Mediaboss Marketing

Becca Tasker, a junior majoring in anthropology, first started researching civil rights in middle school.

She had learned about the murder of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who was lynched in 1955 after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman.

I was always into history, and I started learning about the formation and fight for civil rights in the U.S., she said. My parents encouraged my curiosity by buying me books when they could, and taking me to the library.

So on a chilly Wednesday night in March, Tasker taught four students gathered in room 227 of the Cathedral of Learning about civil rights and liberties when protesting. The event, called Know Your Rights! was part of a weekly meeting for Pitt Progressives, a new Pitt club focused on getting left-leaning students on campus engaged in the community.

Tasker, the social media coordinator for Pitt Progressives, covered the legal limits for American protesters, photographers and detainees. She instructed her audience on exercising their First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights without going too far and risking arrest or injury at the hands of the police.

This year, more than 250 protesters, some of whom were Pitt students, have been arrested in Pittsburgh and in Washington D.C. for aggravated assault, resisting arrest and trespassing charges all related to protesting.

Other campus groups have continued to raise funds for those who are currently still facing legal charges making Taskers presentation all the more relevant.

If you are detained, ask what crime you are being detained for. Until you ask to leave, you cant walk away you could be charged with a crime, Tasker told the students. How the cops will react depends on what theyre questioning you for, the color of your skin and what part of the country they stopped you in.

Sam Spearing, a junior political science major and Pitt Progressives business manager, said that knowing your rights is especially important for young people who are fresh to the political scene. Spearing referred to nationwide protests that broke out after Trumps controversial executive order banning travel between the United States and seven countries with majority Muslim populations.

[Knowing your rights] has a newfound relevance, said Sam Spearing, a junior political science major and Pitt Progressives business manager. Theres been a lot of civil disobedience recently at the JFK airport after the [first] travel ban, for instance.

Jeff Migliozzi, a junior marketing major and president of Pitt Progressives, said the group grew out of Students for Bernie, an organization dedicated to supporting Bernie Sanders efforts for the Democratic bid during the 2016 election. Although Students for Bernie was focused on the primary election and most of its group members did not join Pitt Progressives, it officially became a student group three months after the 2016 election.

Before the Pitt Progressives, the left wing at Pitt had to choose between the anarchists or the College Democrats. We wanted to fill in the void between them, he said. The Democratic Party is more corporate-leaning. As for middle ground between us and the anarchists, there is probably much less because we do not believe in violence or their general philosophy on society.

This meeting was about civil rights, but the Pitt Progressives meetings are different each week members will present a topic, listen to a guest speaker or hold an event. The gatherings are centered on a common desire to make students more politically active, according to Jeff Migliozzi, the clubs president.

The main goal of every meeting is getting students more involved politically in our community at the federal, state, city or university level of politics, Migliozzi, a junior marketing major, said.

The club recently had an open mic night March 29 for students to express their feelings about the election and the inauguration through poetry, rap and spoken word. At its next meeting on April 12, they will hold a poster-making party in anticipation of the Pittsburgh satellite of the March for Science on April 22, which they are planning and participating in. The March for Science, held on Earth Day, in Washington, D.C., brings attention to funding cuts to the sciences under the Trump administration.

The march is going to have thousands of participants and scientist speakers, so it is far larger in scale than anything else we have done, Migliozzi said.

Although Migliozzi would not say which guest speakers are attending the Pittsburgh satellite march, he said the organizers will announce the speakers next week in a press release.

According to Tasker, Progressivism isnt solely about action its about taking leftist ideologies and making policies that will work for the people.

[Progressivism is] about moving forward with our actions to make the world a better place, Tasker said. We want to continue the passion from the 2016 election and mobilize students to create a passionate movement to help the greater Pittsburgh area.

More broadly, the Pitt Progressives will focus on working toward universal health care, raising the minimum wage and resisting the Trump administration by supporting the sanctuary campus movement.

It is important that every person, progressive or not, defends the most vulnerable in our society, and that includes immigrants being rounded up by ICE. We are a nation of immigrants, and Pittsburgh is a city of immigrants, Migliozzi said.

