In a world where many people don’t feel they have a voice, students in Texas galvanized to find ways to get heard on issues that directly affect them. Forming Students Engaging in Advancing Texas (SEAT) has been transformative, not only for the involved students in Texas, but for youth in other states around the country who are inspired to do the same. SEAT’s vision, according to their website, “is normalizing the presence of students in educational policymaking – nothing about us, without us. We strive for a day where students speaking at school board meetings is a norm, not an anomaly.”
Their impact has been far-reaching. From fundraising for libraries to fighting bills that prohibit LGBTQ extracurricular school activities, they show up and advocate whenever they can.
So, when the SCOPE Act, which stands for Securing Children Online Through Parental Empowerment, was introduced to the Texas legislature in 2023, SEAT (alongside other advocacy groups) fought aspects of it due to their perceived censorship and invasion of privacy.
In the 2023 opinion piece, “New Texas law will keep kids from needed online community – and hit LGBTQ teens the hardest” for the Star Telegram, Adam Kovacevich wrote, “Gov. Greg Abbott signed a new law that adds fuel to the fire by opening the door to digital state censorship. The bill will deprive teens in need—especially LGBTQ youth—of access to online resources and connections with peers who identify like they do.”
He noted the privacy issues as well. “Additionally, the bill puts online privacy at risk for both minors and adults.”
Whereas the SCOPE Act claims to guard minors against “grooming,” Kovacevich suggested, “Nowhere in the SCOPE Act’s text is so-called grooming content defined, but for anyone who’s followed Texas’ war on school libraries, that word shouldn’t be hard to recognize. ‘Child grooming’ is the same justification that Texas school board members and far-right activists across the country have used to ban LGBTQ books from local libraries.’”
Judge Robert Pittman granted, in a 37-page decision, that three of the SCOPE Act provisions would not be enforced. Leonard shared that, in part, this included “required content monitoring and filtering, targeted advertising bans, and age-verification requirements.”
It’s a huge start to what will most likely be a lengthy battle. Cameron Samuels, the Executive Director of SEAT, had this inspiring message on their Instagram: “You can’t ban queer joy. States like Texas are not a lost cause when our community is struggling. You should be asking us how you can help.”
Local officials get to participate in events such as ribbon cuttings, celebrating projects they may have helped make happen. – Photo credit: NHLI/Eliot J. Schechter via Getty Images
But things are much less heated at the local level. A survey of more than 1,400 local officials by the Carnegie Corporation and CivicPulse found that local governments are “largely insulated from the harshest effects of polarization.” Communities with fewer than 50,000 residents proved especially resilient to partisan dysfunction.
Why this difference? As a political scientist, I believe that lessons from the local level not only open a window onto how polarization works but also the dynamics and tools that can help reduce it.
Problems are more concrete
Local governments deal with concrete issues – sometimes literally, when it comes to paving roads and fixing potholes. In general, cities and counties handle day-to-day functions, such as garbage pickup, running schools and enforcing zoning rules. Addressing tangible needs keeps local leaders’ attention fixed on specific problems that call out for specific solutions, not lengthy ideological debates.
By contrast, a lot of national political conflict in the U.S. involves symbolic issues, such as debates about identity and values on topics such as race, abortion and transgender rights. These battles are often divisive, even more so than purely ideological disagreements, because they can activate tribal differences and prove more resistant to compromise.
When mayors come together, they often find they face common problems in their cities. Gathered here, from left, are Jerry Dyer of Fresno, Calif., John Ewing Jr. of Omaha, Neb., and David Holt of Oklahoma City. AP Photo/Kevin Wolf
Such arguments at the national level, or on social media, can lead to wildly inaccurate stereotypes about people with opposing views. Today’s partisans often perceive their opponents as far more extreme than they actually are, or they may stereotype them – imagining that all Republicans are wealthy, evangelical culture warriors, for instance, or conversely being convinced that all Democrats are radical urban activists. In terms of ideology, the median members of both parties, in fact, look similar.
These kinds of misperceptions can fuel hostility.
Local officials, however, live among the human beings they represent, whose complexity defies caricature. Living and interacting in the same communities leads to greater recognition of shared interests and values, according to the Carnegie/CivicPulse survey.
Meaningful interaction with others, including partisans of the opposing party, reduces prejudice about them. Local government provides a natural space where identities overlap.
People are complicated
In national U.S. politics today, large groups of individuals are divided not only by party but a variety of other factors, including race, religion, geography and social networks. When these differences align with ideology, political disagreement can feel like an existential threat.
Such differences are not always as pronounced at the local level. A neighbor who disagrees about property taxes could be the coach of your child’s soccer team. Your fellow school board member might share your concerns about curriculum but vote differently in presidential elections.
Mayors can find themselves caught up in national debates, as did Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over the Trump administrationu2019s immigration enforcement policies in his city. AP Photo/Kevin Wolf
These cross-cutting connections remind us that political opponents are not a monolithic enemy but complex individuals. When people discover they have commonalities outside of politics with others holding opposing views, polarization can decrease significantly.
Finally, most local elections are technically nonpartisan. Keeping party labels off ballots allows voters to judge candidates as individuals and not merely as Republicans or Democrats.
Nevertheless, the relative partisan calm of local governance suggests that polarization is not inevitable. It emerges from specific conditions that can be altered.
Polarization might be reduced by creating more opportunities for cross-partisan collaboration around concrete problems. Philanthropists and even states might invest in local journalism that covers pragmatic governance rather than partisan conflict. More cities and counties could adopt changes in election law that would de-emphasize party labels where they add little information for voters.
Aside from structural changes, individual Americans can strive to recognize that their neighbors are not the cardboard cutouts they might imagine when thinking about “the other side.” Instead, Americans can recognize that even political opponents are navigating similar landscapes of community, personal challenges and time constraints, with often similar desires to see their roads paved and their children well educated.
