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?  

1.  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.
2. The real choice is made during the primary, with many fewer voters participating.  Even some DTCs won’t endorse in the primary.
3. 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

1. Committee chair appointments and significant salaries. 
2. Elected official’s staff, who report directly to the speaker.
3. Elected official’s office space
4. 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!

30 STEPS TO PROMOTE DEMOCRACY

Recording of David Pepper’s presentation to Indivisible Mass Coalition

Indivisible Mass Coalition Toolkit for Action

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!

Updated 7/5/22 Watch John Oliver explain the imortance of the Secretaries of States!

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).

Help Save New Hampshire in 2022.

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.

by Barbara Head, January 10, 2022

There are 36 (20R, 16D) governors races in 2022, and these may be the most interesting political races of all this year! Here are some overviews:

Governor race ratings

Best races for 2022 might be for governor

10 Governor’s races to watch

TEN INTERESTING RACES AT A GLANCE:

These races and their candidates are summarized below. Right now, most races are too early to call. But as the 2022 election nears and predictions become more accurate, we will add what the oddsmakers are saying about possible outcomes. 

Georgia –  flip prospect

Dem (likely candidate): Stacy Abrams – lost to Brian Kemp in 2018 in contested race;

GOP (showdown): Brian Kemp – incumbent, Trump ire for losing GA in 2020 vs. David Perdue – lost to Jon Ossoff in Jan runoff elections in  2021

Read: GOP showdown in Georgia, Early Look at GA gov race

Arizona – open seat (was Doug Ducey, R, term-limited)

Dem (likely candidate):  Katie Hobbs, AZ Secretary of State

GOP (uncertain): Many, but Kari Lake leading

Read: AZ race

Wisconsin – must defend

Dem (incumbent): Tony Evers

GOP (likely candidate):  Rebecca Kleefisch, former WI  Lt. Governor 

Read: Wisconsin races, WI gov election critical in 2022 for free and fair elections

Michigan — must defend

Dem (incumbent): Gretchen Whitmer

GOP (uncertain): Many 

Read: MI gov race polls and predictions

Nevada — must defend

Dem (incumbent): Steve Sisolak (seen as highly vulnerable)

GOP (showdown): Dean Haller (former US Senator) vs. Joe Lombardo (county sheriff) 

Read:  Dem Sisolak faces challenges

Maryland – flip prospect

Dem (uncertain): Many heavy hitters

GOP (showdown): Kelly Schulz (Sec of Commerce) vs Daniel Cox (state lawmaker with Trump endorsement

Read:  Dems face off in primary – can they prevail in red year?   

Kansas – reverse flip? Toss-up

Dem (incumbent): Laura Kelly (see as highly vulnerable)

GOP (likely candidate): Derek Schmidt (KS Attorney General)

Read:  Who’s running for KS gov

Pennsylvania – open seat (was John Wolf, D, term-limited)

Dem (likely candidate):  John Shapiro (PA Attorney General) – very strong candidate

GOP (uncertain): Many

Read:  The PA gov race summary

Florida – maybe flip prospect

Dem (showdown): Nikki Fried (FL Agriculture Commissioner) vs Charlie Crist (US Rep and former GOP governor from 2007-2011)

GOP (incumbent): Ron DeSantis

Read: Can Dems defeat DeSantis?

Maine – must defend

Dem (incumbent): Janet Mills

GOP (unclear): Maybe Paul LePage? (former and unpopular ME governor)

Read: Mills vs LePage? Heavyweights contest

HONORABLE MENTION:

Ohio –unlikely to flip

Dem (showdown): Nan Whaley (former Dayton major) vs. John Cranley (former Cincinnati mayor)

GOP: Mike DeWine (incumbent)

Read: Who’s running for OH gov?

Texas – possible flip – or just wishful thinking?

Dem (likely candidate): Beto O’Rourke (former US Rep, narrowly lost Senate race to Ted Cruz and run for president in 2020)

GOP (incumbent): Greg Abbott

Read: TX election 2022