Morning Fog

Faustian Bargain Ahead In Virginia?

Republican redistricting of state electoral boundaries for political gain, a ploy in which Virginia's very own down-home Republicans have been the vanguard, has not been definitively squashed as it should be.  The proposed redistricting would create one new District in which a black candidate would almost certainly win, while also creating as many as eight safe Republican districts in which Democratic candidates would have very little chance of success.

Republicans have designed a clever trap, one that could force Democrats to turn down something their party supports (minority districts) if they are going to head off an effort that would put them in permanent minority status in the state.  

Are some Democrats about to fall into it?  Incredibly it is now reported that some current African-American members of the state Assembly are giving serious thought to voting for McDonnell's plan, on the grounds that it would "have a great impact on African Americans." 

Morning Fog hopes that the Af-Am legislators in question are simply blowing smoke, hoping, as some observers suggest, to gain leverage.  It's incredible that they could be taking the Republican offer seriously. 

As for that "great impact," another black Senator, elected by a heavily black electorate, would in my view become someone whose views could more easily be ignored by the Republican majority that will be created.  If it weren't for constant gerrymandering by both parties, the whole concept of federally mandated safe minority districts would be an affront to racial equality - almost a "separate-but-equal" doctrine applied to politics rather than to schools.  As it now stands, however, black politicians won't see the full potential of their power until they can be elected by a mixed constituency in which whites may be a majority. 

It's been done on the national level (and even in the state); there's no reason it can't be done more often in future, as a matter of course, right here in the Commonwealth of Virginia.  But the Republican plan is an obstacle which, if approved, could delay that day a good long while.

There's A Way But Only If There's A Will

"Where there's a will, there's a way," we say, as a shorthand way to suggest that no goal or accomplishment is out of reach if we have enough desire and commitment to achieve it.

I guess maybe alchemists just haven't been dedicated or persistent enough?  But generally, we might accept the old adage as true in many situations, especially when it isn't the laws of nature, but the opinions of human beings, that we're seeking to alter.

In politics, in our two-party system, the "will" part is complicated by the need for two wills not only to exist, but to merge into one.   Too often, we find politicians concerning themselves with the way, and suffering a deficiency of will, even when they may agree about the desirability of the goal.  It's what makes politics slow and uncertain:

• Politically motivated redistricting will continue until both parties see potential benefit to themselves in making the process fair, regular, unbiased, and transparent.
• Efforts to jigger the rules for elections (voter access, registration procedures, allocation of electoral votes) will cease only when each party sees a way to gain from the change (or perhaps to limit potential advantages for the opposing party).
• Senators won't give up abusing procedural rules like the filibuster until neither side can envision itself not needing to employ the tactic to block its opponent.
• Campaign finance rules won't really be reformed, in the sense that most citizens would think desirable, until neither party believes it can obtain a slight edge from continuing to create and exploit loopholes.  And incidentally, t's neither fair nor sensible when opinionists berate the Obama team for creating the 501(c)(4) "Organizing for Action," by which they're only moving down the path already so well-trodden by his opponents.    

When will all the ideal conditions be reached for progress on such issues?  The pessimist in me says "probably never."  Unlike social issues that directly affect the electorate (e.g., immigration reform, where some small signs of the two parties' combined "will" are beginning to show), these are dreary procedural matters that voters just don't get very excited about.  Those who do care deeply about them are politicians, and politicians mostly don't want such problems fixed. (After all, as Senate Majority leader Harry Reid recently intimated in discussing reform of the filibuster, the Republican minority's use of that procedure might be frustrating, yet he relishes the time when the shoe is on the other foot and Democrats may be able to use it the same way.)  

The optimist in me says, only when politicians see that voters do care and are prepared to factor their dissatisfaction into the ballots - but even then, only slowly and incrementally.  Not very optimistic, but there it is. 

 

 

 

Privacy: Pitting Europe v. Globalization

Europeans have generally managed to preserve individual privacy rights better than we have in the U.S.    On this side of the Atlantic many seem to see government as the main threat to their privacy -- thus the overblown concerns regarding the need to register guns, or still dumber, the notion that a camera that catches you running a red light on a public street is an invasion of "privacy."  

At the same time, we pay lip service to the privacy of our personal information.  We say we value it, but in fact often fail to take basic steps to protect it, showing a perfect willingness to offer up all sorts of information about ourselves to all manner of businesses and poliltical interests.  Such privacy give-aways run from the ubiquitous "affinity cards" that track everything we buy at the grocery store under the guise of giving us discounts, to the wholesaling of our medical records, to the information we make available by using websites and social networking. 

The differences between us and Europe are limned clearly now, as "Big Info" concerns are waging a war against a nascent new European Union data-privacy law that would limit the rights of companies like Google and Facebook to use your information however they like. 

If we really value privacy and expect our information to be used only for purposes strictly related to our business relationships, we should be rooting for the Europeans on this one.  

