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Scott Simpson, 202.466.2061, simpson@civilrights.org
Civil and Human Rights Coalition Calls for More International Election Monitors in U.S. Presidential Election
In advance of the first presidential election in 50 years without a fully operable Voting Rights Act (VRA), an American civil rights group is urging the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to expand its election monitoring mission in the United States and to target resources to states where voter discrimination and intimidation is most likely.
In a letter sent to the OSCE from The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the group explains that, "A confluence of factors has made the right to vote more vulnerable to racial discrimination than at any time in recent history. The need for additional election observers is paramount. The unprecedented weakening of the Voting Rights Act has led to a tidal wave of voter discrimination efforts nationwide and has required the United States to drastically scale back its own election monitoring program. In addition, a leading presidential candidate who has made the demonization of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities a hallmark of his campaign has recently urged supporters to challenge voters at polling sites nationwide."
The OSCE is an international multi-lateral organization that sends election monitors to its participating countries, including the United States. The OSCE has sent observers to every presidential election since 2002 and intends to send 500 observers for 2016.
In addition to expanding its mission, the group is urging the OSCE "to target its resources to states that have adopted discriminatory restrictions or will likely see enhanced voter intimidation efforts, including places like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Texas.
"The right to vote is more vulnerable now than at any time in the past 50 years," said Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "Additional monitors can never replace what we lost when the VRA was gutted but we have to use every possible means to ensure the integrity of this election isn't compromised by racial discrimination and intimidation. We now have to fight in the courts and at ballot box for every voter and even our nation's best and most well-organized efforts will not meet the demand we're confronted with. Congress needs to restore the VRA immediately."
The letter is copied below.
August 20, 2016
Michael Georg Link, Director
Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights/
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
Warsaw, Poland
Dear Director Link:
On behalf of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an organization committed to ensuring civil rights, including voting rights, for all Americans, we commend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) for observing the 2016 election in the United States, as it has done in the previous three presidential election cycles.
We write now to emphasize that the OSCE's plans to monitor the upcoming U.S. presidential election will be more essential than ever before and to encourage the OSCE to greatly expand its election monitoring mission in the United States for this election.
A confluence of factors has made the right to vote more vulnerable to racial discrimination than at any time in recent history. The need for additional election observers is paramount. The unprecedented weakening of the Voting Rights Act has led to a tidal wave of voter discrimination efforts nationwide and has required the United States to drastically scale back its own election monitoring program. In addition, a leading presidential candidate who has made the demonization of racial, ethnic, and religious minorities a hallmark of his campaign has recently urged supporters to challenge voters at polling sites nationwide.[i]
This will be the first presidential election in 50 years without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act. Because of that, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) will not be able to send objective election monitors to protect the rights of voters in the vast majority of places that were once covered by Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act.[ii] This means that in the states and localities most likely to enact laws and procedures to disenfranchise voters of color, our federal government will be unable to monitor its own election, making your work even more critical.
Election monitoring is an important component of our democratic process and serves as an additional means of protecting the rights of those who are most likely to be disenfranchised and least able to advocate for their right to vote. But the Department of Justice has determined that the Supreme Court's 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder invalidated the part of the Voting Rights Act that authorized it to send election monitors.
In the 2004 general election, the Department of Justice sent 1,463 federal observers to monitor 55 elections in 30 jurisdictions in 14 different states. Because of the Shelby decision, there will be virtually no election observers deployed in 2016.[iii]
According to a Democracy Journal column by a former Department of Justice official,[iv] "There are countless examples of the federal observer program being used to protect voters from racial discrimination at the polls," including:
- In 2012, federal observers monitoring an election in Shelby County, Alabama--the jurisdiction that sued to be removed from VRA preclearance in Shelby County v. Holder--documented the closing of doors on African-American voters before the voting hours were over, as well as voting officials using racial epithets to describe voters.
- That same year, observers were sent to Alameda and Riverside counties in California to gather information regarding reports of serious failures to provide language assistance to voters who needed it.
