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WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The health of American democracy requires strategic investment in community-led solutions that combat political violence and mitigate its cost to society according to a new report released today by Democracy Fund.

The Costs of Political Violence in the United States And the Benefits of Investing in Communities examines the human and economic harm caused by politically motivated acts of violence and the peace-building strategies that prevent, respond to, and support recovery from hate crimes, terrorism, extremism, armed protests, and excessive use of force by law enforcement.

"When political violence happens, it is right and proper that we first focus on the human cost, that is the loss of life and physical injury, said the reports author Andrew Blum, PhD, executive director of the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego. In the aftermath of these incidents, however, communities also wrestle with significant economic costs, including the radiating impact of grief and trauma, damage to property and lost revenue resulting from the disruption of economic activity. There is much that can and must be done to mitigate these impacts, he says.

Following the Boston Marathon bombing, it is estimated that the city lost between $250 million and $330 million when it shut down for one day due to the manhunt for the bombers. In Portland, one 2019 riot cost downtown businesses over $3 million in lost revenue.1 And the psychological costs are also great: the Virginia Tech attack created roughly 600 cases of PTSD, which could add up to about $4 million in potential treatment costs for just one year.

The report argues that funders committed to strengthening American democracy can provide the antidote to political violence by investing in whole-of-society solutions and the infrastructure of collaboration that builds community resilience in six key areas: engaged leadership, social trust, social relationships, preparedness, place attachment (when members care about their community), and collective efficacy (when members believe they can change their community for the better).

The insurrection on January 6th showed us just how serious the threat of political violence has become, said Joe Goldman, president of Democracy Fund. Our democracy demands not just accountability for the many costs, but a stronger dedication to the long-term work of preventing violence in the first place by creating strong, connected communities.

For more information and to download the full research report and accompanying infographic, visit https://democracyfund.org/costs-of-political-violence.

To request an interview with the reports author Dr. Andrew Blum or with Nadia Firozvi, associate director for the Just and Inclusive Society Project at Democracy Fund, contact Arron Neal at 213-568-3334 or arron@mission.partners.

ABOUT DEMOCRACY FUND

Democracy Fund is a foundation working to defend American democracy and challenge it to be more open and just. Created by eBay founder and philanthropist Pierre Omidyar, Democracy Fund has made more than $150 million in grants to support free and fair elections, a vibrant and diverse public square, effective and accountable government, and a just and inclusive society. In addition to grantmaking, Democracy Fund advocates for better solutions and works with partners to grow philanthropic support for our democracy. To learn more, visit http://www.democracyfund.org.

_________________1 Shane Dixon Kavanaugh, Portland Proud Boys, Antifa Protests Cost Downtown Biz $3M, Group Says, OregonLive, August 21, 2019, sec. Oregon News, Accessed November 1, 2020. Available at: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2019/08/portlands-proud-boys-antifa-protests-cost-downtown-biz-3m-group-says.html.

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New Democracy Fund Report Analyzes Human and Economic Costs of Political Violence; Calls for Philanthropic Investment in Evidence-Based, Community-Led...

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Port-au-Prince this week, with plumes of black smoke from burning tires and flags seen in the capital city, as well as white clouds of tear gas. At least two journalists were injured, a witness told CNN.

"I heard people saying I'm a dictator, but I want to be clear; I have a mandate for five years and I will finish my term," Moise said in a televised speech on Sunday.

Moise has ruled by decree since letting the parliament's mandate expire in January 2020. "Jovenel Moise destroyed every institution, from the parliament to local government. It is clear what he wanted to do. Unfortunately, we have an international community who don't support the fight against this corrupt dictator," opposition leader and former senator Nenel Cassy told CNN.

Moise's office declined to comment directly for this story, instead referring questions to Haiti's ambassador to the US.

Haiti's opposition has called for a three day "general uprising" this weekend. It will be the latest in a succession of anti-government demonstrations that have marked Moise's term, fueled by anger over Haiti's foundering economy, a sweeping corruption scandal and surging criminal violence.

A president accused of dismantling democracy

Haiti's democratic institutions have been crippled under Moise, who has not organized parliamentary or local elections, leaving the legislative branch of government largely vacant and powerless. His new order for judges from Haiti's highest court to retire now deals a blow to the country's judicial branch.

"President Moise did not remove the judges. He only asked them to exercise their right to retire," Haiti's Ambassador to the US, Bocchit Edmond, told CNN.

