Buena Park sales tax increase will be before voters in the fall

• July 30, 2024

Buena Park residents will decide in November whether to hike the city’s sales tax by 1% to boost funding for the local infrastructure and the Buena Park Police Department.

The City Council, in a unanimous vote last week, agreed that a new, long-term funding source is necessary for the city to afford repairing streets, improving community programs for senior citizens and hiring more police officers, among a myriad of other local services.

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The measure, called the “Buena Park Public Safety/Essential Services Measure,” will be placed on the Nov. 5 ballot. If passed, the city’s sales tax would increase from the current 7.75% — the minimum possible tax rate in Orange County — to 8.85%. Sales tax does not apply to groceries, medicine, medical, dental, real estate, rent, education and utilities.

According to an assessment of the Buena Park Police Department by an outside consulting firm, the city’s sworn officer count has remained the same for more than three decades, despite the number of residents increasing. That assessment recommended 25 new positions — 15 sworn and 10 non-sworn — to be added to the police force. Sworn law enforcement are armed and have arrest authority, while non-sworn personnel are unarmed and cannot take people into custody.

Assistant city manager Eddie Fenton said it would cost the city up to $6 million annually to sustain those new roles, not taking into account any necessary vehicle or equipment purchases, nor pension and benefits for new officers.

When asked by Councilmember Connor Traut whether the city could afford to hire more police with its current revenue, city manager Aaron France said “no.” He added that better parks and roads are also impossible with the current revenue.

The tax hike is expected to generate approximately $20 million annually for the city’s general revenue, Fenton said.

Traut stressed that a good chunk of the sales tax would be paid by non-residents. According to a July staff report, out-of-town visitors and other non-residents who visit local attractions such as Knott’s Berry Farm foot an estimated 42% of Buena Park sales tax.

“But every penny in new revenues would be spent on services that benefit residents, like road repair, well-maintained parks and better public safety,” the report said.

“It’s 1% more on some goods and services, to receive 20% more from their city every single year,” Traut said of the tax hike.

Councilmember Art Brown, a longtime resident of Buena Park, said the tax increase will benefit him when he’s off the dais.

“I will no longer be on the council when this takes effect, but this will benefit me as a resident,” said Brown, who’s in his last year on the Council. “The city desperately needs this funding, and I hope the citizens give it to us.”

The deadline for a city council to request placing a measure on the November ballot is Friday, Aug. 9.

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​ Orange County Register 

Spirit Airlines is going upscale, offering fares with extra perks

• July 30, 2024

By David Koenig | The Associated Press

Spirit Airlines is moving farther away from its history as a fee-happy budget airline and will start selling tickets that include some of its most popular extras in bundles.

The Florida-based airline said Tuesday the top ticket will be a “Go Big” package that includes priority check-in, a roomier seat, snacks and drinks, a checked bag, a carry-on bag and free WiFi.

Also see: Southwest Airlines to start assigning seats, breaking 50-year tradition

CEO Ted Christie said the changes are “taking low-fare travel to new heights.” They also indicate the deep trouble with Spirit’s longtime business model.

The airline with bright yellow planes hasn’t made a full-year profit since 2019 — it has lost nearly $2.4 billion since — leading industry analysts to mull whether a bankruptcy filing could be in Spirit’s future.

Full-service carriers Delta and United account for an outsized share of the U.S. airline industry’s profit, and they are doing it by focusing on premium flyers while also selling bare-bones “basic economy” fares that compete with Spirit, Frontier and Allegiant for travelers on tight budgets.

The budget carriers have suffered more than the giants from a glut of flights within the United States, which has led to price-cutting. Delta, United and American have a booming business right now in long-haul international flights that can offset weak pricing power at home. Spirit does not.

The budget carriers are trying to adapt. Frontier Airlines — which, like Spirit, has been losing money for more than four years — matched a pandemic-era move by the bigger airlines and dropped flight-change and cancellation fees for many customers this spring. Spirit quickly copied the move.

Spirit has other problems, including a looming debt payment of more than $1 billion and a shortage of planes because some of its jets are grounded for inspections and repairs of Pratt & Whitney engines. Spirit expects compensation of up to $200 million from the engine maker, but its condition is dire enough that Spirit announced in April it would furlough some pilots and delay delivery of new jets.

