Category Archives: Fiscal Freedom

Former City Councilmember Ruben Wills, who was convicted of fraud and grand larceny and served two years in prison, is eyeing a political comeback after a State Appeals Court reversed his conviction and returned the case to Queens Supreme Court.

His entrance would likely upend a race where the current City Councilmember Adrienne Adams is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. Wills has name recognition and a story of alleged injustice that could resonate with voters.

Adams, who has less than $40,000 in her bank account, according to campaign finance records, hasnt responded yet to a request for comment.

Council District 28 includes the Queens neighborhoods of Jamaica, Richmond Hill, Rochdale Village and South Ozone Park. Wills, 49, was first elected in 2010. He went to prison in 2017 after a jury found he used public money awarded to his non-profit, as well as campaign finance matching funds, on personal expenses like a designer bag.

An Appeals Court ruling found that during his trial Wills was deprived of his right to present evidence by witnesses of [his] own choosing [which] is a fundamental ingredient of due process.

A spokesperson for Attorney General Leticia James said prosecutors have not decided yet whether or not to retry the case. Willss lawyer, Kevin ODonnell, said his client had served his sentence and it wouldnt be wise to spend public funds on an expensive second trial.

Even if we went to trial and he was convicted the judge would give him the same sentence and he already served it, said ODonnell. I am not sure the effort is worth the result and I certainly hope the Attorney Generals office sees it the way I do.

The City Council passed a bill earlier this month that disqualifies people convicted of certain felonies, including those that involve public corruption, from running for public offices which the mayor is expected to sign into law on Wednesday. It will prevent other potential candidates, including former State Senator and City Councilmember Hiram Monserrate, from running for office -- but not Wills because his conviction was reversed.

He told Gothamist/WNYC that he thinks the law was designed to benefit those currently in power.

I'm disappointed in, you know, people who profess to be progressive for the sake of carrying a progressive banner, but then turn around and pass a bill that stops people from having second chances just to protect the incumbency, he said.

He also said his experience in prison has inspired him to reform criminal justice policies and what he described as judicial indifference, and improve conditions for those behind bars.

While in a work release program, Wills said he tested positive for a drug that is given to people who are addicted to opioids and was sent back to Sing Sing. It was later revealed that thousands of state prisoners were subjected to faulty drug tests. Wills said he was one of those individuals.

I think that my purpose, the reason I went through this is to make sure this is highlighted. I don't represent Ruben Wills, he said. I represent two or three hundred thousand young men that look like me, that have gone through these doors of the halls of injustice every single day for the past, I dont know how many years.

During his tenure on the City Council, Wills had a reputation for being excessively absent. Politico New York filed a Freedom of Information Law Request and found that in fiscal year 2016, he was present at work only 28% of the time. Wills said at the time he was suffering from health problems that are no longer an issue.

Theres no issues with my health that would prevent me from doing anything, Wills said. I've made great strides or improvement in physical health.

If he decides to run for his old Council seat, Wills must collect a minimum of 270 valid petition signatures by March 25th; candidates will begin collecting petitions next week.

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After An Appeals Court Reversed His Conviction, Ruben Wills Eyes A Comeback In Queens - Gothamist

LUCKNOW :The Uttar Pradesh budget tabled in the state assembly on Monday has proposed a sum of at least 640 crore for the development and beautification of Ayodhya.

The budgetary provisions for fiscal 2021-22 include a sum of 300 crore for the construction of an approach road to Shri Ram Janmabhoomi temple, Ayodhya Dham. The budget has also proposed a sum of 140 crore for the all-round growth of the city, including the development of Suryakund there. Another sum of 100 crore has been provided for the development and beautification of other tourism facilities in Ayodhya. The budget has also made a provision of 101 crore for the development of the Ayodhya airport, to be named Maryada Purshotam Shriram Airport.

To attract tourists elsewhere in the state, the budget provides 100 crore and 200 crore respectively for the development and beautification of tourism facilities in Varanasi and Chitrakoot. A provision of 200 crore has also been made for the Chief Minister Tourism Fiscal Scheme. All developmental projects in the state will be executed in accordance with the mythological significance of various cities, an official spokesman said.

The budget has also provided a sum of 15 crore for the year-long commemoration of the Chauri-Chaura incident centenary. The budget has also proposed 8 crore and 4 crore respectively for the construction of a tribal museum in Lucknow and a freedom fighters gallery in Shahjahanpur. In its budget, the state government has also decided to confer 'Uttar Pradesh Gaurav Samman' on eminent writers and artists who have not been given any other award by the state. Under this scheme, a maximum of five people will be honoured and given a sum of 11 lakh each every year.

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UP budget proposes at least 640 crore to develop and beautify Ayodhya - Mint

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for fiscal 2021 created the Office of the National Cyber Director within the Executive Office of the President. The office will be headed by the United Statess first national cyber director (NCD) and is intended to lead the implementation of national cyber policy and strategy, with a focus on making rapid progress on domestic cybersecurity. The director will serve as the presidents senior adviser for cyber issues.

The creation of the Office of the National Cyber Director comes at a pivotal time in the development of the nations cybersecurity and on the heels of one of the most widespread cyber incidents ever inflicted on the country. The nations lead cyber agency, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) at the Department of Homeland Security, continues to slowly mature into its crucial role. Still in the midst of the presidential transition, President Biden has begun to organize his staff at the White House, including with the creation of a deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies. While Biden has made it clear that cybersecurity will be a top priority for his administrationand the creation of the new deputy national security adviser is certainly indicative of thismany questions remain. The confluence of these developments and the creation of the Office of the National Cyber Director has led some observers in the administration, the private sector, and the media to pose questions about the nature and role of the new office. The NDAA provides clear descriptions of the offices several mandates. But questions remain about the motivation for the creation of the office, its authorities and how it relates to other cyber-relevant roles within the White House.

The NCD provision in the NDAA stems from a recommendation by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission, a bipartisan, bicameral commission created by the 2019 NDAA and charged with crafting a new strategic vision for the United States in cyberspace. Here, we provide the commission staffs answers to these questions in an effort to clarify the commissions intent in recommending the creation of the Office of the National Cyber Director.

Was the creation of the national cyber director position motivated by the abolishment of the cybersecurity coordinator position in 2018?

Yes and no. Commentators have rightly noted that the creation of the NCD position was motivated partly by former National Security Adviser John Boltons abolishment of the cybersecurity coordinator position in 2018, but they tend to overestimate the part Boltons move played. Cyber policy experts have long called for a national-level, senior official in the White House to bring coherence and direction to cyber policy, strategy and operations. And Congress has demandedand continues to demandaccountability and communication from the executive branch on cybersecurity issues. Despite substantial progress by federal departments and agencies, the U.S. government has lacked institutionalized leadership, coordination and a consistent advocate for the appropriate prioritization of cybersecurity in the White House.

To date, the existence of national cyber leadership has been a matter of executive branch policy, not an enduring legislative requirement. The prominence of the role has fluctuated across administrations, with some declining, at times, to fill the position at all. These changes have prevented the persistence and consistency needed to establish enduring policy and strategy. While these issues were cast in stark relief when the Trump administration abolished the position, the fundamental problem is more systemic and long term than any one administrations actions.

More than anything, the legislative establishment of the position is an affirmative statement from Congress on the need for good governance and effective organization in cybersecurity. The NCD ensures the governments focus on cybersecurity is a consistent and unified national priority, while also shielding it from bureaucratic turf battles or interest of the president. In this regard, the creation of the Office of the National Cyber Director is not dissimilar to the creation of the Office of Science and Technology Policy in 1976, which was motivated in part by President Nixons abolishment of the Presidents Science Advisory Committee a few years prior. In both cases, Congress responded by cementing a national priority through its power to organize the executive branch, establishing new positions, and empowering them as best they could.

What will the NCD do?

The NCD role is designed to act as the presidents senior adviser on cybersecurity and associated emerging technology issues, except for Title 10 (offensive) and Title 50 (intelligence) cyber operations and programs. The NCD is intended to focus on implementing the national strategy and policies for cybersecurity, as defined by the National Security Council, and coordinating, supporting, and deconflicting whole-of-nation cybersecurity and defensive cyber efforts led by executive branch agencies and the private sector. The NCD is intended to connect, complement, and strengthen, rather than duplicate, existing organizations and processes. In general terms, the 2021 NDAA confers on the NCD the following functions:

Does the NCD have the authorities and powers necessary to be effective in the role?

