August, 04 2022, 02:03pm EDT
Rep. Jamaal Bowman Introduces Emergency Price Stabilization Act
Today, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D. (NY-16) unveiled the Emergency Price Stabilization Act, which will launch a whole-of-government effort to address America's cost-of-living crisis.
WASHINGTON
Today, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D. (NY-16) unveiled the Emergency Price Stabilization Act, which will launch a whole-of-government effort to address America's cost-of-living crisis.
"In my district and across the country, people simply cannot afford to live," said Congressman Jamaal Bowman, Ed.D (NY-16). "From impossible rents and utility bills to soaring costs for food, health care, and other necessities of life, people in America are being crushed by the burden of high prices and wages that can't keep pace. While our government is taking several important steps in response, we must move with greater speed and agility to protect our constituents from price shocks and corporate profiteering. The Emergency Price Stabilization Act will do exactly that - first, by getting to the bottom of what is driving price increases in key sectors, and second, by designing targeted controls and regulations to rein in those prices. At every step of the way, we will mobilize and engage the public in the process. We cannot simply step back and allow the Federal Reserve, which hiked interest rates again last week, to address inflation on the backs of everyday people. That approach means throwing people out of work and risking a recession. Here is the question we must ask: do we have the resources and skills to reach our full productive capacity, make sure everyone in this country has a good job, and manage our economy in the interests of all people? I believe the answer is yes. But we'll need a new economic playbook to get there, and passing my Emergency Price Stabilization Act would be a major step in the right direction."
The Emergency Price Stabilization Act will expand the existing White House Supply Chains Disruption Task Force, creating a new Sub-Task Force that is empowered to:
- Monitor and analyze price changes related to food, energy, housing, health care, transportation, and other goods and services that are vital to the country's health and economic security;
- Proactively investigate corporate profiteering in those areas, including price-gouging linked to supply chain disruptions, by using subpoena power to open up and examine corporate books;
- Make recommendations to the President for appropriate, strategic controls and regulations to limit growth and reduce volatility in those key prices, which the President is temporarily authorized to implement;
- Engage and mobilize the public as part of the process of monitoring and regulating prices, and harness the expertise of federal agencies, outside experts, unions, and community organizations; and
- Propose complementary measures to ensure adequate supply of relevant goods and services, expand productive capacity, and meet climate and public health standards in the application of any price controls or regulations.
Click here to read statements in support of the Emergency Price Stabilization Act from a range of individual economists and experts, including James K. Galbraith, Robert Reich, Isabella Weber, and Mark Paul.
"Though Wall Street tycoons would have us believe otherwise, retail prices for essential goods like food and energy are not set by simple supply and demand. They are egregiously manipulated by corporate giants that have achieved monopoly-level dominance over their markets," said Food & Water Watch Executive Director Wenonah Hauter. "Setting reasonable maximum prices for everyday needs would reduce out-of-pocket costs to consumers while curbing excessive profiteering by opportunistic corporations. This common-sense legislation is needed more than ever."
"Corporations are reaping record profits while working people's wages are falling behind inflation," said AFL-CIO Government Affairs Director William Samuel. "This bill will ensure that we have every tool available to help working people cope with rising prices."
"Even before the pandemic, millions of America's lowest-income and most marginalized households were struggling to keep roofs over their heads, always just one financial shock away from falling behind on rent and being threatened with eviction, and in the worst cases, homelessness," stated Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. "Today, these same households are facing new threats with historic levels of inflation and skyrocketing rents. Just as some states have in place laws to prevent price or rent gouging after natural disasters, Congress should consider similar protections like those included in the Emergency Price Stabilization Act for renters coming out of a global pandemic."
"The rent is too damn high, and it is past time for the federal government to regulate the private rental market by setting price controls," said Tara Raghuveer, Homes Guarantee Campaign Director, People's Action. "Rent inflation is a national emergency, both a crisis for millions of tenants who can't afford their home, and a threat to our economic security as rent drives core inflation. Corporate landlords are using inflation as an excuse to raise rents, and they are raising rents beyond inflation; they are rent gouging. Congress and the President must act immediately to regulate rents, to curb inflation and to correct the imbalance of power between tenants and their landlords. This bill is a critical step in the right direction."
