North Carolina Republicans are not hiding the fact that newly proposed [2013] voting restrictions are aimed at making it harder for Democrats to vote. As North Carolina’s House Majority Leader Edgar Starnes put it, “The Republicans won the election. We are in control. We intend to elect Republicans and appoint Republicans, and we make no apology for it.” [North Carolina elected a Republican-dominated state legislature in 2010—the first time that has happened since McKinley was president—and a Republican governor in 2012. Clearly, they are savoring the victory, with a vengeance—literally.]

OK, that’s about as blatant as it gets. So, exactly how do they intend to accomplish their goal? Here’s the plan—a seven-point program, proposed earlier this year, and scheduled for further pursuit following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling gutting the Voting Rights Act, under which many of these restrictions would most likely have been struck down.

Here’s a pared-down version of North Carolina’s 7-step solutions, as published in The Nation. We should be looking at each of these proposals as “models” for the tidal wave of voting rights wrongs that is about to hit all over the country:

Requiring state-issued photo ID to cast ballot

A government-issued photo ID, a state employee photo ID or a student ID from a public university would be required to vote. Other states with strict voter ID laws provide a free state ID (even though the underlying documents needed to obtain the ID, like a birth certificate, cost money), but in North Carolina the voter ID would cost $10, which is eerily reminiscent of a poll tax. A free ID can only be obtained by signing an affidavit, under the penalty of perjury, citing financial hardship.

Over 7 percent of registered voters in North Carolina, 481,109 to be exact, don’t have a driver’s license or a state-issued photo ID, according to the state’s own data. Fifty-five percent of registered voters without photo ID are Democrats. African-Americans make up 22 percent of registered voters in the state, but a third of all registered voters without ID.

Cutting early voting

New legislation would reduce the early voting period in North Carolina from two-and-a-half weeks to just one week and would eliminate voting on the last Sunday of early voting, when African-American churches hold “Souls to the Polls” get-out-the-vote drives. The legislation would also limit early voting locations to one site per county, which is a recipe for much longer line.

Ending same day registration during early voting

Over 155,000 voters registered to vote and voted on the same day during the early voting period in 2012. Ending same-day registration will almost certainly decrease voter turnout in North Carolina and make voting more inconvenient.

Penalizing parents of students who register to vote where they go to college

The most extreme proposal of all the new voting restrictions would eliminate the $2,500 child dependency tax deduction for parents of college students who vote where they attend school.

Disenfranchising ex-felons

New legislation would prevent ex-felons from receiving their voting rights after serving their time and would instead force them to wait five years, apply to the board of elections and receive unanimous approval in order to re-enter the political process. Five times as many blacks as whites have a criminal record in North Carolina and could be disenfranchised for years under this new proposal.

Banning “incompetent” voters from the polls

Anyone given such a designation from the state will be unable to cast a ballot, “even if the person’s mental health issues have nothing to do with their abilities to understand voting.”

Ending straight-ticket voting

In 2012, 1.4 million Democrats and 1.1 million Republicans in North Carolina voted a straight-party ticket. Eliminating this convenient form of voting will likely hurt Democrats in down-ballot races.

The post Voting rights watch: NC Repubs push harsh new voting restrictions appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Like many of you, I’ve despaired recently and wondered if we really are the end of the best years of American democracy. A cabal of thieves has a lock on our Congress, and people are getting elected to leadership positions in dozens of states who would otherwise be in prison or judged mentally unstable.

The EPA is afraid to enforce the Clean Water, Clean Air acts, and couldn’t afford to do a good job anyway because of lack of funding. The National Labor Relations Board is basically impotent because Republicans in the Senate won’t confirm appointments to the board (even though two of those President Obama has appointed are Republicans.) The Supreme Court eviscerated the Voting Rights Act. THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT. Can there be any doubt what the agenda is behind all of these monstrosities?

An essay at the Reverse Angle gave me just enough hope again to entertain the thought that those of us who hate what’s happening to our country are finally getting angry enough to speak truth to power.  This one man’s experience at a demonstration in North Carolina lights a tiny fire in my belly again. Real people, just like me and my friends and neighbors, are gathering in large crowds in many different states to say “No More. We will NOT cede our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor to a bunch of thieves.”

If I lived in North Carolina, I would attend every Moral Monday demonstration even if I had to take a walker with a seat to rest my weary bones. If I lived in Texas, I’d buy one of those orange “Stand with Texas Women” shirts and walk as far as I could with the parade of protesters. “The right of the people to peacefully assemble…”

I hadn’t thought about it until I read the article by this father in NC, who put his son on his shoulders to see democracy in action, that it’s been 50 years since Americans protested in huge numbers for many years in hundreds of cities to get our government to listen to our grievances. I was especially struck by the allusion to the movie, “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

It reminded me of the moment in To Kill a Mockingbird

, when Atticus Finch, having lost his case, exits the courtroom and Scout, seated in the balcony with the town’s black population, doesn’t notice the people around her have stood up. “Miss Jean Louise, stand up,” Reverend Sykes tells her. “Your father’s passin’.

