Category: Uncategorized

Our systems and rules for choosing our representatives at all levels of government are not sacred, not universal, and not unique in the world. We’ve tended to consider our methods superior to and fairer than the voting systems and rules elsewhere. For me that smug confidence started to change in 2016. The winner of the 2016 U.S. presidential election (thanks to the Electoral College and decades of Republican strategy, but not to the popular vote), the winner made accusations of widespread voter fraud. (Remember Kris Kobach’s assertions and the media coverage he generated?) Trump, his party, and his media embarked on a campaign to undermine confidence in our electoral system.

[See below for information of the documentary “The Democracy Rebellion” on KSPS tomorrow night or watch it online at https://video.ksps.org/video/homecomings-mjrxkq/?continuousplayautoplay=true]

The claim of “democratically elected” representation becomes a cruel joke when we lose faith that the rules and systems of elections are fair. Almost weekly we hear of an election in a country somewhere else that is contested, a country where people have taken to the streets to protest the electoral result. I used to think, “Oh, another corrupt, illegitimate government that doesn’t actually represent its people.” I had thought our system was above that, somehow more legitimate and dignified. As recently as the 2000 election I remember thinking that Al Gore was acting as a statesman in acquiescing to, rather than protesting, the decision of the Supreme Court, a decision that gave George W. Bush an Electoral College victory based on Florida (and despite an overall minority of popular vote). Such was my faith in our system.

When a president like Trump, even though he is the acknowledged technical winner, claims voter fraud, then there’s “something up” and we need to pay attention. It turns out that for decades Republican strategists in search of power have been scoping out every angle they can to gain electoral advantage. Aware that Republican/Libertarians have, on average, greater support among the wealthy, they mounted a systemic campaign of Republican judicial activism to bring Citizens United to the Supreme Court and weaponize their monetary advantage. Computer-guided gerrymandering was adopted by the Republican REDMAP project to assure Republican majority legislatures that represent a minority of the voters.

Jaded Republicans will dismiss me as naive. “Don’t you understand that governance is all about power? It’s not actually about rights or values, it’s really about power to control money and society for the betterment of us few.” I’m not ready to concede that. “The arc of history bends toward justice” only if we are watchful and patiently strive to bend it.

So how do we do that? We pay attention. We take part in civic-minded institutions like the League of Women Voters. We take seriously long term efforts to change, or work around, the anti-democratic Electoral College, something I will address in a later post. (After all, we managed in the nineteen teens to change the election of U.S. Senators from state legislative to popular voting.) We struggle against Republican efforts to disenfranchise voters, be they students, minorities, or former prisoners. We push for fairer, non-partisan re-districting. We invest in long term efforts to overturn Citizens United and take back our country from the rule of the uber-wealthy few.

None of this happens without our awareness, involvement, and long term effort. Trump’s and the current Republican/Libertarian Party’s meanness and cynicism must activate a massive re-awakening of our democratic values.

Tomorrow, Tuesday, January 14th at 8PM on Channel 7 Spokane’s KSPS TV Hedrick Smith’s “The Democracy Rebellion” will air. Click here for a summary and other airing times. Click here to watch the trailer on Vimeo. Movements for change start locally and with lots of effort. Washington State’s Initiative 735, calling for the overturn of Citizens United, started here in Washington State is featured in “The Democracy Rebellion.” Watch, think, talk, engage.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Matt Shea (R-WA Legislative District 4 Representative, Spokane Valley north to Mt. Spokane) and Heather Scott (R-ID Legislative District 1A, ID panhandle north and southwest of Sandpoint) have much in common. The activities of both were covered in “Report of Investigation Regarding Representative Matt Shea Washington House of Representatives December 1, 2019.” You can (and should) read that report here. Shea and Scott are state representatives in adjacent states in districts that share a border. Both were involved in planning several events legitimately described as “domestic terrorism.” During the armed takeover and standoff at the Malheur Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016, both Shea and Scott hid their deeper involvement behind claims that they were only engaged in “fact finding” and “negotiations.” That armed takeover and standoff resulted in the death of LaVoy Finicum (now revered by Shea’s and Scott’s followers as a martyr, with Finicum’s widow promoting the martyrdom.)

Shea and Scott share another attribute: neither will grant an interview or in any way directly and publicly respond to questions. Instead, like Trump, they communicate only through their own ecosystem of right wing media from which they rail at “godless liberals,” impugn the values of lot of people they are supposed to represent, while inflame their own tight group of ideological followers. They pose as “patriots” while painstakingly plotting an armed rebellion with which they dream of establishing a theocratically governed “Redoubt” or a “51st State” or the “State of Liberty.” (They would claim their meticulous planning is defensive, even as they plot incendiary events like the armed takeover of the Malheur Federal Wildlife Refuge.)

