CategoryNewsletters

May 24, 2019: John Delaney released a $4 trillion climate action proposal. Bill Weld said he will focus his campaign on states with crossover voting.

We’ll be back on Tuesday, May 28!

Here’s the latest from the campaign trail.

Staff Spotlight

Zach Graumann is a former financial planner and executive. He has no prior campaign management experience.

Other experience:

2014-present: Suit Up Incorporated, co-founder and chief executive officer

2014-2018: UBS Wealth Management, director of client philanthropy solutions

2012-2014: UBS Wealth Management, associate director

2011-2013: St. Mary’s Catholic Academy, treasurer

What he says about Yang:

“An outsider candidate raising nearly $2 million in two months in entirely small contributions is unheard of. Andrew Yang has proven he can build an online fundraising army from scratch — the Yang Gang effect is real.”

Notable Quote of the Day

“Still six years short of the Constitution’s minimum age requirement to be president herself, [Alexandria] Ocasio-Cortez’s massive social media following and ability to generate news headlines has made her a key player in the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

With progressives looking to stand out in the crowded field of more than 20 candidates, some Democrats believe that no endorsement—other than the Obamas—would be more potent in [sic] than one from Ocasio-Cortez.”

– Eric Bradner, CNN national political reporter

Democrats

• Michael Bennet introduced the Opioid Crisis Accountability Act to fund programs to address the opioid crisis through a general fine on opioid manufacturers and distributors covered by federal health programs beginning in 1993.

• Joe Biden tweeted support for McDonald’s workers striking for a $15 minimum wage.

• Cory Booker announced more than a dozen new national campaign staff, including Amanda Perez as national policy director, Emily Norman as chief innovation officer, and Jen Kim as states chief of staff.

• Steve Bullock has also hired 10 new staffers in Iowa with Nick Marroletti as state organizing director and Jack Segal and Alexandra Cleverly as Iowa political coordinators.

• Pete Buttigieg said he supported athletes who kneel during the National Anthem to protest police brutality. “I felt that I was watching Americans exercise a right that I had put my life on the line to defend,” he said.

• In an appearance on NPR’s Morning Edition, Julián Castro discussed immigration and border crossings.

• John Delaney released a $4 trillion climate action proposal that would introduce a carbon tax and set out to reduce carbon emissions by 90 percent by 2050.

• During an interview on Fox News, Tulsi Gabbard said a U.S. conflict with Iran would likely lead to a destabilized region and millions of refugees fleeing into Europe.

• In an interview on PBS NewsHour, Kirsten Gillibrand discussed abortion and trade policy with China. “We can use the WTO, we can use multilateralism to effect a different outcome on how they deal with competitors and how they deal with the world economy. And I would hold them accountable. I would prosecute these cases of dumping of steel,” she said.

• Mike Gravel called for a federal investigation into the police shooting of a Lakota man named Clarence Leading Fighter.

• Kamala Harris canceled a trip to Iowa Thursday to vote on a disaster aid bill.

• John Hickenlooper will campaign in Connecticut over the weekend, including a meet and greet with the Connecticut High School Democrats.

• The New York Times profiled Jay Inslee and his campaign focus on climate change.

• Amy Klobuchar opened her presidential headquarters in northeast Minneapolis, Minnesota, Thursday.

• Tim Ryan introduced a bill to establish a chief manufacturing officer who would coordinate manufacturing policies and strategy across government.

• Bernie Sanders will campaign in his home state Vermont this weekend with a rally in Montpelier.

• Eric Swalwell will accept donations in cryptocurrencies, becoming the second candidate after Yang to do so.

• Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin questioning him about his possible involvement in the decline of Sears.

• By polling at 1 percent in a Monmouth University poll released Thursday, Marianne Williamson has met the polling criteria for the first primary debate, likely guaranteeing her a spot on the debate stage. Earlier this month, she met the fundraising criteria.

Republicans

• Vanity Fair reported on how the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign are conducting and planning to use opposition research against Biden.

• Bill Weld discussed his primary strategy in an interview with Politico. “I’ll be focusing on the 20 states that permit crossover voting. It’s not just Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, it’s 17 other states,“ Weld said.

