State supreme courts are having a field day

Nothing like some affirmation and high-profile cases

Welcome to a Tuesday evening edition of Progress Report.

It’s been a busy few days. The Republican presidential primary field is looking more and more like an American Idol for unlikeable morons, right-wing Supreme Court justices continue to be exposed as pliant toadies for conservative billionaires, ballot initiative campaigns are shifting into full gear, labor fights are picking up, and there’s a fair number of important bills being considered at state houses and courthouses across the country.

We’ll touch on all those things and more, but first I want to draw your attention to the image below:

That’s a screenshot from this week’s edition of Weekly Shift, a labor-focused newsletter from Politico. This week, the newsletter is sponsored by UPS, which used the space not to advertise its services as the nation’s largest shipping and logistics company, but instead provide unfiltered PR messaging about UPS’s ongoing contract negotiations with the Teamsters.

Should the two sides not reach an agreement by July 31st, around 340,000 Teamsters will walk out and hit the picket lines for the biggest single-employer strike in US history. A strike of that magnitude, on a company so central to the US economy, would be the most significant American labor story in years, and Teamster leadership’s decision to walk out of talks on Friday to protest a weak offer from UPS brought them one step closer to the brink.

Friday’s blow-up is exactly the sort of dramatic event that you’d expect Politico’s labor newsletter to cover, but oddly enough, there was not a single word about the incident included in Monday’s email. In fact, the newsletter is completely devoid of any mention of the negotiations, save for the one-sentence references in the UPS-sponsored ad breaks. This one’s a real doozy:

The advertisement is exceptionally misleading and elides the major issues at play in negotiations, but that’s to be expected — UPS paid a whole lot of money for such prominent placement in the inboxes of lawmakers, executives, journalists, and union leaders. The problem here is that Politico sold the space in the first place.

It’s inherently dicey for a publication to accept corporate sponsorship for a journalistic enterprise dedicated to covering the perpetual tension between labor and capital, and absolute malpractice to sell that space to the $100 billion corporation at the center of a story that could set the terms of American labor relations for the next decade.

While I don’t have the reach of Politico, there is absolutely a world in which I could tweak the reporting and commentary that I do here at Progress Report and start selling your trust to politicians and special interest groups. Newsletters do that all the time, even and especially more niche-level publications, but I’d rather shut this thing down than take any of that money.

That said, Progress Report does take a lot of time, energy, and financial obligation to report, write, and produce. The newsletter is only viable so long as it continues to grow and cover the commitment that it requires, and this month’s paid subscription numbers have been super, super-slow. I spend too much time focused on the accounting when that happens!

If you want to help build a and sustain a newsletter that doesn’t take advertisements from special interests or corporations, and you’ve got a few bucks a month to spare, your support would be amazing. I’ve got some good stuff on public health, immigration, and other big topics on the way, so there’s never been a better time to join.

OK, now to the news!

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Ballot initiatives:

Nebraska: With the policy standing no chance in the most conservative legislature in generations, activists are now working to pass universal paid sick leave via ballot initiative.

The law would mandate that small businesses with 20 or fewer workers allow them at least five sick days per year and require that larger employers offer a minimum of seven sick days.

The petition has been filed with the Nebraska Secretary of State, and once the wording is hammered out, the coalition of activists can begin collecting the signatures required to score the initiative a spot on the 2024 general election ballot.

Washington: Activists in Bellingham are one step closer to winning some of most significant and progressive tenant protections in the country.

The so-called Economic Displacement Assistance Measure, if passed, would require 120 days written notice of a rent increase above 8% and provide rental relocation assistance equal to three times the fair market rent.

Located in the northern part of the state, near the Canadiana and Alaskan border, Bellingham is a coastal city of nearly 100,000 people, including what are likely the angriest landlords in the country right now.

Democracy:

Supreme Court: Great news! In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court decided today that now was not the time to blow up American democracy with a fringe theory that was conjured up by power-hungry right-wing lunatic lawyers.

In ruling against North Carolina Republicans in Moore v. Harper, the court rejected the so-called Independent State Legislature Theory, which would cut out state courts from having any involvement or oversight of the redistricting process. For now, at least — according to legal experts, the decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts keeps the door open for his conservative supermajority to pull all manner of shenanigans and chaos in the next election cycle.

Virginia: When Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin broke bipartisan tradition of automatically restoring the voting rights of at least some former felons after they finished their sentences, it earned him the enmity of voting rights advocates across the country.

Now, the decision has earned him a day in court, as well.

A coalition of organizations including the ACLU has filed a lawsuit against the state of Virginia that seeks to end once and for all the state’s practice of felony disenfranchisement. The suit reaches all the way back to 1870, when a chastened Virginia was admitted back into the Union under a series of conditions laid out in the conveniently named Virginia Readmission Act.

