Surfette

Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker to be: Will her first 100 hours bring action? Rhetoric?

While I sit tapping my fingers impatiently on my computer, waiting for more Election '06 results to roll in, one thing appears certain: Americans have sent more Democrats (232) than Republicans (203) to Congress in January (more here). That means House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D - California) will likely be awarded a new job: Speaker of the House.

Here's a sample of voter reponses:

"Democrats take the House! Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to be speaker of the house. Rock on, it's hard being a Democrat and a woman in politics; the public sees you as TOO liberal. She now has the highest political office held by a woman." - Keely2640's LiveJournal

"While Republicans across the country are groaning over the loss of the House and the possible future loss of the Senate, there are still reasons for them to hope...For whatever problems the Republicans are encountering now, there is no question that the Democrats' reign in the House of Representatives will not be easy. Future Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's position is "impossible," says [Alex Maugeri, president of Princeton College Republicans]." - Rachel Dunn for The Red, Orange and Blue blog

If Ms. Pelosi wins the nomination as predicted (she's run the House Democrats since 2002), Pelosi will be the first woman to hold this powerful position, which is third in line for the American presidency. She's also the first Speaker to have posted on a blog.

The scope of Ms. Pelosi's control and power has yet to be determined -- at midnight California time, critical Senate races are too tough to call and party control of this chamber hangs in the balance. But as you can see from the blog posts above, that isn't stopping us from debating her future -- and probably shouldn't.

So how do YOU think she will do? What do you think she should do?

Ms. Pelosi has a few ideas herself: On Oct. 6 she charted her course for her first 100 hours on the job The Washington Post:

"Day One: Put new rules in place to "break the link between lobbyists and legislation." Day Two: Enact all the recommendations made by the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Time remaining until 100 hours: Raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour, maybe in one step. Cut the interest rate on student loans in half. Allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients. Broaden the types of stem cell research allowed with federal funds _ "I hope with a veto-proof majority," she added in an Associated Press interview Thursday. All the days after that: "Pay as you go," meaning no increasing the deficit, whether the issue is middle class tax relief, health care or some other priority. To do that, she said, Bush-era tax cuts would have to be rolled back for those above "a certain level." She mentioned annual incomes of $250,000 or $300,000 a year and higher, and said tax rates for those individuals might revert to those of the Clinton era. Details will have to be worked out, she emphasized."

Ms. Pelosi has since elaborated with today's blog on The Huffington Post: "One Hundred Hours, taking the tonal high road at the start of Election Day. By the time victory was clear, however, she was as pointed and partisan as her San Francisco constituents have come to expect:

"The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in Washington, D.C., and the Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Pelosi said. She added, "And nowhere did the American people make it more clear that we need a new direction than in the war in Iraq. 'Stay the course' has not made our country safer, has not honored our commitment to our troops and has not made the region more stable. We cannot continue down this catastrophic path." She called on the Bush administration to work with Democrats "to find a solution to the war in Iraq."

Her partisanship is tempered, however: What Ms. Pelosi does not do is invoke the i-words -- "investigate" and even "impeachment" -- that many critics of the Administration's policies on pursuing the Iraq war and surrounding issues (federal wiretapping, administration of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo) that her own Bay Area constituents have called for.

Whether Ms. Pelosi breaks much new ground with her plan is another issue, complains Blogger Chris Nolan:

"I'm still not sure that's a good thing to see Pelosi running the House. Yeah, I know, she keep the troops in line. And yeah, it's high time someone did. But, I'm one of those old codgers who remembers the waning days of Democratic control of the House and Senate way back in 1994. And well, I gotta tell you, it wasn't anything to get excited about. What's worse, some of the same geezers who ran the show all those years ago have been hanging around Capitol Hill for 10 years waiting to get back in power. That's not what you'd call a healthy situation."

What do you think -- do you expect legislative innovation from Ms. Pelosi, or business-as-usual, donkey-style? Will we get 100 hours of rhetoric or action? Any predictions (or wishlists) for the Speaker (to be)?

I, for one, am going to go out on a limb here and predict that lots of political reporters who tried not to look too hard or long at Democratic Speaker Tip O'Neill or Republican Tom DeLay will scrutinize the new Speaker and write copiously about what she wears at her swearing in...

More on Congresswoman Pelosi: Official site Wikipedia

Photo credit: Washingtonpost.com

Cross-posted from BlogHer.

Blogger crystal balls: Cloudy election results, clear polling problems

Here in California, where the polls are still open, blogger crystal balls are cloudy on election returns but clear as a bell that plenty of Americans had trouble casting their ballots.

