truthout--2020-10-30--Oregon Universal Pre-K Ballot Measure Could Be Watershed Moment in US Education

Thanks to the efforts of a committed coalition of local organizers , unions and educators , residents of Oregon ’ s Multnomah County will soon vote on Measure 26-214 , which , if passed , will create a tuition-free , year-round , full-day universal preschool system .
Its schools will be open to all 3- and 4-year-olds in the county , which comprises Portland and surrounding areas .
The program will be funded through a progressive income tax on high earners , and will pay preschool teachers and assistants a living wage , significantly above the local minimum .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exemplary progress for early childhood education in the United States , as circumscribed access and systemic underfunding have ensured that , for U.S. preschools , success has been scattered and failures widespread .
Despite the unusual popularity of early education programs across partisan lines , the United States rates dismally low on international rankings of preschool enrollment , funding and quality .
The inadequacy of care and education provided to our very young is not only an issue of better educating the populace — it is also an issue of inequality , feminism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ To start with , any program that doesn ’ t remedy the unconscionably low wages of pre-K teachers ( who are 98 percent women , disproportionately women of color ) will undermine itself as a result .
But a well-funded , high quality , tuition-free preschool program would lift some of the burden of extraordinarily expensive child care from the parents of 3- and 4-year-olds ; strengthen socio-emotional development in children , improving mental health ; and provide better nutrition , among other interrelated knock-on effects .
Such interventions are essential to addressing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which begins in infancy ; like a wound in a tree trunk , the gap in academic outcomes widens with time as children grow and move through underfunded , de facto segregated schools .
Vast amounts of research have corroborated the importance of pre-kindergarten education .
Both targeted ( means tested ) and universal programs can lessen achievement disparities and substantially increase student academic readiness .
We have every reason to expand pre-K , from baseline morality to sheer self-interest .
The National Institutes of Health estimates a lifetime return between $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spent on a child ’ s early education .
High quality preschool is a net good — but making it open to all , not just low-income students , confers even greater benefits .
Universality , as a recent Dartmouth study found , significantly increases academic performance compared to programs with income-restricted admissions .
Advocates of means testing charge that preschool programs should chiefly be made available to low-income families — but in practice , universal schools ’ greater racial and economic diversity disproportionately benefit poor students .
Means-tested programs , meanwhile , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ significant barriers to entry in the form of complex and burdensome income proof requirements , requiring administrative resources to establish eligibility .
For these and other reasons , despite the greater expense of enrolling more students , universal programs are also the most cost-effective .
They advance school integration , increase social cohesion and substantiate the notion that education is a human right .
Crucially , universal access is grounded in the belief that public institutions are part of the commons , vested by all members of a community — a moral philosophy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
High quality universal pre-K , as with more equitable education in general , is not a panacea , nor is it a replacement for broader redistributive policies .
It will not be sufficient to achieve socio-economic justice — but it will be necessary .
During the 2019 Democratic primaries , Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan that outstripped all others in scope .
Sanders called for both free universal child care and free universal public preschool , funded by taxes on wealth , high incomes and corporate profits .
Joe Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the time , but since obtaining the Democratic nomination ( and perhaps taking a cue from Sanders ) , it has released a child care and universal preschool plan , funded by rescinding “ tax breaks for real estate investors ” and “ taking steps to increase tax compliance for high-income earners.
” The plan is lacking in further detail ; its viability and Biden ’ s level of commitment to making good on it remain to be seen .
For now , a tattered patchwork of federal , state , local @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United States .
They vary wildly in quality , access and enrollment levels .
Best known is the federal means-tested Head Start program , a relic of Lyndon B. Johnson ’ s “ War on Poverty.
” Despite being in place for over 50 years , it enrolls only 4 in 10 of all eligible low-income preschool-age children ; in toto , only 10 percent of all 4-year-olds and 8 percent of all 3-year-olds .
Its funding is deeply inadequate — one-third of its estimated needs — and its outcomes are accordingly sporadic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ low .
Progress at the state level is not much better : The National Institute for Early Education Research “ calculates that at the current rate of growth in state-funded pre-K , it would take 150 years to reach 75 percent enrollment.
” Only two state-funded programs are fully universal ( by the strictest definition ) : Florida and Vermont .
( Washington , D.C. also has a hearteningly successful full-universal program , paid for in part by Head Start funds , though that funding is threatened . )
Several other states are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the rest have some level of targeted state program , though six states ( Idaho , Montana , Wyoming , South Dakota , North Dakota and New Hampshire ) have no state funded pre-K at all .
Florida ’ s universal pre-K program is near the very top in enrollment , but sadly , it ’ s more than anything a cautionary tale of the consequences of woeful underfunding .
Universality alone is not enough to guarantee successful outcomes .
According to the Tampa Bay Times , “ When Florida created universal pre-K @ @ @ @ @ @ @ $ 2,500 per child .
This year , the state gave schools $ 2,437 ” — not adjusted for inflation .
Results have predictably suffered .
Some critics , and plenty of free market ideologues , have seized upon similar negative outcomes and the “ fade out ” of academic gains found in evaluations of Head Start and in a Vanderbilt study of Tennessee ’ s foundering program as evidence that pre-K is irredeemably flawed .
But , the Learning Policy Institute demonstrated , these findings are attributable to “ ( a ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in later grades ; and ( b ) the quality of the preschool programs in question.
” In the case of Tennessee , the “ fade out ” effect measured as children in the study moved through the school system may also have been due in part to the low quality of the kindergartens and grade schools they later attended .
Still , as noted , Head Start is desperately underfunded , and the Tennessee program was focused on rote learning — one of the least effective pedagogical methods , especially for young @ @ @ @ @ @ @ developmentally appropriate only alienates students and gives them an early distaste for school .
But such shortcomings aren ’ t a sign that further austerity and funding pulls are warranted .
Just the opposite , in fact .
Repeatedly , we see this sleight-of-hand : hobble public social programs , then use the resulting underperformance as evidence that the programs don ’ t work .
The idiom “ throwing the baby out with the bathwater ” comes to mind .
Misinformed or bad faith readings of these studies by opponents of broad social @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for further austerity .
Where state and federal governments have failed , some major cities have taken the lead .
One of the best local government programs has been implemented in New York City .
Universal preschool was a keystone promise of Mayor Bill de Blasio ’ s 2013 campaign ; to his credit , there has been great progress toward fulfilling it .
New York City now enrolls more students in pre-K than ever before : in 2019 , about 70,000 across the five boroughs .
It ’ s open to both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which are limited to 4-year-olds .
As of 2018 , 94 percent of the city ’ s pre-K programs were found to be performing at a level predictive of later academic achievement , up from 77 percent in 2015 .
And , again to his credit , de Blasio has explicitly insisted that the program be universal , not means tested .
Yet , New York City ’ s program did fail to live up to its original promise in one crucial respect : its funding source .
During his campaign , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ program was to be funded by a tax on incomes above half a million dollars .
But that redistributive aspect was lost , largely thanks to New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo , who came out in favor of pre-K , but not the progressive income tax .
Cuomo instead “ promised to include money for it in the state budget.
” A deal was reached that earmarked $ 300 million for pre-K — at the price of enormous concessions to charter schools , that quintessential symbol of privatization , inimical to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ school .
A better approach is possible .
We can have high quality universal preschool with fair teacher pay .
The research supports it .
The public wants it .
Taxes on the rich could fund it .
One local program is poised to actually realize this potential .
If passed by voters in Multnomah County , Oregon , in November , Measure 26-214 will establish a marginal income tax with two tiers : 1.5 percent on individual taxable income ( after deductions ) over $ 125,000 and household income over $ 200,000 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over $ 250,000 and household income over $ 400,000 .
Both rates will increase by 0.8 percent in 2026 .
All proceeds will go toward funding a fully inclusive , state-of-the-art preschool program .
The tax will help counter out-of-control wealth inequality — which is quite severe in the county , as elsewhere in the U.S. — by inching just a bit closer to the kind of high top-bracket income tax rates that were the norm until the Reagan era .
Area voters are largely in favor of such steps : a recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 26-214 in the lead .
Professor of Economics Emerita at Portland State University Mary King has helped develop the measure ’ s policies and worked on coalition outreach .
“ A progressive income tax is the best way to counter soaring economic inequality , created in large part by federal policies .
Responsibility for taxes has been pushed down the spectrum of the income distribution for the past 40 years , while at the same time , every policy that strengthens the income floor has been weakened , ” King says .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quality , universal free public preschool on a schedule that lets parents work .
It ’ s a proven two-generation anti-poverty strategy that also shrinks racial educational disparities while bringing the whole community together.
” Such a groundbreaking measure did not spring into being fully formed .
It has its basis in an existing initiative called Preschool for All that had long been planned by Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson .
