(Bloomberg) — Taiwan legislators once again voted to broaden their powers to summon public authorities, defying both protesters and President Lai Ching-te, who is now anticipated to ask the Constitutional Court to evaluate the modifications and suspend their application.
A Lot Of Check Out from Bloomberg
Around 1,000 protesters collected outside the legislature throughout the vote. Organizers established chairs, camping tents and air coolers on an intense, hot day in the capital. Legislators voted on numerous legal modifications after having — at Lai’s demand — examined and disputed the modifications because Wednesday.
The vote sets the phase for more fractious fights in between Lai and the opposition celebrations in the island at the heart of China-US stress. The opposition Kuomintang and its Taiwan Individuals’s Celebration allies state they wish to enhance analysis of the executive and public authorities. Critics argue that the modifications represent a power grab that weakens the separation of powers and are focused on thwarting the president’s program.
The constitutionality of the legislation is still an unclear argument, according to Liao Dachi, emeritus teacher at Institute of Government of National Sun Yat-sen University. Still, she sees the modifications as efficiently empowering legislators, as the legal branch in Taiwan has actually been substantially weaker in capability compared to the executive branch — the presidency.
While the DPP made history this year by winning its 3rd succeeding governmental election, it lost control of the legislature, and the vote Friday reveals Lai might have a hard time to enact his program in the face of a hostile parliament. Previously today, he revealed prepare for brand-new defense, healthcare and environment committees to assist press through his policies.
Still, markets in Taiwan have actually been mainly unfazed by the political fight. That benchmark Taiex stocks gauge is set for a gain of more than 3.4% today, extending its record high.
The Taiwan dollar is bit altered for the week, last trading at 32.360 versus the greenback.
Challengers of the modifications today required to the streets once again for a three-day rally to accompany legislators’ evaluation of the legislation. Presentations have actually been serene, and likewise up until now smaller sized in scale compared to demonstrations when legislators initially voted on the modifications in Might.
The federal government scheduled 500 law enforcement officers to be stationed outside the legislature in case of dispute in between advocates from various celebrations, the semi-official Central News Company reported.
Civic groups arranging the demonstration state the legal modifications represent overreach by the legislature and democratic backsliding, while DPP lawmaker Puma Shen state they might require business being penetrated to reveal trade tricks.
The KMT has actually implicated the Lai federal government of performing political battles because his inauguration on Might 20, and lawmaker Hung Mong-kai states the expense would assist hold the president responsible for his policies.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Countless individuals collected outside Taiwan’s legislature on Tuesday to oppose modifications being pressed through by the opposition Nationalist Celebration and its allies that would provide the body higher power.
The Nationalists, likewise called the KMT, took control of the legislature with a single-seat bulk after elections in January, while the presidency went to Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Celebration, which prefers Taiwan’s de facto self-reliance from China.
The Nationalists formally back marriage with China, from which Taiwan separated throughout a civil war in 1949. The proposed legal modifications would provide more power to manage spending plans, consisting of defense costs that the KMT has actually obstructed in what lots of view as a concession to China.
Taiwan’s legal chamber was festooned with banners promoting both sides in the conflict, while arguments on the flooring broke out into yelling and pressing matches.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly will call a special session after the Legislature early Wednesday passed tax cuts she intends to veto because of concerns over cost.
The Democratic governor has promised for months to return lawmakers to Topeka if they ended their annual session without tax relief she was willing to sign. The Legislature adjourned around 12:30 a.m., hours after a top Kelly aide reiterated the promise.
The special session could prove politically volatile, coming in an election year in which Democrats are hoping to end Republican supermajority control of the Legislature. Kelly, in her second term, isn’t on the ballot but GOP lawmakers are likely to run as opponents of her agenda.
The House passed the tax cuts package, SB 37, in a bipartisan 108-11 vote. The Senate passed it 25-9.
Ahead of the vote, Kelly’s chief of staff, Will Lawrence, said the governor would veto the tax plan. “She will call the Legislature back into special session if this is the tax plan sent to her desk,” Lawrence said in a statement.
Kelly’s office didn’t immediately announce the timing of a special session, but Lawrence told a meeting of House Democrats that it would potentially come in a couple weeks. Because Wednesday marked the end of the annual session, lawmakers will have no opportunity to override Kelly’s veto.
Lawmakers passed the tax plan a day after the Legislature failed to override Kelly’s veto of a previous tax measure, HB 2036, by one vote. The new plan passed by lawmakers is substantially similar to the vetoed plan, leaving little doubt that Kelly would reject it.
“I think it’s time that we go down to the second floor and try to figure out what in the world the governor will accept,” Sen. Tim Shallenburger, a Baxter Springs Republican, said as the Senate debated the bill just before midnight. The governor’s offices are located on the second floor of the Capitol.
The new plan moves Kansas from three state income tax brackets to two, which will provide many taxpayers with a break in the process. It sets the top rate for married couples filing jointly at 5.57% and the bottom rate at 5.2%, with $46,000 serving as the dividing line between the two rates.
All other taxpayers would be taxed at 5.15% in the bottom bracket and 5.55% in the top bracket, with $23,000 dividing the two brackets.
The plan contains other tax changes, including raising the personal exemption allowance for dependents, lowering the statewide mill levy for schools, and accelerating the elimination of the state sales tax on food to July 1, in addition to ending taxes on Social Security income.
“All session long we have worked toward tax relief for Kansans,” House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, said, accusing Kelly of moving the goalposts on taxes.
Kelly said the vetoed measure was too expensive when she vetoed it, citing the anticipated $460 million annual cost of the bill as well as the costs of additional tax bills passed by lawmakers. She has called for the cost of tax cuts not to exceed roughly $425 million a year.
The new plan, after a first-year cost of $641 million, is projected to cost between $462 million and $472 million a year during the first five years.