TD Cowen analysts downgraded Spirit shares to “Sell” this month and said if Spirit can’t renegotiate its debt or return leased planes to lessors, a pre-packaged bankruptcy filing is possible.

Spirit’s announcement Tuesday targets travelers who might not consider a budget airline.

It said customers will be able to book any of the four new ticket bundles starting Aug. 16. That means they won’t be available during the height of summer-vacation travel but will be in use over the busy Labor Day holiday.

“We listened to our guests and are excited to deliver what they want: choices for an elevated experience that are affordable and provide unparalleled value,” Christie said in a statement issued by Spirit.

Spirit shares gained 5% in afternoon trading but are down more than 80% this year.

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​ Orange County Register 

Stop offering subsidies for special groups

• July 30, 2024

California faces a serious housing shortage, which imposes financial burdens on residents from all walks of life. The Legislature and governor have – in a useful but limited manner – worked to address the root cause – building regulations that constrict housing construction. But officials have also doubled down on the costly approach of throwing subsidies at the problem.

Most “affordable” housing projects utilize government funding, even though it imposes unnecessary costs on projects (and on taxpayers) by requiring union-only Project Labor Agreements and other mandates. The Wall Street Journal reported that a developer who rejected subsidies built a Los Angeles low-income project for half the per-unit costs of projects relying on bond funding. That reminds us that these subsidies are inflationary.

Yet California officials haven’t learned the requisite lesson. In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation (Assembly Bill 3308) that “permits school districts and developers in receipt of local or state funds or tax credits designated for affordable rental housing to restrict occupancy to teachers and school district employees.” A 2016 law first started this concept.

Districts sometimes have problems attracting teachers, but that speaks to the need for a proper salary system (merit pay, etc.). Given the administrative costs in building these projects, it would be better to just, you know, offer direct rent subsidies for employees who might need them.

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“There is also a bill currently wending its way through the Legislature that would expand the type of people who can live in school district housing to include employees of non-profit groups that work with the district,” notes Thomas Buckley in the California Globe. “So why is discount teacher housing a ‘thing’ if they – on average – make more than other people?” That’s the key question.

Government agencies are picking winners and losers – and not just poor people, but specified groups of government and perhaps non-profit employees. And what happens when recipients decide to leave the district’s employ? Instead of embracing complex and expensive solutions, officials need to reduce barriers to building so that everyone has a chance to find an affordable home or apartment.

​ Orange County Register 

How Harris and Trump differ on artificial intelligence policy

• July 30, 2024

By MATT O’BRIEN and SARAH PARVINI AP Technology Writers

Two days after President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order on artificial intelligence last year, Vice President Kamala Harris brought the wonky document to a global AI summit, telling an international audience what set the U.S. apart in its approach to AI safety.

In an event meant to address the potential catastrophes posed by futuristic forms of AI, Harris made waves by pivoting to present-day concerns — and the need to codify protections quickly without stifling innovation.

“When a senior is kicked off his healthcare plan because of a faulty AI algorithm, is that not existential for him?” Harris told a crowd in London last November. “When a woman is threatened by an abusive partner with explicit deepfake photographs, is that not existential for her?”

Now, she’s running for president and her chief opponent, former President Donald Trump, has said he wants to “cancel” the Biden order. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, also brings his own views on AI, which are influenced by his ties to some Silicon Valley figures pushing to limit AI regulation.

AI’s growing visibility in everyday life has made it a popular discussion topic but hasn’t yet elevated it to a top concern for American voters. But this could be the first presidential election where the candidates are crafting competing visions on how to guide American leadership over the fast-developing technology.

Here are the candidates’ records on AI:

Trump’s approach

Biden signed his AI executive order last Oct. 30, and soon after Trump was signaling on the campaign trail that, if re-elected, he’d do away with it. His pledge was memorialized in the platform of this month’s Republican National Convention.

“We will repeal Joe Biden’s dangerous Executive Order that hinders AI Innovation, and imposes Radical Leftwing ideas on the development of this technology,” says Trump’s platform. “In its place, Republicans support AI Development rooted in Free Speech and Human Flourishing.”

The Trump campaign didn’t respond to a requests for more details.

Trump didn’t spend much time talking about AI during his four years as president, though in 2019 he became the first to sign an executive order about AI. It directed federal agencies to prioritize research and development in the field.

