In the blue urban areas of Western New York, last night’s Democratic primary was the final word in a lot of uncontested races. The news is good.
In the Rochester mayoral primary, Lovely Warren, under indictment for campaign finance violations, her husband waiting to be tried for dealing cocaine, lost in a landslide to a really good candidate, Malik Evans. I didn’t expect a 66/34 outcome in this race. He’s unopposed in the Fall, so he’ll be the next mayor.
In some down-ballot races, a Democratic county legislator accused of sexual harassment, and another Democratic legislator who led a faction that caucused with Republicans were also beat.
In Buffalo, a Democratic Socialist, India Walton, beat four-term mayor Byron Brown. She’s unopposed in the Fall, too. Walton has a hell of a personal story — a single mom of twins at age 14, she became a nurse, a union rep and, now, at age 38, mayor. Brown was a major ally of Andrew Cuomo. Last year’s beatings of demonstrators by Buffalo Police, and the anemic response by Brown, were seen as part of his defeat. Brown didn’t bother to engage at all in the primary and paid the price.
Overall, Democrats turned out and replaced not-so-good incumbents with better challengers. That’s how it should work in areas with one party rule.
joey5slice
I’m fascinated by the dynamics of the NYC mayor primary. Adams is the clear frontrunner at this point, but it’s not necessarily his race yet. Both Wiley and Garcia seem to me to be much more likely to gain the bulk of support as the other candidates get eliminated – Yang was explicitly encouraging his supporters to rank her #2.
Most surprising to me so far: Wiley’s strong showing, and Yang’s quite weak results. I think it’s going to be close, and the results could be quite consequential for 8+ million New Yorkers. I think any of the top three could still win.
dr. bloor
Republicans aren’t even running an opponent for Mayor this year?
germy
@dr. bloor:
In NYC?
Curtis Sliwa.
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@dr. bloor: The Republican Party in urban Western New York is pretty much dead. They cede the city and try to rule from the suburbs.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@joey5slice: I’ll admit I haven’t really looked into how the whole ranked-choice system works. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. Is it statewide? or unique to NYC?
Ken
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Cracked had an explainer for ranked-choice voting.
(I go to Cracked for my factual news, and Balloon Juice for opinion and analysis.)
joey5slice
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ranked choice is only for NYC races.
It actually leads to some silly results, as I learned yesterday when they handed me two ballots – one for the city races using ranked choice voting, and one for the “county” races using first-past-the-post voting (in my case, a few judges, though in Manhattan there was a significant race for district attorney). “Counties” in NYC are just the 5 boroughs, so it’s easy to forget that they don’t follow City rules.
I’ve been a RCV fan for a while, and even I hadn’t really thought through all of the ins and outs until I went to go vote yesterday – like making sure you rank all of the people you think might win EXCEPT the one you like the least. And ranking people is the easy-to-understand part. Counting the votes, with each successive “round” eliminating the last-place finisher and redistributing his/her ballots, can be hard to wrap your mind around.
joey5slice
@Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix: I know Buffalo is further west than you, but any thoughts on the socialist candidate beating out the mayor there?
germy
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Ranked Choice Voting
More states than I expected.
(link fixed, WG)
Another Scott
Good people winning is good. In fact, it’s essential.
More, please.
Cheers,
Scott.
Tazj
I don’t live in the city of Buffalo but one of its suburbs so I’m just repeating what I’ve read. India Walton had a great grass roots organization that got people out to vote. People were critical of some of the mayor’s (and Cuomo’s)projects that were supposed to bring jobs to the city, like Tesla, that didn’t bring in many jobs but cost a lot of money. There were bad working conditions reported at Tesla with a culture of racism rampant at the plant.
The past year the mayor had cameras placed around school zones that were supposed to insure safety but resulted in many people receiving expensive unjust tickets. I’m not sure but I don’t think the cameras functioned properly, like they were on during non school hours, weren’t recording speeds properly and people saw them as a cash grab for the city. The mayor also never debated Walton and this seemed dismissive. I would also agree that people didn’t like Mayor Brown’s response to the protests.
She certainly has a very impressive resume and life story and I wish her the best in making improvements in the city.
lowtechcyclist
@germy: I’m getting a “page not found” message at that link.
