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UChicago’s Weekly Civics Briefing
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On February 23rd, two white men, Travis and George McMichael shot and killed Ahmaud Arbery, a 25 year-old black man. The incident occurred in Brunswick, Georgia after two phone calls were placed regarding robberies in the neighborhood. The McMichaels claimed that Arbery fit the suspect’s description. In the released video, Arbery appears to be jogging until he is stopped by the McMichaels while traveling in their van. Three blasts are heard and a struggle for Travis McMichael’s shotgun ensues. Finally the video shows Arbery attempting to run before falling. George McMichael, a retired investigator for the local district attorney and police detective, claims that the incident began when Arbery attacked his son. A group of civil rights organizations called for the arrest of the McMichaels after the first two prosecutors recused themselves, with the second claiming that Arbery started a fight with Travis using the justification of Georgia’s self-defense and citizen’s arrest law. On April 13th, a third prosecutor, DA Tom Durden (Atlanta Judicial Court), takes on this case and believes it warrants grand jury consideration. However, with the released video going viral and sparking national outrage on May 5th, both McMichaels were charged with murder and aggravated assault on Thursday, May 8th.
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FEDERAL NEWS
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Food Waste Amidst Surplus
While millions of Americans are worried about what to eat, farmers across the country are dumping or destroying their fresh products that they cannot sell. The closure and reduced operations of restaurants, hotels, and other food service providers have left regional and local distributors struggling to redirect food. Under the Coronavirus Farm Assistance Program introduced on April 17th, the United States Department of Agriculture has begun purchasing $100 million of fresh produce, dairy, and meat each month. For more details about the program, click here.
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April Unemployment
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their April jobs report, listing 20.5 million Americans who lost their jobs since March, which accounts for a 14.7 percent unemployment rate. These stark numbers have not been seen since the Great Depression.The percentage of American adults currently employed plummeted from around 62 percent to about 51.3 percent. For reference, the Great Recession workforce at its worst included 58 percent of adults. According to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, “data reflect neither the additional layoffs that occurred in late April and early May, nor the employees beginning to return to work in some States.” However, with the rapid onset of this crisis, this job report is already out of date.
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Supreme Court Goes Virtual
May 4th was a day for C-SPAN history. Due to the COVID-19 crisis, for the first time, the Supreme Court heard arguments via telephone. Instead of limiting public viewing to those lucky few able to find a seat in the official chambers, the Court opened the line to all who wished to listen to a trademark-law dispute. Other than some static on Justice Breyer’s line, the livestream was a success. Notably, Justice Clarence Thomas asked questions during oral argument for the first time in a year.
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STATE NEWS
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Introduction to the Illinois General Assembly
As members of the UChicago community, we would benefit from understanding Illinois politics. This newsletter will introduce the Illinois General Assembly, which is the state legislature that works with the executive and judicial branches of the state. Established in 1918 by the Illinois Constitution, the IGA is composed of the Illinois House of Representatives and the Illinois State Senate, with 118 and 59 members, respectively. Duties of the IGA include approving state budgets, proposing state constitutional amendments, and passing bills into law. Bills are passed with a majority vote in both houses and approval from the governor. Due to the ability to roll over bills from the first legislative session to the second, the majority of bills are sent to the governor’s office towards the end of the term. This is why the governor typically makes bill decisions in the summer. The legislature also has the power to override gubernatorial vetoes with a 3/5 majority vote in each chamber.
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Take Me to Church
On May 1st, Governor J.B. Pritzker revised Illinois’s stay-at-home order to allow small worship gatherings of no more than 10 people. Members of The Beloved Church in northern Illinois violated the stay-at-home order earlier this month, while other churches in Niles and Chicago also believe that they would be ready to hold services if they implement the necessary social distancing and health measures. These churches claim the order violates the First Amendment right to free religious practice, but a federal court recently ruled the stay-at-home order as constitutional. Similarly, U.S. District Judge John Lee denied The Beloved Church a temporary restraining order. The Beloved Church has tried to move forward with their case.
