“We gotta stop looking at Washington as the only thing that matters…That gets us back into this mess that we started in, where we ignore what's happening in the states and state legislatures,”@MalloryMcMorrow tells @AymanM why she decided not to run for Senate in Michigan. pic.twitter.com/bJJNDhw3rP
— AYMAN (@AymanMSNBC) April 24, 2023
The Spousal Unit and I deserted Michigan thirty years ago, when it became clear that staying would mean one or both of us always being unemployed, as the GOP Death Cultists tightened their grip on the legislature. But I’m very happy that a new generation is starting to turn ‘If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look around you’ into something more than a bitter joke.
“Something that has been really irritating to me is this idea that somehow state legislatures are the bench.” @MalloryMcMorrow https://t.co/mcUFmztQSy
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) April 25, 2023
… Remember Mallory McMorrow? She’s the state senator from Michigan who went viral in April 2022 for her scathing takedown of a GOP colleague who’d falsely labeled her a “groomer,” to loud cheers from Democrats coast-to-coast…
“We gotta stop looking at Washington as the only thing that matters,” McMorrow said Sunday on MSNBC’s Ayman Mohyeldin Reports. “Something that has been really irritating to me is this idea that somehow state legislatures are the bench.”
She continued: “That always implies that higher office means that it’s somehow a promotion. And that gets us back into this mess that we started in, where we ignore what’s happening in the states and state legislatures and then they [Republicans] chip away and chip away and chip away and before we know it we’ve lost two thirds of … state legislatures like we did starting in 2009.”
How Michigan became the anti-Florida
— Ted Corcoran (RedTRaccoon) (@RedTRaccoon) April 20, 2023
When the Michigan Senate sent a so-called red flag bill to the desk of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer [last week], it became the latest example of the increasingly blue swing state morphing into what the bill’s author likes to call “the anti-Florida.”
The legislation — authored by Democratic state Sen. Mallory McMorrow—is part of a raft of comprehensive firearm restrictions signed into law in response to the Feb. 13 mass shooting on Michigan State University’s campus. It allows law enforcement agencies to seize guns owned by those considered a threat to themselves or others…
In short order, Democrats have refashioned a state that Donald Trump won in 2016 into a laboratory of economic and social policies (not to mention giving Whitmer a possible success story to sell Democratic primary voters should she run for president in 2028.)
“When we got a Democratic trifecta, our first tranche of legislation included things that were social issues and economic issues,” McMorrow said. “And we as Democrats have to prove that those things go together.”
McMorrow says Michigan’s transformation was years in the making, and not just the result of voters rejecting the state’s Republican party over the Supreme Court’s seismic abortion ruling last year. “The important thing is it didn’t change overnight,” she said. “The Senate was under Republican control my entire lifetime. But what we saw was because Michigan was so badly gerrymandered, even though we are a very purple swing state, the Republican Party just by the nature of the gerrymandering kept getting more extreme and out of touch, even with moderate Republicans.” In 2018, a wave of elected women swept into office, though, including Whitmer. And the state switched to an independent redistricting commission…
“We’re not New York or California,” McMorrow said. “We’re a pivotal swing state. And if we can prove that we can do it here, then that’s the signal to the rest of the country that there is a different way forward. It’s the anti-Florida — and we have two peninsulas instead of one,” she joked…
How did Michigan become the “anti-Florida”?
One state has a governor obsessed with attacking Mickey Mouse & Michigan has leaders obsessed with protecting every citizen’s fundamental rights & freedoms & enabling businesses to thrive.
More on @AliciaOnMSNBC https://t.co/y15PnlWcHU— Jocelyn Benson (@JocelynBenson) April 23, 2023
Of course, sometimes, laboratory experiments go horribly wrong. Especially when it’s the Republicans doing their little ‘FREEEDUMB!!!’ trials. Grim reading, but enlightening:
In a thriving Michigan county, a community goes to war with itself https://t.co/3HUK2cPurT
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) April 23, 2023
Ottawa County, IIRC, has traditionally been a Dutch Reformed Church stronghold — basically, Calvinists who thought the Calvinist mother church in the Netherlands had lost its rigor. Not a big surprise such folk would react negatively to any political changes later than the eighteenth century; I can remember college acquaintances who grew up there wondering aloud whether it had been a good idea to give women the right to vote. But progress happens, eventually!
