Dozing Giant: Mexico’s U.S. citizens

Former U.S. House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously said “All politics are local.”

In Mexico, many socially conscious U.S.-born residents translate political conviction into social activism by volunteering at – or donating to – non-profits that advocate for positive change, including many focused on meeting critical needs of marginalized communities. (These organizations are often featured on COBALT’s Facebook/Instagram pages.)

But there is no substitute for a ballot.

And far too many Mexican residents who are eligible to vote sit out U.S. elections because “they have nothing to do with my life in Mexico”.

But that’s a viewpoint which turns a blind eye to the significant local impact that American politics have on daily life south on the Mexican side of the border.

U.S. government policy has significant implications for daily life south of the border on issues ranging from banning assault weapons to human rights to environmental sustainability to income inequality. (An estimated 5,000,000 firearms have been trafficked to Mexico since the expiration of the Assault Weapons Ban. Over 200,000 Mexico residents receive U.S. Social Security benefits).

It also has implications for U.S. policy on trade Mexico trade, energy, and immigration.

But can votes cast FROM Mexico…

…really make a difference FOR Mexico?

There are no fewer than 800,000 – and likely well above 1,000,000 – Mexico residents eligible to vote in U.S elections.

The Federal Voter Assistance Program estimates that only 10% of eligible U.S. voters living abroad vote

Democracy’s greatest enemy is apathy.

In 2022, Democrats lost 9 House races by less than 10,000 votes… 5 by less than 3,000 votes… and one (CA17) by only 564 votes.

If you were born in the U.S….

…were born to a U.S. citizen…

or were naturalized in the U.S….

it is your right to vote from Mexico:

1. Register online (start here)…

2. Receive your ballot via email…

3. Print, complete, and return mail your ballot.

Do it not just for the future of the U.S.… but also for Mexico’s future.

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Latino art as activism

Juan Felipe Herrera was America’s first Latino Poet Laureate (2015-17), and is the author of 21 books including 14 collections of poetry, prose, short stories, young adult novels and childrens’ picture books. He earned a B.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of California, an M.A. in social anthropology from Stanford, and an M.F.A. in creative writing from the University of Iowa.

It’s a record of accomplishment that belies the humblest of beginnings.

Born in 1948 to Mexican immigrant farm workers, Herrera and his family lived from crop to crop in tents and trailers in the San Joaquín and Salinas Valleys.  Upon his graduation from high school, Herrera received an Educational Opportunity Program scholarship that allowed him to attend college during the ‘70’s Chicano Movement.

In the years immediately following, he channeled his artistic endeavors into community activism:

He served as Director of San Diego’s Centro Cultural de la Raza (much later, he would also serve as director of Riverside, California’s Art and Barbara Culver Center for the Arts).’

He also taught poetry, art and performance in settings ranging from community art galleries to the Soledad Correctional Facility.

He is the celebrated author of books for children and young people, for which his recognition includes:

  • New York Public Library Outstanding Book for High School Students Award
  • Smithsonian Children’s Book of the Year Award
  • Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice
  • IRA Teacher’s Choice

In 2012, Herrera created an anti-bullying poetry project in for schoolchildren in response to the killing of a bullied elementary school girl in an afterschool fight.

Herrera’s experiences as the child of migrant farmers have strongly shaped his work, as has time spent in San Diego’s Logan Heights, and San Francisco’s Mission District.

His 2007 volume 187 Reasons Mexicanos Can’t Cross the Border: Undocumented 1971-2007 examines questions of identity” on the U.S.-Mexico border.

New York Times critic Stephen Burt praised Herrera as one of the first poets to successfully create:

“a new hybrid art, part oral, part written, part English, part something else:

An art grounded in ethnic identity, fueled by collective pride, yet irreducibly individual.”

Awards.  He is the recipient of so many literary and humanitarian awards that this is only a partial list: 

  • National Endowment for the Arts Writers’ Fellowship Awards (twice awarded)
  • 1990 Distinguished teaching fellow, University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
  • 1997 Ezra Jack Keats Book Award.
  • 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award
  • 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry
  • 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship
  • 2011 Chancellor, Academy of American Poets.
  • 2012 California Poet Laureate
  • 2021 Los Angeles Review of Books/UC Riverside Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Latino Hall of Fame Poetry Awards (twice awarded)
  • Stanford Chicano Fellows Fellowship
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Pro-birthers vs. Pro-Lifers

Since the reversal of Roe vs. Wade it’s become difficult to keep track of how the ruling is playing out without a scorecard… particularly since the game has gone into extra innings.

