John Nichols | The Nation

Protesters hold a sign at a rally on March 25, 2012, in Seattle, Washington. (Courtesy of Flickr.)

The nation’s oldest and largest civil rights group responded to the acquittal of George Zimmerman with shock, anguish and a call to action.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is petitioning the United States Department of Justice to seek justice for slain teenager Trayvon Martin by filing civil rights charges against Zimmerman.

On Sunday afternoon, the Department of Justice announced that the case was under review. "Experienced federal prosecutors will determine whether the evidence reveals a prosecutable violation of any of the limited federal criminal civil rights statutes within our jurisdiction,’’ read a department statement that added that the review would determine ‘‘whether federal prosecution is appropriate in accordance with the department’s policy governing successive federal prosecution following a state trial.’’

The formal language describes a first step that, while it is encouraging for civil rights organizations, does not assure that a federal case will be initiated.

But the NAACP and other groups are arguing that there are clear grounds for an intervention by the department.

In a message posted on the group’s website and circulated nationally within hours of the announcement of the verdict, the group’s president, Ben Jealous, declared, “We are not done demanding justice for Trayvon Martin.”

As part of the NAACP campaign to get the Justice Department to open a civil rights case against Zimmerman, Jealous urged Americans to sign a petition to Attorney General Eric Holder that reads,

The Department of Justice has closely monitored the State of Florida’s prosecution of the case against George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin murder since it began. Today, with the acquittal of George Zimmerman, it is time for the Department of Justice to act.

The most fundamental of civil rights—the right to life—was violated the night George Zimmerman stalked and then took the life of Trayvon Martin. We ask that the Department of Justice file civil rights charges against Mr. Zimmerman for this egregious violation.

Please address the travesties of the tragic death of Trayvon Martin by acting today.

Within three hours of the online posting of the petition late Saturday evening, more than 350,000 Americans had signed it. The response was so intense that the group’s website crashed Sunday morning. But the #JusticeForTrayvon petition drive continued at the MoveOn.org petition site and a refreshed NAACP site.

Other civil rights groups echoed the demand for Justice Department action, with the Rev. C.D. Witherspoon of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Baltimore telling reporters, “We will be calling on the federal government to file criminal charges on the basis of civil rights violations. This was done immediately after the Rodney King verdict, and should be done if justice is not rendered by the Florida courts.”

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law president Barbara Arnwine said that while the verdict “represents a tragic miscarriage of justice,” she believes “there is still the potential for justice to be served through a civil suit brought about by Trayvon Martin’s surviving family members, and also through civil rights charges being brought against Mr. Zimmerman by the Department of Justice.”

In addition to pressing for action at the federal level, the NAACP and other groups were turning attention to state capitols in the aftermath of the Zimmerman acquittal.

Jealous, who said civil rights supporters were “outraged and heartbroken” by the jury verdict, coupled his announcement of the petition with a call for the outlawing of racial profiling and a renewed commitment to “fight for the removal of Stand Your Ground laws in every state.”

Florida passed its “stand your ground” law in 2005. Since then, at the behest of the National Rifle Association and the American Legislative Exchange Council, variations on the legislation—which allows individuals who say they believe themselves to be in imminent danger to use deadly force—have been enacted by state legislatures across the country. After the killing of Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012, as media outlets in Florida and nationally have reported, “Police initially did not charge Zimmerman with a crime, citing Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law.”

Zimmerman, who faced charges only after a national outcry forced a review of the case, did not mount a specific “stand your ground” defense. But the issue remained a bone of contention before and during his trial; notably, the jury heard from a witness who recalled teaching about Florida’s law in a college course that the defendant completed in 2010. And when  jury instructions were made in the case, the judge said: "If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony."

Brendan Fischer, a lawyer with the Center for Media and Democracy, notes that: "This language is nearly identical to that in the Florida Stand Your Ground law and the ALEC "model" legislation. We cannot know if the outcome would have been different had the six jurors been instructed differently -- but we do know that Stand Your Ground played a role in the case, even after Zimmerman's arrest."

The sustained outcry over the February 26, 2012, shooting of Martin appears to have led the NRA and ALEC to halt advocacy on behalf of “stand your ground” laws. But the laws continue to influence criminal justice nationwide, as the Center for Media and Democracy has documented.

