On the occasion of Jimmy Carter's death, looking back at his truly rural attachments

On the occasion of his death, I'm re-upping here every mention of former President Jimmy Carter from Legal Ruralism.  I'll start however, by noting the comments of a Georgia Public Radio journalist on NPR shortly after Carter's death was announced.  The journalist contrasted Carter's rural Georgia upbringing with his progressive record on race rights--as if being progressive on race is not what you'd expect from a rural resident.  (I've looked for the direct quote, but I cannot find it). 

Here are some highlights, beginning with a few excerpts from Kai Bird's biography of Carter, The Outlier.  

Jimmy’s father, James Earl Carter Sr., had a tenth-grade education before dropping out to join the army. In 1903, when Earl was only 10 years old, his father, William Archibald Carter, was shot dead during a violent brawl with a business rival. They had been arguing over who was the rightful owner of a desk. Earl was certainly not country “white trash”—but neither was he part of the southern plantation aristocracy. By the late 1920’s, he made more than a comfortable living growing peanuts, corn, and cotton and drawing “rents” from his Black tenants. He managed to expand his farm acreage even during the boll weevil blight of the 1920’s, which wiped out many cotton farmers.

Jimmy Carter was apparently a fan of William Faulkner.  Here's a salient passage from page 20 of the Bird biography:   

More than most white southerners, the rural folk of South Georgia had defied assimilation and loyalty clung to their native culture as a matter of principle. They had their own vernacular and distinctive accent. And they had their own religion, and unvarnished, evangelical southern Protestantism that affirmed the supremacy of the white race in society and patriarchy at home.

Two generations had passed since the Civil War, but that conflagration continued to define their collective identity. “The past is never dead. It's not even past”—so says Gavin Stevens, a character in Faulkner's novel Requiem for a Nun.  Curtis Wilkie, a celebrated journalist from Mississippi who later covered the Carter administration, wrote in his memoirs, “We deliberately set ourselves apart from the rest of America during the Civil War and continue, to this day, to live as spiritual citizens of a nation that existed for only four years in another century.” The South had lost the Civil War but most if not all white southerners unashamedly celebrated what they revered as the “Lost Cause”. On the eve of the Civil War, Georgia was the South's leading slave state with some 462,000 slaves, or nearly 45% of the population. It was also the last southern state to rejoin the union, in July 1870. It was all about slavery. The South was preoccupied with a history heavily laden with questions about guilt, evil, and sin. History mattered to these Georgians.

There are more passages from Bird's book that use the words "rural," "country," "redneck," and such.  You can search for those words on the Kindle edition to learn more.  

Here's another post about Bird's writings on Carter, this on the occasion of Carter going into hospice nearly two years ago.  In it, I also discuss a NYT story by Rick Rojas which focuses on what Carter meant to Plains, Georgia:  In short, lots of tourists and thus economic development.  The excerpt leads, however, with what Plains was to Carter:   

The appeal of Plains, Mr. Carter has said, was its promise of the kind of humble, small-town existence he desired after the presidency. 

* * *  

As much as Mr. Carter wanted a semblance of a regular life, the result of his living in Plains turned it into no ordinary town. The signs marking town limits boast that Plains is home to the 39th president. The farm where he was raised just outside of town is a National Park. His modest house is surrounded by black security fencing and guard posts.

Other small towns in this part of Georgia, linked together in a constellation of country roads, have withered or have streets lined with fast-food joints and convenience stores. The center of Plains has a cafe and a row of gift shops that bustle with tourists.

Without Mr. Carter, “you wouldn’t have the downtown atmosphere that you have,” said Jeff Clements, an owner of the Buffalo Peanut Company, a commercial peanut sheller and seed treater that owns what was once the Carter family’s warehouse.

And here's a 2018 post about Carter, "the uncelebrity president."  This post includes data on the racial makeup of Sumter County, home of Plains.  It's majority Black, with about 6% Latino/a.  

