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You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition - June 21, 2017
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This is the June 21, 2017, edition of an email sent from November 2016 to September 2017 that covered Donald Trump's presidential transition, cabinet appointees, and the different policy positions of those individuals who may have had an effect on the new administration. Previous editions of "You're Hired" can be found here.
In today’s edition of You’re Hired, we’re looking to those opposing the policies and actions of the Trump administration. Our email will cover three types of opposition—emoluments lawsuits, rebuilding the Democratic Party, and local sanctuary designations—that encompass work at the federal, state, and local levels. The examples here aren’t exhaustive.
Click here for an overview of activities and strategies opposing the Trump administration.
Three emoluments lawsuits
Since taking office, Trump has been the subject of three lawsuits that allege he is in violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, which prohibits government officials from receiving payments or gifts from foreign governments without congressional approval.
The emoluments clause reads: “No Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them [the United States], shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.”
- CREW: On January 23, 2017, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed the first emoluments lawsuit. The organization’s statement about the suit said, “Since Trump refused to divest from his businesses, he is now getting cash and favors from foreign governments, through guests and events at his hotels, leases in his buildings, and valuable real estate deals abroad.” Two new plaintiffs—a restaurant association and a banquet hall booker in Washington, D.C.—joined the suit in April.
- Attorneys general of Maryland and Washington, D.C.: On June 12, 2017, Attorney General for the District of Columbia Karl Racine (D) filed a lawsuit focusing on Trump’s ownership in the Trump Organization. Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh (D) joined Racine in the suit. The two indicated that they intended "to demand through the discovery process copies of Trump’s personal tax returns to gauge the extent of his foreign business dealings."
- 196 congressional Democrats: On June 14, 2017, 196 Democrats in the House and Senate filed a federal lawsuit that also focused on Trump’s ties to his global businesses and claimed that he was actively receiving benefits from foreign governments that used his hotels. They also charged that Trump did not seek congressional approval to accept the payments to his companies. Part of the suit read: “Although Defendant Donald J. Trump has accepted the privilege of occupying the highest office in the land, he is not obeying the same rules as the federal officers and employees described above or following the example of compliance set by former presidents. He has refused to divest from his businesses and instead continues to accept financial payments and other benefits from foreign states through his many business entities without first obtaining the consent of Congress.”
The DNC rebuild
On the weekend of February 24, 2017, the more than 400 members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) elected former Labor Secretary Tom Perez to succeed interim Chairwoman Donna Brazile. Brazile took over the position after former Chairwoman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.) resigned during the 2016 elections. At that time, leaked emails appeared to show Wasserman Schultz and DNC officials strategizing to promote Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and hurt rival Bernie Sanders. Other candidates for the position included Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Idaho Democratic Party executive director Sally Boynton Brown, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, and political strategist Jehmu Greene. In May 2017, Perez's staffers—along with staff from former South Carolina Democratic Party executive director Jaime Harrison and staff from Rep. Keith Ellison—began to reorganize the committee to encourage discussions across the organization. Harrison was also tasked with developing a 50-state strategy proposal to compete in elections in 2018 and 2020. Perez's reorganization also included increasing communications and research operations with a focus on responding to claims made by Trump and other Republicans. In May and June 2017, Perez made two top-level hires. First, he hired former executive director of EMILY's List, Jessica O'Connell, as the party's new CEO, where she was expected to emphasize the DNC’s role as a partner for activists opposing Trump and as a fundraising and campaigning ally for Democrats in 2017 and 2018. On June 9, 2017, the DNC hired Amanda Brown Lierman as their new political and organizing director. Lierman previously worked for President Barack Obama (D) and was a supporter of Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Upon her move to the DNC, she told Mic, "There's definitely a need to rebrand and restore faith that people have in the DNC. I hope people look toward this new leadership as a step and progress on that." According to monthly filings with the FEC for 2017, the DNC has raised a total of $32,671,142, compared with $61,894,396 raised by the Republican National Committee.
Sanctuary jurisdictions
The decades-long debate over how local jurisdictions approach enforcement of federal immigration policies was impacted by President Donald Trump’s executive order on January 25, 2017. President Trump's order drew opposition from cities that have self-identified as sanctuary cities—those that have enacted policies which limit the involvement of local officials in the enforcement of federal immigration law. This opposition resulted in a federal ruling on April 25, 2017, that halted the order. A memo produced by Attorney General Jeff Sessions on May 22, 2017, stated that a sanctuary jurisdiction is any jurisdiction that does not comply with 8 U.S. Code § 1373, which requires all levels of government to communicate information about immigration status to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Local jurisdictions have employed a spectrum of law enforcement policies that do not distinguish between citizens and other residents. This spectrum ranges from instructing police not to inquire about immigration status at traffic stops to providing municipal identification cards to city residents regardless of citizenship in order to gain access to public services.
Read more about sanctuary policy preemption conflicts between the federal and local governments.
Ballotpedia’s June 2017 review of municipal immigration policies found that 32 cities among the nation’s 100 largest by population self-identified as sanctuary cities or maintain policies that fit the description above. Sixty cities on this list maintain policies to cooperate with federal immigration officials. This review found eight cities that did not have public policies that qualified for either category. The following cities were identified by Ballotpedia as sanctuary jurisdictions based on their stated policies concerning immigration:
What comes next?
- The emoluments lawsuits are all under consideration, and they will either be heard or dismissed based on whether the plaintiffs have standing. In particular, the lawsuit filed by CREW faces questions about whether the organization is harmed by Trump’s alleged emoluments acceptance.
- The DNC is looking to refine its 50 state strategy for 2018 in the coming months, and they are also expected to address outreach between the top DNC staffers, state parties across the country, and activists from the progressive wing of the party.
- Trump’s executive order that aimed to block funding for self-identified sanctuary jurisdictions was blocked by Judge William Orrick III—who said only Congress had the authority to make this kind of spending decision—in April 2017. The U.S. Department of Justice has indicated that they will appeal the decision.
See also
- You're Hired: Tracking the Trump Administration Transition
- Donald Trump presidential transition team
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