My Option for the Supreme Court Voting Rights Case

Today, the Supreme Court will hold a scheduled oral argument on the constitutionality of two key sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, in the case of Shelby County v. Holder (docket 12-96). Shelby County urged the Court to strike down those provisions and will be argued by Bert W. Rein of the Washington, D.C., law firm of Wiley Rein LLP. Dividing time in defense of the law will be the U.S. Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. and Debo P. Adegbile, an attorney with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund in New York City, representing individual voters and other private defenders of the law.

My option would be to modify the opt-out (“bailout”) opportunity already in the law.

Just as the Court passed up the opportunity in 2009 to strike down the 1965 Act’s provisions, it could do so again this time, and perhaps with a variation of the back-up approach it took then: expanding the opportunity for jurisdictions to declare themselves beyond the law because they no longer discriminate against minority voters. But this is somewhat questionable, because it gets the Court into the business of rewriting a law of Congress, or at least seeming to do that.

Under the law, a jurisdiction can get out from under Sections 4 and 5 if it can show a ten-year record of non-discrimination. It is difficult to know how that very specific formulation could be changed by the Court without it getting into actual legislative drafting. Perhaps the Court might strike down the ten-year “clean hands” record, and tell Congress to find something that makes it easier to bail out. I would change it to 5 years.

The jurisdiction that is directly involved in this case, Alabama’s Shelby County, cannot qualify for the existing bailout, because it simply does not satisfy the ten-year minimum of “clean hands.”

The federal government and the other defenders of the 1965 Act are pushing the bailout option strenuously, in hopes that it would be the way to salvage Sections 4 and 5, and thus the heart of the Act.

With all the current laws making it harder for some to vote, I would like to see voters use the part of Section 4 that allows them to partition for the Justice Department to examine a bailout county or state and see if they have failed a bailout, and if proven, put them back on preclearance.

UPDATE
Following through on the deep constitutional concerns stated in its prior Northwest Austin decision, a majority of the Court seems committed to invalidating Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and requiring Congress to revisit the formula for requiring preclearance of voting changes. The vote seems quite likely to be five-to-four. The more liberal members pressed both the narrow argument that an Alabama county was not a proper plaintiff because it inevitably would be covered and the broader argument that there was a sufficient record to justify the current formula. But the more conservative majority was plainly not persuaded by either point. It is unlikely that the Court will write an opinion forbidding a preclearance regime. But it may be difficult politically for Congress to enact a new measure.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Adolfo Carrion's Kick Off Rally for 2013 NYC Mayoral Race

I attended the Kick Off Rally for the Hon. Adolfo Carrion Jr.'s launch of his Independent campaign for Mayor of New York City tonight, at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.


CLICK HERE to view the rally on NY1.

In his first speech as a candidate he pledged to re-engage New Yorkers discouraged by partisan politics and special interests. Carrion dropped his Democratic Party enrollment in the fall to run with the Independence Party, which endorsed him last week. This sets up a possibility for a three-way general election in November.

The last time a mayoral candidate won office solely on a third party line was in 1969, when John Lindsey won reelection as a member of the Liberal Party.



As the candidate of the New York City Independence Party Organizations, he will be using our phone bank operation and our grassroots street operations to get out the vote, help with his Town Hall meetings, and be there on election day in November.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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The Road Back to the People’s House

The U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., 1846
The “People’s House” is a colloquial term used to describe the institution of the United States of Representatives. The term comes from the populist characteristics of the House: smaller representative districts, shorter terms of office for its members and, perhaps most importantly, direct election by the people. The House of Representatives was the only branch of the Federal government to be directly elected by the people until ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1913, when the Senate was made a directly elected body. The United States Capitol building, where the House of Representatives meets, is sometimes referred to as the “People’s House”.

This road in prior centuries was traveled using our feet. But in the 21st Century, this road might be done with our fingers.

Forms of Representative and Direct Democracy

Most countries that are representative democracies allow for three forms of political action that provide limited direct democracy: Referendum, Initiative, and Recall. Referendums can include the ability to hold a binding vote on whether a given law should be rejected. This effectively grants the populace which holds suffrage, a veto on a law adopted by the elected legislature. One nation to use this system is Switzerland. Initiatives, usually put forward by members of the general public, compel the consideration of laws (usually in a subsequent referendum) without the consent of the elected representatives, or even against their expressed opposition. Recalls give public the power to remove elected officials from office before the end of their term.

Electronic Direct Democracy (EDD), also known as Direct Digital Democracy (DDD), is a form of direct democracy which utilizes telecommunications to facilitate public participation. Electronic direct democracy is sometimes referred to by other names, such as open source governance and collaborative governance.

