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Author Archives: Jeffrey Mirsepasy

Colorado has passed a bill to allow motorcycles to lane filter between stopped cars, becoming the fifth state to legalize it after California, Utah, Montana, and Arizona. The Colorado bill goes into effect on Aug. 7, 2024, and it will allow motorcyclists to filter through stopped traffic at a speed of 15 mph or less.

Lane filtering is different from lane splitting. Lane filtering allows motorcycle riders to proceed forward at slow speeds through non-moving vehicles, such as when stopped at a traffic light. Lane splitting is where the motorcycle passes between the lanes of traffic while moving along a road or highway.

“The AMA endorses lane splitting, given the long term success in California and the University of California study by Berkley researchers showing that it enhances motorcycle safety. “A motorcycle’s narrow width can allow it to pass between lanes of stopped or slow-moving cars on roadways where the lanes are wide enough to offer an adequate gap. This option can provide an escape route for motorcyclists who would otherwise be trapped or struck from behind. There is evidence (Hurt, 1981) that traveling between lanes of stopped or slow-moving cars (i.e., lane splitting) on multiple-lane roads (such as interstate highways) slightly reduces crash frequency compared with staying within the lane and moving with other traffic.” There has been recent enthusiasm for lane splitting and/or filtering in other states. The AMA endorses these practices—as long as lane splitting is conducted within safe highway speeds—and will assist groups and individuals working to bring legal lane splitting and/or filtering to their state.” AMA official statement.

Personally, being from Washington where I have not had experience with lane splitting, it gives me the “creeps” when I see motorcycles pass me in between vehicles. I am not used to it. As many of you know, I ride ~10,000 miles per year now. I haven’t found I am THAT much of a rush to get somewhere to take on this perceived risk; but if the studies are accurate, maybe I should re-think this position.

Did Seattle Tear Down Old Viaduct for New One?

I went for a bike ride yesterday along Seattle’s waterfront.  After 50 years (actually the first section was opened April 4, 1953, about 70 years ago) of double-decker noise, visual blockage of the water, and general disgust, Seattle is finally free of the Hwy 99 Viaduct.  Or so we thought.

On my bicycle, I was forced to detour from the normal waterfront route along Alaskan Way into Myrtle Edwards Park. It used to be so nice to flow from Alaskan Way northbound into the long, quiet waterfront park. But no longer.  A huge viaduct-like highway has been built at the north “end” of Seattle’s downtown waterfront, rising above ground level.  Its packed with car traffic, and bicyclists are forced to ride along the trucks and cars inland away from the water.

Former Mayor Mike McGinn’s comments as quoted in a recent Axios Seattle article are spot on: “So, we just rebuilt the highway?”

A view of part of the new Elliott Way, which is slightly elevated, from a new platform above at Pike Place Market.

Photo: Melissa Santos/Axios.

So as I doubled back west, then south, then north again to rejoin Alaskan Way, I thought about whether this wasn’t really just another jobs project.  If the goal was to REMOVE impediments to enjoyment of the view and access to Elliot Bay from town, why are “they” once again building a highway?

 

 

Citizens’ Grand Jury – Rarely used but this could be changing.

The BBC has reported in a story that a young woman in Kansas has chosen to invoke a “citizens’ Grand Jury” proceeding provided by law in Kansas – a law dating from 1887.  Where the prosecutor declined bringing rape charges against a college student, the victim has gathered signatures and now her perseverance for justice may bring her some closure.  Interesting story about a law I had never heard of!

 

Post-Covid Remote Working Raises Conflict Between States’ Tax Revenue

Jimmy Vielkind writes in the Wall Street Journal that the uptick in working from home has presented a battle between States and their desire to tax the workers’ income in order to run state and local governments.  Traditionally, a worker who commuted to work from another State (e.g. New Jersey across the river to New York City) was taxed in part for income earned at the physical M-F work space.

New Hampshire filed with suit in the US Supreme Court in October to stop Massachusetts from taxing residents working remotely (the US Supreme Court normally is not a “trial court” but it has original jurisdiction in some disputes between states).. The petition says Massachusetts doesn’t have the right to tax the income of New Hampshire residents who previously commuted to their jobs in Massachusetts but now work from home.

A ruling would have significant budget implications for states that billions in tax revenue during the pandemic and will have huge implications in the “new economy” as remote working becomes the norm (e.g. Dropbox and Facebook which are apparently transitioning to permanent work-from-home models).

“The Massachusetts v. New Hampshire issue is no isolated border skirmish between those states. It raises a fundamental national issue that has been festering for decades,” said Edward Zelinsky, who teaches tax law at Yeshiva University’s Cardozo Law School in New York City.

Federal courts have held that states may tax the income of nonresidents so long as employees have a substantial link to the taxing state, the taxes are fairly related to services provided by that state, and a tax is apportioned fairly and doesn’t discriminate against interstate commerce.

