Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us. My name is cliff johnson, the general manager and head of Government Affairs solutions here at Bloomberg Government. I am actually delighted to welcome you to a 2020 springhill watch event. Hopefully by now youve all the chance to take a look at the newest addition of our biannual hill watch report that explores what to watch on capitol hill across more than 20 different policy areas, and of course, this report also examines the effect of covid19, the need for related relief legislation as both parties agendas and plans for 2020. Today were incredibly excited to build upon of a reporting teams expert analysis through conversation with a key lawmaker, and that is senator john thune of south dakota, who is here with us today to discuss the current state of affairs. You can participate in todays discussion on social media by using the hashtag bgovhillwatch to be sure to follow bgov on twitter. I do have a couple of housekeeping announcements just
All persons having business before the honorable, the Supreme Court of the United States are to give their attention. The court is now sitting. God save the United States and this honorable court. We will hear arguments first this morning in this case. It it pleases this court, the question in these cases is straightforward. To the states have the power to how an elector may vote . They do not. They declare that the vote is as the constitution expressly describes them, their vote, meaning the electoral votes but article two, in washington effectively gives the states the power to cast votes for president in such a manner as the legislature therefore thereof. The actual article does not give the states the power to cast votes. Togives the states the power appoint electors. The actual electors that the constitution creates have legal discretion as every elector does. Is covertlyary, it fettered discretion. Washingtons alternative to best discretion in citizens rather than electors may be
Justice and made please the court, the issues here are unprecedented in every sense. Before these cases, no court had ever upheld the courts use of subpoena powers to the records of a sitting president with a broad swath of the president s personal papers to the let alone purpose of the a potential legislation. There is a reason this is the first time a set has attempted such a gambit. Because, grist has subpoena power, it is subordinate and when that power is deployed against the president , it must yield absent any longstanding tradition or compelling showing of need. The committees consent is neither condition and that should decide this case. The committees contend the subpoenas satisfy the limits this court has always applied to congressional subpoenas. But the arguments would render meaningless but the arguments would render those limits meaningless. They claim congress can you subpoenas to uncover individual wrongdoing simply because that the always informed efficiency of existi
Because of that, its a particularly good point in this course to talk about a big issue that goes throughout the civil war that we need to look at a e antebellum. The question is the United States constitution. One thing historians have been asking for generations about the constitution and the civil war area, a basic question is to what degree did the constitution shape the civil war area . What to what degree did it make political actors do certain things . Constrain them. Or guide their actions. On the flip side to what degree did the civil war era shape the constitution . Some of this is very clear in the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. Changed the constitution. Also different views of the constitution. One of the things that people have looked at in looking back at the u. S. Constitution during the civil war era is how president s have interacted with the constitution. Have they followed it . Have they tried to defend it . Have they abridged the constitution . This shapes how many
Yet to be spent and frankly much of which we dont know what the actual need is out there until we have a better sense for what the revenue loss is to a lot of our state and local governments. They are sounding the alarm and justifiably worried about what happens if the downturn in the economy continues and what that might mean to their revenues. They are looking to washington, d. C. For assistance, and i think that as i said earlier in the cares package, there was 150 billion dollars that went out to state and local governments and there have been concerns about how those funds can be used. They were stipulated they had to be used for covidrelated expenses, and many state and local leaders were concerned that that did not give them the flexibility they needed to meet other types of needs. Well, the Treasury Department has in the past few days, madame president , come out with an interpretation that would allow those dollars, the 150 billion dollars already appropriated to be used to pa