The Tap: Wednesday, November 2, 2016

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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 #41 of The Tap, which was published on November 5, 2016. READ THE FULL VERSION HERE.

Federal

• Donald Trump’s campaign repudiated an article in The Crusader, a paper closely associated with the Ku Klux Klan, which offered praise for the GOP nominee. In the article, Thomas Robb, the Klan’s national director, wrote, “While Trump wants to make America great again, we have to ask ourselves, ‘What made America great in the first place?’ The short answer to that is simple. America was great not because of what our forefathers did — but because of who our forefathers were. America was founded as a White Christian Republic. And as a White Christian Republic it became great.” Robb has stated that the article was not an official endorsement. “[W]e do like his nationalist views and his words about shutting down the border to illegal aliens. It’s not an endorsement because, like anybody, there's things you disagree with. But he kind of reflects what’s happening throughout the world. There seems to be a surge of nationalism worldwide as nationals reclaim their borders.” The Trump campaign said in a statement, “Mr. Trump and the campaign denounces hate in any form. This publication is repulsive and their views do not represent the tens of millions of Americans who are uniting behind our campaign.”

• In an interview with Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, Bill Weld said that he “fears for the country if Mr. Trump should be elected” and that he was there to “vouch” for Hillary Clinton. Maddow stated, “I can’t imagine that you wouldn’t tell a person in North Carolina or Ohio to vote for Hillary Clinton if the choice they were making was between giving the Libertarian Party 5 percent or potentially electing Donald Trump because you guys don’t have a chance against Donald Trump and she does and if they vote for you they would be helping to elect Donald Trump.” In response, Weld said, “Well I’m here vouching for Mrs. Clinton and I think it’s high time somebody did, and I’m doing it based on my personal experience with her and I think she deserves to have people vouch for her other than members of the Democratic National Committee, so I’m here to do that.” Weld’s comments drew criticism from Libertarians on social media and from Libertarian political commentators.

• The U.S. Supreme Court heard argument in Venezuela v. Helmerich and Payne International. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act generally prohibits lawsuits against foreign governments in U.S. courts, with some exceptions. One such exception is the expropriation exception, which denies sovereign immunity "in any case ... in which rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue." In order to dismiss expropriation exception lawsuits brought within the jurisdiction of the D.C. Circuit, the circuit court requires that the lawsuit must be "wholly insubstantial or frivolous"; otherwise, the lawsuit may proceed to a judgment on the merits. Venezuela and its state-owned petroleum corporation, PDVSA, challenged the propriety of this standard, arguing that the standard is not uniform across all federal appeals courts.

• In its latest release of emails allegedly obtained from the email archive of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, WikiLeaks published an email showing that a State Department official provided the campaign with the agency's response to The New York Times article that broke the story about Clinton's private email server use in March 2015. State Department spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on the email itself but said that the agency would contact Clinton’s staffers sometimes "to ensure accuracy" in media communications.

• The Wall Street Journal reported that FBI investigators and public corruption prosecutors have been in conflict since February 2016 over whether there was enough evidence to pursue a case alleging that Clinton Foundation donors received preferential treatment from the State Department while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. "The FBI had secretly recorded conversations of a suspect in a public-corruption case talking about alleged deals the Clintons made, these people said. The agents listening to the recordings couldn’t tell from the conversations if what the suspect was describing was accurate, but it was, they thought, worth checking out. Prosecutors thought the talk was hearsay and a weak basis to warrant aggressive tactics, like presenting evidence to a grand jury, because the person who was secretly recorded wasn’t inside the Clinton Foundation," according to The Wall Street Journal.

• Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein wrote an op-ed in The Hill explaining why she believed that an increasing number of young voters were supporting her campaign. "Millennials are disillusioned with politics and desperate to change it. For many, WikiLeaks exposing how the Democratic Party sabotaged Bernie Sanders confirmed their suspicions that the political system is rigged. They see Clinton as the embodiment of a political establishment that serves the economic elite, and they reject Trump’s sexist, racist behavior and regressive platform. Gary Johnson’s vision of unrestricted capitalism doesn’t compute for millennials worried about climate change and income inequality. Only the Greens offer a political vision aligned with the younger generation’s hunger for real change," she wrote.

