It’s race, class AND punditry predictions:
In most elections, the intricacies of voting procedures rarely warrant headlines or interest most Americans. But in 2012, voter identification laws took center stage. In fact, in the five years preceding the 2012 election, almost half of states enacted some form of legislation restricting voter access — such as requiring photo identification or proof of citizenship to vote, more stringently regulating voter registration drives, shortening early voting periods, repealing same-day voter registration, or further restricting voting by felons.
What we found was that restrictions on voting derived from both race and class. The more that minorities and lower-income individuals in a state voted, the more likely such restrictions were to be proposed. Where minorities turned out at the polls at higher rates the legislation was more likely enacted.
More specifically, restrictive proposals were more likely to be introduced in states with larger African-American and non-citizen populations and with higher minority turnout in the previous presidential election. These proposals were also more likely to be introduced in states where both minority and low-income turnout had increased in recent elections. A similar picture emerged for the actual passage of these proposals. States in which minority turnout had increased since the previous presidential election were more likely to pass restrictive legislation.
We also examined just the bills passed in 2011, when the vast majority of bills were adopted. The same findings emerged.
States that passed more restrictive legislation in 2011 were those in which:
• Republicans controlled the governorship and both chambers of the legislative body.
• Forecasters viewed them as potential swing states in the 2012 election.
• Minority turnout was higher in the 2008 presidential election and those which have larger proportions of African-American residents.
Ultimately, recently enacted restrictions on voter access have not only a predictable partisan pattern but also an uncomfortable relationship to the political activism of blacks and the poor.
I think we knew most of this from nearly a decade of observations but I have not seen the link between “swing state” status and new voting restrictions shown before, although of course it occurred to me partly because conservatives in Pennsylvania told us all about it.
Ohio and Florida are the traditional “screw around with the voting rules” states of course, but we saw new efforts to restrict or impede voting in nearly every state that was (rightly or wrongly) designated “in play” in 2012 including North Carolina, Iowa, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Villago Delenda Est
Well, duh. The blahs and poors, the kids, all these people, tend not to vote the right way…for neo-fascist/confederate Rethuglican scum.
So, prevent them from voting by whatever means are available.
Matt McIrvin
Gee, what an astonishing surprise.
Cervantes
Republican skulduggery — the one fixed point in a changing age.
smintheus
I can’t think of any Voter ID laws put in place in reliably Republican states.
There is at least one state that doesn’t fit the pattern however: RI. But there are some surprisingly regressive and virulently anti-immigrant strains in Rhody.
JoyfulA
Fortunately, the Pennsylvania laws are still tied up in the courts and may remain so until we get a new Democratic governor next year.
schrodinger's cat
[email protected]
OT: What do you think about the series on education that NYT is addressing via its editorials?
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I love the language, though, in the actual study (it’s linked). It’s so not “both sides” :
“Targeted demobilization” Oh, my.
One of the reasons we have income inequality to the extent we do (IMO) is because elected leaders can safely ignore poor people.
They do ignore them, too. They’re much more responsive to the demands of upper income people (pdf)
I think we’d have a better government if it were actually representative of and responsive to all income groups.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
My contempt for the Village political-media establishment has only grown since I started noticing how insular and corrupt they were during the Clenis affair, but I confess I’m still a bit surprised at how little coverage and comment these blatant and blatantly race-based attacks on voting rights have gotten. I’ll never forget Tom Brokaw, who was a local anchor in Atlanta in the late ’60s, airily dismissing the idea that the Romney-Gingrich dog-whistling on “welfare” and “food stamps” could have anything to do with racist dog-whistling, which airy dismissal was followed by a full five minutes of star-fucky gushing about his status as a living legend from Lawrence O’Donnell.
Texas?
Hill Dweller
Republican attacks on voting, reproductive and worker rights, along with their embrace of procedural extremism in congress, should have been covered daily by the Village. Alas…
Can you imagine the current crop of Beltway “journalists” covering the Civil War and/or civil rights movement?
catclub
“Ohio and Florida are the traditional “screw around with the voting rules” states of course”
I suspect that voting machines are still broken or incredibly easy to break. The only reason it is not done on a wide scale is that it is unnecessary. The days of fixing voting, after the 2000 election, are long gone. And all that was done was to make it possibly worse, and less transparent.
