Daily Archives: July 29, 2022

I've driven a number of vehicles recently with Ford's BlueCruise hands-free highway driving assistant, and here's my takeaway: It's still a work in progress.

The big picture: Ford is only the second automaker to offer a true hands-free highway driving system. GM's Super Cruise was first in 2017.

Although it's not as good as GM's system, Ford BlueCruise is more capable than the limited assisted-driving technology available on other cars.

How it works: Like GM's system, Ford BlueCruise only works on pre-mapped sections of certain roads at speeds up to 85 miles per hour.

My first encounter with BlueCruise was in an F-150 Lightning electric pickup I drove along with another journalist during a media event last May in Texas.

Ford is aware of these issues and says it will continue to enhance BlueCruise's capabilities.

Key takeaway: I later drove a Ford Expedition with BlueCruise and a Lincoln Navigator with similar ActiveGlide technology, and both seemed more competent.

The bottom line: Hands-free driving is available on the F-150 and Mustang Mach-E, as well as the Lightning, Expedition and Navigator vehicles I drove. Over-the-air software improvements will come later, Ford says.

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Ford BlueCruise hands-free review: A work in progress - Axios

T-R PHOTO BY SUSANNA MEYER Iowa Veterans Home Commandant Matthew Peterson, left, poses for a photo with Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg, right, during Greggs recent stop at the facility to observe a teacher externship. Since taking over his position last summer, Peterson has introduced several bold proposals and navigated the continually complicated waters of the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Matthew Peterson was approached about taking a new job as the commandant at the Iowa Veterans Home and uprooting from his life with his wife and kids in the Austin, Texas, area, he chose to think of it in military terms. Its just another deployment, after all.

Peterson, who retired from the Marine Corps as a Major in 2019, has earned rave reviews in his first year at IVH with his willingness to go the extra mile and for a series of innovative ideas he has proposed. Gov. Kim Reynolds, Petersons boss, has taken notice: in May, it was announced that he would be appointed as the director of Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs while the VA and IVH were combined into one agency, and Reynolds praised Petersons extraordinary leadership during his first 10 months on the job then.

In a recent statement, Reynolds reiterated previous sentiments of support for her commandant.

As Governor of the State of Iowa, it is important to me that our veterans receive the high-quality care they deserve for selflessly serving our country and fighting to protect our freedoms. Thanks to two decades of leadership in the Marines, and an impressive post-retirement career, Major Petersons unique set of qualifications has greatly benefited the lowa Veterans Home, she said. He also brings deep appreciation for the military service of the veterans whose care he oversees. His experience and dedication has paid dividends for the home, its staff, and its residents.

Its been quite a journey from what Peterson described as being a cowboy and teaching in Texas to overseeing Iowas largest nursing home, but hes done his best to take it all in stride.

Those were not things that I was necessarily called to, and I didnt know, necessarily, what I was called to, just that those were things I was interested in. But I didnt feel like they were the next career for me, Peterson said of his prior jobs. (IVH) just felt like something I was called to. It felt like that thing that I wasnt just interested in, but it felt like a true calling.

An important connection

Although he grew up all over the country as the son of a career military man, both of Petersons parents roots are in Iowa his father, who now works at IVH, is from Red Oak, and his mother is from Spencer. Because of that, he came into the orbit of veteran turned U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst herself a Red Oak native during his final duty station in Washington, D.C., and the two kept in touch periodically afterward.

Last summer, as Peterson was preparing to head back for another year of teaching in Texas, Ernst reached out to him and asked if he would be interested in the commandant role at IVH. In May, Gov. Reynolds had removed his predecessor, Timon Oujiri, and an eventual investigation by State Auditor Rob Sand revealed over $100,000 in improper payments to Oujiri.

A difficult decision faced Peterson for several reasons beyond the aforementioned controversy surrounding his predecessor. For one, he would be entering a completely new industry and a huge organization full of new people, and secondly and even more important to him his two children, a 16-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son, had spent most of their lives moving every two to three years due to his career in the military.

It led Peterson and his wife to make a tough choice: she and the kids would stay in Texas, and he would fly back to Texas to spend time with them every other weekend. They talk on the phone or Facetime almost every day, and the family visits Marshalltown on holidays.

The decision to take this job had to be balanced against what was in their best interest, so it was my wife who said Lets just treat it like a deployment, which is certainly nothing new for us So thats what we do, Peterson said. They love Iowa, but Texas is where they planted some roots at a pretty delicate time in their lives, and thats what were trying to facilitate. Its a burden a little bit, but the truth is, honestly, as much as I work, even if they did live here, I wouldnt see them much more than I already do Theres some struggles, but it works out.

Penny Cutler-Bermudez, the division administrator and licensed nursing home administrator at IVH, saw stability as paramount in making a hiring decision, and she appreciated Petersons willingness to stay long term and turn the job into a career.

Matts joined the Chamber of Commerce, the 13th Street District, the Kiwanis (and) military organizations. Everyone knows Matt in our community in such a short time, and it makes a difference, Cutler-Bermudez said. People are coming out and excited to be part of this, and we needed that as a facility. We also needed someone who had a history of leadership that was strong and wanted to build a team that could be encouraged to be autonomous in their leadership but also collaborative.

Peterson said he has received an outpouring of support from the governor, the Marshalltown community and the residents and staff at IVH since taking the job, and once he felt it, he knew he was in the right place. From the very beginning, he has operated under the mindset of Were not going to fail. The leadership team may make mistakes along the way, but theyre not going to fail.

A fresh set of ideas

Early in his tenure, Peterson identified what he considers the three fundamental issues facing IVH recruiting, retention and admissions.

They all overlap each other, and I knew that in order to affect those things, we had to affect the community, he said. So community involvement became kind of a tertiary supporting priority of those three primary priorities.

He hasnt been afraid to share ambitious ideas and long-term goals, whether they fall into the category of community engagement or solving the labor shortage: one of Petersons first major proposals was to launch a large child care facility on the IVH campus, and hes also brought in low-risk inmates from the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville to perform foodservice labor. He has successfully recruited Marshalltown Community Theater (MCT) to perform at the Whitehill Assembly Hall, and with some help from the Quaker Oats Valor group, he recently oversaw a massive renovation of the IVH baseball field with the intention to host little league games again in the future.

On top of those initiatives, Peterson has led the charge to establish a new American Legion post comprised exclusively of IVH residents and staff members who are veterans. Last fall, he obtained his CNA certificate so he could help out on the floor as a result of staffing shortages. He has implemented various recruitment bonuses and raises to attract more employees, and the northside cottages are currently in the process of being remodeled, which he hopes will bring in workers from as far away as the Twin Cities and Chicago.

If youre tired of working in these big metropolitan areas where traffic is horrible and people are just kind of stacked on top of each other and cost of living is outrageous, come to Marshalltown for three days out of the week, he said. Work 12 (hours) on, 12 off, and while youre here, Ill pay for your lodging. You can live right across the street from where you work, and then you can go back to wherever you live for the other four days out of the week.

In his interim VA director position, hes already started an outreach line and is working to communicate with veterans wherever he can find them, whether its via the radio or social media.