And this post is based on a 2015 column by Nicholas Kristof.  In it, I query if Jimmy Carter can be rehabilitated without also rehabilitating the rural South. Note that I asked this question before the rise of Donald Trump, along with the crediting (or blaming) of rural America for that phenomenon.  

The reference to Carter in this 2023 post is less central; the post is more about responses to his policies--and from California, no less.  The next few posts are about Carter's historical significance, including in relation to presidential primaries.  

Rural-ish outreach by California Governor?

Mark Barabak in the Los Angeles Times today writes under the headline, "Newsom is acting more like a governor should. Will that boost his White House prospects?"  Here are the introductory blurbs, which both highlight "rural"of a sort:  

• Ever since the election, Gov. Gavin Newsom has made a concentrated effort to show up and deliver policies for red California.
• The move, as Democrats seek to rebuild their depleted rural support, can’t hurt if the governor decides to run for president in 2028.

And here's more, which reflects what I've been thinking about Newsom's latest moves:

Things changed after Nov. 5, following Donald Trump’s triumph and California’s notable shift toward the center-right on election day. Suddenly, Newsom started appearing in places such as Bakersfield, Redding and Colusa, among the ruddiest parts of red California.

It’s something the governor should have done a long time ago, rather than strutting and preening on the national stage. There are millions of Californians — politically outnumbered, geographically far-flung — who have long felt derided or ignored by Sacramento.

* * * 

And if he’s interested in really, truly running for president in 2028 — when the Democratic contest looks to be a wide-open affair — it’s not a bad place to start.

Barabak continues: 

In promotional materials, the governor’s office describes the program as a “bottom-up strategy for creating good-paying jobs and regional economic development.” The plan follows lengthy consultation with locals in 13 parts of the state and aims to streamline programs and spur economic growth through a series of tailor-made initiatives.

The unveiling in the red reaches of California was no accident.

With Trump’s victory, Democrats have begun to reckon ever more seriously with their diminished standing among union members and working-class voters and the party’s catastrophic collapse — decades in the making — across rural America. There’s a new urgency “to solve problems and meet people where they are,” as David McCuan, a Sonoma State political science professor and longtime student of state politics, put it.

In other words, if building bridges is in order, why not start with a bridge across the rural-urban divide.  Indeed, when this Barabak column came across my news feed this morning, it dovetailed with this blog post I'd already begun to write with a similar theme:  Newsom going rural--or at last, ruralish. Below is part of that draft:  

California Governor Gavin Newsom recently traveled to Redding, California to announce a new "career passport" initiative.  Here's coverage from the Los Angeles Times.

Initiatives to expand college and career education have drawn bipartisan support. State Assemblywoman Heather Hadwick (R-Grass Valley) appeared with Newsom on Monday, expressing excitement for more opportunities for youth in her rural community — some areas so remote that the nearest Costco is a three-hour drive away, she said.

Here's a compelling--but not surprising--data point from the new plan: 

California has one of the largest economic divides in the nation...with the top 10% of California earners making an average of $300,000 annually compared with the bottom 10% at $29,000 annually.

And here's a further quote from the plan: 

The economic divide underscores the imperative for a more coherent career education infrastructure. Degree attainment cannot be the only pathway to stable, well-paid work. Even though individuals with bachelor’s degrees earn significantly more over their lifetimes than those without, degrees are not a panacea, particularly in the absence of practical experience and social capital.

Prior to his visit to Redding, Newsom visited Fresno.  Admittedly, it's one of the state's largest cities, but it's also associated with conservative politics and rural California, to the extent that rural is equated with agricultural in the Golden State.  

Hakeem Jeffries mentions farmers (!) in comments announcing deal to fund the government

A bi-partisan deal to finance the federal government was finally agreed late today.  In his announcement of the deal, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York City (NY-8) mentioned--of all groups-- farmers.  Here's the quote:

House Democrats have successfully funded the government at levels requested by President Biden in order to meet the needs of the American people in terms of their health, safety and economic well-being. House Democrats have successfully fought for families, farmers, first responders and the future of working-class- Americans. House Democrats have successfully fought for $100 billion in disaster assistance in order to make sure that those everyday Americans whose lives have been turned upside down in terms of hurricanes, storms, tornadoes, wildfires, floods and other extreme weather events can get the assistance that they need to address the problems they’ve been confronting. House Democrats have successfully stopped extreme MAGA Republicans from shutting down the government, crashing the economy and hurting working-class Americans all across the land.

