Politics

New Hampshire Clash of Republican Presidential Contenders

Published

10 years ago

April 18, 2015

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush jokes with a member of the audience at a “Politics and Eggs” event, a breakfast fixture for 2016 presidential prospects, Friday, April 17, 2015, at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Steve Peoples, ASSOCIATED PRESS

NASHUA, N.H. (AP) — The Republican Party’s most ambitious have stormed into New Hampshire for an early state showdown that highlighted the diversity, political challenges and sheer size of the GOP’s 2016 presidential class.

Nearly 20 Republican White House prospects were on the program for a weekend conference hosted by the state GOP, the year’s first gathering of its kind in the first-in-the-nation primary state. Speakers on Friday ranged from the party’s elite to its longshots: former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush delivered a standing-room-only speech while lesser-known South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced himself to voters one at a time in the hallway.

Each contender offered prescriptions for a party that hasn’t won a presidential election in more than a decade.

Bush made a passionate plea for bipartisanship on a day when his moderate brand of politics was on display. He broke with many conservatives on the environment by declaring that “the climate is changing” and on immigration called for a pathway to legal status for immigrants in the country illegally.

“The people who want to come here are driving for success,” Bush said of such immigrants.

He also criticized those who demonize their political adversaries: “I’m sick and tired of the political game where you push someone down to make yourself look better.”

He was among 10 prospective presidential candidates in New Hampshire on Friday, the first day of a two-day conference. Another 10 potential candidates were scheduled to appear in the state on Sunday.

Among the speakers: 10 current and former governors, three senators, a congressman, a former United Nations ambassador and a former CEO. They range in age from 43 to 71 and include several Spanish speakers and one woman.

Of the major candidates considering a 2016 run, only retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson did not attend the weekend conference. He cited a scheduling conflict.

“There’s a new president coming, my friends,” said New Hampshire GOP chairwoman Jennifer Horn, praising the diversity of the Republican field. “I’d like to also recognize at this time the broad, diverse, qualified field of candidates being offered by our friends in the Democratic Party, but I can’t.”

That’s because the Democratic contest is dominated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, who launched her campaign earlier in the week. The 67-year-old former first lady and secretary of state is scheduled to campaign in New Hampshire early next week.

Just down the street from the Republican conference, a leading Democratic voice charged that all the Republican voices sound the same: “With all of their shared extreme views they might as well just be one,” said Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee.

Yet divisions were on display among the Republican candidates.

“We’re not going to fix Washington by electing a president who is from Washington,” said former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, offering a jab at the members of Congress eyeing the White House. “Change is only going to come from the outside, from my perspective, and so should the next president.”

And Bush said the United States must team up with other countries to fight climate change, a departure from the position of most rivals and many others in the GOP.

“We need to work with the rest of the world to find a way to reduce carbon emissions,” he said. That won him praise from an unexpected quarter, Democratic billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer, whose NextGen group issued a statement saying Bush demonstrated leadership on the issue and showed why “climate change doesn’t have to be a partisan issue.”

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio reiterated the need for a new generation of leadership. If elected, the 43-year-old Rubio would be the third youngest president in history. He launched his campaign earlier in the week.

Asked whether Rubio considers Bush to be a man from the past, Rubio avoided criticizing the governor who helped steer his early years in politics.

“It’s not about biological age or how long someone’s been in politics, it has to do more with the age of your ideas,” Rubio said. “Do you have ideas to move America into the 21st century?”

___

Associated Press writers Holly Ramer, Kathleen Ronayne, Jill Colvin and Julie Pace contributed to this report.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Gov. Newsom Approves $170 Million to Fast Track Wildfire Resilience

AB 100 approves major investments in regional conservancies across the state, including over $30 million each for the Sierra Nevada, Santa Monica Mountains, State Coastal, and San Gabriel/Lower LA Rivers and Mountains conservancies. An additional $10 million will support wildfire response and resilience efforts.

Published

13 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

Courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Facebook page.

By Bo Tefu
California Black Media

With wildfire season approaching, last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill (AB) 100, unlocking $170 million to fast-track wildfire prevention and forest management projects — many of which directly protect communities of color, who are often hardest hit by climate-driven disasters.

“With this latest round of funding, we’re continuing to increase the speed and size of forest and vegetation management essential to protecting communities,” said Newsom when he announced the funding on April 14.

“We are leaving no stone unturned — including cutting red tape — in our mission to ensure our neighborhoods are protected from destructive wildfires,” he said.

Newsom also signed an executive order suspending certain regulations to allow urgent work to move forward faster.

This funding builds on California’s broader Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan, a $2.7 billion effort to reduce fuel loads, increase prescribed burning, and harden communities. The state has also launched new dashboards to keep the public informed and hold agencies accountable.

California has also committed to continue investing $200 million annually through 2028 to expand this effort, ensuring long-term resilience, particularly in vulnerable communities.

