Elections

What a huge day for progressive power! Yesterday, voters in nearly every region of the country turned out and resoundingly defeated right-wing attacks on:

• Workers’ Rights (Ohio);
• Choice (Mississippi);
• Voting Rights (Maine);
• Marriage Equality (Iowa);
• Immigrant Civil Rights AND Government By the People (Arizona);
• Public Education (North Carolina);
• AND MORE.

In the nationally-watched races and ballot initiatives across America, progressives won across the board. These hard-fought victories are not just wins for people in these states. The results have important ramifications moving forward into the 2012 elections, with this flexing of political muscle providing a good source of hope that maybe 2012 can be our 2010.

Let’s remember that most of the Republican presidential candidates came down on the losing side of virtually every one of these issues, showing how out of touch they and their party are with Americans’ values. Frontrunner Mitt Romney, whom many consider to be the presumptive nominee, after his usual hemming and hawing, came out strongly against workers’ rights in Ohio and said he would support the shockingly extreme “personhood” amendment in Mississippi that would have given fertilized eggs the rights of human beings. Even the overwhelmingly Republican -- and culturally conservative -- electorate of deep red state Mississippi rejected that radical position by a whopping 58%-42%. An astute political observer might accurately say that Mitt Romney was in fact yesterday’s, and thus Election 2011’s, biggest loser.

Ohio – workers’ rights and defending the middle class WIN

In Ohio, voters stood up their neighbors -- their nurses, teachers, policemen and firefighters -- and successfully repealed the right-wing governor’s Wisconsin-style attack on the fundamental collective bargaining rights of public employees -- the law known as SB 5. Tallies are showing that over 60% of voters voted “No” on Issue 2, to repeal SB 5, with only six counties in the entire state showing majorities in favor of keeping the law. In all those counties, Republican Governor John Kasich won with more than 60% of the vote in 2010.

We worked hard, with PFAW activists in Ohio playing a critical role in the effort. Our allies in Ohio, especially our friends at We Are Ohio, led an inspiring and effective campaign. This victory will have a lasting impact in Ohio and national politics, as it staved off an attack that could have been crippling to progressives in a critical swing state.

The attacks on working people in Ohio, Wisconsin and other states are part of a right-wing effort to break the back of organized labor, which is a major source of progressive power and one of the only political counterweights to the corporate special interests that fund the Right. Like laws that disenfranchise voters in communities that traditionally vote more progressive, these new policies are a naked partisan power grab by Republican politicians, and at the same time serve as a big gift, basically a policy kickback, to their corporate contributors like the Koch brothers.

We will work hard to help replicate nationally for 2012 the Ohio organizing model that mobilized a middle-class revolt against right-wing extremism in that state.

Mississippi – reproductive rights WIN

As I mentioned above, voters in Mississippi, a state in which Democrats didn’t even bother to run a candidate in several statewide races, overwhelmingly rejected a state constitutional amendment that would have defined a fertilized egg as a person. That dreadful law would have effectively turned ALL abortions, without exception for rape, incest of the health of the mother, into murder under state law. It would have done the same with many popular forms of birth control and the processes involved in fertility treatment, even creating legal suspicion around miscarriages.

A similar “personhood” amendment had twice been rejected by voters in Colorado by similarly large margins, but polling leading up to Election Day in Mississippi showed a toss up. It’s important to note that while many anti-choice conservatives expressed reservations about the far-reaching extremity of the amendment, just about every Religious Right group and Republican supported it … and it lost by 16 points … IN MISSISSIPPI.

Maine – voting rights WIN

Maine voters yesterday voted to preserve their same-day voter registration policy after the right-wing legislature passed a law to repeal it.

In another example of the Right doing everything it can to make ballot access more difficult for some voters, after Republicans took control of the governorship and the legislature in 2010, one of the first things on the chopping block was Maine’s same-day voter registration law.

Voters have been able to register at their polling place on Election Day in Maine since 1973 -- if there is anything ingrained in the voting culture of Maine it’s same-day registration. Same-day voter registration is the reason Maine has one of the highest voter turnouts in the country (states with same-day registration average 6% higher turnout than states without it). It’s good for democracy … but apparently that’s bad for the Right.

Republicans had used the bogus straw man argument about “widespread voter fraud” -- even though it’s never been a reported problem in Maine. They amazingly trotted out the argument that people who wait until Election Day to register are not “engaged” enough in the process, even though same-day registrants are simply abiding by the law of nearly 40 years, and showing up on Election Day is the ultimate demonstration of “engagement.”

