Salem Political Snark

Sleazy behavior by police department after cyclist's death

Keep this excellent investigative journalism in mind next time City officials want you to lavish more money on the Salem Police Department, which will occur in the November election via a proposed payroll tax. 


The Salem Reporter has a great update on the thoroughly sleazy behavior by the department following the death of a cyclist on March 28 at the hands of a federal DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) employee who drove through a stop sign and killed Marganne Allen, who was riding her bicycle on High Street.

After the Salem Reporter obtained cell phone call records, email logs and police mobile computer entries from the police department, journalist Ardeshir Tabrizian wrote New details emerge on how Salem police managed DEA crash information.

It's infuriating to read how the police department closely communicated with the employer of the man who killed Allen after driving recklessly, while keeping Salem citizens in the dark about what happened. Here's some excerpts from the story.

Salem police had more frequent contact than previously known with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration while investigating one of its agents for involvement in a fatal bicycle collision, according to recently released records. 

The contacts suggest the two agencies worked to manage what information was shared with the public beginning within hours of the crash. 

That apparent coordination conflicts with the Salem Police Department’s repeated assertions since the March collision that it couldn’t disclose to outsiders information about the investigation. 

And the records show that Salem’s police chief soon after the fatal crash was discounting that anyone would be charged in the March 28 death of cyclist Marganne Allen. That was before he decided to turn over the case to another agency because of the close professional linkages between his department and the DEA. 

Marion County prosecutors said last week that they still haven’t decided whether to charge the DEA agent in the cyclist’s death.

...The day of the collision, Salem citizens were told by police on social media only that the road was closed due to a “collision with a pedestrian.” The investigation shut down a high-traffic intersection in central Salem just before rush hour. 

But records show that Salem police spokeswoman Angela Hendrick, a civilian employee charged with providing the public information about police matters, was almost immediately on the phone with her DEA counterpart.

Public information officers for the two agencies kept up such contacts over four days while citizens were left in the dark, first about the fatality and then about the federal agent’s role in the collision, according to a Salem Reporter investigation.

The handling raises questions about Salem police coordinating with an outside law enforcement agency to steer the flow of public information that appeared to favor the federal agent – a possible suspect – over the victim.

The full extent and purpose of the contacts between Salem police and the DEA remain unclear because neither agency will explain their actions after the collision.

This is disgusting. It sure seems that the Salem Police Department cared much more about standing shoulder to shoulder with the employer of the federal agent, Samuel Landis, than with providing timely and accurate information about the death of Allen.

The Salem Reporter wasn't looking for information about the investigation into Landis' actions on the day he killed Allen. What they sought, and got, was information about communications between the police department and the DEA following the cyclist's death. 

Yet our supposedly open and transparent police department (according to department leadership) refuses to answer questions from the Salem Reporter about contacts with the DEA.

Emails from City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke showed her concern about the police department's failure to communicate with citizens. 

Councilor Vanessa Nordyke on May 16 told [Police Chief] Womack and City Manager Keith Stahley via email that her constituents were “deeply concerned about this case.” She asked that the chief speak about the Allen matter at the next council meeting and be prepared for questions.

...The chief also informed the city manager that he would be out of the state and unable to attend the May 22 council meeting.

Nordyke again wrote to the city manager after that meeting.

“​​I’m disappointed that no one from the police department presented information on this incident last night, despite the fact that I gave advance notice,” she wrote. “I have been careful to tread lightly to respect those in mourning. But when the community repeatedly asks me about a serious incident like this, they (and Councilors) reasonably expect a response. I highly doubt I’m the only member of Council getting questions about this. I have real concerns about transparency in city government, and the city’s response thus far to this incident only concerns me further.”

Climate change was scariest moment of Republican debate

To preserve my mental health, I've been watching my recording of the first Republican presidential debate in short chunks. So far I'm up to an hour of the two hour debate. 

The scariest moment of the debate that I've seen so far -- and I'm pretty sure it will remain on top of my fear factor after I've seen the whole thing -- was the horrendous answers given to a question posed by a young Republican. He said:

Polls consistently show that young people's number one issue is climate change. How would you, as both president of the United States and a leader of the Republican Party, calm their fears that the party doesn't care about climate change?

Well, the eight candidates onstage (Trump didn't take part) did very little, next to nothing in fact, to calm those fears. Which is strange politically, since young people obviously are an important voting bloc. 