What We’re Reading

• The Hill: Gillibrand ‘very unhappy’ with ‘Game of Thrones’ finale
• Politico: Warren and AOC knock ‘Game of Thrones’ finale in new video
• Twitter: Andrew Yang: That was a beautiful ending to the best show on TV.

Flashback: May 24, 2015

The Washington Post reported on the rise of student loan debt as a key campaign issue. “A part of the reason student debt is so important for Democrats is that it’s a crucial motivator to get younger people to vote,” Democratic pollster Geoff Garin said. “Student debt is often the defining economic fact of their lives.”

Welcome to the Friday, May 24, Brew. I hope you have a great Memorial Day weekend. I will not be popping into your inbox on Monday, and will instead see you again, bright and early, Tuesday morning. Next week, Ballotpedia will also begin our annual Ballotpedia Society membership drive. In case you didn’t know, Ballotpedia is a nonprofit organization, and we rely on the donations of our readers to keep informative products like the Brew going! We don’t like to bug you often, but we are excited to tell you more about what we are working on, and how you can help.

But until then, it’s back to your regularly scheduled programming. Here’s what’s in store for you as you start today:

1. Supreme Court declines to hear Chevron challenge in case involving UPS, Amazon
2. Alaska state representative targeted for recall
3. Quiz: Which states do not have a state income tax?

Supreme Court declines to hear Chevron challenge in case involving UPS, Amazon

Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear a case in which the plaintiff challenged the Chevron doctrine—a 35-year old court precedent. The case also involves two of the largest corporations in the United States: Amazon and UPS.

The Chevron doctrine is an administrative law principle that compels federal courts to defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous or unclear statute that Congress delegated to the agency to administer. The principle derives its name from the 1984 U.S. Supreme Court case Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council. That decision guided courts to consider whether Congress’ intent in writing a statute was ambiguous and whether the agency’s interpretation of the statute is reasonable.

In the suit, the United Parcel Service (UPS) challenged how the D.C. Circuit applied Chevron deference in upholding the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) cost allocation and pricing formulas. USPS package delivery rates are set by the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC). UPS argued that the D.C. Circuit made a mistake in its May 2018 opinion which applied the Chevron doctrine to uphold the formula used by the PRC to set rates. Amazon was among several organizations which filed briefs supporting the PRC.

In its petition, UPS asked the Court to reconsider the Chevron doctrine in light of the following criticisms:

• “It threatens the proper separation of powers by shifting legislative and judicial responsibilities to executive agencies”
• “There is no legal basis for the assumption that Congress implicitly delegates interpretive authority to agencies”
• “Chevron (with its attendant limitations) is enormously difficult to apply in practice.”
• “Several Justices have recognized that this powerful criticism warrants a reconsideration of Chevron by the Court.”

A 2017 study by Michael Kagan at the William S. Boyd School of Law at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, found that the Chevron doctrine has been cited in legal arguments 81,000 times since it was introduced. That same study also found that all nine current Supreme Court justices “have at least once signed an opinion explicitly holding that Chevron should not apply in a situation where the administrative law textbooks would previously have said that it must apply.”

In deciding not to take the case, the Supreme Court upheld the D.C. Circuit’s decision letting the PRC’s interpretation stand and upholding the cost and pricing formulas used by the postal service. Click the link below to read more about the Chevron doctrine, or click here to take one of our Learning Journeys to explore the topic in depth.

Learn more

Alaska state representative targeted for recall

The Alaska House of Representatives elected a Speaker of the House for its 2019 session on February 14—thirty days after its members were sworn into office. During that time, majority or minority leaders and committee chairpersons were not selected and little legislative business was conducted. Last week, Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) called the legislature into a 30-day special session to address bills related to criminal reform, education funding, and the state’s operating, capital and mental health budgets.

Earlier this month, a committee was formed to gather signatures to recall Alaska state Rep. Gary Knopp (R) for what recall supporters state was his role in the delays and disruptions to the 2019 legislative session.

In the November 2018 elections for the Alaska House of Representatives, Republicans won 23 seats, Democrats won 16 seats, and a Democratic-aligned independent won another race. On December 8, Knopp announced that he was leaving the Republican caucus in order to form a majority coalition with Democrats. Rep. Bryce Edgmon—who switched his party affiliation from Democratic to unenrolled—was eventually elected House Speaker by 15 Democrats, four Republicans, and two independents. Both parties also split control of committee leadership positions in a power-sharing agreement. Alaska currently has divided government, as Republicans control the governor’s office and state Senate.

