American democracy is under attack. There is precious little time to save it. And too many of those concerned still aren’t focused on the greatest risk.
It’s not the antics of Marjorie Taylor Green or Jim Jordan. It’s not the rantings of Donald Trump. It’s not even the “Big Lie” or January 6, as disturbing as they may be. What’s the greatest threat to American democracy? To paraphrase the old Clinton mantra, “it’s the statehouses, stupid.”
David Pepper’s Laboratories of Autocracy shows that far more than the high-profile antics of national politicians and Trump himself;
it’s anonymous, often corrupt politicians in statehouses across the country who pose the greatest dangers to American democracy. Amid all the chaos, these statehouses are hard at work, every day, hacking away at core principles and protections of our democratic system. And they’re getting more audacious every year.
Why do these statehouses seem so impossible to stop? Because more than most appreciate, in state after state, they no longer operate as functioning democratic institutions. And without basic democracy at the state level, all the incentives are warped—these politicians are rewarded for attacks on democracy and actions that sacrifice public outcomes for private profiteering. And because a robust democracy is the greatest risk to their grip on power, they do all they can to undermine it. Add it all up and these statehouses are placing American democracy at its greatest peril since the dawn of the Jim Crow era.
Unless and until those who care about democracy fully wake up to this threat—and do something to address it directly, at every level—the anti-democratic onslaught will only accelerate. And ultimately prevail.
But as bleak as things look, the final die is not cast. If Americans wake up to the problem, we can fight back. It starts with ensuring that Americans who care about democracy understand the root cause of the problem—statehouses emerging as the central mechanism undermining democracy. And then inspiring all—from elected officials to business leaders to grassroots and everyday citizens—to play a role to battle for democracy. Laboratories of Autocracy outlines 30 steps that must be undertaken, from federal action that must be taken immediately to steps every citizen can take to help fight back in their own community.
https://www.laboratoriesofautocracy.com/
Part 2: Thom Hartmann Interview with David Pepper
Former Ohio Democratic Party head David Pepper has witnessed
Republicans’ weaponization of statehouses firsthand and is
determined
to give Democrats a way to fight back—before it’s too
late. - By Chris Smith
If you think Washington is broken, David Pepper is here to tell you things are worse in Columbus. And Tallahassee. And Atlanta. And Austin. Pepper, a recent chairman of the Ohio state Democratic Party, has a new book out this week, Laboratories of Autocracy. The title plays off a phrase coined by U.S. Supreme Court justice Louis Brandeis, who called the states—optimistically—America’s laboratories of democracy.
- rigged election districts to
- voter suppression to
- anti-abortion vigilantes.
Read Interview
Vanity Fair: Your book opens with a bizarre scene: the miles-long traffic jam of voters trying to reach the single drop box location for one of Ohio’s largest counties in October 2020, a mess worsened by the Republican secretary of state. Was this the spark to write the book?
David Pepper: One of the sparks. Every few weeks we all react to a crazy new law in some state, like voting restrictions in Texas. There’s a lawsuit or a boycott—and then we go back to debating something else that’s happening in Washington.
People never stop and think, ‘Why does this keep happening in the states? Is anyone going to actually do something?’ The problem is you say the word ‘statehouse’ and people immediately go to sleep. But they are an Achilles heel of American governance: easily corruptible, unknown to most people, and with a lot of power to do damage.
Vanity Fair: The book describes many of the bad outcomes in Ohio—in public education, the environment, jobs. But politically, spotting that weakness was a kind of evil genius.
David Pepper: Karl Rove was the one who, in 2009 when the Republican Party was truly down and out, targeted the statehouses. He did what I wish Democrats had done, which is to pay attention to the levers of power that draw election districts, like the state auditor’s office in Ohio.
The incredible result of Rove’s plan is that we’re entering the second generation of state legislators who have never known real democracy. Because of gerrymandering, they’ve never faced a competitive general election.
My guess is Rove was far more successful than even he anticipated.
Vanity Fair: As you write, he’s had a lot of help along the way, from the Koch brothers and ALEC, among others.
David Pepper: Major groups figured out that state government is a weakness they can nationalize, they can weaponize.
Vanity Fair: Accumulating money and holding onto power are eternal motivators in business and politics, but you also see racism driving state legislatures to the right, especially after Barack Obama’s win in 2008.
David Pepper: I think it’s a huge factor. I think the different motives are dovetailing into one another. You see it with the critical race theory debate. It’s clear there’s big money behind arcane stuff.
They are learning there is real potency to the strain of white supremacy that is threatened by Obama’s election or by Biden winning in Georgia with a very energized African American electorate, and it is bridging with economic interests.
Vanity Fair: In describing efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election by pressuring states to invalidate their vote counts, you say, “Give Trump credit.” Was it hard to write that sentence?
David Pepper: I hate to say it, but one thing about Trump, he has a good read on suckers. And who he can bully. In that case he understood that those unknown people, state officials and legislators he was flying into the White House, were the ones who can change the outcome. If they’d played that card sooner it might have worked, and that’s pretty scary.
Vanity Fair: Lately there’s been chatter on the right about a “national divorce”—that is, an inevitable, desirable splintering of the union into red and blue countries. Given what you’ve seen of the anti-democratic drift of multiple state legislatures, is that a serious risk?
David Pepper: I think the biggest mistake we’ve repeatedly made is to not take right-wing talk seriously. The fact that CPAC is going to Hungary next year for its conference, and Tucker Carlson is interviewing Orban—you should be worried about that! They’re not faking! They act on what they say, again and again, to keep power. Everyone in Congress, when voting on things like the bills this week, should keep those statements in mind. And
when I hear the thinking, “Oh, well, if we act aggressively on voting rights, we’ll get nothing else done”—that’s the kind of thinking that led to Jim Crow.
We have a small window where Democrats have the White House and majorities in both houses of Congress. Not to get the John Lewis voting rights act passed would be a historic mistake. The filibuster cannot stand in the way.
Vanity Fair: Ohio will have a say in whether the Democrats have any window next year—Republican Rob Portman is retiring, so there’s an open U.S. Senate seat. Tim Ryan is the likely Democratic nominee. Who do you think will be his Republican opponent?
David Pepper: Josh Mandel is clearly the favorite, and he enters with a massive advantage in name ID, in that he’s run statewide twice—winning for state treasurer in 2010 and losing to Sherrod Brown for Senate in 2012. He can’t be outflanked on the right, and Trump is going to love Mandel. Which would open up an opportunity for Ryan, because Mandel is so far out there.
Vanity Fair: Your book closes with 30 ideas for “resistance” and for “reclaiming democracy.” They’re savvy and idealistic. But isn’t the best hope that Democrats become as devious as Republicans, only for a good cause?
David Pepper: Gerrymandering anywhere is going to invite problems. One of the key points in the book is wherever we’re in charge, we need to lead on democracy. Virginia is a great example—they’ve expanded voting access. Washington and Oregon have really opened up early voting. Colorado has drop boxes everywhere. That all sets a standard. The history of our country shows that the side that’s permanently on offense will win. We don’t have a lot of time to wake up.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/rigged-state-governments-are-steadily-undermining-democracy
The past decade in Ohio shows how bad it can get – and how quickly. Despite the state’s voters often swinging Democratic, 75% of its congressional delegates are Republican.
The long-term health of American democracy is in peril, to a degree far worse than people imagine. But not where most people are looking.
While many eyes go to Washington DC or Mar-a-Lago;
the attack on democracy is actually most concentrated and coordinated in state capitals. Whether it’s gerrymandering or voter suppression or attacks on offices that provide needed checks and balances – the states have become widely undemocratic.
As I outline in my book Laboratories of Autocracy, the consequences of this anti-democratic movement are only getting worse.
The past decade in Ohio, where I served in recent years as chair of the state Democratic party, shows how bad it can get – and how quickly.
When Fox News called Ohio for Barack Obama in 2012, it meant he’d be president for another term. Ohio’s Democratic senator Sherrod Brown also won handily that night. But how did these victories in America’s bellwether state translate at the congressional level?
Not at all.
Even though it was Democratic in 2012, a state that only four years ago had sent 10 Democrats to the US House of Representatives and eight Republicans, now sent 12 Republicans to the House and only four Democrats.
2014 was a big year for Republicans. They won decisively for statewide offices. The congressional delegation? 12-4. 2016? Another Republican year: 12-4. But in 2018, Sherrod Brown won again, this time by almost seven points. And many of his voters also voted for a Democrat running for the House. In all, 47% of Ohioans cast a vote for the Democratic candidate for the House, while 52% voted for the Republican.
What was the outcome of that 52-47 split for Ohio’s congressional delegation? 12-4 again – 75% Republican.
2020? 12-4 again.
So for an entire decade, whether Ohio voters tilted to Democratic or to Republican or a toss-up, when it came to Congress, nothing changed. The makeup was the exact same 12-4 split no matter how the voters voted. In the world’s oldest democracy, the voters basically didn’t matter.
Why is that?
Because in Ohio in 2011,
in a secret hotel room they called - "the bunker" - a small group of partisan insiders designed House district maps to guarantee the outcome of all 90 US House elections that were to follow in the coming decade.
And they proved to be so good at their work, they got all 90 elections right.
It’s a success rate in rigging election outcomes – amid the appearance of a democratic process – that Vladimir Putin would admire. Sadly, Ohio isn’t alone. Numerous other American states experienced the same decade of guaranteed outcomes for both their US House delegations and their state-level legislatures.
In some cases, even when a majority of voters voted for one party to be in charge, the rigged districts meant that the losing party remained in charge.
In Michigan, in 2018, voters chose Democrats over Republicans for their statehouse by 52%-47%. Nevertheless, this led to a Republican majority in that statehouse of 58-52. In Wisconsin, losing the popular vote for the statehouse across the state by a 54-45 gave Republicans a 63-36 supermajority in that statehouse. Now that would truly impress a foreign autocrat – a system locking a minority into power despite a clear mandate by the voters that they wanted the opposite.
The prime culprits behind all this election rigging are the statehouses themselves – mostly anonymous elected officials who few voters know but who wield far more power than most Americans appreciate. And that includes the power to draw the district lines of both federal and state representatives (ie their own districts), as well as establishing most of the other rules of how elections are run, including how presidential electors are divvied up.
But it all gets worse. Fast-forward to now. Outraged by a decade of rigged elections, citizens in Ohio and other states took action to change the process of how lines are drawn. Some opted for independent districting commissions. In Ohio, more than 70% of the voters amended the Ohio constitution (twice!) to add clear guidelines to curb the type of extreme partisan districting that led to a decade without democracy.
And how have those in charge responded? Knowing that fair districts and robust democracy threaten their grip on power - the legislative leaders are simply ignoring the new rules - Defying them - In fact, the first map they have proposed here in Ohio would guarantee an astonishing 13-2 map, knowing full well that Ohio’s partisan breakdown would best be reflected by an 8-7 map. Despite the new rules, key urban counties are now being split three ways rather than two to achieve that outrageous result.
So not only are these unknown politicians willing to rig elections, they are willing to defy their own state constitution – and the voted will of more than 70% of their own population – to get it done.
As bad as this example is, it’s only one of the many fronts in a nationwide attack on democracy.
Locked into power in these statehouses are a generation of politicians who themselves largely ( got there absent any true democracy ) – because they also benefited from rigged maps – who are now doing all they can to maintain that power. And one thing they know for sure:
- the greatest threat to their hold on power is
robust democracy.
- gerrymandering,
- voter suppression,
- cracking down on protests,
- attacking independent courts
- and officials that get in the way,
- and other measures
The truth is, if another country were taking all these steps, we’d call it out for what it is – an attack on democracy itself - A descent toward autocracy - But because it’s happening in our own state capitols, we too often treat it with less urgency. That needs to end.
It’s time to go on offense for democracy, at the state level, every year. Beginning now.
David Pepper is the author of Laboratories of Autocracy and former
chair of the Ohio Democratic party
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/28/republicans-are-quietly-rigging-election-maps-to-ensure-permanent-rule
The States Have Become Laboratories of Autocracy
David Pepper - On Jan. 6, thousands of insurrectionists stormed the Capitol. Among them, one group stands out: 57 were Republican state and local elected officials. This is no coincidence, and reflects the most dangerous risk to American democracy — the increasingly anti-democratic views and actions in statehouses across the country.
As I’ve documented in my new book “Laboratories of Autocracy,”
these are the largely anonymous politicians who are discreetly eroding our democratic foundations, and the truth is they are far more dangerous in their statehouses than in D.C.
If there’s a death knell to American democracy, they will be the ones to deliver it through some combination of state-level bills across the country — and unlike an insurrection, it will come with the misleading trappings of legitimacy.
Endless attacks against democracy in states have long flown under the radar.
For every outrageous piece of legislation that makes national news like the Texas abortion ban or Georgia’s move to restrict voting, there are scores of others that are hardly noticed — and countless more looming.
Attacks on independent courts, or elections officials, or the teaching of history, or protests. Extreme gerrymandering (i.e. election-rigging) is taking place as we speak. All are part of an anti-democratic playbook that we’re used to seeing in other countries, not within our own borders.
