Reclaim Democracy!

Follow-up: USPS Changes Course, Plans Major Investment in Electric Delivery Vehicles

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In January, we blasted the plan by U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy to purchase tens of thousands of gas-guzzling delivery trucks for roles perfectly suited to electric vehicles and urged people to speak out in opposition to the disastrous deal, according to a the A-1 Auto Transport cost estimator website in a blog post. Now, we’re excited to learn the USPS changed course and announced plans to purchase at least 66,000 electric delivery vehicles–more than half the 106,000 delivery vehicles it plans to acquire over the next five years.

The USPS said about one-third of the investment for fleet electrification comes from the Inflation Reduction Act. The plan calls for purchasing 60,000 trucks from the military contractor Oshkosh Corporation, of which 45,000 will be electric. USPS will buy 46,000 new vehicles from mainstream manufacturers, of which 21,000 will be electric.

Along with grassroots opposition, sixteen states filed suit in April to halt the purchase of gas-powered trucks, joining many environmental groups calling for investing in electric vehicles instead.

We thank all the people and organizations who rallied opposition to the earlier plan to entrench an environmentally destructive delivery fleet for a generation. It’s a victory worth celebrating as we close the year.

See the original post from January here.

USPS Purchasing Gas Guzzlers Would Be a Disaster for the Climate and Customers

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By Jeff Milchen
January 13, 2022

Transportation generates  29 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, meaning any serious work to mitigate harm from global warming requires changing how we move people and goods. And while our personal transportation choices matter, collective action to drive significant emission reductions at large institutions is essential.

Owning more than 200,000 vehicles, of which 70 percent are 25–32 years old, the U.S. Postal Service will make a global impact—for better or worse—with its choices of fleet vehicles. Local delivery trucks typically travel less than 100 miles daily at lower speeds, making them perfect candidates for electric engines. The situation creates a once-in-a-generation opportunity to increase efficiency, reduce pollution, and advance economies of scale for electric vehicle production.

Just one problem: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy awarded a decade-long, multi-billion-dollar contract for those replacements to Oshkosh Defense Corporation. If that sounds to you like a company focused on making armored war machines rather than street vehicles, you’re correct. The plan calls for 90 percent of new trucks to run on gas and travel about nine miles per gallon, barely improving their predecessors.

While President Biden has called for all federal vehicle purchases to be emission-free by 2035, he lacks the authority to control (or fire) the postmaster directly. Biden has appointed most of the USPS Board of Governors, but his selections seem likely to give DeJoy full autonomy. DeJoy gained notoriety by taking hundreds of mail sorting machines out of service just before the 2020 elections and slowed mail service dramatically. 

In a February 6 statement, DeJoy cited budget deficits he inherited as the obstacle to buying more costly electric vehicles. Though USPS is a public service, it is expected to fund itself without direct federal assistance. Yet Congress imposes onerous requirements on USPS to pre-fund employee retirement benefits far into the future, contributing to its deficit. This week, a bill to relieve that burden is moving through Congress, potentially saving USPS $50 billion over the next decade.

If the bill passes, the opportunity should not be wasted. While the gas-powered trucks are cheaper to purchase initially, lower operating and maintenance costs for electric trucks start saving money immediately, and full fleet electrification could save $4.3 billion (PDF) over a generation of vehicles.

Notably, Biden’s Build Back Better bill, defeated via Senate filibuster, would have fully funded a USPS transition to electric vehicles. 

Upon learning of the USPS procurement plan, the Environmental Protection Agency wrote to USPS urging reconsideration. It claims the decision was based on faulty analysis, including absurd assumptions about battery and gasoline prices. The letter also accused the USPS of illegally awarding $482 million to Oshkosh Inc. before an environmental review.

The dispute also exposed a dangerous EPA rules loophole that incentivizes bigger, more polluting trucks. For example, vehicles classified as light trucks (combined vehicle weight + payload up to 8,500 pounds) must meet significant efficiency requirements from which heavy trucks (exceeding 8,500 pounds) are exempt. In a cynical ploy to evade EPA standards, the Oshkosh /DeJoy agreement calls for vehicles with a combined vehicle weight of 8,501 pounds—nearly double the weight of most current USPS vehicles.

