Welcome to the Woman's National Democratic Club

On the Anniversary of Iran's June 12 2009 Elections:
The Right to Vote is a Human Right

June 11, 2010

As Iran approaches the first anniversary of the "Green Revolution" contesting the disastrous June 12, 2009 elections, it is worth remembering that preceding these elections the Iranian system had democratic elements. During the run up to the elections, Prime Minister Ahmadinejad even had a western style televised debate with his chief opponent, Mir Hossein Moussavi. That was then. Iran is now a military/clerical dictatorship that relies on force to suppress its people.

The Obama Administration has demonstrated a preference for staying out of a country's internal affairs, at least when it concerns elections. Following last year's elections President Obama called on Iran to "choose the path of international norms and principles". Obama was talking about "norms and principles" concerning the violent suppression of peaceful protest, and said nothing about the issue of the fraudulence of the elections themselves. However, the Iranian elections, and the continuing, if brutally suppressed, opposition, have brought to the surface the understanding that people want their vote - honestly counted. Elections are a part of the universal striving for the dignity Obama talks about.

The Administration is well positioned to take global leadership on an effective human rights and democracy policy. The President is its greatest asset, a leader who has riveted the world with his eloquence on the shared values of the global community. With a declared multilateralist approach to international problems, his Administration also has already taken steps to embed its programs and policies in structures of international cooperation.

The Woman's National Democratic Club firmly believes that the right to vote is a human right. Asserting that right supports an effective foreign policy.

WOMAN’S NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CLUB SUPPORTS NOMINATION OF SOLICITOR GENERAL ELENA KAGAN TO THE SUPREME COURT

May 13, 2010

The Woman’s National Democratic Club warmly welcomes President Obama’s nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court of the United States and supports her rapid Senate confirmation. We believe that with her demonstrated intellectual achievements and record of consensus building, she will serve on this country’s highest court with distinction.

Elena Kagan’s empathy, pragmatism, and passion for justice will serve as an effective counter to rigid and often radical ideological voices that have too often prevailed in the current Supreme Court. As with the confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the WNDC believes that our national institutions function best when their leadership reflects the rich diversity of our country. It is of the highest importance that justices bring to bear in their judgments their unique perspectives on the life experiences of the individuals who are affected by their decisions. We are confident that Elena Kagan will use her proven qualities of intellect and character to strengthen our democratic society.

Solicitor General Kagan was the first female Dean of Harvard Law School, the first female Solicitor General of the United States, and should be the third female member of the current Supreme Court. Our recent Eleanor Award recipient Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg predicted in her own nomination hearings in 1993 that she would eventually be one of three or more women on the high court bench. The WNDC intends to ensure that prediction becomes a reality, as it works to persuade the U.S. Senate to move swiftly to confirm Elena Kagan as the next Supreme Court Justice.

WOMAN’S NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CLUB HAILS PASSAGE OF
HEALTH CARE REFORM LEGISLATION

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, her leadership team and 219 members of the House have demonstrated that Democrats understand politics as the art of the possible when people of strongly held divergent views can find compromise for the common good. They have achieved this in the face of unprecedented misrepresentation of the facts and innuendo directed against the President and Democratic members of the House and Senate.

The Woman’s National Democratic Club (WNDC) salutes those who have labored over the complexities inevitable in attempting to restructure the unwieldy structure of public and private entities that represent a significant portion of the American economy. We offer our congratulations to not only the Members of the House and Senate, but also to the Committee Chairs and professional staff who have grappled effectively with the conflicting and often perverse incentives that influence health care financing and delivery.

President Obama’s signature on this landmark legislation is a big step toward improving access and quality of care to millions of Americans across the economic and age spectrum. It is essential that we all exercise patience as the various changes are phased in over the coming months and years. It is equally essential that the Administration continue to press for more clinically appropriate and cost-effective care. The Woman’s National Democratic Club welcomes the opportunity to play a continued role in this process.

