on Wednesday.
Perino made an apparent reference to an attack on Saturday in which a Palestinian suicide bomber and two other gunmen were killed when they attacked a border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel, wounding 13 Israeli soldiers.
"Actions speak louder than words," said Perino of Hamas.
Hamas, which controls Gaza, is viewed as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
Carter, who met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Syria over the weekend, is trying to draw the Islamist group into peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
But Rice and other senior U.S. officials are concerned that Carter's meeting could confuse U.S.-brokered peace talks already moving at a slow pace between Abbas and Olmert.
Hamas won a 2006 election and briefly formed a unity government with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. It seized control of Gaza from Abbas' secular Fatah faction in fighting in June.
(Editing by Tom Brown)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080423/pl_nm/palestinians_israel_carter_dc
Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited
Irregular Times Progressive Ratings for Rep. Kenny Marchant of TX District 24
Representative Kenny Marchant
Republican of Texas District 24
Phone: 225-6605 This resource brought to you by
Irregular Times
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Progressive Action Score: 10
A score of 10 means that Rep. Marchant has acted to support 10% of a slate of progressive policies in the 110th Congress. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The record of Kenny Marchant is hardly perfect. Instances in which Rep. Marchant failed to live up to progressive standards in politics include the following:
Rep. Kenny Marchant failed to vote against the ironically named Protect America Act. The Protect America Act is a law now passed by both houses of Congress which replaces judicial warrants with executive prerogative and substitutes blank checks for reasons. The Protect America Act gives the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence the power to spy on your emails, your web surfing, your telephone calls and other electronic communications. All this is carried out without a warrant, which is required by the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
There is no supervision of the spy programs put in place by Gonzales and McConnell, except by Gonzales and McConnell. No one has the power to stop them any more. They can search your records, sift through your private messages, watch you go from web page to web page, on the pretext of protecting America from terrorists, all without a search warrant. No one has the power to tell them no.
Gonzales and McConnell have the power under the Protect America Act to order any American to help them conduct their electronic spying against other Americans. Under the new law, if they order you to take part in their spying operations, and you say no, they can throw you in prison. If you do not keep their spying on other Americans a secret, even from your family, they can throw you in prison.
The Protect America Act institutes Big Brother government in the United States. It betrays American liberty. And Representative Marchant failed to vote against it.
When the Head Start program of early childhood education came up for reauthorization in May of 2007, Rep. Howard McKeon tried to offer an amendment that would provide special permission for religious organizations to engage in employment discrimination when using government-provided funds to hire Head Start Workers. That sounds complicated, but what it boils down to is that the McKeon amendment would have let churches take government money to hire workers for the government-funded Head Start program, and yet refuse to hire particular workers because they were from the "wrong" religion.
The Head Start program is not a religious program in its content, so there is no substantive reason for this discrimination to occur. If churches want to run a preschool and discriminate on the basis of religion, they can already do so -- they just have to pay for it themselves. If churches want to grab government money to run a government program, on the other hand, then the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is perfectly clear -- government resources can't be used to establish advantages for a religion or its adherents.
The McKeon amendment would have let government resources be used to discriminate against people who were not religiously correct. It fortunately was rejected in a roll-call vote. But Rep. Kenny Marchant didn't help in that regard. By failing to vote against the McKeon amendment, Rep. Marchant showed a disregard for the constitutional basis of American government.
For more than three decades, the United States has been a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, better known as the Non-Proliferation treaty. This treaty requires the United States to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." George W. Bush has been fond of using images of mushroom clouds and nuclear proliferation to push the country into war. Yet under George W. Bush, the United States has failed to pursue negotiations in good, middling or even bad faith on nuclear arms or nuclear disarmament, marking a violation of this treaty which is essential to international peace.
H.Res. 68 is a bill that calls on President Bush to issue a report indicating the means by which the United States will meet its numerous, legally-binding treaty obligations. Asking the president to obey the law seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, not according to Representative Marchant, who has failed to cosponsor this bill. When you get the chance, please contract Rep. Marchant and ask what gives.
We are surrounded... surrounded! There is no way to escape. I am not talking about terrorists here. I am talking about the oceans. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together provide our longest borders, and what happens to them rains down on us sooner or later. But despite our dependence on the good nature of our oceans, our nation is by action or lack of action allowing great disturbances to be wreaked upon them. Fisheries are being depleted. Algal blooms from our national runoff result in huge dead zones. And we remain trapped in impotent hope, year after year, as we wait to see which of our overpopulated floodplains will be battered by ocean storms next. In the face of these threats, our ocean policy remains fragmented and uncoordinated. That is what real Homeland Insecurity looks like, and that is what H.R. 21 attempts to ameliorate, by increasing coordination of agencies on policy issues related to our oceans and initiating research and action programs to learn more about our most porous border regions and reduce our collective vulnerability to biological, meteorological and military threats from them. Kenny Marchant is not yet on board, apparently failing to recognize the looming threats to our well-being based in oceanic neglect. Read H.R. 21 for yourself, then contact Rep. Marchant with a call to cosponsorship of this real national security legislation.
There are valid disagreements reasonable people might have about the moral and mental status of living things. Some vegans, on the one hand, might argue against harming any animal. Others of us do not feel much bother about slipping a hook into a worm for a bit of fishing. But it is clear that birds have a high degree of awareness and can feel great pain. You might argue that some pain among birds is necessary for the generation of food. But when that pain is wholly unnecessary, who can support its continuation?
H.R. 137 was a bill put before the Congress which declared it "unlawful for any person to knowingly sell, buy, transport, or deliver in interstate or foreign commerce a knife, a gaff, or any other sharp instrument attached, or designed or intended to be attached, to the leg of a bird for use in an animal fighting venture." In more brief terms, it outlawed the tools used solely for cockfighting, the ritual mutilation of birds for sport.
H.R. 137 passed on a 368-39 vote, with the vast majority of members of Congress recognizing the needlessness of this particular brand of animal torture. But Kenny Marchant failed to cast a YES vote, showing a disturbing disregard for the unnecessary suffering of other living beings.
Some bills really are no-brainers. In April 2006, the U.S. Senate ratified the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, which requires the emissions of some ozone-depleting greenhouse gases from oceangoing ships to be limited through regulation. H.R. 802 is a bill that would simply enact the changes necessary for the United States to live up to this treaty and reduce maritime pollution. What could be simpler and more sensible? But Rep. Marchant stood in the way of the rule of law and sensible environmental progress by failing to vote for this bill.
Any reasonable person who believes that trust in America's democratic institutions is important can see the value in being able to determine with assurance how a person has voted. It should be a matter of common sense, for instance, that when an electronic voting machine malfunctions and loses votes (as has happened in the past), a backup paper record of the actions of the machine would help elections officials set things right and make sure that every person's vote has been counted. Yet today, despite a history of malfunctioning electronic voting machines, there is no requirement for a backup paper trail. It's as easy as attaching a printer to a voting machine. It's a matter of simple common sense for those who are interested in reliable verifiable, democracy. So why has Congressperson Marchant failed to lend formal support to H.R. 811, a bill which would require the establishment of such a paper trail? It's a mystery to me. Ask Congressperson Marchant to leave a verifiable paper trail of support for H.R. 811 -- in the Congress, that's called cosponsorship.
H.R. 897 is a bill before the House of Representatives that would "require the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Interior, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to provide to Congress copies and descriptions of contracts and task orders in excess of $5,000,000 for work to be performed in Iraq and Afghanistan." When Republicans controlled the Congress, they killed efforts to uncover corporate corruption and war profiteering. If there is really nothing going on with the contracts, then why is there a problem with looking at those contracts? Only those who think there is a problem and want to hide the problem could be opposed to Congressional oversight. Kenny Marchant apparently is comfortable with something being hidden, since the name of Rep. Marchant does not currently appear in cosponsorship of this legislation. Contact Rep. Marchant and ask why.
H.R. 2620, The Child Soldier Prevention Act, prohibits the government of the United States of America from providing military aid to any foreign government that uses child soldiers in its military, paramilitary forces, or other official or sanctioned armed groups. The Child Soldier Prevention Act also requires the Executive Branch to research and publish reports on the use of child soldiers around the world, providing important information that can be used to more effectively counter the use child soldiers.
There are some clauses that make the bill less strong than it could be. One gives the President of the United States to issue a waiver to the law when he decides that giving military aid to a government that uses child soldiers is in the interest of the United States. However, the President is required to register every such waiver, and report on the justifications for each waiver to the Senate and to the House of Representatives. Another clause permits support for armies that recruit volunteer child soldiers as young as 16 -- because that's what the U.S. Military currently does.
These clauses make the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007 an imperfect piece of legislation, but it's pretty darned good, and it's the only legislation to even address the issue. It is therefore a piece of legislation that all decent Americans ought to be willing to support, regardless of political party affiliation.
So why hasn't Representative Marchant offered cosponsorship of even this mild, unobjectionable bill? Something seems askew with Representative Marchant's priorities.
Back in February, Congressman Tom Lantos introduced a bill to the US House of Representatives called the Advance Democracy Act of 2007. It is registered by the Library of Congress as H.R. 982. The legislation would:
Establish a Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor within the Department of State
Create positions for Democracy Liaison Officers in the Department of State
Require the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, the Directory of National Intelligence to monitor and document the flow of money within the United States from foreign nondemocratic governments
Establish a Democracy Fellowship Program to encourage coordination between Congress and the Department of State on matters related to the promotion of democratic institutions around the world
Create two studies by the Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion to evaluate the ways in which organizations are working around the world to promote democracy, and understand how the Department of State can better help these organizations
Create a government web site dedicated to global democracy and human rights
Develop pro-democratic programs by the United States missions in nondemocratic nations and nations transitioning to democracy
Provide funds for an International Center for Democratic Transition, dedicated to helping nations move from dictatorship to democracy. The center has already been proposed by the government of Hungary, and has the support of other European nations
Strengthen the Human Rights and Democracy Fund, already in place
Give new energy to the effort to create a Democracy Caucus within the General Assembly of the United Nations
Require the White House to use the Department of State and the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues to investigate violations of international humanitarian law by the leaders of other nations
Promoting democracy around the world without dropping bombs on anybody. What a radical idea.
The Advance Democracy Act of 2007 has a number of co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, but unfortunately Kenny Marchant is not among them. Please make a call and ask Representative Marchant to co-sponsor of the Advance Democracy Act of 2007.
H.R. 1255, a bill that passed the house on a vote of 333-93 in the House of Representatives, was the work of a large congressional majority which believes that White House records belong ultimately to the people of the United States. When he entered office, George W. Bush issued an edict which assigned past presidents and their heirs the right to do with presidential records what they personally saw fit. This is a recipe for historically disastrous revisionism. H.R. 1255 reverses the Bush edict, returning the ownership of presidential records to the people of the United States and making them available (after a period of time) for complete and accurate, not gauzily redacted, historical research. Representative Marchant failed to vote for this bill, prioritizing the prerogatives of those in power above the historical value of accuracy and the political value of openness.
H.R. 1257 is a bill that, if signed into law, would simply permit shareholders in a public corporation -- aka the owners -- to cast an advisory, non-binding vote approving or disapproving of executive pay packages. H.R. 1257 would also allow shareholders to vote their non-binding approval or disapproval of Golden Parachutes, the gigantic pay packages corporate executives often give themselves as a condition of being fired for poor performance. Who would not support the idea of the owners of a corporation being able to publicly express their position on executive pay and severance packages? Only those who have an interest in keeping executive pay and severance packages hushed up. Kenny Marchant failed to vote for this bill when it came up for a roll call vote. Why is Representative Marchant interested in hushing up executive pay and severance packages? Ask Representative Marchant.
H.R. 1309, a bill that has passed the House on a vote of 308-117, removes the authoritarian stain placed on the government of the United States shortly after George W. Bush took office -- well, at least one of them. It used to be that citizens could access government documents through the Freedom of Information Act unless the government could affirmatively demonstrate the need for the document to remain private. George W. Bush changed that with an executive order in 2001, mandating that unless a citizen affirmatively demonstrated a lack of national security reasons for the disclosure of a document, the government could keep its documents off-limits. This is another authoritarian step in a nation founded on principles of openness and liberty. Kenny Marchant failed to vote for this bill. Rep. Marchant made a most unfortunate stand against openness in favor of authoritarianism.
H.R. 1415 is a bill before the House to repeal many of the most onerous features of the Military Commissions Act. If passed, some of its main acts would be to:
Restore the right of habeas corpus for people detained by the U.S.
Narrow the definition of the MCA term "unlawful enemy combatant" to individuals who directly participate in attacks against the United States.
Let United States detainees invoke the ethical codes of the Geneva Conventions again.
Let U.S. detainees obtain a civilian lawyer for their defense.
Prohibit the use of evidence garnered through torture.
Prohibit the use of hearsay, upon the discretion of a judge.
Let juries know how statements were obtained from detainees.
Permit federal appeals courts to review the decisions of military commissions.
In short, H.R. 1415 would restore respect for the Constitution and a modicum of humanity to the government of the United States. Sadly, Kenny Marchant has failed to recognize how important the restoration of constitutional standards are to our country. Perhaps Rep. Marchant ought to review the congressional oath of office again.
In late March of 2007, Representative James McGovern of Massachussets introduced H.R. 1755, the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007, to the United States Senate. The law forbids the United States government from spending money to use, sell or transfer cluster bombs unless the following requirements are met:
1. The cluster bombs are proven to have a 1 percent or lower rate of malfunction
2. The cluster bombs will not be used against anything but a clearly defined military target, in an area where there are no civilians and in places where civilians do not ordinarily live
3. A plan is submitted, with the costs included, for cleaning up all the undetonated explosives that come from cluster bombs, whether they are used by the US military, or by other countries to whom the United States has supplied the cluster bombs
There is a waiver in the law for the first requirement (for the malfunctioning rate of 1 percent or lower), in cases in which it is "vital" to use cluster bombs in order to protect the security of the United States. However, even in such cases, the President is required to submit a report to Congress which explains how civilians will be protected from the cluster bombs, and revealing the failure rate of the cluster bombs, as well as whether the cluster bombs are equipped with self-destruct functions.
The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act is not a perfect law. We are not too fond of that waiver. However, the law is a big improvement over the status quo. Right now, there's nothing to stop the United States from using cluster bombs, as it did during the invasion of Iraq, or selling them for other countries to use, as was done last year with the cluster bombs that Israel used against the civilian population of Lebanon.
The thing that makes cluster bombs so much worse than ordinary bombs is that they have a high failure rate, combined with a high number of small bombs that are spread over large areas of land by the larger bombs in which they are originally obtained. Cluster bombs are designed to kill people, not to damage buildings or roads. Like land mines, they continue to kill people long after the battle in which they were used. It is typical for a large number of these smaller bombs to remain undetonated, waiting to explode, after their initial deployment. The Federation of American Scientists reports: "Studies that show 40 percent of the duds on the ground are hazardous and for each encounter with an unexploded submunition there is a 13 percent probability of detonation. Thus, even though an unexploded submunition is run over, kicked, stepped on, or otherwise disturbed, and did not detonate, it is not safe. Handling the unexploded submunition may eventually result in arming and subsequent detonation."
Cluster bombs kill civilians when they are used. Our government knows this, and yet our government continues to manufacture, use and sell cluster bombs to foreign countries.
Representative McGovern deserves our thanks for introducing the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act to the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, Rep. Kenny Marchant has failed to date to support this bill and the effort behind it. Who could stand for the continuation of cluster bomb civilian death? We cannot say, but we do know that through inaction Rep. Marchant has decided to passively sit for it.
One of the historic firsts of the United States was the rejection of taxation without representation. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why the USA is independent of Great Britain today. H.R. 1905, a bill that has passed on a vote of 241-177 in the House of Representatives, fits in that historical context. If signed by George W. Bush, the bill will provide for congressional representation to the residents of the District of Columbia, who pay taxes just like you and me but who have no voting voice in Congress. Kenny Marchant failed to vote for this bill. According Rep. Marchant, these citizens should not have a voice in government.
