(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states where, as you know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done, and where it’s the same old rat race and life’s in the same old cage.

We begin in Alabama, where there’s good and there’s bad, which, for Alabama, is a fine day’s batting average. First, the good. Civil forfeiture is a deep cancer on our criminal justice system which punishes people before conviction, and which also is a massive invitation to massive corruption in local law enforcement. Alabama is particularly ripe for it, as this report from the Southern Poverty Law Center shows.

The review of court records in 1,100 cases involving civil asset forfeiture in 14 Alabama counties in 2015 found that in a quarter of the cases, the person whose property was seized was never charged with a crime in connection with the civil forfeiture action. The property owner lost 84 percent of those cases against people who were not charged with related crimes, yielding more than $676,000 for law enforcement agencies.

Nice work if you can get it. Anyway, some Alabama legislators have stepped up on the issue and filed a bill that fairly reeks of common sense.

The legislation, which is co-sponsored by state Sen. Arthur Orr (R-Decatur) and Rep. Arnold Mooney (R-Birmingham), would abolish civil asset forfeiture in Alabama in the absence of a criminal conviction. "I thought we had always required a criminal conviction before seizing someone's property. I wasn't aware that wasn't the case until two years ago, and that's the reason I filed a bill last year and why I intend to do so again this year," Orr told AL.com Thursday. "My bill will first require a criminal conviction, and that's extremely important to have." The legislation would also ensure that there is a clear, efficient mechanism for innocent property owners to challenge civil asset forfeiture, and would require agencies to report all seizures and release information about how forfeited proceeds are spent. Two other states have already passed similar laws in recent years.

But, Alabama giveth and then Alabama taketh away. Remember last month, when they had the special election, and Democratic candidate Doug Jones won because the state’s wingnut constituency nominated Roy Moore (R-Food Court) to be the Republican candidate? This was widely viewed as a problem by the state’s Republicans. The obvious solution is to convince your voters not to nominate troglodytes. But, no, they decided on another strategy to avoid special elections that go sideways on them.

No more special elections!

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From USA TODAY:

House Bill 17 passed Tuesday on a largely party-line vote with a two-thirds majority of the state House — where Republicans hold two-thirds of the seats — and now moves to the state Senate, where Democrats make up about 1 in 5 lawmakers. It would allow a governor's appointee for U.S. Senate to serve until the next general election.

But, of course, this is not about disenfranchising all those voters who came out for Jones. Oh, no. This is all about…fiscal responsibility!

The bill will save the state costs of a special election, said its sponsor, state Rep. Steve Clouse, a Republican from Ozark, Ala. It addresses only U.S. Senate appointments…State Rep. Christopher England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, suggested that HB17 would prevent voters from expressing displeasure over issues such as the Feb. 9 appointment of Strange, whose office was investigating now-ex Gov. Robert Bentley when Strange was tapped. Bentley resigned April 10, the day the Legislature began impeachment proceedings. “You would have thought years ago we’d never be in a situation where the governor under investigation would have the ability to appoint the prosecutor in his case,” he said. “We never would have thought of that, ... but in Alabama, it managed to happen.”

How about that?

Now we slide over to Mississippi, where there’s all manner of mischief going on and, unlike the goings-on in its neighbor state, there’s no good to be found at all. Patheos informs us that the weird stuff is bipartisan, too.

House Bill 1100 would amend existing laws in the following ways: What used to be an optional moment of silence would be required in every public school. A copy of the Ten Commandments would also have to be displayed in every classroom (alongside the already-required “In God We Trust” signs). And then, since his hand was already on the dial, Calhoun turned it up to 11 for the final request: The school board of each school district shall require the teachers in that school district to have the Ten Commandments recited aloud at the beginning of the first hour of class each day that school is in session. Any student or teacher who objects to reciting the Ten Commandments must be excused from participating without penalty.

The educational value of telling kindergartners every damn day that they cannot covet their neighbor’s wife escapes me, but, then again, the sicker ones probably will be too busy pumping gas after school to covet much of anything anyway, as The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal reports.

Those who would fall under work or work force training requirements, if federal officials grant Mississippi’s proposed waiver request, would be low income parents/caretakers, according to the Division of Medicaid proposal. According to information compiled in December 2016 by the Division of Medicaid, low income parents/caretakers represent 7 percent of Medicaid’s total enrollment in the state. The information collected showed that there were 711,197 Medicaid recipients in the state, with a majority of those – 56 percent – being children. In addition, 23 percent of the recipients were disabled, while 9 percent were elderly and the rest were either pregnant women or the low income parents of children or family caretakers of someone on Medicaid. Under the state proposal, people could meet the requirement through working 20 hours, participating in Office of Employment Security programs, volunteering with approved agencies, participating in alcohol and drug treatment programs, receiving unemployment insurance or participating in other federal work requirement programs. Similar requirements are placed on those receiving Food Stamps or Temporary Aid for Needy Families benefits.

