This is a succinct explanation from Senator Barack Obama to an undecided voter in a large town hall meeting why she ought to vote for him instead of Hillary Clinton.
I think it's a great opportunity for undecided Democratic Party primary voters to hear directly from Senator Obama why they should vote for him. Check out the seven minute video right here.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
How does proportional representation in delegate selection for the presidential campaign work?
Today is the nation's biggest exercise in using a modern election system -- proportional representation -- in recent political history.
It's a fantastic day for people who believe that our politics suffer from using winner-take-all elections for most of our government, as millions of civic Americans for the first time are coming to understand how proportional representation works.
Let me try to explain some of the nuances.
The Democratic National Committee (the organization that runs the Democratic Party) decides every year how they are going to nominate their candidate for President of the United States. This is not a government decision. Neither the Constitution nor Congress decide how nominations work (unlike elections in November to actually elect the leaders of government where laws structure the entire process). The Democratic National Committee (and the Republican National Committee) are private, non-profit organizations and they get to decide how to run their own affairs.
The DNC has decided that every state will use proportional representation. The RNC has decided that each state can use whatever system they want.
Some state Republican parties have decided to use the winner-take-all rule. That's the way most states award their electoral votes in the Electoral College: whichever candidates gets the most votes in that state gets all of those delegates (or electors).
And *that* means that a state is fiercely contested between candidates if it happens to be close. If it isn't close (like Idaho isn't close in the general presidential election, or Illinois isn't close in the Obama-Clinton campaign), then the candidates basically ignore it because the result is a foregone conclusion. The winner will take all the delegates, whether he or she wins by 65% of the vote or 75% of the vote, and that will be that. There is no incentive to bring out more voters in a winner-take-all state and there is no incentive to increase the margin of victory.
That's the experience of every non-battleground states in November during the presidential election (no one cares if you vote in Texas or in Rhode Island, everyone cares if you vote in Missouri or in Pennsylvania) because only those winner-take-all states that are close count.
Because we only elect one Member of Congress per district, that means every congressional election is winner-take-all. And that means most congressional elections are also forgotten and foregone conclusions. No one cares if you vote in San Francisco or in the Republican small towns of Wyoming, because with winner-take-all rules, those Members of Congress are going to win their November elections no matter the ratio.
Because the presidential nominating content is about electing delegates who support Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton at the Denver convention (and not about actually voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton), we are using multi-member districts.
This is key.
For Congress, we use single-member districts. That means we elect one person per congressional district. And it is inherently winner-take-all (because only one person can win, the minority must lose out and gain nothing but the vain hope that the winner will return their phone calls).
For the primary elections, we elect several delegates per congressional district. If we elected just one, then we'd be stuck with winner-take-all. Because we elect several per congressional district, we can use proportional representation.
That's the rule that the Democrats use for every state and territory in the nation: proportional representation.
So consider every congressional district a pizza. And all the Democratic voters in each congressional district getting together to decide what they want on that pizza.
If half the people in a congressional district vote for Obama and half the people vote for Clinton, then that pizza will be half Obama and half Clinton. Half the delegates from that congressional district will go to the Denver convention ready to vote to nominate Obama and half the delegates will go ready to nominate Clinton.
But it doesn't have to be an even split. If three-quarters of the voters in a congressional district vote for Obama and one-quarter vote for Clinton, then 75% of the delegates will be pledged to Obama and only 25% of the delegates will be pledged to Clinton.
That's why bringing out more voters matter, because in your congressional district, more votes for Obama can mean the difference between a 50-50 split and a 66-33 split.
Let's take Illinois as an example.
On page 5 and 6 of their Illinois Delegate Selection Plan, the party decides how many delegates are elected from each of Illinois' 19 congressional districts. In my congressional district (#7, proudly represented by Danny "The Voice From Heaven" Davis) there are 8 delegates to be selected.
That means for (roughly) every 1/8 of the vote earned, Barack or Hillary will get 1 of the 8 delegates from the 7th congressional district.
Now that matters for turnout!
Barack is clearly going to get a majority of the vote in my congressional district. But Hillary supporters have a chance to win 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 of those delegates. So get out the vote! And similarly, Obama supporters (like me) want to keep Hillary from getting even 1 of those delegates, so get out the vote and increase Obama's percentage victory!
The difference between earning 50% of the vote and 62.5% of the vote isn't that much in a primary (and thus the difference between earning 4 of the 8 delegates or 5 of the 8 delegates from that congressional district), so that's why every vote counts.
This battle for a higher proportional share of the delegates in each congressional district is happening in every state and caucus in the nation.
Turnout is encouraged and people are coming out -- because they know that their vote can count whether they are in the majority or minority.
