Category Archives: Uncategorized

If current results hold…

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If current results hold…

  1. Now that Warnock and Ossoff have won, will the GOP majority get rid of runoffs?
  2. Daniel Blackman, you did your absolute best to elevate the PSC to Democrats’ attention, and I really need you to stay in this fight as the DPG’s go-to organizer for future PSC races. You did an amazing job, and you’ve set the template for the PSC District 2 race next year. But please ask for a recount.
  3. We now live in the era of mixed statewide results, but we’ve shown that Democrats can win a majority statewide, and not just a plurality like Biden won in November. No looking back.
  4. I want Doug Jones for Attorney-General. Confirmation hearings for Biden’s cabinet this year should be fun to watch.
  5. I’m wondering if the VP-elect plans to have an office in the Senate because she’ll be tiebreaking a LOT
  6. Schumer becomes majority leader and the highest-ranking Jewish American in history, but Joe Manchin succeeds Robert Byrd to become the most powerful person in the Senate and secure West Virginia’s role in American politics once again.
  7. Warnock becomes the second Black Senator from the ex-Confederate South, 11th nationally, and one of three in the new Senate alongside Tim Scott of SC and Cory Booker of New Jersey (not including VP Harris). Ossoff becomes one of the youngest Senators and Han Solo cosplayers in U.S. history. He also becomes the fourth Jewish senator from the South, the first Southern Jewish Senator since Benjamin Jonas of Louisiana (served 1879-1885), and the first Jewish member of Congress from the non-Florida Deep South since Ben Erdreich of Alabama (served 1983-1993).
  8. Get used to this: Chairman Sanders (Budget Committee).
  9. The dam on those 500 bills will now break.
  10. $2000 checks y’all!
  11. I pay great tribute to the work of Laura Ratcliff Walker and Tonza Sheree Thomas for leading our Muscogee County Democratic Committee to overperforming in Muscogee County, and to Linda Parker for fighting for us on the Muscogee County Board of Elections against Alton Russell’s attempt to screw newly-registered voters. You are the MVPs here in Columbus.
  12. EDIT: Thanks to the county committees and candidates who commissioned me for websites this past year. Thanks to Cliff Albright and Black Voters Matter for hiring me earlier last year, and thanks to Jeremiah Chapman and Woke Vote for hiring me for the runoff. I began and ended this election season working for Black voter turnout, and that’s huge for me.

A Year in Bed

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From a short job with Black Voters Matter (and visiting DC!), to helping a charismatic local lawyer become our next District Attorney, to building multiple websites for county parties and candidates, to talking to the media about redlining on behalf of Southerners On New Ground- Columbus, GA, to becoming Young Democrats of Georgia secretary, to seeing one colleague I’ve made this year through YDG become one of 16 electors for Biden and another YDG colleague join the DNC, to serving for a month as a temporary Democratic convention delegate for Georgia (and not even getting a t-shirt to show for it), to surviving someone shooting up the side of our apartment building, to surviving a harsh (yet, in comparison to others’ experiences, mild) brush with COVID and seeing the humanity and solidarity of so many people come through for us in the aftermath, to seeing Mom hit 70 without missing a step, to seeing Roderick graduate high school/join CSU/get a job/get a used car/vote for the first time (absentee!), to seeing my niece Cedrica drive by herself from Texas to Georgia and back for the first time…

This has been a year, spent mostly in bed.

Script Idea for Ossoff/Warnock

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Please make this a script idea for a joint #OssoffWarnock ad:

Ossoff and Warnock walk along forked paths in a park which converges to a point.
Ossoff: “We believe the American people deserve more money from federal COVID relief.”
Warnock: “But Senate Republicans think that only $600 are good enough for you, even when Donald Trump and Joe Biden say it ain’t!”
Ossoff knocks over standee of Perdue: “David Perdue says no to $2000”
Warnock knocks over standee of Loeffler: “Kelly Loeffler ALSO says no to $2000”
Ossoff and Warnock stop at the fork.
Ossoff: “You know who will say yes to $2000?”
Ossoff/Warnock fist bump each other, saying together: “We will!”
Warnock: “We will vote for it”
Harris: “I will break the tie”
Schumer and Pelosi together: “We will pass it”
Biden: “And I will sign it”
Ossoff: “But none of this happens unless you vote to send us to the Senate by January 5th”
Warnock: “Vote for Ossoff and Warnock in the runoff so we can-“
Biden: “Run”
Harris: “You”
Schumer/Pelosi: “Your”
Ossoff/Warnock: “Money!”
Ossoff: “I’m Jon Ossoff”
Warnock: “I’m Raphael Warnock”
Ossoff/Warnock: “And we approve this message”

We Can Have National “Referendums” in America

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Thinking about how the 2017 Australian Marriage Referendum was carried out, besides the impact it had on LGBT mental health (like these sorts of referenda so often have). But officially, it was not a referendum: it was carried out by the federal government entirely by mail, it did not have the force of law, was not subject to Australia’s mandatory voting law, and did not need enabling legislation to be conducted. Yet, the federal government in Australia did make use of Australia’s national voter database to send the survey out, and a deadline was selected for citizens to register to vote in order to participate.

Technically, the United States federal government could carry out a national postal survey, mostly bypassing the states. However, it would have to be carried out with voter rolls purchased from the states.

Currently, besides the consultations carried out by federal agencies as required prior to approving or rescinding a rule, the only existing federal attempt at direct democracy is the “We the People” petition site. I wonder if the Biden admin will improve on this site or let it languish as it has.

  1. It only requires that someone create a whitehouseDOTgov account in order to create a petition, and it doesn’t even require one to be signed in in order to sign a petition. Signers should be signed-in first.
  2. There is no verification of identity in order to create an account. I’d tie it to one’s social security number and that one be a registered voter in one’s state in order to create an account.
  3. The only response that could currently be asked for is a statement from someone in the White House if it reaches 100k signatures in 30 days. If it were to reach 1 million signatures within, say, 60 days, a higher response should be required. And if a certain threshold of signatures were reached, such as 8% of popular vote turnout in the last presidential election, a national non-binding postal survey on the petition question should be triggered.
  4. Require two-factor authentication for accounts.

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.