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The Rural Blog Archive: October 2004
Rural issues, trends, events and journalism from Al Cross at the Institute for Rural Journalism & Community Issues
Friday, Oct. 29, 2004
Tobacco buyout leaves young farmers in the lurch, North Carolina paper reports
The tobacco buyout, which ends the federal price-support and quota program and pays farmers for their allotments over 10 years, is getting a skeptical if not negative review from farmers in Haywood County, N.C.
Vicki Hyatt, editor of The Mountaineer in Waynesville, started her story with the viewpoint of tobacco farmer John Leatherwood: “The older guys ready to retire will do well with it, but I’m 43 and I don’t think this is good for the young farmer. They’re not looking out for the next generation.”
Hyatt writes, “Once the quota system is gone and the price of tobacco depends on supply and demand, Leatherwood fears the market price of tobacco will go so low it won’t be worth growing. He is also concerned that there will be no minimum price guarantee for the crop as there is now.”
Hyatt quotes Don Smart, “a long-time farmer who’s been active in burley tobacco circles with the WNC Tobacco Growers Association and the Farm Bureau,” as predicting the new contract price from companies will be $1 to $1.25 a pound, well below the recent market price of $1.95.
“Without the tobacco program, farmers will contract directly with tobacco companies, Smart said, but there is no guarantee the crop delivered will be accepted by the company. Some growers fear their crop will be rejected as not meeting minimum specifications -- a judgment call that puts them at the mercy of the company,” the Mountaineer reports.
Smart said the buyout will leave many farmers unemployed, and “Others agree the tobacco buyout program isn’t the answer for all those currently growing the crop,” Hyatt writes. “The program might be a boon for the larger farmers and quota holders, but many growers in Haywood County are small growers, said Terry Rogers, president of the local Farm Bureau.”
Republicans target rural Ohio counties to boost battleground state turnout
The Washington Times says “under the radar” Republican operatives have fanned out to 57 rural counties in the battleground state of Ohio using direct mail and phone banks to boost voter turnout in those heavily Republican areas. The report quotes Ohio GOP Chairman Robert T. Bennett: "These are the ones that will make a difference, giving us 150,000 additional votes."
Reporter Ralph Z. Hallow writes, “The party's decision to funnel resources into increasing turnout in rural counties, other party officials say, has escaped the notice of pollsters and the press — and even misled some Republicans into thinking that President Bush's re-election campaign has let itself be outperformed by Democratic Sen. John Kerry in the state.”
Hallow cited a Zogby poll showing Bush leading in Ohio, but last night's Zogby track in the state showed Kerry leading 47 to 44 percent. Bennett told hallow that public polls may not fully capture voter sentiments in Ohio’s Republican-leaning rural areas.
Other updated Zogby numbers from battleground states, as of last night: Colorado, Kerry 48-47; Florida, Bush 48-47; Iowa, Kerry 45-44; Michigan, Bush 47-45; Minnesota, Bush 46-45; New Mexico, Bush 49-43; Neveda, Bush 50-45; Pennsylvania, tied at 47; Wisconsin, Kerry 49-46.
Kerry gains papers in Wisconsin, Missouri, elsewhere to widen endorsement lead
Kerry widened his lead in newspaper endorsements tallied by Editor & Publisher, including some battleground-state papers: the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, The Green Bay News-Chronicle, and The Capital Times in Madison. “The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel backed no one in 2000 and as recently as two weeks ago a top editor told us that this was likely to be the outcome again,” Greg Mitchell writes. “But today they went for Kerry.”
Mitchell adds, “In picking up the Springfield News-Leader, Kerry accomplished a sweep of the leading papers in Missouri, a state that had slid into the Bush column by most estimates a couple weeks ago but now, according to some pundits, is back in play. He also picked up the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, giving him both papers in that city, at a time when as experts suggest that Hawaii is not only now up for grabs but could decide the election.”
Generally, the larger a paper’s circulation, the more likely it is to go for Kerry. So far, 162 papers with circulation of 18.4 million have endorsed Kerry. Bush is the choice of 129, with 11.8 million in circulation. Kerry has won the support of 36 papers that endorsed Bush in 2000.
E & P offers a new twist to its election coverage today, tracking the Electoral College maps of major newspapers to highlight the differences and suggest a consensus.
“In the all-important swing-state category, identifying where the polls are too close to call, the sites agree on only five true undecideds: Florida, Iowa, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wisconsin,” Erin Olson reports. “Five of the six sites we're tracking put Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Pennsylvania in that tossup category, with only The New York Times claiming the three lean to Kerry. The breakdown is the same for Nevada, but here the Times lists it as a Bush leaner.”
The Note from ABC News' political unit this morning handicaps it this way:
"States that will almost certainly decide this election: Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, and New Mexico.
"States that are hanging around to make a difference: Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Maine's Second Congressional District.
"States that could come washing through in a landslide (or abberationally shock us all and decide the race!!): Hawaii, New Jersey, Colorado, and Arkansas."
Racist group distributes white supremacy CDs in West Virginia, weeklies report
Michael Browning of the Coal Valley News reports the CDs were distributed on streets near Madison Middle School and Scott High School in Boone County last Thursday, “prompting school officials to seize the CDs.” Jeff Nelson, the middle school’s vice principal, told the paper that the group claims to have distributed 20,000 of the CDs and its Web site says it plans to distribute 20,000 more. “This appears to be a nationwide effort,” Nelson said.
Browning cites local schools’ policy: “It is the policy of Boone County Schools that racial, sexual, religious/ethnic harassment and violence will not be tolerated under any circumstances. Racial, sexual, religious/ethnic harassment and violence will be defined as unwelcome and unwanted behavior related to sex, race, religion or ethnic group that makes the recipient feel afraid, embarrassed, helpless, angry or unsafe or upsets the recipient to the point that he/she cannot learn, cannot teach or be effective at school or his/her job.”
Chief Boone County Deputy Sheriff Rodney Miller told the Coal Valley News that the group, “as long as they don't cause anyone any harm,” has the constitutional right to distribute material. “When they're near the kids, that gives us something a little different. It appears it's just an isolated incident. I think the general public is satisfied with the response the school system has taken in regard to these people being around their children.”
In Pocahontas County, Pocahontas Times Managing Editor Pamela Pritt reports that the CDs were distributed at Marlinton Elementary School last week. Sheriff Bob Alkire told the Times “that he had spoken with David Cobb, the new owner of Gray's Store, Aryan Autographs and 14 Words, LLC, at Frost, who was handing out the Panzerfaust CDs. . . . The sheriff said Cobb told him he was targeting 13-to-19-year-olds.”
Top federal mine-safety official calls for crackdown on drug use by coal miners
The head of the U.S. Mine Safety and Health Administration, David Lauriski, is quoted in a Louisville Courier-Journal story today calling for a crackdown on and stricter laws and policies regarding drug use in our nation’s mines.
Current requirements make it difficult to determine the size and scope of the problem. Lauriski cited two recent Kentucky mining deaths tied to drug use as underscoring the need for reforms. He told C-J Eastern Kentucky Bureau reporter Alan Maimon that no one knows with any certainty how many miners are working under the influence of drugs because state and federal laws currently do not allow mandatory testing.
Maimon's story quotes Lauriski saying at a news conference yesterday with state mining officials, "Keeping drugs and alcohol out of mines is a very high priority for our agency." The mining officials said they would create a task force -- which will include industry, labor and government representatives from Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia -- to address the issue."
Kentucky Environmental and Public Protection Secretary LaJuana Wilcher said the group would compile data to quantify the problem's extent. The Kentucky Mining Board has endorsed legislation that would allow state inspectors to test miners and is expected to recommend a plan to the state’s General Assembly in January.
Veterans Day sendoff planned for six-state Guard unit heading to Iraq
Some 4,000 soldiers comprising the entire 278th Regimental Combat Team, from six states, will be deployed to Iraq following a special Veterans’ Day send-off ceremony at Camp Shelby, a Mississippi National Guard facility near Jackson, where the unit has been massing since June for training before deployment.
An article in The Plain Talk (one of our favorite newspaper names) of Newport, Tenn., today focuses on the local troops who are part of the unit, and the support they are receiving from their hometown. It quotes a Newport resident, Capt. Alan Mingledorff, as saying, “We’re ready to go. We're ready to get there and get the job done."
Troops have been training in a mock-up Iraqi city complete with Iraqi-born role players, Arabic graffiti on buildings and oversized photographs of Saddam Hussein.
The send-off ceremony for the unit is scheduled to begin at noon on Nov. 11 and will include a parade, fly-overs with Blackhawk helicopters and appearances by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other elected officials.
Rural Native American lands are also home to military explosives and toxic munitions
A study conducted by two sociologists and published in the most recent issue of the American Sociological News, the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association, says Native Americans and their lands are“disproportionately exposed to hazards posed by the U.S. military's explosive and toxic munitions.”
The study was done by sociologists Gregory Hooks, chair of the Washington State University sociology department, and Chad L. Smith, sociology professor at Texas State University-San Marcos, a former WSU graduate student.
The ASA News says the study “provides evidence that Native American lands tend to be located in the same counties as sites deemed to be extremely dangerous because of a variety of unexploded military ordnance.” The story quotes Hooks and Smith saying, “This latest research is the first to systematically examine the role of the military in the uneven distribution of environmental hazards” and “demonstrates that much of the disproportional exposure of Native Americans to environmental dangers throughout the 20th century was the result of militarism, rather than economic competition.”
