By Dick Polman

– A funny thing happened the other day when a federal judge weighed the constitutional worth of a voter ID law.

He looked and he looked and he looked – but alas, he couldn’t find any real-life examples of the impersonation fraud that the Republican-enacted law was supposedly designed to prevent.

This was out in Wisconsin. But the details may well prompt you to experience deja vu.

On Tuesday afternoon, the federal judge junked the Wisconsin law that had been ginned up by Scott Walker and his Republican legislature, a law requiring that everyone bring a government photo ID to the polls in order to combat the supposed scourge of voter impersonation. Problem is, there ain’t no scourge – nothing, zip, squat – and therefore, no reason to make voting tougher for the disproportionately non-white and lower-income citizens who lack photo IDs.

The judge, Lynn Adelman of the U.S. District Court, wrote: “The evidence at trial established that virtually no voter impersonation occurs in Wisconsin. The (Republican regime) could not point to a single instance of known voter impersonation occurring at any time in the recent past…and it is exceedingly unlikely that voter impersonation will become a problem in Wisconsin in the foreseeable future.” Indeed, “it is absolutely clear (that the GOP law) will prevent more legitimate votes from being cast than fraudulent votes.”

Gee. Where have we heard that kind of thing before?

Now I remember…Pennsylvania!

Just like in Wisconsin, Tom Corbett and his Republican legislature ginned up a photo ID law that was supposedly designed to combat the voter impersonation scourge – even though the real purpose was glaringly obvious, as best articulated in 2012 by House Republican leader Mike Turzai, who told his fellow partisans that the law “is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state.” And care to guess how may examples of voter impersonation fraud the state’s Republicans were able to cite?

None.

When the photo ID con inevitably wound up in court, Corbett’s lawyers admitted in a sworn affadavit that the ostensible reason for the law was non-existent. Check it out: “There have been no investigations and prosecutions of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania….(We) are not aware of any incidents of in-person voter fraud in Pennsylvania….(We) will not offer any evidence in this action that in-person voter fraud has in fact occurred in Pennsylvania…(We) will not offer any evidence or argument that in-person voter fraud is likely to occur in November in the absence of the photo ID law.”

Just as Judge Abraham tossed the Wisconsin law, virtually ensuring that the GOP won’t be able to “fix” it in time for the November midterm elections, the Pennsylvania courts ensured in 2012 that the Pennsylvania law wouldn’t mess with voters in the ’12 elections. And earlier this week, in fact, the Pennsylvania law took another judicial hit, further consigning it to limbo.

Corbett’s lawyers asked Commonwealth Court judge Bernard McGinley to reconsider his recent decree that the law is unconstitutional. He said no. He has already ruled that the photo ID requirement adversely affects up to 400,000 people and “unreasonably burdens” their right to vote. On page 36 of that ruling, he specificially cited the ruling GOP’s admission that voter impersonation fraud does not exist. He wrote that “a speculative harm [voter fraud], for which there is no evidence,” does not justify “an incursion into the fundamental right to vote.”

Corbett has 28 days to decide whether to take his vote-suppression crusade to the state Supreme Court. Who knows, maybe in that time he can find actual proof that voter impersonation fraud is more than a phantom menace. But don’t hold your breath. According to the journalism consortium News21, which surveyed district attorneys nationwide, there were 10 voter impersonation cases in the entire country during the first 12 years of this century. From the report: “With 146 million registered voters in the United States during that time, those 10 cases represent one out of about every 15 million prospective voters.”

The rulings in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania don’t surprise law professor Richard Hasen, who runs the popular Election Law Blog. He says voter impersonation fraud is “a blip on the radar” because it’s “an exceedingly dumb way to try to steal an election. Someone would have to send people into polling places claiming to be others – either dead voters who have not been removed from the rolls, or people who have not yet shown up to vote, or fictitious people pre-registered and getting by any identification requirements when registering. Then the fraudster would have to hope that these imposters vote the way they were paid to. The fraudster would have to do this in large enough numbers to affect the outcome of an election, while avoiding detection of this conspiracy.”

All told, says Hasen, “it is time for voter ID supporters to throw in the towel….Why make voters face extra hurdles to voting, for no legitimate reason?”

Why? Because the Republicans are post-reason.

