Dems highlight state and local leaders amid looming policy battles

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Amid the hoopla and speeches this week in Chicago, Democrats looked ahead to several looming policy battles at the state level, and highlighted the governors and mayors they hope will make a difference.

About 30 of the featured speakers at the Democratic National Convention were state or local elected officials, compared to about a dozen at the Republican National Convention. 

Infrastructure, abortion, book bans and guns were some of the issues Democratic leaders covered. Their remarks came ahead of a November election with abortion rights on the ballot in up to 10 states and as money flows from the $1.8 billion 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law to build roads, rails and parks in every state.

And while state and local leaders spent a lot of time highlighting the future they envision should Presidential nominee Kamala Harris win in November, they also focused on the importance of winning down-ballot, including to help protect what they saw as President Joe Biden’s legacy.

Governors Highlight Infrastructure Investments

Multiple governors spent time discussing investment in infrastructure, something that Biden helped get over the line in 2021 after years of failed attempts by his predecessor. States and localities have since been receiving grant funding from that law.

And infrastructure was a key topic of discussion on stage in Chicago, especially in the wake of several high-profile disasters.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore spoke about the March collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and noted the long road ahead to rebuild it has received strong support from the federal government. But he also said that Harris told him they would have support “every step of the way,” and that Democratic leaders deserve credit for defying the odds.

“While many said it could take 11 months to reopen the Port of Baltimore, we got it done in 11 weeks,” Moore said.

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. Austin Davis recalled the collapse of a portion of Interstate 95 in northeastern Philadelphia, and how state and local leaders got traffic back flowing again in the area after just 12 days. Investing in infrastructure and rebuilding roads and bridges is part of a broader investment in the future, Davis said, and in children.

“Investing in them means investing in our infrastructure,” he said. “It means replacing millions of lead pipes. It means providing clean air, clean water, safe roads and bridges, not just for us but for generations to come.”

More broadly, leaders said federal investment in microchips, climate change mitigation and other areas has helped kick-start local economies. Mesa, Arizona, Mayor John Giles, a Republican who endorsed Harris at the Chicago convention, said his city is “on the move” thanks to the Biden administration.

“I’m going to ribbon cuttings every single week,” for new businesses, Giles said on stage.

At last month’s Republican National Convention, some speakers drew a contrast between Biden’s and Trump’s responses to key infrastructure disasters.

East Palestine, Ohio, Mayor Trent Conaway recalled on the convention’s third day the February 2023 derailment of a Norfolk Southern train carrying toxic chemicals that forced thousands of local residents to evacuate.

Conaway said that incident brought a “clear contrast between leadership and incompetence,” and that while the local and state-level response was fast, the federal government provided only “meetings and press events.” “They talked and talked but delivered little help,” Conaway continued.

By contrast, Conaway said Trump visited, asked how he could help, and provided fresh pallets of drinking water. As for Biden, “we needed so much, and he delivered so little,” Conaway said.

Abortion, Book Bans and Other Issues

Democrats on stage also highlighted other issues they think can win votes for them in November and have an impact down-ballot: abortion and book bans in Republican-led states.

This week, Montana became the eighth state to vote by ballot measure on whether the right to abortion should be enshrined in the state constitution, while the Arkansas Supreme Court denied a bid to get a similar measure on the ballot there. 

Speaking after Hadley Duvall, a Kentucky resident who was repeatedly raped by her stepfather over the course of several years and impregnated at age 12, Gov. Andy Beshear assailed 21 states for having “extreme bans on abortion” that would have forced Duvall to carry to term if she had not miscarried.

“That fails any test of humanity, any test of basic human decency, any test of whether you have any underlying empathy,” Beshear said. He noted that he won his gubernatorial election in 2023 after they “put abortion on the ballot” as a major campaign issue, and it could happen again this year across the country.

Several leaders used their time on stage to speak against Republican-controlled states that have made it easier to remove books from public schools and libraries if deemed inappropriate for children. 

“It’s not freedom to tell our children what books they’re allowed to read," said Shapiro. 