- In 2011, a federal court relied on observer reports to conclude that Sandoval County, New Mexico, had effectively disenfranchised members of the Keres tribe.
- In 2010, during the early voting period in Harris County, Texas, federal observers documented intimidation and harassment targeting Latino and African-American voters by an organized, well-funded Texas-based organization with clear partisan electoral goals.
Because of the Shelby decision, none of these instances of voter discrimination would likely be prevented or stopped in 2016.
The 2016 presidential campaign has seen a resurgence of bigoted rhetoric against racial, ethnic, and religious minorities, and a former leader of a violent White supremacist hate group, the Ku Klux Klan, is a candidate for the U.S. Senate.
Now a presidential candidate -- who has made demonizing minorities a central part of his campaign strategy -- is encouraging his supporters to challenge voters at polls in "certain sections" of Pennsylvania, an apparent reference to 59 mostly African-American precincts.[v] Efforts at voter intimidation stemming back to the mid-1970s resulted in a federal court banning the Republican Party from engaging in challenge and intimidation efforts aimed at voters of color.[vi]
Non-governmental civil rights and voting rights organizations will also monitor the election where possible, but even the most well-funded and well-organized efforts can't replace the loss of federal election observers or combat a nationwide effort to intimidate voters of color. Voters of color need every possible protection available to them to ensure they can register and cast a ballot. Your ability to shine an international spotlight on this situation is an important component of that protection.
A nationwide litigation effort since the Shelby decision has sought to blunt the tidal wave of voter discrimination laws that were enacted by states and cities. Recent court victories turning back a few of these laws have proven that these efforts are widespread, require massive investments of time and money to litigate, and intentionally discriminate against voters of color. It took years of litigation to strike down intentionally discriminatory laws, meaning countless voters have already been denied the right to cast ballots in the 2014 mid-term election and in this year's presidential primaries. And efforts to ensure that local election officials are complying with those court orders is one important aspect of election observation.
But for every discriminatory statewide law that can be litigated for years, there are countless city, county, and school board changes to voting districts, precinct locations, poll hours, early voting, and new barriers to registering and voting that will never be challenged in court.
Accordingly, we urge the OSCE to greatly expand its election monitoring program in the United States and to target its resources to states that have adopted discriminatory restrictions or will likely see enhanced voter intimidation efforts, including places like Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Texas.
We welcome the opportunity to work with the OSCE Election Observation Mission and its international monitors to ensure a free and fair election in the United States. We are available to meet with you and your team at your earliest convenience.
Cc:
Katarzyna Jarosiewicz-Wargan, First Deputy Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights
Alexander Shlyk, Head of the Elections Department of ODIHR
Richard Lappin, Deputy Head of the Elections Department of ODIHR
Sincerely,
Wade Henderson, President & CEO
Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations to promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. Through advocacy and outreach to targeted constituencies, The Leadership Conference works toward the goal of a more open and just society - an America as good as its ideals.
(202) 466-3311Campaigners Demand Global Ban on Deep-Sea Mining
As talks resume, supporters of a moratorium are also calling for the ouster of the International Seabed Authority's leader, who faces an election on July 29.
As talks to establish global policies on deep-sea mining resumed in Jamaica on Monday, Greenpeace International renewed its demand for a moratorium on the practice, the path also backed other civil society and Indigenous groups, at least hundreds of science and policy experts, and 27 countries.
"The science is clear—there can't be deep-sea mining without environmental cost and the only solution is a moratorium. The more we know about deep-sea mining, the harder it is to justify it," said Greenpeace campaigner Louisa Casson, who is attending the United Nations-affiliated International Seabed Authority's (ISA) 29th session in Kingston.
"Governments at the ISA must not dance to the tune of the industry and approve rushed regulations for the benefit of a few over the interests of Pacific communities and the opinion of scientists," Casson argued, as companies and countries see chances to cash in on the clean energy transition by extracting metals including cobalt, copper, and nickel.
"The deep ocean sustains crucial processes that make the entire planet habitable, from driving ocean currents that regulate our weather to storing carbon and buffering our planet against the impacts of climate change."