Not every idea can be implemented overnight, and Peterson is still consistently facing down more immediate threats like COVID-19 at a facility whose residents are almost all at a higher risk due to other health factors. Even on that front, however, hes seen major progress: last month, 17 residents out of the almost 400 who live at IVH tested positive for the virus, and only five were symptomatic at all. Of those five, four experienced mild symptoms, and only one faced serious illness (she has since made a full recovery).

Through it all, hes kept his nose in the data and done his best to protect residents and keep the spread of the virus under control, pointing to an infection rate five percent lower than the rate among the general public in Iowa.

This is literally the most vulnerable population demographic that there is for COVID, and were pretty concentrated, Peterson said. So for us to have beaten the rest of the state in terms of infection rate is just a testament to the diligence of the staff that on a day-to-day basis are showing up, putting on their masks, putting on their goggles, sanitizing (and) testing.

Cutler-Bermudez noted Peterson has launched a resident council to ensure they are involved in decision making, and she expressed optimism that hell be the longest tenured commandant since the late Jack Dack, who served in his post for 33 years.

Before Dack, there were 11 commandants between 1887 and 1969, and since he retired, there have been 10 more between 2002 and the present.

Frankly, hes the gold standard, Peterson said. Whether its 33 years or whatever it ends up being, the key that I think Penny hit on is just stability Its not so much about one persons tendencies or style over another, its just about what the entire organization can expect.

Looking over the horizon

Despite all of the challenges Peterson, his residents and his staff have faced over the last year, he feels IVH is well-positioned for the future with plenty more excitement to come. Marshalltown has weathered storms both literal and metaphorical over the last four years, and the commandant is proud to be a part of the recovery process.

Peterson keeps a literal map of his short and long term objectives at his desk in the commandants office, and he refers to an old but still useful adage your goals should be so big that they scare you.

Its ambitious, and some of those things sometimes feel out of reach, but your goals should scare you a little bit. Those are some ambitious, intimidating goals that are on there, and they do scare me a little bit, he said. And they do scare me a little bit, and sometimes I think Man, Im fooling myself. Weve bitten off way too much here. But then you see things like the baseball field coming together.

In those moments, all of the hard work, toil, trouble and nights spent mulling over life-changing decisions seem worth it for Peterson, and so far, the Marshalltown community has embraced him with open arms.

Its been a difficult couple years for us, and to have Matt come in and acknowledge how hard its been but (also) where we can move in the future and look at ways to bring people in through or housing or whatever we havent thought about with fresh eyes, there is an excitement, Cutler-Bermudez said. Were seeing change in our whole openness to looking at things differently, and I think its exciting.

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PROGRESS 2022: A stabilizing force New IVH commandant brings innovative ideas, energy to position - Marshalltown Times Republican

(Shenandoah) -- Shenandoah Medical Center officials are pleased with the progress made on the hospital's nearly $12 million expansion project.

That's according to SMC CEO Matt Sells, who tells KMA News walls have been erected for a part 10,000-square foot Robert S. HolmesFamily Cancer Center on the eastern portion of the existing hospital. Mainly, extensive progress has been made on the vault to house the hospital's new linear accelerator. Sells says contractors have begun pouring concrete for the nearly five-to-six foot thick walls and, in the next couple of weeks, a roof of similar thickness. He adds that more robust walls are needed due to the amount of radiation involved with the linear accelerator and the safety of those around the facility.

"We really have to make sure it stays confined to that space," said Sells. "It's really a radiation protection measure that's taken and they go through the process of lead-lining it and doing everything that needs to happen to protect everybody on the outside of the facility."

The new addition will include the accelerator, radiation therapy, and the new location for the infusion center encompassing eight infusion bays. Sells says the presence of a structure is even more significant as they draw close to the third anniversary of when the planning phase began.

"We've really been hard at this in the planning stages for the last 18-to-24 months," said Sells. "But to actually see things start to go vertical and be able to see some progress on the site is just a great feeling and makes you more and more excited about things to come."

Renovation efforts following construction include a designated rehabilitation center for oncology patients, exam rooms for medical and radiation oncology physicians, and a new nursing station.

For the most part, Sells contributed excellent planning from the contractors in avoiding most of the supply chain issues and rising costs recently faced in the construction industry. However, he adds a bit of lucky timing came into play with the financing for the project.

"The other thing that we were able to do kind of on the front end as well, was go through the USDA process of obtaining our long-term financing that will be available to us once construction is complete," said Sells. "Those interest rates have obviously gone up a great deal, but we have those locked in at 2.5% so we were super lucky."

Sells says the USDA construction loan will cover roughly $7 million of the project. However, he says local fundraising has also increased to about $1.5 million, and interest continues to grow in the project -- particularly with a more visible structure. He also acknowledged the project has expanded since it was put into motion.

"Every day it seems like you'll look at something else and for us we actually are going to be going through the process when we do our in-patient remodel in that area, we're going to replace our full nurse call system," said Sells. "It seems like it's one of those things where you get moving on something and it's like 'well, we should really do this at this time too,' and so the project has definitely grown a little bit."

With the project remaining on schedule, Sells hopes construction will wrap up by the end of 2022 and all renovations can be completed by June 2023.

At KMA, we attempt to be accurate in our reporting. If you see a typo or mistake in a story, please contact us by emailing kmaradio@kmaland.com.

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Sells: significant progress being made on SMC cancer center addition - KMAland

As far as LOral was concerned, adm Group got the green just right.

Collaborating with a partner that specializes in upcycled textile materials, adm Group developed an innovative upcycled gift line for LOral Switzerland. Produced in a socially responsible manner, the eco-conscious collection impressed LOral Switzerland, which awarded adm Group a Green Innovation Award in 2021 for its work.

Such was one of the compelling successes in the areas of environmental and corporate social responsibility that adm Group highlighted in A Better Tomorrow, the firms recently released annual sustainability report.

The report details how adm Group, a London, U.K.-headquartered global brand execution firm and parent company to businesses that include 60-year-strong Stamford, CT-based promotional products distributorship Lapine (asi/249352), is making progress on its sustainability agenda.

As a global, sustainable brand execution partner to many of the worlds leading CPG brands, reducing our impact on the planet, protecting human rights in the supply chain, and improving the working environment of our people are all integral to our business, adm Group said in a statement.

The detailed report speaks to the effort. For instance, adm Group has seen to it that 100% of its European offices and 80% of its worldwide offices now run on renewable energy. The company has more than 600 employees across 37 offices in 31 countries.

Nearly half (46%) of the firms APAC suppliers, as calculated by spend, are investing in green electricity. Meanwhile, adm Group has achieved a 60% reduction in plastic packaging at its Asia-based sourcing hub. It has also implemented processes to monitor its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions, and reported emissions as part of a Carbon Disclosure Project Climate Change survey.

In 2022, our focus will be on performing full Scope 3 (emissions) accounting in line with the Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol, enabling us to baseline our carbon emissions and set science-based targets within the next nine months, said adm Group CEO Justin Barton. The company aims to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.

Additionally, adm Group is focusing keenly on diversity, equity and inclusion. Initiatives include working toward equitable gender representation across its global leadership team. Our ambition is to achieve 40% female representation across our Global Leadership team by 2025, and we are currently tracking at almost 30%, the report said.

