Issue committees pump $86M into Colorado election
Issue committees pump $86M into Colorado election
For some corporations and advocacy groups, Colorado's jam-packed ballot has meant opportunity.
And they don't just care about political candidates. In fact, issue committees — which stand...
For some corporations and advocacy groups, Colorado's jam-packed ballot has meant opportunity.
And they don't just care about political candidates. In fact, issue committees — which stand on the front line of fights over proposed amendments and propositions — have raised more than 10 times the amount of money of Colorado Democrats and Republicans seeking state or local office. These committees have drawn in more than $86 million, a staggering difference when compared to the approximately $7.3 million raised by state and local Democrats and Republicans.
These statewide issue fights — this year races concerning ColoradoCare, the minimum wage and a so-called "right to die" proposition have dominated much of the conversation — can give out-of-state groups a chance to get more bang for their buck and jump into statewide elections, which might affect their bottom line more than federal races, Colorado State University political science professor Bob Duffy said. States like Colorado are less expensive to campaign in than, say, California, which makes it appealing for groups looking to affect legislation without breaking the bank, he said.
ELECTION: Haven't voted yet? Here's what to know
"Typically those elections are cheaper and also low-information elections," he said, pointing out that sometimes people have less information about statewide ballot measures than more high-profile races. "So a little money can go a long way. A big fish can have a much bigger impact in a small pond than they can in a big pond."
In the fight over Amendment 72, for example, the parent company of tobacco giant Philip Morris has bankrolled No Blank Checks in the Constitution, a group fighting against the proposed hike in cigarette taxes. Philip Morris is one of the largest tobacco companies in the world, and is known for products including Marlboro cigarettes. It has so far spent more than $16 million on the campaign. That alone is more than Democrats and Republicans running for state and local offices have raised.
"Obviously cigarette sale declines puts a real crimp in their bottom line, and they have an opportunity (to fight it), and it's probably cheaper to do it here than in California, for example," Duffy said.
Oftentimes out-of-state groups will use statewide races as a test case to see how effectively they can influence it — and again, it makes most sense to do that in a less-expensive race than in a large state with lots of media markets — and sometimes it's meant as a warning shot to groups who might be considering similar legislation in other states, Duffy said.
Opponents of the "right to die" proposition have gotten much of their funding from Catholic groups. The Archdiocese of Denver, for example, has contributed more than $100,000 to the campaign fighting Proposition 106, which would allow physicians to prescribe lethal doses of medication to terminally ill patients who met certain criteria so they could end their own lives.
Colorado Families for a Fair Minimum Wage, a group advocating for Amendment 70, which would raise the state's minimum wage to $12 an hour by 2020, has raised almost $5 million, including more than $1 million from the Center for Popular Democracy Action, a New York-based advocacy group which focuses on several social justice issues. Keep Colorado Working, a group opposing the hike, has raised about $1.7 million, and has also received out-of-state support, including $50,000 from Florida-based Darden, the company that owns Olive Garden and LongHorn Steakhouse, among other brands.
"Especially after 2010, some federal election rulings unleashed some money," Duffy said, referencing a few court decisions on campaign finance, included Citizens United. "The floodgate really opened up."
By Alicia Stice
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The Tragedy of Janet Yellen
In December 2012, a new Federal Reserve governor and unseasoned monetary policymaker, Jerome Powell, told his colleagues that the risks of continued stimulus likely outweighed the benefits. Vice...
In December 2012, a new Federal Reserve governor and unseasoned monetary policymaker, Jerome Powell, told his colleagues that the risks of continued stimulus likely outweighed the benefits. Vice Chair Janet Yellen, even then one of the most experienced policymakers in the Fed’s 104-year history, acknowledged the concerns but pushed back forcefully. She argued that “slow progress in moving the economy back toward full employment will not only impose immense costs on American families and the economy at large, but may also do permanent damage to the labor market.” In other words, if we don’t take risks now to get more Americans employed, the country might lose the opportunity to ever fully recover from the Great Recession. She reminded her colleagues of the promise they had made: “We communicated that we will at least keep refilling the punch bowl until the guests have all arrived, and will not remove it prematurely before the party is well under way.”
