Government Executive - Authors - Sophie Quinton

COVID Hits Wildfire Fighters Even Harder Than Last Year

Sophie Quinton, Stateline — Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:00:00 -0400

This story was originally posted by Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

As wildfires rage across Western states, flattening rural towns and forcing thousands of people to evacuate, coronavirus cases and pandemic-related supply chain problems have made it harder to deploy firefighting resources to where they’re needed, fire officials say.

More firefighters appear to be falling ill with COVID-19 and quarantining this year than last year, the officials say, because of the highly contagious delta variant and mixed adherence to COVID-19 safety measures such as masking, vaccinations and social distancing.

“Last year, I actually was incredibly, pleasantly surprised by how little COVID it seemed like we had,” said Melissa Baumann, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees’ Forest Service Council. Her union represents U.S. Forest Service employees, including wildland firefighters who work for the agency.

“I did not hear of whole [fire] crews going down, right and left,” she said. “I’m hearing that this year.”

In addition to the extra stress it puts on fire crews, the uptick in cases has alarmed some officials in Western states, who say fire-prone communities need all the help they can get to fend off dangerous blazes.

“On the fire line and in camps, COVID-19 not only threatens the health of firefighters but our ability to deploy critical firefighting resources to the fire lines,” wrote Washington state’s commissioner of public lands, Hilary Franz, to the U.S. secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior last month. “At a time when we need them the most, we cannot afford to have any get sick.”

Four or five wildland firefighters have died from complications of the virus this year, said Burk Minor, executive director of the Wildland Firefighter Foundation, a Boise, Idaho-based group that supports families of such firefighters killed in the line of duty. “I don’t recall any fatalities from COVID last year,” he said.

National fire leaders are collecting data on COVID-19 activity associated with large fires, and some government agencies are tracking when their employees get sick. But there’s no publicly available data on the total number of wildland firefighters nationwide who have fallen ill with COVID-19 or had to quarantine after exposure.

Deploying enough firefighters, support staff and equipment to protect communities was always going to be tough this year, even without the delta surge. Fire risk has been high and many federal firefighting crews are understaffed, particularly in California.

More than 5.5 million acres have burned nationwide so far in 2021, slightly below the nearly 6.1 million acres that had burned by this time last year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, which coordinates nationwide firefighting efforts.

As fall approaches, blazes aren’t letting up. “It looks much like it would in August, in the worst years,” said Jim Karels, fire director with the National Association of State Foresters.

Fires have been so unrelenting that this year the United States could spend a record number of days under the national center’s two highest wildfire mobilization levels, Karels said, meaning most of the nation’s wildland firefighters, engines and other pieces of equipment are deployed.

COVID-19 has added to the pressure. There have been several recent instances in Washington state where positive cases affected firefighting efforts, said Sarah Ford, communications director for Franz’s agency, in an email to Stateline.

A federal crew headed to the Muckamuck fire recently had to turn back after crew members fell ill with the virus, Ford said. An air tanker at the Air Force base at Moses Lake had to be temporarily grounded after its crew tested positive, she said. And an entire leadership team battling the Walker Creek fire had to be replaced because of members testing positive.

In her letter, Franz asked the two cabinet secretaries to require their firefighters to be vaccinated and make COVID-19 vaccinations available at fire camps they manage.

Supply chain disruptions also have affected firefighting, Karels said. “It really started out with the impacts of logistics, of not enough truckers, of not enough people able to hire catering, supplies and fuel,” he said. Those problems have eased up somewhat as the year has gone on, he added.

Spokespeople for federal firefighting agencies say employee safety is a top priority. They say agencies are requiring social distancing, masking, hand-washing and other safety measures at work.

“We learned many lessons from the 2020 Fire Year about how to respond most effectively given the challenges brought on by the pandemic,” U.S. Forest Service spokesperson Babete Anderson wrote in an email to Stateline. “We have continued to employ those successful practices in our firefighting plans in 2021.”

The Democratic governors of Oregon and Washington have moved to require state employees, including firefighters, to be vaccinated for COVID-19. Other Democratic Western governors, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, require state employees to be vaccinated or regularly tested for infection.

Karels said firefighters may be falling ill after being exposed to COVID-19 elsewhere. “It’s been a tough summer when it comes to the delta variant and COVID across the country,” he said.

The pandemic ultimately hasn’t prevented fire crews from getting the job done, he noted. “We haven’t had an event where, because of COVID, we haven’t been able to fight a fire.”

More Cases, Less Masking

Numbers detailing how many firefighters are ill or quarantined are hard to find.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group, which sets national wildfire operations standards, says on its website and in memos that managers of large wildfire incidents must report COVID-19 activity to a tracking system.

Stanton Florea, a spokesperson for the National Interagency Fire Center, which fields questions about the coordinating group, said he wasn’t aware of any such tracking system. He referred Stateline to the Agriculture Department, which oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and to the Interior Department.

A small fraction of Forest Service fire personnel have contracted the virus, spokesperson Anderson said. As of Sept. 4, the latest data available, 421 had tested positive in 2021, and 497 tested positive last year, she said. The agency typically employs 14,500 firefighters.

The Interior Department, which usually has a staff of about 5,000 firefighters each year, declined to provide data on COVID-19 cases.

Regional fire officials and front-line firefighters told Stateline that they’re hearing more about COVID-19 cases this year than last. At least a dozen fire crews—or members of crews—in California have had to quarantine this year, said a California-based U.S. Forest Service fire and aviation leader who spoke to Stateline anonymously for fear of reprisal from their employer.

“I’ve heard of crews being stood down for upwards of two weeks at a time, and I’ve heard of crew members staying behind because they tested positive,” the official said. “It’s really all across the board.”

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group’s health committee issued recommendations last year for reducing the spread of COVID-19 among fire personnel. The recommendations included everything from preventing crews from commingling to conducting briefings remotely and distributing boxed meals at fire camps to promote social distancing.

Although those recommendations remain in place, as of this summer adherence has declined, according to a mid-July memo from the committee’s leader.

“Currently, reports from the field indicate very limited application of … infection control measures (e.g. mask wearing, hand hygiene, physical distancing … ) taking place on incidents among any personnel,” wrote L. Kaili McCray, chair of the medical and public health advisory team.

Both vaccinated and unvaccinated people should wear masks and keep their distance from one another, unless they’re actively engaged in fighting a fire, McCray advised. He declined to answer questions, referring Stateline to the National Interagency Fire Center’s communications team.

Firefighters, like everyone else, were ready for life to return to normal in the spring and early summer, when COVID-19 cases were dropping and vaccination rates were rising, the California-based Forest Service official said. “In general, we’ve dropped our guard a bit.”

The threat posed by the virus isn’t top of mind for most firefighters, the official said, because crews also face threats such as falling trees and extreme fire behavior on the job. “I would also say, as firefighters, and as managers of risk, on a day-to-day basis we have a higher tolerance for risk.”

Vaccine Mandates Vary

Firefighters are subject to different COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements depending on their employer.

U.S. Forest Service employees, for instance, must submit a form declaring their vaccination status and wear a mask on the job if they’re unvaccinated. Although unvaccinated federal employees are supposed to be tested regularly, the Agriculture Department doesn’t yet run a surveillance testing program.

Those requirements will change. A federal task force is now hashing out the details of Biden’s new vaccine mandate for federal agency employees and contractors.

Washington state, meanwhile, requires all state employees to get vaccinated by mid-October and to quarantine for 14 days after exposure to the virus. That’s a higher standard than the latest federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, which says local public health officials can allow exposed people who test negative for the virus to end their quarantines after seven days, and says that fully vaccinated people should get tested, but do not need to quarantine unless they have symptoms.

There may still be a gap between official policies and what’s happening on the ground. Ben Elkind, a Forest Service smokejumper and a member of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, an organization that advocates for federal wildland firefighters, said he hasn’t yet had time to fill out the vaccine attestation form. “Nobody’s talked to me about it at all, because I’ve been busy on fires,” he said.

“I haven’t even seen a computer for a month,” he added in a later conversation.

Recently assigned to the Bull Complex fire in Oregon, Elkind said he worked with people who’d been exposed to COVID-19, yet he couldn’t find an easy way to get tested on-site before heading home to his wife and two young kids. “I asked about testing, and there really wasn’t any way for me to get that done,” he said.

A public information officer for the Bull Complex fire said in an email to Stateline that there have been only three confirmed cases of COVID-19 among fire personnel assigned to that fire so far (there are currently 594 people working on the fire, according to incident information posted online).

Emergency test kits are available to firefighters, the officer said, though health facilities elsewhere offer the most accurate testing.

It’s not clear whether the latest state and federal vaccine mandates will go into effect early enough to reduce the spread of COVID-19 among firefighters this fire season.

Washington state’s October vaccination deadline, for instance, comes after the wildfire season typically ends there. Federal agencies should make sure their employees are fully vaccinated by Nov. 22, according to the latest guidance from the Biden administration’s COVID-19 safety task force.

Unions that represent wildland firefighters also want to be able to negotiate the details of the new policies.

CAL FIRE Local 2881, the union that represents employees of California’s state firefighting agency, has filed a complaint over Newsom’s July announcement that state workers be vaccinated or tested weekly for COVID-19.

“We are not pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine. We believe that that’s an individual choice, and as a union, we shouldn’t be involved in a personal decision,” said CalFire Local 2881 President Tim Edwards. He said the union filed the complaint because it wants to be able to negotiate changes to working conditions.

“We felt they did something without negotiating,” he said, “or even talking to the bargaining units or the unions.”

And some firefighters may refuse vaccines, although it’s hard to say how many.

Baumann said that internal surveys suggest that 70% of unionized Forest Service employees have been vaccinated. Although her unvaccinated members have been angry and vocal about having to follow additional safety protocols, she said, it’s important to remember that they’re in the minority.

“It appears that those who are anti-vaccination, and anti-testing, are very loud,” she said. “So we have to make sure we listen to those voices that aren’t being so loud.”

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Senate-Approved Infrastructure Bill Would Raise Wildland Firefighter Pay

Sophie Quinton, Stateline — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 11:00:00 -0400

This story was originally posted by Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

The sweeping infrastructure bill that the U.S. Senate passed on Tuesday would lay the groundwork for raising federal wildland firefighter pay.

The bill would order the U.S. Agriculture and Interior departments—which together employ some 15,000 wildland firefighters—to start working with the Office of Personnel Management, the federal government’s human resources agency, on a new set of job classifications for firefighters.

Lawmakers and advocates for federal firefighters say changing job classifications is the first step toward raising pay for all firefighters.

The Senate bill also would have the Agriculture and Interior Departments turn at least 1,000 seasonal firefighting jobs into full-time positions. And it would allow agencies to raise pay by $20,000 per year, or 50% of a job’s base salary, for positions that are particularly hard to fill in a certain area.

The legislation now must pass the U.S. House before it can head to President Joe Biden’s desk.

Biden last month announced one-time raises and bonuses for federal wildland firefighters to ensure they earn at least $15 an hour.

Federal wildland firefighters say low pay, long deployments and hazardous conditions are making it hard to fill jobs, even as increasingly large and dangerous wildfires make the wildland firefighter workforce more important than ever.

Staffing problems are particularly acute in California, where this spring the U.S. Forest Service sought to fill 781 vacant permanent positions but ended up with 725 vacancies. As of July, only half of fire engines in the California region were fully staffed and able to operate five days a week.

Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, an advocacy group that’s been lobbying Congress to improve firefighter pay and working conditions, applauded the Senate bill.

“Grassroots Wildland Firefighters are elated with the Senate passage of HR 3684 and the public acknowledgement that our federal wildland firefighter workforce, in desperate need of modern reform, is beginning its first steps to much needed improvements,” said the group’s president, Kelly Martin, in a news release.

Over 3.8 million acres have burned in the United States so far this year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, which coordinates the national response to wildfires. Almost 26,000 firefighters and support personnel are currently assigned to large fires, according to the center.

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Federal Wildland Firefighters Will Get Pay Raises

Sophie Quinton, Stateline — Fri, 02 Jul 2021 07:00:00 -0400

This story was originally posted by Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced one-time pay raises for some federal wildland firefighters to ensure they earn at least $15 per hour this year. Permanent firefighters working on the frontlines will get an up to 10% retention bonus. Temporary workers who commit to staying on all season will get $1,000.

“Last week I learned that some of our federal firefighters are being paid less than $13 an hour,” Biden said, talking to reporters during a wildfire meeting with Western governors. “Come on, man. This is—that’s unacceptable to me.”

Biden said he doesn’t think the incentives go far enough. “We’re going to work with Congress … to permanently get federal firefighters a better deal, including improvements in their compensation, their benefits and their work-life balance,” he said.

Federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service are struggling to recruit and retain firefighters in part because of low pay and long hours. The situation is particularly challenging in California, where federal firefighters are leaving for better-paying firefighting jobs with the state, local fire departments and utility companies such as PG&E.

Short-staffing could make it harder to suppress fires, particularly in the West, where fire seasons are getting longer and blazes are growing more dangerous because of climate change and overgrown forests. Heat waves and drought have heightened wildfire risk in the region this year.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said during Wednesday’s meeting that policymakers need to change how they manage forests and fight fires, including by investing in firefighters. “We’ve got to pay our firefighters federally more, because we don’t have enough firefighters, period, full-stop,” he said.

The Biden administration also has given federal agencies permission to employ seasonal firefighters for more hours this year. Biden said he wants to make some seasonal jobs permanent.

Advocates for wildland firefighters praised the move to raise pay. “The President’s acknowledgement of the problem and short-term improvements is the first step, and we are encouraged that the administration knows this is only a start," said Riva Duncan, executive secretary of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, in a written statement. The group advocates for federal wildland firefighters.

"Long-term solutions, anchored by congressional action, is what we need.”

So far this year, 47 wildfires have burned 667,566 acres in 12 states, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, which oversees federal fire management programs.

The agency last week moved the national preparedness level— which assesses, from a minimum of 1 to a maximum of 5, the severity of fires and strain on firefighting resources—to level 4. It’s the fourth time in the past 20 years that the United States has reached level 4 this early in the summer.

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California Lacks Federal Firefighters as Dangerous Season Looms

Sophie Quinton, Stateline — Fri, 21 May 2021 14:00:00 -0400

This story was originally posted by Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Federal wildland firefighter jobs in California are sitting open even as the West heads into what’s likely to be a brutal fire season.

That’s not just a problem for California—where wildfires have in recent years been among the largest and most dangerous in the country—but for the whole region, because federal crews travel to other states to beat back major fires.

The U.S. Forest Service’s California region is having so much trouble filling jobs that more than a third of its fire engines likely won’t be able to run seven days a week, according to an April Region 5 Forest Service document reviewed by Stateline. Sixteen of the region’s 273 engines may not be staffed at all, because of a lack of personnel or mechanical issues.

The April document compares planned to projected actual staffing for engines, other equipment and crews.

The agency projected a shortfall of 313 firefighters in Region 5 this year, at least 8% fewer firefighters than it aimed to employ. The shortfall is frustrating for many in California’s state government, which relies on the federal service to help put out wildfires, but has little control over staffing levels.

Thom Porter, the chief of California’s state fire agency, CAL FIRE, said he’s had regular conversations with California-based Forest Service officials about staffing this year. He said he’s most worried that when the agency’s teams are moved to fight fires in other states, the Forest Service won’t have enough people, or enough experienced people, to backfill those roles in California.

“If they’re unable to hire, if they’re unable to keep staff on when we’re having our most critical periods, it is a public safety risk,” Porter said of the Forest Service. “Because we so much rely on each other that—there isn’t a single agency in California that has all of the resources it needs for a major incident of any type. It’s all hands on deck.”

It’s unclear how many federal firefighting jobs are unfilled nationwide, or how the situation compares to past years. Job vacancies may change in the coming weeks.

But the stakes are high for California, where four million acres burned last year, destroying more than 10,000 structures and killing 33 people. More than 13,000 acres already have burned this spring. Drought conditions and a warmer-than-normal weather forecast could set the stage for devastating fires this summer and fall.

Some of California’s federal hotshot crews—elite teams of about 20 who travel nationwide and take on the most challenging firefighting tasks—are struggling to hire enough people.

Recent surveys informally conducted by Forest Service officials suggest that over a third of the agency’s California-based crews are so short-staffed leading up to the fire season that they’re one or two injured crew members away from being downgraded. Lower-rated teams still fight fires, but they aren’t as efficient and skilled as hotshot crews.

“We are aware of staffing and vacancy issues in our region,” said Jon Groveman, a spokesperson for the Forest Service in California, in an email. “Many of these issues are not new and crews and engines changing status based on staffing shortfalls has happened for many years. These issues revolve around compensation, remote and hard to fill duty stations and a competitive employment market.”

Groveman said federal agencies, and tribal, state and local partners are ready to respond to wildfires in California this year. “We will respond to every wildfire with the safety of the public and our firefighters as our highest priority,” he said.

Forest Service fire and aviation leaders in California are particularly worried about experienced, mid-career professionals—such as senior firefighters on engine and hotshot crews—leaving for CAL FIRE, local fire departments or utility giant Pacific Gas & Electric, all of which offer better pay and benefits than the Forest Service.

It’s “a little terrifying” to know hotshot crews are losing expertise, said one such official, who asked to remain anonymous because he feared reprisal from his employer.

“We lose the ability to be as effective in protecting the public, and our communities and our forests, and it’s really dangerous for the crew members,” the official said. “The less qualifications and less experience we have as numbers decline year after year—the higher-risk, basically, our jobs become. We can’t continue to do the same things we’ve done as safely. I think that’s what’s scariest.”

All Hands On Deck

In the United States, wildfires are fought by local fire departments, state agencies, the federal government, private contractors, prison crews and sometimes teams from countries as far away as Australia and Israel. State, local and federal crews routinely cross state lines to suppress major fires.

The system is so complex that it’s hard to get a sense of overall staffing. The Forest Service, for instance, relies not only on full-time and seasonal firefighters but also employees who have non-fire jobs within the agency, but have firefighting credentials and can to pitch in to fight fires when needed.

In response to Stateline’s request for data on firefighting positions and openings filled by the Forest Service so far this year, spokesperson Babete Anderson said in an email that she could provide only the following information: the agency employs 9,000 permanent fire employees and typically hires 6,000 seasonal employees. The agency says in budget documents that it employs 10,000 firefighters.

The U.S. Interior Department, which oversees Bureau of Land Management and other public lands, employs about 5,000 firefighters, according to the agency.

State forest and fire protection officials in Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Oregon told Stateline that they don’t know of any wildland firefighter shortages in their states.

Yet Forest Service leaders acknowledge in internal discussions that the agency has trouble recruiting and retaining firefighters. “We know it’s a real issue,” Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen said during a meeting with wildland firefighters this week.

She said the agency is exploring hiring and retention incentives, particularly in states such as California where it’s easy for firefighters to find higher-paying jobs with CAL FIRE or local fire departments.

CAL FIRE’s overall pay and benefits structure can translate into significantly higher earnings over the course of a career, according to calculations by Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, a national advocacy group for federal firefighters.

Randy Moore, the regional forester for the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest region, which manages California’s national forests, also said in a separate staff briefing that filling firefighter jobs “has been an issue.” He said the agency is looking into improving firefighter pay. “There’s a lot of congressional interest in that, there’s a lot of agency interest in that,” he said.

Members of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters recorded the briefings and posted the recordings to YouTube.

Current and former federal wildland firefighters say hiring is a chronic problem that’s getting worse.

They say key reasons include pay that hasn’t kept up with the cost of living and a relentless schedule that keeps firefighters on the job and away from their families for months at a time. Staffing shortages and the growing severity of wildfires have made it harder for firefighters to take time off and have contributed to mental health problems, they say.

From 2009 to 2019, 502 firefighters were killed while fighting wildfires, according to the U.S. Fire Administration, part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“The current federal fire workforce is woefully understaffed and overworked, and people are at their breaking point,” Riva Duncan, executive secretary of Grassroots Wildland Firefighters, told a U.S. House subcommittee last month. Duncan served as a fire staff officer for the Umpqua National Forest in Oregon before retiring last year.

Duncan fought back tears as she described hearing from colleagues suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts, and driving a firefighter friend to rehab.

She told Stateline that the federal government’s convoluted hiring process makes the recruitment process even harder. National forests start hiring in the fall for the following summer, she said; the process takes so long that some candidates give up and accept jobs elsewhere.

Retaining senior firefighters is also a problem, federal wildland firefighters say. “Right now, on my forest, we probably have five continued vacancies—I’d call it middle leadership—on some of our engine modules,” a Forest Service fire management officer based in the Southwest told Stateline. “And this is common throughout the Southwest, that’s not just here.”

The officer asked to remain anonymous, saying he feared reprisal from his employer. He said he leads a team of 40 firefighters, made up of both seasonal and full-time employees.

When crews have mid-level vacancies, he said, they lack the expertise needed to perform difficult tasks. The shortages also put stress on team leaders, who have fewer colleagues who can help make decisions or train rookies. “It affects the whole functioning of the unit,” he said.

California In Crisis

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, used his emergency powers this spring to add almost 1,400 new CAL FIRE seasonal firefighter positions, on top of the agency’s about 6,000 full-time and 2,600 seasonal employees.

“We aren’t just waiting for the next crisis to hit—this funding will support our heroic firefighters to save lives as they work to prevent and tackle destructive wildfires,” he said in a statement at the time.

Porter said the hiring spree is partly intended to address a shortage of hand crew personnel. Hand crews are 20-person teams that perform wildland firefighting tasks, such as felling trees and digging trenches, with handheld tools.

CAL FIRE has historically relied on incarcerated people to do those jobs. But these days, only about half of hand crew positions are sourced that way, Porter said, thanks in part to California’s shrinking prison population.

“The key piece that’s going to be a challenge for us is the availability of hand crews,” Porter said of staffing this year. “And that’s going to be on both the state and the federal side.”

Right now, CAL FIRE isn’t experiencing any workforce shortages, agency spokesperson Christine McMorrow said in an email.

The Forest Service, meanwhile, is struggling to hire for a range of positions.

Water-tenders, the trucks that bring water to fire engines, are likely to be short-staffed in Region 5 this year, according to the April document. About half of California’s 50 water-tenders aren’t expected to be staffed seven days a week.

Some Forest Service hotshot crews in the state are currently operating as “type 2” crews, state public data shows, a ranking that indicates they don’t have enough people to qualify as a hotshot crew.

