It's a good thing Jennifer Konfrst dropped out of that House primary so that there wasn't an ugly swing seat race. Would only drag Garriott down in the general. However, I am disappointed Chris McGowan is uncontested for the 4th on the Republican side.
The correct strategy when running against someone with practically zero chance. Dont give them any oxygen to catch fire (strangely enough this advice also applies to online trolls, dont feed them).
America already exempts some populations from certain laws, thinking specifically of Amish/Mennonite communities, but of course they're nowhere near 15% of the population. Honestly if they're geographically concentrated, my inclination would be to just let them secede.
years ago in college I took a class in consociationalism, the general concept of power-sharing between a majority and a minority. The professor was Belgian, and not surprisingly he held up Belgium as a model; Canada (Quebecois) was in between; and Rwanda was an example of it NOT working. When the Rwanda genocide started, I wasn't surprised. So...the long term answer might be to give the 15 percent some sort of seat at the table. If they'll accept it, as your question sounds like they're more interested in flouting the existing system than in shaping a new one. Some men just want to watch the world burn....
It heavily depends on the details, but I have a feeling that you're talking about the Haredi population of Israel and their refusal to follow conscription law (as well as their broader disregard of secular laws). There are several factors that greatly complicate this particular situation. Several political parties in Israel and many NGOs and experts are trying to come up with a good answer to your question, and so far there's no clear pathway to success.
If you are indeed talking about Haredi Israelis, I doubt you'll get a good answer here. I'm willing to discuss this with you if you're interested, but a proper conversation about this would probably have to touch on the I/P conflict, so this is not a good place for it. Feel free to message me :)
I think the demographic and birth rate dynamic of that particular situation is a key component of this discussion. Meaning specifically, Ultraorthodox birth rates vs the birth rates among other groups in Israel, leading to the Ultraorthodox comprising an increasingly larger and larger percentage of the population, with the administrative, fiscal and social consequences that entails. It was easy for the Israeli government to make concessions and deals with them in the 40s and 50s when they comprised <5% of the population. Its a different scenario altogether when they approach close to 20%, and in the demographic long term, potentially a majority of the population. There is a hard threshold at which a state will lose the capacity to meaningfully sustain itself economically and defend itself militarily. All abstract hypotheticals, but something interesting to ponder nonetheless. All statements are intended as descriptive, not normative.
You're completely right, of course, but in a country as conservative and sometimes delusional as Israel, getting a normative statement out of a descriptive one is more difficult than one might hope.
Many Ultraorthodox Israelis genuinely believe that God favors Israel because they do nothing but pray and study religious texts, and that Israel's military power and economic sustainability are a result of that. It would be hard to get them to serve in the military, regardless of how much force you use.
Moreover, Ultraorthodox voters are an important and reliable conservative constituency, and alienating them would have a political cost that the Israeli right isn't willing to pay. In the eyes of many Israelis, these long-term concerns are less important than "owning the libs".
Israeli liberals agree with everything you wrote, and think that something should be done about it immediately. However, since conservatives aren't willing to help, that would probably require cooperation with at least one Arab party even if the next election goes well, and many of the Israeli liberals* are too racist to be willing to do that, despite the existence of an Arab party (Ra'am) that has done everything imaginable to get the approval of Jewish Israelis.
*Yes, I know that people like that wouldn't be considered "liberal" in a reasonable country. Israel is not always reasonable.
The paradoxical answer in North Ireland was to give this group (the IRA) actually more power so they would accept to only to engage within the law and the system. Sinn Fein (which had long been known to be the political wing of the IRA) was basically given veto-power and virtually guaranteed to rotate between the top two executive positions. This was a sort of "kill democracy in order to save it" situation.
For the most part yet. Violence has been essentially stopped and the political problems have been caused not by the Republicans but by the hard core unionists. When the agreement was signed it was expected that the mainstream unionists (UUP) who get the counterweight position but quickly the hard core (DUP) became the majority voice of the unionists and got the veto and the positions.
There's no obvious answer as often times specific details can derail a solution that "should" work.
Broadly speaking I'd say there's two options I'd leave towards. First, when geography enables it, either to let those people become independent or to devolve more power to a state or similar entity and go from there. Second option is increase enforcement and have those people comply with the law.
There are consequences and risks to either, and maybe the details can make another option work better.
Term limits and age limits would age out a lot of our problems on both sides of the aisle. I'm sick and tired of a world run by 70- and 80-year olds. And I say that as a nearly 70-year-old.
I agree, terms limits for state legislatures have proven ineffective and just create a musical chairs scenario of the same politicians hopping around like in California. Mandatory retirement ages (70 perhaps) for elected office seems fairer and would encourage younger people to get involved earlier in their careers. They already do this for some state Supreme Courts.
Arbitrary age limits is a dumb idea. There are many elected officials in their 70s who are sharper and more energetic than people half their age. Look at Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Conversely, Jack Schlossberg is someone who may never be ready for public office.
I’m a big fan of Warren but would we realistically be any worse off with Pressley as senator after 2024?
With Sanders there’s no protege for him as best I can tell, which means once he leaves, we don’t get someone else like him. Age limits would have encouraged him to foster a like minded successor.
I think the two of them are not compelling reasons to oppose age limits.
I dislike this argument greatly. It's not arbitrary. We set several upper age limits in society -- when you need to take drivers license tests again, when you qualify for SS/Medicare, etc. It's not some out-of-the-blue concept. It both encourages younger folks to enter the political arena and cuts down on people DYING in office, which 4 Democrats have done this Congress alone, not to mention RBG and Feinstein previously.
(And please point out the 76-year-old Senator who is more energetic than a 38-year-old.)
It's the age of the person, not how long they've been in office that's the problem (well, both, but for this discussion, one can lead to worse consequences).
