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Sara Swann
Sara Swann is a staff writer covering campaign finance and other reform issues. She previously reported on local and state government for The Daily Times on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She has also done money in politics reporting for the Center for Responsive Politics. Sara is an alumna of Syracuse University.
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Partisan maps hurt children, liberal group says in pushing for a campaign issue
May 28 2020
Legislative lines drawn by politicians focused on preserving their power get criticized mainly for skewing election outcomes and disenfranchising voters. But they are also having a lasting impact on the education and health care of the next generation.
That's the conclusion of a report released Thursday by a prominent progressive think tank, the Center for American Progress, which maintains that partisan gerrymandering a decade ago by Republicans in four battleground states has limited the availability of child care, education and other family support programs.
The study — which echoes similar CAP reports in recent months arguing that more gun control measures and Medicaid expansions would have been enacted in recent years but for aggressive GOP mapmaking — is part of the wave of efforts to make partisan gerrymandering an election issue this year.
<p>Liberal advocacy groups are pushing hard, and spending generously, to elect enough Democrats to legislatures in purple states that they control more of the next nationwide redistricting, which starts next year after census results are finalized. The GOP dominated the process a decade ago. Good-government groups, meanwhile, are pressing ballot measures to make more states assign the job to independent commissions that would put a premium on compact districts and electoral competition.</p><p>Putting an end to partisan gerrymandering would provide "a better, more secure future for America's children and their families," CAP says.</p><p>The report maintains that, in the past two years, the North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin legislatures shortchanged health care, education, day care and other social safety net programs for the young even though they enjoyed solid public support — concluding this could not have happened without maps that over-inflated the sizes of GOP majorities in each state capital.</p><p>In three of the states (not Wisconsin) the GOP has secured state House and Senate majorities in several recent elections where Democratic legislative candidates won the cumulative statewide vote.</p><p>All four have Democratic governors who were unable in 2018 and 2019 to win approval for budgets expanding early childhood education and child care services. Last year, for example, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer proposed a Michigan budget with an additional $84 million to cover preschool education for poor and middle-income families — but the GOP legislature pared the increase to just $5 million.</p><p>The coronavirus pandemic has also put "an incredible strain on state budgets," the report says, which could further scale back the funding available for these programs.</p><p>"Fixing gerrymandering is not a cure-all for the struggles of children and families, but it would help to ensure that legislators reflect the wider public when they discuss these issues and craft policy solutions," the report says.</p><p>The most popular method for combating gerrymandering has been through independent redistricting commissions. Fourteen states will use such a system to redraw their legislative maps in 2021, and eight will do so for their congressional maps. <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/redistricting/virginia-redistricting-amendment" target="_self">Virginia voters will</a> decide in November whether their state will join that roster next year, and <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/redistricting/arkansas-signature-lawsuit" target="_self">a longshot bid</a> for a similar vote in Arkansas remains alive.</p><p>Conversely, Missourians will vote on whether to <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/redistricting/gerrymandering-missouri" target="_self">undo a redistricting reform initiative</a> they approved just two years ago.</p><p>At the same time, the more partisan push on redistricting intensified on Thursday when the <a data-linked-post="2638675638" href="https://thefulcrum.us/directory/national-democratic-redistricting-committee" target="_blank">National Democratic Redistricting Committee</a>, the political action operation run by Obama administration Attorney General Eric Holder, announced it would invest another $300,000 in the campaigns of 67 legislative candidates in North Carolina and Texas — on top of $150,000 spent this winter.</p><p>Turning the state capitals blue in Austin and Raleigh is within a long reach for the party, and that alone would allow the Democrats to draw 51 more congressional districts in 2021 than they did in 2011.</p>
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Joe Biden's campaign has hired a new senior staffer, Rachana Desai Martin, to focus on protecting voting rights amid the coronavirus crisis.
Biden campaign creates a senior post for protecting voting rights
May 27 2020
Joe Biden has created a new senior campaign position to focus on protecting the right to vote in an election remade by the coronavirus.
Rachana Desai Martin, a senior Democratic Party official, will be the national director for voter protection and senior counsel on the legal team, the presumptive nominee's campaign announced Tuesday.
It appears to be the first job of its kind in a modern-day major-party presidential campaign, but the circumstances are also nearly without precedent — the first national election in a century during a nationwide public health emergency. Martin will focus on ballot accessibility for all voters and combating the disenfranchisement of people of color.
