WA-Sen: Can Murray's Math Teach Democrats A Lesson?

We now know the outcome, more or less, of the Washington State US Senate race—and it looks like it’s going to be Patty Murray, D-(Actual No-Kidding Progressive), over Dino Rossi, R-(Guy Who Will Be Running Again For Something As Soon As He Can).

Murray managed to win in a State that is far more “purple” than you might think, in a vote-by-mail election that guarantees at least few days of uncertainty.

You have to do some unusual math to figure out how these elections will go, and we’re going to walk through how this race got called by NBC just a couple hours ago.

So here’s what we do know: if you want to win an election in Washington, you basically have to carry some combination of King (Seattle, and Washington’s most populous, and liberal, county), Pierce (Tacoma, and Seattle’s southern suburbs, with a significant military population), Snohomish (Everett, and Seattle’s northern suburbs, also with a Navy population), Clark (Vancouver, and the northern suburbs of Portland, Oregon), Kitsap (home to a Naval Shipyard, an aircraft carrier homeport, and nuclear missile submarines), Whatcom (Bellingham, a college town and almost a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia), and Spokane (the largest in very super conservative Eastern Washington) Counties.

You also need to know that Washington is a virtually 100% vote-by-mail state, and that votes in the mail with an Election Day postmark, no matter when they arrive, are valid votes.

There was an amazing amount of anti-Murray advertising, most of it in the form of secret money coming from either the US Chamber of Commerce or Karl Rove’s various groups; the basic themes of the ads suggested Murray caused all the unemployment and debt ever experienced in American history and couldn’t wait to make things worse.

Pro-Murray ads centered on her...well, her Progressive record—and her ability to bring jobs to the State...and that message was being transmitted in a State with high unemployment.

And as we’ll see, all of this created exceptionally high voter turnouts, particularly for midterm elections.

Now let’s do some electoral math:

We can look at the Secretary of State’s handy website and see just what’s arrived so far; it typically updates each day from here on out at 4:30 PM Pacific time, but there may be additional updates each day.

As of 7:30PM, November 4th, which is the most current update I have available, Murray is up by 45,000 and change with roughly 1.85 million votes counted so far.

But what we really need to know is: how many votes are there still to be counted?

The site has a county-by-county page that reports about 617,000 ballots are “on hand to be processed”...but that won’t include those that are still in the mail. We’ll talk more about them later.

Right now the largest concentrations of “on hand” ballots are, predictably in King (270,000), Pierce (30,000), Kitsap (29,000), Snohomish (88,000), and Spokane (65,000) Counties.

Snohomish, Kitsap, and Pierce Counties are running about 50-50 so far, and that means nothing is likely to happen in those counties that will change the outcome in any significant way, so we will put them aside for this analysis.

King County is running almost 65-35% Murray, and Spokane County is running 56-44% Rossi, so that’s where we turn for the rest of our analysis.

Now what we need to know is how many votes have yet to arrive in the mail, and the way we do that is to look at potential levels of voter turnout.

Huh?

It works like this: King County has almost 1.1 million registered voters, 500,000 have already been counted, and 270,000 are waiting to be counted—and that’s 70% turnout, if no other votes arrive.

It’s pretty rare to see 70% + turnouts in midterms, but we’re already there, so let’s assume turnouts of 75% and 80%. At 75% that means 55,000 more votes are coming, at 80% 110,000. Add all the uncounted votes up, assume the current 65-35 distribution of votes holds up, and that suggests her margin, at those turnout levels, would grow by some number between 211,250-247,000 votes. If no more votes arrive, her margin should grow by 189,000 votes.

Spokane County has 260,000 registered voters, with about 120,000 ballots counted and 65,000 more sitting in trays not yet counted. That’s a 70.5% turnout, again, a remarkable result for a midterm, and, as we mentioned, they are voting for Rossi, 56-44%. Let’s again model for 75% and 80%; we would expect 15,000 or 23,000 more in the mail from those outcomes.

I also looked at every county with more than 5000 votes left to be counted. Those that are on the east side of the State are consistently 65-35% Rossi, Western Washington counties are running more or less 50-50, but they are mostly going to Murray.

