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      Elecciones en Chile: los progresistas ganaron en grande

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      El fin de semana, el pueblo chileno votó en unas elecciones históricas para elegir a los miembros de un organismo encargado de redactar una nueva Constitución que sustituya a la actual, redactada en 1980 durante la dictadura del general Augusto Pinochet.El recuento final supuso un golpe duro para los pinochetistas, algunos de quienes forman parte de Chile Vamos —la coalición de derecha y centroderecha respaldada por el actual presidente, Sebastián Piñera—, que solo obtuvo 37 de los 155 escaños para la Convención Constitucional. Los chilenos, en especial los jóvenes, también rechazaron a los partidos tradicionales de centroizquierda por considerar insuficiente su respuesta al anhelo de la gente de una sociedad más igualitaria, además de estar demasiado comprometidos con el statu quo.Los vencedores fueron un grupo de partidos de una nueva coalición de izquierda, Apruebo Dignidad, que tendrá a 28 representantes, y numerosos candidatos independientes que habían participado activamente durante años en protestas para exigir reformas a la educación, la salud y las pensiones, así como el fin del modelo económico neoliberal que ha dominado a Chile a lo largo de casi medio siglo. Los candidatos independientes, de izquierda y de centroizquierda obtuvieron un total de 101 escaños, más de dos tercios de la Convención Constitucional. Tendrán suficiente poder para proponer amplias reformas económicas a los derechos sobre la tierra y el agua, el sistema de pensiones y la recuperación soberana de los recursos naturales. Chile es uno de los países más desiguales de las economías avanzadas.Todo indica que el documento fundacional que redactarán consagrará principios de participación ciudadana, justicia, igualdad de género y derechos de los pueblos originarios, urgencias que durante mucho tiempo han eludido a esta nación sudamericana.Los resultados de las elecciones constituyen un giro sorprendente que nadie podría haber anticipado cuando un movimiento masivo de protesta sacudió al gobierno conservador de Piñera en octubre de 2019.A medida que el estallido se hacía más gigantesco y obstinado, una demanda principal unía a sus heterogéneos participantes: la necesidad de remplazar la fraudulenta Constitución aprobada durante la letal dictadura de Pinochet, una necesidad que respondía a una crisis existencial más profunda que desde hace décadas se gestaba en la sociedad chilena corroída por una terrible desigualdad.Incluso después de que Pinochet se vio obligado a dejar la presidencia en 1990, su Constitución siguió funcionando como una camisa de fuerza que permitió a una minoría de legisladores de derecha y a una oligarquía despiadada coartar los intentos radicales de forjar una sociedad más equitativa y menos represiva.La revuelta de octubre de 2019 aterró a la coalición gobernante de políticos conservadores, quienes llegaron a un acuerdo con los partidos de centroizquierda, que tenían mayoría en el Congreso, a fin de convocar un plebiscito en el que se preguntara a la nación si deseaba una nueva Constitución. Los líderes derechistas pensaron que sería una manera de salvar las instituciones del país y garantizar una salida pacífica a las demandas populares.Para asegurarse de que tendrían un veto sobre los procedimientos, un grupo de pinochetistas en el Senado y el Congreso exigieron que el documento final de la Convención Constitucional tendría que ser aprobado por una mayoría de dos tercios. Según sus cálculos, iban a poder controlar a más de un tercio de los integrantes de la Convención.Calcularon mal, ya que Chile Vamos, a pesar de una enorme ventaja de financiamiento, perdió de manera abrumadora frente a los candidatos independientes y de la oposición, quedando así al margen de la toma de decisiones en lo que respecta a la nueva Carta Magna. La derrota llama aún más la atención porque la coalición también perdió la mayoría de las elecciones simultáneas para alcaldes y gobernadores.La presencia de coaliciones antisistema en el organismo que redactará la nueva Constitución garantiza que habrá una serie de modificaciones drásticas en la manera en que Chile sueña con su futuro. Ya el mismo proceso electoral adelantaba con dos proposiciones cómo serían estas modificaciones.Una estipula la paridad de género en el reparto de los 155 constituyentes, de modo que las mujeres no sean excesivamente superadas por los hombres en poderío e influencia. Una mayoría significativa de las 77 mujeres elegidas —con apoyo de aliados hombres— ahora pueden luchar por los derechos reproductivos en un país donde por tradición el aborto se ha restringido y criminalizado.Una escuela en Santiago funcionó como un centro de votación.Alberto Valdés/EPA vía ShutterstockLa otra disposición reserva 17 de los escaños de la Convención para los pueblos indígenas, que constituyen el nueve por ciento de los 19 millones de habitantes de Chile. A partir de ahora, Chile puede proclamarse una república plurinacional y multilingüe. Es un triunfo histórico para los habitantes originarios de esa tierra, como los mapuches, quienes han sufrido una incesante opresión desde la conquista española en el siglo XVI. Los conflictos con los mapuches, centrados especialmente en disputas en torno a los derechos ancestrales sobre la tierra, han provocado una serie de enfrentamientos, a menudo violentos, en el sur del país.Otras reformas parecen probables: frenar la violencia policial; una reformulación