Speaking of forward-looking goals: adms include implementing a living wage program to ensure 100% of employees across its organization earn a living wage either during or before 2025. Other objectives include sustainable sourcing so that 95% of material for print items are FSC, SFI or PEFC-certified by 2025. By 2030, adm Group intends to ensure that all items have 100% reusable, recyclable or certified compostable packaging.

Among its other recognitions for progress to date, adm Group earned a platinum rating from EcoVadis for corporate social responsibility performance in 2021. EcoVadis is a globally recognized sustainability ratings provider.

Corporate responsibility initiatives that aim to reduce environmental impact, ensure humane and equitable treatment of workers throughout a companys supply chain, and deliver products made with more sustainable materials are gaining steam across a spectrum of industries, including the promo products market. ASI Media has been documenting the evolution, particularly as it pertains to the branded merchandise industry, throughPromo for the Planet.

Promo for the Planet is your destination for the latest news, biggest trends and best ideas to help build a more sustainable and socially-responsible industry.

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adm Group Makes Progress on Sustainability, Earns 'Green Innovation' Award From L'Oral - Advertising Specialty Institute

Santana Nez holds many titles in addition to eighth-generation Arizona rancher: Shes an indigenous Navajo woman, daughter, granddaughter, veterinary student, social media influencer, and agriculturalist, just to name a few.

She has dedicated the past decade of her life to improving on the invaluable and hard-won skills and knowledge she garnered as a rancher and farmers daughter on the Navajo reservation near Winslow, Arizona. Her confidence, poise, and tenacious drive to accomplish her goals illustrates one of the greatest benefits of an agricultural upbringing.

Her stories, authentic silver and turquoise jewelry (often made by her grandfather), and social media presence represent a respect for Navajo history and a love for her people. For the Navajos, agriculture is a way of life in a culture where land stewardship and agriculture are as old as time. No exception to tradition, Nez honors her people, embodying the same strength, adaptability, and resilience that has carried generations of other Navajo women through their challenges and successes.

The Navajos are believed to have arrived in the Southwest about 1,000 years ago. They adopted farming processes upon arriving in the Four Corners area, domesticating livestock after contact with the Spanish. When the United States gained control of the southwestern and Californian territories, U.S. Army Col. Kit Carson instituted a policy that left Navajo fields and homes burnt and livestock stolen.

Eventually, the tribe was starved into submission and walked hundreds of miles to Fort Sumner, New Mexico. The people, Nez explained, were forced to sign a treaty that allowed them to return to designated lands near the Four Corners area. The Navajo Reservation today occupies about 25,000 square miles it is the largest Indian reservation in the United States.

The people were here first. They were pushed aside and left to starve by burning their gardens, orchards, killing livestock, and forced to live in areas that anyone else thought was unsustainable for people, she said. But despite those hardships and genocidal tactics, indigenous people are still here. Not as many, but still here.

Being raised on the Navajo reservation, Nez learned many of the same values and lessons as others in the agriculture industry. Her father was the ranch manager, and that meant she, along with her siblings, were volunteered to help. She gained skills, knowledge, and a sense of pride in the agricultural way of life.

Im going to start saying that Im an eighth-generation rancher and farmer. When I hear people say that theyre a third-generation farmer, I ask myself, Where do I lie? Because ranching has always been in my family, since the beginning of time Nez said. Ever since we first arrived in Arizona, or what it was before it became Arizona or the United States, weve been farming and ranching and hunting on the land. I began saying that Im an eighth-generation farmer-rancher because thats as far back as I could get some history.

Some things, however, were a little bit different than many farms and ranches. Water, for example, continues to be located a sizable distance from the ranch house. Language barriers between younger generations and elders can make communication and the propositioning of new ideas more complex process, though respect for livestock and generational knowledge remain strongly instilled values.

Nez said, I was raised in a way of life filled with driving 5 to 30 miles a few times a week to fetch water for the animals and for our use to wash dishes, and for plumbing, showers, etc. Its a little different to some but normal where Im from. We dont have a central waterline that takes water to your house.

But dont think of me as unfortunate. Its taught me conservation before it was cool and being aware of everything around you constantly. You make sure your animals have water before you do; make sure they are comfortable. We are here to take care of things to take care of us.

She has done a lot to facilitate programs that encourage interest from a younger generation, saying, We are born to be agriculturalists; we just need more interest in it. Because, as anyone else would know in agriculture, theres a disconnect between what people think ranching is, and getting people involved, especially our youth.

When it comes to tribal decisions, elders are traditionally cornerstone decision-makers and revered for their deeply-entrenched knowledge and understanding of the land.

Prior to COVID-19 shutdowns, Nez managed a consulting business. In that capacity, Nez assisted tribal entities and individuals with securing and meeting requirements for federal grants.

When making recommendations, we are always trying not to overrule the traditional, ecological knowledge of our elders. They know the land and theyve grown up here all their lives, she said. My Navajo culture emphasized care for others and the land. It is engraved in our livelihood to treasure our elders, they are our knowledge keepers and reminders of how resilient we are.

U.S. Department of Agriculture loans have long provided agriculturalists with an opportunity to improve upon their operations and develop agricultural land. Despite opportunities to apply for these same government loans and grants, tribal entities and individuals were often denied. The loan process requires collateral often provided in the form of land ownership. Reservation land, however, is owned by the federal government, not the individuals who live on, work, and manage it. Nez said, Tribal entities ended up filing suit against the U.S. government for discrimination. Now, grants are available to tribal members and associations to implement developments and create more agricultural interest in the communities.

Unlike traditional European cultures, the Navajos are a matrilineal dominant society. The women have always been and still are the leaders of each family; theyre the knowledge keepers, and they are revered for holding the familys bloodline.

Nez said, When you introduce yourself, you start with your mother, This is who I am born from, and then when you describe your fathers, you say, This is who Im born for. The Navajo tribe holds one of the only USDA-recorded demographics where women represent over half of the primary ownership of agricultural operations.

I think women in my culture are very strong, confident individuals, and they raise other women to be just so, she said. When it comes to cattle and owning cattle, its the women who are the keepers. Although, if you look at historical treaties, men signed the treaties because in European society, women were not legally able to sign.

Pictured below is Nezs grandmother, who has never known her real birthday. Her parents told her she was born after the harvest and before Christmas. Nez writes, She picked a month and a day and lied to the government, saying she was a year older so she could qualify for a job she applied to.

Aside from the lessons learned on the ranch, formal education has always been a priority for the Nez family. Each sibling received money annually from their personal cattle that was invested in a bank certificate of deposit. These funds helped Nez and her siblings pursue higher educational options after high school.

Growing up in a ranching family, our work ethic and how well we take care of our animals is our economy, Nez explained. It was cattle-raising that helped the generation before me reach their education goals followed by my generation. Contrary to popular belief, not all federally recognized tribes receive full financial aid or get paid to go to college. Personal financial supplement was required and still is. The cattle industry, beef consumers, and our skill as caretakers helped get my family where they wanted and needed to be, to follow their passion, and to master their craft.

