Monthly Archives: September 2022

American libertarian author and editor (born 1953)

David Boaz (; born August 29, 1953, Mayfield, Kentucky) is the executive vice president of the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank.

He is the author of Libertarianism: A Primer, published in 1997 by the Free Press and described in the Los Angeles Times as "a well-researched manifesto of libertarian ideas."[1] He is also the editor of The Libertarian Reader and co-editor of the Cato Handbook for Congress (2003) and the Cato Handbook on Policy (2005). He frequently discusses such topics as education choice, the growth of government, the ownership society, his support of drug legalization as a consequence of the individual right to self-determination,[2][3][4] a non-interventionist foreign policy,[5] and the rise of libertarianism on national television and radio shows.

Boaz's 1988 op-ed The New York Times on the high cost of the drug war fueled public debate over the decriminalization of drugs.[6] His articles have also been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Review, and Slate. He has appeared on ABC's Politically Incorrect, CNN's Crossfire, NPR's Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered, Fox News Channel, BBC, Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, and other media. Boaz, a graduate of Vanderbilt University, is the former editor of The New Guard magazine and was executive director of the Council for a Competitive Economy prior to joining Cato in 1981.

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David Boaz - Wikipedia

A libertarian political advocacy group submitted a petition to the Arlington Heights Village Board Tuesday that could bar the village from offering taxpayer-funded financial incentives to the Chicago Bears football team which is looking to buy the Arlington Park International Racecourse for $197 million as well as any other business that might open in the area.

Brian Costin, deputy state director of Americans for Prosperity Illinois, led the petition effort and said the organization submitted 663 signatures to the board at its meeting Tuesday night.

The petition, which originated from a section of the Arlington Heights municipal code that allows for resident-generated referendums, calls for the Village Board to consider an ordinance that would prevent the village from extending any kind of financial assistance to any corporation seeking to open in the village.

Village officials say such an ordinance would be disastrous for the village, while organizers from the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity call it an anti-corporate welfare ordinance.

In presenting the signatures to the Village Board during the public comment portion of the meeting, Costin noted that Americans for Prosperity recently ran a poll that found 72% of respondents supported the Bears move to the village but that 68% opposed the use of public money to bring them to Arlington Heights.

Weve seen stadium bills and corporate welfare projects turn sour for taxpayers across Illinois, Costin said, citing examples in the towns of Bridgeview and Hoffman Estates.

[Chicago Bears show renderings for enclosed stadium complex in Arlington Heights, but say theyd expect some public funding for surrounding entertainment district]

Arlington Heights officials said passing such a measure would put the village at a major financial disadvantage to its neighbors.

Mayor Tom Hayes was absent from the board meeting last night, telling Pioneer Press in an email that he was in Canada on a non-refundable vacation hed booked a year ago. But Hayes previously expressed his disapproval for the ordinance API is pushing.

We dont think its something thats in the best interest of the village, Hayes previously said. If something like this is enacted, then all those businesses are going elsewhere, and how will that benefit our residents?

Hayes previously told Pioneer Press that he would do everything in my power to see (such an ordinance) stopped.

Village Manager Randy Recklaus was present at the meeting Tuesday night and blasted the idea of the ordinance.

This is a very extreme proposition, Recklaus said. It would literally cripple the villages ability to engage in any economic development throughout our entire community.

Recklaus added that major swathes of the village, like its downtown area, were redeveloped through public financing incentives like tax increment financing districts.

[Will the Chicago Bears leave Soldier Field? Heres what to know about the teams possible move to Arlington Heights.]

In fact, the Village Board considered a TIF district-related request at the meeting Tuesday for the Southpoint Shopping Center at 600 East Rand Road. The developer sought money from the TIF to help construct two commercial buildings: one for a Chipotle restaurant and the other for an AT&T retail store.

Resident Martin Bauer told Arlington Heights trustees he was opposed to the use of public money on Bears-related construction.

Bauer said he was not with Americans for Prosperity, but said he might get involved with that group or a similar one if the village continued moving forward with the project.

No public money is needed to develop this particular site, he said about the former racecourse property. Were not talking about a brownfield. Were not talking about an eyesore thats been sitting vacant for decades.