Kay
@Tazj:
Tesla has a bad reputation as an employer in the Toledo area
They get the absolute bottom of the barrel employees. There’s a former Ford plant here that now has 3 auto companies making parts in 3 sections of the plant Honda, Ford and Tesla – the Tesla employees are basically temps with lower standards and lower pay
Tesla will have quality problems. Not “if” but “when”
Four Seasons Total Landscaping mistermix
@joey5slice: I think Tazj answered the question.
Side note: It will be interesting to see how Cuomo treats Walton. Western New York cities rely on large grants from Albany. Cuomo will probably have a serious primary challenge if he runs in 2022. I’m gonna guess that Walton will be allied with a Cuomo challenger, not Cuomo.
tom
Here in Michigan, a GQP investigation into “voter fraud” found no fraud, and deemed claims that there was “ludicrous”. It even recommended that the Democratic state attorney general, Dana Nessel, investigate those who made those claims for “personal gain”.
Kay
@Tazj:
Tesla really doesn’t want to be the company that will hire you if Ford and Honda won’t, and that’s what they are here.
This will catch up with them.
Amir Khalid
@germy
I’ve seen Sliwa’s name before, and that maroon beret of his looks familiar. Isn’t he the founder of some vigilante group?
Baud
@tom:
Oh wow. That’s big if that’s what the GOP in Michigan is saying.
germy
@Amir Khalid:
Guardian Angels, with the red berets, patrolling the streets of NYC.
Bunter
@Amir Khalid:
You are correct, he started The Guardian Angels in the late 70s.
Ken
@Amir Khalid: The Guardian Angels. I haven’t heard of them for years and didn’t realize they’re still active.
germy
@lowtechcyclist:
weird. It was there a minute ago.
NotMax
@germy
You cut off the final “d” of the link URL.
https://www.fairvote.org/where_is_ranked_choice_voting_used
oldster
“Last year’s beatings of demonstrators by Buffalo Police, and the anemic response by Brown, were seen as part of his defeat”
Good. Mayors are afraid of the police. They need to be more afraid of voters.
joey5slice
@germy:
The “d” was missing at the end of the link:
https://www.fairvote.org/where_is_ranked_choice_voting_used
CaseyL
@Kay:
I did a temp office gig at an auto repair shop that was a certified Tesla body repair shop. What I saw there made me resolve to never buy a Tesla, and worker/workplace issues had nothing to do with it. The design of the car did.
Teslas are festooned all over with sensors under the outer skin- it’s how their practically autonomous tech works – and even the slightest fender bender means having to replace a whole lot of them. More downtime, more expense.
Teslas’ security systems mean you have to enter a PIN to get into the car, and another PIN to start the car. Just like a computer, too many wrong guesses locks the whole thing up, and you need to call the dealer for a remote reset.
Any repair of a Tesla will take much much longer than for any other car. Weeks to get a part, for example. Plus, obviously, you can only take the car to a repair shop specifically trained to fix Teslas – and there aren’t all that many.
The place I worked routinely had 6 month or longer waits for people to get their cars back!
germy
@NotMax:
whoops
Cameron
@joey5slice: I like approval voting better – just vote for all the candidates you like, and whoever gets the most votes wins. I think the ranking part is needlessly complicated.
NotMax
@CaseyL
“How large is your operation?”
“About 4000 square feet is plenty for the hands-on work. The real pain in the butt is the 10 acres we need for parking.”
:)
Ken
@NotMax: Fortunately the 10 acres of parking does double-duty as the storage for loaner cars. One vehicle comes in for service, one loaner goes out.
Not quite sure how the insurance would work for a six-month loaner.
evap
I am a mathematician and I have a side interest in the mathematics of voting and elections. RCV is not perfect by any means, but when you have a ton of candidates it’s probably better than plurality (first past the post). With RCV you can still have the problem that a candidate who would beat all others in one-on-one contests can lose, but I think it is less likely than with plurality. Basically, bad things can happen with any method if there are more than two candidates. This is a theorem of Kenneth Arrow, who got a nobel prize in economics for it.
WaterGirl
@germy: I fixed your URL about ranked choice voting.
Baud
@evap:
I agree. I hate when someone wins a crowded primary with something like 30% of the vote, or less.
Low Key Swagger
I was actually Sliwa’s bodyguard for three days back in the 80’s. Met his wife, yes they were grifty and eccentric for those times. Didn’t really realize it at the time.
germy
@WaterGirl:
thank you.
West of the Cascades
What is Mayor Walton going to do to keep the Sabres out of last place?
