Kristina Shelton: "We Need All Democrats To Get Comfortable Being Courageous"

 

When we think about gerrymandering, it's often in the context of trying the almost impossible task of flipping red districts blue. But in isolating Democrat-heavy communities, we are creating oases from which progressivism can spring. Wisconsin's 90th Assembly District in central Green Bay is the perfect example.

To create this district, Walker-era Republicans drew lines to include the meat packing plants, most of the city's rental housing, and majority minority neighborhoods. Generally, you can tell which district you're in based on the size of the houses. The 90th is blue collar and blue voting.

With relative electoral security, Wisconsin's Democratic Assembly incumbents should be positioned to demonstrate the true potential of the party: leading with creativity and courage as they work to make people's lives easier. But instead, the 90th's current-- and soon-to-be former-- Representative for the 90th used his position to try to coerce an employee of the State Capitol into sex. He was only eight months into his first term.

Enter Kristina Shelton, a woman elected to the Green Bay School Board whose personal politics align with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Kristina enthusiastically supports the Green New Deal, strong union rights, and Black lives matter. Her campaign is built from the premise that to beat the divisive, low expectations politics of the Republicans, Democrats have to be part of a social movement to rein in corporate power and lift up the most vulnerable in our community-- whether that is women victimized by sexual harassment or undocumented workers exploited by their bosses.

The process to get her the nomination was less of a primary and more of a culture war. Those backing the sexual harasser incumbent labeled her "radical," "underqualified" and "untested." But in August, she won the primary by 58 points. That's not a misprint: She won 79% of the vote, beating an incumbent who got only 21% of the vote. Green Bay declared that they want someone who is a little bit radical, and more importantly, a representative who will include them in the work-- and fun-- of making the change we need.

These safe blue districts can also serve as the laboratory for campaign innovation. When others around the region were struggling to pull together socially distanced fish fry fundraisers, Shelton was experimenting with live video, Spotify playlists, feminist artwork, and an ambitious texting program. She was running for state Assembly as though she were running for the White House.

"For me, the turning point was this poster we made," said Kristina. "I was up one night thinking of all the things I've been called in my life. I think a lot of women can relate to that. Words like unqualified, over-qualified, sexy, unattractive. My cousin, an artist in Pittsburgh, made those words into a beautiful image on a poster, and we sold the artwork as a fundraiser.

"We try things, we see what works, and we share whatever we learn so that the movement gets stronger. Win, lose or draw, we need all Democrats to get comfortable being courageous. And we shouldn't be afraid of enjoying ourselves while we're doing it."

If she secures election in November, Kristina will be a strong voice in the Assembly's Democratic Caucus. "I plan to legislate the same way I've campaigned: by bringing my community with me."

State Legislative Races-- Big Disappointment As GOP Gets Ready To Gerrymander Like Mad

 

The National Conference of State Legislatures released this before-and-after graphic showing legislative control yesterday (bottom) and what it will look like starting in January (top). The only changes appear to possibly be in Arizona and New Hampshire, two non-gerrymander states.

NCSL executive director Tim Storey reported that "Democrats look like they will win the Arizona House for the first time since 1966. Republicans are poised to win back the New Hampshire Senate that went Democratic just two years ago." There are still enough votes being counted now to possibly change control in one or two chambers (including the Arizona state Senate and the New Hampshire House)-- but don't count on it. Also undetermined right now is who will control the Michigan House, the Pennsylvania House (both of which could flip blue) and both chambers in Nevada (where one or both could flip red).

Storey: "[T]his appears to be a remarkably status quo election in the U.S. states. It looks like this will be the least party control changes on Election Day since at least 1944 when only four chambers changed hands. It’s still possible that there could be even fewer than four flips as a result of Tuesday’s voting. In the 1926 and 1928 elections, only one chamber changed hands. And 2020 could conceivably match that."