The Canadians do this right. paper ballots hand counted in small groups.
Ben Cisco
We here in North Carolina received a lot of attention due to this and other idiotic issues thrust upon us by Art Pope and his puppet regime, but we’re fighting back as best we can. Getting the melanin-challenged (in both the exburbs and the hills and hollers) to figure out that they’re being played too is, well, challenging.
Davis X. Machina
@Hill Dweller:
Lee invades Pennsylvania. Sherman invades Georgia. See, both sides do it.
Of course, the “Why doesn’t the president show leadery leadership and just get everyone around a table and knock some heads together?” meme is as old as the hills, providing Spielberg’s Lincoln with one of its main plot threads….
scav
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: difficult term is “reliable”. While TX may have been so based on past action, what about reliably future tense? What kind of demographics etc are they sitting on and are the old guard worried about it?
TR Donoghue
Regarding Colorado, what are you talking about? Our Dem governor and legislature passed the most progressive election reforms in the nation in 2013.
And while Republicans had a one seat majority in the house in 2012 they never came close to getting anything into law that would restrict voting rights.
Ron Thompson
Perhaps it would be a good practice, in a post which is almost entirely a lengthy quotation, to identify the source of the quotation in the lead paragraph.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
It’s better than their usual stuff. The NYTimes are the absolute worst on ed reform reporting. We joke here about the “Kaplan Daily” but the Washington Post at least allows another view in occasionally. The NYTimes allows ONE view, the ed reform view. It’s narrow.
I’ll just give you an example. The NYTimes editorial board constantly promotes charters by showcasing ONE charter company (KIPP). This is a tiny percentage of charter schools. What if they did that with public schools? There are a lot of great public schools. What if every piece they did focused on those great public schools? They treat charters and public schools differently, and inequitably. They promote one system and denigrate the other. They prefer one system over the other. That harms existing public schools.
The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik
And unfortunately, valuable as this study is, nothing will likely come of it, because the state gov’ts doing this have a vested interest in this shit, and unfortunately the national GOP are in a position to stonewall, distract, and otherwise prevent anything to be actually fucking done about it all until it’s too fucking late.
In other words, GOP does it because they can, and because they’ll win on it, every single fucking time.
cmorenc
These restrictions follow not merely from the ruthless inclination of the GOP to do whatever it takes to preserve electoral power against an unfavorable demographic tide, BUT ALSO a firm belief among many in their camp that the only way Obama and the democrats could win swing states was by fraudulently obtained votes. The electoral results of 2008 and 2012 are amply sufficient proof of itself to them, without need to prove much in the way of specific instances (except by mythical anecdote).
Kay
@The Snarxist Formerly Known as Kryptik:
Yeah, I disagree. When this started it was greeted with a huge yawn. Courts were rubberstamping these laws and people were happily comparing voting to driving or buying booze and that was going completely unchallenged.
Between 2010 and 2012 there was a huge change in the reporting. That happened. Studies like this and constant media coverage changed it.
Villago Delenda Est
@Hill Dweller:
Nope, can’t. Those aren’t news. They don’t directly affect them or the supply of cocktail weenies in Georgetown, and have nothing to do with local Village gossip (ZOMG, Obama won’t let us photograph his dog!).
cmorenc
@Hill Dweller:
Actually, the vast majority of newspapers back in that era were virulently partisan and/or sensationalistic in their coverage.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: I did not go to public schools so I can’t judge from my own experiences. I have had students from public schools and their preparation in math has spanned the range from astoundingly awful to spectacular. The problems in math preparation at least seems to be that many students have taken only a couple of math classes. I also find that they rely too much on their calculators. Math is something to be feared it seems.
Southern Beale
We passed restrictive voter ID laws in Tennessee as well, and there’s no way in hell we’d ever be “in play” in a presidential election. People who love to go on about their Constitutional Right To Arm Bears and whatnot often forget about the Constitutional Right to vote in a fucking election. They think you should be able to buy a gun like it’s a pack of chewing gum, but voting is another matter entirely.