Before that, tech experts were pushing the Trump-era White House for a stronger AI strategy to match what other countries were pursuing. In 2017, not long before Google quietly introduced a research breakthrough helping to set the foundation of the technology now known as generative AI, then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin brushed aside concerns about AI displacing jobs, saying that prospect was so far in the future that “it’s not even on my radar screen.”

That perspective later shifted, with Trump’s top tech adviser telling corporate leaders in 2018 that AI-fueled job displacement is “inevitable” and that “we can’t sit idle, hoping eventually the market will sort it out.” The 2019 order called on federal agencies to “protect civil liberties, privacy and American values” in applying AI technologies, and to help workers gain relevant skills.

Trump also in the waning weeks of his administration signed an executive order promoting the use of “trustworthy” AI in the federal government. Those policies carried over into the Biden administration.

Harris’ approach

The debut of ChatGPT nearly halfway through Biden’s presidential term made it impossible for politicians to ignore AI. Within months, Harris was convening the heads of Google, Microsoft and other tech companies at the White House, a first step down a path that brought leading developers to agree to voluntary commitments to ensure their technology won’t put people’s rights and safety at risk.

Then came Biden’s AI order, which used Korean War-era national security powers to scrutinize high-risk commercial AI systems but was mostly directed at safeguarding the government’s use of the technology and setting standards that could foster commercial adoption. Unlike the European Union, however, the U.S. still has no broad rules on AI — something that would require Congress to pass.

Harris already brought to the White House a deep understanding of Silicon Valley, having grown up and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area and later served as California’s attorney general, where she forged relationships with some tech leaders, said Alondra Nelson, former director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Even before ChatGPT, Nelson led the White House efforts to draft a blueprint for an AI “bill of rights” to guard against the technology’s potential harms. But it was the speech at the Global Summit on AI Safety in London where Harris brought all those threads together and “articulated to the world what American AI strategy was,” Nelson said.

Harris said she and Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.” And while acknowledging a need to consider existential threats to humanity, Harris emphasized “the full spectrum of AI risk.”

“She kind of opened the aperture of the conversation about potential AI risks and harms,” Nelson said.

Vance and the VCs

Trump’s pick of the former venture capitalist Vance as running mate added a new element to the differences between the campaigns. So did Trump’s newfound endorsements from a group of AI-focused tech leaders including Elon Musk and the venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.

Vance has acknowledged some harmful AI applications, but said at a July Senate hearing that he worries that concern is justifying “some preemptive overregulation attempts that would frankly entrench the tech incumbents that we already have.”

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Andreessen, who sits on the board of Meta Platforms, has criticized a provision of Biden’s order that requires government scrutiny of the most powerful and ostensibly risky AI systems if they can perform a certain number of mathematical calculations per second.

On a podcast with business partner Horowitz explaining their support of Trump, Andreessen said he was concerned with “the idea that we’re going to deliberately hamstring ourselves through onerous regulations while the rest of the world lights up on this, and while China lights up on this.”

Horowitz read aloud the RNC call to repeal Biden’s order, saying “that sounds like a good plan to me” and noting that he and Andreessen had discussed the proposals with Trump at a dinner.

Trump met with another group of VCs in a video podcast in June, sharing their view that AI leadership will require huge amounts of electricity — a perspective he shared again on the RNC stage where he said it will require “twice the electricity that’s available now in our country.” It was his sole mention of AI in the 92-minute speech.

Are they that different on AI?

Much is still unknown, including to what extent either Harris or the Trump-Vance ticket will heed the opinions of their competing wings of Silicon Valley support.

While the rhetorical differences are sharpening, “there’s a lot of similarity” between how the Trump and Biden administrations approached AI policy, said Aaron Cooper, senior vice president of global policy for BSA The Software Alliance, which advocates for software companies including Microsoft.

Voters haven’t yet heard much detail about how a Harris or second Trump administration would change that.

“What we’ll continue to see as the technology develops and as new issues arise, regardless of who’s in the White House, they’ll be looking at how we can unleash the most good from AI while reducing the most harm,” Cooper said. “That sounds obvious, but it’s not an easy calculation.”