de los derechos económicos y sociales que reduzca el dominio de una élite obscenamente rica; una feroz protección del medioambiente; la eliminación de la corrupción endémica, y el fin de la discriminación contra las comunidades LGBT.Igual de fundamental es el vigoroso diálogo nacional que se avecina, abierto a la ciudadanía y atento a los aportes de aquellos que encabezaron la revuelta. No se aceptará un retorno al Chile en el que las ganancias de unos cuantos importaban más que el bienestar de la mayoría.Existen, sin embargo, algunas señales inquietantes. Solo el 43 por ciento de la población votó en esta elección, a diferencia de más del 50 por ciento de los electores que lo hicieron el año pasado para aprobar la creación de una nueva Constitución.Este ausentismo puede atribuirse en parte a la pandemia (que también evitó que mi esposa y yo viajáramos a Chile para emitir nuestro voto), y en parte a la apatía generalizada de enormes sectores del electorado, en especial entre las familias más pobres. Encontrar maneras de entusiasmar a quienes no confían en que los cambios los beneficien es un reto que hay que afrontar.Electores esperan su turno para votar en la elección el sábado.Pablo Sanhueza/ReutersEl otro problema es que, aunque casi el 75 por ciento de los constituyentes está a favor de una agenda progresista, están fragmentados y desunidos, descalificándose entre sí, lo que hace difícil llegar a un consenso sobre hasta dónde llevar las reformas que Chile requiere.Nada de esto impide celebrar el mensaje y el ejemplo alentador que Chile envía al mundo en un momento en que la tentación del autoritarismo va creciendo: en estos tiempos en que la humanidad enfrenta su propia terrible crisis existencial, lo que necesitamos no es menos democracia, sino más democracia, más participación, más personas que se atrevan a creer que otro mundo es posible.Ariel Dorfman es un escritor chileno-estadounidense, autor de la obra de teatro La muerte y la doncella y, hace poco, de la novela, Allegro, y del ensayo, Chile: juventud rebelde. Es profesor emérito de la Universidad de Duke. More

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      Progressives Won Chile’s Election

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      Over the weekend, the people of Chile voted in a historic election to select the members of a body tasked with drafting a new Constitution to replace the one written in 1980 under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.The final tally dealt a severe blow to the followers of General Pinochet, many of whom make up the center-right and right-wing coalition Chile Vamos, backed by the current president, Sebastián Piñera, which won just 37 of the 155 seats for the Constitutional Convention. Chileans, especially the young, also rejected the traditional center-left parties as insufficiently responsive to people’s craving for a more egalitarian society and overly compromised with the status quo.The victors were a group of parties of a new-left coalition, Apruebo Dignidad (I Approve Dignity), which elected 28 representatives, and numerous independent candidates who had been active in the ongoing protests calling for reforms in education, health and pensions, and an end to the neoliberal economic model that has dominated Chile for almost half a century. The independent, left and center-left candidates secured a combined 101 seats, more than two-thirds of the Constitutional Convention. They would have enough power to propose broad economic reforms to land and water rights, the pensions system and the exploitation of natural resources. Chile is one of the most unequal countries among advanced economies.All signs indicate that the foundational document they will draft will enshrine principles of civic participation, justice, gender equality and Indigenous rights that have long eluded this South American nation.The election results represent a stunning outcome that nobody could have predicted when a huge protest movement rocked the conservative government of Mr. Piñera in October 2019.As the 2019 uprising grew larger and more adamant, there was one major demand that united its heterogeneous participants: the need to replace the Constitution that had been fraudulently approved during General Pinochet’s lethal dictatorship — a need that responded to a deeper existential crisis over inequality in Chilean society that had been brewing for decades.Even after Pinochet was forced to retire as president in 1990, his Constitution continued to be a straitjacket that allowed a minority of right-wing legislators and an entrenched oligarchy to constrain radical attempts to create a more equitable and less repressive society.The October 2019 revolt terrified the ruling coalition of conservative politicians, and they reached an agreement with center-left parties holding a majority in Congress to call a referendum asking the nation whether it wanted a new Constitution. It was a way, they thought, of saving the country’s institutions and guaranteeing a peaceful outcome to popular demands.To make certain that they would wield a veto over the proceedings, many of General Pinochet’s followers in the Senate and Congress wrote into the agreement that the final document produced by the Constitutional Convention would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority. They did so confident in their calculations that they would always be able to command more than one-third of the delegates.That calculation backfired spectacularly over the past weekend as Chile Vamos, despite an enormous