“The latest Republican tax proposal hikes the income tax rate for lower income Kansans while increasing the fiscal cost,” Lawrence said in an earlier statement on Tuesday. “This isn’t a serious proposal. It’s an attempt to leave town without tax relief.”
Kelly has gone back and forth with the Legislature over taxes throughout the session, with the governor previously vetoing a flat tax plan that would have set a single income tax rate for all taxpayers. Kelly also vetoed HB 2036, leading to Monday’s veto override showdown.
Republicans have been dismissive of the roughly $35 million annual difference between the size of the plans passed by the Legislature and what Kelly is willing to accept. But Kelly has emphasized that lawmakers have also passed other tax plans that add to the annual total.
“When do you not say that she’s being a bit of a dictator when you bipartisan supermajorities repeatedly sending her tax cuts?” Senate President Ty Masterson, an Andover Republican, said.
Projections circulated among House Democrats indicate that if several other tax measures become law in addition to the tax plan, the state’s ending balance could dwindle over the next few years.
In a late night meeting, several House Democrats voiced frustration with Kelly’s position and sought answers from Lawrence on what exactly she would support. Lawrence emphasized concerns about the ending balance and the overall, comprehensive costs of the tax measures.
Democrats in the House have supported previous tax proposals, including a measure vetoed by the governor, while Democrats in the Senate have voted against them.
“I’ve been through different governors and I’ve been through different Houses and different speakers,” said Rep. Barbara Ballard, a Lawrence Democrat who entered the Legislature in 1993. “But I’ve never seen the frustration as high.”
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A new congressional district map giving Louisiana a second majority-Black House district was rejected Tuesday by a panel of three federal judges, fueling new uncertainty about district boundaries as the state prepares for fall congressional elections.
The 2-1 ruling forbids the use of a map drawn up in January by the Legislature after a different federal judge blocked a map from 2022. The earlier map maintained a single Black-majority district and five mostly white districts, in a state with a population that is about one-third Black.
An appeal of Tuesday’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court is likely. Meanwhile, the ruling means continued uncertainty over what the November election map will look like. State election officials have said they need to know the district boundaries by May 15, and the sign-up period for the fall elections in Louisiana is in mid-July.
The new map was challenged by 12 self-described non-African American voters, whose lawsuit said the districts amounted to unconstitutional racial gerrymandering that discriminated against white voters while pulling together disparate areas of the state into one district.
Supporters of the new map said political considerations, not race, played a major role in the development of the new map, which slashes diagonally across the state, linking Black populations in the northwest, central and southeast regions. And they said it ensures the state’s compliance with the federal Voting Rights Act.
The map maintains safe districts for five incumbents — one Black Democrat and four white Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
But Rep. Garret Graves, a white Republican representing the Baton Rouge area, sees his district shift from majority-white and Republican to majority-Black and Democratic.
Graves supported a rival of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in last year’s governor’s race. Supporters of the new plan say that bolsters the argument that the new map was drawn with politics, rather than race, as a driving factor.
The ruling was the latest development in a drawn-out legal battle over redistricting, which happens every 10 years to account for population shifts reflected in census data.
Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature drew a new map in 2022 that was favorable to all six current incumbents. Then-Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, vetoed the map, but the majority-Republican Legislature overrode him, leading to a court challenge.
In June 2022, Baton Rouge-based U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick issued an injunction against the map, saying challengers would likely win their claim that it violated the Voting Rights Act. As the case was appealed, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an unexpected ruling that favored Black voters in a congressional redistricting case in Alabama.
Dick sided with challengers who said the 2022 map packed a significant number of voters in one district — District 2 which stretches from New Orleans to the Baton Rouge area — while “cracking” the remaining Black population by apportioning it to other mostly white districts.
Last November, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave the state a January deadline for drawing a new congressional district. Landry, who was the state’s attorney general when he was elected to succeed the term-limited Edwards, called a special session to redraw the map, saying the Legislature should do it rather than a federal judge.
The new map does not resemble sample maps that supporters of a new majority-Black district suggested earlier, which would have created a new district largely covering the northeastern part of the state.
The opponents of the latest map filed their lawsuit in the federal court system’s Western District of Louisiana, which is dominated by Republican-appointed judges.
Those assembled to hear the case filed in Shreveport were U.S. District Judges David Joseph and Robert Summerhays, both of whom were nominated by former President Donald Trump, and Judge Carl Stewart of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, nominated by former Democratic President Bill Clinton. Dick was nominated to the federal bench by former President Barack Obama. Joseph and Summerhays voted to reject the new map. Stewart dissented.
New York’s squatter nightmare has gotten so far out of control that even liberal lawmakers are finally moving to plug the loopholes that have facilitated the crisis.
Democratic as well as Republican lawmakers in Albany are pushing measures to crack down on the outrageous scourge, including one bill introduced by lefty Sen. John Liu (D-Queens) that was included in the just-completed state-budget agreement.
Liu credited coverage by The Post and others for bringing “to our attention a problem that needed to be addressed.”
Sen. John Liu introduced a bill that would help to plug the loopholes used by squatters across the state. AP
You bet it needs addressing.
Until now, anyone who stayed in a home beyond for a certain length of time (just 30 days in the city!) could claim legal occupancy and force landlords into drawn-out legal proceedings that could take years to get them evicted.
Moreover, among the disastrous changes to housing law under Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2019 was one that required “a special proceeding” to kick out squatters.
The flawed statutes, the onslaught of migrants seeking places to live, the state’s soft approach to crime generally and a backlog of housing-court cases (thanks to COVID court closures) have combined to send squatting soaring — up as much as 20% over the past two years, per one real-estate expert.
Gov. Hochul, who signed off on the budget deal that included the legislation, also praised media efforts: “No one else stood up,” she said.
