The League of Women Voters, Disability Rights Wisconsin, Black Leaders Organizing for Communities and three WISCONSIN voters have filed a lawsuit seeking the invalidation of new laws passed by the GOP-controlled Legislature shifting powers from Gov. Tony Evers (D) and Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) to lawmakers. The suit challenges the constitutionality of extraordinary legislative sessions like the one used to pass the new laws. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL)
In her Condition of the State address to lawmakers last week, IOWA Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) proposed the passage of a constitutional amendment that would bar the state from taking away convicted felons’ right to vote. Although the state allows felons to regain that right with the governor’s approval, it is one of just two states that impose such restrictions on felon voting rights. (WQAD 8 [MOLINE])
The TENNESSEE Court of Appeals has ruled that the vote in Nashville on Nov. 6 creating a civilian board with the power to investigate police was legitimate. Nashville’s police union had challenged the law on a technicality concerning the election used to determine the number of signatures required to qualify the measure for the ballot. (NASHVILLE TENNESSEAN)
-- Compiled by KOREY CLARK
WASHINGTON Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler bans the sale of NRA-backed insurance policies that offer liability coverage to people who fire a gun. The policy provides money up front to cover costs and expenses related to criminal defense, even if the policyholder later pleads guilty to or is convicted of a crime. Kreidler issued fines totaling $177,000 to two companies that sold the policies. The Evergreen State joins NEW YORK as the only states to ban the “Carry Guard” policies (HILL [WASHINGTON DC], WASHINGTON INSURANCE COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE). ILLINOIS Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) signs SB 337, a bill that requires Prairie State firearms dealers to be licensed by the State Police instead of the state agency that regulates professions and occupations. The law also requires gun dealers to install video surveillance and train employees to recognize those who try to make straw purchases where someone buys a gun for someone who can't legally own one (ABC7 CHICAGO).
Saying he wants to see people “be able to have their suffering relieved,” FLORIDA Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) urged Sunshine State lawmakers to allow medical marijuana patients to smoke their weed if they so choose. If lawmakers do not go along by March, he said he would drop a state appeal filed by the administration of former Gov. Rick Scott (R) of a court decision that says banning it violates a constitutional amendment. (TAMPA BAY TIMES, ORLANDO WEEKLY)
After legislation he proposed last year died without a vote, NEW YORK Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) inserted a ban on single-use plastic bags into his 2019 budget. Cuomo said he is also proposing an expansion of the Empire State’s so-called “Bottle Bill” – which encourages people to recycle used plastic bottles - by making most non-alcoholic drink containers eligible for the 5-cent redemption. (NEW YORK TIMES, ALBANY TIMES-UNION)
KANSAS Gov. Laura Kelley (D) and OHIO Gov. Mike DeWine (R) each issued executive orders last week barring discrimination against LGBTQ people in state hiring and other areas. Kelley’s order also applies to companies that do business with the state. (LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD, DAYTON DAILY NEWS)
Calling public safety “a fundamental responsibility of government,” MASSACHUSETTS Gov. Charlie Baker (R) re-filed legislation that would make it easier for Bay State judges to keep someone in jail on the grounds that they are dangerous. Baker filed a similar bill last year but did so after the formal session had ended for the year, and the measure died with lawmakers taking it up. (MASSLIVE.COM)
-- Compiled by RICH EHISEN
For years, being put on hold when calling a state agency office in Alaska meant a healthy dose of Muzak, better known to most of us as elevator music. But thanks to the efforts of one intrepid Last Frontier lawmaker, callers will now be spared a fate almost as bad as death. As Governing reports, state Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins successfully championed an effort to drop the offending noise in favor of snippets of music from some of the state’s local bands. Kreiss-Tomkins calls the change “an infusion of humanity in an interaction with the public.” Residents simply call it about darned time.
A federal judge blocks the U.S. Department of Commerce from adding a question on American citizenship to the 2020 census. Judge Jesse M. Furman of the United States District Court in Manhattan said that U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur L. Ross Jr. broke “a veritable smorgasbord” of federal rules in ordering the citizenship question added to the census nearly a year ago. The Trump administration is expected to appeal, perhaps directly to the Supreme Court of the United States (NEW YORK TIMES).
California Assemblymember Phil Ting introduced a measure last week that would bar Golden State retailers from issuing a printed paper receipt to customers unless they ask for one. His argument is that those receipts can’t be recycled and are contaminated with Bisphenol-A (BPA) and Bisphenol-S (BPS), chemicals banned in most baby products. All fine and dandy. But as the Associated Press reports, Ting made his point by having one of his staffers stand on a chair and wear a mock–up of a giant receipt that went from over his head all the way down to the floor. As visuals go, it was a winner. As for the staffer, he was probably wondering how all those years pursuing a college degree could possibly have led to this.
