It’s Monday, November 11, 2024. The 2025 General Assembly will convene on Wednesday, Jan. 8. at 10 AM – just 58 days away. Gov. Jared Polis is expected to present his 7th State of the State address the following day.
Today is Veterans Day. Veterans Day was originally called Armistice Day, marking the end of World War I on November 11, 1918. It was later renamed Veterans Day in 1954 to recognize all U.S. military veterans, not just those who served in World War I. On Veterans Day, ceremonies and events are held across the country to honor veterans for their service and sacrifice, with many communities hosting parades, moments of silence, and other activities.
Woodrow Wilson commemorated the first anniversary of the World War I armistice, saying, “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations.”
These updates are curated from multiple news sources and designed to be a “choose-your-own-adventure.” Please read any coverage of interest and skip anything you deem to be irrelevant. Hyperlinks are provided to add additional context. With the 24/7 news-cycle I hope to keep us all in the loop on items we may want to know about or better understand. Please feel free to share if you think someone outside FGMC needs to be aware of this information.
Disclaimer – The news and articles contained within this update do not represent any political positions or policy opinions of Foster Graham Milstein & Calisher, LLP. This update is designed for informational purposes only.
Today’s Big Three Things-To-Know:
- Metro area affordable housing measures fall short. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and supporters of Ballot Issue 2R, a proposed sales tax increase aimed at funding affordable housing initiatives, conceded defeat early Saturday morning. While the measure had gained ground in later returns following Tuesday’s election, it was still being rejected by 51% of the ballots counted as of Friday evening, according to the latest figures from the Denver Elections Division. This marked a slight improvement from Tuesday’s preliminary results, which showed a 52.2% rejection rate. The shift suggested that voters who cast their ballots on Election Day, which were processed in later counts, were more supportive of the tax measure. However, with roughly 30,000 ballots remaining to be counted, 2R was still trailing by 6,145 votes. In a statement issued at 5:59 a.m. Saturday, Mayor Johnston acknowledged that the deficit was too large to overcome, effectively signaling the measure’s defeat. But notably, it wasn’t just Denver where an affordable housing sales tax didn’t carry. In neighboring Adams County, voters overwhelmingly rejected an affordable housing sales tax measure this year. County Ballot Issue 1A garnered just 30% support, according to unofficial results. The measure proposed a 0.15% increase in the countywide sales tax, which was expected to generate $22.2 million annually.
- The CD8 shake-up. U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo conceded to Republican Gabe Evans on Sunday in the closely contested race for Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, following more than five days of ballot counting. Caraveo initially held a lead on Election Day, but late in the week, a batch of ballots from Weld County, a conservative stronghold, flipped the race in Evans’ favor. As of the latest unofficial tally, Evans led with 162,022 votes compared to Caraveo’s 159,426, a margin of 0.8%. In a statement issued Sunday afternoon, Caraveo acknowledged Evans’ victory and offered her concession. “It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve the people of Colorado’s 8th District,” she said. “I came to Congress to make a difference, and over the last two years, I’ve worked tirelessly to find common ground and deliver bipartisan solutions to the challenges facing our community.” Evans’ victory means that despite Democrats’ dominance in statewide elections, the state’s House delegation in the next Congress will be evenly split, 4-4, between the parties. This result also pushes Republicans slightly closer to their goal of holding onto control of the House. The party has won 214 seats compared to Democrats’ 203, with 16 still undecided. At this point, Republicans need to win just four more of the outstanding races to take the majority.
- The final count. Republican President-elect Donald Trump secured victories in Nevada and Arizona on Saturday, reversing his narrow losses in those states from 2020. These wins, confirmed after several days of vote counting, marked the final states to have their 2024 presidential results called by the Associated Press. With the addition of Nevada and Arizona to his column, Trump had already clinched Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Georgia earlier in the week, sweeping all seven key battleground states. The results in Nevada and Arizona brought Trump’s Electoral College total to 312, surpassing the 270 needed to win, while Democrat Kamala Harris earned 226 electoral votes. President Biden invited Trump to meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the White House said in a statement.
