Author: jxindivisible

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A Tale of Senates, Part I

Dear Group,

From Wikipedia:

A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicamerallegislature. The name comes from the ancientRoman Senate (Latin: Senatus), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: senex, meaning “the elder” or “old man”) and therefore allegedly wiser and more experienced members of the society or ruling class. Thus, the literal meaning of the word “senate” is Assembly of Elders.

Every state in the United States has a bicameral legislature except Nebraska (unicameral by referendum in 1936). In each case the smaller chamber is called the Senate and is usually referred to as the upper house. This chamber typically, but not always, has the exclusive power to confirm appointments made by the governor and to try articles of impeachment. [wikipedia]

All state senators serve terms of either 2 or 4 years. In 29 states senators serve 4 year terms and representatives serve 2 year terms. In 17 states senators and representatives serve equal terms of either 2 or 4 years. (It’s complicated. See wikipedia for a comprehensive list.) But here is a key contrast: Senators who serve in the federal Senate are unique among “senators” serving in the United States: U.S. Senators stand for re-election only once every 6 years.

When you look at constituent representation in the state and federal senates things get interesting. In every case (49 state senates and the U.S. Senate) there are fewer senators than there are members of the lower house, so necessarily each senator nominally represents more constituents than a representative in the lower house. In Washington State, for example, that ratio is exactly 2 to 1. Each legislative district in Washington State sends two representatives and one senator to the state government in Olympia. Therefore, each constituent in a legislative district in Washington State is served by only one voice in the State Senate, but two voices in the State House of Representatives.

Fun Fact: It turns out every state senator stands for close to the same number of constituents within that state. Why? It didn’t occur by accident, nor was it willingly accepted by all. That uniformity of numerical representation by state senators within a state is the result of two Supreme Court cases from the 1960s, Reynolds v. Sims and Baker v. Carr.  Reading about these decisions I found enlightening. I urge you to click and read the Historical Background section at the wikipedia article on Reynolds v. Sims. These cases grew out of interpretation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, an amendment adopted in 1868 that itself grew out of the upheavals around slavery and the Civil War. These two Supreme Court cases were in some ways the result of the movement embodied in “one man, one vote,” a slogan used by advocates of political equality who pushed for causes like the right of former slaves and women to vote.

Prior to Reynolds v. Sims and Baker v. Carrstate senates tended to be modeled on the U.S. Senate, i.e. with representation based on geography whereas representation in the lower chamber is typically based on population. Books have been written about how state senate representation changed from geographic to population based in many states before the 1960s. These two Supreme Court cases finally forced redistricting on a population basis on those states that had lagged. 

Today we don’t hear of citizen groups clamoring to go back to the old system of geography-based state senate representation. It’s a settled issue. No one is making the argument that state senators (within  a state) should represent just the people who happen to inhabit a defined piece of real estate instead of representing roughly equal populations of citizens. This is the second way in which the U.S. Senate is unique among senates in the United States: two Senators serve from each State (a piece of real estate). Today that gives the 577,737 residents of Wyoming the same number of U.S. Senators (2) as the 39,557,045 residents of California. Why is that?

The original U.S. Constitution, written in 1787 (eighty years before the 14th Amendment and “Equal Protection”) enshrines the geographic representation of Senators in Article 1, Section 3. Representation of in the U.S. Senate by State, regardless of state population, came about as a result of compromises made to coax small States and slave States into Union. 

Today the U.S. Senate stands unique among senates in the United States. 1) The U.S. Senate is the only senate in the U.S. with a term of office of 6 years (the longest term of any elected official I can think of) and 2) The U.S. Senate is the most anti-democratic senate in the country by representation.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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The Flag as a Symbol

Dear Group,

A european friend visiting in the United States once remarked, “I don’t think I’ve ever been in a country with more national flags. They’re everywhere.” It was an accurate observation. Display of the American flag has markedly changed over my lifetime. Even the flag itself has changed. I’m old enough to remember when Alaska and Hawaii became the 49th and 50th States (1959) and two more stars were added to the “Union”. My family and I displayed the flag on national holidays off the front porch…and reverently folded it and stored it until the next holiday according to the code of flag etiquette. A discreet, manageable flag flew over post offices and government buildings every day. Almost no one wore a flag pin, sported a flag decal, or displayed a flag day and night in rain and weather on the front of their home. We were all “Americans,” after all. We all stood for the same thing…or at least we so imagined.