USPS estimates $3.3 billion would cover a complete transition to electric vehicles. For reference, Congress allotted $24 billion more than anyone requested for military spending. Surely we can afford the relatively modest investment to defend against climate calamity the Pentagon cites as a top security threat. 

While we should urge our representatives to enable that crucial step, this conflict should inspire us to look at the procurement choices being made close to home by our schools, local governments, and other institutions we can influence directly. Our individual choices as consumers matter. But only through our actions as citizens can we drive change on the scale our climate crisis demands.

Reclaim Democracy board member Jeff Milchen adapted this commentary from a report he first wrote for UU World.

Voting Rights: We Need Immediate Action AND Long-Term Strategy

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Last updated February 11, 2023

Pro-democracy groups are urging people to support at least three essential bills in Congress:

  • The Freedom to Vote Act (slated for reintroduction by May of 2023)
  • The John Lewis Voting Rights Act
  • The Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which would grant voting rights to D.C. residents by making the District a state (the Supreme Court has shut down every other option). 

Each bill is truly necessary and urgent. We urge you to lobby your Senators for their immediate passage and do all you can to make your voice heard through other channels. Yet we are deeply concerned that the approach of focusing on legislative fixes alone does not capture the imagination of Americans and engage them to the degree we need. So, while we wholeheartedly urge passage of the three bills noted above, we also continue building support for a Right to Vote Amendment for three reasons:

  • We need one, clear, compelling message that overwhelming numbers of Americans can support and convey concisely: every citizen must have a right to vote and have their votes count equally.
  • While bills in Congress may change language, names, and even bill numbers, getting commitments from our legislators to support an affirmative right to vote will help hold them accountable to support all voting rights bills.
  • Crucially, advances made solely through legislation can be undone by Congress and by courts. If a neutral person were to look at our 1965 Voting Rights Act, they would conclude we have strong protections that would make many provisions of current legislation unnecessary. Yet the Supreme Court stripped the Voting Rights Act of meaning in 2013 and has become more anti-democratic in subsequent years. A constitutional Amendment expanding civil rights has never been revoked.

If you have not yet contacted both of your U.S. Senators on these bills, please do so today. Let them know the anti-democratic filibuster cannot be used as an excuse to enable the denial of voting rights. You can always reach any U.S. Senator or Representative’s D.C. office via the Capitol switchboard: 202-224-3121. #NoMoreExcuses 

See the links above to great bill summaries by the Campaign Legal Center and Brennan Center. For more on the Washington, D.C. Admission Act and all current Senate sponsors, see D.C. Statehood Coalition.

Additional Resources

50+ Ways to Disenfranchise and Suppress Voters

Landmarks in Voting History & Law

Key Elements of a Right to Vote Amendment

Montana GOP’s Annulment of Voters Shows the Urgent Need for Federal Protections

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If Montana’s legislature sought to prove the need for Congress to enact federal voting rights protections, mission: accomplished. 

Just six years after Montanans voted overwhelmingly to keep Election Day registration, Republican legislators rendered citizens’ votes meaningless and revoked the opportunity 12,000 voters used to register in 2016, comprising 2.3% of the statewide vote.

The GOP also attacked the freedom of citizens to have someone else deliver or mail their ballot. The people most impacted are Montana’s 78,000 Native Americans, most of whom live on rural reservations. Many residents lack home mail service and travel to distant polling locations is costly in both time and money, so requiring a special trip just to register is a sure tactic to prevent some people from registering. 

The new restrictions on ballot collection reprise a law already struck down in Montana last year. The Western Native Voice v Stapleton ruling declared obstacles for Indigenous voters, “…are simply too high and too burdensome to remain the law.” Disability Rights Montana also denounced the law’s harm to their constituents.

Governor Gianforte and Republicans know their attacks on voters will generate more lawsuits and cost Montana taxpayers, but like local control, fiscal responsibility is just a talking point, not a real principle.

