Ah, Florida. You’ve got to love the originality of the place. First it comes up with the Stand Your Ground law. Now the state is back in the news with another fun-in-the-sun idea. Yes, it seems at least one legislator in Florida thinks that individuals who injure or kill—and then are acquitted for their crimes based on a Stand Your Ground defense—deserve a bit more love from the state of Florida. To that end, Republican State Representative Matt Gaetz is on a crusade to take some of the “sunshine” out of the Sunshine State.

Let me explain. Sunshine, in this context, refers to “regulations that require openness in government. Sunshine laws make meetings, records, votes, deliberations, and other official actions available for public observation, participation, and/or inspection.”  Today all fifty states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have sunshine laws on the books.

Apparently, Representative Gaetz either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about the history of his state. He’s out to overturn Florida’s more-than-century-long, proud tradition of enacting open-government laws. Way back in 1909, when sunshine laws were just a twinkle in the eye of other states, Florida passed Chapter 119 of the Florida statutes, called the Public Records Law. In 1967, Florida enacted one of the first sunshine laws in the nation, the Government-in-the-Sunshine law, which became Chapter 286 of the Florida Statutes. And, in 1995, the Florida state legislature passed The Florida Sunshine Law.

So what happened to encourage Representative Gaetz to fly in the face of tradition?

(Could it be that Gaetz feels emboldened by the scorched-earth jurisprudence of Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito? Please feel free to answer that question for yourself in the privacy of your own home.)

What happened was that in June 2012, the Tampa Bay Times had the audacity to do exactly what a free and independent press is supposed to do. The newspaper’s reporters and editors recognized an important story, gathered the facts via public records, and published their findings. Following an investigative piece that looked at over two hundred cases in the then-seven years since the Stand Your Ground law was passed, the newspaper published a piece with the headline “Uneven Application, Shocking Outcomes.” The paper’s conclusions, based on statistical analysis, demonstrated the obscenity of Stand Your Ground and showed how deeply the law has subverted the cause of justice.

The paper’s conclusions were not pretty. But here they are:

70 percent of those who invoke the “stand your ground” defense to avoid prosecution for harming or killing someone have gone free [italics added].

Defendants who claim “stand your ground” are more likely to be successful if the victim is black. 73 percent of people who killed a black person faced no penalty.

The number of “stand your ground” cases is increasing as Florida attorneys are using the defense in ways state legislators never envisioned.

If you look at some of the cases claiming the Stand Your Ground defense and succeeding, they are so ludicrous they could have been pulled off of “Saturday Night Live.” Take the case of the jogger who beat a Jack Russell terrier. Then there’s the case of a self-professed vampire. What about the man who shot a bear? Or how about my personal favorite, the too-many-garbage-bags-on-the-street nut who shot his neighbor in the stomach and chest because the neighbor put out eight rather than six bags on the curb? By the way, if you’re wondering, garbage-bag nut got off scot-free, demonstrating that, among some of its more admirable qualities, Florida can rightfully claim to be a particularly fastidious state.

In the context of all of the mayhem the Stand Your Ground law has unleashed, in waltzes Representative Gaetz, who just doesn’t like the facts the Tampa Bay Times revealed in its 2012 piece (and continues to publicize in a banner at the top of their online edition that invites the public to review the database of Stand Your Ground cases). In fact, Gaetz dislikes the facts so much that he doesn’t want anybody to be bothered by those facts ever again. So, what’s he going to do about it? Following in the hallowed democratic traditions of this great nation, Gaetz has decided to introduce a bill in the Florida legislature that will restrict media and public access specifically to Stand Your Ground case records.

Gaetz’s bill allows defendants who appropriately use the Stand Your Ground defense to petition to have the history of their criminal record expunged and, in the language of the bill, the defendant’s “criminal history is confidential and exempt from the provisions of the State Constitution.” Gaetz hasn’t left a stone unturned when it comes to showing love for people who injure and kill. Just in case there are some Floridians who still believe they live in a democracy and feel an itch to exercise the stirrings of conscience, the Fort Walton Beach legislator inserted language making it unlawful for anyone to “disclose information relating to the existence [emphasis added] of an expunged criminal history.” And just in case democracy lovers still don’t get the message, Gaetz proposes to criminalize disclosure of any such information and make it punishable as a misdemeanor.

