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New England Politics [ME, VT, NH, MA, CT, RI]
Kaputa
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This thread is for discussing politics in the great states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island.
I don't know how many D&D posters live in New England or if there's enough interest in the region to warrant a thread, but since I live in New England and have seen some state-specific politics threads I figured I'd give it a shot. Not going to do a state by state effort-OP since I only know anything about Maine and occasionally New Hampshire politics (I live along Maine's border with NH), maybe some people from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut can chime in and let us know what's going on. Oh and there is also Vermont, in theory.
Maine state politics rarely make national headlines, which is sort of unfortunate, since when they do it's usually due to our wingnut moron governor, Paul LePage (for those who don't know he's basically a Maine version of Trump), saying or doing something stupid, like calling a Democratic state congressperson a "socialist cocksucker," refusing Medicaid expansion, or saying that people of color and Hispanics are "the enemy." This reflects poorly on our state and makes us look dumber than we actually are. LePage has won two elections with a minority of the vote, due to both being three way races between an Republican, Democrat, and Independent. Maine's bicameral legislature is split, with the GOP controlling the Senate and Democrats controlling the House. But where we kick ass, due in part to bored and pissed off young people with nothing to do because it's Maine, is on ballot initiatives! Since our state government is sorta useless, we've taken it upon ourselves to pass a bunch of cool laws:
Marriage equality (before the SCOTUS decision)
Minimum wage increase from $7.50 to $12.00 (gradually, this year it increased to $10/hr)
Ranked Choice Voting (because first past the post is a fucking stupid system and because the LePage thing upset us so much)
Medicaid expansion (after the governor refused it)
Legal recreational marijuana (although the bill that ended up passing is somewhat restrictive)
Right now we're working on collecting enough signatures to get a "Death with Dignity" referendum on the ballot.
Reactionary forces have tried to oppose, delay, and legally invalidate each of these successful exercises in direct democracy, but have only had mixed success so far. LePage is still fighting the Medicaid expansion tooth and nail, though.
Our current senators are Angus King (meh) and Susan Collins (moderate GOP, she still sucks IMO though), and our two House reps are Chellie Pingree (rad, one of the better Democrats) and Bruce Poliquin (less moderate GOP).
Anything interesting going on in the other New England states?
I don't know how many D&D posters live in New England or if there's enough interest in the region to warrant a thread, but since I live in New England and have seen some state-specific politics threads I figured I'd give it a shot. Not going to do a state by state effort-OP since I only know anything about Maine and occasionally New Hampshire politics (I live along Maine's border with NH), maybe some people from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut can chime in and let us know what's going on. Oh and there is also Vermont, in theory.
Maine state politics rarely make national headlines, which is sort of unfortunate, since when they do it's usually due to our wingnut moron governor, Paul LePage (for those who don't know he's basically a Maine version of Trump), saying or doing something stupid, like calling a Democratic state congressperson a "socialist cocksucker," refusing Medicaid expansion, or saying that people of color and Hispanics are "the enemy." This reflects poorly on our state and makes us look dumber than we actually are. LePage has won two elections with a minority of the vote, due to both being three way races between an Republican, Democrat, and Independent. Maine's bicameral legislature is split, with the GOP controlling the Senate and Democrats controlling the House. But where we kick ass, due in part to bored and pissed off young people with nothing to do because it's Maine, is on ballot initiatives! Since our state government is sorta useless, we've taken it upon ourselves to pass a bunch of cool laws:
Marriage equality (before the SCOTUS decision)
Minimum wage increase from $7.50 to $12.00 (gradually, this year it increased to $10/hr)
Ranked Choice Voting (because first past the post is a fucking stupid system and because the LePage thing upset us so much)
Medicaid expansion (after the governor refused it)
Legal recreational marijuana (although the bill that ended up passing is somewhat restrictive)
Right now we're working on collecting enough signatures to get a "Death with Dignity" referendum on the ballot.
Reactionary forces have tried to oppose, delay, and legally invalidate each of these successful exercises in direct democracy, but have only had mixed success so far. LePage is still fighting the Medicaid expansion tooth and nail, though.
Our current senators are Angus King (meh) and Susan Collins (moderate GOP, she still sucks IMO though), and our two House reps are Chellie Pingree (rad, one of the better Democrats) and Bruce Poliquin (less moderate GOP).
