Reform Electoral Count Act? Yes. Now. -- March 31, 2022 column

By MARSHA MERCER

President John F. Kennedy said what any smart homeowner knows: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.”

Kennedy used the line in his 1962 State of the Union address to urge Congress to pass his anti-recession economic legislative agenda. Sixty years later, it’s time to repair the roof of our democracy after the manmade disaster of Jan. 6, 2021, and to prevent another assault on the electoral process.

The violent mob that stormed the Capitol – with some protesters chanting, “Hang Mike Pence!” – wanted to overturn the presidential election. They were misinformed and misled by a president who could not accept defeat.

Donald Trump still falsely claims the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which sets timetables and rules for counting electoral votes, allowed Vice President Mike Pence to ditch state election results and install Trump for another four years. Pence did the right thing by refusing to bow to Trump’s power grab.

The Constitution “constrains me from claiming unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not,” Pence wrote that day in a letter to Congress. Under the 12^th Amendment, the vice president, as president of the Senate, opens the certificates of electoral votes from each state, which are then counted.  

More than a year late, Pence rebuked Trump publicly.

“And I heard this week President Trump said I had the right to `overturn the election.’ President Trump is wrong,” Pence said in February in a speech to the conservative Federalist Society. “I had no right to overturn the election.”

Our system held, but one shudders to think what would have happened IF . . . if Pence had agreed with Trump and others who wanted to run roughshod over the will of the people.

So, what now? To ensure the peaceful transfer of power in the future, we must update and clarify the antiquated Electoral Count Act, once described in a Washington Post story as a “confusing word salad of run-on sentences.”

The Democratic staff of the House Administration Committee studied the law for months and concluded in a 31-page report in January the law is “badly in need of reform” to remove ambiguity about the vote count process. Ambiguity is the leak in democracy’s roof.

Sen. Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, announced in late January a bipartisan group of 16 senators, including Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia, is working on legislation to clarify the law, including the vice president’s role as purely ceremonial.

Trump showed his hand in a statement that said in part: “how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?”

Better question: Why should a vice president have the power to overturn the votes of millions of Americans and the hard work of thousands of local and state election officials?

A group of Senate Democratic leaders also is involved in “discussion drafts” of reform.

One likely change would make it harder for members of Congress to challenge a state’s electoral votes and raise the bar for sustaining challenges. Currently, if only one senator and House member object to a state’s results, they can draw out the counting process. Also, the timetable for recounts and lawsuits in the states could be lengthened.

Updating the count act would make counting the votes more fair, but there’s concern that it would do nothing to make voting itself more fair.

Republican candidates still insist the 2020 election was stolen as GOP-run state legislatures tighten election rules and ballot access. House Democrats have tried to pass major voting rights legislation only to see it stalled in the Senate.

Some liberals fear updating the count act alone could make it more difficult to stop Republican state officials from negating elections their favored presidential candidate lost, leaving Congress locked into certification.  

The White House is “open to and a part of conversations about the Electoral Count Act,” but that reform should not replace larger voting reforms, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said.

Congress needs to address these valid concerns now -- and reform the Electoral Count Act while the sun shines.

©2022 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

An escape to tuna melts -- April 30, 2020 column

By MARSHA MERCER

I wasn’t going to write about Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia and his tuna melt.

His debut cooking video was a hoot, but I resolved to stay out of the ensuing fracas over his undrained tuna, his betrayal of Duke’s for Hellmann’s, and his microwave technique.

But I loved Sen. Kamala Harris’s tweet in response to Warner’s video: “Mark – we need to talk. Call. Please. Your friend KDH.”

The California Democrat’s how-to video tutorial on tuna melts with Warner as pupil was charming and fun.  

In the era of Room Rater, when the home backgrounds of celebrities on video chats are graded – see @ratemyskyperoom on Twitter -- Warner compliments Harris on her lovely kitchen. She says she saw his kitchen, too.

It’s an “extra kitchen,” says Warner, a Democrat and one of the wealthiest senators.

“I only have one kitchen,” Harris deadpans.

He teases her about the teaspoon of Dijon mustard in the tuna as a “Northern California” addition and, going all Everyman, brandishes a block of Velveeta and a package of bologna for the future.

