Secretaries of state throughout the country can either protect our democracy or destroy it. Think Florida Secretary of State, Katherine Harris in 2000 and Ohio Secretary of State, Ken Blackwell in 2004.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 requires that Spanish speaking voters, and other language minorities, be given interpreters at the polls. The Bush Justice Department has sued Boston, Springfield, Lowell and Lawrence for their failure supply interpreters. Can you believe that we need the Bush administration to protect our voting rights? Secretary Galvin has not done his job.
The Help America Vote Act, was passed four years ago, following the Florida election debacle. It set a deadline for the purchase of machines that allow privacy for disabled voters. That deadline is primary day, September 19. Secretary Galvin had four years to comply. He wont meet the deadline. Whats worse, he may buy machines made by Diebold. Secretary Galvin has not done his job.
John Bonifaz will not certify any machine that does not provide a paper trail, a voter verifiable paper record, access to the source codes and data within the machines and the ability to own the machine. Diebold machines simply do not qualify.
John Bonifaz wants to make voting easy. He will advocate for Election Day registration. Secretary Galvin worked with Republicans behind the scenes to kill a Democratic bill for Election Day registration. Is this what you expect of a true Democrat?
When the Massachusetts legislature refused to fund the Clean Elections law, John Bonifaz sued and won. The Supreme Judicial Court ordered the legislature to fund the Clean Election candidates.
John Bonifaz has been working to protect our democracy for the past twenty years. While a student at Brown University he worked to register thousands of voters. In 1988 he was the scheduler for Senator Edward M. Kennedys re-election campaign.
After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1992, he founded the National Voting Rights Institute. The Institute leads the effort to limit campaign spending, protect the right to vote and obtain public funding for elections.
Last year petitions with 125,000 signatures were submitted to Secretary Galvin for a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. He rubberstamped all of those signatures without investigating numerous charges of fraud. Secretary Galvin did not do his job.
Bill Galvin has repeatedly refused to debate John Bonifaz. Is he afraid to defend his 12 years of poor performance as Secretary of state?
We need a true Democrat as secretary of state. John Bonifaz will protect our right to vote and see that every vote is counted as cast.
summarizing all the reasons why Bonifaz clearly deserves to be elected over Galvin. I hope Galvin’s effort to destroy democracy by not debating will help propel Bonifaz to victory; he clearly deserves it.
press over on Kos, too, which certainly is a good thing.
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John Bonifaz should post another diary over there soon.
of THe Boston Sunday Globe This Morning!
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Galvin did to – in a not so nice way
Doyourjob does a fine job pointing out where Galvin does a poor a job and why John Bonifaz is the better choice and will do a better job.
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I want to challenge to the progressive wing of the Democratic party in Massachusetts to do it’s job and back Green-Rainbow Candidate Jill Stein in the general election if John Bonifaz loses the Democratic primary to Galvin.
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Jill’s candidacy is substantial and just as viable as is John’s. Jill is long-time activist for the same grass roots democratic and voting reforms that John supports. Jill is also a long-time anti-coroporate control activist in the same vein as John. In fact, their platforms are virtually identical. Having Jill in the general election is sure fire carry over for John’s platform should he lose the primary.
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For a progressive Democrat to not support Jill and switch their support to a primary winning Galvin, means that such a voter never really supporteed John’s agenda in the first place and would rather Galvin, with all the ills outline by Doyourjob, than someone, like Jill, who would fight to correct these ills.
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Jill Stein’s candidacy in this race forces progressive Democrats to put their money (and their activism, and their keyboard, and their vote) where the mouth is – are you progressives or are you Democrats?
gets out of bed with Republicans, I’ll think about it. The latest brouhaha over the Santorum campaign’s involvement in securing Romanelli’s signatures, both real and fake, in Pennsylvania is just one more reason to ignore the Green Party–again. Sorry, no Green Party votes pour moi.