This is how we should elect the Congress of the United States. We should use multi-member districts -- and elect 3 or 4 or 5 Members of Congress from larger districts -- so that turnout matters and so that the majority and the minority have representation.
For more on proportional representation, see FairVote, a great organization I represent in Illinois as part of my advocacy firm's lobbying practice.
Think about your city council or library board or school district. Maybe that's a place where you already use multi-member districts. And maybe that's a place where the winner takes all. So maybe that's a place that can use proportional representation instead.
Keep in mind, most democracies in the world already use proportional representation. Most democracies don't use single-member districts like we have been doing for a long time.
If you're interested in seeing how proportional representation could apply to the governments where you live, or have any other questions, post a comment.
It's a fantastic day for people who believe that our politics suffer from using winner-take-all elections for most of our government, as millions of civic Americans for the first time are coming to understand how proportional representation works.
Let me try to explain some of the nuances.
The Democratic National Committee (the organization that runs the Democratic Party) decides every year how they are going to nominate their candidate for President of the United States. This is not a government decision. Neither the Constitution nor Congress decide how nominations work (unlike elections in November to actually elect the leaders of government where laws structure the entire process). The Democratic National Committee (and the Republican National Committee) are private, non-profit organizations and they get to decide how to run their own affairs.
The DNC has decided that every state will use proportional representation. The RNC has decided that each state can use whatever system they want.
Some state Republican parties have decided to use the winner-take-all rule. That's the way most states award their electoral votes in the Electoral College: whichever candidates gets the most votes in that state gets all of those delegates (or electors).
And *that* means that a state is fiercely contested between candidates if it happens to be close. If it isn't close (like Idaho isn't close in the general presidential election, or Illinois isn't close in the Obama-Clinton campaign), then the candidates basically ignore it because the result is a foregone conclusion. The winner will take all the delegates, whether he or she wins by 65% of the vote or 75% of the vote, and that will be that. There is no incentive to bring out more voters in a winner-take-all state and there is no incentive to increase the margin of victory.
That's the experience of every non-battleground states in November during the presidential election (no one cares if you vote in Texas or in Rhode Island, everyone cares if you vote in Missouri or in Pennsylvania) because only those winner-take-all states that are close count.
Because we only elect one Member of Congress per district, that means every congressional election is winner-take-all. And that means most congressional elections are also forgotten and foregone conclusions. No one cares if you vote in San Francisco or in the Republican small towns of Wyoming, because with winner-take-all rules, those Members of Congress are going to win their November elections no matter the ratio.
Because the presidential nominating content is about electing delegates who support Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton at the Denver convention (and not about actually voting for Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton), we are using multi-member districts.
This is key.
For Congress, we use single-member districts. That means we elect one person per congressional district. And it is inherently winner-take-all (because only one person can win, the minority must lose out and gain nothing but the vain hope that the winner will return their phone calls).
For the primary elections, we elect several delegates per congressional district. If we elected just one, then we'd be stuck with winner-take-all. Because we elect several per congressional district, we can use proportional representation.
That's the rule that the Democrats use for every state and territory in the nation: proportional representation.
So consider every congressional district a pizza. And all the Democratic voters in each congressional district getting together to decide what they want on that pizza.
If half the people in a congressional district vote for Obama and half the people vote for Clinton, then that pizza will be half Obama and half Clinton. Half the delegates from that congressional district will go to the Denver convention ready to vote to nominate Obama and half the delegates will go ready to nominate Clinton.
But it doesn't have to be an even split. If three-quarters of the voters in a congressional district vote for Obama and one-quarter vote for Clinton, then 75% of the delegates will be pledged to Obama and only 25% of the delegates will be pledged to Clinton.
That's why bringing out more voters matter, because in your congressional district, more votes for Obama can mean the difference between a 50-50 split and a 66-33 split.
Let's take Illinois as an example.
On page 5 and 6 of their Illinois Delegate Selection Plan, the party decides how many delegates are elected from each of Illinois' 19 congressional districts. In my congressional district (#7, proudly represented by Danny "The Voice From Heaven" Davis) there are 8 delegates to be selected.
That means for (roughly) every 1/8 of the vote earned, Barack or Hillary will get 1 of the 8 delegates from the 7th congressional district.
Now that matters for turnout!
Barack is clearly going to get a majority of the vote in my congressional district. But Hillary supporters have a chance to win 1 or 2 or maybe even 3 of those delegates. So get out the vote! And similarly, Obama supporters (like me) want to keep Hillary from getting even 1 of those delegates, so get out the vote and increase Obama's percentage victory!
The difference between earning 50% of the vote and 62.5% of the vote isn't that much in a primary (and thus the difference between earning 4 of the 8 delegates or 5 of the 8 delegates from that congressional district), so that's why every vote counts.
This battle for a higher proportional share of the delegates in each congressional district is happening in every state and caucus in the nation.