On both sides of the Idaho-Washington border (and nationally), the Washington House investigation of Shea, Scott, and the extremists they represent has stirred up media coverage. I offer a sampling of that relative mainstream coverage at the bottom of this email. (You might hit some paywalls.)

Those articles are all from sources most of my readers would consider fairly mainstream. This is NOT, however, what a lot of people in this region read and listen to. I urge you to explore the media ecosystem that is inexpensively (but slickly) presented and maintained by this domestic terrorist movement with representatives in our state governments. (This is doable thanks to the internet and lack of need for actual reporting or a paper newspaper). Start here: Exclusive: Idaho Rep. Scott on Liberal Media Attacks at Redoubt News, December 22, 2019. A quotation:

Reminding all “free thinking” Idahoans that the following facts and unanswered questions really do matter when drawing your own conclusions, Scott says that the unbiased integrity of the Rampart Group’s reporting is in serious question when their top four information sources relied upon include the biased Wikipedia, The Southern Poverty Law Center, Portland uber-left journalist writer Leah Sottile and The Inlander reporter Dan Walters.

Savor that language: “biased” Wikipedia, “uber-left” Leah Sottile. Further on in the article Scott accuses (without irony) the “biased media” of a “label lynch” of Matt Shea. I guess for Heather Scott “uber-left” and “liberal” must not be labels. (I was first introduced the right wing construct of “label lynching” in a youtube video of James Allsup, the local white supremacist who infamously marched at Charlottesville, speaking at Northwest Grassroots in Greenbluff.)

Heather Scott’s defense in the Redoubt News gets even richer:

Why haven’t the Washington Democrats, the Washington Republican leadership and west coast liberal media mouth pieces like Dan Walters and Leah Sottile condemned the 2019 bombing and attempted armed violent takeover of a Washington federal facility by extreme left-wing terrorist Willem Van Spronsen?

Willem Van Spronsen? Huh? Do you not recall Mr. Van Spronsen? Perhaps that’s because the isolated Van Spronsen incident didn’t involve officials holding elected office. This is classic whataboutism, false-equivalence, a tactic much favored on the right. It is of-a-piece with McMorris Rodgers asking, “What about George Soros?”

After you scan the report of the Matt Shea investigation (again, here’s the link) I urge you to click around on articles in the Redoubt News echo chamber. Make note of the bias and the advertisers. Consider what you might be thinking about local and world events if this were your major source of news. Share your findings with friends and acquaintances.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Rep. Matt Shea expelled from GOP caucus after investigation finds he engaged in domestic terrorism  Spokesman, December 20, 2019.

A GOP state legislator helped plan an armed occupation in Oregon, investigators say, calling it ‘domestic terrorism’  Washington Post, December 20, 2019.

Shawn Vestal: Scathing House report should mark rapid end of Matt Shea’s legislative career Spokesman, December 19, 2019

Statesman Editorial: Is Scott a domestic terrorist? Let’s find out  The Lewiston Tribune, December 29, 2019

Religious components of Northwest political extremism Idaho State Journal, December 29, 2019

Sick of the stranglehold the Republican and Democratic Parties have on our government? Ever wish you could express yourself by voting for an independent without throwing away your vote? Tired of second-guessing other voters (based on what the pundits are telling you) and voting for a primary candidate because you think they have the better chance of prevailing over a candidate you think is really odious? (Confession: That’s why I supported Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016. I now think I was wrong.)

If that all sounds familiar you should be interested in hearing more about Ranked Choice Voting. Tomorrow afternoon, Thursday, January 9th at 3:30P a presentation of Ranked Choice Voting will be made to members of the Spokane City Council. From Breean Beggs: “Yes, the public is welcome, 3:30pm in the Council Briefing Center, which is in the basement of City Hall. People should check in with security in the first floor lobby and then take the elevator down to the basement.”

Ranked Choice Voting was recently adopted by popular referendum in the State of Maine. The idea has been around for a while. Cambridge, Massachusetts, for example, has used Ranked Choice Voting for the City Council and School Board elections since 1940.

Click and watch an excellent series of very short, animated youtube videos on the concept of Ranked-Choice Voting v. “First Past the Post” voting (our current method). They’re  fun, thoughtful, and explanatory. Produced by CGP Grey, they’re entitled “Politics in the Animal Kingdom.”

Ideas like Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) are tossed around for years before, all of a sudden, understanding of its value spreads widely enough to drive its adoption. With hyper-polarization of our two party system producing a logjam in our governance, now might be the time to take a serious look at what Ranked Choice Voting offers.