financial advantage, lost badly to independent and opposition candidates, and was sidelined from decision-making when it comes to the new charter. The defeat is all the more striking because the coalition also lost most of the mayor’s and governor’s races that were being held simultaneously.The presence of the anti-establishment composition of the body that will write the new Constitution ensures there will be a series of drastic alterations in the way Chile dreams of its future. Two provisions already exist in the electoral process.One stipulates that gender parity be achieved in the apportionment of the 155 delegates, so that women will not be greatly outnumbered by men in the halls of power. A majority of the 77 women elected, along with their male allies, can now fight successfully for reproductive rights in a country where abortion has traditionally been restricted and criminalized.A polling station in a school in Santiago on Saturday.Alberto Valdés/EPA, via ShutterstockThe other provision reserves 17 of the seats at the convention for Indigenous peoples, who form 9 percent of Chile’s 19 million people. Chile can henceforth proclaim itself a plurinational, multilingual republic. It is a historic triumph for the original inhabitants of that land like the Mapuche, who have faced oppression since the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. The conflicts with the Mapuche, especially over ancestral land rights, have recently led to a series of often violent skirmishes in the south of the country.Other reforms seem likely: reining in police violence; a reformulation of economic and social rights that reduces the dominance of an obscenely rich elite; increased protection of the environment; the rooting out of endemic corruption; and the end of discrimination against L.G.B.T.Q. people.Just as crucial is the vigorous national conversation that will ensue, open to the citizenry and attentive to the input from those who spearheaded the revolt. A return to a Chile where the profits of the few mattered more than the well-being of the many will not be acceptable.There are, however, some disquieting signals ahead. Only 43 percent of the population voted in this election, compared with the more than 50 percent who turned out last year and overwhelmingly approved the idea of creating a new Constitution.This absenteeism can be partly attributed to the pandemic (which also stopped me and my wife from traveling to Chile to cast our votes) and partly to the widespread apathy of vast sectors of the electorate, particularly among the poorest families. Finding ways of enthusing those who do not trust that any change will ever benefit them is a challenge that must be met.Waiting to vote in Chile’s election on Saturday.Pablo Sanhueza/ReutersThe other problem is that though nearly 75 percent of the delegates embody a progressive agenda, they are fragmented and tend to squabble among themselves, making it difficult to reach a consensus on how far to carry out the reforms Chile requires.None of this detracts from the encouragingmessage and example that Chile sends out to the world at a time of rising authoritarianism: As humanity faces a terrible existential crisis of its own, what we need is not less democracy but more democracy, more participation, more of us daring to believe that another world is possible.Ariel Dorfman is the Chilean-American author of the play “Death and the Maiden” and, recently, of the novels “Darwin’s Ghosts” and “Cautivos.” He is an emeritus professor of literature at Duke University.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      El presidente de Haití no tiene apoyo popular pero quiere reformar la Constitución

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      El país se enfrenta a una crisis prolongada y se prepara para la mayor reorganización del gobierno que se haya visto en décadas con un referéndum constitucional y elecciones nacionales previstas para este año.El presidente de Haití sabe que tiene un problema: gobernar un país que a veces parece rozar lo ingobernable es bastante difícil cuando se tiene mucho apoyo.Está claro que Jovenel Moïse no lo tiene.En una entrevista reciente, el líder haitiano se lamentó de que solo tiene la confianza de una pequeña parte de su pueblo.Ganó las elecciones de 2016 con algo menos de 600.000 votos en un país de 11 millones de personas. Y ahora muchos están enojados por su negativa a dejar el cargo en enero, en medio de una disputa sobre si su mandato terminaba entonces o debía prolongarse un año más.Sin embargo, Moïse, de 52 años, ha escogido este momento para embarcarse en la mayor sacudida de la política haitiana en décadas, y supervisa la redacción de una nueva Constitución que reestructurará el gobierno y dará mayores poderes a la presidencia.La necesidad de una nueva Constitución es un raro punto de acuerdo entre Moïse y sus numerosos detractores. Lo que preocupa a algunos observadores es el enfoque unilateral del presidente para redactarla. Otros simplemente no confían en él.Moïse, según los críticos, se ha vuelto cada vez más autocrático y se apoya en un pequeño círculo de confidentes para redactar un documento que, entre otros cambios, dará al presidente mayor poder sobre las fuerzas armadas, así como la posibilidad de presentarse a dos mandatos consecutivos. También otorgaría al líder de Haití inmunidad por cualquier acción realizada en el cargo.Una protesta contra MoïseValerie Baeriswyl/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMoïse dice que la ampliación de poderes es necesaria.