No, not through legislation alone. Legislation confers the NCD with functions and responsibilities but few authorities independent of those already vested in the president. This was intentional. Congress, with few exceptions, takes a relatively light touch in dictating how presidents use their advisersbeyond organizing the Executive Office of the President. Importantly, the chief of staff and the national security adviser, the most empowered positions in the Executive Office of the President, derive their influence not from law but from convention and their proximity to the president.

Senate-confirmed positions in the White House like the NCD, such as the U.S. trade representative, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, and the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, straddle a unique line. The positions within the Executive Office of the President are extensions of the president but as separate, Senate-confirmed office-holders with responsibilities and authorities conferred by Congress, they are accountable officials in their own right. Despite these positions being given responsibility by Congress, their effectiveness and ultimate authority beyond what is prescribed in law hinges on their proximity toand the confidence ofthe president they serve. This rings particularly true in the ability of any of these positions to influence policy. The NCD is no exception.

Much of the exact powers and influence of the NCD will need to be defined through executive orders and, over time, convention. This will need to be a priority for the Biden administration, which will need to update existing executive orders such as Presidential Policy Directive-41 (PPD-41), to account for the position and define its role in national security policymaking, budget review, operational coordination and rule-making. These executive orders will be essential in delegating the necessary authorities to make the position effective and consistent with congressional intent.

How will the NCD work with the National Security Council and the national security adviser?

The 2021 NDAA amended the National Security Act of 1947 to allow the NCD to be a participant in the NSC where cybersecurity issues are a substantial topic and to be included in the development of cyber policy, the National Cyber Strategy, and coordinating U.S. government defensive cyber efforts. However, the NCD serves on the NSC Principals Committee at the presidents discretion, much like the director of national intelligence or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Biden administration affirmed this status for the NCD in the recently released National Security Memorandum-2 (NSM-2), which renewed and organized the National Security Council system.

The national security adviser is the principal adviser to the president on national security issues, of which cybersecurity is one. As such, national security policy and strategy, including the development of the national cyber strategy and many national cyber policies, will continue to flow through the national security adviser. In this regard, the Biden administrations decision to create a new deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies is particularly meaningful. This position will lead the development of a national cyber strategy for the national security adviser and the president, and the NCD should provide advice on the formulation of the strategy.

The NCD will also need to work closely with the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies on the development of cyber policy, as each will have a role in developing policies. In this regard the NCD is intended to play a critical role in working with federal departments and agencies on developing and implementing policies and strategies to make the NSCs strategic vision a reality.

What role will the NCD have in operational coordination?

The NCD position was established to lead the coordination of integrated response by federal departments and agencies against cyberattacks and cyber campaigns of significant consequence, and to ensure coordination with the private sector in these responses. The NCDs efforts should include significant preplanning before an incident such as plan and playbook development and cross-sector exercises. In this responsibility, the NCD will work across government and the private sector to define priority, risk-based scenarios by which to guide and direct interagency planning efforts. These plans, regularly exercised, will serve to prepare both public- and private-sector partners to shift seamlessly to response and recovery efforts when a major cyber incident occurs. These efforts will no doubt help enable the NCD to serve a critical leadership role in coordinating initial incident response efforts, a chaotic period where visible leadership, clear communication, and a concrete plan-of-action do much to instill order and credibility. This vantage point will also serve to inform the NCD on key areas of critical infrastructure where additional attention is warranted for long-term cyber resilience.

To facilitate this role, the NCD is intended to play a leading role in the Cyber Response Group, the current NSC-led, interagency body authorized under PPD-41. The Cyber Response Group coordinates, plans, and oversees U.S. government responses to cyber incidents and malicious cyber campaigns. Before the position was abolished, the NSCs cybersecurity coordinator was charged with leading the Cyber Response Group. It was the original intent of the NCD legislation for the president to update PPD-41 and give management of the Cyber Response Group to the NCD. However, given the Biden administrations creation of the new deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies, it is far more likely the NCD will share responsibility for this interagency body. In any case, given the necessary interplay of offensive and defensive efforts, the NCD and the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies will need to work closely together, both inside and outside the Cyber Response Group, to ensure a consistent and comprehensive approach to U.S. actions in cyberspace.

What is the NCDs role in Title 10 and Title 50 operations?

The NCD will have no role in coordinating Title 10 (offensive) and Title 50 (intelligence) operations. That said, the NCD is intended to have visibility into these operations. Given the NCDs roles in organizing, planning, and coordinating defensive cyber operations and as a representative of the U.S. government in international forums, he or she should at least be aware of any operation that could inadvertently cause retaliation and, to the degree the director is able, preemptively prepare for it. That said, the degree that the NCD will be allowed to weigh inand at what levelin the planning and coordination process is at the discretion of the president.

Because the president has established the NCDs position on the NSC Principals Committee, the NCD will likely have some voice on operations if and when they rise to that level of decision-making. Given this, it would be shrewd on the part of the national security adviser to include the NCD or his or her staff early in any decision-making process that would eventually come before the NCD in a Principals Committee meeting to which the director is a part.

What is the NCDs relationship with the director of CISA? What is the relationship with other departments and agencies?

The NCD is intended to connect, complement, and strengthen, not duplicate, the existing work of departments and agencies. CISA is no exception. CISA will maintain responsibility for the coordination of U.S. government-wide cybersecurity and defense efforts at the operational level; the NCD will focus on the strategic level, namely in the development and implementation of plans, programs and strategy. While CISA has well-established responsibilities, programs, and processes to lead the overall U.S. government-wide cybersecurity effort, the agency is limited in its ability to cajole or persuade other departments and agencies to participate and follow suitparticularly when parochial agency interests run counter to greater integration. Department and agency priorities, policies, programs, and, most importantly, budgets can diverge markedly from CISAs vision and its conception of a well-coordinated U.S. government effort. The NCD in this capacity will be a useful ally for CISA in ensuring that the agencys central role in cybersecurity is reinforced and made manifest through programs and execution.

The NCD will also need to manage the varying interests of the interagency, a more perilous balancing act that requires compromise between long-term vision and department and agency priority. National-level strategy and policy implementation in cybersecurity are complex endeavors, one where tension often exists between White House-led top-down design and bottom-up department and agency defense of bureaucratic self-interest. After all, policy and strategy development proceeds by consensus before reaching the presidents desk, and Cabinet members are not inclined to consent to any measure that promises to reduce their role or their organizations room to maneuver. That said, as part of the presidents ostensible inner circle, the NCD position was designed to have sufficient proximity to the president to define a long-term strategy, weigh its trade-offs with bureaucratic interests, and ensure its successful implementation. Managing this tension and navigating the push-and-pull relationship between department and agency principals will be a key factor in the directors ultimate effectiveness.

What will be the NCDs role in engagement with the private sector?

In the 2021 NDAA, the NCD is given nominal responsibility for leading coordination and consultation with the private sector on cybersecurity and emerging technology issues. What this looks like in practice, however, is complicated. Even with a full office of 75 personnel, the NCD will lack the bureaucratic strength and existing private-sector relationships to manage or run a full-fledged industry engagement process. Nor would such a thing be desirable. The U.S. government maintains a number of fora for industry engagement on cybersecurity, including those led by the Department of Homeland Security (through CISA) and the Department of Commerce (through the National Institute of Standards and Technology, for example). Adding another player to compete with these efforts, rather than coordinate them, would only further stoke industry frustration and run counter to the type of government integration the NCD is intended to produce. The NCD has a critical role here in establishing the broad elements of national strategy, supporting lines of effort, and, in turn, supporting, enabling, coordinating, and deconflicting department and agency cyber engagements as they execute their roles within that strategy. The national cyber strategy should account for the need to coordinate and bring coherence to U.S. government engagement with the private sector writ large.

