From reader James Shelton: One of the main things we do at 31st Street Swing Left is canvassing. Canvassing is a major comparative advantage of Democrats, but in my view we do not nearly make as much of it as we should. One of the biggest issues is that training, such as it is, is generally highly deficient. Optimal training should have a number of components, but surprisingly, there are just no good overall training videos out there that we can find at least. So we have developed our own in conjunction with a sister organization in PA, called Turn PA Blue. Here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8SzuTKD8BA
Thank you Robert, for once again calling our attention to important information and prompting us to action. Following is an email I sent to my senator, Susan Collins, that was prompted by your newsletter this morning. I will also be sharing this letter with our two statewide papers, the Bangor Daily News and the Portland Press Herald.
Dear Senator Collins:
I am a Maine voter who often disagrees with your actions in Congress. However, your efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act have my complete support. I am writing only to ask that you seriously consider one crucial improvement to your draft legislation to close a loophole that, if left open, could become the cause of considerable electoral mischief in the 2024 election and beyond.
For your consideration I extract from “The Big, Bipartisan Bill to Prevent Another Jan. 6 Has One Potentially Fatal Flaw” (published yesterday in Slate by Laurence Tribe, Dennis Aftergut, and Erwin Chemerinsky) what I believe is its core finding and recommendation for improvement:
“ Sen. Angus King of Maine asked (in a Senate Rules Committee hearing) a question putting his finger on it, but the responses were unsatisfactory. King inquired about a fringe legal theory that the Supreme Court will be considering in a case to be argued this fall. King expressed concern about the “independent state legislature theory” that the reactionary court majority may adopt. He asked whether it might undercut what the ECRA seeks to achieve.
Under an extreme version of this theory, state legislatures can purportedly decide whatever they want in presidential elections, without court review or concern for the majority vote, even after the ballots have been cast.
(Congress has the constitutional authority to) state explicitly (in the ECRA) that no device enacted by any state legislature may override the way the state’s people have decided to designate the candidate of their choice. For good measure, Congress could state that the Constitution’s provision guaranteeing a “republican form of government” would be violated by conducting an election and then disregarding votes cast in that election based on alleged fraud in the absence of proof established in a court of law.”
I hope and trust that you and Senator Manchin will take steps to close this loophole before irreparable harm can be done by those intent on using the levers of government to undo our democracy.
First, another word of gratitude for your constant encouragement of your readers to remain hopeful as well as viligent, well-informed, and energetic, in our efforts to preserve the democratic, republican, form of government we are privileged to enjoy and which is and has been under intense threat from Republican Party leaders and their “dark money” supporters. I agree with you that recent events seem to prove that Reason, Justice and Honesty may be returning in fashion in the governance realms where they have been missing or in short supply for too long.
I also want to emphasize the importance and necessity of our persistently and collectively engaging in “all of the above” activities - and more too - to accomplish the goals we seek to achieve. Not all of us can canvass, or write post cards or contribute to political candidates, or engage in the other specific activities that “support the cause” that you are so good at reminding us to support or engage in; but all of us, every one of us, can do something important to support the cause - talk to a spouse, or friend or adult/teenage child, or other family member about matters of consequence, including politics and religion, plant a yard sign that supports the cause. Respectfully letting others know where we stand - and why - and listening to the stories of those with whom we can seriously engage - are activities each of us, all of us, can do, no matter our age, health or economic circumstance. We need to be and act like good citizens, and we don’t need to be political experts or scholars or historians or even “activists” in order to function and think as good citizens can and should!
Republicans have two reasons to be nervous about the inflation reduction act. Firstly, it does not benefit their billionaire pay-masters explicitly as Trump's tax cut did. Secondly, it shows that congress can actually get stuff done that benefits the common man/woman. The Rs never focused on the second, never cared.
You're "Friday brought a strong jobs report as gas prices began to fall (to the shock and dismay of the entertainers on the Fox “news” channel)" is right. But I think Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham and the Murdochs are much worse than entertainers. They are not too far from traitors in their efforts to so discord and promote sedition and to provide aid and comfort to the billionaire class who are few in number but vast in influence.
