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To protect and strengthen a "democracy in peril," more than 150 civil rights organizations on Thursday released a far-reaching policy platform aimed at pressuring policymakers and 2020 candidates to prioritize voting rights.

Led by the Leadership Conference on Human and Civil Rights, the organizations offered "concrete policy recommendations" and proposed "a unified vision for ensuring that Americans have a strong, functioning democracy."

The six major areas in which bold reforms must be enacted were identified in the platform, called Vision for Democracy, as:

"When our democracy is in peril, so too are our civil rights," said Vanita Gupta, president of the Leadership Conference. "This platform offers tangible proposals to ensure every eligible voter, no matter who they are and regardless of their race, color, language, or ability can participate freely in our democracy. Our vote is our voice."

Policy recommendations within the platform include passing the Native American Voting Rights Act; prohibiting restrictive voter ID requirements; restoring voting rights to all currently and formerly incarcerated citizens; and standardizing the use of early voting systems across the country.

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The groups, which also include the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Voto Latino, noted that none of the 2020 Democratic presidential debates have included questions about voting rights, despite recent reports that 17 million Americans were purged from voter rolls between 2016 and 2018 and that voting machines across the country are at risk for malfunctions and cyberattacks.

"On the eve of the next Democratic presidential candidate debate, we implore the debate moderators to ask candidates questions about their proposals to build a truly representative democracy that ensures all voices are heard," the coalition said.

Sherrilyn Ifill, president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, emphasized that the current vulnerabilities and unequal rights within the U.S. voting system are the result of political choices.

"At the current moment, our voting system is neither secure, equally accessible, nor fair," Ifill said. "The good news is that there are simple and direct solutions to every one of the problems with our voting system. Now all we need is the will, determination, and responsible leadership of elected and other public officials to come together and address this crisis."

Kristen Clarke of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law added that the policy platform comes six years after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a key portion of the Voting Rights Act which aimed, among other things, to combat racial discrimination at the polls.

"We face these threats without important statutory protections that have served as a bulwark against voter suppression since 1965, and with a dormant Department of Justice," Clarke said. "Vision for Democracy sets forth a comprehensive and robust blueprint for tearing down the obstacles and barriers that, too often, lock out African Americans and other racial minorities from the electoral process. This blueprint is needed more than ever."

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To Save 'Democracy in Peril,' 150 Civil Rights Groups Release Visionary Blueprint to Restore and Protect Voting Rights - Common Dreams

Alberta Chief Electoral Officer Lorne Gibson in front of the Legislature in this Postmedia file photo.John Lucas / Postmedia

The United Conservative Party governments move to terminate the provinces election commissioner and move the role under the chief electoral officer raises questions about independence and risks undermining Albertans faith in democracy, the outgoing commissioner said.

Election commissioner Lorne Gibson found out through news reports Monday a government bill would end his contract four years early, he said in a Tuesday statement.

The government move, done in the name of administrative efficiency, could potentially jeopardize any ongoing investigations into elections violations, including the UCPs 2017 leadership race. People and organizations involved in that race have already faced a combined $211,000 in fines and penalties after the commissioner said they funnelled money improperly to candidates, colluded to organize forbidden campaign donations and obstructed an investigation.

Earlier this year, evidence surfaced suggesting leadership contender Jeff Callaway was a kamikaze candidate in the new partys leadership contest, there to attack former Wildrose leader Brian Jean, and that Callaways campaign staff co-operated with now-Premier Jason Kenneys staff.

In a Tuesday statement, Gibson said he was surprised and disappointed to learn that if the governments Bill 22 passes and receives royal assent, hell be out of a job.

This disappointment stems from my firm belief that the citizens of Alberta must have confidence and trust in the integrity of all aspects of the provincial electoral process, not just the casting and counting of ballots on election day, Gibson said. This includes trust and confidence that the election laws established by the legislative assembly are being followed and that there are consequences for those who choose not to follow them.

November 19, 2019 Media Release Aberta Election Commissioner by edmontonjournal on Scribd

The election commissioner position was created in 2018 by the former NDP government after it introduced new rules banning corporate and union donations and capping political contributions. The province needed an office separate from the chief electoral officer to enforce the new rules and investigate potential wrongdoing, they said.

Introduced on Monday, the omnibus Bill 22 would move the commissioners role under the chief electoral officer. That officer, or a newly hired commissioner, would decide whether to continue any ongoing investigations into election rule breaking.

