Episode 51: Democracy Chokepoints
Complete show notes at https://scottaaronrogers.substack.com/
Guest: Victoria Martz (D) - Candidate for Indiana State House, District 55
Find her at:
https://ballotpedia.org/Victoria_Martz
https://www.instagram.com/victoriaforindianahouse55/
https://www.facebook.com/people/Victoria-Martz/61564085579056/
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/victoria-martz-1
Over the course of fifty episodes now, if there is any overarching theme to this project, it is the struggle between plutocracy - government by a wealthy few - and democracy - government by the people. Contrary to the revisionist history you might hear from certain Christian nationalists, the US Constitution was not authored by the Holy Spirit, but by a small number of white, property-owning men, each of whom had their own ideas about how the new nation should be administered, and how much government by the people should be allowed, and who even counts as people.
The founders argued, haggled, and sometimes fought in the streets over the amount of democracy to be had . The Senate, the Electoral College, the Supreme Court: each serve as a check on the popular will, a chokepoint at which the ownership class can either assent to, or veto, democracy. But nothing gets done without stopping at each roadblock.
The Bill of Rights - the first ten amendments, the part most people think of as THE Constitution - was only added because several states wouldn’t ratify the document without it. Amending it further may be more difficult here than anywhere in the world, requiring passage by two-thirds in both houses of Congress and ratification from three-quarters of state legislatures. Unimaginable in this day and age - and leaving us stuck, beholden to ghosts.
Keep drilling down, and you have to take into account that gerrymandered congressional districts and state legislative maps, even the drawing of state lines themselves have served to corral people inside artificial lines so we may be “shepherded” more efficiently by the ruling class. For being the world’s oldest continuing democratic republic, Americans actually enjoy shockingly little democratic power. This is why, despite overwhelming popular support, we can’t enact universal healthcare, protect women’s reproductive freedom, or place sane restrictions on firearms.
Deeper still, each state’s unique constitution, election rules, and court systems mean citizens in some jurisdictions have more - or for us Hoosiers, less - democracy than others. My guest today is seeking the power of elected office specifically for the purpose of giving some of that power directly to the people of Indiana.
Victoria Martz is a graduate of Batesville High School, Purdue University, and IU McKinney School of Law, currently practicing criminal defense as an associate attorney with the Law Office of Jesse K. Sanchez in Indianapolis. Having served in the Marion County prosecutor’s office, she moved to be closer to family in Batesville, where she lives with her partner and their 1 1/2 year-old daughter. Victoria is running to represent House District 55, which includes all of Fayette, Franklin and Union counties, and portions of Decatur, Ripley and Rush counties in the eastern part of the state, on the border with Ohio.
Now, she’d be a consistent Democratic vote in the assembly, fighting for a woman’s right to choose, standing up for our LGBTQ community, taking on monied interests. And in this interview, we will discuss her top priority in the capital, protecting our environment - which has been decimated by 20 years of GOP rule at the statehouse. But we’re primarily going to talk about process. Lawfare. We’ll look at voter suppression, ballot access, campaign finance, term limits, and referendums - tools used by plutocratic Republicans to stymie democracy and tools the people can use to fight back.
Before we turn to that conversation, PLEASE consider supporting HoosLeft with a financial contribution. I currently work as an independent craftsman during the day and work on this project whenever I can. There are so many more things I want to do here at HoosLeft - more campaign finance research, maybe live hangouts, a daily episode if we can get there -but I need your help. If you can, visit scottaaronrogers.substack.com and subscribe at the paid level. For five dollars a month - less than a fancy coffee - or only $50 for a whole year, you can help me push our state in a better direction, and maybe if we reach critical mass, I can put down my tool belt and devote my full time to you, to this project, and to Indiana’s future. So, if you have the means, pause right now, go to scottaaronrogers.substack.com and subscribe at the paid level.
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Cited in the interview:
House District 55: https://ballotpedia.org/Indiana_House_of_Representatives_District_55#:~:text=13%2D5%2D0.1-,District%20map,-%2B
Castle on the hill: https://whitewaterpub.com/news/2024/may/02/the-story-behind-metamoras-castle/
Victoria Spartz: https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2024/06/11/rep-victoria-spartz-is-simply-unreliable-and-thats-the-kindest-description-available/
Importance of Wetlands: https://www.ramsar.org/sites/default/files/documents/library/wwd2009-leaflet-high-e.pdf
Constitutional Convention was a kind of coup: https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/print-archive/nefarious-intentions-framers
Voting age by country: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/voting-age-by-country
Indiana rule kept Rust off ballot: https://www.wboi.org/2023-09-01/indianas-two-primary-rule-for-partisan-affiliation-stands-as-state-supreme-court-declines-appeal
Different types of voting systems: https://fairvote.org/archives/types_of_voting_systems/
Citizens United explained: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/citizens-united-explained
McCain-Feingold campaign finance: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/08/the-legacy-of-mccain-feingold/
Corporations are People?: https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution
Biden Supreme Court reform proposal: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-reform-biden-harris-trump-ffd48f3a2023aeca841bb53c2147ef03
Power of incumbency: https://slcc.pressbooks.pub/attenuateddemocracy/chapter/chapter-55/
Term Limits pros and cons: https://www.procon.org/headlines/congressional-term-limits-top-3-pros-and-cons/
Ballot initiatives in other states: https://jacobin.com/2023/11/ballot-initiatives-ohio-abortion-rights-marijuana-legalization-state-level-politics
Indiana amendment process: https://ballotpedia.org/Article_16,_Indiana_Constitution
Autocracy depends on distraction, division, hopelessness: https://oneworldhouse.net/2022/08/21/democracy-vs-autocracy-the-struggle-for-the-political-soul-of-humanity/
Once again, that was Victoria Martz, criminal defense attorney and candidate for State Representative in Indiana’s 55th District.