EDD requires electronic voting or some way to register votes on issues electronically. As in any direct democracy, in an EDD, citizens would have the right to vote on legislation, author new legislation, and recall representatives.

Technology for supporting EDD has been researched and developed at the Florida Institute of Technology, where the technology is used with student organizations. Numerous other software development projects are underway. Several of these projects are now collaborating on a cross-platform architecture, under the umbrella of the Meta-Government project.

Switzerland, already partially governed by direct democracy, is making progress towards such a system. Senator Online, an Australian political party who ran for the Senate in the 2007 federal elections, proposed to institute an EDD system so that Australians can decide which way the senator’s vote on each and every bill. A similar initiative was formed 2002 in Sweden where the party Aktivdemokrati, running for the Swedish parliament, offers its members the power to decide the actions of the party over all or some areas of decision, or alternatively to use a proxy with immediate recall for one or several areas. Since early 2011 EDD parties are working together on the Participedia wiki E2D.

The first mainstream direct democracy party to be registered with any country's electoral commission is the UK's People's Administration Direct Democracy party. The People's Administration have developed and published the complete architecture for a legitimate reform to EDD [including the required Parliamentary reform process]. Established by musicians and political activists, the People's Administration advocates using the web and telephone to enable the majority electorate to create, propose and vote upon all policy implementation.

The People's Administration's blueprint has been published in various forms since 1998 and the People's Administration is the first direct democracy party registered in a vote-able format anywhere in the world – making transition possible through evolution via election with legitimate majority support, instead of potentially through revolution via violence.

The Pirate Party

The Pirate Party of Germany is a political party founded in September 2006. It states general agreement with the Swedish Piratpartiet as a party of the information society. It is part of the international movement of pirate parties and is also a member of the Pirate Parties International. Since 2011 the party has succeeded in attaining a high enough vote share to enter four state parliaments in Germany, (Berlin, North Rhine-Westphalia, Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein).

The party sees itself as part of an international movement to shape with their term of "digital revolution" which is a circumscription for the transition into a information society. With their focus on freedom in the net and their fight against government regulations of this sphere, they caught the attention especially of the younger generation. Even if the network policy is the core identity of the party, it is now more than just an advocacy party of "digital natives" and characterizes itself as a social-liberal-progressive. The party sees itself as a party of fundamental rights which among other things wants to advocate for political transparency.

The U.S. is not ready for any of these full implementations. But combining features of them may give all registered voters a voice in the decisions that affect them locally, in their state, and their country.

As an example of Direct Digital Democracy in 2013, we look at the March for Innovation. There is a plan for a virtual march on Washington this spring to push for smart immigration reform to attract and keep the best, the brightest and the hardest-working to fuel innovation and American jobs.

America's innovators, the leaders of technology and innovation companies from Silicon Valley start-ups to companies across America, are working with the Partnership for a New American Economy to lead a movement among all Americans to pass sensible immigration reform.

What's the Virtual March? Bringing together a movement of grassroots supporters with the leaders of hundreds of technology companies, they are organizing one of the largest-ever virtual marches on Washington. The idea is simple: concentrating their collective voices on one day later this spring, they will bring attention to innovation-focused immigration reform and generate a surge of contacts to Congress -- on Twitter, Facebook, on the phone, and in meetings in Washington. And we'll keep engaging this movement after the March to keep the pressure on.

If you are interested, CLICK HERE to find out more.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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NY IP, NYC Local Control, and NY Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals, New York State's highest court, is composed of a Chief Judge and six Associate Judges, each appointed to a 14-year term. New York's highest appellate court was established to articulate statewide principles of law in the context of deciding particular lawsuits. The Court thus generally focuses on broad issues of law. There is no jurisdictional limitation based upon the amount of money at stake in a case or the status or rank of the parties.

On April 24th 2008, I and other New York City Independence Party Organizations' members rode to Albany to support our council, Harry Kresky, Esq., argue the fight for Local Control in front of The New York Court of Appeals.

The Issue:

The County Committees are the sole vehicle for local control of the affairs of the New York City Independence Party. Since the Independence Party was founded in 1994, the New York City organizations have been the democracy wing (Ground up and Grassroots vs. the state's Top Down) of the party. There has been an intense fight within the Independence Party over the issue of whether local party organizations would control their own nominations or have those nominations dictated to them by the state party. The State Chairman, Frank MacKay, succeeded in abolishing local control everywhere in the state except in New York City.

After many fights in the local courts against the State Independence Party chairman to first remove many of the New York City members of the State Committee, including me, and then to take away the local control to select candidates for the party ballot line, we arrived at the Court Room.


Trying not to be overwhelmed by the court room originally designed by Henry Hobson Richardson in 1881, and as the court moved to different buildings over the years, stayed intact, we took our seats. The case is about Local Control.

