Monday, October 19, 2015

Mon. Oct. 19



 
AROUND NEW HAMPSHIRE
 
 
 
 
 
1.  Second Democratic Candidate for Governor
 
 
Mark Connolly planning to run for governor
 
by Dan Tuohy,   unionleader.com,   October 19, 2015
 
Mark Connolly, the former New Hampshire Deputy Secretary of State and director of securities regulation, plans to announce his run for governor by the end of the month, the Union Leader has learned.

The Democrat is in the process of building a campaign team, according to a source close to Connolly who is familiar with the planning.

Connolly considered running for governor in 2012, following his work leading the New Hampshire Bureau of Securities Regulation and publication of his 2011 book, “Cover-Up,” the story of a Ponzi scheme at a mortgage company and the government’s ineptitude and regulatory failure.

Connolly, a Bedford native, is owner and principal adviser at New Castle Investment. He lives in New Castle and is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

He would become the second Democratic gubernatorial candidate, following Executive Councilor Colin Van Ostern’s entry into the race. Portsmouth City Councilor Stefany Shaheen is considering a possible campaign.

Executive Councilor Chris Sununu of Newfields is running for the GOP nomination. State Rep. Frank Edelblut, R-Wilton, has an active campaign exploration underway for the governor's race.

The governor's office is an open seat in 2016 with two-term Democrat Maggie Hassan running for U.S. Senate.
 
 
 
 
2.  Northern Pass: Start of State Review Process
 
Eversource files Northern Pass application with state panel
by the Associated Press,   vnews.com,   October 19, 2015
 
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The utility seeking to pull Canadian hydropower into New Hampshire has filed its application with state regulators, five years after the project was proposed.
Hartford, Connecticut-based Eversource filed its application with the Site Evaluation Committee on Monday, triggering a review that could take up to 14 months.
Eversource proposes the 192-mile Northern Pass transmission line from Pittsburg to Deerfield, carrying 1,090 megawatts of hydro-power from Canada's biggest generator, HydroQuebec. That's enough to power a million homes.
After vocal opposition to the overhead lines, especially through the scenic White Mountains, Eversource in August announced it would bury a total of 60 miles of lines and reduce the height of some of its poles.
If a federal permit is issued and the SEC approves, Eversource expects power to start flowing in 2019.
 
 
 
3.  Reducing State Spending on Education
 
by Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,   cbpp.org
 
[NH is 7th worst of 50 states]
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4.  Hurrying the Drug Court Bill
 
 
Drug court must be fast-tracked
 
Editorial,   nashuatelegraph.com,   October 18, 2015



A little more than three months ago we wished Manchester Mayor Ted Gatsas well when he said he wasn't giving up following a preposterous county delegation vote against funding a drug court at the Hillsborough County Superior Court branch in his city. He meant it, and so did state Sens. Jeb Bradley and David Boutin. We can only hope Hillsborough County legislators' counterparts from the rest of the state can see the forest for the trees.

Bradley, of Wolfboro, and Boutin, of Hooksett, along with Gatsas have proposed a bill to the legislature to create a $2.5 million grant program to fund more drug courts in the state, presumably one of the first ones in the state's largest city. The bill would create a system wherein the state would foot half the bill to start new drug courts and the county would pick up the rest. Counties would arrange partnerships with local treatment centers, which already have long waiting lists. The bill would also create a judicial branch office on drug courts.

It's the sort of forward-thinking bill that takes a long view of a vast problem that voters should be more used to seeing proposed in Concord.

More than 300 people died from drug overdoses in New Hampshire last year, smashing the previous high. From all indications, the death toll will be higher again this year. But some people still just don't get it.

Following the July vote by Hillsborough, legislators - among them Rep. Neal Kurk, of Weare - claimed the county shouldn't loosen the purse strings because it wouldn't save money and that the state should pay for it or - unbelievably - that it's a "Manchester problem" so the city should pay the bill.

