motherjones--2020-01-28--“This Is Kavanaugh All Over Again,” Say Republicans. They’re Right.

The bombshell allegation that President Donald Trump explicitly told his national security adviser that he would withhold military aid to coerce Ukraine into investigating the Bidens has sent Republicans scrambling for a new set of talking points .
They quickly found one .
“ This is Kavanaugh all over again , ” Sen. John Barrasso ( R-Wyo . )
told reporters on Monday .
Soon it was the company line .
Barrasso , in his quest for a recent parallel , has stumbled upon a very good one—though not for the reasons he ’ d suggest .
Republicans are framing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national security adviser John Bolton obtained by the New York Times—as a last-minute gimmick , a desperate attempt to change the rules of a game that ’ s already in progress .
Bolton can ’ t be trusted , and besides , it ’ s way too late !
The House had its chance to get Bolton on the record , the argument goes , and the Senate should not let the development sidetrack it from a case that ’ s already been laid out .
Otherwise you risk losing control of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that needlessly tarnishes the reputation of a good man .
( The good man , to be clear , is Donald Trump . )
This is , as Barrasso intimates , the basic story Republicans have told themselves about Brett Kavanaugh ’ s Supreme Court confirmation hearings for more than a year .
Kavanaugh was on his way to confirmation when Christine Blasey Ford came forward to allege that he had sexually assaulted her when they were both teenagers in Washington , DC .
Under pressure , the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee agreed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh .
But the lesson of the Kavanaugh hearings wasn ’ t the effectiveness of Democratic gamesmanship ; it was the power of stonewalling .
Blasey Ford was unambiguous about what had happened ( “ indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter , ” as she put it ) , and offered a roadmap for further investigation .
But none of it mattered , because Senate Republicans did not want to know what had really happened .
They were not interested in figuring out , definitively , whether their nominee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ someone , and whether he was lying about that or anything else ( for instance : his drinking ) .
They did not want to uncover information that would change their minds , so they constructed an elaborate public ritual to help them not find out .
Rather than get to the bottom of it , they lashed out and hunkered down .
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham ’ s famous tirade turned the latter half of the Kavanaugh hearing into a spectacle , and when the committee did agree to reopen an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ result was an investigation in name only—an evidence-gathering process designed to prevent the collection of new evidence .
As Slate ’ s Dahlia Lithwick wrote last year : Kavanaugh is now installed for a lifetime at the highest court in the land .
Ford is still unable to resume her life or work for fear of death threats .
And the only thing the hearings resolved conclusively is that Senate Republicans couldn ’ t be bothered to figure out what happened that summer of 1982 , or in the summers and jobs and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since , I have given many speeches in rooms full of women who still have no idea what actually happened in that hearing room that day , or why a parody of an FBI investigation was allowed to substitute for fact-finding , or why Debbie Ramirez and her Yale classmates were never even taken seriously , and why three books so far and two more books to come are doing the work of fact-finding that government couldn ’ t be bothered to undertake .
Maybe this isn ’ t quite Kavanaugh all over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for senators to call an audible .
But Republican senators locking arms to block the examination of new evidence—while resting their entire case on the absence of such evidence ?
It sure sounds like a show we ’ ve seen before .

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The bombshell allegation that President Donald Trump explicitly told his national security adviser that he would withhold military aid to coerce Ukraine into investigating the Bidens has sent Republicans scrambling for a new set of talking points. They quickly found one.
“This is Kavanaugh all over again,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) told reporters on Monday. Soon it was the company line.
The selective, last-minute leaks from Bolton's book are clearly an attempt to unfairly undermine the Senate trial. But, ALL of the facts remain unchanged and uncontested. It's the same (failed) playbook we saw from Democrats during the Kavanaugh hearings. pic.twitter.com/qkDJnxNJqZ — Senate Republicans (@SenateGOP) January 27, 2020
Barrasso, in his quest for a recent parallel, has stumbled upon a very good one—though not for the reasons he’d suggest.
Republicans are framing the revelation—from a book manuscript by former national security adviser John Bolton obtained by the New York Times—as a last-minute gimmick, a desperate attempt to change the rules of a game that’s already in progress. Bolton can’t be trusted, and besides, it’s way too late! The House had its chance to get Bolton on the record, the argument goes, and the Senate should not let the development sidetrack it from a case that’s already been laid out. Otherwise you risk losing control of the whole process and creating a partisan spectacle that needlessly tarnishes the reputation of a good man. (The good man, to be clear, is Donald Trump.)
This is, as Barrasso intimates, the basic story Republicans have told themselves about Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings for more than a year. Kavanaugh was on his way to confirmation when Christine Blasey Ford came forward to allege that he had sexually assaulted her when they were both teenagers in Washington, DC. Under pressure, the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee agreed to hold a new hearing to question Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh.
But the lesson of the Kavanaugh hearings wasn’t the effectiveness of Democratic gamesmanship; it was the power of stonewalling. Blasey Ford was unambiguous about what had happened (“indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” as she put it), and offered a roadmap for further investigation. But none of it mattered, because Senate Republicans did not want to know what had really happened. They were not interested in figuring out, definitively, whether their nominee for the Supreme Court had sexually assaulted someone, and whether he was lying about that or anything else (for instance: his drinking). They did not want to uncover information that would change their minds, so they constructed an elaborate public ritual to help them not find out.
Rather than get to the bottom of it, they lashed out and hunkered down. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham’s famous tirade turned the latter half of the Kavanaugh hearing into a spectacle, and when the committee did agree to reopen an FBI background check into Kavanaugh, the result was an investigation in name only—an evidence-gathering process designed to prevent the collection of new evidence. As Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick wrote last year:
Kavanaugh is now installed for a lifetime at the highest court in the land. Ford is still unable to resume her life or work for fear of death threats. And the only thing the hearings resolved conclusively is that Senate Republicans couldn’t be bothered to figure out what happened that summer of 1982, or in the summers and jobs and weekends that followed. In the year-plus since, I have given many speeches in rooms full of women who still have no idea what actually happened in that hearing room that day, or why a parody of an FBI investigation was allowed to substitute for fact-finding, or why Debbie Ramirez and her Yale classmates were never even taken seriously, and why three books so far and two more books to come are doing the work of fact-finding that government couldn’t be bothered to undertake.
Maybe this isn’t quite Kavanaugh all over again. There’s still time for senators to call an audible. But Republican senators locking arms to block the examination of new evidence—while resting their entire case on the absence of such evidence? It sure sounds like a show we’ve seen before.


motherjones--2020-01-28--Pick Which GOP Explanation for Why Bolton Shouldn’t Testify Is the Craziest

President Donald Trump , GOP lawmakers , and White House lawyers presenting their case for Trump ’ s acquittal in the Senate spent Monday publicly workshopping a series of arguments for why the president ’ s ongoing impeachment trial should not include testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton—testimony which seems likely to contradict a key tenet of Trump ’ s case .
To back up a bit : On Saturday , Trump ’ s lawyers formally launched his defense , emphasizing that “ not a single witness ” could prove that Trump personally connected nearly $ 400 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ demand that the country launch investigations that could help him politically .
The next day , the New York Times reported that in his forthcoming book , Bolton asserts that Trump told him in an August 2019 meeting that he wanted to keep withholding the money until Ukrainian officials launched investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter , as well as alleged Ukrainian support for Hillary Clinton in 2016 .
On Monday , some Republican senators , including Utah ’ s Mitt Romney , and Maine ’ s Susan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ favor of calling for Bolton ’ s testimony .
All the while , Trump and other congressional Republicans are tying themselves into knots to argue the Senate should ignore Bolton and continue the trial without any witnesses—never mind that many of their arguments actually make a persuasive case for why Bolton should , in fact , testify .
Here are some notable examples : You ’ d think that , since Bolton says one thing and Trump says another , senators would want to secure sworn testimony from the former security adviser .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ oath and expose himself to a perjury charge and Trump would be vindicated , right ?
Trump himself could even provide sworn testimony if he chose to .
( He won ’ t . )
Bolton isn ’ t credible because Trump said so The significance of Bolton ’ s account is that it contradicts Trump ’ s claims , and therefore undermines his defense .
As they seek to further justify their arguments against witnesses , GOP lawmakers seem seem to be reversing the normal logic of a trial , suggesting that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ because his credibility is damaged by the defendant who is disputing his claims .
“ The President has already acknowledged that what Bolton is contending…is not the case , ” Sen. Mike Braun ( R-Ind . )
said a press conference .
Rep. Mark Meadows ( R-NC ) told reporters that there “ are no witnesses who can provide anymore clarity…than the President of United States.
” Meadows also cited public claims by Vice President Mike Pence and Ukrainian officials denying a quid pro quo .
Rep. Elise Stefanik ( R-NY ) , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supporters and a member of the House Intelligence Committee , told reporters that President Trump “ has said that he did not tie ” the release of aid to investigations .
Other Trump defenders questioned Bolton ’ s credibility on other grounds .
“ Is he a firsthand witness ?
” asked Rep. Josh Hawley ( R-Mo . )
“ I ’ m not sure.
” Sen. John Kennedy ( R-La . )
, in an apparent reference to Bolton ’ s acrimonious exit from the White House , told reporters that Bolton @ @ @ @ @ @ @ believable if they were coming from someone else.
” While these GOP attacks may make sense as part of a public relations campaign , they are distinctly bad arguments for asserting that Bolton should not be subpoenaed to give sworn testimony .
