I am not going to pretend that I live inside the head of President Obama and his advisors, and thus understand their rationale for this move. Maybe they are doing it because they think it will help Democratic electoral chances. Maybe they actually think it is good policy. Maybe it is some combination of both.
The rationale, however, does not matter. We are not engaged in a debate about what goes on inside the minds of the leading figures in the administration, including Obama himself. What does matter is that this move will cost jobs in the middle of an ongoing employment crisis. Not only will this add to widespread hardship in this country, but it will have negative effects on the Democratic electoral position exceeding whatever minimal media optics the Obama administration will receive from this move.
On one level this is perfectly correct. What really matters is not what politicians think or say, but what they do, and the results their actions produce. But on another level, it matters enormously that we have no idea why Obama says and does the things he does. After all, the basis of democracy is that people deliberate and decide on what they will do collectively in the way of self-government. Proper deliberation depends upon open presentation of all the facts and arguments available. When things are hidden, deliberation is hindered, at the very least, if not corrupted, and ultimately destroyed. Leaders who honestly explain their actions foster democracy, whether one agrees with their positions or not. Leaders hide or deceive their motives and reasoning undermine democracy, even if one agrees with their actions.
This was one of the most central problems with the Bush Administration. One could quibble endlessly, splitting hairs over whether Bush lied about WMDs in Iraq, for example. Did he know for certain that what he said was not true? But all that was beside the point, as Lakoff pointed out in arguing that the basic issue was betrayal of trust, and as former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega pointed out in arguing that Bush should be impeached for perpetrating fraud in taking us to war.
Outright lying is just one of many ways that a government can erode the foundations of democratic legitimacy, and restoring that legitimacy was one of the most powerful motivations there was for ending the Bush regime. It was one of the most fundamental mandates that was bestowed on Barack Obama with his election--and it is a mandate that he has fundamentally ignored. Indeed, it is a mandate that he has betrayed.
To take just one example--albeit a very large, very central, very ugly one--consider Glenn Greenwald's column from the same day, "A growing part of the Obama legacy", in which he wrote:
For the most part, it's been a good week for immigration reform. The Senate approved a measure that will end the "Widow Penalty," which rescinded applications for U.S. residency if one's spouse of two years or less years dies, and on Tuesday, as RaceWire reports, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed legislation that restores the right of due process to immigrant youth.
By Jag Davies, Policy Researcher, ACLU Drug Law Reform Project
This Tuesday, California voters will decide the fate of Proposition 5, the Nonviolent Offenders Rehabilitation Act (NORA). If it passes, NORA will shift California away from a criminal justice-oriented approach to substance abuse and toward a health-based approach, primarily by providing drug treatment as an alternative to incarceration for nonviolent offenders.
NORA builds on the success of Proposition 36, passed in 2000 with 61 percent of the vote, which has saved California taxpayers over $1.5 billion and diverted hundreds of thousands of Californians from incarceration to treatment.
NORA would also transform California's dysfunctional prison system. The independent Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) calculates that NORA would reduce the state prison and parole populations by at least 40,000 in just a few years. Since the late 1980s, the state's prison population increased by 75 percent to over 170,000— nearly three times faster than the general adult population. Meanwhile, the number of incarcerated nonviolent offenders skyrocketed from 20,000 to 70,000. Since 2000, despite some reduction in prison population growth thanks to Prop 36, annual prison costs have grown 50 percent to over $10 billion— about 10 percent of the state budget, the equivalent of the state's spending on its public universities.
The LAO calculates that NORA would generate $2.5 billion in taxpayer savings in prison construction costs, in addition to lowering incarceration costs by $1 billion each year. These resources could be used for healthcare, education and addressing the state's gaping $16 billion-plus budget deficit.
All this compassion and common sense is just too much for President Bush's drug czar, John Walters, who has been using federal taxpayer dollars to visit California to campaign against NORA. Naturally, California's powerful prison guards union has also joined the fray, recently pledging a million dollars for a last-ditch opposition effort. Opponents of NORA, like previous opponents of Prop 36, are desperately trying to stoke fears that this decrease in incarceration would lead to an outbreak of violent crime. Yet, since Prop 36's passage, California's violent crime rate has decreased at a greater rate than the national average.
If you have friends or family in California, you can help by sending them an e-card from the ACLU's ballot initiative action page.
