#Ballot Measures and Referendums

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Greg Owen at LGBTQ Nation:

On February 26, 2015, the California Attorney General’s Office stamped “received” on a cover letter from Huntington Beach attorney Matt McLaughlin, acknowledging receipt of a proposed initiative for the November ballot that would authorize the mass murder of gays and lesbians in the state. McLaughlin called his proposal the “Sodomite Suppression Act.” Kamala Harris was the state attorney general. Harris had just won reelection — overwhelmingly — in November, and three weeks before McLaughlin’s measure landed in her inbox, she had declared her intention to seek the U.S. Senate seat occupied by Barbara Boxer, who announced her retirement that January. Now Harris was confronted with a hateful proposal she had no choice but to deal with: under California state law, the attorney general has zero discretion to disregard a properly proposed initiative filing, no matter how intentionally provocative, discriminatory, or felonious.   The “Sodomite Suppression Act” was all three. And prophetic, too.

What came to be known as the “Shoot the Gays” initiative detailed several steps to eliminate the gay and lesbian population of California based on McLaughlin’s interpretation of Scripture. “The abominable crime against nature known as buggery, called also sodomy, is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction even as he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha [sic],” McLaughlin wrote. “Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God’s just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating-wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method.” The proposed measure would outlaw “sodomistic propaganda directly or indirectly by any means to any person under the age of majority.” Violators would be fined “and/or imprisoned up to 10 years, and/or expelled from the boundaries of the state of California for up to life.”

[...] Harris wasn’t having it. “It is my sworn duty to uphold the California and United States Constitutions and to protect the rights of all Californians,” Harris said as a deadline for action loomed. “This proposal not only threatens public safety, it is patently unconstitutional, utterly reprehensible, and has no place in a civil society.” For the first time, a California attorney general sought relief from her sworn obligation and petitioned the state’s highest court to dismiss it. “If the court does not grant this relief,” she said, “my office will be forced to issue a title and summary for a proposal that seeks to legalize discrimination and vigilantism.” There was little-to-no chance McLaughlin would collect the 365,880 signatures of registered voters required to make the ballot, and even less that Californians would approve it or that it would survive the inevitable court challenges if it did pass.

In 2015, a few months before Donald Trump made the infamous escalator ride to announce his presidential run and SCOTUS’s Obergefell ruling, then-California AG Kamala Harris found a way to reject a bigoted referendum item from making it onto the ballot.

That ballot measure was called the “Sodomite Suppression Act.”

Portions of what was in the act later became standard GOP policy against LGBTQ+ Americans.

[thankyouforthefunny]

Prison slave labor is literally on the California ballot as a yes or no question. There are record breaking number of referendums regarding abortion this year, and in 10 states voters will be deciding if abortion will be allowed within their state’s constitution.

Ohio already passed this in 2023, and a reminder that even if you’re in a red state, a large majority of voters in both parties support abortion rights more than their representatives would have you believe. There is a real chance that any state with these measures could pass them.

No matter who you’re voting for as president, please research the ballot measures in your state because they are frequently overlooked and are so impactful to everyday people.

This year there are 41 states with 146 ballot measures. Below is a list of them by state and by category (abortion, education, drug legalization, etc)

Literally begging anyone who can vote in US elections to vote, and to vote against Trump. Which means voting for Harris, not abstaining or voting third party.

My family actually did move here from an authoritarian country, where voting literally didn't matter, they literally did throw out your vote, and they literally did assassinate citizens who spoke out against them.

We would all very much like to keep living in a country where those things are not the place!

You know, the same things that Trump and his stooges have openly said they want to do. And two of the main propaganda lines for why people in the US shouldn't vote, which is a lie.

Voting matters. The parties are not the same.

And make sure to vote in down-ballot races!!!

And like. The fact that voting matters in the US is a very real reason for hope. It is something you should genuinely appreciate. We can make a difference.

And a lot of people risked their lives or even died to earn that right, and it's a right not everyone has.

[dandelionsresilience]

Dandelion News - November 1-7

Like these weekly compilations? Tip me at $kaybarr1735 or check out my Dandelion Doodles on Patreon!

1. Climate Initiatives Fare Well Across the Country Despite National Political Climate

“[California voters approved] a $10 billion bond measure to boost climate resilience across [the] state[…. Hawai’i] voters cast their ballots in favor of establishing the [climate] resiliency fund, with money for the project coming from existing property tax revenue.“

2. ‘You have to disguise your human form’: how sea eagles are being returned to Severn estuary after 150 years

“[… To avoid imprinting,] the handlers will wear long robes and feed the young eagles chopped rabbit and other meat with bird hand-puppets. […] Williams hopes that restoring eagles to the top of the food chain in the estuary will create a more balanced, thriving ecosystem.”

3. 10 states voted on pro-abortion referendums. 7 of them passed

“New York voters overwhelmingly approved the Equal Rights Amendment, adding [… among other characteristics] gender expression, pregnancy, and pregnancy outcomes to anti-discrimination laws. […] In deep-red Missouri and Montana, voters also enshrined abortions protections in their state constitutions.”

4. Giant rats could soon fight illegal wildlife trade by sniffing out elephant tusk and rhino horn

“”Our study shows that we can train African giant pouched rats to detect illegally trafficked wildlife, even when it has been concealed among other substances[.…] They can easily access tight spaces like cargo in packed shipping containers or be lifted up high to screen the ventilation systems of sealed containers,” Szott explained.”

5. Sarah McBride wins Delaware U.S. House seat, becoming the first out trans member of Congress

“McBride spearheaded Delaware’s legislation to ban the “gay and trans panic” defense as a state senator [… and] helped to pass paid family and medical leave, gun safety measures, and protections for reproductive rights.”

6. Critically endangered Sumatran elephant calf born in Indonesia

“Indonesian officials hailed the births and said they showed conservation efforts were essential to prevent the protected species from extinction. […] Sumatran elephants are on the brink of extinction with only about 2,400-2,800 left in the world, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature.”

