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By Antonio Ray Harvey, California Black Media

On June 23, the California Senate rejected a constitutional amendment to remove language in the state Constitution that allows involuntary servitude as punishment to a crime with a 21-6 vote.

The 13th Amendment of the United States Constitution, ratified in 1865, prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude with one exception: if involuntary servitude was imposed as punishment for a crime.

The state of California is one of nine states in the country that permits involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment.

Article I, section 6, of the California Constitution, describes the same prohibitions on slavery and involuntary servitude and the same exception for involuntary servitude as punishment for crime.

The number of votes cast in favor of Assembly Constitutional Amendment (ACA) 3, the California Abolition Act, fell short of the two-thirds vote requirement needed to move the bill to the ballot for Californians to decide its fate in the November General Election.

The Senate is expected to hold another floor vote on the legislation this week.

Sen. Sydney Kamlager (D-Los Angeles), who authored ACA 3 in 2021 while serving in the Assembly, said she focused the language in the bill on the slavery ban and vowed to bring it back for a vote when Sen. Steven Bradford (D-Gardena), chair of the California Legislative Black Caucus, asked her about it June 23.

The CA State Senate just reaffirmed its commitment to keeping slavery and involuntary servitude in the states constitution, Kamlager tweeted.

Jamilia Land, a member of the Anti-Violence Safety, and Accountability Project (ASAP), an organization that advocates for prisoners rights, said she remains committed to making sure slavery is struck out of the California constitution.

All we needed was 26 votes, Land said. But we have made amendments to ACA 3 on (June 24). Now it could either go back to the Senate on (June 27) or Thursday, June 30.

Five Republicans and one Democrat, Steve Glazer (D-Orinda), voted against the amendment.

He stated that the issue is certainly a question worthy of debate and can be addressed without a constitutional amendment.

Slavery was an evil that will forever be a stain on the history of our great country. We eliminated it through the Civil War and the adoption of the 13th Amendment, Glazer said in a June 23 statement. Involuntary servitude though lesser known also had a shameful past. ACA 3 is not even about involuntary servitude at least of the kind that was practiced 150 years ago. The question this measure raises is whether or not California should require felons in state or local jails prisons to work.

Glazer said that the Legislative Counsels office gave him a simple amendment that involuntary servitude would not include any rehabilitative activity required of an incarcerated person, including education, vocational training, or behavioral or substance abuse counseling.

The Counsel also suggested that the amendment does not include any work tasks required of an incarcerated person that generally benefit the residents of the facility in which the person is incarcerated, such as cooking, cleaning, grounds keeping, and laundry.

Lets adopt that amendment and then get back to work on the difficult challenge of making sure our prisons are run humanely, efficiently and in a way that leads to the rehabilitation of as many felons as possible, Glazer added.

Kamlager says involuntary servitude is a euphemism for forced labor and the language should be stricken from the constitution.

The states Department of Finance (DOF) estimated that the amendment would burden California taxpayers with $1.5 billion annually in wages to prisoners, DOF analyst Aaron Edwards told Senate the Appropriations Committee on June 16.

These are facts that we think would ultimately determine the outcome of future litigation and court decisions, Edwards said. The largest potential impact is to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which currently employs around 65,000 incarcerated persons to support central prison operations such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry services.

Right before the Juneteenth holiday weekend, the appropriations committee sent ACA 3 to the Senate floor with a 5-0 majority vote after Kamlager refuted Edwards financial data.

This country has been having economic discussions for hundreds of years around slavery, involuntary servitude, and indentured servants and enslavement still exists in the prison system, Kamlager said. She also added that a conflict was fought over the moral issue of slavery.

This bill does not talk about economics. Its a constitutional amendment, Kamlager said. The (DOF) is not talking about any of this in this grotesque analysis about why it makes more sense for the state of California to advocate for and allow involuntary servitude in prisons. I think (this conversation) is what led to the Civil War.

Three states have voted to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude Colorado, Utah, and Nebraska and in all three cases, the initiative was bipartisan and placed on the ballot by a unanimous vote of legislators, according to Max Parthas, the co-director of the Abolish Slavery National Network (ASNN).

ACA 3 is already attached to a report that addresses the harms of slavery. The Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans issued its interim report to the California Legislature on June 1.