They're going to be around long after older voters are dead and gone. Which helps explain why they're so concerned about climate change: young people are going to deal with the consequences of global warming the longest.

The Fox News moderators asked for a show of hands of those candidates who believe human behavior is causing climate change. Which, it is, obviously. I'll let an AP story tell the tale of what happened next.

The eight Republican presidential candidates on the debate stage were asked to raise their hands if they believed human behavior is causing climate change.

Not a single hand went up.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis shut down the question and attacked the “corporate media.” Echoing the words of former President Donald Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy called climate change “a hoax” and a “wet blanket on our economy.” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., insisted that more serious environmental threats are coming from China, India and Africa.

Just one Republican, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, said during Wednesday night’s debate in Milwaukee that climate change “is real.”

A day later, frustrated leaders in the GOP’s small but growing movement of environmental activists said their party must do better. In fact, some young conservatives confronted Ramaswamy at a gathering after the debate and told him his answer was particularly unhelpful

“We’re getting to a point where Republicans are losing winnable elections because they’re alienating people that care about climate change,” Christopher Barnard, the Republican president of the American Conservation Coalition, the largest conservative environmental group in the nation, said Thursday.

As the 2024 presidential contest begins in earnest, the Republican Party is struggling to reconcile rising concerns about climate change — especially young people — with the GOP’s older base, which largely rejects climate science as a liberal conspiracy theory. Scientists overwhelmingly agree that heat-trapping gases released from the combustion of fossil fuels are pushing up global temperatures, upending weather patterns and endangering animal species.

...The presidential debate “underscored the fact that one of the two parties (the GOP) not only refuses to act on the climate crisis, but refuses to even acknowledge it exists,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann said in an email. “It is a disqualifying position on the defining challenge of our time.”

“The party will lose a huge chunk of voters, especially women and younger voters if it adopts this stance,” he said.

Here's a video of the climate change portion of the debate.

And here's a photo of a clump of oak trees on the upper part of our rural south Salem property that I took this afternoon. We've lived here for 33 years. I don't recall ever seeing oak leaves turning brown and falling off the trees in freaking August. 

Oaks aren't supposed to lose their leaves anywhere near this early. It's still summer, not fall. But we haven't gotten any measurable rain for quite a few months, not since May, I'm pretty sure. And it's been considerably hotter than usual. 

"Usual" is a word that we'll be increasingly discarding as global warming hits harder and harder. That's why it was so disturbing to have the Republican presidential candidates be so dismissive of climate change. 

That may fly with most Republican primary voters. It's a recipe for disaster for our one and only planet.

Trump's mug shot has an artistic quality to it

I rarely praise Donald Trump. Can't remember the last time I did this, but it could have been his Operation Warp Speed that succeeded in getting Covid vaccines to Americans in record time. 

Today was another occasion for Trumpian praise. I couldn't help but think, "Dude, your Fulton County mug shot is a work of art. Great pose, with just the right combination of malevolence and irritation in your look."


I suspect Trump is happy with the mug shot also. By leaning forward he appears to have managed to capture the light and dark shading on the opposite sides of his face that captures his yin and yang nature. 

Or, more accurately, it would have if Trump actually had two sides to his nature -- since it's pretty clear that his personality is 100% egotistical authoritarian.

A story in The Guardian, "Belligerence and hostility: Trump's mugshot defines modern US politics," says:

Mugshots define eras.

Bugsy Siegel peering malevolently from beneath his fedora in a 1928 booking photo summed up the perverse romance of gangsters in the prohibition age.

Nearly half a century later, mugshots of David Bowie, elegantly dressed but dead-eyed after his arrest for drug possession, and a dishevelled Janis Joplin, detained for “vulgar and indecent language”, spoke to the shock waves created by 1960s counterculture.

Now comes what Donald Trump Jr described as “the most iconic photo in the history of US politics” before the booking picture of his father glaring into the camera was even taken. But whether deeply divided Americans view the first ever mugshot of a former president as that of a gangster or a rock star is very much in the politics of the beholder.

Trump’s hostility shines through as he turns his eyes up toward the camera above him and in his taut, downturned mouth as he is booked into the Fulton county jail on charges of trying to steal the 2020 presidential election. Dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie, he makes no attempt to put on a smile like some of his co-defendants in their mugshots.