7. Sin City is Going Green

“[Hotels there] have conserved 16 billion gallons of water since 2007, thanks to […] replacing grass with desert-friendly landscaping, installing water-efficient taps across all properties, and reusing water at aquariums and in the Bellagio Fountain.”

8. Gray squirrel control: Study shows promise for effective contraceptive delivery system

“[… T]he feeders have a very high level of species-specificity. […] The bait and monitoring system developed and tested in the study demonstrated that […] “spring was the only season tested where female squirrels were more likely to visit bait feeders than males. Spring coincides with a peak in squirrel breeding and is therefore a good time to deliver a contraceptive."”

9. Returning Grazing Land to Native Forests Would Yield Big Climate Benefits

“[… S]trategically regrowing forests on land where cattle currently graze […] while intensifying production elsewhere could drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, with little hit to global protein production, a new study shows.”

10. Interior Department Strengthens Conservation of American Bison Through New Agreement with Canada and Mexico

“Approximately 31,000 bison are currently being stewarded by the United States, Canada and Mexico with the goal of conserving the species and their role in the function of native grassland systems, as well as their place in Indigenous culture.”

October 22-28 news here | (all credit for images and written material can be found at the source linked; I don’t claim credit for anything but curating.)

[probablyasocialecologist]

Americans in 10 US states voted on Tuesday on whether to enshrine the right to abortion into their state constitutions. In a major victory, Missouri voted to amend its state constitution to protect abortion rights – a move that sets the state up to become the first since the fall of Roe v Wade to overturn its near-total abortion ban. So too did voters in the swing state of Arizona, which approved a ballot measure that would establish a fundamental right to abortion and prohibit the state from restricting or banning abortion before 24 weeks – a victory for activists who sought to expand access beyond 15 weeks. Similar decisions in Montana – which enshrined a 1999 state supreme court ruling that said the constitutional right to privacy protects the right to a pre-viability abortion by a provider of the patient’s choice – and in Nevada, a presidential battleground state, added to the list of major wins for abortion rights supporters. Colorado, New York and Maryland also all passed measures to amend their state constitutions to protect abortion rights and cement the blue states’ status as abortion havens. However, in Florida, an effort to roll back a six-week ban fell short, as did another effort to expand protections in Nebraska. Before Tuesday, seven states had held abortion-related ballot referendums, and abortion rights supporters won all of them before Florida broke their streak. The results of Tuesday’s measures will not be the final word; states that vote to overturn bans will see litigation or legislation before those bans are repealed. But taken together, the results will indicate how potent the issue remains after two years without Roe. Results began rolling in with the announcement from Florida, but it could take days for a complete tally of all of the votes.

6 November 2024

[mariacallous]

Eleven abortion referendums will be in front of voters in 10 states this Election Day — the largest number of pro-choice amendments the country has ever seen during a single election cycle.

From red states like Missouri and South Dakota to blue states like New York, the abortion rights ballot measures could have a monumental impact on access throughout the country. Over 20 states have enacted abortion bans since the Supreme Court repealed federal abortion protections in 2022. Citizen-led initiatives, like most of this year’s abortion rights measures, have become the response to many of the near-total abortion bans passed by Republican-controlled state legislatures.

“This is a public health crisis that we have right now,” said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director at the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, who has worked with campaigns in all 10 states where an abortion rights amendment is in play. “The citizens, in the absence of their local elected officials, are addressing it. They’re taking power into their own hands.”

In 2022, there were six ballot measures addressing abortion, which at the time was the most in a single year. Voters protected abortion care in every state it was on the ballot during that election cycle, including in deeply Republican states like Kentucky. Ohio, a state with a long and extreme anti-abortion history, also voted to codify abortion rights into its state constitution just last year.

This year’s ballot measures range in their approaches to and levels of abortion protections. Nebraska will have two competing abortion measures, one to restrict access and one to expand. Maryland, New York and Colorado are all seeking to codify abortion protections throughout pregnancy — exceptions to the rest of the measures, which would primarily enshrine access until viability or around 24 weeks. Colorado’s Amendment 79 would also allow the use of public funds for abortion care. Missouri’s Amendment 3 would restore abortion access until viability and protect women from being prosecuted for pregnancy outcomes like miscarriage and stillbirth — a particularly progressive measure in a notoriously anti-abortion state.

If passed, most amendments would generally go into effect shortly after Election Day or at the start of 2025. Measures in Montana and South Dakota would tentatively go into effect in July 2025, while Nevada’s may not until 2026. There will be litigation in any state that passes a pro-choice measure; this is likely the time when states will bring legal challenges against successful ballot initiatives and fight to keep other abortion regulations like waiting periods and other long-standing targeted restrictions on abortion providers.

The historic number of abortion rights measures is emblematic of just how politically prominent abortion care has become. And despite conservatives who claim to want to “leave abortion to the states” since Roe fell, many did everything in their power to stop voters from weighing in on abortion rights measures.

“This is not just a reproductive freedom issue, it’s also a democracy issue,” Fields Figueredo said. “It’s about who has power and who has the determination to control what happens to their body.”

Arizona

Arizona’s Proposition 139 seeks to enshrine access to abortion up until fetal viability, or around 24 weeks, into the state constitution. If passed, the state of Arizona will not be able to limit access to abortion before viability unless the government “has a compelling reason and does so in the least restrictive way possible,” according to the measure. Under the amendment, also known as the Right to Abortion Initiative, abortions would be allowed after fetal viability only when the health or life of the pregnant person is at risk. The measure also bars future laws from punishing anyone who assists someone getting an abortion.

The state currently has a 15-week abortion ban in effect with no exceptions for rape or incest. Earlier this year, the Arizona state Supreme Court greenlit a near-total abortion ban that the Republican-controlled legislature voted to repeal.

