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The War on Voting May Have Swung These 4 Races

by EdwinFortin Posted on November 6, 2014

Mother Jones

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In several races around the country on Tuesday, the victors won by razor-thin margins. Many of these races were in states that had recently enacted voting restrictions expected to depress turnout amongst minorities, young voters, and the poor, according to a new report released Wednesday by the Brennan Center. No one knows how many of the newly disenfranchised may have voted. Nevertheless, the report’s author Wendy Weiser notes, “In several key races, the margin of victory came very close to the likely margin of disenfranchisement.” Here’s look at the numbers in some of those elections, all via Brennan:

Kansas Governor: Republican Gov. Sam Brownback got 33,000 more votes than his Democratic challenger Paul Davis.

In 2011, Kansas implemented a requirement that voters provide documentation of citizenship to vote, and just before the 2012 election, the state enacted a strict photo ID law.

More than 24,000 Kansas voters tried to register this year, but couldn’t because of the state’s proof of citizenship law. In addition, it’s estimated that the state’s photo ID law reduces turnout by about 2 percent, or 17,000 voters.

North Carolina Senate: Republican House state speaker Thom Tillis beat incumbent Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan by 48,000 votes.

In 2013, North Carolina enacted a law—which Tillis helped write—limiting early voting and same-day registration, which the Justice Department warned would likely depress minority turnout. During the last midterms in 2010, about 200,000 North Carolinians cast their ballots during early voting days that the state’s new voting law eliminated.

Virginia Senate: Democratic Sen. Mark Warner beat GOPer Ed Gillespie by a margin of just over 12,000 votes.

Voters this year faced a new voter ID law that the state enacted in 2013. This type of law tends to reduce turnout by about 2.4 percent, according to New York Times pollster Nate Silver. Applied to the Virginia Senate race this year, that would mean that turnout was reduced by over 52,000 voters.

Florida Governor: Republican Gov. Rick Scott eked out a victory over former Democratic Gov. Charlie Crist by roughly 72,000 votes.

In 2011, Florida reduced the early voting period. The same year, Scott imposed a measure making it nearly impossible to vote for convicts who have already served their time. The move essentially disenfranchised nearly 1.3 million formerly incarcerated Floridians, about one in three of whom are African-American.

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The War on Voting May Have Swung These 4 Races

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The Fight for Abortion Rights Just Got a Whole Lot Harder

by SusieFossey Posted on November 6, 2014

Mother Jones

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The GOP wave didn’t just crash into the US Senate. It flooded state legislatures, as well. By Wednesday evening, Republicans were in control of 67 of the nation’s 99 state legislative chambers—up from 57 before the election. It’s still unclear which party will control two other chambers.

Already, anti-abortion advocates are calling it a big win. Hundreds of the country’s most extreme anti-abortion bills pop up in these statehouses every year, and Tuesday’s results won’t do anything to put a stop to that. But reproductive rights advocates also suffered big setbacks Tuesday in places where they had actually been playing offense. Now, Democratic losses in states like Colorado, Nevada, New York, and Washington could torpedo their efforts to expand reproductive rights.

New York Republicans won a tiny majority in the state Senate, a development that could kill the proposed Women’s Equality Act—an omnibus bill that includes an equal pay measure, protections against pregnancy discrimination, and stronger domestic violence and sexual harassment laws. The bill had previously stalled in the Democratic Senate because of a provision that would give New York women an affirmative right to abortion. But in the waning days of the campaign, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, had pressured legislators to agree to pass the bill in the next session, and the state’s Planned Parenthood affiliates were confident that the election would produce a friendlier Senate.

“We were really hopeful,” says Christina Chang, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood NYC Votes. “But a lot of the folks who won seats have not expressed support for the Women’s Equality Act…After last night’s elections, we have a harder road ahead of us.”

In both Colorado and Washington state, Democrats held majorities in both legislative houses and controlled governor’s mansions going into Tuesday night’s election. By Wednesday night, Republicans appeared on their way to controlling the Colorado Senate and they had captured and outright majority in the Washington Senate.