What I'm reading is disturbingly spotty -- for every good-news story ("yay, I voted and I have the sticker to prove it!") there's another disheartening enough to make me want to revoke Jimmy Carter's passport and tell him about the lust in my heart for a voting process that works for all Americans.

Case en pointe: Check out these two entries from the Electionline.org blog, where "the nation’s only non-partisan, non-advocacy website" sent monitors to different states:

The Good News

4:30p.m. - Sean Greene, Cleveland, Ohio The presiding judge at Holy Trinity Baptist Church, another 4 precinct polling place, said that the election is going wonderfully so far. They have not had problems enforcing voter ID. Most of the voters have showed driver's licences, one person brought a gas bill, and two brought passports. As passports are not an acceptable form of identification, they were requirted to show another form of ID, which they did.As of 2 p.m., 520 voters had cast ballots at the polling place.

The Bad News

2:00 p.m. Dan Seligson, East Hartford, Connecticut There has been a lot more concern about the new machines here, including a man who said he accidentally voted twice because he couldn't figure out the grid-style ballot, a woman who groused about the hackability of the electronic vote tabulator used with the precinct-count optical scan, concerns about the location of ballot questions on the right side of the page (they were at the top of the lever machine interface) and a number of voters wondering why the swtich had to happen at all. Some elderly voters said they liked the system "a lot" saying it was "easy and straight-forward."

Sigh. Voters of all political, demographic and geographic stripes are reporting trouble at the polls, whether they are voting in cities, in rural areas or via absentee ballot. Writing on her blog, Anderson@Large, Faye Anderson offers a similar take on reports rolling in from the African-American community:

"Peteey Talley, convener of the Ohio Coalition on Black Civic Participation, reported on the difference that voter education has made in Ohio. Talley said her coalition got the word out that people could vote early, which has cut down on long lines. Poll workers were less stressful because there were fewer voters.

OK, the bad news. Dr. Joe Leonard of the Black Leadership Forum and Kirk Clay of Common Cause reported on calls to the National Voter Hotline 1-866-MYVOTE1. Kirk gave a breakdown of the problems:

21% Voter Registration. In many cases, the registration forms completed at the Department of Motor Vehicles were not forwarded to local boards of elections. 13% Absentee Ballots. People don’t trust voting machines so they requested absentee ballots and are angry that they never received them. 6% Voter ID 4% Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail 4% Coercion or Intimidation

Dr. Leonard said: My greatest fear is that voter confidence will begin to wear because of distrust of our electoral system. Callers are saying, ‘I don’t know whether my vote will be counted.' "

I didn't even get a chance to read about it this morning before I heard about it in person, when I walked into the Web 2.0 conference today and sat down next to Jessica Hardwick. She relayed a story that Elisa Camahort posted for her:

"I take my right to vote very seriously, so I was quite dismayed when I received my sample ballot in spanish," Jessica told Elisa. "I called the Registrar of Voters and after navigating the somewhat confusing voicemail prompts, I reached a human. She explained that sometime in the last year a postcard was mailed requesting language preferences for sample ballots, if no response was received the default was Spanish. I was taken aback to learn that the default was a language other than the offical language, but requested a new ballot in english, stating the urgency as I would be away from my polling place and I needed to cast an absentee vote. A week later, I had still not received a ballot so I requested another, and 5 days after that I logged yet another request. Now, on election day, I am 60 miles from my polling place, and won't be home until well after the polls close, I never received a new ballot in english, and I will not be able to participate in today's election. In short, because of bureaucracy, I was denied my legal right to vote."

Ooof. Liz Henry helpfully recommends above that Jessica obtain a translator, but given the size of California's absentee ballots this year, it would be challenge. In case any of you non-Californians doubt me, check out the Proposition Song recommended by Chris Nolan, on her network homepage in honor of California's "really long, almost incomprehensible election ballots":

Nolan then gets straight to forcing her political bloggers to predict the outcome of Election '06 and gets -- a dead heat. She herself predicts that Republicans keep the House and lose the Senate: "House stays Republican by 8 seats (226 Republicans, 209 Democrats). Senate goes Democratic by 2. 50 Dems, 48 Republicans and 1 Independent. Sen. Joe Lieberman gets sweet revenge."

