If you don’t want to hear an honest answer, you had better not ask Missouri Lt. Governor candidate Jake Wilburn a question. Wilburn, who is running a write-in campaign for the position, minces no words when it comes to his disdain for the office he seeks, in which he says he would be “paid more, and have less responsibility” than in his current job as a security supervisor for a hospital. And if he ends up in a debate with the other candidates? As he tells the Missourian, he’ll make lightsaber sounds with his mouth. And what happens if voters somehow don’t elect him? Who cares, he says. “I really like to be the center of attention,” he said. “If I get nothing else, I would like a legion of Facebook likes to boost my ego.” How is this man not running for president?
And then there is this: former Texas Gov. Rick “Oops” Perry will be one of the contestants on the upcoming season of “Dancing with the Stars.” Yes, the man who once famously forgot which federal agencies he was planning to get rid of if elected president now will try to remember which way to turn on the samba or how to prance a bit on the tango. Maybe he’ll get lucky and they’ll just let him do the Texas two-step for every dance.
-- By RICH EHISEN
New voting restrictions will be in effect in 15 states for the first time in a presidential election this year. But courts have blocked or loosened such restrictions in a few states. And legislative activity aimed at expanding voter access is outpacing efforts to restrict it.
Until a couple of months ago this Nov. 8 was going to mark the presidential election debut of new voting restrictions - including laws tightening voter identification requirements, shortening early voting periods and eliminating same day registration - in 17 states and the second presidential election appearance of voting restrictions in another five, according to the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice (see Bird’s eye view). All of the restrictions, backed mainly by Republican lawmakers, were passed after the 2010 midterm elections swept the GOP into control of a majority of state legislatures and governorships across the country. And a majority of them were passed or took effect after the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Shelby County v. Holder voided provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act requiring federal preclearance for election law changes in states with a history of discrimination against minority voters.
The number of states where new voting restrictions will be making their first appearance in November shrank to 16 in late July, when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down parts of a 2013 North Carolina law (HB 589) limiting the forms of ID acceptable at polling places, slashing the state’s early voting period and doing away with same-day registration, provisions the court said “target African Americans with almost surgical precision.” The court singled out the early voting provision, which reduced the number of days before Election Day that voters can cast ballots from 17 to 10, eliminating one of two Sunday voting days in the process. The court noted that the state itself, in explaining that it cut the days to make voting hours more consistent from county to county, said “counties with Sunday voting in 2014 were disproportionately black” and “disproportionately Democratic.”
“Thus, in what comes as close to a smoking gun as we are likely to see in modern times, the State’s very justification for a challenged statute hinges explicitly on race - specifically its concern that African Americans, who had overwhelmingly voted for Democrats, had too much access to the franchise,” the court said.
North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory (R) and other state officials asked the U.S. Supreme Court last month to stay the appellate court’s ruling pending an appeal. But the high court, still shorthanded due to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia in February, split 4-4 on that request, leaving the 4th Circuit’s decision in place.
The 16 new-restriction states became 15 last month, when a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against voter ID laws passed in North Dakota in 2013 and 2015 (HB 1332 and HB 1333, respectively) on the grounds that they placed an “undue burden” on Native Americans and other voters.
“Although most voters in North Dakota either possess a qualifying ID or can obtain some form of acceptable identification, a safety net is needed for those voters who cannot obtain a qualifying ID with reasonable effort,” U.S. District Court Judge Daniel Hovland wrote in his decision.
North Dakota Secretary of State Alvin Jaeger said the state wouldn’t appeal Hovland’s decision and would revert to the less restrictive rules in place before the 2013 law was enacted, at least for this year’s election, as the New York Times reported.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reached much the same conclusion about a voter ID law passed in Texas in 2011 (SB 14) as Hovland did about North Dakota HB 1332 and 1333, ruling in July that the Texas law had a “discriminatory effect” on African American and Hispanic voters. After the case was remanded to the federal trial court to determine appropriate remedial action in time for the November election, the state agreed to allow registered voters lacking SB 14-compliant ID to cast a ballot after filling out a “Declaration of Reasonable Impediment or Difficulty.” Less than a week after the court signed off on that plan, however, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the state was appealing the 5th Circuit’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court to “protect the integrity of voting in the state,” although he didn’t specify whether it would be an emergency appeal to try to get SB 14 back in place at full strength before the November election, according to the Dallas Morning News. Even if that appeal fails, however, the Brennan Center said the weakened version of SB 14 is still more restrictive than what was in effect in the state for the last presidential election.