Bolton ’ s testimony would be mean to Trump The newest member of the world ’ s greatest deliberative body , Sen.Kelly Loeffler ( R-Ga. ) , who was appointed to a seat opened by the mid-term retirement of former GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson , went even further on Monday .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggesting he and others will vote for Bolton ’ s testimony , arguing that Bolton will “ slander ” Trump .
The argument suggests that Loeffler favors an impeachment trial that excludes negative testimony about the president—which , given the circumstances , seems unlikely .
Bolton ’ s testimony won ’ t really matter to the endgame Sen. Roy Blunt ( R-Mo . )
in remarks Monday suggested Bolton ’ s testimony would simply be a waste of time since it ’ s not going to change the outcome of the trial .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bolton ’ s testimony , Blunt reasoned , the dispute might take “ week and months ” to resolve .
Blunt is using a questionable interpretation of executive privilege .
There is little legal precedent for a president using executive privilege to block a private citizen from testifying .
Given Bolton ’ s willingness to appear , the Senate could likely secure his testimony within days .
But Blunt ’ s statement is telling ; it would be difficult to imagine a witness in the impeachment trial with testimony that would be more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s argument is perfectly circular : No witness could stop Republicans from acquitting Trump , and since acquittal is assured , there is no need for any witnesses .
Bolton shouldn ’ t testify because he hasn ’ t already testified Several Republicans argued on Monday that House Democrats could have secured Bolton ’ s testimony , and since they did not , the Senate should ignore him .
These claims completely miss an October 30 request the House made asking Bolton to agree to a voluntary interview , though Democrats did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arguments before the Senate today , Jay Sekulow , one of Trump ’ s attorneys , took this posture a step further by simply repeating a claim Trump ’ s lawyers made on Saturday .
Referring to the House ’ s impeachment inquiry , Sekulow said : “ Not a single witness testified that the president himself said that there was any connection between any investigations and security assistance.
” Bolton , of course , would be expected to testify that Trump linked investigations by Ukraine to US security assistance .
The president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as if senators , heads in the sand , will refuse to consider Bolton ’ s account .
That actually may be the one perspective on all this that will turn out to be true .

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President Donald Trump, GOP lawmakers, and White House lawyers presenting their case for Trump’s acquittal in the Senate spent Monday publicly workshopping a series of arguments for why the president’s ongoing impeachment trial should not include testimony from former national security adviser John Bolton—testimony which seems likely to contradict a key tenet of Trump’s case.
To back up a bit: On Saturday, Trump’s lawyers formally launched his defense, emphasizing that “not a single witness” could prove that Trump personally connected nearly $400 million in security aid to Ukraine with his demand that the country launch investigations that could help him politically. The next day, the New York Times reported that in his forthcoming book, Bolton asserts that Trump told him in an August 2019 meeting that he wanted to keep withholding the money until Ukrainian officials launched investigations into former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, as well as alleged Ukrainian support for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
On Monday, some Republican senators, including Utah’s Mitt Romney, and Maine’s Susan Collins, suggested they would vote in favor of calling for Bolton’s testimony. All the while, Trump and other congressional Republicans are tying themselves into knots to argue the Senate should ignore Bolton and continue the trial without any witnesses—never mind that many of their arguments actually make a persuasive case for why Bolton should, in fact, testify.
Here are some notable examples:
Bolton lied
Trump insisted early Monday morning that Bolton’s reported account is false:
I NEVER told John Bolton that the aid to Ukraine was tied to investigations into Democrats, including the Bidens. In fact, he never complained about this at the time of his very public termination. If John Bolton said this, it was only to sell a book. With that being said, the… — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2020
You’d think that, since Bolton says one thing and Trump says another, senators would want to secure sworn testimony from the former security adviser. Presumably, Bolton would not lie under oath and expose himself to a perjury charge and Trump would be vindicated, right? Trump himself could even provide sworn testimony if he chose to. (He won’t.)
Bolton isn’t credible because Trump said so
The significance of Bolton’s account is that it contradicts Trump’s claims, and therefore undermines his defense. As they seek to further justify their arguments against witnesses, GOP lawmakers seem seem to be reversing the normal logic of a trial, suggesting that a witnesses should not be asked testify because his credibility is damaged by the defendant who is disputing his claims.
“The President has already acknowledged that what Bolton is contending…is not the case,” Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said a press conference. Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) told reporters that there “are no witnesses who can provide anymore clarity…than the President of United States.” Meadows also cited public claims by Vice President Mike Pence and Ukrainian officials denying a quid pro quo. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), one of Trump’s most ardent supporters and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters that President Trump “has said that he did not tie” the release of aid to investigations.
Other Trump defenders questioned Bolton’s credibility on other grounds. “Is he a firsthand witness?” asked Rep. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) “I’m not sure.” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), in an apparent reference to Bolton’s acrimonious exit from the White House, told reporters that Bolton’s claims would be “more believable if they were coming from someone else.”
While these GOP attacks may make sense as part of a public relations campaign, they are distinctly bad arguments for asserting that Bolton should not be subpoenaed to give sworn testimony.
Bolton’s testimony would be mean to Trump
After 2 weeks, it’s clear that Democrats have no case for impeachment. Sadly, my colleague @SenatorRomney wants to appease the left by calling witnesses who will slander the @realDonaldTrump during their 15 minutes of fame. The circus is over. It’s time to move on! #gapol — Senator Kelly Loeffler (@SenatorLoeffler) January 27, 2020
The newest member of the world’s greatest deliberative body, Sen.Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), who was appointed to a seat opened by the mid-term retirement of former GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson, went even further on Monday. Loeffler in a tweet attacked Romney for suggesting he and others will vote for Bolton’s testimony, arguing that Bolton will “slander” Trump. The argument suggests that Loeffler favors an impeachment trial that excludes negative testimony about the president—which, given the circumstances, seems unlikely.
Bolton’s testimony won’t really matter to the endgame
Roy Blunt says he's unlikely to vote to call Bolton. "Unless there's a witness who's going to change the outcome, I can't imagine why we'd want to stretch this out for weeks and months. And if we call any witnesses who are subject to privilege, it would take weeks and months.'' — Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) January 27, 2020
Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) in remarks Monday suggested Bolton’s testimony would simply be a waste of time since it’s not going to change the outcome of the trial. Because Trump could assert executive privilege over Bolton’s testimony, Blunt reasoned, the dispute might take “week and months” to resolve.
Blunt is using a questionable interpretation of executive privilege. There is little legal precedent for a president using executive privilege to block a private citizen from testifying. Given Bolton’s willingness to appear, the Senate could likely secure his testimony within days. But Blunt’s statement is telling; it would be difficult to imagine a witness in the impeachment trial with testimony that would be more relevant than Bolton’s. Blunt’s argument is perfectly circular: No witness could stop Republicans from acquitting Trump, and since acquittal is assured, there is no need for any witnesses.
Bolton shouldn’t testify because he hasn’t already testified
Several Republicans argued on Monday that House Democrats could have secured Bolton’s testimony, and since they did not, the Senate should ignore him. These claims completely miss an October 30 request the House made asking Bolton to agree to a voluntary interview, though Democrats did not subpoena him.
And during his arguments before the Senate today, Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s attorneys, took this posture a step further by simply repeating a claim Trump’s lawyers made on Saturday. Referring to the House’s impeachment inquiry, Sekulow said: “Not a single witness testified that the president himself said that there was any connection between any investigations and security assistance.”
Bolton, of course, would be expected to testify that Trump linked investigations by Ukraine to US security assistance. The president’s lawyer nevertheless repeated his argument as if senators, heads in the sand, will refuse to consider Bolton’s account. That actually may be the one perspective on all this that will turn out to be true.


motherjones--2020-01-28--Like All Building Projects, California’s Housing Bill Is Behind Schedule and Causing Headaches

Earlier this month , it looked like California ’ s hotly contested housing legislation , Senate Bill 50 , might fail yet again .
As it was nearing a fatal deadline , bill author state Sen. Scott Wiener caught a break : Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins moved the bill out of the Appropriations Committee , where it was held up since last year by a vocal SB 50 critic , and into the Rules Committee—creating a much clearer path forward for the bill to become law .
Now it could see a vote on the Senate floor as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one more turn in the merry-go-round of years-long drama surrounding the legislation that has the power to completely transform the state ’ s transit and housing landscape .
The bill , which requires higher density housing around transit hubs , has from the start been contentious even among factions on the left ( much like a lot of housing policy discussion these days ) .
To oversimplify : The debate essentially comes down to those who think the key is more housing , plain and simple ( YIMBYs ) ; those who may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t want the landscape to change around them ( NIMBYs ) ; and those who know the state urgently needs more housing , but who are first and foremost concerned about who that housing is for ( housing justice advocates ) .
Making matters more complicated here is that while SB 50 is a housing bill , it ’ s about so much more than shelter .
“ It touches on so many concerns and anxieties in our state , ” Wiener says .
“ It touches on affordability .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the kinds of housing that we ’ re building .
It touches on our approach to climate change , sustainability .
It touches on displacement and gentrification .
It touches on the look and feel of people ’ s neighborhoods .
It touches on race and class issues.
” “ This is legislation that makes some really significant changes to how we do land use in California and how we ’ ve done it for the last 170 years , ” he adds .
Since SB 50 was shelved last May , Wiener @ @ @ @ @ @ @ amend it and broaden its support .
In January , he debuted the new version , which has until Friday January 31 to make it out of the Senate or perish .
