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 Dec. 9 edition. Inclusion of a blog post does not necessarily indicate my agreement with—or endorsement of—its contents. |
At The Progressive Midwesterner of Wisconsin and Illinois, Aaron Camp writes—Rumors beginning to swirl that Paul Ryan may step down:
At this point, I don’t expect Ryan to step down, although I can’t completely rule out the possibility of that happening. I strongly believe that these rumors are coming from Republicans in the far-right faction of their party, who would want the next Speaker to be someone who is even more of a far-right Donald Trump loyalist than Ryan is. Remember, Ryan has been a total puppet for Trump and his fascist agenda since before Trump was elected president. If Ryan steps down from the speakership before the 2018 elections, I have no clue as to who Republicans would pick to be speaker going into the 2018 midterm elections, although I would assume that it would be a current member of the House Republican Conference.
If Ryan were to resign from the House altogether or otherwise not seek re-election to his House seat, my guess is that the Republicans would run Robin Vos, who is currently the speaker of a different legislative body, the Wisconsin State Assembly, in the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin, although I could be wrong about that. Vos is as right-wing as Ryan is, if not even more so, and he has been a total rubber stamp for Scott Walker’s far-right agenda in Wisconsin, including obstructing all efforts at meaningful redistricting reform in Wisconsin.
Randy Bryce is already running in a contested Democratic primary in the 1st Congressional District of Wisconsin, and he’s a great blue-collar progressive candidate. I believe that Bryce can defeat Paul Ryan, Robin Vos, or whoever Republicans nominate for Ryan’s seat.
At Eclectablog of Michigan, Chris Savage writes—Gov. Snyder disenfranchised over half of Black Michiganders, now says most of Detroit won’t have a Congressperson for nearly a year:
In 2013, Michigan governor Rick Snyder imposed an Emergency Manager on the city of Detroit. With that move 49% of the African Americans in Michigan were without a democratically-elected local government. His appointed Emergency Manager was given full control over the city.
This past week, Gov. Snyder continued his disenfranchisement of Detroiters when he chose the date of the special election to replace Congressman John Conyers, Jr. who “retired” under a scandal of sexual harassment of his female staffers and others. That date is November 6th, 2018 – 11 months from now. On that day, Detroiters will choose the person to fill Conyers’ seat for the remaining 55 days of his term (the primary is on August 7th.) They’ll also choose the next person to be the member of Congress for Michigan’s 13th Congressional District — which includes most of Detroit — on the same ballot.
The governor says he is putting off the election for 11 months “in order to allow several months for that to take place and to reduce the financial burden on local taxpayers, the primary and general elections will be held when regularly scheduled elections are already occurring.”
Something tells me the “local taxpayers” would be willing to take on that “financial burden” in order to have representation in Washington, D.C. After spending so much time without local democracy, I doubt Detroiters have any sort of appetite for further disenfranchisement. But Gov. Snyder doesn’t have to run for office again so their concerns are not concerns he shares.
Oddly, the Democratic chairman for the 13th District, Jonathan Kinloch, supports the move.
Democracy in Michigan is a luxury that Detroit residents apparently aren’t deemed worth of having.
At The Montana Post, Don Pogreba writes—Profiles in Cowardice: Steve Daines Tries to Retcon His Support for Roy Moore:
In a night filled with almost unimaginable levels of schadenfreude, perhaps the best moment other than Roy Moore refusing to admit defeat was the spectacle of Montana’s future single-term Senator Steve Daines trying to retcon his previous support for the most famous sex offender in Alabama.
Shortly after the networks called the Alabama race for Doug Jones, Senator Daines took to his phone to peevishly tweet his disappointment that Luther Strange was not the Republican nominee:
That’s a fascinating tweet on many levels. I can’t find any record that Daines endorsed Strange before the primary he lost to Judge Moore, even as other Senators lined up to try to block Moore from being the Republican nominee. Perhaps, like President Trump, Daines deleted all record of his previous support for Strange, but the more likely answer is that Daines lacked the courage to make an endorsement in the race.
As pathetic as an endorsement for a candidate two elections late was, it hardly captures just how cowardly the tweet Daines sent out last night was. What he’s hoping Montanans will forget is that he enthusiastically endorsed Moore just over a month ago, ignoring that Moore had twice been removed for judicial misconduct and had been recorded making overtly racist and xenophobic remarks. Three days later, after almost every mainstream Republican in Washington had pulled his/her endorsement, Daines pulled his overt endorsement and replaced it with a tepid statement suggesting that the women accusing Moore of sexual assault could well be lying. [...]
