Horizons

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Conservatives Going After Sec. Julian Castro

One year ago, Julian Castro (former Mayor of San Antonio, TX) was sworn in as the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Many people (including this writer) assume that he is the most likely prospect to be Hillary Clinton's running mate in 2016. Apparently a lot of conservatives share that assumption because lately they have launched some interesting attacks on Castro.

First of all, there was Samuel Rosado writing in the National Review that Julian Castro was never a "real" mayor.

Julián Castro is often introduced as the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas. Presumably, journalists and the general public think of this as a major accomplishment and a useful dose of executive experience — it is, after all, a city of 1.4 million people. But San Antonio doesn’t work like most high-profile American cities, such as New York and Chicago, which are largely run by their mayors. It runs under the council-manager form of government, meaning the city council appoints a city manager who actually handles the day-to-day operations of government.

It is true that cities around the country vary in terms of the organizational structure of their government. But working with a city manager (who usually handles administrative tasks) in no way strips a mayor of their title - much less most of the associated responsibilities.

I would also point out that Sec. Castro served on the San Antonio City Council for four years and is rightly credited with some significant accomplishments as Mayor.

In 2010 Castro created SA2020, a community-wide visioning effort. It generated a list of goals created by the people of San Antonio based on their collective vision for San Antonio in the year 2020. SA2020 then became a nonprofit organization tasked with turning that vision into a reality.

In 2010 he established Cafe College, which offers college guidance to San Antonio area students. In 2012 he led a voter referendum to expand pre-kindergarten education.

But when it comes to ridiculous critiques, it will likely come as no surprise to anyone that Rep. Steve King tops the charts.

What does Julian Castro know? Does he know that I'm as Hispanic and Latino as he? pic.twitter.com/CYmNIdyqLW
— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) July 17, 2015

As I have often said, there are times when the only appropriate response to nonsense like that is to point and laugh. Apparently someone at Wikipedia had the same reaction. Mediaite caught the screen grab with King's name changed to Esteban Arnaldo "Steba" Rey.

So far the criticism of Castro has been pretty laughable. If he gets the nod as the VP nominee, I'm sure it will only escalate.

Presidential Candidates Will Need to Listen

The most recent AP-GfK poll found something interesting.

Even as the public remains closely divided about his presidency, Barack Obama is holding on to his support from the so-called "Obama coalition" of minorities, liberals and young Americans, an Associated Press-GfK poll shows, creating an incentive for the next Democratic presidential nominee to stick with him and his policies.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, by comparison, is viewed somewhat less favorably by the key voting groups whose record-setting turnout in 2008 propelled Obama to the White House and will be crucial to her own success.

Roughly two-thirds of Hispanics view Obama favorably, compared to just over half of Hispanics who say the same about Clinton. Among self-identified liberals, Obama's favorability stands at 87 percent, to Clinton's 72 percent. Half of Americans under the age of 30 view Obama favorably, compared to just 38 percent for his former secretary of state.

The findings offer a window into the factors at play as Clinton decides how closely to embrace Obama, his record and his policies in her campaign for president. Although associating herself with Obama could turn off some independent and Republican-leaning voters, electoral math and changing demographics make it critical for Democrats to turn out high numbers of Hispanics, African Americans and young voters.

From the moment Hillary Clinton officially launched her 2016 campaign, it has been clear that she is actively courting "the Obama coalition." She came out of the gate talking about things like criminal justice reform, immigration reform and voting rights - all issues that are of primary concern to people of color, especially young people. Based on reports like this, that is not an accident.

"This is the strongest start when it comes to diversity in presidential politics that I've seen and I've been doing this for over 20 years," says Jamal Simmons, a principal at The Raben Group, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm. "She is hiring Black and Latino department heads and women in important positions. It's aggressive and to be commended."

According to Simmons, it's not only the Democratic thing to do because the party says it values diversity, but it's also important to have people on her staff who come from the same communities as her prospective voters.

Ohio Rep. Marcia Fudge, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, agrees.

"The first thing [such hires] does is show our community that the campaign is concerned about who we are and what our issues are and I think that's very, very important," she said. "It also says to our community that there are people in that campaign with whom we have some genuine ability to talk to and who understand what we're talking about."

To the extent that Hillary listens to the diverse members of her staff, she is unlikely to make the same mistakes that Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders did yesterday in response to challenges from people involved in the #BlackLivesMatter movement. They will tell her things like: saying "all lives matter" is "perceived as erasure rather than inclusion" and that tackling the issue of income inequality is a necessary but insufficient way to address structural racism.

Like it or not, this presidential campaign is going to require candidates to deal with the issues that are important to people of color, and white people inherently have blind spots in those areas. It will become increasingly important for candidates to pay heed to the words of the Dalai Lama.

