What do Drs. Fauci and Smith, not Facebook, have to say?

March 17, 2020

By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

I’m no expert in infectious disease epidemiology, so take with a grain of salt any opinions I offer on that subject. But some people are experts, so I’m listening to them rather than relying on my own hunches or caring about what someone writes on Facebook.

I only have time and patience for useful information at the moment – for example, that the symptoms of having the coronavirus include fever, cough and shortness of breath – so it’s been days since I’ve scrolled through my Facebook and Twitter feeds.

Instead, I’m more interested in what people like Dr. Anthony Fauci are saying. The 79-year-old has served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under six presidents going back to President Reagan.

On Sunday, he said on CNN in response to a question that “it is possible” that the coronavirus could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Preventing that from happening will require Americans to accept changes to their daily lives even if critics call it overreacting. He said the United States could be as bad as Italy, where 368 people died in one 24-hour period over the weekend. However, he added, “I don’t think we’re going there if we do the kinds of things that we are publicly saying we need to do. … For a while, life is not going to be the way it used to be in the United States.” Continue reading →

Why should Bernie quit? It’s 17-14 before halftime

March 12, 2020

By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

On Wednesday, the day after losing four of six states including the crucial state of Michigan, Sen. Bernie Sanders announced he is staying in the race. Good for him, and no, I’m not a supporter.

After that day’s results and Super Tuesday the week before, Sanders is facing pressure to quit so Democrats can unite behind former Vice President Joe Biden.

But only 24 states have voted. In a race where 1,991 delegates are needed, Biden is leading Sanders, 861-710. That’s the equivalent of Biden leading, 17-14, before halftime.

Biden likely will extend his lead on Tuesday, when Arizona, Florida, Illinois and Ohio vote. At that point, the calls for Sanders to drop out will grow even louder. But 22 states and the District of Columbia still will not have voted. Is it really time to shut them out of the process? The score will still be close, and it will still be early in the third quarter. Continue reading →

‘Voters should pick their politicians,’ not vice versa

March 10, 2020

By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

If I asked you which political issues fire you up the most, “legislative redistricting” probably wouldn’t make the top 10. But ensuring the democratic process is fair and not rigged is ultimately more important than whatever political dispute we’re having at the moment.

A group called Arkansas Voters First last Thursday filed a proposed constitutional amendment that would change how Arkansas redraws congressional and state legislative lines after each census, which is occurring this year. The League of Women Voters is the effort’s public face. If the group collects enough signatures and withstands the inevitable court challenge, the amendment will be on the ballot in November.

The goal is to reduce gerrymandering, where the political party in power stuffs the other party’s voters into a small number of districts and then spreads its own voters around, thus maintaining a disproportionate legislative majority.

One of the initiative’s organizers, David Couch, told me its rationale is, “Voters should pick their politicians, and politicians should not pick their voters.”

Couch told me the effort has sufficient financial backing and polled in the high 60s. He also sponsored the recent initiatives passed by voters to raise the minimum wage and legalize medical marijuana.

Currently, the Arkansas Legislature draws the lines for the U.S. House of Representatives, while the Board of Apportionment composed of the governor, secretary of state and attorney general draws the Legislature’s lines.

If Arkansas Voters First has its way, Arkansans would apply to be members of a nine-member commission effectively composed of three Republicans, three Democrats, and three independents or members of another party. The Arkansas Supreme Court chief justice would appoint a three-judge panel to cull the list to 30 from each group. The governor and legislative leaders each could remove two from each group. The final nine members, three from each of the three groups, would be selected randomly. Congressional and state legislative maps would have to be approved by at least six members, including at least two from each group.

Gerrymandering is almost as old as the Constitution, but it’s become a bigger concern in recent years as the electorate has become more divided and as Big Data has allowed Republicans and Democrats to precisely define us and separate us.

As reported by David Daley’s 2016 book, whose title includes an unprintable word, Republicans prioritized state legislative races in 2010 and gained almost 700 seats nationwide knowing those offices would redraw the lines after that year’s census. Democrats were caught flat-footed.

Thanks in large part to technology-driven gerrymandering, Republicans controlled 33 more seats in the U.S. House after the 2012 elections despite Democrats winning 1.4 million more votes overall. In Ohio that year, Republicans won 51% of the vote statewide but controlled 12 of the state’s 16 U.S. House seats. In Pennsylvania, Democrats won 83,000 more votes statewide, but Republicans controlled 13 of 18 House seats.

I’m an independent. If you’re a Republican, you’re response to all this might be, “Good! It helped our side.” But remember that what comes around goes around.

Arkansas’ current lines were drawn when Democrats were still in charge after the 2010 census. They tried to gerrymander, but Republicans won anyway at the ballot box, which is where elections should be won.

Now Republicans control the three Board of Apportionment offices and three-fourths of the Legislature. The 2nd Congressional District in central Arkansas is somewhat competitive. By gerrymandering the maps, Republicans in 2022 can probably add a few seats to their already huge legislative majority and take the 2nd District completely out of play.

Arkansas Voters First’s effort will be opposed by some Republican officials who will argue the current system works fine and that the effort’s timing is suspect, given that this will be the first redistricting where they can draw the lines after a century-and-a-half of Democratic Party rule. It’s our turn, some will say.

If voters have a chance to decide, the argument should be not about whether gerrymandering is a good thing, because it’s not, or whether politicians will gerrymander, because they will, but whether Arkansas Voters First’s initiative is actually the right way to prevent it.

That is, unless we want a rigged system, which, unfortunately, some people do.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com. Follow him on Twitter at @stevebrawner.

The worst campaigner is winning the campaign

March 5, 2020

By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

The presidential candidate who ran the worst campaign – in fact, barely ran a campaign at all here in Arkansas – was the big winner on Tuesday, which begs the question about the value of campaigning itself.

Former Vice President Joe Biden started this cycle as the frontrunner in a crowded field, but for much of its early stages he did little to solidify that status. He was shaky in debates, he didn’t seem to have a national following, and he trailed in fundraising. Americans had become accustomed to his goofy likability when he was vice president, but his performance these past few months created real doubts as to whether he is up to the job – doubts that persist. And, you’ll recall, there was that brief scandal about him being, not adulterous, but inappropriately affectionate with women.

Meanwhile, other candidates were doing all the things you’re supposed to do to win an election. Sen. Bernie Sanders was exciting the masses and building a national movement. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was spending hundreds of millions of dollars on advertising (and came to Arkansas three times, while Biden barely advertised here, never visited and instead sent his wife). Sen. Elizabeth Warren was a much better debater and offered detailed policy plans. Mayor Pete Buttigieg won Iowa, sort of, and almost won New Hampshire.

Then, just as it looked like Biden’s campaign was dying, he won South Carolina big. Continue reading →

Voters have say on depleting field

March 3, 2020

By Steve Brawner
© 2020 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

For the second straight presidential election, Arkansas scheduled its primary early and then watched mostly from afar as a large field dwindled. The upside: At least voters here had their say while the nomination was still in doubt. The downside: It’s one more way that the system gives an advantage to incumbents.

When Arkansans went to the polls that day, 18 names were on the Democratic presidential ballot, but most of the candidates had dropped out and only four were still competitive: Sen. Bernie Sanders, the outsider disruptor the party establishment wishes would go away; former Vice President Joe Biden; former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg; and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

When the day started, Sanders was the frontrunner. When it ended, Biden, whose campaign looked to be dead in the water only a week earlier, had become the clear frontrunner. The next day, Bloomberg had decided to stop spending his money, and Warren was having to decide whether or not to stop spending her energies.

In politics, a lot can happen quickly. Continue reading →