The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #173399 Message #4209516
Posted By: Stilly River Sage
09-Oct-24 - 11:17 AM
Thread Name: BS: American Presidential race 2024
Subject: RE: BS: American Presidential race 2024
Harris made the rounds yesterday, evidently finishing her day on Stephen Colbert's show. There are interesting clips from it out there, including a "sharing a beer" moment (but Miller High Life?).
In an unrelated yet important story, in Portland, OR, they are changing their government. This proud liberal city is throwing out its entire government After a tumultuous four years marked by violent protests and drug decriminalization, Portland is poised for big changes.
Four years later the city is still recovering in part from the Trump administration's approach to the George Floyd riots that happened everywhere, but were particularly virulent in Oregon. Changing the government to a "weak mayor" (though it sounds like that job description hasn't been fully fleshed out) and broader city council will be more representative. From the article, a note about how those Council seats are now chosen (more fairly):
The City Council race, meanwhile, is mayhem. Portland is switching from four at-large seats to twelve seats representing four districts. The dozens of candidates include Black Lives Matter leaders, nonprofit advocates, business owners and police officers.
And above all, they are instituting ranked choice voting. That is something we need to see a lot more of. It takes care of breaking ties and under 50% results (that typically lead to a runoff).
The federal government needs to pass a strong voting rights act; there was one in place but lawsuits that made it to the Supreme Court have resulted in the conservative majority slowly dismantling those rights, just like they got rid of Roe v. Wade. Once voting rights are enshrined a lot of other work can happen. (We also need to get rid of that odious Supreme Court allowing Citizens United to let businesses have free unlimited speech. Businesses should not have personhood, but that's the way it is now).