Weekly Update 4/26/21

California

There are several bills in Sacramento focused on criminal justice, including second attempts at bills lawmakers introduced following George Floyd’s death but failed to pass last year…

New California rule allows 75% capacity for movie theaters in yellow tier and no physical distancing as long as crowds are fully vaccinated…

California will lose one seat in Congress for the first time after data released today, 4/26, by the U.S. Census Bureau revealed California's slow population growth rate…

Last week, Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA) launched his reelection campaign alongside a powerhouse endorsement list led by names like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Katie Porter…

The California Legislature overwhelmingly voted Thursday, 4/22, to make Rob Bonta California’s paramount prosecutor - quite possibly confirming the most progressive attorney general in California history…

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which is part of the Department of Transportation, said Thursday, 4/22, it is proposing to withdraw a Trump-era rule meant to stop states from setting their own requirements for greenhouse gases, zero emissions vehicles and fuel economy…

On Friday, 4/23, former Olympic champion and transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner announced that she plans to run for California governor as a Republican with Gov. Newsom facing a likely recall election… 

Coronavirus

A growing call for health officials to relax rules about outdoor mask wearing could soon lead to one of the most significant changes in virus guidelines since the U.S. first told Americans to don face coverings to curb the spread of COVID-19…

One of the largest studies of COVID-19 “long haulers” has proved what many doctors suspected: Not only are many patients suffering a raft of health problems six months after infection, they’re also at significantly greater risk of dying…

President Biden announced on Wednesday, 4/21, that his administration had achieved its target of 200 million COVID-19 vaccinations during his first 100 days in office…

Two-thirds of Americans support COVID-19 vaccination requirements for college students, according to a YouGov poll…

Rapid identification of children who are silently spreading the virus that causes COVID-19 may have a similar effect in curbing outbreaks as would their vaccination, according to new findings released Friday, 4/23…

The U.S. poverty rate rose to 11.7% in March 2021, the highest level yet during the pandemic following an increase in the latter part of last year as many government benefits expired, a study showed…

American tourists who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will be able to visit the European Union over the summer…

President and Administration

Only about 200 people will be inside the House chamber on Wednesday, 4/28, when President Biden delivers his first address to a joint session of Congress…

The Small Business Administration (SBA) has begun to take applications for a $16 billion grant fund for live-event businesses like theaters and music clubs… 

Last week, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) unveiled a rule cracking down on debt collectors to stop them from forcing renters from their homes during a nationwide eviction ban, as millions of Americans struggle with bills amid the pandemic…

President Biden will propose almost doubling the capital gains tax rate for wealthy individuals to 39.6%, which, coupled with an existing surtax on investment income, means that federal tax rates for investors could be as high as 43.4%…

Biden plans to unveil a plan this week to raise taxes on millionaires to fund education, child care and other spending plans…

Advocacy groups from states across the U.S. are urging Congress to evenly fund transit and highways in the next surface transportation reauthorization bill…

The White House told lawmakers the administration’s goal is to send a full budget proposal for fiscal 2022 by Memorial Day, 5/31…

After former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was found guilty of murdering Floyd late Tuesday, 4/20, Biden was on the phone speaking to Floyd’s family…

Even as National Rifle Association (NRA) leaders are called to testify in the second week of a bankruptcy trial, the gun rights organization is launching plans to lobby Congress against gun-control measures backed by President Biden and leading Democrats…

The Supreme Court suggested it was poised to block applications for permanent residency from thousands of immigrants who entered the country illegally and later secured Temporary Protected Status…

Congress 

Key Senate Republicans are planning to participate in earmarking congressional funds for local projects after their conference left in place a non-enforceable ban on the practice…

Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) says the panel will accept requests for congressionally directed spending items for appropriations bills for the 2022 fiscal year…

Last week, progressive lawmakers, led by Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), formally revived their push for a Green New Deal, leaning into the framework to swiftly transition off fossil fuels that’s become a prominent foil for conservatives… 

Senior Senate Republicans offered a $568 billion counter to President Biden’s $2.25 trillion jobs package Thursday, 4/22, one that’s focused on more traditional infrastructure and doesn’t have the corporate tax hikes that Democrats are seeking…

A bill from Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA.) and Rep. Bobby Scott (D-VA), introduced Thursday, 4/22, would make child care free for families earning less than 75% of a state’s median income by providing funding through a state-federal partnership…

Lawmakers should closely study who is benefiting from a deduction on state and local taxes (SALT) before making changes to the tax break, James Clyburn (D-SC) said…

Democrats introduced legislation that would close loopholes that lawmakers say are exploited by the tobacco industry to avoid regulation and taxes…

House Agriculture Committee Chair David Scott (D-GA) is pressing to expand high-speed internet access to all 24 million Americans without it by the end of the year…

Last week, House leaders reintroduced their signature drug pricing bill, which would direct the government to demand lower prices from drugmakers...

