The Tap covered election news, public policy, and other noteworthy events from February 2016 to February 2022. The excerpts below were compiled from issue #44 of The Tap, which was published on December 3, 2016. READ THE FULL VERSION HERE.
- Following reports that a flag had been burned at Hampshire College in Massachusetts in protest of Donald Trump's electoral victory, Trump tweeted that flag burning should be prohibited. He wrote, "Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag—if they do, there must be consequences—perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!" Trump spokesman Jason Miller elaborated, "Flag burning should be illegal. The President-elect is a very strong supporter of the First Amendment, but there's a big difference between that and burning the American flag."
- Rep. Tom Price of Georgia is Trump’s pick to head Health and Human Services. Price, an orthopedic surgeon and six-term member of Congress, has been an outspoken critic of Obamacare and began offering alternatives to the law as early as 2009, when Obamacare was first being debated in Congress. Last June, Price said, “They believe the government ought to be in control of health care. We believe that patients and doctors should be in control of health care.”
- Price’s appointment underscores the likelihood of the full repeal and replacement of President Obama’s signature healthcare law. Trump made the repeal and replacement of Obamacare a key part of his campaign platform. After the election, however, he suggested that he may propose keeping some aspects of the law, such as the provision that requires insurers to sell coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and another provision that lets younger people remain under their parents’ insurance plans through their mid-20s.
- Price is close with Mike Pence and is an ally of House Speaker Paul Ryan, whom he replaced as chairman of the House Budget Committee. Price endorsed Trump for president in May 2016.
- Where Price stands on healthcare policy:
- Full repeal of Obamacare. Price told Philip Klein of The Washington Examiner in 2015, “It needs to be fully repealed, because the first step out of the gate for Obamacare is a step in the wrong direction and that is for government control over every aspect of health care, so it's hard to fix the system that they have put in place without ending that premise that government ought to be running and controlling health care.”
- Price’s proposal for an Obamacare replacement. The legislative replacement for Obamacare that Price has been advocating since 2009 is the “Empowering Patients First Act.” It offers a potential blueprint for the type of healthcare policy that the Trump administration might pursue with Price at the helm of HHS. Much of the bill was featured in Paul Ryan’s “Better Way” agenda, and Trump echoed many of Price’s ideas on the campaign trail. The bill includes tax credits based on age, which individuals and families could use to purchase insurance policies, as well as a one-time tax credit for health savings accounts. The issue of tax credits has been a point of contention among conservatives in debates over healthcare, with some favoring tax deductions over credits. Price has said that he supports the idea of tax credits “because we felt it was cleaner.” Other features of Price’s bill include allowing insurers to sell policies across state lines and groups of businesses to purchase “association health plans.” Grants would be provided to states to help cover healthcare costs for individuals with pre-existing conditions.
- Medicare and Medicaid. Under the “Empowering Patients First Act,” individuals on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid would be able to opt out and use their tax credit to purchase private coverage. Trump previously voiced some resistance to making significant changes to Medicare, saying in April 2015, “Every Republican wants to do a big number on Social Security, they want to do it on Medicare, they want to do it on Medicaid. And we can’t do that. And it’s not fair to the people that have been paying in for years.”
- See also: Trump administration on healthcare and Healthcare policy in the United States
- Trump also announced that he had selected Seema Verma to serve as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that oversees the day-to-day operations of Medicare and Medicaid. The role of the administrator is essentially that of a department head. Verma is an Indiana-based healthcare policy expert who worked with Mike Pence’s administration to formulate a Medicaid expansion program in Indiana under Obamacare called “Healthy Indiana 2.0.”
- Elaine Chao is set be to Trump’s nominee for the Department of Transportation. Chao, the spouse of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, served as the secretary of the Labor Department under George W. Bush and as deputy secretary of transportation under George H. W. Bush. Since 2009, Chao has sat on the boards of several nonprofit and corporate companies and has been a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where she authored papers on labor, employment, and the economy.