And though Trump hasnt been in office for even 100 days, Migliozzi said Pitt Progressives is already looking toward increasing student engagement in the next election, four years from now.

Voter registration will be huge next year. National organizers of 2016 campaigns noted the lack of political engagement and turnout for such a big school, he said. We need to change that [through activism], and this can be done without any official party affiliation.

printPrint

Read the original:
Pitt Progressives aims to fill gap in the left - University of Pittsburgh The Pitt News

On April 11, Democratic congressional candidate James Thompson came close to defeatingRepublican candidate State Treasurer John Estes in a special election in Kansas, with just over a6 percent marginin a district that President DonaldTrumpwon by 27 points. However, the bigger story is how Thompson ran a formidable campaign without support from theDemocratic National Committee(DNC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). This lack of support likely stemmed from the DCCCs strategy to abandon rural America and their disdain for candidates who embrace Sen. Bernie Sanders progressive agenda.

New DNC ChairTom Perezsaidduring his own campaign,A 50-state strategy is the only way forward. That starts with rural outreach and organizers in every zip code.However, he already broke this promise withthe first congressional election Democrats ran under his leadership. Perez made the excuse to the Washington Post, There are thousands of elections every year. Can we invest in all of them? That would require a major increase in funds. His response fails to acknowledge that the Democratic Party has a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee devoted solely to funding and supporting candidates for the House of Representatives, of which there are not thousands of elections for every year. Perez and theDemocratic Partyalso didnt capitalize on Thompsons surge in the race by fundraising on his behalf.

In contrast, Republicanssensing the race could be closedevotedsubstantial resources to Estes campaign. Sen. Ted Cruz and Vice President Mike Pence made appearances on his behalf, and Republicans added $100,000 in funds at the last minute to his campaign.

TheDemocraticestablishment tried to appropriate Thompsons success in the district as a testament that anti-Trumpsentiments will translate to big wins forDemocratsin the 2018 midterm elections. However, when pressed on why they failed to support Thompson, they dismissed criticisms for ignoring the race. The Huffington Postreported, A DCCC official who spoke with The Huffington Poston Monday, however, argued that the partys involvement would have been extremely damaging to Thompson because it would have been used against him by Republicans, who have poured significant money into the race. Thompson has performed better than expected in the race because he stayed under the radar, the official added. This claim makes little sense, especially given that Thompsons Republican opponentportrayed himas an establishmentDemocratanyways.

Rather than this special election representing an anomaly or misstep from theDemocraticleadership, theres aprevailing trendwithin the partys establishment to select and support weak, centrist candidates who provide the party with opportunities to fundraise from corporatedonors. This trend is symptomatic of a revolving door within theDemocratic Partyleadership, where party officials often sell out to work for Republican lobbying firms.The InterceptsLee Fangpointedout Mark Squier, John Donovan, and CR Wooters as just a few examples.

Currently, in a special congressional election in Georgia to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, theDemocraticestablishment is puttingvast resources behind establishment Democrat Jon Ossoff. Theformer legislative assistantand filmmaker has strongtiesto Rwandan dictator andClinton FoundationallyPaul Kagame. In addition to the partys funds, Ossoffs pro-business centristplatformhas afforded his campaign several million dollars.Democratsare hoping that their support of Ossoff will translate into a victory, which will elevate the narrative that that centristDemocraticcandidates perform better than progressives, who the party continues to ignore despite their growing popularity.

See the article here:
The DNC and DCCC Confirm They Won't Support Progressive Candidates - Observer

Vivien Schmidt

In recent years, the European Union has suffered through a cascading set of crises, including the Eurozone crisis, the refugee crisis, the security crisis, and Brexit. But rather than bringing the EU together, with concerted responses that would demonstrate its common values on its 60th anniversary, these crises have revealed cross cutting divisions among member states. Whats more, they have been accompanied by major crises of politics and democracy for the EU as well as its member states.

