Reclaim Democracy!

Elon Musk Targets Federal Civil Servants, Inciting Threats of Violence Against Them*

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By Jim Carlton and Rebecca Ballhaus, Wall Street Journal, Nov 23, 2024 

*Wall Street Journal’s original title: Federal Workers Feel Ire of Musk’s Followers — New efficiency czar targets employees by name on X, sparking pushback 

As co-director of President-elect Donald Trump’s nascent Department of Government Efficiency, Elon Musk has wasted no time posting to his 205 million followers on X about specific government departments he views as bloated.

But this past week, Musk has escalated from targeting government agencies to singling out individuals — sparking his online army of followers to launch blistering critiques of ordinary federal employees.

One recent post by the billionaire zeroed in on Ashley Thomas, a little-known director of climate diversification at the U.S. International Development Finance Corp., after another user on Musk’s social-media platform X questioned her role.

Musk’s repost — “So many fake jobs” — garnered 32 million views, triggering an avalanche of memes and ridicule from his followers against the employee, such as, “Sorry Ashley Thomas Gravy Train is Over.”

Trump has tapped Musk and biotech-company founder Vivek Ramaswamy to spearhead DOGE — sharing its name with a Musk-promoted cryptocurrency — to slash spending, regulations and restructure federal agencies.

In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece, the two men envisioned “mass head-count reductions” across the federal bureaucracy. On Wednesday, Musk shared on X a past TV interview with Milton Friedman in which the economist recommended the elimination of a number of federal agencies, including the departments of education, commerce, agriculture and housing and urban development. “Milton Friedman was the best,” Musk said in apparent agreement.

Ramaswamy has offered an unusually blunt — and likely impossible to implement — strategy for how to slash the federal workforce: firing those whose Social Security numbers start or end with odd numbers. “Boom. That’s a 75 percent reduction done,” he said on a podcast interview this fall.

Both men have since called out numerous instances of alleged government waste on X, soliciting public recommendations for budget cuts.

This past week, Musk resumed his controversial practice of calling out individuals — a tactic going back to X’s previous incarnation as Twitter.

In 2021, Musk took aim at Mary “Missy” Cummings, a Duke University engineering professor who was appointed to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration as a top adviser, and who had been critical of Tesla’s advanced driver-assistance system.

After taking over Twitter in 2022, Musk targeted Yoel Roth, the platform’s former head of trust and safety, who had recently left. Musk tweeted, incorrectly, that it looked like Roth had argued “in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services.” Some users interpreted it as Musk calling Roth a pedophile, and they posted calls for Roth’s death. Roth moved out of his house temporarily because of threats.

Musk’s targets this past week included Alexis Pelosi, California Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s relative and a senior climate adviser at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But that post also included the names of two obscure federal officials with climate-related jobs — including one who had actually left her job at the Energy Department in August.

“These tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 800,000 of the 2.3 million civilian federal employees. “It’s intended to make them fearful that they will become afraid to speak up.”

Kelley said Musk is going after the wrong target if he focuses only on federal employees. Kelley said far more is spent by federal contractors such as himself — $750 billion annually compared with about $200 billion for the civilian workforce, one third of which are veterans as he is.

“We are a comparative steal, and we want to help clean it up, too,” said Kelley, a former Army sergeant. “The people I represent have been called names like deep state, but they are working people just like you and I.”

The 37-year-old Thomas, the target of Musk’s viral repost, works for a federal agency that partners with private companies to finance ways to improve living standards in developing countries.

With engineering, business and water science degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Oxford, Thomas spent years doing field work in Africa and writing research papers such as one on a technology that can help extract water from air in arid countries, according to her past tweets.

Thomas went to work as the agency’s director of climate diversification in 2023, when federal records show she earned $172,075 a year.

An agency official said the climate diversification portfolio is highly technical and is focused on identifying innovations that serve U.S. strategic interests, including bolstering agriculture and infrastructure against extreme weather.

How does a routine federal employee come to the attention of multibillionaire Musk?

The controversy erupted when “datahazard,” an X user whose anti-Biden posts have drawn Musk’s attention, questioned Thomas’s job to nearly 170,000 followers.

Musk’s repost sparked a slew of taunts, with followers making jeers such as, “A tough way for Ashley Thomas to find out she’s losing her job.”