***Bonus Story – What about the Colorado General Assembly? With 83 of the General Assembly’s 100 seats up for grabs on Election Day 2024, the big question was whether Senate Democrats could secure a two-thirds majority and whether House Democrats could keep theirs. The answers? No and possibly no. Two state House races are still too close to call — Democrats need to win at least one of those seats hold their supermajority in the chamber. In House District 16, which includes central Colorado Springs, Republican Rebecca Keltie has edged out Democratic Rep. Stephanie Vigil, holding a narrow lead of just 21 votes as of Saturday night. Meanwhile, in House District 19, which covers eastern Boulder County and southern Weld County, former Republican Rep. Dan Woog of Erie leads Democratic candidate Jillaire McMillan of Longmont by 207 votes. Republicans also picked up another surprise seat. In House District 50, Democratic Rep. Mary Young of Greeley, who has served three terms, has conceded the race to Republican Ryan Gonzales. This seat had been in Democratic hands since 2005. * As an aside, I will send out a separate update outlining Colorado House and Colorado Senate leadership for the 2025 session.
***Bonus, Bonus Story – How was election turnout? Nearly 3.3 million Coloradans voted in the 2024 election, roughly matching the number of ballots cast in the 2020 presidential race, according to the latest data from the Secretary of State’s office. However, when factoring in population growth and the rise in registered voters, the state’s voter turnout rate is expected to fall short—not just of 2020, but of every presidential election since 2000. Data released by state elections officials on Friday revealed that 3,268,441 ballots were returned statewide. With just over 4 million active voter registrations, plus an additional 603,000 inactive registrations, this puts Colorado’s turnout rate at about 81% of active voters, or 71% of all registered voters. While this marks a modest decline from 2020, when 86.5% of active voters cast a ballot, it aligns with broader national trends. Though the data remains preliminary, and ballots are still being processed, the University of Florida’s Election Lab estimates national turnout dropped from 66.4% in 2020 to 62.3% in 2024.
And now, more news…
From Denver…On 2R.
Via Axios, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said Referred Question 2R would not pass, conceding in a statement on Saturday morning.
City voters rejected the mayor’s plan to raise millions annually for affordable housing by increasing Denver’s sales tax. It’s a major blow for Johnston, who teamed up with the Denver City Council’s progressive bloc to create what he characterized as an affordability solution. Referred Question 2R was losing 49% to 51% as of Friday evening, according to preliminary results from the Denver Elections Division. “2R was one path to make Denver more affordable, but it’s not the only path forward,” Johnston said in the statement. “I remain committed to finding new solutions to take on this challenge.”
The measure asked voters to raise the city sales tax by 0.5% — the equivalent of 5 cents on a $10 purchase — to raise $100 million annually to create and preserve both rental and for-sale homes. The money would have been used to build or maintain nearly 45,000 units, meeting current affordable housing needs. Some council members criticized the plan, suggesting it wasn’t fully formed and required more details about how such a vast sum would be used to achieve Johnston’s stated goals. Voters passed the other tax increase on the ballot this year to help Denver Health pay for the uncompensated care it provides.
You can read more from Axios here, DBJ here, and The Denver Post here.
Also from Denver…Denver heat pump incentive program targets multifamily, commercial buildings for more efficient heating and cooling.
From The Colorado Sun, for some Denver residents, on a hot day, instead of window AC units the only sound is the gentle “whoosh” of a fan, and the promise of lower energy bills thanks to the installation of energy-efficient heat pumps under Denver’s commercial and multifamily building electrification pilot program. The goal of the pilot is to help the city’s Office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency collect data to fine-tune future rebates and incentives for heat pump installations, explained Mac Prather, the office’s residential energy efficiency administrator.
So far, 64 properties have applied for the $7.5 million pilot program, with eight projects already moving forward with equipment installations. Participants in the program include retail stores, office buildings, and multifamily apartment complexes.
You can read more from The Colorado Sun here.