Nez received her bachelors degree in animal science from the University of Arizona, later securing a masters degree. Now she has returned to the University of Arizonas newly opened veterinary school.

Nez says her family embodies a strong tradition of educational pursuits, with many in her lineage boasting advanced degrees.

My grandma once told me, l always want all my kids to have an education, and it may just be a paper but knowledge is the only thing that no one can take away from you. Nobody, she said.

While Nezs professional and educational pursuits have often led her away from the family ranch and reservation, she plans to practice as a large animal veterinarian in rural Northern Arizona after completing the veterinary program.

Undoubtedly, her familys history, tenacity, and self-reliance will continue to guide her steps as she continues to attain goals and share traditions.

Heidi Crnkovic, is the Associate Editor for AGDAILY. She is a New Mexico native with deep-seated roots in the Southwest and a passion for all things agriculture.

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Santana Nez, on honoring Navajo culture and agricultural progress - AGDAILY

One author who has been quick to notice the gains in income for black and Hispanic people is Manhattan Institute senior fellow Jason L. Riley. In his fact-filled and beautifully terse 2022 book, The Black Boom, Riley, shows that incomes for every demographic and every part of the income distribution grew during Trumps first three years.

My independent check of the data shows that Riley is right. Each year the US Census reports comprehensive survey data on incomes of various ethnic groups. Its latest report shows that between 2017 and 2019, median income for black households rose from $40,594 to $46,073, a rise of 13.5 percent over just two years. Adjusted for inflation, the increase was a respectable 8.8 percent. For Hispanic households, median income rose from $61,372 in 2917 to $68,703 in 2019, an 11.3 percent increase; inflation adjusted, the increase was 7.3 percent.

How does that compare with progress for white households over those same two years? Their median income rose from $65,273 in 2017 to $72,204, an increase of 10.6 percent. Adjusted for inflation, their median income rose by 6.1 percent.

Notice something interesting: black and Hispanic household incomes rose by a higher percentage than white household incomes.

This is from David R. Henderson, The Roots of Black Economic Progress, Defining Ideas, July 28, 2022.

Another excerpt:

On February 10, 2017, less than one month into the Trump presidency, Joe Kernen and Becky Quick interviewed me on CNBCs Squawk Box about economics under the Trump administration. My fellow interviewee, Tony Crescenzi of Pimco, was pessimistic about future growth rates. He argued that the labor force would grow by less than 1 percent and that productivity would grow by less than 1 percent, causing overall economic growth to be less than 2 percent annually. While I granted his arithmetic, I challenged his data. Predicting productivity growth, I pointed out, is necessarily forward looking. I asked, What if we get all kinds of deregulation that frees things up and you get more productivity?

Read the whole thing.

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The Roots of Black Economic Progress - Econlib

In a case to be heard in the coming months, the U.S. Supreme Court could decide that state legislatures have control over congressionalelections, including the ability to draw voting districts for partisan political advantage, unconstrained by state law or state constitutions.

At issue is a legal theory called the independent state legislature doctrine, which is posed through the courts consideration of a dispute over gerrymandered North Carolina congressional districts. In early 2022, North Carolina state courts found the legislature violated the state constitution when it drew gerrymandered congressional districts favoring Republicans. The legislature has claimed that the U.S. Constitution gives it authority, unfettered by state courts interpretation of the state constitution or laws, to regulate congressional elections, and is asking the Supreme Court to agree.

If the court agrees, it could free state legislatures to take power away from voters We the People in constitutional parlance and reverse a two-century trend toward expanding the power of the people in congressional elections.

Some election and constitutional law analysts have already suggested that state legislatures may have similar power over presidential elections. The U.S. Constitution allows state legislatures to determine how a state chooses its presidential electors, arguably leaving the legislature free to choose presidential electors on their own without a popular election.

The people wielded little power in congressional elections at Americas founding.

The unamended Constitution required United States senators be chosen directly by their state legislatures, not by voters directly. That was the case until the 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913, which requires U.S. senators to be elected by the people.

The Constitution has always required United States representatives be chosen by the people, but who could vote was severely limited.

Americas late-18th century vision of democracy treated voting as a privilege to be doled out by the state, not a right. Voting was typically limited to a narrow band of people adult white men with property.

Some states, including North Carolina and New Jersey, allowed women or free Black men, or both, to vote in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Nonetheless, who could exercise power in congressional or state elections was a matter of grace provided by state legislatures.

As U.S. democracy matured, the people gained power as the electorate expanded through various constitutional amendments.

Voting remains a right provided by each state. However, the states can no longer limit the right to vote based on race, sex, failure to pay a poll tax or age if a voter is 18 years or older. Functionally, adult citizens who have not been convicted of a crime have the right to vote in federal and state elections.

In addition, the value of a vote is protected. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court recognized the one-person, one-vote doctrine under the Constitution. That doctrine requires each congressional district in a state to contain approximately the same number of residents.

Before the doctrine was recognized, one congressional district in a state could have several times the population as another district in the same state. A vote in the larger district would have a fraction of the power of a vote in the smaller district.

In the wake of the one-person, one-vote doctrine, each vote carries approximately the same weight.

Providing voting power to the people makes representatives more accountable and answerable to their constituents. Adopting the independent state legislature doctrine may reverse the accountability.

Those who advocate the legitimacy of this doctrine say it rests on the Constitutions grant to state legislatures of regulatory power over congressional elections inArticle I, Section 4.

That section reads: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations. It gives state legislatures the primary authority to run congressional elections, subject to congressional regulation through federal law.

For example, for much of the nations history, states could choose U.S. representatives through districts or through an at-large system. However, federal law now requires the representatives to be chosen solely through districts.

In addition, state legislative power has been treated as though it is constrained by other state governmental actors. In many states, governors may veto redistricting maps they deem unfair or improper. Similarly, as in the North Carolina case, courts may deem such maps unlawful or unconstitutional.

A strong version of the doctrine might give a state legislature the power to draw congressional districts without any oversight from state courts or the governor. Given that state courts apply a states constitution and state statutory law, a strong independent state legislature doctrine could leave the state legislature unfettered by state law in this area.

However, in a well-functioning democracy, state constitutional and statutory law should reflect the preferences of a states people. The Supreme Court reminded the Arizona legislature of this point in a 2015 ruling that allowed a citizen initiative in that state to bypass the legislature in redistricting, instead requiring congressional districts to be drawn by an independent commission. If the independent state legislature doctrine were to be adopted by the current Supreme Court, that power could not be exercised by citizens.

If the court adopts the independent state legislature doctrine, legislatures would still be subject to regulation by the U.S. Constitution and by federal law, such as the Voting Rights Act.

However, the court has limited the protections embedded in the Voting Rights Act. In the 2019 ruling, Rucho v. Common Cause, the Supreme Court deemed partisan gerrymandering a political question, not subject to regulation by the Constitution. In that ruling, the court noted that state constitutional and statutory law could be used to stop partisan gerrymandering.

Three years later, the court is set to hear a case that could remove state courts from oversight of partisan gerrymandering by state legislatures. Adoption of a strong independent state legislature doctrine would leave partisan gerrymandering unregulated at both the state and federal levels.

