Two northern California counties settle election disputes

Nevada County Courthouse (California)
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2022

Two stories in the past few days discuss election disputes in far northern California.  Both counties that are home to these disputes are technically "metropolitan," meaning they have more than 100K residents each, but they (and the entire region between Sacramento and the Oregon state line) are popularly thought of as rural.  

First, Hailey Branson-Potts reports under the headline, "Conservative activist calls off his request for a recount in an election won by a landslide."  Here's the lede for the story, which is out of Nevada County, California, population 102,241: 

A conservative activist who sought a hand recount of a rural Northern California election that his candidate lost in a landslide defeat called it off Monday, one day before it was set to begin.

Randy Economy — a leader of the unsuccessful Republican-backed effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom last year — requested a recount last week in the race for Nevada County clerk-recorder and registrar of voters, part of a right-wing movement to take control of local and state election apparatuses across the nation.

Natalie Adona won the race last month with 68% of the vote. She was nearly 15,000 votes ahead of Jason Tedder, who came in second place.

Economy requested the recount in a July 4 letter to the county registrar, saying he was doing so on behalf of Tedder, a Navy veteran who was endorsed by the local Republican party.

Economy called off the recount Monday afternoon, the day The Times published an article about it.

* * * 

“The purpose here was disruption, and it’s all designed to muddle trust in our office,” said Gregory Diaz, the Nevada County clerk-recorder and registrar of voters, who is retiring.

Courthouse Annex, Nevada City, California
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

Here's the prior story, which provided this detail about the recount:  

It is expected to take 38 days, cost more than $82,700, and require the hiring of temporary workers to count nearly 38,000 ballots.

And it is being funded by Randy Economy, a leader of the unsuccessful Republican-backed effort to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom last year.

Economy spoke vaguely about his motivations, saying “something doesn’t smell right” about the county registrar’s race.

“We have a crisis here in this state of who’s in charge of democracy, and it ain’t the county clerks, and it’s not the local city clerks. It’s the people,” Economy said.

The second story is out of Shasta County, the most populous county in the region with 182,155 residents.  Jessica Garrison reports for the Times under the headline, "Shasta County OKs election results that turned back a far-right revolt."  Here's the gist of the story: 

After an expensive and often combative campaign, voters in a bellwether Northern California county have mostly turned away a slate of far-right candidates who had sought to take control of local government.

On Tuesday, after hours of debate that featured references to questions about the validity of Dominion voting machines, allegations of miscounted ballots and members of the public saying they feared for their safety at public meetings, the county Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 to accept the results of a June election that was bitterly contested.

The two dissenting board members, Patrick Jones and Tim Garman, had proposed instead a forensic audit of the county’s entire elections process, including, as Jones put it, “not just recounting ballots, but taking a look at the paper, the folds, the software.”

Backers of the far-right candidates had consulted with a pro-Trump data analytics company and claimed there were “irregularities” about Shasta’s election — which they did not detail — deserving further examination. One person in the audience referred to the effort as a “coup attempt.”

The certification represents a victory for mainstream Republicans in the county, who have long held power in government but have been roiled in recent years by a populist flank to their right, including members of a local militia, furious about coronavirus restrictions and seeking to remake government.

The most recent post about Shasta County and its election is here (also discussing the primary in Nevada County).  Many more posts about Shasta County and the broader State of Jefferson movement are here.   

Beto O'Rourke says he'll visit every county in Texas, again

Beto O'Rourke, Democratic nominee for governor of Texas, yesterday announced a 49-day tour of the state that will include 70 appearances in 65 counties--including rural ones.  Recall that O'Rourke visited each of the state's 254 counties when he ran for the U.S. Senate in 2018.  According to this story by Patrick Svitek of the Texas Tribune.   

O’Rourke is expected to hit all the major cities of the state but also some of the tiniest towns, like Marathon in far West Texas and Spearman in the Panhandle. There will also be more than a dozen stops in South Texas, a region where Abbott and other Republicans are working to make new inroads.

It remains to be seen how much campaigning Abbott will do at the same time. He kept a busy schedule ahead of the March primary but has not held many campaign events since then.

Last month, his campaign announced plans to spend an initial sum of nearly $20 million on advertising, flexing his large financial advantage over O’Rourke.

When O’Rourke ran for U.S. Senate in 2018, he visited all 254 counties in the state. He has said he plans to do that again in this race. 

