The Times They Are REALLY A-Changin’

At least, they are changing in Georgia. From the Georgia publication, GA Voice, we learn

If you didn’t think things could get anymore dramatic in the fight over the so-called “religious freedom” bills, think again. Michael Bowers, the infamous Republican former Georgia attorney general who was at the center of two of the state’s biggest LGBT rights cases, has been hired by Georgia Equality to help fight passage of HB 218 and SB 129. In other news, dogs and mail carriers have reached a truce, Jennifer Aniston was spotted antiquing with Angelina Jolie, and Batman is going in on a summer home in Cape Cod with the Joker.

This was the Bowers of the infamous Bowers v. Hardwick case upholding Georgia’s law against gay sodomy–a case that made criminals out of LGBT folks until it was finally overruled in Lawrence v. Texas. He is now working with Georgia Equality to fight discrimination against gay citizens and others–discrimination that he says these measures will protect.

It is no exaggeration that the proposed [measures] could be used to justify putting hoods back on the Ku Klux Klan. For decades, Georgia’s Anti-Mask Act has prohibited wearing masks in public.

The law was enacted to prohibit the Ku Klux Klan from wearing hoods in public, and by extension, to discourage participation in its activities. While this statute contains exceptions for holidays, sporting events, theatrical performances, and gas masks, it does not contain a religious exercise exception – because many Klansmen used religion to justify participation in the Klan.

But the proposed [measures] would create a religious exception that was purposefully excluded. Anonymous participation in hate groups would undoubtedly rise….

Here in Indiana, the same measure is sailing through the General Assembly.

Bower’s analysis reminded me that Indiana used to be “ground zero” for the Klan; I’d like to think we’ve evolved….that the times are also changing here.

I guess we’ll know once the legislative session concludes.

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They’re Not Even Pretending Anymore

It’s getting harder and harder to justify naked greed with “because liberty!” slogans.

As In These Times reports

Republican lawmakers in Michigan plan to introduce an ALEC-backed bill that would ban “community benefits agreements” (CBAs), one of the few options local activists have to fight for equitable development. A CBA is a contract between community groups and developers of publicly subsidized projects. In exchange for community support, a developer might agree to offer quality jobs, living wages, affordable housing or environmental protections. ALEC’s CBA ban, which specifically prohibits a local minimum wage, would be unprecedented.

So let me get this right–in the name of “freedom” and “limited government,” this measure would have government tell cities and developers what sorts of agreements they will be permitted to negotiate.

It bears emphasizing that this bill targets publicly subsidized projects.

If a city is subsidizing a development, it seems only reasonable to attach some “strings” to that subsidy–to condition public investment on compliance with measures protecting the public interest. ALEC begs to differ.

Evidently, ALEC believes that it is no longer necessary to engage in the charade of claiming that the cronies sucking at the public’s you-know-what are thereby doing cities a favor.

We the Taxpayers are just supposed to thank the private developers for being willing to take our money.

I’m so old, I remember when CCC stood for something other than Corrupt Crony Capitalism.

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The Brits are Right About Right to Work

I love the Guardian; as real newspapers have gotten rarer and actual reporting even rarer, it  reminds me what journalism used to be.

Recently, the paper reported on an upcoming Supreme Court case, Friedrichs v California Teachers Association. That case, said the Guardian

will decide if right-to-work laws (designed to bankrupt unions by encouraging employees who benefit from collective bargaining agreements to not pay for them) will extend to all public employees nationwide – an outcome Justice Samuel Alito has all but promised to deliver.

The article proceeded to provide the context of the ongoing battles over Right to Work–a context rarely provided by today’s “McPapers”:

Economic arguments for right-to-work are, however, always highly speculative, proposing that the low-wage jobs that might be created by companies attracted by such laws would offset the very real, calculable income losses that inevitably accompany deunionization.

So if these laws don’t boost the economy, what else don’t they do?

Despite what their proponents say, right-to-work laws don’t put an end to “compulsory union membership.” There is no such thing, not since 1947, when closed shops – arrangements where union membership was a condition of employment – were banned under the Taft-Hartley Act. No one in the US can legally be fired for refusing to join a union, whether they are in a right-to-work state or not. Nor do such laws “protect” workers from having their dues diverted to political campaigns they do not support; workers already have that protection.

What right-to work laws do is ban a particular type of employment contract, voted on by employees, that requires all employees – union or not – to pay fair share provisions, a fraction of the dues that union members pay to cover the costs of negotiating and enforcing their contract.

The article points out in some detail the “great irony” of small-government libertarians who are more than willing to use the coercive power of the state to ban private contracts in the name of workers’ freedom. As it concludes

Once you strip away the baseless economic and philosophical arguments, you’re left with the politics: politicians who want to help employers maintain the power they have over employees, by gutting any institution that might help employees tilt the balance in their direction.

Interestingly, larger employers are beginning to recognize that this war on workers’ wages ultimately hurts business–that paying better wages is good for the bottom line. Last month, Aetna and Ford announced that their workers would get substantial raises, joining enterprises like Costco, Trader Joe’s and several others who do better by paying better. Even Walmart--granddaddy of companies paying slave wages–has moved to increase wages.

At some point, evidence will outweigh ideology. When it does, the Guardian, at least, will report it.
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Pigs Get Fed, Hogs Get Slaughtered

That old saying usually refers to excesses of greed, but it has relevance to other examples of  over-reach.

Take the embarrassing effort by majority Republicans and Governor Pence to deny Glenda Ritz the office to which she was elected (by more votes than Pence received, not so incidentally). The GOP is stripping her of everything but the title.

I have no idea whether Ritz might have done a good job as Superintendent of Public Instruction in the absence of the sustained assault she’s endured. (Given several less-than-strategic responses to that assault, I have my doubts.) Under the circumstances, however, her performance really is irrelevant–the Governor moved against her before she’d had time to perform.

Brian Howey has a recent column delving into the background of the hostilities involved, and the role played by the politics around Common Core. The column included this observation, which I think is dead on:

The other political subtext has been the two-year feud between Ritz and the State Board of Education, made up of mostly Pence appointees. Republican legislation is targeting Ritz’s chairing of the board. The legislation has energized Ritz’s base, as well as the sprawling Indiana education community that helped forge her upset of Bennett.

 The visuals here are Republican supermajorities and the governor seeking to take away duties of an elected official, and a female at that.

Bad optics.

 If Pence had clamped down on the legislation aimed at Ritz, the ISTEP story would be hers, not his. He now finds himself in a political minefield, not impossible to escape, but …“He has now taken ownership of the issue,” said one Republican county chairman speaking on background. “The jungle drums are beating.”

The resentment from teachers (including those who typically vote Republican) is palpable; the turnout at last Monday’s statehouse rally–despite bitter cold and snow–should have sent a message to lawmakers about the pitfalls of energizing an opposing base.

Granted, a clueless GOP super-majority is approaching a number of issues in an equally ham-handed fashion. The assault on the state’s “common wage” is unlikely to affect more than a handful of projects, but the symbolism of attacking it is calculated to enrage and motivate union members and sympathizers. The all-out assault on the environment–via a number of ALEC-drafted measures meant to insulate corporate farms from lawsuits for polluting state waterways and to hobble regulation–has similarly galvanized the environmentally-conscious.

But it is the over-reach against Ritz that has garnered the most headlines–and pissed off the most people–and it is that childish assault that is mostly likely to come back to bite Pence and his legislative consiglieri’s. 

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