Decision Makers: What Will Black Mayors Do? Also ... Insurance & Economic Impact With LA Wildfires; A State Legislator On High Poverty In Mississippi
Decision Makers
We talk with Phyllis Dickerson, CEO of the African American Mayors Association, an organization representing Black mayors throughout the United States. How do Black mayors evolve in this uncertain, caustic political environment? What are the unique challenges they face? What are the top issues they're facing or expect to face in 2025? The economy? Jobs? Public safety? Schools? Climate change disasters like what we're seeing in LA? The incoming administration will complicate the relationship between the federal government and local governments. How do Black mayors navigate that?
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We talk with Alexandra Thornton at the Center for American Progress about how the LA metro area wildfires are devastating the LA metro area economically and how the insurance industry is changing (for the worse) as climate change intensifies. Naturally, homeowners and businesses would expect that their insurance would be able to kick in after losing property and assets in a disaster like this. But, what how are insurance companies really responding. Didn't we see big insurers like State Farm, in fact, pulling out of areas like the Palisades a while before these wildfires even started? What is this telling us about how insurance models are changing overall nationally and even globally as climate change intensifies and disasters become more destructive? What did we see, for example, with other recent disasters? Moving forward, what's the advice for consumers and policymakers?
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We talk with Shannon Baker-Branstetter, Senior DIrector of Domestic Climate and Energy Policy at the Center for American Progress. She explains the conditions that led to, sparked the wildfires in the LA metro area and why climate change is the culprit. What about this made these wildfires so much more spectacular and devastating from previous wildfires in California and elsewhere? What made them different? Should we be expecting more of the types of droughts and heat waves that will lead to more of these kinds of wildfires in the future? How much should we be bracing for? How much should we be worried about how this new administration is responding to this disaster?
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Speaking with Mississippi state Representative Jeffrey Hulum III, who represents the Magnolia state's 119th legislative District. He joins us as part of our continuing Decision Makers: State Legislator Communities of Color series, which we do often in conjunction with the Council of State Governments Eastern region. What are policy priorities for Mississippi, from a Black legislator's point of view? When we think of Mississippi, we think of a very rural state. We also think of major challenges such as high poverty. How do you navigate and address those issues? Even more critically, how do you address those issues as a Black legislator in a Confederate, slavery legacy state like Mississippi? The state's population is nearly 40% Black, yet Black residents there hold so little in terms of political leverage and power. A federal three-judge panel had ordered the Mississippi legislature to create more Black-majority House and Senate Districts in time for the 2025 session. What's the status on that and will that help the Black political situation?