Even when these state laws lead to protests, boycotts or lawsuits, - the news cycle inevitably moves on before we return to the core question:
- What the hell is going on in statehouses
- and why is it so difficult to stop?
The answer is bleak.
In state after state - legislatures no longer operate as functioning democratic institutions - and are fueled by an entire generation of majorities that, thanks to effective gerrymandering, have essentially never experienced real elections. With hardly a trace of democracy left at the state level, all the incentives are warped.
- On the one hand, these little-known politicians reap rewards for attacking democracy, becoming ever more extreme, and taking actions that sacrifice public outcomes for private profiteering.
- On the other, the greatest risk to their grip on power is a robust democracy, and they face little accountability in undermining it. They are always on offense, and any setbacks are usually temporary, as they learn from one another’s mistakes.
Unless and until those who care about democracy fully wake up to this state-level threat — and do something to counter it directly, and continuously, at every level — the anti-democratic onslaught will only accelerate. And if history is any indicator, it will ultimately prevail.
But as dire as things look, there is still time — but it is running out as the elections in Virginia and the filibuster of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act in the Senate have shown. If Americans wake up to the problem, we can fight back.
What to do?
One key lesson of history is that - the federal government must play a central role in protecting democracy against state-level attacks. It’s a role the Founding Fathers explicitly required the federal government to shoulder at moments that statehouses slip away from democracy, therefore risking the health of the entire nation. The notion that a procedural tool such as the filibuster would get in the way of the federal responsibility to protect democracy would have left the Founders flabbergasted.
Fighting back also means re-creating a functioning democracy in state after state, along with the accountability that goes with it. It’s time to go on offense, for democracy, at the state level. It’s a huge task, and - there is a role for every American - who cares about democracy to play. And it’s a cause that’s far larger than one party. This involves -far more people running for office at all levels, -far more people registering to vote, and -far more people committing to fight a long battle for democracy beyond a single campaign cycle and more broadly than on the narrow map of “swing states” for federal elections. That’s exactly how those attacking democracy have thought of it, and they’re winning as a result.
The term “Never Trump” took hold in 2016 and 2020, and it played a helpful role last fall. But it’s misleading. The stakes are so much bigger than that. That’d be akin to having a “Never Andrew Johnson” movement in the 1870s instead of “Never Jim Crow.”
The real question now is simply: Do you support democracy, or don’t you? If you do, it’s time to fight for it. Everywhere.
An Interview with David Pepper about the GOP War on Democracy
David Neiwert: Essentially, your view, your argument is that the right has essentially rigged the game for democracy by taking over power at these local levels, and particularly at the state level, and then rigging the game afterwards, once they have obtained power—rigging it so that they remain in power and cannot be displaced. It's a certain recipe for minority rule, which is, in fact, what we are seeing us move towards in this country, and certainly what we saw during the Trump years.
You start out, of course, talking about Ohio, which is a world away from me, a state I've actually never visited, but you do a good job of selling it. Can you talk a little bit about why Ohio reflects the broader nation so well?
David Pepper: Sure, and the point in my book that I try to make clear is I spend a lot of time in Ohio in the book, but the book's about the country.
What I'm describing happening in Ohio, as I say, this is a state that voted for Obama twice. It had a 10-8 Democrat/Republican democratic coalition—not coalition, delegation as recently as 2010, and now we look like this deep red state that's being governed like we're Alabama. If it can happen here, it can happen in a lot of places is the point, and it is happening. But I go back to the history of Ohio, that if you talk to any Ohioan, they'll tell you, "We thought of ourselves at the heart of it all. We were this manufacturing powerhouse. We had great education. We had great people coming from here, proudly so. We reflected the country as the quintessential swing state, but also, we had moderate down-the-line politics where there was a lot of balance."
If you had a Republican in charge in Ohio, they were generally like a George Voinovich, a little more moderate, and if you were a Democrat, you had to have enough authenticity like John Glenn to win over Republicans. So, we sort of represented—not just because of our electoral college total votes, but because we were this swing state—you sort of represented this more moderate world. So, I go through how all that's changed rapidly, and people like me—I was literally elected, named, at least, most likely to be president of the Cincinnati Board of Tourism in college or law school because I'd always brag about Ohio, and as I say in the book, we all do, but if asked now about Ohio, the story's horrible.
Our public outcomes are cratering. Our statehouse has been named, or our state politics have been named the most corrupt in the country, which back in a few years ago I would never have thought we would be named that, and they're legislating, again, like we're Alabama or Mississippi, and it's never changing. It's this downward spiral of poor outcomes, corruption—lack of democracy in the end, and those go together. So I try and use Ohio, this story in Ohio, and I'm already hearing they all relate to it, like, "Yeah, what the hell's happening? Why is this all happening here?" I think it's a case study.
Without democracy, all these things are almost inevitable. You have corruption that comes with a statehouse where people don't feel like they can ever lose, but the private players surround them, terrible public outcomes because there's no longer any incentive to deliver good public outcomes, but the necessity to keep rigging it all so that when you see these horrible outcomes and you get so extreme, you have keep democracy from reappearing or you'll lose your offices. So it's this system that sort of is self-reinforcing in a downward direction, and it's accelerating here, and it's accelerating in the same way elsewhere.
DN: Sort of a race to the bottom.
David Pepper: It really is, and everything each keeps building on the other. The more extreme, the more you have to have gerrymander districts to stay in power. The more corrupt, the more you got to protect yourself, and so this is ... I think one of the things to try and point out is there were a lot of people who rigged these districts in 2011 after Karl Rove was very sadly adept at targeting statehouses to flip. I don't think they even thought through how warped the consequences of an entire generation of politicians [would be] without democracy. It's far more extreme in how—I don't even know the right word for it—like I said, warped it is that I think people probably thought it would get. These are people who largely—and when I say largely, I'm not talking about ... They have generally a 60 to 39 majority, something like that. It's not like 30 of them are guaranteed their reelections, and the other 30 have to fight for them.
We're talking about almost every member of the majority is guaranteed a reelection by at least double digits, and most of them—50 out of 99—20 points or more. I mean, these are people who just literally have not experienced democracy in their own rise to power, and they're afraid of democracy, and Ohio is this glaring case study of what happens when you've had that for a generation, but sadly, Missouri or Tennessee or Florida, they're all seeing the same thing as Ohio is.
DN: Well, and one of the things that I deal with all the time is the psychological dimension of those in terms of how and why people are attracted to extremist movements and conspiracism and extremist belief systems, and ultimately, authoritarianism, which is what all of those things lead to, and it's just really abundantly clear that these horrible social outcomes that you were describing, economic and otherwise, have a really powerful effect of driving people towards this sort of extremism, driving them towards adopting conspiracism because the world is seeming increasingly chaotic to them, and they are looking for security, and authoritarianism offers them that.
So, in every dimension, it is a fast-worsening problem, and it doesn't ... I don't know where we even see bottom to it.
David Pepper: Yeah. No, I agree. I mean, I don't get into that side of it in my book, but [it] connects to that. But I think the personalities of the legislators versus 15 years ago are reflecting that now in a way that they wouldn't have not that long ago. I mean, we're seeing it in Congress with the Madison Cawthorns and the Marjorie Taylor Greens—
DN: Jim Jordans.
David Pepper: There are hundreds of these people in statehouses, and here's the worst part: At least right now in Congress, they're not in the majority, so they're just talking or videotaping themselves. In statehouses, they're voting in the majority on laws that effect our districts and our voting rules.
So imaging that psychology within the minds of multiple hundreds of legislators, who actually right now have the power and are acting on it to rewrite the laws of our democracy as we speak.
DN: I mean, you have this chapter on weaponizing statehouses into a national force, and that's exactly what we're looking at, is that a lot of the Republican program is not being advanced by Congress because actually, Republican Congress isn't doing a thing, and they're not passing a thing. They're just stopping anything from being passed, but in the Republican statehouse, they're actively passing these anti-voting laws, antiabortion laws, let's see, the anti-CRT laws, all of these things, laws that make it legal for people to run over protestors with a car.
David Pepper: Yeah. Yeah. I keep thinking about that last one in particular. If we saw another country do all these, but particularly that one, my guess is we'd almost issue sanctions that this country has fallen away from democracy so badly that we would treat them differently, and what's frustrating for me is we have a blind spot when it comes to our own country. We just assume that everyone buys into the democratic project, small D, and so when these series of things, attacks on courts and elections offices and independent offices, and trying to crack down on protests of those we don't agree with, to vigilanteism being encouraged, everything else we've talked about, rigging of districts, in our own country ... If that was another country, as I said, we would raise the alarm: "My gosh. They're moving away from democracy."
In our own country, I worry as I watch ... We compartmentalize each one. "Oh, my gosh. There's that bad law, and there's this bad law," and most people are not saying together, these are collectively just an attack on the fundamental pillars of democracy, as you said, and as you said when we started, the lesson of our history here and elsewhere is when all those things happen, you do get autocracy. You see, once you rip all those pillars away and you normalize it, it doesn't take very long for the place to flip, and that's what we've seen in Hungary and other places. Yeah, it's a pretty disturbing scene, and I worry, and this is ... I mean, I wrote this book ... I started writing it in April. I mean, I was not planning on writing a book. I did put together some proposal for somebody. I wrote the book because I see all this happening, a little bit of arms length since I stepped away as chair of the Ohio Party, and I just don't sense that there's an urgency among people in D.C., or really broadly; worse, I sense a lull, that we're just kind of letting it happen. We're not seeing it for what it is. So, I wrote the book as my own sort of feeling like, "Well, everyone's got to do something. I have a perspective from Ohio that shows how bad it is. Let me share it," because I worry that people are not putting it all together for how bad it really is.
DN: Yeah. It seems to me that there is ... People are so wedded to the necessity to believe that things will be normal, that things can be normal, that they're really blinkering themselves as to the reality of what we're dealing with right now. People just don't want to see it. They don't want to know about it. Of course, there's a huge chunk of the population out there that pays zero attention to politics anyway because they don't believe it affects them, and I think the next few years might give them a rude awakening.
But more than that, I think within the mainstream Democrat Party, as well as within the mainstream media, there's really this desire to believe that, "Oh, things can be normal again. We can go back to normalcy," and I don't see normal returning for a long time, and especially not if we don't start putting our shoulders to the wheel.
David Pepper: Absolutely. I mean, I think that we will not have normal again until there's accountability in multiple ways, and there needs to be accountability for Jan. 6. There needs to be accountability for Trump and corruption that he brought, but the other thing that's happening is there is no accountability anymore in state-level politics. The reason they never stop attacking constitutional rights, be they voting rights or women's right to choose or whatever, [is] even when their laws that they pass are struck down, they never lose their office. Every once in a while there's a corruption prosecution, normally by the feds, because within states they just don't happen against their own party, but there's so rarely any accountability that there's never any pushback to more normal politics, even when—again, this Texas law, I don't think it's been brutal today. If it has been, I haven't seen the news, but my guess is that Texas law will be stopped by this court because of the mechanism of that lawsuit sort of part of it.
But in a normal world of politics, attacking women's right to choose in that way would actually cost people their offices in the next election, but in our current politics in these statehouses, we're essentially no longer working within democratic governance. I mean, these statehouses are no longer small-D democratic. They're about to get worse, and so these folks can just ... They keep doing this, and they never stop because there's never accountability. So, normalcy can be achieved if over the coming years we start getting accountability back into the conversation. Right now, there's just almost no accountability for the most antidemocratic behavior we're seeing.
DN: Yeah, and you see that, I think, as the key to reclaiming democracy, is standing for it, that pushing, creating accountability for all of these, and I would toss in there—I would toss in there accountability for police too, but ...
David Pepper: Yeah. I mean, that's a big part of it. I mean, I think that the reason ... It's a metaphor, but it's really how they're working. The reason these statehouses are, as my title describes, state laboratories of autocracy is because they can keep going through thick and thin, through being found to have violated the law. They never stop. In Ohio, we saw it after the Obama win. They went after every part of the Obama coalition they could, and oftentimes they would fail. They would be struck down. They would write a law poorly, but they would win their next election because they're guaranteed to win. They do it again and again.
It was on the third time of trying they succeeded in getting rid of the week where people both vote and register at the same time. It took them three tries. But if there's never accountability, they just keep pushing and pushing. So I think accountability's part of it, and I also think there's a lot of other things we have to do. I mean, we can go through it all, but that's one key piece, though, is I think unless there's accountability, unless they fear a consequence from truly undemocratic and often illegal behavior, illegitimate behavior, unless there's any fear of a consequence, of course they're going to keep doing it. They have all the incentive to do it, they never pay a price for doing it, and they just keep going.
DN: What are some of the other things you think are key to reclaiming democracy?
David Pepper: I mean, I will say—and I don't want to blame an entire party because I think most Democrats in Washington agree with this—the federal government has to act. If this window closes, and hopefully we win the House and the Senate in 2022, but if we don't and the window closes, and they have not passed robust voter protections, as well as protections against the most egregious gerrymandering ... I have a 7- and a 4-year-old. They will spend much of their lifetime fighting to get back to where we are right now if they don't act in the next year. So, the federal government has to ... There are other ways the federal government has to act as well. I think they need to double down on protecting all the rights that these statehouses are attacking, be it, again, women's right to choose or union rights.
