Category Archives: Politics
State Sen. Nikema Williams (SD-39) to Rep. Nikema Williams (GA-05)
The die has been cast: Senator Nikema Williams will now become the first woman ever nominated as a Democrat to the 5th congressional district of Georgia. This means a seat has been opened in SD39.
Nikema has worked her way up as an activist, from her earlier campus activism with Young Democrats of Georgia as National Committeewoman and Political Director in the 2000s to her work at Planned Parenthood Southeast. She served as Chair of the 13th Congressional District from 2007-2011, the youngest congressional chair ever elected in the DPG’s modern history at the time. She served as the DPG’s First Vice Chair from 2011-2019, stepping in temporarily as interim chair in 2013 upon the resignation of Mike Berlon. She then stepped into the electoral arena with her run for Vincent Fort’s seat in 2017, and then became the first Black woman Chair of the DPG in 2019.
Nikema, as the presumptive winner of the 5th district election, will also be the baby of the Georgia delegation at 41yo. For as long as no primary challenge is whipped up in the coming years, she has plenty of time to grow into the role.
I wonder how many YDG alums have become members of Congress, or have become officeholders at any level. We should be building more more Nikemas and other Democrats who are groomed and trained to run for moments like this. We need a well-oiled political machine.
Georgia Primary Advisory Questions and Results
Working on a list of ballot questions which were placed on county primary ballots on June 9. I’m looking for the other questions placed on the ballot in 10 remaining counties.
There were 19 counties which had county-level party primary advisory questions on June 9, out which 7 had Democratic entries.
Forsyth by far had the most Democratic advisory questions with 11 questions. Cobb came in second with 6 questions, followed by Oconee and Walton which had 5 each, Dawson with 4, Glynn with 3 and Upson with 2. Clayton and Harris also had the most Republican questions with 8 each; Hart with 7; Barrow, Columbia and Rabun with 5; Forsyth and Glynn with 4; Brantley, Gordon, Henry and Jackson with 3; Union with 2; and Lincoln with 1.
Republicans had at least 6 counties where “2nd Amendment sanctuary county” questions were placed on the primary ballot. A few counties had Republican ballots replete with anti-immigrant language, including anti-sanctuary city, pro-border wall, anti-immigrant-student, anti-driver’s-license-for-immigrants, and so on.
Democrats had their own red-meat questions, ranging from climate change, pre-k education, Medicaid expansion, election reform and immigration reform.
A notable question was one asking Henry County Republicans on whether to legalize marijuana, which was supported at 51%. At least two counties asked Republicans on whether to legalize casino/horse/sports gambling, neither of which were affirmed.
Another notable exception was in Forsyth County, where one party question ended up on both primary ballots: “Should the County invest in beautification projects such as median landscaping, mast arms for stop lights, and upgraded signage similar to John’s Creek, Alpharetta, Roswell and Sugar Hill?” It was supported on both ballots.
A few may have legislative impact at the county level, with Cobb’s Democratic question 11 asking for a county non-discrimination ordinance (in lieu of Georgia’s lack of a civil rights law) being supported 97.41%.
Medicaid Expansion Comes to Oklahoma, Hopefully to Missouri Next Month
The successful Oklahoma vote on Medicaid expansion, State Question 802, may be a resounding success, but it was overestimated in how wide the margin would be between Yes and No. Pollsters predicted a 60-40 Yes vote, but it barely passed at 50-49. A few points, and how they apply to the Missouri Medicaid expansion vote on August 11:
- That those 7 counties in which Yes was the majority only sustained half of the total statewide Yes vote. 49% of the Yes vote came from all of the other 70 counties in the state, even the border counties. So that is another reminder that land doesn’t vote, and campaigning to the cities in a state where the urban population at the last census was 66% is not a good idea.
- That the vote largely reflected income patterns across the state, a bit more so than urban-rural setting. Research is showing that the richest 200 precincts in the state voted in the minority for SQ802, while the poorest 200 precincts voted in the majority for the same, even as both groups of precincts are largely split between urban and rural precincts.
- That voter suppression played a role in the final vote. Besides the antagonism of Governor Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma Republicans and Americans for Prosperity against the initiative, this primary was impacted by the Oklahoma Legislature passing new requirements for notarizations on absentee ballots, even after the State Supreme Court threw out the requirement as unconstitutional. There’s also the fact that 200k less Oklahomans turned out for this primary than the 2018 primary, when Oklahomans voted 60-40 in favor of medical marijuana.