Do you see where this is going? Floridians can walk away from killing or maiming someone for no good reason and have the record of their crime destroyed, but responsible journalists, individuals, and government employees who want the public to have the information necessary for informed public debate can be fined or go to jail.

It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, what kind of country we’ve become.

An update on Representative Gaetz’s proposed bill: The amendment to expunge criminal records, HB89, was adopted by voice vote in the Florida Senate. The larger bill to which it was attached, SB-448, was passed on April 3^, 2014, by a vote of 32-7. The bill and the amendment are now on the way to Governor Rick Scott’s desk. The governor is expected to sign the amendment into law.

[Featured image: Gary Oliver, Big Bend Sentinel]

The post Florida stands its ground against media access to Stand Your Ground cases appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It’s been a long hard winter here in the Northeast.

Extreme cold fatigue set in months ago. Roadside piles of once-pristine snow have turned to filthy gray sludge. Heating oil and propane costs are exploding household budgets. Electricity rates are on the rise and hovering somewhere in the stratosphere. After digging out twice from snow dumps of up to two feet, Northeasterners recently endured an overnight coating of ice that froze doors shut and left surfaces more suited for the ice skate than the boot.

It’s been tough. Even winter-sports enthusiasts, standing knee-deep in crusty snow, are screaming “Enough!” In short, as we crawl toward the official first day of spring and continue to endure the vagaries of this transitional season, the misery index is off the charts.

Not surprisingly, there’s much talk of the Sunshine State. It seems the balmier clime has become the new Promised Land. The longing is intoned with almost religious fervor. “Next Year in Florida” embraces a nearly universal fantasy. I can imagine the scene next autumn: a massive muster of snowbirds in an open field the morning after Turkey Day. Amongst them might be more than a few of my neighbors, gingerly trying out the lift capability of their newly acquired wings and testing the nascent navigational skills they’ll need to keep them tracking south toward the Florida border.

Not for me that fantasy. I say to those who gaze longingly south and imagine life perfection as a Floridian, think carefully about the easy seductions of eternal sunshine and warmth.

Yes, it gets tiresome shoveling driveways and sidewalks and worrying about the heating system. And yes, more often than not the bite of cold gusts of wind leaves one begging for mercy. But everything changes eventually. Seasons follow upon one another with comforting predictability. The seasons mark the passage of time and help us discover how complex and adaptable we are as individuals when we are forced to change not only our clothing but also our habits and our thought processes. Living with the wrenching drama of distinct seasons, we northerners fine-tune our emotions to each one: the bitterness of winter, the ecstasies of spring, the mellowness of summer, and the splendor of fall. Even as I write this, the snow piles are receding in the nearly spring light. Patches of grass are emerging. And as the gloom of winter begins to lift, so do my spirits.

Unlike those who dream of their sunny Shangri-La, I chart the difference between our northern climes and Florida in ways other than what can be measured by the heat or cold index. Comfort, after all, is not solely measured by the thermometer’s gauge.

As a political creature, I see comfort more as a function of the social contract than of how many days there may be of temperatures above 60 degrees. True comfort resides in the belief that my rights are as important as my neighbors’ and that our responsibilities to one another and for one other’s safety are expressed through the conception and writing of commonsense laws. And so I must admit that I am more comfortable in the cold climes of New York than I am in the heat of Florida.

With apologies to the sensibilities and beliefs of socially conscious Floridians, let’s remember that Florida is the poster child for elevating the unfettered rights of some—that is, the right of the minority to bear arms—above the right of the majority to be safe. It is in sunny Florida that there are no registration or licensing requirements for owners of rifles and shotguns. No permits nor registration papers are required to purchase and own handguns. Want to purchase and own a semi-automatic assault rifle, or two or three or fifteen? Florida welcomes you with open arms. Want to buy from an online dealer an arsenal of ammunition worthy of a war zone and stash it in your open-air garage? The Sunshine State couldn’t care less.

