Law & Crime – The Tarbabys Blog

‘It’s not their money’: Older Americans worried debt default means no Social Security

ABC News

‘It’s not their money’: Older Americans worried debt default means no Social Security

Peter Charalamboust – May 23, 2023

If the United States defaults on its financial obligations, millions of Americans might not be able to pay their bills as well.

With Social Security and other government benefits at risk amid a political stalemate over the government’s debt ceiling, experts and older Americans told ABC News that the consequences of the impasse in Washington could be dire, including for older Americans who need the money to pay for basic needs such as food, housing or health care costs.

A quarter of Americans over age 65 rely on Social Security to provide at least 90% of their family income, according to the Social Security Administration.

PHOTO: President Joe Biden walks to the White House after landing on the South Lawn aboard Marine One, May 21, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)

Fred Gurner, 86, of New York, told ABC News that he uses his Social Security payment for his $800 rent. But now there is real risk that his payment might not come in time in June — when the Treasury Department says the government might not be able to send him the money he counts on.

“It’s very stressful, gives me a heart attack,” Gurner said about how the issue has become politicized.

How are Social Security payments affected by the debt ceiling?

Since 2001, the United States has spent more money than revenue it has taken in overall.

To cover the difference, the United States Treasury issues debt through securities, according to University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business professor Olivia Mitchell. Backed by the United States, those securities are happily bought by investors who see it as a safe guarantee they’ll get paid back with interest.

However, the United States and Denmark are the only two countries to limit the amount of debt the government can issue, known as a debt ceiling, Mitchell noted.

MORE: Ahead of meeting with Biden, McCarthy says debt, spending deal needed ‘this week’

Lawmakers can pass new laws that require government spending, but the debt ceiling will remain in place until lawmakers vote to increase it. That has happened 78 separate times in the United States since 1960.

If that debt ceiling does not increase by June 1, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that the country will not be able to satisfy all of its financial obligations.

Beyond not being able to pay interest and principal on government securities — which economists broadly agree would rattle the stock market and possibly damage the U.S. credit rating — the Treasury would be unable to issue new debt to cover expenses like Social Security, according to Mitchell.

The government projects to spend roughly $100 billion on Social Security in the month of June, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

“It’s going to be pretty tight for people for a while, unless Congress and the president can get together on this problem,” Mitchell said.

When would Social Security payments become delayed?

The Social Security Administration plans to send contributions to beneficiaries on four dates next month — June 2, 14, 21, and 28. Those checks would be the first ones at risk of being delayed, according to Max Richtman, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“Millions and millions of Social Security beneficiaries are worried about having the income to pay their basic bills,” he noted.

Lynda Fisher, 80, told ABC News that her budget relies on her monthly Social Security check and that a delay would complicate her essential spending, frustrating the 80-year-old who has spent her life contributing to the system.

PHOTO: FILE - House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, speaks with reporters in the US Capitol in Washington, DC, May 17, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-reynolds/AFP via Getty Images, FILE) — PHOTO: FILE – House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, speaks with reporters in the US Capitol in Washington, DC, May 17, 2023. (Andrew Caballero-reynolds/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)

“I paid into Social Security, and I paid into Medicare,” she said. “And now they’re trying to take it away. It’s not their money, it’s my money that I paid into.”

Richtman is now actively encouraging older residents to save money in anticipation of a delayed Social Security payment, fearing negotiations will not yield a compromise in time to avoid default.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Yellen indicated that certain bills might be prioritized, including interest payments, Social Security and military contractor payments. However, Richtman expressed doubt that such a prioritization would be legally possible.

What does this mean for the future of Social Security?

Some Republican lawmakers have framed the debt ceiling fight as necessary to slow government spending; however, some economists, including Mitchell, see this as a “manufactured crisis” that threatens essential services, retirement savings and the overall economy.

“Every time one of these crises occurs, it’s signaling to the rest of the world, and to American investors that U.S. Treasuries are not as safe as we thought,” Boston University economics professor Laurence Kotlikoff said.