Yet even in Red vs. Blue America, the battle lines are not cleanly drawn, and states cannot be simply grouped into ‘pro’ or ‘con’.

Sanctuary.  There are 15 states (with the exception of New Mexico) in which the right to an abortion is expressly protected by state constitution or legislation. In all of these states providers are held harmless, and there is no restriction on the use of state funds:

  • New Mexico, Alaska, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, , Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) has opened a state-funded abortion clinic near the Texas border.

The Republican gubernatorial nominee has proposed a statewide referendum that could place new limitations on access to abortion procedures.

Hospitable.  In an additional 9 states and the District of Columbia, abortion is legal for at least the first 22 weeks of pregnancy, but the use of tax funds is prohibited.  In Rhode Island and Colorado, governors issued executive orders protecting providers:

  • Nebraska, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Hampshire, Washington, D.C., Delaware, Nevada, Rhode Island, Colorado, Kansas.

In Limbo.  Final outcomes remain uncertain for 9 states in which judges have temporarily blocked bans – both pre-Roe and post-Roe, but abortion remains available up to 22 weeks:

  • Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Utah, Wyoming

Hostile.  Even among states most hostile to abortion rights, Oklahoma’s new law is an outlier that bans abortion from point of fertilization.

Oklahoma is also one of 9 states that make no exceptions for rape or incest.  (Mississippi exempts victims of rape, but not of incest.)

  • Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi Missouri, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin

In an additional 6 states, abortion rights are subject to restriction including shortened time limits for the procedure and prosecution of providers:

  • Indiana, West Virginia, Idaho, , Florida, Georgia, North Carolina

Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher derided arguments that Indiana’s new abortion ban violates the state constitution, saying Monday that:

“Opponents of the [abortion] ban are trying to invent a state right to privacy.

But not all of the obstruction has been legal.

A man who broke windows and security cameras at a Planned Parenthood clinic in southwestern Oregon because he opposed abortion has pleaded guilty to two counts of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.

The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act of 1994 prohibits intentionally injuring, intimidating, or interfering with, or attempting to injure, intimidate, or interfere, any person by force, threat of force, or physical obstruction or to intimidate such person or any other person or any class of persons from, obtaining or providing reproductive health services… or intentionally damaging or destroying the property of a facility because such facility provides reproductive health services.

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Feathered nests

The federal government’s executive branch publicly releases details about the fines it collects from employees who file financial documents late, but when it comes to reporting the personal financial interests of Congressional members and staffers, an entirely different standard applies.

The 2012 STOCK Act requires lawmakers and staff earning at least $132,552 a year in 2021 to report stock trades of more than $1,000 within 30 days of the transaction.  They are only required to disclose the values of their trades in broad ranges.

Those who miss filing deadlines are supposed to pay a late fee of $200 the first time, with increasingly higher fines if they continue to be late.  Penalty payment rests on an ‘honor system’, and violators can apply for a waiver that excuses them from the penalty.

  • Tom Rust, chief counsel for the House Ethics Committee, an independent investigative agency, declined to comment on who had or hadn’t paid fines.
  • Congress’ Legislative Resource Center declined to comment on whether the office received late fees… or even if it kept records of such payments.

In the absence of public documents, it is left largely to investigative reporting to ferret out violators.   Insider found that:

  • 57 members of Congress and at least 182 of the highest-paid Capitol Hill staffers were late in filing during 2020 and 2021.  Of these, 19 declined to answer whether they’d paid a penalty. Ten who said they’d paid their fines declined to provide proof receipts or cancelled checks.
  • The US Treasury Department found “”no matches”” when asked under the Freedom of Information Act for evidence of fine payments by 22 members of Congress known to have recently violated the STOCK Act.  

NPR has documented at least 69 cases of failure to report among member of Congress (30 Democrats, 39 Republicans).  The number of trades per Member range from a handful to 700, and their value from $5,000 to $17.53 million.  Three in ten trades were conducted in the name of a spouse or dependent child.  Stocks traded included petroleum, aerospace, and pharmaceuticals (including Pfizer during COVID).

