This year’s statehouse elections offer opportunities for both Democrats and Republicans to shift majority control of legislative chambers, according to Tim Storey of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Democrats are eyeing Republican-controlled senates in Colorado, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Washington and West Virginia, and GOP-led houses in Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire and New Mexico. Republicans are targeting Democrat-led senates in Iowa and Minnesota, and Democrat-controlled houses in Colorado, Kentucky, Maine and Washington.
Source: Tim Storey of National Conference of State Legislatures
Legend:
States with chambers Democrats targeting in 2016: Colorado*, Iowa*, Maine*, Minnesota*, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Washington, West Virginia
States with chambers Republicans targeting: Colorado*, Iowa*, Kentucky, Maine*, Minnesota*
We’ve all witnessed elected officials in recent years who have compounded blunders by performing them on social media. But one California pol recently proved one doesn’t have to actually be on Facebook or Twitter for those sites to cause you misery. As the Associated Press reports, California Assemblymember Scott Wilk was the only Republican in the Legislature to vote in support of the budget put together by majority Democrats. No, Wilk has not developed a sudden affinity toward bipartisanship. Rather, he says he voted for the bill by accident. And how, pray tell, did that happen? Wilk says he cast the vote while distracted because he was also on Facebook, where he was posting his disagreement with the proposal. He later offered a mea culpa via Twitter, saying “My wife is right — I can’t multitask!” Presumably that’s what he meant to do this time.
Is your corporate compliance program up to scratch? That question will be top of mind for global organizations as they analyze recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on evaluating the effectiveness of compliance programs. The detailed guidance explains the features of robust compliance programs, highlighting factors from the importance of Board-level engagement to third-party due diligence.
A strong compliance program is good for business. It demonstrates ethical operations and helps manage financial, strategic, operational and reputational risk. One of the most tangible benefits, however, is the role compliance plays in meeting regulatory obligations.
This DOJ guidance is designed for prosecutors investigating cases brought under legislation such as the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). Under the related Corporate Enforcement Policy, companies demonstrating an effective program at the time of the infringement, or one that has been established since, may be offered leniency in the form of reduced fines or lower monitoring requirements.
The cross-border reach of the FCPA and growing trend of collaboration between international enforcement agencies means businesses worldwide need to know what “effective” looks like to prioritize a culture of ethical operations and minimize penalties for misconduct.
Three “fundamental questions” to evaluate compliance program effectiveness
The DOJ guidance focuses on what it terms “three fundamental questions” that indicate a compliance program is functioning as a strong ongoing control over the risk of corporate corruption:
Is the corporation’s compliance program well-designed?
The program must accurately reflect the risks associated with the business. Policies and procedures must be comprehensive and consistently applied. Employees should receive training using relevant examples with access to a confidential system for reporting abuses. Misconduct reports must be investigated by a competent, well-resourced team. Crucially, the guidance states that “a well-designed program should apply risk-based due diligence to its third-party relationships…and comprehensive due diligence of any acquisition targets.”
Is the program being applied earnestly and in good faith?
Commitment to compliance must start with the Board, supported by senior and middle management. Appropriate resources and well-qualified personnel should be devoted to managing compliance and they should have the authority to act with autonomy. Incentives and deterrents should be in place to encourage compliance and ethical behaviour.
Does the program work?
The guidance recognizes that the existence of misconduct does not mean that a program was ineffective. Investigators will explore how the misconduct was detected, what analysis of root cause has taken place and what action has been carried out. Evidence of audit, testing, investigations and accountability are taken into account.
Third-party risk management
The DOJ guidance is very clear that an effective compliance program extends beyond the corporate perimeter.
Global businesses do not operate in a vacuum, but in an ecosystem of thousands of interconnected customers, partners and suppliers across multiple geographies. Each has potential to introduce risk to an organization and the company has explicit responsibility to identify, monitor and control that risk. This third-party risk management is a challenging aspect of anti-corruption compliance as it involves entities beyond the organization’s direct control. The FCPA blog notes that “Almost one in two enforcement actions concluded since the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention came into force in 1999 was the result of bribery through sales agents, intermediaries, distributors or brokers.”
The DOJ guidance emphasizes that the organization must understand the qualifications and associations of third-party suppliers and agents, particularly as these relate to foreign officials. There must be a clear business rationale for engaging with the third party and robust visibility of relationships and associations.
There are a variety of tools that can be used to achieve this ranging from subjective—supplier questionnaires and interviews—to objective—using independent intelligence platforms to access global data about the organisation and screening prospective partners against watchlists and politically exposed persons (PEPs) lists. A strong compliance team needs to employ internal and external sources to verify third-party claims and uncover any links or weaknesses that could pose a risk.
It is also important to recognize that third-party risk is constantly evolving. Compliance teams must establish a system of continuous monitoring that raises red flags as new risks are identified.
With complex supply chains and partner numbers in the thousands, this is a significant piece of work and organizations need to be efficient in allocating resources to the task. By taking advantage of automated risk monitoring where possible, the burden on compliance teams can be reduced and time unlocked for higher-value activities.