The picture does not flatter but it does convey the message many of Trump’s supporters want to hear – belligerence.

There's little doubt that at this moment the mug shot is being put on t-shirts, coffee mugs, and other paraphenalia that will be sold to Trump lovers and haters alike. As The Guardian said, what you see in the photo depends on the politics of the beholder.

Joshua, a guy on TikTok, likens the mug shot to the famous American Gothic painting. OK, that's something I never would have thought of, but Joshua makes a decent case for his thesis. This is why I like TikTok. You get exposed to stuff you'd never see otherwise.

Here's a couple of other mug shots from some of Trump's fellow Georgia indictees.

You can see that Trump's mug shot is in a class by itself. He's a showman, an entertainer. Trump has a rare ability to funnel unbridled rage in his mug shot because that's his dominant personality characteristic: believing that he's being treated horribly unfairly, even when he isn't.

Rudy Giuliani, who tries to look tough but comes across as pathetic.

Mark Meadows, looking like he's trying to look like he doesn't care his mugshot is being taken.

I enjoy the Salem City Club. Consider joining.

I've been a member of the Salem City Club for a bit over ten years. I was invited to join by Russ Beaton, a retired Willamette University economics professor. He and his wife, Delana, are active volunteers in the City Club.

Me, I just go to the programs.

They're from noon to 1 pm on selected Fridays at the Willamette Heritage Center, which used to be called Mission Mill. A box lunch can be ordered, but it isn't necessary to buy one. I bring some food with me and eat it after the program, when I head off to exercise at Courthouse Club Fitness.

After the invited speakers do their thing, usually there's plenty of time for questions. The questions and answers often are almost as interesting as what the speakers had to say in their prepared remarks. The basic idea of the City Club is fostering a sense of civic involvement and community. 

I lean decidedly toward the liberal side of the political spectrum, as do many other City Club members. But there's conservatives in the City Club also. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a microcosm of Salem, in part because the membership tilts in the older direction. Still, I enjoy meeting the fairly diverse people who belong.

That's one reason I'm writing this post and sharing it on Facebook -- in hopes that more younger people will join.

A new season of City Club programs begins on September 8, along with a membership drive. If anyone is interested in attending a program as my guest at no cost (otherwise non-members are charged $5), email me and we can work something out. 

Here's a City Club message that appeared in my email inbox today. It'll give you a good feel for what the City Club is all about, and what programs are going to kick off the 2023-24 year. Programs usually are every other Friday, aside from holidays.

A Great Way To Start

By Ron Eachus, Salem City Club President
 
After a successful return to in-person meetings last year, Salem City Club is ready to begin a new season this fall with some critical topics and wonderful speakers at the familiar Willamette Heritage Center venue.

We will begin with two new public officials. The season will start on September 8 with Congresswoman Andrea Salinas, who was elected last November as the first to represent Oregon’s new Sixth Congressional District. She will be followed on September 22 by Andrea Castañeda, the Salem-Keizer School District’s new superintendent.

One of the Program Committee themes for this season is climate change and its effect on our daily lives through its impact on the economy and the environment. We will be following our first two speakers with programs on the impact of global warming on insurance rates, the plans for the transition to electric vehicles, and where climate related funds from the Inflation Reduction Act are being used in Oregon.

Our mission is the same - a space for civil discourse for civic good. It is a critical mission in the current vitriolic political environment and it will take strong, active support from membership to carry out. So, when it comes time, please renew your membership donation!

But we will also be asking you to help expand Salem City Club by reaching out to potential new members and encouraging them to join. Future communications will describe the membership options in more detail. But the best ambassadors for City Club and its mission are our members so save the dates for attending the programs and help us expand our membership by reaching out to others. Remember, members can introduce others to City Club by bringing a guest for free.

Councilor Nordyke says city officials have lost public trust

Way to go, City Councilor Vanessa Nordyke.

Vanessa Nordyke and furry friend

Your responses to questions asked by the Salem Reporter about the payroll tax approved by the City Council on a narrow 5-4 margin without a vote of the people are a great example of speaking truth to power.

The Salem Reporter sent questions to the four councilors who wanted Salem citizens to vote on the payroll tax. Only Vanessa Nordyke and Jose Gonzalez responded in time for publication. 