It was nonsense and, worse than that, it was harmful to New Hampshire residents.

If you don't yet understand that addiction and overdoses of heroin, Fentanyl and other opioids are killing people you know, work with, live with or are otherwise connected to, then you just never will.

"Yale to jail" is how former addict and Hudson resident and current drug counselor Stephanie Costello put it.

And tell Mont Vernon Police Chief Kevin Furlong heroin is a "Manchester problem." People in that tiny town are shooting up and snorting and dying, too.

"I would say nobody is safe from some type of exposure - whether it be themselves, a family member or a co-worker," Furlong said. "We're dealing with everybody from the $800-a-month (renter) to the $450,000 homeowner."

Nashua is lucky enough to already have a drug court, and the courts are already operating in Cheshire, Grafton, Rockingham and Strafford counties and in the city of Laconia.

Luckily, there are some leaders who do get it.

"We must do what we can to provide a wholesome approach that both treats individuals experiencing substance abuse problems as well as address recidivism as it relates to public safety in our communities," Bradley said.

He's right, because if we can't deign to spend some money on treatment and alternatives to death and/or jail to help our neighbors fight a fight they cannot win, then what are we doing here besides fending for ourselves?

This bill should be fast-tracked, improved if possible, and passed with an "aye" from every legislator they can cram under the golden dome.

"This isn't over. Every life is worth saving, and I'm not prepared to stop here. Stay tuned," Gatsas said following the county delegation vote this summer.

We're glad he meant it.
 
 
 
5.  Fact-Check of the Ayotte Record
 
 
NHDP Launches “Ayotte Fact Check” Accountability Project
 
by Lprice,   nhdp.org,   October 19, 2015
 
It’s no secret that Kelly Ayotte is trying to rewrite history when it comes to her record of voting to protect her Washington special interest backers at the expense of New Hampshire’s families and small businesses.
If she could, Ayotte would erase New Hampshire’s memory of her most recent campaign – with Ayotte promoting endorsements from the likes of Sarah Palin, and advocating on behalf of policies more aligned with the Tea Party than with New Hampshire’s families and communities, towns and small businesses.
It’s kind of hard to believe that was just 2010.
And the record proves that since going to Washington, Kelly Ayotte has governed as she campaigned just five years ago. Ayotte has repeatedly voted to make college more expensive and defund Planned Parenthood, and has opposed common-sense efforts to help women in the workplace. Now, in a calculated effort to make her record sound more New Hampshire than it is, she’s cosponsoring sham bills that have nice titles but would actually do damage to New Hampshire students and families.
But even the most calculating P.R. campaigns have trouble convincing common-sense Granite Staters. We can tell a real record from a manufactured one. And we won’t let Ayotte get away with her superficial maneuvering to mislead voters. That’s why the New Hampshire Democratic Party is launching “Ayotte Fact Check,” a new accountability project to hold Ayotte accountable for trying to rewrite history to save her political career.

