Category Archives: Libertarianism

Switzerland's tech-neutral approach to regulation has created a fertile ground for bitcoin adoption

Ask the average person in the street what they think about bitcoin, and youre likely to hear one of two responses: either its an earth-shattering invention thatll transform global finance; or its a dodgy game for fraudsters and speculators thatll end in tears.

Bitcoins tendency to divide opinions isnt surprising. The blockchain technology its built on is a complex invention, only deeply understood by programmers and mathematicians. Its also relatively new the first bitcoin block was mined just 13 years ago so there hasnt been much time for governments, academics and the media to wrap their heads around the subject.

What everyone seems to agree on and what fuels much of the skepticism about bitcoin is the fact that its early history was entwined with criminality and an ultra-libertarian worldview that bordered on anarchism.

It was the cypherpunk movement of the 1990s that laid the foundations for bitcoin, coalescing a community of geeks around the shared belief that cryptography a form of digital encryption could protect global citizens from intrusion by all-seeing governments, intelligence agencies and corporations.

Whether Satoshi Nakamoto, bitcoins creator, saw himself as part of the cypherpunk movement isnt clear. His invention used cryptography in a more nuanced way: sidelining central banks by creating a decentralized form of digital money. Nonetheless, most of bitcoins early use cases were illicit extorting hacking ransoms, for example, or selling drugs on the dark web so the link with anarchism became entrenched.

Fast forward to today, and bitcoin is a very different animal. The worlds oldest and largest cryptocurrency now has a market cap of $735 billion; its spawned thousands of rivals and a new industry of Decentralized Finance (DeFi); two countries El Salvador and the Central African Republic treat it as legal tender; financial institutions hoard it as digital gold; and the endless applications of blockchain have fueled innovation in every business sector on the planet.

One country, in particular, seems determined to help bitcoin and blockchain grow out of their roots in the cypherpunk movement and spread their wings as avowedly mainstream technologies.

The financially innovative, politically libertarian nation of Switzerland has already made strides in legitimizing bitcoin. In the town of Zug, SEBA Bank, one of two Swiss crypto banks, is reporting a surge in institutional demand for cryptocurrencies thanks to its myriad regulatory licenses. In Zurich, Sygnum, the other crypto bank, is using blockchain-specific laws to create a new form of tokenized art investments. And in Lugano, the municipal government backed by stablecoin issuer Tether is exploring how to make its local economy run almost entirely on cryptocurrency.

Developments like these are probably not what the cypherpunks had in mind when they first heard of bitcoin. But Swiss officials make no apologies for their pragmatic approach.

To the contrary, an administrative unit of the federal government thats tasked with regulating and promoting international finance is pulling out all the stops to put a friendly face on the new, crypto-centric digital economy.

Much of the ecosystem you see flourishing not just in Switzerland, but also abroad is probably going against the initial idea of the crypto anarchists, explains Nino Landerer, head of capital markets & infrastructure at the State Secretariat for International Finance (SIF), which is based in Switzerlands capital Bern and comes under the responsibility of the finance ministry.

[The original vision for bitcoin was] having a fully decentralized system where everyone manages his or her own keys, and no one trusts anyone, but they can all verify everything. That was the ultimate basic idea in Nakamotos white paper. And some tech people believe in that fundamental philosophy. But that's not the ecosystem we see. We see a rather centralized ecosystem. We see service providers like banks who are providing services to clients. And their clients trust the banks not the DLT (Distributed Ledger Technology that helps make bitcoin secure).

So it's really kind of building up a similar system to what we already have just based on cryptoassets.

Many of the industry experts who are trying to make bitcoin a part of everyday life seem to agree. Paolo Ardoino, chief technology officer at Tether, is one of the architects of Luganos Plan B initiative, which envisages the city becoming the European capital of bitcoin. He describes himself as super libertarian but is quick to add: You also have to be realistic.

We need regulation and we need laws, Ardoino says. You can be an anarchist when you are with a few of your friends. But if youre actually living in a country and you want to build infrastructure, you cannot be an anarchist.

Switzerlands attempt to find a middle ground involves falling back on the governments longstanding claim of tech neutrality. Rather than developing regulation for certain technologies and, in doing so, showing an indirect preference for them the country favors a catch-all approach of regulating activities. Thus when crypto banks like SEBA and Sygnum offer custody for bitcoin deposits, their services are held to the same standards and obligations that apply when traditional banks custody fiat deposits.

The advantage of this approach, officials say, is that it allows the rules to be applied universally in fast-moving situations. When sanctions were imposed on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, for example, cryptoassets were explicitly included without any need for additional, sector-specific regulation.

As well as influencing the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA) particularly in relation to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (CFT) compliance the philosophy of tech neutrality affected how lawmakers drafted last years DLT Act.

Instead of writing brand new legislation for bitcoin and other blockchains, the government made ten separate amendments to pre-existing laws some more than a century old bringing them up-to-date while harmonizing the rules for traditional financial entities and newer fintech players. The need to get a handle on the market had become particularly apparent during the boom in Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs) a few years earlier, Landerer says, referring to the cryptocurrency equivalent of Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), in which tech firms raise funds by issuing digital tokens.

These legislative changes didnt come out of the blue, he insists. It was around 2017 that they became more salient, and the government decided it needed to do something.

Doing something doesn't mean kill it, but embrace it to the extent that it can be useful, while also making clear that it shouldn't be the Wild West ... [You want to] create a framework to enable innovative business models and financial services, but also account for the risks in terms of money laundering, in terms of financial stability, in terms of reputation.

Nino Landerer, head of capital markets & infrastructure at the State Secretariat for International ... [+] Finance (SIF), an administrative unit of the Swiss finance ministry

Asked about specific provisions in the DLT Act that have helped the crypto sector move forward, Landerer cites three areas.

First, the legal recognition of ledger-based securities that enable peer-to-peer transfers without a central intermediary; Sygnum has already exploited this change of contractual law by pioneering Art Security Tokens (ASTs). Second, the integration of DLT trading and settlement layers into one single step an upgrade that significantly boosts the efficiency of digital trading platforms, and thats only possible thanks to the immutable nature of blockchains. Third, the separation of cryptoassets during insolvencies.

There are many other areas that still require legal and regulatory clarity, of course chief among them DeFi protocols. But theres also no shortage of private-sector entities looking to work with SIF and FINMA as they navigate these uncharted waters.

