The United States of Election Reform
Most Republicans didn’t need motivation after November — but what’s happened in the first 15 days under Joe Biden is only giving them more.
If the mess of 2020 accomplished anything, it was lighting a fire under conservative states. After weeks of election counting, recounting, and questions, more legislatures than ever are determined to stop Democrats from taking advantage of COVID again. Cheat-by-mail is going to end, they warn. And a record number of states are lining up to prove it.
Most Republicans didn’t need motivation after November — but what’s happened in the first 15 days under Joe Biden is only giving them more. Watching this new administration try to rule with an iron E.O., overturning wave after wave of American progress, has made election reformers out of everyone. Leaders like Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.), who sued to challenge Pennsylvania’s process, are sticking with their court challenges — this time, with a bigger goal: restoring Americans’ faith in the process. Greg Teufel, the attorney representing Kelly, said that regardless of what happened to the Trump portion of the lawsuit, the “questions pertaining to future elections in Pennsylvania are still pertinent — and the congressman has no intention of dropping it.”
Even now, there’s a basket of election-related lawsuits before the Supreme Court, and if the justices accept any of them, it could have massive implications for how ballots work moving forward. Others don’t want to rely on the courts, no matter how favorable the Trump appointees might have made them. “I don’t think litigation generally will be the path to rolling back early and mail-in voting,” Teufel said. “It’s much more likely to happen through [the legislative process].”
The states have more than heeded that advice, exploding with legislation right out of the gate in their legislative sessions. Republicans are demanding stronger voter ID laws, an end to mail-in balloting, changes in how absentee votes are handled, and more. According to the new Brennan Center report, the GOP has already unleashed more than 106 election reform bills in 28 states this year, all specifically designed to crack down on the abuse Americans witnessed during the pandemic. To put that number into perspective, the states only introduced 35 election-related bills in all of 2020. Obviously, there’s an intensity behind this effort that we haven’t seen in quite some time — if ever. And hopefully, conservatives across this nation will stand up and partner with their elected leaders to get these bills over the finish line.
In the meantime, Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman has even more encouraging news. Thanks to the incredible gains by Republicans in the state legislatures, election reform isn’t the only thing within reach. The tool of redistricting is also firmly in GOP hands. Until Barack Obama, most conservatives probably didn’t pay a lot of attention to the Census and congressional boundaries. But in the last 10 years, David explained, it’s really become a major issue of the public consciousness — especially after 2011 when Democrats were put on their heels by how well the GOP managed the process.
“[They] were largely blindsided by how well Republicans did in redrawing the boundaries in their favor, because Republicans, if you recall, took back the House in 2010. They also had a banner year in state legislatures as a reaction to Obama’s first two years. And so they gained control over the process in a lot of states,” David pointed out. “Keep in mind that about two-thirds of states, the state legislature has primary authority to redraw district boundaries for the next 10 years. And although Republicans did lose control of the House in 2018, part of that was [because] Democrats had been successful in suing to overturn Republican-drawn maps in a couple of states. Had it not been for those lawsuits that Democrats launched,” he said, “then Republicans would probably have won the majority in 2020. So with a very thin majority in the House, this redistricting process could tip control either way.”
Based on what happened in November with the enlarged conservative majorities in the states, Republicans have a major advantage heading in to 2021. Out of 435 districts, the GOP will be the final authority on 188. “That includes some pretty big states,” David points out — like Texas, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia. Those four states alone, he said, “are poised to gain four seats from the reapportionment process, which is essentially when the Census reallocates congressional seats and electoral votes, according to the latest population tallies.” Democrats, by contrast, will only have the final say in 73 districts — a huge disparity. And if you’re wondering what happens to the rest of those districts, some states have bipartisan or independent commissions that govern the process — including places like California, Washington State, Virginia, Michigan, and Colorado.
And while the Left has been somewhat successful in convincing the courts to toss some of the conservatives’ redrawn maps, the reality is, “Republicans only need to gain five seats for control of the House. So there you have it,” David said. “Redistricting alone makes the House a tossup.” Add that to the flood of bills to clean up last year’s election abuse, and conservatives have plenty of reasons for optimism!
Originally published here.
A Parent Crisis in Black Families
The family structure among poor blacks, read the Department of Labor report, “is highly unstable, and in many urban centers is approaching complete breakdown.” The year was 1965, and 25 percent of black children were born out of wedlock. Studies conclusively show that, on average, children who grow up in homes with a married mother and father grow up to have more education and income that children who don’t.
Fifty years ago, the family’s importance was a bipartisan issue. The report’s author, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, later served as a Democratic Senator from New York until he was replaced by Hillary Clinton. But since that time, the collapse of the family structure among black Americans has only gotten worse.
Today, around 70 percent of black children are born out of wedlock — almost three times as many as in 1965. As Moynihan points out, black Americans face many difficulties that can be traced to slavery and segregation. But this problem has only gotten worse since the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and the end of segregation — much worse.
To understand this issue, I talked with Ken Blackwell, FRC’s Senior Fellow for Human Rights and Constitutional Governance, on “Washington Watch.” He said the Great Society programs of the 1960s created “a system that actually rewards the family breakdown.” The government’s poverty programs fostered exactly that, subsidizing not working and not being married. That’s why black families began to dissolve much faster through the 1960s and 70s.
Blackwell said the key to repairing our families, the key to lifting blacks out of poverty, and the key to America’s way of life is this: “individual responsibility.” He said his own father worked 12-hour days as a meat packer to support his family. But far from neglecting his family, his father would leave notes by the nightstand for him and his brother and would ensure the family worshipped together.
This is why Americans created a limited government, said Blackwell. “The more powerful the organized state is, the less individual liberty. The more individual liberty, the more that you put restraints on the reach and power of government.”
The organizers of the Black Lives Matter week of action and other indoctrination programs teaching critical race theory would disagree. Even in their messaging, their promotion of “black villages” undermines the nuclear family structure that gives kids the best shot at life. They believe in “the irrelevance of the family,” said Blackwell, “because these folks follow a statist model.” They believe, as Mao did, “that the state could do a better job of enculturating and bringing up the next generation than the family.” Historically, allowing the state to be a surrogate parent and usurp the role of the parents has led to results ranging from mediocre to disastrous.
But it’s important to remember that we’re not playing a “zero sum game,” Blackwell said. Intact families make us more prosperous, despite what the Left says. “The whole notion of e pluribus unum, from the many one, means that we’re united around some basic principles and values.” While Marxist regimes killed hundreds of millions of people in the first half of the 20th Century through efforts to fundamentally reorganize society, America was thriving, despite all her faults. And that success is due to America’s emphasis on the nuclear family, on individual responsibility, on personal reality.
Originally published here.
Picketing the Fence!
Are there really enough credible threats in the nation’s capital to justify a permanent, razor-wire fence? Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) says no. Listen in to our conversation from Tuesday’s “Washington Watch” about the Democratic leadership’s willingness to turn the Hill into a Capitol fortress.
Originally published here.
This is a publication of the Family Research Council. Mr. Perkins is president of FRC.
