UK Election: A Lesson for the U.S.

Our guest author is Stan Litow, professor, Columbia University; vice president emeritus, IBM's Global Corporate Citizenship Program; president emeritus, IBM International Foundation and a member of the Albert Shanker Institute Board of Directors.

What a month of news! While July is ending with a renewed concern about political violence and a different presidential match-up than the one it started with, before July ends, I’d like to bring us back to a lesson across the Atlantic I’d like to make sure we learn.

Looking back, for many the joy of this year's July 4th celebration was muted, largely because of a continued controversy after the U.S. Presidential debate.  July 4th in the UK saw game-changing election results, where the newly elected Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his party achieved an unprecedented victory. In his victory speech Prime Minister Starmer sincerely sought to unite and not divide his nation, moving his party more toward the center, praising his predecessor and making it clear he intended to bring the nation together by ending divisive rhetoric and seeking agreement behind an agenda that would benefit not some, but all, and supporting the vital role public service and government action can play. Sounds like the sentiments embedded in the U.S. Constitution.

We're Not Slowing Down: The Labor Movement Must Keep Up The Fight For Voting Rights

Our guest author today is Elizabeth "Liz" Shuler, President of the AFL-CIO and a member of the Shanker Institute Board of Directors.

It was deeply disappointing that just days after our nation paid homage to the great civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on his birthday, the same senators who praised his name struck down critical legislation that would have strengthened our election systems and ensured every American has the fundamental right to vote.

Even though this was not the outcome we wanted, it is imperative that America’s labor movement does not give up this fight. There is nothing more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote, and we will remember those senators who chose to stand on the wrong side of history.

On behalf of the AFL-CIO’s 12.5 million union members who fight for the rights of all working people, including the 1.7 million educators, paraprofessionals and school personnel in the American Federation of Teachers, we are going to continue to stand for voting rights and speak out against racial discrimination and voter suppression.

Because we simply cannot afford to ignore what is unfolding across this country at breakneck speed. On January 6, 2021, empowered by President Trump’s green light to overturn the will of the people, an extremist mob tried and failed to violently overturn a free and fair election. We witnessed one of the greatest assaults on our democracy since the Civil War. And even though the insurrectionists failed in that attempt, extremist efforts to subvert our election process did not end on Jan. 6.

Fighting For Disability Rights Is Fighting For Democracy

Our guest author today is Randi Weingarten, president of the Albert Shanker Institute and the American Federation of Teachers.

We are witnessing the most ominous threats to our democracy in our lifetimes—from the January 6 insurrection and attempt to overturn the results of the presidential election, to the slew of voter suppression laws recently passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures, to the anti-democracy forces working to interfere with vote counting and even manipulate the outcome of elections. Another threat to democracy receives scant attention despite its substantial impact—the disenfranchisement of voters with disabilities. One in four people in America lives with a disability, and many face steep obstacles that make it difficult or impossible to vote.

Our responsibility as citizens is not just to vote; it is to demand Access and accessibility so that everyone who is eligible can vote and every vote is counted. That means fighting against voter suppression laws that disproportionately target racial minorities, older Americans, veterans, and low-income voters. And it includes demanding that people with disabilities have the unfettered ability to vote. The fight for voting rights is one that should include everyone. When we help each other vote, we are helping our democracy thrive.

The Intersection Of Disability Rights And Voting Rights

Our guest author today is Norman Hill, lifelong activist in the Civil Rights and Labor movements. Mr. Hill served as the president of the A. Philip Randolph Institute from 1980 to 2004, the longest tenure in the organization’s history. He remains its president emeritus.

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is among the most consequential legislative achievements in the history of the United States, having codified for the first time the right to vote for Black Americans established in the 15th Amendment of the Constitution. The resulting enforcement of the VRA led to increasing levels of voter participation not just by Black Americans, whose rights had been viciously suppressed in the South, but also nationally for all Americans of color and those who did not read or speak the English language. In the 2008 and 2012 elections, Black Americans surpassed White Americans in voter participation. In 2018 and 2020 elections, there was record participation by Latino, Asian American and Native American voters.

Little known or mentioned in the law is a provision that also greatly affected the voting rights of another large and previously segregated minority: disabled Americans. In addition to establishing the right of un-coerced assistance for those unable to read or write in English, Section 208 of the VRA established that right for “any voter who requires assistance to vote by reason of blindness or disability.”

I Voted

Our guest author today is Rui Rui Bleifuss, a disability activist and senior at Highland Park Senior High School in St. Paul, MInnesota.

It was November 2, 2021. Slightly annoyed and nervous, I walked into a room to do something I’d never done before.

I was annoyed because it was the end of the first semester of my senior year in high school, and I was way too busy. It seemed like I was going out of my way to do something important but routine, something that was taking me away from more immediate concerns. I had so much homework, but here I was, on my way to vote for the very first time.

I was nervous because I didn’t know how I would be treated. Empowered and supported? Discouraged and suppressed? I am an Asian American woman who is physically disabled. I knew about so many people who had experienced voter discrimination, and the many states trying to pass voter suppression laws. I’d never heard of a first time voter being supported, so why would I expect anything like that? 

I had been so excited in the months leading up to this. But now voting just felt like another thing I needed to check off my to-do list.

Applying Pressure Politics When It Counts The Most

Our guest authors today are Norman Hill and Velma Murphy Hill. Norman is a co-founder of the A. Philip Randolph Institute in Washington, D.C., of which he is president emeritus. Velma, like her husband Norman, was a leader in the Congress of Racial Equality in the 1960s, then held major positions in the United Federation of Teachers where she helped unionize 10,000 teacher’s assistants in the New York City public school system. Their memoir, Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain: A Movement Marriage Through Six Decades of Love and Activism, is scheduled for publication next year.

