#voter rejection
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Florida Voters Reject Pro-Choice Constitutional Amendment, Upholding Six-Week Abortion Ban
In a pivotal setback for abortion rights advocates, Florida voters have rejected a proposed constitutional amendment that would have protected abortion rights in the state. The amendment fell short of the required 60% support needed to amend Florida’s constitution. This decision leaves in place the state’s controversial six-week abortion ban, which took effect earlier this year.
The rejection of the pro-choice amendment marks a significant political win for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who has actively campaigned against the measure. DeSantis and other anti-abortion advocates, including the national group SBA Pro-Life America, hailed the result as a victory for "life" in Florida and across the nation.
The proposed amendment, known as Amendment 4, sought to secure abortion access in Florida, reversing the current ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Despite significant support for the measure, it failed to meet the 60% threshold, with the final vote confirming that a majority of Floridians voted against the constitutional change.
This loss is seen as a major blow to abortion rights in Florida, especially as the state has become a critical battleground in the post-Roe v. Wade landscape. With the six-week ban still in effect, many women in Florida, as well as from neighboring states with more restrictive laws, now face limited access to abortion services.
While Florida saw a defeat, other states like Missouri, Colorado, and Maryland witnessed victories for abortion rights. Missouri’s voters took a historic step toward repealing a total abortion ban, while Colorado passed a measure that safeguards abortion access and removes previous restrictions. Similarly, Maryland enshrined abortion rights into its constitution, a change that further cements abortion access in the state.
The abortion debate continues to dominate U.S. politics, with voters showing heightened engagement on reproductive rights issues, particularly in states like Florida where abortion laws are fiercely contested. As the nation grapples with the fallout of the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, these state-level decisions will continue to shape the future of reproductive rights across the country.
#Florida#abortion rights#constitutional amendment#six-week ban#pro-choice#voter rejection#Florida elections
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I just need everyone to know, because the media reporting around it is already completely fucked, that the Florida amendment to restore abortion access was not "rejected" by voters.
An unquestionable majority of voters across all demographic spectra supported it. As of me writing this, over 57% of voters said, "Yes, restore abortion rights. Yes, protect pregnant people."
Florida amendments require a supermajority--60% or higher--to pass. It didn't hit that threshold. That's not a "no" vote.
We've also had the governor actually legally threatening tv stations for running pro-amendment commercials, so that 57% yes came after a vicious no campaign from the government itself, so.
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California Voters—What to Do If Your Ballot is Rejected
From the San Francisco Chronicle: https://bit.ly/4fexCEC
"Whether you forgot to sign your ballot return envelope or signed it in a way that doesn’t match previous signatures, your ballot can be fixed in the weeks after the election. Every election cycle, a portion of ballots across California are rejected. Most of them were turned in late — which cannot be remedied — or had an issue with the signature on the envelope containing the ballot. Luckily for voters, signature problems can be “cured” by submitting a form sent by their county elections office by Dec. 3. The quickest way to know if your ballot has a problem is to sign up for ballot tracking through the California Secretary of State’s website at https://wheresmyballot.sos.ca.gov. Voters will be able to see if their ballot has been accepted and counted or if there is a problem that can be addressed. Voters whose ballots need fixing will also receive a letter from their county elections office, as well as a phone call and email if that information is on file. John Arntz, director of the San Francisco Department of Elections, said that the notification should come to voters in English and Chinese, unless they have selected a different secondary language for voting. Arntz said that the notification includes a form for voters to complete to verify their signature. They can either return it by mail, email or in person to have their vote counted. Alexander said that signature problems — which affected 394 San Francisco ballots in the March primary election — can affect first-time and younger voters who have not yet developed a regular signature or are unaware that the signature on their ballots will be compared to the signature on file with the Department of Motor Vehicles. Older voters are also impacted more often by signature problems as their dexterity and handwriting changes with age, making it more difficult to match their previous signatures. Alexander said that voters have 28 days — based on a new state law implemented this election — to get ballot curing forms back to their county elections office to have their votes counted. Counties will not be able to certify their votes until that deadline passes, Alexander said. In San Francisco, with ranked-choice voting for mayoral candidates, the cured ballots could end up impacting the final results if the election is neck and neck. Arntz said that the reports put out before he certifies the election are just a snapshot of the votes counted by that moment, but that cured votes submitted by the deadline could change the trajectory of the instant runoff election. In this year’s primary election, nearly 1,200 Alameda County voters had fixable signature problems. San Mateo County had over 400, Contra Costa County had over 1,000 and Santa Clara County had nearly 500. Alexander estimates that only about 50% of those ballots end up being cured and counted, based on a study her organization did of a handful of California counties. Recently, campaigns have realized in races with razor-thin margins that ballot curing can make a difference, Alexander said. For tight House races in the Central Valley and Southern California, volunteers could be working for weeks after Election Day to get signatures fixed."