Turnout is encouraged and people are coming out -- because they know that their vote can count whether they are in the majority or minority.
This is how we should elect the Congress of the United States. We should use multi-member districts -- and elect 3 or 4 or 5 Members of Congress from larger districts -- so that turnout matters and so that the majority and the minority have representation.
For more on proportional representation, see FairVote, a great organization I represent in Illinois as part of my advocacy firm's lobbying practice.
Think about your city council or library board or school district. Maybe that's a place where you already use multi-member districts. And maybe that's a place where the winner takes all. So maybe that's a place that can use proportional representation instead.
Keep in mind, most democracies in the world already use proportional representation. Most democracies don't use single-member districts like we have been doing for a long time.
If you're interested in seeing how proportional representation could apply to the governments where you live, or have any other questions, post a comment.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Economists' data: best way to lower crime is less enforcement of prohibition
Three economists recently published a paper titled "What do Economists Know About Crime?" that studied crime rates over the last 80 years or so. They measured crime rates and compared it to a range of crime-fighting policies that have changed over time to see which policies actually resulted in higher and lower crime rates.
They looked at a larger police force, a higher arrest rate, higher gun ownership, higher incarceration rate, legalization of abortion, lead poisoning and enforcement of prohibition of drugs or alcohol.
One would assume that the best way to lower crime is with a larger police force and a higher arrest rate. I would, just based on my gut.
As it turns out, only one of these policies consistently changed the crime rate. All the rest had mixed effects -- so that they are not that strong of a policy to fight crime, according not to intuition or anecdotal evidence, but hard data over many years and several countries.
That policy is the level of enforcement (if any) on prohibition.
When the government cracks down on the prohibition of some drug or alcohol, people die and crime spikes. When the government does not, crime goes down.
One of the main reasons is because when a product goes underground, and large illegal companies develop to manufacture, distribute and market the product, anytime there is a dispute among rival companies (often known as gangs). the companies don't go to court or call their lawyers to send a threatening letter. They get violent and innocent people die.
The economists in the paper call this gang violence an "alternative dispute resolution process." We would all be a lot safer if the major companies that are manufacturing and distributing drugs acted like the major companies that manufacture and distribute alcohol. I'd rather they fight it out in court than on street corners.
Other explanations for the connection between the amount of prohibition enforcement and the crime rate are that when the police are focused on the companies making and selling the product and the jails are full of the customers, salesmen and manufacturers of the product, the rapists, robbers and other felons are not the focus of the police and they are not the ones in prison. Instead, they are committing crimes.
It would be great to be a part of a crime-fighting movement that advocated for policies that reduced crime. We seem to be missing that in our politics. I hope our next Cook County State's Attorney will lead on the question.
They looked at a larger police force, a higher arrest rate, higher gun ownership, higher incarceration rate, legalization of abortion, lead poisoning and enforcement of prohibition of drugs or alcohol.
One would assume that the best way to lower crime is with a larger police force and a higher arrest rate. I would, just based on my gut.
As it turns out, only one of these policies consistently changed the crime rate. All the rest had mixed effects -- so that they are not that strong of a policy to fight crime, according not to intuition or anecdotal evidence, but hard data over many years and several countries.
That policy is the level of enforcement (if any) on prohibition.
When the government cracks down on the prohibition of some drug or alcohol, people die and crime spikes. When the government does not, crime goes down.
One of the main reasons is because when a product goes underground, and large illegal companies develop to manufacture, distribute and market the product, anytime there is a dispute among rival companies (often known as gangs). the companies don't go to court or call their lawyers to send a threatening letter. They get violent and innocent people die.
The economists in the paper call this gang violence an "alternative dispute resolution process." We would all be a lot safer if the major companies that are manufacturing and distributing drugs acted like the major companies that manufacture and distribute alcohol. I'd rather they fight it out in court than on street corners.
Other explanations for the connection between the amount of prohibition enforcement and the crime rate are that when the police are focused on the companies making and selling the product and the jails are full of the customers, salesmen and manufacturers of the product, the rapists, robbers and other felons are not the focus of the police and they are not the ones in prison. Instead, they are committing crimes.
It would be great to be a part of a crime-fighting movement that advocated for policies that reduced crime. We seem to be missing that in our politics. I hope our next Cook County State's Attorney will lead on the question.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Radio appearances on WGN, WLS
On the eve of Tsunami Tuesday, I'll be on Bruce DuMont's Beyond the Beltway with GOP operative Dan Proft and RealClearPolitics.com founder Tom Bevan where I will continue to boldly predict that our next President of the United States of America will be Chicago's very own Barack Obama. The program will air live this Sunday from 6 pm to 8 pm CST on lots of radio stations around the nation, including WLS, and will be on television later that night (and on Monday in the suburbs).