Not all that’s wrong:
No mention it’s the hometown of Eric Prince & his sister Betsy DeVos, & the DeVos’ live there in the summer
Nor of GOP margins in gov races:
2010=60 pts
2014=49
2018=23
2022=18Repubs know that like next-door Kent Co (Gr Rapids) it’s trending strongly Dem https://t.co/loag9Y1aGg
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) April 23, 2023
On The Road – BigJimSlade – Happy Spring from the Mugu Peak to Ray Miller Trail hike
Baud
Good on McMorrow. That’s exactly right.
Media is excited because DeSantis will supposedly announce in a couple of weeks.
Aussie Sheila
Ms McMorrow is exactly right. Like a prosecutor, democracy starts at the place closest to where the actual people who do the real work are, then works it’s way up. In politics that’s called dancing with the people that brung ya.
New Deal democrat
In view of Chief Justice Roberts’ brush-off of Sen. Durban’s request that he or an Associate Justice appear before Congress to discuss ethics rules for SCOTUS, here is an excellent short thread from Steve Vladeck:
Steve Vladeck
twitter.com
“If we’re going to tell a story about #SCOTUS and the separation of powers, let’s tell the *full* story: Not just of today’s virtually unchecked institution—with near-plenary control over its docket, its building, et al., but of the far more accountable institution it used to be.
“From 1789–1911 (except briefly in 1801–02),* Congress made #SCOTUS Justices “ride the circuit”—regularly traveling the country to act as intermediate appellate judges. That was just one way in which Congress reminded the Court (which sat *in* the Capitol until 1935) of its place.
“From 1789–1891, Congress exercised complete control over #SCOTUS’s docket. The Court couldn’t pick and choose cases—or issues to resolve within those cases. If it had jurisdiction over an appeal, it *had* to hear it. Discretion came in baby steps in 1891, then giant ones in 1925.”
To which let me add: it is crystal clear from the text of the Constitution, and the history of colonial legislatures and constitutions, that the Founders intended the Congress to have all of the powers that the UK Parliament had. Those included the power to haul judges in front of Parliament for testimony or contempt of Parliament proceedings. Several colonial legislatures similarly exercised power over their colonial judiciaries.
If SCOTUS refused to appear before Congress, Congress has the power to arrest them and forcibly haul them before the body. The problem, as evident from Vladeck’s tweets, is that over the last 150 years, Congress has allowed its powers to atrophy.
*in 1801, the Congress also terminated several courts, a move which was ultimately upheld. So, if they wanted to, Congress could, e.g., vaporize the 5th Circuit, and hand its area of authority over to another Circuit.
Jeffro
Love McMorrow and that whole D team up in Michigan! They really are showing the way.
I agree that Ds need to pay attention to their state legislatures (Rs sure do!)
But state legislatures are the bench, the place from where our national reps and politicians come from. It’s not like folks run for national office then work their way back to the state legislature. I get what she means, but it’s just a statement of fact, not a put-down.
OzarkHillbilly
Quinnerly:
On the off chance that you haven’t heard, I wanted to let you know that Tom Hall died in a house fire last Saturday.
Sorry it took me so long to pass the news on, but I have been pressed this week.
Kay
Disney complaint (pdf) is really a thing of beauty because it argues what many of us here on BJ believe, that despite the singular focus of elite media on rowdy law students at Stanford and Yale, the real threat to speech is not liberal students at elite universities who are not sufficently deferential to federal judges but instead states like Florida run by authoritarian petty dictators:
The small business/individual argument is very good.
Baud
@Jeffro:
The “bench” in sports refers to players that aren’t playing. It’s a bad term.
Farm team may be a little better.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Someone mentioned that the other day, asking where you were. I can’t remember if it was Quinnerly though.
Soprano2
I was listening to this story on NPR this morning about the action the Montana legislature took toward Zooey Zephyr; in it, they said that the governor’s son came out as non-binary and is defending her! I wonder if the asshole governor will now “get it” or reject his son.
Soprano2
@Baud: It was, Quinerly asked if we’d seen Ozark lately because he wanted to tell him about it.
OverTwistWillie
Ron and Casey are polling great among invading alien lizard creatures.
