NCGA Does the Right Thing. Sort of.

A Senate bill (SB656), already passed by the NC Senate, is now out of committee in the NC House, and scheduled for a vote on Tuesday, June 26.  The "committee substitute" bill is here, if you want to look at it.....

What would this mean? NC has had some really restrictive ballot access laws, since 1983. In particular,
it now takes about 110,000 (individually validated) signatures to get on the ballot ("access") and 2% of the vote in either the Prez or Gov races to stay on the ballot once on ("retention").

The bill, if it passes, and it's expected to pass, would change those rules as follows:
Access: 10,000 signatures
Retention:  Either the 2% rule for Prez or Gov votes in NC in previous election OR have "a candidate" on the ballot in 80% of the states.

Now, the Libertarian Party has been on the ballot continuously since 2008, when (ahem) I got more the 2% of the vote for Gov.  In 2012, Barbara Howe did it, and in 2016 Lon Cecil did it.  A number of Republicans blame the LP for the Republican loss of the Gov race in 2008 (implausible) and in 2016 (extremely plausible).

But the point is that the LP is already on, again, for 2020. My man Gary Johnson actually got 2.74%, 130k votes, the first time an LP Prez candidate has EVER secured ballot access in NC.  Whoo-HOO!

Okay, so here's the thing. The Republicans don't have many chances to look like they are for ballot access, or expanding electoral freedoms (which include voting for the candidate of your choice). AND, they are likely tired of having to lose some votes, enough in close races to change the outcome, to the annoying "third party" Libertarians.

You can have a double win, if you are a Republican strategist, by cutting the restrictions on ballot access! You get credit for having a more sensible and less draconian set of rules, more in line with other states (NC regularly makes, on merit, those "Worst Laws in the US" lists, when it comes to ballot access).

And you get the Greens on the ballot, diverting votes from the Dems! Is there a downside?

I don't really see one. An interesting question is whether Gov. Cooper will sign it.  If a goofball like me can figure this out, I expect Mr. Cooper will not need to have the effects explained to him. But it will be difficult to veto the thing, because it really does just bring NC back into compliance with pretty normal rules for party access. This is hardly a radical bill, it just also "happens" to help the Republicans at the ballot box.  (Here is a story from the right-leaning Carolina Journal, which doesn't mention the political angle--adding Greens takes away Dem votes--or, oddly, the new 80% retention rule added in the committee version).

EDIT: The reason the 80% (40 states) is important is that Stein was on the ballot in 44 states in 2016.  That means that, depending on the way the law is interpreted retroactively (and it seems to be retroactive, since it says "previous election"), Greens would be on the ballot for the 2018 midterm elections in NC.

Oklahoma gettin' smarter, North Carolina gettin' dumber

Cool graph from a group called City Report showing how young educated people are flowing into selected urban areas.

Here the increase in young people with BAs or better in on the vertical axis and the increase in total population is on the horizontal:

As you can see OKC has the second largest increase in young educated people and that increase is large given its overall population growth. Charlotte NC and Raleigh NC are getting relatively dumber as their overall population is growing faster than their young and educated population (Atlanta and Dallas too!).

Interestingly New Orleans, Buffalo and Pittsburgh are losing overall population while gaining a decent amount of young and educated people, while Detroit and Cleveland are stinking in both dimensions.

I guess all those Mungowitz-educated  Duke students are not staying in NC!

Hat-tip to The Upshot!

Goin' All Columbo...

Remember how near the end of the show Columbo would be about to leave, and then he'd turn around and say, "Just one more thing..." and then ask a pretty hard question.

I don't know if this is a hard thing or not.  But I sure don't know the answer.  So, "Just one more thing" for NC's Moral Monday warriors.

The Moral Monday folks have been going nuts that the NCGA has required people to get an ID to be able to vote.  Now, other states (including NY, where the NY Times lives, and the Times has been criticizing NC, which I ALSO don't understand) already have requirements like that.  Because they are worried about vote fraud. In fact, the ID requirements in NY are MORE stringent than the NC ID requirements.  But NC is somehow acting badly, and NY is a liberal bastion.  I don't understand that.  No fewer than 34 states have ID laws, but NC is acting badly.

