The U.S. Senate has managed to pass an immigration reform bill. Now it goes to the House of Representatives, where conservative Republicans, obstructionists, anti-immigration zealots, John Boehner and his band of meanies will undoubtedly do everything they can to stymie it. But there is, in fact, a way to get the bill through, even without the “majority of the majority” that Boehner is insisting on.  The strategy is called a discharge petition.

At the Maddow Blog, Steve Benen explains the discharge petition this way:

As a rule, the only bills that reach the House floor for a vote are the ones House leaders allow to reach the floor. But there’s an exception: if 218 members sign a discharge petition, their preferred legislation is brought up for a vote whether the majority party’s leadership likes it or not.

In terms of specific numbers, there are 201 Democrats in the House caucus. If literally all of them are prepared to support the bipartisan Senate bill, they would need 17 House Republicans — just 7% of the 231 GOP House members — to join them on the discharge petition. If, say, 10 conservative “Blue Dog” Democrats from Southern states balked, they would need 27 Republicans to break party ranks.

Just last week, we were told they were as many as 40 House Republicans who consider themselves moderates, unhappy with their party’s far-right direction. Is there a chance half of these alleged centrists might sign a discharge petition and get immigration reform done? Sure there is.

I’m usually not a fan of legislative and procedural tricks, but for this worthy cause—immigration reform—I’d made an exception.  It’s hard to be against the tactic that enabled the 1964 Civil Rights Act to pass, right?

Unfortunately, people smarter than me are pessimistic about the chances of a discharge petition this time around. Over at Mother Jones, Kevin Drum says:

I’m not a believer. Here’s why: it actually makes sense. If Republicans really do want to pass immigration reform just to get it over and done with, but they want to do it without getting their fingerprints all over it, the discharge petition is easily their best bet. As Steve says, all it requires is 20 or 30 Republicans in safe seats to vote for it, while the entire rest of the caucus gets to continue railing against it while secretly breathing a sigh of relief. That’s totally logical.

And that’s why it won’t happen. Logic is simply not the GOP’s strong suit these days, and frankly, neither is Machiavellian maneuvering. The only thing they know how to do is yell and scream and hold votes on endless doomed repetitions of bills designed to demonstrate their ideological purity.

I can only hope that Drum is wrong.

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The new movie, “42,” tells the should-be-well-known story of Jackie Robinson, the first black player in major league baseball. For American sports fans of a certain vintage, the breaking of the color line in major league baseball in April 1947 is a familiar story of courage and grace under fire. But for baseball agnostics and for younger generations, the facts–and worse yet, the meaning–of Robinson’s story are already getting lost in the shuffle, only 60+ years down the line.  Sadly, the movie also offers yet another example of how some of the  hard-won social breakthroughs of the 20th century have been allowed to erode–or have never really been completely accomplished at all.

So, “42” comes at an opportune time. Although I’m skeptical–as I have written before–of movies claiming to be “based on a true story,” I didn’t fact-check this one, because it seems to have gotten the basics of the story right: Branch Rickey, who ran the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s, decided to add a black player to his roster–perhaps, as is suggested in the movie, because of a personal hurt he experienced as a child–or perhaps because he recognized that the Negro leagues of the era had exceptional ballplayers whose skills could provide the advantage Rickey needed to win a World Series with his team, and of course, sell more tickets. Legend–and this movie [plus an earlier version made in 1950]–has it that Rickey chose Robinson because he was a speedy base runner with a great bat, and because he seemed to have the grit necessary to withstand the racial hatred that was bound to come his way.

History tells us that Rickey was right, even if the story has been idealized by Hollywood. And, to its credit, “42” doesn’t hold back in depicting the virulent racism that Robinson faced. The “n word,” as we’ve sanitized it in our contemporary, politically correct world, is used abundantly. We hear fans screaming it, players and managers taunting Robinson with it, and even children shouting it out. We even read it in hate mail Robinson received via the Brooklyn Dodgers front office.  Through it all, Robinson holds his temper–publicly–because he knows that to act as an angry black man would be to confirm the racial stereotypes of those who hated him for his color and for his audacity in integrating the white-man’s game.