The study, titled"The Treadmill of Destruction: National Sacrifice Areas and Native Americans," cites historical evidence the United States widely expanded its military infrastructure in the 1940s, and with expansion used remote lands to serve as bombing ranges and weapons testing and storage sites.
The Rural Calendar (Forestry edition)
Nov. 8-10, Madison, Wis.: Governor’s Conference on Forestry: Building Collaborative Action for Wisconsin’s Forests, to develop a coordinated vision and action plan that will enable stakeholders and interest groups to work together on important forestry issues to enhance the value and sustainability of Wisconsin’s forests.For more information, click here.
Nov. 10, Nashville, Ind.: Forest Land Conservation, An Indiana Portfolio, to explore the alternatives that are available for individuals to work within their communities to protect forest land. The planning committee has identified four institutions to consider: cooperatives, conservation districts, condominium and property owner associations, and informal collaboratives. For more information, click here or here.
Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004
Pennsylvania may now be the election's epicenter, L.A. Times polls suggest
Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote about the rurality of the presidential race in a story posted on The Rural Blog yesterday afternoon, reports this morning that his newspaper’s polls now indicate that Pennsylvania may be the key to Tuesday's election.
“The surveys find President Bush holding an 8-percentage-point lead among likely voters in Florida, Sen. John F. Kerry opening a 6-percentage-point advantage in Ohio, and the two men battling to a dead heat in Pennsylvania,” Brownstein writes. “Analysts in both parties think that whoever wins two of them will have a clear advantage in the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win.”
The Times acknowledges that its Pennsylvania survey shows the race slightly closer “than most other recent public surveys, which have shown Kerry with leads of 2 to 5 percentage points.”
Thomas Fitzgerald of The Philadelphia Inquirer writes this morning that the Republican Party “has pumped up support in its traditional base in the rural middle of the state, while cementing Bush leads in the northwest and in the depressed coal-mining region of northeastern Pennsylvania. The other reliable wild card in Pennsylvania politics, the socially conservative Democrats in the southwestern steel-mill towns around Pittsburgh, appear to be returning to their roots, according to several polls. Heavily Catholic and unionized, this bloc of voters has been responsive to GOP family-values appeals in recent decades, and resists the national Democratic orthodoxy of support for abortion rights and gun control.”
Brownstein says the Times poll shows that compared to the other big states surveyed by the paper, "Pennsylvania more closely follows the national pattern, with Bush's strength on security issues balancing poor ratings he gets on the domestic front, producing a deeply conflicted result.”
Not all clergy favor gay-marriage bans, Post finds in Michigan reporting
"Michigan is one of 11 states where constitutional amendments against same-sex marriage will appear on the November ballot. Much of the grass-roots support for these initiatives is church-based. But so is much of the opposition," the Washington Post reports today in a story by Alan Cooperman and political-writing dean David Broder. "Gay rights supporters have found unexpected allies among some clergy and labor unions, giving them hope, at least, of neutralizing the spillover effect on the presidential election."
Many political observers think extra conservative turnout for the amendments could make the difference for Buah and other Republican candidates. "The big question for both political parties is how many voters there are like Tim and Lori Harrington, who worship at the Shrine of the Little Flower and plan to go to the polls Tuesday mainly to cast their ballots to protect the traditional definition of marriage," the Post reports, quoting Tim Harrington:
E & P offers detailed report on newspaper endorsements, such as chain-by-chain
In an analysis today, citing increased requests for more detailed information, Editor and Publisher reports how editorial endorsements of Bush and Kerry are running on a chain-by-chain basis.
E & P says the question's importance is underscored especially in a year when some corporate bodies, such as Scripps, are taking a more hands-off attitude and letting local papers decide on their own, with little or no intervention from the front office. The in-depth analysis, done for E & P by Jacob Kaplan-Moss, who works for the Journal-World in Lawrence, Kan., breaks down the endorsements by ownership. His complete report is available on his personal site.
As of Tuesday, the overall count had Kerry leading Bush by 143 endorsements to 125. The E & P report compiles a chain-by-chain accounting. For the entire E & P story click here. For an analysis of the 2004 endorsements so far in a separate report click here. For another report factoring in some smaller papers click here. For a state-by-state tally of endorsements by major papers, click here.
Campaign coverage, cow pies and courtesy
During a Bush campaign stop at a farm in Richland County, Wis., Tuesday, reporters waiting for a photo-op of the commander-in-chief conversing with the farm owner got to experience the full impact of true bucolic atmosphere, as a cow did what cows often do after a hearty meal of hay.
The LaCrosse Tribune reports on the full olfactory impact, in its Wednesday edition and the resulting admonishment from a White House wag chastising the press corps’ lack of proper demeanor. See the not fully detailed accounting of the incident in the paper’s Campaign Notebook. And, read the more conventional account of the meeting between the cow’s boss and the leader of the free world by clicking here.
FFA conventioneers from all over the nation converge on Louisville
Fifty-thousand-plus FFA members from around the nation are making their annual migration to Louisville for their yearly convention, but in 2006 the flock will be flying farther north to Indianapolis, pushed in part by not enough nesting grounds. The convention opened yesterday.
FFA spokesman Bill Stagg told Courier-Journal reporter Gregory A. Hall, "It's an amazing assemblage of people.” In addition to the usual competition involving projects in a variety of categories, this year’s convention features speakers -- including U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman and ESPN commentator and former NFL quarterback Joe Theismann -- workshops, careers, shows and its own shopping mall.
The education, business and leadership-development organization has held its convention in Louisville since 1999. Participants are staying as far away as a 90-minute drive from downtown. A lack of hotel rooms has been cited in the convention's impending move to Indianapolis. For the first time in a decade, the convention is being broadcast on a satellite television network, RFD-TV. Saturday's election of officers will be webcast for the first time at www.ffa.org.
The FFA, once known as the Future Farmers of America, counts more than 476,000 members between ages 12 and 21 in more than 7,200 chapters in all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
Concerns about over-storage of grain crops prompt USDA warning
Farmers facing bumper crops this year of corn, soybeans and other grains and limited silo storage space are being urged by the U. S. Department of Agriculture, “to properly store their excess grain or risk spoiling thousands of dollars of their products,” according to an Associated Press report posted today on the South Carolina home webpage www.thestate.com.
In the AP story out of Fayette, Iowa, the USDA Crops and Weather Report says bumper corn crops are creating storage shortages and on-farm storage already is rated 40 percent short. The report says, with the soybean harvest nearly complete, and only 30 percent of the corn crop out, that means a tight squeeze for many farmers. Dan Meyer, an Iowa State University engineer based in Fayette, told AP, "Producers should know the limitations and risks involved with emergency grain storage."
The report cites agriculture experts who say the easiest and most economical way to temporarily store grain is by keeping it on the ground. If done properly, they say -- including cooling the grain and keeping it dry -- losses can be curbed from 1 percent to 4 percent. For information from Iowa State University click here.
For information from the U.S.D.A. click here. And to see the entire Associated Press story click here.
Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2004
A rural race for president is getting even more rural at the end
Three more rural states are back on the electoral table, adding even more uncertainty to the presidential election and the tactics needed to win it, chief Washington Post political writer Dan Balz reports in a story this morning:
“The electoral map unexpectedly -- and perhaps temporarily -- expanded yesterday, with Democrats suddenly playing defense in their traditional stronghold of Hawaii and some party strategists eyeing two other states that Sen. John F. Kerry had all but written off, West Virginia and Arkansas. Strategists in both parties said they are confident that Hawaii would remain in Democratic hands on Election Day, and most predicted that Arkansas and West Virginia would stay in Republican hands. But the flurry of interest in these states in the campaign's final week underscored not only how close the race between Kerry and President Bush remains but also the combatants' desire to test every opportunity and protect against every contingency.”
In West Virginia, an unnamed Kerry adviser said of the campaign and the state’s residents, "We haven't been able to convince them that we share their values," Balz reported. But polls now show Bush’s margin to be in “low single digits,” and unions such as the United Steelworkers of America and the United Mine Workers could boost Democratic turnout and make up the deficit. Adds for Kerry are back on the air in West Virginia as of today, the Charleston Daily Mail reports.
The Post reports, “Bush strategists said earlier they were surprised when Kerry seemed to give up on West Virginia, but one Bush adviser said in an e-mail that regardless of what the Democrats and their allies do in the final week, ‘They can't win Arkansas and West Virginia’.” Former President Clinton has long urged Kerry to target Clinton’s home state of Arkansas, and Clinton will campaign there Sunday, Balz reports. Recent polls in the state have shown the race to be a statistical dead heat. In Hawaii, Republican growth in the state's rural congressional district may have turned the 50th state into a swing state, one that will be the last to close its polls on Tuesday.
Ron Brownstein of the Los Angeles Times confirms the rural nature of the election in a front-page story: "Small-town America has become a pillar of Bush's strength. But in the Upper Midwest, rural communities remain more contested ground. And that means one of the key remaining questions in this on-the-edge campaign is whether Bush can match his strength in rural areas elsewhere in the rolling countryside of the three neighboring states at the top of his target list: Iowa, Minnesota and especially Wisconsin.”