“Necesitamos un sistema que funcione”, dijo en la entrevista telefónica. “El sistema actual no funciona. El presidente no puede trabajar para cumplir”.Haití obtuvo su independencia en 1804, después de que los haitianos se alzaran contra la Francia colonial, pero no fue hasta 1990 cuando tuvo sus primeras elecciones ampliamente consideradas como libres y justas. Incluso entonces, en un país con una larga historia de dictaduras y golpes de Estado, la democracia nunca se ha arraigado del todo.Muchos haitianos dicen que es necesaria una nueva Constitución. La actual ha creado dos centros de poder que compiten entre sí en el país —el presidente y el primer ministro —, lo que a menudo provoca fricciones y un gobierno fracturado.El proyecto de Constitución suprimiría el Senado, y dejaría en su lugar un único órgano legislativo elegido cada cinco años, y sustituiría el cargo de primer ministro por un vicepresidente que responda ante el presidente, en un intento de simplificar el gobierno.Los haitianos votarán la nueva Constitución en junio, antes de las elecciones nacionales previstas para septiembre.Sin embargo, algunos no se sienten muy tranquilos con la votación que se avecina.“La gente tiene que darse cuenta de que las elecciones no son inherentemente equivalentes a la democracia”, dijo Jake Johnston, investigador asociado del Centro de Investigación Económica y Política en Washington.Cada vez que hay una crisis política en Haití, dijo, la comunidad internacional tiende a pedir elecciones. Eso deja al país pasando de un gobierno paralizado a otro, en lugar de intentar reformar el proceso electoral y trabajar para conseguir la participación de los votantes.“Cuando unas elecciones dejan de representar realmente la voluntad del pueblo, ¿qué tipo de gobierno esperan que produzca?”, preguntó Johnston.Desde 1986, tras casi 30 años de dictadura, la participación electoral ha disminuido constantemente en Haití. Solo el 18 por ciento de los haitianos con derecho a voto participaron en las elecciones de 2016 que llevaron a Moïse al poder.Ahora, el profundo marasmo económico y social del país solo puede animar a más haitianos a quedarse en casa cuando llegue el momento de votar por la nueva Constitución y luego por un nuevo presidente.El desempleo es galopante y la desesperación está en su punto más alto. Muchos haitianos son incapaces de salir a la calle para hacer el mercado sin preocuparse de que los secuestren para pedir un rescate.Un mercado en Puerto Príncipe. Muchos haitianos no pueden salir a la calle sin preocuparse por la delincuencia, incluido el secuestro.Chery Dieu-Nalio para The New York TimesMoïse dice que a él también le preocupa la participación electoral.“Hay una mayoría silenciosa”, dijo. “Muchos haitianos no quieren participar en algo que creen que será violento. Necesitamos paz y estabilidad para animar a la gente a votar”.A medida que se acerca el referéndum de junio sobre la Constitución, el gobierno trata de registrar a cinco millones de votantes, dijo Moïse. Su objetivo, explicó, es inyectar al proceso más legitimidad de la que tuvo su presidencia.Según las Naciones Unidas, hay al menos 6,7 millones de votantes potenciales en Haití. Otros dicen que esa cifra es un recuento insuficiente, ya que muchos haitianos son indocumentados y sus nacimientos nunca se registran ante el gobierno.En un esfuerzo por aplacar a los críticos, y aliviar las preocupaciones de que se posiciona para beneficiarse de la nueva Constitución, Moïse ha prometido no presentarse a las próximas elecciones.Pero para arreglar el país antes de retirarse, dice, necesita acumular suficiente poder para enfrentarse a una oligarquía que, según él, ha paralizado Haití para aprovecharse de un gobierno demasiado débil para regular o cobrar impuestos sus negocios.“Hoy en día sufrimos la captura del Estado, es el mayor problema al que nos enfrentamos”, dijo Moïse.Algunos ven con profundo escepticismo las afirmaciones de Moïse de que se ha convertido en un enemigo de las grandes empresas al intentar regularlas. Dicen que el presidente simplemente trata de avivar el sentimiento populista para desviar la atención de los fracasos de su propio gobierno y dejar de lado a sus oponentes políticos.Policías se enfrentan a manifestantes que exigían la renuncia de Moïse en febrero de este año.Valerie Baeriswyl/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOtros están dispuestos a ser más colaborativos, pero dicen que él no ha hecho lo suficiente para conseguir apoyo.“El problema es la forma en que Moïse ha actuado”, dijo Alexandra Filippova, abogada del Instituto para la Justicia y la Democracia en Haití, una organización que proporciona representación legal a las víctimas de abusos de los derechos humanos. “Lo está impulsando unilateralmente”.El proyecto de Constitución, por ejemplo, publicado el mes pasado, solo está disponible en francés —que la gran mayoría de los haitianos no lee— en lugar de en criollo.Y no se invitó a ningún miembro de la sociedad civil a participar en la redacción del documento. En su lugar, Moïse nombró una comisión especial para hacerlo. Esto, según los críticos, disminuye las posibilidades de un progreso real.“Se supone que el cambio constitucional debe reflejar algún tipo de consenso social”, dijo Filippova.Maria Abi-Habib es la jefa de la corresponsalía para México, Centroamérica y el Caribe. Ha reportado para el Times desde el sur de Asia y el Medio Oriente. Síguela en Twitter: @abihabib More

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      A Go-It-Alone President Wants to Reshape Haiti. Some Are Skeptical.