He then asserts that Democrats' rejection of a GOP proposal to suspend the debt ceiling would undermine Republican efforts to cut Social Security, Medicare, and nutritional assistance programs.  Thus, the reason Jeffries mentions families and the working class is clear.  Presumably Jeffries mentions first-responders in relation to the disaster assistance funds.  

But why does Jeffries name farmers in particular?   Probably because the government-funding deal included $10 billion in agricultural assistance to farmers and extended the farm bill, which expired in September, 2024, till September 2025. 

In any event, it's nice to hear the uber-urban Jeffries mention farmers--to call them out as if they matter--even as he is (in the accompanying photo) flanked by his urban deputies Katherine Clark, the Democratic House Whip from greater Boston, and Pete Aguilar, Democratic Caucus Chair from Greater San Bernardino, California.  

On whether Trump's policies will hurt rural America and ultimately cost him rural support

Ronald Brownstein wrote yesterday in The Atlantic under the headline, "Trump Is About to Betray His Rural Supporters."  Of course, it's conceivable that the journalist is wrong--that Trump won't be bad for rural people and places.  That said, Brownstein does bring the receipts regarding specific policies on trade (as relates to agriculture), immigration, health care, and education.  Here's the key paragraph in that regard: 

Agricultural producers could face worse losses than any other economic sector from Trump’s plans to impose sweeping tariffs on imports and to undertakewhat he frequently has called “the largest domestic deportation operation” of undocumented immigrants “in American history.” Hospitals and other health providers in rural areas could face the greatest strain from proposals Trump has embraced to slash spending on Medicaid, which provides coverage to a greater share of adults in smaller communities than in large metropolitan areas. And small-town public schools would likely be destabilized even more than urban school districts if Trump succeeds in his pledge to expand “school choice” by providing parents with vouchers to send their kids to private schools.

Brownstein later unpacks and provides more information on each of these issues.  In addition, He provides data on how Trump's support from rural voters has grown with each of the three times he ran for president:  

Trump’s vote share in the nonmetro areas exceeded even his commanding 66 percent there against Joe Biden in 2020 and 67 percent against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Trump’s advantage in the small metros outstripped his margin over Biden and equaled his advantage over Clinton.

The story also includes data on other geographies, including small metropolitan areas [here citing The Daily Yonder]:  

In the second most-rural grouping, small metropolitan areas, Trump won 60 percent of the vote compared with Vice President Kamala Harris’s 40 percent. In the top most-rural category, nonmetropolitan areas, Trump beat Harris even more resoundingly, by 69 percent to 31 percent.

Arkansas bureaucrat (essentially) calls state's rural residents "white trash"

In early November, the State of Arkansas announced the purchase of 815 acres in rural Franklin County where the Department of Corrections intends to build a 3000-bed prison.  The state government did not consult with people in the region about the decision when the land was being purchased and the project planned.  My understanding is that they announced it after the land deal was done.  

Since then, local opposition has arisen, most prominently from an organization called the Franklin County and River Valley Coalition (Franklin County straddles the Arkansas River).  That organization's Freedom of Information Act requests surfaced offensive emails from Jonathan Duran, Deputy Director of the Arkansas Geographic Information Systems office, a division of the Arkansas Department of Transformation and Shared Services.  Some prior coverage of the controversy is here and here. 

Below are some excerpts from today's coverage of the matter in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, beginning with more back story on the emails:  Duran  emailed his boss a "'white trash' clip from the satirical animated TV show "South Park..

With the subject line "Franklin County town hall meeting," the first email from Duran states: "Do you think a possible townhall meeting in Franklin County about the proposed state prison might go a little like this?"

Below that in the email is a link to YouTube to a segment from "South Park" titled "They Took Our Jobs!"

