Is the League of Women Voters involved in a Democrat Party scam?
/By Rubashov
If you are a candidate running in the General Election this November, you may have already received a request to attend a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters (LWV). Your first question might be: "Are they on the level?" Wikipedia describes the League of Women Voters (LWV) as follows:
“The League of Women Voters (LWV) is a nonprofit organization in the United States that was formed to help women take a larger role in public affairs after they won the right to vote… Originally, only women could join the league; but in 1973 the charter was modified to include men. LWV operates at the local, state, and national level, with over 1,000 local and 50 state leagues, and one territory league in the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
Although officially non-partisan since its founding in 1920, the LWV has adopted left-of-center policy positions on many issues so that it has come to mirror the Democrat Party. Wikipedia makes this clear:
“The League of Women Voter's primary purpose is to encourage voting by registering voters, providing voter information, and advocating for voting rights. In addition, the LWV supports a variety of progressive public policy positions, including campaign finance reform, universal health care, abortion rights, climate change action and environmental regulation, and gun control.”
Wikipedia notes that the LWV supports the Kyoto Protocol and opposes the Keystone Pipeline project. Wikipedia highlights other policy positions adopted by the LWV:
“The League lobbied for the establishment of the United Nations, and later became one of the first groups to receive status as a nongovernmental organization with the U.N.”
“The League supports the abolition of the death penalty. Furthermore, the League of Women Voters supports abortion rights and strongly opposed the passage of the Partial-Birth Abortion Act.”
“LWV supports universal health care and endorses both Medicaid expansion and the Affordable Care Act. It also supports a general income tax increase to finance national health care reform for the inclusion of reproductive health care, including abortion, in any health benefits package.”
“The League actively opposed welfare reform legislation proposed in the 104th Congress. It also opposes school vouchers. In 1999, LWV challenged a Florida law that allowed students to use school vouchers to attend other schools.”
“In May 2019, the League joined 400 other national, state, and local groups, in urging Congress to ensure passage of legislation that offers a path to citizenship to Dreamers and beneficiaries of temporary protected status and deferred enforced departure.”
“The League advocates gun control policies including regulating firearms and supporting licensing procedures for gun ownership by private citizens to include a waiting period for background checks, personal identity verification, gun safety education and annual license renewal.”
Nevertheless, the LWV presents itself as a non-partisan group – particularly when it comes to moderating debates between candidates of both major parties. But is it genuinely non-partisan? The LWV hasn’t been permitted to moderate a presidential debate for decades. Now, a situation in Passaic County calls into question the LWV’s suitability to moderate debates at any level.
Ringwood is a borough in Passaic County. Originally a Lenape settlement, it’s been officially a borough since the First World War and now has a population of just over 12,000 people. The borough is tucked into a beautiful landscape – the Sierra Club’s Jeff Tittel grew up in Ringwood.
Recently, two of the three Republican candidates for Ringwood Borough Council received a certified letter from the local Democrats asking them to participate at a debate hosted by the League of Women Voters. This raised a flag, because the Democrat operative running the campaign for the local Democrats appears on the LWV website as a Member of its Board of Directors.
Dr. Jennifer M. Howard is the President of the League of Women Voters of New Jersey. She’s a longtime activist from Princeton. Vice President Deborah McComber, of Morristown, “represented the League as co-organizer of the NJ Women’s March in Morristown 2018, adult advisor to March for Our Lives Morristown 2018, and webmaster for the NJ Women’s March 2019.”
LWV Secretary Lauren McCaskill “serves on the Long Branch Board of Education and is a graduate of Emerge New Jersey, a premier national training program geared towards increasing the number of Democratic women leaders in public office.” The League of Women Voter’s website notes that “Lauren has also worked on various political campaigns ranging from national to municipal races.”
And then we come to Jason DeAlessi. The LWV website describes Jason as “an entrepreneur who works in startups across the media, entertainment, real estate, and hospitality industries. His primary focus is currently with Fuerza Strategy Group, where he serves as Managing Director of the boutique digital and creative consulting firm on its projects with clients across the United States in the political and social justice arenas.” Jason “previously served as President of his local Board of Education.”
The LWV website does not explain that Jason DeAlessi is a Democrat Party operative active in Passaic County who previously worked on the state Democrat’s “flip the 40th” program (that’s 40th as in the legislative district). Jason has worked on a great many Democrat campaigns but what concerns us is his involvement with the Democrat candidates in the campaign the LWV wants to moderate a debate for. How is this not a conflict?
How involved is this member of the Board of Directors of the LWV? Well, while his group (LWV) is preparing the questions they’ll ask the candidates, he’s busy doing the opposition research on the Republican candidates. That’s a bit too partisan.
Has the LWV devolved into a networking/ client recruitment scheme for “social justice” entrepreneurs and Democrat Party start-ups? It appears so. And if so, it is simply one more establishment organization that has allowed itself to rot out from the inside through self-dealing, greed, and private corruption. It’s a long list.
“The entire business model of the Democratic Party is to avoid dealing with its own populists’ concerns, so they’ve never seen the Sanders wing of the party as anything but a threat to what they do for a living, which is basically take corporate money and then sell themselves as socially progressive. That’s what they do for a living. That’s their business.”
Matt Taibbi
Journalist and author of Hate, Inc.: Why Today's Media Makes Us Despise One Another.