If NORA passes, it will:
Expand drug treatment diversion programs and reduce reliance on incarceration for nonviolent offenders. Specifically, NORA requires the state to expand and increase funding and oversight for individualized treatment and rehabilitation services for nonviolent drug offenders and parolees. It reduces criminal consequences of nonviolent offenses by mandating a three-tiered probation with treatment and by providing for case dismissal and/or sealing of records after probation. The measure permits offenders who have failed to complete Track I to be shifted to Track II and then to Track III, where they face escalating sanctions, leading ultimately to incarceration as a last resort. Critically, NORA allows funding for "harm reduction" drug treatment programs, such as methadone maintenance, sterile syringe exchange and programs that are not solely based on an abstinence-only treatment model. In addition, NORA sets up a new county-operated program for nonviolent youth under age 18 who are at risk for committing future drug offenses. For those who do end up behind bars, NORA also allows inmates to earn additional time off their prison sentences for participation and performance in rehabilitation programs.
Modify parole supervision procedures and expand prison and parole rehabilitation programs. NORA increases the maximum parole period from three years to five years for any offender whose most recent prison sentence was for a violent or serious felony— but shortens parole for nonviolent drug offenses, including sales, and for nonviolent property crimes. NORA requires that parole violations be divided into technical violations, misdemeanors and felonies, and generally prohibits certain parolees from being returned to state prison for technical or misdemeanor violations (such as failing drug tests). All prison inmates would be required to be provided rehabilitation services beginning at least 90 days prior to their release date. In addition, a Parole Reform Oversight and Accountability Board would be created and given the authority to review, direct and approve rehabilitation programs, and to set state parole policies.
Reduce penalties for marijuana possession. NORA would make the possession of less than 28.5 grams of marijuana by an adult or minor an infraction (similar to a traffic ticket) rather than a misdemeanor (as under current law). Adults would be subject to a $100 fine; minors would not be subject to a fine but would be required to complete a drug education program. Money collected under these fines would be deposited into a special fund for the youth programs created by NORA.
NORA is an unprecedented opportunity to make a crucial difference in hundreds of thousands of lives and promote alternatives to the wasteful and counterproductive war on drugs. To learn more about NORA, check out www.Prop5Yes.org.
Last week the Bush administration announced a renewed push to clamp down on undocumented workers. Specifically, the rule would ask a federal judge to lift an injunction on the "no-match" rule.
The rule protects businesses from failing to respond to so-called "no match" letters sent out by the Social Security Administration stating that the number provided by an employee does not match the information in their database. This may indicate the worker is undocumented but many are the result of clerical errors including, for example, women not updating last names after marriage.
Judge Charles R. Breyer last year warned that the plan would have "staggering" and "sever" effects on workers and businesses. It's reasons such as this that have brought together not just traditional groups working for immigrant rights, such as the ACLU, but also the AFL-CIO, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Particularly amidst the recent sharp economic downturn, business leaders are concerned about the Bush administration's plan. If this effort to lift the injunction against the "no-match" rule is successful, the government would ask up to 140,000 employers to check the social security numbers of 8.7 million workers. Businesses must resolve discrepancies within 90 days or fire the workers.
Angela Amador, the Chamber's director of immigration policy is concerned about the costs of complying with this rule. The Chamber's objections "[have] been about the cost of a badly thought out rule and the cost on legitimate businesses following all the rules and complying with it."
Groups such as the ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center are concerned that the plan would lead to racial profiling, discrimination, and the firing of people based on clerical errors. They argue the Bush administration should work instead towards fixing the flawed database.
We recently wrote about the Department of Veterans Affairs decision to open its facilities to voter registration drives after months of urging by voting rights groups and elected officials. This week, however, "VA voter suppression continues," as AlterNet's Steven Rosenfeld wrote Tuesday, with voter registration efforts being blocked in California and the VA general counsel criticizing the pending Veterans Voting Support Act (S. 3308), which would bolster federal protection of voter registration opportunities for all wounded veterans. With just three weeks left to register voters in most states, advocates say now is the time to support voter registration efforts in VA facilities and, most importantly, it needs to be explicitly protected from now on through federal law.
WASHINGTON - A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.
The right is like a shark--once it smells blood it does not stop. The Democratic Party seems to keep thinking that if they capitulate, or triangulate the Republicans was cease to salivate. Not true. Congress gave Bush the Patriot Act. Then Iraq. Then funding for Iraq. Then FISA. All the while they expected them to be satisfied and leave the Dems alone.
It won't happen. They must be stopped. More on the expanded powers below.
By Nicole Kief, State Strategist, ACLU Racial Justice Program. Cross-posted at Pam's House Blend.
Isn't the right to vote freely for a candidate of your choosing just that: the right to vote freely for a candidate of your choosing?
Not according to one Virginia legislator, who seemed to forget the whole principle of small "d" democracy when he characterized efforts to educate people with felony convictions about their right to vote as a big "D" Democratic conspiracy. "I don' t know a lot of young Republicans who end up being felons," C. Todd Gilbert told the Washington Post. "Clearly the groups that are soliciting these felons to get their rights restored are predisposed to be in support of Obama, and I am sure this registration effort is designed to help their candidate."
