In the two decades from 1991 to 2010, over 100 new stadiums opened across the country. Most of them were financed at least in part with public money. The boom was fueled by demand from sports teams and their fans for a more elevated spectator experience, as well as expansions of the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Soccer (MLS).
But cities’ attraction for sports stadiums has faded. The toll the recession took on cities’ finances was a big part of that change. In at least one city, Stockton, California, debt from a publicly financed arena made the fiscal crisis worse, contributing to a bankruptcy filing in 2012. Evidence that stadiums aren’t the local economic engines they’ve been touted to be has also curbed enthusiasm for them. The general perception now seems to be that new sports stadiums just give wealthy team owners an opportunity to line their pockets with taxpayer dollars.
So when the Minnesota Vikings sought a publicly funded stadium in 2012, the state’s Legislature flatly rejected the idea, although the team eventually received a substantial amount of public funding. Four years later, voters in San Diego, California refused to cover the majority of the cost of a new $1.8 billion stadium for the Chargers, sending the team packing to Los Angeles.
Cities haven’t completely lost their zeal for ribbon-cutting ceremonies, however, as demonstrated by the incentives they’ve thrown at Amazon to land its second headquarters. But the honeymoon for publicly financed sports stadiums appears to be over. (GOVERNING)
The CALIFORNIA Supreme Court votes to bar state judges from belonging to non-profit youth organizations if those groups practice any form of discrimination (LOS ANGELES TIMES).
The WYOMING House has given final approval to a bill requiring internet retailers located outside the state to collect sales taxes on purchases by state residents. The measure (HB 19) now heads to the Senate. (KGAB 650AM [CHEYENNE])
A federal judge in SOUTH DAKOTA ruled last week that a lawsuit requiring out-of-state Internet businesses to remit sales taxes to the state’s Department of Revenue should be heard by a state court. District Court Judge Roberto Lange’s ruling could fast-track the state’s effort to bring the issue before the U.S. Supreme Court, in the hope of overturning the court’s 1992 decision in Quill v. North Dakota barring states from collecting sales taxes from businesses without a physical presence in their states. (ARGUS LEADER)
TENNESSEE Gov. Bill Haslam (R) is backing a 7-cent increase in the state’s gas tax and new fees on electric vehicles and rental cars to help address a $10-billion backlog of road projects. (TENNESSEAN [NASHVILLE])
-- Compiled by KOREY CLARK
CALIFORNIA Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signs SB 31, which bars state and local governments from releasing personal information to the federal government for the creation of any religious list, registry or database, or from using state resources to create their own lists (LOS ANGELES TIMES).
The WISCONSIN Senate approves AB 547, which would limit regulations designed to avoid or minimize construction on wetlands. It moves to Gov. Scott Walker (R), who is expected to sign it into law (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL).
The ARKANSAS Supreme Court rules that the city of FAYETTEVILLE can’t enforce an ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The court said it has already ruled that the measure violates a state law aimed at preventing local protections for LGBT people (ASSOCIATED PRESS).
The NEW YORK CITY Department of Health and Mental Hygiene orders Big Apple restaurants under its jurisdiction not to sell food products containing the cannabis derivative cannabidiol, or CBD. The agency said CBD has not been determined to be safe to eat (NEW YORK TIMES).
The KEY WEST, FLORIDA City Commission bans the sale within city limits of sunscreens that contain the ingredients oxybenzone and octinoxate. The ban will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2021. Scientists say the two chemicals cause severe harm to sensitive coral reefs (FLORIDA KEYS KEYNOTER).
-- Compiled by RICH EHISEN
The survey has been done and unless you live in Washington, your state just doesn’t measure up. That’s the word anyway from U.S. News and World Report, which recently released its assessment of the best and worst states to live in. Based on a number of different factors, they dubbed the Evergreen State the top of the heap, followed by New Hampshire, Minnesota, Utah and Vermont. And what are the worst states to live in? The bottom five, in descending order, are New Mexico, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana. The Pelican State came in dead last in three of the eight categories, and at 48-49 in three others. Oh well, at least the bottom three have SEC football.
In May the Board of Supervisors for the City and County of San Francisco approved an ordinance banning the use of facial recognition technology by all city departments. It’s the only major U.S. city to have taken such action against the emerging technology. But the measure is part of a larger and growing movement among localities and states to increase oversight of the use of surveillance technologies by government entities.
San Francisco’s ban on facial recognition technology is just one provision of an ordinance restricting the city’s use of surveillance technologies in general. Among other things, the law will require city departments to obtain approval from the Board before acquiring any type of surveillance equipment - from closed-circuit TV cameras to software for monitoring social media - or obtaining information acquired through the use of such technology. Departments that obtain Board approval, through a process involving a public hearing, will have to file a report each year on the use of the applicable technology.