"It's time to take emergency pricing power out of the hands of corporate profiteers and put it in the hands of publicly accountable officials," said Matt Kent, Competition Policy Advocate at Public Citizen. "The Emergency Price Stabilization Act gives the federal government the tools necessary to step in on behalf of consumers when prices soar due to C-suite profit seeking during successive global emergencies. Crucially, the bill provides a targeted policy path for combating inflation without hiking interest rates, putting people out of work and tilting the economy into recession. "
"Rising costs are squeezing working people across the country, and politicians and policy makers keep insisting that the only way to stop it is to cut jobs and take money out of people's pockets by raising interest rates," said Natalia Salgado, Working Families Party Director of Federal Affairs. "Rep. Bowman's bill would give our government more and better options for fighting inflation by going directly at the prices set by firms with concentrated economic power. Working families need the government on our side and this is one important way to put it there."
Original co-sponsors of the legislation include: Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Danny K. Davis (D-IL), Jesus G. "Chuy" Garcia (D-IL), Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), Hank Johnson (D-GA), Mondaire Jones (D-NY), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-NJ), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Mark Takano (D-CA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.)
Organizations endorsing include: AFL-CIO, SEIU, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, National Nurses United, Food & Water Watch, Public Citizen, Indivisible, MoveOn, 1199 SEIU, Jobs with Justice, United for Respect, Community Change Action, Homes Guarantee Campaign, National Low Income Housing Coalition, National Housing Law Project, Housing Justice for All, Action Center on Race & the Economy (ACRE), NY PIRG, New York Communities for Change, Working Families Party, Fight Corporate Monopolies, Center for Popular Democracy Action, People's Action, Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth US, Sunrise Movement, Social Security Works, Campaign for NY Health, Unrig our Economy NYC, National Employment Law Project, Labor Network for Sustainability, Taproot Earth, Democracy Collaborative, Sane Energy Project, Climate and Community Project, and New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
Click here to read a summary of the bill.
Click here to read the full text of the bill.
Jamaal Anthony Bowman is an American politician and educator serving as the U.S. representative for New York's 16th congressional district since 2021.
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Tennessee GOP Shuts Down Debate, Passes Bill Allowing Handguns for Teachers
"Instead of protecting kids," said one Democratic lawmaker, "they've protected guns again."
Apr 24, 2024
A Democratic leader in the Tennessee House on Tuesday warned that a bill pushed through by Republicans to permit teachers to carry concealed handguns was "nothing but a bad disaster and tragedy waiting to happen," after the GOP cut off a debate and refused to include amendments that aimed to add safety measures to the legislation.
House Bill 1202 passed in a 68-28 vote, and Republican Gov. Bill Lee, who has never vetoed legislation, is expected to sign it, clearing the way for the state to require school districts to allow teachers to carry firearms without notifying students' parents.
According toThe Tennessean, the legislation does not allow schools or school districts to opt out of the program and requires administrators "to consider every individual who wants to carry."
The legislation was passed just over a year after a shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville killed six people, including three children.
"Our children's lives are at stake," said House Democratic Caucus Chair John Ray Clemmons (D-55).
After last year's shooting, the Tennessee Legislature garnered national attention when Republicans voted to expel expel state Reps. Justin Jones (D-52) and Justin Pearson (D-86) for joining outraged students in a chant for gun control during a protest. Jones and Pearson were soon reinstated.
Following Tuesday's vote on arming teachers, Republicans voted to bar Jones from speaking in House proceedings for two days after he was accused of committing three rules violations, including recording on the chamber's floor—something a GOP member was also accused of doing.
Jones applauded Tennessee residents for speaking out against H.B. 1202 in the House chamber.
"Despite my Republican colleagues' best effort, the power of the people cannot and will not be stopped," said the lawmaker.
The GOP ended the debate over the legislation after one teacher, Lauren Shipman-Dorrance, cried out from the viewing section. Shipman-Dorrance was removed by state troopers on orders from House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-25).
After the bill passed overwhelmingly—despite four Republicans who joined the Democrats and three who abstained—the remaining protesters chanted, "Blood on your hands!" before the GOP ordered state troopers to remove them.