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The NAACP, the Urban League, Color of Change, Common Cause, People for the American Way and MoveOn.org were among many groups that pressed ALEC on the “stand your ground” issue in 2012. Several of these same groups have taken the next step and are urging legislators to strike the laws from state statute books.

“Florida’s dangerous ‘Shoot First’ law allowed Trayvon’s killer to walk free without charges for more than a month. Shoot First legalizes vigilante homicide, has demonstrated racial bias in its application, and has led to an increase in gun-related deaths in the more than two dozen states where it has been passed into law,” argues Color of Change, as part of its campaign to strike down “stand your ground” laws. “These laws give individual gun owners a greater right to shoot and kill than the rules of engagement for our military during times of war grant to soldiers in war zones. ‘Shoot First’ must be repealed now to protect families and communities and prevent senseless deaths.”

Referencing a Texas A&M University study that revealed how “stand your ground” and “castle doctrine” laws do not deter crime but have been linked to increased rates of homicide, Jealous has said that “stand-your-ground legislation does more harm than good.”

“Too often these laws provide cover for vigilantes and hate groups who choose to take the law into their own hand,” argued the NAACP president in 2012. “They have led to an increase in homicides, and people of color seem to always get caught in the crossfire.”

Why did George Zimmerman get acquitted? Because white supremacy enables the lingering belief that some black men must be killed with impunity for society at large to be safe, says Aura Bogado.

The former governor walks through Union Square to collect signatures for his run for New York City comptroller on Monday, July 8, 2013. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Eliot Spitzer is a walking, talking political contradiction.

As the crusading New York State Attorney General during the Bush-Cheney years, he filled the regulatory void created by the most business-friendly administration in modern American history and renewed our understanding of the power of state officials to check and balance Wall Street.

Then, as New York’s governor, he crashed and burned his own career—and an opportunity to redefine states as the liberal “laboratories of democracy” that they were in the Progressive Era.

Spitzer’s brilliance and arrogance were in complete conflict as he took the actions that would lead to a 2008 resignation that was described as “career-ending.”

But prostitution, adultery and Twitter scandals don’t end political careers anymore. Just ask Louisiana Senator David Vitter, South Carolina Congressman Mark Sanford or New York mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner.

So Spitzer is back—just as brilliant, and just as arrogant, as ever.

First the smart part: the former governor’s decision to make a last-minute leap into the race for New York City Comptroller is a savvy political move.

It’s the right race: A comeback bid by a political figure who has been involved in so high-profile a scandal as Spitzer’s needs to start in the right place on the ballot. A run for governor or mayor would have demanded more forgiveness than voters were prepared to extend. Spitzer needed to find a post that was prominent, but not too prominent. Seeking a city-wide post in New York is a comedown from the state posts Spitzer held. But the comptroller’s office is an important post in itself and it has produced mayoral candidates and mayors, statewide officials and members of Congress.

It’s the right office: the comptroller’s job has real responsibilities, and they are very much in line with Spitzer’s skills and focus. The comptroller audits the books and the performance of city agencies. The auditor plays a critical role in reviewing and initiating economic activity, especially when it comes to marketing and selling municipal bonds. And most importantly, the comptroller is the managing trustee for massive public employee pension funds; as such, the person who holds the post can carve out a defining position in a host of debates about investment policy and how Wall Street and big banks operate. Spitzer speaks of “using the equity stake that we control as a means of control of corporate governance.” And he talks about using pension funds to apply pressure to corporations on issues ranging from gun control to civil rights. The comptroller’s office has real power, and real resources. Spitzer knows that, and he says, “I want to do to the comptroller’s office what I did to the AG’s office: re-energize it, re-envision it, and hopefully, the public will give me that opportunity.”

It’s the right year: everything is up for grabs in New York this year, and everyone’s running for something. There are crowded races up and down the city ballot. Spitzer will get his share of attention—the New York Post headline Monday: “Here We Ho Again”—but there’s so much else going on that the attention is more likely to help than hurt. Because he’s running for a down-ballot job, he brings “star power” to a race that would otherwise get limited attention. His existing name recognition, in combination with the wealthy Spitzer’s ability to spend what it takes to shape the race, counts for a lot in this sort of contest.

Unfortunately, it is on the question of campaign funding that Spitzer’s arrogance—and irresponsibility—are very much on display.