While it is unclear how many counties he has checked off so far, he is expected to take a significant step forward with the upcoming trip. His campaign said he will hold public events in 38 counties where he has not yet held public events as a gubernatorial candidate.

Literary Ruralism (Part XXXIV): Still more excerpts from Groundskeeping by Lee Cole

I've already shared excerpts from this debut novel in two other blog posts, here and here.  These are my final excerpts from Lee Cole's Groundskeeping with a focus on depictions of rural and working-class white folks and issues. The first vignette involves the promotion of the man (Kelly) who has been supervising the groundskeeping crew on which Owen, the protagonist, works. Owen is a college graduate, but he has never really launched in a career that used his degree.  Rando is an older man on the crew, with more experience but no degree.    

We’d been working in the arboretum for about a week when Kelly announced that he’d taken an administrative job with the university and would be leaving Maintenance and Landscape Services by the end of April. There were only ten of us now at the morning meetings, the rest having been laid off. We all knew that Kelly had been gunning for an administrative position. He wanted an office with his name on the door, where he’d never again get chain grease smeared on his khakis.

 

Congratulations, Rando said, with more than a hint of sarcasm.

 

Thank you, Randy. As I hope y’all know, it’s been a great honor serving as your fearless leader. They want to hire a replacement in-house, someone who knows what they’re doing. Undoubtably, some of you will want to apply.

 

We’d all been drowsily eating our Pop Tarts and granola bars, waiting for our coffee to cool, but this caught our attention.

 

Anybody’s welcome, but they strongly prefer someone who has a college degree, he said, putting “strongly prefer” in air quotes. That means you two, I guess. He pointed to James and me. Though I’d never thought about it before, we were the only grad students. Everybody else was either contract, like Rando, or in the middle of their undergraduate degree.

 

A degree in what? Rando said.

 

Anything, said Kelly. Don’t matter.

 

I been here ten years longer than these motherfuckers, Rando said. No offense.

 

None taken, I said.

 

What difference does a degree make?

 

Kelly held up his palms. I’m just the messenger, he said. You don’t have a degree, Rando said.

 

I have military experience.

 

So what? So that matters to some people. Look, like I said, any of y’all can apply, and I encourage you to. But I wanted to be up front and let James and Owen here know they’d have a pretty good shot.

 

I questioned the wisdom of announcing this in front of the other men, who were giving us hateful looks. But maybe that was Kelly’s intention.

 Cole, Lee. Groundskeeping (pp. 191-192) (Kindle Edition).  Among other things, we see a shift from valuing military experience to requiring a college degree--a certain degree/credentials inflation that does not serve the working class, who have to go into debt to get that degree.  

In this scene, Owen takes his girlfriend, Alma, to visit his dad and stepmom in tiny Melber, Kentucky:   

The road to Melber carried us past trailer courts and subdivisions, reaching, finally, the bottomlands at the Graves County line. I wished she could’ve seen it in the late summer, when the fields were lush with burley tobacco—velvet-green rosettes, their long leaves curled and yellowed at the edges, sprawling out in rows. Now the same fields were bare, or sown with ryegrass, waist-high and the color of straw. The creeks we crossed on ramshackle bridges were only muddy trickles, and the woods were parched and grayish brown, save only the sycamores, whose stark white branches flashed like ghosts in the passing countryside.

 

I narrated the scene, partly as a way of distracting myself from the nausea and anxiety I was feeling, and partly because I wanted, on some level, for her to see it the way I saw it—as a terrain imbued with significance and narrative. Here was Dan Foley’s house, where I used to set off bottle rockets. Here was the abandoned Citgo station, where, as I was climbing through a window at age thirteen, a blade of glass sliced my calf. Here was Josh Briggs’s house, where I used to shoot clay pigeons. Here was the trailer where Molly Miller, the first girl I kissed, used to live. I left out, of course, that Dan Foley’s father had committed suicide when we were fifteen by hanging himself from the metal track of their garage door, or that Dan had gone on to join the marines and was now stationed in Texas, where he’d become an alcoholic.