Trading Symbolism for Substance

Last week Democrats in the House started attaching an amendment to appropriation bills curtailing the display of Confederate flags on graves in federal cemeteries and the sale of Confederate flag in national park gift stores. When some Southern representatives objected to it, Speaker Boehner was forced to bring the whole process to a halt. On Thursday the Democrats, led by the Congressional Black Caucus, offered a compromise.

Rep. James Clyburn (S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, said Thursday that Democratic leaders will drop their push to attach flag-related amendments to appropriations bills, freeing Republicans to pursue their spending agenda, if GOP leaders will agree to consider an update to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a central part of which was gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013.

"I'm here to say to you that the members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the full Democratic Caucus are willing to sit down with the Speaker and work out a way for us to allow the proper display and utilization of ... the flag in certain instances if he would only sit down with us and work out an appropriate addressing of the amendments to the Voting Rights Act," Clyburn said during a press briefing in the Capitol.

Ever since the Supreme Court gutted sections of the Voting Rights Act, Democrats have pushed to amend the law in ways that continued to protect the franchise - especially for those who have historically faced repeated attempts to challenge their rights. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi laid out the offer Democrats have now put on the table:

"There has been an opportunity for the Republican majority not just to send a condolence card or show up at a service but to translate that into action," Pelosi said. "And we are now segueing from the conversation about the flag to a conversation about voting rights now."

This is exactly the kind of thing Rev. William Barber was talking about.

Taking down the flag is a good thing. But when we look at the voting and policy records of most of the political leaders who helped to lower it, we should be careful with equating its removal as a history-altering event. Systemic racism is alive and well; they show no intention yet of dealing with the fundamental inequalities racism still causes in our society...

Let us be clear about what’s being said: nine Black deaths may get the flag lowered, but it will not get you one pen to sign Medicaid expansion throughout the South, which would save thousands of Black lives. Black deaths will not get full voting rights, which saves Black political power and produces policies that save black, brown and poor white lives. It will not get criminal justice reform, which liberates Black lives. Nor will it get you full funding for public education, a living wage, or economic empowerment that will lift the lives of black people, minorities, and the poor. It will not get gun reform.

What Rep. Clyburn and the Congressional Black Caucus are saying is that they're willing to put aside arguments about symbolism in exchange for some substance on an issue that is the bedrock of civil rights...the right to vote.

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Stopped Clock and All That...

In the category of things I never thought I'd write, this would rank up at the top of the list: Pat Buchanan made some excellent points about the Iran deal - proving the old statement about even a stopped clock being right twice a day.

But before the party commits to abrogating the Iran deal in 2017, the GOP should consider whether it would be committing suicide in 2016.

For even if Congress votes to deny Obama authority to lift U.S. sanctions on Iran, the U.S. will vote to lift sanctions in the U.N. Security Council. And Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, all parties to the deal, will also lift sanctions.

A Congressional vote to kill the Iran deal would thus leave the U.S. isolated, its government humiliated, unable to comply with the pledges its own secretary of state negotiated. Would Americans cheer the GOP for leaving the United States with egg all over its face?

And if Congress refuses to honor the agreement, but Iran complies with all its terms, who among our friends and allies would stand with an obdurate America then?

Israel would applaud, the Saudis perhaps, but who else?

And as foreign companies raced to Iran, and U.S. companies were told to stay out, what would GOP presidential candidates tell the business community?

Would the party campaign in 2016 on a pledge to get tough and impose new sanctions? "Coercive diplomacy," The Wall Street Journal calls it.

If so, what more would they demand that Iran do? And what would they threaten Iran with, if she replied: We signed a deal. We will honor it. But we will make no new concessions under U.S. threat.

Would we bomb Iran? Would we go to war? Not only would Americans divide on any such action, the world would unite — against us.

And would a Republican president really bomb an Iran that was scrupulously honoring the terms of the John Kerry deal? What would we bomb? All the known Iran nuclear facilities will be crawling with U.N. inspectors.

Obviously Mr. Buchanan hasn't been bitten by the same tea party bug as the rest of his party when it comes to the freak-out they feel obliged to engage on anything President Obama proposes. But there are times I still wonder if these kinds of questions find their way into the minds of 2016 Republican candidates...even if they don't think they can voice them out loud. If not, they're even crazier than most of us have imagined.

I only wish that one of the venues that is scheduled to host a Republican debate would consider asking Buchanan to be the moderator. Questions like this would certainly spark a fascinating exchange.

President Obama Goes "All-In" on Criminal Justice Reform

Over this past week, President Obama gave us a trifecta on the issue of criminal justice reform. First of all, he commuted the sentences of 46 prisoners who were serving long sentences (14 of whom were sentenced to life) for non-violent drug offenses.

That makes this President's total number of commutations (89) more than the previous four presidents combined. As I've pointed out previously, that number will continue to grow over the next 18 months.

