Mediaboss Marketing

State legislators across the country are debating new measures that would require candidates running for president to publicly disclose their tax returns to qualify for the ballot.

The measures are aimed at President Trump, who became the first White House candidate in recent times refuse to release his tax documents to the public.

Democrats, incensed by Trumps false claims of being prevented from releasing the documents because of an IRS audit, see the legislation on the state level as a way to force the presidents hand when he seeks reelection in 2020.

Tax return information would provide some transparency there to give voters the assurance that they need that the president is acting on behalf of us, said Kathleen Clyde, an Ohio state representative who recently introduced a version of the bill. It is problematic that he is the only candidate in 30 or 40 years not to provide that information.

Similar measures requiring candidates to file with Secretary of State offices have been introduced in California, Oregon and Tennessee. Candidates would be required to file tax documents with state boards of election under bills filed in Illinois, Maryland, New York and Rhode Island.

Other versions of the legislation would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax records in public, though not necessarily through state offices, before they qualify for the ballot. All told, 32 versions of tax disclosure bills have been filed in 19 states.

Most of the measures introduced this year have come from Democrats. Only one version of the bill, in Minnesota, was introduced by a Republican.

In states with Republican-led legislatures, the tax bills are as good as dead. Virginias legislature killed a disclosure bill in committee. Similar laws have been sent to die in committees in Arizona, Iowa, Pennsylvania and Tennessee.

But in other states, mostly those run by Democrats, some bills are making progress. Committees have approved versions in New Jersey and New Mexico. A legislative committee in Hawaii advanced their version of the bill this week.

Legislators in Maryland and Connecticut held hearings on their measures last month. Oregons version, sponsored by House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson (D), will likely advance to the floor.

And in California, where Democrats own a super majority of legislative seats, the bills prime sponsors expect it to advance after hearings are held in April. Mike McGuire, the California state senator who sponsored the bill, said he hopes his state will inspire others to action.

The office of the president is the only office in America that is exempt from conflict of interest laws, said Mike McGuire, the California senator who sponsored the bill. We believe that, as California goes, so many times, so goes the nation.

Legal experts said it is unclear whether requiring a candidate to disclose his or her tax returns would withstand legal scrutiny. Rick Hasen, a campaign legal expert at the University of California-Irvine and author of the Election Law Blog, wrote that U.S. Supreme Court cases have blocked states from adding qualifications for congressional candidates to ballot access rules, though those cases did not cover presidential elections.

If those cases applied here, it would be tough to argue that laws requiring presidential candidates to produce tax returns are constitutional as they would be adding to qualifications, Hasen wrote on his blog. However, those cases did not involve presidential elections, and perhaps state legislatures have much broader power under Article II.

McGuire said he had consulted with constitutional experts, andthat courts have approved other ballot access requirements, like collecting signatures or paying a fee.

States clearly have the ability to require a filing fee and other requirements before someone can be placed onto the ballot, McGuire said. Courts have upheld these requirements over the past several decades, and were sure theyre going to uphold this law as well.

View original post here:
Democrats try new tactic to get Trump's tax returns | TheHill - The Hill

Democrats are pushing back on President Trumps Saturday morning claims that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower offices before the election.

While at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida for the weekend, Mr. Trump fired off a series of early morning tweets accusing President Obama, without citing evidence, of wiretapping Trump Tower. He described this as Nixon/Watergate, calling Mr. Obama a bad (or sick) guy.

Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser under Mr. Obama, denied Mr. Trumps accusations and responded by saying presidents cant order wiretaps:

And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for an investigation by an independent commission into Mr. Trump and his campaign ties to Russia:

Others, including former Vermont Gov. and DNC Chairman Howard Dean and Rep. Ted Lieu, D-California, pointed out on Twitter that if Mr. Trumps allegations are true a judge would have had to find probable cause to approve the wiretap request:

2017 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Continue reading here:
Democrats respond to Trump's wiretapping claim - CBS News

Now, Democrats building a long-term strategy for retaking power in Congress and the states are counting on winning big in statehouse races over the next two years.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi huddled privately with the leaders of the Democratic Governors Association last weekend and looked over maps of top targets. The group has 14 states in its sights and believes it would be impossible to lose more states to Republicans, especially if President Donald Trump continues to struggle.

The organization has picked out nine states that Hillary Clinton won and another five that went to President Barack Obama. Some of the targets are clear -- true blue bastions like Maryland, Massachusetts and Illinois, where Republicans upset Democratic favorites in 2014. But others are likely to be a slog reminiscent of the drubbing Clinton took in the Rust Belt, like fights in Wisconsin and Ohio.

"Look, there's anger against this President and what he has done and the chaos, the unpredictability, the violations of the Constitution," said Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, the group's incoming president, who will lead their 2018 efforts. "So there is anger in every state -- to different proportions certainly. So we are going to look forward to 2018 and governors are absolutely pivotal to this."

The stakes for Democrats are more than just control over state governments: They're about the redrawing the congressional maps, which have helped Republicans maintain a firm grip on the House of Representatives since 2010.

