Through the WV Looking Glass

As if these times weren't trippy enough, I decided to listen to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. Although taken as a whole it didn't seem to hang together as tightly as Alice in Wonderland, it does contain some of my favorites from the master of trippiness, including The Jabberwocky, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the walrus and the carpenter and such.

A little trippiness these days may be necessary in order to follow West Virginia politics, from the impeachment hearings about the WV Supreme Court mess to state senate president Mitch Carmichael's bizarre twitter storm accusing WV teachers of supporting an "Obama-styled socialist agenda. "

Among the items on this alleged pinko agenda were universal health care, child care for working parents and debt-free higher education. More than one commentator has pointed out that Carmichael himself was leading the charge on a free community college bill earlier this year.

I'm not sure what Carmichael was thinking since he didn't gain a whole lot of popularity points during the WV teachers' strike--and then had the gumption to claim credit for the pay raise he tried to squelch.

My friend and twitter warrior Sean O'Leary had this to say about that,

"Just woke up from a terrifying nightmare where all West Virginians had health insurance, could go to college without going into debt, and all children had quality childcare while their parents worked."

All told, things are pretty brillig here and the slithy toves are gyring and gimbling in the wabe.

Why wait? Remembering before November

A quick glance at social media in the wake of WV's primary election results has led me to issue this proclamation: the word of the day is schadenfreude. It's German for the pleasure some people--not me, of course--derive from the misfortunes of others...especially when they seem to be well deserved.

(I couldn't find the German word for the specific pleasure victorious teachers and school employees feel when one of their adversaries loses an election. If it doesn't exist, it should.)

There are lots of giddy and gleeful memes and tweets circulating celebrating the landslide victory of pro-union and moderate Republican Bill Hamilton over the inflammatory state senator Robert Karnes, who once referred to union members as "free riders."

Hamilton, who served many terms in the WV House, won by a margin of 63 to 37 percent in a very conservative district. Karnes seemed to go out of his way to antagonize education workers during WV's recent successful teacher's strike.

According to this Vice report, of the 115 candidates endorsed by the WV Education Association, 99 won. The WV AFLCIO likewise did pretty well.  While we're at it, here's more coverage by AP, the Gazette-Mail, and WV Public Broadcasting.

Another big winner who got a boost from teachers and union supporters was Richard Ojeda, a state senator running for congress and champion of teachers and other workers. He won 52 percent of the vote in a field of several candidates, the nearest with only around 25 percent of the vote.

In terms of a blown opportunity, I still say that Senator Joe Manchin was a huge loser in not publicly championing striking education workers like Ojeda did when he had the chance. To be fair, Manchin was quietly supportive, but the situation and the moment called for more than that. He'll face a tough race in November and could easily have had a lot more enthusiasm behind him. I believe in baseball that's called an unforced error.

Manchin tries hard to be bi-partisan, but the love he shows to the Trump administration seems to be unrequited. I kind of wonder how that's working for him.

A tale of two politicians, biblically considered

I've been thinking about lately about the contrast between two of West Virginia's prominent Democratic politicians: US senator and former governor Joe Manchin, who is running for re-election,  and state senator Richard Ojeda, who is running for congress.  

(Note: It is the official policy of Goat Rope not to engage in any form of electioneering or candidate endorsement. But that doesn't preclude commenting on political issues or politicians.)

According to a recent poll, Manchin's approval rating dropped by 17 points in the last quarter. That poll could well be an outlier, but the drop is pretty steep. I haven't seen recent Ojeda polling, but it seems pretty clear that he is surging in popularity.

Ojeda was widely--and rightly--seen as a champion of teachers and school workers during the recent strike. As far as I could tell, Manchin remained silent about the strike on social media until the day before it ended, aside from one news story in which he called for a post-legislative special session.

I may have missed other coverage, but I was looking for it at the time and didn't find it. It really seems to me that Manchin missed a great opportunity to be seen as a strong supporter of working people. And that his numbers would look quite a bit different if he'd have taken the chance when it came. It's too soon to tell whether the poll was a fluke or whether Manchin will get his groove back, but I think there's a lesson here.