That said, the NCD will need to engage directly with the private sector on national-level cyber policy implementation and development of responses to and recovery from cyber incidents. This is a critical piece of why the NCD position was createdto ensure there is a reliable, senior-level official who can, on behalf of the entire U.S. government, act as both a voice and a touchpoint on cyber issues for the public, industry, Congress or otherwise. In this, the NCD will complement, not replace, private-sector engagement led by CISA. CISA, as the executive agent for the Critical Infrastructure Partnership Advisory Council, manages the U.S. government process for cybersecurity and infrastructure security engagement with the private sector. This process runs through sector coordinating councils, which are jointly led by CISA and the relevant department or agency (called the Sector Risk Management Agency) for each of the 16 critical infrastructure sectors. The NCD was designed to lead the implementation of national-level defensive policy and strategy, allowing CISA to focus on plans, operational collaboration, and more tactical and technical issues. Where those issues overlap or merge, the NCD would be well served to leverage the established processes CISA already has in place. In any case, communication and close coordination between the director of CISA and the NCD will be a necessary reality of both positions.

What is the NCDs role in international engagement?

It is expected that the NCD, in coordination with the national security adviser and the national economic adviser as appropriate, would participate in meetings with international partners on topics of cybersecurity and emerging technologies to implement the National Cyber Strategy and advance the presidents international priorities. The NCD would be expected to coordinate closely with relevant offices within the State Department when participating in international cyber and cybersecurity-related initiatives, international agreements, standards-setting bodies, and capacity-building efforts. The NCD will be included as a participant in preparations for the execution of cybersecurity summits and other international meetings at which cybersecurity or related emerging technologies are a major topic.

Is the NCD subject to Freedom of Information Act requests? Will this impede the directors ability to do his or her job as an adviser to the president and coordinator on cybersecurity?

Broadly speaking, yes, the NCD is subject to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Andrew Grotto brings up a good point that the new Office of the National Cyber Director will not benefit from FOIA exemptions afforded to the NSC. This is, in broad strokes, accurate, but the framing is misleading. The NSC is not exempted from FOIA by statute, but, as Grotto points out, through a Supreme Court decision. Because the NSC operates in close proximity to the President and because the NSC does not exercise substantial independent authority[,] the Supreme Court concluded that the NSC is not an agency for the purposes of FOIA and thus not subject to its requirements. Rightly or wrongly (and the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a compelling dissent), the same argument could be equally applied to the NCD, who, as noted above, does not enjoy substantial independent authority beyond that delegated by or derived from his or her proximity to the president. Still, it is worth acknowledging that the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, and the Office of National Drug Control Policyarguably more similar to the Office of the National Cyber Director than the NSC for reasons covered beloware not exempt from FOIA requirements.

It is reasonable to expect that much of the NCDs work will be exempt from FOIA under one of the laws nine categories of exemptions. Exemption 1 covers information classified to protect national security. Exemption 4 covers trade secrets or commercial or financial informationa pertinent exemption given the NCDs expected role in liaising with the private sector. Finally, and most importantly, exemption 5 covers privileged communications between agencies or deliberative, pre-decisional documents. According to the Department of Homeland Security, this [p]rotects the integrity of the deliberative or policy-making processes within the agency by exempting from mandatory disclosure opinion, conclusions, and recommendations included within inter-agency or intra-agency memoranda or letters. It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which much of the NCDs substantive work wouldnt qualify under this exemption and its subset of executive privilege. The concerns over FOIA undermining the integrity and confidentiality of the presidents deliberative process are overblown. This should not impede the directors ability to do his or her job.

Does being Senate confirmed impede the NCDs ability to do his or her job as an adviser to the president and coordinator on cybersecurity?

Andrew Grotto points out rightly that Senate and House oversight committees consider it a matter of institutional right to have Senate-confirmed officials appear before them. And it should be expected that the NCD will be called upon routinely to testify before the House and the Senate. Its worth noting, however, that NSC deliberations include Senate-confirmed positions at the assistant secretary, deputy secretary, undersecretary, and secretary levels at successive stages of the policy process. The same logic of concern that is leveled at the NCD could be applied equally to these positions, which are similarly beholden to Congress. But does the president keep the secretary of defense at arms length because he or she can be called to testify before Congress? No. Executive privilege would almost certainly apply.

Does this put the NCD in an uncomfortable position between Congress, which desires to know more, and the president, who prefers to keep deliberations confidential? Certainly. But no more than it does the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the U.S. trade representative, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, or the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Each of these positions is both Senate confirmed and appointed in the Executive Office of the President. Each is involved, in various degrees, with national security decision-making. And each invokes executive privilege where appropriate and where applicable. It is a space the White House knows how to navigate well.

Will the NCD position require changes?

The NCD was never intended to spring fully formed from the minds of the multi-stakeholder commission that recommended it or the Congress and the pages of statute that gave birth to it. It will take time and considerable effort to find its way among the dynamic environment of the White House and the fray of the interagency. The creation of the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies is a positive development and will need to be accounted for. The NCD is not and likely will not remain static. The president holds preeminence in delegating authority to the position through executive order. And Congress maintains its prerogative to empower the position further and in response to, and support of, how the president manages the position. It is an iterative dynamic that will lend itself well to evolving needs of cybersecurity and the demands of the office.

But the fundamental argument for the establishment of the position remains the same: The U.S. government needs vision, leadership, and unity of effort in cyberspace. This is true irrespective of political party or administrationthough the Biden administration is off to a good start. That said, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. The NCD position changes the institutional dynamic and is a marked step forward in ensuring enduring leadership and accountability. It will need to evolve, certainly, but as it stands the position is a good start. It is up to the Biden administration to make it successful.

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How the National Cyber Director Position Is Going to Work: Frequently Asked Questions - Lawfare

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, a coalition of 17 organizations led by the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to reject the proposed restoration of earmarks being considered by House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)

The letter was co-signed by Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Prosperity, National Taxpayers Union, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, American Commitment, Taxpayers Protection Alliance, Taxpayers for Common Sense, Heritage Action, Frontiers of Freedom, 60 Plus Association, Alaska Policy Forum, Center for Individual Freedom, The Heartland Institute, Annapolis Center-Right Coalition Meeting, and The Maine Heritage Policy Center.

CCAGW President Tom Schatz said in a statement:

Earmarks are one of the most corrupt, inequitable, and wasteful practices in the history of Congress. As the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) explained regarding those who called for a return to earmarks in 2014: The problem with all their arguments is: the more powerful you are, the more likely it is you get the earmark in. Therefore, it is a corrupt system. Earmarks are a lazy, unfair, and corrupt way to circumvent the authorization and appropriations process. They are not a path to unity; they are a road to fiscal ruin for taxpayers. Members of Congress must be fiscally responsible and oppose the resurrection of earmarks. Thank you to the coalition members who on behalf of taxpayers across the country are joining CCAGW in the fight to permanently ban rather than restore earmarks.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is the nations largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.

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CCAGW Leads a Coalition Urging Congress to Reject the Restoration of Earmarks - Business Wire

(Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)

Democrats plan to revive congressional earmarks after a decade-long moratorium on the funding practice. In a call with House Democrats, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) promised that any move to bring the practice back to life will attract bipartisan support, Politico reported.

Earmarks, known officially as congressionally directed spending, are provisions written into bills that designate specific contractors for federally funded projects. Proponents argue that returning to the practice would make it easier for Democratic and Republican lawmakers to collaborate on legislation by cutting deals to entice lawmakers from across the aisle to support legislation that includes projects for their district.

In the federal budget for the 2011 fiscal year, Congress set aside $130 billion in earmarks. Small government groups and some conservatives point to these allocated funds as evidence of excessive spending by the federal government, a point underscored by several widely publicized scandals in the early 2000s that detailed how a handful of lawmakers traded earmarks for personal gain.

But Travis Johnston, a political scientist at University of Massachusetts Boston who has researched and written about the impact of earmarks on electoral politics, points out that congressionally directed funding represents only a small fraction of the total federal budget which was $2.6 trillion in 2011.

Both the media and the public really latched on to extremely salient cases, to big, big earmarks that were seen as a classic case of Congress patting itself on the back doing favors for one another, Johnston said. In reality, the price tag around these earmarks is kind of a drop in the federal budget. Its a rounding error.

