Today begins a new Saturday feature spotlighting a dozen examples of what's been written in the past seven days at progressive state blogs. Just as states with progressive lawmakers and activists have themselves initiated innovative programs over a wide range of issues, state-based progressive blogs have helped provide us with a point of view and inside information we don't get from the traditional media. Those blogs deserve a larger audience. So, without further ado, here's this week's collection:
At Blog for Iowa, Trish Nelson writes What Does Grassley Have Against Voting?
Yesterday State Representative Pat Grassley, grandson of Senator Chuck Grassley, introduced House File 423, which would eliminate the high school social studies requirement to teach voting procedures, and instead require teaching “the principles of American citizenship.”
HF423 would specifically remove the requirement to teach “voting statutes and procedures, voter registration requirements, the use of paper ballots and voting systems in the election process, and the method of acquiring and casting an absentee ballot.” In addition, Grassley’s proposal would require high school students to learn the “tenets of American citizenship” and “the principles of American citizenship.”
At the
Cowgirl Blog in Montana,
Cowgirl writes
Consistency Isn't Their Cup of Tea:
The latest TEA Party stunner comes to us from Bozeman. A self-proclaimed member of the Bozeman Tea Party, a group that named their movement after the most famous act of civil disobedience in the nation’s history, is calling civil disobedience “highly offensive” in the Bozeman Chronicle today.
Please continue reading posts from progressive state blogs below the fold.
At Blue Virginia, ivy main blasts the state's energy giant in Dominion Takes the Wrong Way on Solar:
On February 12, Virginia's State Corporation Commission held a public hearing to decide whether to approve Dominion Virginia Power's plan to buy 3 megawatts of solar power from Virginia residents and businesses to sell to the company's voluntary Green Power Program. Sound like a good idea? It's not.
The 3-megawatt program, on the other hand, gets nothing right. Under the program, customers who have solar panels would sell all their solar power to Dominion for 15 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), and buy regular fossil-fuel electricity (known as "brown power") from Dominion at the normal retail rate of about 11 cents. Cost to Dominion: 4 cents/kWh.
Dominion would then resell the solar power to the participants in its Green Power Program, not for the 4 cents it costs the company, but for 11 cents. Dominion would keep 7 cents/kWh.
At
Progress Texas,
Morgan Williams weighs in on whether the state is stuck with a
Forever Governor:
Governor Rick Perry's still got game. A poll released by the University of Texas and Texas Tribune shows that Texans support Perry over Attorney General Greg Abbott for governor in 2014. Perry has said that he has a deal with Abbott: the attorney general won't run unless the governor steps down. Speculation has pointed to Perry making that move, but will these new numbers convince him to stay?
At the
Progressive Pulse in North Carolina, Sarah Ovaska writes in
Charter School that Plagiarizes Loses Approval:
A proposed Charlotte charter school had its approval revoked today for extensively plagiarizing large sections of the school’s initial application. The Cameron Creek Charter School had large chunks of its 155-page application that were identical to what another group had submitted previously to the state.
At
Hillbilly Dem in Kentucky, Hillbilly writes
Racism. Mitch McConnell Invents It For His Benefit And Ignores It For His Benefit.:
It's odd that CNN would allow Senator Mitch McConnell accuse folks of racial slurs against his wife without allowing those accused of racial slurs the opportunity to rebut Senator Mitch McConnell's claims. However this is how the mainstream media works. Where was CNN when Mitch McConnell's constituents were using every racist tactic in the book against Barack And Michelle Obama and why hasn't CNN asked him about that?
Michelle Obama has endured racism from Senator Mitch McConnell's constituents for years. Why didn't Senator Mitch McConnell become outraged about that?
At
Plunderbund,
Joseph writes
Ohio business groups turn out big against Kasich’s anti-business tax hike:
Since Kasich released his plan to expand Ohio’s sales tax to nearly every service-based business in Ohio, feedback from Ohio’s traditionally Republican-supporting business organizations has been almost entirely negative.
The Ohio Bar Association and the Ohio Association of Realtors have publicly come out against the plan, and yesterday 19 other business and trade organizations representing car dealers to bowling alley owners to criminal defense lawyers testified against the plan in front of the Ohio House.
At
MN Progressive Project,
Dan Burns asks
Is the Republican Party really doomed?:
I’ve run across a couple of recent opinion pieces to that effect [...] It would be great if they’re right (especially for most conservative voters, themselves, though they haven‘t the sense to realize that) but, I’ll believe it when I see it, and I have to see a lot more than I do now.
At
Eclectablog,
Eclectablog reports that
Republicans dangle money in front of Detroit to encourage acceptance of an Emergency Financial Manager:
If it walks like a bribe and quacks like a bribe
Michigan Republicans are hoping that the lure of state cash will entice Detroit city officials into accepting an Emergency Financial Manager without a fuss. After stripping $152.2 million in annual revenue sharing from the city, Republicans are pushing a familiar theme: take away funding or increase taxes then give a bit back to make themselves look benevolent.
At
West Virginia Blue,
wvblueguy has his doubts about
Drug Testing for Teens:
Another idea from Republicans in Charleston. Make all teens take and pass a drug test before they can get a drivers license. This one doesn't come close to passing a constitutional smell test.
At
Uppity Wisconsin, you can almost see
Jud Lounsbury shaking his head when he writes
Comedic Timing: Pat "Rule of Law" Roggensack Interviewed by David "I Only Follow Laws I Like" Clarke:
Days after Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke appeared on an anti-government radio program where he said he would never, even if ordered by a "legislatively passed law," take away someone's guns, interviewed Justice Patience Roggensack on a radio program he was guest-hosting, where they both sang the praises of following the "rule of law" and not undermining "legislatively passed law."
At
Blue Oregon, Kari Chisholm writes
Abetted by PolitiFact, Senator Doug Whitsett gets it all wrong:
A couple of weeks ago, Senator Doug Whitsett (R-Klamath Falls) penned an op-ed in the O calling for a constitutional spending cap pegged to population growth and inflation. Whitsett conveniently forgets that Oregon voters actually considered this in 2006 and rejected it 71% to 29%. Measure 48 lost in all 36 counties of the state, including Whitsett's Klamath County, where it lost 62% to 38%. Whitsett obviously doesn't respect the will of the voters.