Which is exactly what new Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont did during his inaugural party. As reported in The Hill, Lamont seriously cut loose on the dance floor. And we do mean “loose.” Lamont legislative affairs director Chris Soto lauded his boss, saying on Twitter “Get yourself a Governor like @NedLamont who isn’t afraid to live his best life and dance like no one is watching.” Except that he put the video on social media, which meant the entire world was watching. Lamont is in no danger of being on “Dancing with the Stars” any time soon, but for a one news cycle at least he was the king of the ballroom.
Federal judges in CALIFORNIA and PENNSYLVANIA bar the Trump administration from implementing new rules that would let almost any employer deny female employees coverage for birth control by citing religious or moral objections. The order from Judge Haywood S. Gilliam in California applies only to the 13 states and the District of Columbia that filed suit in his court, while the order from U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia a day later applies to the entire country. The Trump administration is expected to appeal (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER).
The NEW YORK Senate and Assembly each endorse SB 1047, the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, a bill that prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender identification or expression in employment, education, credit, and housing. The measure would also update the state's hate crimes law to include offenses motivated by a person's gender identify or expression. The measure moves to Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), who has said he will sign it into law (ADIRONDACK DAILY ENTERPRISE).
Also in NEW YORK, lawmakers endorse AB 576, which would ban the use of so-called conversion therapy, which seeks to change the sexual orientation of minors. It also goes to Gov. Cuomo, who has indicated he will sign it (NEW YORK DAILY NEWS).
The KEY WEST City Commission unanimously approves an ordinance that would ban the sale of sunscreens containing ingredients that could be harmful to coral reefs. The ordinance must pass another vote on Feb 5 to become law (NBC NEWS).
The OKLAHOMA CITY Council approves an ordinance requiring home share services to be licensed and to ensure their properties have working smoke detectors, fire extinguishers and carbon monoxide detectors (KFOR [OKLAHOMA CITY]).
Stealing road signs that bear numbers like “420” and “69” is definitely a thing. So much so that Washington state transportation folks have been forced to come up with clever ways to defeat said sign thieves. As the Seattle Times reports, one thing has been to simply not have those signs out there in the first place. For example, some roads vex the weed enthusiasts who steal 420 signs by having mile markers that go from 419 to 421, skipping 420 entirely. Other times they have got a little more creative, replacing signs that bear the number “69” – please don’t make me explain this to you – with ones that say 68.9. There’s probably a joke or two in that one as well, but I sure as heck am not going there.
-- By RICH EHISEN
2018 is in the history books. For PR professionals it was a challenging year of trying maintain relationships and connections in a time of historic corporate and media distrust. And not all of it without good reason. (We’re looking at you Facebook and Cambridge Analytica). Fortunately for every corporate misstep or PR faux pas, there were countless amazing examples of real PR pros doing what they do best. Kudos.
In 2019 trust and technology will continue to be central themes in every public relations and marketing plan. Here are a few observations on the potential challenges—and opportunities that lie ahead:
Brands find voice through technology
Siri, Alexa and a bevy of other disembodied voice assistants are already fetching our favorite music and providing up-to-the-minute weather forecasts, even doing our Christmas shopping. All with a simple voice command.
Yes, the use of smart speakers and voice technology is clearly on the rise. And with it comes exciting new opportunities to connect to a growing audience of voice-first searchers. At the start of Q4 2018, voice assistants were in 32 percent of US homes according to the Adobe Analytics’ State of Voice Assistants 2018 survey. By the end of the holiday season it wouldn’t be a surprise to see that number at closer to 50 percent. That’s an audience and an opportunity too big to ignore.
The idea that important content is now just a spoken query away has public relations and marketing teams burning brain cells for new ways to utilize this nascent content channel. Mastering SEO for online searching was one thing. Optimizing content for voice searching is a completely different beast. How can content be shaped to leverage emerging voice technology? What PR stories can be surfaced and shared for companies and clients?
In an article for PR Daily, Meredith L. Eaton, Director of North America at Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, has this to say about the voice technology and the public relations possibilities: “The growth of users’ requests for information and news is encouraging and where there’s the most immediate potential It’s still early days, but it looks like we’re finally moving beyond voice assistant responses like ‘here’s what I found on the Web that provides a list of (sometimes helpful, sometimes not) articles that you still have to sift through manually to find the answer to your question. Now, with technology like Google Speakable (still in beta), we can actually continue the voice experience with excerpts of relevant content that’s read aloud – content that could feature products, cite brands as sources or give updates on companies’ latest developments.”