I also just came across an mp3 file of my appearance on WGN's Milt Rosenberg show from late December where I debated Mark Stricherz, the author of Why the Democrats Are Blue who tries to make the case that by using proportional representation for delegates in the Democratic Nominating Convention and a 50% rule for female delegates, the party has been a losing proposition. (It's a great read for fans of procedural politics, to see how the McGovern Commission convened and drafted democratic rules for delegate selection in the late 60s and early 70s that we use to this day). His thesis is flawed, in my view, as we're in the midst of a Democratic resurgence and we're a stronger party with participatory procedures rather than exclusionary rules.
One neat thing about the interview: at the end of the show, Congressman Dan Lipinski calls in as a pro-life Democrat and take Mark's view of the world that the Democratic Party is not friendly to pro-lifers. He also mistakenly calls MoveOn a pro-choice organization and blames the pro-choice movement as the force behind the campaigns of his opponents (mostly referring, one would think, to Mark Pera who is a more progressive candidate than Jerry Bennett).
I also just came across an mp3 file of my appearance on WGN's Milt Rosenberg show from late December where I debated Mark Stricherz, the author of Why the Democrats Are Blue who tries to make the case that by using proportional representation for delegates in the Democratic Nominating Convention and a 50% rule for female delegates, the party has been a losing proposition. (It's a great read for fans of procedural politics, to see how the McGovern Commission convened and drafted democratic rules for delegate selection in the late 60s and early 70s that we use to this day). His thesis is flawed, in my view, as we're in the midst of a Democratic resurgence and we're a stronger party with participatory procedures rather than exclusionary rules.
One neat thing about the interview: at the end of the show, Congressman Dan Lipinski calls in as a pro-life Democrat and take Mark's view of the world that the Democratic Party is not friendly to pro-lifers. He also mistakenly calls MoveOn a pro-choice organization and blames the pro-choice movement as the force behind the campaigns of his opponents (mostly referring, one would think, to Mark Pera who is a more progressive candidate than Jerry Bennett).
Using first names of candidates improves likeability
This is good stuff (courtesy of US News and World Report's Washington Whispers blog: apparently the operatives at the RNC are following good language discipline and are not permitted to refer to "Barack" and "Hillary" but rather only "Senator Clinton" and "Senator Obama."
If people are used to calling a politician by their first name, it evokes a friendlier, warmer relationship than calling them by their title and last name.
That's one small reason why Arnold does so well in California. (I usually write Arnold because I'm too lazy to type out Schwarzenegger). Campaigns should cultivate the habit of referring to their candidates by their first name.
If people are used to calling a politician by their first name, it evokes a friendlier, warmer relationship than calling them by their title and last name.
That's one small reason why Arnold does so well in California. (I usually write Arnold because I'm too lazy to type out Schwarzenegger). Campaigns should cultivate the habit of referring to their candidates by their first name.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tax policy in the Obama-Clinton presidential debate
The language of tax policy -- especially when we need to figure out how to avoid bankrupting the Republic with high taxes on lower incomes and low taxes on high incomes -- is endless fascinating (at least, to me).
How we convince the majority of the electorate to support the estate tax and higher marginal income tax rates on high tax brackets is crucial to whether we'll have the common wealth to buy health care for everyone, higher education for everyone and shift away from foreign oil as the bedrock of our economy. We just need to spend more money on infrastructure to make everyone better off, and that money is going to come from the people who have the most of it. That means higher taxes for high incomes.
Anyway, after the LA Times moderator asked about how they would respond to the inevitable Republican critique that they intend to raise taxes, here is what I heard:
Barack Obama:
It's not tax cuts or tax hikes but it's about who the tax cuts go to and who the tax hikes are imposed upon.
We now have a trillion dollars worth of corporate tax loopholes and tax cuts that go to the top 1 percent who didn't need them and didn't even ask for them.
My plan gives people making $75,000 or less a tax cut.
-------
Hillary Clinton:
This isn't raising taxes -- this is people making more than $250,000 a year on Bush tax cuts that are set to expire.
There have been enormous tax giveaways on HMOs.
-------
Back to Barack Obama (after the moderator tries to clarify that these are tax hikes:
On wealthy Americans. I'm not bashful about it. This looks like a well-dressed crowd. They might pay more. I would pay a little bit more. We have a moral obligation.
-------
Hillary Clinton:
It's important to keep in mind that we would go back to the tax rates before George Bush was president. People did very well in that time and they would do very well again.
------
Hillary's last line got the best reaction from the audience.
That suggests that it's important to shift away from the discussion on higher taxes or lower taxes, and focus on the results of those taxes on the economy. Either we have Clinton taxes or we have Bush taxes. Which one would you prefer?
