Happy New Year! Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team has been reading this week.
Retail Politics – How a politician comes across in ads and in debates can be very different from how they are day-to-day. Here’s one reporter, who’s been traveling with Cruz campaign, take on candidate. Read more in The Washington Post.
Polar Opposites – The Republican Party that elected Paul Ryan speaker eight weeks ago also rocketed Donald Trump to the top of the national polls eight weeks before that. The men ascended at essentially the same time, but it’s hard to believe they’ll both make it through 2016 politically alive because their philosophies, approaches and opinions are significantly different. Read more in Roll Call.
Welcome Back! – The best known surrogate of the 2016 race, and probably the best known political surrogate period, is back on the trail stumping for his wife. President Bill Clinton is back. Read more in The Hill and The New York Times.
Guns – The White House announced an Executive Order to expand background checks for some firearm purchases and step up federal enforcement of the nation’s gun laws. While the Administration is limited in what it can do, the move is designed to engage governors, state legislators, and local government. Essentially, side stepping Congress on the highly political, divisive issue. Despite previous high-profile efforts by the President to persuade Congress to take up legislation restricting gun sales, neither the House or Senate has done so. Predictably, Congress has already threatened to hold up the Attorney General’s funding in an effort to restrict the move. The Executive Order makes gun sales and control a central issue in the 2016 campaigns. Read more in The New York Times and in Vox.
Freeze in the Arctic State – A hiring freeze and travel ban for Alaska state agencies and employees could have an impact on funding for the WWAMI program in Anchorage. Read more in Governing.
Results – As the Supreme Court considers the affirmative action policy of the University of Texas at Austin (for the second time), the University of Michigan seems to have found the secret to reshaping freshman minority enrollment, all while in the face of Michigan voters banning affirmative action. Read more in The New York Times.
Overstep – In 2010 and 2011, The Obama administration laid out universities’ and school districts’ obligations to address harassment and sexual violence in two key “Dear Colleague” letters, and those letters helped to usher in sweeping changes on many campuses. Critics said federal officials overstepped their bounds by pressuring schools to create quasi-criminal justice systems on campus that fail to adequately protect the rights of the accused. Now, Senator James Lankford (R-OK) has taken up the cause by sending a letter questioning whether the Education Department has exceeded its legal authority in its efforts to push colleges to do more on sexual assault. Read more in The Hill and The Washington Post.
Year in Review – As 2016 starts, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) has their year in review. See it at the OSTP Blog.