Even adding in the governors’ races leads to hardly any change in the state partisan landscape. There was only one party change among the chief executives, and that was in the open governor’s race in Montana. Term-limited Democratic Governor Steve Bullock ran for the Senate, and Republican candidate Greg Gianforte took the mansion back for the GOP.

That win led to the only new trifecta in the nation, in Big Sky Country.

It is possible that Republicans will lose their unified control in Arizona, meaning the number of D, R and divided states stays exactly the same. No other changes are expected in the trifecta unless late returns in New Hampshire’s 400-member House, notoriously always hard to pin down, plus a GOP pick-up of the Granite State Senate leads to a new GOP trifecta there.

As it stands now, the lack of partisan change in the states is jaw dropping.

There were, however, some good results in a few places. Early in the cycle, Blue America endorsed progressive Democrat Heidi Campbell in her race to replace the last member of the Tennessee state legislature in the Nashville area, state Senator Steven Dickerson. Yesterday Heidi beat him 51.7% to 48.3%.

And up in Green Bay, Wisconsin Kristina Shelton won the Wisconsin Assembly seat to represent the 90th district with 60.2% of the vote. You may recall that last month this progressive leader told us that her personal politics align with AOC and that "We need all Democrats to get comfortable being courageous." Wisconsin needs a solid Democratic bench. She's part of it now.

Florida was the nexus of pain-- particularly Miami-Dade. Democratic turnout in red counties was through the roof while in Miami-Dade, it completely fell apart, possibly because of the tireless efforts of Trump crony Louis DeJoy and his team at the USPS. 67,385 requested Democratic absentee ballots that were sent to voters never made their way to the counting stations. Not a single legislative seat changed hands-- so Florida!

Writing for Rolling Stone, Tessa Stuart reported that "Despite months of polling that suggested Biden was a slight favorite to win the Sunshine state, Florida has slipped out of Democrats’ grasp once again... There have been clear signs in recent weeks that Republicans were turning out in higher numbers in a part of Florida where Democrats need to run up the score in order to win: Miami-Dade County... Around 55 percent of Florida’s Cuban-American vote went to Donald Trump, according to exit polls, giving him huge gains over his 2016 performance in the county, swinging some 200,000 voters into his column. But it wasn’t just Cubans breaking for Trump-- he won 30 percent of Puerto Ricans and 48 percent of 'other Latinos' in the state."

On Election Day, Rolling Stone spoke to Maria Elena Lopez, first vice chair of the Miami Dade Democrats to get a sense of the situation on the ground. Democrats had a fragile, roughly 100,000 ballot lead in the early vote, and volunteers were still out knocking doors, frantically trying to get out the vote. At the time, Lopez said turnout was on track to match 2016-- a problem, considering Hillary Clinton lost the state and the election that year. Still, Lopez was hopeful Tuesday morning that Biden might do better than Clinton did in other parts of the state, like the I-4 corridor, home to a growing Puerto Rican population.

“My worst fear would be that our Latin community believes the bullshit that Biden is a socialist and communist, and doesn’t vote for him,” Lopez said bluntly on Tuesday. “That is my main fear. It is very hard to fight misinformation, and that has been the most frustrating part for us as a party. How do you go out there and try to have a logical conversation with people that do not believe what you’re saying?”

This afternoon, Kathy Lewis, the Democrat we were hoping would flip the state Senate blue, told her followers in an e-mail that she ran the campaign she wanted to run despite the Florida Democratic Party. "Many people 'in the know'-- party leaders, consultants, people in our community-- told me this was an unwinnable race, she wrote. "They said it was especially unwinnable without the support of big money donors who would have censored my voice. Over 115,000 voters disagreed. Though we have lost this race, we have proved what is possible for future elections. We have shown that it is possible to run a truly grassroots campaign and fund it with small, individual donations-- we have raised more than $133,000 with an average donation of $80.  Considering this was a special election with a short lead time, this is a phenomenal achievement!"

