This week at progressive state blogs is designed specifically to focus attention on the writing and analysis of people focused on their home turf. Here is the July 7 edition. Inclusion of a blog post does not necessarily indicate my agreement with—or endorsement of—its contents.
|
LOLGOP at Eclectablog of Michigan writes—In ‘Voters v. Politicians,’ Michigan Republicans side with the politicians:
Michigan’s Supreme Court announced on Friday it will review an unanimous Court of Appeals decision that ruled the independent gerrymandering reform proposal backed by Voters Not Politicians should appear on November’s ballot. Plaintiffs argue the changes sought to the state’s constitution require a constitutional convention.
The grassroots ballot measure backed by the signatures of around 400,000 residents has faced opposition from the Michigan GOP, the frontrunner to be the GOP’s nominee for governor and the Michigan Chamber, which — as Bridge reports — shares an address with the group backing the complaint against the proposal.
And why wouldn’t they be against it?
Conservatives have a sweet con going.
After a decade of picking the voters who would give them the chance to control more than 60 percent of the state’s congressional seats along with super majority control of the state House and Senate even when their party generally gets around 50 percent of the vote, you can be sure they don’t want to give voters a chance to make their votes count.
Data from the Citizens Research Council finds Michigan’s districts are both “stacked” and “cracked.” That means “an overwhelming majority of voters from the same party are put into one district” AND “regions are split so that one party wins a large number of districts by a narrow margin.”
Thus tens of thousands of Michiganders’ votes are “wasted.”
For the record, Eclectablog just celebrated its 10th anniversary. In case you’re wondering, a decade is a heckuva long time for a blog—any blog, but especially a political blog—to survive, much less thrive. When This Week in Progressive State Blogs was started just over five years ago, some 40 state blogs existed that don’t exist now. But Eclectablog continues, and it keeps getting better. Happy anniversary!
Sally Jo Sorensen at Bluestem Prairie of Minnesota and South Dakota writes—Walzspeak: "Regulatory humility" rooted in ideology advanced by conservative think tanks:
A reader contacted Bluestem Prairie today with news that the former Dayton senior policy advisor who took to Facebook to rip Walz comments on buffers & "regulatory humility" had followed through on her closing statement to write more on the topic.
On her personal Facebook page, Molly Schultz Pederson writes of her search for the origins of the phrase "regulatory humility." Walz had said in an interview with the Hutchinson Leader and reported with emphasis supplied by Bluestem Prairie:
“Our producers want to keep that water as clean as possible, want to do it in the most efficient way, willing certainly to help. Certainly tired of people lecturing to them. I don’t think our agencies need to be seen as regulatory agencies, they need to be seen as partners ... I will show regulatory humility … rather than me coming in with a stick and telling you what it’s going to be, I’m much more the carrot guy.” [...]
Pederson writes in Tuesday's Facebook post (screenshots below):
Ever since I posted my concerns about Tim Walz over the weekend [read here], one phrase he used during his interview about buffers has been rattling around in my brain.
"Regulatory humility."
I'd heard that phrase before, but couldn't remember where, so I hit the old internets and what I found is pretty frightening.
"Regulatory humility" is a concept touted by the American Enterprise Institute as their preferred way of addressing the role of government in market oversight. I thought I'd need to spend a lot of time on AEI's website trying to figure out who they are and who they influence, but I saw that Lynne Cheney is one of their "scholars" so that told me all I needed to know, and I moved on.
I then saw that in 2016, Paul Ryan introduced a government reform package written by the Heritage Foundation that he touted as "regulatory humility" and it was as horrible as I assumed it would be.
At Juanita Jean’s of Texas, Juanita Jean Herownself writes—Beto!
There’s so rarely any Democratic good news in Texas that we kinda set the dumpster on fire when we get some.
Today’s dumpster is Ted Cruz.
Even though Ted was cheating like sumbitch, Democratic senatorial candidate Beto O’Rouke more than doubled Cruz’s fundraising this quarter. Beto raised $10.4 million to Cruz’s $4 million.
And this becomes even more impressive when you consider that Beto takes no PAC money—not even a dime.
Also, Beto proposed a debate in Spanish between the two men. Cruz declined, saying he wasn’t all that secure in his Spanish speaking lying.
