This week at progressive state blogs is designed specifically to focus attention on the writing and analysis of people focused on their home turf. Let me know via comments or Kosmail if you have a favorite state- or city-based blog you think I should be watching. Here is the May 6 edition. Inclusion of a blog post does not necessarily indicate my agreement with—or endorsement of—its contents.
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Chris Savage at Eclectablog of Michigan writes—Flint residents face losing their homes for not paying (poisoned) water bills in #FlintWaterCrisis:
As bad as things are in Flint, Michigan – and they are REALLY BAD – in the past couple of weeks, they’ve gotten far, far worse. With the state of Michigan no longer subsidizing the city residents’ water bills having declared the water there now “safe” (it’s not), the city has now started charging residents again. Keep in mind that Flint has some of the highest if not THE highest water rates in the entire country. Not only that, if they don’t pay for the water that is making them sick and is still not safe to drink, they may lose their homes:
Following a water crisis that saw sky-high levels of lead contamination in Flint, Mich., many homes in the city still do not have access to safe tap water.
But that doesn’t mean they’re not being charged for it. And if they can’t pay in time, they may lose their homes.
The city has mailed 8,002 letters to residents in an effort to collect about $5.8 million in unpaid bills for water and sewer services. If homeowners do not pay by May 19, property liens are transferred to tax bills, which begins a process that can end with residents losing their homes unless they pay their outstanding bills before March 2018. [...]
To characterize this as “unacceptable” is to be far too charitable. This is an environmental injustice with few if any precedents. The state of Michigan caused this catastrophe and is now turning their backs on the people they poisoned. Gov. Snyder and his administration may want the world to believe that this crisis is over, that the water is now safe, and that everyone can just move on, but that doesn’t change the facts. This crisis is NOT over. The victimized people of Flint are NOT out of the woods. And the state of Michigan is responsible for making them whole again, to the extend that that is even possible.
Martha Jackovics at Beach Peanuts of Florida writes—Bilirakis Deceives And Betrays His Voters With His Choice To End Their Health Care:
"Rep. Bilirakis is adamant about protecting those with pre-existing conditions."
That's what Republican Rep. Gus Bilirakis' office told us when Beach Peanuts reached them by phone earlier last week concerning the Republican's upcoming vote on the first step to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and "replace" it with their own plan, the so-called American Health Care Act, or "Trumpcare" if you will.
Last Thursday, the bill passed in the House with a vote split down party lines. All Florida Democrats voted against it, and all Florida Republicans except one voted for it. That one GOP "no" vote came from Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who recently announced she isn't running for reelection. With her vote, Ros-Lehtinen put her constituents needs first, unlike her colleagues. [...]
Blirakis knows his constituents' concerns all too well. Back in February he held a couple "listening session" town halls where large crowds voiced their worries over Republican's like Bilirakis' plans to take away their insurance and end the benefits the ACA provided them with. One constituent begged Bilirakis" "Please don't take my life away. Please don't let me die." Well, Bilirakis "listened," and then voted to do just that anyway.
When we reached his office by phone earlier last week, his office said he hadn't yet read the bill, but when we pointed out his decision would be a matter of life and death for his constituents, they reassured us that Bilirakis was "adamant" on protections for those with pre-existing conditions. If this were true, how did he go from being adamant about those protections before he reviewed the bill, to voting "yes" to a bill that he knew would absolutely remove them?
Dan Burns at MN Progressive Project writes—Continued momentum for renewable energy in Minnesota:
I’m not yet ready to entirely buy that renewables have so much momentum, these days, that nothing that “President” Trump, and his witless acolytes in places like the Minnesota legislature, can do would really slow them down. I think wrongheaded people in power can still manage a lot of harm. That being said:
At a press conference Friday morning, department officials said the program shows how much solar energy has expanded in recent years. In fact, new data showed Minnesota added 203 megawatts of solar electric capacity in the first quarter of 2017 compared to 207 in all of last year.
