Neal Peirce / Jan 28 2012
For Release Sunday, January 29, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
The words are harsh: Clean-air regulations are under “demagogic assaults.” House Republicans are dangerously “advocating abandonment of toxic regulations” that have demonstrably protected Americans’ health. They’re “ignoring climate change.” In fact, “for some of the most prominent leaders of the Republican party, science has left the building.”
The speaker, William K. Reilly, has gilt-edged Republican credentials. He was a senior staff member of President Richard Nixon’s White House’s Council on Environmental Quality. For four years, he served as President George H.W. Bush’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Indeed, Reilly credits the first President Bush’s “monumental contribution to the environment” for his support of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990. And when critics assault EPA regulations as “job killers,” Reilly argues EPA rules have had dramatic public health benefits even while the U.S. economy has grown by 200 percent since Nixon signed the original Clean Air Act in 1970.
What I’ve always found fascinating about Bill Reilly, whom I’ve known since the ’70s, is not just the political candor he brings to big issues. Nor just his array of top public service posts including heading the U.S. delegation to the United Nations Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, directing the Global Water Challenge, and co-chairing the recent National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling. Read More »
Neal Peirce / Jan 21 2012
For Release Sunday, January 22, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
“You’ll be woken in the morning by a convicted murderer.”
It was some years ago (1982), and the governor of Mississippi — William F. Winter — was talking. He’d graciously invited me to spend the night at the Governor’s Mansion. As he predicted, the next morning I was indeed politely awakened by a convict serving as a trustie at the mansion.
So earlier this month, when outgoing Gov. Haley Barbour stirred up a hornet’s nest with his pardon or clemency for over 200 offenders, I wondered if mansion trusties were among the bunch. And indeed, five — including four convicted murderers — were included. I checked with my friend former Gov. Winter (now 88), and he confirmed it was long-standing Mississippi custom — not just to assign several well-behaved and stabilized criminals from the state penitentiary to the mansion, but to suspend their sentences at the end of each governor’s term.
Barbour said he’d had so much confidence in the mansion trusties that he’d let his grandchildren play with them. Winter told me there’d even been one occasion, when other staff was off duty and he was obliged to be out of town, that he’d felt free to leave his wife, feeling ill, to the care of a single murderer trustie.
The Mississippi custom raises an intriguing question: What ever happened to the idea of rehabilitation in American justice as a whole? Historically, notes Marc Mauer of the Sentencing Project, it was common for governors to issue a significant number of pardons and commutations — typically just before Christmas, in a spirit of mercy and forgiveness.
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Neal Peirce / Jan 14 2012
For Release Sunday, January 15, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — Newspapers, the airwaves and the blogosphere are already delivering 24-7 news and speculation focused on the 2012 presidential campaign.
But in the end, will we get the president the most Americans favor?
Don’t count on it. The hoary electoral college system lets states cast their electoral votes any way their legislatures determine. A minor electoral switch in one state can reverse the entire national election. There’s always a temptation to meddle.
Take Pennsylvania. For five elections running, Democratic candidates have triumphed there in “winner take all” style, capturing all of the state’s 20 electoral votes. Great for Democrats.
But the 2010 election gave Republicans control in Harrisburg. Gov. Tom Corbett endorsed a bill to split Pennsylvania’s electoral votes by congressional district. The motive was transparent: to cut — roughly in half — the number of Pennsylvania electoral votes that President Obama could hope to win in the Keystone State.
That effort now seems shelved, but it reflects a bipartisan habit: When we can pull it off, we try to rejigger the election system to favor our side. A Supreme Court majority even did it in its infamous Bush v. Gore decision in 2000, stopping a recount that might have awarded the presidency to Al Gore (who actually led by more than 500,000 popular votes nationwide).
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Neal Peirce / Jan 07 2012
For Release Sunday, January 8, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
What can high technology do to help cities confront their thorniest problems — from police strategies to water systems, traffic control to waste disposal?
A group of high technology firms, led by IBM and Cisco, are plunging into the city management business. In varied forms, they offer super-efficient new-generation computerized information and control systems.
If the systems prove out — and first signs are positive — the companies stand to garner billions of dollars in business. But savings for cities, measured by dollars, by livability, by human lives protected, may be far greater.
IBM already reports over 2,000 “Smarter Cities” programs in cities worldwide. A lead example is Memphis. The city faced the dilemma of shrinking budgets even while crime — especially violent crime — was rising. Though 2,000 officers were responding to some 1 million calls a year, there was scant time to “connect dots” of incidents and develop strategies.
IBM’s solution (working with the University of Memphis’ Department of Criminology) was to apply “predictive analytics” software to compile volumes of crime records by type, time of day, victim/offender characteristics and more.
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Neal Peirce / Dec 30 2011
For Release Sunday, January 2, 2012
© 2012 Washington Post Writers Group
NEW YORK — The world’s cities are impatiently demanding that they be heard earlier, and heeded seriously, in the decisions of nations — and at the United Nations.
A top case: preparations for “Rio+20,” the UN’s global conference on sustainability that’s scheduled for next June in Rio de Janeiro. It will mark the 20th anniversary of the historic 1992 Rio conference, attended by 17,000 delegates and observers including 108 heads of state. They forged the world’s first joint environmental accord, which included the start of global climate consultations.
