Democracy Day - from Bernie Sanders

[Triana]

This week I introduced legislation to make Election Day a national holiday -- Democracy Day.

I am doing this because, as a nation, we should be embarrassed by the abysmally low voter turnout that we experienced in last week's midterm elections.

In 1863 at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln described our democratic form of government as one "of the people, by the people and for the people." And where are we today? Are we "of the people, by the people, and for the people" when 60 percent of those people didn't vote and 80 percent of young and low-income people failed to vote? Are we a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" when poll after poll shows that most Americans can't even name the political parties that control the U.S. Senate and U.S. House or who their members of Congress are? Are we a government "of the people, by the people and for the people" when billionaires can spend unlimited amounts of money to elect candidates to represent their interests?



Nationwide, preliminary indications are that the total turnout in the recent mid-term election was only 36.6 percent, according to the United States Elections Project at the University of Florida. If the preliminary estimates hold true, last week's turnout will be the lowest in modern American history and a full 22-point drop-off from the 2012 presidential election.

THE REST:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-bernie-sanders/democracy-day_b_6148576.html

[B Calm]

1. 100 times more important than voting on Keystone. We'll see how far

this goes.

[think]

2. K&R.

This would be a great start but far more really needs to be done to protect voting rights...