Setting the compliance bar high
The DOJ guidance provides excellent clarification on what is expected of today’s global corporations, leaving little doubt that compliance must be a watchword that starts with the Board and extends out through the partner and supply chain ecosystem. Implementing an effective corporate compliance program that covers third-party risk is a challenging undertaking, but with appropriate resources and tools, organizations can reap commercial benefits while reducing regulatory exposure.
Next Steps
We’re continuing our blog series, Consulting Predictions that Proved True. In this post, we’re digging into another one of our 2016 predictions – the increasing role of technology and how it will automate many human tasks. Where are we now, two years later? What is the role of technology and how can it improve how consultants work and deliver results for your clients? What potential missteps need to be avoided in the race toward efficiency and effectiveness?
If you read our last blog in the series , you’ll know that in 2016, LexisNexis developed a series of predictions based on insights and information gathered by Teague Communications and powered by LexisNexis. The comprehensive industry report focused on seven trends impacting consultants in multiple industries.
A popular prediction and the one we’re revisiting today is Technology Automation. It focuses on the emergence of sophisticated Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies likely to enable the automaton of important functions that humans provide, such as research and data analysis. Have we been able to make technology smart enough and intuitive enough to identify trends, patterns and insights that drive business decisions? Two years later, is this trend continuing or are humans still the most valuable asset for consulting firms?
Although it’s unlikely that you need to be truly concerned over your role being displaced by robo-consultants, experts predicted that consulting firms could create a more effective business model by combining technological analysis with human capital (1). New technologies that automate certain consulting functions would increasingly be viewed as an important complement to the skills of the professional consultants.
In 2018, has this proven to be true? According to a recent article from Infodesk, AI technology is used for new purposes almost every day. As an example, investment advisory services software powered by AI allows your client to set parameters to get specific financial advice, eliminating the need for interacting with the consulting team. Similar interactive technologies could become available for other advisory services as well. And the growth of cognitive computing and natural language processing make the potential role of AI even more viable.
So how do you embrace technology but mitigate its ability to make what you offer obsolete? There are a few tips to leveraging technology while improving your own value at the same time.
One of the ways to become indispensable to your clients is through the insights only you can provide. To be sure you’re giving them insights that are relevant, current, strategic and actionable, leverage technology to get you to the best content. While free content is plentiful, vetted, trusted content is harder to find. By working with a content solution that connects you to thousands of reliable sources, you can be sure you’re using data and information that will help you develop recommendations with real business relevance.
It’s no secret that technology can make us exponentially more efficient. As you focus on developing the reports your clients want, be sure you’re cutting the time it takes to create them without cutting the quality. Set up custom alerts on the topics of interest to your clients. You can increase your confidence in being current and relevant. Best-in-class research solutions can track the people, places, industries and topics of interest to you and notify you anywhere you are of changes and updates, oftentimes even hourly. It’s a tool you can use that will increase your value almost immediately.
As a consultant, you often need to be able to go left and go right, and in the same day. What does this mean from a research standpoint? It means being able to be flexible enough to be both global and local – how do global trends and patterns impact local markets – and to be both forward facing while taking historical data into consideration – will history repeat itself? The best insights often develop when all these perspectives come together to give a full, 360-degree view of a company, person, market or issue.
There’s no doubt that technology will continue to play an increasing role in the consulting market. But, by balancing what we allow technology to replace and leveraging technology to enhance our human efforts, you will strike the right balance for clients and add real value to the future of their businesses.
Want more?
Need a resource to get you that 360-degree view? Let’s talk about the power of Nexis.
Want some research tricks for your consultancy? Check out our tip sheet.
Do you have your own data analysis team that needs the raw data into their workstreams? Learn more about our Data as a Service capabilities.
1. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/uberization-consulting-abhijit-hazari
The Federal Communications Commission issued a ruling in February preempting laws in North Carolina and Texas that restricted municipalities from developing their own broadband networks. As of January 2014, 20 states had such restrictions in place, according to the communications law firm Baller Herbst. The firm said Alabama, for example, required municipalities to hold a referendum before creating a broadband network and California only allowed public communications services if there were no private alternatives, while Texas banned such services altogether.
Source: Baller Herbst Law Group, Ars Technica, Verge
Key:
States with laws restricting municipal broadband development: Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin
States with laws specifically preempted by FCC ruling: North Carolina, Tennessee
Life expectancy for most of the developed world has risen for years. But ongoing research by Princeton University economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton reveals that over the last two decades mortality rates have spiked sharply for one specific group of people: middle-aged white Americans with less than a college education. And much like the complex and varied causes behind it, the problem has no easy solution.
According to Case and Deaton, the reversal in mortality fortunes for white non-Hispanics has been startling, particularly given that mortality rates for other population segments have fallen drastically over that same time frame. In a paper released in March – a follow up to their blockbuster 2015 study – they lay out just how significant the problem has become:
“Mortality rates among blacks and Hispanics continue to fall; in 1999, the mortality rate of white non-Hispanics aged 50-54 with only a high school degree was 30 percent lower than the mortality rate of blacks in the same age group; by 2015, it was 30 percent higher,” they write. “There are similar crossovers between white and black mortality in all age groups from 25-29 to 60-64.”
