November 9, 2009

Anthony Foxx and Sarah Palin

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Ben Smith passes on a column by the Charlotte Observer‘s Mary Newsom on Charlotte’s new Democratic mayor, Anthony Foxx:

Amid the bloviation-fest following Tuesday’s election, Charlotte’s mayoral election seems to have kept on flying under the national political radar. Odd.

Think about it: A young African-American Democrat, raised by a single mom and his grandparents, now a successful lawyer, aims for a seat that’s been Republicans for years. He mobilizes young and African-American voters and wins in a strong showing. Sound familiar?

[…]

Democrat Anthony Foxx’s win over Republican John Lassiter is not an insignificant anthill on the political landscape. The largest city in the nation’s 10th largest state elected its first Democratic mayor in 22 years, an African-American in a majority-white Southern city, a progressive mass transit supporter and an environmentalist.

Charlotte is America’s 18th-largest city, with a population of 687,456 in 2008. That means that Foxx now governs slightly more people than Sarah Palin, onetime candidate for vice president, did as governor of the state of Alaska. Charlotte has more people than Alaska, North Dakota, Vermont, the District of Columbia, and Wyoming. If you take the population of the entire Charlotte metropolitan area, the contrast is even more striking. With around 1.7 million people, the Charlotte metro area has a population larger than 11 states and the District of Columbia. Each of those 11 states has two Senators. The political structure of this country is truly bizarre.

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“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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