The amended bill has recently garnered new endorsements from city officials and organizations like the United Farm Workers , but it still faces significant opposition , including from groups representing low-income communities .
With just days left to decide SB 50 ’ s fate , Mother Jones breaks down the major fault lines—and what ’ s still proving to be particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( and housing in general ) increasingly focuses on the idea of local control , which—along with zoning—is alternatingly seen as a community ’ s best chance to protect itself or the biggest obstacle to even and equitable progress .
One the one hand , broad single family zoning is a driver of the state ’ s severe housing shortage , and zoning ( through redlining ) has been used to racially segregate cities .
On the other , zoning can be a tool to protect people from environmental hazards and displacement ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neighborhood , and many local officials and residents feel decisions affecting communities should be made by those who live in them .
It ’ s complicated—and it ’ s not just California struggling over these questions .
As my colleague Aaron Wiener ( no relation to the lawmaker ) has reported , legislators in Virginia are considering a contentious bill to change single family housing zoning regulations , something Oregon and Minneapolis also did recently .
It ’ s no surprise , then , that the most significant change from the previous version @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that SB 50 takes away too much control from local governments .
In its latest iteration , cities can decide where to make zoning changes near transit as long as density requirements are met .
Cities have two years to come up with their own plans or they ’ ll face SB 50 ’ s one-size-fits all standard .
( “ Sensitive communities ” —segregated and low-income areas and those vulnerable to displacement and gentrification—have five years . )
The bill also bars cities from concentrating new housing in low-income communities and forbids @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( There are some concerns , though , about the mechanisms to actually enforce these protections . )
Some further details around local control still need to be ironed out , which Wiener says Gov .
Gavin Newsom ’ s office has offered to facilitate .
Throughout SB 50 , special rules , conditions , or exemptions are laid out to protect “ sensitive communities , ” but questions remain around the term ’ s broad definition and just who will be included or left out of the designation .
Still , some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be exempt from SB 50 requirements altogether , with the possibility of opting in .
“ Our cities , towns , and communities have been shaped by different histories , economic drivers , and present-day conditions .
State policy must be responsive to these differences .
Race and class inequality and top-down policies that excluded people of color and low-income people , such as redlining and Urban Renewal , have had devastating , multi-generational consequences on these communities while further concentrating wealth and opportunity in others , ” a coalition of 27 housing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wrote in a letter to Wiener last week .
“ To protect sensitive communities , SB 50 must accurately identify all sensitive communities and preserve meaningful self-determination in those communities so that they can plan for an inclusive future .
As drafted SB 50 does not accomplish this.
” Currently , SB 50 requires new housing developments save 15 to 25 percent of units for lower-income residents , depending on the project size .
And 40 percent of low-income units must be reserved for local residents .
While YIMBYs warn against raising affordability @ @ @ @ @ @ @ build , given high construction costs—affordability advocates say SB 50 , as it stands , will exacerbate the already existing imbalance between market-rate housing and low- and moderate-income units .
“ SB 50 is stimulating market rate development by increasing the value of land through zoning , and when you do that you ’ re actually creating value to the development side of the equation , ” says Peter Cohen , co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations , a coalition of 26 affordable housing developers and advocates in San Francisco and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of opposition to Wiener .
“ There ’ s got to be some giveback .
No matter where you are in the state or what size the project is , there should be some affordability requirement above what may already be required .
So far , it ’ s not cutting muster.
” Wiener says he ’ s currently finalizing negotiations with stakeholders to make the requirement regarding low-income units more robust .
The Board of Supervisors in San Francisco ( a city Wiener represents ) has repeatedly voiced its opposition to SB @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unaddressed concerns is a demand for simultaneous investment and improvement in infrastructure and transportation , given that new housing would be centered around transit .
In a resolution opposing the bill , the supervisors asked that it be amended to “ ensure areas impacted by SB 50…receive increased transportation incentives , especially where services and infrastructure are currently inadequate , subject to delays and overcrowding , and/or deficient in their state of repair.
” ( They suggested a state-funded grant , allowing fees for private developers , and California Environmental Quality Act exemptions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ grounds to nix SB 50 : “ Yes , we need more transit funding , but we also need more housing , and if you condition one on the other happening , you ’ re probably not going to achieve either , ” he says .
“ The idea that we ’ re going to say to people , ‘ You have to continue to live in your car until we get around to perfecting the transit .
You need to continue to commute in from Stockton until we perfect our transit ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
These are all important [ issues ] .
And we have to do all of them.
” He continues , “ but it ’ s not the reality of life that you do everything all at the same time.
” Then there are people , like Appropriations Committee chair state Sen. Anthony Portantino , who feel that mandates like those in SB 50 could have unintended consequences that could even discourage new transit projects .
But Wiener argues Portantino ’ s preferred incentive-based approach won ’ t cut it .
“ When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ housing shortage , millions of homes , 25 percent of the nation ’ s homeless population and 50 percent of the nation ’ s unsheltered homeless population , when you look at the poverty rates , when you look at the explosion of super commuters and congestion in our freeways and carbon emissions , this a massive emergency .
The idea that we ’ re going to just say , ‘ We ’ re going to give you some incentives to do the right thing ’ —that hasn ’ t worked in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the scale that we need.
” If SB 50 passes through the state Senate by January 31 , the Assembly will start to consider the bill in committee hearings in four months or so .
In the interim , Wiener says the bill will continue to change .
“ Even though I was very disappointed when the bill was delayed last May , it is a stronger bill now than it was then , and we made a lot of progress in the last seven months.
” Wiener says .
“ In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it did give us an opportunity to make the bill better , and to build an even broader coalition .
The reality is in the legislature that , there are very rarely fast direct paths to anything of significance .
You ’ ve got to work at it , sometimes for multiple years , and that ’ s ok. ” Cohen , for one , remains to be convinced .
“ This kind of experience of drip feeding little changes one by one , and especially as the clock starts to run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ frustrating , ” he says .
“ It doesn ’ t feel as though it ’ s a really earnest way of hearing the feedback from communities and organizations that are actually working on the ground.
” Ultimately , if SB 50 fails again , Wiener says he ’ ll head right back to the drawing board .
“ This isn ’ t going away .
We have to reform our approach to zoning , ” he says .
“ If we want California to have a future economically , environmentally , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have to fix this .
We ’ re not going to let this idea by .
”

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Update, Thursday Jan. 30, 2020, 11:30 am PT: SB 50 failed in dramatic fashion after two days of deliberation Thursday with a final vote of 18-15 (it needed 21 votes to pass) and several lawmakers opting not to vote. After, Senate President pro Tempore Toni Atkins personally committed to passing a housing production bill this year.
Earlier this month, it looked like California’s hotly contested housing legislation, Senate Bill 50, might fail yet again. As it was nearing a fatal deadline, bill author state Sen. Scott Wiener caught a break: Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins moved the bill out of the Appropriations Committee, where it was held up since last year by a vocal SB 50 critic, and into the Rules Committee—creating a much clearer path forward for the bill to become law. Now it could see a vote on the Senate floor as soon as Wednesday.
It was just one more turn in the merry-go-round of years-long drama surrounding the legislation that has the power to completely transform the state’s transit and housing landscape. The bill, which requires higher density housing around transit hubs, has from the start been contentious even among factions on the left (much like a lot of housing policy discussion these days). To oversimplify: The debate essentially comes down to those who think the key is more housing, plain and simple (YIMBYs); those who may acknowledge California needs more housing but who don’t want the landscape to change around them (NIMBYs); and those who know the state urgently needs more housing, but who are first and foremost concerned about who that housing is for (housing justice advocates).
SB 50 “touches on so many concerns and anxieties in our state.”
Making matters more complicated here is that while SB 50 is a housing bill, it’s about so much more than shelter. “It touches on so many concerns and anxieties in our state,” Wiener says. “It touches on affordability. It touches on people’s views about the kinds of housing that we’re building. It touches on our approach to climate change, sustainability. It touches on displacement and gentrification. It touches on the look and feel of people’s neighborhoods. It touches on race and class issues.”
“This is legislation that makes some really significant changes to how we do land use in California and how we’ve done it for the last 170 years,” he adds.
Since SB 50 was shelved last May, Wiener has been working with key stakeholders to amend it and broaden its support. In January, he debuted the new version, which has until Friday to make it out of the Senate or perish. The amended bill has recently garnered new endorsements from city officials and organizations like the United Farm Workers, but it still faces significant opposition, including from groups representing low-income communities.
With just days left to decide SB 50’s fate, Mother Jones breaks down the major fault lines—and what’s still proving to be particularly sticky.
Local control
The debate over SB 50 (and housing in general) increasingly focuses on the idea of local control, which—along with zoning—is alternatingly seen as a community’s best chance to protect itself or the biggest obstacle to even and equitable progress.
On the one hand, broad single family zoning is a driver of the state’s severe housing shortage, and zoning (through redlining) has been used to racially segregate cities. On the other, zoning can be a tool to protect people from environmental hazards and displacement (inclusionary zoning) or to preserve a neighborhood, and many local officials and residents feel decisions affecting communities should be made by those who live in them. It’s complicated—and it’s not just California struggling over these questions. As my colleague Aaron Wiener (no relation to the lawmaker) has reported, legislators in Virginia are considering a contentious bill to change single family housing zoning regulations, something Oregon and Minneapolis also did recently.
Local control—along with zoning—is alternatingly seen as the best chance for a community to protect itself or the biggest obstacle to even and equitable progress.
