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What issues, information, ideas do you have to share?
BTW, we have new entries up in our Sustainability blog :
• Go on a low-carbon diet before the new year!
• "The thirteenth tipping point"
• New Green building in Takoma DC
by Tom Perez and Rob Richie
After Maryland finally finished counting ballots after its September 12th primary, the finger pointing about responsibility for that day's chaos at the polls began in earnest. Dozens of polling places failed to open on time, others opened without their voting machines working, new electronic pollbooks kept crashing and after polling hours were extended for an hour in two major counties, even more problems developed based on many pollworkers not learning of the extension or how to handle it.
With critical elections for nearly all of Maryland's highest offices expected to be closely contested on November 7th, the Keystone Cops nature of the primary elections was all the more troubling—and sadly reflective of the state of affairs in our elections nationally. Not only did inept election administration cause hundreds of people to lose their right to vote entirely and frustrate thousands more. It increased community distrust in the basic functioning of our democracy at a time when participation is more important than ever.
Americans must see their elected officials and election administrators taking bold, clear steps to reassure them that our state can run secure and fair elections. What we must do is uphold two fundamental principles of running elections well: accountability and transparency. The blame game among state elections officials, county board chairs and county election staff and various political leaders only increases voter cynicism – and points to policy changes demanded next year in Annapolis.
Let's start with accountability. We expect each county elections director to accept full accountability for what happens in November. For the moment, our counties are responsible for key decisions such as hiring, training and paying pollworkers, setting up polling places, establishing systems of Election Day communication and handling breakdowns in electronic machines and poll books.
But we not only must trust, but verify. Every election director should make public in a timely way for public review and comment their county's plan for running elections and a full checklist of what they plan to do in preparation for elections. We need utter transparency for decision-making that all too often is made behind closed doors.
Looking at a concrete example, one of the most astounding breakdowns in our home county of Montgomery in Maryland was with Election Day communication. Once pollworkers in dozens of polling places found they didn't have the access cards necessary to start up their electronic machines, many had no clue what to do – and then were on hold for the central office for half an hour.
When polls were extended, many pollworkers never learned about it from the county, while others botched the process by failing to allow people in line before the original poll-closing time to continue to vote on the electronic machines. It's hardly rocket science to develop efficient means for people to communicate with one another. A simple requirement that poll workers call in every 90 minutes by cell-phone to staff at headquarters will eliminate situations where poll workers are unaware of court rulings extending poll hours.
But changes in state policy are also needed. We must review our elections from top to bottom. We should increase funding for such basic systems as obtaining and training pollworkers, take steps to protect voting rights and secure voting in city elections and ask whether new electronic technology for voting and checking in voters has created more problems then it has solved – we should move to new, simpler, voting machines that have paper trails and can handle democracy innovations like Takoma Park, Maryland's, new instant runoff voting system that will be used in its city elections in 2007.
Resolving accountability is the most fundamental demand.
The international model, one last year proposed by a national commission headed by Jimmy Carter and James Baker, is to establish a nonpartisan state elections chief with the authority to direct local elections boards. After appointment by the governor and confirmation by a supermajority in the legislature, this official would have real independence from political pressure – but just as importantly, they should have strict accountability to standards of performance, combined with transparent processes in planning for elections and transparent evaluation of performance after the election.
Our current decentralized structure is a recipe for mutual fingerpointing. In a hearing before the Montgomery County Council, the head of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, acknowledged "human errors" within her office, but mostly blamed the state for the primary election debacle. Meanwhile, the head of the State Board of Election blamed local elections boards and even "the system" for the failures. Does "the system" have a name, a phone number or an office address? Our fundamental problem is not simply human error, but our inability to answer the simple but critical question: "who's in charge?"
Democracy is not only a goal for export. We must bring it home. Let's run better elections this November and then establish clear accountability and transparency through policy changes next year.
