Ideas Conference Papers, Volume II

SIFTING AND WINNOWING The Ideas Conference Papers Volume II, Fall 2019

All inquires may be directed to: Sifting & Winnowing Foundation C/O Howard Schweber North Hall, Bascom Mall Madison, WI 53706

SIFTING AND WINNOWING The Ideas Conference Papers Volume II, Fall 2019

sifting@polisci.wisc.edu Sifting & Winnowing Foundation Board of Directors Howard Schweber - Faculty Director Signe Janoska-Bedi - Managing Director and President Elissa Koppel - Permanent Director and Vice President Luke Georgiadis - Permanent Director and Treasurer Christopher Thone - Acting Director Adam Dedobbelaere - Acting Director The views expressed by the authors do not represent those of Sifting & Winnowing or the WI Ideas Conference.

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Fall 2019 Special Edition Staff Adam Dedobbelaere

Elissa Koppel

Grace George

Benjamin Olneck-Brown

Luke Georgiadis

Emmett Sexton

Signe Janoska-Bedi

Christopher Thone

Ben Keeler

Table of Contents 7 Addressing Unpredictable and Unstable Work Arrangements in the Service Sector

By Philip Aciman 18 Influencers for Action

54 Two Belts, Two Roads

By Sam Blair

By Zachary Klagge

25 Overcoming Real Time Pricing Hurdles

60 Mitigating Disparate Service Worker Incomes in Rhode Island

By Elissa Koppel

By Andrew Bray 31 An Answer For Media Manipulation Tools & A Low-Trust Media Environment

71 Polarization, Disenfranchisement, and Ranked-Choice Voting

By Davis Larkin

102 Bringing Minority Gender and Sexual Identities to the Forefront of Wisconsin Sexual Education

By Emma Morales Leslie 142 Rejuvenating Arctic Policy – A Roadmap Forward

108 Selling a Sales Tax: The Price for Local Control

By Mary E. Morris

By Michael J. Sauer 150 Climate Change, Water, & Security: The Levant Drought and Syrian Refugee Crisis

115 Memorandum to the Great Lakes Commission

By Jackson Parr

By Mollye Shacklette

By Avneesh Chandra 37 Increasing Access at Farmers Markets

81 Affordable Housing and Community Land Trusts

By Michael Lynch

By Chloe Green 43 National Service

90 Rapprochement for Reversal

By Andrew C. McWard

By Grant Haxton 49 Institution Building in the Indo-Pacific

96 Addressing Misinformation on Social Media Platforms

By Ben Keeler

By Harrison Meyer

123 Electoral Reform in the United States

By Emma Raschka

159 The Problem of Legal Financial Obligations

130 School Integration through School Attendance Boundary Re-Zoning

164 Reforming Sex Education: Ending Stigmatization and Exclusion

By Anil Sindhwani

By Samuel Ropa

By Job Sommer

137 Transit Investments in the City of Milwaukee

170 Cryptoasset Regulation in the United States

By Aniket Sangwan

By Christopher Thone 175 Physically Altering City Landscapes

By Elizabeth R. Wallis

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“I

Letter From the Staff shall never be content until the beneficent influence of the University reaches every family of the state.”

Charles Van Hise, Chancellor of the University of

Wisconsin, discussing the Wisconsin Idea in 1905

It is our pleasure to present the second volume of the Sifting & Winnowing Ideas Conference Papers. Its contents were drawn, like the previous volume, from the policy memos written by participants at the WI Ideas Conference. We hope that this conference serves as a forum for policy discourse and provides our participants with a shared vocabulary to discuss and solve future challenges together. We believe that, by establishing a shared vocabulary independent from ideology, we can lay the groundwork for people to work together on the substance of public policy despite their differences. In turn, this cooperative mindset empowers students to emerge through collective action as a new generation of American policymakers.

Addressing Unpredictable and Unstable Work Arrangements in the Service Sector

By Philip Aciman

As you read, you might notice some improvements in the consistency of our presentation.

Specifically, our team has developed stronger guidelines for the organization and citation of policy memos. In addition, we’ve experimented with a single-column format to make reading these memos easier.

Sifting & Winnowing began as a student journal affiliated with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Political Science and has since grown into an organization that plans an annual academic conference, publishes student academic writing, and works to foster student involvement in the policy-making process. Our organization embodies the twin traditions of truth-seeking and contribution to community, and we believe that Wisconsin’s historical commitment to academic freedom makes it an ideal place for students to share and refine their ideas while keeping our state at the forefront of civic dialogue.

Finally, we’d like to extend a special thank you to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Political Science, Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy, and the La Follette School of Public Affairs for their partnership in this event. We would also like to thank the Wisconsin Union Directorate.

Sincerely, The Ideas Conference Team Sifting & Winnowing

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Introduction

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ow-wage hourly workers often do not know when they will work, for how long they will work, or if they will even work at all until they actually show up to their place of work; their schedules are both unpredictable and unstable. This is especially true in certain industries such as retail, food service, and hospitality.

Although instability and unpredictability vis-à-vis scheduling are defined differently, they have similar adverse outcomes for low-wage hourly workers. In addition to greater stress, work-family conflict, and negative perceptions of job and financial insecurity, unstable and unpredictable work arrangements can lead to lower job performance, higher turnover, and even poor health. Although unstable and unpredictable scheduling practices are not mutually exclusive— low wage hourly workers often experience both— public policy solutions designed to address these scheduling practices have done little to address both. Most local and state laws aimed at curbing harmful scheduling practices focus exclusively on improving schedule predictability leaving the matter of schedule stability largely unaddressed. In this memo, I will provide definitions for unpredictable and unstable work arrangements, including why they exist, the impact that they have, and their prevalence. I will also provide an overview of current laws that have been implemented in order to address these scheduling practices. Finally, I will provide a framework for why employer action, more so than public policy, is the most viable means through which schedule stability can be improved for hourly workers. Specifically, employers should focus on improving the quality of low-wage hourly job and providing workers with a degree of control over their own schedules.

Defining the Issue Why Unstable and Unpredictable Work Arrangements Occur Unstable and unpredictable work arrangements occur not because front-line managers are inept schedulers or lack empathy for their unsalaried employees. Rather, these conditions occur as a result of executive-level business decisions. Hourly workers in industries like retail, food service, and hospitality are viewed as variable costs— they are paid only as many hours as they work (unlike salaried workers) and can be excluded from most employee benefits.1 Today, containing costs is seen as the primary mechanism for increasing profitability and tightly controlling labor has become a fundamental business practice used to achieve cost containment.2As a result, front-line managers must adhere to strict corporate guidelines that minimize the number of total workers they can employ and weekly hours they can assign to these workers.

In fact, many low-wage hourly jobs are designed to accommodate these goals and sustain the high rates of turnover that might ensue. During one year at a national retail company, the turnover rate for hourly sales associates was 75% for full-time workers and 113%

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for part-time workers.3 Additionally, many low wage hourly jobs perform a singular task that requires minimal training. In many cases, managers over-hire for these types of positions so that they can have a large pool of workers to call upon when they need shifts filled, rather than having to create schedules that meet the needs of their workers.

Ultimately, the work that low-wage hourly workers perform is seen as inconsequential to a company’s profitability but containing the number of hours they work is paramount and therefore, employee input regarding scheduling preferences is largely secondary to meeting these cost-minimization guidelines.

Defining Unpredictable and Unstable Work Arrangements Unpredictable work arrangements occur when front-line managers provide workers with little notice of their upcoming work schedules; inform workers of schedule changes last minute; send workers home early or reduce the number of hours in their shift; or ask workers to work more hours or days than originally scheduled.4 Unstable work arrangements occur when a worker’s number of scheduled hours changes from week to week or fluctuates over time. Specifically, this refers to when workers face uncertainty about the number of hours they will work and ultimately get paid for.5 Why Unstable and Unpredictable Schedules are Harmful When low-wage hourly workers experience unpredictable scheduling practices they are often unable to meet or plan their non-work responsibilities such as childcare obligations and other family commitments. This inability to predict when and how long they will work along with the resulting inability to meet non-work responsibilities increases the level of perceived stress that these workers experience.6 Further, when hourly workers face uncertainty around the number of hours they will work during a given scheduling period, they are also likely to experience economic insecurity, specifically around their ability to meet financial obligations such medical expenses, housing costs, and even groceries. As is the case with unpredictable work schedules, schedule instability is also associated with high levels of perceived stress and increased conflict between work and non-work responsibilities.7 A recent study examining the health and wellbeing impacts of unpredictable and unstable work arrangements on hourly service sector workers showed that among those sampled: • 40% reported variations in their week-to-week income; • 25% experienced difficulties in paying their bills; and • 65% experienced at least one serious “material hardship” over the last year.8 Of equal concern is that these harmful scheduling practices can also have negative health implications for workers who are subjected to them. The same health and wellness study showed that among those sampled: • 50% reported “more than a little” psychological distress;

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• 76% reported “fair or poor” sleep quality; and • 29% reported not being happy.9 Unpredictable and Unstable Schedules are Widespread In additional to being all-encompassing the poor outcomes associated with unpredictable and unstable work arrangements are also widespread among low-wage hourly workers.

In fact, a recent study based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) found that among retail and food service hourly workers: • Nearly 50% of retail workers and 65% of food service workers knew their schedules one week in advance or less; • Nearly 90% of both groups experienced fluctuations in the number of weekly hours they worked; and • Weekly worked varied by nearly 50% for retail workers and 70% for food service workers.10 Although unpredictable and unstable scheduling practices were worse and more prevalent among retail and food service workers, of all full-time, low-wage hourly workers sampled, 70% experienced fluctuations in the number of weekly hours they worked and 43% received their schedules with one week of advanced notice or less. An even greater proportion of part-time hourly workers experienced one week of advance notice or less (50%) and fluctuations in weekly hours (85%).11 This study found also that among working adults with a 13-year-old child or younger, nearly 70% of mothers and nearly 80% of fathers had hours that fluctuated by an average of 40% compared to their usual hours. Further, 46% of fathers and 32% of mothers knew their schedules with one week of advance notice or less.12 As mentioned earlier in this section, many companies view cost-containment via controlling hourly labor as a primary means of achieving profitability. In fact, a 2001 survey of U.S. workers found that 48% of men and 24.5% of women working in part-time hourly jobs reported that they would prefer to work more hours.13 Similarly, another study found that 84% of hourly workers who reported not working enough hours claim the reason was because their managers simply did not have enough hours to assign them.

Correspondingly, a survey of store managers found that 83% of managers reported that adhering to corporate limits on hours was “very important” and only 32% reported that their workers’ preferences for more hours was “very important.”14 Current Solutions - Public Policy Advanced Notice Several cities such as New York, San Francisco and Seattle and Philadelphia have all implemented their own provisions mandating that employers provide hourly workers

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their schedules with a certain amount of advance notice. For example, in San Francisco requires large employers with at least 40 establishments worldwide to provide workers with their schedules at least two weeks in advance.15 Pay Premiums New York City, San Francisco, Seattle and Oregon, among several other states and cities, have all also implemented provisions that require employers to pay hourly workers a certain premium—usually one hour’s pay—for changes made to their schedules with less than the minimum advance notice required. In cases where these changes increase the number of hours an employee works, employees are often compensated with both the premium and payment for the additional time they work. If employers cancel or reduce a worker’s shift, employers often have to compensate workers for every hour that is lost— usually some portion of the worker’s hourly wage for every lost hour. For example, in Oregon, employers must pay workers one hour’s pay in addition to the hours they work if the employer adds more than a half hour to the worker’s schedule or schedules the worker for an additional on-call shift. If a worker’s shift is reduced or cancelled, the employer must pay the worker half of their hourly wage for every hour not worked.16 On-Call Pay On-call pay provisions require employers to pay workers a certain amount for every hour that they are expected to be available to work a shift and expected to wait to be contacted by their employer. In Oregon, employers must pay workers half of their hourly wage for every on-call hour that workers are not used. In San Francisco, employers must pay workers for two hours at their full hourly wage for every on-call shift of four hours or more that workers are not used.17 Reporting Pay Many cities and states have implemented provisions that require employers to pay a worker for some portion of their original schedule, specifically when that worker reports to work but is then sent home early or has their shift cancelled. In many cases, employers must pay workers for either a minimum number of hours or for a certain number of the hours that they had reduced at varying rates. For example, in California, workers who report to work must be paid for at least half of their scheduled hours at their full hourly wage and in Connecticut, workers who report to work must be paid for at least four hours at their full hourly wage.18 Good Faith Estimates The four different types of provisions mentioned above serve to create greater predictability around when and how long hourly workers will work and ultimately how much they will be paid during a given period of time. However, these laws do little to address the schedule instability that many low-wage hourly workers also experience— although workers may know when and approximately how many hours they will work

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two weeks in advance, this two-week period may look completely different than the previous or next two-week period.

In addition to advance notice, pay premium, on-call pay, and reporting pay provisions, some of the above-mentioned cities and states have also implemented good faith estimate provisions. These provisions require employers to provide workers with a good faith estimate of their work schedules when they are hired. In Seattle, for example, employers must provide employees with estimates when they are hired and once a year. The estimate must include not only when the employee might be expected to work, but how many hours a week as well.19 However, unlike many advance notice provisions employers are not required to acquire written consent from workers and workers cannot simply decline a schedule change if their given schedule deviates from the good faith estimate.

Further, unlike pay premium, on-call, or reporting pay provisions, employers are not required to compensate workers for schedules that deviate from the good faith estimate.

So, while it would seem that hourly workers are gaining some degree of increased predictability around their schedules and pay, they still lack schedule stability.

a minimum number of hours each week; rather than have to worry about matching workers with the right job function, managers could then simply schedule workers for a shift and then assign them to tasks as needed. In addition to creating a mechanism through which hourly workers can work more hours consistently, cross-training hourly workers can also help improve productivity during times of low demand. This might also lead companies to change how they manager hourly labor altogether; rather than simply minimizing labor costs, employers may be more inclined to maximize labor productivity.

Improving Job Quality via Cross-training One possible solution to improving schedule stability among hourly service sector workers would be to enhance the strength of good faith estimate provisions. For instance, if employers deviate from their estimate by a certain number of hours, they would pay their workers a portion of any lost wages (similar to reporting pay provisions). Employers could also be required to acquire written consent from workers if the timing of a shift differs by a certain amount from the estimate (similar to some advance notice provisions).

The “Gap Study” In a study titled “Stable Scheduling Increases Productivity and Sales,” the authors implemented various stable and predictable scheduling measures at several Gap clothing stores and compared the outcomes of these measures with Gap stores that did nothing to change their scheduling practices. The study produced several key findings that could inform predictable but most importantly, stable scheduling policies for other companies. The study found that the use of a mobile app, Shift Messenger, was effective in allowing hourly workers to swap shifts with one another without having to rely on their managers. Hourly workers could post unwanted shifts that other workers could add to their schedules if they wanted to work additional hours. Workers who used the app found that they had more control over their own schedules.21 Another successful practice implemented in the Gap study was encouraging managers to stop relying on computer-generated schedules, which often need to be overridden because they do not account for certain factors such as employee skills or a store’s allotment of weekly staffing hours. Once managers stopped using these computer-generated schedules as templates, they found that it was fairly easy to provide workers with stable schedules. Specifically, managers kept workers’ start and end times relatively the same and provided them with a core number of shifts that remained stable week to week.22

However, employers, rather than local governments, might be the most effective force in providing hourly workers with increased schedule stability. Employer action, unlike public policy, has the ability to address the root cause of unstable and unpredictable scheduling practices, which is that front-line managers are tasked with minimizing hourly labor. Perhaps the most effective and feasible practice that employers could implement would be to cross train low-wage hourly workers. As mentioned earlier in the brief, hourly workers in the retail, food service, and hospitality industries are largely hired to fulfill a single task; workers may be hired as cashiers and only trained as cashiers, meaning they are unable to perform other routine tasks such as stocking shelves. Further, employers tend to over-hire for these types of positions, meaning that managers often have more hourly workers than available shifts.20

The Gap’s scheduling data showed that workers’ schedules became more stable and predictable; their number of weekly hours, start and end times, and shift times were more all more consistent. While it is not surprising that this intervention led to positive outcomes vis-à-vis stable scheduling, the authors also found that sales and productivity increased by 7% and 5% respectively in stores where the measures were implemented.

The authors suggest that reduced turnover and improved customer service resulting from more stable and predictable schedules led to these outcomes.23 The findings from this study call into question the notion that curbing hourly labor is paramount to profitability.

By providing hourly workers with an alternative means of managing their own hours (the mobile app) and implementing various schedule stability and predictability measures, these Gap stores saw increased sales and productivity, i.e. profitability.

If low-wage hourly workers are hired and trained to perform multiple tasks, they can become eligible to work more shifts. Further, when workers can perform various tasks, it might become simpler for front-line managers to guarantee these cross-trained workers

Informal Agreements and Workers’ Perceptions Another mechanism that employers can use to provide hourly workers with some control over their schedules is to allow front-line managers who are responsible for scheduling

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Improving Schedule Stability - Employer Action

to implement their own informal scheduling policies with individual employees. As those responsible for creating and enforcing schedules, managers can take their workers’ preferences into consideration when creating schedules. These informal agreements would afford workers limited and individualized schedule flexibility in order to help them meet non-work obligations that would otherwise be disrupted by their work schedules.24 Although this would not eliminate harmful scheduling practices, it could certainty mitigate their effects.

It is important to note that an employee’s perception of a supportive work environment may be equally as effective in mitigating negative outcomes associated with unstable and unpredictable scheduling practices as policies themselves.25 Workers’ perceptions of their employer’s support for better scheduling policies and support for their own scheduling needs, as well as their perception of their ability to control their schedules, can improve many of the symptoms associated with unstable and unpredictable work arrangements, such as job satisfaction and perceptions of financial and job insecurity. This can, in turn, improve workers’ perceptions of larger work-family conflicts that might result from unstable or unreducible work arrangements.26 Caveats Although the employer-driven solutions listed above might help to improve schedule stability more than current legislation (which mostly focuses on improving schedule predictability) there are some drawbacks to relying on employers. For instance, if employers were to cross-train low-wage hourly workers and then provide them with minimum guaranteed hours, employers may reduce the size of their workforces; remaining workers will likely experience longer hours and far more rigid schedules.

Ultimately, longer hours and increased schedule rigidity could lead to the same conflicts between work and family responsibilities that low-wage hourly workers experience due to unpredictable and unstable scheduling practices.27 Allowing low-wage hourly workers to gain a greater degree of control over their schedules may help improve their schedule stability or at the very least mitigate the effects of harmful scheduling practices. However, when managers adhere to their workers’ scheduling preferences, workers may end up being scheduled for fewer shifts if their preferences do not align with available shifts; in many industries where unstable or unpredictable scheduling practices are used, hours and shifts are already limited and in high demand.28 As mentioned earlier, most hourly employees would usually prefer to work more hours rather than fewer. Further, there are also several issues with companies allowing front-line managers to institute their own employee-specific schedule agreements. Managerial discretion is highly dependent on the managers themselves— namely, their relationship with workers and their managerial competencies.29 This can lead to issues if workers have multiple managers, as is often the case in the retail, food

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service, and hospitality industries. For instance, if a new manager is hired, they will not have the same relationship with workers as the previous manager and, therefore, may choose not to honor previous agreements.30 Conclusion Unpredictable and unstable scheduling arrangements among low-wage hourly workers in industries such as retail, food service, and hospitality, among many others, are extremely common. For instance, according to one study, nearly 90% of hourly workers in the food service and retail industries experience fluctuations in their schedules and these workers’ schedules often vary anywhere from 50% to 70% of their usual number hours. Further, between 50% and 65% of these workers received their schedules with one week of advance notice or less.31 However, schedule unpredictability and instability are not just common but incredibly harmful. For low-wage hourly workers, not knowing when, how long, and even if they will work can make it incredibly difficult to fulfill family responsibilities and can be the cause of severe financial insecurity. In turn, this can lead to very real health impacts such as psychological distress, poor sleep quality, and unhappiness.32 While many cities and states have passed laws aimed at curtailing the use of these scheduling practices, most of these laws and their provisions only address the issue of predictability; only one provision, the good faith estimates, seems to address the issue of schedule stability. However, when it comes to improving schedule stability, many studies have found that employer action, rather than public policy, can be effective at curbing schedule instability or at the very least mitigating its effects on hourly workers and their families.

Works Cited Adler-Milstein, Sarah, Bellisle, Dylan, Fugiel, Peter J., Jarpe, Meghan, Kesavan,

Saravann, Lambert, Susan J., McCorkell, Lisa, Ospina, Lori A., Pendem, Pradeep,

Rapoport, Erin D., Williams, Joan C. Stable Scheduling Increases Productivity

and Sales: The Stable Scheduling Study (2018).

Bray, Jeremy, Chermack, Kelly, Durham, Mary, Hammer, Leslie B., Kaskubar, Dan,

Kelly, Erin L., Kossek, Ellen E., Muphy, Lauren, A. “Getting There from Here:

Research on the Effects of Work–Family Initiatives on Work–Family Conflict

and Business Outcomes.” Academy of Management, vol. 2 (2009): 305-349.

Fugiel, Peter J., Henly, Julia R., Lambert, Susan J. Precarious Work Schedules among

Early-Career Employees in the US: A National Snapshot. The Employment,

Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network (2014).

Haley-Lock, Anna, Henly, Julia R., Lambert, Susan J. “Schedule Flexibility in Hourly

Jobs: Unanticipated Consequences and Promising Directions.” Community,

Work & Family, vol. 15, no. 3 (2012): 293-315.

Harknett, Kristen, Schneider, Daniel. “Consequences of Routine Work Schedule

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Instability for Worker Health and Wellbeing.” American Sociological Review,

vol. 84 (2019): 82-114.

Henly, Julia R., Lambert, Susan J., “Unpredictable Work Timing in Retail Jobs:

Implications for Employee Work–Life Conflict.” ILR Review, vol. 67 (2014): 986

– 1016.

Henly, Julia R., Kim, Jaeseung, Lambert, Susan J. “Precarious Work Schedules as a

Source of Economic Insecurity and Institutional Distrust.” (2019): 1-36.

Henly, Julia R., Shaefer, Luke H., Elaine, Waxman. “Nonstandard Work Schedules:

Employer and Employee-driven Flexibility in Retail Jobs.” Social Service Review,

vol. 80 (2006): 626-627.

Lambert, Susan, J. “The Limits of Voluntary Employer Action for Improving Low-Level

Jobs” in Working and Living in the Shadow of Economic Fragility, Marion Crain

and Michael Sherraden (Eds). New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

National Women’s Law Center. State and Local Laws Advancing Fair Work

Schedules (2018).

Endnotes 1. Lambert, Susan, J. “The Limits of Voluntary Employer Action for Improving Low-Level Jobs” in Working and Living in the Shadow of Economic Fragility, Marion Crain and Michael Sherraden (Eds). New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Page 218.

2. Ibid, 2019 3. Ibid, 229.

4. Henly, Julia R., Shaefer, Luke H., Elaine, Waxman. “Nonstandard Work Schedules: Employer and Employee-driven Flexibility in Retail Jobs.” Social Service Review, vol. 80 (2006): 626.

5. Henly, Julia R., Kim, Jaeseung, Lambert, Susan J. “Precarious Work Schedules as a Source of Economic Insecurity and Institutional Distrust.” (2019): 3-6.

6. Henly, Julia R., Lambert, Susan J., “Unpredictable Work Timing in Retail Jobs: Implications for Employee Work–Life Conflict.” ILR Review, vol. 67 (2014): 988-990.

7. Ibid, 1003, 1006.

8. Harknett, Kristen, Schneider, Daniel. “Consequences of Routine Work Schedule Instability for Worker Health and Wellbeing.” American Sociological Review, vol. 84 (2019): 24-26.

9. Ibid, 28.

10. Fugiel, Peter J., Henly, Julia R., Lambert, Susan J. Precarious Work Schedules among Early-Career Employees in the US: A National Snapshot. The Employment, Instability, Family Well-being, and Social Policy Network (2014): 18.

11. Lambert et al., Precarious Work Schedules among Early-Career Employees in the US: A National Snapshot, 11.

12. Ibid, 16.

13. Lambert, “The Limits of Voluntary Employer Action for Improving Low-Level Jobs,”

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232.

14. Haley-Lock, Anna, Henly, Julia R., Lambert, Susan J. “Schedule Flexibility in Hourly Jobs: Unanticipated Consequences and Promising Directions.” Community, Work & Family, vol. 15, no. 3 (2012): 302-303.

15. National Women’s Law Center. State and Local Laws Advancing Fair Work Schedules (2018): 2-3.

16. Ibid, 4-5.

17. Ibid, 6.

18. Ibid, 5-6.

19. Ibid, 7-8.

20. Lambert, “The Limits of Voluntary Employer Action for Improving Low-Level Jobs,” 236.

21. Adler-Milstein, Sarah, Bellisle, Dylan, Fugiel, Peter J., Jarpe, Meghan, Kesavan, Saravann, Lambert, Susan J., McCorkell, Lisa, Ospina, Lori A., Pendem, Pradeep, Rapoport, Erin D., Williams, Joan C. Stable Scheduling Increases Productivity and Sales: The Stable Scheduling Study (2018): 25.

22. Ibid, 38.

23. Ibid, 28.

24. Henly et al., “Nonstandard Work Schedules: Employer and Employee-driven Flexibility in Retail Jobs,” 627.

25. (Bray, Jeremy, Chermack, Kelly, Durham, Mary, Hammer, Leslie B., Kaskubar, Dan, Kelly, Erin L., Kossek, Ellen E., Muphy, Lauren, A. “Getting There from Here: Research on the Effects of Work–Family Initiatives on Work–Family Conflict and Business Outcomes.” Academy of Management, vol. 2 (2009): 308.

26. Ibid, 320.

27. Lambert, “The Limits of Voluntary Employer Action for Improving Low-Level Jobs,” 236.

28. Lambert et al., “Schedule Flexibility in Hourly Jobs: Unanticipated Consequences and Promising Directions,” 294-295.

29. Henly et al., “Nonstandard Work Schedules: Employer and Employee-driven Flexibility in Retail Jobs,” 629.

30. Ibid, 630.

31. Lambert et al., Precarious Work Schedules among Early-Career Employees in the US: A National Snapshot, 15.

32. Harknett & Schneider, “Consequences of Routine Work Schedule Instability for Worker Health and Wellbeing,” 13.

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Influencers for Action Problem Statement

By Sam Blair

P

olicymakers in 2019 face societal challenges caused by technological disruption of the media industry. Young people (18-24 year-olds) receive information through social media outlets more frequently than from traditional media sources.1 This media consumption trend is reshaping how citizens perceive the role of established institutions in our society. Simultaneously, business models for traditional media organizations that increasingly rely on digital advertising revenue to operate are evolving in response to changes in social media consumption habits that drive digital advertising revenue.2,3 Media business models are significantly affected by the algorithms of social media platforms that dictate how much digital advertising revenue media outlets generate on the basis of social media user consumption.4 In January 2019, thousands of journalists were laid off from established media publications as these firms struggle to compete for financial viability in a system where advertising revenue is increasingly absorbed by technology firms like Facebook and Google.5 The media industry status-quo is unsustainable because technological disruption has decreased the quantity of advertising revenue available to finance media firms.

Policymakers should fund a non-profit organization that disseminates news through the platform of social media influencers to reach large audiences at a low-cost in order to protect democracy and maintain an informed citizenry. This non-profit media organization is Influencers for Action and it functions as National Public Radio for a new generation that receives more news on social media than radio.

Background

Demographic profiles of the average social media user vary by platform, but there is no denying a fairly recent trend toward increased use of social media for news over time.6 Trust in the accuracy of news acquired from social media varies by age group. 47 percent of millenials think that most of this news from social media is accurate, whereas 60 percent of social media news consumers over the age of 65 expect it to be mostly untrue.7 This statistic provides context for the fact that twice as many young adults say that politically biased media coverage was a factor in their loss of trust in the media compared to older adults.8 This paradox is resolved by a study from the Media Insight Project that found when Americans encounter news on social media, how much they trust the content is determined less by who creates the news than by who shares it.9 This context presents policymakers a radically different media ecosystem in 2019 than the information environment of the 20th century. Previously, policymakers could easily relay the intent of government policies to the public through popular television, print, and radio news sources. Today, it is much more difficult to effectively reach the public with a coherent and uniform messaging strategy. Citizens now receive their news through a variety of information sources, but the data clearly indicates a trend toward social media.

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Policymakers should adapt to this new information environment by working with trusted, popular social media users known as “influencers” as a method of communication that is much more suited to the 21st century than what worked for policymakers of the past.

Policymakers should recognize that influencers constitute a new segment of society with the power to mobilize other members of society through information technology.

Social media influencers are often paid by brands to platform their products to their large audiences. For example, Kylie Jenner is one of the most prominent social media influencers in the world. Ms. Jenner is followed by approximately 129 million people on the social media platform Instagram, and it is reported that she receives $1,000,000 for each of her influencer marketing advertisements.10 Governments have used public-access television, publicly-funded radio stations, and advertisements in newspapers to inform their constituents about public resources in their communities for years. These authorities now commonly use the internet to relay information about government services to their constituents, but something is missing. It is not difficult to reach large audiences in a small amount of time through paid-advertisements placed on popular social media websites, but this efficient method of public relations lacks a crucial quality of influencer-led communications: trust.

The manner in which social media influencers present themselves online to their audience generates trust between influencers and their followers. The trust between an influencer and their followers is the differentiating factor that separates influencerled communications from any other public relations effort. Trust creates a powerful principal-agent relationship between influencers and followers.11 The size of an influencer’s audience varies depending on the influencer in question, but it is not uncommon for a social media influencer to possess an audience size in the range of a couple thousand to a million people. In light of this fact, it is not difficult to argue that the trust between an influencer and their followers is valuable for its potential to influence the behavior of a non-trivial amount of people. Society stands to benefit from an organization with the power to direct the population’s attention to important community resources such as information about voter registration deadlines, how to volunteer at homeless shelters, and how to donate to food banks. Influencers can mobilize society toward solutions to community-based resource degradation, and directly combat challenges such as homelessness and hunger.

Proposed Solution Policymakers should utilize the social capital of influencers to affect the behavior of their constituents in order to achieve policy objectives such as solutions to hunger and homelessness. Research published in 2015 illustrates that social media users tend to trust influencers comparably to their friends.12 This observation is striking because it offers governments a path toward sharing information with large audiences while adding an

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additional level of trust that lends significant credibility to the value of the information.

This influencer-led method of communication with the public is necessary now in 2019 more than ever because the public’s trust in governmental institutions and the media is in decline, and a solution is needed urgently to restore citizen’s faith in democratic forms of government.

Influencers add trust to a recommendation that is absent from information presented by a faceless entity such as a corporation or a government agency. A significant number of social media users report that they have lost trust in the media due to clickbait.13 This type of content is increasingly prevalent on social media platforms, and it is another problem solved by a nonprofit that can facilitate influencer-led messaging campaigns. Clickbait is informational content produced solely for the purpose of generating increased engagement on a social media post.14 This type of content has become more commonplace on the feeds of social media users over time because it is designed to generate revenue for media firms. These traditional media firms have been left with essentially no choice but to publish clickbait more frequently as competition over advertising revenue increased from technology firms like Facebook and Google.15 A non-profit media organization can broadcast useful news as a means of combating community-based resource degradation much more efficiently than for-profit media outlets whose content is distorted by a profit-motive and clickbait. An editorial department housed in such an organization could tailor actionable information for influencers to share on social media that ultimately shifts society’s attention to challenges such as hunger, climate change, and poverty. This outcome is better for society’s general welfare than the status-quo.

The media industry for the past ten years has been defined by the rapid growth of the digital advertising market. In 2009, digital advertisements occupied only 17.2% of the advertising market by media type, behind both television and print.16 In 2019, digital advertisements are the most popular form of ads by media type. Now, 38.9% of all advertisements are placed on digital platforms.17 The rapid growth of the digital advertising market has been propelled by consumers’ increased use of mobile phones to receive information over the same time period.18 Influencers for Action addresses the crisis in media by increasing the public’s trust in important information, which is commonly referred to as “news”. Government use of social media influencers to promote policy goals has been deliberated upon at length by the RAND Journal of Economics, and this theory was applied in 2018 by the Australian government.19 Unfortunately, the influencer-led messaging campaign expended by the Australian Health Ministry did not properly vet the influencers selected for disseminating the news content sponsored by the government. This campaign resulted in public backlash when citizens learned of controversial behavior that influencers engaged in before they were compensated by the government with taxpayer money for their participation in the government’s messaging campaign.20

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A more regulated and structured organization can solve the problems encountered by the Australian government. Influencers for Action is a proposal for a nonprofit organization that facilitates social media influencer marketing for government policies and community resources. This organization can achieve success by indirectly compensating influencers for their participation in government-sponsored messaging campaigns. Specifically, Influencers for Action should operate on a break-even basis as a marketplace that facilitates influencer marketing opportunities with local businesses as a reward for influencers’ participation in government-sponsored messaging campaigns. This proposal offers policymakers the ability to respond to the technological disruption of the media industry by utilizing emergent trends in social media to support communities and effectively inform citizens.

Influencers for Action can fill capacity gaps for governments at different levels that seek to mobilize the population toward achieving policy goals. For example, Influencers for Action organized 25 Instagram influencers native to Dayton, Ohio in a promotion of the city government’s Living City Project. This project mobilized volunteers toward a cleanup of vacant lot waste, and over 215,000 pounds of trash was collected in sum.21 Influencers for Action curated an infographic that local Instagram influencers shared with their large followings. The infographic informed individuals who viewed the content that they could sign-up to volunteer for the Living City Project by visiting the Influencers for Action Instagram account and clicking the link at the top of the page to sign-up to volunteer. This influencer-led messaging campaign resulted in dozens of clicks on the volunteer sign-up link, and increased the total number of volunteers available for this city government policy. Influencers for Action can mobilize volunteers for similar policies such as efforts to alleviate hunger, or shift society’s attention to important community resources such as the availability of public transportation. A nonprofit funded by government development services, high net worth individuals, or grantmaking organizations can change the way that people learn about the world, and can therefore change it.

Works Cited Desjardins, Jeff. “Chart: The Slow Death of Traditional Media.” Visual Capitalist.

October 07, 2016. Accessed February 24, 2019. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ chart-slow-death- traditional-media/. (web source) Dreyfuss, Emily. “Who Gets Their News From Which Social Media Sites?” Wired.

September 13, 2018. Accessed February 25, 2019. https://www.wired.com/story/ who-gets-news-from-social-media-sites/. (web source) Dunn, Jeff. “The Difference between How Millennials and Baby Boomers Consume News, in One Chart.” Business Insider. June 26, 2017. Accessed February 23, 2019. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-millennials-vs-baby-boomers-get-news-

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chart- 2017-6. (web source) Dvorkin, Jeffrey. “Column: Why Click-bait Will Be the Death of Journalism.” PBS. April 27, 2016. Accessed February 24, 2019. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/ what-you- dont-know-about-click-bait-journalism-could-kill-you. (web source) Ell, Kellie. “Tina Brown: Facebook and Google’s Influence on the Media Is ‘appalling’.”

CNBC. January 11, 2018. Accessed March 11, 2019. https://www.cnbc. com/2018/01/11/tina-brown-facebook-and-googles-influence-on-media-isappalling.html. (web source) “Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt Has Ordered His Department to Stop Paying Social Media Influencers.” ABC News. July 21, 2018. Accessed February 23, 2019. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-21/stop-payment-toinfluencers/10021134. (web source) Frampton, Ben. “Clickbait: The Changing Face of Online Journalism.” BBC News.

September 14, 2015. Accessed February 24, 2019. https://www.bbc.com/news/ uk-wales-34213693. (web source) Frolik, Cornelius. “Dayton Living City Cleanup Collects over 215K Pounds.”

Dayton Daily News. April 09, 2019. Accessed April 13, 2019. https://www. daytondailynews.com/news/breaking-news/dayton-living-city-cleanup-collectsover-215k-pounds/RqBDYlvxCbnIOtjWSTnJLL/. (web source) Galeotti, Andrea, and Sanjeev Goyal. “Influencing the Influencers: A Theory of Strategic Diffusion.” The RAND Journal of Economics 40, no. 3 (2009): 509-32. doi:10.1111/j.1756-2171.2009.00075.x. (journal article) Goggin, Benjamin. “More than 2,300 People Lost Their Jobs in a Media Landslide so Far This Year.” Business Insider. March 11, 2019. Accessed March 13, 2019. https://www.businessinsider.com/2019-media-layoffs-job-cuts-at-buzzfeedhuffpost-vice-details-2019-2. (web source) “How People Decide What to Trust on Social Media and Online.” American Press Institute. May 24, 2017. Accessed February 18, 2019. https://www. americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/news-trust- digital-social-media/. (web source) Ingram, Mathew. “How Google and Facebook Have Taken Over the Digital Ad Industry.” Fortune. January 4, 2017. Accessed March 13, 2019. http://fortune. com/2017/01/04/google-facebook-ad-industry/. (web source) Ingram, Matthew. “Most Americans Say They Have Lost Trust in the Media.” Columbia Journalism Review. September 12, 2018. Accessed February 25, 2019. https:// www.cjr.org/the_media_today/trust-in-media-down.php. (web source) Mejia, Zameena. “Kylie Jenner Reportedly Makes $1 Million per Paid Instagram Posthere’s What Other Influencers Get.” CNBC. August 01, 2018. Accessed March 14, 2019. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/31/kylie-jenner-makes-1-million-per-paidinstagram-post-hopper-hq-says.html. (web source) Neidig, Harper. “Media Industry Braces for Facebook Changes.” The Hill. January 14, 2018. Accessed March 11, 2019. https://thehill.com/policy/technology/368825-

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media-industry-braces-for-facebook-changes.

O’Reilly, Lara. “The Race Is On to Challenge Google-Facebook ‘Duopoly’ in Digital Advertising.” The Wall Street Journal. June 19, 2017. Accessed February 24, 2019. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-race-is-on-to-challenge-google-facebookduopoly-in- digital-advertising-1497864602. (web source) Swant, Marty. “Twitter Says Users Now Trust Influencers Nearly as Much as Their Friends.” Adweek. May 10, 2016. Accessed February 22, 2019. https://www. adweek.com/digital/twitter-says-users-now-trust-influencers-nearly-much- their-friends-171367/. (web source)

Overcoming RealTime Pricing Hurdles

By Andrew Bray

Endnotes 1. Dunn, Jeff. “The Difference 2. Ell, Kelli. “Tina Brown: Facebook and Google’s Influence 3. Ingram, Mathew. “How Google and Facebook 4. Neidig, Harper. “Media industry braces for Facebook 5. Goggin, Benjamin. “More than 2,300 People Lost Their Jobs 6. Dreyfuss, Emily. “Who Gets Their News 7. Ibid.

8. Ingram, Matthew. “Most Americans Say 9. How People Decide What to Trust 10. Mejia, Zameena. “Kylie Jenner Reportedly Makes 11. Swant, Marty. “Twitter Says Users Now Trust 12. Ibid.