The Facts on Kelly Ayotte’s Record
Making College More Expensive
Earlier this year, Ayotte voted for the Republican Fiscal Year 2016 budget, that cuts Pell grants by nearly $90 billion (affecting roughly 23,000 New Hampshire students) and ends an expansion of the “Pay As You Earn Program,” which could double the cost of student loan payments for those who had enrolled in the program. Ayotte also voted this year against an amendment that would allow young people to refinance their student loans, which would help 129,000 Granite Staters.
Not to mention that Ayotte voted for the Ryan Budget three times that would cut Pell Grants for thousands of New Hampshire students.
That’s why Ayotte introduced a sham student loan bill to try to paper over her record. But experts have pointed out that Ayotte’s bill is a bad deal for students that would benefit Wall Street lenders while weakening consumer protections – calling it a “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” “a handout to the loan industry,” and a “sweetheart deal for private-sector lenders.
Blocking Access To Women’s Health Care
In addition to voting three times to defund Planned Parenthood, Ayotte has also voted to eliminate all funding for the Title X Family Planning Program, which helps fund 4,200 Family Planning Centers that serve 4.5 million individuals across the country.
Ayotte also voted for and was an original co-sponsor of the Blunt Amendment, which would have allowed employers to deny women coverage for birth control and for other important preventive health services.
And Ayotte is still fighting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which stopped women from being discriminated against and charged more for care and has helped more than 150,000 New Hampshire women receive expanded preventative services without cost-sharing, including contraception.
To try to hide her record, Ayotte introduced a sham birth control bill that is opposed bythe American Congress of OB-GYNs. Women’s health experts have called the bill a “sham and an insult to women” while noting that it’s “specifically designed to deceive voters.”
Undermining The Environment
In 2010, Ayotte Said “I don’t think the evidence [on climate change] is conclusive.” Since then, Ayotte has voted to force construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, expand offshore drilling with oversight standards weaker than the ones in place before the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, undermine enforcement of the Clean Power Plan, and more.
Cuts to Cancer Screening Program
Ayotte voted for the Republican Fiscal Year 2016 budget, which cuts funding for the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. Reports show this could result in $183,176 less funding for New Hampshire and mean 727 fewer New Hampshire women could be screened.
Opposing Efforts To Help Women In The Workplace
Ayotte said she “certainly” thinks guaranteed paid leave is “an issue that should be addressed by employers rather than mandated by the government.”
And she followed up those comments by introducing a sham paid leave bill with Mitch McConnell that would actually force workers to choose between overtime pay and leave time, a proposal which experts have called an “empty promise” that “would give workers less flexibility and less pay.” Others have pointed out it’s a “Trojan horse” that means “ripping off workers.”
So instead of supporting the Paycheck Fairness Act, Ayotte introduced a deeply flawed equal pay bill that creates loopholes for employers to prohibit discussion of pay.
For additional facts about Ayotte’s record on women’s economic issues, see here.

Ayotte’s Record Shows She Puts Washington Special Interests First
A closer look at Ayotte’s record reveals that instead of looking out for New Hampshire’s families and small businesses, she puts her Washington special interest backers first.
Ayotte Votes With The Koch Brothers 90% Of The Time
The Koch Brothers’ main political arm, Americans for Prosperity, gives Ayotte an 88% lifetime score (having voted with the Koch Brothers on 55 out of 62 scored votes since going to Washington). And American’s for Prosperity has already gone to bat to protect Ayotte by launching a million dollar attack ad in August because they know that she will continue to support the Koch Brothers’ agenda in the Senate.
Big Oil And Wall Street
Big Oil and Wall Street are two of Ayotte’s biggest contributing industries. And Ayotte has consistently looked out for their interests, including voting againstmultiple measures that would have closed more than $20 billion in tax loopholes for the five biggest oil companies, voting to “roll back 2010 Wall Street reform legislation,” and supporting “a Wall Street-supported amendment attacking the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
Bottom Line
The New Hampshire Democratic Party will utilize every medium available to aggressively hold Ayotte accountable for trying to rewrite her record of putting special interests before New Hampshire’s families and small businesses – so stay tuned for more updates.
We won’t let Ayotte get away with her superficial maneuvering to mislead voters and try to save her political career.
 
 
 
 
AND NATIONALLY
 
 
 
 
 
