Boxer Introduces Bill on Day One of the 113th Congress to Fight Long Election Lines

From Sen. Barbara Boxer official page 

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), on the first day of the 113th Congress, reintroduced her election reform bill – the LINE Act – which would help ensure that all American voters can cast a ballot in federal elections without enduring hours-long delays at their polling places. 

President Obama signaled his commitment to this important election reform yesterday in his Second Inaugural Address when he said, “Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.”
“Forcing American voters to stand in line for hours is tantamount to denying their fundamental right to vote,”Senator Boxer said. “President Obama is right to make election reform a priority, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that no voter has to face hours-long delays to cast a ballot.” 

In November, voters in Florida, Virginia, Ohio and other states waited in line for up to seven hours to cast ballots. Some voters were still in line in the early hours of Wednesday morning, long after the polls had closed. 

The LINE Act (or the Lines Interfere with National Elections Act) – which Senator Boxer first introduced at the end of the 112th Congress – would require the Attorney General, in consultation with the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), to issue new national standards by January 1, 2014 regarding the minimum number of voting machines, election workers, and other election resources that are necessary to conduct Federal elections on Election Day and during early voting periods. The bill explicitly states that the goal of minimum standards is to prevent a waiting time of more than one hour at any polling place. 

Senator Boxer’s bill also would require states where voters endured long lines to implement remedial plans to fix the problems before the next federal election. Under the legislation, the Attorney General working with the EAC would identify states that had a substantial number of voters who waited more than 90 minutes to vote in the 2012 election. Those states would have to comply with a remedial plan to ensure voters would not face similar delays in the future. 

Senator Boxer has also called on Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to address the long lines and Election Day dysfunction faced by voters across the country by recommending nominees to the Election Assistance Commission. 

Mitch McConnell: We Must Rewrite The Constitution Because ‘Elections’ Haven’t ‘Worked’

By Ian Millhiser/think progress

Speaking on the Senate floor this morning, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) offered what may be the most concise summary of conservative constitutionalism ever spoken — America must rewrite the Constitution to force conservative outcomes because we the people consistently elect lawmakers who disagree with McConnell:

The time has come for a balanced budget amendment that forces Washington to balance its books. If these debt negotiations have convinced us of anything, it’s that we can’t leave it to politicians in Washington to make the difficult decisions that they need to get our fiscal house in order. The balanced budget amendment will do that for them. Now is the moment. No more games. No more gimmicks. The Constitution must be amended to keep the government in check. We’ve tried persuasion. We’ve tried negotiations. We’re tried elections. Nothing has worked.

Watch it:

It’s worth noting just what McConnell is asking the American people to choke down. Senate Republicans’ so-called “balanced budget amendment” does far more than simply requiring federal spending to equal federal revenues. It makes it functionally impossible to raise taxes by imposing a two-thirds supermajority requirement — a provision closely modeled after the California anti-tax amendment that blew up that state’s finances. It would also require spending cuts so steep that it would have made Ronald Reagan’s fiscal policy unconstitutional. Ezra Klein rightfully labeled this plan the “worst idea in Washington.”

So there really isn’t any question why the American people refuse to elect a Congress that will force this agenda upon the nation, but McConnell simply doesn’t care. If the American people won’t vote for the kind of government he wants, then we must strip away the people’s ability to choose their own government. Elections haven’t worked.

Sadly, McConnell’s deeply authoritarian plan to take away our ability to choose how we will be governed is part of a much larger conservative agenda to strip American democracy of any meaning and force conservative governance upon the American people:

• Affordable Care Act Litigation: In 2008, elections didn’t work because we the people elected Barack Obama and gave him the majorities he needed to comprehensively reform the health care system. Conservatives immediately responded with an entirely fabricated constitutional argument against this law that relied on a constitutional theory that no one had ever even heard of before 2009. Even Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a former Scalia clerk and a leader of the conservative states rights movement, rejected this meritless attack on the Affordable Care Act.
• Killing Medicare and Medicaid: In 1964, elections didn’t work, and the American people gave President Lyndon Johnson the congressional support he needed to enact Medicare and Medicaid. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) would take away the American people’s ability to benefit from this law as well. He claims that the Constitution must be reinterpreted so that the federal government can’t do anything at all about “health care.”
• Bringing Back Whites-Only Lunch Counters: In 1962, elections didn’t work, and the American people gave Johnson enough votes to pass a ban on whites-only lunch counters. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) disagrees with this outcome, so he would reinterpret the Constitution to make the Civil Rights Act of 1964 unconstitutional.
• Putting Children To Work: In 1936, elections didn’t work, and the American people reelected President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and gave him an enormous supermajority in Congress. Roosevelt used this mandate to eliminate the exploitation of child labor. Sen. Lee also disagrees with this outcome, and would rethink the Constitution to make child labor laws unconstitutional.
• Cutting Students Loose: Time and time again, elections haven’t worked because the American people elected a Congress that supports education programs. Numerous members of Congress believe that all federal education programs — from Pell Grants to federal student loans to public school funding — must be eliminated entirely because, in Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) words, “I don’t even think [education] is a role for the federal government, if you read the Constitution.”

In other words, McConnell’s plan to strip we the people of our ability to govern ourselves is only the beginning. The right has a clear and comprehensive agenda to rethink the entire Constitution — and democracy has no part in their vision.

Big Oil Lobby Announces It Will Start Donating Directly To Candidates

By Pat Garofalo

The American Petroleum Institute, the Big Oil industry’s chief lobbying organization, will startdirectly backing political candidates in the second quarter of this year. API, whose membership includes oil giants like Exxon-Mobil and Chevron, already spends tens of millions of dollars every year on lobbying, advertisements and Astroturf campaigns to support the the oil industry agenda. As CAP’s Dan Weiss wrote, API “wants to drill in fragile, sensitive places, keep government tax breaks, expand offshore drilling without reforms, and block global warming pollution reduction requirements.”

“This is adding one more tool to our toolkit,” Martin Durbin, API’s executive vice president for government affairs, told Bloomberg News. “At the end of the day, our mission is trying to influence the policy debate.” As Bloomberg pointed out, oil-supported political action committees like the Independent Petroleum Association of America overwhelmingly donate to Republican candidates.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, API spent $6.7 million on lobbying alone last year, after clearing $7 million in 2009. In 2010, API was the seventh most prolific spender in the oil and gas industry, following ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Koch Industries and BP.

API’s turn toward direct political donations is doubly problematic because, in addition to acting as the industry’s chief lobbyists, the institute runs technical committees that set standards for the oil industry. In its official report, the commission that investigated the BP oil spill found that API was too “compromised” to be setting industry standards. “Because they would make oil and gas industry operations potentially more costly, API regularly resists agency rulemakings that government regulators believe would make those operations safer, and API favors rulemaking that promotes industry autonomyfrom government oversight,” the commission found. And this was before API established a political action committee!

In its proposed 2012 budget, the Obama administration suggested, once again, removing the billions in subsidies that taxpayers give oil companies every year. API has been at the forefront of the lobbying fight to preserve Big Oil’s subsidies, demonizing the removal of them as new “energy taxes,” even while admitting that cutting the subsidies and plowing the money back into clean energy technology would create “a lot more jobs.”

Voters Would Change Constitution To Limit Corporate Spending In Elections

By George Zornick When the Supreme Court invalidated a decades-long ban on corporate spending in federal elections in their Citizens United decision, it was by the narrowest of margins — only one justice. The public is less split on the issue, however. A new poll by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which was provided to the Huffington Post, shows that by a double-digit margin, voters want Congress to use a constitutional amendment to overturn that decision and once again restrict corporations from directly spending on elections.

Forty-six percent of voters said that “Congress should consider drastic measures such as a constitutional amendment overturning” Citizens United, while 36 percent disagreed. Only a fifth of voters were undecided on the matter. Rep. Donna Edwards (D-MD) has already authored such an amendment, and told the Huffington Post, “I really concluded that the Supreme Court actually put the challenge out to us, here in the Congress. They said…Congress, you have no authority to regulate. And when the Court says that so directly, it only leaves us one choice.” Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Max Baucus (D-MT) are also behind the amendment, which enjoys the strong support of many law professors and former attorneys general.