When the tutorial is over, you think you’ve wasted 10 minutes of your life, but you’ve laughed. You feel better. That’s not a bad use of 10 minutes in the middle of the worst health crisis any of us has ever seen.

More than a million Americans have tested positive for the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, and more than 60,000 have died. Healthcare workers risk their lives daily going to work 13-hour shifts with just one protective N95 mask to wear all day.

News about the economy is apocalyptic. The U.S. economy shrank at a 4.8% annual rate in the first quarter, the worst quarterly slide since the fourth quarter of 2008, and analysts predict a cataclysmic drop of 30% in the second quarter. More than 26 million Americans are out of work.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump let national stay-at-home guidelines expire Thursday. Despite warnings from health professionals that social distancing is still needed to avoid a surge in cases, Trump wants to see people sitting “right next to each other” at baseball and football games soon.

After dragging his feet on using executive power to produce masks and other personal protective equipment for medical workers, Trump sprang into action to avert a meat and poultry shortage.

About 20 processing plants around the country had shut down after thousands of workers crowded close to each other on beef, pork or chicken assembly lines had fallen sick, and some had died. The plants created disease hot spots that are overwhelming rural hospitals.

Trump declared the plants “critical infrastructure” and ordered them to reopen. He said he would protect companies from legal liability if they are sued by employees who get COVID-19 on the job.

That little can of tuna on the pantry shelf suddenly was far more appetizing than animal proteins processed by workers under duress and scared for their lives.

I was making tuna melts long before Warner and Harris made them cool – if the comfort food sandwich can ever be cool. Weeks ago, I found tuna melts just the thing for a stay-home lunch and have made them several times.

I’m evidently not alone. Tuna is so popular some groceries stores have started limiting sales.

So here’s my take: Mix drained and flaked white or light tuna, chopped celery, chopped red bell pepper, grated sharp cheddar (right from the bag, no need to grate your own) and minced pickles. I like cornichons, those fussy little French dilled pickles, but sweet gherkins work too.  

Add a dollop or two of Duke’s Light mayonnaise. Not too much. Sprinkle on pepper, mix again and stuff the mixture into whole wheat hot dog buns. Yes, they exist.

Warner used sliced white bread. Whole wheat buns let you flirt with virtue.

Wrap each tuna melt in aluminum foil and cook 20 or 25 minutes in a 350-degree preheated oven -- not the microwave a la Warner. The oven gives the sandwich a melty interior and a toasty top.

While you’re busy chopping, mixing and stuffing, keep your mind on the tasks at hand. 

Let the tuna melt be your temporary escape to a simpler and safer time. Enjoy.

©2020 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Fair pay law for women early test for Democratic Congress -- Feb. 7, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The most memorable visual from the State of the Union was the most joyous.

We’re used to Republican members of Congress popping up from their chairs and dutifully applauding President Donald Trump – and to Democrats, with rare exceptions, sitting glumly.    

On Tuesday night, though, dozens of Democratic women wearing “suffragette white” to show solidarity and to honor the legacy of the suffragette movement, became a wave of celebration.

The women were largely quiescent until Trump began touting the economy.

“No one has benefited more from our thriving economy than women, who have filled 58 percent of the new jobs created in the last year,” he said.

The women – many of them newcomers to Congress – perked up. Smiling, they looked around, stood and applauded, pointing to themselves and each other. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi beamed.

“Don’t sit yet. You’re going to like this,” Trump said. “And exactly one century after the Congress passed the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote, we also have more women serving in the Congress than ever before,” he said.

At that, the women -- many of whom ran for Congress and won because of their outspoken opposition to Trump’s policies – rejoiced in their triumph with energetic fist-pumps, high fives and hugs. Their jubilation was infectious.

Now they need to harness their enthusiasm to succeed in the hyper-partisan capital. 

The Democratic House must deliver on promises to make Washington work for everybody.

It’s exciting to think the new members actually will build coalitions and pass bills that better the lives of women and families. Even Trump says he favors paid family and medical leave, although there’s nothing to show for it.  

One of the first tests for Congress is ensuring women get equal pay for their work. Finally.

