Florida Courier - January 11, 2013

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JANUARY 11 - JANUARY 17, 2013

VOLUME 21 NO. 2

Was the November ballot too long? BY DAVID ROYSE THE NEWS SERVICE OF FLORIDA

When Gov. Rick Scott recently listed ways he thinks Florida could reduce voting difficulties and long polling lines, he drew the most attention for a change of course in suggesting that more early voting might help. But another idea Scott raised may have more far-reaching implications for public policy in Florida, and might even be more difficult to accomplish than the politically volatile suggestion about early voting.

Long ballot FLORIDA COURIER FILES

Female African clothing and fashion entrepreneurs traveled to America last year to learn how to improve their businesses.

HERE’S OUR ‘BLACK AGENDA’ BY THE FLORIDA COURIER EDITORIAL STAFF

Editor’s note: This is an updated list of issues that was originally published on Oct. 26, 2012. 1. JOBS AND BLACK BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT – Even before the 2008 recession, the Black Press was reporting Black male unemployment rates of 50 percent or more in pockets of high-density Black urban areas like New York and Milwaukee. Black unemployment has increased during the Obama administration, and, when the number of people who are no longer looking for jobs is considered, overall Black unemployment easily exceeds 25 percent nationwide. Various studies show that Black-owned firms hire a greater percentage of Black applicants than do otherwise similar White-owned firms. But because small Black business owners have difficulty getting investment capital, many have used home equity loans to start or improve their businesses. With the foreclosure crisis that

SNAPSHOTS NATION | A3

President Obama will serve another four years – largely as a result of the overwhelming number of Black Americans who voted for him in November 2012. Here are some major issues we must force the second Obama administration to address. peaked in 2008 (see HOUSING entry), Black entrepreneurs find it more difficult than ever to start or grow their businesses. Government policies must target the disproportionate impact “The Great Recession” has had both on Black workers and on Black businesses. President Obama must enforce minority business preferences already on the books in federal government procurement – something that did not occur during the first four years, leading some Black business leaders to conclude that his administration is hostile to small Black businesses. Helping Black businesses succeed will have a di-

FLORIDA | A6

Revenue, pension top list of local governments’ concerns HEALTH | B3

How raising grandkids affects grandparents

ALSO INSIDE

FINEST | B5

Meet Abby

Blame legislators

FLORIDA COURIER FILES

Frances McCready listens as other senior citizens discuss a possible increase in the cost of living allowance in Social Security. ments because they are poor. That dependency grew with the housing foreclosure crisis that robbed many Black families of their largest financial asset: their home. The Pew Research Center indicates that “the median wealth of White households is 20 times that of Black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households,” the largest disparities since Pew began publishing the data more than 25 years ago. The growth and length of entitlements must be reduced so that America’s budget deficit will be eliminated over time. However, such reductions

US health poor compared to wealthy nations BY ERYN BROWN LOS ANGELES TIMES / MCT

Jobs increase in December; rate unchanged

rect impact on reducing Black unemployment, which is critical to improving the condition of Black America. 2. ‘ENTITLEMENTS’ (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, unemployment insurance, welfare, public housing) – According to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of all Americans have benefited from two or more entitlements program during their lives. Social Security is the sole source of retirement income for too many African-Americans because of a lack of income from pensions and other assets. A disproportionate number of Blacks rely on entitle-

Americans live shorter lives – and are in generally worse health – than citizens of other wealthy nations, according to an extensive report released Wednesday by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine. The analysis of international health data determined that American men had the lowest life expectancy among men in 17 countries, including wealthy European nations, Australia, Canada and Japan. U.S. women had the secondlowest life expectancy (only Danish women fared worse.)

The 2012 ballot was several pages in many places, most notably in Miami where voters had to wade through 12 pages because of a number of local issues. It was lengthened by legislators, who put 11 constitutional amendment questions on it, some of them written out in full. “In Miami-Dade County, the ballot read like the book of Leviticus – though not as interesting,” said Senate President Don Gaetz. In short, “it was just too long,” Scott said late last year on CNN.

Nine areas The study listed nine health areas in which Americans came in below average: infant mortality and low birth weight; injuries and homicides; adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections; HIV and AIDS; drug-related deaths; obesity and diabetes; heart disease; chronic lung disease; and disability. The U.S. earned relatively high marks for its low cancer death rates and success controlling blood pressure and cholesterol levels, the researchers said. But by and large, said panel chair Dr. Steven H. Woolf during a phone call with reporters Wednesday,

See AGENDA, Page A2

the team was “struck by the gravity of our findings,” which spanned the population. “Even Americans who are White, insured, have college educations and seem to have healthy behaviors are in worse health than similar people in other nations,” said Woolf, a researcher who directs the Center for Human Needs at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.

Various causes The disparities were pervasive across all age groups up to 75, Woolf told the reporters, and seemed to stem from a variety of wide-ranging causes, including U.S. car culture, the number of uninsured people in the country, and weaknesses in our outpatient health care system. Gun use emerged as a factor: Americans were seven times

The ballot was long in part because the Florida Legislature exempted itself from a 75-word limit on ballot summaries that applies to interest groups that put forth proposed amendments. And in some cases, the entire text of the amendment was listed. Elections supervisors said they believed it was the longest statewide ballot ever and had warned publicly before Election Day that it could take over a half hour to wade through it.

Another problem University of Florida Political Science Professor Dan Smith, whose expertise is in the conduct of elections, believes the lines weren’t caused by the length of the ballot – noting that even in Miami-Dade County with its biblical tome, there were major differences in lines, with people in some precincts waiting several hours and those in others getting in and out quickly. Longer ballots probably do slow voters down some, Smith said. “But the bottlenecks were processing people through...part of it was all the provisional ballots that were pulling people off” the line, See BALLOT, Page A2

more likely to die in a homicide and 20 times more likely to die in a shooting than their peers. In all, two-thirds of the mortality disadvantage for American men was attributable to people under the age of 50 – and slightly over half of that resulted from injuries, said study collaborator Samuel Preston, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania. It is possible that there’s something about American culture, and the high value it places on individualism and personal autonomy, which results in its poor performance, the researchers noted. It also may be that the U.S. is ahead of the curve on a general trend, and that other nations will also start to experience the health problems that have been on the rise here since the 1980s, Preston said.

COMMENTARY: CHARLES W. CHERRY II: RANDOM THOUGHTS OF A FREE BLACK MIND | A4 COMMENTARY: BARBARA ANWINE: 50 YEARS AFTER CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, CHALLENGES CONTINUE | A5


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