Category: reason

On Monday, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a massive election bill into law that creates a special squad to investigate election fraud and crimes and increases some criminal penalties for some election-related violations.

But that’s not all. Buried on page 25 of the 47-page bill is a complete ban on the use of ranked-choice voting anywhere in the state, regardless of what voters might want. In this case, it’s the voters of Sarasota, who overwhelmingly decided in 2007 (with 77 percent in favor) to switch to this type of voting for local elections.

A similar ban was passed in February in Tennessee. There the target was the city of Memphis, where voters first decided they wanted ranked-choice voting back in 2008. The City Council itself resisted the change and attempted to get voters to repeal the system in 2018, but voters instead still chose to keep ranked-choice by 62 percent. Nevertheless, S.B. 1820 will stop Memphis (and any other municipality or county in Tennessee) from using ranked-choice voting to determine election results.

In Tennessee, the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Brian Kelsey (R–Germantown), made a typical claim by ranked-choice opponents—that it’s a “very confusing and complex process that leads to lack of confidence.” This is belied by the fact that voters keep choosing it when given the option to do so.

There’s a lesson here on how some of the resistance to certain election reforms is actually about entrenched political interests protecting themselves from electoral consequences.

Ranked-choice voting is a system where voters don’t just choose a single candidate over the others. Instead, voters are invited to rank candidates by preference. In a slate of five candidates, a voter can choose a favorite, then rank the rest as a second-choice, third-choice, et cetera.

When votes in this system are tabulated, a single candidate must receive a majority of the vote, not just the most votes, in order to win. If a single candidate doesn’t surpass the 50 percent threshold, the candidate receiving the least number of votes is disqualified. Then the votes are retallied. For those who chose that last-place candidate as their first pick, instead their second choice is now their vote. The process repeats until a single candidate gets the most votes.

One of the stated goals for proponents of ranked-choice voting is to avoid a situation where, due to the size of the candidate pool, a person is declared a winner with just 30 percent of the vote or even less. Under the status quo, a candidate with polarizing positions that appeal to a small but committed group of voters can overcome the majority if votes get split among three, four, or more candidates.

Ranked-choice voting therefore also creates a system where third-party and independent candidates can have impact without voters having to worry about allegedly “throwing their vote away” or choosing a so-called “spoiler” who can’t win but can draw votes away from a similar candidate. A voter can select a Libertarian Party or Green Party candidate or an independent candidate as their first choice. Then, the voter can select a more conventional Democrat or Republican candidate as the second choice, knowing that they can have their values reflected in initial results without losing their voice entirely.

FairVote, a nonpartisan organization pushing for election reforms, sees ranked-choice voting as a boon for voter participation and support of election outcomes. It views ranked-choice voting as a way of countering increasing polarization among both Democratic and Republican candidates: “America’s constitutional system of governance is based on compromise. When polarization causes that to break down, policymaking can grind to a halt or swing wildly based on which party has majority control.”

Unsurprisingly, politicians who benefit from a highly polarized environment wouldn’t want an election system that encourages alternatives. Florida’s politics these days can most certainly be described as “polarizing.”

“There are some folks who benefit from divisive elections and the status quo,” Deb Otis, a senior research analyst for FairVote, tells Reason. “Reforms will always have pockets of opposition.”

And just because Republicans are behind the bans in Florida and Tennessee doesn’t mean they’re the only ones against ranked-choice. In New York City, establishment Democrats attempted to halt the implementation of ranked-choice voting in the mayor’s race just last year. They failed, and Eric Adams eventually won with a majority of the vote after several rounds of tallies. Adams himself had spoken out against ranked-choice, claiming it would disenfranchise minority voters, even though the voters themselves (as in Sarasota and Memphis) overwhelmingly approved a referendum on it.

Despite the recent setbacks in Florida and Tennessee, Otis and FairVote are keeping a positive outlook and promoting the growth of adoptions of ranked-choice voting elsewhere. Maine pioneered ranked-choice voting in the U.S. for several state-level races (including governor and lawmakers), and a new bill will allow cities and towns to use the system for local races. In Utah, a Republican-sponsored bill signed into law by a Republican governor provided some technical tweak to its pilot program as ranked-choice voting continues to grow there. And Alaska will be using ranked-choice voting to replace Republican Rep. Don Young, who died in March.

“More and more cities are using ranked-choice voting,” Otis says. “We continue to see voters like ranked-choice voting, understand it, and continue to elect candidates who have broad support.”

The post Florida, Tennessee Ban Ranked-Choice Voting Despite Citizen Support appeared first on Reason.com.

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A South Carolina bill that would allow women to access birth control pills without a doctor’s prescription is running out of time before the state’s legislative session ends. While the bill passed unanimously through the South Carolina Senate, there are only seven legislative days left to pass the bill in the House.