It’s no surprise, then, that the most significant change from the previous version of the bill aims to ease concerns that SB 50 takes away too much control from local governments. In its latest iteration, cities can decide where to make zoning changes near transit as long as density requirements are met. Cities have two years to come up with their own plans or they’ll face SB 50’s one-size-fits all standard. (“Sensitive communities”—segregated and low-income areas and those vulnerable to displacement and gentrification—have five years.) The bill also bars cities from concentrating new housing in low-income communities and forbids the demolition of buildings with renters. (There are some concerns, though, about the mechanisms to actually enforce these protections.)
Further details around local control still need to be ironed out, which Wiener says Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office has offered to facilitate.
“Sensitive communities”
Throughout SB 50, special rules, conditions, or exemptions are laid out to protect “sensitive communities,” but questions remain around the term’s broad definition and just who will be included or left out of the designation.
Still, some affordable housing organizations want sensitive communities to be exempt from SB 50 requirements altogether, with the possibility of opting in. “Our cities, towns, and communities have been shaped by different histories, economic drivers, and present-day conditions. State policy must be responsive to these differences. Race and class inequality and top-down policies that excluded people of color and low-income people, such as redlining and Urban Renewal, have had devastating, multi-generational consequences on these communities while further concentrating wealth and opportunity in others,” a coalition of 27 housing justice groups and public interest law firms wrote in a letter to Wiener last week. “To protect sensitive communities, SB 50 must accurately identify all sensitive communities and preserve meaningful self-determination in those communities so that they can plan for an inclusive future. As drafted SB 50 does not accomplish this.”
Affordability
Currently, SB 50 requires new housing developments save up to 25 percent of units for lower-income residents, depending on the project size. And now, 40 percent of low-income units must be reserved for local residents.
“Our cities, towns, and communities have been shaped by different histories, economic drivers, and present-day conditions. State policy must be responsive to these differences.”
While YIMBYs warn against raising affordability requirements—arguing developers would then be reluctant to build, given high construction costs—affordability advocates say SB 50, as it stands, will exacerbate the already existing imbalance between market-rate housing and low- and moderate-income units. “SB 50 is stimulating market rate development by increasing the value of land through zoning, and when you do that you’re actually creating value to the development side of the equation,” says Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations, a coalition of 26 affordable housing developers and advocates in San Francisco and one of the co-signers on the letter of opposition to Wiener. “There’s got to be some giveback. No matter where you are in the state or what size the project is, there should be some affordability requirement above what may already be required. So far, it’s not cutting muster.”
Wiener says he’s currently finalizing negotiations with stakeholders to make the requirement regarding low-income units more robust.
Transportation investment
The Board of Supervisors in San Francisco (a city Wiener represents) has repeatedly voiced its opposition to SB 50, and one of its still-yet unaddressed concerns is a demand for simultaneous investment and improvement in infrastructure and transportation, given that new housing would be centered around transit. In a resolution opposing the bill, the supervisors asked that it be amended to “ensure areas impacted by SB 50…receive increased transportation incentives, especially where services and infrastructure are currently inadequate, subject to delays and overcrowding, and/or deficient in their state of repair.” (They suggested state-funded grants, allowing fees for private developers, and California Environmental Quality Act exemptions.)
Wiener rejects that argument as grounds to nix SB 50: “Yes, we need more transit funding, but we also need more housing, and if you condition one on the other happening, you’re probably not going to achieve either,” he says. “The idea that we’re going to say to people, ‘You have to continue to live in your car until we get around to perfecting the transit. You need to continue to commute in from Stockton until we perfect our transit’—that is a specious and terrible argument. These are all important [issues]. And we have to do all of them.”
He continues, “but it’s not the reality of life that you do everything all at the same time.”
“The idea that we’re going to say to people, ‘You have to continue to live in your car until we get around to perfecting the transit’—that is a specious and terrible argument.”
Then there are people, like Appropriations Committee chair state Sen. Anthony Portantino, who feel that mandates like those in SB 50 could have unintended consequences that could even discourage new transit projects. But Wiener argues Portantino’s preferred incentive-based approach won’t cut it. “When you look at the magnitude of our housing shortage, millions of homes, 25 percent of the nation’s homeless population and 50 percent of the nation’s unsheltered homeless population, when you look at the poverty rates, when you look at the explosion of super commuters and congestion in our freeways and carbon emissions, this a massive emergency. The idea that we’re going to just say, ‘We’re going to give you some incentives to do the right thing’—that hasn’t worked in the past, and that will never work at the scale that we need.”
So, what’s next?
If SB 50 passes through the state Senate by January 31, the Assembly will start to consider the bill in committee hearings in four months or so.
In the interim, Wiener says the bill will continue to change. “Even though I was very disappointed when the bill was delayed last May, it is a stronger bill now than it was then, and we made a lot of progress in the last seven months,” he notes. “In retrospect, as disappointing as it was, it did give us an opportunity to make the bill better, and to build an even broader coalition. The reality is in the legislature that, there are very rarely fast direct paths to anything of significance. You’ve got to work at it, sometimes for multiple years, and that’s ok.”
Cohen, for one, remains to be convinced. “This kind of experience of drip feeding little changes one by one, and especially as the clock starts to run out on the legislative process, is really frustrating,” he says. “It doesn’t feel as though it’s a really earnest way of hearing the feedback from communities and organizations that are actually working on the ground.”
Ultimately, if SB 50 fails again, Wiener says he’ll head right back to the drawing board. “This isn’t going away. We have to reform our approach to zoning,” he says. “If we want California to have a future economically, environmentally, a future where we remain diverse, we have to fix this. We’re not going to let this idea by.”
This piece has been updated.


motherjones--2020-01-29--Trump’s Greatest Trick Was Convincing Voters That Women Can’t Win Elections

On November 5 , New York Times polling savant Nate Cohn appeared as a guest on The Daily , the paper ’ s popular podcast , to shed light on the biggest question in the Democratic presidential primary .
The episode ’ s title : “ Who ’ s Actually Electable in 2020 ?
” Cohn took to the microphone to deliver some real talk to millions of listeners : Elizabeth Warren—who at the time had just climbed to the top of the polls for the Democratic nomination—may be a weak nominee because some voters wouldn ’ t support a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poll measuring the top Democratic contenders against President Trump in the closely contested states that cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election .
There , Cohn explained , Warren looked shakier than both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders .
“ Overall , she trailed by 2 points across these states , ” Cohn said .
“ That ’ s the same as Hillary Clinton ’ s performance .
So if the election were held today , and if these results are right , Elizabeth Warren would lose to the president.
” The takeaway was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fail , just like the last one .
Millions of people read about the poll , or listened to Cohn ’ s predictions , or listened to other pundits chew it over .
Filtering through the media coverage were subtle notions that Warren and the other women running for president were inherently risky choices for a party focused on turning Trump out of office .
Was Warren too angry , as Biden suggested that same day ?
Was she therefore unlikable ?
It seemed that just as Warren had begun to overtake Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of pent-up , gender-based anxiety took hold of her campaign and pulled it down .
Had Cohn found misogyny in his crosstabs ?
Or did the results reflect respondents ’ fears about other voters ’ willingness to vote for a woman ?
Had Democrats ’ desperation to pick a winner created a party of amateur sexism handicappers ?
On January 13 , the issue transformed from a quiet undercurrent of the primary to the national headlines .
CNN reported that at a dinner in December 2018 , as both Warren and Sanders were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told Warren that a woman couldn ’ t win .
The following day , at a Democratic primary debate hosted by the network in Des Moines , Iowa , the issue took center stage .
Sanders denied his comments ; Warren confirmed them .
After the debate , microphones caught a testy exchange between the two : Warren declined to shake his hand , and they accused each other of having accused each other on national television of being a liar .
Though the two candidates appear to have moved on , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the question at the heart of their dispute , the one that has loomed over Democratic politics since Hillary Clinton ’ s loss in 2016 : Can a woman beat Trump ?
In Madison , Wisconsin—one of the critical swing states that Trump won in 2016—Kathleen Dolan read the Times poll not as a warning against nominating a woman but as yet another bad poll scaring voters for no reason .
A political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who researches the impact of gender on voter choice , Dolan says that rather @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the survey was itself an insidious form of sexism : incredulous pundits planting the idea that a woman is not electable .
The poll may have indeed shown Biden with an edge , but given the margin of error , Cohn was wrong to claim that it showed Sanders doing any better statistically than Warren in the surveyed states , Dolan says .
To her , the Times article and headline— “ One Year From Election , Trump Trails Biden but Leads Warren in Battlegrounds ” —were pushing a narrative unsupported by data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren being in exactly the same statistical position vis-à-vis the president , ” she says , “ and decided to focus on the fact that somehow she ’ s losing.
” The poll did something else that Dolan found deeply misguided .
It asked a subset of voters who ’ d said they would support Biden over Trump but not Warren whether the female candidates in the race were likable—to which 41 percent of that small subset said they were not .
“ For people who do survey research @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she says .
There were five female candidates in the Democratic primary at the time , including the polarizing Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard .
How are respondents to answer that question if they found one unlikable but not the others ?
The Times question used “ likability ” as a proxy for sexism , a way to tease out whether some voters didn ’ t want to elect a woman president without making them say so explicitly .
But it ’ s a clumsy stand-in for gender bias , and one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ than actually unearth voter beliefs .
As Dolan sees it , that “ really flawed question ” is the crux of the problem .
