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Reclaiming Our Moral Values

Andy Stern is the International President of SEIU (Service Employees International Union). With 1.7 million members, SEIU is the largest and fastest growing union in the AFL-CIO, representing nurses, janitors, security officers and public employees, among others.

"Moral values." The Republicans want us to be afraid of those words. They want us to change the subject, to talk around the issue.

Let's not. Let's talk moral values—because we're the ones with something real to say. We're the ones registering voters, fighting for health care and protecting those who cannot protect themselves. Let's talk moral values—because we're the ones who practice them.

Tell your story at www.mymoralvalues.com.

MyMoralValues.com is a project of PurpleOcean.org, SEIU's economic justice organization. We're collecting people's stories of their moral values, and the range is incredible—from born-again Christians who voted for Kerry to military officers with a deep sense of misgiving about our current conflict.

We believe that this conversation must continue. On November 26 (the biggest shopping day of the year), MyMoralValues.com will be running a New York Times advertisement featuring the most compelling submissions.

Tell your story at www.mymoralvalues.com.

Tell the world how your moral values decided your vote this year, how they affected your involvement in the political process, and how we can build on them to create a strong and successful political platform.

In solidarity,

—Andy Stern
Service Employees International Union

M&R: What about the blowback on gay marriage -- that you cost the Democrats the election? In hindsight, would you have done it differently?

Newsom: Nope. I stand by that 1,000 percent -- in fact, I've never felt more resolved.

M&R: What about the criticism from fellow Democrats?

Newsom: Irrelevant.

M&R: Why?

Newsom: Remember what Martin Luther King Jr. said in his Birmingham jail cell -- everyone says wait, and he said, "Wait almost always means never." And you know what? He was right. "Too much, too soon?" No -- it was too little, too slow.

M&R: What if this has burned your chances of going any further?

Newsom: Big deal. I mean, that assumes that my life is defined by some title. It's defined by something much more substantive -- it's defined by my ability to feel that I've done my best and added some value.

Marriage Rights and Benefits
Learn some of the legal and practical ways that getting married changes your life.

Whether or not you favor marriage as a social institution, there's no denying that it confers many rights, protections, and benefits -- both legal and practical. Some of these vary from state to state, but the list typically includes:

Tax Benefits

Filing joint income tax returns with the IRS and state taxing authorities.
Creating a "family partnership" under federal tax laws, which allows you to divide business income among family members.

Estate Planning Benefits

Inheriting a share of your spouse's estate.
Receiving an exemption from both estate taxes and gift taxes for all property you give or leave to your spouse.
Creating life estate trusts that are restricted to married couples, including QTIP trusts, QDOT trusts, and marital deduction trusts.
Obtaining priority if a conservator needs to be appointed for your spouse -- that is, someone to make financial and/or medical decisions on your spouse’s behalf.

Government Benefits

Receiving Social Security, Medicare, and disability benefits for spouses.
Receiving veterans' and military benefits for spouses, such as those for education, medical care, or special loans.
Receiving public assistance benefits.

Employment Benefits
Obtaining insurance benefits through a spouse's employer.
Taking family leave to care for your spouse during an illness.
Receiving wages, workers' compensation, and retirement plan benefits for a deceased spouse.
Taking bereavement leave if your spouse or one of your spouse’s close relatives dies.

Medical Benefits
Visiting your spouse in a hospital intensive care unit or during restricted visiting hours in other parts of a medical facility.
Making medical decisions for your spouse if he or she becomes incapacitated and unable to express wishes for treatment.

Death Benefits
Consenting to after-death examinations and procedures.
Making burial or other final arrangements.

Family Benefits
Filing for stepparent or joint adoption.
Applying for joint foster care rights.
Receiving equitable division of property if you divorce.
Receiving spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation if you divorce.

Housing Benefits
Living in neighborhoods zoned for "families only."
Automatically renewing leases signed by your spouse.

Consumer Benefits
Receiving family rates for health, homeowners', auto, and other types of insurance.
Receiving tuition discounts and permission to use school facilities.
Other consumer discounts and incentives offered only to married couples or families.