The ordinance doesn’t apply to private entities, which as the Atlantic pointed out, “introduces some ironies.”
San Francisco’s police department “will be barred from using Amazon’s Rekognition software to scan video footage for suspects after a shooting - but a grocery store will be permitted to do the same thing to analyze shopper behavior,” the publication said.
San Francisco isn’t the first locality to pass such sweeping restrictions on government surveillance. Santa Clara County, encompassing much of California’s Silicon Valley, approved an ordinance like San Francisco’s - minus the ban on facial recognition technology - in 2016. And unlike previous laws dealing with the issue, it didn’t just apply to a particular surveillance technology that raised privacy concerns but to all such technologies, including those that hadn’t been developed yet.
“Silicon Valley’s local lawmakers made sure the law passed today was future-proof by creating consistent rules for all the surveillance technology that currently exists and those we know will come,” Nicole Ozer of the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California said at the time.
In 2017 Nashville; Seattle; and Somerville, Massachusetts passed ordinances similar to Santa Clara County’s. And in 2018 Lawrence and Cambridge, Massachusetts; Yellow Springs, Ohio; and the California cities of Berkeley, Davis, Oakland and Palo Alto all did the same.
There are some significant variations among the laws, such as San Francisco’s ban on facial recognition technology and whistleblower protections in Oakland. But they all broadly restrict the use of surveillance technology by government agencies.
The laws came after a decade-long, federally-subsidized expansion of surveillance technology use by local law enforcement agencies across the country, spurred by the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Often those technologies, including automated license plate readers, biometric (e.g., face, voice, gait, etc.) identification systems, cell phone tracking devices, drones, and software for predicting criminal activity, have been deployed without notification of impacted residents or local governments. The New Orleans Police Department used predictive policing software to identify potential perpetrators and victims of crimes for six years without the city council knowing about it.
In response to this surveillance tech boom, the ACLU launched an effort in 2016 to ensure adequate oversight of municipal surveillance. The organization’s Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) campaign included a model law requiring city council approval for the acquisition of surveillance technologies and annual reporting on the use of such technologies to the council and the public, among several other things.
According to the ACLU’s CCOPS webpage, the surveillance ordinances passed in Santa Clara County, Nashville, Seattle, Somerville, Lawrence, Cambridge, Yellow Springs, Berkeley, Davis, Oakland, Palo Alto, and San Francisco were all CCOPS efforts.
There hasn’t been much formal action on the issue this year in major U.S. cities other than San Francisco, according to a new local government service provided by LexisNexis State Net. That service, which currently covers major jurisdictions in 37 states, shows San Francisco, Santa Clara County and Seattle recently passed ordinances related to the government surveillance restrictions they’d previously approved. But most of the ordinances in the database, including those proposed or approved in Atlanta, Houston, Kansas City and Phoenix, authorize rather than restrict the use of surveillance technologies.
According to the CCOPS webpage, however, there are more than a dozen cities, large and small, working on their own CCOPS ordinances. They include Boston; New York City; Muskegon, Michigan; and Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The webpage also indicates California and Maine are working on statewide CCOPS legislation.
What’s more, ACLU Senior Advocacy and Policy Counsel Chad Marlow, who leads the CCOPS campaign, told SNCJ the localities and states identified on its webpage as “Working on CCOPS legislation” are just the ones where the process is far enough along to make it public. He said CCOPS efforts are also underway in “quite a few other places.”
In addition to the state CCOPS efforts, at least nine state legislatures have considered bills this session aimed at restricting government use of surveillance technologies, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and LexisNexis State Net’s legislative tracking system (see Bird’s Eye View). At least 13 states have also considered measures dealing with government use of biometric data, one of which, New Mexico HB 98, has been enacted.
Pam Greenberg, who tracks technology issues for NCSL, said she’s “seen an increase in all types of privacy legislation this year” and expects “that trend to continue.”
As with other privacy-related issues, much of the debate over the government surveillance measures - in city halls and statehouses - revolves around the balance between security and civil liberty.
“This is really about saying we can have security without being a security state,” San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin said of the city’s new government surveillance ordinance, which he wrote, as the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
Peskin and others say surveillance technologies raise serious societal concerns. Among them is the threat they pose to citizens’ ability to freely exercise their civil rights, such as attending a political protest. They also subject individuals simply going about their daily lives to the same scrutiny as those with criminal intent.
“When you have the ability to track people in physical space, in effect everybody becomes subject to the surveillance of the government,” Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told the New York Times.