More On The GOP's Electoral Manipulations

Last week I noted how cynical Republican politicians in state government in Richmond had sought to manipulate the awarding of electoral votes in future elections by sneaking a revised plan through the state assembly.

As has been pointed out more recently, Virginia is not the only state attempting this.  It's occurring in several of the swing states that voted Democratic in last year's election, but which are controlled by Republican politicians at the state level.   In other words, basically the same kind of effort that motivated so many Republican-controlled states, before the last election, to seek to limit voting and registration in ways that would directly benefit them politically:  "If you can't win the game, try changing the rules so you can."

It might seem more democratic to award electoral votes in this "new" way, by congressional district, rather than a statewide winner-takes-all.  One or two states already follow this practice.  It seems to me, however, it's a step away from real democracy, unless we can find a way to prevent these same cynical politicians from gerrymandering districts so as to perpetuate their own control.  No one has found the means to accomplish that yet, however.  Until we do, politicians will be jiggering the electoral maps every ten years (or even more often, as in Virginia's case) to maximize the districts their party will win. 

In effect, the proposed changes mark a step backward, from voting based on actual voters, to voting based on constantly changing geographic lines, in which urban areas will be chopped up into different districts, and their vote diluted.  If we are truly bent on making the Presidentail elections as democratic as possible, let's go for majority vote, pure and simple.

Meantime, the latest GOP effort to load the dice should be seen for what it is, a power play.  It's anti-Democratic, and anti-democratic.

Maybe they should reince their priebus out with soap?

 

Gerrymander Alive And Well In Virginia

Across the country, Republicans appear to have concluded that rigging the machinery of election, by means of gerrymandering, changing voter identification requirements, reducing voting hours, and making registration more time-consuming and difficult, is the only way to obtain what their political prescriptions can't get for them:  Reelection.

Of course, these sorts of games have always been played by both sides.  In heavily Democratic Maryland, Governor Martin O'Malley recently approved a redistricting plan that has been condemned by all objective analysts as pure and quite excessive gerrymandering.  But it's Republicans who have seemed,of late to be far more enamored of such procedural games, to the point it appears they have completely given up competing on the basis of ideas.  Thus, for example, about 90% of the many attempts by many state governments to alter voting regulations prior to the November 2012 elections, curiously, were Republicans.

The most recent example at hand is in my current home state of Virginia.  This week, in our exactly evenly divided Assembly, Republicans took advantage of the absence of one Democratic state senator to approve an egregiously unfair electoral redistricting plan, whose effect would be to oust as many as four Democratic senators from their seats.   As the Washington Post lead editorial today observes, this move can be considered "a new low for hyper-partisanship, dirty tricks and the unaccountable arrogance of power."

Governor Robert McDonnell professes to have been taken by surprise by the maneuver, and it's very possible that he was.  As a Republican who's trying to appear moderate, he must be rather chagrined at this juvenile prank by GOP "leaders" in the assembly.   The Post editorial urges him to announce he'll veto the new mapping plan if it's passed, pointing out that Democrats will likely seek revenge by opposing his proposals to deal with some of the state's real issues.

I see another reason -- one that may be even more decisive -- for McDonnell to block his GOP cohort's redistricting effort.  McDonnell is clearly interested in national office and has attempted to position himself as a pragmatic, centrist Republican.  For this kind of blatant election-rigging to happen on his watch could quickly destroy that image of him.

 

Wrong Path

Re:  Republicans holding a retreat -- "retreat" is probably the right word about now, but it appears to be more an exercise in camouflage, with such terms as "branding" being bandied about.  It's both emblematic and symptomatic of our political system today that our parties seek more to disguise their unpopular and unworkable policies to make them seem more appealing, rather than altering the policies themselves, or questioning the assumptions that underlie them.

 

History Reveals Founders' Views On The Second Amendment

One recurring theme in all the discussion of guns-guns-guns has been the proper interpretation of the Second Amendment itself.  The NRA and its Charlie-McCarthy Roberts Court have one view, based on the seeming absence of the words "well-regulated militia" in their copies of the Constitution.  Others argue that gun ownership exists only in the context of a militia.  Both interpretations are wrong.  For future reference let's call them "the wrongs."

My own interpretation (which regular readers have heard before):  The only constitutionally protected right to a gun is in the militia context, but gun ownership for hunting, self-protection, and the like exists as part of the "warp and woof" of American society, outside the Constitution but within common law.  I believe that (latter) kind of gun ownership was such a commonly understood, integral part of our society in the late 18th century that the drafters of the Constitution never even considered specifically mentioning it in their document.  No amendment was needed to give citizens the right to own a weapon for their personal use, any more than an amendment was necessary to own a horse or to till the land.

The "wrongs" have engaged in a constant and time-wasting debate over whether any restrictions may be placed on the non-existent Constitutional right to own a gun for hunting or sport. 

