Weekly Update 1/19/21

California

California lifted a stay-at-home order in the 13-county Sacramento region on Tuesday, 1/12, as hospital conditions improved, a rare turn of good news for the state…

California health officials are recommending a temporary halt to distribution of a particular lot of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine out of concern over allergic reactions…

California is reducing the age threshold for COVID-19 vaccinations to 65 years old and giving older residents greater priority over workers who were due to receive inoculations next, the state announced Wednesday, 1/13…

Several higher education systems and organizations applauded Gov. Newsom’s budget proposal this week…

Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner doubled down Monday, 1/11, on criticism of Gov. Newsom's plans to reopen schools, joining unions in demanding state standards and more funding for all schools regardless of whether they reopen classrooms…

President and Administration

The Trump administration added Cuba to a list of state sponsors of terrorism Monday, 1/11…

In a surprise move, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Wednesday, 1/13, will unveil a climate rule that will effectively prohibit the future regulation of greenhouse gases from any stationary industry other than power plants…

A divided Supreme Court on Tuesday, 1/12, granted an appeal from Trump administration lawyers and restored a controversial abortion rule that requires women who want medication to end an early pregnancy to travel to a hospital or clinic to pick up the pills, despite the COVID-19 pandemic…

Trump has approved an emergency declaration for the District of Columbia with the approach of President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration and in the wake of the assault on the U.S. Capitol last week…

Expanded tax perks in the new round of Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) funding are designed to stretch support to small businesses still stuck in widespread shutdowns caused by the pandemic…

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which restarted this week with $284 billion in pandemic-relief loans for U.S. small businesses, opened to small banks on Friday, 1/15, and all lenders today, 1/19…

Chad Wolf may no longer be the acting secretary of the Homeland Security Department (DHS), but he is still serving as a DHS political appointee and using newly delegated authorities to make legal actions he took while he was chief…

Trump-appointed Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham said Wednesday, 1/13, he’s asked political appointees to “stand down” in their efforts to push through a population count that excludes undocumented immigrants before President Trump leaves office…

Congress

Democratic Senators-elect Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Raphael Warnock (D-GA), and Alex Padilla (D-CA) will be sworn in Wednesday, 1/20, after President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration…

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the General Counsel published a memorandum on Friday, 1/8, that states that LGBTQ students are not expressly included in protections under Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination at federally funded institutions…

On Wednesday, 1/13, Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Bob Casey (D-PA), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine whether colleges and universities are doing enough to make sure disabled students have the same access to learning during the coronavirus pandemic as others…

Peer-reviewed analysis of 30 large U.S. universities released in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering indicated that in 18 of them, a peak in campus infections preceded a peak in the surrounding county by less than 14 days, suggesting infections were translated from the campus to the nearby community…

The Education Department added long called-for information to its College Scorecard that shows how well students at institutions, including for-profits, are able to repay student loans…

 Transition

President-elect Joe Biden announced Monday, 1/11, that he will nominate William J. Burns as the next director of the CIA…

San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Cindy Marten has been nominated to join president-elect Joe Biden’s administration as the Deputy Secretary of Education….

The incoming administration will focus on decreasing wait times to obtain citizenship to eight years from 13 years, granting automatic green cards to immigrants protected by the Temporary Protected Status and Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policies, and adding immigration judges to decrease backlogs on court hearings, Vice President-elect Kamala Harris said on Tuesday, 1/12…

President-elect Biden on Thursday, 1/14, proposed a $1.9 trillion rescue package to combat the economic downturn and the COVID-19 crisis…

President-elect Biden is planning a vaccination offensive that calls for greatly expanding access to vaccines while promising to use a wartime law to expand production…

The association representing for-profit colleges and universities, in a letter Monday, 1/11, urged President-elect Joe Biden's administration not to single them out unfairly…

Weekly Update 1/11/21

California

California is using a smaller percentage of its available COVID-19 vaccine doses than every other large state…

On Friday, 1/8, Gov. Newsom unveiled a record $227 billion January spending plan that marks a dramatic reversal from summer fears that the state would head off a financial cliff…

A federal appeals court panel appears poised to find that Gov. Newsom's months-long COVID-19 limits on houses of worship violate the religious freedom rights of Californians, but a majority of the judges on the case sounded unlikely Monday, 1/4, to immediately reverse tighter stay-at-home restrictions imposed last month due to a record surge in infections…

Coronavirus

Days after being sworn into office, Rep. Michelle Steel (R-CA) has tested positive for COVID-19 following contact with a COVID-positive person…