Here's two of the questions, along with Nordyke's responses. I've highlighted in red her comments about the City of Salem losing public trust.

If you believe some source of new revenue is needed, what would you propose and how much would that raise? 

Given the ever-changing cost  of inflation, housing, and gas, the moment you quote a number it becomes out of date. I can tell you one thing: I would not propose a payroll tax that bypasses the voters! I would’ve held listening sessions with the community and business leaders about how best to raise revenue rather than unilaterally passing a payroll tax. Unfortunately, people are so outraged by the payroll tax vote that anything the city says now is likely to fall on deaf ears. Trust has been broken. 

Do you believe councilors and city leaders have done enough to seek a regular source of state funding to compensate the city for losses from non-taxable state property in city limits? If not, what would you do differently?

Not even close. Most people have no idea that city leadership tried to get state funding. They missed opportunities to invite city councilors, local leaders and voters to join forces. The city could have rallied the people to write letters to legislators and sign up to testify at the Oregon Capitol. Residents could have called their legislators to take action. We could’ve come together as a community to make the ask, but that’s just not how the city does things.

Had the city done this, the response from lawmakers might’ve been quite different. Even if lawmakers still said no, the city and its residents would have emerged united in purpose, with a shared understanding of our budgetary reality. At that point, we could have met as a community to decide where we go from here. But the city didn’t use that path. Instead, the city unilaterally passed the payroll tax and refused to even continue the July 10 hearing to allow for more testimony.

When we include the public, we gain trust. When we exclude the public, we lose trust.

Instead of inviting the public into a transparent, meaningful, and inclusive discussion of our budgetary challenges, most residents felt blindsided by the payroll tax.

City government struggles with transparency. Outreach, transparency and community engagement are rock bottom on the city’s priority list. The city’s “we know best” mentality is exactly why people are outraged over the passage of the payroll tax without taking it to the voters.

I couldn't agree more. The payroll tax fiasco shows that city officials do indeed have a "we know best" mentality that fosters a mistrust of citizen involvement. Now the City of Salem faces an uphill battle in getting voters to approve the payroll tax in the November election.

As Nordyke repeatedly says above, it's tough to get citizens to trust city government when that government didn't trust the citizens enough to ask them to vote on the payroll tax. A business group had to gather about 13,000 signatures of Salem voters for a referendum petition to put the tax on the November ballot.

Now that's citizen involvement. 

Nordyke also made some excellent points about ways the City of Salem could be making the Police Department more efficient and effective, which could eliminate the need for the police funding included in the payroll tax proposal.

She's a strong advocate for a civilian-based mobile crisis unit similar to the highly successful CAHOOTS program in Eugene that has markedly reduced the number of 911 calls responded to by police officers.

In response to a Salem Reporter question, Nordyke said:

I agree with funding police as a general rule. But, I don’t agree that we should be paying police officers to form a homeless outreach team. The city could pay crisis workers to perform homeless outreach at a lower rate than police officer salaries.

...Despite my urging, the city considered but ultimately rejected including $300,000 for a mobile crisis unit (MCU) in the payroll tax. The payroll tax will raise over $27 million a year in additional revenue (if it is passed by the voters). Council discussed including $300,000 out of that $27 million to help fund an MCU. The final payroll tax voted upon by Council excluded the MCU funding. 

...An MCU is a 911-responsive unit of trained mental health workers and crisis workers who can respond to calls involving mental illness, substance abuse and homelessness. Mobile crisis units free up first responders and emergency rooms for higher acuity 911 calls. This payroll tax is being touted as a tax designed to address homelessness and public safety. Without an MCU, this tax fails to address a big chunk of our homelessness and public safety needs.

...This payroll tax prioritizes policing homelessness over ending homelessness. Policing homelessness doesn’t reduce homelessness, but it sure does cost a lot of taxpayer money.

I would use the last several annual surveys of City residents as a guide towards prioritizing what to keep and what to cut. Time and time again, those surveys told us to make addressing homelessness our top priority. The payroll tax doesn’t do that. People feel that the city isn’t listening to them.

There's a simple reason people feel that way. They're right. The city isn't listening to them.

Georgia indictment of Trump should be wakeup call for GOP voters

A little while ago a Georgia grand jury indictment was unsealed, revealing that Donald Trump and 18 other people have been charged with criminal conspiracy for their efforts to overturn the legitimate 2020 election victory of Joe Biden in Georgia.