More recently-released data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta shows that between 1999 and 2015 the death rate among African-Americans dropped by 25 percent; for white Americans it only fell by 14 percent.
As with their 2015 study, Case and Deaton point to an array of factors contributing to what they call “deaths of despair,” including increased alcohol and drug abuse – particularly of opioid pain medications – unrelenting economic struggles, loss of marriages and family, the ravages of chronic diseases like diabetes and higher rates of suicide. But for all that, they find no single clearly definable root cause as to why those factors affect one demographic group so much more than any other.
“We knew suicides were going up rapidly, and that overdoses mostly from prescription drugs were going up, and that alcoholic liver disease was going up. The deeper questions were why those were happening — there’s obviously some underlying malaise, reasons for which we [didn’t] know,” Deaton told NPR after the paper was released.
While direct causation may be hard to pin down, the education level attained would seem to be an extremely significant factor, with mortality rates among middle-aged whites without a college degree on the rise while rates for those with a college diploma are falling. That prompted Case to tell Vox “It looks like there are two Americas. One for people who went to college and one that didn’t.”
Case and Deaton note the impact of economic changes brought about by the long, slow outmigration of American manufacturing and other high-paying jobs that often did not require a college degree, a trend exacerbated by the onset of the Great Recession in 2008. And while people with college degrees also suffered through the economic downturn, they appear to have recovered far better than those with a high school diploma or less.
That is not surprising to observers like Dr. Tony Iton of the California Endowment, which advocates for expanding access to health care for underserved communities in the Golden State. His organization has conducted similar research on mortality rates in California’s Central Valley, with comparable results. While death rates among both younger and middle-aged whites are decreasing across most of California, death rates among those groups in the four counties they studied have risen dramatically. He argues that over the last several decades America has systematically undermined or eliminated several key tools people often need to rise above meager economic beginnings or to adequately adapt to an ever-changing job market: education, job training and social welfare services.
“When you look at the data, the American Dream is dead,” he says. “That is in great part because among the world’s developed countries we have one of the lowest rates of economic mobility. We’ve broken the ladder, so to speak, that allows people to be nimble and respond to changes in the economic environment.
“Other countries have made the consequences of job loss much less punishing,” he adds. “In this country the consequences of job loss are extremely punishing. You lose your health care. You essentially lose all of your income. You lose your self-esteem, and there’s very little for you to fall back on and regroup and take a shot at another kind of employment.”
Deaton expressed similar thoughts to Vox in March. “You could graduate high school, work at Bethlehem Steel, get more money every year as you get more experienced and turn yourself into one of the famed blue-collar aristocrats of the 1970s,” he said. “There’s a feeling that life has gone, and remainders of that life are getting less and less for each generation.”
But if all demographic groups have also suffered through these historic economic changes, why is rising mortality impacting only white, middle-aged Americans with limited education? And if education is the key factor here, why does it seem unimportant in Europe, where mortality rates among lower educated whites actually are falling even faster than among the college educated? Researchers like Iton believe the roots are at least partly in the historic expectations that white Americans have for themselves.
“This is particularly hard on this group of people who have traditionally invested so much of their identity in their work,” Iton says. “In that instance, the emotional consequences of job loss are devastating.”
That kind of unrelenting emotional stress, he says, often results in physical pain, illness and addiction. Case and Denton also say expectation plays a role, but more in relation to the belief among many middle-aged whites that they should have a better life than their parents did and the bitter disappointment they experience if they do not.
“It’s the life you expected to have relative to your father or grandfather — it’s just not there anymore,” Deaton told Vox.
But what to do about it? Just as no one element can be directly blamed for the problem, no single government solution is likely to fix it. In recent years lawmakers have attacked various aspects of the issue. Several states and the federal government have adopted new restrictions or guidelines on the prescribing of opioids. Over a dozen states have ramped up efforts to address mental health and depressive disorders and many of them have invested in vocational and Linked Learning education programs designed to give kids who don’t go to college a better chance to make a good living in a trade.
Other efforts to bolster the social safety net that some researchers suggest would be helpful – a single payer health care system, for instance – are politically problematic. As this is being written, Congress and President Donald Trump are in fact still negotiating a repeal of the Affordable Care Act, which could conceivably cost millions of people their health care coverage. And even if this latest effort fails, Republicans that control Congress and many statehouses have made it clear they will continue to work to overturn the law. And while they have promised to replace it with something better, no such plan has yet materialized.
With that in mind, two California lawmakers are pushing a proposal (SB 562) to implement a single payer health care system in the Golden State. That measure would cover every resident, including unauthorized immigrants, and drastically reduce the role of insurance companies in health care coverage. The bill’s authors - Sens. Ricardo Lara and Toni Atkins, both Democrats – say it would be paid for with “broad based revenue,” though they have not yet offered specifics. They have said a detailed financial analysis will be ready by this month.
The plan is a longshot at best. Gov. Jerry Brown (D), who has made fiscal frugality a major element of his governorship, has expressed reservations about the plan’s expense. It would also require multiple waivers from the federal government, including one to allow the redirection of federal Medicaid dollars that currently isn’t allowed by law.