Other Legal Benefits and Protections
Suing a third person for wrongful death of your spouse and loss of consortium (loss of intimacy).
Suing a third person for offenses that interfere with the success of your marriage, such as alienation of affection and criminal conversation (these laws are available in only a few states).
Claiming the marital communications privilege, which means a court can’t force you to disclose the contents of confidential communications between you and your spouse during your marriage.
Receiving crime victims' recovery benefits if your spouse is the victim of a crime.
Obtaining domestic violence protection orders.
Obtaining immigration and residency benefits for noncitizen spouse.
Visiting rights in jails and other places where visitors are restricted to immediate family.

by Meteor Blades
Mon Nov 22nd, 2004 at 00:15:12 PST

NJ Brian’s Diary reminded me for the umpteenth time in two weeks that I’ve always thought the Westminster system of parliamentary government had a feature I wish the U.S. government would adopt. The shadow cabinet.

The name says it all. The government – in Britain, Australia and Canada, among others - appoints cabinet ministers, and the opposition party (or parties) chooses members of a shadow cabinet to keep tabs on the shenanigans and other activities of those ministers. The shadow cabinet is, in effect, the alternative administration. There can be just a few shadow ministers, the Tories in the U.K. currently have six; or a boxcar load, Labour in Australia has 32.

Shadow cabinets call themselves the Loyal Opposition. In Britain and Canada, it’s Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. The Royal Loyals, as it were, the very name making the point that opposition does not equate with treason. No pretense is made that the opposition’s role is non-partisan. On the contrary, its job is to oppose, and the shadow ministers provide its whetstone. Quite often, if elections turn the tables on the party in power, shadow ministers join the cabinet in their same role.

Despite all the obvious problems with forming and operating a shadow cabinet outside a parliamentary system designed for it - for instance, having to deal with prerogatives of the separate leadership of party, Senate and House - Democrats ought to appoint shadow secretaries.

I bet you think I have some people in mind. I do. For instance, Gary Hart as Shadow Secretary of Defense would be an appointment I’d smile about. Ed Dobson at Interior. Juliet Schor at Labor. I’m sure everybody here has plenty of favorites, and most of mine are way off the left edge of what’s acceptable across the spectrum. There’s no single best person for each job. And some jobs for shadowing purposes could be combined, like the Brits do.

But whatever suitably intricate system is used to fill out its ranks, a shadow cabinet will only work if the folks chosen are willing to scrutinize, publicly criticize and strive to neutralize what their opposite numbers in the cabinet (and a few high-level agencies) are doing. Shadowers with spine and gumption no matter where they stand in the Democratic spectrum.

Given what’s gone down in the past four years, I’d personally like to see a few additional shadow secretaries: one each to monitor the domestic and foreign Departments of Shameless Lies, Concoctions and Made-up Crapola; and one (with a zillion shadow-undersecretaries) to watchdog the Department of Figuring Out How to Sneak Around the Rules Passed to Curtail Democrats But Not Yet Openly Eliminated to Benefit Republicans.

Bob Fitrakis

How the Ohio election was rigged for Bush 
November 22, 2004

Following four community public hearings in Ohio about election irregularities and voter suppression – two in the capitol, Columbus, and one each in Cincinnati and Cleveland – a clear pattern and practice of voter disenfranchisement is emerging.

In order to understand the extent of the voter suppression in the inner city of Columbus and Franklin County, overwhelmingly Democratic wards, start with the phrase: “Machines Placed By Close Of Polls” on the last page of the county’s 17-page voting machine allocation report.

This phrase at the end of the spreadsheet may be the key in unraveling a deliberate and unprecedented plan to repress African American and poor central city voters. In statistics, when you see a bizarre definition or measurement, it sends up red flags. Why doesn’t the Franklin County Board of Elections have a number for “Machines Placed By Opening Of Polls”?

It now appears that the Franklin County BOE placed scores of machines too late in the day to alleviate the long lines of voters who gathered to vote before work and at lunchtime.

To better understand what the BOE did on Election Day, consider the following analogy. The near east side of Columbus needs four buses to move the population to the downtown business district. Each bus will move 100 people. At the start of the business day at 6:30am, there are only two buses running and another one with a dead battery. After a few hours, the third bus is put into use. Finally, towards the close of the work day at 6pm, a fourth bus is deployed. The Central Ohio Transit Authority then reports it had four buses operating by the end of the business day. What matters is not how many buses, or voting machines, were operating at the end of the day, but rather how many were there to service the people during the morning and noon rush hours.

Questions remain as to where these machines were placed and who had access to them during the day.