Along the Front Range…Colorado Springs voters approve conflicting marijuana ballot measures.
According to Colorado Newsline, Colorado Springs voters approved two competing ballot measures this week, one that would ban retail marijuana in the city and another that would allow existing medical marijuana stores to also sell recreationally.
As of 6 p.m. on Wednesday night, about 53% of voters approved Ballot Issue 2D, a city charter amendment referred by City Council that would prohibit sales within city limits. About the same share of voters also approved Ballot Question 300, an initiated ordinance which would allow the approximately 90 medical marijuana stores in the city to apply for a recreational license.
Mayor Yemi Mobolade said the result creates “a really interesting legal dilemma for us,” according to Westword.
You can read more from Colorado Newsline here.
Who’s in charge of the Colorado State Senate 2025?…General Assembly leadership elections.
Via The Sum & Substance, Senate Democrats on Friday chose James Coleman, an eight-year legislator who has sponsored numerous workforce-development bills and carries a reputation as a collaborator, to be president of the upper body of the legislature for the next two years.
Coleman succeeds Steve Fenberg, who was term-limited from seeking re-election after serving as Senate president since midway through the 2022 session. Opposite him, Republicans chose Sen. Paul Lundeen of Monument to continue as minority leader after they were able to flip one seat in Tuesday’s election and stop Democrats from achieving a supermajority in the chamber
While most of the Democratic leadership positions were elected unanimously — including Sens. Dafna Michaelson Jenet of Commerce City as President Pro Tem and Nick Hinrichsen of Pueblo as majority whip — the moderate/liberal split was evident in two contested races. Sen. Lisa Cutter of Morrison, lauded by Sen. Jessie Danielson of Wheat Ridge for having “crafted and passed significant progressive legislation,” defeated Sen.-elect Lindsey Daugherty of Arvada to become assistant majority leader, the No. 3 role in the chamber. But Sen.-elect Judy Amabile of Boulder, a former manufacturing company owner who spoke of her ability to reach across the aisle, won an open position on the powerful six-person Joint Budget Committee, joining Sen. Jeff Bridges of Greenwood Village, who’s known as a pragmatist. She defeated Sen. Janice Marchman of Loveland, a more progressive lawmaker who had argued in her nomination speech that Democrats’ JBC team should reflect the ideological makeup of their caucus.
Senate Republicans, who met Thursday, elected Sen. Cleave Simpson of Alamosa, a water and agricultural expert who is one of the more moderate caucus members, as assistant minority leader, the No. 2 job in the caucus behind Lundeen. They also chose Sens. Byron Pelton of Sterling as caucus chair and Janice Rich of Grand Junction as minority whip and reappointed Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer of Weld County as their lone JBC member.
You can read more from The Sum & Substance here, Senate Democrats here, and Senate Republicans here.
Who’s in charge of the Colorado State House 2025?…General Assembly leadership elections.
As noted by The Gazette, Colorado House Republicans elected their leadership team for the 2025 legislative session on Friday.
Rep. Rose Pugliese of Colorado Springs and Rep. Ty Winter of Trinidad will continue serving as minority leader and assistant minority leader, respectively. Rep. Rick Taggart of Grand Junction will once again serve on the Joint Budget Committee.
I listened in to the House leadership elections this morning – here are the results.
- Speaker Julie McCluskie is coming back to reprise her role as Speaker of the House.
- Majority Leader Monica Duran is also reprising her role.
- Another reprise – Jennifer Bacon will return as Assistant Majority Leader.
- Majority Co-Whips will be Matthew Martinez and Iman Jodeh.
- Caucus Co-Chairs will be Mandy Lindsay and Junie Joseph.
You can read more from The Gazette here, House Republicans here, and House Democrats here.
From the Governor’s office…Polis seeking to convert Pinnacol Assurance as part of budget plan.
As reported by The Sum & Substance, Gov. Jared Polis has resurrected the idea of converting Pinnacol Assurance, the state-chartered workers’ compensation insurer of last resort, into an independently operated mutual insurance company and is pitching it as a budget-balancing proposal in a year in which the state faces a shortfall of more than $600 million.
