Tag Archives: Republicans

Eric Holder, Right to vote, Stacey Abrams, Voter registration, Voter suppression

Voting by people of color is up, but so are barriers built by Republicans

Americans across the country still face significant barriers when attempting to vote. It’s time Republicans come to terms with that.

Eric H. Holder Jr. and Stacey Abrams
USA Today, by Stacey Abrams and Eric H. Holder Jr., June 15, 2020

At the core of our American democracy is the belief that the people should elect the leaders who give voice to their values and ambitions. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy, yet over the past decade, partisanship has overtaken patriotism in the political process. Just last month, the House of Representatives passed the Voting Rights Advancement Act to protect access to the ballot. For decades, the Voting Rights Act received bipartisan reauthorization in Congress, but this bill received just a single Republican vote.

At the state level, Republicans have passed a raft of laws designed to block, deflect and deny access to the ballot. Since 2010, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, 25 states have put heightened voting restrictions in place, almost entirely guided by Republican officials.

These efforts were aided by gerrymandering of state legislatures in 2011 that locked in their power and a disastrous Supreme Court decision in Shelby County, Alabama, in 2013 that gutted federal protections for minority voters. Yet the acute attention from Congress and others to the scourge of voter suppression — the intent and effect of these new voting restrictions — has led to cries of innocence and feigned outrage.

Republicans are gaslighting voters

Recently, Republicans have offered a new argument to deny widespread voter suppression and misdirect the public about their actions. They claim that because high numbers of voters of color participated in the 2018 election, voter suppression could not possibly have occurred.

Employing this level of purposefully lazy gaslighting of voters who were deprived of their constitutional rights is shocking but not surprising, given that it comes from a political party whose strategy for victory relies so heavily on making voting more difficult.

In Covington, Kentucky, on Nov. 6, 2018.
In Covington, Kentucky, on Nov. 6, 2018. Meg Vogel/The Cincinnati Enquirer Via The USA TODAY Network

Put simply, an increase in participation does not negate the fact that challenges can also increase. Indeed, in elections in the past 20 years, the obstacles have grown more complex and harmful, and the injuries are real. While more voters of color successfully navigated impediments to registration and ballot access in 2018, we cannot blithely ignore the tens of thousands of others silenced by purges, exact match schemes and closed precincts.

Republicans are rigging elections to win:They’re anti-voter and anti-democracy

Turnout reached the highest level among voters of color in 2018 than in any previous midterm election in memory. They turned out in droves because they were seen, heard and inspired. In Georgia, for example, an analysis by the Stacey Abrams gubernatorial campaign showed that 1.2 million black voters cast ballots for the Democratic ticket — compared with 1.15 million voters of all races who had supported it four years earlier.

Even so, those numbers do not reflect the gauntlet of problems faced by voters, too many of whom were rejected or denied before having their ballots counted. Equally worrisome and worthy of investigation are the additional eligible voters who would have had their voices heard if only there were fewer obstacles.

High barriers and high participation

Across the country, the perverse position Republicans have taken is to use higher participation rates among voters of color to claim that voter suppression does not exist. Worse, some go so far as to take credit for record turnout. In many cases, higher turnout by voters of color led to lines of four hours or more due to too few machines, faulty poll books, a lack of power cords, poorly trained election workers and more. Some overcame these challenges and had their votes counted, but that does not erase the obstacles.

The fact that people of color voted in droves in 2018 is proof that voter turnout and voter suppression can operate independently but also in relation to one another. Research shows that those most aware of suppression activities may employ anger at the partisan nature of disenfranchisement as a motivating force and take extraordinary steps to overwhelm its effect by amplifying participation. Increases in voter turnout are also a very real response to the threat of voter suppression.

Before 2020:Upgrade voting systems, restore Voting Rights Act, end voter suppression

Still, as Americans, we must not elide the real effect of these actions. The denial of even a single voter’s right to be heard should concern all of us. If even one eligible voter’s name is missing from the poll book, if even one parent must leave a long line to pick up a child from school, if even one voter’s registration is held up because of a so-called unusual name, our elections are not truly free and fair.