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One Word Could Be Worth a Million Jobs
One Word Could Be Worth a Million Jobs
Supporting a strong job market is a big part of the U.S. Federal Reserve's mandate. Fed officials, though, interpret that goal differently than most observers do. For the economy's sake, Congress...
Supporting a strong job market is a big part of the U.S. Federal Reserve's mandate. Fed officials, though, interpret that goal differently than most observers do. For the economy's sake, Congress should step in to resolve the discrepancy.
Specifically, the Federal Reserve Act instructs the central bank to promote "maximum employment" and "stable prices." Most people understand these instructions as meaning the Fed should seek to generate as much demand for workers as possible without causing an unduly large increase in prices.
The website of the Fed's Board of Governors, however, makes a slight modification to the jobs mandate: "maximum sustainable employment." Innocuous as it may seem, that one word can make a big difference.
How? Well, suppose inflation is running below the Fed's 2 percent target and the unemployment rate is at 5 percent, which officials consider to be its long-run level (pretty much the current situation). They can choose between two monetary policies, which are expected to result in the following paths for the unemployment rate:
Most observers would opt for the second policy. It's more aggressive, so it will get inflation back to target sooner. Even better, the unemployment rate is the same or lower every year, and by a significant amount: One percentage point is worth more than a million jobs.
The word "sustainable," however, means that the Fed views any deviation from the long-run unemployment rate -- up or down -- as undesirable. When officials speak of the economy “overheating” or “running hot” in the absence of inflationary pressures, this is what I think they have in mind. So they would see unemployment as running too low under policy 2.
Some Fed officials worry that “overheating” could trigger a recession. (I don’t understand the precise economic mechanism, but let’s leave that aside.) They think policy 2 might generate the following path for the unemployment rate:
Policy 2: Possible Recession Outcome
In 2019 and 2020, the economy falls into recession. From the Fed’s perspective, this unemployment path is terrible, because the rate is either too low or too high for the next four years.
It's easy to imagine, though, that many people would be willing to trade the risk of recessionary pain in 2019 and 2020 for the near-term gain of 2017 and 2018. They might even believe there's some chance that policy 2 will generate an outstanding outcome -- if, for example, the long-run unemployment rate is actually lower than the Fed thinks it is. Here's how that would look:
This interpretational divide was on full display last month, when Fed officials met with representatives of the pro-employment activist group Fed Up. The activists largely assumed that the central bank was contemplating near-term interest-rate increases to keep inflation in check. But most of the officials downplayed inflation, invoking instead the need to keep the economy from running too hot (which some said could lead to a recession).
I find it hard to believe that the Fed's approach is consistent with Congress's intent as expressed in the Federal Reserve Act. That said, it's really up to legislators to provide an unequivocal answer, which could matter a lot for the economy over the next few years.
By Narayana Kocherlakota
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Voting rights: the fight for our democracy
Voting rights: the fight for our democracy
There is a battle under way for our democracy. The choice that lies in front of us: Will we be a country that guarantees every eligible citizen the right to vote and participate? Or will we allow...
There is a battle under way for our democracy. The choice that lies in front of us: Will we be a country that guarantees every eligible citizen the right to vote and participate? Or will we allow states and politicians to twist voting rules and ignore constitutional rights in order to limit access to democracy?
That is the choice in front of us, and it is not an abstract choice.
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Overnight Finance: Trump keeps up attack on Amazon
Overnight Finance: Trump keeps up attack on Amazon
"We hope that John Williams's tenure as president will not be characterized by the same disregard for the public as his appointment was." -- Fed Up, a coalition of progressive non-profits focused...
"We hope that John Williams's tenure as president will not be characterized by the same disregard for the public as his appointment was." -- Fed Up, a coalition of progressive non-profits focused on reshaping the central bank.
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New York Now Largest City With Paid Sick Days
ThinkProgress - June 27, 2013, by Bryce Covert - In an early morning session on Thursday, the New York City Council voted to override a veto from Mayor Michael Bloomberg on paid sick days...
ThinkProgress - June 27, 2013, by Bryce Covert - In an early morning session on Thursday, the New York City Council voted to override a veto from Mayor Michael Bloomberg on paid sick days legislation. The bill, which now becomes law, requires any company with more than 15 employees to provide five days of paid leave a year and any company with fewer employees to offer five days of unpaid leave. This means that more than 1 million New York City workers will now have access to paid sick leave who didn’t have it before.