Massachusetts normally apportions the amount of income it taxes based on the number of days commuters are working in the state, predominantly at firms in and around Boston, it said in a court filing. But the commonwealth issued a rule earlier this year stating it would treat income paid to nonresidents who have stopped traveling to the state because of the pandemic as though they were still commuting.

New Hampshire, which has no income tax, said in its petition that Massachusetts’ rule infringed on its sovereignty, as well as undermined “an incentive for businesses to locate capital and jobs in New Hampshire, a motivation for families to relocate to New Hampshire’s communities, and the State’s ability to pay for public services by reducing economic growth.”

The WSJ article explores a rule (“the convenience rule”) applied by New York, where work for a New York-based company performed remotely is still taxable in New York if the telecommuting took place for the convenience of the employee. That means someone who does research and writing from his home in Connecticut one or two days a week during the year, is taxed by New York state on his entire salary if the employer/company is located in Manhattan.

The fiscal implications of changing the taxation rules run in the billions of dollars, according to budget officials from several states. In 2018, around 434,000 New Jersey residents paid $3.7 billion in New York income taxes, according to the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance. Almost 87,000 Connecticut residents paid New York an additional $1.3 billion in 2018; those two states’ residents account for about 10% of all the income tax New York collected that year.

The top 6 reasons why democracy’s guardrails held after the election

Eliza Newlin Carney wrote in The Fulcrum (a non partisan, nonprofit digital news service) that the Country was able to hold onto its democracy (at least as of this post) despite the President’s extreme and unprecedented pushing of the Nation towards a National crisis, due to six institutional factors. 

She wrote that the nation’s brush with autocracy was troublingly close, and the damage to public confidence in elections could be lasting. Still, it’s worth acknowledging the guardrails that have held fast against the nation’s severe democracy stress test, and against Trump’s specious and ongoing fraud allegations. There’s no guarantee these railings would hold against a more sophisticated adversary, and the need to shore up voting rights and election administration remains urgent.

These are the six most important factors that so far have saved us:

The military: Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stated that the military would play “no role” in any post-election disputes.

And after Trump raised fresh alarms with his post-election firing of Defense Secretary Mark Esper and some of his top Pentagon aides, Milley declared pointedly on Veterans Day: “We are unique among militaries. We do not take an oath to a king, or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take an oath to an individual. … We take an oath to the Constitution.”

The courts: The long list of judges who rejected Trump’s election challenges include several conservatives nominated by Trump and his GOP predecessors, who debunked the president’s legal claims as baseless in the extreme.  I am disappointed that the judges gave so much leeway to baseless claims and have not apparently sanctioned lawyers under CR 11 but there may be more on that front in the near future.

The states: Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s Republican secretary of state, has drawn justifiable notice for withstanding personal threats and calls for his resignation to certify his state’s election results, stating memorably: “Numbers don’t lie.”  Thousands of rank-and-file election administrators, poll workers and volunteers from both political parties have carried out their duties to the Nation and honored the sanctity of the vote despite opposition by unpatriotic and uninformed Trump followers who blindly accepted claims of fraud as fact. State legislators, too, refused to step in and overrule voters, sensing public backlash but also in some cases resisting White House pressure.

The media: Mainstream news outlets, and even in some instances conservative Fox News, have choked the Trump campaign’s Russia-style firehose of campaign disinformation with relentless fact checks and around-the-clock reporting. The misrepresentations continue, and the president’s fabrications of voter fraud have been swallowed whole by millions of Republican voters. But fact-based reporting has made it harder for the Trump campaign to advance its false claims in court, and helped mobilize voters to hold public officials accountable.

The hardware: An estimated 95 percent of votes this year were cast either using a mail-in paper ballot or a voting machine that produced a verifiable and auditable paper trail — equipment installed thanks to decades of lobbying by voting rights advocates and election security experts.

Voter-verifiable paper trails are considered an essential backstop against voting machine breakdowns, the best possible guard against hacking and as a crucial tool for audits and recounts. Existing state requirements vary, and counties in some states still use paperless voting machines despite the risk, pointing to the need for federal guidelines. But in Georgia, where a new system this year allowed voters to cast ballots with a verifiable paper trail statewide for the first time, paper records proved crucial in facilitating not one but two watertight recounts, and in debunking on its face Trump’s unfounded claim that Dominion Voting Systems had somehow altered the state tally.

The voters: Almost 160 million voters turned out in this election, at almost 67 percent, the highest percentage of the eligible population since the first presidential election of the 20th century. A coup or Constitutional crisis will only succeed if the masses show indifference and allow it to happen.

“You get the government you deserve.” Not exactly what Thomas Jefferson said, but you get the gist.

 

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