You can be assured there's hundreds of pages going back and forth between the regulators and us, says Mathias Imbach, Sygnums co-founder and group chief executive. We see ourselves as a player who can help to address these challenges.

I'll give you some examples ... What is it on a bank's balance sheet if you have exposure to a decentralized liquidity pool? How do you manage that from an Excel accounting standpoint? What does it mean for your liquidity ratio? Is it that you need to have a financial audit on the smart contract every year? That's not possible because it's not a centralized entity. There's questions around who is the counterparty and what does that mean for the bank's risk management operation. There's questions around taxes.

Landerer admits that the cypherpunks would probably find it kind of absurd that regulated banks are now getting involved in DeFi markets a space that exists, by definition, to provide an alternative to banking.

But their involvement means that a field which might otherwise be deemed unscrupulous or disreputable is enjoying a mainstream makeover potentially mirroring bitcoins own evolution from a currency for drug dealers into a store of value for financial institutions. In DeFi many things are not as decentralized as they appear to be, or they would like to be, Landerer argues. Ultimately, when you look under the hood, its actually quite centralized.

For all the talk of tech neutrality, its hard not to wonder: if bitcoin gained popular support as the dominant medium of exchange in Switzerland, would the government seriously embrace its monetary function over, say, the Swiss franc or a future Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)?

Thats a decision for politicians and central banks to make. But, in Landerers mind at least, the question isnt as controversial as it might seem elsewhere in the world.

We have always had private money in Switzerland. Even today, much of the money we use as a medium of exchange is private money its credit from [commercial] banks. As citizens, we don't have access to central bank money in electronic form as of yet. So why would that change?

A more pertinent question, he suggests, is whether a decentralized, proof-of-work cryptocurrency like bitcoin is really capable of being a better medium of exchange than the public and private alternatives. Decentralization in itself is inherently inefficient from a technological standpoint, he points out, referring to the burden of distributing and validating blocks across a DLT network. Attempts are being made to address bitcoins scalability problem with second-layer, off-chain solutions like Lightning, but the jurys still out on their long-term viability.

Overall, thats not the question we need to answer as a regulator whether blockchain technology is really the gamechanging thing that the market thinks, Landerer says. [Our role] is to enable innovation, to allow it to flourish without creating too many tears.

And I think that's the fundamental attitude we have in Switzerland towards any technological innovation. We dont prejudge things.

See original here:
How The Swiss Government Is Helping Bitcoin & Blockchain Technology Grow Up - Forbes

Age: 68

Occupation: Nebraska Lieutenant Governor since 2013

Political party: Republican

Mike Foley was the state auditor for two terms then ran for governor in 2014, lost to Pete Ricketts, and was appointed by Ricketts as his running mate to become the current lieutenant governor. Foley couldve run for governor again, but he said he decided to run for auditor because of his skills and interests.

"I enjoyed my work as state auditor when I previously held that position. I was a very aggressive state auditor, worked very hard to expose waste, fraud inefficiency in government operations and root that out of the system," he said.

Foley intends to focus on the largest agency in state government, the Department of Health and Human Services, if elected. He said hes in the best position to be state auditor because he understands the complexities of state government and has worked there for 22 years, including six years in the Legislature.

"I look forward to returning to that [auditor's] office where I can do some more good work for the people of Nebraska, to protect their hard earned tax dollars from being wasted," he said.

Optometrist Katrina Tomsen of Upland is also running for the seat unopposed with the libertarian party.

Link:
Meet the Republican Candidates for State Auditor and Treasurer - Nebraska Public Media | News

Andrew Adams| State Journal-Register

Fifty-one years ago, the Occupational Safety and Health Act went into effect. Since 1989, the day has been commemorated byAmerican labor unions as Workers Memorial Day.

On Thursday morning,the AFL-CIO hosted its annual memorial service to honor the day, the first time its been held in-person since the start of the pandemic.

This year's service was dedicated to Deidre Silas, a Springfield resident and Department of Children and Family Services worker who was killed on the job earlier this year.

Silas' family attended the ceremony. Herfather,Roy Graham, placed a rose on a replica of the Illinois Workers Memorial statue in Silas' memory as part of the ceremony.

Past coverage: Family, friends, co-workers remember Silas during services at Union Baptist Church

Graham was joined by other relatives of workers who died on the job as well as their "union brothers and sisters," who placed 75 roses to honor the dead.

The 75 workers all died since the Workers Memorial Day tradition began in the 10-county area covered by the local AFL-CIO's Springfield and Central Illinois Trades and Labor Council. About half of Illinois' 22 AFL-CIO councils held similar events around the state.

Silas' death motivated several lawmakers to push for new standards for DCFS this spring, resulting in the legislature passing several new laws, including one granting DCFS workers the option to carry pepper spray or mace if they've been trained and one granting the family of those killed on the job ancillary benefits, such as health insurance.

"It's not a political issue, it's a workplace safety issue," said state Sen. Doris Turner, D-Springfield, who co-sponsored both of those bills.

Despite multiple attempts, Turner was unsuccessful at passing the Knight-Silas Legacy Act, a proposal first introduced by Rep. Tony McCombie, R-Savanna, after the death of Pamela Knight, another DCFS worker who died on the job. Turner said she is looking to bring that bill back up for consideration in this fall's legislative veto session.

"The only way way we can continue to put workplace safety on the front burner is to have days like thisto honor our brothers and sisters for the sacrifice they made and at the same time, advocate for laws that will protect workers, so we can eliminate workplace death and injuries,"said Tim Drea, president of the Illinois AFL-CIO.

In Illinois, 135 people died on the job in 2020,according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's just over one workplace fatality every three days.

Nationwide, there were 4,764 fatal work injuries, meaning somewhere in the country, a worker died every 111 minutes.

2020 saw the fewest workplace fatalities of any year since 2013 nationwide and the fewest workplace fatalities in Illinois since 1996, the first year for which statistics are available.

Though the numbers have been decreasing, labor advocates and officials within workplace safety agencies around the country believe that more must be done to reduce the number of workplace deaths.

"We have to keep fighting until every worker is able to go home to their familyat the end of the day, safe and healthy," said Natalicia Tracy, senior policy adviser at OSHA during the Department of Labor's Workers Memorial Day service.

