Tag: Liberals Abroad Mexico

Gun control: Halting Steps

NO! The Assault Weapons Ban that expired 18 years ago has still not been renewed… but the bill which recently cleared the Senate does close some of the most egregious gun control loopholes.

The Boyfriend Loophole

The new bill bars anyone convicted of a domestic violence crime against someone they have a “continuing serious relationship of a romantic or intimate nature with” from having a gun.  Previous statutes didn’t include intimate partners who may not live together, be married or share children.

The bill allows those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence to restore their gun rights after five years if they have committed no other crimes.

The Charleston Loophole

Dealers have always been required conduct background check, but allowed to proceed with the sale of the buyer is not declined within three days.  The bill extends the background check waiting period for up to an additional 7 days.

The Gun Show Loophole

The bill also targets individuals who sell guns as primary sources of income but have previously evaded registering as Federally Licensed Firearm Dealers, requiring them to now administer background checks before they sell a gun.

The bill also:

  • Targets ‘straw buyers’ purchasing for individuals not allowed to buy for themselves.
  • Creates new federal statutes against gun trafficking.
  • Requires a more thorough reviews of buyers aged 18-21.
  • Increases funding for mental health programs and school security.

Fifteen Republican Senators voted for the bill (those retiring asterisked):

  • McConnell (KY)
  • Blunt (MO)*
  • Burr (NC)*
  • Capito (WV)
  • Cassidy (LA)
  • Collins (ME)
  • Cornyn (TX)
  • Ernst (IA)
  • Graham (SC)
  • Murkowski (AK)
  • Portman (OH)*
  • Romney (UT
  • Tillis (NC)
  • Toomey (PA)*
  • Toomey (PA)*
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Blue in a red state

When most people – other than Iowans – think about its state leadership, they may recall Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst, or Governor Kim Reynolds.  They – as well as three of the state’s four House Representatives –  are all Republicans.

Then there’s Iowa 3rd District Rep. Cindy Axne…

…the lone Democrat who won office in 2018 by unseating a Republican incumbent.

A native Iowan and U Iowa graduate, she moved to Chicago, where she worked for the Tribune Co. and also earned an MBA from Northwestern. She and her husband later became small business partners before returning to Iowa with their children.

Her activism began in 2007 when , upon learning that availability of full-day kindergarten in her district was so limited that eligibility was determined by lottery, she took on the the school board to make it available to all.

For most of the next 10 years she worked with Iowa state agencies, charged with helping them to streamline their delivery of government services.  She’s remained an advocate of government efficiency and transparency, voting for the Congressional Budget Transparency Act.

Active in her Catholic church, she voted for the Women’s Health Protection Act of 2022 to establish the statutory right to abortion free from state bans and restrictions on patients or healthcare providers.

She voted for both the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act.

And she introduced the Striking Workers Healthcare Protection Act requiring employers to continue providing health insurance to workers on strike.

Her ability to successfully advocate for progressive policy in such a politically conservative environment exhibits noteworthy skills and tactics.  And it will be far easier for Democrats to reverse the tide in Iowa while there’s still a beachhead, rather than to start with re-taking this seat. 

Learn more on her official Congressional web site, her re-election web site, and her Ballotpedia profile.

And watch C O B A L T for more selected candidate profiles between now and Election Day. They may not be in your state, but campaign donations allow you to participate anywhere. (More here.)

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Democrat complacency

Democrats are railing over the Supreme Courts’ judicial coup as if it was unforeseeable and unpreventable, but there’s a strong case to be made that they need to look to themselves rather than their opposition when placing blame.

The seemingly sudden sea change has been building for over 20 years.

By the time Donald Trump was elected President, Democrats had controlled the Senate for only 3 of the previous 14 sessions of Congress, and controlled both houses only twice. Both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had working Congressional majorities for only their first two of eight years in office.

In this century, the Democratic Party has consistently been unable to translate its Presidential victories into sustained Congressional majorities, in no small part to depressed voter turnout for mid-term elections.

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But the outcome should have been readily foreseeable. Republicans cannily secured control of governorships and statehouses in anticipation of redistricting following both the 2010 and 2020 censuses. The resulting gerrymandering resulted in the creation of an increasingly number of virtually uncontestable districts for the G.O.P.

The effect has been an enablement of the G.O.P. to effectively stall a progressive political agenda for more than two decades, while managing to stick the Democrats with blame for the consequences of inaction.

Those Democrats counting on a repeat of the 2020 turnout in 2022 should remember that Joe Biden’s victory was as much a consequence of revulsion for Trump as of Biden’s positions. In fact, the data suggests that as much of one-quarter of Biden’s support came from Republicans disgruntled with Trump, but who still voted for G.O.P. candidates down-ticket…. which in part explains the lack of a Biden coattail.