Is it possible to ask for a thorough vetting of Brett Kavanaugh, since Trump’s White House made sure that this objectionable nominee made it through the process without having the FBI check the 4500 tips about what this man may have done???? Talk about a rigged system. If someone if selected on an erroneous basis, then in my opinion, that selection no longer is valid. We are not surprised at anything the Trump years did to us, but shocked that it gets to stand now that we know better. We knew front the get-go that Trump tried to intimidate Zelensky to find dirt on Biden, and finally, the 1/6 Committee is bringing to light exactly who Trump is and all the ways he has scammed the American people. My prayer is that he will be brought to justice. Likewise, Kavanaugh should be brought to justice. And, for good measure, let’s review Clarence Thomas’ case with Anita Hills, another egregious injustice we watched before our very eyes. Someone tell me again why this Extreme Court isn’t illegitimate???
Robert, I greatly benefitted from reading the piece in Slate discussing the proposed bipartisan ECA reforms. Thank you for providing it. Perhaps, most importantly, despite machinations we can expect at the local and state levels, I now understand the urgency of repairing the ECA before this Congress ends. Additionally, I benefitted from the piece’s comprehensive consideration of the Independent State Legislature legal theory.
As I understand, the fringe ISL legal theory, that has advanced to the Supreme Court, argues, that because the Constitution says that state legislatures redistrict or set the time, place, and manner of elections, that it means only the legislature has to be power to determine how Congressional elections are conducted (thus also impacting how Presidential electors are chosen) without any checks and balances from state constitutions or state courts, or perhaps even from a governor’s veto.
This past July, when I expressed concern regarding the High Court granting state legislatures this superpower where no one could check what they did, you explained that ISL “does not assert that the legislatures are above the US Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection [and] due process…”. Still, I worry about a High Court that would ignore 50 years of settled precedent in Roe, and would overturn a fundamental right relied upon by tens of millions every year. Clearly, a court willing to do that with a protection, over and over again reaffirmed, would do it to another fundamental protection.
As for the piece’s point about legislatures being subject to regulations of Congress, while, admittedly, state legislatures are not exempt from federal regulations, as we recently saw with the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, enforcing federal regulations requires either reaching the Senate’s 60-vote threshold or modifying the Senate’s filibuster rule to allow for debate and an up or down majority vote.
The foregoing concerns notwithstanding, I now genuinely appreciate the urgency of repairing the ECA before this Congress ends and also fully relate to the concerns of the piece’s authors that we not hold the good hostage to the perfect. Still, I would submit it would be a mistake were the public to be misled into believing that passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act, though necessary, sufficiently provides the requisite voter protections to safeguard our democracy.
Having canvassed over the decades, I encourage folks to do it. It takes a while and many doors are not answered but I remember one fellow in Maine. He was fixing his roof when I appeared to chat, so we talked from roof to front walk. He was so pleased that I had come "all the way out here" (rural Maine) that he promised to register to vote and to vote for Jared Golden, so now all new England Congress members are Democrats. He liked that Jared was a Vet. Maybe he actually did. But i know I did my best, and i remember him.
With respect to abortion and women’s rights to decide about their reproductive health: How does the U.S. determine fertilization, conception, and birth, and define when life begins? One bit of evidence is one of the requirements to be a candidate for President, namely one must be a U.S. citizen from birth. Clearly birth is when one leaves the womb /birth mother, not fertilization, 6 weeks, viability, or other time earlier. The vaunted concept of separation of church and state has gotten badly disregarded and disrespected in the Dobbs decision.
In 3 months or so I have moved from hope against hope to guarded optimism for midterms. The tide appears to be turning for the Biden administration on the domestic side; dare I extend my transformation to unguarded enthusiasm?
Reporting and focus has been mostly on results. We need to focus more on preparation. More than 33,000 people in Kansas registered to vote between April and the mid-July deadline. Registrations I believe were up close to 1,000% over averages. (Needs verification.) Still searching for that exact number.
Data indicate most of those registrations came after the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in late June — and 70% of those new voters were women, according to an analysis by TargetSmart, a nonpartisan political data organization.
Unofficial numbers suggest turnout for the capital city area is sitting close to 54.8%. The state primary record is 49.7%. Republicans crossed over to vote on the issue because only somewhere around 25% of the state electorate is Democrat. (Needs verification.) I saw the crossover number but it escapes me at the moment. I want to say 70,000. (Needs verification.)
These numbers are so telling. Clearly abortion is the platform that is driving this swell. It is swell. Nothing else has “moved markets” like this.
Yesterday, Robert quoted the Heritage Foundation from a 1920 piece stating the following:
"America is threatened by an egalitarianism that undermines the social, familial, religious, and economic distinctions and inequalities that undergird our political liberty."