Surveillance technologies also make mistakes. A test of Amazon’s Rekognition system last year by the American Civil Liberties Union misidentified as criminals 28 members of Congress, a disproportionate number of whom were people of color, including six members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
And critics say the technologies can too readily be used to intentionally target specific populations, such as African-Americans or immigrants, as China - a country with an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras – has been doing with the Uighurs, a largely Muslim minority in its western region.
But others argue that technologies like facial recognition make the public safer.
“It is ridiculous to deny the value of this technology in securing airports and border installations,” said Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University, as the Times reported. “It is hard to deny that there is a public safety value to this technology.”
And as Tony Montoya, president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, noted, according to the Times, facial recognition technology has also “been successful in at least providing leads to criminal investigators.” One recent example is the use of the technology to help identify the suspect in a mass shooting at an Annapolis, Maryland newspaper in June.
For those and other reasons some oppose the idea of banning such technologies.
“We agree there are problems with facial recognition ID technology and it should not be used today,” the group Stop Crime SF said in a statement. “But the technology will improve and it could be a useful tool for public safety when used responsibly and with greater accuracy. We should keep the door open for that possibility.”
Some have also taken issue with the cost of complying with the surveillance ordinances. According to the Chronicle, the SFPD estimates it will take two to four full-time employees to carry out the compliance responsibilities associated with San Francisco’s new ordinance.
But more ordinances like it appear to be on the way. The ACLU’s Marlow said he thinks the momentum of the CCOPS campaign will not only continue but increase.
“Having passed 13 laws in 2 1/2 years - a startling average of one new law less than every 3 months - the question has gone from asking new cities if they would pass a CCOPS law, to asking them why they don’t have one,” he said. “In the next 12 months, I expect we will see quite a few more major U.S. cities adopting CCOPS laws, which will just add to the campaign’s ongoing strength.”
-- By KOREY CLARK
With over 50,000 high-paying jobs, billions of dollars in direct investment and millions in associated economic activity at stake, cities across the country are vying to be the future home of Amazon’s second headquarters in North America. And with Amazon having proven itself adept at extracting tax incentives and breaks from its host cities in the past, the winning locality may have to offer a lot to land Amazon’s HQ2.
“This is a textbook auction. This thing is going to be taught in business schools,” said Greg LeRoy, executive director of Good Jobs First, which, among other things, advocates for “corporate and government accountability in economic development,” according to its website. “The risk is that somebody’s going to overspend to pay Amazon to do what they were already going to do anyway.”
There have already been some indications of how far cities will be willing to go. The mayor of Kansas City, Sly James, bought and reviewed 1,000 products on Amazon that are made in his city, including a breakfast cereal produced by a local General Mills factory. And the City Council of Stonecrest, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, voted this month to change its name to Amazon if the company chooses to locate its headquarters there.
“There are several major U.S. cities that want Amazon, but none has the branding opportunity we are now offering this visionary company,” said the city’s mayor, Jason Lary, according to Newsweek. “How could you not want your 21st-century headquarters to be located in a city named Amazon?” (HILL, NEWSWEEK)
Pregnant women, children, the elderly and the disabled have long made up the bulk of Medicaid beneficiaries. But as a result of the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, younger and more able-bodied adults have been enrolling in the program. And one striking characteristic of that new population is its higher rate of drug and alcohol addiction. As of May, the number of new Medicaid beneficiaries in California who had signed up for addiction services was up 30 percent. The number of adults receiving addiction treatment at Medicaid facilities in Washington doubled in the first six months of the year. And the number of Medicaid enrollees receiving such treatment nationwide could more than double, from 1.5 million to about 4 million, within the next five years. The silver lining for states is that there is mounting evidence addiction treatment can dramatically lower physical health care costs for people with substance abuse problems. And with addiction treatment part of the overall plan for Medicaid, states can potentially improve health outcomes and reduce costs by better integrating physical and behavioral health. "We're at the point where we're actually treating substance use illness the way we treat other illnesses," said Art Schut, CEO of Arapahoe House, the leading provider of drug and alcohol addiction services in Colorado. "There's a realization in the commercial and public marketplace that health outcomes are important and that SUD [substance use disorder] treatment contributes significantly to overall health. It's transformational for health care, not just substance use." (STATELINE.ORG)
This is our final issue of the year, so let me pass along best wishes for a very merry holiday season to all of you from all of us here at the State Net Capitol Journal. We'll be back in mid-January to do our best to keep you all up to speed on legislative trends and hot issues from around the nation. Until then, be well and be safe.
