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WECA Political Update February 2, 2023

Thursday, February 2, 2023

‘Recession Is Underway’ For Home Builders Construction Dive has concluded the recession is here. The housing industry downturn is poised to push the U.S. economy into a mild recession this year, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ chief economist. Elevated inflation and mortgage rates coupled with the high building material and construction costs that have plagued the industry since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to take a toll on residential contractors, Rob Dietz said at a press briefing at the International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas. 2022 was the first time in 11 years that single-family starts declined, falling an estimated 12% to 999,000 units, the NAHB reported. “Our thesis is that recession is underway,” Dietz said. Story

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Republican U.S. House Candidates Outperformed 2020’s Presidential Results In 327 Districts Last Year Republicans in 327 congressional districts last year outperformed Donald Trump’s (R) 2020 vote totals in those same district boundaries. Democratic House candidates, meanwhile, outperformed Joe Biden in 68 districts (16%). Florida’s 26th Congressional District saw the largest swing towards the same party. Incumbent Mario Diaz-Balart (R) improved on Trump’s margin of victory in the district by 23.5 percentage points. Alaska’s at-large congressional district saw the largest swing in a district that changed party control. Incumbent Mary Peltola (D) won the state by 10 percentage points in 2022 after Trump won the state by 10.1 percentage points in 2020, resulting in a 20.1 percentage point swing toward Democrats. In two districts, the margins of victory in the 2020 presidential election and 2022 midterms matched: Texas’ 9th and Texas’ 35th.

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A New Pacific Legal Foundation Documentary, Trust Us, Reveals the Government’s ‘Expert’ Problem For nearly every aspect of American life—the food you eat, the house you live in, the way you raise your kids—there is an expert in the federal government who thinks you’re doing it wrong. In Trust Us, a new documentary from Pacific Legal Foundation, you’ll see how the U.S. federal government has funneled power to unelected experts who believe they can engineer solutions to all the country’s problems, with often-disastrous results for the American people. Trust Us is now available to watch for free on YouTube, Tubi, and commercial-free on Amazon.

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Arizona Republican Leaders Don’t Want Gov. Hobbs To Use Her Leftover Inaugural Fund for Democrats The top two Arizona Republican lawmakers want Gov. Katie Hobbs to put money left over from the inaugural celebration into a state account--where it can’t be used to elect more Democrats. In a hand-delivered letter Thursday, House Speaker Ben Toma and Senate President Warren Petersen called on her to surrender control of what’s left from the more than $1.5 million Capitol Media Services first reported she collected for the Jan. 5 celebration. At the same time, the costs listed totaled only about $207,000. Story

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Are Public Employee Unions Unconstitutional? A Commentary by Michael Barone. “How did it come to pass that public employee unions, which scarcely existed 60 years ago, have come to run public schools and myriad state and local government agencies? Answers to this question, which few people think about these days, come from Philip K. Howard’s latest book, “Not Accountable,” accompanied as in his earlier books (“The Rule of Nobody,” “Try Common Sense”) by outspoken outrage and generous dollops of common sense. The rise of public employee unions in the 1960s was not inevitable. President Franklin Roosevelt, who wanted his New Deal programs to deliver results, explained that “The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” That was in 1937, when New Deal legislation sparked the drives that vastly increased private-sector unionization. In 1955, when private-sector unionization percentages peaked, AFL-CIO President George Meany opined confidently that it was “impossible to bargain collectively with the government.” More

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What is the Debt Ceiling? The U.S. federal government has reached the limit on the amount of debt it is legally allowed to accrue. Congress sets this amount, known as the debt limit, and has the power to raise it to meet the country’s financial obligations. Once the debt limit is reached, the Treasury Department has a limited number of tools, called extraordinary measures, that allow the Treasury to keep paying the government’s bills. The debt limit is the total amount of money the U.S. federal government is authorized to borrow to meet its existing financial obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits, salaries of members of the military, interest on the national debt, tax refunds, and other payments. It is impossible to overstate the negative consequences that would occur if the United States were to default on its debt. Click here to learn more.

By the Numbers:

$31.381 trillion: The current federal debt limit, which was last raised in December of 2021.

102: The number of times the U.S. government has increased the debt limit since World War II.

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2024 California Elections Democratic state senator and longtime appropriations chair Anthony Portantino officially announced his bid for CA-30 on Monday, hoping to beat out other ambitious LA-based Democrats for Rep. Adam Schiff’s seat. His challengers may include Assemblymember Laura Friedman, Los Angeles Unified School District board member Nick Melvoin, actor Ben Savage, and activist and 2022 challenger Maebe A. Girl.

In related news, Rep. Katie Porter will hold a fundraiser in Silicon Valley next month for her newly launched Senate bid, making her the latest critic of tech giants to make the pilgrimage to their cash-flush backyards. Porter will headline a fundraiser at the Palo Alto home of Sarah Sands, whose husband is venture capitalist Greg Sands. Like a fundraiser hosted by Sands for Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) earlier this month, the event was organized by the Bay Area fundraising group Electing Women Bay Area, according to the invite. The suggested contribution amount is $1,000.

And finally, Rep. Nancy Pelosi on Thursday endorsed Rep. Adam Schiff for the Senate primary, backing the former House Intelligence Committee chair only on the condition that Sen. Dianne Feinstein opts not to run again. “If Senator Feinstein decides to seek re-election, she has my whole-hearted support. If she decides not to run, I will be supporting House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff, who knows well the nexus between a strong democracy and a strong economy,” Pelosi (D-CA)—a two-time speaker of the House who stepped down from leadership earlier this year—said in an email. “In his service in the House, he has focused on strengthening our democracy with justice and on building an economy that works for all.”

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Labor provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act kicked in over the weekend for projects that want to take advantage of tax incentives. They’re meant to boost wages and job training opportunities. But developers, contractors, and investors need further guidance to maximize the IRA’s roughly $270 billion in clean energy tax credits. They’re still trying to figure out exactly when the apprenticeship requirements apply, how exemptions from the requirements are interpreted, and how to determine wages for specific renewable energy jobs. “If one party is willing to assume the risk of non-compliance, then projects are moving forward,” said Hilary Lefko, a renewable energy tax partner at Norton Rose Fulbright. “But if no one is willing to accept the risk of the consequences of not being compliant, then that’s halting investment, that’s halting construction, and projects won’t get built until people are more comfortable with the rules.” More broadly, the layering of domestic-content provisions on top of the clean-energy push complicates things. E&E News.

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Vacation Rentals Boom in Phoenix As Phoenix, Arizona, counts down to the Super Bowl on Feb. 12, the clock is also ticking for the region’s short-term rental owners, who are frantically getting their properties ready for the thousands of visitors, reports the Phoenix Business Journal. As many of the hotels in the area have already filled up, some homeowners have been able to list their properties on short-term rental sites like Airbnb and snag rates as high as $10,000 each night. For instance, Hózhó Scottsdale—an 11-bedroom, 12-bathroom property in Scottsdale complete with a lazy river—is already booked for the entire week before the Super Bowl for $11,770 a night. Maybe WECA’s Bob Bartlett could rent you a room!

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California’s High-Speed Rail Gains Another Capitol Hill Detractor The seemingly never-ending bullet train project didn’t have a terrific 2022, and, if trends are any indicator, things won’t look much better in 2023. For the newest member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, the stalling out of California’s bullet train means it's time to get serious about road expansions on the Valley floor. During The Sun’s interview with Rep. John Duarte (R–Modesto), Duarte touched on the major need to improve transportation in the region, starting with two key numbers: 5 and 99. More