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Sep 7, 20216:17 AMEDT

Labor Day didn't go by without progressives renewing calls for the Senate to pass the PRO Act.

By Kaitlyn Kennedy

Washington DC Squad members and other progressive politicians rang in Labor Day by urging the Senate to do away with the filibuster and pass the PRO Act.

The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act was passed in the House in March along mostly party lines, but it has since stalled in the Senate.

Advocates have called the legislation the most consequential revamping of labor laws since the New Deal in the 1930s.

The bill outlines a host of provisions intended to provide workers greater security when organizing for better wages, benefits, and safety in the workplace.

Concretely, the bill would end mandatory anti-union meetings. As things stand now, employers can require workers to attend sessions that detail all the alleged disadvantages of unions, as occurred during the high-profile unionization vote at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama earlier this year.

The bill would also end "right to work" laws currently in place in 27 states, which allow people who don't pay union dues to receive union benefits. This weakens unions by depriving them of funds and membership, stripping them of their bargaining power.

Employers would be required to negotiate with unions until a first contract is reached and would not be able to delay union elections, fixing two of the biggest obstacles to organizing.

Workers would also receive additional protections, including a ban on employers permanently replacing striking employees.

Secondary strike limitations would also be removed, allowing unions to encourage workers in connected jobs to participate in boycotts and so amplify the strikers' negotiating power.

The PRO Act would prevent employers from misclassifying employees as "independent contractors" as a means of limiting access to full workers' rights and restricting unionization efforts.

Members of the Squad and other progressive politicians used Labor Day as an opportunity to remind fellow lawmakers about the importance of passing the PRO Act.

"So much of what we take for granted in this country is due to the tireless work of the labor movement. We need to protect and grow the power of working people everywhere. To start: let's turn the PRO Act into law," said New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman.

Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar agreed: "The Senate must pass the PRO Act to put power back in the hands of workers."

New York Rep. Mondaire Jones simply tweeted, "Happy Labor Day.Abolish the filibuster and pass the PRO Act."

Passing the PRO Act is the best way Congress can honor and strengthen the labor movement, they argue.

But doing so seems to require some big structural changes within the legislative branch.

The PRO Act is currently experiencing a similar fate as much of the most consequential Democratic-sponsored legislation aimed at expanding political and economic enfranchisement.

Senate Democrats with their narrow majority are unable to get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster, and even within their own camp, there is a familiar holdout Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema.

Unless the filibuster is removed or significantly reformed, or Sinema and 10 Republican colleagues suddenly see the light, the PRO Act doesn't stand much of a chance of passing.

That's why some Democrats and labor advocates are working to get parts of PRO Act included in $3.5-trillion Democratic reconciliation bill, including empowering the NLRB to penalize employers if they violate workers' rights.

Still, the usual suspects Sinema and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin have expressed doubts over passing the reconciliation bill with its current price tag, making it unclear whether Democrats will be able to advance many of their boldest reforms.

Nevertheless, the brain behind the budget, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, remains confident he can get the 50 votes necessary to send the reconciliation bill to Biden's desk.

Cover photo: IMAGO / ZUMA Wire

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"Power to the workers": Progressives commemorate Labor Day by renewing calls to pass the PRO Act - TAG24 NEWS

Progressives should love cryptocurrency, the latest innovation that brings power to the people. Turns out, they dont.

Perhaps surprisingly, it is precisely because crypto circumvents the corporate, permissioned, speech-controlled online world that angers progressives. Crypto threatens to nix not just the corporation but also the bureaucrat, which puts it at odds with the progressive ethos that demands government experts ensure a just and common good.

Progressive politicians want to make this industry heel to Washington or, even better, replace it wholesale with a government version. In a recent hearing, progressive Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) assailed crypto as run by shadowy super coders and phony populists. Senator Brown wants government-run central bank digital currency as an alternative.

