Crooked Bough News Round-up

— More states ban PFAS, or ‘forever chemicals,’ in more products

 

at 10/23/24 4:15am

A person shops at a home improvement store in New York City in January. Many states have enacted laws this year to restrict the use of PFAS — often called “forever chemicals” — in a wide array of consumer goods or firefighting foam. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)Legislative momentum against PFAS has surged this year, as at least 11 states enacted laws to restrict the use of “forever chemicals” in everyday consumer products or professional firefighting foam. The legislation includes bans on PFAS in apparel, cleaning products, cookware, and cosmetic and menstrual products. Meanwhile, lawmakers in some states also passed measures that require industries to pay for testing or cleanup; order companies to disclose the use of PFAS in their products; and mandate or encourage the development of PFAS alternatives, according to Safer States, an alliance of environmental health groups focused on toxic chemicals. In total this year, at least 16 states adopted 22 PFAS-related measures, according to the group. Since 2007, 30 states have approved 155 PFAS policies, the vast majority of them in the past five years. PFAS Alaska California Colorado Connecticut Maine Maryland Massachusetts New Hampshire New Jersey Rhode Island Vermont The thousands of chemicals categorized as perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, do not naturally break down and are found in the blood of 97% of Americans. Some PFAS compounds can harm the immune system, increase cancer risks and decrease fertility. Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released new standards limiting PFAS in drinking water. Water systems have five years to comply with the rules. Even before the EPA action, 11 states had set their own limits on PFAS in drinking water, starting with New Jersey in 2018. Water utilities and chemical manufacturers are challenging the new EPA standards. But states also are heading to the courthouse: So far, 30 states have sued PFAS manufacturers or key users for contaminating water supplies and other natural resources, according to Safer States. “Over the past two decades, the knowledge of PFAS health effects has really exploded,” Jamie DeWitt, a professor of environmental molecular toxicology at Oregon State University, told Stateline. “We now know that they’re linked with different types of cancer, suppression of the vaccine antibody response, liver damage, elevated cholesterol and developmental effects,” said DeWitt, who is also director of the university’s Environmental Health Sciences Center. But the chemical industry and some companies that use PFAS in their products argue that states are going too far. PFAS compounds have properties that make them nonstick, stain-repellent, waterproof or fire-resistant. In addition to being used in everyday consumer goods, they are critical to renewable energy, health care and electronics, defenders say. States need to keep PFAS ’forever chemicals’ out of the water. It won’t be cheap. “PFAS are a diverse universe of chemistries. They have differing health and environmental profiles. It is not scientifically accurate or appropriate to treat all PFAS the same,” Tom Flanagin, a spokesperson from the American Chemistry Council, told Stateline in an email. “Consumers should also know that PFAS chemistries in commerce today have been reviewed by regulators before introduction, are subject to ongoing review, and are supported by a robust body of health and safety data.” In California, which has enacted 19 PFAS-related laws since 2007, the state Chamber of Commerce “opposes any blanket ban on all commercial products containing PFAS,” according to Adam Regele, vice president of advocacy and strategic partnerships. There are more than 15,000 chemicals in the PFAS category, Regele said, and there aren’t viable alternatives for all of them. Scott Whitaker, president and CEO of AdvaMed, a trade association representing medical technology companies, told a congressional committee last year that “it is hard to imagine the medical industry without the many important products that contain fluoropolymers,” a type of PFAS. Whitaker noted that CPAP machines, prosthetics, IV bags, surgical instruments and many other medical products contain PFAS. The semiconductor industry also has expressed concern about far-reaching bans on PFAS, which it uses to manufacture computer chips. It wants exceptions to the new rules as well as time to develop alternatives. But Sarah Doll, national director of Safer States, said one reason states have been so successful in enacting PFAS limits is that more companies are willing to stop using the chemicals. “When California restricted PFAS in textiles, all of a sudden you saw companies like REI saying, ‘We can, we’re going to do that. We’re going to move to alternatives,’” Doll said. In Vermont, state lawmakers in April unanimously approved a measure banning the manufacture and sale of PFAS in cosmetics, menstrual products, incontinence products, artificial turf, textiles and cookware. A Slew of State Proposals Shows the Threat of Forever Chemicals “The same as everyone else, like Democrats, we want to make sure that we remove PFAS and get it out of products as soon as we can,” said Vermont Republican state Rep. Michael Marcotte, who said his district includes cosmetics manufacturer Rozelle Cosmetics, in Westfield. Democratic state Sen. Virginia Lyons, the chief sponsor of the Vermont bill, said it is particularly important to get PFAS out of products that are essential to consumers. “There are some consumer products where you can say, ‘I don’t need to buy that, because I don’t want PFAS,’” Lyons said. “But it’s really tough to say that [about] a menstrual product.” California’s latest PFAS measure, which Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom signed last month, specifically bans the use of PFAS in menstrual products. Democratic Assemblymember Diane Papan, the author of the bill, said it was particularly strong because it covers both intentional and unintentional uses of PFAS, so “manufacturers will have to really be careful about what comes in their supply chain.” While more states enact laws focused on specific products, Maine is preparing to implement the world’s first PFAS ban covering all consumer goods. The Maine law, which is scheduled to take effect in 2030, will include exceptions for “essential” products for which PFAS-free alternatives do not exist. Washington state has also taken a sweeping approach by giving regulators strict timelines to ban PFAS in many product categories. Staff writer Alex Brown contributed to this report. YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, Health]

— Early voting now underway, Trump and Harris crisscross the battleground states

 

at 10/23/24 4:00am

An employee adds a stack of mail-in ballots to a machine that automatically places the ballots in envelopes at Runbeck Election Services on Sept. 25, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. The company prints mail-in ballots for 30 states and Washington, D.C. (Photo by Rebecca Noble / Getty Images)WASHINGTON — With exactly two weeks until Election Day, millions of Americans have already cast their ballots via the mail or in person as Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump pursue voters through the battleground states. Early in-person absentee voting kicked off Tuesday in Wisconsin, adding to the list of swing states where voters have already begun casting ballots, the Wisconsin Examiner reported. Georgia, another battleground, saw record early voter turnout in its first week, amassing more than 1.4 million ballots cast, more than a quarter of the entire voter turnout total in the 2020 presidential election, the Georgia Recorder reported. One week in and early voting Georgians have already banked more than 1.4 million ballots Two national polls released Tuesday show Harris with an edge, particularly among young voters. Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted from Oct. 16 through Monday found Harris up by a narrow 3 points, hardly a change from Ipsos’ findings the previous week. The latest quarterly CNBC/Generation Lab survey found Harris commanding a 20-point lead among 18-to-34-year-olds. All eyes on Latino voters The Harris campaign early Tuesday alerted the press to an “opportunity agenda for Latino men.” The proposal promises to provide 1 million forgivable loans up to $20,000 for Latino men “and others” in start-up funding, eliminate college degree requirements on certain jobs, and encourage first-time home ownership among Latinos by building affordable homes and offer a $25,000 tax break for new buyers — two policy ideas for all Americans she’s been touting for months. Poll numbers released Monday showed Harris continuing to outperform Trump among Latino voters in the battlegrounds of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Poll of Latino voters finds growing support for Harris; Trump tours N.C. storm damage A group of Christian Latinos showered Trump with praise in Miami, Florida, on Tuesday. With hands on Trump’s shoulders, religious leaders prayed over him at a roundtable event held at the Trump National Doral Golf Club. Guillermo Maldonado, who founded the King Jesus International Ministry, said the election is “not a war between the left and the right. This is a war between good and evil. We can fight that, and we need spiritual weapons.” “Father, we anointed him today, we anointed him to be the 47th president of the United States to restore the Biblical values. No weapon formed against him shall prosper,” Maldonado, who goes by the title ‘apostle,’ continued in his prayer over Trump. The event streamed live on C-SPAN. Immediately after the prayer, Trump’s signature campaign song, “YMCA” by the Village People, blared and the roundtable leaders began passing books and hats for him to sign. During the roundtable, Trump accused Harris of “sleeping” and “taking a day off.” He also, again, accused her of having a “low I.Q.” “There’s something wrong with her,” he told the crowd. Liz Cheney, CNN and Springsteen Harris campaigned Monday with former U.S. House Republican Liz Cheney in suburban areas of three states — Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Cheney is the daughter of former GOP Vice President Dick Cheney, who is also backing Harris. Harris kicks off series of conversations with Liz Cheney during visit to Chester County “For me, every single thing in my experience and in my background has played a part in my decision to endorse Vice President Harris,” said Liz Cheney, who was once the third-highest-ranking House Republican. “That begins with the fact that I’m a conservative and I know that the most conservative of all conservative principles is being faithful to the Constitution.” According to her publicly available schedule, the vice president was scheduled to record two interviews Tuesday afternoon with NBC and Telemundo. And on Wednesday night at 9 Eastern, she’ll participate in a CNN town hall in Pennsylvania moderated by anchor Anderson Cooper. Then on Thursday, Harris and former President Barack Obama will lead a “Get Out the Vote” rally, featuring a performance by Bruce Springsteen, in Georgia to encourage early voting. On Friday the vice president will travel to Houston, Texas, to campaign on abortion rights. She will be accompanied by Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who’s trying to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Trump cancels appearances, plans Georgia rallies Trump canceled a scheduled appearance Tuesday at an event titled “Make America Healthy Again,” which was to feature guests Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic lawmaker-turned-Republican Tulsi Gabbard. Trump’s keynote speech set for Tuesday at a National Rifle Association event in Georgia was also canceled “due to scheduling conflicts.” The former president also scrapped a planned early October interview with CBS’ “60 Minutes” and recent scheduled appearances on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” and NBC News. Trump is scheduled to host a rally Tuesday night in Greensboro, North Carolina, and on Wednesday his schedule shows two events — a “Believers and Ballots Faith Town Hall” in Zebulon, Georgia, with the state’s Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, as well as a rally for Turning Point PAC and Turning Point Action in Duluth, Georgia. Trump is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech Thursday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, for Turning Point’s “United for Change Rally.” Politico reported Tuesday that the former president will record an interview Friday with popular podcast host Joe Rogan at his studio in Austin, Texas. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: DC Bureau, Election 2024, Gov & Politics]

— Roswell teen recalls panic as flash flood waters wrecked her quinceañera, stranded 100

 

at 10/22/24 2:18pm

The remains of the Almeida quinceañera in the wake of floods caused by record rainfall in Roswell over the weekend of Oct. 19 and Oct. 20, 2024. (Courtesy of Zachary Lujan)After a whole night huddled under a tarp on a Roswell rooftop, Ashley Almeida climbed down a ladder with one of her friends into what was left of her quinceañera. Much of the ballroom bore the marks of flash floodwaters: mud clung to blue and gold decorations, chairs draped with once-white cloths lay overturned, now brown with thick grime. On one of the tables were some of the gifts from the night before, meant to be a celebration of her 15th birthday. She picked up a Bible, photo album and teddy bear. She left behind the remnants of her elaborate dress – royal blue and trimmed in gold – which she had set aside in favor of a backless romper that was more comfortable for dancing. “My dress was in the water, there was just a little tiny piece of fabric left visible,” she recounted to Source NM, following the devastating weekend flooding. Ashley Almeida, 15, poses in her quinceañera dress. (Kaelauni Salayandia Courtesy of Ashley Almeida) It was a night the Almeida family took a decade saving for, but now it will be a night filled with painful memories for them and hundreds of others in Roswell. The storm that sent torrents of floodwater into the Roswell Convention and Civic Center, the site of the party, also inundated much of the city Saturday night and early Sunday morning,  leaving two people dead in surrounding Chaves County. Officials reported more than 300 water rescues. Javier Almeida, 48, described what should have been a happy occasion  for his daughter quickly devolving into a matter of “life or death,” as more than 100 friends and family gathered for the quinceañera evacuated the ballroom to the rooftops. Everyone attending, from the eight-month old infant, to his elderly mother and people in their 80s emerged safe, which the father credited to a miracle from God. “I’m praying for everyone who has lost their homes, for our family members who’ve lost the opportunity to work, or to leave safely,” he said in Spanish. Partygoers started arriving around 5 p.m., in a light rain. Two hours later, heavy rains started to pour. The National Weather Service would later say the deluge dumped almost 6 inches of rain in a matter of hours – more than half the area’s annual rainfall, and breaking a 1901 record for the most rain in a single event. Zachary Lujan, the general manager of the convention and civic center,  was called for help as the storm intensified. Water was creeping into the lobby and the roof had started to leak in a back hallway. “We thought, ‘Well just squeegee the water out the doors, it cant be that bad,’” Lujan said. “Before we knew it, it went from being just a little water coming in – to a couple feet at our front door and everything just skyrocketed from there.” Lujan and five other maintenance workers tried using sandbags to block the water, to no avail. “The next we knew, the sandbags werent doing anything, and we had to get people to the roof as fast as we could,” he said. Water pooled into the Roswell Convention and Civic Center slowly, then all at once on Saturday Oct. 19, 2024. (Kathy Guera Courtesy of Ashley Almeida) Almeida recalled that most people were in the ballroom, sitting down to eat at tables with sequined blue runners. Just before 10:30, she removed her dress to dance, but staff warned the floodwaters were rising, and that people would have to evacuate. “We were trying to do the dance, but then thats when they all came out and yelled out that it was canceled,” she said. “People were scrambling everywhere.” Floodwaters in Roswell submerged cars and flooded out vehicles around town on Oct. 19, 20204 , including many of the attendees of the Almeida quinceañera. (Courtesy of Zachary Lujan) She said cars were already flooded out, and that much of the family was stranded in the civic center. Around 11 p.m., the water was pouring in faster, and while Lujan started opening roof access, people stood on chairs to avoid the rising waters. Lujan, a former volunteer firefighter, started sending people, including children and babies in carseats, up to the three rooftops that make up the civic center complex. Members of the Almeida family, Lujan and some of the maintenance workers stripped tablecloths from banquet tables and retrieved tarps and trashbags for people to use as shelter from the rain, and they grabbed chips and water to help people make it through the storm on the  rooftops. It was cold and wet with the rains. Ashley was separated from her mom, Elva, who ended up on a separate rooftop.“We dont see my mom, we dont see my uncles and my aunts. Somebody was yelling out, ‘Wheres my kid?’ And it was like, it was a very stressful moment,” Ashley Almeida said. Amid the stress, she also described seeing consideration – friends and family sharing clothes, trying to protect the youngest and oldest from the rain and cold. Roswell Fire Department arrived Sunday about 7 a.m. to help the elderly and children down from the rooftops. Members of the family and maintenance staff grabbed tablecloths, and clothes for the people evacuated to the roof. Flood waters were recorded as high as five and a half feet inside the convention center, officials said. (Courtesy of Zachary Lujan) Ashley Almeida, a sophomore at Roswell High School, said she wants to repay her parents and help her stranded family and is in the process of setting up a GoFundMe. “I just feel terrible because my parents did spend a lot of money to try to give me a really good day,” she said. “I just felt so bad for everybody that showed up there. Their babies were hungry, and they were crying, they were cold, and everyone was just really stressed out.” New Mexico and federal officials continued to survey damage Tuesday. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency Monday, which opens up $1 million in state money for local officials to access for costs during the assessments. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, disaster, flash floods, quinceañera, record rainfall, Roswell High School, state of emergency]