The U.S. Flag Code has been enshrined in federal law with the passage in 1942 of Public Law 77-623. You can read the enshrined details in the United States Code, Title 4, Chapter 1 The Flag.

I still cherish the flag that was draped over my father’s casket in honor of his service in World War I, the “war to end all wars.” That flag for me stands for the sacrifices of Americans who fought against the Nazis, the Fascists, and the Imperial Japanese in World War II, fought for the freedom of the people oppressed by these regimes. Many of those who marched with the flag on commemorative holidays had served in those conflicts, conflicts we understood were fought to make the world a better place, conflicts the wounds from which shaped the lives of many.

Little by little the use and display of the American flag has morphed. In my youth, at least in my mind, the flag stood as a symbol of freedom in the world, a symbol of our willingness to stand against murderous dictatorships. The flag was displayed discreetly and handled with reverence. Now oversize American flags adorn businesses and homes, standing out in all kinds of weather. American flags are found on lapels, shoulders of uniforms of the military and police and flap violently above pickup trucks, sometimes thereon reduced to tatters. 

Why all these flags? When I talk with a policeman in Spokane does the American flag patch on his shoulder offer me useful information? Is there any likelihood he (or she) is a member of the Canadian or Mexican police force? Is there any chance I would mistake Camping World of Spokane or Freedom RV out in the Spokane valley for a Chinese dealership? Does concern of mistaken national identity merit a flag the size the state of Connecticut hanging limply from an enormous flagpole, so large it nearly touches the ground in anything but a 20 knot breeze, so long that half staff display is impossible without its resting on the ground? 

I fear that for many the American flag has been co-opted as a sort of gang symbol, a symbol displayed  internally that says to many who see it “we’re here, we’re proud, we’re exceptional, we’re white, we’re armed, and we will bury you or wall you out…or worse…if you don’t think as we do.” 

Symbols are complicated. Like a word, a symbol can mean very different things to different people. The flag that draped my father’s casket still signifies honor and sacrifice, honor and sacrifice in pursuit of a better world, a world in which we and our children can live in peace, a world in which the United States plays a unifying role, not a divisive one. 

I want my symbolism back. Perhaps it is time to display my father’s flag once more, and explain to any who will listen why I fly it.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. The enormous flag that flies over Camping World in the valley was the trigger for this post. I thought it was the hoist (height) to fly (length) proportion that bothered me, but, no, it is the absolute size. Here’s the background: It turns out that the specifications of U.S. Flag were laid out by one of those infamous Executive Orders, this one by Dwight Eisenhower in 1959. The official hoist to fly ratio in that executive order is 1:1.9, probably close to the Camping World flag’s proportions. Lots of commonly sold and displayed U.S. flags are actually 3X5 (1:1.67), the better to fly in a light breeze, especially in the traditional cotton material. My dad’s casket flag is 1:2. Many flags are now made of nylon. Nylon is much lighter than cotton and surely floats better in a lighter breeze. A 30X60 foot nylon flag (Camping World’s?) for a mere $1,139. I speculate whatever the expenditure it is taken off as part of their advertising budget. 

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Spokane GOP–What it Stands For

Dear Group,

The lineup of speakers at the last weekend’s CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) is lengthy, but worth your perusal. Trump and Pence, as party leaders, get top billing. (Listen to the music and observe the symbolism of the first few minutes of Trump’s two hour long harangue.) The U.S Senators and U.S. Reps who spoke are all found the the bottom of the page. Among them is McMorris Rodgers. Higher on the page are many cringe-worthy Fox propagandists, Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro, Deneen Borelli, and Dennis Prager among them. If you do not watch Fox or listen to conservative talk radio many of the other names will be unfamiliar. 

One speech stands out. I encourage you to watch this short video of Charlie Kirk last weekend at CPAC. (The full eleven minute version is available here.) This is his sixth year at CPAC. Here are a few highlights gathered by Right Wing Watch. (The context seen in the videos only amplifies his message of hate and division.):

During his speech at CPAC today, Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk declared that conservatives must stop pretending that liberals “mean well” and instead realize that “they have always hated this country.”

“One of the things that Donald Trump has done is he has not changed the left—he has revealed them,” Kirk said. “This is who they have always been. They have always hated this country.”

Kirk fumed that the difference between liberals and conservatives is not that they have shared goals and merely “different ways of getting to the same place,” but are rather going in two entirely different directions.