Manchin is at his most comfortable talking about "common sense," common ground and bringing people together. And there are times when that can work. But there are other times when it's necessary to take a stand and draw a line. As the Book of Ecclesiastes said, to every thing there is a season, "a time to rend and a time to sew."

Keeping with the biblical theme, this probably isn't a good year to be a Laodicean, which in the Book of Revelations was a church criticized by the risen Jesus as being lukewarm:  'I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth."

Whoever has ears, let them hear.

 

What's next in WV's Appalachian uprising?

It's pretty much official. This is more of an uprising than a work stoppage. The movement is driven from below and no formal organization is pulling the strings.

Historically, that's often the way change happens. Working people's organizations fight the day to day fight for their members and allies but most of the time they do so in the absence of a huge movement willing to disrupt business as usual. When movements like this arise--they can't be manufactured or sustained at will, alas--there's sometimes a bit of a disconnect.

But spontaneous mass movements need organizations to consolidate their gains. And organizations can always use the power of a mass movement behind them. But either alone is in this context could be a recipe for disaster.

I could be way off but here's my take on where things stand now:

*First, as I argued here, this uprising has already resulted in major victories in a political climate MUCH more hostile than the 1990 strike. I'll say it again, don't minimize the victories. To see all the changes most of us want means we need to change the composition of the legislature so that friends of working people are in positions of leadership. And Congress.

*Second, I think the proposal to use the $58 million, wherever it may come from, for PEIA is just a distraction designed to defeat the movement. I'm no PEIA expert, but the people I know and trust who are all say it needs a long term fix, not a one time bump.

*I think the best outcome would be to push for the raise and long term task force with adequate representation from people directly affected--but to commit to long term educating, organizing and mobilization through May and November and beyond. The progress made shows what can happen when people wake up--but the ground working people have lost in recent years shows what damage can be done when we fall asleep.

*As to the senate president's assertion that the state budget is a fixed amount, that just isn't true. The state budget is the product of deliberate values and choices--or the lack thereof--not cosmic destiny.

*Division and confusion play into the hands of our opponents. And time may or may not always be on our side.

West Virginia's teachable moment

(This alert went out from the Legislative Action Team for Children and Families, which includes over 20 of WV's leading non-profits and organizations working for children and families.)

This is a teachable moment... will we learn the lesson?

In every county across West Virginia our teachers, service personnel, and state employees have put their jobs and bodies on the line in the struggle for decent wages and benefits.

For those of us who want to live in a a state that meets its obligations to its residents with good schools, good infrastructure, public parks, good jobs and excellent quality of life, the struggle of these teachers, service personnel and state workers is OUR struggle. THEIR fight for a better state is OUR fight for a better state.

This is a teachable moment for all of us. Our teachers are teaching all of us a valuable lesson.

For the last 10 years our leaders have chased down the blind alley of tax cuts for corporations, which neither paid for themselves nor created jobs.

For the last 100 years our state has bumped up against the dead-end of an economy where our natural and human wealth has drained away. Our policies have enriched out-of-state corporate CEOs and left us behind. We have failed to keep our promises to our children. We cannot afford another failing grade.

This is a test. One we cannot afford to fail.

This is a teachable moment for all of us, but only if we learn the lesson.

This could be the moment we learn from past mistakes. This could be the moment when we reverse course and invest in our children and our schools, invest in the people who care for our children and families and keep us safe.

In West Virginia, we care about one another. Our values are on display all across the state as our neighbors, families and churches are working together to support children with food and care, standing side by side on picket lines lifting our voices together calling for change, and working to make that change a reality.

What can you do to help during this critical time so we learn the lessons that our brave educators and their allies are teaching us? 


TAKE ACTION! 
JOIN OUR BRAVE TEACHERS, SERVICE PERSONNEL AND PUBLIC WORKERS, SO WE LEARN FROM THIS TEACHABLE MOMENT AND PASS THIS TEST FOR WEST VIRGINIA'S FUTURE. 