Lawmakers who huddled together for safety last week — as a deadly siege overtook the U.S. Capitol — were potentially exposed to someone infected with the coronavirus, the Office of the Attending Physician warned Sunday, 1/10. Several Republicans were seen without masks while in the crowded room, despite being offered extras by Democrats…

President and Administration

Impeachment and the invocation of the 25th Amendment against Trump are being considered following the Capitol riots…

President Trump officially announced he will not be attending President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration on 1/20…

President Trump has suggested to aides he wants to pardon himself in the final days of his presidency…

On Thursday, 1/7, both Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos resigned…

Former Attorney General William Barr accused President Trump on Thursday, 1/7, of a “betrayal of his office” — a rebuke of the president following the pro-Trump riots inside the Capitol…

The top federal prosecutor in D.C. said Thursday, 1/7, that President Trump was not off-limits in his investigation of the events surrounding Wednesday’s, 1/6, riot at the U.S. Capitol, saying “all actors” would be examined to determine if they broke the law…

Congress

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley about guardrails in place that could prevent "an unstable president" from wielding the military or the country's nuclear arsenal on Friday, 1/8. Milley's spokesperson, Col. Dave Butler, said Pelosi initiated the call with the chairman…

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AL) is calling on President Trump to resign following the riots at the Capitol, making her the first Republican senator to take that step…

Three days before supporters of President Trump rioted at the Capitol, the Pentagon asked the U.S. Capitol Police if it needed National Guard manpower…

Prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney's office plan to open a federal murder investigation into the death of Brian D. Sicknick, a U.S. Capitol Police officer who died Thursday night, 1/7, after sustaining critical injuries during the storming of the Capitol…

The House adopted a new set of rules for the 117th Congress in a 217-206 party-line vote on Monday, 1/4, with provisions to extend remote voting during the pandemic, protect whistleblowers and limit the minority’s ability to amend legislation on the floor…

Democrats will soon have the balance of power required to repeal Trump’s limitation on a prized tax deduction, but doing so will likely require a tricky procedural process and a politically fraught vote…

Transition

As expected, President-elect Joe Biden will, upon taking office 1/20, instruct the Education Department to continue the pause excusing student loan borrowers from making payments, David Kamin, who will be deputy director of the National Economic Council in the Biden administration revealed…

President-elect Joe Biden filled out his team to lead federal agencies team on Thursday, 1/7, by naming judge Merrick Garland to serve as his attorney general, Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island as his commerce secretary, Mayor Martin J. Walsh of Boston as his labor secretary and Isabel Guzman, of California and a former Obama administration official, as head of the Small Business Administration…

The Trump EPA began implementing on Wednesday, 1/6, its controversial new science rule that limits the types of research the agency can rely on in making policy — a move that stands to complicate the incoming Biden administration's efforts to swiftly issue aggressive new environmental protections…

Education 

Billions of dollars dedicated to colleges and universities in the recently enacted relief legislation won't come close to helping the institutions fill budget deficits caused by pandemic, Fitch Ratings said Thursday, 1/7…

 Many community colleges across the country are working to meet a surge in demand for food and other basic necessities…

Weekly Update 1/4/21

California

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a $2 billion push Wednesday, 12/30, to reopen California elementary schools for the youngest students in February, offering incentives and testing to school districts that resume classroom instruction…

California extended its stay-at-home order for Southern California and San Joaquin Valley on Tuesday, 12/28, and the Greater Sacramento Region on Saturday, 1/2… 

Coronavirus

The mandatory paid leave provision that ensured workers would continue drawing paychecks while they absented themselves to care for children or ill family members became a voluntary one on 1/1, as it wasn’t carried forward in the $900 billion COVID-19 economic relief bill passed by Congress…

Business leaders are calling on Congress to act on a new pandemic relief bill next year, including aid for state and local governments and liability protections for employers from virus-related lawsuits…

The revival of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) has Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) bracing for a very busy start to 2021…

A recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 29 percent of healthcare workers were “vaccine hesitant," a figure slightly higher than the percentage of the general population, 27 percent…

President and Administration

Nonprofit organizations that provide anti-racism and anti-LGBT bias training won an order halting the federal government from enforcing an executive order that threatens to chill their advocacy and block them from receiving federal grant money…

On Thursday, 12/31, Trump extended a ban on new green cards and work visas until months after he leaves office, citing weakness in the U.S. labor market due to COVID-19…

A final rule to ease employers’ use of independent contractors has been cleared by the White House, setting the stage for the U.S. Labor Department (DOL) to complete one of its biggest rulemakings of the Trump era in the administration’s final days…