A bedrock principle of American progressivism is the right of the individual to self-determination. A person should be able to choose how to govern their own body, not some Big Daddy government. H.R. 1964 defends individual autonomy with the declaration that "It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman," and with the institution of a variety of policies to ensure this policy is enacted. Kenny Marchant has to date failed to support this bill through cosponsorship. If you believe Congress ought to defend the individual against patronizing government intrusion, please contact Rep Marchant and ask when cosponsorship of H.R. 1964 is going to happen.
Right Wing Index Score: 67
A score of 67 means that Representative Marchant has acted to support 67% of a slate of conservative, wrongheaded policies in the 110th Congress.
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Regressive, destructive, and downright unAmerican actions Representative Marchant has taken that contribute to a Right Wing Index Score of 67:
Rep. Kenny Marchant voted YES to pass the ironically named Protect America Act. The Protect America Act is a law now passed by both houses of Congress which replaces judicial warrants with executive prerogative and substitutes blank checks for reasons. The Protect America Act gives the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence the power to spy on your emails, your web surfing, your telephone calls and other electronic communications. All this is carried out without a warrant, which is required by the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
There is no supervision of the spy programs put in place by Gonzales and McConnell, except by Gonzales and McConnell. No one has the power to stop them any more. They can search your records, sift through your private messages, watch you go from web page to web page, on the pretext of protecting America from terrorists, all without a search warrant. No one has the power to tell them no.
Gonzales and McConnell have the power under the Protect America Act to order any American to help them conduct their electronic spying against other Americans. Under the new law, if they order you to take part in their spying operations, and you say no, they can throw you in prison. If you do not keep their spying on other Americans a secret, even from your family, they can throw you in prison.
The Protect America Act institutes Big Brother government in the United States. It betrays American liberty. And Representative Marchant voted for it.
Two bills, H.R. 769 and H.R. 997 stand ready to declare English the official language of the nation. Although they differ from each other in some specifics, both bills mandate that government business be carried out in English, and that the government presume citizens are fluent in English when engaging with them. This is a change from an inclusive government to an exclusive one, and it is a violation of the principle of equal protection under the law -- a principle explicitly contained in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Representative Marchant has given support to both bills.,
Just because Rep. Marchant seems to have some kind of personal problem with funny-looking "ethnic" people who speak a different language than English does not mean that such prejudice should be pushed on the rest of the country. The United States of America has always been a nation of multiple origins, multiple cultures and multiple languages. Legislating diversity away will not make it disappear. On the contrary, this legislation will only divide the nation into a privileged English-speaking clique and an untouchable caste of non-English speakers who are denied access to government, to civic participation, and even to the private workplace. This is not what America stands for. Shame on you, Kenny Marchant, for ignoring the principles of the U.S. Constitution and demeaning the standard of openness that has made this country great.
The way that U.S. citizenship works is pretty simple when you get down to it: if you are born in this country, you are a citizen. Leave it to Representative Kenny Marchant to come up with a way to change that. Representative Marchant has decided to support H.R. 1940, which would deny citizenship to American-born babies if their parents are not themselves citizens. Such a change would move us toward the German model of citizenship, in which families who have lived in Germany for generations were denied citizenship because they lacked the so-called "virtue" of a German bloodline.
When the Head Start program of early childhood education came up for reauthorization in May of 2007, Rep. Howard McKeon tried to offer an amendment that would provide special permission for religious organizations to engage in employment discrimination when using government-provided funds to hire Head Start Workers. That sounds complicated, but what it boils down to is that the McKeon amendment would have let churches take government money to hire workers for the government-funded Head Start program, and yet refuse to hire particular workers because they were from the "wrong" religion.
The Head Start program is not a religious program in its content, so there is no substantive reason for this discrimination to occur. If churches want to run a preschool and discriminate on the basis of religion, they can already do so -- they just have to pay for it themselves. If churches want to grab government money to run a government program, on the other hand, then the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is perfectly clear -- government resources can't be used to establish advantages for a religion or its adherents.
The McKeon amendment would have let government resources be used to discriminate against people who were not religiously correct. It fortunately was rejected in a roll-call vote. But Rep. Kenny Marchant didn't help in that regard. By voting YES for the McKeon amendment, Rep. Marchant showed an active disregard for the constitutional basis of American government.
Productive and forward-looking actions Representative Marchant has taken to merit a Progressive Action Score of 10:
World Water Day, celebrated on March 22, has a simple point: People ought to have sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation. This means that water pollution, through poor infrastructure as well as through disgusting policies like the Bush White House�s promotion of blending undertreated sewage into sources of drinking water, needs to brought under control.
It has been 14 years since World Water Day was begun, but sadly, the environmentalist holiday is not yet being widely observed. In all the United States, there are only eight officially scheduled World Water Day events. Canada beats us, with eleven events.
H.Res. 196 tries to turn this trajectory of indifference around, declaring support for the goals and ideals of World Water Day. Representative Marchant has added one more measure of personal momentum to the movement by voting for this legislation.
Rep. Kenny Marchant voted YES for H.R. 2, a bill to increase the minimum wage, which is currently at its lowest point since the 1950s. The bill was not dedicated to raising the the minimum wage to new highs. It would only have returned the minimum wage to a level comparable to that of the 1980s, which is in turn much lower than the minimum wage level of the late 1960s. Thanks to Representative Marchant for at least giving America's workers the respect that they deserved 20 years ago.
http://progressivepatriots.com/house/MarchantTX24.html
Republican of Texas District 24
Phone: 225-6605 This resource brought to you by
Irregular Times
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Progressive Action Score: 10
A score of 10 means that Rep. Marchant has acted to support 10% of a slate of progressive policies in the 110th Congress. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The record of Kenny Marchant is hardly perfect. Instances in which Rep. Marchant failed to live up to progressive standards in politics include the following:
Rep. Kenny Marchant failed to vote against the ironically named Protect America Act. The Protect America Act is a law now passed by both houses of Congress which replaces judicial warrants with executive prerogative and substitutes blank checks for reasons. The Protect America Act gives the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence the power to spy on your emails, your web surfing, your telephone calls and other electronic communications. All this is carried out without a warrant, which is required by the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
There is no supervision of the spy programs put in place by Gonzales and McConnell, except by Gonzales and McConnell. No one has the power to stop them any more. They can search your records, sift through your private messages, watch you go from web page to web page, on the pretext of protecting America from terrorists, all without a search warrant. No one has the power to tell them no.
Gonzales and McConnell have the power under the Protect America Act to order any American to help them conduct their electronic spying against other Americans. Under the new law, if they order you to take part in their spying operations, and you say no, they can throw you in prison. If you do not keep their spying on other Americans a secret, even from your family, they can throw you in prison.
The Protect America Act institutes Big Brother government in the United States. It betrays American liberty. And Representative Marchant failed to vote against it.
When the Head Start program of early childhood education came up for reauthorization in May of 2007, Rep. Howard McKeon tried to offer an amendment that would provide special permission for religious organizations to engage in employment discrimination when using government-provided funds to hire Head Start Workers. That sounds complicated, but what it boils down to is that the McKeon amendment would have let churches take government money to hire workers for the government-funded Head Start program, and yet refuse to hire particular workers because they were from the "wrong" religion.
The Head Start program is not a religious program in its content, so there is no substantive reason for this discrimination to occur. If churches want to run a preschool and discriminate on the basis of religion, they can already do so -- they just have to pay for it themselves. If churches want to grab government money to run a government program, on the other hand, then the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is perfectly clear -- government resources can't be used to establish advantages for a religion or its adherents.
The McKeon amendment would have let government resources be used to discriminate against people who were not religiously correct. It fortunately was rejected in a roll-call vote. But Rep. Kenny Marchant didn't help in that regard. By failing to vote against the McKeon amendment, Rep. Marchant showed a disregard for the constitutional basis of American government.
For more than three decades, the United States has been a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, better known as the Non-Proliferation treaty. This treaty requires the United States to "pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." George W. Bush has been fond of using images of mushroom clouds and nuclear proliferation to push the country into war. Yet under George W. Bush, the United States has failed to pursue negotiations in good, middling or even bad faith on nuclear arms or nuclear disarmament, marking a violation of this treaty which is essential to international peace.
H.Res. 68 is a bill that calls on President Bush to issue a report indicating the means by which the United States will meet its numerous, legally-binding treaty obligations. Asking the president to obey the law seems like a no-brainer, right? Well, not according to Representative Marchant, who has failed to cosponsor this bill. When you get the chance, please contract Rep. Marchant and ask what gives.
We are surrounded... surrounded! There is no way to escape. I am not talking about terrorists here. I am talking about the oceans. The Atlantic and Pacific Oceans together provide our longest borders, and what happens to them rains down on us sooner or later. But despite our dependence on the good nature of our oceans, our nation is by action or lack of action allowing great disturbances to be wreaked upon them. Fisheries are being depleted. Algal blooms from our national runoff result in huge dead zones. And we remain trapped in impotent hope, year after year, as we wait to see which of our overpopulated floodplains will be battered by ocean storms next. In the face of these threats, our ocean policy remains fragmented and uncoordinated. That is what real Homeland Insecurity looks like, and that is what H.R. 21 attempts to ameliorate, by increasing coordination of agencies on policy issues related to our oceans and initiating research and action programs to learn more about our most porous border regions and reduce our collective vulnerability to biological, meteorological and military threats from them. Kenny Marchant is not yet on board, apparently failing to recognize the looming threats to our well-being based in oceanic neglect. Read H.R. 21 for yourself, then contact Rep. Marchant with a call to cosponsorship of this real national security legislation.
There are valid disagreements reasonable people might have about the moral and mental status of living things. Some vegans, on the one hand, might argue against harming any animal. Others of us do not feel much bother about slipping a hook into a worm for a bit of fishing. But it is clear that birds have a high degree of awareness and can feel great pain. You might argue that some pain among birds is necessary for the generation of food. But when that pain is wholly unnecessary, who can support its continuation?
H.R. 137 was a bill put before the Congress which declared it "unlawful for any person to knowingly sell, buy, transport, or deliver in interstate or foreign commerce a knife, a gaff, or any other sharp instrument attached, or designed or intended to be attached, to the leg of a bird for use in an animal fighting venture." In more brief terms, it outlawed the tools used solely for cockfighting, the ritual mutilation of birds for sport.
H.R. 137 passed on a 368-39 vote, with the vast majority of members of Congress recognizing the needlessness of this particular brand of animal torture. But Kenny Marchant failed to cast a YES vote, showing a disturbing disregard for the unnecessary suffering of other living beings.
Some bills really are no-brainers. In April 2006, the U.S. Senate ratified the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, which requires the emissions of some ozone-depleting greenhouse gases from oceangoing ships to be limited through regulation. H.R. 802 is a bill that would simply enact the changes necessary for the United States to live up to this treaty and reduce maritime pollution. What could be simpler and more sensible? But Rep. Marchant stood in the way of the rule of law and sensible environmental progress by failing to vote for this bill.
Any reasonable person who believes that trust in America's democratic institutions is important can see the value in being able to determine with assurance how a person has voted. It should be a matter of common sense, for instance, that when an electronic voting machine malfunctions and loses votes (as has happened in the past), a backup paper record of the actions of the machine would help elections officials set things right and make sure that every person's vote has been counted. Yet today, despite a history of malfunctioning electronic voting machines, there is no requirement for a backup paper trail. It's as easy as attaching a printer to a voting machine. It's a matter of simple common sense for those who are interested in reliable verifiable, democracy. So why has Congressperson Marchant failed to lend formal support to H.R. 811, a bill which would require the establishment of such a paper trail? It's a mystery to me. Ask Congressperson Marchant to leave a verifiable paper trail of support for H.R. 811 -- in the Congress, that's called cosponsorship.
H.R. 897 is a bill before the House of Representatives that would "require the Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of the Interior, and the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development to provide to Congress copies and descriptions of contracts and task orders in excess of $5,000,000 for work to be performed in Iraq and Afghanistan." When Republicans controlled the Congress, they killed efforts to uncover corporate corruption and war profiteering. If there is really nothing going on with the contracts, then why is there a problem with looking at those contracts? Only those who think there is a problem and want to hide the problem could be opposed to Congressional oversight. Kenny Marchant apparently is comfortable with something being hidden, since the name of Rep. Marchant does not currently appear in cosponsorship of this legislation. Contact Rep. Marchant and ask why.
H.R. 2620, The Child Soldier Prevention Act, prohibits the government of the United States of America from providing military aid to any foreign government that uses child soldiers in its military, paramilitary forces, or other official or sanctioned armed groups. The Child Soldier Prevention Act also requires the Executive Branch to research and publish reports on the use of child soldiers around the world, providing important information that can be used to more effectively counter the use child soldiers.
There are some clauses that make the bill less strong than it could be. One gives the President of the United States to issue a waiver to the law when he decides that giving military aid to a government that uses child soldiers is in the interest of the United States. However, the President is required to register every such waiver, and report on the justifications for each waiver to the Senate and to the House of Representatives. Another clause permits support for armies that recruit volunteer child soldiers as young as 16 -- because that's what the U.S. Military currently does.
These clauses make the Child Soldier Prevention Act of 2007 an imperfect piece of legislation, but it's pretty darned good, and it's the only legislation to even address the issue. It is therefore a piece of legislation that all decent Americans ought to be willing to support, regardless of political party affiliation.
So why hasn't Representative Marchant offered cosponsorship of even this mild, unobjectionable bill? Something seems askew with Representative Marchant's priorities.
Back in February, Congressman Tom Lantos introduced a bill to the US House of Representatives called the Advance Democracy Act of 2007. It is registered by the Library of Congress as H.R. 982. The legislation would:
Establish a Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor within the Department of State
Create positions for Democracy Liaison Officers in the Department of State
Require the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, the Directory of National Intelligence to monitor and document the flow of money within the United States from foreign nondemocratic governments
Establish a Democracy Fellowship Program to encourage coordination between Congress and the Department of State on matters related to the promotion of democratic institutions around the world
Create two studies by the Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion to evaluate the ways in which organizations are working around the world to promote democracy, and understand how the Department of State can better help these organizations
Create a government web site dedicated to global democracy and human rights
Develop pro-democratic programs by the United States missions in nondemocratic nations and nations transitioning to democracy
Provide funds for an International Center for Democratic Transition, dedicated to helping nations move from dictatorship to democracy. The center has already been proposed by the government of Hungary, and has the support of other European nations
Strengthen the Human Rights and Democracy Fund, already in place
Give new energy to the effort to create a Democracy Caucus within the General Assembly of the United Nations
Require the White House to use the Department of State and the Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues to investigate violations of international humanitarian law by the leaders of other nations
Promoting democracy around the world without dropping bombs on anybody. What a radical idea.
The Advance Democracy Act of 2007 has a number of co-sponsors in the House of Representatives, but unfortunately Kenny Marchant is not among them. Please make a call and ask Representative Marchant to co-sponsor of the Advance Democracy Act of 2007.
H.R. 1255, a bill that passed the house on a vote of 333-93 in the House of Representatives, was the work of a large congressional majority which believes that White House records belong ultimately to the people of the United States. When he entered office, George W. Bush issued an edict which assigned past presidents and their heirs the right to do with presidential records what they personally saw fit. This is a recipe for historically disastrous revisionism. H.R. 1255 reverses the Bush edict, returning the ownership of presidential records to the people of the United States and making them available (after a period of time) for complete and accurate, not gauzily redacted, historical research. Representative Marchant failed to vote for this bill, prioritizing the prerogatives of those in power above the historical value of accuracy and the political value of openness.
