Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Preemption laws prevent cities from acting on everything from labor and employment to gun safety
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Preemption laws prevent cities from acting on everything from labor and employment to gun safety // Blog | Economic Policy Institute
https://www.epi.org/blog/preemption-laws-prevent-cities-from-acting-on-everything-from-labor-and-employment-to-gun-safety/
On Valentine's Day, a 19 year-old with a legally purchased AR-15 assault rifle stormed into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida and murdered 14 students, and 3 educators. In Florida, an AR-15 military-style assault rifle is easier to buy than a handgun. Understandably, many of the students who survived the mass shooting and the families of the 17 victims have called for a change in the law, arguing that it shouldn't be so easy to legally purchase weapons that powerful. I write here not to weigh in on the merits of any given gun law, but to comment on the process of advocating for legislative change, and the challenges at the local level with the preemption laws on the books.
In terms of advocating for a change in federal law, Congress's ban on AR-15s and other semiautomatic assault weapons expired in 2004, and federal lawmakers have not been able to pass a similar ban since.
In terms of advocating for change in state law, dozens of Florida high school students recently loaded onto buses and drove to the Florida state capital to lobby for a bill banning assault rifles, which was voted down by the state's House of Representatives.
In terms of advocating for a change in gun laws at the city and county level, the students, families of the victims, or anyone else won't even have a chance because of Florida's preemption law. "Preemption" in this context refers to a situation in which a state law is enacted to block a local ordinance from taking effect—or dismantle an existing ordinance.
Florida's 2011 amendment to its gun preemption law is unique: Not only does it prohibit local governments from regulating guns, it allows punitive measures against local elected officials for even trying. In Florida, local elected officials on city councils or other municipal bodies are subject to personal civil penalties of up to $5,000, can be sued and held personally liable for damages of up to $100,000, and even removed from office at the discretion of the governor. And, the preemption law requires elected officials to pay their own attorney's fees if they are sued.
In 2017, for example, Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum was sued personally by gun advocates while he was still a city commissioner after he cast a symbolic vote against repealing a local ordinance that banned shooting firearms in the city's public parks (his vote was only symbolic because Florida's preemption law had already nullified the ordinance years before). His legal defense costs for simply casting a vote totaled $200,000, but he was able to find attorneys to do the work pro bono.
Arizona's punitive gun preemption law requires the county, city or town to "post a bond equal to the amount of state shared revenue" whenever the state attorney general files suit against the local government for an alleged violation of Arizona's gun preemption law. In 2017, the city of Tucson nearly ground to a fiscal halt when the state attorney general sued the city for its practice of destroying unclaimed or forfeited firearms. As required by the preemption law, the city's bond amount would have totaled $55,639,999.37, and the city stated in court that it "could not post a bond at or near that amount as it would exceed the sum total of the city's available reserves by nearly $5 million." The state declined to enforce the bond requirement in this case, but required the city to resell the unclaimed firearms instead of destroying them.
Of course, it's not just gun laws. State governments have begun blocking local government efforts to give workers the opportunity to earn paid sick days or raise wages through the use of preemption laws.
Pay for the vast majority of America's workers has been stagnant for decades. One of the simplest ways to accelerate wage growth for low- and moderate-wage workers is to raise minimum wages. In 2015, for example, the citizens of St. Louis tried to address what, in the city government's own words were, the city's problems of "rising income inequality" and "the obstacles preventing people from rising into the middle class" by raising the minimum wage.
In terms of advocating for a federal change, Congress last raised the minimum wage in 2009 to $7.25, and hasn't raised it since.
In terms of advocating for state law to change, Missouri's minimum wage was last changed in 2006 and has barely budged to just $7.85 (and it's rising slowly only because of an automatic index to rise with inflation).
In terms of advocating for change at the local level, the residents of St. Louis were able to make a change—for a little while. By passing its local ordinance in 2015, St. Louis sought to raise the minimum wage to $8.25 for many employees working within the city limits, with scheduled increases to $9 in 2016, $10 on January 1, 2017, and $11 on January 1, 2018.
But the City of St. Louis's victory was short-lived, because in 2017 the Missouri state legislature passed a minimum wage preemption law that nullified the local ordinance, lowering the St. Louis minimum wage from $10 back down to the state's minimum of less than $8 per hour, undercutting wages for at least 38,000 workers.
With inaction on raising working standards at the federal and state levels, many advocates turn to their local governments to address the needs of workers within the city limits. But these preemption laws are lowering labor standards at the local level, and certainly do not help improve the standard of living for the people living in our towns, cities, and counties who are trying to change their circumstances for the better.
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Monday, March 12, 2018
Re: [socialist-econ] Joseph Stiglitz: When Shall We Overcome?
When Shall We Overcome?--
Mar 12, 2018 JOSEPH E. STIGLITZMar 12, 2018 JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ
In 1968, the year after riots erupted in cities throughout the US, the Kerner Commission, established by President Lyndon B. Johnson, famously concluded that the country was "moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal." Sadly, it is a conclusion that still rings true.