Equal pay has been the law of the land since the 1960s, but the gender pay gap – the difference in median earnings of a man and a woman each working full time -- persists.

A woman in 2017 earned about 20 percent less than a man, according to the most recent Census Bureau figures. The wage gap is worse for black women and Hispanic women.

This isn’t a fluke or women working in “women’s” jobs that pay less. Men’s median weekly pay exceeds women’s in almost every occupation -- from chief executives to janitors and building cleaners, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

The Paycheck Fairness Act was first introduced more than a decade ago. It would close loopholes in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 and amend the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 and make employers more accountable for their pay practices.

It would end pay secrecy and retaliation – workplace rules that keep workers from asking about others’ wages and disclosing their own; allow workers to sue for damages from pay discrimination; strengthen penalties for equal pay violations, and update the federal role in education, research and data-collection to combat gender discrimination.  

The House first passed Paycheck Fairness in January 2009, but the bill died in the Senate. It has been reintroduced repeatedly and has always failed.  

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, and Sen. Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, reintroduced the measure Jan. 30.

In the House, every Democrat and one Republican are cosponsors. In the Senate, there are 45 cosponsors – all Democrats and Bernie Sanders, independent. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia are cosponsors.

Rep. Bobby Scott, Democrat of Virginia, is now chairman of the Education and Labor Committee, and plans to fast-track the legislation with a hearing this month and a House vote soon after. The goal is to have a bill on Trump’s desk by early April.

But passage is hardly assured. Even though more women serve in Congress than ever, they still make up only about a quarter of the total membership.

What’s needed is a thaw in the Republican-controlled Senate. Republicans oppose the bill as unnecessary, saying it burdens employers and could even harm women,  if employers are reluctant to hire them.

But surely in 2019 equal pay for women doing equal work is an issue we all can agree on.

It’s time for Congress – new members and veterans – to turn to the hard work of governing and get the job done.

  ©2019 Marsha Mercer All rights reserved.

Meddling in 2016 election just a warm up for 2020 -- Jan. 31, 2019 column

By MARSHA MERCER

So, you see a video of President Donald Trump doing something truly outrageous, what do you do?

Or, you hear an audio clip of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris saying something beyond the pale, what then?

Rush to share it. Fly into a furious tweetstorm. Post and rant on Facebook. I know, it happens all the time.

But what if the video or audio you sent ’round the world was fake, bogus, a trick?

I don’t mean fake news but a deepfake: digital audio or video created by artificial intelligence so realistic we can’t tell it’s fake.

In our brave new cyberworld, voters should know what we see and hear may not always be real. As in, no, you can’t believe your lying eyes – or ears.

In 2016, Russia and others used fake web sites and impersonated Americans on social media to divide us and sow discord. As if we needed help in that department.

By 2018, Russia, China and Iran all tried to manipulate and polarize us. Fortunately, they were unable to compromise the elections, the U.S. government says.

But that likely was just a warm-up.  

“We expect (foreign actors) to refine their capabilities and add new tactics as they learn from each other’s experiences and efforts, suggesting the threat landscape could look very different in 2020 and future elections,” Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats warned the Senate Intelligence Committee Tuesday.  

One big, new threat is deepfakes, which made news in 2017, when people swapped actresses faces for porn stars and made sex videos.

Almost anyone can make deepfakes now, and they have the potential for creating havoc on the national and world stage.

Today, while the algorithms are complex, “there are user-friendly platforms that people with little to no technical expertise can use to create deepfakes,” Charlotte Stanton, director of the Silicon Valley office of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, wrote in a report released Monday.

“The easiest among these platforms allow anyone with access to the internet and pictures of a person’s face to make a deepfake. Tutorials are even available for people who want step-by-step instructions,” Stanton said.

Canadian start-up Lyrebird claims it creates “the most realistic artificial voices in the world” from just one minute of speech. To show how realistic – and scary this is – the lyrebird.ai website has sample “voice avatars” of Donald Trump and Barack Obama. You’d never guess they’re fakes.

Make no mistake, there are laudable uses for such technology. Lyrebird works with ALS patients to create a digital voice copies so they can still communicate in their voice if they lose the ability to speak.