H.R. 1257 is a bill that, if signed into law, would simply permit shareholders in a public corporation -- aka the owners -- to cast an advisory, non-binding vote approving or disapproving of executive pay packages. H.R. 1257 would also allow shareholders to vote their non-binding approval or disapproval of Golden Parachutes, the gigantic pay packages corporate executives often give themselves as a condition of being fired for poor performance. Who would not support the idea of the owners of a corporation being able to publicly express their position on executive pay and severance packages? Only those who have an interest in keeping executive pay and severance packages hushed up. Kenny Marchant failed to vote for this bill when it came up for a roll call vote. Why is Representative Marchant interested in hushing up executive pay and severance packages? Ask Representative Marchant.
H.R. 1309, a bill that has passed the House on a vote of 308-117, removes the authoritarian stain placed on the government of the United States shortly after George W. Bush took office -- well, at least one of them. It used to be that citizens could access government documents through the Freedom of Information Act unless the government could affirmatively demonstrate the need for the document to remain private. George W. Bush changed that with an executive order in 2001, mandating that unless a citizen affirmatively demonstrated a lack of national security reasons for the disclosure of a document, the government could keep its documents off-limits. This is another authoritarian step in a nation founded on principles of openness and liberty. Kenny Marchant failed to vote for this bill. Rep. Marchant made a most unfortunate stand against openness in favor of authoritarianism.
H.R. 1415 is a bill before the House to repeal many of the most onerous features of the Military Commissions Act. If passed, some of its main acts would be to:
Restore the right of habeas corpus for people detained by the U.S.
Narrow the definition of the MCA term "unlawful enemy combatant" to individuals who directly participate in attacks against the United States.
Let United States detainees invoke the ethical codes of the Geneva Conventions again.
Let U.S. detainees obtain a civilian lawyer for their defense.
Prohibit the use of evidence garnered through torture.
Prohibit the use of hearsay, upon the discretion of a judge.
Let juries know how statements were obtained from detainees.
Permit federal appeals courts to review the decisions of military commissions.
In short, H.R. 1415 would restore respect for the Constitution and a modicum of humanity to the government of the United States. Sadly, Kenny Marchant has failed to recognize how important the restoration of constitutional standards are to our country. Perhaps Rep. Marchant ought to review the congressional oath of office again.
In late March of 2007, Representative James McGovern of Massachussets introduced H.R. 1755, the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act of 2007, to the United States Senate. The law forbids the United States government from spending money to use, sell or transfer cluster bombs unless the following requirements are met:
1. The cluster bombs are proven to have a 1 percent or lower rate of malfunction
2. The cluster bombs will not be used against anything but a clearly defined military target, in an area where there are no civilians and in places where civilians do not ordinarily live
3. A plan is submitted, with the costs included, for cleaning up all the undetonated explosives that come from cluster bombs, whether they are used by the US military, or by other countries to whom the United States has supplied the cluster bombs
There is a waiver in the law for the first requirement (for the malfunctioning rate of 1 percent or lower), in cases in which it is "vital" to use cluster bombs in order to protect the security of the United States. However, even in such cases, the President is required to submit a report to Congress which explains how civilians will be protected from the cluster bombs, and revealing the failure rate of the cluster bombs, as well as whether the cluster bombs are equipped with self-destruct functions.
The Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act is not a perfect law. We are not too fond of that waiver. However, the law is a big improvement over the status quo. Right now, there's nothing to stop the United States from using cluster bombs, as it did during the invasion of Iraq, or selling them for other countries to use, as was done last year with the cluster bombs that Israel used against the civilian population of Lebanon.
The thing that makes cluster bombs so much worse than ordinary bombs is that they have a high failure rate, combined with a high number of small bombs that are spread over large areas of land by the larger bombs in which they are originally obtained. Cluster bombs are designed to kill people, not to damage buildings or roads. Like land mines, they continue to kill people long after the battle in which they were used. It is typical for a large number of these smaller bombs to remain undetonated, waiting to explode, after their initial deployment. The Federation of American Scientists reports: "Studies that show 40 percent of the duds on the ground are hazardous and for each encounter with an unexploded submunition there is a 13 percent probability of detonation. Thus, even though an unexploded submunition is run over, kicked, stepped on, or otherwise disturbed, and did not detonate, it is not safe. Handling the unexploded submunition may eventually result in arming and subsequent detonation."
Cluster bombs kill civilians when they are used. Our government knows this, and yet our government continues to manufacture, use and sell cluster bombs to foreign countries.
Representative McGovern deserves our thanks for introducing the Cluster Munitions Civilian Protection Act to the House of Representatives. Unfortunately, Rep. Kenny Marchant has failed to date to support this bill and the effort behind it. Who could stand for the continuation of cluster bomb civilian death? We cannot say, but we do know that through inaction Rep. Marchant has decided to passively sit for it.
One of the historic firsts of the United States was the rejection of taxation without representation. Indeed, that is one of the reasons why the USA is independent of Great Britain today. H.R. 1905, a bill that has passed on a vote of 241-177 in the House of Representatives, fits in that historical context. If signed by George W. Bush, the bill will provide for congressional representation to the residents of the District of Columbia, who pay taxes just like you and me but who have no voting voice in Congress. Kenny Marchant failed to vote for this bill. According Rep. Marchant, these citizens should not have a voice in government.
A bedrock principle of American progressivism is the right of the individual to self-determination. A person should be able to choose how to govern their own body, not some Big Daddy government. H.R. 1964 defends individual autonomy with the declaration that "It is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child, to terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability, or to terminate a pregnancy after fetal viability when necessary to protect the life or health of the woman," and with the institution of a variety of policies to ensure this policy is enacted. Kenny Marchant has to date failed to support this bill through cosponsorship. If you believe Congress ought to defend the individual against patronizing government intrusion, please contact Rep Marchant and ask when cosponsorship of H.R. 1964 is going to happen.
Right Wing Index Score: 67
A score of 67 means that Representative Marchant has acted to support 67% of a slate of conservative, wrongheaded policies in the 110th Congress.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Regressive, destructive, and downright unAmerican actions Representative Marchant has taken that contribute to a Right Wing Index Score of 67:
Rep. Kenny Marchant voted YES to pass the ironically named Protect America Act. The Protect America Act is a law now passed by both houses of Congress which replaces judicial warrants with executive prerogative and substitutes blank checks for reasons. The Protect America Act gives the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence the power to spy on your emails, your web surfing, your telephone calls and other electronic communications. All this is carried out without a warrant, which is required by the 4th Amendment to the United States Constitution.
There is no supervision of the spy programs put in place by Gonzales and McConnell, except by Gonzales and McConnell. No one has the power to stop them any more. They can search your records, sift through your private messages, watch you go from web page to web page, on the pretext of protecting America from terrorists, all without a search warrant. No one has the power to tell them no.
Gonzales and McConnell have the power under the Protect America Act to order any American to help them conduct their electronic spying against other Americans. Under the new law, if they order you to take part in their spying operations, and you say no, they can throw you in prison. If you do not keep their spying on other Americans a secret, even from your family, they can throw you in prison.
The Protect America Act institutes Big Brother government in the United States. It betrays American liberty. And Representative Marchant voted for it.
Two bills, H.R. 769 and H.R. 997 stand ready to declare English the official language of the nation. Although they differ from each other in some specifics, both bills mandate that government business be carried out in English, and that the government presume citizens are fluent in English when engaging with them. This is a change from an inclusive government to an exclusive one, and it is a violation of the principle of equal protection under the law -- a principle explicitly contained in Section 1 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Representative Marchant has given support to both bills.,
Just because Rep. Marchant seems to have some kind of personal problem with funny-looking "ethnic" people who speak a different language than English does not mean that such prejudice should be pushed on the rest of the country. The United States of America has always been a nation of multiple origins, multiple cultures and multiple languages. Legislating diversity away will not make it disappear. On the contrary, this legislation will only divide the nation into a privileged English-speaking clique and an untouchable caste of non-English speakers who are denied access to government, to civic participation, and even to the private workplace. This is not what America stands for. Shame on you, Kenny Marchant, for ignoring the principles of the U.S. Constitution and demeaning the standard of openness that has made this country great.
The way that U.S. citizenship works is pretty simple when you get down to it: if you are born in this country, you are a citizen. Leave it to Representative Kenny Marchant to come up with a way to change that. Representative Marchant has decided to support H.R. 1940, which would deny citizenship to American-born babies if their parents are not themselves citizens. Such a change would move us toward the German model of citizenship, in which families who have lived in Germany for generations were denied citizenship because they lacked the so-called "virtue" of a German bloodline.
When the Head Start program of early childhood education came up for reauthorization in May of 2007, Rep. Howard McKeon tried to offer an amendment that would provide special permission for religious organizations to engage in employment discrimination when using government-provided funds to hire Head Start Workers. That sounds complicated, but what it boils down to is that the McKeon amendment would have let churches take government money to hire workers for the government-funded Head Start program, and yet refuse to hire particular workers because they were from the "wrong" religion.
The Head Start program is not a religious program in its content, so there is no substantive reason for this discrimination to occur. If churches want to run a preschool and discriminate on the basis of religion, they can already do so -- they just have to pay for it themselves. If churches want to grab government money to run a government program, on the other hand, then the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is perfectly clear -- government resources can't be used to establish advantages for a religion or its adherents.
The McKeon amendment would have let government resources be used to discriminate against people who were not religiously correct. It fortunately was rejected in a roll-call vote. But Rep. Kenny Marchant didn't help in that regard. By voting YES for the McKeon amendment, Rep. Marchant showed an active disregard for the constitutional basis of American government.
Productive and forward-looking actions Representative Marchant has taken to merit a Progressive Action Score of 10:
World Water Day, celebrated on March 22, has a simple point: People ought to have sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation. This means that water pollution, through poor infrastructure as well as through disgusting policies like the Bush White House�s promotion of blending undertreated sewage into sources of drinking water, needs to brought under control.
It has been 14 years since World Water Day was begun, but sadly, the environmentalist holiday is not yet being widely observed. In all the United States, there are only eight officially scheduled World Water Day events. Canada beats us, with eleven events.
H.Res. 196 tries to turn this trajectory of indifference around, declaring support for the goals and ideals of World Water Day. Representative Marchant has added one more measure of personal momentum to the movement by voting for this legislation.
Rep. Kenny Marchant voted YES for H.R. 2, a bill to increase the minimum wage, which is currently at its lowest point since the 1950s. The bill was not dedicated to raising the the minimum wage to new highs. It would only have returned the minimum wage to a level comparable to that of the 1980s, which is in turn much lower than the minimum wage level of the late 1960s. Thanks to Representative Marchant for at least giving America's workers the respect that they deserved 20 years ago.
http://progressivepatriots.com/house/MarchantTX24.html
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Existing home sales decline as housing slump continues
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
04/22/08
Sales of existing homes fell in March as a severe slump in housing showed no signs of abating. The median price of a home fell compared with the price a year ago.
The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums dropped by 2 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.93 million units.
The median price of a home sold last month was $200,700, a decline of 7.7 percent from the median price a year ago. That was the second-biggest year-over-year price decline following a record 8.4 percent drop in February. The records go back to 1999.
It marked the seventh consecutive year-over-year drop in prices, although the March sales price was up slightly from a February median price of $195,600. Economists prefer to compare the prices on a year-over-year basis because, unlike sales, the monthly prices are not adjusted for normal seasonal variations.
The March sales decline, which was in line with expectations, followed a 2.9 percent increase in sales in February. The February rise, which followed six straight monthly declines, had raised hopes that the steep housing correction could be hitting bottom.
However, many private analysts said they do not expect a rebound for a number of months, given the problems weighing on housing from a severe glut of unsold homes to tighter credit standards for prospective buyers and a rising tide of mortgage foreclosures.
Sales were down 19.3 percent compared with a year ago, reflecting the depth of the housing bust, which is coming after sales set records for five consecutive years.
For March, sales were down 6.5 percent in the Midwest and 3.5 percent in the South but increased by 2.2 percent in the Northeast and 2.2 percent in the West.
The Northeast was the country's only region to experience a rise in median prices, which were up 4.6 percent compared with a year ago. Prices were down in all other regions of the country, dropping by 14.7 percent in the West, 7.1 percent in the South and 5.3 percent in the Midwest.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, said he expected sales would begin to show improvements in the second half of this year, helped by an improved availability of mortgage-backed insurance from the Federal Housing Administration and higher limits for jumbo mortgages, loans that are critically important in high-priced areas of the country such as California.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080422/ap_on_bi_ge/economy&printer=1;_ylt=AioZ6Lmm2LhX8GiwVL2qByBv24cA
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.
04/22/08
Sales of existing homes fell in March as a severe slump in housing showed no signs of abating. The median price of a home fell compared with the price a year ago.
The National Association of Realtors said sales of existing single-family homes and condominiums dropped by 2 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.93 million units.
The median price of a home sold last month was $200,700, a decline of 7.7 percent from the median price a year ago. That was the second-biggest year-over-year price decline following a record 8.4 percent drop in February. The records go back to 1999.
It marked the seventh consecutive year-over-year drop in prices, although the March sales price was up slightly from a February median price of $195,600. Economists prefer to compare the prices on a year-over-year basis because, unlike sales, the monthly prices are not adjusted for normal seasonal variations.
The March sales decline, which was in line with expectations, followed a 2.9 percent increase in sales in February. The February rise, which followed six straight monthly declines, had raised hopes that the steep housing correction could be hitting bottom.
However, many private analysts said they do not expect a rebound for a number of months, given the problems weighing on housing from a severe glut of unsold homes to tighter credit standards for prospective buyers and a rising tide of mortgage foreclosures.
Sales were down 19.3 percent compared with a year ago, reflecting the depth of the housing bust, which is coming after sales set records for five consecutive years.
For March, sales were down 6.5 percent in the Midwest and 3.5 percent in the South but increased by 2.2 percent in the Northeast and 2.2 percent in the West.
The Northeast was the country's only region to experience a rise in median prices, which were up 4.6 percent compared with a year ago. Prices were down in all other regions of the country, dropping by 14.7 percent in the West, 7.1 percent in the South and 5.3 percent in the Midwest.
Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors, said he expected sales would begin to show improvements in the second half of this year, helped by an improved availability of mortgage-backed insurance from the Federal Housing Administration and higher limits for jumbo mortgages, loans that are critically important in high-priced areas of the country such as California.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080422/ap_on_bi_ge/economy&printer=1;_ylt=AioZ6Lmm2LhX8GiwVL2qByBv24cA
Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
A Fair Deal for America
A person asked me what are my democratic values?
There are two answers to that question. The short answer is my values reflect what I knew as I grew up in East Texas. Honest work deserves living wages, and everybody deserves the right to be able to work. Everybody deserves the right to live according to their own beliefs and to be able to hope for a better future for all. Everyone deserves the right to be able to have dreams and to be able to pursue those dreams.
That’s the short answer. The longer answer takes a bit longer to say, but, as the old saying goes, “the proof is in the details.”
I believe in Responsible Capitalism, not Predatory Capitalism.
We know what happens when there is not sufficient oversight over certain forms of business. Our current Sub-Prime Loans catastrophe, like the manufactured energy crisis in California only a few years ago, will cost not only every tax payer but also any future user of the services of those banks involved.
Responsible oversight might have halted the pathway of both of these.
When we offer a corporation tax incentives, those incentives should help pave a pathway to a future, not a bridge to no where. They should encourage recruitment and training of local employees and the development of technologies that anticipate needs, rather than encourage relocation of jobs to other countries or simple ways to slice personnel numbers.
Responsible Capitalism made this country of our’s great. It provided the means for funds to be pumped back into the economy for more expansion and development, and everyone benefited.
I believe in a Responsible Health Care System.
One out of every three workers is either underinsured or uninsured. Millions of women and children have no access to proper health care in this country. We have a growing shortage of trained medical personnel coast to coast, and most hospitals operate at nurse to patient ratio that is unsafe.
We need to develop a comprehensive system of health care that begins with enabling those people who wish to pursue a career in the medical fields the ability to get the necessary educational training they need.