13. Ingram, Matthew. “Most Americans Say 14. Frampton, Ben. “Clickbait 15. Dvorkin, Jeffrey. “Column: Why Click-bait 16. Desjardins, Jeff. “Chart 17. Ibid.

18. O’Reilly, Lara. “The Race Is On 19. Galeotti and Goyal. “Influencing the Influencers 20. Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt 21. Frolik, Cornelius. “Dayton Living City

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25

Introduction

end result is a lower capital base on which to make a profit.

I

Decreased Sales If successful, RTP will decrease the amount of energy sold. While one customer reaction to higher prices is to shift load to lower price hours, another effect is for people to cut back on their electricity use. This is by either not performing that behavior (keeping lights off) or being incentivized to install energy efficiency products (installing LED lights). This decrease in the quantity of electricity sold directly decreases the profits of the utility.

n this memo, I put forward policy recommendations aimed at overcoming barriers to Real Time Pricing (RTP) for electricity in the state of WI. RTP can assist the state with its goals of providing affordable, reliable, and clean energy. Real Time Pricing is the selling of electricity at changing prices of peak periods, hourly blocks, or continuous intervals. It offers a way to balance renewable generation sources and lower the need for peaker plants, and has been shown to be effective at reducing system costs.

Despite its benefits, there are many barriers to it at the customer and utility level.

According to the Brattle Group, there are only 2 million homes on Dynamic Pricing out of 50 million home which have smart meter capability1 and in WI, smart meters (a necessary step for RTP) implementation rates are at 1.6% in the residential sector.2 The reason for this is that utilities and consumers have numerous concerns with RTP. These need to be overcome in order for WI to take full advantage of the benefits of RTP.

Social Welfare Gains of RTP Rates Real Time Pricing provides benefits through more efficiently allocating scarce resources of producing energy. It provides a higher granularity market signal for how much electricity is worth at each time point allowing demanders of electricity to adjust usage.

Consumers receive a benefit because instead of paying a fixed rate which can be seen as the full range of wholesale prices for the year averaged, customers pay a rate which varies with wholesale markets thus giving them control over their end bill. Reduced costs have been estimated for the U.S. to come from reduced variable fuel costs ($300 million per year), smaller Transmission and Distribution infrastructure ($275 million per year), foregone peaker investment ($2.4 billion per year), and elimination of hedging costs (included in fuel costs).3 Borenstein shows simulation results indicating a 1-12% increase in Total Surplus depending on elasticities and adoption rates.4 The accumulation of this surplus to consumers is estimated by JPal for consumers of saving $13 per year on bills.5 Multiplied by each customer taking advantage of it represents a huge societal benefit.

Customer Concerns Consumers have various concerns with the implementation of RTP Pricing. These revolve around wanting to think as little as possible about their energy supply and pay a fair and just amount in relation to others all while paying as little as possible.

Desire for simplicity Customers have a strong desire to not concern themselves with energy use. This is in terms of time spent thinking about energy issues as it has been shown they are not willing to make behavior changes. It is also in terms of effort spent concerning themselves with risks involved with energy use. RTP will allow utilities to end what can be costly hedging programs, but customers will face more volatile prices, even if they have more control over their on average lower bills. In order to overcome these challenges, programs need to extract as little effort as possible from the customer.

Wealth Transfers Pricing energy in real time will increase certain people’s energy bills and decrease other’s.

Some people will be unhappy even if there is an overall net decrease in the long-run.

Borenstein shows that under differing elasticities and volatility, at least 7% and as many as 65% of consumers will still experience a surplus decline.6 This wealth transfer poses a political economy challenge in garnering enough support to implement this program.

Implementation Guidelines

Utility Concerns Utilities oppose RTP for reasons based on their incentive structure. Reasons include being compensated based on a rate of return on their capital investments and having increased revenues with increased volume of electricity sold.

Reduced Capital Base Under RTP, consumer electricity demand will be less volatile with lower peaks. Utilities will be required to build fewer power plants to meet this demand. This is important because utilities earn rate of return on their capital base, not on operating expenses. The

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1. Rollout smart meters - Smart meters are a prerequisite for RTP. They allow for energy use to be automatically tracked at frequent time periods. They take away the need for manual meter reading, provide a clearer picture to grid operators, and allow for the use of real time pricing. They are considered a capital cost from which both the utility and customer can profit. A full rollout can be the first hurdle that is tackled.

2. Implement Performance-based Ratemaking - Re-align the goals of the utility to be in-line with the goals of the people with performance-based rates. Metrics can include cost, reliability, customer service, and environmental goals. When higher

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

performance metrics are met, higher rates of return are received. Performancebased ratemaking have been implemented in Britain with their Revenue using Incentives to deliver Innovation and Outputs (RIIO) program to more appropriately incentivize utilities.7 Allow household level device ownership by utilities - Where investment payoffs are are positive, allowing for utility ownership of household devices tackles a few problems. Consumers will not be required to make an investment, utility’s can be allowed to invest in a profit returning capital item, and utilities can gain greater visibility and control over the grid. This has been done successfully in NY with Renewing the Energy Vision (REV) programs.8 Starting with the installation of smart meters provides the prerequisite step to implementing RTP. Future utility owned devices could be storage, distributed generation, thermostats, or more.

Share Price Risk - Utilities are still subject to a limited amount of price volatility between when they set rates and when they actually have to purchase wholesale electricity. By sharing some of this risk with customers through RTP pricing, they reduce some of their price risk. This can be financially appealing as more steady streams of profit are more highly valued by investors.

Follow the technology diffusion model - The ways in which society adopts new technologies can be modeled under the technology diffusion model. It consists of starting with a small number of early technology adopters who are willing to take risks followed by a marketing to a larger number of slow moving pragmatists.

Targeting these early adopters can provide early successes that lead to a larger number of successes later on. The key is to gradually roll out the program and be patient. Easing into RTP with a two part rollout where both RTP and fixedpricing is a solution put forward by Borenstein as a way to ease wealth transfer concerns.

Peer-to-peer Dissemination - A large part of RTPs success will come from building coalition support through peer-to-peer dissemination of information. It has been widely shown that peer effects are one of the biggest factors in adoption rates.10 Making use of this with early successes through effective response technologies to make use of it can be effective in promoting its adoption.11 Successful implementations have already been shown with controlling heating and cooling, when dishwashers run, and how cars charge.

Focus on hands-off automation - Customers have been shown to give and want to give low levels of attention to their energy consumption. In order to be successful, the implementation of RTP needs to be painless with automated technology. These technologies could include dishwashers, heating and cooling, water heaters, and even electric cars. Studies by The Brattle Group show higher peak reduction when RTP is coupled with technology across various price variances12 as shown in Figure 1. Automated technology should be a complementary program part of any RTP implementation. This success will spiral into stronger diffusion.

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Figure 1 - http://files.brattle.com/files/5923_a_global_perspective_on_time-varying_rates_ faruqui_061915.pdf

8. Help Manage Price Risk - Assisting customers with the price risks of changing rates can calm the concerns of customers. This includes gradually introducing the program as mentioned above. It can also involve offering a range of rates including hedged rates for which having unregulated retail sales is beneficial. It can also include physical solutions such as storage or other load control options. Providing price risk management based on the customer’s level of risk tolerance will be very important.

9. Use RTP as Way for Utilities to Garner Customer Satisfaction - Offering RTP builds customer satisfaction by giving the option for a different pricing scheme and the possibility to save money.13 This is especially important in states that allow for separate retail sales and for large industrial customers who could relocate. For those customers interested, offering RTP can build customer satisfaction.

10. Use as Way for Utilities to Increase Off-hour Volume Growth - RTP can increase sales growth during off-peak hours. This load shifting provides better

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capacity utilization of existing resources. This gives the utility extra sales at times when usually they have excess generating capacity.14 This increased volume is a partial boost to utility’s bottom line.

Endnotes 1,12. Faruqui, Ahmad. 2015. “A Global Perspective on Time-Varying Rates.” The BrattleGroup, June. http://files.brattle.com/files/5923_a_global_perspective_ on_time-varying_rates_faruqui_061915.pdf.

2. “Wisconsin Utility Details on AEE’s PowerPortal.” n.d. Accessed March 10, 2019. https://powersuite.aee.net/portal.

3. Faruqui, A., R. Hledik, S. Newell, and J. Pfeifenberger. 2007. “The Power of Five Percent: How Dynamic Pricing Can Save $35 Billion in Electricity Costs.” The Brattle Group. May 2007. https://www.smartgrid.gov/files/The_Power_Five_Percent_ How_Dynamic_Pricing_Can_Save_35_Billi_200709.pdf.

4. Borenstein, Severin. 2005a. “The Long-Run Efficiency of Real-Time Electricity Pricing.” The Energy Journal, 12. http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/borenste/ download/EnJo05RTPsim.pdf.

5. Alcott, Hunt. 2011. “The Impact of Real-Time Electricity Pricing in the United States.”

JPal. 2011. https://www.povertyactionlab.org/evaluation/impact-real-timeelectricity-pricing-united-states.

6,9. Borenstein, Severin. 2005b. “Wealth Transfer from Implementing Real-Time Retail Electricity Pricing.” NBER, August, 12. https://www.nber.org/papers/w11594.pdf.

13,14. Barbose, Galen, Charles Goldman, and Bernie Neenan. 2004. “A Survey of Utility Experience with Real Time Pricing.” LBNL-54238. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). https://doi.org/10.2172/836966.

7. Trabish, Herman K. 2014. “Can Performance-Based Ratemaking Save Utilities?” Utility Dive. April 17, 2014.

8. Morley, Michael, and J. Kmiec. 2015. “How Will NY REV Impact Energy Storage? | Scott Madden Viewpoints.” ScottMadden. 2015. https://www.scottmadden.com/ insight/how-will-ny-rev-impact-energy-storage/.

10. Jessica M. Nolan, P. Wesley Schultz, Robert B. Cialdini, Noah J. Goldstein, Vladas Griskevicius. (2008) 2008. “Normative Social Influence Is Underdetected.”

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34 (7): 913–23. https://doi. org/10.1177/0146167208316691.

11. Ge Wanga, Qi Zhanga, Hailong Lib , Yan Lia, Siyuan Chen. 2017. “The Impact of Social Network on the Adoption of Real-Time Electricity Pricing Mechanism.”

August 2017. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ S1876610217361313.

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An Answer For Media Manipulation Tools & A Low-Trust Media Environment

By Avneesh Chandra

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Executive Summary

T

he purpose of this policy memo is to explain one aspect of the threat posed by media manipulation tools to trust in civil society, and propose a viable solution.

Media manipulation tools are those which, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies on the back of large-scale data collection, allow their users to alter images, video, or audio in such a manner so as to make them near-indistinguishable from their original counterparts. Examples of this include but are not limited to Google’s Deep Dream Generator, the Canadian tech firm’s eponymous Lyrebird (Mak 2018), and Nvidia’s graphical processing tools.

This is not an entirely new phenomenon. Falsified images and video, whether of an offensive and explicit nature or not, have been possible to create and propagate on the internet for years. The current stage of their development however, is a confluence of three factors: i) the increased sophistication of these media manipulation tools, ii) the unprecedented ability of these tools to be widely acquired and used, and iii) a drastic decline in the public’s trust in both media and institutions (Pew 2016). Were even one of these factors to be mitigated, the danger of these tools would not be so serious.

As these tools reach their modern-day levels of sophistication, they threaten the integrity of the public’s belief in the media it consumes. As such, this memo proposes the adoption of a global coordinated database of manipulated media – a simple, non-invasive and secure system that would log the activity of proprietary software as it is used to alter media. The public existence of this would allow straightforward resolution of answering the question of whether or not a piece of media has been altered in any way – allowing media platforms to check in real-time the integrity of media they are deliberating disseminating.

Given the cooperation, on a civic-minded basis, of large-scale technology companies, this could be accomplished. Along with the possibility of some public funding for smaller-sized technology companies, it would be possible to head off the looming threat of a low-trust media environment resulting from the proliferation of media manipulation tools. A measured, threat-mitigation policy response such as this is what this issue necessitates, and this policy memo will seek to explore both these things in some depth.

Introduction “What happens when anyone can make it appear as if anything has happened, regardless of whether it did or not?”, says Aviv Ovadya (Warzel 2018), Chief Technologist at UMSI’s Center for Social Media Responsibility. He’s not alone in his concern. Alex Champandard,

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AI expert and co-founder of CreativeAI, says, there is an urgent need for “identifying and building trust in relationships — including with journalists and press outlets, publishers, or any content creator for that matter.” Among experts the consensus is quickly becoming clear – there is a significant threat posed to the public’s ability to trust its eyes and ears, and the society-wide danger of rising information asymmetry only grows as these AI & ML-based media manipulation tools become more sophisticated and widely available. As the integrity of information fades, this breakdown of an integral piece of the social fabric – trust – becomes a dire problem.

Problem Statement Photo, video, and audio are now squarely the focus of some of the most cutting-edge technology on the market, offered by technology giants such as Google and NVIDIA. Historically a search engine, Google has very strongly shifted focus into developing tools for the new age of technology, such as TensorFlow – developed by the Google Brain Team for machine learning applications – and the better-known Deep Dream Generator – an online tool open to the public for image manipulation. Similarly, NVIDIA has displayed various different capabilities with its image processing tools, such as the ability to simulate different weather conditions in the same picture (Liu, Breuel and Kautz 2017), and automatically repair damaged digital images (Liu, et al. 2018). Beyond private firms, there are also academics who are pushing the bounds of what can be accomplished with this technology.

Take, for example, the researchers at the University of Washington, who outlined in a paper(Seitz and Kemelmacher-Shlizerman 2017) how they were able to synthesize realistic video of former US President Barack Obama lip-syncing with audio of his older speeches and public appearances. The researchers made it a point to only synthesize video with words that the former President had already said, with Steven Seitz stating, “We very consciously decided against going down the path of putting other people’s words into someone’s mouth. We’re simply taking real words that someone spoke and turning them into realistic video of that individual.” (Jouvenal 2016) This assurance of an academic appears to be comforting. It is reassuring to know that these technologies are being developed with an ethical framework in mind, and that however powerful these tools may be, there are gatekeepers that will prevent their abuse. This is, unfortunately, not true. Seitz had said in July of 2017, “You can’t just take anyone’s voice and turn it into an Obama video.” Less than a year later, the company Buzzfeed had done just that.

Working with comedian and Obama impersonator Jordan Peele in a video entitled “You Won’t Believe What Obama Says In This Video!” (BuzzFeed 2018) posted to their YouTube account, Buzzfeed highlighted the dramatic threat that media manipulation tools pose to our society. As a slightly odd-sounding “President Obama” says, “This is a dangerous time. Moving forward, we need to be more vigilant with what we trust from

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the internet.” Buzzfeed posted this video online with a tongue-in-cheek tone, making it clear throughout its falsified nature. Anyone watching it, however, can not help but be troubled by the question – what if they had tried harder to be deceptive? This question, and these tools, are not limited to the world of academia and to established media companies. In one of the most chilling cases of the last year, there was an emergence online of something called ‘deepfakes’. Derived from ‘deep learning’, an accepted variation on the term machine learning, and from the obvious ‘fake’, these so-called deepfakes initially emerged as instances of parts of one image being superimposed onto other images or videos. Inarguably similar to ‘filters’ such as those found on the popular app Snapchat, deepfakes soon became a vehicle for serious online abuse and infringement of privacy.

Users online quickly started utilizing apps such as FakeApp (Reilly and Kovach 2018) to create disturbingly realistic, sexually explicit videos of everyone from popular celebrities to unsuspecting former romantic partners. Though some online platforms were quick to ban such content, but the technology and its products both remain far too accessible on the internet in general.

If the current state of affairs were to continue, without interference from either the public or private sector, the AI & ML tools discussed earlier will continue to develop and disseminate throughout the general public – indiscriminately between actors all across the spectrum of benevolent to malicious. As Julian Sanchez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, notes(Sanchez 2018), over the next few years we can expect to see a massive increase in the mainstream appearance of falsified and misleading audio and video materials. Researchers have already noted how much quicker false information spreads online compared to real information. (Vosoughi, Roy and Aral 2018) Policy Alternative A Tracking System for All Manipulated Media Adobe to consider a form of “watermarking detection” – an idea that will be explored later in this analysis.

This policy alternative calls for the urgent development, integration, and deployment of a secure, anonymized public tracking system in all proprietary media manipulation software. and its application as a means of information verification. Similar to that under consideration at Adobe for its Voco software tool (BBC 2016), it would work by storing records of every alteration of individual media – each of which would be given unique identifiers – on multiple nodes across a network. By storing them this way, the system would ensure that all records of a series of transactions could not be deleted, and that at no point could any previously existing record on the system be altered – guaranteeing information security and integrity.

This system, being publicly accessible, could be referenced by media organizations and

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media platforms as they consider the integrity or validity of media in their possession.

Armed with the knowledge that a piece of media currently being disseminated had been, at some point, altered by any given media manipulation tool would allow for the existence of universally understood disclaimers, not dissimilar to the AdChoices symbol (Hubble 2019) currently in use online. These disclaimers, resulting from the existence of a system guaranteed to be secure and accessible to anyone wishing to verify it, could prove instrumental in acting as a guard against the mass proliferation of manipulated media.

Works Cited Warzel, Charlie. 2018. He Predicted The 2016 Fake News Crisis. Now He’s Worried

About An Information Apocalypse. 11 February. https://www.buzzfeed.com/ charliewarzel/theterrifying-future-of-fake-news.

BuzzFeed. 2018. You Won’t Believe What Obama Says In This Video! 17 April. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ54GDm1eL0.

Congress. 2018. “H.R. 2810.”

Google. n.d. https://newsinitiative.withgoogle.com/.

IBM Institute for Business Value. 2016. Fast forward: Rethinking enterprises, ecosystems

and economies with blockchains. IBM. Inspector General, Office of the. 2013. “Inspection of the Bureau of International

Information Programs .”

May, Liu. Guilin, Fitsum A. Reda, Kevin J. Shih, Ting-Chun Wang, Andrew Tao, and

Bryan Catanzaro. 2018. Image Inpainting for Irregular Holes Using Partial

Convolutions. NVIDIA Corporation.

Liu, Ming-Yu, Thomas Breuel, and Jan Kautz. 2017. “Unsupervised Image-to-Image

Translation Networks.” April. https://www.npr.org/2018/04/04/599126774/ can-you-believe-your-own-ears-with-newfake-news-tech-not-necessarily.

Open Secrets. 2017. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary. php?id=D000033563&cycle=2016.

Orcutt, Mike. 2018. How secure is blockchain really? 25 April. https://www. technologyreview.com/s/610836/how-secure-is-blockchain-really/.

Pew. 2016. Trust and accuracy. 7 July. http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/trust and-accuracy/.

Reilly, Kevin, and Steve Kovach. 2018. Face-swapping videos could lead to more ‘fake

news’. 13 April. http://www.businessinsider.com/fakeapp-lets-people-make-fake-videos deepfakes2018-4.

Sanchez, Julian. 2018. Thanks to AI, the Future of ‘Fake News’ May Be Easily-Faked

Video. 8 February. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/thanks-ai future-fake-news-may-beeasily-faked-video.

Seitz, Steven M., and Ira Kemelmacher-Shlizerman. 2017. “Synthesizing Obama:

Learning Lip Sync from Audio.” ACM Transactions of Graphics, Vol. 36, No.4

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Article 95, July.

Vosoughi, Soroush, Deb Roy, and Sinan Aral. 2018. “The spread of true and false news online.”

Science Col. 359, Issue 6380, 9 March: 1146-1151.

BBC. 2016. Adobe Voco ‘Photoshop-for-voice’ causes concern. 16 November. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37899902.

Hubble, E. 2019. What is AdChoices and How Does it Affect Advertisers and Consumers? https://www.ve.com/blog/adchoices-advertisers-and-consumers

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Increasing Access at Farmers Markets

By Chloe Green

37

Problem Statement

F

armers markets are the quintessential display of local food. It’s a picture of a couple or a family coming to the market to pick up some kohlrabi and rutabaga to make for their dinner event that night. This picture also often is representative of an upper-middle class white family. While this may very well not be the intention of a farmers market or its community, the social norms and availabilities of markets lead to this unintentional exclusion of underserved communities -- often communities of color and lower incomes. The limited availability of government programs (such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Women, Infants, and Children) at farmers markets, and further the lack of awareness about these programs, create a barrier for underserved communities to participate in health promoting activities such as the farmers market.

Through anecdotal research, most markets and their managers want to increase their accessibility to all market visitors. Local and healthy food should not have to be classified as a privilege, but rather it should be readily available to those who want it. The most common method that is being deployed at farmers markets across the country to increase accessibility is the availability to use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or EBT, Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), or other programs such as ones for Seniors. About 3,500 of the estimated over 8,000 farmers markets in the country are SNAP-certified, and this number continues to increase every year.

There are multiple reasons why the majority of markets are not certified to take EBT. The primary reason is because of money. While it may be free to register a market to be SNAP-certified, in order to process the payment the market must purchase the equipment and pay a transaction fee for each card swipe. There is also the problem of personnel time, which can also mean money. Market managers are often part-time and underpaid for their work, and it can be hard to find a steady group of volunteers that dedicate enough time to learn how to use the software for EBT transactions. These costs especially deter small markets since they typically have lower budgets to begin with. Also, smaller markets that are in more rural areas tend to have more trouble with EBT at their market because the machine requires reliable internet, which can be hard to find in rural areas (Bertmann et al 2012).

Over the summer of 2018 Green visited 16 markets across Wisconsin and spoke with over 100 people and groups to ask about barriers in access to farmers markets through modes of transportation, time, and day of the market. Preliminary findings of the research, show that the vast majority of market visitors arrive via car, especially in denser, urban areas such as the city of Milwaukee. Markets including higher proportions of low-income

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individuals and people of color tended to operate within these dense, inaccessible spaces, as opposed to the open markets based in parks and enclosed neighborhoods which hosted more white and middle-class visitors. The majority of visitors interviewed, in all regions of the state, and at markets held on various days and times throughout the week, were very pleased with the time and day of the market. This suggests that from the visitor perspective, there is not a concern about the saturation in the number of farmers markets. However, to market managers and vendors at these markets, they do believe there is a saturation based on the limited amount of vendors in certain areas, and the cost-benefit analysis for them to take a day off of the field to come and sell at a market.

However, based on these observations these farmers markets, and plenty of conversation with visitors, vendors, and managers, it seems that the biggest obstacle for incentive program participation is a lack of public knowledge that benefits such as SNAP can be utilized at the market. While many managers recognize the need for incentive programs, and would like to be able to provide these options to their visitors, there is only so much time and money that a manager can utilize to make this happen. In congruence with the tight budgets, and as mentioned before, many markets are unable to pay their manager a living wage, let alone absorb the cost and training time for the process of accepting EBT transactions. Even if a market could afford the equipment, managers also have little time to efficiently advertise to the community, and thus this lack of knowledge and awareness of the ability to use EBT at a farmers market is often noted as the largest barrier to get to SNAP users (Canto 2016).

Background As local and healthy food become more popular widely talked about, it becomes more obvious that there are inequities in our food system. Many people used to believe -- and many still likely do -- that people of color and lower income families may just not want to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. However, research shows that this is simply not true[cite].

Fresh fruit and vegetables and disproportionately available in various neighborhoods of even the same city, and the prices of these options are even more disparate to the communities[cite and further explain research finds].

Farmers markets are a great example of the increasing trends toward local and healthy food. They also serve as an excellent space to study disparities in healthy food offerings and nutrition availability by neighborhood - specifically by demographics of neighborhood [citations]. Intrinsically farmers markets are not made to service certain people over others. They are supported by local farmers, and often volunteers, that make the market possible. However, similar to food coops, since markets are typically poorly funded they often rely on volunteers. They also need to secure a location -- ideally one that is easy to get to -- and be able to attract a consistent customer base that will spend

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enough money to make it worth the farmer’s time to give up a day on the field to come sell their product. Unfortunately, these circumstances just make it easier for markets to pop up in more white and wealthy areas; further, they are often in more secluded residential areas that may be easy for the community residents to walk to, but exponentially more difficult for other people to partake. Besides the price barriers, these above circumstances create an environment where people who may not be what has come to be a conventional farmers market visitor in the United States (white and upper middle class) feel unwelcome or unwanted at a farmers market.

As food access has become more widely discussed, and over 8,000 farmers markets have formed around the country – over 3,500 of which are SNAP-certified – there is a variety of research that has been done on farmers markets (Morales 2011). Recently, UW Extension conducted research with EBT use at Farmers Markets and concluded, similarly to other research, that the largest barrier at farmers markets to SNAP users is the lack of awareness of incentive opportunity (Canto 2016). These often confirm that people do enjoy shopping at markets as they believe that they can review a wide variety of fresh fruits and vegetables (Information Market Research Co. Ltd. 2012, Larsen & Gilliland 2009, Market Umbrella 2012, Suarez-Balcazar et. al 2006, and more). Some of this research is specifically in regard to lower-income people, and the fact that they do use their benefits to purchase most of their fruits and vegetables fresh rather than canned or frozen (Karakus et. al 2014). However, even with consistent results that people enjoy shopping at markets, there is still no mistake in that most of the purchases with SNAP benefits are at large grocery stores (Karakus et. al 2014).

While there is plenty of research about farmers markets, there is much less about what will truly increase participation. According to a USDA study among SNAP participants, the most common individuals to attend markets and use their incentives are women, people in households without children, and those aware of the ability to use their EBT cards at the market. In contrast, the individuals who were least likely to use their benefits at the market included primarily people of color, and those who are unemployed, students, retired, or in general have an income of less than $10,000 per year individually(Karakus 2014). The study, however, did find that of the people people of color and lower income individuals who frequent markets, they are the most likely to use their SNAP benefits.

Solution Since one of the largest reasons that people do not utilize their benefits at farmers markets is that they do not know they can, markets and cities should have programs in tact to increase knowledge. In my current research, I am implementing a pilot program at Brown Deer Farmers Market in Northern Milwaukee county that will attempt to increase EBT redemption at the market by increasing community knowledge

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and awareness. This program includes a budget for marketing, but one of the main components is the creation of a Market Access Coordinator that will act alongside the market manager to develop relationships with the community to make people feel more welcomed and comfortable at the market.

The research conducted thus far on the project has suggested that even as markets become more aware of food access disparities at farmers markets, many barriers will still keep certain people away. A primary barrier is that people simply do not know about existing farmers markets, and especially do not know about the incentives which markets offer. As discussed in the literature review, it has been proven that if lower income groups, or communities of color, know that they can use their SNAP benefits at a market, and especially if they know that there are extra incentives available (such as double dollars), their chances of sustained patronage will significantly increase.

This first phase of the model market will be working with Brown Deer Farmers Market in North Milwaukee, of which the demographics reflect the classes of market visitors that we hope to target. Brown Deer, Wisconsin has a 6.2% rate of poverty, and of its 12,075 residents, 30.3% of them are Black, 4.51% are Asian, and 4.41% are Hispanic (Data USA). The statistics of Brown Deer closely resemble the overall demographics of Milwaukee County except with a smaller population of Hispanic residents. In the entire state of Wisconsin, approximately 87% of the residents are white, and only 6.7% of the residents are Black. The state has a poverty rate of 11.3% which is higher than that of Brown Deer (US Census Bureau).

The primary goals of this project will be to do community outreach and marketing at and away from the market in order to create relationships and make people feel more welcomed at the market. The new hire, the Market Access Coordinator, will work to visit smaller community organizations and meetings, as well as larger organizations in the North Milwaukee area, to build connections and knowledge about the Brown Deer Farmers Market.

Other markets across the country should develop programs to increase the advertising of the ability to use EBT at their market (if the market is certified to accept EBT, and if it is not, the local government should supply funding for this to be free, such as in California [cite]). If an EBT program is already in place at a market, then it only makes sense for the local government to try to increase the usage of the program so that its lower income citizens can adequately use their benefits to acquire nutritious foods.

Works Cited Bertmann, Farryl M. W., Punam Ohri-Vachaspati, Matthew P. Buman, and Christopher

M. Wharton. “Implementation of Wireless Terminals at Farmers’ Markets:

Impact on SNAP Redemption and Overall Sales.” American Journal of Public

Health 102, no. 7 (July 2012): E53-55. doi:10.2105/ajph.2012.300727.

Canto, Amber and Glaza, Rachel. “Extending Reach of EBT at Wisconsin Farmers’

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National Service Market.”

Project Overview and Impact. Last modified October 22, 2018. https://fyi.uwex.edu/

ebtoutreach/project-overview/ (web content) Data USA. “Brown Deer, WI.” Last modified October 18, 2018. https://datausa.io/profile/

geo/brown-deer-wi/#demographics (web content) Informa Market Research Co. Ltd. “Healthy Habits: Farmers’ Markets’ Impacts on

Customers (p. 80)”. Greenbelt Farmers’ Market Network. Last modified 2012.

http://farmersmarketcoalition.org/wp- content/uploads/2014/01/

GBFMN-Shopper-Survey-Report-2012.pdf (web content) Karakus, M., Milfort, R., MacAllum, K., & Hao, H. (2014). Nutrition Assistance in Farmers

Markets: Understanding the Shopping Patterns of SNAP Participants Final

Report (p. 144). United States Department of Agriculture. Retrieved from http:// www.fns.usda.gov/sites/default/files/FarmersMarkets-Shopping-Patterns.pdf Larsen, K., & Gilliland, J. (2009). A farmers’ market in a food desert: Evaluating impacts

on the price and availability of healthy food. Health & Place, 15(4), 1158–1162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2009.06.007 Market Umbrella. (2012). FEED: Measuring the Human Impact of a Public

Market: Individual Human Capital Impact Study (p. 8). The Crescent City

Farmers Market. Retrieved from http://www.crescentcityfarmersmarket.org/ uploads/file/FEEDreportKR10-12_new.pdf Morales, A. (2011). Marketplaces: Prospects for Social, Economic, and

Political Development. Journal of Planning Literature, 26(1), 3–17. https://doi. org/10.1177/0885412210388040 Suarez-Balcazar, Y., Martinez, L. I., Cox, G., & Jayraj, A. (2006). African Americans’ Views

on Access to Healthy Foods: What a Farmers’ Market Provides. Journal of

Extension, 44(2). Retrieved from https://www.joe.org/joe/2006april/a2.php U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Milwaukee County, Wisconsin. (n.d.). Retrieved

October 18, 2018, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/ milwaukeecountywisconsin/PST045217

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By Grant Haxton

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surplus to consumers is estimated by JPal for consumers of saving $13 per year on bills.5 Multiplied by each customer taking advantage of it represents a huge societal benefit.

Problem Statement

T

he United States Army has recently had difficulty expanding the number of soldiers it enlists. Between 2017 and 2018, year-to-year manpower levels remained even. Attempts to increase the Army’s size have faltered in part due to a recruiting shortfall.

The Army’s inability to expand is worrying for a couple of reasons. The first reason is the Army is particularly reliant on procuring manpower, more so than the military’s other branches. Since its colonial-era founding, the Army has been preoccupied with finding a size suitable for wartime and peacetime.1 Recruiting difficulties thus encumber the Army’s combat readiness.

The second reason is the geopolitical challenges confronting the US now and in the future demand that the Army is able to efficiently procure and mobilize soldiers. The Army envisions itself as an essential component in the US’s effort to project power globally.2 Power projection is inhibited if the Army is unable to adequately procure troops through recruiting.

When the Army announced last September that it did not meet its yearly recruitment goal, it became apparent that recruiting could not reliably provide the Army with sufficient manpower. The shortfall last year is partly due to the increasing proportion of military-aged Americans who are either unfit or uninterested in joining the military.3 Additionally, the Army has had to contend with a booming civilian economy that has likely lured away potential recruits.4 As more and more Americans rebuff military service, the Army should consider implementing some sort of national service for Americans of military age. In requiring national service, the Army should have no more problems procuring and mobilizing troops.

Social Welfare Gains of RTP Rates Real Time Pricing provides benefits through more efficiently allocating scarce resources of producing energy. It provides a higher granularity market signal for how much electricity is worth at each time point allowing demanders of electricity to adjust usage.

Consumers receive a benefit because instead of paying a fixed rate which can be seen as the full range of wholesale prices for the year averaged, customers pay a rate which varies with wholesale markets thus giving them control over their end bill. Reduced costs have been estimated for the U.S. to come from reduced variable fuel costs ($300 million per year), smaller Transmission and Distribution infrastructure ($275 million per year), foregone peaker investment ($2.4 billion per year), and elimination of hedging costs (included in fuel costs).3 Borenstein shows simulation results indicating a 1-12% increase in Total Surplus depending on elasticities and adoption rates.4 The accumulation of this

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Background When conscription became politically unpopular during the Vietnam War, Army leaders signaled they were ready to abandon conscription and replace it with a volunteer force, which they did in 1973.5 In the four decades since conscription ended, America’s military has depended on volunteers to become its soldiers, sailors, marines and air personnel.

To attract volunteers, the Pentagon has beefed up its offering of bonuses and benefits to recruits. Eligible recruits can expect enlistment bonuses of up to $40,000, healthcare coverage, housing allowances and other benefits, a gobsmacking deal for any 18 and 19-year-old thinking of enlisting. Even the famously austere Marine Corps has begun to offer enlistment bonuses.6 Billions of dollars each year fund all those bonuses and benefits, and around a billion dollars more is funneled into recruiting. Ostensibly, money would give the Army an edge in recruiting, but it has not.7 The Army (and to a lesser degree, the military’s other branches) has grappled with recruiting shortfalls in each of the decades since the volunteer military was first established.

In the 2017 and 2018 recruiting year, the year of the most recent recruiting shortfall, the Army was short 6,500 recruits.8 That is approximately eight percent below the year’s recruiting goal. Though President Donald Trump has impressed upon the Army that it needs to increase its size, it remains to be seen whether the Army can achieve that (perhaps in a reminder of its predicament, the Army changed its recruiting slogan from “Army strong” to “warriors wanted”). National service appears a feasible alternative to recruiting.

National service is neither a new nor original policy prescription. For as long as there has been a volunteer army, national service proponents have claimed national service could resolve the military’s manpower procurement issues. In the mid-1970s, RAND Corporation drafted a plan for national service to replace volunteerism in the military.

RAND argued that national service was better suited for procuring manpower than a voluntary force.9 National service was nearly realized in the early 1990s. Federal legislation established the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), a pseudo national service program used to support non-military related service organizations. The AmeriCorps program emerged out of the CNCS legislation.10 Politically, national service has bipartisan support in Congress and is a popular talking point on the campaign trail. Both 2016 major party presidential candidates acknowledged national service’s viability11 (while candidate Trump gave a nod of approval for national service, President Trump tried to axe the CNCS).12

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Recommendation

Endnotes

National service would incorporate components of the AmeriCorps program.

AmeriCorps is an ideal model for national service: it is cost-effective, has bipartisan support, is neither unreasonably long or short in duration, and already resembles a national service program.15 For those reasons, the following recommendations may appear similar to the AmeriCorps program.

1. United States Army. “The Army Strategy.” 2018. https://www.army.mil/e2/ downloadsrv7/the_army_strategy_2018.pdf.

2. United States Army. “The Army Vision.” 2018. https://www.army.mil/e2/downloads/ rv7/vision/the_army_vision.pdf 3. Arkin, William M. “Fewer Americans Want to Serve in the Military. Cue Pentagon Panic.” Yahoo! News. April 10, 2019. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://news.yahoo.com/ fewer-americans-want-serve-military-122622703.html?ncid=facebook_yahoonewsf_akfmevaatca&fbclid=IwAR0IpgsXl_5_3lWHdoXVOAlnDOep9IJjpEtgcp4_5tfInSVcKH4bPtJNAeg. 4. Philipps, Dave. “As Economy Roars, Army Falls Thousands Short of Recruiting Goals.”

The New York Times. September 21, 2018. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes. com/2018/09/21/us/army-recruiting-shortage.html.

5. Rostker, Bernard. “The Evolution of the All-Volunteer Force.” RAND Corporation, 2006. https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9195.html.

6. Arkin, William M. “Fewer Americans Want to Serve in the Military. Cue Pentagon Panic.”

7. Yahoo! News. April 10, 2019. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://news.yahoo.com/fewer-americans-want-serve-military-122622703.html?ncid=facebook_yahoonewsf_akfmevaatca&fbclid=IwAR0IpgsXl_5_3lWHdoXVOAlnDOep9IJjpEtgcp4_5tfInSVcKH4bPtJNAeg. 8. Congressional Budget Office. “Costs of Military Pay and Benefits in the Defense Budget.” Nobember 2012. https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/112th-congress-2011-2012/reports/43574-militarycompensationone-col.pdf 9. Philipps, Dave. “As Economy Roars, Army Falls Thousands Short of Recruiting Goals.”

The New York Times. September 21, 2018. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://www.nytimes. com/2018/09/21/us/army-recruiting-shortage.html.

10. Ibid.

11. Gray, Maryann Jacobi, Robert F. Schoeni, and Tessa Kaganoff. “National Service: Designing, Implementing and Evaluating a Successful Program.” RAND Corporation, 1993. https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP136.html.

11. Wagner, John. “Clinton Calls for New National Service Reserve during Florida Swing.” The Washington Post. September 30, 2016. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://www. washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/30/clinton-to-offer-nationalservice-initiative-during-florida-swing/?utm_term=.ba8a534b49cd.

12. Khatami, Elham. “Trump Seeks to Get Rid of Service Programs like AmeriCorps, Senior Corps in Budget Proposal.” ThinkProgress. March 13, 2019. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://thinkprogress.org/trump-white-house-2020-budget-scraps-americorpssenior-corps-799fd69177e0/.

13. Sawhill, Isabel V., and Isabel V. Sawhill. “It’s Time to Make National Service a Universal Commitment.” Brookings. July 31, 2018. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://

Here, I describe national service’s relationship to the US military rather than just the Army. Even though the Army is the largest branch and has historically had the most difficulty recruiting (and has been the focus of this memo so far), I believe it is important to explain how national service would function within the whole military.

First, in regards to eligibility, national service would be compulsory for all US citizens and legal permanent residents who are between the ages of 18 and 30. Individuals are obligated to complete their national service sometime within that age span.

Second, individuals fulfilling their national service through the military would be required to serve for at least one year. If the military (or another service organization) is unable to reach its desired size with volunteers, individuals will be selected for service randomly by a lottery. The lottery would account for individual’s service preferences. It would not be influenced by other factors such as an individual’s age, race or educational attainment.

The lottery is the most equitable method for determining where individuals should serve.

Third, individuals would receive a modest living allowance, healthcare coverage and grants to pay for college. For reference, the AmeriCorps currently compensates its volunteers with an average of $1,200 a month. It does not offer healthcare coverage and the value of its grants varies.14 The military may consider raising the amount of pay above AmeriCorps levels to retain experience among its ranks.

