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As Georgia heads toward a pair of runoff elections for U.S. Senate, what happened to basic civility?

By David Bass

Where’s the Christmas cheer? 

 

That’s what I find myself asking as I look at all of the bitter partisan rancor surrounding Georgia’s pair of runoff elections for two U.S. Senate races. Civility has definitely taken a backseat to rage and bitterness this month in the Peach State as we march toward January 5, election day for the runoff (although early voting has already begun).

 

In the two races, incumbent Republican senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler face challenges from Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. The two races are the most important in recent memory because their outcome will determine whether Republicans or Democrats control the Senate beginning in 2021.

 

Here’s what’s getting lost amid all the political squabbling: When the dust settles and winners are declared, both sides will need to come together to work on solutions to our country’s challenges. But if we lose our dignity and sense of purpose in an effort to get our candidate elected, that kind of cooperation is far more challenging. Ultimately in that type of scenario, we will have lost regardless of the electoral outcome.

 

What’s more, it’s important to remember that our problems won’t magically disappear after the January 5 runoff. Thinking so is to believe that elected officials hold the absolute power to solve our problems. They don’t. 

 

The fact of the matter is that peoples’ lives meaningfully improve locally when neighbors help neighbors. That’s the key: Our neighbors, whom we’re treating so poorly right now in this election fight, will still be there after we know the election results. We’ll still need to love them, help them, to build better neighborhoods, communities, and ultimately a better Georgia.

 

That is a fundamental value of the team here at the Georgia Center for Opportunity. We put the dignity of people far above temporary election wins. We realize that in-fighting and partisan squabbling hurts people, when we should be looking for ways to cross the aisle to cooperate in an effort to reduce poverty, expand economic mobility, increase access to quality education options for all families, help people succeed in their relationships and families, and connect people with meaningful work.

 

We must remember the humanity of other people. We must understand that a difference of opinion does not diminish our inherent worth as human beings worthy of respect. We’re encouraging all Georgians to go vote in these crucial runoff elections, but don’t cast your ballot and call it a day. Let’s practice the Golden Rule: Loving our neighbors regardless of their politics and looking for ways to work together to find common solutions to the challenges we face.

 

In the end, I realize that Christmas cheer is alive and well across Georgia, evident in everyday acts of kindness, charity, and goodwill. We’ll still be helping our neighbors in the weeks leading up to January 5, and we’ll continue helping them in the weeks, months, and years that follow.

 

Georgia made national headlines after Tuesday’s primary elections. Most of the coverage focused on long lines, mail-in ballots, new voting machines, and results that were not finalized until the wee hours of the morning. (In fact, some results are still pending). 

There were some high profile contests, including a couple of congressional races. Every member of Georgia’s General Assembly (except, of course, for those retiring) were also on the ballot. 

But there was one outcome of Tuesday’s election that you’ve likely heard nothing about.

Both parties have the ability to put non-binding referendum questions on their respective primary ballots. While the results of these questions have no force of law, it is a great way to test voter opinion on various policy ideas. The results are far more accurate than a poll and can help parties and candidates understand the will of the super voters among the electorate.

This year, Republicans included the following as ballot question #1: “Should Georgia lawmakers expand educational options by allowing a student’s state education dollars to follow to the school that best fits their needs, whether that is public, private, magnet, charter, virtual or homeschool?”

The results were overwhelming: as of this writing (results are still coming in), more than 73 percent of voters said “yes.” In fact, the question had majority support in every single one of Georgia’s 159 counties, destroying a common narrative that rural voters don’t support school choice. In all but 12 counties, support was over  two-thirds. In many cases, the ballot question will ultimately receive more support than the Senate or House member representing the district. 

You might be tempted to argue that this only speaks to support for educational options among Republicans. And while the Democratic Party of Georgia didn’t include this question on their primary ballots, making an apples-to-apples comparison impossible, other polling in the state consistently shows support for school choice among all Demographics—Republicans, Democrats, rural, urban, young, old, men, and women. 