Anything interesting going on in the other New England states?
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Our current governor Phil Scott is hated by the whole state. He's a republican so Dems don't love him, and he's signed gun control legislation so Republicans aren't happy. Neither are Democrats, for the record. We have no real gun control laws up here to begin with (no licensing, concealed and open carry are legal without permit), so these laws were a huge change.
We have the first transgender candidate for governor running for the democratic nomination. She seems to be well liked too, though Facebook comments about her are predictably garbage.
Also running for the democratic ticket: Ethan Sonneborn. He's in middle School.
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(I don't think I can vote, as an immigrant I'm not sure if I count as a person yet...)
Not really sure what the implications of such an amendment would be, or whether to support it or not.
I really love Vermont, it's a beautiful state with rad mountains and friendly people in my experience. But I had to make a jab at one of the other NE states in the OP and I just never hear about anything going on in your state compared to the others. Dunno how I feel about a middle school legislator...
Thanks
Can you expand on this? My grandfather just passed, and one of the worst parts about it is that we couldn't really respect his wishes with regard to end of life care. He didn't want to live with dementia beyond a certain point, but that wasn't a decision that the state would let him or his family make. How far is it that the group pushing the referendum wants to go? How's sentiment among Mainers-on-the-street?
Man, trying to explain just how republican some parts of mass are is super difficult.
Hillary won every county in Massachusetts. There are certainly some towns especially in rural Bristol county and westawoostah before the Pioneer Valley where Trump won (plus the random Republican towns in the south west corner on the CT border) but the state legislature is 80% Dem for a reason and like 53% Trump isn't that "heavily". (ed of course 1% is too much tbh)
Although we do have the problem of Baker seeming moderate compared to Trump, which makes it hard to stoke up anger against him to get a liberal governor in there. To be fair he is relatively moderate for a modern Republican, but I think a pretty good argument could be made he's just not good at his job and he certainly blocks some more aggressive reforms/legislation
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We had it on the ballot in 2012 and it failed 51-49, likely due to otherwise liberal Catholics (and some concerns on the exact language from the medical community). State law required it to wait 5 years before it would be back and it also failed to get added this time
https://ballotpedia.org/Massachusetts_2018_ballot_measures
Right now we have a millionaires tax, an anti-trans rights referendum and some other possibilities but not "death with dignity". This is probably because there was a bill that was thought to have more of a shot that was dropped in March. I'd expect it to potentially be on the ballot in 2020
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Previous to my residency here I was raised in Southeast CT: Military-Industrial Complex Town plus some small colleges, tourist destinations, and Pfizer who have been gradually packing up their bags since screwing over poor black people with eminent domain in 2007 and then deciding not to do anything with the land.
I then spent (most but not all of) my college years in Burlington VT: the bubble where people go to be somewhere VT adjacent, but not really live *in* VT. My time there is when I began to really learn about the financial, and technical, boondoggle that is the F35 JSF.
As far as I can say about CT's politics: legislature is purple-leaning-blueish because there's enough "got mine fuck you" rich folks who live there. They had an incompetent and corrupt Republican governor (John Rowland), followed by a Baker-like lady (Jodi Rell) who on the one hand was fairly ok on LGBTQ issues, on the other hand loved the death penalty. She's since been followed by a Democrat (Dannel Malloy) who has done some good things (abolish the death penalty, push for greater LGBTQ rights, expand voting rights, allow "undocumented" immigrants the ability to get drivers licenses, expand gun control laws following Sandy Hook, decreminalized cannabis) and has implemented some very unpopular austerity policies on account of decisions made by prior Republican governors and CT experiencing some not-so-great headwinds with their state's economy post-recession.
VT I don't have too much to comment on beyond aforementioned hoopla with the F35, and the hoopla with the current Republican governor signing some bare bones guns control legislation as mentioned up thread. They tried implementing a single payer healthcare policy in the state until they realized the state is constantly bleeding young people (hello!).
