The States is back!
New format for a new year; WBEZ and a new journalism model; Craziness in Virginia and more…
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Sigh of relief, The States is back
Hello again friends and … Happy New Year! I haven’t sent out The States for quite some time and it’s one of those things that’s burning a hole in my always behind, guilt-ridden conscience. But I promise it’s for good reason. I recently wrapped up a 10-week investigation with City Bureau and WBEZ’s Curious City looking into environmental issues associated with home demolitions — which are everywhere here in Chicago. In a nutshell, it’s an issue with little oversight from city officials, despite severe health issues that can come from dust spreading from the demolition of old homes — namely asbestos and lead particles. Do read on. And for the TLDR version, see my summary tweetstorm and an explanation of what was left on the cutting room floor.
I’ve also been busy trying to push and shepherd a radical idea: a different way to pay for in-depth state and local journalism. Actually, it’s not that radical, it’s as simple as passing the hat and paying for something we all believe in. But we’re trying to do it a bit differently at Peachill Publishing by tapping into communities and crowdfunding around ideas rather than one particular issue or publication. It’s books and journalism and I am, of course, focused on the journalism side of things. More on that soon.
But as I’ve spent now a healthy amount of time on that venture, I’ve realized the importance of this small but growing newsletter. There is so much NOISE out there, it’s hard to sort it out and almost all of it is of the Washington variety. Yes, this news is often vital — but it does seem that we the media have forgotten all the lessons of the rise of Trump and 2016. We had a moment of hand-wringing about our role but have, as far as most of the national players are concerned, reverted back to our old ways: following the constant maneuverings of Washington checkers as the coverage of the issues at any level gets overshadowed. And this is not to say that all coverage of all things Trump is redundant — what the president, especially this one, does and says has broad ramifications, even at the state level. When it does, as you’ll see below, I plan to cover it here. We all should. (For example, I was surprised why we didn’t see more local takes on the recent 7–11 raids across the country. Does it speak to media bias and lack of coverage of minority communities that this wasn’t a bigger local news story?)
So this is my effort not to just shout into the wind about the media’s failings when it comes to covering issues and not simply a partisan shouting match, but to keep track of the issues and players in key players that can hopefully show us where we’re headed. Let’s grow a movement. Tell your friends.
I’m also going to change the format stealing from some of my favorite newsletters. Less length, more filtering of the good stuff. Let me know what you think. With that…
Welcome to The States! Each week we seek to understand what’s impacting the key swing states of Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Virginia, Georgia and Illinois (because that’s where I lay my head these days). Subscribe if you haven’t and share this newsletter.
The Big Idea: Every vote counts
We just decided an election in the United States of ‘Merica by drawing a name out of a bowl. And not just any election. Virginia’s 94th district happened to control the fate of the entire Virginia House of Delegates — with an even number of Republicans and Democrats — and came down to 11,607 votes each for David Yancey and Shelley Simonds. I happened to be in Richmond when the court reversed itself on ONE particular ballot that turned the race into a tie. The description of the ballot doesn’t do it justice — take a look at the ballot.
The voter also put an “x” for Republican gubernatorial candidate Ed Gillespie, which is confusing. Was he or she trying to “x” out that vote as well? Why did a three-judge panel assume that the line through Simonds’ name meant a vote for Republican Yancey? They badly explained, per WTOP:
“The issue was whether the line through the mark was a scratch out. Webster’s Third International Dictionary defines ‘scratch’ as follows: “to cancel by drawing a line through,” the judges wrote. “The Court does not find that its ruling counting the challenged ballot as a vote for the Respondent to be clear error or to cause manifest injustice.”
In the end, Simonds conceded, Graham Moomaw for the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported and Republicans appointed a new speaker. “Medicaid expansion really was on the line here,” Simonds said.
Six best from The States
6. Maybe The Donald is trying … sometimes. In an overlooked story about his visit to Atlanta and the college national championship game, the AJC reports: After Air Force One landed, Trump welcomed Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece, Alveda King, on board to sign a measure that grants Georgia its first national historic park at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site near downtown Atlanta. It will be at the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site near downtown Atlanta.