In the House, the Committee on Ethics decides whether to pursue the Office of Congressional Ethics’ findings.  It has the power to reprimand lawmakers, discipline staffers, or do nothing at all.  No similar investigative office exists on the Senate side.

Sen. Chris Coons, who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, declined to comment.

While there are no reports showing how often the Office of Congressional Ethics investigated financial-disclosure matters before the STOCK Act’s passage, attorney Kedric Payne – who worked in the office at the time – said nothing changed after lawmakers passed the law.

“There was just nobody paying attention to it.

No one was filing complaints.”

A former investigative counsel in the same office said, under condition of anonymity, “The enforcement of the financial-disclosure requirements is virtually nonexistent.”

Virginia Canter, the chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Congress’ laissez-faire approach to the STOCK Act “sends the message that they are held to a lesser standard than other government employees, and that they are above the law.”

The effect of the process is to leave the public in the dark, let Congress off the hook, and render the STOCK Act toothless.

Tyler Gellasch, a fellow at Duke University School of Law, is calling for Congress to pass a measure that would require lawmakers to use a third party, such as a blind trust, to participate in trading stocks, and to require same-day filing of file disclosure forms for each transaction, including the exact amount, day, and time.

“If you are a member of Congress, you have this duty to not take advantage of information you learned because of your job.”

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Watered-down water policy

Water levels in rivers, lakes, and reservoirs are falling worldwide in the face of soaring temperatures and shrinking snow melt, but nowhere has the reality of climate change played out in quite the same way as in the Colorado River Basin.

Fallen water levels in Lakes Mead and Powell now reveal watermarks that pre-date record-keeping.

So how did demand come to so outstrip supply?

The short answer is decades of real estate development and the growth of industrial-scale agriculture. The longer answer is that water management policy has been far more focused on which states and business interests should benefit from the river’s exploitation than on its sustainability. 

Allocation of rights to the Colorado’s water was first formalized by the 1922 Colorado River Compact, an agreement among seven southwestern U.S. states.

Its intent was to safeguard those in the Lower Basin from excessive withdrawals by those in the Upper Basin, and it capped withdrawals by Upper Basin states whenever the river’s flow rate fell below a specified threshold.

Both the allocation calculations and process were significantly flawed. 

  • The flow measurements upon which the Compact was based were distorted by unusually wet weather in the benchmark 10 years preceding. The distortion is so great that – even long before the current drought – the flow has dropped to less than one third of the benchmark on more than one occasion.
  • The 1922 Compact excluded Native American nations (some of which are now demanding an allocation).
  • Mexico’s allocation was only 9% of the total, but it has also has born another consequence of U.S. water withdrawals and diversions. Resulting silt deposits have choked out what was once a lush, green ecosystem in Mexico’s Colorado River Delta.

The water allocations also failed to anticipate the rise in both residential and agricultural demand within the service area. Populations in the region’s major cities have mushroomed by more than 16-fold since 1922.

As consumption spiraled upward and climate change predictions gained increasing credence, policy began to focus on how to adjust allocations in the event of a shortfall.

  • In 2012, the U.S. and Mexico updated an agreement that established how Mexico’s share of water would be affected by drought conditions.  It is pegged to the surface elevation of Lake Mead.
  • In 2019, the seven Basin states agreed on a plan to manage Colorado River water withdrawals as Western drought entered its nineteenth year.

Despite years of dire forecasts, it was not until 2015 that California’s Jerry Brown became the first governor to address the demand side of the equation by ordering a statewide, mandatory water use reduction.

More recently, California has announced plans follow the example of cities in India by covering open aqueducts with solar panels to reduce evaporative loss.

But demand continues to be managed largely by local water authorities.

Both Las Vegas and Phoenix now now claim to recycle over 95% of water used indoors, and but desert heat takes a heavy toll on outdoor water use.

The Bellagio’s famous fountains lose over 12 million gallons of water every year to evaporation.

California produces almost 14% of the nation’s food, and over 90% of its water allocation goes to winter fruit and vegetable crops, or to forage crops for beef and dairy herds.  It has long been drawing on allocations unused by other states, but population growth and declining river flow make it clear that surplus is increasingly a thing of the past.

So even as local water districts in the Colorado River Basin struggle with shortages, it is becoming abundantly clear that what the effect of western water shortages will ripple across food costs for the entire nation.

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The Anti-Partisans

It would be easy to conclude that American voters are now immovably committed to either Blue or Red, with margins of victory presumed to often hang on the sliver of the electorate that identifies with neither party.

