The Stories Keep Coming

I'm probably going to regret this, but we need to talk about rape culture. We'll begin by looking at recent news. 1. Steubenville's football coach keeps his job.
Given Coach Saccoccia’s controversial behavior before and during the trial, which drew national scrutiny, many of us thought he at the very least would be shown the door after three decades of service. We all thought wrong. Today we learned that “Coach Sac,” as he is known, has been granted a two-year contract extension by the Steubenville school board. They made this decision despite the fact that a grand jury is meeting next week to assess whether he and others obstructed justice in the case. Saccoccia was legally required to report the sexual assault as soon as he was aware it took place. The grand jury will determine whether or not he in fact knew and tried to sweep it under the turf. Whatever the conclusions of the grand jury, the question of whether Saccoccia should remain in a position to mold the minds of young men should not have been difficult to answer. Not when there are text messages sent by now-convicted team quarterback Trent Mays that read, "I got Reno. He took care of it and shit ain't gonna happen, even if they did take it to court. Like he was joking about it so I’m not worried." Not when, after the boys were arrested and charged, Saccocia kept them on the team for eight more games in their ten game season. Not when Saccoccia went nose-to-nose with a woman reporter looking into the rape case and said, "You're gonna get yours. And if you don't get yours, somebody close to you will." Not when Coach Sac oversaw a locker room where the jock culture become inextricably connected to a rape culture.
I'm with Dave Zirin, author of the linked article. Getting rid of Coach Saccoccia seemed to be a no-brainer. The guy's behavior, across the board, was indefensible. And yet he keeps his job. Why?

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Thurs., April 25, 2013

The big news, as predicted here by one of the death penalty repeal opponents, is that SB 19(Peterson) did not have sufficient votes to make it out of the House Judiciary Committee. Opponents included families of victims, law enforcement, and the Attorney General. I apologize for somehow missing this during my preview yesterday. I don't understand how I did not see that this bill was being considered, but I didn't. Probably the most egregious (among scores of them) mistake I've ever made since I started doing these reports. Mea Culpa. According to Jonathan Starkey's coverage in the News-Journal, the bill is probably dead for this year. But this is the first year of a two-year legislative session, and things can change. This bill was a close call in the Senate, and it was destined to be close in the House as well. We've also learned that, in Delaware, the police get what the police want, including a lack of transparency (aka the Police 'Bill of Rights', which tramples on the very notion of a bill of rights), so this is to be expected. Don't lose heart. These things often take time, so just keep working at it.

Wednesday Open Thread [4.24.13]

Tennessee State Sen. Stacey Campfield (R) joked on his personal blog about "assault pressure cookers" in the wake of last week's bombing in Boston, the Tennessean reports.
"Under a headline that referred to U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, one of the leading proponents of gun control, Campfield cataloged the dangerous features on a pressure cooker, including a 'muzzle break thingy,' 'tactical grip' and 'evil, black' color." When asked about his comments he refused to apologize and said liberal commentators should be calling for "crock pot control" if they were consistent with their calls for gun control after last year's Sandy Hook school shooting.
I am starting to wonder if all Republicans are sociopathic assholes. Hey asshole, bombs are already illegal.

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Weds., April 24, 2013

Man, it feels great to be part of one of the preeminent political blogs in the entire country! The coverage, analysis, and response to consideration of HB 75, the Marriage Equality Bill, was crack cocaine for all of us political junkies. Thanks to Delaware Dem and everyone who added to the threads! The bill faces a less certain result in the Senate, where the votes of Cathy Cloutier, Bethany Hall-Long, and Ernesto Lopez will likely determine the result. If you are constituents of any of those senators, now is the time to contact them to encourage them to support HB 75. Be friendly, polite, and positive. Let them know that you'll have their backs if they have yours. For you legislative completists out there, here is yesterday's session activity report. As expected, HB 40(Keeley), which extends the Automatic Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Mediation Program and the Office of Foreclosure Prevention for four more years, unanimously passed the Senate. Due to a technical amendment, the House will hold another vote before the bill heads to the Governor, no doubt by Thursday afternoon. Not everyday can be yesterday. But my work goes on.

A Townsend Sandwich.