Spitzer’s most prominent foe in the Democratic primary for comptroller is Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, an able and well-regarded progressive with substantial union support. Stringer’s campaign hit Spitzer immediately for opting out of New York City’s public-financing scheme for municipal election campaigns. “Eliot Spitzer is going to spurn the campaign finance program to try and buy personal redemption with his family fortune,” griped the Stringer camp.

Spitzer’s response on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show was to say, “The reality is that we’re going to end up spending probably about the same amount of money. He’ll be spending your money. I’ll be spending my own money.”

The problem, of course, is that not everyone is able to buy their way into a race at the last minute. Spitzer’s dismissal of New York’s system of providing matching funds for candidates with the worst-of-all “your money” versus “my own money” rhetoric is not just arrogant. It’s wrong.

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Spitzer has a broad vision of the comptroller’s office—a vision that could have national significance when it comes to using state and local pension funds to establish what he refers to as “structural” checks and balances on corporate America, and when it comes to conducting “policy audits” to determine whether public programs are delivering for Americans. Those audits will, invariably, reveal that the flooding of our politics with private money plays a huge role in warping the workings of government. What the progressives of another time referred to as “the money power” is toxic, and the toxicity infects government at every level.

Even those who support Eliot Spitzer will recognize that he is not the only wealthy contender—or the only contender who might use big money to win a big election. If Spitzer is serious about using the New York City comptroller’s office to audit our public policies—and to propose real fixes—he should not be so arrogant as to casually dismiss attempts to address and constrain the money power.

John Nichols and Bob McChesney are the authors of Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America (Nation Books). John Bonifaz, co-founder and executive director of Free Speech for People, says, “John Nichols and Bob McChesney reveal that the 2012 election cycle had a price tag of $10 billion. They show us who the money came from and how it was spent. But, most important, they explain why this cannot go on if we are to have fair elections and honest government. With its breakthrough reporting and incisive analysis, Dollarocracy gives us the foundation we need to make the case for fundamental change like a constitutional amendment to overturn our system of unlimited campaign spending and restore democracy to the people.”

While Eliot Spitzer is bringing attention to the comptroller race, the race for mayor has long been in the media, thanks in large part to stop-and-frisk’s undecided and controversial future.

During the decades of his imprisonment by South Africa’s apartheid regime, Nelson Mandela read widely and deeply from the historical and philosophical texts of the ages.

Mandela sampled from the global canon. Yet he took a special interest in the record of American revolt against empire.

The events of July 4, 1776, have across the long arc of history captured the imaginations of men and women who would build nations far beyond the borders of the United States. And that was certainly the case with Mandela. When I covered him on his 1990 tour of the United States and during his 1994 campaign for the presidency of South Africa, it quickly became clear that Mandela had developed a rich understanding of the revolutionary history of the United States—and of the individuals and ideas that shaped it.

Mandela has always displayed a high regard for the histories and ideas of nations that dispatched colonial overlords. His speeches and essays on Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru are remarkable documents, as are his reflections on leading figures from the anti-colonial struggles of central Africa and the Caribbean.

Mandela recognized that the United States has a distinct anti-colonial history. And he has often employed that recognition to remind Americans and others of ideals and values that are too frequently forgotten.

In his address to the US Congress twenty-three years ago, Mandela spoke of “the struggle for democracy and human rights, not only in our country, but throughout the world.”

“We could not have made an acquaintance through literature with human giants such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson and not been moved to act, as they were moved to act. We could not have heard of and admired John Brown, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, Martin Luther King Jr. and others,” declared Mandela. “We could not have heard of these and not be moved to act as they were moved to act. We could not have known of your Declaration of Independence and not elected to join in the struggle to guarantee the people’s life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Already engaged with the work of shaping the new South Africa, Mandela delivered this message to the US Congress: “The day may not be far when we will borrow the words of Thomas Jefferson and speak of the will of the South African nation in the exercise of that will by this united nation of black and white people—it must surely be that there will be born a country on the southern tip of Africa which you will be proud to call a friend and an ally because of its contribution to the universal striving toward liberty, human rights, prosperity and peace among the people.”

Like so many who have struggled for democracy over the past two centuries, Mandela has taken his cues not merely from presidents and the crafters of official documents. He has honored Tom Paine, the radical pamphleteer who wrote not just of the specifics of the American experiment but of the prospect that a nation and its people might inspire the world.

