{"id":133131,"date":"2013-01-01T10:00:38","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T15:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/?p=133131"},"modified":"2013-01-01T10:00:41","modified_gmt":"2013-01-01T15:00:41","slug":"gop-obama-undermining-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prosebeforehos.com\/article-of-the-day\/01\/01\/gop-obama-undermining-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Want Democracy? You Won’t Find It With The GOP…Or Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Article:<\/strong> 5 Ways the GOP (And Obama) Have Undermined Our Democracy<\/a> by Steven Rosenfeld in AlterNet.<\/p>\n

The Text:<\/strong> Is Barack Obama — the former constitutional law professor and voting rights activist — allergic to democracy reform? Or have congressional Republicans have thrown up such roadblocks that the White House has decided it\u2019s not worthwhile to fight for the key federal agencies that defend democracy.<\/p>\n

Whether the fault lies with the White House or with GOP obstructionists — or both — the results are the same: federal institutions created to make campaign finances more transparent and ensure that election technology is evolving are paralyzed by empty leadership positions, while the executive branch\u2019s efforts to push ahead on its own have yielded little.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve felt like Diogenes looking for an intelligent Republican and never found one\u2014I am hoping that will change,\u201d said Craig Holman, Public Citizen\u2019s Capitol Hill lobbyist, who puts the blame on the GOP for blocking Obama\u2019s appointments. \u201cBut I\u2019ve also been very critical of Obama for not taking on these fights. I\u2019ve been asking Obama since 2009 to replace these commissioners and take on [GOP Senate leader] Mitch McConnell.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go through key parts of the federal landscape that are supposed to ensure a fairer and better democratic process, and identify what\u2019s stuck in the political mud.<\/p>\n

1. Federal Election Commission<\/p>\n

The six-member FEC, which regulates how money is raised in federal campaigns, has five vacancies. Until those seats are filled, previously appointed commissioners keep their seats. That\u2019s the case now, with three Democrats and three Republicans, which has left the FEC deadlocked on every big issue in recent years\u2014including rules that could have reeled in some of 2012\u2019s biggest law-evading partisans.<\/p>\n

Trevor Potter, a former FEC commissioner and chairman, who is more recently known as Stephen Colbert\u2019s campaign finance attorney, recently wrote a Washington Post op-ed saying that the moribund FEC is more to blame for 2012\u2019s top campaign finance abuses than the Supreme Court\u2019s 2010 Citizens United ruling. He doesn\u2019t believe the White House has to follow past protocol and appoint three Democrats and three Republicans chosen by each party\u2019s leaders. But even in 2009, when the White House floated the name of one nominee, which went nowhere, campaign reformers felt that potential commissioner would support more deregulation instead of more transparency.<\/p>\n

2. Election Admistration Commission<\/p>\n

This federal agency was created after Florida\u2019s voting machine meltdown in 2000 that made everyone in America aware of hanging chads\u2014the cut-out parts of a paper ballot that clogged Florida\u2019s vote counters. It never had a big budget and was criticized in its early years by election officials for being too slow to certify new voting technology — because it kept finding flaws. But the four-member EAC now has zero commssioners.<\/p>\n

Some secretaries of states and newly elected Republicans want the EAC phased out and dismantled. But longtime civil rights advocates say the agency is needed more than ever, especially after the 2012 election when thousands of people waited in line for hours to vote and a number of voting machine problems were reported coast to coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIts goals and the purposes for which it was constituted are definitely still needed,\u201d said Barbara Arnwine , of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and an EAC advisory board member. \u201cHowever, the institution we have right now is not what we need.\u201d<\/p>\n

3. Executive Order on Federal Contractor Disclosure<\/p>\n

Republicans obstructionists may give the White House an excuse for not pushing for its appointments to controversial commissions, but that\u2019s not true with executive orders. In early 2012, White House staff met with democracy advocates including Public Citizen\u2019s Holman to develop an executive order that would require any federal contractor to report any political contributions.<\/p>\n

Initially, some of Washington\u2019s biggest business lobbyists balked and pushed back. But by last December, as the anniversary of the Citizens United decision loomed, there was some talk that the White House would soon act, especially as the presidential campaign season was gearing up. But nothing happened, disappointing disclosure advocates.<\/p>\n

4. Saying No To Presidential Public Financing<\/p>\n

In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama became the first nominee of a major political party to reject using public financing to pay for his campaign after his party\u2019s national nominating convention. The thinking then was that the Obama campaign could raise more money than it would get from taxpayers, and wouldn\u2019t have to abide by spending limits in exchange for the public funds.<\/p>\n

That same scenario was repeated in 2012, and then the president\u2019s supporters created the same kinds of big-money super PACs that the GOP pioneered in its presidential primaries. These decisions reflect a truism in politics: there\u2019s little desire to change the rules of a system that a candidate mastered and elected him into office. However, it underscores that the administration does not see democracy issues as a priority.<\/p>\n

5. Securities and Exchange Commission<\/p>\n

The SEC regulates publically held corporations. In 2011, a handful of law professors petitioned the SEC to change a rule allowing a public corporation to hide its political spending from shareholders. The rule-making petition would require that spending be disclosed and to date has prompted more public comments ( 300,000) than any other draft rule in the agency\u2019s history.<\/p>\n

The SEC did not act on the petition before the 2012 election, which saw numerous pro-business trade associations, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, spending millions on political ads without disclosing donors. But according to Craig Holman, agency staffers this week told him that the rule change is still on its 2013 agenda.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn two weeks, we will be holding a press confernce and making some demands on these fights,\u201d Holman said, referring to everything from the agency appointments to disclosure rules. \u201cI used to work with Republicans\u2014people like senators John McCain and Olympia Snow. But recently they\u2019ve all just marched in lockstep with [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell and [House Speaker] John Boehner.\u201d<\/p>\n

That discouraging reality means it is up to the White House, or independent agencies like the SEC, to move ahead on their own. You would think the constitutional lawyer and voting rights activist in the Oval Office would not need convincing in these fights.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Article: 5 Ways the GOP (And Obama) Have Undermined Our Democracy by Steven Rosenfeld in AlterNet. The Text: Is Barack Obama — the former constitutional law professor and voting rights activist — allergic to democracy reform? Or have congressional Republicans have thrown up such roadblocks that the White House has decided it\u2019s not worthwhile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nWant Democracy? 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