I also think that it would be very helpful for the candidates to personalize not making much money. Just because they are pulling down six figures now as Senators doesn't mean they should cut themselves off from their days of not making much money. I think that's an authentic message -- I was broke five years ago! -- that helps validate the call for higher marginal income tax rates (it's on those high income guys, not on us).
To shift from one University of Chicago professor to another, there is a great column in the New York Times by Nicholas Epley on the psychology of the term tax rebate versus a tax bonus. According to Epley, most people think of a rebate as their own money returned to them, so they save it. They don't see it as a windfall. A tax bonus, on the other hand, is seen as extra, so more people spend it since it doesn't cut into their budget.
Since the purpose of the stimulus is to get us to spend the money rather than save it, Epley's point is that we should call the check a tax bonus and not a tax rebate. Smart.
How we convince the majority of the electorate to support the estate tax and higher marginal income tax rates on high tax brackets is crucial to whether we'll have the common wealth to buy health care for everyone, higher education for everyone and shift away from foreign oil as the bedrock of our economy. We just need to spend more money on infrastructure to make everyone better off, and that money is going to come from the people who have the most of it. That means higher taxes for high incomes.
Anyway, after the LA Times moderator asked about how they would respond to the inevitable Republican critique that they intend to raise taxes, here is what I heard:
Barack Obama:
It's not tax cuts or tax hikes but it's about who the tax cuts go to and who the tax hikes are imposed upon.
We now have a trillion dollars worth of corporate tax loopholes and tax cuts that go to the top 1 percent who didn't need them and didn't even ask for them.
My plan gives people making $75,000 or less a tax cut.
-------
Hillary Clinton:
This isn't raising taxes -- this is people making more than $250,000 a year on Bush tax cuts that are set to expire.
There have been enormous tax giveaways on HMOs.
-------
Back to Barack Obama (after the moderator tries to clarify that these are tax hikes:
On wealthy Americans. I'm not bashful about it. This looks like a well-dressed crowd. They might pay more. I would pay a little bit more. We have a moral obligation.
-------
Hillary Clinton:
It's important to keep in mind that we would go back to the tax rates before George Bush was president. People did very well in that time and they would do very well again.
------
Hillary's last line got the best reaction from the audience.
That suggests that it's important to shift away from the discussion on higher taxes or lower taxes, and focus on the results of those taxes on the economy. Either we have Clinton taxes or we have Bush taxes. Which one would you prefer?
I also think that it would be very helpful for the candidates to personalize not making much money. Just because they are pulling down six figures now as Senators doesn't mean they should cut themselves off from their days of not making much money. I think that's an authentic message -- I was broke five years ago! -- that helps validate the call for higher marginal income tax rates (it's on those high income guys, not on us).
To shift from one University of Chicago professor to another, there is a great column in the New York Times by Nicholas Epley on the psychology of the term tax rebate versus a tax bonus. According to Epley, most people think of a rebate as their own money returned to them, so they save it. They don't see it as a windfall. A tax bonus, on the other hand, is seen as extra, so more people spend it since it doesn't cut into their budget.
Since the purpose of the stimulus is to get us to spend the money rather than save it, Epley's point is that we should call the check a tax bonus and not a tax rebate. Smart.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
The biggest waste of advocacy money: a New York Times ad
Why do so many advocacy organizations insist on raising $150,000 to run an ad in the New York Times?
It is one of the worst ways I know to advance an issue.
An ad in the New York Times does very little besides make donors feel that they've accomplished something important because....they placed an ad in the New York Times.
One organization just issued an online action alert to donors to stop the slaughter of grey wolves (thanks to another poor decision by the Bush Administration) by sending in money to run an ad.
And this ad will presumably "alert millions of Americans to this attack on wildlife" and "spark an avalanche of citizen opposition"
(The organization is the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund and the campaign they are promoting is CallOffTheGuns.org -- if I'm going to criticize their tactics I might as well try to get them some play).
The problem I have with the tactic is that there are so many better ways to invest that $150,000 to build up our infrastructure.
Run a full-page ad in every progressive magazine in the nation for a tenth of that cost (and likely generate more people than a New York Times ad).
Hire 30 organizers for a month (at $5000 each) to canvass in 30 swing or suburban Republican congressional districts in order to recruit Members to press the Administration to reverse the policy.
The campaign is clearly aiming to appeal to small donors (good for them), and I hope that the prospect of buying a New York Times ad is not that appealing to small donors. (Savvy organizations put the most popular part of their agenda up front -- like the beautiful wolf's face -- to attract the largest amount of small donors. I can't believe that a NYTimes ad really pulls in more donations than other pitches such as a targeted ad campaign for the same amount of money in different media).
In my view, when an advocacy organization tries to run an ad in the Times, it's a sign of a lack of creating thinking on clearly defining the objectives of the effort and identifying the best tactics to accomplish the objective.