• U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis announced the designation of 10 national historic landmarks. Jewell said, “These 10 new national historic landmarks reveal important pieces of our nation’s diverse heritage through art, architecture and stories of community and identity. Today’s designation ensures future generations can trace, understand and learn from these properties, which join more than 2,500 other landmarks nationwide.” The following places were designated as landmarks: Ames Monument, Albany County, Wyo.; Athenaeum (Das Deutsche Haus), Indianapolis, Ind.; Gaukler Pointe (Edsel and Eleanor Ford House), Macomb County, Mich.; James Merrill House, Stonington, Conn.; Man Mound, Sauk County, Wis.; Mississippi State Capitol, Jackson, Miss.; Norman Film Manufacturing Company, Jacksonville, Fla.; St. Bartholomew's Church and Community House, New York, N.Y.; The Steward's House, Foreign Mission School, Cornwall, Conn.; and Zoar Historic District, Zoar, Ohio.

Local

• In Illinois, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) estimated that its four-year contract with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) will cost the district $9.5 billion. The pact, which runs through 2019, was accepted by the Chicago Teachers Union and will be voted on by the CPS school board in December 2016. CPS must adjust its 2016-2017 operating budget to cover a $55 million increase in costs associated with the contract. The majority of these costs, $47 million, comes from teacher salary increases. District officials said that these costs will be covered by surplus tax increment financing promised to the district by Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D). Subsequent years of funding have not been addressed. While it is not clear how future CPS budgets will cover provisions of the contract, district CEO Forrest Claypool called the contract a “significant improvement over contracts over the last 30 years.” Chicago Public Schools is the largest school district in Illinois and the third-largest school district in the United States. It served 396,641 students during the 2013-2014 school year—19.2 percent of all Illinois public school students.
  • The agreement between CPS and CTU came after more than a year of failed contract negotiations:
    • On October 11, 2016, the CTU planned to strike if no new contract was proposed.
    • On August 24, 2016, the CPS school board unanimously approved a $5.4 billion operating budget for 2016-2017. The budget included $30 million in concessions from the CTU. In response, Chicago teachers marched in front of CPS headquarters. The budget was first proposed in early August and included increased property taxes and personnel cuts. It also offered gradual pay increases for teachers and phased out district payments into CTU pension and insurance funds. The inclusion of $945 million in borrowing for unspecified construction projects received backlash from CTU leaders after 1,000 teachers, aides, and support staff were laid off earlier in the month due to district budget shortfalls.
    • In March 2016, CTU members staged a one-day walkout.
    • In January 2016, the CTU rejected a contract proposal from CPS which would have replaced teacher contracts that expired in 2015.
• The San Jose City Council voted unanimously on a measure to halt the legalization of recreational marijuana. The council adopted an urgency ordinance that will suspend the sale, cultivation, manufacturing, and distribution of non-medical marijuana in the city should Proposition 64 pass into law on November 8, 2016. However, the measure cannot criminalize recreational pot use if the state proposition passes. Supporters of the urgency ordinance say the measure allows city lawmakers to consider the legalization of marijuana after consulting with community members on a local timeframe. San Jose is the 10th-largest city in the U.S. by population and the third-largest in California.
• In California, Oakland City Council President Lynette McElhaney is being sued by the Oakland Public Ethics Commission. The suit alleges that McElhaney, who has been under investigation since 2015, has failed to produce records to determine whether or not she used her office for personal gain. A civil grand jury in Alameda County found that McElhaney broke city and state ethics rules by influencing a planning commission’s vote on a proposed townhouse development next to her home in 2014. The jury found that McElhaney’s intervention ultimately derailed the project and that she had a “material financial interest” in the development because of its proximity to her home. The ethics commission has asked the court to force McElhaney to produce all documents related to its ongoing investigation of the matter. Councilwoman Desley Brooks has pushed for the censure of McElhaney, but city council members said they will not take action until the investigation is complete. A court date has been set on the matter for November 7—McElhaney is running for re-election on November 8, 2016. Oakland is the eighth-largest city in California and the 45th-largest city in the U.S. by population.

Preview of the day

The excerpts below were compiled from issue #40 of The Tap, which was published on October 29, 2016. READ THE FULL VERSION HERE.

Federal

• The U.S. Supreme Court will consider how sovereign immunity cases are adjudicated by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit when the court hears argument in Venezuela v. Helmerich and Payne International. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act generally prohibits lawsuits against foreign governments in U.S. courts, with some exceptions. One such exception is the expropriation exception, which denies sovereign immunity "in any case ... in which rights in property taken in violation of international law are in issue." In order to dismiss expropriation exception lawsuits brought within the jurisdiction of the D.C. Circuit, the circuit court requires that the lawsuit must be "wholly insubstantial or frivolous," otherwise the lawsuit may proceed to a judgment on the merits. Venezuela and its state-owned petroleum corporation, PDVSA, are challenging the propriety of this standard, arguing that the standard is not uniform across all federal appeals courts.

State

• Voter registration deadline in Vermont (same-day registration is available).