Bridging the confidence gap: the return of the expert
The average American’s capacity for trust in this uncertain time of Russian troll farms, fake news and manufactured followers has been sorely tested. In fact, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer (a cool tool with a lot to say about our confidence in our institutions), trust in Government, Media and Business in the US is at an all-time low—across all demographics.
However one bright spot cited by the 2018 Edelman report is the return of the expert. It states “voices of expertise are now regaining credibility. Journalists have risen 12 points, and CEOs recorded a seven-percentage point gain, since 2017. Technical experts, financial industry analysts, and successful entrepreneurs now register credibility levels of 50 percent or higher.” This is certainly a shift that should not go unnoticed in your public relations plans.
An audience hungry for true authority and authenticity
But with trust in media and other institutions at all-time lows isn’t that parodoxical? Not quite. People still want good, information---information to help them be healthier, happier, wealthier and wiser. So real stories told by real experts still have power. Something savvy and successful PR professionals will certainly leverage as they work to bridge the confidence gap and build trust for their companies and brands.
PR and content marketing continue to align
As mentioned above, people have trust issues when it comes media, businesses and brands. Which just means it’s harder than ever to build lasting relationships, make real connections and promote your brand.
That’s why good content marketing is more important than ever to a successful public relations campaign. And why strong public relations plans and strategy are essential for effective content marketing. Success today takes the happy marriage of both disciplines as Heather Anne Carson, PR and demand marketing expert, points out.
It’s not hard to see where the lines intersect.
Relying on the right media placements and influencers is not enough when it comes to trust. (In fact many companies are taking a hard look at digital influencer strategies in light of recent findings.) Content marketing has always been about adding value and building trust through engaging, enlightening and educational stories. Stories and messages your audience wants to read and can relate to. It takes patience, insight and deep understanding of needs, challenges and desires.
However, even the most thoughtfully cultivated content can’t help if it doesn’t reach its intended audience. This is where solid PR expertise comes in. A good PR team has the connections that can cut through the clutter and ensure your outstanding content stands out in a crowded digital arena. As Brian Zeng notes in his article on Smart Insights®: “When you combine PR with your content marketing strategy, it becomes a lot easier to publish your content on a reputable website or blog. This combination can also help you acquire a broader, newer audience. Plus, it helps you send a unified brand message across multiple digital platforms including online publications and social media channels.”
Bottom line: Without great public relations skills and relationships, your best, most incisive, trust-engendering content may not get the exposure it needs to work its magic.
Done well, with thoughtfulness and authenticity, the beautiful union of PR and content marketing can ensure that your company or client is positioned positively; elevate a brand: and even drive ROI.
Next Steps:
Despite recent Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) enforcement actions, there are signs of more positive engagement with governance and compliance in Latin America. Emerging markets offer attractive opportunities for investors, but businesses aiming to capitalize will need to prioritize robust due diligence, risk monitoring and risk mitigation to minimize exposure and protect investments and reputations.
A high-risk / high-opportunity region
Private equity investment in Latin America is predicted to reach new highs in 2019 as the scale of infrastructure need and increasing privatization proves an attractive proposition for international companies.This potential must be weighed against the risks of engaging with an historically-risky and volatile investment environment.
Perceived corruption in Latin America is persistently high. Transparency International’s most recent Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), saw countries in the region post an average score of 44 out of a possible 100, compared with an average of 66 in the strongest performing region, Western Europe.
This is partly due to ongoing criminal investigation, “Operation Car Wash”, which uncovered widespread corruption in Brazil. The investigation found evidence of corruption involving eleven countries, resulting in Brazil’s state energy company, Petrobras, being fined $1.78bn for systematic bribery of politicians.
While headline-grabbing cases underline the risks for businesses in the region, they also indicate a turning point. Corruption on this scale will no longer be tolerated by the FCPA. Individuals and organizations previously considered untouchable are coming under scrutiny. Growing media freedom in the region is bringing the issue to public attention, raising expectations of transparency and accountability from corporations and government departments.
Regional politics embrace anti-corruption
Recent years have seen the introduction of measures including: corporate criminal liability for corruption offences; alternative resolutions and leniency aimed at encouraging co-operation by affected companies; and legislated corporate compliance programs. In Mexico, Brazil and Colombia candidates for all parties put anti-corruption at the heart of their 2018 election manifestos.
