Bush's Lawyers Revoked Fourth Amendment

Apparently the First Amendment was also considered subordinate to the needs of the President to do what he wants.

Words fail me. Watch Rachel Maddow explain it all for you:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

You know, I'm ready to stop being angry. I don't WANT to spend the next four years still angry at things that happened before my guy got elected. So why do these things keep coming out and killing my Audacity of Hope Buzz? Sigh.

The Beautiful Mess that is Democracy

Yesterday afternoon Democrats Abroad UK had its biannual meeting and election of officers. I'm honored and delighted to report that I was unanimously elected Vice Chair (this sounds better than it is since I was unopposed! Guess I scared off the competition) and that Bill Barnard was overwhelmingly re-elected Chair. Alicia Skubick is now our Secretary - elected by a massive majority - and Eileen Taylor ran unopposed for Treasurer.

For the most part the meeting went smoothly - the big exception being a heated debate and some confusion about the election of our Executive Committee.

After the event, I spoke to quite a few people about their perceptions of the day. A couple people who are "old timers" - ie, have been around for a few previous election cycles - came up to me and said that was one of the least chaotic of these meetings that we've had. Several others, for whom this was their first meeting, told me that they found it confusing, they couldn't understand why things were being done the way they were.

Here's the situation as I see it - the DAUK bylaws were drafted for a very different organisation than we are today. They are vague in some areas, unwieldy in others, and altogether better suited for a small member organisation than for the large political organisation that we are today. One of the areas where they are vague and unhelpful is in the election process - this was exacerbated by some amendments that were made a few years ago with the laudable intention of opening up the voting process to more people, but which failed to consider the implications of imposing those revisions on top of a structure designed for the more closed voting system. In short, it's a bit of a mess - the Nominating Committee and the Executive Committee each time try to set rules that will clarify some of this confusion, but it's always imperfect. And yes, we are working on getting this stuff sorted out, but the revision process is slow and nobody wanted to focus on it during an election year (we were a little busy!).

Anyway, my larger point is this: this is all very "inside baseball" stuff, the details of DAUK internal election processes and such like. But these types of problems aren't unique to us - more often than not Democracy is pretty messy stuff. The best thing we can do is approach this with some humility and some patience combined with a determination to make it work - and maybe some duct tape to stick the whole thing together.

It's not just us - the US Constitution has some of the same problems. It too, was designed for an organisation very different than the one we live in today. It never envisioned universal education, or direct election of Senators, or international air travel, or the Internet. But we've been patching it together for years, with ad hoc updates via court rulings or clarifying legislation, or just custom and traditio. Somehow, it all works. Because we all want it to. In my view it's that collective wanting that makes up a democracy, as much as the specific rules and laws.

I'm sure that all of us newly elected officers will make mistakes over the next couple of years. But if you'll keep wanting this organisation to work, we'll keep trying to make it work better. Thanks for your patience!

Yesterday's Presentation

Yesterday I had the chance to talk to a group of business folks about Obama and the US Economy. Since I am, essentially, totally unqualified to discuss economic issues, I concentrated my talk on the recently passed stimulus package, and a few thoughts about the political dimension in which Obama (and therefore all companies seeking to offer services to the government) are currently operating.

Since a couple people have expressed an interest in the presentation, I've posted the slides below as JPEGs. The presentation would be, of course, far better with the benefit of my witty reparte, learned commentary and devastating joke - but I guess we'll just have to make do with these.

Rejoice: Birth Control Funding is Back

Turns out, when I speculated that the funding for state provided birth control that was cut from the stimulus package over Republican objections wouldn't be dropped for good, I was right.

Three cheers for rational policy making!

Next Week's Democrats Abroad Elections

I've just sent around a note to my lists about next week's local elections here at Democrats Abroad, UK and thought I would post it here as well, FYI:

Dear Friends,

Next Sunday, the Democrats Abroad General meeting and elections will be held here in Central London. For those of you who are eligible voters (Americans and DA members), I'm hoping that most of you have chosen to RSVP and are planning on attending the meeting.