Illinoisans are preparing to make a decision about the future of organized labor later this year, when a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the rights of workers to "organize and to bargain collectively" will be put to voters on the ballot at the Nov. 8 election.

"Workplace safety is why we're advocating for the passage of the Illinois Workers Rights Amendment," said Drea in a speech at the memorial.

The amendment was approved by the General Assembly in 2021, with the language that will appear on the ballot approved this year on April 9.

Read the language of the amendment.

"They normally vote for Democrats, Republicans, independents or Libertarians," said Drea. "This time, the first question on the ballot, they can vote for themselves."

Drea added that the amendment will help workers ensure their workplaces are safe in addition to protecting collective bargaining in Illinois.

The amendment gained bipartisan support in both chambers of the Illinois legislature, passing on a 49-7 vote in the Senate and 80-30-3 vote in the House. All of those who voted against the amendment are Republicans.

But others have already started to fight the measure in the courts.

Last week, lawyers from the conservative Liberty Justice Center and the Illinois Policy Institute, a conservative think tank,filed a lawsuit against the state board of elections arguing that the language of the amendment is too broad.

"If Illinois were seeking solely to make right-to-work unconstitutional in Illinois, the phrasing would have reflected that, as it did in a previous version of this amendment filed in 2019," said Mailee Smith,director of labor policy and staff attorney at the Illinois Policy Institute in a statement."Instead, the current phrasing creates a litany of problems, could lead to unparalleled power by a special interest group and most importantly, is unconstitutional.

Smith and lawyers from the Liberty Justice Center argue in the lawsuitthat because the amendment regulates private sector unions, it conflicts with the federal National Labor Relations Act. They say because the federal constitution says federal law takes precedence over state laws,the amendment is unconstitutional.

This is the first time the two conservative organizations have partnered since they argued the U.S. Supreme Court caseJanus v. AFSCME, in which the Supreme Court found that government employees cannot be required to pay union fees as part of their employment.

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As Illinois gears up to vote on workers' rights, unions remember those killed on the job - The State Journal-Register

A bipartisan effort is underway, with Morgan County Democrats joining in, petitioning Georgias State Election Board to provide emergency paper ballots ahead of the upcoming 2022 elections.

Georgia Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians have joined forces to advocate for the use of paper ballots to enhance election security and post-election audits.

So far, more than 50 federal and state candidates, along with political party committees across the state, have signed on to the petition, including familiar local candidates Brett Mauldin, a Republican running for State Senate District 17, Kacy Morgan, a Democrat running for State Senate District 17, Charles Baldwin, a Democrat running for Morgan County Commissioner District 2, Claudia Crenshaw, a Democrat running for Morgan County School Board District 5, and Tabitha Johnson-Green, a Democrat running for Georgias 10th Congressional District. Even gubernatorial candidates have signed on to the petition, including Republicans David Perdue and Kandiss Taylor.

The Morgan County Democrats committee also signed on to the petition with second vice chair Jeanne Dufort leading the recruitment effort of various political candidates and committees to join the effort.

Trust in elections must be earned. Working with Republican and Libertarian leaders to call on the State Election Board to act swiftly to protect our elections gives me hope that we can find common ground when the stakes are high, said Dufort.

Getting ahead of this, by using the EPB system designed for quick response when elections cant proceed as planned will go a long way towards protecting our vote.

The bipartisan petition comes on the heels of the Federal DHSs Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) conducting a review of serious vulnerabilities found in Georgias Dominion electronic touch-screen voting system. CISAs ongoing investigation was prompted by a study conducted by Dr. Alex Halderman.

According to ABC News, Halderman said in sworn declarations filed publicly with the court that he examined the Dominion Voting Systems machines for 12 weeks and identified multiple severe security flaws that would allow bad actors to install malicious software.

Advocates are also concerned about the recent warning from U.S. officials that Vladimir Putin could interfere with American election infrastructure as revenge for aiding Ukraine in the ongoing war.

Dufort joined the effort in hopes the bipartisan nature of the initiative would persuade state election board officials to act.

The Secretary of State [Brad Raffensperger] is refusing to act. We are calling on the State Election Board to use their authority to protect our elections by temporarily replacing the touchscreens with standard paper ballots for scanning, and expanding audits, said Dufort.

Its how most states use their Dominion voting system to ensure auditability. Our goal is to address the significantly increased risk level in the use of Georgias electronic touchscreen system. Georgia is at higher risk than most states, because we require vulnerable electronic tablets and printers to mark ballots for in-person voting, and we use outside contractors to configure elections centrally while most states configure machines locally.

The bipartisan petition also advocated for paper ballots in the event of an audit after an election.

We also ask that you also require extensive post-election audits of the scanner tabulations of hand marked ballots to verify the outcomes of races, said the petition to the State Election Board. Together these steps will rebuild Georgias voter confidence by providing assurance that Georgias election outcomes reflect the will of the people.

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Morgan County Democrats and local candidates join bipartisan effort demanding paper ballots ahead of the 2022 Midterm elections - Morgan County...

In an April 16 interview with New York City billionaire and budding media mogul John Catsimatidis, Governor Kathy Hochul affirmed that she would not shut down the state to deal with the spike in COVID-19 cases caused by the BA.2 variant. Not that anyone expected her to. No, at this point, New Yorkand apparently the rest of the countryis functionally done with COVID mitigation.

Of course, this virus isnt done with us. No matter how many wartime metaphors are thrown at it, a substantial chunk of the population seems unwilling to acknowledge a simple truth: a pandemic is not over until its over, and what endemic means is definitely up for debate.

Once again, the Northeast is leading a rise in US cases. In New York, the 7-day positivity rate as of April 21 is over 5 percent and climbing (in neighboring Vermont, the rate is double that.) A lack of testing may obscure the real amount of spread at present. But the difference this timeseemingly more than ever before, and particularly notable in the blue statesis the unwillingness to do pretty much anything about it.

In fact, unwillingness puts it charitably; it implies there is a choice to be had. Truthfully, Hochuls comments were redundant precisely because the possibility of choice has been forfeitedmaybe long ago, certainly after the first Omicron wave. We cannot wait any longer, we must get back to normal!