“The single payer plan is just not plausible at the state level,” says Micah Weinberg, a health care expert for the Bay Area Council, a pro-business group in San Francisco that has long supported the ACA. “We already learned this from the failure in Vermont, where single-payer was tried and found wanting. If you can’t do it in a state with a half a million socialists you sure can’t do it in a state with 40 million diverse people like California.”
A proposal to replace existing health insurance plans with a state-run single-payer plan was overwhelmingly voted down last November in Colorado. Weinberg says states and the federal government would be far better off financially – and would likely see better outcomes for those facing higher mortality risks – if they increased their focus on retraining workers who have been displaced either by outsourcing or automation.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the federal government already spends about $18 billion annually on worker training programs. But Heritage Foundation research fellow Dr. David Muhlhausen argues the federal government does a poor job at retraining workers and should hand the task off to states, which he contends have a better handle on the specific needs of industries in their locales. Although President Trump made job creation a major part of his campaign, observers like Muhlhausen doubt he and Congress will address the retraining issue any time soon.
Case understands the political challenges facing lawmakers of both parties who might want to take on these issues. Adopting a social safety net akin to those found in many European nations is simply not likely to happen any time soon. But like most problems, ignoring it isn’t much of an option either.
“Americans like to think of themselves as individuals who can look after themselves and their families, and expect the same of their neighbors. A stronger safety net may not be politically feasible,” she told The Guardian in March, but adding “The difference between a ‘helping hand’ and a ‘handout’ may be in the eye of the beholder.”
At least 11 states have considered measures this session mimicking Hawaii’s newly implemented law that raises the minimum age for purchasing tobacco products to 21, according to LexisNexis State Net’s legislative database. California’s SB 7 b is the farthest along, awaiting gubernatorial action. But legal tobacco age measures have already failed in four of the other states.
Source: LexisNexis State Net
Legal tobacco age legislation awaiting gubernatorial action: California
Legal tobacco age bills pending in legislature: Iowa, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont
Legal tobacco age legislation failed: Connecticut, Utah, Washington, West Virginia
Last year, Millward Brown, a global brand strategy and advertising organization, predicted a “mind shift in focus from ‘big’ data to streamlined ‘intelligent’ data.” Of course, that’s easier said than done, especially when the volume and velocity of information seems to be increasing exponentially. Identifying the critical competitive intelligence you need amidst all the noise takes time—a commodity that is already in short supply. How can analytics help?
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again. Competitive intelligence isn’t just about your competitors; it’s about all of the factors that can influence your organization’s ability to compete successfully in a cutthroat business world. How cutthroat? Fifty percent of companies on the Fortune 500 list in 2000 have already fallen off due to mergers, acquisitions or bankruptcies. And they aren’t just losing out to other big players: Small, disruptive innovators are turning established leaders on their heads across industries.
As an information or competitive intelligence professional, you need access to a broad array of content types.
And it’s not information that is easily discovered on the open Web; anyone who has searched for this type of information knows that the Internet is like a trip down the rabbit hole—you hop from one source to another, looking for verifiable data from trustworthy sources. It’s a time-consuming process that leaves you with more questions than answers.
Instead of getting lost in a series of data dead-ends or running up against paywalls, many information and CI pros rely on aggregation services that pull together multiple types of content in one place. But without analytics, you’re still going to spend a lot of time trying to uncover real insight. Built-in analytics tools can help you filter out the noise to focus in on the key competitive insights that can help fuel data-driven decision making across your enterprise. With analytics, you can ‘look at’ thousands of articles in an instant to see emerging trends sooner. You can generate meaningful—and easy-to-digest—data visualizations for the C-suite. You can benchmark your company’s performance against the marketplace. In short, you can find the insights you need in less time. Are you taking advantage of the best tools for conducting competitive intelligence research? Let us know what you’re doing to stay on top of big data!
Premium increases for the most popular category of health insurance plans under Obamacare will vary widely in 2017, based on analysis of proposed rate filings for eight states where complete data is available by Avalere Health. The average proposed rate increases for the states’ “silver plans,” the second-lowest tier of coverage, range from 5 percent in Washington to 19 percent in Virginia. Avalere attributes the coming premium growth to lower-than-anticipated enrollment, higher healthcare costs, and the expiration of the state-based reinsurance and federal risk corridor programs.
Source: Avalere Health
Rate
Proposed “silver plan” premium increase of 0-10 percent: Indiana (6%), Vermont (8%), Washington (5%)
Proposed increase of 11-15 percent: Maryland (15%), New York (15%)
Proposed increase of 16 percent or more: Maine (18%), Oregon (17%), Virginia (19%)
The Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, has provided health insurance for millions of Americans who previously lacked coverage and flocked to hospital emergency rooms in times of medical crisis. But six years after its enactment on a party-line vote, Obamacare remains a work in progress. Despite having been found constitutional by the Supreme Court, the ACA faces additional legal tests as well as political challenges from Left and Right. Even backers of the law express concern over its failure to curb insurance costs, a development that threatens further advances.
The good news about the ACA is that it has significantly reduced the ranks of the medically uninsured. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month found that 16.2 million people who lacked coverage in 2013, when the ACA became fully operative, had health insurance by the end of 2015. The percentage of uninsured fell to 9.1 percent, the first time this statistic has been in single digits. Furthermore, the CDC finding could be an understatement. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has estimated the number of newly insured at 20 million.