I left out that I’d climbed through the window of the abandoned Citgo station in order to smoke a blunt dipped in cough syrup with Josh Briggs, and that Josh Briggs had never left Melber, that he’d been fired from a good job with the river barge industry and had since done some time in jail. I didn’t mention that post–high school, Molly Miller had spent about five years journeying further and further into opioid addiction, the apotheosis of which was her death by fentanyl overdose in the bathroom of Paducah’s public library. Maybe because I left out these things, Alma did not seem as interested as I’d hoped. Was she thinking of how the place could’ve produced me? I hoped that it did not remain two-dimensional for her—a painted backdrop, seen through a passenger window. What would one see who’d never seen it? Empty fields. Churches with graffitied plywood windows. Shoddy houses and single-wides where people she’d never met once lived. To anyone from the outside, it looked like a country town, so close to vanishing that it was hardly there at all. But I could see its inexpressible privacies.

 

We reached, finally, the four-way stop and the green sign reading Melber. It was the town’s sole marker, the only thing that let you know you were somewhere instead of on the way to somewhere else. It was here, every Halloween, that the burning hay bale came to rest. Across the street was the post office and the hairdresser’s shop with a barber pole out front and a rusted, antique Pepsi machine that no longer functioned. Next door was the town’s only restaurant—the Kountry Kitchen. A letterboard sign in the lot advertised catfish and hush puppies.

 

Here we are, I said.

 

Alma looked around, her expression vaguely troubled. You weren’t kidding, she said. It’s not much.

 

My dad’s place could be seen from the four-way. I turned right and pointed it out to her. It had been a batten-board house, built in the ’50s, but five years prior, he’d installed this plastic siding that was supposed to make a house look like a log cabin. It looked more like Lincoln Logs to me. 

Cole, Lee. Groundskeeping (pp. 225-226) (Kindle edition). 

They go out to dinner at a nearby restaurant, described thusly: 

 The Rebel Smokehouse was such a perfect distillation of the rural South’s grotesquery that it was almost unfair. It was nestled between a Harley-Davidson dealership and an indoor gun range called Range America. A sun-faded Confederate flag had been raised high on a pole in a nearby yard, so that the restaurant was literally in the shadow of it. Even if I took faithful notes, if I wrote it all down exactly as it was, who would believe me?

Cole, Lee. Groundskeeping (p. 229) (Kindle edition)

  

In the scene that follows, Owen is asking his father for a loan.  What is revealed here is the less educated parent's judgment of his son's failure to make a living in what the father sees as a conventional way:    

To be honest, I called because I need your help with some money. I wanted to ask you for a loan.

 

A loan?

 

Yeah, just till I get my next paycheck.

 

Several seconds passed. I don’t know, he said. He cleared his throat softly and let another period of silence go by, as if he were giving me a chance to retract my request. I just don’t know if I can keep enabling you to fail, he said finally. This tree-trimming business, this aimlessness—how can I keep supporting that? It hurt me physically to hear him say this. I assumed he thought I was a failure, but assuming it and hearing it were two different things. I tried to come up with some response, but the muscles in my throat tightened...

Cross-posted to Working-Class Whites and the Law.  

Excesses of "Live Free or Die" mentality play out in rural New Hampshire

The headline for yesterday's New York Times story is "One Small Step for Democracy in a 'Live-Free or Die' Town."  The story, by Dan Barry, features Ian Underwood, a town selectman in Croydon, New Hampshire, who a few years ago proposed--and achieved--the abolition of the town's one-man police force.  Underwood and his wife, Jody, who do not have children, moved to New Hampshire from Pennsylvania in 2007, as part of the "Free State" movement.  

Here's what happened this spring at the annual meeting "when residents gather to approve, deny or amend proposed municipal budgets."   

Residents approved the town budget in the morning. Then they turned in the afternoon to the proposed $1.7 million school budget, which covers the colonial-era schoolhouse (kindergarten to fourth grade) and the cost of sending older students to nearby schools of their choice, public or private.

This is when [Ian] Underwood, 60, stood up and threw a sucker punch to the body politic.

Calling the proposed budget a “ransom,” he moved to cut it by more than half — to $800,000. He argued that taxes for education had climbed while student achievement had not, and that based in part on the much lower tuition for some local private schools, about $10,000 for each of the town’s 80 or so students was sufficient — though well short of, say, the nearly $18,000 that public schools in nearby Newport charged for pupils from Croydon.

In the debate that followed, Underwood's wife, the president of the school board and holder of a PhD in education, read "a statement in support of the budget cut — in effect arguing against the $1.7 million budget that she and the rest of the school board had previously recommended. (Dr. Underwood later explained that her husband’s assertions — including that education spending had gone up 30 percent in recent years — had persuaded her.)". 

