Reform Ohio

Originally posted November 6, 2005:

In a little less than 36 hours, polls will open in Ohio, and voters will begin to give their decision about a set of proposals called collectively "Reform Ohio Now" (RON). There are other important issues, of course: Cleveland voters will choose a mayor, and in the community where I live, voters will fill most of the seats on the board of education. And yet Issues 2 through 5 represent the most far-reaching decision to be made in this state this year.

What set the stage for RON is six years of unchecked one-party rule. Ohio is a fairly evenly-balanced state, but Republicans achieved total control of state government several years ago. They used that control to solidify their political advantages. They reapportioned legislative districts to guarantee Republican majorities in both houses of the General Assembly. They “reformed” campaign finance by quadrupling the individual contribution limit and limiting the political involvement of union members. And Ohio elections are supervised by a Republican Secretary of State who is an announced candidate for governor in the 2006 election.

The four issues address these problems.

• Issue 2 makes absentee voting easier.
• Issue 3 rolls back individual contribution limits.
• Issue 4 puts reapportionment in the hands of a bipartisan panel.
• Issue 5 puts elections in the hands of a bipartisan elections authority.

I am not convinced that these proposals are perfect, and I am not convinced that they are the only solution to these problems. I am convinced that they are the best solution available to us at this time.

Republican one-party rule has been so abused—a convicted governor, a state investment scandal, allegations of influence peddling, the continuing embarrassment of an unconstitutional system of school funding—that Democrats, despite their habitual campaign incompetence, may capture several top state offices in 2006. Without passage of Issues 2 through 5, Democrats in 2010 may be in a position to gerrymander the state their way. One or two legislative elections could give this evenly-balanced state a one-party rule in which the same kinds of abuses are practiced by a different party. RON would impact Republican rule now, but it would limit Democratic governments in the future.

So it’s easy to see why RON has been opposed by most Republicans and ignored by many Democrats. Support for RON comes not from parties but from unions, including the Ohio Education Association, and a wide variety of nonpartisan organizations.

That in turn explains why we’re not seeing many ads in favor of the issues: the Reform Ohio Now campaign is poorly funded. In contrast, the opposition is well-funded, and includes the most strident Republican allies: right-wing religious groups, business groups, and gun-rights supporters. They’ve been able to put together a slick, misleading media campaign that may sink all four issues.

As it's sometimes pointed out, "what goes around comes around." Even without RON, Ohio’s political life is likely to change. Whether that change will be managed for the common good or whether it will take the form of cyclical partisan power shifts will largely be determined by whether RON passes or fails.

I believe that these four issues represent a once-in-a-lifetime chance to change a system that promotes abuse and corruption. I’m voting for Issues 2-5, and I hope you will too. It’s an uphill battle, but it’s worth the climb.

An Immoral Majority?

Originally posted on Monday, May 23, 2005:

As I write this, news reports are indicating that the Senate will probably vote this week on a scheme to prevent the “filibustering” of judicial appointments. I think this so-called “nuclear option” is immoral, un-American, and unwise. I’ve written both of my Senators to let them know that opinion, and I’d encourage others to do the same. Here’s why.

1) It’s immoral.

The type of procedure that we call “parliamentary” has many forms, including that used in the Senate. Parliamentary procedure has evolved as a system for balancing the rights of the majority against those of minorities. Parliamentary procedure protects the rights of the minority by providing that certain actions require a “supermajority” vote: that is, a vote larger than a simple majority. Examples of actions that require supermajorities are suspending rules and closing debate,

In an ordinary organization, cutting off debate requires a two-thirds supermajority; in the Senate, the rule is more lenient: it requires only sixty votes. Thus, in an ordinary society, a minority of one-third is protected; in the Senate, a minority has to have at least 40 votes to get that protection. While the specifics differ, in both cases the rule protects the rights of a minority of the members.

What is really tyrannical is how the Senate majority proposes to end filibusters. Since the minority is sizable, the majority can’t pass a suspension of the rules. So what they propose to do (a point which gets little attention) is to use a parliamentary provision by which a simple majority can uphold a chairperson’s ruling. If they decide to pursue this course, a member of the majority will raise a parliamentary point and argue that the filibuster of judicial candidates is unconstitutional; the President of the Senate will rule that the point is correct; the minority will appeal the decision of the chair; and the majority will sustain that decision. In other words, the majority will cut the rights of the minority by using a vote which requires only a simple majority.

2) It’s un-American.

In its simplest terms, “democracy” simply means a rule by the people, and that’s generally interpreted as a rule by the majority. In fact, American democracy is far more complicated than that: the Constitution provided for the sharing of power among distinct, often competitive institutions, and the Bill of Rights was provided largely to guarantee that minorities would be protected against oppression.

In countries around the world, we see the real difficulty of exporting our form of democracy. It turns out that disarming dictators, conducting elections, and empowering winners is the easy part. The real challenges have been to convince newly empowered majorities to value–not just tolerate–diversity and to find ways to protect it. Our success in this has been the great good fortune of the American experiment, but it has proved harder to export than simple majority rule.

In this respect, the behavior of the Senate majority isn’t unlike that of ideological majorities in emerging democracies. I suspect that one reason the Bush administration has been so surprised at the difficulty of establishing an American-style democracy in Iraq is that neoconservatives and their theocratic brethren don’t grasp, don’t value, and didn’t provide for this second component of “American-style” democracy.

3) It’s unwise.

The Senate has always been the place that moderates the more extreme tendencies of the House of Representatives–a characteristic which it shares with the “upper houses” of other bicameral legislatures in individual states and in other countries. The American Senate has long been a place where teamwork and compromise are valued more than they are in the House. If the majority-passed reinterpretation of rules is employed by this Senate in this case, then the tactic will be used again, and in connection with other issues. The Senate will forever become more like the House in its style, regardless of its partisan composition.

At my core, I believe that people get the government they deserve. Americans elected a one-party government in November. Since January, the Democratic minorities in both houses have used stalling tactics in an effort to mitigate the more extreme ideas of the Republican majorities. In doing so, they protect voters from the consequences of their decisions, and they look obstructionist while doing it.

