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Part One:
Our first guest is Ann Ravel, former Chair of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) which was created in 1974 after the Watergate scandals led to the resignation of Pres. Nixon. (Nixon’s White House received millions of dollars in cash to pay hush money to the Watergate burglars). Election laws, including campaign finance laws, had been on the books for years but no entity existed to enforce them.
The FEC was able to do some good work for a couple of decades after it was created, but, over time, it became politicized when Mitch McConnell entered into a deal with Don McGahn and two other Republican commissioners to vote as a bloc, enabling them to defeat any FEC efforts to enforce election laws. The Commission was not even able to *initiate an investigation,* much less to prosecute any violators. Recently the FEC moved beyond dysfunction to the point where it can’t even open its doors: there are only 3 commissioners sitting (and 3 vacancies), and 4 commissioners must be present just to have a quorum!
Ann also explained her current work at Maplight.org, where she heads a project investigating deceptive practices in digital politics. Whether the FEC is open or closed, there is no agency whatsoever with the authority to protect our elections from online deceptive practices, whether they come from Russia, from robots, from an opposing candidate’s dirty tricks squad, or a teenage hacker who’s simply trying to raise his/her self-esteem by infiltrating and ruining someone else’s computer.
Part Two:
We speak with Janette Hillis-Jaffe, Regional Director of J Street for the Northeast Region. J Street organizes and mobilizes pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic, and the national homeland for the Jewish people. She gave a brief history of the Israel-Palestine conflict regarding the land that was once part of the post-WWI British Mandate. The borders between “Israel proper” and the “Palestinian Territories” have changed a great deal over the years, as wars, treaties, and unilateral actions have occurred. Negotiating positions have changed as well.
During the last 10 years, under Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, Israeli settlements within the occupied territories have expanded and new settlements have been built (some legal under Israeli law, some not). Yesterday, in a watershed election, Netanyahu’s party (Likud) failed to win a majority of the seats in the Knesset (Israeli parliament). Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party won one more seat, but neither party had enough to form a government. For the next few weeks (or months?), both Gantz and Netanyahu will be trying to persuade the smaller parties to join in a coalition government. We noted some of the positive, less talked-about results of the election (increase in Arab Israeli voter turnout and election of the most Arab members of Knesset; and the rejection by the voters of several extreme ultra-religious parties and even one racist and violent party).
Stay tuned.