RE Baker: I'm no fan of his, but to his credit he actually seems to care about the job and doesn't appear to be using it as a political stepping stone. Actions on reforming DCF and boosting funding for social workers, renewable energy etc I think reflect more the fact that he's savvy of the Dem/constituent pressure rather than being deeply committed to such things. His competence and lack of now-standard GOP vulgarity do not warrant his ratings as "America's most popular governor" (he's popular because he hasn't really tried DOING anything of substance policy-wise).
His wishy-washy split-the-difference rhetoric RE Trump and the GOP writ-large, and insistence on not raising/implementing new taxes (despite the state desperately needing them for schools, public transit, infrastructure etc etc) are the two big reasons I hope he gets washed out by the prospective blue wave this November. At the same time, it won't be an upset if he holds on at Beacon Hill and I can imagine far worse state house configurations to be living under.
I don't find it difficult; there's going to be retrograde holdouts who believe society should conform to their vision of what "their" country used to be like anywhere (also "got mine fuck you" types who aren't savvy enough to have learned you can be this way in the Dem party too). Then there are the folks in Mass (and other majority Dem states) who believe "balance" is the most important thing above all else (and not, say, effective policy implementation and engaged civic discourse). Granted there has been plenty of small and big-time corruption on the part of state Dems, but the GOP is not the place to be looking at for alternatives. Evan Falchuck tried to provide an antidote to this in the halcyon days of 2014, but has since folded his third-party project and gone back to the Dems in light of our Trumpian times.
I mean, the Vermont air guard really need better planes. The F-16 is a silly plane for seaboard defense when they want a twin engine plane for safety. But the plan originally was the F-15 before the 35 was pushed so hard. Now they can't get anything else even though they're hideously expensive and problematic.
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Oh yeah the way we have everything set up we keep them from doing too much damage legislatively. Like there's weird little pockets of like hyper right, let's do it just to fuck with libs, coal rolling, folks. Its fuckin weird to find in what everyone thinks of as a leftist dem bastion. Like right now we've got Scott Lively trying to primary Baker, and I'm not gonna be surprised when he gets votes.
I just got my paperwork a couple of days ago and have to do some orientation/training thing on Monday before I can start going door to door, so I'm not sure how most people will respond. The people I know who I've talked to about this are universally in favor of it, but the selection bias involved there makes me hesitant to generalize. My instinct is that most people will understand and support the bill, especially given the elderly nature of Maine's demographics. Some parts of Maine are very religious, however, and opposition to laws like this is generally religious in nature, at least in my experience. Northern Maine tends to be much more conservative than southern Maine on many issues; I wouldn't be surprised if that same divide appears here. I'll have more information on it next week after a conference call training. The website of one of the organizations involved in the signature drive cites a Public Policy Polling poll where 73% of respondents approved. A similar referendum was apparently defeated in 2000, but times have changed. Nonetheless, I believe that the act will pass if we gather enough signatures to get it on the ballot.
Ballot initiative is really the only way we're going to get a law like this through, barring a major legislative shift, since our state congresspeople have repeatedly voted against such bills based on such compelling arguments as “Life is a gift from God regardless of its circumstances.”
Also, if we are successful it would be on the ballot for 2019, not 2018.
Pot legalization also passed the house (albeit a crappy version) but is looking deadish in the Senate and our governor continues to largely do nothing of consequence.
A "leftist Dem bastion"" whose major city (and capital) has maintained a word-of-mouth reputation as a place to steer clear of if you're African American as reported on by the Globe's spotlight team; less from the manerisms of the brutal rhetoric thrown around during the public school busing desegregation of the 70's and more from the faceless, structural, racism that people have become "awoken" to as it were the past couple decades.
Then there are also trends like commercial property owners driving people out of entire buildings in neighborhoods like Chinatown and the North End to turn into Airbnb "hotels" and the years-long effort to provide basic (and NON-BINDING) protections for tenants from rent increases and eviction getting put on the legislative back-burner cause rich property owners and real estate corporations cried "abloo abloo rent control!"
Sprinkle the primary candidacy of Scott Lively on top of all this, a known conspiracy theorist (monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center!) who claims Nazis were homosexuals and likely thinks the Handmaid's Tale is a sci fi utopia, and the cracks begin to show in the limits of sorting our states into the convenient, but problematic, Red-Blue dichotomy. The fact that this guy went from independent circus show candidate during the 2014 gubernatorial race, to having delegates of a major party endorsing him to run in their 2018 state primary speaks volumes to the utter and complete structural rot of the Republican Party.
