Democracy dies without accountability
In an age when politicians can act with impunity with seemingly no cost to themselves, how can voters hold them accountable?
When a white mob stormed the Capitol and we entered a new age of insurrection a lot changed. Or maybe nothing changed? We already had been in a place where there was little to no political accountability. Trump lied 87 million times, and still banked roughly one vote per lie. His enablers were re-elected on the same ballots in the same election that they then screamed was fraudulent because…. Trump didn’t win? That was basically their evidence. There was probably no stronger sentiment to impeach Trump and expel his worst sycophants, those who literally joined in inciting the white mob, and even helped them enter or gave them tours of the Capitol, than there was that night of January 6th. But even at that peak, there probably weren’t 18 Republican Senators who thought that voting to impeach was worth the wrath of Trump or the literal threat of his white mob.
If a president can launch an attack on a co-equal branch and there’s no accountability for any of the political establishment that’s involved, what exactly is the deterient to doing it again, but better. It remains to be seen if those who latched onto the lie and acted on it will be effectively criminally prosecuted, fingers crossed. But for every 10 that got arrested, there’s 100 that would show up the next time around. There’s 100 who will show up at a less prepared state house. 100 who will sink their boats in a stupidity regatta.
But maybe that’s asking too much or maybe it’s nothing new. News used to travel slowly. Who knew what your Representatives were doing in Washington, DC? What you knew was what was happening in your Town, maybe County, maybe big things happening at the state level? You knew who the President was, but what about US Senators, your House Member? But you knew your Mayor, maybe your Ward Councilperson, knew where to talk to them, knew what paper to write your letter to get their attention if you didn’t know them personally.
And has that changed? Can you name your Mayor, Town Councilmembers? School Board Members? County Executive, County Commissioners (new year, new name, in NJ)? State Senate/House/Assembly Representative? If you can name them, do you know how you could reach them? Not reach them like tagging them on Twitter or sending a form email hoping they read it, actually reaching them. Who do you know who could get you in touch with their Chief of Staff?
We live in a world where information flows like water, yet at the same time, are we less informed, engaged, aware, connected? For any of those elected officials you can name, can you name a way they’ve voted on something in the last 3 months? Is there something they’ve done you could thank them for? Write an angry email about? No, your taxes going up again doesn’t count. Or do you have no idea what they’re doing, what legislation they’re sponsoring, how they’re voting?
Therein lies the missing accountability. You knowing who represents you is meaningless if that knowledge isn’t being applied to exert pressure on those people to vote a certain way, help bring a bill or ordinance up for a vote, or advance an issue that’s important to you or your neighbors. And in that vacuum politicians operate with no accountability and what’s worse, they know it.
We had County Commissioners (except for then-Commissioner President Gill), vote themselves a raise in the middle of a pandemic and crushing economic crash that has required moratoriums for utility shut offs and evictions to keep people from not having water to wash their hands, or a place to socially distance or quarantine in. With the county line in the primary there’s very little room for accountability, they can safely assume they’ll win the Primary and then from there re-election in the general is a cake walk.
And they took the vote shortly after being elected to their 3-year terms. Who will remember that vote two and a half years from now?
We have forever issues with pay-to-play at the municipal, county, and state levels. NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission struggles to enforce the laws on the books, and every incentive is for the politicians and corporations to find ever increasingly sophisticated ways to evade the laws. In parallel you have politicians like Nicholas Sacco, with the support of State Senate President Steve Sweeney trying to remove the mandatory minimums for Official Misconduct, the very charge that a politician accepting payoffs for votes would face. State Senators find this minimum very unfair you see, but they’re not changing it for themselves, nor their girlfriend’s son who has a no show job. No, this is for the people. And the same charge would be used in cases of police misconduct. Two old, well off, white guys undermining the protection of oppressed minorities. Despite my personal best efforts, I doubt this attempted amendment will drag Sweeney or Sacco from their seats. But it has completely stalled this criminal justice reform bill, for months, with no accountability or cost to Sweeney or Sacco.
But when the NJ Legislature wants to move, it moves. Faster than even accountability minded residents and the media can move to keep up. The Legislature passed a bill to allow Horizon to convert it’s corporate structure without putting $7B into a philanthropic trust account. That bill that had 3 public hearings held before the vote. A $15B corporate handout bill had 2 public hearings, in concurrently running Zooms, and the bill text was publically available for less than 3 business days before passing both chambers. And attempts to legalize and decriminalize marijuana were barely public before their committee and floor votes. As the bill sponsor noted, thousands of hours of work went into the bills.
Those thousands of hours in private have paid off in there being…. no legal or decriminalization laws on the books a month later. Will any incumbent face real pressure for any of these absurd, rushed, broken legislative processes? Will anyone lose re-election for lighting $22B on fire? Will anyone lose an election for the extra months of Black and brown neighbors being arrested for something that seemingly everyone wants decriminalized? And this was all in a couple month period.
Maybe wrapped up in the lack of accountability is the death of traditional media. Or maybe the rise in access journalism. Most “mainstream” coverage of statewide NJ political news is un-critical recitation of the bill’s sponsors’ talking points. There’s plenty of both sidesing of what elected Republicans (yes, there’s a few in NJ) and Democrats think about a bill, but rarely And that coverage at the county or local level is often left to Facebook Groups or Letters to the Editor. And if something happens, but the local newspapers or TV coverage doesn’t cover it did it really happen? And what happens when that limited media resource is weaponized, turned against women, while protecting mediocre male politicians? The fourth estate was a source of accountability for politicians. Has social media, media consolidation, or access journalism undermined or fully destroyed the ability for the media to provide accountability, particularly at the state and local levels?
So how do we reinstate accountability? Do we need to have primary opponents ready for every primary election? It would greatly improve the process and the discourse, if there were well publicized platforms, debates, policy papers and media coverage. But it’s expensive, and in NJ at least with the county line incumbents could just ignore the primary challengers, not campaign at all, and still win many of these seats, at least at the state and county levels. And this sounds expensive.
More activation of voters via our own social channels, creating more a unified voice on issues, that will give politicians pause, even with the line? This seems promising, at least on bigger issues that really motivate a sizable portion of the voting population in your state or district. We’ve seen politicians moved by efforts like this, from Biden on climate through efforts from Sunrise and others, to my Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill on immigration issues, through coordinated efforts by Make the Road NJ, Wind of the Spirit, Movimiento Cosecha and others. But this most often requires real field organizing and effort, protests, letter drops, meetings with electeds’ staff. It’s not just post it on Facebook and the policies will changes. And Facebook of course has been helping grind traditional media, especially local media into the dirt, while also spreading misinformation faster with each election cycle. But how do we coordinate these efforts without Facebook Groups, Events, etc? Especially if you’re trying to organize anyone over age 40 where often (not always, but often) Slack/Discord and text threads or What’s App/Signal get met with eyes glazed over and complaints about “can’t we just use Facebook?”
But in the end I’m not sure how we get accountability back. I’m not sure we ever had it. I’m not sure if social media killed it or made it better. But I’m confident that without true accountability, politicians losing their seats when they repeatedly vote against the will of their constituents, democracy can not survive.
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