But that’s it for the good news. Rising costs, heavy claims and reduced federal assistance are causing insurance companies to reevaluate the ACA, which offers four levels of coverage through on-line exchanges operated by HHS in 37 states. Thirteen states and the District of Columbia run their own exchanges. Some companies, including UnitedHealth, Blue Shield and Blue Cross, cite losses on policies issued under both the federal and state exchanges despite rate increases that averaged 8 percent nationally in 2016. As a result, many companies intend to seek much higher increases next year.
Observing that these 2017 rate increases will be announced on November 1, just a week before Election Day, Politico speculated they may be harmful to Democrats. Any political impact, however, would probably vary from state to state. Proposed increases for the “silver plan,” the second-level Obamacare tier, could rise by at least 18 percent in Maine, Maryland, Oregon, Vermont and Virginia, according to two studies, but only 5 percent in Washington state and 6 percent in Indiana.
More worrisome than rate increases is the growing trend of insurers to withdraw from Obamacare entirely. Minnesota-based UnitedHealth, the nation’s largest health insurer, has pulled out of most ACA exchanges, most recently in California. Wyoming is now served by a single insurer and Alabama and Alaska are expected to become single-insurer states in 2017. Insurers are particularly sparse in rural areas. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 225 counties, most of them largely rural, have only one insurer. The foundation expects this number to jump to 650 counties in 2017.
Even where competition abounds and policies are reasonably priced, some ACA recipients feel like “second-class patients,” according to Elisabeth Rosenthal of the New York Times. In a thoughtful article evaluating pluses and minuses of Obamacare, Rosenthal focused on self-employed small-business owners who originally welcomed the ACA but have since learned that various doctors and hospitals will not accept their policies. “Some early studies of the impact of the Affordable Care Plans are proving patients’ grumbling justified,” Rosenthal wrote. “Compared with the insurance that companies offer their employees, plans provide less coverage away from patients’ home states, require higher patient outlays for medicines and include a more limited number of doctors and hospitals, referred to as a narrow network policy.”
Meanwhile, in Congress the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, which has many times voted to repeal the ACA, continues a legal assault against Obamacare. The House won the latest battle when Judge Rosemary Collyer, a George W. Bush appointee to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., ruled that insurance companies cannot be recompensed with tax credits for reducing deductibles and co-payments. She found that Congress did not authorize appropriations for this purpose when it passed the ACA. Given past Supreme Court decisions twice upholding the law, Judge Collyer’s decision is widely expected to be overturned on appeal, but President Obama could be out of office before this happens.
The ACA may also be hampered by a decision of the Internal Revenue Service creating an obstacle for streamlined health care networks that had the promise of lowering costs. Independent doctors and hospitals have been forming networks known as accountable care organizations to coordinate care for patients. But in denying a tax exemption to one of these organizations, which it did not identify, the IRS said it did not qualify for tax-exempt status because it was not operated exclusively for charitable purposes.
Outside the courts and regulatory agencies, Obamacare is being tested in the political arena by presidential candidates who are all over the map on health issues. Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump says he would scrap Obamacare without saying what he would put in its place. “We are going to replace Obamacare with something so much better,” he has said.
Democratic contender Bernie Sanders is highly detailed. He supports a single-payer system run by the federal government, an option rejected by the Obama administration when the ACA was being debated in Congress. But Sanders is now all but out of any real chance to win the nomination, while presumptive Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton is a staunch supporter of the ACA. Even so, under constant pressure from Sanders she has talked about expanding Medicare to persons in their 50s.
The conflicting positions of the candidates reflect the division of the public. A Gallup survey in May found 47 percent support and 49 percent opposition for the ACA, a virtual tie. The split was along party lines, with a majority of Democrats supportive of the law and an even larger majority of Republicans opposed. Slowly but steadily the percentage of Americans who tell Gallup the ACA has helped them and their families has risen and is now at 22 percent. But the percentage of those who say the ACA has hurt them has also risen and is now at 26 percent.
These partisan differences suggest that Obamacare will continue as a contentious issue regardless of the outcome of this year’s elections. The U.S. Senate, now under Republican control, could change hands, but neither side expects to win the 60 seats that conservatives would need to repeal Obamacare or liberals would need to adopt single-payer. In all likelihood the ACA will remain in place, becoming steadily more embedded in the nation’s social fabric with each passing year.
Muddling through with Obamacare does not necessarily require accepting all of its shortcomings. The federal government and the states face a challenge of making the Affordable Care Act truly affordable for those with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid but too low to afford health insurance. Facing this challenge will require Democrats and Republicans alike to swallow their pride and address the issue in a bipartisan way. Perhaps this prospect, which now seems wildly remote, will become possible as costs rise and options narrow after the election. Perhaps.
In 1955 the California Supreme Court ruled in Allen v. City of Long Beach (1955) that workers enter a contract with their employers from their first day on the job, and their pension benefits can’t be reduced unless they’re replaced with comparable benefits. The so-called “California Rule” was adopted by 12 other states, according to an article by Amy Monahan, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, published in the Iowa Law Review in 2012. Monahan noted that three of the 12 states modified the standard after adopting it.