Brazil’s 2014 Clean Company Act makes companies liable for corrupt actions undertaken by employees. The Act specifies offences such as the finance, payment or subsidy of a prohibited act; bid rigging and fraud in public procurement; and bribery or attempted bribery of Brazilian or foreign politicians. Brazil now mandates that companies entering certain contracts with the State of Rio De Janeiro have compliance programs in place, a requirement that extends to foreign companies.
Sweeping reforms that came into force in 2017 are the foundation of Mexico’s ‘Anti-corruption System’. They include new oversight, enforcement and investigation mechanisms, as well as a leniency system for those that self-disclose bribery. Despite much fanfare at launch, however, implementation has been slow. It has yet to be seen whether appetite for enforcement will endure long-term.
Argentina’s Law on Corporate Criminal Liability came into force on March 1, 2018, bringing with it a strong emphasis on compliance programs. The law makes provision for exemption from liability for entities that voluntarily disclose violations, make appropriate financial restitution and, crucially, can prove that they had a suitably robust control and supervision system in place before the relevant offence occurred. “Corporate integrity programs” therefore represent an essential undertaking for companies aiming to mitigate risk of exposure to criminal consequences relating to corruption offences in the territory.
In cross-border terms, the new draft text for the US-Canada-Mexico trade agreement contains an entire chapter focused on regional corruption. The parties are required to implement anti-corruption legislation, protect whistle blowers and promote strong governance and compliance programs.
Finally, the growing influence of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), to which Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Mexico all now belong, is encouraging re robust enforcement. The OECD recently published its action plan of integrity for good governance in Latin America and the Caribbean, which it says is “a comprehensive agenda that could help countries in the design, advancement and implementation of National Integrity and Anti-Corruption Strategies.”
Taking a compliance-led approach
All of this means investors in the region must place monitoring and risk mitigation programs at the core of their business strategy. Companies engaging with state-owned entities need to factor the high levels of risk exposure they face.
Three factors for businesses to bear in mind in the region:
Next Steps
From AI to blockchain, companies are rapidly adopting new technologies which use data to drive business insights and manage risks more effectively. Our third volume of The Trust Issue explores how technology can also improve a company’s transparency and increase the trust it receives from customers, investors, third parties and regulators. But it also warns that if companies fail to use technology in a transparent and ethical way, they risk losing trust altogether.
Emerging tech enables proactive risk management
Take a closer look at innovations giving companies new tools for managing risk, improving customers’ experiences, and demonstrating transparent, ethical business practices.
The list goes on.
Regulators trust in tech
Many regulators now expect companies to use technology to boost their approach to compliance. For example, the EU’s Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive requires corporate identity-related documentation to be collected, verified, safely stored and updated. When a regulator requests this information, companies need to use technology to provide this information with speed and accuracy.
Technology also helps companies address regulatory compliance with more confidence. Over the last five years, utility solutions have been developed to help banks meet regulatory requirements, in many cases as a joint effort between banks and third parties.
Tech requires good governance
Financial services companies invest more in big data and AI technologies every year. Last year, HSBC recruited 1,000 digital experts to embed big data across its operations. The bank is using insights from big data to create new products and services and to manage the risk of financial crime by monitoring customer transaction data to spot unusual patterns.
But HSBC recognizes that it must maintain its customers’ trust as it implements technology solutions. “Clearly the biggest risk of data is around trust,” said Josh Bottomley, HSBC’s Global Head of Digital. “As a bank we are obsessed about our customers’ security of their money and increasingly of their data as well. Trust is the critical issue—we need to make sure we build trust in our use of big data as opposed to undermining trust.”
Are you considering technology to accelerate visibility into reputational, regulatory, financial and strategic risk?
Next steps:
Many lawmakers left their state capitol buildings around the country after adjourning last year having never seen an e-scooter. A good number may never even have heard of such a thing.
But that’s changed for many lawmakers returning for sessions this year. Many in several states are now probably seeing them zipping along a street or bike lane, parked against a building or just lying on the ground in a park. And they may have wondered, as many of their constituents and city council counterparts have, are these things legal? Are there rules for where or how they can be ridden, or parked?
Billed as a clean short-trip alternative to more carbon-spewing car rides, the rented scooters have become commonplace in dozens of cities since first showing up in late 2017.
The three best-known e-scooter rental companies, Bird, Lime and Skip, have seen incredible growth. Santa Monica, Calif.-based Bird said in September it had rented its 10 millionth ride following a speedy expansion to 100 cities in just a year. City officials have sometimes been caught off guard by how quickly they’ve proliferated, or caught unaware they would be showing up at all.
Local officials from Milwaukee to Oakland have scrambled to decide whether rented e-scooters are allowed on the local streets or sidewalks and if any safety regulations, such as speed limits, are needed.