The law deemed that Virginia’s new constitution could not be “amended or changed to deprive any citizen or class of citizens of the right to vote, except as a punishment for such crimes as are now felonies at common law,” and the plaintiffs’ contention is that the punishment for felonies ends upon the completion of one’s sentence.

Not for nothing, but this could have been solved a few years ago when Democrats had a trifecta in Virginia. They didn’t expect the GOP wave that swept them out of power in 2021. Missing the opportunity to pass critical voting rights protections isn’t just for Democrats in Congress!

Ron DeSantis: Polls continue to show that the more people get to know Florida’s unabashedly racist and fatally whiny governor, the more they hate him. To counter that, DeSantis is ratcheting up the hateful rhetoric and policy to new heights, including his sickening attack on birthright citizenship.

Speaking of Florida: It didn’t seem possible, but Francis Suarez, Mayor of Miami and crypto-failson, is even dumber than he seems. And if you read our piece on Suarez earlier this month, you know that he seems really dumb.

Weed

Maryland: This weekend, recreational marijuana will officially be legal in the state of Maryland. People can carry up to 1.5 ounces of cannibis without being penalized, while possession of up to 2.5 ounces will be met with a $250 fine instead of criminal charges.

Critically, the new policy is paired with criminal justice provisions:

The law also creates a process for expunging all cases in which possession of fewer than 10 grams of cannabis is the only charge, along with additional expungement provisions, according to the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission.   

There’s no way to right the wrongs of the War on Drugs, especially in a state anchored by Baltimore, but further attempts at amelioration should be a bare minimum.

Elections

New York: In what was an otherwise relatively sleepy city council primary night here in NYC, some long-delayed justice was served tonight when Yusef Salaam, a member of the fully exonerated Central Park Five, won the Democratic nomination to represent central Harlem in City Hall. Salaam, now a criminal justice reform activist, easily defeated two sitting lawmakers in what is a thrilling surprise election victory.

Missouri: Forget “parents rights” — if states are going to start rolling back child labor laws because 14-year-olds are mature enough to learn trades and make big decision impacting other people, then 16-year-olds are undoubtedly mature enough to have some say over the decisions made in their communities and schools, which disproportionately impact them.

An organization run by teenagers in Missouri is trying to build momentum for a bill that would give 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote in municipal elections. 16MO claims to be in talks with lawmakers from both parties about sponsoring its legislation, and given the makeup and recent record of the Missouri legislature, that its leaders have gotten this far means that they’re already some of the state’s most effective political operators.

Not everyone is on their side, though, including Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, who recently said it’d be fair to tell 16-year-olds that “we want you to be a little bit older, we want you to have a little bit more of the level of responsibility that other people have.”

Ashcroft, of course, is the son of former US Attorney General John Ashcroft, meaning that he truly earned his place in government through deep reflection and personal responsibility.

Labor

Michigan: Back in late 2018, with the GOP about to lose its legislative trifecta, Republican lawmakers passed a number of anti-democratic laws that undermined popular policies and sabotaged successful ballot initiatives. Among the initiatives hijacked by the unique “adopt-and-amend” procedures was an increase to the state minimum wage and elimination of the tipped minimum that is so much lower.

It’s been groused about for years and now a lawsuit making its way to the Michigan state Supreme Court could make it moot forever and get people their long-overdue raises. If fully successful, the suit could eliminate entirely the system that has forced unpopular policy onto the ballot and neutered great and popular ideas before they could get any oxygen.

School privatization

Pennsylvania: He played it coy enough to score the support of Pennsylvania’s biggest teacher’s union (not that they had much of a choice given the alternative), but now that he’s comfortably ensconced in the Governor’s mansion, Josh Shapiro is again openly declaring his support for school vouchers.

This would be catastrophic for working families in Pennsylvania. In February, a judge found that the state’s public school funding system had so deeply shortchanged poorer districts that it violated the rights of children in low-income communities.

House Democrats, who have a bare minimum majority in that chamber, celebrated the decision at the time. If Shapiro can’t be pushed off his horrible private school stance — and his kids attend private schools, which complicates things — public school advocates will have to hold each and every House Democrat to avoid what could be a very painful and damaging vote over selling out Pennsylvania’s public education system and converting it into the zealot grift hustle that’s sucking Arizona, Iowa, and soon to be many more states dry.

Weed

Florida: State Attorney General Ashley Moody is still trying to convince the state Supreme Court to toss an overwhelmingly popular, guaranteed-to-pass, and already-qualified referndum on recreational marijuana legalization from the 2024 ballot.

Moody’s argument is so specious that if it weren’t Florida, I wouldn’t be at all worried about it, but the state Supreme Court has already blocked two earlier efforts to legalize. Maybe if someone would just smoke up the AG, Ashley wouldn’t be so… Moody.

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