This was just too sweet:
One of the most striking results of the night, though, came far from the reservations: in a normally Republican district in the Fargo area, where Ruth Buffalo became the first Native American Democratic woman elected to the North Dakota Legislature. She did it by unseating State Representative Randy Boehning, the primary sponsor of the very voter ID law Native Americans had feared would disenfranchise them.
When you try and suppress the vote:
…galvanized by anger over the state’s voter ID law and aided by the intensive efforts of tribal leaders and advocacy groups, they turned out for last week’s election in numbers unprecedented even for a presidential election, much less a midterm.
In Sioux County, where the Standing Rock Indian Reservation is, turnout was up 105 percent from the last midterm elections in 2014 and 17 percent from the 2016 presidential election, according to data from the North Dakota secretary of state’s office. In Rolette County, home to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, it was up 62 percent from 2014 and 33 percent from 2016. In Benson County, home to the Spirit Lake Nation, it was up 52 percent from 2014 and 10 percent from 2016.
To read the full interview with her, click here (warning NYT). She is well qualified.
HumboldtBlue
I believe it’s well known in certain blogging circles this gang of shallow, uninformed lackeys of the internet are prone to Socialist seduction.
An English community soccer team have been a hit in Spain.
I can’t do the punctuation properly, but …
No pasaran!
Umm sorry, always sucked at math, missed Levenson’s hypotenuse which is where I was aiming.
Redshift
I do hope one of the lessons lots of previously infrequent voters have learned from this election is that we really can make things happen if we take non-presidential elections seriously. And how good that feels. And that there were enough losses where we hoped to win to convey the further lesson that even if we don’t succeed in one round, it’s still worth the effort.
Mnemosyne
I know it’s pointless to get annoyed at what Cole retweets, but the usual assholes are whining because Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was re-elected. Sure, she ran unopposed in her primary because no one could be arsed to run against her from the left, but apparently Congressional Democrats are supposed to, I don’t know, shun her in gym class to prove they hate her as much as the “Democratic Socialists” WHO DIDN’T BOTHER TO TRY AND PRIMARY HER hate her.
Jesus, these people. They don’t want to do the work and then get pissed when Democrats don’t jump to do their bidding.
Gaffa
Well, for the North Dakota take from the North Dakotan…
Don’t know of Ruth Buffalo directly, but she seems to be an awesome person and I’m very happy she won — not just for more First People representation in the state, not just for another woman in the state legislature, but also because she unseated Randy Boehning. Boehning is vile, petty, and regressive in ways that would impress even Trump, so getting him out of Bismarck (for now, at least) is good news for sane people everywhere.
Not that it will make too much difference — Democrats are vastly outnumbered in the state chambers, and the current breed of Republicans there have been known not to even let them into their own committees, or openly mock and insult them in the hallways. Female legislators also have to pass a very stringent dress code to be seated: mandatory high-buttoned blouse and blazer, with absolutely no cultural items (shawls, hajibs, etc.) allowed; pants are not allowed, only formal dress slacks that must reach the top of the shoes. No bare arms, no short-sleaved shirts, and in fact no flesh visible at all except for the face and hands; every button on every piece of clothing must be buttoned and cannot be undone while in public. No open-toe shoes, no sneakers — hard-toed formal high heels only. No skirts, dresses, sweaters (even in winter), etc. They literally will send the Sergeant at Arms to bodily throw the woman out of the state capitol, regardless of party, until she shows up dressed like June Cleaver (it’s happened multiple times even in this decade).
Now, the men also have a dress code — as you might expect, it’s a business-appropriate suit with mandatory tie. But the Bismarck capitol is an old-school concrete building in Art Deco style tower that seems ripped from Metropolis, and, speaking from experience, has horrible air conditioning and heating. The conference rooms, especially, were not constructed with the idea of venting all the excess heat generated from the tons of modern electronics (which I don’t fault a century-old architect for missing), but nothing’s been done to alleviate that over the decades. In summer especially, the smaller conference rooms are sweltering tar pits with no air circulation. The men, at least, are allowed to take off their jackets and roll up their sleeves; any woman who dares do the same is, once again, kicked off capitol grounds until she covers herself properly. The Republicans voted themselves a sizable budget in the year *2000* specifically to upgrade the capitol building, basically all of which, so far, has been spent entirely as kickbacks to their friends in the local construction industry, and zero of it spent on the building itself.
As for Ruth Buffalo, I really hope she doesn’t lose heart. She grew up in the far western part of the state, where casual cruelty to First Nations peoples has been a known thing since the state was founded — even in the late 20th Century, taking a potshot or two with your shotgun at a Native American while you’re driving through town was considered good sport; maybe the sheriff would give you a warning if you damaged someone’s property. The Peoples also deserve better representation in the state level than some of the nitwits they currently have; the ones from the bigger tribal areas tend to be family members of the hopelessly corrupt clans who run the big casinos, and while nominally Democrat tend only to vote when their casino cash flow is threatened (and are more than happy to vote for the Republicans if they offer a sufficient bribe). Sadly, there’s usually one or two as well every session who aren’t really interested in doing their duties; as small as the state senate pays for remuneration, it’s big money for people without the right family connections on the reservations, so frequently there’s an elected First Peoples representative who rarely shows up after being sworn in, just being interested in getting a paycheck and then doing their own thing somewhere, anywhere, else.
Interestingly, the reps with the casino/mob ties are the ones most likely to completely flaunt the men’s dress code with complete impunity — or perhaps I’m just thinking of one particular individual, who flaunts it enough for an entire legislature of Liberaces. We’re talking no-shit day-glo Zoot suits with checkered golf pants, and even more bizarre combinations.