Aug 14 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump was hit with a sweeping fourth set of criminal charges on Monday when a Georgia grand jury issued an indictment accusing him of efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden.

The charges, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, add to the legal woes facing Trump, the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election.

The sprawling 98-page indictment listed 19 defendants and 41 criminal counts in all. All of the defendants were charged with racketeering, which is used to target members of organized crime groups and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Among the other defendants were Mark Meadows, Trump's former White House chief of staff, and lawyers Rudy Giuliani and John Eastman.

"Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump," the indictment said.
Download Trump indictment Georgia

This is Trump's fourth criminal indictment. Despite his oft-repeated claims of witch hunt, actually what's going on in a hunt for justice. The only reason Trump is being accused of criminal behavior is that a whole lot of evidence shows that he's behaved criminally.

Not long ago, one criminal accusation would have been more than enough to completely derail the candidacy of someone who wanted to be president. Or in the case of Richard Nixon, remain president.

Back in 1974, Republicans joined with Democrats in condemning Nixon's criminality, which forced him to resign. Here's some of what Nixon said in his resignation speech.

This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter that I believe affected the national interest.

In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.

In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.

But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.

Yes, Democrats controlled both the House and Senate in 1974. However, Nixon had lost the support of his fellow Republicans in Congress also, which led Nixon to say in his speech that he no longer had a strong political base.

Things sure have changed in the Republican Party.

Now Trump is able to say that if he is indicted a fourth time this would guarantee his election in 2024. I doubt that, but it does seem true that Trump's newest criminal indictment will further endear him to Republican primary voters -- who already have given him a massive lead over Ron DeSantis and Trump's other primary opponents.

I find this really disturbing. It boggles my mind that one of our two major political parties is so obsessed with a lying, egotistical, morally bankrupt candidate, Trump, that a majority of GOP voters is willing to ignore solid accusations of criminality and support him anyway.

This is how our nation could turn into an autocracy, when otherwise decent people decide that maintaining power is more important than preserving our democracy. I just hope that Republican voters wake up to the danger that Donald Trump represents. 

Trump doesn't care about anybody but himself. He likes to say that if prosecutors can indict him, they can indict anybody. That's utterly false. Republican voters only have to worry about being indicted if they do something criminal, like attempting to overturn the outcome of an election. 

Trump isn't on your side, GOP faithful. He's always only on one side, his own. Wake up to this fact before it's too late.

Salem payroll tax faces likely defeat in November vote

Nothing is certain when it comes to voting.

So even though the controversial payroll tax passed by the Salem City Council on a narrow 5-4 margin will be on the November ballot, since a referendum petition has gotten more (probably way more) than the required 4,000 signatures, this doesn't mean that the tax will be defeated.

It just seems likely, given that conservatives hate new taxes, progressives don't like regressive taxes that hit lower income workers at the same rate as higher income workers, and everybody dislikes it when politicians refuse to allow a vote of the people on an important issue -- which is what the City Council did.

Today we discussed the payroll tax at a meeting of the monthly Salon discussion group that my wife and I belong to. 

The general consensus was that the tax is likely to fail, given how badly the City Council has handled this issue. Somehow the five members who voted for the tax, which included Mayor Hoy, have managed to irritate all sides of the political spectrum.

That doesn't bode well for the tax, especially since the referendum petition drive collected more than triple the number of signatures than the 4,000 required to get on the ballot. But again, anything is possible when it comes to politics. 

Possible is just different from likely.

If the tax does fail, our discussion group felt that it should be revised in a future incarnation to tax workers who make, say, under $75,000 a year at a considerably lower rate than workers making more than that. This would blunt the (correct) argument that the tax is regressive in its current form.

It also would be nice if the City of Salem would be more honest with citizens about what the estimated $29 million a year would be used for. I keep seeing references that this money is needed to preserve funding for existing services.

That's only half true, since an April 2023 City of Salem staff report said that about half of the money would go for existing services and about half of the money would go for new services. (The tax rate that ended up being selected was .814%, but the total to be raised is close to what's shown below.)

The way I see it, voters probably would be willing to approve a payroll tax that raised less money if it didn't hit lower income workers so hard, and if most of the money went to fund homeless services such as the Navigation Center. Police and Fire already get the majority of general fund dollars, and there is a lot of inefficiency in how these departments are managed.