He repeated it a couple of times and asked us to reflect on the assertion that our fundamental political liberty stands on a foundation of inequality. Where does this come from? How can the Republican Party openly assert such fundamentally evil doctrine? Of course, there are many reasons and many sources, but later in the day yesterday I came across a very good explanation in a Ted Talk posted on YouTube. It is well worth your time (18 minutes) to watch. Here you go. It tells all.
Lucian Truscott posted this and I am sharing it with you.
“ the Kansas referendum that made me remember that night in the Lion’s Head and my years and years of not suffering fools gladly, because that’s exactly what the voters of Kansas did on Tuesday – they listened to each other and came together at least on the issue of abortion, 59 percent of them did, anyway, agreeing across party lines and gender and the chasm of the culture wars that women have the basic right of what the Kansas Supreme Court had called “autonomy” over their lives, and that included their bodies.
They found something they agreed on, and they meant it. Coverage on election day described lines of voters that went out of polling places onto the street and around corners in 100-degree heat. The last voter in one precinct in a small town in central Kansas cast her vote at 9:30 at night, more than two hours after the polls closed.
We need to gather voters from all parties and all agree on how we want government to work for all of us.
My wife, Amy MacDonald, who shares my subscription asked me to post the following:
I started my own, very partisan voter registration drive in Southern Maine, devoted to signing up new Democratic voters. I wrote to the Secretary of State, got 1,000 blank cards, and trained a team of volunteers. There are now about 20 of us. We attend Pride Parades, Farmer's Markets, concerts, First Friday events, and the colleges located in the Portland area. We've added about 90 new Democratic voters to the rolls so far, and expect much bigger numbers when college starts at the end of this month. I was trained by Field Team 6 in 2020, but decided to do this on my own this summer, as one concrete thing I could do to help Maine stay Blue (the Gov race is going to be very tight, as is CD2 House race).
I’m hoping that Democratic campaign strategists will use the video footage of the so called preacher that menaced a Beto O’Rourke campaign event, previewing exactly what cristo- fascism will look like if they gain control of the national government. Some straight outta Iran stuff. The ad guys could do a “Beto has a man card the size of Texas” campaign; or highlight the insane creepiness of the “great men products of rape” the christo-terrorist is spewing. https://youtu.be/Td4N3e3YMis
From reader James Shelton: One of the main things we do at 31st Street Swing Left is canvassing. Canvassing is a major comparative advantage of Democrats, but in my view we do not nearly make as much of it as we should. One of the biggest issues is that training, such as it is, is generally highly deficient. Optimal training should have a number of components, but surprisingly, there are just no good overall training videos out there that we can find at least. So we have developed our own in conjunction with a sister organization in PA, called Turn PA Blue. Here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8SzuTKD8BA
Thank you Robert, for once again calling our attention to important information and prompting us to action. Following is an email I sent to my senator, Susan Collins, that was prompted by your newsletter this morning. I will also be sharing this letter with our two statewide papers, the Bangor Daily News and the Portland Press Herald.
Dear Senator Collins:
I am a Maine voter who often disagrees with your actions in Congress. However, your efforts to reform the Electoral Count Act have my complete support. I am writing only to ask that you seriously consider one crucial improvement to your draft legislation to close a loophole that, if left open, could become the cause of considerable electoral mischief in the 2024 election and beyond.
For your consideration I extract from “The Big, Bipartisan Bill to Prevent Another Jan. 6 Has One Potentially Fatal Flaw” (published yesterday in Slate by Laurence Tribe, Dennis Aftergut, and Erwin Chemerinsky) what I believe is its core finding and recommendation for improvement:
“ Sen. Angus King of Maine asked (in a Senate Rules Committee hearing) a question putting his finger on it, but the responses were unsatisfactory. King inquired about a fringe legal theory that the Supreme Court will be considering in a case to be argued this fall. King expressed concern about the “independent state legislature theory” that the reactionary court majority may adopt. He asked whether it might undercut what the ECRA seeks to achieve.
Under an extreme version of this theory, state legislatures can purportedly decide whatever they want in presidential elections, without court review or concern for the majority vote, even after the ballots have been cast.
(Congress has the constitutional authority to) state explicitly (in the ECRA) that no device enacted by any state legislature may override the way the state’s people have decided to designate the candidate of their choice. For good measure, Congress could state that the Constitution’s provision guaranteeing a “republican form of government” would be violated by conducting an election and then disregarding votes cast in that election based on alleged fraud in the absence of proof established in a court of law.”
I hope and trust that you and Senator Manchin will take steps to close this loophole before irreparable harm can be done by those intent on using the levers of government to undo our democracy.