James E Powell
@Baud:
It’s good, but I’m not so sure it’s big. Investigations, recounts, and audits done by Republican officials in other states, notably Georgia, had no impact on Republican officials promoting stolen election conspiracies or on Republican voters believing them.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Tesla has quality problems, at least relative to other major manufacturers. They’re ahead of the rest of the industry on the electric part of electric cars, but they’re still lagging on the cars part. I expect the major manufacturers to catch up faster in the electric department than Tesla can catch up in the cars department.
Baud
@James E Powell:
Fair. I didn’t click the link. It’s just that whenever I hear of the Michigan GOP, they seem to be on express train to crazytown and points beyond. The idea that there’s some sanity left there is remarkable to me.
germy
SUNY Fulton-Montgomery Community College is the first in the region to offer cannabis certificates. The idea is to train students for jobs in a growing industry, after New York legalized recreational marijuana.
The college will be offering two new individual studies certificates in the cannabis field: Cultivation Technician, for growing plants, and Cannabis Laboratory Technician, which will train students in the manufacturing side.
Students will get hands-on training.
The college is partnering with Vireo Health and Goodness Growth Holdings, which has a facility a couple of miles away.
https://wnyt.com/fulton-county-ny-news/cannabis-industry-classes-fulton-montgomery-community-college/6149090/?cat=10114
billcoop4
When I ran High School Congressional Debate tournaments, we frequently — especially before 2010 — determined the winner by preferential ballots (RCV) except of course frequently people had to rank all 21-24 members of a chamber. The judges also had to complete pref ballots although usually those were weighted (the total judge ballot would equal the total student ballot — if there were 21 students, each judge’s ballot counted as 7 votes to moderate the effect of … shenanigans). Students could of course cut deals to rank 1 and 2, so it was political…but so is Congress.
Most of the the time, the person who received the largest number of 1st place ballots ended up winning, unless 2 or 3 were close together in the number of first place ballots. So in a 21 student chamber, if 3 people came in with 5-6 1st place votes, it was wide open when redistributed. But if one person had 8-9, they were almost certainly going to win).
As I recall, no one who was lower than 3rd in the number of 1st place ballots ever ended up winning, and 3rd only won once.
So RCV in my view works — imperfectly, of course, but that’s in the nature of being human.
BC
Facebones
@joey5slice: Wiley’s strong showing is partly a result of Diane Morales’ campaign imploding spectacularly and the progressive wing coalescing around her.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ken: They used to ride around on the subways, I guess hoping for a real-life Death Wish situation. I haven’t seen those red berets in many years though. Not that I’m in NYC that often.
So I don’t know what the hell Sliwa has been doing for the last 20 years or so or why he suddenly fell out of the woodwork.
Betty Cracker
We’ve discussed here if “Democrats” writ large will be blamed for Manchinema giving Mitch McConnell a veto over passing the Biden agenda. This thread isn’t good news:
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@germy:
Isn’t he about 1000 years old with a voting bloc that consists of about 40% of 3 zip codes in Queens?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Who is Michael Harriot?
We’ve always had people who blame us for everything that doesn’t happen perfectly right away.
James E Powell
I was hoping to talk about these Biden approval numbers from a poll in a John Harwood tweet linked in an earlier thread.
What do you suppose they disapprove of? Does anyone ask for specifics?
What do you guys think it is? Is it just never going to happen that whites approve of a Democrat?
Baud
@James E Powell:
Only a three point gap among all whites. If anyone can close that gap, Biden can.
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: I am not sure Harriot is a good example. He is often quite incisive, but, IMO, he thought Dems were squishes before and he thinks so now. I don’t think his opinion moved at all.
Mo Salad
@Baud: Michael Harriot is one of the lead writers at The Root. I have learned a lot from his history threads. He’s good.
joey5slice
@Cameron:
In the balance between complexity and ease of understanding, I will lean more towards complexity than most people. This is not a strength of mine.
That being said, it seems to me that approval voting is too easy to game . I haven’t studied or thought about it too much, but right off the bat it strikes me that strong partisans are incentivized to only vote for their preferred candidate and no one else, even if they do have preferences amongst the other candidates.
With RCV, I was able to express my strong preference for my favorite candidate but also indicate which of the other candidates I would prefer and in what order. Those other votes will only come into play if my preferred candidate is eliminated, so I’m not hurting my #1’s chances by ranking other candidates. There is no reason not to rank as many candidates as the ballot allows, to the extent I have preferences.
