This morning I’ve seen bitter complaints and calls for the impeachment of Andrew Cuomo (New York), Gavin Newsom (California), and Greg Abbott (Texas). The first two in that list are Democrats and the third a Republican so it’s not that Democrats are bad but Republicans good. New York, California, and Texas are very big states. Between them New York and California account for 18% of the U. S. population while Texas accounts for another 9%.
At Reason.com Lisa Wolfe says that the problem is that the wrong people have been elected governors:
As Cuomo and Newsom face deserved condemnation and maybe even real consequences for their pandemic malfeasance, it’s worth remembering that the two combined make decisions affecting a collective 60 million people, or about 18 percent of the U.S. population. The pandemic—and subsequent deprivations of liberty in the form of cyclical lockdowns—are too-late reminders that we ought to be choosy not just about who sits in the Oval Office, but also the governor’s mansion.
and that’s an issue I’ve pointed to myself. Over-emphasis on national politics and the federal government contribute to the infantilization of state and local governments. To many people they just don’t seem that important which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Other than with respect to foreign policy and the military it’s the White House that just isn’t that important—it’s Congress that important nationally. With the exceptions of your Social Security benefits, your Medicare/Medicaid benefits, and your federal income taxes, nearly everything that touches your daily life falls within the purview of state or local governments.
I would add to the infantilization of state and local government and that the jobs are just too big for the men that the jobs are too big for anybody. It’s no accident that the best-run states are a lot smaller. Federalizing things more will hurt, paying more attention will help, but maybe states need to be chopped up into more manageable units.
What is the pandemic malfeasance of Cuomo and Newsom? Cuomo didnt report nursing hime deaths correctly so if you correct them NY goes from better than average to average, when they were at the front of the wave. Meh. There were a few other mistakes but I have not seen anything that was worse than what other states did. Newsom got caught going to a restaurant. Since this is the first time a politician has ever been a hypocrite, I guess maybe malfeasance would apply. There is certainly a lot of other stuff they have done, budget management to name one, that deserve criticism.
I dont know that much about Abbott, and I am sure he deserves some criticism for the power loss, but I think he and the other people planning there have mostly been guilty of giving people what they want. The voters wanted the cheapest power possible and they got it. They had other power outages due to the cold. They knew what they were risking, but they kept electing people who worked to give them the lowest costs. A few deaths were acceptable in return. If it had not been Abbott it would have been some other guy doing the same thing.
Steve
Here’s the recall petition against Newsom. There is no provision in New York for recalling the governor but the state legislature can impeach him. Here’s the argument being made by state legislator Ron Kim, a Democrat (Sanders supporter).
Nebraska is almost two different states politically, with the eastern quarter reliably Democrat and the out west Republican.
Lincoln and Omaha have a greater share of state and federal plus university workers while out west is generally more agrarian and manufacturing.
I’d say its important to point out that most Nebraskans are not land owners apart from their homes because of farm consolidation.
What I guess I believe the difference is would be population density and the Christian work ethic. In a small community it’s rare to find people who don’t worry about what the neighbors think of them.
No one wants to be considered a ward of the state, although many are, with social security income and in kind farm payments.
But move to the big city and most people work for the government, and if you don’t you have the anonymity of the city to mask taking advantage of every program and voting for more.
I worked with a man who went years not filing his income taxes, he had eight kids at home and they wanted to give him money back he did not earn, (child tax credit).
I know him well, this was not a matter of pride but a well thought out position, he reasoned that being dependent was not what he wanted to model for his children, and now that they’re grown I can testify that he was right. They are independent and doing well.
Back in November when the Illinois Governor imposed shut-down orders to combat the third wave of infections, my city and county adopted a joint ordinance with their own plan. The Governor complained that our leaders were irresponsibly exposing us to the risk of death. The mayor retorted that they could do what other communities are doing and just ignore the Governor’s proclamation, but they were going to actively enforce the ordinances and from what I can tell they did. Restaurants were fined for not keeping a flap open in outdoor seating, or serving patrons at the bar. A city council member was fined for not wearing his mask at the city council proceedings (in which he was at least two meters distant from anybody else). Mainly, I think we kept dining open that was supposed to be closed. As much as he complained, the Governor couldn’t do anything about it except threaten lawsuits from personal injury lawyers. He would have needed to go to the legislature and have a law passed, which he never would do.
I don’t know about other states, but Illinois seems to have fairly strong home rule powers. Southern states btw/ tend to be weak on home-rule powers and strong on centralization on the state levels.
I’d say that mayor and Governor are the two most important positions to the Average Joe. Its worth noting that most of the big cities are run by Democrats, and virtually all of them are a complete and total mess.
Florida is a pretty big state. Seems to be doing well. Of course it came close to having a drug addled, male hooker aficionado at the helm.