The Opposition NDP has alleged the move smacks of corruption and could interfere with ongoing investigations into potential wrongdoing by members of government.

Government house leader Jason Nixon said Tuesday a new commissioners work would be even more independent from government, because they would report to the chief electoral officer, not the legislature.

Any investigations that the chief electoral officer and the election commissioner deem that need to continue forward will continue, and thats the process were going forward with, he told reporters.

Senior investigations manager Steve Kaye, who works in Gibsons office, said Tuesday he could not say whether the commissioner has any ongoing investigations into the UCP leadership race, or any other investigations, for that matter.

He wouldnt speculate on how the structural change might affect ongoing court appeals of the commissioners findings by Callaway and others.

Gibsons letter said he has received 800 complaints since it opened last year.

NDP Opposition leader Rachel Notley said Tuesday she would try everything she could think of to halt Bill 22. She penned a letter to Albertas Lt.-Gov. Lois Mitchell Tuesday asking her not to grant the bill royal assent, saying Notley has grave concerns that Bill 22 is a misuse of the authority of the legislature.

Nixon said Notleys allegations of collusion and investigation interference are utterly ridiculous and fake outrage.

In Tuesday question period, Notley asked the premier (who was in Texas) to withdraw the bill, saying it attempts to cover up the truth and potentially obstruct justice.

When Nixon disputed Gibson was being fired from the commissioner role, Notley said he was misleading the house.

Speaker Nathan Cooper interjected to say house rules do not permit members to accuse one another of lying or misleading. When Cooper told her to apologize and withdraw the statement, Notley refused, which prompted Cooper to dismiss her from the chamber for the rest of Tuesday.

After, Notley told reporters it was her first time being ejected from the house since elected in 2008.

We will not stand by while people are fired for doing their job trying to hold this government to account, she said.

According to the legislature library, the last time a member was ejected from the house was April 18, 2016, when then-Progressive Conservative party leader Ric McIver refused to sit down when he didnt like a ruling by the speaker. Speaker Bob Wanner dispatched the Sargeant-at-Arms to escort him from the chamber.

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Election commissioner worries his firing will erode public trust in democracy - Edmonton Journal

With just under a year until Americans elect their next president, "America: Are We Ready? A November Democracy Big Think," will discuss what's working and what's broken; what's threatened and what's missing in American democracy?

WRVO will be airing "America: Are We Ready? A November Democracy Big Think," a live national call-in program presented by WNYC and hosted by Brian Lehrer this Sunday, November 24 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. This program will preempt "The Ted Radio Hour," "Freakonomics Radio," and "Studio 360" for that day.

During this three hour live call-in program, the topics of discussion will be -- the impeachment process in American democracy, how different groups of Americans feel left out of decisions made by people in power and finally, how can electoral democracy be as democratic as possible?

Join us this Sunday, November 24 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for this live call-in program, hosted by Brian Lehrer.

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America: Are We Ready? A November Democracy Big Think - WRVO Public Media

There was a sad but inevitable announcement last week: The Charlotte Observer is eliminating one of its days in print.

Sometime next year, there will no longer be a printed edition of the Observer on Saturdays. Its part of a cost-saving measure by McClatchy, the papers corporate owner. All 30 of the companys papers nationwide are doing, or have already done, the same thing.

If youre under a certain age lets say, you never listened to music on cassettes then this might not matter to you. But for the rest of us, its one more piling knocked out from under the pier not just for the newspaper business, but journalism as a whole.

I worked for the Observer for 23 years. My wife worked there for 26. We still have close friends there. Even though I now work here at WFAE, one of the papers competitors, the ink is still deep in my blood. Reading the printed paper every morning is like taking a shower or brushing my teeth. Its the daily routine.

And for 100 years or more, millions of Americans followed that same routine. People thought of the paper as a public utility. If you turn on the faucet, you expect water to come out. If you look on your front steps, you expect the paper to be there.

But when the Internet arrived, the newspaper business changed for good. Why is the paper so much smaller now? Because classified ads ran off to places like Craigslist and eBay, and display ads fragmented across a million different websites. The reason a paper cost only a quarter a day was that advertisers paid most of the cost. When they left, papers cut staff to save money. That shrunk the paper, in size and scope. Which meant readers started leaving, too. That has become a death spiral that most papers have been unable to escape.

The big national papers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal still thrive. Small-town papers in many places still do well because they have news that readers cant get anywhere else. But the papers in the middle, in places like Charlotte, are in deep trouble.