As you all hopefully know by now, I will be running for Vice Chair. I'd welcome and be enormously grateful for your support! But some people have started to ask me some questions about the way the elections will run, exactly who or what is being elected, and even some thoughts about who I might be voting for in different positions. So in the interest of full transparency, here's what I know about the election, how I expect it to work, and my thoughts on the different races.

OFFICER POSITIONS

At the meeting, DA will elect 4 officers. The Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. To comply with the strict Equal Opportunities rules set by the DNC nationally, the Chair and Vice Chair must be of opposite gender. Therefore, we will elect a Chair first and all candidates of the same gender as the Chair elected will be eliminated from consideration as Vice Chair. (So if a woman wins the Chair role I am automatically ineligible and will take my place on the sidelines!)

Fortunately, I didn't have any trouble deciding who I wanted to support as Chair, and fortunately (for me) that person happens to be of the opposite gender - our current Chair, Bill Barnard, is running for re-election, and he has my support. He's been a kind, thoughtful and hard working Chair in a very stressful time, and has led us with a lot of grace and courtesy. I'd be glad to continue working with him.

For Vice Chair - well, as I say I'm hoping for and would be very grateful for your support!

For Secretary, there are two outstanding candidates. Alicia Skubick and Lizza Moya have both been nominated, and are both outstanding individuals.

Lizza has been a Zone Captain for the Obama campaign, organising an effective and high energy group in Hampstead to track down US voters. She has ample campaign experience and is a professional communications expert - which would bring much needed skills to the organisation.

Alicia I have known as a dedicated volunteer for even longer than I've known Lizza, and she has been active in a wide range of Democrats Abroad projects, from the Database to the Newsletter to various events.

Both would be great Secretaries. I would vote for either, but since I can't I'll keep silent on the issue.

For Treasurer, we have a somewhat similar situation. Karen McClean and Eileen Taylor have both put themselves forward, and both are high quality individuals with exceptional skills. Karen was instrumental in organising the Debate screenings earlier this year, and in the process demonstrated remarkable skills of project management, creativity, and leadership.

Eileen is a successful professional in the field of Finance (yes, there are some left). She has been a tireless worker on voter registration, a dedicated phone banker, an energetic canvasser and a good humoured, thoughtful and intelligent voice throughout the campaign. I actually first met Eileen when she was representing the Hillary Clinton position and I the Barack Obama position on CNN during the primary, but she was gracious, warm and open minded, and when the primary came to an end she was the first person to call me and say that she was excited to help.

In fact, I specifically called Eileen and asked her to run for this position, because I believe that she has a wonderful attitude as well as an impeccable skill set. For that reason, I personally will be voting for her - despite my deep respect for Karen who could also do a great job.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

As well as the Officers, during this meeting we will elect members to serve on the Executive Committee, which guides the organization and provides oversight and approval to the actions of the officers. This is an important role, and it is important that the Committee function well as a group, as well as having excellent members within it. The size of the Committee is not pre-determined, but it is expected that the Nominating Committee will recommend we keep to the existing situation where we have 8 at-large members, plus the four officers. There are 30 people who have put themselves forward to be Executive Committee members - making this an extremely competitive race.

I have thought long and hard about who I personally will be voting for, and to be honest I am STILL struggling to come up with a precise list of 8 names. Any list would inevitably leave out a lot of good people whose work I admire, and who I hope will remain involved no matter what.

But I do want to mention to you a few names who may not be well known to you all, but who I would respectfully ask you to consider voting for.

The first is Mark Mullen. If you aren't sure who Mark is, ask yourself if you remember coming across a 6 foot plus Texan in glasses and an O'Bama shamrock t0shirt - if you have, chances are that was Mark. Mark was a zone captain for the campaign in Bloomsbury, and he was an unstoppable force hitting the streets every weekend to get Barack elected. Mark actually travelled back to Florida to volunteer during runup to election day, and was an invaluable supporter for Barack starting very early in the Primary. Having lived all over the world, and with a professional background in democracy building, I believe he has a unique and constructive perspective to add to our work.