Fourth, national service would be funded by local municipalities, states and the federal government. Depending on the type of national service performed, funding would be sourced from the relevant department within the federal government. For the military, funding would largely come from the Department of Defense. National service would actually reduce the size of the military’s budget. It is unclear exactly how much the military would save. According to my estimates, the Pentagon could slash either several hundred million dollars or in the low billions of dollars. That depends on whether I calculate the cost using the $1,200 amount of AmeriCorps compensation or if I double it.

National service would alleviate the military of recruiting shortfalls. In fact, recruiting would be rendered unnecessary if national service is implemented. This is because national service more efficiently procures manpower.

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www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2017/11/30/its-time-to-make-national-service-auniversal-commitment/.

14. AmeriCorps. “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Distribution of the AmeriCorps Living Allowance.” https://www.nationalservice.gov/sites/default/files/resource/rr3-acliving-allowances-4-13-12_0.pdf.

15. “President Donald Trump on National Service.” Service Year Alliance. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://about.serviceyear.org/trump_on_national_service.

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Institution Building in the Indo-Pacific Benjamin Keeler

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Problem Statement

I

n the status quo, the Indo-Pacific region faces a vast array of new, existing, and dynamic threats to regional stability. Among them include territorial conflicts, rouge state actors, and climate security. These threats serve to destabilize the everincreasingly important region. Territorial disputes coupled with militarization of the South China Sea have led to numerous close calls. This has the potential to become an international incident with possible loss of life and armed conflict.1 North Korea presents a human rights dilemma, and the nuclearization of the Kim regime poses a threat to the Korean peninsula and regional security.2 The aforementioned perils in the area are just a sample of the numerous, growing, and dynamic threats to the area. Part of the difficulty in addressing issues surrounding the Indo-Pacific is hegemonic competition between the United States and China. This competition is associated with political tensions discouraging dialogue. China and United States have massive combined diplomatic capital in the area. If it was used cooperatively, they could address regional issues in a safe and efficient manner.

Analysis

Since its modern inception, China has been involved in numerous territorial disputes with neighboring nations, but that trend has accelerated in recent years, particularly in the South China Sea.3 This can be attributed to several factors including domestic economic factors, the importance of the South China Sea to global maritime trade, geopolitical implications, and traditional rivalries.

On industrialization, the South China Sea possess vital hydrocarbon reserves and ample fishing possibilities, making it an area of vital importance for continued economic growth but more importantly energy security for China. However, it also offers massive economic opportunities for smaller economies like the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam.4 These conflicting interests partially contribute to the strategic competition.

More than half of of the world’s annual oil tanker shipments pass through the three main straits in the South China Sea, making it one of the world’s busiest maritime trade routes.5 A majority of Chinese imported oil comes through these waters as well.6 Clearly, all parties involved including the European Union and the United States, place a clear importance on the freedom of navigation in these waterways. Western officials fear that increasing tensions could lead to a Chinese blockade, bringing the global economy to a grinding halt. Conversely, Chinese planners fear a larger American presence could pose a threat to its oil and other natural resource imports.

States and their regional allies want to ensure that China does not expand its claims or military presence to limit the threat they pose to their traditional adversaries in the area. A more assertive China has served as a catalyst for nationalism in Japan, increasing military budgets leading to a resurgence of the Japanese Naval Self-Defense force - which has heightened militarization of the area.7 The South China Sea issue presents a clear threat to regional and global stability.

Another threat facing the Indo-Pacific region is a nuclearized North Korea. Security concerns regarding North Korea have been present for many decades, but with the failure of the recent summit in Hanoi,8 the prospects for denuclearization and deescalation on the Korean peninsula seem grim. Unilateral action from the United States has failed. A new multilateral approach to the issue must be taken to prevent a potentially nuclear conflict.

Global climate change and local climate variability is causing an increasing number of natural disasters and poses significant security threats in the Indo-Pacific. In coming years, climate change is expected to cause property loss and damage to hundreds of millions of people in the Indo-Pacific.9 Coastal flooding is expected to affect the millions in the region living below sea level, specifically in the Indo-Pacific numerous small island states. Current efforts to slow or reverse climate change are futile and in the best case scenarios will take decades to be effective. Because of fragile ecosystems, large coastal populations, and large populations living below the sea level, the Indo-Pacific is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.10 Climate change accelerated natural disasters are becoming a common occurrence in the Indo-Pacific. One such example was Typhoon Haiyan which made landfall in the Philippines in 2013. It caused massive loss of life and significant property damage.

The United States mobilized several agencies including USAID and the Department of Defense to provide assistance totalling over 35 million dollars.11 American aid and naval support was vital, as ASEAN failed to adequately address the issue as a regional body.

There was a lack of local coordination or leadership on the issue, as China and other nations attempted to unilaterally solve the issue without coordination with potential partners. It came down to extra-regional states like the United States to address the problem.12 The continuation of these disasters without proper relief mechanisms and international cooperation in place is dangerous for the stability of the region.

Proposal

The South China Sea is also important from a geopolitical perspective. China views the area as being of vast strategic importance affecting its national security. The United

In order to address new and existing threats in the Indo-Pacific region, the United States should take a leading role in establishing a multilateral regional organization with the end goal of an organization with a similar structure and mission to the Organization for Security Co-operation in Europe. This is a long term goal and smaller steps should be

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taken in the present to provide stepping stones to this larger goal.

In the status quo, the United States should support the establishment of a regional organization much more limited in scope, addressing disaster response specifically in the context of climate change. Disaster response is a specific low commitment cooperative task. Based upon traditional American leadership in disaster relief and the failure of existing bodies such as ASEAN on the issue, the nations in the Indo-Pacific would be incentivised to participate. By addressing this task in a multilateral organization, a healthy regional dialogue can be established and eventually expand into a body with a larger scope.

Washington, DC 11. “FACT SHEET: U.S. Response to Typhoon Haiyan.” National Archives and Records Administration. November 19, 2013. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://obamawhitehouse. archives.gov/the-press-office/2013/11/19/fact-sheet-us-response-typhoon-haiyan.

12. Euan Graham. (2013). Super Typhoon Haiyan : ASEAN’s Katrina moment?(RSIS Commentaries, No. 213). RSIS Commentaries. Singapore: Nanyang Technological University.

The Indo-Pacific has two great hegemons competing for influence, the United States and China. Both powers are at odds on various issues, but disaster relief is generally a universally agreed upon good. By coordinating efforts between these two nations and regional powers, a framework for future cooperation on more controversial issues to include the South China Sea and a nuclearized North Korea is set.

Endnotes 1. Stewart, Robert Kelly, “Strategic Puzzle in the South China Sea: Perception, Power, and Money. Chinese Plans for Hegemony?” (2018). International Political Economy Theses. 21.

2. Danielle Chubb & Andrew Yeo (2018) Human rights, nuclear security and the question of engagement with North Korea, Australian Journal of International Affairs, DOI: 3. Wei Y. (2019) Territorial Disputes: China and Its Neighbors. In: Issues Decisive for China’s Rise or Fall. Springer, Singapore 4. United States Energy Information Administration, “South China Sea” <http://www. eia.gov/countries/regions-topics.cfm?fips=SCS>.

5. Editor, “South China Sea Oil Shipping Lanes”, Global Security<http://www. globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/spratly-ship.htm>.

6. Bruce Blair, Chen Yali, and Eric Hagt, “The Oil Weapon: Myth of China’s Vulnerability” 3 China Security (2006) 37–38.

7. Easley, “How proactive? How pacifist? Charting Japan’s evolving defense posture”; Koo, “Belling the Chinese dragon”; Oros , Japan’s Security Renaissance.

8. Sanger, David E., and Edward Wong. “How the Trump-Kim Summit Failed: Big Threats, Big Egos, Bad Bets.” The New York Times. March 02, 2019. Accessed March 06, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/world/asia/trump-kim-jong-un-summit. html.

9. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (2014) Climate change 2014–impacts, adaptation and vulnerability: regional aspects. Cambridge University Press 10. Werrell C, Fermia F (eds) (2015) The U.S. Asia-Pacific rebalance, national security and climate change. Center for Climate and Security 1025 Connecticut Ave., NW ∙ Suite 1000,

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Two Belts, Two Roads: How to Keep China Tethered to Western Economies and Ensure Peace Zachary Klagge

Problem Statement

T

he massively successful market liberalization policies of Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s and 1990s, a program which culminated with China’s admission to the WTO in 2001, resulted in extreme quality of life improvements for the population of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). At this point, China’s integration into the American-led global order was completed. However, after several decades of completely unprecedented growth, and with its growth and accompanying government approval now diminishing, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has begun to reevaluate the system which it acceded to nearly forty years ago. At the same time, China has risen militarily to the point that it feels comfortable asserting its strategic interests upon its neighbors.1 At the same time, the United States government, no longer able to justify the massive expenditures and national effort necessary to maintain a global order that the American people no longer remember the benefits of, has a population which at present desires a greater focus on domestic revitalization than continuing to maintain the international systems that promote peace and cooperation among the great powers of the world.2 As it attempts to deemphasize foreign trade as the main pillar on which its economy stands as its economic growth slows, China is moving to secure natural resources in its neighborhood to allow a secure resource base for a Chinese-consumer driven economy free from the threat of United States interference. A reduction in economic ties between the United States, its allies and China only serves to increase the risks of conflict in the region, and further reduce the likelihood that China pursues any policy of social and political liberalization voluntarily. Consequently, the question must be asked: How does the United States keep China integrated with the global trade system in a manner which maintains its reliance on international trade while China attempts to remove itself from such a system?

Background

China’s desire for control of its surrounding regions and their accompanying resources is not a new phenomenon. Various dynasties throughout history have attempted to control trade throughout East Asia, most notably and conspicuously in the Ming and Qing dynasties.3 As part of its efforts to remove its reliance on foreign demand as its economy slows and transition to a more sustainable, internally driven growth, Beijing has realized that the re-establish of such a system would be prudent, and has attempted to buoy the economy through its One Belt, One Road program. This program, designed to artificially create demand for its construction industries temporarily while it tries to transition to a consumer driven internal economy, and simultaneously creating a mechanism which allows it to leverage economic, financial and military supremacy over countries in the resource areas necessary to sustain such an ambitious shift of the foundation of the

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Chinese economy.

Proposal

Because the shift to a Chinese-consumer driven economy will necessitate resource acquisition on an unprecedented scale, Beijing requires dominance over a massive amount of resources, likely in every direction, from central asian uranium and copper to Russian timber, coal, iron and tin. However, the most critical resource area for China to secure is Southeast Asia, and most specifically the petroleum reserves in the South China Sea. The methodology of its control in both ancient and modern China is quite similar, leveraging economic, financial, and military supremacy in order to create a sphere that respects China’s regional or even global preeminence. This play for dominance in Asia is of great interest to the United States, whose allies in the region expect American involvement diplomatically, economically, and militarily that counterbalances increasingly belligerent tone.

In order to keep China from pursuing a nationalist path to government approval, it is vital that the United States keep the Chinese economy integrated heavily with those of American allies in the Asia-Pacific region and globally. Any effort to do this should work through a frame that counters the One Belt, One Road initiative. Specifically, effort must be placed on infrastructure project which can directly compete with the One Belt One Road initiative and leverage the much lower cost of sea transport.

However, restructuring the Chinese economy does not completely solve China’s main problem with slowing economic growth—falling approval. Because of this, President Xi and other high ranking members of the Communist Party have resorted in recent years to aggressive and nationalistic rhetoric in order to maintain the government’s popular approval, recognizing that as the economy slows, the population that approves of the central government because of economic growth will contract, or perhaps be eliminated completely. The de-emphasis of economic prosperity in the rhetoric of Xinhua and and Xi’s increasing focus on Chinese military security and the importance of reunification with Taiwan serve as good examples of this recent messaging shift. In the event that China is allowed to continue its transition to an economy driven primarily by domestic demand and fueled by resources from regions solidly under Chinese hegemonic control, the result would likely be a China more willing to use military force as an avenue to advance its national interests. Contracting global food supplies and other unforeseen resource constraints as a result of climate change could also drive China to use aggressive force as a result of desperation to secure resources vital to the survival of their population.

The resort to nationalist rhetoric is the most concerning part of the current trends with China, especially as the Chinese continue their efforts to reduce their economic reliance on trade with the United States and its European and Asian allies. In the event that the PRC successfully transfers to an economic status quo in which they can mostly or completely remove their economy’s reliance on trade with the United States only increases the likelihood of conflict between the two or between China and a US-aligned neighbor. Because of this, it is in the United States’ long term interest to continue to trade with China, and to increase the bonds of mutual economic reliance from a regional stability perspective.

Countering the Belt and Road initiative and other Chinese attempts to become economically self sufficient can be met in several ways. Firstly, the United States should do everything in its power to dissuade countries globally from joining the Belt and Road initiative, up to and including making United States foreign aid contingent on countries not “double dipping” as it were and benefit from both US and Chinese capital investment.

This being said, such a policy is not enough on its own. The United States, in order to convince countries to join its own global trade alliance, must become much more willing to supply loans and direct investment in countries on China’s periphery and globally, regardless the nature of the political systems of states. In order to do this, the United States should increase, not decrease the foreign aid budget through USAID in order to make American aid a clearly better deal than Chinese loans. This could include United States loans to LDCs and developing countries with fairer interest rates than Chinese loans for similar infrastructure projects to Belt and Road projects which push trade away from major corridors that the Chinese initiative is attempting to establish.

This should work in tandem with major port and other transit infrastructure in the United States, particularly on the West Coast, as well as other major upgrades to ports in Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries which the Chinese are intentionally avoiding in their One Belt One Road projects. A system may be created in which it is cheaper for China to import raw materials from the Americas via American ports, from Europe through American-financed ports, or from Africa and Southeast Asia through American allies and partners. If such a system of massive infrastructure upgrades throughout the United States and its partner countries globally may be achieved, it is possible that the economic viability of the One Belt, One Road initiative itself may be called into question, especially if US transport upgrades are able to leverage the massive efficiency advantages that container shipping has over rail and other forms of inland transportation.4 If the United States is able to mobilize its resources and populace early enough, we could significantly reduce the likelihood that China even views military aggression as an option.

The viability of this infrastructural solution is only possible because the market liberalization of Deng Xiaoping, which not only benefited China and the Western world, but also left Chinese companies, and by extension the entire Chinese economy, at the

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mercy of international trade and economics. More bluntly, the fact that China is now integrated in the global economic system is as much a weakness for China as it appears to be a weakness for the United States in the present moment. While the United States is struggling to contain the anger of unemployed manufacturing workers, the Chinese economy is still extremely reliant on exports to the American market and imports of petroleum, rubber and other goods from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa and beyond. If this reliance on foreign imports is maintained for a long enough period of time, the problem of a China that is able to detach itself from trading with likely adversaries should become a more long term problem, which would allow the United States more time to focus on repairing division within the country itself, modernizing the US Navy, and applying more pressure diplomatically and socially in an attempt to get the PRC to liberalize its politics.

In the event that China responds to American large infrastructure investments by directing Chinese SOEs to use One Belt, One Road trade networks in spite of the existence of cheaper and more reliable forms of transportation, then their corporations will pay the economic price, which would allow other companies to compete with a great advantage against them. The result of a hostile response of this nature might buoy China in the extreme short term, but would ultimately yield effects similar to those experienced by the economy of the late Soviet Union.5 As a consequence of this fact, Xi and the CCP should be hesitant to implement policies which would create the same destabilizing conditions in China.

In terms of the scale of the implementation of such a policy, the exact amount of investment required to divert trade from Belt and Road projects depends upon the amount of time which the United States wishes to buy. The overall cost of implementing such a policy of aggressive port upgrades in the First World and in United States natural resource rich allies varies greatly depending upon the size and scope of upgrades which we are willing to entertain to delay China in the hopes that we can pursue other avenues to challenge China and attempt to defer or perhaps avoid altogether a new cold war, or even worse, a hot one.6 However, it is likely that the price tag of countering the One Belt, One Road attempt to change the global economy is in the hundreds of billions or perhaps even a trillion dollars, by no means a small price. That being said, the US would not have to foot the entire bill if it coordinated with European and East Asian governments concerned about Chinese challenges to the current economic and geopolitical order.

Though it will require significant investment, the benefits of lower transport costs generally to the economy combined with the massive possible savings of avoiding another cold war or an actual major conflict in the Pacific are certainly great enough to warrant the investment.

PRC influence building in the Central Asian Steppe to continue to throw uncertainty into the One Belt, One Road project generally. Any action that keeps China tethered to the system of international trade both reduces the willingness of China to engage in war and lose mutually beneficial trade with the United States and its allies and in tandem keeps the CCP in the uncomfortable and paradoxical position of attempting to preserve an authoritarian political system in a country which has adopted a liberal economic system. If these attempts fail and Beijing is able to isolate itself more economically while continuing to increase its nationalist rhetoric to raise its approval, the great power which is created as a result will not seek to maintain the system as it stands, and will possibly violate the sovereignty of other nations in an attempt to “restore” its former greatness, or “reunify” its rightful possessions.1 Endnotes 1: Bodeen, Christopher. Maneuvering to isolate Taipei, China fires rhetorical broadsides at Taiwan. Mar 13, 2019. https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/03/13/maneuvering-to-isolatetaipei-china-fires-rhetorical-broadsides-at-taiwan/ 2: Stokes, Bruce. American Isolationism with a Very, Very Big Stick. May 17, 2016. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/17/american-isolationism-with-a-very-very-bigstick-trump-clinton-election/ 3: Fairbank, John King, ed. The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1968 4: Valentine, Harry. Comparing Maritime Versus Railway Transportation Costs. Dec. 25, 2017. https://www.maritime-executive.com/editorials/comparing-maritime-versusrailway-transportation-costs 5: Lemieux, Pierre. No Economic Reason to Fear China. Dec 22, 2018 https://www.econlib.org/no-economic-reason-to-fear-china/ 6: Hillman, Jonathan. How Big is China’s Belt and Road? Apr 3, 2018 https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-big-chinas-belt-and-road 7: Panda, Ankit. US Navy Conducts First Freedom of Navigation Operation of 2019. Jan 8, 2019. https://thediplomat.com/2019/01/us-navy-conducts-first-freedom-of-navigationoperation-of-2019-in-south-china-sea/

Apart from massive infrastructural upgrades, the United States should continue to pursue freedom of navigation operations in the South China Sea,7 as well attempt to counter

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Mitigating Disparate Service Worker Incomes in Rhode Island Elissa Koppel

Problem Statement

T

ipping in American restaurants is an informal social norm. Consumers are not required to tip servers. In this system, front-of-house workers in 48 states, district, and territories earn an hourly wage set significantly lower than the respective state minimum wage. As a result, restaurant worker incomes are highly variable. Front-of-house worker wages fluctuate, resulting in income insecurity for them. Additionally, given the occasionally high wages front-of-house-workers receive, earning disparities exist between kitchen and front-of-house workers. Caused by tipping, the fluctuation and variance of wages among restaurant workers leads to worker attrition, potentially hostile work environments, and income insecurity.

Background As of May 2018, there were approximately 49,920 food preparation and serving related workers in Rhode Island (see Appendix 1). This analysis will focus on policy tools to mitigate income insecurity, earning disparities, work environment hostility, and worker attrition for Rhode Island restaurant workers.

Tipped employees are subject to a different wage structure than non-tipped employees.

According to the U.S. Wage and Hour Division, tipped employees “are those who customarily and regularly receive more than $30 per month in tips.” The structure of a tipped employee’s hourly wage comprises a minimum cash wage and a maximum tip credit against the minimum wage. The federal Fair Labor Standards Act mandates that tipped employees must be paid a minimum cash wage of $2.13 (Department of Labor, 2019). However, the federal minimum cash wage of $2.13 is a floor; the FLSA authorizes state and local governments to set higher minimum cash wage requirements (29 U.S.C. § 218 (2016)). In Rhode Island, the minimum cash wage paid to tipped employees is $3.89.

The maximum tip credit that employers can take against the minimum wage in Rhode Island is $6.61. In other words, employers may pay tipped employees as little as $3.89 per hour, as long as the employee makes enough in tips to earn at least $10.50 per hour, the current Rhode Island minimum wage. Today, the incomes of individual workers within a restaurant are highly varied. Bartenders and servers qualify as tipped employees. Kitchen staff and bussers earn at least the Rhode Island minimum wage which is $10.50 (Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training, 2019).

In 2018, the Rhode Island General Assembly put forward H7398, an act relating to labor and labor relations focused on tip protection. The act focused on service charges (compulsory fees charged by an employer to a patron), credit card fees, and restrictions on tip pooling. The act proposed to: ban employers from taking any part of an employee’s tips as profit, allow employers to take a part of an employee’s tips as payment to credit card companies if notified, and set service charges as separate from tips but eligible to be

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counted towards minimum wage requirements. The act died in committee.

Current System and Critiques The current tipped economy system built into Rhode Island’s restaurants creates a myriad of vulnerabilities for restaurant owners and workers alike.

While kitchen staff and bussers’ incomes remain constant throughout the year, the incomes of servers and bartenders vary drastically. Weekends and holidays such as New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day are boons to tipped employees who attain those shifts.

Meanwhile, these moments are sources of disappointment for both servers unassigned to those shifts and kitchen staff who earn no bonuses for their extra-hard work. Rhode Island’s tourism industry, attracting families to its many beaches during the summer, is another boon for tipped employees. However, tipped workers face significantly lower incomes during colder seasons, and restaurants risk losing trained staff to industries with more reliable wages.

The tipped economy system also often prevents team members from working together, being amicable, and being forgiving. Due to the individual nature of tipping, servers (tipped workers) have little incentive to assist each other. Moreover, kitchen staff (nontipped workers) have no incentive to work hard or help servers. The individualized structure of tipping, one that also only benefits half of the operators of a restaurant, is primed to generate, at its worst, a hostile work environment. There is no incentive to build relationships or allegiance to co-workers.

Analysis The analysis of the policy options offered in this memo will be drawn from the following outcomes matrix. I outline five outcomes. Four of them address the consequences caused by tipping that were outlined in the problem statement: income insecurity, earning disparities, worker attrition, and work environment hostility. The fifth outcome is political feasibility. Each of the determinations listed in the matrix cells will be explained in more detail in the “Policy Outcomes” section. With the hope of adding another tool to assist in decision-making, I have assigned numbers between 0 and 1 to the qualitative rankings below, with 0 representing “Low” or “No”, 1 representing “High” or “Yes”, and numbers between 0 and 1 for the appropriate “Low/Moderate”, “Moderate”, “Somewhat”, and “Moderate/High” rankings.

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Policy Options Option 1: Raise tipped employees minimum cash wage to the Rhode Island minimum wage.

Allow tipping.

The first policy option I propose is to mitigate the consequences of tipping involves raising the minimum cash wage for tipped workers to the Rhode Island minimum wage and thus removing the employer tip credit.

This is the only policy option offered in this analysis that keeps tipping an allowed practice in Rhode Island restaurants. The reason I propose one option that preserves tipping is because there have been challenges to models implemented elsewhere that eliminated tipping while increasing tipped employees’ minimum cash wage to a state’s given minimum wage. One of those challenges was worker attrition. In attempts to reduce the volatility and disparities among his employees’ incomes, San Francisco restaurant owner Thad Vogler had eliminated tipping at his restaurants and evened out wages throughout his staff by raising kitchen staff hourly wages and reducing entrylevel staff hourly wages (NPR, 2016). While kitchen staff were happy and “turnover was nonexistent”, servers were leaving. Often, new hires would stay to be fully trained and then move to other restaurants who were “still on the traditional tip economy”. The experiences of Vogler are upheld by contemporary research on the motivations of tipped and non-tipped restaurant employees. In “Employee Motivation and Organizational

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Commitment: A Comparison of Tipped and Non-tipped Restaurant Employees”, results of a survey questionnaire administered to 104 restaurant workers suggested that excellent tips were a major factor in tipped employee motivation, and not “a feeling of a job well done” or “gratitude for a job well done”. Moreover, the study’s results suggested that a lack of employee motivation could cause “organizational problems in turnover, retention, morale, and poor productivity” (Curtis et al, 2008). In other words, replacing the capacity of tipped workers to earn tips with a sense of camaraderie towards other employees would not be effective in retaining staff. This is why allowing tipped employees to continue earning tips, on top of guaranteeing them the full $10.50 state minimum wage, would mitigate worker attrition.

Regarding income insecurity, the option benefits tipped laborers by guaranteeing them a minimum wage exempt from employer tip credit withdrawals. In effect, this raises a given tipped worker’s hourly wage by approximately $6.61. However, due to the allowance of continued tipping in this model, the option does not alleviate long-term insecurity.

Under this framework, tipped laborers would still see periodic increases and decreases in income. This would be financially dangerous in the event that those laborers acclimate to a given income within a profitable time of year or season.

With regards to mitigating work environment hostility and creating worker cohesion, the approach contributes to the extent that workers would feel less stressed about earning income due to an increased hourly wage. At the same time, under this model, tips are not distributed to non-tipped workers, such as kitchen staff and bussers. There is no incentive to foster cohesion between tipped and non-tipped workers.

If Rhode Island leadership decides to move forward and attempt to enact legislation following this model, they will face moderate pushback from Rhode Island restaurant owners. In effect, the owners will have to raise hourly wages for tipped worked by $6.61.

Even so, this policy doesn’t challenge owner’s bottom lines to the extent that more progressive policy options listed in this memo would.

Pros: Raises tipped worker wages, mitigates worker attrition Cons: Does not foster teamwork between tipped and non-tipped workers, does not create long-term income security for tipped workers Option 2: Raise tipped employees minimum cash wage to the Rhode Island minimum wage. End tipping.

In switching tipped workers over to (at least) the Rhode Island minimum wage, option 2 is the policy choice that most effectively generates income security for tipped workers. The presence of tipping inherently generates income variety. Mandated proportional service charges, while offering some reliability, do nothing to mitigate the income security caused

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by annual changes in patronage. Nonetheless, this option only earns a “Moderate” within the Outcomes Matrix rankings on income security because removing tipping means significantly reducing tipped worker incomes. In other cities where this model has been implemented, some tipped workers have been furious with this policy change.

This option is also the most effective among the policies presented at achieving the outcome of earning disparity mitigation. In placing tipped workers at the state minimum wage, tipped workers will no longer inherently earn more than back-of-house workers.

Regarding political viability, this option could face backlash from unionized service workers if proposed. Tipped workers regularly earn more than minimum wage with their tips, with tip values surpassing the maximum hourly tip credit employers take against the minimum wage. Additionally, this measure would likely face extensive backlash from restaurant owners and their representation. In Washington D.C. in June 2018, voters passed Initiative 77, a ballot measure that would raise the District’s tipped minimum wage over an eight year period until it is equal to the District’s normal minimum wage (Economic Policy Institute, 2018). Even though the ballot measure passed, Mayor Muriel Bowser and members of the District of Columbia Council overruled the will of the voters and repealed the initiative, citing harm to the restaurant industry via closures and layoffs (Nirappil, 2018). For any of these options to be successful, an organized faction of Rhode Island leadership will have to actively promote them to the public. A team effort of the governor’s office and a bi-partisan cohort of active, popular legislators could generate an effective public campaign.

If Rhode Island leadership chooses to pursue this option specificially, in order to earn favor from restaurant workers and concerned Rhode Islanders, they will have to showcase data illustrating that other states and municipalities who have managed this shift have not seen industry shrinkage. Luckily, there are a variety of studies demonstrating this reality. Schmitt (2013) and Cooper, Mishel, and Zipperer (2018) have discovered an expanding base of evidence that illustrates that moderate raises in minimum wages have succeeded in their intended goal: increasing wages for lowwage workers with little to no effect on employment rates. Having assessed 20 years of data on changes in the tipped minimum wage, Allegretto and Nadler (2015) concluded “higher tipped minimum wages were associated with higher industry wages and little, if any, change in employment levels” (EPI, 2018). If the governor’s office, for instance, could achieve buy-in from restaurant owners on these findings, they could build a public relations campaign to alleviate any remaining concerns on the possible economic outcomes of ending the tipped minimum wage.

Pros: Creates income insecurity resilient to seasonal changes in restaurant patronage, fosters worker cohesion via equal wages for front-of-house and back-of-house workers Cons: Cuts average server income, politically alienates servers

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Option 3: Require 20% service fee on all restaurant and bar purchases. End tipping.

challenges social norms, possibly shrinks New England patronage to Rhode Island restaurants

The defining characteristic of this policy option is its capacity to end earning disparities among tipped employees. Shifting to a service charge would prevent certain tipped employees from being highly successful and others from losing out. This shift is critical for two reasons. First, research demonstrates at best a weak correlation between perceived service quality and tip size (Lynn, 2003). Preserving a tipped economy therefore does not earnestly reward excellent server performance. Second, shifting to a mandatory service charge could foster equity within tipped employee pay that otherwise may not have been present (Lynn, 2008). In “Consumer Racial Discrimination in Tipping: A Replication and Extension”, researchers found that both black and white consumers discriminated against black service providers by tipping them less than white service providers. While this shift would level the playing field among tipped employees, the policy does not bridge the income gap between tipped employee and non-tipped employees. For this reason, it only moderately mitigates earning disparities among restaurant workers.

Option 4: Require 20% service fee on all restaurant and bar purchases. End tipping. Divide minimum wage surplus among all non-manager employees. Offer 60% of the surplus to servers and bartenders and 40% of the surplus to kitchen staff and bussers.

This option generates a sizable amount of income insecurity compared to options 1 and 2, especially in instances where 20% of a given meal fare is higher than the $6.61 tip credit added back to tipped employee hourly wages. Nonetheless, this framework does not reduce problems arising from front-of-house workers acclimating to specific seasonal incomes. Meal fares are affected just as much as worker tips by seasonal factors dictating restaurant patronage. As a result, a mandatory 20% service charge cannot guarantee even a somewhat consistent annual income. The option does achieve this evaluative criterion but is not a perfect solution.

Organized restaurant owners will pose a significant political threat to legislation that mandates a service fee and ends tipping because they will likely argue that it will require them to raise food prices, rendering their restaurants noncompetitive with other restaurants in New England. The rhetoric is not unsubstantiated. Nationally, some restaurants and restaurant chains have raised their prices to accomodate a mandatory service fee and a no-tipping policy, including Joe’s Crab Shack which raised menu prices between 12-15% to accommodate the shift in 2015 (Dunn, 2018). While the anti-service fee rhetoric centers on the possibility of raised menu prices, recent research has also shown that restaurants with required service charges get lower customer ratings on the internet (Lynn, 2017). Due to the recentness of this research, anti-service charge rhetoric has not yet centered around this problem. To combat this rhetoric, the operating team should compile research on customer satisfaction in countries without tipping (Lynn, 2017). If Rhode Island acclimates over time to a no-tipping restaurant economy, conceivably Rhode Island consumers could reach similar levels of satisfaction.

Pros: Removes social factors such as race and gender from affecting server earnings Cons: Does not mitigate earning disparity between front-of-house and back-of-house workers,

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Option 4 entails preserving the Rhode Island tipped minimum wage ($3.89 per hour) while also instituting a 20% mandatory service charge. The mandatory service charge would be used first to elevate a tipped employee’s hourly wage to the $10.50 minimum via the employer credit. Then, whatever total surplus exists at the end of a shift from tipped employee fares would be distributed among all entry-level workers. Sixty percent of this surplus would go to servers and bartenders. Forty percent of the surplus would go to kitchen staff and bussers. This option is the most progressive in terms of restructuring wages. The option increases income insecurity for tipped workers in that it guarantees them a set portion of the profits of a given meal. This option most successfully reduces earning disparities between tipped and non-tipped workers due to its redistribution of surplus. It mitigates work environment hostility by guaranteeing a substantial hourly wage to both front-of-house and back-of-house employees. It also reduces potential resentment regarding the surplus distribution by offering a 20% premium to servers. In other words, the 20% premium (60-40) seeks to replace tips servers lose in the shift to a mandatory service charge.

Politically, the option be challenged by business owners who might claim that a mandatory service charge would make their establishments noncompetitive. I encourage the team to help these owners turn this new operating system into a marketable characteristic for their restaurants. By creating public signage that signals values such as “ethical labor practices” and “community-centric”, restaurants could capitalize on this opportunity to market to a base of ideal-driven consumers (Lewis, 2011).

Pros: Fosters worker cohesion by reducing earning disparities among restaurant staff, has marketability potential Cons: Could alienate Rhode Island restaurateurs, could frustrate servers who perceive sharing surplus as infringing on their tips Recommendation At the time of this memo’s publication, neither the regional or local office of Local26, a union representing food service, hotel, gaming, and airport workers, responded to inquiries on union perspective. As a result, I can make no assertion regarding which policy option would receive the most support from food service worker union members.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2018, 17.4% of public and private sector workers in Rhode Island were unionized. Rhode Island boasts the largest union

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membership rate in New England, and the rate is currently increasing by between 1-1.3% a year (RI Department of Labor and Training - Labor Market Information, 2018).

Given the size and expansion rate of this constituency, it would be wise to determine the industry’s perspective before advancing.

That said, I recommend Rhode Island leadership advance policy option #4 to mitigate the industry harms caused by the tipping economy. While it is not the most politically viable option, it does address the four consequences of tipping more thoroughly than any other option. Implementing this legislation in Rhode Island would entail the team drafting a proposal and then cultivating buy-in from state legislature to ensure passage. In order to mitigate the political obstacles to this proposal’s passage, I encourage leadership to do the following: • •

Mobilize restaurant owners in a public relations campaign, stating that their bottom lines are not affected by this policy (due to the preserved hourly employer tip credit).

Send a letter explaining this, too, to restaurant owners throughout the state.

Create coalitions of tipped workers and non-tipped workers to participate in a public relations campaign. Place them in situations where they speak on television, radio, or to their communities about how this legislation is financially beneficial to them and to their coworkers who are in different wage structures than them (i.e. tipped workers speaking about supporting this for themselves and for their nontipped coworkers).

Works Cited Allegretto, Sylvia, and Carl Nadler. “Tipped Wage Effects on Earnings and Employment in Full-Service Restaurants.” Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 54, no. 4 (2015): 622-47. doi:10.1111/irel.12108.

Azar, O. 2003. The implications of tipping for economics and management. International Journal of Social Economics, 30: 1084–1094.

Cooper, David. “Bold Increases in the Minimum Wage Should Be Evaluated for the Benefits of Raising Low-wage Workers’ Total Earnings: Critics Who Cite Claims of Job Loss Are Using a Distorted Frame.” Economic Policy Institute. https:// www.epi.org/publication/bold-increases-in-the-minimum-wage-should-beevaluated-for-the-benefits-of-raising-low-wage-workers-total-earnings-criticswho-cite-claims-of-job-loss-are-using-a-distorted-frame/.

Cooper, David. “Why D.C. Should Implement Initiative 77: Tipped Workers Do Better in ‘one-fair-wage’ Cities; Restaurants Continue to Thrive.” Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/publication/tipped-workers-do-better-in-citieswhere-they-are-paid-the-regular-minimum-wage-and-the-restaurant-industrycontinues-to-thrive-why-dc-should-implement-initiative-77/.

Curtis, Catherine R., Randall S. Upchurch, and Denver E. Severt. “Employee motivation

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and organizational commitment: A comparison of tipped and non-tipped restaurant employees.” International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration 10, no. 3 (2009): 253-269.

Dunn, Elizabeth. “The Limitations of American Restaurants’ No-Tipping Experiment.”

The New Yorker. February 26, 2018. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/ annals-of-gastronomy/the-limitations-of-american-restaurants-no-tippingexperiment.

Lewis, Tania, and Emily Potter. Ethical consumption: A critical introduction. Routledge, 2013.

Lynn, Michael, Michael Sturman, Christie Ganley, Elizabeth Adams, Mathew Douglas, and Jessica Mcneil. “Consumer Racial Discrimination in Tipping: A Replication and Extension.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 38, no. 4 (2008): 1045-060. doi:10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00338.x.

Lynn, Michael. “The Effects of Tipping on Consumers’ Satisfaction with Restaurants.”

Journal of Consumer Affairs 52, no. 3 (2017): 746-55. doi:10.1111/joca.12171.

Lynn, Michael. Ethnic Differences in Tipping: A Matter of Familiarity, 45 Cornell Hotel & Restaurant ADMIN. Q. 12, 13 (2004).

Lynn, Michael. Tip Levels and Service: An Update, Extension and Reconciliation.

Cornell HRA Quarterly (December 2003). Cornell University School of Hotel Administration.

“Minimum Wage.” Labor Standards, Workforce Regulation and Safely, RI Dept. of Labor and Training. http://www.dlt.ri.gov/ls/minwage.htm.

“Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees.” U.S. Department of Labor - Wage & Hour Divisions (WHD) - Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees. https://www.dol.gov/ whd/state/tipped.htm.

Nirappil, Fenit. “D.C. Council Overturns Wage Hike for Bartenders, Servers - Four Months after Voters Approved It.” The Washington Post. October 03, 2018. https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-council-takesinitial-vote-to-overturn-initiative-77-four-months-after-voters-approvedit/2018/10/02/da906320-c651-11e8-b1ed-1d2d65b86d0c_story.html.

“Rhode Island - May 2018 OES State Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates.”

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. April 02, 2019. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/ oes_ri.htm#35-0000.

Schmitt, John. 2013. Why Does the Minimum Wage Have No Discernible Effect on Employment? Center for Economic and Policy Research.

Staff, NPR. “Why Restaurants Are Ditching The Switch To No Tipping.” NPR. May 15, 2016. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2016/05/15/478096516/whyrestaurants-are-ditching-the-switch-to-no-tipping.

“Union Membership in Rhode Island 2018.” DLT. http://www.dlt.ri.gov/lmi/ publications/union.htm.

William, David. “13 Top Restaurants That Have Adopted a No Tipping Trend.” Small Business Trends. August 06, 2019. https://smallbiztrends.com/2016/06/no-

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tipping-trend.html.

Yoram Margalioth, â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Case against Tipping,â&#x20AC;? University of Pennsylvania Journal of

Labor and Employment Law 9, no. 1 (Fall 2006): 117-146

Polarization, Disenfranchisement, and Ranked-Choice Voting Davis Larkin

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Abstract The toxic mixture of gerrymandering, first-past-the-post elections, and closed party primaries are the primary causes of polarization in the American political system. These systems create polarization by functionally disenfranchising the overwhelming majority of voters who live in safe districts and who do not vote in the winning party’s closed primary. Open primary ranked-choice voting provides the most direct and plausible method of ending America’s functional exclusion of most citizens from the process of representation, by producing representatives at the approximate average of all votes cast.

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n the November 2018 Nevada state assembly elections, Dennis Hof easily won election1 in Nevada’s 36th district by more than 20 points. Normally, this would not be particularly notable, except for the fact that Dennis Hof was a brothelowning, reality TV star “pimp” who died a month prior, in October of 2018. The story here is not some trivial oddity. In the overwhelming majority of America, districts are so heavily tilted towards one party that even the death of one of the candidates is not remotely enough to change the outcome of a general election. As a result, the only election that regularly has any influence over who ends up in the relevant seat is the primary election. Three interconnected structures ensure that the candidate who wins is selected only by the most dedicated members of the regionally dominant party: gerrymandering, first-past-the-post (FPTP) elections, and closed party primaries. In turn, the elevation of the party primary over the general election by these three structures is causing one of the most dangerous problems in American political life: the polarization of both Congress and the electorate.