Sarah Shoop Neumann, whose children attend Covenant Day School, delivered a letter with more than 5,300 signatures to the House on Monday demanding that lawmakers defeat the bill and warning that the legislation "ignores research that shows the presence of a gun increases the risks posed to children."
Shoop Neumann toldThe Tennessean that the bill's passage was "disgraceful."
"We worked with the Senate and representative sponsors of this bill to make it even a little bit safer—anything, really—and I'm utterly disappointed that that was not taken into consideration," she told the outlet.
Kris Brown, president of gun violence prevention group Brady, pointed out that "multiple teachers were armed at [the Covenant School], yet that was not enough to stop six children and school employees from being murdered."
"The Tennessee Legislature has just dishonored all who were killed at the Covenant School shooting last year by choosing to promote the proliferation of firearms in classrooms," said Brown. "H.B. 1202 is especially egregious as it has no safe storage requirements, meaning firearms could potentially fall into a child's hands."
"If we want to be free of this uniquely American crisis, we cannot continue to perpetuate the deadly norms that got us here by adding more unsecured firearms in spaces where children should be safe to learn and grow," she added. "We urge Gov. Lee to veto this bill and ask him to work alongside us, teachers, and gun safety advocates to craft meaningful reforms across the Volunteer State."
Democrats proposed amendments to require that teachers lock up their handguns and only remove them during a security breach, that teachers be held civilly liable for using their guns, and that schools inform parents if guns are on campus, but the GOP rejected all of the proposals.
"I can assure you these people have never experienced an actual working high school classroom or they wouldn't be passing this nonsense," said one Tennessee teacher. "A child will die because of this."
Pearson said the passage of the bill marked "an awful day for Tennessee, our kids, our teachers, and communities."
"Instead of protecting kids," said the lawmaker, "they've protected guns again."
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'All States Will Be Impacted' by US Supreme Court's Idaho Abortion Case
"At its core, this Supreme Court decision will reflect who we are becoming as a society."
Apr 24, 2024
Less than a month after a key abortion pill hearing, the right-wing U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday heard arguments for another major reproductive rights case—one out of Idaho that could impact healthcare for pregnant women and people across the country.
Idaho is among the over 20 states that have tightened restrictions on abortion since the high court's right-wing majority reversedRoe v. Wade nearly two years ago with Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. Since August 2022, abortions have been banned in the state except for reported cases of rape or incest or when "necessary to prevent the death" of the pregnant person.
"If the court does not uphold emergency abortion care protections, this ruling will have devastating consequences for pregnant people."
Before Idaho's near-total ban on abortion took effect, U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill barred enforcement of it to the extent that it conflicts with the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), a 1986 federal law requiring emergency departments that accept Medicare to provide "necessary stabilizing treatment" to any patient with an emergency medical condition.
The Biden administration argues that such care includes abortion; Idaho's Republican policymakers—backed by the far-right Christian Alliance Defending Freedom—disagree. The U.S. Supreme Court in January paused Winmill's order and agreed to hear arguments in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States.
As The New York Timesreported Wednesday:
In a lively argument, questions by the justices suggested a divide along ideological lines, as well as a possible split by gender on the court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative, appeared skeptical that Idaho's law, which bars doctors from providing abortions unless a woman's life is in danger or in specific nonviable pregnancies, superseded the federal law.
The argument also raised a broader question about whether some of the conservative justices, particularly Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., may be prepared to embrace language of fetal personhood, that is, the notion that a fetus would have the same rights as a pregnant woman.
Also noting Barrett's apparent alignment with the three liberal women on the court, Law Dork's Chris Geidner predicted "it comes down to" Chief Justice John Roberts and fellow right-winger Brett Kavanaugh.
"Already, we see women miscarrying and giving birth to stillborn infants in restrooms and in their cars after hospitals have turned them away, and medical professionals put in impossible positions by extremist lawmakers," said MomsRising executive director and CEO Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, citing Associated Pressreporting from last week.
"Of all the horrors SCOTUS unleashed with its appalling, dangerous, massively unpopular ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the threat that pregnant people—most of whom are moms—will be denied emergency medical care is among the worst," she asserted. "An adverse ruling in this case will mean emergency rooms can deny urgently needed care to people experiencing serious pregnancy complications that can destroy their health, end their fertility, and take their lives."
Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, deputy director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, similarly stressed that under a decision that favors the Idaho GOP, "pregnant people will suffer severe, life-altering health consequences, and even death."
"We're already seeing the devastating impact of this case play out in Idaho, where medical evacuations to transport patients to other states for the care they need have dramatically spiked since the Supreme Court allowed state politicians to block emergency abortion care," she noted.
The has also been an exodus of healthcare providers. Pointing out that those who violate Idaho's ban face five years in prison, The Guardianreported Wednesday that "between 2022, when Roe was overturned, and 2023, about 50 OB-GYNs moved out of the state."
As Republican lawmakers in various states have ramped up attacks on reproductive freedom since Dobbs, states that still allow abortions have seen an influx of "healthcare refugees." A Planned Parenthood spokesperson confirmed in January that about 30% of its abortion patients in Nevada—which borders Idaho—are from other states.
"With several of Nevada's bordering states enforcing abortion bans, pushing many people seeking care to our state, we've seen firsthand the devastation that anti-abortion policies are already wreaking,"
Reproductive Freedom for All director of Nevada campaigns Denise Lopez said Tuesday. "The Supreme Court must not allow us to spiral further into this healthcare crisis."
If the high court rules in favor of Idaho's Republican lawmakers, she warned, "all states will be impacted, even in places like Nevada with more than 4 in 5 voters supporting reproductive freedom."
Destiny Lopez, acting co-CEO of the Guttmacher Institute, declared that "at its core, this Supreme Court decision will reflect who we are becoming as a society: Are we okay with requiring pregnant individuals who face severe complications to suffer life-threatening health consequences rather than granting them access to abortion? Are we okay with forcing doctors to choose between violating federal law by not providing emergency abortion care or violating state law if they do?"
"If the court does not uphold emergency abortion care protections, this ruling will have devastating consequences for pregnant people—particularly Black and Brown folks, immigrants, people with lower incomes, those without health insurance, and LGBTQ+ communities—while further emboldening extremists," she emphasized.
Arguments in the case have sparked multiple demonstrations, from a weekend rally in Boise, Idaho to a Wednesday gathering outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., where Women's March organized a die-in to highlight the potential consequences of the forthcoming ruling.
"It's a horrifying time to be someone who needs critical abortion care in America right now," said Women's March executive director Rachel O'Leary Carmona. "The GOP is chipping away at women's bodily autonomy and livelihoods one illegitimate court case at a time—from fast-tracking a case on the authorization of a medication that's been safely administered for decades last month, to now bringing the fate of emergency abortion care to a Supreme Court captured by their radical, anti-choice agenda."
"We know what these cases really are: They're part of a series of efforts by Christian nationalist politicians to do anything they can to control women's bodies and cut back women's decisions about their healthcare, their family planning, and their lives," she added.
Similar warnings about far-right Christian nationalist attacks on a range of rights have dominated political contests this cycle—including the race for the White House. In November, Democratic President Joe Biden, who supports access to abortion care, is set to face former Republican President Donald Trump, who brags about appointing three of the six justices who reversed Roe.
The case has renewed arguments for considering changes to the country's top court, which over the past few years has not only seen plummeting levels of public trust but also been rocked by repeated ethics scandals.
"Idaho's abortion ban is a direct consequence of the court's radical decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and allow partisan state legislatures to determine Americans' access to abortion care," said Stand Up America managing director of policy and political affairs Brett Edkins. "If the Supreme Court once again sides with anti-abortion extremists, it will be further proof that this court is radically out of touch with the American people and must be reformed."
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Biden Signs TikTok Ban—Among the 'Stupidest and Most Authoritarian' Tech Bills
One critic said that "the bill doesn't touch the homegrown spyware U.S. companies churn out" and "also strikes at the First Amendment right to receive information."
Apr 24, 2024
Digital rights defenders on Wednesday slammed the passage of a U.S. foreign aid package containing a possible nationwide TikTok ban as unconstitutional, xenophobic, and ill-advised during an election year in which President Joe Biden desperately needs as many young votes as possible.