6.  Republican Dysfunction
 
 
Republicans Gone Wild: Q&A with Mann and Ornstein
 
by Francis Wilkinson,   bloombergview.com,   October 14, 2015
 
Political scientists Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein are longtime scholars of American politics in general and the U.S. Congress in particular. They were among the first mainstream analysts, and arguably the most influential, to make the case that the "broken" condition of Washington is actually a manifestation of a single broken political party. After House Speaker John Boehner announced his resignation, I began an e-mail conversation with Mann, of the Brookings Institution and the University of California at Berkeley, and Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, about the dangerous state of Congress.
WILKINSON
Gentlemen: During the last presidential election you published "It's Even Worse Than it Looks," which detailed how Republicans in Washington were abandoning political and governing norms and how partisan gridlock was growing increasingly intractable. In a much-quoted passage you wrote:
 The Republican Party has become an insurgent outlier -- ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.
We just had a sitting speaker of the House resign in the middle of his term because his own hefty majority proved unmanageable. (And after I first contacted you, the cannibalism continued with Representative Kevin McCarthy as the meal.) The question begs: Is it even worse now than you told us it was in 2012?
ORNSTEIN
A few months back, Barney Frank said to us that perhaps the next book we do should be titled "It's Even Worse Than It Was When We Said It's Even Worse Than It Looks." In most respects, it is worse, which was, sadly, not unpredictable. The fact is that the "Young Guns" -- Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan, as we wrote early on in the book -- actively incited anger and raised expectations among populist Tea Party adherents when they went out in 2009-2010 and recruited candidates to run in the midterms. They told them to use the debt ceiling as an issue and to promise to bludgeon Obama with it to force him to his knees, to repeal Obamacare and cut government dramatically. They promised that if they took the majority they would immediately cut spending by $100 billion.
That led to the debt limit debacle in 2011, when they finally backed down at the brink-- after Jason Chaffetz, whom we quote in the book, led the charge to take the country over. And the promise of $100 billion in spending cuts went unfulfilled. The combination of empty threats and unfulfilled promise, amplified by tribal media and social media, has created both a broad public anger at Republican establishment leaders among more radical Tea Party voters, and a seething anger among the 40 to 50 most radical House members at their own leaders for their fecklessness.
That's why outsiders in the GOP presidential race are garnering majority support among Republican primary voters in the polls, and why John Boehner became a target, Kevin McCarthy became a second target and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell will not be far behind. It is why we face another impending set of crises over the debt ceiling and government shutdowns.
To be sure, it's not all bleak. McConnell was able in the past to avoid a debt limit breach by creating a rule that enabled the president to raise the debt ceiling and veto a subsequent motion of disapproval, and sustain it with Democrats in Congress -- the same kind of mechanism that worked with the Iran deal. But it is a sad commentary on our dysfunction that we need such work-arounds to prevent catastrophe.
MANN
Norm's response underscores the reality of asymmetric polarization, which the mainstream media and most good government groups have avoided discussing -- at great costs to the country. As we wrote, Republicans have become more an insurgency than a major political party capable of governing. Their actions in Congress in recent weeks and on the presidential campaign trail underscore this reality.
WILKINSON
Which will happen first -- Democrats will emulate Republicans and go off the deep end? Or mainstream media will adjust to the new realityand acknowledge that Republicans are not merely ideologically different from Democrats but engaged in a unique form of politics that  undermines the system itself?
MANN
There is pressure within the Democratic Party to emulate the Republicans in one respect -- to articulate a more aggressive and uncompromising policy agenda. Bernie Sanders has responded to that sentiment in the Democratic base and done better than anyone expected. But while Democrats in Congress have diverse views on some policies, they remain a governing party and accept compromise as an inevitable part of the democratic process. Nancy Pelosi is a practical politician who could never embrace norms that threaten the normal functioning of government, whatever its size. If the coverage of this presidential election campaign is any indicator, the mainstream media is nowhere near accepting the reality of asymmetric polarization.
Perhaps a more likely scenario is that other responsible conservative voices in the Republican Party achieve some traction, perhaps as a consequence of losing the White House once again.
WILKINSON
What does the fiasco in the House leadership -- Boehner's resignation followed by McCarthy's withdrawal -- tell us? Is this an institutional problem or a party problem?
MANN
This is a Republican Party problem, which has serious implications for Congress as an institution and for American governance more broadly. Republicans are paying the price for having encouraged government-hating candidates to seek office with the expectation that they could undo Obama's 2009-2010 achievements. Their constitutional ignorance and political naiveté was breathtaking. But Republican establishment leaders, who had few policy differences with the new radicals, soon became victims of the forces they helped unleash. Their party reminds us of the nullification forces in the antebellum South. The champions of "The New Nullification," as we refer to it in our book, have left damage and chaos in their wake. More is likely to follow.
