President Obama’s announcement of the 2017 budget has thrown people for a loop with its liberal cuts and additions. People are starting to realize that, in his last few months as president, liberal changes are on their way. Whether these changes will be quickly undone by a Republican president in the next year or furthered by another Democrat is unclear in this mess of a presidential race that we’ve been seeing thus far. But one of these changes that could potentially have a huge impact on our education system, at least from a health standpoint, is a $10 million dollar cut to grants for abstinence-only sex education. What does this mean for our country? We may finally be able to start educating all our teens nationwide about what it means to have safe sex.

What’s the current state of sex ed in America? Well, for starters, it depends on where you look. One of the biggest problems with our current system is the fact that individual states pick and choose their own curriculums, which leads to discrepancies in what kids are learning. Some states even let counties decide their policies, meaning kids in one school district may be learning all about safe sex while kids only a few miles away are learning exclusively about abstinence. If you have twenty minutes to kill, I highly suggest this John Oliver video on sex education and why it’s so important.

Oliver provides an important–albeit, comedic–analysis of what sex-ed looks like in our country today. In some states, teachers aren’t allowed to show condoms to their classrooms. In others, teachers are still showing videos that shame teens for being sexually active or are blatantly sexist in the way they explain consent. Oliver highlights the ridiculousness of states who try to force abstinence on teenagers and also points out just how polarized the differences in sex education can be from state to state.

The idea behind a lot of these abstinence-only curriculums is the concept that introducing kids to sex will increase the amount of teens having sex at a young age. The abstinence programs are thought to keep kids abstinent, but, in reality, they frequently just lead to unsafe sex because kids don’t know anything about protection against pregnancy and STDs. There are staggering statistics to back up the fact that, in states where there are abstinence-only programs, there are higher rates of teen pregnancy. One of the only states to still have an abstinence-only sex-ed policy (that is, if the schools decide to teach about sex at all, since they are not required to) is Mississippi, which, coincidentally, also has the highest rates of teenage pregnancy in the country. New Hampshire, on the other hand, provides students with comprehensive sex education, which teaches about contraceptives, safe sex, and abstinence. Its teenage pregnancy rates are some of the lowest in the nation.

How are people responding to Obama’s cuts? Some people are thrilled with the cuts. We will be saving millions of dollars a year, and ending up with more educated young people–what’s not to love?

Good news of today: Obama is removing ALL funding for abstinence-only education for his 2017 budget!

— ♡ little elf ♡ (@cherrycutie) February 17, 2016

Please hold my wand while I do the jumpy-clap dance. https://t.co/DLtygyMZ6t Abstinence-only is garbage. Goooodbye.

— Lyndsay Kirkham (@Lyndsay_Kirkham) February 17, 2016

Others are not so happy. To those people, I say: look at the statistics. Not teaching your kids about sex isn’t going to keep them from having it, it’s just going to keep them from being safe when they inevitably do. Some people have ironically tweeted angrily about the policy, to show just how ridiculous some of the anti-comprehensive sex-ed opinions really are.

Obama just eliminated federal funding for abstinence-only education so when my son gets pregnant he’ll be hearing from me.

— Alex Halpern (@HalpernAlex) February 17, 2016

Also in Obama’s proposed budget, along the same vein, is money for expanded access to HIV treatment and prevention for Americans as well as increased benefits under Medicare for pregnant women. Obama is really hitting a home run with the expansion of these programs and, hopefully, it will lead to a healthier and more informed American public. But, until these states start changing their policies on educating young adults about sex, I guess we’ll just stick to the golden rule about sex that we learned from “Mean Girls” and our abstinence-only fifth grade teachers.

Alexandra Simone

Alex Simone is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street and a student at The George Washington University, studying Political Science. She is passionate about law and government, but also enjoys the finer things in life like watching crime dramas and enjoying a nice DC brunch. Contact Alex at ASimone@LawStreetmedia.com

The post President Obama Cuts Abstinence-Only Sex-Ed Funding appeared first on Law Street.

In July, the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress released a series of videos that implied that Planned Parenthood profited from the sale of fetal tissue. Planned Parenthood has long maintained that the videos were edited in a misleading fashion, and that the fetal donation program was entirely legal, the videos have been widely debunked, and multiple investigations have turned up no wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood. But as the videos have become an increasingly popular political tool, and debates about the federal funding of Planned Parenthood continue, Planned Parenthood is officially fighting back by filing a federal lawsuit against the Center for Medical Progress.

Planned Parenthood is suing the Center for Medical Progress on a few different grounds, including illegally conspiring in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), mail fraud, trespassing, invasions of privacy, and illegal recording.  A fake fetal tissue procurement company called “BioMax” is also named in the lawsuit.

