On August 18, 1920, nearly 100 years ago, the United Sates of America ratified the nineteenth amendment to the United States constitution, finally recognizing women’s right to vote. Tonight’s dinner celebrates that action which, after all the fuss and fury, simply acknowledges that it is the right and indeed obligation of every citizen, male or female, black, white, brown or whatever—rich or poor—to participate in the process of choosing America's leaders and by extension the policies, both local, national and international followed by our government.
Ironically you can measure the importance of this right to vote by the strenuous efforts of some in power to limit that right as much as they possibly can.
For example, you need only to look at what went on in Florida this summer. Last November, nearly two thirds of that state’s voters approved a ballot initiative that, with a few exceptions, removed a long-standing ban on voting by people with felony convictions.
What did the Florida Republican legislature decide to do? They passed a law requiring people with felony convictions to pay off all costs, fines, and fees, etc. before they could register to vote.
Carolyn Barber, Norma Rosenbloom and Ina Kichen
According to a brief filed by the ACLU in a case presently pending, most of these people are poor and unable to pay the fees. Only about 20% of Floridians with criminal records have fully paid these financial obligations. The law effectively disenfranchises approximately 80% of the people who supposedly had at last been allowed to vote. In short, despite what it’s called, realistically it’s an unconstitutional poll tax, banned in 1964 by the 24th amendment.
Why am i going into such detail about Florida? Remember the 2000 presidential election that gave us chads and George W. Bush by 537 votes? For good or bad, Florida's problem became everyone’s problem. What goes on in one state doesn’t just stay there; it goes to the Electoral College. It can have national ramifications.
Florida is not alone. According to the New York Times, nationally, 10 million people owe a combined $50 billion in fines and fees related to criminal convictions. And 30 states either expressly or implicitly condition the restoration of the right to vote on payment of those obligations. Everyone knows that there is no way those costs are going to be paid.
The end result is that it disenfranchises mainly poor people: people who are apt to vote Democrat. And that’s exactly what is intended.
In case you’re wondering, in New Jersey, the right to vote can be restored without fees, once the individual is no longer on probation or parole.
All of this is by way of emphasizing the importance of this year’s election. We all know that too many voters pay attention only when the presidency is at stake. What they don’t understand is that the state government is where the action is. The constitution gives the state governments the right to set the rules on how elections are conducted. That’s one of the reasons it’s so hard to flip a state in either direction.
That’s how Democrats in Georgia lost the election between Stacy Abrams and Brian Kemp. Candidate Kemp, as secretary of state, was in charge of how the election was conducted—like where the polling stations were set up, how many hours open, etc., creating fewer polling stations and longer lines in poorer neighborhoods and in districts that tended to vote Democrat.
Republicans have been very well aware of the importance of state legislatures. Back in 1973, they created one of their most effective conservative organizations—ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. Funded by Koch Industries and other major corporations, ALEC was created to make it easier to pass conservative policies at the state level. The council drafts model conservative legislation and the member state legislatures just have to fill in the blanks. Pretty neat.
We need to educate our voters on the importance of the state legislature and language is important. When you speak about an “off year” election like this year, you mean that the assembly race is at the top of the ballot. The average listener hears “never mind—this is not an important election.”
We have to watch what we say. This is not an “off year” election! There is no such thing as an “off year” election. Every election has consequences.
Sociology experiments have shown that the average person, given the choice of gaining more by risking what they presently have or keeping the status quo, most people prefer protecting what they already have. In other words, you get more pain in losing than pleasure in winning: “The devil I know is safer than the devil I don’t know.”
That offers a possible explanation for why voters complain their taxes are too high and then re-elect the same people who are responsible for the high taxes. As you know, the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different result.
Let me give you a bit of history:
Monmouth county had been an unchallenged Republican stronghold until the Johnson landslide in 1964 when Jim Howard was first elected to Congress. Until then, the Auchincloss family owned the congressional seat; it was handed down from father to son.
I was in charge of a Johnson campaign office set up in a small building at the Allenhurst train station where we would distribute Johnson literature to the commuters. Jim Howard, an unknown high school teacher, was the only Democrat willing to run for Congress in what everyone knew was a hopeless cause. Campaign headquarters didn’t even want to put out Howard’s literature as a waste of space. We made room for it anyway.
It was in that Johnson landslide that we finally elected a Democrat for Congress. Howard won! Frank Pallone became Jim Howard’s aide, and when Jim unexpectedly died while in office, Frank was there to take his place, and he has become one of the most important and best congressman in the house.
Numbers show that, in Monmouth County, the number of registered Democrats is actually larger than that of registered Republicans. But combined, it’s only half the story. Approximately 50% of registered voters are listed as unaffiliated. Up until now, they would break Republican.
We are changing that. Slowly but surely, more and more towns are going Democrat. We are better organized and better staffed than ever. When our candidates win, they do a great job. And voters in Republican towns are learning that the world doesn’t end when a Democrat is elected; it just gets better.
I am a Democrat because i believe in the Democratic Party—the party of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and Barack Obama, not Strom Thurmond or George Wallace.
I believe that government has a duty to protect the earth on which we live, the air we breathe—the water we drink— and the weak and the poor; and that our strength lies in our welcoming the huddled masses in all their wonderful and fascinating diversity.
I believe that democracy depends on an informed electorate and that social justice is the life blood of any nation that deserves to survive.
I believe that it takes guts to pick yourself up and move to a strange land where they speak a different language and start your life all over again.
Newspaper articles keep reporting that a key section of the electorate consists of educated suburban women.
That’s us! So let’s use our power.
Our women candidates are eminently qualified to be elected and are prepared to work hard but we have to be persistent. Run for office with your eyes wide open and plan to run again and again. If you don’t win the first time, run again. Why waste your name recognition? I promise you, it will get better each year.
So what is the point of all this? The message is that you never give up. The candidates we honor tonight are the hope of the future. They are the women who have the guts to step forward and say “I can do this. I don’t have the time but I will make the time.”
So do your part. They can’t do it alone. Help knock on doors. Help raise funds. Talk to people you know. We are all in this together.
And together we will win.
Thank you so very much for this wonderful evening.
