Ryan J. Reilly had the scoop at HuffPo tonight. We’re about to get another bipartisan commission on voting reforms…
The commission is one of a number of efforts the Obama administration is making to address the problems that plagued voting on Election Day 2012. The commission, which will focus specifically on Election Day issues and not broader voting reform, will likely be co-chaired by one Republican and one Democratic lawyer, according to one of the sources.
After the 2000 Presidential election fiasco, a bipartisan blue-ribbon commission headed by former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford was created by Congress. The commission offered reforms that ultimately helped lead to the disastrous Help America Vote Act of 2002. That bill, among other things, offered some $4 billion in federal money to states in order to “upgrade” to computerized voting systems. Those same systems, using proprietary hardware and software from private vendors, tally votes in secret and continue to fail in election after election even today.
After the 2004 Presidential election fiasco, a private bipartisan commission was created, as The BRAD BLOG was the first to reveal, by high-level Republican operatives and former Bush/Cheney officials calling themselves the American Center for Voting Rights (ACVR). The private commission, formed in secret, was headed by Carter and longtime Bush family friend James A. Baker III, the man who took Bush’s 2000 fight to keep ballots from being counted in the state of Florida all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The inclusion of Baker on the commission led to an uproar from Election Integrity advocates, a furious response at The BRAD BLOG from the commission’s Executive Director for our revelation of the scam, a letter from then Chair of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) stating his “strong opposition” to Baker’s presence on the commission, and then a guest-blog from Conyers himself, here at The BRAD BLOG.
As Conyers noted at the time, and as the sham Baker/Carter commission’s report ultimately showed, the private commission was created in order to lay the groundwork for polling place Photo ID restrictions down the road. “Make no mistake about it,” Conyers wrote here at the time, detailing his belief that the commission’s push for Photo ID restrictions was “more of the same old Ken Blackwell-style Republican electoral dirty tricks, where Democratic voters are deliberately disenfranchised so that Republicans can win elections.”
While the privately created Baker/Carter commission was meant to appear similar to the official Ford/Carter blue-ribbon commission (Ford was ailing at the time of the second commission, so was replaced with Baker), we can only hope that whatever new commission President Obama has in mind won’t end up with the same “dead-on-arrival” recommendations as the ones from Baker and Carter. Though those recommendations were roundly criticized at the time, they are still cited today — as if they were official recommendations — by Republicans hoping to disenfranchise legal American voters through new restrictions on voting.
UPDATE: Reilly at HuffPo had it right. The President announced his call for a new commission during his State of the Union address tonight…
Relatedly, near the end of his speech, Obama told the story of Desiline Victor, who was a guest of the First Lady’s at the speech…
And, indeed, the chamber also “erupted in cheers” when the President shared the story. Well, not everyone. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), sitting behind the President failed to stand when most of the rest of the chamber did.
LATER UPDATE: Oy. Swift voting or Swift Boating?! Reilly files a new article at HuffPo detailing who will head up this commission:
Ginsberg is best known for his central role in the 2000 election, when he represented former President George W. Bush. Since then, he’s been a key GOP recount attorney, representing former Republican Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman in the aftermath of his race against Democratic now-Sen. Al Franken in 2008.
Bauer, Obama’s former White House counsel, successfully fought to force the state of Ohio to restore early voting for all registered voters last year when he worked for Obama campaign.
The BRAD BLOG’s legal analyst Ernie Canning, in comments below, reminds us that Ginsberg, in addition to representing Bush/Cheney in both of their campaigns, “also doubled as the legal adviser for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth” in 2004.
Indeed he did. At least until his work with the Swift Boaters came to light, and he was finally forced to resign from the Bush/Cheney campaign. The Swift Boat group was, at the time, established as a 527 political action group and was not supposed to be coordinating with campaigns. Their attacks on John Kerry, with Ginsberg advising them while a member of the Bush/Cheney campaign, was a very serious conflict of interest and perhaps a violation of the law.
Of course, that didn’t keep either Norm Coleman in 2008, or Mitt Romney in 2004, from hiring him again, of course. And, apparently, it hasn’t kept Barack Obama from tapping him to co-chair a commission on election reform.
So the man who worked with Baker to develop the strategy to keep votes from being counted at all in Florida in 2000, and who illegally advised a political action campaign on how to attack the man the campaign he was working for was running against in 2004, and who first fought to keep votes from being counted in Minnesota (before flip-flopping and demanding they all be counted once his candidate, Coleman, appeared to be losing) in 2008, and then went on to represent Romney in 2012 when his fellow GOPers were passing laws to keep legal voters from being able to cast their votes at all — is now slated to head up Obama’s new commission on voting reforms. That oughta work out great!