New York pays a larger share of its total Medicaid spending than any other state, at 51.2 percent, with the federal government covering the other 48.8 percent, according to data compiled by the Kaiser Family Foundation. New York also pays the most in total dollars, $39.8 billion, outspending even California, the nation’s most populous state, by nearly $6 billion. Montana pays the smallest portion of its overall Medicaid spending, at just 20 percent.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
Outgoing WISCONSIN Gov. Scott Walker (R) signaled his intention to sign a package of bills passed by lawmakers in the lame duck session that are widely interpreted as a move by majority Republicans to limit the power of Gov.-elect Tony Evers (D). In a long Facebook post, Walker said Evers would still have some of the strongest powers of any governor in the nation. (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, GOVERNING)
WISCONSIN Gov.–elect Tony Evers (D) announced the formation of a state task force to develop an action plan for reforming the Badger State prison system. Task force members will include two former state Supreme Court justices and three people who previously ran the system. (WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO)
NEBRASKA Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) said he is open to working with lawmakers to develop a so-called “stand your ground” law in the Cornhusker State. Such statutes give residents far greater latitude to use lethal force to defend themselves in their homes, workplaces and other locations. (LINCOLN JOURNAL-STAR)
The MONTANA Supreme Court ruled that Gov. Steve Bullock (D) acted within the law when he circumvented the State Board of Land Commissioners to finalize an eastern Montana conservation easement. The ruling overturned a legal opinion issued by Attorney General Tim Fox (R). As a result of the ruling, the Land Board will no longer cast the deciding vote on conservation easements. (MISSOULIAN)
Anticipating a budget surplus in the coming year, VIRGINIA Gov. Ralph Northam (D) proposed dedicating $90 million each year starting in fiscal year 2020 to a cost-sharing program to help farmers make their properties more environmentally friendly. He also proposed a one-time $50 million deposit into a state fund that provides cities and counties that include urban areas with matching grants to manage the quality of water running off roads, parking lots and sidewalks. Lawmakers must approve the proposal. (DAILY PRESS [NEWPORT NEWS])
MICHIGAN Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed legislation Wednesday (SB 1197) to create a new authority to oversee a controversial proposal to replace the Line 5 tunnel in the Straits of Mackinac. Opponents say the plan puts the state at risk for a catastrophic spill during the seven to 10 years it is expected to take to dig the $350-million tunnel in bedrock beneath the straits. Snyder named a top aide, an academic and a labor leader as the authority’s three members. Gov.-elect Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Attorney General-elect Dana Nessel (D) both oppose the new line, saying Line 5 should be decommissioned instead. (LANSING STATE JOURNAL)
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by Republican lawmakers in VIRGINIA of a lower court ruling ordering 11 House of Delegates districts to be redrawn to address racial gerrymandering. That decision will apparently not stop the redistricting process now under way by a court-appointed “special master.” (WASHINGTON POST)
Common Cause and NORTH CAROLINA’s Democratic Party filed a lawsuit last week claiming the state’s legislative districts are partisan gerrymanders in violation of the state’s Constitution and calling for the districts to be redrawn before the 2020 election. The suit is likely to eventually be heard by the state’s Supreme Court, where Democrats will hold a 5-2 majority, as a result of this month’s election. (NEWS & OBSERVER [RALEIGH])
On Nov. 6 ranked-choice voting - in which voters rank candidates by order of preference and if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes cast, the votes are automatically reallocated until a candidate reaches that threshold - was used for the first time in a general election for a congressional seat, in MAINE’s 2nd District. The winner of that race, Democrat Jared Golden, was decided in the second round of the voting process. (NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO, STATELINE)
Republican legislative leaders in OHIO may take action soon to make it harder to qualify or pass constitutional amendments, according to comments made last week by House Speaker Ryan Smith (R). Those remarks came days after voters in the state overwhelmingly rejected a proposed constitutional amendment (Issue 1) that would have ended jail time for those convicted of drug possession. (COLUMBUS DISPATCH)
-- Compiled by KOREY CLARK
Conventional wisdom holds that cities need population growth to be economically healthy. But between 2000 and 2016 per-capita income in Pittsburgh rose 24 percent - well over the national average of 18 percent - while the city’s population shrunk by 4 percent, roughly 95,000 people. Similar trends have been seen in Davenport, Iowa; Springfield, Massachusetts; Buffalo, New York; Providence, Rhode Island; Beaumont, Texas; and New Orleans, Louisiana.
One of the keys to these cities’ successful decoupling of population and income is high-paying jobs in energy, health care and education. STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) jobs make up about 7 percent of all jobs available in Pittsburgh and about 5 percent of the job markets in Davenport, Buffalo and Providence.
But Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce, cautions that some of those jobs could disappear if the population shrinks too much.
“If you go through small towns, you’ll always see that the one with the hospital has some good jobs,” he said. “But if the population is too elderly and rural — that’s just one generation burying the last. It’s not sustainable. There’s going to be some consolidation of health care, I think, into more urban areas.” (STATELINE)
Near the end of August, we headed to the 85th IFLA World Library and Information Congress in Athens, Greece. As a bronze sponsor and exhibitor, we were excited to meet with current customers and introduce Nexis Uni and Nexis to many others from around the globe.
