What's Happening with Campaign 2022?

 

Civitas alum Reece Ellis will be leading a dive into what's happening with Campaign 2022. He is currently working in Jeff City as a legislative assistant, and he will give an overview of local and state elections as well as a peek into our presidential election in 2024. You can start jotting down questions!

The beginning of July brought to an end the most consequential Supreme Court term in a generation. Within the Supreme Court’s crowded docket this year were monumental decisions regarding as wide-ranging issues as the right to carry firearms outside of the home, native sovereignty over reservations, and the ability of the EPA to address climate change. But overshadowing every other decision of the court this year was the 6-3 decision overruling the nearly 50-year-old precedent of Roe v. Wade and in the process removing federal protection for abortion. 

With millions of Americans reeling, it becomes imperative that we ask questions that will lead us forward: how can the rage unleashed by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson be channeled to bring about substantive and lasting change within the judiciary to advance the rights of the oppressed and the marginalized

To say the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is an aberration, both legally and politically, is an understatement. The court, while allowing barriers to abortion to remain in place, has consistently upheld the basic holding of Roe for five decades. Further, the Pew Research Center has found that over 60 percent of the public support access to abortion in all or most cases, a figure largely unchanged since the mid-1990s. Further, 57 percent of respondents disapproved of the court’s decision in Dobbs, compared to just 41 percent who approved. A Civitas organized poll of over 400 respondents across the country found similar results, with 56 percent of respondents signaling support for abortion some or most of the time. Additionally, in his concurrence opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas called for the overruling of settled and widely popular controversies such as same-sex marriage and access to contraceptives

Backlash to the Court is not contained to individual decisions, but has shaped the view of the institution as a whole. National surveys as well as Civitas’s own poll have found decreased confidence in the court: Civitas found that 45 percent of those polled somewhat or completely distrust the court. Trust in the Court has declined steadily since 2000 and the much-contested decision in Bush v. Gore, but this dramatic drop following the Court’s recent high-profile rulings, as well as the divisive confirmation hearings of all three of former President Trump’s nominees to the court, is a clear sign of the impact of these most recent landmark decisions

With millions of Americans deprived of basic reproductive care and powerful factions of the court explicitly calling for the rollback of seemingly settled questions, action is evidently needed. Luckily, there is perhaps a dim silver lining to the Court’s radical decisions. The historic mobilization that recent polls reveal, with trust in the court at an all-time low and millions of Americans reporting that abortion access and gun violence are key motivators in this November’s election, the court has, in taking action, opened itself up to greater pushback. As this November’s election approaches, national leaders, as well as voters, must use this decline in trust to bring about substantive change. However upsetting these circumstances may be, they are, finally an opportunity to wrest control from the court and move the country forward, creating progress in the wake of regression.

 

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This coming November the constituents of Missouri’s second congressional district have a big decision to make. The first option is reelecting congresswoman Ann Wagner, the incumbent candidate who has been representing the second district since 2013. Since the beginning of her “service” to the second district, the lack of community engagement stands out to many of her constituents. After four consecutive terms in the United States Congress, she has never hosted a town hall meeting with the residents of her district. There have been events labeled as “town halls” that she attended, but those specific events were with private companies and their employees, and she didn’t take questions to answer. Ann Wagner may be the congressperson for Missouri’s second district, but she is not a public servant.
Reelecting Wagner is only one option. Fortunately, the Missouri second district has many other candidates to choose from. The candidate that stands out as the most likely to make it out of the August 2nd primary is Trish Gunby. Currently Trish Gunby serves in the Missouri House of Representatives for the 99th district. Something special about Gunby, and what has attracted me to her as a voter, is her passion for connecting with people. After the redistricting of the Missouri congressional districts, Gunby has taken the time to go door-to-door to the new additions of the second district to introduce herself and learn the communities that she would be serving. Trish Gunby is the representative that the second district needs after Ann Wagner’s reign of disconnection.

Although Ann Wagner and Trish Gunby are from different political affiliations, that isn’t the defining factor of why I have a distrust for Wagner and a draw to Gunby. Missouri’s second district has been trending purple over the course of the previous elections, therefore either a Democrat or a Republican could serve the district quite well depending on the fact that they remain fairly moderate. Ann Wagner has received recognition for her recent decision to split from her Republican colleagues in voting to protect same-sex and interracial marriage; why should it be a shock that our representative is willing to protect the human rights of her constituents? Her vote to protect same-sex and interracial marriages is the bare minimum, and doesn’t excuse her past voting record that aligns 93% with a former president who has played an active role in crumbling American democracy. As a resident of the second district, I believe that we’re not only capable of electing a new representative, but we deserve it. We deserve a representative like Trish Gunby: a public servant who spends time with their community and voices their concerns in Washington D.C.

 

“Sports betting should be legal,” says Sam Page, Saint Louis County Executive; Brian Williams, MO State Senator; and State Representatives Bishop Davidson, Trish Gunby, and Tracy McCreery. According to the Washington Post, 66% of Americans support the legalization of sports betting, and all but one of the elected officials that I’ve talked to support the legalization of it as well. So why isn’t sports betting legal all across the US, or at least in Missouri? As it turns out, sports betting is legal in over half of the US states, making it legal in over half the country, and there are bills in many states that are currently being argued.