Brownstein offers some important background, tracing Democrats' problems in rural areas to moral questions: "The shifting allegiance of rural America toward the GOP was probably the single most dramatic change in the electorate from 1996, when President Clinton won reelection handily, to 2000, when Bush narrowly defeated Gore." Exit polls in 1996 showed Bill Clinton ran almost even with Bob Dole among rural and small-town voters, "but in the wake of the Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Democratic vote in small-town America collapsed in the 1998 congressional races — with Republicans amassing a resounding 24-percentage-point margin. In 2000, Bush almost exactly replicated that margin, crushing Gore with rural voters by 22 percentage points."
Coalfield turnout could turn West Virginia back into the Democratic column
Turnout in West Virginia’s coal-mining communities could make the difference in the election, Tara Tuckwilier of The Charleston Gazette reports today: “Four years ago, West Virginia’s coalfield voters were Al Gore’s strongest supporters. The problem for the former vice president was hardly any of them voted.”
Tuckwiler reports that early voting may improve turnouts in strongly Democratic coalfield counties such as Fayette and Webster. “In a region with large populations of elderly, disabled and poor people — some of whom have a hard time getting to the polls on Election Day — Democratic supporters are, in some cases, using early voting to their advantage,” Tuckwiler writes. “The United Mine Workers brought vanloads of voters to the polls on the first day of early voting in Fayette County.”
Edwards hasn't won over rural voters, a major disappointment to Kerry
Democrats who pushed Kerry to name John Edwards his running mate argued that he would help the ticket appeal to rural voters, but "there's no evidence that he's managed to pull off that admittedly difficult feat," Chris Suellentrop writes on Slate.com. "If Kerry loses a close election next week, the first second-guessing question has to be, Was John Edwards the right choice?"
Suellentrop cites the recent poll taken for the Center for Rural Strategies, which showed Bush leading Kerry by 12 percenatge points in 17 battleground states. "No reasonable person expected Edwards to help Kerry actually win among rural voters, but it was hoped that he would help the ticket outperform [Al] Gore's number [an 11-point deficit] and reduce the margin to single digits," Suellentrop writes. "When Edwards was criticized for 'disappearing' after the convention, the Kerry campaign explained that he had been dispatched to rural areas that were being ignored by the national media, and they assured everyone that he was wowing local media. Local voters seem to be another matter."
When Kerry adviser Joe Lockhart and pollster Stan Greenberg had a conference call with reporters Tuesday, "the one disappointment expressed by [the advisers] was Kerry's performance in rural areas. "I think we recognize that rural voters have not come to us in the way that we had hoped for in this election," Lockhart said. Greenberg blamed that for the tossup status of Iowa and New Mexico, states that Gore won.
Democrats aim for rural Virginia votes; GOP says they're mixing caviar, pork rinds
Democrats have not given up the idea of carrying Virginia for Kerry, with a last-minute push in rural areas on economic issues – laced with a dose of local culture, reports Michael Sluss of The Roanoke Times:
“A series of appearances by bluegrass legend Ralph Stanley will be part of a final-week pitch to swing voters in predominantly rural parts of the state, especially those that have struggled with job losses and other economic hardships. Republicans countered that Kerry's positions on a litany of hot-button issues will repel rural voters and keep them behind President Bush.”
No Democratic candidate for president has won Virginia since 1964, and Kerry moved about two-thirds of his Virginia field staff to more competitive states last month, “a sign that Kerry had effectively conceded the Old Dominion's 13 electoral votes to Bush. The Kerry campaign's decision to steer another $50,000 to Virginia in the campaign's closing days may not amount to much. But Larry Framme, Kerry's Virginia campaign chairman, insisted the Democrat has not surrendered the state,” the Times reports.
There was a strong hint in Sluss's story that the effort is aimed not at winning the state for Kerry, but at using the overwhelming attention on the presidential race to help U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher or even the futire political prospects of Gov. Mark Warner: “Because of campaign finance restrictions, the ads will promote Democratic candidates but not Kerry specifically.” Warner cannot seek re-election in 2005, but is a potential challenger to U.S. Sen. George Allen in 2006 and a potential national candidate -- one who likes to remind party strategists of his appeal to Republican-leaning groups such as business interests and rural voters. Also, shoring up the Democratic vote in this election could pay dividends in voters' party identification in the next election.
Bush's Virginia chairman, Attorney General Jerry Kilgore, said Democrats were engaging in "an October masquerade" and predicted that rural areas will be the key to a "comfortable" win for Bush in Virginia. "John Kerry and rural Virginia -- sort of like caviar and pork rinds," Kilgore said. "Some things just don't go together."
Sluss wrote, "Kilgore said Kerry's votes for tax-increase and gun-control legislation and against a federal ban on so-called 'partial-birth' abortion procedures will turn off rural voters. Kilgore also criticized Kerry and Edwards for missing a recent Senate vote on a federal buyout for tobacco farmers. Bush initially opposed the legislation, but signed it into law last week. Kerry and Edwards have supported the buyout."
West Virginia elector adds uncertainty to outcome, which could initially be a tie
A potentially faithless Bush elector in West Virginia is part of the dicey possibilities outlined in a Washington Post story by Dana Milbank, who starts with this scenario: "President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry deadlock on Tuesday with 269 electoral votes apiece -- but a single Bush elector in West Virginia defects, swinging the election to Kerry. Or Bush and Kerry are headed toward an electoral college tie, but the 2nd Congressional District of Maine breaks with the rest of the state, giving its one electoral vote -- and the presidency -- to Bush."
Those and other scenarios are unlikely to occur, Milbank writes, “but neither is any of them far-fetched. Tuesday's election will probably be decided in 11 states where polls currently show the race too tight to predict a winner. And, assuming the other states go as predicted, a computer analysis finds no fewer than 33 combinations in which those 11 states could divide to produce a 269 to 269 electoral tie.”
Milbank also reports, “In West Virginia, one of the state's five Republican electors, South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb, has said he might not vote for Bush (although he calls it "unlikely" he would support Kerry). And in Ohio, the political publication the Hotline reports, one of Kerry's 20 electors could be disqualified because he is a congressman.” That is U.S. Rep. Sherrod Brown, whose possible replacement if Kerry carries the state could be complicated by the fact that Republicans control Ohio’s electoral machinery.
Enough about electoral votes, let’s have some pie with our politics
R.W. “Johnny” Apple of The New York Times, an expert in food as well as politics, takes us on a gourmand’s tour of the battleground states in the Upper Midwest today. As usual, this Apple pie is as large as Johnny, running to four online pages, but it’s worth your time if you don’t mind making your mouth water. For a teaser, here’s one slice from Johnny’s dish, titled "In the Midwest, a sweet tooth is nonpartisan:"
“The Norske Nook in Osseo, Wis., up near the Twin Cities, is pie paradise. The cheerful, red-pinafored waitresses there will serve you apple pie if you like: standard-issue apple, Dutch apple or harvest apple. You won't be sorry if you order it. But there are far more exceptional items in the Norske Nook's repertory of more than two dozen pies, all made from scratch every morning according to the recipes of Helen Myhre, who founded the place. This is the nation's premier dairy state, remember. So go ahead, take the plunge, and order the Farm Belt favorite, sour cream raisin, made from rich, tangy, extra-thick Wisconsin sour cream, with a short, flaky crust and a fine pompadour of meringue, or maybe the lush banana cream, which won the National Pie Championship in 2003.”
Tri-Cities seeing early signs of economic boost from extension of Interstate 26
Another sort of trickle-down theory of economic development may be at work in the northwest North Carolina, east Tennessee and southwest Virginia area known as the Tri-Cities region, prompted by the completion of a northern extension of Interstate 26 into the U. S. 23 corridor.
Some 175 area leaders attended a recent regional economic development conference at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City where they heard anecdotal evidence that new business is beginning to trickle down this improved stretch running north from Asheville, N.C., through Johnson City to Interstate 81.
Completion of the road means motorists can now drive between Asheville and Johnson City in about an hour and a quarter, bypassing a twisty two-lane section of road that long discouraged interstate travelers. North Carolina Department of Transportation figures from earlier this year indicate I-26 was relatively lightly traveled during its first year, reports Mark Barrett in the Asheville Citizen-Times.
Conference attendees said the road has boosted traffic across the North Carolina- Tennessee line for things like shopping and tourism, but business investment has an uphill climb. Developers are hoping to stimulate business by exploiting the area’s scenic and cultural resources, from its natural beauty to arts and crafts and bluegrass music.
MountainSouth USA, an effort to draw international tourists to the southern Appalachians, recently obtained $400,000 in federal funds to advance the effort. The conference was the second involving regional business and government leaders discussing common problems and cooperation.
Sole domestic TV manufacturer says foreign competition has forced bankruptcy
The only American-owned, domestic television manufacturer has filed for protection in U. S. Bankruptcy Court in Greenville, Tenn. Five Rivers Electronic Innovations LLC, of Greeneville, says foreign competition has forced it into Chapter 11 reorganization. Company president Tom Hopson told The Greeneville Sun, "We are intent on emerging from our reorganization as a strong and important resource for American consumers."
Hopson said foreign imports, dumping of consumer electronics made in China, and an unexpected decision by one customer to discontinue a product line, prompted the move. Hopson also told the paper foreign imports have had a dramatic impact on all U. S. consumer electronics companies, costing the nation thousands of jobs.
