In state after state the inmates are running the asylum

[cali]

It's not only in the South, but in large swaths of the Mid West and west. States like Wyoming and the Dakotas, Oklahoma and Utah and states like Michigan.

These wingnut legislators and Governors have been put into place and wound up by ALEC and other right wing groups. There are now 59 "mini Heritage Foundations" throughout the country:

The State Policy Network (SPN) has franchised, funded, and fostered a growing number of “mini Heritage Foundations” at the state level since the early 1990s.[1] It describes itself as a network and service organization for the "state-based free market think tank movement," and its stated mission is "to provide strategic assistance to independent research organizations devoted to discovering and developing market-oriented solutions to state and local public policy issues."[2] It was founded in November 1991[3] and incorporated in March of 1992.[4]

The founding chairman of the board and a major funder was Thomas A. Roe (1927-2000),[5] and the founding executive director was Byron S. Lamm.[3] In the mid-1980s, Roe allegedly told fellow wealthy conservative donor and Heritage Foundation trustee Robert Krieble, "You capture the Soviet Union -- I'm going to capture the states."[6]

<snip>


http://www.prwatch.org/node/11909

About the only hope we have regarding this situation is that they're so nutty, it's self-limiting, but the damage they're doing right now is huge and it's potent evidence that we are not winning the culture wars on many fronts.

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-right-wing-religious-nuts-l20130408,0,2372795.story
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/State_Policy_Network


State-level crazy is becoming the new norm in legislatures

ST. LOUIS • Relax. Missouri's isn't the only state legislature in the country that's crazy.

In fact, it's possible they all are.

This headline pretty much sums it up: “America's 50 Worst State Legislatures.” Missouri makes the top tier, for all kinds of reasons that are old news here. Among the other “winners”:

• North Carolina's legislature attempted to deal with economically troublesome predictions of rising sea levels with a bill that would have required inaccurate predictions.

<snip>

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/kevin-mcdermott/state-level-crazy-is-becoming-the-new-norm-in-legislatures/article_1e74db67-a6f4-5342-ab8e-cd29a6d844a0.html

So what can we do?

HOW PROGRESSIVES CAN FIGHT BACK The key for progressives is to fight back, coordinate our own battles and think as strategically as ALEC and its allies do to win back power at the state level.

First, we need to develop a deep national network of progressive legislators supported by grassroots organizations. Progressives need to use every tool of grassroots mobilization to deploy both strong policies and innovative strategies to beat the conservatives at their own game.
Second, we need to promote a set of unabashedly popular and fundamentally sound issues that define the progressive state agenda in the minds of voters, such issues include:
a higher minimum wage;
extending health care to their states' citizens;
progressive family issues like paid family leave and making pre-kindergarten available to all children;
protecting workplace free speech and employee privacy;
promoting a clean energy policy that builds jobs in each state;
And, finally, progressives need to develop a larger set of policies that beat back the rightwing attack and strategically turn the tables on conservatives. Examples include:

<snip>

http://www.progressivestates.org/content/57/governing-the-nation-from-the-statehouses

And we work on getting out the vote in the midterms when too few people turn out to vote.

[Nay]

1. In VA in 2012, the problem was not that voters didn't come out--it was that the national

Democratic Party ignored local efforts to oust local Republicans. I can only speak for my own district, but here goes:

Wayne Powell challenged Eric Cantor -- yes, THAT Eric Cantor -- in our district. Powell, a Democrat, walked the neighborhoods and even came to my door. I became interested, donated money, and followed the race. (No, I did not volunteer, because at the time I was subject to the Hatch Act). Powell is not a nutcase of any kind; just a straightforward Democrat who is sick of Cantor.

Our district is solidly, and I mean solidly, Republican. Cantor has been in office since 2000.

In the end, Powell was judged as the winner of the one televised debate he had with Cantor. (Cantor refused 2 more debates requested by Powell.)

Official records show that Cantor spent over $2 million on his election campaign and Powell spent $145,000 of his own money and whatever individual donations came in.

Cantor won the election, 58% to 41%. The voter numbers were 222,983 vs. 158,012. Polling throughout the campaign showed that Powell was biting a big chunk off of Cantor.

Now, am I the only one to wonder WHY THE HELL THE NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC APPARATUS COULDN'T THROW A MILLION DOLLARS TO SOMEONE WHO HAD SERIOUS POTENTIAL TO KICK CANTOR'S ASS????? Powell got 41% of the vote, just by spending one-twentieth of the money Cantor spent, in a PUB DISTRICT. 41%. That's a lot! Even if the Dem Party donated money and Cantor still won, wouldn't that have sent a message to Democratic voters, and everyone, that the national Democratic Party was serious about winning local elections and supporting local Democrats who challenge Republicans in local elections?

What the hell happened here? I cannot understand it. This is why Democrats all over the country are saying

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

[trof]

2. Alabama is the Democratic Party's Red-Headed Stepchild...

Its Borrowed Mule.
And whatever other analogy you want to make shut out, left out, put out, etc...etc...etc.
Not a single Democrat in state wide elected office.

And our repug U.S. congressman ran unopposed in the general election...once again.

[Nay]

3. This is another serious problem--no local Pub candidate should EVER run unopposed. A form

of Howard Dean's 50-state strategy should be instituted to make sure that ALL races are contested, down to dogcatcher. There is certainly money available for this, it just isn't being distributed where it is needed.

