Why climate policy is stalled in Olympia

There has been a lot of talk over the last couple years about carbon taxation due to the work that I did along with friends of mine at Carbon Washington for Initiative 732, the first and most progressive carbon tax proposal in American history. We based it off of the highly successful carbon tax which British Columbia passed in 2008, and refunded the money back to tax payers because we have the most regressive tax code in the United States. The number of exemptions in our bill were limited.

Then there was the Governor's bill in the legislature in 2017. I lobbied for it, even though it had several big problems. The carbon tax amount was significantly smaller than 732, it increased linearly, not exponentially, and gave many exemptions to big oil and coal which 732 didn't. I lobbied for it regardless of these serious flaws because it was better than nothing and would have funded our schools which are significantly, which desperately needs to happen.

The third proposal so far was I-1631 which was extremely similar to Inslee's bill. It was a modest tax, with a 1 year delay before implementation, would have increased linearly, had a long list of exemptions for oil companies, and even worse was fairly vague about where the money would be spent compared to the other two bills, leaving over a billion dollars for the governor to make the final decision on, through a board the governor would have appointed.

732 (2011-2016)

All three have failed. When it comes to the major players in the state, there are four which are relevant.

The first is Carbon Washington. We started the discussion in the first place, and designed everything to benefit working class families, who are disproportionately people of color. The Audubon Society joined us in fighting for the initiative, along with many local Democratic Parties, multiple environmental groups, and a wide swath of scientists and business leaders.

Despite all of this, the number one complaint I heard the most often was not having to do with the context of our bill itself but was regarding a group known as the Alliance. They were formed in opposition to us, claiming that we needed to take people of color into account, despite how we won that demographic come election day, and they would benefit more than anyone else from the working families tax credit and sales tax reduction, among several other unrealistic criticisms. They were claiming to be building a new, better initiative which would take people of color into account and would release the initiative "soon". I will get back to that bucket of corruption.

The other main players were the governor, who opposed us probably to pursue his own political agenda and propose a bill of his own come election day, and the Democratic Party outright opposed us.

The Alliance, Governor Inslee, and the Democratic Party allied themselves with big coal in 2016. There is no other honest way to put it.

Our failure at the ballot box, aided by Governor Inslee, the Alliance, and the Democratic Party (all of whom should have helped us) has made it significantly harder to get anything done since then because we have to fight the argument that the people already voted no once, and why try again? They hurt themselves in the process, as I will outline further down.

The arguments of the Alliance are preserved at Ballotpedia.

Sidenote: All of the claims from OneAmerica and the Democratic Party that the tax is not in fact "revenue neutral" is based off the estimates published by the Office of Financial Management. They estimated a shortfall of $797 million over a 6 year time period, which would be an average of $132 million per year. However, they didn't include their standard deviation in the document they sent to every voter in the state, and their standard deviation was larger than their mean, meaning that it was as close to revenue neutral as anyone could predict with the best models (which they were using). Printing a future projection without a standard deviation is unprofessional, and misled every voter. For reference, the 2018 proposed budget had a total amount spend of $44,669 million for one year of spending. If, let's say, the OFM was correct and there would have been a shortfall (more on that in the next paragraph) the total impact would have been 0.3% of the budget. About 1/3 of the total amount spent on Natural Resources & Recreation, the smallest section of the budget. To claim (as they did) that it would create austerity is ludicrous, and if there was a slight shortfall, wouldn't have made the sky fall.

The opposition to 732 ran with this misprint the OFM printed, falsely claiming that 732 would threaten our schools, which was completely false.

The Legislature (2017)

After the failure of 732, the battle moved to the legislature. This bill, as I describe above was significantly weaker. It gave large exemptions to big oil, and probably would not have reduced emissions at all. The only reason to lobby for it, in retrospect, is that we might have been able to do more in the following election year and the money would have funded our schools. It wasn't a great bill.

Unfortunately, even with a Democratic Majority this bill which started with an injured leg from its big oil exemptions failed in the legislature, losing Governor Inslee major political brownie points, and making it harder to pass future bills.

The Alliance finally decided to announce their proposal after Governor Inslee fell flat on his face, once they were essentially the only player left in town.

Initiative 1631 (2018)

The Alliance finally released their initiative, and it had many of the same flaws of Governor Inslee's proposal. Particularly the major exemptions to big oil which I detest. It was better than the legislation in that it was a larger tax (though still significantly smaller than 732) but it wasn't as clear as the bill on how the money would be spent.

Both of those features made this bill significantly harder to defend for me. I am not surprised it failed because of those major problems with the bill.

