Category Archives: Government

Short, Medium, Long Term

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Last week (June 20-24, 2022) was a doozy in the U.S. Any other time the US House of Representatives’ January 6 hearings would have dominated the news cycle, but then you had a couple of Supreme Court rulings that rocked the country, the most “rocking” being the Roe v. Wade rollback that was released on Friday. Predictably, and understandably, that ruling led to protests across the country, and thousands, if not millions (billions?) of posts online.

I’m not a constitutional law expert, nor am I a women’s health expert, so I won’t offer any opinions on the merits of the ruling from a legal or medical standpoint. What I do know something about is working in the non-profit sector, with a particular focus on trade associations. That means I’ve spent a fair amount of time representing industries of one kind or another, and providing services to the member companies and their employees, in an effort to promote the growth of the people as individuals, the companies as businesses, and the industries as a body. That’s why, upon hearing the news from the Supreme Court my thinking went immediately to how I would approach the issue if I thought of those who provide women’s health/abortion services as an association (federation model) and women who could/would be patients as members of that association.
(Update: My daughter, who is much smarter than me, actually did a search and found just such an organization does exist. For those so inclined you can visit https://prochoice.org/ for more information).

First I’d do what every association does when confronted with a world-changing moment. That means we’d do an assessment of the situation and immediately begin defining what we need to do short term — think of these as tactical, “can’t wait” activities — then we figure out our medium- and long-term activities. It’s not that we only do the short-term activities from the start, it’s just that they take top priority at the time. Then we do an assessment of the resources needed to accomplish each activity, figure out which ones we can realistically tackle, focus on those and work our butts off to get the resources needed to accomplish them. Again, I’m no expert on the topic of abortion, but based on what I’ve been reading here’s what I see as some of the challenges and how they could be tackled. It’s not intended to be comprehensive – just a collection of thoughts I’ve had over the last few days.

Short Term (first 3-6 months)

Problem: Probably the most critical challenge is for women currently seeking service in states that have “trigger-laws” that immediately made abortions illegal upon the Supreme Court’s ruling, to get access to legal abortions. Some clinics in those states are already working to open operations in other states where it’s legal, but many women don’t have the resources required to travel to those states.
Solution: The association approach would be to fundraise to pay for travel for the women, and provide expertise and the required technology to affiliated local organizations to coordinate the travel of their “members” to clinics in legal states. This program would continue as long as abortion is illegal in any given state.
Problem: In states with trigger laws there could also be an initial fight in the courts about the legality of organizations aiding women seeking abortions in other states.
Solution: The association approach would be to provide on-demand legal services for local organizations or women who find themselves in a court fight. This could potentially be done in partnership with other organizations like the ACLU and Legal Aid.

Medium Term (next 5 years)

Problem: There are a huge number of passionate, energetic people ready to volunteer to fight for this cause. While there are numerous organizations out there that these folks are active through, there is a risk that they could go in multiple directions and not benefit from leveraging their collective resources.
Solution: Creating a federated organization that can pull these disparate groups together to leverage their resources, and organize them so that their work is optimized for maximum effect. It’s a delicate dance because you have to find a way to balance each organization’s unique identity and offerings, while getting them to line up behind a consistent message, political agenda, shared resources, etc. A good example of what I’m thinking is what Feeding America is to food banks, except that group doesn’t have the political challenge that a pro-choice group would have. You’d think this would be a short-term problem, but there’s no way something this complex gets done in a few months so I’d look at this as a medium-term issue.
Problem: States that ban abortions might also try to prevent women from having access to the “Morning After” pill or other therapeutic measures.
Solution: This is a legal and logistical problem. The legal issue could be addressed by an association’s legal operation; the logistical challenge of getting drugs into the hands of women in need could be addressed by teaming clinicians with Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) or even Mark Cuban’s new venture Cost Plus Drugs.
Problem: As far as I can tell there is not a strong legal framework that requires men to assume their share of the responsibility, financial and otherwise, for unintended pregnancies.
Solution 1: The association could create, and fundraise for, a cadre of lawyers to represent women in civil court, to require men to pay for pre-natal care, half (at least) of any of the mother’s related health care expenses, child support, etc. Those same lawyers can represent mother’s in any custody hearings. Again, this might be accomplished by partnering with ACLU, Legal Aid, etc.
Solution 1a: Before you beat me up about the atrocious history of men paying child support, another step the association should take is lobbying Congress and/or state legislatures to make sure these payments can be garnished from wages, that mother’s are first in line at any bankruptcy hearing, etc.