And guess what? If I’m any good at arithmetic, Spokane County doesn’t have enough votes to get Rossi over the top, even if you get 80% turnout and 100% of all currently uncounted votes go for Rossi...and I think that means we can call this one for Murray by about 210,000 at 75% turnout in those two counties, minus any other result in the State, which are not going to be enough to swing the tide.

As I’m finishing this up, NBC is also calling for Murray.

So there you go...a good Progressive wins, with extraordinary turnouts in a year when other candidates had lots of their base stay home, and despite a massive “secret money” campaign for Rossi, courtesy of Karl Rove and the US Chamber of Commerce.

And just to make it even sweeter: she ran her campaign fully embracing her record, and standing up for her tough votes. She didn’t pander conservative, and her progressive voter base stood up and got her over the top.

That’s a message the Evan Bayhs of the world did not learn—and it’s a message Members of Congress...and a certain President...ought to learn, and fast, if they want to win in 2012.

George Takei Calls Out Anti-Gay Arkansas School Board Member

Crude Justice | Alliance for Justice

Alliance for Justice's annual First Monday film series examines the ongoing search for justice among the victims of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Crude Justice from Alliance for Justice on Vimeo.

On Social Security Investment, Or, What About Chile?

With the election over, it’s time to move on to new things, and the folks at the Campaign for America’s Future have asked me to do some writing about Social Security, which sounds like some big fun, so here we are.

We’re going to start with some reasonably simple stuff today, just to get your feet wet; by the time we get a few stories down the road there will be some complicated economic analysis to work through—but let’s begin today by looking a bit south.

Those who support privatizing Social Security in this country often point to Chile as an example we could follow, and that seems like a good place to get the conversation going...so set your personal WayBack Machine to Santiago, May, 1981, and let’s see what we can learn.

“Of what avail are any laws, where money rules
alone,
Where Poverty can never win its cases?
Detractors of the times, who bear the Cynic's scrip,
are known
To often sell the truth, and keep their faces!”

--Ascyltus, from Petronius’ “The Satyricon”

In 1981, Chile adopted a privatized Social Security-like (pension) program that requires most workers to contribute 10% of their income to a private investment account. They may contribute up to 20%. These accounts are maintained by a number of private companies (known as Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones, or AFPs) that compete for the business by advertising directly to the investing public.

These providers charge commissions and fees for certain services which are paid on top of the contributions.

An additional 3% is collected from most workers for Disability Insurance; 7% more is deducted from wages for health care.

At retirement, the money is either used to purchase an annuity from a private provider to provide a steady source of income or it’s withdrawn at a set rate over time directly from the account.

Those who are self-employed do not have to pay into the system, but they have the option to do so if they’re so inclined.

If you don’t have enough in your private account to purchase an annuity or to withdraw steady amounts over time, but you’ve been contributing for more than 20 years, you will receive a minimum pension from the Chilean Government...but you will also lose any contributions you made to your private account.

AFPs are regulated as to how they may invest; if, through investment losses, they do not have enough money to capitalize the accounts they carry they must provide the money out of their own cash reserves. If they follow the rules, and still lose so many assets they can’t continue to operate, a government bailout is in order.

At the same time, a second “welfare” program (PASIS) was established to create a “safety net” that would provide a benefit of 75% of the poverty level or 25% of your last 10 years’ earnings, whichever is higher.

You can’t collect from both programs, but it is possible to collect from neither. More about that later.

Employers do not contribute to funding the system, however, all employers were forced to give 17% pay raises to their workers to come up with the money for the workers to make their contributions. (Chile was a military dictatorship at the time, making the “forcing” process much easier than it would be in the US today.)

The system is just turning 30 years old, and we’re now seeing the first big wave of workers who are eligible to retire.

So how has all this been working out for Chileans?

The first thing we learn is that the poorest workers probably won’t do well enough to qualify for “top tier” pensions, even though it’s projected that they’ll tend to pay for the benefit over their working lives...which will reduce their income over their working lives. (It’s also projected that workers with higher incomes should do reasonably well.)

Since most workers are poor (Chile has some of the most unequal income distribution on Earth), in the end it’s starting to look like the problems of finding enough money to support the social safety net are actually getting worse, and not better.