The nuclear option might force impotent Congressional minorities to focus on articulating their message while the majorities give Americans what they voted for. That wouldn’t be all bad: voters would learn the consequences of their decisions. Right-wing extremists would have their way for a while.

Generally, extremist agendas of both the right and the left aren’t sustainable. I believe that the present right-wing plan would eventually be exposed as a fraud. The pendulum would swing and a new majority would emerge. Neoconservatives and theocrats would hide out like postwar French collaborators. This would undoubtedly be a great victory for someone, somewhere; but the price would be too high.

The nuclear option and the political climate it engendered would have institutionalized bitter ideological differences and hardened the cultural chasm between red and blue states. We would risk losing public education, social security, large chunks of the environment, and precious individual liberties. Ideologically-driven junk science would make us a worldwide laughingstock. Workers’ rights would disappear, the divide between rich and poor would increase, and inner cities would become even more dangerous.

If this scenario seems as bleak to you as it does to me, consider contacting your Senators. For readers in Ohio, the links to Senators DeWine and Voinovich appear below.

• Senator Mike DeWine: http://dewine.senate.gov/
• Senator George V. Voinovich: http://voinovich.senate.gov/

Another Election Day

Originally posted on Tuesday, April 5, 2005:

As November’s Election Day approached, spurred on largely by a growing frustration with the abysmal state of political discourse, I began writing a series of weblogs, posting them on my Web site and emailing them to a number of friends. Today is another election day of sorts, but only for some on my original mailing list: ballots for positions on the State Teachers Retirement System Board were mailed on Saturday, April 2, and are now beginning to arrive, kicking off an elections process that will continue until May 2.

It would be hard to overestimate the importance of the State Teachers Retirement System in many of our lives. For those whose principal retirement income comes from STRS, that agency is critical to our future comfort and prosperity. Yet there was a time when most of us, active and retired, thought we could safely ignore STRS business: it was a given that our retirement was in good hands and that we were far better off than those poor souls outside education who had to depend on Social Security for their retired well-being. We could ignore the periodic reports from STRS; we could vote or not vote in the periodic elections for positions on the STRS Board. We could treat the retirement system with benign neglect.

The economic recession of the early nineties showed us that our neglect was hardly benign. As STRS assets plummeted, the System’s contribution to members’ health insurance costs declined as well; and retirees who had become accustomed to a thirteenth check each year found that they couldn’t rely on that annual bonus. Dissatisfaction, discontent, and anger replaced complacency.

In most respects, the interests of retired teachers are the same, no matter whether they retired as union members or management, and regardless of their organizational affiliations while active. But there are some legitimate differences. One such difference concerns the role that administrators, especially superintendents, play in lobbying for legislative change: many observers assume that active superintendents are more sensitive to employer interests and more willing than classroom teachers to push the contribution burden to employees rather than employers. The differences continue after retirement: once retired, administrators are far more able to negotiate customized, lucrative rehiring arrangements with boards of education. Therefore, they may have rather different interests from classroom teachers in the areas of health care and retire-rehire rights.

All of these conflicting interests are crystalized when examining the role of competing organizations. The vast majority of classroom teachers belong to either the Ohio Education Association or the Ohio Federation of Teachers. Ideally, OEA and OFT would have figured out a way to divide the available contributing-member and retired-member seats between them and present a unified front, but that doesn’t seem to have happened.

Among retired teachers, the situation becomes even murkier. In addition to the retired memberships of OEA, OFT, and administrator organizations, the Ohio Retired Teachers Association (ORTA), which includes members of them all, has often been an important player among retired teachers. OEA dwarfs ORTA and is better-financed, but seems to have been singularly unsuccessful in organizing its retired members. ORTA aggressively and effectively recruits membership among retired teachers, and has a statewide network of county organizations offering periodic meetings and activities. By contrast, OEA-R has no statewide network and offers few activities for the rank-and-file members who do join. Any doubts about OEA’s vulnerability were dispelled in 2001 when the late Marilyn Cross, a respected OEA Past President, lost an election for a retired position on the STRS Board.

In the present STRS Board elections, five candidates are vying for two retired seats. OEA is recommending David Speas; ORTA has recommended David Speas and L. Neil Johnson; and OFT is supporting Jeff Chapman and Teresa M. Green. The fifth candidate is supported only by a group I haven’t mentioned yet: CORE, the “Concerned Ohio Retired Educators.”

CORE came to prominence several years ago when Chillicothe Superintendent Dennis Leone began making charges that STRS was misusing funds. As retirees lost the thirteenth check and paid more for their health care, Dr. Leone was welcomed as a hero by many who were looking for scapegoats. While some STRS practices may have been ill-advised, they constituted far less than 1% of the losses suffered by STRS investments in the economic downturn of the early nineties. But after OEA waffled in supporting its members serving on the STRS Board, Leone and CORE went into attack mode, defeating Eugene Norris, an incumbent contributing member of the STRS Board and member of OEA, in a 2004 election in which fewer than one in five voters bothered to cast a ballot.

Dr. Leone is retired now and a candidate for one of the retired vacancies on the STRS Board. Having lost a retiree seat to an ORTA-endorsed candidate in 2001 and a contributing-member seat to a CORE-endorsed candidate in 2004, OEA faces the possibility that STRS voters will once again elect a member whose main qualification is that he’s not OEA.

I had never met either Dr. Leone or Mr. Speas until recently, when I attended a CORE meeting in Summit County. In response to questions, Mr. Speas provided substantive answers and avoided simplistic solutions; I was impressed by his grasp of a wide variety of issues and his apparent good judgment. By contrast, Dr. Leone showed little knowledge of STRS business outside a few main themes: pampering of STRS staff; excessive capital and operating expenses; luxurious travel by Board members; and OEA domination of the system. In fact, he referred almost exclusively to past grievances that continue to play well with CORE members (like the insensitivity of the past STRS Executive Director and the opulence of a now five-year-old building).

So once my ballot arrives in the mail, for whom will I vote?