Vaccination, accordingly, has become the only mitigation method. While crucial in reducing severity of illness and likelihood of death, vaccines are only one method of mitigationand a method with serious limitations. Vaccines fail in many cases to significantly protect the 3 percent of the population who are immunocompromised from so-called mild Omicron; it also does a dubious amount to reduce transmission.

Last winter, I spent a few months reporting in The River on the anti-vax group Do We Need This?, a Columbia County-based coalition opposed not only to vaccination, but to virtually all efforts at pandemic mitigation. What struck me in my communication with members of this groupmore than their deeply unscientific approach to the coronaviruswas the devaluing of human life implicit in their approach to the pandemic. They would deny it, of course, but the enactment of their worldview in America in 2022 would produce a coldly libertarian reality in which lives are simply unprotectedeven when we have the meansand we accept consigning weak, elderly, immunocompromised, and otherwise vulnerable people to serious illness and death. (It is the exact same belief, parroted in cruder and more aggressive form, by the MAGA movement and the far rightof which the left-libertarian anti-vaxxers are fast becoming a part.)

In New York, about 75 percent of the population is fully vaccinatedwhich is good, if likely not good enough. But to note this only obscures a darker sentiment that I cannot shake: the anti-vax argument has won the day. The COVID-skeptics view of the pandemic and its supposed mildness, their arguments about costs versus benefits, their fundamental privilege and unwillingness to care for othersthis is the ethos that predominates.

This view isnt exactly new. Even at the beginning of the crisis, the willingness of the privileged to abscond to areas like the Hudson Valley was plenty evident, while those sheltering in the city and suburbs cheered from their balconies as essential workers (who were functionally deemed expendable) were made to stay out and continue stocking shelves and delivering groceries.

But there was at least some sense of collective sacrifice and a perceived need to mitigate; now the willingness to accept total uncontained spread is as pervasive as its ever been. Liberal pundits like Leana Wen or David Leonhardt make careers insisting as much in the papers of record, laundering the guilt of those who have, in many cases, never been deeply threatened by this pandemic and now simply dont want to be inconvenienced.

What could be done now? In theory, re-imposing indoor mask mandates (as Philadelphia has done), permanently expanded testing and tracing, full coverage for the poorly insured and uninsured for COVID testing and treatmentand if necessary, targeted closures or shutdownsare all within the capacity of even a society as broken as this one. Above all, perhaps, should be clear messaging that the pandemic is not yet over.

But, as Hochul insisted, none of thats going to be done. The state and country will ride through this wave, just like they did all the other ones, and manycertainly more than necessarymay die or become seriously ill, including with long COVID, because we have collectively agreed to do nothing.

The pandemic might have been an opportunity to have a discussion about priorities, particularly the chronic health inequalities evident in the state and country. Instead, the most terrible disparities of this society have been reaffirmed; a persistent selfishness and unwillingness to suffer the most mild inconveniences for the sake of protecting vulnerable neighbors has won the day; a grotesque American libertarianism is strengthened. And too many people are okay with it.

The Riveris a nonpartisan news organization, and the opinion of columnists and editorial writers do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the newsroom.

See the article here:
The Anti-Vaxxers Won. This Is Pandemic Country. - The River - The River Newsroom

TOPEKA Rep. Tatum Lee and Sen. Mark Steffen heartily embraced anti-vax activists Monday at the Capitol ahead of the Legislatures consideration of limited-government policy tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and potential overrides of a cluster of vetoes issued by Gov. Laura Kelly.

The plan was for the House and Senate to devote the day to weighing bills left unfinished when lawmakers adjourned for a three-week break. The list includes bills on K-12 education budget, the final state budget package, reform of the states 6.5% sales tax on groceries, legalization of sports wagering and a sweeping bill approved by the Senate but not the House that would tackle libertarians objections to COVID-19 directives.

On Tuesday, legislative leadership wants to dive into override votes on a transgender sports ban on girls and women athletes, a parental bill of rights for public education, a ban on municipal government limits on single-use plastic, expansion of short-term health plans and new limits on access to food stamps.

Lee, a Ness City Republican not averse to criticizing GOP leadership, lauded the group affiliated with Kansans for Health Freedom who pressed their case for a trio of bills that havent cleared the Legislature. She demanded House Speaker Ron Ryckman, R-Olathe, allow each to be adopted by the House.

Ron Ryckman, you better get these bills passed, said Lee, who alleged backroom deals were being hatched as she spoke to the protesters. Thank you so much for caring, standing and participating. None of this is worth it unless were standing together.

The anti-vax coalition demanded passage of House Bill 2280 opening the door to treatments not fully endorsed by federal regulators, Senate Bill 489 inhibiting ability of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and local government health directors to issue pandemic orders and Senate Bill 541 prohibiting directives on vaccination passports, facial coverings, contract tracing, church attendance and student vaccinations.

Steffen, a Republican from the Hutchinson area who has been under scrutiny by the Kansas Board of Healing Arts, said House Bill 2280 wasnt dead but was on life support.

Is the light growing dim? Well, yes, but it is on everything, he said. That doesnt mean its time to give up. Its time to try harder.

Steffen said the board regulating physicians in Kansas, such as himself, had to be changed to prevent the heavy corporate doctor influence on the board. The KBHA should be more respectful of physicians such as himself who advocate off-label drug treatments for COVID-19 not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The Kansas Board of Healing Arts has to be reorganized. It has to be, Steffen said. the associations Kansas Medical Society, chiropractic society, osteopathic society they are the ones that are picking the board members. They dont pick a group of doctors to represent true Kansans. They pick corporate doctors. Theyre not picking the average Joe doctor like myself. That has to change.

He said the regulatory scrutiny of doctors not in the medical mainstream blunted early treatment of COVID-19 and created suffering and death for people with cancers.

So, lets keep our head down. Lets keep charging forward. Lets hold people accountable. Lets stand for the truth. Lets make this state better. Lets make this country better, Steffen said.

The crowd created funnels of protesters outside the House and Senate chambers that legislators had to walk through. They hoisted signs that read: We the people want health freedom, Let doctors save lives and Do whats right for Kansans. They chanted pass the House freedom bills and stop medical tyranny.

At the request of Mike Brown, a GOP candidate for secretary of state, said he lost his seat on the Johnson County Commission in 2020 because he was such an intense champion for people who didnt want to bend a knee to government during the pandemic. At his urging, the anti-vax activists chanted U! S! A! U! S! A! loud enough to satisfy his sense that they had been heard through the five-floor statehouse.

Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, said he was focused on Senate Bill 541, which was approved by the Senate 24-14 but not taken up by the House. Apparently, House negotiators wont agree to meet for discussion of the Senates work on the bill.

The board bill would limit cities responding to infectious diseases to issuance of 30-day ordinances that limited the size of gatherings, restricted operation of businesses or controlled movement of people. Anyone harmed by such local government orders to file a lawsuit that would be heard by a judge within 72 hours. No school or educational institution could issue vaccination documents or separate students based on vaccination status. Violation of provisions in the bill would be a misdemeanor crime.

In addition, the bill would forbid mask mandates, restrictions on religious liberty and would declare children enrolling in daycare facilities or schools would be exempt from immunizations if required by the KDHE secretary based on a written statement signed by a parent or guardian outlining a sincerely held religious belief.

Continued here:
Kansas activists opposed to COVID-19 mandates greet legislators with rally at Capitol - Kansas Reflector

He was repeating a point already made in 2002 to the Scottish Socialist Voice (a publication with which Musk and Bezos are potentially unfamiliar). Nothing and nobody is exploited, and the opportunities for fun are pretty much unrestricted, Banks said of the Culture. I like to think of it as a society that anybody could be happy in.

Those in charge of his legacy may have felt similarly. In 2018, plans for an Amazon adaptation of Consider Phlebas were suddenly shelved. The timing wasnt quite right, said the authors representatives. In the end, I just think the estate didnt want to go through with it, said Dennis Kelly, the Utopia writer who was working on the script for Amazon. They hadnt seen anything [Kelly had written], it was just because I think they werent ready to do it, for whatever reason. Im a little mystified, to be honest.

For Banks, the Culture was a best-case scenario for mankind provided that we could overcome our most toxic instincts. The Culture, he told Roberts, represents the place we might hope to get to after weve dealt with all our stupidities. Maybe.

I have said before, and will doubtless say again, that maybe we that is, homo sapiens are just too determinedly stupid and aggressive to have any hope of becoming like the Culture, unless we somehow find and isolate/destroy the genes that code for xenophobia, should they exist.

As he prepares to bend Twitter to his will, Musk will no doubt see himself, like the Culture, as being on the side of the cyber-angels. His detractors, however, fear that hes about to turn the platform into a libertarian cesspit and a crucible of hate speech. However this online drama plays out, it seems obvious Bankss idea of a peaceful future in which technology and humanity live in harmony is still some way off.

What would Iain M Banks have thought? Most likely that Musks social media empire-building has nothing to do with his vision of an egalitarian future and may in fact militate against it.

Read more here:
Does Elon Musk really understand the books he claims inspired him? - The Telegraph

Russia has ultimately collapsed foreign academic, human rights and media operations in the Russian Federation. It has crippled and ridiculed their work with civil society. Long before the start of the special military operations aimed at what is officially described as demilitarization and denazification in the post-Soviet republic, Russian authorities have been on the neck of these organizations, consistently accusing them of being biased and anti-Russian.

The battle of biased reporting (including issues relating to misinformation and disinformation and propaganda) has resulted on the shutdown of foreign media organizations, accreditation of foreign correspondents revoked over the past years. Social media including Meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram have come under scrutiny and designated as extremist organizations. It is still getting worse as the United States, European Union and Russia constantly lock horns about reporting ethics and information war.

As already known, Russian authorities have unleashed an unprecedented, nationwide crackdown on independent journalism and dissenting voices following Russias military operation in Ukraine. Roskomnadzor, Russias media regulator, blocked access to Facebook and Twitter, and so also the most popular critical media outlets, closing independent radio stations and forcing dozens of journalists to halt their work or leave the country, the authorities have almost completely deprived people in Russia of access to objective, unbiased and trustworthy information.

For two decades, the Russian authorities have waged a covert war against dissenting voices by arresting journalists, cracking down on independent newsrooms and forcing media owners to impose self-censorship. Yet, after Russian tanks entered Ukraine, the authorities switched to a scorched-earth strategy that has turned Russias media landscape into a wasteland, said Marie Struthers, Amnesty Internationals Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

On 28 February, Roskomnadzor blocked Nastoyashchee Vremya(Current Times), a subsidiary of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, for spreading unreliable information about the invasion. On 1 March, almost all Ukrainian news outlets were inaccessible to internet users in Russia.

That was followed by the Kremlin ruthlessly censored a swathe of independent media, including broadcaster TV Rain, the Echo of Moscow radio station, Latvia-based Meduza, critical Russian news outlets Mediazona, Republic and Sobesednik, grassroots activism portal Activatica and the Russian-language services of the BBC, Voice of America and Deutsche Welle.

The blocking of news sites and the threat of criminal prosecutions has also led to an exodus of journalists from Russia. According to Agentstvo, an investigative journalism site now inaccessible in Russia, at least 150 journalists have fled the country since the beginning of the war.

TV Rain chose to suspend broadcasting amidst fears of reprisals. Znak.com, a significant regional news channel, halted its operations citing censorship fears. The Echo of Moscow radio station was taken off the air; shortly after, its state-aligned owners decided to liquidate the company. Even Novaya Gazeta, a beacon of independent journalism led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, announced on 4 March that it would remove articles on Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has closed the British Council, the American Educational Council with its Future Leaders Exchange (FLEX) programme, and Alliance Franaise and Geothe Institute. These are the largest cultural networks of Britain, the United States, France and Germany. While Russia struggles with it non-profit NGO Russkiy Mir primarily tasked to popularize Russian language, literature and Russian culture around the world, it found it necessary to halt non-political and non-profit educational branches of western ones that operated under their diplomatic missions in the Russian Federation.

The FLEX programme, created as the best way to ensure long-lasting peace and mutual understanding between the U.S. and the countries of Eurasia, enables young people, over 35,000 students who compete annually, to learn about the United States, and to teach Americans about their countries, mostly from the former Soviet republics.

These educational and cultural centers have practically helped thousands of Russian students, with government-sponsored grants, to acquire comparative knowledge in various academic fields abroad. While some, after the training programmes, still remain abroad, others returned to contribute their quota in sustainable development in Russia.

