Yesterday was a good day for the little people.
Ohio voters rejected a law, proposed by Governor Kasich, that would have worked against collective bargaining via unions in the state. In his statement, Kasich admitted that he had to "spend more time listening to what the people have to say" about this issue. I thought he did a good job with the reality check. I don't know how the Republican Party ever got the idea that villainizing fire-fighters, teachers and nurses and protecting the rights of the richest rich would get the vote. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus downplayed the importance of the vote, stating that this was "just a local state matter" and that the real news was the defeat of Obamacare in Ohio. Yeah, his finger is right on the pulse of voting Americans. Interesting that the numbers of votes defeating this law is greater than the number of votes that put Kasich in office in the first place.
Speaking of Obamacare, although defeated in Ohio, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Obamacare is constitutional. Probably far more compelling than what happened in Ohio.
In Mississippi, voters rejected the law that defined personhood as beginning at conception. The law, if passed, would have had frightening implications for women who not only became pregnant as a result of rape or incest, but all women who rely on certain hormone-based birth control. As written, a woman could possibly be the subject of criminal investigation for having an ectopic pregnancy, or hell, for even having an unusually heavy menstrual flow. Those that wrote this law really needed to find a state where, say, there weren't any women at all. Certainly a state where the women don't have sex. I mean... so simple...
Yes, Arizona, there's hope for us too. We voted to recall Russell Pearce, the Arizona State Senator who authored the law that enabled police to ask for immigration papers for "anyone that looked in any way suspicious."
The lesson here, one I hope that the Republican Party is busy learning today, is that you can't demonize and villainize 99% of the people, in blatant favor of the richest rich, and expect to do well at the polls. You can't make healthcare decisions for half of the voting population without any sympathy to the health impact a law would have on your own mothers, sisters, and daughters (much less your neighbors' mothers sisters and daughters) without suffering at the polls. And you can't turn your back on the fact that, just a few generations back, your family were immigrants (unless you're a Native American) and that all of us are standing on American soil cultivated, nurtured and indeed slaved over by the aching backs of immigrants.