In recent years, Colorado Democrats have helped reproductive rights advocates check a number of items off their wish list. They increased Medicaid reimbursement rates for family planning services—a move that encourages more providers to offer that type of care—and they passed funding for comprehensive sex education. In 2012, Democrats blocked an effort by anti-abortion forces to pass religious freedom exemptions for health care providers, which abortion rights groups said would jeopardize access to contraception. Last year, Democrats repealed the remnants of a law that criminalized abortion. And this year, Democrats pushed for the Reproductive Health Freedom Act, which would have blocked new abortion restrictions, before backing down in the face of conservative opposition.

That kind of progress will likely come to a halt if Republicans take over the Senate—although reproductive rights advocates again remain hopeful.

“So many of the Republicans in Colorado sent messages to voters about being advocates of women’s health and not wanting to insert government into private decisions,” says Cathy Alderman, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. “We’re hoping they weren’t just using those issues as political ploys.”

In Washington state, Democrats had been fighting for a bill that would require abortion coverage in most insurance plans sold on the state’s Obamacare exchange. It was a bold measure at a time when many conservative states were banning abortion coverage. The bill stalled in the Senate, where a few renegade Democrats frequently sided with the powerful Republican minority. But additional GOP gains in the Senate would “derail any hope” that the bill will pass, says Elizabeth Nash, a researcher with the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion-rights think tank.

In Nevada, Democrats—who controlled the statehouse before Tuesday—supported a bill to establish comprehensive sex education. The state has some of the highest sexually transmitted infection and teen pregnancy rates in the country, yet schools rarely teach condom use or encourage STI testing. On Tuesday, Republicans won control of the legislature. Republicans roundly opposed the bill the last time it was introduced, and there is little chance that they’ll allow it to pass this year.

“I can’t say that the Republican party has ever been behind Planned Parenthood issues in Nevada, but we do know Nevada is a very pro-choice state,” Alderman says. “We’re optimistic and hopeful that they’ll see comprehensive sex education as smart policy, but we haven’t had their support in the past because of abortion opponents who come out and say that somehow this legislation is about pushing abortion.”

But while turnover in those states is a blow to reproductive rights groups, the 2014 elections didn’t change change the map for abortion rights quite like the 2010 election, when Republicans took over an even larger number of statehouses.

Nash argues that in some other states where Democrats suffered big losses, abortion rights will likely be protected by divided government. In Iowa, Democrats—who, this session, just barely held back an onslaught of anti-abortion bills—hung onto the state Senate. In New Mexico, where Republican Gov. Susana Martinez won reelection, Democrats lost the House but held the Senate. Republicans now control the New Hampshire statehouse, but they failed to unseat Gov. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat who supports abortion rights and will veto most anti-abortion legislation.

In West Virginia, Republicans took control of the House for the first time since 1931 and also won the governor’s mansion. The state Senate, meanwhile, is evenly divided between the parties. But the state was already hostile to abortion rights: Many West Virginia Democrats, including outgoing Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, supported harsh anti-abortion bills when their party controlled the legislature.

So in West Virginia—and many other red states—Republicans didn’t need a wave year for abortion rights to be in jeopardy. The outlook was pretty bleak already.

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The Fight for Abortion Rights Just Got a Whole Lot Harder

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Court Strikes Down Arkansas Voter ID Law

by ConnorT10mv Posted on October 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Wednesday, the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down the state’s restrictive voter ID law, ruling that it violated the state’s constitution. The unanimous decision, which comes just days before early voting begins in the state, could impact a Senate race considered key to a Republican takeover of the Senate.

Arkansas’ law, enacted in 2013 after the Republican-controlled legislature overrode the Democratic Gov. Mike Beebee’s veto, would have required voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls. Studies have shown that photo ID laws disproportionately burden minority and poor voters, making them less likely to vote. The state Supreme Court ruled that the voter ID law imposes a voting eligibility requirement that “falls outside” those the state constitution enumerates—namely, that a voter must only be a US citizen, an Arkansas resident, at least 18 years of age, and registered to vote—and was therefore invalid.