Another person I'd like to tell you about is Bill Rubin. Bill was an early Obama supporter here in London who went so far as to pack up himself and his wife to return Stateside starting early in the Primary as a full time volunteer in some tough states. Eventually he was hired on to be a Field Director, and in the General Election he performed miracles in the difficult but critical area of North Eastern Pennsylvania. Again, I think Bill would add crucial campaigning expertise to the work of Democrats Abroad UK. I mention Mark and Bill specifically because I suspect that these two people may be less well known to the group at large - precisely BECAUSE they have spent so much time and effort on behalf of Barack back in the States.

But there is one name that should be very well known to you all, who I would also like to give my strong backing to. And that's my co-organizer Rob Carolina. I've made a lot of demands on Rob over the past year or so - a lot of (frankly) unreasonable and over the top requests for help. But every single thing I've ever asked of him, he delivered, and then went on to do a lot more that I never would have dared to demand.

I'll be casting one of my Executive Committee votes for him on March 1 - I hope you will too! And finally....

THE COUNCIL

The DAUK Council has traditionally been a fairly large body of active members who feel committed to helping us deliver our goals. Their specific responsibilities are to approve changes to the bylaws, and to attend at least two meetings in the year. Jus tto clarify, there is NO reason why a member can't continue to be a strong, active and effective supporter of and volunteer for this organisation whether or not they have any elected role - some of our most active campaigners today are not on any of these bodies, but they do great work and we love and appreciate them for it. So if reviewing amendments to the bylaws and attending procedural meetings isn't your favorite thing, don't feel like you HAVE to stand for the Council (or ExCom) in order to be an active member.

But if you WANT to do that - bless you for it! The size of the Council is not stated in the bylaws, and my understanding is that in this election there will be no artificial limits imposed, but that as per the bylaws members will be required to earn a majority of the votes (ie get votes from more than 50% of the people in the room) in order to be elected. With that in mind, I personally will be voting for everyone on the list EXCEPT for a couple of specific individuals who I do not feel able to support. I would be glad to tell you who those two people are and why I can't bring myself to cast a ballot for them if you want to e-mail or call me privately - but I do not want to malign their names publically.

So there it is. Hopefully, that's everything you ever wanted to know about DAUK elections but were afraid to ask (probably it's a thousand times more than you ever wanted to know! Thanks for reading). If you do have any questions, or thoughts, or you just want to shoot the breeze about this (AKA gossip) - feel free to give me a call or drop me a line. E-mail me at karinjr at hotmail.com

All best wishes,

Karin J. Robinson
(Former) Americans Abroad for Obama Regional Field Director
(Current) DAUK Executive Committee Member
(Future?) Vice Chair of DAUK?
_________________________________________________________
www.obamalondon.blogspot.com

President tells Mayors to spend wisely....

Well, as Karin highlighted with pleasure, we've now got a head for the new Office of Urban Affairs. And you may recall that last week I was wondering aloud about how Mayors will be held accountable when it comes to ensuring monies invested in Recovery are well spent in our cities. Though the devil is always in the details, one thing is for sure - systemic change always needs leadership from the top. And I'm pleased to be writing today that we've certainly got that in terms of the messages getting out. The President recently spoke to the United States Conference of Mayors and stressed that the emphasis on greater transparency and accountability in terms of the public spend is going to be pushed down through the chain of command. He said: “I want to be clear about this: We cannot tolerate business as usual -- not in Washington, not in our state capitols, not in America’s cities and towns.” The Mayors have been warned.....

See the New York Times coverage for more details.

Office of Urban Affairs? I Like it Already

I wanted to publically thank Veena for her informed and informative posts on urban development.

