Florida’s Democratic nominee for Governor Andrew Gillum responded to the race-baiting “monkey this up” comment by his opponent, Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis, with the kind of high-road dignity that the GOP has lost. As Dartunorro Clark and Ali Vitali of nbcnews.com quote Gillum: “We’re better than this in Florida. I believe the congressman can be better than this. I regret that his mentor in politics is Donald Trump, but I do believe that voters of the state of Florida are going to reject the politics of division…In the handbook of Donald Trump, they no longer do whistle calls — they’re now using full bullhorns,” Gillum said. “I’m not going to get down in the gutter with DeSantis and Trump, there’s enough of that going on, I’m going to try to stay high.”…He added, “It’s very clear that Mr. DeSantis is taking a page directly from the campaign manual of Donald Trump, but I think he’s got another thing coming to him if he thinks that in today’s day and age Florida voters are going to respond to that level of derision and division.”

“Is Being Authentic, Progressive, and Inclusive a Winning Strategy for Democrats?,” asks Nancy LeTourneau at The Washington Monthly. Commenting on the Democratic gubernatorial primary victories of Stacy Abrams, David Garcia and Andrew Gillum in Georgia, Arizona and Florida, LeTourneau writes, “Both Gillum and Garcia are running unapologetically progressive campaigns. And just like Stacey Abrams, they are being bold in embracing their heritage. As an example, Gillum has a long history of fighting against the gun lobby in a state that has been mobilized on the issue ever since the Parkland shooting. He’s also running on a strong platform of criminal justice reform, which is a priority for African American voters. Meanwhile, Garcia is focusing on public education.” LeTourneau notes that “Democrats came closer to winning in Florida, Georgia, and Arizona than in Ohio. They are closer to winning in Texas than in Iowa…It’s not about insurgents vs establishment or mobilization vs persuasion. It’s also not about furthering the racial divide or the one between Democrats and Republicans. It is about whether being authentic, progressive, and inclusive is a winning strategy for Democrats.”

At The Nation, Andrea Cristina Mercado, Director of the New Florida Vision PAC, explains why “Andrew Gillum’s Upset Reveals a Winning New Progressive Strategy: The results of Florida’s gubernatorial primary should serve as a lesson for the Democratic establishment,” and observes “Gillum’s primary night victory has upended the world of Florida politics for its symbolism, its political platform, and the highest voter turnout in the past 10 years that came with it…He ran on an unapologetically progressive platform, and focused on “anyone who’s ever been told they don’t belong.” He spoke to voters whom his party ignored, and aimed to expand the electorate instead of exclusively trying to sway returning or longtime voters…He offered policies to expand access to health care for all, invest in public education, make sure workers live with dignity, and protect families from “stand your ground,” gun violence, discriminatory policing, or rogue deportation agents.

Mercado adds that “Black voters in Florida and beyond have stood behind Democratic victories in every race. They’re increasingly joined by Latinos, who have inverted their party affiliation in Florida from 37 percent Republican, 33 percent Democrat, and 28 percent independent in 2006 to 37 percent Democrat, 35 percent independent, and only 26 percent identifying as Republican in 2016…We cannot underestimate what will be done to suppress and disenfranchise black voters and intimidate immigrants to protect the Republican hold on the state. To win in November will take more vigilance and deeper commitments than what got us through the primaries.”

While reading about the debacle involving Randolph County, Georgia’s, efforts to close polling places, the most important point about it occurred to me, and I wrote about it at New York.

Literally “seconds” into a special Friday meeting on the subject, the two-member Elections Board of Randolph County, Georgia, responded to a firestorm of internal and external criticism by scrapping a plan to close seven of the small jurisdiction’s nine polling places. As Sam Levine reports, the board offered a bit of a lame-o rationalization for its prior action but acknowledged it had stepped into a rattlesnake next:

In a statement released after the meeting, the board of elections said the county’s population and tax base had declined in recent years and said there had been discussions about the number of polling places for years as a way to save money. Still, it acknowledged the controversy prompted by the proposal and said it would not approve it.