And under Florida’s sharp blue skies it’s gotten just a bit harder to feel safe in the landscape of perfectly manicured public spaces after the state passed its Stand Your Ground law. What comfort does this law ensure? This is the law that invites individuals to employ deadly force and use “stand your ground” as a defense when they believe themselves to have been under threat, no matter how minor or disputed the altercation. The law certainly has not brought comfort to the wife and daughter of the father who was murdered in a movie theater after tossing a container of “deadly” popcorn in the face of a bully who chided him for texting a baby sitter before the movie had begun. There is no comfort, too, for the family of Jordan Davis who was shot and killed and whose only “threat” was that he refused to turn down the music in his car in a parking lot. There will never again be comfort under the sun for the mother and father of Trayvon Martin, whose only “threat” was that he was walking home in the dark wearing a hoodie after buying Skittles and soda and then was unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and encountered a stranger threateningly following him.

The contrast up here in the colder climes could not be more dramatic. Although many of my Upstate New York neighbors despise the new SAFE Act, I couldn’t be more grateful and proud of the passage of this commonsense law shortly following the tragic events at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. The law bans the sale of semi-automatic rifles, regulates the sale of ammunition, bans Internet ammunition sales, establishes instate criminal background checks at the time of gun sales or transfers, and involves mental-health professionals in the identification of patients who pose a potential threat to themselves or others.

So let others escape to the fantasy of a more comfortable life under perpetual heat and blazing sun. I’ll endure the cold and feel safer for it.

The post Guns in the sun vs. safety in the snow appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The fallout continues. States that previously wouldn’t have dared to impose voting restrictions that disenfranchised minorities–and, of course, Democrats–are back in business. Florida is one of them. The state’s Republican Governor, Rick Scott has now revived his plan to purge Florida’s voter rolls of people suspected of not being American citizens. He tried the same tactic in 2012,  but according to Talking Points Memo, that effort was:

 … filled with errors, found few ineligible voters and prompted lawsuits by advocacy groups that argued the purge disproportionately targeted minority groups, according to the Miami Herald. Florida’s list of registered voters suspected of not being U.S. citizens shrank from 182,000 to 2,600 to 198 before the 2012 election.

“It was sloppy, it was slapdash and it was inaccurate,” Polk County Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards told the Herald. “They were sending us names of people to remove because they were born in Puerto Rico. It was disgusting.”

In the 2012 purge, eighty-seven percent of the people on the list were minorities, according to a Miami Herald analysis; 58 percent were Hispanic. According to the Miami Herald, election officials in most counties simply stopped moving to enforce the purge, saying they didn’t trust the state government’s list. (Two counties in southwest Florida have continued with the effort.) Over 500 of the 2,700 had been identified as citizens; 40 had been identified as non-citizens.  Forty.

The DOJ ordered the state to stop the purge in May [2012]. A civil rights lawyer for the DOJ argued that the effort appeared to violate both the National Voter Registration Act, a 1993 law that requires a 90-day period between any voter purge and and a federal election, and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, under which Florida cannot make changes that affect voting in five of the state’s counties without DOJ approval.

But that was last year, before the Supreme Court shredded the Voting Rights Act, giving states a free pass to make voting more difficult in any way they chose, even if it impacted minorities [who just happen to vote mostly for Democratic candidates]. Regarding Florida specifically, the Supreme Court decision nullified a federal lawsuit in Tampa that sought to stop new searches for noncitizen voters. On the very day that the Supreme Court handed down its decision, Scott jumped right in, vowing to renew his voter-purge efforts.

Florida, as we all remember, has a dismal record on voting rights. The 2000 election was a significant low point. The state also attempted a voter purge that year. And, in 2012. Governor, Scott joined the Republican Party in a fundraising appeal that accused Democrats of defending the right of noncitizens to vote.