Though earmarks constitute just a sliver of federal spending, K Street could see major gains from a revitalization of earmarks. The year after Republicans nixed congressional earmarks, total federal lobbying expenditures fell by $170 million, though other conditions including the economic recession and passage of the Affordable Care Act at the end of 2010 may have also played a part in the drop in lobbying spending. Lobbying spending rebounded under former President Donald Trump.

Our clients are excited about the prospect of a return to earmarks, and we think we can be helpful to them with our advocacy there, one senior lobbyist told Roll Call.

Before the earmark moratorium went into effect, defense contractors were among the biggest spenders on lobbying and received significant earmarked funding. Northrop Grumman spent $15.7 million to lobby the federal government in 2010 and took in $39.6 million from congressionally directed spending in the same year. Lockheed Martin spent $12.7 million in lobbying and received $17.9 million in earmarks.

If the reforms suggested by congressional Democrats are adopted, a revitalized earmark system may limit funding recipients to public or nonprofit groups, such as universities and state agencies. Such a stipulation would discourage private companies like Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin from lobbying for earmarks.

However, many traditional earmark recipients would remain. In 2010, public universities were among the top earmark recipients, though they spent less on lobbying efforts than for-profit enterprises. The University of Mississippi took in $32.8 million and spent $120,000 on lobbying. The University of New Mexico was another winner, bringing home almost $19 million after spending $280,000 on lobbying.

Democrats are planning other reforms too. Party leadership is calling the provisions funding for community projects, and Hoyer assured lawmakers and reporters that this time around, earmarks will be better regulated to prevent abuse. Legislators will only be able to direct funding to entities in which they have no existing financial stake. The individual sponsor of each earmark will be publicly disclosed.

The modern debate around earmarks which appeared first in 1789 as a part of the first federal budget ever began with a series of scandals during former President George W. Bushs administration.

In 2005, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) famously secured $231 million for a bridge to nowhere, connecting a sparsely populated island with mainland Alaska. That same year, an investigation by the San Diego Union Tribune revealed that former Rep. Randy Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) accepted millions of dollars in gifts from a defense contractor whose firm in turn benefitted from millions of dollars of earmarked federal funding. Cunningham spent seven years in federal prison on corruption charges before Trump pardoned him during his last week in the Oval Office.

Another lawmaker, former Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), pled guilty to accepting bribes from lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for the inclusion of several millions of earmarked dollars for Abramoffs clients in 2006. Ney was sentenced to 30 months in prison.

In the wake of these scandals, a bipartisan group of senators joined with the Bush White House to champion the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which required lawmakers to disclose all earmarked sums and document the sponsor and recipient of each earmark.

After the implementation of the act, OpenSecrets and Taxpayers for Common Sense maintained a database of all earmarks, documenting how recipients of federal earmarks interacted with the federal government through lobbying efforts and campaign contributions. The full database can be found here.

Despite the 2007 reform, earmarks became a target for the Tea Party movement, which painted the practice as a wasteful use of taxpayer dollars. In 2016, a poll by The Economist and YouGov found that 63 percent of Americans approved of the earmark moratorium. Fifty-nine percent of respondents also said that the practice of earmarks was generally unacceptable.

Earmarks strike a chord for people because they see it as this [politician] doing something for themselves, for their own community, at the expense of the country and the American taxpayer, Johnston said. I think that theres a generally conservative ethos that we are all socialized into adopting about limited government and you can play into those narratives pretty easily with earmarks. Its low-hanging fruit to identify these types of scandalous, corrupt practices.

Republican lawmakers spearheaded a 2011 moratorium on earmarks, and then-President Barack Obama pledged to veto any legislation that included earmarks.

Traditionally, public opinion on earmarks divided cleanly along partisan lines. A 2016 survey experiment designed by Johnston and co-authors found that 66 percent of Democrats, and only 45 percent of Republicans, said they would be more likely to support a politician who had secured funding for projects in their area. Fox News reported that the GOP is already planning to attack Democrats for supporting pork barrel politics ahead of the midterms elections, a threat that has made some Democrats in swing states wary.

But a lot has changed since 2016. Whether GOP attacks on earmarks and lawmakers who support them will have staying power will largely depend on the political context that develops over the next two years. Right now, most Americans are not concerned about profligate federal spending. Most voters support expensive federal investments even if they are paid for by adding to the federal deficit.

Were in a spend, spend, spend mood because of COVID-19, and so people are not paying attention to price tag, but if theres a whiplash effect, and we return to thinking about deficits, then I think that will be a different story, Johnston said. So I think it depends on how much it is messaged effectively, and how much the public latches on.

Johnston noted that the political discourse that surrounds earmarks and government spending more broadly has changed since the 2011 moratorium went into effect. In 2018, Trump surprised many by coming out in support of earmarks.

The enactment of the earmark ban, the rise of the Tea Party, all those things that did away with earmarks, thats really ancient history in the world of Trumpian politics and things like that, at least for the GOP, Johnston said.

The Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress a bipartisan group of six Democrats and three Republicans recommended bringing earmarks back last September.The proposal has garnered support from some Republicans including Rep. Tom Reed (N.Y.) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican member of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Punchbowl News reported Wednesday that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has not publicly taken a stand on the issue, said he would follow Shelbys lead.

Other GOP members, however, are gearing up for an intra-party battle over earmarks. Reps. Ted Budd (R-N.C.) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) introduced a bill on Feb. 18 that would permanently eliminate earmarks. Budd and Norman are both members of the House Freedom Caucus, which tweeted Wednesday that it would oppose any effort to bring back earmarks.

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Democrats want to revive earmarks will they further empower lobbyists? - Center for Responsive Politics

In less than a week, lawmakers will convene at the State Capitol to take and debate a host of issues over the course of a 60-day session. Several hot-button bills are on the table, as well as some lesser-known proposals that could gain traction and opposition as the legislative cycle plows forward.

Governor Ron DeSantiss Cerberus is certain to turn heads this Legislative Session. Like the mythological hound, DeSantiss three-tiered agenda seeks to shield Floridians and shut the gates on violent mobs, Silicon Valley, and pandemic lawyers. Below is a rundown of those bills.

Combatting Public Disorder (HB 1) would deter criminal rioting and crackdown on violent mobs that loot and destroy businesses. The measure, spearheaded by State Representative Juan Fernandez-Barquin, would impose enhanced penalties for assaulting police officers and enticing a riot. The bill is in response to the lawlessness that permeated in major cities across the country last summer.

Consumer Data Privacy (HB 969) is just the latest component in the GOPs fight against Big Tech companies. The proposed measure will allow consumers in Florida to have the final say in how social media companies like Twitter and Facebook use their personal information. State Representative Fiona McFarlandis sponsoring the bill.

The path to Floridas fiscal budget always takes a series of turns and detours before reaching its final destination. While a roadmap of government spending can be a headache, the economic fallout brought forth by an ongoing pandemic makes 2021s process a bit more challenging.

While lawmakers have stressed that potential budget cuts are on the horizon, DeSantis has offered up a 2021-2022 budget of $96.6 billion a $4.3 billion increase over the current fiscal year. The Governor says his increase accounts for various expenditures related to the states COVID-19 pandemic response and its impacts on Floridians. DeSantiss proposed budget also recommends over $1 billion in savings including over $400 million in administrative and operational efficiencies.

Still, GOP leaders will have to walk a tightrope when tackling the budget being pragmatic while also playing politics.

Brandes is doubling down on legalizing sports betting in Florida, again filing legislation to give the third most populous state a piece of the action.

His Sports Wagering bill (SB 392) would allow Floridians over the age of 21 to wager money or items on a sports event, with bets being placed with the states Department of Lottery or a licensee. The new law would put the Department of Lottery in charge of regulating sports betting and allow them to administer annual licenses for those seeking to operate a sports pool. Brandes also filed related measures (SB 394/396) that would set the application fee and renewal fee for the license at $100,000 and impose a sport betting revenue tax of 15 percent.

The Pinellas Republican filed a similar bill during the 2020 Legislative Session, but his proposal was never heard in committee.

A contentious issue, given the Seminole Tribe Compact granting exclusivity for certain types of gambling (slots, roulette, blackjack, etc.) in the Sunshine State, Brandes faces an uphill battle. Not only is the bill up against the Tribe, which controls Floridas biggest casinos, Brandes measure is also subject to Amendment 3 which could put the matter of casino gaming expansion in voters hands.

