Guns Won’t Win Elections

Guns won’t win elections

Voters want more

There was a surprising twist in the recent Republican primary election for the Washington County Sheriff. Jason Guslick staked out a “I’m tougher on crime” position and won the endorsement of Tim Schmidt, owner of Delta Defense. Both lost to the more moderate and experienced Marty Schulteis who wisely steered clear of both issues. 

Guslick apparently believed local voters would buy into the fear of criminals invading from the inner city of Milwaukee pushed hard by Delta Defense/NRA elements who believe that the Second Amendment gives everyone the right to tote whatever kind of fire power they want to defend themselves from the hordes of “others” bent on doing them harm. Voters clearly rejected that message.

Had Guslick been paying attention, he would have remembered the most recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election where Rebecca Dallet refused NRA money and handily defeated the NRA backed judge who opposed her. Most Wisconsin voters no longer see an NRA endorsement as a sole reason to cast their vote. Thankfully, the Delta Defense endorsement did not fare any better.

Guslick might have been better served to look at the national polls that show a strong majority across party lines wants sensible and stricter gun control measures, especially in the wake of the mass shooting incidents that show up all too frequently in the headlines. 

The post-Parkland shooting millennial voter registration drive aimed at new voters opposed to guns for everyone everywhere has raised the stakes and mounts a significant challenge to NRA positions. These new voters want candidates who will refuse pro-gun money and commit to sensible gun control legislation once elected. They have already swung the discourse away from the Second Amendment purists.

Political candidates, especially in law enforcement, need to walk a fine line. It is perfectly acceptable to stress public safety and the need for public support for law enforcement. Fear based campaigns cross the line, especially when they are tinged with racism and stereotypes. Most voters now want to see effective and fair law enforcement that does not play favorites or support white supremacy.

Anti-Immigration arguments often cross the line as well. Washington County is home to many immigrant families who work hard every day on local dairy farms and behind the kitchen doors in our restaurants. 

Let’s have a nuanced discussion on immigration reform that recognizes the substantial contributions immigrants make to the local economy. We need to encourage a path to citizenship to recognize the sacrifices those newly in our country have made to start their new lives here. 

Claiming support for a southern border wall will not garner as much support as it once did for President Trump in light of the economic reality of our need for immigrant labor. 

Law and Order is a great name for a 1990s television show. Voters have moved beyond the buzz words and slogans and are looking for realistic, sensible solutions to the problems in our society. 

We cannot win any war on addiction, especially opioid addiction, with just a lock ‘em up and throw away the key mentality. Law enforcement can disrupt the supply chains all day long. Without effective medical and mental health treatment programs to help the addicted and their affected families, law enforcement interdiction efforts will always fail. 

Law enforcement that partners with community-based resources offering treatment, homeless solutions, medical care and other social services will be more effective in reducing criminal activity than driving around in armored SWAT vehicles with automatic rifles at the ready.

Washington county voters appear ready for these changes in our law enforcement strategy. Hopefully, the new Sheriff understands and will act accordingly.

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney and serves as a guardian for the elderly and disabled with a Sheboygan County non-profit agency.

Guns won’t win elections

Voters want more

There was a surprising twist in the recent Republican primary election for the Washington County Sheriff. Jason Guslick staked out a “I’m tougher on crime” position and won the endorsement of Tim Schmidt, owner of Delta Defense. Both lost to the more moderate and experienced Marty Schulteis who wisely steered clear of both issues. 

Guslick apparently believed local voters would buy into the fear of criminals invading from the inner city of Milwaukee pushed hard by Delta Defense/NRA elements who believe that the Second Amendment gives everyone the right to tote whatever kind of fire power they want to defend themselves from the hordes of “others” bent on doing them harm. Voters clearly rejected that message.

Had Guslick been paying attention, he would have remembered the most recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election where Rebecca Dallet refused NRA money and handily defeated the NRA backed judge who opposed her. Most Wisconsin voters no longer see an NRA endorsement as a sole reason to cast their vote. Thankfully, the Delta Defense endorsement did not fare any better.

