Political pundits are already asking how the war in Iran affected the midterm elections. Usually, they mean the price of gasoline and the strain on families already stretching every paycheck to put food on the table. Those burdens have been very real for far too many people.
But the people who bear the cost of war deserve power over the people who choose it. After another election, how much of that power do our votes actually give us?
IVN Editorial Board
Our elections are safe and secure. But counting our votes accurately does not guarantee that politicians have to compete for them. Districts can be drawn to protect incumbents, while closed primaries shut independent voters out of taxpayer-funded contests that often decide who governs them.
Veterans and every American deserve elections that make politicians earn our votes and give us the power to send them home.
That is why Veterans for All Voters has launched the Veterans Voting Index, examining whether those who served this country have meaningful opportunities to choose its leaders.
The question is whether voters can make elected officials answer for their decisions, including by replacing them in competitive elections. When politicians protect their careers through election rules, the people living with the consequences lose power.
No state earns an A. Twenty-five earn an F. Those failing states are home to 8.6 million veterans, more than half the national total.
Veterans have a stake in that distinction. A majority of post-9/11 veterans do not identify with either major political party. Our views span the country we served, and no party owns the oath we took to the Constitution.
But no American should have to serve in uniform to deserve an equal voice. The parent working a second shift, the farmer paying more for fuel, and the young person wondering whether they might enlist into yet another forever war all have a claim on this country’s decisions.
Instead, political power keeps finding ways to protect itself.
Republicans and Democrats are equally to blame. Gerrymandering by both parties allows politicians to choose voters who will protect their careers. This stands to be worsened by the gutting of the Voting Rights Act and moves by states to close their primaries to independent voters.
Each barrier puts more distance between ordinary people and the power exercised in their names.
Meanwhile, political spending in Texas alone surpassed $1 billion this election cycle. That is ten times more than Texas appropriated to its Veterans Commission. When I give a dollar to a candidate I believe in, how far does my voice travel beside someone who can finance an advertising campaign across an entire state?
The people who serve and sacrifice for this country should have more say than the billionaires and political elites who act like they own it.
The distance between what our country asks of us and how much power it gives us feels especially urgent in wartime. I am a veteran. My daughter’s name is Rose, and this past Halloween I reflected on how her first costume was Rosie the Riveter.
To me, that image holds something precious about this country. Americans have repeatedly answered its call, in uniform and on factory floors, through long deployments and the longer work of caring for those who come home wounded. Our history gives us ample reason to believe in our people’s willingness to sacrifice.
That history also demands honesty. The burdens of war were never shared equally, and neither was political power. But people deserve a meaningful voice in decisions that ask so much of them.
Given that voice, Americans might support this war. They might oppose it or demand a different mission, a clearer purpose, an end. Their willingness to sacrifice should never be mistaken for permission to decide everything on their behalf.
The Constitution places the power to declare war in Article I, with Congress. That responsibility belongs to our representatives because the consequences belong to all of us. Yet the Iran war has continued without a specific congressional authorization.
When Congress surrenders its responsibility, it surrenders the public’s power. The families living with the consequences deserve representatives willing to debate the mission, cast a vote and answer for it.
We can demand that accountability by opening primaries to independent voters, taking district lines out of politicians’ self-interested hands, and making political spending transparent.
We can protect the right to vote for every service member deployed far from home, every military family member packing up for another duty station, and every disabled veteran. The people who have given so much to this country deserve a voice in its future.
I want my daughter Rose to understand the promise in rolling up her sleeves. Ordinary people have the strength to build a country, defend it, and make it better. I want her to carry that same confidence into the voting booth, knowing her voice has power even when those in office would rather she stayed quiet.
Now that the votes have been cast, we owe our children that promise. We cannot keep asking Americans to carry this country while allowing a privileged few to decide where it goes.
A country that asks ordinary people for extraordinary sacrifice must belong to them in more than name. We have been asked for our labor, our patience, our children, and our lives. We are entitled to a meaningful vote.
Alberto Ramos is a U.S. Navy veteran and CEO of Veterans for All Voters, a national, nonpartisan organization working to make elections more competitive and government more accountable to all Americans.