Such a plan would have a major impact on the insurer, which has argued for many years that it needs to be able to expand its sales to out-of-state workers to keep up with Colorado’s rapidly nationalizing workforce — a move it could undertake through such a conversion. And it could have significant repercussions on Colorado employers, as Pinnacol provides workers’ comp policies to more than 50,000 Colorado companies, though its market share, once estimated at 56% of all state businesses, has declined in recent years.
You can read more from The Sum & Substance here.
Did Colorado turnout?…Despite late surge, Colorado’s 2024 election turnout rate lowest in decades.
From Colorado Newsline, nearly 3.3 million Coloradans cast a ballot in the 2024 election, roughly equaling the number of ballots returned in the presidential election four years ago, according to the latest data released by the secretary of state’s office.
When accounting for growth in Colorado’s population and the number of registered voters, however, this year’s turnout rate is on track to fall short of not just the 2020 election, but every other presidential election held since 2000. Data released by state elections officials on Friday showed a total of 3,268,441 ballots returned statewide. With a little over 4 million active voter registrations and another 603,000 Coloradans whose registrations are inactive, that puts the state on track for a turnout rate of about 81% of active voters, or 71% of all registered voters.
That’s Colorado’s lowest turnout rate in a presidential election year since 2000, when less than 67% of active voters cast their ballots in the presidential race between George W. Bush and Al Gore. It’s also the worst presidential turnout since Colorado switched to a universal vote-by-mail system, widely touted as the nation’s “gold standard” and credited with achieving some of the highest turnout rates of any state in recent U.S. elections.
You can read more from Colorado Newline here.
Meanwhile, it seems like people generally like Colorado’s electoral system…Coloradans across party lines support state’s election system.
Via Axios, amid major political division, Colorado voters on both sides of the aisle agree on one thing: the state’s vote-by-mail election system.
A new bipartisan Colorado Polling Institute poll released Thursday shows overwhelming confidence and approval for the way votes are tallied in the state. A sweeping 87% of Colorado voters are pleased with the election system, according to the poll, which surveyed 822 likely voters from Oct. 25 to Nov. 4. Democrats showed the highest satisfaction (99%), followed by independents (87%) and Republicans (72%). 99% of Harris voters said they support the system, compared with 70% of Trump voters.
You can read more from Axios here.
From election-land…Colorado voters come full circle on supporting – and refunding – police.
As reported by CPR, four years after there was a national reckoning on policing in America and many calls for defunding or reducing money to law enforcement agencies, Colorado voters have decisively changed direction.
Proposition 130 will require state lawmakers to funnel $350 million to law enforcement agencies in a one-time burst that is supposed to be dedicated specifically to recruiting and retention for police officers and sheriff’s deputies. Coloradans decisively supported the measure with 53 percent approving it last week.
You can read more from CPR here.
The fall of ranked choice…Disappointed, but Kent Thiry says his fight continues.
According to Colorado Politics, four days after voters in Colorado — and in four other states — rejected ranked choice voting, Kent Thiry said he remains a true believer and he is not giving up his fight.
If anything, Tuesday’s defeat — and it stung, he acknowledged — is motiving the former DaVita CEO to continue the conversation, he said, adding that the results, to him, confirmed that the system is “broken.” Proposition 131 turned out to be the first major loss for Thiry and his campaign to elect more moderate or centrist candidates, rather than those on the fringes of the right or left. Don’t count him out, he said
You can read more from Colorado Politics here.
From the General Assembly races…Republican Ryan Gonzales wins Colorado House District 50; two other races remain close.
Via Colorado Politics, two seats in the Colorado House, held by Democrats, appear to lean toward Republicans, based on the latest unofficial election results posted late Saturday.
In House District 50, three-term Rep. Mary Young of Greeley, a Democrat, has conceded the race to Republican Ryan Gonzales. Young held a narrow lead on election night that evaporated the following days. As of Saturday, Gonzales led by 554 votes out of 25,606 votes cast. The seat has been held by Democrats since 2005.