Mike J
fda.gov seems to be down. Under any other president I’d guess technical glitch. Today, you never know.
Gaffa
@Mike J: It’s the middle of the night just after an election, which is when a sane administration would be doing upgrades that required the site to be offline for a while. Even given we don’t have that, I wouldn’t read too much into it.
Dan B
@Gaffa: Pictures or it ( orange zoot suits w/ checked pants) didn’t happen.
I need an explanation for disturbing a fluffy kitteh..
Mary G
@Gaffa: Wow, thanks for the insight into ND. Don’t the women object to the Taliban dress rules or are there too few of them?
sharl
@Gaffa: Thanks much for your in-state observations. Other than a couple visits to Fargo to review a dubiously conceived research program, I don’t know the place.
By the way, your subsequent comment to Mike J. appeared to offer me the option of editing or requesting deletion of your comment (see image attached to this tweet, which I’ll delete in 15 minutes or so). I don’t get over in these parts much lately, so maybe this issue is already known, and maybe Alain is already working on it. In any event, clicking on the Edit thing didn’t let me in, so it may be more an annoyance than a functional gateway to mischief & shenanigans.
Amir Khalid
@sharl:
We all get that. It’s just FYWP teasing us.
sharl
@sharl: Hmm, the Edit & Request Deletion options formerly showing for me at the end of Gaffa’s second comment are no longer showing. Dunno what’s going on, but hopefully just a minor glitch.
ETA: Thanks Amir! I figured that might be the case, but like I said, haven’t been in these parts much lately.
Amir Khalid
@Gaffa:
@Mary G:
Also too, isn’t there a US Constitution issue with forbidding attire that is a form of religious expression, e.g. a Muslim woman’s hijab or a Sikh man’s turban?
Major Major Major Major
@Gaffa: wow.
sharl
@Amir Khalid: Ah, WP funnin’ around. Thanks.
Baud
@Mnemosyne: Retweeting Sirota is intrinsically bad.
@Gaffa: Thank you for this comment. It’s a crime that people don’t know what’s been going on in your state.
Gaffa
I’ll respond to general questions before I finally wander off to bed…
1. I don’t have any pictures myself of the extreme dresser (never had a camera/phone on hand when the individual is in the room). But my cousin was recently re-elected as a state senator (yay for her!), so I’ll ask her to pass on any pictures she might be able to snag (he may not even be elected currently; I don’t follow tribal election results all that closely). As she’s about to start a new term, I’ll also check in with her regularly for any interesting insights in case jackals here continue their doomed fascination with political/cultural trivia from North Dakota.
2. Yes, the women object! On both sides of the aisle, even. Doesn’t matter, they’re vastly outvoted in the chambers. Y’all have to remember that the Dakotas (and Montana, which is somehow even worse) are culturally behind the rest of the states by at least a decade — and in Montana’s case, I’m am largely not exaggerating in saying it is effectively a Third World dystopia that just happens to be part of the United States (gorgeous land, some very nice people, and their Interstate highways still weren’t fully paved in the 1990s). Blue Laws (forbidding stores to be open on Sundays, let alone alcohol to be sold outside of liquor stores) are still quite strong in the state. I live in the most liberal part of the state, the immediate border next to Minnesota, and one of the four largest cities — and even here, it was illegal for stores to be open on Sundays for *anything* until early in the 21st Century, when after the fourth or fifth try across a decade try the local town council finally managed to get those laws off the books (and much was the rending of garments and dire predictions of doom in newspaper columns across the land…). About the time the rest of you lot have uploaded your consciousnesses into immortal virtual god-bodies, the North Dakota State Legislature will probably allow women to dare take off their blazers on a hot day (and it must be a blazer, not a suit jacket, and they cannot wear any necklaces).
3. As for the Constitution not allowing for discriminating against turbans, hijabs, etc., I’m reasonably certain the State Legislature would happily dare a would-be representative in such attire to take them to court over it. Or maybe they’d finally get someone sane running things there. Not too surprisingly, this issue has not come up yet in the extremely white enclave of my state.
JAFD
Good morning,
Walked to end of corridor, yestrday, Really Big wild tomm turkey perchd on railing just outside.
Another day of physical therapy. Getting sstronger , slow but sure.
Dan B
@Gaffa: Thanks for your well informed and well written comments.
ND, from your descriptions seems like small town Ohio and the Arkansas Ozark’s culture- people who have never traveled out of their county and never met anyone that didn’t look, talk, think, or have different experiences than they did.
It would be nice for us wild-eyed radical perv’s from the coast to spend some time with local ND residents enjoying the sights and the friendly culture of the state. A few days to a week for us on the left coast.
Crazy idea I know. But I loved TR National Monument from the interstate.
satby
@JAFD: Good morning! Sounds like you’re making progress. Good for you on sticking with it!
Quinerly
@Gaffa: great posts. Thanks!
Matt McIrvin
@Redshift: The hardest is going to be to get them to keep voting when Democrats hold the White House, and especially after that Democrat does something that not everyone on the left approves of (which is inevitable). Republicans seem to understand how this works to a greater degree.
Dev Null
Late as usual to the thread, but has anyone seen analyses for the AZ SecState race? I have an email asking for a donation to ensure that outstanding Navajo votes get counted.
Current standing here just below the GOV race results.
Katie Hobbs (D) is at this writing leading by about 5K votes. Analyses of Sinema’s race suggest that outstanding votes probably lean D (and my $ better spent elsewhere), but would like to be sure before I give it a pass.
Dev Null
Thanks for the help, jackals. [dryly]
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/11/15/1813227/-AZ-SOS-Hobbs-widens-lead-over-Gaynor-in-race-to-become-Arizona-s-Secretary-of-State