I mean, they're literally using these states to undermine national rights, federal rights, and federal law, and then again, in the national sense—and in my book I go through a lot of steps that I hope are very practical for everyday people to act upon, but before we get to those, and those are necessary, but federal action is essential. Without it, the history's pretty clear. If there's no federal pushback on this, at least our history tells us the attacks on democracy succeed. That's what happened that led to Jim Crow. But I also think we need to rethink our politics, because one side—the Koch brothers and ALEC and their allies—this is a war on democracy. They think their freedom and democracy are inconsistent, and essentially, mutually exclusive. So, they're warring against democracy every year, everywhere.
Our politics is still based on the presidential calendar and the Senate calendar, and the swing states that are in play in those races, or some of the swing congressional districts, which means they're on offense every year, everywhere. We contest in some states every two, and essentially, every four years. Well, if that's the terms, they're going to win. My older kid plays soccer. If one team's on offense the entire time, and you're on offense every once in a while, you're going to lose. So, we have to rethink this all as a long game for democracy that we have to fight everywhere, and we need to schedule our action accordingly. We need to use our resources accordingly. We need to think about running for office accordingly, and we're catching up in that mindset, but we're years behind. This sounds a little bit like, "Whoa, you really want to move some money away from the presidential year spending and put it into statehouse races?" The Koch brothers did. Look what happened. It worked.
If you took some percentage, 5% or 10% of your presidential year multibillion-dollar spending, and you spread it out among 50 states for four years, you not only would protect democracy better, you'd actually do better in the presidential year because you'd be building something. So, we have to really rethink, I think the way we frame politics, and the other advantage to think about it this way, Stacey Abrams is the best example. Once you define it in this way, you realize it's a long game. It's like a John Lewis long game for voting rights, or the suffragists' long game for women's suffrage, and then you start to see that the result is not determined by every result of every cycle.
We often have one bad cycle, we quit, we fire everybody, we start over. Stacey Abrams told us, even when she lost her governor's race for a lot of reasons that she explained were really illegitimate, she gained progress in that loss. She registered people. She fired up people, and that progress carried over to '20 in a way that we turned Georgia blue, just like running in every single statehouse district in every state. You're going to lose most of those races. We know that, but we should celebrate the fact that we're running in every district because every one of those candidates will register voters. They'll change minds at every door. They will have higher turnout, and maybe in two or four years, if they do it again, and we've seen this in states like Virginia, they win the next race.
So we've got to define it as a long game, and that means you see progress even in tough years if you're doing it right, and we've seen that in Ohio. We've seen that in other states, and the other thing we got to do—back to the broader politics—there are multiple elections that impact democracy. In Ohio, our biggest priority, especially when we realized that the National Party, although they support us generally, they didn't see the presidency as coming through Ohio. I get that. They felt they could win Virginia and Michigan. That's life. But that didn't stop us from prioritizing winning Supreme Court seats, because in our state, after we changed the Ohio Constitution to end gerrymandering, we knew that we needed a balanced Supreme Court to protect our new language, and we won three elections in four years.
We have a balanced Supreme Court. I think it will save us from the current attempt at gerrymandering. So, in some states it's secretaries of state. In others, it's state auditors. In others, it's courts. Focus on all the races that impact democracy, not just the ones that have the most exciting U.S. Senate candidate going, and that ... So, there's a lot to do, but once you define it as a battle for democracy, your priorities—they don't change completely, but all of a sudden there's a lot more you can do, and you can define success in a different way than just what happens every cycle at one level.
DN: Yeah. I can't help but reflect that the abandonment of Howard Dean's 50-state strategy after 2008 was really symbolic of Democrats losing their way on this, and because I thought the 50-states strategy reflected the recognition that these local races, even though you're going to lose some, they still matter. Having a presence in these communities—I can tell you as someone from Idaho, used to be actually a pretty purple state—I was mentored by Frank Church—that a lot of the transformation of these states into red states has a lot to do with, basically, Democrats having abandoned rural areas and focusing all of their ... I mean, from a certain strategic, numerical sense, it makes sense to focus on urban areas where you're going to get most of the votes, but I think abandoning rural America has had catastrophic consequences for the Democratic Party.
David Pepper: Yeah. No, and I would say the other thing we do, and I experienced it here in Ohio, when one of our states moves to red even a little bit ... Trump won Ohio a couple times. That was terrible for Ohio. You don't quit on that state, because then you take their temporary gain and you make it permanent. Did they quit when Virginia went for Biden by, what, eight or 10? No. They went back and won it a year later. They almost won in New Jersey. They're fighting everywhere, and we too often ... You've been around long enough. Missouri was pretty competitive not that long ago.
I don't want Ohio to be Missouri where all of a sudden it's like, "Oh, we think of it as a red state. We invest like it's a red state. We have to." By the way, Jaime Harrison, who's a friend of mine, he's tried to up investment in red states. So, I think the party is catching up. They realize that Howard Dean was right. For a while, they didn't do this. They're trying to catch up now. So, I give Jaime credit. He's from South Carolina. He understands this. But I do think that we have a tendency to just wash our hands of certain states once they feel red, not compete there, and then, like you said, it's a downward spiral from there.
By the way, I think there's a great case—and I've done some videos on this—there's a great case to make in rural America that trickle-down is what's killing them. And infrastructure that was just passed, they need that as much as anybody. They need health care as much as anybody, but what I've learned in Ohio, and I've tried to explain this to folks in the administration, if we don't go right to those places and say to them, "This infrastructure plan, you may not believe us, it's actually for your town too. It's not just for the city of Cincinnati and the very big bridge we have here. It's for your needed flood wall or your small street." Unless we actually really go to these places and say that, not through a big speech, but by walking down the street and looking at how terrible these towns are, the shape they're in, they don't think it's for them.
They think it's for somewhere else, and I think we have to be—whether it's Pete Buttigieg or Marcia Fudge, who knows Ohio well, or Tom Vilsack, or Biden and Kamala Harris themselves—they got to go to these towns and walk them and say, "This is for you," and then in a year or two, those towns need to see that their streets look better, or they have broadband, but unless we do that, they just assume these things are for somewhere else. But I think if we do it ... By the way, these towns pay the price of gerrymandering as much as big cities, because as I write in the book, one town near me is dying. They call their state senator. They ask him, "What are you going to do to help us?" and he tells them, "Well, sometimes you just have to move."
You don't say that unless you feel totally unaccountable to the voters. So, these voters are basically ... The people they elect are voting for a trickle-down privatization agenda that never helps these towns and only hurts them, and gerrymandering makes those people feel like even if the local outcome of the places they represent is terrible, they feel so bold as to tell those people they should leave as opposed to these guys being voted out of office. So, I think the lack of democracy is really hurting these small, rural towns as much as it's splitting up big cities.
DN: Yeah. Unfortunately, my experience has been that it's just about impossible to get that message across in places where Fox News is playing in the local café 24/7. You know what I mean?
David Pepper: By the way, you don't have to get—yeah. But we don't have to get to 50% in these towns. You just can't be at 20, and Obama was at 40. You don't even need to be at 40 if you look at—Sherrod Brown won Ohio, but you need to be close to 40. You can't be where Hillary Clinton was, or even Biden, in the moderate to the low 20s.
So, you're never going to get to high 30s if you don't show up and say what I'm saying, and basically, they're not doing that, I think at least right now. But I do think that there's an opportunity with infrastructure and Build Back Better to go finally have something you can deliver to these places and be very explicit in making that clear.
DN: So, one of the things that I have been thinking about a lot in terms of the war on democracy that we're enduring is that in a lot of ways is the strategic architecture of that war was present on Jan. 6, that we saw ... That actually what Jan. 6 was in many ways—and my thinking about this came out of reading the stuff about the memo that Trump had that outlined plan to use the Senate, and Pence to throw Congress into disarray, which would then throw the vote into question, and everything would be delayed, and they could contest it inevitably until, say, legislatures could vote on it, which, of course, was part of their plan because they know they control these state legislatures, as you more brilliantly documented here.
At the same time, they were planning on this mob descending on the Capitol, which is, of course, what we all have noticed, what we all noticed at the time. People haven't been paying attention. So, it was a classic inside/outside game thing. They were planning the game on the inside, but they also had an outside game with these mobs, with the radicalized insurrectionists who were willing to engage in violence in the name of defending Donald Trump. Yeah. That's actually the architecture we're looking at. So, in a lot of ways, I really see your work and mine being incredibly complementary, but in completely different ways, where we're both looking—I'm looking at the outside game, which I think is important, but I think also, we need to be really tuned in to what's going on with this inside game because that what actually is their intent, is changing the institutions themselves.
David Pepper: What's so scary to me is if they ... The thinking they put into Jan. 6 and that process that Eastman outlined in that memo, they came to it too late to have it have the impact they wanted. Well, now they've got a three—
DN: Yeah. Well, they weren't competent.
David Pepper: Yeah, and they weren't competent. But now they have a three-and-a-half-year head start, and like I say, they're always learning from their mistakes, and that memo or version of it will be in the hands of every state legislator, probably now or very soon. So, they had a long time to get the inside game figured out better than they did on Jan. 6, and by the way, there was some overlap. We know that some state legislators were part of the insurrection, or were part of Stop the Steal or were doing other things. So my worry is that the outside game matters because those legislators think, "Wow. We've got some really passionate people who really agree with us," but my biggest worry about '24 is if they stack the deck enough through the legislators who decide how states send their electors to D.C. on Jan. 6, they can do almost everything they did on Jan. 6 without storming any buildings.
They can take care of it. They can have legislators, and you get the same memo that Pence basically in the end rejected, and those legislators will say, "Yeah, we'll send a different delegation," or, "We'll contest a delegation," and Speaker McCarthy or whoever will be the one making decisions. So my great fear is that the outside and inside are both there, but if they really work the inside well, they can do everything they tried to do on Jan. 6 without anything looking as illegitimate as storming a building. The greatest fear is that ... You see these countries that the academics call competitive autocracies. They have the feel of democracies, but they're not legitimate because everything's predetermined.
My deep worry is that's what they're trying to do here, and the key to that succeeding is the look and feel of legitimacy, and if statehouses are voting for things as part of their formal duties, most people think, "Well, that must be legitimate. The statehouse did it." What scares me is that they're going to figure out that there's a cleaner way to get the results they want without storming a building and attacking police and everything else they did. I can't imagine they're not all working on that as we speak, and that should scare the heck out of everybody.
DN: Yeah, yeah. Well, I actually also think that the same architecture could very well be in play for us in state races in 2022.
I think of states like Texas or Florida, which could very well have very close gubernatorial races, and I believe both of those states have passed laws that actually empower local officials, or the legislators to overrule local electors, if I'm not mistaken, so that they could actually seize these governors' races through clearly illegitimate means, and I imagine that there would be some protests out there, but from the left, from Liberals, people demonstrating against it, but now at the same time we have the right all ginned up to do what they call ... What the Proud Boys are telling leftist protestors right now is, "If you show up on the street, you're going to get Rittenhoused."
David Pepper: Is that their name?
DN: That's become their new euphemism.
David Pepper: Let alone what laws that are literally giving people no liability if they hit somewhere with a car, and we're obviously seeing how deadly that can be. So, no, it is ... As you know, some of my book gets into history, and the specter and actual execution of violence was a key part of what happened that led to Jim Crow. It was voter suppression. It was courts not supporting rights to vote of particularly Black voters in the South. It was the federal government that over time let off pushing for those rights, and it was violence accompanying it all, and that was the toxic brew that took registration from hundreds of thousands or 100,000 down to 3,000.
So almost every element of one of the worst moments in American history—it's not as severe, clearly, but almost every element is literally rearing its head now that led to the end of democracy in the South, and the holding back of our entire country thanks to Jim Crow for almost all of the 1900s.
DN: Well, David, want to really thank you for having put this book together because I think it's really an important document for understanding this war on democracy. It's important for people understand how, as you say, the inside game is the one that they can win, even without the outside game.
David Pepper: Yeah. One thing I tried to do in the book, and I hope you'll mention this, is I don't ... Washington has to act. Schumer has to act. The filibuster should not get in the way of protecting democracy. There's no legitimacy to that argument if you read the Constitution, but I also in the book try and outline that every single citizen can add protective democracy as part of their own mission statement, part of what they do, whether it's making sure every single statehouse race is contested, or whether we battle the purging through ourselves, figure out how to make sure we're registering people in time.
So even though it's a pretty bleak first two-thirds of the book, I do try and give a roadmap on how every single person who cares can actually play a role, and not simply wait for D.C., but in their own state. We need D.C. to protect, but the best way to go on offense as states is if people themselves go on offense at these state-level and local offices. So I hope folks look at the book, partly because there's a little bit of a guide based on my own experience and talking to some others on how every single person who's concerned doesn't have to give up because D.C. isn't acting, and hopefully D.C. does, but they themselves can take some ownership and try and fight back as well.