In good news for us city folks, Obama has just appointed Adolfo Carrion, a former Bronx Borough President, to head up the newly created Office of Urban Affairs. In addition to his long service to New York City, he happens to have a Masters degree in Urban Planning, so it seems to me like we should be be in pretty good hands here.

More than anything else, after an election cycle in which the Republican VP candidate felt perfectly comfortable descibing the (majority of) people who happen to live in urban areas as "not real Americans", it's nice to see these issues are going to get some much needed TLC.

The Road to Recovery - where will it take our cities?

With the signing of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, the White House also set up Recovery.gov to promote accountability and transparency. A key principle underlying the Recovery is that 'Programs meet specific goals and targets, and contribute to improved performance on broad economic indicators.'

Here's what I'm wondering: what will be the performance indicators for U.S. cities? What are the criteria for success at being a sustainable and equitable city, economically, environmentally and socially? How will we know the sum of the parts - the systemic outcomes of the various initiatives aimed at Recovery. The business world always says 'you can't manage what you can't measure' - exactly what are all our urban Mayors being held accountable for? And how will we know how well they are doing? This is important, because the President Obama and Vice-President Biden have emphasized how urban areas are at the heart of the economy. If the economy is going to Recover, then knowing how well we are doing in cities is key.

Can the U.S. learn from Great Britain's approaches to cities? Generally speaking, the London-based Centre for Cities thinks 'yes, it can!' Specifically, I hope Federal policy-makers look around both across different U.S. cities and abroad to consider how we can measure success when it comes to urban recovery and renewal. It is one thing to be fueled up and ready to go on the Road to Recovery, but we also need to know where we are going.

Confidential to Mitch McConnell...

I know a lot of folks who would really welcome "a dramatic move in the direction of indeed turning America into Western Europe," on account of it's longer life expectancy, higher literacy rates, lower rates of teen pregnancy and obessity and the fact that those millions of newly unemployed would still have health care.

Partisanship and Bipartisanship

So our President has made a solid effort, bless him, to bring Republican Lawmakers on board - sacrificing some popular programs, and spending a significant amount of time on the assumption that the other side is composed of reasonable people with reasonable concerns. The result has been... less than one might have hoped for. So is he going to keep on with these effort at bipartisan lawmaking?

"I am an eternal optimist," he says, "That doesn't mean I'm a sap."

Quite right. But the less on of this is not that bipartisanship is dead - the message is that we are going to have to do it without Republicans in Congress. Actual REPUBLICANS, however, are another story - right now Obama's approval rating is in the mid 60's. But he only won 52% of the vote - that means that an awful lot of people who didn't vote for him nevertheless are getting behind him and want to see him succeed, despite what Rush Limbaugh says.

So there are an awful lot of folks in the country who are going to support us, even if they never vote for us. Because everybody who has to live in this reality can see that if the economy tanks, it's going to take us all down with it. And those people, some of them even Republicans from deep red states, don't want to see their state laying off teachers, or watch roads and bridges crumble around them, or see their local business go under.

But Congress - well, Congress is another story. And this is where it's interesting to watch these developments from the UK.

Because, you see, here in Britain the Parties operate an incredibly strict system of vote whipping that means it is incredibly rare - newsworthy to a high degree - whenever a Labour MP, or a Tory peer doesn't vote along Party lines. But no one ever criticises the Government for failures of bipartisanship.

And this despite the fact that, arguably, the differences between the parties are much smaller here - in fact idealogically, all three British Parties could fit comfortably within the US Democratic Party. You'd think that this might lead to a lot of bi- or tri-partisanship as philosophically similar groups find plenty of overlap.

In practice, of course, this doesn't happen - for the simple reason that people understand the JOB of the parties is to draw contrasts. The main party not in Government is even described that way - they are the Opposition.