NYPD officers knocking on the door of a $1 million Queens home taken over by squatters. Brigitte Stelzer
Some of the cases The Post has reported are, indeed, compelling:
No civilized community can survive with such lawlessness.
Liu promises that the new legislation makes “crystal clear” squatters are not tenants; that change will “get the ball rolling” to address the issue while lawmakers take up further measures, he says.
“We’ve addressed this crisis so squatters do not have the same rights as tenants,” added Hochul. “That is firm. They can be prosecuted, and there will be consequences for them,”
Adele Andaloro was arrested after she tried getting back into her home that squatters moved into in February and refused to leave. ABC7
State Sen. Mario Mattera (R-LI), meanwhile, has a refom package that would let cops boot squatters on the spot, based merely on a sworn complaint from an owner.
Of course, that may go too far for the crime-friendly progressives who dominate the Legislature.
On the other hand, that crew normally includes Liu, so perhaps Mattera’s ideas won’t get quashed in committee; at least, lawmakers are talking about more steps to get tough.
One small step toward sanity won’t be enough to end New York’s squatting scourge: The Post will keep on “standing up” to bring “the problem” to Albany’s “attention.”
Lawmakers gather on the last day of the 2024 legislative session, though many expect to return for a special session later this year. Not pictured: State Sens. Joni Albrecht, Ben Hansen, John Lowe and Tony Vargas. April 18, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
LINCOLN — Lawmakers are gearing up for a special session later this year but on Thursday they celebrated the end of a session in which they “successfully hit the reset button,” according to Nebraska’s top legislative leader.
Speaker John Arch of La Vista. April 18, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
Speaker John Arch of La Vista said the Legislature sent more than 370 bills to Gov. Jim Pillen this year, including “good government policies” to grow Nebraska’s workforce, economy and communities; support families and K-12 education; reform the criminal justice system; and improve Nebraskans’ physical and mental well-being.
It’s a session, Arch said, “we can all be proud of.”
‘Enjoy halftime’
Pillen similarly applauded lawmakers for approving a health care proposal that could bring about $1.4 billion to Nebraska hospitals as well as enhancing child care options, creating incentives for businesses to attract out-of-state workers and authorizing small school districts to better protect students “by training good guys with guns to stop bad guys with guns.”
“Even in a short session, your hard work and countless hours yielded tremendous results for Nebraska,” Pillen told lawmakers.
Much of Pillen’s speech to the full Legislature, however, focused on what he described as late-stage failures in declining to take a final vote on property tax relief. He said senators offered “not a penny” more of relief; the bill was pulled from the floor earlier in the day after it appeared to be in jeopardy of failing.
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen. April 18, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
The governor sought to reduce property taxes by 40% this year, and he said that’s still the goal, vowing to call “as many sessions as it takes” to get tax relief in 2024.
“We’re behind at the end of the first half, but we still got a second half to go,” Pillen said. “Enjoy halftime. We’ll see you again here soon.”
Pillen also said that he will not hesitate to call a different special session for “other unfinished business,” which he said includes switching Nebraska’s allocation of Electoral College votes to a winner-take-all system. He has said he’ll only call a session for that if there are sufficient votes — there currently aren’t 33 senators backing the change.
Special session within sight
State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn, chair of the Legislature’s Revenue Committee, pulled her tax proposal after it appeared to be in jeopardy Thursday. She said Pillen “gave all kinds of warnings” of a special session, and she wasn’t surprised by his speech.
“I’ve already told the Revenue Committee that we’re going to be working this summer,” she said.
State Sen. Teresa Ibach of Sumner described Pillen’s speech as “thoughtful, yet deliberate” and said while there is a “ways to go” on many issues, the trajectory is good.
State Sen. Teresa Ibach of Sumner. March 3, 2023. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska News Service)
“At the end of the day, we all have the best interest of what we’re trying to accomplish here at heart. I think taking a very thoughtful (approach) and navigating things a little bit will end up being very productive,” Ibach said. “I’m actually looking really forward to it.”
Special sessions come at their own expense, at a cost of thousands per day.
Pillen’s speech did not face the same positive reception from others, such as State Sens. Danielle Conrad of Lincoln and Megan Hunt of Omaha, who criticized Pillen for focusing on what they said were his losses rather than legislative accomplishments.
“If he has ideas for new solutions to achieve our shared goals of growing Nebraska’s workforce and making this a great place for every Nebraskan to call home, then I’m eager to work with him on that for the special session,” Hunt told the Nebraska Examiner.
Conrad said senators are unafraid to return for a special session and “shouldn’t wait around.”
“We should roll up our sleeves, put all ideas and solutions on the table and find the right path forward to fund our schools and deliver property tax relief without raising taxes on Nebraska families and businesses,” Conrad said in a text. “I’m confident we can do it together.”
2023 proved to be ‘an aberration’
Legislative leaders strove to make this year’s 60-day session different from the 88-day session in 2023, which was largely defined by legislative gridlock, infighting and rancor.
Arch, in closing remarks last year, said that he hoped 2023 “would be an aberration, not a predictor of the future,” and that lawmakers had to decide for themselves how they would move forward.
Lawmakers who are term limited or not seeking election in the fall meet together on the last day of the 2024 legislative session. Not pictured: State Sens. Joni Albrecht, John Lowe and Tony Vargas. April 18, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)
He said lawmakers were motivated to find a different way to legislate and they heeded his call, taking months of reflection before returning in January. This included implementing feedback to better improve the public input process for Nebraska’s “second house.”
But one message still holds true: how “extremely fragile” Nebraska’s one-of-a-kind, one-house political system is.
At least 15 senators will not return next year, 13 due to constitutional term limits, and Arch said those returning must carry forward what they learned this year and be good role models for those who come next.
“We must continue to protect this treasured institution of the Unicameral,” Arch said.