The idea is that any one person doesn't accumulate as much power in a legislative role and having some people stay there a long time preserves institutional memory.
There are just as many young and terrible office holders. Experience is a good thing. If they can still do the job physically an mentally, why should they be barred.
Once you turn 70, will you no longer useful for anything?
I'm sure there are terrific 70+ year olds. But age restrictions would save us from the McConnells and Trumps of the world. And the Schumers, for that matter.
Kind of unclear to me how you map the Republican Party being terrible onto age. Some of the better members like Romney and Murkowski would have issues with age limitations while people like Hawley and Tom Cotton won't hit them for 30 years. Age is just not really a correlate for depravity in US politics.
Of course MAGA would be a dead movement if the younger generations were the only ones voting despite the movement among zoomers men in 24 who could easily flip back and have not been voting Republican for 30-40 years.
For how much more openly terrible the younger MAGAs are, they wouldn't have accomplished half as much as they have without the McConnells and Cornyns in office. Other than actual presidents, McConnell is the single most impactful conservative in modern history. Paul Ryan was ideologically worse, and even if we control for length of time in office, he was still less impactful than McConnell.
How many other professions do people want to work well into their 70s/we would encourage as a society to do so? Why is public office the one profession where we would encourage people to stay until their minds are gone and/or they leave feet first?
Do the majority of those people keep the same rigorous schedule they did throughout their entire lives or only a handful that have travel and other obligations comparable to a federal rep that is actually meeting those obligations.
Those are not professions in the same sense. Those are artistic endeavors that can be done completely at the whim of the individual. I wish MORE Senators would become artists and painters at 70 or 80 than risk dying in office.
Any job which involves minimal physical activity basically. Professors, actors and business executives often work well into their 70s and even 80s. Not sure why a policy maker/legislator should be an exception.
I don't believe most people in those jobs have the same travel and public facing responsibilities that a federal rep. has when they actually are meeting the obligations of the job.
Accounting and teaching I would say are the two top professions that make it easier for seniors to thrive and stay active.
Accounting in particular is one of the top professions for stability, job security and structure. It also involves math, computations and analytical abilities, which keep seniors active if they have the mindset for this.
In fact, Rep. Brad Sherman, who is in his early 70’s, is a licensed CPA.
As an example, my father’s accountant runs his own CPA firm with staff and has been in business since roughly 1973. He’s now in his late 70’s.
The problem is, if older accountants retire, that means filling in the jobs will be much harder. Accounting firms have seen an abundance of open positions but not enough people to fill them.
The truth is most people retire in their sixties and wouldn't want to be forced to work longer and each job where people do work into their 70s and 80s there are caveats and exceptions that make it possible that really don't exist for public office holders who are actually meeting their responsibilites. Pretending age is just a number is how RBG's and Biden's happen but I feel i've repeated this ignored point to death now so will leave it at that.
My Mom is 84 and a CPA still working in a prominent firm. They just got bought out by a bigger firm and she’s fed up with them so she’ll finally be retiring at the end of June. But your story isn’t entirely accurate—lots of older adults work well past retirement in accounting careers and remain sharp at their game.
This whole argument is colossally stupid because you can’t generalize the whole population based on age. You need to consider every individual and case.
What percentage of working CPAs are over 80? is this the rule or a very rare exception. Kudos to her if that was the field she enjoyed working in and was not forced to economic circumstance if the latter sorry she had to work full time that late into life. People can work jobs like that as long as they want and are able but control of the Supreme Court is not something you leave to a 1-5% chance. the messes RBG and Biden's ego have caused are messes future generations will spend decades cleaning up.
It's just consequence free numbers. A small advnaced range of which Diane Feinstein, Joe Biden, Sylvester Turner, David Scott and Raul Grijalva all share(d).
Bernie Sanders would have been limited to one term and out of office 14 years ago in 2012. Elizabeth Warren also would have been limited to one term with a 70 year old required retirement.
It's a case by case thing. Feinstein was 90 when she died.
Except all the cases I mentioned share the same range. Mortality and life expectancy exists whether we want to acknowledge it or not. I'd rather have RBG retired and replaced by Obama then Sanders and Warren in the Senate in seats anyone 30 years younger could hold and be more effective in.
Should all of our government be based around the idea that we could have kept one guy we like around for slightly longer?
Sanders is great, but he's refused to foster a successor. He's going to leave office eventually, and because he's opted to stick around for forever, his successor is almost certain to be worse than him. If he knew he'd have N years in office and that was it, he would have prepared someone like-minded to succeed him.
Even if he wouldn't have: having Sanders in the senate today is not worth e.g. having a 6-3 SCOTUS because RBG stayed on until she passed away instead of being made to retire under Obama.
What is the likelihood of one or several key California races not being decided for days, if not weeks, due to the glacial pace of vote counting there? The nightmare scenario would be for the governor's race flipping from Hilton to Steyer after a week or more of late ballots coming in, which would lead to renewed attacks on election integrity and voting by mail from Trump and his chorus.
This may be cynical and anti-democratic, but would that necessarily be a bad thing? (I'm genuinely asking.) While it definitely undermines our democratic institutions to routinely have a party that claims elections are rigged, I wonder if forcing them to focus on an issue swing voters don't care about would be an excellent distraction and if it would weaken Republican turnout in California. Not that Trump needs help being distracted from issues voters actually care about, but any time we can throw them off message is good for us.
That's not what I'm asking. Obviously, we'd all prefer votes be counted faster. The question is that since it's inevitable that California will take ages to count votes and there's a strong likelihood that results will change as votes are counted, is it a bad thing if it provokes Republicans into talking about voter fraud? Are there potential benefits to it, how much damage do Republican claims of voter fraud hurt democracy, and do the benefits outweigh the damage?