Planned Parenthood is arguing that the release of the videos created a dangerous environment for its employees–multiple individuals who work for the nonprofit have been threatened with bodily harm. There was also a deadly shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, that left three people dead. The shooter, Robert Lewis Dear, has made presumed references to the videos and has claimed that he is a “warrior for babies.”

Chief legal counsel for Planned Parenthood’s California affiliates, Beth Parker, stated:

Planned Parenthood staff has been demonized, the providers have been threatened with death, picketed at their homes, bombarded with hate mail, and forced to move or go into hiding.

Kathy Kneer, CEO of Planned Parenthood’s California affiliates also made a strong statement about the importance of the lawsuit, stating:

CMP’s reckless and dangerous actions have created a poisonous environment that fuels political attacks on access to reproductive health care and feeds threats against our health centers. We’re going on the offensive to expose this fraud for what it is and hold the people behind it accountable – in order to prevent further harassment of our patients and staff and protect access to the preventive and reproductive health care Planned Parenthood provides to millions of people each year.

The Center for Medical Progress has released a statement, essentially saying that it doesn’t have anything to fear with the lawsuit. David Daleiden, the leader behind the videos stated: “Game on” upon hearing about the lawsuit. But while it probably won’t help with the constant political fights that await Planned Parenthood in the future, the organization is officially out for vengeance against the Center for Medical Progress, and justifiably so.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Planned Parenthood Sues the Center for Medical Progress Over “Sting Videos” appeared first on Law Street.

The idea of a “welfare queen” has been a political talking point for several decades. It began as a term used by President Reagan in a story he told while he was running for election in 1976:

‘In Chicago, they found a woman who holds the record…She used 80 names, 30 addresses, 15 telephone numbers to collect food stamps, Social Security, veterans’ benefits for four nonexistent deceased veteran husbands, as well as welfare. Her tax-free cash income alone has been running $150,000 a year.’

The idea of a welfare queen has evolved into being characterized as a woman who stays on welfare, receiving benefits, and continuing to have children so she can get even more money from the government to support those children. In the eyes of many, the stereotype is thoroughly racist–she’s an under-performing black woman, living off of taxpayers’ money. The term is seen by many as a dog whistle of sorts, a way to play on the public’s racial anxieties without actively saying so.

Read More: No Strings Attached: Replacing Welfare With a Guaranteed Income

Some claim that Reagan’s story was a complete lie, but, there is some proof that it was at least based on reality. It now appears that there wasn’t just one welfare queen, but the subject of Reagan’s story  was actually an amalgamation of three different women. Craig R. Smith, a former speechwriter for Presidents Ford and George H.W. Bush said,

It hangs together as a good story because it’s consistent with people’s perception of the real world…Like in any good mythology, you need heroes and villains and in the Welfare Queen, you had a villain who was taking advantage of the system.

Regardless of the truth, this story changed the minds of many Americans about the state of the welfare system and the people who receive the benefits.

 What is the “Welfare Queen” law?

Nearly two decades ago, California  passed a law that many have come to call the “Welfare Queen” law. It states that a family that has any additional children while on the welfare system is barred from getting any increases in the grant it already receives from the state. There are exemptions made if the couple in question can prove that birth control measures such as sterilization, IUD, or Norplant failed. There are also concessions made if the case involves rape or incest. In cases like those, the mothers were more quickly offered medical, physical, and monetary help. California is not the only state to use a variation of this law. In fact, other states including Arizona, Mississippi, and Virginia have similar measures.

Senate Bill 23

California Democrats are fighting to repeal the measure, calling it “classism” and “prejudicial” to the citizens of the state. Holly Mitchell, a Senator from Los Angeles, is working for the third time to abolish the law. She introduced Senate Bill 23, which would repeal the “welfare queen” law.

Advocates for the poor are mounting their strongest efforts ever to repeal the “maximum family grant” ruling as the state is about to set its budget for the next year. These changes come after it was announced that California was named the state with the highest child poverty rate.

“It is a classist, sexist, anti-democratic, anti-child, anti-family policy whose premise did not come to fruition,” said Mitchell, the author of Senate Bill 23. “It did not accomplish what it set out to accomplish. So it’s appropriate to take it off the books.”

California is very split on this topic, ranging from those who would like to impose stronger rules against the so called “welfare queens” to those who want to completely annul the law.