The measure needs a simple majority to pass.

Colorado

Colorado’s pro-choice amendment would create a constitutional right to abortion care throughout pregnancy and mandate that Medicaid and private insurance companies cover abortion care. Amendment 79, also known as the Right to Abortion and Health Insurance Coverage Initiative, would repeal a 1984 addition in the Colorado constitution which barred the use of public funds for abortion care.

The measure is distinct for two reasons. Nearly every other state where abortion is on the ballot is trying to enshrine access until fetal viability, not throughout pregnancy. Additionally, requiring that abortion care be a covered service under all health insurance plans is a step pro-choice groups have been pushing for for decades.

The state does not currently restrict abortion at any point in pregnancy, making it a refuge for those who need abortion care later in pregnancy. The measure needs at least 55% of the vote to pass.

Florida

Amendment 4 would restore abortion access until viability by adding language to the Florida constitution that states “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s healthcare provider.” The ballot measure, also titled Amendment to Limit Government Interference with Abortion, does not change the state’s current law that requires parental consent for a minor to obtain an abortion.

Since the Supreme Court repealed Roe v. Wade in 2022, the state passed a 15-week abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest and then a six-week ban with exceptions for rape or incest. Under the leadership of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), Florida has become one of the most extreme anti-abortion states in the country. If voters restore abortion access until viability, it would reestablish Florida as a critical safe haven in the Southeast, where most states have near-total abortion bans.

Florida has a supermajority requirement for citizen-led ballot initiatives, meaning the amendment needs to get at least 60% of the vote to pass.

Maryland

Maryland’s Question 1 guarantees the right to reproductive freedom, defined in the measure as “the ability to make and effectuate decisions to prevent, continue, or end one’s own pregnancy.” The amendment specifies that the government cannot “directly or indirectly, deny, burden, or abridge the right unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.”

The Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment would codify Maryland’s current law, which allows access to abortion care at any point in pregnancy and has made the state a safe haven for abortion access. It’s an exception to most other pro-choice measures on the ballot this year because it enshrines abortion access throughout pregnancy without limits. Colorado and New York are the only two other states where pro-choice groups are hoping to codify abortion access throughout pregnancy.

The amendment would pass with a simple majority.

Missouri

Amendment 3 would codify the right to reproductive freedom, including abortion access until fetal viability, into the Missouri constitution. The measure would protect the right to make decisions about other reproductive health issues including birth control, prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, miscarriage care and “respectful birthing conditions.” The Right to Reproductive Freedom initiative states plainly that, if passed, Missourians cannot be prosecuted for their pregnancy outcomes including miscarriage, stillbirth and abortion.

The initiative is extremely progressive for a deep-red state that has such a long anti-abortion history. The state only had three abortion clinics in 2017, and the last clinic closed shortly after Roe fell. Missouri currently has a near-total abortion ban with an exception to save the life of a pregnant person.

If the amendment passes, it would be a huge win for reproductive rights groups, and Missouri could become one of the few Midwest states with abortion access. But the state would still have a lot of work to do since many of the prior abortion regulations, such as Missouri’s 72-hour waiting period and ban on telemedicine, would need to be challenged in court.

The measure needs a simple majority to pass.

Montana

Montana’s Right to Abortion Initiative would enshrine the “right to make and carry out decisions about one’s own pregnancy, including the right to abortion” until fetal viability. The government could regulate abortion after viability except in cases where abortion care is needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant person. The measure also protects Montanans from being prosecuted for “actual, potential, perceived or alleged pregnancy outcomes,” as well as protecting anyone who helps someone seeking abortion care.

The amendment would codify the state’s current abortion law, which restricts abortion care after 24 weeks. Montana voters need a simple majority to pass the amendment.

Nebraska

Nebraska will have two ballot measures addressing abortion, one in favor of abortion rights and one against. It’s the first time competing abortion measures will be on a state ballot since the Supreme Court repealed Roe.

The pro-choice amendment, also known as the Right to Abortion Initiative, would enshrine abortion access until fetal viability into the state constitution. The measure opposed to abortion rights seeks to codify the state’s current 12-week abortion ban, or a ban on abortion after the first trimester. The anti-choice initiative does have exceptions for rape, incest and in cases of a medical emergency.

Both amendments need a simple majority to pass.

Nevada

Nevada’s Question 6 would enshrine the right to abortion access until viability and when necessary to protect the health or life of the pregnant person throughout pregnancy. The amendment states that the right to abortion until viability “shall not be denied, burdened, or infringed upon unless justified by a compelling state interest that is achieved by the least restrictive means.”

The measure, which needs a simple majority to pass, would enshrine Nevada’s current abortion law into the state constitution.

New York

Proposal 1 would amend New York’s Equal Rights Amendment to include protections for “pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy” which would codify abortion protections throughout pregnancy. While it does not explicitly state abortion protections, including protections for pregnancy outcomes and reproductive decisions in the state constitution would safeguard abortion access in the state.

The state’s Equal Rights Amendment currently criminalizes the denial of rights to people based on “race, color, creed or religion.” Proposal 1 would add ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression, as well as reproductive health outcomes.

The initiative is noteworthy because, if passed, it will be the first equal rights amendment to include protections for pregnant people and pregnancy outcomes. Abortion is currently legal in New York until viability. Expanding the equal rights amendment to include pregnant people would codify the current law.

South Dakota

South Dakota’s Amendment G breaks down abortion protections by trimesters, similar to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The initiative would codify abortion protections until 13 weeks or through the first trimester, and then allow the government to regulate abortion in the second trimester “only in ways that are reasonably related to the physical health of the pregnant woman.” In the third trimester, the state could regulate or ban abortions except in instances when the health or life of the pregnant person is at risk.