Pretty likely actually, Democrats clearly held on to their ballots longer, a huge percentage of them came in yesterday and will be coming in today. Waiting to see who to vote for. Is what it is, can't stop Republicans being insane about this stuff.
This is going to be a blue wave if we keep working hard and donating as much as we can. But I am disappointed that Dems are not on the ballot in all races! I am also disappointed that Dems in the blue states have not combined the local elections with the even year midterm elections which would boost voter turnout and save tax money needed to make up for the Trump cuts. It also results in more women and more minorities being elected to local offices.
In some blue states we have combined local elections with state and federal ones. In my hometown we moved the city elections from odd years to the even year cycle. That is why we have a race for L.A. Mayor on today's ballot. The odd year turnout numbers were embarrassingly low and there was the extra cost of running two elections every year. Another change was to put all statewide initiatives (and almost all other ballot measures) on the November general election ballot where there is higher turnout than in primaries. That was a good idea, though it makes writing my general election newsletters more challenging. Describing complex ballot measures in a sentence or two is the political equivalent of writing fortune cookie inserts. Trying to say a lot in few words is not easy sometimes.
One thing that did not change is that most local elections are "nonpartisan", meaning that the candidates' party affiliation are not listed on the ballot. More importantly it is possible to be elected in the primary with a majority of 50%+1. The partisan races all go to the general election.
My Angeleno election predictions for today:
Mayor Karen Bass will make it into a runoff with Councilmember Nithya Raman. Pratt is noisy, but won't get the votes he needs. If Pratt does get into the runoff Bass will be easily re-elected in November. It is possible that Pratt and Raman both make the runoff, but I think that Bass will hang on to a spot.
City Controller: Zach Sokoloff will defeat incumbent Kenneth Mejia. Sokoloff has family money, and his mom has dumped $7.5m into independent expenditures mostly attacking Mejia. The accusations are troubling if true, but I have my doubts of their veracity. With only two candidates this will be decided in this election.
City Attorney: This will go to a runoff between the incumbent Hydee Feldstein Soto and challenger Marissa Roy, who has the endorsement of the LACDP (county Dems) and more left groups (DSA, etc). The third candidate, John McKinney has the moderate/conservative lane and the backing of the PPL (police union). If he does well he might get into the runoff with Roy. Hydee is a one-termer...
County Supervisors: District 1 (Eastern L.A. County). Sen. Maria Elena Durazo will get a majority win to succeed termed-out Hilda Solis. Solis is going back to Congress (in CA-38).
District 3 (San Fernando Valley and Westside): Supv. Lindsey Horvath will get re-elected with a majority.
Assessor: Our excellent Assessor Jeff Prang will win, despite facing numerous "some dudes". Assessor is important for both competence and honesty. The last Assessor ended up in jail...
Sheriff: Sheriff Robert Luna will be re-elected but might be forced into a runoff with his predecessor Alex Villanueva. We don't want Sheriff V. back!
I hope you are right. I voted for Mejia. I was not impressed with Sokoloff when he spoke to my Democratic club. Also he spells his first name wrong (Zach instead of Zack)...;-)
I chose my own misspelling of the short form of Zachary. My parents named me Michael, which is too common, so I changed my first name. I named myself after a 19th century president, Zachary Taylor, and a baseball player from the early 20th century, Zack Wheat.
Sounds like the shift in Los Angeles from odd number years to even numbered years is similar to how things changed in San Francisco. For a long time, turnout in SF odd year mayoral elections was always low (exception being back in 2003 in the Gavin Newsom vs. Matt Gonzales runoff election).
The one difference is that SF mayoral elections are held in presidential election years now, which began back in 2024.
Los Angeles had its last odd election in 2017, so we have been on the even year election cycle since 2020. I like having times when it is not election season. It used to be that the November election would be over and it would be time to campaign for the March or April city primary.
This rule has been a part of our community for 20 years. It has served us well. You can talk about the Democratic presidential primary literally anywhere else on the internet. If you can't handle that, then perhaps you're right and you shouldn't visit.
It's one of the best places on the internet to discuss downballot races, and this rule is one of the main reasons why. I hope you can enjoy it for what it is!
"This is a Democratic presidential primary-free zone.
"Our community has long been a haven for those who wish to avoid divisive debates about Democratic presidential primaries. Please respect that choice—there are tons of other places on the internet to discuss this topic. This restriction applies to any race in the 21st century, past and future."
Happy Get This F*cking Day Over With Day to all (CA, IA, MT,NJ, NM, SD) who celebrate!
Yesterday was Happy Unsubscribe From All Likely Losing Primary Candidates' Email* Lists Before They Sell Your Name To Pay Their Campaign Debts Day to all who celebrated... and I did.
I similarly have an email for bullshit lol. I'm starting to think I might need a phone number for it too, I've been getting so many fundraising texts recently.
I give Hamawy a slight edge over Altman. Surprised Cohen and Reynolds-Jackson aren't doing better, especially Reynolds-Jackson, who I thought could be the frontrunner when she entered.
MT-1: I think Cleveland places 4th behind Busse, Forstag and Rains, but I could be wrong. It's a close race. I also think Flint gets the Republican nod with relative ease.
NM-Gov: I think Hull gets the Republican nod, with a slight plurality over Turner. Rodriguez will outperform expectations.
Most of these seem spot on but I don't see Cleveland as having done much in the way of campaigning. Busse has high name recognition thx to running/ losing for Gov, and Forstag has the benefit of the AOC endorsement/ recent rally. (My org, Climate Hawks Vote, has endorsed Busse)
well Neill definitely won’t drop out for Bodnar, everyone else it’s sort of unclear. For the Montana congressional races it depends on what wing of the Democratic Party you are on, I wouldn’t say the electability of each of the 4 candidates are that different.