Did I mention that Governor Scott is up for re-election in 2014? That fact makes this a dandy time to start disqualifying voters who might cast their ballots for someone else.

According to the Miami Herald, Scott’s top elections official, Secretary of State Ken Detzner, is now creating a new list of suspected noncitizen voters by cross-checking state voter data with a federal database managed by the Department of Homeland Security.

The whole effort is rather inane: The number of illegally registered, non-citizens is clearly small, and not enough to swing an election. One Florida commentator–Chan Lowe, of the Sun-Sentinel— questions why, in today’s anti-immigrant atmosphere, a non-citizen would take the risk of registering illegally to vote:

..if you’re living here and are not a citizen, the last thing you want to do is tick off the authorities. And that’s if you’re a legal resident. If you’re an undocumented alien, you’d have to be insane to risk getting picked up because you registered to vote, of all things. It’s hard enough to get American citizens to vote in their own elections, because you can’t convince them that their single vote matters. Why would an alien think any differently

You have to wonder: Rick Scott surely knows that his voter-purge effort is going to yield very meager results. To me, it’s beginning to look more like a right-wing, dog-whistle campaign that signals to the base that Governor Scott is tough on immigration. You’d think that would be an awkward place to be in Florida, but perhaps not with Scott’s base.

Whatever his reasons, Scott’s eagerness to disenfranchise voters bears watching. And let’s not mistake it for an UNnintended consequence of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder. This is apparently what the conservative majority on the Roberts court had in mind, and this is what we’re getting.

[Editorial cartoon: Jeff Parker, 2012]

The post Voting rights watch: Florida restarts its [previously squelched] voter purge appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Alan Grayson sent me the following letter. In it he outlines his platform, one that I wish every Democrat would adopt:.

We spend so much time thinking about who will be elected to office, and so little time thinking about what they will do when they get there. Campaign consultants tell candidates that promises are inconvenient; you might have to keep them. And candidates dance around the issues as though they were lit firecrackers. Not me. Here are my goals, after Nov. 6:

1. Full employment.
2. Universal healthcare.
3. Taking corporate money out of politics and government.
4. Reinstituting progressive taxation, to reduce the deficit and the debt.
5. Ending corporate welfare.
6. Improving labor standards, including pensions, sick leave and paid vacations.
7. Ending discrimination against minorities, women and gays.
8. Providing higher education to every student who wants it.
9. Ending the war, bringing the troops home, and reining in the military-industrial complex.
10. Reducing the brutal and pervasive inequality in American life.

When he was last in office, Alan Grayson was a hard working progressive Democrat. He campaigned as a progressive, and when he got elected, he delivered. On campaign finance alone, he introduced 8 bills to help take corporate money out of politics. Some of his achievements:

Audit The Fed—Grayson showed true bipartisanship by championing a 26-year-old bill by Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) to audit the Federal Reserve. Grayson signed up more than 130 Democratic co-sponsors. The Paul-Grayson “Audit The Fed” Amendment became law, and exposed $26 trillion in secret bailouts by the Fed.

Pay For Performance Act—Grayson became the first House freshman in the 111th Congress to pass a substantive bill. His bill prevented Wall Street executives at failed banks from using bailout money for their bonuses. The bill passed in nine days.

No-Cuts Petition—In 2011, after leaving office, Alan encouraged people to sign his “No Cuts” petition, which expressed opposition to any and all cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He personally delivered more than 100,000 petitions to the White House.

In 2010, he lost to Tea Party candidate Daniel Webster. Grayson’s controversial ads, highly critical of Webster’s views on women, were criticized in the media for being inaccurate and exaggerated. But on substance, Grayson was not wrong. Webster had a terrible record on women’s rights.

This time he is running against Republican Todd Long in Florida’s newly created 9^th district. This Orlando-area district is 41 percent Hispanic and gave Obama a 60 percent vote in 2008, so Grayson is a heavy favorite.

Grayson is a true progressive. When it comes to standing up for progressive ideals, he’s fearless. I look forward to having him back in Congress.

