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Voter Registration Flashpoints
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
As we head into the final stretch of the election season, alarming reports of dysfunctional voter registration, purges of the rolls, and possible voter suppression are surfacing weekly, if not daily. The National Campaign for Fair Elections' hotline (866.OUR.VOTE / 866.687.8683) is already receiving roughly a thousand calls a day; while the majority of these are requests for information, some concern problems with registration. The New York Times reports that tens of thousands of voters may have been illegally purged from the rolls in swing states. Other news sources speculate there are 600,000 voters at risk of disenfranchisement in Ohio alone. What goes unreported upon amid all this turmoil is how effective the response has been, and what can still be done.
Take Montana. On October 8th, US District Court Judge Donald Molloy issued a scathing ruling denouncing the state Republican Party's effort to challenge the registration of 6,000 voters: "The timing of the challenges is so transparent it defies common sense to believe the purpose is anything but political chicanery." The Montana Republican Party and its leaders, he wrote, "are abusing the process."
The real danger is that the process itself is flawed. "We have an election system that's exquisitely designed for low rates of participation," says Tova Wang, Vice President of Research for Common Cause. "We're expecting increased turnout and we have a system that's not designed to handle it." While these problems are endemic throughout our fractured electoral system, three states--Virginia, Florida, and Ohio--present both the challenges we face and the measures we might take to solve them. All three are closely contested, and an Obama victory will require every one.
(62) CommentsOctober 20, 2008
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Conscience, Sanity--Doonesbury
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
These past few Sunday mornings, when many people turn to the funnies in the Washington Post, Garry Trudeau has offered readers large doses of sanity and conscience in his invaluable Doonesbury strip.
Taking on Republican "family values", John McCain's endless war, the Bushies' war crimes problems and numbness to the use of torture--Trudeau pulls no punches and cuts straight to the heart of these issues.
Indeed, Doonesbury would be a welcome addition to the Post's editorial page--more thought-provoking, useful, and courageous than the newspaper's usual timid and wrongheaded editorials.
(87) CommentsOctober 15, 2008
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The Last Debate --Hurrah!
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
It's hard to believe that the last debate (hurrah!) in this long and winding and extraordinary election has just ended .
The pundits were out of the gate--even before the two spouses, in red and blue, bounded onto the stage -- peddling their wares and opinions. Who won? Was it a game-changer for McCain? (Note to pundits: Could we abolish that term? Elections are not games.) No. Some argued that McCain won the first quarter. But by halftime, punditocrats brayed in virtual unison that it seemed as if McCain needed anger management therapy.
"Obama on the defensive" was another favorite pundit theme. It is true that given the opportunity to skewer McCain/ Palin's demagogic 100 percent negative ads and rallies-- the ones that have incited ugly and hate-filled xenophobia at a time of metastasizing economic pain--Obama chose to stay cool, sober and cautious. (McCain's defense of those rallies, and his vile attacks on civil rights leader and American hero, now Congressman John Lewis, exposed the dark twists and turns of a man who once denounced gutter tactics. He now condones them.) It's pretty clear --as one observer noted--that Obama's strategy is "dare to be boring." He played a safe game tonight.
(31) CommentsOctober 16, 2008
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Nation to New Yorkers: Vote Change Like You Mean It.
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
"In an otherwise desultory fall election, there is one lever New York voters can pull on Election Day that will make a real difference – that of the Working Families Party…"
--The Nation, November 2, 1998Progressives face a constant dilemma between a transformative politics aimed at a fundamentally different, humane and sustainable society, and the compromises often needed to begin addressing people's immediate needs. Never is that dilemma more acute than in presidential election years, when the stakes are so high and the choices often so narrow.
We all know it's critical that Barack Obama win this election. Yet we also know that an Obama win in itself will not build the movement we need to reconstruct our country and address the crises and injustices facing Americans and the world.
(20) CommentsOctober 13, 2008
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The Woman Greenspan, Rubin & Summers Silenced
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
"Break the Glass" was the code-name high-level Treasury Department figures gave the $700 billion bailout; it was to be used only as a last- resort measure.
Now millions have been sprayed and damaged by broken glass.
But more than a decade ago, a woman you're likely never to have heard of, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission-- a federal agency that regulates options and futures trading--was the oracle whose warnings about the dangerous boom in derivatives trading just might have averted the calamitous bust now engulfing the US and global markets. Instead she was met with scorn, condescension and outright anger by former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and his deputy Lawrence Summers. In fact, Greenspan, the man some affectionately called "The Oracle," spent his political capital cheerleading these disastrous financial instruments.
(56) CommentsOctober 9, 2008
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VA Fails Vets on the Vote
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Last month I wrote about important legislation designed to help veterans vote in the upcoming election, the Veteran Voting Support Act (S. 3308). Introduced by Senators Dianne Feinstein and John Kerry--and cosponsored by fourteen senators including Barack Obama (not John McCain)--the bill is fair and just. It would require the US Department of Veterans Affairs to allow nonpartisan voter registration drives and comply with any state's request that the VA offer voter registration at its facilities.