To fix the agency’s hiring and retention problems nationally, Grassroots Wildland Firefighters wants Congress to change federal firefighters’ official job classification, improve pay and retirement benefits, and reward firefighters for earning advanced qualifications.

A bipartisan group of nine U.S. senators who represent Western states recently asked the Government Accountability Office to review barriers to federal firefighter hiring and retention, review the firefighter pay scale and make recommendations on whether agencies should transition to a full-time force.

Duncan said the Grassroots Wildland Firefighters doesn’t want the government to make seasonal positions full-time without giving firefighters a raise. “We’re not pushing for that unless they can pay us significantly more,” she said, “and give us more time off during fire season.”

Several Democrats said during the recent U.S. House National Parks, Forests and Public Lands Subcommittee hearing that they support raising federal firefighter pay. “The need for them to earn a living wage and us to do more is certainly a priority for me,” said the subcommittee chair, U.S. Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado.

Republicans were more focused on calling for more tree thinning and prescribed fire projects, which can slow wildfires. “What do you think we could do to fix that land management problem, so we’re not having to hire more firefighters?” U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, the committee's ranking member, asked Duncan.

But land management projects also are part of federal wildland firefighters’ job duties.

“Fires are growing more intense, they’re larger in size, and we simply don’t have the resources to address this problem, nor do we have the resources to manage the forests,” said the California fire official.

“If the expectation is that this fire suppression workforce ... can both suppress fires and still accomplish their targets for fuels reduction to keep our communities safe—it’s nearly impossible,” he said.

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This Time, Lawmakers Want Control Over COVID-19 Aid

Sophie Quinton, Stateline — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 10:07:08 -0400

This story was originally posted by Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

With states set to receive billions of dollars in federal aid, lawmakers and governors are sparring over who should decide how to spend the cash.

Look no further than Kentucky, where Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear chose how to spend $1.5 billion in federal coronavirus aid last spring. Now another $2.4 billion is on the way, and Republican lawmakers have blocked Beshear from divvying up the latest windfall without their permission.

“Our constitution in Kentucky only vests spending authority with the General Assembly,” said Kentucky state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a Republican and co-chair of the budget committee. McDaniel said the legislature’s proposed budget will clarify that authority.

Bills in at least three other states—Connecticut, West Virginia and Wisconsin—also would let lawmakers control the aid states receive from the American Rescue Plan Act, which President Joe Biden signed earlier this month. The law gives states and the District of Columbia $195 billion to spend on broadly defined purposes, such as fighting the pandemic and boosting the economy.

The federal aid fight is part of a larger struggle over the balance of power in state governments that’s emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. A growing number of lawmakers say it’s time to reconsider how long governors can act without consulting them during a crisis and to limit executive branch control over federal grants. And Republican state lawmakers might want the chance to receive credit for the spending, especially since no GOP member of Congress supported the relief package.

Some governors say tussles over spending decisions could hold up COVID-19 relief for people, businesses and communities in need.

Beshear on Friday vetoed the budget provision giving the legislature authority over American Rescue Plan Act funds, claiming that it would conflict with federal law and delay spending decisions.

“These provisions also slow and hinder the provision of assistance to the many Kentuckians that are unemployed or underemployed, to affected Kentucky businesses and nonprofit organizations,” Beshear wrote in his veto message.

The Kentucky legislature overrode the veto.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, also a Democrat, on Monday vetoed a bill that would have given the Republican-controlled state legislature power over the money. He said during a news conference that he wanted to make sure the funds didn’t “get tied up in some political fight in the legislature.”

But Connecticut’s Democratic governor, Ned Lamont, hasn’t said whether he’ll try to block a bill—unanimously approved by the Democratic-led legislature—that would require him to get lawmakers’ approval before spending the money.

“This legislation is consistent with Governor Lamont’s approach since the beginning of the pandemic, which has been to work with the legislative branch throughout the pandemic emergency on critical decisions,” said Paul Mounds, Lamont’s chief of staff, in an emailed statement.

The West Virginia bill passed unanimously through the Republican-controlled House of Delegates last month and is now being considered by the state Senate. Republican Gov. Jim Justice’s office did not respond to Stateline’s request for comment before publication time.

Whether legislators have a say in how American Rescue Plan Act dollars are spent depends on state law. Governors and state agencies in 31 states can spend unanticipated funds, such as federal emergency grants and court settlements, without legislative approval, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers, a professional association based in Washington, D.C.

Restrictions on that power vary. In Pennsylvania, for instance, the governor can unilaterally spend federal aid only during an emergency. In Minnesota, the governor can do so when the legislature isn’t in session, but must consult with lawmakers when they are in session.

Connecticut lawmakers didn’t object to Lamont’s control over federal relief last spring, when it wasn’t clear how long the pandemic would last or how bad things would get, said Democratic state Sen. Cathy Osten, co-chair of the Appropriations Committee.

“I think people were probably not as willing to have this conversation,” she said, “just because of where we were with dealing with our constituents relative to COVID.”

But a year later, with $2.6 billion in new federal aid heading Connecticut’s way, lawmakers decided it was time they had oversight of the funds. The aid is equal to about 10% of the 2021 state budget.

Backing the bill was a no-brainer for Connecticut’s Republican lawmakers, who have had little say over the state’s pandemic response. “We want to be able to do our jobs,” said GOP state Rep. Nicole Klarides-Ditria. “We were elected to make these decisions.”

Lawmakers in some states can work the new federal aid into their budget plans as part of the regular appropriations process. But there’s little time to do so in about half of states, where legislatures head home for the year by mid-May.

Kentucky’s legislative session ended Tuesday, so lawmakers didn’t have time to include plans for the American Rescue Plan Act aid in their budget, McDaniel said. The legislature was reportedly planning to pass legislation Tuesday that could allocate some of the money. But Beshear will likely have to call lawmakers back for a special session to spend the rest of the aid.

Democratic lawmakers in the state also want a say in how the money is spent. Kentucky Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey, a Democrat who also serves on the budget committee, said he supports giving the legislature a bigger role, although he disagrees with the budget language.

“We should all just be communicating on the best and most efficient way to help Kentuckians with the money from the American Rescue Plan,” McGarvey said. “I don’t view this as a turf war, but I do believe, as a legislator, that the legislature plays a role in appropriating the money that comes to the state.”

Meanwhile, it could take weeks or months for the U.S. Treasury to clarify the rules for spending the federal aid. Some state leaders are reluctant to start budgeting the aid before then. In particular, they want Treasury officials to explain one specific sentence in the law, which bans states from using the aid to pay for tax cuts.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said during a U.S. Senate hearing last week that explaining that provision will be difficult. “We will have to define what it means to use money from this act as an offset for tax cuts,” she said. “And given the fungibility of money, it's a hard question to answer.”

In Kentucky, Democrats and Republicans both want to use part of the federal aid to expand broadband internet and shore up the unemployment insurance trust fund, McDaniel and McGarvey said.

But there inevitably will be partisan fights over how to spend the cash, said Sam Marcosson, a professor at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. “I think tax cuts are very likely to also be in the mix,” he said, depending on what the Treasury allows.

Lawmakers have plenty of political reasons to push for control over the relief, experts who follow state politics say.

They could use the money to benefit their districts, said Professor Gary Rose, chair of the department of government at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, Connecticut. “A lot of that money that’s coming in, here and elsewhere, has political ramifications,” he said.

If Kentucky’s Republican lawmakers don’t insert themselves into the spending process, their party can’t claim any credit for the aid, Marcosson said, as no congressional Republicans voted for the aid package.

“The fear would be, politically, that it puts them in a position where the Democrats can claim all the credit if it does work,” he said of the aid package, “and the economy rebounds in the second half of the year.”

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Inside the Boring but Crucial Federal Form That Gets Kids to College

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 15:47:00 -0400

President Obama wants every high school student in America to apply for federal financial aid. "Even if you think you might not qualify for financial aid, fill out the form. You might qualify," he told Florida high school students this month. Many of the 1 million high school students who failed to submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) last year may be unable to attend college this year as a result—or may turn instead to expensive private loans to pay for college.

These days, 85 percent of undergraduates at U.S. four-year colleges and universities use financial aid to help cover the cost of higher education. The Education Department uses the FAFSA to calculate how much a student's family can pay for college, and thus the student's eligibility for the vast majority of aid: federal grants, loans, and work-study money, as well as some state awards and institutional scholarships.

But the application is more complicated than the average tax return, and low-income, first-generation, and minority students often struggle to fill it out correctly and on time. The Obama administration has worked to shorten and simplify the FAFSA, but many students still benefit from in-person support while filling out the form.

One Saturday morning last month, more than 100 students packed into two computer labs at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Md. Many were enrolled at the college and were filling out the FAFSA for the next year; others were high school seniors or prospective adult students. Six Prince George's Community College financial aid officers and an Education Department official were on hand to answer questions.

The free event was organized by College Goal Sunday, a state-based campaign supported primarily by nonprofit and foundation funds. "Most families just want the comfort and security of having someone near them in completing the form, and just knowing that they're doing it right," says Tiffany Reese, national coordinator for the program.

Getting more students to go to college has been a priority for Obama because more and more middle-class jobs require a college degree. Low- to moderate-income students who get professional help filling out a FAFSA are about 30 percent more likely to enroll in college, a 2009 study led by Stanford University's Eric Bettinger found. Using that finding, University of Michigan and Northwestern researchers calculated in 2011 that increasing FAFSA completion would be one of the cheapest ways to increase college enrollment.

The Education Department has made it easier for students and families to fill out the FAFSA on their own by removing repetitive questions and streamlining the online application using methods common to tax-preparation software. The online form—which almost all students now use—skips questions that don't apply to that student, alerts them to glaring errors, and will automatically input tax information from the Internal Revenue Service. It takes most students about a half-hour to complete.

The president and first lady have both held events promoting the new form, and the Education Department wants to partner with states to let high schools know when seniors haven't filled it out. High school counselors are perhaps best positioned to teach students about the FAFSA. But nationally, there are on average about 471 public-school students per guidance counselor, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling. And not many counselors have financial aid expertise.

Crystal Trice, 22, had no idea she could access financial aid until she met with Shelby Potts, a pre-college counselor at her Maryland high school. Trice had started dreaming about college in middle school and was a B-plus student, but going to college seemed impossible. "I thought I was basically going to have to pay for everything myself," Trice says—a tall order for a homeless teenager. "There was no way I was going to pay for school off of my own little income, working at a minimum-wage job."

The FAFSA linked Trice to the federal, state, and institutional scholarship money she needed to enroll at Stevenson University outside Baltimore, where full-time tuition and fees run to $27,082 in 2013-14. Trice is currently working three jobs (two on campus, one at a Burger King) and studying for a degree in psychology and management. She's also working with financial aid officers at the school to figure out her FAFSA for next year.

Potts met Trice through her job with the nonprofit Southern Maryland College Access Network. One of the hardest parts of Potts's job as a high school adviser, she says, is convincing parents—particularly parents unfamiliar with the FAFSA—to relinquish personal financial information, like bank balances, tax returns, investment records, and receipts for federal benefits.

If a student is under 24 (and not homeless, like Trice) her parent or legal guardian usually needs to provide information for the FAFSA—even if that person can't or doesn't want to help pay for college. "At that point, the parent has to make that choice: Are they going to fill out the FAFSA with the child, so that the child can at least access federal loans at a low fixed rate, or is the student going to have to go out and get private loans?" Potts says.

