ARIZONA EDITORIAL FORUM
By Michael Wong and Twyla Haggerty
Candidate signs are affixed on every street corner. Ballot information fills our mailboxes daily. Phone calls crowd our voice mail. And of course ads, ads, and more ads every time we turn on our favorite television show.
While Arizona voters are inundated with campaign materials and pundit speculation, the Arizona Student Vote Coalition is one group that doesn’t worry about the polls or how young people vote – we just want them to vote.
The Arizona Student Vote Coalition, comprised of the Arizona Public Interest Research Group, the Arizona Students’ Association and the University Student Governments, has been working since 2004 to significantly boost youth voting.
There are three important reasons to increase voter participation among young people. First, young people are the generation that will be most impacted by pressing issues in Arizona (the economy, college affordability and transportation). By engaging us now, it is more likely that we will be a driving force towards the solutions to these issues. Second, we are a big and growing portion of the electorate (nearly 25 percent in 2008) and as such we have the potential to make big impacts on these issues. Third, youth voting habits are formed early, so getting more young people to vote now results in a more active citizenry for the future.
Although some cynics believe that young people don’t care about anything but themselves and their electronics, the facts show otherwise.
In 2004, young voter turnout surged nine percent, an increase three times that of the general population. In 2006, the youth vote increased again -- growing by two million votes. In 2008, the number of voters under 30 who showed up at the polls increased by approximately 11 percent, while the number of older voters who cast a ballot increased by only three percent. Young people as a percentage of overall turn-out in Arizona increased on both sides of the aisle in 2008 over previous levels (Republicans – 12 percent in 2008 from 10 percent in 2000; and Democrats – 10 percent in 2008 from seven percent in 2004).
Yet, even with these encouraging increases in turnout, overall youth voter turnout still remains too low.
Studies suggest that a large-scale peer-to-peer effort of voter contact targeted at young people can make a significant difference in the turnout rate of young voters.
Putting that research into practice, in the months leading up to the election, hundreds of students have reached out to peers on college campuses across the state to register them and get them to vote on Election Day. We have helped bring together a large, diverse coalition of partners – from the College Republicans and Young Democrats, to fraternities and sororities. We are speaking in classrooms, storming the dorms, and holding events to make sure young voters in Arizona show up on Election Day.
As the campaign season becomes more polarizing the closer we get to Election Day, one unifying message we hope all Arizonans will promote is that young people (and others) need to vote!
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Wong and Haggerty are co-chairs of the Arizona Student Vote Coalition.
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Copyright © 2010 by Arizona Editorial Forum. 10/10
By Sarah van Gelder
If you’re like me, this election doesn’t feel anything like 2008. The excitement and hope of that historic election have been replaced by worry and disappointment. The 2008 campaigns at least occasionally addressed our country's serious problems.
This year it's all noise, attacks, and accusations. Little actual policy makes it through. Meanwhile, billionaires, big oil, and Wall Street corporations unleashed by the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United are able to spend unlimited amounts of money to flood the airwaves with anonymous attack ads.
It’s a tough election season, and many Americans say they’ll be voting with their feet by staying home.
But not voting is a huge mistake. Things could get much worse, and if enough of us stay home, they almost certainly will.
The Great Recession is creating hardship for families in every part of the country. More than 6 million Americans fell below the poverty line in the last two years, and nearly a quarter of all children under the age of six are living in poverty. Unemployed workers are typically going jobless for six months, nearly twice as long as they have during any time since World War II. Median household wealth fell by 20 percent since 2007, retirement savings have evaporated, and now some are talking about dismantling Social Security.
This is not the year to stay home. Our families can’t afford it.
Democracy is especially fragile during times of stress. It’s a time when our commitment to build a more perfect union is tested.
Voting alone isn’t enough, but it does make a difference. We may not be able to directly influence big corporations to create jobs at home (or at all), but we can elect leaders who will press for jobs in our communities. We may not be able to force employers to offer pension benefits, but we can elect leaders committed to protecting Social Security. And maybe we can’t bring down the high cost of college tuition, but we can vote for members of Congress who will support Pell Grants and other means for young people to gain the skills they’ll need to find work and build a strong country for the next generation.
Elections aren’t everything. Frankly, Congress has fallen short many times, and it is bound to disappoint us again. If we want better policies, we have to do more than vote. We have to get organized, develop our own agenda, and hold our elected officials at all levels of government accountable to us. We’ll need to organize in our communities, work places, and political districts to counter the influence of big-money special interests and the media they control, and set a course that will protect and support strong families.
Voting isn’t everything, but when combined with organizing outside the political process, it can be powerful.