Most regulatory discussions so far have been at the municipal level. But state policy makers are starting to hear about e-scooters, and they’re hearing it from cities.
“We often do not have a clear definition of what a scooter is and how it should be regulated,” Todd O’Boyle, director of strategic development for Lime, told State Net Capitol Journal. “In many cases cities are asking for state clarification here. Cities want to know, ‘How do we write a scooter policy?’”
Many states don’t yet have answers.
“In North Carolina, for example, there is no clear definition of scooters in the state vehicle code,” O’Boyle said. “Cities have said, ‘Please create a definition so we have a way to write scooter regulations.
“There are states where there’s no problem with state law, no ambiguity whatsoever, there are states where the cities’ authority is ambiguous, and there are states where they appear not to be legal,” O’Boyle said.
Milwaukee is one place that looked to the state for help. After scooters started showing up there before any regulations could be considered, the city first moved to impound them. But then the city council passed a resolution asking Wisconsin to legalize them.
“If they are legal, we want them to be here,” Mayor Tom Barrett told the city’s Journal Sentinel newspaper last summer.
The dynamic is similar in what may be the biggest prize for e-scooter companies, New York. They’re currently not allowed there. City Council Speaker Corey Johnson recently told StreetsBlog NYC that there’s support in the city for legalizing them, but some believe they may not yet be allowed under state law.
“We believe the state legislature would need to take some action for us to be able to move these bills,” Johnson told Streetsblog, though some activists believe they fall within an existing state exemption to the law that some believe bans them.
Little Rock is one place where returning state lawmakers may soon get their first glimpse of scooters zooming through the streets. When lawmakers were last in session there, there were no scooters. When the General Assembly starts Jan. 19, Lime e-scooters should be widely available all over town.
Unlike some places, Little Rock officials weren’t surprised the city was getting up to 500 e-scooters. Recently retired Mayor Mark Stodola worked with Lime to get Little Rock in on the new “micromobility” movement, meeting with company officials before the first scooter showed up.
“My understanding is that scooters are really the direction everybody’s going in,” Stodola told KUAR radio last month.
Little Rock wasn’t the first Arkansas city to get e-scooters. Bird last year launched scooter rentals in Russellville, a city of under 30,000 that’s home to Arkansas Tech University. Mayor Randy Horton knew Bird was coming but told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette he didn’t know there would be more than 150 scooters around the small town.
“I didn't realize how widespread they'd be, so it was a little bit of a surprise,” he told the paper. But he likes having them. “There are a lot of places that I don't want to take my three-quarter-ton truck out to. I'll just take a Bird instead.”
Right now, e-scooters aren’t specifically regulated in Russellville, though Horton told the newspaper that if too many show up or block sidewalks, the city may look into regulations.
Their arrival has been more contentious elsewhere, including San Francisco, which sent a cease-and-desist letter to Bird, Lime and Spin, and impounded some scooters in June before putting a permitting program in place that set rules for the vendors. Other cities that have banned the scooters, at least for a time, include St. Louis and St. Paul, Minnesota.
Cities and states aren’t the only ones concerned about e-scooter proliferation. Arizona State University in Tempe and the University of Arizona in Tucson both banned them in the fall after complaints about safety and scooters taking up bike locking spaces. ASU officials said they were a nuisance and a potential danger.
In most places where moves have been made to regulate scooters, the issue has often centered on complaints of masses of them cluttering public spaces like parks or sidewalks.
In most places, the e-scooters are rented through a “dockless” system. Customers use an app to find a scooter to rent, and then when they reach their destination they leave the scooter there (locked by the app) for the next rider using the app to find it and rent it. That means scooters could be left lying around just about anywhere.
There’s a well-documented phenomenon of people getting so frustrated with the ubiquity of the scooters they’re throwing them in lakes and rivers. Several cities have capped the number of scooters companies can offer and others, like Oakland, California, have set out rules for where the scooters can be placed.
In addition to trying to prevent them from blocking public rights of way, some rules are trying to make the programs more equitable by, for example, requiring that a certain number of scooters be placed in low-income areas.
While the nuisance issue has garnered more attention, there are also safety concerns.
Fatalities involving scooters have even been reported in Dallas, Cleveland and Washington, D.C.
In some cities, there have also been questions about how insurance companies will handle claims when scooters are involved in accidents. It is an issue likely to be considered at the state level soon, as well as one ripe for litigation.