Until elections are verified and challenges swept away, I'm still hard-pressed, post Election 2000, to even link any results. I'm still focused on process -- so here's a huge curtsey in the direction of Mediagirl, who above has offered up my favorite quote of Election 2006 thus far:

"I don't mean to be a tinfoil hat Cassandra. But it's our vote, and as imperfect as politics are, the least we can do is make sure that the jokers who are elected are the real winners of the vote." - Mediagirl, commenting on BlogHer about why she chose to vote today via paper ballot

I say give this woman a tinfoil tiara.

If you're braver than I am and willing to watch the election results, here are some links:

From the left: The Huffington Post DailyKos From the right: Pajamas Media Memeorandum From the media: Washington Post USA Today
Cross-posted from BlogHer

If Bill O'Reilly has accessed medical records for Kansas women and girls, someone broke the law

Have women and girls in Wichita and Overland Park, Kansas, and their private medical records become pawns in the state attorney general election?

In this weekend's video from the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News, called "Tiller the Baby Killer Part 2," Mr. O'Reilly tells Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline that Mr. O'Reilly has accessed medical records for 90 women and girls in the Wichita and Overland Park areas of Kansas:

Bill O'Reilly: "Our information says that on almost every medical sheet - obviously we have a source inside here - it says depression [as the reason for the abortion]. So I don't know if you have seen this information or what..."

Here's the problem with Mr. O'Reilly's statement: He states that he has either access to the records or access to someone who is telling him the contents of these medical records--medical records that were released into the custody of Mr. Kline, who has been charged by the Kansas Supreme Court with protecting their privacy. The privacy of these 90 women and girls who live in the Wichita and Overland Park areas and their medical records is exactly the reason the Kansas Supreme Court initially barred Mr. Kline -- barred the state attorney general -- from accessing these records from February to October of this year.

Some backstory: Mr. Kline (who is against legal abortion) said he wanted the records to "investigate potential violations of state restrictions on abortion and suspected rapes of children" that the clinics weren't reporting, according to this ABCNews story. Mr. Kline also said at the time that the patients' names were not of interest to him, saying "They are under no criminal liability or investigation. Their privacy will be protected." When the records were finally released to Mr. Kline last month, the names had been eliminated by the court (they were "redacted" or crossed out in the documents).

I see in today's Kansas City Star that Mr. Kline denies that he or anyone on his staff was the "source inside" that Bill O'Reilly said gave him information he talked about on last night's show. Mr. O'Reilly is not a journalist - he's a commentator who has a television show where he discusses his opinions, much like Rush Limbaugh.

In that context, it's not clear yet whether we're dealing here with Mr. O'Reilly's inflammatory approach to questions or whether someone has actually "broken state or federal laws by divulging patient information or whether O'Reilly or his staff had viewed any records themselves" as a Gainesville.com article reports. Mr. O'Reilly has yet to respond to questions by reporters.

The consequences for Attorney General Kline and his office would be disastrous if an investigation reflected that he or a member of his staff leaked the information to Mr. O'Reilly and his television show. Two words come to mind: disbarment and impeachment. Because the Kansas Supreme Court has already made it clear that Kline's first duty -- and that of the district court judge overseeing this investigation -- is to protect the privacy of the citizens whose records he has.

From a campaign horserace perspective, I am quite surprised that in such a close election, with the Kansas GOP undergoing a divisive conflict between fiscal and social conservatives, Mr. Kline chose to appear on a show by Mr. O'Reilly -- commentator famous for his socially conservative views, especially his belief that abortion should be illegal. (For more on Kansas, I recommend "Kansas Republicans evolve -- into Democrats: A popular incumbent governor persuades social moderates alienated by fights over abortion and Darwin to quit the GOP and run for office as Democrats" by Nadia Pflaum on Salon. The commercial's short and the article's worth it.)

Kansas' state-wide cultural divide is why Mr. Kline's is facing a serious challenge from Democrat Paul Morrison, who has made AG Kline's investigation into abortion clinic records a primary focus of the campaign months ago. The Lawrence Journal-World reported Sept. 6 that Morrison said "if elected attorney general he would end an investigation into two abortion clinics and instead commit the office’s resources to other uses, such as prosecuting domestic violence."

Will getting free commercial air-time on a Fox News show just days before the election backfire on Mr. Kline? It really depends whether Kansans agree with BlogHer's lefty political commentator Morra Aarons that this is a frightening violation of their privacy and that Mr. Kline's approach is "anti-woman". Click on that last link to join the conversation at BlogHer or I welcome your comments below.

Thanks.

Cross-posted from BlogHer.

