New York Times columnist and former Oregon Democratic gubernatorial candidate Nicholas Kristof admitted on Saturday that the West Coast cities is “a mess” because of Democratic Party leaders.
In a column for the New York Times, Kristof argued that “West Coast liberalism” is more focused on the intentions behind its policies rather than its outcomes. As a result, deep blue states like Oregon have major homeless and drug problems, “below-average” high school graduation rates, and high murder rates.
“But liberals like me do need to face the painful fact that something has gone badly wrong where we’re in charge, from San Diego to Seattle,” the columnist declared at the outset of his piece, adding that the West Coast offers “a version of progressivism that doesn’t result in progress.”
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New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof slammed West Coast Democratic Party leaders for turning their states and cities into a “mess.” (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
Kristof, who was compelled by the Oregon Supreme Court to end his bid for governor in 2021 for failing to meet eligibility requirements, did clarify he does not believe this is a problem with liberalism across the board, and cited examples of how he believes Democratic states do better than Republican ones in general.
“Democratic states enjoy a life expectancy two years longer than Republican states. Per capita G.D.P. in Democratic states is 29 percent higher than in G.O.P. states, and child poverty is lower. Education is generally better in blue states, with more kids graduating from high school and college.”
“The gulf in well-being between blue states and red states is growing wider, not narrower,” he wrote, prompting him to conclude, “So the problem isn’t with liberalism. It’s with West Coast liberalism.”
He went on to point out major issues in California and Oregon, noting that blue states on the East Coast don’t have them.
“The two states with the highest rates of unsheltered homelessness are California and Oregon. The three states with the lowest rates of unsheltered homelessness are all blue ones in the Northeast: Vermont, New York and Maine. Liberal Massachusetts has some of the finest public schools in the country, while liberal Washington and Oregon have below-average high school graduation rates.”
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Kristof added that mental health services for the youth have declined in West Coast blue states, while they have flourished at the other end of the country. Additionally, drug use is up in the west and down in “the northeast.” The murder rate is seeing the same corresponding dynamic as well, he noted.
He then offered his theories on why Democratic Party leadership appears “less effective on the West Coast,” stating, “my take is that the West Coast’s central problem is not so much that it’s unserious as that it’s infected with an ideological purity that is focused more on intentions than on oversight and outcomes.”
“Politics always is part theater, but out West too often we settle for being performative rather than substantive.”
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California Gov. Gavin Newsom was recently ripped by critics for describing California as a “national model” for combatting homelessness. (California Governor Gavin Newsom YouTube channel)
Kristof provided examples, like the fact that Oregon took money from an already “tight education budget” to put tampons in boys’ restrooms in elementary schools, “including boys’ restrooms in kindergartens.”
He also mentioned Portland setting up the “Portland Freedom Fund,” a volunteer group that pays bail for people of color. He explained how it paid bail for a man after he was arrested for allegedly threatening the life of his girlfriend. Once he got out of jail, he murdered the woman.
Kristof continued, noting that despite being inspired by anti-racist Critical Race theorists like Ibram X. Kendi, West Coast leaders have “impeded home construction in ways that made cities unaffordable, especially for people of color.”
“We let increasing numbers of people struggle with homelessness, particularly Black and brown people. Black people in Portland are also murdered at higher rates than in cities more notorious for violence, and Seattle and Portland have some of the greatest racial disparities in arrests in the country,” he wrote.
Driving the point home, he added, “I think intentions and framing can matter, but it’s absolutely true that good intentions are not enough. What matters is improving opportunities and quality of life, and the best path to do that is a relentless empiricism.”
At the end of the column, Kristof concluded, “We need to get our act together. Less purity and more pragmatism would go a long way. But perhaps the first step must be the humility to acknowledge our failures.”
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An Alaska woman is accusing the Alaska Department of Public Safety, two Alaska State Troopers and the A&E Television Network of compromising her privacy and safety as a confidential informant after they filmed an arrest without her consent.
The woman, identified in the filings as Jane Doe, says that she received death threats after she was a confidential informant whose information led to an arrest that was filmed and later aired on the Alaska State Troopers reality show.
Alaska Beacon is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Alaska Beacon maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Claire Stremple for questions: info@alaskabeacon.com.
California’s billionaires are not the only ones fighting back against the state’s largest health workers union this election season. Now the clinics are too.
The California Primary Care Assn., which represents more than 2,300 community health clinics, and Open Door Community Health Centers filed a lawsuit Thursday to stop Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West from placing an initiative on the November ballot that would dictate how clinics spend money.
The clinic measure is less prominent than the billionaire-backed fight against a wealth tax, but recently came closer to appearing before voters.
The clinic’s lawsuit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, argues that the union’s ballot measure would interfere with federal laws and regulations that place strict spending requirements on nonprofit health clinics that serve low-income patients.
Joey Cachuela, general counsel for the clinic association, said in a statement the initiative threatens patient care. “We are filing this preelection challenge and need the courts to act to prevent this drastic measure from ever going to the ballot. Patient lives are at risk,” Cachuela said.
Renée Saldaña, a spokesperson for the healthcare workers union, said the proposed initiative was “legally sound” and called the lawsuit a “desperate attempt by the clinic industry to avoid accountability.”
Dr. Elizabeth Sophy, right, who is a part of Father Joe’s Villages Street Health Team, examines Devlin Chambers at an encampment in downtown San Diego on March 22, 2024. Chambers, 60, said he has a pinched nerve in his back.
(Kristian Carreon / CalMatters)
Last month, union members turned in more than 1 million signatures to qualify the “Clinic Funding Accountability and Transparency Act” for the ballot. The union collected nearly double the number of signatures required to place the proposal before voters.
Under California’s election rules, proposals that gather enough signatures qualify for the ballot after the secretary of state’s office verifies their validity.
The union proposal would require federally qualified health centers to spend 90% of revenue on services that fulfill the stated mission to “provide primary and preventive care to low-income and underserved populations.” It would also punish clinics that do not adhere to this spending formula and place the money in a state-operated account that could later be used for worker training and staffing programs.
“It is the intent of this initiative to create a reasonable minimum standard of mission-directed spending … to ensure clinic patient service delivery and workforce stability is prioritized over management and overhead spending,” the initiative states.
Union leaders and members argue that clinics spend too much money on executive pay and administrative overhead and too little on patients. They also contend that some clinics spend only half of their revenue on direct patient care, an allegation that clinics call misleading.
“We have one message for our clinics: Put patients first. It’s time for an end to wasteful spending. It’s time to make sure clinics are putting their money in patient care and not CEO pay,” said Brisa Barrera, a medical assistant from Santa Rosa Community Health during an April rally to celebrate delivering the signatures.
The clinic association, however, argues that the initiative would illegally force hundreds of community health centers to close by stripping nearly $2 billion from health systems.
Tory Starr, chief executive of Open Door Community Health Centers, which operates clinics in Humboldt and Del Norte counties, said the measure would be “devastating” to the organization’s rural patients and would result in layoffs, reduced services and closures.
A nearly identical version of the ballot initiative failed to pass in the state Legislature earlier this year.
The initiative is one of three measures the union has submitted to the ballot. Another aims to limit healthcare executive pay at $450,000, and SEIU-UHW is also backing the “billionaire’s tax” that has drawn ire from both Democrats and Republicans.
Hwang writes for CalMatters.
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