Early March 2022 perception survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center, the results of an opinion poll, the majority of Russians reported that they feel negatively about the United States (71%). On the other hand, Russians are generally obsessed by American and European dreams, wealthy Russians have bought the most expensive mansions along the coast of Miami et cetera, placed their thousands of kids in western educational institutions.

In addition, Russian academics throughout the year run forth and back under the umbrella of conducting research. Alexey Khokhlov, the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told Telegram channel early April that the decision made by the worlds largest publishers of science magazines to suspend access for Russian organizations would make 97% of scientific information unavailable to Russian researchers.

Khokhlov said that legal access to the full-text collections of articles published by Elsevier, Springer/Nature, IOP Publishers and others, and in addition, the Web of Science and Scopus reference data bases in Russias territory would soon be terminated.

The publishers who signed this statement believe that in this way they punish not scientists but research organizations. This sounds very strange, because the above-mentioned services are used by scientists and not administrators. This statement is a serious challenge because Russia accounts for a tiny 2.5% of the worlds science products. This means that 97.5% of information is blocked, Khokhlov said.

Russia is experiencing a massive outflow of scientists from the country amid the foreign sanctions, which can only be stopped only by adopting a system of special measures, including an increase in financing, Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) President Alexander Sergeyev suggested, speaking at the media conference late March.

In general, what can be done here is to provide better conditions for the development of science than exist abroad. Then, the scientists wont leave. What else can you do? Certainly, theres a need for a system of measures for our researchers and to stop this outflow. Its hard to estimate the scope of the losses, but I think they are high. Its necessary to offer benefits and increase the financing so that, apart from prestige, there should also be a proper material basis for it, he said.

The RAS has a major package of proposals submitted to the government as to how to organize the work of institutes and offer them more freedom. It is difficult to compete for science with the whole world. It is necessary to unshackle initiative and the creativity of scientists and give them a chance to work conveniently in the country, according to Sergeyev.

On April 8, the Russian Ministry of Justice delisted Amnesty Internationals Moscow Office from the register of the representative offices of the international organizations and foreign NGOs, effectively closing it down alongside with offices of Human Rights Watch, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Friedrich Ebert Foundation and other organizations. This decision was taken in connection with the discovered violations of the Russian legislation.

Reacting to the news, Agns Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, said: The authorities are deeply mistaken if they believe that by closing down our office in Moscow they will stop our work documenting and exposing human rights violations. We continue undeterred to work to ensure that people in Russia are able to enjoy their human rights without discrimination. We will redouble our efforts to expose Russias egregious human rights violations both at home and abroad.

Callamard added: We will never stop fighting for the release of prisoners of conscience unjustly detained for standing up for human rights. We will continue to defend independent journalisms ability to report facts, free of the Russian governments intervention. We will continue to work relentlessly to ensure that all those who are responsible for committing grave human rights violations, whether in Russia, Ukraine or Syria, face justice. Put simply, we will never give up.

Since February 24, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Rights Without Borders and many independent Research Organizations and Think Tanks have monitored and documented step-by-step developments, chronicled the global effects of the Russia-Ukraine crisis. Monographs and books have already published around the world. For instance, Amnesty International has released well-written reports that Russian military forces have extra-judicially executed civilians in Ukraine in apparent war crimes published in new testimony following on-the-ground research.

In recent weeks, we have gathered evidence that Russian forces have committed extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings, which must be investigated as likely war crimes. Testimonies shows that unarmed civilians in Ukraine are being killed in their homes and streets in acts of unspeakable cruelty and shocking brutality. The intentional killing of civilians is a human rights violation and a war crime. These deaths must be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible must be prosecuted, including up the chain of command, said Agns Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.

To date, Amnesty International has obtained evidence that civilians were killed in indiscriminate attacks in Kharkiv and Sumy Oblast, documented an airstrike that killed civilians queueing for food in Chernihiv, and gathered evidence from civilians living under siege in Kharkiv, Izium and Mariupol. Russian militarys siege warfare tactics in Ukraine, marked by relentless indiscriminate attacks on densely-populated areas, are unlawfully killing civilians in several cities.

The Kremlins ruthless crackdown stifles independent journalism, anti-war movements, human rights and other non-profit organizations. The Justice Ministry has created a unified register of individuals designated as foreign agents, and for NGOs. It choosesto persecute all kinds of foreign NGOs, considered as undesirable and providing any kind of financial support for civil society organizations and activists.

Earlier for instance, NGOs such as the Future of Russia Foundation (UK), European Choice (France), Khodorkovsky Foundation (UK), and Oxford Russia Fund (UK), the Civic Assistance Committee and the Memorial Human Rights Centers Migration Rights Network, the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the Citizens Rights Protection Foundation (FBK and FZPG, and many others were listed as foreign-agent NGOs in the Russian Federation.

As matter of facts, contemporary political history shows the level of degradation of the civil society in Russia. These have practically raised much public concern especially for academics, experts and the civil society.

The U.S. based Freedom House says that democracy is under assault and that the effects are evident not just in authoritarian states like Russia and China, but also in countries with a long track record of upholding basic rights and freedoms around the world. According to the report by the Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2020, assesses the political rights and civil liberties of 210 countries and territories worldwide.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation, after both the Federation Council and the State Duma (legislative chambers) approved the implementation of the presidential decision that has since sparked debates, analysis and criticisms throughout the world. It has resultantly pushed the United States and Canada, European Union members, Australia, New Zealand and many other external countries to impose stringent sanctions against the Russian Federation.

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Personal Freedom: Libertarians, the Russia-Ukraine Crisis, and a Crisis of Ideology - Modern Diplomacy

In our column last Monday we presented a public opinion poll conducted by DAlessio IROL Berensztein on the libertarian phenomenon and, in particular, on Javier Mileis emergence on the political scene. Due to the scale that this phenomenon is acquiring, it is worth returning to some of the conclusions that we arrived at based on these data, to deepen them, and introduce some new concepts that allow us to build a more exhaustive analysis and begin to think what can happen with Javier Milei in 2023.

Pushed by the visible hand of a State that systematically fails to provide public goods and that generates inflation, restlessness and uncertainty in the citizenry, Liberal and libertarian ideas gain ground in Argentine society. The leaders of related spaces had a timid electoral representation with Jos Luis Espert in 2019 (he obtained a meager 1.5%) and a much more relevant performance in 2021, when they added four national deputies, including Espert himself and Javier Milei.

