Political power in Arizona is balanced on a razor’s edge. In many ways, the 2022 Arizona midterms epitomize the struggle for the soul of our nation.
There are must-win races this November to reelect Democratic Senator Mark Kelly and for the governorship that Republican Doug Ducey is vacating. We need to gain just one seat each in the state senate and state house to tie for control. We can’t undervalue the position of Arizona Secretary of State, which has been essential in upholding the results of the 2020 presidential election. Upping the ante, Arizona has no office of Lieutenant Governor, rather the secretary of state is next-in-line for the executive seat, should the governor leave office for any reason.
Nearly every day, Republicans in Arizona introduce or make progress in passing legislation introduced by the radical right, and try to keep the Big Lie alive in an attempt to undermine free democratic elections. Earlier this week, a bill allowing parents to sue teachers who parents believe have “usurped” their rights by including “objectionable” content in curriculum, set sail for Ducey’s desk. Demoralizing educators and withholding education from constituents is a favorite, and particularly effective, mechanism of maintaining oppressive control. Other recently introduced legislation designed to keep the iron grip of the heteropatriarchy intact:
Outlaw video recording of police within 8 ft of interactions, without permission from law enforcement officer
Limit access to voting drop boxes, which is particularly punitive to rural and tribal communities
Force teachers to ‘out’ LGBTQIA+ students to parents, even if doing so could lead to abuse or abandonment
Ban abortions after 15 weeks
Allow concealed carry of guns on campuses
Legalize use of deadly force to protect property
Attack minimum wage and prohibit public workers from organizing union members
We need every Democratic vote, including and especially those of our latinx and Indigenous allies. BIPOC leaders on the front lines in Arizona want our help, and they’re creating actions for out-of-state volunteers like us. Let’s remind Arizona voters of recent Democratic accomplishments, find out what issues are important to our allies in this key swing state, then follow through by helping them elect progressive leaders who will effect meaningful change.
PA played an outsized role in the 2020 election and will need to do it again in the midterms! In 2022, PA will have two of the most important elections in the country, for the US Senate and Governor:
Must-Flip US Senate seat! – This Senate race can win a desperately needed seat to enable us to fight for nationwide voting rights and push Biden’s agenda through a fractured Senate. This Senate seat is vacated by retiring Republican senator Pat Toomey. Several strong Democratic candidates are running in the primary, making this one of our best opportunities for flipping Toomey’s seat. We must make this happen – the stakes couldn’t be higher!
Save Pennsylvania! The gubernatorial race is a battle for nothing less than the soul and future of PA. Democratic champion Gov. Tom Wolf, who is term-limited, has been vetoing the tsunami of voter suppression laws from the radical GOP legislature for years. Democrats have an outstanding candidate in Josh Shapiro, but there is a strong GOP field so we can take nothing for granted. We must unite to elect Shapiro and save PA!
by Barbara Head, March 31, 2022. In February, Russia brutally invaded Ukraine, in part to replace their democracy with Russian autocracy. As we witness the fierce bravery of the Ukrainians in defense of their homeland and freedom, we cannot help but reflect upon our own situation here at home. Our own democracy of nearly 250 years is at risk. Recent events have made it shockingly clear that major factions in our government are plotting to replace our democracy with autocracy. And we are not alone in our peril. Over the past year, 60 countries became less free, while only 25 improved HCR 3/10/22.
Oligarchs everywhere want to convince the world that democracy is in decline and that autocracy is the wave of the future! Putin’s view is that democracy has outlived its usefulness, while Chinese president Xi Jinping believes that democracies cannot respond to a complex and changing world. Biden himself said in 2021, “Things are changing so rapidly in the world… the question is: In a democracy as genius as ours, can you get consensus in the timeframe that can compete with autocracy?” HCR 3/10/22.