The post Progressive Alan Grayson favored to win Florida seat appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Here’s a creative new way to suppress voters whose ballots you’d rather not count: Turn poll workers into handwriting experts, and have them compare a voter’s original registration signature to the one on his or her absentee ballot. If the two signatures don’t match exactly, the ballot is disqualified.

This recently concocted rule is actually on the books in Florida in 2012. It’s the latest in Florida Governor Rick Scott’s already notorious lineup of voter suppression tactics, which includes striking suspected—but not actual—felons from the rolls, along with people whose citizenship the Florida Secretary of State deems questionable.

To the relief of voting rights watchdogs [and shouldn’t we all be voting-rights watchdogs?], earlier today [May 31, 2012], a Florida circuit court judge invalidated much of Governor Scott’s voter-suppression schemes, calling them unconstitutional under Florida law. The ruling, however, doesn’t appear to address the “signature please” law.

The signature rule appears to apply only to absentee ballots, which Florida voters are required to sign before they mail them in. The purported rationale behind the signature rule is that people’s signatures change over time, so that the signature on one’s absentee ballot might not exactly match one’s original voter-registration signature. And an non-matching signature, under this particular Florida rule, will disqualify your ballot.

What’s wrong with that logic? Sure,it’s hard to dispute that one’s signature changes a bit over time—particularly as age sets in. But there are many legitimate–non-fraudulent–reasons  for a ballot signature to look different from an original voter-registration signature: Maybe you broke your hand just before you registered to vote. Or maybe you’ve developed arthritis. Or, maybe the cool-looking squiggle you adopted as your signature when you were 21 has changed over time. Just because your signature doesn’t match precisely doesn’t mean you’re a forger or a vote fraudster.

In any case, the problem is that pollworkers are not handwriting analysts—and even professional handwriting experts can’t always be sure that two signatures match precisely.

The signature please law calls for far too much subjectivity to make it a valid reason to disqualify a ballot.  It also places an undue burden on qualified voters, who are being asked to update their signatures. Here’s—verbatim—what the Florida Secretary of State’s office says, courtesy of PoliticsUSA:

It is very important to update your signature on file, as it may change throughout the years. Signatures on your registration record are used to verify signatures on petitions, absentee ballots and provisional ballots. If you signature does not match, your petition or ballot will not count. A signature update may be made by submitting a Florida Voter Registration Application.

The Supervisor for Elections in Polk County offers some oh-so-helpful information for voters needing signature updates, in the FAQ section of the county’s website:

Question: Why should I update my signature? Answer: Florida law requires the Canvass Board compare your signature on your absentee ballot envelope to the signature on file with the Supervisor of Elections office. This verification process protects you from attempted voter fraud. If the signature on file is old, or your signature has changed, an updated signature will help the Canvass Board verify your identity.

Question: How do I update my signature with the Elections Office? Answer: It’s Easy! Just download this form (click here), check the “signature update” box, complete the name and date of birth boxes, and mail the form to Supervisor of Elections, P.O. Box 1460, Bartow, FL 33830. If you’re unable to download the form, just send us a letter with your name, date of birth and signature. Mention that this is a signature update.

Is that easy? I’d call it a calculated, pain in the ass bureaucratic hurdle designed to make it even harder for you to vote—especially if you’re elderly, or lacking internet or computer skills. It’s hardly a coincidence that this rule hits elderly people hardest, because, in Florida–as elsewhere, older people are among the most diligent absentee voters, and older people in Florida tend to vote Democratic.They’re a great target, if you’re a Republican who wants to suppress the opposition.

Even if this rule is invalidated in Florida, it has such diabolical appeal to other voter-suppressors, and it’s so subtle and backdoor, that it’s bound to pop up elsewhere in future elections. This bears watching.

Oh, and if you think that inconveniencing a few voters—particularly absentee voters—is a trivial matter that couldn’t possibly affect the outcome of an election, remember that George W. Bush “won” Florida in 2000 by 534 votes.