How RCV works in determining a result is complex. But ranking the candidates you like in the order you like them isn’t that complicated. But again, I am abnormally comfortable with complexity.
Baud
@Mo Salad:
Ok thanks.
MomSense
@Betty Cracker:
I realize that people think I’m a doom and gloomer when I talk about it, but the attitudes about Democrats on that thread are what I and my kids are encountering IRL and on social media. We can’t ignore it and we need to figure out what to say to counter it.
Baud
@MomSense:
I don’t think there is any way to counter it. There will always be something Dems haven’t done yet. Even if we get the For The People Act passed this summer, everyone will just move on to the next thing. Even if Dems held every seat in Congress, most of them would not be progressive, and there would be things that aren’t done as quickly or perfectly enough.
sdhays
@Roger Moore: I’m skeptical about their lead in “the electric part of electric cars” already, since that’s not what they talk about anymore. It’s all “this car will get a part time job to pay for itself – and wash your dishes!”
5 years or so ago, they were indeed ahead of everyone else, but their jump down the self-driving car rabbit hole and their borderline(?) fraudulent claims about it tells me that they don’t think they can sustain a lead in the industry.
tom
@Baud:
To be sure, the MI GOP does have more than its fair share of whackadoos, but there still quite a few that live in the real world. They are very conservative, but not delusional.
WaterGirl
@joey5slice: Great explanation!
WhatsMyNym
@joey5slice:
It’s easy enough if you just have one office to vote for, but most primaries/elections have multiple offices up for a vote. You just end up with less people bothering to vote.
Leto
@Kay: BMW had the same issue with their SC manufacturing plant when it first opened. The vehicles rolling out the door had QC problems, as well as meeting production goal times. The difference between Tesla and BMW is that BMW started investing in the local education system (high schools and community colleges) in order to have better workers. They’re identifying the smarter kids and fast tracking them in math/engineering roles for the company. That investment paid off, and continues to provide dividends. In no way, shape, or form will Tesla do that.
Baud
On one of the news shows this morning, they said that the NYC mayor’s race was not negative (except Yang, apparently) because the candidates didn’t want to piss off other candidates’ voters because of RCV.
WaterGirl
@WhatsMyNym:
That’s interesting. I wonder if that has been studied at all?
I also wonder if the people who won’t bother to vote are the ones who are less engaged and less knowledgable about the process.
Someone like my sister, for instance, who prides herself on voting, but only pays attention starting about 45 minutes before an election (figuratively, not literally) and does not do the research.
If someone like that doesn’t vote is it a loss? I don’t know what the answer to that question is, butI am interested in hearing answers if people have them.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Agree on Biden, but I was wondering what you think the reason for white people, especially white people no college to disapprove.
Is it all culture war? And if it is all or mostly culture war, what can we do about it?
Kevin Drum had a post yesterday about how tribal we are because we are primates. Sure, okay. But we are all witnesses to the complete nationwide turnaround on same sex marriage. These battles can be won. I mean, it won’t be by me. I can’t stand right wing troglodytes. But there has to be a way to get 10% to turn our way or at least pry them loose from the Republicans.
Kay
@Leto:
Tesla is a scammy company. I’ve had two skilled trades clients who went to Tesla with a promise of big paychecks on some “bonus” system. Both of them are back at their former employers. They’re in demand. You can’t promise them 100k a year and then not deliver. “Operators” (lower skilled manufacturing workers) are the lowest rung. If they’re bad everything else is bad. You either care about quality or you don’t. It’s a way of thinking and managing, not specific to a process.
Baud
@James E Powell:
I think it’s all culture war (assuming you’re defining that to include racism and other prejudices).
I suppose some people also vote solely for low taxes, but I don’t know why whites without college degrees would care so much more than other groups about taxes.
Baud
@James E Powell:
Victory is the most persuasive argument of all. It’s why I’m so opposed to people who think not voting leads to anywhere good.
MomSense
@Baud:
I don’t think we can leave it at that even if it is true they would never be satisfied. Midterm elections are tough for the party in power, we have voter suppression laws that will be in effect, and Dems are not consistent on turnout in midterms. We are going to have to fight for every vote. There is too much at stake
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Non-college educated small business owners.
Baud
@MomSense:
Right. I’m not saying we shouldn’t make our case. But I think it’s a waste of time chasing people who are hung up on whatever it is we haven’t done.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Are they disproportionately white?
