"For millions of Americans, the dysfunction of our political system may be frightening, but it’s creating a unique reform moment."

(1 of 4)

Basketball-laden holiday weekends are death for readership, but I'd rather think about public participation, ranked-choice voting, Constitutional reform and other structural reforms.

This Is What Political Revolution Really Looks Like, by Wendy R. Weiser, Rob Richie and Sanford Levinson (The Nation)

Without these structural reforms to American democracy, even a progressive presidency couldn’t accomplish much.

The rise of Bernie Sanders, whatever the fate of his campaign, has likely altered the trajectory of progressive politics in the United States for decades to come. He has not only rallied millions of supporters to stand with him, in the words of Michael Harrington, on “the left wing of the possible,” he has significantly expanded the realm of the possible itself. Yet for many on the left even Sanders’s fiery denunciations of a rigged political and economic system fail to account for how profoundly that is the case and how challenging it will be to un-rig it. In this installment of “That’s Debatable,” our continuing series of forums, Wendy Weiser, Rob Richie, and Sanford Levinson argue that deeper structural reforms would be necessary for a “political revolution” to make our federal government more responsive to the people in whose name it governs and whose interests it is supposed to serve.

NAC Reader Comments 1: "The US Government has no list of 'legitimate' religions."

Referring to our post on June 2, Prayer duly restored, the Ayatollah Coffey will now decide whether your religion deserves his stamp of approval, reader W takes issue with Dan Coffey's insistence that only "legitimate" religions can offer invocations before council.

Looks like I need to bone up on my atheistic scripture ... or find a Druid.

"Coffey disagreed, as he said the U.S. Supreme Court ruling assures that a church has to be deemed as a legitimate institution before it can push for inclusion in public prayer during a meeting."

I've just read the Supreme Court ruling, including Parts II and II-B.

There is no mention in the ruling that a church must be "deemed as a legitimate institution" before it can be included in public prayer.

The US Government has no list of "legitimate religions." There's this document called the Constitution which specifically forbids a government list of "official" religions.

Councilman Coffey could be opening a huge can of worms for Council prayer if he insists on allowing only "officially recognized" religions. The only such US list that exists is the list of religious emblems of faith allowed on US Veteran headstones.

The list of religions "officially recognized" by a US government agency include Wicca, Eckanar, The Hammer of Thor, and yes, Atheist.

Pierce: "Tell Me What Is Being Done In My Name."

Classic rant, spot on.

Tell Me What Is Being Done In My Name, by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire)

OK, let us persist in the notion that I am an American citizen. Let us persist in the notion that I am the citizen of a self-governing political commonwealth. Let us persist in the notion that I have a say -- and important and equal say -- in the operation of my government here and out in the world. Let us persist in the notion that, in America, the people rule. If we persist in these notions -- and, if we don't, what's the fking point, really? -- then there is only one question that I humbly ask of my government this week.

Please, if it's not too damn much trouble, can you tell me what's being done in my name?

From New Albany Now: A "vicious, venal, and veracity-challenged circus of horrors, orchestrated awkwardly by Dan Coffey."

Regular readers know that we seldom reprint whole commentaries from other sources, while reserving the right to make periodic exceptions. It’s time for another.

The source is New Albany Now, the blog for New Albany’s first online call-in show, and the author is Randy Smith. In the main, I share Randy’s sentiments, and I believe they deserve a wider audience. Here’s the link to the audio referenced below.

----

Commentary: A Diversion and a Digression

I don't intend for this to be either a partisan blog or an "attack" blog. At root, it is a billboard for the radio show. In the past, I have been boisterous and opinionated and have often, by my vitriol, caused even friends to recoil. You can search around to find my mothballed blog to verify that for yourself.

Nowadays, I take keyboard in hand to comment on the blog postings of others with discretion, contributing to other blogs only when I feel it is truly needed.

That does not mean that I have retired from the field, though. On occasion, though, something demonstrably egregious arises, and this blog will not erect any fences prohibiting frank commentary. New Albany Now is and will continue to be a bright light shining on the issues in this city. That is our purpose. That does not mean I will arbitrarily muzzle myself when an injustice is done.

I posted an historic broadcast last evening. For the first time in many, many months, the deliberations and debate of the New Albany City Council were made available to the public. And for the first time ever, that record is continuously and forever available ON-DEMAND. If you need to refer to it, it will always be there.