In the State of Washington RCV is a pertinent topic. There are two bills in the current WA State legislature session (2019-20), “Local Options for Ranked-Choice Voting” HB 1722 & SB 5708. Each has bipartisan support. If these bills became law the door would open to consider Ranked-Choice Voting in Washington State both at the state level and locally.

Have a look at “Politics in the Animal Kingdom.” For more background visit FairVoteWA.org. Check out the bills. Come to the meeting tomorrow. I’ve been assured the meeting room is plenty large, and it might be a chance to actually meet your City Council member.

Nothing good happens unless someone is doing the groundwork and planning ahead. Learning about these efforts in their early phase is important work.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

P.S. Currently most voting in Washington State is governed by state law that mandates the top two primary with a runoff general election, the system with which we are all familiar. Top two has been in place since it was ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008–four years after 60% of the voters voted for a top two primary in 2004. Both the Republican and Democratic Parties sued to block it. You can read the timeline of Washington States voting changes here. We tend to forget that the manner in which we choose our representatives is subject to change–by us, the voters.

The rules and precedent for impeachment trials are scant. There have only been two impeachments of Presidents that have gone to trial in the Senate–and the rules were an issue both times. Here’s all the Constitution says about the impeachment trial of a President:

Article I (concerning Congress), Section 3: “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments. When sitting for that Purpose, they shall be on Oath or Affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no Person shall be convicted without the Concurrence of two thirds of the Members present.

The House, under Nancy Pelosi, is holding on to the articles of impeachment to force agreement on the Senate the rules for the trial. More evidence accumulates each day. Now Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) offers a thin crack in Senate Republican stonewalling and a threat to McConnell’s vow of a speedy trial with no witnesses. Despite all the Republican partisan condemnation of the impeachment process (and total avoidance of the facts), the American people actually want to hear the evidence and the witnesses, not just experience a sham trial pushed through on some power trip by Mitch McConnell colluding with the President.

Few Republicans in the Senate or the House of Representatives dare offer a peep of criticism of Donald Trump for fear of ending their political career. After all, where does an establishment Republican go, a Republican disgusted with the energized white nationalist base but with little hope of votes from Democrats or middle of the road independents? (See Fear and Loyalty: How Donald Trump Took Over the Republican Party)

So what if just three Senate Republicans, listening to their constituents, demand a real trial with witness testimony? What’s to keep them from offering a secret ballot to the Senators voting as the jury? Farfetched you say? Rule making for this trial only requires the rebellion of few Republican Senators looking for a place of respect in history to scotch McConnell and reach 51 votes. (McConnell understands he cannot dodge having a trial in the same manner that he simply declines to take up all other House legislation.)

Secret ballot? The idea was floated on November 12 by Juleanna Glover, a former advisor to a number of Republican politicians. The very same day Jim Geraghty wrote a rebuttal in the National Review, “A Secret Ballot for Impeachment Would Be a Terrible Idea.” Remember that the National Review is the mouthpiece for the Republican/Libertarian establishment. The swiftness of the response is testimony to the nervousness Glover’s column produced among some Republicans.

The idea is far from dead. “The case for letting senators vote secretly on Trump’s fate” popped up on CNN on New Year’s Eve, written by Robert M. Alexander. It’s a compelling read.

Precedent for a secret ballot? There’s quite a lot of it. After all, juries typically make their decisions in secret. Mr. Alexander:

Anonymous juries are sometimes used in high-profile cases when retribution toward jurors is a possibility or past efforts to obstruct justice have occurred. They have been used, for example, in the cases of crime bosses such as John Gotti and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. At the outset of the impeachment inquiry, California Rep. Adam Schiff likened Trump’s behavior to that of a “classic mafia-like shakedown.”

Secret ballots have occurred in Congress before. In 1800 and in 1824 the House voted by secret ballot (within each state delegation) to elect Presidents. The Electoral College had failed to produce a winner of an absolute majority of the Electoral College voting, so the election was thrown to the House. In such a case the Constitution says each state gets a single vote. The votes cast by the individual Congressmen within each state delegation were not made known.

We are, as a country, in a crisis of governance a point at which the rules we thought were so solid are failing us. In crises we re-examine the rules previously agreed to, the Bylaws, the Rules of Order, precedent, or The Constitution. We find the rules are here are pretty skinny–and certainly open to debate. It is time to pay attention. This is not a time to simply back down in the face of a looming strong man autocracy.