Our own Marco van Gennip presented an informative session entitled, “Ensuring Trust, Credibility and Influence in Your Library: A Look Into the Importance of Search Relevance in the Digital World.” During the presentation, he focused on three key areas:
We also had some learning moments during IFLA:
Last, but not least, we must say that despite the August heat, Athens welcomed everyone with their welcoming personalities and extra tasty food!
North Carolina Gov.-elect Roy Cooper (D) threatened to sue the GOP-dominated Tar Heel State Legislature last week over the Republicans’ move to limit gubernatorial powers before he takes office. Cooper was reacting to legislation proposed in a surprise special session called by current Gov. Pat McCrory (R) – the man Cooper is ousting after a bitter battle that included major vote recounts before McCrory would concede – to consider bills that would end gubernatorial control over election boards, require the Senate to approve the new governor’s cabinet members and strip his power to appoint University of North Carolina trustees.
“If I believe these measures are unconstitutional, they will see me in court and they don’t have a good track record there,” Cooper said, adding “Most people might think this is a partisan power grab, but it’s really more ominous.”
Republicans have claimed the changes are necessary to ensure a balance of power in state government; Democrats have called them “a coup.” (POLITICO, NEW YORK TIMES)
Lobbyist spending last year in MISSOURI - which totaled about $690,000 - was down by more than $200,000 from any other year on record, and spending has continued to fall this year, according to analysis of Missouri Ethics Commission data by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Rep. Justin Alferman (R), who has pre-filed a bill for the 2017 session to ban lobbyist gifts to lawmakers, said he thinks greater public scrutiny of such gifts and the ban on meals sponsored by lobbyists at committee meetings imposed by Speaker John Diehl (R) in 2014 are the primary reasons for the spending decline. (ST LOUIS POST-DISPATCH)
The KANSAS Policy Institute, a conservative think tank with ties to the billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, announced it is launching its own news service, called the Sentinel, to counter what it considers liberal bias in traditional media outlets. (LAWRENCE JOURNAL-WORLD)
At least a dozen states have introduced legislation in 2016 related to out-of-state, or remote, sales taxes, according to LexisNexis State Net’s legislative tracking database. Most of the bills have been aimed at expanding the definition of a state presence, or “nexus,” for sales tax purposes and/or providing for the reporting and remittance of use taxes. Those measures include South Dakota’s SB 106, enacted last month, and a trio of bills, introduced in a special session in Louisiana in February, that failed. Several other remote sales tax-related bills have also been introduced, including measures limiting the definition of nexus and a shell bill in Illinois (SB 2793) that includes nothing but the title the “Marketplace Fairness Act.”
Introduced legislation this year to expand definition of sales tax nexus and/or provide for reporting and remittance of use taxes: Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Rhode Island*, South Dakota, Utah
Introduced legislation related to other remote sales tax issues: Alabama, Illinois, Massachusetts, Rhode Island*, Washington
Legislation related to daily fantasy sports (DFS) has been drafted or introduced this year in 16 states, according to LegalSportsReport.com, which covers the legal online sports wagering industry. The bills generally seek to legalize DFS in states that don’t allow fantasy sports or to regulate it like gambling. DFS sites, including industry leaders DraftKings and FanDuel, also ban play in certain states, but the bans don’t necessarily reflect the legal status of DFS in those states.
Source: LegalSportsReport.com, LexisNexis State Net
Drafted or introduced DFS legislation in 2015: California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Texas
Banned from play on DraftKings and FanDuel: Arizona, Nevada,
Both categories: Iowa, Montana, Washington, New York, Louisiana
With the sudden resignation of Robert Bentley last Monday, Lt. Gov. Kay Ivey (R) became Alabama’s second female governor last week.
After resisting calls for him to quit for more than a year over accusations he had misused public funds to carry on and cover up an affair with a former top aide, Bentley unexpectedly stepped down days before impeachment hearings were set to begin against him. He then pleaded guilty to a pair of misdemeanor charges related to covering up the alleged affair: failing to file a major contribution report and knowingly using campaign contributions for personal use.
Under a plea deal worked out with law enforcement officials, Bentley faces up to a year of probation and 100 hours of community service, which he is expected to perform in his capacity as a licensed dermatologist, and he must surrender approximately $37,000 in campaign funds to the state. He is not expected to receive any jail time.
Bentley’s departure brought desperately needed relief to many Heart of Dixie lawmakers grown weary of the constant controversy surrounding the governor.
“The impeachment process had sucked all the energy out of the room, so to speak,” said Sen. Bill Holtzclaw (R). “I really do feel like we, now that that’s off the table, can move forward on a lot of things that we’re doing legislatively.”
Alabama Senate President pro Tem Del Marsh (R) agreed, saying “The cloud that was over the state has now been lifted.” March also praised Ivey, saying her ascension left the Legislature “in a great position” to finish off priorities like prison reform and the state budget. (GOVERNING, WASHINGTON POST, WAAYTV.COM [HUNTSVILLE])
The U.S. Department of Justice dropped a bombshell on the online gambling industry last week when it announced a legal opinion it issued in November saying the federal Wire Act of 1961 - prohibiting the use of wire communication facilities to conduct gambling across state lines - applied to all forms of interstate wagering.