Voters answering the survey and news consumers getting the results see that the Times chose to include the question , Dolan says , and they reason that experts “ must think it ’ s important , ” while at the same time noting it was asked only about female candidates .
“ So they must think that the women might be likable—but might not be.
” “ That ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dolan says .
Dozens of men have lost presidential campaigns , and so far in every instance but one , Americans selected another man to try again the next time , their maleness blessedly unburdened with concerns about electability .
Not only is bias clearly embedded in the question , she argues , the question itself keeps alive the very notion that it is trying to measure—that women are unlikable and therefore unelectable—setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy in perpetual motion .
The electability of women remains in question because people keep questioning women @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I was told again and again , can win .
The studies prove it .
I ’ d wanted to know just how much voters were worried about the electability of a female candidate and whether those fears were grounded in real disadvantages .
So I turned to political scientists who study the issue .
And the results , as you would expect on any complex social issue , were both mixed and clear .
A woman can win but before that she has to navigate a set of real stereotypes and biases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ acute because of Clinton ’ s loss .
Gender equality hasn ’ t come as far as we hoped .
For some voters , their sexism is a reason to support Trump .
“ Voters are more skeptical of women ’ s experience and competency and therefore want to hear more about what women can do , their qualifications , and their plans , ” says Kelly Dittmar , a political scientist at Rutgers University ’ s Center for American Women and Politics .
Women must work harder to prove their competence to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the same time not put off voters who expect women to be warm and collaborative .
The women running in the Democratic primary have tested a range of political personas to preempt this bias .
Gabbard has an abrupt , almost stoic manner and highlights her record in the military .
Sen. Amy Klobuchar ( D-Minn. ) has made her legislative achievements and her record of winning in the Midwest the centerpiece of her campaign—how could anyone worry about the electability of a candidate who keeps getting elected , her campaign seems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ presentation also draws on a feminine stereotype : She ’ s passed a lot of bills because she works with others .
She ’ s a team player .
Warren faced a lot of questions in the run-up to her campaign launch about her likability—the which candidate would you like to grab a beer with ?
question .
Is it a coincidence that in an Instagram live appearance shortly before her campaign launch , Warren said , “ Hold on a sec , I ’ m gon na get me a beer , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with a Michelob Ultra ?
Warren is first and foremost known as a wonk .
She built a campaign on the strength of her many plans , which act as a bulwark against questions about her competency and preparedness .
Her famous selfie lines make for great social media and press coverage , but they ’ re also strategic .
Who takes selfies with people who aren ’ t likable ?
Running for office while female is “ the extrapolation of every woman ’ s experience , ” says Mary Anne Marsh , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ work twice as hard , you get twice as many or more credentials , you out-work everybody else , and you still get paid less.
” The candidates ’ efforts to disarm gender stereotypes may not be important for the reasons we assume .
Some research shows that voters aren ’ t concerned as much about likability when it comes to their own votes .
Instead , they worry that other voters won ’ t pick a woman .
It ’ s an issue of perceived electability , not actual electability—although at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same thing .
Dolan ’ s research , for example , compares people ’ s choice of candidate to their attitudes about gender .
Negative gender stereotypes , she found , are not a main driver of voter choice—at least not at the state and congressional levels .
Dolan also points to a recent study out of Finland , one of the world ’ s most egalitarian countries , which just swore in a 34-year-old female prime minister .
Gender stereotypes and sexism remain in Finnish society , the study found , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a woman to become head of state .
But there ’ s some evidence American voters view the presidency , the top executive position in the country , in a fundamentally gendered way .
Jonathan Knuckey at the University of Central Florida analyzed a major 2016 voter survey that used questions designed by social scientists to suss out sexist attitudes while also asking about voter choice for members of congress and for president .
The results showed that attitudes about women were statistically significant in voter choice for president but not for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of sexism on the 2016 election appears confined to presidential vote choices , ” Knuckey concluded , “ where the mere presence of a woman and the presence of a man who had exhibited sexist and misogynistic behavior served as the triggers in ultimately making sexism a salient and consequential determinant of vote choice.
” One study showing the magnitude of the effect at the presidential level was conducted in 2018 by Brian Schaffner , a political scientist at Tufts University , and two former colleagues at the University of Massachusetts , Amherst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polls conducted in 2016 in which they not only polled whom respondents would vote for , but also asked a set of questions similar to Knuckey ’ s meant to assess voters ’ standing attitudes about gender .
Instead of testing voters ’ reactions to common media terms like “ likability ” or “ electability , ” they asked voters to react to a series of statements developed to measure hostility to women , like “ Women are too easily offended ” and “ When women lose to men in a fair competition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ against.
” Unsurprisingly , those who demonstrated more hostility toward women were less likely to support Clinton .
In fact , sexism had a stronger correlation with vote choice than with economic concerns .
“ Moving from one end of the sexism scale to the other was associated with more than a 30-point increase in support for Trump , ” the study concluded .
The fact that the 2016 election was oversaturated with gender stereotypes may have made sexism a more influential facet of voter choice than in previous elections , the authors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same findings .
Together , they complicate the economistic reading of the 2016 election whereby Trump ’ s victory is ascribed to his ability to speak to the economic insecurity of Rust Belt voters , as if racism and sexism weren ’ t bound up with material concerns .
Schaffner has found that , even among Democrats , sexism is a factor .
In a follow-up from last year in which he rated survey respondents on the same sexism scale , he found that higher sexism scores correlated with lower support for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While those studies show that sexism is real , others suggest the biggest problem is in our heads .
Lean In , a group affiliated with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg , recently undertook a poll to determine if voters were ready for a woman president .
While a majority responded that they themselves were ready , an even greater number said they didn ’ t think their fellow Americans were .
The less a respondent felt the country was ready for a woman , the less likely that person was to support one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In also asked voters questions to assess respondents ’ perception of each candidate as “ presidential ” and “ electable , ” two subjective terms that nevertheless play a role in how people assess candidates .
Unsurprisingly , male candidates rated higher on both counts .
But the data showed that if voters considered the men and women candidates equally presidential and electable , the men would no longer have an advantage .
“ The two biggest predictors of whether voters say they ’ ll vote for a man or a woman who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is how electable and how presidential they are , ” says Rachel Thomas , Lean In ’ s CEO .
“ Outdated notions of who ’ s electable and who ’ s presidential could very much get in the way of how voters vote.
” In other words , the men ’ s advantage exists only when people believe in it .
This summer , Schaffner polled people likely to vote in the Democratic presidential primary on the traits they desired in a nominee .
More than half said they wanted the party @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asked who was more likely to beat Trump , the numbers flipped , with respondents concluding a male candidate had a better chance .
These were the amateur sexism handicappers , the people who aren ’ t themselves sexist—so they say—but who worry everyone else might be and then shape their electoral preferences accordingly .
In the wake of 2016 , such strategic calculations are inevitable .
Trump ’ s campaign in 2016 was anti-woman .
In the primary , he famously defended insulting comments about women by discrediting his questioner , Fox @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vulgar sexism .
He said the only woman running for the GOP nomination was too ugly to be president .
He feminized his male opponents , whom he accused of being too little or too tired , and , on a debate stage he boasted about the size of his penis .
He obsessively portrayed Clinton as lacking “ stamina.
” Then there were the stories that emerged : body shaming a former Miss Universe , forcibly kissing other contestants , and finally a tape of him bragging about attacking women .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ accusations of assault from many women .
At the end of the campaign , Clinton ran an ad highlighting all of Trump ’ s sexist behavior , practically daring voters to elect someone with a record of demeaning and assaulting women .
It was supposed to disqualify him—instead he won .
“ Every so often , society is reminded of how unequal things still are , ” says Marianne Cooper , a Stanford sociologist who helped craft Lean In ’ s study .
“ For many people , particularly many women , [ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we may not have moved as far on gender issues as one would have hoped.
” America ’ s recent history with Clinton places an extra burden on today ’ s female candidates .
“ People view 2016 through this lens of ‘ We ’ ve had a female nominee , gender issues were a big part of the campaign , and we lost , ’ ” says Schaffner .
“ ‘ We don ’ t want to run that same campaign again .
And if we nominate a woman , we ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of campaign that we might end up in again , and that we would lose it again.
’ ” “ A woman is electable at the presidential level—that ’ s proven , ” Dittmar says , citing the simple fact that Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes than Trump .
At the same time Dittmar warns that Clinton ’ s Electoral College loss did in fact buttress skepticism about female candidates ’ chances—doubts that she thinks may have increased during Trump ’ s time in office as “ he has doubled down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of masculinity and the presidency , ” she says , reinforcing “ people ’ s perceptions that this office is made for men and masculinity.
” We ’ re left with the dizzying recursions of the electability debate—voters thinking like pundits who are trying to channel voters .
At this point , there ’ s little utility in relitigating 2016 .
There ’ s evidence that Clinton would have won if not for James Comey ’ s announcement of a renewed email investigation .
Perhaps she would have won if the public had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tape by Russia ’ s release of her campaign manager ’ s private emails .
Or if Facebook and Instagram hadn ’ t been flooded with disinformation , particularly posts urging minorities not to vote .
Kathleen Hall Jamieson , a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania , meticulously studied Russian interference in the 2016 election and concluded that the Kremlin played a decisive role .
But there remains strong evidence that some voters were persuaded by sexism to vote against Clinton .
Were their numbers greater than those persuaded directly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Comey ?
By campaign errors ?