​ Orange County Register 

California labor takes a rare “L” in 2024

• July 30, 2024

California labor unions are finally facing the consequences of their misguided actions. This year alone, several major policy pushes from unions across the state have backfired spectacularly. Now, employees are getting wise and kicking unions out.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) – one of the state’ most influential unions – recently fought to pass a controversial $20 minimum wage for fast-food workers. The policy went into effect in April, and already we’re seeing it backfire on employees and business owners. The state has lost thousands of fast food jobs, while year over year growth in the fast-food industry has now slowed to its lowest point since the Great Recession, barring COVID losses in 2020.

Several major chains – including Burger King and In-N-Out Burger – raised prices to offset the higher wages. Many employers had to cut employee hours, and some restaurants, like a San Francisco McDonald’s, say the wage hike is the final nail in their coffin. 

As if a reputation for pushing job-killing labor policies isn’t bad enough, other unions in the state decided to weigh in on Gaza. Spoiler alert: it didn’t end well. 

When protesters across college campuses came out against Israel – destroying school property and setting up encampments in the process – the United Auto Workers (UAW) was one of their biggest supporters. These protesters were disciplined for their actions. In response, thousands of UAW-represented academic workers at University of California campuses across the state went on strike. They demanded amnesty for students who were punished for inciting vandalism and violence.

The strike was shut down by a court order and the UAW’s demands went unmet. The legislature even rejected a bill that would have made some striking workers eligible for unemployment benefits due to concerns over anti-Israel rhetoric coming from protestors. One lawmaker questioned whether “we have a shared understanding of what a strike is,” noting that some protesters “were yelling ‘kill one more’ in reference to the Jews.”

If you’re keeping score, that’s strike two for Golden State labor unions.

The final strike came from the workers themselves, who are increasingly fed up with union antics. Last month, at a Fresenius Medical Care dialysis facility in Orange, CA, healthcare workers came together and kicked out one of the state’s most-powerful labor unions: SEIU-UHW.

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What was the tipping point in that election? Maybe it was the union leadership’s support for anti-Israel protests. Maybe it was the allegations of an abusive workplace, brought by the union’s own employees. Or maybe it was the union’s wasteful spending, such as the millions of dollars spent on three failed ballot measures in the past several years. 

Whatever the reasoning, it seems workers are fed up with controversial labor groups who claim to speak for them but don’t share their views or values. It’s possible this latest union rejection could represent a trend for workers across California who are sick of suffering under bad union policies and subpar representation.

One thing is certain: 2024 is shaping up to be a year of reckoning for California’s labor unions and their indefensible agendas.

Tom Manzo is President of the California Business & Industrial Alliance.

​ Orange County Register 

How Republicans helped shape gay activism in America

• July 30, 2024

Mary C. Curtis | (TNS) CQ-Roll Call

WASHINGTON — When it comes to the political history of gay rights in the United States, a lot of people think they have it figured out.

They assume “one party is wholly committed to LGBTQ rights, and the other is completely opposed. And it’s understandable why a lot of Americans think that way,” says historian Neil J. Young.

But it’s not that simple, Young says. In his recent book, “Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right,” he traces a more complex path from the 1950s to the present day.

Young joined “Equal Time” this month to discuss some of the conservatives who stayed true to their values while working toward same-sex marriage and the end of policies like “don’t ask, don’t tell.” The excerpt below has been condensed and edited. For more, listen to the full podcast.

Q: What did early gay rights activism look like before the Stonewall demonstrations in 1969?

A: I begin my book in the Cold War era, the Lavender Scare, which was when both political parties were really committed to rooting out homosexuals from the federal government and making life difficult for gay persons in this country.

I was surprised to discover that there was an activism among a handful of gay conservatives that’s really important to the advancement of a gay rights movement — or at the time, it was known as the homophile movement.

This story has been told mostly from the left, focusing on folks like Harry Hay, who was the leader of the Mattachine Society. But Dorr Legg and other right-of-center gay men, they were making arguments about limiting federal power, constraining the government, as the pathway to freedom for homosexuals.

Q: Who were some other key gay conservatives?

A: Someone I didn’t know that much about, but is a very important character in the book, is Leonard Matlovich. He was an Air Force sergeant, served three tours of duty in Vietnam, was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart and was seriously injured in combat. He came out of the closet in 1975, and he did this in order to challenge the military’s ban against gay servicepersons.