I was tempted to cast only one vote, for David Speas: the idea of “bullet voting” is to give one vote to the candidate you care most about and not give anyone else a vote that could bring that person’s total over that of your main candidate. But I believe that Mr. Speas is almost certain to be elected: the dual endorsements of ORTA and even a wounded OEA should translate into victory. If I’m right, my second vote won’t threaten him, and I’m reluctant to let others choose the other winner for me. I read Dr. Leone as a demagogue and an opportunist, and I believe that he would be a divisive force on the STRS Board. I’ve concluded that L. Neil Johnson’s ORTA endorsement gives him the best chance of defeating Dr. Leone; so even though I haven’t met him or the other two candidates, that’s enough reason for me to give him my second vote.

When this election is over, we will have about four years to prepare for the next. That’s four years to contemplate how things could be different and to move in that direction. OEA can start by providing appropriate staff support for its retired organization. It can continue by funding expenses for OEA-R leadership to attend STRS Board meetings, speak on behalf of retired members, and report back to OEA. It can consider how to develop a system in which it continues a meaningful, valuable relationship with members after they retire. It can explore a relationship with OFT which respects the legitimate interests of both organizations and presents a united front. With luck, with this election, OEA can stop the bleeding and learn how to fight a better fight another day.

Election Day 2004

Originally posted on Tuesday, November 2, 2004:

I arrived at our community library this morning to find a line of people extending beyond the polling place to the doors of the library itself. What has typically taken a few minutes took about a half hour. People’s spirits were high, partly because after today we won’t have to hear any campaign ads for a while, and partly because it is so refreshing to see people so eager to vote. All of us in line this morning felt that it was a good problem to have.

Here in Ohio, and in many other “swing states” as well, we’ve been hearing campaign ads for six months. It would be tempting to think of today as the day that all ends; but it won’t, of course. Lots of observers expect challenges and recounts to delay our knowing the final results for weeks; but it’s the nature of America to be a work in progress. Even if we were to have no electoral challenges, and even if one candidate were to win in a walk, this Election Day would end with unfinished business.

I have received overwhelmingly positive responses from the readers of this little series of essays, including those who have disagreed with some of my conclusions. Their support encourages me to take some time today to address the challenges we will continue to face after we know today’s outcome.

First: we need to address the very real “culture war” that exists in this country. Let’s hope that the renewed interest this election has seen will reduce the “echo chamber” effect in politics, in which people speak only to those who already hold the same beliefs while those views become more and more extreme.

Second: between this election and the next, we will need to communicate with our public officials. Sometimes we forget that electing the right people is only the first step: that we have a responsibility to keep after them once they are elected so that they will know what we want them to do. Thanks to the Internet, it is easier to stay in touch with public officials now than it has ever been before; likewise, it’s easier to see which ones are responsive and which ones aren’t.

Third: we should all rejoice at the renewed interest in participation in democracy. The scandalously low turnout in some past elections robbed their outcomes of legitimacy and encouraged more voter apathy. Perhaps this year’s events reflect a real change in the quality of our political life.

Fourth: we will still have negative campaigning. Negative campaigning keeps good people from running for office; it uses up campaign funds that could be used to explore real issues; and it contributes to voter cynicism and apathy by perpetuating the myth that “they’re all alike.” But it’s been around nearly as long as our democracy because, unfortunately, it works.

Fifth: we need more candidates. Close to half the positions on my ballot this morning were uncontested; I think that’s unfortunate. Over the years I’ve run for public, party, and organizational office, I’ve found candidacy to be challenging but rewarding; even losing is educational. I hope that this year’s elections will stimulate a resurgence of interest in public office, particularly among younger citizens.

I am always hopeful–not confident, just hopeful–about democracy’s ability to correct itself. Institutions seldom make progress in a straight line, so that corrective function works slowly. Maybe, years from now, we will look back at 2004 and realize that it was indeed the most important election in our lifetime: not just because of the issues and the candidates, but because it called forth the passion and commitment of people on all sides and reminded us once again of the blessings that we share as Americans.

When a Man Loves a Woman

Originally posted Thursday, October 28, 2004:

Someone has decided that marriage needs defense. It’s rather nice that so many people care enough about marriage to defend it, but at the same time it’s a bit disturbing that so many married people feel it needs defending. Anyway, a number of people have decided that marriage must be defended against the threat posed by same-sex couples who might want to get married.

Personally, I’ve always used the term “marriage” to refer to the union between one man and one woman. Men and women are so different that marriage is really a sort of miracle. And it provides an important sign by showing that love can overcome even those differences: no wonder religions generally regard marriage as a sign of God’s love for us. So I’ll confess that it bothers me a bit that same-sex couples want to use the same term to describe their version of a life-long union; part of me thinks that they should find their own word for it.

But the self-assigned defenders of marriage aren’t concerned about terminology; they oppose anybody except one man and one woman having access to a legally-recognized, committed union. Apparently they think that they are somehow hurt by the happiness of a same-sex couple.

Despite my own reservations, I’ve come to the conclusion that linguistic niceties pale in comparison with the intolerance displayed by the religious right. Like censors who think they can make choices for others, “defense of marriage” proponents seem to feel qualified to decide who will relate to whom and how.

They’ve come up with two varieties of these proposals. The first is a proposed amendment to the US Constitution. Since the Constitution is mute on marriage, and since courts have ruled that the decision of whom to marry is a private matter, the religious right has decided that the only way to dictate who gets to clean whose socks is to amend the Constitution. Since it’s generally regarded as an impossible proposal, it’s really a nonissue; but that doesn’t keep right-wing candidates from using it to pander to the fears of social conservatives.

Here in Ohio, the second attack is a proposed amendment to the Ohio Constitution. Unlike the federal proposal, this one actually has a chance to pass, and that makes it more dangerous. The Ohio proposal, Issue 1 on this year’s ballot, consists of two sentences. The first defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman; Ohio law already does that, so this part of the amendment is superfluous.

The second sentence, however, carries its real payload: “This state and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effect of marriage.” It would deny not only civil unions but parental, survivorship, and visitation rights to all except traditionally-married couples.