The report included a set of preliminary recommendations for policies that the California Legislature could adopt to remedy those harms, including its support for ACA 3. It examines the ongoing and compounding harms experienced by African Americans as a result of slavery and its lingering effects on American society today.

One of the preliminary recommendations in our report was to support ACA 3, said Los Angeles attorney Kamilah V. Moore, chairperson of Task Force. The Task Force saw how that type of legislation aligns perfectly with the idea of reparations for African Americans.

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COMMENTARY: Will Cassidy Hutchinson Shame Republicans to Tell the Truth? - Post News Group

Data from the N.C. State Board of Elections show that 41,795 N.C. voters have changed their party affiliation since the beginning of 2022. More than half of those, 23,374, are now unaffiliated voters, instead of a Democrat, Republican, or Libertarian.

Republicans are the only N.C. party to gain more voters than theyve lost so far this year, with nearly 5,000 Democrats becoming Republicans.

Of political parties, Democrats have lost the most voters since January 2022 with nearly 20,000 registered Democrats leaving the party and only 6,253 joining. The data show that of those who left, one quarter (4,999) became Republicans, 14,447 became unaffiliated, and 207 switched to the Libertarian Party.

About 9,830 voters have left Republican affiliation, and 11,341 switched to it. Of the Republican voters who changed their affiliation, most (8,348) became unaffiliated, 1,211 became Democrats, and 271 switched to Libertarian.

Libertarians lost 936 affiliated voters. Of those, 579 became unaffiliated, 220 became Republicans, and 137 became Democrats.

This year seems to have a slight uptick in registration changes when comparing it to the election years of the last decade, said Jim Stirling, research fellow at the John Locke Foundations Civitas Center for Public Integrity. 2020 had a massive number of registration changes, totaling 237,611 changes.This includes the now removed Green and Constitutional parties only having received 2,477 registrant changes.While we may not reach 2020 registration changes, we will likely see a large uptick in registrations as we get closer to November.

There has been speculation that voters are switching parties to manipulate another groups primary race and might switch back in time for the general election.

Short-term party switching is often talked about but is pretty rare in practice, said Andy Jackson, director of the Civitas Center for Public Integrity. It was popularized by Rush Limbaughs Operation Chaos in 2008, when he encouraged Republicans to change registration to vote in Democratic presidential primaries. More recently, there was an effort by progressives to change party registration to vote in the Republican 11th Congregssional District primary against Madison Cawthorn.

Only an estimated 2,000 Democrats made the switch in that race, not enough to have swayed the outcome.

North Carolina has more than 7 million registered voters, with about 2.5 million Democrats, 2.2 million Republicans, and 50,000 Libertarians. There is a meeting at the State Board of Elections scheduled for Thursday June 28, that would consider adding the Green Party to N.C. ballots. Controversy has erupted lately, though, that citizens whove signed the Greens petition are being contacted by a group associated with national Democrat operative Marc Elias. The group is encouraging them to remove their names from the petition. If the Green Party is allowed on N.C. ballots for November, it could erode Democrat affiliations even further.

The data illustrate a national trend with more voters switching to the Republican Party ahead of 2022 general elections. Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported that 1 million voters in 43 states have switched to Republican affiliation this year, while only 63,000 switched to become Democrats. AP cited Raleigh as one of the key cities in the study where Republicans are gaining ground.

Democrats are hoping that last weeks U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wades constitutional right to an abortion will change the voter exodus from their party and force Democrats focus onto the state legislative races, where abortion law would now be set.

I think this is an earthquake in the midterms, said N.C. Democrat political strategist Morgan Jackson on Front Row with Marc Rotterman over the weekend, calling it a base motivator.

Both sides of the aisle think the Roe decision from the U.S. Supreme Court could benefit Democrats, with a recent Civitas Poll of likely N.C. voters finding that 40% of respondents identified as pro-life, while 43% of respondents said they are pro-choice. Among women 18-34 years old, 22% say they are pro-life, while 63% say they are pro-choice.

One of the reasons Democrats are having trouble in polls right now is because Democrats are not motivated, Jackson said. This changes all of that.

Republicans are working to wrest control of Congress from Democrats after losing majority power in 2020. They say that historic inflation in food, housing, energy, and gasoline costs combined with dropping wages will set the pace for November elections, giving Republicans the wind at their back. In Junes Civitas poll, only 41% of respondents say they plan on voting for Democrats at the national level and 39% at the state level.