So, first of all, I want to clarify the law in Indiana regarding ballot access for candidates and their previous voting record. Victoria referred to a requirement for a candidate to have voted straight ticket for one party in the last general election in order to run for that party’s nomination in the next primary. Not exactly. It’s even worse.
In Indiana, we have open primaries. Individuals do not register with the state as a Democrat, Republican, or other. When voting in the May primary, you walk into your polling place and choose either a Democratic or Republican primary ballot. This is how one, essentially, states their party preference. But, what if you’re a Republican living by me here in Monroe County. Because the Bloomington area is so liberal, municipal seats often go uncontested by the GOP. Maybe you pull a Democratic ballot to vote for centrists over progressives in local races. Maybe you’re a Democrat in a red part of the state and the opposite is true. Maybe you saw one of those billboards from ReCenter Indiana PAC in this year’s primary encouraging Democrats to cross over and vote for a “moderate” Republican, and I use that term incredibly loosely, like Brad Chambers.
According to WFYI, “State law does say that primary voters must have voted in the last general election for “a majority of the regular nominees of the political party” whose ballot they chose, or intend to do so in the next general election. But there’s no way to check that, making it virtually impossible to enforce.”
Where John Rust, and others in similar situations run into trouble is that, in 2022, a new state law took effect that says candidates can only run in the primary as a Republican or Democrat if they voted in that same party’s primary in the last two primaries in which they voted.
This has had the effect of disqualifying young first-time candidates, voters who have crossed over for any of those reasons I previously mentioned, and those who have recently moved into the state - all of which protects incumbents from pesky challengers, contributes to party polarization, and stifles political engagement by adding more barriers.
And that’s what it’s all about - making true democracy harder, adding hoops to jump through, hurdles to leap, and walls to climb. At the top, I talked about all the anti-democratic obstacles baked in at the federal level. This discussion with Victoria highlights the fact that Hoosiers have had even more roadblocks placed in front of us.
Indiana was the first state to introduce voter ID requirements in response to the non-existent problem of voter fraud, and now we have the worst turnout in the country. Still, Republicans in Indianapolis continue making it even harder to vote.
So, more difficult to run for office. More difficult to vote in elections. No ballot initiatives, no referendums, no direct democracy - and a nearly-impossible-to-amend state constitution.
According to the indispensable Ballotpedia, “The amendment procedures available under the Indiana Constitution are more restrictive than in those of nearly any other state. Only one system is allowed (the legislatively referred constitutional amendment), and this procedure in Indiana is itself more restrictive than in most states, since any proposed amendment must be approved by two successive sessions of the Indiana General Assembly before it can go to a vote of the people. Article 16 also does not say anything about how a constitutional convention could be held or called; whereas, the constitutions of more than 40 other states do lay out in their constitutions how that process would work in their state.”
What this means is that even if Hoosiers can sweep Jennifer McCormick into the governor’s office and elect a strong crop of new legislators like Victoria to the statehouse, Democrats cannot flip the state senate this year. Assuming continued Republican intransigence, we cannot even begin the amendment process until at least 2027, pass an amendment opening the constitution up to ballot initiatives by the people until 2029, and both will likely take much longer.
I say this not to discourage us, not that the Indiana left can get more discouraged than we have been recently, but to rouse all of us to do our part. The mechanisms for change do exist, and if we each - like David Pepper said when I spoke with him recently - incorporate ‘saving democracy’ into our everyday lives, we can reach that summit.
And furthermore, there might be a shortcut. If Americans deliver Kamala Harris to the White House with a cooperative House and Senate, Democrats are promising to pass the Freedom To Vote Act, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, and host of reforms meant to remove many of those hurdles to democracy - voter suppression, partisan sabotage, gerrymandering, and unlimited dark money.
And maybe with those obstacles out of our way - with robust participation in professionally-run elections conducted in fairly-drawn districts where policy and principles matter more than fundraising and ad spending? - Indiana can have a state government that reflects the real, progressive Hoosier values that we’ve held all along.
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Episode 51: Democracy Chokepoints