For all the efficiency of autocracy, it is self-serving and inevitably works against the people it rules. Autocracy can only be sustained when opposing viewpoints are repressed and disinformation fed to the population. Those who rule become corrupt. As the old adage goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
From the viewpoint of autocrats, democracy is weak and inefficient. Democratic leaders are chosen after lengthy discourse when all voices will be heard. The process takes time and is partisan by nature. How inconvenient, from the totalitarian perspective!
Yet across the globe, democracy remains more popular than autocracy. People do not have to be forced to fight and die for democracy, they do it because of their strong beliefs in what it represents and because self-determinism is a basic human need. People do not take to the streets, and risk being jailed or shot, to demand authoritarianism. But you have to ask, if democracy is so popular, how can it be under threat in the U.S. now? And what can we do to help ensure that democracy will win out over autocracy, here and across the globe?
Human Rights Watch, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization, suggests that the best way to buttress democracy is by making sure our democratic leaders do a better job meeting the challenges of global leadership: climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, poverty and inequality, racial injustice, and threats from modern technology HRW News, HWR Kenneth Roth. First and foremost, our elected officials need to hear from us, daily if necessary. We need to write, call, text, demonstrate, and let them know what they need to do to make the world a better and safer place for all of us. We need to speak loudly — through the voices of millions of voters — so our leaders can hear us more clearly. We need to show the world that our system works, and that it works while preserving basic human rights to self-determinism. This affirmation, more than anything, will help to ensure the global ascendency of democracy over autocracy.
David Pepper’s new book Laboratories of Autocracy examines the crisis of the Anti-democratic (small d) condition of Statehouses across our nation, using Ohio’s experience as a test case.
But we’re safe here in Massachusetts, right?
Unfortunately, we are not immune. First, there are the obvious anti-democratic forces. PAC money is flowing into our state to spend thousands of dollars on radical candidates for Select board, School Committee, Board of Health, Library Trustee, etc. David Pepper explains why: They want to inflame the culture wars to distract us while they undermine all levels of government. Why? It drives good people out of government and keeps regular people from participating. This allows corruption to flourish.
Second, the Massachusetts Statehouse is crippled into inaction, a very sneaky way for conservatives to keep their regressive policies.
We’ve talked for years about the lack of transparency in the MA Statehouse, how it is ranked in the bottom fourth of the nation, how it often takes a decade for laws with popular support to get passed. Our Statehouse suffers from many of the problems that David Pepper outlines, it just has a veneer of blue.
What’s happening?
If you want to get elected, you need a D beside your name. But anyone gets to call themselves a dem no matter their policies.
The real choice is made during the primary, with many fewer voters participating. Even some DTCs won’t endorse in the primary.
Incumbents are protected, rather than held accountable for what they did (or usually DID NOT) do.
It’s hard to hold them accountable because our elected representatives don’t have to tell us how they voted on a bill. Just because they cosponsored a bill doesn’t mean that they voted to pass it or even advocated for it at all. They do what “leadership” i.e. the Speaker of the House, tells them to do.
Why? The Speaker controls
Committee chair appointments and significant salaries.
Elected official’s staff, who report directly to the speaker.
Elected official’s office space
The culture of the Statehouse, which is to bully and shun anyone who dares to speak up.
Basically if the Speaker doesn’t like it, it doesn’t happen. And that is why the position created (and money allocated to) to mitigate the rampant sexual harassment in the Statehouse is…not filled after 15 months.
It’s why bills aren’t passed, even though we have a supermajority. The Speaker is concerned that Charlie “might” veto it.
It’s why we didn’t get election day registration– the leadership didn’t want college students to be able to register and vote on election day. Why? They might not like the fact that it took 10 years to pass the Family Mobility Act and that the Safe Communities Act and Healthy Youth Act are currently in that same repeat cycle. They might not like that climate legislation is often watered down before it is passed, or it is quietly undercut. They might vote for someone that understands what they want and need: maybe a younger person, or a person of color. Heck even a woman! See the lack of diversity at the Statehouse
This year is an important year for elections across the nation, but also here in Massachusetts. We have two Republicans running for governor trying to out-trump each other. We have an anti-vaxxer Republican running for LT governor. They are going to put the culture war front and center.