Arguments to Eliminate the “Welfare Queen” Law

The average cost to raise a child in America, from birth to 18 years old, is $241,080, according to CNN Money. That breaks down to about $1,116 a month–something that many low-income families will not make. If a family has more than one child, many families will go without in order to provide for the children instead.

Advocates for repeal also argue that when it comes down to it, the law is aimed at controlling women. According to Sacramento Bee, Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) said reversing the policy is “critically important to families, telling a recent women’s policy summit in Sacramento that the criteria are “’invasive (and) insulting.’” Some have even compared the law to China’s One Child Policy. Women’s groups and Planned Parenthood find fault with this measure as well, citing that it is more controlling than necessary.

In addition, those who want to repeal it say that it unfairly punishes children for the actions of their parents. Newborns need care and support, and not allowing the parents of newborns to gain the necessary resources can endanger the health and wellbeing of those children.

In an unlikely collaboration, Linda Wanner, the associate director of government relations at the California Catholic Conference, said that her group favors annulment of the bill as well, but for other reasons: “We have the opportunity to remove burdensome county processes, reduce the number of children living in poverty, and, more importantly, eliminate the incentive to terminate a pregnancy,” she said.

Arguments to Keep the Law in Place

Those who oppose abolishing the law say that removing it to raise the amount of money that the family gets will not lift any family out of poverty. According to the Sacramento Bee, Mary L.G. Theroux, senior vice president of The Independent Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Oakland, said she doesn’t disagree that the law did not prevent births. “The opportunity cost of them having another kid is not going to stop them from doing it,” she said. However, she continued to say that giving more money would not give the growing families the incentive to get help from charities, family members, or find higher paying jobs. She then continued, “What these programs are doing is completely handicapping people from learning how to take care of their families and how to help their children have a better life than they do.” In addition, many feel that these programs that provide complete care to parents and children actually hinder further development of the child and his or her autonomy.

There’s also a concern that repealing the law would be a huge economic strain on the state of California. The state’s economy has been struggling since the recession in 2008, and pouring more money into welfare could harm its rebound even further. One analyst claimed that repealing the law could cost up to $205 million a year, although that number is difficult to reliably quantify.

According to the Sacramento Bee, Senate Republican Leader Bob Huff (R-Diamond Bar) said that helping families in poverty is an important role for officials in the state government as well as people outside of the state, and is even a nationwide issue. The question is whether repealing the maximum grant is the best thing to do with the money. “Putting $200 million into an effective job training program or providing child care for working mothers would be a better use of resources,” Huff said. Huff “pointed to a long list of other needs for both the parents and children in the state, including services for the developmentally disabled and foster children.”

Conclusion

This is not the only time that discussions have been developed around the “welfare queen” law. In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform law, and then-Governor of California Pete Wilson and lawmakers compromised on a statewide program called CalWORKS in 1997. This bill stiffened the work requirements and set time limits, sanctions, grant levels, and eligibility requirements for California welfare recipients.

So how much fraud is there really in the welfare system? According to Eric Schnurer of the Atlantic it’s actually not so clear.

It’s not easy to get agreement on actual fraud levels in government programs. Unsurprisingly, liberals say they’re low, while conservatives insist they’re astronomically high. In truth, it varies from program to program. One government report says fraud accounts for less than 2 percent of unemployment insurance payments. It’s seemingly impossible to find statistics on ‘welfare’ (i.e., TANF) fraud, but the best guess is that it’s about the same. A bevy of inspector general reports found ‘improper payment’ levels of 20 to 40 percent in state TANF programs — but when you look at the reports, the payments appear all to be due to bureaucratic incompetence (categorized by the inspector general as either ‘eligibility and payment calculation errors’ or ‘documentation errors’), rather than intentional fraud by beneficiaries.

The number of people living in poverty in California, and nationwide, has continued to grow and grow. The face of welfare has changed since the 1980s, as has the amount of money that is needed to raise a child, especially in a state where the cost of living is high.

Resources

Primary

California Legislature: Senate Bill No. 23

Additional

Cal Coast News: California May Repeal “Welfare Queen” Law

CNN: Return of the ‘Welfare Queen’

NPR: The Truth Behind the Lies of the Original ‘Welfare Queen‘

New York Post: When Welfare Pays Better Than Work

CNN: Average Cost to Raise a Child

Huffington Post: California Poverty Rate

Slate: The Welfare Queen

Nieman Reports: The ‘Welfare Queen’ Experiment

SCPR: Lawmakers Debate Repeal of Welfare Queen Law in California

Jezebel: Reagan’s ‘Welfare Queen’ Was a Real Person and Her Story is Bananas

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated to credit select information to the Sacramento Bee. 