WILKINSON
This moment of pure chaos is basically the afterword to your book, isn't it?
ORNSTEIN
The House Republicans are in full implosion mode, a reflection of the deep and unresolved, and maybe unresolvable, schism in the party between radicals who want more confrontation on the debt ceiling and the budget, and bedrock conservatives who want to find ways to show that they can govern while holding both houses of Congress. Right now, it is clear that the radicals have the upper hand. The House majority has no easy way out.
The best outcome? Boehner, a victim in his own right, could thumb his nose at the radicals in his lame-duck period and bring a blockbuster package to the floor -- a two-year budget deal that raises the sequestration caps; an increase in the debt ceiling along with institutionalization of the McConnell Rule to prevent future debt-ceiling debacles; Ex-Im Bank reauthorization; a robust infrastructure bill.
The worst case? We get a Speaker Jeb Hensarling or Jim Jordan, and a breach in the debt ceiling and a series of government shutdowns threatening the well-being and future of the economy.
WILKINSON
How did we get here?
ORNSTEIN
We know a lot about how we got here. Some of the roots were set in the run-up to the 1994 elections. Newt Gingrich delegitimized the Congress, which had been run for 40 years by Democrats, to nationalize the elections and use popular and populist disgust to create a Republican majority. He recruited candidates to advance these themes, portraying Washington and government as a cesspool and Democrats as the enemy.
That began conservative populist hatred of all government, and a gradually building anger at the establishment -- which in turn led to Newt's  demise as speaker four years later. Add some more anger in the George W. Bush years at compassionate conservatives not cutting government but expanding it -- especially a new prescription drug benefit -- and, for many, a backlash against two wars that weren't paid for. Then toss in a bailout engineered by the elites in both parties that left ordinary Americans screwed while financiers got bonuses.
The Young Guns (Eric Cantor, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan) took the Gingrich playbook and sold a bill of goods to Tea Party candidates and their adherents. Tribal media and social media played their own populist cards. Finally, a successful "Kenyan socialist" president not only got his agenda through in his first two years but was re-elected and now shows new life in his final two years. Voila.
MANN
What I would underscore in what Norm has said is the wildly unrealistic expectations of the Freedom Caucus about the House as an institution, and about the Madisonian constitution's imperative for bargaining and compromise. Boehner is a legislator whose party embraced an oppositional stance that made it impossible to legislate in cooperation with the other party. He did as well as he could to keep the lights on. Hard to see how his successor does any better without the Republicans controlling both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue. The risk with that -- united party government -- is not dysfunction, but overreach.
WILKINSON
Well, if that's how we got here, how do we get out? Do we get a replay of the '64 election to push Republicans over the edge? What are the prospects for moderation and respect for democratic norms reasserting themselves?
MANN
There is no clear path out of our current distemper. The solution, like the diagnosis, must focus on the obvious but seldom acknowledged asymmetry between the parties. The Republican Party must become a conservative governing party once again and accept the assumptions and norms of our Madisonian system. That will likely require more election defeats, more honest reporting by the mainstream press and more recognition by the public that the problem is not "Washington" or "Congress" or "insiders" or politicians in general.
The burden is on the GOP because they are currently the major source of our political dysfunction. No happy talk about bipartisanship can obscure that reality. Unless other voices and movements arise within the Republican Party to change its character and course, our dysfunctional politics will continue.
ORNSTEIN
Tom is exactly right. A devastating, top-to-bottom defeat in 2016 might force the party's conservative pragmatists, and the few moderates, to move more aggressively to take back control of their party. That would require a divorce from the Freedom Caucus Republicans, and a long period of readjustment to become competitive beyond red states.
But a conversation I had with conservative pragmatist (and former Representative) Vin Weber shows the dilemma. When I referred to the GOP as an insurgent outlier party, Vin took serious exception, saying, "We have the House and Senate, more governorships and state legislatures than in our lifetimes, huge gains in 2010 and 2014, all but the presidency. How is that an insurgent outlier party?"
Of course, winning in midterms, with smaller and narrower electorates, does not make majority status. Republicans can win many states, hold the House and compete for the Senate for a long time, making the drive for reform a much more difficult one. Otherwise, we have to try to change the campaign finance system, enlarge the electorate, change the nature of the House through redistricting and maybe even push for more substantial changes (like multi-member or at-large districts) and create a new public square. All of these are long-term battles. None is a panacea. The future still looks pretty grim. 
 
