Big Win For Automatic Voter Registration In Illinois-- Is Maine Next?

The Illinois legislature was working on Monday-- and in a very bipartisan way. The House has 67 Democrats and 51 Republicans but the vote on Robyn Gabel's Automatic Voter Registration bill was 115-0. The Senate had already passed i-- also unanimously. (It had passed last year as well but was vetoed by Gov. Bruce Rauner (which is exactly what the grotesque Jersey slob did when the legislature in his stated passed it last year), claiming their could be fraud. His concerns were addressed in the current wording of the bill. The new law will add over a million new voters to the rolls in Illinois.

SB1933 reforms current registration laws so that whenever an eligible Illinois resident applies for, updates or renews a driver’s license or state ID, he or she will be automatically registered to vote or have their registration updated, unless they opt out. It also creates a similar program for other state agencies, such as the Department of Human Services and Department of Natural Resources.

...“Automatic voter registration, as passed this year, will allow technology to help make our elections more secure, more efficient, and more open to all citizens of Illinois,” said Rep. Fortner [R]. “This bill will create a seamless process for citizens to register and keep their registration up-to-date as they move. At the same time, it respects the privacy of those in the system and those who choose not to participate.”

Sen. Andy Manar (D-Bunker Hill) and Rep. Robyn Gabel (D-Evanston) first introduced the proposal in 2015, which passed in both the House and Senate with broad bipartisan support before Governor Rauner issued a veto.

 “I am proud that my colleagues in the House voted to bring automatic voter registration to Illinois, making voter registration more modern, efficient and accessible to all eligible voters,” said Rep. Gabel. “This legislation is a model of bipartisan cooperation and I urge Governor Rauner to sign it into law.”

“We retooled parts of this plan based on suggestions from both sides of the aisle. There’s no plausible reason Gov. Rauner shouldn’t sign it the moment it lands on his desk,” Sen. Manar said. “If he is serious about modernizing Illinois government and saving money for taxpayers, then automatic voter registration is an excellent way to do both.”

Oregon was the first state to pass Automatic Voter Registration (2015) and the increase in voter registration has been huge. California followed several months later and in 2016 West Virginia, Vermont, Connecticut, Georgia, DC and Alaska passed it as well, Alaska in a referendum. This year Colorado approved it, as did Nevada-- although, again, a Republican governor (Brian Sandoval) vetoed it.

Almost every state in the Union has an Automatic Voter Registration bill pending this year except for 11 states controlled by the Republican Party: Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, both Dakotas, Wisconsin, Kansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, North Carolina and New Hampshire. Bob Brady (D-PA) introduced federal legislation that would automatically register ever eligible American citizen to vote in federal elections but no Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors, dooming it until 2018 when Democrats are likely to win back control of the House.

Meanwhile, the great state of Maine may be next to pass this. It won in the House last Thursday 74-68, all the Democrats and independents plus one Republican in favor and the rest of the Republicans opposed. Shenna Bellows is the sponsor in the state Senate which is scheduled to vote today. She needs to get one Republican to vote with the Democrats to pass it. It's a bill, though, that Governor LePage, who opposes expanding the franchise, is pretty certain to veto. How do I know? Well, in the early 1970s Maine passed same day voter registration and the second LePage and the Republicans took control of the state government they repealed it. We asked our old friend Shenna, who was the chair of the successful drive to overturn LePage's and the GOP's repeal of same day registration, how she plans to persuade a Republican to help pass automatic voter registration today.

"Every person who supports democracy in its truest form," she told us last night, "understands that voting is foundational to democracy. In an era of voter suppression and the rise of grave threats to our democracy, it becomes all the more important that we champion measures that increase voter participation and empowerment. That’s the goal of LD1232, Maine’s automatic voter registration bill, which passed the Democratically controlled Maine House of Representatives last week and is pending for a vote in the Senate. One would think it would be unanimous. Constitutional rights shouldn’t be a partisan issue. One would hope that a Governor looking to his legacy would sign it. Alas, we’ve been down this road before. Not only has Republican Governor Paul LePage vetoed numerous measures that would have benefitted the people of Maine, he’s actively campaigned against voting rights. Indeed, he was a leader in a 2011 voter suppression effort when Republicans controlled the legislature and repealed Maine’s election day registration law, a law that had been on the books for almost forty years. The people rose up in 2011. We passed a so-called “people’s veto” to restore same day voter registration via ballot measure. Governor LePage and his allies may block automatic voter registration by veto, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have options if he does. We have principle and politics on our side."


UPDATE: Maine

An amendment has made the bill into a study. Shenna just got back to us with the wording: "This amendment replaces the bill with a resolve directing the Secretary of State to study the implementation of automatic voter registration. The Secretary of State is required to submit a report to the Joint Standing Committee on Veterans and Legal Affairs by March 1, 2018." Very disappointing for everyone who was inspired by the unanimous vote of approval in Illinois yesterday.

More Update: Worse yet, it failed.The Dems were not united. Senate Democrats Bill Diamond and Dawn Hill voted against it. And the Republicans were united against it. It failed 20 to 15 in a Senate that has 18 Republicans and 17 Democrats. Because the motion was "ought not to pass" the vote itself was on the merits of the actual underlying bill, not the study. Terrible news.

Blue America's Final Stretch-- South Dakota, Maine, MI-06, CA-33

For our final push, Blue America ran independent expenditures in 4 races, two for Senate seats and two in House races. When Adelson and his slimy allies jumped into the CA-33 race with a million dollars worth of racist smear against Ted Lieu, we decided to reach likely voters with a full page ad in the L.A. Times, which we think has worked very well. Early vote returns from Democrats started spiking very sharply as soon as the ad ran. Ted Lieu is now significantly ahead of the Adelson puppet in the race. The two Senate races are both long-shots, one in South Dakota against Mike Rounds and one in Maine against Susan Collins. Both are songs running for voting age adults in those two states only. If you click on the links, you'll hear the two songs. As of yesterday, 39,886 South Dakotans have opted to listen to at least 30 seconds of the song. In Maine-- maybe because of a lingering fondness for The Beatles, 74,987 voting age adults have decided to listen to at least 30 seconds of the song. The experts are betting against both of our candidates, Rick Weiland and Shenna Bellows, each of whom has been running a valiant grassroots effort against Big Money interests.

The national parties in DC have largely ignored both races, although in South Dakota perhaps "ignoring" would have been better than the undermining that actually took place. Rick Weiland, the progressive there, has urged his fellow Democratic Senate candidates across the country to vote out Reid as leader and replace him with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders or Dick Durbin. This is a letter he sent out to the other candidates running for the Senate:

Today I am contacting you to report that, while my reasons for opposing Senator Reid, and the issues in my state, may both be different than those in yours, I thought you would be interested in what has happened in my campaign since I pledged to work for new leadership in the Senate.