The truth is, it was poorly written, gave exemptions to the wrong groups, and didn't outline clearly how the money would be spent. This made it really hard to  defend because if someone brought any of them up, the only response I could honestly say (because I try very hard to be honest) that yes, it gave exemptions to the wrong groups and you probably would not see any benefit to this legislation.

On top of this, I don't even know if it would have increased carbon emissions at all given its complexity.

I voted for it, but I didn't lobby for it because I knew it would probably fail.

Remember the arguments from the fight against 732? How we would have bankrupted the state (we wouldn't have) and how we didn't listen to minorities (we did, there is a lot of history on this issue on how they walked out)? Well, if by bankrupt the state they meant  that the investments would NOT go to our schools (one of their arguments) and would NEVER be seen by working class families, instead being distributed by an unelected board with no oversight from the legislature, with fairly vague goals, which probably would not have helped working class people or global warming. The only winners from 1631 would have been oil companies with their massive exemptions.

It would not have funded our schools, rebuilt our infrastructure,

The Future

I still hold out naive hope that Washington might still be able to pass significant climate legislation. Many strong climate leaders were elected last week, and we might be able to get something done now.

Nothing is going to happen at the ballot box anymore. The Alliance basically made sure of that in 2016, and I do not see a future for that organization with their track record at this point.

Getting something through the legislature of any scale is going to be extremely difficult. Telling legislators to vote for something similar to two failed initiatives is not a good place to stand, even if people vote against similar legislation once it makes it very difficult to get something through. I don't want carbon taxes to be DOA, but the reality is they probably will be. I hope I am wrong on this.

The only groups which truly deserve credit in my opinion for making any progress at this point are Carbon Washington, Audubon and Citizens Climate Lobby.

Today's musings

Today's ban on transgender folk serving in the military is disheartening, and is going to make a lot of people upset. On top of that I witnessed a Lummi woman being poorly represented by her public defender in court today, and wish I had known where to refer her to get proper legal assistance. I should have given her my business card. This is disheartening, and then as I was thinking whether we can make a difference I remembered than in the last 3 years we have had more election reform to true proportional representation in the United States than Germany has had in the previous 150 years. That gives me hope. When we organize, when we mobilize, when we campaign for good people and get good people into office, push for big important initiatives, and vote we can literally replace unfair and corrupt election systems with true proportional representation. That gives me hope. We can change this situation. We can make it better. We did make it better, and there is still a long ways to go. There will always be problems, nothing is ever going to be perfect, but we have to remember where we have come from to give us hope. It is up to us, the voting public to make the future better.

Since the current German system was formed the following has happened in the United States:

1. In 1912 we got the right to directly vote for our Senators for the first time in history.
2. In 2016 Maine became the first state in the United States to implement ranked voting in American history.

Score: America 2, Germany 0.
www.fairvote.org

Political Platform

I have written a lot on this blog over the last 9 years, and I have written about a lot of different topics. Here is a summary of my political values in a bullet format.

Local elections (Bellingham and Whatcom County)

• Investigate the ability to have fare-free buses
• Have a local carbon tax, like in Portland
• Use ranked voting for all elections.
• Expand access to high speed broadband to every household.
• Internet access is a natural monopoly and as such should be a public service. Same with electricity. Private companies provide good service in a competitive market, but these are not competitive.

Washington State

Easy

• Ban Multi Level Marketing Companies 
• Comprehensive sexual education (like Our Whole Lives) in every school. Mandatory for every student.
• Expand access to high speed broadband to every household.

Medium Difficulty

• Increase Cascades service, study expanding a train working with AMTRAK which would serve Spokane and Tri-Cities.
• Make it easier for people who are laid off to claim unemployment. 
• Eliminate the statute of limitations for sexual assault

Hard

• Implement a Carbon tax with few exemptions.
• Make our tax code more progressive.
• Fund the Working Families Tax Credit
• Increase State employee's wages to market rate for their position, in order to attract and retain talent, and it is the right thing to do.
• Tuition free college

Practically impossible

• Replace our sales tax with a progressive income tax. Individuals with incomes below $100,000 don't have to pay an income tax.

Federal Level

Easy

• Ban Multi Level Marketing Companies
• Oppose wars which are not authorized through the United Nations General Assembly
• Roe v. Wade is settled law, and it is the best case scenario for the issue of abortion. This is the most controversial plank of this platform.
• FEMA must be used appropriately to fight natural disasters.