Long Term (foreseeable future)

Problem: With the Supreme Court’s ruling a woman’s access to abortions has become contingent on individual states’ laws. That means that women with limited resources living in states that ban abortions will not have equitable access to care that residents of other states, or women of more means in their own states, have.
Solution: This is a purely political challenge. The association will need to form and lead a long-term political operation that brings together stakeholders at all levels, local, state, and federal to effect the necessary changes to give women equal care no matter where they live. I’m not expert enough to say what the legal remedies are, but no matter what they are there will need to be a significant political shift to accomplish them. That will take long-term funding, coordination and will.

Obviously this outline is pretty simplistic, and unlike industry associations that have a relatively easy to define “membership”, the players in the pro-choice world are far more varied. Believe it or not, however, most industry associations have a fairly diverse constituency and often struggle to get members to agree to how to approach issues, what to prioritize with their political operations, where to concentrate their resources, etc. The same challenge will most definitely be faced by any pro-choice “association”, but the benefit that industry associations provide their members – political influence, shared knowledge base, leveraged legal representation, leveraged resources (particularly technology), a bigger messaging megaphone, volunteer recruitment and management – would be realized by women if a pro-choice association approach is taken.

1NT: Dillon’s Rule

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In most US states local municipalities can only pass ordinances or laws with state permission. From Wikipedia:

In the United States, home rule refers to the authority of a constituent part of a U.S. state to exercise powers of governance delegated to it by its state government. In some states, known as home rule states, the state’s constitution grants municipalities and/or counties the ability to pass laws to govern themselves as they see fit (so long as they obey the state and federal constitutions). In other states, only limited authority has been granted to local governments by passage of statutes in the state legislature. In these states, a city or county must obtain permission from the state legislature if it wishes to pass a law or ordinance which is not specifically permitted under existing state legislation.

Forty of the fifty states apply the principle known as Dillon’s Rule in some form to determine the bounds of a municipal government’s legal authority.[1] The National League of Cities identifies 31 Dillon’s Rule states, 10 home rule states, 8 states that apply Dillon’s Rule only to certain municipalities, and one state (Florida) that applies home rule to everything except taxation.[2] Each state defines for itself what powers it will grant to local governments.

1NT: We don’t need no stinking judges…or lawyers

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Adding a new category to this ancient blog: One New Thing. It’s based on the “you learn something new every day” theory, which I’ve found to be true and I thought to myself, “Self, you should start writing this crap down.” Here’s today’s one new thing (1NT):

You don’t have to be a judge, or even a lawyer, to be a Supreme Court Justice. From the Supreme Court’s FAQ page:

Are there qualifications to be a Justice? Do you have to be a lawyer or attend law school to be a Supreme Court Justice?

The Constitution does not specify qualifications for Justices such as age, education, profession, or native-born citizenship. A Justice does not have to be a lawyer or a law school graduate, but all Justices have been trained in the law. Many of the 18th and 19th century Justices studied law under a mentor because there were few law schools in the country.

  • The last Justice to be appointed who did not attend any law school was James F. Byrnes (1941-1942). He did not graduate from high school and taught himself law, passing the bar at the age of 23.
  • Robert H. Jackson (1941-1954). While Jackson did not attend an undergraduate college, he did study law at Albany Law School in New York. At the time of his graduation, Jackson was only twenty years old and one of the requirements for a law degree was that students must be twenty-one years old. Thus rather than a law degree, Jackson was awarded with a “diploma of graduation.” Twenty-nine years later, Albany Law School belatedly presented Jackson with a law degree noting his original graduating class of 1912.

Jobs Retained by PPP in the Triad’s 3 Big Cities

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Digging a little more into the PPP numbers from the SBA (see yesterday’s post) it’s interesting to look at the number of small loans (under $150,000) versus the number of larger loans (over $150,000) and the number of jobs they have retained according to the report.

According to the data there were 9,670 loans combined in the three cities and of those 8,131, or 84% were under $150,000.

PPP loans by size

The data also shows that there were 115,448 jobs retained and of those 38,735, or 34% came from the small loans.