Recall supporters need about 1,000 signatures to request a recall petition from Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer (R). If Meyer accepts the application, supporters will need about an additional 3,000 signatures to force a recall election. Alaska is one of 18 states to allow the recall of state legislators. Since 2011, 80 recall petitions have been filed against state lawmakers. Nine recalls were successful, nine were defeated at the ballot, 55 did not go to a vote, and seven are still ongoing. The most recent recall of a state legislator was in 2018 when California state Sen. Josh Newman (D) was recalled.

The only grounds for recalling an elected official in the state are misconduct in office, incompetence, or failure to perform prescribed duties. Recall supporters stated in their petition that they are seeking to recall Knopp because he “did not show up for several key votes this session,” “demonstrated his incompetence in representing a conservative district,” and “admitted that he had deceived his fellow lawmakers and constituents.”

Knopp responded to the recall by stating, “In the recall petition, they are welcome to do what they want to do. I don’t think they have cause, but if they want to move forward with it that’s their prerogative. I just wish it would be done by people in the district not the haters across the state who aren’t getting what they want.”

Knopp was elected to the state House in 2016 with 66.5% of the vote. He won re-election unopposed in 2018.

Want to learn more about recalls? Check out this short Ballotpedia video from our Beyond the Headlines series.

Learn more

Quiz: Which states do not have a state income tax?

I brought you a story yesterday about voters in Texas who will decide later this year whether to add an amendment to their state constitution prohibiting the adoption of a state income tax. Texas does not have currently have a state income tax and is one of just seven states without one. Four of the seven states without an income tax are Florida, Washington, Alaska, and Nevada.

Today’s quiz question is, what are the other two states without a state income tax?

1. North Dakota and South Dakota
2. Montana and Wyoming
3. Idaho and Montana
4. South Dakota and Wyoming

Correction: A story in Thursday’s Brew incorrectly stated that Amanda Green-Hawkins and Beth Tarasi advanced from Tuesday’s Democratic primary for the Pennsylvania Superior Court. The two candidates that advanced from the Democratic primary were Amanda Green-Hawkins and Daniel D. McCaffery. We apologize for the error.

May 23, 2019: John Hickenlooper unveiled his gun safety platform. Kirsten Gillibrand released her “Family Bill of Rights” on healthcare and adoption.

Here’s the latest from the campaign trail.

Poll Spotlight

Notable Quote of the Day

“[Barack Obama’s] untitled memoir, which will reportedly begin with his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech and cover his two terms in the White House, won’t be released in 2019, as his publisher, Penguin Random House, had predicted just a few months ago. Dropping the book this year would have helped Obama largely avoid the current political calendar, and a 2020 release threatens to affect the primaries and the party’s campaign against Donald Trump by re-litigating decisions made a decade ago. Another option is to hold it until 2021, when Obama could be either the voice of a party in despair after another defeat, or poised to grab the spotlight from a freshly elected Democratic president.”

– Edward-Isaac Dovere, The Atlantic staff writer

Democrats

• Politico reviewed Joe Biden’s drug policies and the current opioid crisis.

• Bill de Blasio will attend a rally of McDonald’s workers in Iowa striking for a $15 minimum wage and to form a union. Julián Castro will also join a McDonald’s rally in North Carolina Thursday.

• Cory Booker said that he would create a White House Office of Reproductive Freedom focused on “coordinating and affirmatively advancing abortion rights and access to reproductive health care” at the federal level.

• Pete Buttigieg discussed the state of the Republican Party and democracy in The New York Times podcast The Argument.

• Kirsten Gillibrand released her “Family Bill of Rights” proposal that would address several medical, educational, and tax policies, including requiring insurance companies to cover fertility treatments like IVF and providing refundable tax credits for adoption. She also said she would establish “Equal Adoption Rights” prohibiting taxpayer-funded adoption services from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or religion.

• Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders introduced the Inclusive Prosperity Act which would tax the trade of stocks by 0.5 percent, bonds by 0.1 percent, and derivatives by 0.005 percent.