In a separate bill, Republicans manipulated our voter ID law for partisan advantage, so a secure student ID from the University of Montana is no longer sufficient, but a handgun license, whose owners skew Republican, is just fine. 

Montana GOP elephant dung

More anti-democracy bills were crammed in with no chance for meaningful citizen input, including laws that would turn Montana judges into partisan politicians, invite the Attorney General to inject political bias into ballot initiative wording, and interfere with independent redistricting.

Many Democrats claim the GOP can’t win without suppressing voters, but Montana disproves that theory. Republicans dominated the state in free and fair elections last year — they simply reject the core democratic principles of our republic.

Montana is one of many states where Republicans obstruct voting by people of color, students, and any demographic group they fear. For decades, our Voting Rights Act (VRA) required federal approval for election law changes in states with records of disenfranchisement tactics, dissuading abuses nationwide.

In 2006, almost all Congressional Republicans, and every U.S. Senator, joined Democrats to extend the VRA by 25 years. But in 2013, Chief Justice John Roberts — who led campaigns attacking the VRA prior to becoming a judge — led a 5-4 majority of the Supreme Court in gutting the law.

Now, Republicans are exploiting their own seditious lies to introduce more than 360 voter suppression bills, encompassing at least 49 distinct tactics!

Defending our votes from these attacks again requires federal action. While the John Lewis Voting Rights Act protects against many disenfranchisement tactics, the For the People Act (FPA) creates standards for fair election processes. The FPA, already passed by the House of Representatives, would expand and secure ballot access, increase election security, and reduce the power of money over elections. An overwhelming majority of Americans support these reforms, yet Congressional GOP members remain loyal to conspiracy theories, rather than their own constituents.  

No progress can occur unless the filibuster is eliminated or at least one GOP Senator decides democracy is more important than partisanship. Senator Daines has yet to renounce his “stolen election” claims, but we should persist in demanding he serve Montanans, rather than the extremists dragging the Republican Party into the sewer.

Finally, we must recognize a hard truth: as long as our ability to vote depends on who controls the state we live in, 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. 

The writer, Jeff Milchen, founded the Montana-based Reclaim Democracy!, which works to secure voting rights and empower citizens. Follow him on Twitter: @JMilchen

More Voting Rights Resources

A Leap Forward for Democracy Is Within Our Grasp

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But Our Chance to Preempt Voter Suppression Could Expire at Any Moment

Editor’s note: for more recent reporting on pending federal voter protection bills, see this update.

March 17, 2021

When the U.S. House of Representatives passed the For the People Act (H.R. 1 in the House, S. 1 in the Senate) on March 3, all but one Democrat voted in favor. Every Republican vote opposed it. 

Passing the voter protections of the For the People Act is the only path for democracy advocates to halt many of the 250-plus voter suppression bills stacked up in state capitols around the country. Republican vote suppressors have an easier task: they need only delay passage of S. 1 while more of those state bills become law — putting the onus on voting rights defenders to overturn laws in court, even if S. 1 passes. 

Each passing day also brings another chance for Senate control to flip back to Republicans. Many Democratic elders hail from states where, in the event of their death, a Republican governor would select their replacement or the seat would remain vacant until a special election is held. Such an event would almost certainly flip Senate control to Republicans by at least a 50-49 margin and doom strong voter protection. Democrats don’t have the luxury of moving methodically.

The urgency also comes from the potency of the For the People Act. If passed, S. 1 would be the greatest forward leap for democracy in generations. While voting rights are central to the bill, it also would secure election processes and take vital steps to neutralize the power of big money to determine our choices and control politicians. This includes a 6 to 1 match for small donor candidate contributions, giving candidates a huge incentive to increase time spent engaging normal people, rather than courting megadonors. 

Regarding the 2010 Citizens United v FEC ruling, the For the People Act says, “The Supreme Court’s misinterpretation of the Constitution to empower monied interests at the expense of the American people in elections has seriously eroded over 100 years of congressional action to promote fairness and protect elections from the toxic influence of money.” S. 1 backs up the words with tough controls over corporate electioneering. Corporate executives would be barred from using shareholders’ money for political spending without first demonstrating shareholder support — a step few corporations would attempt.