MORE: Debt ceiling breach could cut millions of jobs. Here’s who would lose employment first

Kotlikoff expressed further concern that the Social Security system will have over $65.9 trillion in unfunded financial obligations over the indefinite horizon, based on the entity’s own report.

However, the debate over the debt ceiling appears unlikely to produce a meaningful solution to the broader Social Security shortfall, though, according to Kotlikoff, Mitchell and Richtman.

When will retirees receive their payments?

Mitchell and Richtman remained optimistic that Social Security recipients would eventually receive their checks once a deal is made, albeit with some delay.

“I’m pretty confident that payments would be fulfilled,” Richtman said. “That’s not much comfort to those people who will not be able to pay for their groceries, their utilities or their rent while they’re waiting to receive a back payment.”

David Axelrod: After Barack Obama, America will never be the same

CNN – Opinion

David Axelrod: After Barack Obama, America will never be the same

David Axelrod – May 20, 2023

In all the years I worked for Barack Obama, I didn’t think enough about the burdens of being America’s first Black president – in part because he bore them so gracefully.

There were bracing moments, of course, like the day, relatively early in his campaign for the White House, when Secret Service agents became a constant presence in his life, given the inordinate number of death threats against him.

There were the overtly racist memes about his citizenship and faith and worthiness, fueled by demagogues and social media, that continued throughout his presidency.

There was the startling outburst from a Southern congressman, who shouted “You lie!” during a presidential address to Congress – an intrusion that has since become more common but back then was a stunning departure from civic norms.

Among Obama’s staff, we dealt with these moments mostly as political challenges to navigate. And while he addressed issues of race, Obama rarely spoke, publicly or privately, about the unique pressures he faced personally.

It took someone else to open my eyes and cause me to think more deeply about the extraordinary burden – and responsibility – of being a trailblazer at the highest of heights in a nation where the struggle against racism is ongoing.

In 2009, Obama was considering nominating Sonia Sotomayor, a highly regarded federal appellate judge from New York, for a seat on the US Supreme Court.

If appointed, Sotomayor would become the first Latina on the nation’s highest court. The president asked me to chat with her and assess how she would hold up under the pressures of the confirmation process and that weighty history.

I met with Sotomayor in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex, where she had been spirited for a final round of clandestine interviews. I asked her what, if anything, worried her about the process.

“I worry about not measuring up,” she said, bluntly.

It was instantly clear to me that this brilliant, accomplished judge, who fought her way from poverty in the South Bronx to Princeton and Yale Law School, was talking about more than her own ambitions. As The First, she knew she also would be carrying with her the hopes and aspirations of young Latinas everywhere. Her success would be their inspiration. Her failure would be their setback.

That conversation prompted me to reconsider the unspoken burden the president himself had navigated so well for so long under the most intense spotlight on the planet. The burden was not just racism but the responsibility to measure up, to excel, to shatter stereotypes and to be an impeccable role model in one of the world’s toughest and most consequential jobs.

Watching the episode of CNN’s documentary series “The 2010s” about Obama, I was reminded again of how well he weathered those burdens.

It isn’t that he got everything right. No president does. And there always will be a debate about how much the election of the first Black president contributed to the reactionary backlash that yielded Donald Trump, a divisive and toxic figure who would lead the country in an entirely different direction.

But the history is clear: Obama led the nation through an epic economic crisis and war, passed landmark legislation on health care and strengthened the social safety net, bolstered America’s standing in the world and, in our most painful moments, comforted the nation by speaking eloquently to what Abraham Lincoln called the “better angels of our nature.”

Against the relentless pressure of being First and all the anger and resentment that it may have stirred among some fearful of change, Obama was consistently thoughtful, honorable and poised. He carried himself with the comforting authenticity of a man who knows who he is – and never flinched.

When Obama was considering a campaign for president in the fall of 2006, a small group of friends and advisers gathered with him in my office in Chicago to assess a possible race.

Michelle Obama – perhaps the greatest skeptic in the room at that moment about the advisability of such an audacious journey – asked a fundamental question: “Barack, it kind of comes down to this. There are a lot of good, capable people running for president. What do you think you could contribute that the others couldn’t?”

