Nov. 28, 2022
By Ben Jealous

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As I write this, the final few races are being called in the midterm elections that were held weeks ago. It’s clear that that the House will be closely divided, with Republicans holding a very small majority. History shows that in midterm elections, the party that doesn’t hold the presidency typically gains a lot of seats in Congress – oftentimes in a wipeout of the party in power. Republicans’ gains were comparatively tiny this year – but they probably should have been even tinier.

The reason is the far-right Supreme Court, and two rulings that hurt Black voters this cycle.

Two Deep South states, Alabama and Louisiana, redrew congressional maps months before the midterms. Incredibly, given the high proportion of Black voters in those states, the maps allowed for only one majority-Black congressional district in each state. That is almost certainly a violation of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits states from packing minority voters into fewer districts in a way that reduces their power. And you don’t have to take my word for it; federal courts said the same thing and ordered both states to redraw their maps.

But state officials opposed to Black voting power fought back. And in both instances, the Supreme Court allowed them to go ahead with this year’s midterm elections with maps that just happened to preserve “safe” Republican seats.

It’s infuriating. And those are only two of the infuriating decisions that have come out of this Court since Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell succeeded in stacking it with enough ultraconservative justices to make a supermajority.

I know that the inner workings of the courts, especially the Supreme Court, can seem really remote in our day-to-day lives. Most people don’t know any judges, and if they meet one in court it’s probably happening on a very unpleasant day.  In fact, my guess is that a lot of people would rather not think much about the courts at all. But we have to.

We need to pay attention to who sits on our courts and how they get there, because there is such an enormous impact on our lives whether we realize it or not. The Supreme Court’s impact on the House majority is just one example. Those actions by the Court will affect what business gets done in Congress and what laws get passed – or not passed – that impact how we live and what rights we have.

Judges get their seats in different ways, especially at the state level. If you live in a place where state-level judges are elected, it’s critically important to get informed and vote in those judicial elections. When it comes to federal judges, the Senate decides who will be confirmed. So every time you cast a vote for a senator, it should be for the candidate who will vote to confirm fair-minded judges with a commitment to civil rights. The Biden administration has been doing a very good job nominating diverse, highly qualified judges who have this commitment. I believe in supporting senators who have voted to confirm these judges and withholding support from those who haven’t.

The same goes for the presidential election, which we will face again in less than two years. In 2016, Donald Trump ran on a platform to name far-right judges to the Supreme Court who would ultimately overturn Roe v. Wade.  That’s exactly what happened when he won, and now the Court is moving on to do other damage, too – like denying Black voters fair representation in Congress.

So what do we do? We get informed, we organize, and we vote in the next election – the same thing we do to confront so many issues this country faces.  Next election seems too far away? There is something you can do in the meantime. Call your senators and tell them to confirm the federal judicial nominees that are still waiting for a Senate vote between now and the end of the year. There are literally dozens of nominees picked by President Biden, including many people of color and nominees with strong civil rights backgrounds, just waiting for Senate action to take their seats on the courts. We can show we care by calling our senators and telling them to confirm these nominees now.

Courts are going to keep showing us how much of an impact they have on our lives.  We need to exercise every option we have to impact who sits on them.

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and Professor of the Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. A New York Times best-selling author, his next book "Never Forget Our People Were Always Free" will be published by Harper Collins in January 2023.

Nov. 21, 2022
By Marc H. Morial 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “I am angry at the chorus of armchair pundits who created a dominant media narrative around the red wave with little evidence of it. I’m furious about that because for those of us who do the work on the ground to persuade [people] to vote, it was actually a challenging narrative environment when voters and all of us are being told, “This is going to be a red wave or a red tsunami,” as if, for instance, women voters had amnesia from the summer around the overturning of Roe v. Wade and were just focused on the economy and inflation. Not true, it turns out. Or Black voters, yet again, basically the conscience of America, turning out and showing up and really voting our values around racial justice and freedom and resilience.” – Dorian Warren, co-president, Community Change and Community Change Action

A little over two weeks before Election Day, New York Times columnist David Brooks helpfully explained. Why Republicans Are Surging.

The only problem: they weren’t. And they didn’t.

Brooks wasn’t alone. Fox News hosts Jesse Watters and Jeanine Pirro bet Geraldo Rivera $1,000 the GOP would win the Senate and the House. CNN’s Chris Cillizza offered up the following headlines: Why the midterms are going to be great for Donald Trump, Why Republican attacks on crime have been so devastating for Democrats, and The bottom is dropping out of the 2022 election for Democrats.

They weren’t, they haven’t, and it didn’t.

