Wednesday, February 24, 2010

WFP/DFS Settlement

As in all settlements, the outcome allowed both sides to claim victory.

In NY the Working Families Party owned the Data & Field Services which provided polling, phone banks, petition gathering services for endorsed candidates of the party. The claim was the candidate had to use DFS for the endorsement and payed less for the services to bypass Campaign Finance Board cost rules. The case used the campaign for Debi Rose, who ran for a City Council seat.

According to the terms of the settlement, Data & Field Services must formally separate from the Working Families Party and Working Families Organization. This includes implementing management and employment structures entirely separately from the Working Families, as well as retaining a public accounting firm and law firm that have no ties to the Working Families. All of this must be overseen by a newly appointed Board of Directors. That Board, according to the settlement, must have a majority of members who have neither been employed by nor contributed to the WFP nor even employed by or contributed to anyone who is a contributor to the WFP for at least two years. This would keep Data & Field Services from being run by current Working Families employees and contributors, as well as by employees of many of the city’s major unions.

The settlement also requires Rose’s campaign to pay $13,000 in additional fees. These will put the campaign over the city spending limit, opening it up to potential fines from the Campaign Finance Board. In addition, the campaign must make a good faith review of its books, which is estimated could mean between $40,000 and $60,000 additional charges.

If the high end of the estimate is correct, the undercharges could constitute nearly half of the $161,000 spending limit for Council campaigns.

After court adjourned in Staten Island on Tuesday, Working Families executive director Dan Cantor dismissed the settlement of the case against Data & Field Services and the Debi Rose campaign as “a very noisy lawsuit that has ended very quietly.”

But to several outside observers, Cantor’s presence at the court to handle the questions from reporters, fact sheets in hand, underscored an outcome that they say is a major change of practices for the Working Families family.

But despite the court-ordered massive overhaul of operations, Cantor rejected the idea that there were any problems with how DFS or the WFP acted through last year’s elections.

“There was nothing wrong and there will be nothing wrong now either,” Cantor said. “There will be some reforms that are good things. We want to increase the ability of both organizations to thrive, we want to increase public confidence in both, and we’re optimistic that this will do that.”

The United States Attorney’s investigation, which began in December with subpoenas to the Working Families and all its 2009 primary campaigns, is also underway. Cantor declined comment on that investigation.

Michael H. Drucker
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Restore the Power of Our Democracy


By a one-vote margin, the Roberts Court overturned decades of settled law with its calamitous decision in Citizens United v. FEC, opening up the floodgates for corporations to spend unlimited money to influence American elections.

To push for legislation to mitigate the damage done by the Court as quickly as possible, the fact remains that amending the U.S. Constitution is the only true way to undo the Court's radical reinterpretation that corporations have the same free speech rights as individuals. It's a difficult and historic endeavor which none of us take lightly and we need your help.

Use the above link to do your part to protect democracy from unlimited corporate influence and restore Government By the People.

Michael H. Drucker
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Empty On Funding, ACORN Shutters Around the Country


ACORN, one of the largest social advocacy groups in the country, has been forced to suspend most operations as of today.

ACORN has for months been reeling from cash shortfalls as government funding was cut off and foundation grants were halted in the wake of legal problems related to charges of financial misdeeds at offices around the country. Unable to support their continued operations, offices have been closed and several key employees have departed. ACORN phone systems nationwide were shut down because of an inability to pay the bills. So too the main phone line for ACORN’s New Orleans office, which now responds with a standard phone company “the number you have reached is not in service.”

ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis’ cell phone has been disconnected and she now says she had left Acorn officially last summer.

Some NY ACORN employees' are now identified as being with New York Communities for Change:

New York Communities for Change (NYCC) is a new, locally incorporated organization that was formed by prominent community activists and leaders in the progressive community who are committed to promoting social and economic justice and the welfare of the State of New York and its people. NYCC is applying for status as a corporation exempt from taxation under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(4). NYCC is not affiliated with any national organization.

NYCC's initial focus will be working to put an end to the foreclosure crisis facing so many New Yorkers, enforcing New York's wage and hour laws, preserving tenant rights and preventing devastating state and local budget cuts that would harm services for low-income families.

NYCC BOARD LIST BELOW

Anthony Cottman--Vice President Parkside Tenant Association, Flatbush, Brooklyn

Linnette Ebanks--Childcare provider. Business owner for 12 years

Iona Emsley--Community activist from Uniondale, Long Island

Audrey Jackman--Longtime community activist in Flatbush Brooklyn

Wilfredo Larancuent--Vice President UNITE HERE

Precilla Lockett--Law Offices of Frederick K. Brewington, Hempstead, Long Island

Ed Ott--Adjunct Professor, City University of NY

Marie Pierre--Former chairperson of Brownsville ACORN

Maria Polanco--Chairperson Dominican Council

Jean Sassine--Foreclosure Fighter and Homedefender, Queens

Neva Shillingford--Vice President 1199

The new NY Acorn phone message had been replaced with:

“ACORN is not providing services in New York, but if you would like to receive information from local organizations with similar purposes, please leave your name, number and mailing address after the beep,” says the woman on the new recording, in both English and Spanish.

