Public Safety and Justice Update: 1/12/24

During the pandemic, violent crime rose across the U.S. Murders in 2020 increased at the fastest rate since national statistics began in 1960…

Wayne LaPierre resigned as leader of the National Rifle Association (NRA) last week, ending his decades long reign over the prominent gun rights group, days before the start of his civil trial in New York…

A public memorial service was held this week for an Oakland police officer killed in the line of duty…

In 1992, East Palo Alto was dubbed the "murder capital" of the U.S., with 42 murders in its 2.5 square miles — a per capita rate higher than that of any other city of any size…

Gov. Gavin Newsom called for new laws targeting retail thieves amid an increase of robberies and scrutiny of criminal justice reforms he backed…

Gun owners in California will likely be allowed to carry in most public places until at least summer after a federal appeals court panel blocked central provisions of a state law that banned carrying guns in schools, parks, libraries and other areas the law classified as “sensitive”…

Public safety legislation unveiled this week by local lawmakers in the nation’s capital is aimed at bringing down spiraling violent crimes rates that have stoked public anxiety and prompted congressional scrutiny…

Weekly Update 1/8/24

Appropriations

Lawmakers hope to pass a long-awaited deal expanding the Child Tax Credit and restore a trio of popular business breaks…

California

Today, 1/8, the Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to a California law that bans the sale of flavored cigarettes, leaving the state law in place…

On Tuesday, 12/19, California water officials approved standards to clean sewage water well enough to pipe directly back into drinking faucets…

California agencies are already slowing down their work ahead of a projected record $68 billion budget shortfall this year…

In a recent New York Times interview, California Senator Laphonza Butler discusses adjusting to the slow pace of the Senate…

Housing, crime and climate change must be priorities for the Assembly as constituents clamor for results, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Salinas) told members of his caucus on their second day back in session…

President and Administration

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has issued the FentAlert: Empowering Youth for Safer Choices-SAMHSA Fentanyl Awareness Youth Challenge…

On Tuesday, 12/19, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first test that uses DNA in assessing whether certain individuals may have an elevated risk of developing opioid use disorder (OUD)…

The White House had more than 10 meetings scheduled last week on the FDA’s proposed menthol ban, with many more to come later this month, according to Office of Management and Budget records…

Since the passing of the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, over 500 gun purchases have been denied to people under the age of 21 who are deemed a threat to society, the Justice Department announced Friday, 1/5…

This spring, the pot of money covering free internet for millions of U.S. households is expected to run dry…

A 1965 rule that banned Medicaid from paying for hospital treatment for people with mental illness and substance use could soon be struck down…

On Friday, 12/29, President Biden signed a proclamation to pardon all U.S. residents and legal permanent residents serving jail time for marijuana possession and marijuana use charges on federal lands and in D.C…

A second round of comments is due Jan. 17 in the Federal Communications Commission’s net neutrality rulemaking, which would revive Obama-era restrictions on internet service providers blocking and throttling their customers’ online traffic…

The top leaders at Meta, TikTok, Snap, Discord, and X (formerly known as Twitter) will appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Jan. 31 to testify about their “failure” to remove content sexually exploiting children…

Nearly 172,500 people went to the emergency room in late December for the flu, COVID-19 or respiratory syncytial virus, according to CDC data…

Congress

Republicans put a $10,000 cap on SALT deductions in their 2017 tax law, a move despised by property owners in high-cost metro areas…

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s last day in Congress was Sunday, 12/31…

The focus in coming weeks will be former President Donald Trump’s bid to win the GOP presidential nod, as well as President Biden’s vulnerability…

The House Homeland Security Committee is formally moving ahead with impeachment proceedings against the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas…

Education

On Friday, 1/5, the Education Department announced that an additional 758,000 student loan borrowers faced billing mistakes as payments resumed in the fall…

While the entire United States is still reeling in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the recovery process has not been even nationwide…