The ACLU has launched a lawsuit in Alabama on behalf of some ex-convicts who have been denied their right to vote by the State. Good for them. I'll say quite simply that no one should be denied the franchise on the basis of any criminal conviction whatsoever, and yes, everyone currently in prison should be able to vote. Denying the franchise has not been demonstrated to be any kind of effective deterrent, punishment or otherwise effective tool in preventing crime or serving any worthwhile societal interest. As such, society has no right to deny someone the vote out of spite, vengeance or whatever basic emotional reasons are employed today. It is a violation of John Stuart Mill's Harm Principle which is a founding basis of what it means to exist in a "free" society. The real story is that denying the franchise to convicts is yet another conservative tactic for shrinking the electorate and creating a false conservative friendly environment.
Observe, quoth the NY Times:
Alabama does not bar all felons from voting, only those convicted of crimes involving "moral turpitude." In 2003, the civil liberties group says, the State Legislature clearly defined what those crimes are: murder, rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, incest, sexual torture and nine other crimes mainly involving pornography and abuses against children.
At issue in the lawsuit is not the list enacted in law but an expanded "moral turpitude" list developed by the state's attorney general, Troy King, in 2005. That list includes about a dozen additional offenses, most of them nonviolent, and several including the sale of marijuana.
By Natasha Minsker, Death Penalty Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California
A panel of experts, including 10 law enforcement officers and prosecutors, unanimously agrees that California's death penalty is utterly broken. To fix it, we'll need to spend over $200 million per year. The current failed system already costs over $137 million more each year than our alternative of permanent imprisonment. Today's report forces all Californians to ask: how much we are willing to pay for our death penalty when we have an alternative that punishes criminals and protects our communities without making us bankrupt?
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First, if we decide that we simply can't part with a system that we now know drains critical resources from public safety budgets, puts innocent lives at risk, harms murder victim family members, and is applied unfairly, then we need to commit to spending over $200 million in tax dollars every year to make the system operational on the most basic levels.
The Commission estimates that in order to make the system function, we would have to spend nearly $100 million more each year to pay for more prosecution and defense lawyers, and more court staff to handle the enormous volume of death penalty cases and appeals. When you add that to the money we already spend, it totals $217 million a year. On top of that, the State Auditor recently concluded that it will cost almost $400 million to build a new death row housing facility at San Quentin, on ground that is literally sinking into the sea.
Considering California's fiscal crisis, spending all of this money is not only unlikely, it's impossible.
And none of these proposed reforms would adequately address one of the most troubling flaws in California's death penalty, the racial and geographic disparities that call the very fairness and justice of the system into question. Despite evidence and testimony from several researchers indicating that race and place play a significant role in determining who lives and who dies, proposed reforms to address these issues are noticeably lacking from the Commission's report. Reforms that would begin to address those flaws would certainly cost more.
Our second option, according to the Commission, is to acknowledge that we have the most extreme death penalty statute in the country, resulting in an insupportably large death row population, and that we can't afford a system this big and bloated.
We all agree that we want a criminal justice system that delivers justice fairly. The overwhelming demands of our current death penalty system, however, overburden courts, lawyers and public safety officials at every level, jeopardizing the foundations of our justice system. The Commission suggests that we could limit the number of crimes eligible for the death penalty in order to ease some of the burden. This would still cost more than $100 million a year, depending on how much smaller we make the "smaller death penalty."
While both of these options provide a healthy dose of reality about how large and unmanageable our death penalty is, the Commission report also highlights the fact that we already pay many millions of dollars on the current failed death penalty, and that a cheaper, more effective system is not only feasible, it's already in place.
Few people realize that condemning someone to permanent imprisonment costs California taxpayers millions of dollars less than sentencing him or her to death. We have had the option of permanent imprisonment for as long as we have had the death penalty, and it's proven itself to be a more functional system that serves as a severe, but cost effective, punishment.
Which brings us to our third option, according to the Commission: replace the death penalty with permanent imprisonment until death, and save millions of dollars for public safety programs that actually work to punish criminals, protect the public and help victims. This would cost us less than $12 million, a savings of more than $200 million a year over option one.
The Commission does not come out and officially endorse this or any other option. In some sense, that's a cop out. On the other hand, the Commission puts the decision right where it should be: in the hand of the voters. It's time for those of us who are writing the checks to fund the system if to ask if it's really worth the price.
