Progressive breakfast
Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
MORNING MESSAGE: Taking Back The Vote
OurFuture.org’s Terrance Heath: ”In dozens of states, Republicans are aiming to restrict or take away the voting rights of core constituencies of the Democratic party … the conservative movement to restrict voting amounts to one chief concern: too many people are voting. More specifically, too many of the wrong people are voting … The GOP war on the vote doesn’t stop at the ballot box. In Pennsylvania, conservatives are toying with a scheme to change how the state rewards its electoral votes, portioning them out according to which candidates win each of its congressional districts instead of awarding them to the candidate who wins the most votes. GOP-dominated states like Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio may follow suit. It’s not just a thinly-veiled ploy to keep Barack Obama from winning Pennsylvania again in 2008. As with conservative noise about repealing the 17th amendment, which would mean reverting to senators being elected by state legislators instead of by popular vote, it’s another attempt divorce Americans from the political process.”
Republicans Try To Stop Fed From Doing Something
Fed may take new action to boost economy. AP: ”Most economists expect the Fed to announce a plan Wednesday to shift money in its $1.7 trillion portfolio out of short-term securities and into longer-term holdings. The plan could lower Treasury yields further. Ultimately, it could reduce rates on mortgages and other consumer and business loans, too.”
Republicans tell Fed, don’t try anything. AP: ”In an unusual move, Republican leaders of the House and Senate are urging Federal Reserve policymakers against taking further steps to lower interest rates … Former Fed official Joseph Gagnon, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, called the letter ‘outrageous. It’s incredible.’ Gagnon said it’s been several decades since such high-level politicians tried so directly to influence the Fed.”
Bloomberg questions if it would work: ”Low interest rates, the traditional medicine for a flagging economy, aren’t helping housing, which since 1982 has aided every recovery except the current one … Rising foreclosures, tighter lending standards and unemployment stuck near 9 percent for more than two years are all weighing on the market …”
Senate In No Rush On Jobs Bill
No Senate vote scheduled for American Jobs Act. CNN: ”Senate Democrats still have not decided when to take up the jobs bill President Barack Obama announced with great fanfare to a joint session of Congress almost two weeks ago. In addition, they are still working to determine if they will vote on the bill in its entirety or augment it with additional job growth ideas of their own.”
Disaster relief dispute holding up bill to keep government open. W. Post: ”Republicans in the House have included $774 million for the [FEMA] fund in their continuing resolution, money that would be made available immediately upon passage of the bill, as well as $226 million for flood relief efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers … But Senate Democrats say the House is not spending nearly enough. The White House recently said the disaster relief fund needs $500 million immediately and will need $4.6 billion next year.”
Several countries embrace higher taxes on wealthy to mitigate cuts to services. NYT: ”Britain and France have imposed new taxes on their highest earners — and Italy, Spain, Greece and Japan are considering similar moves, despite some protests …”
Leading deficit hysteric David Walker attacks President’s deficit reduction plan. HuffPost: ”… Walker told The Huffington Post. ‘If you enacted all of their proposals, you would be significantly worse off in 2021 than if the Congress and the president just went on a 10-year vacation.’ Walker said the problem is that rather than use the baseline for future spending determined by the Congressional Budget Office, the Obama administration used its own figures. Where the CBO bases its figures on current law — which says the Bush tax cuts expire next year and Medicare will soon cut payments to doctors — the White House estimates at least some of the tax cuts will be kept, and Congress will fix the doctor payments. A White House spokeswoman countered that the White House’s benchmark is in fact more realistic, because Congress indeed is unlikely to let the Bush-era tax cuts expire or let Medicare payments to doctors be slashed.”
Solar Power Investments Already Creating Jobs
Investment in solar power is working. Politico: ”A report from the Solar Energy Industries Association finds that grid-connected photovoltaic installation in the U.S. grew 17 percent from the first to second quarter of 2011 and a whopping 69 percent from the second quarter of 2010. Furthermore, prices continued to plummet as completed module prices dropped 12 percent in the second quarter. And the initial findings of another report, from the nonprofit Solar Foundation, concludes that the solar industry added 6,735 U.S. jobs between August 2010 and August 2011 … Solar now employs more than 100,000 workers domestically, the Solar Foundation census found, a 6.8 percent growth from the same time last year.”