At EU level, questions are increasingly raised not only about the (lack of) effectiveness in solving the various crises but also democratic legitimacy. The causes are EU governance processes characterized by the predominance of closed-door political bargains by leaders in the Council and by a preponderance of technocratic decisions by EU officials in the Commission and the European Central Bank, without significant oversight by the European Parliament. At national level, concerns focus on the ways in which the EUs very existence has diminished elected governments authority and control over growing numbers of policies for which they had traditionally been alone responsible, often making it difficult for them to fulfill their electoral promises or respond to their voters concerns and expectations.

The result has been increasing political disaffection and discontent across European countries, with a growing Euroskepticism that has fueled the rise of populist parties on the political extremes. In a world in which citizens have become increasingly dissatisfied with current economics, politics, and society, populist politicians have been able to find the words to channel their anger. Using rhetorical strategies and uncivil language in a post-truth environment that rejects experts and the mainstream media, they have reshaped the political landscape by framing the debates in fresh ways while using new and old media to their advantage as they upend conventional politics.

The underlying causes of the malaise fueling the rise of populists are known. These include the increase in inequality and those left behind, the growth of a socio-cultural politics of identity uncomfortable with the changing faces of the nation, and the hollowing out of mainstream political institutions and party politics. But although these help explain the sources of citizens underlying anger, they do not address the central puzzles: Why now, in this way, with this kind of populism? And where are the social democrats?

The rise of populism, in particular on the extreme right, constitutes a challenge to political stability and democracy not seen since the 1920s and 1930s. Progressives need to come up with new and better ideas that rally citizens around more positive messages that serve better ends than those of the populist extremes on the right. These need to be ideas that they can communicate effectively through the new social media as well as the old, and that resonate with a broad range of citizens. But which ideas, then?

With regard to economic and socio-economic ideas, progressives have some rethinking to do. Social democratic parties have yet to come to terms with their own complicity in the myriad of neo-liberal policies focused on liberalizing financial markets, deregulating labor markets, and rationalizing the welfare state that left large portions of the electorate open to the populist siren calls of the extreme right. Such policies, in many cases led by the social democrats in the name of a progressive agenda, benefited some people a lot: the top classesnot just the 1% but the upper 20% since 2008 but not the in-betweens, who neither benefited from the boom for the top nor the welfare for the bottom. These are the people who feel left behind, and are! They are increasingly frustrated, resentful, and insecure; they are looking for explanations and answers; and only the extreme right speaks to them! But what it proposesincreasing protectionism and an end to free trade, dismantling the EU and getting rid of the Euro, closing borders to free movement and to immigrationare potentially disastrous for themselves, their countries, Europe, and the world. At the same time, the populists concerns ought not be dismissed out of hand, in particular with regard to protecting the welfare state and jobs, nor should the populist desire for more national control over the decisions that affect people the most be ignored. The questions are: How to do this in the context not just of globalization but also of the Eurozone crisis, with its austerity rules for countries in trouble, and its stability rules for all, which limit investment for growth. And what to do about the EU more generally, when it appears to control what national leaders can do, thereby limiting their responsiveness to their own citizens?

For countries in the euro, the EU needs to give back to the member states the flexibility to devise policies that work for them. The Eurozone has been reinterpreting the rules by stealth for quite a while now, by introducing increasing flexibility in the rules and numbers while denying it in the public discourse. As a result, the Eurozone operates with suboptimal policies that, although revised to allow for improving performance, still havent resolved its crisis once and for all. Countries in Southern Europe especially suffer as a result. It is about time that political leadersand progressives most of allpush harder for a rethinking of the rules, so that everyone can benefit from being in the Euro and, indeed, in the EU.

One way of rethinking the rules would involve making the whole exercise of the European Semester more bottom-up and flexible, rather than continuing with top-down stability policieshowever flexibly interpreted through derogations of the rules and recalibrations of the numbers. The Eurozone already has an amazing architecture of economic coordination, reaching into all its members ministries of finance and country economic experts. Why not use that coordination to ensure that countries themselves determine what works for their very specific economic growth models and varieties of capitalism? And get the new competitiveness councils or the existing fiscal councils to act more as industrial policy councils rather than structural adjustment hawks. The countries decisions on the yearly budgetary cycle could be debated with the other member states in the Eurogroup as well as the Commission, the EP, and the Council to enhance democratic legitimacy. They might additionally be coordinated with the ECB to allow for greater differentiation in euro-members macroeconomic targets, to match their particular circumstances while fitting within the overall targets (see here).