There are obviously a host of factors at work in any political campaign at the end. Nevertheless, it is a fact that our tracking polls have tightened dramatically since that time, and that the effort to replace Senator Reid is being seen as an important indicator of a commitment to change and of the courage to challenge the powers that be on behalf of that change rather than as a procedural move with regard to a Senator they barely know.

I wish you the very best of luck in your campaign, and I look forward, should we each be fortunate enough to succeed in our campaigns, to working with you to bring new leadership to our party, the Senate, and the country at large.

Sincerely,

Rick Weiland
Democratic candidate for United States Senate
Sioux Falls, SD

Reid, who has worked consistently to sabotage Weiland since he decided to run had his spokesperson, Adam Jentleson, shoot back immediately, "Desperation is an ugly thing, and it’s sad to see Rick Weiland ending his ill-advised campaign and brief political career by attacking fellow Democrats."

Beltway trade papers were happier to cover the spat than they were to cover Weiland's actual campaign. "Reid himself," one wrote, "always preferred Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, and he successfully pushed for retiring Sen. Tim Johnson’s son Brendan, who is a U.S. attorney, not to run last year. But Weiland got in at the encouragement of former Sen. Tom Daschle, his onetime boss. That caused Herseth Sandlin not to run. National Democrats then sat on the sidelines for more than a year, until some internal polling showed that a four-way race-- and a visa-for-cash scandal made former Republican Gov. Mike Rounds look vulnerable. But now Weiland is making Democrats regret the play. He’s attacking Reid as a tool of big money interests. 'We need to stick a thumb in the eye of the corrupt old politics that has sold out to the highest bidder,' Weiland said in a press release today," a reference to Reid. With Weiland's super-corrupt GOP opponent, Mike Rounds, joined at the hip to Mitch McConnell, South Dakota voters are seeing what real independence from the Beltway power structure looks like.

The second House race Blue America is spending money in is one of this year's real cliff-hangers. Our ad running in southwest Michigan for the MI-06 seat Fred Upton has been occupying since 1987. As of yesterday, 41,535 voting age Michiganders living in the district had chosen to watch at least 30 seconds of it. Again, the DC power-mongers-- this time DCCC chairman Steve Israel in the lead-- have actively opposed the progressive Democrat, Paul Clements. Progressive champion Alan Grayson, though, made a compelling case for Clements. Lawrence Lessig, the reformer who's MayDay PAC has put over $2 million into exposing Upton is the hero of this campaign, stepping in to do the job the DCCC should be doing. Lessig:

A month ago, Rep. Fred Upton might have thought he was cruising to another landslide re-election, and then everything changed.

On Wednesday morning, a new internal poll from challenger Paul Clements shows Upton’s lead has been narrowed to just 4 points. And Wednesday afternoon, the Cook Political Report, one of the most respected political handicappers in the nation, downgraded Upton’s chances from “solid” to “likely.”

To be sure, Upton has reason to be concerned. On October 9th, MAYDAY.US, a Super PAC fighting to fundamentally reform the way campaigns are funded, announced it would spend $1.5 million to defeat Upton and elect reformer Paul Clements. MAYDAY has since announced its commitment to spend $2.15 million in this race.

Paul Clements is running the most competitive race against Upton in a decade in a district President Obama won by 8 points in 2008 and narrowly lost in 2012, when Upton won reelection by the smallest margin of his career.

When it comes to Fred Upton, the link between the people who fund his campaigns and the way he votes in Congress is crystal clear.

Upton has taken $10 million in special interest PAC money over his career. He took $2.1 million from Big Oil and energy interests, and he voted to give away billions in subsidies for oil and gas companies. He took $1.4 million from drug and insurance companies, and voted to make seniors pay more for the prescriptions they need.

Once MAYDAY started its campaign to inform voters in Southwest Michigan, Fred Upton’s campaign went into panic mode. Upton:

• Lobbed inaccurate attacks against MAYDAY
• Hastily threw together a response ad
• Abruptly cancelled his only scheduled debate with Clements
• Dramatically escalated his campaign spending
• Possibly violated House ethics rules by reaching out to MAYDAY donors

In the last week of the campaign, Upton has bought approximately 4,000 gross ratings points in the Grand Rapids market alone-- and half of those ads are in direct response to MAYDAY’s campaign.

In the midst of the Upton campaign’s scramble, a series of unforced errors by the congressman and his staff have started a simmering scandal that threatens to boil over in the closing days of this campaign. On October 17th, Upton told the Kalamazoo Gazette he had talked to several of MAYDAY’s major donors about our campaign against him. Three days later, the Huffington Post reported Gary Andres, Upton’s top committee aide, had reached out to “spook” MAYDAY donors whose businesses are regulated by the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee that Upton chairs.

Since then, the Upton camp’s story has, shall we say, evolved. After admitting that he spoke with several donors, Upton’s campaign first called the allegations “ hogwash,” then said Upton spoke to only one MAYDAY donor, who happened to call Upton. Following the Huffington Post report, Andres first denied “making angry calls,” but later told the Herald-Palladium he sent messages to a MAYDAY donor through the donor’s lobbyist in Washington.

This Upton saga is straight out of the pages of Peter Schweizer’s book Extortion, and serves as a perfect example of how politicians legally extort money from big corporations for personal and political benefit. It may also contribute to Upton’s undoing. I’ve recently written to the House Office of Congressional Ethics requesting an investigation into the reports that Upton and his staff tried to intimidate MAYDAY’s donors and the American Democracy Legal Fund has filed a similar request.

MAYDAY decided to work to defeat Fred Upton because he is the epitome of the modern corrupt politician and because we believed voters in the 6th Congressional District of Michigan care enough about taking big money out of politics to support a reformer like Paul Clements. Our own polling has shown significant movement in Upton’s job performance and favorability ratings since our campaign began.

As we enter the final days of this campaign, it looks like MAYDAY’s work and Upton’s unforced errors may results in a surprising result on Election Day.

Shenna Bellows Makes The Case For Maine Democrats-- Stumping In Portland With President Obama

The speech above is about a progressive vision that Michelle Nunn, Alison Grimes, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu-- let alone Greg Orman or Larry Pressler-- could never give. Shenna Bellows gave the speech Thursday night at at the Portland Expo rally. Blue America contributors have given more to the Bellows campaign than to any other Senate campaign anywhere-- not because she's the most likely to win (she isn't), but because she's the ideal candidate our contributors want to see keep fighting. Grimes won't even admit she voted for Obama. Bellows doesn't agree with him on everything-- not by a long shot-- but she had no problem emphasizing the positive and appearing with him to rally Maine voters. This is the speech she gave. Give it a listen up top or read it here-- and afterwards, I've included (below) the Blue America ad we're running right up until Tuesday in Maine. (If you want to chip in, we can increase the reach at any time.)

There is so much power in this room-- the power of the grassroots. And it is wonderful to be back in Portland to welcome President Obama here tonight. My name is Shenna Bellows and I am running for United States Senate. Working people deserve a voice in Washington. And since I launched my campaign more than a year ago I’ve traveled across the state. I’ve walked across the state over 350 miles from Houlton to Kittery. And I talked with voters about the change we need in Augusta and Washington.