Even an AJC poll, worded in such a way as to be biased in the negative, found that 61 percent  of voters supported school choice, even when warned that it might “undercut public school funding.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting school closures, many families were forced into alternative ways of schooling for the first time ever. Families’ experience with how traditional public schools handled the shift to distance learning was mixed and inconsistent. Some schools and teachers excelled, ensuring students did not lose out on learning. Others threw their hands up  early, and kids have suffered. 

In the aftermath of these experiences, and in light of all the uncertainty facing a reopening of traditional public schools in the fall, many families have begun searching for alternatives–virtual education programs, private schools, and innovative public charter schools. 

But will public policy change to support these students who need something outside of the traditional model of education? So far, CARES Act relief has focused millions of dollars to the state Department of Education, local districts, and traditional public schools. Nothing to date has been offered to families whose students fell behind, need to play “catch-up” over the summer, or need a different environment when school returns in the fall. 

If legislators and state leaders are paying attention, that should change.

In recent years, there has been a reluctance on the part of legislators to expand existing school choice programs or create new ones. Usually, the argument goes that it will not be politically expedient to do so. 

Legislators might be dismissive of polling, but if they ignore actual voters who went all the way to the end of the ballot and chose to say “yes” when asked if money should follow the child to the best school for them, it could ultimately be at their own peril. 

Now that voters have spoken—clearly and specifically—how will legislators respond? Will they listen to the will of those who elected them? Elected officials (or those who wish to be elected in the future) have the ultimate opportunity for a win-win: they can give kids the educational opportunities they need and deserve while giving voters what they support and demand.

 

 

 

Some things in life are guaranteed: death, taxes, and left-leaning professors in the ivory tower. Proof? The percentage of professors identifying as “far-left” increased from 42 percent in 1990 to 60 percent in 2014, according to UCLA researchers. Another study published last year found that professors who are registered as Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 12 to 1. At Harvard, 84 percent of the faculty’s political contributions went to Democrats. The College Fix reports that the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 17 departments have no professors registered as Republicans—zero.

As featured recently in the AJC, an Iowa lawmaker proposed legislation that would require universities to balance the number of Republican and Democrat-professing professors that schools hire. A bill so narrowly focused on universities’ employment practices leaves room—as well-intentioned legislation often does—for unintended consequences. Based on the polling above, there may not be enough professors on the right of the political isle to fill such a quota.

Lawmakers in Iowa—and Georgia—should consider a more fundamental issue: Protecting free speech on campus, no matter where you place yourself on the ideological spectrum. Disagree with many people in class? Engage in debate and discover the power of ideas and value of persuasion. So far this year, lawmakers in at least four states are considering resolutions or legislation that protects free speech on campus (Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Illinois). The new bills are modeled after Campus Free Speech: A Legislative Proposal by Stanley Kurtz from the Ethics and Public Policy Center and Jim Manley and myself from the Goldwater Institute.

The model legislation takes a comprehensive approach to protecting free expression on public college and university campuses. The bill prevents universities from designating so-called campus “free speech zones,” which actually limit what you can say and where you can say it. The bill allows individuals to speak and act freely on college grounds, as long as they do not interfere with others’ ability to do so. The bill also requires public universities to adopt mission statements in favor of free speech and make sure this material is available to existing and prospective students and faculty. Schools will be required to release an annual report on the condition of free speech on campus.

Colleges should be neutral on the issues and provide space for students and faculty to debate. Once students have left the college bubble, they are destined to encounter people with different opinions. Getting along and working peaceably with—and yes, when the time comes, even amicably disagreeing with—such people is a part of adulthood. No better time to practice these skills than when in college.

 baby hand in parent hand

By now, almost everyone who isn’t a Democratic United States Senator has seen at least one of the five macabre videotapes released by the Center for Medical Progress, a pro-life investigative group. The videos are ubiquitous in social media, so I won’t provide links to them here.