The top senators on the Senate HELP Committee say they hope to strike a bipartisan deal to address workforce development after the COVID-19 pandemic wiped out millions of jobs in the U.S…

The Senate on Thursday, 4/22,  passed an anti-hate crimes bill aimed at addressing a surge in attacks on Asian Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic…

The House passed a measure that would give state-authorized cannabis businesses easier access to banking services in a bipartisan 321-101 vote…

According to news reports, Members of the House and their staff will be able to escort certain visitors into the Capitol starting today, 4/26…

Julie Su, the Biden administration’s nominee to be deputy U.S. labor secretary, was approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee Wednesday, 4/21…

 The Senate HELP Committee advanced the nominations of Cindy Marten for deputy education secretary and James Kvaal for under secretary of education Wednesday, 4/21…

On Tuesday, 4/20, the Senate confirmed Vanita Gupta as associate attorney general, 51-49. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) broke with her party in voting to confirm Gupta, blowing up the effort to make Democrats solely own the confirmation…

Education

The U.S. Department of Agriculture extended the school meal program known as Seamless Summer Option through June 2022 to support reopened schools this fall…

On Wednesday, 4/21, the Department of Education (ED) released the State plan application that will support states in describing how they will use resources under the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) fund to continue to safely reopen schools, sustain their safe operations, and support students - especially those most impacted by the pandemic…

On Friday, 4/23, the Department of Education (ED) announced plans to distribute $800 million to help support the needs of students experiencing homelessness under the American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief - Homeless Children and Youth (ARP-HCY) fund…

As lawmakers consider additional funding for community colleges, higher education leaders are asking them to look at making targeted investments in apprenticeship programs…

Clare McCann, former deputy director for federal higher education policy at New America, is returning to the U.S. Department of Education for a position in the office of the under secretary…

An EdWorking Paper found that children who participated in summer programs that included mathematics lessons and activities enjoyed significant improvements in mathematics learning as well as social-behavioral outcomes…

A study in an Atlanta school district revealed that the highest secondary COVID-19 attack rates were in indoor, high-contact sports settings (23.8 percent), staff meetings or lunches (18.2 percent) and elementary school classrooms (9.5 percent), and that staff were more susceptible to COVID-19 than students were…

Weekly Update 4/19/21

California

Oral arguments took place in a California court last week over a new regulation that will make it mandatory starting next year for pork sold in the state to come from breeding pigs that have at least 24 square feet of living space…

Growers throughout the state are eligible to apply for emergency federal loans until early November…

Almost $1.2 billion in rental assistance will help low-income tenants in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties pay down rent debt that piled up during the pandemic…

Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) raised $2.1 million this quarter and is sitting on $11 million in cash…

Coronavirus

The head of the powerful American Federation of Teachers blessed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) recent revision of social distancing in schools from six feet to three feet, after initially saying it didn't take into account the unique challenges facing the country's urban schools and was made after mounting pressure from interest groups rushing to reopen schools for in-person learning…

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American College Health Association have launched a new Higher Education COVID-19 Community of Practice aimed at sharing information across campuses about strategies for containing COVID-19…

An Indiana University study about COVID-19 spread in state schools "found a 10 percent increase of in-person school was associated with about a one percent increase in community COVID-19 cases 28 days later”…

The U.S. Treasury said it had formed an office to oversee many of the pandemic-relief programs handled by the department and funded by Congress over the past 13 months…

On 4/15, NIH announced an initiative known as the Safe Return to School Diagnostic Testing Initiative…

Federal health agencies on Tuesday, 4/13, recommended an immediate pause in the use of Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) COVID-19 vaccine after six people developed a rare and severe type of blood clot after receiving the shot…

Stanford began providing COVID-19 vaccine doses to children aged 2 to 5 as part of a larger, three-phase trial of Pfizer-BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine that will ultimately include children ages 6 months to 12 years… 