You see, I grew up in Hancock. I’m the daughter of a carpenter and a home health care nurse. And we struggled when I was a kid. I grew up without electricity or running water until I was in the fifth grade. But I worked hard in my entire career, from the Peace Corps to the Americorps to the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine. My work has been about making the world a better place, and that’s why I’m running for United States Senate.

This election is about two different visions for the future. It’s a contrast of hope and fear. President Obama won on a platform of hope-- a hope for civil rights for all people. For universal health care. For a clean and healthy environment and economic opportunity for all Americans. And with the help of Senate Democrats, he’s been able to do so much. He brought us back from the brink of economic disaster with the stimulus package. He passed the Affordable Care Act and expanded health care to millions of Americans. He advanced civil rights and bold new carbon emissions rules.

But it wasn’t easy, because Washington Republicans have blocked him at every turn. Washington Republicans-- including my opponent, Republican Susan Collins-- have blocked progress on the minimum wage, on equal pay for equal work, on veterans’ benefits, and on campaign finance reform. We’ve seen here in Maine how much damage Republicans can do when they are in control. We’ve seen it in the House of Representatives, where Washington Republicans forced a government shutdown last year. And we cannot afford a Republican majority in the United States Senate. We cannot afford to elect Republican Susan Collins and risk control this year.

You see, America at its core is a promise. It’s a promise that a single mom’s son can grow up to be president. It’s a promise that a mill worker can be governor. You see, I know Mike Michaud. I’ve worked with him closely. I know he will be a strong advocate for women and for workers. That he will stand up for everyone. I know because he listens and he pays attention and he’s honest and he does the right thing even when no one is watching.

This election is about unity. It’s about voting our hopes for a better future. And it’s up to you. If each one of you and everyone in this state who voted for President Obama last time around turns out and votes for Mike and votes for me, then Mike will be your next governor and I will be your next United States senator.

You have the power to restore America’s promise of freedom and security and opportunity for all. Don’t let fear win this time. Commit tonight to phone bank and canvass. Go to Facebook and tell your friends that you’ve signed up and they should too. Talk to every single one of your friends and family members. Let them know about same-day voter registration-- something Paul LePage tried to end and we brought back.

We can restore freedom and fairness for all through unity and through action. I ask for your vote-- for me, for Mike, for Chellie or Emily-- not just for us, but for the next generation. This is for a better future for our state and our entire nation. Thank you so very much.

This Is What We're Doing For Shenna Bellows' Race In Maine

Election day is two weeks from next Tuesday. I’m sure you either know there’s a lot at stake or just don’t care. Blue America isn’t trying to save the Democratic Party. That isn’t our job and it isn’t possible anyway— not with them working against themselves the way they have this cycle. Instead we have focused on a small handful of races where we feel there’s a legitimate shot to replace a conservative with a progressive. One of those races is for the Maine senate seat that Susan Collins has occupied for 18 years. When Olympia Snowe was the senior senator in Maine she was mostly successful in guiding Collins and keeping her away from Republican ideological extremism. Ever since Snowe retired, though, Collins has been off the reservation, voting far more frequently with her increasingly right-wing, anti-family party.

The alternative to 6 more wasted, obstructionist years of Susan Collins is a fresh face and vigorous advocate for Maine’s working families, Shenna Bellows. Blue America has been enthusiastic about her for the entire cycle and, as you can see at this link, our contributors have given her more this cycle than any other candidate. We respect that and we honor that and Digby, John, Jacquie and I decided to take the money our donors have given directly to our PAC and put about a third of it into a Google campaign for Shenna.

The video above and this post by Digby is another way to try to engage voters to think about what Shenna has to offer. I hope lots of Mainers appreciate The Beatles. If you want to help us keep this ad running, you can contribute to our I.E. committee. If you want to contribute to Shenna’s Get Out The Vote operation directly, you can contribute here. Either way, you’ll be helping replace someone Rick Santorum calls a “team player” with someone who plays for an entirely different team— working families struggling for an even break in a society more and more dominated by selfish corporate interests. Digby:

The death of the "Republican moderate" has been a topic of political conversation for some years now. The rise of the Tea Party and the ongoing rightward turn of the GOP leaves little room for moderation. However, there is at least one so-called moderate to whom the political press always fondly point when they wax nostalgic for the good old days when Tip O'Neil and Ronald Reagan allegedly knocked back scotch and sodas at the end of the day together. That lone "moderate" is Susan Collins of Maine. And unfortunately, her reputation for "moderation" is as mythic as those cocktail parties on the Truman Balcony.

Susan Collins may play Hamlet from time to time, wringing her hands in public about the crazies "on both sides" and Democrats inevitably throw in some more goodies to make her happy, watering down what is always already a compromise, and then ... she votes with the Republicans anyway. It's a con game she's run over and over again. Here are just a few examples:

Paycheck Fairness Act

Collins voted in April and again in September against the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would shield employees who raise legitimate questions about workplace pay equity, among other features. Bellows has consistently called on Collins to support the bill-- which Collins also voted to filibuster in 2010, 2012 and earlier this year-- and has made support for the measure one of the centerpieces of her campaign.

A February national survey found 60 percent of voters are more likely to support a candidate who supports fair pay for women, a higher minimum wage, paid family and medical leave and paid sick days. The survey also found that women are less likely to receive paid extended leave than men.

Republicans have been uncomfortable discussing the issue all year, leading to an MSNBC story on the GOP's shifting explanation for why the bill keeps getting filibustered. Collins said in 2012 without citing evidence that it would lead to "excessive litigation."

Minimum Wage

Collins stood with Washington Republicans in April against increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, which translates to $21,008 per year for someone working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. Afterward, Collins put out a statement bemoaning the fact that the proposal "does not have the votes it would need to pass the Senate."

Maine voters support "raising the minimum wage to at least $10 an hour and indexing future increases to inflation" by a 63-36 spread, according to a July poll by the Maine People's Resource Center.

In 2007 the Senate voted 94-3 to increase the federal minimum wage in stages to its current level of $7.25 an hour, a far cry from today's partisanship.

Campaign Finance Reform

Collins is also out of step with public opinion on campaign finance reform. A CBS poll in May found voters support "limiting the amount of money individuals can contribute to political campaigns" over "allowing individuals to contribute as much money to political campaigns as they'd like" by 71-25. Collins has voted in lockstep with Washington Republicans against both the DISCLOSE Act, which would publicize the sources of large political contributions in a timely way, and the Udall Amendment, which would give Congress and state legislatures the power to regulate campaign spending.

That's just for starters. Her contention that she voted against the most outrageous Republican act of sabotage in the last congress (and that's saying something)-- the government shutdown-- is at the very least misleading. (In fact, she voted three times for bills requiring the president to defund or delay Obamacare in order to keep the government open.)

