DISPATCHES

NEW REPORT SHOWS MIDTERMS RIGGED FOR REPUBLICANS

A new report by the Brennan Center for Justice suggests that congressional races are so heavily rigged in favor of Republicans that the US can barely be described as a democratic republic. The upshot of their analysis is that, to win a bare majority of the seats in the US House, Democrats “would likely have to win the national popular vote by nearly 11 points.”

To put that number in perspective, Ian Millhiser noted at ThinkProgress (3/26) neither party achieved an 11-point popular vote win in the last several decades. The last time this happened, according to the Brennan Center, was 1982, when a deep recession led the opposition Democrats to a 269 seat majority against President Reagan’s Republicans.

The Brennan Center’s estimate, it should be noted, is unusually pessimistic for Democrats, but consistent with a number of estimates showing that Democrats face an unfair disadvantage at the polls.

After the 2012 election — when Democratic House candidates won the popular vote by almost 1.4 million votes, but Republicans won a solid majority in the House — ThinkProgress estimated that Democrats would need to win the popular vote by about 7.25 points in order to take back the House. (Democratic prospects have improved since 2012, in large part due to a court decision striking down Pennsylvania’s aggressively gerrymandered maps.)

Similarly, data journalist Nate Silver estimates that Democrats could need to win by as much as 10 points to take back the House.

One factor that contributes to the Brennan Center’s pessimism is its analysis of congressional maps in red states. In Alabama, for example, Democratic House candidates could win 47% of the statewide popular vote, and still only win one of the state’s seven House seats. In Georgia, Democrats could win 54% of the popular vote, yet only win 5 of the state’s 14 seats.

Nor is the House the only place where American democracy is breaking down. Donald Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, yet he still got to be president. The 49 senators in the Democratic caucus represent nearly 40 million more people than the 51 senators in the Republican caucus.

And this last problem is likely to get much worse. According to Baruch College’s David Birdsell, by 2040 “about 70% of Americans are expected to live in the 15 largest states.” As a result, 70% of Americans “will have only 30 senators representing them, while the remaining 30% of Americans will have 70 senators representing them.”

Moreover, if the parties continue to sort into diverse, urban Democrats and homogeneous, more rural Republicans, the GOP won’t just gain a lock on the Senate. They could potentially ensure that no Democrat is ever confirmed to the federal bench again.

In 2016, when Senate Republicans successfully blocked Chief Judge Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court, the 46 Democrats in the Senate represented 20 million more people than the 54 Republicans. In 2017, when Neil Gorsuch was confirmed to occupy this seat, the 45 senators who opposed his confirmation represented more than 25 million more people than the senators who supported him.

The United States, in other words, is barreling toward a future where a younger, multicultural, more urbanized majority is ruled by an aging, white, rural minority. That’s a recipe for civil unrest, or even a secession crisis.

At the very least, it casts a very dark cloud of illegitimacy over the entire United States government. (Ian Millhiser, ThinkProgress.)

FAIR ELECTIONS ISSUE ON OHIO BALLOT. Ohioans will vote (5/8) on a proposed constitutional amendment to limit gerrymandering of Ohio legislative districts. 

At the congressional level, Ohio is currently one of the most gerrymandered states in the country with four Democratic districts and 12 Republican districts in a state that voted for Barack Obama in both 2008 and 2012, David Akadjian noted at DailyKos (3/25). 

To address this, people organized as Fair Districts Ohio and worked to get a ballot proposal on the ballot for 2018. Republicans tried to head it off with their own proposal that would keep control in Republican hands. Fair Districts and the Republicans went back to the table and came up with a compromise proposal, Issue 1. 

The proposed amendment would establish a process for congressional redistricting, including:

• No congressional district map shall be drawn to favor or disfavor a political party or candidates.

• Each district will be nearly equal in population (one person, one vote).

• The plan shall minimize the splitting of counties, municipalities, and townships, and no county shall be split more than once.

• Districts shall be geographically contiguous and compact.

• The Voting Rights Act and other state and federal laws that protect minority representation shall be respected.

• Representational fairness is required. This means that the statewide percentage of districts leaning toward each of the two major parties shall closely correspond to the partisan preferences of the voters of Ohio as measured by the statewide proportion of votes in state and federal partisan statewide general elections over the previous 10 years.

One worry is that there could still be abuse if the groups cannot come to agreement, Akadjian noted. This is because the last steps of the process eliminate some of the checks and balances. Here are the steps in the proposed new process: 

• The legislature can approve the maps with a super majority (60%), but only if at least 50% of the members of the minority party vote yes.