Judge Jean Wilner Morin, President of the National Association of Haitian Judges, explains to CNN that the President has no constitutional authority to unilaterally retire a judge, or appoint a new one.

"One cannot remove a judge in the course of his term. It is impossible. Therefore the decision to remove three judges from the Supreme Court by the President of the Republic, the order given by the president, is an illegal and unconstitutional order."

Without a functioning legislature, though, who is left to challenge the move?

In the coming year, critics fear that yet another blow to Haiti's democracy could take the form of changes to the constitution, which Moise sees as his legacy project. The new constitution, aimed to further empower the presidency, will go to a referendum in April and only afterward will elections to fill parliamentary, mayoral and other posts follow.

"The new constitution will guarantee when a president is elected they can do the job they were elected to do," Mose said in his Sunday speech.

Backed by foreign support

Haiti's political opposition say that that Moise completed his constitutionally mandated five-year term on Sunday and is now illegally occupying his office. But the President argues that he deserves more time because although he was elected in 2016, he was only sworn in 2017.

A Constitutional Court could issue a definitive ruling on this. The problem, as Morin points out, is that such a court only exists in theory.

"Haiti's 1987 constitution provides for this constitutional court but it has never actually been created and that's why today we find ourselves in a situation where the president says his term ends in 2022 and the political opposition says it ends in 2021," he says.

"If (Moise) wants to stay in power, he must find a political consensus with other political actors and civil society," he added.

In the court's absence, Haiti's national bar association and its Superior Council of Judiciary Power (CSPJ) a powerful body that appoints, fires, and disciplines judges have sided with the opposition, in calling for Moise to step down.

Such support is key to Moise's continuation in office, said Nicole Phillips, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings and Universit de la Foundation Dr. Aristide (UNIFA) in Port-au-Prince.

She describes US endorsement of the president's stance, despite his erosion of democratic norms, as a short-sighted campaign to keep Haiti in stasis in the immediate term "as opposed to figuring out policies in the long term that will actually sustain democracy and justice in Haiti."

"The international bodies are not following Haitian constitutional experts and legal bodies in their interpretation," she said. "You have Haitian constitutional scholars as well as the CSPJ and the federal bar association who are making their interpretations and the international community doesn't care."

Without support from Haiti's powerful neighbor, efforts to form any transitional government will hold little clout while Moise retains control of the country's police and military.

Edmond, the ambassador, argues there would be nothing democratic about appointing a transitional government, and urges observers at home and abroad to wait for the next general elections to select a new president to take office in 2022.

"Transitional governments have never been useful to Haiti," he said. "It's really important to strengthen the democratic process, and to make sure that a democratically elected president is replaced by another democratically elected one."

But with an emboldened president, no functioning legislature and only a partial Supreme Court, the question is whether Haiti's shaky democracy can make it until then.

Read more from the original source:
Is there a democratic solution to Haiti's current crisis? - CNN

This is not even about Donald Trump any more. Its about a Republican party that has lost its way, forgotten its core values, and kicked American democracy in the guts.

Its about justice, common sense, and honour, and how they were trampled deep into the churned-up ground of Capitol Hill by a mob of liars and dissemblers who call themselves GOP senators.

Its about how a nation, most favoured on earth, that cast itself as a shining light in enveloping darkness discovered it had feet of clay and laws that did not stand.

Just imagine how this latest impeachment travesty which, despite its last-minute twists and turns, has resulted in acquittal is viewed in Pyongyang, Minsk, Damascus and other hangouts of dictators, autocrats and war criminals.

Myanmars generals, universally reviled for this months coup, might be forgiven for asking: why is your insurrection so much more excusable than ours?

Vladimir Putin, struggling to get past the Navalny conspiracy and Black Sea palace corruption scandal, has been handed a lifeline by Ted Cruz and the rest, abetted by Trumps third-choice hack lawyers.

If an American president can behave like this and get away with it, then whos to say what Putins mafia cronies get up to is so very bad? This is the Trumpists morally repugnant, relativist argument.

And talking of morality, where are those legions of God-fearing, Trump-worshipping Christian fundamentalists when you really need to draw a line between right and wrong? Praying for the second coming of Mike Pompeo, perhaps.

Xi Jinping is not a man who jokes a lot. Global domination is a serious business, after all. It takes a toll. But even Chinas big cheese must have cracked a smile as democracy took a beating and the world turned upside down.