Then the court entered, and Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye, began the oral arguments portion of the Local Control case.


The New York Court of Appeals has upheld the right of the five county committee organizations of the Independence Party in New York City to approve citywide candidates from other parties who seek to run on our line.

This sounds like we won. But Chief Judge Judith S. Kaye did a Judgment of Solomon.

She allowed the Mayor, Comptroller, and Public Advocate candidates to be selected locally by the New York City Executive Committee, currently made of of 82 of the over 3,500 members of the five boroughs' County Committee members. This gave the state chairman the ability to select all the rest. The 51 members of the New York City Council, the five New York City Borough Presidents, and the New York City members' state Legislature, 25 in the Senate and 59 in the Assembly, who represent the city.

Where did the concept of LOCAL CONTROL go?

A dissenting opinion (or dissent) is an opinion in a legal case written by one or more judges expressing disagreement with the majority opinion of the court which gives rise to its judgment. When not necessarily referring to a legal decision, this can also be referred to as a minority report.

So here is my dissent, the New York City Independence Party Organizations have the grassroots ground operation. It is our members, over 100,000, and the over 3,500 of them who elected to be County Committee members, who will do the selecting with our voices and our feet.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Adolfo Carrion NYC Mayoral Campaign KICKOFF Rally

As he accepted the New York City Independence Party nomination, he focused on low voter turnout in citywide elections in his first major speech of the campaign. He called the 28 percent turnout in the 2009 mayoral election a crisis. “I'm interested in waking up that sleeping giant. We know who they are, and we know they care about the future of the city," Carrion said. "They are unfortunately and clearly making a statement that they are not satisfied when their choices... Well today, Independence Party, you gave New Yorkers a choice."

One of the things that the Independence Party feels very good about in terms of this campaign is that not only is Adolfo Carrion a supporter of their political reforms, his campaign actually is a political reform.

He calls himself a social progressive and fiscal conservative.

His KICKOFF RALLY, will be Tuesday, February 26th at:

The Bronx Museum of the Arts
1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx NY.

Doors will open at 5:30pm and Event begins at 6:00pm.

Please RSVP by February 24th at: CARRIONNYC2013@GMAIL.COM or call 646-722-4273.

CLICK HERE for his new website.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE 2012 ELECTION

I am on an email list from OurTime.org. It is a nationwide non-profit organization that leverages online organizing, new media, and popular culture to enhance the political voice of young Americans. More than one million members strong, they lead campaigns that register voters, remove ballot barriers, and highlight relevant news and policies that impact their lives.

They released a report with seven recommendations to improve and modernize our nation's electoral system.

These include:

- Universal online voter registration

- Online absentee ballot request forms

- A federally standardized list of permissible forms of voter ID

- Mandatory early voting periods

- Uniform standards for voting machine allocation

- Same day voter registration

- Requiring colleges and universities to act as DMV's in registering their enrolling students

CLICK HERE to read the report.

I would add the following:

"It’s time to rethink our largely partisan system of state and local election administration. We risk leaving our election processes open to partisan mischief – or to the perception of such mischief. We should have a serious conversation about solutions to this risk, including developing an entirely professionalized and non-partisan system for administering our elections."










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Adolfo Carrion, Jr. Endorsed as the Mayoral Candidate of The NYC Independence Party Organizations

Tonight, The Executive Committee of The New York City Independence Party Organizations, endorsed the independent, Adolfo Carrion Jr., as its mayoral candidate.



This is the second independent candidate, Mayor Bloomberg was the first in his third campaign, to be endorsed by the party and guarantees the minimum of a three party mayoral race in November 2013 and the possibility of the city's first Latino mayor.

Mr. Carrion is the former City Council member, Bronx Borough President, Director of the Office of Urban Affairs in the Obama Administration, and Regional Director of HUD for New York and New Jersey.

Next, is filing a Wilson Pakula, the document that lets a non-party candidate run on a party line.

But then the fun begins.

Will he also get the ability to run in the Republican Primary?

We also will need to spend June through July to get the number of signatures needed to get on the ballot.



I first met Adolfo at the party's December 2012 Anti-Corruption Awards. After his speech, I heard someone with a fire in their belly and someone who understood independent politics.

As a member of the New York City Independence Party's Executive Committee representing the Eastside of Manhattan (73rd AD), I had a phone conversation with Adolfo on Sunday, February 10th about his run for mayor. On our conversation about Political Reform, he said, "I'm writing a piece on nonpartisan municipal elections. The parties are always running on "litmus test" issues, rather than focusing on how to fix things. We should be focused on public safety, education, and building the economy. As Fiorello LaGuardia said, there's no Republican or Democratic way to pick up the garbage. The political process needs fixing. My candidacy gives us the opportunity to advance that. This campaign can disprove the notion that independents can't succeed."