FHFA head Bill Pulte, who is a real estate mogul with no intelligence experience, will succeed Tulsi Gabbard as DNI. When FHFA had an opening during Obama, Obama tapped Rep. Mel Watt. Maybe Trump will put an elected official in Pulte's place.
Say what you will about Marco Rubio, he is not the single stupidest person in the country. Not sure you can say the same about our new director of "intelligence".
ME-Sen: There's multiple sources on this reported by Maine journalist Andy O'Brien that I can't find links to, but there's a rumor Susan Collins's husband Tom Daffron cheated on his first wife with her. I wouldn't make much of it for now, but that would be quite the hypocrisy regarding Platner.
Yes although I'd rather the race be about the issues and not about the personal affairs Collins and Platner have in their own lives.
Besides, why is it needed? Collins voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the SCOTUS and advanced the BBB bill even after voting against it. These are real issues Platner and Democrats can hammer against Collins.
I suppose the lamestream media needs something to talk about. I try not to platform them unless it's something that catches on, like this current Platner business.
"Lamestream" media? Must we repeat Trump's phrases? Yes, many media outlets have a tendency to focus on unimportant things or try to both-sides issues, but they serve a valuable role of informing people on other topics, and should be platformed when they're useful.
Ah, yes, because you're not allowed to use a term that Trump does, clearly. I do agree with you that they are very informative on certain topics, but when it comes to political issues like these, they can sometimes lift stories that don't have as much importance as others.
For those of you already looking to next week's primaries, SC EV last week has officially outdone the entire 2024 *primary* EV. 5 more days to go. I voted today.
Question about NJ-12 — this whole Bosnia thing with Hamawy, will it affect the race at all? I’ve heard there are a lot of Muslims in this district so it may not (plus the story has some tether Islamophobic undertones to it), but am I wrong, and if so, who most likely benefits as a result?
It's a good thing Jennifer Konfrst dropped out of that House primary so that there wasn't an ugly swing seat race. Would only drag Garriott down in the general. However, I am disappointed Chris McGowan is uncontested for the 4th on the Republican side.
The correct strategy when running against someone with practically zero chance. Dont give them any oxygen to catch fire (strangely enough this advice also applies to online trolls, dont feed them).
Can you elaborate on "simply refuses to obey any of the country's laws"?
Bosnia, basically lol
America already exempts some populations from certain laws, thinking specifically of Amish/Mennonite communities, but of course they're nowhere near 15% of the population. Honestly if they're geographically concentrated, my inclination would be to just let them secede.
years ago in college I took a class in consociationalism, the general concept of power-sharing between a majority and a minority. The professor was Belgian, and not surprisingly he held up Belgium as a model; Canada (Quebecois) was in between; and Rwanda was an example of it NOT working. When the Rwanda genocide started, I wasn't surprised. So...the long term answer might be to give the 15 percent some sort of seat at the table. If they'll accept it, as your question sounds like they're more interested in flouting the existing system than in shaping a new one. Some men just want to watch the world burn....
It heavily depends on the details, but I have a feeling that you're talking about the Haredi population of Israel and their refusal to follow conscription law (as well as their broader disregard of secular laws). There are several factors that greatly complicate this particular situation. Several political parties in Israel and many NGOs and experts are trying to come up with a good answer to your question, and so far there's no clear pathway to success.
If you are indeed talking about Haredi Israelis, I doubt you'll get a good answer here. I'm willing to discuss this with you if you're interested, but a proper conversation about this would probably have to touch on the I/P conflict, so this is not a good place for it. Feel free to message me :)
I think the demographic and birth rate dynamic of that particular situation is a key component of this discussion. Meaning specifically, Ultraorthodox birth rates vs the birth rates among other groups in Israel, leading to the Ultraorthodox comprising an increasingly larger and larger percentage of the population, with the administrative, fiscal and social consequences that entails. It was easy for the Israeli government to make concessions and deals with them in the 40s and 50s when they comprised <5% of the population. Its a different scenario altogether when they approach close to 20%, and in the demographic long term, potentially a majority of the population. There is a hard threshold at which a state will lose the capacity to meaningfully sustain itself economically and defend itself militarily. All abstract hypotheticals, but something interesting to ponder nonetheless. All statements are intended as descriptive, not normative.
You're completely right, of course, but in a country as conservative and sometimes delusional as Israel, getting a normative statement out of a descriptive one is more difficult than one might hope.
Many Ultraorthodox Israelis genuinely believe that God favors Israel because they do nothing but pray and study religious texts, and that Israel's military power and economic sustainability are a result of that. It would be hard to get them to serve in the military, regardless of how much force you use.
Moreover, Ultraorthodox voters are an important and reliable conservative constituency, and alienating them would have a political cost that the Israeli right isn't willing to pay. In the eyes of many Israelis, these long-term concerns are less important than "owning the libs".
Israeli liberals agree with everything you wrote, and think that something should be done about it immediately. However, since conservatives aren't willing to help, that would probably require cooperation with at least one Arab party even if the next election goes well, and many of the Israeli liberals* are too racist to be willing to do that, despite the existence of an Arab party (Ra'am) that has done everything imaginable to get the approval of Jewish Israelis.
*Yes, I know that people like that wouldn't be considered "liberal" in a reasonable country. Israel is not always reasonable.
The paradoxical answer in North Ireland was to give this group (the IRA) actually more power so they would accept to only to engage within the law and the system. Sinn Fein (which had long been known to be the political wing of the IRA) was basically given veto-power and virtually guaranteed to rotate between the top two executive positions. This was a sort of "kill democracy in order to save it" situation.
