Sagebrush Bailout

posted by Alan Greenblatt

When Congress finally passed the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in October, it was a triumph — oddly enough — for counties in the rural West. Although counties were far from the main legislative action, the bill contained more than $3 billion they desperately wanted.

That's because it funded two programs that had just about run out of time and money. One is Payment in Lieu of Taxes, which compensates counties for services where the federal government owns vast tracts of tax-exempt land. The other is a program called Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination.

Some counties depend on such funding for as much as 10 percent of their overall budgets. In New Mexico, every county but one receives PLT funds. The U.S. House stripped funding for both programs from this year's primary appropriations package. But the bailout bill will pay for each through 2012, thanks to last-minute amendments attached by senators from Western states.

Because the funds came suddenly and unexpectedly, they were a particular boon to counties that were looking at big budget cuts or layoffs. "We used to get about $300,000 from Secure Rural Schools," says Carrie Bird, auditor of Clearwater County, Idaho, which recently began laying off employees. "We didn't budget any of that money because we weren't going to get it."

In neighboring Shoshone County, the funding was arguably even more welcome. There, the roads department typically accounts for about a quarter of the $10 million county budget, but its accounts were slashed by nearly one-third before the federal rescue came through. "It's huge," says county clerk Peggy White, "when you think of all the roads within this county and all the national forest lands that we're supposed to maintain."

But as much as county officials welcome the largesse, they recognize that it's a temporary reprieve. In four years, they'll have to fight the funding battle in Congress all over again. At that point, they may not have another must-pass bill to use as a vehicle. And, as with nearly all other governments these days, their overall general fund-picture is looking grim.

"The easiest way to think of this," says Jeff Spartz, county administrator in Lane County, Oregon, which had recently laid off 8 percent of its workforce, "is that it prevents us from falling off another cliff immediately."

Candidates Get Ideas From States

posted by Alan Greenblatt

The Washington Post devotes a sizable chunk of its front page today to comparisons of health coverage plans put out by John McCain and Barack Obama. It notes in both cases that their plans seem to be based on ideas that have been tried in "M" states.

As has been widely noted in Obama commercials, McCain's plan relies heavily on a health insurance tax credit. Recognizing that the free market approach won't work for everyone, McCain's plan relies on a dramatic expansion of state-sponsored high-risk pools.

So he is calling for a guaranteed access plan, a federal effort to share the cost of high-risk pools and dramatically expand their reach -- from fewer than 200,000 Americans in state plans today to perhaps 5 million.

...

Among the high-risk pools in 34 states, Minnesota's is the oldest, largest and, many believe, the most successful. "It just seems to work," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, senior policy adviser to McCain.

Created in a wave of health-care changes here in the late 1970s, the Minnesota Comprehensive Health Association (MCHA) had a membership of 28,000 last year, equaling nearly 7 percent of the state's uninsured population. Small as that share was, it far exceeded any other state's, according to the National Association of State Comprehensive Insurance Plans.

...

McCain has said that, under his guaranteed access plan, the federal government would cover half the cost of such pools, with the rest paid by states and the insurance industry. In the spring, Holtz-Eakin estimated that the federal share might be $7 billion or $8 billion a year. "It's going to be twice that, realistically," he said in a recent interview.

Obama's plan, of course, follows a different model -- that pursued by Massachusetts.

Lynn is one of 439,000 people here who have gained insurance since Massachusetts embarked two years ago on a path to near-universal coverage. More than half of them are paying toward it; the rest, like Lynn, get it free. How close Massachusetts can come to its goal -- and what obstacles it encounters -- is significant, because its strategies resemble much of the approach to health care that Obama has said he would pursue if elected president next week.

Obama says he would keep the familiar arrangement in which most Americans get health insurance through their jobs, as Massachusetts is doing. Yet he also favors profound -- and controversial -- changes that Massachusetts also is putting in place: Expanding government insurance programs and subsidies. Requiring employers to offer their workers coverage or face penalties if they do not. Forbidding insurance companies to reject anyone or charging more if they are sick. Creating a national health insurance exchange to help people to find and compare private insurance policies on their own.

In the most significant departure from the Democratic nominee's thinking, Massachusetts has imposed a mandate that requires most adults to carry health insurance -- and fines them if they refuse.

In the 31 months since the experiment here began, the share of working-age people without health insurance has plunged -- from 13 percent to 7 percent by one estimate -- more sharply and quickly than anyone expected, leaving Massachusetts with the lowest uninsured rate in the country. But the unexpected number of people also has translated into higher-than-expected costs. Massachusetts has been forced twice to scrounge for extra money, totaling more than $250 million this year and last, from state funds and other places.

Forget Joe the Plumber -- Let's Talk About Michelle Rhee

posted by Zach Patton

In this year's presidential and VP debates, there hasn't been all that much talk about local policy. But last night's debate between Barack Obama and John McCain did touch on urban education policy, and the candidates even discussed a local official! (Although they didn't mention her by name).

The exchange centered on Washington, D.C.'s new (ish) schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, and whether or not she supports vouchers:

OBAMA: I’ll just make a quick comment about vouchers in D.C. Senator McCain’s absolutely right: The D.C. school system is in terrible shape, and it has been for a very long time. And we’ve got a wonderful new superintendent there who’s working very hard with the young mayor there to try…

MCCAIN: Who supports vouchers.

OBAMA: … who initiated — actually, supports charters.

MCCAIN: She supports vouchers, also.

So does she or not?

Well, as DCist notes, Rhee has said she supports D.C. Opportunity Scholarships, "a federally funded voucher program that is popular with parents but hasn't necessarily demonstrated significant improvement in student achievement."

