Category Archives: Politics

Facts about the Georgia PSC runoff

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Facts about the PSC runoff:

  • The GOP has won all six runoffs for PSC since the first runoff in 1992 (Democrat John Frank Collins v. Republican Bobby Baker).
  • The challenge for Daniel Blackman, as it was for Lindy Miller in 2018, has been to both ride the coattails of the marquee runoffs and also emerge from their shadow as an important statewide race at the same time.
  • Only twice – 1998 (special) and 2006 – has there been a PSC runoff as the only partisan runoff on the ballot.
  • The frequency of PSCs runoffs tracks closely with the slow rurally-driven collapse from 1992 to 2010 and the (sub)urban-driven re-emergence since 2018 of Georgia Democrats as a serious party intent on fighting for power.
  • There is no national 527 or PAC organization of Democrats dedicated to organizing fundraising and campaign ads for PSCs in the same way that there is for Democratic candidates for governor (DGA), secretary of state (DASS) and attorney-general (DAGA), at least not in the 11 states which hold partisan PSC elections.
  • Blackman and McDonald’s percentage in November track closely with Miller and Eaton’s initial percentage in November 2018.
  • Blackman would be only the second African American on the body in its history, following David Burgess who was defeated in his only re-election bid in 2006 by Chuck Eaton.
  • Despite Blackman having went up against McDonald once before in 2014 (a dismal year for Democrats at all levels), this runoff promises to be a lot closer in the final percentage.

Runoff Elections in Georgia are Racist

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Think about it:

  1. the county unit system, combined with the white primary until 1945, was racist and biased against urban voters.
  2. when the county unit system was struck down in 1963, the beneficiaries of the county unit system in the General Assembly voted to switch to runoff voting for future elections in order to prevent “Negroes” from “bloc voting” by allowing white voters to vote as a “bloc” in the second round.
  3. when Wyche Fowler was defeated in a runoff by Paul Coverdell in 1992, the Democrats in the General Assembly voted to switch to plurality voting, only triggering a runoff if the winning candidate received 45% in the first round. The rural voters continued to bleed to the GOP, who restored the runoff requirement when they took the General Assembly in 2005.
  4. the number of runoffs statewide has increased as the two parties have realigned and the Atlanta ring has widened, from one each in 2006 (PSC) and 2008 (Senate) to two in 2018 (SoS and PSC) to three in 2020 (two Senate, 1 PSC).

So how many December-January runoffs are we going to have in 2022? And how are we supposed to excuse the baldly-racist justification of the runoff system?

The Department of the Interior as a Department of Environment and Climate Protection

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Reading this article from Vox about why the incoming Biden administration should establish a Department of Climate, the only times it goes into specifics about what this proposed department should look like is when it mentions current gaps in environmental justice, as well as how the Department of Homeland Security was cribbed from agencies in various departments.

If anything, the Department of the Interior, which has been so gutted of agencies over the last century that it has been called “the Department of Everything Else” and currently only manages federal lands and Native American affairs, would be a good candidate for serving as a Department of Environment and Climate.

All it needs is:

  1. a reshuffling of the NOAA from the Department of Commerce (for surveying the environment)
  2. the US Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service from the USDA (to conserve forests and natural resources)
  3. Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy from the Department of Energy (to support renewable energy, sustainable transportation and energy efficiency)
  4. the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences from HHS (for research into the effects of the environment on human disease)
  5. a (re-)merger of the EPA (for environmental assessment, research, education and regulation)
  6. Some permanent White House Initiatives on Environmental Justice for each ethnic minority community (African Americans, Native Americans and Alaskan Natives, AAPI Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans)

If all of this (plus some) could be done, the DOI could become a powerful, holistic spearhead of federal climate and environmental policy.

Also: The Patent and Trademark Office should be moved to the DOJ, and the Census Bureau should be moved to HHS.

Winning the Senate is More Important than Anything

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I have voted for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and for Democrats down the ballot.

But when I did so, my enthusiasm was not focused on the top of the ticket. I’m learning to not fall in love with the top of the ticket, or to hold high expectations for what the president will do upon taking office.

Instead, I have high expectation from a Democratic majority Senate and House, and for President Biden to cooperate with this majority.