Letter to Senator Schumer, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, on the Filibuster

The Honorable Charles E. Schumer
Chairman
Committee on Rules and Administration
United States Senate
Room 305 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Dear Chairman Schumer:

We are writing to express our profound concern that the misuse of Senate Rule XXII for political reasons has reached a critical stage. It is crippling debate and paralyzing the Senate

Like others, we feel this procedural rule is not only being misused to obstruct legislation, but it is increasingly being employed to place a hold on any nomination, further hampering the Majority’s ability to govern. We saw the latter most recently last week when a hold was placed on a nomination to the National Labor Relations Board. A supermajority was needed to continue discussion of that nomination, which failed. Even more egregiously, a lone Senator was able to place a hold on 70 nominations in exchange for parochial demands, which meant 70 vital government positions could not move forward unless Senate democrats secured a 60-member cloture vote to break it, or until the Senator lifted the hold. As Senator Harkin stated recently, “Elections should have consequences. Yet the Senate’s current rules allow for a minority of one to make elections meaningless.”

What we have at present is a system of “ghost” filibusters and debates, which has debased our democracy. The routine use of the supermajority now happens at least 100 times a term, clearly in violation of the intent of the Constitution, which requires the use of supermajorities only in a few special cases, such as ratifying treaties, impeachment, expulsion of members, constitutional amendments and overriding Presidential treaties. When a 60-vote supermajority is allowed to cut off debate on any issue, its continuous abuse is crippling our day-to-day operations and could seriously impede any response in potential crisis situations. The fact that this rule is now being used to decide whether to enact a law and to exact obstruction to another party in power is intolerable and unconscionable.

We would call on you to consider emergency measures, such as a repeal of Rule XXII, a lowering of the threshold of Rule XXII, or an opinion from the Senate Chair that the Rule is deemed to be unconstitutional. In addition, there must be other avenues Senate and House Parliamentarians could travel to avoid further legislative roadblocks by the Minority. Otherwise, it will yet again be up to us, the voters, to challenge vigorously candidates in the 2010 elections to reject this perversion of American democracy.

The words of Alexander Hamilton are worth repeating: In Federalist Paper No. 75 he dismissed requiring a supermajority rule for a quorum, saying that such a rule would have the effect of subjecting “the sense of the majority to that of the minority.” He added that “the history of every political establishment in which this principle has prevailed is a history of impotence, perplexity and disorder.”

The Public Policy Committee of the Woman’s National Democratic Club urges immediate action that would correct this disorder. Please think in terms of the country’s general interests and because something is the right thing to do. We are determined to see a Congress that works for the long-term national interests and where a clear will of the majority is allowed to be heard in Congress. We implore you to act quickly and resolutely. The abuse of the filibuster plays into the hands of those who would like to see us flounder and fail as a nation. We have the opportunity now to ensure that does not happen.

WNDC STATEMENT ON SUPREME COURT RULING:
CITIZENS UNITED V. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION
(January 22, 2010)

Today, the Roberts' Supreme Court again demonstrated its activism and disregard for precedent and judicial restraint by voting 5 to 4 to strike down restrictions on corporations to spend unlimited amounts of dollars in support of, or opposition to, political candidates. Using the pretense of free speech, the radical right majority voted its political interests and supported multinational corporations and other conglomerates over the American people. In ruling for the powerful entities, whose use of corporate dollars has the capacity to trump the honest, hard-working candidates who seek office in order to uphold the constitutional rights of all Americans, the Supreme Court has dealt democracy a serious blow. By removing restrictions on election spending by corporations, the ruling promises to change the way campaigns are run. We live in a political culture where a large number of individual voters do not participate in the political process because they feel their voices get drowned out by large corporate interests. This decision is likely to further reinforce voter apathy. The impact on major national issues under debate today cannot be ignored either. The healthcare and climate change debates just got murkier.

The Woman’s National Democratic Club deeply regrets this decision. This is a decided victory for Wall Street and large corporate interests. It is a defeat for a fundamental tenet of democracy we hold so dearly.

WNDC STATEMENT CALLS FOR URGENT ACTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE
(November 18, 2009)

The Woman’s National Democratic Club is deeply concerned about climate change and its detrimental effects upon human health and the condition of the planet. We believe that the consequences of the global climate disruption forecast by scientists will significantly affect the well-being of Americans and people around the world – now and for generations to come.

