Dear friends,
It may seem perverse to try to continue the Tuesday tradition of good news, but it is worthy and even necessary.
Another heinous police killing — this one in Ohio — has come to light. And once again, I write in the wake of a mass shooting, both tragic and predictable. Somehow, the police managed to apprehend the shooter without killing him.
Nihilism gets us nowhere.
Read M4BL’s Five Year Plan.
Ketanji Brown Jackson was sworn in last week as a sitting Supreme Court Justice. She put her hand atop two bibles, one from her family and one that was donated by Justice John Marshall Harlan.
Harlan, known as the Great Dissenter during his 34-year tenure on the court, was the only justice to vote no in 1896 in Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation under the "separate but equal" doctrine.
I expect that KBJ will be doing quite a bit of dissenting during her time on the Trump Court. This is a crap time to be on the Court. It is, however, always the right time to elevate people of substance. In our search for good news, it is helpful to find the light and follow it.
It is always hard to tell if our phone calls and emails are affecting policy AND it’s exciting to see that policies we have pushed are in motion. I believe we are making an impact.
NYS is taking action to shore up rights in the wake of some of the Supreme Court’s most recent decisions.
The governor signed gun legislation on Friday that
lays out a strict licensing process to obtain a concealed-carry permit and a list of locations deemed "sensitive" — including Times Square — where firearm possession will be illegal, according to the legislative text. Other areas defined as sensitive include government-owned buildings, schools, health care facilities, places of worship and public transportation. People who carry a gun in a prohibited location could be charged with a felony under the law.
Legislators anticipate that the language of the new law will withstand the inevitable court challenge.
The state’s new Equal Rights Amendment, possibly also called the Equal Protection Amendment, passed the legislature for the first time. I have been unable to find the exact language yet (which is bizarre!), but the Times reports that
[i]t prohibits the government from discriminating against anyone based on a list of qualifications including race, ethnicity, national origin, disability or sex — specifically noting sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and pregnancy on the list of protected conditions.
It would also prohibit public agencies and workers from cooperating with out-of-state investigations related to reproductive care that is legal in New Jersey.
We need to revivify some little-used powers to assert our democratic rights.
Read Jamelle Bouie’s “The Supreme Court Is the Final Word on Nothing.”
Bouie writes about the neglected passages of the Constitution that we can employ as part of our justice efforts. Referring to sections 2 and 3 of the 14th Amendment, Bouie notes,
Congress has never exercised its ability to deny representation to states that violate the right of citizens to vote, nor has it used its ability to disqualify those lawmakers who have engaged in acts of rebellion or insurrection. In the wake of Jan. 6, Representatives Cori Bush and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called on Congress to investigate and expel members who aided the attack, but their demands went nowhere.
Call on your Congressional delegation to enforce Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This is ready-made!
Section 2, which we have not yet discussed here, is perhaps more important. Bouie explains:
It specifies that if the right to vote for federal office is “denied” or “in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion” to “any of the male inhabitants” of such a state, then “the basis of representation therein shall be reduced” in proportion to the denial in question.
How cool would it be to reduce a state’s representation in Congress in proportion to the degree to which voting rights have been denied or abridged?
Jamelle Bouie’s thesis is that federalism is, more often than not, an obstacle to democratic ends. But we are going to have to play hard against the so-called originalists. I am still working on a Section 2 action and, as always, taking suggestions.
Add your voice to the call for a public health emergency for reproductive health care. This action is ready-made and will take less than a minute!
What may have seemed like a death knell for environmental regulation is probably just a paywall.
Robinson Meyer, a climate writer for The Atlantic, interviewed Michael Wara, a scholar of climate and energy policy at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. Wara explained that last week’s ruling
doesn’t limit EPA from regulating greenhouse-gas emissions in general, which was a possibility in this case. It doesn’t say that EPA can’t regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants. It does say, however, that that regulation has to focus on the individual power plant as opposed to the electricity system as a whole.
Meyer points out the irony in the ruling:
[T]he Court’s conservative supermajority just ruled that the market cannot be allowed to find its own solutions when it comes to how utilities should adjust to climate change. Instead, the EPA should instruct power plants on what technology to use to meet their goals.
Wara explained that previously, the EPA tried to make regulations
to deliver maximum emission reductions at minimum cost for society.
Making environmental regulation more expensive may not make it less popular, and certainly won’t make it less necessary. My favorite part of the interview was Meyer’s next question:
Meyer: Can the EPA, at least under this ruling, issue a very blunt regulation? Can it say something like, Power plants can now only emit X amount of carbon per year, period—that’s it, have fun meeting that standard?
Wara: They can’t completely do that for old plants. They can do that for new power plants if there is existing technology available. And there, I think the problem that the states that oppose climate action are going to have is that many of them are also vociferously pushing development of CCS [carbon capture and storage], and pushing their utilities to try it. Those are bad facts for a case saying the technology is not available. And lots of industry is also pushing that.
It seems clear that the Supreme Court’s decision is itself a blunt instrument, forcing regulatory agencies of all kinds to change tactics without abandoning their stated purpose. Wara, again:
In this Court, we are in a new world when it comes to agencies coming up with new approaches or using the power they have to address new problems.
It’s not good news, but it leaves advocates a window to climb through.
a producer responsibility organization (PRO) to run a collection and recycling program with state oversight, establishing a form of extended producer responsibility (EPR) for printed paper and packaging. . . .
The bill also sets up a California Plastic Pollution Mitigation Fund to pay to address existing environmental damage and health impacts.
Here’s some local good news:
Street cleaning should improve now that alternate-side-parking rules enforcement has been restored. More than 40 sanitation workers are being rehired and enforcement should bring in millions of dollars in funding to help the department purchase the sweet little street sweepers designed to clean the city's bike lanes.
The city is now granting waivers to allow first responders to work part-time as lifeguards.
If you are out-and-about in NYC, you need detailed knowledge of the public accommodations. Here’s a beautiful thing: progress on the democratization of bathroom access!
My city council rep, Rita Joseph, is behind the new bill requiring the Administration
to propose at least one public bathroom location per zip code by June 1, 2023.
For more immediate relief, check out Got2GoNYC on Instagram.
Keep your head up, because neck pain won’t improve the situation and it makes it easier to see the sky.
with love,
L