But the bad guys are out there, and the Pentagon and academics are researching how to identify and stop deepfakes. The AI technology evolves so fast it makes detection ever more difficult.

Congress is alarmed, and some lawmakers are weighing legislation, although it’s important not to create new problems while fixing one. Sen. Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska, wants to make it illegal to create or distribute malicious deepfakes.

“Deepfakes – video of things that were never done with audio of things that were never said – can be tailor-made to drive Americans apart and pour gasoline on just about any culture war fire,” Sasse told Axios.

Government can’t save us from being gullible. Each of us needs to guard against those who want to weaken our democracy and make truth a relic of the past.

What can we do? First, be skeptical. As always, consider the source before you share.

Look closely. In some deepfake videos, the people don’t blink -- but blinking doesn’t guarantee one is legit.

And take a breath. It’s easy to fly off the handle and repost the things that confirm our worst nightmares.

“Let us remember that while Russia can amplify our divisions, it cannot invent them,” Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, co-chairman of the Intel committee, said at Tuesday’s hearing.

“When a divisive issue like the `take a knee’ NFL controversy or a migrant caravan dominates the national dialogue, these are issues that can be – and are – taken advantage of by Russian trolls. Let’s not make their work easier,” Warner said.

Excellent advice. It won’t be easy, but we need to unite on this one thing: stopping deepfake tricks in their tracks.

©2019 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

Best defense against Russia's lies: `Consider the source' -- Feb. 22, 2018 column

By MARSHA MERCER

The Russians are coming – for real. And they’ll meddle in our November elections.

After all, it worked for them in 2016.

“There should be no doubt that Russia perceives its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations,” Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, told the Senate Intelligence Committee Feb. 13.

“We expect Russia to continue using propaganda, social media, false-flag personas, sympathetic spokespeople and other means of influence to try to exacerbate social and political fissures in the United States,” Coats said.

Even President Donald Trump now concedes Russians interfered in the last presidential election, though he still cannot bring himself to criticize Russian President Vladimir Putin. Authorities agree there’s no evidence vote tallies were altered, but it’s impossible to know how many minds were changed.

Russia’s goal is to sow fear, distrust, discord and divisiveness in America and elsewhere and restore Russia’s role as a world power, experts say. Russians have been successfully pushing our emotional buttons for years, using social media.

Most recently, after the massacre in Parkland, Florida, they used #guncontrolnow and #gunreformnow to stir the pot. They used similar tactics following the mass shootings in Las Vegas and Texas.

Russians began posing as Americans in social media, creating false stories and spewing tweets, in 2014. These were trial runs to see how much they could get Americans to believe, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday after an extensive investigation.

We take the bait -- as the tale of the tainted turkey demonstrates.

Around Thanksgiving 2015, someone claiming to be Alice Norton, a 31-year-old mother of two in New York City, wrote on a cooking website forum that her whole family had gotten food poisoning from a Walmart turkey. Twitter repeated the claim thousands of time, and a news story reported 200 people were in critical condition at hospitals.

The story was a hoax. There was no such outbreak of food poisoning, the Journal reported. The claims were linked to a Kremlin propaganda agency charged with meddling in U.S. elections by Special Counsel Robert Mueller.

The tainted turkey was just one of several fictitious events Russian propagandists manufactured before they moved on to support Trump and Bernie Sanders while disparaging Hillary Clinton, the Journal said.

The United States continues to be “under attack” by those who want to create cyber disruption, Coats and other intelligence officials warned. Our response?

“We’ve had more than a year to get our act together and address the threat posed by Russia and implement a strategy to deter future attacks,” Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said at the hearing. “We still do not have a plan.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a Cyber-Digital Task Force Tuesday to study what the Justice Department is doing to combat global security threats. Interference in our elections is one priority.  

That’s good, as far as it goes.

Social media companies are shutting down Russian bots, the automated accounts that flood tweets and posts, but as soon as one account is gone, others pop up.  

If we can’t rely on the government or corporations to stop the flow of misinformation by November, if ever, what can we do?  

Three words: Consider the source.

That’s what my mother said when I was a child and a bully said or did something ugly. Consider the source means don’t pay attention to someone whose opinion doesn’t matter.