Tom Perez serves on the Montgomery County Council in Maryland. Rob Richie is executive director of FairVote, www.fairvote.org and co-founder of new state reform group FairVote Action Maryland, www.fairvotemd.org.
by Jane Hurst
The Gallaudet Protest of 2006 has been hard on my identity as a protester. I am a veteran of protests about civil rights and the Vietnam War and the women’s movement and gay rights, to mention just a few of the causes that get me out on the streets. I remember when my neighbors on Spruce Avenue and I decided to take our kids to their “first protest” and we all went down to the “Million Mom March.” We felt that we were initiating them into a sacred ceremony of challenging the power structure and making our voices heard for a more just world. Since that time, my daughters and I have attended many protests together including, sadly, many anti-war protests in recent years. But I could not support the protest at Gallaudet.
If you followed the protest in the news, you probably had a hard time figuring out exactly what the protest was about. The surface issue, the presidency of Dr. Jane K. Fernandes, was a screen for the deeper issues being expressed. What I saw was a combination of several factors: students were angry at being disciplined and held responsible for destruction of property on and off campus; everyone currently or previously employed at Gallaudet who had an ax to grind was out there at the grinding wheel; the Deaf elite felt that they should choose the university president and were not successful at the first try; people who held unexamined sexist attitudes accused Dr. Fernandes of “not being friendly” or “not smiling enough” or having the “wrong personality for the job.”
Most of all I think the protest was fueled by the threat to Deaf culture that has been posed by advances in technology which are giving individuals more choice about whether they want to live in that small community or whether they want to take on the wider world, which includes a lot of hearing people. Cultures under pressure have historically reacted in ways that are aggressive and/or self destructive, and I think we saw that this year at Gallaudet.
All those reasons for the protest are not why I could not support it, though. To explain, I have to go back to the Vietnam Moratorium in 1969. I stood with 500,000 of my friends to oppose the war in Vietnam. I was furious, I hated war, and I hated Nixon. After the protest I fell apart. I cried for hours. I had spent so much energy hating war, but I had no idea what peace was and how it might feel. I vowed to begin a search for peace inside myself, which I had to achieve before I could begin to stand for peace in the world. Years of meditation and mindful inner work on releasing my anger followed and continue to this day.
So in 2006 when the Gallaudet protest began, I had to decide whether or not to support it. Sadly, it has not been a nonviolent protest. Though physical attacks did not occur, it has been surrounded by death threats, stalkers, anonymous hate mail, and what to me felt like, well, a really bad vibe. It was so full of anger at Dr. Fernandes that she was stalked on her family vacation and vilified on a “Wall of Hate” put up during a building takeover, to say nothing of the death threats, obscene websites and blogs. All this anger directed at a person is not something I could support. I had spent 37 years working on generosity, self-acceptance, loving kindness, and forgiveness. To put my energy behind something so negative would be a setback for me. I could not support the protest.
Now that the protesters have “won” I am concerned about what will happen next. I have been working with a group of faculty, staff, and students urging mediation and peaceful respect for all which gives me some hope. What we must do is encourage change in the hearts of the people who harbor such hatred. I know that such angry protesters have issues that need to be resolved before they can live peacefully in community with those who disagree with them, so there is much individual work to be done. I know the difficulty of the journey ahead. I know because I was just such an angry protester 37 years ago.
Jane Hurst is Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion at Gallaudet University where she has taught for 25 years. She can be reached at jane.hurst@gallaudet.edu.
New internal polls (conducted on October 22 and 23) from the Steele and Cardin campaigns either show the two running neck and neck or show Cardin with a decent lead.
Here are the results of the poll sponsored by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (margin of error 3.9%)
Cardin (D) 41
Steele (R) 39
Zeese (G) 4
Undecided 16
And here are the results from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. (margin of error 4%)
Cardin (D) 52
Steele (R) 40
Undecided/other 8
The undecideds are clearly an important factor in each poll. The Democrats lumped undecided and other (Zeese) together.
So, is this race Cardin's to lose?