A whole lot of Mainers are on to Collins' phony posturing. They know that Collins is a phony and being independent Yankee types they don't take kindly to being conned. Instead, they are supporting Democrat Shenna Bellows for Senate.

Senator Bernie Sanders: "This Is Not What Democracy Is Supposed To Be About"

In the video above, Bernie Sanders was addressing the Culinary Workers Union at their convention in Las Vegas yesterday. He made a powerful speech about how the right wing oligarchs and plutocrats divide working people up so that they can dominate American politics. “We are not living in a democracy when 60 percent of Americans are not voting, while billionaires like the Koch brothers are spending hundreds of millions to buy the United States Senate. That's called oligarchy, not democracy… The Koch Brothers are trying to buy the Senate. This is not what democracy is supposed to be about. Billionaires should not be allowed to spend hundreds of millions of dollars electing candidates who represent the wealthy and the powerful.”

Yesterday, Truthout published an essay by Canadian author and educator Henry Giroux, Beyond Orwellian Nightmares and Neoliberal Auhoritarianism. It’s very much worth reading in it’s entirety, which is why I included the link. I’m just going to quote a small section that pertains to the same topic Senator Sanders discussed with the union members in Las Vegas yesterday.

Central to George Orwell's nightmarish vision of a totalitarian society was a government so powerful that it not only dominated all of the major institutions in a society, but it also was quite adept at making invisible its inner workings of power. This is what some have called a shadow government, deep state, dual state or corporate state. In the deep state, politics becomes the domain of the ultra-wealthy, the powerful few who run powerful financial services, big corporations and the imperious elite of the defense industries and other components of the military-industrial complex. Corporate interests such as ExxonMobil and other fossil fuel companies, megabanks such as Bank of America, and defense industries such as Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin are powerful lobbying groups and as such have control of the major seats of political power and the commanding institutions necessary to insure that the deeply anti-democratic state rules in the interests of the few while exploiting and repressing the many.

A recent Princeton University study analyzed policy initiatives passed under the influence of the deep state from 1981 to 2002 and concluded that rather than being a democracy, however weak, the United States had become an oligarchy where power is effectively wielded by "the rich, the well connected and the politically powerful, as well as particularly well placed individuals in institutions like banking and finance or the military." Bill Blunden adds to this description with a useful map of the interpenetrating elements and overlapping layers of interest that make up the deep state. He writes:

The American Deep State, or what Colonel Fletcher Prouty called the Secret Team, is a structural layer of political intermediaries: non-governmental organizations (e.g. National Endowment for Democracy, Ford Foundation), lobbyists (e.g. Chamber of Commerce, AIPAC), media outlets (e.g. Time Warner, News Corp), dark money pits (e.g. Freedom Partners, NRA), and private sector contractors (e.g. Booz Allen, SAIC) that interface with official government organs (CIA, Department of Defense). This layer establishes a series of informal, often secret, backchannels and revolving doors through which profound sources of wealth and power outside of government can purchase influence. . . . the American Deep State is a fundamentally anti-democratic apparatus that caters to the agenda of heavily entrenched elites.

This is a state in which people participate willingly in their own oppression, often out of deep insecurity about their freedom and the future. This is a mode of governance in which individual and social agency are in crisis and begin to disappear in a society in which 99 percent of the public, especially young people, low-income groups and minorities of class and color are considered disposable. The rulers of the deep state no longer care about the social contract and make no concessions in their ruthless pursuits of power and profits. One consequence is the creation of a state and society that no longer believes in social investments and is more than willing to condemn young people, often paralyzed by the precariousness and instability that haunts their lives and future, to a savage form of casino capitalism.

Poverty, joblessness, low wage work and the threat of state-sanctioned violence produce among many Americans the ongoing fear of a life of perpetual misery and an ongoing struggle simply to survive. Insecurity coupled with a climate of fear and surveillance dampens dissent and promotes a kind of ethical tranquilization fed daily by the mobilization of endless moral panics, whether they reference immigrants flooding the American Southwest, ISIS thugs blowing up malls or Ebola spreading through the homeland like a mad, out-of-control, death-dealing infectious disease. Such conditions more often than not produce withdrawal, insecurity, paranoia and cynicism rather than rebellion among the US populace. Under such conditions, the call for collective rebellion appears more like a joke for late-night comics than a serious rethinking of politics and an attempt to engage in collective actions fuelled by the need to reclaim and struggle over the promises of a radical democracy.

Politics and power are now on the side of lawlessness as is evident in the state's endless violations of civil liberties, freedom of speech and constitutional rights, mostly done in the name of national security. Lawlessness wraps itself in government dictates such as the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, Military Commissions Act and a host of other legal illegalities. These would include the "right of the president "to order the assassination of any citizen whom he considers allied with terrorists," use secret evidence to detain individuals indefinitely, develop a massive surveillance Panopticon to monitor every communication used by citizens who have not committed a crime, employ state torture against those considered enemy combatants, and block the courts from prosecuting those officials who commit such heinous crimes. The ruling corporate elites have made terror rational and fear the modus operandi of politics.

Who’s going to stand with Bernie in Congress? Not many. Certainly not Susan Collins. But Shenna Bellows will. Watch… then help:

For-Profit Education Profits Everyone... Except Students, Teachers, Taxpayers And America

Bob Herbert’s piece in last week’s Politico Magazine, The Plot Against Public Education— How Millionaires And Billionaires Are Ruining Our Schools, casts Microsoft’s Bill Gates, the richest man in the world, as the arch-villain of public education. Between 2000 and 2009 Gates spent $2 billion on his theory that smaller high schools would better educate students. He managed to break up 8% of America’s high schools. “Smaller schools,” wrote Herbert, “were supposed to attack the problems of low student achievement and high dropout rates by placing students in a more personal, easier-to-manage environment. Students, teachers and administrators would be more familiar with one another. Acts of violence and other criminal behavior would diminish as everybody got to know everybody else. Academic achievement would soar.” It didn’t work. “[H]is experiment was a flop. The size of a high school proved to have little or no effect on the achievement of its students. At the same time, fewer students made it more difficult to field athletic teams. Extracurricular activities withered. And the number of electives offered dwindled… There was very little media coverage of this experiment gone terribly wrong. A billionaire had had an idea. Many thousands had danced to his tune. It hadn’t worked out. C’est la vie.” That didn’t stop Gates. He then moved on to his relentless attack against American teachers.

I’ve covered Gates, and his desire to improve the quality of education in America seemed sincere. But his outsized influence on school policy has, to say the least, not always been helpful. Although he and his foundation were committed to the idea of putting a great teacher into every classroom, Gates acknowledged that there was not much of a road map for doing that. “Unfortunately,” he said, “it seems that the field doesn’t have a clear view on the characteristics of great teaching. Is it using one curriculum over another? Is it extra time after school? We don’t really know.”