In thanking her supporters, she noted that "As the late, Honorable John Lewis said, we make progress by making good trouble. That’s what we did together. Together, we have shown that it is possible to put the interests of people first, before big money and big business... This race and our campaign have focused the bright Florida sunshine on the problems so many hardworking Floridians face. We have raised the flag, bringing attention to the problems facing so many Florida families:

• to the difficulties obtaining disability and medical benefits;
• to the disenfranchisement of voters brought by poverty and race;
• to the problems workers and families have gaining equal access to quality and affordable health care;
• to women’s right to have control over their own bodies;
• to the issues of marriage equality and equal and fair employment and housing practices for the LGBTQ+ communities and for people of color;
• to the need for a realistic living wage—Amendment 2 on the ballot does not go far enough soon enough;
• to the issue of gun violence which affects too many people each and every day;
• to the problems we have in our criminal justice system with inequitable practices in our state law enforcement, the hiring of unqualified and disqualified applicants, and the need to invest in mental health services and education in law enforcement and in schools
• to the unfair burden put on our teachers to be all things to our children while being paid far less than they deserve;
• to the concerns of the environment and climate change that disproportionately affect Floridians, Florida tourism, small businesses, and people of color; and
• to our state’s haphazard, patchwork response to the pandemic, needlessly endangering millions of people, and especially our first responders, and needlessly sacrificing the lives of loved ones in the process.

She concluded that "Future Democratic candidates have a new playbook for how to run an honest, people-first campaign with sustainable grassroots support and without having to answer to corporations, special interests, or powerful, self-interested politicians."

Why Are Most Voters In Wisconsin Casting Ballots Against Trump? Where Do We Start?

 

The big con-- when will the rest of Wisconsin voters figure it out?

Yesterday, Trump infected 61,429 more Americans with COVID-19. Wisconsin had the second most confirmed new cases-- 4,591, bringing the state's total to 178,482-- 30,654 cases for every million residents. I'm not a big fan of moderate Democratic governor Tony Evers but he did everything scientists and public health experts said was necessary. And the Republican-controlled legislature and Republican goons on the state Supreme Court, cheered on by Trump, overturned every move he made to protect the state. Now, as predicted, hospitals are on the verge of being overrun as the state keeps setting records for new cases, hospital admissions and deaths. The state's school system is a wreck, including in red, rural districts whose MAGA citizens thought they were safe and that Trump would never lie to them.

Across Wisconsin-- currently one of the nation’s worst COVID-19 hotspots-- health officials have investigated nearly 500 COVID-19 outbreaks in schools. More than 15,000 children ages 17 and younger have been infected to date, state Department of Health Services data show. Numerous schools across Wisconsin have suspended in-person classes this fall, at least temporarily, because of cases among students and staff.

...Wisconsin is behind the national average when it comes to high-speed internet coverage in rural parts of the state. About 43% of rural areas lack the service, compared to about 31% nationwide.

That’s one reason Wisconsin’s rural school districts overwhelmingly decided to return to face-to-face instruction last month, said Kim Kaukl, executive director of the Wisconsin Rural Schools Alliance.

While big urban school districts like Milwaukee and Madison opted to start completely online, about 75% of the 100 rural districts that answered an optional survey from the state Department of Public Instruction planned to offer face-to-face instruction at least four days per week, a Wisconsin Watch analysis of DPI data shows. Most, if not all, give families the option of virtual schooling, however.

Yesterday, Wisconsin Public Radio reported that "Wisconsinites are not making changes to their behavior-- even as public health officials issue grave warnings, the state's hospitals are on the verge of overflowing, and more people are dying from the disease than at any time in the pandemic. New data from the White House Coronavirus Task Force found Wisconsinites are still traveling in their communities about as much as they did before the pandemic. The task force report, released Wednesday, also said Wisconsin ranks as the fourth-worst state in the nation for new infections. It called Wisconsin's rising hospitalizations an 'extreme concern' and wrote the situation in Wisconsin will 'continue to worsen' short of real changes in state policy or public behavior. As of Monday afternoon, according to the New York Times' tracking tool, 8 of the 20 worst-hit metro areas in the country are in Wisconsin."