While some regulation is aimed at restricting what scooter companies can do to reduce the nuisance factor and make sure their scooters are used safely, one of the few states where the scooters have already attracted state lawmakers’ attention passed an industry-friendly bill last year aimed at promoting scooter use.
Perhaps not surprisingly, that bill was in California, among the states with the highest e-scooter adoption rate. The new law, signed in September by former Gov. Jerry Brown (D), expands where the scooters can be ridden by allowing them on roads with higher speed limits than before – though the speed limit for the e-scooters themselves remains at 15 mph. The bill, backed by Bird, also allows adults to ride motorized scooters without a helmet, though they’re required for those under 18.
Since earlier last year, when e-scooters seemed to be showing up in unsuspecting cities, the companies now say they’re typically working with officials before launching. Such was the case with cities like Portland and Sacramento, which worked to address those issues before the scooters actually showed up there. That kind of pre-rollout work now seems to be more the norm than the guerilla-style start-up culture of the beginnings of the scooter craze.
Lime’s O’Boyle said that’s true for his company, which worked on Little Rock’s rollout plan. He said it’s in the company’s interest to work with regulatory agencies and city and state lawmakers to smooth the introduction of the vehicles.
“Everybody agrees this is a benefit,” O’Boyle said of reducing traffic and pollution. “Let’s work together to get a healthy framework.”
-- By SNCJ Correspondent David Royse
At least three states - New Hampshire, North Dakota and South Carolina - have introduced legislation dealing specifically with electric bicycles so far this year, according to LexisNexis State Net’s legislative tracking system. Last session, e-bike bills were introduced in seven states, three of which enacted such measures.
The partial shutdown of the federal government which began on Dec. 22 is already affecting state and local governments. And that impact could soon grow significantly.
According to Governing, mandatory programs that receive federal funding, like Medicaid and food stamps, generally won’t be affected by the shutdown. Even some discretionary programs like the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program won’t immediately suffer because they have plenty of funding. Highway programs will also be largely spared because they aren’t paid for out of the general fund.
The programs Governing said would be most affected by the shutdown are those that “help the most vulnerable populations”. Those programs include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and Child Care Development Fund programs that didn’t receive a full year of funding in the last federal appropriation.
Marcia Howard, executive director of Federal Funds Information for States, which analyzes the impact of federal actions on states, said states only had enough federal funding and money of their own to keep key programs running for several weeks, according to a report by Stateline.
For Michigan, which derives $22 billion of its $57 annual budget from the federal government, the critical date is Feb. 5, according to Kurt Weiss, a spokesman for the state’s budget office.
“That’s when we push the panic button,” he said. “We are starting to get more concerned. We need to start taking this seriously.”
Tom Hester, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Human Services, likewise, said if the shutdown extends beyond January, it could impact more than 10,000 recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and over 700,000 food stamp recipients in the state.
“We are closely monitoring actions at the federal level and any potential impacts on New Jersey,” he said.
The Associated Press reported that uncertainty over federal transportation funding is prompting some states to delay new road and bridge projects. The news agency cited the announcement by Oklahoma transportation officials last week of plans to put off bids on 45 highway projects totaling about $137 million.
“Unless they reach a resolution that includes the budget and authorizes us more money to put toward the projects, we can't add new projects,” said Oklahoma Department of Transportation spokeswoman Terri Angier.
Several states, including Arizona, California, New York and Utah, have already begun footing the bill to keep some of their national parks open, with no guarantee they’ll be reimbursed. Arizona, Colorado, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee and Utah have yet to be paid back the millions of dollars they spent to keep parks open during the two-week shutdown in 2013.
The states that could be hardest hit by a lengthy shutdown are Maryland and Virginia, which have the most federal employees per capita. Federal workers also make up a significant portion of the workforce in several other states, including Alaska and Hawaii. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers across the nation were slated to miss their first paycheck last week.
The shutdown has created a “crisis” for cities too, according to Steve Benjamin, mayor of Columbia, South Carolina, and president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. He said with the closure of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example, Section 8 and veterans housing vouchers aren’t being processed.
“This is affecting people’s lives,” he said. “We’re not just talking about the 800,000 federal workers. Our most economically vulnerable and hardest-working citizens won’t be able to pay rent.” (STATELINE.ORG, GOVERNING)
In 2016 California voters approved Proposition 64, legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, on the promise that the measure would, among other things, generate billions of dollars in tax revenues for the state and curb sales on the black market.
But in contrast to Colorado and Washington, where marijuana sales took off after recreational use became legal, retail sales in California have actually fallen since recreational use officially became legal last January. Legal sales in 2018 totaled about $2.5 billion, half a billion dollars less than in 2017, when only medical marijuana use was legal, according to the marijuana sales tracking company GreenEdge.
