Election 2010

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November 22, 2010 | 11:25 PM | By

Some good reads as State Question 755 winds its way through court

Photo by Il Primo Uomo/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A temporary restraining order will continue in effect until the end of this month blocking a controversial new Oklahoma law that, if implemented, would amend the state’s constitution to ban the use of Islamic Sharia law in the state’s courts. United Press International reported that in a hearing today, a federal judge in Oklahoma City extended an order blocking implementation of what was known on the ballot as State Question 755, approved by voters in the Nov. 2 election.

The ballot initiative was approved by an overwhelming majority – 70 percent – even though there is no known instance of Islamic law ever being cited in Oklahoma courts.

Two days after the ballot measure was approved, the director of the Oklahoma chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations filed suit to stop its implementation on constitutional grounds. Today the restraining order was extended until Nov. 29, when a ruling is expected on whether the law violates the U.S. constitution.

So what to make of this complicated case unfolding halfway across the country, and what broader implications does it have beyond the Sooner State, for Muslims and non-Muslims? There have been some interesting reads lately regarding State Question 755, the questions it raises, the conversations surrounding it, and the political implications it carries.

Here are a few:

  • The New York Times had a great piece last weekend examining the role that Islam (and anti-Islamic fear-mongering) played in the election, to the extent that one state lawmaker who didn’t support the measure because he thought it unnecessary was ridiculed in mailers sent out by his opponent’s campaign that showed him next to “a shadowy figure in an Arab headdress.”
  • Slate recently published a good explainer on what constitutes an Islamic will. The lawsuit filed by CAIR Oklahoma’s director Muneer Awad alleges that the anti-Sharia law initiative would essentially invalidate Islamic wills, which are quite specific.
  • Time published a piece the other day that pointed out what for some is already obvious: Muslims have now joined Latinos and others before them as an election-year cultural wedge minority. “The strategy of designating an alien ‘other’ for political ends is hardly new in human history, and over the centuries it has been employed with equal expediency by the left and the right,” the piece reads. Continue reading →
FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, Election 2010, Islam, Oklahoma, Sharia law, State Question 755
November 3, 2010 | 1:38 PM | By

Quote of the moment: A Latino first-time voter on offensive campaign ads

“That was the final straw. She was depicting me as a gang member. I served seven years in the Marine Corps.”

- Gilberto Ramirez, a Reno concrete worker and first-time voter quoted in the Las Vegas Sun regarding defeated Senate candidate Sharron Angle’s campaign ads

The Sun and various other news outlets have reported on just how critically decisive the Latino vote was in the re-election of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Reid captured the support of 90 percent of Nevada’s Latino voters, who turned out in record numbers – some, like recently-naturalized citizen Ramirez, incensed by a series of much-criticized campaign ads from Reid’s Republican opponent Sharron Angle.

Perhaps the Angle ad that drew the most ire was one called “The Wave,” in which images of young Latino-looking men appeared with a voiceover that began: “Waves of illegal aliens streaming across our border, joining violent gangs, forcing families to live in fear…”

The Sun story referred to the record Latino voter turnout as a “likely backlash to an ad aired by a Republican operative explicitly telling Hispanics not to vote, as well as inflammatory ads from Angle’s campaign that used images of Hispanic youth dressed as gang members.”

For future campaign ad directors, food for thought.

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, Election 2010, Sen. Harry Reid, Sharron Angle, U.S.-Mexico border
November 3, 2010 | 1:01 PM | By

Reaction to Oklahoma’s controversial, precedent-setting anti-Sharia law

Photo by Il Primo Uomo/Flickr (Creative Commons)

A closely watched and potentially influential state initiative banning the use of Islamic Sharia law (also spelled Shariah and Shari’ah) in Oklahoma passed by an overwhelming margin yesterday.

In The Washington Post’s On Faith column today, political science professor Muqtedar Khan wrote:

Critics of Shariah in Oklahoma argue that they also oppose the Shariah law because it is against freedom of religion. In this age, when ignorance and bigotry are being celebrated in America, I am sure that most people in Oklahoma must have missed the irony in the situation.

The key sentence in the State question 755 is: It forbids courts from considering or using international law. It forbids courts from considering or using Shariah Law. The proposition also bans international law. To consider how ignorant both the authors and the voters of the proposition are, please take a look at Article Six, Section I, Clause II of the US constitution. It is called the supremacy clause.

According to this clause, international treaties to which the U.S. government is a signatory become “the supreme law of the land”. Treaties, along with custom and UN declarations are the main sources of international law (the proposition 755 actually mentions it). Thus by rejecting international law the proposition designed to institutionalize Islamophobia in Oklahoma, has effectually said “thanks, but no thanks” to the U.S. Constitution.