Michael H. Drucker
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Monday, February 22, 2010

Mike Huckabee rips CPAC

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee blasted the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday as outdated, nearly corrupt and unrepresentative of the conservative movement.

But for all the enthusiasm in the hotel’s corridors, much of the rhetoric on stage felt oddly dated. For every Marco Rubio – the young Florida Senate candidate who is seen as by many conservatives as their future – there was the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre, rambling about Clinton-era gun control battles and showing decade-old video clips of himself jousting with TV hosts on the big screens in the ballroom.

Worse, at least in the eyes of CPAC organizers, hearty supporters of Paul showed up in part to ensure the quirky Texas septuagenarian won the straw poll.

What is your take on the results?

Michael H. Drucker
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Saturday, February 20, 2010

Why We Need Non-Partisan Elections


From an Op-Ed:

There are many things that need to be done to improve our democratic system, from reforming archaic voting systems to a comprehensive and equitable campaign finance system. This year, the mayor will convene a charter reform commission to address the live wire topic of term limits, but we want to encourage the mayor to take one more pass at non-partisan elections, a referendum that lost in the polls in 2003, but today is needed more than ever.

Use the above link to read the entire article.

Michael H. Drucker
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Independents See Through Washington's Magic Show

Jackie Salit is President of IndependentVoting.org, a national association of independent voters. She recently completed work on the Independence Party's campaign for Mike Bloomberg in which he became the first independent mayor of New York City.

"The Washington political game is like a magic show. It's filled with smoke and mirrors which create the perception that one thing is happening, when something else altogether is going on."

"Independents backed Obama - with passion - in 2008 because he wanted to find a way out of the partisan paralysis. But he hasn't, and it might be because he simply can't. The partisan structure of Congress and of the party system overall won't allow it. That's why the independent movement is pressing for structural political reforms to shake up partisan control and create new non-partisan possibilities."

Use the above link to read the entire article on The Huffington Post.

Michael H. Drucker
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Friday, February 19, 2010

Why Washington Is Tied Up in Knots


I just read this article by Peter Beinart, a associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York and a senior fellow at the New America Foundation. His book The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris will be published by Harper in June, in the latest Time magazine.

He discusses the revulsion toward the nation's capital and when government doesn't take action, it loses people's faith. And without public faith, government action is harder still. Call it Washington's vicious circle.

Breaking this circle of public mistrust and government failure requires progress on solving big problems, which requires more cooperation between the parties. But before we can begin to break that circle, we need to understand how it developed in the first place.

At the end of the article he makes three points about possible changes to untie the knots. He must have been reading the independent movements desire for structural political reform.

First, more New Hampshires. Since the 1970s, Iowa and New Hampshire have held the first two presidential nominating contests. Iowa is a caucus, which means that only a small — and ideologically extreme — fraction of the state's voters take part. New Hampshire, by contrast, is an open primary, which encourages candidates to appeal to voters outside their party. If every state took New Hampshire's example to heart — and allowed independents to vote not only in presidential primaries but in congressional ones as well — the consequences could be profound. Not only would more moderate candidates win, but the same candidates would stake out more-moderate positions, the result of which might be something of a bipartisan rebirth.

Second, more Crossfires. In today's highly segmented, partisan news environment, it's hard to create big new media institutions dedicated to objective news reporting. But it might be possible to create new talk shows and blogs in which liberals and conservatives interrogate one another's views — programs like the early (and more substantive) incarnation of CNN's Crossfire or William F. Buckley's Firing Line. There's no guarantee that the conversation would be edifying, of course. But it would be a useful antidote to the current cable and blog ghettos, where you can go years without hearing the other side make its case. The recent televised meeting between Obama and the House Republican leadership was a reminder that honest but civil debate can show people that their side isn't infallible and that not everyone on the other side is evil and foolish. Add to this is Open Debates.

Third, Imagine if another powerful third-party voice were to emerge today, demanding that both parties take real steps to solve problems like global warming and health care — as opposed to the Tea Partyers, who insist that government just get out of the way. Republicans would still disagree profoundly with the Obama Administration's favored remedies, but they would feel greater pressure to amend rather than kill them. Independent candidates would create a countervailing pressure against those partisan zealots who are constantly threatening to punish Republicans for giving the White House an inch.