By the numbers: The 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions
In 2024, each of Nebraska’s 49 lawmakers had a bill make it to the governor’s desk, whether on its own or after being folded into various legislative packages.
Senators sent 11 final bills to the governor Thursday, including Legislative Bill 25, from State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha, which would expand legal liability in certain cases of child sexual assault and child abuse. Wayne said it faces a possible veto, which Pillen would need to exercise by next Wednesday.
Here’s a statistical comparison between the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions.
2023 statistics — 88 days in session
820 bills introduced, or an average 16 per senator.
1,160 motions were filed, with the vast majority (80%) coming from a trio of lawmakers: State Sens. Machaela Cavanaugh of Omaha (437), Megan Hunt of Omaha (359) and Danielle Conrad of Lincoln (128). State Sen. Julie Slama of Dunbar followed with 41 motions.
Top bill targeted: LB 574, restricting gender care for minors and abortion at 12 weeks gestation age (42 motions).
Top senator targeted: State Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn (78 motions).
57 bills were forced to maximum debate. Only one failed, on abortion restrictions.
52 bills approved by the Legislature and governor — 33 laws and 19 appropriations.
2024 statistics — 60 days in session
597 bills introduced, or an average 12 per senator.
258 motions were filed, with the majority (47%) from Cavanaugh (121). Linehan followed with 20 motions.
Top bill targeted: LB 937, authorizing certain tax credits and exemptions (19 motions)
Top senator targeted: Linehan (36 motions).
11 bills were forced to maximum debate. Of those, four failed: two-person train crews, a slimmed-down Residential Tenant Clean Slate Act, criminal obscenity in K-12 schools and sex-based restrictions for K-12 bathroom and sporting teams.
201 bills were approved — 153 laws and 48 appropriations. One was vetoed, two became law without the governor’s signature and 11 are pending approval.
By Nebraska Examiner reporter Zach Wendling
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The Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee crafts the budget proposal to be sent to the full Legislature for consideration. (Emma Davis/ Maine Morning Star)
“Please get it done,” Gov. Janet Mills told lawmakers in a letter Wednesday morning, the day the Legislature is set to adjourn, urging both chambers to pass the supplemental budget and her original version of an emergency storm relief bill.
On Monday, the Appropriations and Financial Affairs Committee reopened voting on the budget plan it had previously set around 3 a.m. a week prior, reversing proposed cuts after objections from the Republican minority, some Democrats and Mills.
These changes were not enough to sway Republicans to support the Democrats’ budget plan, but the committee struck the emergency preamble, which allows the budget to pass with a simple majority, essentially nixing the need to get Republicans on board.
However, Sen. Rick Bennett (R-Oxford) added much of the Republican minority’s additional asks to a heavily amended version of a storm relief bill Friday night. The storm bill was originally introduced by Mills, who sharply criticized the amendment for entangling unrelated spending into what she intended to be a separate, emergency measure to help with rebuilding after consecutive storms this winter.
In a bipartisan vote, the Senate approved the amended storm bill, which attaches funding for a multitude of other issues already being considered in separate bills this session, notably mental health and nursing homes.
But Tuesday night the House bypassed the Senate’s proposal by instead introducing their own amendment. The House amendmentreverts the bill almost entirely back to the original version brought to the floor — but removes the bill’s emergency clause.
This means the money would not be distributed until July 1, when the new fiscal year begins, rather than immediately — that is if the Senate agrees. The bill is currently in nonconcurrence and was tabled in the Senate on Wednesday morning.
“The Senate and the House have two starkly different views about it,” Bennett said Wednesday.
In her letter to the Legislature, Mills wrote that she would veto the bill if it gets to her desk as amended by the Senate.
“The amendment added to my bill by the Senate, then appropriately removed by the House, is a last-minute, multimillion dollar change crafted outside the budget process,” Mills wrote. “It does not comport with the supplemental budget.”
Mills wrote that she will sign LD 2225 if it solely includes the $60 million in storm relief and reiterated that she will also sign the supplemental budget as passed by the Appropriations Committee, despite her concerns about its fiscal sustainability in the next biennium.
When asked about Mills’ continued concerns about additional spending beyond what she’d proposed in the budget plan, Appropriations Committee co-chair Rep. Melanie Sachs (D-Freeport) told Maine Morning Star that she stands by the budget as her committee approved it.
“We worked in consultation with our colleagues and the Mills administration for a budget that meets our obligations to our Constitution and to Maine families and communities,” Sachs said.
As of noon on Wednesday, neither the House nor Senate had taken up the budget for votes.
The post Mills threatens to veto storm bill with added spending appeared first on Maine Morning Star.
A day after a triumphant Gov. Hochul unveiled a $237 billion spending deal negotiated with the Legislature, top lawmakers said Tuesday that key elements of the agreement had not been finalized.
Among the unresolved issues were funding for Medicaid; the form of a possible extension of Mayor Adams’ control of city schools; and finer points in a housing deal intended to spur development and toughen tenant protections.
Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, a Bronx Democrat, said lawmakers in the left-leaning Legislature had reached the same “Zip code” as the centrist Democrat on the budget plan.
“I wouldn’t say every issue on housing is closed at this point, but it’s getting closer,” Heastie told reporters, adding that he expected the agreement would secure tenant protections for about 90% of renters citywide.
Tenants covered by those protections are expected to be spared annual rent hikes higher than 10%. The package would also extend a lapsed tax break for developers.
The housing plan has been the thorniest issue in budget negotiations, with the Legislature pushing the governor to embrace strong tenant protections.
But housing has not been the only stumbling block: lawmakers have also pushed back against a health care blueprint that could cut more than $1 billion from Medicaid programs in New York.
Sen. Gustavo Rivera, the Bronx Democrat who chairs the Health Committee, said in an interview Tuesday that he expected “at least a chunk” of the funding would be restored. But he suggested talks were ongoing.