He teamed up with Frank Kameny, who was a very prominent gay rights activist who was challenging the ban. And Leonard Matlovich was in a lot of ways the perfect poster boy, because he was good-looking, he was really masculine, he was from the South and he had all those military honors.

Kameny thought it was important to show that this isn’t some hippie radical who’s trying to revolutionize American society and destroy the American military. This is a conservative Republican, and he is just fighting for the right to die for his country.

And of course, he doesn’t win his legal battle against the military. But he sets in motion a history that takes several decades to resolve and ultimately leads to the end of “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Q: What were some of the conflicts over tactics and priorities back then?

A: The gay Republican organizations I was looking at, they were all absolutely committed to defeating the Briggs Initiative, or Proposition 6, that’s put on the ballot in 1978 and would have made it illegal for any gay person in the state of California to work in the public school system.

But then after that, what’s next? What are we existing for? One of the ongoing debates was this question of, “Am I a gay Republican, or a Republican gay?”

The group that said they were Republican gays, or Republicans who happened to be gay, were much more conservative in their politics, and they didn’t believe in the notion of gay rights. They said, “That’s not something the federal government can grant me. I just want to be left alone.”

And that’s a conservative principle, right? Stay out of my bedroom, stay out of my wallet, stay out of my business. So they opposed any laws on the books that actively discriminated and they wanted to work to eliminate those laws, but they didn’t want any sort of granting of rights, and they didn’t want any sort of identity-based politics tied to their sexual identity.

Q: Many look at the Ronald Reagan years, and the reaction to HIV/AIDS, as an inflection point.

A: A more tolerant attitude was actually beginning to develop in the nation around homosexuality in the early ’80s. That was almost completely wiped away because of the HIV/AIDS crisis and the way that folks like Pat Buchanan and Gary Bauer, these hard-right conservatives within the Reagan administration, really pumped up a homophobic politics based on fears about the disease, to push back against the gay rights movement more broadly.

And so gay Republicans were caught in the crosshairs of that. They had been huge defenders of Reagan, they were big admirers of him both in ’80 and ’84, but by the late ’80s and into the 1990s, a lot of them who were still living were incredibly disillusioned with the Republican Party.

Q: In the 2000s, the marriage equality movement went from divisive to generally accepted.

A: We saw public attitudes changing so quickly, in such a short period of time. One of the things I found fascinating was that gay conservatives, or the larger terrain of gay men on the right — [including] libertarians and classical liberals and other folks who don’t necessarily even identify with a conservative label — were really fundamental in developing the intellectual argument for same-sex marriage. I’m thinking about people like Andrew Sullivan and Bruce Bawer and Jonathan Rauch.

They were talking about the right to same-sex marriage far before any gay Democrat was. They helped move the needle among enough independents and enough Republicans to make this a consensus position in the nation, and this was their strategy all along.

Q: How is the gay conservative movement evolving now, when we see most Republicans adjusting in the image of Donald Trump?

A: When I was finishing the book to go to press, this was when the “Don’t Say Gay” stuff was happening in my home state of Florida and was spreading across the nation. And gay Republicans have been in a lot of ways big supporters of Ron DeSantis on this, because they believe that it’s very specific, targeted legislation that only has to do with underage children. So I [asked people], “OK, maybe that’s the case for this particular legislation, but are you at all worried about where this is headed? Do you think this is the opening wedge of a broader assault on LGBTQ rights, including same-sex marriage?”

And all of them said, “No, no, no. Marriage is completely safe and protected. It’s written in stone.”

We have to secure progress through ongoing action, not taking it for granted and assuming that it’s just written in stone and can never be overturned. I mean, the Dobbs [decision overturning abortion rights] is a great example of this, and hopefully there won’t be more to come.

___

©2024 CQ-Roll Call, Inc., All Rights Reserved. Visit cqrollcall.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

​ Orange County Register 

Stephen Nedoroscik waited his whole life for one routine. The US pommel horse specialist nailed it

• July 30, 2024

By WILL GRAVES AP National Writer

PARIS (AP) — Sam Mikulak pulled Stephen Nedoroscik close and tasked the American pommel horse specialist with the impossible.

The U.S. men’s gymnastics team’s first Olympic medal in 16 years a solitary routine away, Mikulak told the pommel horse specialist that he didn’t need to go all out. That 80% would be good enough, even though Mikulak knew full well that Nedoroscik never does anything — from his sport to solving a Rubik’s Cube — at 80%.

