Jan 24, 2022·edited Jan 24, 2022Liked by Robert Reich
Prof. Reich, Clearly I will do all I can to help promote the promising actions you’ve listed. Nonetheless, seeing that you concluded today’s newsletter with a request for other ideas, based on my on-line conversations with a fellow subscriber, I would add to your list actions we can take to defend democracy at the state and local levels.
For example, we’ll need poll workers and other election officials—county clerks and election judges—who can help people to ensure that their votes are counted. We’ll also have to out-organize Republicans, who ruthlessly are organizing to fill state and local positions with their own people—people who don’t believe in free and fair elections. Perhaps some of us will run for office such as Secretary of State or maybe volunteer on campaigns, be they local, state or federal. After all, last Wednesday, we were only 2 votes shy of the 50 Senators we needed to pass federal voter protection legislation. Though I haven’t given up on getting some federal voter safeguards passed, I, nonetheless, think we need to get started mobilizing for democracy at the state and local levels.
Somewhat as an aside, I would be remiss were I not to repost my deep disappointment that President Biden, last Wednesday, did not call out Manchin’s and Sinema’s mere support for voting rights as hollow and performative, absent their resolve to do their part to figure out how the filibuster could be modified to pass the combined voter protection bill under regular order, even if it meant taking a long time to get an up or down majority vote.
Broadly speaking, excluding the far right, I believe Americans overall would galvanize around a much tougher, much stronger Biden. Nationwide, the country needs an Educator-in-Chief to educate people about what they’re losing every time Biden’s agenda is stalled.
The idea that I like most is for President BIden to declare the General Election day to be a federal holiday, etc.. Would it really be so simple? Why would he not do that?
President Biden cannot decide to make Election Day a federal holiday alone -- that authority is vested in Congress. But by making it a holiday for government employees and encouraging states to do the same, it would create an important trend.
Robert Reich: Thanks for clarifying this. Please ask him to take this step. He could make it an even dozen or make a substitution to keep it at 11. If so, my thought is to change Washington's Birthday, which is on his actual Birthday only 1/7 times on average, to "Washington's Birthday Present" (the general election) at least in concept. Other substitutions would likely be less palatable to more people- I'll leave it at that. The link https://www.federalpay.org/holidays is very instructive.
Note, all, that a few states do have General Election Day as a holiday and others with some variations on this.
Of equal or greater importance for democracy is to broaden reasonably convenient and unrestricted early voting. The current situation is summarized by this Wikipedia reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States).
Is there anything in terms of contacting legislators, etc. that you would like for us to do?
Is there someone in Congress that could present this to the President as a small step he could take which is completely non-partisan and potentially with some Republican support? The Senate needs some small accomplishments or maybe all of the incumbents will soon face the same music being played for Biden, especially if the economy goes to hell. I mean do those Republican Senators think that the public’s wrath for the economy going into recession isn’t going to be felt by every politician running for office this Fall?
I look forward to BOTH of your newsletters every week. They keep me sane and focused! Although as a democrat in the deep blue Bay Area, it’s incredibly frustrating that my vote counts so much less than someone in Wisconsin, NC, or AZ etc. It’s hard to fight in other states where I have no control over their vote. Is there anything you suggest for those in blue states to help save the sane of us trapped in red state tyranny? Thanks for you both!!
Write letters to voters in red states with Vote Forward. There are also other organizations that do texting and postcards, such as the Sunrise Movement and Moms Rising.
The suggestions in the great article will give all of us a roadmap to action. Another question I often hear is “Where do I Volunteer?”
Below is a list of some great organizations that could get you started. I firmly believe that if everyone gets involved we can turn the tide away from those who are working day and night to subvert democracy.
I particularly like the notion of calling for the DOJ's more strenuous involvement in the current debacle, with regard to points 2 and 9 in this morning's essay. The Q-publicans want law & order, I say >give< it the hell to them! It seems the FEC should be brought to bear in that effort in some relevant way, as well. I also like points 5 & 6. because I agree that Biden should start taking a more muscular stand on the issue by exercising every bit of authority he has to help rectify the problem - not in appearance, but in deed.
Considering how events have played out, my gut reaction is that attempting to trifle with the 1887 Electoral Count Act is a non-starter that would waste time better spent on other pressing issues. For example, it's beginning to >appear< we're standing at the brink of WWIII! Face it, if they can't even change the filibuster, which I'm beginning to be persuaded is an unconstitutional veto power originally devised in support of slavery, then Manchin and Sinema get the opportunity to express their disingenuous support for voting rights knowing they'll never have to face the eventuality of >ever< being required to actually vote on the issue - which I'm already convinced they'd find some half-assed excuse to vote against, should that eventuality ever be allowed to arise.