Advisers and FAFSA completion events also help students meet confusing deadlines. The federal filing deadline is in June, long after families file their taxes in April. But 17 states require students to submit the FAFSA before tax day in order to be considered for need-based aid awards. Seven states distribute need-based aid on a first-come, first-served basis, so students actually need to submit the form in January. All this means that many students must fill out the FAFSA early, using older tax information, and then update the form with current tax information later.

Some colleges have gone beyond holding basic FAFSA workshops to teach students about managing student loans as well. At Broward College, a former community college in Florida, a mandatory workshop and other efforts have cut the number of students taking out private student loans by 75 percent in two years, according to the Sun Sentinel.

But many institutions could be giving students clearer instructions. A congressional committee recently criticized 111 colleges for requiring students to submit the College Board's CSS/Financial Aid Profile, a more complicated, fee-based form, or not making it clear that students must complete the FAFSA to get federal aid.

The White House says the number of FAFSA forms filed has risen 33 percent since the 2008-09 academic year. That says a lot about rising financial need, but it may also say something about increased rates of college attendance. "If they don't complete the FAFSA, they won't go to school," says Sharon Hassan, state coordinator for College Goal Maryland. Even in this era when so many jobs require higher education, there can be good reasons for a student to opt not to attend college. Not filling out the FAFSA isn't one of them.

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The Rise of Professional Women

Sophie Quinton and Stephanie Stamm, National Journal — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 15:00:00 -0500

Women have outpaced men in the number of postsecondary degrees conferred for decades. In 2010, women started to surpass men in attainment of degrees higher than a bachelor's degree. That same year, women became the majority of American workers.

The increase in the number of women going to college has helped narrow the gender pay gap, according to research from the Pew Research Center. And it has rearranged gender norms as well. According to a Pew analysis of census data, 21 percent of married women in 2012 had husbands who were less educated than they were.

Women of all races and ethnicities are more likely to pursue education beyond a bachelor's degree than ever. National Journal analyzed federal census data to get a better sense of the trend.

The total number of U.S. adults holding master's, professional, or doctoral degrees has risen over the past few decades. In general, more-advanced education is linked to higher incomes.

Since 1970, the share of people with graduate degrees in the top three income deciles has increased from 41 percent to 61 percent, according to a 2010 report from the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce. The center estimated that master's degree holders stand to earn $3.837 million over the course of their lifetimes, compared with $3.380 million for bachelor's degree holders. The center projected that professional degree holders--doctors, lawyers, and the like--would earn $4.650 million, about four times the lifetime earnings projected for high school dropouts.

The achievement gap between women and men continues to widen as women outpace men in their pursuit of higher education. Through 2021, the Education Department projects faster growth in associate's, bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees conferred on women than in degrees conferred on men.

African-American women have outpaced African-American men in advanced-degree attainment for decades, and the divide is widening. Meanwhile, Asian-Pacific Islander men have been more likely to earn advanced degrees than Asian-Pacific Islander women since the census began tracking the divide in 1999.

Trend lines charting the number of degrees attained by the adult population don't wholly capture the rapid growth in advanced-degree attainment among women of all races and ethnicities over the past decade. The surge in degree attainment among Hispanic women has been particularly striking.

White students and Asian-American students are often lumped together education-attainment discussions. But Asian-Pacific Islanders are the most highly educated community in the U.S.: 55 percent of adults with Asian heritage hold a four-year degree or a more advanced credential, compared to 35.2 percent of white adults.

As demographics change, advanced-degree attainment in minority communities is set to take off. In 2012, for the first time, a greater share of Hispanic recent high school graduates enrolled in college than did whites, the Pew Research Center reports.

(Image via hxdbzxy/Shutterstock.com)

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How to Improve Productivity With Diet and Exercise

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:28:00 -0400

If you're like many workers in the United States, you typically spend eight-hour days sitting in front of a computer screen, pacing out snacks of cookies and chips to stay alert until 5 p.m.--and telling yourself you'll start exercising more next week. Tackling the chronic health problems that afflict affluent societies like the United States might require a dramatic rethinking of the workplace: shifting away from a cubicle-bound, convenience-food culture to one that encourages employees to take better care of their health.

For more than 20 years, the health product manufacturer Johnson & Johnson has run an employee-wellness program with the aim of instilling a "culture of health" company-wide, from warehouse floors to corporate offices. Many U.S. companies that offer employer-sponsored health insurance have embraced wellness programs as a way to lower health care costs. Yet most programs fail to either significantly improve health outcomes or to save health care dollars. The value of J&J's approach may lie not in medical cost-savings but in the idea that healthy workplaces can make for more-productive employees.

Johnson & Johnson's approach begins with an annual, online health-risk assessment. Employees self-report everything from their diet and exercise habits to cholesterol levels, which can be checked through on-site screenings. Compliance is near-universal, because if employees don't participate, they pay a penalty of $500 more toward their health insurance premium.

Employees with risk factors participate in follow-up conversations, by phone, with health care professionals who can give them advice on lifestyle changes. The data gathering also allows J&J to monitor health trends across the company. For example, if the data show that employees at a certain facility are more likely to be overweight, workplace leadership may launch a pedometer challenge at that location.

The rest of the J&J program involves connecting employees with health-focused resources. U.S. facilities often include gyms or rooms with Wii Fit players, which employees are encouraged to use during the day. Cafeterias and vending machines offer healthy choices, digital and phone-based health coaching is available, and an energy performance training program teaches workers how to fine-tune their bodies for optimal productivity.

Johnson & Johnson's executives say their comprehensive wellness program is worth every penny. "Investing in keeping the well well pays off," says Fikry Isaac, vice president of global health services. He believes that J&J's program can help workers address red flags—like weight gain or high blood pressure—before they develop into riskier conditions that are more expensive to treat.

The program achieved $565 in annual health care savings per U.S.-based employee from 2002 to 2009, according to an analysis from Johnson & Johnson and Thomson Reuters. J&J's medical spending grew at a lower rate than similar U.S. manufacturing companies, the study found, and J&J employees were less likely to be at high risk for high blood pressure, obesity, physical inactivity, and tobacco use. The study estimated a return on investment of between $2 and $4, but didn't publish a precise figure because J&J doesn't disclose the overall cost of its wellness program.

Such rosy evaluations have inspired the majority of U.S. companies to embrace workplace wellness. Ninety-four percent of U.S. companies with 200 or more workers have implemented a wellness program, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. And in 2008, inspired by the success of its own program, J&J established a consultancy to spread the wellness gospel to other companies.

Despite corporate enthusiasm, much of the data on wellness programs doesn't stand up to scrutiny, and evidence is mounting that most lifestyle management programs have little effect on either health outcomes or cost savings. That's in part because "wellness" encompasses a broad range of employer investments, from simply e-mailing employees diet tips to subsidizing gym memberships to charging employees more for insurance if they don't meet certain health requirements, such as being nonsmokers.

"People who participate in the programs may be healthier and more likely—even without the wellness program—to reduce their health care costs," said Rachel Mosher Henke, director of research at Truven Health Analytics. It's also hard to tease out the impact of a wellness program from other factors that lower health-care costs, such as shifts in the structure of insurance plans or regional hospital billing practices.

UCLA law professor Jill Horwitz took a look at studies of wellness programs that give employees a financial incentive to change their behavior and found decidedly mixed evidence of health care savings. "It turns out that people with the health conditions that are commonly targeted by these programs may not even spend more money on health services than other employees," she says. Obesity, heart disease, and diabetes, become expensive with old age, not necessarily before retirement. In fact, wellness programs can sometimes drive up health care costs by leading employees to seek out additional care, such as doctor's appointments and screenings, a 2013 University of Arizona study found.

Johnson & Johnson doesn't ask less healthy employees to pay more for health insurance, but a zeal for cutting costs has led some other companies to do just that. The 2010 health care law may accelerate the trend. Starting in 2014, employers will be able to charge employees who don't enroll in wellness programs and meet certain health metrics up to 30 percent of their total health-plan premium—over $1,000 for the average employee.

There's a better way to think about workplace wellness. "We see this as one of our competitive advantages," Isaac says of J&J's focus on health. Healthy habits can make employees better able to manage stress, less likely to take sick days, and generally better equipped to get the job done. Lost productivity due to poor health can cost employers more than twice as much as medical and pharmacy expenses, according to research from Ronald Loeppke at the health solutions firm Alere.

J&J's ergonomics program has lessened injury rates on the factory floor and safe-driving initiatives have helped sales personnel avoid accidents. The biggest sign that an employer wellness program is making a difference, however, may be when that company's workplace culture changes to value healthy lifestyles. At Johnson & Johnson, that culture encourages cubicle-bound employees to get up from their desks, taking a break from their office work to work out. "When they see their supervisor or manager going to the fitness center for half an hour or an hour during working hours," says Isaac, "that is giving [other employees] permission to pay attention to their own health."

Image via Maridav/Shutterstock.com

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Heading Off the Coming Retirement Disaster

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:16:31 -0400

When California State Sen. Kevin de Léon talks about his plan to help people save for retirement, he usually starts by describing his Aunt Francisca, a housekeeper. “She’s north of 70 and she still cleans homes,” says de Léon. Francisca can’t afford to retire because she has no savings. Even with help from Social Security, she struggles to make ends meet.

“It’s the story of tens of millions of Americans throughout the country,” de Léon says. The Los Angeles Democrat isn’t just talking about domestic workers. Nearly half of Californians are on track to retire in or near poverty, according to a University of California (Berkeley) study. A separate analysis of census data from The New School for Social Research found that three-quarters of Americans ages 50 to 64 have an average total retirement account balance of under $30,000.

Saving for retirement has never been easy for poor and middle-class workers, and employer-sponsored retirement plans have never been universal. But the recession and slow recovery have made it hard for many Americans to make a living, let alone put money away.

A new law authored by de Léon attempts to address what he calls the coming “retirement tsunami.” Signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in September 2012, the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program would establish automatic payroll contributions into retirement accounts for 6.3 million Californians whose employers don’t sponsor a pension plan or a 401(k). Legislators in left-leaning states such as Connecticut and Illinois have put forward similar proposals, as has U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa).

The California program aims to create an effortless savings vehicle for an underserved population. Three-quarters of eligible workers make less than $46,420 per year, putting them into a demographic that relies heavily on Social Security in retirement. The new law won’t end reliance on Social Security, but it could provide workers with additional financial security.

The program is designed to be privately run and managed, ideally at no cost to the state. Advocates like de Léon argue that its structure combines portability—one of the best features of 401(k)s and Individual Retirement Accounts—with professional management of pooled funds—one of the best features of traditional pension plans. The new system would deduct an automatic 3 percent contribution from the paychecks of eligible employees, unless they chose to opt out. Workers with unconventional employment arrangements—like housecleaners—could opt in. And businesses with more than five employees that fail to allow payroll deduction would pay a penalty of $500 per eligible employee.

The contributions would be saved in individual, IRA-type accounts, but the accounts would be managed collectively as an estimated $6.6 billion fund. To protect workers against stock-market crashes, no more than 50 percent would be invested in equities. “Looking at what happened in 2008, 2009—we can’t have that happen for this population,” says Lisa Chin, de León’s legislative director.

Additional protections include a reserve fund that could be drawn from during years of slow growth, and private insurance, to guarantee account-holders a rate of return. The guarantee would likely be tied to the 30-year Treasury bond rate, which is currently about 3 percent.