DN: Yeah, and I think that that's actually the sort of toolkit everyone's looking for, that, "Well, what can I do?"
I thought the book was terrific for that because you went through not just how you can do it broadly, nationally, and statewide, but in person-to-person interactions, and I've found ... As someone who wrote a book about how to deal with conspiracy theorists, I thought your advice was extremely sound. Essentially, it ultimately comes down to valuing empathy, valuing basic common decency, and maybe reminding our neighbors that we actually are common, decent, normal Americans once in a while.
David Pepper: Right, absolutely. Thanks for the
conversation...
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/28/2066084/-An-interview-with-David-Pepper-Laboratories-of-Autocracy-author-about-the-GOP-war-on-democracy
David Pepper on US Statehouses as Laboratories of Autocracy
- by
Ruth Ben-Ghiat
I'm pleased to bring you this interview with David Pepper, who is a
lawyer, political activist, former elected official, and adjunct
professor. He served as the Chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between
2015
and 2021. In that role, he engaged
in extensive
litigation over voter suppression and election laws
in the Buckeye
State. Pepper is
the author of the 2021 book, Laboratories of
Autocracy.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat (RBG): In your book Laboratories of Autocracy you argue that we don't pay enough attention to statehouses, even though they are agents of the decline of democracy in America.
David Pepper (DP): You and other folks tell us about risks all over the world to democracy. I tell the story from an in-state perspective: we have the same risks here, but we just don't see them in the same way. And I think it's a huge blind spot. If we looked at another country and we saw the combination of steps that are taking place in our states, what would we say? Here we have attacks on independent courts, rigged legislative elections, laws that make protests by the opposition harder, laws that create immunity for people who run over protestors with their car or attack independent election officials.
All of this adds up to a dramatic turn away from democracy towards autocracy. Some states don't meet almost any definition of a functional democracy at this point, and in places like Texas and Ohio, statehouses have a huge amount of power over national elections. These states resemble what we call "competitive autocracies": they look and feel legitimate, even though the results of their elections are essentially predetermined and rigged.
RBG: When we study democratic erosion we talk about processes of “autocratic capture,” where the judiciary, the election machinery, and the media are taken over by loyalists, and it starts at the town and city level. Is something similar going on at the state level in the US, even if we don't use that term?
DP: I mean, it's clearly going in that direction. Once you tear away at the protections and pillars of a democratic system, things can convert very quickly, and you start getting truly unhinged legislatures. Statewide elections in some states are still relatively competitive, although voter suppression and purging have taken a toll.
Yet in the statehouses there is a system that Vladimir Putin would be impressed with. For example, in Ohio, even if a majority of people voted for a Democrat, the Republicans would still be in the majority or super majority in the statehouse. When outcomes are guaranteed, there is zero accountability. I wrote the book to wake people up so that we take this as seriously as we would if it happened in other countries.
RBG: How do you speak to people about this? It's very dispiriting to people to hear that in Wisconsin and other places, the popular vote doesn't matter. So how do you motivate people?
DP: My hope is that people can start to see a reason to get involved, because democracy is in the balance. If you never cared about your statehouse before, it is time to start caring. We need the energy in the 2022 midterms that we normally bring to a presidential election, or we risk losing it all. We have to focus on all the races. The Koch brothers have viewed things this way for 30 years. They don't take an election year off.
RBG: What are the most important things we can do? I know that the decline of local media is part of the problem, because the national media focuses on the big races. You talk about revitalizing local media to draw more enthusiasm for local races. But there is much more to do.
DP: The first thing is that people need to understand the problem. And my biggest fear is the minute that people hear "statehouse," they fall asleep. They need to know that the Koch brothers are all over these statehouses, but that the average person doesn't know who their state representative is. That's the perfect situation for the Kochs and their allies to do what they're doing.
So, understand your own statehouse, know who your representative is. If that representative has championed democracy, help them. These are normally pretty accessible people. If they're good and it's a smaller district, they'll give you advice. Hey, these are the races we are focused on. Here's how you can help.
And if you happen to live in an area where your state representative is one of these people who attacks democracy every day, do not let that person go through the next election without a challenge, whether it's yourself or your most impressive friend. You can help to make sure that we are challenging all these people.
Another thing: those who care about democracy have to spend time registering voters. The GOP is purging voters every day who have not moved and who have not passed away. They did this in Ohio and it really changed the balance of power.
They did not like the coalition of voters that elected Obama and turned Ohio blue in 2008, and they spent a decade tearing apart that coalition. The most brutal tool they used in Ohio was really aggressive purging of voters. They targeted people who hadn't moved or passed away but voted infrequently. They took them off the rolls.
So, you have to register voters to compensate for this. If you run a nonprofit, let's say a homeless shelter or a soup kitchen, you should register everyone you serve. If you're a mayor of a city, you can make it part of your mission to register residents. You turn every recreation center, health clinic, and library into places where people can be registered to vote. Why do we only use the Bureau of Motor Vehicles as a registration lever? That's so random. We've got to expand on that.
If you're a company that believes in democracy, show it, not just by dropping out of something bad, but by doing something good. Think about how to get your employees registered. When Sherrod Brown was Ohio Secretary of State, he got McDonald's to put a voter registration form on every Happy Meal tray.
We know that there are many people right now working to undermine democracy --that’s the heart of what they do. We need to make the support of democracy the heart of what we do - incorporating it into our personal mission mindset.
https://lucid.substack.com/p/david-pepper-on-us-statehouses-as
How the States Have Become "Laboratories of Autocracy"
— and why it's worse than you think -
Salon
Paul Rosenberg - Conversation with David Pepper
There's a booming literature on the erosion of democracy in America, as well as around the world, but David Pepper's book "Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call From Behind the Lines" stands out as arguably the most important for three reasons: It brings the subject down to earth, connects democratic erosion to corruption and the decline in America's quality of life, and provides a wealth of ideas about how to fight back to protect democracy.
The book's subtitle is well-earned. Pepper is a former city councilman, mayor, county commissioner and head of the Democratic Party of Ohio, as well as a lawyer who has won important battles defending democracy in court. This is no armchair account — it reads more like a well-organized set of field notes from battles seen first-hand.
Perhaps most significantly, those battles have surprisingly little to do with Donald Trump. In an essay in "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump," therapist Elizabeth Mika described tyrannies as "three-legged beasts," supported by the tyrant, his supporters and the society as a whole. In my review of that book, I quoted her on the last of the legs:
Tyrants do not arise in a vacuum. ... It takes years of cultivation of special conditions in a society for a tyranny to take over. Those conditions invariably include a growing and unbearably oppressive economic and social inequality ignored by the elites who benefit from it, at least for a time; fear, moral confusion, and chaos that come from that deepening inequality; a breakdown of social norms; and growing disregard for the humanity of a large portion of the population and for higher values.
Pepper's book provides a detailed, nitty-gritty explanation of how the general conditions Mika describes have been created in Ohio and many other states across America. And when Pepper writes about how to fight back, it's about fighting back against the conditions that made Trump possible, if not inevitable. Of course Trump himself remains a danger, but Pepper's book provides a roadmap for action that addresses the roots of the problem. This conversation with David Pepper has been edited for clarity and length.
Let's start with your title. What's the story?
It was funny — it was when I thought of the term that the book came to me. I was going to tweet the words out, "You know, these states are no longer acting like laboratories of democracy, but laboratories of autocracy." I didn't send the tweet, because the minute I wrote it I thought, "Boy, there's a lot more to say than this tweet." And everything flowed from that.
Obviously it comes out of this age-old term that Justice Louis Brandeis made famous but that many have used, a very idealized notion of states doing good things that then become models for the country. Clearly that's been the case sometimes. But as I argue in the book, in our history sometime it's been the exact opposite. That's how we got Jim Crow. States have enough power that in the wrong hands they can do great damage, and the point of the title was to say that's what's happening now in very stark ways.
But both words matter. "Autocracy" matters, as these states are hacking away at pillars of democracy that could lead to autocracy. But the "laboratories" part matters too, because they're always learning, they're always improving. So they are functioning as laboratories. Until you start adding some accountability and pushing back, they'll just keep going. So my hope is that "autocracy" wakes people up, but "laboratories" is a really important part of that title because it explains how they operate.
The first story you tell in your book is about a horrendous traffic jam caused by an Ohio secretary of state who tried to make voting more difficult in 2020 by limiting ballot drop-boxes to one per county. Why begin there?
I've been fighting the voting rights battle in Ohio for a number of years. The worst is still the purging of voters, but to have a secretary of state intentionally cause long traffic jams for the form of voting that he knew minorities and Biden voters were using, and lying over and over again about what the law actually, was such a troubling thing. And this was not your right-wing, Trump-type secretary of state. He had held himself out as more moderate.
So I tell the story because you look at the traffic jams that his one-drop-box-per-county policy created, and anyone with a commonsense response would say, "Don't ever do that again." But in a world of "laboratories of autocracy," as I tell in the story, the state legislature of Ohio, seeing those jams, began pushing for bills to have traffic jams forever by making that not just a policy decision, but state law. And what do we see at the same time? States around the country looked at those traffic jams and saw the effect on — let's be clear — Black voters waiting in long lines. So now we have the same effort in other states to minimize drop boxes and to do what happened here: Put the drop boxes where people are already voting early in person, which creates the maximum congestion possible. So it's a great example of how they behave as laboratories against democracy.
As you lay it out, the heart of the problem is the relative invisibility of state representatives, combined with their great power, which the public may not be aware of. Two questions: Why are state legislatures so powerful? And why is there so little awareness?
It's a the toxic combination: great power and total anonymity, at least for the average citizen. The power comes all the way back, from the founding. State legislatures were given a lot of power over our day-to-day lives — economic policy, energy policy, criminal justice, education, the things that we care about. Statehouses have a huge effect on those.
But in our system the Constitution and our overall balance of powers also give statehouses enormous power over not just state elections but federal elections. They draw the district lines, as we're seeing right now. They set the rules of elections. They have control, to some degree, over how the Electoral College is calculated. It's a huge amount of power. It's something James Madison worried about: My gosh, we're giving statehouses a huge amount of power. If they're in the wrong hands, undemocratic hands, they can threaten our entire nation's democracy.
What about the lack of awareness?
Most people can't name their state representative. They don't know what's happening in their capital city. Very few of the things that are happening are covered. You only have so much bandwidth as a citizen, so you know the president, the governor, maybe your congressman and your mayor. These people get lost anyway: the capital city is normally some distance away, these elections don't get nearly the attention. It just isn't on the radar.
And journalism is eroding too. You used to have more robust statehouse bureaus that would cover the ins and outs. You had local papers in the small towns and big cities. It all adds up to very low information about these places that are a source of great power. For those wanting to do damage, it's exactly what they want.
You write, "If the average voter doesn't know or care what state representatives can do, insiders and interests know exactly what they can do. That's dangerous." So what are some examples?
In Ohio, you see everything from massive subsidies given to the right players, and people getting in line for "state business," putting that in quotes — I talk about for-profit charter school scams in Ohio — who have figured out that they can get into the revenue stream, pull out hundreds of millions or more. You see individual legislators able to provide preferential tax treatment: The payday lenders got a sweetheart policy when they were helping certain legislators. I walk through all the ways that that these legislators can just give huge favors.
The general theme of these places, outside of extremism and anti-democracy, is a massive transfer of public assets and resources to private insiders. Public school dollars go to the private school donors who are starting scam for-profit schools. In other states, It's the privatization of the energy grid, so in Texas they couldn't even keep things going in the wintertime. Small towns not getting any infrastructure, because public dollars have been raided by the state to give out as tax cuts at the very high end.
If you add it all up, there's a massive movement of public resources and dollars to private insiders. That's why one thing that comes with broken government is a rapid decline in public outcomes. In Ohio, we're living it. A great state is finding itself ranked last or close to last in everything from higher education attainment to health care. It's because their M.O. with the statehouse is keep the private people happy and use public resources to do it, year after year.
I'd meant to ask you about how the decline in the quality of life is tied to the erosion of democracy. That's something that's completely disconnected in the national discourse. We've been hearing that Democrats' focus on voting rights takes away attention from kitchen-table issues, for example. But that's not the case on the ground, is it?
My book is trying to say that everyone suffers from this. It may in the short term feel good, if you have a majority. But as I explain later in the book, towns are dying because of the privatization of everything. There no winners from this, long-term. Everyone loses when you lose your democracy. When you go to small towns in Ohio that are largely Republican, they are suffering as much from lack of democracy as larger cities. Because they're not getting the health care, the infrastructure, anything else they need. And so ending gerrymandering actually would lift long-term outcomes in all these places, because these people would all of a sudden have to compete as well. They couldn't just give everything to the private players without any accountability, which right now is what they're doing.
Another category you discuss is overturning local governance. That's where the anti-democracy aspect blatantly comes to the fore, preventing people locally from passing laws. Could you expand on that?