Then we need to assure the patients that their medical needs will be met. Those needs will not be determined by some insurance provider, but by the joint decision of the Doctor and the Patient. No insurance statistician should dictate that a woman should be pushed out of a hospital almost immediately after she has given birth or had a mastectomy.
Medicare must be able to negotiate with pharmaceuticals over fair prices, and when Federal tax dollars are used to develop new drug therapies, US tax payers should never be asked to pay once more for those costs of development in artificially high prescription prices.
Our goal must be high quality universal health care. Nothing less is acceptable.
I believe in Responsible Labor Policy.
Tax incentives to keep jobs in America is responsible. Incentives to ship those jobs overseas is not.
Yet we must also make every effort to assure that the laborer will be worthy of his hire. Tax incentives that encourage training of personnel will always be better for the individuals and society than longer unemployment lines.
Our Government Contracts should always go to American Companies, if at all possible. We don’t need military caps made in China or military transports manufactured in Europe.
I believe in Responsible Education for our children.
Once upon a time, a simple High School Diploma was enough to earn a living wage. Now, that is no longer true.
Higher Education must be made affordable and available to every High School Graduate who wishes to go farther. Public universities must remain open and affordable to the public.
Public Schools should be encouraged to improve, not punished if they do not improve. Our current system of testing assures that more children will be left behind than ever before.
Our teachers, like our children, should be seen as our greatest assets for the future. Our teachers deserve respect and encouragement, not tokenism.
I believe in Responsible Government.
Any Democracy is a series of compromises, and one of those compromises is that a government is necessary. It should help to protect all of the people all of the time, but it does not have the right to impose its will into the personal lives of the people.
One lesson I learned growing up was to respect other people. Our Government must do the same. We live in a country with a Constitution that begins with the words, “WE THE PEOPLE.”
We are the People. We are endowed with unalienable rights, and our rights must be respected by our Government. Respect is a part of protecting, when it is done responsibly.
I believe in the United States of America, and I believe in the People.
Together, we can work for those changes we need now and will need in the future.
That’s the Responsible way to live and to govern.
I Thank You for listening.
<>
There are two answers to that question. The short answer is my values reflect what I knew as I grew up in East Texas. Honest work deserves living wages, and everybody deserves the right to be able to work. Everybody deserves the right to live according to their own beliefs and to be able to hope for a better future for all. Everyone deserves the right to be able to have dreams and to be able to pursue those dreams.
That’s the short answer. The longer answer takes a bit longer to say, but, as the old saying goes, “the proof is in the details.”
I believe in Responsible Capitalism, not Predatory Capitalism.
We know what happens when there is not sufficient oversight over certain forms of business. Our current Sub-Prime Loans catastrophe, like the manufactured energy crisis in California only a few years ago, will cost not only every tax payer but also any future user of the services of those banks involved.
Responsible oversight might have halted the pathway of both of these.
When we offer a corporation tax incentives, those incentives should help pave a pathway to a future, not a bridge to no where. They should encourage recruitment and training of local employees and the development of technologies that anticipate needs, rather than encourage relocation of jobs to other countries or simple ways to slice personnel numbers.
Responsible Capitalism made this country of our’s great. It provided the means for funds to be pumped back into the economy for more expansion and development, and everyone benefited.
I believe in a Responsible Health Care System.
One out of every three workers is either underinsured or uninsured. Millions of women and children have no access to proper health care in this country. We have a growing shortage of trained medical personnel coast to coast, and most hospitals operate at nurse to patient ratio that is unsafe.
We need to develop a comprehensive system of health care that begins with enabling those people who wish to pursue a career in the medical fields the ability to get the necessary educational training they need.
Then we need to assure the patients that their medical needs will be met. Those needs will not be determined by some insurance provider, but by the joint decision of the Doctor and the Patient. No insurance statistician should dictate that a woman should be pushed out of a hospital almost immediately after she has given birth or had a mastectomy.
Medicare must be able to negotiate with pharmaceuticals over fair prices, and when Federal tax dollars are used to develop new drug therapies, US tax payers should never be asked to pay once more for those costs of development in artificially high prescription prices.
Our goal must be high quality universal health care. Nothing less is acceptable.
I believe in Responsible Labor Policy.
Tax incentives to keep jobs in America is responsible. Incentives to ship those jobs overseas is not.
Yet we must also make every effort to assure that the laborer will be worthy of his hire. Tax incentives that encourage training of personnel will always be better for the individuals and society than longer unemployment lines.
Our Government Contracts should always go to American Companies, if at all possible. We don’t need military caps made in China or military transports manufactured in Europe.
I believe in Responsible Education for our children.
Once upon a time, a simple High School Diploma was enough to earn a living wage. Now, that is no longer true.
Higher Education must be made affordable and available to every High School Graduate who wishes to go farther. Public universities must remain open and affordable to the public.
Public Schools should be encouraged to improve, not punished if they do not improve. Our current system of testing assures that more children will be left behind than ever before.
Our teachers, like our children, should be seen as our greatest assets for the future. Our teachers deserve respect and encouragement, not tokenism.
I believe in Responsible Government.
Any Democracy is a series of compromises, and one of those compromises is that a government is necessary. It should help to protect all of the people all of the time, but it does not have the right to impose its will into the personal lives of the people.
One lesson I learned growing up was to respect other people. Our Government must do the same. We live in a country with a Constitution that begins with the words, “WE THE PEOPLE.”
We are the People. We are endowed with unalienable rights, and our rights must be respected by our Government. Respect is a part of protecting, when it is done responsibly.
I believe in the United States of America, and I believe in the People.
Together, we can work for those changes we need now and will need in the future.
That’s the Responsible way to live and to govern.
I Thank You for listening.
<>
Pope Speaks Up for Immigrants, Touching a Nerve
By DANIEL J. WAKIN and JULIA PRESTON
Even as he was flying to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of protecting immigrant families, not dividing them.
He raised the issue again in a meeting on Wednesday with President Bush, and later that day spoke in Spanish to the church’s “many immigrant children.” And when he ends his visit to New York on Sunday, he will be sent off by a throng of the faithful, showing off the ethnic diversity of American Catholicism.
The choreography underscores the importance to the church here of its growing diversity — especially its increasing Hispanic membership.
Of the nation’s 65 million Roman Catholics, 18 million are Latino, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and they account for more than two-thirds of the new Catholics in the country since 1960.
Millions of other recent arrivals come from Asia and Africa. More and more parishes depend on priests brought from abroad to serve the flock.
Benedict has calibrated his immigration stance with care, stating the need to protect family unity and immigrants’ human rights, but pointedly avoiding any specifics of the American immigration debate, like the issue of whether to grant legal status to illegal immigrants. Yet last week his visit quickly stirred the crosscurrents of the debate.
His comments drew a rebuke from Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado who has been a leading opponent of illegal immigration.
Accusing the pope of “faith-based marketing,” Mr. Tancredo said Benedict’s comments welcoming immigrants “may have less to do with spreading the Gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the Church.” Mr. Tancredo, a former Catholic who now attends an evangelical Christian church, said it was not in the pope’s “job description to engage in American politics.”
On the other side of the issue, some members of the Catholic hierarchy said they were shocked that on the same day that Benedict and President Bush affirmed in a joint statement the need for a policy that treats immigrants humanely and protects their families, federal agents were conducting raids at five chicken plants. They arrested more than 300 immigrants accused of being illegal workers.
The timing was coincidental, immigration officials said, and it was not clear whether the pope had known about the arrests when he met with Mr. Bush.
But the raids surprised some American Catholic leaders, who are often on the forefront of advocacy for immigrant rights.
“I was stunned,” said Cardinal Roger Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest Roman Catholic diocese and one with many Hispanics. “I just feel these raids are totally negative. I thought it was very inappropriate to do it in such a blatant way when the pope was coming, when he has been so outspoken in defending the rights of immigrants.”
The American bishops have been consistently outspoken in favor of legislation to give legal status to illegal immigrants and expand legal avenues for immigrants to bring their family members from abroad.
They and other Catholic activists were among the most visible supporters of a broad bill, supported by Mr. Bush but not enacted by Congress last year, which included a path to legal status for 12 million illegal immigrants.
They took Benedict’s statements last week as affirmation of their work. For while the immigration theme has been overshadowed during Benedict’s trip by his denunciations of the sexual abuse scandal in the church, it was the second issue after the abuse cases that he addressed on the plane from Rome, when he responded to reporters’ questions that were submitted in advance and picked by the Vatican.
The separation of families “is truly dangerous for the social, moral and human fabric” of Latin and Central American families, the pope told reporters aboard his plane. “The fundamental solution is that there should no longer be a need to emigrate, that there are enough jobs in the homeland, a sufficient social fabric,” he said. Short of that, families should be protected, not destroyed, he said. “As much as it can be done it should be done,” the pontiff said.
The pope did not just send a message to the president and the public, he spoke to the bishops. In his private meeting with them on Wednesday evening, he emphasized that recent newcomers to the United States are “people of faith, and we are here to welcome them,” Cardinal Mahony said.
The pope also dwelled on the negative impact of family separation. Several bishops took that as a direct reference to the impact of previous immigration raids and deportations, in which illegal immigrant parents were separated from spouses and children who were United States citizens or legal immigrants.
“Obviously the Holy Father is not encouraging people to do anything illegal,” Cardinal Mahony said. But the raids “do not serve as a deterrent,” he said, adding, “They simply create fear and uncertainty in our communities.”
Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City said the pope was “not going to get into the specific points that our country has to hash out.” Bishop Wester, who is chairman of the Committee on Migration of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the pontiff had told the bishops “very clearly that we need to attend to the basic human rights immigrants have.”
Bishop Wester also criticized the immigration raids, which took place at plants in five states belonging to Pilgrim’s Pride, a major poultry processing company. Immigration officials said they did not consider the pope’s visit when planning the operations, which they said came after a yearlong investigation.
But Bishop Wester said: “It did strike me as inappropriate. The pope comes as a man of peace, a man of good will, the leader of a major religion. Many of the persons arrested were Catholic.”
As recently as mid-March, he said, his committee met with Julie L. Myers, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that carried out the raids. The bishops asked Ms. Myers not to conduct raids in churches and to ensure legal representation for immigrants, Bishop Wester said.
The pope returned to the theme several times over the course of his visit, which ends Sunday. About 4,000 church members from the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens, will hold a prayer service in 29 languages at Kennedy Airport. About half will be immigrants, said Msgr. Ronald T. Marino, the Brooklyn Diocese’s vicar for migration. Many will wear the costumes of their homelands. The pope will not attend, but the crowd will bid him farewell.
“Not a word has to be spoken,” the monsignor said. “What you will see says it all.”
In Washington, Benedict encouraged the American bishops and their communities “to continue to welcome immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home.” That, he said, was the American tradition. And in a meeting with Catholic educators, he emphasized the importance of keeping Catholic schools open, especially to serve immigrants and the underprivileged.
Catholic leaders say such words have bolstered their work, yet the pope’s emphasis is no surprise in a country where much of the church’s growth and vitality comes from the influx of immigrant Catholics.
Following the polyglot practice of his predecessor, John Paul II, Benedict used Spanish to directly address the Latino portion of his flock during the homily at his Mass at Nationals Park in Washington on Thursday.
The Church has grown thanks to their vitality, he said, and God calls on them to keep contributing.
Priests and bishops who lobby elected officials and minister directly to immigrants can be more explicit.
Monsignor Marino, for example, who also heads the Brooklyn Diocese’s Catholic Migration Office, said, “In my judgment, immigrants are heroes.”
He applauded the pope’s words. “The simple pointing to it as one of his priorities, something coming out of his mouth, is real important,” Monsignor Marino said. “For him to say one sentence means he knows the rest.”
Thomas G. Wenski, the bishop of Orlando, Fla., and a former head of the bishops’ Migration Committee who remains a consultant to it, said he hoped the pope’s visit would have a practical effect.
“The pope’s visit will unleash some good will here so that Congress might live up to its responsibility and deal with the issue,” Bishop Wenski said.
In a letter in December, Cardinal Mahony chastised all the presidential candidates for campaigns that he said had “inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment in the country.” Since then the three remaining candidates, Senators John McCain of Arizona, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have lowered the volume on the immigration issue.
Secular advocates for immigrants also welcomed the pope’s words. “That’s big news,” said Teresa Gutierrez, a coordinator for the May 1st Coalition for Immigrant and Workers Rights. “Any decent comment about the reality of what’s really happening to immigration in the United States coming from such a prestigious person as the pope is extremely helpful.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20catholics.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&exprod=myyahoo&adxnnlx=1208703786-oOu9dPvT+sAUOJHoRqcRdA&oref=slogin
Even as he was flying to the United States, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of protecting immigrant families, not dividing them.
He raised the issue again in a meeting on Wednesday with President Bush, and later that day spoke in Spanish to the church’s “many immigrant children.” And when he ends his visit to New York on Sunday, he will be sent off by a throng of the faithful, showing off the ethnic diversity of American Catholicism.
The choreography underscores the importance to the church here of its growing diversity — especially its increasing Hispanic membership.
Of the nation’s 65 million Roman Catholics, 18 million are Latino, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, and they account for more than two-thirds of the new Catholics in the country since 1960.
Millions of other recent arrivals come from Asia and Africa. More and more parishes depend on priests brought from abroad to serve the flock.
Benedict has calibrated his immigration stance with care, stating the need to protect family unity and immigrants’ human rights, but pointedly avoiding any specifics of the American immigration debate, like the issue of whether to grant legal status to illegal immigrants. Yet last week his visit quickly stirred the crosscurrents of the debate.
His comments drew a rebuke from Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado who has been a leading opponent of illegal immigration.
Accusing the pope of “faith-based marketing,” Mr. Tancredo said Benedict’s comments welcoming immigrants “may have less to do with spreading the Gospel than they do about recruiting new members of the Church.” Mr. Tancredo, a former Catholic who now attends an evangelical Christian church, said it was not in the pope’s “job description to engage in American politics.”
On the other side of the issue, some members of the Catholic hierarchy said they were shocked that on the same day that Benedict and President Bush affirmed in a joint statement the need for a policy that treats immigrants humanely and protects their families, federal agents were conducting raids at five chicken plants. They arrested more than 300 immigrants accused of being illegal workers.
The timing was coincidental, immigration officials said, and it was not clear whether the pope had known about the arrests when he met with Mr. Bush.
But the raids surprised some American Catholic leaders, who are often on the forefront of advocacy for immigrant rights.
“I was stunned,” said Cardinal Roger Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles, the nation’s largest Roman Catholic diocese and one with many Hispanics. “I just feel these raids are totally negative. I thought it was very inappropriate to do it in such a blatant way when the pope was coming, when he has been so outspoken in defending the rights of immigrants.”
The American bishops have been consistently outspoken in favor of legislation to give legal status to illegal immigrants and expand legal avenues for immigrants to bring their family members from abroad.
They and other Catholic activists were among the most visible supporters of a broad bill, supported by Mr. Bush but not enacted by Congress last year, which included a path to legal status for 12 million illegal immigrants.
They took Benedict’s statements last week as affirmation of their work. For while the immigration theme has been overshadowed during Benedict’s trip by his denunciations of the sexual abuse scandal in the church, it was the second issue after the abuse cases that he addressed on the plane from Rome, when he responded to reporters’ questions that were submitted in advance and picked by the Vatican.
The separation of families “is truly dangerous for the social, moral and human fabric” of Latin and Central American families, the pope told reporters aboard his plane. “The fundamental solution is that there should no longer be a need to emigrate, that there are enough jobs in the homeland, a sufficient social fabric,” he said. Short of that, families should be protected, not destroyed, he said. “As much as it can be done it should be done,” the pontiff said.
The pope did not just send a message to the president and the public, he spoke to the bishops. In his private meeting with them on Wednesday evening, he emphasized that recent newcomers to the United States are “people of faith, and we are here to welcome them,” Cardinal Mahony said.
The pope also dwelled on the negative impact of family separation. Several bishops took that as a direct reference to the impact of previous immigration raids and deportations, in which illegal immigrant parents were separated from spouses and children who were United States citizens or legal immigrants.