Nevertheless, 3 days after the White House task force called for caution, Trump staged one of his super-spreader events in Janesville-- against the request of local elected officials-- that attracted thousands. And it isn't just Trump. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald should eventually be charged with negligent homicide.

Wisconsin has few statewide public health measures in place, and those it has have been the subject of court challenges.  The Republican-controlled Legislature and a conservative legal group have said they'll take their lawsuit against Gov. Tony Evers' statewide mask mandate to the state Supreme Court.  In response to the state's soaring infection rates and hospitalizations, state DHS Secretary Andrea Palm issued an order Oct. 6 limiting capacity at bars, restaurants and retail shops. The order was in place for less than a week before a Sawyer County judge issued an injunction that temporarily blocked it, after the state's Tavern League filed a lawsuit. On Monday, a different judge put the order back in place. 

Monday, Reuters released a poll of likely Wisconsin voters by Ipsos. Biden has increased his margin against Trump statewide by a point and now leads Trump 51-43%, with almost a quarter of the respondents saying they have already voted. By a margin of 52-38%, Wisconsonites say Biden would be better at handling the pandemic. It shocks me no end, though, that by 47-45%, a plurality says Trump would be better at managing the economy. Are they insane?

Every single one of them needs to read Judd Legum's latest Popular Information newsletter: Trump's "Eighth Wonder Of The World" is a few empty buildings, Legum noted that "On June 28, 2018, Trump traveled to Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and announced that Foxconn, the Taiwanese electronics company, would be building a 20-million-square foot manufacturing facility. Trump said that he had secured an agreement from his 'friend,' Foxconn chairman Terry Gou, to invest $10 billion and create 13,000 jobs" and "dubbed the facility the 'Eighth Wonder of the World" and claimed it was proof his policies were 'restoring America’s industrial might.'"

It was another of Trump's trademarked empty, self-serving boasts. Today Kristina Shelton is the progressive Democrat running for an Assembly seat in central Green Bay. She told us that "The Foxconn deal is perhaps the best example we have that relying on the whims and profits of corporations is not the way to create good jobs in Wisconsin or anywhere else. Even if this project had worked, and it never seemed likely that it would, it would have been a massive giveaway of Wisconsinites’ tax dollars to a foreign corporation. Its utter and disastrous failure clearly shows that the gargantuan amount of wasted money and wasted resources could have been much better spent in directly guaranteeing Wisconsinites good jobs and protecting our natural resources and lands."

Jacob Malinowski, whose western Milwaukee Assembly district is closer to the derelict site said "We knew from the get-go that this was a bad deal for Wisconsin: Assembly Republicans were willing to give huge corporate handouts and destroy the local environment for a company which had failed to deliver on its promises around the globe. Either they didn't do their homework or they knew this and didn't care. We need thoughtful leaders who will smartly evaluate their decisions-- not more disinterested and dispassionate partisans."

Putting the boondoggle into context, Legum wrote that now-defeated Governor Scott Walker "paid a heavy price to seal the deal. Overall, the state and various localities provided Foxconn $4 billion in incentives. Some of that money has already been paid out. Racine County bought the land for the facility and gave it to Foxconn for free. Property owners had their land seized by the state, paid for by taxpayers, to make way for Foxconn's facility. Millions more were spent on infrastructure improvements. Since all taxes for the project were eliminated, the tax incentives were essentially cash payments to the company. If everything went perfectly, 'the state wouldn’t break even until 2043.' The deal quickly began to fall apart... [A] Foxconn spokesman told Reuters that it would not manufacture much of anything in Wisconsin. 'In Wisconsin, we’re not building a factory. You can’t use a factory to view our Wisconsin investment,' the spokesman said. The facility would 'consist of research facilities along with packaging and assembly operations.' Foxconn initially estimated it would create 5,200 jobs by 2020. That figure was revised down to 1,000."