I believe in marriage. It bothers me to see so many children born to single parents, and it bothers me even more to see what appears to be a rash of celebrities producing children without first providing for them by making the commitment that marriage requires. But passing Issue 1 won’t defend marriage. What it will do, if passed, is to make Ohio even less attractive as a residence or an employer than it already is.

Because it appeals to the teachings of some religions–and also because intolerance has plenty of advocates in Ohio–Issue 1 has organized support. Polls indicate that it has a fair chance of passing. As far as I can tell, the opposition isn’t organized; but on their own, most mainstream labor, employer, and civic groups in Ohio have decided to oppose Issue 1. Virtually all Democratic public officials oppose it, along with most Republican public officials.

No matter whom you support in the other races, take the opportunity on November 2 to vote against intolerance. If you’re an Ohio voter, vote against Issue 1.

Tax and Spend

Originally posted Thursday, October 28, 2004:

You always know that a Republican candidate has run out of things to say about his opponent–it doesn’t matter whether it’s another Republican in a primary election or a Democrat in a final election–when he calls the opponent a “tax and spend liberal.” These are the magic incantation of Republican politics, and they’re supposed to make voters avoid the epithet’s target like radioactive waste.

The epithet can be used in other grammatical constructions: “All Senator Snort has done in office is tax and spend”; “For the past four (two, six) years, he’s been over there in Washington (Columbus, City Hall), taxing and spending your hard-earned dollars.” It’s the ketchup of political invective–it goes on anything. “Tax and spend” is a magical incantation; no epithet thought up by Democrats has quite the same mojo.

At the same time, it’s a little silly. After all, the unique and defining characteristic of government is that it taxes; nobody else can do that. And once you’ve taxed people, you pretty much have to spend the revenues on something; taxpayers tend to rebel when governments just collect their money and store it in warehouses.

So let’s be clear, what governments do is “tax and spend.” Without taxing and spending, you don’t have a government. Liberals and conservatives both do it; Republicans and Democrats both do it. President Bush has done it, and John Kerry will do it once he’s elected.

I bring this up because we use political labels far too often. Right and left, liberal and conservative, Republican and Democrat, pro-choice and pro-life–part of our handicap in state and national politics today is the overuse of simplistic labels. (Fortunately, the labels are harder to use in municipal politics, so they’ve never really caught on there.)

(Digression alert: personal reference coming.)

A few friends have noted that I seem to be exceptionally motivated in this campaign, and they’re right: I haven’t been this excited about a presidential election since forty years ago, when as a high school student I was doing volunteer work for the campaign of . . . Barry Goldwater. (This is when the reader says, “Barry Goldwater? Wasn’t he that conservative Republican senator from Arizona, somewhere to the right of Vlad the Impaler? How does this joker support John Kerry, that tax-and-spend liberal?” But Hillary Clinton started political life as a Goldwater Republican too: that’s why she and I are so tight.)

Well, my candidate now is quite different from my candidate then; politics have changed, and so has our country. But now as then, I am disturbed and frightened at the direction in which our country is going. My own political odyssey over those years has taught me a disrespect for political labels.

(Personal reference over; reading can safely continue here.)

The notion that you can sum up a person’s political beliefs in a simple label is ludicrously simplistic. In general, liberals are supposed to favor governmental interventions to correct societal problems; conservatives are supposed to favor economic policies that increase profits. Liberals are supposed to help the poor; conservatives are supposed to protect the rich. Both, of course, claim to be the savior of the middle class. But of course, there are social, economic, foreign policy, and civil rights liberals and conservatives; trying to track one’s beliefs in all four seems unfulfilling.

The most common break between the two philosophies concerns the role of government in private enterprise: since resources have to be allocated somehow, liberals favor government involvement in that allocation, while conservatives favor leaving it up to private business and markets. Like most idealogues, both liberals and conservatives take their philosophies on faith with very little empirical evidence; neither one has very good data to support its own pure ideology.

Ordinary people distrust ideology instinctively; but ordinary people aren’t the ones who make campaign donations. So in order to be nominated, most candidates have to persuade their own parties that they have the right beliefs, while simultaneously convincing those same supporters that they can appeal just enough to moderates to get their votes and be elected.

So, in this campaign, as Bush campaign ads trot out that tired “liberal” epithet, what should undecided voters do? I believe they would do well to realize that classic American liberalism is essentially dead. Most Democrats accepted Bill Clinton’s declaration that “the era of big government is over,” and liberals recognize just as much as conservatives that a strong defense is essential to our security.

I respect conservatism: it’s is a proud and honorable political ideology that values responsibility, individual initiative, and self-reliance. What I don’t accept is fake conservatism, and today’s conservatives, including the President, are mostly fakes. Passing debt onto our children isn’t good financial policy; inadequately staffing and supplying our military isn’t good defense; and pushing difficult economic decisions like Social Security reform into future administrations isn’t good planning.

Ignore the labels, especially when candidates use them against each other.

With God on Our Side

Originally posted Wednesday, October 27, 2004:

I don’t agree with many things said by Patrick J. Buchanan; but twelve years ago, as Americans prepared to elect Bill Clinton as President, this most conservative of American observers made an observation that was exactly right. “As polarized as we have ever been,” he wrote, “we Americans are locked in a cultural war for the soul of our country.” It was true then, and it may be even truer as we turn the corner and head into this election week.

The President makes no apologies for his born-again Christian beliefs, and social conservatives claim God on their side as they do battle with the forces of secular society.

I believe that people of faith have every right to bring their faith into the marketplace of civic ideas. I’m one of them. And yet, few trends terrify me more than the idea of involving religion in government.

We have seen in the past twenty years the harm done to emerging and progressive societies by ayatollahs and mullahs. Some triumphal Christians suggest that these excesses are unique to Muslim fundamentalism; nothing could be further from the truth. At the heart of these excesses are clearly identifiable habits of mind: the tendency to view life in absolutes; the assumption of infallible wisdom that comes from on high; the refusal to seek common ground; and the damning of opposition as heretical, immoral, or godless.