Hey, maybe Cruz will challenge Beto to a debate in Canadian.
Paul Deaton at Blog for Iowa writes— Iowa’s Medicaid Toothache:
I worked as an admissions clerk at the University of Iowa Dental Clinic after graduate school. We saw patients from all around Iowa — wealthy patients with private insurance, indigents with limited means, and everyone in between. Anyone who came to my desk was accepted for treatment. What I knew then seems poised for change.
Cuts to regents university budgets combined with an Iowa Medicaid administrative disaster led the university to cut off new dental patients on Iowa Medicaid because of difficulty collecting fees and complicated new rules.
“The dispute pits state administrators at the university against their counterparts at the Iowa Department of Human Services,” Des Moines Register reporter Tony Leys wrote last Saturday. “It is the latest skirmish in the bitter controversy over whether Iowa should have private companies run its $5 billion Medicaid program.”
Over 600,000 poor and disabled Iowans are eligible for Medicaid and most adults are covered by its “Dental Wellness Plan,” according to the article. Existing patients will continue to receive treatment. People with pain or swelling will receive emergency treatment at the clinic. As for the rest, the future is uncertain. Read Leys’ article for more details.
The University of Iowa Dental School likely changed since I worked there. What hasn’t changed is Iowa’s poor and indigent populations need our help. Under Republican governance the state is creating obstacles to limited, reasonable dental care offered under Medicaid.
Governor Kim Reynolds is looking into the situation, according to the article. Since she’s all-in on Medicaid privatization, it may be a case of what you see is what you get.
Montana Hat at Montana Cowgirl writes—Did Gianforte, Daines, Rosendale, Fox, and Stapleton Laugh When President Trump Mocked Native Americans?
Last week President Trump came to town for a campaign rally. He spent about an hour and a half rattling off the greatest hits of his campaign speeches. [...]
Trump rehashed his insult of calling the Senator from Massachusetts Pocahontas. For those of you who don’t sit at home mainlining Fox News all day every day, Warren claimed Native American heritage at one point in her life and has since been called out as maybe not being truthful about that. Definitely a no-no in Montana and across the country to try and claim unfounded native heritage, but Trump’s insult, of calling her Pocahontas, also crosses a line.
Montana American Indian Caucus took notice and wrote an eloquent opinion piece expressing their concerns. In part:
Trump’s language is not just offensive — it has real and tangible consequences on Indian people, including our youth. The American Psychological Association has identified that “ethnic minority children’s academic and social development, self-esteem, and personal feelings of efficacy” can be negatively affected by racism. This is of great concern to us, as American Indians have the highest rate of suicide in Montana.
This begs the question, did the white elected officials from Montana laugh, cheer, or back slap at this offensive remark? [...]
S. Miller at Plunderbund of Ohio writes—Trump’s Unknown Justice or: How I Learned to Start Worrying and Got the IUD:
In this political atmosphere, I have tried to remain optimistic. Have things been dreadful? Yes. Have I sometimes lost hope? Of course. Yet I have tried to remind myself that we only have to endure a Trump presidency for 926 more days. I have encouraged those around me to volunteer on campaigns and help Democrats take the House back in the fall (fingers crossed!). While citizen activism is useful, my true beacon of hope during this time has been the Supreme Court, telling myself that of course, they must see Trump’s actions as unconstitutional.
This obviously has changed within the last two weeks.
The Supreme Court has shown that while they do hold an unmatched amount of power, that does not mean they always use that power wisely. With rulings such as Janus v. AFSCME and upholding Trump’s Muslim travel ban, the court has demonstrated a frustrating willingness in enabling Trump’s autocratic tendencies. In fact, they can make decisions simply with their own best interests, disregarding the oath they took. Which brings us to Justice Kennedy’s retirement.
How could a man in moderately good health leave a position during a time when our country needs him most? More importantly, how could he do this to women? His vacancy on the highest court leaves a void that conservative groups are drooling over as they eagerly await Trump to appoint the next anti-woman, anti-choice justice. I try to see the bright side of things, but this.is a blow to women everywhere. Especially those thinking about their reproductive futures, or to put it more simply: me.
