Dear friends,
I spent two evenings this week at talks by Jamelle Bouie about the problems with and the future of American democracy. It was a chance to practice my note-taking skills: Bouie had a lot to say and he talked really fast.
On the first night, Bouie discussed the tremendous lack of political equality that plagues and has always plagued our system. Political equality simply means that all citizens have an equal say in governance and that no one person or group is entitled to rule.
I’m paraphrasing Bouie, because I’m no stenographer: Political equality cultivates the free society we say we want because it engenders mutual respect.
Bouie pointed out, in disturbing detail, the profound historical political inequality in the American system — consider women, African Americans, Indigenous people, and those who were enslaved — as well as the structural impediments to political equality in the design of our system: the Senate, the Electoral College, the power of the states under a federal system, the Supreme Court.
Today, a person in the state of Wyoming has 67x the influence in the Senate of a person who lives in California. Bouie described our near future, in which half the population will reside in eight states, and the other half will live in the other 42, grossly empowered by the Senate and Electoral College to exercise minority rule.
He talked about the way that wealthy people, through unchecked political speech — in the form of dollars, thanks to the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case — are crushing political equality.
It was, to say the least, pretty painful to listen to someone spell it out so plainly.
Bouie ended the first talk by suggesting that we focus on expanding the size of the Senate by admitting new states: DC, Puerto Rico, US territories, even splitting existing states. He called for voting reforms — a Constitutional right to vote! — and legislation to end felon disenfranchisement and extend voting rights to those who are incarcerated.
Support DC statehood!
On the second night, Bouie promised a “not entirely pessimistic” outlook. Nonetheless, it wasn’t exactly hopeful. He explained that federalism, which empowers states, has not functioned, for the most part, as an expression of American democracy and he showed how state power has been turned against democracy.
In addition to a history lesson on the Nullification Crisis created by Southerner John C. Calhoun, who was primarily interested in preserving slavery, Bouie described the weaponization of institutions against democracy in our own era.
He explained that gerrymandering had distorted representation so that, for example, support from 45 percent of Wisconsin voters gave 60 percent of the seats in the state’s legislature to Republicans. And that just as SCOTUS freed states to restrict voting rights by striking down sections of the Voting Rights Act, the Dobbs decision is likely to allow demagogues to impose their moral order in states like Wisconsin, where roughly 60 percent of voters favor legal abortion in most cases, and just 10 percent feel that abortion should always be illegal.
Celebrate another day without the Dobbs opinion with Abortion Access Front:
Adopt a reproductive health clinic that provides abortions.
Bouie made a compelling case that conservatives were promoting their vision of a national government that has the power to crush us but not protect us. I despaired.
Hoping for some not-entirely-pessimistic guidance, I asked Bouie which institutions organizers can best exploit to promote democracy at the state level or anywhere.
His answer is that we should focus on state legislative elections because too few seats are contested.
I live in one of the contested Assembly districts, AD 43. Brian Cunningham, the incumbent, won a low-turnout special election this spring. The challengers — Jelanie DeShong, Tim Hunter, and Pierre Albert — are close on many issues, including their support for the New York Health Act and the Good Cause Eviction law to protect tenants.
The Working Families Party has endorsed DeShong.
DeShong said that during the special election, what he believes cost him some votes in the Jewish community, was his position against bail reform rollbacks. "I constantly reminded people that we have to remember how we got to this point in the first place," he explained, "because if you give them more discretion, that kind of kind of opens up the slippery slope back to where we were before."
For me, holding the line on bail reform is a good impulse.
Albert speaks in generalities. Hunter, who is DSA-adjacent (socialist), is an appealing young person. I confess that I want a somewhat more experienced hand.
DeShong has interned with Jumaane Williams (as a council member) and has worked in the Hochul administration. I want someone with some experience and will keep my eyes on Hunter for the future.
I endorse Jelanie DeShong for AD 43.
Check out the other contested Democratic primaries for Assembly seats in NYC, districts 32, 46, 54, 57, 60, 66, 68, 70, 78, and 81. Check your district here.
Throughout the two talks, Bouie referenced the “democratic impulses” that Americans share, citing surveys of public opinion and the history of movements to expand democratic freedoms beyond the people whom the framers intended to empower with their ‘We the People’ language.
These democratic impulses are the stuff of our justice work.
Safe-streets activists have [an] expansive vision — a car-free Broadway from Morningside Heights on the Upper West Side to Houston Street on the Lower East Side — in order to create a livable pedestrian and bike corridor along the spine of Manhattan on a meandering boulevard that many regard as superfluous for moving vehicles around the city.
March against traffic violence at 6 PM today with @NYC_SafeStreets and Streetsblog for a rally and march beginning at Broadway & 33rd Street in Manhattan.
Folks are fighting to get education funding restores so that we can create smaller class sizes without sacrificing important programming.
Protest against budget cuts to the Department of Education with the UFT on Friday, June 24, starting at 3 PM on the steps of City Hall.
NY Renews has prepared a comment for us to relay to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to affirm the importance of race as a factor in identifying the communities which must be prioritized for climate investment.
The Climate Justice Working Group has released their Draft Disadvantaged Community Criteria. These criteria are an essential part of the process of allowing the state to direct programs, energy investments, and economic development opportunities to high-risk communities.
Take 15 seconds to let the DEC know that it is vital that race be considered a primary factor in mapping and criteria development.
We can still get the cryptomining moratorium through.
Contact Governor Hochul and let her know that you’re a climate voter and you support the crypto moratorium. Do it again!
I’ll be back on Monday (on the late side).
with love,
L