Religion is the subtext of our nation’s political life. America’s religious right is fond of saying that America was founded as a Christian country. Actually, we’re a good deal more conflicted than that. Clearly, most of our early settlers were Christian, as were the countries from which they came. Many of them came to this country in search of religious freedom, and then, once established in their respective colonies, started denying it to anyone who didn’t share their precise set of religious convictions. So we shouldn’t be surprised that the first amendment leads off the Bill of Rights by guaranteeing freedom of religion; nor should we be surprised that states and cities all over the country enacted blue laws that limit what can be done on the Sabbath.

Buchanan despaired of every reaching any common ground in the Cultural War; but in a recent column in the New York Times, David Brooks point out that there is still a center in American politics. I’m trying to find it. Here are some thoughts.

First, seek humility and avoid arrogance. Catholics last week heard Luke’s story of the pharisee who prays a self-congratulatory prayer thanking God that he is not like other men. The religious right are the Pharisees of our time.

Second, use honest language and avoid distortion. Nobody favors abortion itself. If a candidate’s position is that all human life is sacred, that the death penalty should be abolished, that the nation should wage war only in self-defense, and that abortion is homicide, then that candidate can claim to be pro-life. Neither of the candidates for President is pro-life. Neither the religious right nor the Bush campaign is pro-life; they’re simply against abortion rights. It’s correct to say that Kerry’s campaign favors abortion rights; it’s inflammatory to charge that it favors abortion itself.

Third, use religious authority responsibly. Isaiah (40:13) asks, “Who has known the mind of God?” Eleven of America’s 400 Catholic bishops believe they do, and have stated that they would deny Communion to Catholics who support Kerry’s candidacy. They make a mockery of our religion and the dignity of their position. Regrettably, the secular press has exaggerated that minority position so that it sounds like a groundswell.

Fourth, don’t claim exclusive use of labels. I’m tired of Christians who appropriate that label only for their own interpretation of Christianity. And within Catholicism, we have our own faction that does the same thing with the label “Catholic.” If you want a religious label that you control, start your own church.

Fifth, respect differences. The fact that you think Harry Potter is satanic doesn’t mean you have the right to prevent other children from reading it. The fact that you want your children to believe that babies come from Wal-Mart doesn’t mean you have the right to deny comprehensive sex education to the children of others.

Sixth, get the facts straight. As I noted in a previous blog, public education in America started in a Puritan colony as a way to make sure than children could read the Bible and be protected from“that old deluder, Satan.” It has evolved into a nonsectarian educational system in which children can pray but not be compelled to pray and can study religious texts in literature classes but not in science classes. Some of them pray pretty regularly, but they do so on their own initiative and not because the school directs them to. The same Bill of Rights that keeps public schools from leading prayer bars them from preventing it. Yet I see all sorts of articles saying that “children can’t pray in public schools.”

I can’t support President Bush because he, and the people around him, have succeeded in turning faith into a political vice. I don’t doubt the sincerity of their beliefs; what I oppose is their excesses. The broad middle of American belief needs to reject the religious right, and one way to do that is by electing John Kerry.

Hinckley buzzards

Originally posted Tuesday, October 26, 2004:

I have been sending these articles to a rather diverse group living all over the country, and so
far I’ve dealt only with national matters. However, it’s probably time to deal with some Ohio issues. The rest of you can take a break if you like.

Here in northeastern Ohio, we have a wonderful natural phenomenon that never fails to bring out the TV crews. Every year on the 15th of March, turkey vultures–buzzards–return to the Hinckley reservation of the Cleveland Metroparks. Buzzards are ugly birds, so we shouldn’t be surprised that, while a pretty song was written about the swallows' annual return to San Juan Capistrano later in March, nobody writes songs about buzzard love.

The TV crews are fond of saying that it’s a mystery why the buzzards come back every year; but it’s not hard to figure out. They come back to Ohio every year because what buzzards do is to circle high in the sky above things that are dying; and Ohio is on life support. Experts differ on what started our decline, but there's pretty good consensus on the status quo.

1) Ohio’s population is getting poorer, older, and dumber. Incomes declined between 1990 and 2000, and our young people–particularly those with college educations–leave the state in record numbers. Since 2000, the loss of hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs made matters worse. The population left behind is more likely to need medical care, prisons, and welfare.

2) Everybody agrees that part of the solution is better education, but nobody seems to have a clue how to achieve it. With our richest school systems spending about a dollar for every quarter available to our poorest schools, the state has a serious equity problem. Since 1992, the Ohio Supreme Court has ruled four times in the DeRolph v. State of Ohio case that Ohio’s school funding system is unconstitutional. Last year, in their final DeRolph ruling, they said that it was still unconstitutional, told the legislature to fix it–and then threw up their hands and gave up jurisdiction over the case.

3) The major target of DeRolph is a school system that depends on local property taxes to raise the major part of school district funds. In its rulings, the Court directed the General assembly to find a way to fund public schools that ended the dependency on local property taxes; today, school funding is as dependent on property taxes as ever. In the November 2 election, 44% of Ohio’s school districts have at least one tax issue before the voters; fifteen have more than one. Speaking of education-funding inequities, author Jonathan Kozol recently said, “Ohio is, perhaps, the most shameful example in the nation. The entire system is archaic, undemocratic and ultimately unfixable.”

4) Most honest observers acknowledge that in order to improve the system, additional funding must be found. But all observers–honest or not–remember that the way Democrats became the minority party in Ohio was by raising taxes. So if you listen carefully, the background noise of Ohio politics is the waffling of politicians of both parties as they try to say, without sounding silly, that they’ll somehow find new money without actually raising it.

5) Meanwhile, Ohio provides more tax dollars for nonpublic schools than any other state in the nation. Those tax dollars fund vouchers for Cleveland students and a wide variety of charter schools, including for-profit charters and online charter schools in which the students never actually meet their teachers.