But, according to an official statement Rhee issued last night, she's not convinced that vouchers themselves are a good solution:

While Chancellor Rhee hasn’t taken a formal position on vouchers, she disagrees with the notion that vouchers are the remedy for repairing the city’s school system.

I profiled Rhee last summer when she first came on the job. Now that she's the most famous non-plumbing American to be mentioned in the final presidential debate, maybe it's worth a read.

Does Sarah Palin read Governing?

posted by Ellen Perlman

In January, Governing ran a story on how governments should be managing e-mail. That feature included this bit of information:

...elected leaders are devising ways to escape permanent retention of e-mails by sending them through private accounts, thus making it difficult or impossible even to find them. The chief aide to one Phoenix councilwoman transmitted a memo to staff members telling them to send e-mails on controversial issues to an AOL account rather than to the city's e-mail system.

Sound familiar?

Recently, the Washington Post reported:

A group of computer hackers said yesterday they accessed a Yahoo! e-mail account of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential nominee, publishing some of her private communications to expose what appeared to be her use of a personal account for government business.

"There's a reason the governor should be using her own official e-mail channels, because of security and encryption," said a lawyer who represents an activist who filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking emails from another Palin Yahoo account. "She's running state business out of Yahoo?"

Take heed, all you governors who someday hope to be vetted and sniped at and inspected under a microscope...I mean...run for higher office. You've been warned.

Strickland to Pick Dann Replacement

posted by Laura Allen

Ohio's Attorney General Marc Dan was accused of inter-office relations with his scheduler and mismanagement of sexual harassment violations by his team, Anthony Gutierrez, general services director, and Leo Jennings III, communications director.  Top Democrats urged him to resign:

Dann can no longer function in that office because of a litany of management failings and ethical breaches -- including an affair with an employee.

Forced out of the Democratic party and threatened by impeachment, after only 17 months in office, he resigned on May 14,2008.

Because he resigned before September of this year, a run-off election will be held in November to elect a new AG, but Thomas R. Winters, Dann's top assistant, immediately took over as acting attorney general for the time being.

Strickland said he hasn't considered who he will pick to serve until Ohioans choose a replacement in November, but added that he would start the process immediately. He said the next attorney general should possess 'maturity, experience and management ability' and be someone with 'great integrity.'

Strickland is a hot commodity. Hopefully he will have a chance to pick an appropriate replacement before he is swooped up as Vice President by Obama... or Clinton.

Bum Bot: Future of Crime-Fighting?

posted by Zach Patton

Atlanta bar owner Rufus Terrill has come up with a new way to discourage people from loitering around his Irish pub -- the Bum Bot.  It's a homemade robot contraption that sprays "bums" with a stream of water to keep them from congregating around Terrill's bar.

Oh, and Terrill wants to parlay the popularity of the Bum Bot into a run for mayor.  Presumably, it would be Terrill who's running for mayor, not the robot.  Although...

Political Savvy

posted by Zach Patton

According to the Tennesseean, "troubled" Tennessee state Rep. Rob Briley, "who was captured on videotape screaming for police officers to shoot him after he led them on a high-speed chase," has announced he won't seek reelection.

Yeah, that probably sounds like a good idea.

Rick Perry on Bush, Obama and the Boy Scouts

posted by Zach Patton

The New York Times Sunday magazine had an interview with Perry this week. (Wonder if Perry did the interview before the Times' hit piece on the presidential candidate he endorsed?)

Here's what we learned from Perry's interview.

Obama = Karl Marx:

What do you think of Barack Obama? I think he is a very attractive, very intriguing and, to many, a very stimulating candidate. I think he is one step away from being a socialist.

George W. Bush luuuuvs to spend money!!

As a Republican who is known to be more conservative than your predecessor as Texas governor, George W. Bush, what do you make of the deficit he has run up in Washington? George was never a fiscal conservative. The Texas Legislature spent a lot, and he signed the bill.

Gay Boy Scout leaders want to turn your son gay! Also, "homosexual" is a confusing word.

Let’s talk about your new book, “On My Honor,” which draws on your experience as an Eagle Scout and champions the values of the Boy Scouts of America, to whom you are donating your royalties. Yes, to their legal-defense fund.

Which has been fighting the A.C.L.U., to keep gays out of the scouts. Why do you see that as a worthy cause? I am pretty clear about this one. Scouting ought to be about building character, not about sex. Period. Precious few parents enroll their boys in the Scouts to get a crash course in sexual orientation.

Why do you think a homosexual would be more likely to bring the subject of sex into a conversation than a heterosexual? Well, the ban in scouting applies to scout leaders. When you have a clearly open homosexual scout leader, the scouts are going to talk about it. And they’re not there to learn about that. They’re there to learn about what it means to be loyal and trustworthy and thrifty.

But don’t you think that homosexuals might also be interested in being loyal and thrifty? The argument that gets made is that homosexuality is about sex. Do you agree?

No. Well, then why don’t they call it something else?

Introducing Ballot Box

posted by Zach Patton

Josh Goodman and Alan Greenblatt have been writing great 13th Floor posts about politics and elections for a long time.

Now, they're getting their very own home on the Internets: Introducing Ballot Box, a new Governing blog about state and local politics, edited by Josh and Alan.

Check it out!

Snub, You Lose

posted by Alan Greenblatt

If you're wondering why San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom endorsed Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, the SF Chronicle reports that it's because Obama snubbed the mayor, refusing to pose for a picture with him back when Newsom was taking heat for allowing gays to marry at City Hall.

Obama's people deny it, but former Mayor Willie Brown tells the paper, "Why would I make it up?"