Source: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/67479-voter-impersonation-fraud-the-gops-phantom-menace?linktype=hp_topstory

By Randy LoBasso

– Senator Pat Toomey joined his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Senate today to block a bill which would have increased the minimum wage. After doing so, Toomey, a senator from Pennsylvania, released a statement estimating that if the bill had been successful, “hundreds of thousands” of Americans would have lost their jobs.

“I do not support government policy that puts hundreds of thousands of people out of work,” Toomey said. Specifically, he estimated a loss of 118,000 Pennsylvania jobs.

The bill, which came six votes short of blocking a filibuster threat by Republicans, would have raised the federal minimum wage to $10.10 per hour. It is currently at $7.25.

Minimum wage hikes, business interests and Republicans often argue, hurt business owners who, in turn, are either not be able to hire as many workers or, perhaps, fire existing workers. This sort of thinking has been projected by national groups, like the National Federation of Independent Business Research Foundation, to estimate that up to 119,000 jobs could be lost if the wage was raised to just $9 per hour, as President Obama proposed last year. The Congressional Budget Office actually estimated the loss of 500,000 jobs if a $10.10 minimum wage was put in place. But projections and reality differ greatly on this issue.

As noted earlier this year by labor economist Mark Price of the Keystone Research Center, the minimum wage has not only fallen over the last 46 years, but it has failed to keep up with productivity—so we’re working more than we used to, and making less. If the wage kept up with inflation since 1978 (which was proposed, but obviously did not happen), it would be at $10.75 per hour; if it kept up with productivity, it would be at $17.10 per hour, according to the Center for Economic Policy and Research.

As per an estimate at the Economic Policy Institute, raising the federal minimum wage would actually boost job growth (more money in the hands of workers means more spending power, and potentially less reliance on federal assistance to live.

“David Cooper [of the Economic Policy Institute] estimates that, over the course of its full three-year period, a minimum-wage increase to $10.10 per hour would create 140,000 jobs nationally and 5,000 jobs in Pennsylvania,” Price told the House Democratic Policy Committee in January.

Research done by left-leaning organizations, like the Center for American Progress, have found similar results: That raising the minimum wage may actually create, not kill, jobs.

But for the time being, it’s not going to matter all that much. The minimum wage is a popular issue among voters, and Republicans will likely try to block it from raising no matter where it’s tried. That’s partly the reason why Pennsylvania’s minimum is the same as the federal minimum: Our legislature is run by the GOP. Democrats are very likely bringing this issue up now knowing it’ll fail, and they’ll be able to use it as a long-term strategy to get the voters to the polls.

Everyone running for governor and lieutenant governor on the Democratic side in Pennsylvania this year favors hiking the wage, so short of any Republican hearts growing three sizes on Christmas this year, we’re probably going to have to wait until 2015 (at least) to see a real wage hike.

Source: http://blogs.philadelphiaweekly.com/phillynow/2014/04/30/toomey-helps-fellow-republicans-block-minimum-wage-bill/

PHILADELPHIA–“The school district-announced delay of the vote scheduled for May 1 shows the district’s utter disdain for the voices of parents at Munoz Marin elementary school.

“The district is clearly intent on following through on the Boston Consulting Group’s recommendation to convert more schools to charters over the next five years. Now that parents are pushing back on their plan to turn our district into a network of charter schools, they have decided to change the rules, moving the goal posts in a despicable attempt to disenfranchise the parents.

“The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers will continue to stand with parents who want to see their schools supported, not given away to charter school companies.”

From Joe Inemer

– GCC/IBT DC 9 – LOCAL #16N is proud to be the host local to the 57th NORTH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER CONFERENCE (NANC) GRAPHIC COMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE

The NANC will be held in Scottsdale, AZ., on May 18-21, 2014. Currently, we are asking our friends to participate by taking out an ad in our NANC program book and/or sponsor a coffee station. Your generosity will help the host local defray some of the costs of running a conference.

Your contribution will also provide the opportunity for the delegates who attend to be able to bring a vast array of valuable information back to their membership.

If your company wishes to put on a presentation for the membership at the conference, please contact Joe Inemer at 215-537-4516.

