Okay, I’m going to try to be succinct here, (I rarely achieve this).
So…following a lot of good advice I found from multiple posts here at DK, then following those to other sites, then others, so on and so forth, I did a deep dive into my state legislature, especially my representatives there, (The senator is awesome, the congressman is okay, the other congresswoman, she’s a whack-job not just in politics). Those are my opinions, and somewhat related to this.
So, in this research project, I subscribed to all 11 (Democratic representatives in my legislature) and the three Republicans that represent me. I received a newsletter from one of those Democrats about this past legislative session and why he voted the way he did. We are seriously the minority so I looked into all of the bills, because a lot of them had really close votes (For or against). Most of them I had already been into, but this was a different purpose, I was looking for who had voted with this representative and also in the senate. What I thought was impossible, ‘I’m living in a totally crazy red state,’ I found common sense and smart people.
What I found (which I kind of already knew, but was confirmed) was Two of my reps, even though Republican, voted for common sense and (Dare I say it? Yeah, I am) like a Democrat. The other went the RWNJ way.
What drew me to this newsletter and getting so involved in it was the way he broke down the Republican structure and how he categorized it. He wasn’t being derogatory, he didn’t name names, but you could, with a good day or two’s worth of reading, know who was who and what ‘box’ they fit in.
It was basically a road map. While I’d love to oust my one rep who is crazy-sauce, I can’t work on that until next year. But I gained respect for the Senator and other rep who represent me. I spent the better part of the day on their public-facing media, (And because one lives just up the road from me, Social media was fun).
Just like with the federal level, the ‘freedom caucus’ is putting up all these great sounding bills, that are just insanely bad when you get into them. They flood the legislature with them, tacking on amendments and the like that it takes a novel to explain a 20 page bill. Here in my state (Idaho) all of the crazy ones but one, were nuked, so I did feel a great sense of relief in that. I also found a thing that needs to be protected.
this rep also was really good on detailing the methods of how these things were coming up, like down to the city level and how something benign in a rule change has consequences. (Okay I read the newsletter like 20 times, and i’m going to read it 20 more). See 2/3’rds of my reps at the state level voted against or for the same bills as he did. Their reasoning not always on the same page, but related enough that they got nuked or passed. So I got gratification that there are lesser of the evils, and one out of three isn’t too bad, right?
Because I can’t vote republican, I did get some really good ideas on where I can challenge one of those ‘non-partisan/partisan’ elections right here in my neighborhood where even me, (Broke-assed, struggling individual) could actually take the office from them, simply because I challenged them. There are 15 unchallenged people for positions in my county alone. I think i’m going to go for the library position, my educated background totally helps with that.
So thank you all, for making me feel it wasn’t a lost cause, and the links to help me solidify that.
Okay, now how to tag this. Should be fun.