This hit-or-miss attitude— let’s try this, let’s try that— has been a hallmark of school reform efforts in recent years. The experiments trotted out by the big-money crowd have been all over the map. But if there is one broad approach (in addition to the importance of testing) that the corporate-style reformers and privatization advocates have united around, it’s the efficacy of charter schools. Charter schools were supposed to prove beyond a doubt that poverty didn’t matter, that all you had to do was free up schools from the rigidities of the traditional public system and the kids would flourish, no matter how poor they were or how chaotic their home environments.

Corporate leaders, hedge fund managers and foundations with fabulous sums of money at their disposal lined up in support of charter schools, and politicians were quick to follow. They argued that charters would not only boost test scores and close achievement gaps but also make headway on the vexing problem of racial isolation in schools.

None of it was true. Charters never came close to living up to the hype. After several years of experimentation and the expenditure of billions of dollars, charter schools and their teachers proved, on the whole, to be no more effective than traditional schools. In many cases, the charters produced worse outcomes. And the levels of racial segregation and isolation in charter schools were often scandalous. While originally conceived a way for teachers to seek new ways to reach the kids who were having the most difficult time, the charter school system instead ended up leaving behind the most disadvantaged youngsters.

In her book Reign of Error, Diane Ravitch explains the problem: “Many studies show that charters enroll a disproportionately small share of students who are English-language learners or who have disabilities, as compared with their home district. A survey of expulsion rates in the District of Columbia found that the charters— which enroll nearly half the student population of the district— expel large numbers of children; the charters’ expulsion rate is seventy-two times the expulsion rate in the public schools. … As the charters shun these students, the local district gets a disproportionately large number of the students who are most expensive and most challenging to educate; when public students leave for charters, the budget of the public schools shrinks, leaving them less able to provide a quality education to the vast majority of students.”

…Few people would accuse Gates of acting out of greed. For other school reformers, however, a huge financial return has been the primary motivation. While schools and individual districts were being starved of resources, the system itself was viewed as a cash cow by so-called education entrepreneurs determined to make a killing. Even in the most trying economic times, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars, earmarked for the education of children from kindergarten through the twelfth grade, are appropriated each year. For corporate types, especially for private equity and venture capital firms, that kind of money can prove irresistible. And the steadily increasing influence of free-market ideology in recent years made public education fair game.

Stephanie Simon, writing for Reuters in the summer of 2012, captured the excitement of investors eager to pounce: “The investors gathered in a tony private club in Manhattan were eager to hear about the next big thing, and education consultant Rob Lytle was happy to oblige. Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools, he urged the crowd. If they’re as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They’ll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it.”

With billions to be reaped from the schools by proponents of online classes and entirely online charter schools— virtual schools— teachers would find that they, too, were expendable.

The foothold established by for-profit virtual schools was extremely disturbing. Their most fervent advocates spoke in the most glowing terms about getting rid of buildings, classroom teachers, playgrounds— everything most people associate with going to school. “Kids have been shackled to their brick-and-mortar school down the block for too long,” said Ronald Packard, a former Goldman Sachs banker who was the CEO of K12 Incorporated, the nation’s largest operator of online public schools, likes to say.

Packard was an operator, not an educator. When he founded K12 in 2000, one of his two primary financial backers was Michael Milken, the disgraced junk-bond king of the 1970s and 1980s. The other was Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle and the fourth-richest person in America. The first chairman and chief proselytizer of K12 was William Bennett, who had served as education secretary under Ronald Reagan and drug czar under George H. W. Bush. There was something odd about Bennett’s trumpeting the wonders of cyberschools. In his book The Educated Child, published just a year earlier, he had sounded less than enthralled about the potential of online schooling. “When you hear the next pitch about cyber-enriching your child’s education,” he wrote, “keep one thing in mind: so far, there is no good evidence that most uses of computers significantly improve learning.”

He was, nevertheless, the energetic public face of K12 until 2005, when he had to resign because of a controversy that erupted over a comment he’d made on his radio program. (In response to a caller, Bennett had offered what he described as a thought experiment, saying, “If you wanted to reduce crime … you could abort every black baby in the country, and your crime rate would go down.” He added, “That would be an impossible, ridiculous, and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down.”)

Virtual schools remained under the radar for several years before eventually becoming too big to ignore. There were close to a quarter of a million full-time students attending online charter schools in the United States in 2014, and that number was growing. The schools were heavily advertised, and the companies running them spent tens of millions of dollars on political lobbying. Very few taxpayers were aware that some of the money they thought was paying for schools of the brick-and-mortar variety was actually being used for advertising and politics and to fatten the portfolios of virtual school proselytizers and promoters.

Performance results have been uniformly abysmal for students— although the investors, the lobbyists and the crooked politicians who take their legalistic bribes have done spectacularly well. And the crooked politicians aren’t just Republicans. Corporate Democrats like Cory Booker might as well be Republicans when it comes to destroying the public school system for profit. Eli Broad and the Walton family have been particularly predatory when it come sot stealing taxpayer dollars and funneling them into initiatives that wreck public schools while making wealthy investors wealthier. Political hucksters like Fox’s Rupert Murdoch, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, sleazy lobbyists Lanny Davis and Ed Rendell and would-be president Jeb Bush have looked at education as a big fat honey pot to further enrich themselves.

“Those who are genuinely interested in improving the quality of education for all American youngsters,” concluded Herbert, “are faced with two fundamental questions: First, how long can school systems continue to pursue market-based reforms that have failed year after demoralizing year to improve the education of the nation’s most disadvantaged children? And second, why should a small group of America’s richest individuals, families, and foundations be allowed to exercise such overwhelming— and often such toxic— influence over the ways in which public school students are taught?

Despite the New Dems and other corrupt corporate Democrats looking to line their own pockets and advance their miserable careers, most Democrats do support public education as much as most Republicans want to abolish it. The Education Opportunity Network makes the case that Democrats can win electorally by standing up to the Jeb Bush profiteers and fighting to fund public education.

Both anecdotal information and empirical data drawn from surveys confirm that voters don’t just value public education; they want candidates who will support classroom teachers and oppose funding cuts to public schools. The evidence is strong that Democrats can make support for public education a winning issue— if they’re willing to take the advice.

Democrats looking to score points with the voting public should talk up public education. At least that’s the conclusion that can be drawn from new survey data from pollster Celinda Lake.

…Education is not often viewed as a hot button issue that will turn out voters. Thus, candidates often mouth virtually identical platitudes about education being “a way out of poverty” and “America’s great equalizer.” Then after the election, they proceed to cut funding for public schools and saddle classroom teachers with more and more burdensome “accountability.”

But 2014 may be different.

According to Lake’s research, “The top testing turnout message overall emphasizes education, specifically Republicans’ efforts to cut programs for students while giving tax cuts to the wealthy. This message is the strongest argument for coming out to vote in all of the states except Colorado (where it ranks second, just behind a message focused on how Republicans are working to turn back the clock on women’s rights).”

Taking a strong stance for “education and public schools” was far and away the message that most survey responders found “very convincing.”

