Reclaim Democracy!

Speak Out Now on Voter Suppression Bill HR 22

by

Donald Trump signed a broad anti-voter executive order (EO) in March, but its impact was mostly symbolic, since presidents cannot make such law unilaterally. EOs merely tell federal officials how POTUS would like to see existing law applied.

But this week, Congress is voting on a horrific voter suppression bill, HR 22, that Trump would sign into law if passed. The bill, referred to by anti-democracy groups as the “SAVE Act” would force states to require that people show proof of citizenship every time they register to vote.

More than 21 million eligible voters lack accessible proof-of-citizenship documents and nearly 70 million married women who took their spouse’s surname could face problems registering (Pew Research estimates this is 80 percent of married women). Many more people could be blocked from voting entirely because their birth documentation differs from current identification in some way. 

The bill passed the House on April 10. We urge you to call phone the U.S. Capitol switchboard ASAP at (202) 224-3121 to advise your Senators on your thoughts.

For more detail, we recommend this Ari Berman report in Mother Jones and this Demos report.

Trump’s “Tariffs” Are Not Economic Tools. They’re Weapons for Domestic Oppression

by

Editor’s note: The following thoughts are compiled from an April 3 BlueSky thread by Senator Chris Murphy (Connecticut). Though we prefer the plain language of nationwide sales tax to repeating Trump’s preferred label of tariffs, Murphy beautifully summarizes the proper way to understand and frame Trump’s new sales taxes–the largest tax increase in at least several generations.

Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.

No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.

A thread to explain his plan and how we fight back.

This week you will read many confused economists and political pundits who won’t understand how the tariffs make economic sense. 

That’s because they don’t. They aren’t designed as economic policy. The tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool.

You see, our founders created a President with limited and checked powers. They specifically put the power of spending and taxation in the hands of the legislature. 

Why? Because they watched how kings and despots used spending and taxes to control their subjects.

British kings used taxation to reward loyalty and punish dissent. 

Our own revolution was spurred by the King’s use of heavy taxation of the colonies to punish our push for self governance. 

Trump knows that he can weaken (and maybe destroy) democracy by using spending and taxation in the same way. 

He is using access to government funds to bully universities, law firms and state and local governments into loyalty pledges.

Healthy democracies rely on an independent legal profession to maintain the rule of law, independent universities to guard objective truth and provide forums for dissent to authority, and independent state/local government to counterbalance a powerful federal government.

But the private sector also plays a rule to protect democracy. Independent industry has power.

The tariffs are Trump’s tool to erode that independence. Now, one by one, every industry or company will need to pledge loyalty to Trump in order to get sanctions relief.

What could Trump demand as part of a quiet loyalty pledge? 

Public shows of support from executives for all his economic policy. Contributions to his political efforts. Promises to police employees’ support for his political opposition.

The tariffs are DESIGNED to create economic hardship. Why? So that Trump has a straight face rationale for releasing them, business by business or industry by industry. 

As he adjusts or grants relief, it’s a win-win: the economy improves and dissent disappears.

And once Trump has the lawyers, colleges and industry under his thumb, it becomes very hard for the opposition to have any viable space to maneuver. 

Trump didn’t invent this strategy. It’s the playbook for democratically elected leaders who want to stay in power forever.

The tariffs aren’t economic policy. They are political weapons. 

But as long as we see this clearly, we can stop him. Public mobilization is working. Today, a few Republicans joined Democrats to vote against one set of tariffs. 

The people still have the power.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml  If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Resignation Letter of Hagan Scotten in Response to Pam Bondi’s Attempt to Dismiss Charges Against Eric Adams

by

The letter below is written by Hagan Scotten, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Scotten, an assistant U.S. attorney, wrote to Emil Bove, acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General to quit in protest over Pam Bondi’s order to dismiss New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ bribery case. His letter came one day after Danielle Sassoon, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, resigned, refusing U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s directive to drop the case. A grand jury indicted Adams but Bondi sought to dismiss his charges in return for a pledge by Adams to assist Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda in NYC.

We offer their letters (Sassoon’s is linked above, with additional context) to highlight those acting with integrity to defeat the attempted authoritarian takeover by the Musk/Trump regime. While those complying with the authoritarians deserve scorn, it’s even more important to celebrate and amplify the growing number of people making personal sacrifices to defend our country from the saboteurs within.

February 12, 2025

Mr. Bove,

I have received correspondence indicating that I refused your order to move to dismiss the indictment against Eric Adams without prejudice, subject to certain conditions, including the express possibility of reinstatement of the indictment. That is not exactly correct. The U.S.Attorney, Danielle R. Sassoon never asked me to file such a motion, and I therefore never had an opportunity to refuse. But I am entirely in agreement with her decision not to do so, for the reasons stated in her February 12, 2025 letter to the Attorney General.

In short, the first justification for the motion—that Damian Williams’s role in the case somehow tainted a valid indictment supported by ample evidence, and pursued under four different U.S. attorneys—is so weak as to be transparently pretextual. The second justification is worse. No system of ordered liberty can allow the Government to use the carrot of dismissing charges, or the stick of threatening to bring them again, to induce an elected official to support its policy objectives.

There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake. Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. 

image saying:

But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens,much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.

Please consider this my resignation. It has been an honor to serve as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York.