Biden signed the $95 billion bill late Wednesday morning after senators voted 79-18 the previous evening to approve the package, which includes tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance for Ukraine, Taiwan, and Israel—which is waging a genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza.
One of the bill's provisions would force ByteDance, TikTok's Chinese parent company, to sell the app to a non-Chinese company within a year or face a federal ban. Approximately 170 million Americans use TikTok, which is especially popular among members of Gen-Z and small-to-medium-sized businesses, and contributes tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. economy annually.
"Whether it's dressed up as a ban or a forced sale, the bill targeting TikTok is one of the stupidest and most authoritarian pieces of tech legislation we've seen in years," Fight for the Future director Evan Greer said in a statement.
Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, called the provision "nothing more than an unconstitutional ban in disguise."
"Banning a social media platform that hundreds of millions of Americans use to express themselves would have devastating consequences for all of our First Amendment rights, and will almost certainly be struck down in court," she added.
Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said:
The First Amendment means that the government can't restrict Americans' access to ideas, information, or media from abroad without a very good reason for it—and no such reason exists here. Repackaging the government's reasons for the ban in the language of "national security" does not change the analysis. There's no national security exception to the First Amendment, and creating such an exception would make the First Amendment a dead letter.
Proponents of the possible ban attempted to spin it as something else and pointed to precedents including the 2020 forced sale of the popular LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr, formerly owned by a Chinese company.
"I want to be very clear: This is not a 'TikTok ban,'" Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who voted to approve the bill, said in a statement. "I have no interest in banning TikTok. This bill will simply make TikTok safer by separating it from the Chinese Communist Party so that the data of 170 million Americans—many of whom are children—is protected."
Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said before Tuesday's vote that "Congress is acting to prevent foreign adversaries from conducting espionage, surveillance, maligned operations, harming vulnerable Americans, our servicemen and women, and our U.S. government personnel."
"Banning TikTok without passing real tech regulation will just further entrench monopolies like Meta and Google, without doing anything to protect Americans from data harvesting or government propaganda."
However, Kate Ruane, who directs the Center for Democracy & Technology's Free Expression Project, asserted that "Congress shouldn't be in the business of banning platforms. They should be working to enact comprehensive privacy legislation that protects our private data no matter where we choose to engage online."
Greer said that "not only is this bill laughably unconstitutional and a blatant assault on free expression and human rights, it's also a perfect way to derail momentum toward more meaningful policies like privacy and antitrust legislation that would actually address the harms of Big Tech and surveillance capitalism."
Greer continued:
Banning TikTok without passing real tech regulation will just further entrench monopolies like Meta and Google, without doing anything to protect Americans from data harvesting or government propaganda.
We could be months away from another Trump administration, and top Democrats are busy expanding mass surveillance authority and setting the precedent that the government can ban an entire social media app based on vague 'national security' concerns that haven't been explained to the public.
Some critics questioned the wisdom of Biden signing off on a potential ban of the most popular social media app among many young users during an election year in which many younger voters are disappointed in the president's record on climate, student debt relief, the Gaza genocide, and more.
One user of X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, said earlier this year that signing the bill would demonstrate a "comical level of political malpractice, the equivalent of seeing the rake on the ground and purposefully stepping on it."
Moments after Biden signed the bill, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew
vowed, "We aren't going anywhere."
"The facts and the Constitution are on our side and we expect to prevail again," he said, referring to the three times when federal judges blocked efforts to ban TikTok.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew responds to the bill that could ban the app: “Make no mistake, this is a ban, a ban of TikTok and a ban on you and your voice.”
“Rest assured, we aren’t going anywhere.”
pic.twitter.com/qElI8JvY0D
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) April 24, 2024
In the most recent case, U.S. District Court Judge Donald Molloy ruled last December that a Montana law that would have banned the app "violates the Constitution in more ways than one" and had a "pervasive undertone of anti-Chinese sentiment."
It is unclear who would buy TikTok. Analysts estimate the platform is worth upward of $100 billion, placing it out of reach for all but the biggest U.S. tech titans and, ironically, setting up possible antitrust challenges from the very administration that ultimately forced the sale.
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