“Obviously the Holy Father is not encouraging people to do anything illegal,” Cardinal Mahony said. But the raids “do not serve as a deterrent,” he said, adding, “They simply create fear and uncertainty in our communities.”
Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City said the pope was “not going to get into the specific points that our country has to hash out.” Bishop Wester, who is chairman of the Committee on Migration of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the pontiff had told the bishops “very clearly that we need to attend to the basic human rights immigrants have.”
Bishop Wester also criticized the immigration raids, which took place at plants in five states belonging to Pilgrim’s Pride, a major poultry processing company. Immigration officials said they did not consider the pope’s visit when planning the operations, which they said came after a yearlong investigation.
But Bishop Wester said: “It did strike me as inappropriate. The pope comes as a man of peace, a man of good will, the leader of a major religion. Many of the persons arrested were Catholic.”
As recently as mid-March, he said, his committee met with Julie L. Myers, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency that carried out the raids. The bishops asked Ms. Myers not to conduct raids in churches and to ensure legal representation for immigrants, Bishop Wester said.
The pope returned to the theme several times over the course of his visit, which ends Sunday. About 4,000 church members from the Diocese of Brooklyn, which includes Queens, will hold a prayer service in 29 languages at Kennedy Airport. About half will be immigrants, said Msgr. Ronald T. Marino, the Brooklyn Diocese’s vicar for migration. Many will wear the costumes of their homelands. The pope will not attend, but the crowd will bid him farewell.
“Not a word has to be spoken,” the monsignor said. “What you will see says it all.”
In Washington, Benedict encouraged the American bishops and their communities “to continue to welcome immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials, and to help them flourish in their new home.” That, he said, was the American tradition. And in a meeting with Catholic educators, he emphasized the importance of keeping Catholic schools open, especially to serve immigrants and the underprivileged.
Catholic leaders say such words have bolstered their work, yet the pope’s emphasis is no surprise in a country where much of the church’s growth and vitality comes from the influx of immigrant Catholics.
Following the polyglot practice of his predecessor, John Paul II, Benedict used Spanish to directly address the Latino portion of his flock during the homily at his Mass at Nationals Park in Washington on Thursday.
The Church has grown thanks to their vitality, he said, and God calls on them to keep contributing.
Priests and bishops who lobby elected officials and minister directly to immigrants can be more explicit.
Monsignor Marino, for example, who also heads the Brooklyn Diocese’s Catholic Migration Office, said, “In my judgment, immigrants are heroes.”
He applauded the pope’s words. “The simple pointing to it as one of his priorities, something coming out of his mouth, is real important,” Monsignor Marino said. “For him to say one sentence means he knows the rest.”
Thomas G. Wenski, the bishop of Orlando, Fla., and a former head of the bishops’ Migration Committee who remains a consultant to it, said he hoped the pope’s visit would have a practical effect.
“The pope’s visit will unleash some good will here so that Congress might live up to its responsibility and deal with the issue,” Bishop Wenski said.
In a letter in December, Cardinal Mahony chastised all the presidential candidates for campaigns that he said had “inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment in the country.” Since then the three remaining candidates, Senators John McCain of Arizona, Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, have lowered the volume on the immigration issue.
Secular advocates for immigrants also welcomed the pope’s words. “That’s big news,” said Teresa Gutierrez, a coordinator for the May 1st Coalition for Immigrant and Workers Rights. “Any decent comment about the reality of what’s really happening to immigration in the United States coming from such a prestigious person as the pope is extremely helpful.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/us/20catholics.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&exprod=myyahoo&adxnnlx=1208703786-oOu9dPvT+sAUOJHoRqcRdA&oref=slogin
Saturday, April 19, 2008
One in Three Returning Vets Suffer from Brain Injuries, Mental Health Problems
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on April 18, 2008, Printed on April 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/82776/
Last month, hundreds of veterans who had served in the "War on Terror" gathered at the Winter Soldier hearings in Washington. They had come from across the country to give testimony about what they'd experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere).
They were young -- young enough to make this 38 year-old observer feel over the hill. Some fit the stereotype of the rough-and-ready American soldier -- the invincible John Rambos of American lore -- but most were average, some skinny. Many appeared small without the bulky body armor with which we're accustomed to seeing them in news reports.
They are our nation's kids. They might have been young men and women on any American campus -- there was the usual abundance of tattoos and piercings -- but there was a difference.
Many were broken, some grievously injured in battle, some missing limbs. All of the vets with whom I spoke had obvious psychic scars; several exhibited unconscious facial ticks as they spoke. As I talked to one young woman -- she couldn't have been more than 22 or 23 -- I thought to myself, 'oh, that's what those Vietnam vets mean when they talk about a thousand-yard stare.'
When we consider about the costs of these occupations, as tax-payers, we shouldn't forget that we're getting off cheaply. The Iraqi people have paid the dearest price for Bush's adventure in the Middle East, and, after them, it's been the 1.7 million Americans who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan at one time or another over the past five years who have had to bear the greatest burden.
A new study brings that burden -- or part of it -- into sharp relief. From the Boston Globe:
The latest and most comprehensive study of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has concluded that nearly 1 in every 5 veterans is suffering from depression or stress disorders and that many are not getting adequate care.
The study shows that mental disorders are more prevalent and lasting than previously known, surfacing belatedly and lingering after troops have been discharged into civilian and family life.
An estimated 300,000 veterans among the nearly 1.7 million who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are battling depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. More than half of those people, according to the study conducted by the Rand Corp., are slipping through the cracks in the bureaucratic system, going without necessary treatment.
"We call it '360-365' combat," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. "What that means is veterans are completely surrounded by combat for one year. Nearly all of our soldiers are under fire, or being subjected mortar rounds, or roadside bombs, or witnessing the deaths of civilians or fellow soldiers."
In addition to PTSD rates, the Rand study found that 19.5 percent of people who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan suffered a concussion or another traumatic brain injury during their combat tour, a number similar to Army estimates.
Taken together, the study shows that 31 percent of those who have served in combat have suffered brain injuries, stress disorders, or both.
Failure to treat disorders adequately can cost the government billions of dollars, said Lisa H. Jaycox, another of the study's authors.
Some service members avoid a diagnosis of a mental health problem, fearing negative consequences, according to the study. These troops worry about damage to their military careers and relationships with co-workers. "When we asked folks what was limiting them from getting the help that they need, among the top barriers that were reported were really negative career repercussions," said Terri Tanielian, one of the study's authors.
The people who claim they support our troops are the ones who want to keep sending them into the meat grinder for nothing, indefinitely. They support the troops in the abstract, as political props to muster support for a war that makes them feel powerful by proxy and gives meaning to their meaningless existence as good little American consumers.
It's a betrayal on an epic scale.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/82776/
Posted on April 18, 2008, Printed on April 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/82776/
Last month, hundreds of veterans who had served in the "War on Terror" gathered at the Winter Soldier hearings in Washington. They had come from across the country to give testimony about what they'd experienced in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere).
They were young -- young enough to make this 38 year-old observer feel over the hill. Some fit the stereotype of the rough-and-ready American soldier -- the invincible John Rambos of American lore -- but most were average, some skinny. Many appeared small without the bulky body armor with which we're accustomed to seeing them in news reports.
They are our nation's kids. They might have been young men and women on any American campus -- there was the usual abundance of tattoos and piercings -- but there was a difference.
Many were broken, some grievously injured in battle, some missing limbs. All of the vets with whom I spoke had obvious psychic scars; several exhibited unconscious facial ticks as they spoke. As I talked to one young woman -- she couldn't have been more than 22 or 23 -- I thought to myself, 'oh, that's what those Vietnam vets mean when they talk about a thousand-yard stare.'
When we consider about the costs of these occupations, as tax-payers, we shouldn't forget that we're getting off cheaply. The Iraqi people have paid the dearest price for Bush's adventure in the Middle East, and, after them, it's been the 1.7 million Americans who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan at one time or another over the past five years who have had to bear the greatest burden.
A new study brings that burden -- or part of it -- into sharp relief. From the Boston Globe:
The latest and most comprehensive study of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has concluded that nearly 1 in every 5 veterans is suffering from depression or stress disorders and that many are not getting adequate care.
The study shows that mental disorders are more prevalent and lasting than previously known, surfacing belatedly and lingering after troops have been discharged into civilian and family life.
An estimated 300,000 veterans among the nearly 1.7 million who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan are battling depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. More than half of those people, according to the study conducted by the Rand Corp., are slipping through the cracks in the bureaucratic system, going without necessary treatment.
"We call it '360-365' combat," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense. "What that means is veterans are completely surrounded by combat for one year. Nearly all of our soldiers are under fire, or being subjected mortar rounds, or roadside bombs, or witnessing the deaths of civilians or fellow soldiers."
In addition to PTSD rates, the Rand study found that 19.5 percent of people who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan suffered a concussion or another traumatic brain injury during their combat tour, a number similar to Army estimates.
Taken together, the study shows that 31 percent of those who have served in combat have suffered brain injuries, stress disorders, or both.
Failure to treat disorders adequately can cost the government billions of dollars, said Lisa H. Jaycox, another of the study's authors.
Some service members avoid a diagnosis of a mental health problem, fearing negative consequences, according to the study. These troops worry about damage to their military careers and relationships with co-workers. "When we asked folks what was limiting them from getting the help that they need, among the top barriers that were reported were really negative career repercussions," said Terri Tanielian, one of the study's authors.
The people who claim they support our troops are the ones who want to keep sending them into the meat grinder for nothing, indefinitely. They support the troops in the abstract, as political props to muster support for a war that makes them feel powerful by proxy and gives meaning to their meaningless existence as good little American consumers.
It's a betrayal on an epic scale.
Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/82776/
Bottle Maker to Stop Using Plastic Linked to Health Concerns
By IAN AUSTEN
OTTAWA — Nalgene, the brand that popularized water bottles made from hard, clear and nearly unbreakable polycarbonate, will stop using the plastic because of growing concern over one of its ingredients.
The decision by Nalgene Outdoor Products, a unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Rochester, came after reports that the Canadian government would declare the chemical bisphenol-a, or BPA, toxic. Some animal studies have linked the chemical to changes in the hormonal system.
Those reports also prompted many of Canada’s largest retailers, including Wal-Mart Canada, to remove food-related products made with plastics containing the compound chemical, like baby bottles, toddler sipping cups and food containers, from their stores this week.
“Based on all available scientific evidence, we continue to believe that Nalgene products containing BPA are safe for their intended use,” Steven Silverman, the general manager of the Nalgene unit, said in a statement. “However, our customers indicated they preferred BPA-free alternatives, and we acted in response to those concerns.”
The National Toxicology Program in the United States released a draft report on Tuesday reporting that some rats that were fed or injected with low doses of the chemical developed precancerous tumors and urinary tract problems and reached puberty early. While the report said the animal tests provided “limited evidence,” it also noted that the “possibility that bisphenol-a may alter human development cannot be dismissed.”
Late Thursday, the American Chemistry Council, which says that there is no evidence suggesting that the chemical has an adverse impact on people, asked the Food and Drug Administration to review the chemical.
“We hope that the leading regulatory agency charged with protecting the public’s health, including evaluating the safety of food containers, will put to rest questions about the safety of bisphenol-a,” the industry group said.
Nalgene’s decision to drop the plastic that transformed it from an obscure maker of laboratory equipment into a consumer brand does not mean the company is leaving the drinking bottle business. It has long made bottles from other plastics that lack the glasslike transparency and rigidity that made polycarbonate popular.
Last month, Nalgene introduced a line of bottles made from a relatively new plastic from the Eastman Chemical Company, Tritan copolyester, that shares most of polycarbonate’s properties, including shatter-resistance, but is made without the chemical.
A person knowledgeable about Canada’s chemical review program said this week that the government had decided to list the compound as a toxic substance under the country’s environmental protection act. Because of confidentiality rules, he spoke on the condition he not be identified.
Tony Clement, the minister of health, has scheduled a news conference for Friday to discuss the issue.
Designation of the chemical will begin a two-year regulatory process that ultimately could lead to restrictions or a ban on the use of the compound.
But some retailers in Canada say that interest in food-related products made with the chemical, particularly those intended for infants and small children, is fast vanishing.
“Consumer demand for BPA products had largely dried up,” said Hillary Marshall, a spokeswoman for the Hudson’s Bay Company. The retailer removed all baby-related products made with plastics that contained the chemical from its 94 department stores and 280 Zellers discount stores this week. It is working on removing other merchandise made with polycarbonates.
Not all consumers are pleased by the actions. Because of Health Canada’s review, London Drugs, which is based in Richmond, British Columbia, began withdrawing merchandise that contained the chemical Jan. 10 and replacing it with alternatives made of other plastics or stainless steel. Wynne Powell, the company’s president, said the last 10 products were taken away this week.
“I had some complaints come to my desk complaining that we were fear-mongering by pulling products,” Mr. Powell said. “The public was not totally on board.”
Asked whether it plans to follow the lead of its Canadian operations in the United States, Wal-Mart said in a statement, “We are working to expand our BPA-free offerings and expect the entire assortment of baby bottles to be BPA-free sometime early next year.”
A difficult question for retailers will be how to handle products, including soft drinks, that are packaged in aluminum or steel cans.
For the last two decades, the interiors of most cans have been coated with an epoxy resin that is made using the chemical to extend the shelf life of the contents and prevent the metal from affecting the flavors of food and drinks.
John M. Rost, the chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance, an industry group, said that there was no evidence that the linings expose humans to significant amounts of the chemical, a position not shared by all scientists. He added that researchers had been unable to develop an alternative lining that performs as well as the current epoxy.
“The epoxy resins are the gold standard right now,” said Dr. Rost, who is a chemist. “The speculation of what’s to be published has led to reactions from retailers that is not based on any actual data from Health Canada. So we are encouraging a release as soon as possible.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/business/18plastic.html?em&ex=1208750400&en=d629b318e5c7abc7&ei=5087%0A&exprod=myyahoo
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
OTTAWA — Nalgene, the brand that popularized water bottles made from hard, clear and nearly unbreakable polycarbonate, will stop using the plastic because of growing concern over one of its ingredients.
The decision by Nalgene Outdoor Products, a unit of Thermo Fisher Scientific, based in Rochester, came after reports that the Canadian government would declare the chemical bisphenol-a, or BPA, toxic. Some animal studies have linked the chemical to changes in the hormonal system.
Those reports also prompted many of Canada’s largest retailers, including Wal-Mart Canada, to remove food-related products made with plastics containing the compound chemical, like baby bottles, toddler sipping cups and food containers, from their stores this week.
“Based on all available scientific evidence, we continue to believe that Nalgene products containing BPA are safe for their intended use,” Steven Silverman, the general manager of the Nalgene unit, said in a statement. “However, our customers indicated they preferred BPA-free alternatives, and we acted in response to those concerns.”
The National Toxicology Program in the United States released a draft report on Tuesday reporting that some rats that were fed or injected with low doses of the chemical developed precancerous tumors and urinary tract problems and reached puberty early. While the report said the animal tests provided “limited evidence,” it also noted that the “possibility that bisphenol-a may alter human development cannot be dismissed.”
Late Thursday, the American Chemistry Council, which says that there is no evidence suggesting that the chemical has an adverse impact on people, asked the Food and Drug Administration to review the chemical.
“We hope that the leading regulatory agency charged with protecting the public’s health, including evaluating the safety of food containers, will put to rest questions about the safety of bisphenol-a,” the industry group said.
Nalgene’s decision to drop the plastic that transformed it from an obscure maker of laboratory equipment into a consumer brand does not mean the company is leaving the drinking bottle business. It has long made bottles from other plastics that lack the glasslike transparency and rigidity that made polycarbonate popular.
Last month, Nalgene introduced a line of bottles made from a relatively new plastic from the Eastman Chemical Company, Tritan copolyester, that shares most of polycarbonate’s properties, including shatter-resistance, but is made without the chemical.