The conditions shaping our interactions matter enormously. If conditions change, perhaps less partisan rancor will be the result.
Several Danish policies are intended to help mothers stay employed.
For example, subsidized child care is available for all children from 6 months of age until they can attend elementary school. Parents pay no more than 25% of its cost.
Using administrative data from Statistics Denmark, a government agency that collects and compiles national statistics, we studied the long-term effects of motherhood on income for 104,361 Danish women. They were born in the early 1960s and became mothers for the first time when they were 20-35 years old.
They all became mothers by 2000, making it possible to observe how their earnings unfolded for decades after their first child was born. While the Danish government’s policies changed over those years, paid parental leave and child allowances and other benefits were in place throughout. The women were, on average, age 26 when they became mothers for the first time, and 85% had more than one child.
We estimated that motherhood led to a loss of about the equivalent of US$9,000 in women’s earnings – which we measured in inflation-adjusted 2022 U.S. dollars – in the year they gave birth to or adopted their first child, compared with what we would expect if they had remained childless. While the motherhood penalty got smaller as their children got older, it was long-lasting.
The penalty only fully disappeared 19 years after the women became moms. Motherhood also led to a long-term decrease in the number of the hours they worked.
We estimated that motherhood cost the average Danish woman a total of about $120,000 in earnings over the first 20 years after they first had children – about 12% of the money they would have earned over those two decades had they remained childless.
Most of the mothers in our study who were employed before giving birth were eligible for four weeks of paid leave before giving birth and 24 weeks afterward. They could share up to 10 weeks of their paid leave with the baby’s father. The length and size of this benefit has changed over the years.
The Danish government also offers child benefits – payments made to parents of children under 18. These benefits are sometimes called a “child allowance.”
Denmark has other policies, like housing allowances, that are available to all Danes, but are more generous for parents with children living at home.
Using the same data, Christensen and I next estimated how motherhood affects how much money Danish moms receive from the government. We wanted to know whether they get enough income from the government to compensate for their loss of income from their paid work.
We found that motherhood leads to immediate increases in Danish moms’ government benefits. In the year they first gave birth to or adopted a child, women received over $7,000 more from the government than if they had remained childless. That money didn’t fully offset their lost earnings, but it made a substantial dent.
The gap between the money that mothers received from the government, compared with what they would have received if they remained childless, faded in the years following their first birth or adoption. But we detected a long-term bump in income from government benefits for mothers – even 20 years after they first become mothers.
Cumulatively, we determined that the Danish government offset about 80% of the motherhood earnings penalty for the women we studied. While mothers lost about $120,000 in earnings compared with childless women over the two decades after becoming a mother, they gained about $100,000 in government benefits, so their total income loss was only about $20,000.
Benefits for parents of older kids
Our findings show that government benefits do not fully offset earnings losses for Danish moms. But they help a lot.
Because most countries provide less generous parental benefits, Denmark is not a representative case. It is instead a test case that shows what’s possible when governments make financially supporting parents a high priority.
That is, strong financial support for mothers from the government can make motherhood more affordable and promote gender equality in economic resources.
Because the motherhood penalty is largest at the beginning, government benefits targeted to moms with infants, such as paid parental leave, may be especially valuable.
The motherhood penalty’s long-term nature, however, indicates that these short-term benefits are not enough to get rid of it altogether. Benefits that are available to all mothers of children under 18, such as child allowances, can help offset the long-term motherhood penalty for mothers of older children.
Despite its recent increase in use, marijuana is classified in the United States as a Schedule I drug, putting it on par with heroin and LSD as a substance with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. This classification has created limitations not only on access to marijuana and marijuana-derived products, whether used medicinally or recreationally, but has done so since the Nixon administration.
However, a proposed executive order from President Donald Trump could change that and spur more thorough research into what cannabis can offer, with or without its psychoactive ingredients.
The executive order under consideration would reclassify cannabis as a Schedule III drug, placing it alongside substances such as Tylenol with codeine and testosterone, which the DEA says have a “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”
While the order isn’t expected to outright legalize cannabis at the federal level, activists and scientists are excited because it would allow more open and less restrictive laboratory research on marijuana to better test its safety, efficacy, and potential uses. Trump’s order is also expected to include a pilot program allowing Medicare coverage of cannabis products for seniors.
“Because a lot of people want to see it, the reclassification, because it leads to tremendous amounts of research that can’t be done unless you reclassify,” Trump said Monday. “So we are looking at that very strongly.”
This comes at a time when many people, especially the elderly, have turned to marijuana and products such as cannabidiol (CBD) oil to treat sleep issues, nausea, and chronic pain, among other ailments. While CBD use is popular among older adults, it is growing across all demographics. It’s important to note that CBD products can contain varying levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive compound in marijuana; however, many CBD products contain no THC at all.
Should this executive order be cemented, it would answer years’ worth of pleas from the scientific community to fully test the cannabis plant’s limits, vet its benefits or debunk them, and identify additional, more effective uses. The order could also allow cannabis distributors to openly conduct cross-state trade and access traditional banking services. Cannabis industry stocks surged after news of the executive order broke.
There are opponents of Trump’s expected executive order, including members of his own party such as Republican Congressman Andy Harris, who argue that the president does not have the authority to reclassify marijuana without congressional approval.
However, it is likely Trump will be able to move forward and secure bipartisan support, given cannabis’s broad appeal among Americans, the potential benefits for scientific research, and a possible boost to the pharmaceutical industry.
Time will tell whether Trump’s expected order will be enforced and the change implemented, but if so, it could alter how cannabis has traditionally been treated in the United States. For now, that potential remains just that until further exploration and experimentation are possible once restrictions are lifted.
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