“You have to trick yourself,” said Mikulak, a three-time Olympian turned coach. “You’ve got to make sure you don’t let all the noise get into your head.”

That usually isn’t a problem for the 25-year-old from Worcester, Massachusetts. It takes a certain type of single-mindedness to make the choices Nedoroscik has made for the last decade, when he essentially decided to dedicate himself to a single pursuit, focusing on an event that has long been a weakness for the U.S. men’s national team program.

Yes, there is monotony involved. How could there not be?

“I don’t know how I don’t lose my mind,” Nedoroscik said before the Games. “But every day I go into the gym and there’s still something to do. There’s still something to improve.”

Not anymore.

Stephen Nedoroscik, of United States, gets a hug from Paul Juda after last rotation during the men’s artistic gymnastics team finals round at Bercy Arena at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Monday, July 29, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)

Proving a point

He drilled his set during qualifying on Saturday to earn a spot on the event finals later in the Games. But Monday night, things were different. Teammates Frederick Richard, Brody Malone, Paul Juda and Asher Hong had put together 17 straight routines without a miss, putting the Americans in position to reach the medal stand for the first time since 2008 in Beijing.

While Nedoroscik had some wiggle room — the U.S. had a fairly healthy lead after Juda and Malone hit their sets before Nedoroscik saluted the judges — he also didn’t want to merely hold on. He wanted to prove a point.

Not just to himself, but to those who wondered if he deserved to be there in the first place.

What followed were 45 seconds of sublime brilliance, with Nedoroscik’s hands traveling from one end of the horse to the other, his legs swooping this way, then that.

A few feet away, his four teammates — and the sizable contingent of US fans inside Bercy Arena — roared as a medal that seemed distant for a program that had finished a distant fifth in each of its last three trips under the rings — drew closer.

By the time Nedoroscik neared his dismount, he knew his job was complete. The celebration began before his feet even hit the mat.

All those years, all those reps, both physical and mental, all the difficult times when he wondered whether to keep going, all the quirks he’s developed along the way — from the non-prescription goggles he sometimes rocks to the chef’s kiss to the camera he occasionally makes — led up to that moment.

And he did not miss, delivering “the exclamation point” with a 14.866 to finish off a performance the U.S. men’s program hopes provides serious momentum heading into the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.

“I kind of in that moment was like, ‘All right, let’s run it back and let’s go out there and do our thing,’” Nedoroscik said.

Filling a critical gap

A “thing” that has long been a sore spot for the U.S. in major international competition. The 2012 Olympic team topped qualifying. Then they led off on pommel horse in the finals and saw their medal hopes vanish one mistake at a time.

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Nedoroscik understood the history. It’s one of the reasons he gravitated toward pommels. Another is the fact that it requires many things — stamina, strength and creativity chief among them — that he has in spades, particularly that last one.

He describes himself as a “late bloomer” on the event. Those early struggles only helped him press forward.

“Running into trouble on the apparatus early on taught me how to fight, how to stay on, how to really go for that routine,” he said. “And I think that that has stuck with me throughout.”

Unlike other events, which are painstakingly laid out and practiced on end for months if not years, pommel horse allows gymnasts to color outside the lines and make things up as they go on. Miss an element here? Well, maybe you can make it up trying something else later in the routine.

He says the end result is the feeling of “flying through the air,” though it’s more akin to levitation.

More work to be done

Nedoroscik will soar into the event finals Saturday with a chance to put another medal in his carry-on before he heads home. His 15.200 qualifying score tied Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan for the tops among the eight finalists.

He is ready to ride the wave as far as it will take him. Yet whatever happens on Saturday or for the rest of his life for that matter, it will be difficult to top Monday night, when the guy with the curly hair and the glasses that made him the kind of social media sensation only the Olympics provides struck a blow for his sport, his teammates and himself.

“I’m really proud of these guys,” he said while sitting alongside the group that became U.S. men’s gymnastics royalty. “I love you boys.”

​ Orange County Register 

Wanted: Poll workers. Must love democracy

• July 30, 2024

Matt Vasilogambros | (TNS) Stateline.org

This week, a coalition of election officials, businesses, and civic engagement, religious and veterans groups will make a national push to encourage hundreds of thousands of Americans to serve as poll workers in November’s presidential election.