Pacifica reporter Evan Davis reported that a county purchasing official who was on the line with Ward Moving and Storage Company, documented only 2,741 voting machines delivered through the November 2 election day. The county’s own documents reveal that they had 2,866 “Machines Available” on Election Day. This would mean that amid the two to seven hour waits in the inner city of Columbus, at least 125 machines remained unused on Election Day. Ward holds the exclusive three-year contract to deliver voting machines in Franklin County.

If the BOE only had 2,741 placed initially, this would explain the long lines in Columbus and voters leaving the polls during the morning voting rush. According to the Franklin County Board of Elections (BOE), in the city of Columbus, where voters waited in the heavily Democratic wards between 2-7 hours to cast the vast majority of their votes for John Kerry, voter turnout was 52.7%. In the affluent white suburbs of Columbus, with far more voting machines available, the turnout figure was 76.15%.

By contrast, 66.31% of registered voters went to the polls in Cincinnati and turnout was 76.82% in the suburbs. In Cincinnati, where more voting machines were available, the difference between the city and suburbs was only 10.5% compared to 23.45% in the Columbus area. Cincinnati and Columbus have similar demographics.

The Franklin County Board of Elections reported that 68 voting machines were never placed on Election Day. In addition, Franklin County BOE Director Matt Damschroder admitted on Friday, November 19, that 77 machines malfunctioned on Election Day.

Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy criticized Damschroder for calling the elections “well-funded and well-planned and that problems could not have been averted, . . .” according to the Columbus Dispatch.

Damschroder, the former Executive Director of the Franklin County Republican Party, told the Franklin County Commissioners, “From our perspective, this election was a success.”

Despite an increased registration of more than 167,253 new voters, Damschroder admits he ran the election with a “fixed and exhausted” pool of voting machines, the Dispatch reported. Kilroy pointed out that Damschroder and Franklin County election officials told her “We’re fine, we’re fine” and never requested additional money over the initial allocation.

The Washington Post reported “Franklin is the only Ohio county to use Danaher Control’s ELECTronic 1242, an older-style touchscreen voting system.” Franklin County’s voting machine allocation report shows that Damschroder deployed his Danaher (formerly Shooptronics) voting machines, which have been in use since 1992, in a formula that favored Bush over Kerry.

In precinct 55-B on Columbus’ near east side, there were 1,338 registered voters and, according to Franklin County Board of Elections estimates, 956 active voters who had voted in the last two federal elections. Despite voter registration being up 17%, and by the BOE’s own guidelines the polling place requiring ten machines (one per 100 voters), the polling site had only three machines, one less than for the 2000 elections.

The Election Protection Coalition that visited the voting site between 7:30-8:30 a.m. documented a dozen people leaving the polls, six to go to work and six who were either elderly or handicapped. But things were worse in other areas of Columbus.

In precinct 1-B where there were 1,620 registered voters, a 27% increase in voter registration, the precinct had five voting machines in 2000 and only three in 2004. Where did they go? Out to Republican enclaves like Canal Winchester, where two machines were added since 2000, for a total of five to service 1,255 registered voters? Or were they re-routed to Dublin 2-G where 1,656 registered voters apparently needed six machines, twice the number of Columbus’ 1-B?

Nearby in Dublin precinct 3-C, 910 registered voters were allocated four voting machines. No doubt machines were shifted from precincts like Columbus 44-G with 1,620 voters and registration up 25%, which lost one machine from the 2000 elections to 2004.

In Cleveland, where a public hearing was held on Saturday, November 20, there was a different pattern of voting irregularities. These include heavily Democratic wards with abnormally low reported rates of voter turnout, three under 20%. In Precinct 6-C where Kerry beat Bush 45 votes to one, allegedly only 7.1% of the registered voters cast ballots. In precinct 13-D where Kerry received 83.8% of the vote, only 13.05% reportedly voted. In precinct 13-F where Kerry received 97.5%, the turnout was reported to be only 19.6%.

One explanation comes from Irma Olmedo, who provided the Free Press with a written statement of her activities in the heavily Hispanic ward 13, which contained the three low voter turnout precincts.

“Ohio does not have bilingual ballots and this disenfranchises many Latino voters who are not totally fluent in English . . . there were 13 poll workers at the school and none knew Spanish. Some could not even find the names of the people on the list because they couldn’t understand well when people said their names. . . . Some people put their punch card ballots in backwards when they voted and discovered that they couldn’t punch out the holes. They had not read the instructions which were in English, that they had to turn the card around in order to vote,” Olmedo stated.

