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The U.S. Capitol is seen in Washington, on April 29, 2020.

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They gather in small groups in the cloak room. They huddle in the marble corridors. Their aides lean over their shoulders at hearings. They whisper confidences on the floor. They crowd into the Members Only elevators to reach the chamber. They march shoulder to shoulder out of the building to return to their suites. They greet their constituents in tiny vestibules. They share bourbon and bonhomie in tucked-away retreats known as hideaways like the one, nicknamed The Board of Education, where in 1945 Harry Truman learned he had become president after Franklin Delano Roosevelt died.

There may be no more dangerous occupation in the United States during the coronavirus pandemic than caregiver or lawmaker.

Which is why a branch of the U.S. government built on up-close-and-personal interchanges an institution the 19th-century statesman Daniel Webster called a hall for mutual consultation and discussion is embroiled in one of its most intense debates of the new century: Can an exclusive club where the most damaging epithet hurled at its members is a charge of being remote operate remotely in an emergency? Can a national capital where personal capital is built by being in the room convene in lawmakers living rooms dispersed across a continent?

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Those questions are roiling an institution so marinated in tradition that former senator Robert Byrds lectures on Senate customs and folklore fill 724 pages of an oversized bound volume and still omits the past 31 years of debates, dithering and delays. Indeed, before the Senate agreed to broadcast its proceedings, it took 64 years of sober contemplation and devout protests that the character of the body would be compromised. The Senate has been contemplating the nature of the filibuster for 179 years and is still unresolved over the issue.

For just as long, the movement of legislation onto the House floor has been regulated by the rules committee, which meets in a tiny room in the Capitol with only 13 seats. Thats by design," said Sarah Binder, a George Washington University congressional scholar. You actually have to be in the room to get your amendment on the floor. These guys exploit small spaces.

Now the coronavirus has made meeting in small spaces unacceptable and technological advances have made the notion of remote sessions more acceptable than after 9/11 and the anthrax attacks on Congress that followed.

We have so much to do and were not engaged," Republican Senator Rob Portman said in an interview. It is possible to do remote meetings and do them securely. Its like doing a financial transaction. You have a code for each transaction. If it isnt smart to be in Washington, we still have responsibilities. We are spending billions and have to be involved.

The Capitols attending physician advised this week that it was too dangerous for lawmakers the average age of the Senate is 61.8 years, and the two top House leaders are both 80 to gather on Capitol Hill. The Democratic-controlled House followed his recommendation. The Republican-controlled Senate, with barbed asides suggesting House members were cowards and sissies, is resisting doctors orders and will meet next week.

But the question of remote sessions is in the air, as it has been for two centuries.

It first surfaced in 1814, when British troops invaded Washington in revenge for the American burning of York, later known as Toronto. They ignited the Executive Mansion (later the White House) and set fire to the Capitol, destroying its interior and its furnishings and prompting debate about moving Congress to Philadelphia. Instead, lawmakers met in Blodgetts Hotel and then in temporary quarters called the Brick Capitol, situated where the Supreme Court stands today.

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There was no technology for remote sessions during the 1918 influenza pandemic that claimed three House members and was so virulent that 1,130 people died in a two-week period in Washington. Congressional galleries were closed for a month.

Today, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reluctant to contemplate remote sessions and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who built his power base in intimate personal entreaties, is resistant.

But Congress has held hearings around the country, on environmental issues in Colorado, for example, and on financial issues in New York. This week Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer suggested remote hearings on coronavirus testing.

Last month, Democratic Representative Katie Porter began a push to hold House sessions remotely. But her allies thought she was a problematic advocate as a single mother of three living where there are no non-stop flights to Washington. It looked too much like a matter of convenience for her.

But if you wait and wait on this there may be some time they cant come back at all and will wish they had addressed this, said Norman Ornstein, a political scientist with the American Enterprise Institute. Its possible the House physician may say they shouldnt come back until summertime.