Often, polarization is framed as a growing lack of civility in our national discourse, that would be solved if we simply had better, less divisive individuals at the top of the political realm. However, polarization is neither a symptom of malign individual politicians, nor is it an outside force acting on the American political system. Rather, polarization is primarily a symptom and a result of the aforementioned structural dysfunction in American election systems.2 While there are other forces which help drive polarization, such as the end of the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine and the rise of social media, polarization is rising primarily because the formal electoral systems of American democracy now strongly incentivize polarization as a political strategy. Polarization will not stop or slow without changing the underlying incentives that drive politicians to pursue polarization in elections.

As a solution, this memo proposes instituting ranked-choice voting (RCV) in all American elections, alongside nonpartisan redistricting committees and open “jungle” primaries, in order to reverse the incentives for rhetorical polarization and legislative obstruction in American elections. First, this memo will explain the electoral structures which

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incentivize polarization. Second, it will discuss the most effective potential changes to American electoral law for ending the structural incentives for polarization, and their history of implementation in the US and abroad. Finally, it will explore the likely impacts of implementing such reforms.

Polarization and its Systemic Causes To begin, we must examine the three systems that produce structural incentives to polarize: gerrymandering, FPTP elections, and closed party primaries. First, gerrymandering is the main culprit for the broad uncompetitiveness of American elections. Gerrymandering is not a new phenomenon; the term was coined in the early 1800s, to describe a district drawn by Massachusetts governor Thomas Gerry that thoroughly resembled a very ill salamander.3 However, gerrymandering has grown increasingly sophisticated in the past two decades, as big data allows politicians to precision-target which constituencies they want down to specific neighborhood blocks.4 As a result, in Republican-leaning states (like Texas), swing states (like Wisconsin and North Carolina), and Democrat-leaning states (like Maryland), districts are substantially less competitive than we would otherwise expect.5 As a result, very few districts are genuinely competitive. Out of the 435 House of Representatives districts, less than 80 seats are considered at or below a 5-point partisan lean by Cook PVI. Cook’s 2020 ratings consider only 52 races currently competitive, and suggest only 90 could even become competitive.6 Only twenty seats out of 435 are rated with less than an 85% or higher likelihood of falling towards the locally dominant party.

In practice, this means that except in generationally large wave years, barely ⅕ of all House general elections in a given year have any likelihood of electing a representative from the non-favored party. In practice, far fewer than ⅕ are meaningfully competitive.

Like in Dennis Hof’s state assembly district, over 80% of American citizens live in districts where their member of congress does not face any real threat of being unseated in a general election. In these districts, members of congress are accountable to their party’s primary voters, and to their party alone.

There are a number of responses to those who object to the ubiquity of uncompetitiveness.

One is to assert that people simply sort geographically, and so, it’s simply natural that a miniscule fraction of Americans cast a vote in a district that stands any statistical chance of flipping. Another is to say that uncompetitiveness is not a problem in and of itself: if a majority consistently prefers one party, then that party should rightly gain the district’s representation. The first critique can be dealt with by using the efficiency gap test. The efficiency gap is the number of “wasted votes” (explained in the next paragraph) from each party added together, then divided by the total number of votes cast. It measures how much gerrymandering has an impact beyond natural assortment.

McGhee and Stephanopoulos found, using this measure, a massive array of cases where

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gerrymandering distorts results well beyond the expected effects from the distribution of people in a district.7 The second fails to understand that American first-past-the-post voting systems are not the only way of establishing representation, and indeed, are a very inaccurate and distorted means of doing so.

This brings us to the consequences of the next system, first-past-the-post voting. In a pure FPTP voting system, as in most American elections, the first candidate to cross the threshold of 50% of all votes cast earns 100% of the representation.8 If one party in a twoparty system were to garner 45% of the vote in 100 different elections, it would receive 0% of the representation. One would say that in any of those elections, 45% of votes were “wasted”, or did not contribute towards electing a candidate. Effectively, casting more votes in these elections only increases the number of wasted votes, and had zero impact on the end representation. As a result, when a district has a substantial partisan lean, the disadvantaged party’s voters consistently can expect to receive no representation from their votes to speak of.

By contrast, consider a theoretical party-list system.9 Imagine an election in which four parties stand for election to a legislature with 100 seats. Voters cast their vote for any of the four parties, and the percent share of votes for each party determines the number of seats obtained. In such a system, only the surplus of votes over the last percentage point won for a given party are wasted, which are necessarily a tiny fraction of all votes cast.

Almost all voters can expect their vote to contribute towards electing a candidate, unlike in a FPTP system.

This example helps to illustrate why FPTP elections alone do so much to drive disaffection with the electoral system. Most commentators treat a refusal to vote as irrational; in reality, if it is statistically extremely improbable that one’s district will flip at all, it is extremely irrational to believe that one’s vote will contribute to electing a representative.

FPTP likely partially explains America’s deeply depressed turnout numbers. In the 2018 legislative elections, overall American turnout was approximately 48% -- the highest in a midterm since women were given the franchise a century ago.10 Compare this to the most recent elections in countries and regions with some degree of non-FPTP elections: respectively, Germany,11 Israel,12 and Scotland13 saw turnout of 76%, 68%, and 55%. In America, Maine -- which adopted statewide ranked-choice vote in 2016 -- saw turnout reach approximately 65% in 2018.14 It is also likely that FPTP is a contributing factor to the extreme distrust in government by Americans, with public trust in government currently around 18%.15

outcome of the election.

Primary voters are a comparatively very small segment of the electorate. Neither independents nor the disadvantaged party are included in the group which choose the representative, nor are even members of the party who choose not to vote in the primary.

In a high-turnout year (like 2018), one party’s primary voters can represent up to 10% of all registered voters. In a low-turnout year (like 2014), they may represent as little as 5% of registered voters.16 Further, between 15% and 30% of eligible voters in America remain unregistered, and in addition, most felons also remain disenfranchised. As a result, the decisive group who functionally choose a district’s representative in the relatively uncompetitive 4/5 of American congressional districts may represent as few as under 4% of the eligible voting population in an off year. This leaves the overwhelming majority of Americans somewhat disenfranchised. While they may formally have the franchise, it is statistically improbable that they will vote in an election where the outcome is not effectively pre-determined.

Primary voters are not only a small group. They are also characteristically distinct from the broader group of general election voters. Generally, primary voters tend to be older, wealthier, and more politically polarized. Those who turnout tend to be those with the time and fiscal resources to do so. In the best case, primaries choosing candidates would cause candidates to gravitate towards the center of the selecting party, without movement to the center of the district. However, as primary voters tend to be higher-information and more highly ideological than the average voter, safe-district candidates in practice must move to the center of an even more radically polarized group.17 As a result, since the rise of party primaries in the mid-70’s, Congress has polarized at a fairly steady rate over the past four decades.18 It is similarly probable that, as politicians moved further and further towards the extreme, more extreme ideas became normalized as within the scope of acceptable political discourse (the so-called “Overton window”). This likely produces a positive feedback loop, where political elites polarize to cater to their primary-voting base, and the primary-voting base polarizes as more extreme ideas are normalized and become par-for-the-course. Further, after the FCC’s decision in 1987 to remove its Fairness Doctrine, which required broadcast license holders to provide fair and contrasting views on controversial issues, “opinion news” outlets began to grow, contributing to the polarization of the high-information primary-voting party bases.

In turn, if voters in FPTP general elections do not functionally decide the representative in most districts, then who does? Mainly, party primary voters of the dominant party.

When general elections are effectively pre-decided in favor of one party’s candidate, the people who choose that party’s candidate are the only voters who realistically decide the

On the whole, the intersection of gerrymandering, FPTP elections, and primaries create an electoral landscape where as low as 4% of the eligible voting population plays a meaningful role in selecting representatives. Turnout is driven down by voters’ realistic expectations in overwhelmingly safe districts. As politicians must cater to their elderly, polarized partisan edge, inter-party legislative bargaining becomes increasingly

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disincentivized. The electoral system at large leaves the vast majority of voters functionally without representation, and vastly over-represents the small set of primaryvoting partisans. These partisans drive politicians to the wings of the party, who in turn normalize increasingly radical politics at the wings, producing a spiral of polarization and dysfunction.

Structural Solutions The above three structures all feed into one main problem. Elections and electoral maps are engineered such that an overwhelming amount of votes and potential votes in American legislative elections are wasted. Solving this problem would mean minimizing the number of votes wasted, and would require doing so with the least amount of structural disruption to the American political system. (For example, one could easily solve this problem by simply abolishing the House, Senate, and presidency, and replacing them with a unicameral Israeli-style party-list parliamentary government, but such a plan would be somewhat less than politically feasible). The most reasonable means of minimizing wasted votes would be to institute ranked-choice voting with open jungle primaries in all American elections. Ranked-choice vote is an effective means of minimizing vote-waste; it dilutes the power of gerrymandering; it can be passed without constitutional amendment in state legislature; it has succeeded both abroad and in America; and it can enable a more pluralistic, participatory multi-party political system.

First, what is ranked-choice vote? In a ranked-choice vote election with n candidates, voters rank the available candidates 1 through n, or simply 1 through however many they would like to rank. There are multiple ways of counting these votes, once submitted. One method is instant runoff voting (IRV), in which the candidate with the least number of 1’s in the first round is eliminated, their voters’ 2’s are allocated to the remaining candidates, then the candidate with the least number of 1’s plus 2’s is eliminated, and so on, until a winner is produced. Another method is to use the Condorcet method, in which each candidate is pitted head-to-head against each other candidate, and the candidate that wins all matchups, wins. Other methods exist, and each of the above has their weaknesses.

IRV can eliminate a candidate with little first round support but overwhelming second round support early, and the Condorcet method can end up without a winner when voting preferences are cyclic (i.e., like in a game of rock-paper-scissors), and require using a backup method. Regardless, both are minor flaws that only affect outlier cases. Further, both result in virtually no wasted votes, as all voters still exert influence through their secondary preferences, even if their first choice does not win.

In a ranked-choice vote election with open jungle primaries, multiple factors minimize the wasting of votes. First, ranked-choice vote elections are ideal spaces for third parties to thrive. America’s current electoral system is thoroughly hostile to third parties. Third parties have little ability to gain a foothold at the outset, as even on the district level, they

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must obtain 50%+1 support to have any representation whatsoever. Third parties are also generally disincentivized from competing in FPTP elections, as they necessarily serve as a spoiler against the party they are most ideologically similar to, which in practice will harm such a party’s agenda. In RCV elections, third parties can run without fear of spoiling. Groups like the Green Party may openly run, but still rank the Democratic Party candidate second without risking damage to the Democrat’s chances. In an environment where third parties can survive and emerge, voters are much more likely to have access to options that more accurately represent their first preference.

Open jungle primaries where the top four to six finishers advance to a RCV election would also substantially expand the electoral space. Open jungle primaries are those in which all candidates run together, regardless of party affiliation, as is done currently in California. The top set of candidates who receive the largest vote shares in an open primary, or the largest number of donors, or of signatures, would then advance to the RCV election. For clarification, simple open primaries are those where anyone can choose to vote in either party’s primary, while closed party primaries require that voters be registered as a member of the party whose primary they are voting in. Meanwhile, open jungle primaries end the practice of party-limited primaries altogether, which this memo strongly endorses. In such a situation, voters would generally have more than two choices in a general election.

With multiple choices, voters would not have to hold their nose and select the least bad of two relatively non-representative candidates. Instead, multiple choices would allow for the most possible information about voter preferences,19 and end with the candidate most generally acceptable selected. Such a system would also likely weaken extreme party loyalty, and with it, polarization. Voters would become more able to choose candidates outside of the standard 2-party binary, and instead pick those who are most similar to their preferences, regardless of a need to vote for the party that can “actually” win.

Further, open primary ranked-choice voting would seriously dilute the power of gerrymandering. For one, a gerrymander would obviously no longer restrict representative selection to the party primary, as there would be no party primary.

Generally though, the goal of a gerrymander is to design a map that strategically wastes the other party’s votes.Any set of voters in an RCV system would apply an equal amount of pressure regardless of which district they are in, and present an equal amount of risk of handing the election to a different more generally acceptable candidate. As a result, the benefit of any gerrymander would be substantially reduced. Gerrymandering would not be able to stop voters from exerting political influence over their representative, when they can use RCV to choose amongst a variety of possible options.

To be certain, nonpartisan redistricting committees are absolutely necessary as well.

Ranked-choice vote is very literally indistinguishable from first-past-the-post when one

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candidate obtains more than 50% of the vote in the first round. This is likely to occur before parties disaggregate. Disaggregation into multiple different parties which are more attuned to specific coalitions within the Democratic and Republican parties (like the Greens and Libertarians) is an extremely likely consequence of voters no longer needing to vote strategically, but which will still take time to occur. The time for ranked-choice vote to become effective will be extended when single-party dominance of a given region is preserved by severe gerrymandering.

The final set of strengths of ranked-choice voting is that it has been implemented repeatedly, those implementations have been successful, and it can be implemented similarly across the United States. First, RCV has a long track record of successful elections both inside and outside the United States. A variety of American cities have implemented RCV over recent decades. This includes Memphis, Oakland, MinneapolisSt. Paul, Portland, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Aspen, Burlington (briefly), Berkeley, and Cambridge, MA. Even more notably, as mentioned before, Maine as an entire state adopted ranked-choice vote.

In all of these elections, voters do not appear to have been turned off by the somewhat increased complexity of ranking candidates. Instead, as mentioned before, turnout is generally substantially higher in these places -- most likely because far fewer votes are wasted, and voters know it. Nor did any serious edge cases causing an unrepresentative candidate to win happen. RCV is well-tested, and has generally not produced any identifiable harms or losses to those who adopt it.

As mentioned, ranked-choice voting is also relatively easy to implement (when compared with, say, the abolition of the Senate). American states have jurisdiction over how they run their elections, so long as they comply with the constitution. So, states generally have the power to simply write ranked-choice vote into law, as Maine did in 2016.20 Further, in a number of states, citizens may put RCV up to a statewide vote through a ballot initiative, and bypass state legislatures if necessary. RCV has also cleared constitutional challenges, and the Maine Supreme Judicial Court affirmed in January that RCV was entirely constitutional and within the prerogative of Maine to adopt.21 Conclusion At its core, RCV is a tried-and-true proposal that would strike a body blow against polarization, and re-enfranchise the tens of millions of Americans whose votes are regularly wasted on election day. The combination of gerrymandering, FPTP, and closed party primaries forms a toxic mixture which is steadily polarizing and eroding American democracy from the inside. RCV defangs the polarizing threats of gerrymandering and party primaries in a FPTP system. It incentivizes candidates to move to the center of their district, rather than to the center of their primary. It has been implemented and is easily

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implementable. If taken up, RCV will be a truly major step towards reducing polarization and restoring function to America’s legislatures.

Endnotes 1. Zaheri, Mihir. “Dead Pimp Dennis Hof Cruises to Victory in Nevada State Election.”

The New York Times. November 7, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/ politics/dennis-hof-dead-pimp-nevada.html 2. Gehr, Katherine M., and Michael E. Porter. “Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America: A strategy for reinvigorating our democracy.” Harvard Business Review. September 2017. https://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/whycompetition-in-the-politics-industry-is-failing-america.pdf 3. Trickey, Eric. “Where Did the Term “Gerrymander” Come From?” Smithsonian Magazine. July 20, 2017. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/where-did-termgerrymander-come-180964118/ 4. Nilsen, Ella. “North Carolina’s extreme gerrymandering could save the House Republican majority.” Vox. May 8, 2018. https://www.vox.com/policy-andpolitics/2018/5/8/17271766/north-carolina-gerrymandering-2018-midterms-partisanredistricting 5. Needham, Esther, and Daniel McGlone. “The Most Gerrymandered States Ranked by Efficiency Gap and Seat Advantage.” Azavea. July 19th, 2017. https://www.azavea.com/ blog/2017/07/19/gerrymandered-states-ranked-efficiency-gap-seat-advantage/ 6. “2020 House Race Ratings.” Cook Political Report. April 12, 2019. https:// cookpolitical.com/ratings/house-race-ratings 7. Stephanopoulos, Nicholas, and Eric McGhee. “Partisan Gerrymandering and the Efficiency Gap.” University of Chicago Law Review no. 82 (2015): 831-900. https:// chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12542&context=journal_ articles 8. Thomas, Scott. “First Past The Post Explained.” Tutor2u Politics. October 31st, 2015. https://www.tutor2u.net/politics/blog/first-past-the-post-explained 9. “Party List Proportional Representation.” Electoral Reform Society. https://www. electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/party-list-pr/ 10. Stewart, Emily. “2018’s record-setting voter turnout, in one chart.” Vox. November 18, 2018. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/19/18103110/2018midterm-elections-turnout 11. “Voter turnout at general elections in Germany from 1949 to 2017.” Statista. 2019. https://www.statista.com/statistics/753732/german-elections-voter-turnout/ 12. “Israeli Elections - Voter Turnout (1949 - Present).” Jewish Virtual Library. 2019. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/israeli-central-elections-committee 13. Wikipedia. “2016 Scottish Parliament election.” Last modified December 29, 2018.

14. Gray, Megan, and Edward D. Murray. “Mainers turn out in higher-than-usual numbers for historic election.” Portland Press Herald. November 8, 2018. https://www.

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pressherald.com/2018/11/06/polls-open-across-maine-with-high-turnout-predicted/ 15. “Public Trust in Government: 1958-2019.” Pew Research Center. April 11, 2019. http://www.people-press.org/2017/12/14/public-trust-in-government-1958-2017/ 16. Desilver, Drew. “Turnout in this year’s U.S. House primaries rose sharply, especially on the Democratic side.” Pew Research Center Fact Tank. October 3, 2018. http://www. pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/03/turnout-in-this-years-u-s-house-primariesrose-sharply-especially-on-the-democratic-side/ 17. Kamark, Elaine, and Alexander R. Podkul. “The 2018 Primaries Project: The ideology of primary voters.” The Brookings Institution. October 23, 2018. https://www.brookings. edu/research/the-2018-primaries-project-the-ideology-of-primary-voters/ 18. Prokop, Andrew. “See Congress polarize over the past 60 years, in one beautiful chart.” Vox. October 27, 2015. https://www.vox.com/2015/4/23/8485443/polarizationcongress-visualization 19. Hamlin, Aaron. “Podcast 2012-10-06: Interview with Nobel Laureate Dr. Kenneth Arrow.” The Center for Election Science. May 25, 2015. https://www.electionscience. org/commentary-analysis/voting-theory-podcast-2012-10-06-interview-with-nobellaureate-dr-kenneth-arrow/ 20. Lessig, Lawrence. “Ranked-choice voting worked in Maine. Now we should use it in presidential races.” USA Today. November 16, 2018. https://www.usatoday.com/story/ opinion/2018/11/16/ranked-choice-voting-maine-protest-candidates-election-2018column/2023574002/ 21. Muszynski, Kristen Schulze. “Supreme Court decision confirms Secretary Dunlap’s plan to implement ranked-choice voting.” Department of the Secretary of State of Maine.

April 18, 2018. https://www.maine.gov/sos/news/2018/courtdecidesrankchoice.html

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Affordable Housing and Community Land Trusts Michael Lynch

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Problem Statement

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illions of Americans are increasingly unable to afford the basic human necessity of housing while landowners receive windfall profits from the increasing value of land.

Background The Affordable Housing Crisis Millions of Americans, and more every year, pay more for housing than they can afford.

While housing is ideally meant to take up around 30% of income, among America’s 43 million renting households, 38% pay more, and are thus “rent-burdened.”1 Between 2001 and 2015, the number of renting households paying more than half their income in rent increased by 42%, and while median household income fell an average of 0.1%, rents rose 3% per year in the same period.2 Higher costs of housing have a plethora of negative effects beyond simply draining the wallets of poorer Americans. Rent-burdened households are less likely to transition to home-owning, an effect that grew stronger from 2001 to 2015.3 High rents can exclude lower-income Americans from expensive areas and limit their access to betterpaying jobs, which also harms the local economy by lower the supply of available labor.

Similarly, expensive housing can price residents out of communities they used to live in, carrying additional negative consequences for children; moving multiple times as a child can severely hinder educational development, reducing graduation rates by 20%, and causing further “psychological and emotional tolls.”4 Other Policy Solutions A wide variety of policies are commonly used to combat a lack of affordable housing.

Local governments can use subsidies on the supply side to encourage the development of more units of affordable housing, making it cheaper for developers to construct such housing. Localities may even head this development themselves. This also lowers costs across the market by increasing the total supply of housing. On the demand side, local governments can provide subsidies to low-income residents purchasing housing, to make it cheaper on their end.5 A third popular policy is inclusionary zoning, which encourages private landlords and developers to subsidize affordable housing by requiring that a certain portion of all new units in a development be priced below market value to some degree, although some argue this discourages construction of new housing, raising the cost of housing across the market.6 One potential policy that has gone underlooked, however, is that of the Community Land Trust.

Theory An increase in the cost of housing includes two things: the price of the property, the

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physical building you live in, and the price of the land that building sits on. In practice, rising land values drive most of the increase in cost of housing. That is, most of the time when your rent goes up, it is not because the landlord installed a new hardwood floor, but because the neighborhood is getting more desirable to live in. The property has not improved, but the land is in a much more valuable location. Because of this, while taxing property disincentivizes new developments, or improving old ones, taxing land disincentivizes nothing. Unlike buildings, land cannot be created, nor can landowners do much to improve its value, since that is mostly due to its location and surroundings.

Measures to tax or capture the profits of rising land values are praised by economists from the left and right, from Adam Smith and Milton Friedman to Joseph Stiglitz.7 While not a tax directly, Community Land Trusts work off this same principle.

Introduction Overview A Community Land Trust is a democratically-run 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, typically founded and supported by a local government to create perpetually affordable housing. Used to varying degrees by cities across the United States, such as Madison, Chicago, and Burlington, a CLT buys the land that housing units, like houses, apartment, or condos, sit on, and leases it back to the owners of the building, either homeowners or landlords, for a minimal fee. In exchange for use of the land, the owner of the building agrees to cap the resale value of the home, or rent of the apartment. Calling back to the theory, the property owner can raise resale value/rent to account for the increase in value of property, but cannot charge to the increased value of land, owned by the CLT.8 Evidence Although literature on community land trusts is limited, what exists is very promising.

A study by the Lincoln Institute found CLTs were very effective at reducing foreclosures and weathering the 2008 housing market collapse. In 2009, despite being poorer than most Americans, CLT homeowners were twenty times less likely to default.9 On affordability, tentative estimates put the cost savings of buying a CLT home at about 25-30% of the average market value, while the discount for renting has been estimated at 20% of market value.10 Stewardship Affordability Mechanism The primary mechanism through which a Community Land Trust ensures permanent affordability is the land lease. The CLT signs a 99-year lease of land they own with the new building owner, in which the building owner is given the right to use the land for a very low fee, and to pass on that right if they sell or rent out the property. In return, the new leaseholder agrees, if they ever sell, to do so at a price no higher than a limit

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determined by a formula allowing only limited appreciation. For example, a common limit is the price the property was purchased for + 25% of the increase in market value.

For example, consider a house purchased for $500,000 worth $600,000 today. The price increased by $100,000, so under the rules of the lease, a CLT homeowner can sell that same house for only $525,000. The result is that the unit remains perpetually affordable, and never gets too expensive. For rental units, the ground lease usually includes a similar formula limiting the maximum increase in rent the landlord may impose over time to a percent of the market value increase.11

both cases. This requires the CLT to have a much higher capacity to manage projects and take on risk, since it is acting as a developer, but allows it greater ability to choose the kinds of development it wants, and increases its funding in the long term with developer fees. CLTs may also work with a private or nonprofit developer, or a local government, who takes care of building the property, while the CLT simply purchases the land for them.14

Additional Conditions and Services The ground lease also holds a few other special provisions, including the ability of the CLT to intervene in the event of a default to help the resident and prevent foreclosure or eviction, and the responsibility of the homeowner to maintain their property, although they are in most cases free to make further improvements to the property. The CLT also often offers tenant and homeowner education to ensure financial literacy and effective apartment and home management, which helps members and the CLT by limiting the number of foreclosures it has to deal with.12

Kinds of Funding A CLT needs two kinds of funding: cash on-hand to pay for operational costs, most importantly staffing, and capital to fund new acquisition and development projects, both in the form of equity and debt.15

Commercial Properties Beyond encouraging low-income homeownership and creating affordable apartment units, CLTs can also be a tool for struggling cities encourage entrepreneurs and small business owners, promoting economic development. As with housing, CLTs purchase land alongside a developer building commercial property, and signs over the land to a developer in a cheap lease. By paying for the land, the CLT lowers the cost of development, bringing new commercial properties to areas it might not normally be profitable to build in. Moreover, in the conditions of the land lease, the CLT can require the property owner to keep rents cheap for local businesses, using the same formula described above, lowering the cost of doing business in the area.

Acquisition and Development Buyer Initiated Acquisition This is the simplest and most traditional form. A potential homeowner is precleared for a mortgage by a local bank, and then works with the Community Land Trust to find an appropriate home. The CLT buys the property, immediately resells the home to the buyer, but retains ownership of the land, which it leases to the buyer, lowering the cost of the property for the buyer, and adding the land to the CLTs portfolio indefinitely.13 CLT Initiated Development Many CLTs pursue development themselves, buying land, deciding what to build, hiring architects and contractors, and overseeing construction of new homes, rental units, or commercial space which the CLT then either sells or leases, although it keeps the land in

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Funding

Self-Funding Some of this funding can come from the CLT itself. Even though the CLT charges belowmarket rent on the ground lease, many still use these lease fees to cover operational costs, or development fees for CLTs that manage their own development for some projects.

A sufficiently large CLT could even leverage future values of their lease fees to buy and develop land, although only the Champlain Housing Trust has managed this so far.16 Outside Funding However, any CLT will need outside funding to cover initial operational costs, as it can take up to three years before a CLT has enough lease fees to cover its own operations.

For acquisition/development, most CLTs always depend on outside funding, which can range from private donations, government grants, or special funding established by local governments. The Champlain Housing Trust, for example, was endowed with a development fund filled from a property tax levied by the city of Burlington.17 Oftentimes funds set aside for subsidizing affordable housing in other ways are diverted to funding CLTs instead.

Outreach Since CLTs are separate organizations from the governments that found them, but still are equally bound up with the interests of the community, outreach is critical to beginning a CLT. There are two main options for beginning outreach: Community or Core.

Community A Community-based approach begins by organizing and informing residents and talking to all interested organizations. It then selects from these interested residents and groups an organizing board that will propose a final structure and plan for the Community Land Trust, which is discussed in forums. Finally, the plan goes into effect, the Board is selected,

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and a CLT is created.

Core By contrast, a Core-based approach begins by selected a small group of experts and community leaders to form an Interim Board that creates an interim structure for the CLT and begins the first project. Once the interim CLT has progress to show, it then begins community organizing as above, and transitions to an elected Board.

Key Figures Beyond community members, there are important stakeholders that should be included or considered when designing a CLT. These include public officials at various levels responsible for distributing housing funds, assessing property values, or regulating development, as well as other housing or development nonprofits, tenants rights organizations, private philanthropic foundations, churches, and local businesses. It is also wise to consult local housing professionals, such as lawyers and assessors, who will be integral to creating the ground leases that are the core of the CLT.18 Governance Membership Community Land Trusts are usually structured as membership organizations. While any residents of CLT land are automatically members, anyone living within a designated “service area” is free to register, and many CLTs run membership drives to encourage this.

Board Structure Community Land Trusts are generally run by a Board of Directors composed of 12 or 15 members, evenly split between leaseholders (anyone on CLT land), community members (any Ward residents not on CLT land), and public interest members (representatives of the Ward government, nonprofit partners, and other public interest organizations important to the CLT).

Elections Leaseholder and community representatives are elected at-large by their respective member groups. Public interests are nominated by either the other Board members, the public interest groups themselves, or in this case potentially just by the Alderman, and confirmed/denied by the membership as a whole along with the other elections.19 Potential Concerns Distributing Benefits A key concern in the administration of community land trusts is ensuring that the resulting housing benefits the target, high-need population, rather than being filled by

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higher-income, lower-need individuals taking advantage of the below-market-rates.

To address this, most Community Land Trusts acquire and develop a diverse array of housing (single-family, multi-family, apartments) to appeal to a wide variety of needs, and institute a screening process examining factors like income and education.

Disincentivizing New Housing While at first glance it may seem like CLTs could disincentivize the supply of new housing by reducing the payoff developers get from construction, if anything they actually do the opposite. A developer can always profit from an increase in the value of land by simply holding on to the plot and reselling it at a higher price. When considering whether to develop that land, they only consider whether the property they construct will make them enough profit to justify the cost.20 Since developer on CLT land gains all the profit from constructing property, and only misses out on the value of the land, they face the exact same decision. They ask whether the profit made from the property alone worth the cost of construction. The decision being identical, supply of housing ought not to vary from CLT land to privately-held land. In fact, by reducing the upfront costs of purchasing land, CLTs can even incentivize new housing for developers unwilling to risk investing such a large sum.

Conclusion Evidence shows that Community Land Trusts can be successful at creating and maintaining affordable housing, and do so in a way the present a few advantages over other policies. By focusing on land, rather than property, it does not disincentivize construction of new housing, like inclusionary zoning does.­21 As a local community organization with more direct representation by residents, it can be flexible and adapt to the specific needs of its community. Each unit only needs to be funded once, when the land is purchased, rather than subsidized every time rent is paid or a house is resold.

However, CLTs are limited by the large upfront cost required to buy the land, so are more effective as a long term policy, and works well paired with other policies.Public housing, for example, can be given over to CLTs for stewardship.22 For cities interested in heading off rising housing costs, especially those in a specific area, and assuring a long term supply of affordable housing, establishing and funding a Community Land Trust is an effective, cost-efficient way to do so.

Endnotes 1. “American Families Face a Growing Rent Burden,” Pew Charitable Trusts. April 2018 2. Ibid 3. Ibid 4. “The Hidden Costs of the Housing Crisis,” Partnership for America’s Economic Success.

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2008 5. Zeidel, Adam. “Affordable Housing: The Case for Demand-Side Subsidies in Superstar Cities.” The Urban Lawyer 42, no. 1 (2010): 135-69. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/27895769.

6. Schneider, Benjamin, “CityLab University: Inclusionary Zoning,” CityLab, July 17, 2018, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/07/citylab-university-inclusionaryzoning/565181.

7. E.S.L., “Why Henry George Had A Point,” Economist, April 1, 2015, https://amp. economist.com/free-exchange/2015/04/01/why-henry-george-had-a-point.

8. Blumgart, Jake, “How Bernie Sanders Made Burlington Affordable,” Slate, January 19, 2019, http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2016/01/bernie_sanders_ made_burlington_s_land_trust_possible_it_s_still_an_innovative.html.

9. Thaden, Emily. “Stable Home Ownership in a Turbulent Economy.” The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (2011). https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/workingpapers/stable-home-ownership-turbulent-economy.

10. Decker, Andrew. “Community Land Trusts and State Legislation.” Journal of Affordable Housing 26, no. 3 (2018): 490-530. https://www.americanbar.org/content/ dam/aba/publications/journal_of_affordable_housing/Volume_26_Number_2/AH%20 26-3_02Decker.authcheckdam.pdf.

11. Foldy, Erica and Waters, Jonathan. “The Power of Balance: Lessons from Burlington Community Land Trust.” Research Center for Leadership in Action, NYU/Wagner (2004). https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/20.pdf.

12. Thaden, Emily. “Stable Home Ownership in a Turbulent Economy.” The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (2011). https://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/workingpapers/stable-home-ownership-turbulent-economy.

13. Champlain Housing Trust. “Programs.” Accessed February 27, 2019. http://www. getahome.org/programs.

14. Decker, Andrew. “Community Land Trusts and State Legislation.” Journal of Affordable Housing 26, no. 3 (2018): 490-530. https://www.americanbar.org/content/ dam/aba/publications/journal_of_affordable_housing/Volume_26_Number_2/AH%20 26-3_02Decker.authcheckdam.pdf.

15. Ibid 16. Community Wealth. “Community Land Trusts.” Accessed February 27, 2019. https:// community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/clts/index.html.

17. Blumgart, Jake, “How Bernie Sanders Made Burlington Affordable,” Slate, January 19, 2019, http://www.slate.com/articles/business/metropolis/2016/01/bernie_sanders_ made_burlington_s_land_trust_possible_it_s_still_an_innovative.html.

18. Foldy, Erica and Waters, Jonathan. “The Power of Balance: Lessons from Burlington Community Land Trust.” Research Center for Leadership in Action, NYU/Wagner (2004). https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/20.pdf.

19. Decker, Andrew. “Community Land Trusts and State Legislation.” Journal of Affordable Housing 26, no. 3 (2018): 490-530. https://www.americanbar.org/content/

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dam/aba/publications/journal_of_affordable_housing/Volume_26_Number_2/AH%20 26-3_02Decker.authcheckdam.pdf.

20. MacDonald, Graham. “The Effect of Local Government Policies on Housing Supply.”

Terner Center for Housing Innovation, University of California at Berkeley (2016) 21. Vincent, Joshua. “Non-Glamorous Gains: The Pennsylvania Land Tax Experiment.”

Strong Towns. March 06, 2019. Accessed April 13, 2019. https://www.strongtowns.org/ journal/2019/3/6/non-glamorous-gains-the-pennsylvania-land-tax-experiment.

22. Hawkins-Simons, Dana, and Miriam Axel-Lute. “Organizing and the Community Land Trust Model.” Strong Towns. April 04, 2018. Accessed April 14, 2019. https://www. strongtowns.org/journal/2018/4/4/organizing-and-the-community-land-trust-model.

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Rapprochement for Reversal A Long-Term Strategy to Denuclearize North Korea

Problem Statement

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he Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), more commonly known as North Korea, is a nuclear armed state. Current estimates suggest a stockpile of 20 to 60 nuclear warheads alongside growing intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capabilities that could threaten the United States.1 But regardless of North Korea’s ability to strike the United States, it could certainly deliver nuclear-armed missiles at South Korea and Japan. Policymakers must now shift their efforts from nonproliferation to the more challenging policy area of denuclearization. But how can complete denuclearization of North Korea best be achieved?

This policy memo will review the present situation surrounding North Korean nuclear weapon negotiations and suggest one avenue by which complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization (CVID) can be achieved. Rather than support an effort to promptly spur on denuclearization through either diplomatic or military means, I will suggest a long-term approach that emphasizes the promotion of international norms and the appropriate development of the North Korean domestic economy. The path to nuclear reversal thus requires economic development coupled with international acceptance.

Andrew McWard

To be clear, this policy memo does not suggest a policy to “contain” North Korea or encourage it to cease its gross human rights abuse. While these related, but distinct policy questions may be normatively more important for today’s environment, the emphasis here is solely on the question of how CVID is most likely to come about.

Background on the Issue In the past year, the Trump administration maintained an interesting balance of hawkish brinkmanship coupled with the eager initiation of bilateral diplomacy, culminating in the 2018 June Singapore Summit between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-Un. At the summit, Kim echoed the promise of eventual denuclearization he had made earlier to South Korean president Moon Jae-In. However, no official time-table or enforcement mechanism was announced, aside from the promise of future talks. While this brand of bilateral diplomacy has seemingly de-escalated earlier tensions and the threat of nuclear war, it has provided little to no assurance that the North Korean regime will actually give up its nuclear weapons. Moreover, it has left American policy toward the situation with no clear direction. This ambiguous strategic state does little to reassure American allies and might serve to bolster the Kim regime’s ability to delay and deceive on the question of denuclearization.

According to Nicholas Anderson, the United States currently faces a “trilemma” with regard to North Korean nuclear proliferation. Ideally, the United States would prefer denuclearization without the costs of war while maintaining its alliance with South

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Korea and the forward deployment of American troops. Yet according to the trilemma, not all three policy goals can be achieved simultaneously.2 While I agree with Anderson’s synopsis of the current situation, I believe the incorporation of time, coupled with the proper policy initiatives, can serve as a solution to the trilemma.

A robust research program has examined the question of why states that could proliferate choose not to. Etel Solingen argues that states that are more integrated into the global economy largely choose to cooperate with the nuclear nonproliferation regime to avoid the economic costs of sanctions and to signify a willingness to cooperate economically.3 Jacques Hymans shows how only individual leaders that take the mantle of “oppositional nationalists,” in that they view their country as superior and other states as opponents, choose to proliferate.4 Ariel Levite agrees that domestic regime change is critical, but also stresses the importance of repeated engagement on the part of the United States in determining the likelihood of nuclear restraint.5 This brief literature review suggests that a state must engage in domestic economic reforms while also changing its view of its national identity, coupled with oversight from the United States if nuclear restraint is to be expected.

Policy Solution The above scenario sets up my specific policy proposal for encouraging nuclear restraint-or in this case reversal--in the North Korean context. What is required is a cohesive strategy that will continue the rapprochement initiated by Moon and Trump but does not sacrifice necessary leverage over the Kim regime. I label this policy solution “cautious rapprochement.” The specific strategy requires a three-pronged approach that should be carried out simultaneously over the long-term.

The first prong entails the removal of certain sanctions while maintaining, and in some cases strengthening, others. Broad-based economic sanctions, defined as sanctions designed to weaken the North Korean economy as a whole, should be removed. This will allow the North Korean economy to grow at an even faster rate (already estimated to be at a 1-5% annual GDP increase with current sanctions), and thus serve to begin North Korea’s integration into the global economy. One specific example would be the current United Nations cap on coal exports. This is not to suggest the removal of all sanctions however. Sanctions that target individuals close to the regime, as well as those targeting the transfer of military supplies should be kept and possibly strengthened. In short, sanctions should serve to hamper elites and military strength, not the economy of North Korea overall.

theoretically upend the regime. Rather, it would provide additional legitimacy in the eyes of domestic audiences. Such legitimacy, and the resulting breathing room for the regime, would subsequently lead to a more cooperative behavior internationally. In addition, it may also disincentivize the regime’s present brutality. Thus, the relaxing of sanctions is intended to be the first step toward eventual economic and political integration.

The relaxing of sanctions would also encourage China to positively engage in cautious rapprochement. As its biggest trading partner, China would have much to gain from a wealthier North Korea.7 Indeed, China has only begrudgingly accepted sanctions and is widely suspected of violating them through informal means.8 The removal of broad-based sanctions would thus serve as a carrot to bring China into the fold. China’s status as North Korea’s sole ally and protector makes their participation necessary for a successful rapprochement.

