“If we saw this in another country …”
Maybe you’ve noticed. The U-S-A chanters bedecked in red, white and blue? The “we’re a republic, not a democracy” crowd? Those Real Americans™ with pocket Constitutions who, like the hypocrites Jesus warned about, make a public show of their political piety? They’re not really into the whole “consent of the governed” thing in the Declaration of Independence. You’re hardly shocked.
Neither is David Pepper, the former Ohio Democratic Party chair.
Right now in Ohio, Republicans firmly in control of the mechanisms of state governance are racing to hold a special election in August to pass a constitutional amendment that heads off a citizen-led ballot initiative in November. With it they hope to use a low-turnout August election to raise the threshold for passing a constitutional amendment in Ohio from 50% to 60%. The 50% threshold has been in place for 100 years, say critics.
The citizen initiative would place an abortion rights guarantee in the state constitution. Revanchists cannot have that, so they want to raise the bar for passage ahead of November.
That’s not only bad form, says Pepper, an August special election is illegal. Legal experts agree. The General Assembly voted in December to ban August special elections. They are not only costly but interfere with preparation of ballots for the fall elections which go the printer in August.
Democracy Docket reports that on Tuesday “a group of Ohio voters and the group One Person One Vote filed a lawsuit in the Ohio Supreme Court” challenging the legality of the August election.
Pepper spoke with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Tuesday evening about the Republican effort to thwart the will of Ohio voters. The GOP-led effort is yet another attempt to undermine self-governance in the U.S. Pepper’s new book, “Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual for Every American” was released Tuesday.
“If we saw this in another country, we would be saying, ‘My God, you have no rule of law.'” Pepper said of Ohio Republicans’ flouting of law and court rulings. Republicans in Wisconsin, North Carolina and other states are working to undermine democracy.
“If this passes in Ohio, they do operate as laboratories of autocracy,” Pepper warns. “Other states will do it.”
To fight back, Americans committed to rule by the consent of the governed must quit placing all their political activity in the Beltway basket, Pepper told Vanity Fair:
As much as you want to win in DC, the front line of the attack on democracy is not far from where you live. I don’t care if you’re in a blue state or a red state. It’s in your local area. That’s what the other side figured out a long time ago. And that’s a negative thing to discover, of course. But my hope is, it also shows people, Guess what: There’s something you can do about it right where you live.… The battle against democracy is succeeding because they don’t see that they can. And if we’re going to fight back, it’s going to start with people recognizing that they have a lot more agency.
Are local elections more boring than the marquee federal races? Maybe. But that’s why Republicans have been able to erode democracy right under our noses, says Pepper.
I think the other side has been very clear-eyed on what institutions really impact power in American democracy. And they’re willing to support people in those institutions, even if they’re the most boring, unimpressive, uninspirational figures you can imagine. They don’t care about who these people are. They care about the institutions, because those institutions can exert power, push through an agenda, and suppress democracy.
While you are waiting to “fall in love,” as the critique of the left goes, the extremist right is backing authoritarians for office. It’s how the right builds its antidemocratic bench. The left has to be running everywhere if it expects to survive. Because, says Pepper, “if we don’t even run in half the seats, the damage is so much worse than if we’re running in all those seats every single cycle to, over time, make gains.”
Here in North Carolina, Anderson Clayton became the new state chair at 25 after Democrats’ recruiting efforts collapsed in 2022 leaving a quarter of legislative seats uncontested. She pledges to not let seats go uncontested on her watch. It’s not a democracy if people do not have a choice.
“So many people across the state are fed up. I don’t know about y’all, but I’m tired of losing,” Clayton told Union County Democrats shortly after she defeated the governor’s pick. “I’m tired of Republicans coming in and threatening my rights.”
Pepper agrees:
We create that problem. Once you don’t have an opponent and your November election is canceled, the democracy is canceled; you’re not a public servant anymore. You have no accountability to the public. And that’s why the behavior has gotten so extreme in the states. They’re not public servants when so many don’t face opposition. If you’re only worried about a few swing areas for a federal election, you actually don’t see that damage. You think it’s okay because it doesn’t change the outcome of that swing suburban House district or that Senate race. But once you see this lack of accountability in state Houses and all these districts that’s fueling this downward spiral of extremism, then you realize, My God, by not running in all these places, we are leading to those incentives being all screwed up. We have to run everywhere.
MAGA Republicans and their billionaire backers are playing a longer game. Democrats need to get in it. And (as I’m agitating to get candidates here to see) they have to play it differently.
Pepper concurs, telling Vanity Fair, “A lot of the strategies that we are still basically undertaking are the strategies that were built when we assumed democracy was just fine.”
Now it is not.