Let’s not let him forget.
At Show Me Progress of Missouri, WillyKay writes—Roy Blunt went all out for Roy Moore:
Last Tuesday, the day of the Alabama special senate election, Randy Turner posted the following interesting tidbit:
The most recent campaign finance report filed with the Federal Election Commission shows no one gave more money to embattled Alabama U. S. Senate candidate Roy Moore than Sen. Roy Blunt.
Blunt’s support was not a personal contribution to Moore, but came in the form of a $5,000 contribution from Blunt’s Rely On Your Beliefs PAC.
Turner notes that other Republicans who gave big, like Mitch McConnell, asked for their money back when it became clear that Moore had sexually assaulted teenagers when he was in his thirties.
But not our Roy Blunt.
But hey, Blunt did talk the talk, stating unequivocally that “the women have a more credible story than Judge Moore. Alabama voters should have a better choice and Judge Moore should have better answers to these charges.”
Blunt just doesn’t seem willing to walk the walk.
At Green Mountain Daily of Vermont, BP writes—Trump Dept. of Labor to employers: “Keep the change”:
And now just in time for Christmas, Trump McScrooge and his anti-labor elves have rolled back an Obama labor regulation that let restaurant employees keep their tips instead of pooling them with non-tipped workers. They claim the Obama regulation had contributed to pay disparities between servers and other staff like cooks and dishwashers. Interestingly, though, Trump’s Dept of Labor supposed effort to change that will also allow employers to legally keep all the tips for themselves provided the tipped workers earn the minimum wage.
Vox media’s Eater.com explains how it works: A big problem with the new regulations is that employers may now legally pocket tips. Under the traditional paradigm, an employer takes the tip credit, pays all of their “service-facing” employees $2.13 an hour plus tips, and pays cooks and dishwashers $7.25 an hour, no tips (the numbers would be different according to minimum wage laws state to state, but this is the general idea).
But if they decide to follow the DOL’s new rule and they don’t take the tip credit, and instead pay minimum wage of $7.25 an hour to all their employees, then tips are no longer considered the property of the employee; they become property of the employer. That employer could split those tips between back and front of the house. Then again, the employer could also keep them all.
The industry owners group the National Restaurant Association (yes, the other NRA) favors the Trump rule change. They have acknowledged the “loophole” that just happens to favor their members but haven’t asked for it to be corrected.
At the national level the NRA for years has helped keep the federal minimum wage for tipped employees steady at $2.13 per hour since 1991. And they actively fight states efforts to hike their minimum wage and to pass paid sick-leave legislation. In the 2016 election cycle the group contributed $960,980 to the GOP, which is 81 percent of their total contribution to political parties for that period.
At Dakota Free Press, Cory Allen Heidelberger writes—Schopp’s Legacy: Teacher Pay Raises Abandoned Less Than Two Years In:
Education Secretary Melody Schopp sits down with Dana Ferguson for one more interview before she retires tomorrow from state government and says she hopes the 2016 teacher pay raise defines her career:
Melody Schopp remembers standing behind Gov. Dennis Daugaard as he signed into law a historic pay raise for South Dakota teachers.
After years of working with task force members and tracking votes around the Statehouse she watched as her vision became a reality.
“That is the absolute highlight of my career,” Schopp said [Dana Ferguson, “From GEAR UP to Teacher Pay, Schopp Reflects on Leading SD Schools,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2017.12.14].
Sure, maybe that 2016 pay raise will define Schopp’s tenure at the Education helm: a long-delayed reform addressing decades of neglect that fell well short of its goal in the first year and was budgetarily abandoned by the Governor twenty months after he signed it into law.
Schopp’s proudest achievement has disappeared in less time than it took her to go from noticing anything amiss in the Mid-Central Educational Cooperative’s handling of the federal GEAR UP grant and other funds to cutting Mid-Central off from the Pierre gravy train. Engrave that on your tin belt buckle.