A decision last month by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave supporters of tighter voting controls a more decisive victory, suspending a lower court ruling striking down voting restrictions enacted in Wisconsin in 2011 and 2014. In staying the July ruling by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, the 7th Circuit said “the district court’s decision is likely to be reversed on appeal and...disruption of the state’s electoral system in the interim will cause irreparable injury,” according to a statement from Wisconsin’s Department of Justice.
Despite the developments in the Texas and Wisconsin cases and the possibility of similar ones in election law cases still pending in other states, including Alabama and Kansas, the momentum currently seems to be in the direction of expanding voter access, particularly with regard to state legislative activity. As of late March of this year 28 state legislatures had introduced or carried over from the previous session at least 77 bills restricting voter access, with voter ID bills being the most common, according to the Brennan Center. At that same point in the 2016 session, by the Brennan Center’s count, 41 states had introduced at least 422 bills expanding voter access, including measures providing for the automatic registration of those applying for or renewing a driver’s license, online voter registration and the restoration of voting rights to individuals with past criminal convictions. The Brennan Center also found that 2016 marked the fourth year in a row that bill introductions aimed at expanding voter access outnumbered those directed at restricting access, and by a margin of at least 4 to 1 the last three years.
The pace of enactments restricting voting access has also slowed, according to the Brennan Center. Between 2011 and 2013, 25 states passed 34 voting restrictions. But in 2014 and 2015 a total of just 5 restrictions were passed by 3 states.
One possible explanation for the slowdown is simply that most states have already passed the most common type of voting restriction, voter ID laws. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 34 states currently have laws either requesting or requiring that voters show some form of identification at the polls. That fact is consistent with the Brennan Center’s finding that while bills aimed at establishing or tightening existing voter ID requirements remain the most common type of voting restriction introduced in state legislatures, other forms have been gaining ground, such as restrictions on absentee voting, early voting and same-day registration.
Another potential reason for the slowdown in voting restrictions and the shift away from voter ID is that the kind of in-person voting fraud that voter ID laws mainly target - and that Republicans have often cited as the reason voter ID laws are needed - is very rare, at least by some accounts. For example, a 2012 analysis of 2,068 allegations of voter fraud since 2000 by News21, a student investigative journalism project at Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, uncovered only 10 cases of voter impersonation, amounting to one case per “about every 15 million prospective voters.” More recently Justin Levitt, a professor at the Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, reported on the Washington Post’s Wonkblog that he’d found only 31 credible instances of fraud in “general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 through 2014,” a period during which over 1 billion ballots were cast in the general and primary elections alone.
But the conservative Heritage Foundation has compiled a long list of election fraud convictions from around the country, which it says isn’t “an exhaustive list but simply a sampling.” And the National Review reported in 2014 that undercover agents from New York City’s watchdog Department of Investigations, using the names of individuals who had died, moved, or were in jail, were allowed to cast ballots in 61 of 63 polling places.
Taking a different tack, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), in defending his state’s voter ID law during a 2014 gubernatorial debate, suggested that even one case of voter fraud was too many.
“Amongst us, who would be that one person who would like to have our vote canceled out by a vote that was cast illegally?” he said.
But some opponents of voting restrictions don’t believe fraud is the real motivation for such measures.
“It’s hard to reconcile these actual laws with the stated purpose,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “The more reasonable and likely explanation is political self-interest. Voting laws are a way to restrict voters you think are more likely to vote for the other side.”