That’s what it is going to take, again. The bunch of gangsters who are taking our democratic institutions apart brick by brick in order to render us helpless will not be deterred by reasonable arguments or the real life suffering of our families and neighbors. We have to defeat them on their own terms. And that means mass protests, convincing others to join us, and then turning the worst offenders out of office. After every major scandal in this country, Congress has passed laws to try to prevent the same thing from happening. Now we need a new Congress, one that will at least enforce the laws already in place and pass new ones that address our newest grievances. Ironically, while the U.S. is nurturing democratic reforms in other countries, there has been a coup of sorts taking place right under our noses. It’s up to us to decide how much is enough.

The post Time to stand up for democracy in America appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Over the past 20 years, the pork industry in the United States has increased productivity and cut costs through industrialization.  The process of pork production, once dominated by over hundreds of thousands small independent hog farmers, has become more concentrated in order to take advantage of economies of size. The reduction in the number of smaller, distributed farms results in a more efficient industry that is dominated by a few large and intensive operations.

However, this change has had complex environmental, economic, and political ramifications.  In general, the livestock sector affects many natural resources and the increased intensity of hog farming in specific geographic regions amplifies these effects.  The increasingly concentrated levels of hog waste pollute surrounding regions and emit dangerous greenhouse gasses, such as methane, that contribute to ozone depletion. Further, many of the industry leaders in large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have significant financial clout and political connections. This power, coupled with particular financial interest in a loosely regulated pork industry, makes impartial public policy improbable, as industry interests directly compete with those of small, low-income communities and comparatively weak environmental advocacy groups.

North Carolina’s pork farming and processing industry illustrates this common struggle.

Although hog farming has always had a presence in North Carolina, the industry experienced exponential growth in the 1990s. The hog population increased from 2.6 million to 8 million from 1988 to 1998 and North Carolina’s pork production rapidly surpassed the Corn Belt’s, as it became the nation’s second-largest hog farming state after Iowa. Following the nation-wide pattern of increased concentration of large operations, from 1983 to 1997, the number of hog farms in North Carolina decreased by 78 percent, despite a five-fold increase in hog population. Nearly all of the state’s pork industry’s growth was from industrial-scale enterprise, and resulted in a critical reduction of the number of independent farmers.

However, the explosion of the North Carolina pork industry also brought a welcome economic stimulus and remains a crucial part of the state’s economy, as the industry employs many farmers who lost their livelihood in the struggling tobacco industry. And despite the reduction of independent farmers, total employment in the state’s hog farming industry increased by 16% from 2001 to 2006. The industry provides a windfall of approximately $1 billion annually for North Carolina in the form of tax revenue.

When the community of Tillery in Halifax County, N.C. was told that they should expect to see 410 new hog farms in NC by the end of 1997, they decided to act. Citizens mobilized a grass-roots movement called HELP [Halifax Environmental Loss Prevention], and began their fight for environmental justice.

Tillery is a poor, black, and rural area and is a “prime target for hog expansion.  Traditionally, poor marginalized citizens are less prone to voting, and corporations that open in those areas are less likely to suffer political consequences from constituent backlash. Nonetheless, the movement gained momentum and attracted the support of environmental advocacy groups to make their voices heard in legislation.

Even with the support of local organizations, citizens were still weak compared to powerful pork producers. The NC Pork Producers political action committee, the Pork PAC, spent significant amounts of money to fight industry regulation. In 1994, 92 out of 170 state representatives received campaign contributions from the committee. Wendell Murphy, owner of Murphy Farms, contributed $150,000 to candidates. The revolving door between North Carolina legislators and pork executives is substantial; many legislators are or were hog producers.  Wendell Murphy was a state representative for five years and a senator for three. Former Senator Lauch Faircloth, who served on the congressional Environment and Public Works Committee from 1993 to 1996, was once also a wealthy hog farmer.

However, citizens had their own way of giving legislators an incentive to favor environmental protection.  Organizations such as HELP, environmental advocacy groups, and the media informed constituents of the industry’s detrimental effects. Thanks to the democratic process, large campaign contributions are not what ultimately keep legislators employed, and eventually enough angry constituents reached state congressmen.

Significant numbers of letters to representatives prompted legislators to pass stricter regulation and to budget $1.5 million to fight hog pollution. The citizens also successfully convinced commissioners to establish a committee to analyze the health consequences in the region. Soon thereafter, the committee passed a livestock ordinance that stopped three out of the seven hog farms who previously had plans to open in Halifax County. HELP continues to inform other communities of the environmental injustice practiced by hog farms and has done so through town meetings and  “hog roundtables.”

Halifax County was the first local government to increase hog farm regulation. By the late 1990s 14 North Carolina counties followed suit.  In 1997, a state statute was modified by North Carolina House Bill 515 to give counties the power to pass zoning amendments to control hog farm location, giving counties the ability to create large buffer zones between farms and communities to protect citizens from local water and air pollution.

Ultimately, HELP won the hog farm fight in Eastern North Carolina.  HELP’s efforts remain a best practice for instilling a citizenry lobby that is powerful enough to fight big-business interests. Their success cannot be understated, as a successful citizenry lobby may be the only force strong enough to give environmental interests a fighting chance.

The post Hog Hell: How a citizen lobby influenced policy in North Carolina appeared first on Occasional Planet.