Statehouses are the Achilles' heel of national governance. When local governments who are more attentive to public concerns pass laws about gun violence, for example, the statehouses have the ability to stop those local governments from being responsive. What they've done in Ohio on issue after issue — whether it's raising the minimum wage or gun reform — is that if the city of Cincinnati or the city of Cleveland or someone else tries to do something on those issues, they then pass a law that — by a misreading of Ohio law, I would say —allows them to stop any efforts to deal with that issue at a local level. So it's undemocratic in another way: Don't reflect your citizens' views at the state level and also don't allow local governments to represent their citizens either.
Just to be clear, on almost every issue I'm talking about they are doing the opposite of what their states actually want. Don't be fooled by the fact that Ohio voted for Trump by eight points. This is a state that supports common sense gun reform. This is a state that supports Roe v. Wade. It's a state that supports doing something on climate change. I can show you the polling on that. But the statehouses are basically places that, by protecting themselves through election rigging, can put in place deeply unpopular policies and never worry about being held accountable.
It's not just a problem with the special interests inside the state with help from the national GOP. There's also national organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council, the NRA and others.
These national players, the Koch Brothers, ALEC and others have weaponized the weakness of statehouses to serve their national agenda. They started out doing that with social issues, but then figured out it can be done, with even greater effect, on their economic interests. I go through how they've been crushing rural broadband for years: They don't want local governments to do it because they want someday to do it. The way I describe it is that they've privatized the legislative process.
So many of the laws that are being passed — attacking voters, gerrymandering, the abortion laws like in Texas — are being cooked up in ways that are shared all across the country. And every time one doesn't succeed, they learn from it and correct for it, and then other states will do the corrected form. And every time one of their approaches does succeed, other states will then model from it. So they've turned this into a national effort that people should find very worrisome.
One thing you talk about is how how people can go through a whole legislative career and never really have a competitive election, beyond maybe winning their first primary. What do people need to know about that?
It's so much worse than people realize. In Ohio we have a 99-person statehouse, and Republicans have rigged it so that they'll have somewhere in the low to mid 60s of seats, no matter what. In 2018, it was 50% Republican, 49% Democrat statewide and they still had a supermajority of seats, and 60 of those seats have averaged a double-digit win, most of those by 20 points or more. So a strong majority of these people have never been in an election that you and I would say was a real election. Maybe they won a primary at one point, but many were appointed, and never even had the primary.
People just don't understand how bad it is. We're talking about, for the first time since back before the civil rights era, people whose entire existence in power has been devoid of democracy. They haven't talked to swing voters, they've never worried about the next election. You literally have an entire generation of people in charge of statehouses who have never experienced democracy the way I did when I ran and won my races.
Everything they've done in this world absent democracy is the opposite of what you do in a robust democracy to succeed. They help private interests, get close to the line in terms of corruption, if not over it. They get more and more extreme to avoid a primary. There are the terrible public outcomes that we talked about. Every one of those things works just fine in their world, whereas in a world of real democracy it would guarantee you lose your election.
That Texas law on abortion is extreme, it's deeply unpopular. If you were in a fair district, you would lose. That happens on guns and everything else. The point is these people in a non-democratic world are acting a certain way, and if they were in a real democracy they'd lose for sure. So what are they gonna do, forevermore? Keep that real democracy from arising, because that would mean they'd lose their power. It's gotten so much more warped than I think even Karl Rove would have imagined 12 years ago, when he rigged these districts. We're talking about a completely different mindset than most people think about with democracy.
This leads into something else I wanted to ask about, how they have increased power in part by taking it away from governors, secretaries of state, from the independent judiciary. What's happening here that don't people realize?
This gets back to how much power they have that's hidden. They have levers both political and budgetary, and many can override vetoes, That's allowed them to run over the likely moderating influences of statewide officials. To win as governor in Ohio in the past you had to be more moderate, more like George Voinovich or Bob Taft. You weren't a right-wing nut. People who run for those offices try to be more moderate, and they get run over by the statehouse.
Our current governor tried to be reasonable on COVID for a few months, but they stopped everything he tried. They almost impeached him. Now he's as irresponsible as any of the others because the statehouse basically has too much control over the key functions of government. So statehouses end up being able to to run roughshod over governors, over the people the public actually knows. They don't realize that the unknown statehouse member, in the end, is trumping the governor again and again.
Recently, Democrats have done a very good job and won three of the last four Supreme Court races in Ohio. I'm proud of this. What did the legislature do? A few months ago they changed the rules of how you elect justices, to add party ID to the ballot, on the thinking that if Trump's on the ballot and every judge's party is on the ballot, then they can't lose.
So they change the rules to undermine other statewide officials. After Democrats won North Carolina in '16 and they won Michigan and other states in '18, and even after this Raffensperger guy in Georgia stood up to Trump, what happens? The legislature immediately starts attacking the powers of those other officials, obviously if they're Democrats, but even if they're a Republican that doesn't agree with them. We saw that again in Georgia where they stripped the secretary of state's power away.
They're not only gerrymandering and being extreme for themselves, they're literally going after any threat to their power that arises, be it state courts, governors of either party, or other officials like secretaries of state. It's truly disturbing behavior.
As you make clear, in Ohio there was the Tea Party wave of 2010, in reaction to the Obama coalition, where they took action to undermine that coalition's electoral power, and similar things are happening now in response to the 2020 election.
It's why I resist when people say, "The Big Lie is making statehouses act crazy." No — they've been doing this long before the Big Lie. When there's an election they don't succeed in, they learn from their failure and then do everything they can to change the thing that cost them that election. It's not just about the presidency, it's about their own self-preservation.
In 2008, after the Obama coalition in Ohio won the election for Obama, it also won Democrats the statehouse. That really peeved them. They had gerrymandered the statehouse and Obama comes in with this huge coalition of urban young voters, electing Obama and elects a Democratic statehouse. The minute they have a chance in 2011 to tear apart that coalition — not by a good campaign, but through changing the laws — they do it. They're purging voters left and right, and despite huge errors in the purging process, they never stop. They attack early voting again and again. For years they targeted the key constituency groups that made up the coalition that had defeated them, and by 2016 it was clear just how well that worked.
I go through it in the book. The margins of victory in the large counties that made sure that Obama won — particularly the ones around Cleveland — were dramatically reduced because of how many fewer voters were actually registered by the time they were done with their purging through 2016, and curbing early voting in what was called Gold Week, where you could register and vote at the same time. Tens of thousands of voters were impacted there. Hillary Clinton may have lost Ohio for a lot of reasons, but it made her journey in Ohio far more difficult that they had taken the legs out of that Obama coalition.
So they learned their lesson for 2020, same thing. Many people voted early, using drop boxes. Drop-box voters were largely voters of color, largely Biden voters. What do they do? Same as 2011, they immediately target the way that those who vote against them vote. Get rid of drop boxes or add the kind of requirements that led to the traffic jams here. They will do everything they can to isolate what cost them an election and change the laws so it won't hurt them the next time.
That's exactly what they're doing with Jan. 6. That was another failure. What are they gonna do? Figure out why they failed. They have three years to fix it. They're going to go about fixing it through statehouses.
Right. That's already well under way. How would you describe what it looks like?
I think it's a combination of things. The bottom line is, here's what it won't look like: people storming the Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2025. What did they learn about Jan. 6? It was too chaotic. It was too late. It looked too illegitimate. The key to all this is that it has to look legitimate for them to really win. Storming a building does not look legitimate.
But what were they right about? That state legislators play a big role when it comes to the Electoral College. Not just through through traditional voter suppression, in rigging these districts through gerrymandering. They can also try different ways to maximize their chance of winning the electoral college long before you get to Jan. 6 so it looks legitimate, unlike Jan. 6 did last year.
One thing that happened after 2012 is that they proposed — of course, only in the states where it would benefit them — that you calculate the Electoral College based on congressional district, not the overall popular vote. That would flip Michigan, in a world of gerrymandered districts, at least, basically superimposing gerrymandering onto the Electoral College count. Wisconsin would also be a great example. It's a very gerrymandered congressional map that would take a state where a Democrat wins overall but if you go to the congressional districts, Republicans win the electoral vote majority. There is some precedent for that right now, because you get votes in Maine and Nebraska out of congressional districts. There's also a potential legal challenge going back to the one person, one vote principle. But that's something they've already talked about and there have been bills proposed in some states to do that.
That's something we've seen floated in the past. I actually wrote about it in 2014. But there are new and even wilder ideas you talk about.
This was fringe only a couple years ago, the idea that legislators can basically do whatever they want when it comes to the Electoral College. If there was a close election, and they claimed, like Trump tried to do, that it was illegitimate, the legislature could simply say, "We think that's the wrong result, we're going to change the outcome." If you read some of these new Supreme Court justices' thinking, going back to Clarence Thomas in Bush v. Gore, that was sort of what this John Eastman memo was about: A state legislature can step in and determine the Electoral College vote, and no one can challenge it. I guarantee you, that sort of legal thinking is currently being circulated around the states, and some are pushing it forward as law itself, and potential secretaries of state are running on it.
So they're going to do the traditional stuff. But they're also going to do everything they can to figure out this Electoral College stuff again before you have a vice president counting the votes on Jan. 6. That's why we need to be ready for the next battle. I'm glad we honored and thought seriously about the anniversary of Jan. 6, but the best way to think about it is to stop the next version, which will be far more sophisticated than what we saw one year ago.
That's a good lead-in to talking about the third part of your book, which is about ways of fighting back. And you start with talking about the Guarantee Clause, which not enough people know about.
It's the only part where I risk being academic. My goal was to make sure this is very readable, but every single thing I just talked about was of great concern to the founders. I know some people will say, "Well, the founders did terrible things," and yes, they did. But they also wrote the Constitution. They thought "rich interests" or monarchical interests would take the very powers I described in statehouses and use them to take over the country. They were so worried that they put in the Constitution something called the Guarantee Clause, which literally says, "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government." It's in the same area as protecting against foreign invasion. Meaning the federal government must step up and protect that every state in this country has essentially what we call today a small-d democratic government.
To me, that should shape what happens in Congress. This is not just some other policy debate. When you take an oath to the Constitution of the United States as a U.S. senator or House member or president, you are taking an oath to guarantee that every state in this country has democratic governance, just like you'd stop a foreign invader. That's why when I watch this debate over the filibuster, it shapes the debate. "Shall" is the strongest word in law, "guarantee" is about as strong as it gets.
So when I watch these people fuss about, "Well we we can't do it unless a bunch of Republicans do it," no! Your oath is your oath. You took an oath to uphold the Guarantee Clause, which means if there are states in this country who are falling away from democracy — and many of them are, like mine — you have to do something about it, or you're violating your oath to the Constitution. There is no better grounding to carve out the filibuster for voting rights and democracy than the Guarantee Clause. It's telling you that, as a senator, you have a duty to protect democracy.
So you have like 30 steps in terms of things that can be done, and that's too many for us to go into here. Pick one or two themes, because there are some echo in different steps in different ways.
I read a lot of books. and I normally put them down and they might have been interesting but I don't do anything. So I really wanted to say, "If you put this book down and don't do anything different, I've failed." I try to break this down into not just the big stuff but something people can do every single day in their corner of the world to lift up democracy, because that's what it's going to take.
I start with the federal stuff and it's essential, but not enough, that the federal government protect voting rights. The Freedom to Vote Act in the Senate right now does so much. I also say the federal government has to do some other things that I won't go into here, but there's no protection against corruption in states are locked in by one party, so we need a lot more corruption enforcement from the feds in states like Ohio. A lot of the way democracy is being attacked is actually through substance, like that crazy law in Texas. I think we need to federalize rights that are getting caught up in these antidemocratic efforts, be they labor rights, be they Roe v. Wade.
But then then I'm going to the next level down, which is not through law, but politics. I believe we have to really rethink politics right now, and those for democracy — and I don't think that's only Democrats, although Democrats are the big part of it — have to reorient our thinking. This is a long battle for democracy, the way that John Lewis and the suffragists thought about it way back when. It's a long battle.
What does that entail?
It should dramatically change how we fight that battle. We will lose that battle if all we do on our side is fight in swing states every couple of years for certain Senate seats and Electoral College votes, while they're fighting democracy in 50 states every year. We have to rethink our approach, to do what they're doing. Democracy must be protected in every state, every year, in every office that has some lever over democracy. We have to make that adjustment.
That sounds hard, and one thing we must do is decide what resources must follow that adjustment. If you took a rounding error of the billion dollars spent to win a presidential election, for example, and divided that up among 50 states over four years, you would actually have serious investment in those statehouse races and other races. Now my guess is some of those big donors would say "This is crazy. We can't do that and not give to the presidential race." And my answer would be, "That's what the Koch brothers did, and it worked." Not only will you protect democracy much more effectively, you'll do better in the presidential race down the road as you built up some support.
That's already been proven in Georgia, hasn't it?
Stacey Abrams lost in 2018, but remember her speech where she didn't concede, but she acknowledged she had lost? She said "We made progress," and people probably looked at her and went, "What? You didn't win!" Well, she knew she had registered more voters and inspired more voters — every door-knock was a new voter excited. She was right, and two years later Georgia was blue. Stacey Abrams has thought about democracy as a long game in Georgia her entire life, and that's why she succeeded. She didn't give up on everything after one bad cycle. She knew it was a long game.