The Associated Pressreported Monday that although the ISA has not allowed any extraction during debates, it "has granted 31 mining exploration contracts," and "much of the ongoing exploration is centered in the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, which covers 1.7 million square miles (4.5 million square kilometers) between Hawaii and Mexico."
The Mexican government last year endorsed a moratorium and Democratic Hawaii Gov. Josh Green last week signed a bill banning seabed mining in state waters, citing "environmental risks and constitutional rights to have a clean and healthy environment."
Ahead of the meeting in Jamaica, Deep Sea Conservation Coalition campaign lead Sofia Tsenikli highlighted that "gouging minerals from the seafloor poses an existential threat that goes far beyond the immediate destruction of deep-sea wildlife and habitats."
"The deep ocean sustains crucial processes that make the entire planet habitable, from driving ocean currents that regulate our weather to storing carbon and buffering our planet against the impacts of climate change," Tsenikli said. "States must now protect the ocean and not allow any more damage."
The ISA was established under the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea and a related 1994 agreement, and is responsible for waters not under the control of specific nations. As Common Dreamsreported earlier this month, some diplomats have accused British lawyer Michael Lodge, its current secretary-general, of trying to speed up the start of mining.
"The rush to complete the mining code was triggered by the Pacific island state of Nauru, which is expected to submit a mining license application on behalf of Canada's the Metals Company (TMC) later this year, regardless of whether or not regulations are complete," Reutersnoted Monday.
After ISA's 36-member Council negotiates the "Mining Code" over the next two weeks, its full Assembly is scheduled to meet on July 29 to vote on the next secretary-general, with Lodge facing a challenge from Brazil's Leticia Carvalho for the top post.
"It is time for change at the ISA," Casson of Greenpeace declared Monday. "A third term for Michael Lodge would not only put the oceans under threat but also risk further damaging public trust in the regulator. Mining companies are impatient to get started and mounting evidence indicates that Lodge is overstepping his supposedly-neutral role to align with commercial interests."
"The ISA must listen to millions of people and the growing number of governments calling for a halt to deep-sea mining," she added. "It is time to put conservation at the heart of the ISA's work."
In preparation for the talks in Kingston, Environment Oregon Research & Policy Center, U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund, and Frontier Group last month released a report showing that not only would deep-sea mining destroy "a vibrant, biodiverse place, teeming with complex ecosystems and thousands, possibly millions of species," but also it isn't necessary.
"Disposable electronic devices are creating a toxic e-waste mess. Now, some mining companies are trying to convince policymakers that we need to wreak havoc on the ocean to source the materials to make more," said Charlie Fisher of the Oregon State PIRG Foundation. "This report shows that we don't need to ruin the deep sea to make the products we need. There is a more sustainable path: Make long-lasting, fixable electronics and recycle them when they no longer work."
JD Vance—Who Once Called Trump 'America's Hitler'—Tapped for VP
The right-wing Ohio Republican, who opposes abortion rights and backed Trump's effort to overturn the 2020 election, is a former venture capitalist who portrays himself as a champion of the working class.
Former President Donald Trump on Monday chose U.S. Sen. JD Vance as his running mate despite the Ohio Republican formerly describing himself as a "Never Trump guy" and calling the presumptive GOP nominee an "idiot," an "asshole," and "America's Hitler."
Trump—who survived an assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally on Saturday—announced his pick on the opening day of the Republican Party's convention in Wisconsin with apost on his Truth social media platform, calling Vance "the person best suited" to be vice president.
"JD honorably served our country in the Marine Corps, graduated from Ohio State University in two years, summa cum laude, and is a Yale Law School graduate, where he was the editor of the Yale Law Journal, and president of the Yale Law Veterans Association," Trump wrote. "JD's book, Hillbilly Elegy, became a major bestseller and movie, as it championed the hardworking men and women of our country."
Vance's selection came two days after the senator took to social media to assert that President Joe Biden's rhetoric—including the assertion that Trump "is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs"—led "directly" to Trump's attempted assassination.