Bauer said Hayes and some members of the Village Board had become googly eyed over the prospect of bringing the football team to the village.

He indicated that he will do anything to make sure that the Bears come to Arlington Heights, Bauer said of Hayes.

Recklaus responded to Bauers comment, in the mayors absence.

I do not recall Mayor Hayes ever saying he would do anything to bring the Bears here, Recklaus said.

The petition needed 546 signatures, or 1% of the voting population of the village, to be submitted to the Village Board as a potential ordinance. If the board then rejects that proposed ordinance, then the petition organizers may try to get 12% of the villages voting population to sign on and force a referendum on the ballot at an upcoming election.

More:
Arlington Heights board gets petition from Koch brothers-backed group calling for law that may impact Chicago Bears' stadium plans - Chicago Tribune

After a history-making 2020 and 2021, Georgia is once again on our minds with two high-profile statewide races on the ballot this November: the U.S. Senate race, a highly competitive contest between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker, as well as the gubernatorial contest, a high-octane rematch between Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams.

But interestingly, these races have pretty different outlooks in FiveThirtyEights 2022 midterm forecast. The Senate race is currently rated as a toss-up, while in the governors race Kemp is a clear favorite to win.

Given how partisan our politics have become especially in a state like Georgia where the electorate is highly polarized its pretty unusual that the two statewide races show such a large gap, as much as 13 percentage points in some polls. Historically, major contests in Georgia have run close together, which is why a sizable split between the Senate and governors races would be pretty remarkable.

For starters, the gap between the two races varies depending on pollster, but on average, polls have found a 7-point difference between the margins in the Senate and gubernatorial contests. This pretty much matches what our more rigorous polling averages found, too, with Warnock up around 2 points and Kemp leading by about 5 points or a 7-point gap.

The margin in Georgias Senate and governor races in polls that measured both, including the gap between the two contests, since the May 24 primary

The data is shown as rounded but was calculated based on the fully-reported info in cases where pollsters provided decimal points. A (D) or (R) beside a pollsters name indicates their or their sponsors partisan affiliation.

Source: polls

But the fact that Georgias electorate is so polarized makes it unlikely that well see too large of a gap between the two contests. Like most of the Deep South, Georgia has a racially polarized electorate, where most Black voters back Democrats and most white voters back Republicans.

Take Georgias 2020 presidential vote: 88 percent of Black voters supported President Biden, while 69 percent of white voters supported former President Trump, according to the 2020 exit polls. This gives Georgia what we at FiveThirtyEight call an inelastic electorate, or an electorate for which factors like the political environment and candidate traits are unlikely to sway voters because so few voters are swing voters.

This lack of a gap in Georgias statewide elections is clear when we examine elections dating back to 2002, which is arguably when Georgias current political era began that year, Republicans won the governorship and captured a state-legislative chamber for the first time since Reconstruction. For instance, when we compare the outcomes in each pair of presidential, Senate and gubernatorial races in years when two of those races were on the ballot, the margins in these high-profile races usually differed only to a small extent, as the table below shows.

Difference in margin between major statewide elections for president, Senate or governor in years when at least two of these offices were on the ballot, 2002 to present

*Special election for U.S. Senate

The 2020 Senate race is the regularly scheduled Class II seat, as the special election for the Class III seat was a jungle primary. No candidate won an outright majority in either Senate election, which by state law necessitated a January 2021 runoff, as shown in the 2021 row.

Source: Dave Leips Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections

Although each year and race had its own set of particulars, six of these eight sets of elections saw only small differences in margin less than 3 points. The exceptions were the 2010 midterms and 2016 presidential election, when there was a wide gap between the Senate election and the other statewide election. (Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson was up both years, so he may have given the GOP a lift as an incumbent; also former Gov. Roy Barnes served as the Democrats nominee for governor in 2010, and his past appeal in more conservative parts of the state may have made that race closer than it wouldve been otherwise.) But these elections were the exception, not the norm. Even the states most recent elections, the 2020 presidential election and 2021 Senate runoffs, featured elections with very similar margins although they might be evidence that the overall political climate in Georgia is shifting toward Democrats.