A long game also means that individual candidates at the statehouse level, for example, even if they lose are contributing, and they need to be rewarded and praised for that. Too often we let a candidate run in a bad district and when they lose we walk away. If it's a long game and they're on the side of democracy, they need to be celebrated. Their run could in the long run be the difference in lifting other candidates. I go through many examples of how that happens.
In a big-picture frame, there's a lot of disagreements to be had on a lot of issues, but don't let disagreements on those issues lead to civil wars among those who all support democracy. One of the things I go through in the book is that so much of what I'm talking about are lessons learned from what led to Jim Crow. Going into Jim Crow, a lot of people who agreed on stopping things in the South — stopping the KKK and the resurgence of white supremacy — let all their disagreements on other issues get in the way of that, and they ultimately lost.
My point here is, if there are Republicans we disagree with that support democracy, welcome aboard. We'll figure the other stuff out later. But if you're for democracy, we need to work together. That's why I've actually really enjoyed — for all the criticism, the Lincoln Project has been very good at spreading the word about what I'm trying to say. That also means that progressives and moderate Democrats, yeah, we disagree on the issues. But if we're on the same page on democracy, to unify there is much harder than any disagreement you allow to get between you.
I worry that we're going to get into 2022 and we know the Senate seats and House seats are important, but if we don't do everything else we're not getting to the root cause, which is the statehouses, the most undemocratic institutions that eating away at everything else.
There's new talk of, "Well, we won't pass a voting rights act, but we'll do the Electoral College Act." If we fall for that, it's because we're not thinking about the long game. If we say, "Yeah, we'll correct for the presidential election, but we'll let you get away with all the attacks on voting rights at the state level again," that would again be a perfect example where the other side is protecting their long game, but we fall for the thing that deals with what we've always cared about, almost blindly and solely, which is the presidency. Not seeing the long game gives them another massive victory.
You conclude with a chapter on what individuals can do. As you describe it, there's quite a lot.
Each person and organization, I believe, needs to figure out how they can add to their own personal mission statement or their organizational mission statement how, in everything they do every day, they try to lift democracy. Add that to your New Year's resolution. If there are companies that are helping democracy, not hurting it, spend your resources there. Don't go around the paywall if there's a state paper that's covering the statehouse well. Thank God! You're lucky they're there. Subscribe! Keep them going! Reward those who are lifting democracy!
If you're in Georgia or Ohio, get involved in registering voters. If you run a homeless shelter, are you registering everybody who comes to your shelter every time they come through there? If you're the mayor of the city and you run rec centers and health clinics, are you registering people? They're attacking your voters through purging. You have an obligation to lift those voters up. Everyone can play a role. We know that there are people attacking democracy every single day. We love that we have people like Stacey Abrams out there protecting it. But we can't we can't leave it all to her.
It also means figuring out who your state representative is and never letting a state rep going unchallenged, especially if they're attacking democracy. There's a whole array of things everyone can do to push back for democracy. They may just think it's bigger than them, but there's steps that everyone can do, and if we all did them together it would make a massive difference.
I like to end by asking, what's the most important question I didn't ask? But in this case I'm aware of so many. I'd rather ask if there's one more thing you'd like to emphasize.
Well, the other thing we all can do is wake other people up to it. I've gotten so many responses to my book like, "Oh my God, it's a lot worse than I realized!" The more you can educate everyone you know — in your family, on your bandwidth — please do it. Because I'm worried sick that people just aren't seeing this for what it is. If you think it's bad, the truth is, it's worse than you can actually see.
A Progressive Call to Arms: Laboratories of Democracy
The Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Throughout the history of our nation, this amendment has empowered state and local governments across America to make a difference in their communities without the help of Washington.
In America’s early years, power was more concentrated in the hands of these state and local governments. Separate from the entire Union, each state could try out different political, social, and economic policies. This phenomenon is what inspired Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to write in 1932 that “a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.”
In the early 20th century, no state better embodied this “laboratory of democracy” moniker than Wisconsin, which experimented with new, progressive state policies, and no person was more responsible for those policies and their legacy than Robert La Follette. A member of the Republican Party and icon of the Progressive movement, La Follette led the charge to pass policies in Wisconsin that protected workers’ rights, instituted direct primaries, protected the state’s forests, and broke up large corporations. His actions also furthered the discussion and implementation of progressive policies on the national stage, as he served multiple terms in Congress, first in the House of Representatives then in the Senate.
However, as the 20th century progressed, policy experimentation at the state level stalled.
https://harvardpolitics.com/laboratories-of-democracy/
North Carolina
https://www.ibanet.org/article/327CF0ED-6883-41AA-9E37-EB19344DEBBB
State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States -- and the Nation by Alex Hertel-Fernandez
https://www.amazon.com/State-Capture-Conservative-Activists-Businesses/dp/0190870796/ref=asc_df_0190870796/
Excerpt about Centralized Power: How the state legislatures manipulate the federal government above them and the local county and city politics below them from;
Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the
Lines by David Pepper
https://www.amazon.com/Laboratories-Autocracy-Wake-Up-Behind-Lines/dp/1662919573
The Wide, Deep Power of State Legislatures
Don’t let the TV ads fool you. Governors and members of Congress dominate the airwaves during election season. Meanwhile, you only receive a late mailer or two from your state rep—maybe some cheaply produced digital and cable ads in the final weeks. While a winning governor might have her victory speech aired live on television, a state rep is lucky if her win slides by on the results ticker below. But what that imbalance of ads and coverage doesn’t tell you is that the heart of state government rests with that legislative candidate whom you hardly hear from, or about.
Let’s take a look at Ohio as an example. It’s not subtle—while Article I of the Ohio Constitution lays out a Bill of Rights, the first Article that follows grants power to the Ohio legislature. And when Ohio’s founders, suspicious of centralized authority in an executive,64 wrote Article II back in 1803, they went all in, establishing the bicameral General Assembly as by far the strongest part of Ohio government. Beyond broad legislative power, legislators could serve unlimited number of terms and make executive as well as judicial appointments; Ohio’s governor had neither appointment authority nor a veto over legislation. Compared to the powerful legislature, the governor “was a figurehead.”65
Since Ohio’s founding, two new constitutions and various amendments added term limits (eight years for both house and senate members), gave the governor a veto, and removed the power of appointment of executive officeholders and judges from the General Assembly, instead granting that power to the governor, or the people via elections.66 But a hard-nosed look at the structure and functioning of government makes it clear that the legislature remains the strongest player in Ohio politics. Across the country, the same largely holds true. A few states have granted governors more power over budgeting, but for the most part, state legislatures are in the driver’s seat.
The core function of the legislature is to set the state’s budget every year or two years. Ohio’s Constitution makes clear that “[n]o money shall be drawn from the state treasury, except in pursuance of a specific appropriation, made by law.”67 Made by law, meaning, approved by the legislature. Now, of course, a governor proposes and signs that budget. But without the legislature’s approval, the governor and every other aspect of Ohio government simply can’t function. And if it has a supermajority, with the power to override the governor’s veto, the legislature essentially drives the budget from the start. He proposes it, they pass whatever they want, and if he vetoes it, they override it—it’s their budget.
And to give a sense of what that means, let’s look at the biggest items in state budgets. In Ohio’s budget, similar to most states, the biggest ticket items are Medicaid (49.3% in the 2022/23 budget) and primary and secondary education (21.8%), followed by higher education (7.3%), corrections and the criminal justice system (7.3%), health and human services (4.5%), and other items, including support for local government, economic development, transportation, environmental protection, natural resources/parks and other items.68 That’s a hefty portfolio of key issues.
Beyond the power of setting the budget, the General Assembly establishes state law and policy on virtually every major issue impacting the day-to-day lives of residents, commerce, and affairs of government at all levels. From the criminal justice system (criminal law is largely a state matter), to taxation, to regulation of businesses, to health care, the legislature is in the driver’s seat. And if they have a veto-proof supermajority, no one else is even in the car.
Federal Government?
“Ok. I get it,” you’re saying. “The statehouse is important. But not as important as the federal government.”
Yes and no.
Of course, there are functions the federal government performs that states don’t. The military. Foreign policy. All sorts of federal programs and entitlements and support to Americans. Aid that flows back to the states and local governments and schools. All critical, of course.
But back in the states, much of the federal funding passes to local communities and citizens by way of state government. About a third of Ohio’s budget is federal money passing through, largely for health care but also other items.69 Much of those funds have strings and mandates attached. But large streams of federal money leave wide discretion for states to determine how to spend. And statehouses can also decide whether or not to accept those dollars in the first place. Want to benefit from the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid? Better call your state rep to make sure it happens in your state.
Local Government?
“Well, what about local government?” you ask. “Don’t they have their own powers? Ohio has 88 counties with their own commissions and governments. Cities too. Mayors and commissioners are always are on the news talking about their work.” As a former county commissioner, I can assure you county governments do a lot of good. I enjoyed my time at Hamilton County, and felt good about the public service I was able to do. But in Ohio and most states, counties are formally an administrative arm of the state. Counties don’t write their own laws, but must operate within the defined powers granted to them by . . . the state legislature. They have discretion over the size of certain tax and fee rates—they can add levies as well—and then they have discretion on how to spend that mix of revenue on a menu of key services (courts, corrections, social services, etc.). But the lion’s share of what is funded by counties is governed by state mandates through state law. And the broader framework in which they do all their work is governed by state law. Note: “state law” translates into “the state legislature is in charge.”
“Well, what about cities? Don’t they have their own charters and laws? Their own budgets?”
Good question. And a more complicated answer.
In Ohio and other states, many cities do have their own charters, or constitutions. And municipalities indeed set their own separate budgets to pay for services they provide, which are funded via a mix of revenue streams set by City Hall (but again confined by what state law allows). And, unlike counties, they also enjoy certain powers of self-government known as “home-rule.” Specifically, the Ohio Constitution allows municipalities “to exercise all powers of local self-government and to adopt and enforce within their limits such local police, sanitary and other similar regulations, as are not in conflict with general laws.”70
But that final phrase—“are not in conflict with general laws”—adds the rub. In recent decades, the Ohio General Assembly has taken a highly expansive view of when it can overrule local laws because they conflict with state laws. Sounds like some arcane legal debate, right? Not quite. Unless you consider issues like the minimum wage, gun safety, or the environment to be arcane.
Here’s how it works. Let’s say an Ohio city passes its own law increasing the minimum wage within its boundaries. If the state disagrees, the state can swoop in and pass a law saying cities can’t raise the minimum wage within only their boundaries—that only the state can pass a minimum wage at the level it desires (much lower than the city’s proposed level). Because the city’s wage level conflicts with the state’s, the city’s law would be void. This has happened again and again: the General Assembly has issued statewide regulations trumping local ordinances, and the courts have backed them up. So, while cities can pass their own ordinances, and can define misdemeanor crimes within their jurisdiction, the state can trump much of that work.
Other Statewide Elected Officials?
“But I barely know these people. What do the state officials I see on all those TV ads do? You know, big shots like governor, secretary of state and attorney general? Aren’t they in charge??”
Yes, governors and the others lead very important offices, with major responsibilities. But again, so much of what they do is subject to the legislature.
First, the General Assembly writes the laws that define the scope of each office’s powers, as well as the laws that each of these offices must follow and enforce. Those statewide officials must operate within the ambit provided by those laws. In some cases, when there is an open-endedness in the law, a statewide official may have discretion to act in ways not precisely described by state law—but just as with cities above, if the legislature is not pleased, it can enact new laws forbidding that very action. And they do exactly that.
Second, the General Assembly sets the budget for each of these officials. Each must come before the legislature every budget cycle and present her or his plans and goals. And, except for the governor (who can veto the budget), the other officials have no recourse at all to the budget the legislature grants them. They simply must accept it.
So, not only does the legislature have direct control over many aspects of these offices, but the realpolitik of a state capital is that all this control gives legislatures leverage over these officeholders in so many other ways. Remember this for later.
Power over Elections
Importantly, legislatures wield especially hefty power when it comes to the heart of both our federal- and state-level democracies: they establish almost the entire framework of how elections are run. And unlike other powers the state grants legislatures, this power is enshrined in Article I of the United States Constitution itself, which provides: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof[.]”71
Just some examples of what this means. Outside of the Constitutionallymandated November federal election date, the legislature sets the dates of elections. This means legislatures establish the broader window of voting— whether or not voters can vote early, for how long, and how. They can enhance or limit voting in all sorts of other ways.
Yes, in states like Ohio, a secretary of state has some discretion in managing an election within that broader legal framework, issuing directives to guide local elections officials across the state. But again, if the legislature is not pleased by a directive, it can override it by passing a new law. (For example, with the legislature’s new drop box law, all future secretaries of state would be barred from adding drop boxes).
And of course, those legislators set the secretary of state’s budget. So, they can condition those funds on their whims—as they did when they made clear in 2020 that the secretary of state could not use funds they allocated to pre-pay postage for absentee ballots.
There’s one area where state legislatures also possess unique power—and that is the role reserved for them when it comes to electing presidents. Back to the Constitution, which says: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress . . . .”72
And which entity determines how each state “appoints” those electors?
