Three Questions for Presidential Candidates

1. Title IX Reform

Right now the primary argument against paying college football and basketball players is that they are "getting a free education" and that "revenues subsidize the rest of the athletic department."

Setting aside the ethics of coaches known to stand in the way of players getting the education promised, there is the question of who else benefits, specifically women. Since Title IX, basketball, golf, soccer, softball, and volleyball teams have sprung up like weeds as schools try to comply with the law.

But where do they find the players to fill these new women's teams?

Very little talent evaluation of high school recruits happens at schools. Mostly college coaches watch players at summertime, club-based invitational tournaments around the country. What that means is that for players to be seen by college recruiters, they have to have both the talent and the money to travel to and play in these tournaments.

So these are mostly middle- to upper-middle-class white women on these new teams.

And their college scholarships are being paid for by the labors of (mostly) lower- to lower-middle-class (mostly) black men.

So, Mr(s). Presidential Candidate -- Should rich white women go to college at the expense of poor black men? If not, how would you fix Title IX to correct this inequity?

2. Electoral College Reform

Minnesota has sent Democrats to the Electoral College every election since 1972. It was the only state never to cast an electoral vote for Ronald Reagan. This is despite the heavily-conservative, reliably-Republican rural area outside the Twin Cities.

Likewise, Alabama has voted for exactly one Democrat since 1960, despite one of the highest per-capita (reliably Democrat-voting) African-American populations of any state.

Despite these divisions, both states (and 46 others) still use a winner-take-all system for allocating electoral votes.

There is a better way. Nebraska and Maine count votes for electors on a (Congressional) district-by-district basis, with only 2 electoral votes assigned based on state-wide totals, giving them the potential to be "purple states."

So, Mr(s). Presidential Candidate -- Since many states are more purple than blue or red, would you support a constitutional amendment banning state-wide winner-take-all electoral vote assignments in favor of the Nebraska Plan?

3. Disaster Recovery

Measured by loss of life and economic impact, the biggest event of the Bush Presidency was not 9/11 or the Iraq War. The most significant impact was Hurricane Katrina.

Two years before Katrina, southern California was ravanged by wildfires. Two years after Katrina, it happened again.

More federal and private dollars were spent in Katrina recovery than in response to both fires combined. Yet three months after the second round of fires, life in LA and San Diego is pretty much back to normal.

On the other hand, we're 2 1/2 years out from Katrina, and parts of New Orleans are still uninhabitable.

So, Mr(s). Presidential Candidate -- What are you going to do to find out where the money went? What lessons should the folks in Louisiana have learned from California's disaster response? And what are you going to do to make them learn?

If anyone connected with a Presidential campaign wants to respond, I'm all ears.