Guslick might have been better served to look at the national polls that show a strong majority across party lines wants sensible and stricter gun control measures, especially in the wake of the mass shooting incidents that show up all too frequently in the headlines. 

The post-Parkland shooting millennial voter registration drive aimed at new voters opposed to guns for everyone everywhere has raised the stakes and mounts a significant challenge to NRA positions. These new voters want candidates who will refuse pro-gun money and commit to sensible gun control legislation once elected. They have already swung the discourse away from the Second Amendment purists.

Political candidates, especially in law enforcement, need to walk a fine line. It is perfectly acceptable to stress public safety and the need for public support for law enforcement. Fear based campaigns cross the line, especially when they are tinged with racism and stereotypes. Most voters now want to see effective and fair law enforcement that does not play favorites or support white supremacy.

Anti-Immigration arguments often cross the line as well. Washington County is home to many immigrant families who work hard every day on local dairy farms and behind the kitchen doors in our restaurants. 

Let’s have a nuanced discussion on immigration reform that recognizes the substantial contributions immigrants make to the local economy. We need to encourage a path to citizenship to recognize the sacrifices those newly in our country have made to start their new lives here. 

Claiming support for a southern border wall will not garner as much support as it once did for President Trump in light of the economic reality of our need for immigrant labor. 

Law and Order is a great name for a 1990s television show. Voters have moved beyond the buzz words and slogans and are looking for realistic, sensible solutions to the problems in our society. 

We cannot win any war on addiction, especially opioid addiction, with just a lock ‘em up and throw away the key mentality. Law enforcement can disrupt the supply chains all day long. Without effective medical and mental health treatment programs to help the addicted and their affected families, law enforcement interdiction efforts will always fail. 

Law enforcement that partners with community-based resources offering treatment, homeless solutions, medical care and other social services will be more effective in reducing criminal activity than driving around in armored SWAT vehicles with automatic rifles at the ready.

Washington county voters appear ready for these changes in our law enforcement strategy. Hopefully, the new Sheriff understands and will act accordingly.

Blue Waves in Wisconsin Too

Blue Waves Are Building

In Wisconsin Too

Recent primary elections continue to sweep left of center Democrats into November general elections against Trump supporting far right Republicans. Progressive Democrats pushing Bernie Sanders’ agendas have forced more establishment leaning candidates to adopt more populist positions than ever before. While the progressive wing of the party does not control the party apparatus yet, its positions on the issues facing the state and country have become the mainstream of the party platform.

The primary in the governor’s race in Michigan demonstrates the point. The more traditional Democratic candidate won the primary. Gretchen Whitmer, a former State Senator, beat Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive former director of Detroit’s health department. Sanders and other national progressives endorsed El-Sayed. Even though he lost, Whitmer’s campaign took its direction straight out of Sanders’ playbook on most issues except for universal single-payer healthcare. 

Whitmer’s positions on major issues are very progressive. She led the fight for Medicaid expansion in the state senate and saw it approved even though Republicans controlled the legislature and the governor’s office. She supports a $15-an-hour minimum wage and wants to repeal Michigan’s anti-union “right to work” laws. She supports legalization of recreational marijuana and taxing sales to fund roads and public schools. She is staunchly pro-choice and wants to restore state funding for Planned Parenthood. She wants public schools to adopt a “yes means yes” consent public school sex-ed curriculum. Whitmer wants civil rights laws expanded to protect members of the LBGTQI community. She wants to establish the state’s first universal pre-school program.

Whitmer’s platform would not be what it is were it not for the grassroots efforts by progressives who built a solid base in Michigan’s politics. 

Kansas voters picked a Sanders’ styled progressive out of a crowded field to try and flip a red congressional seat. Sharice Davids, a Native American mixed martial arts fighter and out of the closet lesbian looks to take a congressional seat come November. She built as solid grass-roots campaign on a progressive platform that resonated well with voters. Independents swung away from the right and help propel her victory.

