Tag Archives: politics

Tools and Theaters for Progressive Federalism

Politics, Politics2, Uncategorized, ,

Reading more about “progressive federalism”, or using “states’ rights” to enact progressive policy. Might have to put “progressive federalism” in your vocabulary. 

Honestly, it’s hard for me to come to grips with it because of the abuse of “states’ rights” and the greater trust. Progressives and liberals have invested so much trust into federal, national remedies as a matter of ending the “patchwork quilt” of some states having more progressive laws on an issue than other states. So many key rulings liberalizing society have come from SCOTUS throwing a wrench into prohibitive state laws. Now we have to abandon this and go fight within the states as a matter of tact in fighting the White House? It sickens me that this is how this century’s civil rights advances will have to be determined, but here we are. 

I also don’t think we can truly exercise progressive federalism without “initiative & referendum” (I&R) at the state level. Almost all of the states which have I&R are west of the Mississippi, and except for two states in the South, no other Southern states east of the Mississippi allow civilians to draw up petitions and gather signatures to put questions on the ballot. Some liberalizing laws at the state level have come from I&R, especially on decriminalizing/legalizing cannabis and regulating gerrymandering. With conservative supermajorities in state legislatures, we will have to make some deals to make I&R more available to the rest of the South. 

Progressive federalists must be willing to fight at any and every level for every possible tool to enact empowering reforms. The era of relying on SCOTUS and White House EOs to make key progressive decisions is over, but it shouldn’t mean that we’re on our own.

Atlanta/Fulton County as a Theater for Progressive Federalism

An example of progressive federalism as an act of dissent: Atlanta. 

When Atlanta City Council passed cannabis decriminalization (or, more precisely, “defelonization”), political leaders at the state level spoke out against the reform, claiming that only the state government can decriminalize it. When I asked him about it, even Rep. Calvin Smyre, our State House Dean, noted his opposition to cities taking this lead. 

But is there a state law mandating that a city has to use its resources to enforce state law? And should Democrats run away from, or embrace, cities and counties scaling down their resources from being used to enforce state law to the letter?

Now, even Fulton County has followed Atlanta and South Fulton city in defelonizing cannabis. And as both the largest city and largest county in Georgia, there should be a “spillover” effect to other parts of Metro Atlanta. 

Maybe we should embrace this municipal rebellion, because it calls the Georgia anti-cannabis lobby’s bluff, calls them to put up or shut up. This can apply to sanctuary cities, cities with non-discrimination laws protecting LGBT people, local minimum wage hikes, city ID cards, etc. If we can’t dissent municipally, how can we show our policy work at the state level? If we can’t dissent state-wise, how can we propel progressive change at the federal level?

Let’s embrace the spirit of dissent of Atlanta and Fulton County as a policy for more Georgia cities, and take charge of the political conversation.

Black Lives in Progressive Federalism

It’s thrilling and stressful that African-American activists will now be even more cognizant and promotive of the role of local political power in , as we don’t have the ear of Republicans or conservatives who are ascendant in the federal level of government. But even during the Obama years, the Bush years, the Clinton years, those who advocated for 

Progressive Federalism Reader

Legalize Marijuana and Abolish Cash Bail for Nonviolent Offenders

Politics, Uncategorized, , , , , ,

I read once that we’re living in the “justice reform era”. Marijuana legalization seems to be the landmark product of this era.

However, the news coming from post-legalization states is that, for its suspension of much of a local theatre of the long War on Drugs, the poor of color are not the biggest beneficiaries of this regime change.

What we do know, so far, is that white people, Latinos and homeowners are the biggest beneficiaries of marijuana legalization at the state level, especially in California. Black people who use weed while within or near their residence run a higher risk of offending the terms of their lease with their possession of weed, especially those who live in federally-funded housing.

So how do we mitigate the impact of “smoking weed while black”? One way is to abolish cash bail for those accused of nonviolent offenses, like using marijuana.

Imagine marijuana-legal California abolishing cash bail. Being the biggest state that would do so, those who are arrested for nonviolently offending the remaining state-level marijuana laws (among other laws) can be released quickly from jail on their own cognizance so that they don’t lose their jobs, homes, cars, or other life needs. Poor people of color, including those who use legal amounts of marijuana, would be major beneficiaries of abolishing cash bail and related pre-trial expenses.

Ending this financially-oppressive practice for all accused nonviolent offenders can make California a more economically-fair place to both live and use weed for poor people of color.

Maybe this can be encapsulated as a “pro-forgiveness” agenda, in which those who, by indirect way of an authority figure’s perception of a person’s unchangeable background or features, receive more disproportionate punishment for crimes or offenses which are committed at the same rate by all suspect classes can receive effective amnesty and expunging of their records.