Short of a constitutional amendment, which would require a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, the DISCLOSE Act offers another possible remedy to the worst aspects of Citizens United. Today in Roll Call, Norman Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank wrote a stinging op-ed calling on Republicans to support DISCLOSE:

The first is the failure of any Republican Senator to step up and support the DISCLOSE Act, to bring sunlight to the outrageous, anonymous huge funders who played a major role in the 2010 campaigns, hiding behind the cloak of 501(c)(4)s run by groups cynically manipulating weak IRS enforcement of the law. [...]

So where are the previous champions of campaign finance reform? Where is Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), whose greatest legislative accomplishment was given a sharp stick in the eye by a 5-4 decision on the Supreme Court? Where are previous supporters of reform — and professed supporters of disclosure — such as Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Scott Brown (Mass.)? And most important, where is Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), who has always been an independent voice, whose Snowe-Jeffords amendment to the campaign reform law was the provision most assaulted by the Citizens United case, who stood up to immense pressure from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Republican leaders in 2002 to do the right thing?

With this kind of pressure building, PCCC cofounder Adam Green thinks it’s a ripe time for action. “It’s time to stop thinking small-bore. The solution to Citizens United is not merely disclosure, it’s to overturn Citizens United — and even last November’s Republican-skewed electorate agrees,” he told the Huffington Post.

GOP Is Overjoyed At The Unprecedented Influence Corporations Will Now Have In Federal Campaigns

From Think Progress During the 2008 presidential campaign, the conservative group Citizens United made a movie critical of Hillary Clinton but was barred from distributing it on local cable systems because federal courts said it “looked and sounded like a long campaign ad, and therefore should be regulated like one.” The Supreme Court then took up the case and in its much-anticipated decision, today ruled 5-4 to allow corporations and unions to spend unlimited funds in support for, or opposition of, federal candidates. The monumental ruling throws out a “a 63-year-old law designed to restrain the influence of big business and unions on elections.

One Republican attorney said that the new ruling basically turns the political landscape into the “Wild Wild West.” Another GOP election lawyer said that the ruling represents “a huge sea-change in campaign finance law. The Court went all the way. It really relieves any restrictions on corporate spending on independent advertising.”

As Common Cause noted, the ruling “will enhance the ability of the deepest-pocketed special interests to influence elections and the U.S. Congress.” U.S. PIRG called it a “shocking burst of judicial activism” that treats corporations “in the same manner as ordinary citizens.” Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 said the ruling will “create unprecedented opportunities for corporate ‘influence-buying‘ corruption.”

The ruling is a giant win for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the big corporations, which tend to donate heavily to Republicans. Many Republicans have therefore come out and praised today’s decision:

– Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): “It is about a nonprofit group’s ability to speak about the public issue. I can’t think of a more fundamental First Amendment issue. … [The ruling could] open up resources that have not previously been available [for Republicans].” [NYT]

– Rep. Steve King (R-IA): “The Constitution protects the rights of citizens and employers to express their viewpoints on political issues. Today’s Supreme Court decision affirms the Bill of Rights and is a victory for liberty and free speech.” [Statement]

– Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN): “If the freedom of speech means anything, it means protecting the right of private citizens to voice opposition or support for their elected representatives. The fact that the Court overturned a 20-year precedent speaks volumes about the importance of this issue.” [Statement]

– Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): The court took a step toward “restoring the First Amendment rights [of corporations and unions]. … By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers.” [AP]

– RNC Chairman Michael Steele: “Today’s decision by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC, serves as an affirmation of the constitutional rights provided to Americans under the first amendment. Free speech strengthens our democracy.” [Statement]

– Senate Candidate Marco Rubio: “Today’s SCOTUS decision on McCain-Feingold is a victory for free speech.” [Statement]

The Court’s ruling also struck down part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation “that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.” Sen. Russ Feingold called the Court’s ruling a “terrible mistake,” but pointed out that it “does not affect McCain-Feingold’s soft money ban, which will continue to prevent corporate contributions to the political parties from corrupting the political process.” “The Supreme Court chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was president,” he said. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) reacted similarly, saying he was “disappointed” in the decision.