At different points in the brief but intense and nationally renowned controversy, the election board or the “consultant” working for it cited cost concerns, Americans With Disabilities Act compliance, or the availability of early and absentee ballot option as reasons for shutting down the precincts, which enraged African-American residents in the majority-black county and attracted the attention of voting-rights activists. The case developed a particularly lurid political dimension when it transpired that the consultant had been recommended by the office of Georgia secretary of State Brian Kemp, now the GOP nominee for governor, who has a reputation for being cavalier about if not actively hostile toward voting-rights concerns. The consultant also suggested that Kemp favored the kind of polling-place consolidations Randolph County was pursuing, which motivated Kemp and his office to very quickly join the whole world in urging the county to back off its plans.

But the big takeaway is that this is precisely the sort of change in voting procedures that would have until recently triggered an automatic review by the Justice Department, which would conduct an investigation and then either grant or deny a “preclearance” before it could be implemented, under the provisions of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2013, however, a 5-4 majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, in the Shelby County v. Holder decision, basically gutted Section 5 (by voiding Section 4, which identified the jurisdictions subject to preclearance), liberating the mostly former Confederate jurisdictions involved from having to get the Feds’ permission for voting changes potentially affecting minority voters.

So instead of a set process with national guidelines, and a pretty strong disincentive for mucking around with voting rights, you have the kind of situation the Randolph County case epitomizes: questionable decisions made by individual jurisdictions with little or no transparency, requiring an army of lawyers, activists, journalists, and local citizens to flush it all out into the light of day

Andrew Gillum’s upset victory in the Florida gubernatorial primary is being hailed by progressives as a win for the Democratic left, complete with Bernie Sanders endorsement. Although there are no available exit polls that pinpoint his level of support with various demographic groups, there are some clues worth considering. In Isaac Stanley-Becker’s “‘The young people will win’: Post-Parkland vote in Florida tests youth power” in the Washington Post, he observes:

Gillum’s pitch to African Americans and young people was at the center of his primary campaign, spokesman Geoff Burgan told the Tampa Bay Times, saying these groups represent “people who have typically dropped off.”

In fact, his youth has long been a focal point of his political career. Born in Miami to a school bus driver and a construction worker, Gillum, at 23, became the youngest person ever elected to Tallahassee’s city commission. He went on to help found the Young Elected Officials Network, part of the liberal advocacy group People For The American Way. He became the group’s director, working to support politicians 35 and under.

Though vastly outspent by his primary opponents, Gillum did net the endorsement of billionaire Tom Steyer, whose political action committee, NextGen America, ran a digital advertising campaign targeting young voters on social media. The 30-second spot, emphasizing progressive issues such as corporate taxes and a “Medicare-for-all” health-care system, advised, “For anyone who’s been told to quiet down, to wait their turn, that it’s not their time, Gillum is our guy.”

Put together Gillum’s evident appeal to young voters with some recent statistics noting an uptick in young voter registration and in Florida, and the case for young voters having a pivotal influence on the primary outcome becomes stronger. Noting also that a “ruling from a federal judge last month invalidated a Republican-imposed ban on early voting on college campuses,” Stanley-Becker writes,

Data suggests that the deadly shooting in the South Florida suburb was politically energizing. An analysis released last month by TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, revealed that registration rates for people under 30 increased significantly in swing states during the last seven months. In the several months before the Valentine’s Day shooting, voters between the ages of 18 and 29 accounted for more than 26 percent of new voter registration in Florida, according to TargetSmart. The data showed an increase close to eight percentage points in the months after the shooting.

Despite these clues, we don’t have enough hard data to firmly attribute Gillum’s victory to young voters and those who want stronger gun safety measures. And African American turnout and support of Gillum could well have been pivotal in the largest swing state.