Its notable, then, that the FiveThirtyEight forecast shows such a large divide between the Senate and governor races in its average projected vote share. The forecast currently has Kemp with a 6-point lead and Warnock with about a 1-point lead, which would amount to a 7-point gap between the two races.

There are a number of potential explanations for this gap, but the biggest factor might be incumbency and, more importantly, that Georgias top two races feature incumbents from different parties Kemp is a Republican and Warnock a Democrat. Incumbency does not provide as strong a tailwind as it once did, but both Kemp and Warnock are relatively popular politicians who could each win. From April through June, Morning Consults polling gave Kemp a 52 percent approval rating and only a 39 percent disapproval rating; Warnock, meanwhile, had an approval rating of about 47 percent and a disapproval rating of 41 percent.

In other words, there isnt that much difference between Kemps and Warnocks standing in Georgia. However, given that the gap between the two races is unlikely to remain this large and that Kemp has a healthier lead over Abrams than Warnock has over Walker, voters who split their tickets could matter a lot for Warnock. And two polls, one from Emerson College released last week and a July survey from Beacon Research/Shaw & Company on behalf of Fox News, show how different degrees of Kemp voters backing Warnock could matter. In Emersons poll, only 3 percent of Kemp supporters backed Warnock, and overall, Walker led by 2 points. In the Fox News survey, meanwhile, 8 percent of Kemps supporters backed Warnock, and overall, Warnock led by 4 points. The takeaway here is that higher levels of support for Warnock among Kemp voters would seemingly boost the incumbent senators chances of finishing ahead of Walker.

This is not to say that only split-ticket voting will matter to the outcomes in each race; turnout and the overall political environment are also important. But Warnock would be in much better shape if he could capture 8 percent of Kemps voters versus just 3 percent: Based on the 2018 governors race, that could be a difference of roughly 100,000 votes, or about 2.5 percent of ballots cast. In a close contest, thats a big deal case in point, Kemp defeated Abrams by just 55,000 votes four years ago.

Finally, theres one other wrinkle with Georgia: If no candidate wins an outright majority of the vote, a runoff between the top-two finishers will take place on Dec. 6, 2022. And considering each contest has a Libertarian candidate, which is notable because Libertarians have averaged a little over 2 percent in statewide races dating back to 2002, its entirely possible that if the Senate race is especially tight, a Libertarian candidate who gains 1 or 2 percent of the vote could trigger a Warnock-Walker runoff in December. Currently, the FiveThirtyEight forecast gives the Senate race about a 1-in-5 chance of going to a runoff, while the governors race has about a 1-in-10 chance.

At this point, its too soon to say how the races in Georgia will change, but with two months to go until Election Day, well be keeping a close eye on Peach State polls to see whether the gap between the two contests remains large or narrows.

Originally posted here:
Georgias Senate Race Is Much Closer Than The Governor Election. Will That Hold Until November? - FiveThirtyEight

To the editor: While it was very easy to get caught up in the many crimes of Donald Trump over the summer, I became immersed in a very readable book by historian Nancy MacLean: Democracy in Chains.

It helped me to understand the background of our current situation. Most Americans, if theyre in the least bit politically engaged, focus on the here and now, election results, etc., while the radical libertarian right wing has been playing a very long game to alter the fabric of American democracy. It began in the post-Civil War era but found its footing in the mid 1950s with the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The ongoing effort to do away with public education goes back to that fateful time.

When President Joe Biden gave his soul of the nation speech, he sounded the alarm about a cult-like group of Donald Trump followers. Of course we should be worried about the possible violence they would foment, but the concept of democracy is much broader. Restricting voting to desired classes of citizens is an ongoing issue. The MAGA Republicans feel that when everyone votes, they lose.

Im sure the radical libertarian big-money donors thought they hit pay dirt with a Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan ticket in 2012. Unfortunately for them, both men were totally devoid of charisma, but the false concept of "makers and takers" took hold.

It won't be easy, but we need all hands on deck to fight for our democracy.