Poll worker demand is high. With concerns over the harassment and threats election officials face, and with the traditional bench of poll workers growing older, hundreds of counties around the country are in desperate need of people who are willing to serve their communities.

On Aug. 1, there will be a social media blitz across Facebook, TikTok, X and other platforms that will encourage Americans to spend a few hours helping democracy. They’re being asked to wake up before sunrise, welcome voters to polling places, hand them a ballot, and make sure the voting process goes smoothly.

Many sites will see long lines and frustrated voters; they may face unexpected problems such as a power outage or a cantankerous voting machine. Nearly all will hand out scores of tiny “I Voted” stickers.

The U.S. Election Assistance Commission, a federal agency that works with election officials to improve the voting process, established the recruitment day in 2020. The commission offers a social media toolkit, full of suggested hashtags and cartoon video snippets, to help local election officials reach potential new workers. There are 100,000 or so polling places across the country, and the agency’s website shows potential workers how to sign up.

“Serving as a poll worker is the single most impactful, nonpartisan way that any individual person can engage in the elections this year,” said Marta Hanson, the national program manager for Power the Polls, one of the leading nonpartisan groups in the recruitment effort.

“Poll workers are the face of our democracy and the face of our elections,” she told Stateline.

Launched in the spring of 2020 during the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, Power the Polls gathered nonprofits and businesses together to help election workers close the gap left after many poll workers, who tend to be older, decided to no longer serve due to health concerns. Nearly half of the poll workers who served in 2020 were older than 60.

The group’s effort recruited 700,000 prospective poll workers nationwide.

“It is our vision that every voter has someone who looks like them and speaks their language when they show up at the polling place, and that election administrators have the people that they need,” Hanson said.

Polling places still need poll workers. This year Power the Polls is tracking more than 1,835 jurisdictions, spanning all 50 states and the District of Columbia, that the group identified through outreach to election administrators, monitoring local news and working with on-the-ground partners.

Of those jurisdictions, Hanson said, 700 towns and counties have “really, really high needs.”

For example, Boston needs 500 new poll workers by its Sept. 3 primary, while Detroit needs 1,000 more people to sign up before November. In small towns in Connecticut and rural California, officials are desperate to find 20 people to help. Los Angeles County is looking for people who speak one of a dozen languages that are prevalent in the area.

In suburban Cobb County just outside of Atlanta, Director of Elections Tate Fall said recruiting poll workers has been difficult, but not at the level she’s heard about in other communities nationally. Her team has found success at farmers markets, Juneteenth festivals and senior services events.

Among her challenges, she said, is that many of the poll workers who have signed up this year are new and need more training and practice before November. She also worries about reliability.

“It’s just we have a lot of people sign up and then they never mark their availability, or they only want to work in their precinct,” Fall said. “We need people that are a bit more flexible. But overall, we’re doing good.”

Over the past four years, local election officials have been bombarded by misinformation, harassment and threats fueled by the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

To ease voters’ skepticism about ballot security, officials will often welcome them into the elections office and give them a tour.

In Nevada, Carson City Clerk-Recorder Scott Hoen goes a step further by inviting skeptical residents to see the election process firsthand as a poll worker.

“Lo and behold, once they go through the cycle, they understand and they can touch, feel it, see it, know it, understand it, that we run a really good, tight election here in Carson City,” Hoen said. “I think they have a better comfort with me now doing that, teaching them what’s going on.”

In Marion County, Florida, Supervisor of Elections Wesley Wilcox has been worried about people who believe the 2020 election was stolen working as poll workers and potentially disrupting the voting process. But the required training to become a poll worker has alleviated some of that concern.

“We’ve had them, and they actually become some of our advocates in this process,” he said.

Joseph Kirk, the election supervisor for Bartow County, Georgia, said that, beyond learning about the voting system, being a poll worker is just fun.

Kirk tells voters that it’s an opportunity to take a day off work, get paid, meet new people, see the characters of the community and enjoy a good meal, since some poll workers bring in homemade food to share.

And for the high school government students he recruits in their classes, it’s a way to participate in elections as early as 16.

“It’s a community,” he said. “And being part of it is really special.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization focused on state policy.

©2024 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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