With legal weed (in California as of this year), restrictions on civil asset forfeiture (already passed in California in 2016), the shifting of many felonies to misdemeanors (already passed) and cash bail abolition for nonviolent offenders (yet to be passed), we will see greater economic mobility for the poor of color.

I can’t wait to see both marijuana and cash bail reform happen in the same state.

VIDEO: Doug Jones (D-AL) and Tina Smith (D-MN) Sworn Into Office as U.S. Senators

Talking Points Memo reports:

Former Vice President Joe Biden will escort Sen.-elect Doug Jones (D-AL) to his swearing-in ceremony on Wednesday morning, according to CNN and local reports from Alabama. While the state colleague typically accompanies a new senator to the swearing-in ceremony, Jones did not ask Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) to attend, AL.com and WAAY TV reported Tuesday evening. Jones’ ceremony is scheduled for noon on Wednesday and he plans to do his swearing-in on a personal family Bible, according to AL.com.

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports:

Tina Smith, who served three years as Minnesota’s lieutenant governor and worked behind the scenes as an influential DFLer for years before that, will join the U.S. Senate on Wednesday. Smith’s rapid elevation to the Senate follows the resignation of former Sen. Al Franken, who stepped down a day earlier following sexual harassment allegations. Smith, 59, will become Minnesota’s junior senator alongside Sen. Amy Klobuchar, also a DFLer. That will make Minnesota just the fourth state to currently have two women as U.S. senators.

Smith is now the 22nd currently-sitting female senator, a record. Jones’ election nubs the Republican majority even more to 1 seat, so expect more tie-breaker votes from Pence. Smith intends to run for her new seat in November 2018, and Jones will be up for re-election to a full term in 2020.

Dem Candidate Releases Unfathomably Sad Campaign Ad

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Reading how Rahm Emanuel helped pull together left-wing and right-wing Democrats in order to win the 2006 midterms, I’m seeing the criticism about how the minority of right-wing Democrats like Heath Shuler wasn’t much help when it came to passing progressive legislation, since so many of them voted against the ACA, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, and so on.

So keeping a group of right-wing Democrats under the Democratic Caucus banner was a paper tiger.

Maybe it’s insurance?

Politics, Uncategorized

There are people who obsess over how there aren’t enough x-ethnicity babies being born, that x-nation is dying off because of low birth rate and increased life expectancy, that “hordes” of “mud people” are infiltrating the country and impurifying the culture through their religion.

There are many such obsessives throughout the world, including people like Victor Orban and Vladimir Putin and Marine Le Pen and Brian Brown of NOM. They hate the ideas of gay marriage and immigration because their countries may become less White, less Christian, less “safe” and less familiar to themselves.

It’s the same fear that helped animate apartheid.

Brian Brown can conveniently defend Orban’s policy as an “appreciation of diversity” until Hungary begins to come to blows against their neighbors in the name of nationalist expansionism and “Greater Hungary”.

Redefine “taxpayer”.

Plutocrats have set taxpayer against taxpayer, taxpayer against beneficiary, taxpayer against public sector worker, taxpayer against climate and environment, taxpayer against government.

I wonder when the taxpayer will be turned against the military and police, just to complete the full number of demographics and institutions the “hard-working taxpayer” hates their “hard-earned money” going to, just so that we’ll get on with Civil War II.

Occupy and Indivisible

Politics, Uncategorized

Thought:

As non-electoral movements, Occupy and Indivisible may be years apart in age, but I think they compliment each other.

Occupy was (and in some areas, still is) the urban tent revival which sought revival in the face of persistent economic inequality. Indivisible is the direct district-by-district action against politicians (mostly at the federal level) who seek to further multiple inequalities.

Occupy was limited by being an urban movement which centered their actions in urban spaces and needs, but it also pushed mightily for income inequality to be considered a massive political crisis. Indivisible is still unfolding as a political force, but it is centered around influencing legislators and their often rural-spread districts.

Indivisible may go to places where Occupy largely could not.

Southern White Working-Class Men Need to Check Themselves

Mitch Landrieu’s speech is the sort of conversation that more Southern White working class men need to have with each other, especially if they’re descendants of Confederate soldiers.

They need to question who this war benefitted, because it wasn’t their farmer ancestors who gained anything beyond death, destruction and deprivation. What class did the framers of the Confederate government come from? Why did these aristocrats prize their way of life as the “Southern” way of life, and not that of the majority of White men who didn’t own slaves?

Why did so many working class White men go along to war and not resist the Confederate draft? Why didn’t more men desert the ranks like Newton Knight did?

The severe class divide between the Dixie aristocracy and the soldiers sent to die in Gettysburg and Antietam is embarrassing. White men who are descended from those soldiers should ask themselves and each other if the fight was worth it or if they got played like an Appalachian fiddle.