State legislatures, unconstrained by state law, could then create aggressively gerrymandered congressional districts, possibly leading to an ever more partisan Congress with accompanying gridlock and policy failures.

When the Constitution was ratified, the state legislature was the locus of state power. That power was exercised by a few men who were not answerable to the broad populace. The state legislature was responsible for acting in the citizenrys best interests. However, the citizenry had no effective way to force legislators to act in the peoples interests.

Over time, citizens have gained more control over state legislatures through an expanded vote and by becoming a larger part of the lawmaking apparatus of many states.

In a 21st-century democracy, the constitutional grant of regulatory authority to a state legislature regarding congressional elections might be thought to be a grant of primary authority to a state legislature but an authority subject to a variety of other limits imposed via state constitutional law, state statutory law, the courts and the citizenry.

At Americas founding, the Constitution made the power of the people a matter of grace provided by state legislatures. As Americas democracy matured, the power of the people became a matter of right under the Constitution.

The independent state legislature doctrine threatens to make the power of the people a matter of grace again, reinstating an anachronistic vision of democracy long thought to have passed.

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The independent state legislature doctrine could reverse 200 years of progress and take power away from the people - The Conversation

The secretary of states office cleared petitions for a marijuana legalization amendment last night but said today that counting is still underway on the proposal by Fair Play Arkansas for an amendment to prevent opening of a casino in Pope County.

The amendment needs 89,151 signatures of registered voters and backers of the amendment, financed by the Choctaw Nation to protect its casino near Fort Smith, turned in only about 100,000. They have continued gathering signatures. They must have 75 percent of the threshold certified as registered voters on the original petitions to be able to add more in a so-called cure process.

Amendments also must be approved as to ballot title and name by the state Board of Election Commissioners, which has both the marijuana and anti-casino amendments on its agenda at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Capitol. The casino amendment ballot title is being hotly contested by the Cherokee Nation business, which already holds a permit in Pope County.

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Counting still in progress on casino amendment - Arkansas Times

23 babies in Tennessee were found with the potentially serious virus in a short period of the spring, with experts noting the numbers are "not normal" and concerning. Separately, some researchers wonder if the child hepatitis outbreak is an outbreak at all. Other public health news is also reported.

NBC News:Cluster Of Parechovirus Infections Found In Tennessee NewbornsA cluster of 23 infants in Tennessee were diagnosed with a potentially severe childhood virus within a six-week span this spring an unusually short amount of time for such a large number of cases, doctors reported Thursday. (Edwards, 7/28)

CBS News:Hospitals Report More Cases Of Parechovirus In Infants: "This Is Not Normal"So far, at least 21 of the babies have recovered. One child is expected to face "severe developmental delay" after "persistent seizures."The findings from doctors at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Tennessee's health department were published on Thursday in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.Fever, fussiness, and a low appetite were the most common symptoms among babies admitted in the study. (Tin, 7/28)

On developments in the child hepatitis outbreak

NBC News:Severe Hepatitis In Children: Amid Fresh Clues, Researchers Wonder Whether The Phenomenon Is New At AllLiver failure always appropriately sounds horrific and should never happen, but it does happen, and it does happen without us often knowing the cause in children, said Saul Karpen, a gastroenterology professor at the Emory University School of Medicine. We do all the right studies. We cant figure it out. (Bendix, 7/29)

In news on other public health matters

CNN:PFAS Levels Should Be Tested In High-Risk People, Report SaysThe report sets "nanogram" levels of concern and encourages clinicians to conduct blood tests on patients who are worried about exposure or who are at high risk. (A nanogram is equivalent to one billionth of a gram.)People in "vulnerable life stages" -- such as during fetal development in pregnancy, early childhood and old age -- are at high risk, the report said. So are firefighters, workers in fluorochemical manufacturing plants and those who live near commercial airports, military bases, landfills, incinerators, wastewater treatment plants and farms where contaminated sewage sludge is used. (LaMotte, 7/28)

Axios:Survey: 1 In 4 LGBTQ Youth With High Trauma Symptoms Attempted Suicide In 2021One in four LGBTQ young people experiencing high levels of trauma said they had attempted suicide in 2021, according to a survey from The Trevor Project released Thursday. The big picture: Over 300 anti-LGBTQ laws have been introduced this year and at least 25 have passed. Medical experts say the rancor surrounding such policies can weigh heavily on LGBTQ young people's mental health. (Gonzalez, 7/28)

CIDRAP:Peanut Butter Salmo Outbreak Winds Down, 5 More Cases ReportedThe investigation into a multistate Salmonella Seftenberg outbreak linked to peanut butter is over, with five more cases reported, bringing the total to 21 from 17 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said yesterday. The latest illness onset was May 24. Of 13 people with available information, 4 were hospitalized. No deaths were reported. (7/28)

KHN:What The Polio Case In New York Tells Us About The End Of PolioNo one studying polio knew more than Albert Sabin, the Polish-American scientist whose vaccine against the crippling disease has been used worldwide since 1959. Sabins oral vaccine provides lifelong immunity. It has one drawback, which Sabin, who died in 1993, fiercely disputed: In rare cases, the weakened live poliovirus in the vaccine can mutate, regain virulence, and cause polio. Those rare mutations one of which appears to have paralyzed a young man in Rockland County, New York, who belongs to a vaccine-resistant Hasidic Jewish community, officials there reported July 21 have taken center stage in the global campaign to eradicate polio, the largest international public health effort in history. (Allen, 7/29)

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Unusual Parechovirus Cluster In Infants; Progress On Child Hepatitis - Kaiser Health News

On Tuesday evening, July 26, the Washington Post broke the news that the Justice Department is investigating the actions of President Donald Trump in connection with its criminal probe into the Jan. 6 insurrection.

According to the Post, in recent days prosecutors have asked witnesses appearing before a grand jury hours of detailed questions about Trumps behavior in the run-up to Jan. 6, including his efforts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence into upending the certification of the electoral vote and the campaign by Trumps associates to create slates of fake electors.

The Post also reported that the Justice Department received phone records of key officials and aides in the Trump administration, including his former chief of staff, Mark Meadowsand, notably, that it obtained those records as early as April, well before the recent flurry of activity around the Jan. 6 committees hearings in Congress.

This story is significant because it confirms for the first time that the Justice Department is interested in the conduct of Trump himselfnot just the rioters present at the Capitol that day and not just the broader circle of individuals around the former president. According to the Post, investigators want to understand, at a minimum, what Trump told his lawyers and senior officials to do.

In an NBC interview aired the same evening that the Post broke its story, Attorney General Merrick Garland commented that, The Justice Department has from the beginning been moving urgently to bring to justice everybody who was criminally responsible for interfering with the peaceful transfer of power.

The Posts reporting, which has been confirmed by the New York Times and other news outlets, casts new light on the ongoing debate over whether the Justice Departments criminal investigation into the insurrection is moving too slowly. Some critics, most notably former Mueller investigation prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, have worried that the department has taken the wrong approach by beginning with individual criminal acts committed by rioters and working upwards, rather than by focusing on the broader network of a potential conspiracy fanning out from Trump. Conversely, others, such as former U.S. attorney Harry Litman, counter that Attorney General Merrick Garland deserves the presumption that, as promised, he is going after insurrectionists at all levels. Or as Barb McQuade, also a former U.S. attorney, put it: Chill, folks.