But that's not the strangest thing.  The strangest thing is Ventra.  Look at the requirements to ride a BUS....we're not talking about a game, not talkin' about a game, we're talking about a BUS, just to ride a BUS, you have to go through all this crap and give all this information.  If poor people can't get an ID because it is too much of a burden, how dare Chicago impose this kind of burden just to ride the bus.

Now, I would have thought that poor people are more likely to ride the bus than wealthy people, who have cars or take cabs.  Where are the Moral Monday folks in Chicago?  Could it be because the city is owned by the Democrats?  Could it be because the "outrage" by the Moral Monday folks is pure political posturing?  Could it be that they don't actually care at all about the poor, or the outrageous burden that is being placed on people just to ride the bus, in Chicago?

So, just that one more thing.

(This post dedicated to my friend Bruce C., and his NYTimes subscription, which he values more than life itself).

This time they'll nail that owl for sure

Oh, man. This is big. Mike Peterson is getting a new trial! Supposedly because some forensic expert was squirrelly, but we all know why. To clear the way to go after the real killer, the barred owl.

Maybe they can bring back Mike Nifong to try the case.

If only the coke-toting clueless UNC physics professor could be called as a witness from his house arrest in Argentina, my life would be complete.

Maybe he could sing through a vocodor: "it was the owl, people, it's always the owl".

Spectacular: Lake Wobegonomics Research from the New School

This is from the New York Times.  It was written by Teresa Ghilarducci, the Bernard L. and Irene Schwartz chair of economic policy analysis at the New School for Social Research

Six months ago, I visited North Carolina's state treasurer, Janet Cowell – the only Democrat in the administration now – and met with citizen advocates.. Our trip had impact, on us at least. On the plane coming home my colleague turned to me shell shocked, "How can it be legal to have so much poverty in such a wealthy state?" 

Ask two questions: How rich is the state? And what percentage of its children live in poverty? That's a working definition of good fiscal policy…. Let’s look at North Carolina. It is the 39th richest state, and yet it ranks 12th for the percentage of children living in poverty – only 11 states fare worse. 

Um, ma’am….if it is the 39th richest state, that means it's the 12th poorest state.  That means there are 11 states that are poorer. And if it is the 12th for percentage of children living in poverty….then again there are 11 states that are poorer. It’s exactly the same proportion, not out of line at all.  What's with this "And yet..." thing you got going?

Perhaps you believe that ALL of the states should have fewer children in poverty than adults in poverty, as a percentage, COMPARED TO OTHER STATES, but I’m a trained economist and I can assure you that averages don’t actually work that way. If some states rank higher for child poverty than overall wealth, then some state will rank lower. It’s just the way numbers work.

So, on to your question, "How can it be legal to have so much poverty in such a wealthy state?" 
(And putting aside the fact that NC has exactly as much poverty as our wealth would suggest).
That "illegal poverty" thing you bring up seems like a pretty radical solution.  I mean, we could make it illegal, and arrest poor people, or shoot them.  But I think that's a terrible idea.  Here's the thing: in any group of states, unless they are all identical, won't it be true that some are richer than others?  If you have a purely relative measure of poverty, then it will always be true that half the states are poor, because they are below median income.  We could increase income by 10 times, across the board, and half the people would still be below the median. 

Of course, this is fine, given that your answer to the question, "How much money should we give away?" is simply, "More."  It could never be enough.  And that's why those relative measures of poverty are so useful.  What has your knickers knotted, ma'am, is not poverty. It's inequality.  Let me assure that that is quite a different problem.  Most real solutions to poverty actually increase inequality.  Likewise, most solutions to inequality sharply increase objective (not relative) poverty.

I wanted to check to see where she got her PhD, because it had to be Berkeley.  Yup... Berkeley.

A kind reader suggested this is an appropriate illustration.

Nod to Joel R., for sending me the NYTimes piece in the first place.

Headline Meme

Headline that pretty much says it all:

Naked women cause traffic jam in Charlotte.

I bet so.  Nod to the LMM.

Grand Game

Wow.  Just, wow.  Ed of MSNBC makes some macroeconomic claims that are pretty darned strong.  If Ed were right (and yes I got this from Angus), Zimbabwe would have the highest GDP/cap on earth.  Please do feel free to share your thoughts in comments, folks!

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Nod to the ever-vigilant WH, who had this response here. 

It is nice that Ed took time to talk about my own little home state.  But it would be okay with me if he directs his genius elsewhere from now on.