If the measure passes it would be a huge win for abortion rights groups because the state currently has a near-total abortion ban with no exceptions other than to save the life of a pregnant person. Pro-choice groups would still have a long way to go in restoring abortion access in the state, however. Even before Roe fell, South Dakota only had one abortion clinic left and zero in-state providers, and some regulations — like the state’s 72-hour waiting period before being able to access care — would likely need to be challenged in court.

The initiative needs a simple majority to pass.

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved in our archive (Daily updates!)

By Laura Weiss

The Biden administration cut pandemic-era health benefits, and the Harris campaign failed to present any comprehensive health care reform policies. This was not an inspiring message for voters

In a week of hand-wringing and finger-pointing over what Democrats might have done differently in this year’s presidential election, one big topic has been absent from the conversation: Health care reform and public health. It’s a surprising omission given how 2020 was largely a referendum on pandemic response—a referendum Trump failed. The issue remains highly salient: At least eight in 10 voters said it was “very important” for the 2024 presidential candidates to talk about the affordability of health care.

But beyond Harris’s promise to maintain the Affordable Care Act and introduce some moderate reforms to drug pricing and medical debt, the issue felt like an afterthought. As of October, two-thirds of U.S. adults said they didn’t think the presidential campaigns were paying enough attention to health care.

The issues of health care and the Covid-19 pandemic are still front of mind to large swaths of voters and, in some ways, inextricable. President Biden owed his 2020 win in part due to his promise that he would do better than his predecessor in handling the pandemic; that unlike Trump, he would “follow the science.” And at first, he did. But once it became clear that new variants would arise and vaccines would not prevent all Covid cases���though they did limit hospitalizations and deaths—the Biden administration went way off course. Rather than following the science and ramping up rapid-test production, covering testing and new vaccines, and upholding commonsense safety measures like masking in health care, his Covid czar, a corporate executive, chose to pretend Covid was a thing of the past.

As new variants surged, Biden followed directives from consultants, corporations, and vibes. The Democrats’ current Covid-19 prevention playbook barely differs from that of Republicans, even though the World Health Organization has said this year that we are still in a pandemic.

But the Biden administration did not just stumble in following the science, it also lost its way in terms of capitalizing on its own successful policies, which taught broad lessons in the value of breaking from a broken health care status quo. Since Biden declared the end of the state of emergency in May 2023, tens of millions have lost benefits that they had gained in 2020—including Medicaid expansion, paid sick leave, increased unemployment benefits, and coverage for Covid testing and vaccines. Losing these benefits while inflation soared, income stagnated, and poverty increased certainly played a role at the ballot box.

“Pandemic social programs enjoyed broad support,” said Dr. Lucky Tran, a public health and science communicator based in New York. “However, when countries like the U.S. declared the end of the public health emergency, these programs were allowed to expire, despite Covid continuing to surge throughout the year and the long-term impacts on people’s health and economic well-being.”

Both campaigns seemed to view discussing Covid-19 itself as a “toxic” political issue, as Tran put it, but the Biden administration’s public health failings certainly didn’t help the cause of the Democrats, who had come into office promising a different approach. Disabled and immunocompromised people—who constitute a quarter of the population—feel betrayed by an administration unwilling to protect them.

The expansion of the social safety net that came with the pandemic—which included Medicaid expansion, unemployment benefits, child tax credits, rent freezes, and paid sick leave—was undoubtedly popular. As it happened, voters cut across partisan assumptions in three red states (Alaska, Missouri, and Nebraska) to vote to increase sick leave benefits. Trump has promised not to cut Medicaid, though it never pays to trust him. During his last administration, he cut funding to programs that helped users navigate the complicated ACA system as well as ad spending.

During the state of emergency, some 23 million Americans gained health care coverage through Medicaid, thanks to a provision that halted Medicaid disenrollments. Typically, Medicaid enrollees have to prove their eligibility every year or their coverage will be removed; that means going through an onerous process involving forms, income verification, and bureaucracy in order to prove their income is low enough to grant them Medicaid. Medicaid eligibility was also expanded in several states during that time and its coverage was broadened to include things that made health care more accessible, like telehealth. The end of the state of emergency meant the end of the Medicaid disenrollment provision, and since then those tens of millions who gained coverage have lost it.

As Bryce Covert put it in The New York Times last March, “The message received is that the government could have done these things all along but had chosen not to—and has chosen once again to withdraw that kind of security.”

Jeff Reese, a bartender in Colorado, was one of the millions of people who lost Medicaid under Biden: “The Covid measures to help get us through, such as expanded Medicaid, food stamps, and unemployment benefits, were critical in getting me through the early part of Covid,” he told me. “Having access to health care was really good since I’m now in my fifties. I did have some preexisting conditions diagnosed, and I started treating and monitoring them, adopted a plant-based diet, and generally was able to improve my health.”

When the Covid emergency was declared over, he lost his coverage. This February, Reese suffered a serious e-bike accident that put him in the hospital for weeks, and he had to turn to GoFundMe to pay for intensive physical therapy. He says now that he owes $100,000 in medical bills, which he negotiated down from almost half a million with the hospital. He hasn’t been able to find an ACA plan that works for him yet, so he remains uninsured.

Though he begrudgingly voted for Harris in the election, many of his peers did not. “I haven’t been too keen on [the Democrats’] ability to see to my interests for a while,” he said. Reese said that he would have felt more enthusiastic in his vote had the Democrats presented a more comprehensive plan on health care. He said it was Barack Obama mentioning single-payer health care during his campaign that led him to vote Democrat for the first time after voting third party since 1992. According to a Gallup poll, a majority of Americans think the government should ensure that everyone has health care coverage.

To the extent that Harris addressed health care, it was largely to voice support for abortion rights or highlight Trump’s threats to unravel the ACA. In October, Harris ran some ads on health care and talked up her efforts to lower prescription drug costs. In a town hall on Univision, Harris faced criticism when answering a question from a Latina voter, Martha, about her problems qualifying for disability despite her debilitating long-Covid symptoms. Harris responded by talking about her support for medical debt relief, sidestepping the crux of the question.