Noel Diem

Law Street contributor Noel Diem is an editor and aspiring author based in Reading, Pennsylvania. She is an alum of Albright College where she studied English and Secondary Education. In her spare time she enjoys traveling, theater, fashion, and literature. Contact Noel at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Battle Over the “Welfare Queen” Law in California appeared first on Law Street.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler revealed his new ‘net neutrality’ proposals yesterday, which essentially approve a fast lane option for companies that want to charge a higher rate for those wishing for a faster Internet based on content. (See our previous coverage on what recent developments mean for you and for startups.) Facing intense opposition, Wheeler needs to show these opposing groups that his proposed rules are part of the principle of net neutrality in the first place: that all content on the Internet will remain free in value.

The problem? The rules gut that principle entirely.

The very fact that allowing certain companies to fast-track their content violates the principle of a fair, open Internet. Wheeler’s justification for allowing the rules to go forward is that there would be regulations watching out for Internet Service Providers intentionally slowing down traffic. While this is also part of a net neutrality ideology, the rules ignore the rampant discrimination inherent in an “Internet fast lane.”

Yesterday’s FCC vote to open the proposals to public comment went largely along party lines. The three Democratic commissioners voted in favor of public comment, while the Republican commissioners voted for only Congressional comment instead and find no legal basis for the Commission to allow the public to weigh in. July 15 is the deadline for initial public comments, followed by the September 10 deadline for responses to those comments.

While this was a partisan vote down the line, the commissioners expressed hesitation for how the process is moving no matter the decision for public comment. “I believe the process that got us to this rule making today is flawed. I would have preferred a delay. I think we moved too fast, to be fair,” said Jessica Rosenworcel, one of the commissioners who voted in favor. Michael O’Reilly, a commissioner who voted against public comment, said, “I have serious concerns that this ill-advised item will create damaging uncertainty and head the commission down a slippery slope of regulation.”

Nevertheless, the FCC is now open to public comments regarding this new proposal. You can send your comment here: http://www.fcc.gov/comments.

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Dennis Futoryan (@dfutoryan) is an undergrad with an eye on a bright future in the federal government. Living in New York, he seeks to understand how to solve the problematic issues plaguing Gothamites, as well as educating the youngest generations on the most important issues of the day.

Featured image courtesy of [Gerd Altmann via Pixabay].

Dennis Futoryan

Dennis Futoryan is a 23-year old New York Law School student who has his sights set on constitutional and public interest law. Whenever he gets a chance to breathe from his law school work, Dennis can be found scouring social media and examining current events to educate others about what’s going on in our world. Contact Dennis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post The Last Gasps of Net Neutrality appeared first on Law Street.

Lois Lerner, former Internal Revenue Service official, was held in contempt of the House of Representatives on Wednesday. In a followup resolution, the House had also called on Attorney General Eric Holder, Jr. to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate claims that the IRS had unfairly discriminated against conservative tax groups with audits. But just what is a special prosecutor, and how does appointing one change anything?

During Nixon’s presidency, the Watergate scandal eventually gave birth to 1978 Ethics in Government Act. Within the Act was a statute that explained the creation of the ‘Independent Counsel,’ a special prosecutor appointed by the Attorney General to investigate, well, a special case. While the title of ‘Independent Counsel’ changed to ‘Special Prosecutor’ in 1983, and the Ethics law expired in 1999, the value of the position has stayed the same. This all begs the question, why do special prosecutors even matter?

If there’s a special prosecutor, it usually means things are getting serious. Independent Counsel Leon Jaworski successfully argued against Nixon’s denial to share classified documents through the basis of executive privilege in United States v. Nixon in 1974. Morrison v. Olson had proved the appointment of a special prosecutor was a constitutional one in 1988. Then in 1998, Special Prosecutor Ken Starr would eventually be the one to uncover President Clinton’s questionable behavior with Monica Lewinsky.

So behind the House of Representatives’ action calling on the Attorney General to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS, Congress’ meaning is this: we mean business.

How effective will an investigation by a special prosecutor really be? When this scandal first broke, it was thoughts that conservative groups were the only kind to be unusually audited at an alarming rate. Later news reports show that progressive groups were also targeted, throwing a wrench into the argument that the IRSe was participating in partisan discrimination.

In the end, we must be careful with predictions. The Justice Department has refused requests to set up a special prosecutor against the IRS before, and everyone will be waiting for Eric Holder’s reply to the House now that the request has come from a branch of Congress. On the other hand, maybe this is necessary to finally put the IRS controversy to rest, and the Office of the Special Prosecutor comes to deliver justice once again.