— State extinguishes Gallup-area mine fires burning since at least 2011

 

at 10/22/24 4:45am

An employee with Runyan Construction takes a temperature reading of a Gallup-area coal mine fire that's been burning since for at least 13 years. State officials announced Monday that two mine fires burning since at least 2011 were extinguished. (Photo courtesy EMNRD)Two fires burning in abandoned coal mines since at least 2011 – and possibly much longer – were finally extinguished near Gallup recently, thanks to a dedicated effort by a state team and federal funding, officials announced Monday.  The two underground coal fires were emitting toxic gas near the site of planned infrastructure projects, including a major water pipeline. The mines were first established in the late 1800s and operated until the early 1900s, according to a news release from the state Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department.  In 1891, a fire broke out near one of the mines, called “Navajo No. 1,” and the mine was sealed in 1905 as a result, according to the news release. But it’s unclear from state records whether sealing the mine actually extinguished the fire, spokesperson Sidney Hill said.  More than 100 years later, staff from the state’s Abandoned Mine Land Program encountered fires at that mine and at a separate mine, known as “Enterprise-Brown.” That was in 2011. A problem of infinite scope and cost After the fires were discovered, team members monitored the mines for several years before devising a plan to extinguish them, thanks, in part, to funding from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.  The law sets aside about $12 billion for abandoned mine remediation across the country, including roughly $36 million to New Mexico over the next 15 years. Extinguishing these fires cost about $385,000, according to the news release.  The “Enterprise-Brown” fire was burning toward the Navajo Gallup Water Supply Line, a huge project carrying water through 300 miles of pipeline from the San Juan River to the eastern edge of the Navajo Nation, part of the Jicarilla Apache Nation and the city of Gallup.  The “Navajo No. 1” fire was burning near a new recreation area planned for campers and hikers, according to the news release.  Temperatures from both fires reached 500 degrees Fahrenheit in some places, Hill said. The team used specialized drilling equipment and seismic surveys to determine the fires’ spread.  Then they used heavy equipment to dig out coal seams where the fire was burning, which was then filled. After both seams were filled with a “benign material” and temperatures fell to 90 degrees, the sites of both mines were covered with native seeds and wood mulch, Hill said.  The mine fires posed risks not only to the infrastructure project but also could have sparked a wildfire, EMNRD Secretary Melanie Kenderdine said in the news release.  Hill did not respond to a request for comment Monday afternoon from Source New Mexico about whether there were any additional mine fires burning in New Mexico, and where they are. 

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, abandoned mines, Energy Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Gallup, Navajo Gallup Water Supply Line]

— 1 million+ patients lose coverage as insurers, hospitals drop Medicare Advantage

 

at 10/22/24 4:30am

Andrew and Libby Potter look over the letter they received in October, telling them that their region’s largest hospital system would no longer be considered in-network for Libby’s Medicare Advantage policy. The Potters live in Huntsville, Ala., where Libby is a retired middle school librarian and Andrew is a professor at a state university. (Photo by Anna Claire Vollers / Stateline)HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Libby and Andrew Potter usually ignore the avalanche of Medicare Advantage ads that land in the mailbox at their home in Huntsville, Alabama, each fall as Medicare’s open enrollment period begins. Libby, a retired middle school librarian, has what she considers good health insurance through the state employee health plan. Andrew has insurance through his job as a university professor and plans to join Libby’s insurance when he retires next year. But this year, a few days before open enrollment began, a letter arrived from UnitedHealthcare, informing the Potters that the region’s largest hospital system would no longer be considered in-network for Libby’s Medicare Advantage plan. The Potters spent the next couple of weeks worried and unsure what to do. It seemed incredible that 14 area hospitals, including the area’s only Level 1 trauma center, could suddenly become much, much more expensive. “We were being very careful in how we go up and down stairs,” Libby joked. Medicare is the federal health insurance program for people over 65 and those with certain disabilities. Medicare Advantage is a version of Medicare run by private insurance companies that contract with the government. These plans typically offer extra benefits, such as dental, vision and prescription drug coverage, that aren’t included with traditional Medicare. More than half of eligible Medicare beneficiaries now get their coverage through private Medicare Advantage plans. But this year, as Medicare’s open enrollment season kicks off, more than 1 million patients will have to shop for new health insurance. Facing financial and federal regulatory pressures, many insurers are pulling their Medicare Advantage plans from counties and states they’ve deemed unprofitable. Meanwhile, large health systems in states including Alabama, Minnesota and Vermont have cut ties with some Medicare Advantage plans. It’s a situation that’s alarmed state insurance regulators, who are fielding questions from older adults concerned about their hospitals and doctors withdrawing from their Medicare Advantage plans. Last month, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners sent a letter to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services asking for guidance. “Beneficiaries are faced with either paying the increased out-of-network costs or rescheduling their necessary medical services with another provider who may not have prompt availability,” the insurance commissioners’ group wrote. “A delay in access to medically necessary services is likely to result in harm.” The Potters eventually learned that Libby’s copayments at the hospital would remain the same whether or not the hospital was in-network for the state educators’ Medicare Advantage plan. But those with other UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plans will have to pay more — or find another plan. “When a contract leaves the market, that can threaten continuity of care and access to care,” said Dr. Amal Trivedi, professor of health services, policy and practice at the Brown University School of Public Health. “The beneficiary will have to choose a new plan, and each of these plans is going to have a different benefit structure, different provider network, different prior authorization policies and different [prescription drug] formularies. “The worry is that’s going to affect their out-of-pocket costs, expose them to catastrophic spending, or compromise their access to care.” How we got here Insurance giants such as UnitedHealthcare have been aggressively pushing enrollment in their Medicare Advantage plans for the past several years, luring customers with perks and bonuses not available through traditional Medicare. These plans tend to have low or even no monthly premiums and offer extra benefits such as vision and dental coverage, gym memberships, transportation to medical appointments, and even debit cards for medical supplies. And they’re simple: They provide all of a person’s coverage in one plan, unlike traditional Medicare, under which people must get separate prescription drug coverage and supplemental coverage. But there are trade-offs. Medicare Advantage plans often have a limited network of hospitals and physicians. And while the premiums are typically low, enrollees could end up paying more in the long run in copays and deductibles if they develop a serious illness. The worry is that’s going to affect their out-of-pocket costs, expose them to catastrophic spending, or compromise their access to care. – Dr. Amal Trivedi, professor of health services, policy and practice at Brown University School of Public Health Medicare Advantage programs also are more likely than traditional Medicare to require prior authorization for hospital stays and other high-cost services. The plans’ prior authorization requirements have prompted increased scrutiny in recent years. A congressional investigation by Democratic Senate staff released this month, for example, found the nation’s largest Medicare Advantage insurers denied a quarter of all prior authorization requests for post-acute care in nursing homes, rehab hospitals and long-term care. Medicare Advantage is popular among large employers, many of which are shifting their Medicare-age retirees into these plans. And most states offer Medicare Advantage plans to retired state employees; in 13 states, it’s the only option. In some of those 13 states, retirees forfeit their health benefits in perpetuity if they choose coverage under traditional Medicare. North Carolina Treasurer Dale Folwell, whose office administers the state health plan, said its Medicare Advantage plan is popular. “What we hear from our retirees, is that they are grateful and happy to have such a great offering as a result of their retirement benefit,” the Republican said. “That’s why nearly 89% of our retirees over age 65 have availed themselves of the [Medicare Advantage] product we offer them.” Insurers retreat This year, the handful of insurance giants that dominate the Medicare Advantage market have said they’re scaling back or eliminating plans, to shed members and boost sagging profits. They blame new federal changes to their reimbursements, including a small cut to their base payments, and say patients are using more medical services and benefits than they anticipated. Though most companies haven’t released data on specific counties where they’re making cuts, plans are reportedly shuttering in states such as Alabama, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Texas and Vermont, affecting hundreds of thousands of older adults. Experts say the reasons why a company might find certain markets unprofitable are complex, but can include demographics, availability of providers and plans that are already in the market. “[T]he industry broadly is going to be trimming benefits and in some cases significantly, and exiting from certain counties that aren’t profitable,” Aetna’s former President Brian Kane told shareholders on an earnings call in May, before he left his position. Aetna, a subsidiary of CVS Health, is the third-largest Medicare Advantage insurer in the nation. “I think that’s an industry issue and I think it’s clearly an Aetna focus as well.” Executives at CVS Health, Aetna’s parent company, told shareholders the priority for its Medicare Advantage program would be improving profit margins rather than increasing the number of enrollees. They have not announced publicly which counties will lose Medicare Advantage plans, but noted their changes could push out 10% of their membership, meaning up to 420,000 patients could be forced to shop for a different plan. Canceled plans Even with the decline in the number of plans available next year, “there are still a lot of plans and people have a lot of options,” said Jeannie Fuglesten Biniek, associate director of the Medicare policy program at KFF, a health policy research organization. Next year, the average Medicare beneficiary will have access to 34 Medicare Advantage plans that include drug coverage, down from 36 this year, she said. But that average masks wide variation across states and even counties in how many plans are available. “There are a handful of counties, more than in previous years, where all Medicare Advantage plans exited and those look to be predominantly rural counties,” said Fuglesten Biniek. “We’re talking fortyish counties out of 3,000. For those people in those counties, that matters, but overall, it’s a smaller number.” You’ve covered your copayment; now brace yourself for the ‘facility fee’ Experts say there isn’t enough data available yet to know whether the plan exits are concentrated in certain states or counties. But research has shown that Medicare Advantage plans that enroll higher shares of Black beneficiaries are more likely to be terminated, said Trivedi, of Brown University. Black enrollees have more lower-quality Medicare Advantage plans available in their counties of residence than white enrollees, research shows; terminated contracts tend to have lower-quality ratings. “The consequence is that contract terminations in Medicare Advantage seem to have a disproportionate effect on Black beneficiaries because their contracts are more likely to be terminated,” Trivedi said. In the 10 states that didnt expand Medicaid, 1.6M cant afford health insurance A disproportionate share of Medicare Advantage beneficiaries are Black, Hispanic, and Asian and Pacific Islander. These patients tend to have lower incomes than white beneficiaries, and may by drawn by the lower upfront costs of Medicare Advantage plans. “[Insurers] like to frame it as, ‘People are choosing us because we’re awesome,’” said Brandon Novick, program outreach assistant at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. “But it’s because financially it makes more sense in the short term” for people with limited incomes. Meanwhile, at least 28 health systems in 21 states have stopped accepting some Medicare Advantage plans this year, according to an analysis from Becker’s Hospital Review, an industry publication. Health systems have cited delayed reimbursements, cumbersome prior authorization requirements and high rates of patient claim denials for their decisions to drop Medicare Advantage plans. Nearly 1 in 5 health systems stopped accepting one or more Medicare Advantage plans last year, according to a report by the Healthcare Financial Management Association. ‘A tough ask’ For retirees like Libby and Andrew Potter, losing access to trusted doctors and hospitals can mean going longer without needed medical care. Finding a new doctor and getting an appointment can take months, particularly for specialists. And for older adults living in rural areas, losing an in-network hospital or physician can mean choosing between a long drive for care or high out-of-pocket costs. “There are really important access-to-care issues when providers no longer contract with your Medicare Advantage plan,” Trivedi said. He said the sheer number of plans and differences in benefits might be overwhelming for older adults. “To sort through all of that when somebody also may have frailty or cognitive impairment, that’s a really tough ask,” Trivedi said. “I study health policy for a living and it’d be hard for me to sort through 40 different options.” YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT

[Category: Economy, Gov & Politics, Health]

— Reforms at the U.S. Supreme Court: Where do Harris and Trump stand?

 

at 10/22/24 4:15am

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, and former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, are giving voters very different answers when it comes to any changes at the U.S. Supreme Court, shown here on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman / States Newsroom)This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race. WASHINGTON — Democrats have increasingly cried out for new rules for the nation’s highest court, and the 2024 presidential election reflects a clear party divide over how Supreme Court justices should behave and whether they should remain on the bench for life. The erasure of a nearly 50-year-old national right to abortion, the granting of wide latitude for former presidents to escape criminal accountability and several ethics scandals magnified these questions. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are giving voters very different answers. Harris’ platform calls for “common-sense” reforms that include term limits for justices and an enforceable ethics code that mirrors the rules that apply to lower federal judges. When President Joe Biden announced his proposals for Supreme Court ethics reform roughly one week after dropping his bid for reelection, Harris issued a statement reinforcing the need to “restore confidence” in the court. Biden urges term limits for U.S. Supreme Court justices, new ethics rules “That is why President Biden and I are calling on Congress to pass important reforms — from imposing term limits for Justices’ active service, to requiring Justices to comply with binding ethics rules just like every other federal judge. And finally, in our democracy, no one should be above the law. So we must also ensure that no former President has immunity for crimes committed while in the White House,” she said. While Harris’ campaign did not provide additional details on her platform, Harris has a record of supporting such measures. As a senator in 2019, Harris co-sponsored a bill to enforce a uniform ethics code at every level of the federal judiciary, including the Supreme Court. Trump position When asked for comment about Trump’s stance on enforceable ethics rules or term limits at the Supreme Court, Trump campaign Senior Advisor Brian Hughes responded: “President Trump has said that, apart from matters of war and peace, the nomination of a Supreme Court justice is the most important decision an American President can make. As president, he appointed constitutionalist judges who interpret the law as written, and he will do so again when voters send him back to the White House.” The former president has made his opposition to change known on social media. Nearly two weeks before Biden’s speech in July to roll out his ideas for improving the court, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the “Radical Left Democrats are desperately trying to ‘Play the Ref’ by calling for an illegal and unConstitutional attack on our SACRED United States Supreme Court.” “The reason that these Communists are so despondent is that their unLawful Witch Hunts are failing everywhere. The Democrats are attempting to interfere in the Presidential Election, and destroy our Justice System, by attacking their Political Opponent, ME, and our Honorable Supreme Court. We have to fight for our Fair and Independent Courts, and protect our Country. MAGA2024!” he continued, randomly capitalizing words as he often does. The Republican National Committee stated in its platform that the party unequivocally opposes any changes to the number of Supreme Court justices. “We will maintain the Supreme Court as it was always meant to be, at 9 Justices. We will not allow the Democrat Party to increase this number, as they would like to do, by 4, 6, 8, 10, and even 12 Justices. We will block them at every turn.” At the Economic Club of Chicago on Oct. 15, Trump appeared to accuse Democrats of wanting to add up to 25 new justices to the Supreme Court bench. Harris’ 2024 campaign position on the Supreme Court does not include a plan to change the number of justices. During her 2020 presidential run, Harris expressed an openness to expanding the court, according to Politico and other reports. Biden, at the time, remained opposed to changes, including justice term limits. Immunity ruling When Trump was charged with federal fraud and obstruction crimes for his attempts to subvert the 2020 presidential election results, he escalated his appeal for presidential immunity all the way to the Supreme Court. Trump asks U.S. Supreme Court to pause federal trial over presidential immunity question On July 1, the justices issued a 6-3 opinion granting former presidents criminal immunity for “core constitutional” duties and presumptive immunity for actions on the “outer perimeter” of official duties, but none for unofficial, personal acts. Two of the justices who joined the conservative majority ruling — Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — were Trump appointees. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, also appointed during Trump’s time in the Oval Office, joined them, concurring in part. Trump’s case was delayed for the better part of 2024, tied up in the high court process as he campaigned for a second presidency. The delay ultimately closed the door on a trial before November’s election. The high-profile case not only highlighted the fact that Trump was being judged by his own appointees, but also that two other justices had been recently exposed in ethics scandals involving Republican donors and appearing to show support for Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. In April 2023, ProPublica uncovered that Justice Clarence Thomas had been accepting luxury travel and other big ticket gifts from Republican billionaire donor Harlan Crow. In May of this year, the New York Times published photos of an upside-down American flag flying outside the home of Justice Samuel Alito following the violent riot by Trump supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The upside-down flag, a general symbol of protest, had been adopted by Trump supporters who believed the 2020 election was stolen. All parties have denied any wrongdoing, and Alito declined to recuse himself from Trump’s 2020 election subversion case, and another case brought by a Jan. 6 defendant. Divided U.S. Supreme Court wrestles with case of Pennsylvania man who joined Jan. 6 mob The call for a new ethics code While the Thomas and Alito scandals attracted the most attention, observers of the court say many of the justices’ actions raise ethics questions. Gabe Roth, founder of the nonpartisan nonprofit Fix the Court, said “no justice has totally behaved ethically.” Roth cited transgressions by both conservative and liberal justices: socializing with litigants who argue before the court, the use of government resources to promote a personal book and instances of justices not recusing themselves from cases in which they appear to have a stake. “It hasn’t been to the scale of the things that ProPublica uncovered, but no justice is fully pure when it comes to ethics issues, which is not to say that they’re all corrupt or they’re all compromised by any means. It’s just more, to me, a fact that the whole institution needs to focus more on ethical leadership,” Roth said. ProPublica published numerous stories in 2023 detailing gifts Thomas never disclosed, as well as a luxury fishing expedition Alito took with a Republican billionaire who argued before the court. The Supreme Court currently polices itself with its own code of conduct and maintains justices already follow rules that apply to lower federal judges. Congressional Democrats have introduced several bills aiming to impose ethics rules on the justices and limit life-time appointments, for example to 18 years. A bill led by Senate Democrat Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island passed the Democratic-led Senate Committee on the Judiciary in July 2023. https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/ethics-rules-supreme-court-justices-approved-party-line-vote-us-senate-panel The legislation aimed to mandate an enforceable ethics code, tighten recusal and gift disclosure requirements, and establish a complaints process similar to that of the lower courts. An attempt at unanimous consent passage on the Senate floor in June was blocked by Senate Judiciary’s top Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “Let’s be clear, this is not about improving the court, this is about undermining the court,” Graham said on the floor. Roth said no matter who wins the presidency and which party takes control of the Senate, the longtime fight for an ethics overhaul and term limits at the high court will continue — and that it shouldn’t be partisan. “If they’re done right, it doesn’t favor one party or another or one ideology or another. It’s a bit weird that one side is saying they don’t love ethics right now,” Roth continued. “I don’t get it.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: DC Bureau, Election 2024, Gov & Politics, Police & Prison]