Research on whether voting restrictions suppress turnout of minority voters who may be more likely to lack the required ID and who tend to vote Democratic - as Democrats have often claimed in resisting such measures -- isn’t entirely conclusive. An investigation by Reuters in 2012 found that African-American voter turnout actually went up in Georgia after that state’s photo ID law went into effect in 2008, although the news agency acknowledged that some of the increase might have been due to the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama. A review of five studies examining the “effects of changes in voter ID requirements on various racial and ethnic sub-groups” in 2014 by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that only three of the studies identified statistically significant effects. And those effects included a 1 percent increase in state-level turnout for Hispanics between 2004 and 2008, according to a study conducted in 2013, as well as a 6-percent and 10-percent decrease, respectively, in African-Americans’ and Hispanics’ likelihood of voting in states requiring non-photo ID, according to a 2006 study. Meanwhile, a working paper on the impact of voter ID laws on minority voter turnout by researchers at the University of California, San Diego - which notes that most of the previous scholarly research on the subject has been based on elections held before the strictest voter ID laws went into effect - found, among other things, that strict photo ID laws depressed Latino turnout by 10.3 percent and Democratic turnout by 7.7 percent in general elections.
“We have two world views: the people that think voter fraud is rampant and the people who want to push the narrative that it’s hard to vote. The bottom line is neither is true,” Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) told News21. “I believe that both political parties are trying to push a narrative that suits their agenda.”
Although Husted is hardly an impartial observer, having been sued multiple times over his state’s restrictive election policies, his observation doesn’t seem completely inaccurate. And even if the momentum continues to go in the direction of expanding voter access, the partisan divide on the issue will likely remain for some time to come.
New voting restrictions, including strict voter ID requirements and scaled back early voting periods, are set to be in effect for the first time in a presidential election this year in 15 states. In another five states restrictions will be in effect for the second time in a presidential race, having been in place in 2012. Courts have blocked restrictions in two other states, North Carolina and North Dakota, while election law cases are still pending in eight states.
Source: Brennan Center for Justice
Lottery sales have slumped in many states in recent years, but last fiscal year the Maine Lottery hit the jackpot, setting records for ticket sales, winner payouts, retailer commissions and contributions to the state’s General Fund. A $1.6 billion Powerball jackpot at the start of the year helped boost game sales 50 percent over the 2015 fiscal year. But Gregg Mineo, director of Maine’s Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages and Lottery Operations, said the main driver of the $272.3 million in overall sales was instant “scratch” tickets, which accounted for $210.5 million of that total.
Mineo said the Lottery used its understanding of the kind of scratch-ticket games players in the state prefer by boosting offerings of those games.
“Crossword games in particular always do well,” he said. “Any game that has really strong interaction with the player.”
He added that Boston Red Sox- and New England Patriots-branded tickets can also sell well, “depending on how [the teams] are doing.” (PORTLAND PRESS HERALD, USA TODAY)
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) said this month that the catastrophic flooding in the state last month caused over $8.7 billion in damage. More than 6,000 businesses were flooded and over 55,000 homes, more than 80 percent of which were uninsured against flooding because they were located outside the flood plain, Edwards said. He also said the damage numbers and cost could rise significantly as applications for aid and inspections of buildings, roads and other public infrastructure continues. The governor sent a letter to President Obama asking that Congress approve $2 billion in federal aid for the state, which he said is a “very reasonable request.” (ASSOCIATED PRESS, TIMES-PICAYUNE [NEW ORLEANS], LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)
ALABAMA lawmakers approved a plan last week to spend most of a $1 billion settlement with BP over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill on debt repayments, Medicaid and highway projects in Baldwin and Mobile counties. The plan is now with Gov. Robert Bentley (R), who has said he will sign it. (AL.COM, LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)
MASSACHUSETTS has taken in only 1.3 percent more in revenue in the first two months of the current fiscal year than in the same period last year. The state’s budget is based on a projected increase of just under 4 percent. (BOSTON GLOBE)
Nevadans will vote this year and again in 2018 on whether to amend their state Constitution to exempt medical equipment like oxygen tanks and wheelchairs from the state's 6.85 percent sales and use tax (Question 4). (LAS VEGAS SUN)
PENNSYLVANIA’s Public Utility Commission denied an appeal from Uber Technologies Inc. to reconsider an $11.4 million fine against the company for operating in the state without permission in 2014. “When a regulated entity is given notice that it is violating the law and it ignores those notices, it does so to its own detriment,” said PUC Chairman Gladys M. Brown. (PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE)
-- Compiled by KOREY CLARK
A proposed constitutional amendment has been submitted to Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine (R) that would classify any abortion performed in the state as murder.