- Ordinarily, the secretary of the Department of Transportation is viewed as less influential than the secretaries of other departments such as Health and Human Services or the State Department. However, as the next transportation secretary, Chao could be responsible for overseeing a $1 trillion infrastructure plan that Trump has stated he plans to make a priority of his administration; she could also play a key role in the task of navigating the plan through Congress. Lawmakers and outside groups have voiced mixed reactions to Trump’s infrastructure proposals. Some conservatives have expressed concerns over the plan’s price tag and skepticism of its projected economic benefits. Some liberals have called it corporate welfare. Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle, however, have indicated a willingness to work with Trump on the issue. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R) said, “I think this is critical, something that could draw us together.” New York Democratic Rep. José Serrano, a member of the House Appropriations Committee, added, “The country needs it.”
- Chao and McConnell are not the first transportation secretary/Senate majority leader couple in U.S. history. Elizabeth Dole headed the department while her husband, Sen. Bob Dole, was Senate majority leader from 1985 to 1987.
- The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Moore v. Texas, a case on appeal from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Convicted of robbery and capital murder in 1980, Bobby James Moore appealed his death sentence on the grounds that he cannot be executed pursuant to the Supreme Court's ruling in Atkins v. Virginia, a 2001 decision in which the court held that the execution of certain intellectually disabled inmates violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals held that Moore's mental faculties brought him within the statutory requirement for execution under Texas law.
- The Supreme Court issued its first opinion in an argued case this term, unanimously affirming the judgment of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Bravo-Fernandez v. United States. Juan Bravo-Fernandez and Hector Martinez-Maldonado argued that they could not be retried for bribery, both because their bribery convictions were vacated on appeal and because they were acquitted on other related charges in the same trial, with factual evidence from those charges informing the bribery conviction. In 1970, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Ashe v. Swenson that the Fifth Amendment “bars a prosecution that depends on a fact necessarily decided in the defendant's favor by an earlier acquittal.” In writing for the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg held that the Fifth Amendment did not preclude a retrial on the bribery charges here, however, as “the guilty verdicts were vacated on appeal because of error in the judge’s instructions unrelated to the verdicts’ inconsistency. … [B]ecause we do not know what the jury would have concluded had there been no instructional error ... a new trial on the counts of conviction is in order.”
- The Senate passed S 2873—the ECHO Act—by a vote of 97-0. The legislation would expand the University of New Mexico's Project ECHO, which links medical specialists with rural doctors in order to teach them how to treat more complex diseases.
- Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a co-sponsor of the bill, said, "This leverages technology so that eventually the quality of care will not depend how close you are to an urban center or to a highly subsidized research institution."
- The Senate passed HR 5111—the Consumer Review Fairness Act of 2016—by unanimous consent. The legislation would prohibit companies from taking legal action against consumers who post negative reviews of them online on websites such as Yelp.
- Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a co-sponsor of the bill, said, "By ending gag clauses, this legislation supports consumer rights and the integrity of critical feedback about products and services sold online."
- Missouri Supreme Court Justice Richard Teitelman died at the age of 69. Justice Teitelman was retained by voters to another term on the court on November 8, 2016. His successor will be appointed by the governor from a pool of three candidates chosen by the Missouri Appellate Judicial Commission. The appointee must stand for retention in the next general election at least one year following appointment.
- Opponents to Maine’s Question 2, a tax on income above $200,000 in order to fund education, withdrew their request for a recount of election results following the November election. The recount would have begun on December 1, 2016, and been conducted in tandem with the recount for Maine Question 1 regarding the legalization of marijuana. Question 2 was approved by a less than 1 percent margin, and will enact a 3 percent tax on a household’s income that exceeds $200,000. Revenue from the surtax will be used to fund public education.
- Mississippi held a runoff election for one seat on the Mississippi Supreme Court. Judge Robert Chamberlin defeated attorney John Brady for the seat being vacated by Justice Ann Lamar. Chamberlin and Brady were the top two finishers in the general election on November 8, but neither received more than 50 percent of the vote, which triggered the runoff election.
- Officials certified 2016 general election results in Alaska, Minnesota, and New Mexico.
- Alaskan voters decided two ballot measures. Measure 1 was a citizen initiative and called for automatically registering Permanent Fund Dividend applicants to vote. The measure was approved, and will take effect on February 6, 2018. Measure 2 was legislatively referred and would have allowed state debt to be contracted for postsecondary loans. That measure was defeated.