“Automatic enrollment is great because the evidence we have so far—which comes from large companies that have traditional 401(k) plans—is that participation rates are extremely high,” says Brigitte Madrian, professor at the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government. Automatic enrollment and payroll deduction are powerful tools that help people save, she says, because people don’t tend to miss money they don’t see.

Large, pooled funds are cheaper to manage than hundreds of individual accounts—and that lowers fees that account-holders have to pay, says Nari Rhee, manager of research at the National Institute on Retirement Security. Pension funds also tend to have higher returns, because they’re professionally managed, invest over the long term, and spread market risk across a range of people of different ages and income levels.

De León insists that the savings program isn’t a new entitlement. But California’s existing pension obligations loomed over his bill. The measure didn’t get a single Republican vote in the Legislature, and even many Democrats were skeptical. “It's one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation I've ever seen,” Democratic State Sen. Ted Lieu, told The Sacramento Bee. The California Department of Finance Analysis, also opposed the bill, saying it could create a new “multibillion-dollar liability.”

The California Chamber of Commerce argued that the plan was unnecessary, as any worker with taxable income and a bank account can open an IRA. De León counters that if the current system was working, there wouldn’t be so many Californians who lack retirement savings plans.

Still, implementation of the new law will be slow, partly in order to address concerns about liability and cost. Many of the details of the program—like how retirees will be able to access their money— will be determined by a yet-to-be appointed board. The board must raise private money to pay for a market analysis of the program to find out what tweaks are needed to smooth implementation.

Despite language in the bill freeing the state of all liability, it is unclear what responsibilities the state will have under federal law to ensure benefit payments. The final program must be submitted to the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Labor to make sure the individual accounts qualify for the same tax treatment as IRAs, and that they doesn’t constitute an employer benefit plan. If the plan passes both assessments, it will be resubmitted to the state legislature for authorization.

Enrollment won’t begin until 2015, at the earliest. It could be years before de Léon finds out if the new program helps workers like his aunt Francisca—or if, for those with little income to put aside for retirement, the only way to ensure financial security in old age is to keep on working.

(Image via Timmary/Shutterstock.com)

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How to Write Poetry for History

Sophie Quinton — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 16:00:00 -0500

Only three presidents have commissioned a poem for their inauguration ceremonies: John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton (who had two), and Barack Obama. For his first swearing-in, Obama called on Elizabeth Alexander, a poet and professor at Yale University. This time, he picked Richard Blanco. Alexander chatted with National Journal about her experience, her advice for Blanco, and the role of the inaugural poet. Edited excerpts follow.

NJ Obama’s first inauguration was a historic day. How did you feel when you were asked to compose the poem in 2009?

Alexander Overwhelmed, excited, and anxious. But also purposeful, because on you go, right? More than anything, I was thrilled that there was going to be poetry. I think that now the president has asked a second poet, we can almost feel like we can take for granted that there will be poetry at inaugurals. But presidents don’t have to do that, and thus don’t have to say that art is important on civic occasions.

NJ You were only the fourth poet in history to do this. Did you look back at the earlier poems, and did you learn anything from them?

Alexander Certainly. I simply couldn’t have not looked back at those poems. But I also looked at other occasional poems; I looked at other poems that thought about “the polis.” I looked at poems with some grandeur, and I also spent a lot of time among Walt Whitman’s work, thinking about poems that tried to take in the idea of America.

NJ Is that part of what you wanted to express in your poem “Praise Song for the Day”—the idea of America?

Alexander For me, the process of writing poems doesn’t come idea first. It comes language first. So what I was trying to do was listen for language and phrases and words, and see what ideas that language contained. That’s how my process goes.

NJ Your poem seems to echo themes from the president’s 2008 campaign. You write about the labor of the people who have gone before us, about people sitting around kitchen tables. Did you think about Obama’s personality and message while you were writing?

Alexander That was in there. Perhaps even more, the way that he ran the campaign and the idea that so many millions of people made this happen. And that was something he constantly talked about. He would often say, “This is not about me.” So the idea that one president gets to where he or she is because of the ways many, many people work, in ways large and small—that was inescapable.

NJ The mood of the country has changed since then. Is that something that this year’s poet, Richard Blanco, should take into account?

Alexander First of all, he should write the poem that he’s going to write, and I can’t wait to hear what that will be, because he’s a beautiful poet. But I think that inaugurals are an opportunity for us to stop and catch our breath. We’ve come out of a bruising election process, and it’s now a moment to say, “Where do we go from here? And who are we?” In this fascinating country, that question—who are we?—is eternally rich. How do we work together? What do we, in common, hold dear? I think that that’s really the inaugural moment for everyone, and that’s why we pause.

NJ What does a poem add to the ceremony?

Alexander It says, quite explicitly, that there are some things that artistic language can do—and is allowed to do—that political rhetoric cannot. Art is meant to arrest the moment. Art is meant to invite contemplation. Art is not necessarily meant to comfort us, but it is meant to still us and give us a chance to think.

NJ What was the most surprising thing about your experience?

Alexander What was amazing about the reception afterwards is that I heard from—and continue to hear from—people all over the country, all over the world, who not only connected with that poem but connected with poetry, even if they don’t consider themselves to be poetry aficionados. Most people are pleased for the occasion to take in a poem. And most people find in poetry something that gives them pleasure, or succor, or pause, or allows them to tilt their heads and see the world a little bit differently. And that’s really a great thing, and why it is a privilege to practice this art form.

NJ Did you get any feedback from the president about your poem?

Alexander I wouldn’t say anything about that! (Laughs.)

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Winners and losers in fiscal cliff deal

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 23:24:17 -0500

Middle and lower-income taxpayers are the main beneficiaries of the fiscal cliff deal, but there are other winners—and losers—of the last-minute scramble to avert scheduled tax increases and spending cuts. The gridlock leading up to the deal dimmed the country’s already dim view of Congress. Lawmakers aren’t going to get the grand deficit reduction bargain they had hoped for. And although an economic crisis may have been averted, the final deal sets the stage for another debt ceiling showdown.

Winners:

‘Middle Class’ Taxpayers. With the Bush tax cuts set to extend for individuals making less than $400,000, middle- and upper-middle class taxpayers can breathe a sigh of relief. The Alternative Minimum Tax will be permanently lifted to reflect inflation, sparing close to 30 million taxpayers from a tax increase. The tax relief isn’t total, however: The payroll tax cut won’t be extended for another year, meaning that working Americans will see their paychecks reduced in 2013. But it could have been worse.

President Obama and Vice President Biden. President Obama made the fiscal cliff negotiations all about taxes, repeating the call for tax increases on the rich and tax cuts for the middle class that helped him win reelection. Although the final deal is less than the president had hoped for, he gets to say he kept his campaign promise to protect middle-class Americans. He also gets to renew key tax cuts passed as part of his 2009 stimulus package and to extend unemployment insurance. Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden can revel in the crucial role he played in last-minute discussions with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. The wily legislator who once pledged to block President Obama at every turn has proven, once again, to be a crucial deal-maker between the White House and Congress. Initially sidelined as negotiations focused on President Obama and Speaker John Boehner, McConnell stepped forward at the last minute to help craft legislation that Republicans could support.

AARP. Seniors—and the lobbyists who represent them—won’t be feeling the pain of entitlement cuts come January, despite initial insistence from Republican lawmakers that significant cuts to Medicare or Social Security be part of a fiscal cliff deal. The battle to prevent a switch to chained CPI, a metric that would reduce the growth of Social Security payments, has been won, at least for now.

Losers:

Deficit Hawks. Going over the fiscal cliff would have significantly reduced the deficit, combining cuts to domestic and military spending with tax hikes on pretty much everyone. The last-minute deal reached by Washington negotiators lifted taxes on the wealthiest Americans and didn’t do anything to cut spending.

Speaker Boehner’s Plan B. Speaker Boehner’s attempt to rally his caucus behind an alternate cliff deal, dubbed ‘Plan B’, failed miserably: a bad sign of the Ohio Republican’s ability to put forward an alternative that his caucus could take seriously. Boehner’s plan included too many tax increases and not enough spending cuts for Republicans to stomach—and it seemed to temporarily stall negotiations.

The U.S. Treasury. The United States hit its borrowing limit on Monday, and lawmakers failed to include raising the limit as part of the cliff deal. The Treasury Department will enact what it calls “extraordinary measures” to avoid a government default, but it can only protect the nation’s credit for so long. Stay tuned in the coming months for another Washington fight over whether, and how, to raise the debt ceiling.

The 1 Percent. Wealthy Americans who make their money from investments, rather than paychecks, were losers in the fiscal cliff deal. In addition to higher income taxes, those who make above $400,000 will now be subject to a 20 percent tax rate on their capital gains and dividends. The fiscal cliff wasn’t all bad news for the wealthy, however: They can still bequeath up to $5 million tax-free, with any additional money taxed at 40 percent. That’s greater than the current 35 percent estate tax rate, but less than the 55 percent rate on assets over $1 million that would have gone into effect without a deal.

Holiday Cheer. From Senators who had to fly back to Washington two days after Christmas to Hill staffers who canceled New Years’ Eve plans in anticipation of a late night hammering out a deal, the fiscal cliff negotiations cast a pall over the holiday season. And it wasn’t just Washington: Americans spent the holidays wringing their hands over pending tax increases.

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Obama wants recommendations from new gun task force next month

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Wed, 19 Dec 2012 12:59:47 -0500

President Obama, in announcing a task force on gun control headed by Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday, urged Congress to move quickly next year on legislation to tighten restrictions in response to the horrific mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. He said he assigned Biden to lead the interagency effort “to come up with a set of concrete proposals, no later than January, which I intend to push without delay.”

“There’s no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. We're going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun. We're going to need to look more closely at a culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence,” Obama said.

The White House has said Obama would support a renewed assault-weapons ban and closing of the loophole that allows people to purchase firearms at gun shows without a background check. While in the Senate, Biden helped craft the 1994 assault-weapons ban, which expired in 2004.

“This is not some Washington commission,” Obama said, “This is a team that has a very specific task: to pull together real reforms, right now.”

The majority of Americans support a ban on military-style assault rifles and high-capacity ammunition clips, and laws requiring background checks before all gun purchases, he added.

“I urge Congress to hold votes on these measures next year in a timely manner,” Obama said. Congress also needs to confirm a director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Exlposives, he said.

In moving so quickly after the deadly rampage by Adam Lanza, 20, last Friday, Obama is hoping to take advantage of the widespread reaction that has caused many, including some pro-gun lawmakers, to consider additional measures to prevent such shootings in the future.

“I will use all the powers of this office to help advance efforts aimed at preventing more tragedies like this. We won't prevent them all, but that can't be an excuse not to try,” Obama said.

“And I'm not going to be able to do it by myself. Ultimately, if this effort is to succeed, it's going to require the help of the American people,” he said

Obama met earlier this week with Biden, Attorney General Eric Holder, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to talk about potential policy responses. Obama has also talked with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., about tightening gun-control laws, according to the White House.

(Image via Sascha Burkard/Shutterstock.com)

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White House to GOP: We're waiting on 'realistic' revenue-raising proposal

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:07:14 -0500

"Math tells us that you can't get the kind of balanced approach that you need without having rates be part of the equation. We haven't seen a proposal that achieves that, a realistic proposal that achieves that," Carney said.

