The Republican-controlled Harris County voter registrar has been forced to settle a lawsuit over the 2008 denial of 78,000 voter registration applications, one-third of the 240,000 received. The settlement is scheduled for discussion at the Harris County Commissioner’s Court on Tuesday.
Let’s make this clear. Republicans used their public office to suppress the votes of citizens they were afraid would vote against them. Americans are justifiably outraged when such anti-democratic acts take place in, say, Afghanistan, as happened in the recent elections there. To make the point that it can happen here, Sinclair Lewis titled his 1935 book about political thuggery in America, It Can’t Happen Here. Now we know it is happening here.
What happened? In 2006 Democrats won elections for every Dallas County office. In 2008, Republicans looked at their increasing negatives and destructive, unpopular policies and feared the same would happen in Harris County. Rather than change those policies they set out to rig the election, and they used their elected offices to do it.
In 2004′s The Politics of Deceit, I wrote:
The most underreported political scandal in America today is the systematic effort of some in the Republican Party to suppress the vote of those whom they believe — with probable cause — will vote against them. Their efforts are aimed primarily at minorities and the poor. The perpetrators betray the spirit of democracy and the intentions of the Founding Fathers. By their actions they make it plain that their own interests…take precedence over the health of the Republic.
As a political journalist in Texas in the 70s and 80s, I’m afraid I was one of those guilty of the underreporting. We covered the story in 1982 when Karl Rove and others tried to purge voter roles with a fraudulent list of felons, but we treated that and other voter suppression efforts like we’d treat a car wreck — not the crack-up of democracy it is.
What can be a greater crime in a democracy that the subversion of our democratic institutions? How can someone who says they believe in democracy do their very best to put their own power above it? When the lust for power overwhelms the love of democracy, our system is at risk. And this is exactly what happened in Harris County.
In 2008, Then-Tax Assessor-Collector Paul Bettencourt refused to correctly process 78,000 voter registration applicants. His agent was a guy named Ed Johnson, who just happened to moonlight as a GOP political consultant. Johnson’s moonlighting partner was GOP state Rep. Dwayne Bohac. The Lone Star Project, gets the credit for uncovering these scandals, first reported by KHOU-TV. The LSP is now telling us that the firm is using drivers license data illegally in its ongoing schemes to steal elections. The state Democratic Party filed a lawsuit in the voter registration scandal, and the voter registrar has now settled that suit, agreeing to procedures that should guard against future abuses. Johnson has since been relieved of election responsibilities by new tax assessor Leo Vasquez.
Of course, Vasquez did his best to stonewall and deny all these allegations, raising serious questions about whether the terms of the settlement will be followed by his office. He goes to great lengths to praise Johnson and deny any wrongdoing, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Oh, and now he’s agreed to stop doing what he’s claimed no one was doing.
Kudos. Sinclair said that when fascism comes to America it will be “…a bible wrapped in a flag.” Prophetic?
…and carried by dunderheads….
I hope we find ways to have a national discussion about this. While the Bush gang of thugs was pretending to promote democracy in undemocratic states, our democracy was taken captive. There’s a lot of talk about emerging new democracies and the processes needed to make them succeed. What happens when a mature democracy fails its own systems and principles? What will restore and protect it?
Our “mature democracy” frequently operates on an adolescent, if not playground, level. Your question, Rita — “What happens when a mature democracy fails its own systems and principles?” is frequently answered by a shrug of the shoulders and “that’s just politics” response, by voters and “electeds” alike. And, of course, by plots and ploys to be the biggest bully with the biggest pile of money.
Your question is a very good one: What will restore and protect our democracy? I’d add: Who in DC (or Austin)is showing awareness of the kind of concerns raised in Glenn’s piece?
Glenn, thanks for being our watchdog.
There is no way our democracy will ever be safe again so long as corporations continue to have the legal rights of “people,” albeit fantastically rich, immortal and absolutely amoral “people.” Most of the problems in this age (like the previous gilded age) stem from too much corporate money corrupting the courts, politicians and media. Without those things the Rove/Gingrich/DeLay version of the Republican Party could never have occurred. Start thinking in terms of a constitutional amendment to undo the damage done by a Supreme Court railroad lobbyist/clerk in 1886.
So what happens to Bohac? Does he get a pass?
Mr. Smith, This is Paul Bettencourt. Your open line and premise of the story is incorrect. My office didn’t deny 78,000 voter registrations in 2008. The actual number of rejected voter registration applications from Jan. 1st 2007 to Dec. 31st 2008 was only 3518. During that period of time the Tax Office also mailed 64,036 Notices of incomplete as required under the federal Help America Vote Act. All but tweleve thousand of these voter were registered or already on the voter role, and they didn’t respond to the notice.
You have my e-mail, and I’m available to comment on the rest of your article as much of the information you’ve been told is incorrect.
You are playing word games with the right to vote and that’s almost as bad as denying citizens that right in the first place. Your office refused to accept tens of thousands of lawful voter registration applications based upon invented reasons. The notices you sent them were late, way late, leaving little or no time for citizens to correct the imaginary problems (for instance, citizens with valid drivers licenses who gave you their social security number instead). Effectively, these applications were rejected and voters denied their Constitutional right. Now, your successor, Leo Vasquez, was forced by the Texas Democratic Party’s legal action to halt these voter suppression practices.
I know you and I probably disagree on many policy issues, and I do appreciate you taking the time to state your case here, however misleading I believe your remarks to be. But I see no reason why you and I can’t agree on fundamental rights in our democracy. Barriers to voting undermine our democracy. I want every eligible citizen to vote. You should want that as well. We can know this much with certainty: if our policies face review from all voters — not just those we select ahead of time as more likely to favor us — our policies will be all the better for it. That is the wisdom of the public, a wisdom we both should listen to.