The current top-down internet, where oversight boards, safety councils, and terms of service legalese control access, fits the progressive vision. Progressives have increasingly demanded and mostly received a compliant tech industry where contrary voices are nonvoiced, whatever the validity of their arguments.

In theory, a crypto-centered web would change the paradigm. Permissionless decentralized applications run over blockchains have no dictators. Blockchain changes arrive through consensus, those that disagree with a software update, or fork, remain on the un-forked blockchain or fork themselves. Forks lacking developer support wither and die.

But the crypto worlds ideal of a rapidly innovative, individual-centered internet that ends top-down control and allows people to buy, share, borrow, speak, trade, rent, and collaborate outside government or Big Techs purview is a better match for the conservative/libertarian worldview.

President Donald Trump, for all his bluster, nominated the two most pro-crypto people to ever work in the executive branch, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce (aka Crypto Mom) and Brian Brooks, former acting Comptroller of the Currency.

The infrastructure debate saw passionate crypto defenses from Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) among many others. House conservatives like Representative Patrick McHenry (R-NC) tirelessly support crypto, while progressive bellwether Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs (D-NY) support for unlimited public spending via Modern Monetary Theory starkly contrasts cryptos penchant for sound money.

Ideally, the coders, programmers, foundations, policy wonks, and others creating the crypto-economy could ignore politics. They could be left alone to produce a common good decided by individuals making choices and not by protective regulators. Hardly anyone receiving the benefits of their labors would think twice about the political or ideological motivations of the people creating the tokenized economy. What matters is if peoples lives become easier or more prosperous.

But any upstart industry needs friends in Washington. The crypto industry should choose wisely. If cryptos main players, as well the sectors emerging entrepreneurs and investors, want the best for the approaching internet phase known loosely as Web 3.0, they should diverge from the progressive movement and its Big Tech allies, which will never be their friends.

Paul H. Jossey is an adjunct fellow and crypto policy expert at the Competitive Enterprise Institute and founder of http://www.thecrowdfundinglawyers.com. Follow him on Twitter @thecrowdfundlaw

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Perspective: Crypto Should Divorce From the Progressive Movement - Crowdfund Insider

Rep. Cori Bush, the first-term Democrat from Missouri who has quickly become a progressive standout, describes her life as one of constant learning.

Its an education that has taken the 45-year-old from the streets of Ferguson, Mo., to the steps of the Capitol, where she slept outside for days demanding that Congress pass legislation to extend an eviction moratorium.

One of her first educational courses was from her father, Errol Bush, who has served as both a local alderman and mayor.

I grew up in a home where my dad was always teaching us about civil rights, Bush told The Hill in a pair of phone interviews. He always helped me to see your skin color does not make you less than anyone ... you are a leader, he instilled that in me from as early as I can remember, but I didn't understand it yet. I didn't understand what he meant until I was out there on those streets.

Those streets were in Ferguson, the St. Louis suburb where Black teenager Michael Brown was shot and killed by a white police officer in August 2014.

Browns death sparked nationwide anger and was a flashpoint in the burgeoning Black Lives Matter movement; Ferguson itself was dominated by unrest and protests, and its police department eventually was forced to enter a consent decree with the Justice Department.

Formore than400 days, Bush and other protesters marched and held demonstrations. On day one, Bush was a registered nurse, pastor and mother of two; by the end, she was a leader of the movement.

I feel like I learned everything, Bush continued. What I didn't learn in school in a school book, I learned out there on those streets, because [they] helped me understand the experiences that I had walked through prior.

I learned how to use my voice.

Bush was persuaded to jump into Missouris Senate race in 2016, but she didnt make it beyond the primary.

Two years later, the St. Louis native fell short again, this time in a House race, losing in the Democratic primary to then-Rep. Wm. Lacy ClayWilliam (Lacy) Lacy ClayLobbying world Ex-Rep. Clay joins law and lobbying firm Pillsbury Liberal advocacy group stirs debate, discomfort with primary challenges MORE.