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A Plan to Reopen
On May 5, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker released a new, five-phase plan to reopen the state during the coronavirus outbreak. The plan divides Illinois into four regions that follow the plan separately and currently places the entire state into Phase 2, with minimal outdoor activities. Phase 3 would reopen parts of the economy alongside social distancing and masking guidelines, and Phase 4 would reopen schools, restaurants, and other industries. The plan drew criticism from Republican state lawmakers, who questioned the division of the four regions as arbitrary and were unsettled by what was seen as the governor assuming too much power. They called for the state legislature to reconvene and for local governments to have more say in reopening their economies.
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CHICAGO NEWS
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Lightfoot Addresses COVID-19 Racial Inequity
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has vowed to address health disparities in Chicago as the pandemic continues to disproportionately impact Black and Latino residents of the city. People of color and lower-income residents of Chicago make up the majority of essential workers in the city, who are at the greatest risk of exposure to COVID-19. In an attempt to address this issue, the city created a Racial Equity Rapid Response Team in early April. Nevertheless, the pandemic has taken a significantly higher toll on Chicago’s communities of color; as of May 7th, there were reportedly 7,770 confirmed cases among Latino Chicagoans and 7,261 confirmed cases among Black Chicagoans, constituting the majority of the city’s cases. Lightfoot has since urged for the building of “a foundation to address the health disparities for COVID and beyond.”
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Chicago Protestors Demand Action on Rent and Evictions
On April 30th, protesters gathered downtown to express discontent with the city and state’s response to renters during the coronavirus crisis, with rent payments due on May 1st. Governor J.B. Pritzker’s emergency executive order prohibits evictions during the lockdown, which terminates by the end of May. However, protestors still gathered to claim that Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Governor could use emergency powers to help renters more. Protestors demanded that all rent and mortgage payments be suspended for all of lockdown and three months following. They also want the Governor to lift the state’s ban on rent control, which he has no control over. The Mayor announced a Chicago Housing Solidarity Pledge on April 29, signed by multiple mortgage and landlord companies like U.S. Bank and Bank of America, which provides “financial relief in response to the economic fallout of COVID-19,” a pledge which has been criticized.
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ELECTION 2020
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New York Presidential Primary Lawsuit
On April 28th, New York made the decision to cancel the 2020 presidential primary scheduled for June 23rd due to coronavirus. The New York State Board of Elections reasoned that because Joe Biden is the only remaining Democratric candidate seeking the nomination, they could cancel the election. Former presidential candidate Andrew Yang filed a lawsuit against the board a day later, citing that the primary’s cancelation infringes on residents’ right to vote and pledges all 274 delegates to Biden despite Yang and Senator Bernie Sanders’ wishes to remain on the ballot. Yang argued that voters would be less incentivized to vote for congressional and state-wide seats if they were barred from this election. On May 5th, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled in favor of Yang and issued reinstatement of New York’s June 23rd presidential primary.
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Facebook’s Efforts to Stop the Spread of Misinformation
In 2018, the Ohio State University conducted a study on fake news during the 2016 presidential election concluding that “fake news most likely did have a substantial impact” and was sufficient to deprive Hillary Clinton an Electoral College victory. For the 2020 election, Facebook has created a plan to curb misinformation. Adam Mosseri, former Facebook executive and current Instagram CEO, states that Instagram will stop fake news by building new products to curb the spread of false news. One new product is Click-Gap, which ranks Facebook posts by comparing news links from their number of Facebook shares to the number of websites that . On February 12, 2020, after the New Hampshire Democratic Primary, Facebook removed a partisan misinformation network originating from Iran.
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Who Will Joe Biden Pick For VP?
With Joe Biden’s fall campaign quickly approaching, the de facto Democratic presidential nominee must select his running mate. For the first time, Biden has publicly committed to picking a woman. Several names like Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Gretchen Whitmer, Stacy Abrams, Susan Rice, Val Deming, Catherine Cortez Masto, Keisha Lance Bottoms, and Tammy Duckworth have been speculated to comprise his shortlist. Although his advisory panel has announced that a selection could come as early as July, an analysis of previous elections may help predict the outcome of this decision. When constructing the ticket, nominees look to create ideological, racial, experiential, and geographic balances. Regardless of the outcome, one thing is unequivocally certain, Biden’s selection could make or break the success of his presidential campaign.
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