Please share your opinions or thoughts to the following 2 short essay

1.

This piece caught my eye because student debt affects a huge amount of people in the US. Approximately 46 million people in the US have student loan debt, and about 55% of undergrad students of the class of 2020 have an average of just under $30k in student debt. That's close to 15% of all US citizens, without excluding children, which make up 22% of the population.

The specific mention of "law school debt" in this piece caught my eye, because one of my best friends is a lawyer. She graduated second in her class from a great law school eight years ago and makes quite a lot of money (no kids, single, no mortgage), and what she still pays monthly is over 1.5x what I pay for two kids in private preschool per month. And that's just for law school, she still has an undergrad loan she is paying off. And while selected Republicans say it is not fair "for a woman who is working to make ends meet have her tax dollars go to a person who went to law school", I'd argue that we all pay taxes, and we all benefit from taxes in different ways. She may not benefit from that, but she may benefit from the CTC, and perhaps this law grad does not, but we all pay into it. We all use roads, bridges, libraries, gov buildings, parks, etc.

It is important to see this through a wide lens, through the lens of the average American, not of a government representative who makes $174k+ per year, significantly more than the US average of close to $52k. I have spoken to friends about this, including friends who have paid off a crazy amount of student debt, and while they wish it had been introduced in time for them, they do not begrudge those that it helps. If we do end up passing student loan forgiveness, it will affect all sorts of people, and will help those who work in the public sector, and perhaps don't make as much as their private sector counterparts, stretch their dollars further. It will help families crawl out of the debt hole, and be able to spend their money in other ways to boost our economy.

2.

While all the congressional maps are set for the midterm elections now, the battle between the commissions and state legislatures with the state supreme courts over drawing congressional districts was an important story earlier this year. It had implications for local public elections administrators and the electorate amid primary elections. This New York Times storyLinks to an external site. explained how state courts in Democratic and Republican states have rejected partisan gerrymandered congressional maps (Corasaniti and Epstein, 2022). The argument between state election boards and a state court was on full display in New York, as a New York state judge rejectedLinks to an external site. a congressional map that was considered to favor Democrats and pushed the primary election from June into August (AP, 2022).

This story caught my attention as the Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that federal courts do not have the power to hear cases where partisan gerrymandering is prevalent. This story, along with the 2019 Supreme Court decision, made me think of the Glick article about the strong influence that state supreme courts have in policy matters that can affect their decisions. Glick explained that state supreme courts have the potential to impact other governmental entities and political environment with their decisions and their established communication links (Glick, 1970, p. 289). The Supreme Court's 2019 caseLinks to an external site., Rucho v. Common Cause, emboldened state courts and the state legislators to have the final word in drawing congressional maps. The intervention by state courts, while needed to try and set fair congressional maps, had some unintended consequences that "priorities, implementation, inter-organizational relations, and accountability mechanisms" (O'Leary, 1991, p. 8). These impacts have political, managerial and legal implications. For political implications, the delay on setting congressional maps ahead and during the primary election season can cause confusion for candidates as they would be determining who their constituents would be and the citizens as they will not know the candidates on the ballot in their respective district. The delay on setting the maps has managerial implications for local election administrators as the back and forth between election commissions, state parties and state courts can affect how local election administrators run an election and administer and staff polling locations.