The Maine Republican Party even ran a full page newspaper ad just before the election trying to portray the ballot initiative to “repeal the repeal” and save same-day registration as some sort of gay activist plot. The ad implied that Equality Maine’s support of the referendum was somehow insidious and revealing of some problem with the long-standing, pro-democracy law. In reality, LGBT rights groups did have stake in the results of yesterday’s same-day voter registration ballot initiative because if Mainers would not join together to defeat such a radical right-wing usurpation of voters’ rights, then the Equality movement in that state concluded there would be little hope in waging another campaign to enact same-sex marriage equality by referendum. So, yesterday’s victory for voting rights effectively leaves the door open for a future victory for marriage equality as well. 

Iowa – marriage equality WIN

While the victory in Maine opens the possibility of a future win for marriage equality in that state, in Iowa, the state’s existing marriage equality law won a major victory with the election of the Democrat running in a special election for state Senate. Party control of the Senate hinged on this race and if the Republican had won, the legislature would surely move to undo marriage equality for same-sex couples in Iowa.

The Senate seat in question became open when Republican Governor Terry Branstad appointed incumbent Democratic Senator Swati Dandekar to a high paying post on the Iowa Utilities Board. Republicans knew full well that the bare majority Democrats held in the Senate would then be up for grabs, and with it, the fate of marriage equality. Congratulations to Democratic Senator Elect Liz Mathis, the voters who elected her and all the people of Iowa whose rights will continue to be protected by a state marriage law that holds true to our core constitutional values of Fairness and Equality.

Arizona – immigrant rights and democracy WIN

Voters in Arizona really made an impressive show of strength yesterday when they voted to RECALL Republican State Senator Russell Pearce, the architect of Arizona’s infamous draconian “show me your papers” immigration bill, SB 1070. Arizonans did themselves and the country a great service in rejected the lawmaker who pioneered the shameful racial profiling bill.

This is not just a victory for fair and humane immigration policy. The often untold story of SB 1070 is that it was engineered by the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a policy group funded by corporate special interests that essentially writes many of the laws pushed every year by right-wing state legislators across the country. SB 1070 was on its face an ugly, racist backlash against undocumented immigrants, but it was also a handout to the powerful private prison industry, which stood to benefit financially by mass roundups of undocumented immigrants who would, of course, be held in prisons.

The successful recall of the right-wing, anti-immigrant icon Russell Pearce was a win for fairness, for civil liberties and for the dignified treatment of America’s immigrant communities. But it was also a triumph over corrupt corporate influence in government and a victory for Government By the People.

Wake County, North Carolina – public education and racial equality WIN

Last month, voters in Wake County, North Carolina decisively defeated four conservative school board candidates responsible for scrapping the district's lauded diversity policies. Yesterday, the final runoff election was decided by Wake County voters who handed victory, and majority control of the school board, to the Democrats.

The ousted board members had been backed by the Koch-funded Tea Party group Americans For Prosperity (AFP). This past summer, People For the American Way and PFAW's African American Ministers in Action (AAMIA) program joined with Brave New Foundation to cosponsor the release of their “Koch Brothers Exposed” video that told the story of AFP’s involvement in the school board election and the board’s effort to resegregate schools. I’m proud that we were able to help shine a light on the Right’s unconscionable attack on public education, racial equality and civil rights.

More Notable Results

The citizens of Missoula, Montana passed a resolution in support of amending the Constitution to end corporate personhood and undo the Supreme Court’s disastrous decision in Citizen's United v. FEC. The referendum was initiated by a City Councilwoman Cynthia Wolken, an active member of our affiliate PFAW Foundation’s Young Elected Official (YEO) Network.

In Kentucky, Democrats won four out of five statewide races with incumbent Democratic governor Steve Beshear winning in a landslide over his Republican challenger

In New Jersey, after two years on the losing side of confrontations with Gov. Chris Christie, Democrats seemed to turn the tide, fighting off well-funded Republican challenges and gaining one seat in the state Legislature.

And in Virginia, the GOP was expected to take majority control of the state Senate -- which they only needed two seats to do – but might have fallen just short. With a paper-thin margin of 86 votes in one race handing preliminary victory to the Republican, there will surely be a recall and Democrats are at least publicly optimistic.

There were more progressive victories in local races around the country, and some losses. For the most part, however, the losses were either very minor or very expected. Where the eyes of the nation was focused, and where progressives put energy and resources, we won across the board. This morning, as we look ahead to 2012, the Right should be very nervous.

Thank you for your ongoing support -- it makes all the difference, every time … and 2012 will be no exception.

