Starting on March 30, I’ll be presenting a lecture series on Topics in American Politics at the Lokal Cafe in Colonial Williamsburg. In the first session I’ll discuss how slavery influenced the writing and ratification of the Constitution and the ways this impacts American politics today.

Later lectures will cover the expansion of civil rights and how this helped lead to the sorting of US political parties, the ways interest groups and gerrymandering polarized US politics over existential issues, and Russia’s efforts to influence US elections.

Please contact me at rss (at) foggybottomline (dot) com if you have questions or would like more information.

Virginia’s General Assembly this session has already killed some important gun violence prevention legislation. Let me say that again: Republicans in Virginia’s legislature have blocked passage of popular policies that would help prevent gun violence without also interfering with the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms. 

The Senate Courts of Justice Committee killed SB1034, which would have created a Class 1 Misdemeanor for purchasing more than one handgun in a 30 day period.  Since it would have exempted several classes of gun purchasers, including anyone with a valid concealed handgun permit and anyone buying a handgun in a private sale, it’s not clear how this would interfere with the right of any law-abiding Virginia resident’s right to “keep and bear arms.”  Besides the obvious point that the Second Amendment says nothing about just how many arms a citizen has a right to “keep and bear,” I personally wonder why anyone would want to purchase more than a dozen weapons of any kind in a given year.  But since most citizens qualify for concealed permits, and any citizen could make as many private purchases as time permits, it seems that this legislation would have one important effect: making mass purchases of firearms for transport to states with more restrictive firearms laws slightly more difficult.  This does, in fact, happen.  And Virginia can help stop it.

What I read while having my coffee this morning:

Over at Emptywheel, Marcy Wheeler lays out the reasons why Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel Office pushed back on the BuzzFeed story claiming that Donald Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.  It boils down to a need to rehabilitate Cohen’s credibility in the event Mueller calls him as a trial witness and to protect the Mueller team’s reputation as a tightly-run ship that doesn’t leak.  If you want to keep up with developments in the Mueller investigation, by the way, you should read this website daily.

“Boys in ‘Make America Great Again’ Hats Mob Native Elder at Indigenous People’s March” reads the headline in the New York Times.  On a field trip from Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky to participate in the March for Life yesterday, these thugs surrounded and mocked the man, a Vietnam War veteran, screaming “Build that wall!”at him while he played a ceremonial song.  In the video you can see many of them making fun of him while one punk stood in front of him smirking.  We’ve seen this look before, as Ruth Graham points outat Slate, and it’s yet another example of Christians completely ignoring the core teachings of their faith.  Or maybe these boys are just from families who don’t want their kids in desegregated public schools.

Perhaps in an effort to distract the media from yesterday’s Women’s March, Donald Trump offered temporary relief for Dreamers and other limited immigration changes in return for the $5.7 billion he wants to build a border wall.  This pleased no one, including Ann Coulter, who whined that conservatives “…voted for Trump and got Jeb!”  Of course, Trump is worried enough about what Coulter and other immigration hardliners thinkthat he felt the need to respond on Twitter.  I spend a good bit of time trying to figure out how conservatives think, and I’m frankly wondering how this works for them.  They complain constantly about ineffective government but think it can successfully complete a massive project like a thousand-mile long wall. They whine every day about government spending, deficits, and debt but happily advocate borrowing tens of billions of dollars for a wall that won’t solve the problem anyway.  And they prioritize property rights over community needs but don’t seem to mind that a border wall project on Trump’s scale would require confiscation of private land in the millions of acres.  Could it be racism all the way down?

On a somewhat lighter note, at least one Harvard scientist seems to think an object first spotted by University of Hawai’i astronomers could be an interstellar probe sent from another galaxy.  If so, whoever is behind it must have started the project quite a long time ago.  Since we’ve launched a few of these ourselves, it’s hardly beyond imagination.  Wonder what our interstellar counterparts will think as they watch Voyager 1 fly by?

And finally, today is the penultimate week of National Football League play.  If I were in Las Vegas (or Virginia had already legalized sports betting) I’d take the Chiefs giving up threeand the Rams getting three and a half points.  And the over on both.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Virginia’s State Senate has passed SB 284, a resolution ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) by a 26-14 vote.  Republicans, including my Senator (Ryan McDougle) cast all 14 no votes.  The House version, HJ 577, now sits in that body’s Privileges and Elections Committee. It’s not clear yet whether the Chair of that Committee, Delegate Mark Cole, will even allow a vote, and I’d be surprised if he lets this out of his Committee.

The ERA seemed on a fast track for ratification when Congress sent it to the States in 1972. Large bipartisan majorities supported it, as did President Nixon (and later Presidents Ford and Carter).  Then Phyllis Schlafly organized a “STOP ERA” campaign to protect what she and other conservative women saw as female privilege.  Schlafly and her supporters argued that the ERA would eliminate gender-specific protections against drafting women for military service and forcing them to share public restrooms, as well as “dependent wife” benefits under Social Security.  Largely a religious movement, these activists also believed in a social structure dominated by men.  Their attacks on the ERA focused on the ways it could hurt women by limiting the ability of government to protect women from abuse by men who had more agency and power within this structure, but their true goal included protecting traditional male and female social roles.  

Virginia’s General Assembly opened last Wednesday, and Virginia Ratify ERAactivists spent the day lobbying legislators in support of ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).  Late in the day they gathered to thank supporters, including legislators and Attorney General Mark Herring.  Elected officials took the stage, but grassroots activists owned the room.

Congress sent the ERA to the States in March 1972 with a seven-year deadline.  If approved by 38 of 50 States by 22 March 1979, this language would become part of the Constitution:

“Section 1.Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Section 2.The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3.This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”