 
 
7.  The New House Speaker: Gerry Mander
 
 
How GOP Gerrymandering Is Disrupting the House
 
by Hedrick Smith,   reclaimtheamericandream.org,   October 14, 2015
 
Washington – It’s already clear that the next House Speaker will face crippling mutinies by the 45 Republican rebels who knocked off John Boehner and intimidated Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. And that’s because the insurgents know they can defy their party leadership without fear of retribution from the voters because Republican gerrymandering protects them.
Yes, gerrymandering has been around since the dawn of American politics. But gerrymandering today is a different game – played on a national scale, operating with 21st century digital efficiency, capable of overruling the popular vote. It has baked gridlock into our political system.
Never before in our history has one major party mounted a national campaign to control gerrymandering in state after state, as Republicans did in 2010. And never before have party strategists been armed with sophisticated computer software that can help them carve districts down to the individual street and home.
Thanks to gerrymandering, all but two of the 45 anti-Boehner rebels are guaranteed re-election in politically engineered monopoly districts that insulate them not only from Democratic challengers but also from the dictates of their party leadership, as John Boehner learned in five tormented years as Speaker .

Districts Stacked in favor of Republican rebels

Their congressional districts are so stacked in their favor that in 2014 they beat their Democratic opponents by an average 38 percentage points, a devastating margin. Only two had competitive general election races. Three had such slam-duck districts that no Democrat even bothered to oppose them.

With protected political monopolies back home, the Republican rebels take little or no political risk and pay no political price for overthrowing a Speaker or for bringing Congress to a halt. What gives them that immunity is partisan gerrymandering and party primaries with shockingly low turnouts, mainly party loyalists and extremist voters.
And so, ironically, the roots of Mr. Boehner’s downfall grew out of a Republican Party strategy in 2009 to follow the advice of Karl Rove, Republican campaign mastermind, who told them pragmatically: “He who controls redistricting can control Congress.”
Following the Rove dictum, the Republican Party poured $30 million, mostly raised from corporations, into what they called “RedMap,” a strategy to dominate the once-a-decade redistricting process in 2011 by capturing majority control of as many state legislatures as possible in the 2010 election .

