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March 19, 2024 12:36 PM UTC

Who Stands Up For "Underrepresented" Men? Scott Bottoms, Baby!

  • 18 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Rep. Scott Bottoms, patriarchy’s hole card.

Yesterday was the annual Latino/a Advocacy Day at the Colorado State Capitol, an annual event that like so many other routine functions at the Capitol didn’t result in much controversy in the “before times”–that sometimes-mythologized halcyon period before either the global pandemic or Donald Trump where the discourse under the Dome was somewhat less consistently bitter and acrimonious than it is today.

But as observant readers have already realized from this foreshadowing, the debate yesterday over House Joint Resolution 24-1020 honoring Latino/a Advocacy Day took the turn we’ve come to expect for the worse–or, in this case, Rep. Scott “There Is No” Bottoms living up to his nickname:

BOTTOMS: Thank you Madame Speaker. I uh understand the uh concept of parity, and uh, I’m not an affirmative action kind of person but I understand the concept of parity, and Latinos are the most underrepresented group in this House. There’s no doubt about that. But if we really believe in parity, we need to look at some other statistics. Males are also underrepresented in this House, according to the demographics of Colorado, females are overrepresented. [Pols emphasis] Un, whites are overrepresentative, overrepresentative in this House, and so are Blacks. They’re overrepresented in this House. The LGBT community is overrepresented by three times, so uh when we’re starting to talk about ‘parity,’ does that mean we bring the other groups down and up also? Or do we just focus on one group? Focusing on one group is not consistent with what the actual word parity means.

Rep. Bottoms subjected the word “parity” to a semantic beating, but here’s what the resolution actually says:

Latinas and Latinos represent more than twenty-four percent of Colorado’s population. Some legislative districts have even greater percentages of Latina and Latino voters and constituents. Therefore, events like Latino/a Advocacy Day are essential to improve parity of representation in the statewide legislative body…

Obviously, no one is talking about enforcing “parity” in the Colorado General Assembly by any external means, simply improving representation of a historically underrepresented group by participation–and the reason we “focus on one group” on this given day is precisely because that group has been historically underrepresented.

Which has, say it slowly with us, never been a problem for males.

Again, there’s no need for this pointless contrarianism in response to every single issue. Metaphorically dying on every hill is a choice blowhards like Bottoms make. And often like yesterday, Bottoms exposes the deep ignorance at the heart of these silly objections better than Democrats could themselves.

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18 thoughts on “Who Stands Up For “Underrepresented” Men? Scott Bottoms, Baby!”

  1. Did anyone ask the Representative to show his work? 

    I remember the stories such as "Nov 16, 2022 — Colorado's state Legislature is poised to have more women than men in 2023 for the first time in the state's history, with 51%"

    Given that women live longer than men, I suspect the population of those ELIGIBLE to serve in the legislature is at least 51% female.  One source I checked said

    Between the age group of 60-64 years, there are 169,706 males and 175,989 females in Colorado. Thus there are 6,283 less males than females between the age of 60 and 64 years.  [the graph with the article shows women outnumbering men starting in the 55-59 group.]

    For the senior most age group of 85+ years, there are 35,462 males and 56,842 females.

     

  2. If his name and that photo are any indication, I'm guessing he wears his colored hankie in the right, rear pocket when he is out on the prowl.

    1. As Forest Gump like to say, "Stupid is as stupid does."

      They attract one another because they're idiots and they're proud of it. There's strength in numbers.

      1. That's not totally true. For example Republicans have Sooper who isn't a total idiot but they bullied him into commiting career suicide while his bullies became the Leadership. He's too smart to be a Republican too dumb and fearful of being bullied more to leave.

  4. Women have a lot of time to make up for before reaching historic equity with men in the legislature.   The fact is the Colorado legislature was active for 18 years before the first woman was elected to the House and 36 years before the first was elected to the Senate….and that it was active for 146 years before women managed to comprised a majority for the very first time.  Unsurprisingly it only took 2 years for one of the men in the legislature to take to the floor to bitch about being underrepresented.  Dude, just be happy there's one of you there to complain.  As noted above, it took 18 years before a woman was under the dome to say anything about anything. 