Soprano2
@Kay: It’s so obvious what he’s doing – DeSantis doesn’t have any finesse at all. Talking about putting a prison right next to a theme park where millions of people come to spend money and have a good time every year is just dumb, dumb, dumb, because people know it’s a hollow threat – a threat, but a hollow one. No wonder TFG is going to crush him like the bug he is.
Kay
That’s true but they’re not loonies and they also mind their own business- they’re not at all evangelical and while they absolutely disapprove of progressive culture they don’t care at all if you heathens follow it. DeVos is a Right wing, activist nut. She’s not representative of the group.
They seek order. Always. Order, or more accurately the appearance of order, is all that matters. They’ll throw the Trumpsters out on their asses if the Trumpsters get in the way of commerce and doing business. They would hate, hate, hate this national negative attention.
They’re also REALLY cheap so the moment the Trumpsters cost them any money they’ll quietly get rid of them :)
Soprano2
@Baud: Farm team is much better, because that’s what actually happens.
RSA
I did a double-take when I saw the caption under the photo of the angry white guy in Ottawa County:
Unexpected.
eclare
@Baud: It was Quinerly.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Ok, hopefully she already knows. I know she’d want to.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s just beautiful to watch Disney turn the free speech wailing around. Disney’s speech argument is much stronger than that of the Substack ninnies and Bill Maher. The state is a real threat not just to Disney but to every business, big or small, in Florida and also individuals. If DeSantis can punish a fucking juggernaught like Disney for speech imagine what they can do to small business or individual.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: A number of people called to tell me. Very sad news. He was an STL institution.
Jeffro
@Baud: I hear you. I always took ‘bench’ to mean ‘players waiting to get into the game’ – worthy, just not their at-bat yet.
‘Farm team’ is good too.
I’m glad they are showing the way for Ds in other states and setting such a great example.
Aussie Sheila
@Kay:
Disney’s statement is a thing of beauty and usefulness despite the fact they are in fact a big and ruthless business. Dems should use it in every election up to and beyond 2024.
Small business could also be a useful ally against the overreach of the Republican herrenvolk. After all, they are easily got at by state governments that don’t like their owners and employees, especially if they are immigrants, legal or not.
Kay
The kind of conventional Republicans where I live are primarily German and Scandinavian and while they are certainly conservatives they’re in no way radicals. So while they’ll vote for Donald Trump nationally and foist loonies and incompetents and arsonists on the country, they prefer good govermment at home. So when the Tea Party took over our city government they only served one term. Their sin was allowing a piece of property – a former supermarket- the city had purchased prior to them taking office to fall into disrepair because the Tea Party members refused to allocate the funds to convert it into a city operations building. The Tea Party are no longer part of city government and the former supermarket has been converted and looks tidy again.
This Michigan county is much bigger than mine but I think the Trumpsters will wear out their welcome in one or two cycles.
James E Powell
@Soprano2:
DeSantis doesn’t want to have finesse. Republican voters don’t like finesse. Sounds French, feminine. They like a man who says stupid & hateful things, loud & without apology.
H.E.Wolf
It’s possible that “bench” and “a deep bench” also hark back to Parliament, which has “backbenchers”, among other idioms.
Yes! Me too!
Elizabelle
@OzarkHillbilly: I am sorry about the loss of your friend. As you’ve heard, Quinerly was in a thread last night to let you know the sad news.
Good morning, jackals.
Kay
@James E Powell:
They like a man who says stupid and hateful things publicly and then those things he says end up in lawsuits by companies like Dominion and Disney and the Sandy Hook parents and cost hundreds of millions of dollars.
Frankensteinbeck
@James E Powell:
Yep. Trump catapulted into the lead in the 2016 Republican Primary when he called Mexicans rapists. These people don’t even care about results. They just want to see their fantasy validated of a mediocre white man being able to hurt everyone else whenever and as much as he wants. It’s also why DeSantis is now losing. You don’t validate that fantasy if someone is bullying you!
Ken
Florida residents are excited because he’ll have to resign as governor.
Though I expect the “couple of weeks” are so the legislature can rubber-stamp the changes that allow him to run. (Question for debate: which is more supine, the Florida legislature or the Duma under Putin?)
Baud
@Ken:
Legislature is working on changing the law.
geg6
I actually saw a DeSantis commercial here in Western PA last evening. And then this morning, I saw a Trump ad that just savaged DeSantis. It mentioned Biden, too, but the real vitriol was aimed at Puddin’ Boots.