“There are a lot of ways to answer that but one thing I know for sure: The day I raise my hand to take that oath of office as president of the United States,” he said, lifting his right hand, “the world will look at us differently and millions of kids – Black kids, Hispanic kids – will look at themselves differently.”

Two years later, in Chicago’s Grant Park, where Obama claimed victory, I watched a sea of humanity, including Black parents, with tears rolling down their cheeks, as they held their kids aloft to witness the scene.

Jacob Philadelphia, the son of a White House staff member, touches then- President Barack Obama’s hair in the Oval Office of the White House. – Pete Souza/The White House/The New York Times/Redux

And then there was the iconic photo in the Oval Office of five-year-old Jacob Philadelphia, the son of a White House staffer who was leaving the administration. The little boy, who is Black, stood dressed in a shirt and a tie. He had looked up at the president and asked, “Is your hair like mine?” Obama bowed his head toward the boy and told him, “Go ahead, touch it,” which he did.

It was a moving, spontaneous scene captured by the splendid White House photographer Pete Souza. The moment spoke volumes about Obama, his meaning in our history and the unique responsibly he bore.

As the president bowed his head to this little boy, his unspoken message was clear: “Yes, you are like me. Yes, you can dream big dreams.”

Under extraordinary pressures, Obama more than “measured up,” not just as a president but as a role model. As a First.

And for that alone, America will never be the same.

Psaki on debt ceiling talks: China probably ‘rooting for default’

The Hill

Psaki on debt ceiling talks: China probably ‘rooting for default’

Alex Gangitano – May 19, 2023

Former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that China is probably “rooting for default” while talks in Washington over a debt ceiling compromise have been cut short.

“All of these world leaders and their teams are watching what’s happening in the United States. Is democracy going to last? Are they going to default? All of that makes the United States look weak on the world stage,” Psaki said on MSNBC.

“If you’re China, you’re probably — you’re rooting for default,” she added.

President Biden has also warned it could be a concern internationally if the U.S. were to default on its debt, arguing recently that world leaders have been wondering about the looming risk.

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines said earlier this month Beijing and Moscow would use a potential default for propaganda purposes through “information operations” as evidence the U.S. political system is chaotic.

Psaki outlined the situation with the president in Japan for the Group of Seven (G-7) summit, relying on Republican negotiators and White House officials to keep working to avoid a default until he returns to Washington on Sunday.

“So for the president, this is about — he’s there to project strength; the United States is back at the table,” she said. “But these negotiations, this being tricky and unresolved at home, is not great. And that’s important for people, Republicans, Democrats to really understand.”

She also warned against being overly concerned by the top Republican lawmakers negotiating a debt ceiling compromise with the White House cutting the talks short. The Republicans left a meeting with White House officials Friday in the Capitol, saying the two sides were too far apart and that the White House is being unreasonable.

“Sometimes, there are pauses where it looks like everything is going to explode and not come back together, and it does,” she said.

The White House had expressed optimism as recently as late Thursday, saying there had been “steady progress” in debt limit talks, and officials said Friday the president’s team is “working hard towards a reasonable bipartisan solution.”

Additionally, Psaki said there “will be no doubt legal challenges if the president were to invoke the 14th Amendment” in response to a letter sent earlier this week from 11 senators to Biden suggesting he prepare to invoke the amendment.

The president said last week there have been discussions about whether the 14th Amendment can be invoked, but he acknowledged it would have to go to the courts.

