http://www.thenation.com/article/163548/rick-perrys-attack-democracyWell worth reading in its entirety.
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Perry’s particular extremism seeks to limit the role of voters at the national level of American politics: he would end the direct election of senators. But his candidacy highlights a broader agenda of Republican governors, who have been moving in recent months to diminish state and local democracy by undermining the authority of local elected officials, who tend to be the ones most accountable to the people. Those governors are instead shifting power to statewide executives, who are more accountable to the billionaire campaign donors and business interests that were freed by the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision to buy the election results that most favor their interests.
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The assault on democracy at the state and local levels—which extends to enacting “pre-emption laws” that prevent local governments from passing legislation to protect workers, raise the minimum wage or extend sick-leave protections—is spreading rapidly in states where Republican governors and legislatures were swept to power in 2010. Many of these initiatives have been outlined and advanced by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate-funded alliance of legislators and lobbyists that has long promoted expansion of state officials’ power to override local laws, and which has recently been campaigning to make it harder for citizens to gather petitions and organize referendum votes, such as the popular “living wage” initiatives many cities and counties have enacted.
ALEC has operated largely behind closed doors, at least until the recent “ALEC Exposed” project revealed the group’s machinations . But the new breed of hard-right Republican politicians is less circumspect. The 2010 election of governors like Wisconsin’s Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich—both ALEC alumni—has moved the antidemocratic agenda from the fringe into the halls of power at the state level.
As the 2012 election approaches, Rick Perry, a keynote speaker at ALEC’s 2010 States and Nation Policy Summit, has emerged as a front-runner for his party’s presidential nomination. It is easy to dismiss Perry’s attack on the direct election of senators as crazy talk. But there were plenty of voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and other states who dismissed the fringe positions of Republican gubernatorial candidates in 2010, only to see those positions written into state statutes this year. Perry’s views regarding an elected Senate are so extreme they should disqualify him from consideration not just by progressives but by conservatives who hold to the traditional Republican, and American, view that the cure for what ails democracy is more democracy—not less.
See the long compilation topic on the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) for more on how dangerous this group is.
Good for Nichols for connecting Perry's radical-right views and those of other radical-right governors to ALEC, and for pointing out how anti-democracy (and pro-plutocracy) they are.
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