Nancy Pelosi, as Speaker, has set up some extremely high expectations in this 116th Congress for what the congressional agenda will be under the next Democratic trifecta. All of those bills that were passed by the Democratic House and blocked by the Republican Senate need to be passed again with a Democratic trifecta. And the Senate, under Schumer or whoever, absolutely needs to ditch the filibuster to make all of this happen.

Then I need this trifecta to try passing at least one (1) progressive constitutional amendment. There’s one that’s been waiting for over 40 years to become the 28th.

All I want from our 46th president is to sign all of those bills, take the credit and step out of the way. Don’t obstruct, don’t try to get in the way of the House.

That’s the only way I can get some sleep. The joke may be that we’re voting for “Sleepy Joe” so we can get some sleep, but I’m not resting (much) until the backlog of bills on McConnell’s desk is cleared into law in the 117th. I’m not resting until substantial federal COVID relief is passed. Not until a new VRA is passed, not until DC statehood is passed, not until the For the People Act, Equality Act, George Floyd Act, HR 40, Paycheck Fairness Act, SAFE Banking Act, Climate Action Now Act, and every other act passed by the 116th House gets sent to Joe Biden’s desk in the 117th. I look forward to the MORE Act, the Ending Qualified Immunity Act, and other bills which didn’t get consideration by this Congress moving forward in the next.

That’s what I’m voting for, no matter what happens at/with the increasingly-deligitimized SCOTUS, no matter the rage of right-wing governors, attorneys-general and secretaries of state.

I’m glad that Biden will be going into office without the high expectations which were accorded to Obama from his election, and without the high drama which dogged Clinton throughout her campaign. He will be boring, and maybe opaque, and that’s good. Hopefully, he won’t have too many Executive Orders to issue.

The main focus must be paid to the Democratic Congress, and to whether they will fulfill their promises to the people.

The regional discrepancy in early vote turnout for 2020, and other observations

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Looking at the Elect Project’s map of early voting turnout up to this point, I spent a week wondering why the turnout in the Midwest and Pennsylvania (especially Pennsylvania) was so low compared to most of the “Sun Belt” states.

Apparently, I learned that this is the first year in which most of the Midwest, Pennsylvania and New York was introduced to both early voting and no-excuse absentee voting, but no-excuse absentee was introduced as the only means of early voting in several Midwestern states. Gerrymandered Republican state legislatures had incredible misgivings about no-excuse absentee throughout this election cycle.

That partly explains why pre-Election Day turnout in the Midwest, New York and Pennsylvania is lower than Georgia, Florida, North Carolina (All three of which use both absentee and and either paper ballots or machines for in-person for 3 weeks), Texas (which largely used paper or machines for 3 weeks of early in-person voting while shunning expansion of absentee voting to those with no excuse), and most states west of the Mississippi.

(At least Michigan prepared a bit better with the passage of Proposal 3 in the Blue Wave of 2018, which legalized no-excuse absentee voting among other reforms via ballot initiative as a constitutional amendment, which has meant that Republicans have found other means of nipping at absentee voting in Michigan such as cutting counting time to Election Day).

The Midwest needed no-excuse absentee in the first place. Michigan was more prepared for COVID forcing a greater reliance on absentee voting, but not the other Midwestern states. The early voting turnout in the Midwest was leaps and bounds ahead of their 2016 early voting turnout, which is to be praised. BUT this sudden and exclusive switch to no-excuse absentee voting was a mistake, IMO, at least when looking at states which did both in-person paper/machine voting and absentee voting and almost eclipsed their 2016 totals (like Georgia and Florida). This amounted to a trial-by-fire for election administrations who were more accustomed to voters turning out on Election Day in person. Absentee voting (and especially early voting) absolutely should be kept and expanded in the Midwest, but maybe they should be kept as an option for at least a few more elections before going total absentee like Colorado and four other states. Or maybe this method of reserving early voting for absentee ballots will improve in future cycles.

Thanks to this early turnout for absentee ballots in the Midwest, GOTV for Dems is going to be a heavier lift in the Midwest/PA/NY for Election Day (but a lot easier for Dems compared to 2016), while GOTV for Dems in the Sun Belt has the easier(?) but more complicated necessity to be more precise with who to pull to the polls, especially Black and Brown voters in Florida. The worries over Black and Brown turnout are easy fodder for the usual “Dems in disarray” headlines, even as Biden has led an otherwise stellar campaign.