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Dennis Futoryan (@dfutoryan) is an undergrad with an eye on a bright future in the federal government. Living in New York, he seeks to understand how to solve the problematic issues plaguing Gothamites, as well as educating the youngest generations on the most important issues of the day.

Featured image courtesy of [Ray Tsang via Flickr]

Dennis Futoryan

Dennis Futoryan is a 23-year old New York Law School student who has his sights set on constitutional and public interest law. Whenever he gets a chance to breathe from his law school work, Dennis can be found scouring social media and examining current events to educate others about what’s going on in our world. Contact Dennis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is It Time for a Special Prosecutor for the IRS? appeared first on Law Street.

The Senate shot down debate on paycheck fairness 53-44 today. Sixty votes are necessary to overcome cloture on the matter. While Democrats and Republicans are using the issue as a political ploy for the midterm elections, there are American women who are waiting for their paychecks to become, if not equal to, as close as possible to the pay grade of their male counterparts. The actual act in question would have closed loopholes seen in the Equal Pay Act of 1963 that aimed to close the gap between male and female wages in the first place. This issue has been contentious for that long, and is not a modern phenomena.

What Congress was attempting to do with this new bill is protect employees from being punished for sharing salary information with their peers, a practice some businesses employ in order to avoid workplace unrest. Such a situation gave way to the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009, which resets the 180-day statute of limitations on gender discrimination with each paycheck given to the aggrieved employee. On top of not being allowed to stop their employees from sharing their salary information, businesses have to show that the pay disparity between two employees is due to performance, and not their gender. Critics of the Paycheck Fairness Act claim that this would open floodgates for lawyers to litigate a slew of discrimination cases. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said on Wednesday, “[T]his legislation would double down on job loss all while lining the pockets of trial lawyers.” Supporters may counter that the requirement for businesses to show the reasons behind pay disparity only clears up the situation and can strengthen the position of the employer.

While Congress is stuck debating paycheck fairness for women, the President took matters into his own hands yesterday with two executive orders. On the eve of news that New York City has a pay disparity of 88 cents for every dollar earned between women and men, President Barack Obama signed an executive order mandating that federal contractors report salaries by gender. The other executive order would make it easy for other agencies or contractors to access this data. “Pay secrecy fosters discrimination, and we should not tolerate it, not in federal contracting or anywhere else,” the President said as he signed the orders. Currently, the sound bite being spread around by politicians is that the wage gap between women and men is 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. According to the Pew Research Center, this only accounts for full-time workers. When you account for full-time and part-time workers, the wage gap is more likely to be 84 percent of what men earn, and the gap narrows even more for young women – 93 percent.

As the rhetorical war over paycheck fairness continues, pay attention to the hand-picked figures used by both parties in a year when a lot of Congressional jobs are on the line. Despite the various attempts at closing the wage gap between the two genders, it will be a long time before we see serious progress. As the Pew Research Center points out, women will have to work more in order to cover the gap — yet this does not account for maternity leave or the specific types of labor that skew toward a male demographic, such as construction and other labor-intensive tasks. One thing is clear — the debate is not over, even if it was shot down in Congress.

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Dennis Futoryan (@dfutoryan) is an undergrad with an eye on a bright future in the federal government. Living in New York, he seeks to understand how to solve the problematic issues plaguing Gothamites, as well as educating the youngest generations on the most important issues of the day.

Featured image courtesy of [Martijn Schornagel via Flickr]

Dennis Futoryan

Dennis Futoryan is a 23-year old New York Law School student who has his sights set on constitutional and public interest law. Whenever he gets a chance to breathe from his law school work, Dennis can be found scouring social media and examining current events to educate others about what’s going on in our world. Contact Dennis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Paycheck Fairness Act Fails in the Senate appeared first on Law Street.

Get ready for even more money to enter politics. The Supreme Court overturned limits on federal political donations yesterday. In an election year in which every Representative and a third of the Senate is fighting to keep his or her job, expect this to be the year of record-breaking campaign donations. In a 5-4 decision along ideological lines, SCOTUS ruled that any caps and limitations on federal campaign donations are unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds. Whereas the infamous Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling allowed for unlimited outside political spending by corporations, the outcome of McCutcheon v. FEC now expands unlimited contributions directly to politicians and their parties.

This does not mean that now every American can send in as much money as they want in a single check to their desired politician. An individual contribution in one check still stands at $2,600 per politico. What has been struck down, however, are the aggregate limitations per two-year cycle of $48,600 and $74,600 to candidates and parties, respectively. Now a donor has free reign in terms of the amount of checks they want to send within any given time frame.