The urgency of this legislation is clear: 5.3 million veterans (23.2 percent of all veterans) were unregistered in 2006, and 50 percent of veterans ages 18-24 are not registered to vote either. Paul Sullivan, Executive Director of Veterans for Common Sense, pointed out that the VA changed its voter registration policy three times in five months and its hardly reliable in terms of helping veterans vote. Currently, the VA is only required to post voting registration information on the wall at in-patient facilities. There is no policy of directly asking veterans if they want to register as occurs when an individual signs up to enlist. This lack of affirmative registration assistance is especially troubling since many veterans are unaware that their previous voting registration is invalid when they move into a VA facility. Finally, there are no voter registration requirements whatsoever for out-patients or veterans utilizing other VA services.
With time running out before many state voter registration deadlines and congressional recess, Senator Feinstein, who Chairs the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, needed the support of the Veterans Affairs Committee and the VA in order to pass the bill quickly under unanimous consent. (The House had already approved its version.) At a Senate hearing, the VA expressed a willingness to work with the Senators and voting rights advocates to reach a consensus on the bill. But when it came time to step-up to the plate the VA failed to do so and failed the veterans they serve.
(13) CommentsOctober 8, 2008
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Who's Watching the Fox at Treasury?
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is expected to name fellow Goldman Sachs alum, Neel Kashkari, to oversee the government's $700 billion Superfund cleanup of Wall Street's toxic assets. The Wall Street Journal reports, "Paulson likes to surround himself with people he's comfortable with: people, mostly, from Goldman Sachs." And why not? Making personnel decisions based on maximizing one's comfort level has worked wonders for the Bush administration thus far.
According to Bloomberg News, the Treasury will hire "about two dozen staff" and "five to 10 asset management firms" to determine which securities to purchase and how to manage them. Rest assured, the Treasury is working on a "firewall" to prevent any conflicts of interest between the people it hires and the firms they previously worked for.
Well, I'm sold, aren't you? Breeds all kinds of confidence for the taxpayer-turned-investor in the Paulson Plan.
(44) CommentsOctober 6, 2008
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The Bailout and Small-d Democratic Capitalism
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
The Bailout Bill was passed by the Senate last night, 74-25. Though it was an improvement from the original plan that the Bush Administration tried to ram through last week it's still an extremely flawed bill. There is a need for an effective, just and equitable intervention, and that's not what this bill represents. It rewards the worst actors in the financial industry while doing little to nothing for working people – people who are being asked nevertheless to pick up the tab for Wall Street's recklessness. (And, yes, it's true that taxpayers will get some stake in the companies now but there is no telling what, if any, return there will be on these toxic assets).
The action moves to the House now where a truly progressive bill could be crafted with key elements like: bankruptcy reforms and loan modifications to keep people in their homes; a surtax on the the wealthy as proposed tonight in an amendment offered by Senator Bernie Sanders (see below); re-regulation of Wall Street to curb the casino/bandit economy that got us into this mess; direct recapitalization of banks; and an economic stimulus package that includes extension of unemployment insurance and infrastructure investment that rebuilds our nation and creates jobs.
Of course, we are unlikely to see this kind of bill because it doesn't have the needed votes – certainly not in the Senate and probably not in the House where the Blue Dog Dems would be needed. But at the very least, one wonders why Democratic leadership didn't push harder for an economic stimulus for Main Street at a time when Wall Street and the Bush Administration are begging for taxpayer help? If they truly need $700 billion to save the global economy, would they really have thrown that away over – for example, a $60 billion stimulus package?
(18) CommentsOctober 2, 2008
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Bailing on Poverty and Ordinary Americans
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
At a moment when the media is focused on the drama surrounding the failed bailout legislation, too little attention is being paid to the real struggles of ordinary people and the human costs of our inequitable economy. The bailout's fate shouldn't stand in the way of the broader economic stimulus package that is desperately needed. Though there was an effort by Democrats to make sure that at least a few of the biggest challenges people are facing are addressed before Congress recesses this week, an obstructionist GOP makes that now seem out of reach and sight. highly.
As Congressman David Obey put it, "We are trying to find discreet ways of making life a little less miserable for people who have been hit hard by the consequences of the economic chaos that has swept over the country."
On Friday, at the request of Senator Edward Kennedy, the US Congress Joint Economic Committee held a hearing on the fight against poverty in America – or, some might say, the need for a renewed fight against poverty in America.
(41) CommentsSeptember 30, 2008
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Thank you, Katie Couric
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
It took a woman to expose Palin.
CBS News' Katie Couric's empathetic interviewing style and smart (but not tough) questioning fully and finally exposed that vice-presidential nominee Governor Sarah Palin is not qualified to be vice-president.
Couric's interview led Newsweek International's editor Fareed Zakaria, a truly bipartisan commentator, to put it somewhat more forthrightly: "Can we now admit the obvious? Sarah Palin is utterly unqualified to be vice president."
(97) CommentsSeptember 29, 2008
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Katrina vanden Heuvel
Thoughts on politics, current affairs, riffs and reflections on what’s in the news and what’s not--but should be.
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