What is certain, is that the GOP is going to go all out to defeat Gillum. Democrats should prepare for record level donations from Republican sugar-daddies to Gillum’s opponent, Ron Desantis, and, given Florida’s history, aggressive voter suppression.

Most of the media attention will stay focused on the battle for a House of Representatives Majority. But Andrew Gillum’s victory in the Florida Democratic primary sets up what is likely to be the marquee governor’s race. Slide up the sound icon and get acquainted:

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

Vanessa Williamson of Brookings has a good piece out on their website about the political effects (or lack thereof) of Trump’s tax cut. This is a solid article which, in passing, concisely and fairly summarizes a lot of the political science research relevant to this issue. Recommended, though I guess I’m less sure Democrats could make a big issue of this even if they wanted to. Perhaps they should be satisfied with the fail of the issue for the GOP.

Perry Bacon, Jr. explains “What John McCain’s Death Means For The Senate” at FiveThirtyEight: “…his Arizona Senate seat probably won’t stay vacant for long. Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona will appoint McCain’s replacement, and the Republican can select someone as soon as he wants. I expect him to land on a replacement within the next two weeks, maybe even sooner…I expect Ducey to pick a caretaker because the Arizona GOP is dividedbetween a more establishment wing (Ducey) and a more tea party one (former sheriff Joe Arpaio). It would be smart politics for Ducey to avoid irritating one of those groups by choosing someone not seeking a long-term Senate career…there has been little evidence that any Republican senator is willing to oppose the Kavanaugh nomination, so he probably already has the 50 votes required.”

PowerPost’s David Weigel spotlights the primaries in Arizona and Florida today. With respect to the Democratic contenders for the Florida governorship, Weigel writes, “Democrats, who lost two close, bitter races to Scott, have their most crowded primary in decades. Two wealthy candidates, former Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine and investor Jeff Greene, have led the field in spending, with Greene promising Democrats that he could pour millions of dollars into down-ballot races…Polls, however, have shown a close three-way contest between Levine, former congresswoman Gwen Graham and Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum. Graham, who built a moderate record during one term in Washington, has been the focus of the most negative ads; Gillum, who is running to the left of the field and who rallied with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has surged in the final days. But at least 1.6 million voters cast ballots before Election Day, which could help Graham.” Regrding House races, Weigel notes that “there are tight races in four districts where Republicans have retired or left to seek other offices…Democrats are cautiously optimistic about competing for the 6th and 15th, which Barack Obama lost narrowly in 2012 but which swung toward Trump in 2016. But Democrats are most bullish on their chances in three South Florida districts where Latino and suburban voters, once reliably Republican, abandoned the GOP in 2016. Their top target is the Miami-based 27th District, where Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is retiring and where voters rejected Trump by 20 points.”

Arizona is more of a mess, dealing with the fallout of Sen. McCain’s death and President Trump’s diss of the late senator. Weigel observes that Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is likely to win the Democratic nomination for Senate. However, “The Democrats’ gubernatorial primary has been more fractious, with former state education official David Garcia favored after a campaign in which he has talked about creating statewide universal health care and “replacing ICE with an immigration system that reflects our American values.” As for the House contests, Weigel cites a bitterly fought Democratic primary for the 2nd district. In Oklahoma, most of the Democratic interest is in the 5th congressional District, “which overlaps some of the areas where they [Democrats] have made surprising special election gains since 2016 — and where Trump won just 53 percent of the vote.”

University of Southertn California professors Abby K. Wood and Christian R. Grose have a post  “How will the Michael Cohen and Duncan Hunter scandals affect the November election? Here’s what our research finds” at The Monkey Cage. Among their findings: “Do voters care about campaign finance violations? Yes. In new research, we argue that campaign finance violations inform voters’ views about the elected official’s character. Members of Congress who were randomly audited and found to have violated campaign finance law fared about 5 percentage points worse in their general elections than incumbents who were not. So it may be no surprise that once elected officials are tarred with campaign finance violations, they also attempt to win back voters’ trust…The FEC’s randomization is key to our study, as it creates an ideal natural experiment for empirical analysis. Randomization allows us to say that the campaign finance revelations violations caused the change in vote share.” The authors acknowledge that “since Watergate involved campaign finance shenanigans — may have been sensitive to those violations in particular.” However, “Our current political climate has enough parallels to the Watergate era that we suspect voters will react negatively to campaign finance violations again. We will find out Nov. 6.”

