Our weekly Top Five feature offers big stories or views from the past week with policy and legislative implications.
- On how courts are calling out lawmakers, Linda Greenhouse in The New York Times, Aug. 18, 2016.
This is a long op-ed but it highlights how the courts are starting to step in to when they see how policies are really hurting people and doing things different than what state lawmakers say they’re doing. She discusses abortion and voting rights cases from Texas and North Carolina, respectively. An excerpt:
“But something has happened this summer that matters. Legislators, perhaps assuming they had friends in high judicial places, had taken bold, even flagrant steps to suppress the black vote and restrict women’s access to abortion. Judges responded, and even though their actions in some cases spoke more loudly than their words, these decisions mark a departure and make a difference. Maybe they will even begin to erase the memory of the long ago summer when the swimming pools closed to black and white alike.”
- Clinton ahead in August handicap of the presidential race, Louis Jacobson in Governing magazine, Aug. 18, 2016.
What’s interesting about columnist Louis Jacobson’s state-by-state predictions of the presidential election is that South Carolina has moved from “safe Republican” to “likely Republican,” indicating that the generally-red Palmetto State is more in play than many thing, as reflected in recent polls.
Jacobson’s prediction: Clinton is “well-positioned” to win and seems to have enough electoral votes to win — without tossup states of North Carolina, Ohio or Florida.
- The lost days of summer in South Carolina, Photo essay by Susan Warner with story by Tanya Weinberg, Save the Children via Medium.com, July 2016
We missed this story when it came out, but it’s worth a look. It’s a comparison of summer programs for poor kids in rural Orangeburg County, where there isn’t much help, versus an engaging program in neighboring Barnwell County. It would be interesting to know how much Save the Children’s SummerBoost Camp in Barnwell County costs. Great story. Moving photos.
- Deficits ahead in South Carolina, states’ futures? The Hill, Aug. 18, 2016
Across the country, officials are raising alarms that there’s a potential economic slowdown, which could cripple state budgets. In this piece, hear the warning from South Carolina Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom:
“When you look at budget growth, I believe that most states are forecasting a slower rate of growth next year than they did this past year. So there seems to be some consensus that things are beginning to tighten”
- Security experts show how it’s easy to hack voting machines, InQuisitr.com, Aug. 14, 2016
A flaw in South Carolina’s voting process? An excerpt:
“Before we go into complete panic mode, it’s important to note that 75 percent of America’s votes are still cast on good old-fashioned paper, which is notoriously difficult to hack, and many of the electronic voting machines that are in place still print a paper ballot after the vote is cast, leaving a paper trail to follow in the event of electoral fraud. But five states – Georgia, Delaware, Louisiana, South Carolina, and New Jersey – now use electronic voting machines which leave no auditable paper trail, and those machines function based on something called a “voter access card” that voters receive before entering the polls. Additionally, CBS News found that only 60 percent of states with paper trails even audited their poll results after the fact.”
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We Can Do Better, South Carolina!