A survey conducted on Survey Monkey asked people if they’d gambled in a casino before, and 231 of 436 (52.9%) survey respondents have gambled before with 133 of 231 (57.6%) saying they gamble multiple times per year. This means that 30% of respondents gamble at least semi frequently, which gives a frame of reference for this next stat. 341 of 434 (78.6%) of survey respondents want sports betting to be legal. Even people that don’t gamble would prefer that sports gambling was legalized, so this isn’t just an opinion from gamblers. Of the respondents, 43 (or 10%) were against the legalization of sports betting with the other 50 being unsure about whether they were for or against legalization

When asked what the legal age should be to sports bet, respondents most commonly answered 21 years old (39% of respondents), followed secondly by 18 years old (26%). The most common rationality I heard for why 21 should be the legal age was because casinos require you to be 21 to enter, which seems rational, but the reason casinos chose 21 is so they can also sell alcohol to visitors. The most common rationality for 18 was similar, with most people saying that that’s currently the age to gamble.

When I asked Representative Davidson about his feelings for sports betting, he said that if sports betting was legalized, that in the 10 years following, the state of Missouri could gain $400 million. If a motivation is money for the state, then getting it legalized would be great. For example, New Jersey experienced $1 billion from sports betting in one month (September 2021) because it was legal there and not in New York.

You might be asking, if sports betting seems to be good, why isn’t it legal in Missouri? The answer to this is somewhat complicated. There is a bill, currently in the house called HOUSE BILL NOS. 2502 & 2556, and in that bill there is a new definition of sports betting and its parts, and the bill legalizes it. However, there is also a section about legalizing gas station slot machines. That is in fact where the problem lies. 

 

 

Universal Healthcare: Socialism or Salvation?
By Zukai Sagan
   

 

 

When talk of universal healthcare comes up...read the rest of this article here.

During my internship with Civitas, I chose to focus on examining what people thought about higher education. Particularly, I wondered how the average person thought about the cost of college, which is a huge issue many college-age students worry about. I have not heard similar complaints from many adults, who do not have to worry about paying for college anymore. Polling pedestrians in Clayton and on the Delmar Loop was very interesting, because it revealed that many adults are far more aware of the issue than it seems from the outside.
Perhaps the most fascinating thing I learned from the results of our in-person polling was the level of empathy it revealed. Fewer than half of the participants we polled reported that they had taken out loans to attend college, and yet over 85% of participants said that they would support some form of free college-level education for all Americans. That massive majority revealed that even people who did not have to worry about the cost of college themselves still cared about the issue and believed that it was important to provide aid to others.

The only question on the survey to which more than 85% participants shared an answer was whether they believed that college was too expensive. 89.1% of participants agreed that college was either “too expensive” or “a little expensive”.

When Civitas conducted an online survey, participants seemed to have very similar views. 72.93% of participants said that they would support the government forgiving student loan debt. Even when we only looked at people who reported that they had not taken out loans themselves, and thus didn’t have any personal student loan debt, 67.27% of participants were in favor of at least some student loan forgiveness programs. This also shows how much empathy many Americans have. The online polls were completely anonymous, so there was a much smaller risk of participants feeling like they would seem devoid of empathy to the pollsters if they answered no.

Throughout the internship, we also read the book Political Introverts: How Empathetic Voters Can Help Save American Politics by the founder of Civitas, Arthur Lieber. This book focused on how to bring empathetic people to the voting booths, and how to create empathetic people in the first place. It put major emphasis on America’s public schools. According to the book, students spend 10,000 hours in classrooms between kindergarten and the end of high school. If these institutions put more emphasis on increasing empathy among students, it could have profound effects across America.

I personally believe that college is one major way to increase empathy in people. College campuses expose students to a variety of other students of different races, religions, sexualities, and political views. Many local school districts become very homogenous, with lots of similarities among the student body. College helps students make connections with people from other backgrounds, which can increase their empathy towards others.

I believe that free college for all Americans, or at least the forgiveness of student debt, will encourage many more students to strive for higher education and increase their empathy, which will solve many of the problems Arthur addresses in his book. Because of this, the results of the polling we conducted make me tremendously optimistic. There is a lot of support for making college cheaper, so if measures to this effect take effect, then we might be well on the way to addressing the issues Arthur mentions, and bringing empathy to the forefront of American politics.

 

High School Model UN dates are set for the fall of 2022. The first important event will be the Country Draft on Saturday, October 8 from 10:00 am until noon at Webster University. Everyone is welcome to attend, but only one person from each school group is required to attend.

As of now, Civitas is planning for all three fall sessions to be held in person at Webster University. On Saturday, November 19, there will be a session in the morning (9:00 am until noon) and a separate session in the afternoon from 1:00 pm until noon.The third session will be held the morning of Saturday, December 3. Each school group or individual participant attends just one session.

Watch for our "Welcome Back" email in September with details about the program. If you would like to be added to that email list as a teacher sponsor or  school group leader, please email Stephanie at gavinstephanie89@gmail.com. We will also have important info in our weekly newsletter and on our website beginning in September.

 

A water buffalo is pictured near an oil field in Iraq's Basra Province on Monday, July 18. Hussein Faleh/AFP/Getty Images

This past week at the United Nations