Should he accept his selection, Vance—who turns 40 next month—would be making a stark departure from his previous views on Trump.
"I'm a Never Trump guy," Vance said in a 2016 interview with the late Charlie Rose. "I never liked him."
"My God what an idiot," he said of Trump on social media that same year.
In another message explaining his views on the rise of Trump, Vance wrote that the Republican Party "has itself to blame."
"Trump is the fruit of the party's collective neglect" of working-class Americans, Vance argued. "I go back and forth between thinking Trump is a cynical asshole" like former President Richard Nixon "who wouldn't be that bad... or that he's America's Hitler."
Vance, who claims to be a champion of working people and against elites, is a former venture capitalist whose 2022 Senate campaign was backed by billionaires and who has ties to Big Pharma. He opposes reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights. He has complained about high gas prices while raking in Big Oil campaign contributions. He says that Project 2025—a conservative coalition's agenda for a far-right takeover of the federal government—has some "good ideas" in it. He has fundraised for January 6 insurrectionists. He blamed the Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas on "fatherlessness." He wants to ban pornography.
"As Trump's running mate, Vance will make it his mission to enact Trump's Project 2025 agenda at the expense of American families," Jen O'Malley Dillion, chair of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign, said in response to Trump's pick. "This is someone who supports banning abortion nationwide while criticizing exceptions for rape and incest survivors; railed against the Affordable Care Act, including its protections for millions with preexisting conditions; and has admitted he wouldn't have certified the free and fair election in 2020."
"Billionaires and corporations are literally rooting for JD Vance: They know he and Trump will cut their taxes and send prices skyrocketing for everyone else," she added.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC) responded to Vance's selection in a statement asserting that "this is the most consequential election of our lifetimes, and with Donald Trump's decision today to add JD Vance to the Republican ticket, the stakes of this election just got even higher."
"JD Vance embodies MAGA—with an out-of-touch extreme agenda and plans to help Trump force his Project 2025 agenda on the American people," the DNC continued. "Vance has championed and enabled Trump's worst policies for years—from a national abortion ban, to whitewashing January 6, to railing against Social Security and Medicare."
"Let's be clear: A Trump-Vance ticket would undermine our democracy, our freedoms, and our future," the DNC added.
Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said in a statement that "Donald Trump just made clear that his calls for unity were hot air, and that he plans to double-down on his extremist agenda and sow further division."
"JD Vance has called for a national abortion ban and denied the results of the 2020 election," Mitchell added. "He's bankrolled by the same billionaire CEOs who are raising prices while slashing wages for working people. All of us who believe in a future where people can live safely and freely must come together to defeat Trump and Vance in November."
Food & Water Watch Action deputy director Mitch Jones said: "Just like Trump himself, JD Vance is a fossil fuel backer and climate change denier that poses a serious risk to public health and our environment. Among the countless reasons that Trump and Vance shouldn't be elected to lead our country, the duo represent an existential threat to a livable climate future for all Americans and people around the globe."
"For the sake of our planet and the wellbeing of current and future generations, it is critical that sensible people of all stripes come together to ensure that Trump and Vance are defeated in November," he added.
Alliance for Retired Americans executive director Richard Fiesta argued that Vance "locks in place a ticket that endangers the things that retirees care about the most: the protection and expansion of their earned Social Security and Medicare benefits."
"As a member of the U.S. Senate in 2023 and 2024, Sen. Vance earned just a 13% lifetime Pro-Retiree Score in the Alliance for Retired Congressional Americans Voting Record for his votes on important senior issues," Fiesta noted.
"Donald Trump has long acknowledged he would be open to slashing Medicare and Social Security spending in a second term as president, and Sen. Vance also supports cutting those benefits," he added. "The selection of Sen. Vance as his running mate is another major step in that direction."
Ultimately, critics contend, Trump chose Vance for the one thing many say the former president values most: loyalty. Vance has said he would have supported Trump's efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election.