With that in mind, I'd like to point out that Thursday night's meeting was (as usual) degraded and tarnished by yet another vicious, venal, and veracity-challenged circus of horrors, orchestrated awkwardly by Dan Coffey, the embarrassment of a human being who reigns over the seat intended to represent the interests of constituents in the 1st District of New Albany on the City Council.

I imagine that Coffey once found himself bed-ridden and without batteries and thereby forced to watch a one-hour documentary on Wisconsin senator Joseph McCarthy. Apparently, he saw that as a "good thing," and decided that would be his model.

Late in Thursday's meeting (segment 6 - slide the show slider to the last 20 or so minutes), Mr. Coffey put on an abysmal dramatic performance. Co-star Diane McCartin Benedetti (D?-D5) played foil to Coffey in a feeble attempt to slime at-large council member John Gonder.

Simulating a great concern for "comity" and decorum, Mr. Coffey practically soiled himself while presenting a sham concern for an individual who was "concerned" about a "fax" that had been circulated declaring the "news" that Mr. Gonder had been one of the original people who believed that New Albany shouldn't be unique in the state of Indiana, unique in the roster of municipalities across this great land of ours, and that its legislative (city council) districts should be drawn to offer equal representation as guaranteed under The Constitution of the United States.

It was "brought to" his "attention" by this "fax" that Mr. Gonder was once a plaintiff seeking the deserved assistance of the U.S. Federal District Court to enforce the law.Please show me ONE person who believes that a "fax" caused Mr. Coffey and Ms. McCartin Benedetti to become aware of Mr. Gonder's past status as an advocate for the law and The Constitution.

Over the previous 10, or 110 days, Coffey had plotted his ambush, his blatant attempt to smear Mr. Gonder with fecal matter and to attempt to intimidate him from casting a considered vote on whether the city should continue to be a rogue city or whether this city, New Albany on the Ohio, should conform to the requirements of the 14th Amendment.

During a serious, substantive portion of the council meeting, Coffey and city council attorney Jerry Ulrich conducted their own meeting, and Mr. Ulrich, knowing that Coffey stand fully prepared to lever him back into fully private practice, signed on to the smear attempt.

Ulrich, Coffey, and McCartin Benedetti struggled to appear sincere in their faux concern that, somehow, having stood up for the law, Mr. Gonder was thus unqualified to vote on G-08-05, the ordinance to, at long last, draw lawful districts for the first time since at least 1992. Ulrich went over the line in his attack by saying to Mr. Gonder that if his "conscience" were clear, he couldn't see why Mr. Gonder should recuse himself from voting.

I, for one, looked around to see if Karl Rove had entered the room, for this was a classic Swift-boat attack. That Gonder stood up for the law before he was elected and continues to stand up for the law now that he is in office became, with the full complicity of a majority of the City Council, a declared black mark on Gonder's reputation.

Without any fear of being disputed, I'll tell you that Coffey manufactured, fomented, and stoked a fake popular uprising, including a disingenuous "fax," to smear his colleague.

As would be expected by anyone who knows John Gonder, the enormously popular at-large council member handled the kneecapping with inordinate grace, willingly identifying himself as the member who Mr. Coffey pretended to be so concerned for, for whom Mr. Coffey shed crocodile tears over the fact that he simply had to step forward and pour a bucket of excrement on.

What has New Albany come to that an entire council (well, a majority of the council) would be complicit in trying to eviscerate a man who stands up for following the law?

What is, indubitably, a virtue, was treated as something to be ashamed of by the city council and its attorney. They, individually, and as a body, owe Mr. Gonder an abject apology.

I urge you, if you are reading this, to demand it. Write to your newspapers, call your council members, and tell all your neighbors about the atrocity that was committed at Thursday's meeting.

John Gonder is a ray of sunshine on this council. We couldn't do better to have eight more of him serving this city. Don't let this political crime go unpunished.

Coffey, who like a majority of his colleagues believes he "owns" his district, needs to realize that constituents pick their representatives, and not the other way around. Mr. Gonder, who received more votes in the last election than all but one other candidate, has more credibility in a single eyelash than the combined integrity of Gahan/Coffey/McLaughlin/Price/McCartinBenedetti.