Use the above link to read the entire article.

Michael H. Drucker
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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Sarah Palin to tea parties: Pick a side

Just came across this article on Politico by ANDY BARR.

In remarks to a fundraising dinner for the Arkansas Republican Party reported by CBS News, Palin praised the anti-tax tea party activists for their independence, but urged the “grand movement” to start thinking about joining one of the two political parties.

Palin suggested the grass-roots activists consider “Which party reflects how that smaller, smarter government steps to be taken? Which party will best fit you?”

“And then because the tea party movement is not a party, and we have a two-party system, they’re going to have to pick a party and run one or the other: ‘R’ or ‘D,’” she said.

She seems to not understand what an independent means, we do not like PARTIES.

Use the above link to read the entire article.

Michael H. Drucker
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Not Invited to the Party

I just finished the book "Not Invited to the Party" by James T. Bennett, Eminent Scholar and William P Snavely Professor of Political Economy and Public Policy at George Mason University and Director of The John M. Olin Institute for Employment Practice and Policy.

The book shows how federal, state, and local governments have enacted laws, regulations, and subsidies that discriminate in favor of the Democratic and Republican parties and virtually prohibit challenges by independent parties and candidates.

For an independent activist it was a good read but I was disappointed in his lack of reporting certain activists' attempts in the last 15 years to pursue structural political reform of the political process.

The Afterword was written by William Redpath, Chairman of the Libertarian National Committee in Washington, DC. He talks about possible reforms, like:

Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) and Initiative & Referendum (I&R)

and ends with:

"Electorial reform will eventually come to the United States. It will be a mult-decade process that the two older parties will fight tooth and nail. But, when that electoral reform does occur, the American people will have finally thrown off the yoke of the two older parties that is impeding our progress as a people."

Michael H. Drucker
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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Tea party activists: Don't confuse them with independents

In an exclusive to the Christian Science Monitor, Jackie Salit documents the history of the independent movement and how it's goals are not just divergent, but diametrically opposed to that of the Tea Party movement. Here is a excerpt:

Sarah Palin, America’s newest conservative movement leader, seems to be aiming for a takeover of the GOP. Don’t walk away from the Republican Party, she counseled the “tea partyers” recently, even if some candidates turn out to be a disappointment (read: moderate). And don’t form a third party, she argued, saying, “The Republican Party would be really smart to start trying to absorb as much of the tea party movement as possible.”

The tea partyers are disgruntled social conservatives aiming to take control of the Republican Party, while independents, the antiparty force, are seeking to restructure the partisan political system. As the percentage of Americans – it’s now 42 – who consider themselves independent grows, understanding the route the independent movement has traveled will be critical to future elections.

Use the above link to read the entire article by Jackie Salit, the president of IndependentVoting.org, a national association of independent voters.

Michael H. Drucker
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Thursday, February 11, 2010

NYC Charter Commission


Mayor Michael Bloomberg has selected Anthony Crowell to chair his charter review commission, with the appointment and the full membership to be announced within two weeks.

Crowell, a senior counselor to the mayor and one of the prime players in Bloomberg’s successful effort to extend term limits, has served as a director/counsel to five charter review commissions and was a member of Bloomberg’s 2005 charter commission.

The 1989 commission had a $2.5 million budget. Bloomberg’s preliminary budget, released in late January, did not specifically allocate any money for the new commission, which is expected to address the term limits questions. According to some rumors, it may also include another push for the non-partisan election initiative that the mayor tried to make law through the 2003 charter commission.

Other suggestions in need of charter commission attention, include the role of borough presidents, expanding the powers of the City Council, changes to planning and land use procedures, and the existence of the public advocate.

Eric Lane, who served as director/counsel of the 1989 charter commission, conceded that he now believes the members made a mistake by not giving the public advocate's office an independent budget. He recommended reconsidering this move.

Ester Fuchs, a former Bloomberg advisor who chaired the 2005 charter commission for the mayor, urged the administration to take steps to make sure the new effort stokes a robust public debate. “It’s critical for the mayor to make sure the public recognizes this commission as legitimate,” Fuchs said.

Once the charter commission members are officially named, they will be charged with holding hearings in all five boroughs to gather recommendations for their work. They will then release a list of proposals, which will be subject to a second round of hearings in all five boroughs. Following these, the commission will choose which proposals to submit to the city clerk for consideration by the voters. The commission will have the option of putting all the proposals forward bundled into a single ballot question or of submitting each for a separate vote.

The process is unlikely to be complete in time for voter approval in the November 2010 elections. That could put the vote off until at least 2011, if not as late as the next citywide elections in 2013.

Michael H. Drucker
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