In the majority ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. explained that even if there is popular sentiment that money corrupts the American political system, it is still protected under the First Amendment like other “repugnant” actions.

“Money in politics may at times seem repugnant to some, but so too does much of what the First Amendment vigorously protects … If the First Amendment protects flag burning, funeral protests and Nazi parades — despite the profound offense such spectacles cause — it surely protects political campaign speech despite popular opposition.”

Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Alito, and Thomas joined the Chief Justice in his majority opinion, with Clarence Thomas even going so far as suggesting all campaign contribution limits should have been struck down.

Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan signed onto Breyer’s dissent authoring the call that “[the ruling] creates a loophole that will allow a single individual to contribute millions of dollars to a political party or a candidate’s campaign … The methods for using today’s opinion to evade the law’s individual contribution limits are complex, but they are well known, or will become well known, to party fundraisers.”

The case was brought forth by plaintiff Shaun McCutcheon, an Alabama Republican and CEO of Coalmont Electrical Development. Explaining how he was injured by the campaign limits put forth by the Federal Election Commission in an editorial he authored for Politico, he said, “Somehow, I can give the individual limit, now $2,600, to 17 candidates without corrupting the system. But as soon as I give that same amount to an 18th candidate, our democracy is suddenly at risk.” By arguing the unconstitutionality of campaign finance limits, McCutcheon set himself up to be included alongside legal precedent – and with this ruling he has guaranteed his name in the history books.

But does striking down campaign finance rules under the guise of a healthy democracy truly achieve that aim? As Breyer pointed out in the dissent, allowing more money to flow into the political system can only hurt it more but disenfranchising those who do not donate to their elected official. A report by the Campaign Finance Institute points out that in 2012, the cost of winning a seat in the House chamber was nearly $1.6 million. It is even worse for the Senate, where nearly 10 times the amount, $10.35 million, is needed to win a seat in that chamber. The average voter does not have the same “purchasing power” behind their contributions, as the majority of contributions come from the wealthiest individuals through their companies and organizations. According to OpenSecrets, an organization dedicated to campaign finance transparency, those who give $200 to a politician, political action committee, or party committee only represent 0.12 percent of the United States population.

Pay attention to how politicians and their bases raise money, as it can be expected in this crucial midterm election year to break records for the amount raised and spent. With a Supreme Court more apt to protecting the right of individuals and corporations to donate as much as they would like as frequently as they would like, it would seem that we are on a road to limitless campaign contributions.

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Dennis Futoryan (@dfutoryan) is an undergrad with an eye on a bright future in the federal government. Living in New York, he seeks to understand how to solve the problematic issues plaguing Gothamites, as well as educating the youngest generations on the most important issues of the day.

Featured image courtesy of [dnkbdotcom via Flickr]

Dennis Futoryan

Dennis Futoryan is a 23-year old New York Law School student who has his sights set on constitutional and public interest law. Whenever he gets a chance to breathe from his law school work, Dennis can be found scouring social media and examining current events to educate others about what’s going on in our world. Contact Dennis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post What SCOTUS’ McCutcheon Decision Means for the Future of US Elections appeared first on Law Street.

The Obama Administration once again announced an extension of an Affordable Care Act deadline this week. For anyone who’s counting, we’re up to at least 11. This time it’s late signups for people who have technical problems that prohibit them from signing up by the March 31 deadline. If that’s you, you can now apply for an extension to mid-April by checking a box on the application. The Administration is trusting that you’ll abide by the honor system and will really only ask for an extension if you need it.

The President has issued many delays since the healthcare law was implemented. Here’s a brief recap:

• Starting in November 2012, the Department of Health and Human Services delayed for a month the decision to set up a federal exchange.
• In July 2013, the employer mandate was delayed. The statute originally imposed fines on businesses with more than 50 employees that do not offer health insurance. Now, no fines will be enforced in 2014.
• November 2013 saw two different delays — one for open individual enrollment in 2015, and the other being open enrollment for small businesses. A month later, the deadline to apply on the individual exchange was delayed twice in a row — first on November 12, and then November 24.
• High-risk pools (groups of people with pre-existing conditions who were uninsured) were slated to end January 1, 2014, but they were extended to March. As soon as we reached that deadline, it was extended yet again.
• The deadline for employers with 50 to 100 employees to offer healthcare was again delayed in February 2014 — they are now allowed to wait until 2016 to offer health insurance.