Kay
@Leto:
I know I’m a conventional person but honestly I cannot believe people listen to that CEO and think anything other than “scammy company” :)
Jesus. It’s like a blizzard of nonsense. It just screams “steer clear” to me.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I think so.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: You also have to consider there may be a decrease on the other side too, remember TFG won’t be on the ballot.
Eolirin
@?BillinGlendaleCA: We can’t and shouldn’t count on that, even if it’s likely to be true.
WhatsMyNym
@WaterGirl:
Most folks are less engaged and less knowledgeable than you. I have to dig thru the few articles/interviews and ratings to make a decision for local candidates. When I was in Seattle I could use Voting Lists put out by various organizations.
James E Powell
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I really do not know how many people are self-employed. Can there be enough that they are the bulk of the non-college whites who disapprove of Biden?
I was self-employed (lawyer) for a few years and I can say that it causes one to notice taxes more because you are writing checks instead of just having the money never show up in your take home pay. It wasn’t that I was paying much more, just the psychological impact of writing a check for it.
joey5slice
@WhatsMyNym:
I understand and appreciate this concern.
I think pro-RCV groups should do more to make it clear that you don’t *have* to rank more than one candidate. If every voter just ranks one candidate, we end up with the “normal” first-past-the-post voting: whoever gets the plurality of votes wins. So there’s nothing wrong with just picking one candidate, if there’s only one you like, or if you think that’s as much attention as you want to devote to a race.
But for races where you *do* have several candidates you like, it’s nice to be able to express those preferences. I did not fill out all five ovals for Brooklyn Borough President, but I did pick three. For public advocate, I only picked one. But for mayor, comptroller, and city council, I used all five slots.
If folks (who would otherwise vote) get confused by RCV and end up not voting, that’s a bad result. But it’s a result that I think we can fix with some very gentle “rank as many as you want – one is just fine” public messaging.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@James E Powell: I was referring to Baud’s comment about taxes, so yes. As you noted, the taxman appears much more prominent when he takes a larger amount of money even at a less frequent time and you explicitly have to “write a check”.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
Some people are suckers for that kind of stuff. I think Tesla is succeeding to the extent it is in spite of Musk, not because of him, and he was one of the big factors in convincing me to sell my stock. Of course the other was that it had gone up a lot and I didn’t see where it had anywhere to go but down. Shows what I know. I made a very handsome profit on my stock, but it would have been several times higher if I had held it for another 6 to 12 months.
Fair Economist
@evap: RCV is way better than plurality at keeping out candidates with a moderate number of strong supporters who are hated by most of the voters. Since that frequently includes fascists, I think it’s a huge improvement.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@joey5slice: In California, we have a problem with the length of the ballot that intimidates many voters, it can range over 10 pages in length(jungle primaries, judges, propositions). While ranked choice voting may a positive thing in theory, I’m not sure increase the complexity of the ballot is worth it.
oatler.
@Roger Moore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j52odgkRxDs&ab_channel=AutoMedia
joey5slice
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I agree, a 10-page ballot is way too long. It’s all about finding the right balance.
I voted for three city-wide races, a borough-wide race, and a city council race, all with ranked choice voting. Those races fit on one double-sided ballot. Separately, I voted for two judgeships, which were not RCV and on their own ballot.
The whole thing took 2 minutes. To me, this seems reasonable. That doesn’t mean that more complexity always better, but so far, in NYC, one race in, I think we’ve found a good balance.
Fair Economist
@?BillinGlendaleCA:The length of the Cali ballot needs to be fixed, RCV or not. The main problem is the propositions, witb judges being secondary. But I’d have to agree that until that’s fixed approval voting would be better here (just fill in multiple boxes if you wish).
Looking at the Wiki, my impression is the while approval is gameable, it’s complicated to game, so that is unlikely to be a big problem. I’d like to see something like the Alaska system, with a jungle primary but 4 in the runoff. Multicandidate runoffs fix the exclusion problem jungle primaries create with only 2 finalists (both from the same party in a competitive district) and I like how jungle primaries de-emphasize tribalism.
Kay
@Roger Moore:
The scamminess just wafts off him to me. I mean, I guess it’s ‘interesting’ but do you really want him putting brakes on your car? This country is nutty about risk. Half the country freaks out about vaccines but those same people are “sure! Launch your self driving car for testing on the highway! We trust you!”