If Zeese does pull in 4% or more, will that throw the outcome either way?
I'm interested in your thoughts.
In the 10/18 entry of his blog, Newsrack, Thomas Nephew refers to the recent Voice piece on political blogs. Check it out if you aren't following Newsrack already.
-ed.
Dear Readers,
The city, you will be glad to know, has bravely stuck a blow for chickens' rights. The council passed a resolution Oct. 9th "Opposing the Confinement of Egg-Laying Hens in Battery Cages."
In the immortal words of the recently departed Anna Russell, "I'm not making this up, you know!"
The resolution was introduced by Ward Three councilmember Bruce Williams, and had unanimous support from the council and mayor, as well as the half-a-dozen citizens who commented on the resolution. Your Gilbert noted with interest how . . .
[continued at http://www.takoma.com/granola/2006/10/chicken.html]
We don’t know who will be elected to replace Paul Sarbanes in the US Senate. But we do know who it might be and who it won’t be: It will be either Democrat Ben Cardin or Republican Michael Steele.
It will not be third-party candidate Kevin Zeese, whose poll numbers indicate that he will score in the low single digits.
Miniscule numbers, but they might nonetheless be decisive: A late October SurveyUSA poll conducted for WUSA-TV and WMAR-TV has the Steele-Cardin race a dead heat. If accurate, were even one percent of voters to choose Zeese who otherwise would vote for Cardin, Steele will win. And a Steele victory would doom any prospect, however thin, that Democrats might recapture the Senate on November 7.
There is much to admire about Kevin Zeese. He is a bright, articulate activist who has championed peace and, even more courageously, challenged the Reagan-Bush, Sr. “War on Drugs” that aimed to remedy a public health problem with the mass incarceration of citizens for getting high on something other than alcohol. Yet while I agree with Kevin on most issues, I will not be voting for him.
The election of Bush, Jr. over Al Gore should have put to rest the notion that there is no significant difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Had Gore and a Democratic Congress been elected in 2000, it’s fair to assume that there would have been no Iraq war, no budget busting tax cuts for super-rich, and we’d be much further down the road toward addressing the perils of climate change.
During his state senate campaign, Jamie Raskin has been fond of saying that we don’t need a third party, we need a second party that really stands up to Bush and the Republicans. Indeed, history teaches that the American political system is unkind to third parties. Unlike parliamentary systems in which parties are awarded seats based upon their proportion of the vote, ours is a winner-take-all system. That’s why there are no Greens or Libertarians in Congress but there are Democrats who are green and Republicans who are libertarian. And that’s why if Michael Steele gets one more vote than Ben Cardin, Steele wins and Cardin loses. And the Kevin Zeese campaign will have earned an asterisk.
There is plenty about Ben Cardin and the Democratic Party that is uninspiring and downright disconcerting. But I for one am looking forward to the day when the Democrats are in control of Congress (and the White House) and I can again grouse—and protest—about how they are letting us down.
— Mark Cohen
Silver Spring
I intend to vote for Robin Ficker for county executive, because he will make a heartfelt attempt to reduce the burdensome double taxation imposed upon Takoma Park property owners by the county council. I personally know of five homeowners who wished to remain in Takoma Park but who were forced to sell by high taxes. Through the grapevine I have heard of other families who also departed the city for the same reason.
Economists call such taxes, by definition, confiscatory. Mr. Ficker remains the only candidate who recognizes the unfairness of the taxes we pay. He voiced the same concerns about municipal rebates as a state legislator in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.
Ike Leggett will do nothing to reduce our double taxation. In his response to the question of municipal rebates on the Voice’s questionnaire, he spoke about adhering to “formulas” and so on. Not a word about fairness. He intends to do nothing on this issue. So if you own property here and vote for Mr. Leggett, I can only assume that you have the wherewithal to greet the ever-increasing property tax burden with indifference. Remember, however, that such insouciance leads to more taxes, and to more strain on low-and-moderate income people.