There is predictably criticism from Republicans ranging from the need to fix key parts of the law to repealing it outright. One suggestion is to repeal the tax on medical devices, a main revenue source for the Affordable Care Act, while others have called for an investigation looking into the constitutionality of the delays. Michael McConnell, quoted in the Washington Post, has said that the continuing deadline delays are blatantly illegal. “Statute does provide broad discretion, but unless there’s some explicit statutory authorization they don’t have the right not to do it … That’s the difference. Suspending and dispensing with statutes are equally impermissible.”

When it comes to allowing the executive branch to implement delays in the law, the main concern is over Congress’ role. Congress, the main federal legislative body, is supposed to take up these delays. By allowing the President to give out executive orders delaying legal statues, legislative jurisdiction becomes confused. Who, in fact, has the right to make these delays?

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Dennis Futoryan (@dfutoryan) is an undergrad with an eye on a bright future in the federal government. Living in New York, he seeks to understand how to solve the problematic issues plaguing Gothamites, as well as educating the youngest generations on the most important issues of the day.

Featured image courtesy of [Wikimedia]

Dennis Futoryan

Dennis Futoryan is a 23-year old New York Law School student who has his sights set on constitutional and public interest law. Whenever he gets a chance to breathe from his law school work, Dennis can be found scouring social media and examining current events to educate others about what’s going on in our world. Contact Dennis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is it Legal for the President, and not Congress, to Implement ACA Delays? appeared first on Law Street.

Is the federal government ‘too big’ or ‘too small’? Americans have been debating the best size of the federal government since the birth of the Republic. From the Federalist Papers all the way to current court cases seeking to establish the superiority of states rights, the federal vs. state government fight is not a new one. To this day, intellectuals on both sides of the issue fight to prove the merits of their own views, as well as show which government philosophy would be better for taxpayers. Looking at the numbers might surprise you, though. The federal government probably doesn’t spend as much as you think.

The federal government’s budget is one of the most politically sensitive topics there is — entire movements were born from a perceived sense of increased governing spending (hello, Tea Party). While it may be the job of Congress and the President to compromise and agree on a budget, mudslinging and partisanship make its passage very difficult. The most recent budget proposal, presented by the President on April 10, requests nearly $3.8 trillion in expenditures and $3.03 trillion in revenue, putting the deficit at $744 billion, or 4.4 percent of gross domestic product. That’s a decrease in the deficit of nearly $229 billion.

Right now, federal legislative, judicial, and executive branch departments are under what is called ‘the sequester.’ As a result of the failure of Congress and the President to pass a federal budget by January 1, 2013, the Budget Control Act was set to automatically reduce spending in various departments throughout the federal system. Some have applauded the sequester’s sharp curtailing of government spending, while others point to the devastating economic ripple effects the law has had. According to the Government Accountability Office, “19 agencies reported curtailing hiring; 16 reported rescoping or delaying contracts or grants for core mission activities; 19 reported reducing employee training; 20 reported reducing employee travel; and seven reported furloughing more than 770,000 employees from one to seven days.” The Congressional Budget Office has pointed to a possible 0.6 percent contraction of the nation’s economy due to the austerity-minded law.

After the government shutdown in October 2013 due to partisan disagreement over the budget bill, Congressional approval ratings plummeted to 10 percent. Three months later, Congress passed the Bipartisan Budget Act, which sought to increase spending caps enacted by the sequester in exchange for extending the duration of the cuts to 2023 -– lowering the national deficit by $23 billion. Advocates calling for lower government spending should be applauding.

As the nation continues to debate whether the sequester cuts have been beneficial or harmful to the nation, the next date to look forward to is in September when the government runs out of authority to spend taxpayer money. With the national debt at $17.5 trillion and counting, and the midterm elections coming this November, we’ll have to wait and see is Congress will work together to pass a compromise appropriations bill.

As time goes by, the federal budget inevitably increases in order to meet the country’s demands. As our infrastructure continues to crumble, more Americans retire, and workers demand a living wage, increased spending cannot be stopped in general, no matter the amount. It is up to our elected officials to take action and simplify the tax code, increase revenue, and close corporate loopholes and subsidies.

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Dennis Futoryan (@dfutoryan) is an undergrad with an eye on a bright future in the federal government. Living in New York, he seeks to understand how to solve the problematic issues plaguing Gothamites, as well as educating the youngest generations on the most important issues of the day.

Featured image courtesy of [Ryan McFarland via Flickr]

Dennis Futoryan

Dennis Futoryan is a 23-year old New York Law School student who has his sights set on constitutional and public interest law. Whenever he gets a chance to breathe from his law school work, Dennis can be found scouring social media and examining current events to educate others about what’s going on in our world. Contact Dennis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Does the Government Really Spend Too Much? appeared first on Law Street.