We Don’t Have to Accept Antisocial Gun Behavior Just Because the Guy Says It’s a Political Protest

Esquire

We Don’t Have to Accept Antisocial Gun Behavior Just Because the Guy Says It’s a Political Protest

Jack Holmes – May 19, 2023

a supporter of us president donald trump keeps a hand on his gun during a — Antisocial Gun Behavior Is Not ProtestKEREM YUCEL – Getty Images

We may have reached the pinnacle of Both Sides journalism with some coverage out of Maryland, where Governor Wes Moore signed a package of new gun control bills into law this week restricting who can carry guns in public and where they can do it. The Supreme Court conservatives created a constitutional right to carry guns outside the home last summer when they struck down a 110-year-old New York gun law, a decision which also functionally threw out parts of Maryland’s legal regime on guns. Moore and his allies in the legislature are presumably trying to prevent their jurisdiction from becoming another gun anarchy state now that the number of residents allowed to carry a concealed firearm in public has tripled.

Gun rights groups don’t like this—they’re also suing to throw out Maryland’s assault weapons ban—and it seems neither did one resident in particular. Tolly Taylor of WBAL in Baltimore reported Thursday that “a man with an AR-15 has been showing up for weeks to a school bus drop off for local elementary school students.” He teased a piece on that night’s local news in which viewers would learn that “parents say their kids are afraid, the man says he’s protesting @GovWesMoore’s new gun control law. You’ll hear from both sides at 5+6pm.”

Taylor may well just be trying to abide by coverage guidelines set by his boss(es), but in the process, this becomes really the apotheosis of the Both Sides affliction in the American press. There is no scenario in which some maladjusted creep who’s frightening children at an elementary school bus stop should be presented as just some guy with political opinions by the local news. This is antisocial behavior that should be ridiculed, including by normal people who own guns.

You wouldn’t ask some guy who menaced people on the subway with a knife for his thoughts on whether knife-menacing is cool and good, and make no mistake: this man is attempting to menace members of the public using a deadly weapon that’s capable of killing way more people in way less time. That this kind of weapon is a favorite of school shooters, and these are schoolchildren, only adds to the disgusting character of the events here. Carrying a gun like this in the public square is a way to constantly communicate the threat of deadly force to those around you. A gun like this exists for two purposes: to maim and kill, and to communicate the threat thereof. This loser could make the case that he has a right to carry a gun around via the standard political speech that normal people make use of on this and every other issue. He’s parading around a gun for a reason, the same reason that courts upheld the prerogative of local jurisdictions to restrict who can carry weapons in the public square for 700 years until the Supreme Court conservatives got involved.

This is a particularly eye-catching example of the wider phenomenon where, out of genuine belief in the principle of “objectivity” or fear they’ll be called “biased,” members of the mainstream press create a false equivalence between arguments and political opinions rooted in reality and those that are complete nonsense. Normally, the Both Sides phenomenon involves reporters—often some of the most well-informed, purportedly savvy people around—pretending to believe that bullshit has merit in order to present it as One Side of the Argument, and Who’s to Say Who’s Right? For about 20 years, Washington political scribes would present the Republican view on climate change—nuh uh, no, hoax—as just the other side of the coin to…the overwhelming scientific consensus on the matter.

people take part in a protest for — These folks could easily have demanded an end to pandemic lockdowns without guns. So why did they bring them to the statehouse steps? To communicate the threat of force if they do not get their way.JEFF KOWALSKY – Getty Images

Sometimes, reporters will lobotomize themselves for the period of time in which they’re working on a story. Anyone paying attention over the last decade has watched Republicans raise the debt ceiling without incident when a Republican is president. (Under the most recent one, they also added trillions to The National Debt to service a tax cut for rich people and corporations, part of a debt orgy under President Trump.) But when Republicans turn around and say the debt is a huge problem and we can’t raise the debt ceiling, Beltway reporters pretend they don’t remember anything that happened before—or even, at times, that raising the debt ceiling does not approve new spending. (It applies to paying off debts already accrued.) This goldfish-brain approach has been necessary for the last few decades because, while the Democratic Party has its manifest failures, the Republican Party no longer resides in reality. To present what they say in the full context of reality would involve losing the mask of Neutrality which is often conflated with Objectivity. The objective truth is that Republicans only care about the debt when they’re out of the White House, and they don’t even really care about it now. If they did, they would consider raising revenues as part of a debt deal. They’ve ruled that out.