“Perhaps it was an early victory lap yesterday,” Rivera said of Hochul’s presentation. “We’re not done.”
Hochul’s office offered a uniform reply when pressed for more information about budget outcomes on education and health care: “More details will be included in the printed budget bills.”
The mayoral school control question only emerged as a sticking point in recent days. Legislative leadership had previously indicated an extension was off the table.
Heastie told reporters Tuesday that he had not briefed lawmakers on the possible extension. Mayoral control is due to expire at the end of June without a state extension.
To win an expected two-year insertion of mayoral control into the budget for Adams, Hochul agreed to expand the number of New Yorkers who could fall under new tenant protections, according to two people with knowledge of the negotiations.
Heastie declined to give reporters a window into those negotiations.
“The Assembly doesn’t put policy in the budget,” he offered. “But if the governor and the Senate raise it, we will discuss it. So clearly something like that had to have happened.”
Without an extension, mayoral control is due to expire at the end of June.
The chair of the Assembly’s Education Committee, Michael Benedetto of the Bronx, emphasized in a phone call Tuesday that the issue was still up in the air.
“My position is we shouldn’t put it in the budget, plain and simple,” said Benedetto, a Democrat who supports mayoral control but has opposed using the budget as a vehicle for the extension.
The Adams administration has made the extension one of its top asks from Albany, along with explicit legislative language empowering city agencies to crack down on illicit cannabis shops. The pot request is expected to be fulfilled in the budget.
On housing, cannabis and perhaps even schools, the mayor appeared to be on the cusp of state budget victories, a possible reflection of the public embrace that Hochul and Adams have mostly maintained over the last two years.
But Adams did not get everything he wanted from Albany. He has pushed for the state to offer the city more funding for the migrant crisis, after Hochul proposed putting $2.4 billion in the budget toward the challenge.
The mayor’s office said in February that it wanted at least $2.8 billion set aside for migrant support. Hochul and legislators have left the $2.4 billion plan untouched during negotiations.
On Tuesday, Adams brushed off the migrant funding gap.
“We got what we wanted,” he said at a news conference, reveling in the potential wins on housing, cannabis and school control. “Governor, if you’re watching, you have a real fan in the mayor.”
Senate candidate Kari Lake has made calls to state lawmakers to push for the repeal of Arizona’s Civil War-era abortion ban, according to a Republican legislator who spoke about receiving a call from her.
The GOP-controlled Legislature is considering its next steps after the state Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the state’s 1864 near-total ban on abortion is enforceable. The Arizona House convenes again Wednesday.
Lake’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday evening on her lobbying of state lawmakers.
Lake, who has said she opposes the court’s ruling, is among the many Arizona Republicans who have scrambled to distance themselves from the 19th century statute, despite having previously voiced support for it. Democratic Senate candidate Ruben Gallego has highlighted Lake’s earlier comments about the ban.
Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has urged the Legislature to repeal the law, said Thursday that calling a special session would not be useful now because “the votes obviously are not there.”
Hobbs said she is in discussion with Republican lawmakers and leadership to repeal the ban but declined to name any legislators.
Republicans in Arizona hold slim majorities in both chambers — a 31-28 advantage in the House and a 16-14 seat advantage in the Senate.
In a statement after the state Supreme Court’s decision, Republican chamber leaders said they would evaluate the ruling during the waiting period before it goes into effect.
“It’s obvious that calling a special session right now, it would not be productive to get this done,” Hobbs said.
Lake, who lost to Hobbs in the 2022 election for governor, posted a video Thursday on X detailing her position on abortion. She said the state Supreme Court decision on the restrictive abortion law was “out of line with where the people of this state are.” If she is elected senator, she said, she will oppose a federal ban on abortion.
“I chose life,” she said in the video. “But I’m not every woman. I want to make sure that every woman who finds herself pregnant has more choices so that she can make that choice that I made.”
Lake has previously spoken in favor of the 1864 statute, calling it “a great law.”
The state Supreme Court ruled a day after former President Donald Trump announced his position that abortion should be left to the states to decide. Lake, a strong Trump ally, has said she agrees.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
California lawmakers on Thursday plan to vote on a bill with $17 billion in budget fixes.
The Legislature will likely approve the measure, which comes after Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, and Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, last week announced they had all agreed to the set of fiscal adjustments.
The bill is considered “early action” because leaders are taking steps to address a projected budget deficit of up to $73 billion before they enter into negotiations over the fiscal year 2024-2025 spending plan.
Newsom presented his budget in January, and he called for the Legislature to take early action at that time. He will present a revised budget in May. The new fiscal year starts on July 1, and lawmakers must pass the overall budget by June 15.
Here’s what the legislation lawmakers took up on Thursday contains, how it will affect the projected deficit and what budget watchers are saying about it.
What’s in this bill?
The bill opens up previous budgets from the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 fiscal years to find $17.3 billion in “solutions,” which include $3.6 billion in cuts, $5.2 billion in revenue and borrowing, $5.2 billion in delays and deferrals and $3.4 billion in cost shifts from the general fund to other state accounts.
Leaders are taking a closer look at recently-passed budgets to find money — some unspent — to help with this year’s spending plan.
For example, the legislation plans to put back into the general fund, or “revert,” $8.8 million from a 2022-2023 allocation of $10 million for the “Experience Corps grant program within CalVolunteers,” according to a staff report from the Senate Budget Committee.
“ExperienceCorps was meant to engage older Californians in volunteer service, but the program was undersubscribed,” the report said.
Scott Graves, budget director for the California Budget and Policy Center, called this kind of funding “like found money, in a way.”
The agreement Newsom, Rivas and McGuire reached also included a requirement to freeze other spending on one-time funding from 2021, 2022 and 2023, to preserve that money for negotiations to come.