Greater global sustainability starts with “bottom-up approaches,” so Rio+20 should — in contrast to the 1992 conference — hear local governments’ voice and report on their role. That’s the case being made by UCLG — United Cities and Local Governments, the umbrella organization of world cities.
New York City’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg presses the point even more forcefully. Speaking at an event at UN headquarters Dec. 15, Bloomberg championed a major role for cities at Rio+20, specifically including the naming of mayors to national delegations.
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Neal Peirce / Dec 22 2011
For Release Sunday, December 25, 2011
© 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
A heartening sign of Christmas, 2011: holiday festival markets are emerging and flourishing in and near central city squares across America, smartly following the model of the great Christmas markets of Germany and other European lands.
The biggest and possibly most spectacular may be Union Square in New York, where over 100 merchants have been on hand this season offering delights ranging from hand-blown glass housewares to hand-tooled leather belts to “German delights … sweet and savory treats, cider and cappucinno to keep you warm.” A strong runner-up: New York’s Bryant Park, with dozens of stands.
But when I queried David Downey of the International Downtown Assn. about other cities, he e-mailed his member list and in hours was flooding my in-box with examples spread across the continent.
Rochester, Minn., for example, has “Market Strasse — our attempt to be an authentic German winter market.” Downtown Lancaster, Pa., created space for 20 local “creatives” to show their products. Kirkwood, Mo., turned its farmers’ market into a “Christmas Market & Gingerbread Shoppe.” The Roanoke, Va., “Dickens of Christmas” event has featured handmade crafts, soaps, and photography.
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Neal Peirce / Dec 17 2011
For Release Sunday, December 18, 2011
© 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
“Dance with one that brought you” is the title of a well-known song. But the Urban Dictionary offers a deeper meaning: “the principle that someone should pay proper fealty to those who have gone out of their way to look after them.”
Barack Obama should pay attention. In 2008, young voters were enthused and turned out for him by the millions.
But now? The campus/youth enthusiasm factor has declined sharply. The deficiency seriously imperils Obama’s reelection effort.
There’s one issue, though, that might reignite youthful enthusiasm. That issue is marijuana — partly its medical use, but especially Americans’ right to recreational use free of potential arrest and possible prison time.
Today’s grim reality is that police continue to arrest youth for marijuana possession by the hundreds of thousands. But each arrest is a red flag of danger, threatening life prospects for a young man or woman suddenly saddled with a permanent “drug arrest” record that’s easily located by employers, landlords, schools, credit agencies and banks.
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Neal Peirce / Dec 10 2011
For Release Sunday, December 11, 2011
© 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — Is the Justice Department poised for a counterattack on the sweeping wave of photo identification and related voter restriction laws that newly-Republican-controlled state legislatures have been grinding out this year?
Opponents of the laws are hoping so, awaiting a major speech on voting rights that Attorney General Eric Holder delivers in Austin on Dec. 13.
The stage was set Dec. 1 by Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for civil rights, addressing a American Constitution Society forum. Florida, South Carolina and Texas, Perez said, would “bear a burden of showing” that their new photo I.D. laws “are not intentionally discriminatory and have a retrogressive effect” in assuring a broad right of all Americans to vote.
Perez noted that judicial decisions spanning a century have identified the right to vote as “preservative of all rights.” He called the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and companion statutes “the crown jewels” of American participatory democracy, “a sacred trust” to be protected.
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Neal Peirce / Dec 04 2011
For Release Sunday, December 4, 2011
© 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
“Sustainability.” It’s 14 letters, six syllables. Small wonder many people blanch when they read or hear the word. Some may ask — “Is it something about the environment?”
For clarity and to stress the timeliness of their work, the managers of the Obama administration’s “Sustainable Communities” program are switching strategies. Competitive planning grants for cities and regions are still the top goals. But instead of talking first about more efficient land use, transit or town planning, the new focus is now on raw economics.
Check the 52 cent figure, they say. Research shows that for every dollar the average American family has to spend, 52 cents is taken up right away for housing and transportation. That means everything else gets squeezed, sometimes dangerously. And not the least, such essentials as food and clothing.
So what’s a promising cure? It’s clearly to push the 52 cents figure down by helping workers and families gain easier, more affordable access to jobs and schools. And that does dictate that communities pivot away from yesterday’s sprawl patterns, embracing instead such smart development strategies as housing closer to real work centers, homes closer to schools, and transit services to help households spend less on car travel.
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Neal Peirce / Nov 25 2011
For Release Sunday, November 27, 2011
© 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
WASHINGTON — There’s no sane way to say that America’s criminal justice system is “OK.” It costs over $100 billion a year; it imprisons hundreds of thousands for minor drug possession or sale; overall it’s incarcerating 2.3 million men and woman — the most of any nation on earth.
But that didn’t stop 43 Senate Republicans from recently wielding the weapon of a filibuster to torpedo a proposal by Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) for a bipartisan national commission to undertake a stem-to-stern examination of how we apprehend, try and punish in America.
The ostensible reason the Republicans gave was states’ rights — that because the study would encompass state and local practices as well as federal, it would somehow violate our constitutional separation of federal and state powers.
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