The second prong entails encouraging North Korea, specifically the Kim family and related domestic elites, to adopt international norms. This requires changing the perspective of what North Korea believes to be “appropriate” behavior, in this case whether it is appropriate to maintain a nuclear arsenal or not.9 A preceding step to normative acceptance is to frame North Korea’s worldview in less oppositional terms, which Hymans outlines as critical feature of all leaders who decide to proliferate.10 The removal of broad-based sanctions I outline above will provide an initial step in this direction; economic integration into the global economy is often thought to encourage the acceptance of global practices. But active effort is also required. I propose multilateral engagement through international organizations. Membership in international organizations can serve as a socialization mechanism.12 North Korea’s engagement in global governance could therefore begin a norm acceptance process. At the very least, a new international organization should be created for states in the region that can provide a forum for deliberations. Here, China’s participation is critical. A new institutional forum without Chinese participation would only alarm North Korea and aggravate China. This multilateral and institutionalized engagement will serve to further integrate North Korea into the international community, thus allowing it to take on a less oppositional national identity. This socialization process will not be swift however. Years of repeated engagement and continued reassurance will be required for any normative changes to occur.

But does the Kim regime desire greater integration into the world economy? Indeed, economic liberalization is often linked to democratization.6 Yet the relaxing of broad based sanctions will not suddenly spur on dramatic economic development that would

Finally, the United States should continue to maintain the option for military action should the need arise. This will primarily require the renewal and maintenance of critical alliances in the region (South Korea and Japan). The intended effect is twofold. First, the continuation of security guarantees with South Korea and Japan will encourage said states to engage in the above policy of normative integration. Indeed, as stated above, said integration will require multilateral action. Second, it will remind North Korea

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that it has not received a free pass to act aggressively. The intention is to provide an environment where North Korea does not feel directly threatened, but cannot in turn threaten other states in the region without incurring potential costs. But military action should only serve as a last resort given the unpredictable and often counterintuitive effects counter-proliferation strikes can have. Braut-Hegghammer describes how Israel’s 1981 preventative strike on the nuclear Osirak reactor actually encouraged the Iraqi government to double-down on its efforts to proliferate.13 A similar strike against North Korea would only cause the regime to value its nuclear weapons more.

In short, the United States should begin using carrots, while still holding a stick, to gradually encourage the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons. This forms the basis of a “cautious rapprochement” that will serve as a gradual process by which denuclearization of the Korean peninsula can occur. To be sure, this is a policy plan based in realism, not idealism. Cautious rapprochement will take years if not decades to enact actual change.

Indeed, North Korea has every incentive to maintain and expand its nuclear arsenal in the present international environment. The idea behind cautious rapprochement is to change said environment. Unfortunately, such shifts cannot happen in a short period of time. The relaxation of certain sanctions, multilateral cooperation, fallback security guarantees, and a good deal of patience are all required to prompt this shift. And even if the proposed policy does not lead to total denuclearization, it will almost certainly lead to a cooling of tensions which should incentivize North Korea to maintain a less aggressive nuclear posture.14 In the end, the status quo policy of ostracizing the DPRK failed to prevent proliferation. Now that North Korea is an established nuclear weapons state, it is time for a change in course.

Relations Backgrounder.

9. Sagan, Scott D. Why do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb. International Security. Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 22.

10. Hymans, Jacques E. C. 2006. The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions and Foreign Policy. Cambridge University Press 11. Solingen, Etel. 1994. The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint. International Security. Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 126-169; Sagan, Scott D. Why do States Build Nuclear Weapons? Three Models in Search of a Bomb. International Security. Vol. 21, No. 3, pp.

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12. Jon Pevehouse and Bruce Russett. 2006. “Democratic International Governmental Organizations Promote Peace.” International Organization 60(4): 969-1000 13. Braut-Hegghammer, Malfrid. 2011. Osirak: Preventive Attacks and Nuclear Proliferation Risks. International Security, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 101-132.

14. Narang, Vipin. 2009/10. Posturing for Peace? Pakistan’s Nuclear Postures and South Asian Stability. International Security Vol. 34, No. 3, pp. 38-78.

Endnotes 1. Cha, Victor and Katrin Fraser Katz. 2019. “What to Expect at the Second North Korea Summit.” Foreign Affairs. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/northkorea/2019-02-22/what-expect-second-north-korea-summit 2. Anderson, Nicholas D. America’s North Korean Nuclear Trilemma. The Washington Quarterly. Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 153-164.

3. Solingen, Etel. 1994. The Political Economy of Nuclear Restraint. International Security. Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 126-169.

4. Hymans, Jacques E. C. 2006. The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation: Identity, Emotions and Foreign Policy. Cambridge University Press.

5. Levite, Ariel E. 2002. Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited. International Security Vol. 27, No. 3, pp. 59-88.

6. I thank an anonymous reviewer for this insight.

7. Kydd, Andrew. 2015. Pulling the Plug: Can There Be a Deal with China on Korean Unification? The Washington Quarterly. Vol. 38, No. 2, pp. 63.

8. Albert, Eleanor. 2019. “The China-North Korea Relationship.” Council on Foreign

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Addressing Misinformation on Social Media Platforms

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olitical thought has never been more freely shared than it is today. Through the use of various social media platforms, the spread of information to the masses has become a simple task and this fact brings with it important implications regarding the integrity of the information being spread. Without any sort of fact checking and due to the ease with which one can distribute information over social media, the potential for the proliferation of false information is unprecedented.

While certainly social media is far from being the average person’s only news source, its potential for the spread of misinformation is a vulnerability in public discourse that requires attention. To address this issue, however, it is first necessary to establish a clear idea of the problem at hand, and an understanding of what steps are currently being taken to combat this threat.

Background

Harrison Meyer

Leading political theorist Robert Dahl concluded that two of the key requirements for successful large-scale democracy are freedom of expression and “alternative and independent sources of information”. ¹ While these elements are quite self-explanatory, it would seem that the unforeseen prevalence of social media pits these requirements against each other. Certainly social media promotes free expression and provides a myriad of informational sources, but the extent to which these sources are independent or factually reputable is variable and difficult to ascertain. Often it would seem that the opinions expressed are not independent of any given cause or political leaning, which leads to a potential threat to democracy that Dahl highlights: “how could citizens participate effectively in political life if all of the information they could acquire were provided by a single source… a single party, faction, or interest”. ¹ In the context of social media, however, the issue is not a lack of viewpoints but rather an over abundance. How can an individual recognize truthful information among a vast collection of disparate viewpoints?

Having established the problems with treating social media as a news source, it’s necessary to understand the extent to which people actually do so. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2016 found that “A majority of U.S. adults – 62% – get news on social media, and 18% do so often”², which would suggest that the use of social media as a news source is a habit of a reasonably large portion of voters. Further complicating things is the fact that this could be a growing trend. A qualitative study published in the Journal of Communication Inquiry found a marked decline in news consumption by conventional means (television, newspaper, etc) among teenagers, who opted instead to gather information through relatives, social media, and satirical sources.³ While the teenagers in question are not yet of voting age, this study illustrates the changing habits of information gathering among future voters due to new media. One of the study participants describes this approach to gathering information stating, “I check Facebook at least once a day and I know people who check it at least once every hour. My friends

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post links to articles and videos and I learn about things that way”.³ While this habit in itself is not necessarily an issue, it illustrates a growing dependence on social media as a news source among the nation’s youth. Combining this growing dependence on social media with the often misleading content prevalent on these platforms, the potential for the spread of misinformation certainly warrants precaution.

The negative consequences of misinformation extend beyond the false information being spread. An examination of “fake news” in relation to the 2016 election found that the spread of misinformation can have destabilizing effects on public opinion of legitimate news sources. When a large portion of the information being shared online is factually questionable, “...consumers may also become more skeptical of legitimate news producers, to the extent that they become hard to distinguish from fake news producers”. ⁴ This is primarily due to the low barrier to entry on social media sites, which ensures that “an individual user with no track record or reputation can in some cases reach as many readers as Fox News, CNN, or the New York Times”. ⁴ Clearly social media makes the distribution of misinformation rather simple, but why might a user choose to distribute “fake news”? The previously mentioned article “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election” concludes that “there appear to be two main motivations for providing fake news. The first is pecuniary: news articles that go viral on social media can draw significant advertising revenue when users click to the original site... The second motivation is ideological. Some fake news providers seek to advance candidates they favor”. ⁴ In either case, the spread of misinformation across social media can have negative impacts on public opinion in regards to a given cause, candidate, policy decision, or other political matter. Through increased divisive input on a matter, misinformation makes it “more difficult for consumers to infer the true state of the world—for example, by making it more difficult for voters to infer which electoral candidate they prefer”. ⁴ This simple fact was illustrated throughout the 2016 presidential campaign, with articles such as the “pizzagate scandal” and others potentially swaying public opinion of candidates.

What is being done currently to combat the spread of fake news? Companies like Google and Facebook have adopted policies against fake news sites which have lead to several links to such sites being removed from their platforms.⁵ Furthermore, Facebook’s current “Ad Library” initiative is improving transparency on their platforms by making it clear to viewers the parties responsible for and funding specific paid advertisements.⁶ This is a step in the right direction in terms of content transparency, but unfortunately only applies to paid advertisements at the moment.

content and network-related elements of given articles to assess their validity, and showed promising results in the automated detection of misinformation.⁷ Proposed Solution In response to the proliferation of misinformation on social media, I propose the following four part plan to help combat the spread of factually inaccurate content.

Part one calls for the establishment of an evaluative committee to report weekly on the state of affairs in the US during presidential campaigns and elections. This organization would be comprised of a body of media analysts, working cooperatively with representatives from the major news networks and social media sites. The group would analyze publicly submitted content (sites, articles, etc) to verify the accuracy of statements made within, and then produce a weekly report outlining the misinformation encountered, and giving a brief summary of the true state of affairs. Additionally, the representatives of the major news networks would be given these reports to add warnings about factually inaccurate content to their broadcasts. The format of this organization would be similar to existing independent fact-checking groups, although focussing on public discourse as opposed to candidates’ statements. This committee would be structured as a private organization with government funding and oversight, existing until an automated alternative can be implemented.

Part two calls for this evaluative group to work cooperatively with social media sites to promote more analytical consumption of content on social media. This could take the form of an added “content info” page on these sites explaining the possibility of factually inaccurate posts, and tips for how to identify potentially false information. This page would encourage users to submit information that they find questionable to the factchecking organization for further analysis. Additionally, the fact-checking group should have a presence on social media through its own account to continue to promote better habits of media consumption, and post updates on publicly submitted content after analysis. This same information should be made readily available on the official web site for the fact-checking group as well.

Additionally, research into the matter of detecting misinformation like Canada’s Digital Deception Detection: Identifying Deliberate Misinformation in Online News has been funded to resolve the issue. This particular project involved the analysis of both the

Part three calls for increased public education in regards to informed use of social media. Through PSAs and presentations to be presented at public schools, the factchecking organization would provide information about informed consumption of media, and outline the process of reporting questionable material to the fact-checking group. These materials would be produced by a small team within the organization, and then distributed to public institutions for presentation in the form of short informational videos. The effectiveness of this sort of preventative measure has already been demonstrated in Ukraine. Students who were taught media analysis skills were demonstrably better at distinguishing misinformation from legitimate news.⁸ In creating

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these informational materials, the focus should be on media literacy from a broader perspective as opposed to examination of specific examples to prevent any sort of implied political bias.

Part four calls for increased funding for research into the automatic detection of false information on social media platforms, to then be implemented on willing social media platforms to prevent the malicious spread of misinformation. This measure would help in dealing with the sheer volume of malicious content, and also pave the way for the eventual dissolution of the previously outlined evaluative committee. As previously mentioned, Canada’s research into the same matter showed promising results in regards to the detection of misinformation through both content and network analysis, although more research is necessary to produce a feasible detection mechanism. This funding could take the form of research grants specific to the cause of detecting misinformation.

com/2016/11/15/technology/google-will-ban-websites-that-host-fake-news-fromusing-its-ad-service.html.

6. Facebook. “A Better Way to Learn About Ads on Facebook.” Last Modified March 28, 2019. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2019/03/a-better-way-to-learn-about-ads/.

7. Conroy, Niall J., Victoria L. Rubin, and Yimin Chen. “Automatic Deception Detection: Methods for Finding Fake News.” Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology 52, no. 1 (2015): 1-4. doi:10.1002/pra2.2015.145052010082.

8. Ingber, Sasha. “Students In Ukraine Learn How To Spot Fake Stories, Propaganda And Hate Speech.” NPR. March 22, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/03/22/705809811/ students-in-ukraine-learn-how-to-spot-fake-stories-propaganda-and-hate-speech.

In the process of establishing this organization and carrying out these tasks, particular care should be taken to preserve the bipartisan nature of the group. Media analysts should be committed to presenting their findings in an unbiased manner, evaluating submitted content based on its factual accuracy with no regard for its political leaning.

Furthermore, the major news networks should all receive equal access to the team of analysts regardless of their respective political biases. Most importantly this team will require adequate oversight so as to remain true to its goal of fighting the spread of misinformation, as opposed to becoming a politicized “filter”. With this potential for misuse in mind, this group should only be preserved so long as deemed necessary to create lasting public awareness of the underlying issue of misinformation across social media, and implement safeguards against it.

Endnotes 1. Dahl, Robert A. “What Political Institutions Does Large-Scale Democracy Require?”

Political Science Quarterly 120, no. 2 (2005): 187-97 doi:10.1002/j.1538-165x.2005. tb00543.x.

2. Gottfried, Jeffrey, Elisa Shearer, Jeffrey Gottfried, and Elisa Shearer. “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2016.” Pew Research Center. http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/ 3. Marchi, Regina. “With Facebook, Blogs, and Fake News, Teens Reject Journalistic “Objectivity”.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 36, no. 3 (2012) 246-62. doi:10.1177/0196859912458700.

4. Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 2 (2017): 211-36. doi:10.3386/ w23089.

5. Wingfield, Nick, Mike Isaac, and Katie Benner. “Google and Facebook Take Aim at Fake News Sites.” The New York Times, November 14, 2016. https://www.nytimes.

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Bringing Minority Gender and Sexual Identities to the Forefront of Wisconsin Sexual Education Emma Morales Leslie

Problem Statement

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urrent sexual health education in Wisconsin exists only as a mere component to “Human Growth and Development” (Wisconsin State Legislature, “Statutes, Chapter 118”). Such legislature cannot account for the broad scope of instruction needed to encompass all aspects of inclusive, comprehensive instruction on human sexuality; specifically, the life-long sexual development of one’s gender and sexual identities. Consequently, the Wisconsin Government not only contributes to child neglect by not acknowledging the sexual rights of youth, but also perpetuates prejudice and discrimination against gender and sexual minorities by not mandating that inclusivity and acceptance be stressed. Not providing formal, ageappropriate, comprehensive instruction on all gender and sexual identities for children and adolescents in Wisconsin infringes on their sexual rights to education and resources needed to make informed decisions for their identities (WHO, “Sexual and Reproductive Health”). This contributes to a lack of safe spaces in public schools for LGBTQIA+ youth and upholds high rates of gender and sexual minority youth experiencing bullying and discrimination. As a result, LGBTQIA+ students experience worse mental health and lower GPAs (Kosciw, Joseph G, et. al.;“The 2017 National School Climate Survey”).

Background Under current law, Wisconsin health education legislature state that a school board may offer an instructional program in Human Growth and Development but are not required to by the state. School boards that choose to include sexual health education instruction in their curriculum must conform to few recommendations that are outlined in Wisconsin laws on General School Operations (Chapter 118). Therefore, school boards are asked to stress: (1) present abstinence as the preferred choice of behavior for unmarried people; (2) emphasize abstinence as the only reliable method for STI and pregnancy prevention; (3) highlight the benefits of marriage; (4) provide instruction on reproduction; (5) explain criminal penalties for pedophelia and the sex offender registration requirements; and (6) provide medically accurate information on HPV and HIV/AIDS. Such requirements focus on the biological, reproductive, physical, and behavioral components of human sexuality and ignore the influence of one’s emotions, psychological development, social and economic position, erotica, and spirituality have on one’s sexual health (Hyde, Understanding Human Sexuality). This current approach teaches youth to prioritize sexual behavior over personal sexual health enlightenment by not providing instruction on the gestalt of human sexuality.

Outlining such few recommendations on the state-level allocates local education agencies with the power and authority to approve, modify or create curriculum for the sexual health education of their district. As a result, teachers are left to interpret these vague guidelines, creating the space for inaccuracies and biases to be included

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in sexual health instruction. The State School-Based Health Education Law Summary Report on Wisconsin states that 88% of secondary schools taught human sexuality in 2017; however, due to agency in curriculum decision-making by local school boards and teachers, it is unclear what content youth in Wisconsin are learning about ‘human sexuality’. Furthermore, the report indicates that over a third of secondary teachers are not provided with the educational strategies needed to teach age-appropriate, relevant sexual education. Such variation in the inclusivity and implementation of sexual health education and the local influence on the content provided about sexuality results in Wisconsin youth having educational discrepancies about one’s own process of identity formation and in inclusive instruction on minority genders and sexualities.

Regardless of the conditions for instruction for sexual education within Human Growth and Development, by law parents and guardians must annually receive an outline of the curriculum and are provided the opportunity to remove a student from instruction if they please. While this component is crucial for informed parental consent, removing a child from sexual education as a result of a conflicting familial framework about human sexuality only perpetuates dated and unhealthy ideologies on sexuality. Such exemptions are not allowed in other subjects (Wisconsin State Legislature, “Statutes, Chapter 118”).

Wisconsin legislature and school board curricula on sexual education do not mention the importance of inclusive education on gender and sexual minorities for a comprehensive understanding of human sexuality for all students regardless of their identities. Local school boards may, if they so choose, include additional instruction on topics other than those outlined by legislature; however, there is little information on whether any school districts in Wisconsin currently include instruction on identity formation and gender and sexual minorities. National surveys and reports highlight the detrimental effects non-inclusive or explicitly negative sexual health education has for gender and sexual identities (Proulx, Effects of LGBTQ-inclusive sex ed).

Proposed Solution In order for Wisconsin youth to make informed decisions about their identities, sexual health education must become standardized and required within Human Growth and Development; and include formal education on all gender and sexual identities in a positive, inclusive, age-appropriate, medically accurate and comprehensive manner because public schools provide the best opportunity for youth to receive formal instruction on sexual health (WHO, “School health and youth health promotion”). Under current law, Wisconsin school boards may choose to provide a Human Growth and Development program from kindergarten to grade 12. This proposal urges that Wisconsin law require the instruction of Human Growth and Development and within it, sexual health education from kindergarten through secondary education. Enforcing sexual health instruction in public schools will ensure that all Wisconsin youth are provided

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the tools and resources necessary to make informed decisions about their sexual health and identity development. Moreover, current Wisconsin General School Operations Chapter 118.019(2)(a)2. recommends for instruction that “covers the emotional and intellectual changes that accompany maturation”. Therefore, curriculum should include instruction on identity formation and minority gender and sexual identities because they are inherently linked to the emotional and intellectual development youth undergo throughout childhood and adolescence. Curricula on gender and sexual minorities should: (1) cover LGBTQ+ history and their continuous fight for visibility and acceptance, (2) educate students on how minority gender and sexuality communities define and express themselves, (3) outline the specific needs and subsequent resources available in Wisconsin for every identity, and (4) stress an intersectionally inclusive, anti-oppressive, sociobiology approach to understanding human sexuality.

The state of Wisconsin should provide school boards with standardized public school teacher-training on what critical information must be included in curricula and how to create inclusive, accepting, safer classroom settings. Implementing standardized instruction on identity formation within sexual health education ensures that all youth from Wisconsin public schools have the fundamental tools to make cognizant decisions about how they want to express and define themselves. In addition, school sexual health education policy and curricula should also advocate for inclusive policies for gender and sexual minorities as a way to support their gender and sexual minority student body.

The drafting of new policy that reforms sexual health education in the aforementioned ways will make LGBTQIA+ students feel safer in public schools since their identities and autonomy are validated by formal instruction and state law. The GLSEN 2017 National School Climate Survey shows that inclusive sexual health instruction in public schools for LGBTQIA+ youth improve mental health and academic outcomes of sexual minorities by decreasing their likelihood of hearing homophobic remarks and helping them feeling safer in school which boosts self esteem and lowers rates of depression and suicide.

Reforming policy as mentioned would not only improve the climate in school for gender and sexual minorities but also contribute to an inclusive, accepting mindset in Wisconsin where 86% of youth attend public schools.

Note This brief policy memo is a part of a longer policy proposal written for a Gender and Women’s Studies and Sociology honors senior thesis.

Endnotes 1. Bridges, Emily, and Debra Hauser. “Facts about Sex Education.” Future of Sex Education (FoSE). Accessed February 24, 2019. http://www.futureofsexed.org/

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youthhealthrights.html. (web content) 2. Congress. “H.R.3602 - Real Education for Healthy Youth Act of 2017”. Last modified August 04, 2017. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3602 (web content) 3. Gattis, Maurice N., and Mckinnon, Sara L., “School Experiences of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Students in Wisconsin” Last modified February 2015. https:// www.gsafewi.org/wp-content/uploads/ 4. Human Rights Campaign. “A Call to Action: LGBTQ Youth Need Inclusive Sex Education”. Last modified 2015. https://assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/ HRC-SexHealthBrief-2015.pdf?_ga=2.39349283.1663679182.15506333371420445872.1549573149 (web content) 5. Hyde, Janet S. Understanding Human Sexuality (12th ed.). New York, NY: McGrawHill, 2014.

6. “Issues.” Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. Accessed February 26, 2019. https://siecus.org/issues/.

7. Kosciw, Joseph G, et. al. “The 2017 National School Climate Survey - The Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Youth in Our Nation’s Schools.”

GLSEN, GLSEN, 2018, www.glsen.org/article/2017-national-school-climate-survey-1. (report) 8. Nursing@USC Staff. “America’s Sex Education: How We Are Failing Our Students.”

Blog. September 18, 2017. Accessed March 04, 2019. https://nursing.usc.edu/blog/ americas-sex-education/. (website) 9. Proulx, Chelsea. “Effects of LGBTQ-inclusive sex education on mental health and experiences of bullying among U.S. high school students”. (2017) Master’s Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.

10. Sabia, J. (2006). Does Sex Education Affect Adolescent Sexual Behaviors and Health?

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 25(4), 783-802.

Schilt, K., & Westbrook, L. (2009). Doing Gender, Doing Heteronormativity. Gender & Society,23(4), 440-464.

11. Schalet, A. T. (2011). Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

12. Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). “On Our Side: Public Support for Sex Education” Last modified August, 2018. https://siecus.org/ wp-content/uploads/2018/08/On-Our-Side-Public-Support-for-Sex-Ed-2018-Final.pdf (web content) 13. Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, “The Real Education for Healthy Youth Act (REHYA).” SIECUS, Sept. 2017, siecus.org/resources/ the-real-education-for-healthy-youth-act-rehya/. (web content) 14. Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), “State Profiles Fiscal Year 2017.” SIECUS, 2017, siecus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ WISCONSIN-FY17-FINAL-New.pdf. (web content) 15. Shapiro, Sarah. “Sex Education Standards Across the States”. Published May 9, 2018.

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https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2018/05/09/450158/ sex-education-standards-across-states/ (web content) 16. “State School-Based Health Education Law Summary Reports | Adolescent and School Health CDC.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dec. 2017. Last modified June 20, 2018. www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/ about/state_law_summary_reports.htm. (web content) 17. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. “Wisconsin Public Schools at a Glance.”

Last modified February, 2019. https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/eis/pdf/ schools_at_a_glance.pdf. (web content) 18. Wisconsin State Legislature. “2011 Senate Bill 237.” Last modified January, 2010. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/proposals/sb237. (web content) 19. Wisconsin State Legislature. “Statutes, Chapter 118.” General School Operations. Last modified January 17, 2019. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/118/019. (web content) 20. World Health Organization (WHO). “School health and youth health promotion”. Last modified, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/school_youth_health/en/ 21. World Health Organization (WHO). “Sexual and Reproductive Health”. Last modified 2018. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/reproductivehealth/topics/sexual_health/ sh_definitions/en/. (web content)

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Selling a Sales Tax The Price for Local Control

Problem Statement

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he March 2019 issue of The Municipality featured an ominous warning from Jerry Deschane, the Executive Director of the League of Wisconsin Municipalities and the Urban Alliance:

“Wisconsin lags other states in a key area of economic health. The state-dictated system of financing local government is a one-shot pistol, relying almost exclusively on property taxes for local funding. Almost since statehood, local revenue options were narrow and have become even narrower. The state decided early on to provide local revenue through a system of ‘shared revenue.’ Funding for the program has been significantly cut over the last two decades.”1

Mary E. Morris

Despite the burden local governments face in Wisconsin to provide services, localities are not given the authority to use revenue generating tools to raise funds for these services.

Historically, Wisconsin has provided most public services locally. Although cities have by and large balanced budgets, it has been at the expense of local infrastructure and services, “the result is a narrowed focus of city services on essentials such as public safety and deferred maintenance of transportation and other infrastructure.”1 With few revenue generating options, Wisconsin cities are quite dependent on already high property taxes and have developed a reliance on intergovernmental revenues. By exploring options for revenue generation, the State of Wisconsin can give counties and municipalities the opportunity to address local issues on their own term.

This paper will examine the current system and compare it to two alternative revenue generating solutions, which would give local government an option to address these budgetary needs. These alternatives will be examined by how effectively each addresses the issue, how the average Wisconsinite would be affected, and through the lens of political feasibility. The first alternative would be to remove the cap restricting increases in the property tax to net new construction. In 2006, the Wisconsin Legislature passed a rule stating the property tax levy may only rise by the proportion of new construction.

With the property tax burden in Wisconsin already on the higher end nationwide,2 repealing the 2006 law may not be a politically feasible option. Sales and use taxes are a revenue generating tool that counties do have authority to manipulate; however, there is a cap in place of .5% of the purchase price. The second alternative will explore a modest increase in this levy cap that would give counties an opportunity to shore up cash reserves, fund projects locals are interested in, or improve services. Therefore, the State of Wisconsin should allow counties to raise sales and use taxes from .5% to 1%.

Background: State and Municipal Finance Structure The State’s three greatest sources of general revenue collected are property taxes,

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individual income taxes and general sales taxes.3 Counties, cities, villages, and towns are “general purpose districts,” which have broad authority to administer a particular locale, while school districts, technical college districts, and professional sports stadium districts are “special purpose districts,” whose authority is limited to a specific function. Many of these subnational units overlap, so a Wisconsinite may find themselves in multiple civic and tax districts at once. Taxes are collected by the state and returned to municipalities.4 Local governments may only levy taxes at the authorization of the state.5 In addition to the property tax and the sales and use tax, general purpose districts are allowed to charge certain user fees, such as the wheel tax and the room tax. Portions of the property tax go to each of the general and special purpose districts, in addition to the state. The state sales and use tax is 5% on the purchase price of taxable retail sales. Food and prescription drugs are exempt from the sales tax. Beginning in 1985, counties were given the authority to impose an additional sale and use tax of up to 0.5% on the purchase price.6 A handful of municipalities are designated as premier resort areas, authorized to levy an additional tax. Public safety, transportation, and health and human services are the greatest expenditures faced by local governments.7 Criteria Effectiveness To examine how effective the revenue instrument would be in assisting counties and municipalities, this paper will ask three questions: First, does this policy give local governments more options? Second, would this policy raise revenues? Third, can we reasonably believe revenues raised could and would be used to address local expenditure needs?

Incidence To analyze tax incidence is to determine who ultimately bears the burden of paying the tax. Who bears the economic incidence may differ from who bears the legal incidence of the tax. For example, a law may be written taxing producers of a good, however if the cost of the tax is simply added to the purchase price, then the economic incidence ultimately falls to the consumer. It will also be important to estimate the effect of any policy change on revenue streams. This paper will also consider indirect economic effects that may be overlooked. The important question is: How will this policy change affect the average Wisconsinite?

Feasibility In government, all policies great and terrible must go through some legal process to become enacted. In Wisconsin, local revenue generating tools need to pass through two layers of government. First, as mentioned, local governments in Wisconsin may only levy taxes at the authorization of the state. Second, any changes affecting local governments would likely mean a need for decisions at the local level. Additionally, the difficulty

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level in instituting any change on the part of the Department of Revenue and other administrative bodies will be considered. Simply put, can this policy pass?

Alternative One: Maintaining the status quo Effectiveness Naturally, sticking with the status quo would not give local governments new options, nor would it raise any new revenues to address local expenditures.

Incidence Wisconsinites would not notice any change, immediately. It is plausible, however, that in lieu of the ability to raise sales and property taxes, cities may increase wheel and room taxes or increase fines and fees on things cities do control like parking violations. In fact, there is evidence of this already with more than cities enacting wheel taxes since 2011.8 This would likely disproportionately affect lower income taxpayers.

Feasibility Maintaining the status quo is often politically feasible in the short term. Raising taxes is generally something a politician is loath to do for it is rarely well received by constituents.

In this particular case, maintaining the status quo would be kicking the can down the road, so to speak. Counties and municipalities may struggle to balance budgets at the expense of providing needed services. It may only be a matter of time before the deterioration of services and infrastructure prompts a change, at which point costs would be higher. Therefore, it is advantageous to address these issues now.

Alternative Two: Lifting the cap tying net new construction to an increase in the property tax Effectiveness Under current law, municipalities generally are allowed to raise their property tax levies to fund ongoing operations only by the amount of new construction in their communities.

While this option has held property taxes down, it is a less effective tool in smaller counties and villages.9 For example, in 2018 Dane County saw net new construction of 2.6%, while Iron County only saw 0.51%.10 Lifting this restriction would give counties and municipalities more flexibility to suggest a higher threshold; however, state lawmakers would still have final authorization over any increase in the tax levy. Further, growth would still be uneven. It could be beneficial to some counties with rising property values, however if property values are not rising, then those localities would not see a benefit. As counties, municipalities, and school districts would all take a piece of any increase in the property tax, the benefit would not exclusively address municipal expenditure.

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Incidence The incidence of this option is difficult to assess. The state has a number of other limitations, exemptions and relief programs which make calculating the property tax all the more complicated. Generally, the property tax is thought to behave as a regressive tax on low-income taxpayers and a progressive tax for high-income earners. This trend holds true for Wisconsin.2 Feasibility Loosening restrictions on raising property tax levies may allow localities to raise more funds to cover expenditures; however, it would be met with ire from homeowners fatigued from paying some of the highest rates in the nation.2 Despite attempts at lowering the property tax burden while still trying to maintain quality public services, Wisconsinites consistently face a higher burden than counterparts across the United States. This makes raising property taxes at any level of government difficult.

Alternative Three: Wisconsin should allow counties to raise sales taxes from .5% to 1%.

Effectiveness Counties would have the most flexibility with this option as it is up to the county to determine the level of sales tax to add on within the specified range. Counties redistribute sales tax revenue to municipalities by providing services or providing funds directly.6 Raising the sales tax would generate more revenue for counties. Calumet County, previously one of seven Wisconsin counties who had not implemented a sales tax, passed the .5% raise to the current cap in 2017. The tax went into effect in April of 2018 with estimated returns of $2 to $3 million.11 Raising this tax an additional .5% would increase these returns. This may only be a snapshot of one county, however, it is an important illustration of the impact of a simple increase for a single county.

Incidence Sales and use taxes are commonly understood to be a regressive tax. The sales and use tax is a flat tax, which means when measured as a share of total household income, it would represent a larger share of consumption as income decreases. As income and wealth inequality grows, presenting a plethora of social and economic issues, a regressive tax policy must be examined carefully. Looking at the sales and use tax incidence in practice reveals conventional theory to be different. Exemptions for food and prescription drugs alleviate the burden of the sales tax on lower income taxpayers, however the tax overall remains regressive. It is difficult to calculate what the income effect would be. An income effect refers to the change in consumption habits as a result of a change to income. While this policy does not directly affect income, the increased burden of the tax on income will reduce income and therefore reduce consumption.

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Feasibility The Wisconsin Legislature has shown a strong distaste for raising taxes. Selling an increase to the sales tax would be difficult; however, if it was sold as a way for local governments to assist themselves without increasing the property tax levy, legislative leaders might buy in. Counties would remain as distributors to municipalities.

Municipalities within county could negotiate for increased funds from the county or would be in a better position to shift services to a county level, which may be better equipped to provide them.

Recommendation The ability Wisconsin local governments have to implement programs and provide services tailored to the specific community is an asset. However, so long as the state controls the levers by which municipalities may fund innovative solutions, that ability is meaningless. Proposing a tax increase is never a popular suggestion, though it is also never popular to shirk local services. The League of Wisconsin Municipalities has expressed concern over the years for the ability of cities, particularly rural cities, to carry reserve funds.1 These funds are essential for local governments to weather the ebbs and flows of the economy. Many taxes are tied to the fluctuation of incomes and consumption preferences. Raising the allowable rate counties may tax consumer goods and services could provide county governments with access to more revenues, which could be saved by local governments or put to use for growing expenditures, or funding new projects and innovations. Doubling the levy would bring Wisconsin in line with neighboring states like Iowa and Minnesota, where the sales tax ranges from about 6% to 8%. While removing some of the current restrictions on the property tax may be desirable in theory, it may not be as politically feasible as a modest raise in the sales tax.

What would be doubling the allowable limit for the county is only a half-penny rise on the dollar per taxable good for Wisconsinites. Allowing local government room to innovate creates flexibility in tailoring policies to needs specific to a locality.

Endnotes 1.The Municipality, Deschane, Jerry. “Wisconsin’s Cities are Created by Their People.” March 2019 2. The Wisconsin Tax Payer. “Investigating Residential Property Taxes.” 2017 ed., vol. 85, no. 12, Wisconsin Taxpayer Alliance, 2017 3. Wisconsin, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Gentry, John. “State and Local Government Revenue and Expenditure Rankings.” 2019 ed., vol. 72, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, 2019.

Informational Papers.

4. Wisconsin, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Drilias, Emma. “Property Tax Administration.”

2019 ed., vol. 14, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, 2019. Informational Papers.

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5. City of Madison. “Budget Process and Citizen Access.” Budget Process. Updated June, 2007. http://www.cityofmadison.com/council/documents/resource/13BudgetProcess.pdf 6. Wisconsin, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Spika, Dan. “Sales and Use Tax.” 2019 ed., vol. 7, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, 2019. Informational Papers.

7. Wisconsin, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, Drilias, Emma. “Property Tax Level in Wisconsin” 2019 ed., vol. 13, Legislative Fiscal Bureau, 2019. Informational Papers.

8. Marley, Patrick. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “Wheel taxes have popped up around Wisconsin since 2011, resulting in a seven-fold increase” https://www.jsonline.com/ story/news/politics/2018/05/23/wheel-taxes-have-popped-up-around-wisconsinsince-2011/634841002/ 9. Wisconsin Policy Forum. “The 2018 State of Wisconsin’s Cities and Villages.”

10. Wisconsin Department of Revenue. “Net New Construction 2018.” August 9, 2018.

11. Behr, Madeline. Post Crescent. “Calumet County approves 0.5% sales tax.” September 17, 2017 https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/2017/09/20/calumet-countyapproves-0-5-sales-tax-effective-april-1/680958001/

Memorandum to the Great Lakes Commission Closing the Great Lakes Compact Loophole for Withdrawal in 5.7-gallon Containers Jackson Parr

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Problem Statement

A

s global demand for access to clean freshwater increases, regions of the United States and the world will look toward the largest body of freshwater in the world, North America’s Great Lakes, for supply. But withdrawal of water outside the Great Lakes watershed can have significant economic and ecological consequences for the region. Existing policy should be strengthened to safeguard against expected withdrawal and export of Great Lakes water outside of the water basin for consumptive use. The potential economic impacts of lower lake levels due to privatization of this public natural resource through a loophole in existing policy indicates the need for a new strategy.

Background The Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin Water Resources Compact (the Compact) is a binding international treaty governing the use of water within the Great Lakes basin of North America.1 The treaty, signed by President George W. Bush on October 3, 2008,

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banned diversions of Great Lakes water outside of the watershed’s basin without approval by the eight governors and two Canadian premiers within the basin.2 The watershed (shown in map), does not follow jurisdictional lines, making management of the water resources complex and political as it requires international and interstate cooperation.

There is a significant loophole within the Compact. The agreement allows for the export of Great Lakes water in containers of less than 5.7 gallons in volume3 – primarily water bottles and beer or soft drink cans. Although a state can still pass a law banning such export, none have to date. Congress widely supported the Compact, with only 25 dissents in the House. However, those in opposition cited the 5.7-gallon container loophole as a blatant undermining of the entire Compact.

While approved diversions are required to detail just how much water will be diverted annually or daily, we have no record of how much water leaves the Great Lakes basin in 5.7-gallon containers.

Bottled water is the most popular beverage in the United States. Consumption increased by 9 percent from 2016 to 2017. In April 2018, a Nestlé plant in central Michigan received

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a permit to increase their withdrawal of water to 400 gallons per minute, or 210 million gallons each year, to bottle Ice Mountain water bottles,5 exercising the existing loophole.

Miller Brewing Company in Milwaukee is the largest private consumer of water in the metro region, tapping approximately 800 million gallons of water annually.6 Increasing national consumption will require greater withdrawal of Great Lakes water, putting increasing strain on the natural resource.

When the flow of the Chicago River was reversed in 1900 before a binding management plan for the Great Lakes was in place, a lawsuit claimed the diversion of what is now 2.1 billion gallons per day would lower lake levels by six inches, enough to cost the region millions in 1920s dollars.7 The low water levels experienced from 2000 to 2013 could represent a $20 billion blow to the Great Lakes economy if they persisted.8 It is easy to imagine the small-container loophole coming under greater scrutiny in coming years. In 1998, before the Compact, a Canadian businessman received a permit to ship and sell 150 million gallons of Lake Superior water to an arid region in Asia.4 In the 1980s, a Wyoming coal company proposed a 1900-mile pipeline from the Great Lakes to supply its operations.4 The rapidly evaporating Ogallala aquifer that runs from South Dakota to Texas is expected to start running dry within 50 years. Past attempts at commercialization paired with a growing national thirst indicates that any loophole to provide Great Lakes water outside the watershed is ripe for exploitation.

But export of Great Lakes water in small containers is difficult to quantify because many of the products may be consumed and discharged within the basin, thus not affecting the quantity in the watershed. Still, the potential economic impacts of lower lake levels due to privatization of this public natural resource represents a market failure through the negative externality of economic and ecological impacts to third parties.

Recommendations Completely closing the loophole by preventing all export of water through a formal change in the Compact is unlikely. Because the Compact functions as an international treaty, it requires approval of Congress and the signature of the President. When the Compact was first introduced in 2005, it was the Great Lakes states seeking the smallcontainer exemption out of fear of what a regulation would do to their economies.4 Pushing for individual states to enact legislation prohibiting export in less than 5.7-gallon containers is politically infeasible and would likely result in disjointed regulation that encourages a “race to the bottom”10 where a state refuses to adopt such a regulation in order to attract industries that require high levels of water consumption.