In March, Newsom also signed an increase to the managed care organization, or MCO, tax on health insurers, which the state is using to leverage $1.5 billion in federal funds to help pay for California’s Medi-Cal program.
How will it affect the deficit?
It’s challenging to say how the early action will affect the overall projected budget deficit, in part because the groups involved in crafting the state’s spending plan are not in agreement about how much money the state needs to find.
The Legislative Analyst’s Office in December estimated leaders would be dealing with a $68 billion deficit during the next fiscal year.
Newsom’s Department of Finance in January said the spending gap was closer to $38 billion. The LAO in February updated its deficit estimate to $73 billion, based on new revenue collections information.
The Department of Finance will not update its deficit projection until Newsom presents his revised budget next month.
The Legislature’s April bill may have more to do with narrowing the down the choices lawmakers will need to make moving forward.
Graves said the early budget action represents a kind of “clearing the decks of a lot of these types of solutions that are fairly easy to reach a consensus on, and then they’ll leave the more challenging issues for discussion in May and June.”
“They’re picking a low-hanging fruit now,” he said. “Then they’ll come back to the fruit higher up on the tree later on, where it’s going to be harder to reach agreements. Because they will not necessarily all see eye-to-eye on some of these things.”
What do budget-watchers think?
Graves said his organization, a nonpartisan research nonprofit, thinks the early action deal is a “reasonable approach, recognizing that they’re just partially closing the state budget gap, but they’re also protecting ongoing funding for critical services, which is something that we are very concerned about.”
The Budget and Policy Center has advocated for Newsom and lawmakers to consider revenue-raising strategies to continue protecting those services, such as suspending corporate tax breaks. The governor has been staunchly opposed to any tax increases.
“We argue that this should be on the table this year,” Graves said. “Particularly if they’re saying that they’re going to need to consider potentially deep cuts to ongoing critical services like health care, safety net, education, higher ed, things along those lines.”
Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen is floating a special legislative session to change how the state casts electoral college votes to benefit former President Donald Trump.
Pillen’s announcement late Tuesday was an acknowledgment that the effort to change the state to a winner-take-all system won’t pass immediately — and may not happen at all. But it will keep the possibility alive.
“I look forward to partnering with legislative leaders to [move] it forward in a special session, when there is sufficient support in the Legislature to pass it,” Pillen posted on X. “I will sign [winner-take-all] into law the moment the Legislature gets it to my desk.”
The state has for decades divided its electoral votes in an unusual system where the statewide vote winner gets two electoral votes and the vote winner in each of the state’s three congressional districts gets one vote.
In 2020, now-President Joe Biden carried the state’s Omaha-based 2nd District, securing one of the state’s five electoral votes. He was the first Democrat to do so since Barack Obama in 2008.
That single electoral college vote was ultimately irrelevant in 2020, when Biden won the electoral college by a healthy margin. But it could be critical come November if the election is tighter. If the district system remained in place, Biden could win the presidency just by winning Nebraska’s 2nd District and the Midwestern battlegrounds of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, in addition to safely Democratic states.
But should Nebraska go to a winner-take-all system, Trump has an easier path to the White House. If he won every state he carried in 2020 and flipped Nevada, Arizona and Georgia, the two men would be deadlocked at 269 electoral votes each.
That would kick the election to the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote as a delegation — a contest Republicans would almost assuredly win.
Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican who represents the Omaha-area district and is a top target for Democrats in November, also backed the push to change how the state casts its electoral votes Tuesday. “I think it undermines the influence of Nebraska,” he told CNN. “I think it should be standardized.”
While there have been attempts in the past to change the system, they have largely gone nowhere in Nebraska’s Legislature, which uniquely has one technically nonpartisan chamber.
But close allies of Trump, including Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk, launched an eleventh-hour push in recent weeks to change the system. Pillen endorsed the effort earlier this month, which quickly got the attention of Trump, who also backed the effort.
The state Republican Party and Turning Point hosted a rally Tuesday night to rally support for the effort.
“Nebraska could pick a president,” Kirk said at the rally. “You better believe that that message is being heard in the Capitol. … If we have to come back and do another one, we will because this is a question of the will.”
Only one other state divides its electoral votes by district: Maine. Trump is highly likely to carry Maine’s 2nd District despite the overall blue tint of the state. Maine Democrats have so far shown little appetite for changing their system.
It’s still unclear if there is enough support in the Nebraska Legislature to make the switch. Legislators who register as Republicans now have a filibuster-proof majority in the unicameral, after state Sen. Mike McDonnell announced he was switching parties earlier this month.
But he told POLITICO in a text last week that despite his party switch, he was “voting against changing the electoral vote structure in the state of Nebraska.” POLITICO also reported that privately, at least a handful of GOP legislators didn’t support the effort.
Attempts to tack on the winner-take-all change to other legislation failed, with the overwhelming majority of the chamber voting that it was not relevant last week.
And Democrats have pushed back strongly against the proposed change. Biden’s campaign has been in private talks with the state Democrats, POLITICO reported last week, and the state party continues to publicly hammer the efforts to change the law.
“Pillen is throwing [the Legislature] under the bus because the votes are NOT there to change our electoral vote system,” Jane Kleeb, the chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, posted Wednesday on X. “He is giving himself lots of political cover.”
The Kansas Senate blocked a budget for K-12 schools on Thursday after intense opposition from public education groups.
The Kansas Senate voted 12 to 26 to reject a proposed budget that fully funded schools, and provided $77.5 million in new funding for special education but altered the way the state calculates special education spending. The House had narrowly approved the bill earlier in the day.
Key public education advocates, including the Kansas Association of School Boards and the Kansas National Educators Association, the state’s largest teachers union, had opposed the measure, arguing it amounted to an accounting trick that denied schools the funding for disabled students they desperately need.