Obama would be open to proposals that closed loopholes or capped deductions, Carney said, so long as raising the top tax rate remains on the table. Obama has called for $1.6 trillion in higher revenues. During the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations, Republicans were considering a plan that would involve $800 billion in new revenue. So far during the most recent fiscal cliff negotiations, House Speaker John Boehner has insisted that new revenue must come from broad tax reform and economic growth.

Some Republicans argue that it’s possible to raise sufficient revenue through closing loopholes and capping deductions alone. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R.-S.C., told ABC's This Week on Sunday that capping deductions in the $30,000 to $40,000 range could raise around $1 trillion in revenue over 10 years.

Boehner’s office fired back against Carney almost instantly, pointing to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget report that found closing loopholes and capping deductions could squeeze the same amount of money from top earners as the president’s proposal.

Carney also said that the White House doesn’t believe Social Security should be on the table as legislators discuss trimming entitlement programs.

"Social Security is not, currently, a driver of the deficit--that's an economic fact,” Carney said. “While the president supports engaging with Congress on a separate track to strengthen Social Security in the long term when it comes to entitlements, we need to look at Medicare and Medicaid.”

Those seeking to parse the White House’s public statements shouldn’t assume that when the White House says “entitlement cuts,” it is putting Social Security on the table, Carney said. Liberal groups have dug in their heels in opposition to any kinds of cuts to entitlement programs.
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Obama Biographers: The President Thinks Like a Writer

Sophie Quinton, The Atlantic — Fri, 16 Nov 2012 16:29:00 -0500

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The problem with President Obama, his biographers say, is that he's also a writer: a man who likes to think about the big picture and the long term. He's a thinker who happens to also be the most powerful actor on the world stage.

"He's such a writerly guy," said Ron Suskind, author of Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington and the Education of a President. And not just because the president has already written two autobiographies. In Obama's head, he's both the all-knowing narrator and the main character, Suskind said.

Obama's "trying to always think ahead, not get caught up in the 24/7 news cycle," said Jonathan Alter, author of The Promise: President Obama, Year One. The problem with thinking ahead, Suskind said, is that "when the president acts, all those variables change."

Read the full story at The Atlantic.

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Key GOP senators vow to oppose Susan Rice as Secretary of State

Sophie Quinton — Wed, 14 Nov 2012 12:10:07 -0500

Senior Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday made crystal-clear their opposition to U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as a nominee for secretary of State. Speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., criticized Rice’s faulty explanation of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic facility in Libya.

McCain said point-blank that he would oppose the nomination of Rice to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Asked if he would do anything to block her, including filibuster, he bluntly answered “yes.”

Graham added: "I don’t trust her.”

“I think she was a political choice, telling a political narrative, and either she didn’t know the truth about Benghazi—so she shouldn’t have been on T.V.—or she was spinning it,” Graham said. He said he wouldn’t “promote” anybody involved in the “Benghazi debacle.”

“I don’t think that’s a good resume to be secretary of State,” Graham said.

Graham also told the WIF panel presented by The Atlantic and The Aspen Institute that he thinks there might be at least one Democrat who'd vote against her, but dodged the question of whether the five necessary Republicans would defect to allow her confirmation.

Speaking after the two Republicans, Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said of Rice, “If the president nominates her, then she should have a hearing, and a debate in the Senate,” rather than a filibuster.

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Tough road to a debt deal, even for a community-organizer-in-chief

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 09:48:04 -0500

President Obama’s reelection campaign managed to community-organize its way to electoral victory and a second term. Now we'll find out whether the same kind of grassroots approach can help Obama push his policy agenda through a divided Congress. Rallying voters behind a candidate is one thing; it’s quite another to rally citizens behind a plan to reduce the deficit and avert end-of-year spending cuts and tax increases, and then translate that support into legislative action.

“I’d be hard pressed to find out how those -- which are very useful skills -- in a direct way benefit a bargain,” Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, said of organizing a group of citizens behind a common goal.

Deal-making in a deeply divided Congress requires negotiating with party leaders in the House and Senate. Sweet-talking moderates can go only so far, Ornstein said. And Republican leaders who hold their own power and leverage aren’t likely to be cowed by calls to their offices from angry Obama supporters.

“Part of it is, are you going to be able to get, say, McConnell to step aside while 40 senators from both sides work out a bargain?” Ornstein said of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Persuading House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to call a vote on a deal unpopular with his caucus -- as any bipartisan agreement is sure to be -- is another challenge.

Obama is already planning to head out across the country to rally the public behind his insistence that a deal include both higher taxes on the wealthy and spending cuts, The New York Times reported on Monday. The president also plans to maintain his grassroots organization to leverage public support, according to The Times. Last cycle, vestiges of Obama’s 2008 field organization were incorporated into the Democratic National Committee to further Democratic policy goals.

The White House, and the president himself, have long touted the benefits of playing an outside game. Senior adviser David Plouffe told reporters last week that Obama’s supporters “play a very, very important role” in policy change, citing health reform and student loans as two examples. Obama believes “you’re not going to be able to change Washington solely from the inside,” Plouffe said.

It’s hard to prove, however, that pressure applied by Obama’s supporters managed to move legislators during his first term. As the president approaches his second, the pitched battle over deficit reduction may be a particularly difficult space for him to leverage his grassroots organization.

“To mobilize people out there, there needs to be a kind of clarity,” said Marshall Ganz, senior lecturer in public policy at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. It’s extremely hard to mobilize people behind a plan that doesn’t yet exist, or is in the process of being tweaked and disputed by legislators. When it came to health care reform, for example, “the president’s own objectives were murky,” Ganz said, which may have made mobilizing his supporters more challenging.

It’s also hard for citizens to feel like writing to their members of Congress actually makes a difference. “I think one of the general challenges is that individual citizens have a much less direct role in the legislative process,” said Sasha Issenberg, author of The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns.

Swaying individual legislators is less effective these days than it has been in the past, given how few moderates are left and how few members are willing to buck the party leadership, said John Hudak of the Brookings Institution.

To “go public” and try to build support for a given policy is seen by many political scientists as a president’s last resort, Hudak added. If a president has to go to the people, it’s usually because he’s not getting much traction on Capitol Hill.

A bully-pulpit strategy would be most effective once legislators reach a bipartisan framework -- not while they’re working toward one, Ornstein said. If a plan emerges, Obama should “immediately endorse it, bring everybody to the White House, praise it, praise them, and then go to the public,” Ornstein added, noting that building public support could help give Boehner the cover he needs to call a vote in the House.

Obama’s data-driven campaign may give him another advantage. The Obama machine “knows what is happening within individual congressional districts, and what voters want, and what voters are thinking about, and what turnout is like,” Hudak said.

“If there is new leverage that the permanent Obama machine has on Congress,” it’s raising the threat of defeat at the polls in 2014, Issenberg said.

On the campaign trail, Obama criticized his Republican opponent for touting a set of skills that may not be transferable to the White House. “If your main argument for how to grow the economy is, ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you’re missing what this job is about,” Obama said in May when asked about his campaign’s attacks on Mitt Romney’s private equity record.

An ethos closer to Obama’s heart -- community organizing -- already exists in Washington. There are plenty of folks who spend their days going door to door, building a sense of collective purpose, knowing who to target and how to push their buttons.

“There are community organizers for Congress,” Issenberg said. “They’re called lobbyists.”

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Obama's Cabinet: Six seats likely to change

Sophie Quinton — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 13:06:02 -0500

President Obama and his staff have been tight-lipped about possible changes to the Cabinet in a second term. But if history is a guide, Obama’s team could see substantial turnover this year: On average, in the five two-term presidencies since World War II, only one of two Cabinet officers have stayed for eight years. Some on Obama's team, such as Education Secretary Arne Duncan, have already publicly said they’ll stick around. Others, including Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, have been more opaque: last summer Shinseki told The New York Times he will “serve at the pleasure of the president.”

Some Cabinet members, however, have publicly committed to stepping aside and others are widely known to want to do so. Here are six officeholders whom Washington is watching closely. And here’s a link to National Journal’s more exhaustive list of who could be tapped to serve in a second Obama administration.

Secretary of State

With Hillary Rodham Clinton planning her departure, there are three major contenders for America’s top diplomatic post: Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and the party’s 2004 nominee for president; Susan Rice, the U.N. ambassador and longtime Obama adviser; and Tom Donilon, the current national security adviser. Of the three, Kerry is the most plausible pick. Kerry has occasionally gone afoul of official policy—by advocating intervention in civil-war-torn Syria, for example—but he’s viewed as a contender with the stature to serve in the role. Kerry’s close ties with Vice President Joe Biden could help tilt the administration’s decision-making. However, the last thing Democrats want is a special election in Massachusetts to fill Kerry’s seat. If Kerry’s the man, he’s likely to move over next year, rather than during the lame-duck negotiations to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.

Treasury Secretary

Obama chose Timothy Geithner during the depths of the financial meltdown for his expertise in managing crises. Geithner has said he plans to step down at the end of Obama’s current term, and the two top contenders to succeed him are both budget experts with extensive government experience: White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew and former Clinton Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles. Lew, the former director of the Office of Management and Budget, is trusted by the president and has ties to Capitol Hill. Bowles famously co-chaired a bipartisan deficit-reduction panel with former Sen. Alan Simpson. National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling has been mentioned as a third possible contender. Many are skeptical that Obama would choose a Wall Street veteran for Treasury, but if he were to do so, he could consider Larry Fink, chief executive officer of the huge money-management firm BlackRock, or Roger Altman, co-founder of Evercore Partners and a former deputy Treasury secretary.

Defense Secretary

Leon Panetta has made it clear that he wants to retire to his California walnut farm sooner rather than later. Panetta’s stature and Washington experience are hard to match, but that doesn’t mean the White House doesn’t have options. Top contenders include Michele Flournoy, a former Defense undersecretary for policy and the Obama campaign’s go-to surrogate on national security issues, and Ashton Carter, the current deputy Defense secretary. Other possibilities are former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig and former Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. Whomever Obama nominates, one thing is sure: The next secretary must be able to manage implementing budget cuts and working closely with Congress.

Energy Secretary

Obama’s choice of Nobel physicist Steven Chu as Energy secretary signaled the president’s high hopes for the department. The idea was that Congress would pass a cap-and-trade bill, and Chu would lead a department transformed into a driver of clean-energy development. But cap-and-trade failed, a solar company called Solyndra went bankrupt—tarring Chu in the process— and prospects for a climate bill are bleak. Chu has indicated that he’d like to leave his post, but the president may ask him to stay; among other reasons, it could be extremely difficult to get a new secretary confirmed by the Senate. Should Obama be forced to nominate a successor, former Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota has strong bipartisan relationships and a strong energy policy background to recommend him. Dan Reicher, who served as President Clinton’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy, and John Podesta, chairman of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, are two other possible candidates.

Transportation Secretary

Ray LaHood has said that he doesn’t plan to stick around for a second Obama term, although he hasn’t ruled out staying put. If LaHood does step down, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa could be a front-runner to replace him. Villaraigosa has been an outspoken advocate of infrastructure improvements, and he’s a high-profile Democratic mayor who has the added advantage of being Hispanic. His term as mayor will be up in May 2013. Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell is another die-hard infrastructure advocate who could fill the post, as is Rep. Steven LaTourette, R-Ohio, a longtime LaHood ally in Congress.