In the 21st century, many people do not consider how vulnerable their high-tech gadgets are to outside hackers. Information can be stolen at the swipe of a password, and it will take some time before you notice anything is wrong. The same can be said for governments fighting to stay on top of the latest technologies — especially the type that can help defend them against various enemies. These enemies, however, are no longer those we traditionally think of (‘evil’ governments and terrorists), at least not for our elected officials. In fact, the challenge of our time according to many top feds and military officers, is defending against cybercrime.

Following the hacking onslaught against retail giant Target, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned that more attacks are on the way, considering the attraction for additional cyber criminals to score easy money off of unsuspecting businesses. According to a paper released by the Ponemon Institute in 2012, cybercrimes cost businesses at least $8.9 million annually , and if they do not modernize security practices soon, hackers may get away with a lot more than just someone’s credit card information.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a federal technology agency, released a 39-page report on Wednesday to set industry standards implementing adequate protections so that businesses do not continue to get hit with hacking attacks from all over the globe. The report itself focuses on three main points:

1. Framework Core: “A set of cybersecurity activities, desired outcomes, and applicable references that are common across critical infrastructure sectors…that allows for communication of cybersecurity activities and outcomes across the organization from the executive level to the implementation/operations level.”
2. Framework Implementation Tiers: “Provide context on how an organization views cybersecurity risk and the processes in place to manage that risk. Tiers describe the degree to which a organization’s cybersecurity risk management practices exhibit the characteristics defined in the framework.”
   
3. Framework Profile: “The alignment of standards, guidelines, and practices to the Framework Core in a particular implementation scenario. Profiles can be used to identify opportunities for improving cybersecurity.” 

Even though the goals are well-intentioned, the fact the report comes out of an executive order from the President could throw a wrench into the implementation within Congress, as the members are already at odds as to whether or not the President should have more freedom interpreting legislation. However, there may still be a shot at cooperation between the two branches on this front, as business executives continue to pressure lawmakers at cybercrime hearings.

And they may not have a choice but to work together, as Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey explained at a speech in June 2013 that “strengthening our cyber defenses on military systems is critically important, but it’s not enough in order to defend the nation.” Citing an investment of $23 billion into cyberdefense, four thousand new Cyber Command recruits, and three new teams focusing on defense of the nation, battlefield commands, and global military networks, Chairman Dempsey indicated that the United States is mounting intimidating offenses but that the country has a lot of catching up to do. In another hearing in February 2012, Senator Lindsey Graham inquired of Dempsey about cyberattack threats from China, often an alleged source of hacking. In response, the Joint Chiefs Chairman replied that China’s hacking seems to target intellectual property and trade secrets more than anything else, but if they were to attack the United States’ infrastructure, they should expect a similar response.

As major nations all around the globe come to grips over the rising tide of cybercrime, the United States is most certainly ramping up its defenses. While military leaders warn that what we have in store is not enough, federal officials continue to release new indicators that they’re serious about tackling the issue. Despite all of the rhetoric, business leaders in the nation continue to experience cyber crimes, having their secrets stolen and clientele information hacked. There is still a lot of work to be done if the United States is going to be ready for a future of relentless cybercrime.

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Dennis Futoryan (@dfutoryan) is an undergrad with an eye on a bright future in the federal government. Living in New York, he seeks to understand how to solve the problematic issues plaguing Gothamites, as well as educating the youngest generations on the most important issues of the day.

Featured image courtesy of [elhombredenegro via Flickr]

Dennis Futoryan

Dennis Futoryan is a 23-year old New York Law School student who has his sights set on constitutional and public interest law. Whenever he gets a chance to breathe from his law school work, Dennis can be found scouring social media and examining current events to educate others about what’s going on in our world. Contact Dennis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Is America Ready to Fight Cybercrime? appeared first on Law Street.

Detroit’s bankruptcy case will continue without legal challenges. The decision by Judge Steven Rhodes of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court halts all litigation against the city, its emergency manager and Gov. Rick Snyder.

Protests by retired city employees over potential pension cuts and a potential challenge to the city’s Chapter 9 filings will be addressed in upcoming hearings. Judge Rhodes said the Federal Bankruptcy Court has “exclusive jurisdiction” over this case.

Protesters gathered around the downtown Detroit courthouse while the Judge reviewed arguments on whether or not Mr. Snyder had crossed his authoritative boundaries when forcing the city into the largest municipal bankruptcy case in American History.

[NYTimes]

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Featured image courtesy of [Ian Freimuth via Flickr]

Davis Truslow

Davis Truslow is a founding member of Law Street Media and a graduate of The George Washington University. Contact Davis at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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