The court’s ruling could help swing in Democrats’ favor the tight Senate race between Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor and his opponent, Republican Rep. Tom Cotton.

After the Supreme Court gutted a section of the Voting Rights Act last year, Republican state legislatures around the country enacted a slew of harsh voting laws. Since the 2010 election, new restrictions have been enacted in 21 states. Fourteen of those were passed for the first time this year.

Arkansas was one of seven states in which opponents of restrictive voting laws filed lawsuits ahead of the 2014 midterms. Last week, the Supreme Court blocked Wisconsin’s voter ID law. A federal court last Thursday struck down a similar law in Texas—only to have its ruling reversed this week by an appeals court. The US Supreme Court recently allowed North Carolina and Ohio to enforce their strict new voting laws.

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Court Strikes Down Arkansas Voter ID Law

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Scott Walker Is Bragging About a Pro-Life Endorsement He Didn’t Receive This Year

by TamelaPalladino Posted on October 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been caught again playing fast and loose with the facts on the issue of abortion. Earlier this week, as I reported, Walker’s campaign released a new ad about a bill he signed that restricted abortion rights for women in Wisconsin. In the ad, Walker says, “the bill leaves the final decision to a woman and her doctor”—a statement that falsely implies that Walker supports a woman’s right to choose an abortion, when in fact he wants to ban all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest.

Now, the Capital Times of Madison, Wis., reports that Walker’s campaign website touts an endorsement from a pro-life group that Walker didn’t actually receive this year. On his 2014 campaign website, Walker touts an endorsement by the group Pro-Life Wisconsin. Under the “Walker on Values” section, it reads:

In my campaign for governor, I am proud to have been endorsed by Wisconsin Right to Life, which recognized my long commitment to right to life issues and noted that my election “would greatly contribute to building a culture of life where the most vulnerable members of the human family are welcomed and protected.”

I was also endorsed by Pro-Life Wisconsin which said that a Walker Administration “will have far-reaching, positive effects for Wisconsin citizens who value the dignity of all innocent human life.”

Here’s the problem: That’s not true. Pro-Life Wisconsin endorsed Walker during the 2010 gubernatorial campaign and the 2012 recall election. But the group did not endorse him in this year’s gubernatorial race, as the Capital Times reported:

Pro-Life Wisconsin evaluates political candidates by their responses to a 10-question survey sent during each election cycle. In order to receive an endorsement, a candidate must answer “yes” to every question—giving them a “100 percent pro-life” rating—and complete an interview with members of the political action committee board.

“Scott Walker did not complete our 2014 candidate survey and therefore is ineligible for an endorsement,” wrote Matt Sande, director of the Pro-Life Wisconsin Victory Fund PAC, in an email. “His campaign manager stated in a letter that ‘our campaign will not be completing any interest group surveys or interviews.'”

That didn’t stop Walker’s website from listing Pro-Life Wisconsin as an endorser. Neither the Walker campaign nor Matt Sande, who runs Pro-Life Wisconsin’s Victory Fund PAC, responded to requests for comment.

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Scott Walker Is Bragging About a Pro-Life Endorsement He Didn’t Receive This Year

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Idaho Professor Accidentally Shoots Himself While Teaching Class

by EulahWhitten Posted on September 3, 2014

Mother Jones

Allowing college students and faculty to carry guns on campus makes everybody safer, right?

If you answered that the way the NRA does, then maybe consider what just happened at Idaho State University on Tuesday afternoon: A professor with a concealed carry permit was wounded when the gun he had in his pocket accidentally went off. According to local news outlet KIDK, the professor (who hasn’t been identified at this point) was in the middle of teaching class when he literally shot himself in the foot:

Around 4 p.m. Tuesday, Public Safety received a call about an accidental discharge of a concealed weapon in the Physical Science building. A student said the gun went off in the middle of the class.

Police said the small-caliber handgun was in the professor’s pants pocket and was not displayed at any time. They said the professor was able to leave of his own accord. He was treated and released from the hospital.