Ms. Underwood had known her husband was going to make the proposal, which passed 20 to 14, but she had not put anyone on advance notice of his plan.  

The shocking budget cut meant that the school board suddenly had to craft a new financial plan, while many parents suddenly had to come up with thousands of dollars to keep their children in public schools. 

While the Underwoods bragged online to fellow Free Staters about what they had accomplished, many residents of town "were livid."  

But they were also chastened. They hadn’t attended the town meeting. They hadn’t fulfilled their democratic obligation. They hadn’t kept informed about the Free State movement. To some observers, they had gotten what they deserved.

One resident commented:  

I was practically kicking myself in the ass for not being there.  I guess I assumed our town would take care of it.

Barry continues: 

The moment revealed a democracy mired in indifference. Turnout at town meetings has been low for years. The town’s websites are barely rudimentary, with school board minutes posted online sporadically. The select board’s minutes are found at the town hall — open three afternoons a week — or the general store

 Don't miss the rest of the story to learn what happened next.  

Can't help think how this is just an extreme version of retirees voting not to raise taxes that support schools, a phenomenon we see around the nation, especially in rural and suburban communities.  Also reminds me of stories out of Josephine County, Oregon, where local government was gutted--and the State of Kansas, where state coffers were gutted under Governor Sam Brownback, hindering the state's ability to provide basic services.  This candidate for the Missouri legislature suggests education funding is also at severe risk in Missouri.   

Meanwhile, I'd like to know how many towns do what Croydon does procedurally each year, that is "residents gather[ing] to approve, deny or amend proposed municipal budgets."   Does this happen in larger municipalities?  In New Hampshire or elsewhere in New England?  

Texas 134 PAC--seeking to empower rural Texas--hosting Beto O'Rourke tonight in Amarillo

Here's the online notice of the event, billed as Rockin to Save Rural Texas.   The 134 Pac is "Building the Democratic Party for Rural Texas."  134 refers to the 134 counties in West Texas, which cover 159,000 square miles, and are home to 2.9 million people, of whom 1.79 million are voters.  

First Latina federal judge in California's Eastern District daughter of farmworkers

The Fresno Bee reports today on the investiture of Ana de Alba as the first Latina federal district judge in California.  The headline for Juan Esparza Loera's story is "It’s official. Daughter of farmworkers makes U.S. District Court history."  Here's an excerpt from this very inspiring story:

Ana Isabela de Alba – the 42-year-old daughter of Mexican immigrant farmworkers who grew up in South Dos Palos using a sleeping bag until she was 15 – became the first Latina judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California on Friday afternoon. 

Accompanied by her mother, Ana Celia de Alba, and about three dozen relatives and supporters, the Fresno County Superior Court judge took the oath of office from U.S. District Judge Dale A. Drozd less than six months after being nominated for the post by President Joe Biden. 

* * * 

“Judge de Alba watched her mother and grandmother struggle with unfair treatment, as they worked together in some of the hardest jobs in the world,” said [U.S. Senator Alex] Padilla [at de Alba's confirmation hearing]. 

“She decided that one day, she would become a lawyer to help families like her own.” 

Padilla, who noted that de Alba established a workers’ rights clinic for low wage workers, called her “dedicated, fair and universally respected by her colleagues.” 

“She will bring a deep knowledge of the Central Valley, and a passion for equal justice informed by her own family’s story,” said Padilla.

* * * 

Her mother also ended de Alba’s days of working in the fields. 

“I worked in the fields with my mom until about the fourth grade,” said de Alba, who by then was starting to get improper comments from male field workers.

Her mother said, “You’re not going to work here because you’re too little. I don’t want you exposed to that.” 

De Alba kept working, but not in the fields. She put her reading and English skills to work as a paid tutor. In high school, she worked for an insurance company across from the high school before getting a job at the hospital her final two years.

* * * 

De Alba’s idea of becoming a lawyer came when she was 6 years old and accompanying her mother and grandmother while they were picking tomatoes and getting paid by the bucket. 

“My job was basically to go get the water so they wouldn’t have to stop there in the middle of the row,” said de Alba. One day, she complained the water was dirty. 

“The mayordomo (foreman) made an example of me. He said, ‘Oh well, if we’re all going to complain, we might as well call the media!’” 

De Alba got upset. “I didn’t do anything wrong. This guy is not letting us have drinking water. There’s nothing wrong with that.” 