Further, Lake found that the “turnout message” with the greatest “intensity was:

Education & Public Schools


Republicans keep cutting education and attacking public schools, hurting our ability to compete economically and taking away opportunities for our children. Republicans proposed cutting billions in public education, including programs like Head Start, to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. That hurts our children, as good teachers leave, class sizes increase, art and music programs disappear, and schools become less safe. Families are struggling, paying for basic supplies, and seeing their schools decline. Those priorities are just wrong.

Lake’s work also examined more closely a potential target of “individuals who shift to higher interest (‘10’) in voting in November.” This group is a significant part of the sample (39 percent), which tends to be women (62 percent), married (54 percent), and under the age of 40 (42 percent).

These voters are particularly moved by education messaging. They are concerned that a GOP takeover of the Senate would result in Republicans shutting down the government again (71 percent) and cutting funding for Head Start and K-12 education (71 percent).

“Two messages are particularly strong with this group,” Lake found. “A message focusing on the middle class falling behind (73 percent very convincing) and the education message (72 percent)” were “the most effective with these targets.”

After hearing messages that include strong support for public schools, 39 percent of these important voters say they are “very interested (rate ’10′) in voting this November.” After being told the election in their state would “determine control of the U.S. Senate, 50 percent say they are very interested in voting.”

The discovery that Americans are highly supportive of public schools is nothing new. Recent polling results from the annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Towards the Public Schools show that Americans overwhelmingly support their public schools and respect classroom teachers.

That survey also found that a majority of Americans do not support current public education initiatives— such as new standards and teacher evaluations based on test scores— that most political candidates are touting as “reform.” When asked what they think are the biggest problems that public schools in their community deal with, Americans of all political persuasions cite “lack of financial support” number one.

This strong support for public schools is having an impact on upcoming elections. As an experienced education journalist at Education Week recently observed, education is top issue in most important senate races in November.

“In North Carolina, candidates are locking horns over education spending and teacher pay; in Georgia, the Common Core State Standards are taking center stage; and in Iowa, higher education and student loans are the subject of the latest skirmish between Senate hopefuls.”

The results of many of the gubernatorial races around the country also hinge on education.

In Georgia, education funding and the role of charter schools in the state’s system have come to the fore in the contest between incumbent Republican Nathan Deal and Democratic challenger Jason Carter, a state senator and grandson of former President Jimmy Carter.

In Kansas, widespread voter anger over school closures and funding cuts have imperiled the reelection of Republican Governor Sam Brownback.

In Florida, Republican incumbent Rick Scott’s support for new Common Core standards and his cuts in education spending have put him in hot water with a range of voters, from conservative Tea Party activists, to Independents, and Democratic Party voters alike.

In Pennsylvania, voters rank education as the most important issue, and current Republican Governor Tom Corbett has been rated “the most vulnerable governor in America” due in part to his support for severe cuts to education funding.

Whether Democrats can overcome the staggering odds against them this election remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: Democratic candidates in these contests and others need to make support for public education front-and-center of their campaigns.

One of Blue America’s most ardent supporters of public education is former ACLU-Executive Director and current candidate for the Senate from Maine, Shenna Bellows. Her opponent, Susan Collins, is a lockstep Republican zombie who consistently votes for the for-profit education complex agenda. If you’d like to help Shenna beat her, you can do that here on the Blue America Senate 2014 page. Shenna:

I wouldn’t be running for US Senate today if it were not for good public schools. We are in a vicious cycle of testing and austerity that is hurting our schools and our children’s future. The only people who benefit from some of these testing schemes are private testing companies. Schools are not businesses, and our children are not a commodity. Susan Collins, has been on the wrong side. So-called bipartisan reforms like No Child Left Behind, which Collins voted for, are being implemented in such a way that is hurting our local schools and good teaching. In my husband’s hometown of Skowhegan, Maine, the local public schools are reeling from the diversion of much needed public funds to a new charter school with questionable civil rights practices. We need to get back to basics, and that means investing in good teachers and adequate infrastructure in a community-based system that strengthens our local public schools instead of tearing them apart and diverting students and resources into a profit-driven model.

No one in Congress has a worse record on education than the man John Boehner appointed chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, right-wing ideologue John Kline (R-MN). Since 1990 the for-profit education industry has handed out $10,453,60 to Members of Congress in legalistic bribes. The number one recipient— not just among House Members but among senators as well— was Kline: $441,258, significantly more than Speaker Boehner, who they gave $183,000. This cycle alone Kline is raking in more than anyone else in Congress: $168,849. The runner-up, another anti-education lunatic on his committee, Virginia Foxx (R-NC) “only” got $86,380 and Boehner only took in $34,800 from these predatory operators. In return, Kline has done more than anyone else in government to further their toxic agenda.

Last week, following an endorsement of Kline’s progressive Democratic opponent, Mike Obermueller, by the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association (NEA) also came out for Obermueller against Kline. "When you consider the number of votes Kline has taken against the best interest of students, teachers, and education support staff, it's not hard to figure out why these groups are tired of having Kline in Congress," said Obermueller. "We have problems to address in education, and we don't have an education chair willing to do what's necessary to solve those problems. People are tired of inaction, and it's time for change… "We need to be doing everything we can to make sure our kids are getting the best education possible. That means supporting our teachers in the classroom, making sure our young people are in safe learning environments, and prioritizing education above special interests."

Kline wrote and passed the #1 priority of the for-profit education industry, an amendment to prevent “the use of funds by the Department of Education to implement and enforce the gainful employment rule, which would prohibit college programs from receiving Federal student loans unless new complicated loan repayment criteria are met.” It passed 289-136, only 4 Republicans joining 132 Democrats sticking up for students and for public education. 58 mostly corrupt Democrats crossed the aisle and voted with the Republicans, including almost all the corporately-owned New Dems and Blue Dogs, reactionaries and bribe-takers like Steve Israel (Blue Dog-NY), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (New Dem-FL), Gary Peters (New Dem-MI), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Joe Crowley (New Dem-NY), Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN), and Ron Kind (New Dem-WI).

If you'd like to help replace Kline with Mike Obermueller, you can do that on this ActBlue page. Not sure? Watch the forum on this video and I think you will be:

Two Great American Authors Come Out For Shenna Bellows

Yesterday Marianne Williamson endorsed Shenna Bellows for the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Susan Collins. "We desperately need candidates who carry the banner of new possibilities for America,” she wrote to her supporters, “and we need to support them in every way possible when they appear. Shenna Bellows represents such a banner. Let's help her get to Washington, so she can do the things we want to see done there." There were 5 specific points Marianne seemed most enthusiastic about after meeting personally with Shenna.

• As Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for eight years, Shenna Bellows built strong coalitions of Independents, Republicans, Democrats and Green Party members alike to advance civil rights and civil liberties protections.  She worked successfully to block legislation that would have infringed upon our constitutional freedoms.