The most surprising result came in Tuesday’s special election in Ohio’s 12^th Congressional district. Progressive Democrat Danny O’Connor took on a Trump endorsed republican in a district Democrats have not won since the 1980s. At this writing, this election is too close to call. Provisional ballots remain to be counted and the margin currently stands at 0.9% in favor of the Republican. If that margin goes under 0.5%, there will be an automatic recount. 

O’Connor’s showing clearly demonstrates voter dissatisfaction with President Trump and his policies and finds echoes across the country.

In our fair county, Democrats are fielding more candidates that ever before in state assembly races. None face primary opponents next Tuesday and all will advance to the November contests against Walker/Trump allied opponents. 

Progressive Democrat Dennis Degenhardt, the former President and CEO of Glacier Hills Credit Union, is running against Republican Rick Gundrum in the 58^th district in a rematch of last November’s special election. Degenhardt actually won the City of West Bend vote last fall and has expanded his campaign to reach voters in Slinger and other parts of the district. His work on the doors and phones is receiving positive voter feedback. 

Chris Ralf, a Navy veteran and project management consultant, is running a strong progressive campaign in the 60^th Assembly District. She is focused on listening to everyone she meets to learn what they believe is important to Wisconsin’s future. She believes in rebuilding our infrastructure while taking care of our environment. She advances a solid-plan for state investment in universal healthcare. Chris is visiting communities, large and small in our area talking to voters.

Emily Siegrist, a veteran, nurse and instructor at MSOE, has put together a strong progressive campaign in the 24^th Assembly race focusing on infrastructure, healthcare, veteran’s issues and education. Look for her in the southern part of the County working the doors and speaking with voters. 

These three strong candidates are in a position to give Washington County voters real and positive alternatives to the business as usual GOP office holders they are challenging. All three are building on the progressive vision Washington County’s Democrats have been sharing while they have been Building Community Through Action since 2011. Come join the Blue Wave building across Wisconsin and the nation.

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney and serves as a guardian for the elderly and disabled with a Sheboygan county non-profit agency.

Trump's Troubles

Turning on Those You Trust is Dangerous

Secret Recordings Come to Light

President Trump’s longtime personal attorney and “fixer,” Michael Cohen, secretly recorded some of his private conversations with Trump. When the FBI searched Cohen’s offices, home and apartment, they seized lots of recordings. Cohen’s attorney recently released one of those recordings and it reveals a conversation between Cohen and Trump where they discussed how to buy and bury a story from a former Playboy Bunny who claims to have had a sexual relationship with Trump before he ran for President, but after he married his current wife, Melania.

Trump long denied knowing anything about efforts to hide the Bunny’s story and Cohen’s lawyer released the recording to counter Trump’s current claims that Cohen should not be believed. Trump badly needed to make Cohen out as a liar because it appeared that he was changing sides and cooperating with prosecutors looking into many of the Trump family enterprises. 

Trump then tweeted about how unusual and illegal it was for Cohen to have recorded their conversations. He asked, “what kind of lawyer records conversations with his client?”

As a former criminal defense lawyer, I can make an educated guess why Cohen would have recorded conversations with Trump. Having represented people with mental health issues, a heavy dose of “I can do no wrong” and a less than firm grip on reality, I can tell you that many with those afflictions will gladly turn on their lawyers when their cases go south. Hoping to save themselves, they try to implicate their lawyers with prosecutors anxious to sweep up criminal activity with a broader net. Defendants caught with the evidence against them try too often to offer up their lawyers in order to avoid a lengthy stay behind bars. When the conduct of the client and the lawyer approaches or crosses legal or ethical lines, it is even easier to tempt prosecutors with the defense lawyer’s scalp. 

Experienced lawyers understand what’s involved in representing prominent, but mentally or morally challenged, clients in high stakes matters. They know that one day the advice they gave may come into question and often seek protection by secretly recording their private confidential conversations where strategies are discussed just in case the client later tries to blame the lawyer for the client’s actions. 