The Rural Calendar
Nov. 8-9 (register by tomorrow if possible): "The changing character of rural Alabama, including the increasing number of urban dwellers opting to move there, will be the focus of a conference in Montgomery next month that will look, too, at the competitiveness of the state's farm operations," the Montgomery Advertiser reports. "While not setting a firm deadline," Auburn University wants attendees to register by Thursday. Registration, along with details of the two-day conference, is available online at www.ag.auburn.edu/BC. The cost is $95 per person, $50 for students, which includes two breakfasts, two lunches and refreshments during breaks.
Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2004
Kerry promises rural summit in an effort to erode Bush's rural base
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said yesterdaty that if elected, he will hold a national summit to draft plans to reinvigorate the economy and health-care access in rural America. Kerry, who is trailing President Bush among rural voters, made the promise in a conference call with reporters, including Thomas Beaumont of the Des Moines Register.
Kerry said the conference would take place at Iowa State University in Ames within 100 days of his inauguration.He said he wants to bring venture capital and management expertise to small towns, provide universal high-speed Internet capacity to rural areas, mandate renewable fuel standards and combat consolidation of agriculture in large corporations, something he claims President Bush has ignored.
While national polls show Bush and Kerry in a statistical dead heat, Bush has a healthy lead among rural voters in battleground states, according to a recent poll. Kerry told reporters, ""I think that rural America is looking for a change of direction and I believe that the summit will provide an opportunity for everybody to get connected and to share the ways in which we're going to address this agenda."
The Times Record of Fort Smith, Ark., reported that Kerry promised to invite “the best and brightest minds in the country and lay out a very specific plan of action to reinvigorate rural economies,” and that Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Bush's chairman in a state that has become competitive, called the announcement "pure, unbridled opportunism," and cited Kerry's positions on abortion and marriage as against "bedrock issues of rural America."
Huckabee's line reflects the social-issue strategy Republicans have used to convert many rural areas to the GOP in the last two decades, a phenomenon described in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch by veteran politican reporter Jo Mannies. She writes of Bollinger County in southeast Missouri, which has turned Republican because Democrats are identified as social liberals: "The label can often drown out a national Democrat's message."
DNC chairman heads nonprofit effort for rural Hispanic, American Indian vote
Rural Hispanic and American Indian communities are the target of a "virtually invisible network of nonprofit organizations engaged in get-out-the-vote operations,: according to an investigatioin by the watchdog group Center for Public Integrity..
The report says New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, chairman of this year's Democratic National Convention, is the driving force behind the effort. The first-term governor has founded both a public educational charity called the Moving America Forward Foundation and a political action committee called Moving America Forward.
University of Miami law professor Frances Hill told the Center for Public Integrity that Richardson is using "a dual-pronged strategy that, while perfectly legal, operates partly in an unregulated gray area." Hill, an expert on political nonprofits, added, "The problem is when social welfare organizations become redesigned into crypto-political committees." She maintains that is when these organizations could stray from their nonpartisan mandates.
Study ranks states' campaign-finance disclosure practices, a key for rural reporters
With the election a week away, reporters are filing their final stories about candidates' campaign finances. That is much easier in some states than in others, according to the latest comparative study of candidate campaign finance disclosure laws and practices in the 50 states, now in its second year. The studies put a premium on online access to information, a key tool for journalists in rural areas removed from state capitals where reports are filed.
Washington again ranked number first, followed California and Florida. Seventeen states' disclosure programs failed the assessment by the Campaign Disclosure Project, a collaboration of the California Voter Foundation, the Center for Governmental Studies and the UCLA School of Law, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
The study evaluated four areas of campaign finance disclosure: state laws; electronic filing programs; public accessibility; and the usability of state disclosure web sites. States with the best overall campaign finance disclosure programs, in rank order from one to ten, are: Washington; California; Florida; Georgia; Illinois; Michigan; Ohio and Rhode Island (tied); Texas; and Alaska and Kentucky (tied for 10th).
Tennessee was the most-improved state, climbing from 46th place to 27th place, followed by Georgia, which moved up seventeen places to number four, and California, which improved from 9th to 2nd place.
States with the weakest programs, in rank order from 41 to 50, are: Nevada; New Hampshire; Montana; North Dakota; New Mexico and Vermont (tied); Alabama; South Dakota; South Carolina; and Wyoming.
Second open-records “audit” in Indiana reveals violations by local officials
Asked by a reporter posing as an ordinary citizen to provide a log of crime in Carroll County, Ind., a worker at the sheriff’s department responded that the fulfillment of the request would require “an act of God.”
Such official reluctance “demonstrates the uphill fight citizens face in obtaining even the most basic government information paid for with their tax dollars,” The Indianapolis Star reported Sunday, in revealing a second test of public access to government data in Indiana.
Journalists from eight newspapers canvassed Indiana in August, posing as common, unidentified citizens and solicited each county’s officials for four documents legally open to the public — a crime log, a crime incidents report, a list of public employee salaries, and court files on sex offenders. The results indicated that “many public servants still don’t understand the state law that entitles everyone equal access to records,” Star reporters Richard D. Walton and Brendan O’Shaughnessy wrote.
Only 11 of Indiana’s 92 counties provided all four documents to reporters within 24 hours. Unfulfilled were 40 percent of crime-log requests, and 57 percent of crime-incident requests and 34 percent of salary requests. However, the journalists’ requests for court files on sex offenders fared far better. Only five counties did not provide these documents. The results were somewhat better than those in the first audit, in 1997.
Walton and O’Shaughnessy report that sheriffs again were the least likely county officials to comply with records requests, despite having undergone training on making information available to the public only two weeks before the unannounced audit. Sheriff Jim Owens went so far as to threaten to jail the reporter assigned to Rush County if the reporter continued to “intimidate my staff.”
Crawford County Sheriff Richard Scott said his office’s refusal to provide the requested information was brought on by suspicion aroused by the reporter. “Sometimes in a rural community, people come in from out of town,” Scott told the Star. “If the person’s being evasive, it may just be a gut feeling.” Other sheriffs, like Cass County’s Gene Isaacs, cite staff caution about terrorism as a stumbling block to free access. “All of us (are) very edgy and apprehensive anymore with anybody,” he said.
At least 33 states have conducted such audits, said Charles Davis, executive of the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri and chairman of the FOI Committee of the Society of Professional Journalists. Soon there will be at least 34. The Kentucky Press Association conducted an audit in all the state’s 120 counties last week, and the results are pending, KPA says.
“Toothless hillbillies” image of Kentucky is mainly self-imposed, survey finds
Is there a national image that envisions Kentuckians as a bunch of toothless dumb hicks, as portrayed in jokes and comments like those made by Tonight Show host Jay Leno? Not according to an “unscientific survey of
out-of-state businesses, travel writers and others,” The Courier-Journal of Louisville reports today.
The state-sponsored survey found that if those contacted had an opinion about Kentucky, they were as likely to laud the state's natural beauty as to repeat the stereotype. The informal inquiry also concluded that people who live in Kentucky are more likely to believe such remarks.
The story by Mike Lindenberger quotes state Commerce Secretary Jim Host, a former communications czar and media mogul: "People here in Kentucky have been told for so many years that we are backward and unsophisticated and undereducated that they tended to believe it. But at the same time they're willing to fight you if you say something bad about their home state.”
Host is spearheading an effort to brand and market the state saying, “We’re going to build on that, (the survey results) and foster a pride in our state." With a $14 million marketing budget, the Kentucky image campaign is designed to draw more tourists, businesses and residents to the state. State officials plan to unveil the campaign today, complete with a new state slogan and visuals for advertising Kentucky.
Public safety concerns may inhibit rural broadband over power lines
Rural Blog stalwart, former newspaper editor and Kentucky Press Association executive David Greer has brought to our attention some additional information regarding the possibility of rural areas getting better broadband Internet service through power lines, a topic mentioned here last week.
Greer points out that many utilities are unsure about BPL as a successful business model and there is also a significant issue regarding interference to existing licensed radio users, something he underscores was barely touched upon in some recent stories in the issue. For previously unreported details, click here and here.
Greer says BPL can be a source of two-way radio interference, particularly in rural areas that have not switched from low-band VHF radio frequencies used by fire, police and other public safety agencies to newer digital radio systems. “So while BPL might benefit rural areas more than urban areas, those same rural areas could see BPL disrupt their local public safety agencies more than their big city counterparts,” Greer writes. “The big city departments are more likely to have converted to more advanced two-way digital radio systems."
Study shows race and poverty are barriers to mammograms in rural areas
A new study shows breast cancer screening in rural areas is still under-utilized and there are barriers marked by major racial disparities, poor knowledge about breast cancer and screening, difficulty accessing facilities, lack of encouragement and funding.
The study will be published in the Dec. 1 issue of Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society and will be available online. For more information from ACS, click here.
Monday, Oct. 25, 2004
Bush maintains double-digit lead among rural voters in battleground states
President Bush leads John Kerry by 12 percentage points among rural voters in 17 battleground states, according to the final poll taken by the 80-55 Coalition for Rural America and the Center for Rural Strategies.
Bush led 53 to 41 percent, virtually the same margin that he scored in the groups’ last poll, in September. “Kerry's failure to trim it is one reason the presidential race remains close in many of the toss-up states, most of which have significant rural populations,” veteran political writer David Yepsen wrote in yesterday’s Des Moines Register.