The latter gains more and more prominence on the scene of the national economic debate while increase in voting intention: From the aforementioned survey it emerged that a third of the electorate would consider it as an option in the 2023 presidential elections.

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A good part of the voters of Together for Change and independents feel attracted by a counter discourse of innovative characteristics and with footprint antiestablishment. This process shakes the ideological foundations of a country in which the consecrated ideas turned to the left after the 2001 crisis and deepened in that same terrain during the last two decades, even during the Macri interregnum.

Why Javier Mileis counter-discourse caught on in young people

The wave hits harder among the young. In the ideological spectrum, the rebellion seems to have remained on the right margin, if that scale is still valid. For this reason, a set of simplistic ideas, bordering on the Manichaean, seduces this segment of the electorate that is not characterized by seeking great explanations or subtle nuances. On the contrary, it demands answers to concrete questions and a new story that is not necessarily applicable to public policies. Feasibility takes a backseat, the what matters more than the how.

This narrative fills a void of thought in terms of political economy in relation to the great problems facing Argentine society: inflation, lack of growth, informality, lack of competitiveness, lack of prospects. The traditional leaders (the Political caste in terms of Javier Milei) not only does not find answers, but often seeks to avoid discussion regarding these issues.

In some sense, Milei and Espert do not compete with another space: on the other side there is hardly a government that insists on old ideas, imaginary wars and sarasas (despite the disastrous results it has obtained) and an opposition that fails to complete mourning for the failure of the Macri administration. What is the overall response of Together for Change to end inflation? So far nothing concrete only some timid, incomplete and uncoordinated proposals, that do not achieve a minimum of internal consensus.

In fact, the repudiation of ideas from the space itself sometimes goes much further: Gerardo Morales, president of the UCR, said that it was clowny and one stupidity the project of dollarization of the economy presented by a deputy Alejandro Cacace, who is also radical. For this reason, the presence of libertarian leaders grows exponentially in public spaces (the media, social networks, conferences) and their voice is amplified.

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To what extent are we facing a new alternative, capable of revolutionizing the foundations of the Argentine political system? Or will Milei be a new one-hit wonder (one hit singer)? In Argentina we had experiences of this type, such as the UCD, Cavallismo or even Recreate for Growth by the also liberal Ricardo Lpez Murphy, who obtained 17% of the votes at the national level in the 2003 presidential elections, but less than 1 .5% four later.

To gain permanence, he does not reach his leadership capacity or the strength of his speech: success will depend largely on the political and territorial construction that he manages to deploy in the year and a half that remains until the population goes to the polls again. Argentina is very unique: it presents enormous entry barriers for political competition, which prevent the construction of electoral alternatives.

Milei can get financing, structure an unforgettable campaign, bet on the best possible running mate and even turn slightly towards the center to expand its voter base, but without a presence in all the provinces and in all the cities and without a network of prosecutors, can hardly establish himself as a political leader that lives up to the noise it generated.

In addition, there is a factor that remains outside its orbit: what are the other forces going to do to prevent its growth? Until now, no one seriously attacked him. Together for Change, which concentrates the largest number of voters who identify with the libertarian phenomenon, continues to be entropically involved in its internal problems and has not defined any strategy to contain or reverse this advance, something that it could solve more or less simple: it would suffice to point out that Mileis proposals were never applied in any country.

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Anarcholiberalism has a great discursive arrival, it is true, but when it competes, it loses: in the United States, to reach a seat, libertarians usually join the Republican Party. Otherwise, an unfailing defeat would await them. Perhaps it is enough for the current opposition to point out how impractical and utopian Mileis ideas are to generate a decline.

In this way, they would reduce him to the testimonial candidate model, as they were at the time Chacho lvarez or Lilita Carri: characters that people vote to express their anger, but that they would not choose if they had concrete chances of winning.

The other big question is whether, even going through all the previous challenges and setting himself up as president, he will be able to govern. For something Argentina did not have a Bolsonaro until now. Perhaps, it is destined not to have it.

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The libertarian phenomenon towards 2023: strengths and challenges - Zyri

Despite redistricting favoring Democrats, some feel that this area's history of Republican leadership could win out.

Washington County has shifted a lot politically over the past two decades.

Its conservative rural roots, built on the backs of farmworkers and loggers, have given way to a highly urbanized, technological hotspot of innovation. Current and former politicians say it's this change that has led to a shift toward Democrats over Republicans despite a long history of Republicans being elected from Washington County to state and local elected offices.

It wasn't that long ago that Washington County seats in the Oregon House of Representatives and Oregon Senate could be considered reliably Republican. But today, Democrats dominate Washington County's legislative delegation.

Some say the days of competitive legislative races in Washington County are gone altogether, which they attribute to changing demographics, economic factors, and redistricting.

But Republican control over this area is by no means ancient history, and some say a return to the red is not as big of a long shot as some may think.

In the 2010 wave election, Republicans picked up six seats in the Oregon House, including two in Washington County. Republicans also picked up two Senate seats, one of which was SD 20, including northern Clackamas County.

This result was an evenly divided House and a narrow 16-14 Democratic Senate majority.

House District 29, which had been represented by Hillsboro Democrat Chuck Riley, was won by Republican Katie Eyre Brewer. She defeated Katie Riley, wife of the retiring incumbent, who instead tried for an unsuccessful bid for Senate District 15.

Neighboring House District 30 saw Hillsboro Republican Shawn Lindsay defeat Democrat Doug Ainge.

In both of those cases, the Democrats lost by more than 1,000 votes.

Lindsay says he lost re-election in 2012 only because of Libertarian Kyle Markley running in race. Markley got 1,441 votes, while Lindsay lost by about 1,200, and he thinks that since Libertarian votes tend to tilt conservative, he would have eked out a win if they'd gone his way instead.

"But for a conservative running and taking votes away, I think I would have held my seat," Lindsay said.

He also said Sen. Bruce Starr, R-Hillsboro, lost his re-election for the same reason in 2014, when Libertarian Caitlin Mitchel-Marley pulled 9% of the votes and Starr lost by less than a percentage point.

The person Starr lost to? Democrat Chuck Riley, successful in his second attempt to win election to Senate District 15.

Republicans like Lindsay point to these cyclical factors for why this area is still competitive for his party.