Medium

• Increase AMTRAK service to currently under served high demand routes, and give AMTRAK the ability to increase service where there is demand. 
• Support inner-city public transit expansion to the areas which are under served.
• Bring back the WPA. This will function as a jobs guarantee, so people who are unemployed can go to the WPA to find work.
• Make DARPA ARPA again, significantly increasing basic science research, supporting excellent good pay jobs.
• Increase the number of SBA loans available, and increase the amount.
• Public option for health insurance or Medicare for All.
• Negotiate for lower drug prices with Medicare.
• No bailouts for any company, no matter what their size.
• Tuition free college at any public university.
• Significantly increase federal grants for local schools.
• Public schools which teach creationism lose federal funding.
• Tuition and fees for Private schools which teach creationism are not tax-deductible.
• Everyone has the right to move their retirement account to a different provider of their choice once per year for no fee, maintaining the normal restrictions the tax advantage comes with. Everyone has the right to change how their retirement account is allocated at any right for no penalty.
• New gun laws:
• Anyone of age who can pass a background check with a clean criminal record may own a gun. However, in accordance to "a well regulated militia" anyone under the age of 65 who owns a gun must be a member of the National Guard Reserves and may be called into service at anytime.
• People under 21 may not purchase or possess a firearm unless they are enlisted as active duty in a branch of the armed services.
• Mandatory background checks, insurance, and licensing for gun purchases.
• Owners of guns are required to keep their guns secured when not on their body. 
• The police may demand a firearm license for possession of a firearm outside of the home or a designated firearm range. Not carrying your license on you with possession of a firearm is a felony. Possession of a firearm which does not belong to you will come with the presumption of theft, and you will be charged for unlicensed carrying of a firearm. 
• Allowing someone who is not licensed to get access to your guns will be a felony with a 5 year prison sentence.
• The legal guardians of minors who get access to guns will be charged with negligence, with a minimum sentence of 5 years, and life in prison without parole if their child kills someone, as well as the owner of the firearm.
• Possession of an unregistered firearm will be a felony punishable with a 5 year prison sentence.
• Felons may not own or possess guns.
• Open carry will be a felony.
• Penalties will be increased for the second and third offenses.
• In short, if you are of good character, and want to own a firearm, you will be allowed. But, you must keep the firearm secured, and you will be called for paid military service.
• We need to combat human trafficking by punishing the traffickers and offering amnesty to those who were traffic.
• Treat drug addiction as a health issue, not a military problem. End the war on drugs. Rehabilitation needs to be available and free. The only sentence anyone should have for possession and usage of drugs should be high quality rehabilitation. Usage of drugs should never send someone to prison.
• De-escalation training for all military and police.
• Aggressively go after and prosecute predatory lenders who mislead their clients with false promises. Pay out the damages to their victims.

Hard

• Nationalize the railways
• Tax capital gains as regular income
• Implement a national carbon tax which increases exponentially over time with no exemptions for special interests.
• Replace Social Security Old Age Insurance with a Basic Income over a 40 year transition plan. Do not cut benefits from any people currently receiving benefits. I have written why Old Age Insurance is highly flawed here. The posts on Social Security from before 2014 were before I studied economics when I was in community college, and I didn't understand it, which is why I want to reform it significantly. At a bare minimum, allow individuals to opt to put their Social Security contributions into an IRA, which will benefit American families.
• Have a negative income tax for low income households. Details
• Comprehensive sexual education in every school.
• Amend the Constitution to replace the Electoral College with a direct vote for the President.
• Have all House of Representatives Districts be elected using Single Transferable Vote with multiple members per district.
• Negotiate an open border agreement with Canada following a full comprehensive study on the costs and benefits to having a closed border which will likely prove that the costs exceed the benefits.
• Increase the number of nationalities who can visit the United States visa-free based on more reasonable criteria. Nationalities which are part of the ESTA will be able to visit the United States without a visa.

Values

• Torture is immoral and violates the 8th amendment under all circumstances.
• The death penalty is inherently flawed and needs to be abolished as a violation of the 8th amendment.
• Every vote must be counted accurately. Every adult American citizen needs to be able to vote. Voting should be easy to do for all adult American citizens.
• Everybody is important. Everybody matters. Everybody deserves a chance.
• We need to provide support to people who have been left behind by inequality, and provide financial remediation for people who have suffered from racism. People who are discriminated by the police deserve financial remediation.
• LGBT rights are human rights.
• People deserve to be fairly compensated for their work. We need to pursue effective policies to end the gender pay gap.