Some perceptive and very troubling insights from NYT columnist/Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, which ought to energize Democratic voter registration and turnout campaigns coast-to-coast: “The fact is that the Republican Party is ready, even eager, to become an American version of Law and Justice or Fidesz, exploiting its current political power to lock in permanent rule…the modern G.O.P. feels no allegiance to democratic ideals; it will do whatever it thinks it can get away with toentrench its power…if Republicans retain control of both houses of Congress in November — we will become another Poland or Hungary faster than you can imagine…Now it’s clear that there are no limits: They’ll do whatever it takes to defend Trump and consolidate power…We’re suffering from the same disease — white nationalism run wild — that has already effectively killed democracy in some other Western nations. And we’re very, very close to the point of no return.”

Jennifer Hansler has a cautionary note for Democrats in her post, “Influx of Puerto Ricans in Florida may not turn the tide for the midterms, experts say” at CNN Politics: “Hispanic voter registration has increased by more than 100,000 voters since the 2016 election, although it is unclear how many of those are Puerto Ricans. The Florida Division of Elections told CNN it does not have specific statistics on Puerto Rican voters…What is less clear is if and how Puerto Ricans who have resettled in Florida will vote in Florida’s primary election on Tuesday and then in the general election in November.” However, “We are nearly seeing presidential election year numbers of Latinos registered,” he told CNN. Of the 22,600 people Mi Familia Vota said it has registered this season, more than 11,500 are of Puerto Rican descent…We would not be able to hit these numbers in a midterm year without the influx of Puerto Ricans to Central Florida,” [Mi Familia Voa field director Esteban] Garces said.

Harry Enten explains why “Win or lose, Beto O’Rourke will help Texas Democrats,” also at CNN Politics: “If you look at the House map, there are arguably at least six Texas House races that are going to be competitive this fall. These include Texas 2nd, Texas 7th, Texas 21st, Texas 23rd, Texas 31st and Texas 32nd…It’s been shown in academic literature that states where there are competitive Senate races tend to have higher turnout in House races than states that don’t (once you control for other factors)…Texas could use the turnout boost. With the exception of Hawaii, no other state had a lower turnout rate of its voter eligible population in 2016 than Texas. Just 52% of all eligible voters cast a ballot two years ago.”

In his Washington Post article, “Democrats need to start taking voting rights seriously,” Noah Beriatsky makes a case for a national ‘big package’ voting rights reform bill which includes measures like lowering the voting age, automatic voter registration, standardizing early and mail voting, full voting rights and representation for Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, prevent politically-motivated closing of polling places, ex-felon enfranchisement and other needed measures. “While such policies have been discussed here and there, Democrats could find new focus by grouping them under a single comprehensive umbrella. Policy proposals aren’t just concrete plans, they are statements of values and statements of purpose. The point isn’t just to pass any one law. It’s to set benchmarks and moral standards. Right now, the United States behaves as if it doesn’t believe that every person has the right to vote. We need ambitious policy proposals not just to change that but also to help convince people that it needs to change.” Eventually, when Democrats regain congressional majorities and the White House, the time may be ripe for passing a comprehensive voting rights reform package. The idea would be to better brand Democrats as the party that actually values democracy. Until then, Democrats should eagerly pass whatever piecemeal voting reforms are possible.