In this connection, while recognizing that compromise will be necessary to achieve international consensus at the UN Conference in Copenhagen, the WNDC firmly recommends a strong science-based international climate treaty and congressional legislation that incorporates the following basic principles:
First, that priority consideration be accorded those technologies that can be most effective in reducing emissions in a way that is both non-polluting and ultimately sustainable. A 2009 Stanford University study* that ranked energy systems with regard to their impacts on global warming, pollution, water supply, land use, wildlife and other such concerns, found that the best options, by far, were wind, solar, geothermal, tidal and hydroelectric power – all of which are driven by renewable resources -- wind, water, or sunlight. The least effective, along with oil and natural gas, were nuclear power, coal with carbon capture, and ethanol.

Second, that strategies for curbing climate change should also maintain certain minimal standards and safeguards – assuring all nations that financial assistance will focus upon those energy-related technologies that would have the greatest impact on reducing global warming pollution, be the most cost-effective, and create the most “green” jobs. We believe that achieving these goals would best be implemented by including the following safeguards in climate change legislation: (a) subjecting loans to review in an appropriations process; (b) restricting the amount of financial support that can go to any one technology; and (c) applying a metric for global warming pollution capable of both measuring the effectiveness of any given technology and verifying claims about the extent of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions actually achieved.

Finally, we strongly recommend the adoption of the REDD concept – Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation – a new market mechanism that provides residents of tropical forest properties more income from standing forests than from their removal.

As President Obama and his team of scientific experts develop and negotiate a comprehensive policy to present at the UN Conference, we urge that they keep in mind the very basic and overriding principle that investing in renewable energy, conservation efforts and energy efficiency are the most direct and manageable ways to protect our scarce environmental resources and at the same time ensure the health of our fellow inhabitants all over the world.

We implore our President to be firm, resolute and passionate in his efforts to remind the U.S Congress and the rest of the world that time is running out.

*Mark Z. Jacobson and Mark A. Delucchi, “A Path to Sustainable Energy By 2030,” Scientific American (November 2009) pp. 58-65.

For questions on the Statement please contact Alice T. Day, PhD (Chair, WNDC Public Policy Task Force on the & Energy) at-lhday@verizon.net

The Woman's National Democratic Club wishes to congratulate Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for bringing before the UN Security Council a resolution mandating steps the UN must take to combat the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. Resolution 1888 was passed by the Security Council on September 30, 2009. Among its provisions, the resolution calls for the appointment of a UN Special Representative to lead, coordinate, and advocate efforts to end conflict-related sexual violence against women and children, the selection of a team of experts to advise governments, the appointment of women's protection advisors in peacekeeping operations in countries where appropriate, and calls for the Secretary General to submit annual reports on the implementation of this and earlier resolutions.

In her remarks the Secretary said "The dehumanizing nature of sexual violence doesn't just harm a single individual or a single family or even a single village or a single group. It shreds the fabric that weaves us together as human beings….our failure as an international body to respond concretely to this global problem erodes our collective effectiveness. So we must act now to end this crisis not only to protect vulnerable people and promote human security, but to uphold the legitimacy of this body."

The Woman's National Democratic Club wholeheartedly believes that such acts of violence constitute one of the most serious forms of human rights violations, and interventions to stop this barbarism must be immediate.

For questions on the Statement please contact Betsy Spiro Clark, Chair, WNDC Public Policy Task Force on Human Rights and International Organizations epsclark@rcn.com, 202 537-1279

Dear Mr. President:

The Woman’s National Democratic Club (WNDC) applauds your vigorous efforts to get Congress and the American people behind legislation to move the nation from an economy based on fossil fuels toward one built on renewable energy sources. While we regard as quite modest the initial targets set by the House to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases, we recognize that it is a first step -- and a hard fought one at that. We look to you, now, to build on these early targets to fashion a more robust program encompassing a wide variety of tough changes, including, as well as renewable energy, creative new approaches to conservation and rigorous energy efficiency, and yes, even as you yourself have suggested, tougher efficiency standards for light bulbs.