The ballot issue would define an “unborn human” as “an individual organism...from fertilization, whether fertilization occurs inside or outside of a human, until live birth” and “prohibit abortion of all unborn human beings, without exception...classifying it as aggravated murder,” a crime that is punishable in the state by a sentence of life imprisonment.
The measure is not backed by any organized anti-abortion group but by three individuals, one of whom described them as “just three Christians in Ohio.”
“We saw that since Roe v. Wade [the 1973 decision legalizing abortion] no one had proposed a ballot issue saying you can’t murder babies,” said Anthony Dipane of Monroe Falls.
Dipane also said the three relied on volunteer help to gather the signatures needed to submit the proposal to the AG.
“We don’t take donations,” he said. “We don’t pay people. We’re financing this out of our pockets at this point.”
NARAL ProChoice Ohio Executive Director Kellie Copeland said the issue “would punish women, plain and simple.”
“If passed, women and doctors would be imprisoned for any abortion, even one to save a woman’s life,” she said. “Also, the language would block prescription birth control, emergency contraception, IUDs, and could impact access to in-vitro fertilization.”
Copeland added that the proposal is similar to one in Oklahoma rejected by the courts as a violation of U.S. Supreme Court decisions affirming a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.
DeWine’s job isn’t to decide the constitutionality of the measure, however, but only to determine if the wording of the proposal is in the proper form. If he signs off on the language, the proposal will go to Secretary of State Jon Husted to verify whether the issue’s backers submitted the 1,000 preliminary signatures required. Supporters would then have to collect 305,591 signatures to qualify the issue for the ballot, probably in 2017. (COLUMBUS DISPATCH)
Minnesota’s highest court has thwarted an effort to allow Minneapolis voters to decide whether that city should raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour. Backers of the proposal, who see it as a way to combat poverty and racial disparity in the city, filed a lawsuit after the City Council rejected their petition seeking to place a minimum wage charter amendment on the November ballot. But last month the state’s Supreme Court ruled unanimously that Minneapolis’ charter doesn’t grant its citizens the right to vote on policy decisions, reserving that authority for the City Council.
The ruling doesn’t mean the minimum wage increase won’t happen, however.
Mike Griffin, field director for Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, one of the groups leading the push for the increase, said now they’ll go back to the City Council.
“This is about people’s lives in a city with the worst racial disparities in the country,” he said. “If we can’t raise wages through a charter amendment, we’ll raise them through an ordinance.”
And the City Council’s resistance to the ballot measure doesn’t mean it opposes the idea of increasing the minimum wage.
“This has never been about whether there should be a higher minimum wage,” said City Attorney Susan Segal. “This has always been about the proper process and venue for doing that.”
Action from the council may come slower than supporters of the wage increase would like, with a policy decision on the issue unlikely until the second quarter of next year.
“I think that’s realistically the very fastest a meaningful minimum wage policy can be passed,” said Council Member Lisa Bender.
But there could be more legal battles ahead if the council approves the $15 minimum wage, or any wage close to that amount. The manufacturing company Graco Inc. filed a legal challenge to the proposed $15 increase on the grounds that it would be at odds with Minnesota’s state minimum wage law, which currently sets the state’s minimum wage at $7.75 for employers with annual sales of less than $500,000 and $9.50 for employers with annual sales over $500,000.