Meanwhile, disability claims jumped by over a million between 2020 and 2023, largely attributable to long Covid, according to the Center for American Progress. Martha, who was left homeless and uninsured due to her struggles with long Covid, and who referenced “Make America great again” in her question, did not seem satisfied by Harris’s response.

At the last minute, Harris added expanding Medicare to cover some home care and addressing the high costs of ambulance rides, into her platform. But it was too little, too late. (Notably, Harris backed Medicare for All during her 2020 campaign.)

“I think the result of elections around the world have shown that ‘back to normal’ messaging was ineffective, with many incumbent governments losing office in large part due to a failure in acknowledging people’s pain and providing real plans to help people in the long term,” said Tran.

Trump’s brand of economic populism appealed to voters who are hoping for something different. But if things were already bad when it comes to health care, public health agencies, and health research, they are bound to get worse over the next four years.

“A second Trump presidency will erode essential public health and health care infrastructure, increase distrust in science and public health, and will put many people at greater risk of death and serious illness,” Tran warned.

Though Trump is no longer saying he necessarily wants to repeal the ACA—and is in fact now taking credit for “saving” it (um, OK), he can still do a ton of damage to this important health insurance program. For example, Democrats are worried about a looming expiration to ACA deductible subsidies, which make coverage possible for many, and fewer protections for people with preexisting conditions (that is to say: most people) who could not get health care before Obamacare outside of employer-sponsored plans.

Beyond that, Trump says he’ll let Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “go wild on health” and plans to give him a high-level Cabinet role, perhaps leading the Department of Health and Human Services. Kennedy, who has zero health experience (and who once suffered from a literal brain worm) is a notorious anti-vaxxer—so much so that his views got him kicked off Facebook. An HHS under his watch would surely limit access to vaccines, leading to outbreaks of diseases we thought we left behind in the twentieth century. Even if he is unable to outright ban vaccines, his efforts would surely stigmatize and discourage them. In a time when we still need a durable, variant-proof Covid vaccine and bird flu threatens to become a new pandemic, the outcome will be devastating.

“All of the policies which make the U.S. more vulnerable to Covid will also make the U.S. less prepared for future pandemic threats like bird flu because to prevent them we need health agencies that are competent, objective, and transparent; wide access to prevention and treatment tools; and strong trust in science and public health information, all of which will be under attack by the new administration,” said Tran.

Kennedy has also pledged to cut funding to the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and National Institutes of Health, which means more public health disruptions such as listeria outbreaks, as well as inaccurate or absent public messaging about current and future diseases, and less funding for biomedical research to help us understand and treat diseases affecting millions of Americans.

Some of the NIH’s biomedical research is going into things like long Covid, which affects some 20 million Americans and counting, as people are repeatedly reinfected. After a wobbly start, this research was finally showing promising signs under new NIH leadership and a $515 million grant, as I wrote a few weeks ago. We can probably wave goodbye to any further funding at the federal level.

Meighan Stone, who leads the Long Covid Campaign, says it’s critical to allocate NIH funding for Covid research as quickly as possible, before Trump takes office. “[Long Covid] is impacting force-readiness for the military, it is impacting the number of Americans who are having to apply for disability, it is affecting the economic strength of the United States,” she told me last month. “This is a significant public health issue, and it’s growing. We’re getting to the level of disease burden of other concerns like strokes, heart attacks, cancer,” she continued. “This is not a red state or blue state problem, this is a problem that’s impacting all Americans.”

It is clear that health care reform is urgently needed in this country, as numerous attempts in previous campaigns have attested. Democrats and Republicans alike take the blame for empowering insurance companies to call the shots and set the prices for this basic human right. As millions lost the pandemic-era health care benefits that provided much-needed immediate assistance, as well as pointing to the potential of a better future, the two parties—having staked out meaningful differences with one another—ended up reconverging on their approach to public health. We may never know how many decided to stay home this election because they felt disaffected at the sight of their presidential candidates abandoning following science and sensible policy. Now we will all witness what it looks like to go from bad to far, far worse.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Reading the headlines over the last couple of days, you would think the biggest political story about this election is Trump’s pathetic attempt to challenge Vice President Kamala Harris on the size of her rally crowds.  Look at this Truth Social post!  Trump says she used AI to create fake photos of her crowd at an airport in Detroit!  There was even a story in my newsfeed from a polling expert pointing out that you cannot calculate support for a candidate by crowd size.  If crowd size were what mattered, Bernie Sanders would be president by now, he reminded us.

Political narratives are strange beasts – at least they were until Trump came along and made them even stranger.  It used to be that fights over policies and personalities and the pasts of politicians drove elections.  When John Kerry ran in 2006, Republicans took his war record in the Navy in Vietnam and “Swift-boated” him by twisting his service into something it wasn’t.  They’re trying to do the same thing with Tim Walz right now, creating a fake story that he was somehow derelict in his duty when he retired from 24 years of service in the National Guard to run for congress not long before his unit in Minnesota was deployed to Iraq.

Then Trump showed up and proved that you can do it using lies alone.  That’s what his ridiculous story that Kamala Harris is using AI to fake her crowd size was.  Trump proved that if you tell enough lies again and again and again, something will stick, and then you can run with it. 

You will notice in the above paragraphs that the political narratives I gave as examples were all driven by men:  Men running for office; men’s careers being dissected and put on display; men using lies and misinformation to create stories about each other where there really aren’t any.  Even the political narrative about Hillary Clinton during her presidential run in 2016 was created by men:  Roger Stone interfacing with Guccifer II to get Hillary’s emails leaked to the press; Trump taking the fake “issue” about “her emails” and making it a central feature of his campaign.