Filling hundreds of pages, the For the People Act is vast, largely due to its thoroughness. The Brennan Center for Justice created an excellent guide to the Act for those who want to dive deep. To help understand what the Act would do, we summarized the provisions and placed them in 3 groupings.

Preventing Disenfranchisement & Making Voting Easier
  • Establish two weeks of in-person early voting, including Sundays and during non-business hours;
  • Require states to create nonpartisan redistricting commissions (for US Congressional districts) and quantifiable criteria for district drawing (addresses district gerrymandering);
  • Ends prison gerrymandering by counting people as residents of where they last lived for apportioning representation, not where they’re incarcerated;
  • Make it a crime to mislead voters with the intention of preventing them from voting;
  • Allow 16 and 17-year olds to pre-register so they’ll be on voter rolls when they turn 18;
Increasing Election Integrity
Reducing the Power of Money Over Candidates & Elections
  • Improve campaign finance disclosure rules;
  • Ban corporations from spending on campaigns unless they have a process to determine the political will of shareholders;
  • Require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns;
  • Provide public financing for House campaigns by matching small donations at a 6:1 rate, so your $10 donation yields $70 for the candidate. This measure would incentivize candidates to seek out small donations from every constituent, rather than focusing on the wealthy. It also would lead to a more diverse candidate pool since access to wealthy donors would no longer be a prerequisite. The program would not use tax revenue — it will be funded by a surcharge on criminal and civil penalties paid by corporations to the federal government.

What the Act Leaves Undone
The For the People Act does not fully eliminate the need to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act and fix earlier damage to the Voting Rights Act by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Washington, D.C. Admission Act (HR. 51) is needed to grant full political rights to citizens in our capital and The Vote at Home Act advances vote-by-mail protections. Enacting the For the People Act also will not eliminate the need to drive an affirmative right to vote into our Constitution. Finally, the bill passed by the House needs cleanup to purge overly prescriptive language re election administration (e.g. micromanaging local election officials).

But the For the People Act would transform U.S. elections for the better. It will improve security, transparency, voter access, and protect citizens from the barrage of voter suppression bills encompassing more than 45 distinct tactics across 43 state legislatures.

To be clear, there are some unnecessary, inappropriate and potentially unconstitutional provisions in HR. 1, as passed by the House. Making Election Day a holiday would undermine the importance of opening a two week window to spread out voting and diminish the opportunity to disrupt voters. And the service workers most challenged for time to vote don’t get a day off just because it’s a holiday. The bill also contains measures unrelated to voting (e.g. new ethics rules for the U.S. Supreme Court) that, regardless of merit, should be expunged to remove easy lines of attack from opponents. Election law expert Rick Hasen wrote (Wa. Post account required) the best good-faith critique of HR. 1 we’ve seen. Jessica Huseman critiques the timeline for demands thrust upon election administrators in the bill (as passed by the House) and the Brennan Center published a thorough response to these critiques.

While expanding democracy should be a non-partisan cause, Republican Senators also have signaled their opposition. So passage of S. 1 will depend on the 48 Democratic and two Independent Senators valuing our voting rights enough to reform (or eliminate) the filibuster and force a vote on the merits of the bill. Democracy advocates received a boost on March 16 when President Biden announced his support for filibuster reform after months of proclaiming Republicans were capable of good faith negotiation.

Failing to pass the For the People Act will enable a wave of state-level voter suppression laws that could lock Republicans into control of (at least) the House of Representatives and many state legislatures for years to come. Let’s contact our Senators’ offices to urge reforming the filibuster and demand that S. 1  receive a hearing and vote. Along with direct communication to Senators, sending a letter to the editor of your local paper and calling in to talk radio shows are key ways to influence your Senators.

By Reclaim Democracy! staff. Research by Brittany Trushel.

Thanks to Stephen Wolf’s Voting Rights Roundup newsletter from Daily Kos for helping follow and understand state and federal voting rights bills. To fully grasp the scope of voter suppression tactics in play, see 50 Ways to Disenfranchise and Suppress Voters.