There are also important races for State Auditor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. We know how the State Secretary of State and Attorney General can protect or damage elections. But did you know that the State Auditor is charged with holding state government accountable? Accomplishments in Accountability But also See this law about birth control that was never implemented.
Wow- What Can We DO?
You’ve taken the first step – broken through the silence surrounding the corruption and radical agenda engulfing Statehouses across the nation, including ours. It’s a crucial year, because we need to work in other States too. It’s up to us to devote the time and treasure to fight anti-democratic forces in every State in the Union. David Pepper has a list of 30 steps to Promote Democracy for inspiration. So roll up your sleeves and bring a friend. Let’s take action this week and every week!
That’s what the Autocrats want you to think. Not only is it a cancer at the Federal level, it enables and grows corruption in Statehouses across America, including ours.
David Pepper’s new book Laboratories of Autocracy examines the crisis of the Anti-democratic (small d) condition of Statehouses across our nation. Statehouses that are manipulated by lobbyists and dark money groups. Statehouses where power is entrenched through gerrymandering and voter suppression, so there is no chance to hold elected officials accountable. Statehouses that are so corrupt they are actively damaging their districts and real peoples lives.
And they do it in a cone of silence.
Using Ohio as his case study, Pepper also talks about many other states who have also succumbed to autocratic forces; specifically forces that work to do the OPPOSITE of what would benefit our communities and what the majority of people want. His book describes the concerted and organized effort made by radical Republicans whose goal it is to subvert our democracy.
David Pepper details the enormous powers Statehouses have, and the pitifully few checks on that power. The biggest reason they are able to act with impunity is that most voters don’t pay attention to who members of the Statehouse are and what they do. Safe in their gerrymandered districts, they can do whatever republican dark money tells them to do, often just copying wholesale the laws that these lobbyists have written.
The results are flagrant acts that defraud the state budget, suppress votes, and eliminate federal civil rights for women and LGTBQ people. There doesn’t seem to be a bottom either: At the supreme court hearing, it was even suggested that Loving (the decision allowing interracial marriage) should also be overturned, so that states can decide for themselves.
What can one person do? A lot actually! Take a look at David Pepper’s list for inspiration. But most importantly take action this week, and every week. Ask a friend to join you. Your Democracy is counting on you!
Rural Arizona Action (RAZA) has deeply focused on fighting disinformation and educating their neighbors about how they can make a difference in the legislative process. They have done meaningful work in climate, democracy and broadband expansion. They need our support to continue this work.
They seek to create more equitable and just systems through advocacy, accountability and leadership training in rural Arizona communities. RAZA was founded as a response to the lack of resources and year-round civic engagement opportunities available in rural Arizona. RAZA and Rural Arizona Engage, their affiliated 501(c)3 organization, educate, advocate and coordinate in rural communities to build communities of educated, empowered and engaged voters. RAZA develops long-term organizing capacity and creates professional development opportunities for rural organizers.
by Barbara Head, Feb. 28, 2022. North Carolina is not only a swing state, it is a battleground in itself! The 2020 presidential election was close, with Biden losing by only 1.4%, and politics have grown even more fractious since then. There are three major stories in North Carolina:
U.S. Senate race – The drama begins with Republican Senator Richard Burr’s retirement in 2022, opening up this seat. Burr was censured by the North Carolina Republican Party for voting to convict Trump following the Jan 6 insurrection, and Trump is now angling to choose Burr’s successor. The Democrats have an outstanding candidate in Cheri Beasley, the Black North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice who lost her re-election bid in 2020 by only 401 votes out of 5.4M cast across the state (0.007%). Burr’s seat is predicted to be right-leaning but flippable, and Beasley could be the one to flip it.