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IMPORTANT: 1200 BALLOTS FROM PHILADELPHIA HAVE ALREADY BEEN REJECTED DUE TO VARIOUS ERRORS. Voters need to check with their elections office or at the site above (for Philadelphia) to ensure that their ballot was not rejected. If it was rejected, they need to contact their elections office ASAP for options to ensure their vote can be counted. Other Pennsylvania voters should proactively check with their elections offices NOW as well since some counties ARE NOT REQUIRED TO INFORM VOTERS THAT THEIR BALLOT WAS REJECTED. Pennsylvania ballot tracker here: https://www.pavoterservices.pa.gov/Pages/BallotTracking.aspx If you know anyone in Pennsylvania who is eligible to vote, check on them and help them out.
#us politics#voting#pennsylvania#pennsylvania voters#philadelphia#philadelphia elections#philadelphia voters#protect the vote#count every vote#ballots rejected#voter suppression#ballot curing#fix your ballot#elections offices#pennsylvania elections#mail in ballots#local officials set up these horrible laws that suppress voters#vote local#vote the whole ballot
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you know what they say. ram naam satya hai.
#-> myra text#india#indpol#addn ->#voters of ayodhya this is dedicated to you. love you guys.#this is so ironic that the place that started the whole hindutva nonsense rejected bjp this has got to to be the funniest shit ever#but still it makes sense 1800 crores on a temple but you end up displacing the people who live there#for the sake of fucking adani funded five star hotels#today was a surprisingly funny day
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nick is such a loser lmao
#constantly flip flopping#weeks of shitting on trump and trump voters#and now he's on his stream celebrating trump right now#i wanna beat the shit out of that twink so bad#make him my concubine#i hope the right totally rejects and alienates him and his lame ass christian nationalist movement
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[ID : A screenshot of a mobile dashboard navigation bar (home icon, search icon, post icon highlighted, notifications icon, account icon) in red with text at the top reading "Vote not allowed". /end ID]
the fuck man do i have a tumblr criminal record or some shit ??
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IF YOU LIVE IN THE US, PLEASE READ THIS
Posting this from the bird app since I hope it can help people.
People have been contacting the White House directly to demand a recount, especially since there has been evidence that not every ballot has been counted and will be thrown away if it hasn't been cured.
The link to contact the White House is here!
The following screenshot comes from here!
If you need help writing something, check under the cut! I've provided a prewritten response from one of the replies!
"I am a concerned citizen, and I need you to hear me. I urge you to recount the ballots from this election and investigate election interference. Bomb threats have been called into multiple polling locations, causing some to close early. Domestic terrorists have burned ballot boxes. An unprecedented number of ballots have been rejected and require curing. There have been reports of polling officers allowing voter intimidation in and outside of polling places across the country and an estimated 20 million mail in ballots are unaccounted for. In addition, many people have reported that ballots were not counted for suspicious reasons such as signature invalidation which is information that vote counters do not have access to. These events have occurred in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Georgia, for instance."
Feel free to add and change what you want, this is just a base for you to work off of.
#us politics#election 2024#politics#even if you're not in the US please reblog so this can reach as many people as possible!#us election#voting#us election 2024#american politics#2024 presidential election#us elections
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Did you know?