There's good news and bad news. The good news is that Donna Edwards won her special, and will be sworn in on Thursday. I got a text message late last night after she took the overwhelming majority of the vote: "So cool." Donna loves texting. The bad news is that the word is out that the Democrats are trying extremely hard to capitulate on retroactive immunity. This is prompting a remarkable campaign led by Glenn Greenwald.
McCain is running on global warming, saying how he broke with his party to save the environment.
And yet, Bush is pushing hard for an end to the offshore drilling ban. McCain of course agrees.
Gay marriage is not as important as it was in 2004: "The poll found 38 percent supporting gay marriage, up from 32 percent in 2004, and 49 percent opposing it, down from 56 percent in 2004."
Blue Dogs are still causing problems with the GI Bill.
According to Quinnipiac, Obama is up 47-43 in Florida, 48-42 in Ohio, and 52-40 in Pennsylvania.
Glenn Greenwald is leading the charge, in which this blog is involved, against Steny Hoyer for his role in pushing a compromise on retroactive immunity. Since he posted last night, over $60k has come in.
New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has come out hard for NJ-05 candidate for Dennis Shulman.
VA-05 Democratic candidate Tom Perriello is doing Christian radio spots with a message from the Book of Micah.
House Democrats continued to block passage of a terrorist surveillance bill today, rejecting a measure by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) to add the Senate-passed FISA bill to the fiscal 2009 Intelligence authorization bill. The amendment was defeated by one vote in the House Intelligence Committee, the latest proof that the Senate bill would pass the House if Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed it to come to the House floor.
There are 12 Democrats on the Committee and 9 Republicans, which means that we lost a Democrat on this vote. The members are Silvestre Reyes, Leonard L. Boswell, Robert E. (Bud) Cramer, Jr, Anna G. Eshoo, Rush D. Holt, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Tierney, Mike Thompson, Jan Schakowsky, Jim Langevin, Patrick Murphy, and Adam Schiff.
Of these, only two signed the letter asking the House to pass retroactive immunity for telecom companies, Bud Cramer and Leonard Boswell.
Boswell faces a progressive primary challenger, Ed Fallon. An extremely vicious Iowa establishment and a complicit Iowa media has been denying Fallon the oxygen he needs to win because they just don't like him. Fallon and Boswell lawn signs are popping up in the district, with Fallon signs situated next to 'Vote Hope' signs and Boswell signs next to 'Hillary' signs. Boswell is leading by about 20 points or so in the latest polling.
It's a low turnout primary in June, and the media narrative has focused on Fallon's support of Nader in 2000 rather than Boswell's voting record for the past five years. Boswell in fact won't debate Fallon, saying that he's just too busy in Washington to respond to misinformation that would inevitably arise. So Boswell's voting record is completely unscrutinized.
If I were Fallon's campaign, I would be sending an open letter to Boswell asking if he voted to allow AT&T; to break the law by wiretapping American citizens. That committee vote should have been 12-9. It ended up being 11-10. Was it Bush Dog Boswell who helped out his campaign contributors and in the process covered up Bush administration crimes? We know he voted for the war, for the Protect American Act, and for hundreds of billions in war funding. We know he's funded by corporate PAC money. It seems like a logical question.
By Mandy Simon, ACLU Senior Legislative Communications Associate.
The Senate Judiciary Committee had their weekly "business" meeting today and finally (finally!) got around to marking up the State Secrets Protection Act (S. 2553). The privilege allows the government to guard legitimate national security information during lawsuits. But, from wiretapping to torture, the Bush administration has been misusing the privilege to pull the curtain around its misconduct, effectively stopping litigation in its tracks. The bill being marked up was introduced by committee member Senator Kennedy (D-MA) in an effort to narrow the scope and usage of the state secrets privilege and was passed out of committee by a healthy vote of 11-8. Hopefully we'll see some floor action on this legislation soon so we can begin to knock down the wall of secrecy standing between those who've been wronged by our government and justice.
By Michelle Richardson, ACLU Washington Legislative Office.
Today the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the abuse of National Security Letters, the secret FBI requests for your financial, consumer and communication records. By simply asserting the request is relevant to a terrorism investigation, the government can dig into your personal information, keep it indefinitely, use it for really any purpose it sees fit. Of course, these requests come with an unconstitutional gag on the company or organization that turned over your information from ever telling you, the public, or Congress.
Well played, ACLU. Majority Leader Reid might not have felt a sufficient amount of heat as Americans with computers (the netroots) attempt to intervene on FISA, but I can promise you that articles like this in hometown papers get staffs and Senators to pay attention.
Sen. Harry Reid angered liberals in his party last month as he sought to shield telecom companies from liability for their role in the Bush administration's domestic spying program.
As the Senate debates the surveillance issue this week, the criticism of Reid shows that his role is putting him at odds with his party's base.
