Category: What We’re Reading

Here’s a selection of article the Office of Federal Relations is reading this week.

No More “Manspreading”— The public transportation system in the Spanish capital of Madrid is trying to stop “manspreading.” Read more here.

More Debt, Lower Wages –  Women and minorities are more likely to borrow to pay for their college degrees, yet their lower lifetime pay means many will end up struggling to buy homes and sock away money. Read more from CBS.

“Winning So Much” — At the Australian equivalent of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull channels President Trump.

Trump Won’t Alter Status of DREAMers –  President Donald Trump’s administration has issued its most explicit promise to date that so-called Dreamers can keep their permission to work legally in the U.S. “No work permits will be terminated prior to their current expiration dates,” the Department of Homeland Security said in guidance posted on its website Thursday night. Read more over at Politico.

Play Ball! – A particularly meaningful “God Bless America” opened up the 56th annual Congressional Baseball Game as members of both the Republican and Democratic teams stood side-by-side — patriotically bipartisan — in center field. Read more about the game on Roll Call.

Melania Moves to Washington – “Looking forward to the memories we’ll make in our new home!” the first lady tweeted. Read more over at the Washington Post. 

Here is a selection of news articles the Office of Federal Relations is reading this week.

Well, That Didn’t Work Out the Way It Was Supposed To – After calling for a snap election that was intended to enhance their control of the British Parliament ahead of the “Brexit” negotiations, the Conservatives in Britain suffered quite a set-back as they lost their majority.  The Tories will now form a new government in partnership with the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.  Read more about it here, here, and here.

Infrastructure Update: Can He Accomplish That? The White House announced that this week — the same week that the former FBI director testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee — would be “infrastructure week.” It was to be a week dedicated to taking concrete steps forward on improving our nation’s roads, bridges, airports, broadband reach and more. But how far has the Trump administration gotten this week? Have they made progress in coming through on the campaign promises Trump made, namely the promise of a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure over 10 years? Read/listen to more from the Washington Post.

Senate Moderates on Healthcare: We’re Close – Moderate Republicans on Thursday said they were getting closer to supporting an emerging Senate health package but are continuing to press for a slower phaseout of the Medicaid expansion than the House-passed bill set out. Read more from Roll Call.

$34 B Would Make College Afforable – A new report from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO), a group comprised of heads of statewide governing boards, proposes state and federal support should increase by $34 billion per year to make college financially accessible for all. Read more on Time. 

Job Openings Hit Record Highs – U.S. job openings surged to a record high in April and employers appeared to have trouble finding suitable workers, pointing to a tightening labor market that could encourage the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next month. The Labor Department’s monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, published on Tuesday also suggests that a recent moderation in job growth could be the result of a skills mismatch rather than easing demand for labor. Read more on Reuters.

H-1 B Visas – The White House has been quietly working with the Justice Department on overhauling the H-1B program to better adhere to the administration’s “Buy American, Hire American” order, sources told Politico Playbook. Read more from Politico. 

Timeline: How Comey Came to Testify – It was less than a year ago that then-FBI Director James B. Comey delivered mixed news for the Democratic Party’s nominee for president —Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified material was, “extremely careless,” but he would not bring charges against her in the case. After that, he’s had quite the year: drawing fire from all sides, and eventually getting fired by President Donald Trump last month in the heat of a major investigation into potential relationships between Trump’s campaign and Russians who were actively interfering in the U.S. election. Read more from Roll Call.

Here is a selection of article the Office of Federal Relations is reading this week.

Montana Special Election – The special election to fill Montana’s U.S. House seat took a weird turn on Wednesday night when the Republican candidate, Greg Gianforte, reportedly body-slammed Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs. What effect all this will have on today’s special election is … unclear. Suffice to say that we don’t have much precedent for election-eve body-slamming. As always, we’re interested in who wins… but we’re also interested in what the Montana result tells us about the national political environment. And when we’re judging the latter, we need to look at the margin of victory, not just who wins and loses. Read more from FiveThirtyEight.

Campus Free Speech – State legislatures, most led by Republicans, are advancing bills they say are intended to support free speech. The laws include measures to suspend students who interfere with the free-speech rights of others, remove free-speech zones that limit protests to small areas on campus and cut off money to schools that don’t protect the First Amendment. In the past few months, governors have signed legislation protecting free speech on campus in Colorado, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia. Meanwhile, Republican legislators have proposed bills in Illinois, Wisconsin, Texas, California, North Carolina, Michigan, Louisiana and Georgia. Read more from the Wall Street Journal.