In March, Idaho Gov. Butch Otter signed a bill into law allowing permit holders to bring their guns onto public college and university campuses, despite polls showing overwhelming opposition from students and education leaders in the state. As the Idaho Statesman noted at the time, “Aside from perhaps agriculture, the NRA is the most powerful interest group in the Idaho Republican Party.”

How did a 9-year-old girl end up killing with an Uzi? And why did the NRA promote fun for kids with guns in the aftermath? See all of our latest coverage here, and our award-winning special reports.

Read more here: http://www.idahostatesman.com/2014/03/12/3076771_otter-signs-campus-guns-bill-into.html?rh=1#storylink=cpy

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Idaho Professor Accidentally Shoots Himself While Teaching Class

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Watch: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s Emotional Speech on Child Migrants

by RuthieMoeller Posted on July 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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70,000 Kids Will Show Up Alone at Our Border This Year. What Happens to Them?


Map: These Are the Places Central American Child Migrants Are Fleeing


Why Our Immigration Courts Can’t Handle the Child Migrant Crisis


Are the Kids Showing Up at the Border Really Refugees?


Child Migrants Have Been Coming to America Alone Since Ellis Island

See MoJo‘s full coverage of the surge of unaccompanied child migrants from Central America.

On Friday, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick announced a plan for his state to temporarily shelter up to 1,000 unaccompanied children who have recently fled to the United States as part of the ongoing border crisis. He cited America’s history of giving “sanctuary to desperate children for centuries,” the “blight on our national reputation” when we refused to accept Jewish children fleeing the Nazis in 1939, and his Christian faith as reasons for the decision. “My faith teaches,” he said, fighting back tears, “that if a stranger dwells with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him but rather love him as yourself.” The Joint Base Cape Cod and Westover Air Base are the two facilities being considered as possible locations.

Notably, Patrick has said “maybe” to a 2016 run for president.

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Watch: Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s Emotional Speech on Child Migrants

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Here Are The Things California Water-Wasters Can Now Be Fined For

by JuliannChristma Posted on July 16, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story was originally published in Grist and is republished here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Here’s a list of things that could now get you fined up to $500 a day in California, where a multi-year drought is sucking reservoirs and snowpacks dry:

Spraying so much water on your lawn or garden that excess water flows onto non-planted areas, walkways, parking lots, or neighboring property.
Washing your car with a hose that doesn’t have an automatic shut-off device.
Spraying water on a driveway, a sidewalk, asphalt, or any other hard surface.
Using fresh water in a water fountain—unless the water recirculates.

Those stern emergency regulations were adopted Tuesday by a unanimous vote of the State Water Resources Control Board – part of an effort to crack down on the profligate use of water during critically lean times.

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) asked the state’s residents to voluntarily conserve water in January, but they didn’t. Rather, as the San Jose Mercury News reports, “a new state survey released Tuesday showed that water use in May rose by 1 percent this year, compared with a 2011-2013 May average.”

Californians use more water on their gardens and lawns than they use inside their homes, as shown in the following chart from a document prepared for the board members ahead of Tuesday’s vote. So the new rules focus on outdoor use.

Extreme drought is now affecting 80 percent of the Golden State. Some 400,000 acres of farmland could be fallowed due to water shortages, and water customers in the hardest-hit communities are having their daily water supplies capped at less than 50 gallons per person.

The California Landscape Contractors Association sees an upside, though. It expects that the threats of fines could convince Californians to hire its members to replace thirsty nonnative plants in their gardens with drought-hardy alternatives. “If the runoff prohibition is enforced at the local level, we expect it to result in a multitude of landscape retrofits in the coming months,” association executive Larry Rohlfes told the water board in a letter dated Monday, one of a large stack of letters sent by various groups and residents in support of the new rules. “The water efficient landscapes that result will help the state’s long-term conservation efforts—in addition to helping the state deal with a hopefully short-term drought emergency.”