Kay
There are Tucker Carlson statements out there that are worse than what we read from the Dominion case and worse than what he (and his guests) say on his show.
I wonder if his super fans like Glenn Greenwald will be sorry they backed him when the whole story comes out. Nah. They’re backing him now and he’s already a misogynist, racist homophobe.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Yes, it was Quinerly.
SFAW
@Ken:
I think his Florida
lackieslege passed a law allowing him to stay on as governor, should he choose to run for pres. I think that happened within the last six months. [My memory might be worng; they might have said they were going to pass such a law, but have not yet done so.]ETA: Or what Baud said.
geg6
@Kay:
It’s an excellent argument. Which is why they are lawyers for Disney and not Puddin’ Boots.
James E Powell
@Baud:
Sports terms are used a lot to describe political matters. See, e.g., horse race coverage. I get what she means about “bench” because it reduces the role of state legislators & other local officials to federal candidate wannabes.
When I worked in the Ohio legislature back in the late 70s, it always seemed like the general public and political press hardly knew we existed.
Kay
@geg6:
It’s good but to be fair it’s obvious. It’s what liberals have been arguing all along- that the biggest threat to speech is not liberal college students at elite universities who are impolite to older people who want to speak at them but instead state supression or retaliation for speech, like is happening in Florida.
I don’t think we know if shitty little GOP dictators like DeSantis at the county or city level have gone after smaller businesses or individuals for speech but I’d bet on it. They ban books. Of course they ban speech.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I’m glad Disney noted that most smaller businesses and individuals don’t have the resources to stand up to DeSantis. It’s important to note that because DeSantis and his minions are using intimidation tactics straight out of the authoritarian playbook to control businesses, local governments, agencies at all levels and public institutions across the state. That’s why they went after Disney — to scare everyone else.
That’s why during the height of the pandemic, the anti-vax surgeon general DeSantis appointed suspended a county health official for encouraging (not requiring, encouraging) his own staff to get vaxxed. That’s why DeSantis fired Hillsborough County’s elected state attorney for speech that opposed the criminalization of abortion. And DeSantis and Rufo continue to slam one small state college against the wall to cow the rest of the university system into silence, and it’s working.
Leto
@Kay: a good number of his writers and producers were prolific posters on some of the furthest right wing social media and messaging platforms. Shit like Stormfront and the likes. The Dominion case is kiddy stuff compared to the type of environment he and his staff created/fostered.
There’s also this:
Bannon allies sentenced to prison in ‘We Build the Wall’ scheme
Steve in the ATL
@eclare: last night you mentioned a pastor who was arrested for grooming or something. Do you have a link? Was it Bellevue Baptist again? Thanks!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Rufo is kiling DeSantis nationally though. This is the same Rufo playbook that is failing all over the country outside Florida – 100% culture wars, double down every time its challenged.
It really may be that DeSantis never looked outside Florida. Rufo’s instructions were working in Florida so DeSantis didn’t notice they were mostly flopping everywhere else. Political media fell all over him after his big re-elect win. I could see someone looking at that and saying “I am WILDLY POPULAR EVERYWHERE!”
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Read an op-ed in the Chronicle of Higher Education that just excoriated the Florida public university presidents for their cowardice. It was written by some current and former public university presidents/chancellors. It had to sting. The Chronicle is everything for these people. If they are being humiliated in the Chronicle, it’s a very bad day for them and their careers.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Others say that the examples from DeSantis and other GOP lawmakers make Disney’s point for them.
rikyrah
@OzarkHillbilly:
🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾😪😪
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: Any speculation on why DeSantis’s culture war works in Florida and not elsewhere?