“This bill does not include a long-range plan to fully fund special education. Instead, it offers a one-time $77 million increase, along with a series of accounting gimmicks to falsely promise that Special Education will be fully funded in the future,” the groups said in a statement Wednesday.
The bill’s failure likely means the Legislature will start a weeks-long break on Friday without passing funding for public schools.
In recent years public education advocates have loudly called for a massive increase in special education funding. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly proposed such an influx – a $375 million increase over the next five years in $75 million installments.
Instead, the bill Republicans crafted allocated $77.5 million in new funds while counting local discretionary dollars as a portion of the state’s special education spending – an accounting maneuver that may bring Kansas into compliance with spending requirements without significant funding increases.
Several Republicans joined Democrats in rejecting the bill, arguing it harms their local school districts that depend on that funding and would create an excuse for the Legislature to underfund special education in the future.
Rep. Bill Cliffford, a Garden City Republican, opposed the bill and referred to the alterations in the special education formula as “a shell game.”
“Certainly my school districts would be negatively impacted at some point,” he said.
Senate Democrats spoke against the bill, arguing it was understudied and could harm districts across the state. “That is something we all need to be concerned about,” Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat, said.
Republican proponents had argued those funds were meant for special education students and should be spent in that manner.
“For the last seven years the LOB money that has been generated off of the excess costs of special education students has gone not into the special education fund where it should rightly go but it has gone into the general fund or the athletic fund or the increase the salary for the superintendent fund,” Rep. Scott Hill, an Abilene Republican said.
“Increasing our responsibility for special ed and at the same time cleaning up what local districts do with special ed money makes sense.”
Rep. Kristey Williams, an Augusta Republican, argued Kelly’s plan would depart from normal funding practices.
The Legislature, she said, cannot hold future Legislatures to a commitment on funding. New dollars for special education, she said, will always come.
“I want to make sure that special education is funded today and this gives them $77.5 million more than they had,” she said.
The Star’s Jenna Barackman and Sarah Ritter contributed reporting
TALLAHASSEE, Florida — The Florida Supreme Court will not block a ballot initiative that seeks to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults in this year’s general election, giving a major boost to the effort to open up pot use in the third-most populous state in the country.
With the green light from Florida’s conservative-leaning high court and more than 1 million signed and certified voter petitions in hand, Florida voters will have a chance to weigh in on an issue the state’s Republican-led Legislature has rejected for years.
The decision was in response to a request made by Florida Republican Attorney General Ashley Moody to reject the ballot language, arguing the measure fails to remind voters about a federal ban on marijuana.
Florida’s Supreme Court in a 5-2 ruling determined that the ballot language proposed by the Smart & Safe Florida committee to go before voters in November’s election fit the state’s single-subject rule for ballot initiatives.
Justice Jamie Grosshans wrote in the majority opinion that the ballot language was not too confusing for voters, and rejected an argument that the proposed amendment would require the Legislature to create new licenses to sell pot beyond the companies currently allowed to sell medical marijuana.
“We do not believe the summary would confuse a voter into thinking that the Legislature is required to authorize additional licenses,” the opinion states, later adding, “It clearly states that the amendment legalizes adult personal possession and use of marijuana as a matter of Florida law.”
Smart & Safe Florida’s campaign was funded by more than $39 million from Trulieve, which is the largest medical marijuana company in Florida. The proposed amendment, if approved by 60 percent of voters in November, would allow Trulieve and the 24 other companies licensed by the state to sell and grow pot for medical use to begin selling to anyone over the age of 21.
“We are thankful that the Court has correctly ruled the ballot initiative and summary language meets the standards for single subject and clarity. We look forward to supporting this campaign as it heads to the ballot this Fall,” Trulieve CEO Kim Rivers wrote in a statement, later adding that a coalition of companies has formed to aid in the campaign to November.
Trulieve operates 131 of the 618 medical marijuana dispensaries in Florida, and Moody used the Tallahassee-based company’s market position to argue that the ballot language was not written within the best interest of voters.
Lawyers from Moody’s office argued in briefs — filed before the court heard oral arguments in November — that the company was footing the bill for the initiative so it could lure consumers to willfully break federal law in the name of profit.
The justices all but dismissed Moody’s arguments during oral arguments. The same court had previously rejected two legalization initiatives from recent election years, handing down decisions that identified several mistakes. Lawyers for Smart & Safe Florida argued that the proposed language sought to address the mistakes that were cited by the court in the previous decisions, and Moody’s lawyers argued that the court should reconsider parts of the previous decisions.
In Monday’s opinion Grosshans wrote the amendment does not violate the single subject rule by impacting the state’s medical pot industry.
“Selling and possessing marijuana appear, for better or worse, directly connected, and we cannot say that an amendment addressing both components violates the single-subject requirement,” the opinion states.
Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2019 was hailed a champion by medical marijuana businesses and patients just weeks after he first took office, after he called on the state Legislature to repeal a ban on the sale of smokable marijuana known as flower.
DeSantis has since signed legislation that tightened the state’s controls on medical marijuana marketing to further prevent advertising that attracts children and implied that products were for recreational use. And his annual state budget recommendations to the Legislature have included millions in funding to expand testing, safety and enforcement efforts at the Office of Medical Marijuana Use.
DeSantis has, however, called recreational pot use a “real problem,” even lamenting the plant’s “stench.” While campaigning for president last year, DeSantis told reporters that marijuana has become more potent over the past two decades and warned that it could be laced with fentanyl.
“I think it’s a real, real problem, and I think it’s a lot different than stuff that people were using 30 or 40 years ago,” DeSantis said. “And I think when kids get on that, I think it causes a lot of problems.”
Florida already has the largest medical marijuana program in the country, with more than 871,000 patients registered with the state Department of Health.