There are lots of other ways to get your news now. But in nearly every city, there are fewer professional journalists than there were 10 or 20 years ago. That makes it harder for citizens to know whats going on, and easier for the corrupt among us to get away with things.

Democracy dies in darkness. Thats the official slogan of the Washington Post, and the unofficial slogan of every journalism shop around. Were one of the only businesses that tells you what you need to know instead of what you want to hear. That makes us unpopular in a lot of places. It also makes us necessary for a free society. Losing one day of print delivery might not sound like much. But it makes the light a little bit dimmer.

Tommy Tomlinsons On My Mind column normally runs every Monday on WFAE and WFAE.org. It represents his opinion, not the opinion of WFAE. You can respond to this column in the comments section below. You can also email Tommy at ttomlinson@wfae.org.

Originally posted here:
Another Painful Cut For Journalism (And Democracy) In Our City - WFAE

Forget whether the math works. (It doesnt.) Expecting billionaires to pay for all the nice things is bad for democracy.

One of the more exhausting rituals of presidential campaign season is the effort to make every new proposal add up. Sure, its better that politicians try to come up with a plan to pay for their wish lists. The problem is that the explanations are often a disguise that make the impossible seem possible, even practical. Fake budgets are the tribute that pandering pays to pragmatism.

You could confiscate the wealth of every billionaire and centimillionaire in the country and it wouldnt come close to paying for Medicare for All or the Green New Deal.

But lets pretend that the fantastical (albeit unconstitutional) wealth tax Elizabeth Warren has proposed would work like she claims. Lets also stipulate that the wealthy wouldnt respond by hiding their wealth, moving out of the country or cutting back in the sort of investments the government is utterly incapable of replicating. Lets even concede for arguments sake that Warren could get her plan through Congress and the courts.

Would that be good for the country?

Warren sees the rich as a natural resource that can be mined for its wealth indefinitely. Well, we have a lot of examples of countries that depend on natural resources to pay for everything. Saudi Arabia comes to mind. Oil revenues pay for almost everything. The problem with such societies is what political scientists and economists call the resource curse or the paradox of plenty.

It works like this: When the government doesnt need the tax dollars of a middle class, the middle class has less political power. Virtually everywhere democracy has taken root, starting with England and Holland, it has done so because the middle class demanded representation in return for taxation. That was the heart of the whole no taxation without representation thing that led to the American Revolution.

The curse has an economic component as well. The countries that rely on natural resources tend to be poorer because they are less economically dynamic. Think resource-poor Switzerland versus resource-rich Venezuela. Exactly why this widely observed phenomenon works this way is debated, but part of it is surely that the existing stakeholders are hostile toward economic innovation. Another factor: When the state supports you, the incentive to support yourself never mind be an entrepreneur is dulled.

But the more important part is the democratic disincentive. Think of the old golden rule: Whoever has the gold makes the rules. (This insight apparently comes from noted philosopher Johnny Hart, the cartoonist behind The Wizard of Id, who coined it in 1965). When the bulk of tax revenues come from the people, or at least from the middle class, the government heeds the middle class. When all of the money comes from the aristocracy, as it did prior to the rise of democratic capitalism, the aristocracy made the rules. When it comes from the rich aka the donor class, the One Percent, etc. the rich care a lot more about the rule-making.

Today, the top 1 percent make roughly 20 percent of the money in this country and pay almost 40 percent of federal taxes. Meanwhile, 60 percent of U.S. households receive more money from the treasury than they pay into it. But Warren insists its the rich who arent paying their fair share.

Is it any wonder that our political system is so heavily influenced by the top 1 percent? Is it any wonder that the top 1 percent feel so incentivized to get involved in politics? The more skin you have in the game, the more you care about the game.

The left used to understand this. For generations they opposed means-testing Social Security because they wanted it to be a broad American entitlement, not a form of welfare.

Americans are practical. When told that the rich can pay for cool stuff, they say go for it. When asked if they want the cool stuff so badly that theyd be willing to pay more themselves, theyre much stingier.

The danger of promising that the rich can pay for everything is multifaceted. First, its not true. Second, you dont have to be a student of public choice theory to understand that the more Washington behaves as if its true, the more the wealthy will intervene in our politics. And third, the more citizens believe that a small group of undeserving wealthy people are denying them nice things, the uglier our politics will become.

Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

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Shaking Down the Rich Bad For Democracy - Lynchburg News and Advance