M.C. L comment: Why wouldn't the Republicans be happy? Now their airhead candidates can win elections with saying little as possible due to the constant whoring from the corporate control media and their non stop ads running down Democrats. It's like playing football where the ref and the score keeper are already against your team.

After Whining About Being ‘Suppressed,’ Chamber Discloses It Spent $123 Million In Lobbying

By Victor Zapanta Today’s Supreme Court ruling that opens the floodgates to unprecedented political spending by corporations is another major victory for the corporate lobbying giant — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In July, the organization declared its support for Citizens United in an amicus brief arguing that there is “no basis for restricting its core First Amendment right to engage in independent electoral advocacy.” In spite of the fact that the U.S. Chamber has topped lobbying spending year after year, the group had the gall to complain to the Supreme Court that its voice is being “suppressed”:

In particular, the electoral advocacy of the Chamber – a not-for-profit corporation – and of millions of its corporate members has been suppressed. This has occurred even though 96% of Chamber members are businesses with fewer than 100 employees, far from the immense aggregations of wealth hypothesized in Austin. Suppression has been imposed even when candidates have directly attacked business interests and when corporations have unique and valuable insight into the likely consequences of electing or defeating particular candidates. Although this Court has protected the ability of corporations to discuss “issues,” that is no substitute for direct and explicit speech about candidates.

After complaining about its influence being “suppressed,” the Chamber just disclosed that it spent a whopping $123 million to influence federal policy in 2009. Of all the corporations and associations spending money in D.C., the U.S. Chamber tops them all. The Chamber admitted to Roll Call that it was not “suppressed,” but rather, was “active in all of the major debates”:

“It shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone because it was an incredibly active year for the president and the economy,” said Tita Freeman, a chamber spokeswoman. “Hence the chamber was active in all of the major debates that impacted the economy and business community.”

Freeman said the big spike in spending in the fourth quarter was due largely to health care, including issue ads, meetings and letter-writing campaigns.

Aside from health care, the chamber listed a slew of other lobbying issues, including energy and climate change legislation, endangered species regulatory processes, executive compensation and travel promotion.

The Chamber isn’t happy with simply influencing Congress and the administration. It wants more — specifically, the opportunity to purchase its own fleet of friendly lawmakers.

As many federal lawmakers and the Obama administration push for cap-and-trade legislation, health care reform, regulatory reform, and corporate tax reform, the U.S. Chamber stands as the most well-funded opposition to progressive change. The group spent $10-$20 million of insurance-industry-provided cash on fighting reform. After Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts, the Chamber was quick to congratulate itself for running television ads in support of the candidate.

Between Brown’s election victory and the Supreme Court ruling, the most anti-reform corporations in the country are circling their wagons and their wallets around the U.S. Chamber and its fight to increase corporate influence in American politics at the expense of the average American. Today’s Citizens United ruling is a gift by the court’s conservative justices to their efforts.

M.C.L comment: This decision was 10 years in the making, I warned folks about voting for Ralph Nader in the 2000 election because you couldn't guarantee that Captain beady eye bastard was a one term president and the dumb ass choices he could make could still impact us years after he slither back to the bar that Karl Rove found him in. And guess what two of Captain Beady eye choices for Supreme Court just allow corporations to flex even more muscles in the political arena.

I'm not sounding the doom that Keith Olbermann did in his special comment, but I'm pretty damn close it makes things four times as hard now because the corporations can buy up more air time to misinform the misinform and fire up the dangerously stupid on the far right.

Can we still have a progressive country? Sure. We have to fight for it and instead of the old liberal reaction of staying home when the Democrats don't do what they supposed to do we have to find people that has the will and the belly to fight for the progressive vision.