Michael Skolnik, a longtime civil rights activist, was among those who fired back at the post. “You have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and dangerously targeting a person who works an honest job to provide for their family.”

Neither Musk nor his representatives responded to requests for comment.

A representative of the “datahazard” X account, who didn’t give a name, said it was legitimate to give names of employees like Thomas because she is on a list of senior officials who are public figures. “Taxpayers have a fundamental right to know who runs our government,” the person said via direct message on X.

LinkedIn and Facebook pages for Thomas were no longer live as of Wednesday.

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Expanding Access: How States Are Protecting Voting Rights

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October, 2024
By Luisana Rodriguez

While using false claims about voter fraud to undermine public confidence in elections, Republican state legislators have often succeeded in creating new obstacles for Americans to cast ballots. This year, voters in 29 states will face at least 63 restrictive voting laws newly enacted since 2020.

Yet, despite the understandable attention on these attacks, we also see citizens and legislators working successfully to proactively expand voting access and broaden participation. In September, Michigan’s state senate passed a Voting Rights Act that includes same-day voter registration, increased early voting, and expanded voting-by-mail options. The bill awaits action in the state House of Representatives, where Democrats hold a single-seat majority.

Earlier this year, Minnesota enacted its own multi-faceted VRA to strengthen voter protection, signed into law by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Democratic Party nominee for Vice-president. The Minnesota Rights Act protects ballot access for all residents and specifically aims to protect communities of color and other historically disenfranchised groups. 

Additionally, New York, Virginia, California, Oregon, Connecticut, Washington D.C., and Illinois, all recently expanded voter access or protection. A recent report from the Brennan Center for Justice notes these positive steps:

  • Virginia: Amplified access to drop boxes and absentee voting for individuals with visual impairments and eligible citizens in jail. New laws allow people with disabilities to vote outside polling places and broaden the criteria for disability eligibility.
  • California: For the upcoming elections, California will place drop boxes on state college campuses to encourage student participation.
  • Oregon: New requirements mandate translations of voting materials into more languages, ensuring that non-English speakers can access important voting information and understand the process better.
  • Connecticut: By offering an extended early voting period, Connecticut aims to improve voter participation and reduce long lines and wait times on Election Day.
  • Washington: A new law automatically restores voting rights to individuals with past convictions, even if they are still on parole, allowing more people to participate in the democratic system.
  • Illinois: The state has expanded vote-by-mail options to make it easier for residents to cast their ballots from home. Polling place hours have been extended, local jurisdictions can now set up polling places in jails, and central polling locations have been created in each county for added convenience.

Of course, no one should be deprived of voting rights because of the state they reside in, so passing nationwide protections like The Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA) and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) remains crucial. Throughout U.S. history, underrepresented communities faced tactics designed to repress their voting power, which accelerated since the Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling, which drastically weakened the Voting Rights Acts (1965) and enabled new state restrictions. Lawmakers passed onerous voter ID laws, voter roll purges, cuts to early voting, and other laws that impede voting and disproportionately affect marginalized groups. 

Color-coded map of U.S. states grouped by ease of voting and participating in elections

See details on how your state ranks for voting accessibility and what can be improved from the Movement Advancement Project, the source of the map above.

As a Venezuelan immigrant, I cannot vote, but I’m invested in the state of our democracy, especially when it comes to the rights of people of color. I consider protecting the rights of eligible BIPOC voters critical since they are not only voting for their own futures but also for the future of their communities, including those of us who don’t cast a ballot. It’s a shared responsibility that highlights the power of collective advocacy in a democracy.

The strength of this democracy relies on today’s actions—because protecting votes creates a fairer system, where decisions reflect the needs of the diverse populations living within our borders. In Venezuela, the regime of acting President Nicolás Maduro made it almost impossible for citizens living abroad to vote in the 2024 presidential election because most of them opposed his government, one that the United Nations accuses of crimes against humanity. 

Despite these barriers, the opposition candidate, Edmundo González, won by a margin of more than two to one. This achievement came from the hard work of dedicated individuals who ensured the ballots were counted and refused to let democracy die, even when the National Electoral Council failed to publish these results and ignored the mandatory transparency required in Venezuelan elections. While Maduro’s regime refuses to give up power, causing social and political conflicts that tear our people apart, the movement led by María Corina Machado continues to work every day to ensure our voices are heard, both at the ballot box and in the streets.