Half of all adults in the U.S. have received at least one COVID-19 shot, the government announced yesterday, 4/18…

President and Administration

President Joe Biden’s address to a joint session of Congress will be Wednesday, 4/28 - his 99th day as president…

President Biden’s nominee for under secretary of education, James Kvaal, appears likely to be headed to the full Senate for a vote on his confirmation this week, after a relatively drama-free committee hearing on his nomination…

Major transportation and shipping groups are calling for federal highway funding to transition from the gasoline tax to a national vehicle miles traveled fee, according to a letter sent to congressional transportation leaders…

On Saturday, 4/18, President Biden said that he plans to announce a higher refugee cap for this year, following a swift backlash from allies over a decision to keep the historically low ceiling set by former President Trump…

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is moving to reinstate two Obama-era fair housing rules weakened by the Trump administration, according to notices posted by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) last week…

As President Biden unveils an ambitious target this week to cut the nation’s climate-warming emissions, his administration is also taking steps to refute critics who say it’ll put large numbers of American jobs at risk

President Biden plans to nominate Pentagon veteran Christine Wormuth to be the first female Army secretary… 

Congress 

Senate Democrats have decided to move forward with earmarks with rules being decided this week…

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) - who Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has deputized to take the lead on gun legislation - says he has spoken to “almost half the Republican conference over the last two weeks” about gun control legislation, although he cautioned that a bipartisan breakthrough is not imminent…

21 Democrat and nine Republican House members are forming a bipartisan group to push for a repeal of the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, demonstrating a broadening campaign to restore a valuable tax break…

This morning, 4/19, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) unveiled the “Green New Deal for Public Housing” that would provide $172 billion to retrofit existing housing…

House Republicans unveiled their own slate of climate measures last week to counter Democratic proposals as President Biden has made combating global warming a top priority of his administration…

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Michael Bennet (D-CO) are pushing a plan that would make federal unemployment benefits automatically available when jobless rates climb, with additional weeks of benefits…

A provision in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) is causing political strife between the Treasury Department and states across the country over how states can and can’t use the $350 billion of aid allotted to them…

By a vote of 384-38, the House sent to the President legislation that would extend a pause on a statutory two percent reduction in Medicare payments to medical providers through the end of the year amid the COVID-19 pandemic…

Sens. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) are teaming up on a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage - which is currently $7.25 an hour and has not been raised since 2009…

Biden is asking congressional Democrats to vote for a tax increase that will test a long-held liberal belief: that many wealthy Democrats won’t mind paying more in taxes if they can be convinced that it would lead to greater prosperity for everyone…

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Thursday, 4/15, rejected a push from the left wing of the party to swiftly vote on legislation to expand the number of Supreme Court justices to 13 from nine…

The House Judiciary Committee voted 25-17 along party lines to clear the way for the full chamber to vote on legislation to create a commission to study reparations for the descendants of slaves, the first time the proposal has advanced that far since it was originally introduced three decades ago…

The Senate is aiming to wrap up and pass Sen. Mazie Hirono’s (D-HI) legislation addressing the rise in hate crimes against Asian-Americans…

Sponsors of the Endless Frontier Act have delayed reintroducing the bill amid pushback from some senators, including leaders of key committees, who held hearings last week to debate the legislation’s vision for transforming the U.S. research system…

On Friday, 4/16, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ) distributed materials calling for a “common respect for uniquely Anglo-Saxon political traditions” and a return to architectural style that “befits the progeny of European architecture”…

Infrastructure Update:

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) said she saw potential bipartisan support for an infrastructure package of $600 billion to $800 billion, less than half the total President Biden has proposed…

Sen Chris Coons (D-DE) has said that he would be open to splitting off a physical infrastructure bill that encompasses transportation, broadband and drinking water infrastructure if Republicans can agree to something “robust”…

House Democrats defended President Biden’s inclusion of $400 billion in support for caregiving to provide seniors and others more medical and long-term care at home…

Education

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has released more details about its Emergency Broadband Benefit. ExcelinEd and Education Superhighway have created a new guide about participating in the program…

Enrollment growth in state preschool programs was already slowing down before COVID-19…

President Biden announced Friday, 4/16, that he plans to nominate former Florida Congresswoman Gwen Graham to serve as the assistant secretary for legislation and congressional affairs at the Department of Education…