Additionally, other problems have come to light:

--You have to find money to “transition” from one system to another, and transition costs have been quite expensive indeed: 6.1% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP; that’s a measure of the total output of an economy) in the 1980s, 4.8% in the 1990s, and 4.3% until 2037. If we were to duplicate the Chilean experience in the US economy, 6% of the 2008 GDP (about $15 trillion) means about $900 billion annually in transition costs for the first ten years, and something north of $600 billion annually for the last 37 years of the exercise.

(Keep in mind that Chile only provides 2/3 of their population with either PASIC or a pension; since we cover a higher number than that in the US, expect those numbers to come in higher than we're guessing here.)

Why are so many not covered? Lots of workers are working outside the “official” economy to avoid making contributions that they won’t get back later (in 1994, it was estimated that only 52% of workers regularly contribute to their accounts); additionally, many women have never participated in the labor force.

--Because the service providers are competing for the business, administrative costs (read: advertising and sales commissions) have been far higher than in the US Social Security system, where administrative costs have been at .07% of distributions, or lower, since 1990. To put this another way, during the 1990s the US Social Security Administration was paying $18.70 per year to administer a claim; at the same time Chile’s various providers were paying an average of $89.10 to do the same thing.

--All that competition, some say, has lead to lots of changing of providers, which tends to make any investment program less efficient over time. (In 1996, half of Chilean workers switched providers; it’s estimated that reduced pension accumulations across the entire system by about 20%.) The Chilean Government made changes in 1997 to try to work through this problem, and they seem to have had some considerable effect.

Evidence suggests most of the switching not related to consolidation in the AFP business is being done by a small percentage of account holders, with some switching as much as eight times in a year; today the average Chilean seems to change AFPs about once every five years. Unemployment also seems to be related to switching; this because the unemployed can establish a new account with a lower set of fees if they move to a new provider.

--Many Chileans, despite living in a system that has, for almost 30 years, required them to manage their own money, actually know very little about that money.

Less than half know that the contribution rate is 10%, only 1/3 know how much (within 20%) is in their accounts, and, according to work done at the University of Chile, “few” actually know what they pay in fees and commissions.

--Those who end up in the welfare program are guaranteed 75% of the poverty level; that suggests that if you’re elderly and on welfare, you’re living in poverty. Because of limited funding, there are qualified elderly poor in Chile who do not receive any benefit.

Today, in the US, about 12% of the elderly live in poverty. Without the current Social Security system in place, it’s estimated that 49.9% of the elderly would have been living in poverty in 2002.

--In Chile, taxes to cover the transition costs tend to rise faster than the “assets under management” for most workers, leaving them less well-off than before—an effect that is most common among the “financially illiterate”...meaning, of course, most Americans. In other words, reform, in Chile, tends to help the wealthiest and best educated at the expense of those who are less of either.

That’s a whole lot of detail, so let’s pull pack and look at the “macro” picture:

Chile has operated a version of a privatized system since 1981, and for the most part the working poor will never see any benefit from the transition. Since Chile doesn’t have much of a middle class, it’s hard to see how the Chilean experience would affect our middle class.

The US Social Security system has reduced the estimated rate of elderly poverty from nearly 50% to roughly 10%; such a reduction in poverty did not occur in Chile with their privatization.

The costs of moving to the same system here, if our experience were the same as Chile’s, would run anywhere from $600-900 billion annually for at least 50 years. Of course, since we provide a Social Security safety net to almost all of our citizens, as opposed to 2/3 of the population, as Chile does, it’s reasonable to assume our costs would be more or less 1/3 higher.

Chile forced its private-sector employers to raise wages to cover the workers’ costs of transition; I’m aware of no proposals that would, or could, impose such a cost on employers in the US.

It appears that Chilean-style privatization encouraged about half the population to engage in “under the table” work, making the funding problem for the system even worse that it would be otherwise.

Frequent switching of account providers is great for the providers, as it creates lots of chances to collect fees for opening and closing accounts and the like—but it’s not so great for the account holders, who are losing up to 20% of their potential earnings more or less because maintaining a sales force and running lots of ads are effective business practices.