• The Mike Gravel campaign tweeted that Gravel was in the process of writing a book.

• During an interview on Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Kamala Harris discussed investigations into Trump and her equal pay policy proposal.

• John Hickenlooper released his gun safety platform Wednesday, calling for universal background checks, extending waiting periods from three to 10 days, establishing a national gun license, raising the age to own a gun from 18 to 21, and supporting extreme risk protection orders.

• Jay Inslee signed a measure into law in Washington prohibiting local authorities from asking about someone’s immigration status.

• Amy Klobuchar will hold a roundtable with health officials, first responders, and healthcare and treatment professionals on the opioid crisis in Minnesota Thursday.

• Seth Moulton advocated a public option rather than single-payer healthcare during a hearing on various Medicare for All proposals.

• Beto O’Rourke, Andrew Yang, John Delaney, and Eric Swalwell have held the most events in Iowa since January 1 with 30 or more events in the state over the past five months.

• Tim Ryan discussed Chinese tariffs, the economy, Nancy Pelosi, and why he changed his mind on abortion access in an interview on WBUR’s Here & Now.

• Elizabeth Warren released a list of more than 50 legal matters she worked on including asbestos and bankruptcy cases.

• Marianne Williamson made a three-day swing through New Hampshire from Tuesday through Thursday. She also appeared on Fox News, where she criticized the debate qualification criteria set by the Democratic National Committee. Williamson has met the minimum qualification for the debate via fundraising.

Republicans

• Mike Pence attended a kickoff event in North Carolina for the Republican National Convention, which will be held in Charlotte next year.

General Election Updates

• The Nevada State Senate passed a bill supporting the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. If signed by Gov. Steve Sisolak, Nevada would be the 15th state to join the agreement, bringing the total electoral votes covered by the agreement up to 195. The compact will only take effect once 270 electors are pledged.

What We’re Reading

• Politico: Inside the 2020 Democrats’ survival strategies
• Vox: We asked the dads running for president what they do for child care
• The Week: If Justin Amash is going to run for president, he should do it as a Republican

Flashback: May 23, 2015

Ben Carson won the Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll with 25 percent of the vote. Scott Walker and Ted Cruz followed with 21 percent and 17 percent, respectively.

May 21, 2019: Michael Bennet released his land management-focused climate change proposal. Libertarians call on Justin Amash to leave the Republican Party and run for president.

Here’s the latest from the campaign trail.

What was the first presidential election where candidates were nominated at party conventions?

1. 1796→
2. 1832→
3. 1880→
4. 1972→

Notable Quote of the Day

“You have to air these things [White House policy proposals] now. Democrats are taking up all this space because you have so many of them. We have to offer all our plans earlier because the Democrats are otherwise going to be given free rein.”

– Brad Blakeman, former George W. Bush administration senior staffer

Democrats

• Michael Bennet released his $1 trillion climate change platform focused on land management and agriculture Monday. He called for investing in biofuels, reaching 100% net zero emissions by 2050, and conserving roughly one-third of U.S. lands and ocean territory. 
• CNN announced it will hold four more town halls in late May and early June with Bennet, Seth Moulton, Tim Ryan, and Eric Swalwell.
• Joe Biden campaigned in Nashville, Tennessee, where he framed his campaign as an effort to restore the soul of America.
• Bill de Blasio discussed his presidential campaign and Trump on CNN’s New Day.
• Steve Bullock said he could win in red states and that Citizens United was preventing Washington, D.C., from working properly.
• Pete Buttigieg held a fundraiser at Wynwood Walls in Miami, Florida, Monday.
• KUT News profiled Julián Castro and his “People First” immigration platform.
• The Independent Journal Review launched its new “The 2020 Twenty” series by asking John Delaney 20 questions about his policy priorities, North Korea, marijuana, artificial intelligence, and other issues.
• Tulsi Gabbard continued to criticize the Trump administration on its Iran policy and said she had not seen sufficient intelligence information on a potential threat.
• Kirsten Gillibrand discussed abortion access during an interview on The Daily Show Monday night.
• Forward profiled David Oks, the high school senior managing Mike Gravel’s campaign.
• Kamala Harris said she believed fatal police shootings and alleged police brutality incidents should have independent investigations, marking a shift from her previous opposition to taking investigatory discretion from district attorneys.
• John Hickenlooper gave his first foreign policy speech at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Monday, where he discussed U.S. relations with China, Russia, Syria, Venezuela, and North Korea. He said he would use an “activist, not a pacifist” approach to foreign policy.
• Jay Inslee explained how a public healthcare option will work in Washington in an interview with Vox.
• Amy Klobuchar discussed Alzheimer’s disease research and caregiving and shared her experience of having a parent in a memory care community.
• Wayne Messam will campaign in New Hampshire Tuesday, holding a meet and greet with the New Hampshire Young Democrats.
• Beto O’Rourke said he would participate in a town hall on Fox News. He is scheduled to appear in a CNN town hall Tuesday from Iowa.
• The New York Times profiled Bernie Sanders and his time as the mayor of Burlington, Vermont. 
• Elizabeth Warren joined Inslee in calling for a debate focused entirely on climate change.
• Marianne Williamson discussed abortion and moral leadership in the White House on ABC News’ The Briefing Room and Bloomberg’s Balance of Power.
• Andrew Yang will join SEIU Local 199 President Cathy Gleeson at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, Tuesday.