Still, remote sessions would alter the character of an institution where senator Barry Goldwater said of Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson, known for nose-to-nose confrontations with colleagues, When hed talk to you hed breathe in your mouth. The Johnson Treatment, as it was known, would be condemned in the coronavirus era.

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Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives will not return to Washington next week as planned, due to the continuing risk of coronavirus infection, Democratic leaders said on Tuesday. Reuters

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Can U.S. lawmakers live with remote democracy in the age of COVID-19? - The Globe and Mail

Editor:

Governor Jay Inslee of the state of Washington recently referred to some of President Donald Trumps comments as unhinged rantings." An examination of the presidents statements during the week of April 12-18 not only confirms Governor Inslees opinion, it also gives credence to the opinion of those who feel Donald Trump may be a threat to democracy.

At a White House Coronavirus briefing that week, Trump said, When somebodys the president of the United States, the authority is total and thats the way its got to be. Two days later he encouraged people to protest against the policies of some governors regarding the coronavirus pandemic. He did this by tweeting, Liberate Michigan and Liberate Minnesota. He went one step further regarding the state of Virginia by tweeting, Liberate Virginia and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege.

His words sound like those of an authoritarian dictator who advocates violence in order to achieve his goals. They should be of grave concern to us all.

Gordon Mulligan

Englewood

Read more:
LETTER: Trump becoming threat to democracy | Letters To Editor - yoursun.com

Griffiths is a contributor to Independent Voter News, where an earlier version of this piece first appeared.

Michigan's Justin Amash has a storied history as a political outsider in Washington. Although he's won five terms in Congress with an "R" next to his name, he often bucked the establishment and party line on issues such as spending, war, government surveillance and marijuana legalization.

He quit the Republican Party 10 months ago and is the only member listed as an independent on the official House roster. And on Tuesday he announced he would explore a run for the Libertarian Party's nomination for president which would mean putting his rebellious streak on the national line by mounting a longshot challenge to the flawed ways the two major parties monopolize our democratic system.

Here is a little background: Amash was the only GOP member of the House to come out in favor of impeaching President Trump, almost a year ago. By then he had established a reputation as one of the few Republicans to consistently speak out against the president.

Amash's support for impeachment drew the ire of the group in which he was once a prominent figure: the House Freedom Caucus. It was a decision that also put a major target on his back.

On the Republican side, the party would no doubt run well-funded challengers to oust him in the primary. On the other side, Democrats saw an opportunity to flip his seat. So, Amash was feeling pressure from both parties to get out of Congress.

Instead, he dropped the GOP party label last July and declared himself an independent, which made his path to reelection much more challenging given how the current system emphasizes a limited choice for voters red or blue, Republican or Democrat.

Now, Amash looks to be headed up or out. He announced in April that he had stopped actively campaigning for reelection although he still remains in the race. And on Tuesday night he went onTwitter to unveil a new website, "Amash for America," that strongly signaled his intent to run for president.

"We're ready," the homepage says, for "an end to cronyism" and "an honest, principled president who will defend the Constitution and put individuals first."

A third party contender who has built the sort of public profile Amash has could shake up the race drawing votes from both sides of the aisle and bringing in independents. However, this means he would immediately be scapegoated as a spoiler. And, no matter the outcome, he would be blamed by the losing major party for its defeat in November.

Kurt Couchman, who used to work in Amash's Washington congressional office, penned an op-ed for CNN.com in July 2019 describing how Amash could change the electoral landscape in 2020. But he also noted that, to avoid the spoiler effect, presidential elections needed a reform such as ranked-choice voting.

"To ensure that the ultimate victor has a mandate Congress and the States should enact ranked-choice voting without delay," he wrote. "The stakes for 2020 are incredibly high, and the American people need clear outcomes."

But, to the potential benefit of those who want pro-voter reform, the choose-one voting method is not the only flaw in our current system that would be brought front and center should Amash run.