Backed by nonprofits like United Way and Social Venture Partners , a “ venture philanthropy ” organization , Preschool for All @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The original Preschool for All report , released in July 2019 , called for a program open to a third to half of the kids in the county who were not already eligible for Head Start , Oregon Pre-K or Preschool Promise ( all of which are also means tested ) .
It would have been free only to families with incomes below the Oregon Self-Sufficiency Standard , with tuition charged on a sliding scale for higher-income families .
The original teacher wage floor in the Preschool for All proposal was only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ above the local minimum wage .
Importantly , the Preschool for All proposal didn ’ t identify any funding source .
Unions , community groups and the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America ( DSA ) * had already allied to advocate for universal preschool with a campaign called Universal Preschool Now !
2020 ( UP NOW ) , which emerged from efforts to halt the closure of affordable day care and community centers .
Initially , after learning of the competing campaign , UP NOW organizers , including King , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an attempt to increase program wages and access , and push for funding via progressive income tax .
But negotiations stalled — so , working with volunteer attorneys , they drafted their own more radical proposal , incorporating a tax funding mechanism developed by King and DSA organizer John Bethencourt .
Around Universal Preschool Now !
gathered a coalition of local advocates and organizers that included teachers , child care workers and parents , along with elements of the Portland Association of Teachers , the International Longshore and Warehouse Union , Portland @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Council on American-Islamic Relations ( CAIR-Oregon ) and numerous other unions , community organizations and Indigenous advocacy groups .
The more sweeping ambitions of the final iteration of Measure 26-214 are a product of this force , with which the earlier Preschool for All proponents were often at odds .
UP NOW organizers faced significant hurdles in getting their universal program on the ballot .
In Multnomah County , those who wish to put forth a measure must collect 22,000 signatures to qualify .
Almost immediately , UP NOW earned the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PBA ) , a powerful local trade group .
Desperate to ward off any tax increases , individuals associated with the PBA mounted two court challenges that were transparently intended to kneecap the campaign by running out the clock on the six months they had to collect signatures .
One laughably frivolous challenge took issue with the ballot language .
The filers charged that it was “ unfair ” and “ inaccurate ” to call the measure “ universal.
” As the court summarized it , their claim was that the term was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ included only to make the measure “ more electorally appealing.
” The court disagreed .
The challenges were largely defeated , but at the cost of organizers ’ precious time and funds .
Left with only five weeks to collect the necessary signatures for the November ballot , and in the middle of the pandemic , UP NOW mobilized hundreds of volunteers ( many of them parents and preschool teachers themselves ) , and gathered 32,356 signatures .
“ We were completely blindsided by the way our support snowballed as the signature drive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enthusiastic — sometimes you would ask for a signature and get a new volunteer instead .
It was just a handful of us petitioning at the beginning of June , and five weeks later , over 600 people had turned in signatures , ” said Bethencourt , the DSA organizer who has been a driving force behind the UP NOW campaign .
The sheer rapidity and quantity of the signature collection attests to the popularity of the concept and the energy of some extraordinarily passionate and motivated activists , veteran organizers and parent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were submitted , the PBA , through their law firm , threatened yet another legal challenge , claiming that the number of signatures collected was impossibly high . )
The startling success of UP NOW meant that Preschool for All was forced to respond to its pressure from the left .
UP NOW ’ s qualification resulted in an unusual situation : two competing preschool measures were now on the ballot .
Neither campaign wanted to split votes and confuse voters , so through some bureaucratic maneuvering , the UP NOW measure was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ then negotiated a combined plan : the remaining ballot measure , 26-214 , would proceed under the banner and leadership of Preschool for All , but it would now incorporate most of the more radical demands of UP NOW .
During initial rollout , the program will still be restricted to low-income families .
But the grassroots leverage applied by UP NOW is responsible for ensuring that access will be fully universal by fall 2030 , and for establishing the funding via progressive income tax that makes the measure a true exercise in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raised substantially , set at 135 percent of the local minimum .
Lead pre-K teachers will be paid at a rate comparable to kindergarten teachers in the region , and the wage floor will also apply to assistants , which is unique — other universal programs have only set wage floors for lead teachers .
There are additional facets of the final measure that make it particularly robust .
Critically , it upholds the right of teachers to unionize .
Measure 26-214 also prohibits suspensions and expulsions , which can often be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and care will be available in a wide variety of settings : parents can select classes and schools tailored to different teaching styles , languages and cultural environments , and times of day .
All programs will adhere to Oregon ’ s Early Learning and Kindergarten Guidelines , which “ focus on developing the whole child by addressing social-emotional skills , approaches to learning , early literacy , vocabulary , early math skills , and physical/motor development , in a playful and developmentally appropriate way ” — in contrast to stultifying or high-pressure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
All these stipulations were carefully designed to sidestep the pitfalls that have compromised other preschool programs .
For now , because of the strident demands of socialists and activists , Measure 26-214 is the only proposal in the country that reaches this far in its ambitions .
It could make Multnomah County a microcosm of what U.S. education might look like if we committed to the kind of civic endeavors that deliver outsize benefits to society at large , and to disadvantaged and working-class people in particular .
Implementing a genuinely egalitarian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be an enormous challenge — but Multnomah preschools could serve as a paradigmatic example , as they will strive for the ideals of true universality , high-quality curricula , socio-economic justice and fair teacher pay .
At the very least , the passage of this measure would improve the circumstances of thousands of children and families in Oregon .
Let ’ s hope that it comes to stand as an exemplar of the promise of radical equality inherent in universal preschool .
*Disclosure : The author of this piece is a member of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of America .

Thanks to the efforts of a committed coalition of local organizers, unions and educators, residents of Oregon’s Multnomah County have passed a ballot initiative known as Measure 26-214, by a substantial margin. As a result, the county will now begin the process of creating a tuition-free, year-round, full-day universal preschool program. By the time the system is fully rolled out, schools will be open to all 3- and 4-year-olds in the county, which comprises Portland and surrounding areas. The program will be funded through a progressive income tax on high earners, and will pay preschool teachers and assistants a living wage, significantly above the local minimum.
The passage of this measure symbolizes truly exemplary progress for early childhood education in the United States, as circumscribed access and systemic underfunding have ensured that, for U.S. preschools, success has been scattered and failures widespread.
Universal Is Best
Despite the unusual popularity of early education programs across partisan lines, the United States rates dismally low on international rankings of preschool enrollment, funding and quality. The inadequacy of care and education provided to our very young is not only an issue of better educating the populace — it is also an issue of inequality, feminism, and racial and economic justice. To start with, any program that doesn’t remedy the unconscionably low wages of pre-K teachers (who are 98 percent women, disproportionately women of color) will undermine itself as a result.
But well-funded, high quality, tuition-free universal preschool programs can lift some of the burden of extraordinarily expensive child care from the parents of 3- and 4-year-olds; strengthen socio-emotional development in children, improving mental health; and provide better nutrition, among other interrelated knock-on effects. Such interventions are essential to addressing educational inequality between rich and poor children, which begins in infancy; like a wound in a tree trunk, the gap in academic outcomes widens with time as children grow and move through underfunded, de facto segregated schools.
Vast amounts of research have corroborated the importance of pre-kindergarten education. Both targeted (means tested) and universal programs can lessen achievement disparities and substantially increase student academic readiness. We have every reason to expand pre-K, from baseline morality to sheer self-interest. The National Institutes of Health estimates a lifetime return between $4 and $11 for every dollar spent on a child’s early education. High quality preschool is a net good — but making it open to all, not just low-income students, confers even greater benefits.
Universality, as a recent Dartmouth study found, significantly increases academic performance compared to programs with income-restricted admissions. Advocates of means testing charge that preschool programs should chiefly be made available to low-income families — but in practice, universal schools’ greater racial and economic diversity disproportionately benefit poor students. Means-tested programs, meanwhile, preclude more diverse classrooms and put up significant barriers to entry in the form of complex and burdensome income proof requirements, requiring administrative resources to establish eligibility.
For these and other reasons, despite the greater expense of enrolling more students, universal programs are also the most cost-effective. They advance school integration, increase social cohesion and substantiate the notion that education is a human right. Crucially, universal access is grounded in the belief that public institutions are part of the commons, vested by all members of a community — a moral philosophy under grave threat in our neoliberal era. High quality universal pre-K, as with more equitable education in general, is not a panacea, nor is it a replacement for broader redistributive policies. It will not be sufficient to achieve socio-economic justice — but it will be necessary.
High quality preschool is a net good — but making it open to all, not just low-income students, confers even greater benefits.
