Joe Nosef goes on C-L live chat; apparently caught Bryant's foot-in-mouth disease

So, MSGOP Chairman Joe Nosef was on the Clarion-Ledger live chat this afternoon when an interesting thing happened.  His sister, an apparent Democrat, sent in a question:

1:14

Comment From Courtney  Joe, a quick question from your little sister (literally). What is the Republican party doing to attract young voters who are genuinely concerned about social issues but also tend to lean fiscally conservative. I know many people my age (29) who would consider voting Republican but for the party's stance on certain social issues.

1:14	Geoff Pender:  Cool, a question from your sister!

1:14	Joe Nosef:  First of all, Courtney, you were supposed to use another name and ask a much easier question like "why am i so great."

1:15	Geoff Pender:  Doesn't sound like she got the memo, Joe. Is your sister, gasp, a Democrat?

1:16

Joe Nosef:  To answer your question, we are working on that. I think the main thing is to stop chasing shiny objections on issues that aren't the main ones like the economy. The other thing is we have to quit letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. If someone doesn't agree on one or two social issues but is with us on most everything else we have to realize we want those people in the party.

"Shiny objections?!?" "Issues that aren't the main ones?" You mean silly little things like Personhood, women's issues, civil rights, and equal pay? Or education, transportation, and healthcare?

Jeez. What a bad couple of days for Mississippi Republicans.

Brandon Jones of the Mississippi Democratic Trust goes on live chat at ClarionLedger.com

Today, the Executive Director of the Mississippi Democratic Trust, Brandon Jones, spent some time answering questions from the public over at clarionledger.com.  You can read the transcript here.

Nancy Loome of Parents Campaign exposes profiteering of charter schools

Nancy Loome of the Parents' Campaign penned an article for today's Clarion-Ledger that exposes one of the big problems with the charter school movement.  It's paid for by big businesses who have something on their minds other than your kid's education: their profits.

From the article:

For-profits pay to influence education legislation to benefit their bottom line. Lobbyists push their agenda, donating to PACs that aren’t required to reveal their funders, running multi-million dollar ad campaigns to influence public opinion, and funding foundations that push their for-profit agenda.  

K-12 Inc. is the largest of several for-profit virtual school companies that are making money hand over fist from state tax dollars, despite an abysmal record.

Since K-12 Inc. is pushing hard for charter schools in Mississippi, this caught my eye.  How bad is that record?

A Pennsylvania study found that 100 percent of the state’s cyber schools, including K-12 Inc., had “significantly worse” outcomes than their traditional public school counterparts, for which the virtual companies were paid $10,000 per student from public school coffers. In turn, K-12 Inc.’s revenues for the first quarter of this fiscal year increased by 14.4 percent to $221.1 million. Last year, K-12 Inc. paid its CEO $5 million. (Emphasis mine)

So if these charter school outfits are failing, how do they keep getting states to go along with charter school legislation?

In Georgia earlier this year, out-of-state groups funded a $3 million ad campaign to push a constitutional amendment broadening Georgia’s charter school statute. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, the initiative’s two primary backers were Families for Public School Options, which received 71 percent of its funding from out-of-state corporations and foundations (including K-12 Inc.), and Georgia Public School Families for Amendment One, funded entirely by PublicSchoolOptions.org of Arlington, Va. — not a single Georgia public school family.

If we had a few more real journalists in this state, and a populous that would pay their salaries, we'd have some idea of how deeply corporate money penetrates our charter schools discussions.  It's unfortunate that we don't.

C-L Editorial: Charter schools not the solution

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season.  Now it's back to the grind.

With the 2013 Legislative session looming, there's no doubt that once again the focus of education-related efforts will be on passing a charter schools bill.  The Clarion-Ledger stepped forward in a powerful editorial just before New Year's and called it what it is: a red herring.

From the editorial:

In a best-case scenario for charter school supporters, expansion in Mississippi would impact only a fraction of students, and that impact could be years down the road. If an expansion is passed, the first charter schools in the state could take years to set up. 

Thus, charter schools are little more than a political red herring — garnering most of the debate, energy and focus of the commonwealth while drowning out other education and general issues in Mississippi.

I strongly suggest reading the whole thing.

Clarion-Ledger covers Westbrooks residency decision

The Clarion-Ledger has a preliminary story up on Judge Winston Kidd's decision from earlier today reinstating Latrice Westbrooks to the ballot in the 2nd District Court of Appeals race.  Westbrooks told the Clarion-Ledger that she has signed a lease to move into the district, which should make any further litigation of the matter moot.

The lawyers in the audience will be familiar with mootness, which is the opposite of ripeness.  And ripeness is what we discussed earlier in the day....  Heck, I even touched on standing earlier.  Never thought I'd blog so much about justiciability in one day.

Congratulations to David McCarty, Ramel Cotton, and P.J. Lee on winning the hearing this morning before Judge Kidd.

Harvard Study: Jackson among most corrupt state capitals

A study by Harvard's Kennedy School of Government lays out what many of us living in the Magnolia State know well: Jackson is home to one of the most corrupt state governments in the country. The study (see below) focuses on the relationship between state government corruption and the relative isolation of the state capital from the majority of the state's population. At first, naming Jackson as a leader in corruption would seem to undermine the theory of the study, which is that corruption grows the further the state capital is from major population centers. After all, Jackson is the largest city in Mississippi by far, and sits at the center of the state's largest metropolitan area.

Reading a bit more of the study, you'll see that in actuality, the study is a condemnation of our state's media over the period from 1979-2002. (That's the era from which data was collected for the study.) I have no reason to believe it's improved since then, especially considering that Mississippi's only statewide newspaper, the Clarion-Ledger, appears to be dwindling away before our very eyes. Thanks, Gannett!

Facts like these are what animate many citizens, from Tea Party members to good-government Democrats. With the demise of the stalwarts of old media, hopefully new media can do a better job over the next generation informing the populous of what goes on underneath the dome at the corner of Mississippi and Congress in Downtown Jackson.

Of course, they'll have to actually care about what's going on, which is a whole other matter altogether. (The authors of the study appear to think that state capital isolation is what breeds lower education spending, while I can't help but wonder if the two are related at all, and if they are, whether or not that's a chicken and egg problem.)

Here's a link to an L.A. Times article on the study which gives a synopsis, and here's the actual Harvard study itself:

Harvard Study on State Government Corruption

Clarion-Ledger and Daily Journal misreport affect of Denny map on majority minority districts ***UPDATED*** - My numbers were wrong, C-L and DJ were right.

Cassandra Mickens of the Clarion-Ledger and Bobby Harrison of the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal both erroneously reported today that the redistricting map drawn by Rep. Bill Denny (R - Jackson) would increase the number of majority minority House districts in Mississippi.  In actuality, the number of majority minority districts would decrease.

Under the current maps, drawn in 2002, there are 43 majority minority districts.  Under the Denny map, there would only be 42.  When the current maps were drawn a decade ago, there were only 41 majority minority districts.  Due to population shifts, however, the current number of majority minority districts is 43.

You can count them for yourself here:  House 2002 benchmark summary and Denny map summary.

***UPDATE*** - Thanks to "anonymous" in comments, I have been proven wrong.  I counted districts 71 & 83 twice.  The articles linked above are correct in saying that the Denny map increases majority minority districts by one.  My apologies to Ms. Mickens and Mr. Harrison.