I’ve said from day one if we encouraged every black person to get their carry permit (because that is acceptable ID to vote, of course it is) we might see a turnaround on both issues right quick.
With that, it’s the weekly edition of the Tennessee Gun Report, and we’ve got a bumper crop of accidental shootings, road rage incidents, and other craziness from across the Volunteer State.
Villago Delenda Est
@Southern Beale:
This was true in California in the 60’s. All it took was a bunch of Black Panthers parading around Sacramento with long guns to get Ronaldus Magnus to eagerly sign the most restrictive gun control laws of the era.
Quaker in a Basement
Let us turn to the Gospel of Pierce where we learn that This is Not About Race because nothing is about race, ever.
Seanly
@smintheus:
South Carolina, Texas & Idaho have voter ID. All 3 of those are reliably red for at least another generation.
ID’s is kinda weird though: they do want to see ID, but you can sign an affidavit saying that you are you so your vote can still count.
Cervantes
@Southern Beale:
This first-rate campaign suggestion is on its way to MoveOn.org as we speak. If there are other places it should be sent …
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
There’s an easier way Republicans can win elections: stop being extremist douchebags.
C.V. Danes
Republicans are playing the long game on this one, and the long game is disenfranchising everyone who is not a Republican.
Of course, this will get uglier and uglier as that “non-Republican” voting block continues to grow and eclipse the remaining few that the Republicans allow to vote.
C.V. Danes
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
You would likely have more success if you simply asked them to stop breathing.
elmo
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
Problem: if they do that, they will essentially cease to be Republicans.
C.V. Danes
@Southern Beale:
That’s because owning a firearm, and preventing “those others” from voting, offer similar levels of empowerment to their tiny little pea-sized brains.
Pluky
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
But of course Texas. Look at the demographic trends.
Villago Delenda Est
@C.V. Danes:
There is a way to do this…simply have Michelle Obama urge everyone to breathe.
Jeffro
@C.V. Danes: and for that, just tell them Obama is pro-respiration
Feebog
While it is nice to have confirmation of what we already know, there is nothing new in this study. There are some steps that can be taken, starting with state-wide initiatives (in those states that have them) for non-partisan commissions to draw election maps. Worked here in California and also in Arizona. Until we change some of theseGerrymandered districts it is going to be an uphill battle.
liberal
@Kay:
While I certainly don’t feel particularly downtrodden and am fine with my income/wealth/etc, my recollection is that the increased dispersion in income measures isn’t just the poor/working class/middle-middle class vs everyone else. My recollection is that dispersion has increased “at all scales”: within the populace as a whole; within the top 10%; within the top 1%; within the top .1%; etc.
Even though I’m personally comfortable, and my kids will get a good education, blah blah blah, it does mean that I have that much less money to give to the forces of good; and the rent-collecting scum at the very top have that much more to give to the forces of evil.
Of course, your commonplace econ PhD shill will trot out some explanation why this is the natural result of some innocent changes in the economy, etc.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’m talking about coverage that is biased.
Although you can’t judge, if I wrote 15 editorials extolling the virtues of “public schools” and I only used one example (that of a great public school) you would object. You would say “why does she only talk about that one public school? There are a lot of public schools, and they aren’t all great”
That’s what the NYTimes does with charter schools. It’s almost comical. I read along and wait to see the example, which is ALWAYS one charter school company, KIPP.
The NYTimes uses the worst public schools as examples of all public schools and the best charter schools as examples of all charter schools. That’s ridiculously skewed. It’s plain unfair.
Mnemosyne
@Ron Thompson:
The words in blue are a link to the full article.
C.V. Danes
@Kay:
The reporting is good. But things will not change until the people begin to loudly, and in no uncertain terms, demand that the government stop delegitimizing itself through these inane voting laws.
smintheus
@Seanly: Is that true in all 3 of those states? Seems like the exception that proves the rule: that you can’t and don’t need to really inconvenience good, honest Republican voters. It’s just those others you gotta keep in line.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: Oh I am not disagreeing with you. My general impression of NYT columns was that they were painting with too broad a brush. I knew you would have a more informed opinion about it, so I asked you.
liberal
@Feebog:
Yeah, but the nonpartisan thing has two problems. First, I very much doubt it does much regarding “natural gerrymandering,” where Democrats tend to be urban voters, who are “naturally” packed together in districts. IIRC, that effect actually accounts for more of the Republicans advantage in the House than gerrymandering does, net.