Everyone likes a Houdini act. Trumps performance is the political equivalent of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel weighted down by redundant Fox News anchors.

We know about Chinas rise. But Americas fall?

Trump never respected the US constitution. His second impeachment has made a mockery of that hallowed text. Ironically, he claimed it was unconstitutional. Hes the expert.

Yet Senate Republicans did not have to follow him over the cliff. Where do they go from here? Who knows? To an all-night bar perhaps, slurping down Kentucky mint juleps in honour of Mitch McConnell.

Its about them now. Senior GOP leaders the Gain Over Principle party are discredited beyond redemption. With a handful of exceptions, they abandoned their sworn duty. They gave America the finger.

They should all be impeached, too. Except they would acquit themselves.

Read more from the original source:
Republicans have betrayed American democracy and boosted the world's dictators - The Guardian

After abuses of power often come opportunities for reform. The attack on the U.S. Capitol, spurred by President Trump's big lie about the election, highlights the importance of holding those responsible to account, shoring up institutional guardrails, and taking action to revitalize democracy.Impeachment, oversight, and criminal prosecution are all on the table. Landmark legislation to restore institutional checks against abuses of power, strengthen voting rights, and deter corruption are among the most urgent priorities for lawmakers in the coming months. Speaking with CNN senior political reporterNia-Malika Henderson, the co-chairs of the Brennan Center for Justice's National Task Force on Rule of Law and Democracy,Preet BhararaandChristine Todd Whitman, will joinMichael SteeleandMichael Waldmanto discuss the reforms needed to bolster American democracy.

Co-presented by the Brennan Center for Justice and The New York Public Library.

LIVE from NYPL is made possible by the support of Library patrons and friends, as well as by the continuing generosity of Celeste Bartos, Mahnaz Ispahani Bartos and Adam Bartos, and the Margaret and Herman Sokol Public Education Endowment Fund.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:

Preet Bhararaserved as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2009 to 2017. Bharara oversaw the investigation and litigation of all criminal and civil cases and supervised an office of over 200 Assistant U.S. Attorneys, who handled cases involving terrorism, narcotics and arms trafficking, financial and healthcare fraud, cybercrime, public corruption, organized crime, and civil rights violations.The New York Timesdubbed Bharara one of "the nation's most aggressive and outspoken prosecutors." In 2017, Bharara joined the NYU School of Law faculty as a Distinguished Scholar in Residence. He is the co-founder of CAFE Studios and the host of CAFE's Stay Tuned with Preet, a podcast focused on issues of justice and fairness. Bharara graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College and from Columbia Law School, where he was a member of the law review. He is the author ofaNew York Timesbestselling book,Doing Justice: A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, and the Rule of Law.

Nia-Malika Hendersonis a senior political reporter for CNN, reporting on politics, policies, and people shaping Washington. Henderson reports for the network's digital and television platforms, and regularly appears as a panelist for CNN'sInside Politics,The Situation Roomwith Wolf Blitzer andCNN Tonightwith Don Lemon. She also often serves as a fill-in anchor forInside Politics. Henderson graduated from Duke University with a bachelor's degree in literature and cultural anthropology and earned master's degrees from Yale University in American studies and Columbia University in journalism.

Michael Steeleis a political analyst for MSNBC and the host of theMichael Steele Podcast. When elected lieutenant governor of Maryland in 2003, Steele became the first African American elected to statewide office. He again made history when he was named chairman of the Republican National Committee in 2009. He is the author ofRight Now: A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agendaand coauthor ofThe Recovering Politicians Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis. Born at Andrews Air Force Base in Prince Georges County, Maryland, Steele was raised in Washington, DC. Upon graduating from Johns Hopkins University, he entered the Order of St. Augustine, where studied for the priesthood. He is a graduate of Georgetown Law Center, an Aspen Institute Rodel Fellow in Public Leadership, and a University of Chicago Institute of Politics Fellow.

Michael Waldmanis the president of the Brennan Center for Justice. A constitutional lawyer and voting rights expert, Michael has ledthe Center's policymaking and litigation since 2005. He is the author ofThe Fight to Vote(2016), a history of the struggle to win voting rights for all citizens. Prior to leading the Center, Michael served as director of speechwriting for President Bill Clinton. He is a graduate of NYU School of Law and Columbia College.