A person knowledgeable about Canada’s chemical review program said this week that the government had decided to list the compound as a toxic substance under the country’s environmental protection act. Because of confidentiality rules, he spoke on the condition he not be identified.
Tony Clement, the minister of health, has scheduled a news conference for Friday to discuss the issue.
Designation of the chemical will begin a two-year regulatory process that ultimately could lead to restrictions or a ban on the use of the compound.
But some retailers in Canada say that interest in food-related products made with the chemical, particularly those intended for infants and small children, is fast vanishing.
“Consumer demand for BPA products had largely dried up,” said Hillary Marshall, a spokeswoman for the Hudson’s Bay Company. The retailer removed all baby-related products made with plastics that contained the chemical from its 94 department stores and 280 Zellers discount stores this week. It is working on removing other merchandise made with polycarbonates.
Not all consumers are pleased by the actions. Because of Health Canada’s review, London Drugs, which is based in Richmond, British Columbia, began withdrawing merchandise that contained the chemical Jan. 10 and replacing it with alternatives made of other plastics or stainless steel. Wynne Powell, the company’s president, said the last 10 products were taken away this week.
“I had some complaints come to my desk complaining that we were fear-mongering by pulling products,” Mr. Powell said. “The public was not totally on board.”
Asked whether it plans to follow the lead of its Canadian operations in the United States, Wal-Mart said in a statement, “We are working to expand our BPA-free offerings and expect the entire assortment of baby bottles to be BPA-free sometime early next year.”
A difficult question for retailers will be how to handle products, including soft drinks, that are packaged in aluminum or steel cans.
For the last two decades, the interiors of most cans have been coated with an epoxy resin that is made using the chemical to extend the shelf life of the contents and prevent the metal from affecting the flavors of food and drinks.
John M. Rost, the chairman of the North American Metal Packaging Alliance, an industry group, said that there was no evidence that the linings expose humans to significant amounts of the chemical, a position not shared by all scientists. He added that researchers had been unable to develop an alternative lining that performs as well as the current epoxy.
“The epoxy resins are the gold standard right now,” said Dr. Rost, who is a chemist. “The speculation of what’s to be published has led to reactions from retailers that is not based on any actual data from Health Canada. So we are encouraging a release as soon as possible.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/business/18plastic.html?em&ex=1208750400&en=d629b318e5c7abc7&ei=5087%0A&exprod=myyahoo
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
How Republicans Hijacked the Justice Department
How Republicans Hijacked the Justice Department to Swing Elections
By Steven Rosenfeld, Ig Publishing
Posted on April 15, 2008, Printed on April 16, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/82348/
The following is an excerpted chapter by Steve Rosenfeld from the new book "Loser Take All," edited by Mark Crispin Miller (Ig Publishing, 2008).
Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the twenty-first century, instead of men in white robes or a barrel-chested sheriff menacingly patrolling voting precincts, we are more likely to see a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers and proposed legislation about "voter fraud" and other measures to supposedly protect the sanctity of the vote.
Since the 2004 election, activist lawyers with ties to the Republican Party and its presidential campaigns, Republican legislators, and even the Supreme Court -- in a largely unnoticed ruling in 2006 -- have been aggressively regulating most aspects of the voting process. Collectively, these efforts are undoing the gains of the civil rights era that brought voting rights to minorities and the poor, groups that tend to support Democrats.
In addition, the Department of Justice (DOJ), which for decades had fought to ensure that all eligible citizens could vote, now encourages states to take steps in the opposite direction. Political appointees who advocate for stringent requirements before ballots are cast and votes are counted have driven much of the DOJ's Voting Section's recent agenda. As a result, the Department has pushed states to purge voter lists, and to adopt newly restrictive voter ID and provisional ballot laws. In addition, during most of George W. Bush's tenure, the DOJ has stopped enforcing federal laws designed to aid registration, such as the requirement that state welfare offices offer public aid recipients the opportunity to register to vote.
The Department's political appointees have also pressured federal prosecutors to pursue "voter fraud" cases against the Bush administration's perceived opponents, such as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which conduct mass registration drives among populations that tend to vote Democratic. Two former federal prosecutors have said they believe that they lost their positions for refusing to pursue these cases.
The proponents of this renewed impetus to police voters comes from a powerful and well-connected wing of the Republican Party that believes steps are needed to protect elections from Democratic-leaning groups that are fabricating voter registrations en masse and impersonating voters. Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas, said in 2007 that is an "article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections." While Masset himself didn't agree with that assertion, he did believe "that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a drop off in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote."
While voter fraud and voter suppression have a long history in American politics, registration abuses and instances of people voting more than once are rare today, as federal officials convicted only twenty-four people of illegal voting between 2002 and 2005. Moreover, modern voter fraud, when it occurs, has involved partisans from both parties, although it is rarely on a scale that overturns elections. In contrast, new voter registration restrictions, such as requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID, are of a scale that can affect election outcomes.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School has found that 25% of adult African-Americans, 15% of adults earning below $35,000 annually, and 18% of seniors over sixty-five do not possess government-issued photo ID. While various studies -- such as a 2006 Election Assistance Commission report by Tova Andrea Wang and Job Serebrov, and a 2007 study by Lorraine Minnite of Barnard College -- have found modern claims of a voter fraud "crisis" to be unfounded, that has not stopped states from adopting remedies that impose burdens across their electorate and on voter registration organizations. "Across the country, voter identification laws have become a partisan mess," Loyola University Law Professor Richard Hasen said in an Oct. 24, 2006 Slate.com column, speaking of one such remedy. "Republican-dominated legislatures have been enacting voter identification laws in the name of preventing fraud, and Democrats have opposed such laws in the name of protecting potentially disenfranchised voters." Hasen was commenting on a little-noticed 2006 Supreme Court ruling, Purcell v. Gonzales, which upheld Arizona's new voter ID law. The court unanimously affirmed the state's 2004 law, writing that, "Voter fraud drives honest citizens out of the democratic process and breeds distrust of our government. Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel disenfranchised."
Hasen said that while the ruling "seem[ed] reasonable enough" at first glance, it actually was deeply troubling, as the Court never investigated if there was evidence of widespread voter fraud, and never examined "how onerous are such [voter ID] laws." Instead, it adopted the Republican rhetoric on the issue "without any proof whatsoever." Hasen then quoted Harvard University History Professor Alexander Keyssar on the Court's rationale. "FEEL disenfranchised? Is that the same as 'being disenfranchised?' So if I might 'feel' disenfranchised, I have a right to make it harder for you to vote? What on Earth is going on here?"
What on Earth is going on here?
"These things have become partisan," Democratic California Representative Juanita Millender-McDonald replied at a March 2005 congressional field hearing when asked why she and others in Congress had come to Ohio to investigate the 2004 election. "Images are so critical, especially when the stakes are high and stakes are high in presidential elections," the now-deceased congresswoman continued, referring to the lingering memory of thousands of African-Americans waiting for hours outside in a cold rain to vote the previous November in Ohio's inner cities. Many elected Democrats and voting rights attorneys saw the delays as intentional voter suppression resulting from partisan election administration. To some, it stirred memories of the segregated south.
Cleveland Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who six weeks earlier had stood with California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer to contest Ohio's 2004 Electoral College votes, was also present at the hearing, and had several testy exchanges with Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell over his administration of the election. One particular exchange concerned how Blackwell had spent millions of dollars for advertisements that neglected to tell Ohioans where else they could go to vote if they were delayed at their own polling place -- a small but telling example of election administration with partisan implications:
Ms. Tubbs Jones: In this ad you said, "Vote your precinct," but you never told them that if they couldn't vote in precinct, they could go to the Board of Elections and vote. Did you, sir?
Secretary Blackwell: I sure didn't.
Ms. Tubbs Jones: Excuse me?
Secretary Blackwell: Can't you hear? I said I sure didn't.
But while Democrats like Tubbs Jones were looking back at 2004, Republicans were looking ahead at shaping the future electorate to their advantage. The hearing was notable because it signaled the start of a renewed Republican campaign to highlight "voter fraud" as an issue needing legislative redress. The assertions and responses that unfolded that day would be heard in many states in 2005 and 2006 as GOP-majority legislatures "dealt" with the issue. Ohio Republican Representative Kevin DeWine spoke of a proposed voter ID law -- which would later pass -- and suggested that the Legislature's concern was not whether the law would pass, but how tough it should be. The state also added strict new rules for mass voter registration drives early in 2005, which were overturned in federal court in February 2008, and later passed a bill facilitating Election Day challenges to individual voters. Ohio Republican State Senator Jeff Jacobson said that these laws were needed to stop "fraudulent registrations" because national groups "are paid to come in and end up registering Mickey Mouse .... The millions of dollars that poured in, in an attempt to influence Ohio, is not normal."
What Jacobson said was true, though lacking in context. Groups like ACORN and Americans Coming Together had registered millions of new voters in battleground states before the 2004 election, and some of ACORN's staff -- i.e. temporary workers -- had filed a handful of registration forms with fabricated names. ACORN discovered the error, alerted the authorities and prosecutions ensued. While those mistakes were cited by politicians like Jacobson as evidence of a national voter fraud crisis, others, such as Norman Robbins, a Case Western University professor and co-coordinator of the Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition, urged the House panel to look at the facts and keep the issue in perspective:
"We desperately need research on all of the issues raised today," he said. "For instance, what are the real causes and effects of the long lines? How many voters were actually disenfranchised? How long did they take to vote? That would be one set of questions. Does showing an ID increase the reliability of the vote or does it disenfranchise people? Those are answerable questions. How many people truly have been convicted of election fraud? What do we really know about this in terms of cases and conditions."
To answer those questions, the committee chairman, Republican Bob Ney -- who has since been convicted and jailed on bribery charges -- turned to a long-time Republican operative, Mark "Thor" Hearne, who introduced himself as an "advocate of voter rights and an attorney experienced in election law." Hearne, a lawyer based in St. Louis, certainly was experienced. In 2000, he had worked for the Bush campaign in Florida during the presidential recount. He was also the Vice President of Election Education for the Republican National Lawyers Association, which helps the party train partisan poll monitors. In 2004, he became counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign, where he "worked with White House presidential advisor Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee to identify potential voting fraud in battleground states ... and oversaw more than 65 different lawsuits that concerned the outcome of the election."8 After 2004, "with encouragement from Rove and the White House, Hearne founded the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), which represented itself as a nonpartisan watchdog group looking for voting fraud." The group would go on to urge federal and state officials to prosecute voter fraud, adopt tougher voter ID laws and purge voter rolls. It would also file legal briefs in voter ID cases, urging tighter regulations.
Hearne presented the panel with a report suggesting that fraudulent registrations were threatening U.S. elections. The report listed problems in Ohio cities with sizeable African-American populations -- the state's Democratic strongholds. Nationally, ACVR would use the same approach to identify other voter fraud "hot spots."
A national pattern
Though the facts were slim, Republicans across the country acted as if a voter fraud crisis was rampant. As a result, Republican-controlled legislatures in Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin passed new voter ID requirements after the 2004 election, although gubernatorial vetoes or court orders nullified these laws in every state except for Indiana. (In January 2008, the Supreme Court heard a challenge to Indiana's voter ID law.) Meanwhile, two states with Republican-majority legislatures -- Florida and Ohio -- made voter registration drives more difficult by raising penalties for errors on registration forms, as well as shortening the timeline for organizers to submit these forms -- which prevents these groups from checking the registrations for accuracy and completeness. Litigation and court rulings reversed those laws before the 2006 election, but not before the League of Women Voters was forced to halt registration drives in Florida for the first time in the group's 75-year history. In Ohio, where ACORN was registering approximately 5,000 new voters per week, those efforts were suspended during the litigation, meaning an estimated 30,000 people were not given the opportunity to register.
Since 2004, five other states have imposed new restrictions on voter registration drives -- Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico and Missouri -- according to research by Project Vote, which has worked with the Brennan Center for Justice to challenge these laws. To date, these laws still remain on the books in Missouri and New Mexico. "It's no secret who these restrictions affect," wrote Michael Slater, Project Vote's deputy director, in the October 2007 issue of The National Voter, a publication of the League of Women Voters. "In 2004, 15 percent of all African-American and Latino voters were registered to vote as a result of an organized drive; an African-American or Latino voter was 65 percent more likely to have been registered to vote by an organized drive than a White voter. In the final analysis, spurious allegations of voter fraud give rise to yet more roadblocks on the path to full participation in political life for historically disadvantaged Americans."
These state-level responses to voter fraud did not occur in a vacuum. Since the creation of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department a half-century ago, the federal government has had great power and influence over how states implement voting rights. But by early 2005, the same mindset shared by GOP legislators in Ohio and other states, and by vote fraud activists like Hearne, could also be found among the Bush administration's senior appointees overseeing voting rights at the DOJ.
Just four days before the 2004 election, the Department's civil rights chief, Assistant Attorney General Alex Acosta, wrote to a federal judge in Cincinnati who was deciding whether to allow the Ohio Republican Party to challenge the credentials of 23,000 mostly African-American voters. Acosta supported the voter challenges, saying an order to block them could undermine the enforcement of state and federal voting laws. The challenges, Acosta wrote, "help strike a balance between ballot access and ballot integrity." The voter challenges were allowed to go forward, although the final judicial ruling came too late for Ohio's Republican Party to deploy thousands of party members to local precincts to challenge voter credentials.
Another sign of the Department's shift from its historic mission of enfranchising voters to a new "selective enforcement" mindset could also be seen by 2005 when a coalition of voting rights groups failed to convince the Department to enforce the law that requiring states to offer welfare recipients the opportunity to register to vote. "In January 2005, we had a 10-year report, which documented the 59 percent decline [in registrations] from 1995 through 2004," said Scott Novakowski of the center-left think tank Demos. He added that many states, including Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, were ignoring the registration requirements for welfare recipients. "John Conyers [now the House Judiciary Committee chairman] and 29 other representatives asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to look into this, and there was no response."
The political stakes in registering low-income voters are enormous. The Election Assistance Commission's biennial voter registration report for 2005-2006 found that while 16.6 million new registration applications were received by state motor vehicles agencies, only 527,752 applications came from public assistance offices -- a 50 percent drop from 2003-2004. As a result, in early 2005, voting rights groups met with the DOJ's top Voting Section officials -- including Hans Von Spakovsky, counsel to the assistant attorney general overseeing the Voting Section, and Voting Section Chief Joseph Rich -- to discuss enforcing the public assistance requirement. Von Spakovsky, like ACVR's Hearne, had worked for Bush in Florida during the 2000 recount and was among a handful of GOP appointees who were established "vote fraud" activists.
Rich, a Civil Rights Division attorney for thirty-seven years, had been chief of the Voting Section for six years when he resigned in April 2005, citing politicization of voting rights enforcement. Rich recalled the meeting about the voter registration requirements, saying that Von Spakovsky -- who had become his de facto boss -- decided to ignore that part of the law, and instead focus on one line in the statute that allowed the Justice Department to pressure states to purge voter rolls. "Four months before I left, in 2005, Von Spakovsky held a meeting where he said he wanted to start an initiative for states we want to purge ... Their priority was to purge, not to register voters ... To me, it was a very clear view of the Republican agenda ... to make it harder to vote: purge voters and don't register voters."
