Category Archives: third parties

See here.

John Lumea elucidates.

UPDATE: Much, much more at Irregular Times.

Buzzfeed reports.

Check it out (near bottom of post).

The following just arrived via email:

BOARD OF ADVISORS MEMBER LAWRENCE LESSIG: AMERICANS ELECT BRINGS NEEDED REFORM TO THE ELECTION SYSTEM

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 2, 2012–Americans Elect is honored to have Lawrence Lessig, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics at Harvard University, and the Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School, as a member of its Board of Advisors.

As a distinguished professor of law, Lessig is currently overseeing a five-year research project addressing institutional corruption in a number of contexts at the EJ Safra Lab. Americans Elect has benefited from his insight and knowledge about corruption in our political institutions, as we challenge the traditional primary system by creating an online nominating process and achieving ballot access in all 50 states.

“The Americans Elect’s effort to reform our political election system is a hard-fought and a worthy task. If we don’t reform our political process to end the gridlock in Washington it will be difficult to solve the serious problems our country faces today,” Lessig said.

Prior to returning to Harvard, Lessig was a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School (where he was founder of Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society), Harvard Law School (1997-2000), and the University of Chicago Law School. Lessig clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals and Justice Antonin Scalia on the United States Supreme Court.

For much of his academic career, Lessig has focused on law and technology, especially as it affects copyright.

Lessig also serves on the boards of Creative Commons, MAPLight, Brave New Film Foundation, Change Congress, The American Academy, Berlin, Freedom House and iCommons.org. He is on the advisory board of the Sunlight Foundation….

I had missed this oped by David Boren, Christine Todd Wittman and William Cohen a few weeks back.  What does AE want,at least according to these authors?  to push the two main presidential candidates (more) to the center:

The American people should challenge the two parties and their presidential candidates to make three ironclad commitments:

First, candidates of both parties should endorse the main principles contained in the Simpson-Bowles bipartisan budget proposal. We all understand it takes both spending cuts and revenue increases to balance the budget. That way, all Americans would participate in the sacrifice and it would be fair.

Second, candidates of both parties should create a national unity government by including leaders from both parties in the Cabinet. During World War II, Winston Churchill created a “war Cabinet,” representing all parties, to unify Britain in a time of great crisis. Today America desperately needs the same kind of unity government.

Third, candidates should commit to support a statutory approach or, if required, a constitutional amendment which permits a limit on campaign spending and allows only individual citizens eligible to vote in each election to contribute. The buying and selling of elections and public office must be stopped!

Go to the bottom of the comments on this post at Irregular Times. From my read of Lessig’s comments, it appears that AE is touting him as part of their leadership in ways that are inconsistent with his own understanding of his role: “My only activity with them has been to raise criticisms and concerns with their management. I helped people concerned about the voting technology get access to the staff. I have raised concerns about how they frame priorities.”

Must-read John Lumea column on the continued internal democracy deficit at Americans Elect, and the serial violation of a neutrality pledge by Americans Elect’s leadership.

Now we know how Americans Elect will keep Stephen Colbert (and presumably anyone non-centrist) off the ballot, even against the unanimous wishes of voters/delegates. From a petition to reverse this rule change:

The previous version of Bylaw 5.6 had this to say about the power of the corporate-appointed Candidate Certification Committee and the power of delegates to overturn its decisions:

Section 5.6. Committee Override by Delegate Vote. Any decision of the Platform of Questions Committee or the Candidate Certification Committee shall be nullified by a majority vote of all registered Delegates, except that a maximum of three candidates for President and three candidates for Vice President may be placed on the ballot by Delegate nullification.

The new version of the Bylaw 5.6 posted March 16 updates 5.6 by adding this clause to its end:

, and except that only a non-unanimous vote of the Candidate Certification Committee regarding contingently qualified candidates may be subject to reversal vote by the Delegates.

I call for the specific reversal of the decision to add this clause. I am aggrieved by the clause because it takes away my ability as a delegate to choose who will be on the Americans Elect ballot, and instead places power in the hands of the Candidate Certification Committee, whose members are selected non-democratically by the Americans Elect Board of Directors, whose members in turn appointed themselves.