And they did the same thing in Iraq, essentially.
and it's worked! (it's worked? I haven't followed Northern Ireland politics since it dropped out of headline news)
For the most part yet. Violence has been essentially stopped and the political problems have been caused not by the Republicans but by the hard core unionists. When the agreement was signed it was expected that the mainstream unionists (UUP) who get the counterweight position but quickly the hard core (DUP) became the majority voice of the unionists and got the veto and the positions.
There's no obvious answer as often times specific details can derail a solution that "should" work.
Broadly speaking I'd say there's two options I'd leave towards. First, when geography enables it, either to let those people become independent or to devolve more power to a state or similar entity and go from there. Second option is increase enforcement and have those people comply with the law.
There are consequences and risks to either, and maybe the details can make another option work better.
Term limits and age limits would age out a lot of our problems on both sides of the aisle. I'm sick and tired of a world run by 70- and 80-year olds. And I say that as a nearly 70-year-old.
Term limits are bad policy. Just hands over power and institutional memory over to lobbyists.
I agree, terms limits for state legislatures have proven ineffective and just create a musical chairs scenario of the same politicians hopping around like in California. Mandatory retirement ages (70 perhaps) for elected office seems fairer and would encourage younger people to get involved earlier in their careers. They already do this for some state Supreme Courts.
Yeah I'm less opposed to age limits
Arbitrary age limits is a dumb idea. There are many elected officials in their 70s who are sharper and more energetic than people half their age. Look at Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Conversely, Jack Schlossberg is someone who may never be ready for public office.
I’m a big fan of Warren but would we realistically be any worse off with Pressley as senator after 2024?
With Sanders there’s no protege for him as best I can tell, which means once he leaves, we don’t get someone else like him. Age limits would have encouraged him to foster a like minded successor.
I think the two of them are not compelling reasons to oppose age limits.
I dislike this argument greatly. It's not arbitrary. We set several upper age limits in society -- when you need to take drivers license tests again, when you qualify for SS/Medicare, etc. It's not some out-of-the-blue concept. It both encourages younger folks to enter the political arena and cuts down on people DYING in office, which 4 Democrats have done this Congress alone, not to mention RBG and Feinstein previously.
(And please point out the 76-year-old Senator who is more energetic than a 38-year-old.)
What about the idea of “Service” limits? Say 30 years of service then you are done. Apply this to ALL federal offices. Just my two cents.
It's the age of the person, not how long they've been in office that's the problem (well, both, but for this discussion, one can lead to worse consequences).
That's just term limits with a different name
Legislative term limits are a bad idea; I'm fine with limiting executive tenures (president, governors, mayors, etc.).
Right, those are less objectionable. Since the comment I responded to was addressing the California congressional primaries I didn't specify.
Why? If one is arbitrary, they both are.
The idea is that any one person doesn't accumulate as much power in a legislative role and having some people stay there a long time preserves institutional memory.
Maybe do like Virginia does with governors and have it so incumbents can't serve consecutive terms?
There's a reason why every state that used to do that (save Virginia) stopped doing that
There are just as many young and terrible office holders. Experience is a good thing. If they can still do the job physically an mentally, why should they be barred.
Once you turn 70, will you no longer useful for anything?
I'm sure there are terrific 70+ year olds. But age restrictions would save us from the McConnells and Trumps of the world. And the Schumers, for that matter.
Kind of unclear to me how you map the Republican Party being terrible onto age. Some of the better members like Romney and Murkowski would have issues with age limitations while people like Hawley and Tom Cotton won't hit them for 30 years. Age is just not really a correlate for depravity in US politics.
Wish I could like this comment about a hundred times
Do you see who comprises the 20 and 30 somethings of the Republican Party??
It's true, there's a lot of awful there in every age group.
Very true. I think I'd take my chances with the McConnells and the Cornyns over this younger generation of MAGA Republicans.
Of course MAGA would be a dead movement if the younger generations were the only ones voting despite the movement among zoomers men in 24 who could easily flip back and have not been voting Republican for 30-40 years.
For how much more openly terrible the younger MAGAs are, they wouldn't have accomplished half as much as they have without the McConnells and Cornyns in office. Other than actual presidents, McConnell is the single most impactful conservative in modern history. Paul Ryan was ideologically worse, and even if we control for length of time in office, he was still less impactful than McConnell.
20 or 30 somethings are the only reason the Democratic party has any chance in hell of winning any election.
Would save us from having Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court....
How many other professions do people want to work well into their 70s/we would encourage as a society to do so? Why is public office the one profession where we would encourage people to stay until their minds are gone and/or they leave feet first?
Musician, actor, writer, painter, etc., to name some.
Do the majority of those people keep the same rigorous schedule they did throughout their entire lives or only a handful that have travel and other obligations comparable to a federal rep that is actually meeting those obligations.
Who said the majority? That wasn't the question.
I'm asking the relevant follow up.
Those professions also completely overlap with activities people enjoy in retirement.
You're comparing Pablo Casals to someone who plays cello for fun?
Those are not professions in the same sense. Those are artistic endeavors that can be done completely at the whim of the individual. I wish MORE Senators would become artists and painters at 70 or 80 than risk dying in office.
Have you tried to play in a one-person orchestra or acted in a one-person movie before?
Oh, Mary!
Any job which involves minimal physical activity basically. Professors, actors and business executives often work well into their 70s and even 80s. Not sure why a policy maker/legislator should be an exception.
I don't believe most people in those jobs have the same travel and public facing responsibilities that a federal rep. has when they actually are meeting the obligations of the job.
After a certain number of years the amount of travel time is curtailed. I'm pretty sure Grassley isn't doing nearly as much as he did 30 years ago.