By complacency or disinterest among Democratic constituencies ?
Is the misogyny even separable from the Russian meddling that preyed upon it , or from the effects of a Comey announcement that seemed to confirm so many sexist misgivings about Clinton ’ s competence ?
How do we even begin to answer these questions ?
While the people I spoke with say sexism and voters ’ assumptions about whether their neighbors will vote for a woman are very real , no one believed that Warren ’ s dip @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by fears that her gender will make her a weak candidate against Trump .
Instead , the main presumptive cause was Warren ’ s Medicare-for-All proposal .
She had long supported a single-payer health care system , but in every debate moderators had pressed her to explain how she would pay for it .
So did her Democratic rivals .
Finally , Warren released a plan detailing how she would , while outlining a slower implementation than that envisioned by Sanders , the staunchest supporter of Medicare for All .
“ Her dive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her Medicare for All plan , ” says Marsh , who has long observed Warren ’ s political career .
“ There ’ s no other reason when you look at the polling.
” The plan , she posits , may have softened Warren ’ s support among women , who are both key to Warren ’ s coalition and prioritize health care as an issue .
Dolan believes that the Medicare for All plan may have scared off some moderates who were supporting her ; Pete Buttigieg , who has a less-ambitious @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rise after her rollout .
Tufts ’ Schaffner hypothesized that Warren may have appeared shifty on the issues , reminding voters of her evasive claims to Native American heritage , which in what was a truly botched political decision blew up a year before , when she took a DNA test to try to substantiate them .
There are also natural ebbs and flows in primary elections .
Candidates rise , get attacked and scrutinized , then subside .
Several of the experts believed Warren merely faltered as part of the routine shifts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ am not entirely convinced by these explanations .
Increasingly , I think Warren ’ s November decline is the perfect encapsulation of the challenges women candidates face—challenges that are real but that are significantly magnified by fictions in our heads .
Warren did not surprise anybody by coming out with a Medicare for All plan ; she had supported the idea for years , and finally backed up that support with a concrete funding proposal .
Her proposal was entirely in keeping with the central policies of her campaign : tax the rich @ @ @ @ @ @ @ services .
Why was such an in-character move seen as so negative ?
Could that alone explain a drop from 26 percent in the polls to 14 ?
To voters already unsure about the electability of a woman , any error can reinforce suspicions about her viability .
“ The kind of news and polls that would be speed bumps for most male candidates become potholes—or worse , sinkholes—for women candidates , ” says Marsh .
Warren may have more plans than any candidate , but when one of her policies received extra @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issue of women ’ s electability came up in the debate this month , Warren finally had a chance to address it , not just in speeches she has given about other trailblazing women or pinky-swears with young girls in her selfie lines , but directly .
Warren was prepared with a robust argument not only about her and Klobuchar ’ s real-world records of winning elections , but also about the country ’ s history of taking a chance on a candidate and proving doubters wrong .
“ Look , don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” she said .
“ Back in the 1960s , people asked , ‘ Could a Catholic win ?
’ Back in 2008 , people asked if an African American could win .
In both times the Democratic Party stepped up and said yes , got behind their candidate , and we changed America .
That ’ s who we are.
” Discussing sexism can be self-defeating : Talk about electability or likability , and you perpetuate doubts about a candidate ’ s chances .
Even my writing about the issue now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But , insidiously , left in the shadows , misogyny goes unchecked .
Whether Warren or Klobuchar wanted to address this issue head on or not , they are now running in that reality .
How Warren and Sanders ’ recent dispute will affect the primary remains unclear .
It seems to have invited more gendered attacks against Warren , including the pro-Sanders hashtag # WarrenIsASnake .
But a world in which voters hear the issue addressed directly might in fact be better for female candidates .
“ A lot of our bias @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says Melanye Price , a political scientist at Prairie View A & M University .
“ It sometimes just flies by without us really interrogating it.
” But research has shown that when implicit biases are uncloaked and questioned , people can choose to abandon them .
This was true in the 1980s , Price explains , when research indicated that political strategies appealing to racial bias lost potency after they were called out .
“ Once you get past ‘ Why do you think that ?
’ you start to think about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
’ And I really don ’ t think there ’ s any other another way of going at this woman-for-president thing.
” “ I don ’ t think that things change or move forward without talking about what ’ s happening , ” Cooper says .
Voters considering a woman have a choice , she adds .
“ It ’ s going to be harder for them to win .
But they also can win .
Those different takes are all true .
It ’ s just about the world we want @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s too hard and the risk is too great , that 2016 was too ugly and they are too tired to endure another sexism-saturated election cycle .
Indeed , the latest polls from Iowa and New Hampshire suggest the remaining women have a narrow path to sustain their candidacies much further .
This may be one of Trump ’ s greatest triumphs over women : a certainty that a woman can not defeat him or any male presidential candidate .
It ’ s not true , but it can be believed @ @ @

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On November 5, New York Times polling savant Nate Cohn appeared as a guest on The Daily, the paper’s popular podcast, to shed light on the biggest question in the Democratic presidential primary. The episode’s title: “Who’s Actually Electable in 2020?”
Cohn took to the microphone to deliver some real talk to millions of listeners: Elizabeth Warren—who at the time had just climbed to the top of the polls for the Democratic nomination—may be a weak nominee because some voters wouldn’t support a woman.
The Times had commissioned a poll measuring the top Democratic contenders against President Trump in the closely contested states that cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election. There, Cohn explained, Warren looked shakier than both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. “Overall, she trailed by 2 points across these states,” Cohn said. “That’s the same as Hillary Clinton’s performance. So if the election were held today, and if these results are right, Elizabeth Warren would lose to the president.”
The takeaway was unmistakable: The female candidate would again fail, just like the last one. Millions of people read about the poll, or listened to Cohn’s predictions, or listened to other pundits chew it over. Filtering through the media coverage were subtle notions that Warren and the other women running for president were inherently risky choices for a party focused on turning Trump out of office. Was Warren too angry, as Biden suggested that same day? Was she therefore unlikable? It seemed that just as Warren had begun to overtake Biden in the national polls, a riptide of pent-up, gender-based anxiety took hold of her campaign and pulled it down. Had Cohn found misogyny in his crosstabs? Or did the results reflect respondents’ fears about other voters’ willingness to vote for a woman? Had Democrats’ desperation to pick a winner created a party of amateur sexism handicappers?
On January 13, the issue transformed from a quiet undercurrent of the primary to the national headlines. CNN reported that at a dinner in December 2018, as both Warren and Sanders were preparing to launch presidential campaigns, Sanders told Warren that a woman couldn’t win. The following day, at a Democratic primary debate hosted by the network in Des Moines, Iowa, the issue took center stage. Sanders denied his comments; Warren confirmed them. After the debate, microphones caught a testy exchange between the two: Warren declined to shake his hand, and they accused each other of having accused each other on national television of being a liar. Though the two candidates appear to have moved on, the public is still left to grapple with the question at the heart of their dispute, the one that has loomed over Democratic politics since Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016: Can a woman beat Trump?
In Madison, Wisconsin—one of the critical swing states that Trump won in 2016—Kathleen Dolan read the Times poll not as a warning against nominating a woman but as yet another bad poll scaring voters for no reason. A political scientist at the University of Wisconsin who researches the impact of gender on voter choice, Dolan says that rather than demonstrating latent sexism among voters, the survey was itself an insidious form of sexism: incredulous pundits planting the idea that a woman is not electable.
The poll may have indeed shown Biden with an edge, but given the margin of error, Cohn was wrong to claim that it showed Sanders doing any better statistically than Warren in the surveyed states, Dolan says. To her, the Times article and headline—“One Year From Election, Trump Trails Biden but Leads Warren in Battlegrounds”—were pushing a narrative unsupported by data. “Somebody chose to look at Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren being in exactly the same statistical position vis-à-vis the president,” she says, “and decided to focus on the fact that somehow she’s losing.”
The poll did something else that Dolan found deeply misguided. It asked a subset of voters who’d said they would support Biden over Trump but not Warren whether the female candidates in the race were likable—to which 41 percent of that small subset said they were not. “For people who do survey research, it’s a bad question,” she says. There were five female candidates in the Democratic primary at the time, including the polarizing Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. How are respondents to answer that question if they found one unlikable but not the others? The Times question used “likability” as a proxy for sexism, a way to tease out whether some voters didn’t want to elect a woman president without making them say so explicitly. But it’s a clumsy stand-in for gender bias, and one that may do more to reinforce stereotypes than actually unearth voter beliefs.
The electability of women remains in question because people keep questioning women’s electability.
As Dolan sees it, that “really flawed question” is the crux of the problem. Voters answering the survey and news consumers getting the results see that the Times chose to include the question, Dolan says, and they reason that experts “must think it’s important,” while at the same time noting it was asked only about female candidates. “So they must think that the women might be likable—but might not be.”
“That’s the sexism right there!” Dolan says. Dozens of men have lost presidential campaigns, and so far in every instance but one, Americans selected another man to try again the next time, their maleness blessedly unburdened with concerns about electability. Not only is bias clearly embedded in the question, she argues, the question itself keeps alive the very notion that it is trying to measure—that women are unlikable and therefore unelectable—setting up a self-fulfilling prophecy in perpetual motion. The electability of women remains in question because people keep questioning women’s electability.