Maybe he had a reserve of good will for his actions as governor before he went nuts? A friend who teaches at a university there said DeSantis had had a good record on the environment.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: Florida surgeon general altered key findings in study on Covid-19 vaccine safety
Quack doctor just making shit up to fit Puddin Boots narrative.
artem1s
ending gerrymandering is only part of the solution. If we’re serious about state legislators not being back-benchers and believe what they do really matters, then we need to end this nonsense of term limits. this is how the GOP took over the states. they didn’t even have to compete, they only had to wait for a target area to term limit out and then out-spend their opponents on attack ads and spread lies and disinformation. if someone is competent and wants to be a public servant and get stuff done, why on earth would you force them out of a job exactly when they are getting effective. of course politicians proactively start campaigning for the next job as soon as they are elected. why wouldn’t they? and when they are forced to move on they have less relevant experience. of course the Dem’s bench is weak. we haven’t got anyone who has been at the state level long enough who has name recognition for a national campaign.
term limits deny voters competent representation. and it is a subtle form of voter suppression. it makes sense that people aren’t engaged in local elections because in a lot of cases, their votes don’t matter. someone new will come along and undo any gains in 2 or 4 years anyway. a lot of people don’t have any idea who their local reps are – especially if they aren’t living in a municipal area.
jonas
Up here in NY-22, I was glad to see that Sarah Klee Hood, who had tried to take on Francis Conole in the Dem primary last year, has thrown her hat back into the ring to make sure that our current Trump toady rep Brandon Williams is a one-term wonder. Hood probably could have beat Williams last time around, but Conole was heavily backed by SBF’s very shady crypto PAC and ran a lot of ads that just sort of overwhelmed Hood’s grassroots campaign. Hood was out every day holding events and pressing the flesh, though, particularly in more rural areas of the district that Conole completely ignored in the general and where Williams really shellacked him. The GOP CCC has identified NY-22 as a high-priority race, so Williams will have a major war chest (and probably no primary opponents to speak of) going into the election. The way it was re-districted, it should be very winnable for a good Dem candidate like Hood, however. It would be great to see her added to one of our fundraisers here when the time comes!
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: @Jeffro: “bench” works fine. The philosophy on sports teams, and in the military, and in many businesses, is “next man up”, which could be updated to “next person up”. When the current player (or, say, senior senator from California) retires or gets hurt or gets promoted, the next person is ready to move up. In sports they move from the bench to the field or court, hence the expression.
I hope that disagreeing with Baud! doesn’t mean he won’t make me Labor Secretary in his upcoming administration….
eclare
@Steve in the ATL: Nope, not Bellevue this time.
https://www.actionnews5.com/2023/04/26/church-school-leader-charged-allegedly-groomed-child-years/
Kay
@Leto:
I think it has to be more than standard vicious racism, misogyny and homophobia. I mean, MGT could be a poster on Stormfront. That’s accepted on the Right and among Tucker fans “on the Left” like Greenwald. It has to exceed that. Maybe it’s criminal like with the Bannon people, but it could also just be offensive in a new way, promoting men marrying children or something, although promoting men marrying children is also mainstream on the Right now.
It’s hard to imagine what a Right winger could find offensive, other than a transgender person publicly drinking Bud Light or speaking on the floor of the statehouse in Montana. That they find offensive.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Yep, I think that’s exactly what happened. DeSantis also failed to recognize that the factors behind his big reelection win may be unique to Florida and not at all representative of the U.S.
Those factors include a large population of recently arrived retirees who DGAF about public education, the most right-wing Latinos in the U.S., and a thoroughly demoralized opposition party.
To be fair, lots of people didn’t recognize that or at least underestimated the strength of those factors, including me. I’m not sure where we go from here aside from fixing the state party, and it’s possible Repub overreach might be helpful in that regard.
Suzanne
My grandfather, with whom I lived until I was 16, wondered aloud if it had been a good idea to teach women to read.
Frankensteinbeck
@Ken:
The latter. The Florida legislature’s weakness is (only) partly illusory. Why would they not rubber stamp everything DeSantis wants? It’s all been Republican wish list stuff until he started going after Disney. Corruptly making sure one of their own stays in office is certainly standard and noncontroversial to them. A lot of the submission is just that DeSantis is a good idea man by their standards. A law to force universities to be racist? Hell, yeah, they love it!
Kay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’ve never had any clue about Florida going back to Bush v Gore days. It’s huge and it has all those regions and it’s also REALLY diverse. No clue.