And the growing consensus among the prognosticators and election mappers I read on Twitter is that North Carolina’s early count of absentee ballots (currently 97% counted) will likely point to the Electoral College winner on what is erroneously called “Election Night”.

On Ice Cube

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All of the 13 points from Ice Cube’s “Contract with Black America” rely on legislation, all of this is the responsibility of Congress, few of these will withstand scrutiny as mere executive orders, and few (if any) of these will pass a 60-vote majority in the Republican Senate.

Furthermore, as we’ve seen throughout the last 3 years, Trump does not control the Republican Senate (he may have been key to a few election wins for them, but he’s currently being kept at arms’ length). Trump’s “Platinum Plan” will not get 60 votes, and the Republican Senators are damn sure not repealing the filibuster.

Similarly, Biden will not control the Democratic Senate, and his only job will be to pass or veto whatever is sent to him by a Democratic Congress.

So Ice Cube can collaborate with Trump’s advisors to perfect the “Platinum Plan” all he wants. Doesn’t mean it’s going to Trump’s desk, or the CWBA to Biden’s, unless the filibuster goes away next year.

And Biden’s campaign was right to answer that this will have to wait until after the election. It’s Schumer who will have to answer that anyway, not Biden. Don’t write a check that you can’t cash from the White House.

Abolish Legislative Districts

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In which I explain why I’m radicalized on legislative districts:

We talk about the need for nonpartisan redistricting of state legislatures and the U.S. House, and Republicans see it as a way by which they slightly loosen their intense grip on power in many states. We talk about greater competitiveness in elections as a virtue to pursue.

But nonpartisan redistricting is a band-aid on the egregiousness of first-past-the-post methods of voting, including two-round FPTP elections, whether for single- or multi-winner at-large elections. Nonpartisan redistricting of single-winner FPTP elections has to be incredibly precise to accomplish the goals of minority representation and partisan competitiveness.

Even with the proposed Fair Representation Act, which combines nonpartisan redistricting with ranked-choice voting and multi-winner elections, the job of nonpartisan redistricting is made somewhat easier with fewer, larger super-districts, but the premise of even having districts becomes questionable beyond a mere demand for geographical representation.

Why should geographical representation matter for legislative elections anymore? The long-running argument is that geographical representation through districts helps the legislature pay attention to legislators’ particular corners of the polity. But the laws which these legislators write have reverberations – direct or not – upon the entire polity.

I’d argue that we should simply bypass the need for districts altogether, and have all legislators elected statewide and at-large through party-list proportional representation, in which voters vote for their preferred party, and parties become members of the legislature by how much of a percentage of the vote they receive.

Such a method removes geographical jockeying for legislative power from the table, and places the focus squarely upon legislating for the entire polity. No more redistricting, no more fear of partisan competitiveness, no more zero-sum single-winner two-round legislative elections, no more pitting rural and urban areas against each other through structural capture of elections.

Most Latin American nations have made party-list PR work as presidential republics, and have mostly switched to party-list PR since 1908. Few have switched back to majoritarian legislative elections, even with brutal, bloody interruptions to constitutional orders by military coups. It works well, and most of these countries who retain party-list PR don’t have this “eternal” question of carving up geography and property as a tool to gain and retain partisan dominance, nowhere near how bad we have it.

This is what I mean by evolving past the need for legislative (and congressional) districts, beyond redistricting, beyond single winners, beyond electoral colleges of any type, and beyond first-past-the-post elections. Throw it all out.

The Fair Representation Act’s combo of RCV+multimember districts+nonpartisan redistricting is just a compromise.

Hot Take: Montgomery Bus Boycott Was Also a Strike

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Hot take:

The Montgomery Bus Boycott also had aspects of a strike.

They didn’t just withhold their patronage and money. They withheld their participation in the monopoly over buses held by the Montgomery city government within city limits, and, by extension, denied the bus system and its drivers the ability to deliver services to other residents. Among the reactions by city officials against the boycott was a ban on any bus charging less than the city government’s bus line. The city government and segregationist residents felt entitled to Black residents’ participation enough to brutalize those who boycotted and avoided the bus line.

A boycott only becomes effective when goes from mere avoidance of patronage to outright kneecapping when it harms its ability to deliver its goods and services to other people. But then can we call it a boycott?

