November 2016

Next Century Cities, SHLB Coalition, US Ignite
Wednesday, November 30th
8:30am-2pm
http://nextcenturycities.org/transforming-communities-broadband-goals-fo...

The event will feature remarks from Senator Angus King (I-ME), Senator John Boozman (R-AR), and Assistant Secretary in U.S. Department of Commerce Larry Strickling, as well as two panels:

Panel One: Leveraging High-Speed Internet for Success

Mayor Berke, Chattanooga, TN
Mayor Kirkham, Ammon, ID
Ed Bostick, CEO, Colorado Telehealth Network
S. Dallas Dance, Superintendent, Baltimore County Public Schools
Crosby, Kemper, Head of Kansas City Public Library
Chris Mitchell, Policy Director, Next Century Cities and Director of the Community Broadband Networks Initiative, Institute for Local Self Reliance (moderator)

Panel Two: Broadband Policy Priorities for a New Administration

Susan Crawford, John A. Reilly Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and co-director of the Berkman Center
Blair Levin, Senior Fellow with the Metropolitan Policy Program at Brookings
Mark Erickson, Economic Development Director, Winthrop, MN
Gigi Sohn, Counselor to the Chairman at the Federal Communications Commission
Clarissa Ramon, Community Impact Manager, Google Fiber (moderator)

Read more about Transforming Communities: Broadband Goals for 2017 and Beyond

With FCC Set to Go GOP, Chairman Walden Still Big on Process

If you thought House Communications and Technology Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden (R-OR) would drop his push for Federal Communications Commission process reforms once the GOP was in control at the agency, think again. Chairman Walden, who’s seeking the full House Commerce gavel in 2017, has been a big proponent of legislation to modernize FCC procedures. He helped steward bipartisan legislation that would’ve required the agency to study the idea of releasing texts of commission proposals before they are voted on. “My argument has been, I don’t care who’s heading up the commission, there's a flawed public policy process there,” said Chairman Walden. “So I hope with a new President and a new FCC, we can find common ground on process reform, because I think we can build out a much better FCC going forward that will serve the public interest better for the constituencies engaged.”

Democrats Still Cool to GOP Network Neutrality Bill

Liberals are still scoffing at a GOP draft bill to implement network neutrality rules, even though it might be their best chance to maintain prohibitions against broadband providers blocking or slowing down internet traffic. … The stakes are high: If President-elect Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission repeals the agency’s rules, congressional Democrats may have to make a deal on net neutrality or risk losing the internet protections altogether. But any post-election reckoning with Republicans’ new grip on Washington so far has not softened their line on the Republican legislative offering. While Democrats say they’re open to the idea of legislating on net neutrality, several were not enthused about the idea. Instead, they focused on ways to delay or hamstring a potential repeal of the FCC’s Open Internet Order. Many are even hoping the issue is so far down on Trump’s priority list that he wouldn’t actually undo it, especially if he feels it would upset the populist voters who elected him. “If you said net neutrality to him right now, he wouldn't know what you were talking about,” Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA).

House Commerce Lawmakers Floated in Administration Chatter

A handful of House Commerce Committee legislators have had their names tossed around for posts in President-elect Donald Trump’s administration, meaning the panel’s Republican roster could look markedly different in 2017. Already, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) has been nominated to be CIA Director. Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), a member of the transition team, has also been floated for a Cabinet gig, and Rep. Bill Johnson (R-OH) has expressed interest in heading the Department of Veterans Affairs. Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) is advising President-elect Trump on energy policy, and if Energy secretary does not go to Trump pal and Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm, CEO of energy firm Continental Resources, Rep Cramer could be next in line. Rep. Chris Collins (R-NY) is also on the transition team, and one never knows at this stage in the administration buildout what could happen. The potential for moves hasn’t gone unnoticed in Hill offices — especially for members who might have a shot to move up in seniority or grab a subcommittee gavel if other lawmakers depart. The new panel’s roster for the next Congress, which is also contingent on how many spots each party gets based on the size of the GOP’s House majority, will likely come out sometime in the next few weeks. After the 2014 election, the panel got six new Republicans; they were named in late November.