“I’m so sick and tired of saying, ‘We should give the benefit of the doubt to liberals’ and say, ‘Well, they mean well,’” Kirk said. “If you want to fundamentally transform and destroy this country from within, you do not mean well. You do not have good intentions, whatsoever.”

“I’m so sick and tired of saying that the Democrat Party and liberals mean well,” he bellowed. “They do not mean well.”

The Spokane GOP chose Charlie Kirk as their keynote speaker for their 2019 Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday, April 13th, at the Grand Davenport Hotel. He is billed as “an excellent ambassador for free markets, free speech and conservative principles.” Listen to his speech at CPAC and decide for yourself if Mr. Kirk is an “ambassador” or simply a purveyor of labelling and hate. That the Spokane GOP spends money to bring Mr. Kirk to Spokane speaks volumes about the values of the Spokane GOP.

McMorris Rodgers routinely speaks at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Spokane. If she disapproves of the drift of Spokane GOP into the territory inhabited by Charlie Kirk she has failed to say so. Does she believe she is dependent on the politics of division and hate? Does she endorse Mr. Kirk and his message?

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

P.S. How some of my neighbors can support the Spokane GOP is a mystery to me after the antics of the group in the last several years. Members of the Spokane GOP got in hot water last year for sympathetically hosting the white supremacist James Allsup at a NW Grassroots gathering. They auctioned off an assault rifle last year at the Lincoln Day Dinner. Do they really need to stoke hate, white supremacy, and militancy to gather enough votes to stay in power? 

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The Dictator’s Playbook

Dear Group,

I have run out of time to write, but I want to take this opportunity to put in a plug for series of six videos available on KSPS.org entitled The Dictator’s Playbook. I highly recommend Episode 3, Benito Mussolini, the original 20th century dictator, the man who pioneered many of the techniques we see currently. The series is available to KSPS Passport members (requiring a donation of $60 or more per year, money well spent). 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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The “Democrat” Party and CMR

Dear Group,

Words matter. The Republican propaganda machine knows this and orchestrates its word usage. It behooves us to pay attention.

A familiar example is “Obamacare.” Republican wordmeisters offered the term as a naming replacement for The Affordable Care Act. “Obamacare” was taken up by mainstream media within days. The left initially saw the term as clever shorthand. Few realized the label had been extensively tested in focus groups and identified as a way to link a progressive health care program to a black President, a President the right wing propaganda machine worked to demean and denigrate in every way possible. 

Rush Limbaugh and Mitch McConnell always say “Democrat” Party. They never use the proper term, Democratic Party. Did you notice? You will now. It seems a subtle difference, but it has an insidious effect. 

From a 2006 article in the New Yorker entitled ‘The “Ic” Factor‘ (the bold is mine):

…among those of the Republican persuasion “Democrat Party” is now nearly universal. This is partly the work of Newt Gingrich, the nominal author of the notorious 1990 memo “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control,” and his Contract with America pollster, Frank Luntz, the Johnny Appleseed of such linguistic innovations as “death tax” for estate tax and “personal accounts” for Social Security privatization. Luntz, who road-tested the adjectival use of “Democrat” with a focus group in 2001, has concluded that the only people who really dislike it are highly partisan adherents of the—how you say?—Democratic Party. “Those two letters actually do matter,” Luntz said the other day. He added that he recently finished writing a book—it’s entitled “Words That Work”—and has been diligently going through the galley proofs taking out the hundreds of “ic”s that his copy editor, one of those partisan Dems, had stuck in.

From the same article:

There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. ‘Democrat Party’ is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but ‘Democrat Party’ is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams ‘rat’.

“Democrat Party” as an epithet has been around since at least the early 20th century, but its use has spread into common Republican parlance pushed by Gingrich (The Man Who Broke Politics) and Luntz. William Safire (a less well known conservative/libertarian wordmeister) noted that “Democrat” rhymes with bureaucrat, technocrat, and plutocrat. 

Of course, “Democrat” Party has a much longer history than “Obamacare.” It has its origin in Republican resentment that the Democratic Party’s name seems to imply Democrats are the rightful defenders of democracy. “Democrat” Party clearly takes that away and adds a distasteful twist. 

McMorris Rodgers, who often talks on stage about the need for bipartisan cooperation, usually doesn’t utter “Democrat” Party when there might be a Democrat in earshot, but she adheres to Republican divisive messaging when she thinks she’s communicating with supporters. In a recent convoluted email she (or her staff) sent to supporters trying to explain her vote to disapprove of Trump’s national emergency declaration, she wrote:

Democrat policies have pushed for zero wall money, open borders, and abolishing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). These policies make our nation vulnerable and threaten our security, and it’s a tragedy. So, I don’t blame President Trump from proposing extreme measures to respond to their extreme policies and tactics. 