I really like Jill Stein, but I’m convinced that the Green route is not effective – and that’s especially true in Massachusetts. Progressives are accomplishing more each year recently through the Democratic party than the past decade+ of Green politics. But part of being able to succeed through this route, is to commit to the Democratic party, not just to individual candidates. We’ve got critical mass to make this party make some real change over the next decade, but only if we use our activist strength and our votes to support both our favored candidates in the primaries, and our party in the general election. There’s some tradeoff to it, because sometimes our favored candidates won’t win… but sometimes they will, and other Democrats who would’ve preferred other candidates can be brought around to support ours. The deal is to contest the primary fairly, try to win there, but keep on building the Democratic party and its strength so that it can support whoever wins. (I think the Vinnie Ciampas and Joe Liebermans who fail to understand this do so partly because they fear, rightly, that their side is losing ground)
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Now, there’s some irony here, because my biggest fault with the Greens is how they fetishize party-building over their professed political goals (most of which I support). There are a number of Green candidates over the past few years who I felt like shaking by the shoulders and asking, “why didn’t you run in the Democratic primary?!?!?!?” Why run as a Green, which you know means you’re not going to get elected, when you could run as a Democrat and have a chance? When I actually ask, the answer always seems to be either uninformed Democrat-bashing (from people without much political experience), or a philosophical statement about how in the long run we need to build a third party. And I’m sorry, I think that’s putting the means above the ends, and letting one’s ideological sureness about the proper means to achieve those ends trump all practical evidence to the contrary.
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There’s a further irony, in that within the Democratic party one of our biggest obstacles is also in the form of people who put means above ends: Those who think the purpose of the Democratic party is primarily to elect Democrats, and that means Democrats must do what will get them elected even at the expense of what Democrats are supposedly try to get elected in order to do. In the long run, that’s a lose-lose strategy, but that’s a topic for a whole new essay.
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I argue for party commitment not out of some high-minded purity, but because I think it’s the most pragmatic strategy to achieve our goals. One of the most Green-worthy candidates for office I’ve ever seen, in every sense except party affiliation, Granny D, ran for US Senate from New Hampshire as a Democrat (and got the Democratic nomination, but lost to popular Republican incumbent and former Governor Judd Gregg). In a speech, she appealed to Greens to work through the Democratic party:
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When candidates like John Bonifaz, Carl Sciortino, Tim Schofield, and Pat Jehlen, are running and in some cases winning office as Democrats, there’s no credibility to the argument that Greens are inherently better on the issues than Democrats. And when Green Parties run candidates against the likes of Paul Wellstone, we see clearly the dangers of the idea that building a new party is more important than working with a broader movement to achieve real goals to make people’s lives better.
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Furthermore, much as I like Jill Stein, I am quite sure she cannot win, not just because of things like media and incumbency protection and campaign funds and the like, but because there are enough voters in Massachusetts who will vote for the Democrat for all downballot offices regardless of how much publicity there is for any other candidates, that the Democratic nominee will have an insurmountable advantage anyway. Sure, people can work over the course of many years to change that, to make it possible for a Green to win statewide office in Massachusetts… but why not put all that hard work and time into contesting Democratic primaries? That’s a strategy that, while also tough, will pay off much sooner.
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So, as I said, I think Jill Stein is great, but I don’t think her strategy of running as a Green is the right one. I want to achieve many of the same things she wants, and because of that, I will support the Democratic nominee. I hope someday she runs for office as a Democrat and if she does, I will support her. In the meatime, I would love us to have instant runoff voting, so we can start to measure what the real level of support is for candidates who (misguidedly, IMO) run as Greens.
Personally, I think your argument that Jill cannot win the general election is as silly as arguments that claim that John cannot win the Democratic primary.
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I also think her strategy of running as a Green-Rainbow is an excellent one. As I’ve stated here before, I voted against running a governor ticket this year, but enthusiastically supported the nominations of the downticket slate: why would Jill run in the Democratic primary for Secretary of State when there already is an excelent progressive candidate running? Why not run as GRP in the general election instead of letting the mediocre-at-best incumbent roll in uncontested in November? I highly suspect that if John wins the primary (as I hope he does), Jill will at the least provide implicit support by not fighting an aggressive campaign against him, but instead a friendly competetion as I wish we could see in primaries more often, if not flat out endorse him. I think John should consider endorsing Stein in the general if he doens’t win, it’s definitely not unheard of: up in Maine, Chris Miller just endorced Green candidate Pat LaMarche after losing the gubernatorial primary to the incumbent Dem.