What’s so unsettling about this Maryland incident, though, is that the adoption of a neutral stance legitimizes antisocial behavior and presents it as a fair form of “protest.” This guy does not have to point the gun at anyone for it to serve its purpose. This has been a steadily expanding problem throughout the country, as right-wingers show up heavily armed to statehouses in an explicit communication of the threat of deadly force if they do not get their way on matters of public policy. This is not normal political expression, just as breaking windows and vandalizing businesses is not a legitimate form of protest against police violence and racial injustice in our society. The fact is that certain things are out of bounds, and we’re really arguing over where the line should be. This guy’s conduct is on the far side of the line. He is leaving the realm of civil disagreement and discussion and entering a gray area where the potential for deadly violence is implied.

What we’re really reluctant to confront, however, is that there is a sizable faction in America who continually make explicit threats to engage in violence if the government—elected by the people to make public policy—makes public policy that they and their faction do not like. They brandish their weapons during these discussions, physically or rhetorically, and they’re never more aggressive than when anyone suggests that Thomas Jefferson did not envision an inalienable right to carry an AR-15 into Chipotle. It’s not hard to put all this together, particularly if you’re a reporter, but it’s scary to confront the fact that there’s a segment of the American population dedicated to the proliferation of deadly weapons—more guns, everywhere, all the time—and threatening to use the ones they already have if they don’t get their way. Easier, then, to stand to the side and offer the View From Nowhere, where every side has a case worth hearing.

The debt ceiling crisis is intentional | David Moon

Knox NThe debt ceiling crisis is intentional | David Moon

David Moon – May 19, 2023

The U.S. regularly faces a “debt ceiling crisis” because our elected officials would rather make a point than make a difference. Members of both parties relish this regular game of political chicken; otherwise they wouldn’t keep doing it. And the president could likely end it with a directive to the attorney general, just as a president unilaterally started this dangerous charade 43 years ago.

When the federal government threatens a shutdown, there are two issues at play: the debt ceiling and funding gaps. For more than 200 years they were never used to manufacture a “crisis” that politicians could then take credit for solving.

President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met May 16, attempting to reach agreement on raising the debt ceiling. The Treasury secretary says the country will run out of cash June 1.

After setting the first debt ceiling in 1936, Congress raised the limit only three years later. Since then, it has raised it another 82 times, just as it will eventually raise it an 83rd time in the next few weeks.

Each time the U.S. approached the statutory debt limit in the 1950s, Congress would simply approve a temporary waiver of the ceiling. That is, it voted to just ignore the law for a little while.

That changed in 1980 when, despite Democrats controlling both the House and Senate, President Jimmy Carter could not persuade Congress to pass an appropriations bill for the Federal Trade Commission. Carter’s attorney general, Benjamin Civiletti, then cited a provision in the 1884 Antideficiency Act as justification to overrule a longstanding opinion that federal agencies could continue operating during gaps in appropriation funding. Carter ordered the FTC shut down, furloughing about 1,600 federal employees, then threatened a complete government shutdown. Congress blinked and funded the FTC.

Politicians had discovered a new way to embarrass their opponents and achieve political goals. Since 1980, every potential funding gap or debt ceiling violation has provided an opportunity for politicians to boldly reveal their immaturity and short-sightedness.

In 1995 there was a debt limit situation that rivaled today’s political theater. The Treasury secretary canceled security auctions and dipped into government retirement funds for cash needs. A similar contrived crisis was miraculously resolved in 2002 using many of the same tactics and gimmicks as in 1995.

The U.S. will pay its bills, and since the federal government spends 30% more than it takes in, that requires borrowing money. (Other solutions theoretically include reducing spending, increasing taxes or selling assets to pay down debt.)

When the other party controls the White House, legislators always argue that the debt ceiling is a necessary tool to prevent out-of-control spending – except that there is no evidence that it does. Borrowing money tops the short list of things at which politicians excel. There is a much simpler way for Congress to prevent out-of-control spending: don’t pass appropriations bills that include out-of-control spending.