Obama Techies in Turmoil Over Sticking with Trump

An impassioned debate is raging among the hundreds of software engineers, designers, and other technologists who left Democratic-leaning Silicon Valley and other tech enclaves to work for President Barack Obama: Do they want to stay in a Washington run by President Donald Trump?

They describe having one hand on the keyboard and the other on the doorknob as they decide what’s next, Nancy reports. While some high-ranking tech staffers in the federal ranks have already said they’re not going anywhere, others are concerned that staying could put them in a tough spot, especially if they’re asked to work on a project at odds with their values. "The arguments are really clear," says Anil Dash, a New York City entrepreneur whose commentary is widely followed in the tech industry. "The one side is, you came to serve and there's still a need. The other is: ‘Do we legitimize this Administration?’”

Democrat Harold Ford Jr. emerging as potential Trump Cabinet pick

Former Rep Harold Ford, Jr. (D-TN) is emerging as a possible contender for transportation secretary, or another Cabinet post, in President-elect Donald Trump’s budding administration. The telegenic Ford — who served five terms in Congress representing Tennessee and is the son of a long-serving Democratic congressman from Memphis — has worked as a managing director at Morgan Stanley since 2011, and is a regular news analyst on MSNBC.

Trump picks billionaire Betsy DeVos, school voucher advocate, as education secretary

President-elect Donald Trump intends to name Betsy DeVos, a conservative activist and billionaire philanthropist who has pushed forcefully for private school voucher programs nationwide, as his nominee for education secretary, apparently.

President-elect Trump’s pick underlines his promises on the campaign trail to put “school choice” — the expansion of taxpayer-funded charter schools and vouchers for private and religious schools — at the center of his efforts on education. Teachers unions and other proponents of public schools immediately decried DeVos’s nomination as a catastrophic attack on public education. Some conservative groups are also likely to be unhappy; they have argued that choosing DeVos signals that President-electTrump is wavering on his vehement opposition to the Common Core State Standards.

Top journalists warn of threats to press freedom under President-elect Trump

Some of the country's top journalists issued stark warnings about the importance of protecting First Amendment rights on Nov 22, two weeks after Donald Trump was elected president. "This year the threats to press freedom are quite close to home. It's right here," New Yorker editor David Remnick said at the Committee to Protect Journalists dinner.

"I never in a million years thought I would be up here on stage appealing for the freedom and safety of American journalists at home," CNN's Christiane Amanpour said. Amanpour called on the journalists in attendance to "recommit to robust fact-based reporting" and to fight "against normalization of the unacceptable." President-elect Trump's attacks against the American media were a recurring theme during the annual dinner, which focuses on threats to journalists in repressive regimes. "We will hold the new administration's feet to the fire. And they should respect that, even if they don't welcome it," CNN president Jeff Zucker said.

Under President-elect Trump, look to cities and metros to power America forward

For the past eight years, gridlock in Washington, DC left city and metro leaders with an inconsistent partner in the federal government, spurring what Jennifer Bradley and I have termed a “metropolitan revolution” of bottom-up innovation across the country. But with Donald Trump and the Republicans’ electoral victory, the wheels of the federal government are about to get moving again; this time, with a burst of conservative activism not seen in decades.

Republicans in Congress got a “seats bonus” this election (again)

While Republicans, as of this writing, received a plurality of votes cast for Congress nationwide this year—49.9 percent according data from the Cook Political Report—they received a greater share, 55.2 percent, of the seats. Democrats, as a result, won a smaller share of seats than they did votes: 44.8 percent of seats as compared to 47.3 percent of the votes. (These numbers may change as final vote tallies are updated.)

In the past four congressional elections, then, Republicans, as the party with the majority in the House, received a “seats bonus,” wherein members of their party secured a larger share of the seats in the chamber than the share of votes won nationwide. As we see in the figure below—again using data from Vital Stats and the Cook Political Report—this is a durable feature of U.S. congressional elections. Using the overall vote share (rather than the two-party vote), the figure depicts the difference between the share of the votes and seats won by the party winning the congressional majority. The black line indicates the historical average, at 5.6 percentage points.

Benton

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