Such a bottom-up approach is likely not only to promote better economic performance but also much more democratic legitimacy at national level. This is because it would put responsibility for the countrys economics back in national governments hands as well as encouraging more legitimizing deliberation at EU level. All this in turn could help counter the populist drift, as political parties of the mainstream right and left could begin again to differentiate their policies from one another, with debates on and proposals for different pathways to economic health and the public good, that they then discuss and legitimate at the EU level as well.

None of this will work, however, if member states continue to have to contend with excessive debt loads (e.g., Greece and Italy), if they are left without significant investment funds provided by banks or the state (e.g., Portugal, Spain, Italy, and even France), as well as if some countries continue to have massive surpluses while failing to invest sufficiently (i.e., Germany and other smaller Northern European countries). Some extra form of solidarity is necessary, beyond the European Stability Mechanism. Innovative ideas for renewal, such as Eurobonds, Europe-wide unemployment insurance, EU investment resources that dwarf the Juncker Plan, a EU self-generated budget, and other mechanisms for other areas of concernincluding solidarity funds on refugee or EU migrationwould be necessary. Failing this, at the very least member states should be allowed to invest their own resources in infrastructure, education and training, research and development, incurring long-term debt at low interest rateswithout adding this to deficit and debt calculations, as under current rules.

Finally, we need to re-envision the EU itself neither as single speed or two-speed with a hard core around the Eurozone. Rather, it should be seen as multi-speed with a soft core of members resulting from the overlap of different clusters of member states in the EUs many different policy communities, with different duos or trios playing leadership roles. Here, the EU could retain its appeal even for an exiting country like the UK, which could decide that it should reclaim a leadership role in Common Security and Defense Policy, as one of two European nuclear powers, while standing aside in other areas. Seeing the future of EU integration as a differentiated process of participation in different policy communities beyond the Single Market would thus also allow for each such community to further deepen by constituting its own special system of governance.

For such differentiated integration to work, however, with all member states feeling part of this soft core EU, whatever their level of involvement, they need to be full members of the institutions. This means that all members should have a voice in all areas, but vote (in the Council and the EP) only in those in which they participate. Since all members are part of the most significant policy community, the Single Market, this ensures that they will be voting a lot. (In contrast, non-members like exiting Britain or Norway would have voice and vote only in those areas in which they participate.) For the Eurozone, this would mean envisioning that where some members in future, say, pledge their own resources to a EU budget, their representatives would be the only ones to vote on it and its use, although everyone could discuss it (no separate Eurozone Parliament, then, but separate voting for members of a deeper budgetary union).

The knotty problem remains the question of politics and democracy. At the moment, the EU serves the purpose of the populists, by hollowing out national representative institutions, allowing populists to claim they are the true representatives of the people. To change this, the EU needs to do more to reinforce citizen representation and participation. For the Eurozone in particular, this at the very least demands more involvement of the European Parliament in decision-making, through a return to the Community Method. Turning Eurozone treaties into ordinary legislation, for example, would help break the stalemate that makes it impossible to change such legislation (given the unanimity rule), and make them subject to political debate. But the EP would also need to find more ways to bring national parliaments into EU level decision-making. And the EU as a whole must devise new means of encouraging citizen participation, from the ground up.

The response to the populist attraction is not to run after the extreme right in terms of policiesas the center right has done on immigration, for examplebut rather to rethink the EU and its policies while reconnecting with the basic principles of social democracy and progressivism. Questions like what does social democracy mean in the 21st century? need to be thoroughly addressed, to renew long-standing philosophies of social justice, democratic representation, and more in a still Europeanizing and globalizing world, with a new progressive narrative about what should be done. And what this must mean is not just considering the re-decentralization of certain policies, such as economic policy in the Eurozone, but also the globalization of others, such as corporate tax policy.