"I believe it's still winnable for a Republican in this area," he concluded. "I believe that Republicans could still be holding these seats but for some base consolidation."

Looking back a bit further, local seats were more firmly Republican. The party held a majority in both chambers of the Oregon Legislature heading into the 2002 general election. But that year, Democrats took control of the Senate, and they haven't relinquished it since.

Aloha Democrat Jeff Barker, who represented District 28 in the Oregon House of Representatives from 2003 to 2021, said that he was among the first legislators to benefit from Washington County's leftward shift.

"I ran in 2002 and then (this area) was all Republican men," he said. "That was kind of the first year that Washington County started to shift toward Democrats. But that was very competitive."

Barker won by just 40 votes in fact, the tightest election in the state at that time. He defeated Keith Parker to represent District 28. A Democrat has held that seat ever since. Before Barker won election, the seat was held by a Republican.

Politicians who ran for office and who saw the changing landscape at that time all point to similar factors: urbanization, diversification of the voting base and economic changes.

"I've lived in Hillsboro for over 30 years," said Joe Gallegos, a Democrat who represented HD 30 from 2013 to 2017. "When I first got here, it was about 40,000 people. Now it's over 100,000."

"I used to come out here as a kid to do migrant work," he recalled. "It was the place you'd come out to pick berries. But with that shift away from agriculture you're seeing more service industry-type jobs. That goes in with the suburban shift."

Gallegos and others point to the influx of highly educated workers drawn particularly to the growing semiconductor industry built up by major corporations like Intel as a predominant reason for Washington County's blue shift.

Urbanization also leads to more connectivity between the suburbs and the city, so people can work in Portland and live in Hillsboro, or vice versa meaning the previously isolated and rural population that surrounded Hillsboro in decades past is now more blended with the urban spillover from Portland.

As for diversification, the results of the latest U.S. Census have made clear that Washington County is the most racially diverse in the state. About 40% of the county's population is non-white, with the largest share of that being Hispanic.

The Hispanic population grew by more than 20% compared to the previous census. The Asian population grew by slightly less than that.

However, don't make the mistake of thinking that people of color always vote blue, politicians say. Some Republicans feel the party hasn't done enough to attract minority voters, particularly Hispanic ones, who could be persuaded to vote red.

"I personally think the Republicans have missed the boat, particularly on securing Hispanic votes," said Paul Phillips, a Tigard Republican who served for 14 years in the Legislature. "The Hispanic community is not necessarily uniform and leaning Democrat. People assume that, but it's a false assumption. The older generation of Hispanic voters is very Catholic, very conservative religious-wise."

If Washington County shifted to the left, what's to stop it from shifting back to the right? Some say there's nothing stopping that from happening. Some others mention one word: redistricting.

During the past two redistricting efforts, which follow every decennial census based on population growth, district lines have been redrawn largely to favor Democrats. In both 2011 and 2021, districts surrounding Portland were redrawn in many cases to draw more of the population of Portland proper into districts that represent the suburbs.

House District 28, for instance, which currently comprises central Washington County and predominantly covers West Beaverton, will shift much further to the east come Jan. 9, 2023. The new district includes more of Portland, and a district that once rested squarely in Washington County will now span the urban parts of three counties, Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas.

Even some Democrats have called out the redistricting process as unfair. Democrats had full control of the process last fall, 10 years after a bipartisan redistricting effort nonetheless produced maps many Republicans have criticized as unfair.

"I would like to see somebody that's not involved be able to draw those lines in the future," said Barker. "Democrats won't always be in charge, and when someone else is, they will use it as a way of getting even. It just makes a mess of the whole thing."

Barker said he volunteered to be the sole Democrat on a commission set up in 2017 by then-Secretary of State Dennis Richardson, a Republican, to come up with a new process for redistricting.

"I caught some flak for that," Barker said, "But I said, 'Well, it's just a matter of fairness.'"

Lindsay, a co-chair of the bipartisan redistricting committee back in 2011, also talked about the uneven playing field of that process.

"We were fighting with our hands tied behind our backs," Lindsay said. "Yes, we were tied 30-30 in the Legislature, but if we failed, then it automatically gets kicked to the Democratic secretary of state. The Dems had that leverage."

Even being out of the Legislature for a decade, Lindsay remains involved in Republicans' redistricting battles. He was the chief counsel for the lawsuit brought to the Oregon Supreme Court last year that alleged partisan gerrymandering by Oregon Democrats.

Republican lawsuits over redistricting last year were thrown out of court, but Lindsay says the legal battle demonstrates how contentious and important the redistricting process is every time.

Lindsay pointed out, too, that the Oregon Supreme Court associate justice who wrote the opinion dismissing the lawsuits out, Christopher Garrett, was the Democratic co-chair of that same 2011 redistricting committee that Lindsay sat on.

"It's interesting that 10 years later, the same players are still at it," Lindsay said.

Despite these factors, the Washington County Republican Party thinks that the area is due for a shift, and that a tilt back to the middle is likely. Some are predicting a red wave this year, a reaction to the dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden's handling of the pandemic, school closures and the economy. National polling consistently shows Biden's approval rating in the 30s to high 40s.

"With Democrats holding complete power in Washington and Oregon, and with the lockdowns I think there are a lot of voters that are not too happy with Democrats' choices," Lindsay said. "I think some of those seats that Democrats thought were out of reach for Republicans, based on the redistricting they did in 2021, I think some of those will even be recaptured, surprising a lot of people."

Gallegos counters that voters have reason to be fed up with Republican leadership, too, particularly in Oregon, where the minority party has walked out in the middle of a legislative session three times in the last four years, grinding the business of government to a halt.

"I think the average citizen just gets so disheartened by the fact that even as a minority, the Republicans are able to walk out and all of this kind of stuff," he said. "All of that antagonism in Salem is more and more disheartening to the average citizen."

Gallegos noted that with Oregon's largest share of voters registered as non-affiliated, both parties have to appeal to independent voters, rather than just their own base.

As for Washington County specifically, he feels like the urbanization of this area ultimately has a larger impact on its political representation than whatever gerrymandering may have accomplished.

"It's those sorts of factors that all kind of add together to make the change," Gallegos said. "It was gradual, but clearly, it was a steady march."

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Will Washington County shift back to its conservative roots? - Portland Tribune