If there is anything in the "voting rights" bill that actually "saves democracy," the Dems need to do a better job of specifically explaining how that works. The average American thinks everyone already has a legal right to vote and that this bill is just about eliminating voter ID, authorizing "vote harvesting" by activists, and federalizing local elections.
Other ideas? Yes! Blue state folks can contribute to our own to ensure we maintain our slim majorities. We can also contribute both time and money to critical campaigns across the country. If we could beat Kevin McCarthy in his re-election effort we could change history. If we can keep two Democratic senators in Georgia we are half way to a majority. If we can help Stacey Abrams win in Georgia voting rights there would be greatly enhanced. If we can boost the candidacy of Katie Hobbs in Arizona she may make my birth state a blue state again after 100 years on the right. Katie Porter in the California 47th District is coming up for election; let's help her too!
Sue the state legislatures and other vote suppressors for denial of civil rights. And BTW, is it possible to sue one’s own so-called representative for failing to represent his/her constituents? Mine is a seditionist Republican who won by 300 votes. He needs to go.
Paula B. ; I agree that representatives should not be seditionists in either party. Allowing the filibuster to remain, (as it has been misused), and not allowing even a debate on voting rights are anti Democratic actions. People like Manchin and Synema are out right traitors who dealt in bad faith, not only with their own constituents, but they sold out the whole country and are getting handsomely paid for it! The Supreme Court should be sued!!!! for giving us Citizens United and not protecting women's right to choose. If they can't be sued, they should be impeached!!!!
You could sue him/her, but it would likely be thrown out of court in an instant, due to Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, which provides with regard to members of Congress, "for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place." The ballot box is the best remedy.
Address the voting machine issue that the Republicans have been complaining about with legislation to make vote counting completely transparent to the public: image all of the ballots, post images of the ballots on the website of the Secretary of State so that anybody can download and count them, and then save these images as public records for two years. Make the official vote counting software open source. Publicly observable ballot counting is by far the most important step we can take to preserve democracy but it is missing from your list. Ballots should never be counted in secret. Right now, publicly observable ballot counting may have bipartisan support.
Good idea, in theory, but what about the rights of voters who want to cast a ballot that is secret?. There are those who prefer this right for good reason. A person could be targeted for voting the 'wrong' way.
It's still secret, all that is on the ballot image is your serial number. You have your own copy of the serial number on your stub. After voting, you can search the images by serial number to make sure that your vote has been counted. This is one of the ways transparency insures that every vote is counted as cast. Of course we have to have paper ballots that are scanned optically: all blackbox touchscreen voting schemes should be illegal. The paper ballots and the ballot images are saved as public records for two years.
It is very obvious that Biden needs to be on board for any of the measures you suggest to happen. He hasn’t been. I will also caution you that a partisan appeal like you are making where the Dems are the good guys and Repubs are the bad guys gets shafted both by Biden inaction and Democrats themselves.
This contradiction can’t be papered over. You can’t expect workers who have been shafted by Democrats on the $15hr minimum wage to work to get Democrats elected who don’t support their economic demands by invoking the end of democracy.
A 50% Discount/Rebate policy at the point of retail sale would immediately double a $7.35/hr. minimum wage earner's purchasing power to $14.70/hr. Think about that. It's even more than a doubling of everyone's purchasing power. It's the integration of beneficial, that's BENEFICIAL price and asset DEFLATION into profit making economic systems. As inversion of mental and temporal universe realities is the classic signature of historical paradigm changes that makes it precisely that. And those don't happen very often. Mostly only after problems have so gathered around an old paradigm that a crisis is imminent....like now for instance.
Fan Dancer, you are absolutely right! Kinzinger and Cheney voted with the Republicans against voting rights! Unbelievable. Imagine if they had not supported that?!
Prof. Reich, Clearly I will do all I can to help promote the promising actions you’ve listed. Nonetheless, seeing that you concluded today’s newsletter with a request for other ideas, based on my on-line conversations with a fellow subscriber, I would add to your list actions we can take to defend democracy at the state and local levels.
For example, we’ll need poll workers and other election officials—county clerks and election judges—who can help people to ensure that their votes are counted. We’ll also have to out-organize Republicans, who ruthlessly are organizing to fill state and local positions with their own people—people who don’t believe in free and fair elections. Perhaps some of us will run for office such as Secretary of State or maybe volunteer on campaigns, be they local, state or federal. After all, last Wednesday, we were only 2 votes shy of the 50 Senators we needed to pass federal voter protection legislation. Though I haven’t given up on getting some federal voter safeguards passed, I, nonetheless, think we need to get started mobilizing for democracy at the state and local levels.