Conservative legal groups, Christian conservative groups and groups aligned with Leonard Leo, the financial architect of the conservative legal movement and Federalist Society co-chair, are rallying around an effort to create a public Catholic school in Oklahoma…

Across vast expanses of urban and semi-urban America, and especially in Black and brown communities where charter schools have proven most popular and effective, there’s still plenty of room to grow, and few policy barriers standing in the way…

The academically top-ranked charter school in Colorado Springs has displayed a pattern of discrimination against children with special needs and shirked its lawful responsibilities, some parents and teachers are alleging…

A federal judge in Michigan has dropped the North Carolina Coalition for Charter Schools from a lawsuit challenging rule changes for charters set in Washington, DC…

Linda Brown, who was arguably one of the most influential U.S. educators in decades, died on Christmas day in her home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 81…

A simplified Free Application for Federal Student Aid is finally online after a significant delay…

The Biden administration is moving to allow undocumented students to participate in federal programs that help disadvantaged students prepare for college, proposing new assistance to a population that’s largely excluded from most federal aid…

Public Safety and Justice Update: 1/5/24

A 17-year-old opened fire at a small-town Iowa high school on 1/4, killing a sixth-grader and wounding five others…

Almost any student could take a knife to school, yet, the vast majority of attacks with weapons at schools in 2023 involved guns…

As voters turn their attention to a crucial election year, gun safety groups are prepared to press candidates on their plans to curb gun violence…

Last year there was a US record of 39 mass shootings with at least four victim fatalities…

Crime declined in the third quarter of 2023 relative to the same period in 2022, according to data released by the FBI…

Last month, Vice President Kamala Harris hosted a group of state legislators at the White House to unveil the administration’s new policies to combat gun violence…

A fourth man was arrested on charges stemming from the cannabis business break-in resulting in the fatal shooting of Oakland police Officer Tuan Le as three other suspects made  court appearances this week…

Police are pushing back against a state report that found Black drivers more likely to be stopped by officers than white ones…

A new California law that would bar licensed gun holders from carrying in public did not go into full effect 1/1 as scheduled, after a federal judge found parts of it unconstitutional…

New head of the Assembly Public Safety Committee, Kevin McCarty, wants to revisit a criminal justice ballot initiative California voters passed nearly a decade ago, joining legislative Democrats who are seeking to crack down on drug and property crimes…

Over the past 16 months, the Justice Department has deployed a new law targeting gun traffickers to charge over 250 people…

Many people hoped body worn cameras would help hold police officers accountable for wrongful shootings, but there have been mixed results…

A San Jose police officer has resigned after the police department found numerous text messages that “demonstrated racial bias," according to a statement by the San Jose Police Department (SJPD)…

San Jose leaders want to make it easier to nab individuals stealing catalytic converters and are proposing tweaking the current ordinance to make possessing an unattached catalytic converter illegal without proof of ownership…

Weekly Update 12/18/23

Appropriations

Negotiations over a government funding framework are almost certain to slip to January, when lawmakers return from the holiday recess with just two weeks to strike a deal on spending limits and reconcile their differences over several spending bills before the first of two shutdown deadlines on Jan. 19…

The U.S. military’s top leaders are urging Congress to pass a Pentagon budget for fiscal 2024, issuing detailed warnings about how continued dysfunction will derail plans to stand up to China, modernize the armed services and fix faltering recruitment efforts…

California

California’s push to phase out gasoline-powered vehicles will cut state tax revenues by $4.4 billion over the next decade, raising questions about how to fund transportation priorities, a state report…

A projected $68 billion deficit has prompted Gov. Gavin Newsom's Department of Finance to urge cost savings across state agencies…

Congress passed legislation Thursday, 12/14, to speed up the transfer of seven Coast Guard military transport planes to Cal Fire…

President and Administration

About 52,000 people on Medicare overdosed on opioids last year, but few beneficiaries receive medication for substance use disorder, according to a new report by the HHS Office of Inspector General…