He would also raise awareness to the fact that:

A high-profile independent or third party presidential campaign, whether people support it or not, would provide pro-voter reformers further evidence why the United States desperately needs to rethink its political system and transform its electoral process nationwide.

It could build on the tremendous momentum the reform community continues to see.

Visit IVN.us for more coverage from Independent Voter News.

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How a Justin Amash presidential bid could help the cause of democracy reform - The Fulcrum

Crucially, structural adjustment programmes and the Washington Consensus need to be replaced though preferably not by China simply replacing the US as the global hegemon. Yanis Varoufakis and his colleagues propose a new global economic architecture whereby, to keep the world economy in balance, national surpluses and deficits would both be taxed, with the funds raised being channeled into a Global Green New Deal. They also want to change property rights, so that 10% of the shares of large companies are placed into a global equity fund and the dividends disbursed as a global universal basic dividend. Over time this percentage could increase until we end up with a kind of world-wide market-based socialism.

An alternative vision is for deglobalisation. Instead of entire countries being turned into massive export processing zones, Walden Bellos deglobalisation paradigm advocates production primarily for local markets. Trade and industrial policy including subsidies, quotas and tariffs would be used to protect local markets from flooding by corporate-subsidized commodities and strengthen manufacturing sectors. Measures for land and income redistribution would be taken, helping to create vibrant local markets and local sources of financial investment. Meanwhile, the multilateral bodies like the WTO, World Bank and IMF that have been vehicles for neo-imperialism would be replaced by regional institutions built on cooperation instead of free trade and capital mobility.

Some are squeamish about the idea of deglobalisation, worrying that it means nationalist isolationism and indeed, that is what the term has come to stand for in its nativist iteration (though this is wildly different from what Bello has in mind). More fundamentally, there is a question mark over whether a system of nation-states competing within the framework of global capitalism no matter how attenuated that version of capitalism might be can ever really transcend economic imperialism and trade wars (or actual wars for that matter).

Yet shortening supply chains, at least for essential items like food, seems like a no brainer from an environmental as well as a global justice perspective. Lets carry on our thought experiment of imagining a future beyond the nation-state: instead of states competing for resources on a lopsided playing field, we can envision the stewardship of commons by local communities that are relatively self-sufficient but networked transnationally. There would be no need to squabble over resources because instead of a logic of scarcity there would be a logic of abundance. This doesnt mean that everyone in the world would suddenly be able to fly every week or own a Ferrari we are living within planetary boundaries here. Murray Bookchin wrote that real abundance is not about being able to satisfy an infinite parade of desires, but having the collective autonomy to choose our needs (i.e. decide whats important), and work out how to satisfy them together therein lies true freedom.

The response to Covid-19 has put us at risk from encroaching authoritarianism and has further exposed the lack of trust people already had in their political systems. In liberal democracies, the decades of neoliberalism have hollowed out democratic institutions, as power has been transferred to transnational corporations. Politics has become about marketing and spin, and citizens are treated as consumers.

Meanwhile, spreading democracy has been a cover for the invasion and occupation of territories that were supposed to be sovereign by imperial powers. Marxists, anarchists and feminists have long asked whether capitalism is compatible with democracy at all. The gap between what liberal democracy promises in theory and what it has delivered has led to many people punting on illiberal democracy instead, with anti-democratic leaders being democratically elected.

If we are going to put the brakes on the ecological and social catastrophes under way, we will need to democratise democracy. Its not for nothing that one of Extinction Rebellions key demands is for citizens assemblies. The rapid transformations we will need to our social structures will have to be decided upon collectively, if we are to avoid eco-authoritarianism or eco-fascism. Peoples assemblies, town halls, participatory budgeting, citizens juries, and properly resourced, empowered local governments will be key.