Whether or not the legislature will have the appetite to open the floodgates to Florida bettors is still to be determined, but theres no denying the impacts this legislation could have on the states economy. Apart from giving people the ability to bet on collegiate and professional sports, a gaming expansion could generate millions of dollars that could be used to bolster education and offset shortfalls brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

With new leadership at the helm and a lingering virus, its now or never for Brandes gambling proposals.

While insiders continue to speculate if Democratic State Senator Jason Pizzo will run for governor, the former Miami-Dade prosecutor has kept his nose to the grindstone, carving out a role for himself as a reformer. His three big issues this session fixes to the states unemployment system, evictions processes, and criminal justice laws have made him a progressive beacon in a coronavirus cloud of darkness.

Pizzo has embraced this leadership role openly, standing on the frontlines of the COVID-19 fight while serving as a voice of reason.Entering the final stretch of his first term in the Senate, Pizzo has carried the accountability mantle for the Democratic Party, being bold in his approach with fellow colleagues and swift with his desire to aid Floridians impacted by the mass contagion.

Most notably, hes positioned himself as the figurehead in the fight surrounding the states unemployment system. With the website failing to keep up with an influx of applicants in 2020, many out-of-work Floridians were left in the dark with no manual on how to navigate the trials brought on by the coronavirus, Pizzo slowly became the de facto leader in this battle, and has since turned his attention to championing reforms to help those affected by the virus.

While many in his party feel emboldened by the press and quietly call it day, Pizzo actually has the legislation to boot. On Tuesday, Pizzo filed an Evictions During a Declared State of Emergency bill (SB 1548) aimed at protecting individuals from being kicked out of their residency during a state of emergency. Pizzos bill would no longer require the Governor to issue an executive order to halt evictions during an economic shutdown like the pandemic.

Though Pizzo is still at the mercy of a Republican-led Senate, GOP leadership respects the Miami Democrat, with Senate President Wilton Simpson reaching across the aisle to tap Pizzo to lead the Criminal Justice Committee.

Some say he has a cape stashed away in his office, although these claims have not been confirmed.

Republican State Senator Dennis Baxley is pushing a bill that will put in place tighter vote by mail restrictions. The move comes in the wake of significant Republican concerns over lax enforcement of similar vote by mail laws that Republicans say were exploited in other states.

The bill (SB 90) would change absentee voting rules, reducing the period that vote-by-mail requests would stay valid. Current law allows mail ballot requests to stay valid through two election cycles. Baxleys bill would shorten that, requiring Floridians to request mail ballots ahead of every election cycle.

Democrats oppose the measure, saying the reform is not needed. As evidence, they point to Floridas relatively smooth election night performance last November.

Continuing their push to expand Floridas school-choice landscape, Republicans will look to fast track a measure that would expand the states eligibility for voucher programs and give parents the flexibility to use taxpayer-backed education savings accounts for private schools and other costs.

Backed by Republican State Senator Manny Diaz, the Education Scholarship Programs bill (SB 48) would merge existing voucher programs into two primary scholarships. One scholarships would serve students with special needs while the other would serve a broader population of students. Diazs bill would also grant parents the freedom to spend educational savings accounts on private tuition, electronic devices, as well as tutors.

Related

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Six hot legislative issues to watch this session - The Capitolist

SALT LAKE CITY--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Protegrity, a global leader in data security, today announced record business growth and company momentum during its fiscal year 2020. Over the past year, Protegrity achieved significant customer growth, signing 225 percent more new customers than in 2019. Total year-over-year revenue increased by 23 percent in 2020, with annual recurring revenue for first-time customers increasing by 398 percent.

2020 was a marquee year for Protegrity, representing the most successful twelve months in the companys history, said Protegrity President and CEO Rick Farnell. We are growing rapidly, hiring aggressively, and expanding quickly into new markets across the globe in response to the incredible demand weve seen for our industry-leading Data Protection Platform. As we surge into 2021, we will continue to focus on enabling our customers to innovate and confidently pursue data-driven initiatives, knowing they are benefitting from Protegritys customer-first mission of creating and delivering the most comprehensive and reliable data-security solutions available today.

Throughout the course of 2020, Protegrity announced a number of significant advancements across the business, leading to the companys customer and revenue growth. These include:

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Farnell continued: The global COVID-19 pandemic pushed nearly every industry online, leading to a dramatic acceleration of digital transformation, cloud, and AI initiatives. However, as these companies continue to push the boundaries of innovation to keep pace with the digital economy, they have quickly encountered the age-old balance between innovation and the control required by the business. Protegrity gives organizations the freedom to innovate safely with flexible, fine-grained data-security solutions for on-premises, cloud, and SaaS environments, allowing businesses to fully tap into their most valuable asset: secure data.

Delivering Trusted Data-Security Solutions for Global Enterprises

Protegrity protects the sensitive data of more than two billion individuals at global enterprises, including 35 percent of the top 250 global businesses and a large number of the Fortune 500. The company is uniquely positioned to help organizations navigate the myriad global data-privacy regulations already enacted, as well as the many others that are projected to come. As a result, Protegrity has seen significant momentum across highly-regulated industries, such as healthcare, retail, and financial services. Examples of customer momentum in these industries include:

In 2021, Protegrity will continue to make it clear that it is the modern, must-have solution for data security. Beyond that, by moving ahead with its vision for the Secure AI Era and the value for secure innovation, the company will present a series of platform and technology upgrades, continue to add strategic partners, both in the U.S. and around the globe, and work with more customers to secure data for them and their customers. As ever, 2021 will prove, once again, that Protegrity is the global standard for ubiquitous data protection.

Learn More

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About Protegrity

Protegrity, a global leader in data security, protects sensitive data everywhere and future-proofs businesses as data-privacy regulations evolve. Maintaining privacy today across distributed data has become impossibly complicated. With Protegrity, enterprises can secure data wherever it resides, control how its protected, and have confidence that data is safe, even if a breach occurs. The Protegrity Data Protection Platform is a modern alternative to traditionally complex data-protection methods that leave gaps in security. Whether encrypting, tokenizing, or applying privacy models, Protegrity protects data at the speed of business. Deep integrations with Snowflake, Amazon Redshift, Teradata, Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Cloudera, Databricks, and many other enterprise applications ensure that data remains fully protected in hybrid-cloud, multi-cloud, and on-premises environments without performance penalties. The platforms fine-grained data protection anonymizes personally identifiable information (PII) thats used in AI and machine learning models, providing faster access to critical analytics data and dramatically shortening the time to business insights. Protegrity protects the sensitive data of more than two billion individuals across global enterprises, including four of the worlds 15 largest banks, four out of 10 of the top health insurance providers, and three of the worlds leading multinational companies. With more than two decades of industry-leading innovation, Protegrity allows businesses to finally tap into the value of their data and accelerate digital transformation timelines without jeopardizing individuals fundamental right to privacy.

Originally posted here:

A 'Marquee Year' for Protegrity Led by Record Business Growth in 2020 - Business Wire

When people of like minds believe certain issues arent getting enough attention in the Legislature, they band together in a special group in an effort to push for them.

They form whats known as a caucus, and give it a name to signal whos in it or what they care about, like the LGBTQ Caucus or the Persons of Color Caucus.

Last week, the Senate got a new group, calling itself the Freedom Caucus, with four members who said they want to stand up for responsible budgets, no new taxes, gun rights and the value of life, which is to say, theyre opposed to abortion. Theyre also opposed to Gov. Jay Inslees continuation of emergency orders for the COVID-19 pandemic, want the entire state to go to Phase 2 and want schools to reopen.

Wait a minute, you might be saying. Isnt there already a caucus that supports all those things called the Senate Republican Caucus?

Well, yes. The four members of the Freedom Caucus are all Republicans, and would probably be described as four of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate.

It includes Sen. Mike Padden, of Spokane Valley, who summed up the caucuss concerns as life, liberty and prosperity values on which hardly anyone would take an opposing stance.

The caucus was formed last May, when Republican legislative leaders didnt push hard enough for a special session to have a say in the states emergency orders, said Sen. Phil Fortunato, of Auburn. He described Inslees approach to the pandemic as heavy-handed.