Key economic realities which inform this platform

• Competition when possible is the best way to democratize the economy, and give everyone the opportunity to succeed in industries where there can be many competing firms. Monopolization must be countered with strong anti-trust laws.
• Natural monopolies (electricity, internet, water, sewage) need to be public services provided by governments.
• The single best investment we can make in our future is in the education of people, it gives dividends into the future perpetually through people having better paying jobs via more specialization, better health outcomes, and more. This needs the funding to match its return, which means tuition free public college.
• Improving internet access is one way to significantly level the playing field.
• 
  

US border insecurity

Statistics:

1. The American-Canadian border is the longest shared border in the world.
2. The American-Canadian border is the only shared border between highly developed (GDP per capita > $20,000) in North America. there are 30 such borders in the world, 3 are with Saudi Arabia and its rich gulf neighbors, and the other 26 are in Western Europe.

More little known facts on border security:

1. The longest open border treaty is the Common Travel Area between The United Kingdom and Ireland. It was signed by Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George. It has only come under threat recently by the Tories. The history of the relationship is fascinating and complicated about why Britain is not a member of Schengen and the Common Travel Area was not superseded by the Schengen Treaty.

The vast majority of wealthy counties in the world which border another wealthy country are in a customs union together with free movement. There are only 4 exceptions to this, Andorra is not a member of the Schengen area, and it counts as twice since it borders both France and Spain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are in the middle of a dispute right now, and the border has been closed between the two. The only other border between wealthy countries which has customs is between the United States and Canada.

This list grows even shorter when you consider that Andorra and the European Union are currently under negotiations to integrate Andorra into the common market. The current crisis with Qatar has to do with Saudi Arabia demanding that they cut off all relations with Iran, and unfortunately there are no signs of them cutting of Iran or Saudi Arabia backing down from their threats.

This leaves us with the United States and Canadian border. Two very wealthy nations which rank highly in every freedom metric. Canada generally does better than us, but the United States generally does well. Both countries have similar issues regarding the treatment of minorities, as a centuries long human rights issue which hasn't gone addressed, but this doesn't seem to be a reason to not have a customs union between us.

First of all, I do not expect this will be done within the next decade, mainly due to Donald Trump's opposition to cooperation with our allies.

If we were to further integrate our two economies we would need to have a common tariff, which would likely be done with Mexico at the same time. This would be basically an extension of NAFTA and make it so that our customs would be all integrated with countries outside of the bloc.

The next issue to be dealt with would be with Canada alone since the possibility of an open border with Mexico is not going to go anywhere with congress. This would be a formation of an Economic Union with Canada. The main difference here would be the free movement of labor and capital. Anyone may search for work or do business in the other country with no restriction.

Once we have a harmonized  tariff policy, we need to ensure our visa policies are integrated as well. I personally would like to replace the ESTA with pure visa-free entry, and the ETA in Canada as well, but this is unlikely to happen. The reason is that before these programs went into place there had never been even one attack on American or Canadian soil from any individual from the countries which require these programs since 1945. They seem to be more of a bother and provide basically no benefit. We would still have visas for countries where people would be likely to overstay, or state sponsors of terrorism, but for people from Western Europe there would be no visa at all. For people who need a visa they would all be multi entry visas which expire when the passport is replaced. There are currently differences in our visa policy when it comes to Mexico, Barbados, Bahamas, Brazil, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Papua New Guinea, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Cyprus, Croatia, and Hong Kong.

This is the biggest barrier of them all really. While over the last 4 years Canada has undergone a large effort to increase trade and improve their already good image to the rest of the world by increasing the ability of people to visit Canada, the United States has barely changed, and has been bullying Canada to have more restrictive visa policies to other countries. I won't be surprised if Parliament decides to end the ETA program and allow countries from places like Germany visit Canada again without pre-registration. Sandals and socks isn't that bad honestly.

There is a really big issue with our approach is outlined by Stuart Anderson in this article by Forbes describing how it is based on visa overstay rate which is calculated by the Department of Homeland Security. There is a really big issue here in that the actual numbers for who overstays their visa is highly inaccurate, andhighly flawed. It is going to be impossible to get a visa policy which accurately give the right nationalities true visa free entry as long as this is on the books. This is something which needs to be fixed as soon as possible, and an accurate method of determining who should have visas needs to be devised as soon as possible.

The other issue with the American-Canadian border is that most people don't know that it has only been closed for less than 100 years. The CBP tells the story on its website where the patrols were infrequent before prohibition, and the US Border Patrol was founded in 1924 to counter the importation of alcohol. If it wasn't for prohibition, we might have never closed the border with Canada in the first place.

Finding data on historical visa policies is difficult. Here is a collection of papers for information on this topic:

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6175134/
• https://www.imi-n.org/data/demig-data

I will to get high quality data myself to do a comprehensive study in the future. This is going to take some time and a lot of work.

We will probably need to harmonize our drunk driving laws, and I am personally in favor of being harder on drunk driving, but once that is done there will likely be no valid reason to keep the border closed. Ironic how the border was closed because American alcohol laws were more severe than Canada's and in order to open it again we will need to raise the penalty in the United States for drunk driving.

