Workers win big in lawsuits, fight lobbyists in a key swing state

Plus good news Wisconsin and school daze in Arkansas

Welcome to a Sunday edition of Progress Report.

It’s been a rollercoaster few days in both domestic and international politics. On Thursday, Brits went to the polls and punished the conservative Tories, giving Labour, now a center-left party, a commanding majority with only a 34% plurality of the vote.

Today in France, voters rallied to reject the National Rally, the racist far-right party that had seemed poised to take over the National Assembly. Instead, French voters surged support to a leftist coalition that has big plans for what looks likely to be a small plurality hold on power. President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble Party took second place, while the far-right ate shit and came in third.

It’d be nice if the US emulated both countries in the rejection of fascism, but our archaic democratic system and entrenched powers have us veering ever-closer to a full hostile takeover by the far right. It doesn’t help that the Democratic nominee for president continues to bleed support amid questions about his mental acuity and ability to lead the country. I’ve weighed in on the matter here and here, so I’ll only add that voicing frustration with how the media functions or the things that voters care about won’t change either reality. Shame never works.

On that note, there’s a lot to review tonight, from ballot initiative updates and long-awaited worker victories to big court cases and some progressive policy wins.

Note: To make this work as accessible as possible, I’ve lowered the price for a paid subscription back down to Substack’s $5 minimum. If you can’t afford that right now, please email me and I’ll put you on the list for free. Every paid subscription makes it easier for me to comp one while becoming sustainable.

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🏥 💸 Canceling medical debt: In St. Paul, MN, the city government is spending $1.1 million in unused pandemic funds to buy and cancel $100 million in medical debt. The plan will provide total relief for 43,000 residents in a city with just over 300,000 people. Mayor Melvin Carter did a good job connecting the dots on why this is a public policy priority.

Over in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper announced a new plan that would alleviate up to $4 billion in medical debt for two million residents while also providing some help to hospitals experiencing strain. Among other things, the plan buys medical debt dating back as far as 2014 for people who are enrolled in Medicaid, make up to 350% of the federal poverty rate, or have debt greater than 5% of their annual income.

🩺 🚦 Preventing medical debt: The Oregon Health Authority, which runs the state’s Medicaid program, is expanding the government healthcare program to cover people who make up to 200% of the federal poverty line. Oregon will be the third state to go beyond the limit set by Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, 138% of the federal line, and first to not charge co-pays or premiums. This will provide care to an additional 100,000 people by 2027.

🏘️ 🥗 Food is medicine: A new law signed by Colorado Gov. Jared Polis authorizes the state’s Medicaid program to seek federal approval to provide housing and meals to a limited number of enrollees. The state estimates that about 11,000 people with chronic health conditions would get assistance, though no children would be covered. Colorado would be the 20th state to seek approval for this limited expansion of the program. It is unlikely that a new Trump administration would approve additional states.

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📚 ⛔ School bully: Voters in Arkansas will not have the opportunity to hold private and charter schools accountable in November. For AR Kids, the coalition backing the state’s Educational Rights Amendment, announced on Friday that it had gathered just about 70,000 petition signatures, falling well shy of the 90,000 minimum required to get on the ballot.

Qualifying this year was always going to be a challenge given the institutional and financial opposition to amendment, which among other things would have expanded pre-K and required schools receiving vouchers to meet the same standards as public schools.

Arkansas’s secretary of state spent months nitpicking the language of the amendment, delaying the coalition’s effort to collect the necessary signatures. It also faced enormous financial opposition from the Walton family and rhetorical opposition from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who signed the law that brought vouchers to a state where school segregation is on the rise.

For AR Kids promised to continue working towards getting the amendment on a future ballot.

💵 🗳️ Minimum wage: No issue winds up on the statewide ballot more often worker pay, and this week, there was good news, bad news, and seriously curious news on that front.