In most professions no one is required to quit at a certain age and many are encouraged if not begged to stay on.
Which professions encourage octogenarians to stay on? Most are trying to push people out in their fifties and sixties.
Many blue collar professions are very short of workers and hold on to everyone they can.
The 'pushing people out' is typically to reduce pension costs or fill the position with a lower payed new hire.
A) The question I asked which professions?
B) Lack of workers is not a great reason to work people into their 80s.
Accounting and teaching I would say are the two top professions that make it easier for seniors to thrive and stay active.
Accounting in particular is one of the top professions for stability, job security and structure. It also involves math, computations and analytical abilities, which keep seniors active if they have the mindset for this.
In fact, Rep. Brad Sherman, who is in his early 70’s, is a licensed CPA.
"Mandatory retirement ages are common at U.S. CPA firms; the average is between 64 and 65." https://www.cpajournal.com/2023/02/03/adding-age-a-to-dei-is-a-good-idea/
Common but not representative of all firms.
As an example, my father’s accountant runs his own CPA firm with staff and has been in business since roughly 1973. He’s now in his late 70’s.
The problem is, if older accountants retire, that means filling in the jobs will be much harder. Accounting firms have seen an abundance of open positions but not enough people to fill them.
The truth is most people retire in their sixties and wouldn't want to be forced to work longer and each job where people do work into their 70s and 80s there are caveats and exceptions that make it possible that really don't exist for public office holders who are actually meeting their responsibilites. Pretending age is just a number is how RBG's and Biden's happen but I feel i've repeated this ignored point to death now so will leave it at that.
My Mom is 84 and a CPA still working in a prominent firm. They just got bought out by a bigger firm and she’s fed up with them so she’ll finally be retiring at the end of June. But your story isn’t entirely accurate—lots of older adults work well past retirement in accounting careers and remain sharp at their game.
This whole argument is colossally stupid because you can’t generalize the whole population based on age. You need to consider every individual and case.
What percentage of working CPAs are over 80? is this the rule or a very rare exception. Kudos to her if that was the field she enjoyed working in and was not forced to economic circumstance if the latter sorry she had to work full time that late into life. People can work jobs like that as long as they want and are able but control of the Supreme Court is not something you leave to a 1-5% chance. the messes RBG and Biden's ego have caused are messes future generations will spend decades cleaning up.
There are more things to do in life than be a Senator at 70 years old.
Many senators are not even elected until they are in their 60's or nearly so.
Age is a number, it means nothing in terms of public service competence or abilities.
It 100% has to do with competence and abilities. Agree to disagree I guess that being a senior citizen impacts how you'd handle a demanding job
It's just consequence free numbers. A small advnaced range of which Diane Feinstein, Joe Biden, Sylvester Turner, David Scott and Raul Grijalva all share(d).
Bernie Sanders would have been limited to one term and out of office 14 years ago in 2012. Elizabeth Warren also would have been limited to one term with a 70 year old required retirement.
It's a case by case thing. Feinstein was 90 when she died.
Except all the cases I mentioned share the same range. Mortality and life expectancy exists whether we want to acknowledge it or not. I'd rather have RBG retired and replaced by Obama then Sanders and Warren in the Senate in seats anyone 30 years younger could hold and be more effective in.
Should all of our government be based around the idea that we could have kept one guy we like around for slightly longer?
Sanders is great, but he's refused to foster a successor. He's going to leave office eventually, and because he's opted to stick around for forever, his successor is almost certain to be worse than him. If he knew he'd have N years in office and that was it, he would have prepared someone like-minded to succeed him.
Even if he wouldn't have: having Sanders in the senate today is not worth e.g. having a 6-3 SCOTUS because RBG stayed on until she passed away instead of being made to retire under Obama.
What is the likelihood of one or several key California races not being decided for days, if not weeks, due to the glacial pace of vote counting there? The nightmare scenario would be for the governor's race flipping from Hilton to Steyer after a week or more of late ballots coming in, which would lead to renewed attacks on election integrity and voting by mail from Trump and his chorus.
This may be cynical and anti-democratic, but would that necessarily be a bad thing? (I'm genuinely asking.) While it definitely undermines our democratic institutions to routinely have a party that claims elections are rigged, I wonder if forcing them to focus on an issue swing voters don't care about would be an excellent distraction and if it would weaken Republican turnout in California. Not that Trump needs help being distracted from issues voters actually care about, but any time we can throw them off message is good for us.
Given a choice between fast and accurate, I will always prefer accurate.
That's not what I'm asking. Obviously, we'd all prefer votes be counted faster. The question is that since it's inevitable that California will take ages to count votes and there's a strong likelihood that results will change as votes are counted, is it a bad thing if it provokes Republicans into talking about voter fraud? Are there potential benefits to it, how much damage do Republican claims of voter fraud hurt democracy, and do the benefits outweigh the damage?
...I was agreeing with you (I think?)
Highly unlikely in a Trump midterm.
Also, there might be a brand of Republican that could make CA-GOV competitive, but Steve Hilton ain't it.
Actually, Trump ranting about election denial is good for Democrats. Go look at 2022.
Pretty likely actually, Democrats clearly held on to their ballots longer, a huge percentage of them came in yesterday and will be coming in today. Waiting to see who to vote for. Is what it is, can't stop Republicans being insane about this stuff.
This is going to be a blue wave if we keep working hard and donating as much as we can. But I am disappointed that Dems are not on the ballot in all races! I am also disappointed that Dems in the blue states have not combined the local elections with the even year midterm elections which would boost voter turnout and save tax money needed to make up for the Trump cuts. It also results in more women and more minorities being elected to local offices.