Wonderfully and delightfully us … and that’s why major surgery is required.

Here in America we have a document called the Constitution.

You may have heard of it, although if you have, chances are you are not a New Albany city council person, and may wish to stop reading now lest I offend you.

That is, if you can read at all.

In broad terms, the reason we have a Constitution is to provide a shared legal and conceptual framework that unites Americans from many varied geographical locales and gives them a sense of common purpose.

Admittedly, it has taken quite some time to iron out the rough spots and to apply the precepts of the Constitution equally to all Americans. Indeed, the work continues, and it always will. Rule of law isn’t appealing to criminals, anarchists and four current council persons … but more on that in a moment.

Last evening the city council convened to consider a redistricting ordinance. The ordinance as submitted to the council was derived from the work of a committee. The committee was established for one reason and one reason alone. A previous incarnation of the council had for many years refused to cooperate with mandates set down by the very same Constitution referenced previously, and it had failed in its duty to fairly realign voting districts.

Because the previous council failed so spectacularly to do its job, citizens (of whom I was one) asked a Federal Court to interpret the council’s inactivity. Presiding over that body was a judge, whose job it is to apply Constitutional principles to problems like these, and whose job it is not is to be familiar with irrelevancies ranging from the location of one councilman’s house, whether dogs bark louder before a rainstorm, or the way that one neighbor never really thought highly of the color used by another to paint his house, and always complains about it at the Elks club meetings.

The judge sagaciously considered the previous council’s attitude with regard to its mandate to redistrict, and found it sorely wanting. He examined the previous council’s last-second attempt to implement a redistricting plan contrived in a Geritol-induced haze by the wife of one of its now mercifully retired members, and found that plan sorely wanting, too, because it did not adhere to the principles of the Constitution.

The Constitution. What a concept ... just not here.

In effect, the judge in question laughed the previous council out of court, made the very strong suggestion that it keep the Constitution in mind, and directed it to try again. The committee was approved and was formed, with three at-large councilmen and three community members (only one of whom was involved in the original lawsuit), and the council agreed to consider the results.

Last night, the council wonderfully and delightfully pissed itself.

Diane McCartin-Benedetti argued forcefully that the committee was created for the express purpose of saving her the trouble of doing such work herself … and then she voted against the committee’s work, naturally without explanation.

John Gonder was forced to concede that an unguarded comment about a deck of cards made to colleague Steve Price was justification enough for Price, who hardly needs provocation to make asinine allegations of impropriety, to publicly insult the integrity of committee members who, as you recall, were only doing McCartin-Benedetti’s job for her. But Gonder, a committe member, voted in favor.

Dan Coffey raved and ranted about not playing games, and joined Price in suggesting that this is what happens when you let those evil outsiders come into town. The gallery Coffey had packed with Westendians in an effort to preserve his waning influence by thwarting progress in the district he has chronically neglected had already left, or there may have been a progressive lynched on the spot.

Rather like the White Southern “states rights” folks, who used to passionately argue against the precepts of the Constitution because, well, you just don’t understand the way it has to be with us and the Negroes, and understand that we have our own customs and traditions, and if slavery and prejudice happen to be among these, so be it. It makes our neck of the woods special.

Rather like earlier last evening when a local mail carrier accidentally provided a theme for the meeting by suggesting that the federal judge might have better ignored the Constitution in reaching his decision taking the previous council to task over its refusal to observe the dictates of voter rights and equality. According to the postman, there is something sacred and holy about current configuration of voting districts – something indefinable, yet true in a mystical sort of way. Never mind that the council has been directed to reshape these districts in accordance with reality. Subjectivism -- that's where it's at.

In the end, amid the fear, loathing and sheer Pricist buffoonery, the vote was a tie, 4-4, with Pat McLaughlin absent. There will be two more readings.

Eight people, three local television news channels and the Courier-Journal were at last night’s council meeting, and all but a handful of the public departed after the public hearing on smoking. There’s a Constitutional principle involved in the smoking ban debate, too. All of it goes back to that document.

That is, unless you’re one of the four city council members, including the body’s president, Jeff Gahan, voting against Constitutional principles last evening, and in favor of local self-determination even if it means soiling a parchment all were sworn to uphold.

Sad, but wonderfully and delightfully New Albanian, don’t you think?