— Department of Labor releases AI best practices for employers

 

at 10/22/24 4:00am

A new best practices guide from the U.S. Department of Labor outlines how companies should develop and use AI and protect their employees while doing so. (Photo by Tierney L. Cross / Getty Images)The U.S. Department of Labor released a list of artificial intelligence best practices for developers and employers this week, aiming to help employers benefit from potential time and cost savings of AI, while protecting workers from discrimination and job displacement. The voluntary guidelines come about a year after President Joe Biden signed an executive order to assess the innovative potential and risks of AI across government and private sectors. The order directed the creation of the White House AI Council, the creation of a framework for federal agencies to follow relating to privacy protection and a list of guidelines for securing AI talent, for navigating the effects on the labor market and for ensuring equity in AI use, among others. “Harnessing AI for good and realizing its myriad benefits requires mitigating its substantial risks,” Biden said of the executive order last year. “This endeavor demands a society-wide effort that includes government, the private sector, academia and civil society.” The DOL’s guide, “Artificial Intelligence and Worker Well-being: Principles and Best Practices for Developers and Employers” was developed with input from public listening sessions and from workers, unions, researchers, academics, employers and developers. It aims to mitigate risks of discrimination, data breaches and job replacement by AI, while embracing possible innovation and production. “Whether AI in the workplace creates harm for workers and deepens inequality or supports workers and unleashes expansive opportunity depends (in large part) on the decisions we make,” DOL Acting Secretary Julie Su said. “The stakes are high.” The report shares eight principles and best practices, with a “north star” of centering workers. The guide says workers, especially from underserved communities, should understand and have input in the design, development, testing, training, use and oversight of the AI systems used in their workplaces. This will improve job quality and allow businesses to deliver on their outcomes. Unions should bargain in good faith on the use of AI and electronic monitoring in the workplace, it said. Other best practices include ethically developing AI, with training that protects and takes feedback from workers. Organizations should also have a clear governance system to evaluate AI used in the workplace, and they should be transparent about the AI systems they’re using, the DOL said. AI systems cannot violate or undermine workers’ rights to organize, or obstruct their health, safety, wage, anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation protections, the department said. Therefore, prior to deployment, employers should audit their AI systems for potential impacts of discrimination on the basis of “race, color, national origin, religion, sex, disability, age, genetic information and other protected bases,” and should make those results public. As AI takes the helm of decision making, signs of perpetuating historic biases emerge The report also outlines how employers can and should help workers with AI. Before implementing an AI tool, employers should consider the impact it will have on job opportunities, and they should be clear about the specific tasks it will perform. Employers that experience productivity gains or increased profits, should consider sharing the benefits with their workers, like through increased wages, improved benefits or training, the DOL said. The implementation of AI systems has the potential to displace workers, Su said in her summary. To mitigate this, employers should appropriately train their employees to use these systems, and reallocate workers who are displaced by AI to other jobs within their organization when feasible. Employers should reach out to state and local workforce programs for education and upskilling so their workforce can learn new skills, not be phased out by technology. And lastly, employers using AI that collect workers’ data should safeguard that data, should not collect more data than is absolutely necessary and should not share that data outside the business without workers’ freely given consent. The guidelines outlined by the DOL are not meant to be “a substitute for existing or future federal or state laws and regulations,” it said, rather a “guiding framework for businesses” that can be customized with feedback from their workers. “We should think of AI as a potentially powerful technology for worker well-being, and we should harness our collective human talents to design and use AI with workers as its beneficiaries, not as obstacles to innovation,” Su said. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: Economy, Gov & Politics]

— Officials tour ‘unbelievable’ deadly flood damage in Roswell following historic rainfall

 

at 10/21/24 7:13pm

A truck carried away in the aftermath of historic flooding in Roswell New Mexico. More than 300 people needed rescues over the weekend. (Courtesy of Zachary Lujan)New Mexico and federal officials continued to survey damage in Chaves County on Monday after deadly flash floods ripped through Roswell over the weekend, washing away cars, submerging buildings and leaving much of the city under a layer of silt. State police blame the flooding for two deaths, though officials have not yet released their names or further details. First responders performed more than 300 water rescues between Saturday and Sunday, according to state emergency management officials. In one instance, over 100 people had to shelter on the rooftops of the Roswell Convention and Civic Center overnight Saturday, after water poured in during a quinceañera, high enough to submerge chairs and tables. The deluge dumped almost 6 inches of rain, a record for a single weather event in Roswell, according to the National Weather Service. The city and county are just in the beginning states of tallying the destruction, Roswell Mayor Tim Jennings said in an interview with Source NM. “The damage is unbelievable,” Jennings said. He said the two flood control dams to the west, did their jobs and caught flooding from the river. It was the rainfall in town that caused the damages. Floodwaters were recorded as five to six feet high in much of downtown. Jennings said he’s working with state officials to assess bridge conditions, saying he has concerns about “eight to ten of them,” describing rivers crossing over them. High water continued to pose challenges Monday in determining the extent of the damages. Silt covers the floor and marks the walls in the Roswell Convention and Civic Center. The flooding was as high as five and a half feet inside the building, city officials said. (Courtesy of Zachary Lujan) The floods destroyed a 42-inch water main and damaged sewer systems, Roswell City Manager Chad Cole said, but water remained potable. Roswell’s airport was also closed after floods swept through it. Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared a state of emergency Monday for Chaves County, and was on-site meeting with local officials and members of the Federal Emergency Management Agency Monday. The emergency declaration opens up $1 million in state money for local officials to access for costs during the assessments. New Mexico is one of many states experiencing more frequent and severe disasters stemming from climate change, said Michael Coleman, a spokesperson for the governor’s office. “The more of these events we experience as a state, and as a nation, the more our collective resources for responding will be stretched thin,” Coleman said. “We must fortify our infrastructure and make it more resilient against damaging and sometimes catastrophic weather events.” The state is anticipating meeting the threshold for damages to receive federal assistance, he said. “It’s unclear exactly when an official federal disaster determination will be announced, but the governor is grateful that FEMA is already on the ground assessing the damage,” Coleman wrote in an email. Danielle Silva, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said the agency was planning to start the damages assessment Tuesday morning. Search and rescue operations were still ongoing Monday, she said. Democratic Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, whose district includes Roswell, plans to visit the city Tuesday, she told Source NM in an interview. “I want to ensure all the damage throughout Chaves County is documented,” she said. How did these floods develop? Meteorologists said a series of storm systems built up Saturday, dumping nearly 6inches of rain north of town, some of it falling potentially as fast as 4 inches an hour, said Andrew Mangham, the senior hydrologist at the National Weather Service Albuquerque office. “Not only was this a lot of rain, but these were incredibly intense rainfall rates and that is also part of what drives this flooding,” he said. “No storm sewer systems can handle that kind of rainfall rate.” !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r=0;r That 5.78 inches broke Roswell’s previous record of the most amount of rain in a single weather event, according to the Weather Service. The previous record was 5.65 inches in 1901. “We’re seeing half the annual rainfall get delivered in a single storm, this is absolutely the fingerprint of climate change,” Mangham said.

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, Gov & Politics, Health, climate change, Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, flood damages, flooding, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, Roswell Mayor Tim Jennings]

— Poll of Latino voters finds growing support for Harris; Trump tours N.C. storm damage

 

at 10/21/24 4:10pm

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, which is a mega church in Stonecrest, Georgia, on Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024 as part of a “souls to the polls” push. Harris presented the stakes of the presidential race in stark terms: “And now we face this question: what kind of country do we want to live in? A country of chaos, fear and hate or a country of freedom, compassion and justice?” (Photo by Jill Nolin / Georgia Recorder)WASHINGTON — A new poll released Monday by a civic engagement group found that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris continues to grow her support with Latinos in critical battleground states. In a tight presidential race, both campaigns have tried to court the Latino vote — one of the fastest-growing voting blocs. The poll for Voto Latino by the firm GQR surveyed 2,000 Latinos registered to vote in the battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — although not Georgia — from Sept. 25 to Oct. 2. Vice President Harris even outperformed President Joe Biden in several swing states compared to his 2020 presidential results, according to the poll. In August, Harris had the support of about 60% of Latino voters compared to GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s 29%, according to the poll. Both candidates increased their support of that voting bloc in October, with Harris at 64% and Trump at 31%. The poll found that Harris’ growth has come from young Latino voters, ages 18 to 29. In the swing states of Arizona, Pennsylvania and North Carolina, the poll found that Harris outperforms with Latino voters compared to Biden’s estimated wins among Latinos in 2020. In Arizona, Biden had 61% of the Latino vote four years ago, and Harris now polls at about 66%, the survey said. In Pennsylvania, Biden had 69% of the Latino vote compared to Harris now polling at 77%, and in North Carolina, Biden had 57% of the Latino vote compared to Harris’ support of 67%, the poll said. In 2020, Biden won Arizona and Pennsylvania by slim margins but lost North Carolina to Trump. Trump visits Asheville, Harris teams up with Liz Cheney After Hurricane Helene’s destruction in late September, campaigning in western North Carolina resumed Monday. Trump visited Asheville, North Carolina, Monday afternoon to survey the destruction left by the aftermath of the Category 4 hurricane. While there, he stressed the importance of early voting, which is already underway in the state. “It’s vital that we not let this hurricane that has taken so much also take your voice,” Trump said. “You must get out and vote.” Harris on Monday blitzed around the suburban areas of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming for “moderated conversations.” Arnold Palmer, McDonald’s and Usher With almost two weeks until Election Day on Nov. 5, both candidates have rolled out celebrities and political stunts in an effort to court every vote in an election that is essentially a dead heat. That was apparent over the weekend. In Pennsylvania, Trump ended his Saturday evening with a rally in Latrobe where for roughly 10 minutes he described the male anatomy of the late golfer Arnold Palmer. Trumps weekend in Pennsylvania: Praising Arnold Palmers anatomy and making fries at McDonalds “This is a guy that was all man,” Trump said of Palmer, “when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there they said, ‘oh my God, that’s unbelievable.’” On Sunday Trump visited a closed McDonald’s, where for 20 minutes he donned an apron, worked the fryers and helped put together orders. He served a few pre-screened people who won the opportunity to partake in the campaign event via a lottery. The visit to the Golden Arches came after Harris touted her work experience at a McDonald’s in Alameda, California, while she was a college student. Trump has cast doubt, without evidence, on whether that actually happened. On Monday afternoon, after Harris’ jet landed in Michigan, a reporter shouted a question at her as to whether she ever worked at McDonald’s. “Did I? I did!” Harris said, smiling and putting her thumb up, according to the pool report. Harris returned to Georgia on Saturday, where she energized her base to take advantage of early voting. More than 1.3 million people have voted in Georgia, according to the Secretary of State’s turnout datahub. Harris returns to Georgia to rally supporters to the polls as turnout soars  She held a campaign rally alongside R&B singer Usher and visited Sunday church services in the Atlanta area as part of a “souls to the polls” effort. Another intense week on the way This week, Trump will attend a roundtable with Latino leaders on Tuesday in Miami, Florida. An earlier planned event with the National Rifle Association in Savannah, Georgia, was canceled. In the evening, Trump will then travel to Greensboro, North Carolina, for a rally. His running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance will be campaigning in Arizona. On Tuesday, Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, will stump in Madison, Wisconsin, with former President Barack Obama to encourage early voting. On Wednesday night, Harris will participate in a CNN town hall in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Trump on Wednesday will hold a faith-related town hall in Zebulon, Georgia, in the late afternoon. In the evening, he’ll head to Duluth, Georgia, to appear as a special guest at the conservative Turning Point PAC and Turning Point Action Rally. On Thursday, Vance will partake in a town hall in Detroit, Michigan, with NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo. Back in Georgia, Harris and Obama will headline a get-out-the-vote rally. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: DC Bureau, Election 2024, Gov & Politics, polling]

— New Mexico leaders say legislative agencies ‘bursting at the seams,’ have outgrown the Roundhouse