In a recent post, AJC columnist Jay Bookman has provided a nice example of the arguments offered by those who continue to defend Planned Parenthood in the face of these—to say the least—embarrassing revelations. Here are his five points, together with my responses.

1. Nothing in the tapes provides evidence of illegal, let alone criminal, behavior. Planned Parenthood is allowed by law to recover its costs in collecting, preserving and transporting that tissue, and there is no evidence it violated that law. Tellingly, and despite the melodramatic complaints of conservatives, the videos have so far resulted in no criminal investigation or prosecution by state or federal authorities. Yelling and the beating of chests doesn’t alter that basic fact. Fabricated outrage doesn’t change that. Simply put, in legal terms there is no “there” there.

Not so fast, Mr. Bookman. The Planned Parenthood representatives are indeed cagey and circumspect and there is, to be sure, no straightforward smoking gun, but like all bureaucrats, they seem to know that there are expenses and then there are expenses. It may take a lot of trouble to untangle what’s a genuine “cost” and what amounts to a profit over and above costs. That the Department of Justice or a federal prosecutor hasn’t yet commenced an investigation doesn’t mean that the DOJ or a D.A. won’t, though given the track record of this Administration with respect to abortion, I’m not holding my breath. A real federal investigation may have to await a new Administration, or a Congressional investigation that forces the current Attorney General’s hand. So there is nothing at all “telling” about the lack of federal action so far. And if I’m not mistaken, at least twelve states have commenced investigations.

2. The law making such research legal was passed in 1993, and among those voting in favor of that bill was one Mitch McConnell, the same man who now claims that videos documenting what he voted to make legal “absolutely shock the conscience.” Other current GOP senators who backed that ’93 law were Richard Shelby, John McCain, Dan Coats, Chuck Grassley, Thad Cochran and Orrin Hatch, many of whom are now backing a shutdown.

Even if the research is authorized by law, it’s one thing to consider that research in the abstract, another altogether to confront graphically what it means and requires (the dissection of a recognizably human body). Perhaps the law needs to be changed. And even if we decide not to change the law that permits the research, there’s no reason why we have to fund either it or the organization that provides the human organs on which the researchers work.

3. Those receiving the fetal tissue are not ghouls of some sort, and the tissue is not being put to inappropriate or disrespectful use.  To the contrary, the tissue is crucial to research into treatments to extend and improve human life, research that would be impossible to conduct without that material. As the New York Times reports, “the National Institutes of Health spent $76 million on research using fetal tissue in 2014 with grants to more than 50 universities, including Columbia, Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Yale and the University of California in Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.”

While we aren’t necessarily talking about Dr. Josef Mengele here, why must we assume a congruence between the demands of science and “democratic” morality? A careful reading of Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis—the great work on science and politics written by the greatest and most perspicuous thinker on that subject—makes it clear enough for anyone who has eyes to see that there’s a pretty significant disconnect between science and ordinary morality. Curiosity and the ambition to master nature can take one pretty far from what’s decent and respectful. The more powerful science is, the greater mastery of nature it promises us, the more attention we must pay to it and the less we should avert our eyes from its practices. There may be benefits—which, by the way, are at the moment for the most part simply speculative—that aren’t worth the cost.

4. All tissue used in that research is donated by clinic patients, who receive no compensation for doing so. Their sole motive is to help fellow human beings. If we ban the use of such material in research, we accomplish absolutely nothing except to halt that potentially life-saving research. So which is the true “pro-life” position?

As C.S. Lewis argues in The Abolition of Man, there’s a moral cost in treating human beings as meat, or of denying the humanity of a being that is recognizably human. In so doing, we run the palpable risk of dehumanizing ourselves, of numbing our moral sense. Indeed, Lewis’s work ought to be absolutely required reading for anyone who wishes to comment intelligently on these issues.