With a harmonized tariff policy and harmonized visa policy I believe the United States and Canada will see significant economic benefits and save billions of dollars every year on border enforcement. I expect we will see that an open border will be worth it.

Status of the 2020 election, Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2019

The 2020 election is ramping up right now, and the candidates are lining up, and there are multiple fantastic candidates right now.

The Republican Nomination will almost certainly go to Trump in 2020, but on the Democratic side of the aisle we have several really amazing people running, or who are almost certainly going to run.

Declared Candidates

I am going to break them down by their current role, ordered by likelihood of getting the nomination, with their number of twitter followers on their most followed account:

Sitting Senator

• Elizabeth Warren, 2.2 million
• Kamala Harris, 2 million
• Kirsten Gillibrand,  1.33 million

Sitting Representative:

• Tulsi Gabbard, 242,000

Former Representative:

• John Delaney, 12,500

Former Cabinet Official:

• Julian Castro, 169,000

The other candidates should run for congress or to be governor before they run for president, since they don't have a record they can point to.

This race looks like a dead heat between Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris. They both command over 2 million followers on Twitter, and have very strong progressive credentials. Neither have more followers than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but she is unfortunately not old enough to run for President, or even Senator yet. I expect she will move up quickly. She will likely succeed whoever wins this year if she pays her cards right, which I expect she will. Of course, none of them have the 104 million followers President Obama has, and it would take a historic level of legislation for another President to do that.

Back to the Presidential race of 2020, not 2028. It seems to be a dead heat between Senators Harris and Warren when looking at their popularity on Twitter.  If we search their names on Google right now, Kirsten Gillibrand has 10.1 million hits, Kamala Harris has 38.9 million hits, and Elizabeth Warren has 175 million hits. For comparison, President Obama has 219 million hits. Elizabeth Warren has been in the Senate for a longer time than Senator Harris, which gives her the upper hand.

When it comes to their policies, they are all strongly liberal identical from what I can tell from Govtrack's data, and we would do just as well with any one of them. Kirsten Gillibrand started as a Blue Dog in the beginning of her career, but has become significantly more progressive over her time as a member of Congress since 2007. She used to be a Blue Dog, but now her voting record is the most progressive of the three candidates. Senator Warren is the most centrist of the three Senators in the race right now according to her voting record.

Senator Harris is currently 54 years old, Senator Gillibrand so average for a Presidential candidate. Senator Warren is currently 69 years old, and if she wins the election she will be only a few months younger than when Trump was inaugurated two years ago. Senator Harris will be almost exactly as old as the median age for Presidents upon inauguration.

Gillibrand and Warren as I write this at 9:00 Pacific Time on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day have not formally announced their candidacy yet however, but this doesn't really matter in these first few months. Senator Clinton announced her candidacy a month before Senator Obama, but lost by a slim number of delegates despite winning the popular vote.

I will probably support Senator Harris in the primary from this point on. She doesn't compromise her principles, is standing for badly needed police reform, opposes the death penalty, and has a flawless track record stretching back over a decade as a Federal Prosecutor. We will do very well if she wins the election. She is my top result when I fill out my answers on isidewith giving me affirmation she is indeed a candidate who shares my values, on top of observing her decisions in Congress.

Bernie Sanders and his supporters

There are already articles popping up online on sites like Jacobin criticizing issues with existing candidates for not doing enough, this article about Senator Harris is one example, and while they are fair criticisms from her record as a prosecutor, we live in an electoral system in every state except for Maine which punishes people for voting third party. The spoiler effect is a very real problem which must be addressed.

We deserve to have a robust debate in the primary with the candidates who are running and fully examine their records. But, at the same time the number one goal of 2020 is to ensure Trump leaves office and that the Democrats recapture the Presidency and hopefully the Senate as well. We made very important progress in 2018, picking up governorships in Nevada, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, Illinois, and Maine. This will make a tremendous effect on the federal House of Representatives for the next 12 years since the governors of those states have the authority to veto gerrymandering, which will make a much more competitive House. We now need to continue that progress into 2020 and get the first Democratic federal trifecta in a decade.

Senator Sanders might run in 2020. If he won he would be the oldest President in history at 79 years old on inauguration day. He would be 83 when he would run for reelection, or in all honesty, more likely retire. He will not live forever, and we need to foster new candidates like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez who have his level of integrity and service to our country.

Any of the candidates I listed at the top of this piece would be fantastic presidents, and none of them are perfect, but no one is. We need to fight like hell for what we want and deserve, and remember that the idea of production possibilities frontier is very much part of politics as much as it is in economics. It can only be reached by fully striving for what you want, realizing you probably won't get everything, which is the optimal strategy.