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Here Are The Things California Water-Wasters Can Now Be Fined For

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Whistleblower Suit Alleges Corruption, Cronyism, and Affairs in Gov. Susana Martinez’s Administration

by wqds234der Posted on May 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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A recently unsealed whistleblower lawsuit filed in New Mexico state court makes a series of explosive allegations against appointees of rising GOP star Gov. Susana Martinez, accusing high-ranking officials in her administration of public corruption, mismanagement, and intimidation. It claims that officials at the state’s economic development agency engaged in extramarital affairs that could expose the state to sexual harassment charges and that officials tried to silence employees who reported contracting violations and other wrongdoing.

The 22-page complaint—filed February 10 on behalf of two former state employees—claims that a company co-founded by Martinez appointee Jon Barela, secretary of the New Mexico Economic Development Department, secretly benefited from a state tax credit program. The complaint also alleges that aides to Martinez instructed a state employee to use his personal email for sensitive government work to avoid being subject to public records requests; that Barela and his deputy, Barbara Brazil, ignored waste and mismanagement at the state’s Spaceport project in southern New Mexico; and that Brazil ran several Dairy Queen franchises she had an interest in “while simultaneously being paid by the State of New Mexico.”

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Whistleblower Suit Alleges Corruption, Cronyism, and Affairs in Gov. Susana Martinez’s Administration

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Vermont poised to mandate GMO labels on food

by ElishaRicketts Posted on April 17, 2014

No more mystery food

Vermont poised to mandate GMO labels on food

By

Stacy Brunner

Vermont is on the verge of becoming the third American state to require the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients.

State senators approved a GMO-labeling bill on Tuesday with a 28-2 vote, sending it back to the House, which approved an earlier version with a 99-42 vote last year. Gov. Peter Shumlin (D) has said he’s likely to sign it.

The bill would require the words “partially produced with genetic engineering” to be stamped on packages of GMO-containing food sold in Vermont. The lists of ingredients would also need to specify which items contain GMOs. It would be illegal to market such foods as  “natural,” “naturally made,” or “naturally grown.”

Connecticut and Maine have both recently passed similar laws – but those laws will only take effect if enough other states do likewise. The two states don’t want to face the inevitable lawsuits from Big Food on their own.

Vermont is the first state willing to go it alone. Its bill would take effect in July 2016. State lawmakers say they crafted the language of the bill carefully, hoping it could survive court challenges.

“It’s quite likely we will be sued,” bill sponsor Sen. David Zuckerman, a member of the Vermont Progressive Party, told Politico. “We have looked at the various court cases out there.”

The Grocery Manufacturers Association confirmed that it could be a party to a lawsuit against the rules. “We will continue to fight to protect the accuracy and consistency of food labels,” said GMA Vice President Mandy Hagan. Which might sound like a pro-GMO-labeling stance – if only those words had been uttered by somebody else. “If it turns out that litigation is the best way to do that then that is an option we will pursue,” she continued.


Source
Vermont puts lessons from past in GMO bill, Politico

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Vermont poised to mandate GMO labels on food

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Infamous George Zimmerman Prosecutor Puts Disproportionate Number of Black Men on Death Row

by HFOSpencer Posted on March 11, 2014

Mother Jones

Florida is working hard these days to make itself a case study argument in favor of abolishing the death penalty. In a state that has seen more innocent people exonerated from death row than any other in the country, lawmakers last year passed legislation to try to speed up the pace of executions. Last month, Gov. Rick Scott (R) set a dubious record for presiding over more executions in his first term than any governor since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.

Meanwhile, the state continues to ignore US Supreme Court rulings banning the execution of the mentally ill and intellectually disabled. Just last week, the state argued before the Supreme Court that it didn’t want to use accepted scientific principles to comply with the court’s ban on executing mentally disabled people because that would spare too many death row residents, a move that would be “inconsistent with Florida’s purposes.” And now comes the news the state’s most notorious prosecutor has not only sent a disproportionate number of felons to death row, but a disproportionate number of African-Americans, once again raising the troubling issue of racial disparities in the state’s capital punishment system.

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Infamous George Zimmerman Prosecutor Puts Disproportionate Number of Black Men on Death Row

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