Cohen’s recordings were completely legal where they were made. New York law allows for secret recordings when just one party to the conversations, Cohen in this instance, consents to the recording. Wisconsin has a similar rule. Any ethical duty not to disclose the otherwise confidential contents of the recording vanishes when they are legally revealed to others or when the client later makes claims against the lawyer that can be contradicted by the recording.

Trump’s continued attempts to distract and deflect attention away from his own behavior just makes his situation worse. He will soon pay the dictator’s price for following the old patterns telling supporters that his is the only “truth” and all of the mounting evidence of his duplicity, venality and depravity is nothing more than “fake news.”

In Trump’s unreality world, Cohen just joined the conspiracy of false prophets already populated by the mainstream media, the FBI, Courts, Democrats, Republicans who are beginning to question his actions and the “rogue” special counsel investigating him. 

Republicans facing re-election bids in the upcoming mid-term elections have a tough choice to make. They stand with Trump at their peril. Moderate Republicans who have had enough of Trump are challenging them from the center in primaries and progressive Democrats are winning their elections with impressive numbers running anti-Trump, anti corruption, populist campaigns. If GOP legislators seeking re-election repudiate Trump, the financial support his team control goes away, leaving them swinging in the wind. Recent polling puts Trump’s approval rating at an all time low, making their choice all the more difficult.

Trump’s days are numbered. The chief financial officer of the Trump family businesses who has been at Trump’s side for decades was just subpoenaed by the special counsel to appear before the grand jury investigating allegations of criminal activity. He knows where Trump’s money came from and where it went.  He’s a cagey sort and I would not be surprised to find out he has secret recordings too and a second set of books detailing Trump financial dealings. 

Trump is learning the hard way that trusting people and then stabbing them in the back is dangerous business. 

Beware the Federalists

Federalist Society Judicial Ideologues

Injustice Rules

Supreme Court Justices were originally envisioned as impartial arbiters of what the United States Constitution required when disputes arose between people or those between people and their governments, large and small. The Justices are supposed to be legal scholars and put themselves above the partisan fray of their times. The nine who sit on the highest court in the land, after all, have the final say in those disputes they choose to resolve. 

From time to time in our nation’s history, the Court has strayed from its lofty mission of impartial decision maker and become a player for one side or another, diminishing its stature and credibility as a result. We are now caught up in one of those times. Partisanship does not become the blindfolded lady Justice.

The latest assault aimed at capturing the Court’s power and prestige was launched decades ago with the formation of the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies. It has become one of the most powerful and little known organizations in our political system. 

Funded by libertarians and conservative business interests, the Federalists have for years been recruiting and training lawyers to become judges in our state and federal courts. Those recruited are groomed to be conservative legal thinkers bound by the literal texts in constitutions and amendments. They give no room to modern notions of constitutional interpretation that take social and cultural changes into account when making important decisions. 

Take the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution for example. It was written to allow slave owning white citizens to keep arms against possible slave insurrection at a time when the average muzzle loading rifleman was at the top of his game if he could get off one shot a minute. Federalist literal constitutional interpretation of this Amendment makes ignores the facts that no one can own slaves anymore or that AR-15 rifles with high capacity magazines and bump stocks can deal death at hundreds of shots a minute. To these limited legal thinkers, this translates easily into banning most forms of gun control legislation as a violation of the original text. 

Our whole system of law is designed to maintain the status quo and apply the brakes to legal innovations. Unfortunately, the maintenance of things the way they are is not sufficient for the Federalists who want to return to a time long past when hierarchical gender roles were clear, white supremacy was the law of the land and government was supposed to stay out of your business.

With the election of conservative legislatures and executives, Federalist judges in waiting have finally achieved their nirvana. With Trump acolytes in control of the Senate, we will soon see a solid majority of Federalist trained or sympathetic Justices in control of the United States Supreme Court. 