I also don’t care for Mr. Leggett’s idea of aggregating low-income housing. Most planners prefer a mix of housing for communities. The county council has paid lip service to the concept of mix but hasn’t implemented it. Mr. Ficker’s criticism that new county developments, such as Kentlands, have little or [no] low-income housing remains valid.
Perhaps because he was born here, Mr. Ficker will attempt to keep the Adventist Hospital in Takoma Park. Failing that, he promises to work to set up a first-rate medical clinic in its stead to serve our community.
Mr. Ficker has also spoken out for some time about the need for a new Potomac crossing—a subject that the county council and county executive have studiously avoided for years. Mr. Leggett only recently and seemingly reluctantly spoke of a new Potomac crossing. He looks like a Johnny-come-lately on some of these issues, for in all his years on the county council he never mentioned it. He remained equally silent about the Purple Line.
Mr. Ficker’s idea of a reversible-track trolley between Silver Spring and Bethesda makes sense in and of itself (eventually it would join with the Purple Line, which will have to overcome neighborhood opposition among Silver Spring residents), as does his call for extending Metro northward. The extension of Metro and a new Crossing should do much to alleviate the horrible traffic on I-270 and the Montgomery portion of I- 495.
I also will vote for Kevin Zeese, the Green Candidate for US Senate. Mr. Steele and Mr. Cardin will not represent us, rather they will represent their respective parties most conventionally. Mr. Cardin’s record demonstrates as much. He voted against both Republican Presidents Bush on military actions against Iraq. But he remains loathe to vote against his own party leaders.
For example, Mr. Cardin voted against the Sensenbrenner amendment, which would have reduced the penalty for being in the country illegally from a felony to a misdemeanor. Rep. Sensenbrenner originally called for illegal aliens to be felons, realized his mistake, and then proposed the amendment to his own bill. In order to embarrass Republicans and to have a cudgel to beat them with in the November elections, the Democratic House leaders, Pelosi and Hoyer, whipped up their caucus to vote against Sensenbrenner’s amendment. Only six—six—Democratic representatives had the gumption to go against party leaders, and Mr. Cardin (or, sadly, Mr. Van Hollen) was not among them. Enough Republicans voted with almost the entire Democratic caucus to brand illegal aliens as felons. The issue has yet to be resolved. Still, where was Cardin? Well, he was voting to please his party leaders to whom he remains indebted for campaign funds.
I also have to wonder why Maryland congressmen don’t take any initiative on voting rights for D.C. After all, the District land that remains was once part of Maryland; the Virginia part was ceded back to that state after the Civil War. Yet the most activity on this issue has come from two Virginia Republican congressmen, Messrs. Wolfe and Davis. I have asked Mr. Van Hollen about D.C. voting rights (he repeats the Democratic mantra of “statehood for D.C.”). But as I noted when I wrote him, the country will not see D.C. statehood even in the lifetime of my youngest grandchild, who just turned two.
Why should voters add two senators to an institution that has become perhaps the least democratic chamber of all the world’s democracies? Why not grant D.C. two representatives since they will have no senators? But, truth be told, the average Montgomery County voter doesn’t give a good damn about D.C. voting rights, nor do our state’s congressmen.
Mr. Cardin lacks creativity and innovation (his years of party loyalty have seen to that), as does Mr. Steele. It disappoints to think that either of them, if elected, could remain ensconced in office for years and years.
I say we need an Independent as County Executive and a Green in the Senate.
— Lin Edgar Moyer
Takoma Park, MD
Once again, people were turned away (balked after being told that they had no idea how long they would have to stand in line) from voting at Piney Branch school because Election Headquarters neglected to send the "voter access cards" to the poll.
This is a pattern. There have been more times when this has happened than when things have run smoothly at this polling place since electronic voting machines were instituted. Since this is a known liberal polling place, turning away voters here can throw elections in predictable ways. I think it is worth further investigation. Are "Voter Access Card" mishaps occurring with greater frequency in liberal areas than conservative ones?