In House District 16, which is based in central Colorado Springs, Republican Rebecca Keltie has taken a narrow lead over current state Rep. Stephanie Vigil, a Democrat. As of Saturday, Keltie held a lead of just 21 votes. In House District 19, which includes eastern Boulder County and southern Weld County, former state Rep. Dan Woog of Erie leads by 207 votes over Democratic candidate Jillaire McMillan of Longmont. All results are unofficial. Military and overseas ballots are still being counted, and they will be accepted through Nov. 13. Provisional ballots can still be counted through Nov. 14.
You can read more from Colorado Politics here and Colorado Newsline here.
In regulation…Colorado’s oil and gas industry says it’s reducing emissions at drilling sites by 95%. Environmentalists aren’t so sure.
From The Denver Post, a new battle between Colorado air regulators and environmentalists is brewing along the Front Range over how effective pollution-control devices at oil and gas drilling sites are at eliminating methane emissions — and a company set to drill near the Aurora Reservoir is at the center of that dispute.
At issue are enclosed combustion devices, or flares, that burn off methane and volatile organic compounds released by drilling operations in Colorado, one of the first states where the industry has widely adopted the technology.
The flares look similar to smokestacks and are designed to eliminate those harmful air pollutants, which contribute to ozone pollution and climate change, rather than release them into the air, where they drift toward residential areas and pollute the Front Range’s already dirty air.
State regulators and oil and gas companies say those flares eliminate 95% of the harmful emissions produced by oil wells. But environmentalists aren’t so sure.
You can read more from The Denver Post here.
On law enforcement…Colorado on track to see deadliest year for police shootings since 2020, data shows.
Via The Denver Post, Colorado is on track to see the deadliest year for police shootings since 2020 with nearly 60 people having been shot or killed by state law enforcement so far this year.
This time last year, 34 people had been killed by police officers and sheriff’s deputies across Colorado and 19 others had been injured, according to a dataset compiled by The Denver Post. Police have fatally shot 36 people this year and injured another 20, according to the dataset. Now, Colorado is only eight police shootings away from passing last year’s total entirely.
If those eight shootings are fatal, it will mark the deadliest year for Colorado since 2020, when police shot and killed at least 43 people, according to Mapping Police Violence. The national project tracks fatal police shootings across the country.
You can read more from The Denver Post here.
A race to the finish…Democrat Yadira Caraveo concedes Congressional District 8 race to Republican Gabe Evans.
As covered by Colorado Politics, U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo on Sunday conceded to Republican Gabe Evans in the race for the highly-contested 8th Congressional District seat after more than five days of counting that kept the vote close.
Caraveo took an early lead on Tuesday and held it until late in the week, when a batch of ballots from conservative-leaning Weld County flipped the vote total in Evans’ favor. In the latest unofficial count, Evans maintained a lead with 162,022 votes to Caraveo’s 159,426 votes, for a 0.8-point margin.
In an emailed statement Sunday afternoon, Caraveo acknowledged that Evan has won the race and offered her concession. “It’s been the honor of a lifetime to serve the people of Colorado’s 8th district. I came to Congress to get things done and have spent the last two years working to find common ground and bipartisan solutions to the most pressing issues facing our community,” she said.
Evans’ victory means that despite Democrats’ dominance in statewide elections, the state’s House delegation in the next Congress will be evenly split, 4-4, between the parties. This result also pushes Republicans slightly closer to their goal of holding onto control of the House. The party has won 214 seats compared to Democrats’ 203, with 16 still undecided. At this point, Republicans need to win just four more of the outstanding races to take the majority.
You can read more from CoPo here and CPR here.
Around Colorado…Solving Colorado’s child care issues could unlock $3.8B in GDP, new CSI report says.
From DBJ, new numbers stand to prove that child care is not just expensive and often unattainable for Colorado parents — those challenges also stand in the way of significant economic contributions from parents who are “sidelined.”