The initiative, approved by more than 70 percent of Oklahoma voters, is relevant beyond that state. It has been seen as a potential precursor to similar anti-Sharia “pre-emptive strike” initiatives in other states, and to Muslims taking on the role of cultural wedge minority in state political campaigns, a role now predominantly occupied by Latinos.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, Election 2010, Islam, Sharia law, State Question 755
November 2, 2010 | 9:49 PM | By

At the ‘Ve y Vota’ call center: Taking calls, questions, complaints since 3 a.m.

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

Taking calls at the "Ve y Vota" voter outreach campaign's call center tonight in South L.A.

It’s been a long day, but not as long for most as it has been for some of the people staffing the “Ve y Vota” call center at the South L.A. headquarters of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, where calls from voters have been coming in since 3 a.m.

The phone bank, one of several around the country put together by the same team of advocacy and media groups as part of a voter outreach campaign, has been fielding calls as simple as “Where do I vote?” to calls about voter intimidation and rude poll workers, with complaints referred to volunteer attorneys.

So far, the complaints coming in to this particular call center – which has been taking calls from around the country (with some phone staffers in since before dawn) and will be open until midnight – have been relatively minimal, with the most excitement surrounding media reports of Spanish-language “robocalls” and mailers advising recipients to vote a day late. So far, the only thing confirmed by staffers has been a bilingual flyer in New York state with a Nov. 3 date in the Spanish translation, said Gladys Negrete, a data analyst with the NALEO Educational Fund.

There have been reports of aggressive electioneering, including one from Arizona where voters were shouted at and called names, but no physical altercations have yet been reported to the center. Most interesting, however, has been the nature of some of the questions.

“Callers have been asking more about the propositions, the judges,” Negrete said. “Before it was more like, ‘Am I registered?’ I’ve only seen this in this election cycle.”

One reason might be the growing influence and reach of Spanish-language media outlets, who have greatly expanded their coverage this election season. Workers at the call center can’t offer advice on how to vote, but have been explaining the measures from the information in voter pamphlets, she said.

The call center is one of several around the country put together by NALEO and its partners in the long-running “Ya Es Hora” (Now is the Time) national voter outreach campaign, which includes advocacy groups such as the National Council of La Raza and media companies like the Univision network and ImpreMedia, which operates La Opinión.

FILED UNDER: Politics/Justice, Election 2010, NALEO, South Los Angeles, Ve y Vota
November 2, 2010 | 5:44 PM | By

More attempts to dissuade Latino voters reported

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

Outside a polling place today in Bell, Calif.

Two weeks after news broke of an unaired ad campaign urging Latinos not to vote, efforts to dissuade Latinos from the polls have reportedly continued into the eleventh hour.

Election Protection, a polling watchdog group, has told the Associated Press that about two dozen Los Angeles residents have received automated calls in Spanish and printed mailers instructing them not to vote until tomorrow, the day after the midterm election. An official from the group said it’s believed that most of the calls and mailers have been received since yesterday morning.

Some voters in Bell, a city in southeast Los Angeles County that is more than 90 percent Latino, reported receiving similar calls recently. Father and son Porfirio and Irving Quijada, both of Bell, said this morning at their polling place that they had received an anonymous voicemail message about two weeks ago urging them not to vote, and that others in their neighborhood had received calls like this, too.

“They called me and told me not to vote,” said Porfirio Quijada, 53, who said he’d never received such a call in previous election years. “I didn’t get a name, it was a message.”

Two weeks ago, a GOP-affiliated group that calls itself Latinos for Reform released English- and Spanish-language television spots online aimed at Latinos with the message, “Don’t vote.” A few radio spots with the ad’s voiceover were aired by Univision stations in Nevada, but the network declined to air the television ads and stopped airing the radio spots following complaints.

Election Protection has a list of trouble spots in elections around the country, including in Houston, Texas, where African-American voters have been targeted with a deceptive flyer.

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, Election 2010, Latino voters, Latinos for Reform
November 2, 2010 | 11:46 AM | By

At the polls in Bell, voters are still smarting

Photo by Leslie Berestein Rojas/KPCC

Voters lined up this morning outside a polling place at the Iglesia de Dios church in Bell, Calif.

Is the political corruption that scandalized Bell a few months ago helping drive voter turnout there today?

Poll workers at one of two polling places set up at the Iglesia de Dios church in eastern Bell, a city that is more than 90 percent Latino, said this morning that it was too early to tell if voter turnout was any bigger than in previous election years, but noted that some voters had asked if they could vote for city officials in this general election.

They can’t – a recall election for the mayor, vice mayor and one city council member is scheduled for March – but some voters outside the polling places in Bell today were smarting nonetheless. Voters said they were angry over the fiscal mismanagement and inordinately high salaries that landed eight city officials in jail earlier this fall, as well as the city’s jacked-up property taxes, the second-highest rate in the county.

“What bothers me is that I lost my home because the property taxes were too high,” said Efrain Torres, 38, a school bus driver and still a Bell resident, now a renter after foreclosing on his home last year. “It bothers me that they were taking this money while people were losing their properties.”

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture/Identity, Politics/Justice, Bell, Election 2010, Los Angeles County