Democratising democracy obviously means taking big money out of politics, but it also means removing the line that separates politics from the economy. In liberal democracies, huge swathes of society are out of reach of the decision-making powers of the citizenry. That will need to change. As discussed, we will need workplace and economic democracy, where fundamental decisions about provisioning are made by everyone, not just ruling elites.

The question of scale arises again here. Democracy isnt really democratic if the resources people are enjoying in one part of the world are actually being pilfered from other parts of the world, or if they are producing environmental impacts felt elsewhere. One proposal to ameliorate this is to introduce democracy on a global scale through a world parliament, where every citizen in the world would be able to directly elect representatives.

Others have criticised the idea of a world parliament as universalising a single version of politics and imposing it onto the entire globe, thereby reproducing the colonising drive it is supposed to combat. They prefer the idea of unity in diversity in the Zapatistas words: one world where many worlds fit. In this vision, the issue of scale would be addressed horizontally rather than vertically with autonomous communities working together to solve large-scale problems.

Citizens assemblies and town halls are about supplementing representative democracy with more direct forms of democracy. Down the line, we could take this much further. The horizontal, confederalist approach described above has direct democracy at its core. Direct democracies already exist Chiapas and Rojava are famous examples, and there are many impulses towards what Ashish Kothari calls Radical Ecology Democracy. Here, the commune or neighbourhood is the basic political unit, with people meeting face to face to make the decisions that affect their lives. For larger-scale issues, there are representative local assemblies and municipal councils, but these are accountable to the grassroots level.

These movements reject the nation-state as the locus of sovereignty, viewing the state as inextricably bound up with environmental destruction, repression and patriarchy. Radical Ecology Democracy instead advocates local custodianship of the commons combined with bio- and eco-regionalism. Crucially, to avoid repeating the patriarchy of the state, these direct democracies must be and are explicitly feminist, enshrining gender equality in their constitutions and instituting women-led committees on womens rights. And again, thinking about local communities as the locus of sovereignty doesnt have to mean parochialism and isolation. On the contrary, going beyond the nation-state can mean removing borders to the free flow of people and ideas.

Globally, women carry out 76% of unpaid labour mainly domestic and care work, which takes place inside the home. The family home can also be a dangerous and even deadly place for queer people and women, as one in three women suffer violence, usually by an intimate partner. The pandemic has intensified these problems and brought them further into the light. Given the reaction to an article we published on ourEconomy on the coronavirus and the family, challenging this most fundamental of institutions can make people, erm, emotional. If youre lucky, the family is also the source of deep bonds of love the stuff that makes life worth living, another thing that the virus has driven home.

But, as the authors of Feminism for the 99% point out, the unique feat of capitalism was to separate the public from the private, delegate the private to women and banish it to the home. Without the unpaid and invisible domestic, care and emotional work of women, the capitalist economy would not be able to run. Because it is women who carry out most of this reproductive labour, it is also women who are on the front line of environmental breakdown; as they are the main providers of food and fuel, they are worse impacted by flooding and drought. The U.N. estimates 80% of those who have been displaced by climate change are women.

Under neoliberalism, women are being more and more squeezed, making up an increasing proportion of the paid workforce as well as doing the vast majority of unpaid work. This has led to the erection of vast global care chains, as women who can afford to outsource their unpaid work to less well off women, often from the global south, who have their own families to care for. These gendered and racialised structures need to be transformed.

Read more here:
How to fix the world - Open Democracy

Want to know why many areas in the Philippines have been in lockdown for more than 45 days now, nearly 8,000 Filipinos have been infected by the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 with more than 530 dead, the economy damaged, many facing unemployment or bankruptcies, the education of our youth made uncertain?

To borrow Marc Thiessens answer: Because China is a brutal totalitarian dictatorship.