By Tom Johnson

– When Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a proposed raise for the staff of the Pinelands Commission earlier this month, he castigated the commissioners for “conscious disregard of the fiscal realities’’ facing the agency and the state of New Jersey, in general.

But the commission’s 33 union-represented staff members deal with their own sort of fiscal realities.

They haven’t had a raise in more than four years, a fact acknowledged by the commission. In fact, their pay has been slashed by as much as 17 percent in that time, partly a result of being ordered to take unpaid furloughs, according to the union. The commission’s staff makes at least 30 percent to 40 percent less than employees at the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection engaged in the same kind of work, the union said.

“There’s been a mass exodus of the best and brightest who were there to preserve the New Jersey Pinelands,’’ said Jenelle Blackmon, staff representative of the Communications Workers of America Local 1040, which represents the Pinelands staff. “It’s terrible.’’

The commission is responsible for overseeing the stewardship of the 1.1 million-acre Pinelands National Preserve, one of the largest remaining tracts of open space along the Eastern Seaboard and home to many rare plants and animal species. In recent years, however, many staffers have left because of the pay situation, Blackmon said.

The commission no longer has a single PhD in its science office or a staff economist, Blackmon said. In all, nearly two-dozen full-time positions remain open because of budget cuts, she said.

That’s not a unusual situation. The Christie administration has repeatedly slashed operating funds for other state agencies, including the DEP, the state Council of Affordable Housing, and the state’s clean energy program, overseen by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. Funds raised by surcharges on customers’ electric and gas bills have been diverted to plug holes in the state budget.

To some, however, the cuts at the Pinelands Commission may have had an even bigger impact.

“You’re not paying employees comparable wages,’’ Blackmon said. “Everyone has left because of the pay disparity.’’

Carleton Montgomery, executive director of the Pinelands Preservation Alliance, an advocacy group working to protect the preserve, agreed.

“The morale, as I perceive it, is very low,’’ he said. “The staff doesn’t feel they are receiving compensation comparable to their abilities.’’

Perhaps more importantly, the issue is a piece of a fundamental problem with much broader implications, Montgomery said, with the commission “losing the spirit and capacity through its first 25 years.’’ Many senior staff retired, leaving gaps in expertise, he said.

Kevin Roberts, a spokesman for Christie, declined to comment, saying the rationale for the governor’s action is fully explained in the veto message.

The debate over the direction of the Pinelands Commission has grown more heated in recent months, particularly as it concerns a proposed 22-mile natural gas pipeline that would cut through the heart of the preserve to deliver fuel to the B.L. England plant in Cape May to convert it from a coal-burning facility.

The project failed to win approval from the commission in January when it was deadlocked in a 7-7 vote on allowing it to move forward.

But the $90 million project was widely opposed by environmentalists as well as four former governors — two Republicans and two Democrats — in a rare show of a disagreement with a policy promoted by a chief executive who followed in their path. They argued the project would compromise the integrity of the Pinelands.

The proposed pipeline, however, reflects policies adopted by the Christie administration’s Energy Master Plan, which seeks to promote development of new natural gas pipelines to rely more on the fossil fuel as a way of generating electricity.

In his veto message, Christie focused on a decision by the commission to divert money from the Pinelands Conservation Fund, which is dedicated to protecting land in the preserve. Although the commission set aside funds to provide up to 5 percent raises, how much staffers will actually receive is still subject to negotiations, according to Blackmon.

“This confiscation by the commissioners of public funds, whether from conservation funds or from the state appropriation, is a gross abuse of authority granted to them,’’ Christie said in his veto. It is the first time any governor has vetoed the minutes of the Pinelands Commission, which essentially overrules any decisions made at the meeting.

To some environmentalists, Christie’s decision to block the raises was meant as a retaliatory action to intimidate the commission for its decision in early January not to approve the pipeline project, which enjoyed wide support from the business community.

To Montgomery, however, that reasoning does not make sense. He noted the commission’s staff negotiated a memo of agreement with the state Board of Public Utilities, which would have allowed the project to move forward had it been approved by the commission this past January.

“You’re punishing the staff who actually worked to get approval of the pipeline,’’ said Montgomery, who opposed the pipeline project.

Source: http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/67351-union-blasts-gov-christie-for-killing-pay-raises-at-the-pinelands-commission-?linktype=hp_topstory