What I took away from “42” was not just that Branch Rickey was a shrewd baseball man and perhaps a social iconoclast, and not just that Jackie Robinson was a remarkable baseball player and accidental role model who refused to crumple under pressure.

I left the movie theater remembering that, 60 years later, Barack Obama’s quest to integrate the white-man’s White House was a story with many parallels to that of Jackie Robinson. I thought about the many attempts, during the 2012 presidential election, by Republican state legislatures to game the voting system in a way that, essentially, disenfranchised black voters. And a few days later, I read that, in April 2013, the governor of Georgia refused to support the idea of a racially integrated high-school prom in a school district in his state.

How naive of us to think that Jackie Robinson, Brown v. Board of Education, Martin Luther King, the Civil Rights movement, the Voting Rights Act, and the fact of President Barack Obama had settled the race issue in America.

Similarly, other 20th century battles that many of us thought (okay, hoped) were settled are still not done: Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has called Roe v. Wade “settled law.” But even that pronouncement doesn’t put the reproductive rights issue to rest. Workers’ rights and collective bargaining–painstakingly won over many years of the early 20th century–are under fire and are being undone at an alarming pace. And for all of our pride in the progress of women in the U.S., we still haven’t passed an Equal Rights Amendment to the constitution, and the closest we can get to pay equality for women is the baby step of the Lily Ledbetter Act.

It’s sad and disillusioning for a lifelong, card-carrying, bleeding-heart liberal like me. I can only hope that history is cyclical, and that the pendulum will swing back again toward expanded human and civil rights, and  more empathy and generosity of spirit–and that the lessons we should have learned from stories like that of Jackie Robinson won’t be lost forever.

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Non-believers need not apply. According to AlterNet, in seven U.S. states, if you don’t recognize the existence of a supreme being, you are banned from holding public office.  This is for real. Here are the statutes that officially disqualify atheists from exercising their civil right to run for office, or to be appointed:

The Arkansas State Constitution was drawn up in 1874. Article 19, Section 1 states “No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court.”

[It’s bad enough that if you are an unbeliever in Arkansas, you could, under the state constitution, forfeit a basic democratic right. But if you’re not willing to say, “so help me God,” you can’t even testify at a trial.]

Maryland, article 37, says, “That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of God.” 

Similarly:

Texas’ State Constitution, Article 1, Section 4: “RELIGIOUS TESTS.  No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall anyone be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being.”

[Let me see if I understand this one: In Maryland and Texas, following either of the two religions most reviled by religious bigots—Mormonism and Islam—can’t keep you from holding office, but not believing can. I guess those religions are much less awful than no religion at all.]

Mississippi, Article M, Section 265 :  “No person who denies the existence of a Supreme Being shall hold any office in this state.”

Pennsylvania, Article I, Section 4: “No person who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.”

[So, in Pennsylvania, you’re also out of luck if you don’t accept the existence of a heaven or a hell.]

South Carolina, Article 17, Section 4 “No person who denies the existence of the Supreme Being shall hold any office under this Constitution.”

[However, it’s probably okay in South Carolina if you “deny the existence” of climate change, racial prejudice or religious bigotry.]

Tennessee, Article 9, Section 2: “No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.”

[“Imagine there’s no heaven…” and then imagine the door slamming on your chance to hold office in Tennessee.]

Of course, these statutes are essentially unenforceable, for obvious reasons. But the fact that we don’t currently have thought police, or mind-reading software, or an Inquisition, doesn’t give me much comfort. In a time when radical, fundamentalist religious zealotry is on the rise, it’s downright scary to read these constitutional statutes that disenfranchise people whose beliefs aren’t religiously pure–or even just religious.

And sure, you can argue that these statutes are relics of the past—just quaint laws, like  the City of Boston’s Ordinance 16-15.3, which makes it illegal to drive a horse-drawn carriage through the snow or ice with fewer than three bells attached

But, wait: A lot of old issues that we thought were settled—things like the right to privacy, the right to collectively bargain, and the right to vote—are under fire by corporate interests, Bible-thumpers and anti-woman warriors.  Is it that hard to imagine some sanctimonious, right-wing state legislator in one of the seven previously mentioned states standing up, Bible in one hand, state constitution in the other, railing against the rights of the godless in his or her state?  That’s something that this non-believer believes is possible.