The Bush Administration Voting Section
Rich was one of a number of career attorneys at the DOJ Voting Section who resigned because pressure from the Bush administration had altered the agency's historic civil rights mission. Between 2005 and 2007, 55 percent of the attorneys in the Voting Section left, according to a report by NYU's Brennan Center and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which cited, among other things, a "partisan hiring process," "altered performance evaluations" and "political retaliation on the job." The shift in enforcement philosophy did not go unnoticed. In July 2006, The Boston Globe reported that the Civil Rights Division had turned away from hiring lawyers with civil rights movement backgrounds. Of the nineteen attorneys hired since 2003, The Globe reported, eleven were members of the conservative Federalist Society, Republican National Lawyers Association, or had volunteered for Bush-Cheney campaigns. Moreover, the Voting Section had virtually stopped filing suits on behalf of minority voters. Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, told the House Judiciary Committee on March 22, 2007 that, "The Voting Section did not file any cases on behalf of African-American voters during a five-year period between 2001 and 2006," adding that, "no cases have been brought on behalf of Native American voters for the entire administration." While the Justice Department had all but stopped filing lawsuits on behalf of Native and African-Americans, the Voting Section had more than doubled the number of lawsuits seeking to enforce the providing of bilingual ballots and election materials in Latino and Asian communities, constituencies that were seen as likely Republican swing votes, particularly after the GOP made electoral gains among Latinos in 2004.
That the administration's appointees overseeing voting rights would politicize the Voting Section should have surprised no one.
Early in Bush's first term, conservative publications like the National Journal were clamoring for wholesale changes in the Civil Rights Division. "There may be no part of the federal government where liberalism is more deeply entrenched," the Journal's John Miller wrote on May 6, 2002. "Keeping ineligible voters off registration lists is the first step in limiting fraud," wrote Von Spakovsky in a 1997 Georgia Public Policy Foundation article, where he described various scenarios where he believed Democratic partisans were "sending imposters to vote, to request absentee ballots, or to otherwise generate fraudulent votes." In July 2001, Von Spakovsky began his testimony on "election reform" before the Senate Rules Committee by stating that, "One of the biggest threats to voter rights and election integrity today is the condition of our voter registration rolls. Many jurisdictions now have more registered names on their voter rolls than they have voting age population within their borders. This is an invitation to fraud and chaos since the many invalid and multiple registrations that exist can serve as a source pool for fraud."
According to a Brennan Center and Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law report, there were four "connected pieces of strategy" to politicize the enforcement of voting rights by the Department of Justice from 2004 through 2007: "fomenting fear of voter fraud;" "dismantling the infrastructure of Justice;" "restricting registration and voting;" and "politically motivated prosecutions." According to the report, from 2003 to 2005, the Voting Rights Section:
Sent Maryland a letter before the 2004 presidential election saying that the state could reject voter registrations that did not match information on other state databases. That "no-vote, no-match" standard has been criticized as being too strict, due to typos and data-entry errors.
Pre-cleared congressional redistricting in Texas in mid-decade, instead of waiting for the once-a-decade census report, as has been the standard practice. The Department must approve election law changes in states and counties under jurisdiction of the Voting Rights Act. The Texas redistricting case was seen as leading to the election of four Republican House candidates in 2004. In 2006, the Supreme Court issued a decision upholding parts of that redistricting plan.
Argued that individual citizens have no right to private action -- or the ability to sue to seek redress-under HAVA. That right has been a key component of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, leading citizens to file numerous suits such as one in 2006 by African-American voters in Columbus, Ohio, whose precincts did not receive the same per capita number of voting machines as nearby white suburbs.
Pre-cleared a new Georgia photo ID law, even though the section's career attorneys recommended rejecting it. The courts later nullified the law, comparing it to imposing a "poll tax" due to costs associated with obtaining the required government photo ID. The state has since modified the law, relaxing the ID standard.
Issued an opinion saying provisional ballots could not be given to people who lacked ID. The ballots were created by HAVA to ensure that people who are not on voter rolls could vote, though registrations of those voters must be verified before counting the ballots. The section also said it was okay to cast but not count provisional ballots.
Tried to pressure the Election Assistance Commission to change its decision on Arizona's voter ID law, which requires residents to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. Arizona wanted the EAC to add the citizenship requirement to a national voter registration form. The EAC did not grant Arizona's request, despite supporting emails from Von Spakofsky.
-Filed the first of a half-dozen lawsuits forcing states to purge voter rolls. Only Missouri fought the suit, which it later won, though the Justice Department is appealing that ruling. U.S. District Court Judge Nanette K. Laughrey wrote in her decision that, "It is ... telling that the United States has not shown that any Missouri resident was denied his or her right to vote as a result of the deficiencies alleged by the United States. Nor has the United States shown that any voter fraud has occurred." New Jersey, Indiana, and Maine were also sued by the Department and reached consent decrees -- settlements -- that included voter purges.
These actions were all part of a growing crescendo of enforcement actions with political overtones leading up to the 2006 election.
Turning toward 2008
As the country approaches the 2008 election, it is an open question how the GOP's ballot security strategies will affect voting in the battleground states. As in any election, there are a handful of unknowns that could have a major impact. The Supreme Court, for example, will decide whether Indiana's voter ID law, seen as one of the country's toughest, places an unconstitutional burden on low-income people and minority voters. Meanwhile, in states where immigration is a hot-button issue, Arizona's efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the national voter registration form will be closely watched. Under that state's Proposition 200, which passed in 2004, residents must show proof of citizenship before registering to vote or receiving public assistance. Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, is now rejecting 30 percent of all new registrations due to inadequate proof of citizenship, according to Jeff Blum of USAction. Since Proposition 200 was implemented in 2005, more than 32,000 voter registrations have been rejected. Meanwhile, in January 2008, the Texas Legislature began consideration of a new voter ID law.
Similarly, efforts by states to comply with HAVA by creating statewide voter lists pose an entirely new set of election administration issues. Since 2000, most states have been struggling to transition to a new generation of electronic voting systems. These paperless systems have been criticized for being unreliable, potentially inaccurate, and accessible to hackers. While some states have moved to restrict the use of these machines, the creation of statewide voter databases -- a part of these systems -- has not been as widely scrutinized. In some states, officials have instituted strict name-matching requirements to verify the accuracy of voter registrations. Whether typos or other data entry errors will mistakenly remove legal voters -- as was the case in California in 2005 -- remains to be seen, although Florida recently joined a handful of states, including Washington, where litigation rolled back strict name-matching standards that were disenfranchising legal voters.
Another large unknown concerns voter purges. In April 2007, the Justice Department sent letters to the top election administrators in ten states -- Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Vermont -- to pressure them to purge their voter rolls. Former Voting Section attorneys and others said the statistics cited by the Justice Department in the purge letter were flawed and did not confirm that those states had more voter registrations than eligible voters, as the department alleged. "That data does not say what they purport it says," said David Becker, senior voting rights counsel for People for the American Way and a former Voting Section senior trial attorney, after reviewing the data cited in the Justice Department's letter. "This stuff disenfranchises voters .... There are eligible voters who will be removed. There is no evidence that rolls need to be cleaned up to this degree. This will make things more chaotic on Election Day. People will be given provisional ballots that won't get counted."
Looking toward the 2008 election, it appears the purges -- as well as the new voter ID laws, restrictions on registration drives and stricter rules for counting provisional ballots -- could be a new and legal way to accomplish a longstanding GOP electoral tactic: thinning the ranks of likely Democratic voters. In numerous elections dating back to the 1960s, the Republican Party has tried to challenge new voter registrations to accomplish this goal, although since 1981 federal courts have blocked some of those efforts as illegal electioneering.
"Until the mid-1960s, the political entity most closely associated with efforts to disenfranchise people of color was the southern wing of the Democratic Party," wrote Rice University Sociology Professor Chandler Davidson and several graduate students in a paper titled, "Republican Ballot Security Programs: Vote Protection or Minority Voter Suppression -- Or Both?" However, the passage of civil rights laws in the early 1960s prompted some Republicans to appeal to southern Democrats who supported the Jim Crow system. Part of that political sea change was that the Republican Party adopted some of the voter suppression tactics used by southern Democrats. Indeed, the debate and remedies framed by the GOP's contemporary "voter fraud" activists comes from this same political lineage:
"There are several noteworthy characteristics of these programs. They focus on minority precincts almost exclusively. There is often only the flimsiest evidence that voter fraud is likely to be perpetrated in such precincts.
In addition to encouraging the presence of sometimes intimidating Republican poll watchers or challengers who may slow down voting lines and embarrass potential voters by asking them humiliating questions, these programs have sometimes posted people in official-looking uniforms with badges and side arms who question voters about their citizenship or their registration. In addition, warning signs may be posted near the polls, or radio ads may be targeted to minority listeners containing dire threats of prison terms for people who are not properly registered -- messages that seem designed to put minority voters on the defensive."
Will this history of vote suppression tactics repeat itself during the 2008 presidential election? While the Democrats are not saints when it comes to voter suppression -- recall how John Kerry's supporters disqualified signatories to Ralph Nader's presidential petitions in 2004 -- they do not have the same kind of vote suppression apparatus in place as the Republicans do. Indeed, it appears that Republicans are already following Chandler Davidson's inventory by seeking to regulate the voting process well before the 2008 election. The tactics that can be implemented well before the voting begins -- stricter voter ID laws, voter purges, registration drive curbs, tougher provisional ballot laws and easing rulefor voter challenges -- are already underway in several states.
Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and co-author of "What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election," with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (The New Press, 2006).
© 2008 Ig Publishing All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/82348/
By Steven Rosenfeld, Ig Publishing
Posted on April 15, 2008, Printed on April 16, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/82348/
The following is an excerpted chapter by Steve Rosenfeld from the new book "Loser Take All," edited by Mark Crispin Miller (Ig Publishing, 2008).
Jim Crow has returned to American elections, only in the twenty-first century, instead of men in white robes or a barrel-chested sheriff menacingly patrolling voting precincts, we are more likely to see a lawyer carrying a folder filled with briefing papers and proposed legislation about "voter fraud" and other measures to supposedly protect the sanctity of the vote.
Since the 2004 election, activist lawyers with ties to the Republican Party and its presidential campaigns, Republican legislators, and even the Supreme Court -- in a largely unnoticed ruling in 2006 -- have been aggressively regulating most aspects of the voting process. Collectively, these efforts are undoing the gains of the civil rights era that brought voting rights to minorities and the poor, groups that tend to support Democrats.
In addition, the Department of Justice (DOJ), which for decades had fought to ensure that all eligible citizens could vote, now encourages states to take steps in the opposite direction. Political appointees who advocate for stringent requirements before ballots are cast and votes are counted have driven much of the DOJ's Voting Section's recent agenda. As a result, the Department has pushed states to purge voter lists, and to adopt newly restrictive voter ID and provisional ballot laws. In addition, during most of George W. Bush's tenure, the DOJ has stopped enforcing federal laws designed to aid registration, such as the requirement that state welfare offices offer public aid recipients the opportunity to register to vote.
The Department's political appointees have also pressured federal prosecutors to pursue "voter fraud" cases against the Bush administration's perceived opponents, such as ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which conduct mass registration drives among populations that tend to vote Democratic. Two former federal prosecutors have said they believe that they lost their positions for refusing to pursue these cases.
The proponents of this renewed impetus to police voters comes from a powerful and well-connected wing of the Republican Party that believes steps are needed to protect elections from Democratic-leaning groups that are fabricating voter registrations en masse and impersonating voters. Royal Masset, the former political director of the Republican Party of Texas, said in 2007 that is an "article of religious faith that voter fraud is causing us to lose elections." While Masset himself didn't agree with that assertion, he did believe "that requiring photo IDs could cause enough of a drop off in legitimate Democratic voting to add 3 percent to the Republican vote."
While voter fraud and voter suppression have a long history in American politics, registration abuses and instances of people voting more than once are rare today, as federal officials convicted only twenty-four people of illegal voting between 2002 and 2005. Moreover, modern voter fraud, when it occurs, has involved partisans from both parties, although it is rarely on a scale that overturns elections. In contrast, new voter registration restrictions, such as requiring voters to show a government-issued photo ID, are of a scale that can affect election outcomes.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School has found that 25% of adult African-Americans, 15% of adults earning below $35,000 annually, and 18% of seniors over sixty-five do not possess government-issued photo ID. While various studies -- such as a 2006 Election Assistance Commission report by Tova Andrea Wang and Job Serebrov, and a 2007 study by Lorraine Minnite of Barnard College -- have found modern claims of a voter fraud "crisis" to be unfounded, that has not stopped states from adopting remedies that impose burdens across their electorate and on voter registration organizations. "Across the country, voter identification laws have become a partisan mess," Loyola University Law Professor Richard Hasen said in an Oct. 24, 2006 Slate.com column, speaking of one such remedy. "Republican-dominated legislatures have been enacting voter identification laws in the name of preventing fraud, and Democrats have opposed such laws in the name of protecting potentially disenfranchised voters." Hasen was commenting on a little-noticed 2006 Supreme Court ruling, Purcell v. Gonzales, which upheld Arizona's new voter ID law. The court unanimously affirmed the state's 2004 law, writing that, "Voter fraud drives honest citizens out of the democratic process and breeds distrust of our government. Voters who fear their legitimate votes will be outweighed by fraudulent ones will feel disenfranchised."
Hasen said that while the ruling "seem[ed] reasonable enough" at first glance, it actually was deeply troubling, as the Court never investigated if there was evidence of widespread voter fraud, and never examined "how onerous are such [voter ID] laws." Instead, it adopted the Republican rhetoric on the issue "without any proof whatsoever." Hasen then quoted Harvard University History Professor Alexander Keyssar on the Court's rationale. "FEEL disenfranchised? Is that the same as 'being disenfranchised?' So if I might 'feel' disenfranchised, I have a right to make it harder for you to vote? What on Earth is going on here?"
What on Earth is going on here?
"These things have become partisan," Democratic California Representative Juanita Millender-McDonald replied at a March 2005 congressional field hearing when asked why she and others in Congress had come to Ohio to investigate the 2004 election. "Images are so critical, especially when the stakes are high and stakes are high in presidential elections," the now-deceased congresswoman continued, referring to the lingering memory of thousands of African-Americans waiting for hours outside in a cold rain to vote the previous November in Ohio's inner cities. Many elected Democrats and voting rights attorneys saw the delays as intentional voter suppression resulting from partisan election administration. To some, it stirred memories of the segregated south.
Cleveland Democratic Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who six weeks earlier had stood with California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer to contest Ohio's 2004 Electoral College votes, was also present at the hearing, and had several testy exchanges with Ohio's Republican Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell over his administration of the election. One particular exchange concerned how Blackwell had spent millions of dollars for advertisements that neglected to tell Ohioans where else they could go to vote if they were delayed at their own polling place -- a small but telling example of election administration with partisan implications:
Ms. Tubbs Jones: In this ad you said, "Vote your precinct," but you never told them that if they couldn't vote in precinct, they could go to the Board of Elections and vote. Did you, sir?
Secretary Blackwell: I sure didn't.
Ms. Tubbs Jones: Excuse me?
Secretary Blackwell: Can't you hear? I said I sure didn't.
But while Democrats like Tubbs Jones were looking back at 2004, Republicans were looking ahead at shaping the future electorate to their advantage. The hearing was notable because it signaled the start of a renewed Republican campaign to highlight "voter fraud" as an issue needing legislative redress. The assertions and responses that unfolded that day would be heard in many states in 2005 and 2006 as GOP-majority legislatures "dealt" with the issue. Ohio Republican Representative Kevin DeWine spoke of a proposed voter ID law -- which would later pass -- and suggested that the Legislature's concern was not whether the law would pass, but how tough it should be. The state also added strict new rules for mass voter registration drives early in 2005, which were overturned in federal court in February 2008, and later passed a bill facilitating Election Day challenges to individual voters. Ohio Republican State Senator Jeff Jacobson said that these laws were needed to stop "fraudulent registrations" because national groups "are paid to come in and end up registering Mickey Mouse .... The millions of dollars that poured in, in an attempt to influence Ohio, is not normal."