Read Full Letter

“The Woman's National Democratic Club is proud to support the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court of the United States. Our support is based, above all, on her superb qualifications, most notably the fact that she has more experience on the federal bench than any Supreme Court nominee in at least 100 years. In addition, the WNDC believes that our national institutions function best when leadership reflects the rich diversity of our country. Sotomayor's background and unique experiences will be of great and special value to her and to her colleagues on the Court. The WNDC hopes and expects that the Senate will move swiftly to confirm Judge Sotomayor.”

WNDC Statement on DC Voting Rights

The Woman’s National Democratic Club supports voting rights for the more than 600,000 residents of the District of Columbia. We endorse passage of the DC Voting Rights Act of 2009 and reject all attempts to use the bill as a vehicle for moving any other legislation that infringes on the enfranchisement of residents of the District of Columbia.

Action For Nuclear Non-Proliferation A Top Priority

In “2008 and Beyond: A WNDC Platform for the Democratic Party” the WNDC supports the adoption and implementation of the bipartisan plan for the elimination of nuclear weapons endorsed by former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Senator Sam Nunn, former Defense Secretary William Perry and former Secretary of State George Shultz.

At a major conference on January 8 marking the transition to the Obama Administration Perry stated that “the world is in a race between cooperation and catastrophe” if steps are not taken to stop nuclear non-proliferation.

We are strongly supportive of the statements of Secretary of State Clinton in her written confirmation hearing testimony outlining the steps the Obama Administration will take that are in line with the Kissinger/Perry/Schultz/Nunn plan. The Obama Administration wants to end Cold War practice of keeping missiles on hair trigger alert, in a mutual manner with Russia and replace and strengthen the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991 including negotiating with Russia deep and verifiable reductions in US and Russian arsenals, with full funding for the International Monitoring System. The US will seek to double the budget of the International Atomic Energy Agency over the next four years and will contribute to a nuclear fuel bank so that nations will not need to have their own reprocessing facilities. Clinton stated the Obama Administration is committed to Senate approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

One of the most important actions that incoming President Obama can take is to use his “bully pulpit” to alert the US and international publics to the real and present danger of nuclear proliferation.

WNDC Statement on The President's FY 2009 Budget: Stop The Cuts In Programs For Women And Chiildren, Low Income Families

This week (March 3-7) the House and Senate budget committees will complete and submit for debate by the full House and Senate their drafts of the Budget Resolution. The resolutions set totals by expenditure categories for the FY 2009 budget.

Vital services to women and children are in serious jeopardy with the recommendations in the President's FY 2009 budget to cut $120 million from the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and to cut funding by over $50 million for the Family Violence Prevention Service (FVPS). Today, hundreds of thousands are served each year, yet insufficient resources prevent other thousands of women from getting the help they need to overcome violence and abuse.

Among other cuts, President Bush's proposed budget would eliminate grants that provide social services to protect children from abuse and neglect and hearing screenings for newborns. The President's budget would reduce funding for mental health and substance abuse programs for children and their parents, and food, housing, job training, energy assistance and related programs for low-income families.

The Woman's National Democratic Club strongly urges the Congress to reject any attempt to cut funding for the critical services to women and children provided in the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and to restore the full proposed budget for the Family Violence Prevention Service (FVPS) as well as other needed health and social services programs.

On June 3, the WNDC Executive Committee approved the following statement on Dr. George R. Tiller.

The Woman’s National Democratic Club offers its condolences to the family, friends and patients of Dr. George R. Tiller, murdered at his church in Wichita last week.

The WNDC is committed to policies that protect women’s health including a woman’s right to choose. We therefore support the protection of health care providers who ensure access to these critical services. We will continue to look for ways to support and influence public policy consistent with this commitment.

WNDC Resolution On Israeli Settlements On The West Bank: Looking Beyond The Immediate War Situation

President Obama has stated that he will make Israeli-Palestinian conflict an immediate foreign policy priority. The WNDC strongly supports this pledge. Whatever the outcomes in Gaza following separate Israeli and Hamas truces, it is not clear that a peace settlement will be among them. The Israeli government, Hamas and the PA government of Mahmoud Abbas could merely regroup for the next round of violence. The strong engagement of the US can fundamentally change this dynamic. We are strongly encouraged that President Obama’s first calls to foreign leaders were to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, Palestinian Authority President Abbas, Jordanian King Abdullah and Egyptian President Mubarak.