        1. A joke about rape, Thorntonite?

           

          ps. This has been a test of the emergency LBWPoS triggering system. Had this been an actual LBWPoS triggering event, it would have also featured Jill Stein, Ralph Nader, voter suppression, advocacy for domestic violence survivors, and praise of any left wing feminist politician.

          Please return to your regularly scheduled Pols programming.

          1. Once again, Pomposa, you've missed the mark.

            I become resigned to the fact that what is going to happen ultimately will happen. I'm planning on voting for Biden. I'm also donating money to his campaign. But I'd be (very pleasantly) surprised if he wins. 

            I'm looking at the election with the attitude that "if they give you lemons, make lemonade." While I no doubt will detest his authoritarian tendencies, his grifting, and his pandering to the theocratic assholes, with any luck his 2017 tax cuts will be extended which means more money in my pocket. I'll look at it as compensation for the psychological and emotional distress four more years of him will inflict upon me.

            And if things get really, really bad here, I have an exit strategy. My husband has a house in Mexico where we already spend much of our winters. We'll just need to spend more time there. (I would just need to learn to adapt to the summer heat.)

            I'm starting to rethink my binary way of thinking which has dictated that we always should go with the lesser of two evils. Maybe there is something to the idea of voting one's conscience.

            It's a tribute to the strength of our democracy that we can have a wide selection of different candidates so that everyone can find someone with whom they can vote in good conscience: the theocrats, gun nuts, racists, and authoritarians have Trump, the right/centrists will have the No Labels candidate, the conspiracy folks have Kennedy, the left/ centrists have Biden, and the hard core left have the dilemma of choosing between West and Stein.

             

            2. Voting your conscience is a fine thing … in states where the outcome is not in doubt.  Personally, I don't see how one would consider West and Stein competent to create or run a large organization such as the White House and the Executive Branch, but their supporters may have some evidence I've yet to see. Or perhaps "conscience" doesn't nod to ability.

              I keep reading some of the "woe is Biden" explanations, and I truly don't understand which states that elected Biden in 2020 are going to flip to Trump, let alone enough to flip the overall electoral college outcome.

              Trump's demonstrated supporting demographic groups have been shrinking in both relative and absolute numbers. 

              Given that minority turnout fell off [in 2022], the fact that the non-college White share of the total 2022 vote still slightly declined “has to be a huge cause for concern for Republicans at this point,” says Tom Bonier, chief executive of TargetSmart, a Democratic political targeting firm. If more of the growing pool of eligible minority voters turn out in 2024, he says, “it is not unreasonable to expect” that the non-college White voters so critical to GOP fortunes could experience an even “steeper decline” in their share of the total votes cast next year.

              One group that had been key to Trump's win in 2016 were White Evangelicals.  Their voter participation was higher than the population as a whole and 75% or so of them supported Trump.  However, according to PRRI, they made up about 16.8% of the American population in 2016. By 2022, it was 13.6% and the more recent anecdotes and stats I've seen appear to support an on-going decline.  And younger and urban Evangelicals among that number have demonstrated less loyalty to voting and voting for Trump.

              I've seen and can understand those who say the race is going to be tight — but I haven't seen anyone with a compelling explanation of a certain Trump win. Got a source that would persuade?

              1. "I truly don't understand which states that elected Biden in 2020 are going to flip to Trump, let alone enough to flip the overall electoral college outcome."

                Wisconsin 2024: Trump 46%, Biden 43% – Emerson Polling (emersoncollegepolling.com)

                Nevada 2024 Poll: Trump 44%, Biden 41% – Emerson Polling (emersoncollegepolling.com)

                Home of the Marist Poll | Polls, Analysis, Learning, and More

                Michigan 2024 Poll: Trump 45%, Biden 44% – Emerson Polling (emersoncollegepolling.com)

                Michigan is interesting because if you read down, the one point lead Trump hold over Biden gets a little bigger when you add Kennedy, West and Stein to mix. It also shows Gretchen Witmer beating Trump, 50% to 45% in Michigan.

