Monthly Archives: October 2020

Vote Yes on Question 2 – Ranked Choice Voting

Posted by on 2020-10-28 No comments

Elections and widespread voter suppression disenfranchise voters throughout the United States. In this most recent presidential election we have seen almost every trick used to make voting difficult or impossible. But there are many paths to disenfranchisement. Who we see on the ballot, who we see on the debate stage, and how we select the winners all determine whether we get the politicians we need.

The hegemony of the so-called Two Party System isn’t doing democracy any favors. Like the convention of having 9 Supreme Court justices, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that requires a two-party system. The reality is that we have dozens of political parties. Yet this magic number is taken by many as an article of political faith.

This year more than a dozen presidential candidates qualified to appear on state ballots, but you wouldn’t know it since only two parties were invited to appear at debates hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Despite its government-y name, the CPD is a 501(c)(3) non-profit whose board members are a Who’s Who of establishment politics. It was founded by the then-chair of the Democratic Party, Paul Kirk, Jr., and by his Republican equivalent, Frank Fahrenkopf, Jr. Since 1996 CPD’s sponsors have included Anheuser-Busch, Dun & Bradstreet, Philip Morris, Sara Lee, Sprint, AT&T, Ford Motor Company, Hallmark, IBM, J.P. Morgan, U.S. Airways, the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, and — well, you get the idea.

The entire election process — including the voting procedure itself — is designed to disadvantage third parties. The American preoccupation with “viability” always trumps presenting new ideas to voters. When, as Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein did in 2016, a third party candidate does overcome all odds and manages to get on the ballot, s/he is usually vilified, as Stein was, for stealing votes from “viable” candidates who are only viable thanks to free coverage from media giants and non-profits like CPD. Stein was arrested when she tried to “crash” CPB’s 2016 debates.

I recently viewed a 2016 video of Stein being interviewed by “Headliner” anchor Mehdi Hasan. When asked what she could uniquely offer voters, she pointed to: student debt relief; an emergency jobs program based on a green energy economy; and and end to police violence. While today’s Democrats are still struggling to address police violence, income inequality, and climate change, Stein nailed it four years ago.

Fast forward to 2020. It wasn’t just Bernie Sanders and the Squad who brought progressive platform planks to voters. Planks from Stein’s platform were eventually embraced by at least several Democrats in the 2020 election cycle.

I was one of those who voted “Green” in 2016. Admittedly, my vote was lost in a sea of Massachusetts votes for Hillary Clinton. But I felt it was important to support a fundamentally decent candidate with a more humane and rational platform than Democrats were offering. And — no — my vote didn’t bring Donald Trump to power any more than Russian troll farms or Jim Comey did. Democrats anointed the wrong candidate, and she lost because not enough people wanted her.

Which brings me to Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). RCV is used in a number of American cities, Maine, Australia, New Zealand, Malta, Ireland, and elsewhere. It gives voters more than one choice on a ballot, so that if their first candidate is not viable — in the real sense of the word — then their 2nd, 3rd, or 10th choice will at least influence the final vote. Ranked Choice Voting also avoids costly runoff elections by calculating instant runoffs.

On November 3rd Massachusetts voters will have a chance to choose Ranked Choice Voting by checking “Yes” on Question #2. The 10-way Democratic primary in the 4th Congressional District offered a perfect example of why RCV is needed. As a Boston.com article pointed out, “winning without the support of the vast majority of voters has become a feature of most recent open House primaries. In 2018, Rep. Lori Trahan won her 3rd District primary with less than 22 percent of the vote. In 2013, Rep. Katherine Clark won with less than 32 percent. In 1998, former Rep. Mike Capuano clinched the nomination with 23 percent.”

And we call this democracy?

Had Ranked Choice voting been available in 2016, I imagine that Green voters like myself would have held our noses and chosen Hillary Clinton as our second pick. But that wasn’t even an option.

So if Massachusetts voters, who are overwhelmingly Democratic, still end up rejecting Ranked Choice Voting in the face of increasing problems with conventional voting, then I will be quick to offer this piece of advice: Shut up about third parties spoiling “your” wins. You had your chance and you blew it.

Vote Yes on Question #2.

Remarks at BREATHE march

Posted by on 2020-10-25 No comments

Remarks at the Pleasant Street Police station on October 24th, 2020 at the BREATHE for Malcolm march.