NEW YORK – In 1967, riots erupted in cities throughout the United States, from Newark, New Jersey, to Detroit and Minneapolis in the Midwest – all two years after the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles exploded in violence. In response, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed a commission, headed by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, to investigate the causes and propose measures to address them. Fifty years ago, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (more widely known as the Kerner Commission), issued its report, providing a stark account of the conditions in America that had led to the disorders.
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The Kerner Commission described a country in which African-Americans faced systematic discrimination, suffered from inadequate education and housing, and lacked access to economic opportunities. For them, there was no American dream. The root cause was "the racial attitude and behavior of white Americans toward black Americans. Race prejudice has shaped our history decisively; it now threatens to affect our future."
I was part of a group convened by the Eisenhower Foundation to assess what progress had been made in the subsequent half-century. Sadly, the Kerner Commission report's most famous line – "Our Nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white – separate and unequal" – still rings true.
The just-published book based on our efforts, Healing Our Divided Society: Investing in America Fifty Years After the Kerner Report, edited by Fred Harris and Alan Curtis, makes for bleak reading. As I wrote in my chapter, "Some problematic areas identified in the Kerner Report have gotten better (participation in politics and government by black Americans – symbolized by the election of a black president), some have stayed the same (education and employment disparities), and some have gotten worse (wealth and income inequality)." Other chapters discuss one of the most disturbing aspects of America's racial inequality: inequality in securing access to justice, reinforced by a system of mass incarceration largely targeted at African-Americans.
There is no doubt that the civil rights movement of a half-century ago made a difference. A variety of overt forms of discrimination were made illegal. Societal norms changed. But rooting out deep-seated and institutional racism has proven difficult. Worse, President Donald Trump has exploited this racism and fanned the flames of bigotry.
The core message of the new report reflects the great insight of the civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.: achieving economic justice for African-Americans cannot be separated from achieving economic opportunities for all Americans. King called his August 1963 march on Washington, which I joined and at which he delivered his ringing, unforgettable "I Have a Dream" speech, a march for jobs and freedom. And yet the economic divide in the US has grown much wider, with devastating effects on those without a college education, a group that includes almost three-quarters of African-Americans.
WHEN SHALL WE OVERCOME?
Mar 12, 2018 JOSEPH E. STIGLITZreflects on how racism has persisted in the US in the half-century since the Kerner Report.
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Beyond this, discrimination is rampant, if often hidden. America's financial sector targeted African-Americans for exploitation, especially in the years before the financial crisis, selling them volatile products with high fees that could, and did, explode. Thousands lost their homes, and in the end, the disparity in wealth, already large, increased even more. One leading bank, Wells Fargo, paid huge fines for charging higher interest rates to African-American and Latino borrowers; but no one was really held accountable for the many other abuses. Almost a half-century after the enactment of anti-discrimination laws, racism, greed, and market power still work together to the disadvantage of African-Americans.
There are, however, several reasons for hope. First, our understanding of discrimination is far better. Back then, the Nobel laureate economist Gary Becker could write that in a competitive market, discrimination was impossible; the market would bid up the wage of anyone who was underpaid. Today, we understand that the market is rife with imperfections – including imperfections of information and competition – that provide ample opportunity for discrimination and exploitation.
Moreover, we now recognize that the US is paying a high price for inequality, and an especially high price for its racial inequality. A society marked by such divisions will not be a beacon to the world, and its economy will not flourish. The real strength of the US is not its military power but its soft power, which has been badly eroded not just by Trump, but also by persistent racial discrimination. Everyone will lose if it is not addressed.
The most promising sign is the outpouring of activism, especially from young people, who realize that it is high time that the US lives up to its ideals, so nobly expressed in its Declaration of Independence, that all men are created equal. A century and a half after the abolition of slavery, the legacy of that system lingers. It took a century to enact legislation ensuring equal rights; but today, Republican-controlled courts and politicians often renege on that commitment.
As I concluded my chapter, "An alternative world is possible. But 50 years of struggle has shown us how difficult it is to achieve that alternative vision." Further progress will require determination, sustained by the faith expressed in the immortal words of the spiritual that became the hymn of the civil rights movement: "We shall overcome."
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Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, is University Professor at Columbia University and Chief Economist at the Roosevelt Institute. His most recent book is Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump--John Case
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Interview:Leo Gerard: Steelworkers want a crackdown on "cheaters" in the global steel industry
Steelworkers want a crackdown on "cheaters" in the global steel industry
Economists are worried about the Trump administration's recently announced plans to raise tariffs on all imported steel by 25 percent and all imported aluminum by 10 percent. From the European Union to China, there's already talk of retaliation, leading analysts to worry about an impending trade war which could have unpredictable effects. Tariffs could hurt profits in industries that use these metals leading to higher prices for consumers.
But steelworkers have had enough of what they say is cheating on international trade rules. Leo Gerard studied economics and by some accounts once talked about becoming an economics professor before becoming a steelworker. Gerard is the international president of the United Steelworkers Union and spoke with David Brancaccio about why countries like China that produce and distribute excess steel and aluminum need to be reigned in, but noted that the White House tariffs also need to be more specific so as to not target the countries that, in his words, "playing by the rules."