Giuliani Records Row in Election Suit a ‘Murky Mess,’ Judge Says

Bloomberg

Giuliani Records Row in Election Suit a ‘Murky Mess,’ Judge Says

Zoe Tillman – May 19, 2023

(Bloomberg) — Rudy Giuliani fended off accusations he’s failed to fully comply with his legal duty to produce records and other evidence for two Georgia election workers who are suing him for defamation after becoming targets of 2020 election fraud conspiracy theories he promoted.

During a nearly three-hour hearing Friday in Washington, US District Judge Beryl Howell probed claims by Giuliani and his attorney that they made good faith efforts to follow legal rules and search his electronic devices, email accounts, messaging apps and social media platforms.

Near the end, she described the case as a “murky mess.”

Howell ordered Giuliani to provide a detailed accounting of his search for information as well as financial records to prove his claim that he can’t afford to hire professionals to perform searches or pay other costs associated with accessing all potential sources of documents. That includes a database extracted from electronic devices seized by federal investigators in April 2021 in an unrelated criminal probe. (Giuliani didn’t face charges.)

Read more: Rudy Giuliani Defends Lags in Election Workers’ Defamation Suit

The civil defamation suit has proceeded against the backdrop of multiple criminal investigations related to the 2020 presidential election and efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s win. Outside the courthouse following the hearing, Giuliani said he hadn’t received any communication from Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office and wasn’t worried about federal charges since he cooperated with investigators immediately after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol.

Asked if he had any pending federal grand jury subpoenas, he replied, “not that I know of.”

Regarding a separate probe into efforts by former President Donald Trump and allies to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results by the Fulton County district attorney’s office, Giuliani said he wasn’t worried because he was serving as an attorney at the time. Last summer, his lawyer confirmed that they’d received notice Giuliani was a target of that probe.

He said on Friday that he hadn’t heard anything from that office since he appeared before a special investigative grand jury in August 2022; District Attorney Fani Willis recently indicated that charges could come later this summer.

The defamation suit filed by Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss has been mired over the past year in problems the plaintiffs say they’ve faced trying to obtain evidence and track down witnesses. They asked Howell to consider imposing sanctions on Giuliani and to have him at least pay their expenses for having to file a motion to force him to produce records. Howell didn’t rule on those from the bench.

Freeman and Moss faced an onslaught of threats and harassment after the election and are seeking to hold Giuliani civilly liable. They filed the case in December 2021. There’s no trial date and one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers told the judge they expected to have to ask to push back upcoming deadlines.

Howell said Giuliani’s efforts to manually search social media accounts and electronic devices weren’t reliable, and pushed back when his lawyer Joseph Sibley argued that he thought the plaintiffs had enough information to put on their case. That was the point of the discovery process, Howell said — for the plaintiffs to make sure they had any relevant information to address Giuliani’s defenses.

Giuliani described the evidence fight as “punishment by process” and said that any shortcomings in the materials that they had turned over were “inadvertent.”

Meryl Governski, an attorney for Freeman and Moss, told the judge that Friday’s hearing illustrated the ongoing issues they’d encountered trying to get clear answers from Giuliani and his lawyer. Giuliani had said, for instance, that he mostly used email to communicate about issues relevant to Freeman and Moss, but Governski said that they’d received texts from one witness involving Giuliani that they hadn’t received from him.

Separate from the fight with Giuliani, Freeman and Moss’s lawyers have gone to Howell for help serving subpoenas on witnesses, saying they were struggling to track down lawyers who did work for Trump’s 2020 campaign — Katherine Friess and Jenna Ellis. Earlier this week they described challenges scheduling a deposition with a third campaign lawyer, Ray Smith III.

Lawrence O’Donnell Left Stunned By Revealing Response To Trump Pardon Allegation

HuffPost

Lawrence O’Donnell Left Stunned By Revealing Response To Trump Pardon Allegation

Ed Mazza – May 18, 2023

New Revolting Rudy Lawsuit

Lawrence O’Donnell took a closer look at one of the many serious allegations in a new lawsuit filed against Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and longtime henchman to Donald Trump.