"Vance stands for nothing but gaining power," said former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. "Trump picked him for vice president because he has publicly said he'd do what [former Vice President] Mike Pence refused to do—overturn democracy to place America under MAGA control."
"A Vice President Vance is one more reason why a second Trump term would be far more dangerous than the first," Reich warned.
Report Shows How US Drug War and Deportation Machine Are Destroying Lives
"It's imperative that the U.S. government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."
Thousands of people are deported from the United States each year for past drug offenses that often aren't even crimes anymore under evolving state narcotics laws, a report published Monday revealed.
The 91-page Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) report—titled Disrupt and Vilify: The War on Immigrants Inside the U.S. War on Drugs—highlights the experiences of people deported years or even decades after they committed drug offenses.
One of those immigrants, Natalie Burke of Jamaica, was convicted in 2003 of cannabis-related offenses but pardoned last August by Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, who acted on the unanimous recommendation of a state clemency board, which found that Burke was a victim of domestic violence who was "lured" into trafficking marijuana.
However, according to the report:
She cannot move on with her life because U.S. immigration authorities are trying to deport her, even though marijuana is now legal in Arizona and she has a pardon...
Natalie explained that one day in 2009, her probation officer asked her to come into the Tucson office to fill out some paperwork. Her son, who was in fifth grade at the time, waited for her outside in the parking lot. Natalie never came back to him that day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers took her directly to an immigration detention center because her conviction made her deportable from the United States.
"Even with a hard-won gubernatorial pardon, and even in a state where marijuana is now legal, ICE is still trying to deport Natalie," the report adds. "She continues to fight back and is currently pursuing new legal arguments based on the pardon."
Burke is far from alone. Analyzing data from 2002-20, the report's authors found approximately 500,000 deportations of people whose most serious offense was drug-related. More than 150,000 of those deportations were the result of convictions for drug use or possession, including 47,000 for marijuana—which is now legal for recreational or medicinal use in a majority of U.S. states.
"The uniquely American combination of the drug war and deportation machine work hand in hand to target, exclude, and punish noncitizens for minor offenses—or in some states legal activity—such as marijuana possession," DPA federal affairs director Maritza Perez Medina said in a statement.
"This report underscores that punitive federal drug laws separate families, destabilize communities, and terrorize noncitizens, all while overdose deaths have risen and drugs have become more potent and available," she added. "It's imperative that the U.S. government revises federal law to match current state-based drug policy reforms to end and prevent the immense human suffering being inflicted in the name of the drug war."
The publication notes that "of all immigrants deported with criminal offenses, people with drug-related offenses had lived in the U.S. for the longest periods of time."
This has resulted in the deportation of immigrants who have lived in the United States since childhood and U.S. military veterans being separated from their families.
The report's authors interviewed some people living under the threat of deportation who have become parents or even grandparents of U.S. citizens during their time in the country.
"I'm not able to live and operate without fear because I'm not a citizen," one California resident convicted for marijuana and paraphernalia possession said in the report. "I've lived here for more than 20 years now. This is my home. I have children here. I want to be a citizen, and I'm making every effort to do that. But it seems like that's not going to be possible."
"Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to 'one-size-fits-all' deportations."
HRW immigration and border policy director Vicki Gaubeca said: "Why should parents or grandparents be deported away from children in their care for decades-old drug offenses, including offenses that would be legal today? If drug conduct is not a crime under state law, it should not make someone deportable."
The report also highlights cases of legal permanent residents lawfully employed in states' marijuana industries who cannot become citizens because, due to enduring federal criminalization of cannabis, they are considered to lack "good moral character," and immigrant women who have been sexually abused by corrections officers who know their victims would soon be deported.
HRW and DPA asserted that "Congress should reform immigration law to ensure immigrants with criminal convictions, including for drug offenses, are not subject to 'one-size-fits-all' deportations."
"Instead," the authors argue, "immigration judges should be given the discretion to make individualized decisions. As an important first step, Congress should impose a statute of limitations on deportations, so people can move beyond old offenses and get on with their lives."