Also, a crucial minority of Republicans voted for Medicaid expansion, pushing #SQ802 over the top in a state where Trump won 60-30 and Stitt won by more than 10 points. This result shows that the support for these ballot initiatives has swingier, more elastic votes among both party bases than how they vote in elections.
So this brings me to Missouri, which will vote on Medicaid expansion on the August 4 gubernatorial primary ballot. Missouri has a higher urban-to-rural population ratio than Oklahoma, the same as Idaho (which also passed Medicaid expansion 60-40 in 2018), and has had a similar tendency to vote for progressive measures such as nonpartisan redistricting and medical marijuana. But Oklahoma’s razor-thin margin shows that advocates for Medicaid expansion must work for this vote this month. Also, Missouri has the same requirements about absentee voting as does Oklahoma, and the same Republican legislative opposition against Medicaid expansion.
I have family in the St. Louis area, and their health would stand to gain from a Yes vote.
Option: More Blue Self-Governance
Here’s my feeling about D.C. Statehood and P.R. Statehood.
This is the weakest bid to expand Blue self-governance and representation in the Senate. The Douglass Commonwealth may become a thing if Dems win the Senate, and it would be nice to have the Douglass Commonwealth in the Union, but Puerto Rico is still split heavily between the conservative statehood movement, the liberal (enhanced)-Commonwealth movement, and the left-wing Independence movement. And since their legislature just voted to take LGBT-inclusive non-discrimination protections out of their Civil Code, there’s no guarantee that P.R. will vote for Dems much.
American liberals in the contiguous 48 have shown ourselves to be either arrogant self-sniffers in the Blue states or selfish masochists in the Red states who don’t want to split off into their own states and govern themselves, when doing so could help win 60% of the Senate and help re-write the Constitution.
Instead the Blue staters pride themselves on their Blue state status and don’t want to divvy up some of that power for the Union’s sake, and those of us in red states are shit out of luck.
When are we going to save the Constitution? When are we going to take the Senate seriously and make the necessary sacrifices of clout and comfort to move the Senate forward? When are we going to stop being flaming hypocrites, fight for our own self-governance and tell the GOP to fuck off and die?
After Mark Jones’ Victory, the Bigger Work Ahead
This is part of why I did whatever I did with Mark’s campaign.
This year, we blew the judicial and DA elections, badly. 4 Supreme Court justices, 6 Court of Appeals judges, 138 Superior Court judges across 49 circuits, all nonpartisan.
Out of those 138 Superior Court seats, only 14 received challengers, across 9 circuits.
Out of the 35 District Attorney races up for election, 6 will have major party candidates go up against each other in November (in Alcovy, Augusta, Dublin, Eastern, Gwinnett and Houston). Dems decided 7 DA races by default in the primary, and the GOP decided 22 other races by default. All DA races are partisan.
So the next chance we get to make an impact on these judicial and DA elections should be seriously capitalized upon.
In 2022, 1 Supreme Court Justice, 2 Court of Appeals judges, 74 Superior Court judges in 36 circuits, 44 State Court judges in 30 counties, 17 chief magistrate judges, and district attorneys in 10 circuits will be up for election. Most of these hardly ever get challengers, and that needs to be changed.
We can’t say that we are pro-CJ reform but not get involved in pro-reform electoral bids for judicial and prosecutorial seats.
So I’m writing forum questions to ask judgeship candidates for 2022.
ENDORSEMENT: Mark Jones for District Attorney
Full disclosure: I state the following in my own personal capacity.
This mail ballot was the first time in my life I have ever voted on paper, and I voted for Mark Jones for District Attorney.
However that I may have felt about his unorthodox campaign style for DA was obliterated by the developments of the last month. After seeing his dedication to his campaign and to those who he hopes to have as his constituents, as well as the attacks made against him by the law enforcement establishment in this region, I could not be more proud of voting for him.
