Campaign

Last weekend, I joined The Faith and Politics Institute on their annual Congressional Civil Rights pilgrimage to Alabama. I’ve taken this trip several times, but its significance this year could not be more poignant. While we have come a long way and much progress has been made, the many battles fought forty eight years ago in Selma are still raging, but this time we’re not fighting in the streets, we’re fighting in the courts.

Last week, some of my colleagues and I took that fight to the steps of the Supreme Court to rally in support of the most effective Civil Rights legislation ever enacted by Congress, The Voting Rights Act.

It sure looks like Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can’t get enough of giving women the short end of the stick. Just two weeks after voting against the Violence Against Women Act, McConnell continues to play games with the health and safety of Kentucky women.
 
VAWA did finally pass, after a seemingly endless fight championed by pro-choice Democratic women in the House and Senate. But just hours after Republicans were finally shamed in to voting for this vital piece of legislation, they grabbed at the first opportunity to weaken it.

The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which gave rise to outside groups that could accept unlimited contributions to influence elections, was not intended to eviscerate laws limiting the size of contributions to candidates and parties. But the data from the 2012 elections show that it has effectively done so.

In Citizens United, the court assumed that independent expenditures by outside groups — unlike contributions to candidates and parties — do not pose a threat of corrupting elected officials. Therefore, the court concluded that independent expenditures cannot be regulated.

A few blocks from the U.S. Supreme Court is the National Archives, housing original signed copies of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and landmark pieces of federal legislation – including the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In front of the entrance to the Archives stand two statues with inscriptions that read “What is Past is Prologue,” and “Study the Past.” We hope all nine justices of the Supreme Court will heed that wisdom as they hear arguments this week about the constitutionality of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.  

While Barack Obama is busy shredding the Constitution, Washington, D.C. insider Karl Rove is busy trying to destroy what is left of the Republican Party by launching a multi-million dollar Super PAC to usurp representative democracy, disenfranchise American voters, and concentrate even more power in Washington DC.
 
Rove and the professional “consultant class” think that only Washington D.C. insiders like them – not the American people – should get to decide who runs for public office.
 
That’s why he is launching the “Conservative Victory Project” – a Super PAC whose mandate is to wrestle local decision-making power away from the American people, so that only Washington DC insiders can hand-pick our candidates – against our will – again.

The Tea Party movement is a major force in American politics because people are sick and tired of the tax-and-spend policies and crony capitalism of both political parties. Now we learn of the newly launched Conservative Victory Project that wants to push the Tea Party out and replace them with the failed strategies of 2008 and 2012.
 
After Election Night 2012, even some Tea Party members bought into the false narrative of devastating losses in the Tea Party’s conservative ranks. However, the Tea Party grew in Congress with the election of 27 new Tea Party conservatives to the House and three new Tea Party Senators. The movement again exhibited electoral strength even while the GOP establishment stumbled badly.

Second inaugural addresses like second honeymoons typically lack the pizazz of the first go-round. There hasn’t been a memorable second address since Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s second inauguration in 1937. Even the great communicator Ronald Reagan delivered a pedestrian second inaugural address.
Expectations for President Barack Obama’s second inauguration were not as sky-high as they were four years ago. This time, however, President Obama far exceeded expectations. He may not have delivered a speech for the ages. But he gave a powerful address that laid a foundation for his second term in office.

In recent years, Congress has greatly curbed monetary pork, notably earmarks. For example, after reforms were instituted to make earmarks more transparent, their number in legislation decreased from 13,997 (worth $27 billion) in 2005 to 2,658 (worth $13 billion) in 2007. But in-kind pork, such as presidential inaugural tickets, continues to thrive.

On the first day of the 113th Congress, Rep. Chris Van Hollen reintroduced the DISCLOSE Act, a bill aimed at shining a bright light on who is spending in our federal elections. This marks the third time the DISCLOSE Act has been introduced in Congress. The legislation would bring much-needed transparency to our federal elections, allowing voters to be better informed, and helping guard against improper relationships between political spenders and elected officials.

The results of the 2012 elections showed that Republicans are teetering at the edge of a “demographic cliff.” They have alienated Latino voters so thoroughly that they risk becoming a regional party unless something big changes, and changes soon.