While a few House races remain too close to call, President Biden’s party has lost at least six seats, giving control of the chamber to Republicans.  "However, Democrats flipped one Senate seat and pending the outcome of Georgia's runoff, may increase their majority."  It was hardly the 20- to 30-seat Republican gain in the House many forecasters predicted, and decidedly not “great” for Trump-endorsed candidates in competitive races, about 70% of whom lost with six races yet to be called and two headed to runoffs.

It was also the first midterm election since at least 1934 that the President’s party hasn’t lost a state-legislative chamber; in fact, Democrats took complete control of three new state governments -- Michigan, Minnesota, and Vermont – and flipped the Maryland and Massachusetts governorships and the Pennsylvania state House.

Predicting a loss for the President’s party in a midterm election usually is a safe bet. The President’s party has lost seats in Congress in every election except two since World War II. The only exceptions have been 1998, when the President’s party gained five seats in the House and lost no seats in the Senate, and 2002, when the President’s party gained eight seats in the House and two seats in the Senate.  Post-war, control of the House has flipped eight times and control of the Senate 10 times.

How did some of the most prominent voices in the media get it so wrong? One mistake is relying on outlier polls and unreliable polls, as David Brooks did. On October 20, the day his “Republicans are Surging” column appeared, an average of “generic ballot” polls showed Republicans with an advantage of just one tenth of one percentage point, and Democrats ahead in the four key Senate races.  Brooks based his analysis on a single poll that found a four-point Republican advantage.

Closer to Election Day, however, even these polling averages shifted in favor of Republicans, thanks to what political strategist. Simon Rosenberg called “a ferocious campaign GOP campaign right now to flood the zone with their polls, game the averages, declare the election is tipping to them.”  Political data specialist Tom Bonier noted that many of these polls assumed “an older, whiter, more male electorate.”

Rosenberg told MSNBC’s Joy Reid, “This is an unprecedented massive campaign by the Republicans to game the polling average. And it’s disappointing to me this wasn’t caught earlier by many of the people that do this that are on TV and do this for a living.”

A bigger problem was this polling mirage served to confirm some pundits’ pre-existing biases, underestimating motivating factors like reproductive rights and the threat to democracy, that were not important to them personally, and overestimating the role of inflation and the false narrative of rising violent crime.

The American electorate is changing, growing more racially and ethnically diverse. Our pundit class – those whose opinion columns are published by major news organizations and who are given network and cable tv platforms to wax political – does not reflect this diversity. Until it does, it will continue to suffer from the blind spots that not only skewed predictions about the election, but potentially sabotaged it.

To Be Equal 
Rev. Calvin Butts Took His Ministry To The Streets
By Marc H. Morial 

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - “Reverend Butts worked more effectively than any other leader at the intersection of power, politics, and faith in New York. He understood the role of faith in our lives, especially in the Black community. But he also understood power and how to wield it and how to demand power from those who often sought to hoard it. And so he was a pragmatist, he was a realist, but he was also a dreamer.” – Ford Foundation President Darren Walker

Last year, during a town hall on vaccines hosted by the Black Coalition Against COVID-19, of which the National Urban League is a co-founding partner, the Rev. Calvin Butts stated succinctly and powerfully the role of the church in Black communities, and the power of the church to shape those communities.

“The church is still the place of social cohesion for our community,” he said. “I don’t care what anybody says, it is true, and the Black pastor is still the most trusted of all. We have every reason to believe that’s true not only in terms of medicine but also in terms of the political life that sets the atmosphere. We just had one Black pastor elected to the Senate. We had one Black pastor, who is still the major Black, political leader of all time, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. We have Henry McNeal Turner, who was an AME Bishop down in Georgia, who was very powerful and Bill Gray, out of Philadelphia. So, we have, in our possession, the keys to unlock the doors of information to our community.”

Rev. Butts, who passed away last month at the age of 73, used these keys more broadly and effectively than perhaps any other pastor in recent history to transform his community and empower his congregation.

As the National Urban League prepares to relocate to Harlem, the community where our movement took root, we will be joining a community that has been profoundly and radically reshaped by Rev. Butts’ passion, his devotion, and his political and business savvy.

Rev. Butts served Abyssinian Baptist Church for 50 years, starting as a 22-year-old youth minister in 1972, fresh out of Morehouse College. The church, then led by Rev. Dr. Samuel DeWitt Proctor, already had been built into one of the city’s most influential institutions by Proctor’s immediate predecessor, the dynamic 11-term congressman Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr.

Rev. Butts became Abyssinian’s pastor in 1989. That same year, he founded Abyssinian Development Corporation with a single employee and a $50,000 grant, with a mission to rebuild Harlem “brick by brick and block by block.”

The non-profit has since invested $1 billion in the community, including the first high school constructed in Harlem in half a century, some of the neighborhood’s first national retail chain stores, one of its few full-service supermarkets, a department store, and a shopping center. 
It also has developed more than 1,500 rental units in the Harlem area, most reserved for low-income residents.

