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, inside information and often an edgy voice that we just don't get from the traditional media. This week in progressive state blogs is designed specifically to focus attention on the writing and analysis of people focused on their home turf. Let me know via comments or Kosmail if you have a favorite state- or city-based blog you think I should be watching.
Inclusion of a diary does not necessarily indicate my agreement or endorsement of its contents.
At Plunderbund of Ohio, John Michael Spinelli writes—Economic Research Expert: Ohio Job Growth Has Trailed The Nation “For The Last 23 Months”:
Earlier today we reported that Ohio now ranks 45th in the country for job creation (out of 50, in case you were wondering) according to Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey School of Business.
Ohio job data miners say the actual job growth rate in Ohio year-over-year for September was 0.6 percent compared to a 2 percent growth rate for the USA.
“The gap between Ohio and the USA widened in September once again, unfortunately,” said Economic Research Analyst George Zeller, who keeps tabs on the scoreboard of job growth information.
Based in Cleveland, an important region of the state for manufacturing jobs, Zeller told OhioNewsBureau via email today that “we are in recovery in Ohio, which is the good news. The bad news is that it continues to be… too slow and well below the national average.”
Zeller said he and ASU peer into the same data and are on the same page but in a slightly different way. According to Zeller, Ohio needs to desperately speed up the recovery in order “to recover the jobs that we lost since 2007.” He said the poor performance in September is not a one month data fluke. “It has happened every month for the last 23 months consecutively.”
At
My Left Nutmeg of Connecticut,
ctblogger writes—
Malloy must come clean on his attempt to end collective bargaining rights:
As someone who is disgusted with the stream of lies from the uniuon leadership and Gov Malloy on this issue, I hope the media will start asking questions about this subject -ctblogger
In defense of its endorsement of Governor Dannel "Dan" Malloy, the Connecticut Education Association is using its EXAMINE THE FACTS campaign to tell teachers that Malloy, "Supports teachers' rights to collectively bargain and negotiate contracts, benefits, and working conditions."
At the same time, most of Connecticut's other unions are trying to persuade their members that if elected, Republican Tom Foley will follow Wisconsin's right-wing, anti-union governor and destroy collective bargaining altogether.
But the fact remains that Governor Malloy is the only Democratic governor in the nation to propose unilaterally eliminating collective bargaining rights for a group of public employees.
In Malloy's case, as part of his corporate education reform industry initiative, he proposed repealing collectively bargaining rights for public school teachers working in the poorest schools. [...]
With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, Governor Malloy has an obligation to come clean about his position on collective bargaining.
There are more excerpts from progressive state blogs below the orange doohickey.
At ColoradoPols.com, Colorado Pols writes—Infighting and Petty Posturing in Beauprez Camp:
When Republican gubernatorial nominee Bob Beauprez was putting his campaign together last spring, he made a point of trying to include top staffers from other flailing or near-dead Republican campaigns. This was easier said than done, according to Republican insiders, who say that Beauprez thought he could make a nice stew with a bunch of mismatched ingredients.
What might have seemed a good idea to Beauprez at the time has resulted primarily in infighting, petty posturing, and silly turf wars that are straining the seams of a campaign desperately trying to find some sort of momentum in the closing weeks of the election…and threatening to poison other GOP campaigns along the way.
As Coloradans count down the last two weeks of the 2014 election cycle, rumors of trouble inside the Beauprez campaign have seeped outside of Republican circles. From what we hear, problems that were simmering over paychecks and grievances about who really represented the "top of the ticket" (Beauprez or GOP Senate nominee Cory Gardner) have grown more heated in recent weeks as Beauprez has failed to gain any real traction in his bid to unseat Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
It's no secret that the Republican Party in Colorado has been scattered in every direction in recent years. The emergence of the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party in 2009 significantly altered the GOP power structure, but upheaval within Colorado Republican circles actually dates back to the bitter 2006 gubernatorial primary between Beauprez and Marc Holtzman.