Please call the following leaders and urge them to put people first, come to the table, and work for a solution that is fair for WV families, teachers and students.  Please be courteous to the person answering the phone:

Governor Jim Justice, 304-558-2000
Senate President Mitch Carmichael, 304-357-7801
House Speaker Tim Armstead, 304-340-3210

Reach out on Twitter:
@WVGovernor
@SenCarmichaelWV
@ArmsteadWV

Support your local teachers and service personnel by posting on social media, visiting picket lines or honking when you drive by, send messages of support to local school boards.
Continue to stand together #55Strong #55United.

Share this Action Alert with your friends and networks.

Three for the road

If you're trying to make sense of WV Governor Jim Justice's high profile party switch and what that means for WV, good luck--and you're in good company. Here's some basic reporting by Brad McEllhenny of WV MetroNews. And I think the Gazette-Mail's Phil Kabler hit most of the right notes with his column.

If you are up for some more amusing WV related news, check out this item from Vanity Fair that talks about the WV ACLU's hilarious brief about coal baron Bob Murray,  who made good on his threat to sue Comedy Central's John Oliver after somewhat less than reverent treatment on the tube. Giant Squirrel fans, you're going to love it.

Finally, it looks like Christianity minus the whole Jesus thing is alive and well in the USA. Sad.

Switcheroo

I just finished listening to the ancient Roman poet Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which all kinds of things change form. Little did I know that he could have written a post script on WV's governor Jim Justice, who switched parties publicly during a certain visit to WV earlier this week. We talked about it on a special edition the Front Porch, but I can't remember what I said or if I even agree with myself.

A good word for the governor (for a change)

This op-ed proves once and for all that I CAN say nice things about politicians. It's just that I rarely have the opportunity. Plus, trolls need fed too.

I always liked the part in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer where Tom and his friends Huck and Joe listen to their own funeral after they were presumed to have drowned in the Mississippi. I’m guessing a lot of people might like to do that, especially since it may be the only time anyone says something nice about us in public.

I’ve joked with my friend and fellow columnist Pastor Matthew Watts that I’d like him to preach my funeral, preferably when I’m alive and able to enjoy it. Funeral orations are kind of wasted on the dead.

It’s too bad we often don’t say positive things while people are still among us. In that spirit, I’m going to give a shoutout to outgoing Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, who’s still kicking. Here’s the punchline: without making a show of it, I think he’s done more to help disadvantaged people than any governor in my lifetime. Or several of them combined.

(Disclosure: I’ve only met him in person a time or two and doubt he could pick me out of a police lineup.)

I recall when he was installed as governor in 2010 after the political earthquake that followed the death of Sen. Byrd in June of that year. I didn’t go, but my friend the Rev. Dennis Sparks, then director of the West Virginia Council of Churches, offered the benediction.

His text was Psalm 72, possibly written about the coronation of Solomon. It says in part, “May he judge your people with righteousness, and your poor with justice. May the mountains yield prosperity for the people, and the hills, in righteousness. May he defend the cause of the poor of the people and give deliverance to the needy…”

I wished the new governor well, but didn’t expect any of that to actually happen. From observing him at a distance in the state Senate, he seemed to be cautious and conservative, although he took the lead in building up the Rainy Day Fund, which has helped West Virginia avoid disastrous cuts lately.

I expected a sort of caretaker administration where little would change.

I was wrong.

In 2011, he expanded eligibility for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to families earning up to 300 percent of the federal poverty level. The Legislature passed legislation to that effect in 2006, but it had never been implemented. We’re a national leader in insuring children. For now.

In 2013, after an actuarial study, he decided to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Since a 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision, that was a state option rather than a federal mandate. At the time it was estimated that this might eventually cover around 90,000 working West Virginians.

Nobody — least of all me — guessed that just a few years later it would cover nearly twice that number, or that on his watch, DHHR would do such an amazing job at getting people signed up. Despite hard times, West Virginia is a national leader in reducing the number of uninsured people.