This comment is a shorter version of an article published in theProgressive Post online (April 3) which also formed the basis for a talk at the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) Conference (March 21),Looking for a Different Europe. Reflections and Perspectives,to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the EU.

Original post:
How do Progressives Fight Back Against Populism? - Social Europe

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Mark Meadows leaves a closed-door strategy session with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

In an irony befitting the political vertigo of the Trump era, the far rights obstruction continues to stymie Republicans and, in some sense, help Democratic progressives. The latest example is the aftermath of the failed move to kill the Affordable Care Act.

President Trump, after declaring to the press last month that he was moving on to other issues as a result of his failed health-care push, apparently changed his mind.

During an Oval Office gaggle with the press pool last Tuesday, he announced an effort to gather votes for yet another iteration of ACA repeal, just days before a two-week recess. Almost immediately, sources in the Senate and House familiar with the revival talks reported that the White House and arch-conservative Republican lawmakers are still at an impasse.

Theres no deal in principle, emphasized North Carolinas Mark Meadows, one of the talks participants and Chairman of the Freedom Caucusthe faction of Republican representatives credited with tanking both initial versions of the AHCA. First, because it was not drastic enough of a repeal, then again, even after the insertion of amendments that moved repeal further to the political right, and caused a loss of even mainline conservative support.

Unsurprisingly to participants and observers alike, no progress toward policy cohesion was reported before the recess. Instead, the renewed negotiationscharacterized during a press conference by Speaker Paul Ryan as merely conceptual over half a dozen timesat this point appear to have been functioning primarily as an optical symbol of reconciliation after tense intraparty fighting following the failure of Obamacare repeal in March.

Democrats are smiling in D.C. that the Freedom Caucus, with the help of Club For Growth and Heritage, have saved Planned Parenthood & Ocare! Trump tweeted. Which prompts an equally unexpected thought: Has POTUS actually grazed some insight?

The far right sparing Democratic liberals from a more unified and thorough Republican effort to roll back government is not a novel story. A re-visitation of recent history shows Republican hardliners have, for nearly a decade, been a crucial force standing in the way of supposed moderate Republican legislative deals thatdespite their label of moderation and their approval among the ranks of high-toned conservative think tanks and the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journalwould have been draconian in their effects: cutting social spending programs, defunding Planned Parenthood, and generally creating greater economic fragility in the name of debt reduction.

McKay Coppins of The Atlantic hinted at this in a piece about the unwieldy ideological contours of the right in the contemporary era:

Many of the most high-profile intra-party battles in recent years have been fought not over ideas, but tactics and a willingness to compromise. While Republicans in Washington were essentially unanimous in their opposition to President Obamas agenda, they differedat least at firstover whether they should cut deals at the legislative bargaining table, or, say, shut the government down until they got exactly what they wanted. The absolutists largely won out during the Obama presidency.

Fading from the collective political memory is the summer of 2011, when Barack Obama and former House Speaker John Boehner came close to shaking hands on a Grand Bargain debt-reduction agreement thataccording to a New York Times/FiveThirtyEight analysis using Gallup polling datawas to the right of the preferences of even the median conservative voter. It included a near 3-to-1 ratio of spending cuts to tax revenue and reductions to social program benefits.

Much to the chagrin of many Democrats, the mix of spending cuts and tax increases that Mr. Obama is offering is quite close to, or perhaps even a little to the right of, what the average Republican voter wants, let alone the average American, FiveThirtyEight wrote at the time.

Still, the agreement was not drastic enough for the far right, then led by the Tea Party.

Ascendant and intransigent, Tea Partiers twisted arms and whispered threats of revolt as Boehner and his deputy, Eric Cantor (who would later be ousted for his insiderdom by David Brat, now a Freedom Caucus member), weighed Obama's deep concessions through back channels. Boehner, feeling the pressure, would eventually back off.

The White House and Boehner held dueling press conferences, each accusing the other of leaving a good-faith negotiator at the altar. However, the Obama administration, like the Bill Clinton camp before them, had effectively triangulated and whipped their progressive faction into line. It was Boehner who could not bring the Tea Party on board.