A woman, I was told again and again, can win. The studies prove it. I’d wanted to know just how much voters were worried about the electability of a female candidate and whether those fears were grounded in real disadvantages. So I turned to political scientists who study the issue. And the results, as you would expect on any complex social issue, were both mixed and clear. A woman can win but before that she has to navigate a set of real stereotypes and biases, which are perhaps all the more acute because of Clinton’s loss. Gender equality hasn’t come as far as we hoped. For some voters, their sexism is a reason to support Trump.
“Voters are more skeptical of women’s experience and competency and therefore want to hear more about what women can do, their qualifications, and their plans,” says Kelly Dittmar, a political scientist at Rutgers University’s Center for American Women and Politics. Women must work harder to prove their competence to voters more skeptical of their readiness yet at the same time not put off voters who expect women to be warm and collaborative.
The women running in the Democratic primary have tested a range of political personas to preempt this bias. Gabbard has an abrupt, almost stoic manner and highlights her record in the military. Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has made her legislative achievements and her record of winning in the Midwest the centerpiece of her campaign—how could anyone worry about the electability of a candidate who keeps getting elected, her campaign seems to ask. But Klobuchar’s presentation also draws on a feminine stereotype: She’s passed a lot of bills because she works with others. She’s a team player.
Warren faced a lot of questions in the run-up to her campaign launch about her likability—the which candidate would you like to grab a beer with? question. Is it a coincidence that in an Instagram live appearance shortly before her campaign launch, Warren said, “Hold on a sec, I’m gonna get me a beer,” walking to her fridge and returning with a Michelob Ultra? Warren is first and foremost known as a wonk. She built a campaign on the strength of her many plans, which act as a bulwark against questions about her competency and preparedness. Her famous selfie lines make for great social media and press coverage, but they’re also strategic. Who takes selfies with people who aren’t likable?
Running for office while female is “the extrapolation of every woman’s experience,” says Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic political consultant. “You work twice as hard, you get twice as many or more credentials, you out-work everybody else, and you still get paid less.”
The candidates’ efforts to disarm gender stereotypes may not be important for the reasons we assume. Some research shows that voters aren’t concerned as much about likability when it comes to their own votes. Instead, they worry that other voters won’t pick a woman. It’s an issue of perceived electability, not actual electability—although at the end of the day they are the same thing. Dolan’s research, for example, compares people’s choice of candidate to their attitudes about gender. Negative gender stereotypes, she found, are not a main driver of voter choice—at least not at the state and congressional levels. Dolan also points to a recent study out of Finland, one of the world’s most egalitarian countries, which just swore in a 34-year-old female prime minister. Gender stereotypes and sexism remain in Finnish society, the study found, but eradicating them wasn’t necessary for a woman to become head of state.
But there’s some evidence American voters view the presidency, the top executive position in the country, in a fundamentally gendered way. Jonathan Knuckey at the University of Central Florida analyzed a major 2016 voter survey that used questions designed by social scientists to suss out sexist attitudes while also asking about voter choice for members of congress and for president. The results showed that attitudes about women were statistically significant in voter choice for president but not for the House of Representatives. “The effect of sexism on the 2016 election appears confined to presidential vote choices,” Knuckey concluded, “where the mere presence of a woman and the presence of a man who had exhibited sexist and misogynistic behavior served as the triggers in ultimately making sexism a salient and consequential determinant of vote choice.”
Some research shows that voters aren’t concerned as much about likability when it comes to their own votes. Instead, they worry that other voters won’t pick a woman. It’s an issue of perceived electability, not actual electability.
One study showing the magnitude of the effect at the presidential level was conducted in 2018 by Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts University, and two former colleagues at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. The researchers looked back at two polls conducted in 2016 in which they not only polled whom respondents would vote for, but also asked a set of questions similar to Knuckey’s meant to assess voters’ standing attitudes about gender. Instead of testing voters’ reactions to common media terms like “likability” or “electability,” they asked voters to react to a series of statements developed to measure hostility to women, like “Women are too easily offended” and “When women lose to men in a fair competition, they typically complain about being discriminated against.”
Unsurprisingly, those who demonstrated more hostility toward women were less likely to support Clinton. In fact, sexism had a stronger correlation with vote choice than with economic concerns. “Moving from one end of the sexism scale to the other was associated with more than a 30-point increase in support for Trump,” the study concluded. The fact that the 2016 election was oversaturated with gender stereotypes may have made sexism a more influential facet of voter choice than in previous elections, the authors concluded.
Similarly conducted surveys had the same findings. Together, they complicate the economistic reading of the 2016 election whereby Trump’s victory is ascribed to his ability to speak to the economic insecurity of Rust Belt voters, as if racism and sexism weren’t bound up with material concerns.
Schaffner has found that, even among Democrats, sexism is a factor. In a follow-up from last year in which he rated survey respondents on the same sexism scale, he found that higher sexism scores correlated with lower support for the women running in the Democratic primary.
While those studies show that sexism is real, others suggest the biggest problem is in our heads. Lean In, a group affiliated with Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, recently undertook a poll to determine if voters were ready for a woman president. While a majority responded that they themselves were ready, an even greater number said they didn’t think their fellow Americans were. The less a respondent felt the country was ready for a woman, the less likely that person was to support one of the women Democratic candidates.
Lean In also asked voters questions to assess respondents’ perception of each candidate as “presidential” and “electable,” two subjective terms that nevertheless play a role in how people assess candidates. Unsurprisingly, male candidates rated higher on both counts. But the data showed that if voters considered the men and women candidates equally presidential and electable, the men would no longer have an advantage.
“The two biggest predictors of whether voters say they’ll vote for a man or a woman who’s running in the Democratic primary is how electable and how presidential they are,” says Rachel Thomas, Lean In’s CEO. “Outdated notions of who’s electable and who’s presidential could very much get in the way of how voters vote.” In other words, the men’s advantage exists only when people believe in it.
This summer, Schaffner polled people likely to vote in the Democratic presidential primary on the traits they desired in a nominee. More than half said they wanted the party to choose a woman. But when asked who was more likely to beat Trump, the numbers flipped, with respondents concluding a male candidate had a better chance. These were the amateur sexism handicappers, the people who aren’t themselves sexist—so they say—but who worry everyone else might be and then shape their electoral preferences accordingly.
In the wake of 2016, such strategic calculations are inevitable. Trump’s campaign in 2016 was anti-woman. In the primary, he famously defended insulting comments about women by discrediting his questioner, Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, with more vulgar sexism. He said the only woman running for the GOP nomination was too ugly to be president. He feminized his male opponents, whom he accused of being too little or too tired, and, on a debate stage he boasted about the size of his penis. He obsessively portrayed Clinton as lacking “stamina.” Then there were the stories that emerged: body shaming a former Miss Universe, forcibly kissing other contestants, and finally a tape of him bragging about attacking women. The Access Hollywood bombshell was followed by renewed accusations of assault from many women. At the end of the campaign, Clinton ran an ad highlighting all of Trump’s sexist behavior, practically daring voters to elect someone with a record of demeaning and assaulting women. It was supposed to disqualify him—instead he won.
“Every so often, society is reminded of how unequal things still are,” says Marianne Cooper, a Stanford sociologist who helped craft Lean In’s study. “For many people, particularly many women, [2016] brought into stark relief that we may not have moved as far on gender issues as one would have hoped.”
America’s recent history with Clinton places an extra burden on today’s female candidates. “People view 2016 through this lens of ‘We’ve had a female nominee, gender issues were a big part of the campaign, and we lost,’” says Schaffner. “‘We don’t want to run that same campaign again. And if we nominate a woman, we’re worried that’s the kind of campaign that we might end up in again, and that we would lose it again.’”
“A woman is electable at the presidential level—that’s proven,” Dittmar says, citing the simple fact that Clinton received nearly 3 million more votes than Trump. At the same time Dittmar warns that Clinton’s Electoral College loss did in fact buttress skepticism about female candidates’ chances—doubts that she thinks may have increased during Trump’s time in office as “he has doubled down on the misogyny and the traditional performance of masculinity and the presidency,” she says, reinforcing “people’s perceptions that this office is made for men and masculinity.” We’re left with the dizzying recursions of the electability debate—voters thinking like pundits who are trying to channel voters.
Discussing sexism can be self-defeating. Even my writing about the issue now risks planting seeds of unwarranted doubt. But, insidiously, left in the shadows, misogyny goes unchecked.
At this point, there’s little utility in relitigating 2016. There’s evidence that Clinton would have won if not for James Comey’s announcement of a renewed email investigation. Perhaps she would have won if the public had not been distracted from the Access Hollywood tape by Russia’s release of her campaign manager’s private emails. Or if Facebook and Instagram hadn’t been flooded with disinformation, particularly posts urging minorities not to vote. Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a professor of communications at the University of Pennsylvania, meticulously studied Russian interference in the 2016 election and concluded that the Kremlin played a decisive role. But there remains strong evidence that some voters were persuaded by sexism to vote against Clinton. Were their numbers greater than those persuaded directly or indirectly by the Russians? Or Comey? By campaign errors? By complacency or disinterest among Democratic constituencies? Is the misogyny even separable from the Russian meddling that preyed upon it, or from the effects of a Comey announcement that seemed to confirm so many sexist misgivings about Clinton’s competence? How do we even begin to answer these questions?
While the people I spoke with say sexism and voters’ assumptions about whether their neighbors will vote for a woman are very real, no one believed that Warren’s dip in the polls in November was caused by fears that her gender will make her a weak candidate against Trump. Instead, the main presumptive cause was Warren’s Medicare-for-All proposal. She had long supported a single-payer health care system, but in every debate moderators had pressed her to explain how she would pay for it. So did her Democratic rivals. Finally, Warren released a plan detailing how she would, while outlining a slower implementation than that envisioned by Sanders, the staunchest supporter of Medicare for All.