The 10,200 Colorado mothers unable to work due to child care issues could generate $3.8 billion for the state’s gross domestic product and create 29,000 total jobs if those challenges were resolved and they chose to return to work, according to a new report released Oct. 31 by the Common Sense Institute in collaboration with Executives Partnering to Invest in Children (EPIC).
CSI is a Denver-based think tank that conducts research on the health of Colorado’s economy and business community. The report also highlights that 60,000 of the 330,000 Colorado mothers with kids under 6 would be added to the state’s labor force if they were working at the same rate as mothers with older children.
You can read more from the Commons Sense Institute here and Denver Business Journal here.
How is the race for U.S. House holding up?…Republicans inch closer to formally locking up House majority.
According to Politico, there are more than a dozen House contests — and a Senate race — still uncalled by the Associated Press, but Republicans are inching ever closer to officially retaining the House majority, as western states continue to slowly tally up their ballots.
Arizona Senate: Several days of strong vote counting numbers have put Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) on the precipice of holding this Senate seat for his party, even as President-elect Donald Trump carried the state by nearly six percentage points. Gallego’s lead over GOP nominee Kari Lake was nearly 67,000 votes — or more than two percentage points — following a Sunday evening drop from Maricopa County
You can read more from Politico here.
The race for the presidency…With Arizona and Nevada calls for Trump, full Electoral College results are in.
Via WSJ, Republican President-elect Donald Trump won Nevada and Arizona after narrowly losing them in 2020, expanding the scope of his victory several days after voting concluded and marking the final states to have their 2024 presidential results called by the Associated Press.
By notching those two wins Saturday—along with Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Georgia earlier in the week—Trump swept the seven battleground states up for grabs in the election. The results in Nevada and Arizona brought the Electoral College count to 312 for Trump compared with 226 for Democrat Kamala Harris, putting him above the 270 needed to win. With almost all of the Nevada votes reported, Trump had 50.6% to 47.4% for Harris. In Arizona, with 87% of the vote reported, Trump was carrying about 52.6% compared with 46.4% for Harris.
President Biden invited Trump to meet in the Oval Office on Wednesday, the White House said in a statement.
You can read more from The Wall Street Journal here.
How did reproductive rights hold up?…Voters in at least seven states restore reproductive rights.
As reported by Colorado Newsline, in the first presidential election since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion, former President Donald Trump, who touted during the campaign he “was able to kill Roe v. Wade,” won a second term in the White House. Simultaneously, seven out of 10 states voted to restore or expand abortion rights, according to early election results.
National anti-abortion groups celebrated Trump’s victory over Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who campaigned heavily on restoring reproductive rights. They also celebrated the defeat of abortion-rights amendments in Florida, Nebraska, and South Dakota, and foreshadowed a full assault on reproductive freedom throughout the country.
You can read more from Colorado Newsline here.
How about those polls?…The 538 hot-take.
According to 538, “Here at 538, we think a big part of our jobs during election season is to explore and explain how much trust you should put in all the people telling you who’s going to win. More than anyone else, given the amount of data they produce and the press and public’s voracious appetite for it, that includes the pollsters. That’s why we do things like publish ratings of pollster accuracy and transparency and make complex election forecasting models to explore what would happen if the polls are off by as much as they have been historically.
Polls are also important for the reporting we do here at 538, which is rooted in empiricism and data. Furthermore, the quality of the data we’re getting about public opinion is important not just for predicting election outcomes and doing political journalism, but also for many other parts of our democratic process.
Suffice it to say, if polls are getting more or less accurate, the public needs to know. And now that the 2024 election is in the rearview mirror, we can take a rough first look at how accurate polling was.”
You can read more from 539 here.
From Congress…Congress set to extend government shutdown deadline into Trump’s term.
Via The Washington Post, with Republicans on the cusp of unified control of Washington, Congress appears primed to extend the deadline for a government shutdown well past President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.
