Beltway Buzz, August 23, 2024

DNC Platform Explores Democratic Policy Priorities. The Democratic Party held its national convention this week in Chicago, Illinois, and workplace issues were high on the party agenda. These workplace issues will undoubtedly be the focus of the Harris/Walz presidential campaign leading up to Election Day, and will likely be top policy priorities if the Democratic ticket wins the White House in 2025. Here are a few of our picks. until the meeting:

• Trade Unions.
  • Political elections. Officials from labor unions such as the AFL-CIO, United Autoworkers, Communications Workers of America, Service Employees International Union, Laborers’ International Union of North America, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers all had opportunities to speak briefly at the Convention. of the Democratic Nation. This is not surprising, as the 2024 Democratic Party Platform declares that the Biden administration has been the “most pro-union administration” in history and notes that “President Biden appointed powerful workers and former union leaders to workers at the state level.” The Harris/Walz administration is likely to continue this relationship with organized labor.
  • The rule of law. The platform says, “Democrats will continue to fight to pass the Protection of the Right to Organize (PRO) Act … and hold abusive bosses accountable for violating workers’ rights.” It continues, “We oppose the country’s right-to-work laws, which lower wages and leave workers unprotected; and we support punishing employers involved in union busting.”
  • Sorting to the bottom. The platform talks about aligning union priorities—such as so-called neutrality agreements—with federal aid programs. (“Consistent with the law, we will make sure that federal grants and other subsidies to employers are conditional on recipients agreeing not to interfere with workers’ efforts to organize.”)
• Federal contracts. The platform addresses the administration’s final rule on project labor contracts, and suggests that the Harris/Walz administration will push for some form of contract blacklisting: “Democrats will continue to create strong labor standards for jobs created with tax dollars through legislation and strong Buy America laws.”
• Job Security / Wage and Hour. The platform confirms that Democrats will “strengthen enforcement and penalties for safety, wages and other labor and employment violations.” Obviously, this means firm action on the ground, but it could also mean pushing for the passage of bills like the Pro Act or the “Labor Enforcement to Secure (LET’S) Protect Workers Act.”
• Immigration. According to the platform, Democrats will continue to push for the US Citizenship Act, which was introduced earlier in the Biden administration but never caught on. The latest US House of Representatives version of the bill has 118 cosponsors and no corresponding bill in the US Senate.

Suffice it to say, the Harris/Walz administration would, at the very least, seek to continue the friendly policies of the current administration.

Court Blocks FTC Ban on Unaffiliated Persons. On August 20, 2024, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its ban on non-compete agreements, which was intended to begin in effective September 4, 2024. The court ruled. that the law not only exceeded the FTC’s legal authority, but was unreasonable and unreasonable because it was “based on inconsistent and false evidence, it failed.”[ed] considering the positive benefits of non-compete agreements, and ignoring them[ed] A lot of evidence supports these agreements.” This week’s action will not be the final word on the matter, as the FTC may appeal the decision and there are ongoing problems in Pennsylvania and Florida. James M. Barrett and Sean C. Urich have notes.

USCIS releases “Parole in place” Proposal. On August 20, 2024, the United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a notice implementing President Biden’s “available parole” policy announced on June 18, 2024. The notice, which referring to the new process as “Keeping Families Together,” it creates a streamlined process by which certain noncitizen spouses and illegitimate children of US citizens can apply for adjustment of status to a legal citizen permanent resident (LPR) while in the United States. Currently, such persons seeking LPR status must first leave the United States and apply for an immigrant visa at a US embassy or foreign embassy.

To take advantage of this new process, the non-citizen spouse of a US citizen must:

• “Be present in the United States without admission or parole”;
• “Continuously present in the United States from at least June 17, 2014 until the date of filing of the parole application”;
• “Being legally married to a US citizen on or before June 17, 2024”;
• “Not having an unacceptable criminal history”; and
• “Submit biometrics, background checks and national security, public safety, and border security checks, and have been found not to pose a threat to national security or public safety .”

An applicant who is the stepchild of a US citizen must:

• “Be present in the United States without admission or parole”;
• “Having a parent legally married to a US citizen on or before June 17, 2024”;
• “Existed at all times in the United States from at least June 17, 2024 through the date of filing”;
• “Not having an unacceptable criminal history”; and
• “Provide biometrics, background checks and national security and public safety, and it has been determined that it does not threaten national security or public safety.”

This new process came into effect on 19 August 2024.

NDEA and the Space Race. Sixty-six years ago this week, the US Congress passed the National Defense Education Act of 1958 (NDEA). The push for this action began a year earlier, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik causing a small stir among defense and intelligence officials that the United States was losing the “space race.” Led by Democratic Senator J. Lister Hill of Alabama, the NDEA sought to align education and national security needs by providing funding to strengthen science, math, engineering and foreign language education. It worked again: between 1960 and 1970, the number of college students in the United States increased from 3.6 million to 7.5 million. The NDEA marks the federal government’s first major investment in education.