Unaffiliated voters were the second-largest group to change parties, behind Democrats. Of the 11,376 unaffiliated voters to change, 6,122 became Republicans, 4,905 became Democrats, and 349 became Libertarians.

The general election is scheduled for Nov. 8. Voters must be registered by Oct. 14.

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More than 40000 NC voters have changed their political party this year - Carolina Journal

Bob Evans| Special to the Rockford Register Star

The wise philosopher Yogi Berra once advised, When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

Illinois Republicans just took that advice in a big way. Facing a choice between two profoundly different definitions of what it means to be a Republican, they chose the path that leads to the right.

As is always the case with such choices, there will be consequences.

The choice was represented by Darren Bailey and Richard Irvin. Bailey represented the populist, Trumpist, socially conservative, pro-life, pro-gun Republicans, concentrated in rural, central, and southern Illinois. Irvin represented urban and suburban, middle class and professional, more moderate Republicans.

Illinois Republicans constitute not only a minority party, but a deeply divided one. Can they hang together?

We must note, by the way, that this internecine struggle rages all around the country. Republicans everywhere contest the basic identity of their party .

As a footnote to these observations note the primary contest in southern Illinois between Miller and Davis in the gerrymandered 15th District.

The gravity of this dispute is measured in part by both the amount of money spent as well as by who spent it. A conservative donor contributed millions of dollars to support Bailey. A Chicago businessman contributed millions of dollars to support Irvin. Control of the party was clearly at stake.

Many more millions were contributed by Pritzker and the Democratic Governors Association to promote Bailey as ultimately the weaker candidate. This crossover intervention has, by the way, been rarer in the past. Everyone recognized the centrality, albeit for different reasons, of the definition of the Illinois Republican party.

What next? For now the Trumpist wing of the party holds sway.

Will the Irvinists lick their wounds and then rejoin the fray for the fall? A late primary compresses healing time. Bailey Republicans have won the battle. Can they win the war?

Robert Evans is an associate professor of economics, business and political science at Rockford University.

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Bailey Republicans won the battle. Can they win the war? - Rockford Register Star

Lachlan Markay, reporting for Axios:

The Republican National Committee fired the latest shot onWednesday, when chairwoman Ronna McDaniel claimed in a statementto Axios that Google has systematically attacked its digitalprogram. The RNC claims Googles Gmail, the nations top emailclient, has been suppressing fundraising emails duringstrategically critical periods this year.

Google told Axios its spam filter is thoroughly apolitical, andthat its taking steps to ensure political messages arentinadvertently flagged. [...] Google did not address the RNCsspecific complaints, but stressed, we do not filter emails basedon political affiliation.

We recently asked the Federal Election Commission to advise us ona potential pilot for political bulk senders that would providemore transparency into email deliverability, while still lettingusers protect their inboxes by unsubscribing or labeling emails asspam, said Google spokesperson Jos Castaeda in an emailedstatement.

That pilot, first reported by Axios this week, wouldinitially exempt political senders from Gmails spam filter, whilegiving recipients more visible options to flag those messages asspam going forward.

For the sake of argument, lets concede that Gmail flags as spam more political emails from Republicans than Democrats. Id bet that this is in fact trueand if its not true, theres no basis for this controversy.

One possible explanation is that Google is doing this deliberately to hinder Republican fundraising. This is what the GOP is claiming.

Another possible explanation is that GOP fundraising emails really do tend to be more spammy, both in content and in frequency, and thus should be getting flagged as spam more frequently than those from Democrats by non-partisan filtering algorithms. I.e. that Gmails spam filtering algorithms are biased only against junky messages. I get a lot of email from Democrats based on my political donations. I also voluntarily signed up for emails from the Trump campaign in the 2020 election, just to see what they were like. In my experience, the scenario I describe in this paragraph is almost certainly the case: Republican political emails are spammier.

Fundraising emails from Democrats are very frequent, and often melodramatic in their ostensible urgency, but in my experience they are legit. Unsubscribe links are where you expect them at the bottom of the emails, and unsubscribing works.