“A municipal minimum wage would conflict with state law, whether that municipal minimum wage is enacted as part of a city charter amendment or as an ordinance,” said Christopher Larus, an attorney for Graco. (MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE, MINNESOTA DEPARTMENT OF LABOR & INDUSTRY, MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO NEWS)
The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a motion in federal court accusing TEXAS officials of misleading voters by telling them they can cast a ballot without a form of photo ID specified by the state’s voter ID law (SB 14) only if they truly can’t obtain one of those forms of ID. But under the agreement approved by U.S. District Judge Nelda Gonzalez Ramos last month (see Spotlight Story Voting Restrictions Running Out of Steam in States?) prospective voters only have to sign a form saying they have a "reasonable impediment" to obtaining such ID to vote. Judge Ramos said she would hold a hearing on the issue on Sept. 12. (DALLAS MORNING NEWS)
A federal judge in Chicago ruled last week that an ILLINOIS law limiting how much political action committees can give to candidates but letting political parties and legislative leadership give as much as they want, is constitutional. A PAC, a PAC contributor, and state Sen. Kyle McCarter (R) had challenged the law, arguing that allowing political parties to contribute to campaigns without limits while restricting what PACs and individuals can contribute violates their constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection. (STATE JOURNAL-REGISTER)
A quartet of former Kansas governors have waded into a bitter fight in Kansas over whether voters will opt to retain or remove four justices on the Sunflower State Supreme Court. Former Govs. Michael Hayden and Bill Graves, both Republicans, joining with Democratic former Govs. John Carlin and Kathleen Sebelius hit the road last week on a two-day tour through the state to generate support for the retention of Chief Justice Lawton Nuss and Associate Justices Carol Beier, Dan Biles, Caleb Stegall and Marla Luckert. Nuss and Luckert were appointed by Graves, while Sebelius appointed Beier and Biles.
“Four Kansas former governors want to focus statewide attention on the retention of Kansas justices in the 2016 election,” Kansans for Fair Courts, the group that organized the tour, said in a statement. “The governors will travel by bus to Kansas City, Topeka and Wichita to participate in roundtable discussions on retaining justices in order to keep Kansas courts fair and impartial.”
The makeup of the state’s high court has been a growing issue for years, with many conservatives expressing outrage at court decisions on school finance and capital punishment. Conservative groups are actively campaigning for the removal of Nuss, Beier, Biles and Luckert, whom they accuse of liberal bias in those rulings. The former governors say their retention is critical to maintaining an impartial court. Stegall, who was appointed by current Gov. Sam Brownback, has not been targeted.
Retention opponents point to a multiple murder case from 2000 in which two brothers – Jonathan and Reginal Carr - were convicted of robbing, torturing, sexually assaulting and shooting five people in Wichita. Four of those victims died. The brothers were sentenced to death in 2002, but the Kansas Supreme Court tossed that verdict in 2014, ruling among several things that jurors were denied critical information about death sentencing and that the brothers should have had separate sentencing hearings. But in January the U.S. Supreme Court rejected that verdict, saying the state court had wrongfully overturned the sentences. The group Kansans For Justice mounted an unsuccessful anti-retention campaign in 2014 against justices Eric Rosen and Lee Johnson, who were part of the Carr brothers’ ruling. The two were retained, garnering 52 percent of the vote.
Four of the five justices now up for retention – all but Biles - have formed corporations to support their efforts to keep their jobs. Brownback campaigned against the retention of Rosen and Johnson in 2014, but has opted to stay out of the fray this go-around. But support elsewhere seems to be lining up along traditional partisan lines, with groups that have backed Brownback in the past opting to support removing the justices in question and his opponents hoping to keep them. But Mark Desetti, legislative director of the Kansas National Education Association, which backed Brownback’s opponent – Democrat Chris Davis – in the 2014 gubernatorial election, says this time around the stakes are much different.