In another area of contrast, Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson, a former Democrat, spoke on the second day of the RNC about dealing with activists wishing to “defund the police,” and how they threatened his family’s safety.

“On matters of public safety, the Democrats were actually never there for me, for Dallas families, or the American people,” Johnson said. Republicans also repeatedly highlighted what they see is Democrats’ weakness on immigration, with continued warnings of an “invasion” on the southern border.

Local and state officials also played key roles in the Democratic party’s appeal to women voters. The Democratic Governors Association hosted a panel discussion moderated by actor Julia Louis-Dreyfus with the nation’s eight female Democratic governors.

And Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass used her time on stage to recall when she was Speaker of the California Assembly and worked with Harris when she was San Francisco District Attorney to address youth homelessness and reform the child welfare system. 

Bass noted that Harris created the California Bureau of Children’s Justice as the state’s attorney general, and when she swore her in as the first female mayor of Los Angeles, they were “sending a message to young girls everywhere that they too can lead,” Bass said.

News to Use
Trends, Common Challenges, Cool Ideas, FYIs and Notable Events

Local News
California, Google agree to fund local journalism. Lawmakers in California agreed to spend $250 million over five years in partnership with Google to fund local newsrooms in a deal to end a bill that would have forced tech companies to pay for the right to distribute news. That now-abandoned bill, known as the California Journalism Preservation Act, was modeled after similar efforts in Australia and Canada. The cash from the state and Google will also go towards financing an artificial intelligence “accelerator,” which prompted criticism from some unions who say the technology poses a threat to jobs in the industry. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, who led the initial legislation, said the deal with Google “represents a cross-sector commitment to supporting a free and vibrant press, empowering local news outlets up and down the state to continue in their essential work.”

Cybersecurity
Columbus ransomware fallout continues. Mayor Andrew J. Ginther said last Saturday during a media briefing that people should expect more bad news about the ransomware attack resulting in reams of data and personal information about city employees and private citizens leaked onto the dark web. The press conference marked the first time the mayor publicly acknowledged that private citizens' data was included in the massive data breach that likely compromised a half-million Columbus residents. The breach has already resulted in lawsuits, and on Friday, the city announced Gov. Mike DeWine deployed the Ohio National Guard to help Columbus in getting a handle on the sprawling issue. 

Public Safety
California adopts new retail theft laws as voters weigh even tougher penalties. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a package of bills late last week that he and lawmakers pledged will combat rising retail theft. The 10 bills are intended to make it easier to prosecute people suspected of retail and vehicle theft without undoing changes voters approved a decade ago that reduced prison sentences for nonviolent crimes. The bills would make repeated theft convictions a felony, collect crimes across multiple counties into one court so they can be charged as a felony and allow police to arrest someone on suspicion of retail theft even if the officer does not witness the crime. Voters in November will vote on a ballot measure that would go further by increasing sentences for property crimes and offenses related to fentanyl. Newsom and other Democrats oppose the ballot measure, which they say would restore policies that failed to improve public safety and packed prisons.

Gun Violence
Final report on Maine shootings criticizes local law enforcement, Army Reserve. The commission charged with investigating the mass shooting that took place in October in Lewiston, Maine, released its final report on Tuesday, laying out in detail how local law enforcement and Army Reserve leaders repeatedly failed to take steps to prevent the worst mass shooting in Maine’s history. The seven-member independent commission, appointed by Gov. Janet Mills, had previously found fault with local sheriff’s officers who allowed the gunman, a 40-year-old Army Reserve grenade instructor, to keep his firearms despite evidence that he was dangerous. In the new report, the group emphasized the failings of Card’s Army Reserve commanders, finding that they ignored mental health clinicians who urged them to closely monitor whether he was continuing treatment and to ensure that his weapons were taken away after a brief hospitalization last summer.