Trump Budget Tough for Education – President Trump’s full budget proposal for fiscal year 2018, to be released Tuesday, calls for a $9.2 billion, or 13.5 percent, spending cut to education. The cuts would be spread across K-12 and aid to higher education, according to documents released by the White House.None of this can be finalized without Congress. And the political track record for Presidents who want to reduce education funding is not promising, even in a far less poisoned atmosphere than the one that hovers over Washington right now. Read more from NPR. 

Mid-Term Elections Preview – The midterm elections are still nearly a year and a half away, and the political dynamics could yet change, but we shouldn’t ignore the fact that history and the current environment are merging together for a potentially great set of elections for Democrats in November 2018. The president’s party has lost House seats in 18 of the last 20 midterm elections, and it’s lost an average of 33 seats in those 18 elections. Democrats need to gain 24 seats in order to take back the majority. Read more on Roll Call.

Tax Overhaul Hurdles – Republican leaders are applying a lesson learned from health care to the tax overhaul debate: build consensus before releasing a bill. It’s no secret that the House, Senate and White House are not on the same page on a tax overhaul. But GOP leaders are now more openly acknowledging those divisions as they work toward a goal of a unified plan. Read more on Roll Call. 

Americans Doing Better Financially – Americans’ sense of their overall financial health improved modestly last year, but adults without any college education lost ground for the first time since 2013, according to a new Federal Reserve survey. Read more on the Wall Street Journal.

Here is a selection of article the Office of Federal Relations is reading this week.

Trump Calls Comey “Nut Job” – The latest news the Trump-Russia saga: President Trump told Russian officials in the Oval Office this month that firing the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, had relieved “great pressure” on him, according to a document summarizing the meeting. “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job,” Mr. Trump said, according to the document, which was read to The New York Times by an American official. “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” Mr. Trump added, “I’m not under investigation.” Read more from The New York Times.

Tracking the Trump Administration’s Russia Ties – Following the revelation late this afternoon that law enforcement is now investigating a senior White House advisor in the Russia-probe, we thought you may find this excellent infograph, which maps relationships between White House officials and Russian officials, from The Washington Post interesting. Check it out on the Washington Post. 

Widening the Gap in U.S. Life Expectancy – IHME got a great shoutout on NIH Director Francis Collins’ blog this week. The post notes that recent gains in longevity aren’t being enjoyed equally in all corners of the United States. In fact, depending on where you live in this great country, life expectancy can vary more than 20 years—a surprisingly wide gap that has widened significantly in recent decades. Read more from the NIH Director’s Blog.

Trump’s ED Budget is Leaked! – Funding for college work-study programs would be cut in half, public-service loan forgiveness would end and hundreds of millions of dollars that public schools could use for mental health, advanced coursework and other services would vanish under a Trump administration plan to cut $10.6 billion from federal education initiatives, according to budget documents obtained by The Washington Post. Read more at The Washington Post. 

Capitol Cat Watch – In case you didn’t already understand how crazy this town is these days, check out this cat on a leash (and with a stroller) in the Russell Senate Building. Bravo! Read more from Time. 

Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is reading this week.

Comedians Love Trump –  It appears that late-night talkshow hosts love President Trump.  According to an analysis by George Mason University, he is on pace to be become the butt of the hosts’ jokes after his first year more often that any of his predecessors.  Read more in Politico here.

Suffering from Election Withdrawal?–  Anyone suffering from election withdrawal?  Our Presidential election is over, the two gubernatorial elections in 2017 are not until later this year, and the Congressional elections are not until next year.  Well, those who need their election fix can learn about the impending Presidential elections in France and South Korea.

Senate Obamacare Repeal Slog – Don’t expect quick Senate action on the Republican bill to repeal large portions of the 2010 health law. Aides caution that, regardless of House passage on Thursday, it could be weeks before the Senate can begin any significant work on the legislation. The lack of analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office will be a major contributor to the slowdown. Read more on Roll Call.

Trumpcare’s Impact on Harborview – House Republicans claimed victory after pushing through their legislative centerpiece that would scuttle much of Obamacare. The health-care bill’s pathway through the U.S. Senate is less clear. Harborview Medical Center’s executive director said Friday that the hospital by 2026 would lose $627 million in federal revenue under the health-care bill passed Thursday by the House of Representatives. Read more from The Seattle Times.

On International Students – Students from abroad have become a rich revenue source for many state colleges and their towns. What happens if the Trump administration’s anti-immigration sentiment and policies drive them away? Read more from Governing Magazine. 

NIH to Impose Grant Cap – In a major policy shift that is reverberating across the biomedical research community, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, says it plans to cap the number of grants an investigator can hold in order to free up funding for early-career scientists and those struggling to keep their labs afloat. Read more in Science Magazine.