During the 2019 Democratic primaries, Bernie Sanders unveiled a plan that outstripped all others in scope. Sanders called for both free universal child care and free universal public preschool, funded by taxes on wealth, high incomes and corporate profits. Joe Biden’s campaign was slow to address the issue at the time, but since obtaining the Democratic nomination (and perhaps taking a cue from Sanders), it has released a child care and universal preschool plan, funded by rescinding “tax breaks for real estate investors” and “taking steps to increase tax compliance for high-income earners.” The plan is lacking in further detail; its viability and Biden’s level of commitment to making good on it remain to be seen.
A Neglected Public Good
For now, a tattered patchwork of federal, state, local and private preschool programs exists across the United States. They vary wildly in quality, access and enrollment levels. Best known is the federal means-tested Head Start program, a relic of Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty.” Despite being in place for over 50 years, it enrolls only 4 in 10 of all eligible low-income preschool-age children; in toto, only 10 percent of all 4-year-olds and 8 percent of all 3-year-olds. Its funding is deeply inadequate — one-third of its estimated needs — and its outcomes are accordingly sporadic and unequal. Teacher pay is abysmally low.
Progress at the state level is not much better: The National Institute for Early Education Research “calculates that at the current rate of growth in state-funded pre-K, it would take 150 years to reach 75 percent enrollment.” Only two state-funded programs are fully universal (by the strictest definition): Florida and Vermont. (Washington, D.C. , also has a hearteningly successful full-universal program, paid for in part by Head Start funds, though that funding is threatened.) Several other states are universal to varying degrees. Most of the rest have some level of targeted state program, though six states (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota and New Hampshire) have no state funded pre-K at all.
Florida’s universal pre-K program is near the very top in enrollment, but sadly, it’s more than anything a cautionary tale of the consequences of woeful underfunding. Universality alone is not enough to guarantee successful outcomes. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “When Florida created universal pre-K in 2002, the state gave schools $2,500 per child. This year, the state gave schools $2,437” — not adjusted for inflation. Results have predictably suffered. Some critics, and plenty of free market ideologues, have seized upon similar negative outcomes and the “fade out” of academic gains found in evaluations of Head Start and in a Vanderbilt study of Tennessee’s foundering program as evidence that pre-K is irredeemably flawed. But, the Learning Policy Institute demonstrated, these findings are attributable to “(a) the study design and comparison group composition in later grades; and (b) the quality of the preschool programs in question.” In the case of Tennessee, the “fade out” effect measured as children in the study moved through the school system may also have been due in part to the low quality of the kindergartens and grade schools they later attended.
Universal programs are the most cost-effective, advance school integration, increase social cohesion and substantiate the notion that education is a human right.
Still, as noted, Head Start is desperately underfunded, and the Tennessee program was focused on rote learning — one of the least effective pedagogical methods, especially for young children. Preschool that isn’t developmentally appropriate only alienates students and gives them an early distaste for school. But such shortcomings aren’t a sign that further austerity and funding pulls are warranted. Just the opposite, in fact. Repeatedly, we see this sleight-of-hand: hobble public social programs, then use the resulting underperformance as evidence that the programs don’t work. The idiom “throwing the baby out with the bathwater” comes to mind. Misinformed or bad faith readings of these studies by opponents of broad social programs serve only to bolster ideological justifications for further austerity.
Where state and federal governments have failed, some major cities have taken the lead. One of the best local government programs has been implemented in New York City. Universal preschool was a keystone promise of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s 2013 campaign; to his credit, there has been great progress toward fulfilling it. New York City now enrolls more students in pre-K than ever before: in 2019, about 70,000 across the five boroughs. It’s open to both 3- and 4-year-olds, unlike many programs, which are limited to 4-year-olds. As of 2018, 94 percent of the city’s pre-K programs were found to be performing at a level predictive of later academic achievement, up from 77 percent in 2015. And, again to his credit, de Blasio has explicitly insisted that the program be universal, not means tested.
Yet, New York City’s program did fail to live up to its original promise in one crucial respect: its funding source. During his campaign, de Blasio had repeatedly asserted that the program was to be funded by a tax on incomes above half a million dollars. But that redistributive aspect was lost, largely thanks to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who came out in favor of pre-K, but not the progressive income tax. Cuomo instead “promised to include money for it in the state budget.” A deal was reached that earmarked $300 million for pre-K — at the price of enormous concessions to charter schools, that quintessential symbol of privatization, inimical to the public education commons from preschool through high school.
A better approach is possible. We can have high quality universal preschool with fair teacher pay. The research supports it. The public wants it. Taxes on the rich could fund it. Now that Measure 26-214 has passed, Multnomah County, Oregon, is poised to actually realize this potential.
In Oregon, a Shot at Real Change
Measure 26-214 will establish a marginal income tax with two tiers: 1.5 percent on individual taxable income (after deductions) over $125,000 and household income over $200,000, and 3 percent on individual income over $250,000 and household income over $400,000. Both rates will increase by 0.8 percent in 2026. All proceeds will go toward funding a fully inclusive, state-of-the-art preschool program. The tax will help counter out-of-control wealth inequality — which is quite severe in the county, as elsewhere in the U.S. — by inching just a bit closer to the kind of high top-bracket income tax rates that were the norm until the Reagan era. Area voters proved to be overwhelmingly in favor of such steps: 64.4 percent marked “Yes” on Measure 26-214 on their ballots, with only 35.54 percent voting against.
Individuals associated with the Portland Business Alliance mounted two court challenges that were transparently intended to kneecap the campaign by running out the clock to collect signatures.
Professor of Economics Emerita at Portland State University Mary King has helped develop the measure’s policies and worked on coalition outreach. “A progressive income tax is the best way to counter soaring economic inequality, created in large part by federal policies. Responsibility for taxes has been pushed down the spectrum of the income distribution for the past 40 years, while at the same time, every policy that strengthens the income floor has been weakened,” King says. “We can counter this by providing high quality, universal free public preschool on a schedule that lets parents work. It’s a proven two-generation anti-poverty strategy that also shrinks racial educational disparities while bringing the whole community together.”
Such a groundbreaking measure did not spring into being fully formed. It has its basis in an existing initiative called Preschool for All that had long been planned by Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson. Backed by nonprofits like United Way and Social Venture Partners, a “venture philanthropy” organization, Preschool for All initially proffered a less ambitious income-targeted approach. The original Preschool for All report, released in July 2019, called for a program open to a third to half of the kids in the county who were not already eligible for Head Start, Oregon Pre-K or Preschool Promise (all of which are also means tested). It would have been free only to families with incomes below the Oregon Self-Sufficiency Standard, with tuition charged on a sliding scale for higher-income families. The original teacher wage floor in the Preschool for All proposal was only $15 an hour, 25 cents above the local minimum wage. Importantly, the Preschool for All proposal didn’t identify any funding source.
Unions, community groups and the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)* had already allied to advocate for universal preschool with a campaign called Universal Preschool Now! 2020 (UP NOW), which emerged from efforts to halt the closure of affordable day care and community centers. Initially, after learning of the competing campaign, UP NOW organizers, including King, entered talks with Preschool for All organizers in an attempt to increase program wages and access, and push for funding via progressive income tax. But negotiations stalled — so, working with volunteer attorneys, they drafted their own more radical proposal, incorporating a tax funding mechanism developed by King and DSA organizer John Bethencourt.
Around Universal Preschool Now! gathered a coalition of local advocates and organizers that included teachers, child care workers and parents, along with elements of the Portland Association of Teachers, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Portland Jobs With Justice, the Oregon chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Oregon) and numerous other unions, community organizations and Indigenous advocacy groups. The more sweeping ambitions of the final iteration of Measure 26-214 are a product of this force, with which the earlier Preschool for All proponents were often at odds.
UP NOW organizers faced significant hurdles in getting their universal program on the ballot. In Multnomah County, those who wish to put forth a measure must collect 22,000 signatures to qualify. Almost immediately, UP NOW earned the ire of the Portland Business Alliance (PBA), a powerful local trade group. Desperate to ward off any tax increases, individuals associated with the PBA mounted two court challenges that were transparently intended to kneecap the campaign by running out the clock on the six months they had to collect signatures. One laughably frivolous challenge took issue with the ballot language. The filers charged that it was “unfair” and “inaccurate” to call the measure “universal.” As the court summarized it, their claim was that the term was “politically loaded,” and was included only to make the measure “more electorally appealing.” The court disagreed.
The challenges were largely defeated, but at the cost of organizers’ precious time and funds. Left with only five weeks to collect the necessary signatures for the November ballot, and in the middle of the pandemic, UP NOW mobilized hundreds of volunteers (many of them parents and preschool teachers themselves), and gathered 32,356 signatures.
Measure 26-214 could make Multnomah County a microcosm of what U.S. education might look like if we committed to the kind of civic endeavors that deliver outsize benefits to society at large.