Battles for state control — Democratic governor Roy Cooper, who is up for re-election in 2024, has been clashing with the Republican-controlled General Assembly (Senate and House) of North Carolina since 2016. Cooper has enjoyed tremendous popularity in this state, having been re-elected twice as governor and before that, four times as Attorney General. The General Assembly has fought him ferociously on issues such as governor’s powers and election policies, with many governor’s vetoes and legislative veto overrides. Cooper cannot veto redistricting, so that conflict has been playing out in the North Carolina courts.
Redistricting – Democrats just won a huge victory for fair maps in North Carolina! The state Supreme Court ruled that a heavily gerrymandered Congressional map drawn by the General Assembly was unconstitutional. The court then appointed a bipartisan panel of redistricting specialists (“special masters”), whose revised Congressional map was adopted. This new map is not gerrymandered and by various criteria, including protection of Black voters’ rights, is much improved over the previous map. The state legislature maps received mixed reviews (House generally positive, Senate less so) but both were adopted. The bottom line is – all three maps are better than their predecessors and are final for the 2022 election.
So redistricting in North Carolina has served Democrats well in 2022. The new Congressional map will be split evenly between likely Democratic and likely Republican districts, with two competitive districts. The North Carolina state legislature will likely retain its Republican majority (sigh) but maybe now there will be more competition from Democrats.
A lot is happening in North Carolina – stay tuned for our latest recommended actions to help push this purple battleground state into blue territory!
by Barbara Head, Feb. 17, 2022. With federal voting rights legislation stalled, all eyes are turning to the states. In a previous Letter From the Editors, we talked about the critical roles of Democratic governors as firewalls for our democracy. Through their veto powers, Democratic governors fight against radical GOP legislatures and their attempts to strip our voting rights from us.
But governors are not the only players in our defense against extremist Republican agendas. Enter Secretaries of State and state Supreme Court justices. Who are these unexpected heroes?
Secretaries of State
In most states, the Secretary of State serves as the Chief Elections Officer, whose responsibilities include voter registration, maintaining voter rolls, and making voting safe and efficient. In 2020, Democratic Secretaries of State nationwide also expanded voter access through absentee ballot applications and improved election security. Meanwhile, Republican-controlled legislatures in states like Wisconsin are attempting to take charge of the voting process – putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
Take the case of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, after the 2020 presidential election. Raffensperger, citing his oath of office, resisted Trump’s pressure to change the state vote count in favor of Trump. Raffensperger’s refusal played a major role in the presidential election and infuriated Trump. In 2021, Governor Brian Kemp and state lawmakers passed a bill that transferred control of elections from the Secretary of State to the GOP-controlled legislature. This bill removed election safeguards to make sure no future Secretary of State could stand in the way of election subversion and abandoned any pretense of ethics in Georgia’s election process.
This cautionary tale shows not only the immense power wielded by Secretaries of State to control elections, but also the urgency of electing and protecting Democrats in these critical positions. Raffensperger’s fate could easily happen to Democratic Secretaries of State who block election interference by radical GOP legislatures.
How You Can Help: Democratic Secretaries of State are critical to preserving our democracy and our right to free and fair elections. The Democratic Association for Secretaries of State (DASS) is the only organization dedicated to electing and protecting Democratic Secretaries of States. We will alert you to individual Secretary of State races in battleground states as the 2022 election cycle progresses. In the meantime, please support DASS with your donations here.
Supreme Court Justices
A major line of defense against Republican voter suppression and gerrymandering is the state court system, particularly the Supreme Courts. Michael Li, a redistricting expert at the Brennan Center for Justice observed, “The war against gerrymandering has always been a multifront war, and state Supreme Courts have been a part of that.” (The Hill, state court battlegrounds)
As quickly as voter suppression laws and unfair maps are introduced by Republicans, lawsuits are filed by Democrats, putting pressure on the state court system. Important redistricting cases eventually reach the state Supreme Court. The buck stops at the state level since the US Supreme Court will not hear cases involving partisan gerrymandering. Now State Supreme Court justices find themselves at the frontlines of the battleground that will determine the future of the US House of Representatives. So the stakes are very high.