Now more than ever we need to know if the source of information is credible. Don’t rely on Wikipedia or your friends to have their facts straight.

To recognize bots, experts suggest checking an account’s bio and profile picture. If the language is odd, if you Google the image and find it all over the Internet, if the “person” tweets more than seems humanly possible – move on. Don’t share it.  

We need to cultivate more good old American skepticism. Propaganda works because it plays to our existing distrust and divisions. Recognize when you love or hate something online it may be because it confirms your bias. We all have them.

This election year, look before you retweet. Don’t be played for a sucker.

©2018 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.

The I president discovers we and our -- March 2, 2017 column

By MARSHA MERCER

 Give President Donald Trump credit. He showed Tuesday night he can deliver an inaugural address.

So it was 40 days after his inauguration – but who’s counting? 

The bullying, snarling Trump was gone; in his place was a well-behaved guard dog, one that wants to please and is, literally, good with children. 

“My administration wants to work with members in both parties to make child care accessible and affordable, to help ensure new parents have paid family leave, to invest in women’s health, and to promote clean air and clean water and rebuild our military infrastructure,” Trump said in his first speech to a joint session of Congress.  

Except for the last bit about rebuilding the military, the remark could have come from a Democratic president, as could Trump’s call for $1 trillion in new infrastructure spending – something that had Democrats and usually cost-conscious Republicans on their feet, applauding. 

Outsider no more, Trump placed himself squarely in the line of Republican presidents. He echoed George W. Bush -- “Education is the civil rights issue of our time,” Trump said – and cited Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower.

Does any of this matter? For this president at this moment, yes. 

Asked on Fox & Friends the other day to grade his presidency so far, Trump gave himself an A for achievement and effort but a C or C-plus for messaging or communications. He was determined to exceed expectations in the speech -- admittedly not a high bar. He has historically low approval ratings for a new president. 

On Tuesday night, he provided a glimpse of someone who may become more than an angry cartoon character with orange hair.  He showed he can curb his insults and stick to his text. He was light on troublesome specifics and heavy on morning in America. 

For one night, anyway, the man of I, I, I discovered the small words that bring people together: we, us and our.  

“Everything that is broken in our country can be fixed,” he said. “And every problem can be solved and every hurting family can find healing and hope.”

Trump also orchestrated a long, heart-rending moment of mourning in America when he recognized Carryn Owens, the teary widow of Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, one of Trump’s guests in the balcony. Her husband was killed last month in a counter-terrorism operation in Yemen.

“Ryan’s legacy is etched into eternity,” Trump said, leading a prolonged standing ovation, during which tears soaked the grieving widow’s face.  

 For someone who prizes himself on being unpredictable, the speech was notable for its normalcy.  There were no attacks on the news media or judges and no embrace of Putin and Russia. 

“The time for small thinking is over. The time for trivial fights is behind us,” Trump said, urging Republicans and Democrats to unite behind his emerging agenda. The speech was vague enough that everyone could hear what they wanted. Some congressional Republicans thought Trump was endorsing the House leadership’s plan for health care reform; others thought not.

“Home run,” House Speaker Paul Ryan gushed about the speech. Congressional Democrats, critical of the lack of detail, were restrained in their critiques, although Rep. Earl Blumenauer, Democrat of Oregon, issued a one-word statement reacting to Trump’s address. It read: “Resist.”

And Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, said, “For those Americans looking for a clear and forward-looking agenda, tonight’s speech raised more questions than it answered. I believe the President missed an opportunity to begin to reach out beyond his political base to all Americans.” 

But Warner also said: “I have long supported investing to rebuild our nation’s infrastructure, and if President Trump is willing to work in a bipartisan fashion we can accomplish that goal.”

Warner is right. Trump’s haziness can’t last; he will propose a federal budget in a couple of weeks that will make his values clear. Whether he can maintain his bipartisan tone and composure as negotiations proceed on issues where he’s opposed will be a test.  Democrats also face a test whether they can present alternatives and become more than the Party of No.

“We are one people with one destiny,” Trump declared near the end of his speech. 

Maybe and maybe not. It will take more than one well-crafted speech to change the dynamics on Capitol Hill.  

(C) 2017 Marsha Mercer. All rights reserved.