Vote NO on California Proposition 85, Oregon Measure 43 and the South Dakota abortion ban (and if you don't show up at the polls, just admit you're voting YES)

Technorati Tags: No on 85, Proposition 85, abortion, abortion rights, parental consent, reproductive rights 

I spend all my time creating omnipartisan online communities where people -- particularly women -- may exercise their First Amendment rights.

This Election Day, however, my belief in the autonomy of other Americans forces me to be partisan: If you believe abortion AND contraception should be safe, legal and confidentially available to all women, vote NO on these measures below. If you vote yes OR if you do not vote on Tuesday at all, you will (a) share responsibility for the birth of unwanted children, (b) force the most vulnerable teens to become parents in California and Oregon, and (c) crush the rights of Americans who live in South Dakota.

Here are the measures:

Vote NO on Proposition 85 in California: Forces pregnant teens under 18 to notify their parents 48 hours before an abortion or go to court to fight for a waiver so they don't have to notify their parents. Endorsements: http://noon85.org

Vote NO on Measure 43 in Oregon: Forces pregnant teens under 18 to notify their parents 48 hours before an abortion or go to court to fight for a waiver so that they don't have to notify their parents. There is no exception in the case of rape or incest. Endorsements: see http://noon43.com

Vote NO on South Dakota House Bill 1215: bans abortions except when a mother's life is at risk. The law also makes it a felony to perform abortions; a physician convicted of performing an illegal abortion could be fined $5,000 and sentenced to five years in prison. More: http://www.sdhealthyfamilies.org/

Why do I feel this strongly? Because I know that Prop 85, Measure 43 and South Dakota's bill don't work in the real world.

I grew up in Missoula, Montana, where I graduated from high school in 1984.

I knew teenage mothers.

I knew unwanted babies.

I knew teenagers who suffered terrible consequences when their parents learned they were pregnant because other adults ratted them out. I thanked God I wasn't one of them - I could've taken anything to my parents, but my situation was rare. You might be that kind of parent too. But what about girls who cannot talk to their parents? Writes Blogger Liz Ditz, "You cannot legislate relationships. If your relationship with your daughter is so weak that she would not tell you if she was pregnant, and ask for your help, advice and support then some lousy piece of legislation isn't going to improve things."

Liz is even more right about the insurmountable obstacles that Prop 85 and Measure 43 represent for the most vulnerable girls. I'm talking about girls with secrets who wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place if they'd had a choice in the matter. But they didn't -- these propositions revictimize girls who are pregnant because they were forced to have sex by members of their own families or so-called friends. Do you think these minors will ever tell their so-called parents? What do you think their likelihood is of circumnavigating the court system to obtain a waiver to get an abortion so they don't have to tell their parents -- especially if they live in rural areas or have little or no money?

Meet a girl like this -- read Telling for Choice. Should these girls really be forced into motherhood...by the state? Particularly states where 18 languages and the overburdened juvenile court systems make speed impossible and privacy impractical?

No. No, no, no.

As for South Dakota's bill...it's shocking to me that a state government would put itself in the position of enforcing pregnancy for every woman, even in the cases of rape and incest, thus removing control from the pregnant woman, her husband/partner, doctors. The only exception in the legislation is in the event that pregnancy threatens the life of the mother.

Is this the appropriate use or focus of state government?

Please.

Vote NO on Proposition 85, Measure 43 and the South Dakota abortion ban.

And if I haven't convinced you, please go read the brilliant Stefania Pomponi Butler of CityMama - here, here, here and here Note: Her left-sidebar is dedicated to bloggers who are writing about Prop. 85.

Updated: Read Ann Stone (no relation) president of Republicans for Choice, who writes: "The overturn of this initiative will have a tremendous ripple affect in other states considering this kind of punishing total abortion ban.  So anything you do today to insure this ban is defeated will be one of the most important actions you could take to help preserve a woman's right to choose....Our Republican supporters in South Dakota understand that the basic principles of the GOP mandate that good Republicans would never uphold this ban.  They trust the women of South Dakota to make their own decisions about this personal and private part of their lives."

Go register to vote, you sexy thing, you

Cross-posted on BlogHer

When I first read about "Remember Your First Time?" -- a new ad campaign aimed at getting more single American women to vote -- I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, ha-ha," I thought about the double-entendre, "Is the way to my head really through my ...?" I couldn't imagine how ads that invoke the memory of virgin sex (and all the baggage that may come with it - yeah, that first time) could help change the fact that 20 million single American women didn't show up at the polls in Election 2004. Boy was I wrong.