“The gubernatorial race was about the general direction of the state,” Desetti told the Wichita Eagle. “This race is about whether our state remains a democracy in the American sense of the separation of powers...and the ability of the court to step back and rule on the constitution, not the political whim of the day.” (WICHITA EAGLE, LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD, TOPEKA CAPITAL-JOURNAL)
With efforts to call a special session to consider impeaching Gov. Paul LePage (R) going nowhere, a handful of Maine lawmakers asked Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D) to invoke a never-before-used constitutional clause to report to the state Supreme Court that the governor is unfit because of “temporary mental or physical disability.” Under that clause LePage theoretically could be removed from power following a hearing and decision by a majority of the state’s high court. If the secretary of state later decides the governor is able to serve, the court could hold another hearing to consider restoring the governor. But while Dunlap called LePage’s behavior reprehensible, he said there is not “manifest evidence” that the governor is unfit to continue serving. (ABC NEWS, WALL STREET JOURNAL)
Acting on reforms suggested by a task force he created, DELAWARE Gov. Jack Markell (D) has signed a pair of bills aimed at improving the state’s mental health system. One measure (SB 245) would establish a Behavioral and Mental Health Commission responsible for overseeing and monitoring the state’s mental health system while the other (SB 281) codifies another mental health group, the Delaware Suicide Prevention Coalition, which works to raise awareness regarding suicide in Delaware and provide education about warning signs. (WMDT.COM [SALISBURY])
If Donald Trump is elected president, COLORADO Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) said he would consider suing the federal government to stop the new president from following through on a plan to deport millions of unauthorized immigrants from the United States. Hickenlooper said such deportations could push the Centennial State into a recession. (9NEWS.COM [DENVER])
Federal prosecutors have opted against pursuing a new trial for former VIRGINIA Gov. Robert McDonnell (R) or his wife, Maureen. The McDonnells were convicted in 2014 on a litany of corruption charges related to them taking hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gifts from an Old Dominion business owner. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned those convictions earlier this year. (WASHINGTON POST, RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH)
-- Compiled by RICH EHISEN
A MISSOURI court rules that electric automaker Tesla cannot bypass having dealerships to sell its cars directly to consumers. Cole County Judge Daniel Green ruled that Show Me State officials erred by allowing Tesla to sell cars through two retail outlets without having an actual dealership. State officials are considering an appeal (COLUMBIA DAILY TRIBUNE).
NEW YORK Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signs SB 8140, legislation that allows Empire State bars and restaurants to sell alcohol starting at 10:00am on Sundays rather than at noon. Other tenets of the bill will allow wineries to sell vino in growlers and permit customers to take home bottles not finished on the premises (ALBANY TIMES UNION)
ARIZONA Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) issues a legal opinion that allows people with concealed-carry permits to bring their guns into Grand Canyon State public and private K-12 schools (ARIZONA REPUBLIC [PHOENIX]).
NEW YORK Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signs AB 10740, which makes the Empire State the first to require all schools to test their drinking water for lead contamination, with results reported to parents and state and local officials. The testing must be conducted before Oct. 31, 2016. Schools where high levels of lead are discovered must develop and implement plans to fix those problems (ASSOCIATED PRESS, LEXISNEXIS STATE NET, NEW YORK GOVERNOR’S OFFICE).
DELAWARE Gov. Jack Markell (D) signs HB 404, which requires that minors participating in youth sports be immediately removed from competition if they show signs of receiving a concussion, and that they be kept out of play until cleared by a medical professional. The measure also requires that parents, athletes and coaches receive education on concussion impacts and long term effects (DELAWARE 1059.COM [MILFORD]).
A federal judge tentatively rejects a plan by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to open more than 1,500 square miles of lands in central CALIFORNIA to oil drilling and fracking. U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald said the agency had failed to fully consider the environmental impacts of allowing a large number of new fracking wells. He gave the agency until Sept. 21 to show cause why the plan should not be permanently halted (U.S. NEWS & WORLD REPORT).
CALIFORNIA Gov. Jerry Brown signs two bills aimed at reducing the Golden State’s greenhouse gas emissions: SB 32, which establishes a goal of reducing GHG emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030, and AB 197, which calls on the state to focus its pollution-reduction efforts on “disadvantaged” communities and increase legislative oversight of the California Air Resources Board, which manages the state’s climate programs (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET).
