Direct democracy on the line and on the move
More high-profile primaries, too
Welcome to a Sunday edition of Progress Report.
I just got back from Raleigh, where on Friday I had the good fortune of watching one of my best and oldest friends get married. The world is a nightmare right now so it was a gift to be able to witness and share a small piece of their happiness.
As I walked around Raleigh yesterday, I couldn’t help but think how astounding it is that the votes of a few thousand people in this city — the residents of a few blocks of condos, really — could determine who controls the US Senate, many of the laws that govern our day-to-day lives, the fate of American democracy, and maybe even whether humanity can survive on the coastlines. It’s frankly a bit absurd, especially in a fractured media and information environment that ensures that most of us don’t occupy the same reality, but it’s the system we have, so I’m redoubling my efforts to cover the big state and local fights that drive elections but don’t get much shine.
I’ll be back soon with coverage of what’s happening in federally occupied cities and how you can help.
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Direct democracy on the line and on the move
Montana: Fed up with the growing number of hurdles and restrictions being imposed on the ballot initiative process by the state legislature, a citizens coalition called Montanans Decide is pursuing a constitutional amendment that would restore and safeguard the process.
The amendment would require that the process be “impartial, predictable, transparent and expeditious” and prohibit the government from supporting a competing (and often confusing) initiative. Organizers aim to qualify the amendment for the November 2026 ballot.
Missouri: Speaking of Republican efforts to obliterate direct democracy, the GOP’s proposed changes to Missouri’s constitutional amendment would be the absolute death knell for self-determination. Amendment 4 would require any proposed amendment to win a majority in each of the state’s seven Congressional districts, a new and unprecedented supermajority that would be impossible to attain anywhere, much less a state that is on the verge of being gerrymandered into a 6-1 GOP advantage.
Why so stringent? Under the proposed rules, the three progressive constitutional amendments that Missourians have approved over the past three election cycles — expanding Medicaid, legalizing marijuana, and protecting abortion rights — would have been dead on arrival. Luckily, voters have the opportunity to tell lawmakers to back off in November.
Michigan: In what’s becoming an alarming yet also inspiring pattern, voters in Augusta Township are mobilizing against the construction of a massive data center that was unanimously approved by the town’s board of trustees. Locals know that the project is being built by NYC real estate developer Thor Equities and could use up to a million gallons of water per day, but the identity of the tech company that will use it, the purpose that it will serve, what it will look like, and how it will impact energy bills are all unknown.
What makes those question marks particularly troubling is that the town’s trustees have worked to withhold relevant information from residents, and have gone so far as to call the police on locals who were collecting signatures for the ballot initiative. While leaders suggest that the data center would produce crucial tax revenue, the scant details make it difficult to estimate what the income would look like and the social cost of the financial boost.
Developers and tech companies have been preying on rural communities for years now, promising the world in exchange for their resources and tying leaders up in secretive NDAs. Locals are increasingly rising up in response, aware of their fiscal vulnerabilities but unwilling to be exploited by exploitative corporations.
California: As the state government moves forward with contentious new laws intended to increase the number of housing units near urban transportation centers, local governments are also the center of heated battles over building more homes — or not.
In Santa Cruz County, recently named the most expensive rental market in the country for the third straight year, voters will vote on potential new revenue for affordable housing.
Measure C would create a small parcel tax as well as a very small transfer tax on properties that sell for over $1.8 million (and a slightly larger one at $4.5 million) to fund affordable housing and homeless services. The initiative would exempt seniors and people who make beneath 60% of the area’s median income would be exempt, as would fully below-market-rate apartment units and property sold by schools and churches. The conservative estimate is that it would raise about $50 million over 20 years.
Local real estate interests are running an opposition campaign, though that pales in comparison to what they almost did: run their own initiative, with a more progressive name that would have enacted a smaller tax and pretended some of the money was going toward climate change prevention.
Further south, voters in the very expensive Orange County enclave of Newport Beach could face a different kind of choice next June. Activists have submitted nearly 9,000 signatures to qualify an initiative that would cut in half the number of housing units the city plans to build over the coming years.
“We are definitely not NIMBYs,” a leader of a group called Still Protecting Our Newport told the LA Times, an assertion undermined by the fact that he runs a group called Still Protecting Our Newport that wants to halve the number of new apartment units built in the wealthy city.