Kyle Kondik has a Sabato’s Crystal Ball update on races for the U.S. House, nationwide: “We are making 12 ratings changes; 10 in favor of Democrats, two in favor of Republicans… if one believes the Democrats are favored in the race for the House — and we do, although we don’t think the result is locked in concrete — then something in the political environment needs to change, in a positive way, for Republicans to regain the advantage. The Cohen/Manafort news was not that…After today’s changes, there are 205 seats rated Safe/Likely/Leans Democratic, 198 Safe/Likely/Leans Republican, and 32 Toss-ups, of which 30 are currently controlled by Republicans and two are currently controlled by Democrats…With 205 seats now at least leaning to the Democrats, that essentially means the floor for Democratic gains this year would be 11, and that’s assuming Republicans win every Toss-up, which we’re reasonably confident won’t happen.”

At Bloomberg, Margaret Newkirk has a post that outs the GOP’s phony “get tough” on undocumented workers policy. As Newkirk writes in “E-Verify Laws Across Southern Red States Are Barely Enforced“:

In 2011 states across the Southeast passed laws that threatened private employers with dire consequences—including losing their license to do business—if they didn’t enroll with a federal data service called E-Verify to check the legal status of new hires. Modeled after 2008 measures in Arizona and Mississippi and billed as a rebuke to a do-nothing Obama administration, the laws went further than those in the 13 states that required checks for new hires only by state agencies or their contractors.

Seven years later, those laws appear to have been more political bark than bite. None of the Southern states that extended E-Verify to the private sector have canceled a single business license, and only one, Tennessee, has assessed any fines. Most businesses caught violating the laws have gotten a pass.

In Georgia the department charged with auditing compliance with the E-Verify law has never been given money to do so. In Louisiana, where the law against hiring unverified employees can lead to cancellation of public contracts or loss of business licenses, no contract has been canceled, no licenses have been suspended, and the state reports zero “actionable” complaints since the mandate went into effect in 2012. In Mississippi no one seems to know who enforces the E-Verify law. The mandate appears to give that job to its Department of Employment Security, which knows nothing about it and referred questions to the attorney general’s office, which says it doesn’t know who’s responsible.

The same is true in Alabama, where the state labor department points to the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, which neither enforces the law nor knows who does. District attorneys, who field complaints under the mandate, say enforcement falls to the state attorney general’s office, which hadn’t heard that. “What is it we’re supposed to be doing?” spokeswoman Joy Patterson asks. “I’m not aware of anything like that.”

No doubt many Republican voters in these states are unaware that they have been hustled by their state legislators and governors, especially from those who bellow the loudest about “getting tough” on undocumented workers. As the conservative Cato Institute’s analyst, Alex Nowrasteh puts it “These are states that very much want to enforce immigration laws, where the electorate is solidly behind it and the politics is behind it, and even there they don’t want to enforce it.”

Advocates of The Legal Workforce Act, a bill that would institute a national E-Verify system know this to be the case. Still, they hope to put on a big show about it, when the bill comes up for debate in September, and reap support from voters who have been deluded that undocumented workers are a threat to their jobs.

Federal contractors have been required to E-Verify since 2009. Newkirk points out that, while “knowingly” hiring undocumented workers has been against the law since 1986, employers have finagled their way around the law in various ways:

The “knowingly” language spawned a cottage industry of fake documents, layered hiring—subcontractors who hire subcontractors who hire subcontractors—and the use of temp agencies and independent contractors, all shielding employers from knowledge of a worker’s status. Critics say E-Verify encourages discrimination and is filled with loopholes. It failed to flag the illegal status of Cristhian Rivera, who was accused in the recent death of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts.

E-Verify enforcement is largely a missing issue in the midterm campaigns. Newkirk notes that:

…the E-Verify laws were absent from Georgia’s recent GOP gubernatorial primary. Despite campaigning on how tough they would be on immigrants, neither candidate referred to the laws. The winner, Brian Kemp, ran ads saying he’d haul illegals away in his pickup. “They talked about sanctuary cities and rounding up criminal aliens in a truck, all these distractions,” [president of the Dustin Inman Society D. A. ] King says. “The root cause of illegal immigration is illegal employment. And none of our candidates made a peep about that.”