Regardless of whether the US lays out a comprehensive settlement or conflict management requirements, certain immediate actions from the Israeli government will be essential for generating political will from all parties behind a comprehensive settlement. These actions are separate from the terms and conditions – and new political landscape - that will emerge from an end to the war in Gaza.

Secretary of State designate Hillary Clinton said at her confirmation hearing January 13 that beyond the challenge of a durable ceasefire was the task of rebuilding a sense of cooperation and the capacity of the Palestinian Authority, which is in opposition to Hamas.

If that goal is to remain realistic, the Israeli government must freeze settler expansion and sharply increase the dismantling of the roadblocks that restrict West Bank and Jerusalem Palestinians. Settler expansion, roadblocks and settler-only roads undercut Israel’s negotiating partner, Mahmoud Abbas, and present a convincing argument to Palestinians – and outsiders - that Israel will not implement the two-state solution both sides profess to support as the shape of a final settlement.

For these reasons, President Obama should make these steps by Israel a top goal in his policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

WNDC Public Policy Position on Voting Rights for Residents of the District of Columbia

WNDC supports voting rights based on the following:

Residents of Washington, DC, pay taxes, serve our country in time of war, vote in presidential elections and are subject to federal laws. Yet, since 1800, they have been denied local autonomy and representation in their federal government. The District of Columbia entered the 21st Century with less voting status than it had in 1799.

The Constitution was written and ratified before the District of Columbia was founded and neither provides for nor denies District residents voting rights in Congress.

Congress gives itself the power to review and approve every line of the District budget and freely and frequently restricts how locally raised revenues are spent. Such federal interference in local affairs would be unthinkable in any other U. S. jurisdiction.

The DC Voting Rights Bill has passed the U. S. House of Representatives. Senate bill S-1257, now in committee, is a bipartisan effort to add two delegates to the House, one District of Columbia (D) voting delegate and one additional Utah (R) delegate. Hawaii and Alaska were admitted to the union on a similar basis.

There is greater bipartisan support for District voting rights than ever before: Republicans need to counter global criticism that the U. S. does not practice democracy at home, and the DC voting rights bill presents them with an opportunity to demonstrate independence from purely partisan politics.

Washington, DC, is the world’s only capital city in a democracy where residents of a federal district do not have full representation in the federal government.

WNDC Public Policy Position on Immigration Reform

WNDC supports comprehensive immigration reform containing the following elements:

This statement has been passed unanimously by the Public Policy Committee. The WNDC Public Policy Committee includes task force and special project chairs. The mandate o the PPC is to study and discuss timely national and international issues and develop and advocate public policy positions on these issues.

RELIGION AND POLITICS: THE ROMNEY MESSAGE

-- Betsy Spiro Clark, Chair, Public Policy Committee

Mitt Romney is doing well enough in the Republican primary season to make him a plausible eventual Republican presidential nominee. It is important therefore for Democrats pay attention now to the pernicious ideas that permeate the "Faith in America" speech Romney delivered December 6 at the George Bush Presidential Library, and to challenge them. The speech opened a door on a religious ideology that arguably unites a large swath of Republican leadership, including President Bush. With some decoding, the ideology explains why its true believers see government as their enemy. In this ideological universe wasting hundreds of billions of dollars on a misbegotten war is a good thing, not just because it promises "victory" in Iraq, but because it denies the "other enemy", our own government, hundreds of millions of dollars for health care, disaster relief, infrastructure maintenance and education.

"Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." This was Romney's central theme, using "freedom requires religion" to play off the threat of secularism to Americans. "Freedom requires religion" means absolute opposition to the "religion" of secularism. Romney says, in so many words, that all faiths are ok; the only thing that is unacceptable is no faith.