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration issues a rule banning 19 chemicals commonly used in anti-bacterial soaps. The FDA said the chemicals are unnecessary and in some cases even dangerous. Companies that make the soaps were given one year to remove the chemicals from the products or to remove the products from the market (NPR).
DELAWARE Gov. Jack Markell (D) signs HB 400, which allows terminally ill adults to access medical marijuana. The law also allows those under 18 access to medical weed if they are suffering from pain, anxiety or depression related to a terminal illness (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET).
NEW JERSEY Gov. Chris Christie (R) signs SB 1266, which allows any Garden State municipality to operate its own needle exchange program (NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR’S OFFICE).
NEW YORK Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D) issues a legal opinion that a 1970 Empire State law criminalizing abortions past the 24th week of pregnancy does not comply with later federal rulings on abortion that he says allow such procedures in cases where a mother’s life is in danger or the fetus has suffered a fatal complication. The opinion appears to give doctors and clinics the legal grounding to perform so-called late-term abortions (NEW YORK TIMES).
NEW JERSEY Gov. Chris Christie (R) signs AB 3682, which allows animal facilities to use artificial turf in outdoor enclosures (NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR’S OFFICE).
The last days of any legislative session can be chaotic and mind numbing. Such was the case recently when, as the California Legislature was relentlessly wading through the mountain of bills it always leaves to the final moments, Bloomberg BNA reporter Laura Mahoney’s kids decided to have some fun with it all. While their mom was monitoring the sessions online, Mahoney’s 12-year-old daughter Helen began strumming some tunes on her guitar as Assemblymember Kevin Mullin’s voice droned on from the screen, repeatedly calling “All those vote who desire to vote.” Soon 16-year-old Ben had joined his sister to help write a few lyrics. The end result eventually landed on YouTube under the name “The Call of Kevin Mullin.” It received hundreds of hits within hours. Full disclosure: Mahoney is both a colleague and a friend of yours truly.
As bad ideas go this would seem to have been an obvious one. As Reuters reports, the West African nation of Burkina Faso recently barred an annual beauty contest that judged women strictly on the size of their behinds. Government officials stepped in after the “Miss Bim Bim” contest drew an outcry on social media. As Minister Laure Zongo put it, “Our role is to do everything to avoid damaging the image of women.” Hmmmm...perhaps we could use some of that thinking here in the good old U. S of A.
Speaking of chaotic, this nugget from the ongoing carnival act known as the 2016 presidential campaigns. As the Columbus Dispatch reports, Green Party candidate Jill Stein recently flew into Cincinnati to speak at a campaign rally for her longshot candidacy. Alas, the rally was actually in Columbus. A few hours and a long car ride later Stein showed up there to address an adoring throng of...150 people. On the bright side, that’s about 50 more than were there at the original time.
Montana GOP gubernatorial candidate Greg Gianforte may or may not unseat incumbent Gov. Steve Bullock, but if he does it will be without the support of Susan Carstensen. As the Missoulian reports, Carstensen has publicly endorsed Bullock, saying of Gianforte “I don’t believe that his success in business translates to success in public service.” And why should anyone care what she thinks? Maybe because for 13 years Carstensen was the chief financial officer, chief operating officer and senior vice president at the technology company Gianforte founded. Carstensen has openly supported Dems in the past, so her feelings are not exactly a surprise. More curious – and to both her and Gianforte’s credit – is that they managed to work together all that time in spite of their differences.