That evening while recounting the experience to Fernando, the oldest of her three brothers, he responded, 

“Well, you’re pretty mouthy, so you should become a lawyer.”

“What’s a lawyer do?” 

“They fight for people’s rights with their words. They argue all day.” 

“Oh, sounds like a dream job for me.” 

That sparked her career choice. 

“My mom is very strong-willed. She’s very intelligent; one of the smartest people I’ve ever met,” said de Alba of her mother who only got a second-grade education in Jalisco, México.” 

Earlier this year, Patricia Guerrero became the first Latina to sit on the California Supreme Court.   Guerrero, too, grew up amidst farm work, but in the Imperial Valley, on the Mexico border, rather than the Central Valley.    

Mid-term campaign report out of Wisconsin's rural-ish third district

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports today on the race for Wisconsin's Third Congressional District. Here's an excerpt from the story by Lawrence Andrea:  

Just how important to Democrats is holding on to Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District?

Well, one candidate jumped head-first out of an airplane to draw some attention to her campaign.

The race for the district that covers much of Western and central Wisconsin was left wide-open after Democratic U.S. Rep. Ron Kind announced last year he would not seek re-election. And Republicans see the seat — one of the state’s most competitive — as among their best chances to regain control of the House of Representatives in November.

Kind’s rural district, like others across the Midwest, has trended redder in recent years. Barack Obama won the district in 2012, but Donald Trump carried it in 2016 and 2020. Kind defeated GOP challenger and former U.S. Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden, who is running again this year, by just three percentage points in 2020. He was one of just seven Democrats nationwide to win in districts that Trump won that year.

Democrats at their state convention last month in the heart of the district acknowledged that rural voting trend and projected a sense of urgency, citing things like challenges to the 2020 presidential election and the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling protecting abortion access to make the case that “democracy” is on the ballot this year.

“I’m just the third Democrat in 160 years to be representing this congressional district, so it hasn’t always been easy,” Kind, who has represented the area in Congress since 1997, told a crowd of delegates at the La Crosse Center on June 25. “But I proved that Democrats can win in areas like this and throughout the state. We’re going to need to do it again.”

Still, as the leading Democratic candidates seeking to fill Kind’s seat railed against Republicans and their GOP challenger, they also sought to stand out in their own field just over a month before Wisconsin’s Aug. 9 primaries.

They did so largely by trying to connect with rural voters who have drifted away from the party.

After the heading "Rural America Matters" the story features details on each candidate, and comments from them. Then there is this closing:  

But Democrats remain optimistic about their chances of maintaining the seat, with some indicating they expect hot-button issues like abortion and gun control to energize Democrats, whose voter enthusiasm has waned this year.

Democratic strategist Joe Zepecki noted the trends in the rural district but pointed out that each Democratic candidate has his or her own strengths. Those differences, he said, are a positive for Democrats in rural areas that are "evolving and changing all the time."

"They are all really important voices for Democrats who are trying to regain a foothold in rural Wisconsin," Zepecki said.

In La Crosse in late June, Kind ended his convention speech by reiterating his endorsement of Pfaff and stressing that he does not think Democrats can wait until the Aug. 9 primary to coalesce around a candidate.

“I’m afraid if we wait around until the primary shakes out in the middle of August, the other side is going to be locked and loaded,” Kind said. “They’re going to be ready to go.”

But others see that timing a bit differently.

"The Right is already loaded for bear in this election," Zepecki said. "They know that their path to a majority lies in districts like Wisconsin three. It doesn't matter (who Dems nominate), they're coming."

"If there is a 'D' next to their name, they're going to throw the kitchen sink at whoever it is."

That last line reminds me of this from Democratic strategist Ruy Teixeira: 

The current Democratic brand suffers from multiple deficiencies that make it somewhere between uncompelling and toxic to wide swaths of American voters who might potentially be their allies.

On practicing law in rural Oregon

Cave Junction, Oregon (Josephine County)
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

A UC Davis alum recently shared this story with me, from the Oregon Bar Journal, and I want to give it some publicity here though it is a bit dated.  Cliff Collins wrote, "Outside the Urban Box:  Practicing in Rural Areas Can Fit the Bill When Attorney and Community Find the Right Match.  An excerpt follows:  

Unmet legal needs. Opportunities for professional and personal growth and satisfaction. Flexible hours and a good work/life balance.