5. None of the $500 million in federal funding going to Planned Parenthood is used to finance abortions. It is used instead to give low-income women access to contraceptives, maternity care, breast-cancer and ovarian-cancer screenings, and vaccinations against sexually transmitted diseases. If we strip Planned Parenthood of funding for such programs as punishment for the “crime” of following the law and providing tissue for medical research, no other organization has the infrastructure, personnel and training to provide those health-care services. In effect, those women and their children would be the innocent victims of a successful effort to defund Planned Parenthood.

While there may not be a single national organization capable of picking up the slack of PPFA’s arguably overstated non-abortion business, the federal funding that it receives can be put to precisely the same use by a myriad of community health centers and nonprofits in the health, not the abortion, business all over the country. Indeed, the proposed Senate bill preserves every penny of women’s health funding, mandating simply that it go to health clinics, not abortion clinics.

I’ve mentioned two pieces of what I regard as required background reading. Let me close with a third, Dr. Leon Kass’ classic, “The Wisdom of Repugnance”:

Revulsion is not an argument; and some of yesterday’s repugnances are today calmly accepted-though, one must add, not always for the better. In crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it. Can anyone really give an argument fully adequate to the horror which is father-daughter incest (even with consent), or having sex with animals, or mutilating a corpse, or eating human flesh, or even just (just!) raping or murdering another human being? Would anybody’s failure to give full rational justification for his or her revulsion at these practices make that revulsion ethically suspect? Not at all. On the contrary, we are suspicious of those who think that they can rationalize away our horror, say, by trying to explain the enormity of incest with arguments only about the genetic risks of inbreeding.

Flag with Declaration

I used to admire and respect Michael Bowers, Georgia’s Attorney General from 1981 to 1997, but his recent intervention in the debate over the religious freedom bills ought to embarrass him.  To be sure, losing my respect won’t cost him any sleep and the mainstream media will only celebrate his move from what it regards as the wrong side of history to the right side.  Still, he ought to be embarrassed because the letter he wrote against the House and Senate versions of the bill is a regrettable, albeit entirely predictable, combination of hysteria and inconsistency.

Let’s start with the hysteria.  The law, he says, will provide people with an excuse for practicing invidious discrimination and enable every person to justify on the basis of religion becoming a law unto himself or herself.  And as if this weren’t bad enough, Bowers invokes the spectre of the KKK returning fully garbed in hoods, a practice he alleges might well be protected by the proposed Georgia legislation.

Well, no, no, and a thousand times no.

In the first place, Bowers doesn’t actually argue that the law permits invidious discrimination; he merely asserts the following:

The proposed RFRA is nothing more than an effort to legalize discrimination against disfavored groups, requiring only the discriminating party’s assertion of a burden on his or her…purported religious belief.

I’ll explain shortly why this is an extremely misleading “explanation” of what the bill will do, but, for now, I’ll restrict myself to recounting how he reaches this conclusion.  It’s all, he says, in the timing.  If the Georgia legislature had taken seriously the threat to religious liberty that came from the Supreme Court’s decision in Employment Division v. Smith, why did it wait more than twenty years to do so?  The answer can only be “same sex marriage.”  Religious liberty is simply the fig leaf behind which those who want to deny gays and lesbians marriage equality (not to mention other sorts of equality) are going to try to hide.

I agree that timing is an issue, but not in the way Bowers insists.  There is a new sense of urgency, not about protecting people’s “right” to discriminate, but rather about protecting traditional religious belief and practice from aggressive attempts to use state and judicial power to force people to conform to the new order.  Some of these threats were, well, not quite unimaginable but barely on the horizon as recently as just a few years ago.  Remember pro-life Michigan Democratic Congressman Bart Stupak, who supported the Affordable Care Act in exchange for an executive order reaffirming that no federal funds would pay for abortions?  Just a few years later, the contraception mandate enforced by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services violated that promise, according to a rueful Stupak.  Student religious organizations have effectively been run off college campuses (not everywhere, to be sure) because they require that their officers actually share the principles of the organization.  And yes, businesspeople who in other instances have been quite happy to serve their gay and lesbian customers have sought to draw the line at providing services to same-sex wedding ceremonies they don’t and can’t conscientiously support.  Traditional religious believers can be excused for feeling more than a bit threatened by all these developments and thinking that more robust religious liberty protection is required.