On the other hand, as Reilly goes on to report:
It will address voters’ experience at the polls and will take input from customer service experts. The commission will also make recommendations to improve the voting experience of members of the military, overseas voters, voters with disabilities, and voter with limited English proficiency.
Here’s the official fact sheet from the White House [PDF] describing the purpose and goals of the new “Presidential Commission on Election Administration.”
So can Ginsberg’s damage to the process of election reform be limited? We’ll see. But it’s shameful that anyone would even think of using a guy like Ginsberg on a legitimate election reform panel in the first place.
UPDATE 2/13/12: Ari Berman at The Nation adds this thought:
Brad, since one of the two attorneys to head the commission is Benjamin Ginsberg, who served as legal counsel to the Bush campaign in 2000 and 2004, and also doubled as the legal adviser for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, I don’t think I’d bet the farm that anything positive will come from this two-member commission.
I saw this coming. In fact I called a few representatives awhile back with a warning about the dangers of “commissions” in this country when Obama said he wanted to address voting problems. I recommended Brad for the job if they are serious.
Commissions only serve to hide the truth and the crimes of people in high places.. i.e. JFK and 9/11.
I have come to the point where I can hardly stand to watch or listen to so-called “liberal” TV or radio. i can’t take listening the apologists for Obama anymore. I was glad Romney lost and happy I had the luxury of living in Ca. voting for Jill Stein.
I agree with Ernie *thud* … it ain’t brain surgery people, fix the mess our country has politically by taking the friggin money out of it. All the money. 100% public funding. There go the problems….
Ginsberg was also the attorney who advanced, shall we say, less than meritorious positions while representing Norm Coleman in his unsuccessful 2009 challenge to Al Franken’s victory at the polls.
Yeah. I was underwhelmed by the 102 year old who had to stand in line to vote. Standing in line to vote was a terrible experience, but just ONE problem, in a plethora of other problems ALL Americans face every time they try to vote.
I mean, the poor woman stood in line to vote on a completely, unverifiable machine. A possible exercise in futility. Isn’t that an important part of the story?
Couldn’t Obama bring ALEC into the conversation of election fraud?
Larry Bergan said:
Or Citizens United?
The most dangerous thing is the fiction that long lines and messed up registration lists or new registration hurdles are somehow unintended mistakes. What is NOT needed are recommendations for “avoiding” these “mistakes” – which are in fact deliberate partisan policy. What is needed is criminal penalties for the political thugs who mug the voters.
We went from a stupid fool as president to an intelligent fool as president. I’m really not sure which one I dislike more. They are both disingenuous shills in my book.
The more I look at it, this is the worst sort of “bipartisan” hogwash. It’s hard to imagine a worse approach than a commission of party-affiliated campaign lawyers. If a commission at all, why not one of nonprofit election integrity groups, from the League of Women Voters to Brad Blog? This is a guaranteed failure.
I’m with Randy. But even if I’m wrong and they DO come up with something real, the deeper aspects of urgently needed election reform will not be on the table. Or in the kitchen. Or near the house. Etc. And isn’t this the way Obama is on every single issue of import?
Glorious, soaring, inspiring rhetoric absent any actual balls. Fortunately my Obama smitten friends have an electron microscope. If you want to see the president’s balls, you can just go over to their house. They put the TV under the electron microscope. Then attach the new x-ray app from Apple. When the pres comes on, if you look really, really hard, you can see two little tiny spots. About the size of deer ticks. Those are his balls. What appears to be a broken off pencil point is, apparently, his dick.
My friends point to these pin pricks under the scoped TV as they drink their chablis laced cool-aid and swoon on with slurred speech about what a great man he is.
I couldn’t bring myself to watch a second of the state of dysunion speech. From what I’ve read it’s a good thing. I would have been sorely tempted to put my foot through the TV.
I just knew I had seen Ginsberg somewhere, even before the 2000 election mess.
It was the Clinton Impeachment mess. That’s where I learned to hate the guy.
From “American Politics Journal“:
OK, I guess that link isn’t working, but you can copy:
http://www.americanpolitics.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2303
Into your browser address box. I love it when that happens. 🙁
Ben Ginsberg was an evil, lying crook.
But now he’s all good and moral, and ready to lead on this vital ethical issue.
In other news,
CHARLES MANSON will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his life of humanitarianism…
Let’s not forget the role that e-voting system malfunctions can play in creating those long lines, or how, during the 2004 elections, long lines in predominantly Democratic precincts were attributed to inadequate numbers of voting machines.
Those problems could not occur if we adopted Democracy’s Gold Standard — hand marked paper ballots publicly hand counted at each precinct on Election Night.
I’d bet dollars to donuts that the ½ Swift Boat Commission will not address those issues!
Everybody hates a long joke with a bad ending, and this one’s been going on since the “Help America Vote Act” passed gas in both parties.
However, this is the first stinker I’ve heard that lasted for a decade.