In Case You Missed It (v89)

Back from a quick getaway to Cape Cod, which limited my posting last week. Here's what did make it out, in case you missed anything.

For Sunday School, I sat in on abortion-related discussions with a Republican governor and member of Congress and a Democratic senator and a state AG. Here's a bit of the conversation with the governor, Mississippi's Tate Reeves, who was in the CNN State of the Union classroom with Jake Tapper in the driver's seat.

Part of their conversation focused on the state's dismal statistics on poverty, infant mortality, paid maternity leave, Medicaid expansion and a federal lawsuit over Child Protective Services failures to protect children. Reeves said

It's due in large part to poverty. And so, we are focusing every day on fixing the challenges that are before us... when you talk about these young ladies, the best thing we can do for them is to provide and improve educational opportunities for them... We have got to continue to work to provide workforce opportunities, jobs for these individuals. But to do that, they have got to improve the quality of their skills. And we as a state are investing heavily in that.

I did a little noodling around and found some additional statistics that Tapper didn't mention, and tossed a question into the air. 

In 2012, Mississippi was 47th in spending on education; in 2022, the state is ranked 46th; it plans on investing $49M in American Rescue Plan funding in education over the next couple of years. And, the state has only the $7.25 federal minimum wage. Notably,

The 2019 Mississippi Minimum Wage Act, or Senate Bill 2150, aimed to gradually increase the Mississippi minimum wage to $10 an hour by 2022, but this proposal died in committee. In 2021, Mississippi lawmakers continue to debate if and how the state should go about increasing the minimum wage. With Mississippi being the last state to not have a law requiring equal pay for women and men, there is still much discussion to be had.

Seems there's a tough row to hoe there... Maybe taking care of those other things first would make sense? 

For your Extra Credit, I tried to find something else that's relevant these days, and stumbled on Margaret Brennan and former AG Eric Holder talking in the Face the Nation classroom about redistricting. Holder's running an organization called the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, and he's written a book, too.  

They talked about redistricting around the country, and about maps drawn by both the Rs and the Ds. He draws distinctions between what's happened in various states.

I think you can't compare, however, what happened in New York and Maryland to what is going on in Texas, Georgia, potentially Florida, Wisconsin, where Republicans have really gone to town in terms of gerrymanders. Fundamentally different from what Democrats have done.

He gave some examples, including Texas, where the Hispanic population increased, giving the states additional Congressional seats, but 

they've "created more majority white districts" and haven't "increased the power of Hispanics in Texas at all."  

That's not the same as what happened in NY, where the map 

reflects really a population shift, a hollowing out of the rural areas in New York, as well as an increase in the urban areas in New York. So, there's a census bureau basis of what's happening in New York that does not exist in Republican states.

And he's not buying the Florida Man's maps, either, which he says are "certainly race conscious." 

They're going after Democrats. And the fact that that -- the Democrats that they're going after happen to be black I don't think is necessarily a coincidence. The suit that we won in Alabama was -- where we said that you should have additional representation for the black inhabitants of Alabama, those districts were certainly drawn with the thought that they would disenfranchise African-Americans in Alabama.

And Alabama's even stranger, with the court saying it's too close to the election to change the maps - which is pretty much the opposite of what's happening in other states.  

It was an interesting discussion, and not just on redistricting.

I did have a little Wondering on Wednesday fun, part of it stemming from things we saw - or didn't see - on the trip to the Cape. 

There was wonderment about making sure trucks can go slowly down steep grades, but not making sure they can go fast up the same hills, and about the seemingly always-closed truck weigh stations, no matter what state we're in, and no matter what state the trucks or their drivers are in. On the latter, I've made a blanket deal with my husband - if we ever see one of these inspection ramps open, I'll give him $20. 

And then it got a little more serious, with wondering on the Senate's failed like it was guaranteed to vote to codify abortion protections, and whether there were any possibilities to work on a passable vote. Not that the Dems were interested in doing that, anyway.

I wondered about Elon Musk (that's become de rigueur, right?) and Twitter, and I wondered about abortion-related protests.

And finally, thinking about the protests that are happening outside the homes of Supreme Court Justices, I have to wonder how it feels for them to experience something like what women experience on the way from their cars to their medical appointments?  It's hard not to wonder why chanting and shouting and singing and waving signs outside a Justice's house is possibly a criminal act, while doing the same, and more, while being in much closer proximity, to boot - to women at a medical facility, and their escorts, is merely an exercise of the 1st Amendment's free speech rights.

I wonder, I do, about this stuff and more, and about what I'll find this week, when I'm back in the swing of paying attention to things.

I'll see you next for Sunday School.