Conservative controlled legislatures in state and federal governments will soon pass more laws challenging established precedents involving abortion rights, civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, voting rights and many governmental regulations setting up disputes for final resolution by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade provides another example. It established a framework to end illegal abortions and save women’s lives. It did not allow unlimited abortions on demand, as many countries do. It has been used to strike down state and federal laws that limited access to early term abortions. We will soon see outright bans passed in many so-called “pro-life” states and the challenges to them will ultimately be heard by the Federalist dominated Court where they will receive a friendly reception. 

The only potential brake on the wholesale revision of constitutional law the Federalists embrace is found in an often-overlooked canon of judicial interpretation known as “Stare Decisis.”  Simply put, it means the Court should not overturn a prior decision of the same body unless there is a compelling reason to do so. A decision must have been so wrongly decided in the first place that no present court would make the same decision. As with most rules governing interpretation of the laws, there are many exceptions that the Federalists will use to rid us of those pesky precedents they do not like.

This brings us to President Trump’s recent nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Judge Kavanaugh brings not only impressive Federalist Society credentials and experience, he also penned an impressive law review article advancing the startling proposition that a sitting president should not be subjected to criminal investigation or prosecution for illegal acts committed in office. For Judge Kavanaugh impeachment is the only remedy. This had to be seen as a “get out of jail free” card for this president. 

Needless to say, the partisans will pull out all the stops to pressure those few GOP Senators who don’t fear Trump’s tweets and those Democrats elected in Trump country.  It should make for an interesting confirmation process in the Senate. Stay tuned.

Fear Not

The Only Thing We Have to Fear

Is Fear Itself

During some of its darkest hours President Franklin Delano Roosevelt told the country that, “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Those words ring with even more truth today than they did during the depths of the Great Depression in 1932.

Today’s politics of division and supremacy are primarily based on nothing but fear. Our leaders and some of their followers would have us fear each other, fear those whose skin is a different color, fear those who come to our shores escaping violence, fear those who believe in a different supreme being, fear those who love differently, fear those who seek to control their own reproductive systems, fear those who believe in science as a basis for sound policy, and fear those who follow different economic or political systems.

We need to own firearms in even greater numbers because we fear the “bad guy” who might come to take what is ours. Second Amendment purists and those who profit from it, base their beliefs and business model on the myth that there is some “other” out there who is looking to bring us harm. Virtually every email I see from the NRA and its local offspring, Delta Defense, promotes their platform based on fear. 

Recent fervor supporting immigration bans prohibiting people entering our country from neighboring countries to the South is mostly based on fear of the Mexican criminal who will deal drugs, rape our women and steal our children. Many cling to this myth even in the face of clear proof that most immigrants come here to work and make a better life for themselves and their families.

The rise of newly emboldened white supremacy groups is based upon the irrational fear that somehow Anglo European immigrants will soon be forced from power and become an under class as America becomes more multi-ethnically diverse. Genetically, human beings are much more alike than different. Skin color differences do not translate into a better or worse human being. It makes no difference, yet too many of us are taught to fear based just on this element of the human condition. 

Fear of those who love those with similar gender characteristics is another one of those irrational emotions used to divide. Folks attracted to those like themselves are not trying to kidnap children or lure them into a heretical lifestyle. Same sex couples can be just as good or just as bad at parenting as opposite sex couples. Gender fluidity will never upset the social order. 

The recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court upholding President Trump’s travel ban unfortunately gives it an aura of legitimacy it does not deserve. The travel ban prohibiting Muslims from certain countries from entering our country is based on another irrational fear, that all who share that faith from those countries are bent upon committing terrorist acts on our soil. Most people who practice Islam are just as anti-terror as anyone else who disavows its use. To ban entire populations based upon a few dangerous individuals does nothing to advance world peace and a belief in a common humanity.