What Jacobson said was true, though lacking in context. Groups like ACORN and Americans Coming Together had registered millions of new voters in battleground states before the 2004 election, and some of ACORN's staff -- i.e. temporary workers -- had filed a handful of registration forms with fabricated names. ACORN discovered the error, alerted the authorities and prosecutions ensued. While those mistakes were cited by politicians like Jacobson as evidence of a national voter fraud crisis, others, such as Norman Robbins, a Case Western University professor and co-coordinator of the Greater Cleveland Voter Coalition, urged the House panel to look at the facts and keep the issue in perspective:
"We desperately need research on all of the issues raised today," he said. "For instance, what are the real causes and effects of the long lines? How many voters were actually disenfranchised? How long did they take to vote? That would be one set of questions. Does showing an ID increase the reliability of the vote or does it disenfranchise people? Those are answerable questions. How many people truly have been convicted of election fraud? What do we really know about this in terms of cases and conditions."
To answer those questions, the committee chairman, Republican Bob Ney -- who has since been convicted and jailed on bribery charges -- turned to a long-time Republican operative, Mark "Thor" Hearne, who introduced himself as an "advocate of voter rights and an attorney experienced in election law." Hearne, a lawyer based in St. Louis, certainly was experienced. In 2000, he had worked for the Bush campaign in Florida during the presidential recount. He was also the Vice President of Election Education for the Republican National Lawyers Association, which helps the party train partisan poll monitors. In 2004, he became counsel to the Bush-Cheney campaign, where he "worked with White House presidential advisor Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee to identify potential voting fraud in battleground states ... and oversaw more than 65 different lawsuits that concerned the outcome of the election."8 After 2004, "with encouragement from Rove and the White House, Hearne founded the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR), which represented itself as a nonpartisan watchdog group looking for voting fraud." The group would go on to urge federal and state officials to prosecute voter fraud, adopt tougher voter ID laws and purge voter rolls. It would also file legal briefs in voter ID cases, urging tighter regulations.
Hearne presented the panel with a report suggesting that fraudulent registrations were threatening U.S. elections. The report listed problems in Ohio cities with sizeable African-American populations -- the state's Democratic strongholds. Nationally, ACVR would use the same approach to identify other voter fraud "hot spots."
A national pattern
Though the facts were slim, Republicans across the country acted as if a voter fraud crisis was rampant. As a result, Republican-controlled legislatures in Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin passed new voter ID requirements after the 2004 election, although gubernatorial vetoes or court orders nullified these laws in every state except for Indiana. (In January 2008, the Supreme Court heard a challenge to Indiana's voter ID law.) Meanwhile, two states with Republican-majority legislatures -- Florida and Ohio -- made voter registration drives more difficult by raising penalties for errors on registration forms, as well as shortening the timeline for organizers to submit these forms -- which prevents these groups from checking the registrations for accuracy and completeness. Litigation and court rulings reversed those laws before the 2006 election, but not before the League of Women Voters was forced to halt registration drives in Florida for the first time in the group's 75-year history. In Ohio, where ACORN was registering approximately 5,000 new voters per week, those efforts were suspended during the litigation, meaning an estimated 30,000 people were not given the opportunity to register.
Since 2004, five other states have imposed new restrictions on voter registration drives -- Colorado, Georgia, Maryland, New Mexico and Missouri -- according to research by Project Vote, which has worked with the Brennan Center for Justice to challenge these laws. To date, these laws still remain on the books in Missouri and New Mexico. "It's no secret who these restrictions affect," wrote Michael Slater, Project Vote's deputy director, in the October 2007 issue of The National Voter, a publication of the League of Women Voters. "In 2004, 15 percent of all African-American and Latino voters were registered to vote as a result of an organized drive; an African-American or Latino voter was 65 percent more likely to have been registered to vote by an organized drive than a White voter. In the final analysis, spurious allegations of voter fraud give rise to yet more roadblocks on the path to full participation in political life for historically disadvantaged Americans."
These state-level responses to voter fraud did not occur in a vacuum. Since the creation of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department a half-century ago, the federal government has had great power and influence over how states implement voting rights. But by early 2005, the same mindset shared by GOP legislators in Ohio and other states, and by vote fraud activists like Hearne, could also be found among the Bush administration's senior appointees overseeing voting rights at the DOJ.
Just four days before the 2004 election, the Department's civil rights chief, Assistant Attorney General Alex Acosta, wrote to a federal judge in Cincinnati who was deciding whether to allow the Ohio Republican Party to challenge the credentials of 23,000 mostly African-American voters. Acosta supported the voter challenges, saying an order to block them could undermine the enforcement of state and federal voting laws. The challenges, Acosta wrote, "help strike a balance between ballot access and ballot integrity." The voter challenges were allowed to go forward, although the final judicial ruling came too late for Ohio's Republican Party to deploy thousands of party members to local precincts to challenge voter credentials.
Another sign of the Department's shift from its historic mission of enfranchising voters to a new "selective enforcement" mindset could also be seen by 2005 when a coalition of voting rights groups failed to convince the Department to enforce the law that requiring states to offer welfare recipients the opportunity to register to vote. "In January 2005, we had a 10-year report, which documented the 59 percent decline [in registrations] from 1995 through 2004," said Scott Novakowski of the center-left think tank Demos. He added that many states, including Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, were ignoring the registration requirements for welfare recipients. "John Conyers [now the House Judiciary Committee chairman] and 29 other representatives asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to look into this, and there was no response."
The political stakes in registering low-income voters are enormous. The Election Assistance Commission's biennial voter registration report for 2005-2006 found that while 16.6 million new registration applications were received by state motor vehicles agencies, only 527,752 applications came from public assistance offices -- a 50 percent drop from 2003-2004. As a result, in early 2005, voting rights groups met with the DOJ's top Voting Section officials -- including Hans Von Spakovsky, counsel to the assistant attorney general overseeing the Voting Section, and Voting Section Chief Joseph Rich -- to discuss enforcing the public assistance requirement. Von Spakovsky, like ACVR's Hearne, had worked for Bush in Florida during the 2000 recount and was among a handful of GOP appointees who were established "vote fraud" activists.
Rich, a Civil Rights Division attorney for thirty-seven years, had been chief of the Voting Section for six years when he resigned in April 2005, citing politicization of voting rights enforcement. Rich recalled the meeting about the voter registration requirements, saying that Von Spakovsky -- who had become his de facto boss -- decided to ignore that part of the law, and instead focus on one line in the statute that allowed the Justice Department to pressure states to purge voter rolls. "Four months before I left, in 2005, Von Spakovsky held a meeting where he said he wanted to start an initiative for states we want to purge ... Their priority was to purge, not to register voters ... To me, it was a very clear view of the Republican agenda ... to make it harder to vote: purge voters and don't register voters."
The Bush Administration Voting Section
Rich was one of a number of career attorneys at the DOJ Voting Section who resigned because pressure from the Bush administration had altered the agency's historic civil rights mission. Between 2005 and 2007, 55 percent of the attorneys in the Voting Section left, according to a report by NYU's Brennan Center and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, which cited, among other things, a "partisan hiring process," "altered performance evaluations" and "political retaliation on the job." The shift in enforcement philosophy did not go unnoticed. In July 2006, The Boston Globe reported that the Civil Rights Division had turned away from hiring lawyers with civil rights movement backgrounds. Of the nineteen attorneys hired since 2003, The Globe reported, eleven were members of the conservative Federalist Society, Republican National Lawyers Association, or had volunteered for Bush-Cheney campaigns. Moreover, the Voting Section had virtually stopped filing suits on behalf of minority voters. Wade Henderson, president of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, told the House Judiciary Committee on March 22, 2007 that, "The Voting Section did not file any cases on behalf of African-American voters during a five-year period between 2001 and 2006," adding that, "no cases have been brought on behalf of Native American voters for the entire administration." While the Justice Department had all but stopped filing lawsuits on behalf of Native and African-Americans, the Voting Section had more than doubled the number of lawsuits seeking to enforce the providing of bilingual ballots and election materials in Latino and Asian communities, constituencies that were seen as likely Republican swing votes, particularly after the GOP made electoral gains among Latinos in 2004.
That the administration's appointees overseeing voting rights would politicize the Voting Section should have surprised no one.
Early in Bush's first term, conservative publications like the National Journal were clamoring for wholesale changes in the Civil Rights Division. "There may be no part of the federal government where liberalism is more deeply entrenched," the Journal's John Miller wrote on May 6, 2002. "Keeping ineligible voters off registration lists is the first step in limiting fraud," wrote Von Spakovsky in a 1997 Georgia Public Policy Foundation article, where he described various scenarios where he believed Democratic partisans were "sending imposters to vote, to request absentee ballots, or to otherwise generate fraudulent votes." In July 2001, Von Spakovsky began his testimony on "election reform" before the Senate Rules Committee by stating that, "One of the biggest threats to voter rights and election integrity today is the condition of our voter registration rolls. Many jurisdictions now have more registered names on their voter rolls than they have voting age population within their borders. This is an invitation to fraud and chaos since the many invalid and multiple registrations that exist can serve as a source pool for fraud."
According to a Brennan Center and Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law report, there were four "connected pieces of strategy" to politicize the enforcement of voting rights by the Department of Justice from 2004 through 2007: "fomenting fear of voter fraud;" "dismantling the infrastructure of Justice;" "restricting registration and voting;" and "politically motivated prosecutions." According to the report, from 2003 to 2005, the Voting Rights Section:
Sent Maryland a letter before the 2004 presidential election saying that the state could reject voter registrations that did not match information on other state databases. That "no-vote, no-match" standard has been criticized as being too strict, due to typos and data-entry errors.
Pre-cleared congressional redistricting in Texas in mid-decade, instead of waiting for the once-a-decade census report, as has been the standard practice. The Department must approve election law changes in states and counties under jurisdiction of the Voting Rights Act. The Texas redistricting case was seen as leading to the election of four Republican House candidates in 2004. In 2006, the Supreme Court issued a decision upholding parts of that redistricting plan.
Argued that individual citizens have no right to private action -- or the ability to sue to seek redress-under HAVA. That right has been a key component of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, leading citizens to file numerous suits such as one in 2006 by African-American voters in Columbus, Ohio, whose precincts did not receive the same per capita number of voting machines as nearby white suburbs.
Pre-cleared a new Georgia photo ID law, even though the section's career attorneys recommended rejecting it. The courts later nullified the law, comparing it to imposing a "poll tax" due to costs associated with obtaining the required government photo ID. The state has since modified the law, relaxing the ID standard.
Issued an opinion saying provisional ballots could not be given to people who lacked ID. The ballots were created by HAVA to ensure that people who are not on voter rolls could vote, though registrations of those voters must be verified before counting the ballots. The section also said it was okay to cast but not count provisional ballots.
Tried to pressure the Election Assistance Commission to change its decision on Arizona's voter ID law, which requires residents to provide proof of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote. Arizona wanted the EAC to add the citizenship requirement to a national voter registration form. The EAC did not grant Arizona's request, despite supporting emails from Von Spakofsky.
-Filed the first of a half-dozen lawsuits forcing states to purge voter rolls. Only Missouri fought the suit, which it later won, though the Justice Department is appealing that ruling. U.S. District Court Judge Nanette K. Laughrey wrote in her decision that, "It is ... telling that the United States has not shown that any Missouri resident was denied his or her right to vote as a result of the deficiencies alleged by the United States. Nor has the United States shown that any voter fraud has occurred." New Jersey, Indiana, and Maine were also sued by the Department and reached consent decrees -- settlements -- that included voter purges.
These actions were all part of a growing crescendo of enforcement actions with political overtones leading up to the 2006 election.
Turning toward 2008
As the country approaches the 2008 election, it is an open question how the GOP's ballot security strategies will affect voting in the battleground states. As in any election, there are a handful of unknowns that could have a major impact. The Supreme Court, for example, will decide whether Indiana's voter ID law, seen as one of the country's toughest, places an unconstitutional burden on low-income people and minority voters. Meanwhile, in states where immigration is a hot-button issue, Arizona's efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the national voter registration form will be closely watched. Under that state's Proposition 200, which passed in 2004, residents must show proof of citizenship before registering to vote or receiving public assistance. Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, is now rejecting 30 percent of all new registrations due to inadequate proof of citizenship, according to Jeff Blum of USAction. Since Proposition 200 was implemented in 2005, more than 32,000 voter registrations have been rejected. Meanwhile, in January 2008, the Texas Legislature began consideration of a new voter ID law.
Similarly, efforts by states to comply with HAVA by creating statewide voter lists pose an entirely new set of election administration issues. Since 2000, most states have been struggling to transition to a new generation of electronic voting systems. These paperless systems have been criticized for being unreliable, potentially inaccurate, and accessible to hackers. While some states have moved to restrict the use of these machines, the creation of statewide voter databases -- a part of these systems -- has not been as widely scrutinized. In some states, officials have instituted strict name-matching requirements to verify the accuracy of voter registrations. Whether typos or other data entry errors will mistakenly remove legal voters -- as was the case in California in 2005 -- remains to be seen, although Florida recently joined a handful of states, including Washington, where litigation rolled back strict name-matching standards that were disenfranchising legal voters.
Another large unknown concerns voter purges. In April 2007, the Justice Department sent letters to the top election administrators in ten states -- Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Vermont -- to pressure them to purge their voter rolls. Former Voting Section attorneys and others said the statistics cited by the Justice Department in the purge letter were flawed and did not confirm that those states had more voter registrations than eligible voters, as the department alleged. "That data does not say what they purport it says," said David Becker, senior voting rights counsel for People for the American Way and a former Voting Section senior trial attorney, after reviewing the data cited in the Justice Department's letter. "This stuff disenfranchises voters .... There are eligible voters who will be removed. There is no evidence that rolls need to be cleaned up to this degree. This will make things more chaotic on Election Day. People will be given provisional ballots that won't get counted."
Looking toward the 2008 election, it appears the purges -- as well as the new voter ID laws, restrictions on registration drives and stricter rules for counting provisional ballots -- could be a new and legal way to accomplish a longstanding GOP electoral tactic: thinning the ranks of likely Democratic voters. In numerous elections dating back to the 1960s, the Republican Party has tried to challenge new voter registrations to accomplish this goal, although since 1981 federal courts have blocked some of those efforts as illegal electioneering.
"Until the mid-1960s, the political entity most closely associated with efforts to disenfranchise people of color was the southern wing of the Democratic Party," wrote Rice University Sociology Professor Chandler Davidson and several graduate students in a paper titled, "Republican Ballot Security Programs: Vote Protection or Minority Voter Suppression -- Or Both?" However, the passage of civil rights laws in the early 1960s prompted some Republicans to appeal to southern Democrats who supported the Jim Crow system. Part of that political sea change was that the Republican Party adopted some of the voter suppression tactics used by southern Democrats. Indeed, the debate and remedies framed by the GOP's contemporary "voter fraud" activists comes from this same political lineage:
"There are several noteworthy characteristics of these programs. They focus on minority precincts almost exclusively. There is often only the flimsiest evidence that voter fraud is likely to be perpetrated in such precincts.
In addition to encouraging the presence of sometimes intimidating Republican poll watchers or challengers who may slow down voting lines and embarrass potential voters by asking them humiliating questions, these programs have sometimes posted people in official-looking uniforms with badges and side arms who question voters about their citizenship or their registration. In addition, warning signs may be posted near the polls, or radio ads may be targeted to minority listeners containing dire threats of prison terms for people who are not properly registered -- messages that seem designed to put minority voters on the defensive."
Will this history of vote suppression tactics repeat itself during the 2008 presidential election? While the Democrats are not saints when it comes to voter suppression -- recall how John Kerry's supporters disqualified signatories to Ralph Nader's presidential petitions in 2004 -- they do not have the same kind of vote suppression apparatus in place as the Republicans do. Indeed, it appears that Republicans are already following Chandler Davidson's inventory by seeking to regulate the voting process well before the 2008 election. The tactics that can be implemented well before the voting begins -- stricter voter ID laws, voter purges, registration drive curbs, tougher provisional ballot laws and easing rulefor voter challenges -- are already underway in several states.
Steven Rosenfeld is a senior fellow at Alternet.org and co-author of "What Happened in Ohio: A Documentary Record of Theft and Fraud in the 2004 Election," with Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman (The New Press, 2006).
© 2008 Ig Publishing All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/82348/
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