Commerce Secretary

Obama hasn’t had a commerce secretary since June, when John Bryson was involved in a car crash. Earlier this year, Obama proposed to essentially eliminate the department, floating a plan to combine much of Commerce, the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office, the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corp., and the U.S. Trade and Development Agency. The plan went nowhere, and Commerce needs a leader. A number of administration officials might be interested in the post, including Ron Kirk, Obama’s U.S. trade representative since early 2009; Fred Hochberg, president of the Export-Import Bank; and Karen Mills, the administrator of the Small Business Administration, a post that Obama elevated to Cabinet-level status earlier this year.

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Top 10 Democratic presidential contenders for 2016

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:16:00 -0500

While waiting for Election Day results, here’s a reminder that 2016 is only four years away. A list of 10 Democrats who could be top presidential contenders next cycle.

1. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton

The popular secretary of State has said repeatedly that she has no plans to run for president again, and has hinted that she’d like to turn to advocacy work after she leaves her post next year. But Democrats—and even some Republicans—keep calling on Clinton to run, and after four successful years as the face of American diplomacy her fan base is deeper than ever. If Clinton were to throw her hat in the ring, she’d be considered the front-runner, just as she was when she launched her 2008 bid.

2. Vice President Joe Biden

Biden ran for president in 1988, plagiarized a speech, and had to withdraw. He ran again in 2008, landed a few noteworthy gaffes, and dropped out early in the primary process after struggling to make a mark. But he is a more instinctively populist politician than many of 2016’s potential contenders, and many Democrats love him despite his flaws.

3. Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley

Speech at the Democratic convention: check. Outspoken defender of Obama: check. A Political Action Committee that will back nationwide candidates: check. The ambitious chairman of the Democratic Governors Association has left little doubt that he’s mulling a 2016 bid. O’Malley has a strong record in improving education, and he’s been a stalwart supporter of liberal causes such as same-sex marriage and immigration reform, including a Maryland version of the Dream Act.

4. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo

The governor of New York isn’t kissing anyone’s shoes. Cuomo’s appearance at the Democratic convention was so fast and so low-profile that few even knew he was in town. In Albany, he hasn’t been afraid to anger the liberal base, particularly by clashing with unions, but he’s won widespread praise for his ability to wrangle legislators. Cuomo’s ability to cut a deal paid off with a big win for Democrats: legalization of gay marriage in New York.

5. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia

Virginia’s junior senator isn’t a household name, but he’s been a key player in Washington’s deficit-reduction talks. As a member of the “Gang of Six” and the “Gang of Eight,” Warner has participated in secret negotiations aiemd at budgetary compromise. So far, the behind-the-scenes talks haven’t borne fruit, but if the gang’s discussions manage to push Congress toward a deal, it would be a gold star on Warner’s resume. He also has a strong business background and can point to his ability to win a Senate seat in a battleground state.

6. Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer

The governor of Montana made a big splash at the 2008 Democratic convention, and he was back for a second time in 2012. Schweitzer is a big player in the Democratic Governors Association, a popular populist and the liberal governor of a conservative state. He is known for his showmanship—and his a sometimes outlandish sense of humor. Schweitzer has signaled that he’d be open to a presidential bid: At the recent party convention, he met with New Hampshire and Iowa delegates.

7. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick

Patrick’s plum speaking role at the 2012 Democratic convention raised his profile and sparked speculation that he could be a contender in 2016. As an African-American with a rags-to-riches story, he inevitably draws comparisons to Obama, and he’s been a prominent surrogate for the president. Patrick has built a solidly liberal record as governor, focusing on issues such as health care, the environment, and education. When his term ends in 2014, Patrick has said he plans to return to the private sector.

8. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York

Gillibrand is somewhat overshadowed by other New York state politicians—notably Gov. Cuomo and her forerunner in the Senate, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Yet Gillibrand has star power, and she has proved to be a prolific fundraiser for both herself and other Democrats seeking office. Absent Clinton, there could be an opening for a female senator to jump into the fray. For now, however, Gillibrand seems focused on encouraging Clinton to consider another shot at the presidency.

9. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa

Vaulting from mayor to the presidency is a long shot for any politician—even the mayor of the second largest city in the United States. Villaraigosa is one of the highest-profile Latino leaders in the Democratic Party, and he got more attention as chair of the Democratic convention this year. He has said that his eyes are on the governorship of California, not the presidency, after his mayoral term ends in 2013, but Villaraigosa has never been shy of the media spotlight, and you can expect to hear from him in 2016—even if he’s just endorsing someone else.

10. Newark Mayor Cory Booker

The crusading mayor of a run-down city has won accolades for his efforts to reform the public school system. Booker is known for heroics: He recently ran into a burning building to rescue an elderly neighbor. The African-American former Rhodes Scholar got himself into hot water with Democrats earlier this year, when he publicly criticized the Obama campaign’s attacks on GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s private-equity career. Booker quickly walked back the critique in a YouTube video for the Obama campaign. The mayor's political future looks bright, but he’s more of a 2020 contender than 2016: Challenging Gov. Chris Christie for New Jersey governor in 2013 could be a better next step.

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Top 10 Republican presidential contenders for 2016

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:02:22 -0500

1. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie

In 2008, Republicans begged Christie to make a run for the White House. In 2016, the combative governor may be better positioned to seek the presidency, and there are signs that Christie wants the job: He used his keynote speech at the Republican convention mainly to tout his own accomplishments. Republicans love to see Christie play the role of partisan warrior, but Christie also projects a real sincerity that voters on both sides of the aisle appreciate. Christie’s tough talk didn’t stop him from winning in a left-leaning state.

2. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio

The Cuban-American senator is widely seen as a top pick for 2016, particularly as the GOP desperately needs to win over Hispanic voters as the electorate becomes more diverse. Rubio also has strong ties to the tea party, credentials that could help him in a Republican primary. In order to get the nomination, however, Rubio would need to prove that he’s a leader with substance commensurate to his celebrity. He’s also not the only Latino Republican with star power: New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez’s fiery speech at the convention blew Rubio’s remarks out of the water.

3. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell

The outgoing chairman of the Republican Governors Association has been both charming on the campaign trail and adept at pushing his agenda through a bipartisan Legislature. As the governor of a swing state, he’s well-positioned for a run at the White House once he’s term-limited out of office in 2013. An Army veteran, McDonnell also has military credentials that many other contenders lack. McDonnell has positioned himself as a problem-solver, not an ideologue, but his willingness to sign legislation regulating abortion hasn’t endeared him to those who are moderate on social issues.

4. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush

Former President George W. Bush’s little brother has been out of politics for a while—he currently works in the private sector and is an active proponent of education reform— but he’s indisputably an elder statesman in the Republican Party. With a strong record on education and immigration reform, Bush represents a moderate brand of conservatism that could appeal to swing voters and Hispanics. In a party increasingly motivated by tea party sentiments, however, Bush may be less natural a fit. He has even publicly criticized the direction the GOP is moving in.

5. Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan

If GOP nominee Mitt Romney loses in 2012, his vice presidential pick is well-positioned for a run at the White House in 2016. Ryan, the policy-focused chairman of the House Budget Committee, is widely viewed by Republicans as one of the party’s best spokesmen for its legislative agenda. His vice presidential nomination ensures that he’s nationally known. The biggest downside to a Ryan bid: As a member of the House who has spent his life in Washington, Ryan has little executive or business experience. So far, however, that hasn’t slowed his rise.

6. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul

Libertarian icon Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, may have run for the presidency for the last time, but he has an heir waiting in the wings: his son, Rand. The elder Paul’s cult following showed its strength during the 2012 Republican primaries, and his minimalist-government philosophy has made its mark on mainstream Republican thought. Rand, who endorsed Romney for president in 2012, is seen as less ideologically rigid than his father, an impression that hurts the younger Paul among die-hard Ron Paul supporters but helps him garner wider GOP support.

7. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal

The young and wonky governor of Louisiana coasted to a second term last year, and 2016 might finally mark a good opportunity for Jindal to take a run at higher office. Jindal has been viewed as an up-and-coming star in the party since he won the governorship in 2007. He will serve as chairman of the Republican Governors Association next year. Jindal didn’t shy away from raising his national profile this cycle, stumping for Romney and heading to Iowa to back Texas Gov. Rick Perry in the Republican primary. Jindal returned to Iowa this fall, traveling the state with former Sen. Rick Santorum in a campaign to oust a state Supreme Court judge who has supported same-sex marriage.

8. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley

When Nikki Haley rode a wave of tea party support into the South Carolina governor’s mansion, she was hailed as the party’s newest breakout star. As a woman and an Indian-American, Haley represents two demographics—women and minorities—that Republicans struggled to win over in 2012. Haley’s governorship hasn’t been all smooth sailing, however; she has alienated both opponents and former supporters with her management style, The State has reported. Haley may be more well-regarded nationally than she is locally.

9. South Dakota Sen. John Thune

Rumored as a potential candidate in 2012, Thune chose instead to stay in the Senate and focus on ascending in the Republican leadership. The Senate Republican Conference chairman doesn’t have strong name recognition nationally, but he’s well-known in Washington as a legislator who has the fundraising and retail politicking skills—not to mention the good looks—of a presidential hopeful. Strong D.C. ties have their downsides; in Thune’s case, it could include his vote to bail out Wall Street in 2008.

10. Indiana Rep. Mike Pence

Pence, a six-term congressman, looks set to win the Indiana governorship on Tuesday. Some Republicans are already calling on him to consider a run for even higher office. Pence—who describes himself as “a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order”— is well-regarded in the tea party and is an able fundraiser.]]>

The bully pulpit won’t help Obama get a grand bargain

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 09:42:54 -0400

The bully pulpit can work when a president takes advantage of a groundswell of public support that already exists. But when a president takes a high-profile stance on a controversial issue, it makes it harder for the opposing party to support his plan.

“When you raise the profile of the issues, you also raise the political stakes for members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. It makes it harder for the members of your own party to oppose you, but it makes it harder for members of the opposite party to support you,” said Frances Lee, professor of American politics at the University of Maryland.

President George W. Bush launched his second term with a very public push for Social Security privatization. He got nowhere. In fact, public support declined, Lee said.

“We determined that if we were going to have a chance to get Social Security reformed it was not going to be the kind of thing that we could just get done, quietly, in Congress,” said Tony Fratto, a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies and former communications adviser in the Bush White House. The Bush team believed that the public first needed to learn why privatization made sense, Fratto said.

“My instinct would always be to go out and try to educate more” when it comes to complicated issues, Fratto said. But he admitted that an aggressive communications strategy on such issues hasn’t had the best track record.

President Clinton campaigned all around the country to try to raise support for his health care plan and failed. The Obama White House tried everything from speeches and town hall meetings to blog posts and tweets to try to rally the public around health care reform. The law—which was based on what were initially Republican ideas—was rammed through Congress on a party line vote. Democrats love it. Republicans despise it.

President Reagan, remembered as “the great communicator,” had the benefit of a cross-party coalition in Congress that no longer exists, Lee said.

Reagan also picked his spots carefully, preferring to negotiate with Democrats before heading out on the road. One of his favorite quotes was, “When you can't make them see the light, make them feel the heat.”

After 2011’s debt-ceiling debacle, President Obama decided to take his message out into the country. “His conclusion was that if we’re gonna move the ball forward, we’re gonna do it by galvanizing the American people, not by trying to cut deals in quiet rooms,” senior adviser David Axelrod told New York magazine earlier this year.