If Democrats are to prevail this fall, it will require that the battle be fought seat-by-seat, state-by-state.

And it will not only require that the Party’s factions put aside their squabbling until after a victory… but that Democrats adopt a tone-of-voice that is far less focused on demonizing G.O.P. voters than on inviting women of any stripe for whom abortion bans and school shootings may lead to a break in ranks within the privacy of the voting booth.

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America’s war on women

When Katharine Graham became CEO of the Washington Post Company in 1972, Congress had just ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, and hopes were high that a wave of women would finally shatter the glass ceiling..

50 years later, women occupy just over 29% of chief executive roles in the US, but they are largely relegated to running small and medium-sized enterprises.  Within the Fortune 500, the percentage of women CEO’s remains in single digits.

It is, however, not just C-level jobs in which women are under-represented.  They still represent less than half of Managers in more industries than not.

And women make less for the same work. Fortune 500 female CEO’s earn, on average, 74% of what their male counterparts take home, and wage inequity carries through to the bottom of the labor pyramid. Part-time female workers earn 40% less than their male counterparts, and full-time female workers earn 53% less.

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But the inequality does not end there. Over 18 million American adults alive today were raised in single-parent households… of which 74% are still female-headed.

And two-thirds of of single-parent households receive no child support.

All of which explains why Women food stamp recipients outnumber Male recipients almost 2-to-1.

At a time when abortion is no longer a guaranteed right in every state, forcing a woman to carry a child to full term is only one more aspect of America’s war on women.

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Unequal under the law (LBGTQ)

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), stalled in Congress since its introduction in 2013, prohibits discrimination in public and private employment on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s a sobering departure from previous civil rights bills in that it fails to address discrimination not only in employment… but in all spheres of public life.

It’s a sobering departure from previous civil rights bills in that it fails to address discrimination not only in employment… but in all spheres of public life.

While some state and local laws offer some of these protections, the lack of a comprehensive federal law allows for a patchwork of protections – and in some cases an endorsement of overt discrimination.

This analysis produced by the Movement Advance Project shows why Federal legislation is essential.

  • And a doctor in Indiana can deny service to a patient based on gender identity.
  • A landlord in West Virginia can decline to show a property to a lesbian couple.
  • A restaurant owner in El Paso, Texas can kick a gay couple out of his establishment simply because the couple shared a kiss with one another.

Legislation against employment discrimination may be a start, but it falls far sort of what’s needed to insure true equality for all Americans regardless of gender orientation.

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Not Latinx!

Only non-Latinos talk about Latinos as a monolithic group. America’s Latinos are a diverse collection of populations of different ethnic, racial, geographical, religious, and cultural backgrounds. A growing number do not conveniently align with either party, and overwhelming majorities, when asked, reject the label “Latinx.”

In 2020, Trump gained 8 to 10 points with Hispanic/Latino voters vs. his performance in 2016, and this year a growing number are prepared to lay blame for the economy at the Democrats’ feet. In addition, immigration and health care rate higher in importance among Latino voters than for the general population.

Registered voter Latinos are nearly twice as likely to identify as Democrats, and half as likely to identify as Independents than those not yet registered.

But the role of religion in Latino politics is not to be ignored. Only about half of American Latinos are Catholic, and increasing numbers identify as evangelical… many aligned with Pentecostal and charismatic sects.

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At Houses of Light, a Latino-majority evangelical church in Northridge, California, a 2020 online voter guide distributed among the congregants in advance of the 2020 presidential election, gave Donald Trump a four-star rating of “Very good,” while Joe Biden was given no stars and a rating of “Terrible. Don’t vote.” (Which is, by the way a flagrant violation of the religious tax exemption.)

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Inequality by the numbers

More than one hundred fifty years have passed since after passage of the 15th amendment and over 50 years since passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and it is painfully obvious that America cannot simply legislate its way out of racial discrimination.

Three in five Americans believe that Blacks still remain the most frequent victims of racial discrimination.

The numbers suggest that even this perception understates the reality. Median income for Blacks is 58% of median income for Whites and 20% lower for Blacks than for Hispanics.

Unemployment among Blacks is nearly 20% higher than for Whites.

Abortion bans deny all women the opportunity to plan families, and the marked decrease in abortion-related deaths among Black women while Roe v. Wade was law makes it clear that abortion bans disproportionately impact Black women. Before Roe v. Wade, women who died as the result of illegal abortions were typically Black, and had self-induced in their own communities.

Blacks are 2.3 times as likely to be shot by a police officer as Whites.

A monumental amount of work still remains to realize the dream… and there is an opportunity to jump-start the effort by electing a like-minded Congress in November.

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