We must continue to speak the truth and hold government officials accountable until every eligible voter’s voice can be heard. If Republicans are not outraged by voter suppression, if they are only are incensed that their actions have been called out, then that raises a question Americans should ask themselves: Why are Republicans afraid of free and fair elections?

Stacey Abrams, a former Democratic leader of the Georgia House of Representatives, was the first African American woman nominee of a major party for governor and is the founder of Fair Fight and Fair Count. Eric H. Holder Jr., chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, was U.S. attorney general for six years during the Obama administration, the first African American to hold that position. Follow them on Twitter: @staceyabrams and @EricHolder

Oil industry subsidies, Tax credits

Jeb Bush Calls For End to Energy Industry Subsidies – Including Oil and Gas Industry

Repost from National Journal

Jeb Bush Calls For End to Fossil-Fuel Subsidies

The 2016 contender says tax credits for the oil and gas sector should be eliminated.
By Clare Foran, July 23, 2015
Jeb Bush.(Andy Jacobsohn/Getty Images)

Jeb Bush wants to get rid of tax credits for the oil and gas industry.

“I think we should phase out, through tax reform, the tax credits for wind, for solar, for the oil and gas sector, for all that stuff,” the 2016 Republican candidate said in New Hampshire on Wednesday, according to a video recorded by grassroots environmental group 350 Action.

“I don’t think we should pick winners and losers,” Bush added, saying: “I think tax reform ought to be to lower the rate as far as you can and eliminate as many of these subsidies, all of the things that impede the ability for a dynamic way to get to where we need to get, which is low-cost energy that is respectful of the environment.”

Bush’s comments arrived in response to questions from a 350 Action activist after the 2016 Republican contender appeared at an event hosted by the conservative advocacy group Americans for Prosperity in Manchester, New Hampshire.

When pressed by the activist on whether he would get rid of all fossil-fuel subsidies, Bush replied: “All of them. Wind, solar, all renewables, and oil and gas.”

Crude Oil, Discounted oil, Fracking, Keystone XL, Oil Industry

National energy boom blurs political battle lines

Repost from The Associated Press, The Big Story

National energy boom blurs political battle lines

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI — Apr. 19, 2014
Energy Politics
FILE – This March 25, 2014 file photo shows perforating tools, used to create fractures in the rock, lowered into one of six wells during a roughly two-week hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Corp. well pad near Mead, Colo. The energy boom is scrambling national politics. Democrats are split between environmentalists and business and labor groups. Some deeply-conservative areas are allying with conservationists against fracking, the technique largely responsible for the surge.  (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

DENVER (AP) — The U.S. energy boom is blurring the traditional political battle lines across the country.

Democrats are split between environmentalists and business and labor groups, with the proposed Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline a major wedge.

Some deeply conservative areas are allying with conservationists against fracking, the drilling technique that’s largely responsible for the boom.

The divide is most visible among Democrats in the nation’s capital, where 11 Democratic senators wrote President Barack Obama this month urging him to approve the Keystone XL pipeline, which is opposed by many environmental groups and billionaire activist Tom Steyer. The State Department said Friday that it was extending indefinitely the amount of time that federal agencies have to review the project, likely delaying a pipeline decision until after the November elections.

Several senators from energy-producing such as Louisiana and Alaska have distanced themselves from the Obama administration, while environmental groups complain the president has been too permissive of fracking.

There is even more confusion among Democrats in the states as drilling rigs multiply and approach schools and parks.

California Gov. Jerry Brown was shouted down at a recent state convention by party activists angry about his support for fracking. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has kept fracking in his state in limbo for three years while his administration studies health and safety issues. In Colorado, Gov. John Hickenlooper has drawn environmentalists’ ire for defending the energy industry, and a ballot battle to regulate fracking is putting U.S. Sen. Mark Udall in a tough situation.

But the issue cuts across party lines.