In some blue states we have combined local elections with state and federal ones. In my hometown we moved the city elections from odd years to the even year cycle. That is why we have a race for L.A. Mayor on today's ballot. The odd year turnout numbers were embarrassingly low and there was the extra cost of running two elections every year. Another change was to put all statewide initiatives (and almost all other ballot measures) on the November general election ballot where there is higher turnout than in primaries. That was a good idea, though it makes writing my general election newsletters more challenging. Describing complex ballot measures in a sentence or two is the political equivalent of writing fortune cookie inserts. Trying to say a lot in few words is not easy sometimes.
One thing that did not change is that most local elections are "nonpartisan", meaning that the candidates' party affiliation are not listed on the ballot. More importantly it is possible to be elected in the primary with a majority of 50%+1. The partisan races all go to the general election.
My Angeleno election predictions for today:
Mayor Karen Bass will make it into a runoff with Councilmember Nithya Raman. Pratt is noisy, but won't get the votes he needs. If Pratt does get into the runoff Bass will be easily re-elected in November. It is possible that Pratt and Raman both make the runoff, but I think that Bass will hang on to a spot.
City Controller: Zach Sokoloff will defeat incumbent Kenneth Mejia. Sokoloff has family money, and his mom has dumped $7.5m into independent expenditures mostly attacking Mejia. The accusations are troubling if true, but I have my doubts of their veracity. With only two candidates this will be decided in this election.
City Attorney: This will go to a runoff between the incumbent Hydee Feldstein Soto and challenger Marissa Roy, who has the endorsement of the LACDP (county Dems) and more left groups (DSA, etc). The third candidate, John McKinney has the moderate/conservative lane and the backing of the PPL (police union). If he does well he might get into the runoff with Roy. Hydee is a one-termer...
County Supervisors: District 1 (Eastern L.A. County). Sen. Maria Elena Durazo will get a majority win to succeed termed-out Hilda Solis. Solis is going back to Congress (in CA-38).
District 3 (San Fernando Valley and Westside): Supv. Lindsey Horvath will get re-elected with a majority.
Assessor: Our excellent Assessor Jeff Prang will win, despite facing numerous "some dudes". Assessor is important for both competence and honesty. The last Assessor ended up in jail...
Sheriff: Sheriff Robert Luna will be re-elected but might be forced into a runoff with his predecessor Alex Villanueva. We don't want Sheriff V. back!
Maybe I live in a bubble but Sokoloff has been seen as a Nepo-Baby joke and I just don't see him beating Mejia.
I hope you are right. I voted for Mejia. I was not impressed with Sokoloff when he spoke to my Democratic club. Also he spells his first name wrong (Zach instead of Zack)...;-)
As the father of a Zach, I have to disagree with you there :)
I chose my own misspelling of the short form of Zachary. My parents named me Michael, which is too common, so I changed my first name. I named myself after a 19th century president, Zachary Taylor, and a baseball player from the early 20th century, Zack Wheat.
Man, those are some deep cuts :)
Sounds like the shift in Los Angeles from odd number years to even numbered years is similar to how things changed in San Francisco. For a long time, turnout in SF odd year mayoral elections was always low (exception being back in 2003 in the Gavin Newsom vs. Matt Gonzales runoff election).
The one difference is that SF mayoral elections are held in presidential election years now, which began back in 2024.
Los Angeles had its last odd election in 2017, so we have been on the even year election cycle since 2020. I like having times when it is not election season. It used to be that the November election would be over and it would be time to campaign for the March or April city primary.
Know it's an internal but nice. Baldacci by 8 in ME-2 https://x.com/PollTracker2024/status/2061767495288021413?s=20
That LePage is 77 (and IMHO looks older), in a cycle that doesn't seem to be friendly to older candidates, might help us here.
I am wondering if Gavin Newsom’s critical remarks about his own party is designed to get GOP and Independent support for his presidential run?
Perhaps, but just as a heads up, 2028 presidential primaries are not to be talked about here iirc
Democratic, specifically. You can still discuss the Republican ones.
This rule has been a part of our community for 20 years. It has served us well. You can talk about the Democratic presidential primary literally anywhere else on the internet. If you can't handle that, then perhaps you're right and you shouldn't visit.
May I ask why?
The name of the website is the downballot and there are like 9,000 elections between now and the 2028 Presidential primaries.
Plus if I recall the 2016 primaries caused a lot of drama at DK and so the rule is a measure to prevent things from getting ugly
I remember the '08 primary getting ugly on DK!
It’s exhausting keeping up. 🙄
It's one of the best places on the internet to discuss downballot races, and this rule is one of the main reasons why. I hope you can enjoy it for what it is!
No Democratic Party Primary presential talk please. Other sites deal with it and it always gets way too contentious and drowns out everything else.
Hi! Please check out our Rules of the Road! https://www.the-downballot.com/p/the-downballots-community-rules-of
"This is a Democratic presidential primary-free zone.
"Our community has long been a haven for those who wish to avoid divisive debates about Democratic presidential primaries. Please respect that choice—there are tons of other places on the internet to discuss this topic. This restriction applies to any race in the 21st century, past and future."
I understand. I’m a newbie and will search for more appropriate sites. 😎
Survey USA: Hilton 20, Steyer 20, Becerra 17, Bianco 11
I think this one is in the digest.
Happy Get This F*cking Day Over With Day to all (CA, IA, MT,NJ, NM, SD) who celebrate!
Yesterday was Happy Unsubscribe From All Likely Losing Primary Candidates' Email* Lists Before They Sell Your Name To Pay Their Campaign Debts Day to all who celebrated... and I did.
*= Texts, too.
I use a different email whenever I can lol
I similarly have an email for bullshit lol. I'm starting to think I might need a phone number for it too, I've been getting so many fundraising texts recently.