My name is David Ehrens. I am a member of the NAACP New Bedford Branch and Bristol County for Correctional Justice.

Many of us have viewed Attorney Brisson’s evidence in Malcolm Gracia’s murder. It deserves a second look — not by the New Bedford Police, which rushed to exonerate its own officers. And not by the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office, which produced a disgraceful whitewash eight years ago. They weren’t up to the job then — and they certainly aren’t now.

We have called for an investigation by the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Civil Rights Division and by the U.S. Department of Justice. But ultimately only community police review commissions with the power to subpoena and fire officers can really address police abuse. Law enforcement institutions and the legislators they lobby show little interest in holding police accountable to the public. This is what I’m talking about:

  • A Police Department that has called the public “thugs” and cannot be trusted to investigate itself.

  • A police department that over 2 years paid more than a million and a half dollars in payouts for wrongful deaths.

  • A DA who defends his predecessor’s whitewash and is personally responsible for some of the highest pre-trial detention and pre-trial death rates in the state

  • A sheriff who serves as a spokesman for a white supremacist group, abuses ICE detainees, and has the highest jail suicide rate in the state.

  • An Attorney General who refused to use her Civil Rights Division to investigate those jail suicides and whose predecessor wouldn’t look at the Gracia case.

  • Representatives on Beacon Hill who — right now — are trying to water down a police accountability bill

  • Police unions whose contract provisions bar the public from participating in police misconduct commissions.

  • A mayor who co-opts community voices while refusing to listen to them.

  • And in this same community we have a school superintendent who began a “community discussion” about police in schools with a police propaganda video.

What these men and women and institutions have in common is that they are all part of a dual system of justice — one in which the law comes down like a ton of bricks on the powerless, while police and the privileged get a pass when they break the same laws.

We’re supposed to be a nation governed by the rule of law. But this is empty rhetoric when every day laws are applied so arbitrarily — or depending on the color of your skin.

This is what has brought us to this march today — to demand equal justice for Malcolm — and for every other Malcolm.

Police reform is not training the public to accept police control. This is how you train a dog. Police reform isn’t singing kumbayah or having coffee with the police. Police reform is changing how communities are policed, and that will NEVER be achieved by ride-alongs, listening sessions, gimmicks or placebos.

Police reform will only come about when WE have the power to hire, fire, train, and discipline police — and when WE get the final say in how our own communities are served.

Expand the Court

Posted by on 2020-10-22 No comments

If he manages to be elected, Joe Biden must add at least two Supreme Court justices. I would welcome his choice of Barack Obama for one new seat and Merritt Garland for the other.

Adding justices is what should happen if Republicans jam through the appointment of an “originalist” judge who is also a member of a cult featuring handmaids.

Of course, not everybody thinks expanding the Supreme Courts is a great idea. Some Democrats — including Biden himself — fear the sky would fall if such an audacious thing were done.

But given that the Republicans have been packing lower courts for years, maybe we need to trade in “Hope and Change” for some “Audacity and Change.” The threat of so-called “court packing” would send a chilling message to Republicans pondering Trump’s eclipse — do it and see what happens.

But forget about Barrett’s cult for a moment. Shouldn’t we restore some religious balance to the highest court in the land? 63% of Supreme Court Justices are already Catholic in a country where only 23% identify as such. If Barrett is confirmed that number would hit 75%. Many American Catholics don’t even share the views of their more conservative co-religionists on the Court. And more Americans than ever check off “none” in the religious box.

Expanding the Court is hardly a new idea. Donald Trump’s next favorite president (after himself, of course) is Andrew Jackson, who added two justices to the Court in 1836.

There is also nothing sacred about nine justices or lifetime presidential appointments. The way justices are appointed in other Western nations puts our process to shame.

The Supreme Court of Canada is appointed by the Governor in Council and consists of nine justices. The number started out as six, was bumped up to seven, and ultimately nine. On the surface theirs looks like ours, but Canada’s Supreme Court Act requires that three judges come from Ontario, three from Quebec, two from the Western provinces or Northern Canada and one from the Atlantic provinces. And Judges must also retire before their 75th birthdays.

The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom has twelve justices and they must have already served on the bench for 15 years, or 2 on a “federal” bench. The UK convenes a selection commission chosen from judiciaries in Britain, Scotland, Northern Island and Wales, and it strives for balance. After selection, a justice is formally appointed by the Queen. Even with 12 justices that number can still be increased. Justices must retire at 70 or 75, depending on when they joined the bench.