New York City joins four other cities — Seattle, Washington; San Francisco, California; Washington, DC; and Portland, Oregon — and the state of Connecticut in the group of places that have mandated paid sick days. However, New York’s legislation is not as strong as that in the other cities, which require companies with five or more employees to offer paid leave.
The city’s law will be implemented over a slow timeline, not taking effect until 2014 and only applying to companies with more than 20 employees for the first year and a half.
Despite initial concerns from City Council Speaker Christine Quinn and the objections raised by Mayor Bloomberg that the bill will put too large a cost burden on businesses, studies of laws in other places show either a neutral or positive effect. A recent audit of Washington, DC’s law found no negative impact on businesses, while a study of San Francisco found little negative impact and strong support among businesses and another of Connecticut found a small cost with big potential upsides. In fact, San Francisco’s law was found to have spurred job growth.
Even with these laws in place around the country, most workers don’t have access to paid leave. Forty percent of private workers and 80 percent of low-income workers can’t take a paid day off if they or their family members get sick.
Meanwhile, a rash of preemption bills, which bar cities and localities from enacting paid sick days legislation, have also been implemented across the country, the latest of which was signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott (R). They have also cropped up in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Mississippi. These bills have been sponsored by big businesses and local chambers of commerce and are part of a national effort backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a right-wing group that coordinates conservative laws across states.
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‘Our Town’ benefit raises $500,000 for Puerto Rico
‘Our Town’ benefit raises $500,000 for Puerto Rico
A SUPERHERO EFFORT on Monday night at the Fox Theatre raised more than $500,000 for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.
The event: a starry staged reading of Thornton Wilder’s great American...
A SUPERHERO EFFORT on Monday night at the Fox Theatre raised more than $500,000 for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.
The event: a starry staged reading of Thornton Wilder’s great American play Our Town, organized by actor Scarlett Johansson and directed by True Colors Theatre’s Kenny Leon.
Read the full article here.
Allentown School Director, Others Rally for Education Funding Boost at Sen. Pat Browne's Office
The Express-Times - March 11. 2015, by Precious Petty - Pennsylvanians on Wednesday rallied in cites across the commonwealth and urged state legislators to put people first.
A...
The Express-Times - March 11. 2015, by Precious Petty - Pennsylvanians on Wednesday rallied in cites across the commonwealth and urged state legislators to put people first.
A dozen Lehigh Valley residents gathered outside Sen. Pat Browne's West Hamilton Street office in Allentown. They chanted "Listen up, Pat Browne" and displayed signs printed with the message "We rise," sometimes drawing shouts or honks of support from passersby.
Keystone Progress organizer Nicole Matos led demonstrators as they called for an education funding boost, a higher minimum wage, equal pay for women and increased Medicaid spending. Similar rallies occurred all morning and afternoon in Jim Thorpe, Pittsburgh, York and five other Pennsylvania cities, she said.
Matos, of Stroudsburg, said too many of the state's elected officials are making decisions that advance corporate interests while exacerbating inequality, hurting low-income and minority families, damaging the environment and weakening the nation's democracy.
National Day of Action rally on March 11, 2015 A National Day of Action rally was held March 11, 2015, outside Sen. Pat Browne’s office in Allentown.
Allentown School Board member CeCe Gerlach said more than 1,300 students have dropped out of city schools over the last three years and inadequate education funding is contributing to the problem.
"They've dropped out, partly, because our class sizes have increased. They've dropped out because we don't have enough textbooks all the time. They've dropped out because the teachers aren't able to pay each student the amount of individual attention that they require," said Gerlach, who was among the demonstrators.
"They've dropped out because many of them need jobs because their families, who are working at minimum wage, can't afford to pay their rent."
She said Browne has gone to bat for Allentown schools before and she's hopeful he'll step to the plate again this budget season.
"He's come through for the Allentown School District in the past," Gerlach said. "I'm hopeful he'll come through for the Allentown School District now."
Keystone Progress in a news release said the organization staged rallies outside the offices of legislators whose recent actions undercut public education. Browne, along with other Republican Senate leaders, sent school superintendents a letter advising them not to count on getting the education funding that's part of Gov. Tom Wolf's budget proposal.