North Carolina’s Senate today passed a measure to put an anti-marriage equality constitutional amendment on next year’s ballot. North Carolina is currently the only Southeast state that hasn’t amended its constitution to ban same-sex marriage, although it already has a statutory ban.

State anti-marriage amendments like North Carolina's are often put on the ballot to boost turnout for other elections – the Bush administration, for instance, was active in getting 11 anti-marriage amendments on state ballots in 2004.

What is remarkable about these amendments is that they change state constitutions to take away rights from citizens, while the traditional role of state and federal constitutions has been to guarantee rights for citizens, especially those who may not be popular among the majority.

It’s sad to see yet another state putting the rights of a minority at the mercy of a majority vote.

The recall process is finally over with, but the fight for middle class families continues.

This all started when Wisconsin's governor Walker and the Republican legislature tried to ram through extremist legislation ending or reversing 50 years of collective bargaining rights. This after never having campaigned on that platform in the 2010 elections.

14 courageous Democrats fled the state to prevent quorum in the State Senate, delaying a vote on the measure, but the Republicans forced it through anyway. Then came more pieces of ALEC-supported, right-wing legislation, like a vote-suppressing voter ID law.

All of this activated voters and we beat back the Right Wing with two resounding victories for the Democrats in both of today’s State Senate races. Bob Wirch defeated Republican Jonathan Steitz with 58% to 42%. In the 12th District, Holperin, who won with 54% to challenger Kim Simac's 46%.

I went door-to-door to help get out the vote with PFAW's Political Director Randy Borntrager. Enthusiasm was high, with most we spoke to having already voted. Having met the voters who are affected by Walker's policies, we've come to realize even more how important it was to send this message in these elections, to show Walker that Wisconsinites won't sit back and let Republicans threaten their children's future. More importantly, though, it reminded us that the road beyond the elections is the most crucial one. We are thrilled to have been involved in the recall elections, but the fight doesn't stop here. The fight only stops when extreme Republicans can no longer jeopardize Wisconsinites' – and ALL Americans’ – futures for the benefit of their friends at big corporations.

Two Wisconsin Democrats, Sens. Bob Wirch and Jim Holperin, are defending their seats tonight against Republican challengers. Holding these seats would put the Democrats just one vote away from a majority in the Senate – and provide an excellent position to hold the Republicans’ feet to the fire and push back against their extreme pro-corporate, anti-middle class agenda.

These elections are more than a referendum on specific legislators: it’s clear that Wisconsin voters, and Americans across the nation, are taking a stand against the priorities of Gov. Scott Walker and his ilk: slashing the right to pursue fair wages and benefits through collective bargaining, stacking the cards in our elections to disenfranchise minorities, students and the elderly, or cutting regulations to help big corporations reap even more profits while our environment, health and safety suffers.

Whatever the outcome, one thing is clear: the pro-corporate agenda won’t continue to get a free pass at the expense of working families any longer.

The political balance of power in Wisconsin was decided last night by just a few thousand votes. We were just two thousand votes from a political earthquake, but the fact remains that we gained ground, they lost it. Republicans held on to their majority -- barely -- by cashing in on their massive corporate support and the unlimited dollars which flowed from that support in the post-Citizens United era. But we changed the game and seized momentum heading into the next battles.

This David vs. Goliath fight, in which underdog progressives successfully took down two Goliaths and came incredibly close to defeating a third and taking back the State Senate, has inspired progressives across the country ... helped expose the corporate interests so intent on keeping right-wing officials in power ... and shown that if we can compete this closely in heavily Republican districts, we can definitely win statewide.

Thank you so much for your incredible energy, support and activism, all of which fueled our campaign and will be indispensible in the next part of the effort.

People For the American Way's Recall the Right the campaign, due to the overwhelming support and generosity of members like you:

• Distributed more than 89,000 direct mail pieces, 4,300 TV spots and 170,000 calls to persuadable voters,
   
• Engaged thousands of activists, and
   
• Aired final-week ads against right-wing Sen. Alberta Darling which undoubtedly contributed to the unexpected closeness of her race against Democrat Sandy Pasch.

The two progressive wins last night -- the successful recalls of Sens. Dan Kapanke and Randy Hopper -- were in two districts where PFAW was very active, with our final-week ad-buys in the Hopper race arguably making the difference that put Democratic Senator Elect Jessica King over the top. PFAW enthusiastically endorsed both Jessica King and Senator Elect Jennifer Schilling -- two strong progressive women who will be strong advocates for working families in the Wisconsin Senate.

I won't sugar coat it. It was extremely painful to come SO close to the "Grand Prize" of three wins, which would have flipped control of the Senate, and to fall slightly short.