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      Haiti, facing a prolonged crisis, is preparing for the biggest shake-up of government seen in decades with a constitutional referendum and national elections slated for this year.Haiti’s president knows he has a problem: Governing a country that at times seems to verge on the ungovernable is hard enough when you have a lot of support.Jovenel Moïse clearly does not.In a recent interview, the Haitian leader lamented that he has the confidence of only a small sliver of his people.He won the 2016 elections with just under 600,000 votes in a country of 11 million. And now many are angry over his refusal to leave office in February, amid a dispute over whether his term ended then or should extend for one more year.Yet Mr. Moïse, 52, has chosen this moment to embark on the biggest shake-up Haiti’s politics has seen in decades, overseeing the drafting of a new Constitution that will restructure government and give the presidency greater powers.The need for a new Constitution is a rare point of agreement between Mr. Moïse and his many detractors. What concerns some observers is the president’s unilateral approach to writing one. Others just don’t trust him.Mr. Moïse, critics charge, has become increasingly autocratic and is relying on a small circle of confidants to write a document that, among other changes, will give the president greater power over the armed forces as well as the ability to run for two consecutive terms. It would also grant Haiti’s leader immunity for any actions taken in office.A protest againt Mr. Moïse.Valerie Baeriswyl/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesMr. Moïse says the broader powers are necessary.“We need a system that works,” he said in the telephone interview. “The system now doesn’t work. The president cannot work to deliver.”Haiti won its independence in 1804, after Haitians rose up against colonial France, but it was not until 1990 that it had its first election widely regarded as free and fair. Even then, in a country with a long history of dictatorships and coups, democracy has never fully taken root.Many Haitians say a new Constitution is needed. The current one has created two competing power centers in the country — the president and prime minister — which often leads to friction and a fractured government.The draft Constitution would abolish the Senate, leaving in place a single legislative body elected every five years, and replace the post of prime minister with a vice president that answers to the president, in a bid to streamline government.Haitians will vote on the new Constitution in June, ahead of national elections slated for September.But some take little reassurance from the ballot casting ahead.“People need to realize that elections are not inherently equivalent to democracy,” said Jake Johnston, a research associate for the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington.Every time there is a political crisis in Haiti, he said, the international community tends to call for elections. That leaves the country limping from one paralyzed government to another, instead of trying to reform the electoral process and work to engage voter participation.“When an election actually ceases to represent the will of the people, what kind of government do they expect that to produce?” Mr. Johnston asked.Since 1986, after nearly 30 years of dictatorship, voter turnout has steadily declined in Haiti. Only 18 percent of all eligible Haitians participated in the 2016 election that brought Mr. Moïse to power.Now, the country’s deep economic and social morass may only encourage more Haitians to stay at home when it is time to vote on the new Constitution and then for a new president.Unemployment is rampant and desperation is at an all-time high. Many Haitians are unable to step onto the street to run basic errands without worrying about being kidnapped for ransom.A market in Port-au-Prince. Many Haitians are unable to run basic errands without worrying about crime, including being kidnapped.Chery Dieu-Nalio for The New York TimesMr. Moïse says he, too, is concerned about voter participation.“There is a silent majority,” he said. “Many Haitians don’t want to participate in something they think will be violent. We need peace and stability to encourage people to vote.”As the June referendum on the Constitution approaches, the government is trying to register five million voters, Mr. Moïse said. His goal, he said, is to inject the process with more legitimacy than his presidency had.According to the United Nations, there are at least 6.7 million potential voters in Haiti. Others say that number is an undercount, since many Haitians are undocumented, their births never registered with the government.In an effort to placate critics, and ease concerns that he is positioning himself to benefit from the new Constitution, Mr. Moïse has promised not to run in the next election.But to fix the country before he steps down, he says, he needs to accumulate enough power to take on an oligarchy he says has paralyzed Haiti to profit off a government too weak to regulate or tax their businesses.“We are suffering today from state capture — it is the biggest problem we face today,” Mr. Moïse said.Some view with deep skepticism Mr. Moïse’s claims that he has made an enemy out of big businesses by trying to regulate them. They say the president is simply trying to stoke populist sentiment to deflect from the failures of his own government and sideline political opponents.Police officers clashing with protesters demanding the resignation of Mr. Moïse.Valerie Baeriswyl/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesOthers are willing to be more charitable, but say he has not done enough to build support.“The problem is that the way that Moïse has gone about it,” said Alexandra Filippova, a senior staff attorney with the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, an organization that provides legal representation for victims of human rights abuses. “He is unilaterally pushing it forward.”The draft Constitution, for example, released last month, is available only in French — which the vast majority of Haitians do not read — instead of Creole.And no members of civil society were invited to take part as the document was drafted. Mr. Moïse instead appointed a special commission to do that. That, critics say, dims the chances for real progress.“Constitutional change is supposed to reflect a social consensus of some sort,” Ms. Filippova said. More

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      How the Pennsylvania GOP is Trying to Increase Their Control of State Courts