But people don't regret the loss of bipartisanship if (and this is a big if) they feel that the Government is broadly representing the majority in the country. It's when they aren't, such as in the invasion of Iraq, that opportunities are created for the opposition. In fact, with three viable parties in Parliament, it's been a long time since any one party had an outright majority of voters in hand. By definition, they can only represent a majority by coming to some sort of consensus with the voters.

In short, people aren't necessarily looking for leadership that straddles parties, as much as they are looking for leadership that represents voters.

THAT's why Obama is going to continue to find a consensus position on his policies. Not because he expects to win over Republicans in Congress, but because he needs to win and keep voters.

Economic Recovery : what are the values that underpin it?

'The idea that immigrants workers deserve protection simply as a matter of human decency can be hard to sell in hard times. It is just as valid to make the pragmatic case. After the bottom drops out of the economy, raise the floor.' New York Times, 15 Feb 08

Last week, I highlighted the views of Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass on e-verify, software for employers to check to see the migration status of prospective employees. Kass was upset that a provision in the Stimulus Package requiring employers to use E-Verify was taken out. Well, the editorial team of the New York Times strongly disagrees with Kass. Kass wants employers to use E-Verify for the purpose of keeping undocumented workers out of 'American' jobs. The New York Times suggests the software is prone to errors which result in documented workers getting fired/not hired and wants a labor strategy that focuses instead on the support of all workers. In contrast to Kass, the New York Times doesn't see undocumented workers as a threat to urban economies and instead encourages government to 'fight back against abuses that make wages and job conditions worse for everyone.' To show what it means, it gives an example from Los Angeles - the Clean Carwash Campaign.

Migrant workers, labor rights, employers' responsibilities are key urban issues. The Chicago and New York perspectives on them remind us that, for both the White House and Westminster, successful Recovery has to be about more than getting people into jobs. It also is about values, social justice, and human dignity.

Raising the Minimum Wage - a campaign promise that must be fulfilled for our cities to thrive...

The Stimulus Package has been passed in Congress. It is a big step in the long journey to economic recovery. To wrap up my urban renewal and equal opportunities series of posts (for the time being), I want quickly to draw attention to one of the smaller steps we must take, and which is on the President's urban renewal agenda: Minimum wage. The President proposes to raise minimum wage by 2011 to $9.50 an hour and index it to inflation. Again, this is the type of issue that during hard economic times is also hard push, particularly with employers. Some people will say that we just need to get more people into jobs - ensuring livable wages is icing on cake.

But in both the U.S. and the U.K. we can't let social justice aims be buried because of the recession - this would be counter to a commitment to building sustainable economies and communities. Let's hope the President continues to demonstrate a strong federal commitment to urban renewal, and builds on the Lilly Ledbetter Act, by raising the federal minimum wage. Of course, Equal pay legislation and raising the minimum wage must be part of a wider package of reforms that seek to ensure real employment equity. See, for example, Ann M. O'Leary's concerns about the limits of the Lilly Ledbetter Act in closing the gender wage gap. For a clearer understanding of urban poverty and employment, I suggest a read of Polly Toynbee's Hard Work, which gives a portrait of life in London as a working person in poverty. And for a similar portrait in the U.S. check out Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed.

Policing American Cities Fairly - time for some trans-Atlantic urban exchanges?

My initial focus in the urban renewal agenda is equal opportunities. This is an area where UK campaigners sometimes look to the U.S. and think they're doing a better job over there. Now with our first Black President, many people are even more convinced. I'm not going to get into that debate. I will say, though, that the President has set out a robust civil rights agenda. With this post, I quickly want to draw attention to one area where U.S. policy-makers and representatives from urban police forces could do with an exchange with folks from London and other major British cities: racial profiling (known in the UK as 'stop and search'). President Obama co-sponsored federal legislation proposals on this and passed Illinois legislation requiring the Department of Transport to record the race, age, and gender of all drivers stopped for traffic violations so that bias could be detected and addressed. Effective implementation and follow up, where bias is detected, will be important in building confidence among all urban-dwellers that they are being treated fairly and that public services are working for them, rather than against them.