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In 1995, the percentage of African-American players on the Cardinals was above the league average.  In 2009 it was one-fourth the league average, and as the 2010 season begins there are no African-American players on the Cardinals roster or coaching staff.

Below is a partial chronology of important events in the history of African-American players on the Cardinals.

• The first African-American to play for the Cardinals was Tom Alston in 1954, seven years after the major league color barrier was broken by Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers.
• There were African-American players on the Cardinals during the final thirteen years of the first Busch Stadium (Sportsman’s Park).
• In 1964, the Cardinals defeated the New York Yankees in the World Series, four games to three.  There were at least four outstanding African-Americans on the team: Lou Brock, Curt Flood, Bob Gibson, and Bill White.  Brock and Gibson are in the Hall of Fame; Flood paved the way to free agency for players, and White became president of the National League.
• In 1995, journalist David Halberstam published a book about the 1964 World Series.  It was called October 1964.
• The review of October 1964 by Amazon.com states:

The 1964 World Series between the Yankees and Cardinals was coated in myth from the get-go. The Yankees represented the establishment: white, powerful, and seemingly invincible. The victorious Cards, on the other hand, were baseball’s rebellious future: angry and defiant, black, and challenging. Their seven-game barnburner, played out against a backdrop of an America emerging from the Kennedy assassination, escalating the war in Vietnam, and struggling with civil rights, marked a turning point–neither the nation, nor baseball, would ever be quite so innocent again.

• There were African-American players on the Cardinals all forty years that the team played in the second Busch Stadium (1966 – 2005).
• The Cardinals won the National League pennant in 1967 and 1968.  In 1967 they won the World Series.  Among the African-American players on these teams were Brock, Flood, Gibson, Al Jackson, Alex Johnson, Dave Ricketts, Ted Savage and Bobby Tolan.
• In 1975, the percentage of African-American players in the major leagues was 27%, the highest in the history of the game.
• The Cardinals won the World Series in 1982 against the Milwaukee Brewers.  Among the African-American players on the team were George Hendrick, Tito Landrum, Willie McGee, Lonnie Smith and Ozzie Smith.
• There have been only four African-American players on the Cardinals since moving into the third Busch Stadium in 2006.  They are Brian Barton, Joe Thurston, Rico Washington, and Preston Wilson.  None of the four has been a consistent starter.
• The Cardinals won the World Series in 2006 against the Detroit Tigers.  Preston Wilson was the only African-American player on the team.
• In 1996, the first year that Tony LaRussa was manager of the Cardinals and Bill DeWitt, Jr.’s syndicate owned the team, 24% of the players on the roster were African-American.  This was both 7% greater than the major league average for that year and 7% greater than the 1995 Cardinal team under previous ownership and management.
• The 2006 championship team was 2.44% African-American.  The league average that year was 9%.
• 2007 was the low-point of African-American players in the major leagues since integration.  8.2% of the players in the League were African-American; 2.22% of the players on the Cardinal roster were African-American.
• In 2009, the percentage of African-American players in the major leagues rose to 10.2%.  The Cardinal percentage was 2.77%
• On opening day, 2010, the percentage of African-Americans on the Cardinals was 0%.  For the first time in years, there was also no African-American on the team coaching staff.  We do not have figures for the entire league.
• In the history of the third Busch Stadium, 5,761 innings have been pitched by Cardinal hurlers.  Not one pitch by a Cardinal has been thrown by an African-American.
• In the history of the third Busch Stadium, 4.89% of the Cardinal at-bats have been by African-American players.  In 1996, the first year with DeWitt as owner and LaRussa as manager, 41.33% of the Cardinal at-bats were by African-American players.

Change happens for better or worse.

Link to Part I
Link to Part II

Link to article on “St. Louis Baseball in Black and White” on Corresponding Fractions blog.

n 1996 was the first year of the William DeWitt / Tony LaRussa era

n 2006 – 2009 are recent years in Busch Stadium III

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