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPennsylvania G.O.P.’s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises AlarmsAfter fighting the election results, state Republicans are trying to increase their control of the courts. Outraged Democrats and good government groups see it as a new kind of gerrymandering.The Pennsylvania Capitol building, which houses chambers for the State Supreme Court. Under a Republican proposal, the legislative branch would have more control over the courts. Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York TimesFeb. 15, 2021Updated 10:29 a.m. ETWhen the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Republican attempt to overturn the state’s election results in November, Justice David N. Wecht issued his own pointed rebuke, condemning the G.O.P. effort as “futile” and “a dangerous game.”“It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” wrote Justice Wecht, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term on the bench in 2016. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.”Now Pennsylvania Republicans have a plan to make it less likely that judges like Justice Wecht get in their way.G.O.P. legislators, dozens of whom supported overturning the state’s election results to aid former President Donald J. Trump, are moving to change the entire way that judges are selected in Pennsylvania, in a gambit that could tip the scales of the judiciary to favor their party, or at least elect judges more inclined to embrace Republican election challenges.The proposal would replace the current system of statewide elections for judges with judicial districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. Those districts could empower rural, predominantly conservative areas and particularly rewire the State Supreme Court, which has a 5-to-2 Democratic lean.Democrats are now mobilizing to fight the effort, calling it a thinly veiled attempt at creating a new level of gerrymandering — an escalation of the decades-old practice of drawing congressional and state legislative districts to ensure that political power remains in one party’s hands. Democrats are marshaling grass-roots opposition, holding regular town hall events conducted over Zoom, and planning social media campaigns and call-in days to legislators, as well as an enormous voter education campaign. One group, Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania, has cut a two-minute infomercial.Republicans in Pennsylvania have historically used gerrymandering to maintain their majority in the legislature, despite Democratic victories in statewide elections. Republicans have controlled the State House of Representatives since 2011 and the State Senate since 1993.Current schedules for the legislature make it unlikely the Republicans could marshal their majorities in the House and Senate to pass the bill by Wednesday and put the proposal before voters on the ballot in May. Passing the bill after that date would set up a new and lengthy political war for November in this fiercely contested state.Republicans have some history on their side: Pennsylvania voters tend to approve ballot measures.“You should be very suspicious when you see a legislature who has been thwarted by a Supreme Court in its unconstitutional attempts to rig the democratic process then trying to rig the composition of that Supreme Court,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.She added, “It is way too much control for one branch to have over another branch, particularly where one of its charges is to reign in the excesses of the legislative branch.”If the Republican bill becomes law, Pennsylvania would become just the fifth state in the country, after Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Illinois, to wholly map its judicial system into electoral districts, according to the Brennan Center. And other states may soon join Pennsylvania in trying to remake the courts through redistricting.Republicans in the Texas Legislature, which is also controlled by the G.O.P., recently introduced a bill that would shift districts for the state appellate courts by moving some counties into different districts, causing an uproar among state Democrats who saw the new districts as weakening the voting power of Black and Latino communities in judicial elections and potentially adding to the Republican tilt of the Texas courts.Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, called the bill a “pure power grab meant to keep Blacks and Latinos from having influence on courts as their numbers in the state grow.”These judicial redistricting battles are taking shape as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country explore new restrictions on voting after the 2020 elections. In Georgia, Republicans in the state legislature are seeking a host of new laws that would make voting more difficult, including banning drop boxes and placing sweeping limitations on mail-in voting. Similar bills in Arizona would restrict mail-in voting, including barring the state from sending out mail ballot applications. And in Texas, Republican lawmakers want to limit early voting periods.The nationwide effort by Republicans follows a successful four-year drive by the party’s lawmakers in Washington to reshape the federal judiciary with conservative judges. Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, until recently the majority leader, and Mr. Trump, the Senate confirmed 231 federal judges, as well as three new Supreme Court justices, over the former president’s four-year term, according to data maintained by Russell Wheeler, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.In a state like Pennsylvania, which has two densely populated Democratic cities and large rural areas, this could give outsize representation to sparsely populated places that lean more conservative, particularly if the legislature resorts to a gerrymandering tactic similar to one used in Pennsylvania in 2011.“Republicans have been good at gerrymandering districts in Pennsylvania, or good in the sense that they’ve been successful,” said State Senator Sharif Street, a Democrat. “I think they would like to remain successful, and they are confident that they can gerrymander judicial districts.”Republicans in the state legislature argue that their proposed move would give different regions of Pennsylvania more representation.Russ Diamond, the Republican state representative who is sponsoring the bill, said in an email that regional representation was necessary for the judiciary “because the same statewide consensus which goes in making law should come to bear when those statutes are heard on appeal, are applied in practical real-life situations, and when precedent is set for the future of the Commonwealth.”State Representative Russ Diamond during a town hall meeting in Llewellyn, Pa. He sponsored the bill to reshape the judiciary, after first introducing a similar one in 2015. Credit…Lindsey Shuey/Republican-Herald, via Associated Press“The overall goal is to include the full diversity of Pennsylvania’s appellate courts,” Mr. Diamond added. “There is no way to completely depoliticize the courts, other than choosing judges via random selection or a lottery system. Every individual holds some political opinion or another.”Geographic diversity, however, rarely equates to racial diversity in the courts. The four states that use judicial districts in state Supreme Court elections — Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky — have never had more than one justice of color on the court at any given time, according to data from the Brennan Center.While eight states use some form of judicial districts to elect judges, Pennsylvania’s proposal remains an outlier on a few key elements. First, a partisan legislature would have the power to redraw the districts every 10 years, whereas those elsewhere remain for longer or are based on statute. Additionally, the judicial districts in Pennsylvania would not be bound by or based on any existing legislative or congressional districts, created from scratch by the Republican-controlled legislature.The move has caught the attention of national Democratic groups that are at the forefront of redistricting battles across the country.