But recent surveys conducted by Pew Research tell a very different story:

One-third of voters now identify as neither Democrat or Republican.

But this is not new news. Party identification has remained virtually constant for almost 3 decades, and there have always been voters who take great pride in not identifying with – much less ‘joining’ – either party. 

What has changed over the same period is the share of Americans who not only decline any party identification, but who hold highly negative views of the choice afforded by only two parties.

Not surprisingly, such opinions were more widely embraced during the 2012 and 2020 presidential elections, but are at an all-time high in the run-up to the 2022 mid-terms.

More surprising, however, is the remarkable consistency with which Americans of every political stripe – by a margin of 5:1 – agree on the gravity of political divisiveness promoted by the news media, and playing out among ordinary Americans, between politicians, and in social media.

Voters are exhausted by shrill and uninterrupted partisan chest-pounding and trash-talking… of hyperbolic boasting and bashing… of political discourse devolved into snarky memes.

As the election approaches, mass school shootings and abortion bans have handed Democrats have a windfall opportunity not only to energize party regulars, but to sway Republican-leaning Independents who are terrified or outraged enough by both to break with long-standing habit.

If, that is, individual Democrats can make the distinction between demonizing the opposition party/leadership without in the process demonizing those who may not be drinking all of the MAGA Kool-Aid.

And that, in a nutshell, is what COBALT is all about: A Progressive public agenda, presented as issues and facts without the partisan toxicity.

     

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      Rape victim-blaming in Iowa

      An Iowa judge who sentenced a victim of rape and sex trafficking for killing her abuser also ordered her to pay $150,000 in restitution to her abuser’s family.

      A runaway seeking to escape an abusive life with her adopted mother, 15-year-old Pieper Lewis was sleeping in the hallways of an apartment building when a 28-year-old man took her in.  After she was raped a second time by a man with whom she had been forced at knifepoint to have sex, she stabbed the rapist repeatedly.

      Originally charged with first-degree murder, she pled guilty to manslaughter and willful injury, each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

      While police and prosecutors have not disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked, they argued that her assailant was asleep when stabbed and not an immediate danger.

      Prosecutors took issue with Lewis calling herself a victim…

      …and for failing to to take responsibility for

      “leaving [her assailant’s] kids without a father”. 

      Throughout the trial, the judge peppered Lewis with requests to explain how her poor choices led up to the stabbing and expressed concern that she did always follow the rules while in juvenile lockup.  She was not allowed contact with family or friends while in detention.

      While the judge deferred the prison sentences as long as Lewis honors the terms of her parole, Iowa law requires restitution to the family of her assailant, which was set at $150,000.

      “A child who was raped, under no circumstances, should owe the rapist’s family money.”

      These are the words of One of Lewis’s former teachers, Leland Schipper, was so outraged by the ruling that he organized a GoFundMe appeal to raise the money.  The appeal quickly raised enough to pay off not only the $150,000, but an additional $4,000 owed to the state. The remainder will be used to help Lewis – who completed her GED while in detention – to continue her education.

      Iowa has no ‘safe harbor law’ that gives trafficking victims a level of criminal immunity. State law only protects victims of crimes committed “under compulsion by another’s imminent threat of serious injury.’ Prosecutors argued that the provision did not apply because the rapist was asleep when stabbed.

      While a safe harbor law for trafficking victims passed the Iowa House, it was stalled in the Senate by law enforcement groups that claimed it was too broad.

      Sources for this post:  Des Moines Register, Guardian, NPR

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      SCOTUS vs. Same-Sex Marriage

      Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in his footnote to the decision overturning abortion access nationwide, wrote that the court should “reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents” including:

      • Griswold [granted the right to contraception]
      • Lawrence [struck down anti-sodomy laws]
      • Obergefell [legalized marriage equality].

      “We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ established in those precedents,” Thomas wrote.

      If the court overturns Obergefell, it would essentially leave individual states to decide their own same-sex marriage laws.

      Nearly 30 states have same-sex marriage bans on their books.

      The Respect for Marriage Act now working its way through Congress would officially repeal the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the 1996 law that forbade the federal government from legally recognizing same-sex marriages.

      It would require the federal and state governments to recognize same-sex marriages as long as they occurred in states that offer them. It would also allow spouses to sue states that refuse to recognize such marriages.

