Nick Bergus

Ezra Klein as a guest on the Search Engine podcast (stick with me):

You have this metaphor in American politics, it comes from George W. Bush, where he says after his reelection, “I’ve earned political capital, and I intend to spend it.”

He does spend it. He tries to privatize social security. And it makes him hideously unpopular and in part leads to the 2006 midterm.

But I’ve been thinking about that line lately, because actually what rich people do with capital is not spend it. They invest it, right?

That’s the point of capital. You invest it thoughtfully, and then you get all this extra capital, right? It begins to build for you. And the question for Democrats right now is not how to spend the power they got. It’s how to invest the power they got.

I’ve been talking to friends this week, just like normal, people who follow the news who are stunned by the size of what just happened, whose immediate thought is kind of like: how are the Democrats going to fuck this up?

It would be Democrats if listen to themselves and not to the voters.

Klein is talking about national politics and big, blue, libbed-out, capital-D Democrats. But I’ve been thinking about this in the context of local politics and, more specifically, the defeat (again) of the jail bond.

This coalition earned political capital. This coalition of immigrants, trans folks, community organizers and activists, and, yes, abolitionists, earned political capital.

While it is tempting, after a campaign that included a lot of angry, racist, transphobic, dismissive, dehumanizing, spiteful attacks online, to pull out the flame thrower¹, that would just spend that capital, and not even in a politically expedient way.

It would be buying junk food with the endowment.

So how do we invest it, and not just spend it?

The answer, I think, includes making sure we’re bringing an even greater diversity to the table, and that we’re listening to — and being led by — that diversity of voices in an equitable way.

Through the campaign, county leaders pointed at the Criminal Justice Coordinating Committee as the group with diverse backgrounds in the criminal punishment system, convened to provide input on the jail. But folks I talked to who served on the committee, but weren’t front-and-center in the advocacy campaign, said it became obvious to them early on the CJCC was convened as a cheerleading squad to whom county leaders could point as the group with diverse backgrounds in the criminal punishment system convened to provide input on the jail.

We justly poked holes in the county’s official characterization. But it’s important we don’t fall into the same easily sprung trap.

Now is where the real work begins.

The works has always required folks working inside, folks working outside, and folks working alongside systems. Of course inside is very much a place of white, cis, capital supremacy and will require thoughtful navigation.

But now is chance to invest political capital to build power by centering and sharing power with those who are most harmed by our current system, and who are vulnerable to expanded carceral power.

1. Or, at least, reply with a cutting amount of sore-loser snark to every “haha, y’all are getting nervous!” comment on social media comment with a cutting, brush-your-shoulders-off insult. ↩︎

With a majority of voters saying “no” to the latest proposal for a new $94.5 million jail and sheriff’s office, and the Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Brad Kunkel unsure of what’s next, we should talk about what the community wants. Or at least what I want.

It’s always dangerous to try drawing a clear meaning from a yes-or-no ballot measure, but with a majority of voters rejecting the latest proposal, some introspection is warranted on the part of county leaders.

As someone who knocked doors, I know some of it was cost¹, some of it was size², some of it was location³, some of it was the connection to ICE, some of it was just the idea of a tax increase⁴. 

There were plenty of political missteps as part of the work, too. Holding a man on an ICE detainer for five extra days in the run-up to voting, for example, and advocates refusing to grant a single criticism only played into the anti-jail narrative, while many opponents disarmed the advocates’ “but we have to” messaging by simply granting the premise that nothing wasn’t an option forever. 

Kunkel and other advocates also rejected compromise throughout the process:

• Speaking against a diversion program that would dispatch trained mediators to help settle non-violent disputes. 
• Ending a partnership with CommUnity Crisis Services and bringing the mental health liaison in-house, eliminating a firewall between law enforcement and the mental health worker and cutting off a network of resources. 
• Walking away from a joint facility with Iowa City, which would have lowered the voter threshold to a simple majority, because it meant compromise with three jail opponents on the Iowa City Council who everyone paying attention could have predicted going in. 
• And less than a month before the election, when I visited the jail with a University of Iowa class, Kunkel refused me entry on the tour.

Some opponents argued this was just a building voters should view it in that light, but what a jail is simply cannot be ignored.⁵ Jails are a key part of a system that disproportionately harms Black and brown folks, trans folks, immigrants, unhoused folks, and low-income folks. And, no matter how hard we try, they are not humane.⁶

So what would I see that might allow me to stand down? 

The start must be a wholistic plan that commits to a countywide goal of zero incarceration, which would frame next steps while also recognizing current state law and other realities make this an aspirational goal akin to other goals of zero we accept. And it must include a position, outside the County Attorney and Sheriff’s offices, to oversee county diversion and prevention programs with its own budget and oversight power. 

Things I would like to see in a proposal:

• Direct outside views from cells
• Access to outdoor exercise 
• Contact visitation
• Sheriff’s offices in a remodeled, preexisting building
• Community co-design, including input from people who have been incarcerated in the Johnson County Jail and their families, public defenders and defense attorneys, and other service providers, facilitated by someone who has an interest and incentive to proposal a smaller jail
• The elimination of third-party, for-profit communication tools for incarcerated people
• Commitments to outside partnerships, including moving money currently used for transportation and out-of-county incarceration into diversion programs with metrics and goals
• No contracts with outside agencies, such as ICE or other counties 
• Disposal of the MRAP
• Policies that protect the people under the county’s care and offer real accountability when they’re violated
• 300 permanent supportive homes to functionally end homelessness in Johnson County

None of these are wild.

1. The mailers from advocates didn’t even mention it, they were so afraid of cost ↩︎
2. The proposal would have doubled the current capacity and laid the groundwork for doubling the incarceration capacity in the future. ↩︎
3. The edge of town right next to a previously rejected site of the Historic Poor Farm was too on the nose or too far away. ↩︎
4. The fact sheet and calculator actually showed the impact as about twice as high as what it would have cost residential property owners ↩︎
5. The initial Shive-Hattery report also tells the lie, originally framing the building as a “civic landmark” that can “evoke community pride” and “instill a sense of safety and security.” ↩︎
6. Yes, even with “trauma-informed design” bullshit ↩︎