If we work together, we’ll be able to create green, family-wage jobs that stay in our communities. We’ll protect social security and assure our veterans get the long-term help they need. We’ll rebuild our failing schools, divert our young people away from the “cradle-to-prison” pipeline, combat discrimination against women, gays and lesbians, people of color, and ex-felons, and restore a sense of possibility for everyone’s future.
Voting alone won’t accomplish all of this – it’s just the beginning. A democratic system isn’t something delivered to us by politicians. It’s ours to remake with each generation—as the saying goes, “Use it or lose it.”
Don’t be discouraged by the cynicism of television pundits, the negative advertising, and the bad economy. Vote for the country you hope for—and then go out and help build it.
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van Gelder is co-founder and executive editor of YES! Magazine, www.yesmagazine.org, an independent media organization that fuses powerful ideas with practical actions for a just and sustainable world. The Winter 2011 issue of YES! features a pro-family political agenda, and other stories about how American families are surviving, and even thriving.
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Copyright (C) 2010 by American Forum. 10/10
By Holly Sklar
Before Wall Street drove our economy off a cliff, bullish Citigroup strategists dubbed the United States a "plutonomy." They said, "There are rich consumers, few in number, but disproportionate in the gigantic slice of income and consumption they take. There are the rest, the 'non-rich,' the multitudinous many, but only accounting for surprisingly small bites of the national pie."
Inequality had increased so much since the 1980s, Citi strategists noted in 2005, that the richest 1 percent of households and the bottom 60 percent had "similar slices of the income pie!" Even better, they said, "the top 1 percent of households account for 40 percent of financial net worth, more than the bottom 95 percent of households put together." And the Bush "administration's attempts to change the estate tax code and make permanent dividend tax cuts, plays directly into the hands of the plutonomy."
In "Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer," Citi strategists considered the risk of backlash. "Whilst the rich are getting a greater share of the wealth ... political enfranchisement remains as was - one person, one vote," they said. "At some point it is likely that labor will fight back against the rising profit share of the rich and there will be a political backlash against the rising wealth of the rich." This could be felt, for example, "through higher taxation (on the rich or indirectly though higher corporate taxes/regulation)."
Fast forward. Wall Street wrecked the economy and was bailed out by the rest of us. "Pay on Wall Street is on pace to break a record high for a second consecutive year," the Wall Street Journal reports. Main Street, meanwhile, suffers record high foreclosures speeded by robo-signers.
Big businesses have a record amount of nearly $2 trillion in cash and are borrowing money cheap to buy other companies, buy back stock and pay out more dividends. Small businesses can't get credit to buy more equipment or hire more workers.
According to the latest IRS data, the 400 richest taxpayers increased their average income by 399 percent, adjusted for inflation, between 1992 and 2007, and lowered their effective income tax rate by 37 percent - from 26.4 percent to 16.6 percent.
This year, the Forbes 400 richest Americans, all billionaires, enjoyed an 8 percent rise in their wealth - while more than one out of eight Americans depends on food stamps.
The backlash is here, but it's lashing in the wrong direction.
The anti-government Tea Party rage plays directly into the hands of the Kings of Wall Street.
Wall Street has already voted, pouring money into Republican campaigns and anti-Democratic ads by astroturf groups that don't have to disclose their Big Bank, Big Oil, Big Business donors. "Our target ratio for the 2010 cycle is 80-20 Republican," American Financial Services Association representative Karen Klugh told Politico.
Wall Street expects a good return on their investment. "Wall Street is preparing for a Republican surge in Congress that could help it block proposed taxes on banks and investments, blunt new financial regulations and regain some of the lobbying firepower it lost during the financial crisis," Bloomberg reports. "Banks would prefer to have Republicans overseeing the regulators, lobbyists said."
Wall Street wants freedom to gamble with our money - including the Social Security funds Republicans want to try again to privatize.
"The Republican agenda could also give new life to free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea," Bloomberg reports. That's good news for the plutocrats. As Citigroup said in 2005, "Globalization is making it easier for companies to either outsource manufacturing (source from cheap emerging markets like China and India) or 'offshore' manufacturing (move production to lower cost countries)."
Average wages are 7 percent lower today, adjusted for inflation, than they were back in 1973. Do you want to go lower?
The richest 1 percent has more wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined, but just 1 percent of the vote.
Wall Street plundered your livelihoods, homes and retirement funds - and now they want you to bail them out, again, with your vote.
They want to sell you bait-and-switch candidates like they sold you bait-and-switch mortgages. And laugh all the way to the bank.
Wall Street has voted. It's your turn.
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Sklar is author of "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future" (www.letjusticeroll.org) and "Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All of Us." She can be reached at hsklar.writer@gmail.com.