I absolutely agree that Lively will earn votes during the primary, and it will be added to the pile of things people need to wake the fuck up about concerning our country's politics. Meanwhile on the Dem side, financial capture from actual elites needs to be addressed head-on unless we want to continue the development of an underclass that will soon find themselves in shanty towns.
Edit- I too see coal-rollers from time to time, and I always wonder how ashamed they feel about their manhood (or lack there of) to feel the need to overcompensate in such a way.
Didn't Sinunu (or however the fuck you spell his name) entertain an "investigation" into the "illegal Mass voters bussed in" to help canvas for Maggie Hassan's Senate campaign (and subsequent victory)? I figure that's something of consequence.
Also, and this is just me being flippant, I consider the NH seacoast an honorary extension of the North Shore rather than a part of NH proper. (I don't care much for NH as is my legal obligation having spent time in VT)
The problem with the Spotlight thing was it said "racism exists in Boston" and then acted like this made it special. They held up a lack of black officials when Massachusetts has elected more African Americans to statewide office than any other state despite a relatively low AA population for instance.
Is Boston racist? Sure, its a city in the United States. Is it more racist than other cities in the United States? The empirical data says otherwise. Its less segregated in schools than similar cities. Its less segregated in housing rthan similarly sized cities except arguably compared to some California cities (and Latinos are more segregated than in most US cities so if you're using old obsolete white v black measures its substantially less).
And were the busing riots shitty? Yes. They're also exaggerated. There have been much bigger race riots across the country in nearly every city in the last 40 years. In the busing riots, there was one fatality - a white guy who got his head bashed in by some black guys. And they were the result of a state law, not federally mandated, that was aimed at de facto segregation because of neighborhood schools. NYC never did desegregate and are more segregated both then and now than Boston schools were then as a contrast.
There's a narrative of Boston as a racist city yes. There's one for every city if you ask. Because racism is a thing. MLK Jr also said it was the only city he felt free in. Neither makes Boston more racist or not because narratives and anecdotes are bad at conveying complex multifaceted trends like that. And yeah we had a racist baseball owner, who was forced to integrate by protest from Bostonians. Its also the city with the first black player, starting 5 and coach in pro basketball, integrated football team in college football and professional black hockey player.And yeah we haven't had a black mayor, but we had a black two term Senator in the 1960s who was a two term AG before that and a two term black Governor. Racism exists in Boston but that doesn't make it special or not especially liberal.
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However their reporting on elements like the lack of Black and Latino involvement, investment, and inclusion (as in actually living and/or working) in the booming Seaport neighborhood, as well as factors like stagnant or declining enrollment of Black students in area universities were some salient points that are worth keeping in mind so as to avoid complacency with the status quo.
Again the lack of affordable housing, and the evicting of tenants for crap like unregulated Airbnb hotels are things which are disproportionately affecting people of color in the city and which Beacon Hill tends to drag their feet with seriously addressing (but tax breaks for General Electric which most likely won't end up hiring all those workers they promised? You betcha they rolled out the red carpet for that).
Usually he's just your garden variety dog whistling racist, but it's nice to see him take time out of his day to give his constituents an individual screwing.
http://www.wbur.org/news/2018/06/28/baker-to-sign-bill-hiking-minimum-wage-requiring-paid-leave
For most people below a certain income (I believe its 250% of the poverty line) its 80% going down to 50%. No minimum employee limit, but under 25 employees don't have to pay the employer side of the associated payroll tax.
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More dispatches that remind you what a competent government can do. Massachusetts passed automatic voter registration
(Executive Director of Common Cause Massachusetts.)
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CT-GOV on the Dem side is good old Ned Lamont, who defeated Joe Lieberman in a Democratic primary in 2006 before being defeated by Lieberman who refused to abide by the primary. He is running against Joe Ganim who was elected back to Bridgeport mayor after serving 7 years in prison for political corruption. Lamont ran for Gov in 2010 but lost to current Dem governor Malloy (who is deeply unpopular and not running again). Lamont is favored and has the party endorsement but is wealthy and white against Ganim's African American and urban base.