But she never stopped organizing, and her tenacious, grassroots approach finally paid off last year, when she was propelled to an upset victory against Clay.

In November, she easily won the general election, becoming Missouris first Black congresswoman.

She credits lessons learned from trauma and hardships, both shared and unshared, as contributing factors to who she is today.

Bush is a survivor of sexual assault, a former low-wage worker and has been evicted multiple times. More recently, she was sidelined for the better part of two months last year with a bout of suspected COVID-19induced pneumonia that landed her in the hospital twice.

I always say that St. Louis built me ... because of all the hard knocks that I've gone through, Bush said.

So many of them happened on the street, or they happened because of what our communities look like. I've watched so many of my friends and neighbors go through so many of the same things that I did.

Her lived experiences and deep roots in activism are far from commonplace in Congress, but those close to her say thats where she draws her strength from.

The special thing about Cori is her passion, passion for people and the genuineness that she has for people, Ohun Ashe, a St. Louis organizer and activist who has worked with Bush, told The Hill.

If you listen to Coris story, you know that shes had some bad experiences with being a Black woman in America. And I think that that has given her a special light to seeing other people, and a special fight and passion not everyone has.

Bushs experience with evictions and homelessness served as the basis for her protest on the Capitol steps at the beginning of August. It also underscored some of the tensions between progressives and Democratic leaders who have not always been in lockstep on legislative priorities.

When it came to extending the eviction moratorium, Democrats didnt have the votes to pass the legislation, but Bushs demonstration on the Capitol steps garnered the media attention needed to pressure the White House. President BidenJoe BidenTrump to offer commentary at heavyweight fight on 9/11 Manchin would support spending plan of at most .5T: report South Dakota governor issues executive order restricting access to abortion medicine MORE later extended the moratorium until Oct. 3.

Bushs protest drew praise across the Democratic caucus.

Speaker Nancy PelosiNancy PelosiManchin would support spending plan of at most .5T: report Overnight Health Care US hits new vaccine milestone White House pitches House Democrats on messaging for .5T spending plan MORE (D-Calif.) lauded her powerful action to keep people in their homes.

Rep. Pramila JayapalPramila JayapalMore than 100 Democrats back legislation lowering Medicare eligibility age to 60 On The Money Manchin slams brakes on Biden spending push Progressives hit Manchin after he calls for 'pause' on Biden's .5T plan MORE (D-Wash.), chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, credited Bushs clear-eyed, committed activist mentality.

I think that it would not have been possible to get to this result without Rep. Bush's action, Jayapal said at the time.

The Supreme Court, however, struck down the new moratorium, after saying two months earlier that only Congress could extend the temporary ban.

Bush told The Hill that her heart broke when she heard the news.

Even though I'm not on the steps anymore, this isn't over for me and for my office and so many of my colleagues, Bush said.

She said shes working with Rep. Maxine WatersMaxine Moore WatersCawthorn to introduce resolution condemning political violence after warning of 'bloodshed' if elections are 'rigged' On The Money Eviction ruling puts new pressure on Congress Pelosi backs bill to expedite rental aid after eviction ruling MORE (D-Calif.), the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee, to get legislation introduced that would improve disbursement of the $46 billion that Congress approved for emergency rental assistance, the majority of which has failed to reach struggling tenants and their landlords.

Bush also said her office is working on drafting legislation that would give the Department of Health and Human Services the authority to implement eviction moratoriums.

But the national spotlight also brought with it criticism of other policies that Bush is a proponent of, namely defunding the police by redirecting money from police budgets to improve social services such as violence prevention.

In an interview with CBS on Aug. 6 shortly after Biden announced the new eviction moratorium Bush's expenditures on private security were juxtaposed with her support for defunding the police.

You would rather me die? Is that what you want to see? You want to see me die? You know, because that could be the alternative, she responded.