In Oregon and Ohio, a good day for democracy

Fans of democracy -- and it's a sad commentary on our politics that this doesn't include everybody -- are heartened by what happened here in Oregon and there in Ohio today.

On the home front, I was thrilled when a notification from the Oregonian popped up on my iPhone saying that our Secretary of State had issued the correct ruling on whether ten state senators who took part in a lengthy walkout during the 2023 legislative session could run for office again.

Here's an excerpt from "Republican senators who boycotted work can't run for reelection, secretary of state rules."

Ten Republican and Independent senators who participated in a six-week walkout this spring won’t be allowed to run for reelection, Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade announced Tuesday.

Griffin-Valade wrote that she views voter-approved Measure 113 as disqualifying Oregon lawmakers who received 10 or more unexcused absences during the 2023 legislative session from running for reelection in 2024.

That was clearly what voters intended, even though wording of the full text of the measure said absentee lawmakers couldn’t run in the election “after” their term, whereas lawmakers run for reelection about two months before their terms end. Ballot language and media coverage all communicated to voters that the punishment for absences would impact lawmakers in their next term, not a later one.

“It is clear voters intended Measure 113 to disqualify legislators from running for reelection” to a term immediately following the one in which they have 10 or more unexcused absences, Griffin-Valade said in a statement. “My decision honors the voters’ intent by enforcing the measure the way it was commonly understood when Oregonians added it to our state constitution.”

She said she directed the Oregon Elections Division not to accept reelection filings from any lawmaker who skipped that much work.

Clearly this was the correct decision, though Republicans surely will ask a court to overturn the Secretary of State. Good luck with that. As noted in the Oregonian story, there was no dispute about what Measure 113 would do prior to the vote on it in the November 2022 election.

But now Oregon Republicans want to further burnish their credentials as our state's anti-democracy party.

First they undermined the will of voters who elected Democratic majorities in both the state House and Senate by preventing legislation from moving forward during their six-week walkout, which prevented the Senate from having the two-thirds quorum needed to be in session.

Now they're planning to attempt to undermine the will of the 68% of Oregon voters who approved Measure 113 via a legal challenge to the Secretary of State's ruling on what that law requires. This is typical of Republican politicians these days: when they lose an election, they don't try harder to convince voters to vote for GOP candidates and positions, they attempt to weaken democracy.

Republicans have been doing the same thing in Ohio.

After supporters of reproductive freedom announced that they'd seek to put a constitutional amendment on the November 2023 ballot guaranteeing women in Ohio the right to choose to have an abortion, and polls showed the amendment was likely to pass, the GOP-controlled legislature ignored a recently passed law that did away with August elections.

August, after all, is in the midst of summer when many people aren't paying attention to politics, so the turnout typically is low.

Which is just what Ohio Republicans wanted, since their scheme was to put a proposal on the August 8 ballot (the only thing on the ballot) that would change the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment from a simple majority of the voter to 60%.

They were open about their motivation for doing this: to markedly reduce the chance that Ohio voters would approve the constitutional amendment legalizing abortion, which currently is illegal in Ohio. The proposal also would make it considerably more difficult to obtain the required signatures to put an amendment on the ballot.

Well, today we learned how Ohio voters felt about that Republican attempt to subvert democracy. The proposal failed, big time. With 97% of the vote in, Issue One is failing 43% to 57%. 

There's no guarantee that Ohio voters will approve the constitutional amendment legalizing abortion in November, but now it sure seems likely that the amendment will pass, given that every time abortion has been on the ballot since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, abortion rights have scored a victory.

Americans don't like having rights taken away from them. Especially the right to a free and fair democracy.

Trump's defenses against Jan. 6 indictment make no sense

Yesterday it filled my progressive heart with joy when I heard that Donald Trump had been indicted by the Justice Department on four counts related to his attempt to steal the 2020 election after Joe Biden was lawfully elected: three of conspiracy and one of obstruction.

You can read the eminently readable 45 page indictment via this PDF file.
Download Trump Indictment file

Today it was amusing to hear the laughable defenses trotted out by Trump's attorneys for why their client is innocent of the charges. Those defenses are so weak, Trump might as well plead guilty tomorrow at his arraignment, since his chances of being acquitted are extremely low.