* * * 

One of the characters is labeled "pissed off white trash redneck conservative." The cartoon characters in the clip repeatedly chant, "They took our jobs!"

Below the link Duran provided in the Oct. 31 email to Johnson [his boss], Duran typed: "They took our land!"

Yesterday, the River Valley coalition released a second email from Duran.  It says, "Do y'all feel like spy plane pilots now?" A smiling face emoji with a wink is inserted at that point.   "Is that an outhouse or an old refrigerator to the right of the house in the drone pic?" 

The coalition commented: 

His email was intended to mock and belittle the hardworking, law-abiding citizens Duran serves, undermining the integrity of public service in Arkansas. Such a comparison is a gross disrespect to the people he represents.

The coalition is calling for Duran to be terminated because what he said "disrespects rural Arkansas."  Their statement read: 

A simple apology or reassignment will not suffice. Duran's behavior demands more decisive action: the complete removal of Jonathan Duran from his position.  We call on Governor Sarah Sanders to take immediate action to uphold the values of professionalism, respect, and fairness within Arkansas' leadership.

The coalition's attorney declared,"The people of Franklin County and the River Valley deserve public servants who treat them with dignity and respect."  I could not agree more.  

I looked up Mr. Duran, and I see he proudly claims his status as a native of Arkansas, and with a degree from the University of Arkansas at Monticello, he may be from rural Arkansas himself.   That makes it even more disappointing, in some ways, that he's now the city boy ridiculing his country cousins. 

It will be interesting to see where all of this goes--both the prison siting and the State of Arkansas bureaucrat ridiculing rural folks--given Governor Sanders' popularity with rural voters--at least up until now.   

Here is a link to the Arkansas Times coverage of these events, including information on the land purchase being concealed until it was a done deal.  And here is Arkansas Democrat-Gazette coverage from on December 12, revealing that most of the locations the state considered were in Western Arkansas--and several were metropolitan by some measure, including a number in greater Fort Smith, on the Oklahoma state line.  Here's the "short list"; note that the Alma sites are in Crawford County, which has a population of just over 60,000, but is part of the Fort Smith metropolitan area:  

* Alma -- ball field;

* Alma -- train tracks;
* Alma -- south of ball field;
* Clarksville [Johnson County];
* Fort Smith -- end of airport/industrial park;
* Fort Smith -- Stephens;
* Fort Smith -- Treece;
* Greenwood -- Holland Farm 2;
* Huntington -- Holland Farm;
* Mansfield;
* Menifee -- ruled out due to water availability;
* Mulberry; and
* Rudy

The story also notes the search criteria for a site:  

* Minimum of 250-300 contiguous acres, relatively flat and not in a floodplain;
* Not within 60 miles of an existing state Department of Corrections facility (to avoid workforce cannibalization);
* Available regional workforce based on commute times;
* Availability of primary infrastructure (water, electric, feasibility of wastewater treatment, etc.); and
* Proximity to emergency services and medical facilities.

The document states that the Franklin County site "meets or exceeds our search criteria."  However, "[a]ccording to the site assessment, research and the whittling down of an initial 25,000 'candidate parcels', 6000 were within "[two] miles of a U.S. or Interstate Highway."  The Franklin County site ultimately chosen is 22 miles from the nearest Interstate, which is I-40, via the city of Ozark. 

Location, Location, Location Revisited: More Needs to be Done

For this post, I am going to revisit a post I made seven years ago in which I discussed the role that law schools can play in alleviating the rural lawyer shortage. While academia has made some progress, namely in the establishment of rural legal clinics, it has not tackled the problem in a way that could lead to meaningful change. 

Many of the underlying statistics from seven years ago are still true. Data from the Occupational Employment Statistics within the Bureau of Labor Statistics still bears out that the rural lawyer shortage is practically universal around the country. As it was in 2017, Southwestern Montana is an exception. There is one additional exception, the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. As with last time, I am measuring the shortage by location quotient, which provides a good approximation of an area's employment in a given sector compared to the national average. The Location Quotient controls for population so you can do a direct comparison between rural and urban employment. 