<p>Martin worked in the Obama administration and on Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign. She is now the Democratic National Committee's chief operating officer, but she previously headed civic engagement and voter protections efforts at party headquarters. </p><p>Her work has already put her in the middle of one of the party's main campaign strategies of the year, filing dozens of lawsuits around the country hoping to force relaxation of rules limiting access to the voting booth in normal times — and especially to mail-in ballots this year. Spurred by President Trump, Republicans are fighting those suits mainly with the minimally substantiated argument that the current rules and a continued reliance on voting in person are essential to preventing election fraud.</p><p>At the same time, at least two dozen states have temporarily expanded their mail-in voting systems and eligibility criteria on their own since March. But last-minute changes have led to ballot delivery challenges and long lines at polling stations in the few primaries that have taken place.</p><p>The pandemic has disproportionately impacted people of color, with black Americans having an outsized share of infections and deaths. Progressive advocates for making voting easier and safer are pushing not only expanded absentee voting but also more sanitizing and safety rules for polling places, which research shows are preferred by African-Americans. A strong turnout from minority communities, especially in cities where Covid-19 has hit hardest, is essential to Biden's roadmap for defeating Trump.</p><p>And while many states want to ease voting rules and expand balloting by mail to assure a safe but sizable turnout, they're running out of money to do so. The <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/coronavirus-economic-stimulus" target="_self">$400 million Congress has allocated</a> <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/vote-by-mail-2645620410" target="_self">is not nearly enough</a> to cover the costs, good-government groups and election administrators say, but an additional $3.6 billion approved by the Democratic House looks to be substantially reduced if not eliminated, perhaps next month, once the Republican Senate gets its say in the next economic rescue package.</p><p>In addition to addressing the intersection of voting rights and public health, the Biden campaign said, Martin will also work to combat strict voter ID laws, the purging of registration rolls and disinformation campaigns.</p>
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Two prominent former governors, Democrat Jennifer Granholm of Michigan and Republican Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, are co-chairing the new VoteSafe.
New bipartisan group pushes for safe and secure voting of all kinds
May 26 2020
With millions of voters scared of coronavirus exposure, a surge of absentee ballots is coming in November even if the rules are not relaxed and more federal help is not delivered — a reality obscured by the intensifying partisan rhetoric over vote-by-mail's virtues and flaws.
And so a new group, VoteSafe, has been launched in hopes of lowering the volume and magnifying the needs of election administrators of both parties preparing for the first Election Day in a century during a nationwide public health emergency.
The organization, unveiled last week, has an A-list bipartisan pedigree and the backing of many prominent good-government groups — an alliance made possible because the group is pushing remote voting and use of polling places with equal force.
<p>"VoteSafe is committed to ensuring voters have options: expanded access to absentee ballots as well as safe, sanitary, and accessible in-person voting locations," the website says up front. "Our goal is to ensure the safety of all voters as they exercise their constitutional right. Doing so is not a partisan issue; it is an American issue. We are committed to ensuring that the right to vote safely transcends politics and partisanship."</p><p>The principles are at the core of VoteSafe's mission: States should ensure voters have access to both voting options, and Congress should provide states with the resources they need to do so.</p>
<p>In March, <a data-linked-post="2645576120" href="https://thefulcrum.us/coronavirus-economic-stimulus" target="_blank">Congress allocated $400 million</a> for states to spend on safeguarding elections during the pandemic, but good-government groups and election administrators have said this <a data-linked-post="2645620410" href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/vote-by-mail-2645620410" target="_blank">is not nearly enough</a> to cover the costs. </p>
<p>The Democratic House voted two weeks ago to give <a data-linked-post="2645981768" href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/coronavirus-stimulus-bill" target="_blank">another $3.6 billion</a> to states, but the money is in a $3 trillion pandemic economic recovery package that's dead on arrival in the Senate, and it's not clear when Republican leaders there will come up with a counteroffer and whether it will include any election funding. </p>
<p>Six top state election officials have endorsed VoteSafe's principles, including Republican Secretaries of State Brad Raffensburger of Georgia and Kim Wyman of Washington. The others are Democratic Secretaries of State Jocelyn Benson of Michigan, Jena Griswold of Colorado, Maggie Toulouse Oliver of New Mexico and Denise Merrill of Connecticut. </p>
<p>VoteSafe aims to encourage more election officials to sign on to these principles ahead of an election now just 23 weeks away. Its website includes an open letter to election administrators that urges them to join the campaign.</p>
<p>"This is not a partisan issue and not a time to play politics," the letter reads. "We can unite over protecting the sacred American right to vote."</p>
<p>Two prominent former governors, Republican Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania and Democrat Jennifer Granholm of Michigan, are serving as co-chairs of VoteSafe. Eleven good-government groups have also partnered with the campaign, including the <a data-linked-post="2638675562" href="https://thefulcrum.us/directory/league-of-women-voters" target="_blank">League of Women Voters</a>, the <a data-linked-post="2640174112" href="https://thefulcrum.us/vote-at-home" target="_blank">National Vote at Home Institute</a>, <a data-linked-post="2638673288" href="https://thefulcrum.us/representus" target="_blank">RepresentUs</a> and the <a data-linked-post="2638673544" href="https://thefulcrum.us/r-street-institute" target="_blank">R Street Institute</a>.</p>
<p>"Let's remember that voting isn't a privilege, it's a responsibility of citizenship," Ridge said. "Responsibility also rests with government to make certain that every American has the right to vote safely during this public health crisis."</p>
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