But this week, a campaign narrative driven by women entered the picture in a big way.  On Monday, Arizona election officials announced that they had received enough signatures on petitions – in fact 50 percent more than was required – to put access to abortion on the ballot in November.  On Tuesday, Missouri officials certified enough petition signatures to allow a measure on the November ballot that would enshrine the right to abortion in the state’s constitution.

Both of these things are a big, big deal.  The drives to collect enough signatures to get the referendum measures on the Arizona and Missouri ballots were run by women.  Referendums on abortion have already been approved for a November vote in Florida, Nevada, Colorado, and South Dakota.  Petitions have been submitted in Nebraska and Montana for similar abortion ballot measures and await approval by election officials.  State constitutional amendments will be on the ballot in New York and Maryland that will guarantee access to abortion as well.  The New York Times reminded us in a story today that ballot measures guaranteeing a right to abortion have passed in all seven states where they have been put to a vote since Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022.  The red states of Kentucky and Kansas were among the states that passed abortion rights measures by referendum. 

Arizona and Nevada are crucial battleground states in the presidential election that will be decided in November.  Having the issue of abortion on the ballot alongside the decision to vote for either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump, who brags about having appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe, is expected to help Democrats from Vice President Harris on down the ballot, including pivotal races that will determine control of the House and the Senate next year.

Abortion is not just a so-called “women’s issue.”  Until two years ago, the right to abortion was embedded in the language of the 14th Amendment which guarantees equal protection of the laws for all.  It was part of the central argument that established a right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965, which involved the right of couples to use birth control.  The fight over abortion rights, often framed as the right of a woman to control her own body, also involves the right to privacy for all of us.  Right wing lawsuit-factories such as the Alliance Defending Freedom have already stated their intention to sue to overturn Griswold, as well as other Supreme Court decisions based on the 14th Amendment involving same sex marriage and the right to love whoever you want in any way you want in the privacy of your bedroom.

With Kamala Harris running for president, Democrats will have the opportunity to emphasize that so-called kitchen table issues such as inflation and taxes are also women’s issues because our candidate is a woman, and that is a good thing.  It is definitely a good thing that abortion will be on the ballot in at least two key swing states, and it's even better thing that the person driving the political narrative for the Democratic Party this year is a woman. 

[democracyunderground]

ICYMI "Ohio Republicans are claiming a constitutional amendment protecting abortion rights, which was approved by voters in Tuesday’s election, doesn’t actually do that - and they’re promising to take steps to prevent the legal protection of reproductive freedom in the state.

“To prevent mischief by pro-abortion courts with Issue 1, Ohio legislators will consider removing jurisdiction from the judiciary over this ambiguous ballot initiative,” Ohio House Republicans wrote in a statement released Thursday. “The Ohio legislature alone will consider what, if any, modifications to make to existing laws based on public hearings and input from legal experts on both sides.”

Ohio banned abortion in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, but legal challenges to state’s abortion laws left residents’ reproductive rights in limbo until Tuesday’s ballot measure. The strategy Republicans are now proposing would essentially strip Ohio’s courts of the authority to repeal existing abortion restrictions before the new amendment goes into effect on December 7.

“No amendment can overturn the God-given rights with which we were born,” state Rep. Beth Lear (R-Galena) added in the Republican’s statement. Another representative, Jennifer Gross (R-West Chester), claimed the referendum had only passed due to “foreign election interference.”

Rep. Bill Dean (R-Xenia) said the amendment “doesn’t repeal a single Ohio law,” and that its language is “dangerously vague and unconstrained, and can be weaponized to attack parental rights or defend rapists, pedophiles, and human traffickers.”

Ohio is not the only state where Republicans are attempting to undermine pro-choice ballot initiatives endorsed by constituents. In Michigan, two anti-choice activist groups are working with Republican lawmakers to sue the state and block the implementation of that state’s voter-approved constitutional amendment.

Stacey LaRouche, press secretary to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, told The Detroit News that “it shouldn’t be lost on people that these right-wing organizations and radical Republicans in the Michigan Legislature are cherry-picking courts to try to once again overturn a constitutionally guaranteed right because they can’t win with voters.”

Ballot measures supporting reproductive freedom have been approved in all seven states where they have been put to voters. Despite Republicans claiming that the end of Roe signified the return of the abortion issue to the will of individual states, they clearly remain determined to undermine reproductive rights no matter what any state’s voters have to say about them."

[beardedmrbean]

Do they ever give up? Those looking to divvy up Americans by race, that is.

In California they tried to get race preferences approved in a 2020 referendum, but voters rejected it 57.2% to 42.8%. This was a stunning rebuke, not only because the rejection came from residents of a blue state but because the losing side had outspent opponents something like 14 to 1.

In 2023 the Supreme Court weighed in with a landmark ruling that barred colleges from treating people as members of a racial group instead of as individuals—and cast constitutional doubt on all race-based preferences. “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. Couldn’t be clearer, right?

Not in California. Undaunted state Assemblyman Corey Jackson is pushing a bill called ACA7. It takes aim at the state ban on race preferences that voters put in the constitution in 1996 when they passed Proposition 209. Californians reaffirmed Proposition 209 three years ago at the ballot box.

The language the voters agreed to and the activists hate reads as follows: “The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.” Unlike the 2020 effort, the new bill would leave that language intact. Instead, it would add a provision allowing the governor to create “exceptions.” Effectively that would gut the ban.

Apparently, the lesson the advocates of state-sponsored discrimination have taken from their defeat is that if at first you don’t succeed, try something sneakier.

Here is Mr. Jackson’s press release summarizing the bill: “ACA7 will allow . . . the Governor to issue waivers to public agencies that wish to use state funds for research-based, or research-informed and culturally specific interventions to increase life expectancy, improve educational outcomes, and lift people out of poverty for specific ethnic groups and marginalized genders.”

Gail Heriot is a University of San Diego law professor who sits on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and was a leader of both Proposition 209 and the “no” effort on the 2020 referendum. She has launched a petition with Extremely Concerned Californians at change.org opposing the measure.