A staffer at Browne's office declined comment about the rally, which was timed to fall on the National Day of Action.
Keystone Progress joined with National People's Action, Center for Popular Democracy and USAction to mark the day and send the message that it's time for legislators to put people and the planet first, the release says. People in 23 states participated in rallies and other events.
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What Can Jews Do About Police Violence After Shootings — and Dallas?
What Can Jews Do About Police Violence After Shootings — and Dallas?
Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!”
The ground this week is not East of Eden, where Cain slew Abel; it is St. Paul, Minnesota, where Philando Castile was gunned down...
Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!”
The ground this week is not East of Eden, where Cain slew Abel; it is St. Paul, Minnesota, where Philando Castile was gunned down while reaching for his ID. It is Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Alton Sterling was shot at point-blank range, already immobilized and pinned down by police.
And while you, reader, are not Cain — after all, you did not pull the trigger — neither can any of us object, as he did, “Am I my brother’s keeper?!” We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers, as Americans, as mostly-white and mostly-privileged Jews, as participants in a society where so many tragedies become travesties of racial injustice.
But what can we do? What can I do?
First, we must, communally, recognize that this is a real crisis and make it a subject of dinner conversations, rabbinic sermons and communal action. Because in fact, the problem isn’t just the cops; it’s us.
Thanks to the proliferation of recording technologies, the crisis of police violence is now more visible than ever before; Castile was killed live on Facebook. Indeed, as best as we can tell, the rates of violence haven’t risen much; we’re just seeing the evidence of it more.
Yet even in the face of gruesome videos, there is still a great deal of denial among white Americans that the deaths of Eric Garner, Laquan McDonald, Mike Brown, Sandra Bland, Rekia Boyd and now Castile and Sterling, are, in fact, a crisis of police violence against people of color. After all, none of the officers were found guilty in a court of law; they had reasons to believe they were in danger; these things happen.
But these things don’t just happen. Yes, most police officers are diligently doing their jobs and keeping us all safe. Painting with a broad brush is not only inaccurate, but leads to tragedies such as the shooting deaths of three police officers at a Dallas protest this week. At the same time, the statistics paint a convincing, terrible picture.
Over 1,000 people are killed by police every year, nearly 60% of whom were either unarmed or should never have been stopped in the first place. Compare that number to other countries. Germany had 6, Britain, 2; Japan, 0. What the hell is wrong with us, as a country?
One problem is how we police. “Quality of life” policing is a gigantic dragnet, ostensibly based on the “broken windows” theory that even petty crime leads to a deterioration of law and order in general. In practice, however, it creates confrontations where none need to exist. And then “these things happen.”
I’ll give you an example that isn’t in the news, and isn’t based on race. Just last week, an acquaintance of mine was relaxing on a beach when his towel slipped off. He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. This was a minor infraction of the law — but my friend was suddenly jumped by five police officers (two in civilian clothes), pinned to the ground and dragged, naked, off the beach while he pleaded for help.
That entire confrontation should never have taken place. At most, he should have been given a citation; really, he should have just been warned. But, presumably because that particular beach is popular with LGBTQ people and with people of color, someone, somewhere, decided that a crackdown was necessary. Thank God my friend didn’t resist arrest; he, too, could have been a statistic.
Now multiply that encounter by ten thousand, maybe a hundred thousand. Even without “stop and frisk,” our nation’s approach to policing creates dangerous situations. Violence becomes inevitable.
“Broken windows” must end. “For-profit policing,” in which cops are given quotas for minor offenses in order to generate revenue and evaluate police performance, must end. Profiling must end. Escalation of minor incidents must end. The philosophy must change.
Another problem is how police are trained and reviewed. In many places, cops are not adequately trained to balance protecting safety (their own and others’) with defusing conflict. They respond, routinely, with overwhelming and often deadly force to situations that could be resolved without it. They are often scared kids, put into stressful situations with inadequate mental resources.
The rules of engagement must be changed at the training level and the legal level. States and cities should adopt international standards for the use of deadly force — both as cops are trained and as their actions are reviewed. Standards of review should be changed.