Here in the United States, people are taking crucial steps toward building a more inclusive democracy, where every individual—regardless of background—has a voice. As laws evolve and new challenges emerge, citizens must remain informed, engaged, and proactive in advocating for fair and accessible elections. While it’s now clear no federal voting rights legislation can pass unless a pro-democracy House of Representatives majority emerges from the November elections, we can encourage others in our community to vote, and share news of other state-level successes to remind people that when we work together, we can protect and strengthen our most fundamental rights.

Luisana Rodriguez is a freelance bilingual writer and the co-founder of an affinity group for Latinas in Vermont. She earned her BS in Psychology from Universidad Arturo Michelena in her home country of Venezuela. Luisana has contributed to Business Insider, Reader’s Digest UK, Her Agenda, Latino Leaders Magazine, and Mitú Magazine, among others. Currently, she works in advertising and marketing in Vermont and will soon begin further studies at Champlain College. 

Appreciating Recent Victories for Citizens and Consumers Against Corporations

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May 2024

Amid much horrific news this month, some major victories for citizens over corporate power have received little attention. Among the recent victories delivered by federal civil service agencies:

Non-compete Agreements
Lina Khan, President Biden’s selection to chair the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), has emerged as a civil service superhero, and it’s been delightful to follow the reactions of corporate mouthpieces to Khan fulfilling her role as an advocate for the public. In April, the FTC voted to ban non-competition contracts (“non-competes”) that corporations often impose on employees that prevent them from leaving to work for any competitor. 

While such agreements may be legitimate in rare instances involving intellectual property issues, the practice has been wildly abused and applied to positions like fast-food service, where no legitimate purpose is served. Some 30 million U.S. workers today are trapped by such involuntary “contracts,” leading to:

  • Limiting entrepreneurship (workers often are banned from starting a business that overlaps in any way with their previous job).
  • Suppressing wages. If workers are not free to work where they choose, corporations gain power, including power over compensation. “Non-competes” restrict workers’ ability to find new employment opportunities within a given field.
  • “Job Lock.” Noncompete clauses make it tougher for workers to advance their careers by limiting job mobility within their field. 

The Biden Administration claims the non-compete ban will raise wages by $400 billion over the next decade once the ban takes effect in August. Corporate advocates like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have filed lawsuits to try stopping the rule from taking effect.

Credit Card Fees

In March, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) finalized a rule limiting the penalty credit card corporations may impose for a single late payment to $8 (current averaging $32, exclusive of interest fees). It will take effect by late May, barring any successful legal challenge. 

The CFPB says late fees cost U.S. residents more than $14 billion a year and that 45 million Americans charged late fees will see an average savings of $220 a year.

The fee cap is part of the Biden administration’s campaign against “junk fees,” including air travel, event tickets and airline fees, which the FTC defines as “unnecessary, unavoidable or surprise charges that inflate costs while adding little to no value.“ The credit card fee cap also is under legal attack from financial corporations and their lobbying groups.

Blocking Anti-competitive Mergers

The FTC is joined by the Department of Justice in increasing vigilance over corporate mergers and acquisitions that would harm competition, small businesses, and consumers. A lawsuit by the DOJ succeeded in stopping the merger of JetBlue and Spirit Airlines, which would have reduced or eliminated competition on many travel routes.

Most recently (January 2024), the FTC sued to block a major hospital acquisition by Novant Health Corporation. The FTC said the merger would raise healthcare costs for patients and could likely harm quality of care.

While these wins have not fundamentally altered the power imbalance between citizens and corporations, they represent a sharp reversal from the last several presidential administrations. Let’s thank and encourage the people responsible for these actions while continuing to push for the  longer-term structural changes we’re working to achieve.

Key 2024 Supreme Court Cases — environment and democracy: Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo

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Will a majority of Justices overturn a 40-year-old precedent to grab more power for itself and for corporations?