The question starts with, who are the best candidates in 2020? Of the top 10 sitting Senators in 2017 (excluding Al Franken), both Harris and Gillibrand are on that list. Only Sanders (VT), Merkley (OR), and Markey (MA) are more progressive than Kirsten Gillibrand. Van Hollen (MD) and and Reed (RI) are between Gillibrand and Harris. We already have two of the most progressive senators in America in the race, so not voting for one of them for not being progressive enough would be counter productive. Based on my knowledge of biology which I have learned from working in a lab and being around biologists for the vast majority of my life, I oppose GMO labelling because it is fear mongering, which is one of a handful of issues I disagree with Senator Harris on. But this doesn't mean I will oppose her and stomp my feet and cry about it, because I agree with her on the vast majority of issues. We already have two of the best candidates America can offer today.

Other potential sources of Candidates

What about Governors however? Well, currently if we take a list of current Democratic Governors who have been office since at least 2016 (since it would be very unusual for someone to be elected with only 2 years of experience) and will be less than 70 then Governor Cuomo of New York has the most Twitter followers with 848,000 followers. No Governor has the level of familiarity and popularity they will need to successfully win the candidacy. Governor O'Malley's record in Maryland was as close to stellar as you will ever find, massive reductions in police brutality given reforms he signed into law, college tuition was going down, and the quality of life in Maryland is one of the best in the country. That was not enough to win the Presidency however. The next President will almost certainly come from the Senate.

This is why I am expecting it will be a dead heat between Senators Harris and Warren. they are extremely similar candidates, Harris is to the left of Warren according to GovTrack data, and Warren is still a very progressive politician. Harris already has donations from every state in America to her campaign and will win the Presidency if she is nominated.

Going Forward

With two outstanding progressive candidates with two of the best records you will ever find, the big question now is how do we get candidates down ballot in every race in the country and ensure our election system is fair.

The most important reform right now which is needed is ranked voting for as many races as we can possibly get. America cannot afford another spoiler effect. We deserve a political system which fulfills the three goals of politicians working together to solve problems, a civil body politic, and rewards candidates for being true to what they say. Ranked voting does both of these, by punishing candidates who simply bombast another candidate with no merit so they don't get the second choice votes from other candidates, and ensuring there will likely be a likely challenger from all sides for moderate candidates. Single Transferable Vote also fixes gerrymandering as long as you have at least 3 candidates per district, while also not giving the power to the hands of unelected party elites. Some will argue that it fails the participation criteria, which is true, but given the choice between the mutual majority criterion (the candidate who wins must win a majority of the vote) and the participation criterion, I believe the mutual majority criterion is more important, particularly after living through the Presidencies of both Bush and Trump.

This year and In 2020 we are going to have legislative races in every state, local races all across America, and that is where great leaders are born. the current status of partisan trends is as follows (from Ballotpedia):

• Democratic Trifectas (14)  - Hawaii, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Illinois, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine
• Republican Trifectas (24) - Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida
• Democratic Governor, Republican Legislature (8) - Montana, Kansas, Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia,North Carolina, Louisiana,
• Republican Governor, Democratic Legislature (4) - Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maryland,

We finally have fewer than half of the states in the United States under a Republican Trifecta, however 27 million more Americans live in states with and  Republican Trifecta than a Democratic Trifecta.

Due to the fact that states range in population so much, despite Republicans holding 27 governorships in the country, Democrats have won more votes for governor over the last election for every state, according to the data I have collected from Wikipedia. Unsurprisingly, Democrats wasted almost 3 million votes in California in the last election, as well as 1.2 million in New York. The only state where Republicans wasted over a million votes was unsurprisingly in Texas. However, when you add it all up Democrats have received more votes despite not controlling a majority of governorships.

The closest governor's race which went to the Republicans in the last elections with margins of less than 2% of the vote were in Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, Iowa, and South Dakota. We are going to have to wait until at least 2022 to get back Florida, and Georgia which are the two states which really matter. The way to do this is to fight election fraud in the courts by using the justice department to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  This will only happen if we win the Presidency in 2020 which will likely happen. We are unfortunately too late to do this in time for the redistricting after the 2020 census, so these legislatures are lost until 2030. Oh well, #Jillnothill.