Lawmakers are discussing a temporary measure that would fund the government into March, according to two people briefed on the discussions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. That would give the Senate plenty of time to begin confirming Trump’s Cabinet nominees, and the House time to plot out maneuvers on tax legislation, without the threat of an imminent government shutdown. Without new legislation, financing for federal agencies will expire Dec. 20.
You can read more from WaPo here.
Also from Congress…Trump’s border security plans face potential obstacle in Senate parliamentarian.
As reported by The Hill, President-elect Trump’s GOP allies in Congress want to jam tough immigration and border security reforms through the Senate using a special fast track known as budget reconciliation, but face a major obstacle in Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough.
Shutting down the huge flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border is one of Trump’s top priorities, but Republican legislation that would make it harder for migrants to claim asylum and roll back protections for migrant minors under the Flores settlement faces a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. This has prompted a discussion among conservatives in the Senate and House over moving as aggressive a border-security package as possible under budget reconciliation, which would allow it to pass with a simple majority through the Senate.
You can read more from The Hill here.
From the White House…Biden admin to support controversial UN cybercrime convention.
Via Politico, United States will support the United Nations cybercrime convention when it comes up for a vote this week, top officials said Sunday night.
The decision follows months of internal deliberations at the White House and other agencies over whether to support the treaty, which digital rights groups and other officials have raised serious concerns over due to its potential misuse by countries like Russia and China.
You can read more from Politico here.
From the (future) White House…Trump taps Tom Homan as ‘Border Czar.’
According to WSJ, President-elect Donald Trump further built out his incoming administration, naming former acting ICE chief Tom Homan “border czar.”
In a social-media post late Sunday, Trump said Homan would be “in charge of all Deportation of Illegal Aliens back to their Country of Origin.” He will oversee the southern and northern border plus maritime and aviation security, Trump said.
Homan, who served for a year and half during Trump’s first term, was a divisive figure, ramping up arrests of people living in the U.S. illegally and discarding some of the enforcement priorities of the Obama administration that targeted criminals but left alone otherwise law-abiding undocumented immigrants.
You can read more from The Wall Street Journal here and CNN here.
From Washington DC…Feds brace for return of Trump personnel policies.
As reported by Government Executive, federal employee groups said Wednesday that they stand ready to work with president-elect Donald Trump’s administration when he returns to the White House in January, though they are under no illusions that he or his allies will feel the same.
“The election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States is not the result our union was hoping for,” said Everett Kelley, national president of the American Federation of Government Employees in a statement. “Nevertheless, federal employees are sworn to uphold the law and the Constitution, and they will continue to do their jobs regardless of who sits in the White House.”
Labor groups expressing a willingness to work with an incoming president’s administration is nothing new—officials typically want to try to develop a relationship before becoming adversarial toward management. But after Trump’s first term was marked by numerous efforts to reduce labor power at federal agencies, leaders of employee groups acknowledge that the chances of a cooperative relationship are slim.
You can read more from Government Executive here.
And on the economy…If Trump tries to fire Powell, Fed Chair is ready for a legal fight.
According to The Wall Street Journal, when a frustrated Donald Trump flirted with removing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in a dispute over interest rates back in 2018, Fed leaders privately readied a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency response: a legal challenge against the president to protect the integrity of America’s central bank.
Powell told then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that he would fight his removal if sought by the president, according to people familiar with the matter. Trump was upset the Fed was raising interest rates against his wishes. For Powell, the unsavory prospect of a legal showdown—one he might have to pay for out of his own pocket—was imperative to preserve the ability of future Fed chairs to serve without the threat of being removed over a policy dispute.
Six years later, Trump is heading back to the White House and the dormant drama of his fraught relationship with Powell is back on display. When asked last week whether he would resign if asked to do so, Powell offered a one-word reply: “No.” He gave the same answer when asked if the president had the authority to dismiss him.
Powell, a former private-equity executive who has a law degree, was later pressed to explain his rationale. He delivered another curt response: “Not permitted under the law.”
You can read more from WSJ here.
That’s all for today! Have a great start to your week.