Stephanie Hoadley, New Marlborough

Excerpt from:
Letter: The threat against democracy | Letters To Editor | berkshireeagle.com - Berkshire Eagle

SomethingIjust learned and confirmed that I want to share all registered voters can participate in the Republican or Democratic primaries.

As Ive previously written, if you are a member of one of the two big parties, you can only vote on their ballot. If you are unenrolled in either, you can choose which to vote in.

What I hadnt realized was that voters registered for third parties (Libertarian, Green, Rainbow, etc), also get to participate and choose their ballot. That is because none of those political groups met the threshold to be treated as a real party in this primary. (When third parties do qualify for their own ballots, members are then restricted to voting on those ballots.)

Libertarians currently have the same status as members of the Pizza Party and a long list of other political designations. (That may change for the 2024 primaries.)

Below is my reminder of who is on each ballot and where/how you can cast yours.

With todays downpour, Im guessing many voters wish they took advantage of early alternative options. If you still have your mail-in ballot make sure to get it into the drop box at the Town House (17 Common St) before 8:00 pm.

Otherwise, you need to head to the gym at Trottier Middle School (49 Parkerville Road) to vote today. The polls are open until 8:00 pm. (The entrance is on the side of the building facing the outdoor track.)

If you have any questions about voting, you can leave a voicemail for the Town Clerk at 508-485-0710 ext 3005 or email townclerk@southboroughma.com. (The office is closed today so staff can oversee the election. You can find them in person at Trottier.)

Below are details on who is competing for votes in the primaries. (For those that have campaign websites I could find, I inserted links so you can research their positions.) Only Democratic and Republican parties are holding primaries for our precincts.

Governor

Lt. Governor

Attorney General

Secretary of State

Auditor

Governors Councillor Third District

We already know which candidates will be on the ballot this fall for the following positions. (Some of the uncontested candidates dont even have opponents on another primary ballot. The deadline has passed for Non-Party candidates to file to add their names to the November ballot. Im not aware that any have, but cant yet rule out that possibility.)

Read more here:
Vote in the State Primary - mysouthborough

Ash Mirchandani is tired of battleground politics, which he described as a landscape where partisan bickering takes precedence over consensus-building progress.

So the Southern Nevada resident and registered nonpartisan decided to do something about it by launching the Coalition of Independent Nevadans (COIN), a group he envisions as a neutral platform to engage more nonpartisan voters in the political process.

If we can hold both parties to a higher standard of working with each other and creating meaningful common sense-driven policies, then our job is done, said Mirchandani, managing principal of Kaizen Strategies, a government relations firm, and president of the United Citizens Foundation, which provides mental health services for children.

The coalitions formation comes as nonpartisans represent a growing portion of the Nevada electorate. In July, 530,941 people were registered as nonpartisans, making up 29 percent of active registered voters statewide, according to data from the secretary of states office. By comparison, Democrats account for 33 percent of active registered voters, while Republicans comprise 30 percent. The remaining voters belong to minor political parties, such as the Libertarian Party and Independent American Party, among others.

Lumped together, voters who registered as nonpartisans or members of minor political parties account for 37 percent of the Nevada electorate.

Nonpartisans alone are a large enough voting bloc that they could sway the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections a fact not lost on candidates as they attempt to court those coveted votes.

Thats why one of the coalitions first acts will be interviewingand then endorsing candidates for a variety of statewide, legislative and local elected offices, said Mirchandani, who serves as the groups chair. A panel of nonpartisan voters will conduct the interviews, with each person ranking the candidates based on an agreed-upon scoring system. If the candidate scores fall within a narrow range, the panelists will have a group discussion and then vote.

Mirchandani said the beauty of the group is that none of the panelists are heavily involved in the political sphere. Theyre all volunteers.

They are everyday people that are taking out time because they care, he said.

COIN plans to announce its list of endorsements toward the end of September and, in the future, hold other events, such as listening tours.

Editors Note: This story appears in Indy 2022, The Nevada Independents newsletter dedicated to comprehensive coverage of the 2022 election. Sign up for the newsletter here.

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Group catering to nonpartisan voters launches ahead of the election The Nevada Independent - The Nevada Independent