“ACA7’s proponents are hoping that voters will be fooled into thinking that it is just a small exception,” Ms. Heriot says. “In fact, it gives the governor enormous power to nullify Proposition 209.”

Edward Blum agrees. As the founder of Students for Fair Admissions, he spearheaded the lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina that killed race preferences in college admissions.

“Racial preferences are never legally justified because some specious ‘research’ report concludes it would be beneficial to a certain race,” says Mr. Blum. “This exemption will trigger endless litigation that will polarize California citizens by race.”

But sowing discord is a feature, not a bug. As the bill was making its way through the Assembly, Mr. Jackson got in a spat with Bill Essayli—a Republican who is also the first Muslim elected to the Assembly. Mr. Essayli pointed out that the majority of Californian voters disagree with state-sanctioned discrimination. “I fundamentally disagree with this backwards policy,” he later tweeted.

Mr. Jackson responded in his own tweet: “This is a perfect example how a minority can become a white supremacist by doing everything possible to win white supremacist and fascist affection.”

ACA7 passed the state Assembly in September. If it passes the Senate, it will be on the ballot in November. If Californians vote yea, it will become part of the constitution.

But all is not lost. The 2020 referendum awakened a sleeping giant: the Asian-American community. Asian-Americans quickly realized (as the Harvard case drove home) that they and their children are the primary victims whenever race is substituted for merit. Asian-Americans are more aware and organized than they were in 2020. They aren’t likely to be fooled by talk of “exceptions” based on “research.”

It also isn’t a given that ACA7 will make it through the state Senate. Though Democrats enjoy a 32-8 majority, polls consistently show race preferences are unpopular. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s support will be crucial.

Though he has no formal role in the constitutional process, some think the bill will go nowhere if Mr. Newsom doesn’t want it to. If it does make it to the ballot this November, he’ll be under immense pressure to endorse it. That’s another reason the Senate should kill ACA7 now, Ms. Heriot says.

“California voters need to make sure their state senators know where they stand—through emails, phone calls, letters, and petitions,” Ms. Heriot says. “Once the senators understand that, they will realize putting ACA7 on the ballot is not in their interest.”

[ismellpestilence]

Now feels like as good a time as any to remind people that you need to vote not just in the presidential elections but also for local elections, ballot measures, referendums, and such. These fascist politicians didn't appear out of nowhere. Greg Abbott started as a state trial judge, for fuck's sake.

Obviously there's other factors involved but this is not the time for "they're all corrupt so I won't vote for anyone" or "but local elections don't do much". Unless you're personally planning the revolution I don't want to hear anyone whining about how voting doesn't work.

Register to vote and fill out every bubble on that ballot like your life depends on it.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

AMERICANS DON’T WANT abortion to be banned. In fact, they barely want it legislated at all: A 2024 poll found that 81 percent of voters don’t want abortion issues to be regulated by the government. Instead, they want the decision to be between a patient and their doctor.  That overwhelming support for legal abortion leaves Republicans with a major problem: How do you defend and push a policy that no one wants? In the nearly two years since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the GOP has faced an unprecedented backlash. They’re losing election after election — from the 2022 midterms to state Supreme Court races — and abortion rights win every time they are on the ballot. Republicans are even considering doing away with the term “pro-life” because Americans view it as too extreme. The horror stories regularly coming out of states with abortion bans certainly don’t help.  In response, anti-abortion lawmakers and groups have recently launched a new two-pronged attack. They’re changing the way they publicly talk about abortion, using specific terms and phrases to make Americans believe that they’re softening on the issue; at the same time, they’re systematically chipping away at democracy so that voters won’t have a say in the matter, just in case their talking points don’t work. I’ve been tracking these tactics in my newsletter, “Abortion, Every Day,” since Roe was overturned, finding that the GOP’s deception runs deeper than most people realize.  It wasn’t long after the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision, for example, that anti-abortion organizations and politicians stopped using the word “ban.” (James Bopp, general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, called the term “the big ban word.”) Instead, they replaced it with words like “standard” and “consensus.”  It makes sense: “I support a national consensus” sounds a whole lot better than “I support a national ban,” especially given how unpopular Republicans’ bans are.  [...] And in a moment when so many states are using citizen-led ballot initiatives to restore and protect abortion rights, Republicans are also eager to claim that “the will of the people” is being represented by legislators — rather than voters having a direct say on an issue. Before the Supreme Court heard arguments this spring over lifesaving abortions in emergency rooms, for example, conservative legal powerhouse Alliance Defending Freedom accused the Biden administration of “overrid[ing] the will of Idaho voters enacted through their elected representatives.” [...] All of these efforts — the fake ballot measures, text trickery, and the war on language — are being pushed precisely because Republicans know that Americans support abortion rights. They know they can’t win on their own arguments and merits, so they try to lie and fool voters in order to win. As we speed toward the election this November, we’ll see the same kinds of tactics from the Republicans running — including Trump, who is desperate to escape voters’ post-Roe fury.

Abortion, Every Day writer Jessica Valenti for Rolling Stone on how the "pro-life" movement is rebranding in the Dobbs era with the intent to obscure and deceive people about their anti-abortion extremism (05.23.2024).

[reasonsforhope]

"For the first time in almost 60 years, a state has formally overturned a so-called “right to work” law, clearing the way for workers to organize new union locals, collectively bargain, and make their voices heard at election time.

This week, Michigan finalized the process of eliminating a decade-old “right to work” law, which began with the shift in control of the state legislature from anti-union Republicans to pro-union Democrats following the 2022 election. “This moment has been decades in the making,” declared Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber. “By standing up and taking their power back, at the ballot box and in the workplace, workers have made it clear Michigan is and always will be the beating heart of the modern American labor movement.”