• If Step 1 fails, the work goes to a new commission made up of the governor, secretary of state, auditor, and four appointments from the legislature. This commission could set the map, but only with votes from at least two members of each party.

• If Step 2 fails, it goes back to the legislature, where approval from 60 percent of the members is needed. This time only one-third of the minority members need approve.

• If Step 3 fails, the legislature can approve a map for four years—instead of 10 years—by a simple majority.

Akadjian added that this is vastly improved over the previous process, especially with requirements written into the Constitution.

NRA MOCKS GUN VIOLENCE SURVIVORS. As hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in Washington and other cities across the US to demand meaningful gun reform (3/24), the National Rifle Association took to social media to mock the “March For Our Lives” event and the young gun violence survivors who spearheaded it, Dominique Mosbergen reported at HuffingtonPost.com (3/24).

The group posted a membership-drive video to Facebook with a scathing caption about the looming protest marches Saturday morning.

“Today’s protests aren’t spontaneous,” the post declared. “Gun-hating billionaires and Hollywood elites are manipulating and exploiting children as part of their plan to DESTROY the Second Amendment and strip us of our right to defend ourselves and our loved ones.”

The “March For Our Lives” protest was led by students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where 17 people were killed (2/14) in a shooting rampage. 

The young activists gave eloquent, impassioned speeches at the D.C. event, excoriating lawmakers who have failed to act to reduce gun violence and the NRA for lobbying against sensible gun control legislation. 

“If we move on, the NRA and those against us will win,” said 17-year-old survivor Delaney Tarr. “They want us to forget. They want our voices to be silenced. And they want to retreat into the shadows where they can remain unnoticed. They want to be back on top, unquestioned in their corruption, but we cannot and we will not let that happen.”

WHAT’S IN THE SPENDING BILL? Congress approved a $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill that would fund the government through the end of September.

The spending bill, packaged in a 2,232-page document, generally keeps funding for environmental and energy programs at current levels. Trump reluctantly signed the bill (3/23) after threatening a veto because it didn’t fund the $25 billion he demanded for the border wall.

Among four key items in the bill, reported by USA Today:

• A bipartisan proposal to boost compliance with the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The bill also clarifies that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can conduct research on the causes of gun violence, which stopped in 1996 after Congress passed an amendment banning the agency from using any federal dollars to “advocate or promote gun control.”

• The bill fixes a glitch in tax law that allowed farmers to deduct 20% of their gross sales if they sell goods to farming cooperatives, but only 20% of net income if they sell to corporations, which for-profit grain companies said puts them at a competitive disadvantage because farmers would be more inclined to sell to cooperatives. Now farmers can sell to cooperatives or corporations and get the larger break.

• Trump wanted the bill to include $25 billion for his promised wall along the US-Mexico border (the wall he promised Mexico would pay for). He got $641 million for about 33 miles of new border “fencing” and levees, plus nearly $1.3 billion for border-security technology. Democrats wanted legal protections for the DREAMers, undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children, but congressional negotiators were unable to reach an agreement.

Trump lied when he blamed Democrats for not extending Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA): “I do want the Hispanic community to know and DACA recipients to know that Republicans are much more on your side than the Democrats who are using you for their own purposes.”

Steve Benen wrote at MaddowBlog: “Let’s revisit the facts, which are unambiguous. After assuring Dreamers that he wouldn’t punish them, Trump ended the DACA program, putting these young immigrants’ future in jeopardy and creating a crisis where none existed. Democrats, meanwhile, have scrambled to protect Dreamers, offering the president six different bipartisan agreements, each of which Trump either rejected or walked away from.”

• The bill includes more than $500 million in federal funds for a long-planned tunnel under the Hudson River between New Jersey and Manhattan, over Trump’s objections. The project is a major priority for Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer of New York, as well as Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, R-N.J., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

SPENDING BILL SAVES BORDER WILDLIFE REFUGE. The spending bill passed by Congress (3/22) allocates more than $1 billion for border security. But one key stipulation: none of those funds can be used for construction in the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge on the Lower Rio Grande.

The administration had previously begun preparations for constructing the wall through the refuge, which stretches for 2,088-acres along the US-Mexico border. The refuge, which was created in 1943, is home to at least 400 species of birds, 450 types of plants, and half of the butterfly species found in North America.

Construction of the wall through the refuge would have required 18-foot structures — designed to let water flow in and out — that would cross through nearly 3 miles of the region. It would require construction of roads, as well as clearing of land on either side. A federal official told the Texas Observer in July that construction of the wall would “essentially destroy the refuge.”

