As Trump oversteps, Dems must step up
Plus: Kansas raccoon freak unleashed, Michigan and New York blue cave
Welcome to a Thursday night edition of Progress Report.
The sun has not been visible in the sky over Manhattan since Saturday, an absence that created a frozen grey across New York that matches the mood in the city and, I’m willing to bet, wherever you are right now. Grim, I know, but the fact that it’s brutally cold in the dead of February actually qualifies as good news these days.
At the risk of overwhelming you with positivity, here’s bit of more good news: The fired HHS worker who featured as the lede of our Monday newsletter got their job back yesterday. Normally, the rehiring of somebody who lost their job due to a clerical error wouldn’t qualify as a news story, much less a triumph, but amid indiscriminate firings and wanton cruelty, it’s not insignificant.
Unfortunately, thousands upon thousands of additional federal workers have lost their jobs over the past few days, including upwards of 7,000 with the IRS today alone. With less than two months until tax day, the timing couldn’t have been more convenient.
Oh, and Donald Trump plans to fire the United States Postal Service’s independent board of governors and place it under the purview of the Department of Commerce, which could plunge mail delivery into sheer chaos. This comes right as the USPS enters arbitration with the 200,000-member of the city letter carriers union.
I can tell you from spending a lot of time reporting on it last year that people love the USPS and their letter carriers, and if he messes with that, it’ll go down as one of the least popular of a long list of unpopular decisions made early in Trump’s second presidency. His approval rating is starting to steadily decline, and as I’ve emphasized, the impacts of all these firings and funding cuts are beginning to be felt.
As we’ll see tonight, what we really need is a Democraric Party willing to aggressively push back not only against Trump, but bad faith business interests as well.
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Trump’s America: Raccoons may soon have more legal rights and protections than trans people in the state of Kansas.
The Republican legislative supermajority voted on Tuesday to override Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of a ban gender-affirming care for minors, succeeding after several years of thwarted attempts to punish vulnerable young people.
A day earlier, a House subcommittee held a hearing on a bill that would permit the ownership of pet raccoons. Obtaining a raccoon license would require adherence to a number of health and safety guidelines, including annual check-ups for the animal, as well as vaccinations. There are currently 20 states that allow people to keep raccoons as pets.
While seemingly very distinct bills, the two are linked by the fact that the raccoon licensing bill was introduced by far-right Rep. Joe Seiwert, who has repeatedly sponsored anti-trans bills in the state House over the past few years. Seiwert is most infamous for promulgating a specious claim that teachers were keeping litter boxes in their classrooms for students who identified as furries.
Medicaid: As Republicans in DC take aim at the nation’s largest health insurance provider, seeking up to $1 trillion in cuts in order to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, state lawmakers continue to fight over their contributions to the system and just who deserves access.
In Idaho, there are two active bills this session that would ultimately lead to the dismantling of the Medicaid expansion implemented via ballot initiative in 2018. One of the proposals would simply rescind the expansion, which covers 90,000 Idahoans, while the other would predicate its ongoing existence on an almost impossible set of conditions.
Idahoans approved the expansion by 60% of the vote back in 2018 and continue to support the program, even if they largely identify as Republicans. At a hearing in Boise last week, there were more than 300 residents who signed up to speak against the prospective repeal and just 17 people who offered arguments backing its rescission.
In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp reiterated his insistence on maintaining the work requirements that have made the state’s Medicaid expansion almost entirely inaccessible and useless (and thus a model for the national program).
Seeing an opportunity to not be completely useless, a bipartisan group of lawmakers is now trying to convince Kemp to at least open the program to the full-time caregivers of elderly adults, who can’t reach the work requirement and are often stuck without financial cover or health insurance.
Kemp said earlier this year that he’d seek to open the program to the parents or guardians of kids six and under. Slowly opening the program based on arbitrary age lines: that’s leadership!
Michigan: Lawmakers from both parties and legislative chambers worked late into the night to forge a compromise on how many workers to screw out of paid sick leave, proving that the spirit of bipartisanship is alive and well.
The lawmakers were racing to preempt a state Supreme Court order that was set to go into effect at midnight and would have increased the tipped minimum wage and required employers to provide paid sick leave. It’s a pretty unique situation, with a long and convoluted history, so if you’re curious about how they got to this point, check out my story from last month.
What’s important to know is that the legislature spent the past few weeks trying to figure out just how much it should undermine the court’s decision. On Wednesday, they came to an agreement on the wage issue, agreeing to a bill that preserved the tipped minimum wage while setting the full minimum wage to $15 starting in 2027.
The leaders of both parties then turned their attention to forging a deal on cutting down the sick time mandate.