Instead, I will recommend a series of three measures that should be integrated into the existing Compact, including (a) registering firms that export Great Lakes ground and

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surface water (b) recording the volume of exports, and (c) capping the total commercial consumptive use at existing levels. While these regulations can be adopted wholesale, I recommend pursuing them in this order to mobilize public support through increased transparency in use of Great Lakes water.

It should be noted that a recurring limitation in the value of information provided under any policy alternative is the uncertainty in how much of water that is bottled for commercial consumptive use actually leaves the Great Lakes watershed. Nestlé’s Ice Mountain facility simply cannot know whether a bottle sold in Ann Arbor will be consumed in Cincinnati, thus leaving the Great Lakes basin. Despite that restriction, there is still valuable information to gather on commercial export of Great Lakes water. (a) Registration for Export Firms should be required to register as exporters of water for commercial use on the firm’s annual report, including bottled water, beer, soda, juice and more. States can achieve this through individual state legislation. This would provide publicly available information on the number of firms that are privatizing Great Lakes water for commercial gain.

This imposes two modest administrative costs: one on producers and the other on the government. The administrative cost to producers is negligible, as firms are likely aware of whether their business model consists of revenue from the sale of beverages containing water. Administrative costs to the government are slightly greater. The government would need to cross-check the location of the firms that are exporting water with the boundaries of the Great Lakes basin to determine whether these firms were within the area of concern, similar to a zoning designation. Because we have a precise understanding of the delineation of the Great Lakes basin, this would not represent a significant cost.

This option is highly feasible due to low costs to both producers and the government, and mounting public concern.

However, the value of the information gathered by such a registration is minimal. States would not know the volume of export, meaning Miller Brewing Company and a small cherry juice processor in northeast Wisconsin would be equivalent in the binary data despite significantly disparate impacts to the watershed. This requirement also provides only information, with no policy teeth of the kind found within the Compact. (b) Recording Volume Exported After states have an understanding for the firms that are exporting water, they should then require data on the volume being exported. This data would impose little additional cost to both governments and producers, as firms can be reasonably expected to quantify

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their production. This policy could be enacted simultaneously with policy (a). The cost to government would again be minimal administrative costs.

Collecting this data would provide states and the region as a whole with a better, albeit imperfect, understanding of the volume of water leaving the Great Lakes watershed. Such policy would more closely align with the existing strict scrutiny of diversions, such as the City of Waukesha, Wisconsin, which plans to divert 8.2 million gallons of Lake Michigan water per day, but return every drop to the Great Lakes basin, less public consumptive use.11 The plan triggered the required Compact approval. It logically follows that states should at least know the volume of water commercialized for private use and exported out of the basin, never to return. This policy would be a step in that direction.

Such a policy is less politically feasible than simply registering for export. Firms will not be as willing to provide specific information on their business practices to the government, particularly if they expect repercussions or future change in policy that is linked to commercial export of water.

States could insulate themselves from the opposition to such a policy by limiting access to an individual firms’ consumptive information, in the same way private firms’ tax documents are not public. Legislation shielding individual firm-level data on water export from public records requests could assuage some fear of public backlash for firms.

Still, public support is heavily weighted toward greater accountability and water resources management. In the case of Nestlé’s 2018 permit, out of the 81,862 public comments on the proposal, only 75 registered support.7 Again, this policy would fail to directly address any concerns over export of Great Lakes water. However, it would provide an important data point in modeling for watershed management and a holistic approach while galvanizing public support for future legislation, such as development of a cap and trade program for commercial use of Great Lakes water. (c) Capping Commercial Export Volume Development of a cap and trade program would be the most effective method of watershed management in regards to commercial privatization of Great Lakes water.

We do not currently know the volume of exported Great Lakes water in containers of less than 5.7 gallons, but we are able to model the effect that withdrawals will have on water levels. Following a more comprehensive understanding of the commercial export of Great Lakes water through policy (b), and a model detailing the level of water export that will lead to a decline in Great Lakes levels, legislators can pursue an amendment to the Compact capping total state commercial exports at volumes that will uphold existing lake levels.

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Relative to policy options (a) and (b), which can be adopted by individual states, a modification of the Compact can only be achieved through Congressional approval, the signature of the President, and subsequent approval by the Canadian federal government.

Such approval is necessary because this policy would function as a trade limitation between the two countries and between states, triggering the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution. However, this policy would give teeth to a binding agreement concerning the small container loophole without closing it completely, which would aid in its feasibility.

Each state would be limited to their percentage of total allowable consumption that matches their current statewide commercial export volume as determined through policy (b). If Nestlé wanted to exceed the limit in Michigan, it could purchase volume from another consuming firm. This would create a market for Great Lakes water use similar to the cap and trade program suggested in the regulation of carbon emissions.

In crafting this policy, I recommend creating an exemption for firms that can demonstrate their containers are sold within the Great Lakes basin, deducting that volume from the total allowed in each state. Regulation would put the burden of proof on firms to show they do not export their 5.7-gallon containers outside of the Great Lakes basin. For example, a Michigan brewery that only distributes within the state – since Michigan lies completely within the Great Lakes basin – could have their consumption volume deducted from the state cap. Such an exemption would lift a burden off of small producers serving a regional area and contribute to public understanding of consumption and recharge of the Great Lakes watershed by placing the burden of proof on the producer and encouraging this regional approach to distribution.

Conclusion The small container loophole within the Great Lakes Compact represents a potentially catastrophic water resource management issue as some regions in the United States become increasingly thirsty. It is illogical to restrict a pipeline running Great Lakes water to the arid southwest while allowing the same volume of water to be sent in containers of less than 5.7 gallons. It is unclear whether export of water has had negative effects on Great Lakes water levels, but levels have been fluctuating with greater severity and for longer periods in the past few decades. The Great Lakes region should adopt the precautionary principle - regulation despite some uncertainty - by recognizing that a permanent decline in water levels may be impossible to remediate.

Pressures of privatization have increased over time, as seen in the Nestle plants’ case in Michigan. Similarly, as soon as the price of water to satiate the region relying on the Ogallala aquifer exceeds the cost to ship it in 5.7-gallon containers, it’s likely we will see such export.

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The preceding policy options provide a framework to further codify the intention of the Great Lakes Compact in prohibiting commercial privatization of a public natural resource. At minimum, states should immediately begin collecting data on private firms that commercialize and export Great Lakes water outside of the basin. As pressures to export water continue to mount, the nation should develop a market for Great Lakes water through development of a cap and trade system within Great Lakes states, ensuring commercialization does not exploit this natural resource and damage the quality of life and economic vitality of the region.

Electoral Reform in the United States Emma Raschka

Endnotes 1. “Water Management.” Great Lakes Agreement and Compact - Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Governors and Premiers. Accessed February 25, 2019. http://gsgp.org/ projects/water-management/great-lakes-agreement-and-compact/.

2. S.J. Res. 45, 110th Cong., U.S. G.P.O. (2008) (enacted).

3. Annin, Peter. The Great Lakes Water Wars. Washington, DC: Island Press, 2018.

4. “Bottled Water.” International Bottled Water Association. Accessed February 25, 2019. https://www.bottledwater.org/consumers-reaffirm-bottled-water-america’s-favoritedrink.

5. Gray, Kathleen. “Michigan OKs Nestlé Permit for Increased Water Withdrawal for Bottled Water Plant.” Detroit Free Press. April 02, 2018. Accessed February 25, 2019. https://www.freep.com/story/news/2018/04/02/michigan-oks-nestle-permit-increasedwater-withdrawal-bottled-water-plant/479896002/.

6. “Foxconn’s Proposed Lake Michigan Water Usage.” The Squeaky Curd. March 07, 2018.

Accessed February 25, 2019. https://www.thesqueakycurd.com/foxconns-proposed-lakemichigan-water-usage/.

7. Wisconsin v. Illinois (January 24, 1929).

8. “Low Water Blues–Economic Fallout from Lower Future Water Levels in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Region Could Total More Than $18 Billion by 2050.” The Mowat Centre. June 26, 2016. Accessed February 25, 2019. https://mowatcentre.ca/low-waterblues-economic-fallout-from-lower-future-water-levels-in-the-great-lakes-st-lawrenceregion-could-total-more-than-18-billion-by-2050/#.

9. Perkin, Joshuah S., Keith B. Gido, Jeffrey A. Falke, Kurt D. Fausch, Harry Crockett, Eric R. Johnson, and John Sanderson. “Groundwater Declines Are Linked to Changes in Great Plains Stream Fish Assemblages.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, no. 28 (2017): 7373-378. doi:10.1073/pnas.1618936114.

10. Prakash, Aseem, and Matthew Potoski. “Racing to the Bottom? Trade, Environmental Governance, and ISO 14001.” American Journal of Political Science 50, no. 2 (2006): 35064. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3694277.

11. “Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.” City of Waukesha Water Diversion DNR and Regional Review. Accessed February 25, 2019. https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/EIA/

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and vote and others having strict processes in place to, in their words, prevent voter fraud.

Introduction

A

merica has a voting problem. Voter participation is currently at an all time high but voter turnout and registration in the United States is some of the lowest of all developed countries. In 2016, only sixty percent of eligible voters participated in the Presidential Election. Of the forty percent that did not vote, around 32 million were not registered to vote. Not included in the group categorized as â&#x20AC;&#x153;eligibleâ&#x20AC;? are millions of felons that have been stripped of their voting rights. After accounting for the millions of Americans not eligible for voting, only around fifty-six percent of Americans voted to elect the new leader of the United States. This number only decreases in midterm elections with a dismal thirty-six percent of eligible voters participating in the 2014 elections.1 The electoral system in the United States is in desperate need of reform in the hopes of achieving full participation in democracy for those who want to be involved and placing more responsibility on state and federal government for accurate and successful voter registration. A change from the current opt-in system to an opt-out will add millions of voters to the registry along with returning voting rights to those who have had them stripped.

When looking at voter turnout there are two distinct groups that are looked at. The voting-eligible population (VEP) and the voting-age population (VAP). The VAP includes a look at all people that are old enough to voting but also includes those that have had their right to vote stripped away. A large portion of the difference between the VEP and the VAP are felons that are no longer able to vote. The term felon is applicable to millions of voting age citizens in the United States that are no longer able to vote. In the United States the classification of a felony is a wide range of crimes. In 2017, 85.4 percent of drug arrests were for possession only. In many states this is considered a felony, meaning that this 85.4%, or 1,394,514 individuals, lost the right to vote in 2017 for being in possession of drugs.4 To succeed in achieving a higher level of participation in democracy it is also necessary to consider those who are being prevented from participating and how a change would impact voting and elections in the United States. In recent elections years many races have been very close, with some candidates winning with only a little over a percentage of votes more than their opponent. The impact that these voters could have has the potential to sway races and to impact the leaders in the United States.

Background

Problem Statement

Attempts at electoral reform have been enacted over the years with some being considerably more successful than others. Acts such as the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act have helped to make improvements in the overall voting process but there is a long way to go before reaching full, or close to full, participation in democracy. Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work with elections and the integrity of these elections has spanned over decades with little to show for. The small changes being made are not enough to increase voter participation significantly and for there to be improvements in voter turnout across all demographics, more radical and widespread changes need to be implemented to fundamental process of voting. The United States has a complicated history with voting and voters rights.

Currently in the United States there are two main problems with the act of voting. The first is the difficulty many United States citizens have when registering to vote. The second is voting restrictions. Not only restrictions on individuals and groups, but also restrictrictions on the actual voting process. Both of these issues have expelled millions of voters from participating in this essential democratic practice. Instead of promoting participation in democracy, the current system seems to be working to exclude certain groups and demographics. Changes to the system and addressing these problems are key to achieving the goal of full participation in democracy across the United States.

The first issue of difficulties with registration varies from state to state, with very little consistency across state lines regarding voter registration processes and restrictions.

In 2012 millions of in-person voters had issues when voting due to problems with registration.5 These issues range from a failure in the system to even illegal purges performed by elected officials in an attempt to clean up registered voter lists. With many states not having online voter registration accessible to their constituents, the process for voters to find if they are registered can be tedious especially for those with busy schedules.

States that do not have online voter registration available also create a burdensome situation for voters that move between states. Another problem with voter registration is states that do not allow same day voter registration. According to a 2009 report published

by Pew Charitable Trusts, election day registration has consistently been shown to increase voter turnout in elections. When looking at data from four separate states that employ election day registration, each state had at least ten percent of voters registering

The United States currently utilizes an opt in system regarding voter registration. This places the responsibility of registering, and acquire voter ID to keep up with current protocols. A large number of these protocols are connected to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, also known as NRVA. NRVA was created in an effort to create easier access to voter registration for any eligible voters. This act made it clear that it was the duty of the federal, state and local government to promote involvement in democracy.2 This act also led to the implementation of voter identification laws, which have been found to have mixed results in the protection of the integrity of elections. What was found was that minority voters are up to six times more likely to not have access to voter identification than white voters.3 States are currently responsible for their own voting procedures, with some states not requiring any sort of identification to register

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to vote on election day.6 For states that do not offer election day registration, thousands of citizens may be deterred from voting. Same day registration allows voters to vote and register all in one place and at one time, therefore making the process easier for voters who may not have the time or knowledge of how to register beforehand. One in four eligible citizens is not registered to vote, leaving millions of Americans out of the election process.7 Voter registration in the United States is an enormous obstacle for the goal of full democratic participation.

participation in the United States. The first of these solutions is automatic voter registration across all fifty states and the second change is an adjustment to the current voting system and regulations. These adjustments include an expansion of early voting hours, “no-excuse” absentee voting in all fifty states, removal of voter ID laws, and restoration of voting rights for felons. Proponents of these solutions argue that with these changes voter turnout will increase and a larger portion of the United States population will be represented during elections.

The second problem voters face are the variety of voting restrictions that have been put in place by the government. As previously stated, restrictions on felons eliminates a large portion of of the voting eligible population. Millions of United States citizens are not able to express their right to vote due to a felony charge. The restrictions on felons not only impacts close races but it also has been found to impact the criminal activity of released felons. In an article presented by the Sentencing Project, it was found that 27% of felons who were not able to participate in voting were rearrested while only 12% of voting felons were rearrested.8 For many felons being denied this right, which at the core is one of the founding elements of the democracy, creates an alienated feeling from the rest of society. This alienation has been shown to lead to re-arrest and in a way prevents the reform of former criminals. Another restriction that impacts voting and voter turnout are the restrictions some states have placed on absentee ballots and the inconvenience of early voting in many states. In 2012, around 23.3 million of votes cast were absentee and 16.9 million were early voting ballots.9 While not all these votes would be lost with the removal of this system, a further implementation of both early voting and no excuse absentee voting could aid in an increase in voter turnout. According to the US Vote Foundation, 20 states currently require an excuse to be eligible for an absentee ballot.10 Absentee and early voting help to alleviate a portion of the stress that comes along with voting for individuals who have schedules that may not work well with the normal voting times. One of the largest restrictions in voting is voter ID laws. The majority of voter ID laws were put into place with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and were further developed with the Help America Vote Act of 2002. These procedures were put into place in an effort to end voter fraud and improve the integrity of elections. A study conducted by a political scientist at Columbia University concluded that voter fraud in the United States is extremely rare, with about eight cases a year at the federal level between 2002 and 2005.11 In another study done by the United States Government Accountability Office, it was consistently found “few instances of in-person voter fraud.”12 With such a negligible number of cases per year it is impossible to tell if voter ID laws are having a significant impact on voter fraud numbers. Government restrictions on voters have been found to hurt more than help when looking at voter participation in America.

Solution One: Automatic Voter Registration The implementation of automatic voter registration would add millions of voters into election databases. By using automatic voter registration the United states would be switching from an opt-in system to an opt-out system as previously mentioned. As of December 2018, 16 states, and the District of Columbia, already have automatic registration in place.13 A report from the Brennan Center For Justice found that states that switched to automatic voter registration saved money and that states that chose to reform their voter registration had a significant increase in registration of new voters.

This system of automatic voter registration has also helped to prevent names from being purged, especially for citizens moving between states. Automatic registration would take place through government agencies such as the DMV, Military, law enforcement, and unemployment offices. By working the registration through these offices it places a greater amount of responsibility on the United States government. The opt-out process of automatic voter registration can either take place at the government agency where the registration occurs or through a notice that asks the if a person would like to opt-out of being registered to vote. With automatic voter registration the number of new voters that become registered will increase greatly but to work more at being proactive with future voters it is also proposed to pre-register 16-17 year olds. By utilizing pre-registration the aforementioned goal of complete voter participation will become realistic. Preregistration will ensure that once a citizen becomes of voting age they will be registered to vote. A report from the U.S Census Bureau analyzing voter characteristics in 2016 states that people aged 18-29 have made up the smallest percentage of voters since 1988.14 With voter turnout in young people so low, registering before citizens reach voting age will help the voting process run smoothly for new voters. Automatic voter registration across the United States will help to bring more eligible voters to the polls and create a more reliable method for registering voters.

Proposed Solutions Two proposed solutions will help to work towards the goal of complete democratic

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Solution Two: Absentee Ballots, Voter IDs, and Felony Disenfranchisement Three nationwide changes need to be made to the United States voting system to help promote higher voter participation. The first change is for all states to offer no-excuse absentee ballots. This change was proposed in the House of Representatives on January 3, 2019, but it has not yet become a reality. If this bill is passed as an amendment to the Help America Vote Act of 2002, it will allow all eligible voters to vote by mail in Federal elections.15 By allowing any eligible voter to request an absentee ballot, voters who may

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be worried about making it to the polls or those who lead lifestyles that would not allow them to get to the polls, but would also not be eligible to request an absentee ballot, will be able to participate in elections. Alongside no-excuse absentee ballots, expanded opportunities for early voting is another form of alternative voting that will help to increase voter participation. Early voting has been shown to increase voter turnout by two to four percent in the states that currently allow it.16 A nationwide implementation of early voting opportunities, including evening and weekend hours, will increase voter turnout. Evening and weekend hours need to be included with early voting to create opportunities for eligible voters that are not able to vote during the day. Voter ID laws in the United States have been a controversial issue for many years, specifically on the validity of the laws in regards to the constitution and the effectiveness of the laws. As previously mentioned, voter fraud in the United States is a rarity. In-person election fraud is seldom a crime seen in courts and very few cases are reported each year. Not only are voter ID laws lacking in effectiveness, but they are negatively impacting voters. States that require an ID when voting place this responsibility on the voter. For those without, it is up to them to pay for and find time to acquire this ID. Voter ID laws have become another hoop to jump through for voters and have made the voting process increasingly difficult, especially for those who may have trouble getting an ID. By completely removing voter ID laws, an obstacle to the voter is removed without risking the integrity of elections. The final change that should be made to help increase voter participation in America is the eradication of felony disenfranchisement. By restoring voting rights to those who are on probation or parole, the reintroduction of these individuals into society will be easier. Minnesota Secretary of State, Steve Simon agrees “We have a law that says a person is safe enough to live in our community, but still too dangerous to be a voter, that’s ridiculous.”17 Stripping away a person’s voting rights takes away their voice within government, and prevents them from being an active participant in democracy. The restoration of voting rights for felons that have served out their sentence or those who are out on parole or probation will not only add millions of voters but it will bring integrity back to the democratic process by allowing citizens living and working in society to be able to vote.

Endnotes 1. United States Election Project. 2018. 2016 November General Election: Turnout Rates.

2. The United States Department of Justice. 2015. Title 42-The Public Health and Welfare Chapter 20-Elective Franchise Subchapter I-H-National Voter Registration 3. Henninger, Phoebe, Marc Meredith, and Michael Morse. 2018. Who Votes Without Identification? Using Affidavits from Michigan to Learn About the Potential Impact of Strict Voter Identification Laws 4. Drug Policy Alliance . n.d. Drug War Statistics.

5. —. 2015. “The Case for Automatic Voter Registration.” Brennan Center For Justice.

6. Burden, Barry C., David T. Canon, Kenneth R. Mayer, and Donald P. Moynihan.

2009. The Effects and Costs of Early Voting, Election Day Registration, and Same Day Registration in the 2008 Elections 7. —. 2015. “The Case for Automatic Voter Registration.” Brennan Center For Justice.

8. Chung, Jean. 2018. Felony Disenfranchisement: A Primer.

9. Desilver, Drew, and Abigail Geiger. 2016. For many Americans, Election Day is already here.

10. US Vote Foundation. n.d. Voting Laws and Requirements 11. Minnite, Lorraine C. 2007. The Politics of Voter Fraud. Research, Project Vote.

12. United States Government Accountability Office. 2014. Issues Related to State Voter Identification Laws 13. National Conference of State Legislatures. 2019. Automatic Voter Registration.

14. File, Thom. 2018. “Characteristics of Voters in the Presidential Election of 2016.”

United States Census Bureau 15. Davis, Susan A. 2019. Congress.gov. January 3 16. Root, Danielle, and Liz Kennedy. 2018. Increasing Voter Participation in America.

17. The Sentencing Project. 2019. Disenfranchisement News: After win in Florida, Iowa and Kentucky consider reform.

Conclusion Voter participation in America is abysmal. With only a little over half of the country making decisions on who should lead, the current democratic process is very flawed. In no way will the proposed changes of voter registration, nationwide alternative voting options, and felony disenfranchisement completely solve the participation problem in the United States but it will help with the addition of new voters and increased turnout with alternatives to the traditional voting day polls. Electoral reform in the United States will help to increase the representation of more Americans in the elected officials chosen and it will help to create a more efficient and reliable system.

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School Integration through School Attendance Boundary (SAB) Re-Zoning Samuel Ropa

Problem Statement

I

n the decades following Brown v. Board of Education (1954), schools were consistently less segregated than the neighborhoods from which they drew students. But in recent decades, school segregation has plateaued, or in some cases increased, despite a modest decline in residential segregation (Fiel 2013). This suggests that schools are now as segregated (Ong and Rickles 2004) or more segregated than neighborhoods the attending students live in (Saporito and Sohoni 2006; Sohoni and Saporito 2009). Recent research suggests school zoning policies maintain school segregation by exacting attendance boundaries that reproduce residential segregation (Richards 2014), but that these boundaries can be drawn to ameliorate the effects of segregation (Monarrez 2018; Chang 2018). This memo will present a number of ways local governments can weaken the link between residence and school assignment through school zoning policy.

Background Since the 1980s, students of each non-white minority groups have attended schools with fewer and fewer white students—an apparent resegregation of U.S. schools (Fiel 2013). In some parts of the United States, schools are the most racially segregated they have been since 1970, the peak of school integration in the U.S. (Fiel 2013).

In the era after Brown v. Board (1954), which ended the de jure segregation of U.S. schools, many districts were placed under desegregation orders by lower federal courts, but the 1980s saw to a dramatic withdrawal of this judicial oversight and to the Supreme Court’s opposition to court-ordered desegregation plans (Jackson 2009; Lutz 2011; Baum-Snow and Lutz 2011). While a few Supreme Court rulings invalidated desegregation plans that tried to remedy de facto residential segregation, most residential segregation targeted by these orders is de jure—the intended result of a government policy (Rothstein 2017). While the decline in judicial oversight may have a had an effect on school segregation (Reardon, Yun, and Eitle 2000; Reardon and Yun 2001), I will focus on school zoning as a mechanism for affecting school integration.

This shift in focus, from court-ordered desegregation plans to school attendance boundaries, has taken place in the decade following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Parent Involved v. Seattle Sch. Dist. 1 (2007). While Justice Kennedy’s decision found the individualized use of race in student school assignments unconstitutional, he didn’t prohibit school boards from considering the racial makeup of schools and basing district policy on the considerations. Given the compelling interest in school diversity, Kennedy writes, local authorities could—and should—use alternative means of achieving school integration:

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“School boards may pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race.” – Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 551 U.S. 701, 720 (2007) [emphasis added] Notably, drawing and redrawing attendance boundaries is the only policy alternative the Court’s ruling that doesn’t rely on a choice-based mechanism to integrate schools.

Other policies: strategically locating schools; targeted hiring of students and faculty of color through specific programs; recording student academic performance, all presume that students and faculty will respond to market interventions. Under these policies, integration becomes a matter of public choice; but local authorities could establish a school that is strategically located, well-resourced, and transparent about student performance but still segregated--if the SAB is drawn to reflect residential segregation patterns.

School attendance boundaries (SABs) are the mechanism that links public school attendance rights to student residential address; they are the most widely used student assignment mechanism in U.S. public school systems. SABs are drawn by local school district officials without much state or federal oversight. They draw the lines through these steps: “(i) a new SAB map is proposed by district staff; (ii) the school board makes public this proposed change, often times directly notifying residences subject to reassignment; (iii) Public meetings take place for individuals to voice their support or concern with the proposed changes; (iv) the board votes to approve the plan or to amend it” (Monarrez 2018).

School attendance boundaries are updated frequently to account for neighborhood demographic changes (which can result in school overcrowding), new school construction, and travel distances to schools. Because these decisions often involve entire communities, changes to SABs are subject to considerable debate (Hannah-Jones 2016).

potential to segregate (Orfield 2002; Clotfelter 2004).

Because SABs have a direct effect on composing school bodies they can ameliorate or exacerbate residential segregation patterns depending on how they are drawn. To reverse the resegregation of U.S. school systems suggest that policymakers “consider how school district boundaries are drawn and altered over time, and examine ways to weaken the link between residence and school assignment” (Fiel 2013).

I consider this link, and ways to weaken it, through an empirical framework measuring the extent to which current SABs strengthen or minimize residential segregation in schools (Monarrez 2018). These measurements reflect districts’ effective preference, or demand, for desegregation, revealed in their school zoning choices. Monarrez (2018) finds the two strongest influences on a district’s demand for desegregation (reflected in its zoning choices) are i.) active desegregation court orders, which increases demand, and ii.) racial intolerance among local whites, assessed through survey data, which is negatively correlated with racially-balanced SABs. These findings suggest that while zoning policy responds to pressure from above, community-level racism greatly affects local policy outcomes.

Recommendations The objective of public school systems must be complete school integration which will rely on weakening the link between student residence and school assignment. This objective can be realized through the redrawing of SABs. But redrawing SABs in a way that doesn’t reflect underlying residential segregation may be costly for districts; presumably, students would have to be bussed from further away from their schools. To lower the ‘costs’ associated with SAB redrawing, federal money should be made available to districts pursuing school integration through bussing. Holding districts to specific school integration targets is more difficult, but there should be a policy index, or policy guidance, that encourages districts to draw more racially and ethnically integrative SABs. What follows are two actions that weaken the link between residence and school assignment through SAB policy;

Most empirical studies of educational boundaries, like SABs, focus on the indirect effect they have on residential decision-making. According to theories of public choice (Tiebout 1956), residential decisions are a function of their individual preferences and the public services offered in a jurisdiction; families choose their neighborhoods based both on its racial or ethnic composition and the schools their children will attend. Under this view it is obvious how school boundaries, by affecting residential decision-making, have the

i.) Proposed SABs should be compared to a published policy index measuring the extent to which the boundaries will reflect the residential segregation of the neighborhood.

I suggest using a simple model, similar to the one proposed by Monarrez (2018) which assumed as the two features of SABs the level of racial integration in the school system and the daily distance travelled by students to school. This model then specifies district demand for desegregation as a function of the price of desegregation in terms of extra travel distance (travel costs) and a “district level demand shifter” (a changing variable that affects the willingness of a district to assume the price of desegregation.) The model

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which will become the index should be tested against census block data and an algorithm representing rezoning processes. For an in-depth discussion of methodology see Monarrez (2018) and Richards (2014).

The policy index—which quantitatively measures local governments’ preference for racial equity in their school systems—should be used as a benchmark by school districts setting zoning policies and by state and federal government agencies overseeing the integration efforts of local public schools.

This index is not an exhaustive assessment of desegregation and its limitations must be acknowledged. While indicative of the districts’ preferences for racially balanced SABs, the index says nothing of student performance or family well-being. Racial or ethnic gaps in student achievement; racial disparities in suspension, expulsion, or in-school arrests; long-term measures of socio-economic well-being all are not accounted for in rezoning policy, and are certainly not reflected in this model. ii.) Congress must remove language prohibiting the use of federal funds for school integration purposes from annual appropriations bills.

Despite longstanding concerns about federal intervention in local school governance, there are serious benefits to optimizing local, state and federal school integration policy.

The most recent round of federal appropriations bills again included Sections 301 and 302, provisions barring federal funds from being used for transportation for school integration purposes (Cohen 2018). The provisions have been included since 1974, remnants of political opposition to the federal desegregation mandate; during the period of active court desegregation orders, congress was ensuring that integration would be short lived.

Sections 301 and 302 appear to directly conflict with aspects of the 2015 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) by limiting the school improvement strategies available to State and Local Educational Agencies (SEAs and LEAs) under the law (“Letter to Congressional Leadership” 2017). Under the ESSA, Title I School Improvement Funds are available to support district level efforts to increase diversity and reduce socio-economic, ethnic, or racial isolation in schools—like considering racial demographics when drawing SABs. The Sections also limit the improvements schools can explore under the ESSA’s Education Innovation and Research grant program, which funds research into school integration techniques. Experiments in integrative bussing and rezoning could well be that would be denied funding under 301 and 302.

Congress must clarify its position on whether federal funds may be used for school improvement strategies and research that involve transportation for racial desegregation.

The education and social benefits associated with socio-economically and racially diverse schools are large enough to justify the removal of this language (Eaton 2011).

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There is some evidence that striking the language would lower the marginal costs of drawing racially-balanced SABs, raising districts’ effective preference for desegregation.

Research suggests that, because “districts follow the law demand when setting boundaries—the cheaper it is to achieve a racially balanced school system, the more likely they are to draw SABs that do so” (Monarrez 2018) federal subsidies for student transportation costs would result in a higher demand for desegregation.

Endnotes 1. Baum-Snow, N., and B.F. Lutz. 2011. “School Desegregation, School Choice, and Changes in Residential Location Patterns by Race.” American Economic Review 101: 3019–46.

2. Chang, Alvin. 2018. “We Can Draw School Zones to Make Classrooms Less Segregated. This Is How Well Your District Does.” Vox. 2018. https://www.vox. com/2018/1/8/16822374/school-segregation-gerrymander-map.

3. Clotfelter, C. 2004. After Brown: The Rise and Retreat of School Segregation.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

4. Cohen, Rachel M. 2018. “Congress Still Won’t Pay for Busing to Desegregate Schools.”

Next City. 2018. https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/congress-still-wont-pay-for-busing-todesegregate-schools.

5. Eaton, Susan. 2011. “How the Racial and Socioeconomic Composition of Schools and Classrooms Contributes to Literacy, Behavioral Climate, Instructional Organization and High School Graduation Rates.”

6. Fiel, Jeremy. 2013. “Decomposing School Resegregation: Social Closure, Racial Imbalance, and Racial Isolation.” American Sociological Review 78 (5): 828–48.

7. Hannah-Jones, N. 2016. “Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City.”

New York Times Magazine, 2016.

8. Jackson, C.K. 2009. “Student Demographics, Teacher Sorting, and Teacher Quality: Evidence from the End of School Desegregation.” Journal of Labor Economics 27: 213–256.

9. “Letter to Congressional Leadership.” 2017. The National Coalition on School Diversity.

Lutz, B.F. 2011. “The End of Court-Ordered Desegregation.” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 3: 130–68.

10. Monarrez, Tomas. 2018. “Attendance Boundary Policy and the Segregation of Public Schools in the United States.” Berkeley, CA. 11. Ong, P.M., and J. Rickles. 2004. “The Continued Nexus between School and Residential Segregation.” Berkeley Women’s Law Journal 19: 379–94.

12. Orfield, M. 2002. “American Metropolitics: The New Suburban Reality.” Washington D.C. 13. Reardon, S.F., J.T. Yun, and T.M. Eitle. 2000. “The Changing Structure of School Segregation: Measurement and Evidence of Multiracial Metropolitan-Area School

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Segregation, 1989–1995.” Demography 37: 351–64.

14. Reardon, S.F., and S.F. Yun. 2001. “Integrating Neighborhoods, Segregating Schools: The Retreat from School Desegregation in the South, 1990–2000.” North Carolina Law Review 81: 1563–96.

15. Richards, Meredith. 2014. “The Gerrymandering of School Attendance Zones and the Segregation of Public Schools.” American Educational Research Journal 51 (6): 1119–57.

16. Rothstein, Richard. 2017. The Color of Law. New York: Liverwright Publishing Corporation.

17. Saporito, Salvatore, and D Sohoni. 2006. “Coloring Outside the Lines: Racial Segregation in Public Schools and Their Attendance Boundaries.” Sociology of Education 79: 81–105.

18. Sohoni, D., and Salvatore Saporito. 2009. “Using GIS to Explore Racial Segregation between Schools and Their Corresponding Attendance Areas.” American Journal of Education 115: 569–600.

19. Tiebout, C.M. 1956. “A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures.” Journal of Political Economy 64 (5): 416–24.

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Transit Investments in the City of Milwaukee Aniket Sangwan

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Proposal

T

Employment has suburbanized

he city of Milwaukee should not invest in streetcars (the Hop) but in intersuburban bus networks.

Introduction As car ownership rates rebound and ride-hailing apps become increasingly popular, the absence of public transport from America has never been felt greater. With the costs of making new subway lines becoming increasingly hard to justify, American cities are investing in light rail (LRT). Most of these plans involve creating a high capacity line along a major thoroughfare. In the context of Wisconsin, Milwaukee has already opened a part of the streetcar, The Hop and there are plans to expand it within downtown.

However, at the core of this policy is an assumption that people will over time either move closer to the system (also known as Transit-oriented Development) or that there is already existing high demand around these routes. These new lines being built rarely take into account the suburbanization of employment centers, housing, and recreational facilities and thus end up losing money. In order to have a successful transit system, we need to have transit for not just the city but for the metropolitan area. Inter suburban networks are key for decongesting cities and become liveable. The current policies are only going to burden the residents of the urban counties, disproportionately affecting minority communities, while doing little to encourage a shift to public transport. Instead of investing in high capacity lines that will remain underutilized, Wisconsin should invest in more bus services connecting the suburbs to each other, creating a dependable network of public transit.

The fallacy of the traditional system Traditional transit systems with high capacity lines merging through downtown have been the staple for American transit design. It follows the idea of a Central Business District which houses most of the jobs and a population that commutes to the CBD. This model works well for places like New York City where most of the work is concentrated in Manhattan and lines can be drawn merging in there. However, since WWII, most cities have suburbanized. The metropolitan population of Milwaukee-Racine-Waukesha area is 2,043,904 people out of which the City of Milwaukee only has 594,833 people. So while designing a transit system, it should be the entire population of the metroplex that should be considered and not just the main city.

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Newer cities are suburbanized in their population as well as employment centers.

According to a Brookings report, most jobs in metropolitan areas suburbanized rapidly from 1998 onwards.1 Out of the 10 largest employers in the Milwaukee area, only 3 are in Milwaukee County.2 A study of traffic flows3 during evening rush hour shows that there is a large amount of traffic on highways such as I41 and I94 that connect important suburbs such as New Berlin, Greenfield, Wauwatosa, West Allis, and Menomonee Falls.

There is also significant traffic between the city of Milwaukee and the suburbs. Therefore, proposing a high capacity transit line that runs within downtown like the Hop fails to address any major traffic flows within the metropolitan area.

Investments & Costs LRT is also touted as a big investment project that will rejuvenate the local economy.

However, by its limited extent, it is not able to draw people until the system expands considerably. Wisconsin neither has the population density nor the scarcity of roads to justify these investments. If implemented, these will only drain public funds in subsidizing the travel costs of a few people.

While many planners propose that new projects can franchise minority communities living in urban neighborhoods, they end up doing essentially the opposite by saddling them with unsustainable debt. It has been proposed many times that cities should not look at streetcars from just transit profitability perspective. It is true that streetcars and good public systems, in general, can provide a boost to the local economy, help to cut harmful emissions and bring higher social utility to people. However, even when accounted for these additional benefits, Milwaukeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s investments cannot be justified.4 The average Light Rail Transit costs $51.06mn/mile.5 The costs vary depending on the region and are likely to be higher in areas with higher real estate prices. Added to this is the cost of regular operations and maintenance, the cost of employees, training and fuel costs (electricity).

Since most of the lines are for the downtown district, it is essentially these communities that end up facing the brunt of losses. The disproportional impact of wrong investment decisions comes down heavily on counties that are composed predominantly of inner cities, exacerbating their already dire financial situation. Milwaukee, being one of the most segregated cities in the US has a distribution where the inner city and most urban areas are predominantly African Americans and immigrants, whereas the suburbs are majority-White. The consequences of wrong investments in form of capital intensive projects will be ultimately borne by the minority communities of the region, who are already struggling financially due to the flight of job creators.

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Case Study- Sacramento

Appendix

Sacramento is a suburbanized city with a population similar to that of Milwaukee area, which built light rail in 1987. Sacramento’s project cost $12.4mn per mi (in 2000 dollars) and has seen decreasing ridership over time. Adding to this, the center city share of the urbanized area and the rate of use of transit has gone down over time. Today the network spans around 43 miles and has ~39,000 riders equating to 906 riders per mile. This translates to $13,686 in construction cost per rider in the first year. This does not include the cost of operations and maintenance, wages for employees, insurance and damages, etc. The city also recently had to reduce fares to encourage ridership to $2.5 for a round trip.6 The light rail did not achieve its stated goal of increasing ridership and making public transit more popular.

Transit mode share of most cities has been fast declining and since the early 2000s has stabilized, despite the addition of new route miles. For cities of comparable size like Buffalo and Sacramento (to Madison and Milwaukee respectively) has ended up little less than 4%.

Detroit, a declining industrial city like Milwaukee, implemented its “People mover” streetcar system in 1987. Like Milwaukee, the streetcar focuses on the downtown areas and has little transit utility. Another one of Detroit’s streetcars, the Q line has struggled to reach even half of its projected ridership.7 Similar examples can be seen in Cincinnati’s Bell Connector, Salt Lake City’s Sugar House line, and Atlanta Streetcar.

Solutions For commuters, the utility of having direct connections to their destinations is high.

Therefore, transit systems in Wisconsin should aim at providing more bus routes with direct connections between residential areas and job centers, instead of investing in capital intensive projects through downtown. This can be achieved by investing more in bus routes that provide inter-suburban connections. For example, in Milwaukee, decentralizing the bus system by enhancing capacity for movement between suburbs such as Wauwatosa and Menomonee Falls would lead to higher transit usage. Milwaukee area should also create more hubs for their outer cities and offer non-stop services for large employers.

Conclusion Public transit is vital for our communities, not just for providing low-income people to travel between their jobs and homes but also for people who do not drive a car. There is a growing movement amongst urban millennials to move towards low carbon-emitting forms of transportation. It is also vital for disabled people in the community and those who can not afford a car. Having said that, our investments in public transport should be rational and provide social benefit to society. Saddling urban counties with the debt of projects that end up being underutilized is not fiscal prudence. The city of Milwaukee should, therefore, invest in creating additional capacity for connecting suburbs with each other and with the downtown instead of creating lines in downtown only.