Second, there’s an obvious prisoner’s dilemma (perhaps speaking loosely; don’t have time to see whether it actually fits the technical def’n) problem: the side that turns the process over to such commissions “loses”. I remember reading some idiot poli sci prof published in the Wash Post complaining about how highly gerrymandered MD is. My thought was, “OK, douchebag, you have a poli sci degree; how would you get a red state to redistrict “fairly” in a way that would “compensate” MD doing so? If not, given the discrepancy in the House, why at all should MD “go first”?”
C.V. Danes
@cmorenc:
And, of course, their response is to fraudulently tilt the voting process so that only the votes they fraudulently deem to be non-fraudulent are allowed to pass, thereby fraudulently removing the fraudulence from the system.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Oh Kay, you fabulous dudebra, poor people don’t give a shit about poor people! They are too busy being poor.
Lurking Canadian
@catclub: It’s not really a model that scales, though. We only ever vote for one office (MP or MPP) at a time. Paper ballots would be a nightmare if you had to check boxes for pres, senate, house, governor, state rep, judge, DA…
JoyfulA
@Davis X. Machina: I’m reading about Delaware (a Union slave state) in the Civil War now, and in 1863 its leaders were still saying, “What we need is a meeting of all the states to work things out amicably. If only we had leadership!”
schrodinger's cat
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: You should sue David Brooks for plagiarism.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: The math preparation problem is a real one. I also don’t see how having charter schools solves that problem.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@schrodinger’s cat: Right? But look, this is the price we Thought Leaders pay for being out there in front, Leading With Thought. This is the life we’ve chosen.
Villago Delenda Est
@JoyfulA:
A proto-Village! Wow!
Was one of the prominent advocates of this position an ancestor of David Broder?
schrodinger's cat
@liberal: Its usually the tenured faculty compensated well by the plutocracy who push conclusions into the public discourse. See for example, Tyler Cowen.
JoyfulA
@Villago Delenda Est: David Broder WAS one of the Delaware political leaders calling for leadership and getting both sides to agree.
Feebog
@liberal:
The same arguments were made here in California. One of the most vocal critics was Marcos from DK, who lives in Oakland. Our redistricting law put some requirements on the Commission that assured compact districts and mandated keeping “communities of interest” together. It didn’t work perfectly, but we did pick up seats in the congressional delegation (and should pick up more in 2014) and we got super majorities in both the state senate and the Assembly. We had a lot of Dems who were perfectly happy with giving up competitive districts in order to pad their own districts safe.
Burnspbesq
@Feebog:
Maybe not, but it’s still important for two reasons: (1) it’s a science-y looking thing that voting rights advocates’ lawyers can cite in briefs; (2) it puts state legislatures on notice that this is the probable effect of the legislation they are considering, making it harder for states to argue in subsequent litigation that there was no discriminatory intent.
catclub
@Lurking Canadian: Perforated ballots? yeah, we in the US also elect far too many officials. You do have mayors and city councils, as well, right. So not JUST mp or mpp.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
I have a Big Theory about what I see as an attack on public schools.
I think they’re a really convenient target to explain away a lot of things that people are unhappy about, but either don’t know how to fix or don’t want to fix. Obviously, we have stagnant wages and huge income inequality. It’s just too easy for politicians, business interests and media to pile all that on public schools, so they do. Both parties agree! Public schools are The Problem!
I mean, income inequality arose for a lot of reasons; tax policy, the deliberate destruction of labor unions, trade policy, the general disdain for the work that people do, business entities focusing on short term profits over investing in employees. It’s nice that we’ve decided to dump the whole thing on public schools, but doesn’t that let everyone else involved in this off the hook?
