Tag: civic rights
Joe Biden

New Poll Shows Republicans (And Trump) Losing Badly On Abortion

A new Civiqs poll for Daily Kos shows why the issue of abortion is so perilous for the Republican Party, with voters viewing themselves as significantly more aligned with Democrats on the matter.

By 15 points, registered voters say their opinion on abortion is closer to that of Democrats in their states than Republicans, at 48% to 33%, according to the poll released Wednesday.

President Joe Biden also fares eight points better than Donald Trump on the question of how voters think the candidates' abortion views track with their own, with 44 percent choosing Biden compared to 36 percent picking Trump.

Democratic lawmakers likely performed slightly better than Biden on the abortion measure partly because voters generally view Trump as more socially liberal on abortion than most Republican lawmakers overall.

For instance, a December 2023 Data for Progress poll found that roughly two-thirds of voters believed congressional Republicans would take action to pass a national abortion ban if they took control of Congress in 2024, ranking only second to the belief that they would build a wall at the southern border. Meanwhile, only 48 percent of voters said Trump would pass a national abortion ban as president, putting the issue seventh on his likely to-do list.

The disparity between how voters view Republicans lawmakers versus Trump on abortion is exactly why the Biden campaign hammered Trump’s pretzel twisting on abortion last week after Arizona’s Supreme Court ordered the enforcement of a draconian Civil War-era abortion ban.

The Biden campaign’s rapid response team also made an explicit effort to link Trump to anti-abortion zealot House Speaker Mike Johnson, deploying roughly 18 tweets in a 24-hour period featuring the two men together.

Notably, the Civiqs poll also found that independents view Democrats as more closely aligned with their abortion views than Republicans by 12 points, at 41 percent to 29 percent. Biden and Trump run about even among independents, with 35 percent saying their views track more closely with Biden's, and 36 percent choosing Trump.

The bottom line: Any time candidates of either party talk about abortion or the topic dominates the headlines—as happened last week—it’s a win for Democrats and Biden.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

U.S. Attorney General: Let Ex-Convicts Vote

U.S. Attorney General: Let Ex-Convicts Vote

Washington (AFP) – U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder campaigned Tuesday for broader reforms to the U.S. penal code, including allowing ex-convicts to regain the right to vote after serving jail terms.

Reiterating his goal of reducing the population of crowded U.S. jails, Holder called for an overhaul of laws restricting the civic rights of people who have served prison time, which he said only made it more likely these people would find themselves back behind bars.

“Across this country today, an estimated 5.8 million Americans, 5.8 million of our fellow citizens, are prohibited from voting because of current or previous felony convictions,” Holder said, in a speech to Georgetown Law School.

“These restrictions are not only unnecessary and unjust, they are also counterproductive,” he said.

“By perpetuating the stigma and isolation imposed on formerly incarcerated individuals, these laws increase the likelihood they will commit future crimes. They undermine the re-entry process and defy the principles — of accountability and rehabilitation — that guide our criminal justice policies,” he added.

Laws governing voting — for convicts and others — differ from state to state.

Since 1997, Holder noted, 23 states have reformed their policies towards former prisoners. But another 11 states continue to restrict those rights, to varying degrees.

He called on lawmakers to rethink these “profoundly outdated” laws that were created at “a time of post-Civil War discrimination,” and were “too often based on exclusion, animus, and fear.”

“The impact of felony disenfranchisement on modern communities of color remains both disproportionate and unacceptable,” Holder, the first African-American attorney general, lamented, emphasizing that as a result, nearly one out of 13 African-American men are banned from voting.

And “in three states — Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia — that ratio climbs to one in five.”

Holder’s latest salvo in his push for what he calls a “smart on crime” reform to the U.S. penal code aims to reduce “overly burdensome collateral consequences” on people who have served their jail terms.

The U.S. prison population has increased by a third since 1980 and one percent of adults are incarcerated — at a cost of $80 billion nationwide in 2010 alone.

Holder notes that nearly all of these prisoners will eventually be freed, but the recidivism rate — the number who will commit new crimes and be jailed again — is “unacceptably high.” A Pew Center study put the figure at 43 percent.

That’s why, Holder said, he has proposed reforms aimed at getting rid of policies that make it harder for released prisoners to get jobs and become “productive, law-abiding members of society.”

In the first phase of his reforms, Holder proposed reducing the use of mandatory sentences for non-violent drug offenders, in a reform he said would maintain strictness but be “smarter.”

In August last year he asked federal prosecutors not to overwhelm small-time criminals with charges requiring heavy minimum sentences.

Last month, his deputy James Cole announced the second phase of this reform: early release for convicts with a low risk of recidivism.

Cole called on defense lawyers to help identify inmates who do not present a threat to public safety or are facing a life or near-life sentence deemed excessive under current law.

U.S. President Barack Obama in December commuted the sentences of eight people convicted of drug trafficking, to compensate the effects of laws punishing crack possession more harshly than cocaine possession.

AFP Photo/Al Seib