The four of us have taken different positions in this discussion. Wittes has argued that the Justice Departments probe has been a remarkably quick and aggressive investigation that will only heat up more as the months grind on. Strzok, for his part, recently tweeted that its time for Congress to start asking questions about the departments apparent tardiness when it comes to uncovering certain evidence already obtained by the committee. Jurecic and Orpett have written that, in the absence of visible public movement by the Justice Department, its reasonable for the public to ask questions about the pace and focus of the departments workand its the responsibility of investigators to acknowledge that the challenge it faces is much more than a complex investigation involving hundreds of defendants and complicated facts. It is about how the Justice Department should restore the rule of law in the aftermath of an insurrection.

Last nights news doesnt definitively answer the question of whether or not the Justice Department has been moving quickly enough. In the short term, at least, this debate is probably irresolvable. Theres no real way to determine whether the investigation was active enough, designed optimally, or resourced ideally at the outset. To quote Garland himself, There is a lot of speculation about what the Justice Department is doing, whats it not doing, what our theories are and what our theories arent, and there will continue to be that speculation. And the data can support almost any hypothesis.

Perhaps, for example, the department has been aggressively investigating all along, and its activity only recently became visible because of questioning before the grand jury. Or perhaps investigators received phone records in April but really picked up the pace in recent weeks thanks to new evidence provided by the Jan. 6 committee during its hearings. Reporting from ABC that the Justice Department only recently reached out to the committees star witness Cassidy Hutchinsonafter her blockbuster testimony before Congressmight bolster this theory.

Similarly, imagine that over the next few weeks, Trump and his senior aides all face indictment for a broad range of post-election activitya course that would seem to validate the notion that the investigation had been aggressive all along. There would still be no way to know whether the sudden action in fact reflected a well-designed investigation from the beginning or whether it merely reflected a fire lit under the Justice Department and FBI by the combination of the Jan. 6 Committee investigation and relentless criticism of their performance.

Conversely, imagine that over the next two years, the investigation stagnates and produces continued indictments of people involved in the riot but does not come to meaningfully touch the political echelon at all. This eventuality still wouldnt validate the skeptics anxieties. After all, it would still be possible that the investigation had been aggressive and active from the beginning but that the evidence, for one reason or another, simply didnt support action against all the former presidents men.

While we cannot know who has been right to date, we can, however, lay out a few prospective benchmarks for an evaluation of the investigations future progressparticularly in light of the Posts reporting. What would the investigation look like if it was proceeding over the next few months in an aggressive fashion? What would we expect it to look like if it were sleepy or over-cautious? What are the steps people hoping for appropriate criminal accountability should wish to see? What are the signs that should worry people if they materializeor fail to materializeover the coming months?

Here are eight standards against which you can usefully measure how much confidence you should have in the Justice Departments investigation over the next several months.

First, is there additional movement on the John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark cases? These are the two cases involving the political cadre close to Trump that appear to be the furthest along, at least in connection with conduct during the post-election period. Both men have had search warrants executed against themmeaning that the Justice Department has already argued to a court that it has probable cause of criminal activity.

The investigation will look quite different a few months from now if Eastman and Clark have been indicted and Trumps conduct is described in the indictment than if the cases have not moved forward. Only this week, we learned that senior aides to former Vice President Mike Pence recently testified before a federal grand jury in connection with Eastmans effort to persuade the vice president to unilaterally reject election returns from key states. Now, per the Posts July 26 story, it seems that those aides were questioned specifically about Trumps actions as well.

These investigations into Clark and Eastman are pivotal because, unlike the investigations of the rioters, they directly involve Trumps individual conduct. Eastman, after all, was Trumps lawyer and the conduct at issue is conduct in the course of his purported representation of the clientand directly sanctioned by him. And Clark was an official whom the then-president was actively intending to install as acting attorney general precisely so that Clark could send a letter to Georgia officialsa letter that both men knew or should have known to be false in its essential claims concerning election irregularities.

Progress in these investigations, in other words, is highly probative of an investigation closing in on Trump himself. Significantly, the Post identifies the Justice Departments probe into Trumps pressure on the Justice Department into falsely declaring election irregularities in Georgiaas well as the pressure campaign on the vice presidentas a track of the overall investigation that could ultimately lead to additional scrutiny of Trump.

There is one more reason to follow the progress of the Eastman and Clark cases with particular care. Garland has said that the Justice Department will methodically build a foundation and work its way up from there. If we take seriously this metaphor of working his way up the pyramid, we should not expect any action against Trump himself to precede action in these cases. Rather, we should see Clark and Eastman as canaries in the coal mine of the coterie immediately around the former president. Trump himself is most unlikely to face indictment before they do. Their prosecution is likely a precondition for his.

Second, what do we know about the role of the Justice Department Office of Inspector General in conducting the investigations of Clark and Eastman? And how coordinated is that inspector general probe with the Justice Departments other investigatory work on Jan. 6? One of the persistent puzzles when it comes to the Justice Departments work has been the fact that Clark and Eastman are reportedly under investigation by the Justice Departments Office of Inspector General, a component that normally conducts internal probes of potential misconduct within the department. In contrast, the Post reports that other components of the Jan. 6 investigation are being run primarily by the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia, as well as the Criminal Division and the National Security Division at Justice Department headquarters.

The question of why the inspector generals office remains so deeply involved in the Eastman and Clark matters is important for two reasons: first, because it raises questions about whether the investigation is adequately resourcedthe inspector general being a rather puny office compared to the FBIand second because it raises the question of whether the different elements of the probe are being examined as isolated threads or as a whole tapestry.

The inspector generals involvement here is, at a minimum, extremely unusual. Eastmans phone was initially seized, and Clarks house searched, by federal agents acting on behalf of the office. As former Justice Department inspector general Michael Bromwich explained to the New York Times, the offices involvement makes sense to the extent that the inspector general has authority to look into any public corruption crimes committed by Justice Department personnel, in the Timess wordswhich would describe Clark. Presumably, then, there is some kind of link between Clark and Eastman, who was not an employee of the department.

Inspector General Michael Horowitz is certainly capable of conducting an aggressive investigation, as anyone whos paid attention to his recent flayings of the departments handling of the investigations into the Clinton email scandal and Russian election interference can attest. But indications that the Clark and Eastman portion of the departments work is being run through the inspector generals office still offer grounds for concerns. It suggests that the various investigations the public knows about may not be adequately coordinated. If the department were indeed conceptualizing its probe as one of a multi-pronged conspiracya hub-and-spoke investigation, as Weissmann calls itit raises the question of whether anyone has their eye on the whole wheel or whether different spokes are being examined by different investigations out of different components.

The inspector generals centrality is also odd because the inspector general has dramatically fewer resources with which to conduct such an investigation than does the FBI: the office has a staff of roughly 500, compared to the over 35,000 employees of the bureau. The difference here is not only quantitative but also qualitative. The FBI has a stronger investigative cadre on average. Is the inspector generals office really the best-equipped component of the Department of Justice to conduct this probe?