The National Urban League is honoring Rev. Butts’ legacy with our own $242 million investment in Harlem, the 414,000-square-foot Urban League Empowerment Center, which includes 170 units of affordable housing with 70 supportive homes reserved for youth aging out of foster care.

As Rev. Butts explained to The New York Times in 2008, the church’s development work grew out of its tradition of social justice advocacy. The church was founded in 1808 by a group of Ethiopian merchant seamen and other Black worshippers who walked out of the First Baptist Church in Lower Manhattan after they were directed to sit in a segregated area. Abyssinia is a historic name for Ethiopia.

True to Abyssinian’s origin, Rev. Butts fought fiercely and fearlessly for civil rights and social justice. Outraged by the violence and misogyny he heard in rap music, he once commandeered a steam roller to crush a pole of cassette tapes and compact discs in front of his church. When rap fans blocked his path, he and his followers hopped a bus to midtown Manhattan and dumped the pole in front of Sony headquarters. “This is your garbage,” he shouted into a megaphone. “Take it back!”

He was a fierce critic of what he called “a culture of white supremacy” within the New York Police Department, calling rogue officers "ignorant savages who continue to prey upon our people as if we have no respect by virtue of our humanity or our citizenship."

U.S. Senator Raphael Warnock, who served as the youth pastor and then assistant pastor at Abyssinian in the 1990s, said, “Calvin Butts taught me how to take my ministry to the streets. The work of the Lord doesn’t stop at the church door. That’s where it starts. His pulpit was the public square.”

 Nov. 14, 2022

Wes Moore becomes the first Black Governor of Maryland
By David W. Marshall

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Maryland is unique in many ways. While it is one of the smallest states in the nation, it is also the wealthiest state in America for 2022. It has the highest median household income in the country at $86,738. While Maryland is the second state with the highest percentage of millionaires per capita, the state’s wealth is not just exclusive to white communities. For decades, Prince George’s County has carried the unique distinction of being the country’s wealthiest majority Black county. Data shows that the title of affluence now belongs to neighboring Charles County. Many people may disagree totally with Republican Gov. Larry Hogan on policy, but there is a sense of relief that Hogan has shielded the state from the full impact of the MAGA movement and spared Maryland from the type of toxic and racially divisive politics usually associated with the current state executives in Florida and Texas. During a speech earlier this year, Hogan, who has always been a critic of former President Donald Trump, said he thinks Trump’s potency would wane if candidates backed by the former president start losing in primaries and the midterms in November. We are now in November, and that is exactly what we are seeing. Hogan argued that voters want someone who offers “a hopeful, positive vision” because they are “completely disgusted with the toxic politics and they’re sick and tired of all the lies and excuses.”

Unlike Florida and Texas, Maryland is a deep blue state with a 2-to-1 margin of Democrats. For Hogan to have won the election in 2014 and then re-election in 2018, the moderate Republican was able to put together a coalition of Republicans, independent voters, suburban women, and crossover Democrats. Many of those crossover Democrats were Asian, Latino, and Black voters. Hogan, who is term-limited, refused to support the Republican candidate in this year’s governor’s race to succeed him. He described the Trump-endorsed Republican gubernatorial nominee as “a QAnon whack job” unfit for office. Many Maryland voters agreed, instead electing Democrat Wes Moore, who became the state’s first Black governor. The governor-elect had a resounding victory by winning 60 percent of the vote. He is also the third Black person ever elected governor of a U.S. state since Reconstruction. Doug Wilder of Virginia and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts were the first two. As a Democrat, Moore assembled a similar Hogan-type coalition, this time with Republican crossover voters.

The former Rhodes Scholar, combat veteran, best-selling author, Wall Street money manager, and former CEO of one of the nation’s largest anti-poverty organizations is a newcomer to politics. His internal polling last fall showed that he was the choice of only seven percent of Maryland Democrats. Despite never holding an elected office, Moore was not completely unknown in political circles. He was encouraged to run for office in the past—for mayor of Baltimore and for Congress after the death of longtime U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings. “When you meet Wes, you remember Wes,” said former Maryland Secretary of State John Willis. Receiving the political endorsement of U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer never hurts. Nor does a celebrity endorsement from Oprah Winfrey.