Somewhat as an aside, I would be remiss were I not to repost my deep disappointment that President Biden, last Wednesday, did not call out Manchin’s and Sinema’s mere support for voting rights as hollow and performative, absent their resolve to do their part to figure out how the filibuster could be modified to pass the combined voter protection bill under regular order, even if it meant taking a long time to get an up or down majority vote.
Broadly speaking, excluding the far right, I believe Americans overall would galvanize around a much tougher, much stronger Biden. Nationwide, the country needs an Educator-in-Chief to educate people about what they’re losing every time Biden’s agenda is stalled.
Agree!
The idea that I like most is for President BIden to declare the General Election day to be a federal holiday, etc.. Would it really be so simple? Why would he not do that?
President Biden cannot decide to make Election Day a federal holiday alone -- that authority is vested in Congress. But by making it a holiday for government employees and encouraging states to do the same, it would create an important trend.
Robert Reich: Thanks for clarifying this. Please ask him to take this step. He could make it an even dozen or make a substitution to keep it at 11. If so, my thought is to change Washington's Birthday, which is on his actual Birthday only 1/7 times on average, to "Washington's Birthday Present" (the general election) at least in concept. Other substitutions would likely be less palatable to more people- I'll leave it at that. The link https://www.federalpay.org/holidays is very instructive.
Note, all, that a few states do have General Election Day as a holiday and others with some variations on this.
Of equal or greater importance for democracy is to broaden reasonably convenient and unrestricted early voting. The current situation is summarized by this Wikipedia reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_Day_(United_States).
Is there anything in terms of contacting legislators, etc. that you would like for us to do?
Respectfully, Ed Wrenn
Is there someone in Congress that could present this to the President as a small step he could take which is completely non-partisan and potentially with some Republican support? The Senate needs some small accomplishments or maybe all of the incumbents will soon face the same music being played for Biden, especially if the economy goes to hell. I mean do those Republican Senators think that the public’s wrath for the economy going into recession isn’t going to be felt by every politician running for office this Fall?
If Biden can do this without an act of Congress it definitely moves the ball forward.
Great list! I will promote your list this evening in my newsletter. Thanks for being so organized and encouraging!
I look forward to BOTH of your newsletters every week. They keep me sane and focused! Although as a democrat in the deep blue Bay Area, it’s incredibly frustrating that my vote counts so much less than someone in Wisconsin, NC, or AZ etc. It’s hard to fight in other states where I have no control over their vote. Is there anything you suggest for those in blue states to help save the sane of us trapped in red state tyranny? Thanks for you both!!
Write letters to voters in red states with Vote Forward. There are also other organizations that do texting and postcards, such as the Sunrise Movement and Moms Rising.
Thank you Paula! I will check those out.
You should speak directly to Biden. You have the gravitas that we don't have.....
The suggestions in the great article will give all of us a roadmap to action. Another question I often hear is “Where do I Volunteer?”
Below is a list of some great organizations that could get you started. I firmly believe that if everyone gets involved we can turn the tide away from those who are working day and night to subvert democracy.
Brennan Center for Justice
New York, New York 10013
brennancenter.org
Common Cause
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 833-1200
commoncause.org
Demos
New York, NY 10001
(212) 633-1405
demos.org
Fair Fight Action
Atlanta, GA 30307
https://fairfight.com
FairVote
Takoma Park, Maryland
fairvote.org
League of Women Voters
Washington, DC 200036-4508
(202) 429-1965
lwv.org
MoveOn.org:
Washington, DC
https://front.moveon.org/volunteer-with-moveon/
NAACP
https://naacp.org/find-resources/know-your-rights/democracy-voting
Rock the Vote
Washington, DC 2009
(202) 719-9910
rockthevote.com
Vote.org
Oakland, CA 9461
website: https://www.vote.org
Thank you for sharing, Susan. (I used to be the Board Chair at Common Cause and can affirm that they do fantastic work.)
Thanks! I will call my members if Congress and urge them to take the legislative steps that you recommend.
Hi Robert. I hope you don't mind...I sent your list of what to do to my representative to add to the idea bucket. Thank you!
I can’t stress how much I love this article! Perfectly useful! Simple and clear! Thank you sir!
I particularly like the notion of calling for the DOJ's more strenuous involvement in the current debacle, with regard to points 2 and 9 in this morning's essay. The Q-publicans want law & order, I say >give< it the hell to them! It seems the FEC should be brought to bear in that effort in some relevant way, as well. I also like points 5 & 6. because I agree that Biden should start taking a more muscular stand on the issue by exercising every bit of authority he has to help rectify the problem - not in appearance, but in deed.