Environmental groups have opposed Trump’s wall, arguing that it would pose a serious threat to wildlife and ecosystems along the border. Construction of the wall, for instance, could cut off migration routes for land-based animals, or destroy nesting habitat for birds.

According to a 2016 US Fish and Wildlife report, more than 100 animals that are listed as endangered, threatened, or candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act could be affected by the border wall.

Despite the potential impact on wildlife and ecosystems, the Trump administration has repeatedly expressed its intention to construct the wall without conducting environmental reviews, under 2005 anti-terror law that gives the department broad authority for construction of projects that relate to national security.

Still, environmental groups viewed the omnibus’ prohibition of construction in the Santa Ana Wildlife Refuge as a win.

“The bill is very explicit in keeping any new border walls from going up in Santa Ana,” Scott Nicol, co-chairman of the Sierra Club Borderlands, told CNN. “I think we were successful in making walling off Santa Ana politically toxic.” (Natasha Geiling, ThinkProgress.)

CONGRESS FUNDS EPA, CLEAN ENERGY PROGRAMS TRUMP PLANNED TO SLASH. The spending bill generally keeps funding for environmental and energy programs at current levels. The legislation is mostly good news for the environment and clean energy research, although lawmakers added a few troublesome provisions to the legislation, Mark Hand noted at ThinkProgress.

On the Environmental Protection Agency, the spending bill rejected Trump’s proposal to slash the EPA’s budget by 31%. Lawmakers negotiating the omnibus appropriations bill instead chose to give the agency $8.1 billion for fiscal year 2018, keeping it at the same level as 2017.

The Department of Energy (DOE) gets $34.5 billion, an increase of nearly $4 billion over the FY ’17 enacted level. DOE will see funding increases for many programs under the bill, including research efforts and energy efficiency programs that Trump tried to cut.

The bill funds DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at $2.32 billion, $290 million more than FY’17. Trump had proposed to reduce EERE about 70% below the FY ’16 level for the office.

It also funds Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a bipartisan initiative that funds research into cutting-edge energy technology, at $353 million, more than $47 million over the FY ’17 budget. The Trump administration proposed termination of ARPA-E in its FY ’18 budget proposal.

DOE’s Office of Science, which covers much of the basic research done at DOE laboratories, would see its funding increase to a record $6.26 billion, a 16% increase.

The Department of the Interior gets a funding boost in the spending bill. About $3.2 billion would go to the National Park Service, $270 million more than the 2017 level. The bill includes a roughly $150 million increase to address the National Park Service’s $11.6 billion maintenance backlog.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service gets $1.6 billion, $75 million more than current spending. It includes a $53 million increase to address a maintenance backlog at wildlife refuges and fish hatcheries.

Although unrelated to Congress’ appropriation, public lands remain under threat with Ryan Zinke staying on as Interior secretary. Zinke continues to seek an expansion of both onshore and offshore oil and gas production on lands managed by DOI’s Bureau of Land Management and the Bureau of Offshore Energy Management.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) receives $5.9 billion under the legislation, about $234 million more than the FY ’17 enacted level. That figure includes $1 billion for the National Weather Service and $883 million for NOAA Fisheries operations, research and facilities.

The Trump administration wanted to slash the NOAA budget by 16%. Several NOAA programs are developing advanced modeling to make storm forecasts more accurate and reliable. The omnibus spending plan preserves funding for the agency’s climate research arm — the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research — which Trump wanted to cut by 32% budget cut, the largest of any NOAA agency.

The spending bill represents “a resounding victory for all of the activists who fought back,” Elgie Holstein, senior director of strategic planning for EDF Action, said (3/22) .

But there are many fights to come, Holstein said: “The Trump administration will not stop its attacks on clean air and water safeguards and sound science — and still has many allies in Congress.”

PUERTO RICO PASSES SIX MONTHS WITHOUT FULL POWER. As of March 20, six months after Hurricane Maria shredded Puerto Rico and blacked out its electrical system, 7% of utility customers still couldn’t turn on the lights, refrigerate food or run water pumps, Umair Irfan noted at vox.com (3/20).

Tht total number of people without electricity in Puerto Rico is more than 120,000, and there remain municipalities where 45% of residents don’t have power.

The Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds and 36 inches of rain toppled 80% of the island’s power lines and flooded its generators last September, leaving the island in the longest and largest blackout in US history.

Even areas that managed to get power restored suffered subsequent blackouts, and this week, the island’s bankrupt power utility, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, suffered a cyber attack.

The botched recovery effort that’s dragged on and on is a disaster caused by humans, leading to environmental and health crises, Irfan noted. The US Army Corps of Engineers has compared the situation to Iraq after the US invasion in 2003 and estimated that Puerto Rico would need 50,000 utility poles and 6,500 miles of cable to restore its power system.