And so, the big deal failed. And citizens were spared historic cutsto Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and a whole host of other spending programsat a time when most families were still reeling from the Great Recession as the real unemployment rate (U-6) hovered at 15 percent.

The smaller deal that did prevail on the eve of default on U.S. Treasury debt, the Budget Control Act of 2011, among other things added the automatic sequesterand still cost Americans hundreds of billions in support, from heating assistance for low-income families during the winter months to furloughs on military basesspending cuts that economists now say also likely hobbled the strength of an already tenuous Great Recession recovery. Nevertheless, without the encumbrance of the far right a more severe deal with a longer budget horizon surely would have been enacted.

When one of Obamas proposed budgets in his second term had steeper immediate budget cuts than the GOP to both Medicare and Social Security (yes, this happened) there was another chance for a possible deal; and it was summarily batted down by a mix of absolutists, libertarians, and anti-establishment ultra-conservatives who were opposed to any tax hikes.

That dynamic of the far right indirectly saving the lefts hide echoed again this year on ACA repeal, which, while deeply unpopular (in both its versions) among the electorate, was initially cheered on by a significant number of Washington conservatives. And with tax reform, immigration, and the budget still on the docket in 2017, there are plenty of other arenas in which the Freedom Caucus can spoil Paul Ryans agenda. A so far very un-populist agenda for which Trump, in yet another irony, has become the chastened pitchman.

What remains to be seen is whether the proposed Trump budgetwhich would impose devastating cuts of the sort long craved by Freedom Caucus typesis too extreme for other Republicans in Congress. Leading mainline Republicans have already pronounced the White House budget dead on arrival. However budget-making is an iterative process, and cuts that are a middle ground between their scuffling factions could still disable many key programs.

Even so, a precedent in which the far right, by refusing to compromise, saves the Republic from more complete budgetary carnage may continue.

Centrist figures on cable news continue to bemoan the prospect of another Congress that fails to get things done. But if the result of the current administration and congressional leaders getting things done is the deconstruction of the administrative state, as Steve Bannon has fashioned the pursuit, then GOP legislative dysfunction at the hands of the House Freedom Caucus may become the unlikely rampart that partially salvages valued social outlays.

Representative Peter King, a less severe conservative, backed away from the AHCA once it was redrafted to appeal to the Freedom Caucus. In 2015, King proclaimed with annoyance that the crazies have taken over the party. Speaking withThe Hill after the initial repeal and replace failure, he expressed his hope that the mainstream GOP, in grand bargain style, can find a way to reach out to get at least some Democrats involved. I think President Trump can do it.

Still within the first 100 days, theres evidently more time for some of Trumps more heterodox campaign statements to manifest themselves in proposed legislationnot all of which may necessarily be anathema to liberals. The president and many Progressive Caucus members, for instance, agreed on scrapping the TPP trade agreement. And weirdly, theres talk that Trump may get together with progressives on a partial resurrection of the Glass-Steagall Actthough eyes will be kept on the fine print.

In the end, Trump taking Kings advice, lightening up the most ferocious aspects of GOP legislation, and corralling electorally vulnerable Democrats like Joe Manchin into a package of deals on Republican terms is the surest way to damage progressive priorities whilst receiving applause from highfalutin editorial pages for bipartisanship.

With Democrats out of power in every respect at the federal level, the triumph of The Crazies over the more moderate dealmakers may, counterintuitively, be liberals' best bet.

See the rest here:
Will the Far Right Keep Saving Democratic Progressives? - The American Prospect

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, recipient of a strongly-worded letter from progressives.

Photo by Susan Walsh-Pool/Getty Images

Late last month, a group of 25 conservatives sent an open letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in which they implored him to bring long-needed reforms to the DOJs Civil Rights Division. Among their suggestions: put an end to the divisions obsession with protecting the rights of minorities and return to race-neutral Voting Rights Act enforcement. The letter also recommended granting political appointeesthe officials in the DOJs so-called front officemore power to decide who works in the division and minimizing the role of career attorneys who are reliably opposed to President Trumps agenda.