The German Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht, or BVerfG), has sixteen justices divided a couple of ways into two senates and three chambers. Judges are elected by both the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, each of which selects eight justices. A Justice must have previously held a position on the bench and be at least 40 years of age. Justices serve for 12 years or until the age of 68, whichever comes first.

The French Court of Cassation is the highest appeal court in France and has an elaborate system of chambers and sitting and administrative judges, but 15 justices head up the court. These 15 judges serve a 9 year term and 3 each are appointed by the President of the Republic, the Senate and the National Assembly presidents. To become a judge, a lawyer must be admitted to the Supreme Court Bar after passing an exam from the National School of the Magistracy. Typically, candidates are already judges in lower courts.

Our Supreme Court selection process is a mess. Not only is it highly politicized, but it lacks regional and demographic representation, professionalism, and justices typically serve well past normal professional expiration dates. More importantly, our selection process is simply undemocratic.

We need a serious re-think of the selection process, as well as term limits for the Supreme Court. And there are plenty of places to look for better ideas, starting with some of our closer allies.

But in the interim, let’s expand the Supreme Court.

27 Seconds

Posted by on 2020-10-14 No comments

The Gracia family’s lawyer, Don Brisson, finished a series of presentations last week on Malcolm’s murder. Brisson spent considerable time discussing inconsistencies in detectives’ testimony and forensic evidence collected at the crime scene.

But one of the more shocking pieces of evidence Brisson released were videos that had been withheld from the public until December 2018. There are three videos of the evening of May 17th, 2012. One is high resolution surveillance footage from the Temple Landing basketball court. It is what Detective Safioleas would have been watching from the Rockdale Ave. police headquarters. The other two are residential CCVT camera footage from Middle and Ash streets displayed side-by-side.

What is striking is the sheer speed with which New Bedford Police murdered Malcolm Gracia.

At 8:36 Malcom is seen leaving the Temple Landing basketball court. He walks down Middle and turns left on Cedar Street. Eleven seconds later New Bedford police speed around the same corner. And 27 seconds after that, a camera records neighbors and children out skateboarding scattering as Malcolm is apparently shot out of sight of the cameras.

The 27 seconds it took police to kill Malcolm Gracia is never questioned as investigators simply accept detectives’ accounts of a much more professional, by-the-book, and leisurely encounter.

If you watch the videos, it’s clear that police accounts could not have been truthful.

Video #1: the elaborate handshake

This is the surveillance footage from the Temple Landing basketball court, which shows Malcolm Gracia interacting with other observers at pick-me-up basketball games.

The Gang Unit’s surveillance camera, which recorded the correct date, was about 24 minutes, 51 seconds fast. For reference it was best to use seconds into the video instead of erroneous time stamps on it.

At about 413 seconds into the video (estimated to be 8:28:55 PM) the surveillance camera first picks up Malcolm Gracia and Adam Carreira. At about 520 seconds we see Gracia wearing black pants and a black hoodie, smiling and shaking hands with a spectator seated in the bleachers of the basketball court farthest from Cedar Street. This is the handshake that sets a police murder in motion. Sgt. Brian Safioleas, who has been watching Adam Carreira’s cigarette, switches to Gracia for a minute, and zooms in on Carreira’s cigarette again as he passes it to Gracia. Viewing the video now it appears Safioleas’s interest was what the boys were smoking. At about 585 seconds Safioleas zooms out to the entire bleacher and zooms back in to put Gracia entirely in the frame of the camera. Gracia is a bit more reserved than Carreira. But he is smiling, talking to a spectator in a striped shirt, and having a smoke. At about 880 seconds spectators start getting up out of the bleachers and are getting ready leave. By my calculations the actual time is around 8:28 PM. By 900 seconds into the video the spectators are leaving and all are shaking hands as they leave. At about 936 seconds Gracia says something to Carreira and both exit the camera frame. It is only a few footsteps to the Middle Street entrance and a residential CCVT camera records them leaving. The estimated time is roughly 8:36:19 PM.