The Corps of Engineers expects to get most power restored by the end of March, but it will take longer for remote parts of Puerto Rico. “Achieving 95% restoration in areas with challenging terrain like Arecibo and Caguas, will take until mid-April and late-May respectively,” Preston Chasteen, a spokesman for the Corps, said in an email. (Mark Hand, ThinkProgress.)

TRUMP HAS TROUBLE FINDING AND KEEPING LAWYERS. Donald Trump is down to one lawyer representing him in the special counsel’s investigation of Russia’s role in helping Trump’s election campaign.

In the previous week, Michal S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman noted in the New York Times (3/25), “Working for a president is usually seen as a dream job. But leading white-collar lawyers in Washington and New York have repeatedly spurned overtures to take over the defense of Mr. Trump, a mercurial client who often ignores his advisers’ guidance. In some cases, lawyers’ firms have blocked any talks, fearing a backlash that would hurt business.” And Trump lost two lawyers in just the past four days, including Joseph diGenova, a longtime Washington lawyer who has pushed theories on Fox News that the FBI made up evidence against Trump, left the team on Sunday (3/25). He had been hired the previous Monday, three days before the head of the president’s personal legal team, John Dowd, quit after determining that the president was not listening to his advice. Trump had also considered hiring Mr. diGenova’s wife, Victoria Toensing, but she will also not join the team.

That leaves the president with just one personal lawyer who is working full time on the special counsel’s investigation, Jay Sekulow, as Trump is facing one of the most significant decisions related to it: whether to sit for an interview with the special counsel. Ty Cobb is still the White House attorney dedicated to the Russia inquiry. But Cobb’s main job—supplying Robert Mueller’s team with key documents and arranging interviews with White House staff—is mostly complete at this point.

MSNBC SILENT IN RUN-UP TO VOTE TO END YEMEN WAR. Adam Johnson of Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) noted that coverage of the US assisted bombing and siege of Yemen has been virtually nonexistent. Even on MSNBC, in 2017 the supposedly “liberal” cable network race only one segment that focused on the US role in Yemen and in 2018, as of 3/19, MSNBC hasn’t run a single segment on Yemen, much less the US role in it. The US-supported, Saudi-led bombing campaign has caused upward of 1 million cholera cases and killed over 10,000 civilians (a figure that is over a year old, with the current toll likely much higher), Johnson noted, but the only segment this year that even mentioned Yemen, according to a search of MSNBC transcripts in the Nexis news database, was a Chris Hayes interview (*All In*, 3/2/18) with Ryan Grim of The Intercept, in which Grim described the impact of Jared Kushner’s secret dealings with Qatar:

“The Yemen crisis and the humanitarian disaster going on there is tied into this, because it’s kind of the way the politics play out there. Saudi cares more about the Yemen war and the UAE cares more about Qatar, and so there’s sort of a quid pro quo going there, like Saudi will help UAE going after Qatar, the UAE helps Saudi go after Yemen. So facilitating this entire thing has helped, you know, explode a cholera epidemic and mass starvation in Yemen while we’re at it.”

The Senate on a 55-44 vote (3/20) rejected a resolution sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., that invoked the War Powers Act to demand the administration seek congressional authorization or withdraw American support from Saudi Arabia’s military operations in Yemen.

Five Republicans senators – Susan Collins (R-ME), Steve Daines (R-MT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Jerry Moran (R-KS) – voted to advance the resolution, while ten Democrats broke with their broader party ranks to oppose it.

Johnson noted that despite not having a single segment on Yemen before the Senate vote, MSNBC did manage 143 segments on Stormy Daniels, the woman Donald Trump’s lawyer allegedly paid off and harassed to hide an affair. “It’s extra disconcerting that MSNBC is being outflanked from the left by Breitbart, which has covered efforts to end the war a dozen or so times—likely for cynical, nativist reasons,” Johnson wrote. “But anti-war sentiment is going to be led by someone, and one imagines that those concerned with building progressive anti-war coalitions would prefer it be led by a liberal network rather than a fascist one.”

The US has been supporting the Saudi-led coalition in non-combat roles since 2015, mainly in improving the planning, targeting an execution of air operations and aerial refueling of Saudi aircraft, the Military Times reported, but US special operations forces in the past year have been involved in boots-on-the-ground raids in Yemen, including one in January 2017 in which a US Navy SEAL was killed and three others were wounded in an attack on an al-Qaida compound in Yemen.

From The Progressive Populist, April 15, 2018


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