Republicans 

• Donald Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania to support Fred Keller (R) against Marc Friedenberg (D) in the special election in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District. While discussing the 2020 election, Trump focused on Pennsylvania-born Joe Biden, saying he deserted the state by representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate.
• Bill Weld will speak at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Massachusetts about his presidential campaign.

On the Cusp: Tracking Potential Candidates

• Libertarian National Committee Chairman Nicholas Sarwark said there was an organized recruitment effort to encourage Justin Amash to switch to the Libertarian Party and run for president after Amash became the first Republican to say he supported impeachment proceedings against Trump based on the Mueller report.

What We’re Reading

• New Hampshire Public Radio: Tired of Campaign ‘Manipulation’ N.H. Voters Get Trained in the Art of the Bird Dog
• Politico: Media tries to avoid 2016 mistakes with massive 2020 field
• Vox: Bernie Sanders is challenging two cherished theories of electability

Flashback: May 21, 2015

In an interview with The Daily Signal, Donald Trump discussed Chinese currency manipulation and said he would not cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security.

On May 13, Governor Phil Murphy (D) conditionally vetoed S1500, legislation that would require 501(c)(4)s, super PACs, and other entities to disclose their donors who contribute $10,000 or more.

In his veto statement, Murphy said, “I commend my colleagues in the Legislature for seeking to ensure that so-called ‘dark money’ is brought out into the open. However, I am mindful that such efforts must be carefully balanced against constitutionally protected speech and association rights. Because certain provisions of Senate Bill No. 1500 (Fifth Reprint) may infringe on both, and because the bill does not go far enough in mandating disclosures of political activity that can be constitutionally required, I cannot support it in its current form.”

• What comes next? With his conditional veto, Murphy delineated his objections to the bill and proposed amendments to address them. This differs from an absolute veto (i.e., an outright gubernatorial rejection of a proposed law). Should the legislature adopt an amended version of the bill, it will return to Murphy’s desk for his consideration.

  The legislature can also, by a two-thirds majority vote in each chamber, override Murphy’s veto and enact the bill. The Senate approved the bill 33-to-0, with seven members not voting. The Assembly approved the bill 60-to-1, with two members not voting and 17 abstaining. Democrats control both chambers of the state legislature, with a 26-to-14 majority in the Senate and a 54-to-26 majority in the Assembly.     

• The bill’s sponsors, Sen. Troy Singleton (D) and Asm. Andrew Zwicker (D), said: “The governor says that this bill ‘falls short’ of the goal to bring greater transparency to our political process. That is a gross misrepresentation of months and, frankly, years of hard work. The only thing that fell short today was the governor’s will to truly address the behemoth of dark money that has eroded the public’s trust in our government.”
• What does the legislation propose?
• As adopted, S1500 would define an independent expenditure committee as any person or group of persons organized under sections 501(c)(4) or 527 of the Internal Revenue Code spending $3,000 or more annually to influence or provide political information about any of the following:
• “the outcome of any election or the nomination, election, or defeat of any person to any state or local elective public office”
• “the passage or defeat of any public question, legislation, or regulation”
• Under S1500, independent expenditure committees would be required to disclose all expenditures exceeding $3,000. These committees would also be required to disclose the identities of donors contributing $10,000 or more.