2020 is not going to be a really big year for picking up seats in state legislatures unfortunately, but 2022 is going to be the year where we are going to have a gigantic slate of new progressives running in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Minnesota, potentially turning them into Democratic  Trifectas. If we get the Presidency in 2020, than we can use the justice department immediately to go after gerrymandering in Ohio, and Florida which will make competitive state legislatures in both of those states. We need to go after gerrymandering of the Congressional Districts at the same time. The big issue here is that there are going to be a whole bunch of judges who were appointed by Trump in the district and appellate courts who will likely stop any effort to overturn illegal gerrymandering in a partisan manner. Oh well, #Jillnothill. We are going to need to get the Presidency for a full 8 years in order to be have any chance at all to replace one conservative justice on SCOTUS. Our only possible way out is if it turns out that Donald Trump's Presidency is unconstitutional (which it probably is) then every decision he has made is also unconstitutional, and we might be able to make all of his decisions null and void under the constitution. This has never been tested before because we have never had a situation like this before in American history. If that is the case than the appointments of both Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh are unconstitutional, and their place on the court is null and void. This would give the winner in 2020 two SCOTUS appointments from day 1 and also the ability to appoint successors in their place. This is probably the easiest way out of our current constitutional predicament given how yuong Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are. The other option is to increase the court size by 2 which would effectively nullify their appointments. We then just have to make sure United Russia does not take back the Presidency any time in the near future so we can keep them on the court for a while. We could do this in 2021 assuming we take the Senate as well.

Speaking of the Senate, that was beyond a mess. Democrats pulled 59.3% of the vote and lost two seats. Losing North Dakota was a bummer, but even more disappointing was losing Florida by 0.2% of the vote (10,000 votes), especially considering the voter discrimination going on there. Indiana was another particularly close election. We need to fight voter discrimination as much as possible.

In next year's Senate elections Democrats have two good pickup opportunities, in Maine and Colorado. Alabama will probably be lost which will put the Republicans at 52 seats and Democrat sat 46. In 2022 we will have opportunities in Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida. The earliest probable date for a Trifecta at the moment given the losses last year is going to be 3 January 2023. This is less than ideal, but the best realistic shot we have.

In order to win, Democrats need to run in every race in the United States, adopt proportional representation as part of the national party platform, and continue to stand for the principles of justice, science, and progress. Democratic Candidates in every race need to be well supported and we need good principled people running everywhere to accurately represent their communities and make a better country. It can only start at the local level by getting fantastic people into state legislatures. Occasionally an incredible candidate like Representative Ocasio-Cortez will come out of the woodwork to the national spotlight in no time, but this isn't true the vast majority of the time. President Obama spent 10 years in the Illinois State Legislature before being elected Senator in 2004, which is a much more normal progression. The Congressional Research Service has excellent statistics here. Presidencies are won in legislative districts. If the Democratic Party does this well, it will control government for decades to come given how out of touch the Republican Party is today with American values. We need to move the Overton Window to be more focused on justice and equality.

Summary

• We have about as progressive a slate of candidates as possible for 2020.
• Democrats need to hold together as a voting bloc in 2020.
• After gaining the Presidency the new President needs to push as hard as possible to fight voter disenfranchisement across America.
• Democrats need to take control of the Senate after the 2022 elections.
• The Democratic Party needs to support candidates in every legislative district in the country and fight for control at every level.

Free transit for King County now!

Sawant calls for free transit during Viadoom — could it work?

We all know that once people get used to not paying $104 a month for a monthly pass and then more for peak hours that it will be very difficult to make it extremely expensive again. On top of that, the easiest way to increase transit usage is to make transit free so people who might not necessarily use it every day will be more inclined to use it a few times a month. Multiply that by 2 million people for just King County and that is not an insignificant amount of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide etc. being blasted into the air we breathe. It will encourage people who visit the metro area from outside to park at the closest transit stop, or take the train to Seattle because they won't have to pay a minimum of $5 per day per person to go to Seattle, assuming no transfers. That amount adds up and can quickly become more expensive than parking. This is a common sense reform which will make our state more livable.

Design a Carbon Tax Now! Or, how to make a more efficient legislature to solve our problems.

Abstract

Thoughts on how to design a more effective legislature to solve important issues like global warming by using ranked voting.

Introduction

It is now 2019. We are about to start the legislative session with the largest Democratic Majority in Washington State for 70 years, and if we are ever going to get progress done in our state, now is the time.

This means we need to do it right, there are multiple issues plagueing our state. The 5 which most concern me are:

1. The lack of any policy to reduce carbon emissions
2. First Past The Post Voting
3. Insufficient transit in the Seattle Metro Area
4. Underfunded schools at every level.
5. The most regressive tax structure in the United States of America.
6. Police brutality in Washington is in the 13th highest in the nation

Now, when the legislature convenes on 14 January we are going to need to get a lot of progress done. The budget is going to be on the minds of every legislator, and it is going to effect everyone in our state, every agency, and every issue. We are going to need to make big decisions in the next thirty days which are going to have immense consequences for everyone in our state.