At
Scrutiny Hooligans of Ohio,
Tom Sullivan writes—
Warren on Message:
Not unlike ghosts in The Sixth Sense, The Village hears just what it wants to. Itself, mostly, and the jangle of coins. The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson hears in Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts something different, something many Democratic politicians lack: a clear message.
Stumping for Democrats across the country, Warren has a powerful message that ordinary persons can hear if the Village cannot. Like South Dakotan Rick Weiland’s
prairie populism, Warren (born in Oklahoma) gets traction from a populist narrative:
There once was consensus on the need for government investment in areas such as education and infrastructure that produced long-term dividends, she said. “Here’s the amazing thing: It worked. It absolutely, positively worked.”
But starting in the 1980s, she said, Republicans took the country in a different direction, beginning with the decision to “fire the cops on Wall Street.”
“They called it deregulation,” Warren said, “but what it really meant was: Have at ’em, boys.”
Americans who have been had by the boom-and-bust economy that resulted (and which Democrats abetted) are tired of being lectured about pulling themselves up by their bootstraps by a Wall Street elite wearing golden parachutes. Warren says plainly what the faltering middle class knows in its gut, “The game is rigged, and the Republicans rigged it.” Warren is ready to fight when it seems many Democrats — including the incumbent president—just want to go along to get along.
At
NorthDecoder.com,
Chet writes—
How Messed Up Is North Dakota?:
Rough transcript (from memory) of a recent conversation I had with a North Dakota Republican Party activist:
GOPer: So what do you think about the statewide races this year?
Me: I think a few of them are going to be really close. You?
GOPer: I don't think they're going to be as close as you think. Have you seen the Forum polls?
Me: Yeah. They've got Rauschenberger ahead by 14 points, despite the fact he skips work to go out drinking all day with friends who drive drunk and total his SUV.
GOPer: You think that race is going to be close?
Me: You'd think it'd be a blow-out for Astrup.
GOPer: You do realize thirty-eight percent of North Dakotans would vote for Jerry Sandusky if he had an "R" after his name on the ballot, don't you?
Me: Nice comparison. And, if you're right, classy bunch, that thirty-eight percent.
Is North Dakota really this messed up?
At
ProgressNow of New Mexico,
Patrick Davis writes—
New emails show Susana Martinez campaign using law enforcement records to spy on Dem opponents:
It’s a story everyone is talking about.
First Mother Jones released explosive tapes from inside Susana Martinez’s 2010 campaign. And that story included an allegation from a former staffer that the campaign routinely had investigators working for then-District Attorney Susana Martinez check license plates of vehicles supporting her opponent.
In September, the new district attorney, Mark D’Antonio, announced that emails from the Martinez-era were “intentionally destroyed” before he took office.
And that seemed like the end until ProgressNowNM identified a backup server in Albuquerque which contained some of those deleted emails. [...] Our investigation showed that Martinez’s staff tipped off Republican campaign operatives to an investigation into voter registration fraud by the Republican party (our story here) and that they later shredded copies of documents they research and used in Martinez’s campaign commercials [...] .
Now the Santa Fe Reporter’s Justin Horwath has used those same archived emails to uncover evidence that the Martinez campaign deployed its law enforcement investigators to conduct opposition research and even teamed up with supporters in Albuquerque to get the dirt.
At
Burnt Orange Report of Texas,
Natalie San Luis writes—
Sam Houston Wins Endorsements From Every Major Texas Newspaper:
In the coming weeks, Texas voters will decide who will be the state’s legal counsel as Attorney General.
Appropriately, the GOP’s candidate is a Tea Party favorite who doesn’t seem to be very familiar with the concept of following the law at all. Ken Paxton has a track record of cover-ups, violating state law, and a potential felony charge waiting for him when the election is over.