“Solar jobs in Minnesota increased 44 percent in 2016, with nearly 4,000 Minnesotans now employed in the industry. Solar presents our state with a tremendous opportunity for growth, clean energy, sustainable energy and a lot of future jobs for our children and the generations to come,” Commissioner Mike Rothman said.
countrycat at Left in Alabama writes—Act Now To Stop Legislature’s “Forever Wild” Cash Grab:
Perennially unable to balance the state budget without borrowing or blowing BP money, the GOP supermajority is, once again, eyeing Forever Wild. For years, legislators have schemed to get their hands on Forever Wild funds, even though Alabama citizens consistently support keeping the program as is: 75% of voters in 2012 supported funding it for another 20 years.
Here’s how this year’s Forever Wild cash grab would work:
Alabama’s popular Forever Wild land conservation program could be required to reimburse state and county governments for an estimated $3.6 million in lost property taxes — plus $500,000 every year going forward –– under a proposed measure in the Alabama Legislature.
The bill, HB 502, would require Forever Wild to “reimburse the amount of any ad valorem tax revenue lost as a result of property previously subject to ad valorem tax being acquired by the Forever Wild Land Trust.”
[…]
“DCNR is opposed to HB 502 and believes that it would negatively impact the Forever Wild Land Trust by creating a perpetual financial burden that will ultimately deplete funding for future acquisitions and shut down the program.” [...]
Killing Forever Wild would be as stupid a financial decision as refusing Medicaid expansion in the state, so legislators couldn’t possibly think it’s a good idea… oh wait.
Shelby Steuart at Better Georgia writes—Does Handel agree with Price on targeting the old, sick?
Karen Handel has said Tom Price is the best person in the country for this job but after only a few months in Congress he’s already proposed legislation that makes life harder — and more expensive — for older, sicker Americans.
Tom Price was interviewed on Fox and Friends about Trump’s alternative to the Affordable Care Act. He was specifically asked by one of the show’s hosts if older and sicker people could end up paying up to five times more than young, healthy Americans, to which he replied, “Well, it’s pricing for what individuals’ health status is,” he said. “That is important to appreciate. Somebody’s going to pay for health coverage for the American people and the question is, how do you do that?”
If Handel believes Tom Price is the best person in the country for this job, does she also believe that “somebody’s got to pay” for health coverage? Does she believe that older, sicker Americans should pay five times the rate younger Americans pay?
The Washington Post fact-checked Tom Price’s interview on CNN’s State of the Union on May 7th, awarding him “Four Pinocchios” (their rating for the highest level of misleading content) for his performance as well as his explanation of Obamacare and Trump’s alternative.
teddyrooseveltprogressive at BlueNC writes—Docs reveal dark money plot to consolidate conservative power in NC:
Reporters from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and the Center for Media and Democracy have been analyzing 30 gigabytes of documents hacked from the Koch network and the Bradley Foundation, showing their plans for consolidating conservative power in five states - Colorado, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. Raw Story has a summary and links to the articles and other background. And, yes, Art Pope's involved. Read on …
The trove of hacked documents shows that Bradley Foundation has recently given large grants to groups in these states, including a $575,000 commitment to five organizations in Colorado, two of which aim to “defund teachers unions and achieve real education reform”; $1.5 million to two groups founded and mostly funded by the Koch brothers’ biggest ally in North Carolina, Art Pope, to create a “disruptive communications framework” to amplify conservative news; and another $1.5 million to a group in Washington and a field office in Oregon to “educate union workers themselves about their rights” and “defund Big Labor.”
Money for Art Pope to encourage the spread of "disruptive" fake news in NC - any news outlet that reprints one of the Pope organization's op-eds or uses them for a source should be taken out to the woodshed.
NC reporters should be tripping over each other in a rush to talk with these two media outlets and examine the documents for more details about Art Pope's role with these organizations and whether there's any proof of Pope and others violating Federal or state campaign finance or money laundering laws. At the very least, it should remind any NC citizen with half a brain that the Koch brothers and their allies are wanting to use NC as their personal playground and sandbox to spread their own brand of radical politics and hate.