I have a 20 year old son who has now had two employers who invested in training him, because he isn’t ready to go to college. They are both non-union, but they’re considered “good” employers here because they pay well. They’re both profitable and they’re both hiring. He’s currently working for a Honda supplier (Honda has a huge presence in Ohio). They’re training him. They pay him, too. Does that willingness to invest in employees rather than whining about how stupid and lazy employees are and how all of this is the fault of public schools (which my son attended) have anything to do with Honda’s success? I think it does! What is the business role in all this, is my question. Don’t they have some role in “income inequality” and “career readiness”?
catclub
@Feebog: “compact districts”
math! neat.
fuckwit
@Kay: Pet peeve: why the fuck do we buy into their framing? It’s not “education reform”. It’s privatization. It bugs me how we get chumped every damn time. What’s wrong with reform? Everyone loves reform. Reform presupposes that the thing you are reforming is corrupt, and who wants to defend something that’s corrupt? Reform it! Reform is good… and why we let the people trying to destroy public education get away with calling themselves “reformers” is beyond me. Yeah sure the corporate media enthusiastically supports and promulgates right-wing framing. We don’t have to though.
fuckwit
@Feebog: I was deeply suspicious of the redistricting and voted against it too. But, yeah, turns I was as wrong as Kos was: it seems to have actually helped make districts fairer, and fairer usually means more Democrats. So, win, surprisingly.
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: I think they want to bring back the good old days were there were the entitled few and vast armies of peon class to cater to their every whim. The 1% of today may live better than their Downton Abbey counterparts but no one pays them the homage they think is their due.
redoubt
@smintheus: I can; I live in one: http://sos.georgia.gov/gaphotoid/
fuckwit
@C.V. Danes: They are both consistent viewpoints. If you do not believe in Democracy, in the legitimacy of universal franchise and voting, then you believe in the law of the jungle: might makes right. And guns are might, the use or threat of force. The Rethug opposition to voting and deep attachment to guns are all one and the same thing: it’s about the worship of force, a fundamentally authoritarian viewpoint.
Kay
@schrodinger’s cat:
Hah! To your actual comment, my 5th grader likes math and he’s quick and confident with it, it’s fun to watch him but ed reformers are beating all the joy out of it for him.
He calls math standardized test prep, resignedly, “my papers”. I have to do my papers.
He looks like a 19th century clerk, perched on his stool. He fills out the sheet and flips it over, “done”, and adds it to the giant stack. It’s hard for me to accept that this is “transformative cage-busting reform” but Michelle Rhee said it on Oprah and then Bill Keller raved about it in the NYTimes, so it must be true :)
fuckwit
@Kay: How much does KIPP spend on PR? Who is their firm? What are their connections with NYT (ex-NYT reporter, maybe?). I’ve been around the PR business and seen how this works. Someone has everyone at NYT on speed dial.
fuckwit
@Southern Beale:
Put beautifully by Sarah Silverman last year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypRW5qoraTw
schrodinger's cat
@Kay: They have to take standardized tests when they are in 5th grade? That sucks!
BTW the way some of the students who are taking calculus or intro physics in college, do math, makes me want to cry. They whip out their calculators and have poor algebra skills and have absolutely no idea about what they are doing. One student told me that their math teacher in high school was a history major and taught them to divide and conquer. This student is a public health major and is a bright student except for math. There is simply no time in a college class to unlearn the damage from the school years.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodinger’s cat: The MCAS in Massachusetts starts in the third grade. My daughter has been coached in filling out bubble forms from kindergarten on.
Kay
@fuckwit:
I don’t know. It would be impossible to tell, probably. They don’t have the same financial reporting rules that public schools do because they claim they are private companies. UNO is a big chain in Chicago. They’ve been fighting a FOIA from a newspaper on financials for 2 years. They won’t release the spending records and apparently there are no laws in Illinois that mandate compliance.