Democrats have won the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections going back to 1992? The only time the GOP has won the popular vote in the last 36 years in a presidential election was in 2004, and it was a pretty narrow margin. This was a wartime election and the first election post-9/11. The Democratic candidate was the unfortunately uninspiring John Kerry, who had been lied about. You know how in politics we say someone has been "swiftboated" when a successful lie is told about them? That term originates with the 2004 election because a bunch of people concocted an elaborate lie about John Kerry's military service. He wasn't super inspiring as a candidate, but that was the worst thing he did. He wasn't a bad guy. He was just running in a very gross, jingoistic time after the worst terror attack in American history, and had a bunch of successful lies told about him to the point where a whole word about a specific kind of lie was invented about it. THIS is the only time since 1988 that the Republican party has won the popular vote. George W. Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000. The Supreme Court ordered that votes stop being counted in Florida and handed the victory to Bush.
Donald Trump has never ever won the popular vote. The electoral college handed him the victory in 2016, less than 15,000 votes across three states decided the election. Hillary Clinton in total won about 3.7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Trump HATES hearing this number. He hates even more that Joe Biden got about 7 million more votes. He hates even more that you bring up the fact that he lost his midterm elections for his party in 2018, badly. And that the "Red Wave" in 2022 did not happen because of backlash at his Supreme Court. Or that in 2023 voters continued to reject his Supreme Court at the polls.
He knows, the Republicans know, that if more people vote, they lose. They don't want small d democracy. They want authoritarianism. They want to suppress it.
So when you get cute about not wanting to vote, you're not doing activism. You're surrendering.
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Joe Biden redirected the Democratic Party back toward its working-class roots, but many of the changes he catalyzed — more vigorous antitrust enforcement, stronger enforcement of labor laws, and major investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, semiconductors, and non-fossil fuels — wouldn’t be evident for years, and he could not communicate effectively about them.
This gentleman was a college professor in political science. He gives some intriguing insights here...
"Friends,
A political disaster such as what occurred Tuesday gains significance not simply by virtue of who won or lost, but through how the election is interpreted.
This is known as The Lesson of the election.
The Lesson explains what happened and why. It deciphers the public’s mood, values, and thoughts. It attributes credit and blame.
And therein lies its power. When The Lesson of the election becomes accepted wisdom — when most of the politicians, pundits, and politicians come to believe it — it shapes the future. It determines how parties, candidates, political operatives, and journalists approach future elections.
There are many reasons for what occurred on Tuesday and for what the outcome should teach America — about where the nation is and about what Democrats should do in the future.
Yet inevitably, one Lesson predominates.
Today, I want to share with you six conventional “lessons” you will hear for Tuesday’s outcome. None is or should be considered The Lesson of the 2024 election.
Then I’ll give you what I consider the real Lesson of the election.
None of these are The Lesson of the 2024 election:
1. "It was a total repudiation of the Democratic Party, a major realignment."
Rubbish. Harris would have won had there been a small, less than 1 percent vote shift in the three main battleground states. The biggest shift from 2020 and 2016 was among Latino men. We don’t know yet whether Latino men will return to the Democrats; if they don’t, they will contribute to a small realignment.
But the fact is America elected Trump in 2016, almost reelected him in 2020, and elected him again in 2024. We haven't changed much, at least in terms of whom we vote for.
2. "If the Dems want to win in the future, they have to move to the right. They should stop talking about 'democracy,' forget 'multiculturalism,' and end their focus on women’s rights, transgender rights, immigrants’ rights, voting rights, civil rights, and America’s shameful history of racism and genocide. Instead, push to strengthen families, cut taxes, allow school choice and prayer in public schools, reduce immigration, minimize our obligations abroad, and put America and Americans first."
Wrong. Democrats shouldn’t move to the right if that means giving up on democracy, social justice, civil rights, and equal voting rights. While Democrats might reconsider their use of “identity” politics (in which people are viewed primarily through the lenses of race, ethnicity, or gender), Democrats must not lose the moral ideals at the heart of the Party and at the core of America.