Donna at Democratic Diva of Arizona writes—‘Moderate’ Martha McSally votes to yank health care from millions:
About ending protections from lifelong coverage caps on children born with illnesses, making being a rape or domestic violence victim a preexisting condition, etc. You know, cool stuff like that.
I’ve certainly mentioned a time or two the maddening kneejerk tendency of the civic and media establishment in Arizona to ascribe pleasant things like “moderation” and “reasonableness” to Republicans who don’t seem like they’re seconds away from biting the head off a bat on live TV. Arguably no one has benefited more from that tendency in recent years than Martha McSally, who represents the Tucson area CD2 in Congress.
McSally has ridden on a carefully crafted image of macho and feminist cred by touting her record as the first female air force fighter pilot while exhibiting the kind of squishiness on stating her (hardcore right wing) policy policy positions that Jeff Flake (who patented that maneuver) must envy.
That quote from McSally may seem like an uncharacteristically bold statement but it feels like staged political theater to me. The aim of which is people focus on how boldly she said “let’s get this fucking thing done!” and not what she actually fucking did, which was vote to kill people, literally.
MIchael Bersin at Show Me Progress of Missouri writes—Oderint dum metuant:
There was this curious Twitter post on Tuesday from Representative Vicky Hartzler:
On reading this we thought, my goodness, did we miss the announcement of an open public town hall in the district? Have we all been too harsh on Representative Hartzler (r) for not scheduling any open public meetings or town halls during all those congressional breaks? Nah.
Yesterday we heard a little more of the story.
We were told that the meeting was held with six individuals, not the entire group. Representative Hartzler (r) and/or her staff also dictated no pictures and no audio of the meeting. The small group agreed – they did attend the meeting, right? Representative Hartzler and two members of her staff attended the meeting. Think about that for a minute.
The whole point of being a representative is to engage with any of your constituents who wish to do so, not filter who can or cannot participate. More so, groups which are ostensibly promoting transparency and access for all individuals who care to participate apparently acquiescing to such restrictive ground rules for a meeting are not serving their purpose.
They got rolled. There’s no record (yet) of what transpired. Vicky Hartzler got a reelection advertisement moment. For nothing.
A staffer at Colorado Pols writes—Sirota Uncovers Lanny Martin’s Colorado GOP Quid Pro Cash:
A story from local investigative journalist David Sirota in the International Business Times is provoking a lot of discussion today–not just for its content, but the fact that a large out-of-state media outlet is calling attention to donations and wealthy local donors that local media can’t be bothered to report on:
A top fossil fuel industry official poured $40,000 into the Colorado Republican Party’s super PAC on the same day the state’s legislature began considering a bill to limit the oil and gas industry’s fracking and drilling near schools, according to state documents reviewed by International Business Times. Soon after the contribution from Halliburton board member J. Landis Martin, Republican lawmakers lined up against the legislation. They eventually killed it — days before a deadly blast at a home near an oil well in Northeastern Colorado…
Martin’s March 14th donation was one of the single largest individual contributions in the Colorado Republican Party’s modern history, and the second largest ever given to the party’s super PAC, according to data from the National Institute on Money In State Politics. [...]
Some of our readers will recall the name J. Landis “Lanny” Martin as the wealthy local oilman who held an under-publicized fundraiser at his Denver Art Museum penthouse for Jeb! Bush in the fall of 2015 starring former President George W. Bush. Noteworthy to us was the fact that local press actually colluded with the organizers to conceal the location of this fundraiser–which didn’t stop a lively contingent from Occupy Denver from shaking the windows of Martin’s penthouse for the whole event.
Martin’s donation to the Colorado Republican Party’s independent expenditure committee is not illegal, but the large size of the donation definitely makes it noteworthy. With so much scrutiny in the media on the opponents of oil and gas development in Colorado, not nearly enough attention is paid to the proponents and the lavish amounts of money they give their (mostly) Republican political allies.