Work requirements for Medicaid, and undermining Medicaid’s basic reason for being, is a longtime Republican project, and they’re pushing it hard where they have the opening to do so. Even here in the Commonwealth (God save it!), where moderate Republican governor Charlie Baker has decided it’s his turn to take a whack at it. From The Boston Globe:

Aiming to stem rising state health care costs, Governor Charlie Baker on Wednesday unveiled a $40.9 billion budget proposal that would move 140,000 low-income adults off Medicaid and onto private health care plans. The effort reprises a version of a health care proposal that was rejected by the Legislature multiple times before — and it quickly drew a negative response from a top lawmaker. Baker said the administration has made some key changes to the plan, taking lawmakers’ feedback into account and ensuring that those 140,000 people would have access to, more or less, the same health benefits even after leaving MassHealth, the state Medicaid program. In a shift from last year’s proposals, adults required to make the move would not have to pay more out of pocket, and they would not have to pay extra for dental benefits, administration officials said. “We believe that basically we can give people the same benefit plan they have now,” Baker told reporters. But because of the way funding formulas work, he said, Massachusetts would get an additional $120 million in federal funds every year through the move.

The governor’s MassHealth proposal also drew concern from advocates for the poor. “It’s disappointing to see that the administration is again proposing to drop 140,000 low-income parents and other adults from MassHealth,” said Victoria Pulos, a health care lawyer at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. Amy Rosenthal, the executive director of the Boston-based group Health Care For All, said her organization appreciates Baker’s intention to ease some of the “harshest features” of last year’s proposal. But Rosenthal said, “We are concerned about moving vulnerable populations out of MassHealth because it can make coverage less affordable, lead to more low-income people being uninsured, or force individuals to take on significant medical debt.”

There’s something fundamentally reflexive in the Republican insistence that poor people are geniuses at gaming the systems designed to, you know, help them stay alive. That even Baker is touched by it is signifying.

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But very little out in the state can match the incredible burlesque of constitutional government being carried out by the Republicans in Wisconsin, who are frantically attempting to gut every institution charged with overseeing the operations of the state government—including, of course, its elections—before they get voted out and everybody gets to see the full extent of the damage they’ve done. From The Wisconsin State Journal:

Tuesday’s votes along party lines — with Democrats backing the administrators — triggered a debate over whether the Senate has authority to force the administrators out of those posts or if that is up to the bipartisan ethics and elections commissions, each of which has three Republican members and three Democrats. The agencies play a unique role in state government, overseeing elections, campaigns, those who hold public office — including lawmakers — and those who seek to influence them. Ethics Commission chairman David Halbrooks, a Democrat, said minutes after Tuesday’s votes that there could be a court fight over the matter. “It is now time to consider legal options,” Halbrooks said. The Elections Commission is set to meet Wednesday, and the Ethics Commission on Thursday, to discuss what comes next. Haas said he would take direction from elections commissioners on what comes next. In the meantime, Haas said Tuesday, “I’m showing up for work tomorrow.” Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, who led the push to oust Bell and Haas, has said a vote to reject their confirmation removes them from their positions. Fitzgerald, speaking after session, said the state Department of Administration terminated Bell’s and Haas’ state employment Tuesday afternoon.

This all goes back to the court-truncated probe into the alleged corruption in the campaigns of Governor Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage this particular Midwest subsidiary. Both men that the state senate is attempting to defenestrate—Ethics administrator Brian Bell and Elections administrator Michael Haas—had roles in that investigation that were tangential at best. Both of them were elected unanimously to head their respective boards by the members thereof. None of that matters a damn to the leaders of Walker’s pet legislature.

Fitzgerald, the Republican Senate leader, said Tuesday the fact that neither men had been linked to wrongdoing didn’t really matter to him. “I can’t have confidence in an agency that still is employing some of the individuals that were there [the Government Accountability Board],” he told the Wisconsin State Journal on Tuesday.

In 1911, when the state was the vanguard of progressive political reform, Wisconsin passed one of the country’s first Corrupt Practices Acts. In his seminal book, The Wisconsin Idea, author Charles McCarthy explained the purpose of this legislation.

That philosophy may be outlined as follows: there should be equality of opportunity in running for or in holding office; if this is denied, there arises a governing class able to control election to office through money expended, and there remains a large class which is seldom represented among candidates for office. It is the duty of the state, therefore, to equalize these conditions by not only restricting the amount of money which can be spent by the man of wealth but also to equalize conditions still further by putting means into the hands of the poorer man, whereby his ideas may be placed before the whole people.

It is out of this philosophy that the state’s Ethics Commission and Election Commission were created. It is this heritage that Walker and his pet legislature have worked to bring down, brick by brick. If they can do it in Wisconsin, they can do it anywhere.

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Whiskey Diviner Friedman of the Plains brings us The Continuing Adventures of Nathan Daum, legislator, candidate, outdoorsman, and Maker of Damn Fine Excuses. From the Tulsa World:

Legislation filed by Sen. Nathan Dahm would make Oklahoma’s wildlife the property of “Almighty God” instead of the state. The measure has been criticized by some as a waste of time and money. But Dahm, R-Broken Arrow, said the measure is in part in response to some game wardens who made broad statements about their authority and jurisdiction. “Several game wardens have said that because the state owns the wildlife and they represent the state, therefore, they own the wildlife, and constituents and citizens don’t have rights regarding that and they need to do as they are told,” said Dahm, who is running for Congress. “Things like that.”

Dude, it wasn’t rogue game wardens who were laughing at this. It was, well, America—and 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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