Democratic House Majority’s First Order of Business: Restore Democracy

In the 2018 midterm elections Democrats won 8.8 million more votes than their Republican opponents and won as of this writing 39 seats in and control of the U.S. House of Representatives.  Yet due to gerrymandering, the structural failure of the U.S. Senate, Republicans continue to hold an outsize measure of control in Washington - a  control that benefits the wealthy, large corporations and corrupt politicians to the detriment of average Americans.  In a column in the Washington Post, Democrats lay out their plan to re-balance democracy in favor of the majority, not the select few and racist minorities. Among the reforms the House Democrats seek to enact - getting them through the Senate may be an obstacle - are: (i) ending dark money form politics and forcing donors to be identified. As of now, we still do not know who paid Acting Attorney General Whitaker $1.2 million through a shell "charity," (ii) closing down the revolving door between Congress and large corporations, and (iii) ending gerrymandering and Republican voter suppression efforts.  Unless one is part of the greed driven 1%, a racist, or a vulture capitalist, these goals should be attractive to decent moral citizens.  Here are column excerpts:

Americans went to the polls and sent a powerful message: The election not only was a resounding verdict against Republicans’ assault on Americans’ health care and wages, but also it was a vote to rescue our broken democracy.

In the face of a torrent of special-interest dark money, partisan gerrymandering and devious vote-suppression schemes, voters elected a House Democratic majority determined to bring real change to restore our democracy.

The new Democratic House is ready to deliver with H.R. 1: a bold reform package:

First, let’s end the dominance of money in politics. For far too long, big-money and corporate special interests have undermined the will of the people and subverted policymaking in Washington — enabling soaring health-care costs and prescription drug prices, undermining clean air and clean water for our children, and blocking long-overdue wage increases for hard-working Americans.

So let’s rein in the unaccountable “dark money” unleashed by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision by requiring all political organizations to disclose their donors, and by shutting down the shell game of big-money donations to super PACs.

Next, let’s make sure that when public servants get to Washington, they serve the public. Restoring the public’s trust means closing the revolving door between government and private industries, and imposing strong new ethics laws to stop officials from using their public office for personal gain. To do so, we will expand conflict-of-interest laws, ban members of Congress from serving on for-profit boards, revamp the oversight authority of the Office of Government Ethics, and prohibit public servants from receiving bonus payments from their former employers to enter government.

Finally, let’s make it easier, not harder, to vote. Since the Supreme Court took the teeth out of the Voting Rights Act, Republican political operatives have increasingly turned to blatant schemes to make it more difficult for the Americans left behind to participate in elections — a narrow agenda all too often targeted at communities of color.
We must renew the Voting Rights Act to protect every citizen’s access to the ballot box and restore the vital safeguard of pre-clearance requirements for areas with a history of voter suppression. We will promote national automatic voter registration, bolster our critical election infrastructure against foreign attackers, and put an end to partisan gerrymandering once and for all by establishing federal guidelines to outlaw the practice.

These are the reforms that will ultimately change the balance of power in Washington. When we get dark money out of politics, clean up corruption and ensure fair elections, we will dismantle the ability of special interests to stack the deck of our democracy and our economy against hard-working Americans.

[W]ith a system that works for the people, we will deliver policy outcomes that make life better for all Americans: We will lower health-care costs and out-of-control prices for prescription drugs. We will rebuild the United States’ infrastructure, raise the minimum wage and put leverage back in the hands of workers and consumers. We will finally advance common-sense, bipartisan solutions to prevent gun violence. We will confront discrimination with the Equality Act , pass the Dream Act to protect the patriotic young undocumented immigrants who came here as children, and take the first step toward comprehensive immigration reform.

We have a responsibility to honor the vision of our founders, the sacrifices made to expand the right to vote and our duty to the American people.

Here in Virginia, we can aid in the effort by electing Democrat majorities to both the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates in November, 2017, and end Republican obstruction.