Lamar White, Jr. at CenLamar of Louisiana writes—Confederate Monuments, LA GOP Approved Cuts That Would Close Veterans’ Cemeteries:
One day after Republican members of the Louisiana House Committee on Municipal, Parochial, and Cultural Affairs passed a bill that would prohibit any municipality from altering, removing, relocating, destroying, rededicating, or renaming any public structure, plaque, statue, monument, school, street, bridge, park, or area named after any notable person who has ever served in any war in American history, unless it is first approved in an election, they approved eliminating nearly $150,000 in funding to the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs.
Those cuts, according to VA Undersecretary Homer Rodgers, would result in the closure of two relatively new veterans’ cemeteries in Leesville and Rayville and require the state to return approximately $10 million in federal funding. Undersecretary Rodgers explained that because both cemeteries are under five years old, they are not yet self-sustaining. When Democratic State Rep. Sam Jones proposed an amendment to restore funding for those cemeteries, it was quickly rejected. Republican State Rep. Cameron Henry called the amendment a “scare tactic.”
House Republicans have been scrambling to determine how to plug a $440 million budget shortfall without implementing any of the modest tax increases on businesses proposed by Gov. John Bel Edwards and without affecting the TOPS program, which provides free college tuition to any high school student in Louisiana who graduates with a 2.5 GPA and a 22 on the ACT and which disproportionately benefits middle to upper-middle class white families in the state. Students from households making more than $100,000 a year account for 41.2% of TOPS recipients, and 20.4% of TOPS recipients are from households that make at least $150,000 a year, according to a recent analysis by the Louisiana Office of Student Financial Assistance.
Steve Hanson at Uppity Wisconsin writes—Walker wants to put us into the "let's move to a different state" world:
No shocking surprise here, but governor Walker says he is willing to consider getting an exemption for Wisconsin to opt out of crucial portions of the ACA if in fact those waivers make it through the Senate. So - you want good health insurance? Move to a state that supports it.
Remember - this exemption not only applies to the people who are on Obamacare currently but also applies to the folks who have insurance through their employer. This means that a cheapskate employer could fix it for their employees so they would have crappy low-cost insurance as well.
As always, if there is a race to the bottom, Scott Walker wants to get a jersey and participate.
Seth Sandronsky at Capital & Main of California writes—Unfair at Any Speed: How Traffic Stops Punish California’s Poor:
“California has the highest traffic fines in the country, with $490 red-light fines and fees that are over three times the national average,” said Elisa Della-Piana. The legal director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR), which provides civil legal aid, spoke by phone last week to Capital & Main on the release of the group’s 56-page report, Paying More for Being Poor: Bias and Disparity in California’s Traffic Court System.
The study’s title may be long, but its findings are short and to the point, linking minor traffic offenses for low-income and nonwhite people to harsh civil and criminal policies and practices. That $490 ticket for missing a red light is a result of “add-on fees that are used to fund 10 separate special projects, including a DNA fund and an emergency medical transport fund,” according to the LCCR report. This amount rises to $815 if an offender fails to pay by the deadline.
Low-income drivers in over-policed black and Latino communities are in harm’s way of such punitive traffic fees and fines — and are at risk of losing their licenses, vehicles and jobs. The U.S. Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure ranks California with the highest poverty rate, 20.6 percent, in the nation.
In California, where public transit is in short supply relative to demand, operating a car is basic to earning income. Seventy-eight percent of workers in the Golden State drive to and from work, according to Della-Piana.
“Once stopped, people of color are also more likely to be booked on arrests related to failure to appear or failure to pay,” the LCCR study further claimed. “The available county-level data of nine Bay Area municipalities shows that African-American people in particular are four to 16 times more likely to be booked on arrests related to failure to pay an infraction ticket,” Della-Piana said.