Solyndra execs will take the 5th at House hearing today reports LAT.
Senate appropriations subcmte eliminates high-speed rail funding. Bloomberg: ”The high-speed rail program is ‘a casualty of the cuts mandated in the debt-limit deal’ Obama and congressional Republican leaders struck in August, Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat and a supporter of the president’s program, said … Rachel Wall, a spokeswoman for the California High-Speed Rail Authority [said,] ‘This was a subcommittee vote, and the full committee still needs to vote … We’ll remain cautiously optimistic as the congressional process plays itself out.’”
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Posted by Campaign for America's Future
on Sep 21 2011. Filed under Campaign for America's Future, the reading room.
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Republican legislators seem quite “confused” about the merits of the congressional district method. The leadership committee of the Nebraska Republican Party just adopted a resolution requiring all GOP elected officials to favor overturning their district method for awarding electoral votes or lose the party’s support. While in Pennsylvania, Republican legislators insist we must change from the winner-take-all method to the district method.
And up in Maine, the only other state beside Nebraska to use the district method, Mike Tipping reports on Republicans, also newly in the majority like their counterparts in Pennsylvania. This year, Republican leaders in Maine proposed and passed a constitutional amendment that, if passed at referendum, will require a 2/3rds vote in all future redistricting decisions. Now they want to pass a majority-only plan.
Dividing Pennsylvania’s electoral votes by district would magnify the worst features of the system and not reflect the diversity of Pennsylvania.
The district approach would provide less incentive for presidential candidates to campaign in all Pennsylvania districts and would not focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the whole state. Candidates would have no reason to campaign in districts where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind.
Due to gerrymandering, in 2008, only 4 Pennsylvania districts were competitive.
In Maine, where they award electoral votes by congressional district, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine’s 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored)
In Nebraska, which also uses the district method, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska’s reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) 2/3rds of the state were irrelevant.
When votes matter, presidential candidates vigorously solicit those voters. When votes don’t matter, they ignore those areas.
Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. 88% of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.
Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.
Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person’s vote equal and guarantee that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states becomes President.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states wins the presidency.
National Popular Vote would give a voice to the minority party voters in each state and district (in ME and NE). Now their votes are counted only for the candidate they did not vote for. Now they don’t matter to their candidate.
With National Popular Vote, elections wouldn’t be about winning states or districts (in ME and NE). No more distorting and divisive red and blue state and district maps. Every vote, everywhere would be counted for and directly assist the candidate for whom it was cast.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. Support is strong in virtually every state, partisan, and demographic group surveyed iin recent polls in closely divided battleground states: CO– 68%, IA –75%, MI– 73%, MO– 70%, NH– 69%, NV– 72%, NM– 76%, NC– 74%, OH– 70%, PA — 78%, VA — 74%, and WI — 71%; in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): AK – 70%, DC – 76%, DE –75%, ME — 77%, NE — 74%, NH –69%, NV — 72%, NM — 76%, RI — 74%, and VT — 75%; in Southern and border states: AR –80%, KY — 80%, MS –77%, MO — 70%, NC — 74%, and VA — 74%; and in other states polled: CA — 70%, CT — 74% , MA — 73%, MN – 75%, NY — 79%, WA — 77%, and WV- 81%.
On Election Night, most voters don’t care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state… they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was directly and equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans consider the idea of the candidate with the most popular votes being declared a loser detestable. We don’t allow this in any other election in our representative republic.
The bill has passed 31 state legislative chambers, in 21 small, medium-small, medium, and large states, including one house in AR, CT, DE, DC, ME, MI, NV, NM, NY, NC, and OR, and both houses in CA, CO, HI, IL, NJ, MD, MA, RI, VT, and WA. The bill has been enacted by DC (3), HI (4), IL (19), NJ (14), MD (11), MA (10), CA (55), VT (3), and WA (13). These 9 jurisdictions possess 132 electoral votes — 49% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
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