 

at 10/21/24 5:05am

The New Mexico state capitol on June 12, 2023. (Photo by Austin Fisher / Source NM)New Mexico’s legislative leaders say they’re working on finding more space for a growing force of support staff, but a long-term fix won’t come anytime soon. By the time lawmakers come to Santa Fe in January for the next regular legislative session, the building several officials believe is the solution still won’t be designed. And it’s been years in the making. Office space for legislative workers is expected to be freed up once state officials finally manage to build a new office building for the state’s executive branch, which for the last 14 years has been planned for a piece of state-owned land just across the street from the New Mexico State Capitol, also known as the Roundhouse. Money to get the project started was set aside more than two years ago, but the main sticking point appears to be a disagreement between local and governments over whether or not state officials are allowed to demolish four vacant homes sitting on the project site. “This project is really very important because it has implications for the Capitol and the space that’s needed at the Capitol,” recently retired Legislative Council Service director Raúl Burciaga said in August at the most recent Capitol Buildings Planning Commission meeting. “By moving forward with this, it will allow us to expand some of the areas within the Capitol, and allow more space for session staff, which is bursting at the seams,” Burciaga said. “It is a long-term project, but it is necessary.” An architectural firms rendering from 2021 shows the planned state of New Mexico executive office building superimposed over a photograph of the New Mexico State Capitol and surrounding area in the city of Santa Fe. (Courtesy of New Mexico General Services Department) The Capitol Buildings Planning Commission in 2011 said the new building could “achieve significant savings” by relocating the State Treasurer’s Office and the State Auditor’s Office out of buildings the state rents from private landowners and to the state-owned Capitol campus. But the General Services Department, the state agency in charge of the project, has not yet decided who will occupy the building, said spokesperson Joe Vigil. The historical significance of the 1930s-era “casitas,” as legislative officials call them, was upheld by the city of Santa Fe Historic Review Board in 2014, Burciaga said. State officials asked the city board to demolish the casitas but was denied, said GSD Deputy Secretary Anna Silva. The point of disagreement was over the building’s design, she said. The state has since hired an architectural firm to design the building, and in August started determining its size and who will occupy it, she said. Then, a joint committee of state and local officials will discuss the final design. In situations like these, state law requires state and local officials to work together to protect historic buildings. A kickoff meeting is scheduled for late November, Vigil said. The date will be announced soon, he said. Silva said the process would take three to four months, which would mean the final design wont be ready until February, at the earliest. The discussion about the executive office building presents “complexities,” House Speaker Javier Martínez (D-Albuquerque) said Oct. 15 at a meeting of the the Facilities Review Subcommittee, which he chairs. “I think that there is more space in the hopper coming for our staff,” he added. “Clearly, we’ve outgrown the building.” The subcommittee is part of the Legislative Council, a group of lawmakers from both chambers who oversee all legislative work between sessions. Its members didn’t take any final action on Tuesday, and theyre expected to meet again at the end of the Legislative Council meeting scheduled for Dec. 4. “We’ll keep this conversation going, and I suspect we’ll be taking action here in due time,” Martínez said. Legislative Council Service ‘in dire need of space’ The Legislative Council Service helps lawmakers draft bills and conduct legal research. Its workers are charged with giving all lawmakers accurate and impartial information about legislative problems. The Council Service’s staff directory indicates it has 68 people working for it, including managers. Between 2014 and 2018, its staff maxed out at 49 people, according to its biennial reports. The agency “really is in dire need of space that’s in proximity to other coworkers, space that allows us to hire the employees that we need to be efficient in our work,” Executive Director Shawn Casebier Casebier told the subcommittee. In all, the Council Service needs permanent space for upwards of 13 workers, Casebier said. The problem is particularly felt in the Council Service’s accounting department, she said, which needs eight to 10 workers to efficiently and effectively process thousands of vouchers and reimbursements. The department has only three workers, she said, after losing someone last week who moved to another state agency. “In order for us to get up to that level of full employment in that department to effectively do their jobs, we do need more space,” Casebier said. Their workload has increased since they started onboarding newly hired district staff for lawmakers, she said. The number of new faces on the payroll will continue to grow. Legislators running unopposed in the elections next month can already hire district legislative aides, and those victorious in contested elections can start hiring in December. NM lawmakers get training to hire district staff The need for more space “is really one of the biggest arguments for that executive office building,” said Senate Majority Floor Leader Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe). Wirth said the executive office building “kind of got derailed a little bit, but we need to see where that is, and get it back on the tracks.” The Santa Fe New Mexican reported in June the state General Services Department paused its proposal for the new building to allow state officials to design it in collaboration with the city of Santa Fe. Moving state offices into the new building would help by freeing up space in the State Capitol Annex next door to the Roundhouse, Wirth said. In the meantime, Casebier said she identified space used by House of Representatives staff on the Roundhouse’s fourth floor “that I believe would really meet our needs now and a little bit into the future.” “I think there needs to be conversations with stakeholders and ensuring that all the people who may be affected are given the space they need as well, while recognizing that the Council Service really can’t continue to do our current job, or the work that’s going to be required of us into the future, unless we do gain some additional permanent space on the fourth floor.” If the accountants can move there, there would be more room for the Council Service’s five-person Human Resources department, Casebier said. HR is working out of a legislative committee room, Casebier said. Those rooms often get reserved by the committees assigned to them, so they can only be a temporary space for the workers. “So in the next couple of weeks, months, we’re going to have to figure out a permanent space for them,” Casebier said. YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT

[Category: Gov & Politics]

— Computer programs monitor students’ every word in the name of safety

 

at 10/21/24 4:45am

A student works on a computer at a K-12 school in Provo, Utah. School districts across the country have adopted computer monitoring platforms that analyze what students are doing on school-issued devices and flag activities that may signal a risk of self-harm or threats to others. (Photo by George Frey / Getty Images)Whether it’s a research project on the Civil War or a science experiment on volcano eruptions, students in the Colonial School District near Wilmington, Delaware, can look up just about anything on their school-provided laptops. But in one instance, an elementary school student searched “how to die.” In that case, Meghan Feby, an elementary school counselor in the district, got a phone call through a platform called GoGuardian Beacon, whose algorithm flagged the phrase. The system sold by educational software company GoGuardian allows schools to monitor and analyze what students are doing on school-issued devices and flag any activities that signal a risk of self-harm or threats to others. The student who had searched “how to die” did not want to die and showed no indicators of distress, Feby said — the student was looking for information but in no danger. Still, she values the program. “I’ve gotten into some situations with GoGuardian where I’m really happy that they came to us and we were able to intervene,” Feby said. School districts across the country have widely adopted such computer monitoring platforms. With the youth mental health crisis worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic and school violence affecting more K-12 students nationwide, teachers are desperate for a solution, experts say. But critics worry about the lack of transparency from companies that have the power to monitor students and choose when to alert school personnel. Constant student surveillance also raises concerns regarding student data, privacy and free speech. Drivers keep passing stopped school buses, despite use of cameras to catch them While available for more than a decade, the programs saw a surge in use during the pandemic as students transitioned to online learning from home, said Jennifer Jones, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “I think because there are all kinds of issues that school districts have to contend with — like student mental health issues and the dangers of school shootings — I think they [school districts] just view these as cheap, quick ways to address the problem without interrogating the free speech and privacy implications in a more thoughtful way,” Jones said. According to the most recent youth risk behavior survey from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly all indicators of poor mental health, suicidal thoughts and suicidal behaviors increased from 2013 to 2023. During the same period, the percentage of high school students who were threatened or injured at school, missed school because of safety concerns or experienced forced sex increased, according to the CDC report. And the threat of school shootings remains on many educators’ minds. Since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, more than 383,000 students have experienced gun violence at school, according to The Washington Post’s count. GoGuardian CEO Rich Preece told Stateline that about half of the K-12 public schools in the United States have installed the company’s platforms. As her school’s designee, Feby gets an alert when a student uses certain search terms or combinations of words on their school-issued laptops. “It will either come to me as an email, or, if it is very high risk, it comes as a phone call.” Once she’s notified, Feby will decide whether to meet with the student or call the child’s home. If the system flags troubling activity outside of school hours, GoGuardian Beacon contacts another person in the county — including law enforcement, in some school districts. I've gotten into some situations with GoGuardian where I'm really happy that they came to us and we were able to intervene. – Meghan Feby, elementary school counselor Feby said she’s had some false alarms. One student was flagged because of the song lyrics she had looked up. Another one had searched for something related to anime. About a third of the students in Feby’s school come from a home where English isn’t their first language, so students often use worrisome English terms inadvertently. Kids can also be curious, she said. Still, having GoGuardian in the classroom is important, Feby said. Before she became a counselor 10 years ago, she was a school teacher. And after the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, she realized school safety was more important than ever. Data and privacy Teddy Hartman, GoGuardian’s head of privacy, taught high school English literature in East Los Angeles and was a school administrator before joining the technology company about four years ago. Hartman was brought to GoGuardian to help with creating a robust privacy program, he said, including guardrails on its use of artificial intelligence. “We thought, ‘How can we co-create with educators, the best of the data scientists, the best of the technologists, while also remembering that students and our educators are first and foremost?’” Hartman said. GoGuardian isn’t using any student data outside of the agreements that school districts have allowed, and that data isn’t used to train the company’s AI, Hartman said. Companies that regulate what children can do online are also required to adhere to federal laws regarding the safety and privacy of minors, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. But privacy experts are still concerned about just how much access these types of companies should have to student data. Mental Health Trails Metal Detectors in School Safety Dollars School districts across the country are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on contracts with some of the leading computer monitoring vendors — including GoGuardian, Gaggle and others — without fully assessing the privacy and civil rights implications, said Clarence Okoh, a senior attorney at the Center on Privacy and Technology at the Georgetown University Law Center. In 2021, while many schools were just beginning to see the effects of online learning, The 74, a nonprofit news outlet covering education, published an investigation into how Gaggle was operating in Minneapolis schools. Hundreds of documents revealed how students at one school system were subject to constant digital surveillance long after the school day was over, including at home, the outlet reported. That level of pervasive surveillance can have far-reaching implications, Okoh said. For one, in jurisdictions where legislators have expanded censorship of “divisive concepts” in schools, including critical race theory and LGBTQ+ themes, the ability for schools to monitor conversations including those terms is concerning, he said. A report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit digital rights group based in San Francisco, illustrates what kinds of keyword triggers are blocked or flagged for administrators. In one example, GoGuardian had flagged a student for visiting the text of a Bible verse including the word “naked,” the report said. In another instance, a Texas House of Representatives site with information regarding “cannabis” bills was flagged. GoGuardian and Gaggle both also dropped LGBTQ+ terms from their keyword lists after the foundation’s initial records request, the group said. But getting a full understanding of the way these companies monitor students is challenging because of a lack of transparency, Jones said. It’s difficult to get information from private tech companies, and the majority of their data isn’t made public, she said. Do they work? Years before the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the school district purchased a technology service to monitor what students were doing on social media, according to The Dallas Morning News. The district sent two payments to the Social Sentinel company totaling more than $9,900, according to the paper. While the cost varies, some school districts are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on online monitoring programs. Muscogee County School District in Georgia paid $137,829 in initial costs to install GoGuardian on the district’s Chromebooks, according to the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. In Maryland, Montgomery County Public Schools eliminated GoGuardian from its budget for the 2024-2025 school year after spending $230,000 annually on it, later switching to Lightspeed, according to the Wootton Common Sense. Despite the spending, there’s no way to prove that these technologies work, said Chad Marlow, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union who authored a report on education surveillance programs. You cannot use data to say that, if there wasn’t an intervention, something would have happened. – Chad Marlow, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union In 2019, Bark, a content monitoring platform, claimed to have helped prevent 16 school shootings in a blog post describing their Bark for Schools program. The Gaggle company website says it saved 5,790 lives between 2018 and 2023. These data points are measured by the number of alerts the systems generate that indicate a student may be very close to harming themselves or others. But there is little evidence that this kind of school safety technology is effective, according to the ACLU report. “You cannot use data to say that, if there wasn’t an intervention, something would have happened,” Marlow said. Computer monitoring programs are just one example of an overall increase in school surveillance nationwide, including cameras, facial recognition technology and more. And increased surveillance does not necessarily deter harmful conduct, Marlow said. “A lot of schools are saying, ‘You know what, we’ve $50,000 to spend, I’m going to spend it on a student surveillance product that doesn’t work, instead of a door that locks or a mental health counselor,’” Marlow said. Some experts are advocating for more mental health resources, including hiring more guidance counselors, and school policies that support mental health, which could prevent violence or suicide, Jones said. Community engagement programs, including volunteer work or community events, also can contribute to emotional and mental well-being. But that’s in an ideal world, GoGuardian’s Hartman said. Computer monitoring platforms aren’t the only solution for solving the youth mental health and violence epidemic, but they aim to help, he said. “We were founded by engineers,” Hartman said. “So, in our slice of this world, is there something we can do, from a school technology perspective that can help by being a tool in the toolbox? It’s not an end-all, be-all.” YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT

[Category: COVID-19, Education, Gov & Politics]