While the media has spoken a lot about people migrating to rural communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, this migration has not been even. An analysis from The Daily Yonder suggests that rural communities whose economies depend on recreation saw the greatest increase from this migration. While rural America continues to grow after the pandemic, a further analysis from The Daily Yonder shows that between 2023-2024, population growth was concentrated in rural counties that border metropolitan areas. Neither of these developments are particularly helpful to the vast majority of rural counties. 

One huge difference that I have seen in the last decade that I have been writing about this issue is an increase in general awareness. Some states are actually offering incentives to practice in rural spaces and law schools are increasingly offering rural practice clinics or similar such opportunities. A report to the Maine Legislature in January 2024 quantified the impact of the University of Maine's Rural Practice Clinic in Fort Kent, in the remote northern part of the state. These opportunities are important and do help tremendously. However, the students are only there for a portion of their law school experience, often as little as a semester. The jury is still out as to whether or not these types of programs actually increase the number of lawyers who opt to live and work in rural spaces. 

I have long advocated for the establishment of law schools in rural communities so students can spend three years immersed in a rural space, learn what it means to be part of a rural community, and have more time to extern in the small practices and/or local governments that dot the rural landscape. 

The Current Landscape

In the past seven years, there has not been a single rural law school established. However, there also hasn't been a rural law school closure. So, we have kind of been stuck with the status quo over the past few years. By my count, there are 11 ABA Accredited law schools located outside of metropolitan areas, though some of these are in larger college towns: 

• Appalachian School of Law (Grundy, VA)
• Ohio Northern University (Ada, OH)
• Pennsylvania State University (University Park, PA)
• Penn State Dickinson Law (Carlisle, PA)
• University of Idaho (Moscow, ID)
• University of Mississippi (Oxford, MS) 
• University of New Hampshire (Concord, NH)
• University of South Dakota (Vermillion, SD)
• University of Wyoming (Laramie, WY)
• Vermont Law and Graduate School (South Royalton, VT)
• Washington and Lee University (Lexington, VA)

There are 198 fully accredited ABA law schools so roughly 5% are located outside of metropolitan areas. There are some law schools in areas that might be considered more remote - Cornell University in Ithaca, New York is a good example. Students at those schools would have more opportunities to be exposed to small town practice than a student in a major metropolitan area. However, these areas are still metropolitan areas and job centers in their own right. 

Exposure, Exposure, Exposure

I still believe many of my original points from 2017 - there is no better way to expose students to the issues facing rural communities than prolonged exposure. Becoming immersed in a community for multiple years is the best way to understand its problems. As I said then, even if a student does not remain in the rural community after law school, they still leave with a greater understanding of the challenges that the legal profession faces in those spaces. They can become advocates for actually addressing the problem. 

Law Schools Are Needed in Rural Spaces

If you've been online long enough, you have read the line that we have too many law schools. I'm not sure I agree, and my reasons are the same that they were seven years ago. We have too many law schools in metropolitan areas and too few law schools in small towns and rural communities. We need more law schools in small towns and rural communities. 

What should this look like? A scan of the schools listed above shows a potential solution. Only two of the schools, Vermont and Appalachian, are private standalone schools without a parent university. And both have experienced financial issues within the last decade. In response, Vermont Law decided to reinvent itself by offering master's degrees in areas such as public policy and becoming a "law and graduate school." As I did seven years ago, I believe that schools like Appalachian and Vermont play a key role in the solving the rural lawyer shortage. 

But there is stability in the backing of a major university system, and I believe that the path forward is for state university systems to leverage their resources and state backing to put law schools on their rural campuses. This would provide a financial shelter that a standalone school would not have, and it would provide stability for the students who opt to attend these schools.