It is one of the worst ways I know to advance an issue.
An ad in the New York Times does very little besides make donors feel that they've accomplished something important because....they placed an ad in the New York Times.
One organization just issued an online action alert to donors to stop the slaughter of grey wolves (thanks to another poor decision by the Bush Administration) by sending in money to run an ad.
And this ad will presumably "alert millions of Americans to this attack on wildlife" and "spark an avalanche of citizen opposition"
(The organization is the National Resources Defense Council Action Fund and the campaign they are promoting is CallOffTheGuns.org -- if I'm going to criticize their tactics I might as well try to get them some play).
The problem I have with the tactic is that there are so many better ways to invest that $150,000 to build up our infrastructure.
Run a full-page ad in every progressive magazine in the nation for a tenth of that cost (and likely generate more people than a New York Times ad).
Hire 30 organizers for a month (at $5000 each) to canvass in 30 swing or suburban Republican congressional districts in order to recruit Members to press the Administration to reverse the policy.
The campaign is clearly aiming to appeal to small donors (good for them), and I hope that the prospect of buying a New York Times ad is not that appealing to small donors. (Savvy organizations put the most popular part of their agenda up front -- like the beautiful wolf's face -- to attract the largest amount of small donors. I can't believe that a NYTimes ad really pulls in more donations than other pitches such as a targeted ad campaign for the same amount of money in different media).
In my view, when an advocacy organization tries to run an ad in the Times, it's a sign of a lack of creating thinking on clearly defining the objectives of the effort and identifying the best tactics to accomplish the objective.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
New voter? Take a hike. No same-day registration here
Tuesday, democracy's door swung shut in Illinois. With the most exciting presidential primary of the last two decades less than two weeks away, the new voters, the unregistered and those who have moved since they last voted are now officially locked out of the primary.
What a shame.
It's illegal to register to vote for the primary at this point. It's illegal to register at your new address.
And in two weeks, tens of thousands of people in Illinois will try to vote and be turned away. (No data to prove that, as the government doesn't keep records of the people who show up at their precinct polling place and ask if they are permitted to help elect their leaders and politely but firmly told to take a hike because they didn't register with the government ahead of time. But I'm confident that the numbers are significant. If it's a few people in each precinct, and we've got 10,000 or so precincts in Illinois, you can do the math).
In this day and age, there is simply no good reason to continue to disenfrachise people who want to vote.
Illinois needs to follow the lead of seven states and implement same-day voter registration.
And if you're concerned about voter fraud, then you're largely chasing a ghost. There just isn't any significant voter fraud in the United States. Read the report from the Brennan Center for Justice on the topic, or from Demos before instinctively reacting with the fear of fraud.
Citizens deserve the right to pick the people who run the government, no matter when they decide to register to vote.
What a shame.
It's illegal to register to vote for the primary at this point. It's illegal to register at your new address.
And in two weeks, tens of thousands of people in Illinois will try to vote and be turned away. (No data to prove that, as the government doesn't keep records of the people who show up at their precinct polling place and ask if they are permitted to help elect their leaders and politely but firmly told to take a hike because they didn't register with the government ahead of time. But I'm confident that the numbers are significant. If it's a few people in each precinct, and we've got 10,000 or so precincts in Illinois, you can do the math).
In this day and age, there is simply no good reason to continue to disenfrachise people who want to vote.
Illinois needs to follow the lead of seven states and implement same-day voter registration.
And if you're concerned about voter fraud, then you're largely chasing a ghost. There just isn't any significant voter fraud in the United States. Read the report from the Brennan Center for Justice on the topic, or from Demos before instinctively reacting with the fear of fraud.
Citizens deserve the right to pick the people who run the government, no matter when they decide to register to vote.
Monday, January 21, 2008
What's the best way to lobby? Recruit a messenger
I was just speaking with a potential client, typical of many progressive organizations: a 501(c)(3) membership organization based in Washington, D.C. with an aggressive vision, a healthy budget and not much of a track record influencing Congress. They are stuck in the same Beltway quicksand as lots of other groups -- they spend their money on D.C.-based staffers and consultants who get to know congressional staffers and hope that the pitch trickles up to the Members.
So much better to spend the budget on organizing your members to recruit messengers to lobby for you. Find the mayors, state legislators, county board members and community leaders who agree with the agenda, and help them spend their political capital on their Members of Congress.
A Member listens a lot more to the political infrastructure in their state than they do a D.C.-based staffer. Too many organizations spend too much money in Washington and not nearly enough on building support in the rest of the country.
So much better to spend the budget on organizing your members to recruit messengers to lobby for you. Find the mayors, state legislators, county board members and community leaders who agree with the agenda, and help them spend their political capital on their Members of Congress.