Olmedo translated at precinct 13-O, where 90% of the votes were for Kerry and only 53 votes were counted. The turnout of 21% was due to the lack of Spanish instructions and the misspelling of names: “I noticed that one named Nieves was misspelled as Nieues and the pollworkers were not able to find his name, these people were told to complete a provisional ballot because their names were not on the list.”

In Cuyahoga County, according to the Secretary of State’s website there are 24,788 provisional ballots, most of them from the city of Cleveland, not its surrounding suburbs. Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell served as Co-Chair of the Bush/Cheney Ohio reelection committee.

There also seems to be an abnormally high vote count for third party candidates who received less than one-half of one percent of the statewide vote total combined. For example, in precinct 4-F, the right-wing Constitutional Law candidate Peroutka received 215 votes to Bush’s 21 and Kerry’s 290. In this precinct, Kerry received 55% of the vote where Gore received 91% of the vote in the year 200. These numbers suggest that Kerry’s votes were inadvertently or intentionally shifted to Peroutka.

In Cincinnati, sworn testimony was taken on vote buying, the lack of machines in African American neighborhoods and the deliberate destruction of new voter registration cards by a private company hired to process the forms.

Exit polls on Election Day from both the polling firm Zogby International and CNN projected John Kerry winning the state of Ohio. University of Pennsylvania Professor Steven Freeman calculated the odds that the exit polls in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania all being wrong are 250,000,000 to one. Pollster John Zogby, President of Zogby International, is quoted as telling the Inter Press Service of Stockholm that “something is definitely wrong.”

Zogby commented that he was concerned about the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official vote tallies stating “We’re talking about the free world here.”

The Alliance for Democracy-Ohio is preparing a lawsuit challenging the outcome of Ohio’s election results due to the massive voting irregularities that have emerged in sworn testimony and affidavits.

--
Bob Fitrakis has a Ph.D in Political Science and a J.D. He is a lawyer working with the Alliance for Democracy-Ohio and the Editor of the Columbus Free Press. Reporting in this article also came from Richard Hayes Phillips, Ph.D and Joe Knapp (http://copperas.com/fcelection/wardbubble.jpg). For additional documentation, visit http://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/900.

Simon Rosenberg, who currently heads the New Democrat Network, is becoming the favorite to become the next chairman of the DNC. But the former Clintonite also has a strong following among "outside" Democrats--activists who came to the party via former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean and other Internet voters who read the blogs. Rosenberg's straight talk about what the party needs to do has been remarkably consistent and his 527's effort to win Hispanic voters was more successful than expected. Also in his favor: He's a tireless fundraiser.

There's time on this (decisions not made until January), but it's interesting nonetheless to see Vilsack's momentum slow. 'From the roots' really doesn't mean 'status quo'. The hope is that the electors figure that out this time.

Update [2004-11-22 14:43:28 by DemFromCT]:
Timing is everything. Vilsack Won't Seek Chairmanship of DNC

DES MOINES, Iowa - Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said Monday that he will not seek the chairmanship of the Democratic Party. "These challenges and opportunities require more time than I felt I could share," Vilsack said in a statement. "As a result I will not be a candidate for DNC chairman."

by NJ Brian
Sun Nov 21st, 2004 at 19:15:28 PST

OK - so you're in the most powerless minority in America - you're a Congressional Democrat. Given your position, what can you and your colleagues do about it?

I like the ideas that have been going around the blogosphere of both reforming the Democratic Party itself and also turning the Democratic Party into the national party of reform. I also believe that these goals are two sides of the same coin. In pursuing a reform agenda in Congress they can hopefully redeem the party as well.

Changing our language and communications strategy, Lakoff-esque framing, and coming up with a new "meta-narrative" for the party are all great, but we need some ideas to put meat on the bones of these new themes for the party.