— College students fight barriers to casting ballots as early voting begins

 

at 10/21/24 4:30am

Students at Fayetteville State University vote in March 2020 in Fayetteville, N.C. This year is the first general election in which North Carolinians must provide identification to vote. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits / Getty Images)In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, each side is scouring swing states to get as many voters as possible, including on college campuses. But in some of those crucial states, students face new barriers to casting their ballots. North Carolina election officials are for the first time enforcing a 2018 voter ID law in a general election this November, following court entanglements that had put the law on hold. Universities throughout the state have already been working to ensure students who want to vote have identification, but students in recent weeks found out they can’t use the ubiquitous digital college IDs stored on their cellphones. In states such as Arizona, Indiana and Texas, students have expressed concern over a lack of polling places on college campuses. And in Georgia, officials at Emory University in Atlanta mistakenly gave students incorrect guidance on which campus address to provide on voter registration forms, opening the students up to having their registrations challenged when voting. Nearly 41 million Generation Z Americans are eligible to vote in November’s election, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a research organization known as CIRCLE that focuses on young people. That large voting bloc could make the difference in an election that will likely be determined by small margins. In the tightest states, new voting laws could tip the outcome in November But voting laws differ by state, and access varies from campus to campus for the roughly 18 million students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Add the complexity of last-minute changes to election laws, including an increasing number of states implementing voter ID, and that confusion can hurt participation, said Alberto Medina, a spokesperson for CIRCLE, which is housed at Tufts University. “It’s not a matter of apathy when youth turnout is low,” he said. “There’s this perception that voting is easy and it’s straightforward and everyone should be able to figure out how to do it. And that’s not the case.” Participation skyrocketed to 50% in the 2020 presidential election among voters who are between 18 and 29, up 11 percentage points from the 2016 presidential election, according to a CIRCLE analysis. But the center’s polling shows that young people still face “formidable structural barriers” to participating in the democratic process, including a lack of civic education, neglect by political parties and candidates, and complicated logistics such as not knowing how to register, missing deadlines or even finding transportation to a polling place. Complications over voter ID in North Carolina showcases some of these barriers, Medina said. North Carolina confusion Last month, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that the digital photo ID produced by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “or any other ‘image of a photo ID, either as a photocopy or a photo on a mobile device,’” was not an acceptable form of ID to vote. In battleground North Carolina, both parties struggle to turn out the youth vote  A ruling so late in the election season sent a wave of confusion throughout the state, as colleges that only use digital IDs had to quickly notify students of the rules change and offer physical ID cards. To comply with the 2018 voter ID law, which went into effect in the past year after a prolonged legal battle, campuses already were trying to spread the word and offering free physical IDs. The court ruling increased the urgency. At Elon University, a private college 30 minutes east of Greensboro, student leaders have put up yard signs and posters, and talked to classes, sororities and fraternities about how to secure a free physical student ID that complies with the state’s election law. Bo Dalrymple, a student coordinator for the nonpartisan civic engagement campus group Elon Votes!, said the messaging campaign was needed since many students are from out of state and don’t have North Carolina driver’s licenses. In most states, students can usually choose whether to vote in their hometown or at their universities, depending on residency requirements. “There’s a lot of confusion, there’s a lot of speculation or things that you hear,” said Dalrymple, a senior political science and international and global studies double major, who is from North Carolina. “One of our biggest jobs is just cutting through the noise and make sure that these students are informed with the correct policies and the correct rules.” Elon University student civic engagement group Elon Votes! created this poster for students to understand North Carolina’s voter ID law. Election experts worry that changes in state election law could confuse younger voters. (Courtesy of Bo Dalrymple) But other college students in North Carolina feel the change in the voter ID law was clear. “It won’t cause any significant issues,” said Matthew Trott, president of the UNC College Republicans and a native North Carolinian. “I honestly don’t think it’s as big as an issue as it has been made to seem.” Trott, who is a junior political science and public policy double major at Chapel Hill, said he has not heard any concerns from his friends or members of the College Republicans about needing to secure a physical student ID to vote; most of them are just using their North Carolina driver’s licenses. Earlier this month, the university posted guidance on the new law, pointing out that students can obtain a physical student ID, known on campus as a UNC One Card, for free. It also directed students to the North Carolina State Board of Elections website, which lists by college what sort of IDs are approved for voting. In the coming days, Trott said, he plans to post on social media to explain the early voting period and the voter ID requirements. He has heard some confusion around the process of requesting absentee ballots, which he’ll also try to address. He’s broached some of these issues with students at tailgates for former President Donald Trump’s campaign before the university’s home football games this season, which have added a lot of excitement on campus, he added. More enthusiasm nationwide That civic excitement is seen in polls. A recent survey from the Harvard Kennedy School showed 56% of young people ages 19 to 29 “definitely” plan to vote, with more enthusiasm coming from Democrats than Republicans. The percentage of expected young voters has increased by 3 percentage points since Harvard’s spring poll, an increase that pollsters tie to Vice President Kamala Harris entering the race. Harris has a 23-point lead over Trump among registered young people, according to the Harvard poll. Harris campaign focuses on Arizona in its push to drive Gen Z voters to the polls Enthusiasm is palpable at Arizona State University, said Katie Ritchie, a sophomore public policy and economics double major. “Presidential campaign messaging toward young people on college campuses like ASU that are so large has been pretty strong,” she said, adding that down-ballot initiatives and races, such as an Arizona ballot question that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, have also added to enthusiasm. Ritchie and Dalrymple, at Elon University, are student ambassadors for the Andrew Goodman Foundation, a nonpartisan group that promotes civic engagement efforts on their college campuses. The foundation has ambassadors on 66 campuses across 20 states and the District of Columbia. Arizona State University is one of 150 universities in battleground states that the Harris campaign has targeted to mobilize Gen Z voters. Recently, cast members from “Grey’s Anatomy” spoke on the Harris campaign’s behalf on campus. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake and conservative media personality Charlie Kirk also have held events for Trump at fraternities. At the University of Arizona in Tucson, students have complained there won’t be a vote center on campus on Election Day. Though the nearest vote center will be just off campus — only 800 feet from the campus’s Old Main building — some students worried it could dampen turnout. While the University of Arizona won’t have a vote center on campus for Election Day, Arizona State University will have one at the fitness center on the Tempe campus, along with ones on the school’s three other campuses. Big signs are already posted outside the fitness center, encouraging students to vote early. College Students Push to Ease Voting Access After Midterm Barriers There also have been disputes over putting polling places on college campuses in other states, including Texas, which has a tight U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Ted Cruz and Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred. Last month, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court rejected a GOP proposal to eliminate college early voting sites, including one at the University of Texas at Arlington. “They are trying to silence the voice of those most marginalized communities, like young people,” said Claudia Yoli Ferla, executive director of MOVE Texas, a San Antonio-based advocacy group that fought to keep the polling place open on the campus of more than 27,000 undergraduates. Barriers for college students are not new, said Rashawn Davis, executive director of the Andrew Goodman Foundation. Every state has work to do to make voting more inclusive for young people, he added. But he’s optimistic. “Right now, we’re at a pivotal point where we see the voices of young people really taking root,” he said, “and some of these issues start to turn the corner.” YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT

[Category: Education, Election 2024, Gov & Politics]

— Where Harris, Trump campaigns stand on tech policy

 

at 10/21/24 4:15am

Although they have not made technology a major topic on the campaign trail, the presidential campaigns have laid out policy approaches on issues such as AI, social media, and cryptocurrency. (Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images)Though technology policy isn’t one of the main drivers getting voters out to the polls in the upcoming presidential election, the speed in which technology develops will undoubtedly impact the way everyday Americans communicate, work and interact with the world in the next four years. Concern about artificial intelligence’s role in the election plague the majority of both Republicans and Democrats a Pew Research Center survey found last month. Those polled are concerned that AI is being used to influence the election, and a poll earlier in the year shows that people are wary of the amount of power social media and Big Tech companies have over their lives. Several bills regulating new technologies have been introduced in congress, but no federal laws regulating artificial intelligence or data privacy have yet been passed. In October 2023, President Joe Biden signed an executive order calling for federal agencies to examine the impacts of AI, and report how they might address problems. Though tech issues aren’t central to their platforms, candidates Kamala Harris and former Donald Trump have outlined some of how they see technology playing a role in Americans’ lives. Harris’ policies tend to focus on inclusivity, data protection, net neutrality and expanding broadband access. One of the largest wins for the tech and science communities during the Biden-Harris administration is the CHIPS and Science Act, which in 2022, provided funding for research and development for environmental projects, clean energy and American manufacturing of semiconductors, which are the basis of most electronics. Trump’s policies would likely roll back some protections for consumers put in place by the Biden administration, and programs like the electric vehicle challenge. His platform also places a lot of focus on what he considers “illegal censorship,” by Big Tech companies, especially X, formerly Twitter, which banned the candidate for “risk of further incitement of violence,” after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. While Harris’ policies focus on finding a balance of innovation and overreach by Big Tech companies, Trump’s policies focus on a more free market approach. YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT On the topics of AI and cryptocurrency, though, Harris and Trump see somewhat similar approaches. At a fundraiser at Cipriani Wall Street earlier this week, Harris talked about the importance of these evolving technologies in the current economy, while recognizing that they need oversight. “We will partner together to invest in America’s competitiveness, to invest in America’s future,” Harris said. ”We will encourage innovative technologies like AI and digital assets while protecting our consumers and investors.” It’s a change from the current administration, which is more focused on protections for consumers amid the evolving market, rather than industry growth. Trump has similarly taken a lighter stance on AI and crypto, saying that the industry requires some time to work itself out, and doesn’t support tough oversight at this moment. On antitrust issues, Harris’ administration would likely continue pursuing enforcement against large platforms and Big Tech companies that came from Biden’s administration. He signed an executive order in 2021 against companies that use monopoly techniques and gather personal data, and his Justice Department filed lawsuits against Facebook’s parent Meta and Amazon. Trump’s administration also carried out some antitrust suits against Google and Meta toward the end of his time in office. He’s long been vocal about his distrust and dislike for major social media platforms, claiming bias against him. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE Most Americans are in favor of more tech regulation than there is now. But they’re likely not too concerned with the nitty gritty details that have kept bills sitting in Congress, said Ryan Waite, VP of Public Affairs at digital advocacy firm Think Big. Waite has spent the last two decades working in and around political campaigns, and he said emerging technologies and AI are as influential to the future internet landscape as much as the introduction of the internet itself was to everyday life 30 years ago. He likened pending or potential AI legislation to the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which promoted competition and reduced regulation in order to bring down costs for consumers as new technologies in broadcast and internet exploded. “I think if you talked to the average American then, they wouldn’t have known what the internet was, perhaps they experienced it at some level, but probably didn’t care much about how it was legislated,” Waite said. But the legislation revamped the communications and telecommunications frameworks for the industry and changed how we work and receive information, Waite said. In that same concept, AI and other emerging technologies are being adopted at such high rates that “We’re at an earthquake moment,” Waite said. Both parties aim to strengthen the technology industry and America’s place in the world market, but they approach it differently, Waite said. Debates over legislation usually come down to trying to find appropriate, timely legislation that regulates these new technologies without stifling innovation and growth. Harris’ campaign approach is viewed as “inclusive” on these issues, Waite said, with goals to provide broadband access everywhere, and a focus on getting access to these tools for small business and underserved communities. “They’re very interested in this equality framework, of being able to say everyone should have access to these tools,” Waite said. Trump tends to lean more toward allowing businesses to innovate and do what they do well with the belief that time will iron out problems in these technologies. These policies usually favor economic impact over safeguarding technologies. Most Americans probably favor some middle ground legislation that allows for data and bias protections from quickly growing technologies while allowing American companies to become global leaders, he said In the end, for most Americans, tech issues aren’t as partisan as the two-party system sets them up to be, Waite said. “Voters might not always know the legislative details,” Waite said. “But they do care about having reliable broadband access, keeping their kids safe online and ensuring that innovation is advancing to keep pace with global competition.”

[Category: DC Bureau, Election 2024, Gov & Politics]

— Barack and Michelle Obama to campaign with Harris, while Elon Musk stumps for Trump

 

at 10/18/24 3:59pm

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives for a rally at the Resch Expo Center on Oct. 17, 2024 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The event was one of three Harris had scheduled in the swing state that day. (Photo by Scott Olson / Getty Images)WASHINGTON — With 18 days until Election Day, the presidential candidates and their surrogates are hitting battleground states that have begun early voting, as well as sitting down for interviews with targeted audiences. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, will be in two swing states next week with two Democratic celebrities: former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama. Harris and Barack Obama will head to Georgia, which has already begun early voting, on Thursday. She’ll then campaign in Michigan with Michelle Obama, as early voting starts Oct. 26. Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, appeared Friday on a popular sports podcast by NFL commentator and host Rich Eisen, where Walz — a former high school football coach — provided an analysis of the upcoming Detroit Lions-Minnesota Vikings football game on Sunday. Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has his own surrogate in tech billionaire Elon Musk. Musk, the Tesla CEO and owner of X, formerly Twitter, campaigned on behalf of Trump, attending rallies and holding a Thursday town hall in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. More town halls with Musk are planned in the coming days. Elon Musk talks immigration, voting and freedom of speech in first of Pennsylvania voter town halls Musk, who is also an immigrant, complained about immigration during the town hall and said that he’s “pro-immigrant, I just want to be sure that people who come here are going to be assets to society.” He has donated about $75 million to organizations supporting Trump’s reelection, according to recent campaign filings. Al Smith dinner  Trump late Thursday attended the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, a ritzy white-tie event that raises millions for Catholic charities in New York. Organizers invite the presidential candidates to share a stage before Election Day for some light comedic roasting. Harris did not appear at the charity occasion due to campaigning in the critical battleground state of Wisconsin, but sent in a video. The Trump campaign criticized her for not attending. “Kamala — who isn’t funny, despises Catholics, and was too afraid of being roasted by President Trump — became the first presidential nominee since 1984 to skip the event,” the campaign said in a statement. The National Catholic Reporter reports the Harris campaign says it is committed to engagement with Catholic voters. The only presidential candidate to purposely skip the dinner was Democratic nominee Walter Mondale and presidential candidates were not invited in 1996 and 2004. In 1992, the dinner was on the same night as the presidential debate between Democrat Bill Clinton and Republican George H.W. Bush. Pope Francis has criticized both candidates. “Both are against life, be it the one who kicks out migrants, or be it the one who kills babies,″ Francis said. Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement that Trump’s performance at the dinner was “unstable.” “He stumbled over his words and lashed out when the crowd wouldn’t laugh with him,” Moussa said. “The rare moments he was off script, he went on long incomprehensible rambles, reminding Americans how unstable he’s become.” Trump in friendly environs Trump has largely stuck to media appearances with conservative outlets and appeared on podcasts geared toward young men. He went on a “PBD Podcast” that aired Thursday where with the host, Patrick Bet-David, Trump again questioned Harris’ race. This is not the first time Trump has publicly commented on Harris’ race, as he did in Chicago during the National Association of Black Journalists in July. Harris is Black and Indian; her father is Jamaican, and her late mother was Indian. Trump insults Harris, makes false claims, quarrels with Black journalists at conference “They have a woman who is Black, although you would say she’s Indian, but she is Black … a lot of people didn’t know,” Trump said on the podcast. Trump has also backed out of several interviews with traditional media outlets like CBS’ “60 Minutes” and CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” Joe Kernen, co-host of the “Squawk Box” said Friday that Trump canceled a scheduled interview. CNN offered to host a town hall with both candidates. Trump has not committed, but Harris will participate in the CNN town hall on Wednesday. Trump objects to lessons on slavery Trump appeared on “Fox & Friends” early Friday, where he called Harris a “Marxist” and pushed back against Harris’ criticism that he is “unstable.” “I am the most stable human being,” Trump said. On the show, viewers sent in questions. One asked how Trump would handle education policy. Trump said that he would support school choice and would get rid of the U.S. Department of Education. He added that he would withhold federal funding from public schools that teach about slavery in U.S. history. “If they wanna get cute, then you don’t send them the money,” Trump said, referring to public schools in states like California, which are Democratic strongholds. One of the hosts, Brian Kilmeade, asked Trump how he plans to reach out to women in the final days of the election, as Harris is outperforming him with that voting bloc. Trump said that he does “very well with women, and I think it’s all nonsense.” Overall, women who are registered to vote support Harris by 52% compared to 43% for Trump, according to the Pew Research Center.  “You have one issue, you have the issue of abortion,” Trump said. “Without abortion, the women love me. They like me anyway.” Trump has often taken credit for ending Roe v. Wade, which granted the constitutional right to an abortion, by appointing three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. What’s next Both campaigns have a busy weekend. Harris will head to Detroit, Michigan on Saturday for a campaign event and then to Atlanta, Georgia. In the Peach State she will be joined by R&B singer Usher for a campaign rally, where she will focus on the importance of early voting. Walz will travel to Chicago on Saturday to attend a campaign reception. Walz will then head to Omaha, Nebraska, for another campaign reception and will later give remarks at a rally. On Saturday night, Trump will energize his base at a rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. He’ll also hold a town hall Sunday evening in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, is heading to Waukesha, Wisconsin on Sunday for a campaign event. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: DC Bureau, Education, Election 2024, Gov & Politics]

