The Tap: Monday, January 2, 2017

   ← Jan 1

Jan 3 →   

---

The Tap covered election news, public policy, and other noteworthy events from February 2016 to February 2022.

Review of the day

The excerpts below were compiled from issue #47 of The Tap, which was published on January 7, 2017. READ THE FULL VERSION HERE.

Federal

Trump & North Korea

• President-elect Trump responded via Twitter to a televised New Year’s Day speech from North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in which Kim stated that his government was preparing to test an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of striking the United States with a nuclear weapon. Trump tweeted, “North Korea just stated that it is in the final stages of developing a nuclear weapon capable of reaching parts of the U.S. It won't happen!” Kim’s speech follows North Korea’s testing of a nuclear weapon in September 2016, the country’s fifth nuclear weapons test since 2006. The September test prompted the U.N. Security Council to call an emergency meeting. The Obama administration reportedly told Trump’s transition team after the November election that North Korea's nuclear weapons development would be the leading national security threat the next White House administration would face. Read more about Trump’s views on North Korea here and here.

State

Independents Continue to Caucus with Republicans

• The New York State Senate’s Independent Democratic Caucus (IDC) announced that they would continue to caucus with the chamber’s Republicans for the upcoming legislative session. Although nominally the chamber has 32 Democrats and 31 Republicans, the seven-member IDC swings majority control over to Republicans. The IDC was formed in 2011 after Democrats lost control of the Senate to Republicans, and The Buffalo News said their continued caucus with Republicans going into 2017 came as little surprise. Members of the IDC and Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R) each said that they looked forward to working together and getting results. Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the Senate Democratic Conference, was less enthusiastic. “It's disappointing that once again Democrats have won a majority yet don't have an opportunity to govern. ... Democrats must remain true to their value,” he said.
  • In addition to the seven members of the IDC joining Republicans for the 2017 legislative session, Simcha Felder (D) announced he would continue caucusing with Republicans after winning re-election in 2016. Felder, of Brooklyn, has caucused with Republicans since he was elected in 2012. This gives the majority caucus a total of 39 members to the minority Democrats’ 24.

Resignation in Maryland

• Maryland Del. Jill Carter (D-41) resigned from her seat to take a position in the administration of Baltimore’s new mayor, Catherine Pugh (D). Pugh, a former state senator, tapped Carter to be the director of the city’s Office of Civil Rights and Wage Enforcement. Carter notified House Speaker Michael Bush (D) of her planned resignation on December 23. The vacancy created by Carter’s resignation will be filled by appointment rather than a special election. Under the Maryland Constitution, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) must appoint someone from a recommendation made by the 41st District Democratic Central Committee. The recommendation must be submitted within 30 days. Following Carter’s departure, the state House has 90 Democrats and 50 Republicans. With a Republican governor and both chambers of its state legislature controlled by Democrats, Maryland is one of 19 states currently under divided government. Even with Carter’s departure, Democrats still maintain the three-fifths majority needed to override gubernatorial vetoes.

Montana & Ohio Get Things Started

• State legislative sessions began in Montana and Ohio. Ohio has been a Republican trifecta since 2011, while Montana has been under divided government since 2005. A total of 282 legislators are back to work in those two states. That number represents 3.8 percent of the 7,383 state legislators across the country.

Local

• A statement released by the Chicago Police Department (CPD) labeled 2016 as the deadliest year in the city since 1996. The CPD identified 762 murders, 3,550 shooting incidents, and 4,331 shooting victims in 2016, with 12 fatal shootings during the last week of December. This translates to an average of roughly two murders and 10 shootings per day. The department also reported that attacks on police officers nearly doubled in 2016, but it did not specify the exact figures related to those attacks. CPD Superintendent Eddie Johnson told the Associated Press that the department recovered roughly 8,000 guns in 2016. The total number of shooting victims in the city increased by nearly 50 percentage points between 2015 and 2016. President-elect Donald Trump (R) reacted to the report, rebuking Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) and suggesting that federal law enforcement should be deployed to assist the CPD and the city. To combat Chicago’s rising violent crime rates, Superintendent Johnson pledged to add 1,000 additional officers to his police department through January 2017. He also called for legislation that would give judges the ability to sentence repeat gun offenders more harshly. "We know that the long-term solutions [are] to invest in these impoverished areas, provide more jobs, better education," Johnson said. "The urgent solution right now is for state legislatures to help us with this gun bill.” Chicago is the largest city in Illinois and the third-largest city in the U.S. by population.

Preview of the day

There were no items for this day in issue #46 of The Tap, which was published on December 17, 2016. See the "Review of the day" tab for more information.