(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what's goin' down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin' gets done and where our conversations are short and sweet.

We begin in Wisconsin, which is rid of Scott Walker. Unfortunately, he left his pet legislature behind, and it is behaving like the pack of jackasses it's been for over a decade now. Everybody got together this week and they found themselves—for the second year in a row!—fighting over a resolution celebrating Black History Month. The reason is...bananas. From the Capital-Times in Madison:

Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, R-Kaukauna, said Assembly Republicans objected to the inclusion of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and Milwaukee Pastor Greg Lewis in a resolution authored by the members of the Black Caucus. "Colin Kaepernick is obviously a controversial figure," Steineke said, adding that the Assembly should be "all in agreement" on anyone its members honor.

I don't want to break it to Assistant Majority Leader Steineke, but many important figures in the civil rights movement were so controversial that they got shot in the head and also blown up and also hung from trees. Being "controversial" was sort of the point, actually. All Kaepernick did was kneel down. Personally, I blame the Packers for this.

(Also, according to the 2010 census, Kaukauna is 97 percent white. Just thought I'd mention it.)

Jim Steineke Scott Bauer/AP/REX/Shutterstock

From there we move east to West Virginia, where a Republican state legislator named Eric Porterfield made a name for himself all over the Intertoobz because he intimated that, were any of his children gay, he might drown them. Porterfield already is on record with some anti-gay sentiments that seem to come from the Planet Zongo. From the Charleston Gazette-Mail:

Delegate Eric Porterfield, R-Mercer, made the comments after calling a reporter to discuss a report in Friday’s Gazette-Mail. That report detailed a flurry of criticism House Democrats aimed at Porterfield on Thursday in response to an inflammatory anti-gay and lesbian rant he delivered in committee Wednesday. “The LGBTQ is a modern day version of the Ku Klux Klan, without wearing hoods with their antics of hate,” Porterfield said in an interview Friday morning. He also called the gay community a “terrorist group” and said he is being “persecuted” by the gay community in retaliation for his remarks, including receiving threats on Facebook and voicemails.

On Wednesday, he used the anti-gay slur “f----t” in a committee meeting, within the context of quoting the name of a speaking tour that uses the term in its title. In an extended soliloquy at the hearing, he criticized the LGBTQ community while arguing in support of an amendment. The amendment, which was voted down, would have allowed for the discrimination of gay and lesbian people in cities that have passed ordinances expressly forbidding it. State law does not currently protect gay people from discrimination in housing, employment and other areas.

“The LGBT is the most socialist group in this country,” he said. “They do not protect gays. There are many gays they persecute if they do not line up with their social ideology.”

Some people are just walking radio talk-shows, aren't they? I'm surprised Porterfield didn't name one of his kids, "Bob On A Car Phone."

Eric Porterfield in all his glory WVLEGISLATURE.GOV

Of course, in response to the outrage arising from the above remarks, Porterfield somehow found room in the cosmos to be even crazier. From WVVA:

“I will address my daughter first. I would take her for a pedicure. I’d take her to get her nails done and see if she could swim. If it was my son, I would probably take him hunting. I would take him fishing and see if he could swim.”

“What do you mean you would see if they could swim?”

“I just want to make sure they could swim."

(In last fall's elections for the West Virginia House of Delegates, in District 27, Eric Porterfield got 21 percent of the vote in a six-way race and finished second. Just thought I'd mention that, too.)

We move on out to Utah, where we get our customary dose of Ni shagu nazad Republicanism as a dude tries to find a clever-dick way to tunnel under the 17th Amendment, by which we have direct elections of our U.S. senators. From UtahPolicy.com:

Currently, if there’s a midterm vacancy for U.S. Senator, the central committee of the political party that holds the seat nominates three possible replacement, and the governor appoints one of them to fill the seat until the next election. McCay’s bill takes the responsibility for picking possible replacements away from the political party and gives it to the legislature. Instead of three nominees, lawmakers will send only one name to the governor to fill the vacancy.

McCay says the change brings the selection of U.S. Senators closer to what the Founding Fathers wanted when they framed the Constitution as state legislatures elected U.S. Senators until the 17th Amendment went into effect in 1913. “It brings us back to what we did before the 17th Amendment,” said McCay. “It makes our representatives in Washington more responsive to lawmakers back home.” Utah was the only state to reject the 17th Amendment when it came up for ratification.

See? Here's the thing about that whole ratification business. When enough states ratify an amendment, it becomes part of the Constitution whether your state voted for it or not. This was a provision put into place by the Founding Fathers as well. You don't get to monkey-fck around with it through your state's laws, either. The FFs had that covered, too. Boy, between this dude and konztitooshunal skolar Mike Lee, Utah's got some creative wingnuts, for sure. Talk about your unoriginal intent.

Daniel McCay Rick Bowmer/AP/REX/Shutterstock

Scooting on down to Alabama, we find that state's penal system to be a chain of House of Horrors franchises. From the folks at the Equal Justice Initiative:

On Sunday, the third incarcerated Alabama homicide victim in the last six weeks died from complications and inadequate medical care. This marks the 22nd homicide within Alabama prisons in the last two years and the 12th murder since 2018, a staggering homicide rate that is 10 times the national average. No significant reforms have been implemented to improve safety in the state's prisons during this time period and a serious crisis continues.

Jamie Prim, age 34, died Sunday due to complications from a serious assault at Fountain Correctional Facility in June 2018 that left him with a traumatic brain injury and paralysis. Mr. Prim was incarcerated for nonviolent offenses and was granted parole on November 29, 2018, to live under the care of his sister in Baldwin County. Mr. Prim died before the Alabama Department of Corrections could process his release.

I think that the least we can expect from our prison systems is that they do a better job keeping people alive.

In the immediate aftermath of his assault at Fountain, doctors were hopeful that he could avoid permanent paralysis and regain motor function with physical therapy. However, Mr. Prim – who was classified for a minimum custody work release facility – was sent to St. Clair Correctional Facility, where EJI filed a class action lawsuit in 2014 following the failure of the Alabama Department of Corrections to protect men at the prison. At St. Clair, Mr. Prim had no access to therapeutic care and his condition worsened. He sustained further injuries to his brain after allegedly falling out of a bed at the prison, developed large bed sores, and had fluid in his lungs. Mr. Prim was admitted to Brookwood Hospital as a result of these complications and died there on February 10, 2019.

I hope this guy's family ends up owning the state of Alabama.

a courtroom in Oklahoma Buyenlarge Getty Images

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Gullywhomper Friedman of the Plains brings us the news of the arrival of a genuinely terrible idea. From Oklahoma Watch:

Oklahoma district attorneys have more than $56 million in uncollected fees on their books and are being advised they should hire collection agencies to go after offenders to recover more of the debt. But district attorneys are balking at the recommendation, made by private auditors, because the prospect of collecting a lot of the money is uncertain – and aggressive collections could conflict with criminal justice reform efforts intended to shift their offices and the courts away from depending on fines and fees. Reform advocates say heavy fees and fines have trapped offenders in debt loads that are difficult or impossible to erase and can lead former inmates to re-offend and end up back in prison.

If you really want people to hate their government, put it together with debt collectors and see where that gets you. (My buddies—and beloved movie characters—at the Boston Globe's Spotlight Team wrote a great series a while back that will give you a good idea why this would be the case.) What's next? Payday lenders at the state treasury?

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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