— Governor fills recent vacant cabinet seats from within administration

 

at 10/18/24 5:05am

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham appoints two new cabinet secretaries in September.September saw two major changes in Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s cabinet leadership with two appointments in the state’s Public Education and Aging and Long-Term Services departments. Lujan Grisham announced the Sept. 10 designation of Mariana Padilla to the Public Education Department following former Secretary Arsenio Romero’s resignation due to his position as one of the finalists in the running for New Mexico State University president.  Padilla is the fifth PED secretary to take over the department since Lujan Grisham took office in 2019. However, she has served as the Children’s Cabinet director since the start of the administration – a position that oversees state partners including the Public Education Department.   Secretary-Designate Mariana Padilla of the New Mexico Public Education Department. (Provided by the Office of the Governor)Through Padilla’s work with the Children’s Cabinet, she also serves as the governor’s senior education policy advisor for early childhood, K-12 and higher education. “In this role, Padilla has shaped program, policy, and budget priorities, and worked across state agencies to implement key initiatives and system-wide improvements,” a news release from the governor’s office states. It is unclear whether Padilla will continue in her role at the Children’s Cabinet. The governor’s office did not respond to multiple emails and phone inquiries from Source New Mexico about the lack of comprehensive annual fiscal reports since 2020 from the Children’s Cabinet and any potential conflict of Padilla’s roles prior to publication. Padilla is listed on the Children’s Cabinet website as executive director and secretary-designate of the Public Education Department. Our request for an interview with Padilla is also pending the Public Education Department’s response. YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE. SUPPORT Padilla stepped in to lead the PED briefly in 2023 between the retirement of Kurt Steinhaus and the appointment of Arsenio Romero. She has also served as acting cabinet secretary for the Children, Youth and Families Department, according to the news release. “Her work has been instrumental in shaping our state’s education system, and I am confident that she will continue to bring positive change for New Mexico’s students,” Lujan Grisham said in a news release. Padilla has worked with Lujan Grisham going back nearly a decade. Padilla served as state director on Lujan Grisham’s congressional staff, according to the news release. Since taking over leadership in the Children’s Cabinet, she has also served on the Public School Capital Outlay Council, among other boards and councils. According to her LinkedIn profile, Padilla has a master’s in community and regional planning and a second master’s of water resources policy and watershed planning. “My career has been focused on serving the communities and families of our state,” Padilla said in a news release. “I am committed to working collaboratively with students, families, educators, and community partners to achieve the outcomes we all want to see.” The cabinet seat appointment is the second by Lujan Grisham in September.  Lujan Grisham appointed Emily Kaltenbach on Sept. 24 to fill the Aging and Long-Term Services Department position left vacant after Jen Paul Schroer stepped down. Paul Schroer served in the position for about a year following four years as secretary of the state tourism department.  Lujan Grisham vetoes bills meant to treat, not punish, addiction Kaltenbach has worked with the Drug Policy Alliance for over 13 years. She was the senior director of criminal justice reform strategy and state director for New Mexico and this year, took over as senior director of state campaigns. The national nonprofit organization advocates for updated drug policies across the country, with legal regulation and drug decriminalization at the forefront.  According to the Drug Policy Alliance website, Kaltenbach was involved in passing marijuana legalization in New Mexico as well as starting the “second law enforcement assisted diversion program in the nation.”   Secretary-Designate Emily Kaltenbach of the New Mexico Aging and Long-Term Services Department. (Provided by the Office of the Governor)Before this, she worked with the aging and long-term care department for five years, including as director of policy and planning. “I am honored to return to ALTSD and serve New Mexico’s elders and families,” Kaltenbach said in a news release. “I look forward to collaborating with stakeholders statewide to ensure all New Mexicans have access to the care and services they need to live with dignity and independence.” Kaltenbach’s educational history includes a master’s in health care administration from the University of Washington and a bachelor’s in sociology and health care studies from Beloit College. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: Education, Gov & Politics, Health, Aging and Long-Term Services Department, Children's Cabinet, Emily Kaltenbach, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Mariana Padilla, New Mexico Cabinet, New Mexico Public Education Department]

— Rhetoric versus reality: Addressing common misconceptions about immigration

 

at 10/18/24 4:45am

Morning commuter traffic waits to cross into the United States from Tijuana, Mexico, in March. South of San Diego, the San Ysidro Port of Entry is the largest land crossing between the two countries and the most transited in the Western Hemisphere. Some 70,000 vehicles and 20,000 pedestrians pass through there daily. Border and immigration issues have become dominant themes in the 2024 presidential election. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)MYTH: Immigrants increase crime rates Among the most persistent political talking points raised by opponents of immigration is that migrants bring crime with them. “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best,” former President Donald Trump famously said on the campaign trail in 2016. “Has anybody ever seen the movie ‘Gangs of New York’?” Republican vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance asked during a meeting with the Milwaukee Police Association in August. “We know that when you have these massive ethnic enclaves forming in our country, it can sometimes lead to higher crime rates.” In reality, the opposite is true. Immigrants are far less likely than U.S.-born citizens to commit crimes, numerous studies show. One study of incarceration rates going back over 150 years — between 1870 and 2020 — found that U.S.-born citizens were consistently more likely to end up in prison than immigrants. And the gap between the two groups has only increased in recent years, with immigrants 60% less likely to be incarcerated than U.S.-born citizens today, according to the nonpartisan National Bureau of Economic Research. Assertions that immigrants have caused spikes in crime in the areas where they settle have also been proven false. Overall, incidents of crime, including violent crime, have fallen in cities across the country since peaking during the pandemic, FBI data shows. And while politicians have claimed that border cities have been overwhelmed by lawlessness and chaos, the data shows that crime rates, including for homicide, are far lower than the national average. The equation of immigrants with criminals is exhausting to hear for Irayda Flores, a businesswoman in Phoenix, Arizona. Flores moved to the Grand Canyon State from Sonora, Mexico, in 2004, hoping to make her entrepreneurial dreams a reality. Since then, her seafood wholesale business, El Mar de Cortez Corp, has thrived, serving restaurants across the city and employing more than a dozen people. But despite the example she and other immigrants provide, politicians continue to frame them as villains. The rhetoric is the same every election year, she said, and it ignores the positive contributions of many of the immigrants who left their home countries to seek a better future. “Politicians talk about the migrant community like they’re criminals, like they are really awful people,” Flores said. “But when migrants leave their country — their culture and the land that they were born and grew up in — they do it because they’re searching for opportunity. And searching for a new opportunity means they come here with the intention to work and get ahead.” Dismissing all immigrants as criminals is harmful, she added, and unfair to the work many immigrants have put in to make a difference in their host communities. “You can’t generalize or treat an entire immigrant group as criminals because there are people who’ve lived in the country for decades, and they bring benefits to the table,” Flores said. “They benefit the economy, they benefit their communities, and they deserve to be treated with respect.” MYTH: There’s an invasion at the U.S.-Mexico border While the campaign season has prompted politicians to stir up voters about an “invasion” at the country’s southern border, the situation is more complex. In late 2023, the number of migrant encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border hit record highs. In December 2023, more than 300,000 encounters between border officials and migrants occurred at the country’s southern border — an all-time high. Experts believe the surge was, in part, the result of a global spike in migration patterns caused by economic strains during the pandemic. !function(){use strict;window.addEventListener(message,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[datawrapper-height]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(iframe);for(var t in a.data[datawrapper-height])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}();/] In January 2024 the record high set in December plummeted to about 176,000 encounters. The number eventually fell to a three-year low not seen since before the pandemic. In August, the month for which the most recent data is available, encounters increased slightly from to 107,503 from 104,101 in July. MYTH: Fentanyl is smuggled into the country by migrants The U.S.-Mexico border stretches across nearly 2,000 miles and includes 26 land ports of entry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents monitor both ports and the spaces in between. The vast majority of fentanyl is smuggled into the U.S. via legal routes by citizens, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reports. More than 90% of interdicted fentanyl is confiscated by border officials at land ports of entry, according to DHS, and cartels mainly seek to move the drug across the border with the help of U.S. citizens. In fiscal year 2023, the latest year for which there is data, 86.4% of fentanyl trafficking convictions were citizens. MYTH: Immigrants take advantage of public benefits In most cases, immigrants who aren’t citizens of the United States are ineligible for public benefits. Federal programs like Section 8 housing aid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Medicaid, and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)  are all strictly reserved for U.S. citizens. Immigrants who aren’t citizens also can’t receive subsidies under the Affordable Care Act, and they can’t apply for federal health insurance coverage through the marketplace. People with legal permanent residency status, however, may be able to access some public benefits after reaching the five-year residency mark. Some federal protections are in place to ensure that migrants have access to care if they are facing life-threatening circumstances. Emergency Medicaid helps migrants without legal status receive urgent medical treatment, and some benefits are available to migrant women under the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. Eligibility for state public benefit programs varies across the country and can range from access to driver’s licenses to in-state tuition rates and scholarships. A hundred people are sworn in at a naturalization ceremony hosted by the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park in celebration of the former president’s 100th birthday on Tuesday, Oct. 1, in Plains, Georgia. Migrants endure a lengthy and complex process to receive citizenship status. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images)A hundred people are sworn in at a naturalization ceremony hosted by the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park in celebration of the former president’s 100th birthday on Tuesday, Oct. 1, in Plains, Georgia. Migrants endure a lengthy and complex process to receive citizenship status. (Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images) MYTH: It’s easy to gain U.S. citizenship Gaining citizenship is a costly, multistep and complicated process. And backlogged naturalization and asylum systems mean long wait times for hopeful migrants. Those seeking to achieve legal status through marriage must pass a number of hurdles meant to verify that the marriage is genuine, including periodic interviews with immigration officials. Couples often spend hundreds or thousands of dollars and years in the application process. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals grants people without legal status who were brought to the country as minors protection from deportation and a temporary work permit, but recipients must meet strict criteria to qualify. That includes living in the U.S. since 2007, having arrived in the country before turning 16, no significant criminal convictions and either current enrollment in a high school, a diploma or a GED. DACA recipients who were accepted into the program must reapply for a renewal every two years. And while recipients can apply for legal residency status if they are eligible through their family or via employment-based immigration, the DACA program is currently frozen. Though applications are still being accepted, they aren’t being processed while the program is under ongoing litigation that threatens to end it altogether. Asylum seekers must undergo fear screenings with immigration officials to determine if their concerns about persecution or threats to their lives warrant being granted protection in the U.S. New guidance issued by the Biden administration barring the consideration of asylum claims when high numbers of migrant encounters occur has made it more difficult for people to request asylum. Those hoping for a resolution in their asylum or refugee cases might wait years. In 2019, the immigration backlog ballooned to more than 1 million cases, a number that only doubled in the following years. As of September, the number of pending immigration cases exceeded 3 million. The average time it takes to close a case is four years, according to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, an organization that compiles and analyzes federal immigration data. MYTH: Immigrants don’t pay taxes Roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, and all of them pay some form of taxes. An analysis of the 2022 American Community Survey, an annual demographics survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, estimated that immigrants contributed $383 billion in federal taxes, and $196 billion in state and local taxes. And while people without legal status can’t benefit from Social Security, the administration receives about $13 billion from the paychecks of workers without citizenship status every year. Saúl Rascón (Courtesy Photo) Saúl Rascón moved to the U.S. with his family when he was 5-years-old. He became a DACA recipient in high school and has been employed ever since. Today, he works with Aliento Votes, a pro-immigrant voter outreach campaign. Accusations that immigrants don’t pay their taxes irritate Rascón, who views it as a way to diminish the demographic group’s contributions. “Its particularly frustrating when immigrants are pinned as this economic deficit and harm when its been proven time and time again that they’re not,” he said. The problem, Rascón said, is that the claim is believable to the average voter who doesn’t do additional research. And that claim is dangerous for all immigrants, including himself, because it could engender hostility towards the community as a whole. The spread of disinformation about immigrants is harmful, he added, not just because it fosters anti-immigrant sentiment, but also because it makes it more difficult to find common ground when it comes to changing the country’s immigration system. While Republican politicians have focused on riling up their base against immigrants, Democrats have shifted to the right on the issue, increasingly spotlighting enforcement policy to capture as many votes as possible. “We’re no longer focusing our energy on our Dreamers and DACA, on undocumented people who’ve been here, and contributing taxes,” Rascón said. “We’ve seen a shift towards border security, which isn’t unproductive but it’s not the best use of our time and resources.”

[Category: Civil Rights & Immigration, economy, Election 2024, fentanyl, immigration]

— Guns: Where do Trump and Harris stand?

 

at 10/18/24 4:30am

Guns are shown at Caso’s Gun-A-Rama in Jersey City, New Jersey, which has been open since 1967. (Photo by Aristide Economopoulos / NJ Monitor)This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race. WASHINGTON — A mass shooting at a Georgia high school in September thrust the issue of gun violence to the forefront of the presidential race. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump agree that gun violence is a major problem, but they offer strikingly different views on how to address it. Two 14-year-old students and two math teachers were killed at Apalachee High School. While at a campaign rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, shortly after the Apalachee shooting, Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, renewed calls for an assault weapons ban, universal background checks and red flag laws. Georgia, national Democratic leaders call for gun safety legislation after Apalachee High shooting Students should not have to be frightened of school shootings, she said. “They are sitting in a classroom where they should be fulfilling their God-given potential, yet some part of their big, beautiful minds is worried about a shooter breaking through the door,” she said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.” Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, expressed his condolences. “Our hearts are with the victims and loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, GA,” Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social. “These cherished children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.” Trump has survived two assassination attempts, one where he was injured in the ear, but has not changed his stance on guns. After the first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita said at the Republican National Convention that the party won’t back away from its support of Second Amendment rights. Gun rights advocates at convention spell out plans if GOP gains control in November During a Univision town hall with undecided Latino voters that aired Wednesday night, an audience member asked Trump how he would explain his gun policy to “parents of the victims of school shootings.” “We have a Second Amendment and a right to bear arms,” Trump said. “I’m very strongly an advocate of that. I think that if you ever tried to get rid of it, you wouldn’t be able to do it. You wouldn’t be able to take away the guns, because people need that for security, they need it for entertainment and for sport, and other things. But they also, in many cases, need it for protection.” A majority of Americans view gun violence as a problem — about 60% — and they expect it to only get worse over the next five years, according to a Pew Research Center study. This year there have been 421 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun violence in the U.S. For a third year in a row, in 2022 — the most recent year of finalized data — firearms were the leading cause of death for children and teens ages 1 to 17, according to a report from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. Harris’ record In the aftermath of two mass shootings in 2022, Congress passed the most comprehensive bipartisan gun safety legislation in decades. In Uvalde, Texas, 19 children and two teachers were murdered, making it the second-deadliest mass shooting since the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in 2012. In Buffalo, a white supremacist targeted a Black neighborhood and killed 10 Black people in a grocery store. The package that Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law provided $11 billion in mental health funds and $750 million for states to enact red flag laws. It also closed loopholes and established a White House Office for Gun Violence Prevention, among other provisions. Red flag laws allow courts to temporarily remove a firearm from an individual who is a threat to themselves or others, among other provisions. Biden tasked Harris with leading the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, which helps local communities implement that 2022 bipartisan gun legislation and aids communities impacted by gun violence. Biden administration to create new gun violence prevention office Trump’s record During Trump’s first presidency, he had a mixed record on gun policy. After a mass shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Trump administration moved to ban bump stocks, which allow a semi-automatic rifle to quickly fire bullets. However, the U.S. Supreme Court, to which Trump appointed three conservative justices, struck down the ban on bump stocks.  U.S. Supreme Court overturns ban on bump stocks used in Las Vegas mass shooting Trump also threatened to veto legislation from Congress that would have enhanced background checks on guns. Promise: a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines Democrats have long called for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, which are typically used in mass shootings. The U.S. used to have a ban on assault weapons, but it expired in 2004 and Congress failed to renew the ban. “I am in favor of the Second Amendment, and I believe we need to reinstate the assault weapons ban,” Harris said at the White House in late September. Fulfilling this promise would come down to the makeup in Congress and overcoming the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to advance legislation. Promise: a rollback of Biden regulations During a forum with the National Rifle Association in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in February, Trump promised to roll back all gun-related regulations that the Biden administration has implemented. “Every single Biden attack on gun owners and manufacturers will be terminated on my very first week back in office, perhaps my first day,” Trump said. Trump specifically said he would cancel the Biden administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy, which revokes federal licenses from gun dealers who violate firearm laws. Brian Hughes, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said in a statement to States Newsroom that if Trump wins a second term, “he will terminate every single one of the Harris-Biden’s attacks on law-abiding gun owners his first week in office and stand up for our constitutionally enshrined right to bear arms.” Promise: tax credits, no gun-free zones During an NRA event in April 2023, Trump said that he was supportive of a tax credit for teachers who wanted to carry a firearm in schools. Trump has also previously voiced his disapproval of schools being gun-free zones. Days after the Uvalde school shooting, Trump attended another NRA event in Houston, Texas, where he argued that a gun-free zone does not allow people to protect themselves. “As the age-old saying goes, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” Trump said. “The existence of evil is one of the very best reasons to arm law-abiding citizens.” He argued that schools should have metal detectors, fencing and an armed police officer. GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: DC Bureau, Election 2024, Gov & Politics, Police & Prison, firearms, gun contol, gun violence]