PPP Jobs Retained

PPP in Triad’s Big 3 Cities

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After the SBA released the PPP data to the public I decided to take a look at the numbers for the three larger cities in the Piedmont Triad: Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem. Since the SBA divided it’s data into two separate sets, loans over $150,000 and those less than $150,000 I combined them all in one spreadsheet and then sorted by city and the size of the loan. Here’s what I found:

Between the three cities there were 9,670 businesses that were approved for PPP loans. Here’s how it broke down between the three cities:

PPP cities

The data is also broken down by loan amounts and this is how the loan sizes broke down:

PPP loan amount distribution

This chart reflects the distribution of all 9,670 loans across all three cities, but I found it interesting that this distribution was almost exactly the same across all three cities.

If you want to dig into the data yourself you can download the files here.

Some Thoughts About Immigration

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midtownsign

The morning of February 16, 2017 I had a breakfast meeting at a restaurant in Winston-Salem. When I arrived I found a sign on the door (pictured above) announcing that the restaurant was offering a limited menu and open for limited hours due to the “A Day Without Immigrants” protest. While I’d seen something about the protest on the morning news, I hadn’t really paid attention, and to be honest I was a little surprised to discover that the protest had made it’s way to our small North Carolina city.

midtownmenu

When I got to our table I looked at the menu that the restaurant had printed for the day and on the back I found a letter to customers (pictured above, and sorry for the poor quality). After reading it I asked our server about the protest she said that the kitchen staff had talked to management the day before to let them know they were going to participate, and management had hustled to put together the limited operation so they could open their doors. After the meeting was over I headed to my car, and before leaving the parking lot I decided to post these pics and the following post to Facebook:

Had a breakfast meeting at Mid Town. They are working with a limited menu and shorter hours to support their staff who are taking part in the “Day Without Immigrants Protest.” Our server said it was just about their entire kitchen staff. Have to say I admire the folks at Mid Town for taking this route. As far as protests go I think this is a very effective approach – makes crystal clear the impact that our immigrant neighbors have on our community and economy.

Well, it probably wouldn’t surprise you to hear that I got some feedback on the post. Some agreed, some disagreed, and as always I enjoyed the back and forth. The best feedback I received, however, was in a series of private messages from a friend who works for a company that processes chickens. He didn’t want to post his comments on my Facebook post because he didn’t want to “start a big war of words” on my post, but he did give me permission to share his perspective and so I’ve pasted some below. Please take a moment to read it, because I think his experiences and viewpoints are important to keep in mind when we discuss immigration. Here’s the first message he wrote:

Saw your post. And this might get long. Sorry.

We have been planning for this day all week. Honestly about all we have done this week.

We have 1500 workers across 10 states and are directly responsible for supplying about 20% of all the chicken consumed in the US. Our workforce is about 90% Hispanic. We (along with Tyson, Perdue, etc) have been working hard to minimize the impact on the nation’s food supply. There are several plants running at 75% and less capacity today. Some plants not operating at all.

Trust me, without the immigrant workforce, this country does not eat. It is not a matter of just a limited menu, or prices being higher. We do not eat! We have been working on utilizing the EB3 visa program to bring in workers. Long story, but basically it allows someone to come in to the country and bring their immediate family. They must work for us for 1 year. After the year is up, they are free to stay and work anywhere they want. They can stay with us if they want. Or they can go work for you.

Well, we have to prove to US Govt that we cannot get good ol’ red blooded ‘Mericans to work. So we ran a few ads on Monster, etc. We received 250+ responses for Monroe NC. We asked all of them to complete an application.

  • Of the 250, we received 15 applications. We tried to schedule interviews with all 15.
  • Of the 15, 6 replied to scheduling something.
  • Of the 6, 3 actually scheduled an interview.
  • Of the 3 scheduled interviews, 1 showed up.
  • The 1 that showed up brought in a document for us to sign that stated he had an interview so he could get his unemployment benefits. He did not want a job. All he wanted was his form signed so he can keep collecting his benefits.
  • All done we had 0 out of 250. Meanwhile we hire about 40 workers per week. But nobody named Bob, Mike, John, Brian are showing up.

