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🚨We analyzed 138 million geocoded property tax records to quantify how municipal boundaries spatially overlap onto economic segregation in every US metro area—creating disparities in localities’ ability to fund public goods. And we made an interactive map of our results! [1/16]
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Median voter moment
I was looking through election results from Travis County and found a fun one from last year. In Bee Cave, TX, voters approved building a new public library by a 13.2 point margin, but rejected the following referendum, which provided the $19.98 million in bonds to pay for it.
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
I think Haley Stevens really needs to get her side of the story out there, and the best way she can do that is by sitting down with an in depth interview with Isaac Chotiner.
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
This is genuinely amazing. I would have loved to have this as a law student.
The most common question I am asked is, “How do I break into the antitrust field?” I usually give a hodgepodge of advice. Today, to keep supporting the antimonopoly movement, I’m releasing a free document that covers everything you need to know.
papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cf…
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Please, no. We did this in 2009. We thought our problems could be solved electorally. Who would imagine they could not be? We had 60 senate seats! And all the long term problems stayed and metastasized into the present crisis, which is by no means over despite the 56 seats.
*IF* Dems manage to win a trifecta with 60 Senators in 2028, it’s prob in Dems’ long term interests to keep the filibuster around it in some form.
Makes it MUCH more likely that new laws (voting rights, redistricting, healthcare, immigration, etc) survive the next GOP trifecta.
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Politicians should be forced to live with their votes. If Rs are foolish enough to risk the backlash of banning abortion or disenfranchising women, let them. There's a reason they want to legislate via the courts and it's cuz they think it's a safer way to smuggle in their wins.
With 56 senators, it’s starting to *really* look like Dems will have the votes to switch to a talking filibuster, effectively abolishing it.
That just means that under the next GOP trifecta, the SAVE act will pass immediately. So too will a national abortion ban. And we’ll have to live with all of that for at least two years. Which is easier said than done. Because if what the save act does to married women is true, then it’ll be somewhat difficult to just “vote” our way out of that.
Maybe we’ll just decide that we can just put all this stuff on the back burner for the next six to eight years, since that’s how long it will realistically take for the GOP to regain the Senate majority, but man. There will be hell to pay when these new rules are in effect under the next GOP trifecta.
Maybe that’s just the way it has to go down, for things to get better *long-term*. But either way… just putting this out there.
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
On this, he's 100% right
The best time to scrap the filibuster is when there’s divided government and the only thing that changes is random message bills get vetoed instead of dying — it makes the change less scary and dramatic and just sets up clean legislating for the future rather than as a crisis.
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
1) It didn’t get crushed. It’s down <7% with 5 million CA votes left to count, which typically trend more progressive. I bet it’s quite close when all is said and done.
2) The fact the proposal dedicated all revenue to a single (important) cause ended up fracturing the natural coalition that would normally exist around a wealth tax proposal.
3) Specific design here — one-time, retroactive, larger rate — while understandable in this context, made it easier to attack in my view than an annually applied tax at a smaller rate.
4) Opponents outspent proponents by hundreds of millions on ads (will be true re: almost any effort to meaningfully tax the rich, so Dems need to be prepared for this for all non-wealth tax efforts too).
5) The push to establish a federal income tax took many years, ultimately including a constitutional amendment. There were many hiccups along the way. Need to learn from this and keep up the fight for smart, politically salient, economically efficient ways to better tax wealth/capital income.
2) The fact the proposal dedicated all revenue to a single (important) cause ended up fracturing the natural coalition that would normally exist around a wealth tax proposal.
3) Specific design here — one-time, retroactive, larger rate — while understandable in this context, made it easier to attack in my view than an annually applied tax at a smaller rate.
4) Opponents outspent proponents by hundreds of millions on ads (will be true re: almost any effort to meaningfully tax the rich, so Dems need to be prepared for this for all non-wealth tax efforts too).
5) The push to establish a federal income tax took many years, ultimately including a constitutional amendment. There were many hiccups along the way. Need to learn from this and keep up the fight for smart, politically salient, economically efficient ways to better tax wealth/capital income.
Why did the wealth tax get crushed in CA? Was it because it was badly written? Was there any version of it that could have passed?
I’m not sure a state/level approach makes sense, given domestic capital mobility. But this thing where we only tax W2 earners isn’t a great trend.
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Not to be dramatic, but the fact that the provisional affidavit ballots are skewing so heavily for Scott Colom is another heartbreaking reminder of the deep racist institutional rot in Mississippi
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
We are looking to hire lawyers to do legal and policy research on the laws that structure the economy, from banking law, administrative law, and antimonopoly laws, to state and municipal authorities. Excavating the full range of public economic laws will be a key component of delivering major economic change.
Apply here to come work with us: law-and-economy.law.columbia.edu/content/job-op…
Apply here to come work with us: law-and-economy.law.columbia.edu/content/job-op…
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Do you want to work with the new populists in Congress in creating a more fair economy? Submit your resume to American Economic Liberties Project's resume bank here: economicliberties.us/resume-bank/
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Abolish the Senate filibuster now.
It’s the single most important thing Democrats can do right now. And this is the ideal moment to do it. 🧵
It’s the single most important thing Democrats can do right now. And this is the ideal moment to do it. 🧵
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Come work with me! Jobs in policy, gov affairs, and comms open! Don't see the right fit but have a great project, idea, or role? Shoot your shot and pitch it to us on the open application. Link below 👇
Want to help us lead the fight against corporate corruption? Alongside the best people in the biz? With a fridge full of Diet Coke and a pantry stocked with snacks?
We're always looking for good people wanting to do good work – send us your resume!
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
For everyone asking in the comments: jeffsteinbook.substack.com
Interesting story, someone should write a definitive biography of this Bernie Sanders character
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Think bigger: let’s get rid of the Electoral College, now that the GOP has to stare down the possibility of a D Presidential ticket carrying the state by 10,000 votes and losing every last electoral vote.
Democrats should offer a gerrymandering ban, and should be willing to compromise in good faith to get it done. It's such a corrosive negative sum game.
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
LA is going to have a mayor who sees housing and transit as unalloyed goods, isn’t beholden to interest groups and has a history of making unpopular decisions because they’re the right thing to do. I am ecstatic
Kenneth Mejia is ecstatic. “You thought we were just gonna let New York and Michigan have fun? Fuck no! Los Angeles held it down,” the L.A. City Controller says. Mejia ended by saying Raman was his “only friend in City Hall.”
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Since many members of Congress are looking for an affordability program, I'll immodestly re-up the essay @clairekelloway and I wrote for @DissentMag in September
- Stronger regulation of corporate pricing power
- Direct public provisioning of essentials
- Policies to raise wages
- Stronger regulation of corporate pricing power
- Direct public provisioning of essentials
- Policies to raise wages
Most politicians say that they want to help people afford their lives, but what really matters is how. For @DissentMag, @sandeepvaheesan and I argue that any "affordability" agenda must challenge corporate pricing power, not worker power. dissentmagazine.org/online_article…
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Brian Highsmith retweeted
Democrats should offer a gerrymandering ban, and should be willing to compromise in good faith to get it done. It's such a corrosive negative sum game.
You can argue whether or not redistricting cost Republicans House seats via dummymander, but you can’t argue that it helped cost them at least two Southern Senate seats that are going to make it very difficult to control the chamber again in the near future.
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