Category: reason

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is suing Connecticut to stop the practice of counting prisoners as though they’re residents of the districts where they’re incarcerated, a practice that inflates the political power of some parts of the state at the expense of others.

Felons serving prison time generally cannot legally vote, but they still count in the census and for determining district boundaries. In Connecticut, they were counted in the state’s 2011 redistricting plan as residents of the prison facility instead of where they came from.

The NAACP lawsuit calls this “prison gerrymandering.” The end result is that prisoners, disproportionally black and Latino, end up being counted as residents in the rural areas where the jails are concentrated. This increases the population used to determine district boundaries of the prisoner-heavy areas without actually increasing the number of voters, and takes numbers away from the cities, like Hartford and New Haven, where these prisoners come from.

The suit notes that Connecticut’s laws don’t require that prisoners be counted this way; the state’s Reapportionment Commission made the choice. The lawsuit also notes that on the rare occasions when people in Connecticut are incarcerated yet also eligible to vote, they are required to cast ballots for races in their home districts, not the districts where they’re incarcerated.

The end result is a 10- to 15-percent variance in district populations. A state House district in Connecticut has an average of around 23,670 residents. In the districts with the prisons, about 1,000 to 2,000 people cannot vote due to incarceration.

The NAACP argues that this an unbalanced representation system violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The group is asking the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut to stop the state from using the 2001 plan.

It’s worth noting that the federal census does the same thing. In February the Census Bureau announced it would use a person’s “usual residence” for the 2020 count. That means where a person lives and sleeps much of the time, not his or her legal residence. So people who are incarcerated will be classified as being residents of the congressional districts where they are jailed.

Most states do the same thing too. Indeed, only four states—Maryland, Delaware, New York, and California—count prison inmates as residents of their home communities for redistricting purposes.

Read the lawsuit here.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortex was roundly criticized on social media yesterday for supposedly botching a question about Israeli-Palestine relations during an interview with Firing Line‘s Margaret Hoover. But Ocasio-Cortez’s admission that she was “no expert on geopolitics” was much more satisfactory than her answer to a question about the unemployment rate, which she claimed was low merely “because everyone has two jobs.”

This is wrong for two reasons. First, people working multiple jobs has no distorting effect on the unemployment rate, which is calculated by taking the number of unemployed people and dividing it by the number of people in the labor force. The raw number of jobs being worked by Americans has no bearing on these numbers.

Second, everyone does not have two jobs. As Bloomberg View‘s Noah Smith points out, only about 5 percent of workers are moonlighting. This rate has actually dropped slightly over the last three decades.

Ocasio-Cortez continued: “Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week, and can barely feed their kids.” Again, the number of overtime hours Americans are working has no impact on the unemployment rate.

Ocasio-Cortez blames profit-seeking “no-holds-barred capitalism” for the conditions in which people struggle to feed their kids. Hunger and poverty are indeed problems faced by millions of Americans—14 percent of U.S. households experience food insecurity. Under capitalism, though, world poverty has declined precipitously. Over the past few decades, the economic growth that global trade has brought to developing economies has helped lift a billion people out of poverty. Between 2001 and 2011, some 700 million people exited from extreme poverty worldwide.

“Capitalism has not always existed in the world and it will not always exist in the world,” said Ocasio-Cortez. But the scale of human suffering was inarguably greater in the era before capitalism, and would be again in any post-market era, if socialism’s failure rate is any indication.

In the wake of Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) has accused the summit’s critics of “Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

The comment came during a Monday appearance with PBS’ NewsHour. Earlier in the interview, Paul argued that having a conversation, “even with our adversaries,” is beneficial for addressing the countries’ mutual interests. “It would be nice to have help from Russia on North Korea as far as denuclearization,” he told Judy Woodruff. “We have the Ukraine situation. So…I think that we won’t have any progress if we don’t have any conversations.”

Later, Paul addressed the meeting’s critics:

I think Trump is different, and he’s willing to meet with foreign leaders and, actually, I think you may get a breakthrough because of the meetings. And I think, if this were anybody else, if there weren’t such acute hatred for Trump, such Trump Derangement Syndrome on the left, I think, if this were President Obama—and it could have actually been President Obama early in the first term, when they were trying to reset our relations with Russia, that could have easily had a meeting like this—and the left and the media would have had a lovefest over President Obama.

Paul also published a defense of the president’s meeting in Politico, writing: “Politicizing international affairs is a dangerous game, but that hasn’t stopped far too many in Washington, who seem to have forgotten that a vital part of keeping America safe and secure is avoiding war through strong and consistent diplomacy, from playing politics.”