California ordered the city to build 4,845 units to help the state alleviate the housing shortage, while the city submitted a plan that would create up to 8,174 new units. The goal is to cut that all the way down to 2900 and count units already in the pipeline toward the state’s goal.
Primary problems: It’s almost good news that Chuck Schumer and the DSCC have managed to recruit Maine Gov. Janet Mills to run against Sen. Susan Collins, because it provides a perfect test case for the populist outsider vs. milquetoast moderate debate that is the central conflict of the Democratic Party right now.
Over at More Perfect Union, we commissioned a poll that compares how the 77-year-old Mills and 40-year-old oyster farmer Graham Platner each run against Collins. I wrote up the results, including these toplines:
In the initial ballot, Platner and Collins, who is running for her sixth term, start out tied. Governor Janet Mills, a Democrat who is rumored to launch a Senate run next week, holds a 5-point lead over Collins in the initial poll. After respondents were shown short biographies for both candidates, however, Platner leads Collins by 14 points, while Mills leads Collins by 8 points.
Platner outperforms Mills most with young voters, independents, rural voters, men, and gun owners.
The 77-year-old Mills is also a very familiar figure to voters in Maine and has been in elected office since 1980. She was first elected to the state House in 2022 and later served for eight years as state’s attorney general. Mills is now in her second term as governor and provokes a polarized response from voters. Among all voters, 48% approve of her work as governor, while 45% disapprove. Among independents, 51% disapprove and just 40% approve.
Mills’s floor is essentially the same as her ceiling, and it’s unclear what she’d offer voters who are looking for a change after five terms of Susan Collins; while she’s been critical of Trump, Mills also praised Collins in recent months, feeding into the sort of pseudo-moderate profile that Collins has worked to establish for herself.
Not problematic at all: I’m working on an updated guide to Democratic Congressional primary challenges, as new candidates continue to pop up and push older and more milquetoast lawmakers for their jobs. Most notably, former St. Louis Rep. Cori Bush is running against Rep. Wesley Bell, a former ally who took her down in a close race with the help of AIPAC’s money last cycle.
we’re going to see a marquee races in Memphis, where state Rep. Justin Pearson is challenging longtime Rep. Steve Cohen, and Denver, where university regent Wanda James is running against Rep. Diana DeGette. The latter race is less a generational battle — James will be 63, while DeGette will be 69 on election day — as one of ideology and temperament.
Hawaii Rep. Ed Case also has a second primary challenger, as state Rep. Della Au Bellati joins state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole in trying to take out the frustrating Blue Dog.
Going for broke on unwoke: Hoping to recreate their surprisingly strong performance from last fall, Republican campaigns are going all-in on the weird and bigoted anti-trans rhetoric in their ads and rhetoric this fall.
The trend has been most obvious in the campaigning of Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial nominee, Winsome Earle-Sears, who spent every moment she could attacking Democrat Abigail Spanberger on the issue during last week’s debate. The GOP and its allies in Virginia have also focused on trans people in 57% of its ads, which is frankly psychotic, especially in a moderate state with an outsized number of current and federal workers and a split government stuck in gridlock.
What’s being portrayed as an aggressive culture war strategy is also an admission of weakness from Republicans, who simply can’t run on the economy, inflation, housing prices, immigration enforcement (in most places), or a sense of national stability. If there were any good news on those fronts, I don’t think they’d be leaning so heavily on this exploitative preoccupation; even Republicans must know deep down that they can whip up the freaks a bit with warnings about the locker room and fair competition, but the ability to pay rent and afford healthcare and food tends to supersede those concerns, especially in volatile times.
Between their loose grip on reality and refusal to criticize the White House, it can be difficult to get an honest assessment of the GOP’s sense of vulnerability. It’s almost hard to believe it, but Majorie Taylor Greene may be the best barometer of reality now that she’s suddenly pivoted to sounding sane on a handful of issues, including healthcare, inflation, and the government shutdown. Her focus on rising premiums is indicative of what Republicans are hearing, whether they want to admit it or not.
If somebody told me that Marjorie Taylor Greene and John Fetterman did a Freaky Friday that stopped at about 80% complete, I would fully believe it.
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Glad to see Cori Bush back in the hunt. I wonder how much AIPAC will spend on this election? Ironically, given the shift in sentiment in Democratic ranks on Israel and Gaza AIPAC might want to stay out of the primary.