“Her dive in the polls is undeniably tied to her Medicare for All plan,” says Marsh, who has long observed Warren’s political career. “There’s no other reason when you look at the polling.” The plan, she posits, may have softened Warren’s support among women, who are both key to Warren’s coalition and prioritize health care as an issue. Dolan believes that the Medicare for All plan may have scared off some moderates who were supporting her; Pete Buttigieg, who has a less-ambitious health plan, saw his poll numbers rise after her rollout. Tufts’ Schaffner hypothesized that Warren may have appeared shifty on the issues, reminding voters of her evasive claims to Native American heritage, which in what was a truly botched political decision blew up a year before, when she took a DNA test to try to substantiate them. There are also natural ebbs and flows in primary elections. Candidates rise, get attacked and scrutinized, then subside. Several of the experts believed Warren merely faltered as part of the routine shifts in a large primary field.
I am not entirely convinced by these explanations. Increasingly, I think Warren’s November decline is the perfect encapsulation of the challenges women candidates face—challenges that are real but that are significantly magnified by fictions in our heads.
Warren did not surprise anybody by coming out with a Medicare for All plan; she had supported the idea for years, and finally backed up that support with a concrete funding proposal. Her proposal was entirely in keeping with the central policies of her campaign: tax the rich and big businesses to pay for universal services. Why was such an in-character move seen as so negative? Could that alone explain a drop from 26 percent in the polls to 14?
To voters already unsure about the electability of a woman, any error can reinforce suspicions about her viability. “The kind of news and polls that would be speed bumps for most male candidates become potholes—or worse, sinkholes—for women candidates,” says Marsh. Warren may have more plans than any candidate, but when one of her policies received extra scrutiny, voters balked.
When the issue of women’s electability came up in the debate this month, Warren finally had a chance to address it, not just in speeches she has given about other trailblazing women or pinky-swears with young girls in her selfie lines, but directly. Warren was prepared with a robust argument not only about her and Klobuchar’s real-world records of winning elections, but also about the country’s history of taking a chance on a candidate and proving doubters wrong. “Look, don’t deny that the question is there,” she said. “Back in the 1960s, people asked, ‘Could a Catholic win?’ Back in 2008, people asked if an African American could win. In both times the Democratic Party stepped up and said yes, got behind their candidate, and we changed America. That’s who we are.”
Discussing sexism can be self-defeating: Talk about electability or likability, and you perpetuate doubts about a candidate’s chances. Even my writing about the issue now risks planting seeds of unwarranted doubt. But, insidiously, left in the shadows, misogyny goes unchecked. Whether Warren or Klobuchar wanted to address this issue head on or not, they are now running in that reality.
How Warren and Sanders’ recent dispute will affect the primary remains unclear. It seems to have invited more gendered attacks against Warren, including the pro-Sanders hashtag #WarrenIsASnake. But a world in which voters hear the issue addressed directly might in fact be better for female candidates. “A lot of our bias against particular groups is implicit,” says Melanye Price, a political scientist at Prairie View A&M University. “It sometimes just flies by without us really interrogating it.”
But research has shown that when implicit biases are uncloaked and questioned, people can choose to abandon them. This was true in the 1980s, Price explains, when research indicated that political strategies appealing to racial bias lost potency after they were called out. “Once you get past ‘Why do you think that?’ you start to think about ‘What are some of the alternatives?’ And I really don’t think there’s any other another way of going at this woman-for-president thing.”
“I don’t think that things change or move forward without talking about what’s happening,” Cooper says. Voters considering a woman have a choice, she adds. “It’s going to be harder for them to win. But they also can win. Those different takes are all true. It’s just about the world we want to live in.”
Voters may decide it’s too hard and the risk is too great, that 2016 was too ugly and they are too tired to endure another sexism-saturated election cycle. Indeed, the latest polls from Iowa and New Hampshire suggest the remaining women have a narrow path to sustain their candidacies much further.
This may be one of Trump’s greatest triumphs over women: a certainty that a woman cannot defeat him or any male presidential candidate. It’s not true, but it can be believed into existence.


motherjones--2020-01-29--South Dakota Lawmakers Just Voted to Send Doctors to Jail for Helping Trans Kids

After hours of heated ( and often comically inaccurate ) debate , South Dakota ’ s House of Representatives on Wednesday became the first in the country to green light a bill that prohibits gender–affirming medical care for transgender kids .
The bill , which has nearly 50 sponsors , would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor for doctors to provide minors under the age of 16 with hormone treatment or gender confirmation surgery .
Doctors who violate the law could face a $ 2,000 fine and up to a year in jail .
Proponents of the bill say it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The bill ’ s author has compared doctors who provide gender-affirming care to Nazis .
During Wednesday ’ s floor debate , one Republican representative said such procedures would some day be considered as dangerous and pseudoscientific as lobotomies .
“ We ’ re talking about cutting off little girls ’ breasts , ” said Rep. Jon Hansen , a freshman lawmaker from Dell Rapids .
( It should go without saying that little girls don ’ t have breasts . )
Opponents—and most major medical associations—say such care is generally safe , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and far preferable to the known consequences of rejecting trans kids ’ gender identities .
Beyond that , Kelly Sullivan , a freshman lawmaker from Sioux Falls , described the bill as vast government overreach from a party that otherwise idealizes small government .
“ I ’ m a Democrat asking you to vote your conservative values , ” she said during Wednesday ’ s debate .
According to the ACLU , at least 25 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced across the country this year , and at least a handful—in states like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Dakota ’ s attempt to outlaw gender-affirming health care for minors by criminalizing doctors and , in some cases , even parents who consent to such procedures .
“ Overall , this is one of the most hostile starts to a legislative session that we ’ ve seen , certainly in the last five years , with respect to anti-LGBTQ bills , ” said Chase Strangio , deputy director of the LGBT and HIV Project at the ACLU .
“ Not just in the number , but in the content of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they were introduced.
” Such bills have been cropping up across the country since last fall , when a sensationalized custody battle in Texas became a rallying cry in conservatives ’ anti-LGBTQ culture war .
As I wrote at the time : Having lost the battle to stop transgender people from using public bathrooms that conform to their gender identity , conservatives have doubled down on trying to control the private lives of trans people .
This time , Republican strategists are putting transgender kids , and the people who support them , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ shore up conservative support .
According to Andrew Reynolds , a political science professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill , gender identity remains the most divisive identity issue—more so than race , ethnicity , sex , religion , disability status or even sexual orientation—for American voters , and conservatives in particular .
Now that the bill has passed out of South Dakota ’ s House , it heads to the state Senate , which is overwhelmingly Republican .
Strangio said the ACLU is exploring their litigation options , should the bill @ @ @ @ @

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After hours of heated (and often comically inaccurate) debate, South Dakota’s House of Representatives on Wednesday became the first in the country to green light a bill that prohibits gender–affirming medical care for transgender kids. The bill, which has nearly 50 sponsors, would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor for doctors to provide minors under the age of 16 with hormone treatment or gender confirmation surgery. Doctors who violate the law could face a $2,000 fine and up to a year in jail.
Proponents of the bill say it protects children from “medical experimentation.” The bill’s author has compared doctors who provide gender-affirming care to Nazis. During Wednesday’s floor debate, one Republican representative said such procedures would some day be considered as dangerous and pseudoscientific as lobotomies. “We’re talking about cutting off little girls’ breasts,” said Rep. Jon Hansen, a freshman lawmaker from Dell Rapids. (It should go without saying that little girls don’t have breasts.)
Opponents—and most major medical associations—say such care is generally safe, in line with medical best practices, and far preferable to the known consequences of rejecting trans kids’ gender identities. Beyond that, Kelly Sullivan, a freshman lawmaker from Sioux Falls, described the bill as vast government overreach from a party that otherwise idealizes small government. “I’m a Democrat asking you to vote your conservative values,” she said during Wednesday’s debate.
According to the ACLU, at least 25 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced across the country this year, and at least a handful—in states like Colorado, Florida, and South Carolina—mirror South Dakota’s attempt to outlaw gender-affirming health care for minors by criminalizing doctors and, in some cases, even parents who consent to such procedures.
“Overall, this is one of the most hostile starts to a legislative session that we’ve seen, certainly in the last five years, with respect to anti-LGBTQ bills,” said Chase Strangio, deputy director of the LGBT and HIV Project at the ACLU. “Not just in the number, but in the content of the bills and in the swiftness with which they were introduced.”
Such bills have been cropping up across the country since last fall, when a sensationalized custody battle in Texas became a rallying cry in conservatives’ anti-LGBTQ culture war. As I wrote at the time:
Having lost the battle to stop transgender people from using public bathrooms that conform to their gender identity, conservatives have doubled down on trying to control the private lives of trans people. This time, Republican strategists are putting transgender kids, and the people who support them, at the center of an effort to shore up conservative support. According to Andrew Reynolds, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, gender identity remains the most divisive identity issue—more so than race, ethnicity, sex, religion, disability status or even sexual orientation—for American voters, and conservatives in particular.
Now that the bill has passed out of South Dakota’s House, it heads to the state Senate, which is overwhelmingly Republican. Strangio said the ACLU is exploring their litigation options, should the bill be signed into law.