“We were completely blindsided by the way our support snowballed as the signature drive got going. The response was so enthusiastic — sometimes you would ask for a signature and get a new volunteer instead. It was just a handful of us petitioning at the beginning of June, and five weeks later, over 600 people had turned in signatures,” said Bethencourt, the DSA organizer.
Bethencourt was one of the driving forces behind the UP NOW campaign, along with local advocates Emily von W. Gilbert and Sahar Muranovic.
The sheer rapidity and quantity of the signature collection attests to the popularity of the concept and the energy of these and other extraordinarily passionate and motivated activists, veteran organizers and parent volunteers alike. (After the signatures were submitted, the PBA, through their law firm, threatened yet another legal challenge, claiming that the number of signatures collected was impossibly high.)
The startling success of UP NOW meant that Preschool for All was forced to respond to its pressure from the left. UP NOW’s qualification resulted in an unusual situation: two competing preschool measures were now on the ballot. Neither campaign wanted to split votes and confuse voters, so through some bureaucratic maneuvering, the UP NOW measure was passed and repealed. The two camps then negotiated a combined plan: the remaining ballot measure, 26-214, would proceed under the banner and leadership of Preschool for All, but it would now incorporate most of the more radical demands of UP NOW.
During initial rollout, the program will still be restricted to low-income families. But the grassroots leverage applied by UP NOW is responsible for ensuring that access will be fully universal by fall 2030, and for establishing the funding via progressive income tax that makes the measure a true exercise in redistribution. The wage floor was also raised substantially, set at 135 percent of the local minimum. Lead pre-K teachers will be paid at a rate comparable to kindergarten teachers in the region, and the wage floor will also apply to assistants, which is unique — other universal programs have only set wage floors for lead teachers.
There are additional facets of the final measure that make it particularly robust. Critically, it upholds the right of teachers to unionize. Measure 26-214 also prohibits suspensions and expulsions, which can often be a vector for implicit racial bias. Schooling and care will be available in a wide variety of settings: parents can select classes and schools tailored to different teaching styles, languages and cultural environments, and times of day. All programs will adhere to Oregon’s Early Learning and Kindergarten Guidelines, which “focus on developing the whole child by addressing social-emotional skills, approaches to learning, early literacy, vocabulary, early math skills, and physical/motor development, in a playful and developmentally appropriate way” — in contrast to stultifying or high-pressure programs that undermine enthusiasm and thereby achievement.
All these stipulations were carefully designed to sidestep the pitfalls that have compromised other preschool programs. For now, because of the strident demands of socialists and activists, Measure 26-214 is the only proposal in the country that reaches this far in its ambitions. Because of its resounding success at the ballot box, as the program is rolled out, Multnomah County will now serve as a testbed — a microcosm of what U.S. education might look like if we began to commit to the kind of civic endeavors that deliver outsize benefits to society at large, and to disadvantaged and working-class people in particular. Implementing a genuinely egalitarian early education program at national scale would be an enormous challenge, but Multnomah preschools may come to serve as a paradigmatic example, as they will strive for the ideals of true universality, high-quality curricula, socioeconomic justice and fair teacher pay. At the very least, the passage of this measure will improve the circumstances of thousands of children and families in Oregon. It’s a testament to the appeal of and dire need for these kinds of programs that voters so overwhelmingly approved it. And now, Multnomah County will have the chance to stand as an exemplar of the promise of radical equality inherent in universal preschool.
Note: This article has been updated to incorporate the electoral results concerning the ballot measure.
*Disclosure: The author of this piece is a member of the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.


truthout--2020-10-31--Opposition to Pipelines and Fracking Is Actually a Winning Electoral Strategy

Janine Jackson : “ Trump Touts Fracking Policy in Pennsylvania Rally , Says Biden ‘ Will Shut It All Down.
’ ” “ North Dakota Seeks to Repurpose Coronavirus Aid for Fracking.
” “ Fracking Is Trump ’ s Hail Mary Against Biden.
” “ Could Fracking Actually Help the Climate ?
” A quick look at recent news coverage would give you the impression that hydraulic fracturing , or fracking , as a way to extract oil or gas is having some kind of resurgence or reconsideration , such that the idea of banning the process is being deemed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s going on here ?
Is there new information about the process , or the country ’ s energy policy , that would make sense of claims , like one in a Politico column , that “ the deployment of some clean energy technologies could depend , perhaps counterintuitively , on fracking ?
” Joining us now to shed some light on the issue is Mitch Jones , policy director at Food & Water Action and Food & Water Watch .
He joins us by phone from Baltimore .
Welcome to CounterSpin , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you for having me on .
It ’ s great to be with you .
Let ’ s start with some basic information .
Big picture , we shouldn ’ t even be having this conversation .
We know that we have to keep it in the ground , period ; we have to end fossil fuel production .
But what are the particular concerns or dangers involved in fracking ?
There are several concerns and dangers in fracking , both at a localized and at a global level .
So locally , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ amounts of water , which becomes contaminated and unusable — although it is often used , unfortunately , to irrigate crops , or to salt roads in places like Pennsylvania where you have to do that in the winter .
It can contaminate people ’ s drinking water , because of underground movement of the fracking fluid to get into people ’ s aquifers .
There is increasing evidence that there are direct effects , especially for pregnant women living near heavily fracked areas , where there are early births and low birth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Southwest Pennsylvania that seem very clearly to be linked to heavy fracking .
And then , of course , there ’ s the infrastructure that goes with fracking : the pipelines , the compressor stations and everything else that ’ s needed to move the gas from the well into commerce .
And this leads to all sorts of other problems , including land disruption , explosions , leaks of methane .
Which then gets us to the global problem , which of course is that fracking is driving climate change and our @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on contaminated water , but the fracking industry is exempt , isn ’ t it , from the Safe Drinking Water Act ?
Yes , it is .
It has an exemption , which was orchestrated for them in 2005 by Dick Cheney , the former Halliburton CEO , who , of course , was vice president under George W. Bush .
And Halliburton , of course , is a large provider of well services for fracking .
And it was that exclusion — the “ Halliburton loophole , ” is what it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ led to the boom in fracking since 2005 .
Well , you take regulations out of the way… .
The idea that you get from media coverage is that fracking is controversial , but it ’ s been wildly successful .
It ’ s been very , very successful for the industry , for investors , driven a revolution in the US fossil fuel sector , pushed down prices dramatically .
Has fracking been all it ’ s cracked up to be , despite the hazards and harms ?
The short answer is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t .
If you look at the business model of fracking , we keep being told that there ’ s this great… .
Look , fracking has unleashed massive amounts of oil and natural gas production in the US , there ’ s no doubt about that ; we have become the largest producer in the world because of fracking .
But in addition to all of the environmental problems , and the public health issues , the climate issues that we just mentioned , the business model that fracking is built @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We just see collapse after collapse after collapse of businesses in this industry .
It ’ s very much still a boom and bust , and we ’ re currently in a bust period , and the local economies that tie themselves to fracking are going to ride that wave of boom and bust , with people coming in to drill , leaving… .
Fracked wells tend to deplete quickly , so that , you know , you get a lot of gas out of a well in Pennsylvania right away , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even those people who allowed the frackers to come in to frack on their property , because they were counting on that check , those checks dry up right away .
The industry is being propped up by Wall Street , and by debt .
And so we ’ re just seeing this kind of , like I said , Ponzi scheme of this industry , which over-produces , especially on the gas side .
It over-produces its product , which drives down the prices , which means it has to continue to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even .
And natural gas prices haven ’ t been near break-even for years , and , of course , famously , earlier this year , we saw oil futures go negative for the first time ever .
I ’ m not being facetious , I really would like to ask you to explain this “ bridge fuel ” idea that you see all around ; that somehow , fracking isn ’ t ultimately good , it ’ s not ultimately sustainable , but for some reason , we need to use it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ move to renewables .
I ’ m missing something in that analysis .
Yeah , you know , this is an argument that was created by the natural gas industry in order to sell itself as an alternative to coal , and it was very effective for many years : It was adopted by politicians of all stripes , it was pushed by the Obama administration .
When Hillary Clinton was secretary of State , she traveled around the world selling fracking and American natural gas .
Obama talked it up ; it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in order to move from coal to renewables , you needed fracked gas .
But when academics started to look at the actual climate impacts of the two , it became clear that fracked gas — because of the amount of methane , which is a super potent greenhouse gas , it ’ s 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide in a 20-year frame — because of that factor , because of the amount of methane that leaks , from wellhead to distribution , fracked gas isn ’ t actually any cleaner @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bridge fuel ” line , created by the natural gas industry , and fed and then regurgitated by politicians of both parties , wasn ’ t only intended to boost this industry , but it turns out that it was a complete lie .