Next, President Obama addressed the NAACP's annual convention in Philadelphia and proposed his ideas for criminal justice reform:

1. Invest in early childhood education
2. Summer jobs programs for youth
3. Police reform
4. Reduce or eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug crimes
5. Offer more job training programs for prison inmates
6. Review the overuse of solitary confinement in prisons
7. Increase job opportunities

On that last point, the President made a stark comparison:

When America’s unemployment rate was 9.5 percent, when I first came into office, as it was going up, we properly recognized this is a crisis. Right now, the unemployment rate among African Americans is 9.5 percent. What should we call that? It is a crisis. And we have to be just as concerned about continuing to lift up job opportunities for these young people.

Finally, Obama became the first president to ever visit a federal prison.

After meeting with 6 inmates at the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution, the President made an extraordinary statement:

And I think we have a tendency sometimes to almost take for granted or think it’s normal that so many young people end up in our criminal justice system. It’s not normal. It’s not what happens in other countries.

What is normal is teenagers doing stupid things. What is normal is young people making mistakes. And we’ve got to be able to distinguish between dangerous individuals who need to be incapacitated and incarcerated versus young people who, in an environment in which they are adapting but if given different opportunities, a different vision of life, could be thriving the way we are.

That’s what strikes me -- there but for the grace of God. And that I think is something that we all have to think about.

And so not only was he the first president to visit a federal prison, he's probably also the first president to ever acknowledge that the line dividing his life trajectory and the inmates he visited is summed up by "there but for the grace of God go I."

As President Obama goes "all-in" on criminal justice reform, it will be interesting to watch the reaction of Republicans. As we've seen recently, many (especially at the state and local level) have signed on to the need for these kinds of reforms. In years past, their strategy of total obstruction would mean that it was now time to oppose them. Will it play out any differently on this one?

Is Symbolism Enough?

In the aftermath of the shootings in Charleston, I strongly supported the removal of the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds. But my concern has always been that too many people would assume that this symbolic gesture was a sufficient response to this horrific tragedy. Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP and leader of the Moral Mondays Movement, makes it very clear that it is not sufficient.

Taking down the flag is a good thing. But when we look at the voting and policy records of most of the political leaders who helped to lower it, we should be careful with equating its removal as a history-altering event. Systemic racism is alive and well; they show no intention yet of dealing with the fundamental inequalities racism still causes in our society.

But the power of racism has a strange endurance. This history of refusing to bring down the flag...shows that Black deaths alone are not enough to bring change. According to what some politicians and media commentators have implied, knowingly or unknowingly: Only if the murders are caused by someone who had posed for photos of himself surrounded by racist paraphernalia, and only if the deaths are accompanied by acceptable Black love and forgiveness, then it might matter. Then it passes the racist paternalistic standard and tone test. Clearly it has been said without these deaths there never would have been a debate regarding bringing the flag down. And herein lies a painful reality: Only extreme Black deaths will precede mediocre symbolic steps against past and present racism...

Much has been said about the families’ forgiveness, but in the theological and nonviolent tradition of the Movement I come from, such forgiveness should not be misinterpreted as a dismissal of the greater evil. In fact, the type of Christian forgiveness of Dylann Roof is actually a subversive forgiveness that says the nation cannot place the entirety of the blame on the individual perpetrator alone. The system and culture that produced the climate and perpetrator must also be indicted.

Let us be clear about what's being said: nine Black deaths may get the flag lowered, but it will not get you one pen to sign Medicaid expansion throughout the South, which would save thousands of Black lives. Black deaths will not get full voting rights, which saves Black political power and produces policies that save black, brown and poor white lives. It will not get criminal justice reform, which liberates Black lives. Nor will it get you full funding for public education, a living wage, or economic empowerment that will lift the lives of black people, minorities, and the poor. It will not get gun reform. Black deaths only get you the lowering of a low-down flag that should have never been up. It will get you nine pens as memorabilia and a signing ceremony at the Capitol. It will get you one final insult in the promise that an undignified flag, a symbol of hate, will be lowered “with dignity and respect” as Governor Haley promised white people still committed to the Lost Cause. And you will get this only if Black people die, and the victims’ families and extended family in the human race behave in a manner declared acceptable and ‘Christian’ by people who have supported un-Christian, immoral public policy that continues to institutionalize economic, racial and political inequality.

We cannot allow this narrative to stand unchallenged. If we do, we are complicit in the furtherance of a chilling truth that Black lives don’t matter . . . only Black death matters.

The flag has been lowered and much of America has moved on from this story. But as we work towards Medicaid expansion, voting rights, criminal justice reform, funding for education, living wages and gun reform, we demonstrate that it is not only those nine Black deaths that matter - it is Black lives that matter.