Immigration Update 4/15/21

President and Administration

Last week, President Joe Biden called for a 22% increase in funding to investigate complaints of white supremacist beliefs at U.S. immigration enforcement agencies in his “skinny” budget request to Congress, but officials have offered no explanation for what prompted his request…

President Biden named Tucson, Arizona Police Chief Chris Magnus to be commissioner of Customs and Border Protection (CBP)…

On 3/24, President Biden announced he was tasking Vice President Kamala Harris with leading diplomatic efforts to stem the flow of migrants at the Southern border…

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is defending President Biden’s immigration strategy amid recent criticism and claimed that the U.S. southern border is secure…

On his first day in office, President Biden delayed billions of dollars from being spent on his predecessor’s long-touted U.S.-Mexico border wall while his administration figured out next steps for the money…

The majority of Americans disapprove of how President Biden is handling the influx of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border, and approval of his efforts on larger immigration policy falls short of other top issues - suggesting it could be a weak point for the new administration…

Last week, the White House announced that Ambassador Roberta Jacobson will “retire from her role” as special assistant to the president and coordinator for the Southwest Border at the National Security Council at the end of April…

The Courts

Last week, a California federal appeals court refused to permit 14 states led by Republican governors to challenge the overturning of a Trump-era immigration rule affecting hundreds of thousands of people…

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice dropped its challenge to a court decision stating the federal government could not force two Rhode Island cities to require local police to cooperate federal immigration agents…

Since February, the parents of 61 migrant children who were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border by the Trump administration have been located, but lawyers still cannot find the parents of 445 children, according to a court filing last week…

Congress

House Judiciary Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) plans to hold a boarder crisis hearing in April, though a date is not yet set…

In the coming months, congressional Democrats and the White House could use budget reconciliation - which requires only a simple Senate majority vote - to advance a sweeping infrastructure package that may include immigration provisions…

Lawmakers from both parties are calling on the Biden administration to allow reporters into facilities housing unaccompanied migrant children who have sought asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border…

House Democrats are looking to pass the No Ban Act this week, a bill that seeks to prevent future presidents from reissuing the so-called Muslim travel ban, which former President Trump enacted against individuals from several majority-Muslim countries early in his administration…

Escalating Border Crisis

The Biden administration is under intensifying pressure to expand its capacity to care for as many as 35,000 unaccompanied minors that are expected by June, part of a wave of people crossing the border…

The administration is searching for new ways to control migration at the southern border, dispatching officials to Mexico and Guatemala to seek their governments’ help, sending sterner warnings to would-be migrants not to come, and devising alternative pathways to apply for legal entry without showing up in person…

The federal government does not have a centralized system for tracking or responding to COVID-19 cases among the surge of migrants crossing the U.S.’ southern border…

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) are releasing migrant families on the Mexican border without notices to appear in immigration court or sometimes without any paperwork at all - time-saving moves that have left migrants confused…

People have long left Honduras for the U.S., fleeing gang violence, economic misery and the indifference of a government run by a president accused of ties to drug traffickers…

Migration and Mexico

Mexico is increasingly straining to cope with the influx of migrants flowing up through Central America and down from U.S. expulsions…

The States

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is hoping to use federal environmental laws to force the Biden administration to resume construction of the border wall…

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sued the Biden administration Tuesday, 4/13, in an attempt to restore a President Trump policy that forced migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. to wait in Mexico for claim processing…

Last week, Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent a letter to Vice President Harris demanding to shut down the San Antonio facility for unaccompanied minors....

Legislation

New legislation includes…

Public Safety Update 4/13/21

American Jobs Plan
President Joe Biden announced on 4/8, that he’s allocating $5 billion over eight years for community violence intervention and prevention programs as part of his American Jobs Plan…

Some key takeaways and programs to note for future funding opportunities can be found on the White House website…

President and Administration
President Joe Biden announced on Thursday, 4/8, Executive Actions to tighten gun restrictions, including stopping the proliferation of so-called “ghost guns,” that can be built using parts and instructions purchased online…

Biden’s executive actions are limited in scope and fall short of his campaign promises for sweeping gun control…

President Biden announced Wednesday, 4/7, that he plans to nominate David Chipman, a gun control advocate, to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF)…

President Biden has put plans to create a national Police Oversight Commission on hold, nixing a campaign promise he made to establish one within his first 100 days…

Police Reform
On Saturday, 4/10, Maryland became the first state in the nation to pass a sweeping police reform package that repealed the state’s Law Enforcement Bill of Rights…