For new attorneys who want to have an impact right away and not wait for years to feel they are making a difference, small towns and rural parts of Oregon can offer all these.

That’s according to lawyers now practicing in public and private settings in parts of southern Oregon and the south Oregon coast. They describe the pros and cons of small-town practice, what drew them to live and practice where they are, and to what extent they see openings now and in the near future in their region.

This is the first in a planned series of upcoming Bulletin stories that will examine — from the perspective of practicing lawyers — conditions and opportunities in non-urban parts of the state for attorneys who are just starting out or those who want a change of pace.

One of Oregon State Bar President Richard G. Spier’s goals is to help the bar find ways to bridge what he refers to as the “justice gap.”

“On the one hand, the OSB has many unemployed or underemployed lawyers, who are eager to represent clients,” he notes. On the other, a large proportion of Oregonians go without legal help when they need it. “As a way to bridge this gap, we’re encouraging lawyers to consider private practice in rural areas and small communities.”

“During my trips around Oregon to meet with local bar groups, lawyers in those geographical areas repeatedly tell me that good opportunities exist there for lawyers willing to make the move,” Spier says. “Established lawyers are willing to provide mentorship, referrals, introductions and advice. There is often more work than the established lawyers can handle.”

These established lawyers also tell him that “it is possible to quickly become community leaders — in school districts, other local government, charitable and political groups, and simply by getting to know local businesspeople and neighbors. These contacts are not only a satisfying way to serve, but also are effective marketing of a new or growing law practice.”

I'm happy to report that two UC Davis Law alums, Warren Bruhn and Erin Levenick, are featured in the story.   Here is the part about Levenick, who was a student in my Law and Rural Livelihoods Class some years ago: 

Indeed, the call of the wild is a factor attracting many young attorneys. Erin S. Levenick figured she could combine her desire to boost access to justice with being able to go to Crater Lake after work, she says. A staff attorney in the Grants Pass office of Oregon Law Center, Levenick grew up in Salem but later worked and went to college in Portland.

“I knew when I was in law school that I wanted to do public service work,” she says. “So this job fit really well into that.” In addition, “I was always into the Oregon outdoor scene.” She admits, though, “It wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to move to where I didn’t know anybody.” But she remained undeterred by the relatively lower salaries of public interest law, pointing out that small towns offer a lower cost of living. Many law students and new attorneys may fear that if they choose a rural area or public interest law, they will never be able to repay their loans. But Levenick researched her law schools before choosing the University of California, Davis, School of Law, which offered a loan repayment assistance program.

LRAPs can be either state-based — the Oregon State Bar has one — or school-based. The programs are designed to help borrowers make their student loan payments. “The basic idea is that I apply to U.C. Davis for LRAP, they send me a loan to make my monthly federal loan payments. If I stay in my nonprofit job and comply with the program, U.C. Davis will forgive the loan they sent me. In practice, this means that I receive a large portion of my monthly loan payment from U.C. Davis, which I then send to my federal student loan servicer. When I was deciding on a law school, I researched each school’s LRAP program, and the strength of the program was a big factor in my decision on which school to attend.”

Levenick lives fairly close to her office and walks to work. Her office is across the street from the courthouse. Among the other benefits to practicing in a small town is that you “have an instant connection with other young attorneys in a similar” situation to yours. “There are not a lot of us, but we were able to identify each other pretty quickly.”

Here's the part about Bruhn (Class of 1996):  

“I sure hope the next generation of lawyers doesn’t feel like they have to live in the city,” says Warren K. Bruhn, a staff attorney with Umpqua Valley Public Defender in Roseburg. Bruhn has resided or worked in places as small as 100 people to as large as Los Angeles. The public defenders’ office has “given some attorneys a start at their first law job,” and as older attorneys retire, more openings will come, he says. Also, “District attorneys’ offices are a great opportunity for young lawyers to come in. The pay is adequate,” and — if they work in either type of public legal work — attorneys may be able to take advantage of LRAPs or the federal 10-year public service loan forgiveness program.

Private practices and positions also are a possibility, depending on the county, Bruhn says. “Some have a large number of attorneys who are retiring, and you can be successful.” New lawyers may have to accept “two to five lean years” to get established in some of these areas. Some counties or towns may have fewer people who can afford to hire an attorney. “Those clients may gravitate toward people already established.”