According to The Hills analysis of Federal Election Commission filings, Bush spent almost $70,000 on private security after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection the most of any House lawmaker.

Bush told The Hill that death threats against her have been commonplace ever since her activism in Ferguson and that the events of Jan. 6 made the transition to Congress more challenging.

"I was told you're more safe here [at the Capitol] than you were before," Bush said. "But the insurrection, just a couple of days in, showed me that that was not the case. And so that was what was difficult."

Going forward, Bush and fellow Democrats are likely to start criticizing each other as new legislative challenges emerge.

Democrats will soon face a true test of unity when they craft what could amount to a $3.5 trillion spending bill and vote on a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. Some progressives have threatened to oppose the infrastructure bill which has already passed the Senate if its voted on ahead of before the $3.5 trillion measure thats packed with progressive policy proposals.

I think that the possibilities are wide open right now. It seems like every day there's something different, Bush said.

I'm not going to back down from making sure that both the budget and the infrastructure plan, that they go together, they have to go together. ... I said that coming to Congress that I will do the absolute most for St. Louis and that is this, so I will not back down from this fight.

Cristina Marcos contributed.

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Cori Bush hits her stride by drawing on activist past | TheHill - The Hill

U.S. Supreme Court

Following the death of George Floyd, the nation focused attention on the enormous problems of police violence and racism in law enforcement, but there is a failure to put blame where much belongs: on the United States Supreme Court.

Many provisions of the Constitution exist to limit what police can do and to protect the rights of all of us, including those suspected and accused of crimes. Yet the court has done an ineffective, and indeed a poor job, of enforcing provisions of the Constitution intended to constrain the police. The Supreme Court has historically and consistently empowered the police to engage in racialized policing that especially harms people of color.

That is the thesis of my new book, Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights. There are many provisions of the Constitution meant to limit police behavior. The Fourth Amendment restricts the ability of the police to seize people and to search them. The Fifth Amendment protects the privilege against self-incrimination and constrains police questioning. The due process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments impose many restrictions, including preventing suggestive police identification procedures, such as lineups.

Yet through almost all of American history, the Supreme Court has done little to enforce these provisions and to constrain the police. For the first century after the ratification of the Bill of Rights, the court virtually never decided a case about them, leaving the police unchecked by the Constitution. Except for a brief time during the Warren Court, particularly from 1961-1969, the court has narrowly interpreted these constitutional protections and instead has consistently ruled in favor of the police.

It is not hyperbole to say that under current law, as developed by the Supreme Court, the police can stop any person at any time and frisk the person, a power that is disproportionately used against Black and brown people. There is little protection of individuals from coercion in police interrogations, so long as the police dont use physical force. The court has virtually ignored the problem of false eyewitness identifications that have led to convictions of many innocent people, especially when a person is identifying someone of a different race. The court has made it difficult for victims of police abuse to successfully sue, even when an officer used egregious excessive force leading to serious injuries or death. In fact, the court has weakened, or gutted, all of the remedies that might be used to challenge police misconduct.

In empowering law enforcement, the courts decisions have led to enormous racial disparities in policing. In 2016, Black males aged 15-34 were nine times more likely than other Americans to be killed by law enforcement officers, according to the Guardian. They were also killed at four times the rate of young white men, a study in the American Journal of Public Health found. It also showed Hispanic men are nearly twice as likely to be killed by police as white men. The United States Civil Rights Commission concluded that while people of color make up fewer than 38% of the population, they make up almost 63% of unarmed people killed by police. Overall, civilian deaths from shootings and other police actions are vastly higher in the United States than in other developed nations.

And even when death does not result, there is a serious problem of excessive police force, especially directed at racial minorities, that causes physical and psychological injuries. There are seemingly endless accounts of police unnecessarily striking suspects, especially men of color, with batons, using tasers, applying chokeholds, and employing far more force than needed under the circumstances. The Center for Policing Equity found that 1 in 5 Americans interacts with law enforcement yearly. Of those encounters, 1 million result in use of force. And if youre Black, you are 2-4 times more likely to have force used than if you are white.