Elections
Georgia election board approves a new rule that some fear could delay certification. The Republican-controlled state election board approved a new rule on Monday that voting rights advocates say could permit local election officials to delay certification of November's presidential election results, potentially throwing the outcome of the battleground state's vote into uncertainty. The five-member board, which includes three conservative members championed by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, voted 3-2 to empower county election board members to investigate any discrepancies, even minor ones, between the number of cast ballots and the number of voters in each precinct before certification. Such mismatches are not uncommon and are not typically evidence of fraud, according to voting rights advocates.

Schools
Illinois bans corporal punishment in all schools. This school year, Illinois will become just the fifth state in the nation to prohibit corporal punishment in all schools. Legislation that Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law this month bans physical punishment in private schools while reiterating a prohibition on the practice in public schools implemented 30 years ago. When the ban takes effect in January, Illinois will join Iowa, Maryland, New Jersey and New York in prohibiting paddling, spanking or hitting in every school. State Rep. Margaret Croke was inspired to take up the issue after an updated call by the American Association of Pediatrics to end the practice, which it says can increase behavioral or mental health problems and impair cognitive development. The association found that it’s disproportionately administered to Black boys and students with disabilities.

Health Care
‘Wide-sweeping’ Idaho law gives parents rights to access therapy notes, withhold care. A new law in the state, which took effect in July, says doctors can’t administer most services to people under 18 without prior consent from their guardians. It also requires that any health data about a child be available to their parent in almost all cases, which would include doctors’ or therapists’ notes. Previously, state law generally required consent from children over 14 to release the details of their mental health treatment to their parents. The law contains exceptions for when death is “imminent,” or when the doctor cannot locate the teen’s parents and believes their “life or health would be seriously endangered by further delay.” State legislators said the change bolsters parental rights. But legal and policy experts told the Idaho Statesman the change adds another stressor for LGBTQ+ youth and has broad implications for vulnerable teens.

Ballot Initiatives
Record number of open primary initiatives on the ballot. Voters in as many as half a dozen states will cast ballots this year on proposals to open partisan primaries to all, the broadest move to allow independent and crossover votes in a single year. Initiatives have already qualified in Arizona, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Nevada and South Dakota, and final signature-verification is ongoing in Colorado and Montana. The measures would allow anyone to vote for any candidate in a primary election. Details differ by state, but the top finishers would advance to a November showdown, regardless of their party affiliation.

Artificial Intelligence
Wyoming mayoral candidate concedes after vowing to let AI bot run city. Cheyenne mayoral candidate Victor Miller conceded his primary race this week, having pledged to let an artificial intelligence bot he called “VIC” for “Virtual Integrated Citizen” run the city. Miller had promised to serve only as a “humble meat avatar” of the state’s capital city, while VIC would make governing decisions. Miller had argued that AI would be objective, wouldn’t make mistakes and would read hundreds of pages of municipal minutiae quickly and understand them. But Miller could not shake incumbent Mayor Patrick Collins, and received only 3% of the vote in the primary.

 Photo of the Week

A boy on a bicycle stops to look at the window of Kroger's grocery store which advertises a back to school sale, College Hill, Ohio, 1928. Felix Koch/Cincinnati Museum Center via Getty Images

Supermarket chain Kroger is suing a federal agency in a daring move that aims to weaken how Washington fights mergers that threaten to jack up prices on consumers. The lawsuit alleges the Federal Trade Commission is violating the US Constitution by using an in-house tribunal to challenge Kroger’s $25 billion mega-merger with Albertsons — the biggest proposed supermarket deal in American history. The Kroger lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Cincinnati, relies in part on a landmark Supreme Court ruling in June that further curbed the power of regulatory agencies. The new lawsuit represents a key test case and the latest effort to reshape the administrative state in America. (CNN)

 Government in Numbers

$28 billion

The amount in revenue lost in hydropower generation due to persistent drought in Oregon, Washington and California.

The sector lost about 300 million megawatt hours of power generation between 2003 and 2020 due to drought and low water compared with the long-term average, researchers from the University of Alabama found. Half of the drop in power generation was due to drought in Oregon, Washington and California, which produce half the hydropower generated in the U.S. When there isn’t enough hydropower available, utilities are forced to purchase energy from fossil fuel producers, mostly from natural gas companies, that drive up emissions.