It is unknown what happens when a shock like the recent recession hits the system, and we are awaiting research that will help us understand what happens when and if the State is required to refund losses incurred by the AFP if they “follow the rules” but still lose so much money that they lack sufficient capital to operate.

The costs of operating the PASIS program go up even as the cost of operating the retirement accounts are also still high, and the question of whether Chile can continue to expend “safety net” coverage to the 30% of the elderly poor who are not covered remains unknown.

So there you go: there are going to be lots of proposals to privatize Social Security this year, “getting a Chilean” may well be one of the options you hear Conservatives promote—and hopefully by now you have some idea why this doesn’t look like nearly as good an idea as some folks would tell you it is.

Next time, we’ll talk about proposals to invest Social Security money in Treasury debt, and whether such an effort is actually an investment at all.

It’ll be at least medium geeky...and hey, who doesn’t love that?

The South Bend School Board elections: endorsements

(part 4 of 4)

Don Wheeler

The three previous posts attempted to set the scene and assess the contest for the South Bend School Board.  Now I’ll give my views on the individual races.

Three out of the seven seats are contested -- Districts 1, 2 and 5.  The District 1 race features challengers Jay Caponigro and Nikki Hutchinson, and incumbent Sheila Bergeron.  Ms. Hutchinson is up against a well heeled challenger and an entrenched incumbent.  Though she seems a perfectly reasonable person to serve, it’s hard to see her having any chance at victory.  Narrowing to the two remaining candidates, the call is a bit closer than one might think.

Ms. Bergeron is easily the weakest of the incumbents.  Her stint as President was marked by out of control public meetings and other problems.  I’m sympathetic to the idea governing boards should evolve, but I also think challengers should show expertise and ideas.  This is a case where I think the challenger does.

Jay Caponigro has nine years of community connected experience in the educational realm as director of the Robinson Community Learning Center at the University of Notre Dame. In March, he became Notre Dame's director of community engagement, where he'll oversee the center and support the university's educational and community outreach efforts.  He strikes one as a thoughtful, careful person – clearly assets needed in a Trustee.

The reason that it isn’t as easy a call as one might think, is his connection to the local Democratic “machine”.  Also, one could worry about potential conflicts of interest due to his Notre Dame employment.

The latter could (conversely) be an asset.  Notre Dame has, for the most part, proved itself a responsible citizen of the community.  As to the former, one has to hope Mr. Caponigro will exert independence from Mr. Parent and the attendant organization.  If I lived in District 1, I would vote for Jay Caponigro.

The other two contests are more clear-cut.

In District 5, challenger Michelle Engel faces incumbent Marcia Hummel.  Ms. Engel touts her past experience as an attorney in South Bend city government.  That’s pretty much it.  She wants us to think she would make the board work better because she is an attorney.

She seems pretty unfamiliar with educational law issues, or how the Board operates.  It has been noted that she’s not attended a School Board meeting since she announced for office.  In four citizen forums, she’s only deigned to attend two – sending representatives to the other ones.

Marcia Hummel is arguably the strongest incumbent running.  She has consistently been the Trustee pointing out applicable state law – when the Board might go against it.  As its current President, meetings have returned to civil parliamentary discourse.  Ms. Hummel warned long ago of the danger of state takeover if aggressive measures were not pursued.  She was a voice in the wilderness then, but now we see she was right.  Ms. Hummel has been neither combative nor conciliatory – she has been the glue which held the body together.  We should be pleased she’s willing to continue this thankless job.  If I lived in District 5 I would vote for Marcia Hummel.

District 2 features a race similar to that of District 1.  Again we have a challenger with some hands on education experience in Michael Voll, facing a well-known incumbent, Ralph Pieniazkiewicz  and a well financed machine candidacy of John Stancati.  Mr. Voll has little chance given these circumstances.

Mr. Pieniazkeiwicz taught and coached in the South Bend School System for over thirty years.  As a Trustee, he has been a vocal advocate for early education, and the development of a more comprehensive vocational program for high schoolers.  This advocacy is still needed.