Thank you sincerely for you consideration,
Michael McMillen
Harborside, ME 04642
First, another word of gratitude for your constant encouragement of your readers to remain hopeful as well as viligent, well-informed, and energetic, in our efforts to preserve the democratic, republican, form of government we are privileged to enjoy and which is and has been under intense threat from Republican Party leaders and their “dark money” supporters. I agree with you that recent events seem to prove that Reason, Justice and Honesty may be returning in fashion in the governance realms where they have been missing or in short supply for too long.
I also want to emphasize the importance and necessity of our persistently and collectively engaging in “all of the above” activities - and more too - to accomplish the goals we seek to achieve. Not all of us can canvass, or write post cards or contribute to political candidates, or engage in the other specific activities that “support the cause” that you are so good at reminding us to support or engage in; but all of us, every one of us, can do something important to support the cause - talk to a spouse, or friend or adult/teenage child, or other family member about matters of consequence, including politics and religion, plant a yard sign that supports the cause. Respectfully letting others know where we stand - and why - and listening to the stories of those with whom we can seriously engage - are activities each of us, all of us, can do, no matter our age, health or economic circumstance. We need to be and act like good citizens, and we don’t need to be political experts or scholars or historians or even “activists” in order to function and think as good citizens can and should!
Republicans have two reasons to be nervous about the inflation reduction act. Firstly, it does not benefit their billionaire pay-masters explicitly as Trump's tax cut did. Secondly, it shows that congress can actually get stuff done that benefits the common man/woman. The Rs never focused on the second, never cared.
You're "Friday brought a strong jobs report as gas prices began to fall (to the shock and dismay of the entertainers on the Fox “news” channel)" is right. But I think Hannity, Carlson, Ingraham and the Murdochs are much worse than entertainers. They are not too far from traitors in their efforts to so discord and promote sedition and to provide aid and comfort to the billionaire class who are few in number but vast in influence.
Is it possible to ask for a thorough vetting of Brett Kavanaugh, since Trump’s White House made sure that this objectionable nominee made it through the process without having the FBI check the 4500 tips about what this man may have done???? Talk about a rigged system. If someone if selected on an erroneous basis, then in my opinion, that selection no longer is valid. We are not surprised at anything the Trump years did to us, but shocked that it gets to stand now that we know better. We knew front the get-go that Trump tried to intimidate Zelensky to find dirt on Biden, and finally, the 1/6 Committee is bringing to light exactly who Trump is and all the ways he has scammed the American people. My prayer is that he will be brought to justice. Likewise, Kavanaugh should be brought to justice. And, for good measure, let’s review Clarence Thomas’ case with Anita Hills, another egregious injustice we watched before our very eyes. Someone tell me again why this Extreme Court isn’t illegitimate???
Robert, I greatly benefitted from reading the piece in Slate discussing the proposed bipartisan ECA reforms. Thank you for providing it. Perhaps, most importantly, despite machinations we can expect at the local and state levels, I now understand the urgency of repairing the ECA before this Congress ends. Additionally, I benefitted from the piece’s comprehensive consideration of the Independent State Legislature legal theory.
As I understand, the fringe ISL legal theory, that has advanced to the Supreme Court, argues, that because the Constitution says that state legislatures redistrict or set the time, place, and manner of elections, that it means only the legislature has to be power to determine how Congressional elections are conducted (thus also impacting how Presidential electors are chosen) without any checks and balances from state constitutions or state courts, or perhaps even from a governor’s veto.
This past July, when I expressed concern regarding the High Court granting state legislatures this superpower where no one could check what they did, you explained that ISL “does not assert that the legislatures are above the US Constitution’s guarantees of equal protection [and] due process…”. Still, I worry about a High Court that would ignore 50 years of settled precedent in Roe, and would overturn a fundamental right relied upon by tens of millions every year. Clearly, a court willing to do that with a protection, over and over again reaffirmed, would do it to another fundamental protection.
As for the piece’s point about legislatures being subject to regulations of Congress, while, admittedly, state legislatures are not exempt from federal regulations, as we recently saw with the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act, enforcing federal regulations requires either reaching the Senate’s 60-vote threshold or modifying the Senate’s filibuster rule to allow for debate and an up or down majority vote.
The foregoing concerns notwithstanding, I now genuinely appreciate the urgency of repairing the ECA before this Congress ends and also fully relate to the concerns of the piece’s authors that we not hold the good hostage to the perfect. Still, I would submit it would be a mistake were the public to be misled into believing that passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act, though necessary, sufficiently provides the requisite voter protections to safeguard our democracy.