President Trump urged fellow Republican Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, to “find” enough votes to overturn his defeat in an extraordinary one-hour phone call Saturday, 1/2, that legal scholars described as a flagrant abuse of power and a potential criminal act…

Trump will make his last stand to overturn his election loss on Wednesday, 1/6, when Vice President Pence presides over the congressional session to ratify November’s results…

Education 

In a farewell letter sent today, 1/4, to leaders in the House and Senate and to committees that oversee the Education Department, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos urged lawmakers to reject President-elect Joe Biden's education agenda, while imploring them to shield Trump administration policies that Biden has promised to eliminate…

 Congress

Nancy Pelosi was elected speaker of the House for the 117th Congress, clinching the gavel for the fourth and potentially last time as she prepares to steer the sharply divided chamber through the final turbulent days of the Trump era…

Congressional Democrats are looking to President-elect Joe Biden for more spending in 2021 to address the COVID-19 pandemic and boost the economy… 

The two Senate races taking place Tuesday, 1/5, are expected to be close…

Transition

President-elect Joe Biden will issue a memo effective Inauguration Day that will block actions taken by the outgoing administration that haven’t yet become official, the transition team announced on 12/30…

Career staffers at the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) aren’t being allowed to meet with President-elect Joe Biden Transition team to work on the incoming administration’s first budget request…

President- elect Joe Biden warned the “darkest days” of the COVID-19 pandemic were still to come and called on Congress to be ready to produce another stimulus package…

Final Update 2020

COVID-19 Stimulus and Omnibus

Congressional leaders on Sunday night, 12/20, unveiled the highlights of a $900 billion fiscal stimulus package and a $1.4 trillion government funding deal that is intended to deliver critical pandemic aid to millions of Americans and pad federal agency budgets through next September…

California

On Friday, 12/18, only 2.1% of the California’s intensive-care units (ICU) were available, according to the state’s latest figures…

Latinos make up roughly 40 percent of California, and remain a growing population in the state…

Coronavirus

Moderna Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine was cleared by U.S. regulators, the second vaccine to gain emergency authorization this month as a historic mass immunization effort ramps up across the country…

The elderly and front-line essential workers, including firefighters, teachers and grocery store workers, should be next in line for coronavirus vaccines, an advisory committee to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) voted on Sunday, 12/20…

The FDA has granted emergency use authorization for the first at-home COVID-19 test…

Education

Two lesser-known educators have emerged as top candidates for education secretary — a former dean at Howard University and the commissioner of schools in Connecticut…

Weekly Update 12/14/20

California

A judge on Tuesday, 12/8, dealt a rebuke to Los Angeles County public health officials racing to control COVID-19’s spread, blocking an indefinite ban on outdoor dining announced late last month…

Absent actions from the state or Congress, thousands like in California may be on the hook to pay back parts of their unemployment aid because of how they reported their income to the state…

Newly sworn-in LA District Attorney George Gascón unveiled sweeping changes many of which went into effect Tuesday, 12/8….

Electing a President

Members of the Electoral College met today, 12/14, to officially elect Joe Biden, a moment some Republican lawmakers have targeted as the end of President Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the results as far as they’re concerned…

President and Administration

The Supreme Court on Friday, 12/11, rejected a lawsuit by Texas that had asked the court to throw out the election results in four battleground states that President Trump lost in November, ending any prospect that a brazen attempt to use the courts to reverse his defeat at the polls would succeed…

On the last day for its rulings in 2020, the Supreme Court today, 12/14, took no action on President Trump's plan to exclude undocumented migrants from the census figures used to calculate each state's representation in Congress…

Forthcoming Treasury Department guidance expanding Opportunity Zones based on changes to census tract boundaries would likely allow areas to expand automatically, with no state requests for the changes—any alternative would be too difficult to administer, according to a person familiar with the matter…

Education

National completion rates have plateaued, and community college completion rates decreased, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center…

A new memo from center-left Washington, D.C., think tank Third Way identifies transfer myths and what policy makers can do to solve the problems these myths create…

An Urban Institute-led partnership will work to support community and technical colleges with the transition to online learning…

Congress

Lawmakers are reportedly close to an agreement for Fiscal Year 2021 spending deal that also is expected to serve as a vehicle for a coronavirus relief bill…

Transition

President-elect Joe Biden’s choice to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is an advocate for frequent, mass COVID-19 testing of college students….

The Biden administration plans to create a position to find common ground with conservatives, said Louisiana Congressman Cedric Richmond, a senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement for the president-elect…

Lily Eskelsen García, the former president of the nation’s largest teachers union National Education Association, has received endorsements from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and dozens of national Hispanic organizations as she pursues the top job at the U.S. Education Department in the Biden administration…