On Tuesday, 12/12, NHTSA announced request for information in advance of a potential rule intended to prevent people from driving while intoxicated, a step toward fulfilling a mandate from the bipartisan infrastructure law and the crusade of surviving relatives from a 2019 drunk driving crash that killed a family of five…

The Biden administration wants to ensure the government and consumers don’t pay more than other countries for certain new drugs — if pharmaceutical companies used funds from the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response to research the treatments…

A long-standing federal food assistance program could be short $1 billion next year, leaving two million parents and young children without access to its support, a report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said Tuesday (12/12)…

The Supreme Court has agreed to consider a case that could impact hundreds of Jan. 6 felony prosecutions — and could impact special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of former President Donald Trump…

U.S. wind and solar power generators are projected to produce more electricity than coal for the first time next year, according to a new outlook released by the U.S. Energy Information Administration on Tuesday, 12/12…

Electric car giant Tesla is voluntarily pulling more than two million of its vehicles off the road after a national investigation identified safety issues with the steering feature used in its “Autopilot” technology…

About 40 percent of federal student loan borrowers missed their first monthly payment this fall as the unprecedented pandemic-era freeze on student debt expired, the Biden administration announced on Friday, 12/15…

The World Health Organization has called for a blanket ban on flavored e-cigarettes as it ups the ante in its broadside against the products…

Congress

The Congressional Budget Office is out with new economic projections through 2025, finding that inflation will approach the Federal Reserve’s target rate of 2 percent this year…

On Thursday, 12/14, the Republican-controlled House passed a final $886 billion defense policy bill, even after many conservative provisions had been stripped through negotiations with the Senate…

Education

Enrollment at traditional district public schools fell at an alarmingly high rate early in the pandemic, and despite the belief that students would return after schools reopened, our latest report finds district enrollment is now flat for the second straight year…

Weekly Update 12/11/23

Appropriations

On Friday, 12/8, Speaker Mike Johnson sent a "dear colleague" letter to House lawmakers, with an update on "the ongoing negotiations" toward enactment of "full-year" fiscal 2024 funding bills before the next shutdown deadlines hit in January and February…

As talks on a fiscal 2024 funding framework quietly continue behind the scenes, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) tells us her party “cannot give an inch,” noting the debt limit deal already essentially froze budget levels for domestic accounts for the current fiscal year while Americans are dealing with increased costs…

California

A new poll puts Republican Steve Garvey at third place in the race for California’s Senate seat, trailing far behind Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Katie Porter, and just slightly ahead of Rep. Barbara Lee…

According to a poll released Wednesday, 12/6, a strong majority of voters are in favor of Governor Gavin Newsom's ballot initiative to revamp and fund California’s mental health system — one of the governor's top priorities…

President and Administration

The Biden administration is rolling out a framework to enforce the government’s march-in authorities on drugs developed with taxpayer dollars, saying if drugmakers refuse to make their products “reasonably” available, then the government is prepared to give other companies license to produce those drugs at a lower cost…

On Wednesday, 12/6, the Food and Drug Administration delayed rules that would ban menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars in what many see as a nod to the intense lobbying and fragile political environment heading into President Biden’s expected 2024 rematch with former President Donald Trump…

For the third consecutive year, many psychologists across the country say they are seeing patients struggle with worsening symptoms, many of them needing longer treatment times…

The National Promise Neighborhoods Coalition will announce its formation today, 12/11, as a new national bipartisan group that advocates for the Promise Neighborhoods initiative, an Education Department program that helps kids in high poverty communities…

Congress

Kevin McCarthy is officially leaving Congress…

Senate Republicans say it’s time for President Biden to get involved in the border policy talks crucial to saving one of his biggest foreign policy priorities, delivering aid to Israel and Ukraine…

Education

Public school enrollment has increased slightly in North Carolina since the last school year…

A new demographic analysis of chronic absenteeism shows absences have increased for all students — with a dramatic uptick for Latino students and in suburban and rural school districts…