One of the problems in California is that recreational sales have been hindered by debates over regulation and resistance from cities and towns to allowing marijuana businesses on their streets.
But another major problem is that California produces way more cannabis than it consumes. According to a report last year from the state’s Department of Food and Agriculture, the state produces 15.5 million pounds of marijuana but uses only 2.5 million pounds of it. That huge surplus, which is about 13 times the total amount produced in Colorado each year, ends up on the black market.
“The bottom line is that there’s always been a robust illicit market in California — and it’s still there,” said Tom Adams of BDS Analytics, which provides analysis on the cannabis market. “Regulators ignored that and thought they could go straight into an incredibly strict and high-tax environment.”
Lori Ajax, who heads California’s Bureau of Cannabis Control and is sometimes referred to as the state’s cannabis czar, said the state needed to “step up” enforcement.
“As a state we have to get more aggressive,” she said.
But she also suggested another potential solution for the state’s surplus problem if marijuana sales become legal nationwide.
“It would be wonderful if we could sell to other states,” she said. (NEW YORK TIMES)
Last week, California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom (D), proposed a $209 billion general fund budget for next fiscal year, a 4-percent increase from the budget for the current fiscal year, which ends on June 30.
Continuing the fiscally cautious approach taken by his Democratic predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown, Newsom’s spending plan calls for the allocation of $13.6 billion to further increase the state’s budget reserve and pay down debt and pension liabilities.
But Newsom’s proposal also includes significant new spending for early childhood, K-12 and higher education, including universal preschool and free community college for first-time, full-time students; emergency preparedness and response, including $200 million to boost the state’s firefighting capabilities; and community services, including services for immigrants and the homeless. (SACRAMENTO BEE, CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR’S OFFICE)
The CALIFORNIA Public Utilities Commission has canceled its plan to begin charging a fee for text messaging on mobile phones. That decision came after the Federal Communications Commission ruled last month that text messaging was an information service rather than a telecommunications service. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
President Trump tweeted last week that he had ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency not to send any more disaster funding to CALIFORNIA for forest fires unless officials in the state “get their act together” on forest management. There was no confirmation from the White House or FEMA about the veracity of the tweet, which drew criticism from both Democratic and Republican politicians in the state. (LOS ANGELES TIMES)
In his annual address to the VIRGINIA General Assembly, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) called on lawmakers to boost a scheduled 3 percent pay raise for teachers by an additional 2 percent and provide tax breaks for low-income families. The state will have extra money to spend next year due in part to its stronger-than-expected economy and an increase in federal defense spending in the state. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Google has agreed to pay WASHINGTON $217,000 and Facebook will pay the state $238,000 to settle two lawsuits alleging the tech companies failed to obey state law on political-ad transparency. The companies have continued to deny they violated the law. (SEATTLE TIE, GEEKWIRE)
SOUTH CAROLINA Reps. Wendy Brawley (D) and Ivory Thigpen (D) are proposing legislation that would impose a new 7 percent fee on gun sales to provide funding for school resource officers. The minority party lawmakers said they fully anticipated opposition to the bill. (WYFF NEWS 4 [GREENVILLE])
As a result of the November elections, Democrats now control both the governor’s office and legislature in 14 states, up from eight in 2018. Democratic leaders in those states, located mainly in the West and Northeast, say they’ll focus on combating gun violence and climate change, as well as expanding access to voting and healthcare, and increasing teacher pay.
“Washington isn’t getting much done. We are, and we’re delivering on things people care about, schools, fixing roads, health care,” said Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D).
Republicans have unified control of the government in 22 states, mostly in the Mountain West, South and Rust Belt. Leaders in those states say they’ll focus on cutting taxes, increasing broadband access in rural areas and expanding their workforces to fuel economic growth.
“People want to grow their businesses. We all have workforce challenges in that we don’t have as many people as we could use,” said Linda Upmeyer (R), speaker of the Iowa House. “It’s not going to solve our problems to try and just attract workers from other states, because they need them too.”
One thing leaders in both red and blue states seem to agree on is the need for infrastructure investment.
“I think everybody has fallen behind on needed infrastructure,” said Phil Berger (R), president of North Carolina’s Senate. “Our local governments have unmet needs as far as school construction.”
All states will also have to address their annual fiscal duty.
“The one thing every legislature has to do every year is pass a budget,” said Bill Pound, executive director of the National Conference of State Legislatures. (HILL)
MICHIGAN Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) issues Executive Order 2019-10, which bars state agencies and departments from asking job applicants about previous salary history until a conditional offer of employment is made. The directive also prohibits retrieval of the same information by searching public records or databases (DETROIT NEWS).