The Pharmacy Access Act would allow women over the age of 18 to receive birth control pills or other hormonal contraception from a pharmacist without a doctor’s prescription. The bill also allows pharmacists to dispense the medication to women under 18, provided they can show evidence of a past birth control prescription. The bill does not require pharmacists to dispense the medication.

The Pharmacy Access Act is a reasonable step forward in allowing women more autonomy over their medical choices. Birth control pills have been proven safe and effective. In fact, 19 U.S. states and the District of Columbia already allow pharmacists to dispense hormonal contraceptives without a doctor’s prescription. Further, for the few women for whom hormonal contraceptives pose a health risk, the bill mandates that women fill out a risk assessment form, ensuring that those with conditions such as blood clots or uncontrolled high blood pressure will not be incorrectly given possibly dangerous medication.

While birth control pills are both safe and easy to use, in 31 states, women seeking to take them—for everything from contraception, to painful menstrual symptoms, to acne problems—are required to use a physician as a pricey and time-intensive middleman. Uninsured women may not be able to afford that expense, while women living in rural areas often face the obstacle of finding a reasonably nearby doctor with available appointments. Pharmacies, meanwhile, are plentiful and don’t require appointments.

One of the bill’s most fierce advocates, Rep. Russell Ott (D–St. Matthews) has taken a different approach to advocating for the bill. Ott argues that the bill will reduce abortions in South Carolina: “If we want to get serious about cutting down on abortions, if we’re going to decrease the number of unwanted or unplanned pregnancies, we need to get real.” As he continued during a subcommittee meeting on the bill, “This is about trying to make sure that women have more of an opportunity to have access to contraceptives than they currently do.”

This bill therefore serves as an interesting response to a world in which women are increasingly unable to access abortions. Especially with Roe v. Wade possibly on the Supreme Court’s chopping block, increasing women’s ability to prevent pregnancy is a surprisingly useful solution from a state whose legislature introduced a bill outright banning abortion earlier this year. In a future where abortion is illegal across red-state America, increased access to contraceptives could become increasingly important.

The measure has broad support in South Carolina. Dawn Bingham, a Columbia-area OB-GYN physician, addressed concerns that the bill would make women less likely to go to the doctor for important screenings, stating in a discussion of the bill that “cervical cancer screenings are not actually recommended annually for most women. It’s actually 3 to 5 years for most women.”

While the bill passed unanimously in the Senate, and passed out of a House subcommittee with only one opposition vote, the bill’s chances of being passed into law are waning as the legislative session draws to a close.

However, the bill’s supporters remain optimistic. As Sen. Tom Davis (R–Beaufort) said: “Even social conservatives in the Upstate realize what we are talking about here is avoiding unintended pregnancies, which is going to reduce the number of abortions in South Carolina.”

The post Time Is Running Out for South Carolina's Over-the-Counter Birth Control Bill appeared first on Reason.com.

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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis recently signed legislation that strips Walt Disney World of its independent, special-district status after the company objected to the state’s new law regarding discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in classrooms. While the motive behind this action is problematic, some of its supporters argue that there is nothing to fret about, since it was time to revoke a cronyist privilege granted to Disney 50 years ago anyway. But if this is really a fight against cronyism, the legislation goes about it the wrong way.

Cronyism is the unhealthy alliance of business and government. It takes the form of government officials at the state, local, and federal levels granting special privileges to particular companies or industries. These privileges can include special tax breaks, government loans, direct subsidies, or—as in Florida—so-called “special districts.” I spend a great deal of my work hours researching the harm cronyism causes to citizens. That’s because, as my colleague Matthew Mitchell wrote a decade ago, “Whatever its guise, government-granted privilege [to private businesses] is an extraordinarily destructive force. It misdirects resources, impedes genuine economic progress, breeds corruption, and undermines the legitimacy of both the government and the private sector.”

So, is Disney benefiting from a handout that should be stripped away? Yes. Disney certainly has been getting an incredible privilege to act as its own government within the limits of Orange and Osceola counties. For instance, it runs its fire department, administers planning and zoning rules, writes building codes, employs its own inspectors, and is exempted from local regulations and some $200 million in taxes. It levies the remainder of the taxes it owes.

Removing special district status means these types of responsibilities would be absorbed by the two counties in which Walt Disney World sits. Local taxpayers would then shoulder the cost for all municipal services on the property—a cost estimated to be $1 billion. The company, in turn, would be subjected to the same subpar local government services and regulations that most of us are accustomed to. In addition, Florida will be tied up in years of costly litigation to figure out how to disentangle the company from the counties.