-- By Rich Ehisen
October 3rd will mark six months since the release of the Panama Papers, a trove of 11.5 million documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The leak highlights how complex corporate structures, often set up in ‘offshore’ jurisdictions such as Panama, can be used to hide the true ownership of assets and bank accounts. These structures make it difficult for investigators to track money flows and trace the real beneficial owners of the company. The story made the front pages of the world’s media—the Guardian hailed it as the “biggest leak in history.” But has this led to any concrete changes? Let's take a look:
The Panama Papers have led to investigations of high-profile individuals and companies, many of which are ongoing. In the weeks following the revelations, Iceland’s Prime Minister and Spain’s acting Minister of Industry, Energy and Tourism stepped down. Perhaps more than ever before, countries have shown willingness to work together to take enforcement action against alleged wrongdoing exposed by the leak. In June, the European Parliament set up an inquiry committee into the Panama Papers, bringing together 65 representatives from its member states to investigate “alleged contraventions and maladministration” of EU laws on money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion. As countries increasingly share information, it should become harder for companies and individuals to escape punishment for financial crime.
The high public interest in the Panama Papers has helped to put the issue of hidden beneficial ownership high on the international agenda. Ironically, just days before the Panama Papers were released on May 9, U.S. Treasury Department Secretary Lew announced several actions designed to strengthen financial transparency and prevent use of companies to hide corrupt practices. He also sent a letter to Congress urging them to pass Beneficial Ownership legislation and support full reciprocity with FATCA partners. In the May 5 press release, Secretary Lew said, “The Treasury Department has long focused on countering money laundering and corruption, cracking down on tax evasion, and hindering those looking to circumvent our sanctions. Building on years of important work with stakeholders, the actions we are finalizing today mark a significant step forward to increase transparency and to prevent abusive conduct within the financial system.”
Bonus: Join our upcoming webinar offering tips on identifying beneficial ownership risks sooner.
When announcing amendments to the Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive in July 2016, the European Commission said the Panama Papers had exposed gaps in the tax framework. Pierre Moscovici, Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, said: “The recent leaks exposed loopholes that still allow tax evaders to hide funds offshore. These loopholes must be closed and our measures to stamp out tax abuse must be intensified.” Although the precise measures to do this have not yet been set out, it is significant that the Commission has been spurred into action by the Panama leaks.
The Panama Papers were also mentioned at the London Anti-Corruption Summit in May. Although the summit had been planned before the revelations came to light, it undoubtedly received more global media attention because of the leaks. The most significant measures announced at the conference were about beneficial ownership, which was the focus of the Panama revelations.
The communique released after the summit pledged support for the role of the media— “including investigative journalists”—in “complementing and reinforcing corruption reporting systems.” This could be interpreted as support for the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ decision to release the Panama Papers.
Critics say the increased focus on beneficial ownership has still not led to the major reforms required to stop companies from concealing their ownership of a company, such as a global register of beneficial ownership or changes to offshore tax systems. ”The Panama Papers were always going to be plenty of bark but much less bite,” says Professor Dan Hough, Director of the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. “The question was whether the bite was still enough to make people change behaviour in the long-term. As things stand, the jury is still very much out on that, but one thing is certainly clear: we haven’t seen the types of wholesale changes to the international financial system that critics have called for.”
There is also doubt about whether the Panama government will make it harder for companies to use its financial system to conceal ill-gotten gains. The government reacted to the leak by setting up a committee of world-leading economists to investigate the country’s financial and tax system. But last month, two economists resigned from the committee because Panama would not commit to making its report public. Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz is one of the economists to resign, saying: “We can only infer that the government is facing pressure from those who are making profits from the current non-transparent financial system in Panama.”
This reflects a more general concern about how companies and governments respond to wrongdoing: it can be easy to say the right thing after a scandal, but water down the response when the media spotlight has moved on. Only time will tell if the Panama Papers truly make it easier for regulators to take enforcement action against tax crimes.
It therefore remains vital for companies to do the proper research into the ultimate beneficial ownership of companies with which they do business. LexisNexis is partnering with Marcus Evans to host a free Webinar on September 28. Presented by Karen E. Gray, Senior Entity Due Diligence and Monitoring Specialist at LexisNexis, at 11am EST/4pm BST. Attendees will learn:
- How corporate hierarchy data helps unravel complex ownership structures that are indicative of beneficial ownership
- Why country data enables you to better understand a country’s commitment—or lack of it - to beneficial ownership transparency
- What data on the origin and listing of a company—public or private—reveals about beneficial ownership risk potential
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