His patriotism resonated with voters regardless of their political ideology. Wes Moore loves his country, and it became an obvious fact to specific voters who are accustomed to Republicans being the party promoting patriotism and love of country. He believes it is critical for the next leader of Maryland to articulate that no one political party or movement holds a monopoly over service to the country. He made it known that you can be both a proud Democrat and a proud patriot. Moore reminded voters that it is the Democrats who are fighting to safeguard free and fair elections. Compared to MAGA election deniers, the Democrats are true patriots. As a former Army captain, he ran his campaign on the military slogan of “Leave No One Behind.“ Moore served as a paratrooper in the 82^nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army and was deployed to Afghanistan in 2005. “There was something that they taught us on our first day of military training, whether you were Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard…it was simple. Leave no one behind, ever,” said Moore to a campaign crowd. “If you get one of my people, I will send a battalion to go get them if I have to. We leave no one behind.”

When we compare the overall wealth of Maryland to the despair, abandonment, and blight of crime-ridden areas within Baltimore City, the poorest residents are undoubtedly left behind. Only time will tell if lasting progress will be made in this area. As a Maryland resident, it is refreshing that the governor-elect understands the plight of the poor and the need to strategically provide state resources to localities in addressing the root causes of crime and public safety. The expectations for Moore will be high as the first Black governor. It is not easy being the first Black in any endeavor. But with the help of a Democratic-controlled general assembly, one can see Gov. Wes Moore sending the battalion to Baltimore.

David W. Marshall is the founder of the faith-based organization, TRB: The Reconciled Body, and author of the book God Bless Our Divided America. He can be reached at www.davidwmarshallauthor.com.

Nov. 14

Seven Top Takeaways from this Year’s Midterms

By Ben Jealous

(jTriceEdneyWire.com) - As the dust settles on the midterm elections and the warnings of a “Red Wave” evaporate, it’s time to take a deep breath and take stock of what we’ve learned. There are many takeaways from the elections this year – and here are a few that top the list for me.

If there’s one thing that’s crystal clear by now, it’s that elections don’t end on Election Night. With more mail-in ballots to count and plenty of close races, it’s normal to wait a few days for final results. So don’t listen to folks who say there’s something suspicious about vote counts that take a while. There isn’t. We have to be patient and make sure every vote is counted.

Another development is that early voting is here to stay. One day before the election, nearly 41 million Americans had cast early ballots. Georgia broke its all-time record for early votes. Again, there have been some fearmongers out there throwing shade on early voting, as if it’s somehow not the norm. Ignore them too. Early voting is totally legitimate and a great idea. Do it if you can.

By now we’ve all seen the attempts by far-right activists in Arizona to scare people away from early voting, by camping out fully armed near dropboxes. We have to recognize that the Right may become more aggressive in its efforts to suppress the vote. The Justice Department stepped in this time to protect the vote and it will have a role to play in protecting it in the future; we should expect and welcome that.

These are all aspects of the new normal in our election process. But what about the issues? What are the takeaways there?

There’s no question that Americans came out in force to support reproductive freedom. In state after state where measures on abortion rights were on the ballot, people voted to uphold those rights. In California, Michigan, Vermont, Montana, and even deep-red Kentucky, voters came out for the freedom to control their own bodies.

Abortion rights were also among the top issues motivating voters to go to the polls. Exit polls show inflation topped the list with abortion second – and way ahead of crime, which the Far Right had hoped to use as a winning issue against progressives. Of course, the Right’s spin – that progressives’ only answer is to “defund” police – was never accurate anyway, and we shouldn’t ever let that argument about public safety stand. Progressives have plenty of alternatives to offer when it comes to public safety and ending police violence. We need to be more clear and more forceful in making that case.

As for election deniers on the ballot, it comes as a relief that some of the loudest and potentially most dangerous ones were defeated. Yes, it’s true that a significant number of them won or kept seats in Congress and lower offices, and that’s deeply disturbing. But Doug Mastriano will not be governor of Pennsylvania, Tim Michels will not be governor of Wisconsin, and Tudor Dixon will not be governor of Michigan. Lee Zeldin will not govern New York, and Derek Schmidt will not govern Kansas. Election-denying candidates lost secretary of state races in Michigan, New Mexico and Minnesota. I’ll go out on a limb and say I hope the Right is learning that election denialism is not a ticket to victory.

I’ve saved one of the biggest takeaways for last, and it’s one that’s close to my heart. It’s the importance of down-ballot races like sheriff, state representative, or city council person. These candidates don’t get all the attention and the big rallies like folks at the top of the ticket. But these are critical positions where a small amount of support can make a huge difference. They’re also the races where you’ll find rising stars: people like Malcolm Kenyatta in the Pennsylvania House, Anna Eskamani in the Florida House, and Darrin Camilleri and Sarah Anthony in the Michigan Senate – part of a wave that flipped the state’s senate this year. We need to pay attention to these races, and we need to support these young people who are our future.

Thanks for voting – this time and every time.

Ben Jealous serves as president of People For the American Way and Professor of the Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. A New York Times best-selling author, his next book "Never Forget Our People Were Always Free" will be published by Harper Collins in January 2023.