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Screenshot from Wisconsin DoT’s maps on traffic flows within the Milwaukee area showing major traffic flows during evening rush hour.

Endnotes 1. Raphael, S., Stoll, M., Raphael, S., & Stoll, M. (2016, July 28). Job Sprawl and the Suburbanization of Poverty. Retrieved from https://www.brookings.edu/research/jobsprawl-and-the-suburbanization-of-poverty/ 2. Major employers in metro Milwaukee. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mmac.org/ major-employers-in-metro-milwaukee.html 3. Retrieved from https://wisdot.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index. html?id=2e12a4f051de4ea9bc865ec6393731f8 4. MacIver Institute. “MacIver Study Refutes Economic Development Claims of Milwaukee Streetcar Project.” MacIver Institute. Accessed April 13, 2019. http://www. maciverinstitute.com/2012/05/maciver-study-refutes-economic-development-claims-ofmilwaukee-streetcar-project/.

5. Levy, Alon. “Why Does Urban Rail Cost So Much in the U.S.?” CityLab. December 19, 2018. Accessed April 13, 2019. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/whyits-so-expensive-to-build-urban-rail-in-the-us/551408/.

6. Bliss, Laura, Laura Bliss, and CityLab. “Enough With the Streetcars Already.”

CityLab. October 02, 2017. Accessed April 11, 2019. https://www.citylab.com/ transportation/2017/09/enough-with-the-streetcars-already/541365/.

7. Bliss, Laura, and Laura Bliss. “The Joys of Detroit’s Ridiculous People Mover.”

CityLab. November 05, 2018. Accessed April 13, 2019. https://www.citylab. com/transportation/2018/11/detroit-people-mover-elevated-train-transitboonboggle/574660/.

8. Freemark, Yonah, Yonah Freemark, The Transport Politic, and New York Times. “Have U.S. Light Rail Systems Been Worth the Investment?” CityLab. May 22, 2014. Accessed April 13, 2019. https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2014/04/have-us-light-railsystems-been-worth-investment/8838/.

9. The 8 most congested roads in North Texas. (2018, August 07). Retrieved from https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/the-8-most-congested-roads-in-northtexas/287-581419516

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Rejuvenating Arctic Policy A Roadmap Forward Michael J. Sauer

Problem Statement

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he Russian Federation is assertively exerting state power in the Arctic region.

Buoyed by a vast Arctic infrastructural arrangement – comprising of several naval bases, electronic warfare outposts, and airfield defense locations – Russia is positioning itself to dominate the Arctic sphere through military and commercial operations. As Russia resurrects shuttered military installments from the Soviet era, new military bases are simultaneously in the works.1 Calculated measures have been implemented to assert control over strategic areas consistent with extraction potential of natural gas reserves, namely the construction of liquefied natural gas plants.2 In sum, these actions insinuate Russia’s ambition to establish Arctic hegemony, an unfolding that runs counter to American strategic interests, which emphasize cooperative Arctic relations, preserving national security, and promoting scientific research.3 This policy memorandum will further contextualize Russia’s commitment to the Arctic, discuss shortcomings of U.S. policy, and discuss the role of the Arctic Council – an intergovernmental forum – on Arctic affairs. The memo will propose one comprehensive solution the United States can employ to counterbalance Russian actions and achieve peace. While demilitarizing the Arctic is an admirable goal, it is an untenable proposition.

Russian state power has lasting historical roots in resource extraction. Applying military assets to secure these resources is an instinctual Russian response, which ties the plight of demilitarization to that of ending Russia’s drive to procure resources. Attempting to pressure Russia away from the Arctic, through sanctions or other forms of sharp power, will be perceived by Russia as Western domineering, playing into a narrative to intensify militarization. Already heavily sanctioned, Russia prevails in the Arctic. No American policy can convince Russia to surrender the Arctic’s promising reserves; therefore, any chance for demilitarization is virtually unachievable.

Instead, developing a responsible Arctic strategy is the most salient and practical objective the United States can realize. Such a strategy entails securing U.S. national interests in the Arctic by rectifying military and governmental inefficiencies, procuring more icebreakers, and seeking improved international communication. I will propose a medium to longterm course of action that harmonizes these facets in pursuit of securing strategic interests while accentuating the need for peace among nations.

Background Vladimir Putin’s ascendency to the Russian presidency in 2000 grounded Russia’s Arctic policy to the ‘Basics of State Policy of the Russian Federation’.4 Russian pursuits in the Arctic became tied exclusively to “defense and security to the maximum degree.”

Subsequent installments of Arctic national security policy refined Russia’s military objectives to maintaining a robust Arctic presence by amassing modern military

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capabilities and technology.5 The Russian 2009-2020 National Security Strategy defined the Arctic “as a strategic resource base”6 and proposed utilizing military assets in the Northern expanse to thwart threats to national security. A precise definition for what constitutes a ‘threat’ was knowingly unprovided to maximize decisional latitude. With political consensus being the foundational bedrock to exercising military power, the Russian Federation, over the course of two decades, has acquired a strong partiality for its presence in the Arctic.

Ministry of Defense revealed ambitions to reboot over 100 installations.9 Beyond providing immediate security, ports and army military bases were built at some of these locations,10 evoking a discernable offensive impression. Military exercises have perceptibly metastasized: they now incorporate a broad stroke of potential fighting domains. The Vostok 2014 exercise comprised of combat ground assault divisions, ballistic missile systems, air defenses, and more.11 By the start of 2015, the Russian Federation had centralized an entire Arctic combatant command charged with protecting, administering, and developing the Russian Arctic.12 Russia’s disposition on the Arctic has hardened as it considers its extensive geostrategic and militaristic potential.

Intimidation is another instrument frequently employed by Russia. Neighboring countries are intercepting Russian aircraft in violation of territorial airspace at increasing rates,13 worrying Nordic nations in particular. Additionally troublesome for Arctic nations is Russia’s accessibility to the Arctic, made possible via a healthy-sized icebreaker fleet – ships designed to penetrate through thick sea ice. Russia has 40 icebreakers in operation, and as of 2018, was constructing 11 more.14 Comparatively speaking, the United States operates just two. Russia’s extensive collection permits enhanced maneuverability and reach into the Arctic, by which Russia consolidates military power away from and before other Arctic nations. Because of their extensive influence, icebreakers have the distinct capability of mapping the Arctic’s continental shelves and ocean floor. Russia utilizes these primarily for the detection of natural resources.

7

By 2007, aerial and naval patrols in the Arctic recommenced for the first time since the Cold War. They comprised of a bevy of strategic bombers and Northern Fleet vessels. The Northern Fleet, a consortium of submarines, lager ships, and icebreakers, is renowned for its nuclear capacity and operability within the Arctic, making it an indispensable component of Russia’s presence. Naval patrols have further extended into Danish and Norwegian waters.8 Missile defense has been the recipient of considerable sourcing. Numerous air defense bases have built to line Russia’s border with the Arctic Ocean. In 2017, the Russian

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While Russia clearly interprets the magnitude of the Arctic, the United States haphazardly acknowledges the stakes in contention through relevant policy measures. For instance, the U.S. has no single strategic command designated with full authority over the Arctic.

Instead, the Pacific, European, and Northern Commands possess competing claims to the Arctic – ensuring contrasting approaches to the Arctic arise. A similar dilemma exists within the U.S. federal government. Various governmental agencies, ranging from the Department of Energy to the Department of State, share a common mandate to the Arctic, yet they function independently.15 Coordinating across agencies, albeit possible, inefficiently synchronizes policy making because communication is fractious amongst several entities, raising the likelihood that policies promulgated by the same federal government are contradictory.

Finally, the Arctic Council plays a key role in Arctic affairs. Formed by the 1996 Ottawa Declaration, the Arctic Council is a forum whose membership comprises of every Arctic nation, Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the Russian Federation, and the United States, non-Arctic observer nations, and representatives for the Arctic’s indigenous peoples. The Council operates through a variety of working groups, programs, and task forces, with domains ranging from sustainable development to protecting the marine environment. It has engineered remarkable success in practice and image. The Arctic Council has produced several agreements, from scientific collaboration to oil

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pollution, that have full legal effect in member nations.16 Perceptually, the Council has nurtured a forum predicated on goodwill and authentic cooperation, to the extent that other conflict-prone regions seek to duplicate the organization.17 By concentrating on a regional basis, the Council has generated noteworthy results; however, it has made no inroads on security and geopolitical issues.

single vessel and provide ample time to resolve mechanical complications, should they arise, without compromising mission readiness. A copious fleet also bolsters the speed with which the United States can thoroughly map the Arctic. In doing so, the United States can identify areas that sustain fragile ecosystems, contain abundant natural resources, and advance scientific research.

Policy Solution

The third element entails restructuring the various governmental agencies charged with an Arctic-oriented assignment, including the Departments of Energy, Defense, State, and Interior, into a single task force within the Department of State. Centralizing management within the State Department will enhance interagency communication, eliminate conflicting national policy, and equip the task force with a multidimensional grasp on Arctic affairs. Additionally, it would provide a vital counterweight to the DoD’s Arctic command when shaping national policy Securing the task force’s independence assures the organization is not beholden to department-specific objectives that negate the larger picture of Arctic policy. In this manner, the U.S. can channel its military, economic, and diplomatic power into a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Leading scholars Jim Dolbow and Dr. Ariel Cohen, from the U.S. Naval Institute and the Heritage Foundation respectively, concur that this policy would revamp America’s presence in the Arctic.20

U.S. Arctic policy sits at a critical junction. To best formulate an American strategy, I submit a four-point proposal that amalgamates U.S. military and diplomatic power into synchronized packages, while expanding communicatory channels. All components of the strategy should be enacted concurrently, with duration over the medium to long-term.

Over time, this policy can be modified to parallel ongoing developments.

The first element involves the creation of a new unified strategic command of the United States military with exclusive jurisdiction over the Arctic. Currently, this burden is split between several different combatant commands, none of which consider the Arctic to be their highest priority. A separate, independent command would provide two-fold benefits. First, removing the Arctic from each current command’s responsibility lessens their respective burdens. More time can then be devoted to weightier challenges. Second, the Arctic command would consolidate Arctic affairs more exhaustively than several independent commands could. Compiling intelligence, interpreting events, projecting trends, and developing strategy in the Arctic would be the foremost focuses of the command. Its unbound attention to the Arctic would generate a far more impactful national military strategy than segregated commands that each perceive the Arctic as inconsequential. The formation of an Arctic command would send a discernable message to the world signaling heightened commitment to the Arctic.

The second element necessitates the acquisition of an icebreaker fleet of at least six vessels. Presently, the U.S. fleet is chronically overburdened. Two icebreakers alone are incapable of fulfilling the Coast Guard’s current mission and future assignments.

Here, overreliance has cost the United States dearly. Polar Star, one of America’s two icebreakers, is now 12 years beyond its official decommissioning and is plagued with unfailing power outages, engine leaks, and trips to maintenance.18 Every visit to maintenance sidelines its operational integrity, often forcing the U.S. to manage with just a single icebreaker. The Coast Guard has expressed its demand for six fully functional vessels immediately.19 To satisfy this order, the United States must systematically overhaul its complacent disposition to icebreakers by allocating sufficient budgetary resources to the planning, managing, and production of the Coast Guard’s request. In sincerity, the United States should significantly exceed the Coast Guard’s appeal. This can be completed by developing a ten-year plan with ambitions to manufacture ten icebreakers. Surpassing the Coast Guard’s request will alleviate undue demand on any

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Finally, the U.S. should integrate a Communications Task Force (CTF) within the Arctic Council’s structure. Such a measure could become integral to preserving peace in the Arctic; thus, it’s imperative to appreciate the CTF’s potential. The CTF’s central purpose would be to streamline communication between Arctic states, namely in the realm of security. As the Arctic continues melting and yielding new expanses, states will be inclined to position more commercial and military assets in the region. The potential for a geopolitical emergency to erupt, as a consequence of growing presences, will surge. In response, the CTF would serve as a central intermediary to assuage tensions, convey intentions, and coordinate policy to sidestep further turmoil. The CTF would be serviceable to all Council members and indigenous representatives.

Reaching consensus on urgent security matters may demand the existence of a neutral third-party. The Arctic Council’s current structure already contains this arrangement by virtue of its eight independent members. Council members may decide to elevate the CTF to full working group status or assign it more responsibilities, such as handling geopolitical issues, as seen fit. Fostering transparency through international dialogue in, during, and before crises may forever be the only mission of the CTF, but the trustbuilding atmosphere embodied by the Arctic Council may ultimately permeate through the CTF and into geopolitical matters. Surrounding the CTF with this same aura of cooperation can unleash a lasting era of peace, security, and prosperity for all Arctic nations.

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Conclusion All said, the United States must come to grips with the understanding that its existing Arctic policy is woefully inadequate to thrive in the ever-evolving Arctic landscape.

Further, it must correctly diagnose the limits of its power by recognizing it cannot practically encumber Russia’s determined campaign in the Arctic. Therefore, the United States is better positioned realizing its own potential within the Arctic. Over the medium to long-term, the U.S. can sharpen its Arctic policy by constructing new military and governmental institutions, reinforcing its feeble icebreaker fleet, and enriching existing international architecture to strengthen intergovernmental communication. These levers of efficiency, military, and diplomacy can profoundly ameliorate America’s present trajectory to achieving both international stability and strategic interests. As the Arctic undergoes rapid changes, so too must American policy expeditiously follow suit. The immediacy for change implores the United States to implement a new vision moving forward, and this proposal offers a durable strategy for the future yet to come.

Endnotes 1. Pavel Dvyatkin, “Russia’s Arctic Strategy: Military and Security (Part II),” The Arctic Institute, 13 February 2018, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/russias-arctic-militaryand-security-part-two/, Accessed 3 April 2019.

2. Olga Tanas, Dina Khrennikova, and Anna Shiryaevskaya, “Russia Expands LNG Operations in Arctic,” World Oil, 8 April 2019, https://www.worldoil.com/ news/2019/4/8/russia-expands-lng-operations-in-arctic, Accessed 11 April 2019.3.

“NSPD-66: Arctic Region Policy,” The White House, 9 January 2009, https://fas.org/irp/ offdocs/nspd/nspd-66.pdf, Accessed 2 April 2019 4. President of the Russian Federation (2001) Osnovy gosudarstvennoy politiki Rossiyskoy Federatsii v Arktike [Basics of the Russian Federation State Policy in the Arctic] Government of the Russian Federation, www.sci.aha.ru/econ/A111c.htm, Accessed on 4 April 2019.

5. President of the Russian Federation (2008) Osnovy gosudarstvennoy politiki Rossiyskoy Federatsii v Arktike na period do 2020 goda i dal’neyshuyu perspektivu” [Foundations of the state policy of the Russian Federation in the Arctic for the period until 2020 and beyond] Rossiyskaya Gazeta (4877), 18 September, rg.ru/2009/03/30/ arktika-osnovy-dok.html, Accessed on 9 April 2019.

6. Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (2009) O Strategii natsional’noy bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii do 2020 goda,” [On the National Security Strategy of the Russian Federation until 2020] Rossiyskaya Gazeta (4912), 19 May, rg.ru/2009/05/19/strategia-dok.html, Accessed 4 April 2019.

7. Robbie Gramer, “Here’s What Russia’s Military Build-Up in the Arctic Looks Like,” Foreign Policy, 25 January 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/25/heres-what-

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russias-military-build-up-in-the-arctic-looks-like-trump-oil-military-high-northinfographic-map/, Accessed 4 April 2019.

8. Zysk K (2008) Russian Military Power and the Arctic, The EU-Russia Centre Review: Russian Foreign Policy, (8): 80-86.

9. Pavel Dvyatkin, “Russia’s Arctic Strategy: Military and Security (Part II),” The Arctic Institute, 13 February 2018, https://www.thearcticinstitute.org/russias-arctic-militaryand-security-part-two/, Accessed 3 April 2019.

10. Grishchenko N (2017) Rossiya postroit v Arktike boleye 100 voyennykh ob”yektov, [Russia will build in the Arctic more than 100 military facilities], Russkoe Oruzhie [Russian Weapons], 26 January, rg.ru/2017/01/26/reg-szfo/rossiia-postroit-v-arktikebolee-100-voennyh-obektov.html, Accessed on 5 April 2019.

11. “Russia’s Plans for Arctic Supremacy,” Stratfor, 16 January 2015, https://worldview. stratfor.com/article/russias-plans-arctic-supremacy, Accessed 4 April 2019.

12. “Russia: The Mystery of the Arctic Sea,” Stratfor, 16 September 2009, https:// worldview.stratfor.com/article/russia-mystery-arctic-sea, Accessed 4 April 2019.

13. “Russia Perturbed by US Troops in Norway,” Independent, 23 October 2016, https:// www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-us-troops-norway-vaernes-ukrainesyria-a7376596.html, Accessed 4 April 2019.

14. Robbie Gramer, “Here’s What Russia’s Military Build-Up in the Arctic Looks Like,” Foreign Policy, 25 January 2017, https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/01/25/heres-whatrussias-military-build-up-in-the-arctic-looks-like-trump-oil-military-high-northinfographic-map/, Accessed 4 April 2019.

15. Ariel Cohen, Jim Dolbow, and Lajos F. Szaszdi, “The New Cold War: Reviving the U.S. Presence in the Arctic,” The Heritage Foundation, 30 October 2008, https://www.heritage. org/environment/report/the-new-cold-war-reviving-the-us-presence-the-arctic, Accessed 5 April 2019.

16. “The Arctic Council: A Backgrounder,” Arctic Council, Last updated 15 September 2018, https://arctic-council.org/index.php/en/about-us, Accessed 4 April 2019.

17. Omar Ahmad, “Can the Arctic Council’s success be replicated in South Asia?”, Observer Research Foundation, 11 February 2019 https://www.orfonline.org/expertspeak/can-arctic-council-success-replicated-south-asia/, Accessed 7 April 2019.

18. Nicholas Kusnetz, “One of America’s Two Icebreaker Ships is Falling Apart. Trump’s Wall Could Block Funding For a New One,” NBC News, 1 February 2019, https://www. nbcnews.com/news/military/one-america-s-two-icebreaker-ships-falling-apart-trumps-n965766, Accessed 5 April 2019.

19. Jeremy Hsu, “U.S. Icebreaker Fleet Is Overdue for an Upgrade,” Scientific American, 1 June 2017, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/u-s-icebreaker-fleet-is-overduefor-an-upgrade/, Accessed 5 April 2019.

20. Ariel Cohen, Jim Dolbow, and Lajos F. Szaszdi, “The New Cold War: Reviving the U.S. Presence in the Arctic,” The Heritage Foundation, 30 October 2008, https://www.heritage. org/environment/report/the-new-cold-war-reviving-the-us-presence-the-arctic, Accessed 5 April 2019.

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Climate Change, Water, and Security The Levant Drought and Syrian Refugee Crisis Mollye Shacklette

Introduction

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ountries in the Middle East face unique hurdles in natural resource management, as a relatively water-poor region with an extensive history of agricultural land use and irrigation needs. Recently, population growth trends coupled with natural disasters associated with climate change have exacerbated the difficulty of providing sufficient drinking water and sanitation services to these populations. The 2007-2010 drought that occurred in the Levant region was the worst drought for 900 years and affected food and water security in many countries. One of the hardest-hit regions was in Syria, which experienced a mass migration of refugees both internally and externally to other countries. The occurrence of the climate changeassociated drought and the beginning of the refugee crisis in 2011 suggests an association between climate change and migration. However, other factors inherent to Syria, including the inability of the government to shelter citizens from the detrimental effects of the drought, contributed to the “socioeconomic drought” that occurred, which disrupted agriculture, food prices, the larger economy, and ultimately fueled the tensions that would later break out into conflict.

The Syrian Refugee Crisis The Syrian refugee crisis has had a staggering human toll—5.6 million refugees have migrated from Syria to neighboring countries and others that have accepted migrants, including Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, and Lebanon. This migration followed the Syrian government’s crackdowns on demonstrations during the 2011 Arab Spring with the largest outflow occurring in 2013.

Within Syria, 6.6 million have lost their homes and migrated internally to other regions; overall, since 2011, more than half of the population of Syria has been displaced either internally or externally. Refugees in foreign countries often live in large camps placed

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outside urban areas, where resources for water and sanitation are scarce and have to be organized and administered by either the host government or international aid organizations. However, estimates place the proportion of refugees in camps at approximately 10%, whereas a majority of 90% are estimated to live within countries’ urban centers, creating new challenges for water supply and management in a relatively water-poor region (UNHCR). In Jordan, 673,414 registered refugees have been accepted, of which 125,854 live in camps and 547,560 live out of camps. The northern governates closest to the Jordan-Syrian border, including Mafraq, Irbid, Zarqa, and Amman, are the most pressured regions of Jordan to supply sufficient drinking water to these populations, as they host a cumulative of about 90% of the refugees (USA for UN).

the “most severe set of crop failures since agricultural civilizations began in the Fertile Crescent many millennia ago” (Dinic). Syrian agriculture suffered drastic declines in output, particularly amongst water-intensive crops like wheat and grains, and livestock were depleted following sharp livestock feed price increases. The abrupt decline in food production within Syria affected market prices for food, which more than doubled between 2007 and 2008, as well as unemployment rates, which increased significantly. In the aftermath of the drought, 1.5 million of the Syrian population were estimated to be food insecure. In addition, the drought affected how countries, particularly their urban centers, could use hydroelectric power, which many relied upon as a major source of energy (Dinic).

Groundwater Depletion in Syria

The Fertile Crescent Drought The Fertile Crescent, consisting of today’s Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, and Iran, experienced a drought beginning in 2006-2007 that lasted until 2010-2011.

This “cradle of civilization” is known to have sustained early agricultural practices, featured great biodiversity and natural water resources with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and developed some of the earliest irrigation systems. However, climate change due to carbon emissions and human activity has fostered changes in temperatures, increased natural disasters, changes in precipitation, flooding and drought, and overall resource degradation and scarcity in the region (Kelley et al.). These consequences of climate change can feed instability, which in turn contribute to conflict. Climate change is therefore considered to be an indirect factor that influences armed conflict (Voski). In the region, which already featured an availability of only 1% of the world’s renewable freshwater, drought has become a major problem and influences all facets of economic, social, and political life, as well as conflict and forced movement. The 2007-2010 drought was “the most severe drought in the instrumental record” (Voski) and ultimately caused

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Over the past twenty years, the Arab region as a whole has witnessed a 43% population growth and in the last forty years, the per capita share of renewable water resources has decreased by 50%. Syria’s water supply has traditionally been comprised of seven basins, including the Coastal Basin, Barada and Al Awaj Basin, Al-Badia Basin, Euphrates Basin, Orantes Basin, Quaik Basin, and Yarmuk Basin, which all provide a variety of surface water and groundwater. However, 78% of Syria’s measured extractable groundwater has been designated unsustainable. Additionally, Syria relies heavily on external sources, particularly the Euphrates River, for around 60% of its water resources, the vast majority of which (81%) have been utilized for agriculture and irrigation, followed by domestic usage (6.5%) and industrial usage (2.5%). In 2011, most surface water and groundwater were designated polluted, as waste from industries such as foodprocessing and fertilization and irrigated agricultural land flowed into surface water and groundwater resources. In addition to pollution concerns, overuse and exploitation of water resources contributed to a degradation of the water supply, depleting groundwater across the country and creating new challenges, such as groundwater extraction causing replacement with salt water (METAP Water Quality Management). The untenable water management situation before the drought became disastrous with the abrupt decline in precipitation and the unavailability of groundwater and desalinization technology.

Water Management in Syria During Drought and Crisis Conflicts in the Middle East, as well as other vulnerable regions in Africa and South America, have increased in number while conflicts in stable regions of the world have declined. Unstable or weak states are particularly susceptible to conflict over resource scarcity because of their institutions and frameworks, which are not robust enough to address these challenges when they arise with the same capability as developed states.

Because of this, climate change is considered to be an indirect rather than a direct contributor to conflict since “environmental scarcity is never a sole or sufficient case of large migrations, poverty, or violence; it always joins with other economic, political, and

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social factors to produce its effects” (Voski). The indirect relationship between climate change and conflict thus has a crucial component—the “socio-economic consequences of climate change” (Voski), based off endemic structural factors like governance, resource management, aid capabilities, or economic resiliency—which is a necessary determinant for how climate change-related disasters will affect stability and peace or, alternatively, conflict. Resource mismanagement and a government’s inability to provide services or aid to populations affected by climate change-related events can determine how conflicts develop.

In Syria, policies relating to agriculture and insufficient responses to the drought’s deleterious effects have been linked to the severity of the crisis and the subsequent conflict and refugee migration. Cross-country analyses between countries like Iraq and Turkey located in the same region as Syria (which experience similar precipitation patterns) examine how varying degrees of drought vulnerability resulted in different outcomes for each country during the Fertile Crescent drought. Particularly, precipitation levels across countries were not significantly worse in Syria than in other countries but the inherent features of Syrian governance, management, and agriculture affected its outcome from the drought, resulting in a so-called socioeconomic drought, which occurs when the “lived effects of the drought are extremely detrimental to local populations.” Studying vegetation productivity between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq reveals that while Iraq and Turkey had some decreases in their respective agricultural areas, Syria had a much more severe decline in agricultural productivity over the same period of drought (Eklund and Thompson).

excessive exploitation of land for agriculture and pursued increased self-reliance for food production. The abuse of land use included the production of water-intensive crops that unsustainably consumed water resources, building a dependency on groundwater sources for irrigation. Because of the population’s economic dependency on agriculture, as well as its insufficient investment in water infrastructure, the drought worsened existing weaknesses in water use and provision. Once the drought had begun, the Syrian government also failed to provide insulating services or beneficial policies for the agricultural industry, instead removing existing subsidies for fuel, which was commonly used to extract the groundwater upon which agriculture was heavily reliant.

Comparatively, Iraq had become dependent on agricultural imports to provide food for its population in recent decades and a relatively smaller portion of the population was reliant on agricultural income. As a result, the drought depressed agricultural production and the direct water supply in Iraq but it was more immune from the socioeconomic drought that occurred in Syria. Similarly, Turkey had invested in water infrastructure innovations and achieved EU standards for states’ water frameworks. Its development of dams for irrigation shielded the agricultural industry from many of the drought’s negative effects because it could rely on water storage systems rather than depending heavily on rainfall for agriculture production (Eklund and Thompson).

Effects of the Syrian Refugee Crisis on Water Management in Jordan

A variety of native factors can help explain the different effects of the regional drought between countries. Before the occurrence of drought, the Syrian government had allowed

Since the influx of Syrian refugees into Jordan’s territory, already scarce water resources have been stretched ever thinner. Groundwater resources are being routinely overpumped and additional wells are regularly drilled, as well as being deepened when the water supply at certain levels runs dry. The treatment of wastewater has also provided a profound challenge for water management in Jordan, as sewer systems and water treatment plants cannot keep pace with the increased wastewater from refugee populations (Jokisch). The Za’atari refugee camp particularly has played a role in degrading water quality from the Amman-Zarqa basin, creating an additional burden on water treatment capacity. Jordan’s most important groundwater aquifer is the northern Amman-Zarqa basin, which is located near the Za’atari refugee camp and the largest urban concentration of refugees in the country. The shock of the large influx of refugees to the basin produced a shock similar to how “catastrophic environmental events and climate change” (Barkley) can disrupt and deplete water basins quickly and drastically.

The problem was worsened when large portions of the migrant population moved into urban centers rather than camps, as refugees in urban areas can usually consume and utilize more water resources than those drawing from a constrained supply in camps.

Ultimately, the Syrian refugee population’s consumption of Jordan’s annual renewable groundwater resources could be as high as 8-15% overall. Water management capacity has degraded as overuse has continued and worn infrastructure has produced a high rate of non-revenue water, or water that leaks from the system without providing service.

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Because of the difficulties associated with infrastructure updates and the disruptions that would create with water supply around the country for both domestic and refugee populations, well-digging has become more prevalent to address water scarcity, which is more unsustainable and inefficient in the long term (Barkley). The unsustainability of management practices and projected water shortages are especially significant for Jordan’s agricultural sector, upon which approximately 28% of the overall economy relies. Agriculture is the largest water user in the country but because of its economic importance for much of the Jordanian population, dictating decreases in water use or increases in water pricing without properly easing these transitions would be devastating and potentially destabilizing for its relatively stable economy.

Policy Recommendations In recognition of the water management challenges in the region including Syria and Jordan, the following policy recommendations are twofold; (1) technological and infrastructural updates and transitions that address the inefficiency and unsustainability of current water practices; and (2) governance and economic policies that would ease the strain of shocks to water resource availability and reduce the risk of “socioeconomic drought” and large-scale destabilization. While drought-preparedness governance and economic policies can be adopted by all state governments, including those in other regions, technological and infrastructural policies may be out of reach for many states that have lower development capacity or are currently unstable. In this case, Jordan likely has a more viable path towards investing in water infrastructure than Syria at the moment.

Technology and infrastructure • •

•

•

Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan has stated that “there is no solution for water in Jordan and Syria,” highlighting the impossibility of replenishing the depleted water resources.

Therefore, efforts should be made to improve water sustainability, utilizing technology that works more efficiently and updating water infrastructure to minimize leakage. Policy proposals to shift agricultural water use towards greater efficiency and sustainability include switching to fewer water-intensive crops, implementing more advanced irrigation processes, dryland farming, using treated wastewater, and adopting desalination technology.

However, all of these proposals involve elements of development that may be out of reach for agricultural producers and other local water consumers. They may require intervention from the Jordanian government or other organizations combating water supply issues in the country.

Even with updates, Jordan faces a harsh reality of water availability for both its domestic and refugee populations. Projections for a variety of its water resources

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routinely estimate insolvency within the next 50 years, particularly if the Syrian refugee population becomes a permanent fixture of its water-dependent population.

Governance and economy • •

Governments should prepare and effectively implement drought-preparedness plans, which will attempt to shield populations from the lived effects of drought; namely, economic disruption and food and water insecurity.

Because constructive water management bolsters resiliency and removes waste from the provision system, states could be in a better position to combat the multiplying climate change threats that will be faced in the coming century.

Endnotes 1. Barkley, Brett R. “Water Security in Refugee Host Communities: Syrian Refugees in Jordan.” Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2015): https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/78436/BARKLEY-THESIS-2015. pdf?sequence.

2. Dinic, Leonardo. “The Water Crisis in Syria and Iraq: A Tool for Terror.” NYU Journal of Political Inquiry (2017): http://jpinyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/The-WaterCrisis-in-Syria-and-Iraq.pdf.

3. Eklund, Lina, and Darcy Thompson. “Differences in resource management affects drought vulnerability across the borders between Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.” Ecology and Society vol. 22, no. 4 (2017): https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol22/iss4/art9/.

4. Haddad, G. “Water Management Development and Agriculture in Syria.”

Bulletin of the Szent Istvan University (2008): http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/ bitstream/47546/2/22haddadetal.pdf.

5. Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. “Environmental Scarcities and Violent Conflict: Evidence from Cases.” International Security vol. 19, no. 1 (1994): https://www.jstor.org/ stable/2539147.

6. Jägerskog, Swain et. al. “Water, migration and how they are interlinked.” SIWI working paper 27 (2016): http://www.siwi.org/publications/paper-migration/.

7. Jokisch, Alexander. “Jordan—Improved Groundwater Resources Management in Response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis.”

8. Kelley, Colin P. et al. “Climate Change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought.” PNAS vol. 112, no. 11 (2015): 3241-3246.

9. Mediterranean Environmental Technical Assistance Program. “Water Quality Management.” METAP (2011): http://www.emwis.org/countries/fol749974/sy/links/ water-quality-management-in-syria.

10. Muller, Marc Francois, et al. “Impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on land use and transboundary freshwater resources.” PNAS vol. 113, no. 52 (2016): http://www.pnas. org/content/113/52/14932.

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11. Operational Portal Refugee Situations. “Syria Regional Refugee Response.” USA for UNHCR: https://data2.unhcr.org/en/situations/syria/location/36.

12. UNHCR. “Syria emergency.” The UN Refugee Agency: https://www.unhcr.org/syriaemergency.html.

13. Voski, Anais. “The Role of Climate Change in Armed Conflicts across the Developing World and in the Ongoing Syrian War.” Carleton Review of International Affairs vol. 3 (2016): https://doi.org/10.22215/cria.v3i0.123.

14. Weinthal, Erika, et al. “Securitizing Water, Climate, and Migration in Israel, Jordan, and Syria.” International Environmental Agreements vol. 15 (2015): 293-307.

15. Yoon, Jim, et al. “How the Syrian refugee crisis affected land use and shared transboundary freshwater resources.” Brookings Institute (2017): https://www.brookings. edu/blog/planetpolicy/2017/02/13/how-the-syrian-refugee-crisis-affected-land-useand-shared-transboundary-freshwater-resources/.

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The Problem of Legal Financial Obligations Anil Sindhwani

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egal financial obligations (LFOs) are monetary sanctions levied on criminal defendants as a result of incarceration or associated contact with the criminal justice system. While intended in many cases to fund the workings of the criminal justice system, LFOs severely harm the formerly incarcerated as they try to wholly re-enter society as reformed individuals, by imposing fines or even incarceration for nonpayment of LFOs. Public Policy Issue

As aforementioned, LFOs are intended in many cases to cover the costs of running a court; to pay for associated activities, like supervision or incarceration; and to serve as punishment.1 More specifically, LFOs can be levied to cover “programming and services provided within an institution (e.g. educational, medical, dental)” associated with incarceration, as well as mandatory treatment programs. Obligations for a public defender may also be levied, depending on various factors.2 Our state’s LFO regulations mimic that of other states. Illinois, like other states (e.g., Washington)3, has mandatory minimum fines for certain offenses. These range from $25 for a parole violation to $750 for a first time DUI.4 Illinois courts can also charge interest on yet unpaid LFOs5 as well as costs for additional convictions.6 Fines can also be levied for the cost of imprisoning a defendant.7 Illinois does, however, have explicit caps on discretionary fines according to the severity of crime committed.8 Legal financial obligations in our state are also irrational and inconsistent within the state, often differing widely from county to county. Although the Illinois General Assembly has passed legislation that structures LFOs, counties, municipalities, and county courts have some leeway in determining specific amounts.9 Pattillo and Friedman found that, for instance, “the fee for people convicted of a felony in Cook County is $190, but it is only $80 in Kendall County.”10 The pair likewise found that “‘at least 435 Illinois statutes... govern the assessment’” of LFOs meaning that regulation statewide is already very complex.11

thirds of inmates was a paltry $12,000. It is further estimated that between 30 and 36 percent of inmates were unemployed before their arrest.13 These workers are subject to low and wildly inconsistent pay, making any savings or future planning impossible. Many defendants may also have child support obligations. Failing to pay for child support could likewise land a defendant in prison.14 These monthly charges disproportionately impact felons disproportionately, too. Felony convictions currently bar residents from certain forms of social welfare in Illinois,15 meaning that some people cannot even access benefits at all. Felons are also excluded from some occupations and employers are often reluctant to hire them.16 These workers are often subject to low and inconsistent pay—sometimes barely making it by at all—heightening the chance of penalty for nonpayment. Penalties for nonpayment are typically monetary, determined as a percent or a function of the sum unpaid, ranging from 5% to 30% depending on what Illinois government division levies the fine.17 Depending on judicial decision, accounts can be classified as “willful nonpayment”, allowing defendants to be jailed for nonpayment, be fined, or otherwise punished.18 Reincarceration for nonpayment has the potential of creating a vicious cycle in which a defendant is repeatedly jailed for not paying fines accumulated as a result of the last incarceration.

These forces work together to trap many low-income Americans in a cycle of poverty and imprisonment that bars them from finally escaping the criminal justice system. The conclusions from the Washington study have been replicated in Illinois. 72% of those surveyed report forgoing groceries to pay for LFOs; 62% forwent paying rent and utilities; just over one-quarter forwent child care and support.19 In sum, LFOs collectively impose a significant burden on the neediest Illinoisans, preventing them from fully escaping the prison-and-criminal-justice system.

Policy Solution The judicial system in Illinois has collectively begun to study the problem of LFOs. The Access to Justice Act (2016)20 created a task force, which evaluated the spread and impact of LFOs.21 Although the recommendations of the task force will certainly lessen the collective burden of LFOs, I contend they do not go far enough in assisting the most indigent. I present two additional policy solutions for the Illinois General Assembly for consideration below:

The material implications of LFOs are staggering. Research from Washington State reveals how LFOs trap people in a cycle of poverty and imprisonment through exacerbating the significant hardships brought upon by low-wage work. Variable hours, low pay, and sometimes brutal working conditions mean that many Americans at the bottom of the income distribution are just getting by. For example, “just-in-time” scheduling—coupled with highly variable and uneven schedules—frequently prevent these workers from actually working 40 hours a week.12 In Washington, over one-quarter of state inmates were working part-time, and the earned annual income for about two-

1. Increase and make more effective the use of alternatives. Illinois statute already allows for the use of an alternative to pay off an LFO in certain circumstances: community service. However, each hour of community service is currently equal to $4 in LFOs. Three-quarters of those surveyed were not informed of the community service option.22 I propose therefore that this alternative be expanded in two ways. First, by requiring

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that judges inform defendants of this alternative, if applicable. Second, by scaling up the dollar-equivalence of community service hours to the state minimum wage so that defendants are fairly compensated for their work and are freed more quickly. In addition to releasing defendants from their obligations faster, the number of defendants doing community service would likely rise.

This change in the structure of LFOs may have other unintended outcomes. For instance, judge discretion may decrease with a requirement to inform defendants, leading to worse outcomes for defendants. This issue can be resolved with a change in state statute to standardize this process. With an increase in defendants using alternatives, the burden on existing community service infrastructure could increase significantly; indeed, costs to the state may rise to compensate. Community service however could be used to offset these costs through existing programs.

My recommendation to increase the dollar-equivalence is unlikely to have consequential outcomes on the administration of LFOs, as it is effectively a simple mathematics question—i.e., a change in the accounting systems for each defendant. Yet it has the potential to eliminate many outstanding obligations.

2. Eliminate LFOs entirely. A final proposal is to eliminate LFOs entirely (except for those intended to punish, such as restitution). As LFOs designed to fund the justice system rarely raise enough revenue to do so,23 the logic of LFOs is seemingly just to punish rather than recoup the costs of the system. This is true for a few reasons. First, collection rates are generally very low. Generally speaking, polities collect below one-fifth of outstanding fees—Florida collects as low as 14% of outstanding debts. This occurs because polities often do not have systems in place to track accounts or may in fact “lose” accounts because of homelessness or other issues. Second, polities often must hire extensive, additional bureaucracy to engage in collection. These extra costs may cause profits to approach zero. Washington state for example made a trifling 30% profit on their fee structure.