A series of Democratic efforts sprouted up after the 2016 thrashing, including an effort led by Obama's former top aides, to look at how to win back more favorable maps and, eventually, control of the House.

And holding the governors' offices -- with their veto pens -- is central to that strategy.

"We are also the front line to prevent gerrymandering that has been so insidious, that has prevented people's wishes from being followed in Congress," Inslee said.

The bright spot for Democrats is that they are only defending 11 out of 38 seats over the next two years. But Democratic strategists who have been in the trenches of the states are leery that national Democrats, and Obama's own redistricting group, are ready to support them after years of ignoring them.

Republicans have racked up a 33-16 lead over Democrats in the governor's offices across the nation (the 50th governor, Alaska's Bill Walker, is an independent.) The sweep started in 2010 with the tea party wave that carried firebrands like Wisconsin's Scott Walker, Florida's Rick Scott and Maine's Paul LePage to victory.

Walker, who now chairs the Republican Governors Association, credited his organization's big-tent approach.

"We support Greg Abbott in Texas because it's Texas," Walker said. "We support Phil Scott in Vermont who is, on many issues, substantively different, but he matches Vermont and fits the people of Vermont. That's why you have Charlie Baker and Larry Hogan for example, who have over 70% approval ratings, who fit the unique needs and interests of other states like Massachusetts in Maryland, like the rest of us do in our own states."

Hogan and Baker, in particular, have become the most conspicuous targets for Democrats; Clinton won Maryland and Massachusetts by almost equally strong margins -- 26 percentage points and 27 percentage points.

Both governors have fought openly against Trump, making it harder for Democrats to tie them to the unpopular president, but the political peril is still palpable.

Baker and his entourage dodged national reporters at the National Governors Association meeting over the weekend -- an aide hastily pulled a handful of business cards from his pocket and shoved them into a CNN reporter's hand Sunday as he moved to head off questions for Baker.

But the governor told a local reporter over the weekend that he will continue to keep Trump at arm's length heading into 2018.

Democrats will get a test run this year with two fights in states Clinton won: New Jersey and Virginia. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is term-limited from seeking re-election and also deeply unpopular following the Bridgegate scandal, but Democrats ran into some trouble when presumptive frontrunner Phil Murphy, a former party finance chairman and ambassador to Germany, compared Trump to Hitler. Virginia has elected Democrats in three of the last four elections, but Democrats are playing defense this year in the purple state, which Clinton just narrowly won.

Read the original post:
Democrats say long-term success starts with 2018 governors' races ... - CNN

On Saturday, workers in the middle of a union drive at the Nissan plant in Canton, Miss., stopped to hear from a special guest: Sen. Bernie Sanders. The onetime presidential candidate, now the Democratic caucuss point man on political outreach, cameto the March on Mississippi event both to help the United Automobile Workers campaign and to send a message about what opponents of President Trump should be doing.

What Im going to be saying is that the facts are very clear, that workers in America who are members of unions earn substantially more, 27 percent more, than workers not in unions, Sanders (I-Vt.) said in an interview before the speech. They get pensions and better working conditions. I find it very remarkable that Nissan is allowing unions to form at itsplants all over the world. Well, if they can be organized everywhere else, they can be organized in Mississippi.

In a statement, new Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez, the former U.S. labor secretary, lent his support to the rally and the union drive.

[Nissan accused of wrongly blocking union activity at plant]

The Nissan workers in Canton deserve to go to work every day without risking their lives, said Perez. They deserve to earn a fair days wage for a fair days work. And they deserve the opportunity to stand up for their rights without fear of retribution. But since thats too much to ask from Donald Trump and the Republicans who currently control Mississippi, Democrats will stand with the workers and continue to organize in order to fight back wherever workers rights are threatened.

The Mississippi march, organized by the United Automobile Workers andjoined by the NAACP and the Sierra Club, comes as Democrats are reintroducing themselves to voters who drifted toward Trumps populism last year. Reinvigorated by Trumps near daily political problems and by anagenda thathas drifted closer to traditional Republican economic policies, theyre identifying themselves more closely with liberalpolicies and labor organizers.

Some of the poorest states in this country, where large numbers of people have no health insurance and have experienced stagnating wages, have not had the support from progressives that they need, Sanders said. Its time we change that. It means standing up for working men and women.

[Heres 3 reasons Rust Belt Democratic senators arent compromising with Trump]

On Friday morning, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) delivered a speech atOhio State University about the how dignity comes from work, arguing for an agenda that would boost wages and offer more family leave.

Populism is for the people not these people or those people but all people, Brown said. True populism is not about who it excludes but who it embraces. The value of work isnt a black issue or a white issue. Its not a blue-collar issue or a white-collar issue. Its not a liberal or conservative issue.

Browns ideas, packaged in a 77-page report titled Working Too Hard for Too Little, mirror much of what Sanders ran on in the 2016 presidential primary and much of what Hillary Clinton adopted for the general election. Some ideas go further.

