Tag: conservatives

Posted on

Challenge to 1266 fails

The California secretary of state’s office issued the final full check Monday, February 24, as reported in the Bay Area Reporter.

“It showed that the Privacy for All Students coalition, which sponsored the referendum, needed 540,760 valid signatures. The coalition ended up with only 487,484 valid signatures.

“Called the School Success and Opportunity Act, Assembly Bill 1266 ensures that California public schools are committed to the success of all students, including those transgender-identified. Under the law, transgender students have the right to participate in all school activities like sports teams, and use school facilities like bathrooms based on their gender identity.

In January, random samples taken from petition signature counts in each county qualified the referendum, albeit barely, for a full signature count. As final numbers rolled in on Monday, AB 1266 supporters nodded their approval and celebrated the continued protection of transgender youth in California schools. AB 1266, which was signed by Governor Jerry Brown last summer, went into effect January 1.

“Richard Poppen, an Equality California board member and mathematician, watched the signature counting process closely and relayed regular informative updates to colleagues as each county reported their numbers.

“The process went through in the standard way,” Poppen told the Bay Area Reporter. “Referendum proponents got the full benefit of the statutory process but failed fair and square to meet the threshold. Trans kids will continue to be protected as the legislature intended.”

“Supporters of the new law, including Equality California, the Transgender Law Center, and other groups that came together under the Support All Students campaign, were pleased the referendum failed to qualify, and thus there won’t be a divisive anti-LGBT measure on the November ballot.”

 

More at: http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=69512

Posted on

Conservatives losing ground as political identity

Americans continue to be more likely to identify as conservatives (38%) than as liberals (23%)images-2

But as Gallup  recently reported, “the conservative advantage is down to 15 percentage points as liberal identification edged up to its highest level since Gallup began regularly measuring ideology in the current format in 1992. The figures are based on combined data from 13 separate Gallup polls, including interviews with more than 18,000 Americans, conducted in 2013.When Gallup began asking about ideological identification in all its polls in 1992, an average 17% of Americans said they were liberal. That dipped to 16% in 1995 and 1996, but has gradually increased, exceeding 20% each year since 2005.

“The rise in liberal identification has been accompanied by a decline in moderate identification. At 34% in 2013, it is the lowest Gallup has measured, and down nine points since 1992. Moderates had been the largest ideological group throughout the 1990s, and competed with conservatives for the top spot during the 2000s. Since 2009, conservatives have consistently been the largest U.S. ideological group.

“The percentage of conservatives has always far exceeded the percentage of liberals, by as much as 22 points in 1996. With more Americans identifying as liberals in recent years, and conservative identification holding steady, the conservative advantage of 15 points ties the 2007 and 2008 gaps as the smallest. Continue reading “Conservatives losing ground as political identity”

Posted on

Counting liberals at Trader Joe’s

The cliché that liberals shop at Trader Joe’s, while conservatives prefer Walmart, is no doubt overstated. But where would the perception come from?

Newly published research provides a compelling answer: brand-name products. Conservatives gravitate toward them, and Walmart, unlike Trader Joe’s, is packed with them, reports Salon.com.images

“That provocative conclusion can be drawn from a study in the journal Psychological Science. A research team led by Vishal Singh of New York University’s Stern School of Business has discovered a relationship between voting behavior, high levels of religiosity, and “seemingly inconsequential product choices.”

“They argue that your decision to vote for a certain candidate, and purchase a particular brand of detergent, springs from the same basic impulse:“Our empirical results, based on extensive field data, provide strong evidence that more conservative ideology is associated with higher reliance on established national brands (as opposed to generics) and a slower uptake of new products.”

“These tendencies are consistent with traits typically associated with conservatism, such as aversion to risk, skepticism about new experiences, and a general preference for tradition, convention, and the status quo.”The researchers used a comprehensive database that tracks weekly store sales of thousands of products. Focusing on 416 counties which collectively represent 47 percent of the U.S. population, they calculated the market share of generics in 26 categories, including coffee, deodorant, and peanut butter. Continue reading “Counting liberals at Trader Joe’s”