March 2024

On the surface Loper Bright is a dispute about fishing corporations challenging the power of the National Marine Fisheries Service to require them to pay the cost of observers who monitor companies’ compliance with federal fishery rules. But this seemingly narrow legal question actually could yield widely destructive consequences because the justices have opted to re-examine a 40-year-old precedent the court established in Chevron Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. 

That precedent, widely known as the Chevron Doctrine, says state courts should defer to federal agencies’ interpretation of a law when the language is ambiguous or leaves discretion regarding implementation.

Chevron effectively says the civil servants with expertise in their field and who are accountable to an elected president should decide how to implement Congress’ mandates, rather than judges — a principle clearly rejected by the most regressive justices. Reversing this precedent would do enormous harm, stripping many federal agencies charged with protecting civil rights, consumers, and public health and safety; limiting pollution and environmental harm; and much more. 

Stripping the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to limit carbon emissions is one obvious industry target. 

Dozens of corporate and far-right advocacy groups are pushing the court to overturn Chevron and anoint federal courts as the arbiters of which federal regulations are proper. Such a ruling would invite floods of lawsuits challenging rules that limit or regulate corporate activities. Workplace safety rules, product safety regulations, and limiting emissions to abate the climate crisis are among the obvious targets.

Reversing Chevron also would undermine other core Unitarian Universalist values by enabling state politicians to challenge crucial federal civil rights and voting protections.

Congress is ill-equipped to manage the day-to-day administration of legislation it passes and necessarily must empower federal agencies to turn its broad directives into specific actions based on good-faith interpretations. Those actions remain subject to judicial oversight if any agency truly exceeds its authority. Accordingly, SCOTUS should uphold theChevron precedent and sustain the ability of civil servants to do their jobs effectively.

SCOTUS however, appears likely to at least weaken, if not overturn, the Chevron Principle, based on reports from oral argument.

Origin and Status: The case came on a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. In October, the court also agreed to hear a second challenge to the Chevron Doctrine, Relentless v. Department of Commerce, which will be argued simultaneously with Loper v. Raimondo. 

Related: Edison Electric Institute v. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC):  Other corporations also are pushing the Court to overrule Chevron and grant them more power. The Edison Electric Institute and the utility NorthWestern Energy seek to have a lower court ruling in favor of the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission overturned. They object to approval of a FERC finding that a Montana solar and battery storage facility qualifies for incentives that encourage small renewable energy producers to upload power to the grid. No action has been taken by the Court as of April 2024.

Citizen Lawmaking Is Under Attack as Regressive Lawmakers Work to Suppress Democracy

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Citizen lawmaking via state ballot initiatives is overwhelmingly popular with people across political spectra and has no inherent bias, but in the wake of citizens using initiatives to counter Republican extremism in recent years, GOP legislators have unleashed a wave of bills to obstruct the process. These tactics fall into three categories: keeping initiatives from reaching the ballot, impeding passage, and altering voters’ intent post-passage. 

Every Western state in the Lower 48 except New Mexico enables citizens to make laws directly, a vital check on legislators who refuse to act on pressing issues. As a result, Montanans’ water is protected from cyanide leach mining, thousands of Idahoans can access needed health care via Medicaid expansion, and documented immigrants in Arizona gained in-state tuition rates at public colleges.

The surge in Republican attacks seems driven by alarm over pro-choice voters winning in all six states where abortion ballot questions appeared following the U.S. Supreme Court’s regressive majority overturning Roe v Wade in 2022, including GOP strongholds like Montana, Kansas, and Kentucky. In November of 2024, Arizona and Florida voters will likely vote on whether to overturn abortion bans imposed by legislators despite overwhelming support for bodily autonomy among residents (e.g. sixty-four percent of Floridians say abortion procedure should be legal in most or all cases). Up to nine states may have abortion on the ballot this fall.

But direct democracy has no partisan bias. Empowering voters sometimes favors conservative causes. In Colorado, for example, 65 percent of voters approved a 2022 initiative cutting state income taxes and passed another measure saying only U.S. citizens may vote in the state.

Looking beyond policy outcomes, suppressing ballot initiatives invites turmoil. The process serves as a safety valve, giving citizens a constructive option when legislatures defy constituents. This is especially valuable when ousting incumbents in “safe seats” is nearly impossible due to gerrymandered districts. 

