Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting.
Elizabeth Bibesco
Amash on the "Anti-Lynching" Bill
I'm republishing this guest editorial from his Facebook post:
The key to my political independence has been that I believe in the people I represent and trust their judgment, just as I’ve been blessed to represent a community that believes in me and trusts my judgment.
I vote with confidence, believing and trusting that my constituents will recognize my commitment to doing what’s right, even when my votes don’t align with one or both of the major parties. This confidence has helped me maintain the most independent voting record in Congress.
Most of my colleagues do not vote with confidence; instead, they live each legislative day in fear of the political consequences of doing what is right. They worry constantly about headlines or stories that may mischaracterize their votes.
This widespread fear of being mischaracterized is a major driver of both blind partisanship and blind bipartisanship, and it is wreaking havoc on the legislative process.
We get blind partisanship when legislators vote the wrong way out of fear that their political base will misunderstand the right vote as a rejection of party principles or values.
We get blind bipartisanship when legislators vote the wrong way out of fear that Americans will misunderstand the right vote as a rejection of consensus principles or values.
We want legislators to vote based on the text of legislation and its real impact on people, but almost without exception they vote based on how they believe their vote will be perceived—and modern media has substantially exacerbated this issue.
Journalism today is faster than ever, but with speed has come a devaluing of accuracy. Coverage of a recent vote illustrates the problem quite well. Read these headlines from prominent, mainstream outlets about the “anti-lynching bill” that passed the House in late February:
AP: “House makes lynching a federal crime, 65 years after Till”
CNN: “House passes bill to make lynching a federal crime in historic vote”
NPR: “House Approves Bill Making Lynching A Federal Crime”
NYT: “Congress Moves to Make Lynching a Federal Crime After 120 Years of Failure”
WSJ: “House Approves Bill to Make Lynching a Federal Hate Crime”
WaPo: “House passes historic anti-lynching bill after Congress’s century of failure”
Every headline gets it wrong.
The original version of the bill *was* written specifically to make a new federal crime of lynching, with a maximum sentence of life in prison. But House leaders replaced that bill with a substantially different version just days before the vote.
Unlike the original, the revised bill does not establish any new criminality pertaining to lynching. Instead, it cites an array of current federal crimes and states that conspiring to commit those crimes (which is already criminal under federal law) constitutes lynching.
In other words, the bill doesn’t make anything newly criminal and doesn’t even target lynching. Contrary to the headlines, it doesn’t make lynching a new federal hate crime. The bill simply labels a variety of existing crimes as lynching, regardless of their connection to it.
The bill’s main effect is to enhance max sentences for these crimes, up to the death penalty in some cases—a punishment that millions of Americans, myself included, oppose. To the extent there are unjust sentences, it’s likely that people of color will disproportionately suffer.
For example, the bill enhances sentencing for the crime of conspiring to interfere with, during or incident to a riot or civil disorder, any person engaged in a business. Given racial and other inequities in criminal justice, we should worry about the law’s disparate application.
As explained in a separate thread, duplicative criminal laws inherently threaten civil liberties and civil rights. While the Constitution grants Congress only a narrow criminal power, it also grants Congress a broad power to ensure equality before the law via the 14th Amendment.
The 14th (my favorite amendment) requires states to uphold due process and the equal protection of the laws, and it empowers Congress to remedy states’ violations of rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, for example, was an appropriate response to state-mandated discrimination.
Which brings me back to legislators’ general fear of being mischaracterized and the media’s unintended contribution to the zombification of Congress.
People at home don’t have time to read and analyze legislation; they’re busy with their daily lives. They depend on and expect the media, as third parties whose job it is to convey valuable information, to provide accurate, properly contextualized stories.
In the case of the “anti-lynching bill,” as is often the case, it wasn’t just an issue of inaccurate headlines; none of the publications described the actual provisions of the bill in their reporting on the outcome of the vote.
Given the media’s disregard for the text of legislation, it’s hardly surprising my colleagues consistently don’t care about it, either. In fact, their believing the media will not accurately or fairly report on legislation creates an incentive for them not to read bills.
To be clear, I don’t excuse any member of Congress who votes without regard to the text or in ignorance of it, but I do understand what often compels this behavior.
My point is not that these journalists are intentionally misreporting but rather that modern journalism is susceptible to dangerous shortcuts, at a time when even greater dedication to precision is required because of rapid and widespread dispersion of news through social media.
Outlets must recognize how “fast but thin” reporting negatively impacts the legislative process and address this problem. Most of the dysfunction in Congress is self-inflicted, but better reporting would make legislative text matter a lot more to representatives and senators.
As for why congressional leaders work quietly to change bills at the last minute and then mislead colleagues, the media, and the public about the legislation—that deserves a whole other thread.
McClanahan on the 1776 Project
IJ on the Abuse of Government Official Immunity
Choose Life
Political Cartoon
Side note: I have repeatedly referenced "The People's Republic of California" in innumerable blog posts and tweets. So this was an obvious cartoon to post. |
| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez |
