Something Fishie Profile picture
Aug 23, 2020 21 tweets 4 min read Read on X
I need to think through something here, indulge me if you will.

I think we can agree that cities like Portland, Seattle, and Chicago - among others - are kind of a mess right now. And also run by liberals/leftists.

I'm not yet drawing any conclusions, just baselining. 1/
I'd think it would be pretty difficult for a conservative, or maybe even a moderate, to effectively challenge the mayors of those cities for the forseeable future. I'm making that assumption based on the firmly liberal/leftist/Democrat makeup of the voting public there 2/
But I'm also noting the anger of activists at these mayors over policing issues, even as some of these cities turn around and bounce folks arrested during protests/riots/looting/whatever. 3/
There was one video today, saying to Lightfoot "We are not asking anything. We are telling you what's about to happen, with your permission or not."

That's a real pickle, innit? 4/

Folks like this aren't going to vote for a conservative or moderate candidate to take down Lightfoot. They're going to go shopping for candidates among other radicals like themselves or allied with them, right? If getting 'ran over' is an electoral consequence, that is. 5/
If I read this right, she's mad Lightfoot isn't as progressive as she wants. She thinks the mayor is using her office and police to protect rich white people.

True or not, if she's in the market for a replacement, she's got many liberal/left/progressives to choose from. 6/
So Lightfoot and similarly-situated mayors have some rough waters to navigate.

They can't restore what we (used to) think of as order if it keeps these activists agitated, or they risk losing their office.

They can't continue to let chaos reign either. 7/
If they keep giving in, letting mobs destroy property, block traffic, and pull people out of cars to beat them, people who can are going to nope right out of there. And take their dollars with them.

You can be king of Shit Mountain, but it's still a mountain of shit. 8/
So I guess what I'm wondering is whether these cities start churning mayors and other elected officials in a series of one-term, ever-more-progressive attempts to punish each mayor for not delivering on these activists' wish lists. 9/
Emanuel not good enough for you? Here, let's have Lightfoot.

Lightfoot not delivering? Here's Libby McLefterson.

Lefterson too right for you? Spanky Wokehowicz will take it on.

See what I mean? 10/
My other question is whether this eventually collapses on itself.

Do these cities have enough loud activists and allies to control elections? Or are they simply a very loud, in-your-face minority that are throttling and silencing more moderate voices? 11/
If these voices are the majority, isn't it possible they'll keep pushing for things that fewer and fewer people can get behind, pushing them into becoming a minority?

And once a minority, how much longer can they project power and call the shots? 12/
ARE they calling the shots in these cities now? Or are they being pandered to by these mayors, jollied along by elected officials who are pragmatists more than idealists, and who will turn on them the moment it's safe to do so? 13/
I'm not too interested in the donor class and the wealthier residents of these cities. Those guys can go vacation out of reach of the mobs and hire extra security to cover their property.

The middle class, though, and the poor have to be feeling the sting of these events. 14/
The poor especially have to be taking it on the chin. Middle class folks at least typically have some resources to pick up and move if they can't tolerate events on the ground.

But the poor still get left behind to wallow in other people's messes. 15/
I'm just trying to think about whether this becomes a political spiral of progressivism taken to its logical conclusion.

I don't want our great cities to fail. It depresses me to think of the boarded up main streets no longer bustling with commerce, by virus or riot. 16/
The collateral damage from current events is staggering, and I'm just trying to make sense of this part of it, and think about where things go from here. 17/
Another part of it I think is the nature of city elections v. the nature of the presidential election.

Cities can more easily be homogenous, or nearly so. Mayors know how far their cities lean left, and campaign accordingly. 18/
A national election, though, has to deal with the vast diversity of thought and experience across thousands of miles.