6) So far, I’ve been talking about Ohio’s K-12 school systems; our support for higher education is far worse. Studies generally indicate that Ohio’s funding of its public colleges and universities is ranks 49th among the states. Our percentage of college graduates is among the lowest of industrialized states, and compared with other states, we make it more expensive for our citizens to get degrees.

7) Ohio needs to reform its business tax system: Ohio’s tax structure is archaic, unfair, complicated, and counterproductive. According to a recent series in The Plain Dealer, Ohio’s largest newspaper, businesses frequently choose not to locate in Ohio because our business taxes are among the highest in the country. To hear the business lobby tell it, they can’t make a nickel, our highways are paved with silver, and our schools made of marble. They aren’t, of course, because legislators and businesses have enacted a thicket of exceptions: if a company hires the right tax lawyers, it can pay no business taxes at all. The net result is that Ohio businesses typically pay about average taxes, but they have to go through all sorts of corporate contortions to take advantages of the various loopholes that have been built in to the system. What a deal: businesses hate us, and we still get mediocre revenue.

8) Even for people of great good will, finding a solution to such complicated problems would take tremendous legislative skill. Ohio’s legislators generally don’t have it. One reason is that in 1992, Republican leaders persuaded voters to impose term limits on legislators. Legislators in Ohio can’t hold their jobs longer than eight years, so they’re constantly jockeying for new positions and their turnover rate is incredible. More important, they aren’t on the job long enough to learn complicated subjects like school finance or business tax law. Generally they just give up and either wait for the next political job or get ready to leave politics and go back to their careers.

9) If it’s possible, things are made even worse by a group of right-wingers whom even mainstream Republicans call the Caveman Caucus. While the state’s economy circles the drain, this group pushes for creationism in the public schools, concealed weapons carry, a “defense of marriage act,” and (as if that weren’t enough) a constitutional amendment (Issue 1) that, if passed, will make it illegal for any public employer to offer benefits to unmarried couples.

10) The net result is that progressive businesses that have a chance of locating anywhere see a state with unfair business taxes, a troubled educational system, a shrinking supply of educated workers, regressive laws, and a neanderthal legislature, and locate elsewhere. The businesses that remain consist disproportionately of the ones you don’t want to have.

11) Ohio’s only hope is the wholesale replacement of its elected officials. The only force powerful enough to make that happen is the rage of an aroused electorate. I do see some signs of increasing public alarm, but things may have to get significantly worse before they’ll get better. Since the Republicans have essentially owned the state for the past fifteen years, the simplest way to register outrage is to vote Democratic on all the downticket contests.

Ohio’s legislators and governor have a lot of issues to work on, but only one–education–has the potential to lift the state out of its quagmire. They evidently aren’t motivated to improve the situation. One solution would be to elect a Supreme Court that would enforce its previous rulings. I’m starting by voting for C. Ellen Connally for Chief Justice, since incumbent Thomas Moyer voted against all four DeRolph rulings. I’ll vote to re-elect Justice Paul E. Peiffer, a DeRolph supporter who is running unopposed. I’ll pick William O’Neill to replace Terrence O’Donnell and Nancy Fuerst over Judith Lanzinger.

Ohio is a wonderful place to live, with an incredibly diverse population, a proud history, breathtaking scenery, valuable natural resources, and a terrific location. But if we don’t work out some very serious problems, we may have to remind the last Ohioan leaving to turn out the lights.

Scopes Monkey Trial

Originally posted Monday, October 25, 2004:

As a youngster, I was impressed by the motion picture Inherit the Wind, a fictionalized account of the 1925 “Monkey Trial” in which the state of Tennessee charged high school biology teacher John Scopes with illegally teaching the doctrine of evolution.

Later, when I was a high school teacher myself, I screened the stage play for possible production and saw another school’s production of the play. It’s a terrific story, which probably explains why it’s been remade for TV three times. For me, it’s always been a little more than just a story, perhaps because academic freedom and the intersection of faith and science are topics that mean a lot to me.

Although there have always been questions about the specific mechanisms of natural selection, I don’t remember ever hearing any serious question about the general validity of the theory of evolution: not in school, not in church, nowhere. From kindergarten through graduate school, I attended nothing but Catholic schools; but Catholicism isn’t a fundamentalist religion, and in 1998, even John Paul II–generally thought of as a fairly conservative Pope–made it clear to any who were still in doubt that the Catholic church does not oppose evolution as an explanation of God’s mechanism for creation.

And so for years, I thought of the play as a period piece, reflecting a quaint period in our history before society had reached a consensus about the theory of evolution.

Imagine my shock when, a few years back, and seventy years after the Scopes trial, some fundamentalist Christians began campaigning for the removal of evolution from science curriculum–not in some Bible Belt bastion of fundamentalist Christianity, but here in Ohio, which likes to think of itself as a diverse and progressive state. Their mechanism, here and in other places, is a theory called “intelligent design,” which argues that creation is so complex it must have required a Supreme Being to pull it off. Since they’ve been unsuccessful in getting evolution removed from science curriculum, the idea is to introduce intelligent design, or “creation science,” into the curriculum and to insist that it receive equal time.

As a religious doctrine, intelligent design isn’t a problem. Thomas Aquinas used a similar argument as one of his proofs for the existence of God; but he was a theologian, not a scientist. Creationists tout intelligent design as a scientific theory, which it clearly is not. And while the Biblical creation account is read in many public school literature classes, the creationists’ goal is to have it taught in science classes, where it clearly doesn’t belong.

Here in Ohio, creationists have tried to mask their specious theory as an academic-freedom issue. They argue that some people, including some teachers, believe the theory to be true; therefore, those teachers should be free to teach creationism. This is a distortion of the term “academic freedom.” There are relatively few things that we teach in schools on which there is absolute unanimity of thought; teachers can acknowledge the existence of minority theories, but they’re obligated to teach the best that our present state of knowledge says. Teaching every crackpot theory as if it were established fact isn’t academic freedom, it’s academic malpractice.

