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Why the Fair Elections Ballot Question?
Report on Extreme Influence of Big Money in Mayor's Race Leaves No Doubt
The need for Chicago's Fair Elections ballot question was underscored today by a stunning new report detailing the outrageous number of large contributions coming from donors outside Chicago to the city's mayoral candidates.
The Illinois PIRG Education Fund's report found that big donations completely eclipse small donations to the five mayoral campaigns. Contributions greater than $1,000 account for more than 86% of the money contributed to the five Chicago mayoral candidates, while less than 2% of the money contributed comes from contributions of less than $150. What's more, the top two donors gave more than all of the at least 1,601 small donors combined.
"This report demonstrates how Chicago politics is being negatively influenced by big special interests and the super rich," said Brian Gladstein, Director of Programs and Strategy Common Cause Illinois. "In response, we need a matching campaign financing system to amplify the voices of every Chicagoan. That is why we created the Fair Elections campaign to allow more diverse people to run for office and win based on the issues and not who can raise the most money."
Not only are large donations almost entirely funding the five mayoral campaigns, but just over half (52%) of the contributions are from people who do not even live in Chicago. Out-of-city influence also grows with the size of the donation: 60% of the money was from donors who gave $25,000 or more, 80% of the money was from donors who gave $80,000 or more.
These findings paint a clear picture as to why Chicago voters should vote YES to the Fair Elections ballot question, which calls for a campaign financing system that shuts out the corrupt influence of large donors like the ones dominating this year's mayoral race, along with elections across the state. Voting YES for Fair Elections is the one thing voters can do to reshape every Chicago race for generations to come. The referendum calls for a campaign finance system like NYC's and LA's that relies on small donors and a limited match of public funds, putting a stop to wealthy donors and corporate lobbyists who too often sway elections.
Today is a Day of Action for Fair Elections Illinois, a campaign by Common Cause Illinois. People across the city will be contacting voters to tell them how their vote can make sure future Chicago elections are not controlled by special interests and the very rich.
The Illinois PIRG Education Fund reports that the analysis examined contributions to the five mayoral candidates between 2011 and December 31st, 2014, the end of the last quarterly report. A significant amount of money has been contributed since then, which Illinois PIRG Education Fund will analyze once the campaigns and campaign reports are completed. The report can be read here.
Common Cause is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the core values of American democracy. We work to create open, honest, and accountable government that serves the public interest; promote equal rights, opportunity, and representation for all; and empower all people to make their voices heard in the political process.
(202) 833-1200Report 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."
'Shocking': UNRWA Chief Decries Israel's Destruction of Agency Headquarters
"Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law," said the commissioner-general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
The head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees expressed horror Monday over Israeli forces' destruction of the key aid organization's headquarters in Gaza City, which Israel's military recently attacked and left in ruins.
"Shocking," Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), wrote in a social media post, which included photos of the bombed-out headquarters complex.
"UNRWA headquarters in Gaza, turned into a battlefield and now flattened," Lazzarini continued. "Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law. United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting purposes. Every war has rules. Gaza is no exception."
Shocking. @UNRWA headquarters in #Gaza, turned into a battlefield & now flattened 👇
Another episode in the blatant disregard of international humanitarian law.
United Nations facilities must be protected at all times. They must never be used for military or fighting… pic.twitter.com/XVOm5UjJeM
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 15, 2024
Photos of UNRWA's destroyed headquarters emerged following a deadly weekend of Israeli bombings across the Gaza Strip that were overshadowed in the media by the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday.
More than 140 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded on Saturday and Sunday, including in Israeli airstrikes on a so-called "safe zone" in southern Gaza.
Tamara Alrifai, UNRWA's head of external relations, told Al Jazeera on Monday that "the last week has been one of the deadliest weeks in Gaza since the war started."
"The images coming out of the UNRWA headquarters are really shocking," said Alrifai. "What I saw today in the footage is unrecognizable."
While U.S. media blacked out coverage for Palestine: "The headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has been destroyed."
"The last week has been the worst violence since the war started," said Tamara al-Rafai, Head of External Relations. https://t.co/Jh228UYexc pic.twitter.com/jVHcqIpd2e
— HalalFlow (@halalflow) July 15, 2024
UNRWA and its infrastructure in Gaza, including schools, have been major targets of Israel's far-right government since its latest assault on the Palestinian enclave began in October following a deadly Hamas-led attack. Israeli officials have repeatedly claimed—without providing evidence—that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations.
Nearly 200 UNRWA facilities in Gaza, most of which have been serving as shelters for displaced people, have been damaged during Israel's war on the besieged territory, Alrifai noted Monday. Around 500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks on UNRWA facilities, according to Alrifai.
"It speaks volumes to the blatant disregard for international humanitarian law," she said.
Israel's aerial and ground attacks on Gaza continued Monday as much of the territory's population is facing catastrophic levels of hunger. Since the start of the assault, Israel has dramatically restricted the flow of humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip, depriving Palestinians of food, medicine, clean water, and other basic necessities.
Reutersreported that Israel "struck the southern and central Gaza Strip" on Monday and "blew up several homes."
"Medical officials said they recovered 10 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire in eastern areas of the city, some of which had already begun to decompose," the news agency added. "The military also stepped up aerial and tank shelling in central Gaza in the al-Bureij and al-Maghazi historic refugee camps. Health officials said five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in Maghazi camp."