Kentucky House Majority Leader Jonathan Shell (R) was ousted from his seat by a high school math teacher and first-time political candidate in a Republican primary election in that state on May 22. Republican voters have not been kind to incumbents in recent primaries. But Travis Brenda, who’s been a teacher for two decades, also benefited from a groundswell of teacher support, following a wave of teacher protests over pay and classroom funding in Kentucky and other states in recent months. And voters also punished Shell, who actually helped orchestrate the first Republican takeover of the state’s House in nearly a century just two years ago, for his role in passing legislation this year (SB 151) making changes to the state’s public pension system.
“They picked on the wrong group,” said Brenda. “Not just the educators, but all state employees are rising up and we’re not going to let things be done to us.”
Brenda will face Democrat Mary Renfro in the state’s general election in November. (TIME, LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)
The MASSACHUSETTS Senate approves a budget amendment that would bar police from asking about people’s immigration status unless required by law; end contracts that deputize state and local law enforcement as ICE agents; require that immigrants be notified of their due process rights regardless of documentation; and ensure that the Bay State does not contribute to any registry based on religion, ethnicity, citizenship or other protected categories. The budget now likely heads to a joint House-Senate conference committee (BAY STATE BANNER).
TENNESSEE Gov. Bill Haslam (R) allows HB 2315, so-called sanctuary city legislation that requires local law enforcement officials to comply with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requests to hold immigrants for purposes of deportation, to become law without his signature (CHATTANOOGA FREE PRESS).
California is on pace to take in $1.9 billion in revenue from medical and recreational marijuana sales in 2018, according to a recent projection from the cannabis industry analytics firm New Frontier Data. While that sum is substantial, it’s only half what that same firm previously forecast for the year. Frontier also significantly lowered its projection for total sales in the state for 2025 from $6.7 billion to $4.72 billion.
The firm attributed the lower-than-expected sales to tough regulations for marijuana growers, distributors and sellers, and resistance to the industry on the part of local governments. Only about 30 percent of the state’s 540 cities and counties have authorized some type of commercial marijuana activity, “forcing consumers to turn to the illicit market,” said Amy Jenkins, a spokeswoman for the California Cannabis Industry Association.
Giadha Aguirre De Carcer, founder and CEO of New Frontier Data, likewise, said that as a result of “the number of local government bans on cannabis businesses, we are not seeing the same kind of conversion rates that we have seen in other legal markets.”
The firm’s revised industry forecast, however, could help a bill in the California Legislature (AB 3157) aimed at lowering the state excise tax on marijuana sales from 15 percent to 11 percent. (LOS ANGELES TIMES, NEW FRONTIER DATA, LEXISNEXIS STATE NET)
Government officials all over the world are feverishly working to figure out ways to mitigate the worst impacts of global climate change. In the meantime, we poor peons have to learn to deal with a rapidly warming globe. But if you think you have it bad now, you probably don’t have it as bad as the folks in Santa Marta, Colombia, where government health officials have asked residents to refrain from getting their groove on during the day when the temperatures are their highest. According to Colombia Reports, Health Secretary Julio Salas told Radio Galan that he advised folks “not to have sexual relations during the day” as the physical exercise could lead to dehydration. There are just about a million jokes I could make here, but I’m just gonna let it lie.
Led by LOS ANGELES Mayor Eric Garcetti, Representatives from 19 cities and counties sign a new initiative pledging to incorporate electric vehicles into their municipal fleets. Under the new agreement, cities can lease their vehicles or they can buy the cars, which would allow cities to qualify for federal tax credits that can lower the cost of the vehicles by up to $7,500 (GOVERNING).
Temporary Ordinance Limiting Rent IncreasesThe LOS ANGELES County Board of Supervisors approves a temporary ordinance that limits rent increases in unincorporated areas to 3 percent annually and allows landlords to evict tenants only with justification. The ordinance will last for six months while the county considers a permanent alternative (LOS ANGELES TIMES).
CALIFORNIA Gov. Jerry Brown (D) signs AB 2164, which allows cities to impose fines for violations of local ordinances by marijuana growers (CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S OFFICE).
The NEW YORK CITY Council endorses a proposal to allow residents who do not identify as male or female to change their birth certificates and select a third option, X. The measure goes to Mayor Bill de Blasio (D), who is expected to sign it into law (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS).
A federal court rules that a CALIFORNIA law banning the force-feeding of ducks and geese in order to artificially enlarge their livers, or the sale of products made from that process, is unconstitutional. Force-feeding the fowl is a key part of making foie gras, a delicacy made of duck or goose liver. U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson said the law violated federal interstate commerce laws regulating poultry products (LOS ANGELES TIMES).