It is interesting that the camera stops following Gracia and Carreira at this point and remains directed at the remaining spectators and ball players until everyone has left the frame. Of course, Safioleas could now be scrambling to dispatch Fonseca, Sylvia, Barnes and Brown and may have simply left the camera unattended. But wasn’t Safioleas concerned about the direction they were headed? The camera keeps recording a static image of the bleachers until 1310 seconds, when it then pans north across both basketball courts to show at least four police cruisers and an ambulance. The video runs another 500 seconds, zooming into the corner of Cedar and Middle where officers are stringing crime scene tape and residents — later described as a “mob” by the EMS technician who first treats Barnes — stand around watching the aftermath of another police shooting.

Video #2: police chase Gracia around the corner

The second video displays synchronized footage from two different Housing Authority cameras. One shows officers arriving on the scene. Another shows Malcolm leaving the courts and turning the corner of Middle and Cedar. Seconds later police do the same.

The camera which provided the footage in the left frame is most likely housed in a street lamp in front of 347 Middle Street and looks southeast down Middle Street toward Cedar Street and toward the entrance of the basketball courts. The camera which provided footage in the right frame is likely in a walkway behind 263 Ash Street. It looks northeast, down Ash Street, through the climbing structures and swing sets, past the basketball courts to the corner of Middle and Cedar. Unfortunately, both video quality and lighting are poor and, owing to the distance, distorted like telephoto photos. Both frames in the one video are time-stamped but do not record seconds.

At 8:36 PM — 27 seconds into the composite video — you can see Malcolm Gracia leaving the courts with Adam Carreira. His pointed hoodie is clearly visible as he makes his way down Middle Street and at 63 seconds the two turn the corner to Cedar. At this precise moment you can see Sylvia and Fonseca’s cruiser in camera two’s frame on the right. Fonseca, the driver, has driven past Middle Street in error, and is seen backing up onto Elm Street near the white rock at the intersection. The children’s playground on Ash Street is clearly visible in front of him. At 8:37 PM — 68 seconds into the video — Fonseca turns left and races back down Middle Street.

At 8:37 PM on camera one — at 71 seconds — you see Fonseca and Sylvia speeding down Middle Street. An unidentified silver vehicle just beats them to the intersection and precedes them as they turn onto Cedar at 74 seconds into the video. At 103 seconds another vehicle comes up Cedar. At 110 seconds — 27 seconds after the police turn onto Cedar — camera one picks up residents scattering and running. Fonseca and Sylvia have probably just fired the last of six shots caught by Shotspotter. This would make the time 8:37:42 PM. At 194 seconds into the video residents start running toward the corner of Middle and Cedar to see what’s happening. Police cars begin arriving at 225 seconds.

Timeline

Video Time Action
08:28:55 PM Gracia Shaking hands
16 08:36:08 PM Gracia and Carreira leave basketball court
27 08:36:19 PM Gracia seen exiting court from Middle St.
63 08:36:55 PM Gracia turns corner onto Cedar
74 08:37:06 PM Fonseca and Sylvia turn corner onto Cedar
110 08:37:42 PM Residents scatter in alarm **
194 08:39:06 PM Residents run toward intersection
225 08:39:37 PM Police cruisers arrive

** estimated from Shotspotter records and video of residents reacting to sounds of shooting

New England’s Joe Arpaio

Posted by on 2020-10-14 No comments

Last year I began working on a profile of Bristol County Thomas M. Hodgson’s associations with far right and white supremacist organizations for The Public Eye magazine. It took a long time to research and write, and even longer to edit, but after Covid-related delays it is finally out and you can read it online here or download the issue’s PDF here.

Allow me to plug buying a subscription to PRA’s print magazine, even in the digital age. Your support will help Political Research Associates keep investigating and reporting on America’s extreme Right.

PRA is running a Fall Webinar series that so far has tackled sheriffs, militias, and austerity. They have all been interesting and the moderator does a great job of posing questions and keeping everyone on schedule. Tomorrow’s webinar is Mobilizing Misogyny in the Service of Authoritarianism.

Fame and Shame in Bristol County

Posted by on 2020-10-13 No comments

Legislators are elected to help people. Some think their responsibility stops with constituents; others have a broader sense of responsibility to the earth, humanity, and global concerns. This is who I want representing me.

When it comes to immigration issues, I want legislators to take action against the Trump administration’s enlistment of local police in increasingly brazen and cruel roundups of desperate and paperless refugees. But the majority of Bristol County legislators are profound disappointments. Most coast to re-election without challengers. Instead of democracy we have political machinery and patronage in Bristol County. And with a few exceptions, we get hacks instead of leaders as a result.