Perhaps more interesting as an ideological marker is the second clause � "religion requires freedom" - and its link to the dogma of small government. In Romney's view government must be smaller (except in defense), but religion bigger. This, he says, is because despite differences in theology between churches "we share a common creed of moral convictions." "We acknowledge the Creator," including, as Romney enumerates, "with religious displays in public places." "I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from the 'the God who gave us liberty.'"

Romney's "common creed of moral convictions" does not cover what Democrats generally mean when they use the word "moral" to describe public policy or action. Romney is far from saying � what Democrats timidly do � that, for example, extending health care coverage to more children under the SCHIP program is a moral imperative, understood as an action that reflects our common morality.

Why should nativity scenes blossom on courthouse courtyards ("religious displays on public spaces") but government health insurance programs shrink? An explanation is available, without decoding, on the web site of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty ( www.Acton.org). The Acton Institute's leader, the Rev Robert Siroco, who writes extensively in sectarian and mainstream publications, praised President Bush's SCHIP veto ("How the Faithful can oppose children's health plan expansion in good conscience", Detroit Times, 10/16). Sirocco's latest commentary is on the "Faith in America" speech. Siroco agrees with Romney that " religion and morality are core convictions in American society". But he thinks Romney is wrong to say that, as president, church authorities would not exert influence on his decisions. On the contrary, Siroco wants political leaders to bow to church authority. "Without the ability to manage our lives morally, the state steps into the vacuum, both in response to public demand and to serve the state's own interests in expanding power." For Siroco the exercise of religious authority is historically, and continues to be, a bulwark against the secular state. To the extent that leaders brush off their religious institutions, they will "tend to become obsequious toward the state."

According to Siroco, "state programs" like SCHIP undermine the creation of a "flourishing and free economy, which is the essential condition for universal coverage." The real solution to the lack of universal healthcare coverage is "eliminating taxes." Until resulting prosperity brings about universal coverage there are private efforts that can address health problems, i.e. charity. Another contributor on the Acton Institute website had this to say about charity: "The charity worker of a century ago did not press for government programs but instead showed poor people how to move up while resisting enslavement to governmental masters." Government stands in the way of the perfect liberty that is the condition for the individual to choose virtue. The "small government" position is not a pragmatic choice but is presented as a moral choice. Decisions on social welfare issues are private matters between the individual and God. In the private sphere the individual is to be free to take personal responsibility for becoming rich and famous, or a good churchgoer or mentor, or failing to become these things. Bush implements this idea by working to fence off social programs from government. Right wing ideology has consistently seen government as immoral because it is secular. Moral issues belong in the private sphere � helping poor children, education in parochial schools, helping through faith-based initiatives. Government can help if it is seen as analogous to charity.

It is long past time to say the idea that secular government is antipathetical to moral value is itself morally corrosive. Take this example: A very wealthy woman lives in the very wealthy community of, say, Aspen. She is wealthy enough to employ a cook. There is no low cost housing in Aspen, so her cook must commute many miles from her home and children. There is no public transportation available. This woman likes to think of herself as a moral and compassionate person. She pays her cook top salary and is actually unhappy at her cook's situation, but will not support public investment in good public transportation and low cost housing.

Dick Cheney once said environmental action was a question of "personal virtue". However, just as with global warming, this woman's personal virtue cannot solve the problem. No matter how wealthy, she cannot finance a low cost housing project or public transportation system. Those solutions must come through government. Her participation is not with her wallet but through the ballot and the decisions her representatives make that will improve her cook's life. Self-interest and free market "solutions" will yield just that: self-interest, and the constriction of her moral capacity for empathy. If we want to act on our moral values on large social issues, shutting off government means shutting off our (collective) power to act morally. Individuals develop their moral natures in many spheres of action, among them working together through government for the betterment of our common life.

The important equation to remember is that the small (non military) government doctrine means a shrinking not just of the public space but also of the moral space inside the individual. Democrats must confront directly, on moral grounds the extremism of the religious ideology that is the faith of a Mitt Romney or a George Bush. If they do not, they may find they win an election for "change" without being able to implement change. The Democratic Party is for expanding individual and collective moral capacities; Republican religious ideologues, wittingly or not, work to constrain them.