Trump tweeted a word of thanks to Paul on Tuesday morning after the senator made similar comments on CBS’ This Morning.

Thank you @RandPaul. “The President has gone through a year and a half of totally partisan investigations – what’s he supposed to think?”

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 17, 2018

Earlier this week, Paul sparked a bit of outrage when Trump critics focused on a line from his Sunday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. Paul observed that the U.S., like Russia, has meddled in foreign elections, saying, “We all do it.” Though Paul made the statement in the midst of calling for stronger protections for the American electoral process, like Mother Jones‘ David Corn called Paul a traitor.

Bonus link: Katherine Mangu-Ward, Peter Suderman, Nick Gillespie, and Matt Welch discuss Rand Paul’s Sunday comments on the Reason Podcast.

Have you used a plastic straw lately? Did you feel guilty? Celebrities and activists hope so! They want us all to #stopsucking.

Politicians took notice. Seattle recently banned plastic straws, and other places are considering similar bans.

Companies are also getting in on the trend; Starbucks recently decided to phase out plastic straws in all its stores by 2020. Other companies like American Airlines, Sea World, and Royal Caribbean are planning to ban plastic straws.

In our latest video, Stossel TV contributor Kristin Tate, author of How Do I Tax Thee, examines what a straw ban would accomplish.

Click here for full text and downloadable versions.

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The views expressed in this video are solely those of John Stossel; his independent production company, Stossel Productions; and the people he interviews. The claims and opinions set forth in the video and accompanying text are not necessarily those of Reason.

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“I don’t see any reason why it would be” Russia who hacked the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic Party’s emails during the 2016 election, President Donald Trump told reporters yesterday following his private talk with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland. That, of course, is not what U.S. law enforcement and intelligence leaders say. So, to many people, Trump’s comments are yet more proof that he’s a puppet of Putin. “Compromised,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) this morning on MSNBC. Treason!, howled many, including former CIA Director John Brennan.

There’s a simpler explanation, one rooted in less sinister circumstances, if not necessarily less sinister an outcome. We can even say it without speculating about Trump’s particular sort of damaged psyche in clinical terms. Put simply, Trump is too damn proud to react to Russia in anything like what we might think of as a normal way. To concede that Russia interfered in any way in the election, even all on its own, challenges any meritocratic or populist spin on Trump’s win. Trump thinks, or wants to think, or wants us to think that he did this all on his own.

And then the even simpler explanation, the one being pushed by Trump’s tried and true cheerleaders: Trump was just trying to keep things going smoothly with Russia, and lashing out at Putin while he’s right there on stage next to him would be counterproductive.

Jeanine Pirro on Fox & Friends: “What was he supposed to do, take a gun out and shoot Putin?” pic.twitter.com/0839HfMRI2

— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) July 17, 2018

My inclination is to the erratic pride explanation here, with some of the peacemaking instinct his fans are postulating. There is some wisdom to not insulting tempestuous enemies with large nuclear arsenals directly to their face.

But Slate‘s Ben Mathis-Lilley called Trump’s full answer “an astounding word salad of debunked conspiracy theories,” and this is also a very fair assessment. Here’s the full exchange between Trump and an Associated Press reporter:

AP: Just now president Putin denied having anything to do with the election interference in 2016. Every U.S. intelligence agency has concluded Russia did. My first question for you, sir, is who do you believe? My second question is would you now with the whole world watching tell president Putin—would you denounce what happened in 2016 and would you warn him to never do it again?

TRUMP: So let me just say we have two thoughts. We have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server. Why haven’t they taken the server? Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee? I’ve been wondering that. I’ve been asking that for months and months and tweeting it out and calling it out on social media. Where is the server? I want to know, where is the server, and what is the server saying? With that being said, all I can do is ask the question, my people came to me, [director of national intelligence] Dan Coats came to me, and some others, they said, they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin. He just said it’s not Russia. I will say this. I don’t see any reason why it would be, but I really do want to see the server, but I have—I have confidence in both parties. I really believe that this will probably go on for a while, but I don’t think it can go on without finding out what happened to the server. What happened to the servers of the Pakistani gentleman that worked on the DNC. Where are those servers? They’re missing. Where are they? What happened to Hillary Clinton’s e-mails? 33,000 emails gone, just gone. I think in Russia they wouldn’t be gone so easily. I think it’s a disgrace we can’t get Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 emails. So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today. And what he did, is an incredible offer. He offered to have the people working on the case come and work with their investigators, with respect to the 12 people. I think that’s an incredible offer. OK? Thank you.