Even in deeply Republican Texas, some communities have restricted fracking. In December, Dallas voted to effectively ban fracking within city limits.

“You’re looking at a similar boom as we had in tech in 1996,” said Joe Brettell, a GOP strategist in Washington who works with energy companies. “The technology has caught up with the aspirations, and that changes the political dynamics fundamentally.”

Those technological advances have made it possible for energy companies to tap deep and once-untouchable deposits of natural gas and oil. They include refinements in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which is the injection of chemicals into the ground to coax buried fossil fuels to the surface.

The U.S. is now the world’s largest natural gas producer and is expected to surpass Saudi Arabia soon as the world’s greatest oil producer, becoming a net exporter of energy by 2025.

The boom has brought drilling rigs into long-settled neighborhoods, raising fears of water contamination, unsafe traffic and air pollution, and outraging residents.

Pollster Steven Greenberg said Cuomo provides little notice before his public appearances because anti-fracking protesters will crash his events. Republicans blame the governor for stymieing growth. New York voters split evenly on fracking, with Democrats only modestly more likely to oppose it than Republicans.

“No matter what he decides, he’s going to have half the people upset with him,” Greenberg said. “From a purely political point of view, it’s hard to argue with his strategy — punt.”

In California, Brown has a long record of backing environmental causes, but he’s drawn the wrath of some environmentalists for supporting fracking. One group cited the $2 million that oil and gas companies have given the governor’s causes and campaigns since 2006. Democrats in the Legislature have proposed a freeze on fracking but are not optimistic Brown will support it.

The Democratic split is sharpest in Colorado.

Hickenlooper, a former oil geologist, has been a staunch supporter of fracking; at one point he said he drank fracking fluid, albeit a version without most of the hazardous chemicals. His administration has fought suburban cities that have banned fracking, insisting that only the state can regulate energy exploration.

In response, activists are pushing 10 separate ballot measures to curb fracking. One measure would let cities and counties ban it. The effort has the support of Colorado Rep. Jared Polis, a wealthy Democrat. At the state party’s recent convention, he gave a rousing speech nominating Hickenlooper for a second term but acknowledged “none of us … are going to agree on every single issue.”

Some Colorado Democrats worry that the ballot push is bringing energy groups who generally support Republicans into the state. One pro-fracking group has spent $1 million in TV ads.

Jon Haubert, a spokesman for the group, said leaders in both parties think the measures are economically dangerous. “We look at that and say this seems to be an extreme opinion,” he said, referring to the initiatives.

The ballot measures will force Democratic candidates to choose among environmentalists, labor groups and Colorado’s business community, whose political and financial support is vital to Democrats in the swing state.

Udall embodies this dilemma. He’s an environmentalist in a tight re-election campaign with Republican Rep. Cory Gardner, who represents an oil-and-gas rich, mostly rural congressional district.

In an interview, Udall declined to say if cities should have the right to ban fracking. “I’m not a lawyer,” he said.

Hickenlooper has put in place several landmark regulations — requiring that drilling occur a set distance from homes and schools and limiting methane emissions from energy exploration. But that has not assuaged activists such as Laura Fronckwiecz, a former financial worker who got involved in an effort to ban fracking in her moderate suburb of Broomfield after a drilling well was planned near her children’s elementary school.

A Democrat, she’s aghast at her party’s reluctance to embrace the cause. “Ten years ago, I’d say it was a progressive cause they’d get behind,” Fronckwiecz, 41, said, “but much has changed, and the politics of oil and gas are not what you’d expect.”

Fronckwiecz says she has Republicans and Libertarians in her coalition, as do activists pushing to limit fracking in energy-friendly Texas. While the GOP-dominated Legislature in Texas has rejected efforts to limit drilling, activists have earned small victories in towns and cities that have limited drilling, and one big win, the Dallas vote.

Sharon Wilson, Texas organizer for the environmental group Earthworks, says she gets a warm reception from conservatives and Libertarians. “When they come into your community and start fracking,” she said, “it does not matter what your political affiliation is.”