5. Politico’s Michael Kruse reported from Pepin, Wis., trying to suss out America’s growing political divide caused by years of partisan inaction and dysfunction and exacerbated by President Trump. In a nutshell, Kruse finds that people won’t talk to each other about politics, especially if they know they’re on opposite sides. In one interview, he finds a normally outspoken liberal with his own theory: that Trump-ers, if pressed, would admit that they elected a fraud. It’s an interesting self-delusion, especially since so many in the local GOP where he lives have no problem praising the president and, more specifically, supporting his policies.
Here’s the back and forth on why this outspoken person believes his Trump friends don’t really support the president:
“Because I know these people to be good people.” They volunteer on the fire department. On the ambulance. They serve on local boards. “So, what do I gain by putting these people into a corner, by making them, or trying to make them, admit, ‘Yeah, I was stupid,’ or, ‘Yeah, I was taken in.’”
“Do you think they would say that?” I asked.
“No, I don’t think they’d admit that,” he said.
“Do you think they think that?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“He really is a pig,” Anderson said of Trump. “He really is an uncaring, unfeeling, disconnected, amoral pig.”
“Do you think they think that but just won’t admit it?” I asked again.
“I do,” he said again.
4. The inevitable profile of Wisconsin’s Randy Bryce, who began his run for office with a tear-jerker of a viral campaign ad, has arrived by Tim Murphy in Mother Jones. Bryce is taking on House Speaker Paul Ryan in his reliable district — when Obama carried the district by three points in 2008, Ryan won by 29 point — but that won’t stop Dems from getting their hopes up about a candidate with a genuine message. After Bryce got diagnosed with testicular cancer:
The doctor made some calls, and Bryce got free treatment after agreeing to become a guinea pig for students. After he recovered, he was holding down two jobs when his mother tipped him off to an ironworker apprenticeship. The pay was good, the work was plentiful, and it came with insurance, so he could afford the CT scans and the lymph node dissections and regular checkups. “I don’t live for the union,” he once said. “I am alive because of it.”
3. Thomas Farr, the controversial federal judge nominee because of his associations with Jesse Helms, has been re-nominated by the Trump administration after he didn’t come up for a vote last year. The Rev. William Barber II has called Farr “a product of the modern white supremacist machine that Mr. Helms pioneered.”
2. … And this is why federal judges matter so darn much. The WSJ’s Brent Kendall tweeted: “Tuesday’s late ruling invalidating NC congressional map is as broad a decision against partisan gerrymandering as you’re going to get. Court finds Rs violated equal protection, Elections Clause and 1st Amend.” It was the first time a partisan gerrymander had been struck down as unconstitutional.
Meanwhile, in Pennsylvania, per the NYT:
On Tuesday, three federal judges in North Carolina threw out the state’s congressional map because it was “motivated by invidious partisan intent.” On Wednesday, another panel of judges in Pennsylvania upheld that state’s map, with one arguing that such a political issue was none of the courts’ business.
The two competing federal rulings in partisan gerrymander cases this week underscore the courts’ angst over even getting involved in political decisions, much less overturning them.
Both rulings are certain to draw the Supreme Court’s interest as it mulls a resolution to the gerrymandering question. The Court, with two other redistricting cases before it, is expected this spring to end a decades-long debate over when and if judges should make decisions that could reshape the country’s political landscape.
1. More gerrymandering. David A. Graham helpfully recounts for The Atlantic the fact that Republicans openly boasted about drawing a map based on partisan lines. “I acknowledge freely that this would be a political gerrymander, which is not against the law,” said Representative David Lewis, the chair of the state House redistricting committee.
A Supreme Court decision deciding the matter will be the most important decision facing the future of our democracy. Sorry to be dramatic. But if those challenging legislative lines in Wisconsin, North Carolina and elsewhere clearly win, it would impact the partisan makeup of legislatures and Congress. Read the latest on SCOTUS blog about the pivotal Wisconsin case.
Worth noting …
Dennis Kucinich is back! The Cleveland native first won a city council seat in 1969 while a student at Cleveland State University. He’s running for governor this time, not president; good news! North Carolina leads the nation in the number of nationally-certified teachers. US News though, ranks NC 34th in pre-K-12 education; as for Trump’s long shadow, there’s a comment worth pondering by Kerry Bentivolio, a retired reindeer rancher (something The States did fact-check) and 11th Michigan congressional district candidate said about the president’s unpopular use of Twitter: “It’s the only way to get through the fake news.” (Detroit News).