Fox News contributor Byron York called Trump’s comments “appalling” but suggested that they were connected to Trump’s feeling that “if he gives an inch on the what-Russia-did-part” of this story, “his adversaries will take a mile on the get-Trump part. That’s consistent with how Trump approaches other problems.”

The Republican senators from Arizona weren’t quite so forgiving. “I never thought I would see the day when our American President would stand on the stage with the Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression,” tweeted Jeff Flake. “This is shameful.” John McCain called it “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory….No prior president has ever based himself more abjectly before a tyrant.”

Their responses are comparatively restrained.

FDR didn’t meet w/ the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. George H.W. Bush didn’t meet w/ Saddam after Iraq invaded Kuwait. And George W. Bush didn’t meet w/ Bin Laden after 9/11. So tell me, @realDonaldTrump, what does America get out of you meeting w/ Putin after he attacked us?

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) July 15, 2018

For a few more Reason-able takes (beating you to the bad pun this time!), see Robby Soave (“disappointment with Trump’s behavior is well-justified….He could have signaled a desire to work toward more peaceful relations without coming across like a dupe”…but treason?) and Peter Suderman writing here yesterday.

Protesters who gathered in front of the White House last night, calling it #OccupyLafayettePark, promised they would be back tonight.

FREE MINDS

Los Angeles Times order “not plausibly lawful.” More from Ken “Popehat” White on the story mentioned here yesterday about a federal court judge, John F. Walter, ordering the Los Angeles Times to pull a factual story about a shady detective. The judge “also ordered the Times to appear in Court this Wednesday to argue whether the temporary order should be made into a permanent injunction,” White notes.

In other words, based on an emergency request from the defendant, with no prior opportunity to be heard, a federal judge ordered a major newspaper (1) not to write about the details of a federal plea agreement it had obtained lawfully, (2) not to write anything that “relies on, or is derived in any way” from the plea agreement, an incredibly broad and vague term that is extraordinarily chilling to speech about the case, (3) to take down any story it’s already published, and (4) told the paper they can see the order, but not the application stating the legal and factual grounds for the order.

White concludes that “Judge Walter’s order is not plausibly lawful” and is “patently unconstitutional, and the sort of order that is only issued when a judge deliberately defies First Amendment law or is asleep at the switch.” He explains why in detail here.

FREE MARKETS

I know Trump/Putin is the big story of the day, but the continued escalation of the trade war is the most consequential https://t.co/nYoogFUwpc

— Kevin Glass (@KevinWGlass) July 16, 2018

QUICK HITS

• A young Russian woman named Maria Butina was indicted yesterday for allegedly “infiltrating organizations having influence in American politics”—including the NRA—”for the purpose of advancing the interests of the Russian Federation.”
• Virginia Postral reflects on California’s 40-year-old Proposition 13, “the property-tax limitation that helped spark a national tax revolt.”
• “A growing insurgency within social and political psychology has begun to argue, credibly, that…liberal psych researchers, centering their work on liberal values and political opinions, have built up a body of knowledge that is fundamentally flawed and biased,” writes Jesse Singal. “As a result, certain false ideas about conservatives and how they differ from liberals may have taken hold.”

#flightreading pic.twitter.com/8bgsb4ochz

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) July 15, 2018

In an old joke, a little boy climbs onto his father’s knee.

“Daddy,” he says, his wide eyes bright with optimism. “Now that alcohol is so expensive, does that mean you’ll drink less?”

The father laughs.

“No, my son,” he replies. “It means you’ll eat less.”

In May, Scotland decided to test this joke on a national scale when it became the first country in the world to implement “minimum-unit pricing,” writes Jillian Keenan.

View this article.

When informed by a sheriff’s deputy that doing 97 miles per hour in a 55 zone was a tad excessive, Arizona state Rep. Paul Mosley (R-District 5) answered, “Well, I was doing 120 earlier…This goes 140. That’s what I like about it.”

Under fire from the public and the press, Rep. Mosley apologized both for speeding and for his “jokes about frequently driving over 100 miles per hour.” But he drove away from that incident free as a bird, reports J.D. Tuccille., and likely faces no consequences more perilous than what the voters can muster up at the ballot box. As he explained to the deputy, he enjoys “legislative immunity.”

