Tag: votingrights

2022 Election, Political Reform, Politics

2022 Nationalist Voting Index – Political Reform

Bob Claude |

Longtime followers of this site will remember the American Nationalist Voting Index developed during the 2020 election to compare the two main presidential candidate’s positions on key issues. This series of posts will attempt to craft a similar list of nationalist issues for the upcoming midterm elections. 

We begin with the one most dear to Theodore Roosevelt himself – preserving and broadening our democracy to  give the average American an effective voice in Washington.  At a time when the durability and even the legitimacy of American democracy has been questioned, political reform is not merely desirable, but critical to insuring our strength here at home and our credibility as a champion of freedom abroad.

Freedom to Vote Act

This bill started out life as the “For the People Act” and proposed significant and important reforms in campaign finance, voter registration and rights, lobbying rules, election integrity and congressional ethics.  You can see more of my analysis of it under the “Politics – Political Reform “ tab on the website. Thanks to Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the bill was amended to eliminate many of the more overreaching provisions. Unfortunately, congressional ethics reform was one of the casualties of the process. However, as I discussed here, the Manchin compromise incorporated the best of the other reforms and deserved support from American nationalists.

Sadly, while the bill passed the House in February of this year, it failed in the Senate.  Your House member’s vote on it can be found at this link (ignore the reference to a NASA appropriation. If you click on the bill number, it will take you to the Freedom to Vote Act:

https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/20229 

In the Senate, a motion to bring the bill to a vote failed and your Senator’s position can be found here

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1171/vote_117_1_00420.htm

Ban Congressional Stock Trading

Insider trading by corporate and securities elites has been unlawful for decades, but recent revelations have shown the current rules to prevent similar profiteering by congress members are largely toothless. Several bills to ban stock trading by members of Congress were introduced, but the Democratic leadership in both houses prevented them from coming to a floor vote.

Thus, the only record of congressional support for this reform is the identity of the co-sponsors of those bills. Here is the list of co- sponsors of the House bill (HR 6678, the Bipartisan Ban on Congressional Stock Ownership Act)

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6678/cosponsors?r=43&s=1

A similar bill was introduced in the Senate (S 3494, the Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act) and the list of co-sponsors can be found here

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/3494/cosponsors

If your House representative or Senator is not on these lists, you may want to ask them what they’re trying to hide.

Electoral Count Act

The horrifying January 6 attack on the Capitol during the 2020 presidential election certification highlighted the weaknesses of the nineteenth century law governing that critical process.  One of the pretexts for the attack was the theory that Vice-President Pence had the unilateral power to reject the results of the election.  This bill clarifies that the Vice-President has no such power. It also prevents frivolous challenges by providing that any objection to a state’s electors must have the support of one- third of each house of Congress. 

This should have been non-controversial. However, it only passed the House and never came up for a vote in the Senate. You can see the results of the roll call vote in the House here at

https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2022449

A list of the co-sponsors of the companion bill in the Senate can be found at

https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/4573/cosponsors

Conclusion

TR spent much of his New Nationalism speech attacking the influence of special interests on the political process, comparing its importance to the fight against slavery in the Civil War.  If we are to avoid the modern-day civil war many observers fear, we must reinvigorate our own commitment to democracy to insure it works for all Americans, not just a narrow elite.

General, Political Reform, Politics

For the People or the Elite?

Bob Claude |

“If our political institutions were perfect, they would absolutely prevent the political domination of money in any part of our affairs. We need to make our political representatives more quickly and sensitively responsive to the people whose servants they are. More direct action by the people in their own affairs under proper safeguards is vitally necessary… It is particularly important that all monies received or expanded for campaign purposes should be publicly accounted for not only after election, but before election as well. Political action must be made simpler, easier, and free or from confusion for every citizen.”     

This quotation from Theodore Roosevelt’s New Nationalism speech about the need for electoral reform is as urgently relevant as it was in 1910.   It neatly summarized the goals such a reform should have:

  • The reduction of the influence of special interest money and power
  • Increasing voter participation, while also
  • Creating more confidence in the electoral process and outcomes
  • Strengthening ethics and conflicts of interest rules for political leaders

The Senate will soon be considering a package of political and electoral reforms called the For the People Act (HR 1) passed on a party-line vote by the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives.  It is a massive mash-up of changes in election law in the following areas:

  • Voter Registration and Rights
  • Election Integrity and security
  • Campaign Finance Transparency
  • Lobbying Regulations
  • Ethics Reform

The bill contains some necessary changes to achieve the four goals mentioned above. However, it also contains provisions that would actually reduce confidence in our democratic institutions and potentially increase the influence of foreign money and special interests. I will highlight the good, bad and ugly provisions over the next few posts. The ugliness of some of the changes will require significant amendments to the bill for it to achieve TR’s vision.

Unfortunately, I have to lead with one of it ugliest failings – the bill’s length.  It is an 886-page legislative monstrosity whose length and complex mandates makes any thoughtful consideration of its effects very difficult. While biased in favor of the bill, the Brennan Center for Justice at the NYU Law School provides a good annotated description of all of the bill’s changes. Ironically, it also illustrates why such an omnibus bill was unnecessary because the descriptions under each title refer to previous bills or current laws that address related issues.  It shows how the bill could easily be broken down to a series of  amendments to past reforms. Instead, the Senate must consider changes to the most fundamental democratic rights we have in a process of legislative chaos. It is chaotic because many changes have a knock-on effect on the rest of them.

At the very least, the Senate should resist the siren call of liberal globalists to vote on the bill without first sending it to committee for open hearings and the consideration of necessary amendments. A bi-partisan bill could then be crafted or it could be broken up into a series of bills. It would also be an opportunity to educate the public about the underlying issues and thus insure that one of TR’s primary goals of increasing confidence in the electoral system is achieved.

There is no question that our political system is broken and needs reform. However, a bill that lacks legitimacy and reasonable input from the American people will automatically be doomed to failure.  My next post will concentrate on those provisions of the bill that enact true reforms, primarily regarding campaign finance and governmental ethics.