Let me turn now to the “law unto himself or herself” canard.  Here’s Bowers’ best explanation of this claim (oddly in the section of the letter supposedly devoted to his contention about invidious discrimination):

Any time a person wished to refuse to act in response to a government requirement, he or she could assert the protection of the proposed RFRA.  Whether legitimate or not, a controversy would likely ensue involving law enforcement officials, school officials, hospital administrators, or other government officers, and possibly the courts.  The potential undermining of the rule of law is limitless.

It seems to me that this contention proves too much, as anyone could make the same claim about the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment due process clause.  Does Bowers want to throw those out too, as they certainly can serve as bases for an individual refusing “to act in response to a government requirement”?  The point that Bowers doesn’t ever really concede directly is that a RFRA claim isn’t an automatic trump against government action or regulation; it merely demands that government articulate a compelling state interest and that the measure proposed be the least restrictive means to achieve that interest.  These questions are for a judge to decide, and the individual resisting the law or regulation may not win.  The interest could indeed be compelling, as I assume prohibiting genuinely invidious discrimination might be, and the means chosen could be the least restrictive possible.  The RFRA merely offers religious believers a recourse in the event that the proverbial tyrannical majority (about which James Madison worried in Federalist #10) decides that the shortest route between two points is a straight line through religious freedom.  Indeed, by assuring that the law in the largest sense protects the rights government is “ordained and established” (the words of the Declaration of Independence) to protect, a RFRA actually serves to maintain public confidence in the rule of law.

And then there are the hooded knights of the KKK, which amounts to pure fear-mongering on Bowers’ behalf, something that ought to have been entirely unworthy of a former Attorney General.  Given Georgia’s history, if anything is a compelling state interest, it’s keeping the KKK from hiding behind hoods as it spews its hatred.

And again—it bears repeating, since Bowers so frequently encourages misunderstanding—whether a RFRA claim stands depends not upon the individual asserting it, but upon the judge hearing the case.  Of course, Bowers has to acknowledge this point, but he attempts to deprive it of its force by making what judges will do seem altogether unpredictable:

It is impossible to anticipate whether Georgia courts would follow the lead of the Eleventh Circuit and interpret the RFRA as co-extensive with First Amendment jurisprudence or whether the courts would treat RFRA as ushering in a new era of religious freedom jurisprudence that strikes down neutral laws of general applicability based on an alleged burden on the exercise of religion.

All he has is this uncertainty about what courts will do.  He has to concede that other courts—state and federal—have most emphatically not permitted the parade of horribles with which he has regaled us in the letter.  Indeed, one of the best reviews of our state and federal RFRA experience suggests that we have little or nothing to worry about and, indeed, much to which to look forward.

Let me conclude by offering one note of agreement with Bowers’ argument.  I also worry about what judges might do, especially where religious freedom is concerned.  I don’t want what some have called our first freedom to depend upon what might be the whim of a magistrate.  To be sure, I try to have as high an opinion as possible of our state and federal judges, but have to confess that I have been disappointed more than a few times by their decisions and the quality of the reasoning in support of them.  I wish it hadn’t come to this.  I wish that popular and legislative majorities were always respectful and solicitous of the rights of those who seem to stand in their way.  I wish that righteous and self-righteous indignation didn’t all too often get the better of us.  I wish that we were more frequently visited by “the better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it in his First Inaugural.  I pray for all of this, but I’m also going to urge my representatives to vote for these pieces of legislation.

 

Dr. Joseph M. Knipperberg is a contributing scholar at the Georgia Center for Opportunity and Professor of Politics at Oglethorpe University.

Opinions expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Georgia Center for Opportunity.

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