People should be able to make their own decisions, he said.

There may be a disconnect there, considering that some people could make personal decisions to ignore COVID precautions that could affect another persons life, liberty or prosperity. Thats not to suggest that Inslee has been right in all his decisions. But just as the freedom of one person to swing his fist stops at the end of another persons nose, there are problems in managing competing personal interests in a pandemic.

Sen. Doug Ericksen, of Ferndale, said the caucus is open to Republicans, moderate conservatives, fiscal conservatives, social conservatives, Libertarians (of which, for the record, there are none in the Legislature) and even Democrats presumably if they are sufficiently conservative on an issue like $30 car tabs or gun rights.

The difference between the Freedom Caucus and the rest of the Senate Republican Caucus is that they can take stronger stances on their key issues than the GOP leadership, which might have to take the views of members from more moderate districts into effect, Fortunato said.

They could, as Ericksen said, provide a voice for people around the state who share their views. The problem, however, is the strength in a specialized caucus lies in the ability of its members to swing a close vote on an issue of concern.

With Republicans at a seven-vote minority in the Senate and no Democrats currently flocking to the Freedom Caucus, its hard to see where they can affect legislation and debate any more than before. Padden, Fortunato and Ericksen are all sponsors of past legislation addressing the caucuss stated concerns, and some of the most enthusiastic debaters against Democratic legislation they view as opposing those principles.

A few years ago, the House had a small group of Republicans that called themselves the Liberty Caucus, which had as one of its main proponents Republican Rep. Matt Shea, also of Spokane Valley. That caucus had what it called the Freedom Agenda, which included a wide range of issues.

It had some successes, like expanding the access for ATVs to public roads. But on most of its big issues, such as splitting the state in half to create the 51st state of Liberty, it struck out.

The Freedom Caucus has an agenda that could generate support from more voters, but faces a similar problem with the math in passing or blocking legislation.

See the article here:

Spin Control: New Freedom Caucus: Conservative agenda but a problem with numbers - The Spokesman-Review

RIPON The newly formed Republican Party spread like a prairie fire through rural Wisconsin in the 1800s.

Fueling the movement was the unique character of people who settled in and around Ripon,a community whose first citizens were idealists who lived in a commune.

Most of these settlers came from western New York, considered at the time to be a hotbed of "political turbulence," according to William Woolley, aretired Ripon College history professor who studiedtheparty's origins in Wisconsin.

In 1854, Ripon was a place that was unusual in the fact people liked to go to meetings where issues of national and even cosmic significance were discussed, and felt it was important to do so, Woolley said. And where citizens did not feel it at all presumptuous to think that they could change the world by themselves.

That spirit led to the birth of a new partyand Ripon's proclamation as the birthplace of the Republicans.Jumpahead 167 years and we may be witnessing the fracturingor end of the nation's conservative political party as it looks today.

Some party elders, with decades of experience representing the Riponarea as part of their districts, point to new members and ideasthatcould usher in areturn to the kind of Republican principlesthat took rootin that Fond du Lac County community.

The Little White Schoolhouse, also known as the Birthplace of the Republican Party, at 305 Blackburn Street in Ripon. Citizens met here in 1854 to discuss the beginnings of the Republican Party.Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

There is a new generation of people coming along in the party, who think differently and are bringingnew ideas to the table, said former U.S. Rep Tom Petri, who represented the Ripon area for 36 years in Congress. They are the future, and I am hopeful.

Others see a breakup on the horizon as thenationexperiencesa new periodof political turbulence, not unlikepre-Civil War dayswhen the Whig Party disintegrated and the Republican Party rose to take its place.

For the first time in American history, a president was impeached twice by the House of Representatives. The most recent article of impeachmentchargesthat former President Donald Trumpincited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol Jan. 6before a violent mobinvaded the Capitol and left multiple dead.

As Trump's impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate starts Tuesday, the turmoil within the party is growing overTrump's role after hisdefeat in November and false claims of voter fraud. Trump himself hinted he might start a new political movement under the "MAGA Party" or "Patriot Party" banner, the Washington Post reported last month.

A sign outside the Little White Schoolhouse at 305 Blackburn St. in Ripon tells the story of the formation of the Republican Party.Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Ten Republicans in the House crossed party lines to vote with Democrats for impeachment, and even some of those who opposed impeachment condemned Trump and blamed him for sparking the insurrection. No Republicans supported his first impeachment in the the House in 2019. He was acquitted following a trial in the U.S. Senate in early 2020.

The latest impeachment vote demonstrates how challenging this year isfor Republicans. Fractures are visible over the members who voted to impeach Trump and comments made by a freshman lawmaker who previously called for the assassination of political leaders and pushed false and outlandish conspiracy theories.

Some see a split as inevitable.

I think theres a third party that will come out of the schism inside the GOP. And Ill be very blunt with you.I dont think it will be the largest of the two factions. I think the traditional Republicaneconomic, social and fiscal conservatism is basically dead," Rick Wilson, who co-foundedthe Lincoln Project, a political action committee formed to defeat Trump,told ABCaffiliate WFAA-TV.

Alvan Bovay, a New Yorker who moved to Ripon in 1850, had similar feelings about the Whig Party, which was weakened and divided over thornyissues like slavery.

During a trip back East, Bovay met with Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, the closest thing America had to a national newspaper at the time. He told Greeley he felt a new party should be created calledthe Republican Party.

Bovay returned to Ripon and pushed his idea, but without much success, Woolley said.

Then, an event occurred that changed the course of history.

In 1852, a slave named Joshua Glover escaped from his owner in Missouri and made it to Milwaukee. Two years later, federal marshals raided Glovers home and captured him.

The sight of Glover, bleeding and trussed up, finally put a face on slavery and the capture created outrage in Milwaukee and elsewhere. A crowd of 5,000 people staged an emotional protest. The next morning, a large band of citizens from Racine broke into the prison and rescued Glover, transporting him to Canada.

The people who rescued Glover were normal citizens who would otherwisenever even consider breaking the law, Woolley said. But the capture of Glover seemed so inhuman that, along with everything else, normally law-abiding citizens felt they could no longer put up with the existence of slavery. It was time to stop talking and start acting.

A monument stands outside the Little White Schoolhouse, also known as the Birthplace of the Republican Party, at 305 Blackburn St. in Ripon.Doug Raflik/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Within a couple of days, Bovayhad the support he sought. Whigs, Democrats and Free Soilers came together at a long, contentious meeting heldMarch 20, 1854, in Ripons new, state-of-the-art schoolhouse.

Similar meetings followed across the upper Midwestand, in November,a national convention held in Pittsburgh created the Republican Party.

Six years later, the nation elected its first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln.

Though there is no "smoking gun" evidence of any connection between Bovays meeting in the schoolhouse and the rest of the events leading to the triumph of the party in 1860, the Ripon story is a good one, Woolley said.

It is a story of how a few concerned citizens in a tiny town saw a great moral wrong, and had the sense of compassion, courage and confidence to change history, he said.

Like Greeley, Tim Lyke was a newspaper publisher who commented on politics near and far.Lyke did so for31 yearsat the helm of theRipon Commonwealth Press, where he was proud to represent what he saw as Ripon's unique role in safeguarding Republicanvalues and tenets set down in those formative days. His family sold thepaperinDecember 2019 after 57 years of ownership.

Lyke, who calls himself a never-Trump Republican, believes the partys proud roots in abolitionism and civil rights have been undermined by the former president.

This was a party that believed in civil discourse and fancied itself the law-and-order party, but there has been no civility and no unity under this leadership,Lyke said. "Instead, it's become a party of obstruction of justice and not holding a leader accountable."

Trumps tactics and harsh opinions have split the party, Lyke said, between traditional Republicans and a more populist, disenfranchised group of people who are predominantly white working-class, nativistand distrustful of a government they believe is self-serving, corrupt and insensitive to the needs and concerns ofaverage families.

"Prior to social media, this population suffered in silence," he said. "Now, theyve not only found a savior in Donald Trump, who has played into their fears and insecurities, but have discovered places to convene with like-minded individuals on internet platforms, hearing their beliefs and concerns affirmed and amplified.