Below is an edited transcript.
David Brancaccio: Now we've often noted on this program that 84,000 U.S. workers — not just in steel, but in all metal — have lost their jobs in the last decade given these trading conditions. Yet you saw steel-using industries, including the car industry, are freaking out about these tariffs. Where do you come down on this announcement?
Leo Gerard: Let me back you up a bit. Way more than 80,000 workers have lost their jobs. In fact 60,000 factories have closed since 2012, and the minor increase in price — if it happens at all — will be minimal. We checked out — we weighed a can and put it against the price of aluminum. If anything, it came out to one-tenth of a cent per can.
Brancaccio: For instance, we heard from Budweiser that that's going to put up the price of beer, for instance, and you're saying, not really.
Gerard: No, it's factually not true. But let me say this: In 15 years, China went from 500 million tons of steel to 1.2 billion — billion with a "b" tons of steel. Over that period of time, there were five what they call high-level meetings to get China to play by market conditions. Now we have 500 million tons of excess steel capacity just from China floating around the world and being dumped and thrown into any place where they can get somebody to pay the cheated price. What we encourage the president to do is to bring the cheaters in line. We're not necessarily enamored with the broad-brush approach. We think we ought to go after what we euphemistically call the "evil-doers."
Brancaccio: In other words, the sanctions announced yesterday cover all aluminum and steel imports from any country — not just, for instance, China. And you'd like to see that, perhaps, a little bit more targeted.
Gerard: Exactly. Part of the concern that I have is that if you give everybody the same remedy, then those that were cheating are still going to be cheated. Only their cheating will now be subsidized by having the same tariff as a non-cheater. Look, this has been our fight for 40 years. The steel industry in America went from 135 million tons 15 years ago to 85 million tons. Where did those 40 million tons disappear to? They disappeared to those countries that dump into the American market, force us to file unfair trade complaints, and when we succeed in the unfair complaint, they go and find a way to do transshipment. Someone has to ask the question. Some of these economists who are saying we can't do anything because we'll be in a trade war — we're in a trade war now. We've had year-over-year record breaking trade deficits with China, with South Korea, with Mexico. And year-after-year of accelerated trade deficits. A trade deficit is nothing more than a wealth transfer. When you buy something from China, you're buying it on credit, and the credit you're getting it from China. It's a double wham-o. People lose their jobs in America because China's dumping, and we're giving them our wealth to pay off our trade debts. In the last 30 years, we'd have accumulated somewhere between $7 and $10 trillion of accumulated trade deficits. So we're talking to the president, not only about steel, but getting the trade deficit in line and demanding that our trade agreements are fair. We're not anti-trade we're just anti-trade with cheaters that won't play by the rules.
Brancaccio: So that's your answer about the danger of sparking a wider trade war: you're saying we're in one already.
Gerard: If you're acquiring a $500 billion trade deficit, and as a result of taking some action, the country that's cheating is going to have to quit cheating. If you're not cheating, you shouldn't be part of the problem. But if you continue to cheat, you should assume that you're going to be penalized. Apply that to any other part of life, David, just not even about steel. Some economic idiot who continuously wants to raise we'll be in a trade war, my question to them is: what do you think we should do about the $500 billion-a-year trade deficit with China to close the $120 billion-a-year trade deficit we have now with South Korea, where before we had balanced trade. The trade deficit that we have with Mexico, that before NAFTA was a balanced trade agenda. And so what's happened is, global financiers, global corporations are addicted to working in industries and in sectors and with countries that cheat and don't play by the rules. And as soon as you say they have to play by the rules, they start crying poverty. They start crying this and that. I can guarantee you this: in 2001, when we succeeded in an overall remedy in steel with President Bush, the price of steel went up few cents. The price of steel went down after. You never saw one change in the cost of a can of beer.
Brancaccio: You don't sound like you're in the mood to let the World Trade Organization just handle this moving forward, "stay within the rules." You think the time is now for these tariffs imposed by the White House?
Gerard: David, we've been working with OECD [the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development], WTO [the World Trade Organization], high-level government meetings for 15 years. Over the 15 years that there's been what is called euphemistically "high level meetings" or "high level consultations" — they happen both between the United States and China, between the United States and South Korea. And they happen at the OECD steel consultative body. During that period of time, China was over producing steel, but they were producing 500 million tons — probably a million tons more than they needed or thereabout. In each one of those consultations, China promised the American consultors that they would reduce their capacity. We reduced ours from 135 to 85. China has broken the promise every one of those five consultations. In this last year, they produced 1.23 billion tons of steel, which puts almost 5.5 to 6 million tons of steel out on the market, depressing prices and depressing capacity. And in order to stay in business, we've got facilities that are shut down. In Conshohocken, [Pennsylvania], we had to shut the facility down. They make the last armor plates in America. AK Steel is in desperate condition. They make the last electrical steel in America. I mean, so you go two facilities that make the last of that product. So we're going to have to do what — ask India to send it to us, ask Russia to send it to us, ask China sends it to us if we need it. And so we're really just saying that we'll support playing by the rules. But none of them are playing by the rules.
Harpers Ferry, WV