So it’s no surprise that every major newspaper in Texas has endorsed Sam Houston, an experienced attorney who ran for the Texas Supreme Court in 2008. The Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, Dallas Morning News, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, Austin American-Statesman, and Fort Worth Star-Telegram all agree that Democrat Sam Houston has the integrity and experience necessary to turn the Attorney General’s Office around. [...]
In an enthusiastic endorsement, the Austin American-Statesman wrote, “Houston is clear about the direction that he would take the attorney general’s office, returning its focus to legal matters of the state rather than tilting at windmills by filing lawsuits against federal government agencies.”
According to the Statesman, “troubling reports of [Paxton’s] ethics violations” make him a questionable candidate, but “it would be difficult to endorse Paxton” even if he weren’t a law-breaking crook.
At
RI Future.org,
Barry Schiller writes—
Why the left should embrace a ConCon:
Some progressive groups and labor unions are actively opposing holding a constitutional convention. Indeed, I just got a letter for the head of the RI Federation of Teachers to that effect. It seems there was no rank and file input into that decision. Similarly as a member I had no input into the ACLU decision to oppose.
This is a disappointment, as Rhode Island is not doing that well, especially for working people, and much of the public is cynical about government, disengaged from civic activity and the political process. This is not in our interest as ultimately we need a more positive attitude to get the public support needed for government programs.
A constitutional convention can address this by reforms getting at the who-you-know insider system, Assembly procedures allowing midnight sessions with rules suspended, judicial selection abuse, 38 Studios type end runs around voters, fair redistricting, campaign finance, ethical requirements on legislators. It can build democracy, especially if voter initiative is approved, as it almost was the last time. The RI Sierra Club chapter had supported VI because of our experience elsewhere where it was used to pass environmental legislation, including CA coastal protection that real estate interests had blocked in their Assembly, and “bottle bills” blocked here by the throwaway industries. Indeed much of the energy these day on voter initiative is in the progressive direction, raising minimum wages, paid sick days, labeling GMO food, repealing anti-labor laws, expanding a bottle bill, but many of our progressives seem not to have caught up with that.
Civil rights is a legit concern, but I see little threat voters will restrict the rights of minorities in RI. MA is similar to RI but though they have voter initiative, this has not been a problem. Indeed a constitutional convention or VI could EXPAND rights such as the right to privacy, rights of the terminally ill, rights of children to an adequate education (recently ruled not now a constitutional right,) the right to vote, maybe even improved rights to shoreline access.
As for reproductive freedom, it is a big factor in my support for a con-con in hopes of getting Voter Initiative which of course the Assembly would never voluntarily give up any power and allow. Think ahead. If the GOP wins the next election, a shift of 1 US Supreme Court justice could overturn Roe v Wade, not an unlikely prospect. What are our prospects in the Assembly then, especially with Mattiello and Paiva-Weed in charge? Very low. Pro-choice people would be much better off with the voters, but without VI we’d have no recourse.
At
Keystone Politics of Pennsylvania,
Jon Geeting writes—
Post-Gazette Spotlights the Methane Pollution Issue:
It turns out that if we don’t control methane leakage, natural gas extraction is actually worse for the climate than coal. A lot of Democratic politicians are invested in the idea of gas as a “bridge fuel,” and it still can be, but not if we don’t require companies to capture all the methane.
To repeat, we don’t need new technology here. The wait is over: the technology is here, it is affordable, and all that’s left to do is adopt some regulations like Colorado did, making companies use it [...]
It occurs to me that the weak natural gas regulations in our Commonwealth may not be just the result of knowing mendacity, corruption, or Tea Party derp (though all these things do factor in.) A more earnest reason may be that politicians do not want to push regulations that the smallest, least-capitalized drillers would be unable to comply with, thus putting them out of business. [...]
Normally lowering barriers to entry is good progressive public policy in other fields, but not in the case of gas drilling. We really, really do not want to lower barriers to entry for natural resource extraction, because these minor players do not have access to nearly enough money to cover the clean-up costs of a severe blowout.