Similar to Lyke, Scott McCallum has experienced the tone changes and incivility firsthand. McCallum, who served as governor from 2001 to 2003, wasfirst elected to the state Senate in 1976 in a district that included Ripon. He won reelection twice before serving as lieutenant governorfrom 1987 to 2001.

McCallum, now an adjunct professor of public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee,said he's watched for some time the frustrationsbrewinginAmericanswho feltleft behind bya "rapidly changing and moving, technology-driven economy."

Former Gov. Scott McCallum, right, talking with former Gov. Jim Doyle, says Republicans should take a more bipartisan approach to fixing problems.Mark Hoffman / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Trump pitted working people against non-working people, even though 50% of working-age people are not working because the system isnt working, McCallum said. This isnt a political issue; its peoples lives and we need to come together in a nonpartisan way to understand it and fix it.

After Democrat Tony Evers took office as governor in 2019, McCallum viewed it as an opportune moment for political leaders to unite. He spoke out publicly,telling Republicans they should back off and engage inbipartisan efforts.

I was viciously chastised for it," McCallum said. "Peoplein politics today are playing a game to win, and 'compromise' has become a bad word to both parties. Unfortunately, when winning becomes so important, we lose whats important for the country."

Some Republicans like ChrisVance, former chair of the Washington State Republican Party, are actively working tobuild a centrist/reformist alternative.

Hebelieves principled Republicans willing to put country before party need to encourage a split because, he told USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, a united Republican Party led by Trump or someone like him is the greatest threat to freedom and democracy that America faces.

What America needs now are brave center-right leaders who are willing to create a movement that reflects the old Republican Party at its best, with an emphasis on freedom, economic growth, the rule of law and global leadership, said Vance, who is a senior fellow at a Washington D.C.-based think tank, theNiskanen Center.

In an op-edfor the Seattle Times, Vance pointed out that, until relatively recently, the nations political parties were constantly splitting up, realigning and reforming. The Federalist party broke up and vanished after the War of 1812. The Democratic Party split over the leadership of Andrew Jackson, eventually creating the Whig Party. The Whigs broke up in the 1850s over the issue of slavery, and the Republican Party emerged.

Republicans split in 1896, and again in 1912 as the Bull Moose Progressives followed Theodore Roosevelt out of the GOP. Southern Democrats split with their party over civil rights in 1948, 1960 and 1968, before ultimately migrating to the Republicans.

Petri, who represented the Ripon area in theHousefrom 1979 to 2015, says while political upheaval is not uncommon in history, he believes aparty split isnt the answer.

These sorts of things have happened before and they will happen again, he said. We have to learn from them, move forward and be stronger as a result.

Petri recalled that, as a young boy, he joinedAmericans inspired byRichard Nixon's famous "Checkers" speech in which the vice presidential candidate fended off accusations he took secret gifts from wealthy donors and indignantly refusedto return a beloved dog named Checkers a supporter had given his daughters.

The young Petri talkedhis mother into driving him to the Western Union office in downtown Fond du Lac, where he sent off a telegram to President Dwight Eisenhower, urging him to keep Nixon as his vice-presidential running mate. Eisenhower relented and kept Nixon on the ticket.

A lot of friendships crossed party lines during the early decades of Petri's longlegislative run. He says committees and committee chairpersons oncecontrolledthe flow of business in their jurisdictions, and brought legislation forward without the need for party leadership involvement.

I feel sorry for what people have to deal with in politics, and it has to do with the way communication has changed, Petri said. Lincoln himself used to write poison pen letters, but three days later, hed tear them up. Today, its too easy to push a button and send.

Still, he says he counts on the youths of today he sees working to evoke change. Petri serves on the advisory committee for the American Conservation Coalition a Republican pro-environmental group founded by Wisconsin activist Benji Backer.

Backer, a graduate of Appleton North High School, has been involved in politics sinceage 10. He says he wasinspired into activism by the late U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Many young Republicans dont like Trump and his cultish following, Backer said. We embrace issues like climate change, gay rights, improving race relations and allowing immigrants a path to citizenship that is productive and fair to those who want to make this country a better place.

The 23-year-old founded the American Conservation Coalition in 2016, during his freshman year at the University of Washington, right after Trump was elected.

Today, the organization has 300 chapters across the country and 12 staffers working to ignore the extremist noise, Backer said, and move conservative values forward that appeal to young Americans.

The reality is most Americans wantsolution that are somewhat near the center, and the government to stay out of their lives as much as possible, Backer said. If we can create a party that speaks to that middle and embraces common-sense principles, it would be unstoppable.

Contact her at 920-907-7936 or sroznik@gannett.com; follow her on Twitter at @SharonRoznik .

Published1:55 pm UTC Feb. 8, 2021Updated3:15 pm UTC Feb. 8, 2021

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As Donald Trump's impeachment trial begins, are Republicans headed for a split? The party's roots in Ripon could point the way forward - Wisconsin...

Rafael Garcia|Topeka Capital-Journal

Mabel Rice had already been dealing with a blizzard of documents in getting ready to teach spring semester child development classes at the University of Kansas when the Kansas Board of Regents approved a new policy document that could essentially strip her of any semblance of job security shed had.

The Regents in late January had voted to allow the six state universities the ability to implement policies to more easily trim down payroll. University leaders could more easily suspend, fire or dismiss any staff including tenured professors in light of the extreme financial pressures placed on the state universities because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The distinguished professor a title conferred on some of the states most respected and senior faculty members, alongside the ultimate job protection of academic tenure had been focused much more on complying with demanding, but necessary, COVID-19 protocols and class adjustments.

The Regents decision, as well as the very idea universities were even considering the policy option, came as a shock to Rice and most faculty across the Regents six state universities.

Wed heard more about building security than we had heard about this possible, substantive change in policy, Rice said.

More: Washburn Regents take first look at new School of Law designs

In the wake of the Regents decision, the Kansas higher education governing body has drawn blunt criticism from not only faculty within the statebut also higher education groups across the country.

The American Association of University Professors condemned the Regents decision as abandoning the principle of academic freedom that tenure provides. While the Regents decision simply allows universities to adopt such policies through the end of 2022 and within frameworks subject to Regents approval, the AAUP said even temporary policies would be detrimental to Kansass universities.

While some regard tenure as an exalted faculty status separable from the due-process protections of the kind described here, tenure is inseparable from those due-process protections which in fact define it, the letter read. An institution that fails to afford those protections cannot protect academic freedom in service of the common good.

Out of the six state universities, leaders at all but one have announced they will not seek to implement such policies and instead defer to existing avenues, in consultation with campus leadership groups, to address any financial difficulties.

The University of Kansas the states largest and flagship university has declined to rule out eventually implementing a policy under the new Regents language.

KU provost and executive vice chancellor Barbara Bichelmeyer on Friday wrote to the campus community and said KU administrators would seek an extension from the Kansas Board of Regents to July 1 to continue discussions on whether the extreme measure is necessary.

"We value and want to protect tenure, while we also accept and respect our responsibility to serve the needs of our various constituencies," she said.

She earlier had said the university will continue to rely on other budget reduction measures, such as a voluntary separation program and policies clamping down on travel and extraneous expenses, that are expected to save several million dollars over the next year.

KU also hopes to build enrollment back up after higher education enrollment across the nation cratered in the wake of COVID-19, particularly at institutions like KU that had ambitious plans to bolster enrollment from international students. With travel restricted across the globe, many of those students did not return or never came to Kansas campuses.

Still, the university's statements havedonelittle to assure campus faculty, and 1,000 professors and staff signed a letter demanding University of Kansas chancellor Douglas A. Girod and KU join the other state universities in declining to pursue a policy under the framework.

For faculty that have spent many years teaching at KU, and who have been loyal to KU, I imagine there is deep disappointment that the university is considering a policy that would allow them to be dismissed with only 30 days notice, said Berl Oakley, a distinguished professor in KUs Department of Molecular Biosciences. For faculty who are leaders in their fields or young faculty who have recently received tenure and who are doing well in their research and scholarship, I imagine they will be looking around for better jobs.

KU has been hemorrhaging excellent faculty in recent years and this policy will certainly make KU less attractive, added Oakley, who is also the universitys AAUP representative. Departmental chairs and directors have already signed a letter indicating that this policy will make it more difficult to attract and retain excellent faculty.