“A decade ago, Pennsylvania Republicans gerrymandered themselves into majorities in the legislature and congressional delegation,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the former United States attorney general and current chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Now that their grip on power has been forcibly loosened by the courts, they want to create and then manipulate judicial districts in a blatant attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary and stack the courts with their conservative allies.”Because the bill has already passed the House once, in 2020, it needs only to pass both chambers of the state legislature again to make it on the ballot.Further stoking Democrats’ fears: The bill does not need the signature of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. Since it would be an amendment to the Constitution, it would head to the ballot as a referendum question to be voted on in the next election (if the bill passes before Wednesday, it would go to voters during the May primary). Historically, Pennsylvania voters have voted more in favor of ballot measures than against them, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.Good government groups have teamed up with Democrats to mount a huge voter education campaign, anticipating that the judicial question may soon be on the ballot. Progressive groups including the Judicial Independence Project of PA, a new coalition that includes the voting rights group Common Cause, have been holding digital town halls about the judicial redistricting proposal, with attendance regularly topping 100 people.On a Thursday evening late last month, more than 160 people logged into Zoom to hear from coalition leaders about the bill and to hatch plans to further mobilize against it. Rebecca Litt, a senior organizer from a local Indivisible group, proposed a call-your-legislator day. Ricardo Almodovar, an organizing director with We the People PA, another progressive group, noted the graphics and other social media campaigns already underway to help educate voters.“We’re also trying to humanize the courts,” Mr. Almodovar explained during a smaller session with southeastern Pennsylvania residents, sharing stories of how specific court decisions “impact our lives.”Throughout the full, hourlong meeting, organizers repeatedly sought to make the stakes very clear.“We are in the last legislative session of this,” said Alexa Grant, a program advocate with Common Cause. “So we are the last line of defense.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Pennsylvania G.O.P.’s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises Alarms

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPennsylvania G.O.P.’s Push for More Power Over Judiciary Raises AlarmsAfter fighting the election results, state Republicans are trying to increase their control of the courts. Outraged Democrats and good government groups see it as a new kind of gerrymandering.The Pennsylvania Capitol building, which houses chambers for the State Supreme Court. Under a Republican proposal, the legislative branch would have more control over the courts. Credit…Hilary Swift for The New York TimesFeb. 15, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETWhen the Pennsylvania Supreme Court unanimously rejected a Republican attempt to overturn the state’s election results in November, Justice David N. Wecht issued his own pointed rebuke, condemning the G.O.P. effort as “futile” and “a dangerous game.”“It is not our role to lend legitimacy to such transparent and untimely efforts to subvert the will of Pennsylvania voters,” wrote Justice Wecht, a Democrat who was elected to a 10-year term on the bench in 2016. “Courts should not decide elections when the will of the voters is clear.”Now Pennsylvania Republicans have a plan to make it less likely that judges like Justice Wecht get in their way.G.O.P. legislators, dozens of whom supported overturning the state’s election results to aid former President Donald J. Trump, are moving to change the entire way that judges are selected in Pennsylvania, in a gambit that could tip the scales of the judiciary to favor their party, or at least elect judges more inclined to embrace Republican election challenges.The proposal would replace the current system of statewide elections for judges with judicial districts drawn by the Republican-controlled legislature. Those districts could empower rural, predominantly conservative areas and particularly rewire the State Supreme Court, which has a 5-to-2 Democratic lean.Democrats are now mobilizing to fight the effort, calling it a thinly veiled attempt at creating a new level of gerrymandering — an escalation of the decades-old practice of drawing congressional and state legislative districts to ensure that political power remains in one party’s hands. Democrats are marshaling grass-roots opposition, holding regular town hall events conducted over Zoom, and planning social media campaigns and call-in days to legislators, as well as an enormous voter education campaign. One group, Why Courts Matter Pennsylvania, has cut a two-minute infomercial.Republicans in Pennsylvania have historically used gerrymandering to maintain their majority in the legislature, despite Democratic victories in statewide elections. Republicans have controlled the State House of Representatives since 2011 and the State Senate since 1993.Current schedules for the legislature make it unlikely the Republicans could marshal their majorities in the House and Senate to pass the bill by Wednesday and put the proposal before voters on the ballot in May. Passing the bill after that date would set up a new and lengthy political war for November in this fiercely contested state.Republicans have some history on their side: Pennsylvania voters tend to approve ballot measures.