Yours truly,Hagan Scotten
Assistant United States Attorney

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

by

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.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available to advance understanding of ecological, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior general interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml  If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Expanding Access: How States Are Protecting Voting Rights

by

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. 

Citizen Lawmaking Under Assault

by

Many GOP State Legislators Are Sabotaging the Ballot Initiative Process

By Jeff Milchen
February 19, 2023

American voters often waver from one election to the next between electing majorities of Republicans or Democrats to Congress or their state legislatures, yet the results of ballot initiatives remain remarkably predictable. Last November’s outcomes results again showed a majority of voters — even those in deep-red states — favoring progressive policies when voting on individual issues rather than voicing their party identity.

But instead of accepting those outcomes as guidance to better represent their constituents, many Republican legislatures are trying to obstruct or neuter citizen lawmaking.

Last year, pro-abortion-rights voters won in all six states with questions on the ballot (the most ever on the topic), including the GOP strongholds of Kansas, Kentucky, and Montana. That success has advocates exploring ballot measures to amend state constitutions in a dozen or more states.

In other initiatives, voters abolished involuntary servitude as a punishment (Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont) and raised minimum wages (Nebraska, Nevada, and the District of Columbia). South Dakota became the seventh state (and the sixth under GOP control) to expand Medicaid via citizen initiative. And Michigan voters embedded reproductive rights and voter protection principles in the state constitution.

Two Republican officials on Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers initially blocked both of those initiatives from the ballot. Though supporters gathered a record 735,000 petition signatures for the reproductive-rights measure, the two officials claimed that inadequate spacing in the fine print of ballot petitions was disqualifying and voted to disqualify the voting rights initiative on another technicality. The initiatives’ backers filed lawsuits, and thankfully the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in both cases to prevent the sabotage and enable citizens to vote on the issues. 

Twenty-four states enable proactive initiatives while two additional states enable citizens to nullify laws, but not enact new ones. Around the turn of the century, progressive initiatives began outnumbering conservative ones, and 2022 yielded victories on a wide range of progressive causes. But Republican politicians increasingly deem this an unacceptable intrusion into their powers and push bills to undermine ballot initiatives on three different fronts: erecting barriers to initiatives reaching the ballot, making passage more difficult and corrupting voters’ intent post-passage. 

Last year, Ballotpedia counted a record 232 state bills impacting ballot measure processes, of which 23 passed. The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC), a nonprofit advocate for citizen lawmaking, listed 140 of those bills as impeding citizen initiatives. And the attacks are unrelenting: Missouri Republicans introduced a dozen such bills this January alone.

Ohio Republicans, meanwhile, proposed legislation to radically increase signature-gathering costs and require a 60 percent supermajority vote for constitutional initiatives. The author of the latter bill openly declared his intent: to block a forthcoming citizen initiative expanding reproductive choice. Also motivating the attack is an initiative to create an independent redistricting commission, which would neutralize gerrymanders that effectively ensure a Republican majority in the legislature. (In an unusual plot twist, a leading advocate for the initiative is Maureen O’Connor, a Republican and former Ohio Supreme Court chief justice.)

Roadblocks to citizen lawmaking may be making their intended impacts, as just 30 initiatives made state ballots in 2022 — the fewest this century. In Utah, for example, an out-of-state group with anonymous funding called the Foundation for Government Accountability helped pass a 2021 law banning paying signature gatherers per valid signature, which is currently standard practice. By nixing a key incentive for workers to gather more signatures than they would if paid only an hourly wage, the law will hike both the cost and duration of campaigns to qualify a ballot measure. “Qualification challenges, courts blocking measures, and onerous restrictions” all contributed to the decrease, says Chris Figueredo, executive director of BISC.

total number of annual state citizen initiatives 201-2022
Graphic courtesy of Ballotpedia

Unlike direct voter-disenfranchisement tactics, the escalating assaults on direct democracy have generated few headlines. But regardless of our policy preferences, ballot initiatives provide a vital safety valve, giving citizens a tool to bypass unresponsive legislatures that ignore or defy their constituents. This corrective power is especially vital today, as gerrymandering makes dislodging officeholders in safe seats nearly impossible.

Despite the preponderance of progressive ballot victories, direct democracy is a nonpartisan, pro-democracy tool popular with citizens across the political spectrum. Two-thirds of the 24 states with proactive citizen initiatives typically have had trifecta Republican control of state government. In Colorado, which flipped from GOP control of all branches of government in 2004 to a Democratic trifecta today, 65 percent of voters supported a 2022 initiative to cut state income taxes. And when Californians voted for President Joe Biden by a 29-point margin in 2020, conservative positions prevailed on several ballot questions. If more state legislatures flip to Democrats, conservative initiatives undoubtedly will serve as a check on their power as well. 

The election results of 2022 demonstrated that citizen initiatives unite voters with differing party loyalties to advance common interests, often addressing issues where legislators decline to act. The threats to citizen lawmaking should be resisted in favor of protecting one key avenue to ensure frustrated voters a constructive way to engage and progress toward inclusive democracy.

Jeff Milchen is the founder and a board member of Reclaim Democracy! Follow him on Twitter: @JMilchen. A shorter version of this commentary was first published by Governing.

See also: Tactics GOP Legislators Are Using to Undermine Direct Democracy