So much for bipartisanship…. (The statement on her website conveniently and conspicuously omits this material.)

We need to take back the language. We need to pay attention, understand their intent, and call them on it.

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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Spokane GOP Shows Its Colors–Again

Dear Group,

Charlie Kirk is the smiling young man pictured above in the ad for this year’s Lincoln Day Dinner on Saturday April 13th. He is a 24 year old conservative hustler, founder and president of “Turning Point USA,” a non-profit organization, a 501(c)(3), with a 9 million dollar budget and 130 employees. In 2012 Mr. Kirk was fresh out of high school and angered that someone of “a different ethnicity and gender” took the position at West Point he thought was his. He founded Turning Point USA that year and gained non-profit status two years later. In 2014 he talked wealthy conservatives into donating 2 million dollars, in 2016, 8.2 million. The list of donors to Turning Point USA (sleuthed by The International Business Times) reads like an advertisement for Jane Mayer’s book and exposé Dark Money: DeVos, Bradley, Uihlein, and Home Depot co-founder, Bernie Marcus. (click the link for more.)

The mission of Turning Point USA? To “to identify, educate, train, and organize students to promote the principles of freedom, free markets, and limited government.” The motto: “Big Government Sucks.” The methods?  First, establish and maintain The Professor Watchlist to expose professors “who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” The website offers a method to “Submit a Tip,” a tactic reminiscent of the McCarthy Era and blacklisting. Second, use non-profit money (tax free) to influence student government elections, elections not governed by campaign finance law, elections never before in need of transparency or subject to political partisan influence. Jane Mayer in The New Yorker and  Joseph Guinto in Trump’s Man on Campus (Politico) point out Mr. Kirk consistently overstates his accomplishments in his pitch to donors. He frequently drifts out of non-profit territory, away from advocacy and into electioneering. (But with Trump at the helm and the agency underfunded and understaffed, is the IRS likely to investigate?)

There was a time when one could argue the Republican Party was a party of high-minded ideas led by thought leaders like William F. Buckley, a party dedicated to fiscal conservatism, limiting the national debt, personal freedom (including the freedom of a woman to control her own body), and even racial equality (before Nixon, Goldwater, and the “Southern Strategy” of appealing to racism in pursuit of votes). Based on the invited speakers to Republican events in Spokane County over the last few years you should no longer mistake the Republican Party for a party of ideas: Jason Chaffetz and Deneen Borelli, Tomi Lahren, (all Fox News commentators), Nigel Farage (Mr. Brexit), and now a new and rising star, Mr. Charlie Kirk, a young man whose claim to fame isn’t ideas, but raising money to support blacklisting professors and injecting money into campus politics. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry

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Fox’s Hearing Coverage

Dear Group,

If you are old enough, and if you watched any of the Michael Cohen hearing in the House of Representatives yesterday you might recall similar dramatic testimony aired on all three networks of the Watergate hearings, testimony that helped induce Richard Nixon to resign. 

If you listened you also noted that each Republican Committee Member in turn hammered on the same points: Michael Cohen cannot be trusted. Michael Cohen is a convicted felon. Michael Cohen is taking revenge on Donald Trump because he did not get what he, Mr. Cohen, wanted from Trump. This is a politically motivated, “Democrat”-organized witch hunt.

There was a remarkable sameness to the protestations and accusations of each Republican in turn, very little questioning of the substance of Mr. Cohen’s testimony, only an attack on the credibility of the witness. Before you conclude everyone you speak with must on the same page with you, though, I invite you to visit the Fox News website and sample some of the articles. I copied and pasted these titles at 11:21AM PST:

Remember, this is the network to which Trump listens, this is the propaganda wing of the Republican Party (whose motto, laughably, was “Fair and Balanced”), this is one of few news and opinion sources Trump, in his autocratic meanderings, has not labelled “fake.”

Remember this is all your Republican neighbor may have listened to or read about the hearings. There is nothing more chilling to me since the very beginning of Trump’s rise than his incessant denigration of all dissent as “fake” and all dissenters as members of or tools of the “deep state.” Those are the words of a dictator, and in Fox News he has found his propaganda outlet. 

Keep to the high ground,

Jerry