Even now, in 2004, there are people who argue that the holocaust didn’t happen; are we to teach in our history classes that there is serious doubt about the holocaust? A few people believe that Neil Armstrong’s 1969 lunar landing was a faked media event; are we to teach in our science classes that there is serious doubt about that landing? And of course, there are all sorts of people who believe that women are inferior to men or that blacks are inferior to whites; should we shoehorn their views into the curriculum as well? What’s next–flat Earth theory? Alchemy?

So, what’s the relevance of this question to the current Presidential campaign? First, according to an article on CNN’s Web site covering the Republican primary campaigns back in 1999, then-Governor George W. Bush believed that both evolution and creationism are valid educational subjects for science classes. “He believes it is a question for states and local school boards to decide but believes both ought to be taught,” a spokeswoman said.

The truly scary thing about President Bush’s belief on evolution is that it is just one example of his Presidency’s tenuous grasp on reality. We went to war in Iraq not because of what the intelligence actually said, but because of what the administration’s idealogues wanted the intelligence to say. We went to war prematurely because some of his advisors insisted on jumping in with a leaner force which proved inadequate to winning the peace (ignoring the Powell Doctrine, which calls for amassing overwhelming force). Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Vice President Cheney continues to profess belief in the presence of WMD in Iraq and a link between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda.

The administration’s denials of reality and scientific evidence don’t end with Iraq. The U.S. refuses to sign the Global Warming Treaty because the administration doubts the scientific evidence of global warming. Embryonic stem-cell research goes to other countries because the administration is convinced, against virtually all scientific testimony, that it’s not necessary. The administration pushes an education agenda based on statistics from the Houston School System, later found to have been distorted by then-Superintendent (now Secretary of Education) Rod Paige.

The President of the United States has access to more intelligence sources and more experts than any other person in the world. He has a responsibility to make sure that all that information is considered honestly. Congress can mitigate a President’s potential legislative mistakes; but no Congress can make a President evaluate evidence responsibly if he chooses not to.

The evidence is that the President believes whatever he wants and ignores evidence to the contrary. In a friend or family member, that would be eccentric and faintly amusing; in the President, it’s dangerous.

Regime Change Begins at Home

Originally posted Friday, October 22, 2004:

In some fields you can identify clear experts with strong records of success. Like him or not, Bill Gates knows software. Warren Buffett knows investing. Alan Greenspan knows money. Steven Hawking knows, well, a lot. Unlike these examples, nobody really has much of a track record with national security in the past few years. Nobody has been able to pacify the Middle East, halt nuclear proliferation, or bring religious extremists into the modern world.

I’ve already stated that I believe that this campaign has overemphasized national security to the exclusion of other issues. But there’s no denying that national security is an important issue; so since, judging by results, national security is Amateur Hour, I might as well have a turn.

I. The wartime President

In the wake of 9/11, I agreed with the President that the terrorist act on the United States was an act of war. Since that time, we have seen civil rights curtailed by the administration’s use of wartime powers. But is this wartime? Article I, section 8, paragraph 11 of the Constitution says that only the Congress has the power to declare war, and Congress hasn’t done that yet. The War Powers Act of 1973 authorized the President to introduce the military into hostilities in “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” and that clearly was the case, but a declaration of war would have been worthwhile. The President should have sought it; Congress should have insisted on it.

Because this is not a war but an “introduction of armed forces into hostilities,” I find it hard to give the administration what it seems to want: an understanding that 9/11 excuses everything. If the closest parallel to 9/11 was Pearl Harbor, then the closest parallel to George W. Bush as a wartime President was Franklin D. Roosevelt. FDR’s supporters used the argument that you don’t “change horses in midstream,” but he himself tried to pass off the Democratic Presidential nomination to someone else. And both in peace and in war, both in his lifetime and after, he was viciously attacked by his enemies, who typically referred to him simply as “That Man.”

Judging from their rhetoric, the Bush administration clearly believes that it should get the benefit of the doubt on all its actions, reelection in a walk, and the right to condemn critics as disloyal. (The code for this is contained in a current Bush campaign ad that says, “After September 11th, the world changed.”) If we really believe as a nation that wartime requires special rules, we should amend the Constitution to suspend Presidential elections during declared wars. Until that time–and until we have a declaration of war–the people who question the administration are patriots.

II. Respected abroad

The Kerry-Edwards campaign calls for the United States to treat foreign nations with respect. That’s easily characterized as weakness or waffling, but it just makes sense. Obviously we can’t let foreign countries dictate our foreign policy: George Washington said as much, and every President since has known it. But the Bush policy seems calculated to lose allies. If elected, Kerry may not get allies to join us in Iraq, but he might at least soften the hatred observed by many Americans as they travel around the world today. Given an American government that doesn’t insult them at every turn, foreign governments might just decide that they want to find ways to work with us.

III. Flip-flop, or just wrong?

The Bush campaign likes to find inconsistent Kerry quotes and use them against him. For some time, with its usual flair for dramatic campaign tactics, the campaign dispatched demonstrators waving flip-flops to Kerry speeches. That’s a pretty effective bit of ridicule, but it denies reality.

I’ve held some elected positions; my votes on issues changed all the time, depending on the exact language and the circumstances of proposals being considered. To simplify a candidate’s record distorts the truth. But what if Kerry’s votes have actually been inconsistent? Isn’t that better than being wrong?

Consider what almost no one questions seriously. Faced with a truly horrendous national crisis, the Bush administration selected the most extreme intelligence assessments available and overreacted to them. Outside the administration there was almost unanimous agreement that invading Iraq would make a dangerous situation more dangerous, that the peace would be harder to win than the war, and that the invaders needed to invest the resources necessary to plan the peace. The Bush administration jumped into war.

There is a major Washington industry of helping Presidents to make decisions; presidents don’t always have people around them to tell them when they’re wrong. Good leaders seek out divergent opinions: it makes decision-making harder, but better.

I’m willing to concede that John Kerry has trouble making up his mind on complicated issues; most of us do. President Bush’s problem is that he doesn’t.

Kerry’s decision-making may have frustrated people; the President’s has gotten them killed.

The Old Deluder

Originally posted Thursday, October 21, 2004:

I’m not quite a single-issue voter; but I have to admit that of all the issues, I care the most about public education. That puts me in a distinct minority during this election, when national security is the issue of the year.