Fear of women becoming hyper-sexualized and running amok was one of the original motivations for limiting access to birth control and opposing reproductive choice.  Fear of feminism is based on outmoded notions of women’s’ inequality and inability to think and act for themselves without male guidance. 

Fearing the erosion of Christian belief systems led to challenges to science-based policy decisions in education. If you teach evolution as a fact proven by the scientific method, the underpinnings of beliefs in divine creation will evaporate. If you challenge the way we live because we know humans have created climate change and must wean ourselves from the use of fossil fuels in order to survive, I will lose my livelihood. Therefore, acting on climate change is an evil to be feared.

Fear of communism, socialism, tribalism, cooperatives and the other economic and political systems that compete with capitalism drives current political thought away from our being able to choose aspects of those competing systems that might be beneficial to our continued prosperity. Universal healthcare and food security come to mind as rational ways to maintain the species. We seem to fear them just because they have worked in different political systems than our own and threaten certain capitalistic institutions. 

As we approach the annual celebration of America’s founding on July the Fourth, let us resolve to banish fear as a reason to act or fail to act. Let us boldly embrace the other, the different, the new and the experimental so we truly can make America greater than she was before.

Immigration Atrocities

Immigration Atrocities Must Stop

Separating Children from their Parents is Inhumane

The Trump Republican Party’s assault on basic human dignity and respect for the family continues unabated. Every time I think they cannot sink any lower on the depravity scale, they take it further down by miles.

Ours is a country made great and strong by immigrants who came to our shores seeking freedom from religious or political persecution and a better life for their families. My first immigrant ancestors came from Germany in the 1700s and settled in upper New York State. They farmed and became prosperous. They joined the Revolutionary Army and fought with Washington to repel British rulers and undo unfair taxes. My wife’s Brewster ancestors came to Plymouth, Massachusetts on the Mayflower and stood up for religious freedom that came to be enshrined in our founding documents.

Wave after wave of immigrants came to America and helped build our cities, railroads, canals, and many other mechanisms of economic growth. Many who came spoke no English and had no education. They took the jobs no one else who had already gained a measure of security would take. Those immigrants brought their families to a better home than they left.

One of the dark sides of the immigration epic found its way into our history when those who came before and gained some success looked down on some of those who came later as less worthy or less deserving. The newcomers had to knock down these barriers and show their worth before becoming accepted by those several generations off the boat. Sometimes they had to organize into unions to make sure the doors stayed open to continued upward mobility.

Another dark side of our immigration history is found in the treatment of people of color by the Anglo-European majority. The involuntary immigration of those stolen from Africa aside, immigrants from Asia and South and Central America, with skin tones yellow to brown, faced additional hurdles. They tended to settle in Chinatowns and Little Havanas in major cities, seeking the protection of racial isolation.

All of the injustices visited on these later immigrants, pale in comparison to the newest atrocities being imposed upon immigrant families who seek safety and a better life by the Trump administration. It is made worse by the acquiescence of those Republicans in Congress who have the power to stop them.

Following the historical lead from dictators past, immigration authorities are now forcibly separating young children from their parents when the family units cross the border without proper permission. Those now effectively orphaned are sent far from their parents with no way of staying connected and housed in hastily converted empty big box stores set up with wire cages usually found in animal shelters. Their parents are not told where their children are being held and have no way to communicate with them. The damage inflicted upon these young humans by this treatment will stay with them for the rest of their lives. They and we can take little solace in the heartless solution offered by Attorney General Sessions, “if you don’t want to lose your children, don’t come here illegally.”

Not content with just tearing families apart, Sessions recently slammed the immigration door shut to many from south of our borders by announcing that fleeing from domestic or gang violence will no longer be accepted as a legitimate reason to seek asylum in the United States. The realities of domestic and gang violence in parts of Central and South America are well documented. Those who resist or fail to assist have legitimate fear of violent reprisals and have every reason to flee. 

