Civil & Human Rights

Corruption is the #1 key issue. A great many of our other problems can be seen as consequences of the fundamental corruption issue. For details, see section 1. There is a proverb that says: Pay attention to the thing you care about. That means we need to keep the corruption issue front-and-center. We need to … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

On two occasion President Obama has highlighted the need for election reforms. “By the way, we have to fix that,” he said in his election-night speech on November 6, regarding the long lines at the polls in states like Florida. President Obama returned to this issue in his Second Inaugural Address on January 21, saying “our journey is not
complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the
right to vote.”

Now the question is whether the Obama administration and Congress can actually do something to fix the shameful way U.S. elections are run. Ari Berman at The Nation reports, Election Reform Should Be a Top Priority for the New Congress:

There are smart proposals in Congress to address the issue. The most comprehensive among them is the Voter Empowerment Act,
reintroduced today by Democratic leaders in the House, including civil
rights icon John Lewis, and Kirsten Gillibrand in Senate.

The bill would add 50 million eligible Americans to the voter rolls
by automatically registering consenting adults to vote at government
agencies, adopting Election Day voter registration, and allowing
citizens to register to vote and update their addresses online. (As
Attorney General Eric Holder noted recently, 80 percent of the 75
million eligible citizens who didn’t vote in 2008 were not registered to vote.)
It would also guarantee fifteen days of early voting to ease long
lines, restore the voting rights of felons after they’ve served their
time and ban deceptive ads aimed at suppressing voter turnout. “It’s got
almost everything in there that we think is important,” says Eric
Marshall of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Alan Abramowitz, Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University, and senior columnist for Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball, writes today Republican Electoral College Plan Would Undermine Democracy:

After losing the popular vote in five of the last six presidential
elections and seeing Barack Obama sweep to a surprisingly easy
reelection victory in 2012, Republican leaders and strategists are
understandably worried about their party’s prospects in future
presidential contests. There is no doubt that the GOP faces major
challenges as a result of the nation’s shifting demographics and a
growing Democratic advantage in the Electoral College.

Democratic presidential candidates have carried 18 states and the
District of Columbia with a total of 242 electoral votes in all four
elections since 2000, and another three states with 15 electoral votes
in three of those elections. In addition, three of the five states that
have voted twice for each party since 2000 — Colorado, Nevada and
Virginia, with a total of 28 electoral votes — clearly appear to be
trending Democratic. That gives Democrats a base of 24 states plus the
District of Columbia in which they have the advantage going into the
next presidential election. Those states have 285 electoral votes — 15
votes more than needed to win the presidency.

* * *

Several Republican governors and state legislative leaders in key
battleground states have recently expressed support for a plan to change
the method of awarding their state’s electoral votes from the current
winner-take-all system to one in which one vote would be awarded to the
winner of each congressional district in the state and two votes would
be awarded to the statewide winner. In the aftermath of the GOP’s 2012
defeat, this plan appears to be gaining momentum and was recently endorsed by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus. On Wednesday, a bill to apportion electors by congressional district advanced through a subcommittee in the Virginia Senate.

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Teabagger Little Stevie "Secession" Smith (R-Maricopa) is really making an ass-hat of himself this week with his: (1) House Bill 2291, a resolution of "interposition and nullification" to oppose any new federal firearms regulations. They're baaack! Arizona's Neo-Confederate dead-enders are back. This long-discredited theory is entirely unconstitutional. And (2) House Bill 2290, which proposes to  give disgraced former Senate President Russell Pearce a taxpayer-funded windfall as a parting gift for being recalled by the voters of his district, even though Ol' Russell was not out-of-pocket one thin dime of his own money in his unsuccessful recall bid. This guy, again. The Arizona Republic trashed this kiss goodbye to Ol' Russell in an editorial opinion today. Worst of really, really bad bills.

And now for the hat trick this week . . . (3) Little Stevie "Secession" Smith wants to infringe on your First Amendment religious freedom because some little junior teabagger "last year reported feeling mocked and embarrassed after she was the only one in her class to stand and say the pledge of allegiance" to the flag. 2 Ariz. bills push patriotic oaths in schools:

And all students in first through 12th grades would have to say the pledge of allegiance each day if House Bill 2284, sponsored by Rep. Steve Smith, R-Maricopa, passes.

Under current law, schools must set aside time for the pledge each day, but students may choose whether to participate.