David Dayen at Capital & Main of California writes—The ‘Amazon Tax’ Ruling: Disrupting the Disruptors?
[...] Amazon often receives plaudits for voluntarily collecting sales tax in all 45 states that have one. But such praise ignores Amazon’s scofflaw history. “Amazon was the first major American company that built its business based on tax avoidance,” said Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, referring to the company’s continuous resistance to collecting sales taxes. Contrary to popular belief, the company is still resisting today.
While Amazon gathers sales taxes on products it manufactures and sells directly, it doesn’t collect on behalf of third-party businesses that use its marketplace. [...]
Amazon offers essentially no tax assistance to third-party sellers, save for a couple of dry documents on its website. Third-party Amazon merchants can theoretically sign up for tax calculation services, but they must still register with states and file taxes on their own, in potentially thousands of jurisdictions. When states tried to get third-party sellers to collect, Amazon didn’t want any involvement with the effort and refused to publicize it.
The American Booksellers Association recently described the Amazon marketplace as the “Wild West.” Third-party sales on the website doubled in volume from 2014 to 2016. The marketplace puts legitimate, authorized re-sellers and brick-and-mortar retailers alongside counterfeiters, scavengers who re-sell liquidated inventory, and Chinese and Indian importers. It’s nearly impossible for consumers to tell the difference. Thin profit margins and cutthroat practices pit sellers against each other; a merchant who decides to collect sales taxes will lose out to tax-avoiding rivals. [...]
Tom van Alten at FortBoise of Idaho writes—Injustice is served:
Surprised it took as long as it did for Trump to grant executive clemency to Dwight and Steven Hammond, the ranchers convicted of arson on federal land in Harney County, Oregon. They were the nominal cause célèbre for the Cliven Bundy clan's takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in January, 2016. We'll come back to that in a moment.
The White House statement glosses over the arson by saying that the fire "leaked onto a small portion of neighboring public grazing land." If you know which end of a Pulaski to hold on to when you clean your toenails, you'd know that fires on western rangeland don't "leak." They typically rage.
The White House statement also mininizes the conviction by saying that the jury acquitted the Hammonds on "most of the charges." The October 7, 2015 press release from the U.S. Attorney in the District of Oregon—fetch your copy quick before it's flushed down the memory hole—is worth revisiting, to understand what the hell this is about.
"The jury convicted both of the Hammonds of using fire to destroy federal property for a 2001 arson known as the Hardie-Hammond Fire, located in the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Area. Witnesses at trial, including a relative of the Hammonds, testified the arson occurred shortly after Steven Hammond and his hunting party illegally slaughtered several deer on BLM property. Jurors were told that Steven Hammond handed out “Strike Anywhere” matches with instructions that they be lit and dropped on the ground because they were going to “light up the whole country on fire.” [...]
The Hammonds have been bad actors for a long time; the record of incidents goes back more than three decades. [...]
Bob Lord at Blog for Arizona writes—How to Level the Playing Field for Workers — Even with Unions Hurting:
A federal jobs and income guarantee could protect workers the way unions once did.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Janus vs. AFSCME dealt organized labor, already on its heels, a crushing blow. Public employees who choose not to join unions now cannot be required to pay so-called “fair share” fees to compensate unions for the cost of representing them in wage and benefit negotiations.
With only 6.5 percent of private sector workers unionized, teachers, firefighters, and other public employee unions have been the bulwark of organized labor in recent years. Over a third of government workers are unionized, but that will likely head south in the wake of Janus.
Absent a union, an individual employee negotiating against a large employer is powerless. If the employer and worker don’t agree to terms, the employer loses one worker out of many, while the employee’s children go hungry. Guess who wins? [...]
The minimum wage and overtime pay won’t by themselves give workers sufficient strength at the bargaining table. That strength can come from one or both of two other ideas whose time has come: a basic income guarantee, or BIG, and a federal job guarantee. [...]
Lara Mack at Appalachian Voices writes—Empowering citizens at the Water Justice Summit:
On a recent Saturday morning, attendees of the Water Justice Summit in Blacksburg, Va., participated in an opening water ceremony by forming a circle and standing silently outside Solitude – a historic house tucked between old trees on Virginia Tech’s campus, praying together and honoring water. They brought beloved water from their homes (tap, rain bucket, favorite spring, or creek) and poured a trickle in a large bowl that would hold the water from the numerous watersheds throughout the day. The ceremony set a tone of honoring the priceless resource — our planet’s lifeblood — that participants felt called to protect, and celebrating the joy and life it gives us.