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Copyright (C) 2010 by American Forum. 10/10
By David Brodwin
This year, the United States Supreme Court reversed years of precedent limiting how corporations may spend money to influence elections. This decision will substantially increase the importance of corporate influence in politics—both in determining who gets elected and how they decide once they are in office.
As executives, owners, investors, and business professionals involved in sustainable and socially responsible business, we must ask ourselves: Are we helped by this greater freedom to spend our companies’ money to influence campaigns? Or has the Supreme Court handed out some poisoned candy? Is this new ability to buy political support good for business—or does it set us back in our efforts to do business responsibly and promote a vibrant, just, and sustainable economy?
Despite appearances, the gutting of campaign finance rules is more likely to hurt than to help. The main issue is not whether businesses can or cannot spend their money on elections. The main issue is which particular businesses and industries will dominate the spending, and whether the ideas they will promote are good for our businesses and good for the nation.
Unfortunately, opening the floodgates to corporate spending on elections will make it harder, not easier, for sustainable and socially responsible businesses to get what they need--and harder for America to get what it needs from these businesses.
That’s because the money that will flood the political system will not represent the views of companies in green America. Instead, the money that will flood the system will come from organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is expected to spend more than $200 million this year on lobbying and direct campaign expenditures. This organization and others like it represent companies that don’t value responsible business. Is this the kind of business thinking that we want to dominate our political discourse?
Ask yourself: Which type of business represents the future? Which type of business should speak most loudly in the political debate? We cannot build an economy of the future based on outmoded ideas and values.
As executives, owners, and investors in socially responsible and sustainable businesses, we believe there is a right way and a wrong way to do business. We do not pursue growth at any cost, nor profit without regard to people and planet. We seek economic policies that make it easier and more profitable to do business the right way, and we know that these policies will make it harder and less profitable to do business the wrong way.
Another important business value is transparency. Corporate donations should be fully disclosed. It’s not healthy to force legislators to collect secret donations, for which they then owe secret favors. This “pay to play” system destroys American’s faith in government and can destroy our democracy.
The ranks of sustainable and socially responsible businesses are growing rapidly–but we are still outnumbered by the “business as usual” crowd. Unless we act, corporate money of the wrong kind will swamp campaigns. This money will not represent enlightened business leadership. It will not enhance U.S. competitiveness in the global economy.
Many important initiatives such as reforms that support Main Street over Wall Street, health care and insurance reforms, product safety standards, better public education, and renewable energy advances will all be in jeopardy if we do not improve the election finance system.
So what’s the solution? Congress has introduced the Fair Elections Now Act to neutralize the corrupting influence of special interest donations and make it possible for legislators to focus on the people’s business rather than on fundraising. This bi-partisan measure has been approved in Committee and now awaits passage by the full House of Representatives.
The proposal has been carefully crafted to survive constitutional challenge at the Supreme Court. It does not bar private funding of campaigns, but it provides the option for candidates to run for Congress using a blend of small private donations and limited public funds, including a four-to-one federal match on donations of $100 or less. Candidates could finance a viable campaign based primarily on contributions from their local grassroots base of supporters. Candidates would not need to depend on special interests who expect to obtain influence in exchange for cash.
We can’t build an economy that works if our democracy is broken. Congress needs to pass this vital reform.
Campaign finance reform is a crucial step toward building an economy that supports and rewards responsible and sustainable business. This is essential if we are to create the economy we want and need today, and be proud of what we’re leaving for the generations to come.
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Brodwin is co-founder of the American Sustainable Business Council, a national coalition of business networks that advocates for a vibrant, just and sustainable economy.
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Copyright (C) 2010 by American Forum. 10/10
ARIZONA EDITORIAL FORUM
By Bonnie Saunders and John Loredo
It’s been a dozen years since Arizona voters passed the landmark Citizens Clean Elections Act allowing candidates to seek office without depending on corporate brass, labor unions, and deep pocketed special interests. Clean Elections has given community leaders, teachers, and small business folk a chance to run for office and govern, answerable not to Big Money, but to Arizona’s voters.
Clean Elections is working as advertised. So it should come as no surprise that developers, bankers and the like are trying to pull off a power grab this November. Their goal is to fool Arizonans into gutting Clean Elections and returning our state to the “good old days” when controlling politics was as simple as controlling the money given to candidates.
Turning back the clock would rob Arizonans of the right to have their voice heard on Election Day and in the halls of power. That’s why the resolutions that would put Clean Elections on the 2010 ballot under a different, contorted name, must fail, either by legislative vote or on November 2nd at the polls.
Before Clean Elections, statewide and legislative candidates begged for campaign cash from a small pool of power players: CEOs, union heads, lobbyists, residents of the state’s priciest ZIP codes, and out-of-state operatives. If officeholders proved insufficiently loyal to their agendas, away went the money. In came new candidates all too happy to bend to the will of these interests.