Having canvassed over the decades, I encourage folks to do it. It takes a while and many doors are not answered but I remember one fellow in Maine. He was fixing his roof when I appeared to chat, so we talked from roof to front walk. He was so pleased that I had come "all the way out here" (rural Maine) that he promised to register to vote and to vote for Jared Golden, so now all new England Congress members are Democrats. He liked that Jared was a Vet. Maybe he actually did. But i know I did my best, and i remember him.
With respect to abortion and women’s rights to decide about their reproductive health: How does the U.S. determine fertilization, conception, and birth, and define when life begins? One bit of evidence is one of the requirements to be a candidate for President, namely one must be a U.S. citizen from birth. Clearly birth is when one leaves the womb /birth mother, not fertilization, 6 weeks, viability, or other time earlier. The vaunted concept of separation of church and state has gotten badly disregarded and disrespected in the Dobbs decision.
In 3 months or so I have moved from hope against hope to guarded optimism for midterms. The tide appears to be turning for the Biden administration on the domestic side; dare I extend my transformation to unguarded enthusiasm?
The Democrats have had some good successes. Let’s make sure everyone hears about them!
Reporting and focus has been mostly on results. We need to focus more on preparation. More than 33,000 people in Kansas registered to vote between April and the mid-July deadline. Registrations I believe were up close to 1,000% over averages. (Needs verification.) Still searching for that exact number.
Data indicate most of those registrations came after the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in late June — and 70% of those new voters were women, according to an analysis by TargetSmart, a nonpartisan political data organization.
Unofficial numbers suggest turnout for the capital city area is sitting close to 54.8%. The state primary record is 49.7%. Republicans crossed over to vote on the issue because only somewhere around 25% of the state electorate is Democrat. (Needs verification.) I saw the crossover number but it escapes me at the moment. I want to say 70,000. (Needs verification.)
These numbers are so telling. Clearly abortion is the platform that is driving this swell. It is swell. Nothing else has “moved markets” like this.
Yesterday, Robert quoted the Heritage Foundation from a 1920 piece stating the following:
"America is threatened by an egalitarianism that undermines the social, familial, religious, and economic distinctions and inequalities that undergird our political liberty."
He repeated it a couple of times and asked us to reflect on the assertion that our fundamental political liberty stands on a foundation of inequality. Where does this come from? How can the Republican Party openly assert such fundamentally evil doctrine? Of course, there are many reasons and many sources, but later in the day yesterday I came across a very good explanation in a Ted Talk posted on YouTube. It is well worth your time (18 minutes) to watch. Here you go. It tells all.
https://youtu.be/oIZDtqWX6Fk The Lie that Invented Racism
Lucian Truscott posted this and I am sharing it with you.
“ the Kansas referendum that made me remember that night in the Lion’s Head and my years and years of not suffering fools gladly, because that’s exactly what the voters of Kansas did on Tuesday – they listened to each other and came together at least on the issue of abortion, 59 percent of them did, anyway, agreeing across party lines and gender and the chasm of the culture wars that women have the basic right of what the Kansas Supreme Court had called “autonomy” over their lives, and that included their bodies.
They found something they agreed on, and they meant it. Coverage on election day described lines of voters that went out of polling places onto the street and around corners in 100-degree heat. The last voter in one precinct in a small town in central Kansas cast her vote at 9:30 at night, more than two hours after the polls closed.
We need to gather voters from all parties and all agree on how we want government to work for all of us.
My wife, Amy MacDonald, who shares my subscription asked me to post the following:
I started my own, very partisan voter registration drive in Southern Maine, devoted to signing up new Democratic voters. I wrote to the Secretary of State, got 1,000 blank cards, and trained a team of volunteers. There are now about 20 of us. We attend Pride Parades, Farmer's Markets, concerts, First Friday events, and the colleges located in the Portland area. We've added about 90 new Democratic voters to the rolls so far, and expect much bigger numbers when college starts at the end of this month. I was trained by Field Team 6 in 2020, but decided to do this on my own this summer, as one concrete thing I could do to help Maine stay Blue (the Gov race is going to be very tight, as is CD2 House race).
I’m hoping that Democratic campaign strategists will use the video footage of the so called preacher that menaced a Beto O’Rourke campaign event, previewing exactly what cristo- fascism will look like if they gain control of the national government. Some straight outta Iran stuff. The ad guys could do a “Beto has a man card the size of Texas” campaign; or highlight the insane creepiness of the “great men products of rape” the christo-terrorist is spewing. https://youtu.be/Td4N3e3YMis