I can only analyze, like, Dutch ancestry Republicans in Holland Michigan :)
Betty Cracker
@geg6: Good! The political operatives DeSantis appointed at UF and New College probably don’t care because they’re political operatives, but maybe it’ll sting the academics who are still in place.
jonas
@artem1s:
I think an understudied fallout of the whole term limits craze over the past several decades has been the rise of the corporate titan as a viable political candidate. There are very few politicians (esp Dems, as you suggest) with state-wide, much less nation-wide, name recognition. So people turn to the only other candidates who can get media attention year after year: businessmen. How, after Hoover, after W, after Trump, people can still think that anyone touting their “business experience” should be allowed within 20 miles of any kind of elected office is beyond me, but I think the fact that a lot of state-level pols basically serve a term or two, are limited out, and then hit the lobbying circuit has left the field open to a bunch of idiots with MBAs who think being head of a horrible PE fund or whatever gives them the right to run the government.
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Baud: I take your “Maybe” as I don’t think “farm team” is good either and I agree. That says to me “getting ready for the big leagues” and this is a minor league team which is only for training purposes.
What we want to say is that the State Legislatures are as important as Congress, but they are 50 distributed power centers that are of major importance. They are not the one concentrated national power center that is the US Congress (which is easier for the stenographer-media to cover so) that is portrayed as less important. But they are also where many people serve before deciding to run for the US House or the Senate or more often a statewide office like Governor. The Leg. office gives them governing experience and public exposure exposure so that is valid, but should be looked at as a secondary not primary function. Is there a pithy phrase that says this?
Anyway
@Suzanne:
Ann Coulter has said, semi-facetiously that giving women the vote was a mistake.
Another of her genius ideas is that only naturalized citizens and people with citizen grandparents should be able to vote. Thus removing the right to vote from a whole bunch of native-born peeps.
jonas
@geg6: Isn’t the president of the UF system former NE senator Ben Sasse?
Feathers
Annie, Massachusetts was lucky to get you!
@Steve in the ATL: That’s exactly what she was arguing against. Minor league baseball is players who aren’t considered good enough yet to be in the major leagues. She’s saying that being in the legislature is a genuinely important job itself. The Washington insider idea that they’re all wannabe losers who couldn’t hack it in DC needs to die. And don’t deny it. There are too many Dems who see working as a junior employee at some rich person’s foundation as more important to the cause than going back to their home state and running for office. To cool for school, as they say.
Kay
He’s a fraud and he’s not going to get away with this bullshit forever, because he’s killing people and their families will sue him.
I wish it was a regulator or the DOJ or a state AG who would get him, but it isn’t going to be- it’s going to a be a civil lawsuit. We’re seeing this more and more. These lawsuits are becoming THE WAY bad actors are held accountable. That’s bad for prosecutors and regulators. No one who is rich and or powerful is afraid of them anymore. Their potential for enforcement or prosecution doesn’t act as a deterrent anymore.
You go, Huang family. No one else is going to stop Musk’s huge lies that kill people, apparently.
Feathers
@eclare: There used to be a blog keeping track of all the non-Catholic ministers and pastors convicted of sexual crimes involving children. The average was one a week. That was in the early 2000s, it’s probably higher now. But crickets in terms of coverage compared to the Catholic cases. I wonder why.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!): #AllLegislaturesMatter
Soprano2
In MO, a judge temporarily blocked our terrible AG’s “rules” for people getting transgender care, including transgender adults. I hope they block them permanently, what they would require is absurd. It’s putting into “rules” the right’s belief that transgender people actually just have a mental illness, and if only they could get enough therapy they would realize it and “get better”.
Redshift
@Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!):
I cheer McMorrow’s choice and statement, but I take it more as criticism of the media than of state politicians. In my experience, there are plenty of state and local politicians who are dedicated to that job and don’t see it as a stepping stone. It’s part of horserace coverage that anyone who attracts attention or is successful is greeted with “are you going to move up to the big leagues?”
Mike S. (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Perfect. Let’s spread it everywhere!
Soprano2
@Feathers: I think Joe My God highlights stuff like that. https://www.joemygod.com/
eclare
@Soprano2: DOJ is taking TN to court over its ban on gender affirming care for minors. That came out yesterday.
Uncle Cosmo
In fact they are (or ought to be) the farm teams, the AA and AAA minor league rosters, where the future stars of the Democratic major league franchise play their hearts out and hone their lawmaking craft and show their mettle toward the time when they get the call to The Big Leagues.
And in fact that farm system ought to be much more like its baseball analogue was before ubiquitous mass media play-by-play, when locals came out to the games and followed the careers of the young phenoms who moved up and enjoyed the play of the very competent players who stayed.