Share the idea of a secret ballot. If there are Senate Republicans who have not swallowed Trumpism hook, line, and sinker perhaps they’d vote according to their moral convictions and their oath of office if Trump and McConnell couldn’t know the color of the ballot they cast.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Yesterday I cheerily wished “Happy Holidays” to the grocery store checker. She responded, with an edginess in her voice, “Merry Christmas!” Her tone and manner suggested an underlying question: “Are you one of us or one of THEM?” It seemed an unfortunate response to a season’s greeting of good cheer and hope. I am delighted that people derive meaning from their particular faith tradition and I’m not intending to offend anyone. Why, for some, must the season become a not-so-subtle test of ideological purity? Later in the day I read a sermon delivered on Sunday, December 15, in Massachusetts by Doug Muder. It helped me put the season and all of us diverse celebrants in perspective. The mysteries of all the various celebrations of December have fascinated me since my youth, when I pestered my United Methodist family with questions about Jesus and Christmas trees. If you have a quiet ten minutes of pause among holiday preparations and gatherings, you might find this sermon as interesting as I did. Here’s the link:  https://freeandresponsible.blogspot.com/2019/12/have-yourself-very-uu-christmas.html Happy Holidays! Keep to the high ground, Jerry

I plan to take off the next two weeks. I will return Monday, January 6th. Please mark on your calendar to check your inbox then. (Email, I’ve learned, can be capricious.) When we return in January we will (may?) contend with the spectacle of a Senate trial, a trial of our democratic values, a trial of our ideals. If the Senate fails to convict (pretty much the expected result) the event itself may highlight the illness that has enveloped our nation.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry

Democracy Grief is Real by Michelle Goldberg, published in the New York Times on December 13, 2019 put into words my motivation for spending my time writing these emails. I have copied the most resonant part of her column below.

But before you read it, I want to wish my readers Happy Holidays–and a short respite from the convulsions shaking our country and our world. Yes, Happy Holidays–holidays of whatever flavor you choose, no disrespect to any tradition–as long as that tradition, in turn, respects mine.

I plan to take off the next two weeks. I will return Monday, January 6th. Please mark on your calendar to check your inbox then. (Email, I’ve learned, can be capricious.) When we return in January we will contend with the spectacle of a Senate trial, a trial of our democratic values, a trial of our ideals. If the Senate fails to convict (pretty much the expected result) the event itself may highlight the illness that has enveloped our nation.

With that, try to enjoy your holidays. Here is the part of Michelle Goldberg’s column that I found most resonant:

Obviously, this is hardly the first time that America has failed to live up to its ideals. But the ideals themselves used to be a nearly universal lodestar. The civil rights movement, and freedom movements that came after it, succeeded because the country could be shamed by the distance between its democratic promises and its reality. That is no longer true.

Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans are often incredulous seeing the party of Ronald Reagan allied with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but the truth is, there’s no reason they should be in conflict. The enmity between America and Russia was ideological. First it was liberal democracy versus communism. Then it was liberal democracy versus authoritarian kleptocracy.

But Trump’s political movement is pro-authoritarian and pro-oligarch. It has no interest in preserving pluralism, free and fair elections or any version of the rule of law that applies to the powerful as well as the powerless. It’s contemptuous of the notion of America as a lofty idea rather than a blood-and-soil nation. Russia, which has long wanted to prove that liberal democracy is a hypocritical sham, is the natural friend of the Trumpist Republican Party, just as it’s an ally and benefactor of the far right Rassemblement National in France and the Lega Nord in Italy.

The nemeses of the Trumpist movement are liberals — in both the classical and American sense of the world — not America’s traditional geopolitical foes. This is something new in our lifetime. Despite right-wing persecution fantasies about Barack Obama, we’ve never before had a president who treats half the country like enemies, subjecting them to an unending barrage of dehumanization and hostile propaganda. Opponents in a liberal political system share at least some overlapping language. They have some shared values to orient debates. With those things gone, words lose their meaning and political exchange becomes impossible and irrelevant.

Thus we have a total breakdown in epistemological solidarity. In the impeachment committee hearings, Republicans insist with straight faces that Trump was deeply concerned about corruption in Ukraine. Republican senators like Ted Cruz of Texas, who is smart enough to know better, repeat Russian propaganda accusing Ukraine of interfering in the 2016 election. The Department of Justice’s inspector general’s report refutes years of Republican deep state conspiracy theories about an F.B.I. plot to subvert Trump’s campaign, and it makes no difference whatsoever to the promoters of those theories, who pronounce themselves totally vindicated.

To those who recognize the Trump administration’s official lies as such, the scale of dishonesty can be destabilizing. It’s a psychic tax on the population, who must parse an avalanche of untruths to understand current events. “What’s going on in the government is so extreme, that people who have no history of overwhelming psychological trauma still feel crazed by this,” said Stephanie Engel, a psychiatrist in Cambridge, Mass., who said Trump comes up “very frequently” in her sessions.

Keep to the high ground,
Jerry