Obama held rallies across the country to call for extending the payroll-tax cut, keeping the interest rate on student loans low, and raising taxes on the wealthy. The White House says those efforts paid off.

“Getting things through this Congress that enjoy broad public support but which are opposed by a particularly powerful wing of the Republican Party, especially in the House, requires taking it to the people,” press secretary Jay Carney said in July.

Some Democrats believe that Obama may use the same approach if reelected, The New York Times has reported, using the bully pulpit to raise the public profile of his plan for deficit reduction. The White House has long maintained that the president’s “balanced approach” to reducing the deficit has broad public support.

That could be a risky strategy. If Obama is reelected, it’s likely to be by a razor-thin margin. He won’t have much of a mandate, and after a year of election-year campaigning the country will be weary of rallies.

He’ll also be giving voice to a more controversial set of proposals. Nobody wants their student-loan payments or their taxes to rise. Selling lower spending on entitlements or tax increases -- the framework for deficit reduction the president has floated -- is much harder.

Presidents are still expected to use the bully pulpit. A president’s words give members of his party cover for difficult votes, and the public expects the leader of the free world to, well, show some leadership. And as The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein pointed out in The New Yorker, “back-room bargains and quiet negotiations” can fail, too.

After the election, Washington faces its biggest negotiation challenge yet. Memories of 2011’s disastrous debt-ceiling negotiations and failed attempts to avert sequestration are on everyone’s mind as Congress prepares to find a way to avoid the end-of-year spending cuts and tax increases known as the fiscal cliff.

The pressure to reach a compromise may be more intense this time around. But when Congress returns after the election, the political theater will resume, and the parties may end up even further apart.]]>

Obama: Debate partner 'couldn't have been Mitt Romney'

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 14:05:00 -0400

President Obama accused Republican nominee Mitt Romney of running from his own record in Wednesday night’s presidential debate, joking that the man he faced onstage at the University of Denver must have been someone else.

“When I got onto the stage I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney,” Obama told supporters at a Denver campaign rally on Thursday. “But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney.”

While the real Mitt Romney has been promising $5 trillion in tax cuts and saying the country doesn’t need more teachers, Obama said, “the fellow onstage last night” said the opposite.

“The man onstage last night, he does not want to be held accountable for the real Mitt Romney’s decisions and what he’s been saying for the last year. And that’s because he knows full well that we don’t want what he’s been selling for the last year,” Obama said.

Obama may have seemed tired and unfocused at Wednesday’s debate, but he exuded energy at Thursday’s rally. His supporters didn’t hold back cheers and chants of “four more years!”. One woman yelled out, “We believe in you!”

Obama didn’t pass up a jab at Romney’s remark during the debate that he’d cut PBS funding in order to bring down the deficit.

“Thank goodness somebody is finally getting tough on Big Bird. It’s about time,” Obama said of Romney’s promise to defund the popular kids’ show Sesame Street.

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Legal questions dog administration officials on campaign trail

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:30:38 -0400

The campaign trail is getting pretty crowded.

President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and the first lady make frequent forays out of Washington to meet with supporters and ask for money. But they’re not alone: In the past year, Cabinet secretaries have visited Obama for America campaign offices, White House advisers have headlined fundraisers, and top officials have addressed groups that represent constituencies the president needs to back him in November.

Executive-branch officials aren’t barred from endorsing candidates; they just can’t do it in their official capacity. But the escalating deployment of top officials for campaign purposes presents an ethical problem, experts say—one thrown into sharp relief by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s recent violation of the Hatch Act.

“I don’t think we’re going to solve it if we don’t get the high-ranking people, such as the Cabinet officials, out of this partisan politics,” University of Minnesota Law Professor Richard Painter said on Thursday.

Sebelius ran afoul of the Hatch act in February, when she endorsed a gubernatorial candidate while delivering official remarks at a Human Rights Campaign event. The remarks were made off the cuff, the White House says, and the Obama campaign and Democratic National Committee have since reimbursed the federal government for costs associated with the event.

“No taxpayer dollars were used,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said this week. The Office of General Counsel has not recommended any disciplinary action. From the White House perspective, end of discussion.

But the Sebelius episode brings up two issues: how the administration and the campaign divide up the costs when officials speak at political events, and whether it makes sense to dispatch executive-branch officials to such events in the first place, Painter said.

Last week, Sebelius was in Waukesha, Wis., speaking at an Obama for America campaign office. "President Obama needs Wisconsin in order to be reelected president, no doubt about it," she told supporters, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. She didn’t speak in her official capacity, but she did defend the president’s health care policies.

Senior White House staff, like advisers Valerie Jarrett and David Plouffe, have also been dispatched to campaign events. In February, Jarrett spoke at a North Carolina student summit hosted by the campaign, and in May, she hosted a Chicago rooftop fundraiser. In June, Plouffe headlined an Obama fundraiser not far from the White House, at Capitol City Brewery.

Painter, who served as associate counsel to the president under President George W. Bush, said that since the Clinton administration senior executive-branch officials have increasingly spoken at political events.

Under the Hatch Act, executive-branch employees can engage in partisan political activity on their personal time, as long as the U.S. government doesn’t pay any associated costs.

But the line between official speech and political speech isn’t always easy to draw when an incumbent faces reelection. “How do you know whether someone’s on duty or not?” said Kathleen Clark, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Even when a trip is classified as “unofficial,” Sebelius never stops being head of HHS.

The same goes for White House staff. “So much of what the White House does is try to achieve, frankly, partisan political priorities of the president,” Clark said. “There’s a little bit of a disconnect, or a tension,” between the technical standard of the law and reality, she said.

When top officials advocate for an incumbent’s policies in their official capacity, “I think all of that can indirectly help the president get reelected,” Painter said, even if an official doesn’t explicitly tell an audience whom to vote for.

In a letter to Office of the General Counsel head Carolyn Lerner, Sebelius argued that by reclassifying the event as political and reimbursing the U.S. Treasury with campaign funds, her violation was corrected.

She also spoke about the personal toll it takes on officials asked to advocate for a president’s agenda both in their official capacity and at campaign events.

“Keeping the roles straight can be a difficult task, particularly on mixed trips that involve both campaign and official stops on the same day,” Sebelius wrote.

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Attack on U.S. consulate in Libya was the work of terrorists, White House says

Sophie Quinton — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 17:56:13 -0400

The White House on Thursday described the attack at the diplomatic facility in Libya as a “terrorist attack.”

"It is, I think, self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack. Our embassy was attacked violently and the result was four deaths of American officials,” press secretary Jay Carney said.

Carney cited the testimony of National Counterterrorism Center Director Matthew Olsen, who told lawmakers on Wednesday that extremists groups may have been involved in the attack, including elements of al-Qaida. The U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed.

Olsen also “made clear,” Carney said, that “we have no information at this point to suggest that this is a significantly pre-planned attack. But this was the result of opportunism, taking advantage of and exploiting what was happening as a result of the video which was found to be offensive."

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With veterans, Obama plays the long game

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:25:00 -0400

President Obama isn’t expected to win the military vote, which tends to lean Republican. But the focus at the convention could have a longer-term payoff: bolstering the Democratic Party’s national-security credentials. Thanks to Obama’s most high-profile overseas success -- the killing of Osama bin Laden -- and his outreach to veterans and their families, the old stereotype may be crumbling.

“Veterans and military families are a group that they’ve been assiduously courting for the past four years,” said Peter Feaver, a professor at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and a former National Security Council official under Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Despite that courtship, Feaver said, “Obama probably will not outperform his 2008 numbers.”

Polling continues to track the result of the 2008 election, when veterans favored Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., by 10 points. McCain, widely respected for surviving captivity during the Vietnam War, drew his strongest support among veterans over age 65, according to exit polls.

A Gallup poll released in May had Romney leading Obama by 24 points among veterans, with Romney’s support also driven largely by older, male voters. But a Reuters/Ipsos poll released the same month found a narrow advantage for Obama among veterans and their families, with 44 percent backing Obama and 37 percent choosing Romney. The Reuters/Ipsos poll, though it was conducted online, is still considered effective in measuring the preferences of younger voters.

“Nobody’s born in uniform. We are a reflection of society,” said Joe Davis, director of public affairs at the Veterans of Foreign Wars. While there’s a perception that most veterans lean right or center-right, the military reflects a range of political leanings, just like the rest of the country, Davis said.

Veterans and their families also aren’t single-issue voters. Like most Americans, their No. 1 worry is the economy. “The president has been true both in word and deed in taking care of military families,” Davis said, but “that’s not the top issue in this election.”

It shouldn’t be surprising that the president has made veterans a priority. Paying attention to veterans during a time of war is “good governance and good civics,” said Michael Breen, vice president of the Truman National Security Project and an Army veteran of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Both the president and the first lady also seem to feel a genuine enthusiasm for the cause.

Breen joined retired Navy Admiral John B. Nathman and other veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan on stage at the Democratic Convention. The moment didn’t feel political. “It was, to me, and incredibly powerful moment of unity and thanks,” he said.

But even though honoring veterans may not feel political, and even though it may not win Obama the military vote, highlighting military service and sacrifice could still benefit Democrats over the long term.

“It’s also a way of showing a rebranding of the Democratic Party,” Feaver said. Rather than being perceived as weak on defense -- a criticism that helped doom Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential bid -- the Democrats want to be seen as smart on defense.

The White House rhetoric on veterans still invites conservative criticism. “The president has an unfortunate tendency to talk about veterans as if they were all disabled,” said Kori Schake, a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution and a senior policy adviser to McCain in 2008. His language sometimes suggests that “this is just one more community that government programs should reach and assist,” she said.

While Obama and his surrogates talk a lot about ending overseas wars, they don’t often talk about winning them, Schake added. “That distinction actually hugely matters” to current and former service members, she said.

But honoring veterans helps Democrats align themselves with one of the few institutions that most Americans still trust: the military. The feelings of gratitude and national unity returning troops inspire are an echo of Obama’s 2008 pledge to bring the country together. “Honoring the troops is part of the civic religion of the country -- like mom and apple pie,” Feaver said.

To keep hold of the White House, Obama doesn’t necessarily need to win the majority of veteran votes. He needs to win middle-class families in states like Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. He needs to win women like Elaine Brye, the beaming military mom who introduced the first lady at the Democratic National Convention.

“I'm not a political person. But I'm a mom, and if someone is there for my family and families like mine, then I'll be there for them,” Brye said. Those are words the Obama campaign wants to resonate in homes across the country -- not just on military bases.

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Obama concerned about attacks from Afghan troops

Sophie Quinton, National Journal — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 14:56:00 -0400

“Obviously we have been watching with deep concern the so-called green-on-blue attacks,” Obama said. He said he has spoken earlier in the day with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey, who is currently in Afghanistan, and that he also planned to call Afghan President Hamid Karzai. “We’ve gotta make sure we’re on top of this,” Obama told reporters at an impromptu news conference.

Obama said steps are being taken to reduce the killings, including tougher screening processes for Afghan security forces and implementing a new "guardian angel" program, which requires one or two NATO troops monitoring Afghan troops during training and combat situations.

“Part of what's taking place is we are transitioning to Afghan security and for us to train them effectively, we are in much closer contact,” Obama said. “…part of what we've got to do is to make sure that this model works but it doesn't make our guys more vulnerable.”

In the last two weeks, there have been eight separate green-on-blue attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.]]>