(NB Back in the 60s & 70s our family followed one of my cousins as he made his way through the minors to several years in The Bigs, and we saw a lot of future MLB stars “up close and personal” in those games. [Dad, a former shortstop on one of the best semipro teams in the US at the end of the 30s, always hoped for a major-leaguer in the fambly, and though his #1 son was nearsighted and miscoordinated, he got his heart’s desire through his nephew – which in a classic Italian-American fambly is almost as good as a son, and in some ways better..:^D])
geg6
@jonas: Yes and since he’s not, never has been and never really will be an actual academic, I’m sure he doesn’t care. But UF is not the only public university in Florida. And I guarantee that the presidents of those universities are actual academics. They are now unemployable anywhere except FL.
Eunicecycle
@Soprano2: The Ohio legislature is considering a bill to ban transgender care and someone testifying for the bill said if you aren’t Christian and you oppose the bill, you might be possessed by demons. He didn’t say anything about Christians who oppose the bill. I am happy to say that even the man who proposed the bill said he did NOT agree with these statements.
Steve in the ATL
@eclare: thank you! Needed a link for my wingnut sister who says it’s all Catholic Church and liberal Hollywood and liberal politicians!
FastEdD
Absolutely right that state legislatures are not less important than federal. I was a high school teacher for 34 years-it was my passion and it was the highest profession I could aspire to in my mind. Not administration, teaching. There were some administrators who were dedicated professionals devoted to their craft. There were many who were empty suits, but I never looked at their job as being above mine. I told one Asst. Principal, look, let’s trade jobs for a day. I could do yours, walk around in a suit, answer the phone, fill out paperwork. You can’t do mine-the first time a kid asks a question about Precalculus you are stumped. Once I won “Teacher Of The Month” they said I could park in the Principal’s parking space as a prize. I said that no way I was going to trade. That was not a promotion.
Elizabelle
Mayors in the news. Reports that Jerry Springer has died. Age 79.
Steve in the ATL
@Betty Cracker:
Hasn’t this been a problem in Florida forever? I remember an aunt and uncle on the gulf coast complaint back in the seventies or eighties that they couldn’t get adequate funding for the public schools because the retirees didn’t have kids in school and thus didn’t want to pay for them. They should have stayed in Chicago!
BTW it’s the same dumb argument for people who oppose affirmative action, food stamps, and the rest of the social safety net. Personally, I’m happy to pay a little more in races not to be surrounded by desperate, uneducated people!
eclare
@Steve in the ATL: Happy to oblige!
Elizabelle
@Steve in the ATL: A Florida friend was telling me in the 1990s that he thought the state should have a maximum voting age.
Steve in the ATL
@Elizabelle: I have similarly argued for a maximum drinking age! You see drunk kids being stupid and you think “stupid drunk kids!” but you see drunk 40-somethings embarrassing themselves in a public bar or restaurant and you think “that’s just sad and pathetic”
Steve in the ATL
@Suzanne:
He died under mysterious circumstances that the DA could never quite pin on you?
Soprano2
@eclare: I don’t know if they’ll be able to do that with MO, because it’s not a law but a policy put out by the state AG. I guess we’ll see. It’s a horrible, reprehensible policy designed to make transgender people leave MO. I have a cook who says they would leave MO if that policy is upheld.
cmorenc
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
DeSantis was the perverse beneficiary of Hurricane Ian in late September – it gave him the perfectly timed opportunity to spotlight himself in a constructive role helpfully managing disaster response, with the devastating catastrophic impact of the Hurricane, flooding out alternative negative focus points on e.g. his escapade spending Florida money to fly immigrants from Texas to NY. Don’t get me wrong – without this event, DeSantis (and Rubio along with him) would probably have won by a clear margin anyways, but by a much less commanding proportion than 19% (maybe around half of that instead). Also, Dems are never going to maximize turnout with candidates like Charlie Crist – part of the explanation for the margin is D underperformance of potential turnout, even if a better candidate wouldn’t have been enough this cycle.
Soprano2
@Steve in the ATL: Try drunk 70-somethings!
