Congressional and Legislative Redistricting Across Washington State – Kamau Chege, WA Community Alliance – #147

Over on Crossing Division, Evelyn has covered redistricting in Tacoma, in particular the 27th legislative district. In this conversation, we were planning to look at the whole state, including a conversation about the Congressional District maps. At least that’s the conversation we were intending to have. Then, the State Redistricting Commission failed to deliver their proposed maps on time, throwing everything into chaos, and this conversation shifted.

Into this void steps Kamau Chege of the WA Community Alliance to help us sort through the fallout and what the State Supreme Court may do, now that drawing the maps is in their hands. 

This conversation also includes a discussion of State Senator Doug Eriksen’s authoritarian side hustle in El Salvador.

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We Are Drowning in Disinformation — Michael Klein, Director of Analysis Alethea Group — #146

From QAnon to Anti-vaxx nonsense, from Stop the Steal to the CRT moral panic, the US is awash in disinformation. It comes to us via Facebook, in barbershops, from group chats, and sermons from the pulpit. It drives acts of violence and fuels political polarization.

This week we were joined by Michael Klein. He works as a Director of Analysis at Alethea Group. We discussed the history of disinformation, vectors for its spread, and how you should respond when people in your circles start going down disinformation rabbit holes. 

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Tacoma Mayoral Race and #BoatGate – Allison Needles, The Tacoma News Tribune – #145

Victoria Woodards is the incumbent mayor of Tacoma and running for re-election. Her opponent Steve Haverly is a small business owner. He is a newcomer to the political scene and a relative unknown.

Haverly is running on a campaign with the slogan “It’s Time for Unity” and talking about ending division in Tacoma. But among the most divisive issues in Tacoma is the conduct of Tacoma Police, including the murder of Manuel Ellis. One of Haverly’s largest donors is Josh Harris’ Integrity Construction Group. Harris is the contractor who bailed out the Tacoma Police officers charged with murdering Manuel Ellis.

Allison Needles is a reporter for the Trib. She recently did some reporting on the race, the background of both candidates, and the major contributors to their campaigns. We invited her to dump out her reporter’s notebook on mic.

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An Audio Voters’ Guide for Tacoma — Evelyn Lopez, Crossing Division — #144

Back when Washington State first started voting by mail in the 2010s, I started hosting Bring Your Ballot Parties. These were gatherings where we would discuss  the merits of various candidates and ballot measures in my living room with friends and eventually a larger audience at King’s Books.  They were kind of a proto-Adult Civics Happy Hour.

This episode is that meetup, for all you late voters, but in audio format, featuring Evelyn Lopez, host of Channel 253 show Crossing Division and avid peruser of PDC Reports.

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On Democratic Erosion in Russia and Elsewhere: Nerd Farmer Academy — Jeff Hawn, London School of Economics — #143

Democratic erosion is the process by which democratic states drift, inch by inch, into authoritarianism. On paper, Russia has among the best democratic systems out there. In reality, like in the US, things are a bit more complicated.  On the show, we’ve twice visited the book “How Democracies Die,” a self-explanatory title about eroding democracies, including ours in the US. We wanted to have a conversation about how the democratic system put in place after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s became the Russia of today under Vladimir Putin.

Our guest is Jeff Hawn, a doctoral candidate at the London School of Economics. He’s a contributing author at Newslines Institute.

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The Right Wing War on History and Speech in Schools — Anne Lutz Fernandez, author of “Schooled” — #142

Anne Lutz Fernandez is a former marketer, investment banker, and recently retired English teacher. Her 2015 book Schooled, is a collection of stories from teachers across the US about their experiences and challenges in US classrooms.  

In July, Anne and Nate both appeared on the EdTrust’s podcast and discussed the Critical Race Theory moral panic. In some ways, this episode is a continuation of that conversation.

This episode begins with a brief host commentary about the vacant senate seat in the 27th legislative district and why Nate has withdrawn from consideration for the seat. The conversation with Anne begins at 8min 17sec.

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How Seattle Public Schools Managed to Lose 2000 Students — Claudia Rowe, Crosscut — #141

Claudia Rowe is a long-time journalist, currently writing opinion pieces for our friends at Crosscut. She recently published a piece detailing how Seattle Public Schools has shed 2000 students during the pandemic to private schools, homeschooling, and neighboring districts.  As a reminder, schools in Washington are funded annually on a per-pupil basis, so this could have an eventual impact of upwards of $30 million. She joined us to discuss this and her upcoming book about how we completely fail children in foster care.

This conversation was brought to you by our friends at LibroFM (use promo code “TACOMA”).

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Claudia’s prior show appearances

 

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Back-to-School Perspectives — Hearing from a Student and a Parent: Silong and Harlem Chhun — #140

This conversation is the final of a series of episodes we will be releasing along with the ladies from IWL in preparation for what will likely be another very weird school year. This time we’re hearing from a student and a parent.

Silong Chhun is an activist in Tacoma’s Cambodian community and an advocate for refugees everywhere. He is making his third appearance on the show, this time joined by his son, Harlem. Harlem is a rising ninth grader at Lincoln High School in Tacoma and came on to give a student perspective on back-to-school.

In addition, this episode contains the first ever Nerd Farmer game show called Is it Older than my Dad?, which Harlem absolutely dominated–much to my surprise.

This conversation was brought to you by our friends at Pacific Lutheran University.

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Silong’s prior show appearances

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Back-to-School Perspectives — Robin Lake, Center on Reinventing Public Education — #139

This conversation is part of a series of episodes we will be releasing along with the ladies from IWL in preparation for what will likely be another very weird school year. 

Robin Lake is the director of the Center on Reinventing Public Education. CRPE is a non-partisan research and policy organization based at the University of Washington. Robin is a researcher; her work focuses on scaling policy initiatives to improve academic outcomes across districts and states. 

In the spring of 2020, she was an early voice calling for schools to close and was an even louder advocate for reopening in the spring of 2021. She joined us to talk about that fall ahead and how school systems are and should be preparing for the year ahead. 

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Back-to-School Perspectives — Bill Hanawalt, Degrees of Change and Candidate for Tacoma School Board — #138

This conversation is part of a series of episodes we will be releasing along with the ladies from IWL in preparation for what will likely be another very weird school year.

Bill Hanawalt is the former director of education programs at Peace Community Center on Hilltop and the current development director for Degrees of Change, the organization behind the Act Six Scholarship program. Act Six provides scholarships and ongoing support for Puget Sound students to attend Gonzaga, Northwest University, Pacific Lutheran University, Saint Martin’s, and Whitworth.

Bill is also a candidate for the Tacoma School Board this November. He came on to offer a perspective as a community partner.

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  • Bill Hanawalt

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