Much of the current GOP policy agenda is deeply unpopular, even among their voters, but rather than listening to constituents or moderating policies, stifling constituents has become the norm (in more ways than one). Montana Senate Bill 93, passed last year, would have forced citizen groups to pay a $3,700 filing fee just to start a petition drive (a Montana court struck down that portion of the law in early 2024) while giving state officials the power to reject a proposed initiative if they deemed it similar to any that failed within the previous four years. 

After defeating an initiative to cap homeowner taxes in the previous election, powerful corporate lobbying groups like the Montana Chamber of Commerce and Association of Realtors backed the proposed barriers to direct democracy. Democratic State Representative Kelly Kortum calls the bill, “An attempt to strip Montanans of the ability to make laws themselves.”

In Idaho, the GOP introduced a resolution to amend the state constitution to accomplish voter suppression the state supreme court struck down just two years ago. It would require initiative backers to gather in-person signatures from six percent of voters in all of Idaho’s 35 districts–doubling the current 18-district requirement and requiring the assignment of signature gatherers to small towns nine hours from the state capital of Boise. Luke Mayville of Reclaim Idaho, the grassroots organization behind the 2018 initiative that expanded Medicaid coverage, says such restrictions “would render citizen initiatives impossible.”

While that bill appears dead for the current legislative session, several other states are pushing related tactics that impede signature-gathering and give outsized power to rural areas.

Even without an impossibly short window, extreme signature-dispersal schemes proposed in Idaho and other states would grant corporations the power to prevent voters from ever seeing a measure disfavored by big business. That threat exists thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court creating a First Amendment “right” for corporations to spend unlimited sums influencing ballot questions, in 1978 (First National Bank of Boston v Bellotti).

In Nevada, NV Energy spent $63 million to thwart an initiative that aimed to end its electric monopoly. With extreme signature-gathering requirements, corporations could prevent the public debate ballot questions provoke by coopting or propagandizing voters in a single district (to deter residents from endorsing an initiative). This would be easily accomplished in rural districts where gaining endorsements from six percent of voters already is burdensome. 

Direct democracy in the West arose largely through citizens fighting the corruption of state legislatures by mining, railroad, and timber interests — especially in Montana). South Dakota led the way in 1898, followed rapidly by Oregon, Montana, and now 24 total states. So laws that would enable corporations to stifle citizen initiatives before they reach the ballot completely betray that original intent.

The merit of citizen lawmaking is one point of broad agreement among citizens of differing party loyalties and ideologies. This vital tool is under increasing attack, and it’s up to all of us to defend our right to self-governance from politicians who seek to elevate their power at the expense of their constituents.

Jeff Milchen is a board member of Reclaim Democracy!

Editor’s note: we’ve been warning of the escalating attacks on citizen lawmaking for years and are pleased to see have been opened as the sabotage attempts became more glaring in 2023. Our previous reporting has appeared in Jacobin and Governing, among others.

Reclaim Democracy! Commends the Introduction of Federal Voter Protection Bills

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September 2023

The Freedom to Vote Act (FTVA) and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (VRAA) are imperative bills to pass through Congress in light of ongoing attempts to pass restrictive, anti-voter bills. At least 14 state legislatures enacted 17 restrictive laws during the first nine months of 2023 erecting barriers for eligible voters and disproportionately impacting voters of color, youth, and those with limited mobility. State legislatures continue impeding our ability to vote and have our votes count equally through gerrymandering, voter roll purges, and more than 50 other tactics Reclaim Democracy! has identified across the states. We call on Congress and President Biden to do everything in their power to ensure passage of both the FTVA and VRAA.

Along with protecting citizens from being denied their vote, the FTVA includes key actions to shrink the influence of big money in politics, guarantees congressional districts provide fair representation for all, and creates national standards to ensure the integrity and security of federal elections.

See summaries from the Brennan Center for Justice for detailed information on both the FTVA and VRAA.

Reclaim Democracy! is among more than 250 allied pro-democracy organizations united via Declaration for American Democracy to advance such voter protection measures.

Finally, we must recognize a hard truth: when our ability to vote depends on politicians who control the levers of power in our state, voting is merely a vulnerable privilege and not a right. Ultimately, we must amend our Constitution to embed an affirmative right to vote and ensure our votes count equally.