“You should be very suspicious when you see a legislature who has been thwarted by a Supreme Court in its unconstitutional attempts to rig the democratic process then trying to rig the composition of that Supreme Court,” said Wendy Weiser, the director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.She added, “It is way too much control for one branch to have over another branch, particularly where one of its charges is to reign in the excesses of the legislative branch.”If the Republican bill becomes law, Pennsylvania would become just the fifth state in the country, after Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Illinois, to wholly map its judicial system into electoral districts, according to the Brennan Center. And other states may soon join Pennsylvania in trying to remake the courts through redistricting.Republicans in the Texas Legislature, which is also controlled by the G.O.P., recently introduced a bill that would shift districts for the state appellate courts by moving some counties into different districts, causing an uproar among state Democrats who saw the new districts as weakening the voting power of Black and Latino communities in judicial elections and potentially adding to the Republican tilt of the Texas courts.Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, called the bill a “pure power grab meant to keep Blacks and Latinos from having influence on courts as their numbers in the state grow.”These judicial redistricting battles are taking shape as Republican-controlled legislatures across the country explore new restrictions on voting after the 2020 elections. In Georgia, Republicans in the state legislature are seeking a host of new laws that would make voting more difficult, including banning drop boxes and placing sweeping limitations on mail-in voting. Similar bills in Arizona would restrict mail-in voting, including barring the state from sending out mail ballot applications. And in Texas, Republican lawmakers want to limit early voting periods.The nationwide effort by Republicans follows a successful four-year drive by the party’s lawmakers in Washington to reshape the federal judiciary with conservative judges. Led by Senator Mitch McConnell, until recently the majority leader, and Mr. Trump, the Senate confirmed 231 federal judges, as well as three new Supreme Court justices, over the former president’s four-year term, according to data maintained by Russell Wheeler, a research fellow at the Brookings Institution.In a state like Pennsylvania, which has two densely populated Democratic cities and large rural areas, this could give outsize representation to sparsely populated places that lean more conservative, particularly if the legislature resorts to a gerrymandering tactic similar to one used in Pennsylvania in 2011.“Republicans have been good at gerrymandering districts in Pennsylvania, or good in the sense that they’ve been successful,” said State Senator Sharif Street, a Democrat. “I think they would like to remain successful, and they are confident that they can gerrymander judicial districts.”Republicans in the state legislature argue that their proposed move would give different regions of Pennsylvania more representation.Russ Diamond, the Republican state representative who is sponsoring the bill, said in an email that regional representation was necessary for the judiciary “because the same statewide consensus which goes in making law should come to bear when those statutes are heard on appeal, are applied in practical real-life situations, and when precedent is set for the future of the Commonwealth.”State Representative Russ Diamond during a town hall meeting in Llewellyn, Pa. He sponsored the bill to reshape the judiciary, after first introducing a similar one in 2015. Credit…Lindsey Shuey/Republican-Herald, via Associated Press“The overall goal is to include the full diversity of Pennsylvania’s appellate courts,” Mr. Diamond added. “There is no way to completely depoliticize the courts, other than choosing judges via random selection or a lottery system. Every individual holds some political opinion or another.”Geographic diversity, however, rarely equates to racial diversity in the courts. The four states that use judicial districts in state Supreme Court elections — Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi and Kentucky — have never had more than one justice of color on the court at any given time, according to data from the Brennan Center.While eight states use some form of judicial districts to elect judges, Pennsylvania’s proposal remains an outlier on a few key elements. First, a partisan legislature would have the power to redraw the districts every 10 years, whereas those elsewhere remain for longer or are based on statute. Additionally, the judicial districts in Pennsylvania would not be bound by or based on any existing legislative or congressional districts, created from scratch by the Republican-controlled legislature.The move has caught the attention of national Democratic groups that are at the forefront of redistricting battles across the country.“A decade ago, Pennsylvania Republicans gerrymandered themselves into majorities in the legislature and congressional delegation,” said Eric H. Holder Jr., the former United States attorney general and current chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “Now that their grip on power has been forcibly loosened by the courts, they want to create and then manipulate judicial districts in a blatant attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary and stack the courts with their conservative allies.”Because the bill has already passed the House once, in 2020, it needs only to pass both chambers of the state legislature again to make it on the ballot.Further stoking Democrats’ fears: The bill does not need the signature of Gov. Tom Wolf, a Democrat. Since it would be an amendment to the Constitution, it would head to the ballot as a referendum question to be voted on in the next election (if the bill passes before Wednesday, it would go to voters during the May primary). Historically, Pennsylvania voters have voted more in favor of ballot measures than against them, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures.Good government groups have teamed up with Democrats to mount a huge voter education campaign, anticipating that the judicial question may soon be on the ballot. Progressive groups including the Judicial Independent Project of PA, a new coalition that includes the voting rights group Common Cause, have been holding digital town halls about the judicial redistricting proposal, with attendance regularly topping 100 people.On a Thursday evening late last month, more than 160 people logged into Zoom to hear from coalition leaders about the bill and to hatch plans to further mobilize against it. Rebecca Litt, a senior organizer from a local Indivisible group, proposed a call-your-legislator day. Ricardo Almodovar, an organizing director with We the People PA, another progressive group, noted the graphics and other social media campaigns already underway to help educate voters.“We’re also trying to humanize the courts,” Mr. Almodovar explained during a smaller session with southeastern Pennsylvania residents, sharing stories of how specific court decisions “impact our lives.”Throughout the full, hourlong meeting, organizers repeatedly sought to make the stakes very clear.“We are in the last legislative session of this,” said Alexa Grant, a program advocate with Common Cause. “So we are the last line of defense.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More