These candidates are who I think will win in their respective primaries today:
CA-G: I think Becerra comes first and Steyer just about comes second over Hilton
IA-S(D): I think Josh Turek beats Zach Wahls pretty comfortably
MT-S(D): Sadly I think that Reilly Neill win win
MT-1(D): I think Cleveland wins over Forstag and Busse
NJ-7(D): I think Bennett very narrowly beats Shah
NM-G(D): I think Deb Haaland wins easily
SD-G(R): I think Dusty Johnson comes first but it will go to a runoff
i think bennet wins comfortably, and that's not just because I want to be able to leave her victory party at a reasonable hour
I agree. But NJ 12 should be close.
I give Hamawy a slight edge over Altman. Surprised Cohen and Reynolds-Jackson aren't doing better, especially Reynolds-Jackson, who I thought could be the frontrunner when she entered.
couldn't decide who i support in that race, glad i am not a voter there. There are several good options
I'd predict Reynolds-Jackson as the other frontrunner with Hamaway. But she needs a good Trenton area turnout.
I think California will take a while.
Yeah it always do
MT-1: I think Cleveland places 4th behind Busse, Forstag and Rains, but I could be wrong. It's a close race. I also think Flint gets the Republican nod with relative ease.
NM-Gov: I think Hull gets the Republican nod, with a slight plurality over Turner. Rodriguez will outperform expectations.
Most of these seem spot on but I don't see Cleveland as having done much in the way of campaigning. Busse has high name recognition thx to running/ losing for Gov, and Forstag has the benefit of the AOC endorsement/ recent rally. (My org, Climate Hawks Vote, has endorsed Busse)
interesting test of AOC's sway in MT of all places.
Who do we want in the Montana races?
well Neill definitely won’t drop out for Bodnar, everyone else it’s sort of unclear. For the Montana congressional races it depends on what wing of the Democratic Party you are on, I wouldn’t say the electability of each of the 4 candidates are that different.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-william-pulte-acting-director-national-intelligence-tulsi-gabbar-rcna348036
FHFA head Bill Pulte, who is a real estate mogul with no intelligence experience, will succeed Tulsi Gabbard as DNI. When FHFA had an opening during Obama, Obama tapped Rep. Mel Watt. Maybe Trump will put an elected official in Pulte's place.
Maybe, but I highly doubt a House member considering the seat margin.
Insane. The absurdities never end.
Is Pulte even leaving FHFA? lol
Apparently not. He's also staying on at his government-backed mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He's like the new Marco Rubio.
Say what you will about Marco Rubio, he is not the single stupidest person in the country. Not sure you can say the same about our new director of "intelligence".
I was referencing the meme of him being in charge of everything, but that's true.
Does he collect a full salary for each job?
Schumer said in a POLITICO newsletter that he supports Platner for the ME Senate seat but said little else after his meeting with him.
Come on Schumer. You can do better than that.
ME-Sen: There's multiple sources on this reported by Maine journalist Andy O'Brien that I can't find links to, but there's a rumor Susan Collins's husband Tom Daffron cheated on his first wife with her. I wouldn't make much of it for now, but that would be quite the hypocrisy regarding Platner.
Unless Collins herself cheated, it's not directly analogous, but maybe it could neutralize attacks on Platner
Yes although I'd rather the race be about the issues and not about the personal affairs Collins and Platner have in their own lives.
Besides, why is it needed? Collins voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the SCOTUS and advanced the BBB bill even after voting against it. These are real issues Platner and Democrats can hammer against Collins.
https://mainebeacon.com/susan-collins-advanced-trump-tax-bill-after-receiving-2-million-from-private-equity-billionaire/
I honestly don't get why any of it matters. Of all the great moral crises of our age, I don't think philandering spouses is high on the list.
I suppose the lamestream media needs something to talk about. I try not to platform them unless it's something that catches on, like this current Platner business.
"Lamestream" media? Must we repeat Trump's phrases? Yes, many media outlets have a tendency to focus on unimportant things or try to both-sides issues, but they serve a valuable role of informing people on other topics, and should be platformed when they're useful.
Ah, yes, because you're not allowed to use a term that Trump does, clearly. I do agree with you that they are very informative on certain topics, but when it comes to political issues like these, they can sometimes lift stories that don't have as much importance as others.
Lamestream is a much older term than that.
For those of you already looking to next week's primaries, SC EV last week has officially outdone the entire 2024 *primary* EV. 5 more days to go. I voted today.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/south-carolina-surpasses-entire-2024-234557951.html
Question about NJ-12 — this whole Bosnia thing with Hamawy, will it affect the race at all? I’ve heard there are a lot of Muslims in this district so it may not (plus the story has some tether Islamophobic undertones to it), but am I wrong, and if so, who most likely benefits as a result?
I have no idea what you're talking about and I consider myself invested in the race. I think the Blind Sheikh thing is a bigger problem.
Edit: looked it up and it was the thing I mentioned, so maybe it'll be a bit of a liability? Not enough for him to lose, I don't think.
He volunteered with an organization to do medical work in Bosnia in 1994. 8 years before the organization got put on any kind of list.
https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/2026-06-02/doj-is-investigating-former-congressman-george-santos-for-insider-trading-on-kalshi
Where are they now? - Former Rep. George "Anthony Devolder" Santos (R-NY) is being investigated by the DOJ for insider trading on Kalshi.
The perfect fall guy while dozens of other people throughout congress and the executive are doing the same thing,
Apparently Santos says he knows the founder of Kalshi but sources close to the founder say this isn't the case.
He's gifted at pretending to be calm and diplomatic when he's really full of shit.
Also, fascinating how Santos is pardoned by Trump but the DOJ goes after him for insider trading.