His KICKOFF RALLY, will be Tuesday, February 26th at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1040 Grand Concourse, Bronx NY. Doors will open at 5:30pm and Event begins at 6:00pm.

Please RSVP by February 24th at: CARRIONNYC2013@GMAIL.COM or call 646-722-4273.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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How a Blanket Primary Works

I have been an advocate of allowing all voters to take part in their state's primary system. I am opposed to the closed system we have in New York. It amounts to taxation without representation. Our taxes are being used to run the primary system, but the 2,249,506 voters registered in no party can not take part in the political process.

I have been interested in the top-two system implemented in California and have reviewed the many state plans being discussed in state legislatures. But I think a better option is the blanket primary.

In a blanket primary, voters may pick one candidate for each office without regard to party lines; for instance, a voter might select a Democratic candidate for governor and a Republican candidate for senator. The candidates with the highest votes by party for each office advance to the general election, as the respective party's nominee. A blanket primary gives registered voters maximum choice in selecting candidates.

One state, Alaska, comes close to my ideal system, but is not there yet. Their modified blanket primary was configured to satisfy Supreme Court decisions about the rights of association of parties.

They have two types of primary ballots:

- The Blanket Ballot of qualified parties: Alaska Democratic Party, the Alaska Libertarian Party and the Alaskan Independence Party agreed to be on a combined party ballot available to all registered voters. This ballot was referred to as the Alaskan Independence, Alaska Democratic and Alaska Libertarian (A-D-L) Candidate and Ballot Measures ballot.

- The Republican Party chose to have only Republican candidates on its Primary ballot, and ONLY those voters registered Republican, but also allowed nonpartisan and undeclared access to the Republican ballot. This ballot was referred to as the Republican Candidate and Ballot Measures ballot.

In their election system, write-ins are allowed on the General Election ballot.

In 2012, the U.S. Representative race had 5 Democrats and 1 Libertarian on the Blanket Primary ballot and 3 Republicans on the Republican ballot. So in the General, there was a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, and a Non-Affiliated who collected the necessary signatures to get on the General ballot.

We are almost there. When 271,866 independent (nonpartisan + undeclared) registered voters out of 513,880 registered voters could only vote in the Republican Primary, is not as open as I want.

So how do we get all registered voters in the country take part in the political process and get by the right of association?

Let me know your thoughts on this issue.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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Outside super Pacs and State Races

Whether you are for or against an issue or candidate, should an out-of-state super Pac be allowed to spend their money in your state, for or against the issue or candidate? The Supreme Court says YES. I might be for many of the issues and candidates supported by a super Pac, but I am against their influence. So lets look at one and their influence.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg formed a super PAC to spend between $10 and $15 million on elections in 2012 in order to help moderate candidates and aid ballot referendums supporting gay marriage.

Bloomberg said in a statement that the candidates who will benefit from his super PAC will be moderates who support gun control and the market-driven education reform that Bloomberg has championed during his time as mayor.

According to The New York Times, Bloomberg's super PAC supported candidates including former Maine Gov. Angus King, who ran as an independent for Maine's open Senate seat and won; Democrat Gloria Negrete McLeod, the challenger to incumbent Democratic Rep. Joe Baca in California and won; and Republican Rep. Bob Dold in Illinois.

The effort is lead by New York City Deputy Mayor for Government Affairs and Communication Howard Wolfson, who is also the former spokesman for Hillary Clinton.

The super PAC effort is the biggest national push by Bloomberg, who is winding down his third term as mayor and will not seek reelection to a fourth term.

In 2013, Mayor Bloomberg scored a political knockout when he helped chase a pro-gun Democrat out of a special congressional election in Illinois.

Illinois state Sen. Toi Hutchinson abandoned her campaign yesterday, two days after Bloomberg’s political committee unleashed attack ads over her past opposition to tough gun restrictions. She cited the gun issue in her concession and threw her support behind Bloomberg’s candidate, former Democratic state Rep. Robin Kelly.

Bloomberg’s Independence USA political action committee has spent $1.4 million in the election to succeed former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. It is poised to spend up to $2 million for the Feb. 26 Democratic primary, more than any of the 17 candidates have raised.

The winner of the primary is almost guaranteed to take the seat in the overwhelmingly Democratic district.

Bloomberg also set his sights on another candidate in the race, Debbie Halvorson, a one-time congresswoman with an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association. She had been in the lead until Bloomberg began bombarding the air waves.

Please let me know how you feel about super Pac money.










NYC Wins When Everyone Can Vote!

Michael H. Drucker
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