Bruhn, who has spent nearly six years in his previous and current stints in the Umpqua Valley Public Defender office, says he enjoys helping people through his job. In between times working there, he had lived and practiced in the Portland metropolitan area for 10 years. He much prefers Roseburg, and he finds the legal community more collegial than in the metro area. Making friends is easy, as is becoming known professionally.

“You rub elbows with decision-makers in the rural counties, and that can be rewarding,” he says. “It’s easier to get opportunities to run for judge in one of these rural counties” or to gain contracts to serve as a prosecutor or judge in small towns. “It’s a pleasure to live here.” He says the quality of law being practiced there, and the quality of his professional life, are “just as good, if not better,” than that in the Portland area. “I love what I do in my day, and I love what I do when I’m off work.”

Bruhn has a 10-minute commute when he leaves home from his log house, which overlooks 300 acres, where he cannot see another house from his home. On his way in, he often spots wild turkeys, deer, elk and other wildlife. “It’s quiet and relaxing,” he says. “I think I’m strongly inclined to spend the rest of my legal career here. I could be happy staying here to retirement, and maybe even beyond.”

Grants Pass, where Levenick practices, is the county seat of Josephine County, the same county where I took the photo of Cave Junction (above).  A prior post out of Josephine County is here.  

Cave Junction, Oregon
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

On rural voter turnout in the Pennsylvania primary

Near Coburn, Pennsylvania (Centre County)
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran this Pennsylvania primary analysis by Aseem Shukla and Julia Terruso last week (and it was re-published by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).  The headline is "Pa. primary election set voter turnout records. Here’s what else the data show," and the subhead is "More Democrats and Republicans voted than in any midterm primary election in the last 25 years. The voter turnout data show how the state’s political geography is shifting."  

Mural in Millheim, Pennsylvania
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

Here are some select excerpts focusing on geography and the rural vote:  

The state’s urban-suburban-rural divides are also growing between — and within — the parties. Pennsylvania Republicans are increasingly relying on rural areas, while Democrats are becoming a party of city dwellers and suburbanites. Those shifting coalitions have far-reaching effects.

* * * 

Geographic sorting between the parties is continuing

The parties’ long pattern of geographic self-segregation continues: Republicans are increasingly a rural and exurban party, while Democrats rely on urban and suburban voters.

What’s less obvious, but equally important, is that there are also important geographic divides within the parties.

Consider rural counties. They’ve always been more important in Republican primaries than in Democratic ones. But Democratic primary votes from rural counties now make up just one-sixth of the statewide total — half the share they did 20 years ago.

Penn Valley (c)Lisa R. Pruitt 2018 

By contrast, rural votes have consistently made up a third of the Republican primary electorate, even as overall turnout has increased and the rural population has significantly declined.

Many of these voters were mobilized by Trump’s 2016 campaign and have stayed engaged.

* * * 

Democratic growth continues in the suburbs. For decades, the four Philadelphia collar counties were a more significant source of primary votes for Republicans than for Democrats. But over the last decade, that pattern has reversed.

In 2000, Democrats got only 10% of their primary vote from these suburbs. Now, it’s almost 25%. Since Trump’s election, that’s been a bigger share than Republicans get from the suburbs.

 * * * 

Rural Republicans vote differently from urban and suburban ones

It’s clear rural Republicans aren’t just becoming more reliable voters — they also tend to vote for different candidates.

While Oz and McCormick [Republican contenders for the U.S. Senate; Oz was ultimately declared the Republican nominee] performed almost equally well in all regions of the state, smaller counties had a special affinity for far-right candidates Barnette [Republican candidate for U.S. Senate] and Mastriano [Republican nominee for Governor].

What’s more, rural voters — as well as supporters of Barnette and Mastriano more broadly — also voted heavily in person, shunning mail voting even more than other Republicans, who already generally avoid it.

Madisonburg, Pennsylvania
(c) Lisa R. Pruitt 2018

The three candidates with the lowest share of mail votes were Mastriano, Oz, and Barnette. The first two were endorsed by Trump, who has railed against mail voting. The third claimed Trump’s mantle all the same.

This analysis uses the definition of the Center for Rural Pennsylvania:  

The Center for Rural Pennsylvania's definition of rural and urban is based on population density. Population density is calculated by dividing the total population of a specific area by the total number of square land miles of that area. According to the 2020 Census, the population of Pennsylvania is 13,002,700 and the number of square miles of land in Pennsylvania is 44,742. Therefore, the population density is 291 people per square mile.