At BlueNC, scharrison writes—Blue Monday kicks off 120 seat strategy for retaking the General Assembly:
Say hello to Army veteran and cancer warrior Dr. Rick Foulke:
Today, we rank 35th in teacher pay (41st in 2016) and 43rd in per capita student spending in the whole nation. Our quality teachers are leaving for other states every day because of low pay and lack of respect. Our politicians have played partisan games with our lives by refusing to expand Medicaid. As a physician, Rick Foulke saw first hand- every single day- how important it is to have access to quality healthcare.
Rick was successful because of his hard work and the opportunities afforded to him by the Army. Just as the Army invested in him, Rick believes we must invest in our best and brightest minds, regardless of race or income or social status.
I firmly believe we need to field more veterans as Democratic candidates, for both state and federal offices. And it's not just to swing votes, although I do believe it may be the best way to do that. It's also about integrity and self-discipline, which are traits sometimes hard to detect in m
At Plunderbund of Ohio, D.C. DeWitt writes—Pattern Of Public Corruption Slowly Emerging At Top State Agency:
State Rep. Jack Cera (D-Bellaire) is questioning the extent of public corruption at Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s Department of Administrative Services (DAS) after a state inspector general’s report showed what appears to be an emerging pattern of public corruption at the highest levels of the state agency.
“Reports of top administration officials abusing authority and engaging in pay to play schemes using taxpayer money raises serious concerns over what exactly is going on in Columbus,” said Cera in a release last week. “This emerging pattern of behavior is troubling and Ohio taxpayers need answers, and more importantly, accountability.”
Cera, a State Controlling Board member tasked with oversight of state spending, sought additional information from Inspector General Meyer in June of this year, after news reports showed DAS was steering hundreds of millions of dollars in no-bid, taxpayer-funded state contracts to a few select IT firms for consulting services, the release said. [...]
“After reading the Inspector General’s report, I think we need to look long and hard at the lack of oversight that led to these corrupt deals with political insiders,” Cera added. “It’s our duty as legislators to ask these questions and get answers to make sure this never happens again. We still need to fully understand what made Governor Kasich kill safeguards against this type of behavior in the state budget.”
At Blue Virginia, lowkell writes—Dave Marsden Is Quickly Becoming One of My Favorite Virginia State Senators:
Between putting out actual facts about I-66 (as opposed to hysteria and misinformation, which we’ve seen a lot of recently) and the following list of legislative priorities on criminal justice, Dave Marsden is quickly becoming one of my favorite Virginia State Senators. Nice job; keep up the great work!
I am pleased to be headed down to Richmond tomorrow to co-chair the Public Safety Workgroup for our Governor-Elect Ralph Northam’s Transition Team. Gun-safety advocate Lori Haas will be my Chair. Here are a few things that I will be focused on as Co-Chairman of this Transition Committee.
Reforming our “3 strikes” laws so that those who have demonstrated the capacity to be productive citizens are given the opportunity not to languish in our prison system for non-violent offenses.
Raising the grand larceny threshold from $200 to $500 so that we aren’t needlessly creating felons who may have exercised bad judgement on just that one occasion. Under current law, these felony convictions can permanently bar them from voting. We can hold people accountable and still allow them to participate in our democracy.
Addressing what are known as “Fishback” cases in which individuals were sentenced by juries who were not informed that parole had been abolished. Juries were therefore unaware that the defendants would be serving the entirety of their sentences without the possibility of getting a parole hearing. There was significant over sentencing because of juries’ erroneous assumptions.
Providing parole hearings for adults who were sentenced as juveniles to life without parole after serving 25 years in an adult facility and demonstrating exemplary behavior. This will put Virginia in compliance with Supreme Court decisions in Graham v. Florida, Miller v. Alabama, & Montgomery v. Louisiana.
At Blue Mass Group, jconway writes—In Praise of the DNC Unity Commission:
Per Politico, an amazing thing has happened that can hopefully heal lingering divisions from 2016. Sanders and Clinton partisans, working together, put aside their differences and agreed on a comprehensive reform package to the DNC primary process. This could have an impact as great as the McGovern Commission did in the 1970’s in opening the party up to it’s members and putting democracy back into the Democratic Party.
What the Commission unanimously agreed on is the following:
The Democratic Party’s Unity Reform Commission is recommending cutting the number of superdelegates by about 400, equal to a 60 percent reduction. Many of the remaining superdelegates would see their vote tied to the results in their state.