Mr. Stancati gives his reason for running in the South Bend Tribune:  “He said he became interested in the school board seat after reading that the state put three South Bend high schools on academic probation because ISTEP scores didn't meet state standards, including Riley, which is in District 2.”  I’ve now heard him at two forums - the Century Center, and more recently at Hamilton Primary Center – and he failed to go any further.  He also did not offer any significant proposals, seems unclear as to the source of school funding these days and responded to a number of questions by saying that he didn’t know much about the subject, so wouldn’t offer a response.  Some of these questions were given to him in advance.

It’s been pointed out that Mr. Stancati has not attended any Board meetings.  These might have been of some help in understanding some of the issues alluded to in the questions he had trouble with.

A campaign is like a job interview.  One should be prepared, research likely issues and be able to at least discuss them intelligently – even if he/she has not formed a definite view.  To do otherwise doesn’t indicate much commitment.

Mr. Stancati’s supporters tout his lengthy service as head of the South Bend Water Works.  (He retired about a year and a half ago).That’s not an organization with much of a reputation for customer service – though it seems better lately.  More to the point, it’s hard to see the relevance for a position as school corporation trustee.  He doesn’t speak well in public either – to the point of being difficult to understand at times.

In my opinion, Mr. Stancati is the weakest candidate in the entire field.  I will vote for Ralph Pieniazkeiwicz.

Links to earlier installments:

Part 1                      

Part 2

Part 3

The South Bend School Board Elections -analysis

Don Wheeler

In the background installment of this series, we explored local issues leading up to where we are now.  In part two, outside influences were explored.  Now I’ll attempt to tie these factors into the current race for school board trustee seats.

Three seats are contested this year:  The Adams High School District (District 1), the Riley High School District (District 2) and the Clay High School District (District 5).

As previously alluded to, this race features a slate of candidates sponsored by local Democratic Party regulars.  Since I hail from the Chicago area originally, I’ll use the term “machine” for convenience.  The machine candidates have been provided significant resources – both in terms of money and organization.  Should we worry about this?  Maybe.

If we think (and are given evidence) that the sponsoring organization has identified candidates who are clearly superior to their opponents and are beholden to no one, then this looks pretty good.  But one needs to consider the merits of both the sponsors and the candidates.  Clearly caveat emptor should apply.

The machine sponsored candidates are Jay Caponigro (Adams), John Stancati (Riley) and Michele Engle (Clay).  Caponigro has been endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Leucke has sponsored at least one fund-raiser for Engle, and my wife and I recently received a letter from Roger Parent strongly endorsing Stancati.

It’s interesting that the Chamber only endorsed in one race.  (It was explained that endorsements must be unanimous.)  Even more interesting is the local NEA (our teachers’ union) has been silent.  The South Bend Tribune endorsed the machine slate recently – without offering much reason to agree with them.

There is certainly room for discussion about how much influence a city Mayor should have on a School Board and/or Superintendent.  Though it’s fashionable these days, the actual results are highly mixed.  Further complicating things, because the borders are different, many school corporation constituents aren’t eligible to vote in South Bend mayoral races – thus, the Mayor cannot be held to account by these folks.

Last July, Trustee Roger Parent had a Viewpoint article published in the Tribune entitled School trustee hopes to build on lessons of first 18 months which had to be viewed as a campaign piece.  That seemed curious, since he’s not up for election until 2012.  He indicated his purpose was to the outline the difficulties he’d encountered, identify what he felt he’d accomplished, and …?  Mostly he stated things nobody would disagree with while gently criticizing many oft heard points of view.  Political strategists would refer to this as “building value”.  If you view this July 2 piece, note the use of “I”, “I’ve”, etc., about a dozen and a half times - then do a word search for “we”.  Good luck on the latter.  In retrospect, it appears Parent wants to make this election about him and his allies.

So let’s do that.  As mentioned in an earlier installment, Parent raised and spent an unheard of amount of money for a non-paying Trustee position.  (Indications are machine candidate spending are at similar levels this time around).  Parent often made it clear that his campaign was a typical political race when it came to money – and seemed to exclude other considerations.  For example, when I complained that a local radio station was insisting on a $100 fee for attendance to what was being advertised as a candidates forum (a clear violation of equal time requirements), Parent’s take was that one had to spend money in campaigns.