3. "Republicans won because of misinformation and right-wing propaganda. They won over young men because of a vicious alliance between Trump and a vast network of online influencers and podcasts appealing to them. The answer is for Democrats to cultivate an equivalent media ecosystem that rivals what the right has built."
Partly true. Misinformation and right-wing propaganda did play a role, particularly in reaching young men. But this hardly means progressives and Democrats should fill the information ecosystem with misinformation or left-wing propaganda. Better messaging, yes. Lies and bigotry, no.
We should use our power as consumers to boycott X and all advertisers on X and on Fox News, mount defamation and other lawsuits against platforms that foment hate, and push for regulations (at least at the state level for now) requiring that all platforms achieve minimum standards of moderation and decency.
4. "Republicans cheated. Trump, Putin, and election deniers at county and precinct levels engaged in a vast conspiracy to suppress votes."
I doubt it. Putin tried, but so far there’s no sign that the Kremlin affected any voting process. There is little or no evidence of widespread cheating by Republicans. Dems should not feed further conspiracy theories about fraudulent voting or tallying. For the most part, the system worked smoothly, and we owe a huge debt of gratitude to election workers and state officials in charge of the process.
5. "Harris ran a lousy campaign. She wasn’t a good communicator. She fudged and shifted her positions on issues. She was weighed down by Biden and didn’t sufficiently separate herself from him."
Untrue. Harris ran a good campaign, but she had only a little over three months to do it. She had to introduce herself to the nation (typically a vice president is almost invisible within an administration) at the same time Trump’s antics sucked most of the oxygen out of the political air. She could have been clearer about her proposals and policies and embraced economic populism (see below on the real lesson), but her debate with Trump was the best debate performance I’ve ever witnessed, and her speeches were pitch perfect. Biden may have weighed her down a bit, but his decision to step down was gracious and selfless.
6. "Racism and misogyny. Voters were simply not prepared to elect a Black female president."
Partly true. Surely racism and misogyny played a role, but bigotry can’t offer a full explanation.
--
Here’s the real Lesson of the 2024 election:
On Tuesday, according to exit polls, Americans voted mainly on the economy — and their votes reflected their class and level of education.
While the economy has improved over the last two years according to standard economic measures, most Americans without college degrees — that’s the majority — have not felt it.
In fact, most Americans without college degrees have not felt much economic improvement for four decades, and their jobs have grown less secure. The real median wage of the bottom 90 percent is stuck nearly where it was in the early 1990s, even though the economy is more than twice as large.
Most of the economy’s gains have gone to the top.
This has caused many Americans to feel frustrated and angry. Trump gave voice to that anger. Harris did not.
The real lesson of the 2024 election is that Democrats must not just give voice to the anger but also explain how record inequality has corrupted our system, and pledge to limit the political power of big corporations and the super-rich.
The basic bargain used to be that if you worked hard and played by the rules, you’d do better and your children would do even better than you.
But since 1980, that bargain has become a sham. The middle class has shrunk.
Why? While Republicans steadily cut taxes on the wealthy, Democrats abandoned the working class.
Democrats embraced NAFTA and lowered tariffs on Chinese goods. They deregulated finance and allowed Wall Street to become a high-stakes gambling casino. They let big corporations gain enough market power to keep prices (and profit margins) high.
They let corporations bust unions (with negligible penalties) and slash payrolls. They bailed out Wall Street when its gambling addiction threatened to blow up the entire economy but never bailed out homeowners who lost everything.
They welcomed big money into their campaigns — and delivered quid pro quos that rigged the market in favor of big corporations and the wealthy.
Joe Biden redirected the Democratic Party back toward its working-class roots, but many of the changes he catalyzed — more vigorous antitrust enforcement, stronger enforcement of labor laws, and major investments in manufacturing, infrastructure, semiconductors, and non-fossil fuels — wouldn’t be evident for years, and he could not communicate effectively about them.