The commission is also suggesting that absentee voting be required as an option for presidential caucus participants. It is calling for automatic voter registration and same-day voter registration. And it wants to mandate public reporting of raw vote totals from caucus states
Superdelegates will still remain. Nina Turner, one of the Sanders’ representatives, wanted them eliminated. Yet she voted for the final compromise. The remaining superdelegates have been reformed in a manner this critic finds to be fair and equitable. Elected officials will constitute the remaining pool of superdelegates, along with a few party operatives and grassroots volunteers. The days of fundraisers and consultants having a seat at the nominating process are over. The other important reform is forcing the majority of the remaining elected superdelegates to back the popular vote winner of their state on the first ballot.
A Democratic Convention has not gone to the second ballot since the 1956 vice presidential nomination. This reform would essentially eliminate the role superdelegates could play in overturning the will of the voters on the first ballot, the major concern of superdelegate critics.
At Blue Jersey, Steven Danley writes—Rural Progressivism: Land, Livelihood, and Community Part II:
Last week I launched the Blue Jersey series on rural progressivism (here’s Part I), showing how in many of the key races in the upcoming 2018 elections have significant rural regions that represent an opportunity for candidates, and I introduced the concept of rural progressivism particularly as it’s catching fire in certain Oklahoma races. This week I want to dive into the policies and ideas caught up in that rural progressivism and how they overlap with progressivism as traditionally understood, but are drawn deeply from the experience of rural lives — and as such, have more potential to resonate with voters in rural communities.
At the heart of the discussion of rural progressivism is a challenging puzzle, perhaps most famously discussed in What’s the Matter with Kansas? by Thomas Frank. Frank argues that Republicans have adopted a strategy of focusing on social issues, which causes Kansas voters to vote against their economic interest. The book is a flashpoint, of academic discussions about the importance of class in American politics, of conservatives who find the premise condescending, and of liberals who struggle with the premise that economically favorably policies are being rejected in places such as Kansas. In many ways, though written in 2004, the book is even more pertinent now, as the increase of partisanship means that the “us-against-them”ism makes it even harder to reach voters across party lines.
The ideas behind rural progressivism is that there are elements of progressivism that have the potential to deeply resonate in rural communities but need to be built up from the lives and experiences of rural communities. That’s distinct from the idea that a Bernie Sanders-style progressivism as-is can reach rural communities — an effort hampered by the ways liberalism has been politicized, as written about by Frank. Rural progressivism is about forming a progressivism that draws deeply from the rural experience. This video by Family Farm Action lays out the heart of that movement:
At The Mudflats of Alaska, Shannon Moore writes—The History of Alaska is Liberal:
A particular line from a columnist that ran last week has been stuck in my head, but not in a good way.
I don’t remember much else about the column, other than the writer has a liberal friend who he thinks is defective.
Oh, I thought of lots of snarky responses. You know, like if liberalism was a defect that could be detected in the first trimester of pregnancy, you’d be damn sure the conservatives would put it as a caveat in their list of exceptions to an abortion ban. “Incest, Rape, Life of the Mother, and, it’s a Liberal!” [...]
It’s bugging me. I’m a liberal. I assure you it isn’t genetic, but may have to do with reading all those red words during Mr. Harris’ Sunday school class. Just a guess.
I know I should feel like an endangered species in Alaska, but I don’t. I know what principles and beliefs have worked here for years, and I know that I stand on many shoulders.
In 1922, a Tlingit Chief, Charlie Jones, was jailed for voting. His protest gave way to Alaska Natives getting the right to vote two years before Native Americans. In 1944, years before the civil rights movement in the states, Alberta Schenck, a Native woman, refused to budge from her seat in the “Whites Only” section of a movie theater in Nome. She was dragged out and jailed. Schenck was Alaska’s Rosa Parks. Because of her bravery and the moving testimony of Elizabeth Peratrovich, on Feb. 16, 1945, Territorial Gov. Ernest Gruening signed an anti-discrimination law. Against the argument that the law would not eliminate discrimination, Peratrovich said, “Do your laws against larceny and even murder eliminate those crimes?”
The liberal history of Alaska is constantly buried under “new” waves of oil workers and rapture watchers. McChurches promise to Super Size your Jesus. Too many preachers haven’t noticed the miracle of “curing a gay guy” wasn’t mentioned in the works of Christ.