He’s rich, right? He MUST be brilliant.
Kay
I’m really depressed because I just feel we’re headed toward another law n order panic and I just cannot even tell you how wrong headed that is.
Our policing and criminal justice is broken. It doesn’t even work for solving crime. It’s a huge bloated machine and our law enforcement agencies are stuffed with cash yet can’t even solve crimes.
It’s a defendant processing machine and it’s WILDLY inequitable not only as to race but also as to income and power.
If we do a 1990’s style law and order panic that targets only lower income people and people with no power again that will be a tragic mistake. The reformers are right. It’s broken. It’s a fucking ongoing tragedy every day and almost everyone who is involved in it knows it.
Law enforcement doesn’t need any more funding. They already eat up a huge portion of funding that could be better spent. People who are taking TANKS to a protest do not lack funding.
Roger Moore
@Fair Economist:
I think judges are a worse problem on the ballot than propositions. Propositions are usually big things that people have a sensible chance to educate themselves about. Judges not so much, and especially here in LA County there are an insane number of them on the ballot. I don’t think we should vote for judges just on principle, but the way we do it with races that are so low profile hardly anyone knows anything about them is just ludicrous.
In general, I think we’d be better off with fewer elected offices that have more authority. I would be fine with a parliamentary system with a unicameral legislature that appoints the executive. Vote for a few elected officials, give them enough power to do their jobs, and hold them accountable for the results in the next election.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Very hard to counter “tough on crime” campaigns. All they need is one or two high profile cases. An undocumented perpetrator or someone on probation will be pounded as proof that Democrats are objectively pro-criminal.
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore: I think the props are worse for discouraging people, but I agree judge voting is a total waste. Most of the time even I, a very informed, search literate, politically active voter, cannot find any useful info on judges. I don’t think anybody not in the court system could possibly have an informed opinion. Ditch judge voting and just allow recalls for cases like the guy that let off the upper class rapist.
Omnes Omnibus
@James E Powell: It is always a one way ratchet. Even on this blog, whenever a discussion of sentences comes – even in the context of racial disparity in sentencing – the sentiment seems to lock the white guys up for a longer time instead of reducing the typical minority sentence to match the white guys. I think we put way too many people into prison for far too long. Sentences over ten years should be rare. I am an outlier on this.
Omnes Omnibus
@Fair Economist: Electing judges is a carryover from the days when we also elected army officers and NCOs. Not all positions should be elected.
Kay
@James E Powell:
There was real progress though and it wasn’t just Democrats. Kasich reduced a whole category of offenses and put in a process to have records cleared with some conditions. It’s almost like more progress was being made when the issue was under the radar. We had finally gotten free of some of the kneejerk “more funding for police and incarceration!” crowd.
We really shouldn’t go back. It’s a terrible, brutal system and the thing is it doesn’t even work. A lot of these larger cities have ridiculously low clearance rates for violent crimes – it’s like they don’t know how to do real work anymore. They’re great at crime fighting theater, not so great at fighting crime. Honestly? The LAST thing they need is more funding. For what? So they can buy some more useless war equipment to go after protestors? They don’t even know how to try cases anymore- they overcharge so they can plead everything down. We get these ridiculous charges because it’s a tactic- they don’t want to take anything to trial so they charge them with more and more offenses and then plead them down. It’s WHY we still have the death penalty. So they can hold it over their heads and get them to plead. It’s a racket.
James E Powell
@Kay:
That is the hardest thing to get across to people who are not actually involved with the system. Their understanding of the criminal justice system comes from local TV news or movies & TV about police & the courts. You know, the ones where motions to suppress are almost always granted.
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
It isn’t, though. For example, here in California we passed a ballot initiative to reduce a bunch of crimes from felony to misdemeanor. The idea of reforming the justice system seems to be picking up some momentum. Or at least it did before the recent increase in murders. I’m worried that a potential real change toward reduced sentences is going to be snuffed out.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
It works; it just isn’t working at what you think it should be doing. Our “criminal justice” system is much more about suppressing minorities than it is about actual crime, and it’s been doing a fine job of it. That’s the real fight behind BLM and calls to defund or reform the police. We want the police to focus on fighting crime as defined in the legal code, not to keeping Those People in line, and the people who are happy with the current system are going to fight every inch of the way.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
Really? I have not noticed that, but if that’s really the case, that’s appalling. And short-sighted.
Mister Sam
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Just NYC right now.