John Lumea blogs.

BuzzFeed reports, with the subhead: “After a quiet change to the bylaws, every penny the group brings in will be given to its rich backers, despite claims to the contrary. No wonder they’re not advertising it.”

Here, at the constantly-interesting Crooked Timber.

Irregular Times on the internal democracy struggles at Americans Elect.

I had asked Larry Lessig about how he could support Americans Elect given their well known transparency problems (for example, they won’t reveal their donors based upon unsubstantiated claims of potential harassment). Larry’s explanation is here and I appreciate the care he has taken in responding.  Here’s my reply.

Larry’s says he would like transparency of donors at Americans Elect, but he is not too troubled by the lack of transparency in this instance because, given AE’s structure, he does not believe that secret money could be used to corrupt a candidate (unlike Super PAC spending benefiting a candidate) in the AE process and it won’t affect the results of the AE candidate selection process. Further, Larry argues, maybe the concern about AE harassment is a legitimate one given that this is an effort to upend the two-party duopoly which could anger some establishment types.  I’ll respond to each of these points.

1.Transparency, Corruption, and Information Shortcuts. To begin with, corruption is not the only value I see in transparency. Another value is providing valuable information to voters. In a recent California initiative, the utility Pacific Gas and Electric supported an initiative shielding the utility from competition by public utilities.  PG&E spent $43 million supporting the measure through a “Yes” committee, compared to $1 million on the No side. But the measure went down to defeat, in large part I believe because each “Yes” ad included information that PG&E supported it. Voters are busy, not stupid. Knowing PG&E backed a utility measure was all they needed to know to vote “no.”

Similarly, if it turns out (as appears to be the case) that AE is backed primarily by a handful of hedge fund managers and no small donors, voters can evaluate whether the effort might be engineered to produce a certain kind of candidate (say, a centrist candidate who will be good to the interests of hedge fund managers). Yet AE presents itself as “unencumbered by special interest and Super PAC money. We’re not influenced by the political class of consultants or guided by Washington lobbyists.” Voters should be able to fully evaluate the AE effort. This is especially true if, as alleged by the first commenter on your Tumblr post responding to me, AE is manipulating the rules: changing how candidates are presented to the public in order to promote some over others, hiding AE delegate votes so that opponents of board rules don’t see them, etc.

As to corruption, I would not be so sure.  As I explained in my first Politico piece, under AE’s bylaws the controlling  reserve the right to veto choices of voters cast through their Internet primary.  It is also not clear that their Internet primary will be free of manipulation, and there’s no secret ballot. In short, the AE board (presumably controlled by those paying the bills) have enough levers at their disposal to be able to significantly influence who the choice of the AE candidate. If that’s right the danger of corruption is as real as it is for Super PACs.

Now it may be that the AE process could get out of the Board’s control.  I’ve suggested in my second Politico piece that it could be hijacked by Stephen Colbert as a kind of performance art. In your Kindle Single One Way Forward you say “We need to Occupy Americans Elect” to get them to choose a reform candidate (presumably your ally Buddy Roemer). But just because the process might be hijacked doesn’t mean that the corruption danger is not there.  (Of course, the possibility of hijacking also means that AE could be taken over so that a candidate of the far left or far right gets chosen, who acts as a spoiler and leads to the election of a candidate who is the last choice of a majority of voters. But that’s a different problem.)

2. Affecting the Outcome.  Even if we don’t characterize the levers the AE board has to influence the candiate selection process as “corruption,” there’s no denying that those levers exist.  And if they do that’s all the more reason for voters to know who is behind the effort.  A candidate put on the ballot by thousands of small donors across the country would be viewed differently by voters (justifiably so) compared to a candidate bankrolled by a few hedge fund managers who “bought” ballot access for the candidate in advance.  It is just something we should all know before we make our decisions.