Leon Neyfakh is a Slate staff writer.

The letter, whose signatories included a pair of prominent officials from George W. Bushs Justice Department, inspired eye rolls and indignation in the civil rights community, and underscored the sharp division between the career attorneys in the Civil Rights Division and their new, Trump-approved bosses. The letter also came off as disingenuous. Though it ostensibly demanded an end to politicized hiring practicesthe authors cited a 2013 inspector generals report in arguing that the Obama-era policy of prioritizing job applicants with a demonstrated commitment to civil rights had made it so only employees of left-wing groups got hiredit seemed to envision the exact opposite: a systematic effort to fill the divisions ranks with right-wing lawyers who would enthusiastically enable the policy goals set forth by Trump and Sessions.

On Tuesday morning, a brigade of high-profile progressive groups returned fire, sending their own letter to the attorney general in which they reminded him that its illegal to consider actual or perceived political affiliation while making personnel decisions. The letterwhich was signed by the ACLU, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and a new team of former Obama attorneys called United to Protect Democracymakes reference to a dark period in DOJ history, when a George W. Bush-era political appointee named Bradley Schlozman carried out a brazenly partisan campaign to hire conservatives into the Civil Rights Division and to marginalize the liberals among the career staff.

Emails, voicemails, and interviews that were published as part of a damning 2008 report by the DOJs inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibilityrevealed that Schlozman had openly discussed his antipathy toward crazy libs and his desire to free up space in the Civil Rights Division for good Americans. In one voicemail from February 2006, Schlozman told a colleague, I just want to make sure we dont start confining ourselves to, you know, politburo members because they happen to be a member of some, you know, psychopathic left-wing organization designed to overthrow the government. Three years earlier, he had emailed a different colleague to say he had just spoken with a prospective hire, verified his political leanings, and concluded he is a member of the team. In a 2004 email, he declined an invitation to lunch by saying, Unfortunately I have an interview at 1 with some lefty who well never hire but Im extending a courtesy interview as a favor.

In June 2006, after he was moved out of the DOJs main office and into the U.S. Attorneys Office in the Western District of Missouri, Schlozman told a friend he was enjoying his new job, but that bitchslapping a bunch of [Division] attorneys really did get the blood pumping and was even enjoyable once in a while.

Though Schlozman was never prosecuted, the IGs report concluded that his conduct violated the Civil Service Reform Act, a federal law which holds that employees and applicants for employment should receive fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without regard to political affiliation. In the letter sent to Sessions on Tuesday, progressives underscored the importance of adhering to this law in maintaining the credibility of the DOJ and the Civil Rights Division in particular.

The signatories also suggestedwith a conspicuous cc list that included the Office of the Inspector General, the Office of Professional Responsibility, and the heads of both Congressional Judiciary Committeesthat theyll be looking out for any moves from the Schlozman playbook.

It would be nave to think a strongly worded letter could spook Sessions and his fellow political appointees into leaving the Civil Rights Divisions career attorneys alone and allowing them to pursue the kinds of cases they did under President Obama. Thats not going to happen, and its not clear that it should: As the saying goes, elections do have consequences, and if the new administration doesnt believe in, say, opening federal investigations into troubled police departments, then they cant be expected to do so.

In other words, there should be a way for the people running Trumps DOJ to pursue their enforcement priorities without improperly politicizing the agency. But its unclear whether thats possible in practice, or where it leaves the hundreds of dedicated civil rights lawyers who joined the DOJ because they wanted to do the kinds of work the new administration doesnt seem to believe in.

The message Sessions is likely to take away from the letter he received todayassuming he reads itis that the work of reshaping the DOJ to reflect his ideology will require subtlety, wiles, and a heap of plausible deniability. If the organizations that signed the letter are serious about stopping him, thats the kind of playbook they should be getting ready for.

Follow this link:
Progressives Remind Jeff Sessions That Politicizing the DOJ Can Be Illegal. Will He Care? - Slate Magazine (blog)