One issue which stymies progress is literally everyone has their own agenda and what they believe should be done first. Historically this has a history of people blocking other proposals which are related to theirs because they are not identical in some way.

This is immature, destructive, and hurts everyone in our state. We need a better politics to solve problems effectively and efficiently. My education makes me believe that ranked voting has one answer. A fairly strong speaker of the house is another answer, though not as preferable.

Now, in the most ideal world where everyone was working for the greater good, this wouldn't be an issue. But, news flash, we don't live in a world remotely similar to that world. Shocker, right?

Ranked voting to design bills

A way to do this would be to have legislators propose general topics, and have them consolidated into one list by the leadership of the legislature and the next day have every legislator from each house would vote on the issues by importance using ranked voting. The votes would be tallied within minutes and then would go down the list from the most important to least important in terms of how bills would be proposed to the chamber. The obvious advantage to this is every legislator has a say in the priorities, and have literally no incentive to block legislation because it isn't their pet project first. There would be some granularity to this, so a carbon tax would be separate from a potential income or capital gains tax, etc. which would give the first issue priority. The budget would not be on the list because it is going to be negotiated regardless and the content is already proposed by the governor. I wouldn't touch that process because the state budgets are so sweeping. From that point the bills from each house of the legislature would be proposed in the order which every member already had a say in, meaning it will be fairly democratic. They have an incentive to get them through the first step quickly, because that lets them get onto other proposals. At that point they will all go through the normal committee/public hearing process which already exists.

But then there is another issue which is that the bills proposed will be presented by both houses and you could end up with major issues between the two issues. This slows the process down and is inefficient at providing real solutions. A way to solve this from the beginning so we don't end up with 3 or more bills doing similar things in contradictory ways is that every member of the legislature votes on issues and which pieces to include in the bills as one body in the first week using ranked voting. The votes of every Senator could be worth twice the votes of every Representatives to keep it proportional (in the case of how the Washington State Legislature is structured, since there are twice as many representatives as senators) and they would vote together on how to construct the proposals from the beginning. This gives every bill the highest likelihood of success, guaranteeing every piece of the bill has majority support before it is even compiled.

In the case of a carbon tax, there are several pieces to it:

1. How much will the tax start at?
2. How much and in what way will the tax change over time? (linear vs. exponential vs. flat)
3. Who/what is exempted from the bill?
4. Where does the money go?

Every other tax will work in a somewhat similar way, an income tax would look like so:

1. How much will the tax be? Will it be done by brackets or a smooth function? How much will different income levels pay?
2. What will be exempt?
3. Will the tax change over time?
4. Where does the money go?

An expenditure bill would work like so:

1. How much money is the legislature willing to spend on this project?
2. How should the money be distributed?

This would solve the issues I have seen above, and probably make for a more efficient legislative session with less infighting, because everyone has already had a say on the year's most important pieces of legislation before it is even written. Once the vote is done it would take only a couple days for a few professionals to write the bill out the way the legislators wanted. At that point, it should be fairly easy to get good legislation done quickly, solving the problems which plague our state.

The advantage to this method over a strong speaker is the power is spread evenly between every member of the legislature. This gives as close to a guarantee as I can figure out that they have majority approval before they even go to committee, without free riders which the majority of legislators and citizens oppose. If a legislator was obstinate about not getting exactly what they want on a regular basis they can always be censured by the legislature, for acting on bad faith, and could potentially cost them their seat in the next election. This would be made even easier by having ranked voting for all elections in our state.

1. Legislators propose topics for legislation
2. Legislators choose which topics are the most important
3. Legislators vote on which specific proposals should be enacted for each topic. Proposals will be done with ranked voting. Complimentary proposals would both be included if they have majority support.
4. Bills are presented to the legislature, use our existing process, guaranteeing every section has majority support.

Ranked Voting for Elections

Ranked voting will make a better politic for our state (and eventually country) because we will no longer have a two party system given time. More liberal Democrats will split from more centrist Democrats, and the Fascist Tea Party will split from Eisenhower Republicans. This will mean that members of one party who do not accurately represent their constituents will have a real challenger in the general election. This will give a more accurate representation of what people in our state want to have happen. This will benefit everybody. The top two system is better than party primaries, but still does not guarantee an accurate representation the way single transferable vote does.

Conclusion

By using ranked voting for both designing policies and electing our elected officials we should be more able to solve the problems plaguing our state, our country and our world. It should eliminate waste, corruption, and encourage legislators to focus on solving the very real problems facing our world.