Schumer: Trump Plan to Slash Anti-Terror Funds N.Y.C. Relies On ‘Makes Absolutely No Sense’
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Also in our State and Local Memorial Day Weekend Digest: Near fisticuffs for lawmakers at the Texas State Capitol; Virginia may expand its DNA crime database; and Phoenix fixes its unenforceable lobbying rules.
LAW ENFORCEMENT | U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that the Trump administration’s budget proposal to slash funding for the Urban Area Security Initiative by 25 percent “makes absolutely no sense.” The Senate’s top Democrat, who represents New York, said that his constituents “understand the need to remain vigilant when it comes to terror because our home has been a primary of terrorists target in the past. UASI is the lifeblood of New York’s anti-terror programs and the cornerstone of effective preparedness and prevention against terror threats.” [New York Daily News]
The Virginia Crime Commission is studying the possibility of expanding the commonwealth’s DNA database. Including more people convicted of misdemeanors would lead to more solved crimes, supporters say, but the database’s potential expansion worries privacy advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union. While legislation that would have mandated the study failed to pass the Virginia General Assembly, the commission’s executive committee is pressing forward on its own. [Richmond Times Dispatch]
STATE LEGISLATURES | Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said that he will soon make a decision to call state legislators back to the State Capitol for a special session after lawmakers failed to pass measures on property tax reform and transgender bathroom access during the regular session, which ended on Monday. Tensions have been running high in the Texas legislature. Monday featured a “near fistfight” among members of the House. One Democratic member said he overheard a Republican member, Rep. Matt Rinaldi, threaten to put a bullet in the head of Democratic Rep. Poncho Nevarez as protesters in the gallery supporting sanctuary cities disrupted proceedings. Rinaldi said that he had called federal immigration authorities to detain the undocumented immigrants at the protest. Rinaldi said in a statement that Nevarez “threatened” his life. [The Texas Tribune; Austin American Statesman; @MattRinaldiTX]
ENVIRONMENT | Scott Pruitt, the former Oklahoma attorney general now serving as President Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency administrator was back in the Sooner State on Friday to assure residents in Osage County, located near Tulsa, that the agency would find a solution to the ongoing contamination of Bird Creek near the environmentally sensitive Tallgrass Prairie Preserve. The contamination was first reported last August and tests have shown it’s saltwater coming from underground, but the exact source hasn’t been pinpointed. “This is just leadership,” Pruitt said. “It’s our agency doing what it’s supposed to do, coming in, finding out what the source of the problem is, getting it corrected.” [The Tulsa World]
CITY HALLS | The Phoenix City Council voted unanimously last week to amend and strengthen the city’s lobbying regulations which had been found to be mostly unenforceable thanks to vague wording in the rules, which had been on the books for two decades. The approved revisions, which will go through a final vote this week, now makes noncompliance by lobbyists unlawful. [The Arizona Republic]
A San Antonio city councilman passed out on a bench outside city hall and was discovered by a security guard early Friday morning after having drinks at a downtown bar. Councilman Alan Warrick suggested that “dirty tricks” might be at play but the owner of the bar said that Warrick appeared drunk. “We offered him a ride home at the end of the night and an Uber.” [San Antonio Express News]
EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT | In McKenzie County, North Dakota, in the heart of the state’s Bakken oil boom, local drilling operations are better prepared to deal with emergencies and reduce risk than they were a few years ago, according to Karolin Jappe, the county’s emergency manager. "Today I think there's a lot more experienced people than there were three years ago, by far." When she first started her job, four of the five drilling companies didn’t have emergency plans. [Forum News Service]
VOTER REGISTRATION | Here’s an eye-popping stat about the state of Florida: According to a nonpartisan group working to improve the accuracy of state voter rolls, 1 in 4 Floridians who are eligible to vote are not registered. According to data from the Electronic Registration Information Center, that’s nearly 5 million Floridians. The group found nearly 1 million problematic registrations, too, mainly from change of names or deaths. [Times / Herald Tallahassee Bureau]
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