Democrats Caught Off Guard by RedMap

RedMap was a smashing success. Republicans picked up 675 legislative seats nationwide, giving the GOP control of legislatures in states that held 40% of all House seats, versus Democrats, with only 10%. (The rest were under split control.)
Then came the payoff – creating safe seats for Republicans and cutting the Democrats down to a few seats in what Republicans conceded were hopeless urban districts.
As RedMap’s leaders later bragged, even though Democratic House candidates won the nationwide popular vote for the House in 2012 by 1.4 million votes, the GOP emerged with a 33-seat majority. The RedMap team claimed credit was due to GOP gerrymandering in pivotal states such as Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
But there was a hitch: The very strategy that cemented the party’s House majority also entrenched the rump faction of anti-government extremists that toppled Mr. Boehner and now faces potential successors like California’s Kevin McCarthy.
The rebel faction, now organized as the Freedom Caucus are very junior members of Congress. More than two-thirds were elected in the Tea Party class of 2010 and the RedMap classes of 2012 and 2014. More than 85 percent of them come from GOP-gerrymandered states, which emboldens them .
It will Take Citizen action to Break Gridlock
There is no quick fix to the challenge they pose. Choosing a new speaker will neither quell nor placate the right-wingers. They oppose not only Speaker Boehner but any leader willing to compromise with Democrats.
Nor are they hung up merely on one or two prickly issues, such as funding Planned Parenthood. The anti-government faction have immobilized Congress repeatedly – over funding the Department of Homeland Security, funding the Export-Import Bank, and raising the national debt ceiling. Twice, they have forced the shutdown of the national government, and they will try again.
It is going to take fundamental systemic reforms to dislodge this dysfunctional faction.
California and Arizona have shown the way out by taking the job of redistricting away from the state legislature and turning it over to independent citizen commissions, and last June, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Arizona-California system, giving the green light to citizen-led reform elsewhere.
Florida has used a different strategy Citizens groups like the League of Women Voters and Common Cause mounted a grass roots campaign and mobilized popular support in 2010 to pass a referendum amending the state constitution to outlaw partisan gerrymandering “with the intent to favor or disfavor” any political party or incumbent.
But the GOP-dominated state legislature defied the voters and adopted a gerrymander in 2011 that has put into office six Republican rebels, the most from any state. Florida’s citizen reformers fought back. They took the legislature to court and in July, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the Republican gerrymandering in 2011 was so blatantly partisan and unconstitutional that it ordered eight of Florida’s congressional districts redrawn.
In all, reformers are on the move in more than 20 states. Nine have set up systems for independent nonpartisan or bipartisan redistricting. In six more, gerrymandering is under assault in the courts, and in yet another six states, either political leaders or citizen groups have mounted efforts to vote gerrymandering out of power.
Perhaps public shock over Mr. Boehner’s downfall will give new impetus to this long overdue structural reform of our political system. Otherwise, crippling insurgencies will continue to be the new norm of American politics .
 
 
 
8.  Fix the Roads
 
 
Fixing America’s roads would essentially pay for itself
 
by Lawrence H. Summers,   Wonkblog,   washingtonpost.com,   October 13, 2015
 
There are many compelling arguments for increasing American infrastructure investment. Capital costs are exceptionally low. Construction labor is highly available. Materials costs are low as commodity prices have fallen. Investment is low by historic standards. Investing today relieves the burden of deferred maintenance for future generations.
Here is another one. Maintaining our infrastructure directly benefits American families and businesses because with fewer potholes they have to spend less maintaining their vehicles. This effect turns out to be surprisingly large. TRIP, a transportation research group, estimates that the cost to motorists of driving on roads in need of repair in 2013 was $109 billion. This includes only extra vehicle repair and operating costs, and not the delays caused by driving on poor roads, so it is almost certainly an underestimate. On the other hand, even with proper polices, some potholes would remain. To be very conservative, assume that proper infrastructure investment policies would save motorists half the total, or $54 billion a year.
How large is this figure? It is comparable to total consumer spending of $49 billion on air transportation or $53 billion on personal computers. As another way of seeing its magnitude, it works out to 40 cents per gallon of gasoline consumed in the United States.
So if we were able to raise the gas tax by 40 cents and repair our highways and roads, we would create no new net burden on consumers: The benefit in reduced vehicle operating costs would at the very least offset their higher gas bills. In fact, since our cost estimate is conservative, the net effect on consumers would most likely be positive. And as is fair, those who drive the most would both pay the most and benefit the most from reduced repair costs.
Even after a 40-cent increase in the gasoline tax, gas would still be only 82 percent as expensive as a year ago and 79 percent as expensive as two years ago. A gas tax to finance road repair is about as close to a free lunch as we can ever get in economics.
 
