Hank Schwab of Atlanta at a gathering in support of Republican Senate candidate David Perdue in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Jason Getz/Getty Images

PoliticsNovember 3, 2018

What are the US midterms, and why do they mean so much for President Trump?

Tim Watkin

Guest writer

Hank Schwab of Atlanta at a gathering in support of Republican Senate candidate David Perdue in Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Jason Getz/Getty Images

It’s time for the midterm elections in the US, which means President Donald Trump faces his first nationwide electoral test since his surprise victory in the 2016 presidential election, writes RNZ’s Tim Watkin.

No, Trump isn’t on the ballot, but more than ever when Americans go to the poll next week, they will essentially be taking part in a referendum on the presidency. All the news coverage is that the stakes are high and the result could have an impact on politics for years to come. How so? Let’s break this down.

Can we start with when and what?

Election day is 6 November. US elections are always held on a Tuesday because in the mid-1800s it allowed a day for rural people to travel to the booths after the Sabbath. They’re called midterms because they occur half way through the four-year presidential term.

Who are people voting for?

The US electoral system has presidents elected every four years, but all 435 members of the House of Representatives – and a third of all Senate members – are elected every two years. Senators serve staggered six year terms (so out of the 100 senators, 35 seats are being contested this year). Add to that 36 governorships and more than 6000 seats in state legislatures.

So how do things stand now?

Republicans hold 235 seats in the House and 51 seats in the Senate. The Democrats 193 and 47, respectively. Seven House seats are vacant and two senators are independent. So Republicans hold a majority in both as well as having their man in the White House, which means if the party can whip its many members to vote with one voice, they can pretty much do as they want. Democrats need to win at least 23 more seats in the House and two in the Senate.

And the mood?

Polarised. In the extreme. And angry. Former vice president Joe Biden has said, “hate is on the march in America”. The Democrat’s candidate for governor of Florida is African-American and has been the subject of robocalls saying, “Well, hello there. I is the negro Andrew Gillum…”. In Pennsylvania, the Republican candidate warned his opponent to wear a face mask because he was going to stomp all over his face in golf spikes. And the Anti-Defamation League reports an increase anti-semitic attacks online, mostly by bots.

Amy Walter, national editor of the Cook Political Report newsletter, said last week: “The best way to think about where we are today is that we’re having elections in two different Americas.”

So what normally happens in midterms?

The president’s party almost always loses seats at the first midterms, because the people who lost most recently are most likely to turn out to express their displeasure. Also, the reality of power typically means presidents can’t achieve everything they promised on the campaign trail, especially in just two years, so some supporters express their frustration. Turnout is usually low.

So why all this fuss?

For a start, surveys are suggesting huge voter interest. Huge. So forget what I just said about low turnout. More people than usual voted in the primaries when parties selected their candidates, polls speak of high reported self-interest, and most of all, early voter turnout is up. Two weeks out, more than 8 million early votes had been cast, ahead of even the 2016 presidential election.

One October poll said 62% of Americans thought this was the most important midterms in their lifetimes.

Exciting! And that Senate’s pretty tight, huh?

Funnily enough, the Senate is considered easier for the Republicans to retain. Out of the 35 Senate seats up for election, the Democrats have to defend 24 and the Republicans just nine. What’s more, many of the Senate seats being contested are in what might be called Trump country. For example, ten of those seats the Democrats are trying to defend are in states that voted Trump in 2017. So the Republicans could actually make gains.

What about the House?

Most experts are predicting the House to change hands, with 15-22 House seats considered pretty certain to switch from Republican to Democrat. That’s not enough, of course, but the respected Cook Political Report lists as many as 50 more Republican seats as toss-ups, which means the Democrats have what is being called “a target rich environment”. It says the race has been getting closer but Democrats remain favourites to take the House. They’re expected to do well in the governors’ races too.

Trump is deeply unpopular in suburban America, where the Republicans have previously done well.

Oh yeah Trump. So why’s this such a big deal for him?

Trump, like Barack Obama before him, has had the numbers his way for the first half of his first term. Both men were able to nominate two Supreme Court justices in that time, whose politics reflect their own party’s, and control the agenda. But in 2010 Democrats lost the House, a result Obama famously called “a shellacking”. Afterwards, Republicans had the numbers to fight back on issues such healthcare and the debt ceiling. Trump and the Republicans fear the same, but in reverse. For example, they would expect to have another go at cutting or abolishing Obamacare if they control all of Congress, but can be stopped if they lose the House. And while Brett Kavanaugh is already confirmed, Democrats could stall any future Supreme Court appointments until after the 2020 presidential elections.

But there’s something more personal at stake for Trump, right?

You betcha. It’s the House that launches impeachment proceedings against a president. And Supreme Court judges, for that matter. While it takes two-thirds of the Senate to actually impeach, the proceedings themselves can swallow a presidency. As Trump has said of these midterms, “I’m not on the ticket, but I am on the ticket, because this is also a referendum about me.”

What issues are the parties trying to focus on?