Recently termed-out Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has apparently never warmed up to new Gov. Doug Ducey, a fellow Republican but not the guy she initially backed in the GOP primary last year. (That would be Mesa mayor Scott Smith, who lost out to Ducey in that election.) How chilly is her relationship with the new gov? Well, as the Washington Post reports, Brewer last week opted for the first time in 33 years to forgo attending the gov's State of the State address. But at least she had a great reason: she went out for some ice cream instead. Brrrrr...
The PENNSYLVANIA Department of Corrections announces it will no longer place inmates with serious mental illnesses in solitary confinement. Those prisoners will now be placed in special treatment units instead. The agreement settles a lawsuit brought against the agency by advocates for the mentally ill (WASHINGTON POST).
PENNSYLVANIA Gov. Tom Wolf (D) signs HB 1346, which among several things bars local governments from regulating drone aircraft (LEXISNEXIS STATE NET).
In the 2016 presidential election, over two-thirds of Florida voters cast their ballots early or by mail rather than at their local polling place on Election Day. That fact has election officials in the state thinking about switching from traditional neighborhood polling places like churches and VFW halls to regional voting centers, where any voter in a particular county could cast a ballot.
“Vote centers would eliminate any confusion voters may have about where they are required to vote on Election Day, because they could vote anywhere,” said Hillsborough County elections chief Craig Latimer.
A recent statewide survey reportedly found that a majority of the state’s 67 county election supervisors support the idea of regional voting centers. But it would still have to be approved by the state’s Legislature. (MIAMI HERALD)
The OKLAHOMA House approves HB 2591, which would strip Medicaid eligibility from providers of “services relating to pregnancy or termination of pregnancy” who do not report evidence of the rape of a minor. It moves to the Senate (TULSA WORLD).
The MONTANA Senate approves SB 100, a bill that would require doctors who provide abortion services to offer women seeking the procedure the opportunity to first see an ultrasound of the fetus. The bill, which also requires the women to sign a statement acknowledging they were given the option to see the image, moves to the House (KRTV [GREAT FALLS]).
The MONTANA House approves HB 219, a bill that would change the name of Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day in the Treasure State. It moves to the Senate (INDEPENDENT RECORD [HELENA]).
The ongoing war between California and President Trump heated up significantly last week, as the administration moved to challenge two of the Golden State’s cornerstone environmental laws.
The first came on Monday when Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt announced his agency would be rolling back Obama-era fuel efficiency rules requiring automakers to hit ambitious emissions and mileage standards by 2025. Pruitt’s statement seemed to indicate the EPA would further seek to overturn the state’s decades-old right to set its own pollution standards. A dozen states also adhere to California’s standards.
“Cooperative federalism doesn’t mean that one state can dictate standards for the rest of the country,” Pruitt said in a statement. “EPA will set a national standard for greenhouse gas emissions that allows auto manufacturers to make cars that people both want and can afford — while still expanding environmental and safety benefits of newer cars.”
Pruitt called such a standard “in everyone’s best interest.”
California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) had another view, calling it a “cynical and meretricious abuse of power [that] will poison our air and jeopardize the health of all Americans.”
But there would be more. That same day the Trump administration took legal action to overturn a 2017 law that gives the state the power to buy any federal land in California the federal government tries to sell to a private party. The U.S. Department of Justice said the law is unconstitutional because it violates primacy laws that allow the Bureau of Land Management to select public land for sale if it meets certain criteria.
California officials from Brown to U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) vowed to defend the state’s laws.
The two suits are the latest in a series between the two government entities. The Trump administration has also filed suit over the state’s immigration policies, while California has filed dozens of lawsuits against the administration across numerous issues. (CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S OFFICE, LOS ANGELES TIMES, NEW YORK TIMES, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
California lost another old school GOP stalwart last week, as longtime Assemblymember and Senator Sam Aanestad died at 71 after a lengthy illness. An oral surgeon by trade, much of his time in office was focused on health care issues. This was on prominent display during a budget debate in 2008 that went deep into the night. As his former chief of staff Mark Reeder tells the Capitol Morning Report, Aanestad handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste to his fellow Senators to make sure they maintained good oral hygiene. We’re guessing to also make those late night up-close-and-personal conferences a little more bearable.
The DENVER City Council unanimously endorses new rules that, among several things, require so-called “slot homes” – town homes that face sideways, allowing developers to fit more units on the property – to have porches and windows that face the street (KDVR [DENVER]).
The SAN DIEGO City Council approves a proposal to eliminate permit fees for the construction of “companion units,” otherwise known as accessory dwelling units or granny flats (*** [SAN DIEGO]).