I also could not be more proud of supporting his move into this campaign from the get-go. He reached out to me in late February after I made a post about the need for more primary contests in the upcoming qualifying week, and asked if there was room for him to run against Julia Slater for DA. He hesitated for a few weeks, and then I reached back to him and said that he – a lawyer, a resident of the circuit, a reform-minded person – is more than qualified to run as a Democrat, and that I wanted a good, clean primary contest to draw attention to this position and it’s role in corrections reform. The following week, he did not hesitate to jump in, drive to Atlanta to qualify, and loan himself money to buy signs and digital billboards, all before buying a website domain. He has been campaigning non-stop ever since, and being charged and staying for two nights at Muscogee County Jail has not stopped him one bit. Two of his supporters being arrested, charged and jailed has not stopped him fighting to get them released and their charges dropped.
I am angry at the behavior of the law enforcement establishment in this region against Mark, his supporters and BlackLivesMatter protesters in Columbus. I am angry that the jail is filled to such capacity as it is. I am angry that the police here are no better than the other police departments who should be defunded. I am angry at civil asset forfeiture, cannabis criminalization, cash bail and other stupidities committed by the laws and law enforcement establishment of this city and this state. Damn this authoritarian system, and damn this state and this city for perpetuating it.
Out of all of the votes I filled out on paper, I may have cast my first vote for Mark Jones for District Attorney.
Trumpist Hypocrisy
Trump supporters absolutely love to blame Obama for somehow “increasing division and racism”, or hanging his response to Trayvon and Ferguson and Alton Sterling and Eric Garner around his neck.
Does this presidential responsibility extend to Trump over the deaths of George Floyd? Oh no, that’s a blue state. How about Breonna Taylor in Kentucky? Oh no, they may have a Republican supermajority but they also have a Democratic governor. How about Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia, with no Democrats in state power? Well, that was just Ahmaud’s fault, can’t blame a government for that.
But what can you expect in responsibility from the same rubes who believe that voting-by-mail and wearing a mask in public are unmanly and fraudulent?
What can you expect in good faith from those who believe that everyone is out to take their property and historical dominance away?
What can you expect from them except nonsense? Disinfo? Lies? Infections? Hatred? Authoritarianism? Gaslighting? Entitlement? Shibboleths? Anti-urbanism? Half-baked plots for civil war? Fully-baked plots to further disenfranchise Americans?
Same old shit, same old excuses, same as it ever was.
Talking Heads was right.
U.S. States and Black Political Self-Perception
I have never met an African-American person who has ever worn their state of residence on their sleeve as a matter of political identity.
It’s not been successfully driven into us that the state one lives in can’t and shouldn’t adopt ideas and cultures and laws from other states.
It’s not been driven into us that borders between states should be so strict as they are.
It’s not been driven into us that states are countries unto themselves and can’t possibly be challenged on the merits of their governments’ actions by the national government.
It’s not been driven into us that federalism is, in any sense, a worthwhile method of governance.
I don’t think African-Americans will completely buy into the ideology of federalism, not when states and their governments give us so much unnecessary grief over our civil rights.
I’d like for someone to at least try to step into our shoes and convince people like me that federalism benefits Black people in this country, when it has failed so many states’ governments and their residents of all ethnicities.
Fair and Equal Michigan Finds a Way to E-Sign Ballot Petitions
I’ll be watching Fair and Equal Michigan’s electronic signature campaign for putting an LGBT anti-discrimination bill on the November ballot. Numerous other organizations have tried gathering signatures by mail or electronically, but many state governments which allow for petitions to put questions on general election ballots specifically mandate (like in Arizona’s constitution for example) that the circulator must witness voters signing the petition in person, and even what sort of ink to use. Courts in Ohio, Montana and Arizona have all ruled against ballot campaigns asking for electronic signatures for such issues as Redistricting reform, Cannabis decriminalization and voting rights expansion, all within the last month.
The Michigan campaign is doing an end run around this requirement by allowing Michigan voters to:
- use two-factor authentication
- submit their driver’s license or State ID number
- use DocuSign to sign twice, once as a signer and once as a petition circulator
- Have their identity checked against voter rolls by the campaign
Furthermore, the campaign cites that this is covered under both Michigan’s Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) as well as Executive Order 2020-41, both of which provide that e-signatures for legal documents shall have legal effect and shall not be denied enforceability. If they pull this off and can get the prerequisite number of signatures before May 27, this may be the first statewide ballot question in US history to ever be put on a general election ballot using electronic signatures. This could open a new chapter in direct democracy in the United States.