The speeches Mandela gave in the critical transition period from apartheid oppression to multiracial democracy were laced with homages to Paine—especially the pamphleteer’s Common Sense promise: “We have every opportunity and every encouragement before us, to form the noblest purest constitution on the face of the earth. We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand.”

When Mandela was inaugurated as his country’s president, he announced that South Africa was striving not merely for the birth of a new nation but “for the birth of a new world.”

Mandela served one term and then stepped down, refusing—as George Washington had in the early years of the American experiment—to cling to power that the people had willingly given him. Speaking on Sunday in South Africa, where vigils were being kept for an ailing Mandela, President Obama said the South African leader “showed us that one man’s courage can move the world.”

Inspiration is passed across borders and oceans, across generations and centuries. There is an arc of history. It was bent toward justice by Paine in the eighteenth century. It has been bent toward justice by Mandela in our time. And one of the gifts Mandela has given to America, one of the gifts he continues to give this country and the world, is a reminder of our revolutionary roots and our highest aspirations.

In arguing that Britain’s colonial subjects should engage in the bold and dangerous work of seeking independence, Paine wrote: “The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all lovers of mankind are affected, and in the event of which, their affections are interested. The laying a country desolate with fire and sword, declaring war against the natural rights of all mankind, and extirpating the defenders thereof from the face of the Earth, is the concern of every man to whom nature hath given the power of feeling; of which class, regardless of party censure, is the AUTHOR.”

It was Mandela who, two centuries later, became the face of a broad anti-apartheid movement that would speak the same language, and imagine the same role, for an African nation.

“We live with the hope that as she battles to remake herself, South Africa will be like a microcosm of the new world that is striving to be born,” Mandela declared in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. “This must be a world of democracy and respect for human rights, a world freed from the horrors of poverty, hunger, deprivation and ignorance, relieved of the threat and the scourge of civil wars and external aggression and unburdened of the great tragedy of millions forced to become refugees.”

Every nation is engaged in an endless process of defining itself. Great thinkers, great leaders ask their nations to go further. They believe—as Paine did—that a country might seek “to begin the world over again,” and they imagine—as Mandela has—that their nation might inspire and inform “the birth of a new world.”

John Nichols is the author, with Robert W. McChesney, of Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America (Nation Books). Thomas E. Patterson, the Bradlee Professor of Government and the Press at Harvard University, says: “As Nichols and McChesney’s new book shows, the robber barons of the late nineteenth century were pikers compared with today’s moneyed interests. They have hijacked our elections at all levels, and nothing short of the sweeping reforms called for in Dollarocracy can fix the problem. The book is a must read for anyone who cares about the integrity of our democratic system.”

Senator Wendy Davis speaks as she begins a filibuster in an effort to kill an abortion bill, Tuesday, June 25, 2013, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, who electrified her state and the nation with last week’s thirteen-hour filibuster to block a sweeping assault on reproductive rights, and who promises to keep up the fight this week as the legislature is called into special session, is suddenly the most interesting prospective gubernatorial candidate in the nation.

When she appeared last week on the MSNBC show All In with Chris Hayes, the Democratic legislator was asked if she might run in 2014 against Republican Governor Rick Perry. Her reply? “You know, I would be lying if I told you that I hadn’t had aspirations to run for a statewide office.”

A close political ally went even further, acknowledging that the veteran local official and legislator is “looking very closely” at the 2014 race. “Certainly, the events over the last week or so show a groundswell in Texas,” says Davis associate Matt Angle, who directs the Democratic political firm Lone Star Project. “We have to see if it all adds up to a statewide campaign.”

As a matter of fact, it does add up.

The woman who so shook Perry that he started taking personal shots at her has the necessary name recognition, thousands of enthusiastic supporters and the potential to raise significant campaign cash from small donors across Texas and nationwide.

Davis has also got a brash, no-apologies-for-being-right approach that has historically played well in the Lone Star State. Long before she was filibustering for reproductive rights, Davis was filibustering for education funding. And her heavy lifting as a progressive legislator has won her a slew of awards like the one from the Texas Office of Public Citizen, which named her the state’s “Outstanding Public Servant.”

Davis is fighting Perry again this week, celebrating the determination of Texas pro-choice activists and declaring to a huge crowd in front of state Capitol Monday that their courage and commitment had made her "believe in Texas more than ever!"