[trof]

10. So true. We give up before the battle begins.

[Nay]

11. Well, I don't know if the national Dem orgs have 'given up' or whether they like things

just as they are -- that's the problem. If, as I suspect, they are perfectly happy being Repub water carriers as long as the money keeps flowing in to their orgs, then we are well and truly fucked as citizens. After that realization, I have to say that I don't have a clue about what to do. If Dr. Dean says he's going independent(which I doubt, he was just yakking) and he started up another national progressive org., that would be ideal. I'd have someplace to donate money that actually might be a way to fight the state fights the way they need to be fought. Outside of that possibility, I don't see anything on the horizon.

[Egalitarian Thug]

4. It's the same all over the nation. The state level parties are either ignored and starved,

or are directed by DNC, DCCC, and/or DSCC to back DINOs as the only "electable" candidates.

Big Business owns both parties and they are not going to allow anyone that doesn't dance to their tune into the Ball.

[Nay]

5. That's the point I was making with my own local story. There's a lot of yelling at DU about

local action, holding Obama's feet to the fire by local action, building the Dem Party up by local action, etc., but local action IS NOT SUPPORTED, financially or otherwise, by any national Democratic organizations.

What are locals supposed to do? Form their own national groups to counter both the Pubs and the seemingly comatose Dems?

Wayne Powell's campaign was a PERFECT example of 'local action' that was pointedly ignored by all national Dem funding entities. First, we have to find out what the hell that was all about. Personally, I think that most national political orgs of both parties are also bought-out entities, because that's how they act. I don't look at what they say, I look at what they do. If they weren't interested in helping a Dem like Powell (41% of the vote!) against an asshole like Cantor, who the hell are they going to help? My answer: no one. They exist to help themselves, just like every other damned organization that gets too top-heavy to do anything but gorge itself on bullshit.

Sure, we can keep sending our 50 bucks to folks like Powell, knowing that the national orgs will ignore them, and find ourselves going around and around, running pathetic campaigns that eat up what few resources we have, and going nowhere. Only to hear from the Dem big shots that we need to "hold feet to the fire"!!!! Sure.

[HiPointDem]

6. +1 You should make this an OP. It's a big problem. So much of the action now is happening at

the state level.

[Egalitarian Thug]

7. Yep. Got that. Just reinforcing your point and giving this OP another kick.

There's a reason that the Corporate Dems got rid of Dr. Dean as fast as they could. There's no profit nor excuses when the party controls all the houses as the voters expect them to do something with it. Killing health care right after funding the banksters was damned tricky and took a lot of fancy footwork. They don't want to have to go through that again.

[spanone]

8. in tn. we have a republican 'supermajority' they are shoving shit down our throats...

[HereSince1628]

9. Stop the mental illness crap--there aren't enough BEDS in the asylum to cover this many "inmates"

Seriously, with all the cutbacks of state funding to medicaid...the most common funding source for mental health 'inmates', you're going to have to look at the Greyhound Bus Depot and in the van down by the river to find the culprits

[G_j]

12. this is unbelievably serious!!

destroying the country state by state..

just here in NC,



http://www.wral.com/bill-filed-to-allow-lobbyists-gifts-again/12323945/

Bill filed to allow lobbyists' gifts again
By Laura Leslie

A veteran Republican state House lawmaker has filed a proposal to allow lobbyists to once again give unreported gifts to state lawmakers in North Carolina.

House Bill 640, filed by Iredell Republican Robert Brawley, would roll back many of the ethics reforms passed by state lawmakers in the wake of the Speaker Jim Black scandal of 2006.

The measure would repeal bans on gifts from lobbyists to lawmakers, and relax requirements that lobbyists disclose such gifts.

Brawley returned to the state legislature in 2013 after having served from 1981 till his retirement in 1998 — well before the current gift bans were enacted. He's currently a member of House leadership, serving as chairman of the Finance committee, an influential post that would almost certainly attract lobbyists' interest.

.. more...

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http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2013/04/02/the-wrecking-ball-keeps-pounding/


Here’s a challenge for you. Try to explain what is happening in North Carolina these days to someone who doesn’t follow politics or government and limit yourself to a minute or even two.

You can’t do it. The damage being inflicted on the state by this radical and reactionary General Assembly is too vast and is happening too quickly to even catalogue, much less explain.

Lawmakers, who have only been in session a little over two months, have already refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, denying health care to 500,000 low-income adults even though the federal government would pick up the full cost of the expansion for three years and 90 percent of the cost after that.

<snip>.

All bets are off on public education too. There are bills to divert public school money to home schoolers and turn teachers into glorified temps in the classroom. Senate leaders are trying to remove what’s left of accountability for charter schools by setting up a parallel and likely unconstitutional governance system to oversee them. A sweeping voucher scheme is coming soon.

Exhausted yet? There’s more. Predatory payday lending has surfaced again backed by faux research by the think tanks on Right Wing Avenue. And the consumer finance industry is back pushing for more exorbitant interest rates to charge people when they most vulnerable.

The state’s urban areas are on the tea party target list too. Legislative leaders are changing local election systems, redrawing local school board districts, reneging on signed contracts, and taking over water supplies and airports from cities.

Virtually every day, there’s another bill in committee that shoves North Carolina backwards and replaces the outrage of the day before in the headlines, from forcing married couples to wait two years for a divorce to repealing the Racial Justice Act to allowing loaded handguns in bars and restaurants.

That’s nowhere near a complete list and doesn’t take into account the offensive choices being made by Governor McCrory, who House and Senate leaders continue to treat as their junior partner in their tea party crusade.

..more...