'Utterly Unhinged': Trump-Appointed Judge Dismisses Classified Docs Case
"This is how republics collapse," one lawyer said, noting that even if the decision is reversed, it will likely delay "Trump's trial long enough to prevent any form of accountability before the November election."
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, dismissed the criminal classified documents case against the presumptive Republican presidential nominee in a Monday decision denounced as politically motivated and "a punch in the mouth to the rule of law."
The Florida-based judge's dismissal came as the Republican National Convention kicked off in Milwaukee, Wisconsin after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a Saturday campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump is expected to formally become the GOP presidential nominee on Thursday.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel for a pair of federal probes after Trump announced the current presidential campaign in November 2022. Trump was finally indicted for his handling of classified documents the following June. He faces 40 charges in this case alone.
"Unless the 11th Circuit and ultimately SCOTUS disagree, Trump goes free for walking out of the White House with top secret documents."
In response to Trump's motion to dismiss, Cannon on Monday agreed with his defense team that "Smith's appointment violates the appointments clause of the United States Constitution" and dismissed the superseding indictment.
Cannon wrote that "both the appointments and appropriations challenges as framed in the motion raise the following threshold question: Is there a statute in the United States Code that authorizes the appointment of Special Counsel Smith to conduct this prosecution? After careful study of this seminal issue, the answer is no."
"None of the statutes cited as legal authority for the appointment... gives the attorney general broad inferior-officer appointing power or bestows upon him the right to appoint a federal officer with the kind of prosecutorial power wielded by Special Counsel Smith," she continued. "Nor do the special counsel's strained statutory arguments, appeals to inconsistent history, or reliance on out-of-circuit authority persuade otherwise."
With an appeal all but certain, Cannon's decision could be reconsidered by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta or the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a conservative supermajority that includes three Trump appointees. Journalists and legal experts on Monday framed the dismissal as just the latest move the judge has made to benefit the man who appointed her.
The Associated Presspointed out that Cannon previously "appointed an independent arbiter to inspect the classified documents recovered during the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago, a decision that was overturned months later by a unanimous federal appeals panel," and "since then, she has been slow to issue rulings—favoring Trump's strategy of securing delays—and has entertained defense arguments that experts said other judges would have dismissed without hearings."
The New York Timesnoted that "Judge Cannon's ruling came exactly two weeks after Justice Clarence Thomas deeply questioned the constitutionality of Smith's appointment in an odd concurrence in the Supreme Court's landmark ruling granting Trump broad immunity against criminal prosecution," which stemmed from Smith's other case against Trump.
University of Alabama law professor and MSNBC legal commentator Joyce White Vance also highlighted how Cannon's decision—which she roundly criticized and called "absolutely incredible"—came after Thomas' concurrence.
"Unless the 11th Circuit and ultimately SCOTUS disagree, Trump goes free for walking out of the White House with top secret documents. At best, this is seriously delayed," said Vance, adding that she was "disgusted."
Congressman Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) said that "the dismissal of this case reflects a clear bias for the former president and the outlying opinion of the far-right wing Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas."
"To dismiss this case would be a miscarriage of justice," he added. "I urge Attorney General Garland and Special Counsel Smith to appeal this egregious decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals."
As the Times reported: "The ruling rolls back nearly 30 years of how special counsels have gotten their jobs. Special counsels are governed by Justice Department regulations set through the statutory authority of the attorney general."
MSNBC host Chris Hayes accused Cannon of failing to do her job correctly by defying precedent and potentially hoping that the nation's highest court will uphold her decision.
"Just to be crystal clear: SCOTUS has upheld special counsels repeatedly. Cannon is a district court judge, her job is to apply controlling precedent," he explained. "She's doing this because she thinks the MAGA court is on the same page as her and Trump's lawyers and will go along."
Human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid suggested that Cannon's timing was intentional, saying: "She saw the nonstop media coverage of the shooting, used that distraction to overturn decades of legal precedent without citing a single case in her ruling's favor, and dismissed Trump's classified documents case. This is how republics collapse."
"To be sure, Cannon's absurd ruling is so extreme that only one of the MAGA justices supported it in his immunity decision (Thomas). Her decision will likely be reversed because it has absolutely zero basis in precedent whatsoever. It is utterly unhinged," he added. "But Cannon's indefensible opinion still serves its purpose of delaying Trump's trial long enough to prevent any form of accountability before the November election. That was the move all along."
Damon Silvers, a visiting professor at University College London, said that "it's important to understand Judge Cannon's dismissal of the criminal case against Trump as both an attempt to grant him legal immunity AND an effort to escalate tensions in our country for political purposes. The right response is an appeal."
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington president Noah Bookbinder also called for an appeal, saying in a statement that "this is a lawless, outlier decision with no basis in statute or case law. It is deeply dangerous for accountability and checks and balances going forward."
"This decision should and assuredly will be appealed immediately," he added. "It endangers the very concept of ensuring the most powerful people in government have to follow the law."
While fighting this case, Trump in May was convicted of 34 felonies in New York for the falsification of business records regarding hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 presidential election. He faces two other cases—one overseen by Smith and another in Georgia—related to his attempt to overturn his 2020 loss to Democratic President Joe Biden, who is seeking reelection.