Decrying not just assaults on the rights of women but on public education and public services, Davis pulled the threads of resistance together into a broad call for a fairer and more just Texas, telling the crowd: "That's what we're fighting for."

Indeed, she declared, if Perry wants a special session, then she and "responsible" legislators will use it to promote pay equity for women.

"Let's remind Governor Perry that fairness is and always will be a fundamental Texas value," announced the Democratic senator to a crowd that chanted "Wendy! Wendy! Wendy!"

Davis shouted above the cheers: "Texans deserve someone who will stand up for them and their values."

There are certainly other Democrats who could seek the governorship in 2014, including well-regarded prospects such as Mayor Julián Castro and his brother, Congressman Joaquín Castro.

But, on Monday in Austin, there was a good deal of talk about how Davis might be the right woman at the right time.

If Davis decides to run, she will not be the first brave, bold woman to seek the governorship of Texas.

Texas Governor Ann Richards, the last Democrat to win the state’s top job, was the star of the 1988 Democratic National Convention—where she famously made a case for equal rights that included the line: “After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.”

Before Richards, there was the remarkable Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, who was the only woman in the Texas House of Representatives at the same time that Barbara Jordan was the only women in the Texas Senate. Farenthold made a pair of remarkable bids for the Democratic nomination for governor in the early 1970s. She was such an inspiring figure that her surprise nomination for vice president at the 1972 Democratic National Convention drew more than 400 votes.

And, of course, Miriam Amanda Wallace “Ma” Ferguson was elected to one term as governor of Texas in the 1920s, and to another in the 1930s.

Texas actually has a better track record of seriously considering and frequently electing women governors, senators and statewide office holders than many American states.

Yet the Texas Democratic Party has not always shined in its selection of contenders for the gubernatorial post it last won in 1990. Placing Davis at the top of its 2014 ticket could well reap benefits for the party. That’s not to say that Davis would have an easy time of it. Mounting a challenge to Perry, the failed 2012 Republican presidential candidate who makes no secret of his interest in the 2016 race, would be an uphill run in a state that gave Republican Mitt Romney 57 percent of the vote in 2012.

But smart politics is not merely about crunching numbers from past contests. Smart politics takes into account personal and situational intangibles, with an eye toward mounting a campaign that takes the great leap forward.

The intangible for Wendy Davis is that she has already proven herself to a substantial number of Texas voters, especially but certainly not exclusively women.

Davis has never lost an election, winning three terms on the Fort Worth City Council before she beat a Republican incumbent to win a state Senate seat in 2008 and retained that seat in 2012. Davis is not a milquetoast mandarin. She’s a quick-witted political natural who clearly knows the issues and who is ready to wage fights—including filibusters—on behalf of a socially and economically progressive agenda.

It is not unreasonable to suggest that Davis could build a statewide movement that would include women, African-Americans, Asians and Latinos—as well as trade unionists—in a coalition that could speed up the process of transformation that most political analysts say will change Texas voting patterns sometime in the reasonably near future.

Demographics are destiny in American politics. And the demographics of the Lone Star state are trending toward the Democrats. But there’s always been a question about whether 2014, 2016, 2018—or some more distant year—will see Texas reach the tipping point.

Political strategists in both parties know that one of the best ways to speed up the process is with a dynamic candidate who has the potential to raise enough campaign cash to give Rick Perry—a particularly prodigious fund-raiser—a run for his money.

When the Democratic Party picks safe and predictable candidates in red states like Texas, it gets a safe and predictable result: defeat.

Wendy Davis is not safe and predictable. She’s energetic and engaged, Harvard-Law-School smart and broadly experienced at the local and state levels of government.

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Rick Perry knows that adds up to a serious challenge. That’s why he is on the attack. That’s also why Davis could well turn out to be the most viable Texas Democratic gubernatorial prospect since Ann Richards won the job back in 1990.

John Nichols is the co-author of Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America (Nation Books), which examines the new state-based politics that links protests and electoral bids. Jim Hightower says: “Nichols and McChesney strike again! And, as usual, these two experienced and effective fighters for common sense and the common good are right on target with Dollarocracy. The truth might not ‘make you free,’ but it can make you move into action to free our great nation from the political stranglehold of big money. So read… and let’s get moving!”

Was Wendy Davis’s filibuster heroic? Katha Pollitt argues that the state senator is not merely a hero but a superhero.