And yet really, education is a national-security issue. Americans have an almost mystical belief in education. We know that education is the key to a brighter economy. For generations, education has been the key to upward mobility for immigrants and the poor. We claim to believe that education is a good in and of itself, and not just for its economic benefits. Surveys say that Americans trust school employees, especially teachers, more than almost any other profession. A quality public education system offers hope for national prosperity, reduced crime, increased opportunity for all, and yes, national security.

Free universal public education is one of America’s gifts to the world. Public education as we know it got its start in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1647, which passed a law commonly known as the “Old Deluder Satan Act.” The Act gets its name from its famous first line: “It being one chief project of that old deluder, Satan, to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, . . . It is therefore ordered that every township in this jurisdiction . . . shall forthwith appoint one within their town to teach all . . . children . . . to write and read . . . .”

Public education today is an embattled institution. Americans have a healthy skepticism about institutions, but for the past generation the very concept of public education has been questioned by a chorus of public school critics. Since the eighties, vouchers, charter schools, education service providers, tuition tax credits, and home-schooling have all been touted as alternatives to public schools. Its proponents call it “educational choice,” and I don’t know anybody who seriously argues against school choice; but when that choice takes money away from the public schools, it amounts to the privatization and defunding of public education.

Instead of making public schools as good as they can be, tax support for private educational alternatives drains resources needed by public schools. Some ask, if the alternatives are better, what’s the problem? One problem is that while privatization rewards unaccountable boutique schools with tax dollars, it postpones the serious business of real educational improvement for all. Another, perhaps more serious, is that privatization siphons public dollars to entities that have virtually no accountability to the taxpayers.

To be fair, this divide reflects a real cultural difference. Public school advocates view education as a societal responsibility; privatization proponents view education as a commodity. Most citizens and taxpayers are neither privatizers nor advocates: they sincerely try to make difficult choices for themselves and their families. How should they make up their minds? I believe they should consider the following four points.

1. Our nation’s future will be determined largely by the quality of the education received by the majority of our children. Outstanding education for a few won’t help society much if most children aren’t well-educated.

2. Your property values are determined largely by your community’s public schools. Having great private schools won’t attract buyers if your public schools are poor.

3. Not all improvements require money; some improvements do. Suggestions that better management, administrative efficiencies, reorganization, or employee sacrifices can solve school funding problems without taxpayer support are either misguided or dishonest.

4. Public schools are, first and foremost, the public’s schools. Yet most studies indicate that today, the percentage of families with children in school is at an all-time low. The title of one recent book asks the question, “Is there a public for the public schools?” As citizens, we need to remember that our public schools are ours whether or not we have children there. If it takes a village to raise a child, all of us–not just the parents, and certainly not just the parents of public school children–must be that village.

Further into the ludicrously misnamed “No Child Left Behind” law–long after the end of the term of this President–penalties are scheduled for schools that can’t meet arbitrary standards set by people who don’t know a thing about education. The Bush platform calls for those penalties to include private school choice.

The law was passed with promises of unprecedented increases in federal funding for public schools. The federal contribution to funding public education has increased, all right–from 7% to 8% of the total cost. But the burdens imposed by federal interference constitute far more than 8% of the cost of schools doing business. The impact far outstrips federal support.

NCLB is based on misguided principles, and it consists of unfunded mandates that lead toward privatization on the sly. That’s why I support John Kerry for President: at least he recognizes that NCLB needs to be fixed and funded, while the President and his minions are convinced that it’s just fine, thank you. It’s a pity the issue isn’t getting more attention from the candidates themselves, but I can’t help that. I’m giving it all the attention I can.

Politics and Religion

Originally posted Wednesday, October 20, 2004:

You have perhaps noticed that we are in the election season.

Most observers agree that this has been a tough campaign; most expect the election to be close. Political organizations of all political persuasions have worked to register voters, and some signs point to increased voter participation this year. Political signs, buttons, bumper stickers, and other displays of affiliation are sprouting up everywhere. Citizen participation is what the American political system is all about, and we should all be proud and pleased to see it happen.

Unfortunately, many signs indicate that our nation is bitterly divided; and after next month’s re-enactment of this most fundamentally American tradition, we are likely to find ourselves more bitterly divided than ever. Experts anticipate that election results will be contested in several states. Republicans accuse Democrats of fraudulently packing voter rolls, and Democrats claim that Republicans are trying to disenfranchise opposing voters. Even disaffected partisans who profess reservations about their parties’ candidates believe, and are prepared to repeat, virtually any accusation about the opposite party’s candidate.

There are real differences between the parties and the candidates, and what I am saying isn't meant to minimize those. The stakes are indeed high: I tend to agree with those who argue that this year's election is the most important in my lifetime. And yet, despite the importance of this election, our political discourse seems to be calculated to produce more heat than light.

One of the key reasons for this division is the “echo chamber” effect: people on each side talk among themselves, but neither side talks with the other. On both the right and the left, members of the political class talk among themselves, changing no minds but hardening their own attitudes toward their opponents.

(Alert: serious elitist reference coming. Avert your eyes.)

One thing enabling this phenomenon is that many thoughtful people take seriously the idea that it’s impolite to talk about politics and religion. When you do hear casual conversation about either, it tends to be remarkably uninformed, because the very people who could add something valuable to the conversation are too well-mannered to join in. I’ve been as guilty of this as anybody.

So, for the next few days, I’m going to change my ways. I’ve decided that what America (at least that portion of it that I know) needs is some of my political observations, and so I’m going to share some thoughts. Unlike most of the wienies we read on the Internet, I’ll sign my work. This may offend a few relatives, but family members tolerate each other’s rantings; it may upset a few friends, but most of my friends already know that a certain amount of didacticism is part of my charm.

Feel free to use the “reply” button–although chances are that in the weeks ahead, I’ll fall behind in reading replies. Whether you like or hate what I have to say, remember that the beauty of the Internet lies in judicious application of the “forward” button and the “delete” key. You’ll figure out what to do.