This is unskilled labor. It is hard work, but unskilled. We pay about $17-$20/hour. We are not looking for the cheapest labor we can find. We are not looking to pay under the table. We need workers. These immigrants are NOT taking people’s job. They just want to work and make money and the citizens are too lazy to do these jobs.

I wish we had a pretty open worker visa program. Do a decent background check. Give them a real SSN. Allow them to work. Then we do a mandatory backup withholding of 20% for federal tax and 5% for state. Get it all above board. Tax revenue increases. From a humanitarian side, people are not being taken advantage of.

So there, in a nutshell, is the scope of the issue we’re dealing with when we talk immigration. The current administration likes to focus on building a wall to keep bad, dangerous, illegal immigrants out of our country and by doing so they are scratching the itch of many Americans who feel disenfranchised, but the reality is that we need the immigrants or we don’t eat, plain and simple. But what about the idea that these illegal immigrants are stealing Americans’ jobs? Well, my friend addressed that with the job-posting experience and after a couple of messages back and forth he expanded a bit on why many business owners might not want an effective legal immigration system:

I am adamant about getting things above board. Most of our competitors want the undocumented worker. It means that even if they pay the same net wage we do, they can operate 25% cheaper than we do.

The Hispanic community says you are “baptized” each time you get a new fake ID. Our competitors will make them new identities each year so they can evade the tax system. They will file 1099’s using a SSN for 2015. Give the guy a new name and SSN (baptize) for 2016 and file 1099. Baptize them again for 2017 and file 1099. Rinse repeat. Year after year. Nothing gets in to tax system.

If you are legal, our competitor will “baptize” you anyway because they do not want anyone legal.

Talk about making your blood boil, how does that make you feel? Pissed off, right? Now here’s something he shared that my downright scare you:

One of the things we are worried about is they do this in the late summer/fall and do it for 10+ days. Whole year of harvests of fruits/vegetables are left in fields to rot. That will prove a huge point. Or, they do not show up to harvest turkeys in late October/early November and 1/3 of all US homes do not have turkey on Thanksgiving. That will not go unnoticed. These folks know they have the US by the balls because of the food supply. They will use it in a big way at some point. Today is minor I am sure.

So here’s the deal as I see it. Building a wall and going on a massive immigrant round up might make some of us feel good, perhaps a little safer, but the reality on the ground is that it will solve nothing. In fact it would create a massive problem for our economy and when the roundups are done we’ll be sitting around wondering why we can’t have fresh produce turkeys for Thanksgiving. And if the economic realities dont’ sway you, maybe humanitarian concerns will. Again from my friend:

Women get raped trying to make it here. People are left for dead after a mule steals all their money. They are treated like shit when they get here.

We have competitors that do not pay them. This guy has a compound in eastern NC. Lots of mobile homes. They all live there for free. He feeds them for free. He provides clothes. He transports them everywhere. They are all trapped like slaves.

So what’s the answer? My buddy provided some pretty simple action steps earlier:

  • Establish an effective, open worker visa program.
  • Do a decent background check.
  • Give them a real SSN.
  • Allow them to work.
  • Do a mandatory backup withholding of 20% for federal tax and 5% for state.

The result would be the decriminalization of our immigrant labor (black) market, an increase in tax revenues, a decrease in incentives for illegal border crossings which would eliminate any need for a boondoggle of a wall that wouldn’t work anyway.

Of course this all makes a lot of sense so it doesn’t stand a chance in DC.

A Glimmer

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One test of a leader is her willingness to do something that may displease her fans/followers if she thinks it’s the right thing to do. Sen. Elizabeth Warren did just that when she voted in favor of Ben Carson for HUD Secretary. Even better, she utilized her Facebook page to explain why. Here’s an excerpt:

Yes, I have serious, deep, profound concerns about Dr. Carson’s inexperience to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Yes, I adamantly disagree with many of the outrageous things that Dr. Carson said during his presidential campaign. Yes, he is not the nominee I wanted.

But “the nominee I wanted” is not the test.

Millions of American families depend on HUD programs, including tens of thousands of families in Massachusetts. For many of them, HUD assistance is the difference between a safe, stable home and life on the street. As someone who has spent a lot of time working on housing policy in this country, my focus is on helping these families – and the countless others who could benefit from a stronger agency.