— Jeffrey P. Silverstone
Takoma Park, MD
I have been reading Mike Tabor’s column for some time now and was particularly struck by the letter written in response to a column in which Mike discussed the record of Gareth Murray, District 20 House of Delegates [Voice Mail, September 2006].
The writer accused Mike of not being truthful about the Sierra Club’s endorsement of Murray. I checked it out and found that Mike’s column came out before the Sierra Club did in fact endorse Murray. However, the eventual endorsement was “provisional” since Murray had voted for the ICC in the Senate vote.
My understanding is that the column is an opinion piece. Mike is provocative and makes me think about local politics in a way I hadn’t before. Even with the Sierra Club’s endorsement, Mike’s analysis of Murray was confirmed by the voters who elected not to give Murray a second term.
Mike does have a way of stirring opinions and emotions. I don’t agree with Tabor’s endorsement of Tom Hucker and don’t understand why he feels a loyalty to him. I am not a fan of Progressive Maryland because in some respects the organization does not practice what it preaches. I have met quite a few disgrunted former employees who told me they didn’t even receive the state’s minimum wage. I met some of Hucker’s campaign workers at the polls and most were paid while other progressive candidates had a real volunteer force behind them.
So, while the timing of the article about Delegate Murray might have been off, that wasn’t Tabor misrepresenting the truth, but his support of Hucker, who concerns me as my representative, is way off base.
I respectfully ask the Voice to do some in-depth investigation of Hucker’s campaign practices, where his campaign contributions come from and his campaign’s relationship with Progressive Maryland. This should not be left to an opinion piece.
— Henry Allen
Takoma Park, MD
Folks are still submitting their analysis of the primary. The following comes from well-known civic leader Charles Wolff.
Voters Align with Civic Community Positions
by Charles Wolff, Montgomery County Civic Federation Historian
Analysis of winners and losers in the County’s primary elections last month tell a mostly cheerful tale for us in the civic movement, in stark contrast to what happened in 2002. Voters apparently gave high priority to major issues that we have worked hard against for years—money in politics, overcrowded schools, inadequate transit, and the imbalance between road capacity and development.
Campaign Funds
The Montgomery County Civic Federation (MCCF) has always objected to the heavy proportion of campaign contributions that flowed from one small segment of our total economy—the development industry.
Sixteen years ago, individual members of the civic community organized a political action committee, CITPAC, which tried to counter this disparity by asking candidates for county office to report the sources of their campaign funds to CITPAC every month so that it could publicize them. It did so again in 1994. Many candidates complied while the holdouts took a hit in public esteem.
By 1998, CITPAC was praised for being the first in the nation to post these monthly reports on campaign funding on the world wide web. This work is now performed with even greater skill by another all-volunteer civic group, Neighbors for a Better Montgomery and getting national and world wide attention.
The defeats of then County Councilman, Bill Hanna, in 1998 and County Executive candidate, Steve Silverman, last month are due in part to public aversion to their accepting over two thirds of their campaign funds from the development industry. At the opposite extreme, Marc Elrich and Duchy Trachtenberg probably owe part of their recent victory in the primary to refusing any money from that industry. Phil Andrews who defeated Hanna in 1998 is the only incumbent councilmember to refuse contributions from the development industry and PACs.
Smaller Council Districts
The MCCF has represented neighborhood civic and homeowners groups all over this county since 1925. It is strictly nonpartisan and does not endorse candidates, but it is never shy about advocating specific policies that would lead to better government and quality of life in the County.
The “Civic Fed” tried to get at money-in-politics by working to eliminate the at-large seats on the Council since they require the most expensive campaigns. MCCF wanted the county divided into nine small, community-based districts with one council member from each.
Supporters toiled through a very long, hot summer to gather signatures for this purpose and successfully placed “Question C” on the 2004 ballot. The opposition had to spend over $100,000 against our tiny $6,000 to persuade the public into voting against Question C.