State Supreme Courts who have made the news recently for their rulings on gerrymandering include:
North Carolina, where the legislature was ordered to draw new boundaries more favorable to Democrats. The Court split 4-3 along party lines with the 4 Democratic justices all finding the Republican-drawn districts unconstitutional and overly partisan.
Ohio, where drawing of new boundaries was ordered. The Supreme Court ruled against the GOP-drawn maps that would have favored Republicans over the next four years. The vote was 4-3 with the Republican Chief Justice joining the 3 Democrats for a majority.
Wisconsin, where the conservative majority Supreme Court voted to keep the highly gerrymandered Republican-drawn map from 10 years ago rather than redraw fairer maps.
Why did their decisions vary so much? All three of these states have red legislatures – the source of the gerrymandered maps. But Democratic or liberal Supreme Court justices consistently ruled against GOP-drawn gerrymandered maps, while leaning toward more equitable maps. This is why Democrats must prioritize filling high court seats as the Republicans have been doing for many years.
How You Can Help: When state Supreme Court justices run for a seat on the court in 2022, we will let you know how you can help. Take North Carolina as an example, where two Democratic justices will run to retain their seats on the state Supreme Court. If they lose their seats, Democrats will lose the court majority, and conservative thinking will prevail in future court decisions. So closer to the election, we will reach out to All in for North Carolina. This group keeps in close touch with grassroots North Carolina organizations and knows which have programs for out-of-state volunteers. In the meantime, you can donate to help these grassroots groups and those in other states with key Supreme Court elections coming up this year (see Recommended Groups).
by Barbara Head, February 1, 2022. New England epitomizes a political blue alliance – a unified bastion of Democratic values and people. Until 2020, our sister state of New Hampshire fit the New England image by consistently supporting Democratic presidential candidates. And both the New Hampshire Senate and House federal legislators are blue.
But since then, New Hampshire state politics have been jarringly out of step with the rest of New England. In 2020, the Republican party unexpectedly flipped both chambers of the state legislature, creating a trifecta with conservative governor John Sununu – completely transforming the political landscape in the state.
In 2021, NH House Representatives introduced more than two dozen voter suppression bills. A long-shot proposal to secede from the union is currently in committee. And Gov. Sununu, nominally a “pro-choice” governor, has signed a budget including anti-abortion provisions that are considerably stricter than those of neighboring states. The new restrictions:
Make post 24-week abortions illegal, even in cases of rape, incest, and fetal anomaly;
Require invasive vaginal ultrasound to determine age of gestation;
Criminalize health care providers who perform such abortions.
Clearly, the political faction that has spawned draconian abortion restrictions in states like Texas and Mississippi has now taken root in New Hampshire. Can further loss of rights be far behind in this “blue” New England state?
Democratic US legislators Senator Maggie Hassan and House Representative Chris Pappas are also in GOP crosshairs for 2020. Republicans are taking special aim at Pappas, the first openly gay man to represent New Hampshire, to flip his highly gerrymandered seat. There are only two US House seats in the state, so each carries considerable weight. Both vulnerable incumbents need to be defended to maintain our slim majorities in the Senate and House.
Take Action – Help Save New Hampshire!
To find opportunities such as post carding, letter writing, canvassing and phone banking, check out our NH Actions Page. We update our actions regularly, so check back often.
The Planned Parenthood New Hampshire engages in (from their website): educational and electoral activity, including legislative advocacy, voter education, and grassroots organizing. PPNHAF works to pass and defeat legislation, elect public officials, and influence the political climate in New Hampshire to protect and expand access to reproductive health care.