There’s a huge fuss in Ohio on how much they spend on advertising, because it’s public money and public schools (of course!) have to counter with their own advertising. I get a Toledo tv station where I live and I was so sad to see an ad by TPS (Toledo Public Schools). Their public schools are underfunded as it is. They shouldn’t be spending ed money on advertising, but they’re countering the national charter chains. I get solicitations in the mail from charter schools that are 60 miles away. I have no idea how they got my name, or how they know I have a 5th grader. I’m unlikely to drive him 60 miles to a charter school.
schrodinger's cat
@Matt McIrvin: I know a high school math and science teacher who retired early because he got tired teaching for the tests.
fuckwit
@Kay: Well, a bit o’ the googling:
http://www.kipp.org/press
It looks like they do their PR in-house. Maybe this guy has got the connections, or maybe he’s hired some unnamed firm. Maybe someone will eventually go undercover, and attempt to find out WTF is going on.
But the fact that their stories appear nationally as well as in local papers, makes me think they’ve either Mr Mancini has a sizable staff of his own, or has farmed some of this out.
If I were a kid with a Journalism major, I’d try to get an internship there and do some muckraking.
Chris
@schrodinger’s cat:
Exactly.
And how do you make sure they pay you the homage that is your due and cater to their every whim? By destroying the safety net, the voices of unions, and the government-controlled watchmen that allow them to stand on their own two feet… and recreating a world where they were forced to come crawling to you for all the necessities of life.
I too have thought for a long time now that that was what it was all about.
Kay
@fuckwit:
Privatization of public schools terrifies me. It just seems like such a tragic mistake. Public education is one of the few universal public programs we have. Why in the HELL we would turn it into a disaster like our health care system is beyond me.
It seems incredibly reckless and ill-considered and there’s no pushback because it’s bipartisan, so any crackpot idea is accepted because there’s no real debate. There’s no daylight between Arne Duncan and Jeb Bush. They sound exactly the same. The assumption by media is it must be good because “both sides agree!” but both sides agreed on a lot of stupid shit, including most recently invading and occupying Iraq.
We’ll regret it, and if we lose it we’ll never, ever get it back.
Mnemosyne
@schrodinger’s cat:
I think part of the problem with the way standardized tests were proposed and introduced is that a lot of us remember taking standardized evaluation tests when we were younger, and the “reform” proponents deliberately conflate those tests with the high-stakes testing they’re doing. Parents don’t realize that the new tests are different than the ones they took as kids until it’s too late.
(IIRC, the ones I took in grade school and junior high were more like SAT tests for kids — they tested for general knowledge and understanding and were meant to identify areas where the student might need more assistance.)
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Back in the 1980s “A Nation At Risk” era, the line about public schools was that “throwing money at the problem hasn’t worked.” And people still have this fictive idea that we’re throwing more and more money at public schools without anything to show for it, and so many of the reform ideas have to do with punishing underperforming schools by denying them funds or shutting them down.
As far as I can tell, throwing money at the problem is actually the only thing that has ever worked.
fuckwit
@Villago Delenda Est:Oh gawd it goes back farther than that. There were “moderates” (mostly in NY) arguing that the American Revolution could be ended if only everyone would sit down (and have a beer together like Tip and Ronnie, if only they’d been alive then). And I’m sure it goes back further than that.
The vast majority of people, throughout history, are indifferent in most contentious issues: they just want to either stay out of it or, once some change becomes inevitable, slide quietly over towards the winning side to secure themselves and their families. There’s always a small minority of partisans fighting, and a large majority of people who don’t give a shit and just want to get on with their lives.
Chris
@fuckwit:
History question. Is it true that the Northeast of the time (New York and New England) were where the hotbeds of Loyalist sentiment were? And if so, why was that?
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne: Right… I took a standardized test every year or two from about the second grade on, from a company called Science Research Associates, SRA (“time for the SRAs” was a dreaded phrase in the classroom). But they weren’t high-stakes; it was a thing we spent a day or so taking and the teachers didn’t spend the whole year coaching us for them. Our scores weren’t in any way determinative of our future, and the school wasn’t in danger of being shut down if we did poorly on them.
fuckwit
@Kay: I guess it’s just like combating any other evil: keep raising awareness, on a grassroots level, get organized, keep fighting. Maybe there’s some way to reach out to other PTA’s across the country, and educate, do a speaking tour, or something. I still think an expose of the school privatization industry’s cushy infiltration of the media would be a nice thing, but that’d be an 80-yard pass. I suspect this will be all ground game, like so many other fights (civil rights, gay rights, women’s rights, anti-war, Occupy, climate change, etc). You’re fighting a well-funded adversary and the media and beltway– bypass all that, and work the issue person-to-person. It’s probably a 20-year fight.