In many cases we have little or no means of judging what the Founding Pops really intended when they penned this clause or that.  We can read their notes and the commentaries of the time, but they were politicians, and it's often hard to tell which side of their mouth they were talking from. 

Ah, but we're in luck.  With the Second Amendment, we do have evidence.  Let's search our collective memories -- can we find any instances where weapons were restricted?  Well, there were the Native Americans, who in the early days (before the Constitution) were able to acquire the assault guns of the day directly from the colonists; and it's interesting to note that, after the Constitution went into effect, they were certainly discouraged, by law and by public consensus, from getting more weapons.  Any others?  Well, there were the African-American slaves -- they didn't seem to have many guns, in fact, from all I know, I think they may have been categorically denied that right, although some - in North and South - later were armed as part of a -- (all together now!) - MILITIA!

The Founders were alive at the time, but they didn't make a peep about these restrictions on gun ownership.  They knew of and condoned them. That must have been their intent. 

 

Four Years Of Fog

Well, I almost missed it, but it occurred to me that as of yesterday, "Morning Fog" had been obfuscating the political, economic, and social landscape for exactly four full years.  Wow, hard to believe!

"Editorial we" celebrate the start of our fifth year with a one-day break, and we extend thanks to all our loyal readers, and hey, why not, even to our disloyal readers, for your perseverance. 

I looked back at my first post "of substance," on Martin Luther King's real birthday, 2009, and I think it's still pretty valid.  Check out "Race: Ideal And Reality," if you wish, and we'll be back to fresh material in a day or two. 

Gas-Bag Tax

Virginia's Governor has floated a new plan for one of the state's perennial problems -- funding for an inadequate transportatin network.   In his last year as governor, Robert McDonnell has proposed to do away completely with our state tax on gasoline; to increase car registration fees; to charge a special tax of $100 on alternative-fuel vehicles; and oh-by-the-way to increase the state sales tax from 5% to 5.8% (that's 16% increase) and then use general revenue (not limited to just that .8% increase) to fund roads.

If this all sounds rather regressive, it is.  Its overall effect is to reward greater gas consumption.  Those who drive huge gas-guzzlers (their privilege, certainly) would thus be subsidized by those who do not.  The seemingly obvious link between more driving and greater contribution to road-building would be obliterated.  And, while it may be time, after several years, to stop rewarding people tax-wise for making a decision (buying a hybrid or electric) that has built-in benefits for them anyway, it hardly makes sense to penalize them for it.   Meanwhile -- even granting that all citizens have an interest in good transporation just as they do in good health and education -- everyone would get to pay more on every transaction (except transient gas-buyers passing through from other states) while money going to health and education could actually decline.

McDonnell can be given credit -- and has been by analysts and politicians alike -- for a  novel approch to come up with new funding.  It can't be called "out of the box," though, because McDonnell, like so many other Republican politicians, has chosen to place himself in a "no-tax" box with Grover Norquist.  I resent such politicians for being so dismissive of their constituents as to pledge themselves to an inflexible position dictated by an unelected idiot; and I disdain them for being so stupid as to restrict their own independence and flexibility by doing so. 

If McDonnell really wants to resolve Virginia's roads crisis, he should start by increasing our gas tax (currently one of the lowest in the nation).  Then we could see about increases in the sales tax.    

Reform Or Die

Some months ago, probably at the time of one of our several mass murders during 2012, I recall speculating -- admittedly without knowing details of the organization's internal history --  that the NRA had clearly been hijacked at some point by a gang of extremist zealots who turned it into a political lobbying arm for their personal distorted worldview, and eventually for the Republican Party.  That was the only possible explanation for how it had changed since my youth, when I recalled it was a fairly typical "interest group" organization with a constructive and apolitical agenda of firearm safety and better conditions for gun sports.

It seems my guess was right, as today's review by several journalists outlines in considerable detail. I recommend it as essential reading, particularly for those hundreds of thousands of NRA members who don't share the outlandish and anti-legal views of the organization's leaders. 

The article is also useful  because it puts the spotlight on the NRA's absolutist tactics, which (to my mind) are dictated more by the ur-reptilian brains of a handful of leaders than by any real interest in the Second Amendment.  In fact, those of us who think there is more to life than guns should be thankful for the Second Amendment, which protects us from the NRA because it does at least force us, as a nation, to deal with guns in a legal and constitutional framework;  the NRA, despite all its bluster about protecting #2, would prefer to do away with it. 

Lastly, the trends in the organization's development that are detailed in this piece can only bolster my view that the NRA's intransigence and its descent into an unapologetically political single-party lobby will accelerate its driving itself into obsolescence.  As with the party with which it has allied itself, the NRA will need to reform or die.  The choice is up to its members.   

That's not to say there isn't room for an organization with a mission to understand, defend, and monitor our rights under the Second Amendment.  It's just that the NRA isn't it anymore (if it ever was).  The new super-PAC founded by shooting victim Gabrielle Giffords and her husband may help pave the way to a more rational national discussion of this whole issue.