The Takeaway

In California’s 37th Congressional District, voters will choose between two Black women Democrats vying for a now-open Congressional seat left vacant by Karen Bass. Representative Bass is running for Mayor of Los Angeles. 

This is 1 of 2 U.S. House general election contests with the unique distinction of being between 2 Black women major-party nominees; the other contest is in Minnesota's 5th Congressional District between incumbent Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) and challenger Cicely Davis (R). However, in this California race, both candidates are Democrats due to the state's top-two primary rules. 

We hear from both challengers, California State Senator Sydney Kamlager and former Los Angeles City Councilmember Jan Perry, in our special "SHElection!" midterm coverage.

We talk about the teacher shortage being experienced in many communities across the country. We hear from Kirk, a former middle school math teacher who recently made the very hard decision to leave teaching after 6 years.

We also spoke with David Rosenberg, a partner at Education Resource Strategies.

Democrat Stacey Abrams faces a rematch with Georgia Governor and Republican Brian Kemp this November. Georgia Democrats have been campaigning on the party's recent legislative wins, but Kemp’s consistent lead over Abrams in recent polls has many on edge. And the race for Georgia’s Senate seat is getting even tighter, with incumbent Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock seeing his Republican challenger and former NFL star, Herschel Walker, close the polling gap between them in recent weeks. 

We talk with New York Times politics reporter Maya King, who recently reported that some Democratic strategists are wondering if the "Abrams model — seeking to expand the universe of voters to fit her politics — is truly better than trying to capture 50 percent of the voters who exist now."

It’s been 10 years since the events of Benghazi, Libya, in which militants attacked a U.S. Consulate and CIA Annex leaving four Americans dead, including then U.S. Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens.  The tragedy also sparked major political fallout, which has rippled through our politics and elections for years. 

We speak with Ethan Chorin, former U.S. Diplomat to Libya and author of Benghazi: A New History of the Fiasco that Pushed America and its World to the Brink.

Adolescents and teenagers require 8 to 10 hours of sleep each night to support brain development, an amount of time that is challenging for them to achieve when the school day begins early in the morning. Now, California has become the first state in the country to require schools to start later. Middle schools must start no earlier than 8am and high schools no earlier than 8:30 AM. For our back to school series, "School Principles," we explore the issue of sleep deprivation for students, how it affects school performance, and the impact on later start times on schools and families.

To understand the value of this legislation, we spoke with Lisa L. Lewis, author of “The Sleep Deprived Teen: Why Our Teenagers are So Tired, And How Parents and Schools Can Help Them Thrive.” We also spoke with Dr. Marian Kim-Phelps, Superintendent of Poway Unified School District about the challenges of implementing these mandated changes. 

We’re kicking off our series “School Principles” this week!

According to Education Week, in 2022 there have been 29 school shootings in the US that resulted in injuries or deaths, with at least two taking place already this school year. And parents and experts are worried about learning loss during the pandemic. The National Center for Education Statistics recently looked at the education gap during the pandemic. Stats showed a drop in reading and math scores for 9 year olds. This was the largest average score decline in reading since 1990, and the first recorded decline in math scores since 1973.

Add to that the impact of teacher shortages, and the end of pandemic-era school lunch waivers in the midst of rising prices. It’s a lot to consider on top of just getting kids to school every day. 

For more on this, we spoke with John King, EdTrust President and former U.S. Secretary of Education for joining us for this conversation.

A poll of registered Asian-American and Pacific Islander American voters released this summer revealed that a majority of respondents had never actually been contacted by canvassers from either political party. While AAPI share of the electorate remains small compared to other racial groups, AAPI is the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the country, and between 2016 and 2020, the rate of voter turnout for AAPI increased more than other racial or ethnic group.

We talk with Jane Junn, professor of political science and gender studies at the University of Southern California, about patterns in AAPI voting behavior, issues that mobilize voters, and what these numbers could mean for the midterms.

Two years ago in the summer of 2020, the largest racial justice demonstrations in history swept across the globe after Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin, murdered George Floyd. In the aftermath, it seemed that Americans were reckoning with whether or not the police are a necessary entity in maintaining public safety, but the issue of police abolition remains contentious for many.

In March of this year, President Biden earned a bi-partisan standing ovation for saying:

We should all agree, the answer’s not to defund the police. It’s to fund the police. Fund them.

In late August, the President traveled to Pennsylvania, where he gave a speech on crime and offered specifics of his Safer America Plan.

The plan includes $13 billion dollars to hire 100,000 officers over the next five years and grants to states and cities to recruit, train, and support police in  “effective, accountable community policing.” Hiring more police and sending more policing dollars to states and localities is certainly reminiscent of the 1994 Crime Bill which Biden championed during his Senate years.

According to FactCheck.org®, a Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center at University of Pennsylvania, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in 2005 that the 1994 crime bill added an additional 88,000 police officers and only contributed to a "modest" drop in crime. The GAO reported that from 1993 to 2000, funds apportioned to hire more police in the crime bill contributed to a "1.3 percent decrease in overall crime" and a "2.5 percent decrease in violent crime rates" from 1993. The report also found that factors other than funds to increase the number of police were much more significant to lower crime rates. Increased employment, better policing methods, an aging of the population, growth in income and inflation are just a few factors the report offers. 

With the news of Biden's recent announcement, Deep Dive cohosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Dorian Warren take a look into the proposal to abolish American police, working together to build a syllabus for their exploration of the issue as "students of abolition."

Guests:

We speak with Jason Reid, Senior NFL Writer at ESPN about his new book “Rise of the Black Quarterback: What It Means for America.” In 2019, Jason started writing about the emergence of Black quarterbacks, and the record year for Black play-callers in the NFL’s history.

His new book expands on that series of articles lays out the history of how integral Black players were in creating a professional football league, the racism those players faced, and the slow progress of Black players in the NFL.

The water crisis in Jackson, Mississippi has laid bare the fraught relationship between the state’s majority-white, Republican leadership and the city’s majority-Black, Democratic leadership. Funding and resources for the city often comes with strings attached that give more control to the state, a pattern the city's Mayor has previously called "paternalistic."

We talk with Jarvis Dortch, executive director of the ACLU of Mississippi and former representative in the Mississippi legislature, about the state's long history of racial politics and what it has meant for the health of the state.