It’s the claim by Noelle Dunphy, a former aide now suing Giuliani for alleged sexual coercion and other claims, that he told her he could arrange for pardons from Trump for $2 million, with himself and the then-president splitting the money.

O’Donnell noted that Bill Barr, who served as attorney general to Trump, gave a rather lukewarm response when asked if he thought that was possible.

“I’m skeptical about that, I don’t think Rudy Giuliani would do that, I hope he wouldn’t, but I don’t know,” Barr said on Fox News.

O’Donnell was stunned.

“I don’t know?” he said. “William Barr knows Rudolph Giuliani well. William Barr knows Donald Trump well. And when asked if those two could have teamed up to sell $2 million pardons and split the money, William Barr’s answer is, ‘I don’t know.’”

O’Donnell said any attorney general not appointed by Trump or Richard Nixon would’ve given “a very, very strong answer.”

But Barr didn’t ― and O’Donnell found that extremely telling, as he explained on “The Last Word” on Wednesday night:

Texas passes bill stripping authority from cities

The Hill

Texas passes bill stripping authority from cities

Saul Elbein – May 16, 2023

A sweeping Texas bill stripping authority from cities passed the state Senate on Tuesday and is now headed to the governor’s desk.

House Bill 2127 takes large domains of municipal governing — from payday lending laws to regulations on rest breaks for construction workers to laws determining whether women can be discriminated against based on their hair — out of the hands of the state’s largely Democratic-run cities and shifts them to its Republican-controlled legislature.

According to the Austin American Statesman, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has been a vocal supporter of the bill.

Progressive critics argue the legislation — which one lawyer for Texas cities called “the Death Star” for local control — represents a new phase in the campaign by conservative state legislatures to curtail the power of blue-leaning cities.

Opponents of the bill include civil society groups like the AFL-CIO — and representatives of every major urban area in Texas, along with several minor ones.

They argue the shift in power it would enable would hamstring cities’ abilities to make policies to fit their unique circumstances.

“Where the state is silent, and it is silent on a lot — local governments step into that breach, to act on behalf of our shared constituents,” state Sen. Sarah Eckhardt (D) told the Senate on Tuesday.

“We should be doing our job rather than micromanaging theirs.”

But the bill’s Senate sponsor, state Sen. Brandon Creighton (R), said it was necessary to protect “job creators” from “cities and counties acting as lawmakers outside of their jurisdiction.”

Both the legislation’s sponsors and the principal trade group that backed it — the National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB) — have argued local regulation poses an existential threat to Texas businesses.

“As prices escalate, property taxes increase, and workers remain in short supply, small business owners are continuing to struggle in this economic environment,” said Annie Spilman, state director of the NFIB, in a statement earlier this month. “Arduous local ordinances, no matter how well-intended, exacerbate these challenges.”

The NFIB’s solution to that problem: one set of rules governing business across the state, which it says will cut costs by preventing the “patchwork” of local and county regulations that govern Texas’s sprawling cities.

While the NFIB and the legislation are officially nonpartisan, support for the bill has been overwhelmingly Republican.

The bill passed the state Senate 18-13 on a nearly party-line vote after passing the House in April with the votes of just eight out of 65 Democrats.

If enacted, the legislation would have a wide reach, banning — technically “preempting” — broad swaths of the state code.

It would nullify many existing ordinances, like Austin and Dallas’s heat protections for construction workers.

It would also ban new restrictions on payday lending or puppy mills, although — after a long fight — existing city laws will be preserved.

Urban advocates say other specific local laws without state or federal analogs — like an Austin law banning discrimination based on hair texture or style — would also likely be struck down.

The bill failed to pass in the 2019 or 2021 sessions — in part because it was seen as too broad, Austin City Councilor Ryan Alter told The Hill.

But with every failed passage, Alter said, “The bill has only gotten broader.”

Alter listed the state preemption of the Property and Business and Commerce codes as two domains that would lead to unforeseen consequences for cities.

“We do a lot of things as the city as relates to property, land use and issues concerning land, and we make a lot of decisions that impact business and commerce,” Alter added.