The fact of the matter is that fracked natural gas was never going to be cleaner than coal , looked at on a life-cycle basis .
And that replacing one with the other wasn ’ t going to be a bridge to renewables , it was going to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ’ s come to be proven by what we ’ re seeing these days with the wildfires , the out-of-control tropical storms , droughts , floods ; all of the impacts that had been predicted to be in the future are happening now .
And fracking really is a key ingredient for why the climate crisis is being brought to us much more quickly than what we were told it was going to be .
Finally , there ’ s a sense that liberals on the coasts have a problem with fracking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ real ” Americans in the “ heartland.
” It sounds as though the communities affected are cottoning on to the harms of fracking and , in fact , it ’ s not as popular as maybe we ’ re being led to believe .
So I wonder if you can just talk about public opinion .
And then there is , in fact , Biden as president can ’ t — from a Monday to a Tuesday — ban fracking , but there is legislation in Congress to ban fracking , isn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So we could see in a lot of these stories , some of the ones that you read the headlines from at the top of the interview , want to convey the pundit-class , professional-media-class idea that in places like Western Pennsylvania , or in Ohio , fracking is beloved by everyone , but the public polling just does not say that this is true .
There was even a poll earlier this week , that showed roughly a 50/50 split in Pennsylvania on fracking .
And that ’ s really consistent with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve seen : Either a small plurality opposes fracking , or a small plurality supports fracking .
And a lot of it , of course , is dependent upon how the question is written , which has always been the case in polling .
But it really shows that voters , and even voters in areas where fracking is taking place , are deeply divided on the issue .
But more than that , when you take a look at actual candidates on the ground , running on the issue of opposing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ come with fracking , we see — in Pennsylvania in particular — candidates being successful .
In 2018 , Summer Lee ran in Allegheny County for the state legislature in Pennsylvania as an anti-fracking candidate , and won .
So that ’ s down by Pittsburgh , for people who aren ’ t familiar with Pennsylvania .
And then in Chester County , on the other side of the state , there was a huge fight against the Mariner East Pipelines , and Danielle Friel Otten managed to actually flip a Republican-held seat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So if you really look , not only at the polling , but at actual votes being passed , in actual campaigns being run on the issue of fracking and pipelines , the candidates who are opposed to fracking and opposed to pipelines are winning .
And you ’ re right that a Biden president , even if he were inclined to do so , couldn ’ t ban fracking everywhere on his first day in office , although he could stop new fracking permits on public lands , and he has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we are counting on him to fulfill that campaign promise .
There are bills in Congress right now that would ban fracking .
Senator Sanders in the Senate and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez , along with Congressman Darren Soto of Florida , introduced earlier this year the Fracking Ban Act ; there are now 21 total co-sponsors on the Fracking Ban Act in the House .
And then just this past September , Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Nanette Barragan of California introduced the Future Generations Protection Act , which would also ban fracking , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gas , and also stop new natural gas–fired power plants .
So those pieces of legislation are in the present Congress ; we fully expect that we will have fracking-ban legislation in the next Congress .
So even if the Biden administration doesn ’ t want to do it on its own , or can ’ t do it on its own , the rest of us can pressure our members of Congress to support a ban on fracking everywhere .
We ’ ve been speaking with Mitch Jones , policy director at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Water Watch .
They ’ re online at FoodAndWaterAction.org and FoodAndWaterWatch.org .
Mitch Jones , thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin .
Thank you , I really enjoyed it .

A view of the Mad Dog 2020 fracking site in West Pike Run, east of Beallsville, Pennsylvania, where some residents of the country's most heavily fracked region have soured on an industry that had promised economic revival, on October 22, 2020. NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP via Getty Images
Janine Jackson: “Trump Touts Fracking Policy in Pennsylvania Rally, Says Biden ‘Will Shut It All Down.’” “North Dakota Seeks to Repurpose Coronavirus Aid for Fracking.” “Fracking Is Trump’s Hail Mary Against Biden.” “Could Fracking Actually Help the Climate?”
A quick look at recent news coverage would give you the impression that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as a way to extract oil or gas is having some kind of resurgence or reconsideration, such that the idea of banning the process is being deemed a hot electoral issue. What’s going on here? Is there new information about the process, or the country’s energy policy, that would make sense of claims, like one in a Politico column, that “the deployment of some clean energy technologies could depend, perhaps counterintuitively, on fracking?”
Joining us now to shed some light on the issue is Mitch Jones, policy director at Food & Water Action and Food & Water Watch. He joins us by phone from Baltimore. Welcome to CounterSpin, Mitch Jones.
Mitch Jones: Thank you for having me on. It’s great to be with you.
Let’s start with some basic information. Big picture, we shouldn’t even be having this conversation. We know that we have to keep it in the ground, period; we have to end fossil fuel production. But what are the particular concerns or dangers involved in fracking?
There are several concerns and dangers in fracking, both at a localized and at a global level. So locally, fracked oil and gas wells require vast amounts of water, which becomes contaminated and unusable — although it is often used, unfortunately, to irrigate crops, or to salt roads in places like Pennsylvania where you have to do that in the winter. It can contaminate people’s drinking water, because of underground movement of the fracking fluid to get into people’s aquifers.
There is increasing evidence that there are direct effects, especially for pregnant women living near heavily fracked areas, where there are early births and low birth weights. There are cancer clusters in Southwest Pennsylvania that seem very clearly to be linked to heavy fracking.
And then, of course, there’s the infrastructure that goes with fracking: the pipelines, the compressor stations and everything else that’s needed to move the gas from the well into commerce. And this leads to all sorts of other problems, including land disruption, explosions, leaks of methane. Which then gets us to the global problem, which of course is that fracking is driving climate change and our increasing climate chaos.
You mentioned early on contaminated water, but the fracking industry is exempt, isn’t it, from the Safe Drinking Water Act?
Yes, it is. It has an exemption, which was orchestrated for them in 2005 by Dick Cheney, the former Halliburton CEO, who, of course, was vice president under George W. Bush. And Halliburton, of course, is a large provider of well services for fracking. And it was that exclusion — the “Halliburton loophole,” is what it’s known as — that really led to the boom in fracking since 2005.
Well, you take regulations out of the way….
The idea that you get from media coverage is that fracking is controversial, but it’s been wildly successful. It’s been very, very successful for the industry, for investors, driven a revolution in the US fossil fuel sector, pushed down prices dramatically. Has fracking been all it’s cracked up to be, despite the hazards and harms?
The short answer is no. No, it really hasn’t. If you look at the business model of fracking, we keep being told that there’s this great…. Look, fracking has unleashed massive amounts of oil and natural gas production in the US, there’s no doubt about that; we have become the largest producer in the world because of fracking.
But in addition to all of the environmental problems, and the public health issues, the climate issues that we just mentioned, the business model that fracking is built upon is essentially almost a Ponzi scheme. We just see collapse after collapse after collapse of businesses in this industry. It’s very much still a boom and bust, and we’re currently in a bust period, and the local economies that tie themselves to fracking are going to ride that wave of boom and bust, with people coming in to drill, leaving….
Fracked wells tend to deplete quickly, so that, you know, you get a lot of gas out of a well in Pennsylvania right away, but then it dissipates quickly. So even those people who allowed the frackers to come in to frack on their property, because they were counting on that check, those checks dry up right away.
The industry is being propped up by Wall Street, and by debt. And so we’re just seeing this kind of, like I said, Ponzi scheme of this industry, which over-produces, especially on the gas side. It over-produces its product, which drives down the prices, which means it has to continue to over-produce in order to try to break even. And natural gas prices haven’t been near break-even for years, and, of course, famously, earlier this year, we saw oil futures go negative for the first time ever.
I’m not being facetious, I really would like to ask you to explain this “bridge fuel” idea that you see all around; that somehow, fracking isn’t ultimately good, it’s not ultimately sustainable, but for some reason, we need to use it in order to get off coal and move to renewables. I’m missing something in that analysis.
Yeah, you know, this is an argument that was created by the natural gas industry in order to sell itself as an alternative to coal, and it was very effective for many years: It was adopted by politicians of all stripes, it was pushed by the Obama administration. When Hillary Clinton was secretary of State, she traveled around the world selling fracking and American natural gas. Obama talked it up; it was a big push to claim that in order to move from coal to renewables, you needed fracked gas.
But when academics started to look at the actual climate impacts of the two, it became clear that fracked gas — because of the amount of methane, which is a super potent greenhouse gas, it’s 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide in a 20-year frame — because of that factor, because of the amount of methane that leaks, from wellhead to distribution, fracked gas isn’t actually any cleaner than coal.