[Note: The article doesn't actually explain it, so anyway, "right to work" laws are powerful and deceptively named pieces of anti-union legislation. What right to work laws do is ban "union shops," or companies where every worker that benefits from a union is required to pay dues to the union. Right-to-work laws really undermine the leverage and especially the funding of unions, by letting non-union members receive most of the benefits of a union without helping sustain them. Sources: x, x, x, x]

In addition to formally scrapping the anti-labor law on Tuesday [February 13, 2024], Michigan also restored prevailing-wage protections for construction workers, expanded collective bargaining rights for public school employees, and restored organizing rights for graduate student research assistants at the state’s public colleges and universities. But even amid all of these wins for labor, it was the overturning of the “right to work” law that caught the attention of unions nationwide...

Now, the tide has begun to turn—beginning in a state with a rich labor history. And that’s got the attention of union activists and working-class people nationwide...

At a time when the labor movement is showing renewed vigor—and notching a string of high-profile victories, including last year’s successful strike by the United Auto Workers union against the Big Three carmakers, the historic UPS contract victory by the Teamsters, the SAG-AFTRA strike win in a struggle over abuses of AI technology in particular and the future of work in general, and the explosion of grassroots union organizing at workplaces across the country—the overturning of Michigan’s “right to work” law and the implementation of a sweeping pro-union agenda provides tangible evidence of how much has changed in recent years for workers and their unions...

By the mid-2010s, 27 states had “right to work” laws on the books.

But then, as a new generation of workers embraced “Fight for 15” organizing to raise wages, and campaigns to sign up workers at Starbucks and Amazon began to take off, the corporate-sponsored crusade to enact “right to work” measures stalled. New Hampshire’s legislature blocked a proposed “right to work” law in 2017 (and again in 2021), despite the fact that the measure was promoted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu. And in 2018, Missouri voters rejected a “right to work” referendum by a 67-33 margin.

Preventing anti-union legislation from being enacted and implemented is one thing, however. Actually overturning an existing law is something else altogether.

But that’s what happened in Michigan after 2022 voting saw the reelection of Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a labor ally, and—thanks to the overturning of gerrymandered legislative district maps that had favored the GOP—the election of Democratic majorities in the state House and state Senate. For the first time in four decades, the Democrats controlled all the major levers of power in Michigan, and they used them to implement a sweeping pro-labor agenda. That was a significant shift for Michigan, to be sure. But it was also an indication of what could be done in other states across the Great Lakes region, and nationwide.

“Michigan Democrats took full control of the state government for the first time in 40 years. They used that power to repeal the state’s ‘right to work’ law,” explained a delighted former US secretary of labor Robert Reich, who added, “This is why we have to show up for our state and local elections.”"

-via The Nation, February 16, 2024

[albatross-lancer]

ooc: Hi everyone. If you live in the US and are able to vote, please do so. I know the world, and the US in particular, often feels bleak and hopeless, and people want to disengage from politics. And it is true that voting alone is not enough. But it does have real power, power to prevent or alleviate suffering and death inside and outside the country. Not completely, but to a real degree that can actually impact people's lives. And you should use that power.

Refusing to vote is not a political statement. Huge proportions of the population regularly do not vote, so not voting is the assumed default. It will not be noticed by hardly anyone, certainly not the people in power.

Also! Don't just vote in the presidential election. Change, good and bad, starts on the small scale. Research candidates and ballot measures and vote on everything you can. In my home state of Wisconsin there is a referendum that is confusingly worded, but is ultimately an attempt to restrict voting rights, vote No.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Hallie Lauer

City of Pittsburgh operations could come grinding to a halt — buildings dark, public transport riders stranded, firefighters unable to enter burning buildings and paramedics unable to administer life-saving drugs — if a proposed ballot measure seeking to cut all ties to Israel is passed in November, challengers to the provision said in legal documents Tuesday.

City Controller Rachael Heisler and the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh filed separate challenges to a petition that seeks to change Pittsburgh’s Home Rule Charter to ensure that the city cannot invest in or buy services from any entity doing business with or in Israel.

The petition — submitted with more than 12,800 apparently valid signatures — seeks to put the issue before voters as a ballot referendum in November.

While the petition lists neither the name nor address of a submitting entity, it is believed to be the product of the pro-Palestinian “No War Crimes on our Dime” group. The group’s website outlines the reasoning behind the ballot initiative and says it’s backed by the Pittsburgh Democratic Socialists of America, although as recently as Monday the website had claimed backing from a group identified as Keystone Progress.

Hallie Lauer

Staffers for prominent local officials signed on to ballot referendum to end Pittsburgh’s ties to Israel

Keystone Progress reached out to the Post-Gazette after the initial publication and said that their organization name was used in error and that the group is not financially backing the ballot referendum efforts.

Both challenges submitted Tuesday claim the referendum violates state law and certain business provisions of the Home Rule Charter and could create undue strain on city operations.

If the petitions make it past the challenge phase, a referendum will be included on the November ballot, asking Pittsburgh voters to decide whether the charter should be amended to prohibit “investment or allocation of public funds, including tax exemptions, to entities that conduct business operations with or in the state of Israel.”

If approved by voters, the prohibition would be in effect until “Israel ends its military action in Gaza,” allows humanitarian aid to reach the people of Gaza, and grants “equal rights to every person living in the territories under Israeli control,” according to the language of the referendum.

The No War Crimes on our Dime website argues that even making a change in one city, such as Pittsburgh, could send a message about the management and allocation of public resources. “Israel’s war machine is dependent on American weapons and money. … That means we have the capacity, right, and responsibility to stop the violence today by making our government impose a ceasefire and push for equal rights.”

Organizers of the initiative could not be reached directly for comment.

[zuko-always-lies]

One more thing for those who haven't voted yet. Your state and local governments probably have some referendum measures on the ballot. Check your sample ballot and look up what they are. You don't want to be ambushed by a confusing referendum measure when you go to vote and have no idea what you are voting on. Ballotpedia is great place to find info on referendum measures, at least for state-level ones.