Fundraising emails from Republicansespecially those from the Trump campaignlook and read like scams. And, apparently, often now are outright scamsthe Trump family has apparently raised over $250 million since the 2020 election for an Official Election Defense Fund that doesnt exist. Emails with subject lines claiming that you have one hour to claim your free gift, or that Trump himself has recorded a personal message just for you but he needs some dough before hell send it to you. All political fundraising solicitations are a bit greasy, but the Trumpy ones are so scammy theyre beyond parody.

The Republican argument is that Gmail (and all other email providersbut Gmail is the biggest in the U.S.) ought to flag Republican and Democratic emails as spam in equal measure, and if Republican emails are flagged more frequently, its prima facie evidence that Google is biased against Republicans. Its like a basketball team that plays rough and commits a lot more fouls than their opponent but yells and screams that the refs are biased against them because more fouls are called against them. The refs arent biased if the team they flag for more fouls actually commits more fouls. And a spam filter isnt biased if one partys emails are more spammy and thus more likely to be flagged as spam.

But it sounds like Google, eager to avoid being tagged as anti-conservative, is working on something to exempt political emails from their general spam filtering algorithms. I get it that this bullshit is a headache Google doesnt need, but Id like to see them stand firm that their spam filters are working as intendedflagging messages based on their junkiness, not their political slant.

Friday, 1 July 2022

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Republicans Working the Refs, Gmail Edition - Daring Fireball

The January 6 hearings have two basic functions. The first is to reveal, to the degree it is possible, as much as can be uncovered about Donald Trumps efforts to negate the 2020 election result and remain in office. The second is to expose the allies who are, in one way or another, complicit in his crime. On both counts, the committee is delivering.

Tuesdays hearings produced numerous revelations. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to chief of staff Mark Meadows and a first- or secondhand witness to the coup attempt, deepened Trumps complicity in the insurrection. She testified that Trump instructed Meadows to call Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, two aides who were connected to the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, the main paramilitary organizations that directed the violence; that Trump, after being told his supporters were bringing weapons to his rally, told the Secret Service to remove the metal detectors because theyre not here to hurt me; and that Trump was so desperate to join the march on the Capitol that he actually assaulted a Secret Service agent when he was denied on security grounds.

At this point, even with the hearings in progress, it seems safe to rate this as the greatest political scandal in American history. This is true when measured by its depth (the lengths the perpetrators were willing to go extended to the violent overthrow of the U.S. government) as well as its breadth (the guilty parties included elected officials, lawyers, foot soldiers, and, of course, the president of the United States).

It is all the more striking, then, that the Republican Party stance was, and is, that none of this should be investigated. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell opposed the formation of the commission. (After careful consideration, Ive made the decision to oppose the House Democrats slanted and unbalanced proposal for another commission to study the events of January 6th, he announced on the Senate floor last year.) House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy appointed a collection of Trump lackeys. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat two of them Jims Jordan and Banks on the grounds that they were personally implicated in the investigation, McCarthy ordered his entire caucus to boycott the hearings.

Republicans have responded to the stream of revelations by dismissing them as boring and partisan. Their party-controlled media have either ignored the hearings, engaged in frantic whataboutism, or supplied talking points to distract from the damning news. They have turned against the only members of their party willing to participate in the hearings, branding them as traitors.

This in turn has sent a message to every staffer privy to the coup who is contemplating the choice to share what they know or stick to the omert. The future in Republican politics belongs to those who do not betray Trump. They may not be required to pledge open obedience to him, but silence is far safer for their careers as Republicans than testifying against Trump is. Republicans could have made cooperating with the committee the safe choice. Instead, they have made it dangerous.

Republicans probably justify all this as simple partisan logic. If you are able to conceive of events only in terms of political benefit, then the function of the hearings is to hurt Republicans; therefore, the Republican task is to engage in damage control.

But this is precisely the kind of rank partisanship that carried most of the party along with Trump through, and past, his reelection campaign. It brought him within a fraction of a percent of the vote of winning a second term and let his postelection coup attempt come harrowingly close, at minimum, to provoking a violent crisis.

After Trump refused to accept the election outcome, a Republican aide infamously said, What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? It was an astonishing quote even then. January 6 revealed how dangerous that mentality is. The partys response to the hearings reveals that this mentality has not changed.

Irregular musings from the center left.

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Republicans Are Trying to Cover Up Greatest Political Scandal in U.S. History - New York Magazine