Another Holocene Human
@smintheus: Rhode Island is a shithole because they refuse to tax the rich people. If they would adopt policies like Massachusetts the place would come out of its 100-year slump. But robber barrons’ great great greats still live there, so fuggedaboudit.
The RCC was the other pillar of regressive policies. As long as life is a vale of tears even child-rape scandals aren’t going to significantly alter anything. People deprived become mean. (Mean, adj., 1. obs. poor; 2. jerkface)
Matt McIrvin
@liberal:
My impression from Sam Wang’s statistical analyses is that that used to be true, but is no longer:
http://election.princeton.edu/2012/12/30/gerrymanders-part-1-busting-the-both-sides-do-it-myth/
The situation post-2010-redistricting is a huge outlier by historical standards. Wang’s title is a misnomer, but not a serious one: both sides indeed do it, but the Republicans have been able to benefit to an unprecedented degree by using modern automated tools, to such an extent that it’s arguably what videogamers would call a game-breaker.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I went to the Day of Action for public schools in Toledo a coupla weeks ago.
It was not that great, frankly, they held it at 7:30 AM so teachers could go and it was freezing cold and way too “inside baseball” for parents who aren’t teachers. If they want public schools parents to get involved, they have to make it broader and less specialized, IMO.
BUT, they did have a good info session on the “throw money at schools” theme.
US public schools provide an amazing array of services that have nothing to do with teacher salaries. They offer transportation, meals, sports, some public health services, counseling on both personal issues and “college and career” and on and on.
In a lot of the countries that we’re compared to, schools are just schools. That’s all they do. Academics. If you want sports or counseling or an eye exam you have to go elsewhere.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Brokaw is, as ever, despicable.
I still have a soft spot for Chris McShouty “tiponeil” Tweety for his 2012 election season outburst. Especially for the looks on the other media personalities’ faces. “Who farted in church?”
Another Holocene Human
@catclub: Beware any state that uses Scantron but only allows recount… by Scantron.
Scantron with human recount is way fucking superior to those old creaky fershit voting machines we remember.
Diebold machines are an abomination. Thank goodness I’ve never been face to face with one of those.
Another Holocene Human
@Ben Cisco:
Do you have better luck in the hollers or the exurbs? Because my understanding is that the exurbs are full of FYIGM types who want all the advantages of progressive taxes (nicer roads than Tennessee, nicer everything than SC) but none of the bills… which somehow come due for other people… always. I know because I met some of them as they were on their way over. Ugh.
The good part is that they’ve probably stopped coming in such numbers. The bad part is that they’re on the younger side and will be voting in lockstep for years to come. You’ve heard of the Californication of other Western states? Welcome to Jerseyfornication.
Kay
@fuckwit:
I know you’re interested in this, so I’ll plug a great public ed blog.
It’s Edushyster, and she’s genuinely funny. She also writes for The Progressive, which is the Lefty magazine out of Wisconsin.
There is an enormous amount of humor potential in ed reform, because they are unbearably sanctimonious and patronising WHILE happily scooping up the public ed dollars.
Another Holocene Human
@Davis X. Machina:
Well, gee, it worked for Captain Kirk.
You want Act 4, couldn’t direct link because wikia sucks apparently. Leave it to some nerds to fuck up basic html and shit. Wow.
ps: this ep has a scene cut from sydication where the rich creeps in Cloud City put up Kirk and Spock together in one room with one full size bed… just sayin’
Another Holocene Human
@schrodinger’s cat: Math in public schools is tracked according to assessed ability. (This process is sometimes subject to racial bias, which is bad.) Kids who are struggling sometimes don’t get the one-on-one time they need, but kids who are doing well have enough peers to support multiple sections of advanced classes.