The post New low in voter suppression: Signature doesn’t match? No vote for you! appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Florida Marlin manager Ozzie Guillen voiced some opinions on Cuban leader Fidel Castro and was immediately suspended by Major League Baseball for five games. Among his words were, “I love Fidel Castro. I respect Fidel Castro, you know why? A lot of people have wanted to kill Fidel Castro for the last 60 years, but that mother****r is still here.”

It was actually fifty-three years ago, in 1959, that Castro led a revolution that overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista, In 1952, Batista, with army backing, staged a coup and seized power. Batista also had very close ties with the American Mafia, making it easy for organized crime from the States to do business in the island country.

So the question rises, “If Batista was a military dictator who collaborated with the Mafia, what was so terrible about overthrowing him?”

It’s important to keep in mind that like any society, Cuba is pluralistic. There clearly were honorable hard-working citizens who were being abused and discriminated against by Batista. They had every reason to want him removed from power.

There were others who saw the vulnerability of Batista, which created an opportunity for them to try to seize power. Some of these people wanted power for their own aggrandizement; others were adherents of different political philosophies, including Communism.

In the case of Castro, he seemed to be somewhat of a hybrid. He had a genuine concern for the well-being of the Cuban people, but at a time when Communism was strict, rigid, and in some cases ruthless, he was sympathetic to some Marxist-Leninists, such as Che Guevara. Castro did not acknowledge his Communist sympathies until two years after taking power.

There are more than a million Cuban refugees in Florida, as well as several generations of their descendants. Many have a balanced view of what has happened in Cuba since the middle of the last century and find neither Batista nor Castro to be a hero. However, there are other Cuban-Americans who resent the fact that Castro seized their land, often land that was obtained through bullying and with the aid of the America Mafia. These are the people whose perceptions of how Castro came to power are most ingrained in their memories. Most of them are now American citizens and have become a very strong voting bloc in Florida.

This is where the Electoral College comes in. The United States has a population of nearly 330 million people. If we did not have an Electoral College, the one million or so Cuban-Americans would be a minority, much smaller than other Hispanic groups or African-Americans. However, since the population of Florida is slightly more than nineteen million, Cuban-Americans represent more than 5% of the citizens in America’s fourth largest state. In 2012, Florida will have 27 electoral votes, exactly 10% of the amount needed for a candidate to win the election.

Florida is a very competitive state; won by Barack Obama in 2008, George W. Bush in 2004, and no one knows by whom in 2000. Every vote is vital. This is why Marlins’ manager Ozzie Guillen had to walk away from his comments about Fidel Castro, and do so quickly. He clearly offended Castro opponents in Florida. Even if his words would not tip the election, they certainly undermined his credibility as a legitimate and popular manager of team that is trying to redefine itself.

For years, Florida has been the “poster state” for the shortcomings of the Electoral College. Ozzie Guillen may have put his job in peril by indirectly pointing this out. The question now is whether the media and others can move away from the particulars of what Guillen said and address the real problem – the undemocratic nature of the Electoral College.

The post Ozzie Guillen and the Electoral College appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Florida’s Governor Rick Scott has slammed on the brakes, turning down $2 billion in federal funds for an 84-mile high-speed train between Tampa and Orlando. A lawsuit by a group including several Florida lawmakers failed last week [March 4, 2011], as the Florida Supreme Court ruled  that Gov. Scott’s rejection was legal, and that he was within his rights to turn away the federal funds. In the meantime, the Florida ruling sparked a financial feeding frenzy among other states who would LOVE to have that money and have no problem with the idea of high-speed rail in their territory.

What’s up with that? To contractors who would build it, businesses who would benefit from it,  intercity commuters who would ride on it and  city planners and boosters who would develop around it, high-speed rail sounds like a dream come true.