1) Tony, you probably should add in the spirit of full disclosure that you were Jill’s running mate in 2002.
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2) I completely agree that any one who really supports Bonifaz should at the very least strongly consider supporting Stein if he doesn’t win the nomination. (If he does, I will definitely have a tough choice for November ahead of me) Just as conservative Democrats in Connecticut who supported Joe Lieberman should continue to support him if they really believed in him and his positions, and just as I don’t think anyt supporter of any of the 3 Dem gov candidates should vote D in november automatically if their candidate doesn’t win, if Galvin wins nomination for re-election, Jill Stein will be the pro-democracy reform candidate for secretary of state, and I am frustrated that now we have a situation where there is no possibility of a spoiler argument, people are still creating new excuses to discourage people from voting Green.
A cautious crew of Democrats
By Charley Manning Boston Globe| September 3, 2006
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LAST WEEK, when Secretary of State Bill Galvin predicted only a 20 percent turnout of eligible voters for the Sept. 19 primary, no one who has been following the race for the Democratic nomination for governor was surprised.
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Why does Galvin only expect 20% turnout? Shouldn’t he as Secretary of State be encouraging people to vote rather than putting forth these self fulfilling prophecies? I think he’d prefer it if nobody even knew there was an election. Why do we always get stories about how the people are apathetic about elections rather than stories about how every vote counts. Perhaps encouraging people to vote rather than spreading stories of how you might as well not vote because no one else is doing it would help.
If he had said 60% would that make it more likely to be so?
Yes :/
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Did you see my commentary on the Channel 5 interviews? Asked about poor voter turnout, Bonifaz has some proposals, Galvin merely says he’s done what he’s done and it’s up to the candidates to make things interesting. And then, ironically, in his own race, he does his best not to engage the voters or make the contest exciting.
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In context, his prediction of low turnout is just part of the cycle, and feeding the cycle.
As a progressive Democrat the natural urge I should have is to support John Bonfaz but his website clearly shows that he only cares about the election reform angle of the SoS position, and not the consumer protection, anti fraud, or third in the line of succession issues common to SoS’s. Also his opposition to the Iraq war is very prominently displayed on his website, a position that frankly I dont think the SoS can do anything about, and a position that if he wer SoS in charge of elections and other important positions that require neutrality I would NOT want him using that position as a bully pulpit. Criticize Galvin all you want he has been very objective and neutral, albeit somewhat ineffective, in how he runs his office, he is pro-life and pro-war but has never used his position to bully pulpit either issue and Bonifaz really wants the job for its bully pulpit and to avenge his defeats as a lawyer in Florida and Ohio. Massachusetts aside from low turnouts and a very entrenched incumbency has very little electoral fraud issues and those are the only issues John even addresses on his website. Galvin didnt debate John, but who would after the stunt he pulled insulting Galvin on the day of his mothers funeral. Those personal attacks would have turned me off the debating front as well.
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The facts are Galvin is a very nice, well meaning public official but one who has gotten lazy with nearly 16 years of incumbency and someone who cant wait to be Governor and is just buying his time in the SoS office for the next open race where he is automatically the front runner. He also got into personal feuds with Shannon O’Brien and Tim Cahill and other political rivals that interfered with his job performance. So I say its time for a change, or at least a wake up call to show him his position is not to be taken for granted, and we see that John has very little experience, will go for personal attacks, and prefers political grandstanding to actual policy. So the only alternative is Jill who WILL be on the ballot unlike Mr. Bonifaz who might register 10% if he’s lucky on the 19th. And if John really is this honorable progressive champion he wont toe the party line but instead endorse the only alternative, Jill Stein.
The Bonifaz campaign clearly copied and pasted his campaign bio to his wikipedia entry. Things like that are truly high school election tactics that are as despicable as they are immature, I definitely wont vote for John now.
a lot of candidates bios end up copied directly from their campaign site to wikipedia, usually by people not connected to the campaigns that are just bad at wikipediaing or lazy, though occasioanlly it is the campaigns (or perhaps even the candidate themselves) as in the case of Cmihos. But John’s wiki article is (1) significantly older than his campaign (2) has some sections that seem lifted from his campaign bio, like the part about NVRI, but is clearly not a copy-and-paste job (3) the only contributions i know of to be from the campaign in some way are Cos’s which are all small and fair corrections.