During the nomination process, I sent Dr. Carson a nine-page letter with detailed questions on a whole range of issues: Section 8 housing assistance; lead exposure in public housing; programs to prevent and end homelessness; programs to help victims of domestic violence; fighting housing discrimination; HUD’s role in preparing for and recovering from natural disasters; and, more broadly, the standards he will use for managing the department, including the steps he will take to protect the rights of LGBT Americans.

Dr. Carson’s answers weren’t perfect. But at his hearing, he committed to track and report on conflicts of interest at the agency. In his written responses to me, he made good, detailed promises, on everything from protecting anti-homelessness programs to enforcing fair housing laws. Promises that – if they’re honored – would help a lot of working families…

If Dr. Carson doesn’t follow through on his commitments, I will be the very first person he hears from – loudly and clearly and frequently. I didn’t hesitate to criticize past HUD Secretaries when they fell short, and I won’t hesitate with Dr. Carson – not for one minute.

That, my friends, is the first glimmer of light I’ve seen during a very dark period in Washington. I’m not saying I agree with her vote, but I am saying I’m glad to see someone finally showing some guts and exhibiting a little leadership.

Gown Towns Thrive

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Yesterday I was in a meeting with several people involved with local real estate development and they were asked what the top business priority is for their county (Guilford, NC) going into 2017. Their response, as has been the case for every year in recent memory, was that job growth will continue to be the most critical issue for their businesses. In the course of answering the question quite a few of these people referenced other cities in North Carolina that seem to be thriving – Raleigh, Cary, Charlotte and “even Wilmington” – were the names I remembered. What stuck out, to me, was that no one mentioned Winston-Salem.

Now let me state up front that I’m not prepared to offer any statistics that compare the jobs situation in Winston-Salem to those in Guilford County’s two cities, Greensboro and High Point. But I will say that if you were to poll most people who pay attention to business in the region, they will tell you that Winston-Salem’s economic recovery from the nuclear annihilation that has befallen this region’s traditional economy is further along than its neighbors to the east. For some reason, though, leaders in Greensboro and High Point seem to ignore what’s going on just 30 miles to their west (and in all fairness the reverse is also true), and as a result no one seems to know why there’s a difference between these two very similar neighbors.

A personal theory is that there are a lot of complex and interwoven factors at play here, but one big one is the presence of Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem. The university, and in particular it’s medical school, has been a partner with the city and local companies as the city moved away from it’s traditional tobacco manufacturing base toward a “knowledge economy” with a niche in the area of medical research. Starting over 20 years ago Winston-Salem’s civic and business leaders recognized the need to re-position the city’s economy and Wake Forest played a significant role in those plans. The results are plain to see in the city’s Innovation Quarter, which is booming and is primed for exponential growth over the next 10-15 years.

30 miles to the east Greensboro actually has more schools, including NC A&T and UNCG, but they don’t seem to have had the same effect on the city’s economy. Yet. We’re starting to see much more activity there, including the Union Square Campus that recently opened and is already bearing economic fruit for the city and there’s PLENTY of potential for even more growth. As long as the city’s leaders continue to keep their eye on the ball there’s a very good chance this will happen, as it has in other college towns.

This article in the Wall Street Journal has a lot of data showing how cities in the US that have strong colleges, especially those with research programs, have recovered from the decline in the manufacturing sector over the last two decades. Here’s an excerpt:

A nationwide study by the Brookings Institution for The Wall Street Journal found 16 geographic areas where overall job growth was strong, even though manufacturing employment fell more sharply in those places from 2000 to 2014 than in the U.S. as a whole…

“Better educated places with colleges tend to be more productive and more able to shift out of declining industries into growing ones,” says Mark Muro, a Brookings urban specialist. “Ultimately, cities survive by continually adapting their economies to new technologies, and colleges are central to that.”…

Universities boost more than just highly educated people, says Enrico Moretti, an economics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. The incomes of high-school dropouts in college towns increase by a bigger percentage than those of college graduates over time because demand rises sharply for restaurant workers, construction crews and other less-skilled jobs, he says.

And here’s the money quote as it relates to local economic development efforts:

Places where academics work closely with local employers and development officials can especially benefit. “Universities produce knowledge, and if they have professors who are into patenting and research, it’s like having a ready base of entrepreneurs in the area,” says Harvard University economist Edward Glaeser.

Let’s hope our local leaders take full advantage of what our colleges have to offer, for all of our benefit.