Protests are expanding after a traffic incident turned fatal on Sunday after a police officer fatally shot 20-year-old Duante Wright…

As the trial of Derek Chauvin continues in downtown Minneapolis, the city is grappling with a new wave of protests sparked by this weekend’s killing of Duante Wright…

Chauvin’s defense attorney argued on 4/12 that the shooting and subsequent protests might bias jurors…

The Fresno Police Department has fired a longtime officer after investigating his ties to the Proud Boys, denouncing the officer’s involvement in a far-right extremist group and pro-Trump rally in November that turned violent — captured in video clips that resurfaced last month…

As the national debate continues on gun reform and police accountability, a new conversation has sparked from the controversial and heavily debated “defund the police” movement of last year…

Weekly Update 4/12/21

California

California is expecting about 90% fewer Johnson & Johnson (J&J) vaccine doses this week due to a factory error, marking a significant decrease in the total number of doses reducing first-time appointments, even as the state on Thursday, 4/15 is expected to expand eligibility to any resident over age 16…

California is expected to fully reopen its economy 6/15 as long as COVID-19 vaccinations remain widely available and hospitalization continues to be stable, Gov. Newsom said last week…

A possibly worrisome COVID-19 variant first identified in India has been found in the San Francisco Bay Area by scientists at Stanford University….

Coronavirus

Last week, President Biden said he’s bumping up his deadline by two weeks for states to make all adults in the U.S. eligible for the COVID-19 vaccines…

A new University of Southern California (USC) study has found that COVID-19 rapid tests could be the key to reopening schools more safely…

According to a JAMA Pediatrics model, as of February 2021, between 37,300 and 43,000 children aged 0 to 17 years had lost at least one parent due to COVID-19, three-quarters of whom were adolescents…

COVID-19 variants are spreading, carrying mutations that make COVID-19 both more contagious and in some cases more deadly…

A new vaccine for COVID-19 that is entering clinical trials in Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, and Vietnam could change how the world fights the pandemic…

President and Administration

On Thursday, 4/8, President Biden announced that he’s taking executive actions to tighten gun restrictions, including stopping the proliferation of so-called ghost guns…

President Biden released his preliminary spending requests for 2022 on Friday, 4/9, the first step before Congress negotiates the government’s budget for the fiscal year starting in October…

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) revealed last week that she expects the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to wrap up its work on President Biden’s infrastructure package in May as it seeks to hit a 7/4 deadline for House passage…

 Sixty percent of registered voters support Biden’s infrastructure plan, including 34 percent of Republicans, according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll…

Democrats can pass another major piece of legislation - such as President Biden’s $2 trillion-plus infrastructure plan - by revisiting budget reconciliation, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said last week…

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is working with the Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights on a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to address the changes required by the CARES Act, to the 42 CFR part 2 regulations governing the confidentiality of substance use disorder patient records…

Congress 

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richie Neal (D-MA) is calling for dramatic expansion in childcare support for American families, saying it “needs to be a guarantee, not an expensive hassle that drives parents out of the workforce or makes them choose between wages and family” in a letter to Democratic members of his panel…

This week, the Senate is expected to hold a vote on the motion to proceed on the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act, which aims to address the surge of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic…

Education

On Friday, 4/9,  the Education Department released the COVID-19 Handbook, Volume 2: Roadmap to Reopening Safely and Meeting All Students' Needs to provide additional strategies for safely reopening all of America's schools and to promote educational equity by addressing opportunity gaps that have been exacerbated by the pandemic…

The Education Department is asking for input from students, educators and others as part of a comprehensive review of Title IX — an initial step toward writing a new rule protecting students from sexual harassment and violence…

Students are increasingly relying on professors for mental health assistance…

A new survey by EAB, the education consulting company, has found that 30 percent of both first-generation and low-income students said completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) was difficult, a rate that is 10 to 15 percentage points higher than the proportion of other students who said it was…

A new survey by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Gallup, released last week, finds that many parents want alternatives to college for their children…

The number of students transferring between colleges continued to decline this spring, dropping nearly eight percent across all transfer pathways between and among different two-year and four-year institutions…

Many colleges don’t have a system in place to evaluate emergency aid requests and instead fall back on students’ existing financial aid information from documents like the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA)…

Appointee Update

 New federal appointees from the Departments of Education, Labor, and Justice include…