But apparently, there’s trouble on the line. If you listen to Florida’s Rick Scott, high-speed rail is a risky boondoggle, doomed to failure. Others see high-speed rail as a national necessity and an unstoppable economic engine.  America’s number one high-speed-railroad enthusiast is none other than President Obama. His administration’s 2009 Recovery Act included an $8 billion down-payment toward a 17,000-mile, nationwide high-speed rail network.  Who’s got it right? Here’s a look at some facets of a story that alternates between fast-forward and total derailment:

Positive potential

For a rosy picture of  what, ideally, high-speed trains could mean for the US, look at the extensive list of pluses cited by the US High-Speed Rail Association. [USHSR]. “Faster, more efficient mobility, enormous energy savings, reduced environmental damage – a train system solves many problems,” says USHSR.

According to a 2010 report issued by the US Conference of Mayors,  high-speed rail could be an economic game-changer for cities connected by the 13 corridors envisioned in the nationwide plan:

“The benefits of traveling between 110 and 220 miles per hour will mean better connectivity, shorter travel times and new development around train stations…The changes will create 150,000 new jobs and some $19 billion in new businesses by 2035.”

To see the plan for the proposed high-speed rail network, check out this animated map, courtesy of USHSR.

Lessons from China

The fastest of the [conventional] fast trains are in China. And the whole world is watching to see how China’s mind-bogglingly ambitious, $300 billion move into high-speed rail is progressing.

But the news from China is both good and bad. By 2012, just four years after it began its first high-speed passenger service, China is projected have more high-speed train tracks than the rest of the world combined. It’s pulling ahead in high-speed train production, too, and may soon become the leading exporter of bullet-trains and bullet-train technology.

Recently, though, charges of corruption in the Chinese Rail Ministry have raised concerns about the project. And news reports have focused on safety issues in China’s high-speed rail system. In February, Caixin, a Chinese news service, reported that:

Rapid construction has raised worries among many safety experts. A source working for a foreign company that supplies construction materials for China’s high-speed railways told Caixin that building 300 kilometers of railway usually takes 10 years overseas, but only two years in China. He said tight delivery deadlines were sometimes met with lower quality control measures.

A railway engineer expressed concern over the structural stability of railways lines from land subsidence issues. Foreign builders typically leave a four to five year buffer time for land settlement before construction is completed. But in China, the Ministry of Railways has used elevated bridges to address changes in land elevation.

Another development to watch, as America attempts to catch up in the high-speed train race, is ridership. It turns out that, in China, the notion that “if you build it, they will come,” may not be a slam-dunk. Economist and China specialist Patrick Choavec observes that, while China’s conventional rail system is completely overloaded with passengers and coal, the high-speed system may not be a viable answer:

China’s high-speed rail is “expensive both to build and to operate, requiring high ticket prices to break even. The bulk of the long-distance passenger traffic, especially during the peak holiday periods, is migrant workers for whom the opportunity cost of time is relatively low. Even if they could afford a high-speed train ticket — which is doubtful given their limited incomes — they would probably prefer to conserve their cash and take a slower, cheaper train. If that proves true, the new high-speed lines will only incur losses while providing little or no relief to the existing transportation network.”

Derailment in Florida

In an NPR interview, Florida’s newly elected Gov. Scott  explained his rationale for turning down federal funds for high-speed rail.  He said,”The …data shows capital cost overruns are pervasive in nine of 10 high-risk, high-speed rail projects, and that two-thirds of those projects inflated revenue projections by an average of 65 percent of actual patronage.”

The federal funds would have paid for 90 percent of the construction costs, but Scott called the expenditure “too risky” for Florida taxpayers.

The Florida project would have been the first in the US. Some speculate that Gov. Scott’s rejection of federal money was an ideological move—paralleled in other states, where conservative lawmakers characterize any money from Washington, and especially from the Obama administration, as tainted. 

But even if, in the short term, Gov. Scott’s decision has financial merit for Florida, rejecting high-speed rail technology for the US in the 21^st Century is like saying no to automobiles in the early 20^th century or nixing the interstate highway system in the 1950s. When new technologies emerge—advances that can improve quality of life and the nation’s economic health—they’re going to be adopted. So, high-speed rail is probably going to happen—eventually. The only questions seem to be when, where, how much and what we will learn from the journey.

The post High-speed rail: fast-track or slow-down? appeared first on Occasional Planet.