— Law enforcement officials prepare for possible post-election violence in D.C.

 

at 10/18/24 4:15am

Donald Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton / Getty Images)WASHINGTON — The threat of political violence will likely hang over the nation’s capital in the weeks following Election Day, security experts say, despite intensive preparations by law enforcement officials determined to avoid another Jan. 6 insurrection. The 2,000-plus officers who make up the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as other federal law enforcement agencies like the Secret Service, have responded to a surge in threats against elected officials during the last few years, including two assassination attempts against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump just this year. But the threats, attacks and shooting have led to questions about whether the two agencies are truly prepared for the presidential transition, especially after a report released this week said the Secret Service “requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission.” The agency is tasked with planning and coordinating security for Congress’ certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6 —the first time it’s been designated a National Special Security Event — and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20. Experts interviewed by States Newsroom said there is a very real chance of political violence in the weeks and months ahead, though they said law enforcement agencies have learned from recent events. The unrest could build after what is expected to be a very close presidential election, with results possibly delayed for days or longer or even litigated in the courts. “Unfortunately, you can never have 100% security,” said Javed Ali, associate professor of practice at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. “It’s nice to think that would exist. But, if you’re trying to consider all the different kinds of variables that you have to plan for, there’s always going to be a gap or vulnerability — now what you try to do is kind of minimize the big one and hope that the small ones don’t get exploited.” Darrell M. West, the Douglas Dillon Chair in Governmental Studies at the Brookings Institution, said the risk of political violence could increase following Election Day if one or more political leaders object to the outcome. “For months, we’ve been hearing extreme and sometimes violent rhetoric,” West said. “And rhetoric has consequences — it can encourage some people to take action.” Trump has refused to accept the 2020 election results, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, declined to say Trump lost the election. Vance on Oct. 12 said there was a “peaceful transfer of power” in January 2021. Vance replies to question about 2020 election with answer about Hunter Bidens laptop Trump has repeatedly recycled false claims he made following his loss that the system is rigged — a talking point he’s likely to use to rile up supporters should he lose this year’s election. Trump has been charged by special counsel Jack Smith with four felony counts in connection with 2020 election interference, in a complex case that will continue after the election. Threats against lawmakers Members of Congress are more vulnerable than presidential candidates, in part because most lawmakers live in normal houses and don’t have security details anywhere close to the kind the Secret Service provides for high-ranking officials. And unlike the presidency, which has a long line of succession to avoid gaps in authority following a death or a crisis, Congress has been criticized for not having better plans in place to address continuity of government following a mass casualty or similar event. U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger testified in April the agency was looking for ways to bolster protection for lawmakers in the line of presidential succession, like the speaker of the House and Senate president pro tempore. U.S. Capitol Police chief describes preparations for possible post-election turmoil  Manger told the panel that security for those two officials was substandard to that provided for the Secretary of State, who sits below them in the line of succession. “We can’t just go back to the days when we said, ‘Well, we’ll just follow them around and we’ll make sure they’re well protected wherever they are,’ because their homes, their families are at risk,” he testified. Members of Congress who haven’t risen to the ranks of leadership don’t get security details unless there are specific threats to their safety. And those aren’t permanent. That could present challenges for lawmakers who have higher profiles or who regularly receive threats, especially if people respond violently to the election results and encourage their supporters to take matters into their own hands. Trump assassination attempts Making the situation more complicated, this year has shown that substantial levels of security aren’t a guarantee of safety. Trump has some of the highest levels of protection in the country, if not the world, but that did not stop a man from shooting at the former president during a rally in Pennsylvania this summer. A separate would-be gunman was spotted and apprehended just off Trump’s Florida golf course with a semi-automatic weapon in September. Both instances raised questions about the Secret Service’s ability to protect Trump as well as others, though agency leaders maintain they’re up to the task. Trump’s experiences, as the subject of political violence, haven’t deterred him from spreading disinformation about Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris as well as other lawmakers who disagree with him on policy issues. Trump’s comments about immigrants have also led to threats against everyday people, including Haitian immigrants in Ohio, who are in the country legally. During an interview with Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News earlier this month, Trump said he may use the National Guard or the military against his political opponents should he win reelection, calling them “the enemy from within.” “We have some very bad people,” Trump said. “We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.” The military and National Guard have significantly different training programs and missions than local, state, or federal law enforcement, making Trump’s comments somewhat darker than previous claims he’d try to put his political opponents in prison if reelected. Trump hasn’t committed to respecting the results of the election or supporting a peaceful transition in power should he lose his bid for the White House. Trump’s comments could indicate that violence is likely following the election, if he loses, or after he regains the powers of the presidency, if he wins. Delayed election results predicted West from the Brookings Institution said violence isn’t likely to take place in the days immediately following the end of voting on Nov. 5, since it’s unlikely anyone learns the results of the presidential election for a few days. The Associated Press didn’t call the race for President Joe Biden until the Saturday after the election in 2020, following days of speculation and ballot counting. Mail-in ballots, which Democrats tend to submit in larger numbers than Republicans, could lead to confusion in swing states, especially if people don’t understand they tend to boost numbers for Democratic candidates over GOP politicians as they’re counted, he said. “We could end up in a situation where on election night, Trump is ahead, because we know Republicans tend to vote in person on Election Day, and Democrats often vote via mail ballots,” West said. “And then as the mail ballots get counted on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the numbers may shift from Trump to Harris. “And I think that’s a very bad combination, because it will look to some individuals like voter fraud, even though there’s a perfectly logical explanation for the change. But that’s a scenario that could lead to violence, because it’ll look like the election is being stolen from Trump.” While the presidential candidates will play a significant role in stirring up or calming down their supporters, members of Congress, many of whom sought to legitimize misinformation and disinformation four years ago, have responsibilities as well. “We need leaders who act responsibly, but unfortunately, in the last few months, we have not seen that,” West said. “We’ve seen members of Congress who have promoted misinformation. There’s been a lot of it surrounding the hurricane, and so the fear is that there will be blatant lies that then will incite people to take action.” Learning from 2020 Ali, from the University of Michigan, said he expects federal law enforcement will be better prepared for post-election violence than they were four years ago, though there are still chances for violent people to slip through the cracks. The most likely scenario, Ali said, is a single actor or “lone wolf” attack and not a mob marching to the Capitol, the way Trump supporters did on Jan. 6. “I still think it’s relatively low,” Ali said of the likelihood of violence. “But as we’ve seen, all it takes is one person to really shake up the perception of security. And if they’re aiming at President Trump or Vice President Harris, well then, you know the stakes are even higher.” Ali said he’s confident that the Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., area are preparing for various scenarios, though he’s less sure about what would happen if there’s violence at state capitals. “There might be a little more vulnerability there,” Ali said. “But I still think, at least when we’re getting to the Electoral College (certification) day, that January 6th-type insurrection will be almost impossible to pull off.” When it comes to spreading disinformation, Ali said, he expects there will be a combination of foreign adversaries, including Iran and Russia, as well as domestic actors. “You’ll probably see a lot of disinformation, especially if Vice President Harris wins, sort of casting doubt on the integrity of the voting, the credibility of the process, maybe going after specific individuals and key swing states, or even counties,” Ali said. “All those things that were happening in 2020. But there were also costs to doing that, as we’ve seen too, with the civil charges and some of the potential criminal ones as well,” he added. “So I think that’s also an area domestically, where people will have to tread very cautiously. That doesn’t mean that you won’t see it, but again, there might be a line that gets crossed where people will be held accountable for that.” ‘More prepared than ever before’ U.S. Capitol Police Inspector General David T. Harper said USCP leadership has implemented the 100-plus recommendations put forward by his predecessor following the Jan. 6 attack, closing gaps that existed that day. “I think they’ve made a lot of improvements, and I think that they’re more prepared than ever before,” Harper said, though he later added he couldn’t “say for certain that they are prepared to handle anything that can come up” due to the unpredictable nature of domestic terrorism and political violence. The OIG is also “prepared to be all hands on deck” in the event of another attack on the Capitol or lawmakers takes place, to analyze what went wrong and make recommendations for USCP to implement, he said. Harper, whose tenure as inspector general began earlier this year, noted during the interview that much of what he can publicly discuss is restricted by national security concerns. The U.S. Capitol Police declined an interview request from States Newsroom, but provided written information about changes that it’s implemented during the last few years. Among those is a law approved by Congress that allows the USCP chief to request the National Guard without the approval of the three-member Capitol Police board. USCP has also overhauled its intelligence-gathering activities and established partnerships with other law enforcement agencies to bolster its ranks ahead of major events. Secret Service planning for Jan. 6 The Secret Service is one of those partners and it will take the lead this year planning security for major events during the presidential transition, even those undertaken by Congress inside the Capitol. While Inauguration Day has traditionally been categorized as a National Special Security Event, the Department of Homeland Security has extended that classification for the first time for Congress certifying the winner of the presidential race on Jan. 6. Additional security will be in place for Jan. 6, 2025 certification of presidential vote Nate Herring, spokesperson for the United States Secret Service, said part of the process includes planning with other law enforcement agencies for “various scenarios” that could take place, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Metropolitan Police Department. “We work very closely with our partners throughout the whole planning process,” Herring said. “And D.C. is especially unique because National Special Security Events occur fairly frequently.” But the Secret Service’s leadership and structure have come under scrutiny during the last few months. The four-member panel tasked with investigating the Pennsylvania assassination attempt against Trump wrote in the 52-page report released in mid-October that the Secret Service “has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved.” “This is a zero-fail mission, for any failure endangers not only the life of the protectee, but also the fundamentals of our government itself,” they wrote. Without substantial changes to the Secret Service, the independent review panel wrote, it believes the type of deadly attack that took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, “can and will happen again.” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas released a written statement after the report’s release, saying the department had begun “taking the actions needed to advance the Secret Service’s protection mission,” including addressing the “systemic and foundational issues” described by the review panel. D.C. planning District of Columbia Assistant City Administrator Chris Rodriguez said that city officials will be watching for any indications people intent on violence begin traveling or gathering inside the city following Election Day. “We are obviously attuned to what happened last time. I mean, I don’t think we can ignore that, and we’re not,” Rodriguez said, referring to the Jan. 6 attack. “But we also are in a place where we have great relationships among our agencies within the region, with the federal government in terms of coordination, and we will be prepared to adapt our operational posture in any way that we need to.” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser originally requested the NSSE designation for Jan. 6, which Rodriguez said has increased planning and coordination, in hopes of avoiding any violence. Rodriguez also stressed D.C. officials and the city’s police department are used to planning for the large crowds and protests that tend to take place whenever there’s a presidential transition. “We are a city that prides itself, as the nation’s capital, to ensuring that there is a peaceful transition of power,” he said. “And we will do our part to ensure that.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. SUBSCRIBE

[Category: DC Bureau, Election 2024, Gov & Politics, Police & Prison, Jan. 6, jan. 6 insurrection]

— Trump courts Latino voters at Univision town hall, and Harris ventures onto Fox News