The Women's Voices, Women Vote campaigns are fantastic. The videos are slick, well-produced and smart. The sexy headliner features well-known actors, from the venerable Tyne Daly to hotter-than-snot Rosario Dawson "mmmming" their way through reminiscences of their "first time" - in the ballot box, that is. I didn't feel patronized by their tone or remotely like some creepy guy dreamed this up and was seriously loving watching Regina King through the camera. In fact, I cringed very little, although Angie Harmon does lay it on a bit thick.

But while the sexy little number will doubtless get these public service announcements on the air (half the battle, natch) and women talking, this video is not my favorite. The short called "Dreams" gets my vote -- and damned if the last line didn't get me blinking hard at my computer. Go on - play the link above if you haven't already. That's right, I nearly cried when they eyed the camera said, "We don't have to dream about the future: We can wake up and vote for it." I'm losing it, I thought - then Romi LaSally at The Huffington Post emailed me Cooper Munroe's post and I saw that I wasn't the only one. The same line cracked her like an egg, too.

Why? Because I don't know a single American woman -- or a single single American woman in charge of her own household -- who isn't dreaming of a better future, and deeply concerned the state of the direction of our country today, be they self-identified Republicans, Democrats. Progressives, Conservatives, Libertarians, or Green.

Why, then, if we're running our own lives, paying for our own healthcare and taxes and seriously worrying about our retirements, did 20 million single women stay away from the polls in 2004? The answers provided by the WVWV research team resonate. Lead by the formidable Anna Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, the team conducted targeted focus groups on women (including oversampling for Hispanics) in two states and learned that:

"Despite immense dissatisfaction with direction of the country, unmarried women still under-participate in elections, particularly in off-year issues. Many women on their own see politics as irrelevant to their lives as political leaders simply do not address their issues, while others lack the time to learn about the issues and candidates; both contribute to depressed turnout among unmarried women. ...[U]nmarried women are so cynical about politics and political candidates, in particularly, they are loathe to believe or rely on any political ad they see in passing on television. They tend to dismiss this information as biased or confusing. These feelings are only confirmed when they see that politicians do not follow through with their promises or leave them out of the conversation. When the women we spoke to do actively seek out information, many of them rely on the Internet – particularly if they are younger or have a job where they are online. The notion is that they can collect information from many sources, weigh the competing views and come to their own decision about a particular issue or political choice. While it is not clear if this research process actually occurs, it is important to note that the primary issue is that these women do not believe they can trust the media – the primary source of political information in our current political environment – to tell the truth about much of anything." (I deleted liberally; read the entire PDF here.)

Ah. Disenfranchised by spin, working hard for our money, utterly ignored by candidates and lacking a balanced source of information, our single women voters tune out and go back to taking care of our immediate circle. That I can believe.

But that complaint is, I hope, will become increasingly outdated. Today the Web offers terrific, non-partisan sources of voter information that allow users to do an end-run around newscycles that spend their time calling Beltway horseraces and pitting op-ed versus op-ed. Here's where I turn for the best non-partisan facts about politics online:

• League of Women Voters Online Voter Registration (all you need to know is your zipcode and your state) and non-partisan Voters' Guides and Candidate Information (unfortunately not every state is listed)
• Factcheck.org for terrific, nonpartisan research into the latest headlines and campaign ads.
• National Women's Law Center Election 2006: Candidates & Information database to research which initiatives, propositions and political offices up for a vote in your state. Note: This site has one of the most comprehensive databases I've seen, but their analyses of each reflect a progressive agenda.

I'll keep saying it: It's an underreported fact that American women are the voting majority and have been since 1964. But until single women commit the ultimate act of patriotism -- voting -- and add their voices to running our country, we will never change our world. I like how Lisa Witter of Feministing puts it:

"With recent elections that hinged on a little more than half a million votes nationally and a few hundred votes in Florida, single women have more power than they realize – or exercise.

...America is changing and too many voices are not being heard in our democracy. It’s time for single women in America to use their voice – and their vote – to make a difference in their lives." Then Witter signs off, "Sleeping giants no more..."

So get out there and vote, you sexy thing, you.

And while you're at it, I'd love to know:

- Did anyone here not vote in 2004 who plans to vote this time?

- Who among us is staying away from the polls?

- Do you find the Women's Voices Women Vote campaigns compelling? (Full list here)

- WVWV takes responsibility for turning out more single women voters in 2004. Do you plan to help or take any of their site's advice to help get the word out? More here: http://wvwv.org/

- What additional non-partisan are missing from the list above? Bring 'em on!