Republicans have doubled down on Trump. Many are running on his endorsements and record. They are talking about the strong economy and immigration concerns, pouncing on the migrant caravan heading towards the US from central America. Democrats had been trying to ignore Trump (figuring people have made up their minds about him), instead talking about saving Obamacare and local issues. But both campaigns have been over-shadowed by violence – the pipe-bombs last week and the synagogue killings of 11 people in Pittsburgh.

Things to watch for?

Democrat Rashida Tlaib is running unopposed in a House seat and so will become the first Muslim women in Congress. Stacey Abrams is in a neck-and-neck race in Georgia and if she wins she will become America’s first black woman governor. Deb Haaland is set to become the first Native American woman in Congress and could be joined by another, Sharice Davids

There are dozens of races that will give you clues as to whether or not the House will flip, but keep an eye on California’s 25th and 39th districts, Texas’s 32nd, New Jersey’s third, New Mexico’s second and Colorado’s sixth.

Keep going!

Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis. (Photo credit FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI/AFP/Getty Images)

PoliticsNovember 2, 2018

Kelvin Davis has a cunning plan to cut the prison population – and it’s working

Roger Brooking

Guest writer

Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis. (Photo credit FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI/AFP/Getty Images)

For 15 years justice advocate Roger Brooking has been campaigning for prison reform with an increasing sense of despair. Now, for the first time, he sees reasons to be hopeful.

The Labour government is in a tricky situation with regard to justice reform. Justice Minister Andrew Little and Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis want to reduce the prison population by 30%. The fly in the ointment is NZ First, the coalition partner which shot down Little’s recent proposal to repeal the three strikes law.

Given NZ First’s uncompromising stance on law and order, Labour is unlikely to pass any legislative proposals related to crime and punishment in this parliamentary term. But Kelvin Davis and Corrections have come up with a cunning plan to start reforming our prison system anyway.

Instead of repealing the three strikes law or the Bail Amendment Act, Davis has persuaded management in the department to alleviate obstacles in the way offenders are processed in prison. Corrections deputy national commissioner Leigh Marsh was put in charge of the project and has come up with two main strategies.

Bail Support Service

One is to assist the growing number of defendants on remand apply for bail in the community instead of spending months in prison waiting for their case to come up.

Since the Bail Amendment Act was passed in 2013 making it more difficult for defendants to get bail, offenders are now far more likely to be remanded in prison. However, they may be eligible to apply for electronically monitored bail (known as ebail); the defendant has to come up with a suitable address, and whoever lives there (usually family), has to give their permission.

To apply, the offender has to write to the people in the house and ask if he can stay there on ebail. He may not know the exact address, another obstacle. Even if he does, whomever he writes to might not bother to reply. If they say no, the prisoner has to come up with someone else to write to. Of course, all this assumes the prisoner can read and write – when the reality is that 70% of those in prison struggle with basic literacy. In other words, this is a slow, frustrating procedure and most of those on remand just give up and wait till their day in court.

Now Corrections has put a rocket under remand by creating a bail support service. Bail officers visit the prisoner the day after he is remanded in prison to assist with the paperwork, and contact the appropriate support people. They also liase with defence counsel and try to get the defendant’s bail application before a judge within a week. This has cut dramatically the amount of time that prisoners spend on remand.

Parole ready

Corrections’ other new strategy is to help sentenced prisoners become ‘parole ready’. The background to this is that the Parole Board will not generally release any prisoner until he or she has completed a criminogenic rehabilitation programme. Often the board insists that prisoners must do two rehab programmes before they are considered ready for release.

The problem was that until Kelvin Davis got involved, Corrections made little effort to put prisoners into programmes until they were near the end of their sentence. That meant most prisoners would end up serving almost their entire sentence, even though they became eligible for parole after completing one third.

By failing to put prisoners into programmes early on in their sentence, Corrections was actively preventing them from being paroled – including low to medium risk prisoners, who make up the bulk of the prison population.

Marsh says that Corrections is now making more of an effort to place prisoners into programmes before their first parole hearing – something they have never done before. As a result, in the last 12 months approximately 5% more prisoners have been released on parole.

Impact

These changes have made a significant difference. According to Newsroom: “The population peaked in March at 10,820 and on 3 October had dropped to 10,035 – a 7.3% fall.”

Two days later Stuff reported: “The prison population has dipped below 10,000 for the first time in more than two years”.

Given that prison numbers have been rising steadily for over 50 years, it is too early to tell whether this is just a temporary blip or part of a new trend. One thing is clear. This new approach involves a great deal more respect for offenders’ humanity and a much greater commitment to due process. Instead of chucking offenders into prison to take their chances with an unresponsive system riddled with insurmountable obstacles, now Corrections is actively trying to help offenders get out and stay out.

I have to say, that’s a novel idea – one that has never been tried before in New Zealand.

Cost savings

But wait, there’s more. It costs $110,000 a yearto keep someone in prison. Since there are already 800 less prisoners, that’s a potential saving of $88 million in one year. If these initiatives had been introduced 20 years ago, the savings would have been $1.7 billion. If these initiatives continue to work and eventually cut the prison population by Labour’s goal of 3,000, that would save $330 million a year. Over the next 20 years, we would save $6.6 billion.

Even Blackadder would agree – this is a very cunning plan. It’s called common sense.

Roger Brooking blogs at brookingblog.com

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