Employers and the Stimulus Package - the word from Chicago

Well, if you saw my previous post, you'll see that I'm interested in what government - at fed and state level - will be doing to ensure that employers are creating fair and inclusive workplaces as part of both the economic recovery and modernization agendas. Yesterday, John Kass from the Chicago Tribune sought to address the same issue. Not endorsing his views, but sharing them with you. In part, because he writes about a proposed provision for the Stimulus Package that's been scrapped. The provision is meant to require all employers to use government provided software to check the immigration status of prospective employees. This is an issue for UK cities and employers (and no doubt, Europe more widely), where the legal requirements on employers were strengthened in 2008. What interests me about Kass' article is that employers and campaigners here in the UK have both raised the issue that employers find it difficult to know an applicant's status. In turn, such difficulties with the system, according to UK campaigners, potentially have a detrimental impact on social justice. Kass worries about businesses undercutting their competitors by hiring cheap, illegal labour. Key social justice issues raised in the UK (and I assume also in the US) are (a) the poor treatment of these workers, and (b) some employers respond to stronger requirements on them to check immigration status by refusing to hire people from certain communities because they don't want to run the risk of falling foul of the law.

In this context, employers and campaigners might (albeit for different reasons) think that the software used in the U.S. is a good thing (and would be beneficial to businesses here in the UK). Regardless, this is definitely a shared policy issue/challenge on both sides of the Atlantic. As for what this agenda means for American and British cities - beyond the issue of software - the backdrop to this issue is increasingly hostile views and attitudes towards migrant workers during a recession, and the knock on effect these can have on inter-community relations in urban areas - where the majority of migrants workers live.

Why modernizing our cities must also mean modernizing the workplace...

The Economic Stimulus Package is national legislation which (even without earmarks) lays the needed foundation for change at state and local levels. With record layoffs taking place, creating sustainable employment is a priority. In his press conference, the President emphasized that a key metric for success of the initiative will be the saving and/or generating of 4 million jobs. The President described his vision of creating jobs through investing in making homes, transport, public spaces etc, more energy efficient. As he did so, I was thinking about the people who will do those jobs and that alongside the commitment to modern - in the form of energy efficiency - we also need an equally strong commitment to modern in the form of fair, equality-based and inclusive workplaces. Our cities depend on it.

However, the workplace equality agenda is a sensitive one in both the U.S. and the U.K. Even during good times, many employers (particularly smaller ones) readily see equal opportunities policies as costly and burdensome. Sometimes the general public sees them as unfair. All the more reason to applaud that the President signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, at the same time that he was having to emphasize to people the seriousness of economic difficulties at hand. Similarly, in the U.K., equal opportunities is also on the political agenda. And UK policy-makers are aware that - as the economy recovers and jobs grow - the goal of getting more people off welfare and into work requires active steps by employers to ensure their workplaces are not unjustly discriminating and are actively inclusive.

While many campaigners over here often look to the U.S. as doing a much better job at fair employment, the truth is we still have much work to do back home. Evidence shows that discrimination in recruitment is prevalent. This matters to urban renewal because our cities are full of talented individuals, who run the risk of being limited in how they can participate in the labor market because of their race, ethnicity, disability, age, parenting responsibilities etc. Although a range of factors contribute to the employment outcomes of an individual, employers have a key role to play by taking steps to dismantle barriers to equal access and by being creative in how they manage their workplaces to enable equal access to labor market participation and progression.

What's more, government needs to do what it can to motivate and support employers to take this action. Yes, for state and federal policy-makers, as well as businesses, the pressures are immense right now and giving attention to ensuring fairness and promoting inclusive cultures in the workplace - at a time of massive layoffs - might seem odd. But if, as Rahm Emmanuel says, this is both crisis and opportunity, once the Recovery Bill is signed, policy-makers should give some attention to ensuring that as businesses start to grow again, they are doing so with a commitment to modernization by being both green and inclusive.