• Shenna has been a widely recognized leader in the fight against the unchecked and unmonitored use of drones to spy on ordinary Americans. She has led the charge against warrantless drone surveillance in Maine and successfully blocked efforts to invade our privacy.


• During the national debate over U.S. involvement in Iraq and Syria, Shenna was one of the only voices to publicly criticize President Obama's plan for the use of air strikes. Shenna believes the path to lasting peace and security lies in strong coalition building and a more targeted and thoughtful approach to our foreign policy.

• Shenna has vowed to make repeal of the Patriot Act one of her first missions as a U.S. Senator, believing that this law has been an unprecedented attack on Americans' freedoms as part of a misguided war on terror that has succeeded only in making us less safe while threatening our privacy in the name of false security.


• The National Security Agency has wasted billions of dollars of taxpayer money spying on the American public. Shenna has been an outspoken critic of the massive surveillance-industrial complex that has threatened our civil liberties again and again by scooping up email communications, text messages and phone data of millions of innocent Americans. Shenna will continue her work to dismantle the outsized powers of the NSA and restore our freedoms and privacy.

The video just above, though, is not Marianne, but another author… it’s probably the best-known Mainer living today— yes, better known even than Patrick Dempsey: Stephen King. He cut a TV ad for Shenna’s campaign. King was born in Portland, lives in Bangor and has sold more than 350 million books. Many of his books and films were set in Maine or inspired by Maine. In May he wrote an OpEd for the Bangor Daily News, For this lifetime Mainer, Bellows is the clear choice. He pointed out that Collins “is considered a moderate who compromises a lot. Sounds good, but when it comes down to casting votes that serve Mainers, she always seems to end up with her Republican colleagues, led by Mitch McConnell— the hardline block that shut down the government last year and has since neglected many urgent issues (including better care for our veterans) in a near maniacal effort to repeal an Affordable Care Act that is already working.”

Collins supports the Patriot Act, and has repeatedly voted for its renewal. She has repeatedly voted to authorize (and legalize) NSA spying. Shenna Bellows advocates repeal of the Patriot Act, and so do I. Obviously we need to keep an eye out for terrorists on American soil, but in the age of drones and mega-surveillance, it’s way past time to restructure this thing. And although Collins claims the NSA spying program is fair, it looks to me too much like a doorway to that world George Orwell wrote about in 1984.

Bellows supports raising the minimum wage. Collins opposes it, which makes me roll my eyes in exasperation. A $10.10 per hour wage in an America where gasoline costs $3.65 a gallon— and where a great many Maine workers have to travel long distances to their place of employment— seems fair to me. The idea that 10 bucks an hour will flatten the economy is basically an idea promulgated by rich greedheads who don’t want to pony up what’s fair to hard workers who are struggling to make ends meet.

Collins supports the Keystone Pipeline. This just makes me sigh, but not because of the pipeline per se. It’s where it comes from. This is tar sands oil, and according to the National Wildlife Federation, it’s “one of the dirtiest, costliest, and most destructive fuels in the world.” It lays waste to fragile ecosystems, emits more of the pollutants associated with global warming when burned, and creates lake-sized reservoirs of toxic waste. It’s a lethally short-sighted quick fix, and the supporters of the Keystone are its enablers.

Bellows believes that genetically modified foods (known as GMOs, and called “Frankenfoods” in my house, but that’s just us) should be labeled. In 2013, Collins voted against a law that would have mandated labeling these modified products, more or less turning her back on all the organic farmers here in Maine who were in favor.

I could go on. Collins voted against the Paycheck Fairness Act, mandating that women get equal pay for equal work (and you thought Lincoln freed the slaves). She voted for the Iraq war, and OMG, what a horrible idea that was. Her personal views on same-sex marriage are unclear to me, while Bellows is frank and up-front on the subject, stating her belief that gay folks should have the same rights under the law as straight folks (and the same responsibilities, of course).

Collins has shown leadership, at least within her own party, which hasn’t always been easy. She shows up, she does the job, she interacts with her constituents. All good. For this lifetime Mainer, however, she’s on the wrong side of too many issues to deserve re-election. I’m voting for Bellows. No smart money there, just smart ideas, idealism and youthful energy.

If you'd like to help with Shenna's Get Out The Vote operation, here's the place to contribute.

Who Will Control The Senate? Will It Be Destructive Conservatives Working For The One Percent?

Always the fount of Beltway conventional wisdom, the Washington Post's Fix headline parroted exactly the messaging the DSCC and NRCC want to push: These five races will decide control of the Senate. And the conventional wisdom hive-mind comes up with… Alaska (Begich vs Sullivan), Colorado (Udall vs Gardner), Iowa (Braley vs Ernst), North Carolina (Hagan vs Tillis) and Kansas (Roberts vs Orman). Like most of the Post's election coverage-- other than Greg Sargent's worthwhile insights-- its another droll, worthless horserace regurgitation.

Progressives, like the people who read DWT for the most part, aren't victims of Beltway manipulation. We stand up to it. There are good reasons none of the DSCC priorities are on that page linked in the last sentence. Progressives are seeking a better Senate, not one crippled by conservative Democrats too scared about losing their seats in red states in 6 years to push forward a progressive vision for America's problems. Yes, we want to see the Democrats in control of the Senate, but we want to see progressives in the Senate, not conservatives and not weak hacks with no core values. Politicians' careerism is not a factor.

If Shenna Bellows and Rick Weiland win, respectively, in Maine and South Dakota, it won't just mean that Democrats retain control of the Senate, it means there will be two more strong, independent-minded progressives standing with Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown, Tammy Baldwin, Al Franken, Ed Markey, Mazie Hirono, Chris Murphy, Barbara Boxer and Brian Schatz, seeking not narrow partisan gain but actual solutions to the problems working families would like to see addressed from a perspective other than the ones being pushed by fat cats and their well-paid lobbyists.

The Beltway conventional-wisdomists-- and their lame media mouthpieces-- wrote off both states before the election season even began. Susan Collins was "unbeatable" and South Dakota is deep red. Wrong and wrong. The newest polling again shows Shenna gaining on Collins despite the DSCC refusing to stop wasting all their money and desperate efforts on their pet conservative candidates in lost causes Georgia and Kentucky. In the last 6 weeks, Collins' has dropped another 13%. The more Mainers see how Collins has swung right since Olympia Snowe retired, the more they're turning away from her. That's why the DSCC should be spending some of those millions they're wasting in Kentucky and Georgia up in Maine.

And they should tell Harry Reid to get over his childish rivalry with Tom Daschle and get behind Rick Weiland, their best chance to hold the Senate. Yesterday, Beltway imbeciles were quoting one of the most ridiculous and wrong-headed polling firms in the country, Nielson Brothers (not related to Nielson the ratings firm), to make the spurious claim that Republican Larry Pressler is the best vehicle to beat Mike Rounds. Yes… silly season.