A Member listens a lot more to the political infrastructure in their state than they do a D.C.-based staffer. Too many organizations spend too much money in Washington and not nearly enough on building support in the rest of the country.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Barack Obama's speech at Martin Luther King Jr.'s church in Atlanta today
Today Senator Barack Obama gave a speech at Ebenzer Baptist Church in Atlanta. This was the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s church.
In Illinois, anyone can still register to vote if they show up at the county clerk's office. This grace period of an extra 14 days after the regular voter registration deadline expires this Tuesday. So if you are inspired by Senator Obama and you live in Illinois and you are not registered to vote, get to the county seat in the next 48 hours and cast your vote. In Cook County and in Chicago, the office is located at 69 West Washington.
(One nice thing: Senator Obama voted for this grace period bill in 2004 that allows for greater participation. You can see the roll call of SB 2133 here).
Here is the speech (original from this page of the Barack Obama campaign site):
The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.
But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.
Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yoke of oppression.
And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:
"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.
What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Unity is the great need of the hour – the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.
I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.
I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.
We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame – schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.
We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.
We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.
We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.
And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.
So we have a deficit to close. We have walls – barriers to justice and equality – that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.
Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily – that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.
All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.
But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.
It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us.
We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.
For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.
So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.
Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.
But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.
The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.
And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.
That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words – words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.
He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.
That is the unity – the hard-earned unity – that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope – the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.
The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.
And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.
And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.
And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope – but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone
In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.
So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.
In Illinois, anyone can still register to vote if they show up at the county clerk's office. This grace period of an extra 14 days after the regular voter registration deadline expires this Tuesday. So if you are inspired by Senator Obama and you live in Illinois and you are not registered to vote, get to the county seat in the next 48 hours and cast your vote. In Cook County and in Chicago, the office is located at 69 West Washington.
(One nice thing: Senator Obama voted for this grace period bill in 2004 that allows for greater participation. You can see the roll call of SB 2133 here).
Here is the speech (original from this page of the Barack Obama campaign site):
The Scripture tells us that when Joshua and the Israelites arrived at the gates of Jericho, they could not enter. The walls of the city were too steep for any one person to climb; too strong to be taken down with brute force. And so they sat for days, unable to pass on through.
But God had a plan for his people. He told them to stand together and march together around the city, and on the seventh day he told them that when they heard the sound of the ram's horn, they should speak with one voice. And at the chosen hour, when the horn sounded and a chorus of voices cried out together, the mighty walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
There are many lessons to take from this passage, just as there are many lessons to take from this day, just as there are many memories that fill the space of this church. As I was thinking about which ones we need to remember at this hour, my mind went back to the very beginning of the modern Civil Rights Era.
Because before Memphis and the mountaintop; before the bridge in Selma and the march on Washington; before Birmingham and the beatings; the fire hoses and the loss of those four little girls; before there was King the icon and his magnificent dream, there was King the young preacher and a people who found themselves suffering under the yoke of oppression.
And on the eve of the bus boycotts in Montgomery, at a time when many were still doubtful about the possibilities of change, a time when those in the black community mistrusted themselves, and at times mistrusted each other, King inspired with words not of anger, but of an urgency that still speaks to us today:
"Unity is the great need of the hour" is what King said. Unity is how we shall overcome.
What Dr. King understood is that if just one person chose to walk instead of ride the bus, those walls of oppression would not be moved. But maybe if a few more walked, the foundation might start to shake. If a few more women were willing to do what Rosa Parks had done, maybe the cracks would start to show. If teenagers took freedom rides from North to South, maybe a few bricks would come loose. Maybe if white folks marched because they had come to understand that their freedom too was at stake in the impending battle, the wall would begin to sway. And if enough Americans were awakened to the injustice; if they joined together, North and South, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, then perhaps that wall would come tumbling down, and justice would flow like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Unity is the great need of the hour – the great need of this hour. Not because it sounds pleasant or because it makes us feel good, but because it's the only way we can overcome the essential deficit that exists in this country.
I'm not talking about a budget deficit. I'm not talking about a trade deficit. I'm not talking about a deficit of good ideas or new plans.
I'm talking about a moral deficit. I'm talking about an empathy deficit. I'm taking about an inability to recognize ourselves in one another; to understand that we are our brother's keeper; we are our sister's keeper; that, in the words of Dr. King, we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny.
We have an empathy deficit when we're still sending our children down corridors of shame – schools in the forgotten corners of America where the color of your skin still affects the content of your education.
We have a deficit when CEOs are making more in ten minutes than some workers make in ten months; when families lose their homes so that lenders make a profit; when mothers can't afford a doctor when their children get sick.
We have a deficit in this country when there is Scooter Libby justice for some and Jena justice for others; when our children see nooses hanging from a schoolyard tree today, in the present, in the twenty-first century.