Obviously, the Republicans want to have it both ways — strut around as tough on undocumented workers, while giving employers, who are the key to E-Verify, the old wink-wink free pass. Kemp is probably the poster-boy for the two-faced scam. His bet is that the media will let him get away with it. We’ll know if that has been the case on November 6th.

The questioning of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh by senators is uncovering some allegedly reassuring, but not terribly revealing, statements, as I observed at New York:

The battle to nail down every Senate Republican vote for Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation took a significant, albeit somewhat predictable, turn today, as the Washington Post reports:

“Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) told reporters on Tuesday that she asked President Trump’s pick about whether he considered Roe to be settled law. Collins said Kavanaugh told her he agreed with current Chief Justice John Roberts, who said during his 2005 confirmation hearing that Roe was “settled as a precedent of the court.” Collins and Kavanaugh met for more than two hours on Tuesday morning.”

This is likely the “cover” Collins sought and secured in order to square her own pro-choice position with the vote for Kavanaugh her party expects her to cast. But if she claims it means Kavanaugh won’t participate in an effort to overturn or significantly modify Roe, she’ll likely be cooperating with Kavanaugh — and with John Roberts — in more than a bit of a scam.

It’s actually a bit of a no-brainer to say that the constitutional right to choose, decided 45 years ago in Roe v. Wade and emphatically reconfirmed (not in every detail but in its constitutional fundamentals) by Planned Parenthood v. Casey 26 years ago, is “settled law.” That means lower courts must follow it as a binding precedent. But for SCOTUS itself it simply indicates a degree of deference unless some stronger constitutional consideration is found to override it. So it does not guarantee that the “settled law” will be respected by the justices that acknowledge it. And as Irin Carmon recently observed, that’s demonstrably true of Chief Justice John Roberts:

“Not necessarily. On favored causes such as money in politics and this term’s union-fees case, Roberts has helped leave precedents and principles in tatters. You don’t even have to look past abortion itself: In 2000’s Stenberg v. Carhart, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor cast the deciding vote to strike down a state ban on “partial birth abortion,” citing the court’s precedent in Casey. By the time the federal version of the same law reached the court, in 2007’s Gonzales v. Carhart, O’Connor had been replaced by Samuel A. Alito Jr., and with his help, the court’s conservatives, including Roberts, eagerly teamed up to overrule the precedent.”

And even if Roberts and Kavanaugh are reluctant to support the kind of frontal assault on abortion rights that, say, Clarence Thomas is eager to undertake, that hardly rules out an incremental gutting of Roe. As recently as 2016, Roberts was in the minority in a key decision protecting abortion rights from state laws aimed at driving abortion providers out of business. And as Carmon points out, Roberts patiently used two cases — one in 2009, another in 2013 — to wreck the “long-settled” enforcement provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The most important thing to keep in mind in parsing this carefully constructed assurance Kavanaugh offered to Collins is the broader context of Kavanaugh’s nomination (and before him, that of Roberts, Alito, and Gorsuch): the iron determination of Republicans since at least the George W. Bush administration to atone for the GOP-appointed justices — the longest-lasting being Anthony Kennedy — who supported abortion rights. Uncertainty on this score was a major factor in the conservative uprisingagainst Bush’s second Court nominee Harriet Miers. And the search for certainty on hostility to the “liberal judicial activism” epitomized by Roe led eventually to Donald Trump’s smart decision to let conservative legal beagles vet his own SCOTUS list. It would be shocking if this process and the politics behind it produced a justice who looked at SCOTUS precedents on abortion and pronounced them unassailable.

Yes, Kavanaugh, like Roberts, might be inclined to undertake the project of overturning abortion rights carefully and with an eye to avoiding any open contempt for the eventual victims of a counter-revolution on this subject, particularly given strong public support for Roe. But no one should believe the precedent is safe.