I'll use my home state of North Carolina as an example of how this could look. North Carolina has one of the most expansive university systems in the country with every public university being considered a part of the University of North Carolina system. In total, there are 17 campuses with four located outside of metropolitan area: 

• Appalachian State University (in Boone)
• Elizabeth City State University 
• University of North Carolina at Pembroke
• Western Carolina University (in Cullowhee)

The idea of establishing a new graduate school on one (or more) of these campuses would not be without recent precedent. Just this year, UNC Pembroke established a Doctor of Optometry program in order to alleviate the rural medical provider shortage.

A law school on any of these campuses would address the access to justice issue in a historically impoverished portion of the state. Appalachian and Western Carolina serve Appalachia while Elizabeth City State and UNC Pembroke serve Eastern North Carolina. A law school on a small rural campus also allows for specialization in rural lawyering. Unlike a law school on a flagship state university campus, it won't necessarily attract students who are looking for urban opportunities. A smaller, most focused school should yield the best results for both the students and local community. 

The Raging Current 

But it would be naive to assume that establishing a new rural institution isn't swimming against an already roaring current. 

There is an epidemic of closures and mergers of small rural institutions over the last several years. In 2023, the Hechinger Report estimates that at least a dozen rural, non-profit institutions had closed or announced plans to close since 2020.  In Vermont (a majority rural state with one small metro area), there have been five non-profit college closures since 2019. Keeping a small rural school afloat is becoming a gargantuan task. 

But the closures and mergers aren't just limited to private schools. Public universities are also closing and merging. You can look at Vermont to see a spate of mergers that ultimately involved four public colleges becoming one. In 2018, publicly funded Lyndon State University merged with Johnson State University to form Northern Vermont University. In 2023, two more rural colleges, Castleton State University and Vermont Technical College merged with Northern Vermont University to form Vermont State University.

Even the schools that are staying open are cutting majors and ultimately opportunities. Dr. Pruitt posted about this issue a couple of weeks ago. Her post linked to a story that discussed the struggles of a student at Delta State University, a public university in rural Mississippi, who saw her planned major cut. The story discussed majors being cut at rural public universities in places as far flung as New York, Minnesota, North Carolina, Alaska, and Arkansas.

Rural education is in trouble and convincing lawmakers to invest further is going to be a challenge. I did provide an example above of a rural public university investing in graduate education so it's not impossible.

Conclusion

To successfully solve the rural lawyer shortage, it is essential that lawmakers realize the value of investing in a public rural law school. These schools not making money should not be seen as detriment but rather a key investment. 

A public rural law school would ensure that students are exposed to rural issues for all three years of their education, and a small public rural law school provides an opportunity to further specialize in small town practice and attract students who are interested in (or at least open to) the idea of small-town practice. 

Frisch reflects on his losses in Colorado's 3d Congressional district

Adam Frisch is the former Aspen City Council Member who nearly unseated Lauren Bobert in 2022.  In 2024, he lost to a more boring Republican by 5 points.   Here, Frish reflects to Karen Tumulty of the Washington Post on what he learned from all the 77,000 miles he drove across 27 counties talking to voters.  A quote focusing on Frisch's reflections follows: 

[To Frisch], the story of this election can be told in the people he met. Farmers and ranchers. Small towns in southern Colorado with predominantly Latino populations — some newly arrived and some who have been there for nine generations.

One person who stands out in his memory, he told me, was an electrician in northwestern Colorado, the hub of the state’s natural gas industry. The man, who was in his mid-60s, was working at a hotel, making about $18 an hour — a drastic cut from the $62 an hour he had been earning in the gas fields, where employment has been declining in part because of government-driven efforts to transition to clean energy.

But it was not just the financial hit that bothered him, Frisch said. He also resented what he felt was liberal animosity toward the very nature of his work in the fossil fuel industry.

Of voters like him, “I get asked all the time … ‘Why did they keep on voting against their interests?’ And what I think people mean is ‘Why do non-college-educated, working-class people, why did they vote for people that don’t have their economic back?’” Frisch said. “And I’m like, ‘As important as pocketbook issues are, pride and dignity will trump pocketbook issues all day long.’”

The story also includes some data on the history of Democratic losses in rural counties. Bottom line: it's been worsening over the decades.