I’ve talked to working people who benefited from this, and I know it has changed and saved lives. It’s also helping people struggling with addiction find their way out. And supported jobs in health care.

All that may be undone by the Trump administration and the Republican Congress, including our delegation, but Tomblin did what he could when he could, and it was good.

We’re also a national leader in early childhood education with universal access to voluntary pre-kindergarten programs for 4-year-olds, thanks in part to legislation proposed by the governor in 2014. Other early childhood programs have also expanded and probably would have done more if times had been better.

He also took on problems that others didn’t. People knew for years that we were locking up too many people for trivial offenses at high cost and with no benefit to the public, even as the population dropped and the crime rate remained stable. Tomblin took the lead in creating a state task force and bringing in the Justice Center to study the issue and recommend legislation aimed at safely reducing the prison population.

It passed in 2013, although some provisions were weakened in the Legislature. It hasn’t fully gone into effect yet, but so far it has improved practices and started to slow down the rate of increase.

The next year, he did something similar with juvenile justice, where again West Virginia was heading in the wrong direction fast. Juvenile justice and truancy reform legislation passed in 2015, when the Legislature was under Republican control.

When the Democratic Legislature increased the minimum wage by $1.50 per hour over two years in 2014, Tomblin came under intense pressure from business groups to veto the increase. Although he probably would have preferred a smaller increase, he resisted the pressure. As a result over 100,000 low-income West Virginians (not mostly burger flipping teens by the way) got a significant boost in income.

He also hasn’t been afraid to veto bills he believed to be unconstitutional or contrary to public safety or harmful to working people (like “right to work” and prevailing wage repeal), even though these have sometimes been overridden. And he proposed revenue measures that, if enacted would have spared the state further cuts.

His administration also responded to public concerns over funding for child care and proposed cuts in programs for children and families. There was some jangling and back and forth, but the issues were eventually resolved without bitterness and rancor.

He’s one of those rare politicians who seems more interested in getting things done than in being seen doing things. He didn’t need to be the only person in the room with ideas. And he governed at a difficult time when major industries collapsed, revenue tanked, and the Legislature flipped for the first time in 82 years.

I haven’t always agreed with the administration’s policies, but the record speaks for itself.

I wish Gov. Tomblin the best in his future endeavors. I’m glad I was wrong about him.

Losing a good guy

It looks like one of West Virginia's good guys took evasive action to avoid living under the Trump administration. Ken Hechler, former congressman and WV secretary of state, died at the venerable age of 102. Among his many distinctions, he was the only active member of the US Congress to march with Dr. Martin Luther King and allies in Selma back in 1965. I had the good fortune of knowing him, although not as well as many. He was a tireless fighter for social justice as he saw it, albeit with a regrettable tendency to shoot himself in the foot politically from time to time.

In the words of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, "Rest eternal grant to him, O Lord. And let light perpetual shine upon him"

Of politicians, poetry, parasites and cicadas

The latest Front Porch program/podcast is kind of all over the place. It looks back at WV's primary election and weird political history, touches on the perennial issue of outsiders, and, most importantly, discusses cicadas in a scientific and poetic manner. Here it is.

Is it over yet?

West Virginia's primary election is tomorrow (Tuesday, May 10). I don't know about you, but I'll be kind of glad when it's over. Maybe. Anyhow, here's a bonus section of The Front Porch with a focus on the state supreme court race.

Also, this column by E.J. Dionne has some interesting things to say about empathy and Appalachia. I think it's worth a look.

And speaking of wanting something to be over (in a good way), I'm dreading next week's special session of the legislature to deal with the budget. It promises to be a true goat rope.

Interesting times. Unfortunately.

Sad to say, WV has been politically interesting lately. One thing we talked about on this week's Front Porch podcast is Hillary Clinton's apparent fall from favor since 2008. Gazette-Mail political columnist Phil Kabler relates some of the other weirdness here. And, while we're on the topic of interesting things, this lawsuit by labor groups against WV's new right to work for less law could be as well, especially in light of this week's state supreme court race.