- Minnesota voters decided one legislatively referred ballot measure: Amendment 1. The amendment was approved, creating a bipartisan and independent board for setting state legislators’ salaries. The amendment took effect when it was approved by voters.
- New Mexico voters decided five ballot measures. One of the measures, Amendment 1, was a legislatively referred constitutional amendment and will allow courts to deny bail to defendants if there is evidence that they are a public threat while also stipulating that a defendant cannot be denied bail because of financial inability to post a bond. Amendment 1 was approved. The other four measures were all bond issues and were also approved. New Mexico was the only state other than Rhode Island to present multiple bond issues to voters in 2016.
- In New Mexico, signature requirements for veto referendums are calculated based on the total number of votes cast the most recent general election. Thus, voter turnout at the 2016 election determined the signature requirements for veto referendums in 2018. Veto referendums suspending the targeted law will require 80,404 signatures in 2018, increased from 51,944 in 2016. Veto referendums that are not suspending the targeted law will require 201,011 signatures, increased from 129,859 in 2016.
- Arkansas state Representative David Hillman switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. Hillman won election to Arkansas House District 13 in 2012, receiving 51 percent of the vote. He ran for re-election without opposition in 2014 and 2016. The change gives Republicans the 75 seats needed to pass appropriation bills without any votes from Democrats.
- The city of El Paso, Texas, announced that about $3.2 million dollars were stolen as the result of an email phishing scheme. City officials said that the money went missing between two misdirected payments in September and October of this year. These involved state funds earmarked for city projects by the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority. So far, $1.9 million of the money has been recovered by authorities, leaving $1.3 million still unaccounted for. El Paso is the 19th-largest city in the United States by population and the sixth-largest in Texas.
- Proponents of raising Baltimore’s minimum wage to $15 held a rally to relaunch their campaign. Although a proposal in the city council failed by one vote in August, elections this year replaced three of the city council members who voted in opposition. Mary Pat Clarke (D), the bill’s main sponsor, said that she wouldn’t need to persuade the new council members to vote for the minimum wage since they had campaigned on increasing it. Advocates say that 100,000 workers (about 27 percent of the city’s workforce) would benefit from the increased minimum wage. Opponents of the minimum wage say it could negatively impact the city’s workforce in a few ways: employers could decide to cut jobs and benefits to save costs, they might automate jobs to replace workers, or the wage could attract more applicants from outside the city, displacing residents. Baltimore is the 26th-largest city in the United States by population and the largest in Maryland.
- New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito (D) called on the federal government to reimburse the city for money spent to provide security at Trump Tower. “Here is a candidate who has been threatening to defund the city of New York — and yet we continue to be picking up the tab,” said Mark-Viverito. Protection for the president-elect’s family and their building in the city is costing the city an estimated $1 million per day. Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) had already announced his intentions to ask the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to either reimburse or offset the costs. With a population of more than 8.4 million citizens, New York City is the largest city in the United States by population.
- Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf (D) announced that the California city would offer a new proposal to keep the city’s National Football League franchise in town. Earlier this year, Nevada lawmakers approved a $1.9 billion stadium plan that included $750 million in public funding to bring the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas. The Raiders have not been cleared by NFL owners to move to Las Vegas, and a vote on the matter is not expected until next spring. The new domed stadium would provide 10,000 additional seats over the Oakland Coliseum, which began hosting the Raiders in 1966. Analyst reports claim a franchise in Las Vegas would bring 800,000 additional guests to the area and generate $620 million annually. Oakland is the 45th-largest city in the United States by population and the eighth-largest in California.
- In Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh City Council members Bruce Kraus and Dan Gilman introduced a bill that would ban the use of conversion therapy on minors within city limits. Conversion therapy is the practice of using therapy or spiritual counseling to attempt to change someone’s sexual orientation. Kraus, who is the city’s first openly gay politician, said that he introduced this bill in part because some of president-elect Donald Trump’s proposed cabinet members have previously supported conversion therapy. He stated that this position “absolutely terrifie[s]” him. To date, six states and a number of municipalities have banned the use of conversion therapy. Pittsburgh is the 62nd-largest city in the United States by population and the second-largest in Pennsylvania.
The Tap covered election news, public policy, and other noteworthy events from February 2016 to February 2022. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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