The bill also preempts city and county ordinances relating to the Agriculture Code, Finance Code, Insurance Code, Labor Code, Natural Resources Code and Occupations Code.

One worry among the legislation’s opponents is procedural.

The state legislature only meets every two years, making each session a logjam of potential bills, most of which never go anywhere. In 2022, for example, the Legislature passed about 38 percent of the nearly 10,000 bills introduced.

That low frequency of meetings and state-level focus make the Legislature a body opponents argue is ill-suited to managing the day-to-day affairs of cities.

Under the new law, “cities and counties across Texas will have to rely on the state’s part-time Legislature, which meets for only 140 days every two years, to address various issues and problems of local concern,” Adrian Shelley, Texas director for public interest advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement.

Spilman of the NFIB has argued the law was necessary to rein in out-of-control municipal governments.

The long campaign for the legislation that became H.B. 2127 began in 2018, when Dallas, Austin and San Antonio passed ordinances requiring employers to offer paid sick leave.

Those laws were later shot down by state and federal courts as a violation of state bans on raising the minimum wage above the federal standard.

But the ordinances would have given city governments subpoena power to investigate potential violations — powers which worried the NFIB, Spilman said in an April statement.

“I just don’t know why a city ordinance would have something in there like that. That’s very frightening to a small business owner, with no compliance officers.”

The need for the legislation was urgent, she added at the time. “You go another two years without this protection — we just don’t know what cities might propose next.”

Opponents, meanwhile, argue the bill would present challenges to businesses because its scope is so broad as to make it impossible to say how far it will reach.

“If there is one thing businesses hate it is uncertainty,” Houston city attorney Collyn Peddie wrote in an April statement.

“Because 2127 barely attempts to define the fields that it purports to preempt, [self-governing] cities will not know what laws to enforce and, more important, businesses will not know what laws to obey,” Peddie continued.

Another source of concern for bill opponents is the method of enforcement, which — as in the case of the state’s “bounty” abortion ban — would occur through lawsuits.

The bill would authorize “any person who has sustained an injury in fact, actual or treated” to sue cities and counties for passing ordinances in areas now officially under the domain of the state.

Winners of such suits would get damages and attorney’s fees covered.

Whenever cities pass big ordinances, “people get clever in their lawsuits to challenge anything they don’t like,” said Alter, the Austin councilor.

“And because the bill is so broad there are a lot of opportunities for people to poke holes in any bills the city passes.”

The NFIB’s position is that the newly preempted powers aren’t being taken away from cities: They’re ones the cities never had to start with, as Spilman explained to The Hill.

The legislation’s GOP sponsors agree. “It’s a ‘stay in your lane’ bill,” Rep. Dustin Burrows (R) said at a February event hosted by the NFIB. “If you’re a city, do your core functions. If you’re a county, do your core functions.”

Burrows has dismissed critics of the bill as “taxpayer-funded lobbyists” who he told the Texas Tribune in March were “out in full force trying to undermine this effort.”

In those remarks, Burrows took a tack familiar from statehouse Republican messaging nationwide.

Groups opposing the bills, he added, “are beholden to special interest groups who cannot get their liberal agenda through at the statehouse, so they go to city halls across the State, creating a patchwork of unnecessary and anti-business ordinances.”

But bill opponents argued that local laws are a “patchwork“ because local conditions are, too.

“Lawmakers who voted for this must explain to their constituents why they gave away local authority to lawmakers hundreds of miles away in Austin who may have never even set foot in their community,” said Adrian Shelley, Texas director of advocacy group Public Citizen.

Eckhardt, the state senator from Bastrop, argued the legislation “obliterates the local balancing of interests that creates the distinct local flavor from Lubbock to Houston, Laredo to Texarkana.”

Bills like House Bill 2127 “excuse the Texas legislature from leading,” she added.

“We are wasting our precious 140 days — when we could be doing statewide health, education, justice and prosperity policies — barging into bedrooms, locker rooms, boardrooms examining rooms and now city council meetings.”