But maybe untangling this special treatment is worth the cost. Just don’t expect it to result in a fairer regime. Indeed, if this setup is so unacceptable—a claim most Republicans didn’t seem to make for the half-century the special district has been in place—it should also be unacceptable for the other 1,844 Florida special districts. Of these, 1,288 are, like Disney, independent districts. But we aren’t hearing significant Republican complaints about these.

In other words, GOPers want to continue the practice of extending privileges selectively. What legislators should have done is decide whether any such special districts are a good idea. If so, access to them should be made available to any company that meets certain minimum and clear criteria and denied to any company that does not.

From a local competition perspective, there is some value to the idea of independent special districts. Indeed, they allow people to see the differences between areas where municipal services are run privately (meaning somewhat efficiently) versus the jurisdictions most of us are subjected to, with unfixed potholes in the streets, broken public bathrooms, and unequal police protection.

However, this approach would require consistent thinking and policymaking. And while Florida Republicans are today cheering the removal of Disney’s special-district status and the idea that such privileges to large firms are problematic, they had no problem granting Disney’s streaming services an unfair exemption from a 2021 tech regulation that imposes daily fines of $250,000 when candidates for statewide office are blocked from a social-media platform for more than 14 days. Lawmakers didn’t extend the same exemption to Netflix or Hulu.

This episode should serve as a warning for companies angling to score special privileges from government. Governments give arbitrarily and unfairly, and they take back with equal arbitrariness and unfairness. In addition, when a company’s profitability depends heavily on government largesse, it must make sure not to anger its government overlords. Disney obviously failed to do that.

This sad affair has done nothing to change cronyism in the state of Florida, but it has once again exposed the arbitrariness of government in our lives and the cost of depending on its favors.

COPYRIGHT 2022 CREATORS.COM.

The post No, Florida Republicans Do Not Care About Crony Capitalism appeared first on Reason.com.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren likes to describe herself as someone who sides with working people. For example, in a recent New York Times op-ed, the Massachusetts Democrat warns, correctly, that her party is headed for disaster in this year’s midterm elections. She then urges President Joe Biden “to use every tool of the presidency to deliver for”—you guessed it—”working people.” This is the sort of thing that is designed to appeal to Biden’s abiding sense that he’s just a regular guy whose mission in life is to make life easier for other regular people. He’s just an average Joe trying to help all the other average joes.

But Warren’s first suggestion is a policy that would disproportionately benefit a group of people who are, economically speaking, already doing comparatively well. And Biden increasingly appears poised to act on that policy. I’m referring, of course, to canceling large amounts of student loan debt.

At a private meeting with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus yesterday, Biden was reportedly quite receptive to the idea of canceling some student debt, according to NBC News. Some reports suggest the administration is readying a plan to cancel $10,000 of student debt per borrower. But Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) claims the figure could be higher. “We’re getting closer and closer and closer on student loans. I’ve been working relentlessly on the president and his staff, and they seem more open to it now than ever before,” he said this week. “There’s nothing done yet, but I am really hopeful that the goal that we have had, $50,000 of student loans canceled, is getting more and more likely.”

There may be other, smaller actions in the meantime, like this morning’s announcement that the Biden administration will cancel $238 million worth of cosmetology school debt, but Schumer was laying out the end goal: canceling $50,000 of student loan debt per borrower.

First, it’s worth noting that people with college degrees are more likely to both be employed and, on average, are better paid than those who never attended college. People who attend college are also more likely to come from comparatively affluent households in the first place.

Second, it’s worth asking: Who has $50,000 worth of school loans? Not, for the most part, struggling dropouts from state schools. No, large student loan values are heavily associated with professional schools that produce graduates who, on average, go on to be fairly well-compensated.

The single largest source of student loan debt is MBA programs, as Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Adam Looney has noted, and MBA grads average more than $73,000 in earnings their first year out of school. “The five degrees responsible for the most student debt are: MBA, JD, BA in business, BS in nursing, and MD,” Looney wrote in 2020. “That’s one reason why the top 20 percent of earners owe 35 percent of the debt, and why most debt is owed by well-educated individuals.”

Technically, it’s true that well-paid professional school graduates fall into the category of “working people.” But they are not the sort of working people Warren wants you to think of when she uses those words.

What Warren wants, and what Biden appears to be considering, is a massive program of government aid that would disproportionately benefit doctors, lawyers, well-paid medical specialists, and comfortably salaried individuals with advanced business degrees.

But for some reason, you don’t hear Warren and Biden talking about their plan to give huge amounts of money to corporate lawyers and junior associates at hedge funds.

How much money would a program like this cost? Cost, of course, is slightly tricky to define here, since a student loan forgiveness program would not spend money so much as fail to collect it. But a program to forgive $50,000 per borrower would come in at around $950 billion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. This would be in addition to the cost of the current pause on student loan repayment, which has already cost more than $100 billion.