More than 71 percent of voters legalized pot for medical use in 2016 after a successful ballot initiative backed heavily by high-profile Orlando lawyer and self-proclaimed “Pot Daddy” John Morgan, who contributed close to $7 million in cash.
Birmingham-Southern College will close on May 31 after a nearly 18-month fight to keep the liberal arts school open.
BSC’s Board of Trustees voted to shut the school down after legislative leaders told them that a bill to extend the private school a $30 million loan was unlikely to pass the Alabama House of Representatives.
More: How Mississippi’s small colleges are working to ensure their viability amid challenges
“This is a tragic day for the College, our students, our employees, and our alumni,” said Board Chair Rev. Keith D. Thompson in a statement. “But it is also a terrible day for Birmingham, for the neighborhoods who have surrounded our campus for more than 100 years, and for Alabama.”
BSC faced declining enrollment and poor finances stemming from overbuilding, the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic. It had sought a bridge loan from the Legislature to continue operations.
The school said in a statement that it is making arrangements to maximize credit transfers for students.
Birmingham-Southern College faces financial struggles that officials say have brought the school to the brink of closure.
“We are putting students first, and we will do everything we can to help them find the best place to continue their path to graduation,” said Provost Dr. Laura K. Stultz in a statement.
The school said arrangements will be made for a small group of seniors planning to graduate Summer 2024 to finish their degrees. Meetings are scheduled with employees over the next few days.
Natalie Davis, a professor emerita of the college who had been there for 45 years, said Tuesday that she had received a “slew” of texts from former students.
“It’s a sad day for the college,” she said.
Doug Turner, an alumnus of the school who had been involved in organizing alumni during the 2023 legislative session, said that he doesn’t understand how the Legislature could have passed something last year but couldn’t support it this year.
“I guess that means that you don’t really care what your constituents think or you don’t think they’re watching,” he said.
Ellen Potts, an alumna and executive director of the Tuscaloosa Habitat for Humanity, said that “it’s a sad day for the state of Alabama.”
“It makes me sad for future generations who will not have access to that kind of quality education,” she said.
Birmingham-area leaders expressed sadness and criticized the Legislature for failing to act. Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin said in a statement Tuesday that the closing was “disappointing and heartbreaking.”
“I’ve stood alongside members of our city council to protect this institution and its proud legacy of shaping leaders,” the statement said. “It’s frustrating that those values were not shared by lawmakers in Montgomery.”
U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Birmingham, released a statement on social media Tuesday that the school meant a lot to many people.
“While no one had hoped for this outcome, the failure of state leaders to do their part and provide assistance to BSC is particularly disappointing,” she wrote.
The Legislature last year passed a law to extend a loan to the school. The loan was considered all-but-guaranteed until last fall, when State Treasurer Young Boozer, who oversaw the program, declined to issue it. Boozer cited concerns with the school’s long-term stability.
The school filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against the Treasurer’s Office after the denial.
Boozer wrote in an email Tuesday that “I have already made the comments that were needed to be made.”
A bill that would have changed administration of the program to the head of the Alabama Commission on Higher Education passed the Senate last month and got out of a House committee last week, but some lawmakers seemed doubtful of its chances.
A message was left Tuesday with Sen. Jabo Waggoner, R-Vestavia Hills, who sponsored the legislation.
Sen. Rodger Smitherman, D-Birmingham, who co-sponsored the legislation said he didn’t “want to give up hope,” but said the news was a “tragedy” that would cost jobs and hurt businesses from the loss of students.
Rep. Danny Garrett, R-Trussville, who chairs the House Ways and Means Education Committee, overseeing the state budget, said Tuesday that the key to the legislation last year was the role of the State Treasurer as the “gatekeeper” to the program.
“Apparently it was the case that removing the treasurer there just wasn’t enough support in the House,” he said.
Rep. Juandalynn Givan, D-Birmingham, whose district includes the school, said that “everything was problematic” with the bill and that the exclusion of the treasurer hurt its chances. She said she would never have believed that school was going to close on May 31, saying that the institution was too “storied.” She said she was “very hurt.”
“It’s a sad day for the state of Alabama but certainly for the city of Birmingham,” she said. “The school is called Birmingham-Southern.”
Inside Higher Ed reported that 14 nonprofit four-year colleges closed in 2023, with a 15th essentially shutting down. The schools were mostly small, private, tuition-dependent and had small endowments. Ten of the 15 schools were also religiously affiliated.
The Hechinger Report reported in 2022 that 861 colleges had closed since 2004.
Birmingham-Southern College was founded in 1918 after the merger of Southern University, chartered in 1856, and Birmingham College, founded in 1910.
A message was left with the chair of the Senate education committee, Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur.
Givan, who had predicted last week that the bill would not pass, said that the work for the bill had been focused in the Senate with the sponsor, and there wasn’t enough support in the House. She said the right stakeholders had not been involved.
Davis said that she had attended a liberal arts college, and it changed her life. She said that she wanted to do similar things. She said that the school has historically had students from rural communities who use their education to live “successful lives,” including law and medical school.
“I think we were very successful over the years,” she said.
Potts said that her family of four were all graduates of the school. She said she thought that a school that produced so many “highly educated” graduates would be something the state would want to preserve.
“At a time when the brain drain of other colleges and universities in this state, of the graduates leaving the state at a time when that is well documented, there’s no effort to keep this quality of graduate in state,” she said.
Turner said that thousands of graduates who fought for last year’s bill thought the issue was settled, and that he thought this year’s bill was moving along until a decision was made, in his words, “behind closed doors.”
“Frankly, we don’t have a lot of people covering the Alabama Legislature day to day and maybe we should because they’re really surprised that this is what happened,” he said. “And I think that it is for those of us who wish to continue investing in our communities, with our presence and our participation, we need to look to our state legislators and say, ‘What happened?’ ”
This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Birmingham-Southern College to close after 168 years