The governor? Nope.
The secretary of state? Nope.
The attorney general? Nope.
The state legislature? Bingo!
So, not only do state legislatures lay out the time, place and manner of every election in their state—with the power to overrule the secretary of state’s discretion whenever they want—they actually determine how a state chooses its presidential electors. Most simply apportion all electors to the winner of the popular vote in that state, while Maine and Nebraska do it by Congressional district. But it’s the decision of the legislature that determines it.
Drawing Legislative Districts
There’s another pivotal area of democracy where state legislatures play the central role. Every ten years, the boundaries that make up the districts of the U.S. House of Representatives must be redrawn to accommodate the new population totals of each state. It’s a multi-step process. First, at the beginning of each decade, the Census counts and announces the total population of each state. Second, a federal formula in the Constitution apportions the number of House districts that each state will have for the coming decade. But where the rubber really hits the road is step three—drawing the districts themselves. And that responsibility falls back on the states.
And how do states do this? Most commonly, through their legislatures. To be clear, Supreme Court decisions and other federal laws add some legal restrictions to the process. But it ultimately falls back on state legislatures to shape equal-sized districts that comprise the allocated number of seats for the decade. As they say in politics, they draw the district map. Even after a wave of reforms to this process, state legislatures still control the process in the vast majority of states.
Then there is the parallel issue of drawing the district lines for the state legislatures themselves, also done every decade. Sounds like a recipe for trouble to have state legislators drawing their own districts, right? It is. So some states have added a few wrinkles to water down such a blatant conflict of interest. But most state legislatures retain direct control in drawing their own lines for each decade.
Like I Said, Powerful
So, when I say that state legislatures have both broad and deep power, on issues of great import and on crucial aspects of our democracy, do you see what I mean? They set the budget for everything. They pass laws on every topic. They have direct control or major leverage over statewide officials, and a lot of say over what happens to federal monies and policies within their state. They can overrule local governments on any number of topics.
And when it comes to democracy itself, they set the rules and construct the playing field of elections from everything to state office, to Congress, to the presidency of the United States.
That’s some serious mojo.
Now here’s the problem.
Too few know it.
Even fewer know who the heck most of these people are. (And as ensuing chapters will show, too many of those who do know it are taking advantage of it for all the worst reasons.)...
References for this excerpt;
64 Joe Hallet and Michael F. Curtin. Ohio Politics Almanac. Michael F. Curtin, 3rd Edition. (Kent, Ohio. Kent State University Press, 2015), 2.
65 Knepper, George W. Ohio and its People. (Kent, Ohio: The Kent State University Press, 2003), 93.
66 Joe Hallet and Michael F. Curtin. Ohio Politics Almanac. Michael F. Curtin, 3rd Edition. (Kent, Ohio. Kent State University Press, 2015), 82.
67 Ohio Const. Art. II, § 22.
68 “Investing in Ohio’s Future: The Budget of the State of Ohio |
Fiscal Years 2022-2023.” Ohio.gov.
February 9, 2021.
https://archives.obm.ohio.gov/Files/Budget_and_Planning/Operating_Budget/Fiscal_Years_20222023/FY22-23%20Highlights%20Book-Final-02-09-2021.pdf; “State and Local Expenditures.” The Urban Institute. 2011.
https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/state-and-localfinance-initiative/state-and-local-backgrounders/state-and-local-expenditures
69 Iris J. Lav and Michael Leachman. “At Risk: Federal Grants to State and Local Governments.” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. March 13, 2017. https://wwgkw.cbpp.org/research/statebudget-and-tax/at-risk-federal-grants-to-state-and-local-governments
70 Ohio Const. Art. XVIII, § 3.
71 U.S. Const. Art. I, § 4, Clause 1.
72 US Const. Art. II, § 1, Clause 2.
Laboratories of Autocracy: A Wake-Up Call from Behind the
Lines by David Pepper
https://www.amazon.com/Laboratories-Autocracy-Wake-Up-Behind-Lines/dp/1662919573
ALEC: Weaponizing Statehouses as Champions of the Private over the Public
Others have told the story of ALEC’s origins, operation and influence, so I won’t re-invent the wheel here.275 But let me explain enough to show how its work dovetails into the downward trajectory of statehouses across the country. The short history is that ALEC emerged in the 1970s to wage conservative battles at the state level, starting with opposition to abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment, then shifting into business and regulatory matters.276 ALEC’s membership and activities grew, then ebbed, then grew again, largely under the radar for its first several decades. It gained more national recognition after the 2010 GOP election wave empowered so many legislatures—and governors—to implement its handiwork, which they did rapidly. Alarmed by the flurry of activity and boosted by a major leak from the inside, enterprising journalists and activists exposed far more details about ALEC in 2011.
The group is funded largely by corporations and private interest groups that make up their “members,” from the Koch Brothers network and a who’s who of major corporations and trade groups, including pharmaceutical, telecom, oil and gas, and other companies. Their membership dues and other contributions buy these private players seats at the table (not a metaphor, literally, seats at actual tables) with the other crucial half of the organization’s membership: state legislators. And not just a few legislators. But thousands of them, from every corner of the country. In 2011, the number stood at more than 2,000, between 25% to 33% of all legislators in the country,277 including many leaders of their respective state bodies.278 While the group claims to be nonpartisan, 90% of those members are Republican. What does ALEC strive for, generally? It describes its broader mission as advancing “the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism.”279 Its goal is to create “efficient, effective and accountable government that puts the people in control.” And its policies aim to “reduce the cost of everyday life and ensure economic freedom.” The conjoining of private and public interests is central to its cause: “Job creators and state legislators alike come to ALEC to offer important policy perspectives to ensure economic security and opportunity in their communities.”280 ALEC even touts that the states it works with comprise “America’s fifty laboratories of democracy.”281 “Limited government.” “Free markets.” “Economic freedom.”
“Efficiency.” Standard rhetoric. But what do the words mean in practice. Helpfully, ALEC sheds light on this in a highly specific way. Annually, it ranks states based on what it considers their economic “outlook.”282 They call it the ALEC-Laffer ranking, named after Arthur Laffer (yes, he’s from Ohio too, but also an economist famous for a theory of trickle-down economics that has never worked despite countless attempts). And the way ALEC/Laffer tabulates its rankings is instructive. Here are a few examples of how a state fares well, or poorly, under its scoring system (like golf, the lower the number, the better):
If a state doesn’t have a certain type of tax (income, property, sales, estate), it gets ranked first in that category. If it has the highest rate of that tax, it gets a 50. So, in the ALEC view, the state with the best economic outlook would be the one with no taxes. (Ask the state of Kansas how that turned out when Sam Brownback worked hard to implement that vision. Hint: it was really bad.283)
If a state does have an income tax, the more progressive the tax is, the lower it ranks. So, if a multi-millionaire pays the same percentage income tax as a minimum wage worker, as in South Dakota, the state gets an “attaboy” with the best score possible—a one. If the state requires those who make more to pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes, its ranking suffers.
If a state has laws imposing hard caps on its spending, its ranking improves. If it doesn’t, its ranking falls. Never mind that such laws have been disastrous when attempted, and rejected again and again by voters.284
States lose points if they have more workers in the public sector. More cops, firefighters, teachers, nurses, professors? Sorry, that’ll cost some points. Lay them off? Congrats—a state’s prospects just rose. This also means that if a state shifts public jobs, like corrections officers, to the private sector (such as ALEC member Corrections Corporations of America), or lays off public teachers to support for-profit virtual schools or private vouchers, it rises in ALEC’s ranking.
If a state has lifted its minimum wage above the federal wage, ALEC docks its ranking. The higher the wage, the worse. But the closer a state gets to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour, the higher its ranking. Think about that: ALEC considers a baseline wage of $15,000 a year to be a strong indicator of a state’s economic “outlook.”
And consistent with that low-wage preference, if a state has a law on the books that guts collective bargaining (misleadingly known as “right to work” laws), you get rewarded with a one; if you don’t have that law, you get hammered with a 50. So, failing to attack unions leaves a mark.
Bottom line: in ALEC’s view, gutting the public sector while attacking workers and wages is how a state positions itself for economic success. No taxes, and to the extent you have them, regressive taxes, are keys to prosperity. So, ALEC sets out to create these conditions in states around the country. (Note: consistent with Arthur Laffer’s own predictive (lack of) success over 40 years, the “economic prospect” ranking of a state often conflicts with the actual economic performance of that state, even using ALEC’s own numbers. Take the state of Washington. Due to a high minimum wage, the absence of a “right to work” law, above-average public employment, and other factors, ALEC ranked Washington between 35 and 40 in terms of its economic prospects over seven years. Yet in 2021, its actual performance was third best in the nation according to ALEC itself, with the second highest GDP growth in the nation over the prior decade.285 On the flip side, Wyoming scored in the top ten in terms of its economic prospects almost every year of ALEC’s rankings, including second in 2020. But its actual performance in 2021 was 44th.286 Go figure.)
So that’s the ALEC vision for state success, however poorly it actually predicts success. How does it make that vision a reality? It’s not registered as a lobbyist, as lobbyists in capital cities or D.C. are. It’s not a corporation, but a non-profit, so the money it raises from corporations is tax-deductible. It doesn’t dole out political contributions, although it raises a lot of money from those that do. It’s been labeled a “dating service” between private companies and public officials happy to do their bidding, but that sounds so innocent, and falsely implies monogamy.
You’ve likely heard of a puppy mill. Perhaps the best description used for ALEC is a “bill-mill,” where corporations and politicians conspire together to generate reams of so-called “model” legislation just like that template on how to destroy municipal broadband. Legislators then introduce that prefabricated legislation back in statehouses when the time is right—again, as they did with the broadband ban in Ohio.287 In 2011, Governing Magazine estimated that more than 1,000 ALEC-generated bills emerged in statehouses around the country, with about 20% becoming law.288 A separate article put the average number of bills introduced a year at 1,500.289
It’s a safe bet that more residents of states know who their state legislator is than know what ALEC is. So how does ALEC manage to get so many laws introduced and passed with so few knowing? To give credit where credit is due, ALEC’s leadership developed a keen understanding of the incentives and temptations that exist in state legislatures, and how to take full advantage of them. Attentive readers will even recognize a number of features from Part One of this book.
First, forget a single “bunker.” Most of ALEC’s work takes place through meetings in multiple “bunkers” several times a year. But in ALEC’s case, the hotel conference rooms are far from the state capitals of the participating legislators. Once in those bunkers, ALEC utilizes a formal committee/“task force” process to draft its laws. Each task force comprises both public officials and representatives of private corporations and trade groups, and is co-chaired by one of each. Through these task forces, the group churns out law after law that satisfies both the legislators and the private representatives around the table. Their work is put up for a vote, with the public officials and corporate representatives each enjoying an equal vote.290 In case the power dynamic isn’t already clear, the private cochair has an absolute veto on each task force’s proposals291—meaning nothing goes forward without the private sector sign-off.
Even though the laws drafted in these rooms often end up becoming real laws in states across the country—and the process mirrors a public legislative process—the distant bunker approach is one of many ways ALEC ensures secrecy. ALEC also keeps its large membership a secret.292 It keeps hidden the materials that go into drafting its “model laws,” and urges members not to take photos or copies of draft materials.293 Until the surge of attention and that huge leak of documents (the leaker was from Ohio, by the way) blew the doors open in 2011, it kept its “model laws” secret as well. And it still keeps the actual doors of its task force meetings closed. Reporters and advocates who’ve tried to observe the law-making sessions in action have been escorted away—just ask the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who was “quickly regurgitated from the belly of the beast” by security.294 Or the Arizona Republic reporter who tried but failed to crash the party several years later.295 The ALEC process also imports its secrecy home to the states of its member-legislators. As with that broadband law, its bills often emerge out of the blue, without any public discussion, and no one acknowledging authorship. Even statehouse colleagues often don’t know of the origin of ALEC-generated laws they are asked to vote on.296 And this also allows major players in the ALEC process to deny any involvement when an ALEC-generated law sparks inconvenient controversy in a state; for example, AT&T denied knowledge or support of the Ohio broadband bill297 even though it was actively part of ALEC’s telecom and other work.298
Beyond the basic process itself, ALEC slathers on other accoutrements to maximize success. ALEC’s meetings don’t involve field trips to struggling communities so these lawmakers can best understand their needs (i.e. like more broadband) and what legislation will help. No, these trips are to first-class destinations: Orlando. Salt Lake City. New Orleans. Scottsdale. San Diego. Austin. Denver. All places that would excite wannabe-jet setters like Cliff Rosenberger more than driving back home.