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as far as your criticisms of the campaign, those are fair game, but i take a lot of fault with your accusations of lack of integrity on this.
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in response to some of those criticsms though, I also am a huge Jill Stein fan, though I think it is quite clear that of the 3 candidates, John Bonifaz is by far the most qualified for the job, and would carry out the job excellently.
Could I ask you why you’re a fan of Stein? If the Greens were running someone else I could at least take a second look. I found Stein the least appealing candidate in 2002 — she seemed unprepared for the debates and her math didn’t add up.
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I remember later in that campaign that she was screaming into a bullhorn outside a debate between O’Brien and Romney about how they were shutting down democracy by excluding her. Then when Libertarian candidate Clara Howell came by, Stein refused to share the megaphone with her, coming across as a scattered hypocrite.
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What am I not seeing about her that’s so appealing?
Jill comes across a little moonbatty, Id agree with you about her debate performance and hypocracy, and for the record she would not have earned my vote in 2002 but she fit then as she does now as the least of three evils.
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I mean face it this race is already over, the question is not who will win but by how big of a margin Galvin wins. I do not for a second expect Bonifaz or Stein to win, but the point of my vote is not to pick a winner but to send a message. Bonifaz clearly wants to use this as a bully pulpit, get revenge for Blackwell screwing his group over in Ohio, Harris in Florida, and create an election system that he wants. The group he represents has sued several SoS’s in the past and I believe its a conflict of interest for him to be one of their Chairs and then become SoS. I also believe its a conflict of interest for him to continue being a member of that group and his fathers law firm. Moreover the editing of the Wikipedia article, the personal attacks on Galvin on the very weekend his mother was buried, and the fact that the bulk of his website is an anti-war tirade shows that he does not have the chops for this important position, and outside of the blogosphere no one has heard of him so his campaign is dead on arrival.
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That said in an ideal world the SoS would be an apolitical expert appointed by the Governors Council, someone like a Mark Green who has both election reform and consumer advocacy chops, has done extensive work in both areas, and has an impeccable record of fairness. Frankly out of the three none of them have everything, Bonifaz has the most election reform experience but he has never administered an election and I sincerely question his ability to do that fairly considering how much of a left-wing firebrand he is, I do not want a liberal Blackwell I want a fair Secretary of State. Galvin is part of the hackocracy and had little experience in 94 when he was elected and has done marginally little as SoS aside from flirting with running for Gov every four years.
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Stein on the other hand is a committed consumer rights advocate, a less experienced but still passionate advocate for electoral reforms, and as her website shows she is committed to fairness, openess, and neutrality as a SoS and thats what makes her truly the progressive candidate in this race.
I’m in favor of making directors of state and federal elections a civil service position, rather than a partisan office. In many countries, directors of elections can’t even vote.
I take exception to the characterization ofthe SoC candidates as “three eveils”. This is one ofthe few races where I’d have to say all the candidates have great strengths and the experience needed for the job.
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I also strongly disagree with your baseless attacks on the Bonifaz campaign, but very much agree with your concluding paragraph.
1) Jill Stein was the first campaign I ever got excited about and the first campaign I ever voted for (I was 19 and a sophomore in college during that election). While I considered Robert Reich a good second choice, (and would have voted for him if my town clerk hadn’t for some reason sent me a Libertarian absentee ballot) he didn’t win the nomination, so I had no opprtunity. I think Jill Stein represents the moderate progressive Green movement I wish we had in this country, like the one we have in the rest of the world, and supporting candidates like her and Nat Fortune helps stop the radical wing from continuing to take over the US Greens.
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2) I’m surprised you say she was unprepared for the debate. I didn’t see the debates because I was back in upstate New York by that time (and also have no idea about the anecdote you mentioned), but you are the first person I’ve heard not say that Jill was the strongest candidate in all the debates she participated in.