And that’s what I’m thinking about regarding the #Strike4BlackLives. The players are denying sports, entertainment and perhaps more to a public and White House which feels incredibly entitled to their performance and presence, hence the attacks against those players who knelt and the admonishments to “shut up and play”.

Denying comfort to those who feel entitled to one’s participation feels more like a strike than a boycott. And that denial will be painful, maybe even more painful than the protests on the street. And that’s the point.

I look forward to seeing what comes from this strike.

The United States as a Police State

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I was just reading this article on JSTOR from right after Jean-Bertrand Aristide was first forced into exile by the Haitian military, and how one way to bring stability back to Haiti at the time is to create a police state, which had already been tried and failed (the other was to build democratic institutions in Haiti through party-list PR elections and an independent judiciary).

I wonder if this applies to us.

Is this how we maintain the semblance of peace while our elections system is below international standards, maintained by at least 50 election regimes who are in jealous, bitter legal conflict with each other, and threatened by a racist party which is willing to sell the postal service for parts and gum up the census returns to exclude noncitizen residents in order to, among other things, ensure their victory at the polls?

Does the larger body of those who have a monopoly on violence – military, reserve, law enforcement and armed partisan civilians – actually maintain a police state?

We have an incredible number of military bases per capita. I wonder if we have the most domestic military bases in the world, in addition to the most overseas military bases.

We have over 17,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, and we have the world’s largest prison population, maintained largely by at least 50 state governments.

We live with the legacies (and ongoing practices) of redlining and housing discrimination, draw up discriminatory districts for elections and for boards of education, segregate against multi-family housing through downzoning, and create whole cities from non-annexed land so that those apartment-dwellers don’t move near and hurt the property value.

We keep people apart by force, and have built our entire political system upon keeping people apart through geographical isolation of the undesirables. And we’re supposed to be OK with this when we see the destruction, waste and resentment caused by this forced isolation? When so many of us deride any semblance of overriding responsibility to other Americans in the name of convenience because we’re not one of those city people, only to be the recipient or cause of someone’s receiving of COVID-19?

When the Third Reconstruction comes, I hope it means we can opt out of being residents of any state and just be citizens of this country. I hope it means that we can abolish state prisons, create a federal voter roll for a single voter registration website, replace the U.S. House’s elections with party-list proportional representation (or, as a half-measure, ranked-choice voting), move to single-payer healthcare, and establish not only an affirmative right to vote, but also an affirmative right to participate in free and fair elections.

Thoughts on Biden/Harris

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The only one that fit the profile of a typical VP candidate is Harris. She’s relatively fresh to DC politics but has had some DC experience, and has little to no background that could excite the GOP beyond “something something Willie Brown”.

It was never going to be Warren, for one, thanks to the Native American issue (and I say this as someone who supported Warren for President). Rice was problematic because of the “Benghazi” fiction, and because foreign policy experience is an allergen to xenophobic conservatives. Abrams has no federal experience and sat out of two potential runs for Senate. Whitmer literally just got elected Governor. Bass has those Cuba and Scientology comments, making her a liability in Florida. Demings was even more of a cop and had a very exploitable background as a police chief, a potential lightning rod for the left and the anti-urban right.

The safest choice besides Harris was Duckworth. She’s even more boring, Midwestern and cuddlier to veterans. By the time that Duckworth was ruled out, I figured that Harris had it.

The Berniecrats may hate Harris, or hate the #KHive on Twitter (and the feeling is certainly mutual from the KHive). Harris was not the most progressive prosecutor in California. But Twitter is not real life, progressive prosecutors are still carving their way into the punitive prosecutorial establishment against political biases as we speak, and the Trump campaign will be tasked to come up with an attack line against Harris that could actually stick and not slide off like it’s been sliding off of Biden. The polls are still more favorable to a Biden win, at least for now, less than 90 days to the election.

And progressives who are situated to the left of this ticket still have room for being change agents, especially those who have won primaries this year.

So I’m not actually disappointed by this ticket. It’s not exciting, but this is not as much of an excitement election as it is an anti-incumbent election. I made peace with it a long time ago, and I’m thinking of the longer term. If this ticket wins along with a Senate majority (despite all the headwinds of voter suppression), we can stop the judicial bleeding at the federal level. But we need the Senate filibuster to be dropped so that the bleeding can reverse.

The die has been cast. We need to win it all.