Hall of Fame

I am grateful to the following state representatives and senators for stepping up to support the Safe Communities Act. It takes guts and principle and that broader sense of responsibility to help suffering human beings, whether they can vote for you or not.

Wall of Shame

The Republicans on the list below all belong on the Wall of Shame. Their party has become a rotting husk and a personality cult whose immigration policy is literally written by white supremacists. No surprise that Massachusetts Republicans march in lockstep with White House immigration advisor Stephen Miller, who proposed deporting Central American DACA recipients in railroad boxcars.

But the Democrats on this list? To be charitable, if they don’t share the xenophobia of their Republican friends, then their only excuse is that they are cowardly machine politicians afraid of angering rightwing police unions and some of their more racist constituents. Everyone on the list below will protest that they’re not racists or xenophobes — and a few can even point to programs they’ve funded which help disadvantaged communities.

But when it’s time to show their mettle, they are invariably too timid to help refugees whose lives have been upended by war, climate change, political instability, or hunger. Their love of humanity is conditional and narrow, reserved only for campaign contributors and potential voters. For refugees they look away, and for that — Democrat or Republican — they ought to be deeply ashamed.

  • Rep. Jay Barrows

  • Rep. Carole Fiola

  • Rep. Patricia Haddad

  • Rep. Christopher Hendricks

  • Rep. Steven Howitt

  • Rep. Christopher Markey

  • Rep. Shaunna O’Connell

  • Rep. Norman Orrall

  • Rep. Elizabeth Poirier

  • Rep. Paul Schmid

  • Rep. Alan Silvia

  • Rep. William Straus

  • Senator Michael Brady

  • Senator Mark Montigny

  • Senator Marc Pacheco

  • Senator Michael Rodrigues

  • Senator Walter Timilty

Bristol County’s Hall of Fame and Wall of Shame

Posted by on 2020-10-09 No comments

Legislators are elected to help people. Some think their responsibility stops with constituents; others have a broader sense of responsibility to the earth, humanity, and global concerns. This is who I want representing me.

When it comes to immigration in this state, I want legislators to take action against the Trump administration’s enlistment of local police in increasingly brazen and cruel roundups of desperate and paperless refugees. But the majority of Bristol County legislators are profound disappointments. Most coast to re-election without challengers. Instead of democracy we have political machinery and patronage in Bristol County. And with a few exceptions, we get hacks instead of leaders as a result.

Hall of Fame

I am grateful to the following state representatives and senators for stepping up to support the Safe Communities Act. It takes guts and principle and that broader sense of responsiibility to help suffering human beings, whether they can vote for you or not.

Wall of Shame

The Republicans on the list below all belong on the Wall of Shame. Their party has become a rotting husk and a personality cult whose immigration policy is literally written by white supremacists. No surprise that Massachusetts Republicans march in lockstep with White House immigration advisor Stephen Miller, who proposed deporting Central American DACA recipients in railroad boxcars.

But the Democrats on this list? To be charitable, if they don’t share the xenophobia of their Republican friends, then their only excuse is that they are cowardly machine politicians afraid of angering rightwing police unions and some of their more racist constituents. Everyone on the list below will protest that they’re not racists or xenophobes — and a few can even point to programs they’ve funded which help disadvantaged communities.

But when it’s time to show their mettle, they are invariably too timid to help refugees whose lives have been upended by war, climate change, political instability, or hunger. Their love of humanity is conditional and narrow, reserved only for campaign contributors and potential voters. For refugees they look away, and for that — Democrat or Republican — they ought to be deeply ashamed.

  • Rep. Jay Barrows
  • Rep. Carole Fiola
  • Rep. Patricia Haddad
  • Rep. Christopher Hendricks
  • Rep. Steven Howitt
  • Rep. Christopher Markey
  • Rep. Shaunna O’Connell
  • Rep. Norman Orrall
  • Rep. Elizabeth Poirier
  • Rep. Paul Schmid
  • Rep. Alan Silvia
  • Rep. William Straus
  • Senator Michael Brady
  • Senator Mark Montigny
  • Senator Marc Pacheco
  • Senator Michael Rodrigues
  • Senator Walter Timilty