Like Sanders, Brown argues for a $15 minimum wage, in sync with the campaign waged by the Service Employees International Union. Like Clinton, he pitches 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave. Brown, who was also one of the first senators to suggest expanding Social Security payments by raising Federal Insurance Contributions Act, or FICA, taxes, also suggests standardized overtime pay for workers making less than $47,476 and a crackdown on the process of paying workers as contractors to avoid giving them benefits packages.

[Democrats rally with federal employees facing tough times under Trump]

I can already hear the complaints coming from the corporate boardroom, Brown said. These ideas cost too much. Well have to raise prices. Funny, you never hear those concerns raised over the cost of shareholder payouts or corporate bonuses. Corporations always want to talk about the cost of raising wages and benefits, but what about the cost of not raising them?

Like Sanders, Brown is up for reelection in 2018. Unlike Sanders, he represents a state that broke solidly for Trump in 2016 after twice voting for Barack Obama, and he has already drawn an opponent in Josh Mandel, the Republican state treasurer seeking a rematch of their 2012 race.

The first step, as seen by Brown and other Democrats, is holding and winning back the blue-collar voters who rejected Clinton in 2016 after years of voting Democratic. They see appetite for the Trump-centric and personality-focused campaign that failed Clinton in the Midwest.

At this weeks speech by Trump before a joint session of Congress, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) brought a guest who highlighted her campaign for Buy American steel policies, highlighting a Trump pledge that has proved hard to fulfill. And in a video message released while senators were heading homefor the weekend, Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), another member of the 2018 election class, pitched his plan for a five-year ban on former senators or members of the executive branch becoming lobbyists after they leave office another one-up on a Trump pitch, in this case to drain the swamp of Washington influence-peddling.

[How the economy of West Virginia has changed over the past 25 years]

After Im done serving Montana, I know what Im going to do Im still going to be a farmer, Tester says in the video. But unfortunately, many of my former colleagues become lobbyists.

Little of that has cut through in a week dominated by Trumps speech, and then by questions about whether Attorney General Jeff Sessions misled the Senate about 2016 conversations with Russias ambassador.

The Canton rally and march, Sanders said, provided an opportunity to focus on something concrete something that Republicans, who now dominate Mississippi and have stopped unionization campaigns in other Southern states, were already dug in on.

These workers are incredibly courageous, Sanders said. One thing we already know is that workers who have stood up for their rights are being harassed, arebeing discriminated against and are being lectured about the so-called perils of trade unionism. Theres a massive anti-union effort going on, and these guys are standing out their own. They deserve our support.

At the rally itself, facing throngs of workers and activists whod come to hear him speak, Sanders hit on familiar themes. America, he said, was in a race to the bottom for low wages labor standards.

What justice is about is the freedom for workers at Nissan to vote their conscience, said Sanders. If we can win here at Nissan, you will give a tremendous vote of confidence to workers across this country.

Read more here:
Bernie Sanders backs unionization campaign in Mississippi as Democrats draft populist agenda - Washington Post

BERLIN German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives took a one point lead over the Social Democrats (SPD) in the latest poll conducted by Emnid for the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, with nearly seven months to go before federal elections.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its CSU Bavarian sister party gained one percentage point to reach 33 percent support, compared with an unchanged 32 percent for the SPD in a poll of 1,403 people taken from Feb. 23 to March 1.

The anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party gained one percentage point in the poll to reach 10 percent, while the ratings for the Left party and pro-environment Green party were unchanged at 8 percent and 7 percent, respectively.

The Free Democratic Party lost one percentage point compared to the last poll to reach 6 percent, just above the 5 percent threshold needed to take seats in parliament.

The increase for Merkel's conservatives came after a surge in support for the SPD that followed its nomination of former European Parliament President Martin Schulz as its candidate to challenge Merkel in the Sept. 24 national election.

Merkel, who is seeking a fourth term in the election, leads a coalition government made up of the CDU/CSU and the center-left SPD, but Schulz is hoping to win enough votes to form a new government with smaller allies.

The unexpectedly strong gains shown by the SPD - and the CDU/CSU's slide - have prompted some German media to write about "Merkel fatigue" and what they see as the chancellor's lack of enthusiasm for this year's campaign.

"Angela Merkel suddenly seems like one of those dinosaurs that was incapable of adapting in time, and could only hang around limply waiting for its own extinction," wrote Jakob Augstein, a columnist for Der Spiegel magazine, in Sunday's edition.

But the new Emnid poll and others taken over the past week showed Merkel's conservatives have now stabilized and are now polling neck-and-neck or just ahead of the Social Democrats.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Bernard Orr)

ISTANBUL A Syrian air force pilot who bailed out as his warplane crashed on Turkish territory has been found by a Turkish rescue team and is being treated at a hospital in the Hatay region, a hospital spokeswoman said on Sunday.

WASHINGTON The White House budget director confirmed Saturday that the Trump administration will propose "fairly dramatic reductions" in the U.S. foreign aid budget later this month.

LONDON Finance minister Philip Hammond said he would not take advantage of an expected lowering in Britain's future borrowing requirements and spend heavily because the country needs "reserves in the tank" ahead of its impending divorce from the European Union.

The rest is here:
German conservatives edge ahead of Social Democrats in Emnid poll - Reuters