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California Rideshare Drivers and Supporters Step Up Push to Unionize

Today in California, over 600,000 rideshare drivers want the ability to form or join unions for the sole purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. It’s a right, and recently at the State Capitol, a large number of people, including some rideshare drivers and others working in the gig economy, reaffirmed that they want to exercise it.

Published

13 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Antonio‌ ‌Ray‌ ‌Harvey‌
California‌ ‌Black‌ ‌Media‌

On July 5, 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed into federal law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Also known as the “Wagner Act,” the law paved the way for employees to have “the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations,” and “to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, according to the legislation’s language.

On April 8, the rideshare drivers held a rally with lawmakers to garner support for Assembly Bill (AB) 1340, the “Transportation Network Company Drivers (TNC) Labor Relations Act.”

Authored by Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), AB 1340 would allow drivers to create a union and negotiate contracts with industry leaders like Uber and Lyft.

“All work has dignity, and every worker deserves a voice — especially in these uncertain times,” Wicks said at the rally. “AB 1340 empowers drivers with the choice to join a union and negotiate for better wages, benefits, and protections. When workers stand together, they are one of the most powerful forces for justice in California.”

Wicks and Berman were joined by three members of the California Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC): Assemblymembers Tina McKinnor (D-Inglewood), Sade Elhawary (D-Los Angeles), and Isaac Bryan (D-Ladera Heights).

Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor; April Verrett, President of Service Employees International Union (SEIU); Tia Orr, Executive Director of SEIU; and a host of others participated in the demonstration on the grounds of the state capitol.

“This is not a gig. This is your life. This is your job,” Bryan said at the rally. “When we organize and fight for our collective needs, it pulls from the people who have so much that they don’t know what to do with it and puts it in the hands of people who are struggling every single day.”

Existing law, the “Protect App-Based Drivers and Services Act,” created by Proposition (Prop) 22, a ballot initiative, categorizes app-based drivers for companies such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors.

Prop 22 was approved by voters in the November 2020 statewide general election. Since then, Prop 22 has been in court facing challenges from groups trying to overturn it.

However, last July, Prop 22 was upheld by the California Supreme Court last July.

In a 2024, statement after the ruling, Lyft stated that 80% of the rideshare drivers they surveyed acknowledged that Prop 22 “was good for them” and “median hourly earnings of drivers on the Lyft platform in California were 22% higher in 2023 than in 2019.”

Wicks and Berman crafted AB 1340 to circumvent Prop 22.

“With AB 1340, we are putting power in the hands of hundreds of thousands of workers to raise the bar in their industry and create a model for an equitable and innovative partnership in the tech sector,” Berman said.

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California Holds the Line on DEI as Trump Administration Threatens School Funding

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

Published

14 hours ago

April 28, 2025

Oakland Post

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By Joe W. Bowers Jr
California Black Media

California education leaders are pushing back against the Trump administration’s directive to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in its K-12 public schools — despite threats to take away billions in federal funding.

The conflict began on Feb. 14, when Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), issued a “Dear Colleague” letter warning that DEI-related programs in public schools could violate federal civil rights law. The letter, which cited Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended race-conscious admissions, ordered schools to eliminate race-based considerations in areas such as admissions, scholarships, hiring, discipline, and student programming.

According to Trainor, “DEI programs discriminate against one group of Americans to favor another.”

On April 3, the DOE escalated the pressure, sending a follow-up letter to states demanding that every local educational agency (LEA) certify — within 10 business days — that they were not using federal funds to support “illegal DEI.” The certification requirement, tied to continued federal aid, raised the stakes for California, which receives more than $16 billion annually in federal education funding.

So far, California has refused to comply with the DOE order.

“There is nothing in state or federal law that outlaws the broad concepts of ‘diversity,’ ‘equity,’ or ‘inclusion,’” wrote David Schapira, California’s Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction, in an April 4 letter to superintendents and charter school administrators. Schapira noted that all of California’s more than 1,000 traditional public school districts submit Title VI compliance assurances annually and are subject to regular oversight by the state and the federal government.

In a formal response to the DOE on April 11, the California Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond collectively rejected the certification demand, calling it vague, legally unsupported, and procedurally improper.

“California and its nearly 2,000 LEAs (including traditional public schools and charter schools) have already provided the requisite guarantee that its programs and services are, and will be, in compliance with Title VI and its implementing regulation,” the letter says.

Thurmond added in a statement, “Today, California affirmed existing and continued compliance with federal laws while we stay the course to move the needle for all students. As our responses to the United States Department of Education state and as the plain text of state and federal laws affirm, there is nothing unlawful about broad core values such as diversity, equity and inclusion. I am proud of our students, educators and school communities who continue to focus on teaching and learning, despite federal actions intended to distract and disrupt.”

California officials say that the federal government cannot change existing civil rights enforcement standards without going through formal rule-making procedures, which require public notice and comment.

Other states are taking a similar approach. In a letter to the DOE, Daniel Morton-Bentley, deputy commissioner and counsel for the New York State Education Department, wrote, “We understand that the current administration seeks to censor anything it deems ‘diversity, equity & inclusion.’ But there are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.”