Here are a few suggestions I humbly offer for how Democrats in Congress can turn their position of political weakness into one of moral strength vs. the GOP. None of these proposals will pass congress and probably won't even make it out of committee. But that's not the point. The point is to:

-    Provide a set of goals Democrats both in and out of Congress can rally behind.
-    Provide a contrast with Republican policies that reaffirms what it means to be a Democrat.
-    Through reform and good government proposals appeal to persuadable Republican and independent voters. I know lots of Republicans who vote that way because they see the Demmocrats as the party of pork and waste for example. We need to turn that perceoption around.
-    Put the Republicans on the defensive. When the GOP shoots down these proposals the Democrats can then use their votes against them, as the GOP has been doing to Dems for years.
-    Force the Republicans to spend time and energy stopping these proposals instead of pushing their own agenda. Maybe this can help slow them down.

These suggestions are broadly divided into two categories: an agenda for and a few tactics for turning these proposals into moral and political capital.

Agenda for Reform:

1. Push electoral reform. Think: uniform national standards, requiring secure voting technology, paper trails and audit logs, nonpartisan oversight.

2. Push nonpartisan redistricting reform to return competition to house races. (Use the Iowa system as a model). Sell it as a way to get rid of corrupt insiders (the way the GOP sold term limits in 1994). If it ever passed it might not be a bad thing either - some Dems would lose safe seats but so would Republicans so I believe it would balance out. And besides: it's the right thing to do.

3. Propose the abolition of the Electoral College.

4. Attack congressional Pork: most of its going to GOP districts these days anyway. Bring back Proxmire's "Golden Fleece Awards". On the talk shows, make sure to always mention the most ridiculous earmarks you can think of.

5. Continue to push campaign finance reforms (even if it means going after the 527s, since they're basically a huge hole in McCain-Feingold anyway)

6. Attack corporate welfare. As with attacking pork, use lots of examples on TV and on the stump. The more outrageous the better.

7. Push for a minimum wage hike - I say $9 or $10 an hour. It will never pass so it doesn't hurt to think big.

8. Propose restoring old overtime and ergonomics rules to protect America's workers.

9. As promised, loudly and publicly fight to protect social security and Medicare from the various GOP privatization schemes that will come down the pike.

10. Push to fix flaws in the Medicare prescription drug plan and NCLB. Make it clear why they are so awful in their current form and give ideas for how to fix them.

11. In the Senate, pick fights on appointments. Publicize the most outrageous statements and writings of right-wing appointees. You don't have to win the fight, but be on record as to why these people should not be appointed.

Tactics

1. Media strategy: Hold regular press conferences when a big bill or appointment is up. I suggest using lots of attention grabbing gimmicks and guerilla theater style antics to get attention. Use humor and mockery as much as possible. Have fun with it if possible.

2. Propose bills, amendments, etc. on the house and senate floor regarding the above proposals. Make the GOP fight to have to kill them. Be able to go on record and put them on record as well. It will also make them waste time instead of pushing their own agenda. (How about Kerry's child health care plan for a start?)

3. Create a shadow government. When reform proposals fail in Congress, have the Dem caucus meet outside of congress in their own body and have them pass mock laws (i.e. "this is what we'd do if we were running things".) Hold your own hearings and investigations. Pick a shadow cabinet of surrogates from outside Congress who can appear opposite Administration officials on the talk shows and who can barnstorm the country talking about why administration's policies are disastrous. When they do something stupid, have the shadow cabinet official for the relevant area there to pounce. Run a parallel government. Kerry, Durbin, and Pelosi can provide the rhetorical leadership. Reid can work the inside procedural track. Edwards, Dean, and Gore can barnstorm the country giving speeches and holding rallies to push our ideas.

4. Keep up the organizations built in last 2 years and expand. Use Moveon's tactics of emailing supporters to get them to call email congressmen over pivotal votes - target GOP and swing districts.

5. Recruit candidates everywhere and contest as many districts as possible even if money is short (example: Delay vs. Morrison). Tap into the net roots (blogs, meetups, etc.) in a more organized way than the Kerry campaign was able to do in order to recruit candidates for every district and try to raise money, volunteers, etc. In 2006 have Clinton, Kerry, et al make appearances in Republican districts as a way of showing the flag. It may not win many seats but we surely will continue to lose seats if we continue to cede whole states to the GOP. Make them fight for it.

Remember, the point isn't to get these ideas passed since that is unlikely. The point is to start acting like a real opposition, feed the party's new reform narrative, and lay the groundwork for 2006 and 2008. And in the process you might just help the Democratic Party find its soul.

I welcome feedback from my fellow Kossacks.

Thank you and Best wishes,
NJ Brian