Lots of government officials seem to enjoy immunity with a wink and a nod, notes Tuccille. But in Arizona, immunity is actually official.

View this article.

The San Diego, California, City Council is considering a law that would ban landlords from rejecting tenants because they use federal Section 8 vouchers to pay their rent. Supporters say that more than 85 percent of San Diego residents who receive those vouchers are non-whites and the measure will reduce housing segregation.

In a move to tighten city law, a town in Arkansas has dumped an ordinance often referred to as the “Footloose” law, which sought to prevent illicit dancing on Sundays.

Up until it’s recent revocation, Sec. 14-91 in Fort Smith’s municipal codebook made the operation of public dance halls on a Sunday illegal. The legislation also included non-dance hall establishments that allowed dancing on Sundays. Initially signed into law by Mayor H.R. Hestand in 1953, an emergency clause in the ordinance suggested that Sunday dancing “greatly endangers the public health, safety and welfare.” The law followed the trend of other blue laws, or laws that were put into place to restrict activity on Sundays such as hunting and watching horse racing.

The ordinance drew parallels to Footloose, a musical whose plot is derived from similar dancing prohibitions. While the dancing ban in the musical is rather strict, Fort Smith officials maintained that there is no record of the ordinance being used as the basis for an arrest or fine.

“If you don’t care to dance on Sunday, that’s fine,” reportedly said City Director Andre Good, who headed efforts to repeal the ordinance. “We should all respect that. But let’s not impose some outdated, outmoded morality code on all our fine fellow citizens.”

Good believed that the fight against the dancing ordinance would allow for other unenforced laws to be examination and eventually repeal.

With this in mind, city leaders not only backed Good, but they reconvened a few days later and unanimously agreed to dissolve seven of the 34 commissions, boards, and committees that were believed to be outdated, including the Massard Prairie Civil War Battlefield Park Advisory Commission, the Oak Cemetery Commission, the Outside Agency Review Panel, the Parking Authority, the Residential Housing Facilities Board, the Riverfront Task Force, and the Streets Bridges and Associated Drainage Capital Improvements Plan Advisory Committee.

Bonus link: Reason‘s previous coverage on dancing ordinances and bans in Arizona, Ohio, California, and Washington, DC.

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s proposed acquisition of Tribune Media might not happen after Federal Communications Committee (FCC) Chairman Ajit Pai said today he has “serious concerns” about the $3.9 billion deal.

Sinclair, which owns or operates more than 190 local TV stations across the U.S., is looking to control Tribune’s 42 stations, including those in big cities like New York and Chicago. In order to comply with government regulations preventing one company from owning more than one station in the same market, Sinclair has said it would sell at least 20 of its existing stations.

But Pai said in a statement he’s not convinced Sinclair would be giving up control of those stations. “Based on a thorough review of the record, I have serious concerns about the Sinclair/Tribune transaction,” he said. “The evidence we’ve received suggests that certain station divestitures that have been proposed to the FCC would allow Sinclair to control those stations in practice, even if not in name, in violation of the law.” As a result, Pai said he has shared a draft order with his fellow FCC commissioners designating those issues “for a hearing in front of an administrative law judge.”

Pai did not make the draft order public, but Politico reports the FCC is worried about the close ties some of the proposed buyers have to Sinclair.

FCC officials said one problematic deal was the plan to sell Chicago station WGN to Steven Fader, a Maryland business associate of Sinclair Executive Chairman David Smith who oversees car dealerships. Others that raised alarm were the deals to sell stations in Dallas and Houston to Cunningham Broadcasting, a company with close ties to the Smith family.

Though Pai’s statement doesn’t officially kill the Sinclair-Tribune merger, the future of the proposal is in serious jeopardy, says Marci Ryvicker, a senior analyst with Wells Fargo Securities. “It sounds like the [administrative law judge] is being asked to review just the divestiture stations, but our legal contacts suggest there could be full review of the entire transaction,” Ryvicker wrote in a research note on Monday, according to The Baltimore Sun. He added that though there’s chance Sinclair could work to get the merger approved, “our legal contacts believe Pai went far enough to suggest the deal is at more serious risk.” And as noted by The Hill, a similar move in 2011 by then-FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski effectively killed a proposed merger between AT&T and T-Mobile.

Pai’s announcement was particularly surprising given the fact that last August, the FCC seemingly made it easier for Sinclair to complete the merger. The agency reinstated an old provision that would have allowed Sinclair to buy Tribune without surpassing the “congressionally imposed nationwide audience cap of 39 percent,” according to Politico.