And of course, cameras should be placed on every cop in America — with strict rules that civilians’ faces be obscured before any recording is released to the public. This should help the vast majority of cops, since recordings help explain and defend appropriate conduct as much as they reveal misconduct. And in addition to holding bad cops accountable, body cameras could help prevent misconduct from happening in the first place.
Yet of the 509 fatal shootings by police that have taken place this year, body cameras were worn in only 64 of them. Who knows how many of the remaining 445 lives might have been saved, or what we would have known about the circumstances of their deaths?
Another problem is weaponization. The last two decades have witnessed a massive militarization of civilian police forces. Town sheriffs are buying tanks, military-grade weaponry — it’s outrageous and dangerous and unwarranted. Arm cops to the teeth, and they will use the tools they’re given.
And then, of course, there’s race.
Of those 509 people fatally shot by police so far this year, 202 were black or Hispanic. Young black men were killed at five times the rate of similarly-aged white men. Even taking into account higher crime rates in communities of color, this has been shown by exhaustive, detailed studies to be disproportionate. According to once such study, correcting for all these and other factors, the probability of being black, unarmed and shot by police is 3.49 times the probability of being white, unarmed and shot by police.
That’s why we need #blacklivesmatter and not #alllivesmatter: because when it comes to police violence, black lives clearly matter less.
Part of this is demographics: White men are less than one third of the U.S. population, but they are two thirds of police officers. Most of them are not overtly racist. But unconscious bias affects all of us, no matter how well-meaning we are. That’s what white privilege is: precisely that which is often invisible.
And when it comes to cops, we’re talking about life and death. This, too, must change, through recruiting, training and changes in the way our entire society talks about race.
Finally, while I doubt those Forward readers intending to vote for a candidate espousing white supremacy will ever be persuaded by evidence, it’s worth bearing in mind the yawning gap between the presidential candidates, and political parties, on this issue. Hillary Clinton has proposed creating national use-of-force guidelines, ending all forms of racial profiling, and improving training in conflict de-escalation.
Donald Trump has proposed nothing, but has said “We have to give strength and power back to the police.”
And in this regard, most other Republicans are right on board with him, usually refusing to acknowledge that a crisis is taking place or that is has anything to do with race. This, of course, reflects the racialized preferences of their white, conservative base. (The racism Trump’s candidacy has ignited didn’t come from nowhere.) It is also reprehensible.
As on so many other issues — climate change, gun regulation, the wealth gap — the Republican Party is on the wrong side of justice. If Trump is elected, more innocent black people will die. It is that simple. And those #StillBernie lefties still spreading calumnies about Clinton in the name of this or that pet issue should reflect on that.
Now, I didn’t come up with a single solution in this column. They and others are listed, and described in detail, on the websites of Campaign Zero, the Center for Popular Democracy and the Presidential Task Force on 21st Century Policing: ending “broken windows,” limiting use of force, demilitarization, body cameras, oversight, et cetera.
And yet, each time something like this happens, we white people ask ourselves “What can be done?” often throwing up our hands in despair. When in fact, a lot can be done. The problem is that around half the population doesn’t want to do it.
So, ironically, we need to make this crisis worse. Police violence against people of color requires local involvement, pushing for city- and county-level reforms. That gives Jewish communities, and other organized groups, unique leverage to make change — if we care enough to do so. Unfortunately, too many of our fellow privileged Jews aren’t “woke” to the crisis or the ways to address it. While God may hear the cries of our brothers’ blood, we are often deaf to them.
By JAY MICHEALSON
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Arizona protesters arrested at Flake’s D.C. office in health care rally
Arizona protesters arrested at Flake’s D.C. office in health care rally
WASHINGTON — As calls of “Trumpcare kills” and “health care is a human right” echoed through the halls of Capitol office buildings Monday, Lauren Klinkhamer stood quietly in Arizona Sen. Jeff...
WASHINGTON — As calls of “Trumpcare kills” and “health care is a human right” echoed through the halls of Capitol office buildings Monday, Lauren Klinkhamer stood quietly in Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake’s office and told staffers, “I don’t want to die.”
The Tucson resident fears she would be among the 22 million Americans, and as many as 400,000 Arizonans, who would lose health care under a bill the Senate is considering to replace the Affordable Care Act. For Klinkhamer, who said she suffers from 16 chronic conditions, losing her coverage would be a death sentence.
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