If you read this blog regularly or listen to the Front Porch, you may recall this segment on transgender rights (and the loopy bathroom predator myth). Here's more coverage on that by the Gazette-Mail's Erin Beck.

The struggle to stay (in WV)

The latest Front Porch podcast from WV Public Broadcasting seems to have really hit a nerve. It's had more Facebook "likes" and "shares" than any program I remember since we started doing them last April.

It's a short one about how hard it is for young people to stay here and why that might be. You can find what articulate West Virginians have to say about that struggle if you search #thestruggletostay on Facebook.

Three for a Monday

First, here's a link to the latest Front Porch, in which we discuss:

1.  the recent passage of right to work for less legislation in WV (short version: I didn't like it); and

2. the 2nd Chance for Employment Act, a decent bill introduced in the legislature that would allow first time nonviolent nonsexual offenders to petition the court to have their record expunged after 5 years. If passed, it would likely help lots of folks who made mistakes in the past to move ahead.


Second, here's a great op-ed by an old friend of mine about right to work for less, WV's toxic climate these days and the outside money driving it.

Third,by way of a pal,  here's a look at a weird cave dwelling Slovenian amphibian that people used to think was the spawn of dragons.

In lieu of a real post

For a variety of reasons, it's been a bad week for blogging. In lieu of a real post, here's a link to the latest Front Porch podcast, in which we discuss West Virginia's zombie apocalypse legislative session.

Curiouser and curiouser

Holy chaos theory, Batman! WV politics just got even weirder. It goes something like this:

1. WV state senator Daniel Hall once ran for the WV House as a Republican. He lost.

2. He then ran as a Democrat and won. Twice.

3. Then he was elected as a Democrat to the WV Senate.

4. After the 2014 elections, when the WV senate was tied 17-17, he switched back to being a Republican.

5. As of today, he announced his resignation from the senate in early 2016.

Y'all getting this so far?

So the question is, who gets to name his replacement? He was an R after the election but was elected as a D. State law seems to be a bit ambiguous, but it seems to me the fairest way is to honor the results of the last election.

This could potentially rewrite the landscape of the 2016 legislature. Or not.

This is yet another reason why I think the WV state motto should be changed from "Mountaineers are always free" to "You can't make this **** up."

Read more here.

This will be one to watch.

Sheep guts, then and now

In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans would practice augury, which meant seeking for signs on which course of action to take through various means. One method consisted of looking at sheep's intestines. Sometimes, if they didn't get the answer they wanted, they kept on cutting up sheep's guts until they they got it.

Recently, the Republican leadership of the WV legislature consulted the contemporary augurs, to wit, the WVU Bureau pf Business and Economic Research. Having a certain advantage over sheep, they came up with the desired answer right away.

The question was whether right-to-work-for-less legislation would be good for WV's economy. The political leadership wanted to hear a resounding "yes" and it got what it wanted.

Surely this has nothing to do with the fact that the Koch brothers recently gave $5 million to WVU, right?  Hmmmm. Maybe not. Maybe this was a good faith effort. But this isn't the first time plutocrats have bought shares in WVU or many other institutions of higher ed.

Meanwhile, stop calling me Shirley.

Broadband is the new interstate highway system

Here's the latest Front Porch podcast. This week's guest is WV state senator Chris Walters talking about how our state needs to expand broadband access.

WV in the news

It's been kind of a big news day for West Virginia. Here's my pick of what 's interesting:

FIRST, on the Don Blankenship trial, here's the latest.

SECOND, on the Republican-led effort to drive down wages in WV, read more here.

THIRD, for a look at images from the coalfields, click here.

FOURTH, for an interesting view from the Washington Post on the WV political climate, click here.

An idea that makes sense

Like it or not, natural gas production has taken off in WV over the last few years. The question now is, are we going to get anything out of it? My pals at the WV Center on Budget and Policy have an interesting idea: increase severance taxes on the production of natural gas liquids BUT create credits for companies that use the product for manufacturing purposes in West Virginia. You can read more here.

PREDICTABLY SAD: WV's congressional leaders on Pope Francis and climate change.