“The water blessing was one of the most powerful ones I have experienced,” said Mara Robbins, a summit attendee and resident of Floyd, Va. “Combining our water from so many places, cherished and carried to our circle, helped to weave the event together into something we could bring home with us to our individual ecosystems.”
The principles at the foundation of the Water Justice Summit were:
- Clean water is necessary for life. It is a human right and a common good we all must protect.
- We are honored to learn from the foundation of wisdom and leadership of those who are fighting for justice in the broadest sense, especially indigenous people, people of color, women, queer, trans, and other gender-nonconforming individuals.
- Real solutions to water quality and access issues must be derived from communities. Corporate solutions to water justice issues are not solutions.
- The earth is an interdependent community, and water is the source of our interdependence. We are all up or downstream from one another.
The event brought together water defenders and community activists from across Central Appalachia, including Martin County, Ky., Montgomery County, Va., and Claiborne County, Tenn. We were even joined by environmental advocates from South Carolina and Utah. [...]
Tom Aswell at Louisiana Voice writes—Need a good laugh? How about a photo-op of a district judge joking at deputy lying on the lethal injection table at Angola?
Remember Robert “Robbo” Davidson, the DeSoto Parish sheriff’s chief investigator whose private company ran more than 41,500 background checks through the sheriff’s office in an 11-month period?
Davidson (now retired) was a principal in LAGNIAPPE and CASTILLO RESEARCH and INVESTIGATIONS, which charged customers $12 for each background report and paid the sheriff’s office $3 per report for a profit of more than $372,000 for him and his partner, Allan Neal Castillo.
Now, Louisiana Voice has obtained an old Facebook photograph of Davidson, along with 42nd Judicial District Court Judge Charles Adams having a little fun in the Angola State Penitentiary death chamber.
The photo shows Davidson lying on the gurney where lethal injections are administered to death row inmates. Enjoying the moment are, standing, left to right, Judge Adams, Jean Calvert, Adams’s secretary, and Davidson’s wife Linda Davidson, a DeSoto Parish constable.
The most inappropriate aspect of this photo, besides the obvious poor taste of posing for it in the first place, is that there are presently four death row inmates from DeSoto Parish at Angola and should either of the cases be remanded to 42nd JDC by an appellate court, it would put Adams, as the presiding judge, in something of an awkward position.
WillyKay at Show Me Progress of Missouri writes—Fake News Flash – Roy Blunt wins healthcare awards:
Yesterday I wrote about how gobsmacked I was to receive two glossy mailers asking me to thank GOP Senator Roy Blunt for “being a champion of Medicare access,” and for “being a 2018 champion of Health Care Innovation.” My reaction was due to the fact that Blunt has been a reliable foot-soldier in the GOP war against expanding healthcare access, including, as I noted, mumblecore disavowals of pre-existing conditions protections. He’s also expressed his distaste for Medicare in the past.
The next question is just who is trying to help Senator Blunt pull the wool over Missourians’ eyes? The mailers state that they are paid for by the American Life Sciences Innovation Council (ALSIC) and the Alliance for Patient Access (AfPA) respectively. So who do these groups represent? Not too hard to figure out when one consults the InterWebs:
The Alliance for Patient Access [...] is a straight-out big pharma controlled entity that uses unwitting journalists and greedy or insecure politicians to push “platforms that help drug companies’ bottom lines”:
The AfPA offers cover for lawmakers who carry out the pharmaceutical industry’s agenda, some observers say. In one striking example, the group accepted $7.8 million in 2014 and 2015 to give Medicare “Patient Access Champion” awards to members of Congress, according to its IRS disclosures for those years. The AfPA annual report shows that 50 awards were presented. The awards appear to be a way to thank cooperative legislators while also pressuring them and others to enact the AfPA’s policy agenda. […]
Some say those awards […] shielded lawmakers from criticism for voting against Medicare cost controls, such as an independent rate-setting board and other measures.