A county or school district is rural when the number of people per square mile within the county or school district is fewer than 291. Counties and school districts that have 291 people or more per square mile are considered urban.

A municipality is rural when the number of people per square mile in the municipality is fewer than 291 or the municipality is in a rural county and has fewer than 2,500 residents. All other municipalities are considered urban.

According to the Center's definition, there are 48 rural counties and 19 urban counties in Pennsylvania. In 2020, nearly 3.4 million residents, or 26 percent of the state's 13.0 million residents, called these rural counties home.

At the school district level, 238 of the state's 500 public school districts are rural. During the 2020-2021 school year, 374,732 public school students attended schools in rural districts, or 25 percent of the state's nearly 1.41 million public school students.

At the municipal level, 1,649, or 64 percent, of the state's 2,560 municipalities are rural and 911 municipalities, or 36 percent, are urban. In 2020, rural municipalities had a total of 2.9 million residents or 22 percent of the state's population. Urban municipalities had 10.1 million residents or 78 percent of the state's population.

Candidate takes on "Dirt Road Democrat" label--and a bold progressive stance--in Missouri legislative race

Screenshot from Twitter feed on July 3, 2022

Jess Piper is a Democrat trying to flip the script for her party in rural northwest Missouri as she seeks a seat in the state legislature.  I've been following her for a while, and she'd been getting bolder in her progressive stances.  Piper's main calling card--beyond generally pointing out the existence of rural progressives and trying to rally the troops--is saving rural schools.  She recognizes that money flowing to charter schools will be particularly harmful for already under-funded rural schools.  (Senator Jon Tester of Montana made this point about rural schools in his book, Grounded). Piper, herself a former teacher, often deploys the slogan Dirt Road Democrat as she talks about the loss of other rural infrastructure, such as rural hospitals. 

Here are some additional screenshots from her campaign's Twitter feed:  

Piper has also been outspoken about the reversal of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision handed down about 10 days ago. 

This is from the Fourth of July, at a pro-choice rally in Kansas City, not in the district Piper seeks to represent.  

Screenshot of Melissa Robinson Twitter Feed July 4, 2022

And here's a TikTok video she posted on July 1, after a day of knocking on doors in Burlington Junction, population 537, in Nodaway County.  

Whatever happens in the election this fall, I admire Piper's courage, boldness, and energy. 

Postscript:  On July 5, 2022, Piper picked up this endorsement from the Missouri National Education  Association.  

This earlier post based on a Washington Times story also features Piper.  

New UC Davis program seeks to identify aspiring doctors at rural-ish community colleges

This is from the UC Davis School of Medicine's press release earlier this week, "UC Davis creates new pathway to medical school that starts in community college."  

UC Davis has received a $1.8 million grant to create a robust pre-med pathway for rural college students. It’s the university’s latest initiative to boost the number of primary care physicians in underserved parts of Northern California.

The new pathway, known as Avenue M (the M is for Medicine) will identify community college students interested in studying health sciences. Staff will provide academic support, ensure students’ seamless transfer to any of three participating four-year colleges, then steer them toward the UC Davis School of Medicine.

Avenue M is the newest pathway developed by UC Davis in response to the shortage of primary care physicians in rural, medically underserved areas of California, most of which are challenged by health disparities.

“The new Avenue M program is critical for students who have the aptitude and desire to enter the medical fields yet may not have believed attainment was within their reach,” said UC Davis Provost Mary S. Croughan. “Like its predecessors Avenue E and Avenue B, which focus on engineering and biological science respectively, Avenue M will help us better fulfill our commitment to serve students from all backgrounds as well as our region as a whole.”

I must say "Avenue M" is an odd name for a program aimed to attract rural students because rural areas and small towns tend not to feature avenues.  

Another program that looks to rural areas to identify human capital (young folks) that might be trained (in particular as lawyers) to return to serve rural areas is here. That is the Rural Law Opportunities Program associated with the University of Nebraska College of Law, University of Nebraska Kearney, Chadron State University and Wayne State University.  Director Anthony Schutz of the University of Nebraska College of Law wrote this update about that program a few months ago.  

Nebraska also has a Rural Health Opportunities Program. 

Hannah Haksgaard has written the definitive work paralleling recruitment of physicians and recruitment of lawyers to rural places.