One of the greatest advantages of not being recent arrivals to history is that context and perspective are often great ladders to clarity. Yet, in the curious case of Donald J. Trump—and his even more curious ascent to the White House four years ago—even with our 120 years of combined experience working in the American civil rights and labor movements, we were still surprised and our ability to achieve perspective was severely tested. However, explaining Trump’s rather Humpy Dumpty crash from a wall of his own making is a simple matter. 

With last month’s election of Joseph R. Biden, Jr. to the U.S presidency, along with his history-making vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris, the existential threat to our democracy and long cherished national values has been averted. At least, for now.

Putin Won. Will He Again?

Our guest author today is Eric Chenoweth, director of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe.

Over the past four years, an authoritarian-minded president has posed a continuous challenge to American democracy.1 With electoral victory in doubt in the 2020 presidential election, he now even refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and openly states that he is stacking the Supreme Court in order to determine a contested outcome in his favor. 

But an equally serious constitutional challenge has been obscured in the tumult of the 2020 presidential campaign. The republic’s democratic institutions have failed to respond to a hostile foreign power’s ongoing intervention in American politics and the outcome of its presidential elections. Despite all the attention given Russia’s efforts in 2016, no significant bipartisan action was ever taken sufficient to deter Russia from its ongoing active measures operations. 

The reasons for this failure are as alarming as when the American public was first presented information of Russia’s interference.

Can Bias Prevent Women Running For Office From Having A Fair Shot?

Our guest authors today are Anthony Carnevale and Nicole Smith. Dr. Carnevale is Director and Research Professor and Nicole Smith is Chief Economist and Research Professor at the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce. This piece was originally published here on CEW's Medium page.

When the presidential candidates introduced themselves on the Democratic primary debate stage in 2019, they weren’t the usual crowd of contenders. Among more than 20 candidates, six women representing a range of geographic areas and policy positions took the podium. One hailed from California, and another from Minnesota. Some voiced support for Medicare for All, while others opposed it.

Women have made significant advances in their representation in US politics within the past 50 years. Though Hillary Clinton lost her bid for the presidency in 2016, she won the popular vote and made history as the first woman to be nominated for the presidency by a major party. In 2018, a record number of women ran for Congress — and many won their elections. Although the field of women running for the Democratic presidential nomination has narrowed from six to four, Senator Elizabeth Warren remains a frontrunner in several polls.

Despite this progress, bias still remains against women in politics. According to our analysis of recent data from the General Social Survey, while this number has fallen over the past 50 years, 13 percent of Americans still believed in 2018 that most women are not as emotionally suited for politics as men. This bias may have the potential to decrease women’s chances of being elected to political office.

U.S. Voter Turnout (And Registration) In Comparative Perspective

As is too often the case, Election Day last week was marred by stories of voter suppression and difficulties, from voter roll purges, to long lines and machine malfunctions at polling stations. Despite these disturbing situations, many of which were either avoidable or deliberate, around 100 million Americans turned out to vote for the first time in a midterm election.

This is heartening to be sure, but even with this landmark, only about half of eligible voters showed up to the polls. In a very real sense, everyone who turned out voted for two people. And this was not a random sample. Voters tend to be disproportionately white, older, better-educated, and higher income than their eligible, non-voting counterparts. The story of any U.S. election, particularly a midterm election, is as much about who didn’t vote as who did, although the question of how outcomes would change if non-voters showed up is not as clear-cut as is sometimes assumed (e.g., Leighley and Nagler 2014).

In any democratic election, there will always be people who do not exercise their franchise, for a wide variety of individual and institutional reasons. Voting behavior is complicated. There is, however, something not quite consistent about having a (possibly) record turnout midterm election in which half of eligible voters stay home. Those of us with a comparative research inclination might wonder if this is the case in other developed democracies.

The Casual Cruelty Of Privilege

Our week began with yet another profoundly disturbing chapter in the Trump Administration’s treatment of immigrant and refugee children. The New York Times reports that hundreds of underage Latino youth are being taken under the cover of darkness from their foster homes and shelters across the country and shipped off to a “tent city” in Texas near our southern border. These children will no longer be able to attend school, their access to legal services to pursue their immigration claims will be dramatically reduced, and their new settingswill not be licensed and monitored by the state child welfare authorities who ensure the safety and education of children who have been separated from their families.

The justification for these nighttime evacuations is that the government has run out of space in appropriate facilities. There is no choice, we are told, but to subject these children to the trauma of being torn, yet again, from places where they enjoyed some minimal level of normalcy and being taken to (what must be properly called) an internment camp. Yet the current crisis is not a result of increased immigration – since the numbers of those crossing the border have remained steady – but the predictable consequence of the Trump’s Administration’s draconian immigration policies. These policies have reduced the willingness of relatives to come forward for fear of their own deportation, thus lengthening the time it takes to place these youth with caregivers. The Trump administration apparently anticipated the consequences of these policies, yet made no preparation to deal with them.

This latest episode comes at the same time that hundreds of Latino children, who were forcibly taken from their parents by the Trump administration earlier this year, still remain separated from them months after a court ordered deadline for reunification. In most of these cases, the Trump Administration has deported parents, while keeping their children; it now claims that it cannot locate the parents. Children were taken from parents seeking asylum without any thought, much less a plan, on how, when and under what circumstances they would be reunited.

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