The Republican Party says it’s on the side of working people, but its policies will hurt ordinary workers even more. Trump’s tariffs will drive up prices. His expected retreat from vigorous antitrust enforcement will allow giant corporations to drive up prices further.
If Republicans gain control over the House as well as the Senate, as looks likely, they will extend Trump’s 2017 tax law and add additional tax cuts. As in 2017, these lower taxes will benefit mainly the wealthy and enlarge the national debt, which will give Republicans an excuse to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid — their objectives for decades.
Democrats must no longer do the bidding of big corporations and the wealthy. They must instead focus on winning back the working class.
They should demand paid family leave, Medicare for all, free public higher education, stronger unions, higher taxes on great wealth, and housing credits that will generate the biggest boom in residential home construction since World War II.
They should also demand that corporations share their profits with their workers. They should call for limits on CEO pay, eliminate all stock buybacks (as was the SEC rule before 1982), and reject corporate welfare (subsidies and tax credit to particular companies and industries unrelated to the common good).
Democrats need to tell Americans why their pay has been lousy for decades and their jobs less secure: not because of immigrants, liberals, people of color, the “deep state,” or any other Trump Republican bogeyman, but because of the power of large corporations and the rich to rig the market and siphon off most of the economy’s gains.
In doing this, Democrats need not turn their backs on democracy. Democracy goes hand-in-hand with a fair economy. Only by reducing the power of big money in our politics can America grow the middle class, reward hard work, and reaffirm the basic bargain at the heart of our system.
If the Trump Republicans gain control of the House, as seems likely, they will have complete control of the federal government. That means they will own whatever happens to the economy and will be responsible for whatever happens to America. Notwithstanding all their anti-establishment populist rhetoric, they will become the establishment.
The Democratic Party should use this inflection point to shift ground — from being the party of well-off college graduates, big corporations, “never-Tumpers” like Dick Cheney, and vacuous “centrism” — to an anti-establishment party ready to shake up the system on behalf of the vast majority of Americans.
This is and should be The Lesson of the 2024 election.
What do you think...?"
Robert Reich...
#important point#voters never understand how long implementing policy takes#took a decade for ACA to kick in in full#antitrust#some states (red) still don’t have full ACA bc their governors rejected the money to bring down costs or allow for medicaid expansion#most voters of those states don’t even know they don’t haveACA in full#that’s how bad communication or disinfo is
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Hey guys. So, between bomb threats in dozens of polling locations across several swing states, burned ballot boxes, an uncounted number of absentee ballots being contested and rejected, voter purging, PA with thousands of mail in ballots that need to be re-scanned as well as Elon Musk literally paying PA citizens to vote, and the second highest record voter turnout in the past century but yet currently still 15 million less blue votes compared to the 2020 election (granted counting has not finished yet), there's been a lot of call for a recount and investigation, which I personally feel like is absolutely worth doing. So anyone who can, I direct you here to make your requests on this ASAP
edit: I'll keep my original text here but since some of this is already quickly becoming outdated and I'm now seeing much better posts than mine circulating, I'm turning off reblogs, here's a good post to check out
#us elections#election 2024#2024 presidential election#us politics#kamala harris#donald trump#mine#i might just be grasping at straws but hey i think it's worth a shot
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election good news
in delaware, sarah mcbride became the first openly trans person to be elected to the us congress
in north carolina, democrat josh stein will defeat self proclaimed "black nazi" and "pervert" mark robinson for the governorship
new york, maryland, and colorado all added reproductive right protections to their state constitution through a vote on an amendment
for the first time in history, two black women will serve in the senate, newly elected lisa blunt rochester (de) and angela alsobrooks (md)
kentucky rejected a constitutional amendment which would undermine public education by forcing public school dollars to go to non-public school
former democratic states attorney of florida monique worrell won her job back after ron desantis forced her out
palestine supporter bernie sanders won his fourth term in the senate representing vermont
despite fears, there have been no reports of any political violence or widescale voter intimidation and fraud
you will still wake up tomorrow
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Are you optimistic about this election?
Not only am I optimistic, I am fired up and excited as hell. I haven't felt the joy, the enthusiasm, or the optimism like this since 2008.