So the whole “bridge fuel” line, created by the natural gas industry, and fed and then regurgitated by politicians of both parties, wasn’t only intended to boost this industry, but it turns out that it was a complete lie. The fact of the matter is that fracked natural gas was never going to be cleaner than coal, looked at on a life-cycle basis. And that replacing one with the other wasn’t going to be a bridge to renewables, it was going to be a bridge to climate chaos.
And that’s come to be proven by what we’re seeing these days with the wildfires, the out-of-control tropical storms, droughts, floods; all of the impacts that had been predicted to be in the future are happening now. And fracking really is a key ingredient for why the climate crisis is being brought to us much more quickly than what we were told it was going to be.
Finally, there’s a sense that liberals on the coasts have a problem with fracking, but it’s popular with “real” Americans in the “heartland.” It sounds as though the communities affected are cottoning on to the harms of fracking and, in fact, it’s not as popular as maybe we’re being led to believe. So I wonder if you can just talk about public opinion.
And then there is, in fact, Biden as president can’t — from a Monday to a Tuesday — ban fracking, but there is legislation in Congress to ban fracking, isn’t there?
There is. So we could see in a lot of these stories, some of the ones that you read the headlines from at the top of the interview, want to convey the pundit-class, professional-media-class idea that in places like Western Pennsylvania, or in Ohio, fracking is beloved by everyone, but the public polling just does not say that this is true.
There was even a poll earlier this week, that showed roughly a 50/50 split in Pennsylvania on fracking. And that’s really consistent with a lot of the polling that we’ve seen: Either a small plurality opposes fracking, or a small plurality supports fracking. And a lot of it, of course, is dependent upon how the question is written, which has always been the case in polling. But it really shows that voters, and even voters in areas where fracking is taking place, are deeply divided on the issue.
But more than that, when you take a look at actual candidates on the ground, running on the issue of opposing fracking, or opposing the pipelines that come with fracking, we see — in Pennsylvania in particular — candidates being successful.
In 2018, Summer Lee ran in Allegheny County for the state legislature in Pennsylvania as an anti-fracking candidate, and won. So that’s down by Pittsburgh, for people who aren’t familiar with Pennsylvania. And then in Chester County, on the other side of the state, there was a huge fight against the Mariner East Pipelines, and Danielle Friel Otten managed to actually flip a Republican-held seat by running in opposition to those pipelines.
So if you really look, not only at the polling, but at actual votes being passed, in actual campaigns being run on the issue of fracking and pipelines, the candidates who are opposed to fracking and opposed to pipelines are winning.
And you’re right that a Biden president, even if he were inclined to do so, couldn’t ban fracking everywhere on his first day in office, although he could stop new fracking permits on public lands, and he has said he will do so, and we are counting on him to fulfill that campaign promise.
There are bills in Congress right now that would ban fracking. Senator Sanders in the Senate and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez, along with Congressman Darren Soto of Florida, introduced earlier this year the Fracking Ban Act; there are now 21 total co-sponsors on the Fracking Ban Act in the House. And then just this past September, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois and Nanette Barragan of California introduced the Future Generations Protection Act, which would also ban fracking, ban exports of crude oil and natural gas, and also stop new natural gas–fired power plants.
So those pieces of legislation are in the present Congress; we fully expect that we will have fracking-ban legislation in the next Congress. So even if the Biden administration doesn’t want to do it on its own, or can’t do it on its own, the rest of us can pressure our members of Congress to support a ban on fracking everywhere.
We’ve been speaking with Mitch Jones, policy director at Food & Water Action and Food & Water Watch. They’re online at FoodAndWaterAction.org and FoodAndWaterWatch.org.
Mitch Jones, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.
Thank you, I really enjoyed it.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-10-31--Experts Warn More Than 1 Million Mail-In Ballots Could Be Rejected in 2020 Races

More than 1 million mail-in ballots could be rejected in the 2020 election if recent trends hold up , experts say , raising fears that the rejections could swing close races .
Mail-in ballots have been rejected at around a 1 % rate in recent years , though 2020 is expected to be on the higher end due to the number of voters casting ballots by mail for the first time , mail delivery issues at the U.S .
Postal Service , and court decisions disenfranchising voters whose ballots were cast by Election Day but do not arrive in time @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ballots will be disqualified — at least one or two million due to the normal 1-2 % disqualification of mail-in ballots , primarily for errors in completing the ballot , such as a signature problem or late submission , ” Richard Briffault , a professor a the Columbia School of Law , told Salon .
“ Of course , in a close election , rejecting thousands of ballots would be enough.
” Just under 1 % of mail-in ballots were rejected in the 2016 election , according to the Election Administration and Voting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ all mail-in ballots cast between 2016 and 2018 were disqualified , according to an analysis by ABC News .
But researchers at Dartmouth University found that first-time mail-in voters were about three times more likely to have their ballots rejected .
More than 51 million mail-in ballots have already been cast in the 2020 election .
With a surge in mail voting due to the coronavirus pandemic , about 2 % of mail ballots were rejected in this year ’ s primary elections , according to research by University of Florida professor Michael @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reasons .
About a third of all mail-in ballots rejected in 2018 were tossed because of problems with voter signatures , which in most states must match the signature on file .
Some states also require a witness signature .
Some ballots are also rejected because they are missing information like addresses or dates .
Ballots can also be rejected if voters incorrectly bubbled in their candidate selection .
More than a quarter of mail-in ballots rejected in 2018 were disqualified because they were not received by the state ’ s deadline .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ by Election Day , while others allow ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day but arrive several days later .
Some states allow voters to fix or “ cure ” their ballot before the election but most states have no such mechanism .
Andrea Mercado , executive director of the grassroots racial justice group New Florida Majority , told Salon that educating voters to avoid having their ballot rejected has been a “ massive undertaking.
” “ It ’ s been a challenge to make sure people are educated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , how to properly sign the outside of the envelope , ” she said .
“ And also that they don ’ t have to put it in the mail , they can put it in a drop-box .
And then most importantly that their ballot has to be received by Election Day .
It can ’ t be postmarked by that date , it has to be received by that date.
” Tens of thousands of ballots have already been flagged for rejection in states like Florida and North Carolina , though @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thousands of volunteers to help voters cure their ballots in states where it ’ s possible .
Mercado said the percentage of rejected ballots has not increased to a “ number that gives us cause for great alarm ” but the group is focused on the disproportionate impact of the ballot rules on communities of color .
“ We ’ re seeing that here in Florida and it ’ s registering to us because we know that the GOP has used their stranglehold on power … to pass laws like the signature match @ @ @ @ @ @ @ communities , ” she said .
About 0.47 % of mail-in ballots have been flagged for rejection in Florida and about 1.2 % of mail-in ballots have been flagged in North Carolina .
Florida ’ s 2018 Senate race was decided by just 10,033 votes .
North Carolina ’ s 2016 gubernatorial race was decided by just 10,277 votes .
A recent study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found that there is greater than a 10 % chance that the Electoral College could be decided by just 20,000 votes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t just affect the presidential race but every down-ballot election as well .
“ Whether or not the rejection rates are higher enough to necessarily cause the presidential election to go one way or another , there is reason to think that these could be shifting local races , like races for local district attorneys , ” Kevin Morris , a researcher at the Brennan Center for Justice , told ABC News .
“ The vote-by-mail ballot rejections are going to be the hanging chads of 2000 , ” Daniel Smith @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University of Florida , told NBC News .
Smith estimated that more than 100,000 mail-in ballots could be rejected in Florida alone based on the rate of rejections in the primaries and Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley warned that more than 100,000 ballots could be rejected in Pennsylvania due to a rule barring “ naked ballots , ” or those submitted without a second privacy envelope .
“ Every vote cast can affect the outcome of the election .
Every ballot that is rejected could also potentially swing the election and the Electoral @ @ @ @ @ @ @ margin of error that swings the election results in certain states , ” Hannah Fried , the national campaign director at the voting rights group All Voting is Local , told Salon .
Fried said “ naked ballots ” have been a “ confusing issue ” for voters , particularly in states like Pennsylvania .
“ Mail-in ballots submitted without the privacy sleeve will be considered ‘ naked ’ and not counted .
If a voter returns an absentee or mail‐in ballot but the ballot was rejected by a county elections official , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to vote in person , the voter may cast a provisional ballot on Election Day , ” she said .
“ As long as their mail-in ballot was rejected , their vote will be able to be counted .
For mail-in ballots , signature matching and/or accidentally writing your birthday on the ‘ outer envelope ’ instead of the date can not be the sole basis for ballot rejection.
” Fried said the “ most important thing ” Pennsylvania could have done is install uniform cure procedures for each of the state ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not have any process that lets voters address naked ballot issues .
Fried stressed that voters should “ get comfortable with the fact that we likely won ’ t know the election results until days or weeks after Election Day ” due to the influx of mail-in ballots .