Quinerly
@OzarkHillbilly:
I was looking for you yesterday. I got a call from a friend around 6AM Sun about Tom. It’s horrible. Word is when firemen went in, Tom was engulfed in flames, standing, screaming. The apt was in a Brandhorst building. I couldn’t sleep the other night. Stayed up watching old YouTubes of Tom going back to pre my 1984 days. Plus, lots of the newer (the 1990’s) Geyer Street Sheiks stuff. Pre 2020, I probably saw him at least once a week between Sqwires and Hammerstones. Lots of wonderful old RFT articles, KDHX and Focal stuff. If you want any links, get my email from a front pager. You may already have my info anyway. His FB pages is open…even if not a friend on FB you can read stuff, see all the pics people are posting. He was about to be a grandfather. Had just gotten back from visiting his pregnant daughter in SC.
Quinerly
Thanks everybody for alerting me that Ozark was looking for me. I stopped reading at first when I got to his first comment. Just got thru the entire thread. Have a great day.
Captain C
As my Amsterdam-born mother says, these are the Dutch people by whom the rest of us Dutch people are embarrassed.
Apparently one of my great-grandfathers founded a church for this reason; some of the congregants of his previous church thought the former one wasn’t strict enough. Thankfully, this did not become a family tradition.
delphinium
@jonas:
I got a couple texts from her which was great and shows she is taking campaigning seriously. Liked what she had to say and seems like a good candidate so will probably throw some money her way (can’t vote for her since I’m in another district).
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: If I had to guess, I’d say that Florida has a combination of
These are things that don’t apply to other parts of the country that were recently considered “purple states”.
Matt McIrvin
@Anyway: Getting rid of the 14th Amendment’s definition of citizenship as a birthright of people born on US soil (or fancifully interpreting the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in such a way as to greatly restrict it) is completely mainstream among conservatives, and I’ve even seen some liberals go for it.
It’s normal for some European countries to have multi-generational populations of native-born non-citizens, with all sorts of associated social problems. As much as I like to look to European models for things I don’t think this would be a good idea.
Feathers
@Soprano2: Thanks for the link. Looks like a good site. The one I’m thinking of was something different. It was basically just a weekly collection of summaries of, and links to, local news stories about pastors and other religious leaders convicted of sexual offenses, especially those involving minors. It was pre social media, and all the more affecting because it really was a just the facts roundup. The sort of blogs people used to do, just out of love.
It was during the height of the Catholic Church scandals and really did seem to be a don’t forget us kind of thing.
louc
@Steve in the ATL:
On the west coast of Florida. Back in the day, East Coast retirees from New York and New Jersey, predominantly Jewish, cared deeply about education and would pass bond issues and accept property tax increases for schools. These were mostly blue-collar types who lived in Century Village and King’s Point condos (famed in Seinfeld as Boca del Vista).
Alas, that cohort has died out and I’m not sure who has taken their place.
gvg
@jonas: Now, but that is recent. It wasn’t the case at the beginning of the DeSantis problem with the Universities. We really noticed it during Covid. I work for UF. The President did NOT want to reopen as soon as he was ordered and he wanted to require vacinations. He could not make it stick. He said that basically the State University system of Florida was more closely owned by the state than in any other state he could find and that he could give certain order, but they would be over ridden the next day and their were no legal avenues he had to prevent it. This was after consulting all the University lawyers etc.
I do know that the Governor, whoever it is, gets to appoint all the Board of Governors in all the Universities…in the past, Governors have replaced one or two with pets who weren’t too obviously unqualified…..DeSantis has been doing them all for years with no Education background. They also control our funding a lot more than most state.
Have not managed to mess with our pensions much though. They have tried-Jeb especially.
Suzanne
@Steve in the ATL:
He died under natural circumstances. I mean, a man who thinks women shouldn’t be taught to read is hopefully old!
Don K
@Kay: Same sort of thing happened in Troy, Michigan, a fairly large office-center and bedroom city near me. They elected a Tea Partier mayor in 2011, who proceeded to turn down federal money for a new combined Amtrak-bus station. She was recalled within a year, and subsequent mayors have served without much controversy.
Don K
I am so fucking proud of our Michigan Democrats! They put the pedal to the metal as soon as the green flag flew and haven’t let up yet. They’re governing as if they only have two years to get shit done. This is the way to do it!
Oh, and I’m totally a fan of McMorrow. She represents the district next to mine, and is an absolute treat to have in the legislature.