 

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

Yes, I know, many of these ideas poll well when asked in a standard “here’s an idea, what do you think of it?” format. But life, politics and people are not so simple. There are many reasons to be cautious that a given program is–or will be–very popular simply from the results of few poll questions. My old comrade-in-arms Andy Levison usefully reminds of this in his new essay for the Democratic Strategist site.

With all the drama going on in Washington and New York this week, it’s easy to miss some important developments in the states. A dual fight over education policy is brewing in Arizona, which I wrote about at New York.

Arizona was one of the states that experienced serious teacher unrest last spring, with a six-day teachers’ strike that forced the Republican governor and legislature to make major concessions on pay and education funding. But in part because these wins did not satisfy all the strikers’ demands, the fight over public education in Arizona is (as is the case in other states) spilling over into the midterm elections. It is the central issue in the governor’s race where incumbent Doug Ducey faces both primary and general election opposition, and will feature heavily in many legislative contests as well. But beyond that, Arizona voters will have two major education-related measures on the ballot in November.

The one gaining headlines right now (because of an unsuccessful effort by conservative groups to keep it off the ballot because of allegedly misleading language) is called the Invest in Education Act, as explained by the Arizona Capitol Times:

“The proposal, dubbed the Invest in Education Act, would increase the state’s 4.54-percent personal income tax rate to 8 percent for those who earn more than $250,000 or whose household income reaches more than $500,000, and would double the rate to 9 percent for individuals who earn more than $500,000 or whose household income is greater than $1 million …

“The measure would also designate 60 percent of the revenue from the tax hike for teacher salaries and the remaining 40 percent for operations, including full-day kindergarten and pay raises for student support employees as applicable uses for the funds.”

The idea of highly targeted taxes on the very wealthy to fund education is getting traction in a lot of places, among them Arizona. A June poll showed65 percent of likely voters — including 43 percent of Republicans —supporting Invest in Education, although Republican politicians — notably Ducey — and business groups are opposing it on the usual anti-tax grounds. But opponents haven’t come up with any alternative ways to fund the teacher pay raises and other educational improvements the governor and legislature did accept earlier this year, which makes the tax measure look fiscally prudent by comparison.

There will be another measure on the ballot in Arizona this year that could be even more significant as a national precedent: a referendum on Republican-sponsored legislation that made the state’s no-strings-attached “empowerment scholarship accounts” available (in theory, at least) to the entire student population, instead of just students with disabilities. Ballotpedia explains:

“In 2011, Arizona became the first state to establish an Empowerment Scholarship Accounts program. The original program allowed parents or guardians of students with disabilities to sign a contract to opt out of the public school system and instead receive an ESA from the Arizona Department of Education (DEP). An ESA is funded at 90 percent of what the state would have paid for the student in a district or charter school. Parents or guardians use a prepaid bank card to pay for education-related tuition and fees, textbooks, tutoring, educational therapies, and curriculum.

“This referendum was initiated to overturn Senate Bill 1431 (SB 1431), which was designed to make all K-12 students eligible to apply for an ESA.”

The new law caps the number of ESA beneficiaries, but firmly plants the idea that parents can and should directly receive education funding and make a largely unconditional decision about where to spend it, at the expense of public schools. It’s the most aggressive step any state has taken to extend the national GOP’s efforts (strongly supported by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos) to bypass schools with “backpack” funding that can follows kids wherever their parents choose to send them. The virtually complete lack of accountability for the educational results these private school (and homeschool) subsidies produce is another crucial feature of Arizona’s system.

The Republicans who have created and expanded the ESA program are defending it in this referendum fight, and there are rumors of a forthcoming Koch Network investment on their behalf. But so far the most visible activity has been by an anti-ESA-expansion group called Save Our Schools Arizona, which got the referendum on the ballot and protected it from efforts in the courts and the legislature to stop it.

Given Arizona’s status as an increasingly purple state, with a key Senate race this year and a potentially competitive presidential contest in 2020, the fight over these education initiatives could cast a long shadow over the state’s politics for some time to come.

And it could affect national politics as well.