Considering how events have played out, my gut reaction is that attempting to trifle with the 1887 Electoral Count Act is a non-starter that would waste time better spent on other pressing issues. For example, it's beginning to >appear< we're standing at the brink of WWIII! Face it, if they can't even change the filibuster, which I'm beginning to be persuaded is an unconstitutional veto power originally devised in support of slavery, then Manchin and Sinema get the opportunity to express their disingenuous support for voting rights knowing they'll never have to face the eventuality of >ever< being required to actually vote on the issue - which I'm already convinced they'd find some half-assed excuse to vote against, should that eventuality ever be allowed to arise.
If there is anything in the "voting rights" bill that actually "saves democracy," the Dems need to do a better job of specifically explaining how that works. The average American thinks everyone already has a legal right to vote and that this bill is just about eliminating voter ID, authorizing "vote harvesting" by activists, and federalizing local elections.
Other ideas? Yes! Blue state folks can contribute to our own to ensure we maintain our slim majorities. We can also contribute both time and money to critical campaigns across the country. If we could beat Kevin McCarthy in his re-election effort we could change history. If we can keep two Democratic senators in Georgia we are half way to a majority. If we can help Stacey Abrams win in Georgia voting rights there would be greatly enhanced. If we can boost the candidacy of Katie Hobbs in Arizona she may make my birth state a blue state again after 100 years on the right. Katie Porter in the California 47th District is coming up for election; let's help her too!
Sue the state legislatures and other vote suppressors for denial of civil rights. And BTW, is it possible to sue one’s own so-called representative for failing to represent his/her constituents? Mine is a seditionist Republican who won by 300 votes. He needs to go.
Paula B. ; I agree that representatives should not be seditionists in either party. Allowing the filibuster to remain, (as it has been misused), and not allowing even a debate on voting rights are anti Democratic actions. People like Manchin and Synema are out right traitors who dealt in bad faith, not only with their own constituents, but they sold out the whole country and are getting handsomely paid for it! The Supreme Court should be sued!!!! for giving us Citizens United and not protecting women's right to choose. If they can't be sued, they should be impeached!!!!
Couldn’t agree more, Laurie. Especially Gorsuch for not wearing a mask and endangering his colleagues.
You could sue him/her, but it would likely be thrown out of court in an instant, due to Article I, Section 6 of the Constitution, which provides with regard to members of Congress, "for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place." The ballot box is the best remedy.
Only if we can vote and actually be counted, of course.
Oh yes, of course. How could I forget? How can we help you with that?
Janet R ; Yay! I hope the recall is successful. Let us know if there is anything we can do to help.
Address the voting machine issue that the Republicans have been complaining about with legislation to make vote counting completely transparent to the public: image all of the ballots, post images of the ballots on the website of the Secretary of State so that anybody can download and count them, and then save these images as public records for two years. Make the official vote counting software open source. Publicly observable ballot counting is by far the most important step we can take to preserve democracy but it is missing from your list. Ballots should never be counted in secret. Right now, publicly observable ballot counting may have bipartisan support.
Good idea, in theory, but what about the rights of voters who want to cast a ballot that is secret?. There are those who prefer this right for good reason. A person could be targeted for voting the 'wrong' way.
Isn't the secret ballot to protect the voter's privacy in the voting process?
It's still secret, all that is on the ballot image is your serial number. You have your own copy of the serial number on your stub. After voting, you can search the images by serial number to make sure that your vote has been counted. This is one of the ways transparency insures that every vote is counted as cast. Of course we have to have paper ballots that are scanned optically: all blackbox touchscreen voting schemes should be illegal. The paper ballots and the ballot images are saved as public records for two years.
One more! When you see these goof balls prancing around in their fake military gear, tell them the truth - they look ridiculous! LOL
Benjamin , Just make sure you tell them from a distance! And they don't know your name and address. Or have your picture on their cell phone.!
;-D
It is very obvious that Biden needs to be on board for any of the measures you suggest to happen. He hasn’t been. I will also caution you that a partisan appeal like you are making where the Dems are the good guys and Repubs are the bad guys gets shafted both by Biden inaction and Democrats themselves.
This contradiction can’t be papered over. You can’t expect workers who have been shafted by Democrats on the $15hr minimum wage to work to get Democrats elected who don’t support their economic demands by invoking the end of democracy.
They don’t believe you.
A 50% Discount/Rebate policy at the point of retail sale would immediately double a $7.35/hr. minimum wage earner's purchasing power to $14.70/hr. Think about that. It's even more than a doubling of everyone's purchasing power. It's the integration of beneficial, that's BENEFICIAL price and asset DEFLATION into profit making economic systems. As inversion of mental and temporal universe realities is the classic signature of historical paradigm changes that makes it precisely that. And those don't happen very often. Mostly only after problems have so gathered around an old paradigm that a crisis is imminent....like now for instance.
Fan Dancer, you are absolutely right! Kinzinger and Cheney voted with the Republicans against voting rights! Unbelievable. Imagine if they had not supported that?!