by Andrew Christie, Chapter Director
I need the SLO County Board of Supervisors to address my concerns.
Specifically, I am concerned that a mammoth mutate has kidnapped Captain America’s pal Arnie from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, luring Cap into the clutches of the son of Baron Zemo, who blames Cap for his father’s death. Arnie’s mind has been transferred into another mutate body, and a shape-shifter has been sent out to take the place of Steve Rogers while Zemo Jr. holds the real Captain America prisoner. Meanwhile, Vermin the Man-Rat remains at large and could strike at any moment.
These alarming events were fully documented in the pages of Captain America #276 and 277, but the County Board of Supervisors, with the safety of the community at stake, has yet to investigate them – even though, based on the board’s 15-hour meeting on May 4, it’s clear they have nothing better to do.
Still, it is heartening to see that that Supervisors John Peschong, Lynn Compton, and Debbie Arnold are in a concern-addressing mood. The SLO County Republican Party told them it was concerned about the outcome of the 2020 election, demanding an election audit and a host of measures designed to address their concerns about election fraud by cutting down on this whole voting thing, and they leapt to comply.
This was the board majority’s chance to explore the reasons why Donald Trump lost his bid for reelection; reasons which must have had something to do with rigged elections, bamboo ballots, communist voting machines, and what have you. As a concerned caller pointed out, dozens of judges, including the Supreme Court, who conspicuously failed to find any evidence to back up those claims, are obviously in on the conspiracy that resulted in the calamity of the caller’s candidate not getting enough votes. (A conspiracy that would appear to include Trump’s election integrity commission, which also failed to find any evidence of fraud.)
Supervisor Debbie Arnold judiciously observed, “I don’t know if everybody’s idea of disinformation is the same as everybody else’s idea of disinformation" as caller after caller phoned in to the meeting to proclaim shock and dismay at stuff they had read on the internet or heard on Fox News, and to repeatedly whitesplain that everyone can easily obtain the proper photo i.d. and that being forced to do so is no impediment to voting.
Clearly, it was time for our supervisors to address the growing problem of democracy in SLO County and make voting as difficult as possible. So they did. Because if voting is easy, more people will vote. If voting is harder – especially for, shall we say, people below a certain income level – the shrinking, reality-challenged but intensely committed base of the cult of personality formerly known as the Republican Party may have a shot at retaining power. Thus, the three supervisors spurned early voting, drop boxes, voting centers and same-day registration, and embraced one-day-only voting and a voter i.d. requirement, directing staff to lobby Sacramento to get the County out from under the peskier provisions of the state election code.
In so doing, Compton, Arnold, and Peschong solemnly endorsed the phantom menace of voter fraud that was created in advance of the 2020 election in case Trump was rejected by the voters, a myth that went into hyperdrive after the election, resulting in a flurry of new bills and ordinances across the country to clamp down on democracy.
Then there was that whole gerrymandering thing, which the County board majority took care of last month when it shunted aside the idea of both a citizens’ advisory committee and placing redistricting in the hands of a non-partisan commission, instead handing that duty to the County Administrative Office, which works for… the majority on the County Board of Supervisors.
And just before that, there was the board majority’s vote to shoot the moon on limits to campaign contributions, kicking the door down for big-money donors.
At the May 4 meeting, prior to the board majority’s pre-ordained decision to implement voter suppression in SLO County, Supervisor Bruce Gibson, fighting an uphill battle, leaned into the Zoom camera to ask County Clerk-Recorder Tommy Gong and Dominion Voting Systems Regional Manager Steve Bennett three questions:
“In any of the 2020 elections, do you have any evidence that the systems failed to work as they were designed to do?”
“Any complaints from candidates as to the integrity of the election?”
“Any complaints from the public prior to certification of the election?”
The answer was “no.”
Bennett also noted that four days earlier, NewsMax had retracted all of its disinformation statements made against Dominion and its voting machines. And no, the system is not connected to the internet and can’t be hacked. And yes, it provides a paper trail.
The County Clerk-Recorder added that California county election officials have 28 days to certify election results, do not have the legal authority to reopen ballots for audits in response to random requests long after the results have been certified, and every county does a random 1% recount prior to certification. And in 2020, the SLO Clerk-Recorder’s office engaged in the most extensive voter outreach and education it had ever done prior to an election, resulting in San Luis Obispo’s turnout going from 12th place to 4th place among all California counties.
The board majority will have no more of that, thank you very much.
In the wake of the 2014 mid-term elections that handed the Senate to the Republicans, Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune wrote:
“Without question, a rash of discriminatory voter-suppression laws in 21 states kept millions of Americans from voting in this election. Did these new voting and registration laws affect the outcome of this election? It's definitely possible. The New York University School of Law's Brennan Center for Social Justice has already made a strong case that in at least four states (Virginia, Kansas, Florida, and North Carolina) enough votes were suppressed to make a difference in specific close races.”
He concluded:
“It's no secret what's going on here: The same people who are poisoning our air and our water are also poisoning our democracy. This erosion of voting rights affects all of the work that we care about: clean energy, conservation legislation, climate legislation. The Sierra Club, along with a coalition of environmental groups, workers' groups, and civil rights organizations, and others, will redouble our efforts to stop this assault on our democracy.”
Which brings me to the For the People Act, which passed the House on March 3 and will expand voting access & restore voting rights by creating a nationwide automatic voter registration system, allowing same day voter registration, expanding ways to vote, and safeguarding our election infrastructure from hostile actors. It will also ban gerrymandering, fix our broken campaign finance system, empower small-dollar donors, support small-dollar public financing of elections, and combat the influence of “dark money,” the wishes of Supervisors Compton, Peschong, and Arnold to the contrary notwithstanding.
Right now, Senator Padilla and Senator Feinstein need to hear from you about getting the For the People Act passed in the Senate.
Democracy and Captain America will thank you.