The results indicate that the president is headed for re-election, Republican analyst Bill Greener said in a press release from the groups. “President Bush has solidified his vote in the rural areas,” Greener said. “I believe this will be sufficient to tip the scales in several critical states and give the president a victory overall.”
Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg said in the release that the survey showed Kerry continued to do better on economic issues among rural voters, and would gain ground among them “if the discussion moves to economic recovery in rural America.” Yepsen wrote, “According to the poll, Bush leads because rural voters are more optimistic about the economy than the nation as a whole.”
Since September, Kerry gained 7 points among rural blue-collar voters, rising to 50 from 43 percent. Among other detailed findings: Bush got 73 percent of the vote among evangelical Christians, while mainline Protestants and Catholics were about evenly split; gun owners preferred Bush while those without guns preferred Kerry.
Kerry is still competing hard for rural votes, including those of gun owners, said Dee Davis, president of the nonpartisan Center for Rural Strategies. “When I see Kerry out there the other day with a gun cradled over his arm, that's got to tell me rural votes still count,” Davis told Yepsen. “There's got to be some reason they're out there shooting geese. I don't believe it's the suburban goose hunter he was going after.”
Davis noted that rural voters have received more emphasis in the race than four years ago, when Bush enjoyed a strong margin over Al Gore in rural areas. “When we see Bush speaking in front of hay bales and Kerry walking a field with a shotgun cradled in his arm, we get the message that the rural vote is important,” Davis said. “This election could very well be determined in the next few days by the rural margins in a few states.”
The CRS Web site has the memo from Greener and Greenberg and details of the poll, along with those taken in June and September. The latest poll interviewed 513 likely voters on Oct. 19-20 in non-metropolitan counties in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. The poll's margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.
Kerry, in church, appeals to undecided religious voters with message about faith
In "perhaps the most overtly religious speech of the campaign by either candidate," Kerry said Sunday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., he is "a Democrat of deep Christian faith who would unite a pluralistic society and rebuff attempts by his Roman Catholic church to outlaw abortion and stem cell research," Jim VandeHei of The Washington Post reports today. Colleague Mike Allen was in Alamogordo, N.M., where Bush told a crowd of 8,000, "It's good to be in country where the cowboy hats outnumber the ties."
Allen and VandenHei outline the candidates' strategies for the final week: Bush "promoting himself as the war president who can best protect America
The election is a state-by-state contest for electoral votes, and many of the states still up for grabs have large rural populations. "Kerry is leading or tied in three states with the most electoral votes at stake: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. Yet he was forced to adjust his schedule to campaign in Michigan on Monday, where several polls show a closer-than-expected race, and Kerry aides say Bush is gaining ground in Ohio," the Post reports. "Two recent polls taken in Hawaii, a Democratic stronghold where Bush received 37 percent in 2000, shows Bush running even with Kerry; Democrats say Arkansas, once considered a virtual lock for Bush, is tightening and might entice a last-minute appearance by former president Bill Clinton, who will campaign with Kerry in Pennsylvania on Monday and will then go to Florida."
Sen. John Edwards, Kerry's running mate, spoke at the Allen Temple African Methodist Episcopal Church in Cincinnati, where City Councilwoman Laketa Cole "followed 'All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name' with the exhortation to 'Get those Bush-whackers out and bring in a whole new team of leadership!'," reports Greg Korte in today's Cincinnati Enquirer.
Korte writes: "To those who would complain that his church shouldn't get involved in political activity, Allen Temple Pastor Donald H. Jordan Sr. had an answer: 'I'm not worried about the (nonprofits) law. I'm asking you to support him,' he said in introducing Edwards."
Americans United for Separation of Church and State has repeatedly admonished pastors not to make such comments, warning them that their tax exemption as a nonprofit group could be at risk, and has likewise asked them not to circulate "voter guides" distributed by the Christian Coalition, saying the guides are misleading. We again encourage journalists to report on poliical activities by churches. To see the Christian Coalition voter guides, click here.
Farm appropriations could help Bush as candidates target rural voters
As Bush and Kerry push for rural votes in farm states, “Bush has an advantage Kerry doesn't - the federal purse strings,” Philip Brasher of the Des Moines Register wrote Friday, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it was accelerating the distribution of $1.6 billion in payments under a variety of conservation programs. . . . Even before Friday, the USDA had been making regular announcements this month of millions of dollars in grants and loans. On Monday, the department announced it was sending $207 million in conservation funds to Ohio, one of the largest battleground states, to improve water quality.”
“Both sides are appealing to rural votes because the so-called battleground states contain a lot of rural voters," Tom Buis, a lobbyist for the National Farmers Union, which has endorsed Kerry, told Brasher. “We have often lamented before that only during the Iowa caucuses do campaigns talk agriculture issues, and then they move on.” Brasher wrote, “This time, polls show tight races in all three states, and a small shift in the rural vote could be the difference for either candidate.”
Brasher reported that the Agriculture Department usually releases conservation money after Congress passes an appropriations bill for the department, but “this year's budget was passed so late that the distribution was delayed until February, and Congress recessed for the election without finishing the USDA's 2005 appropriations bill.” He quoted Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman: “Releasing the funds earlier . . . gives farmers and ranchers more time to make sound decisions regarding conservation practices.” USDA based the amounts on versions of the pending appropriations bill.
Farmers harvest bounty from federal bonus tax depreciation; GOP may reap votes
While Democrats are targeting agricultural support, hoping to turn those unhappy with the rural economy, the GOP may be harvesting a bounty pf votes from farmers who say they’re living in a “high cotton” economy spurred on by bountiful crops, lofty cattle prices, and bonus depreciation tax breaks.
The Associated Press, in a story about the farm economy in Kansas, says many farmers there are now able to replace aging farm equipment they nursed along during hard years of drought and low prices. One farmer near Wichita says his last harvest allowed him to spend $100,000 on a new combine and other harvest equipment and he recently spent another $20,000 on a new planter. "We would have done it either way, but this deal really helped," said Whitecloud farmer Ken McCauley of the bonus depreciation tax breaks.
The tax incentives have been around since 2002 and were renewed in the last tax bill. Congress approved them to spur business investment during a recession. One farm equipment distributor says when farmers saw the fall harvest would be a good one, they nearly cleaned out all of the used harvesting equipment. He usually carries about 20 used combines, now down to six between his two stores as harvest winds down. He says sales so far this year are up 45 percent over a year ago.
The turnaround in the Kansas farm economy began the summer of 2003 with a near-record wheat harvest. All sectors of the state's huge beef industry improved this year, notwithstanding the mad cow scare. Pork prices rose as the United States substituted more pork to replace banned beef for exports. Milk prices remained surprisingly strong for much of the year. The 2004 wheat harvest, except for drought-plagued northwest Kansas, was generally average throughout most of the state. But fall-harvested crops such as corn, soybeans and sorghum were bountiful almost everywhere this fall.
Highway reconstruction near 212-year-old cemetery prompts protest in Kentucky
A reconstruction project on in front of a cemetery founded in 1792 has raised the ire of residents in Kentucky, who are pointing fingers at Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer and his wife Linda, who has supported historical preservation projects in the state -- including redevelopment of the city of Bloomfield near the road project.
The road work will flatten a hill near the upper entrance of the cemetery, closing the entrance permanently, but state highway officials say the project would not affect the historic integrity of the area. The Kentucky Standard of Bardstown reported thata group of 10 to15 protestors picketed the site recently, carrying signs that read "How many curves on Highway 55 -- Why was this one chosen?" "No money, No voice" and "212 years to create -- one week to destroy." The reconstruction work began Oct. 11.
Opponents of the route have questioned the friendship between Linda Bruckheimer and David Morgam, director of the Kentucky Heritage Council. Morgan told the newspaper that he is friends with hundreds of people across the state with the same interest in preservation.
In late September, a new fund to help preserve historic properties in Kentucky was announced at the opening session of the National Preservation Conference in Louisville. Major donors to the Kentucky Preservation Fund include the Bruckheimers. The fund is to provide matching grants to support preservation projects throughout the state, especially in cases where "seed money" is needed to study the feasibility of preserving endangered structures.
The Rural Calendar
Nov. 3-5: Kentucky Women in Agriculture Conference: A public policy institute and micro-processor workshop will be offered pre-conference on Nov. 3. The conference begins at 9 a.m. EST Nov. 4 and concludes at 2 p.m. Nov. 5 at the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center in Louisville. More information is available online at www.kywomeninag.com, by calling (859) 257-7775 or by emailing Kim Henken at khenken@uky.edu.
Friday, Oct. 22, 2004
Two more Sundays until the election; what are the churches doing?
A week ago, The Rural Blog reported that the mobilization of evangelical voters was broader and more organized than ever, and quoted a religious critic of the Religious Right as saying the effort is “unparalleled in its energy, its sophistication and its stealth nature.” We’re not saying it’s stealthy, but we do not think political activity among people of faith, on both the right and left, has been covered as much as it should have been at the grass roots -- by community media who know the landscape and have the best access to churches and other religious groups.