Pass For the People Act., HR1

Related Reclaim Democracy Resources

The Shrouded Weapon of Patriotic Correctness

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August 22, 2020

Displaying his signature blend of victimhood and vitriol in a recent speech, President Trump accused political protesters of pushing a “cancel culture — driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees.” 

Put aside the hypocrisy of those words coming from a man who’s called for dozens of people to be fired for expressing opinions he dislikes. The more serious issue is the popular claim that “political correctness” presents a great threat to our freedom. In truth, its counterpart — patriotic correctness — suppresses dissent more widely and imposes greater consequences. 

Take the story of country music stars The Dixie Chicks. The three women band leaders never faced notable criticism of their Confederacy-friendly name. Yet the band downsized their name to The Chicks for their just-released album, Gaslighter, simply announcing, “we want to meet this moment.” 

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Contrast that to 2003, when the band stepped out of line with country music political orthodoxy.

Days before the invasion of Iraq, vocalist Natalie Maines told a London audience, “We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President [G.W. Bush] is from Texas.”

The backlash was immediate and savage as thousands of country music radio stations forbid DJs from playing The Chicks, slashing their record sales. Some groups staged events destroying recordings by The Chicks and band members received numerous death threats. 

The Chicks nearly vanished for years, but several multi-platinum albums granted them the wealth and power to resume their career years later. Their comeback single, “Not Ready to Make Nice,” defiantly rebuffed would-be suppressors. But less powerful country artists confirm the fear of getting “Dixie Chicked” influences everything from their lyrics to political engagement. That fear is just starting to ease nearly two decades later.

Performers identified as right-wing, like country star Toby Keith, may deter some invitations to perform with their stances, but face no such organized intimidation. Keith, However, took to projecting photos photos of Natalie Maines next to Saddam Hussein at his concerts (of course, they had never been in the same place) in an attempt to whip up hatred against her.

Patriotically correct doctrines include: American exceptionalism is unquestionable, even though we trail other wealthy nations in many key measures. Our military spending is untouchable. Service members should receive preferential treatment without regard to personal merit. And patriotism should be expressed with chest thumping and flag waving, not dissent that aims to illuminate and correct our biggest flaws.

The NFL is among the institutions enforcing those rules. When President Trump attacked Colin Kaepernick for this kneeling protest against police killings of Black people, the NFL didn’t merely fail to defend an employee, it effectively halted his career. Silencing one of the league’s most visible stars made it unnecessary to tell any athletes just trying to make a team to “shut up and play.” Message received.

And what is the playing of our national anthem at sporting events other than institutionalized patriotic correctness? In almost every other country, national anthems — sensibly — are played only for international sporting events.

Patriotic correctness is so omnipresent we rarely notice it and, like racial biases, practice it unconsciously. In an interview, liberal icon Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg gave the patriotism police a gift by calling Kaepernick’s protest “dumb and disrespectful.” (Ginsburg later apologized after reflecting on her act.)

Meanwhile, right-wing grifters like Milo Yiannopoulos play the victim when they lose lucrative speaking gigs for business reasons, failing to fulfill contractual promises, or when college students organize to stop their fees from being transferred to such self-promoting provocateurs.

As Alex Nowrasteh of the libertarian Cato Institute says, “every group has implicit rules against certain opinions, actions and language as well as enforcement mechanisms — and the patriotically correct are no exception. [But] they are near-uniformly unaware of how they are hewing to a code of speech and conduct similar to the PC lefties they claim to oppose.”

To be clear, political correctness can do harm to the free exchange of ideas, and too many Americans are ready to judge others for a careless utterance, but the patriotic correctness unleashed on The Chicks is both more pervasive and severe than any progressive pressure.

The Chicks blacklisting yielded only a setback — one they had the power to overcome by virtue of their previous success, but their persecution silenced many more vulnerable people. 

The most powerful suppression of speech is accomplished through implied threat and voluntary compliance, not punishment.

Jeff Milchen (@JMilchen) founded Reclaim Democracy! and the American Independent Business Alliance.