I almost -- almost, not quite because we're all still recovering from the Trump traumas -- want to believe that this feeling, shared by so many other people, represents a fever breaking in America, a rejection and repudiation of the people who did their best to lead us into a dystopian, fascist, nightmare.
We have a huge fight ahead of us. They aren't running a campaign as much as they are preparing for another coup, and we will have to turn out an incredible number of voters to account for all the places they have people in place to deny and contest when he loses.
Before the debate, I was concerned. After the debate, I was despondent.
But now, I am fired up and excited as hell. Kamala Harris is going to be an incredible president, and there's a good chance she pulls the House and Senate with her. If that happens, we get SCOTUS reform, Trump faces the music for his crimes without interference, (and maybe some of his co-conspirators go with him, Mark Meadows), and we push the demons Trump unleashed back into the darkness where they belong.
But it only happens when ALL OF US turn out to vote. It only happens when we get all of our friends and family to vote. It only happens when we volunteer, stay involved, and SHOW UP.
We can do this.
We have to do this.
We are not going back.
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Was it antifascist when the USSR only ever allowed less than 10% of the population to vote for the one candidate the dictatorship put forward for each role?
Why did you deactivate your last account? Were you upset that you looked so foolish? You don't look any less foolish creating multiple alternate accounts to send anon hate with. I don't even have anon asks turned off.
The Soviet Union had universal suffrage. Every voting-age adult was allowed to participate in the elections, besides felons and those who were incapable of voting due to mental disability. All ballots were secret (at least, after 1936. Oftentimes elections prior were done by show of hands, but this became problematic.)
If you are referring to the election of the Presidium or the appointment of the Premier by the elected representatives of the Supreme Soviet, I would consider that more democratic than the election of the President of the United States, since not only was the Presidium a council of multiple people in and of itself instead of one singular person at the head of the government, but the election of the Presidium was undertaken by representatives who were directly elected by the people, as opposed to the electors of the Electoral College in the United States who are appointed by party officials.
If you are referring to the election of the General Secretary of the Communist Party by Communist party members, then that position was not a governmental one. While the General Secretary did indeed have significant political influence due to their role as leader of the vanguard party, they were not a dictator and the position did not confer any state powers.
Not only were the Supreme Soviet and the Presidium composed of many different people who collectively decided upon state actions, many powers and duties were constitutionally delegated to regional councils and soviets. The federal government never held supreme power.
As for the idea that there was only "one candidate" for office during elections, the so-called "single-slate ticket" decried by the West, it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about how communist politics works. Competitive tickets were not impossible, although party discipline prevented them from occurring at any high level. Rather, the single-slate ticket arose because prior to the printing of any ballots, there was a period of discussion to determine who would be the candidate in the first place. So it was not a case of people being told by the party "here is your candidate, now you must vote for them". The people and the party worked together to find candidates who had public support in the first place. In addition, not only could voters simply vote "no" and reject a candidate (and any candidate who did not receive a majority of "yes" votes would be rejected,) but all elected officials were subject to recall at any time if they were found to be deficient in their responsibilities by the electorate. Candidates were not forced on the Soviet people by faceless party bureaucrats.
If you want to know more, I recommend checking out "Soviet Democracy" by Pat Sloan (I should note that that particular work forms most of my knowledge on Soviet democracy, so take all of that with a grain of salt for anything past 1937 when the book was written) and pretty much anything written by Anne Louise Strong, although I would recommend "In North Korea", in particular Chapter 3 which goes into detail on pre-war DPRK elections and includes a very enlightening passage on how the North Korean voters at the time viewed single-slate tickets. Suffice it to say, they did not at all feel disenfranchised.
I can understand why you would be misinformed as to how the Soviet government worked. But to decry the Soviet Union as undemocratic, let alone fascistic, is absurd.
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"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
#michigan#united states#us politics#labor#labor rights#labor unions#capitalism#unions#unionize#gretchen whitmer#democrats#voting matters#right to work#pro union#workers#workers rights#good news#hope
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