                Maybe if Biden brings peace and prosperity to Gaza between now and November, he will close the gap. But that's a long shot. Michigan is gone.

                Arizona and Georgia were upsets for Biden last time – much like Obama's win in North Carolina and Indiana in 2008 were nice surprises but unfortunately not to be repeated. The only reason Warnock was re-elected in 2022 was because of what he had for an opponent.

                Finally, Biden is doing terribly – compared to what he got four years ago – among black and brown voters. This is not a big surprise because while black voters used to vote Democratic by 90% or so, that number has been slowly coming down. Middle and working class black voters are responding to Trump's trade and economic policies.

                And the Hispanic communities are even more extreme. Sure, if you ask people who are asylum seekers or undocumented immigrants, they'll say they identify with the Democrats. But here's some news for you – very few of those people vote.

                The ones who do vote have been here for a while. And a lot of them paid their dues and went through the process. They have a degree of resentment towards the ones who cut the line. So many of them actually agree with Trump on immigration.

                "Personally, I don't see how one would consider West and Stein competent to create or run a large organization such as the White House and the Executive Branch"

                That is irrelevant to most voters. What major organization did Joe Biden, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama ever run before becoming president? Trump, of course, ran a major organization which went through four bankruptcies. Using the standard of running a major organization, Bush, Jr.'s term as governor of Texas makes him the most qualified of the last five presidents. 

                Finally, I dare say that for many people, West, Stein and Kennedy – while all are eligible for Medicare and social security – are perceived as still younger and more vibrant than Biden or Trump.

                I've said it before and I'll say it again. A strategy that says vote for Biden because he is not Trump is as likely to be successful this year as it was in 2016 when Hillary tried it.

                1. Thanks for taking my question seriously and responding.  You have a number of points that I'll need to mull a bit. 

                  The largest academic study of Presidential polls I know of concluded that this early, the polls are about as reliable as flipping a coin.  I'm not up for dissecting the nuances of size, registration status, how the polls deal with "no answer" responses, and a host of other factors.  I'll be much more interested in mid-summer and into the fall.   I'll just say that polls this early in 2016 showed a sizeable Clinton win, the polls this early in 2020 showed a sizeable Biden win, and both wound up as really tight races in the battleground states. 

                  On Michigan … there's a great deal of uncertainty what it means for an "uncommitted" vote in the Democratic primary, what "anger" at the Biden White House means when there is also anger at the Trump White House, and the attraction of 3rd party candidates has almost ALWAYS dropped precipitously as general election looms. 

                  And Muslim and Arab American leaders in Michigan are skeptical that their community will vote in large numbers for Trump.

                  “We’ve seen his presidency before, and we’ve seen the impact it has on Muslims,” said Hira Khan, the interim executive director of the Michigan chapter of Emgage, a Muslim advocacy organization. “There’s still a lot of fear about what would happen if he comes back into office again.”

                  Turaani agreed: “I don’t think our community is going to vote for Trump.”

                  Short version … I don't expect to convince people with my analysis of Trump's coalition shrinking. 

                  Way too many things that will be relevant to the election are among the "known unknowns."  I have no idea where a variety of court cases will be and if the verdicts will matter.  I don't know if Trump will be able to adequately ramp up fundraising. Who knows if Trump will develop a coherent campaign such as he had in 2020 or go back to the wavering model of 2016. I really don't know if there will be another round of effective foreign influence (2016) or if it will be much less persuasive (2020). And of course, none of know which signs of aging will become more evident and concerning.

                  1. "I don't know if Trump will be able to adequately ramp up fundraising."

                    That is one thing Biden has going his way. I don't think Trump will be able to ramp up fundraising.And he is focusing all his efforts now on preserving his personal and business assets when he should be raising money for his campaign.  🙂

                    And I concede that a lot – for better or worse – can still happen between now and Oct./Nov. 

  5. Was "Bottom" named after the donkey-headed clown in A Midsummer Night's Dream"? That seems apt.

    Donkeys ( Democrats) live rent free in his head and make him look a fool. He also spends all his time chasing fairies. 
     

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