Before the incident–and attendant snark–went viral, no fewer than three friends had sent me news items about Kirby Delauter, a Frederick County (Maryland) Council Member, who threatened to sue a local journalist named Bethany Rodgers for … wait for it… using his name without permission in a newspaper article.
Think about that for a minute: this jerk is an elected official. Presumably he (a) took an oath to support a Constitution he clearly has never read; (b) was sufficiently active politically to have encountered media previously and perhaps even noted its role and mission.
Vox and several other sources recently reported on the composition of the incoming Congress, noting that “winning” can no longer be defined as “getting the most votes.”
On Tuesday, 33 US senators elected in November will be sworn in by Vice President Joe Biden — including 12 who are new to the chamber. The class includes 22 Republicans and 11 Democrats, a big reason why the GOP has a 54-46 majority in the Senate overall.
But here’s a crazy fact: those 46 Democrats got more votes than the 54 Republicans across the 2010, 2012, and 2014 elections. According to Nathan Nicholson, a researcher at the voting reform advocacy group FairVote, “the 46 Democratic caucus members in the 114th Congress received a total of 67.8 million votes in winning their seats, while the 54 Republican caucus members received 47.1 million votes.”
The writer used these numbers to make the point that the Senate–a body to which all states, large or small, send two senators–is undemocratic.
I want to make a different point, and one that I find much more troubling. The Senate, after all, was intended to be less representative than the House. We may disagree with those initial choices, but in the case of the Senate, the system is working as designed.
When it comes to Congress and the nation’s statehouses, however, “one person, one vote” is no longer an accurate description of American elections. We have disenfranchised urban voters, and given control of the country’s policymaking to rural America.
In the 2012 Congressional elections, Democratic candidates for the House received over a million more votes than Republicans, yet the GOP easily retained control. In state after state, rural voters have a disproportionate voice–drowning out the political preferences of urban inhabitants–partially as a result of gerrymandering and partially as a result of residential “sorting.”
The first Constitution counted African-Americans as 2/3 of a citizen [update: my bad. Slaves were 3/5ths, not 2/3ds]. Today, we count people in cities (where, I’m sure coincidentally, most minorities still live) as 2/3ds of a voter.
I don’t know what you call that, but it isn’t democracy.
Education policy tends to be a staple discussion item in our family. My sister has headed the art program at Sycamore School for the past quarter-century and written several well-received books on arts pedagogy. Our daughter served three terms on the IPS school board, took a “time out” to work with education policy organizations, and was recently re-elected.
Family get-togethers, as you might imagine, focus a lot on education. If there is one thing I’ve learned during these (sometimes interminable) discussions, it’s that education in a highly diverse democracy is complicated–and that folks with the simple answers aren’t helping. (Yes, Governor Pence, that most definitely includes you.)
My sister recently shared a post from Edutopia, a respected education website, that goes a long way toward explaining why those simple answers are so often wrong answers. The author consults the available research to debunk 8 myths that undermine effectiveness–widely-held beliefs that are belied by the available evidence. (Class size really does matter. So does money. Etc.)
The entire post is worth a read, but one myth he explores–and debunks–is one that I admittedly had harbored: merit pay.
Paying more effective teachers more just seems like a no-brainer. The devil, as the author points out, is in the details.
The full argument is that merit pay is a good way to increase teacher performance, because teachers should be evaluated on the basis of student performance, and rewarding or punishing schools for student performance will improve our nation’s schools. However, evidence suggests that competition between teachers is counterproductive and interferes with collaboration. Measuring teacher effectiveness is very difficult, and no simple measures effectively do this. There is no evidence that merit pay correlates with improved student achievement, but there is strong evidence that basing teacher salaries on student performance is counterproductive and ethically wrong — it frequently punishes teachers and schools for socioeconomic factors over which they have no control.
Everyone (okay, every economic conservative) knows that raising the minimum wage kills jobs. If employers have to pay more per hour, they will hire fewer people. Obvious.
Except real life doesn’t seem to work that way. Washington Monthly recently reported on the experience of states that ignored the conventional wisdom and raised their minimum wages.
Such hikes were not without opposition. Notably, fast food companies sounded the alarm over the possible consequences of minimum wage hikes—namely, that consumers would pay higher prices and companies would be forced to cut jobs….
Six months after California’s minimum wage rose to $9, the state’s job growth continues to outpace nearly every other state in the country. In November, California added more than 90,000 jobs, its highest single-month total in almost two decades.
The Golden State is not alone. Of the 13 states that saw minimum wage hikes go into effect on January 1, all but New Jersey saw positive job growth in 2014. And as a group, those 13 states averaged significantly higher job growth than states that did not raise the minimum wage.
It turns out that decisions to hire more workers are determined more by things like consumer demand than wage levels.
In fact, demand is far and away the most important factor in job creation. So when wages rise, and poorer people have more money to spend, they spend it. Demand increases. The economy improves. Everyone benefits–including the rich. (Except, evidently, in New Jersey…I wonder what/who Chris Christie will blame…)
In 2015, 21 additional states are set to raise their minimum wage. It will be interesting to see what happens–and, if there is a repeat of the experience of 2014– how the ideologues will spin the results.
The long-simmering tensions between police and the communities they serve have erupted in a series of protests and confrontations, triggered by events in Ferguson and New York. I’ve posted about this before, and I don’t intend to belabor the very different points of view expressed by the protestors and those sympathetic to them, on the one hand, and (some) citizens and police, on the other.
I will say that the officers who turned their backs on Mayor DeBlasio during the funeral of the two policemen shot by a mentally-deranged man in New York dishonored themselves and their colleagues, and disrespected the officers whose memorials should have been the focus of the day.
Fortunately, those childish displays are not typical of the men in blue, nor are the disheartening reports of police officers who belong to the KKK, who use disproportionate force, and who otherwise display “conduct unbecoming.” Many more officers are like Steve Anderson, Chief of Police in Nashville, Tennessee.
The Chief recently responded–point by point– to an email from a citizen critical of official restraint during peaceful demonstrations in Nashville. His response went viral. You really need to click the link and read the entire exchange, but here is a representative sample:
• “I just want myself and my family to feel that our city is safe, and right now we don’t feel that way.”
I have to admit, I am somewhat puzzled by this announcement. None of the demonstrators in this city have in any way exhibited any propensity for violence or indicated, even verbally, that they would harm anyone. I can understand how you may feel that your ideologies have been questioned but I am not aware of any occurrence that would give reason for someone to feel physically threatened.
• “I have a son who I have raised to respect police officers and other authority figures, but if he comes to me today and asks “Why are the police allowing this?” I wouldn’t have a good answer.”
It is somewhat perplexing when children are injected into the conversation as an attempt to bolster a position or as an attempt to thwart the position of another. While this is not the type of conversation I ordinarily engage in, here are some thoughts you may find useful as you talk with your son.
First, it is laudable that you are teaching your son respect for the police and other authority figures. However, a better lesson might be that it is the government the police serve that should be respected. The police are merely a representative of a government formed by the people for the people—for all people. Being respectful of the government would mean being respectful of all persons, no matter what their views.
Police officers like Chief Anderson–and there are many like him, fortunately– understand their constitutional and public safety duties, even if some of the citizens they serve do not.