If we learn of close coordination between the inspector generals office and other components of the Justice Department on this investigation, that would be a signal that the department is thinking about the Jan. 6 probe holistically.

Weve seen a few indications of this. On July 27, a court filing by the Justice Department indicated that the U.S. Attorneys Office for D.C. has obtained a warrant to search Eastmans phone, in addition to the inspector generals warrant. The wording of the new warrantthat the cell phone was obtained by an agent not associated with the investigative teamalso raises the intriguing possibility that inspector general agents are being used in some kind of filter capacity to deal with potentially privileged information in the material seized from Eastman and Clark.

Both subjects of the investigation are attorneys, and Justice Department practice would dictate a review and removal of privileged material prior to the seized material being viewed by members of the investigative team. If thats whats happening here, it could be that the use of inspector general agents by the department for this purpose is strategic, which would be greatly reassuring.

Similarly, the Post writes that the Eastman and Clark searches were conducted as part of the same effort that involved a broad slate of subpoenas issued by the grand jury overseen by the U.S. attorneys office in D.C. Still its unclear whether this may be reading too much into the Posts wording, or if it suggests a reassuring degree of coordination and strategy.

If we see indications that the Clark and Eastman probe is continuing along a more or less separate track, a possibility the new warrant does much to diminish, this might suggest that investigators have carved up their work into more isolated unitsa concerning sign for those who want to see the department look at Jan. 6 in an integrated fashion.

Third, is there evidence the Justice Department is investigating committee claims of witness tampering? The Jan. 6 Committee has complained on two occasions of efforts to influence its witnesses. Specifically, Vice Chair Liz Cheney noted that someonelater reported to be an intermediary of Mark Meadowshad told Cassidy Hutchinson before her March 7 deposition that [Mark] wants me to let you know that hes thinking about you. He knows youre loyal, and youre going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition. At the end of the committees July 12 hearing, Cheney alleged that Trump himself had tried to contact a witnesswho did not take the call and announced that the committee had referred this incident to the Department of Justice.

Evidence of follow-up here from the FBI or the department would be a valuable indicator of interest in a pattern of obstructive conduct with respect to witnesses that dates back at least to the Mueller investigation. This pattern is evident to the naked eye given the detailed accounts in the Mueller report of obstructive conduct and the frequent efforts since then to influence witnesses in any number of proceedings. Yet it has attracted strangely little overt departmental attention. Signs of interest here would be signs that the department perceives the serial abuse of the justice system by the former president as a matter requiring, at some point, a response.

Fourth, is the bottom of the investigative pyramid meaningfully connected to the apex? One of the concerns that animates the anxiety about the departments investigation is that its approach may not ever reach what is apparent criminality in the political echelon. Garland has described a process in which investigating overt actors and crimes generates linkages to less overt ones: flipping the lower-level actors, as the process of convincing a witness to cooperate is known, leads to the higher-level actors. In this vision, prosecutions of the violent criminality of the rioters on the ground on Jan. 6 would lead higher and higher up the chain.

But what if Garlands theory is wrong? What if Trump was running a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election results but that criminal conspiracy was sufficiently unconnected to the violent insurrection of Jan. 6 that no amount of rioters flipping would shed meaningful light on it?

The evidence emerging from the House Select Committees hearings now suggests that Trump incited the insurrection in order to further both the false-elector conspiracy masterminded by Eastman and the closely-related conspiracy to pressure Vice President Pence to refuse to count swing-state elector slates. Trump triggered the riot to both buy time for state legislatures to decertify their elections and to intimidate Republican members of Congress and Vice President Pence not to count swing state electoral slates.

That Trump consciously incited the insurrection is now supported by a range of evidence newly unearthed by the select committee: first, that Trump knew the crowd was heavily armed but urged them to march on the Capitol anyway; second, that Trump made multiple last minute, inflammatory changes to his Ellipse speech that took explicit aim at Pence and that ignored and defied the advice of White House counsel and other advisers; third, that Trump made repeated attempts to accompany the crowd to the Capitol, again in defiance of the advice of White House counsel and other advisers, and was infuriated that his Secret Service detail refused his command; and fourth, that the decision to have the crowd march to the Capitol had been planned for days had been intentionally kept secret, and that many of Trumps advisers, including Meadows, anticipated that the result could well be violent.

In this context, a question that had once seemed urgentwhether the White House was in direct communication with either the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys before the insurrectionhas actually become less so in terms of building an incitement or conspiracy case against Trump with respect to the riot itself.

Similarly, Cassidy Hutchinson told the Jan. 6 Committee that the day before the Capitol attack, Trump directed Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to reach out to Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. This is exactly the sort of connective tissue that could link the bottom of the pyramid to the top.

The point is that if the Justice Department is to connect the bottom of the pyramid to its top, one still needs some sign that it is investigating either the White Houses connections to the alleged seditious conspiracies involving the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys or that it is investigating the pattern of Trumps activities the committee has revealed as a possible conspiracy or incitement of its own. The Post story offers some indication that the department is pursuing this, identifying the portion of the departments investigation centering on seditious conspiracy and conspiracy to obstruct a government proceedingcharges filed against Jan. 6 riotersas the second track that could direct investigators attention toward Trump personally.

But the reporting on this point is not specific. So far, nearly all the indictments have taken place at the base and mid-section of the pyramid. Evidence that these parts of the pyramid have a meaningful connection to the political echelon would go a long way to reassuring people that criminality at the top will not go unexamined because it doesnt link to criminality at the bottom.

Fifth, is all the conduct at issue related to Jan. 6 receiving adequate attention? Even if the different components of the pyramid appear disconnected, it would be reassuring to learn that the department is taking a careful look at the wide range of potential criminality. If one thinks of this as a bottom-up investigation, one wants to see evidence that criminal misconduct isnt escaping investigative scrutiny because its unrelated to the conduct of rioters. Alternatively, if one considers this as a hub-and-spoke investigation, one would want to see indications that all the potential spokes are being looked atthat someone is seeing the whole wheel.

The Posts new reporting provides a bunch of useful details here and some reason for confidence. As noted, we now know that there are investigations into the fake electors scheme as well as into Clark and Eastmans activities in other arenas. And it now seems as well that the department is investigating Trumps efforts to pressure Pence into upending the certification of the electoral vote. As noted above, the Post story also suggests that the seditious conspiracy investigations may be in play here too.

Less clear, however, is whether there is any serious investigation into potential criminal incitement by Trump during his Ellipse speech on Jan. 6. In his opinion finding it more likely than not that Trump and Eastman had committed crimes in relation to the insurrection, Judge David Carter also pointed to potential criminal conduct by Trump under 18 USC 1512(c)(2) (obstruction of an official proceeding) as well as 18 USC 371 (conspiracy to defraud the United States). To what extent is the investigation thinking about these potential violations? And what about that pressure campaign on state legislators? This is far from a definitive list of all the statutes and conduct that could be implicated.

Less discussed but no less important, is the Justice Department considering whether the then-president engaged in a course of conduct intended to result in the death or injury of the vice president? This is not a rhetorical question. Its a legitimate investigative matter predicated by the evidence already public.