 
9.  Dangerously Lagging on Infrastructure
 
 
Don’t Pave Our Potholes with Corporate Tax Cuts
 
by Scott Klinger,   ourfuture.org,   October 14, 2015
 
Life was different in the 1990s. Back in ‘93, a lucky few used dial-up Internet to access one of 800 websites available worldwide. Smart phones were a distant dream. The TV dinosaur Barney had just started “edutaining” America’s children.
And gas cost about $1.30 a gallon — including 18.4 cents in federal taxes to build and maintain our roads, bridges, and transit systems.
Now, 22 years later, the Internet is all-encompassing, smartphones are ubiquitous, and Barney’s been dormant for years. Gas for $1.30 is a distant dream, even in these oil boom days.
Yet for some reason majorities in both houses of Congress expect good roads for the same 18 pennies per gallon we paid in 1993. Rather than agreeing on a long-term fix for the gas tax, Congress has kicked the can down the road. It’s passed 33 short-term fixes in the last six years.
Each time, the Highway Trust Fund’s solvency becomes even more perilous.
Decades of deferred maintenance on our nation’s infrastructure have resulted in needless congestion, dangerous bridges, and less reliable public transit. We’re nearly $1 trillion behind on transportation investments, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The Highway Trust Fund was established in 1956, funded by a 3 cent-per-gallon tax on gasoline, to build our Interstate Highway System. The tax was increased a little each year to keep up with inflation and ensure our roads were well tended. But since it got stuck at 18.4 cents in 1993 — about 30 cents in today’s dollars — this revenue no longer covers the tab for even the most critical repairs and investments.
A sustainable solution would permanently align expenditures with revenue. Instead, some members of Congress and the Obama administration are pursuing more temporary fixes.
One of the leading proposals would ask a small number of very large corporations — including Microsoft, Google, and Citigroup — to pay a small portion of the taxes they owe on $2 trillion of untaxed profits they’ve stashed offshore. A lot of that money was earned doing business in the United States, but the companies shifted their profits offshore using legal accounting tricks for the express purpose of avoiding taxes.
Under plans proposed by President Barack Obama and two senators — New York Democrat Chuck Schumer and Ohio Republican Rob Portman — corporations would pay about $150 billion of the more than $500 billion in taxes they owe. The remaining $350 billion would simply be forgiven.
That $150 billion could fund six years of highway repairs. But this money — just a fraction of what those companies actually owe — would be a one-time windfall.
By 2021, we’d be back in the same fix, having squandered a big pot of funds we could have otherwise used for investments in worn-out schools, dams, and levees — while rewarding corporate tax dodging, too. And by then we could still be stuck with a gas tax set nearly three decades before.
There are much simpler solutions.
Closing the funding gap would only require drivers to pay a dime more per gallon in gas taxes today. Other options include stopping companies from shifting U.S. profits to offshore tax havens in the first place, and using the $90 billion a year in revenue that would result to make a down payment on roads and other infrastructure needs.
If Congress refuses to ask drivers to pay 21st century prices for 21st century roads, our once world-class infrastructure will go the way of dial-up Internet.
 
 
10.  Decision Time?
 
 
Sources: Biden could announce decision within 48 hours
 
by Leigh Ann Caldwell and Kristen Welker,   msnbc.com,   October 19, 2015
 
Vice President Joe Biden is nearing a decision on if he will enter the presidential race, which could come within 48 hours, two sources tells NBC News.
Biden has been contemplating a presidential run for months and has delayed an announcement beyond supposed timeframes multiple times before. Missing this deadline, of course, could happen again.
In addition to when, the big unknown is what Biden’s decision will be: Is he in our is he out?
Biden’s public schedule gives little indication of his decision. He traveled from his home in Delaware to Washington Monday morning where he will address a climate change summit this afternoon.
If Biden does announce within the next two days, his decision would come before current front runner, Hillary Clinton, appears before the House committee charged with investigating the Benghazi attacks more than three years ago.
In a signal that he is considering running, Biden spoke with International Association of Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger for about 20 minutes on Friday. Biden said he was strongly considering running and was trying to gauge the support of unions, a source said.
 
FINALLY   double play
 
 
 

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