Whereas the court decreed that very small businesses would have to allow employees to accrue up to 40 hours of paid sick leave and 32 hours of unpaid leave, the compromise excised that latter requirement. On the bright side, employers with more than ten workers still need to provide up to 72 paid hours off, which blows the House GOP’s original proposal of limiting it to businesses with 50 workers out of the water.
More troubling, however, is that the bill also pushes back the implementation of all paid leave requirements until October 1st, forcing a million workers to work through illness for the next seven months. The bill also strips away workers’ right to privately sue over wage theft, instead forcing them to stay within the state’s arduous DOL process.
This fight has gone on for seven years and it’s not quite done yet, either. One Fair Wage, the primary group that has advocated for phasing out the tipped minimum wage, has promised to start a ballot initiative campaign that restore that provision of the Michigan Supreme Court’s order from this past summer.
Voting Rights and Ballot Initiatives: Democracy may be endangered at the federal level, but it’s… well, democracy isn’t exactly thriving in many GOP-controlled states, either. Here’s a quick look at what’s happening:
South Dakota: Legislators have voted to put two amendments that would severely limit the chances of passing future constitutional amendments on the ballot in 2026. One would require a minimum number of petition signatures from all 35 districts in the enormous and almost entirely rural state; the other would raise the threshold to pass an amendment to 60% of the vote. The amendments already have activists in the state all riled up and ready to organize to defeat them.
Maine: Voters will decide in November whether they should be required to show ID at the polls. A conservative group co-chaired by a right-wing fundraiser named Alex Titcomb collected nearly 180,000 signed petitions to get the initiative on the ballot.
Arizona: State Sen. Mark Finchem, an original MAGA head, is backing an “election security” bill that mostly seems like an opportunity for him and some friends to get rich off of taxpayers.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced on Wednesday that the Federal Highway Administration is revoking federal approval for congestion pricing in New York City, escalating tension between the White House and the nation’s largest city.
The program, which went into effect on Jan. 5th, charges most drivers $9 to enter Manhattan beneath 60th Street during daytime hours. The proceeds go toward the MTA for long-awaited repairs to the city’s public transportation system. Trump took aim at congestion pricing during his campaign last year, siding with Republicans and some outer-borough and downstate residents who opposed the program.
“CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED,” Trump posted on his backwater social media site, Truth Social. “LONG LIVE THE KING!”
New York Gov. Hochul, who publicly wavered and paused the program before rushing to have it re-approved by the Biden administration following the November election, struck a more certain tone in her response.
“We are a nation of laws, not ruled by a king,” Hochul said in a written statement. “We’ll see you in court.”
By the time Hochul’s office sent out the statement, the MTA, which runs the city’s public transportation network, had already filed a lawsuit against the administration. The governor later held a press conference in which she insisted that “the cameras are staying on,” further defying an administration that she had previously sought to placate.
Side note: Hochul has plenty of reasons to boldly push back against the FHA’s rescission, some of which have nothing to do with public transportation or the state budget. At the top of the pile is the fiasco surrounding disgraced Mayor Eric Adams, who Hochul has decided not to remove from office but instead subject to a byzantine process designed to waste time and please nobody, which is exactly how Hochul approached congestion pricing last summer.
With likely primary challenges from various constituencies on tap, Hochul would much rather be seen as standing up to Donald Trump than forced to answer questions about Adams, who now serves at the president’s pleasure.
The MTA’s challenge makes two lawsuits filed against the Trump administration by a city-linked entity this week alone, following NYC’s decision to pursue the $80 million in FEMA funding rescinded by the White House.
Constitutional experts have suggested that the president does not have the legal right to revoke the approval granted by the Biden administration, but Trump hasn’t shown much deference to the constitution, evidenced by declaring himself THE KING.
Beyond obnoxious rhetoric (which the New York Times called, in something approaching self-parody, “a fondness for regal themes”), the White House has more formally sought to assert Trump’s unquestioned authority with a new executive order that declares his total control of independent government agencies.
Unlike every previous president, who did not interfere with Congress’s power of the purse, Trump has leverage over states like New York in that he’s willing to illegally withhold funding if they do not comply with his orders. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act will deliver just over $2 billion per year to the MTA over the next five years, though New York pays more in taxes to the federal government than it receives in funding.
As I suggested on Tuesday, just how long blue states are willing to pay to be bullied and allow its residents to be jerked around will likely become a more open question as this administration continues its destruction.
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Jordan, Thank you for your continued great work and I hope your health is ok.
I have a question: in your opinion what can Ken Martin do to let people know that the Democrats are still interested in Democracy?
Thank you for the reporting.