Each of these areas involves complicated questions, evidentiary and legal. For example, to the extent the investigation focuses on the former presidents activities while he was in office, the department may be constraining its investigative strategy based on its legal analysis of the so-called clear statement rule, which holds that some criminal statutes do not apply to the president. So we are not certainly suggesting that investigative activity must result in specific charges. But the more evidence emerges that the department has considered or is considering each of the fact patterns specifically, the more confidence people will have that it is leaving no stone unturned.

Sixth, what the heck happened to all those other investigations involving people who might have evidence to give on Jan. 6 matters? News outlets have reported on a number of Justice Department investigations concerning figures with links to the Jan. 6 investigation, even if the investigations themselves are somewhat or entirely separate from Jan. Where do those probes stand?

In the spring of 2021, the FBI executed search warrants on Trumps one-time lawyer Rudy Giuliania central figure in many of the efforts to overturn the electionreportedly in relation to an investigation into Giulianis efforts to find negative information from Ukrainians about the Bidens in the runup to the 2020 election. (Those efforts snowballed into the scandal that ultimately precipitated Trumps first impeachment.)

Later that year, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the District of Columbia issued a subpoena for financial records from fundraising organizations run by Sidney Powellanother one of Trumps lawyers also centrally involved in efforts to keep the former president in power.

More tangentially, Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetzwho supported efforts to upend the electoral vote certification on Jan. 6was reportedly under investigation as of May 2021 for possible violations of federal sex trafficking laws.

These investigations are not on point with respect to Jan. 6, but they matter anywayfor three distinct reasons. The first is that the Justice Department will often use potential criminal exposure on unrelated issues as a way to pressure potential witnesses into cooperation on a separate probea tactic used during the Mueller investigation. But if the Giuliani, Powell, and Gaetz investigations have all vanished without a trace, that potential source of leverage is gone.

The second reason involves evidence that may have been seized in these cases that may relate to Jan. 6. Consider Giulianis phones and computers, which were seized on probable cause related to digging dirt on the Bidens from Ukrainian sources. These devices, however, were seized in April 2021, shortly after that insurrectionabout which they likely have significant evidence. Investigators could theoretically seek new warrants to look at this material if the original investigations are not allowed to just die.

The third reason involves ambient public sentiment. The Trump years generated a widespread perception among members of the public that accountability simply never materializes. Evidence that these investigations did not simply go up in smoke, as so many others did, would send a signal that the Justice Department is committed to holding people accountable for wrongdoing, even if those people are politically prominent or if their prosecutions would cause a partisan hubbub.

Seventh, is the Justice Departmentin particular the FBIreceiving adequate resources for the investigation? Garland recently described the Jan. 6 probe as the most wide-ranging investigation in Justice Department history. Such an investigation requires an enormous amount of resources, and there are indications that the department is stressed under the weight of that work. The overwhelming amount of evidence produced by contemporaneous documentation of the riot has left the government struggling to sort through discovery materials quickly enough in ongoing criminal proceedings against insurrectionists.

In March 2022, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco unsuccessfully requested funding for another 131 prosecutors in the Justice Departments annual budget requesta number that would have doubled the current workforce. To what extent is the investigation hampered by a lack of resources?

Congress might be able to play a useful role here in asking both the Justice Department and the FBI about these constraintswhether the agencies need additional resources, and if so, where they could put those resources to use. When it comes to the FBI, its also notable that FBI Director Christopher Wray, unlike Monaco, has not requested additional funding for the bureaus work on the Jan. 6 investigation at all. Is it really the case that the bureau has enough funding here, given how strapped the Justice Department seems to be on the prosecutorial side? And if the bureau has moved sufficient resources to the Jan. 6 investigations, where did those realigned resources come fromand what areas now have potentially far fewer investigators as a result? Congress could usefully direct those questions towards Wray.

Finally, eighth, what is the Justice Department saying publicly? So far, the departments public statements have been less revealing than curious members of the public might hope. This is always the case. Garland said recently that the department must hold accountable every person who is criminally responsible for trying to overturn a legitimate election, and we must do it in a way filled with integrity and professionalism. And thats about as forward-leaning as Justice Department leadership has gotten on the matter.

Garland has insisted that a central tenet of the way in which the Justice Department investigates and a central tenet of the rule of law is that we do not do our investigations in public. That is certainly true. There are real limitations on what the department can say publicly as it continues its workamong them, the legal requirements of grand jury secrecy. That said, we continue to believe that the department could usefully share more than it has.

What would it look like if Garland wanted to say as much as possible? One possible model is FBI Director James Comeys announcement of the Russia investigation in spring 2017. Comey testified before Congress that:

I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.

Theres no reason why Garland could not say something similar. The following, for example, in light of the Posts reporting, all appears to be true and contains no sensitive information:

I have decided that the public interest is served by making clear that the Department of Justice is investigating efforts to prevent the peaceful transition of power following the 2020 election. This includes whether anyone in the Trump campaign or in government service at that time participated in such efforts. Because this is an open ongoing investigation, I cannot say more about what we are doing and whose conduct we are examining. But our investigative activity includes, but is not limited to, the hundreds of already-indicted and already-completed criminal cases, other activity investigated and disclosed by Congress and the press, allegations that have surfaced in civil litigation, and matters investigated by publicly-announced internal Justice Department probes.

In other words, the Justice Departments current silence is a choice, not a requirement. Though the department usually does not announce ongoing investigations, its own internal policies explicitly allow for this type of statement in certain limited circumstances. The Justice Manual states that the department may speak on an ongoing investigation when the community needs to be reassured that the appropriate law enforcement agency is investigating a matter, or where release of information is necessary to protect the public safety. The current situation would certainly seem to fit into the former category.

A statement of this type would not reveal anything of consequence, but it would communicate something critical: that the department understands the investigation to encompass not simply the riot of Jan. 6 but the larger post-election effort to impede the peaceful transition of power, and that it understands that matter asat least potentiallya holistic pattern of conduct, not a discrete set of bad acts. That communication would be hugely reassuring.

***

The debate over whether the Justice Department has acted with appropriate aggressiveness in the wake of Jan. 6 will rage for a long time to come. In the long term, resolving it will require historians and major releases of documents that are not going to become public any time soon.

After Watergate, it was historians like Stanley Kutler who rehabilitated the Justice Departments own investigation into Watergate. Kutler wrote in 1990, The perception that the Justice Departments investigation was compromised was not without reason, but both [Special Prosecutor Archibald] Cox and [Select Committee Chairman Sam] Ervin knew better. The U.S. Attorneys office had in fact discovered the cover-up conspiracy and had broken the case by the time Cox took control, and before Senator Ervins committee provided a public venting of what the prosecutors had learned.

This longer-term, historical evaluation will require not just years but Freedom of Information Act requests, congressional pushes for documents to be released, and a decision by the executive branch to make as much information public as possible. In the meantime, it will be less useful to debate whether the department has been sleepy than it is to discuss what type of activity going forward would satisfy the public that justice is actually being done.

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How to Evaluate Progress in the Justice Department's Jan. 6 Investigation - Lawfare