More: KU football personnel will dictate approach on offense, new OC Mike DeBord says

As a policy making and implementing body, the Regents typically make decisions on a timeframe of months or even years, rather than days or weeks.

But in addressing COVID-19, the Kansas Board of Regents has moved at relative lightspeed to allow universities greater latitude in how they deal with any issues from the pandemic, such as in March 2020 when universities suddenly shut down for in-person operations.

And the speed at which the decision to allow policies latitude on firing or suspending employees came especially shocked faculty groups, since the proposal was only discussed the morning of the Regents January meeting and added to the boards agenda during the meeting itself.

That said, in the week before the meeting, the Regents and Kansass state university presidents were reacting to an analysis from the Kansas Legislative Research Department that showed that Gov. Laura Kellys proposed budget would amount to a $37.4 million reduction in state general funding for higher education.

Even then, faculty groups said universities have been dealing with the financial toll of COVID-19 since last March, and other existing financial mitigation measures already agreed to and accepted by administration, faculty and student leadership representatives have been available to universities.

One of those measures, if extreme, is for a university to declare a financial exigency. Per Regents definition, a financial exigency is an emergency state of operations when universities, having exhausted all other avenues of cost-reduction, may decide to not reappoint tenured faculty. To declare one, university administrators must notify the Regents of that intent.

A financial exigency, though, is a last-ditch measure that signals potentially insurmountable financial difficulties and a university on the verge of collapse. Such declarations also have further financial implications, since universities may face higher interest rates on bonds or other debt instruments. Few universities across the U.S. have declared financial exigencies, even in the wake of the pandemic.

Bichelmeyer on Friday said KU officials are not exploring declaring a financial exigency, especially since that measure would apply to the entire university system. Other austerity measures will take a priority over the next few months, she said.

"Because financial exigency applies to an entire institution, and our fiscal challenges are primarily on the Lawrence campus, this is not an option that we will pursue," she said.

The University of Kansas system, at the start of the school year, had $667 million in outstanding revenue bond debt and $30 million in capital leases and notes payable, although those numbers were down from $725 million and $44 million respectively.

Faculty critics have also said the university is looking to sidestep declaring a financial exigency because doing so would inevitably lead to an increase in the university's indebtedness from resulting hikes in interest rates.

Furthermore, KU faculty members are arguingthat the existing method of declaring a financial exigency at least requires university administrators to consult with other campus leaders and groups in deciding how to make any staffing cuts, and any policy under the Regents new language essentially does the same thing a financial exigency would do while circumventing that requirement for collaboration.

My understanding is that the existing policy, which is very well-described and laid out, nevertheless requires time to implement, said Rice, KU professor in child development. Somehow, the impression is that we no longer have time for anything that has deliberative judgment involved in it.

Any employee fired or suspended under a policy using the Regents' new language would have to be given 30 days of written notice, which could then be appealed through the Regents to the state's Office of Administrative Hearings. Faculty groups, though, say that any appeals under that system would likely be in vain.

Matt Keith, a Regents spokesperson, said declaring a financial exigency would require state university CEOs to first make "sweeping cutsto positions other than tenured faculty.

"This policy was adopted to give university CEOs flexibility to make staffing reductions that might be necessary because of pandemic-related budget constraints in a way that makes the most sense for their institutions and has the smallest possible impact on students and the universities missions," Keith said.

More: Facing $37M in funding cuts, Kansas colleges given broader latitude to fire employees

In the past two decades, Kansas universities' revenue from state funding and tuition, as proportions of their overall budgets, have essentially flipped, with universities now receiving a bigger chunk of their funding from rising tuition rates.

While all six state universities have dealt with dropped enrollment this year, KU leaders say they face a particularly unprecedented $74.6 million budget cut that will require the university to make drastic cuts and even eliminate programs and departments, reduce services, and implement furloughs and layoffs, Chancellor Girod previously told the campus.

Bichelmeyer, the provost, said one of the keys to the universitys recovery will be bolstering the number of prospective students and admissions to increase the universitys enrollment, as well as working on student retention and graduation rates.

Thats in addition to other measures that are bound to be less popular.

…And, unfortunately, it is likely that, in addition to all the other work we have before us, we will need to close some low-enrolled programs and programs that dont align with the core mission of the university and consolidate some administrative services, all of which will likely result in the need to let some people go, she wrote.

Under the Regents policy, KU or any other state university, if their presidents go back on their words has until March 6 to return to the Regents with a framework to enact any new policy subject to the boards approval. KU officials have said they'll ask the Regents for an extension to that deadline to further discuss the issue and have additional time to create such a framework.

Even though much of the criticism has been aimed at KU, a group of over 100 distinguished professors from across the state on Wednesday called on the Regents to repeal the policy language for all state universities.

To jettison best practices with this substitute policy not only reveals a lack of respect for each campus' system of shared governance, it threatens long-term damage to the missions of each institution, a letter from the group read. It undermines the purpose of tenure, which is to allow faculty to pursue their scholarship without fear of repercussions.

Keith said statewide faculty representatives were given the chance to respond to the new policy language at two different meetings, although both were on the same day. The first meeting was the Regents' governance subcommittee, which met before the second meeting, the Regents' regular meeting in which the board adopted the new language.

At both meetings, Aleks Sternfeld-Dunn, a Wichita State University professor representing the state universities' faculty senate presidents, said the faculty senate presidents had "grave concerns" over the policyand the potential trouble it could cause for Kansas's universities.

He warned the policy would attract national scrutiny, and by demonstrating a lack of collaboration with tenured faculty, Kansas universities would struggle to recruit new faculty.

More: Coronavirus could end history, math and chemistry majors at some universities in Kansas

Philip Nel, a Kansas State University distinguished professor in childrens literature who signed on to the letter, was more critical of the Regents. He said Januarys vote was the result of having well-intentioned business experts who nevertheless lacked higher education experience in charge of the states colleges and universities.

He said Kansas already had a mixed record on higher education in the nation, and the Regents decision only further tarnished the state as a place for academics to avoid.

This policy is currently only under consideration at the University of Kansas, but there is nothing to prevent it from applying to other places, he said.

Opponents of the policy have particularly honed in on the policy as inherently violating the principle of tenure, which is supposed to offer professors protection from retaliation for academic views, as controversial as they may be.

It is an academic freedom that has made U.S. public research universities the envy of the world, said Rice, the KU professor in child development.

They are a wonderful source of pride, but they run well under a common purpose and sense of trust, she said. Thats one of the most concerning elements that sense of trust and adherence to professional standards. Under the situation were in right now, theres concern about whether these standards as we know them will be honored.

While measures taken to mitigate financial losses could be understood, if not forgiven, the faculty groups said the potential policies were a bridge too far in providing university higher-ups with unchecked power to choose which staff or faculty to lay off.

It is tenure, then, that allows older faculty the ability to speak out when younger staff might be reluctant, Rice said.

As the group of distinguished professors, we are more senior and are in a position to reflect on the implications of this vote when some of our younger colleagues may not feel comfortable expressing their opinions, said Rice.

Bichelmeyer, in her Friday letter, said the university was doing what it could to balance professor tenure as a priority, but the university is also responsible to other stakeholders, like taxpayers, accrediting agencies and even the university itself.

"While we aspire to the twin goals of bringing our university back to fiscal health and to upholding the rights afforded through tenure for our faculty, it is critical we recognize that we secure the right to tenure by addressing the rights of our various constituents, investors, benefactors and advocates," she wrote."Ultimately, tenure means that we are accountable for monitoring, demonstrating and reporting our commitment and responsiveness to the common good."

And while Rice said she believed KU administration is erring in not yet ruling out implementing the policy, she said she understood the difficult position the administrators are in.

She said she hopes Chancellor Girod and other university leaders are willing to work with faculty, instead of against them.

Our chancellor and provost are very capable and very strong leaders who have had careers in this system as well, and I can only assume theyre trying to solve a difficult problem, she said. Almost all of us who signed that document did it from a spirting helping to solve these problems from the ways we know how. It isnt in a climate of hostility, its in a climate of caring.

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A new Regents policy on firing tenured faculty caught national blowback, and KU is in the crosshairs - The Topeka Capital-Journal