Persistence Pays
Although Question C lost two years ago, intentions remain strong within MCCF to keep trying for some reform of this kind. After all, it took two tries—the elections of 1984 and 1986—to achieve the present structure of the Council with four members elected at-large plus five from districts. That represented an important reform from previous Councils of seven members, all elected at-large.
Dale Tibbitts, the Legislative Chairman for MCCF, has pointed out how a sustained effort to keep an issue before the public slowly builds and finally becomes persuasive to a majority of voters. So activists shouldn’t be overly discouraged when their side loses on a bill before the County Council or in an election. Their factually-based efforts may have laid the foundation for a victory later when the issue matures.
Environment and Schools
Civic groups have been among the firmest to champion a clean and healthy environment. But all candidates nowadays are environmentalists or at least pose as such. It was difficult for the general public to discern big differences between the candidates except for those who saw the connection with building the ICC. Thus environment did not play a large role this year.
Although a strong advocate for our public schools, Councilmember Mike Subin, was defeated, it is very likely that two new education advocates will be added to the Council in November. One is former School Board member, Valerie Ervin. The other is a professional teacher, Marc Elrich, who favors restrictions on developments that would impact already overcrowded schools. With a net gain of one seat, civic goals for effective schools at the teacher level and less crowding will advance more quickly.
It was not all good news for us. A selfless and dedicated civic leader and former president of MCCF, Cary Lamari, lost his at-large race for the Council. He made a great impression at the candidate forums but few people ever got to see these. He had far too little money to get his name and message heard over the whole county.
The “End Gridlock” Team
County Executive Doug Duncan and five Council candidates campaigned four years ago as the “End Gridlock” slate. They were all elected. But their actions since have accomplished just the opposite. They removed many impediments to development such as killing the annual growth policy and making traffic standards so weak as to be useless in many areas. As a result, the public suffers more gridlock in more places than ever. So there is some justice that three of those six will soon be out of office. Two were defeated in the September primary, and Duncan withdrew from an uphill battle to become governor.
Ignoring the Law
Voter disaffection with developer-financed campaigns was heightened by the discovery of an unprecedented number of violations of approved building plans. In the past year or so, the Planning Board found noncompliance in seven projects including the notorious Clarksburg mess. Five other projects violated the Moderately Priced Dwelling Unit laws. Details of these violations were researched and documented in a report by MCCF’s Planning and Land Use Committee (available at www.montgomerycivic.org, "Site Plan Enforcement Study" .
Slower Growth
The voters also seemed to respond to the call by Ike Leggett and others for a slower rate of growth to allow public infrastructure to catch up. There were 719 classroom trailers in schoolyards throughout the county in June, some of which had been in place for more than a dozen years. And a Park and Planning study (June 2006) showed that one of every five county intersections with traffic signals has more traffic than can be accommodated during weekday rush hours. Such inadequacies belie the claim by the End Gridlock Council that new “development impact taxes” would generate sufficient revenue to provide needed schools, roads and transit improvements. It is well known that the average new development actually costs the county money for additional roads, schools, police and social services for at least one decade after the projects are built. To paraphrase a 2003 Planning Board report, we should implement the Adequate Public Facilities Ordinance by using a definition of “adequate” that conforms with the reasonable expectations of most county residents.
A Convergence of Forces
The debacle in Clarksburg exposed the developer-friendly culture in Park and Planning and the Council Council. Four years of research and publicity by Neighbors for a Better Montgomery, correlating campaign contributions with permissive development policies and relaxed regulations had its impact. Daily doses of increased traffic congestion and school overcrowding amplified an aggressive campaign by the teachers union (MCEA) for the candidates endorsed by the Apple Ballot. Lack of a Duncan-led pro-development slate hurt rapid growth candidates. All this combined with a nationwide anti-incumbent mood to create the conditions for switching the Endless Gridlock 6-3 pro-growth Council into what appears will be a 5-4 slow, sustainable and smart growth Council.