MASSACHUSETTS Gov. Charlie Baker (R) signs HB 4806, which allows consumers who are the victims of a data breach to request up to three and a half years of free credit monitoring from the main reporting bureaus, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. The duration will depend on the type of information stolen. The companies are also required to freeze a person’s credit within five business days of a request to do so and are barred from charging customers for that service. Credit bureaus are also now prohibited from forcing consumers to waive their right to sue over data breaches (SALEM NEWS).
MASSACHUSETTS Gov. Charlie Baker (R) signs HB 482, which bars disability insurers from charging higher premiums based solely on gender, race, religion, or national origin (STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE [BOSTON].
The U.S. Supreme Court declined a request from Virginia Republicans for a stay on the redrawing of 11 House districts that a panel of federal judges ruled last June had been racially gerrymandered.
The decision wasn’t a total loss for the state’s Republicans. The Supreme Court had already agreed to consider their appeal of the ruling by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District.
“Obviously we hoped for a stay but the Court’s decision was not unexpected because the burden for a stay is very high,” said Parker Slaybaugh, a spokesman for House Speaker Kirk Cox (R). “However, the Court will hear our argument on the merits this spring and we are confident the map will be upheld.”
In the meantime, the process of redrawing the 11 districts and as many as 26 adjoining districts that might also need to be redrawn will continue under the supervision of the U.S. District Court.
Partisan control of the state’s House of Delegates is at stake, with all 100 seats in the House as well as all 40 seats in the Senate being contested in the fall and Republicans currently holding a slim majority in both chambers. (WASHINGTON POST)
In November, Missouri Republican Josh Hawley, then the state’s attorney general, carried all but four of the state’s 114 counties in claiming the U.S. Senate seat held by Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri). The GOP also maintained its supermajorities in both chambers of the state General Assembly. But at the same time, the state’s voters approved ballot measures increasing the minimum wage and legalizing medical marijuana.
In Florida, voters approved Amendment 4, restoring voting rights for former felons, even as they elected Republicans to the governor’s office and U.S. Senate, and allowed the GOP to hold on to its legislative majorities.
And in deep red Utah, rural voters approved a ballot measure expanding Medicaid.
Bill Bishop, co-founder of the Daily Yonder, which reports on rural issues, said, “There’s like a 20- to 25-point difference on voting for a Democrat and voting for a policy a Democrat would support.”
He said politics today is largely dictated by party identity, and voters will oppose a candidate simply because of their party affiliation, even if they like the candidate’s ideas.
Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which supports progressive ballot issues, said voters also look at political candidates differently than ballot issues. She said voters tend to view ballot measures from the perspective of how they will affect their own lives.
“They associate a lot of these candidates with political parties,” she said, “but then they look at the ballot and say, ‘I need access to health care, I’m going to vote for that.’” (GOVERNING)
NEW JERSEY Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver (D) signs AB 1414, a bill that mandates the state Board of Education include financial literacy instruction in the curriculum for sixth- through eighth-grade students in public schools across the Garden State. Oliver signed the bill while Gov. Phil Murphy (D) was out of state (NJ.COM).
MASSACHUSETTS Gov. Charlie Baker (R) signs SB 2374, which allows Bay State schools to incorporate personal financial literacy standards into existing mathematics, social science, technology, business, or other curricula (STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE [BOSTON]).
Well over 28,000 TEXAS state employees, 19.3 percent of the total state government workforce, left their jobs last year, the highest turnover in five years, according to a report from the state auditor’s office. The top reasons for the departures were retirement, pursuit of higher pay and adverse working conditions. (TEXAS TRIBUNE [AUSTIN])
SOUTH DAKOTA lawmakers are getting their first pay increase in over two decades. Their 90-percent raise, from $6,000 per session to $11,378.80, is the result of a law passed last year setting lawmaker salaries at a fifth of the state’s median household income. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Several Western and Sun Belt states, including TEXAS, FLORIDA, and ARIZONA, will likely pick up seats in the U.S. House in the next reapportionment after the 2020 census, as a result of population growth, according to projections by Election Data Services. Those gains will come at the expense of Rust Belt states, including PENNSYLVANIA, NEW YORK and OHIO, where populations have grown only modestly or declined. (HILL)
Personal contact information for VERMONT state representatives was removed from the state Legislature’s website this month. House Speaker Mitzi Johnson (D) said the action was taken in response to an increase in threatening phone calls and other behavior in the past two years. (VTDIGGER)