The opinion reverses one issued under the Obama administration in 2011 maintaining that the Wire Act’s prohibitions applied only to sports betting. The DOJ said that previous opinion misinterpreted the federal statute.
“Based upon the plain language of the statute...we reach a different result,” DOJ attorneys wrote in the Nov. 2 opinion. “While the Wire Act is not a model of artful drafting, we conclude that the words of the statute are sufficiently clear and that all but one of its prohibitions sweep beyond sports gambling.”
The reversal was a big win for major GOP donor and casino owner Sheldon Adelson, who’d long sought a reconsideration of the 2011 opinion.
The new opinion is unlikely to have much of an impact on the sports betting industry because the Wire Act already applied to such wagering under the earlier interpretation. But the new opinion does threaten the viability of online gambling operations in Delaware, Nevada and New Jersey that let poker players compete across those states. And Daniel Wallach, co-founder and director of the University of New Hampshire School of Law Sports Wagering and Integrity Program, said the opinion could have “an immediate chilling effect” on state lotteries that do internet sales.
Jennifer Roberts, associate director of the International Center for Gaming Regulation at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, said the ultimate impact of the opinion depends on how strictly the DOJ chooses to enforce it.
“Some could go really far and say even if you send a text message to a casino customer in another state and you are saying ‘Come play blackjack this weekend here’s a deal,’ arguably you can say that is information that assists in the placement of a wager,” she said. “I doubt it will go that far, but we will once again be subject to the interpretation.”
The opinion will likely be challenged in court, a prospect the DOJ attorneys acknowledged themselves in the document. (ASSOCIATED PRESS, FORTUNE)
Outgoing FLORIDA Senate president Joe Negron (R) has taken a job with private prison operator Geo Group. When Negron became Senate president in 2016, the company contributed $270,000 to a political committee he controlled, and he supported legislation beneficial to Geo in particular and private prison interests in general, including a bill that nearly passed in 2012 which would have privatized the state’s entire prison system. (MIAMI HERALD)
NEBRASKA’s Democratic Party has voted to discontinue using caucuses, which it has been doing since 2008, and go back to using a regular primary system. According to a press release the party is making the change to “ensure all Democrats and Independents can participate in our Presidential primary while also voting for critical down ballot candidates.” (OMAHA WORLD-HERALD)
KANSAS state senator Barbara Bollier has switched parties from Republican to Democrat. She cited President Trump as a factor in her decision, but she also has a history of clashing with Republican leadership over LGBT and other issues and serves a district that leans Democratic. (WICHITA EAGLE)
The stakes are high.
The South Carolina primary will either boost or blow a Republican candidate’s shot at the presidential nomination. Historically, South Carolina has been a fierce battleground state for the Republican Party. The winner of the state primary has always become the GOP’s eventual nominee, with one lone exception: the 2012 race in which Mitt Romney took second place behind Newt Gingrich, but went on to secure the Republican presidential nomination.
Donald Trump currently leads the Republican race in South Carolina by a 13 percent margin (as of 2/18/2016) with Ted Cruz closing in. But election polls—which can change day by day and hour by hour—only tell part of the story. If media coverage is any indication, Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio could give Trump and Cruz a run for their money.
Despite their “middle of the pack” polling numbers thus far, Bush and Rubio are quickly becoming media darlings in the “Smiling Faces, Beautiful Places” state. The coverage doesn’t lie: Even as Cruz has gained ground on Trump in the polls, Bush and Rubio have secured significant media attention this week in South Carolina.
Bush’s rising media coverage comes as he focuses much of his time, energy and resources throughout the state. He continues to attend town hall meetings and rallies across South Carolina, and has had his mother, Barbara, and brother, former President George W. Bush, campaigning on his behalf in hopes of securing votes ahead of the primary.
Rubio’s increase is likely from the endorsement he received Wednesday from South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley. Newsdesk analysis shows a dramatic spike in coverage when the announcement was made on Feb. 17.
But does the amount of media coverage for each candidate correspond with how they are doing in the polls in South Carolina? Yes—sort of.
As shown by this Share of Voice breakdown (the percentage of articles written about one candidate vs. the others), all candidates rank in the same position in the media as they do in the polls—with one exception. Bush edged out Rubio in the amount of total media coverage received over the last seven days, despite ranking behind him—sometimes by nearly 10 points—in all major polls.
Media Coverage
Polling
Donald Trump
Ted Cruz
Jeb Bush
Marco Rubio
John Kasich
Dr. Ben Carson
As of 2/18/2016
Does this media coverage/polling comparison show promise for Bush’s campaign? What about Rubio? We’ll find out for sure on Saturday, but this analysis provides some interesting insight into the media coverage of our presidential election.
The MISSISSIPPI Senate approves SB 2469, so-called “blue lives matter” legislation that makes it a hate crime to target someone for a crime solely because they are a law enforcement officer, firefighter or emergency medical technician. The measure moves to the House (JACKSON CLARION-LEDGER).