“ The pandemic has disrupted every part of society and the election is no exception , ” she said .
“ Different voters will make different choices about how they can vote safely during this pandemic .
Some people will vote in person with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mail .
While having multiple options for voting keeps people safe and socially distant , it also means election officials will need to take a little longer to count and verify that all the ballots are valid.
” The U.S .
Postal Service and voting rights advocates have also warned that ballots mailed after Oct. 27 may not arrive in time to be counted .
“ The time for mailing in your ballot has passed , ” Mercado said .
Voters should use drop boxes to submit their mail-in ballots or vote in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or their assigned polling place on Election Day to ensure their vote is submitted in time .
President Trump has repeatedly urged his supporters to avoid casting ballots by mail due to widely debunked claims that mail ballots are plagued with fraud .
Millions of Democrats are expected to vote in person on Election Day as well .
A recent investigation by Vice News found that nearly 21,000 polling locations have been closed ahead of 2020 and primaries in states like Wisconsin and Georgia were marred by poll closures and excessively long lines @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is monitoring for issues with lines and other voting difficulties but some groups say the closures already pose an impediment to some voters .
“ Having polling locations farther away or that are more crowded creates a hardship for many workers , particularly blue-collar and hourly workers , ” Derrick Johnson , the president of the NAACP , told Vice .
“ This level of doubt this late in the process is concerning .
There are so many new variables on top of old problems .
We ’ re talking about how voting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a pandemic .
We just don ’ t know.
” Democrats have been far more likely to cast their votes by mail and Republicans have long pleaded for Trump to stop sowing doubt about mail-in voting to no avail .
Rick Hasen , an election law expert at the University of California Irvine School of Law , argues that Trump is “ shooting himself in the foot ” by discouraging mail voting and fighting mail-in ballot expansions in court .
“ He ’ s discouraged his supporters from voting by mail , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person on Election Day , ” he said .
Voting rights groups , meanwhile , are working overtime to ensure that voters , particularly groups that have been disproportionately impacted like Black and Latino communities , have their voices heard .
“ In the face of voter suppression , Black and Latino communities are organizing to address some of the structural problems in our democracy , ” Mercado told Salon .
“ While there are agents of chaos that seek to sow confusion and distrust at the highest levels of our government , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and community members that are doing everything they can to protect and expand democracy .
”

More than 1 million mail-in ballots could be rejected in the 2020 election if recent trends hold up, experts say, raising fears that the rejections could swing close races.
Mail-in ballots have been rejected at around a 1% rate in recent years, though 2020 is expected to be on the higher end due to the number of voters casting ballots by mail for the first time, mail delivery issues at the U.S. Postal Service, and court decisions disenfranchising voters whose ballots were cast by Election Day but do not arrive in time.
“It is possible millions of ballots will be disqualified — at least one or two million due to the normal 1-2% disqualification of mail-in ballots, primarily for errors in completing the ballot, such as a signature problem or late submission,” Richard Briffault, a professor a the Columbia School of Law, told Salon. “Of course, in a close election, rejecting thousands of ballots would be enough.”
Just under 1% of mail-in ballots were rejected in the 2016 election, according to the Election Administration and Voting Survey, and about 1.2% of all mail-in ballots cast between 2016 and 2018 were disqualified, according to an analysis by ABC News.
But researchers at Dartmouth University found that first-time mail-in voters were about three times more likely to have their ballots rejected. More than 51 million mail-in ballots have already been cast in the 2020 election. With a surge in mail voting due to the coronavirus pandemic, about 2% of mail ballots were rejected in this year’s primary elections, according to research by University of Florida professor Michael McDonald.
Ballots are rejected for several reasons. About a third of all mail-in ballots rejected in 2018 were tossed because of problems with voter signatures, which in most states must match the signature on file. Some states also require a witness signature. Some ballots are also rejected because they are missing information like addresses or dates. Ballots can also be rejected if voters incorrectly bubbled in their candidate selection.
More than a quarter of mail-in ballots rejected in 2018 were disqualified because they were not received by the state’s deadline. Some states require ballots to be received by Election Day, while others allow ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day but arrive several days later.
Some states allow voters to fix or “cure” their ballot before the election but most states have no such mechanism.
Andrea Mercado, executive director of the grassroots racial justice group New Florida Majority, told Salon that educating voters to avoid having their ballot rejected has been a “massive undertaking.”
“It’s been a challenge to make sure people are educated on how to properly fill it out, how to properly sign the outside of the envelope,” she said. “And also that they don’t have to put it in the mail, they can put it in a drop-box. And then most importantly that their ballot has to be received by Election Day. It can’t be postmarked by that date, it has to be received by that date.”
Tens of thousands of ballots have already been flagged for rejection in states like Florida and North Carolina, though groups like Mercado’s have recruited thousands of volunteers to help voters cure their ballots in states where it’s possible. Mercado said the percentage of rejected ballots has not increased to a “number that gives us cause for great alarm” but the group is focused on the disproportionate impact of the ballot rules on communities of color.
“We’re seeing that here in Florida and it’s registering to us because we know that the GOP has used their stranglehold on power … to pass laws like the signature match law that disproportionately disenfranchises Black and brown communities,” she said.
About 0.47% of mail-in ballots have been flagged for rejection in Florida and about 1.2% of mail-in ballots have been flagged in North Carolina. Florida’s 2018 Senate race was decided by just 10,033 votes. North Carolina’s 2016 gubernatorial race was decided by just 10,277 votes. A recent study by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin found that there is greater than a 10% chance that the Electoral College could be decided by just 20,000 votes in a single state.
These rejections don’t just affect the presidential race but every down-ballot election as well.
“Whether or not the rejection rates are higher enough to necessarily cause the presidential election to go one way or another, there is reason to think that these could be shifting local races, like races for local district attorneys,” Kevin Morris, a researcher at the Brennan Center for Justice, told ABC News.
“The vote-by-mail ballot rejections are going to be the hanging chads of 2000,” Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida, told NBC News.
Smith estimated that more than 100,000 mail-in ballots could be rejected in Florida alone based on the rate of rejections in the primaries and Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley warned that more than 100,000 ballots could be rejected in Pennsylvania due to a rule barring “naked ballots,” or those submitted without a second privacy envelope.
“Every vote cast can affect the outcome of the election. Every ballot that is rejected could also potentially swing the election and the Electoral College. Rejected ballots can be the margin of error that swings the election results in certain states,” Hannah Fried, the national campaign director at the voting rights group All Voting is Local, told Salon.
Fried said “naked ballots” have been a “confusing issue” for voters, particularly in states like Pennsylvania.
“Mail-in ballots submitted without the privacy sleeve will be considered ‘naked’ and not counted. If a voter returns an absentee or mail‐in ballot but the ballot was rejected by a county elections official, and the voter believes they are eligible to vote in person, the voter may cast a provisional ballot on Election Day,” she said. “As long as their mail-in ballot was rejected, their vote will be able to be counted. For mail-in ballots, signature matching and/or accidentally writing your birthday on the ‘outer envelope’ instead of the date cannot be the sole basis for ballot rejection.”
Fried said the “most important thing” Pennsylvania could have done is install uniform cure procedures for each of the state’s counties. The state currently does not have any process that lets voters address naked ballot issues.
Fried stressed that voters should “get comfortable with the fact that we likely won’t know the election results until days or weeks after Election Day” due to the influx of mail-in ballots.
“The pandemic has disrupted every part of society and the election is no exception,” she said. “Different voters will make different choices about how they can vote safely during this pandemic. Some people will vote in person with a mask, some will vote by mail. While having multiple options for voting keeps people safe and socially distant, it also means election officials will need to take a little longer to count and verify that all the ballots are valid.”
The U.S. Postal Service and voting rights advocates have also warned that ballots mailed after Oct. 27 may not arrive in time to be counted.
“The time for mailing in your ballot has passed,” Mercado said.
Voters should use drop boxes to submit their mail-in ballots or vote in person either at an early voting location or their assigned polling place on Election Day to ensure their vote is submitted in time.
President Trump has repeatedly urged his supporters to avoid casting ballots by mail due to widely debunked claims that mail ballots are plagued with fraud. Millions of Democrats are expected to vote in person on Election Day as well.
A recent investigation by Vice News found that nearly 21,000 polling locations have been closed ahead of 2020 and primaries in states like Wisconsin and Georgia were marred by poll closures and excessively long lines.
Mercado said the New Florida Majority is monitoring for issues with lines and other voting difficulties but some groups say the closures already pose an impediment to some voters.