Some polities have ended their programs due to such concerns, such as Leon and Orange Counties in Florida.24 Since defendants are presumably incarcerated to pay off a debt to society, doubly punishing them appears unnecessarily cruel and perhaps morally abhorrent—especially given the possible reincarceration, wage garnishment, and other punitive responses to nonpayment.25 One might even argue that it appears to be “cruel and unusual punishment,” prohibited by the 8th Amendment. A strong case exists for the elimination of nearly all forms of LFOs as a way of allowing the formerly incarcerated to finally be wholly free of the justice system.

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Endnotes 1. Lily Gleicher and Caitlin DeLong, “The Cost of Justice,” Articles, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, August 1, 2018. www.icjia.state.il.us/articles/the-cost-ofjustice-the-impact-of-criminal-justice-financial-obligations-on-individuals-and-families.

2. Ibid.

3. Alexes Harris, A Pound of Flesh: Monetary Sanctions as Punishment for the Poor (New York: Russell Sage Foundation), 5.

4. Harris et al., Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal Justice System (Report for the Laura and John Arnold Foundation), 81-2.

5. Ibid., 86.

6. Ibid., 80-1.

7. Gleicher and DeLong, “The Cost of Justice”.

8. Ibid.

9. Harris et al., Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal Justice System,, 92.

10. Hilary Hurd Anyaso, “Monetary Sanctions Tracked in Nine States, including Illinois,” Northwestern Now, April 21 2017. news.northwestern.edu/stories/2017/april/monetarysanctions-tracked-in-nine-states-including-illinois/.

11. Ibid.

12. Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, $2.00 a Day (New York: Mariner, 2015), 45-46.

13. Harris, A Pound of Flesh, 7.

14. Turner v. Rogers. 564 U.S. 431 15. “Criminal Records,” Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law, Accessed February 25, 2019, povertylaw.org/students/criminal.

16. Harding et al., 5.

17. Gleicher and DeLong, “The Cost of Justice”.

18. Harris et al., Monetary Sanctions in the Criminal Justice System, 86.

19. Gleicher and DeLong, “The Cost of Justice”.

20. 705 IL. Compiled Statutes 95/25 21. Statutory Court Fee Task Force, Findings, 5.

22. Gleicher and DeLong, “The Cost of Justice”.

23. Council of Economic Advisors Issue Brief, Fines, fees, and bail.

24. Harris, A Pound of Flesh, 83.

25. Gleicher and DeLong, “The Cost of Justice”.

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Reforming Sex Education Ending Stigmatization and Exclusion Job Sommer

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egislation on sex education in Wisconsin is outdated and does not include basic requirements regarding contraceptives, non-heterosexual orientations, and non-binary gender identities. This lack of information provided to youth might lead to more teen-pregnancies, unprotected sex, and mental health issues.1 Mental health issues are especially likely to occur for LGBTQ+ students, as their underrepresentation in sex education could lead to severe stigmatization.2 Background Current state legislation on sex education (sex-ed) in Wisconsin fails to recognize and incorporate societal developments. Legislation requires abstinence to be communicated as the most effective way to avoid teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections (STI).3 However, research has shown that areas with abstinence-focussed sex-ed often show significantly higher numbers of teen pregnancies and teens with STIs compared to areas where sex-ed does include information on contraceptives.4,5,6 Individuals pledging abstinence are often exposed to a culture which downplays the effectiveness of condoms and contraceptives, leading to unprotected sex when these individuals do end up breaking their pledge.3 Interestingly, Wisconsin legislators have already passed a bill in 2010 requiring sex education to include information on the â&#x20AC;&#x153;health benefits, side effects, and proper use of contraceptivesâ&#x20AC;?.7 However, this bill was repealed only one year later by the senate,8 resulting in the resumption of abstinence-focused sex education.

Besides the health and teen pregnancy risks, the current law also poses a threat to the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth. The law does not include requirements on informing children about gender identities or sexual orientation. This lack of information could lead to an increased risk of mental health issues for LGBTQ+ children at a later stage.9 Research has shown that bi, gay and lesbian individuals are twice as likely to attempt suicide, and 1.5 times more likely to experience depression, anxiety disorders or substance abuse compared to heterosexual individuals.10 Although it has not been researched whether these numbers are different in areas with inclusive sex education, it has been shown that stigmatization and stereotyping are significant causes in the high likelihood of mental issues for LGTBQ+ individuals.2 The stigma on non-heterosexuality and non-cisgender identities might be partially removed through normalization and open discussion in a school environment.11 To highlight the scope of this issue, it is estimated that 2% to 14% of the world population is part of the LGBTQ+ community,9 which would mean that 17.176 to 120.236 kids in the Wisconsin public school system (elementary-, middle- and high school) could potentially benefit from a more tolerant and inclusive education.12 Currently, the federal government is mostly funding abstinence focussed programs which

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do not include information on contraceptives or ‘non-traditional’ gender/sexual identities.

However, one positive development on the federal level is the REHYA (Real Education for Healthy Youth Act), which has been introduced to Congress in July 2017. One of the main aims of this act is to repeal funding for programs which focus on abstinence or are not inclusive of the LGBTQ+ population. This funding is then allocated to programs which offer comprehensive, contemporary and scientifically accurate sex-ed. Furthermore, REHYA also allows for providing institutions with funds to get their employees the training needed to provide sex-ed in an appropriate way.13 Recommendations While it is important to realize the laws in Wisconsin are already more progressive than the sex education laws in other states,14 a lot can be done to ensure the inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals. Furthermore, the abstinence focus of Wisconsin’s regulations might lead to higher rates of teen pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections. As the federal government is still processing REHYA, the state of Wisconsin should already establish and implement laws to ensure comprehensive sex education to protect the physical and mental health of its youth. REHYA focuses on providing all students (regardless of their sexualor gender identity) with impartial information on sexual health, including the use of contraceptives and abstinence. Furthermore, The Wisconsin Act 134, which was repealed in 2011, highlights the importance of providing students with extensive information regarding contraceptives. For this reason, The Wisconsin Act 134 of 2009 combined with the REHYA proposal provide a useful framework for what a potential bill on sex education should look like. Drawing specific clauses from these acts could provide an opportunity for immediate action to stop the funding of abstinence-focussed programs, and reroute these funds to inclusive sex-ed alternatives. The general goal for this new legislation is threefold: Inclusion Following a clause of REHYA, sex-ed should be “inclusive of youth with varying gender identities, gender expressions, and sexual orientations”13 (Section 2.c.E). Through the inclusion of non-binary, non-cisgender and non-heterosexual individuals, stigma on these topics might be reduced, which might to lead to a decrease in mental issues.10 Besides the decrease of mental issues, it is likely that making students more knowledgeable about these topics will also decrease the severity of bullying for LGBTQ+ students.15 Information Not only should information on LGBTQ+ lifestyles be included, but the current abstinence focus in sex education should be replaced for more impartial and accurate information regarding the prevention of unwanted pregnancies and STIs. The 2009 Wisconsin Act mentions this as providing students with information on “The health benefits, side effects, and proper use of [...] methods approved by the [FDA] to prevent pregnancy and

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[...] transmitted infections”5 (Section 4.2.a.6). It is important to note that abstinence should still be discussed as an option, it should however not be the focus of the education, nor should it be framed as the “preferred choice of behavior”1 (118.019.2.m.c).

Education Naturally speaking, the ‘Inclusion’ and ‘Information’ as mentioned above focuses on educating students. However, in order to properly provide these sex-ed sessions, educators themselves will have to be trained to provide impartial and inclusive sex education. For this reason, a clause from REHYA can be adopted which stipulates “each [school] receiving a grant [...] shall use grant funds for professional development and training of relevant faculty”13 (Section 5.e.1).

Potential Barriers While there are numerous opponents of inclusive sex education, it is important to realize that the initial discomfort and hesitation of caregivers might be trivial compared to the mental struggle LGBTQ+ youths go through at school. Furthermore, the scientific evidence for the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only sex education should convince most caregivers that their children are better off learning about other options as well.

Nonetheless, current legislation already provides measures to ensure the laws on sex education are not discomforting to anyone. These measures include: Non Discrimination - No religious conviction or other belief is to be discriminated against in any way3 (118.019.2.d).

Distribution of Curriculum - Schools providing sex education will provide parents with an outline of the curriculum used in the pupil’s education3 (118.019.3).

Exemption - Individual pupils are exempted if their caregivers provide the teacher or school principal with a written request to do so3 (118.019.4).

Conclusion Current legislation on sex education does not provide youths with enough information regarding gender identity, sexual orientation and sexual behavior. More comprehensive sex education could significantly reduce the amount of teen pregnancies. Besides that, LGBTQ+ youth are currently twice as likely to attempt suicide and destigmatizing these minorities through inclusive sex education might help in decreasing their mental struggles. The new regulation could draw on previous legislation on the inclusion of contraceptives, and on the REHYA proposal for accommodating LGBTQ+ youth.

Modernizing sex education will not only facilitate future compliance to REHYA, it will increase physical and mental health for generations to come, regardless of their gender identity and sexual orientation.

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Endnotes 1. Alabama State Legislature. “2017 Code of Alabama Section 16-40A-2: Minimum contents to be included in sex education program or curriculum”. Last modified January 01, 2017. http://alisondb.legislature.state.al.us/alison/CodeOfAlabama/1975/16-40A-2. htm (web content) 2. Congress. “H.R.3602 - Real Education for Healthy Youth Act of 2017”. Last modified August 04, 2017. https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/3602 (web content) 3. Goodboy, Alan. K., and Martin, Matthew, M. “LGBT bullying in school: perspectives on Prevention.” Communication Education 67, no. 4 (August 2018). https://doi.org/10.1080/03634523.2018.1506137 (journal article) 4. Human Rights Campaign. “A Call to Action: LGBTQ Youth Need Inclusive Sex Education”. Last modified 2015. https://assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/ HRC-SexHealthBrief-2015.pdf?_ga=2.39349283.1663679182.15506333371420445872.1549573149 (web content) 5. King, Michael, Semlyen, Joanna, See Tai, Sharon, Killaspy, Hellen, Osborn, David, Popelyuk, Dimitri and Irwin Nazareth, “A systematic review of mental disorder, suicide, and deliberate self harm in lesbian, gay and bisexual people.” BMC Psychiatry 8, no. 70 (August 2008). https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-8-70 (journal article) 6. Lemon, Kelly D., “Sex Education in America: Abstaining from Comprehensive Facts.”

Journal of Midwifery & Women’s Health, (October 2018): 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1111/ jmwh.12901 (journal article) 7. Paik, Anthony, Sanchagrin, Kenneth J. and Karen Heimer, “Broken Promises: Abstinence Pledging and Sexual and Reproductive Health.” Journal of Marriage and Family 78, (April 2016): 546-561. https://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12279 (journal article) 8. Sandfort, Theo G. M., Henny M. W. Bos, Kate L. Collier, and Marijke Metselaar.

“School Environment and the Mental Health of Sexual Minority Youths: A Study Among Dutch Young Adolescents.” American Journal of Public Health 100, no. 9 (September 2010): 1696-700. https://www.doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2009.183095 (journal article) 9. Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States. “The Effect of State Mandated Sex Education on Teenage Sexual Behaviors and Health.” Last modified November, 2016. https://www.esspri.uci.edu/files/docs/2016/ESSPRI%20Working%20 Paper%2020161%20Brittany%20Bass.pdf. (web content) 10. Veltman, Albina, and Gary Chaimowitz. “Mental Health Care for People Who Identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and (or) Queer.” the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry 59, no. 11 (November 2011): 1-7. (journal article) 11. Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction. “Wisconsin Public Schools at a Glance.”

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Last modified February, 2019. https://dpi.wi.gov/sites/default/files/imce/eis/pdf/ schools_at_a_glance.pdf. (web content) 12. Wisconsin State Legislature. “Statutes, Chapter 118.” General School Operations. Last modified January 17, 2019. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/118/019. (web content) 13. Wisconsin State Legislature. “2009 Wisconsin Act 134.” Assembly Bill 453. Last modified March 10, 2010. http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2009/related/acts/134.pdf. (web content) 14. Wisconsin State Legislature. “2011 Senate Bill 237.” Last modified January, 2010. https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2011/related/proposals/sb237. (web content) 15. Wright, Paul J., “Sex Education, Public Opinion, and Pornography: A Conditional Process Analysis.” Journal of Health Communication 23, no. 5 (May 2018): 495-502. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2018.1472316 (journal article)

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Cryptoasset Regulation in the United States Christopher Thone

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t has been 10 years since Bitcoin was first introduced to the world.1 In those 10 years, the market cap for cryptoassets at large has grown to over $140 billion.2 One would think that an area with such high economic activity and worth would be widely accepted and regulated properly in order to produce the maximum amount of new economic activity. In the United States as well as most other areas of the world, this is not the case. Cryptoassets are not yet fully understood and because of this, face stifling regulations if not outright bans in many areas. An important culprit in this mistreatment is none other than the United States.

One of the biggest issues with cryptoassets in the United States and throughout the world is that not many agree on how to actually define them. Terms like ‘cryptocurrency’ and ‘cryptoasset’ are typically used interchangeably. This is a common mistake. While a cryptocurrency is a form of cryptoasset, a cryptoasset is not always a cryptocurrency.

The first step in developing new policy in the United States that will be more attractive to potential economic growth is creating a concrete definition of what cryptoassets really are. Attempting to lump many different assets into categories where they do not belong for simplicity’s sake is wildly inefficient and threatens innovation. A proper definition of ‘cryptoassets’ should include as wide a range of categories as possible in order to ensure each is correctly classified. That being said, a cryptoasset can be classified into one of the following categories: cryptocurrency, utility/platform token, security token, natural asset token, and hybrid token.3 A cryptocurrency is three things: a means of exchange, a unit of account, and a store of value.4 These are also known as ‘payment coins’. Some examples of cryptocurrency include Bitcoin and Litecoin. Their value depends on the forces of supply and demand, and were created as an alternative to fiat-currency that allowed faster transactions throughout the world.5 A utility/platform token has a specific use on a digital platform. For example, Ether is a platform token used specifically on the Ethereum network to be used on other decentralized projects like creating other cryptoassets. A utility token grants access to a specific digital application. Utility and platform tokens are incredibly similar, which allows them to fall into the same category. A security token functions like a stock. The buyer purchases the coin expecting a return on their investment by way of work done by the firm in which they bought it from. These are essentially just digital bonds that are traded directly, peer to peer, without the need of intermediaries.6 Natural asset tokens function similar to the old US Dollar back when each dollar was backed by an equal amount in gold. Natural asset tokens represent real goods like gold, oil, or carbon. Finally, hybrid tokens are tokens that could potentially fall into more than one category and should be regulated on a case by case basis. It is important that this particular type of coin exists to give some room to regulators and allow them to potentially form new cryptoasset categories when the need arises rather than place assets in categories that they do not belong.

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There are generally three main regulatory strategies that governments choose to apply to cryptoassets; they choose to wield a Sovereign Technology Sword (STS), Consumer Protection Shield (CPS), or adopt a Crypto-Delaware regulatory model. The Sovereign Technology Sword is used by countries that view economic development and technological innovation as a national mandate, meaning that they should be in charge of all of it. Cryptoassets are naturally decentralized and relatively anonymous, which runs counter to the goals of governments choosing to use the STS.7 These countries, like China and India, simply choose to ban cryptoassets altogether. Cryptoassets represent too much volatility and too many aspects that are far out of any government’s control for them to allow such assets to exist.

The second strategy is the Consumer Protection Shield. Countries that use to use the CPS simply choose to use existing regulatory frameworks and apply their laws to cryptoassets.

They believe this is the best way to promote economic growth as it has worked for everything else. Those that use the CPS are “generally less interested in innovation outside regulated bounds in favor of maintaining a sound economic system.”8 The idea is that by using current laws, countries will be shielded from any bad effects that may result from cryptoasset activity. But, there is a caveat to this: they are also shielded from potentially positive economic impacts as well. Some countries that use the CPS are the United States and the United Kingdom.

The final strategy is the Crypto-Delaware approach. The goal of this strategy is to promote cryptoasset innovation and build a regulatory framework that is attractive to would be firms, thus encouraging economic growth within the country that adopts the approach.

New laws and regulations must be adopted to fit the unique nature of cryptoassets, rather than attempting to apply current laws and regulations. This should be the eventual goal for all countries wishing to properly regulate cryptoassets and cease stagnating their development. Countries that currently use this approach already include Switzerland, Gibraltar, and Malta.

As stated, the United States currently uses the Consumer Protection Shield. In doing so the federal government classifies cryptoassets as either a security, thus regulated by the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), or as a commodity, regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). They evaluate cryptoassets on a case by case basis.

Typically, the SEC bases it’s decision largely off of how decentralized a cryptoasset is-- the more decentralized, the less likely it is to be treated as a security. This itself is a problem, as it turns the decision into more of an arbitrary one. If a firm has no real idea with how they will be regulated, why would they choose to develop and grow in the United States?

Basis, a cryptoasset firm, closed its doors in late 2018 due to this uncertainty.9 It was also due to the fact that although they were decentralized, the SEC did not believe them to be decentralized enough, therefore they were likely to be classified as a security which effectively destroyed any incentive to continue operating. On top of all of this, the Internal

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Revenue Service (IRS) classifies ‘cryptocurrency’ as property and taxes it as such. How many firms have chosen to shut down or relocate to other countries’ who’s regulations are more attractive? The United States is missing out on tapping into the ~140 billion dollar industry simply because they haven’t adopted new policies for a new category of financial assets.10 The policy solution to this ambiguity is creating a new regulatory body to properly oversee cryptoassets. This body will be responsible for doing, as mentioned earlier, one of the most important aspects: defining each cryptoasset. Each cryptoasset will need to register within the organization go through a process with the new organization where they are classified as either a cryptocurrency, utility/platform token, security token, natural asset token, or hybrid token. This will allow the organization to decide what financial and tax regulations will apply. By creating these categories, the previous problem of certain assets being classified as securities when they were not is fixed, freeing them from their previous securities regulations. New financial regulations would need to be created, but it would become much easier if the previous things are done. Within the this new federal regulatory body there should be an advisory body made up of members from the crypto community so that they may give policy advice to the body itself. These subject matter experts would help steer policy in the right direction.

Another useful thing the United States could do is to create their own federal cryptocurrency themselves. This currency would have a level of inherent value, just as a bond does. Such a currency would help provide some stability to the usually volatile cryptoasset market, as the value of a state sponsored coin is not likely to fluctuate much.

This, along with the initial registration of cryptoassets, would also help to single out illegitimate cryptoassets, as they would not undergo/pass the registration process. This is a very effective way to control fake initial coin offerings (ICOs) and prevent consumers from losing money.

It is also worth mentioning that cryptoasset markets are extremely responsive to regulatory news, which contributes to their volatility.11 If these assets were regulated in better ways, this volatility would be greatly reduced as asset holders would be less worried about new regulations impacting them. It can also be said that a more stable framework used to classify cryptoassets overseen by a body made up of members of the community itself would provide a certain reduction in the volatility of the market as a whole.

The use of cryptoassets throughout the world is growing and will continue to grow into the future. Although they are often dismissed by some elements of society, this will not change in the near future. The best thing the United States can do is recognize this and take the necessary steps to encourage growth within the cryptoasset sector, rather than making it difficult for firms wishing to use cryptoassets to exist and incentivizing them to leave the country. Another important thing to recognize is that cryptoassets are here

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to stay, and the United States has the opportunity of being one of the first major world players to fully harness cryptoasset potential. Recognizing the significance of this early on will allow the United States to become the leading player in the sector, rather than allowing international rivals to become the leader instead.

Endnotes 1. Yellin, Tal. “What is bitcoin?” CNN. August 8, 2018. https://money.cnn.com/ infographic/technology/what-is-bitcoin/index.html.

2. Global Charts. CoinMarketCap. 3. Tapscott, Alex. “Cryptocurrency is just one of seven types of cryptoassets you should know.” Quartz. July 25, 2018. https://qz.com/1335481/cryptocurrency-is-just-one-ofseven-types-of-cryptoassets-you-should-know/.

4. Back, Anthony. “What are the Different Types of Digital Assets?.” The Blockchain Review. October 8, 2018. https://blockchainreview.io/digital-assets-cryptocurrenciescrypto-blockchain-bitcoin-altcoin/.

5. Haeems, Adam. “What is a crypto-asset?.” BABB. April 27, 2018. https://medium.com/ babb/what-is-a-crypto-asset-1f0fcc517887.

6. Tapscott, Alex. “Cryptocurrency is just one of seven types of cryptoassets you should know.” Quartz. July 25, 2018. https://qz.com/1335481/cryptocurrency-is-just-one-ofseven-types-of-cryptoassets-you-should-know/.

7. Autonomous NEXT. 2018. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PW42XurNP1rRx7GLgAXzMa_1f3F-lOV/view.

8. Autonomous NEXT. 2018. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PW42XurNP1rRx7GLgAXzMa_1f3F-lOV/view.

9. Young, Joseph. “Crypto Assets to Be Regulated Differently in the US, Potential Impact on Industry.” Cointelegraph. December 22, 2018. https://cointelegraph.com/news/ crypto-assets-to-be-regulated-differently-in-the-us-potential-impact-on-industry.

10. Stankovic, Stefan. “US Cryptocurrency Regulation: Policies, Regimes & More.” unblock. February 18, 2019. https://unblock.net/us-cryptocurrency-regulation/.

11. Stankovic, Stefan. “US Cryptocurrency Regulation: Policies, Regimes & More.” unblock. February 18, 2019. https://unblock.net/us-cryptocurrency-regulation/.

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Physically Altering City Landscapes A Regional Approach to Increase Food Security for Better Public Health in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin Elizabeth R. Wallis

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Problem Statement

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rbanization has contributed to an ever-widening gap between different communities’ abilities to select quality food,1 resulting in disparities in health outcomes across county lines.2 Milwaukee County, WI, where 16.5% of the population is food insecure,3 ranks 71 out of 72 counties, second to last in Wisconsin, for overall health outcomes.­2 When compared to neighboring Ozaukee County, which faces less than half the food insecurity, only 7.4%3, and is the first ranked county for overall health outcomes in the state of Wisconsin,2 the implications of this become clear: the state of Wisconsin needs to increase food security for Milwaukee County in order to improve public health.

Background In order to understand why the state should focus on increasing food security, it is necessary to have background information on what food insecurity is, why it occurs, and what impact it has on health. Food insecurity occurs when people lack financial resources and access to adequate food for a healthy life.4 Studies show that income is the greatest indicator of food security;5 income may directly impact peoples’ ability to afford the cost of healthy food, as well as financially constrain people to live in neighborhoods where the infrastructure inhibits access to healthy food. Income may have the strongest correlation, but food security is built upon four distinct legs, which are all needed for a solid foundation. These legs include economic security, nutrition assistance programs, emergency food systems, and access to affordable, nutritious food.6 While each of these legs needs to be addressed for best results, the following information and recommendations focus specifically on eliminating permanent barriers to healthy and affordable food.

has far more low-income areas that are not within a close distance to grocery stores.

Historically, city and state planners did not intervene to mediate this gap, and left it up to developers to decide whether or not to add a grocery store in particular neighborhoods.

As a result, developers opted to build supermarkets in wealthier suburbs, where there was more available land and more perceived economic opportunity, leaving lower-income neighborhoods to fall further behind.10 Beyond limited grocery access, poorer neighborhoods are often saturated with fast food chains, making them “food swamps.”11 Milwaukee County, where over one-quarter of children are growing up in poverty,2 experienced a 4.51% increase in the number of fast food restaurants between 2009 and 201412. Neighboring county Ozaukee, on the other hand, where only 5% of children are impoverished,2 saw a decrease in fast food restaurants in the same years.12 These results highlight fast food chains’ tendency to target their expansion to financially vulnerable neighborhoods, while simultaneously retracting from wealthier communities. The juxtaposition of Milwaukee and Ozaukee counties illuminates the inequitable saturation and expansion of unhealthy food, which amplifies food insecurity for low-income populations, impacting peoples’ ability to live a healthy life.

Food insecurity is significantly associated with many health-related social problems and a source of chronic stress,14 particularly among populations who are already economically vulnerable. Further, food insecurity is found to be a cause of anxiety that increases peoples’ susceptibility to depression.13, 15 Being low-income and food insecure is also associated with higher rates of obesity.16 While being overweight and unhealthy are not synonymous, obesity is used as an indicator here, because it can lead to a number of serious health problems, including stroke, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, breathing problems, such as asthma and sleep apnea, and more.17 Many studies in the United States illustrate that there is a positive, linear correlation between people’s experience of poverty and obesity.18,19 Given the established relationship that economic constraints are one of the strongest contributors to food insecurity, the implication of these studies is that increased food insecurity is associated with increased weight gain as well. These national findings are consistent with the experiences within Milwaukee and Ozaukee counties as well, Milwaukee County’s population being 34% obese, compared to 24% of Ozaukee.2

One of the most common barriers to food security is the presence of food deserts.

Food deserts are “places where people do not have easy access to healthy, fresh foods, particularly if they are poor and have limited mobility.” A few contributing factors that lead to food deserts are lack of transportation infrastructure, financial restrictions, and limited availability of healthy food.7 This absence often stems from both a lack of and smaller total size of grocery stores, and disproportionately impacts low-income communities. In a study of metropolitan areas in the United States, the poorest zip code neighborhoods had nearly half (55%) of the total square footage of grocery stores than wealthier areas.8 Less space dedicated to selling food limits proximity for many in the community. A map created through the US Department of Agriculture’s economic research service, shows extreme visual contrast between how many low-income census tracts have low proximity to food markets within Milwaukee County compared to three of its neighboring counties, Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington, which rank first, second, and fourth in overall health outcomes, respectively.2,9 Milwaukee County

While food insecurity may be limited by affordability in the short-term, the associated health-costs add up over time. Higher rates of obesity have been linked to nearly $40 billion of increased medical spending between 1998-2006. In a 2006 study of medical costs for Americans with health insurance, healthcare spending was about 42% higher for obese individuals than spending for someone in a normal-weight range. Medicare and Medicaid covered over half of these costs.20 It is not effective to blame individuals for these increased costs, but rather should encourage our country to proactively invest in healthier societies. Milwaukee County’s preventable hospital stay index is over 1.8 times

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that of Ozaukee.2 This number is determined by looking at how many Medicare fee-forservice enrollees are hospitalized for diet-related reasons, including diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, hypertension, heart failure, and dehydration, compared to the entire population.2 To combat the health implications of food deserts and swamps, communities can take proactive measures to promote food security by increasing saturation of healthy options, reducing preventable health-related costs down the road.

Strategies for Increasing Food Security Given the correlation between people’s access to quality food and their overall health, physically altering urban environments to increase proximity to healthy food can improve communities’ food security. Following are two strategies that permanently modify cities’ infrastructures to enhance access to healthy food.

One strategy for increasing food security is by integrating food production into cities’ landscapes, through urban agriculture. Urban farms vary widely - they can be found in vacant lots, on rooftops, in buildings, or vertically on walls; they may use conventional soil methods or innovative hydroponic technologies for growing.21 Similarly, community gardens are defined as “shared open spaces where individuals garden together to grow fresh, healthful, and affordable fruits and vegetables.”22 These strategies reduce access as a barrier by producing quality food directly in communities’ backyards, and have beneficial impacts on public health. Many cities in the United States, including Philadelphia, PA and Flint, MI, have been seeing significant health improvements and increased food security through development of urban agriculture. These communities not only consumed healthier food,23,24 but also experienced indirect benefits, including a greater sense of community building through regular social connection and increased physical activity.25 Addressing economic constraints of food insecurity, communities in Washington and Minnesota used community gardens to stretch household food budgets.25,26 Community gardens are found to be most successful when built and operated from the ground up,27 so cities need to take great care to empower populations to have autonomy over what’s grown and how gardens are operated. While urban agriculture enables people to play a part in food production, outdoor gardens are subject to weather and can only be utilized for part of the year. To avoid seasonality as an obstacle, communities are investing in innovative indoor technology, including hydroponic farming. Hydroponics is “a soilless method of growing plants in which all necessary nutrients are fortified in water,”28 and allows for a year-long growing season as well as higher yield and quality of crops than outdoor methods. Urban agriculture offers communities a better understanding of nutrition and knowledge of food systems.21 This leads to enhanced food literacy, which when coupled with easy access to the produce itself, empower people with security regarding their food choices. Farms and gardens are impactful in involving communities in the growing process itself, but they are limited in providing a reliable crop yield, which

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can impact stable availability of healthy food.

In order to provide consistent access, a second approach cities in the US have incorporated to increase food security is investing in efforts for supermarket development for low-income neighborhoods. Ohio launched a Healthy Food for Ohio program in 2016 which offers grants and loans to “incentivize the construction of grocery stores by offering financing for costs like land acquisition, construction and equipment that might otherwise be too expensive for a company to consider entering an underserved market.”29 This program provides grants up to $250,000 and loans up to $5 million over 10 years for grocery development in food deserts. Promoting growth and expansion of markets within these neighborhoods both increases the amount of food available and decreases the distance one needs to travel in order to obtain it. Closer to home, the City of Madison, WI recently designated funds to both encourage new grocery stores to move into low-income neighborhoods, as well as assist existing stores to provide more healthy food options.6 Studies show that people in low-income neighborhoods prefer larger markets to move into their community because they perceive these retailers to be more affordable and have better quality food.30 However, given the economic impact large grocery chains can have on smaller, local markets, cities are also exploring the benefits of ethnic food markets. In San Diego, CA, ethnic food markets positively contribute to food security by providing access to food that is healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate.31 As a result, some researchers claim that “it may be more efficient and equitable for government programs to financially assist ethnic markets and smaller locally-owned grocery stores to increase the distribution and marketing of healthy foods.”31 These strategies work to promote growth of markets, new or existing, in neighborhoods that currently lack healthy food access.

Proposed Solution The state of Wisconsin should work to eliminate food deserts and swamps in order to stabilize one leg contributing to food security, and with it, public health, for Milwaukee County. Outlined below are two proposed solutions that permanently alter the physical landscape of Milwaukee County in order to increase food access: Increasing Urban Agriculture • The state of Wisconsin should convert vacant lots within Milwaukee County to community gardens. °° Grants should be available for purchasing of gardening tools and seeds, as well as on-going maintenance of gardens, and give each community the autonomy to decide how plots are divided and which plants grow. °° Community-based educational programming should be established at garden sites to increase food literacy and teach cooking skills with seasonally available foods.

• The state of Wisconsin should convert abandoned buildings within Milwaukee County

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to house hydroponic farm systems. °° Grants and loans should be made to incentivize hydroponic farm companies to expand and develop farm systems within the county. °° Skill-trainings should be made available to community members to learn a new trade and increase employment rates in the county.

Incentivizing Supermarket Development • The state of Wisconsin should provide grants and loans for grocery retailers to develop in low-income neighborhoods within Milwaukee County. °° New zoning laws should require new development of affordable housing to have a market on the ground floor, if another one does not exist within a square half-mile.

• The state of Wisconsin should provide grants to existing small and ethnic markets within Milwaukee County for the purpose of increasing amount of healthy food options available in their stores.

The above solutions work solely to address increasing access to food, by removing barriers of proximity and affordability. These strategies work to eliminate food deserts and swamps, in order to increase food security, and therefore public health. Given the stark differences in current food access and health across county lines, a regional approach of planning should be taken by the state to ensure that discriminatory policies by wealthier counties do not further marginalize lower-income populations, and to ensure that these solutions improve the health of the entire region. The outlined ideas should be implemented in combination with one another, as well as with solutions that work to address food insecurity from different angles.

Other strategies to research further and potentially implement simultaneously may include, and are not limited to: • Bringing in fresh, healthy food grown in rural Wisconsin through farmers markets and/ or farm stands in Milwaukee County • Raising the minimum wage in Wisconsin so economic constraints don’t limit peoples’ ability to choose healthy food • Developing affordable housing in neighboring healthier counties Ozaukee, Waukesha, and Washington so low-income families may move into areas that already have the infrastructure that promotes food security • Implementing educational programming to increase familiarity with cooking techniques and food handling practices so communities feel a greater sense of understanding and empowerment to prepare and consume accessible healthy food • Establishing affordable bike-share programs, so that families may easily bike to a nearby grocery store Endnotes 1. Larsen, Kristian, and Jason Gilliland. “Mapping the Evolution of Food Deserts in a

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Canadian City: Supermarket Accessibility in London, Ontario, 1961–2005.” International Journal of Health Geographics 7, no. 1 (2008): 16. doi:10.1186/1476-072x-7-16.

2. “Rankings.” County Health Rankings & Roadmaps. Accessed April 21, 2019. http:// www.countyhealthrankings.org/app/wisconsin/2019/overview.

3. “Map the Meal Gap.” Feeding America. Accessed April 21, 2019. http://map. feedingamerica.org/county/2016/overall/wisconsin/county/milwaukee.

4. “Definitions of Food Security.” USDA ERS - Home. Last modified September 5, 2018. https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-the-us/ definitions-of-food-security.aspx.

5. Rose, Donald. “Economic Determinants and Dietary Consequences of Food Insecurity in the United States.” The Journal of Nutrition 129, no. 2 (1999). doi:10.1093/ jn/129.2.517s.

6. Heckman, Nick. “Hunger & Food Insecurity in Wisconsin and Dane County.” Public Health Madison and Dane County, June 2016.

7. Furey, Sinead, Heather Farley, and Christopher Strugnell. “An Investigation into the Availability and Economic Accessibility of Food Items in Rural and Urban Areas of Northern Ireland.” International Journal of Consumer Studies 26, no. 4 (2002): 313-21. doi:10.1046/j.1470-6431.2002.00245.x.

8. Cotterill, Ronald W., and Andrew W. Franklin. “The Urban Grocery Store Gap.” Food Marketing Policy Center Issue Paper, no. 8 (April 1995).

9. “Low Income & Low Access Layers” USDA ERS. Last modified May 18, 2017. https:// www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas/.

10. Pothukuchi, Kameshwari. “Attracting Supermarkets to Inner-City Neighborhoods: Economic Development Outside the Box.” Economic Development Quarterly 19, no. 3 (2005), 232-244. doi:10.1177/0891242404273517.

11. Rose, Donald, J. Nicholas Bodor, Chris M. Swalm, Janet C. Rice, Thomas A. Farley and Paul Lawrence Hutchinson. “Deserts in New Orleans? Illustrations of Urban Food Access and Implications for Policy” (2009) 12. “Fast food restaurants (% change), 2009-14.” USDA ERS. Last modified September 18, 2017. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-environment-atlas/go-to-the-atlas/.

13. Baer, Tamara E., Emily A. Scherer, Eric W. Fleegler, and Areej Hassan. “Food Insecurity and the Burden of Health-Related Social Problems in an Urban Youth Population.” Journal of Adolescent Health 57, no. 6 (2015): 601-07. doi:10.1016/j. jadohealth.2015.08.013.

14. Whiting, Erin F., and Carol Ward. “Food provisioning strategies, food insecurity, and stress in an economically vulnerable community: the Northern Cheyenne case.”

Agriculture and Human Values 27, no. 4 (2009), 489-504. doi:10.1007/s10460-0099248-z.

15. Wu, Zheng, and Christoph M. Schimmele. “Food Insufficiency and Depression.”

Sociological Perspectives 48, no. 4 (2005), 481-504. doi:10.1525/sop.2005.48.4.481.

16. Skidmore, P.m.l., and J.w.g. Yarnell. “The Obesity Epidemic: Prospects for Prevention.”

QJM 97, no. 12 (2004): 817-25. doi:10.1093/qjmed/hch136.

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17. Must, Aviva. “The Disease Burden Associated With Overweight and Obesity.” JAMA 282, no. 16 (1999), 1523. doi:10.1001/jama.282.16.1523.

18. Lee, Hedwig, Megan Andrew, Achamyeleh Gebremariam, Julie C. Lumeng and Joyce M. Lee. “Longitudinal Associations between Poverty and Obesity from the Birth through Adolescence.” American Journal of Public 104 no. 5 (2014): 70-76 19. Schoenborn, Charlotte, Patricia F. Adams, and Patricia M. Barnes. “Body Weight Status of Adults: United States, 1997–98.” Advance Data no. 330 (2002): 1-15.

20. Okrent, A. M., and J. M. Alston. “The Effects of Farm Commodity and Retail Food Policies on Obesity and Economic Welfare in the United States.” American Journal of Agricultural Economics 94, no. 3 (2012): 611-46. doi:10.1093/ajae/aar138.

21. Dimitri, Carolyn, Lydia Oberholtzer, and Andy Pressman. “The Promises of Farming in the City: Introduction to the Urban Agriculture Themed Issue.” Renewable Agriculture and Food Systems 30, no. 01 (2015): 1-2. doi:10.1017/s174217051400043x.

22. Raja, Samina, Branden Born, and Jessica Kozlowski Russell. “A Planners Guide to Community and Regional Food Planning: Transforming Food Environments, Facilitating Healthy Eating.” Planning Advisory Service Report no. 554 (2008) 23. Alaimo, Katherine, Elizabeth Packnett, Richard A. Miles, and Daniel J. Kruger. “Fruit and Vegetable Intake among Urban Community Gardeners.” Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 40, no. 2 (2008): 94-101. doi:10.1016/j.jneb.2006.12.003.

24. Blair, Dorothy, Carol C. Giesecke, and Sandra Sherman. “A Dietary, Social and Economic Evaluation of the Philadelphia Urban Gardening Project.” Journal of Nutrition Education 23, no. 4 (1991): 161-67. doi:10.1016/s0022-3182(12)81191-5.

25. Hartwig, Kari A., and Meghan Mason. “Community Gardens for Refugee and Immigrant Communities as a Means of Health Promotion.” Journal of Community Health 41, no. 6 (2016): 1153-159. doi:10.1007/s10900-016-0195-5.

26. Johnson, DB, and Lynne T Smith. “Testing the Recommendations of the Washington State Nutrition and Physical Activity Plan: The Moses Lake Case Study.” Preventing Chronic Disease 3, no. 2 (2006) 27. Corrigan, Michelle “Growing What You Eat: Developing Community Gardens and Improving Food Security.” Electronic Thesis or Dissertation. Ohio University, 2010. https://etd.ohiolink.edu/ 28. Nhut, Duong T., Nguyen H. Nguyen, and Dang T. Thuy. “A novel in vitro hydroponic culture system for potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) microtuber production.” Scientia Horticulturae 110, no. 3 (2006), 230-234. doi:10.1016/j.scienta.2006.07.027.

29. “Healthy Food For Ohio (HFFO) | Ohio Grocer Association.” Ohio Grocer Association.

Accessed April 21, 2019. http://www.ohiogrocers.org/healthy-food-for-ohio/.

30. Crowe, Jessica, Constance Lacy, and Yolanda Columbus. “Barriers to Food Security and Community Stress in an Urban Food Desert.” Urban Science 2, no. 2 (2018), 46. doi:10.3390/urbansci2020046.

31. Joassart-Marcelli, Pascale, Jaime S. Rossiter, and Fernando J. Bosco. “Ethnic markets and community food security in an urban “food desert”.” Environment and Planning A 49, no. 7 (2017), 1642-1663. doi:10.1177/0308518x17700394.

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