What we’re reading

• Tulsa World, “Does Citizens United apply to Cherokee elections? Candidates for chief weigh in on this and other issues at televised forum,” May 17, 2019
• RealClearPolicy, “Selling Dark Money as Grassroots Transparency,” May 16, 2019
• Nonprofit Quarterly, “501c4 Nonprofits’ Image Problem Is a Problem for All of Us,” May 15, 2019

The big picture

Number of relevant bills by state: We’re currently tracking 72 pieces of legislation dealing with donor disclosure. On the map below, a darker shade of green indicates a greater number of relevant bills. Click here for a complete list of all the bills we’re tracking.

Number of relevant bills by current legislative status:

Number of relevant bills by partisan status of sponsor(s):

Recent legislative actions

Below is a complete list of legislative actions taken on relevant bills in the past week. Bills are listed in alphabetical order, first by state then by bill number. Know of any legislation we’re missing? Please email us so we can include it on our tracking list.

• Massachusetts H686: This bill would require groups producing electioneering communications to disclose to the public certain information about donations coming from foreign sources.
• Joint Committee on Election Laws hearing May 15.
• Missouri HB394: This bill would require any entity not a defined as a committee under the state’s campaign finance laws that spends $500 or more to support or oppose candidates or ballot measures to file quarterly donor reports. Included in those reports would be the names and addresses of donors who gave more than $50 to the entity in that quarter.
• Referred to House General Laws Committee May 17.
• Missouri HB513: This bill would require any committees that receive contributions or make expenditures for inaugural activities to file disclosure reports with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
• Referred to House General Laws Committee May 17.
• Missouri HB886: This bill would lower the disclosure threshold for contributors to ballot measure campaigns from $500 in aggregate to $25 or more in aggregate during an election cycle.  
• Referred to House Elections and Elected Officials Committee May 17.
• New Hampshire SB105: This bill would establish disclosure requirements for certain contributions made to inaugural committees.
• House Election Law Committee executive session May 16.
• New Hampshire SB156: This bill would require that political contributions made by limited liability companies be allocated to individual members in order to determine whether individuals have exceeded contribution limits.
• House Election Law Committee executive session May 16.
• New Jersey S1500: This bill would require disclosure of donors to 501(c)(4)s, super PACs, and other similar entities who give $10,000 or more.
• Conditionally vetoed May 13.

On May 13, attorneys general in five states – California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington – filed suit in U.S. District Court against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). They seek to overturn an HHS final rule, issued May 6 barring states from making Medicaid payments to third parties on behalf of individual home health care providers. The rule applies to voluntary payroll deductions made to pay union dues    

• Who are the parties to the suit? The plaintiffs include the attorneys general for California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington (Xavier Becerra, William Tong, Maura Healey, and Ellen Rosenblum, respectively). Oregon Governor Kate Brown also joined the suit as a plaintiff. The defendants are the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and its secretary, Alex Azar.
• Political context: In all five states, the attorneys general are Democrats. Four of the five states – California, Connecticut, Oregon, and Washington – are Democratic trifectas (in Massachusetts, a Republican controls the governorship, but Democrats control both chambers of the state legislature).
• What are the responses?
  • In their initial complaint, the plaintiffs said, “[The] Final Rule would undermine laws and agreements that have improved the provision of homecare to the States’ residents. It would disrupt well-established collective bargaining relationships and weaken an organized workforce infrastructure that the States have authorized as a result of provider self-organization and in order to channel labor relations in a productive and cooperative manner that contributes to the building, training, and mobilization of Medicaid homecare workforces.”
  • In commentary accompanying the complete text of the final rule, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said: “This rule merely forecloses the ability of a practitioner to assign a portion of his or her Medicaid payment to a union. However, other means remain available. A provider may voluntarily agree to automatic credit card or bank account deductions to pay for union dues once 100 percent of reimbursement has been received.”
• The case, California v. Azar (case number 4:19-cv-02552), was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The big picture

Number of relevant bills by state: We are currently tracking 100 pieces of legislation dealing with public-sector employee union policy. On the map below, a darker shade of green indicates a greater number of relevant bills. Click here for a complete list of all the bills we’re tracking.