3. Harassment. The harassment issue is a canard. I’ve done a study of the recent claims of harassment in the gay marriage context (a social issue much hotter than the question of the two-party duopoly, I’d say), and the claims are incredibly weak. It is far more likely that the AE people are hiding their donors because you would see a small group of large, wealthy donors which would be less appealing to the average voter than through a mass movement. And even if some harassment were plausible, I’d suggest that your former boss has it right here: “Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously … and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.”

UPDATE: Lessig replies here, and on this note I think all the relevant points have been made.

Lessig responds to my query about his support for an organization which does not disclose his donors.  His careful post merits a careful response. Stay tuned.

Americans Elect press release (via email): “We are giving all voters a serious third choice for president in 2012. We are unencumbered by special interest and Super PAC money. We’re not influenced by the political class of consultants or guided by Washington lobbyists.”

The group does not disclose its donors.

I have written this opinion piece for Politico.  It begins:

When it comes to critiquing modern American politics, Stephen Colbert has been less a comedian and more a performance artist. He didn’t just joke about Super PACs — he created one (“Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow”), then raised a million bucks for it. He illustrated the absurdity of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision and Federal Election Commission’s coordination rules by briefly becoming a presidential candidate, transferring his Super PAC’s control to Jon Stewart and then “not coordinating” with him.

Early in the primary process, he urged voters to attend the Ames, Iowa, straw poll and cast a vote for Rick Parry—not Perry. The Republican Party would not reveal how many “Parry” votes came in.

But Colbert’s biggest piece of political performance art may be yet to come. It could end up putting him in a position to influence the presidential election. It’s no joke.

Consider Americans Elect. Backed by hedge fund managers and we don’t know who else (they won’t reveal their donors), the group has spent millions to secure ballot access in all 50 states for a presidential candidate to be chosen in a national Internet competition. (Also no joke.) The group’s aim appears to be to secure a centrist ticket to run as an alternative to President Barack Obama and his eventual Republican rival. It has attracted some early support — including New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. I and others have criticized the Americans Elect board for reserving to itself the power to overrule the results of the Internet plebiscite, and in response the board has indeed made it harder to overturn the popular results.

Getting a third party or independent candidate on the ballot nationally is a steep climb — since states have different qualifying rules. So Americans Elect presents a rare opportunity for such a candidate to gain immediate credibility — as well as an ability to focus on the race itself and not the battles over ballot access.

This offers an opportunity that Colbert may find too tempting to pass up.

John Lumea: “What this Board decision basically says is that as few as five people can fund the whole damned thing….It also strongly suggests that Americans Elect is not getting — and does not expect to get — significant financial support at the grassroots level of delegates.”

He adds as a “sidebar:” “How is it that Lawrence Lessig, one of the most informed and eloquent critics of the undue influence of money over politics — and one of the most ardent and public advocates for financial transparency from elected officials, corporations and political institutions — winds up on the Board of Advisors, a.k.a. the Leadership, of a political group with such a shadowy financial pedigree?”

From an AE emailed press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

A STATEMENT BY FORMER GOVERNORS DAVID BOREN AND CHRISTINE TODD WHITMAN:

WASHINGTON, D.C., MARCH 4, 2012–Below is a statement by the former Governor of New Jersey and current board member of Americans Elect, Christine Todd Whitman, and former Governor and U.S. Sen. of Oklahoma, David Boren, on this week’s decision by Senator Olympia Snowe.

“Sen. Olympia Snowe is the essence of a true public servant, and we celebrate her as she makes the tough decision to forgo reelection to the United States Senate. We strongly agree with Sen. Snowe’s thoughts that there is a ‘vital need for the political center in order for our democracy to flourish and to find solutions that unite rather than divide us. It is time for change in the way we govern.’

“That is why we stand with Americans Elect, because it offers a bipartisan solution to the gridlock that grips our nation today. It is a necessary shock to the system. The partisanship on display in Washington by both the Republican and Democratic parties and their refusal to work together poses a serious risk to the health of the nation.”

See here.

Interesting.

Political Wire reports.

WaPo:

Sandy Levinson blogs.