But being demoralized and focusing on where we fell short gets us nowhere, while remaining energized and focusing on what we achieved will propel us into the next round of -- even more impressive -- victories.

• We have cause for optimism that the dynamic in the State Senate will be completely different and while Democrats won't have the majority, they will be able to stop much of the far-right agenda.
   
• We know that we are in better position than ever to recall Gov. Walker at the beginning of next year -- if we made this much of an impact in "red," Republican districts, our statewide campaign to recall Walker, in which we'll be able to turn out masses of voters in the most progressive-leaning cities and counties in Wisconsin, should have Republicans very nervous.
   
• Most urgent, this coming Tuesday, August 16, we need to defend our victories from last night by defending the two remaining Democratic incumbents who have been targeted by the Right Wing with their own recall efforts.

Two members of the heroic "Wisconsin 14" have been targeted by the Republicans and their corporate backers for recall, this Tuesday. These are the Democratic senators who pulled out all the stops, courageously left their state and made tremendous sacrifices trying to stop Gov. Walker's infamous union-busting plan. They fought hard for Wisconsin's working families and we have to fight hard for them. If right-wing Republicans are able to unseat even one of the two Democratic incumbents on Tuesday, they will have gone a long way in taking last night's victories away from us.

Protecting those Democratic incumbents is so important that PFAW will be sending staff to Wisconsin to help with the field campaign.

Right-wing pols, pundits and Fox News hosts are already trying to spin and distort the results as a victory for the Tea Party, Gov. Walker and the GOP on the whole, but that is utter nonsense. Progressives gained two senate seats and Republicans lost two, significantly weakening Walker's majority. Gov. Walker caught a glimpse of how vulnerable he will be to recall next year. And we must stay mindful that the "victory" the Right Wing is gloating about in the first place is one against working people -- teachers, firefighters, cops, nurses, snowplow drivers and the rest of the middle-class Wisconsinites who went head to head with America's greediest corporate interests in these recall elections.

Last night we won two historic victories by removing from office two right-wing Republican state senators who had been considered entrenched, safe in their seats, before they joined Gov. Scott Walker's assault on workers' rights and the middle class. That's what democracy looks like. And that's what accountability looks like.

Thanks again for everything you've done and continue to do in the Recall the Right campaign. It's not over until the polls close next Tuesday. We hope you'll help us seal up these important wins!

Tomorrow is the big day in the effort to Recall the Right in Wisconsin. Six right-wing Republican state senators who have supported Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-middle class agenda will be up for recall. If three are defeated and the two Democrats up for recall next week hold on to their seats, the balance of the Wisconsin Senate will switch…and the Tea Party will face a major wake-up call.

And it’s looking like it will be a nail-biter. A PPP poll for Daily Kos released today shows the three closest races too close to call.

PFAW is working with activists on the ground in Wisconsin to contact voters and get them to the polls. We’re also on the air in three districts:

PFAW’s Michael Keegan explained in the Huffington Post this weekend why the recall battle in Wisconsin matters for the whole country.

You can help PFAW’s efforts in Wisconsin here.

The Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision was quickly followed by warnings of the disastrous consequences of opening the floodgates for corporate spending in future elections, but few would have predicted something as bizarre as what was recently discovered in Delaware.

“Restoring Our Future,” a pro-Romney Super PAC, recently received a generous donation of $1 million from W Spann LLC. However, little is known about the firm that only operated in the state for a period of four months, including even the most basic information about its owners. And experts suggest that this arrangement may well be illegal.

“If they put money into the corporation specifically for the purpose of making a political donation that would constitute, in my view, illegally making a donation to avoid disclosure,” says Paul Ryan of the Campaign Legal Center.

While individuals can of course make contributions to PACs and other political organizations, there are disclosure laws in place to help voters and watchdogs understand where the money is coming from. But because the owners of this corporation don’t need to make their names public, Ryan and others suspect the mysterious firm, W Spann LLC, was set up in order to make a large contribution and avoid disclosing any information about the money’s origins.

Ryan’s group along with other watchdog organizations such as the Public Campaign Action Fund and Democracy are calling on Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden as well as officials from the Justice Department and FEC to look into this questionable conduct. But as we wait to see what happens next, it’s clear that this is yet one more of the many examples illustrating how destructive the Citizens United decision has been to our democracy.

With the important elections in 2012 a little more than a year away, it is incumbent on our elected officials to enact meaningful remedies to ensure the integrity of our elections is protected.

This one is particularly shameless:

Americans for Prosperity is sending absentee ballots to Democrats in at least two Wisconsin state Senate recall districts with instructions to return the paperwork after the election date.