Discussions about the problems with policing usually do not focus on the Supreme Court, which does not hire or train or supervise or discipline police officers. It does not set budgets for police departments or manage their operations. As people focus on what police do on the streets, the connection to Supreme Court rulings is not apparent and seems remote. But the Constitution contains crucial provisions limiting how policing is to be done and what the Supreme Court says about them, or more importantly does not say, has an enormous effect on what police do every day. Without enforcement of the Constitutions constraints on police, all too often the rights of criminal suspects and defendants become illusory.

To take one example, under the Supreme Courts decisions, police can stop and frisk virtually any person at any time. Studies in many cities show that police disproportionately use this power against people of color.

The court opened the door to this practice in Terry v. Ohio, in 1968, under the liberal Warren Court. Notwithstanding the language of the Fourth Amendment, which requires probable cause for a police stop or search, the court said that only a lesser standardreasonable suspicionneeded to be met. To this day, the court never has defined reasonable suspicion other than to say that it requires more than a hunch and less than probable cause.

In subsequent decisions, the court made it easy for the police to find reasonable suspicion in almost any situation. Whren v. United States, from 1996, is particularly important. Undercover officers in Washington, D.C., became suspicious when a car stopped at a stop sign for about 30 seconds. They followed the car until the driver committed a minor infraction, turning without a signal. Even though undercover officers in D.C. were not allowed to enforce traffic laws, the police pulled the car over, ordered the driver and passenger out of the vehicle and searched the area of the car where they were sitting. They found illegal drugs.

The traffic stop clearly was a pretext; the officers had no authority to enforce traffic laws and no interest in doing so. The court said that does not matter. The actual motivation of the officers is irrelevant. The court said that the decision to stop an automobile is reasonable where the police have probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. So long as the officer has probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion, that a traffic law has been violated, the officer may stop the vehicle.

If police officers follow anyone long enough, they will observe a driver changing lanes, turning without a signal, exceeding the speed limit by a mile or two an hour, orand this is the easiest for policethe car not stopping long enough, or too long, at a stop sign. It is irrelevant for Fourth Amendment purposes that the officers actual motivation for the stop had nothing to do with traffic enforcement. And studies show that this power is used disproportionately against people of color. Emma Pierson and the Stanford Open Policing Project analyzed data on vehicle stops from 21 state patrol agencies and 35 city police departments from 2011 to 2018. They found that Black drivers were stopped 43% more often than white drivers relative to their share of the population.

This is just one example of how the Supreme Court has empowered the police and how it has led to highly racialized policing. But what can be done about it?

In light of the political composition of the Supreme Court, now and for the foreseeable future, it is unlikely that it will interpret the Constitution to control the police. If the court continues to fail, and I fear it will given that a majority of the justices have shown no concern or awareness of the problems with policing in the United States, then we must turn to other institutions to control the police, check police abuses and end racist policing in the United States. Congress, state legislatures and city councils can enact new laws to reform policing. After the tragic death of George Floyd, bills were introduced into Congress and into state legislatures to impose crucial new checks on the police. Unfortunately, these have stalled; even the progressive California legislature failed to enact new laws last year.

State courts can interpret state constitutions to protect rights and to impose limits on state and local police departments. State constitutions always can provide more protection of rights than the United States Constitution. For example, some state courts, such as in Arkansas and Washington, have rejected Whren and prohibited pretextual police stops.

The U.S. Department of Justice can aggressively enforce existing laws to reform police departments. A federal law, 42 U.S.C. 14141, authorizes the DOJ to sue police departments when there is a pattern and practice of civil rights violations. This has been used to reform many major police departments, such as in Los Angeles, Seattle, Baltimore and Cincinnati. The Trump administration expressly refused to use this authority, but Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that once more the Justice Department will be bringing suits under it.