Especially in the 11 states that will be voting on constitutional amendments against same-sex marriage, churches and their clergy are more active than ever, and they are making news. We think rural journalists should cover them, even to the extent of listening to sermons by politically active pastors of large congregations. (When your blogger went to church to cover a politician, he felt no obligation to notify anyone of his presence. When he did so to cover the clergy, he felt obliged to introduce himself to someone greeting visitors. You may disagree, and individual situations will differ.)
With the exception of personal appearances by politicians in churches (largely Democrats appearing before African Americans), the most visible form of political activity in churches is often the distribution of “voter guides” by the Christian Coalition, state affiliates of the Focus on the Family organization, and other groups. These guides have long been criticized as misleading, and this year is no exception.
For example, Sen. John Kerry did not answer the Coalition’s questionnaire, but the group’s voter guide lists responses for him on 10 items, based on his votes or public statements, and “no response” for the other five. That gives the impression that Kerry answered some questions but not others, such as one about funding of faith-based organizations. “In fact, Kerry announced several weeks ago that he supports faith-based funding as long as constitutional safeguards are observed,” said Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a leading critic of the Coalition.
“These guides are clearly partisan propaganda,” the Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said in a press release. “Any church that distributes the Christian Coalition's literature is advancing a political agenda and endangering its tax exemption. It is also participating in political dirty tricks, something no house of worship should be involved with.”
Americans United says it has delivered that warning in letters to 80,000 churches, but the James Madison Center for Free Speech, based in Terre Haute, Ind., disagrees, and says AU is trying to “silence churches and pastors about the great social and moral issues of our time” and is offering free legal advice to churches and clergy on the issue. The Coalition has defended its guides, saying they are truthful.
While the Coalition's guides have created the most controversy, those distributed by Focus on the Family’s state affiliates may reach more people, because they are readily available on the Internet, are distributed at retail outlets and other non-church locations, and even published in local newspapers as news, not advertising. To see the guides, click here.
Analysis
The Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues examined voter guides from several affiliates of Focus on the Family, with special focus on those from Kentucky and North Carolina, two of the states in which academic partners of the Institute are located.
In some cases, the Minnesota Family Institute guide on the presidential race defines issues in shorthand favorable to Bush, much like the Christian Coalition guides. For example, its first issue is a ban on partial-birth abortion, which Congress has already passed. The guide says Kerry opposed the ban, but does not add a countervailing fact -- that he said he would have voted for the ban if it included an exception to protect the health of the mother.
The North Carolina Family Policy Council guide is evenhanded, though some candidates objected to its final question, “Should an individual’s personal religious beliefs influence the decisions he or she makes while serving in public office?” In our opinion, this is not a question well suited to one of the three answers the council allowed – yes, no, or undecided – because the more important question may be how those beliefs influence decisions.
The Family Trust Foundation of Kentucky guide contains no such question and allows candidates to indicate their degree of support or opposition, and add a brief comment. While the selection of issues reflects the group’s cultural concerns, its guides have been notable for their evenhandedness. However, this year’s edition pushes the group’s arguments in favor of a ballot proposal that would elevate Kentucky’s existing ban on same-sex marriage to the state constitution and deny legal recognition to relationships similar to marriage. It says a “no” vote would “help create same-sex marriage in Kentucky,” a highly unlikely possibility given the state’s cultural conservatism, in our opinion. For a more balanced description, prepared by the staff of the General Assembly, click here.
For our researchers’ detailed analysis of the Kentucky and North Carolina guides, click here.
Sinclair program set to run on stations tonight; Kerry won't participate
Here's the final chapter, we hope, in the saga of Sinclair Broadcast Group and the film attacking John Kerry for his Vietnam War protests, with boiled-down sumamries and links from SPJ Press Notes:
Sinclair said its special, A POW Story: Politics, Pressure and the Media, will focus "in part on the use of documentaries and other media to influence voting, which emerged during the 2004 political campaigns, as well as on the content of certain of these documentaries," Doug Halonen wrote in TV Week. Kerry declined Sinclair's invitation to participate, with a campaign spokesman saying, "Sinclair's latest spin on this premeditated political attack is just a panicked attempt to appear fair and reasonable."
Sinclair's plan " was the latest example of a disturbing trend: ideological programming that blurs the old distinction between news and opinion," Christopher Hanson wrote in the Baltimore Sun. "Reporters who have left the network complain that news stories were edited to reinforce themes of the commentary," which is conservative. But the Wall Street Journal editorialized that "the liberals in the media might . . . eventually rue the day" because the reaction to the company's initial plan went beyond advertiser boycotts to another form of economic pressure, the threat of a shareholder lawsuit. Sinclair has 62 stations, more than any other group, and a large rural audience.
Nebraska funding inequities impede school children's performance
In a study mirroring legal and government reviews of schools in other predominantly rural and poverty stricken states, a Nebraska review of its schools, recently released, has reached similar conclusions; that students in poor, ethically mixed and under-funded systems do not perform as well as their more well-heeled counterparts.
A national non-profit rural education organization, called The Rural School and Community Trust, concluded that Nebraska school systems with the lowest test scores serve a greater number of students facing socio-economic barriers to academic achievement and had to teach them with fewer dollars.
The study says that while these students face greater challenges, they have a lower local property tax base producing less revenue, receive less funding overall, spend less on teachers and less overall per pupil. The study’s author and Rural Trust state policies studies manager, Jerry Johnson, who is based in Ashland, Ky, says, “Money matters, and in Nebraska, not enough money is going where it is needed most.”
The study also concluded the lowest achieving schools serve communities with more students who live in poverty, lower household incomes, fewer adults with high school diplomas, more students still learning English, and more minority students. The three-year inquiry compared funding and students in 256 Nebraska school systems. The three largest systems, and five of the smallest were excluded to balance the data and demographics compared.
Five model small high schools in poverty-stricken rural areas and small towns in the South, including two in Kentucky, are beating the odds to outperform most other schools in their states, according to the Rural School and Community Trust. They area: Central High School, in Lowndes County, Ala., Frederick Fraize High School, Cloverport, Ky, Sicily Island High School, Sicily Island, La., Shaw High School, Shaw, Miss. and Phelps Jr./Sr.
High school in Phelps, Ky.
A 15 page report on the study’s results was prepared by a Southern Rural High School Study Initiative sponsored by the Southern Governor’s Association and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Beating the Odds is available online at www.ruraledu.org.
In a similar Kentucky education reform movement, some fifteen years ago, a state study, resulting public outcry and legislative response led to passage of the Kentucky Education Reform Act signed into law in 1990. KERA is seen as the impetus for test score improvements throughout the 90s. As in Kentucky, the Nebraska reforms were prompted by lawsuits.
Small, rural schools forced to drop football because of declining enrollments
"As rural schools across Montana slowly lose students, venerable athletic programs are at risk," Great Falls Tribune Sports Editor George Giese reported from Chinook, on the plains about 30 miles south of the Canadian border, where "Friday nights aren't as noisy or as bright as they used to be . . . This is the first autumn in the history of Chinook High School that the Sugarbeeters aren't fielding a varsity football team. Keeping students enthused about football is one problem. But the biggest concern is the high school's rapidly falling enrollment."
Giese wrote, "Chinook is among the many rural towns in Montana struggling to maintain its population. The town shrank about 8 percent from 1990 to 2000, from 1,512 to 1,386, according to U.S. Census figures. But — as is the case elsewhere as Baby Boomers age — school enrollment dropped more dramatically. . . . While many small towns in northern and eastern Montana struggle to maintain their populations, it's extremely rare for Class B schools — with enrollments roughly between 130 and 330 students — to fold up a varsity football program. . . . School officials were concerned for the safety of an undermanned team that would be playing against opponents with 40 to 80 players on their rosters." The school may drop to Class C and play eight-man football.
Omaha farm credit bank drops plans to leave system and sell to Dutch bank
Farm Credit Services of America has backed out of an agreement to merge with a privately held Dutch bank because, FCS says, delays and criticism quashed the deal. The Omaha bank's plan to sell to Rabobank would have taken it out of the national cooperative farm loan system, the first departure since the 1980s.
FCS had announced its intention to merge with Rabobank to free itself from the federal system's restrictions on lending. Those restrictions, among other things, bar offering home loans in communities with populations over 2,500. Congressional members sounded an alarm, claiming one member leaving might jeopardize the entire system, created by Congress in 1916 to ensure farmers and ranchers have a reliable credit source.
Biologists concerned about decline of bobwhite quail populations in Southeast
The bobwhite quail is disappearing in the Southeast but could come back -- and boost rural economies -- "if landowners are willing to make changes in the way they manage their crops and timber to protect the birds' habitat, biologists say," Elliott Minor of The Associated Press reported from Ashburn, Ga., at a field day devoted to the restoration of Georgia's official game bird.
Quail have declined as they have lost habitat, "primarily from development and modern farming practices, for a 70 percent drop in the Southeast's quail population over the past 20 years," Minor wrote. "Biologists cite the elimination of hedgerows and weedy strips between fields, and the reliance on pesticides that don't discriminate between true crop pests and bugs that quail eat." Biologists said quail "need three things: weeds, briars and bugs," but they can coexist with " common Southern crops such as corn, peanuts and cotton."
Georgia offers financial incentives for landowners in 15 of the state's 159 counties to develop, restore or maintain quail habitat. "We are losing $45 million a year associated with quail hunting," said Reggie Thackston, a Georgia Department of Natural Resources biologist who directs the program. There are environmental concerns, too. "Quail are an indicator species," Thackston said. "Where quail are in decline, all the other species are declining in that environment."
Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia lead nation in obesity; rurality a factor
Trust for America’s Health, a Washington-based group seeking more emphasis on disease prevention, released a report this week that ranked the states in obesity, diabetes and hypertension. Five states with large rural populations were the most obese: Alabama, Mississippi, West Virginia, Indiana and Kentucky, in that order.
Mississippi had the worst overall rating for the three measurements, ranking first in diabetes and second in hypertension. West Virginia was third in diabetes and second in hypertension. Trust for America's Health says "obesity is the cause of 400,000 deaths each year and is poised to overtake tobacco use as the leading cause of preventable death," said a story in today's Tuscaloosa News.
"CDC data has shown a steadily growing obesity problem in Alabama, Mississippi and West Virginia, said Dr. Monica Baskin, assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s School of Public Health," News Washington Correspondent Bonnie Gibbs wrote.
"What’s similar in those three states is that they all tend to have large rural areas," Baskin told the News. “People have limited access to physical activity; they don’t have as good access to medical care. Then there are the diet patterns of people from the South: the carbohydrates, the fried foods, cakes, things with added sugar. That perhaps may help explain the obesity."
Free “Medicare and Medicine on Main Street” journalism workshop in St. Louis
The Foundation for American Communications is presenting a free workshop for journalists on changes in health-care economics. Some of the nation's foremost academics and health experts make up the faculty.
Government reporters, health reporters, science writers and business editors are encouraged to attend this workshop, presented by FACS in association with the Society of Professional Journalists and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The workshop is scheduled to begin with a continental breakfast at 8:30 Monday, Nov. 15, and conclude at 3:30 p.m.
Some of the issues to be presented: Understanding the Shifting Economics of Medicine; Impact and Cost of New Treatments; Understanding How the New Medicare Rules Affect Local Consumers; and The Rising Cost of Drugs: Pharmaceutical Maker vs. Distributor vs. Seller vs. Consumer.
The distinguished faculty include Elliot K. Fishman, M.D., FACR, Professor of Radiology and Oncology, The Johns Hopkins Hospital; Director, Diagnostic Imaging and Body CT, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; David Webster, Ph.D., a pharmaceutical economist and president of a consulting firm that works with the industry; Lanis Hicks, Ph.D., Director of the Health Services Management Program, University of Missouri and Harry Moody, Ph.D., Director of Academic Affairs for AARP, Washington, DC and author of over 100 articles and book chapters on aging.
There is no cost for the workshop, which includes lunch, but registration is required. To get further information and to register, go http://www.facsnet.org or call FACS at 626-584-0010.
Thursday, Oct. 21, 2004
Battle for rural voters continues to rage as presidential race hurtles to a climax
Rural voters remain a focus of the presidential campaign, as many stories this week around the country have noted. Tomorrow, the Rural Blog will offer analysis and ideas for covering some grass-roots activities.
A Minneapolis Star Tribune story by Rene Sanchez began with activists for Preident Bush in Wisconcsin “deluging dairy farmers with phone calls,” except at milking time, and said “the same grass-roots battle is raging across rural America.” Sanchez explains: “Strategists in both campaigns have little doubt that Bush will win the rural vote, which is about a quarter of the national electorate. But both sides say he may have to win big, as he did in 2000, and that might not be easy.”
Polls in rural areas of 17 battleground states for the Center for Rural Strategies showed Bush leading by 8 percentage points in June and by 13 in mid-September. The center, with offices in Whitesburg, Ky., and Norris, Tenn., plans to release its final poll on Saturday.
Star Tribune Washington correspondent Kevin Diaz wrote yesterday that the election “could be decided by a handful of farm states, including Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. Although farmers are a dwindling voting bloc in the United States, some of the most crucial turf in the remaining weeks of the election is in farm country.” Diaz’s story examines the candidates’ records and stands on farm issues.
Last night, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reports today, Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards told voters in northeast Minnesota’s Iron Range that he and Kerry would “preserve our rural way of life,” including “ your ability to hunt and fish is protected; making sure that you can go in the national parks and national forests and ride on a snowmobile.”
This morning, Kerry drove home the point about guns, and tried to blunt his 'F' rating by the National Rifle Association, by shooting geese in eastern Ohio. Lois Romano of The Washington Post reports from the field, "Kerry also has been talking about his Catholic faith more, and on Sunday he will give a speech on values. Guns and hunting rights are a big issue in the middle of the country -- and in a number of the battleground states where the race is closest."
The main regions up for grabs in Ohio are the rural southeast and the Columbus area, and both campaigns are anxious to know which one the Columbus Dispatch will endorse, if either. The Dispatch has not backed a Democrat in any Presidential election since Woodrow Wilson's victory in 1916, but "Our endorsement is up for grabs," Editor Ben Marrison told Editor and Publisher.
After a series of editorials that criticized both candidates but were tougher on Bush, the Dispatch and Publisher John F. Wolfe are believed to be wavering in their support for the president. The final endorsement, likely to appear in this Sunday's edition, could wield major influence in the treasured battleground state of Ohio, E&P says.
Newspapers vocal on national candidates while silent on key FOI issues
A Editor and Publisher story by Mark Fitzgerald, citing E&P’s exclusive tally of presidential endorsements, says the nearly 90 dailies it surveyed had endorsed either President George W. Bush or Sen. John Kerry, unusually passionately, but says Fitzgerald, “You'll search pretty much in vain for any mention of the issues that directly impact the historic mission of newspapers to tell American citizens fairly, fearlessly, and frankly what their national government is doing in their name.”
The article decries a scarcity of discussion on key journalism issues such as“Attorney General John Ashcroft's order to bureaucrats that turns federal Freedom of Information (FOI) law on its head by requiring citizens to prove to government why information must be public, rather than putting that burden on government, where it belongs.”
Fitzgerald’s report, What's Sadly Missing from All Those Presidential Endorsements, says they found little newspaper discussion of how the Patriot Act has removed whole areas of public information from public scrutiny. E&P says it did not find a single editorial about whether L. Paul Bremer III, the chief of the former American occupation authority, was right to issue censorship rules for the Iraqi press and enforce them by shutting down several newspapers. The Iraqi insurgency intensified after Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr's paper was closed.
Fitzgerald did find some notable exceptions. He wrote, “It's heartening to see the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE) pressing the Bush and Kerry campaigns to answer its questionnaire on freedom of information issues, even though the organization was stiffed the last time around by both George W. Bush and Al Gore. E&P drew particular attention to Steve Key, the general counsel for the Hoosier State Press Association, who lays out practical tips for assessing a candidate's position on FOI and other openness issues. It says Key’s advice is valuable because it concentrates on evaluating local candidates, whose attitudes towards government transparency have the most immediate impact on the average citizen.
SPJ questions Sinclair ethics, praises employee who objected to anti-Kerry film
The Society of Professional Journalists said today that it supports the former chief of Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Washington bureau “for having the courage to stand up to his employer’s questionable ethics.” Jon Lieberman was fired after telling the Baltimore Sun that he disagreed with Sinclair’s decision to incorporate an anti-Kerry film into a news broadcast on its stations.
Sinclair’s stock price rebounded “after it appeared to reduce how much of the film it would show tomorrow night, Bill Carter wrote in The New York Times today.
Meanwhile, Arizona Sen. John McCain said when asked about the controversy, “This is an issue that results when you have media concentration, which I have been opposed to." He noted at a fund-raiser for Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., that Sinclair has more stations, 62, than any other group, the Philadelphia Inquirer said.
Terry Anderson seeks legacy as a state legislator in rural southeastern Ohio
Terry Anderson, best known as the Associated Press correspondent whom Islamic radicals held hostage for nearly seven years, is running for the state Senate as a Democrat in southeastern Ohio. Anderson “is editing his obituary,” writes Carl Chancellor of the Akron Beacon Journal:
"Obit writers are pretty stubborn people, and I know the first line they will write about me will start out: Terry Anderson, ex-hostage," said Anderson, who once wrote obits. "I'm hoping to do something with the rest of my life to at least push that (ex-hostage) down to the second paragraph."
Chancellor’s story was circulated by Knight-Ridder Newspapers. The headline for it in the Kansas City Star read, “Terry Anderson seeks legacy of rural public servant over foreign hostage.”
Diverse rural Hispanic vote not on last-minute presidential battleground circuit
The Hispanic vote in some rural areas, according to a recent article in the California Hispanic newspaper Vida en el Valle (Life in the Valley) reflects the diverse views of this fastest growing ethnic group in the U. S. While many of these areas are not the focus of last minute campaigns in key "battleground" states, indications are that voter turnout, uninspired in the primary, cannot be taken for granted by major political parties Nov. 2.
The story focuses on the southern California community of Culter-Orosi, which sits in Tulare County between Visalia and Dinuba, a predominately Latino area with 15,000 residents. The Tulare County Registar of Voters office reports about half the area's 4,000 registered votes went to the polls in the March primary.
Reporter Luz Pena focuses on residents Romelia Castillo, a local school board candidate, who is leaning toward presidential nominee John Kerry and Erika Halo who says she will vote for Bush because of his strong family values. Castillo is critical of President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq. Pea reports many rural Hispanic voters are keenly aware of issues and races from the local to the national level.