It’s a ruthlessly efficient system, if you have the money to sit atop it.
Clean Elections changed that one $5 bill at a time. Candidates able to demonstrate community support by collecting a set number of $5 qualifying contributions are allotted funds to run competitive campaigns. As a result, Corporate Arizona lost sway and voters have been in the driver’s seat.
Not a single dollar of Clean Elections funds comes from Arizona’s cash-strapped General Fund. It’s funded by voluntary contributions or through surcharges on criminal penalties and violations like traffic tickets. In fact, Clean Elections has donated $20 million to the General Fund in the last two years.
Clean Elections has helped elect a different breed of leader. After a majority of the Arizona Corporation Commission won “running clean,” the ACC passed a law requiring that 15 percent of all power produced in Arizona come from renewable energy sources by 2025. Who hates that idea? The power companies. Is it any surprise they’re now helping fund the campaign to kill Clean Elections?
They’re joined in this effort by a “who’s who” of Big Money: The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Arizona Homebuilders, and Qwest. They are hoping we’ve forgotten about AZScam when newscasts featured grainy video of legislators taking bags of cash in exchange for their votes. No doubt it galls them, that in polling done annually by the Clean Elections Commission, citizen support for the new system remains steady at 77 percent.
Clean Elections is a historic path chosen by Arizona’s voters. It represents progress and political equality. No wonder inside political power players and lobbyists want so badly to kill it.
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Saunders is president of the League of Women Voters of Arizona. Loredo is a political consultant and former State Representative. For more information, go to www.savecleanelections.com.
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Copyright © 2010 by the Arizona Editorial Forum. 4/10
TENNESSEE EDITORIAL FORUM
By Dick Williams
The Tennessee Voter Confidence Act (TVCA) requires replacement of paperless touchscreen voting machines with optical ballot scanners by November 2010. Optical-scan voting systems read marked paper ballots and tally results, providing a tangible record of the voter's intent. They are now the most widely employed voting systems in the nation, used by 60 percent of voters in other states.
The TVCA was adopted nearly unanimously by the Tennessee Legislature – by both Democrats and Republicans -- and in 2008 enthusiastically signed into law by Gov. Phil Bredesen. But implementation of the law has been ensnarled in legalities and technicalities.
Tennessee's secretary of state and coordinator of elections have argued that the new law requires scanners be federally certified to 2005 standards, and because no machines have yet been certified to that standard, the law cannot be put into effect in time for 2010 Elections.
That’s why Common Cause Tennessee and other voters' rights advocates, in an effort to break the logjam, filed a lawsuit seeking clarification of the law's language. Nothing is more important than having verifiable ballots. There is no good reason for running the 2010 elections with systems that are vulnerable to error and don't allow a recount or an audit.
In a November 5 ruling, Chancellor Russell T. Perkins concluded that the TVCA does not require new ballot scanners to meet those 2005 standards, but declined to issue an injunction forcing application of the law. Still, the court ruled that the secretary of state was "obligated to take prompt, effective steps to meet the statutory deadline" as long as their choice of standards "does not jeopardize meeting the Legislative mandate to implement…on or before the November 2010 election."
Tennesseans need – and deserve – to have verifiable ballots in place for the 2010 election. Paperless systems are subject to unintended errors and possible hacking; hence votes might not be recorded as intended. Without a paper ballot available for audit or contested election, there is no way to tell whether a voter's intent was accurately recorded. These are not just abstract, theoretical concerns. California, after rigorous testing, decertified the same machines which are still deemed acceptable in Tennessee. Are California’s votes more precious, more sacred than the vote of Tennesseans?
Steven John Mulroy, a University of Memphis law professor and Shelby County commissioner, who represented the plaintiffs in the case, said, “This is a vindication of the election reformers’ position all along. The court agrees with us that, contrary to what the secretary of state has been saying, the TVCA allows us to use currently available voting machines, and that the secretary is legally required to begin doing so immediately.”
State Coordinator of Elections Mark Goins said the court's conclusion could force the state to obtain obsolete equipment that would have to be replaced. But an affidavit submitted by voting technology expert Dr. Douglas Jones, associate professor in the Computer Science Department of the University of Iowa said that if election officials wish, optical scanners certified to 2002 standards could be upgraded to 2005 standards without difficulty.
After the ruling, plaintiffs’ attorney Gerard Stranch stated “The ball is now in the secretary of state’s court. Hopefully, they will have greater respect for the will of the court than they did for the will of the legislature.”
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Williams is state chair of Common Cause Tennessee.
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Copyright (C) 2009 by the Tennessee Editorial Forum. 12/09