We are in the midst of a pandemic lockdown today because the Chinese Communist regime cared more about suppressing information than suppressing a virus. Doctors in Wuhan knew in December that the coronavirus was capable of human-to-human transmission because medical workers were getting sick. But as late as Jan. 15, the head of Chinas Center for Disease Control and Prevention declared on state television that the risk of human-to-human transmission is low. On Jan. 18, weeks after President Xi Jinping had taken charge of the response, authorities allowed a Lunar New Year banquet to go forward in Wuhan where tens of thousands of families shared food and then let millions travel out of Wuhan, allowing the disease to spread across the world. It was not until Jan. 23 that the Chinese government enacted a quarantine in Wuhan. (This virus should be forever linked to the regime that facilitated its spread, March 18, 2020)

For a time, when China appeared to have domestically managed the pandemic it created, the sense of glee amongst its propagandists, including those here in the Philippines, was palpable. The US system doesnt work they say. Democracy is inefficient. Freedom is overrated. All this with the obvious intent of advocating that the Philippines turn away from its democratic, human rights, and rule of law values, and copy instead Chinas totalitarianism.

Or in other words: Give up your rights and just do what we say.

Unfortunately, for them, they celebrated too soon. China was shortly thereafter required to upwardly adjust its fatality numbers by 50%. Wuhan, the first city afflicted with the China coronavirus, is still reeling from the pandemic. And just last week, Hubin, a city of 10 million residents, was summarily locked down.

Twenty-one million mobile phone subscriptions have also been canceled, which, though not necessarily corresponding exactly to deaths, is still a significant indicator of the damage China inflicted on itself. Not subject to speculation though is Chinas 6.8% drop in economic growth, its lowest level in 30 years.

Compare that with the fairly successful efforts of Taiwan. Most experts were predicting catastrophic deaths due to its close proximity to China. And yet Taiwan, as of this writing, has only 429 infections and six deaths. With no lockdown, with great transparency, no loss of human rights, and its businesses continuing to operate.

Of course all eyes are on Sweden, with some 19,621 infected and 2,355 dead. Yet, it fares favorably when compared to the Netherlands, the UK, France, Italy, and Belgium on deaths per 100,000 population. Without a lockdown.

And all indications are the Swedes have already weathered the worst. With a fairly unscathed economy, Sweden is now better placed to confront a coronavirus second wave should it happen.

And contrary to the misleading information given out by mainstream and social media, even the country that progressives and leftists love to hate, the US under President Donald Trump, is relatively doing well.

Yes, the US has nearly a million infected and over 56,259 dead. Yet Johns Hopkins data shows the US with one of the lowest death rates per 100,000 compared to other major countries. This without undue restriction on freedoms in most of the US States. Seven states, in fact, have little to no restrictions. Remember, it is the State governors, not Trump, that have the power to declare lockdowns in their individual states.

Only 13 to 15 US states have stringent lockdowns. And interestingly, it is the States that turned away from their democratic foundations, led by progressive leftist governors, that have the most infections and fatalities. The top four states New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and California alone account for 50% of US cases, with the rest scattered across the country in comparably minimal numbers.

Democracy may have stumbled in the early goings but it has ultimately proven more effective than authoritarianism or totalitarianism. National Democratic Institutes Adam Nelson is right: A vital yet overlooked antidote to pandemics [is] democracy. While the virus spreads, Chinas crackdown on freedom of expression has created an environment where doctors are stifled, the free flow of information is curtailed, health recommendations are ignored and the death toll rises.

Open societies are simply more able to harness creativity, innovation, energy, motivation, and optimism in people. In relation to pandemics, transparency allows a better grasp of the situation, while encouraging its people to find the best solutions and cure.

All the while retaining the benefits of human dignity and rights.

Lets hope and work that in beating this pandemic, Filipinos also gain a better appreciation of and work harder to uphold democracy and civil liberties.

Jemy Gatdula is a Senior Fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence.

https://www.facebook.com/jigatdula/

Twitter @jemygatdula

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Democracy versus the coronavirus - BusinessWorld Online