These immigrants, along with many who come from Mexico without proper visas, are willing to roll up their sleeves and work in our restaurant kitchens, dairy farms, vegetable growing operations, and other occupations requiring long workdays and back breaking labor. They take jobs that most already here never apply to take. Why we shun people willing to work hard and become productive future citizens baffles me.

We have a representative in Congress who plays a central role in overseeing these and other immigration policies and has the power to bring a much more humane cast to how we treat those who come to our shores. Senator Ron Johnson chairs the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. He is in a unique position to stop the family destroying atrocities and establish legislative policy on who may seek asylum. Contact Sen. Johnson at 414-276-7282 and tell him to stand up to the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

We are engaged in behavior equal to the horrors of the slave trade we fought a civil war to abolish. It must stop.

Democracy Dollars

Democracy Dollars for Real Democracy

Modern political campaigns have become dominated by large donations from mega-donors like the Koch brothers and George Soros or large corporate interest driven political action committees and labor unions. Going where the money is has skewed the political agendas of both the left and right and eliminated the voices of everyday people politicians are supposedly elected to serve. 

Two Supreme Court decisions have enshrined these large, dark money donations into our constitutional landscape by making money into “protected” political speech. Those rulings probably will not be revisited, much less reversed, anytime soon. The challenge has become how to dilute the impact of the large donors by giving everyday working people something of value that can be solicited and won with a discussion about issue based platforms politicians run on and promise to enact.

Many working people now are disillusioned with politicians and the political process and believe their individual voices are not being heard by those beholden to large money donors. Many live paycheck to paycheck and cannot afford even a modest political contribution. Those feeling disenfranchised stay away from the polls, feeling their voices no longer matter. Younger voters tend to not even bother to register.

The city of Seattle may have found a solution. The city came up with “Democracy Dollars.” It is simple, elegant, scalable to national proportions and completely constitutional. 

Seattle collects property taxes, as do all municipalities. City leaders decided to add a small amount to each property tax bill, about $11 on a $500,000 home, to fund a voucher program that started initially with Seattle city council and city attorney races. Each registered voter was then given four $25 vouchers to use on those races. Those running for those seats could opt into the voucher program or choose not to, relying instead upon the regular campaign finance rules. Those candidates who opted in had to agree to spend no more than $300,000 on the election. 

Seattle collected $3 million a year in property taxes to pay for the voucher program starting in 2016. Seattle residents spent $1.4 million in vouchers in the last election. The remaining balance will be carried forward for future election cycles. The program is set to expand to more races in coming years as the fund surplus grows. 

A recent study shows that only 8,200 residents gave money to Seattle city races in 2013. In 2016, more than 25,000 residents gave vouchers and money to candidates who ran in those same races. A younger more diverse electorate became involved politically with the implementation and growth of the voucher program. 

The voluntary nature of candidate participation makes the voucher program constitutional. Candidates cannot be forced into a public funded election system under current Supreme Court rulings, unless they agree to public funding for their campaigns.

The Democracy Dollar system scales up well to a national level. Two Yale Law professors wrote the outline in 2017. Given the numbers of registered voters, a voucher system could generate just about the same amount of aggregated individual donations as special interests pump into the system in large contributions. In 2012, all candidates for federal offices and their nominally “independent” supporter groups spent about $7 billion on their races. That went down to about $6.8 billion in federal races last year. With $100 vouchers, registered voters could pump $6.5 billion into the same races.

This year Rep. Ro Kanna, (D-CA) and former Senator Russ Feingold put together a federal solution called the Democracy Dollars Act. It provides 50 “Democracy Dollars” to every registered voter for use in federal elections, $25 for presidential elections, $15 for Senate races and $10 for House campaigns. 

These amounts seem small but when multiplied by millions of voters, the power of the PACs and dark money donors become diluted. Think about a fundraiser for 100 people where you can raise $2500 for a presidential candidate with the best issue based agenda. The system turns individual voters into someone the candidate has to convince in order to obtain that voter’s voucher support. 

If you want a democracy where each voter really has a voice, support Democracy Dollars voucher systems everywhere.