The Rural Calendar
Dozens of rural lenders, developers, investors and representatives of cities and counties in Ohio are expected to gather in Bellville, Ohio, tomorrow to hear experts discuss resources and strategies for economic development and housing investment in the Buckeye State's rural communities. Congressmen Mike Oxley and Bob Ney, respectively, will introduce panels on rural development and investment, and affordable housing resources. The luncheon speaker, Deputy Agriculture Secretary James Moseley, will address rural policy issues. For details, go to http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041018/clm115_1.html.
Wednesday, Oct. 20, 2004
Towns consider suing companies that got tax breaks, then took jobs elsewhere
Tim Egan, rural correspondent for The New York Times, writes today about “losers in the increasingly cutthroat game of using tax breaks to keep or attract jobs,” Galesburg, Ill. and Putnam County, Fla. “Across the country, communities are competing with one another to offer the most lucrative incentives to lure good payrolls, from the giant assembly jobs at Boeing to small centers for processing credit cards, despite some studies that question the effectiveness of such tactics.” For the full story, click here.
Putnam County “gave $4.5 million in cash and tax breaks to attract a call center owned by Sykes Enterprises, only to have it pull up stakes this month after less than five years in Palatka,” Egan reports.
In Galesburg, the district attorney “wants to sue Maytag to recoup what he says were excess tax breaks in a broad package of incentives to keep the company here. Much of the money, he said, came from a purse that would have gone to schools in this economically fragile community,” Egan writes. “ Maytag says it honored its agreement and took just the breaks to which it was entitled.”
Galesburg residents are divided on then issue, worrying that they might scare off other employers. “Residents say the current civic gut check may determine whether the town becomes another casualty of the force that has devastated communities throughout much of Middle America,” Egan reports.
“Next door in Iowa, officials are keeping one eye on the fight while trying to determine whether they should try to recoup up to $25 million in public money given to business partnerships that have not lived up to their agreements to increase employment. In New York, State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi said in an audit this year that a program that gives millions of dollars in tax breaks to businesses that promise to create work ended up rewarding some businesses that lost jobs. Other state officials disputed those findings.”
New York Times takes note of proposed change in bank-examination rules
On the last day for people to submit formal comments on the proposal, The New York Times ran a story today about the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s plan to change bank-examination rules under the Community Reinvestment Act -- a move that would exempt most banks from the current requirements and, advocates for rural residents say, reduce lending in rural and low-income areas. The Times follows the lead of National Public Radio, which did a story yesterday, and The Rural Blog, which has covered this story since the blog's inception in August.
The Times story says in part, "The law's detractors say that while the Community Reinvestment Act may have initially been a well-intentioned response to limits on loans in poor neighborhoods, it has become irrelevant because small banks now recognize that community reinvestment is critical for their survival. In addition, these critics point out that through consolidation and inflation, the average size of banks has grown since the law's inception, so that the change does not substantially affect the amount of bank assets covered by the law."
Reporter David Chen says the debate has reached the presidential race, with John Kerry saying he strongly opposes the changes and accusing the Bush administration of choosing "favors for special interests over opportunity for millions of average Americans." . Chen adds, "Vice President Cheney demurred when asked about the proposed changes in August at a campaign rally in Iowa."
Bush honing rural message and keeping focus on rural voters
Voters in the heartland, especially so-called Gore Country Democrats, can expect a more tailored message from the Bush/Cheney campaign, according to a major campaign strategist.
Reporting on a conference call with Matthew Dowd, the Duluth News Tribune says, “The campaign the campaign will be further honing its message for rural voters.”
Dowd told the paper, "We think rural issues are a very big part of our constituency. Over the course of the next 10 days, you will be hearing more specific communications."
Bush and Vice President Cheney plan to spend two-thirds or more of their remaining time in "Gore states," or states such as Minnesota that voted for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore in 2000, Dowd said.
Sinclair says only parts of anti-Kerry film will be shown, and not on all its stations
Sinclair Broadcast Group says some 40 of its 62 television stations, many of which have a large rural audience, will not run in its entirety a documentary critical of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry’s antiwar activities after he returned form Vietnam, and that it was never its intention that the stations do so, as has been reported, CNN.Com reports today.
However, a Washington Post story today says the company changed its plans "under mounting political, legal and financial pressure" and quoted CEO David Smith: "The experience of preparing to air this news special has been trying for many of those involved. ... The company and many of its executives have endured personal attacks of the vilest nature, as well as calls on our advertisers and our viewers to boycott our stations and on our shareholders to sell their stock."
Sinclair issued the clarification after two weeks of intense criticism from Democrats, threats of advertising boycotts and license challenges, and the company’s own Washington bureau chief, who was fired Monday following his criticism of running the film as part of a news program,.
CNN reports Sinclair says its intentions are to air a special news program, called "A POW Story," that will include the documentary's allegations against Kerry in a "broader discussion." The 40 Sinclair stations that will air the program include stations in the presidential swing states of Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin.
For more details and links to other stories on the Sinclair flap, go to SPJ Press Notes at www.spj.org. For a Baltimore Sun story debriefing the Washington bureau chief about his career at Sinclari, click here.
Bush’s secret weapon? The Scots-Irish, says their most recent biographer
James Webb, a former secretary of the Navy and the author of Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, wrote in a column in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal that the key to President Bush’s electoral success is his appeal to one of America’s largest ethnic groups but possibly its most ill-defined -- the Scots-Irish, perhaps 30 million strong.
We think it’s somewhat broader than that, but first we’ll let Webb recount the human geography of his people: “The overwhelming majority -- 95% -- migrated to the Appalachians in a series of frontier communities that stretched from Pennsylvania to northern Alabama and Georgia. They eventually became the dominant culture of the South and much of the Midwest. … The Scots-Irish comprised a large percentage of Reagan Democrats, and contributed heavily to the "red state" votes that gave Mr. Bush the presidency in 2000. The areas with the highest Scots-Irish populations include New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, northern Florida, Mississippi, Arkansas, northern Louisiana, Missouri, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, southern Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and parts of California, particularly Bakersfield. "factory belt," especially around Detroit, also has a strong Scots-Irish mix. The Scots-Irish political culture is populist and inclusive, which has caused other ethnic groups to gravitate toward it. Country music is its cultural emblem. It is family-oriented. Its members are values-based rather than economics-based: they often vote on emotional issues rather than their pocketbooks.”
In our view, Webb’s broad description includes not just the Scots-Irish but the Borderers of Northern England, who fought and intermarried with the Scots before their waves of migration to and from Northern Ireland. One of Webb’s prime sources, the 1989 book Albion’s Seed by David Hackett Fisher, says in a footnote on p. 609 that the early estimates of Scots-Irish immigration to America were inflated by the inclusion of “Anglo-Irish, Anglo-Scots, or English Borderers.” Fisher said these people created the culture of the "Backcountry," one of four great folkways that shaped America. The others were the Puritans of New England, the Royalists or Cavaliers of Virginia (some of whom made it to the Kentucky Bluegrass) and the Quakers of Pennsylvania and the mid-Atlantic.
Webb glancingly acknowledges that point as he reminds us that the Backcountry people created a distinct culture that remains a strong force in America. “The Bush campaign proceeds outward from a familiar mantra: strong leadership, success in war, neighbor helping neighbor, family values, and belief in God. Contrary to many analyses, these issues reach much farther than the oft-discussed Christian Right. The president will not win re-election without carrying the votes of the Scots-Irish, along with those others (emphasis added) who make up the "Jacksonian" political culture that has migrated toward the values of this ethnic group. At the same time, few key Democrats seem even to know that the Scots-Irish exist, as this culture is so adamantly individualistic that it will never overtly form into one of the many interest groups that dominate Democratic Party politics. Indeed, it can be fairly said that Al Gore lost in 2000 because the Democrats ignored this reality and the Scots-Irish enclaves of West Virginia and Tennessee turned against him.”
Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2004
NPR profiles plight of rural needy in light of proposed bank-exam rule change
A story today on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” explored the impact of the federal Community Reinvestment Act's requirement to serve "rural and low-income places" and proposed changes in bank-examination regulations under the act, which are favored by banks and opposed by activists in such areas. The comment period for the regulations expires tomorrow.
The NPR report focused on Iberia Parish, La., where a 47-year-old single mother who works as a clerk in a thrift store says CRA-encouraged loans enabled her to afford a new three bedroom, two bath home. Otherwise, the woman told reporter Howard Berkes, she “probably never” would have been able to purchase the house. “I had no savings, no down payment, no nothing, nothing to back me up,” she said. The report said federal projects, local community groups and local banks (encouraged by the CRA) have helped finance 150 such homes for south Louisiana low-income families over the past 30 years.
The CRA requires rural banks to offer service, make loans, and invest in poor and rural places. Under the rule proposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., most FDIC-regulated banks could choose among the categories. They would not have to focus on poor or minority areas, and would have less paperwork.
Iberia Parish community activist Lorna Borg calls the CRA “the bear in the room” when she goes to banks for help for the poor. “Take that bear out of the room and the president of the bank cannot go to his board or his stockholders and say ‘the Bear’ made me do it,” she told Berkes. “The Bear has made a real big difference,” Borg said. Without the stricter CRA requirements now in place, banks would have to give into pressure from investors to produce greater short-term profits, she said.
However, a L