The main argument being made on Trump's behalf is that he was simply exercising his First Amendment right to free speech when he questioned the validity of Biden's presidential victory. As competent attorneys have been saying, that's an argument for the Court of Public Opinion, not for a Court of Law.

The indictment acknowledges that Trump was entitled to his free speech. Here's what was said on page 2.

The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won. He was also entitled to formally challenge the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means, such as by seeking recounts or audits of the popular vote in states or filing lawsuits challenging ballots and procedures. Indeed, in many cases, the Defendant did pursue these methods of contesting the election results. His efforts to change the outcome in any state through recounts, audits, or legal challenges were uniformly unsuccessful.

But the indictment goes on to say: (the "1" is an artifact of copying in text from the PDF file)

Shortly after election day, the Defendant also pursued unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results. In so doing, the Defendant perpetrated three criminal conspiracies:

1. 1. A conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the federal government, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371;

   2. A conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election arecounted and certified (“the certification proceeding”), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(k); and

       c.  A conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241.

Each of these conspiracies—which built on the widespread mistrust the Defendant was creating through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud—targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election (“the federal government function").

Ruth Marcus demolishes the free speech argument in a Washington Post opinion piece, "The Trump indictment tramples no one's First Amendment rights." If that link doesn't work for you, here's a PDF file, along with an excerpt.
Download Opinion | The Jan. 6 indictment doesn't trample Trump's First Amendment rights - The Washington Post

But Trump is not being prosecuted for his repeated lies about a stolen election. He is being prosecuted for the efforts he made, the actions he took to operationalize that contention and prevent the clear will of the voters from being realized, or what the indictment calls “unlawful means of discounting legitimate votes and subverting the election results.”

Just because words are involved in the commission of these alleged crimes does not mean that prosecuting Trump violates his First Amendment rights. The protections of the First Amendment are strong and capacious, but they are not unlimited.

Corporate executives accused of defrauding investors by making false statements engage in speech, but that does not immunize them. Same for those who engage in insider trading or a conspiracy to fix prices.

Or, to bring things closer to home, if Trump at a rally encouraged his supporters to beat up a protester, that would not prevent him from being sued or even criminally charged. If he were to falsely accuse a political opponent of being a child molester, the libel laws that he wants to weaken would not shield him from legal recourse. (Here, I am borrowing examples from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, ruling in a civil case that Trump could be sued for inciting the Capitol rioters.)

“The heart of our jurisprudence with respect to the First Amendment is the difference between regulating speech and regulating conduct,” Rep. Jamie B. Raskin (D-Md.), once a constitutional law professor, told me. “Everything charged in the indictment involves criminal conduct by Donald Trump and not the mere expression of political views. If Donald Trump wanted to say that the joint session organizing the peaceful transfer of power was a fraud and a charade, he had every right to say that. But he had no right to actually obstruct the proceeding.”

Thus, the indictment doesn’t accuse Trump of breaking the law by claiming the election was stolen. It asserts, instead, that Trump, “on the pretext of baseless fraud claims,” pushed state officials to ignore the popular vote; that he organized “fraudulent slates of electors,” including some who were “tricked into participating,” and that and his co-conspirators “used knowingly false claims of election fraud” to pressure the vice president to refuse to certify the election results.

What Marcus says above also demolishes an equally weak argument by defenders of Trump: that he was the victim of bad advice offered by his legal advisers. Today's All In With Chris Hayes show on MSNBC featured legal analysts who made this important point.

John Eastman, a Trump legal adviser, wouldn't have been an unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment if he had simply said that it made sense to have alternate slates of electors in several battleground states where the vote between Biden and Trump was very close, but Biden had been declared the victor.

That way, if a court or a recount established that Trump actually won a state, the alternate slate of electors for Trump could have been legally substituted for the Biden slate of electors.

However, when that legal approach morphed into an illegal scheme to have Vice-President Pence declare that Biden's electors were invalid and the alternate Trump electors should be substituted for them, even though there was no legal basis for doing this, that is when a conspiracy to defraud the United States government and voters took place.

So it looks extremely likely that Trump will be found guilty of the charges in the indictment. Of course, he's entitled to a vigorous defense when the case goes to trial. Trump had just better hope that his attorneys have better arguments than what they've shown so far. Even Bill Barr, his attorney general, agrees.