      David Cicilline, Chair of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus, said. “This legislation will protect their marriages and ensure they continue to be recognized, even if a future Supreme Court overturns landmark marriage equality decisions.”

      Within days of the measure’s passage in the House in mid-July with the support of 47 Republicans, 83 conservative organizations wrote Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), claiming that the bill would legalize polygamy and incest.

      The bill needs the votes of 10 Republican Senators to reach the 60-vote threshold needed to overcome a guaranteed filibuster and become law.

      Thus far, Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Rob Portman (R-OH), and Thom Tillis (R-NC) have said that they would vote in favor of the bill, but mainstream Republicans have already begun equating public recognition of LGBTQ people with “grooming” children for pedophilia.

      Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who initially said that he would “not oppose” the bill, has since changed his mind. “This is just Democrats opening up a wound that doesn’t need to be opened up. And now that I’ve talked to people there are some very serious concerns on religious liberty…. I would not support it in its current state.”

      Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) has said on his podcast that he will oppose the bill.  “This bill without a religious liberty protection would have massive consequences across our country, weaponizing the Biden administration to go and target universities, K-12 schools, social service organizations, churches and strip them all of their tax-exempt status.”

      Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) has also said he’ll oppose the bill, stating, “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman.”

      Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has promised that the Senate will vote on the measure before the November elections.

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      Ferociously red Texas

      Some may remember predictions back in 2012 about the demographic inevitability of a Blue Texas, and population trends since seem to lend further credence to the claim:

      • Seven in 10 Texans now live in the state’s 6 largest urban areas
      • Minorities account for 46% of the population (including 9% Black and 28% Hispanic).

      So how is it that Texas Democrats continue to struggle in statewide contests when the political landscape should – on its face – promote Democratic competitiveness?

      The answer lies in rural Texas.

      In 2018, Beto O’Rourke lost his Senate race against Ted Cruz by 215,000 votes statewide… but by over 441,000 votes in counties with populations of less than 50,000.  These counties, incidentally, voted against Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in virtually the same proportions.

      Democrats simply cannot win in Texas without meaningfully improving their position in these counties.

      This time around in his challenge of Texas’s incumbent Governor Greg Abbott, O’Rourke has become even more visible in rural Texas, but it’s still an uphill battle.

      While more than half of rural voters approve of Abbott’s job performance, O’Rourke’s unfavorability rating among them is 60%… more than 9 in 10 of whom characterized their opinion as “strongly unfavorable.”  The flip side is that Beto needs to improve his position among them by only 5%-10% (30%-35%) to affect the outcome.

      Much of the animus among rural voters can be attributed to O’Rourke’s passionate public outburst after visiting the site of a 2019 mass shooting in El Paso:

      “Hell, yes… we’re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”

      O’Rourke doesn’t talk as much about gun control these days.  He is instead chipping away at Abbotts’s rural base by attacking the governor for “leaving rural Texas behind” on three issues:

      • Broadband internet access.  O’Rourke is highlighting Abbott’s veto of a bill to bolster a state fund which subsidizes broadband internet in rural Texas.
      • Quality of public education.  O’Rourke is attacking Abbott’s embrace of school vouchers as an attempt to “defund” public education by letting parents use taxpayer dollars to send their kids elsewhere. (Texas voters favor the measure 2-to-1.)
      • Closure of rural hospitals.  O’Rourke blames Abbott’s refusal to expand Medicaid in Texas.

      But any discussion of rural voters in Texas is incomplete without consideration of its Tejano vote.

      While Democrats still enjoy an advantage among Tejanos, their margins have declined in both of the last two Presidential elections.  One contributing factor is that protestant evangelical denominations have been attracting many converts among historically Catholic working-class Tejanos.  Another is that Democrats’ national Latino outreach can fail to leverage the distinct nuances of the Texas Latino culture. Sometimes – as in Hillary’s backhanded appeal in her selection of running mate Tim Kaine based in part on his fluency in Spanish.

      RealClearPolitics reports that in five surveys conducted between June 29 and August 29, Abbott’s advantage is projected at no less than 5%, and as much as 10%.

      But whether or not O’Rourke’s aggressive campaigning in rural Texas counties pays rich enough dividends this November to sway the outcome, he will emerge with an even more robust statewide organization that may finally pay off when Texas next elects a Senator.

      Learn more about Beto O’Rourke:

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