Also mentioned previously, Parent was one of the few candidates to oppose the strategy of a deliberate search for a new Superintendent.  Robert Zimmerman had been dismissed – which had much of the citizenry in an uproar – but the naming of James Kapsa as Interim Superintendent had mollified many of these folks.  Now having the gift of some time, the School Board voted narrowly to do a conventional, nationwide search for a permanent Superintendent.   Outside funding was offered and under consideration.  At the time, no one knew whether Mr. Kapsa was interested in the permanent post – but I don’t think anyone thought he should not be eligible.

Parent was adamant that Kapsa should be named, which didn’t make any sense.  If Kapsa turned out to be the best choice after completing the search -and wanted the post - then fine.  But to not consider any candidates with actual track records before naming a permanent Superintendent seemed irresponsible at best.  A cynical person might wonder if Mr. Parent calculated Kapsa would feel beholden to him, if Parent engineered the appointment.  That’s not something any of us can know, obviously.

From the Parent Viewpoint:  “With the help of many people I was able to ‘encourage’ trustees to establish a New Tech high school.”  I like the use of quotations on 'encourage'.  It shows honesty.

The Trustees had been considering a New Tech program for years.  Current and prior Board members had visited operating programs, worked on many proposals and locations for a SBCSC program – but securing funding AND a solid concept simultaneously had eluded them.  Still, the general sentiment was to keep trying.

As agreement by a narrow majority of Board members seemed imminent, word has it Mr. Parent lost patience.  It was at that point he revealed his intention to “go it alone” (with backers) on a charter school based on the program.  This was enough, reportedly, to turn one Trustee’s vote from yes to no.  By this account at least, New Tech was delayed by Mr. Parent’s actions – rather than achieved.  Many would argue it was implemented in spite of him.

I want to stress that I believe Mr. Parent has good intentions.  But I have concerns, obviously.

The next installment will address the current races, and the folks in them.

Some thoughts on the South Bend School Board elections - part 2

Don Wheeler

 

In the background piece, I tried to set the local stage to where we are now.  Complicating matters, lurking on the periphery is one Tony (or is it toney) Bennett.

This Tony Bennett is not the renowned singer; rather, the Superintendent of Public Instruction for the state of Indiana.  His conduct would seem to indicate he aspires to higher office than the one he holds, however.

Mr. Bennett is full of righteous indignation about the state of public education.  He blames local school boards and teachers unions for gross dereliction of duty and characterizes their decision making as being self-serving.  He claims he can swoop in and make all things as they should be.  His forums are characterized with catch phrases and zingy one-liners.  They are just for show.

The State of Indiana has many policies which make things very difficult when it comes to educating our young.  I’ve written a lot about this in the past.  As evidence, compare Indiana’s student outcomes with those of other states and it is pretty clear that our local challenges are not unique in the state.  But Mr. Bennett never discusses anything the state legislature can do correct this situation. Instead (as far as state policy goes), he’d prefer to distract us by screwing around with teacher licensing and things of that nature.

Mr. Bennett would have us believe that if his department takes over management of our High Schools on Probation, dramatic improvement will occur as a result.  He doesn’t explain how this magic will occur, but since he’s not a particularly imaginative fellow and pretty representative of the Daniels administration, he’ll likely pick an approach which is considered fashionable.  The most likely:  He will retain a for-profit management company to run the schools.  (This would be consistent with the Daniels strategy of privatizing seemingly everything).   Less likely, but possible, he’ll appoint some Hotshot who reports directly to him.

There’s a lot that could be discussed about these types of approaches – they’ve been attempted many times in recent years.  For an exhaustive analysis, I’d refer you to The Death and Life of the Great American School System, by former United States Assistant Secretary of Education, Diane Ravitch.  Anyone who cares about public education - what works and what doesn’t - should read this book.   Spoiler alert:  The approaches described above have (up to now) not benefited children’s overall education.

There are two aspects shared by imposing these outside management strategies I think people need to consider carefully.  The first is that both are top-down concepts which, for the most part, leave the people actually working in the buildings out of any role in policy making.  Secondly, these typically make operations nearly opaque to citizens and the people in charge don’t have to answer to anyone locally.

I think it very likely Mr. Bennett will intervene.  My guess it’s in his political interest to do so.  So it becomes important to consider who sits on our school board in this context.

More to come…