Even better, the lawmakers don’t pay for the jaunts. As Governing noted: “Not only do legislators often find their attendance at ALEC meetings paid for through corporate “scholarships,” but once they arrive, they are wined and dined and golf-coursed by the group’s private-sector members.”299 Those ‘scholarships’ and other legislators’ travel expenditures totaled around $4 million between 2006 and 2011 alone, funded by pharmaceutical companies, AT&T, Verizon, and others.300 And what do these scholarships pay for? Air fare, hotel rooms for families, meals, drinks, baseball games, golf, and the like.301
Then throw in another crucial step. While ALEC itself doesn’t give political contributions to its countless legislative members, those funding ALEC are happy to. Between 1990 and 2011, Governing found that ALEC corporate members gave approximately $200 million to state level candidates and another $85 million to state parties.302 The incentive is clear: keep ALEC happy, and you raise a lot more money than you can back in Clarksville or Manchester.
ALEC also understands that many legislators are new to state government—or new to government entirely—and usually there for short stints. Most have little experience in the subjects on which they make decisions, and their staffs are small. So, the organization brings its own research and “experts” to the table to help educate the legislators. As is the case back in state capitals, the private players are the experts, and they’re definitely not term limited. The term “scholarship” itself underscores who’s being educated, and who’s doing the educating. And in grant proposals, ALEC suggested that most state legislators “lack the staff and resources to be truly informed on all these issues.”303 But that educating goes beyond the task force meetings themselves. ALEC experts will parachute into states once its members present legislation back in state capitals. What many don’t reveal publicly is that they served as private members of the ALEC task force that wrote the model law for which they’re testifying. USA Today uncovered one asbestos defense lawyer who testified as an “expert” in 13 different states, but never revealed he was part of the ALEC task force that wrote the bills helping his corporate clients’ cause.304
Take a step back and think about the tab for active ALEC members. (Not the legislators, whose annual dues are $100 for two years and get so much paid for,305 but the private side). They pay annual membership dues —starting at between $12,000 and $25,000, and far higher depending on what access they get.306 They pay $5,000 more to sit on a task force, which secures them a vote equal to a legislator.307 They make contributions to ALEC legislator-members around the country. And together, they dole out millions more in “scholarships” to fly thousands of politicians to nice cities, stay in fancy hotels and gorge on fine meals. They then shepherd those politicians into closed-door conference rooms they’re also paying for and entering.
What is all this buying them? In reality?
A seat at the same table as those legislators. Not simply access. Not just to give their opinion. But a coveted spot at the table to actually “write” laws together—as if everyone at the table was elected to do so—and with rules that give them at least an equal say (along with a veto).
They are legislating. Not just those elected officials. But the private donors themselves. And they’ve flown legislators in from all over the country to get them in that room so they can legislate together, as equals.
If you’re offended by the way the Ohio GOP privatized statehouse staff in the Ohio “bunker,” ALEC has done that on steroids. They’ve privatized the legislative process itself, and their private members have purchased themselves a vote equal to elected officials in that process.
It’s like those old ads from Mastercard:
Membership: $20,000
A Task Force Vote: $5,000
Scholarships: millions
Being a private legislator: priceless!
No surprise, the end result of this privatized process makes the Statehouse Grille from Chapter Three look like a cheap deli. The menu of “model” ALEC legislation is far longer—pages and pages at the fanciest restaurant in town. And it includes mostly a la carte items, where the private interests and legislators cook up the perfect meal back in the kitchen. When they’re done, they jointly serve it across the entire nation.
The list of task forces shows you the breadth of ALEC’s agenda: Communications and Technology; Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development; Energy Environment and Agriculture; Health and Human Services; Tax and Fiscal Policy; and others. Together, they generate hundreds of laws a year like the one attacking public broadband. We’ll review a few in later chapters, but the common theme is that these bills aggressively advance the interests of private players at the expense of the public good. None of them has anything to do with the people of Manchester or Urbana or Clarksville. Sadly, the elected representatives of many of these communities are the very ALEC members whose participation directly undermines their communities’ interests.
Bottom line: we have a national organization, funded by major private corporations, that has privatized the state legislative process. And it’s juiced that process to entice state legislators from across the country to be part of it all. Oh, and as we saw with Washington State and Wyoming, the baseline vision it’s striving for doesn’t have any bearing on how a state actually performs, at least when measured by broad public outcomes. Arguably, the opposite.
What could go wrong?
References for the excerpt above;
275 Hertel-Fernandez, Alexander. State Capture: How conservative
activists, big businesses, and wealthy donors reshaped the American
states—and the nation. (New York, New York: Oxford University Press.
2019).
276 Greenblatt, Alan. “ALEC Enjoys A New Wave of Influence and
Criticism.”
Governing.com
November 29, criticism.html 2011.
276 Greenblatt, Alan. “ALEC Enjoys A New Wave of Influence and Criticism.” Governing.com. November 29, criticism.html 2011. https://www.governing.com/archive/alec-enjoys-new-wave-influence-criticism.html
277 Greenblatt, Alan. “ALEC Enjoys A New Wave of Influence and Criticism.” Governing.com. November 29, 2011. https://www.governing.com/archive/alec-enjoys-new-wave-influencecriticism.html; Olsson, Karen. “Ghostwriting the Law.” Mother Jones Magazine. September/October Issue 2002. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/09/ghostwriting-law/
278 In 2009, ALEC membership included “speakers, presidents, and majority and minority leaders in 22 senates and 30 houses.” Olsson, Karen. “Ghostwriting the Law.” Mother Jones Magazine. September/October Issue 2002. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/09/ghostwriting-law/
279 “About ALEC.” Alec.org. 2021. https://www.alec.org/about/
280 “About ALEC.” Alec.org. 2021. https://www.alec.org/about/
281 “Federalism.” Alec.org. 2021. https://www.alec.org/issue/federalism/
282 “Rich States, Poor States.” richstatespoorstates.org. 2021. https://www.richstatespoorstates.org
283 Gale, William G. “The Kansas tax cut experiment.” The Brookings Institute. July 11, 2017. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/unpacked/2017/07/11/the-kansas-tax-cut-experiment/
284 “Policy Basics: Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR).” The Center of Budget and Policy Priorities. November 5, 2019. https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/taxpayer-bill-of-rights-tabor
285 “Washington.” richstatespoorstates.org. 2021. https://www.richstatespoorstates.org/states/WA/
286 “Wyoming.” richstatespoorstates.org. 2021. https://www.richstatespoorstates.org/states/WY/
287 How do we know when an item in a state comes from the ALEC menu? For years, that too was a secret, but after the 2011 surge in exposure, people figured it out. First, the legislators don’t put in much effort to change the wording, so journalists and others can track similarities between ALEC’s model bills and real bills that become law. A Brookings Institute scholar, for example, used string searches to match language from model ALEC bills and actual legislation in states to find when ALEC was behind a bill. For 2011-2012 alone, he identified 169 of ALEC’s “model bills” that generated 132 actual bills back in statehouses. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/alecs-influenceover-lawmaking-in-state-legislatures/ ProPublica created a database of these laws, and wrote a “howto” guide on how to track the connection between ALEC laws in states. Beckett, Lois. “Our Step-ByStep Guide to Understanding ALEC’s Influence on Your State Laws.” Propublica. August 1, 2011. https://www.propublica.org/article/our-step-by-step-guide-to-understanding-alecs-influence-on-yourstate-laws Other times, legislators haven’t even deleted words on model legislation that make it clear that ALEC did the work. For example, in Florida, a legislator forgot to remove the boilerplate language at the top of the bill she introduced at the legislature—so a Sunshine State bill urging a limit on federal corporate taxation also made clear that ALEC is dedicated to “Jeffersonian principles of free markets, limited government, federalism, and individual liberty….” Muzenrieder, Kyle. “Dumb Florida Legislator Accidentally Tried to Make Lobbyist Group’s Mission Statement a Law.” The Miami New Times. February 2, 2012. https://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/dumb-floridalegislator-accidentally-tried-to-make-lobbyist-groups-mission-statement-a-law-6555315 Florida residents must’ve been thrilled by the news.
288 Greenblatt, Alan. “ALEC Enjoys A New Wave of Influence and Criticism.” Governing.com. November 29, criticism.html
289 Harney, Sarah. “What Makes Alec Smart?” Governing.com. November 5, 2010. https://www.governing.com/archive/what-makes-alec-smart.html
290 Graves, Lisa. “About ALEC Exposed.”
PRWatch.org. July 13, 2011.
https://www.prwatch.org/news/2011/07/10883/about-alec-exposed
291 Nichols, John. “ALEC Exposed.” The Nation Magazine. August 1/8, 2011 Issue. https://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/7/73/Nation20110801.pdf
292 Greely, Brendan. “ALEC’s Secrets Revealed: Corporations Flee.” Bloomberg. May 3, 2012. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-05-03/alecs-secrets-revealed-corporations-flee
293 Rob O’Dell and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. “What is ALEC? ‘The most
effective organization’ for conservatives,
says Newt Gingrich.” USA Today. April 3, 2019.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03/alec-american-legislative-exchangecouncil-model-bills-republican-conservative-devos-gingrich/3162357002/
294 Millbank, Dana. “ALEC stands its ground.” The Washington Post. December 4, 2013. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-alec-stands-itsground/2013/12/04/ad593320-5d2c-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html
295 Rob O’Dell and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. “What is ALEC? ‘The most
effective organization’ for conservatives,
says Newt Gingrich.” USA Today. April 3, 2019.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03/alec-american-legislative-exchangecouncil-model-bills-republican-conservative-devos-gingrich/3162357002/
296 Olsson, Karen. “Ghostwriting the Law.” Mother Jones Magazine. September/October Issue 2002. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2002/09/ghostwriting-law/
297 Pelzer, Jeremy. “Ohio Senate GOP Budget Proposal Would Ban Municipal Broadband Programs.” cleveland.com June 14, 2021. https://www.cleveland.com/open/2021/06/ohio-senate-gopbudget-proposal-would-ban-municipal-broadband-programs.html
298 Laura Macomber and Tom Casciato. “The End of the (Wire) Line.” The Benton Institute. July 24, 2013. https://www.benton.org/headlines/end-wireline; Bruce Kushnick and Dave Rosen. “ALEC, Tech and the Telecom Wars: Killing America’s Telecom Utilities.” The Huffington Post. July 24, 2012. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/alec-tech-and-the-telecom_b_1696830
299 Greenblatt, Alan. “ALEC Enjoys A New Wave of Influence and Criticism.” Governing.com. November 29, 2011. https://www.governing.com/archive/alec-enjoys-new-wave-influencecriticism.html
300 “Buying Influence.” Alec Exposed, D.B.A Press, and Common Cause. 2012. https://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/f/fa/BUYING_INFLUENCE_Main_Report.pdf
301 “Buying Influence.” Alec Exposed, D.B.A Press, and Common Cause. 2012. 14-15. https://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/f/fa/BUYING_INFLUENCE_Main_Report.pdf
302 Greenblatt, Alan. “ALEC Enjoys A New Wave of Influence and Criticism.” Governing.com. November 29, 2011. https://www.governing.com/archive/alec-enjoys-new-wave-influencecriticism.html
303 Hertel-Fernandez, Alexander. State Capture: How conservative activists, big businesses, and wealthy donors reshaped the American states—and the nation. (New York, New York. Oxford University Press. 2019), 82.
304 Nick Penzenstadler and Rob O’Dell. “Copy, Paste, Legislate: You
elected them to write new laws. They’re letting
corporations do it instead.” USA Today. December 16, 2019.
https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2019/04/03/abortion-gun-laws-stand-yourground-model-bills-conservatives-liberal-corporate-influence-lobbyists/3162173002/
305 Rob O’Dell and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. “What is ALEC? ‘The most
effective organization’ for conservatives,
says Newt Gingrich.” USA Today. April 3, 2019.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03/alec-american-legislative-exchangecouncil-model-bills-republican-conservative-devos-gingrich/3162357002/
306 Rob O’Dell and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. “What is ALEC? ‘The most
effective organization’ for conservatives,
says Newt Gingrich.” USA Today. April 3, 2019.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03/alec-american-legislative-exchangecouncil-model-bills-republican-conservative-devos-gingrich/3162357002/
307 Rob O’Dell and Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. “What is ALEC? ‘The most
effective organization’ for conservatives,
says Newt Gingrich.” USA Today. April 3, 2019.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/04/03/alec-american-legislative-exchangecouncil-model-bills-republican-conservative-devos-gingrich/3162357002/
308 “Buying Influence.” Alec Exposed, D.B.A Press, and Common Cause. 2012. https://www.alecexposed.org/w/images/f/fa/BUYING_INFLUENCE_Main_Report.pdf
309 Millbank, Dana. “ALEC stands its ground.” The Washington Post.
December 4, 2013.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-alec-stands-itsground/2013/12/04/ad593320-5d2c-11e3-bc56-c6ca94801fac_story.html
The Guarantee Clause - Article 5, Section 4
Article 5, Section 4; The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.
The Guarantee Clause imposes limitations on the type of government a state may have. The Clause requires the United States to prevent any state from imposing rule by monarchy, dictatorship, aristocracy, or permanent military rule, even through majority vote. Instead, governing by electoral processes is constitutionally required.
...any remedy for a violation would lie with Congress or the President, not the federal judiciary. Nearly one hundred years later, the Court sweepingly declared that the guarantee of a republican form of government cannot be challenged in court. Colegrove v. Green (1946).
https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/interpretation/article-iv/clauses/42