All of my friends who went from public to private reported that while the smaller class size and support was nice, there were way less math options and they topped out at a much lower level than public schools because of the small size and apparently a cultural bias against that kind of grubby middle class practicality. It was a struggle for one friend (who eventually graduated physics from college) to get a calc class of any sort in high school, whereas it was quite common for non-exam public high schools to graduate ambitious kids with two years & a good AP BC score. I did year 2 at school; some friends of mine did year two at an extension school because their public system was smaller than the one I finished in.
If the assholes in office would stop giving AT&T and BP more tax breaks so there could be a better classroom ratio and more support staff for students especially those with special needs, maybe the lagging math students could do better in public school. It’s certainly not a lack of caring… I found the higher the social class, the less math seemed to matter. The IB program allows you to graduate high school with “Math Methods” (a bullshit class) whereas the AP Scholar program demands way more math, and the old honors programs had math tracks similar to AP Scholar. (And of course a science/math exam school is going to focus even more than that.)
There’s a great demand among lower income children and families for Practical Math (interest on loans, stuff like that), but it seems to be a favorite of school boards to cut.
Public schools are required to teach math and English. Other topics can be fudged.
BruceFromOhio
Comments on the original WaPo article are an excellent view into the demagoguery in motion. The justifications offered for the actions surveyed in the study are as intriguing as much as apalling. Smells like 1860 in there.
waynski
@Chris: true. Answer is trade with Britain.
danielx
We are shocked, shocked to discover this correlation!
In other news, grass is green and water is wet.
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human: Could it also be gender biased?
Chris
@waynski:
Ah! Logical.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: Except they can get people barely hanging on to middle class status to go along with this thanks to propaganda, telling folks that higher wages will price them out of fast food burgers and gasoline, and other idiotic shit like that.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
Naturally. But for the people at the top, it’s a lot simpler than that.
My main question for the rubes is how many of them actually believe the bullshit that their betters shovel out to them every day, versus how many of them know perfectly well that they’re being played but don’t care because fucking over their neighbor is just that much more important.
Ben Cisco
@Another Holocene Human:
Your assessment and your logic are flawless.
drkrick
@JoyfulA: Also, per Charles Pierce, Bob Schieffer.
drkrick
@Chris:
New York City was fairly loyalist, other parts of the state somewhat less so. New England was the strongest region in favor of Independence, followed by Virginia. Across the 13 colonies, a new estimate I heard earlier this year was that about 60% were entirely indifferent to the question, about 25% in favor of independence and about 15% loyal. Many of the latter were in Canada or England by the mid-1880’s.
schrodinger's cat
@drkrick: Didn’t many consider themselves British citizens?
eldorado
@Kay, keep hammering them
ralphb
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Voter ID laws are in Texas because of coming demographic armageddon for the Republican party. They are trying to survive as long as possible,
boatboy_srq
@scav: That’s what voter suppression is all about: there aren’t any “reliably” GOTea locales until you make sure only the GOTea can win. But by then it’s too late.
mike in dc
The only silver linings about these voter ID laws:
1) You can’t keep tightening them up over and over again, if you do it becomes blatantly obvious even to conservative judges what you are trying to do.
2) There is some capacity, with increased spending on GOTV, to counteract this stuff.
3) At best for the GOP, this is a delaying tactic, because demographic changes will overwhelm even the most draconian voter ID laws over time.
It’s not much comfort, but it’s useful to keep in mind.
The Fat Kate Middleton
Haven’t read all the comments, as I usually try to do, but seeing Iowa in that list made me sick to my stomach. And that little fck Matt Schultz, Iowa’s current Sec. of State who’s tried all he can to restrict voting, just announced he’ll be running for Tom Latham’s seat.
liberal
@schrodinger’s cat: poor algebra skills? How about poor arithmetic skills, as in “1/(1/2) = 1/2”? Plus, everything is linear and commutative.
Original Lee
@schrodinger’s cat: Way late, but my son’s algebra book teaches them to factor polynomials by “guesstimating” answers until they get something that works. I was gobsmacked. Fortunately, his teacher is somewhat clueful and taught them a method that is significantly better though still not math-y. I compare his book with his sister’s (who took algebra 3 years ago), and I feel like crying, his is so awful.