So the D presidential candidates seem like they will always lag behind the progressive cities and their elected officals. How great will that divide become? 19/
That also makes me wonder whether Team Biden is trying to communicate to these mayors about the optics of the demonstrations in these cities. It can't be helping. And I don't know how they would be able to quantify the damage until it's too late. 20/
Anyway, I'd love to hear others' thoughts on all this, on whether the progressive pressure on mayors will alter the dynamics of cities and their governance one way or the other. Or whether I missed something vital in thinking about this. /end

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More from @somethingfishie

Nov 10, 2022
So how about that Harris County Election Administration meltdown, eh?
I've tweeted about the failures of this office all year, you can catch some of it here

And here texasscorecard.com/commentary/cra…
You should know how I spent election day.
I worked on the Rapid Response Team that @HarrisCountyRP set up to support election judges and respond to election issues of all types.

My role was to man the phones for tech help and dispatch team members to polls where needed.
Read 34 tweets
Apr 3, 2022
We need to talk about this nonsense, right now. Pull up a chair.
Let me tell you about staffing elections in Harris county.

For most locations, you need a minimum of about 5 people, two judges and three clerks. The county typically staffs a location with 6 people, so we'll use that to extrapolate.
I did this math before, but we'll go over it again. In Harris County:

Election judges get paid $20/hr.
Alternate judges and clerks get paid $17/hr.
Both are eligible for overtime pay.
Read 37 tweets
Mar 7, 2022
Alan Vera, Chair of Ballot Security Committee for @HarrisCountyRP on whethr the Election Administrator's failure is due to incompetence or something worse:

"At what point does election incompetence become the perfect camoflage for election malfeasance?"
The wrong-sized ballot paper was delivered to some election judges.

Other judges weren't issued ANY ballot paper.

Some judges received broken election equipment.

Some never had their equipment delivered at all.

Most of these were Republican judges, Alan says.
Judges who were issued the wrong sized paper didn't know the paper was the wrong size, because they'd never had legal size paper before.

Voters who voted on the short paper ballots had up to FIFTEEN RACES CUT OFF. Those included the County Judge and County Commissioner races.
Read 17 tweets
Mar 2, 2022
It's the day after the Texas Primaries, and while we wait for the Harris County results (long story you can read about elsewhere) I want to put down some of my experiences.

I've posted about voters overcoming many personal and techical obstacles. Now some of what we faced.
First, Harris County removed election authority from the elected County Clerk a few years ago, and created an appointed Election Administrator, answerable to Commisioners Court.

As you can guess, a crony payoff position waiting to happen.
I'm not making that accusation, as much as saying it's a bad idea to make your elections authority an appointed position, no matter who holds the office. There has to be accountability, and I'm more comfortable with that coming directly from voters.
Read 36 tweets
Nov 5, 2020
When we check in a voter in Harris county, we scan their ID or perform a simple database search to pull up their unique voter ID.

If there are notes, like say someone needs to update their address, we see that and can help them do that before proceeding.
When a person has applied for a mail ballot, the system has a note there to that effect so that we'll see it if they show up in person.

We're supposed to have them fill out a mail ballot cancellation form and update the system so that it gets canceled right away.
I don't know for sure because I just started working early voting this year, but I understood that the voters weren't previously required to surrender the ballots during early voting. On election day, yes, but during early voting ballots can be slow to arrive in the mail.
Read 60 tweets
Oct 22, 2020
I've worked 8 days now out of my 17 early voting day schedule as an election judge in Harris county.

Most of those days I worked 6 am to 7:30 pm, with a half hour for lunch.

It's long days and paperwork and staff management and voter assistance.

And sometimes a joy.
The neatest thing is the number of stories I get to witness, the small slices of life I get to observe.

For instance, each time the team discovers a first-time voter, they announce it to the whole room, and everyone cheers and claps.

I often tear up at that.
Every location in Harris is required to have staff fluent in Spanish, Vietnamese, and Chinese, so I've spent a lot of time getting to know our language specialist clerks.

They have been busy all week.
Read 20 tweets

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