On the GOP side Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton has led the sparse polling as well as the party endorsement. Bob Stefanowski has self funded to the tune of 13 million. Bob Stefanowski is a former GE exec running on basically zeroing out taxes. Boughton is massively cutting taxes and "law and order" issues and has a history with ICE/anti-immigration abuse- the "Danbury 11". From wiki (he was already mayor)
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Hayes is an African American former national teacher of the year. Hayes has the teachers unions and other unions (UAW, teamsters, state police) as well as the DFA, and Congressional Progressive Caucus. She supports single payer, a path to citizenship, and strong gun control. Her mother was addicted to drugs, she grew up in the projects and she was a teen mother. Despite this she went to community college and became a teacher (now she's a district advisor). She lacks political or electoral experience but has some other Connecticut officials at least tacit support (Chris Murphy, Rosa DeLauro). She would be the first black woman elected to Congress from Connecticut and that better representation has been part of her argument.
Normally this would be a GOP target but the three Republican candidates haven't raised much money or notice. That might make sense given the overall national mood. Ex-Meriden Mayor Manny Santos has the party endorsement.
I can't find any polling here.
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Classic city corruption stuff. Kickbacks and gifts from city contractors and the laundering/tax fraud that comes with that.
Lamont is up 84.3-15.7 with 7% in, including a narrow lead for Lamont in Bridgeport so I don't think we have to worry about him winning
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The automatic registration thing is absolutely huge and really heartening. I would also add that the push for ranked choice voting in MA is also going pretty well. The Boston Globe recently endorsed the idea in an op-ed. It's been exciting listening to more people talk about voting theory, and it'd be a huge improvement over current systems
Governor:
R: Incumbent Phil Scott is beating Keith Stern to hold the spot here. Scott is thought to be at risk because he's pro gun control in a blue state that has almost no gun laws. Vermont is weird.
Senate:
R: Currently a tossup between Brooke Paige and Lawrence Zupan.
House:
R: Brooke Paige is the winner here. He's also running for Senate which bwuh? Chances of beating Welch might as well be zero, but more on him below.
Lieutenant Governor for both parties were unopposed.
Brooke Paige uh... also ran unopposed for AG, Secretary of State, Auditor, and Treasurer. "Please pick me! Pick me pick me!" In 2016 and 2014, he ran in the Democratic primaries and lost. 2012? Beat in the Republican primary by John McGovern. He's ran every two years since 2008. :rotate:
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Unfortunately, it looks like amending Maine's constitution will be necessary to make RCV apply to general state elections.
Yeah kinda
There's just a lot of racists out there, especially in mostly white places where it never comes up. VT is 94% white.
Also a lot of Vermont isn't too dissimilar from upstate NY which is pretty hard red
Chittenden county is blue. The rest of the state is purple, leaning blue. But even here, geese are everywhere. There's a lot of racism because of the aforementioned 94% white population, and a lot of those people who say they're color blind but are anything but.
I love this state, but I'm not always proud of it.
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The opponents of question 1 are saying that if there's a public database it would be a big huge security risk and that people might have their personal data hacked. This is just ludicrous to me the fact that they are taking data from my car in the first place bothers me van a privacy level and I don't even want the dealership let alone anyone else having access to my private data. But if there was any particular database it would be just as risky as the garbage that I'm sure the dealerships are using to protect their own databases.
The whole thing just smacks of dishonesty to me, but that's just the way life is when dealing with dealerships.
Anyway. I voted yes on 1 but I hated it.
Spoiler tl:dr
This seems like a great example of why "personal responsibility" is a phrase and a philosophy built out of lies, because it carries the implication that your actions only affect yourself.
It doesn't matter how "personally responsible" you are, all it takes is one irresponsible asshole to ruin your life forever through no fault of your own.
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They're all completely incapable of self-reflection! ("It's not MY fault, it's everyone else's!" Which seems to be a mantra for libertarian-types.)
Anyway, in my part of New England, my biggest problem is that my mayor kind of sucks, and no one can primary my anti-choice representative. Last time around we had Brianna Wu, who didn't seem to run a campaign and lost 71-23, and this year it was Robbie Goldstein, who at least had leaflets and ads (and a real debate!), and lost 66-33.
(To be honest, I think 66-33 is a pretty good showing, as far as it goes)
It's worth quoting the article itself for this.