The fliers, obtained by POLITICO, ask solidly Democratic voters to return ballots for the Aug. 9 election to the city clerk "before Aug. 11."

A Democrat on the ground in Wisconsin said the fliers were discovered to be hitting doors in District 2 and District 10 over the weekend.

"These are people who are our 1's in the voterfile who we already knew. They ain't AFP members, that's for damn sure," the source said.

If this is true, AFP will be only the latest right-wing organization to try to influence the outcome of Wisconsin’s recall elections by tricking the other side into not voting. But AFP is no unknown fringe group – backed by the influential and well-connected Koch brothers, the group spent millions of dollars last year running often-misleading ads in contentious congressional districts

AFP’s alleged absentee-ballot trick comes as the Wisconsin GOP is attempting to use statutory means to keep low-income people, youth and seniors from accessing the ballot. The state’s Republican legislature and governor have passed a Voter ID bill that will require voters to present government ID at the polls, setting up a hurdle for the 175,000 seniors and many students and low-income people who don’t have the proper documents. Gov. Scott Walker then moved to close DMV offices – where those without IDs could obtain them for a fee -- in several heavily-Democratic areas.

The Right likes to harp on the dangers of “voter fraud” – individuals going to great lengths to vote in the wrong districts, an exceptionally rare occurance. But the bigger problem has always been voter suppression, or systematically keeping large groups of people from accessing the ballot box. Rather than passing unnecessary Voter ID laws that keep traditionally disenfranchised people from voting, states would be better off making sure there are stringent laws against the kind of unethical and undemocratic behavior AFP is allegedly engaging in. Those who conspire to prevent Americans from exercising their constitutional right to vote should be held fully accountable.
 

• Less than two weeks out from election day, a new Daily Kos/PPP poll shows a path to victory for the Democrats: Clark is ahead of Olsen by two points, and Nusbaum and Pasch are more than holding their own against Cowles (SD 02) and Darling (SD 08). This is especially good news in SD 08, confirming a trend seen in a previous poll. It seems that the once-confident Darling is slipping: One Wisconsin Now told Greg Sargent that Club for Growth sank $400,000 right after the previous poll came out.
• Early voting has begun, and (thanks to Walker’s ID law) will end earlier than in previous elections, on the Friday before Election Day. If you live in a recall district, make sure you vote at your local municipal clerk’s office.
• In news from the Republican candidates, Kim Simac, running against Jim Holperin in SD 12, has some questionable comments in her past. Also, Randy Hopper is in yet more hot water over his mistress’ lobbying gig.  
• Fred Clark faced Luther Olsen in a debate in Portage last night, with further debates scheduled tonight and tomorrow. There’s a short clip at that link.
• More for the unfortunately large file of voter disenfranchisement news in Wisconsin: Gov. Walker is planning on closing ten DMVs around the state, making it even more difficult for voters to obtain the photo ID needed to vote, although the DMV says the decision isn’t final yet. Currently, fewer than half the counties in Wisconsin meet the requirement that photo ID services be available for 20 hours a week. This video from We Party shows how difficult it can be to obtain a photo ID even when DMVs are open. At least one Democrat says the Governor is targeting DMVs in Democratic areas for closure; a Department of Transport official counters that “the changes were based on economics, not politics.” Even if this is true, if an office needs to be open to enable citizens to exercise their democratic rights, nothing should interfere with that- not political parties, not economics and certainly not the right-wing agenda of a Governor who puts ideology (and the wishes of his friends at ALEC) before the needs of Wisconsinites. Seriously, is there anything less American than interfering with people’s right to vote?
• Controversy surrounding the redistricting law continues. After the Senate approved the maps last week, Walker has signed a bill allowing the legislature to circumvent a law requiring them to wait until local governments have submitted their own maps. Criticism of the maps continues to mount, with even Alberta Darling distancing herself from the bill and recognizing that the courts may have to solve this one -- even though she voted for it. It might help if in future she didn’t vote for bills she thought could be unconstitutional, but that’s a small quibble.
• State Senate Republicans are finally moving on a bill to extend jobless benefits, although they are insisting on one more jab at the unemployed, making sure to include a one-week delay for benefits. Good work, Republicans, that’ll show ‘em. If their ideology makes them disapprove of unemployment benefits in principle, that’s one thing, but no one could reasonably say a one-week delay was going to motivate people to find work (as if that was the reason people are unemployed in this economy). It’s just a gratuitous kick in the teeth from the party that doesn’t care about the struggles of ordinary Americans.