All of these actions can make a big difference in how policing is done in the United States. And perhaps someday, the court will fulfill its duty of enforcing the parts of the Constitution that are meant to control the police and ensure equal justice under the law.

Erwin Chemerinsky is dean of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law. He is an expert in constitutional law, federal practice, civil rights and civil liberties, and appellate litigation. Hes the author of several books, including The Case Against the Supreme Court (Viking, 2014) and The Religion Clauses: The Case for Separating Church and State, written with Howard Gillman (Oxford University Press, 2020). His latest book is Presumed Guilty: How the Supreme Court Empowered the Police and Subverted Civil Rights (Liveright, 2021).

Link:
Chemerinsky: The Supreme Court has done a poor job protecting against police abuse of power and racism - ABA Journal

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and the U.S. governments subsequent war on terror. As part of this war, the government has engaged in extensive military operations abroad.

While attention is currently focused on its withdrawal from Afghanistan, we must note that in prosecuting its war on terror, the U.S. government has also massively expanded its powers at home. While these powers have been adopted in the name of protecting people and freedom in America, they also pose a threat to our liberty. The anniversary of the attacks offers an opportunity to take stock of these long-lasting government powers.

Less than two months after the attacks, Congress passed the PATRIOT Act, which expanded the governments domestic surveillance powers, including the power to review information about people that is held by third parties. It also weakened Fourth Amendment protections related to trap and trace searches, in which incoming phone calls to a person are recorded. In addition, President George W. Bush issued an order to ease the constraints imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on the National Security Agency (NSA). This allowed the agency to execute warrantless searches of American citizens emails and phone calls.

After several reauthorizations, key provisions of the PATRIOT Act expired in March 2020. However, its spirit is alive and well. The underlying surveillance apparatus, which was expansive even before 9/11, is still in place. And many surveillance activities and programs outside of the PATRIOT Act still exist in expanded form and will be with us for the foreseeable future.

A second domestic legacy of the war on terror is the militarization of domestic police forces. According to one estimate, since 9/11, the Department of Defense has transferred $1.6 billion worth of equipment to law enforcement agencies for items like mine-resistant vehicles, machine guns, grenade launchers and military aircraft. Domestic police departments have also obtained stingrays, or cell site simulators, which can be used to make cell phones transmit information, such as location and other identifiers. Originally developed for military and intelligence use abroad, these devices are now used by local law enforcement, which can spy on people in the United States with little to no oversight.

A final domestic legacy of the war on terror is civil asset forfeiture, which allows the police to seize assets from anyone suspected of illegal activity, but without having to charge them with a crime. The PATRIOT Act weakened earlier protections against forfeiture abuse, making it easier for the government to seize the property of anyone suspected of being associated with terrorist activity. Once property is seized, owners who want it back have the onus of demonstrating innocence. Further compounding this perverse system is the arrangement in which state and federal authorities share the proceeds from the sale of seized assets. Law enforcement thus has an incentive to take property assets, since the evidentiary bar is low and the benefits are high.

These expanded government powers impose high costs on many innocent people. The hardest hit are people who lack the money and time to fight back through the courts.

The famous sociologist William Graham Sumner (1840-1910) once observed that, it is not possible to experiment with a society and just drop the experiment whenever we choose. The experiment enters into the life of society and never can be got out again.

This is certainly the case with the post-9/11 expansions of government powers. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020, there were protests against police brutality throughout the country. Protestors were monitored through aerial surveillance, and a range of military-grade equipment was deployed. More recently, since the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot, there have been calls for a new war on domestic terror.

Perhaps the lasting legacy of the war on terror is the expansion and entrenchment of government power over the lives of Americans.

Christopher J. Coyne is senior fellow at the Independent Institute and professor of Economics at George Mason University. He is the co-author of Police State, USA which appears in the fall edition of The Independent Review.

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The domestic legacy of our global 'war on terror' | TheHill - The Hill