Trump was unhappy. He called Gou and convinced him to reverse the announcement. After the conversation, Foxconn released a statement saying it was "moving forward with our planned construction of a Gen 6 [LCD] fab facility." Trump took a victory lap.

But while Foxconn agreed to Trump's demand to keep calling the facility an LCD factory, there was "no further information on the focus of the facility, the size of the investment, or the jobs that will be created." Since then, things have gone downhill.

A new expose by The Verge finds that what "Foxconn calls an LCD factory-- about 1/20th the size of the original plan-- is little more than an empty shell." Last month, "Foxconn received a permit to change its intended use from manufacturing to storage."

The project has only generated a handful of jobs, "many of them held by people with nothing to do, hired so the company could reach the number required for it to get tax subsidy payments from Wisconsin" at the end of 2019. The company claimed it had hired 580 people, enough to qualify for the tax subsidies. Last week, "Wisconsin rejected the company’s subsidy application and found it had employed only 281 people eligible under the contract" at the conclusion of last year. After the deadline passed, many of those were laid off.

The company built a handful of buildings, including a "multi-purpose" structure and an orb. None of them have any clear purpose. It considered, at various times, using them for "fish farms, exporting ice cream, [or] storing boats." Before striking the massive deal, Foxconn performed "no research into the market for products Foxconn might make or the costs of producing those products in Wisconsin." The company maintains that an LCD factory is coming and recently set up a small line for manufacturing servers. But Foxconn recently acknowledged it "has so far invested 2.8 percent of the $10 billion it promised."

Trump, for his part, continues to stay on message. In an interview with a local Wisconsin station on Sunday, Trump said Foxconn had built “one of the most incredible plants I’ve ever seen.” The company will keep its promises, Trump insisted. But only if he's reelected.

Chris Larson is the most progressive-- and strategic-- member of the state Senate. Yesterday, he reminded me that "Three years ago, so many of us tried to avoid this debacle for Wisconsin and our warnings were ignored. Instead, they fell for the biggest con in U.S. history. Even now, you'd be hard pressed to find a Republican who still isn't pretending they aren’t being conned. Like most things involving Trump, it's hard to tell if they’re really this gullible or in on the con. Either way, they shouldn’t be trusted. Every politician who voted for this boondoggle should be forever reminded of what a disaster it is. Luckily, we have a chance to hold them accountable in two weeks, from the assembly and senate Republicans all the way up to Trump."

Assembly candidate Sarah Yacoub couldn't agree more. She told me that her opponent "as of 9/4/2020 is still lying to us about Foxconn, saying it was a good deal and that it didn’t cost us any money. Even local Republicans recognized that it was bad for our district and now we know it cost Wisconsin taxpayers at least $400 million. The 30th Assembly District deserves representation that has the backbone to stand up and say no to a bad deal. Instead, we currently have someone more interested in licking the boots of Madison Republicans for his own personal political gain."

When super-progressive Francesca Hong won the Madison primary, she essentially won herself an Assembly seat. She's spending a lot of her time campaign for other Democrats in tougher seats. "The thing is," she said, "Foxconn went pretty much according to plan. President Trump and Governor Walker wrote out the biggest corporate contract in the history of our state on the back of a napkin. They gave a ton of money to a corporation-- something they're always happy to do-- and they harmed working families and individuals in the process. They liked the press releases about creating jobs more than they actually cared about creating jobs. How do we know? Look at the deal. Tons of upfront money and few if any safeguards ensuring that real jobs went to Wisconsinites. Wisconsin got conned by Foxconn. But we got screwed by Walker, Vos and their allies in the state legislature. Let's vote Vos and his cronies all out of office this November and and do the work of refocusing our priorities on working families, not massive corporations."