.... at least in my twitter feed. If you care about Delaware, you must discriminate against gays. That is the message from the "traditional" marriage crowd. Contact the following Senators today: Senator Brian Bushweller Dover (302) 744-4162 E-mail Address(s): brian.bushweller@state.de.us Senator Cathy Cloutier (302) 744-4197 (302) 577-8517 (302) 478-9616 E-mail Address(s): catherine.cloutier@state.de.us Senator Bethany Hall Long Phone: (302) 744-4286 E-mail Address(s): bethany.hall-long@state.de.us Senator Bob Marshall Phone: (302) 744-4168 Phone: (302) 577-8519 E-mail Address(s): robert.marshall@state.de.us

Pregaming the Senate vote on Marriage Equality

Here were the Senate votes on SB 30, the Civil Union Bill, back in 2010. The lone Senate Republican voting in favor of Civil Unions, Liane Sorenson, retired. She was essentially replaced by Republican Ernie Lopez as her district moved south in redistricting. Lopez has indicated that he will vote no, and he really has to to placate his rabid and enraged Tea Party base who are still smarting over his votes for Death Penalty Repeal and for Background checks. Bunting retired, and was replaced by Senator Hocker, who has to be a no vote. Katz was defeated by Lavelle. I am not sure how "gettable" Lavelle is. He was considered gettable during the Death Penalty repeal and Background check votes. He voted no on both. So I think it will be wishful thinking to put him as an unknown vote. I am considering him a no. Deluca was replaced by Townsend. Senator Townsend has made past statements supportive of marriage equality, and he is a sponsor of the bill, so I am considering him a yes. All of the Senate no votes on Civil Unions are still in the Senate. I am going to assume that all those who voted no for Civil Unions will also vote no for gay marriage, and going on the less logical assumption that all yes votes for civil unions is also a yes vote for gay marriage. I will list as unknown those who who I think are up for grabs. So according to this chart, Marriage Equality has 11 votes, just enough for a majority. The no votes have 9. And one vote, that of Cathy Cloutier, is up for grabs. I would highly encourage everyone supportive of marriage equality in Delaware contact every single "yes" vote on that chart in addition to Cathy Cloutier. If Marriage is to be won in the Senate, it will be at best a 12-9 vote or a 11-10 vote. So every single yes vote needs to be shored up and Cloutier needs to hear it. Click here for their contact info. In terms of sponsors and co-sponsors of the bill in the Senate, Senators Blevins, Sokola, Henry, McDowell, Peterson, Poore, and Townsend all are sponsoring HB75. Thus, I would assume they are all solid yes votes. That leaves Bushweller, Hall Long, McBride, and Marshall as possibly shaky Dem yes votes. So they need to hear from us.

The Marriage Equality Vote in the House

Here it is in a nice chart form. Red for Republicans and Blue for Democrats. And yes, I colored Atkins red because in reality, he is a Republican. Has there been any partisan vote on a controversial issue this session where he has voted with the Democrats? No. Four Democrats, Earl Jaques, Charles Potter, Bill Carson and Trey Paradee all voted no with the Republicans. Only one Republican voted yes: Mike Ramone. He represents an upstate New Castle County district. Paradee and Carson's districts are downstate and more conservative, but not so conservative that they had to run scared and vote no just to stay in office since their Democratic colleagues in other Kent County districts voted yes. Likewise, Joe Miro and Debbie Hudson's districts are upstate and in New Castle County, and they voted no even though they may suffer electoral consequences given their districts. As did Democrats Earl Jaques and Charles Potter, both of whom are in safe liberal Democratic districts, and if I have anything to say about it, both will suffer electoral consequences due to this vote. The point of all this: this was not a vote that was given to district constituencies. This was a vote of personal principle. Those voting no are of the mind that equality is for me and not for thee. That makes them ill suited for office.

Tuesday Open Thread [4.23.13]

Of course we all know that our Democratic congressional delegation has for a long time assumed that Delaware was a more conservative state, or at least its residents possessed a more conservative politics, and hence there was a need always for a Democratic candidate to always always moderate their message and move to the right (and this applies more so to Carper and Carney, and less so to Coons). And now we have statistical proof of this phenomena. David Broockman and Christopher Skovron looked at legislators’s perceptions of their constituents and compare to estimates of the the actual issue attitudes of people living in their districts.
There is a striking conservative bias in politicians’ perceptions, particularly among conservatives: conservative politicians systematically believe their constituents are more conservative than they actually are by over 20 percentage points, while liberal politicians also typically overestimate their constituents’ conservatism by several percentage points. A follow-up survey demonstrates that politicians appear to learn nothing from democratic campaigns or elections that leads them to correct these shortcomings. [...] These findings suggest a substantial conservative bias in American political representation and bleak prospects for constituency control of politicians when voters’ collective preferences are less than unambiguous.