All posts in Voting Access

Cedric moderating "Quick Wits" at FCCP's Spring Convening

Taking place in Portland, Oregon, the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation’s annual Spring Convening allowed Cedric (FCCP Steering Committee member) and myself (former program director at FCCP) another great opportunity to learn about the latest and greatest happening in the field of civic engagement and to do so alongside our philanthropic colleagues.

Among many things discussed, one in particular has been of particular concern – voter suppression as a point of intersection, as an issue where separate attacks on various communities add up to something more insidious.

All data points to a new demographic reality by 2045. It’s around that year that people of color are expected to comprise the majority of the population. By most definitions, a healthy democracy would demand a parallel trend in the demographic composition of the electorate and of who votes.

This, though, isn’t the way our country is moving forward. There’s a fight right now over the composition of our electorate, both directly and less so. Here are three arenas where those fights are taking place and recent links to learn a little more about each:

• Voter ID Laws and the Voter Fraud Bogeyman – “How States are Rigging the 2012 Election” by EJ Dionne in the Washington Post
• Mass Incarceration within the U.S., namely 1 in 15 African American males ages 18 & older (combine this with voting laws disenfranchising formerly incarcerated individuals) – “[Infographic] Combating Mass Incarceration – The Facts,” ACLU
• Criminalization of Immigrants (combine this with denial of citizenship status) – “Immigrants for Sale” Video, Cuentame

The prospect of an increasingly unrepresentative electorate raises large questions, including for me: how does the ratio of residents to eligible voters, particularly if these attacks continue and succeed, compare historically? How does the ratio of residents to eligible voters compare across countries? Given the answers to these questions, how will people and parties respond to the implications of these numbers? How will they respond to the implications about what the numbers say about who we are as a country, where we’re headed and how and by whom our country will be governed?

As many of us now know, Arizona has long been a laboratory for anti-immigrant legislation, driven and funded by prison companies and their profit motives. Tonight I’m headed back to the state. I’ll be visiting for the first time since shortly after SB1070 passed, supporting a delegation of allies on a learning tour both in Phoenix and Tuscon.  I hope to share reflections from this trip in a future post, but wanted to call attention here to another Arizona related headline.

In addition to being a laboratory for anti-immigrant legislation, the state has also been a laboratory for public financing legislation, but in this instance, increasing rather than criminalizing political speech and opportunity.  Arizona did this through their Clean Elections public financing law and its matching fund provisions.  It’s the constitutionality of this law, though, that the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering.  Below is a an update on this critical case, McComish v. Bennet, by Marc Caplan, program officer of the Piper Fund, a Mitchell Kapor Foundation grant recipient:

Piper Update – March 28, 2011 – Marc Caplan

The Supreme Court will hear oral argument today at 10:00 AM on the most important public financing case the Court has heard in more than 30 years.  The case, McComish v. Bennet, marks the first time that the Supreme Court has considered the constitutionality of a public financing measure since the landmark Buckley v. Valeo decision in 1976, which upheld the presidential public financing system and other reforms. For that reason, it could have a profound impact on the ability of all levels of government to offer reforms which counteract the influence that powerful interests have over elections.

The McComish case challenges the matching fund provision of Arizona’s Clean Elections public financing law, which was enacted by voters through a ballot referendum in 1998.  The matching funds provision is “triggered” when non-participating candidates in an election spend above the amount of grants provided to publicly financed candidates and also can be triggered when independent expenditures are made against a publicly financed candidate.  In those cases, the publicly financed candidates receive additional grants. Through the 2008 election cycle, the law was used increasingly by candidates in Arizona, with solid majorities of both legislative and statewide candidates opting to run utilizing the Clean Elections law.

Despite the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in May 2010 that the Arizona matching-fund provision was indeed constitutional, the Supreme Court nevertheless intervened in June 2010 to block Arizona from making any “triggered” matching fund grants for the 2010 election cycle.  Following that action by the Court, many observers predicted the Court would decide to consider the legal issues presented in the McComish case, which they did in late November 2010.

