Responses to Unequal Justice and Call for Defunding FBI

 

Jon Reisman

Last week’s column argued that that the FBI and Department of Justice were systemically biased against right of center Americans and called for their defunding because their unequal administration of justice is a recipe for tyranny.
I shared my concerns with Representative Golden and Senators King and Collins. Senator King has not deigned to respond.  Senator Collins acknowledged receiving my concerns. Rep. Golden wrote a lengthy response arguing for the passage of HR1 and claiming credit for fighting corruption.
Here are their unedited responses.

Senator Collins:
Dear Friend,
Thank you for contacting me through my website. Your views are important to me, and input from my constituents is very helpful when I consider the many important issues facing our nation.
Again, thank you for writing.

Representative Golden:
Dear Jonathan,
Thank you for contacting me. It is an honor to serve as your representative in Congress, and I appreciate hearing from you.
 Recently, I voted to pass H.R. 1, the For the People Act, through the House. This bill, which I also cosponsored, is the most comprehensive democracy reform legislation in a generation.
All over Maine, people tell me that they fear that Congress doesn’t work for them. They say the middle-class is falling behind. That blue collar workers are watching good jobs slip away. They feel that rural America is ignored. That the poor are rarely given a chance to speak for themselves. And that it gets harder and harder to make ends meet.
I hear these things from all types of folks: progressive, conservative, urban, rural, political or not political at all. There’s frequently a concern about corruption—sometimes explicit, other times subtle.
The bottom line is they aren’t wrong. The worst corruption of all is that dark money, special-interest campaign activities, and the rigged practices that take place inside, outside, and all around our Capitol and the House and Senate, are legal.
Super PACs and 501(c)4s are allowed to take and spend huge amounts of money with little to no transparency about where the money comes from. Laws meant to produce transparency get skirted by shell organizations that shelter donors and hide sources of money—a legal form of political money laundering. A revolving door starts in Congress and leads to industries that lobby Congress; and then to an executive position in the White House to do oversight on the industry that employed you. Spouses and children get plum paid positions on boards. Sadly, that’s fairly normal in America.
The temple of our democracy is packed full of money changers. A lot of this flows out of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision that said unlimited political spending is protected by the First Amendment: our right to free speech. Previously, American courts had upheld certain spending restrictions on the grounds that the government had a role in preventing corruption. But in 2010, our highest court decided after 100-plus years that it had been wrong all along, and that unlimited cash flow in politics was not in fact a big risk factor for corruption.
Today, our nation is drowning in divisive, partisan politics. Awash in campaign funding and campaign spending—a product of the never-ending campaign cycle. We feel divided from our government and bitterly divided against each other. Our Congress is locked in near-unbreakable gridlock, unable or unwilling to tackle the major reforms that our country is so desperately in need of. Only a major reform of our election laws will clean it up. H.R. 1 is that major reform.
H.R. 1 includes provisions to:
• Shine a light on dark money in politics by mandating new political ad disclosures online, forcing organizations involved in political activity to reveal their large donors, and empowering the Federal Elections Commission to better enforce the law;
 • Mandate that voting machines be made in the United States;
 • Strengthen the ability of active duty service members to vote;
 • End partisan gerrymandering by using independent commissions to oversee redistricting
 • Ensure all votes have a paper back-up;
 • Remove barriers to voting with automatic voter registration and expanding early and absentee voting; and
 • Strengthen ethics regulations and increase accountability for government officials to ensure they act in the public interest.
 In addition, I wanted to clear up some of the concerns that have been circulating about this legislation. Heightened donor disclosure requirements will not violate the privacy rights of ordinary Americans--they only apply to individuals giving at least $5,000 to a political organization. Even then, the disclosure of a donor is not required if doing so “would subject the person to serious threats, harassments, or reprisals.
This bill would not provide funding to political campaigns with taxpayer dollars. It does match small-dollar donations, like we do in Maine with our Clean Election law, but only from an account funded by fines on corporations and wealthy individuals for financial crimes.
And finally, it does not require or otherwise support the universal mailing out of ballots. Other legislation last year proposed doing so, but not this bill.
I also secured two bills in the final legislation. These provisions would further increase transparency and accountability by:
• Helping ensure that political advertisements are only purchased by individuals in the United States, and requiring media outlets to do due diligence in preventing foreign actors from purchasing political advertising in the U.S.;
 • Making the labels on political advertisements stick with the post, instead of being stripped off when shared on social media;
I’m proud to get out the broom and start the cleaning, because our country and our democracy are worth fighting for. It’s been done successfully by generations that have come before us. It’s not too late to follow their example and reestablish an age of clean politics and a return to a government that doesn’t serve special interests and their shadowy backers or the super-rich and well-connected, but that works instead for all of us, for the American people.
I am guessing that Rep. Golden is unaware of the anti-Semitic connotations associated with the term “money changers”. However, if AOC and Ilhan Omar can the use the term without censure, I guess Rep. Golden need not be concerned. His response about HR1 and Citizens United is classic gas lighting, especially since I asked him specifically about HR1 and the 1st Amendment when he was on Maine Public’s Maine Talking last year he just brushed it off as partisan nonsense – I wonder if that was the same response he gave the ACLU, which also objects the HR1’s efforts to dismantle the 1st Amendment.
I will be looking for a 2nd District GOP candidate who campaigns on defunding the FBI and the Department of Justice.
Jon Reisman is an associate professor of economics and public policy at the University of Maine at Machias. His views are his own. Mr. Reisman welcomes comments as letters to the editor here, or to him directly via email at [email protected].

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