 

at 10/18/24 4:00am

The Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, takes questions from Latino voters at a town hall hosted by Univision on Oct. 16, 2024. (Photo by Felipe Cuevas / TelevisaUnivision)WASHINGTON — With less than three weeks to Election Day, Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump spent Wednesday evening zeroing in on undecided voters, in a race that polls have in a dead heat. In Doral, Florida, Trump made his pitch to undecided Latino voters for an hour-long Univision town hall and Vice President Harris waded into  conservative waters in a 30-minute Fox News interview with news anchor Bret Baier. Undecided Latino voters from across the country asked Trump 12 questions focused on the economy, immigration and reproductive rights, among other issues. Trump rarely answered the questions, often meandering off topic and joking that the hardest question he was asked was to list three virtues he admired of his opponent. “She seems to have an ability to survive,” Trump said of Harris. In an effort to reach moderate and undecided Republicans, Harris engaged in a somewhat testy interview with Baier that focused on the Biden administration’s immigration policies and Trump’s rhetoric. The interview also provided Harris with a rare opportunity to distinguish herself from President Joe Biden, a question that she faltered with when asked earlier on the daytime show “The View.” “My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency, and like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas,” she said. “I represent a new generation of leadership.” Harris spars with Baier The start of the interview with Baier brought a barrage of questions about migration at the southern border, and he often interrupted Harris during her answers. He pressed her on why the Biden administration rolled back Trump-era immigration policies. Immigration has become a top issue for voters and one that Trump has centered in his reelection campaign. Harris focused on how U.S. immigration needs to be fixed and how the White House brokered a border security deal with the U.S. Senate that was bipartisan until Trump instructed GOP lawmakers to walk back on the deal. Harris said that Americans “want solutions and they want a president of the United States who’s not playing political games with the issue.” She also tried to emphasize how she would unite the country, touting endorsements from Republicans. The Harris campaign has aligned with Republicans who have rebuked Trump, such as launching Republicans for Harris and having former GOP U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming serve as a campaign surrogate to court moderate Republicans. The Harris campaign has also often pointed to the dozens of Trump administration officials who no longer support the former president. ‘The enemy within’ Harris also blasted Trump’s recent remarks that referred to Democrats as “the enemy within.” The most combative part of the interview came when Baier played a clip from a Fox News town hall that Trump held with women where the host Harris Faulkner asked him about those comments about “the enemy within.” In the town hall, Trump said “it is the enemy from within, and they are very dangerous; they are Marxists and communists and fascists and they’re sick.” But the clip Baier played showed a different response from Trump, and in which he was not making threats. “I’m not threatening anyone,” Trump said in the clip that Baier played for Harris. “They’re the ones doing the threatening. They do phony investigations. I’ve been investigated more than Alphonse Capone was.” Harris pointed out that the clip “was not what he has been saying about the enemy within.” “You and I both know that he has talked about turning the American military on the American people. He has talked about going after people who are engaged in peaceful protest,” Harris said. “He has talked about locking people up because they disagree with him. This is a democracy and in a democracy, the president of the United States, in the United States of America, should be willing to be able to handle criticism without saying he would lock people up for doing it.” Latino voters question Trump Both campaigns have tried to attract Latino voters, the second-largest group of eligible voters. Before the Univision town hall started, Trump said that he was making inroads with Latinos. Latino voter preferences still largely resemble the 2020 presidential election, when Biden defeated Trump 61% to 36% in earning the Latino vote, according to the Pew Research Center.  Harris currently has a smaller lead over Trump with Latinos, 57% to 39%, according to the Pew Research Center. Harris already had a Univision town hall with the undecided voters, but Trump’s was postponed due to Hurricane Milton. One of the audience members, Carlos Aguilera, who works as a public utilities manager in Florida, said he’s seen climate change affect his industry and asked Trump if he still thinks climate change is a hoax. Trump didn’t answer the question, and said he’s not concerned about weather but instead about nuclear weapons. He said if Harris wins, the U.S. will end up in another world war. Several voters asked Trump about his plan for bringing down inflation and for job creation. Trump mainly blamed the Biden administration for inflation. He said he would drill for oil, in order to bring down the cost of living. Trump also said he would implement a mix of tax breaks and tariffs to bring companies to the U.S. to create jobs. “Under this administration, we are going to bring companies in through a system of taxes — positive we call it — positive taxation,” Trump said. “We are going to bring companies in at a level that you’ve never seen in this country before.” Mass deportations Several voters asked Trump questions relating to immigration. A former farmworker, Jorge Valazquez, from California, said that for many years he picked strawberries and cut broccoli in the fields. He said many of those workers are undocumented and he asked Trump what his plans for mass deportations of those workers would mean, especially for food prices. Trump said he backs legal migration and those jobs would be available for Black and Hispanic workers. In addition to promising a mass deportation of millions of immigrants in the country without authorization, Trump has proposed ending several legal pathways for immigrants such as humanitarian parole and Temporary Protected Status. “A lot of the jobs that you have, and that other people have, are being taken by these people that are coming in,” Trump said of immigrants. “And the African American population and the Hispanic population in particular are losing jobs now because millions of people are coming in.” Another audience member, Guadalupe Ramirez from Illinois, asked Trump what his plan is to fix the U.S. immigration system. She asked why he did not support the bipartisan border security deal the Senate and White House struck. Trump praised his previous immigration policies and then criticized cities with Democratic leadership like Chicago. “The Democrats are weak,” Trump said. “Don’t forget, the Democrats run Chicago.” Trump did not answer the question as to why he instructed congressional GOP lawmakers to walk away from the border deal. Haitian immigrants find new footholds, and familiar backlash, in the Midwest, South The last question on immigration came from Jose Saralegui of Arizona, who said he’s a registered Republican but undecided. He asked about Trump’s comments about Springfield, Ohio, where not only Trump, but several GOP lawmakers have falsely claimed that legal Haitian immigrants were eating people’s pets. Saralegui said that he’s concerned that Trump has called for revoking those immigrants’ legal status — as many have TPS due to unstable conditions in Haiti — and asked Trump, “Do you really believe that these people are eating the people’s pets?” Trump didn’t answer as to whether he believed that claim, but said he’s just “saying what was reported,” and that Haitians are “eating other things too, that they’re not supposed to be, but this is all I do, is report.” These claims have been widely debunked. The Wall Street Journal found the Ohio woman who filed a police report for her missing cat and accused Haitian immigrants in the neighborhood of stealing people’s pets and eating them. The woman later found her cat, but the Trump campaign ran with the rumor even though it was found to be baseless. Vance spread Springfield rumors even after his staff was told they were false, news report says “You have a town, a beautiful little town with no problems, all of a sudden they have 30 or 32,000 people dropped into the town, most of whom don’t speak the language, and what they’re doing is they’re looking all over for interpreters,” Trump said. “Well, I mean, I think you can’t just destroy our country.” Saralegui, and many of the audience members who asked questions, had interpreters. Reproductive rights Trump was asked about reproductive rights by Yaritza Kuhn of North Carolina. Kuhn said that Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, wrote about her support of abortion and reproductive rights in her recent book. Kuhn asked Trump if he agreed with his wife. Trump did not answer whether he agreed with his wife, but said, “I told Melania that she has to go with her heart.” “I want her to do what she wants to do,” he said. “I wouldn’t want to oppose what I think.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES. 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[Category: Abortion Policy, Civil Rights & Immigration, DC Bureau, Economy, Election 2024, Gov & Politics]

— New Mexico election officials promote guide to guard against voter intimidation 

 

at 10/17/24 1:34pm

A sign marks the limit to prevent campaign signs at a polling location during the June 4, 2024 primary. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM)New Mexico’s election officials reminded voters Thursday that state and federal law protect their right to cast their ballots safely and free from intimidation. The New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office and the New Mexico Department of Justice on Thursday morning published their updated General Election Voter Information Resource Guide, a week after early voting began statewide. The guide contains dates and deadlines for the general election, for which voting concludes Nov. 5; information about in-person, mail-in or absentee voting; and who is or isn’t allowed at the polls. “Clear, accessible voting information is key to boosting voter confidence and participation,” said Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat. “By teaming up with the New Mexico Department of Justice on this voter information resource guide, we’re making sure New Mexicans know all the ways to cast their ballot and the robust safeguards protecting their rights, their vote, and our election process.” One of the most significant updates in the guide from previous years is a new prohibition on openly carrying firearms at polling places. In March, New Mexico joined at least 21 other states that ban guns where people vote. Fearing political violence, more states ban firearms at polling places The new law was inspired in part by Santa Fe poll workers, who faced harassment by people openly carrying firearms during the 2020 presidential election, Rep. Reena Szczepanski (D-Albuquerque) told Source NM partner publication Stateline, for a March story. “Our national climate is increasingly polarized,” Szczepanski, one of the bill’s sponsors, told Stateline. “Anything we can do to turn the temperature down and allow for the safe operation of our very basic democratic right, voting, is critical.” The guide asks the public to call the Secretary of State’s Voter Hotline if anyone interferes with their vote through threats, intimidation, or coercion, or if they become aware of any interference with others’ right to vote. That number to call is 1-800-477-3632. “Ensuring every New Mexican can exercise their right to vote freely and without fear is one of our top priorities,” said Attorney General Raúl Torrez. “This guide provides the critical information voters need to understand their rights, and it reinforces our commitment to protecting those rights from any form of interference or intimidation.” The guide urges people to use trusted sources for voting information, including the Secretary of State’s Office and the 33 county clerks across the state. “Be wary of misinformation being promoted or repeated by varying sources on television, online, or on social media,” the guide states. It also includes information about hotlines to call with voting concerns, disabled voters, and ballot drop boxes, along the roles of election board members, precinct judges, challengers, watchers, media and police, said Alex Curtas, a spokesperson for the Secretary of State’s Office. The Secretary of State’s Office usually publishes similar advisories for every presidential election, Curtas said in an interview. The new one follows the same format as the last one published in 2022, he said. You can find a copy of the 11-page guide below. 2024 Voter Information Resource Guide

[Category: Election 2024, Gov & Politics, Police & Prison, attorney general, Secretary of State, voting]

— Judge says he’s leaning toward nixing FEMA rule denying fire victims payment for emotional losses 

 

at 10/17/24 5:05am

A chimenea sits Feb. 8, 2023, amid the rubble of a cabin burned by the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire. A federal judge this week signaled he would rule with fire victims seeking compensation for "non-economic damages" from the federally caused wildfire. (Photo by Patrick Lohmann / Source New Mexico) Hundreds of millions of dollars could be awarded to victims of the state’s biggest wildfire for the hardship they endured when the federally caused wildfire roared across their land in 2022, based on a judge’s comments Tuesday in federal court. Judge James Browning said at the end of a hearing Tuesday afternoon he was “leaning” toward ruling on behalf of fire victims who sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency last year. He said he would issue a ruling as soon as possible, but likely not until next month. If Browning does indeed side with the fire victims, which lawyers on both sides of the courtroom expect is likely, FEMA could be required to establish a system to quantify and compensate fire victims not only for the economic losses they suffered in the state’s biggest wildfire but also for the emotional harm. The deadline to apply for Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire compensation is Dec. 20, 2024. For thousands of victims, that could mean additional compensation for the “annoyance, discomfort and inconvenience” of the “nuisance” or “trespass” the fire caused, victims’ lawyers said. A few others could get sizable payments for their “pain and suffering” resulting from physical injuries they suffered in the fire, in addition to the medical costs. So far, the only recourse for those who were injured or for families of those who died in the fire or ensuing floods has been filing time-consuming and uncertain lawsuits in federal court. Gerald Singleton, whose San Diego-based firm is representing about 1,000 fire victims, estimated these sorts of emotional harm losses could amount to about $400 million. He also said the payments could result in a more-equitable distribution of fire compensation funding, as renters or those with low incomes would receive additional compensation beyond just the dollar value for their limited losses in the fire. Even with the expected ruling, it’s not clear how quickly these payments could arrive in victims’ bank accounts. Because the legal battle centers around a regulation FEMA created, the agency’s lawyers said in court it would have to go through a whole new, formal rulemaking process. That could take months. Feds try to skirt responsibility in lawsuit for people who died after state’s biggest wildfire The money would come out of a nearly $4 billion fund Congress established in September 2022 that members hoped would “fully compensate” victims of the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Fire, started earlier that year by two federal prescribed burns that escaped and combined to destroy several hundred homes and scorched a 534-square-mile area. As of Sept. 24, the Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon Claims Office had paid $1.35 billion of the fund in 10,417 different claims from households, nonprofits, businesses and local and tribal governments. Jay Mitchell, director of the claims office, watched the half-day court hearing Tuesday. In a brief interview with Source New Mexico after the judge’s comments, Mitchell suggested the compensation required by the expected ruling could be challenging to administer. Even though $4 billion might seem like a huge number, “It is a limited fund,” Mitchell said. He suggested the ruling could open the door to a flood of new claims seeking damages for “nuisance” or “trespass” from people whose properties were touched by wildfire smoke. “Smoke goes where it goes,” he said as he walked into a meeting with lawyers representing FEMA after the hearing. Did Congress intend to limit damages? Singleton’s was among four firms representing dozens of named plaintiffs who sued FEMA last October, alleging the agency improperly denied so-called “non-economic damages” to fire victims in a final set of regulations it published last summer. The rules limited compensation to only economic damages, which are the type of losses with a price tag: things like cars, homes, business expenses and cattle. The rule was based on the agency’s interpretation of the Hermits Peak-Calf Calf Canyon Fire Assistance Act, written and sponsored by U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez and U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, both Democrats from New Mexico. Luján’s office did not respond to a request for comment. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich’s office said the senator would wait until the ruling to weigh in. Leger Fernandez’s office told Source NM she couldn’t comment due to the pending litigation, but she’s “following the issue closely.” The victims’ lawsuit alleged the agency was wrong when it interpreted the act as excluding non-economic damage payments. To make their argument, lawyers parsed the act’s language to try to determine congressional intent and analyzed state law about what recourse victims would have under New Mexico law if a private company had started the fire and not the federal government. Months of back and forth between lawyers centered on what Congress meant when they wrote the act. Browning on Tuesday questioned victims’ lawyers and the United States Attorney’s Office about what they think Congress intended by language such as “limited to,” “allowable damages,” “injured person” and “actual compensatory damages.” In the scar of New Mexicos largest wildfire, a legal battle is brewing over the cost of suffering For example, the law says payments “shall be limited to actual compensatory damages.” Victims’ lawyers argued, with numerous citations in New Mexico law and elsewhere, that “actual compensatory damages” historically means both economic and non-economic damages. FEMA’s lawyers interpreted the clause to mean that Congress was imposing a limitation: Only economic damages were allowed. The lawsuit occurred after a Supreme Court ruling that removed deference to federal agencies when they write regulations based on ambiguous laws passed by Congress. It’s not clear how much the court’s ruling on the so-called “Chevron deference” precedent impacted the judge’s comments. But plaintiffs’ lawyer Tom Tosdal repeatedly cited Justice Neil Gorsuch’s ruling in his arguments Tuesday, and the judge wondered aloud whether it applied. By the time the hearing started Tuesday, Browning said he’d already made up his mind on one important aspect of the lawsuit: He agreed that New Mexico law allows non-economic damages to be paid to victims in a scenario like the fire. That’s important because of a provision in the law requiring the calculation of damages to be based on what’s allowed under state law. He cited an opinion from the New Mexico Attorney General that concluded emotional hardship payments are allowed for victims of “nuisance and trespass” here. An official at the New Mexico Department of Justicewrote the opinion after a request from two state lawmakers made shortly after a Source New Mexico and ProPublica article on the legal battle. Victims’ lawyers have a ‘better reading’ of the law, judge says In describing his inclination to side with the fire victims over the government, Browning also cited one piece of language that lawyers on both sides argued showed congressional intent to either exclude or include emotional hardship payments. One of the laws’ sections is titled “Allowable Damages” in capital letters and goes on to list three categories of payments: Financial, business or property. To FEMA’s lawyers, Congress was listing all the types of allowable payments, which they said in a legal brief was “implied” by the phrase “allowable damages.” FEMA has paid out just 2% of fund to help wildfire victims rebuild. Some can’t wait much longer. To the fire victims’ lawyers, Congress was just specifying some types of compensation the act allowed but not limiting payments to those categories of loss. The judge agreed: “Plaintiffs have a better reading,” he said. He seized on the fact that FEMA’s lawyers wrote in their brief that Congress “implied” its intent to limit damages in that section of the law. An implication is not enough, he said. Browning also said he would try to issue a ruling as quickly as he could, and discussed with lawyers the best way to avoid further delays in getting the compensation to victims. He cited previous delays in the claims office compensation as the reason for his urgency. “I don’t live under a rock,” he said. “I know that there has been a lot of criticism of how slow the process was.”

[Category: Environment & Climate Change, Gov & Politics]

As of 10/23/24 12:25pm. Last new 10/23/24 6:10am.