The attack on the trigger provisions of the Arizona public financing law is part of the well-coordinated and financed multi-year assault led by right-wing legal centers on all aspects of campaign finance reform designed to empower moneyed interests with even greater influence over our country’s elections than they already have.   …

For the full update, including a summary of responses by public interest legal centers, the Brennan Center and the Campaign Legal Center, email Marc Caplan at mcaplan at proteusfund dot org.

NAACP LDF "Redrawing the Lines" Video

With the release of new population data from last year’s decennial Census, district lines within states will now have to be redrawn so that every district is roughly equal in population size and, as a result, each person is equally represented in governemnt.  This process of redistricting will figuratively and literally shape the conditions within which we work and live, affecting all levels of government from local school boards and city councils to state legislatures and the United House of Representatives for the decade to come.

Unfortunately, redistricting has proved less straightforward and less fair than we might hope for in a representative democracy.  Section 2 and Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, in fact, were specifically written to address prevalent partisan and discriminatory redistricting practices.

Below are two resources, a website and a guide, that each serve as primers on what redistricting is and what the responsibilities are of us, of elected officials and, in California, of redistricting commissions to ensure a just and equitable redrawing of political lines. We hope you’ll take the time to learn more and participate in the process where possible.

NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc.: www.redrawingthelines.org |  Brennan Center:  A Citizen’s Guide to Redistricting

This is another reminder about the Kapor Foundation’s first ever Grant Application Workshop that we will host at our offices (543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco) next Tuesday, January 11, 2011, from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. This is an opportunity for current grant recipients and other interested nonprofit organizations to learn more about our grantmaking strategies for Green Access and Voting Integrity and Civic Engagement.  It’s also a chance for current grant recipients, particularly key partner organizations, to find out how to access various additional supports, including some new opportunities, as part of our Assistance & Advising program.

I’ve received some inquiries as to whether or not this is a mandatory meeting for our current grant recipients, and the answer is no.  If you have the time and staff (any and all staff are welcome to attend) who are interested in attending, then we welcome you.  All you need to do is to register by clicking HERE.  I hope to see many of you next Tuesday!

From December 6-8th, Cedric and I had the opportunity to attend the Funders’ Committee for Civic Participation (FCCP)’s 2010 Winter Convening, Is there a New Normal. As all FCCP conferences do, this one provided us with a space to learn, to think, to build and deepen our relationships with funder colleagues… in short, a space to increase our capacity to be effective and informed civic participation funders.

The breadth and scope of topics covered, concerning the range of interconnected, and often interdependent, issues that fall under a large civic participation umbrella, are much too large to cover all here.  Instead, and in the spirit of the conference’s theme, I thought I’d share a few links that can provide a glimpse of the new normal at this year’s gathering:

• Consideration of the Relationship between Culture & Politics:  “Cultural change is often the dress rehearsal for political change. Or put in another way, political change is the final manifestation of cultural shifts that have already occurred.” – Jeff Chang

• Testing out Technology Tools Transforming Civic Engagement:  National Field |  Sunlight Foundation |  Presente.org |  Voting Information Project

• Exploring Race and the New Normal, Particularly in this Year’s Political Campaigns:  Featuring the work and people (Ludovic Blain and Camille Zubrinsky) of the American Values Institute

Enjoy!

Keynote Speaker Angela Davis and Kapor Foundation CEO Cedric Brown at What Works! 2010

This year’s sold out What Works! Convening brought  together more than 100 organizers, academics and funders, showcasing some of the most innovative and exciting social justice efforts happening in communities of color across the country – including, New Orleans, Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, New York, Oakland, and San Francisco among others – while also providing dedicated time and space for strategic dialogue (and socializing!) across sectors of the social justice movement.

As conveners of this event, we were immensely fortunate to work alongside and benefit  from the expertise of our Kapor Enterprise colleagues, our co-sponsors of this years convening, the Ford Foundation, Solidago Foundation and Surdna Foundation, and each of our key grant partners and invited speakers who made What Works! 2010 possible.  A heartfelt thanks to all.  We look forward to collaborating again soon.

And,  don’t forget to check back here for more from What Works! 2010 in the coming weeks.