At
Green Mountain Daily,
Jack McCullough writes—
Support for striking teachers:
Today's good news is that the South Burlington Education Association has been able to reach an agreement with the school district to end their strike and return to the important work of educating South Burlington's students.
The bad news is that, as it happens pretty much every time workers stand up for themselves, we are hearing attacks on workers' right to withhold their services and take action to protect their rights and their livelihoods. Ronald Reagan was wrong when he busted the air traffic controllers' union and hired scabs, and Peter Shumlin is wrong when he says teachers should not be allowed to strike.
Some facts might be in order to get past the cries that a five-day strike in one school district shows that the sky is falling. Vermont has two hundred fifty public schools, sixty-two supervisory unions, and three hundred sixty-two school districts. Out of all those schools and districts, in the last forty years or so we've had about twenty-seven teachers' strikes, most lasting just a few days, although some have been longer.
In all the rest, teachers and management have been able to reach agreement without a strike, and experience has shown that a strike is the last resort. In South Burlington, negotiations started last November, the contract expired on June 30, and yet the teachers went back to school and worked without a contract until last week. In Bennington and Rutland Southwest the teachers worked for 500 days without a contract to try to avoid a strike.
So why do teachers need the right to strike? It's pretty simple, really: without the ability to strike management has no incentive to negotiate in good faith.
At
Appalachian Voices,
Sarah Kellogg writes—
North Carolinians speak out against fracking: Are elected officials listening?
More than two dozen environmental and social justice groups came together recently to hand deliver 59,500 petition signatures to North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, calling on him and other elected officials to reinstate the ban on hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling for natural gas in the state.
Groups of the Frack Free N.C. Alliance, which include environmental organizations, environmental justice groups and grassroots organizations, have been working diligently all across the state to educate citizens about the potential impacts of fracking and encourage them to get involved. The nearly 60,000 petition signatures are a testament to the strong opposition to fracking throughout North Carolina. [...]
Governor McCrory has yet to acknowledge the concerns of the 59,500 signees on the petition, though it is clear that opposition to fracking across North Carolina has grown as more citizens learn about the risks associated with the practice.
In August and September, 1,800 North Carolinians attended Mining and Energy Commission hearings on the proposed rules to regulate fracking. The overwhelming majority of commenters opposed fracking. The MEC reports that they received between 100,000-200,000 additional written comments addressing the rules and that the majority suggested the rules be strengthened. According to Commissioner Jim Womack, about half the comments were statements opposing fracking. Womack told reporters that those “didn’t really count.” Clearly, thousands of North Carolinians oppose fracking, the question is, are our elected officials listening to us?
At
Calitics,
Brian Leubitz writes—
The Fate of the Senate Supermajority?
The media thrives on big statements, but shades of gray are everywhere. And that is true for the Senate elections here in California. So, with that, here is a "big statement" quote from former FPPC chair (and SoS candidate) Dan Schnur:
"If Republicans can win both of those seats, it will be seen as their first step back toward political relevance in California," said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. "But if Democrats get the supermajority back, it's difficult to see California becoming a two-party state again any time in the near future." (LA Times)
To be clear, these two races are very worthy of attention. They are getting very expensive, as both sides look to grab an advantage. And, in terms of the supermajority, this is where the ballgame will be decided. But, is the supermajority really that important? Are there a lot of supermajority measures that will get taken up next year? It seems unlikely, and with the budget only requiring a majority, taxes are the only instance where you would really need it.
And if the GOP can pull off a win in one or two of these districts, does that really mean they are on the road back? Yes a lot of money will be spent in those two districts, but there is little to draw casual voters to these elections. The Presidency isn't up this year, and the governor's race is a snoozer. Will a GOP win say anything about the future, or will it say more about the electorate of the past?
If the Republicans aren't able to win at least one, it would certainly present a dark picture for the future.