One thing is certain in South Dakota-- most voters neither like nor trust Mike Rounds-- and for good reason. And the more South Dakotans hear about Rounds' EB-5 visa selling scandal, the more upset they get that this crook might end up as their senator. Blue America is working on turning the song below into an effect broadcast ad. If you want to help us run it, please contribute here. If you want to help Rick and Shenna directly… that's what this page is for.





UPDATE: Harry Reid Must Be Insane

Here at DWT we've been writing about how Reid is throwing away South Dakota's Senate seta because of his childish pique at Tom Daschle. No one else has covered it… until this morning. Bob Cusack and Jessica Taylor at The Hill have finally acknowledged the damage Reid is doing to the Democrats' chances to hold the Senate.

Daschle is expressing frustration with the Senate majority leader (D-Nev.) for refusing to endorse Rick Weiland, a former Daschle aide who is running for the South Dakota seat held by retiring Sen. Tim Johnson (D).

  Reid last year declared Weiland was “not my choice” in the race, and this summer added, “We are going to lose in South Dakota, more than likely.”

Asked if those comments hurt Weiland’s chances, Daschle told The Hill, “Well, it certainly hasn’t helped.”

Adam Jentleson, a spokesman for Reid, fired back on Monday: “It’s sad that Sen. Daschle is working against Senate Democrats’ interests rather than working to preserve the Democratic majority that Sen. Reid restored.”

The dispute between Reid, who succeeded Daschle as the Senate’s top Democrat, is highly unusual. It is also rare for a Democratic leader to withhold support for a Democratic nominee in a Senate race.

Daschle said he urged Reid to back Weiland a few months ago. Pressed on the details of that conversation and why Reid hasn’t endorsed, Daschle responded: “You’ll have to talk to Sen. Reid. I don’t want to be critical. Harry Reid has a job to do and he’s made decisions that he thinks are the correct ones and I’m not going to second-guess him. I hold a different point of view.”

Democratic campaign officials last year tried to convince former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D) to run in South Dakota, but she opted against it.

Former South Dakota Democratic Party Chairman Ben Nesselhuf admitted that the “relationship between the [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] and Rick Weiland didn’t start off strong,” but said that might have been designed to keep the door open for Herseth Sandlin to change her mind.

“That upset them when Weiland jumped in and messed with their timetable,” said Nesselhuf, who is now managing the congressional race for Democrat Jim Mowrer against Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa).

…In an email on Monday, a DSCC official stated in an email, “The DSCC has endorsed Rick. Rick attended the DSCC’s big retreat on Martha’s Vineyard earlier this year. The DSCC has also conducted polling on Rick’s behalf.”

It’s unclear, however, when the DSCC endorsed Weiland and whether it was publicly announced.

Asked if the DSCC should spend money in South Dakota, Daschle said that’s a “judgment [DSCC] has to make. I think it’s going to prove a very good investment.”

…Lincoln County Democratic Party Chairman Ryan Casey, who led the unsuccessful “Draft Brendan Johnson” movement to recruit the retiring senator’s son into the race, was brushed back by national Democrats who wanted the Blue Dog Herseth Sandlin to run.

“It’s understandable why the national Democratic Party needs to pick their horses to run with, but on the other hand, they sit in their ivory tower in Washington, D.C., and they don’t always appreciate the sentiment of active Democrats in the state and what they believe and want in candidates to represent them.”

“In my opinion,” said Casey, “it’s been frankly an unprofessional approach-- and kind of pouting, for lack of a better word.”

If the jackass in the picture up top looks like Harry Reid, it was meant to. The best part of this feud for South Dakota voters, though, is that if Weiland does win, he will be 100% free of any Reid influence ever.

Are You Ready To Upgrade The U.S. Senate? Let's Start In Maine Where We Have A Clear Choice

It's almost the end of the quarter-- and you know what that means-- hundreds of e-mails from the DCCC and DSCC and their careerist candidates begging for money. Please tell them you already gave-- through Blue America-- to individual candidates whose agendas you believe in and whose values you share.

As you probably know, we’ve supported Shenna Bellows' entirely grassroots campaign for Senate in Maine this cycle more than any other candidate, and now we’re asking you to step up again. She’s running as an outspoken, unapologetic progressive in a blue state that voted for President Obama twice. Her opponent, Susan Collins, is out of step with Maine’s economic needs and won’t tell voters where she stands on the big issues. It’s time for Shenna to join progressive champions like Elizabeth Warren, Jeff Merkley, Sherrod Brown and Bernie Sanders in the U.S. Senate and give Maine a big upgrade in representation.

Shenna is running the kind of campaign that makes progressives stand up and cheer. She’s outraising Susan Collins more than three to one in small-dollar donations, according to OpenSecrets, and she hasn’t taken a nickel of corporate PAC money. She walked 350 miles across the state this summer to hear from real Mainers and bring their stories to Washington where they need to be heard. She’s running full steam ahead on universal health care, investing in our economy, a higher minimum wage, student loan reform, and a national Human Rights Act that extends Maine’s strong LGBT protections to every American man, woman and child.

In other words, as a first-time candidate, Shenna Bellows is setting a standard a lot of incumbents should be trying to meet.

Shenna’s a strong candidate because of her values and her background-- she’s the working class daughter of a carpenter and a home health care nurse-- but also because of her experience fighting for privacy and civil rights. Those fights are hardly over in Washington, and we need her there fighting to restore our liberties. As the head of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for eight years, Shenna worked hard to protect the people of her state from law enforcement overreach. Her own website tells you everything you need to know:

Abuses of power like the Patriot Act, REAL ID, the NDAA, NSA spying, and domestic drone surveillance threaten our democracy. When the government spies on its own people, we, the people, lose trust in our government. We can restore trust and a sense of community by restoring our constitutional freedoms.


In Maine, I led a coalition to pass groundbreaking privacy laws to require warrants before law enforcement accesses email or phone communications. As United States Senator, I will work with Republicans and Democrats alike to repeal the Patriot Act and restore checks and balances on government spying. I’m proud to have been called “the Elizabeth Warren of civil liberties,” and that’s exactly the kind of senator I intend to be.

Needless to say, you don’t find a record like that every day. We need Shenna Bellows in the Senate, standing with our most dependable leaders and bringing her passion and principles to a legislative body that’s short on both right now.

One last thing about this race you need to know: Susan Collins is nervous. When she started running a recent television ad trying to claim credit for ending the government shutdown, Shenna didn’t let it pass. She put out a web video (up top) telling voters the other half of the story-- the half where Susan Collins voted with the tea party to hold the government hostage and hurt businesses in her own state. Now Susan Collins is backpedaling and trying to convince reporters her votes meant the opposite of what they meant. She can’t defend her record, so she’s trying to ignore it. Voters aren’t buying it, and we need to help Shenna hold her accountable for voting against her own state.

Shenna Bellows is the future of the U.S. Senate. She’s the future of progressive politics. There’s no one we’re more excited to support this year, and we hope you’ll join us-- right here and right now.