Number of relevant bills by current legislative status:

Number of relevant bills by partisan status of sponsor(s):

Recent legislative actions

Below is a complete list of legislative actions taken in the last week. Bills are listed in alphabetical order, first by state then by bill number.

• California AB314: This bill would require employers to grant employees paid time for certain union activities.
• Assembly Appropriations Committee hearing May 16.
• Oregon HB2016: This bill would require public employers to grant paid time to employees participating in certain union activities. It would also require employers to furnish unions with access to employees.
• Senate Workforce Committee work session scheduled for May 21.
• Oregon HB3009: This bill would require public employers to provide unions with access to new employees. It would also permit individuals who are not members to make payments in lieu of dues to unions.
• Senate Workforce Committee work session scheduled for May 23.

On May 6, 2019, New Jersey Attorney General Letitia James (D) and New York Attorney General Gurbir Grewal (D) sued the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). They are seeking information as to how the agency arrived at its decision to stop requiring donor information from select nonprofit groups. (Sources: Associated Press, Nonprofit Quarterly) 

• What is at issue? On July 16, 2018, the IRS issued Revenue Procedure 2018-38, which exempts 501(c) nonprofit entities from reporting the names and addresses of their contributors to the IRS. The rule modification does not apply to 501(c)(3) organizations.
• In a separate suit filed on April 17, 2019, Montana Governor Steve Bullock (D), the Montana Department of Revenue, and the state of New Jersey asked a federal judge to overturn the rule. The case name and number are Bullock v. Internal Revenue Service, 4:18-cv-00103.
• Who are the parties to the suit, and what are they saying?
• The plaintiffs are James and Grewal. In a press release, James said, “Not only was this policy change made without notice, the Treasury and the IRS are now refusing to comply with the law to release information about the rationale for these changes. No one is above the law – not even the federal government – and we will use every tool to ensure they comply with these regulations to provide transparency and accountability.”
• The defendants are the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service. Neither agency had commented publicly on the suit at the time of its filing. Upon adoption of the rule change, Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said, ” Americans shouldn’t be required to send the IRS information that it doesn’t need to effectively enforce our tax laws, and the IRS simply does not need tax returns with donor names and addresses to do its job in this area. It is important to emphasize that this change will in no way limit transparency.  The same information about tax-exempt organizations that was previously available to the public will continue to be available, while private taxpayer information will be better protected.”
• The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case name and number are State of New York et al. v. U.S. Department of the Treasury et al., 1:19-cv-04024.

What we’re reading

• The Colorado Independent, “Capitol Review: Lawmakers expanded voter access, took aim at dark money,” May 10, 2019
• Politico, “Sources: Murphy to conditionally veto ‘dark money’ bill, potentially dooming it,” May 9, 2019
• Real Clear Politics, “Dems’ Campaign Finance Bill Could Be a Privacy Nightmare,” May 9, 2019

The big picture

Number of relevant bills by state: We’re currently tracking 72 pieces of legislation dealing with donor disclosure. On the map below, a darker shade of green indicates a greater number of relevant bills. Click here for a complete list of all the bills we’re tracking.

Number of relevant bills by current legislative status:

Number of relevant bills by partisan status of sponsor(s):

Recent legislative actions

Below is a complete list of legislative actions taken on relevant bills in the past week. Bills are listed in alphabetical order, first by state then by bill number. Know of any legislation we’re missing? Please email us so we can include it on our tracking list.

• Massachusetts H686: This bill would require groups producing electioneering communications to disclose certain information about donations coming from foreign sources.
• Joint Election Laws Committee hearing scheduled May 15.
• New Hampshire SB105: This bill would establish disclosure requirements for certain contributions made to inaugural committees.
• House Election Law Committee executive session May 16.
• New Hampshire SB156: This bill would require that political contributions made by limited liability companies be allocated to individual members in order to determine whether individuals have exceeded contribution limits.
• House Election Law Committee executive session May 16.