“Having polling locations farther away or that are more crowded creates a hardship for many workers, particularly blue-collar and hourly workers,” Derrick Johnson, the president of the NAACP, told Vice. “This level of doubt this late in the process is concerning. There are so many new variables on top of old problems. We’re talking about how voting will be carried out in the midst of a pandemic. We just don’t know.”
Democrats have been far more likely to cast their votes by mail and Republicans have long pleaded for Trump to stop sowing doubt about mail-in voting to no avail. Rick Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California Irvine School of Law, argues that Trump is “shooting himself in the foot” by discouraging mail voting and fighting mail-in ballot expansions in court.
“He’s discouraged his supporters from voting by mail, and some will have trouble voting in person on Election Day,” he said.
Voting rights groups, meanwhile, are working overtime to ensure that voters, particularly groups that have been disproportionately impacted like Black and Latino communities, have their voices heard.
“In the face of voter suppression, Black and Latino communities are organizing to address some of the structural problems in our democracy,” Mercado told Salon. “While there are agents of chaos that seek to sow confusion and distrust at the highest levels of our government, there are also thousands of organized volunteers and community members that are doing everything they can to protect and expand democracy.”
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.


truthout--2020-10-31--Trump’s HHS Is Withholding Detailed COVID Hospitalization Data From the Public

As surging coronavirus hospitalizations across the U.S. push already-strained medical facilities to the brink of full capacity , internal documents obtained by NPR show that the Trump administration is withholding from the public critical hospital data that experts say would be extremely useful in helping communities prepare for , track , and overcome Covid-19 outbreaks .
NPR reported Friday that the documents — which are based on hospital data collected and analyzed daily by the Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS ) — “ highlight trends in hospitalizations and pinpoint cities nearing full hospital capacity and facilities under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the strain on hospitals across the country that could help local citizens decide when to take extra precautions against Covid-19.
” “ The documents show that detailed information hospitals report to HHS every day is reviewed and analyzed — but circulation seems to be limited to a few dozen government staffers from HHS and its agencies , including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health , ” NPR noted .
“ Only one member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force , Adm. Brett Giroir , appears @ @ @ @ @ @ @ October 27 , the most recent internal report obtained by NPR shows that around 24 % of the nation ’ s hospitals — including facilities in major cities like Atlanta and Minneapolis — are utilizing more than 80 % of their intensive care unit capacity and names specific hospitals that are over 95 % capacity .
The document also shows an uptick in ventilator usage over the past month as coronavirus infections continue to rise at a record-shattering rate .
Experts said the detailed local data currently only circulated among a small group @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made widely available , play a significant role in better informing Americans and health officials about nearby hotspots and encouraging greater safety precautions .
“ The neighborhood data , the county data , and metro-area data can be really helpful for people to say , ‘ Whoa , they ’ re not kidding , this is right here , ' ” Lisa Lee , former chief science officer for public health surveillance at the CDC , told NPR .
“ It can help public health prevention folks get their messages across and get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some state officials are able to access HHS reports for their own state , the inability to view broader regional data leaves them without potentially crucial information .
“ Hospitals in Tennessee serve patients who are from Arkansas and Mississippi and Kentucky and Georgia and vice versa , and so we ’ re a little bit blind to what ’ s going on there , ” said Melissa McPheeters , adjunct research professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center .
“ When we see hospitals that are particularly near those state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ things we can ’ t tell is : Is that because hospitals in an adjacent state are full ?
What ’ s going on there ?
And that could be a really important piece of the picture.
” Ryan Panchadsaram , co-founder of the website Covid Exit Strategy and a former data official in the Obama administration , said the decision to keep the detailed hospitalization data out of public view is “ reckless , ” particularly in the face of soaring coronavirus cases and hospitalizations nationwide .
“ It ’ s endangering @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We ’ re now in the third wave , and I think our only way out is really open , transparent , and actionable information.
” In a tweet Friday , Panchadsaram wrote that “ there ’ s a mismatch : the rigorous work that ’ s happening internally by the rank and file at HHS/CDC/USDS [ United States Digital Service ] and what is being shared externally by the administration.
” According to publicly available data analyzed by the Covid Tracking Project , more than 46,000 people in the U.S. are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Thursday , which saw a daily record of 90,400-plus new cases .
“ Approaching the eve of the election , President Trump has downplayed the steep rise in cases , attributing much of it to increased testing , ” the New York Times noted earlier this week .
“ But the number of people hospitalized for the virus tells a different story , climbing an estimated 46 percent from a month ago and raising fears about the capacity of regional healthcare systems to respond to overwhelming demand.
” Dr. Leana Wen , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health policy and management at George Washington University ’ s Milken School of Public Health , tweeted Friday that the HHS hospitalization data “ needs to be available to the public.
” “ It is critical to hospital surge planning and guiding local and state policies , ” said Wen .

Health experts say the information must be disseminated to help improve public health responses to the pandemic.
As surging coronavirus hospitalizations across the U.S. push already-strained medical facilities to the brink of full capacity, internal documents obtained by NPR show that the Trump administration is withholding from the public critical hospital data that experts say would be extremely useful in helping communities prepare for, track, and overcome Covid-19 outbreaks.
NPR reported Friday that the documents — which are based on hospital data collected and analyzed daily by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) — “highlight trends in hospitalizations and pinpoint cities nearing full hospital capacity and facilities under stress. They paint a granular picture of the strain on hospitals across the country that could help local citizens decide when to take extra precautions against Covid-19.”
“The documents show that detailed information hospitals report to HHS every day is reviewed and analyzed — but circulation seems to be limited to a few dozen government staffers from HHS and its agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health,” NPR noted. “Only one member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Adm. Brett Giroir, appears to receive the documents directly.”
Dated October 27, the most recent internal report obtained by NPR shows that around 24% of the nation’s hospitals — including facilities in major cities like Atlanta and Minneapolis — are utilizing more than 80% of their intensive care unit capacity and names specific hospitals that are over 95% capacity. The document also shows an uptick in ventilator usage over the past month as coronavirus infections continue to rise at a record-shattering rate.
Experts said the detailed local data currently only circulated among a small group of Trump administration officials would, if made widely available, play a significant role in better informing Americans and health officials about nearby hotspots and encouraging greater safety precautions.
“The neighborhood data, the county data, and metro-area data can be really helpful for people to say, ‘Whoa, they’re not kidding, this is right here,'” Lisa Lee, former chief science officer for public health surveillance at the CDC, told NPR. “It can help public health prevention folks get their messages across and get people to change their behavior.”
While some state officials are able to access HHS reports for their own state, the inability to view broader regional data leaves them without potentially crucial information.
“Hospitals in Tennessee serve patients who are from Arkansas and Mississippi and Kentucky and Georgia and vice versa, and so we’re a little bit blind to what’s going on there,” said Melissa McPheeters, adjunct research professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “When we see hospitals that are particularly near those state borders having increases, one of the things we can’t tell is: Is that because hospitals in an adjacent state are full? What’s going on there? And that could be a really important piece of the picture.”
Ryan Panchadsaram, co-founder of the website Covid Exit Strategy and a former data official in the Obama administration, said the decision to keep the detailed hospitalization data out of public view is “reckless,” particularly in the face of soaring coronavirus cases and hospitalizations nationwide.
“It’s endangering people,” Panchadsaram told NPR. “We’re now in the third wave, and I think our only way out is really open, transparent, and actionable information.”
In a tweet Friday, Panchadsaram wrote that “there’s a mismatch: the rigorous work that’s happening internally by the rank and file at HHS/CDC/USDS [United States Digital Service] and what is being shared externally by the administration.”
According to publicly available data analyzed by the Covid Tracking Project, more than 46,000 people in the U.S. are currently hospitalized due to the coronavirus as of Thursday, which saw a daily record of 90,400-plus new cases.
“Approaching the eve of the election, President Trump has downplayed the steep rise in cases, attributing much of it to increased testing,” the New York Times noted earlier this week. “But the number of people hospitalized for the virus tells a different story, climbing an estimated 46 percent from a month ago and raising fears about the capacity of regional healthcare systems to respond to overwhelming demand.”
Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and visiting professor of health policy and management at George Washington University’s Milken School of Public Health, tweeted Friday that the HHS hospitalization data “needs to be available to the public.”
“It is critical to hospital surge planning and guiding local and state policies,” said Wen.
Tired of reading the same old news from the same old sources? So are we! That’s why we’re on a mission to shake things up and bring you the stories and perspectives that often go untold in mainstream media. But being a radically, unapologetically independent news site isn’t easy (or cheap), and we rely on reader support to keep the lights on.
If you like what you’re reading, please consider making a tax-deductible donation today. We’re not asking for a handout, we’re asking for an investment: Invest in a nonprofit news site that’s not afraid to ruffle a few feathers, not afraid to stand up for what’s right, and not afraid to tell it like it is.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.