We have a deficit when homeless veterans sleep on the streets of our cities; when innocents are slaughtered in the deserts of Darfur; when young Americans serve tour after tour of duty in a war that should've never been authorized and never been waged.
And we have a deficit when it takes a breach in our levees to reveal a breach in our compassion; when it takes a terrible storm to reveal the hungry that God calls on us to feed; the sick He calls on us to care for; the least of these He commands that we treat as our own.
So we have a deficit to close. We have walls – barriers to justice and equality – that must come down. And to do this, we know that unity is the great need of this hour.
Unfortunately, all too often when we talk about unity in this country, we've come to believe that it can be purchased on the cheap. We've come to believe that racial reconciliation can come easily – that it's just a matter of a few ignorant people trapped in the prejudices of the past, and that if the demagogues and those who exploit our racial divisions will simply go away, then all our problems would be solved.
All too often, we seek to ignore the profound institutional barriers that stand in the way of ensuring opportunity for all children, or decent jobs for all people, or health care for those who are sick. We long for unity, but are unwilling to pay the price.
But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.
It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us.
We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.
For most of this country's history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man's inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system.
And yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we must admit that none of our hands are entirely clean. If we're honest with ourselves, we'll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King's vision of a beloved community.
We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them. The scourge of anti-Semitism has, at times, revealed itself in our community. For too long, some of us have seen immigrants as competitors for jobs instead of companions in the fight for opportunity.
Every day, our politics fuels and exploits this kind of division across all races and regions; across gender and party. It is played out on television. It is sensationalized by the media. And last week, it even crept into the campaign for President, with charges and counter-charges that served to obscure the issues instead of illuminating the critical choices we face as a nation.
So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.
Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.
But if changing our hearts and minds is the first critical step, we cannot stop there. It is not enough to bemoan the plight of poor children in this country and remain unwilling to push our elected officials to provide the resources to fix our schools. It is not enough to decry the disparities of health care and yet allow the insurance companies and the drug companies to block much-needed reforms. It is not enough for us to abhor the costs of a misguided war, and yet allow ourselves to be driven by a politics of fear that sees the threat of attack as way to scare up votes instead of a call to come together around a common effort.
The Scripture tells us that we are judged not just by word, but by deed. And if we are to truly bring about the unity that is so crucial in this time, we must find it within ourselves to act on what we know; to understand that living up to this country's ideals and its possibilities will require great effort and resources; sacrifice and stamina.
And that is what is at stake in the great political debate we are having today. The changes that are needed are not just a matter of tinkering at the edges, and they will not come if politicians simply tell us what we want to hear. All of us will be called upon to make some sacrifice. None of us will be exempt from responsibility. We will have to fight to fix our schools, but we will also have to challenge ourselves to be better parents. We will have to confront the biases in our criminal justice system, but we will also have to acknowledge the deep-seated violence that still resides in our own communities and marshal the will to break its grip.
That is how we will bring about the change we seek. That is how Dr. King led this country through the wilderness. He did it with words – words that he spoke not just to the children of slaves, but the children of slave owners. Words that inspired not just black but also white; not just the Christian but the Jew; not just the Southerner but also the Northerner.
He led with words, but he also led with deeds. He also led by example. He led by marching and going to jail and suffering threats and being away from his family. He led by taking a stand against a war, knowing full well that it would diminish his popularity. He led by challenging our economic structures, understanding that it would cause discomfort. Dr. King understood that unity cannot be won on the cheap; that we would have to earn it through great effort and determination.
That is the unity – the hard-earned unity – that we need right now. It is that effort, and that determination, that can transform blind optimism into hope – the hope to imagine, and work for, and fight for what seemed impossible before.
The stories that give me such hope don't happen in the spotlight. They don't happen on the presidential stage. They happen in the quiet corners of our lives. They happen in the moments we least expect. Let me give you an example of one of those stories.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organizes for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She's been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and the other day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
So Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we begin. It is why the walls in that room began to crack and shake.
And if they can shake in that room, they can shake in Atlanta.
And if they can shake in Atlanta, they can shake in Georgia.
And if they can shake in Georgia, they can shake all across America. And if enough of our voices join together; we can bring those walls tumbling down. The walls of Jericho can finally come tumbling down. That is our hope – but only if we pray together, and work together, and march together.
Brothers and sisters, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for peace and justice, we cannot walk alone.
In the struggle for opportunity and equality, we cannot walk alone
In the struggle to heal this nation and repair this world, we cannot walk alone.
So I ask you to walk with me, and march with me, and join your voice with mine, and together we will sing the song that tears down the walls that divide us, and lift up an America that is truly indivisible, with liberty, and justice, for all. May God bless the memory of the great pastor of this church, and may God bless the United States of America.
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