Christine Todd Whitmanis President of the Whitman Strategy Group, a consulting firm specializing in environmental and energy issues. She served in the cabinet of President George W. Bush as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2001 to 2003, and was Governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001. During her time in government, she gained bipartisan support and was widely praised for championing common-sense environmental improvements. Gov. Whitman is involved in numerous national nonprofit organizations focused on legal and environmental causes, including the American Security Project, the National Institute for Civil Discourse, the Climate Leadership Council, and the National World War II Museum. She is a graduate of Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts.

This program will be streamed on Zoom and simulcast to YouTube. You must register with your email address in order to receive the link to participate. Please check your email shortly before the discussion to receive the link. Captions for this event will be provided.

Continue reading here:
After the Insurrection: How to Build a More Resilient Democracy - brennancenter.org

There is some movement afoot in the Connecticut legislature to make voting easier permanently, not just during the pandemic. The matter is complicated by our state constitution, but one pattern holds depressingly clear. Here, as elsewhere, Republicans mainly oppose easier ballot access.

The idea that one of our two viable political parties has evolved into an anti-democratic institution- one that does not want free and fair elections with high voter turnout whose results are respected is almost too upsetting to contemplate. But as Republican machinations graduate from voter purges and computer-assisted gerrymandering to their congressional attempt to overthrow a national election, it is incumbent on those of us who would think clearly about America to cope with this reality. Global warming is no fun to think about either, but not thinking about it wont help.

A good first step in understanding our situation is to acknowledge that throughout human history, representative democracy with a wide voter base has hardly been the norm. We in this country have had the exquisite good fortune to be able to take it for granted until lately, but in the big picture its the exception not the rule.

After the USSR dissolved and the Berlin Wall came down, there was a triumphalist moment in political science when some academics argued that liberal democracy had clearly won the battle of ideas and would vanquish all competitors forthwith, but the end of history didnt quite happen. Ours is certainly not the only polity in which liberal democracy is endangered or has never arrived. There is nothing inevitable about a system like ours, and nothing indestructible about it once established.

The average human being has not, while evolving from other primates, developed an instinctual and deep-seated love of democracy. Realistically, we want what we want and need what we need, and tend to like a political dispensation that we think will satisfy our needs and wants. If we dont think fair elections with lots of people voting are going to deliver the results we want, we are not genetically programmed to say Oh well, I guess its for the best. Whether from the perspective of world history or of human behavior, there has never been any reason to be complacent about the continued existence of a system like ours.

In the case of the contemporary GOP, the turn against democracy is not especially mysterious. This is a minority party. A Pew Research Center study from October 2020 found that 29% of registered voters identified as Republican. Its an unsurprising result in terms of banner Republican policies: most Americans favor a womans right to choose, and the GOP isnt having it; most Americans understand about climate change, and the GOP basically denies it; most Americans are having a more or less hard time making ends meet, and the GOP likes the federal minimum wage where it is, at $7.25/hr. How does a party like that win?

Certainly there are many independent voters who vote Republican, but its worth remembering that of three GOP presidential victories this century, two were popular-vote losses. Gore got more votes than Bush in 2000, and Clinton got way more than Trump in 2016. She beat him by about as many votes as Bush beat Kerry by in 2004, and we did not consider that to be a close election. The GOP happens to benefit, in a huge and anti-democratic way, from the electoral college.

It benefits similarly from the structure and behavior of the Senate. A vote for a senator in bright-red Wyoming is 67.6 times as powerful as a vote for a senator in deep-blue California, because thats the population differential, and they each get two senators. Once theyre in, these minority-party senators thrive in a body in which plain-old majority rule is now a rare exception; it generally takes 60 votes to do anything.

The Republican party also benefits from some apparently natural voting (or non-voting) patterns. Young people tend not to vote Republican, but then again they tend not to vote at all. The same is true of poor people. White people are more likely to vote, and to vote Republican, than non-whites, but here the result is not especially natural. Selective voter suppression has been the norm throughout U.S. history, with a relatively brief pause while the Voting Rights Act had teeth.

With all of these advantages natural, unnatural, and happenstance they lost in 2020; Trump was just too repellent. So now the Republican party is against our elections. It wanted the right to put them aside. When the courts wouldnt do it, they tried it in Congress.

I dont think it makes sense to think of this as an aberration. The Republican party in America is not well-situated to win free and fair elections in which lots of people vote. They know it, and will probably continue to act accordingly. They dont seem to care what gets broken along the way.

This is what we face.

Eric W. Kuhn lives in Middletown.

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See the rest here:
Opinion Why the GOP is now anti-democratic - The CT Mirror