People Of Franke Wilmer's Character Are More Needed In Congress Than Ever... But Steve Israel Has Another Calculus He Uses

Franke Wilmer is an author, a professor of International Law and International Relations at Montana State University and a Democrat representing Bozeman in the Montana House of Representatives. She also served as Governor Brian Schweitzer's Chairwoman of the Montana Human Rights Commission. If you don't live in Montana, you still may remember Franke as the progressive candidate running for the at-large Montana House seat in 2012. Ignoring Howard Dean's message that "you can't beat a Republican by being a Republican," the Beltway Democratic Establishment backed some rich corporate shill in the primary, who outspent Franke and was then, predictably, crushed by a Republican. Alan Grayson: "If the public has a choice between a real Republican and a fake Republican running as a Democrat, they'll choose the real Republican every time." Thanks, Steve Israel.

Before the 2012 election, I had a long talk with Glenn Greenwald about who the best candidates running for Congress were in the whole country. He chose three of the Blue America-backed candidates to interview, write about and endorse: Norman Solomon, Cecil Bothwell and Franke, all very strong civil liberties backers. Here are a few paragraphs from his section on Franke:

Wilmer told us that she’s "very concerned and deeply troubled by the notion that the policy that led to the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki essentially defends the practice of extrajudicial execution," and added that the "suspension of habeas corpus for American citizens [in the NDAA] is equally troubling." She cited to us a remarkable op-ed she wrote in the Great Falls Tribune on September 12, 2001-- less than 24 hours after the attack, when most people were in full-on panic and vengeance mode-- that calmly warned of the dangers of excessive reactions. The whole op-ed is amazing: it describes her experience with war in Yugoslavia to warn how brutal and savage it is, and ends this way: "Only by the rule of law, only through a just response which punishes the individuals responsible, can we preserve what cannot be destroyed through violence, our commitment to democracy." There are all too few people demonstrating that perspective even now, more than a decade later; she was urging this on the day after the 9/11 attack.

Wilmer compares current threats to militarily attack Iran with the attack on Iraq, arguing that both are examples of invalid "preventive war" dogma; "instead," she argues, "what we need is to invest time and resources in the development of an effective and enforceable international non-proliferation regime based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty." She questions the legality of unmanned CIA drones ("Under international law weapons must be able to discriminate between civilian and military targets and drones do not do that"), and argues that drones are "military weapons" and thus "should only be used in military operations, and military operations, in turn, necessitate a declaration of war by Congress." She decries the lack of Wall Street prosecutions: "I don’t believe the investigations have been rigorously pursued, nor have those responsible been held accountable." And as former Chair of the Montana Human Rights Commission, she has worked extensively, in a not-very-friendly environment, to secure equal rights for LGBT citizens and same-sex couples.

Truly, she’s not just an extraordinary Congressional candidate but an extraordinary person. She combines impressive academic research and theory with all kinds of practical, brave real-world activism. But she’s also been an accomplished legislator, which means, as she explains in that Klein essay, that she’s quite strategic about enacting legislation. There would literally be nobody like her in Congress.

But Montanans are now burdened with a corporate whore, Steve Daines, representing them in the U.S. House instead. After losing the primary, Franke was persuaded by the Montana Democratic Party to challenge a Tea Party incumbent in a tough Bozeman swing district. Her opponent was best known for railing against people on food stamps and children getting subsidized or free lunches at school. The race had a huge turnout and she won with a bigger margin than anyone ever gets in that purple seat. Montanans are lucky she won too. With her help, the Democratic minority was able to decriminalize gay sex in the 2012 legislature! And she was instrumental in killing 6 of 7 so-called "school choice" bills and one anti-abortion bill. She also did a little heavy lifting that helped Democrats get a fix for the public pensions passed instead of letting the Republican majority privatize it.

Having served four terms, she's now termed out of the House. There are two local state Senate seats up for grabs-- an easy Democratic district and another really hard swing district. The state party is trying to get her to run in the swing district and I have a feeling she's going to do just that. Blue America hasn't endorsed many state legislators... but she's one of them. You can contribute to her campaign here. Here's a guest post she originally published in several local newspapers.

Terrorists Win If We Lose Our Democracy
by Rep. Franke Wilmer

The 9/11 attackers have won. Their goal was to provoke fear that in turn would lead Americans to destroy their own democracy. We are well on our way.

The Department of Defense defines terrorism as “The calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.” The attackers have achieved their political, religious, and ideological goals.

The U.S. government has suspended habeas corpus, commits torture on prisoners held in indefinite detention, commits extrajudicial executions of American citizens, suppresses freedom of the press, and now, we discover, engages in warrantless surveillance of millions of Americans. Most Americans probably cannot tell you where in the constitution these acts are prohibited. But those we elect ought to know-- they swear to support and defend the U.S. constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.

Many say “I’m fine with surveillance if it prevents terrorist attacks.” Fine trashing our bill of rights if it prevents terrorist attacks. Some say just the level of surveillance now-- “metadata,” emails, holding on to content for 5 years to decide whether reading it is warranted... This much is OK because it may have prevented terrorist attacks (even though they don’t know we are any safer...)

Americans believe we are exceptional. Other people in other countries have to live with their vulnerability, but we don’t. Surely we have enough power, wealth, and technology to be invulnerable. And when our power, wealth, and technology are not enough, then we will offer our civil liberties up in sacrifice to those who hold our democracy hostage. “You can have them; just don’t kill us,” we are pleading.

So which civil liberties and protections of due process should NOT be sacrificed EVEN IF doing so might prevent a terrorist attack? We cannot be in a perpetual state of war without eventually and inevitably destroying our democracy. Either we learn to live with our vulnerability, or without our civil liberties.

On September 11 2001, in an editorial published the next day, I wrote:

“Democracy requires tolerance; war intolerance. Democracy cannot exist without the rule of law; war relies on violence that is always, to some degree, indiscriminate. Democracy asks us to regard each person and judge the merits of his opinion as a unique individual; war has room only for enemies and allies. Democracy rests on a faith in our common humanity; war always dehumanizes someone. Clearly this was an act of war on the part of the attackers, but we cannot respond in kind without abandoning democracy ourselves, and that would be a victory for these faceless perpetrators.”

There will be other terrorist attacks. Even the complete destruction of civil liberties will not prevent it. It could be any sort of attack. We have already gone from “anyone can be the enemy” to “everyone is the enemy.” Our government collects information on everyone, without probable cause, without judicial review. When there is another attack, those who accept the current level of surveillance will tell us that it was obviously, inadequate. And then we will destroy whatever is left of our democracy at that point.

There is a metaphor for the slow destruction of something we hold dear: Drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will scream and try to escape. But drop it into a pot of cold water on a stove set to slow heat, and it will never see the boil coming. We did not lose all of our civil liberties on September 12 2001, but most of us did not see the boil coming either. It’s time to scream. It’s time to get out of the pot. Repeal the Patriot Act. Demand that your congressional representatives protect your civil liberties or be defeated in the next election by someone who will.