Warren’s pitch for a presidential program to help “working people” is a trillion-dollar bailout for the upper-middle class. They’re just looking out for the little guy.

Here’s another question worth asking that no one involved seems to want answered: Would a unilateral program of debt forgiveness like the one that is apparently under discussion be legal?

Actually, someone did answer that question. Specifically, that question was answered in 2021 by the Office of the General Counsel at the U.S. Department of Education. Lawyers for sprawling government agencies often like to defend the broad powers of their departments, declaring what they legally can do rather than what they legally can’t. So it is noteworthy that the lawyers for the Education Department found that the secretary of education “does not have statutory authority to provide blanket or mass cancellation, compromise, discharge, or forgiveness of student loan principal balances, and/or to materially modify the repayment amounts or terms thereof, whether due to the COVID-19 pandemic or for any other reason.” That sounds like a pretty firm no.

So it’s not just a plan to give huge amounts of money to corporate lawyers and junior associates at hedge funds. It’s an illegal plan to give huge amounts of money to corporate lawyers and junior associates at hedge funds.

In an interview with Politico this week, Warren recycled some of the “delivery” language of her Times op-ed. “If we do deliver,” she said, “if we can get some tangible results that touch people’s lives, then we can go to the polls in November with our heads held high.”

Illegally funneling money to a well-paid, well-off cohort that just happens to vote increasingly for Democrats? Now that’s something a champion of working people can really feel good about.

The post Elizabeth Warren Wants Joe Biden To Deliver a Massive, Illegal Handout to the Well-Off appeared first on Reason.com.

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Today the Supreme Court decided Cummings v. Premier Rehab Keller. The case concerned whether damages for emotional distress are available in suits brought under the Rehabilitation Act. The Court split 6-3. The majority, per Chief Justice Roberts, says no. The dissent, per Justice Breyer, says yes. I don’t have much to say about the specific nuances of contract law. But I did chuckle when Justice Breyer included a very personal citation:

As a Member of this Court noted in respect to the CivilRights Act of 1964, Congress’ antidiscrimination laws seek “the vindication of human dignity and not mere economics.” Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U. S. 241, 291 (1964) (Goldberg, J., concurring). Quoting the Senate Commerce Committee, Justice Goldberg observed:

“‘Discrimination is not simply dollars and cents, hamburgers and movies; it is the humiliation, frustration, and embarrassment that a person must surely feel when he is told that he is unacceptable as a member of the public because of his race or color. It is equally the inability to explain to a child that regardless of education, civility, courtesy, and morality he will be denied the right to enjoy equal treatment, even though he be a citizen of the United States and may well be called upon to lay down his life to assure this Nation continues.'” Id., at 292 (quoting S. Rep. No. 872, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., 16 (1964)).

It is difficult to believe that prospective funding recipients would be unaware that intentional discrimination based on race, sex, age, or disability is particularly likely to cause emotional suffering.

Heart of Atlanta Motel was decided during the October 1964 Term. And, during that time, a young Stephen Breyer clerked for Justice Arthur Goldberg. I think it safe to say that Breyer worked on that landmark decision. There were only two law clerks for each Justice at the time, and the case was decided two months after it was argued. It is remarkable how much the Court has changed in the six decades since Breyer clerked. I doubt Heart of Atlanta would be unanimous today. And we should never lose sight of the fact that Breyer later took Goldberg’s seat. And Breyer’s clerk, KBJ, will take his seat.

Speaking of which, yesterday Chief Justice Roberts gave an emotional farewell to Justice Breyer. (C-SPAN has the recording.) Roberts began:

As many of you may know, Justice Breyer has announced his retirement from the Court effective when we rise for the summer recess. That means that the oral argument we concluded will bet he last we hear with Justice Breyer on the bench.

Ehh… Not only is John Roberts content to rewrite the acts of Congress. Now he is taking it upon himself to rewrite the handiwork by members of the Judiciary! Justice Breyer did not announce his retirement when the Court rises for the recess. His statement was premised on several nested conditionals:

“I intend this decision to take effect when the Court rises for the summer recess this year (typically late June or early July) assuming that by then my successor has been nominated and confirmed.

Perhaps Roberts is taking the OLC view that since Judge Jackson was confirmed to fill a vacancy that does not yet exist, and was commissioned, Breyer is now deemed to have retired. Or something to that effect. In any event, I think now Breyer is more or less stuck with stepping down, given the Chief’s poignant farewell. Unless Breyer pulls a Tom Brady!

The post Justice Breyer Cites His Boss's Concurrence in <i>Heart of Atlanta Motel</i> appeared first on Reason.com.

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