U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch hearing at the U.S. Capitol on May 22, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger testified Wednesday that more than 700 threats against members of Congress were made during the last month alone, with at least 50 cases of people making false 911 calls in an attempt to get police teams to respond to lawmakers’ homes, often called “swatting.”

Manger, who took over the police department following the Jan. 6 attack, said the agency has done a relatively good job bolstering security at the Capitol building during the last few years, but needs more officers and money to address lawmakers’ security when they are back home or at offsite events.

Manger pointed to the dignitary protection division, which is responsible for keeping congressional leadership safe wherever they go, as “woefully understaffed.”

“We provide the protection at the level it needs to be. But you do that through officers working double shifts and averaging … 50 hours of overtime every pay period,” Manger said.

The division that protects leadership currently holds about 250 officers, but Manger pressed for that to be doubled to at least 500.

“And not only can we provide protection for the leadership 24/7, but when we have people that have threats against them that require us to stand up temporary details, we can do that,” Manger said. “Because right now, when we do it, we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. We’re yanking somebody off another detail to stand up a detail to help someone for a temporary threat situation.”

There are numerous situations, he testified, where if USCP had more officers it could better protect lawmakers both on and off Capitol Hill. For example, USCP needs more than the 20 or so agents it currently has investigating threats against members of Congress.

Woman in Georgia killed

Threats against lawmakers have been on the rise for years, but are having increasingly dire consequences. Just this week a woman in Georgia was killed in what local police described as a “tragic chain of events” after an email falsely claimed there was a bomb in the mailbox at Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s home there.

Manger said during the hearing in the Senate Rules Committee that lawmakers need to raise USCP’s spending levels to allow it to continue holding 12 recruiting classes per year of 25 officers each for the next few years.

The mandatory retirement age for USCP should also be raised from 60 to 65 to match the “tweak” the Secret Service holds that allows it to keep senior officers working above the ceiling of 57 years old for federal law enforcement, which Manger called “shameful” because he believes it is too low.

“We have people that are in the prime of their career at that age and they got to go. And so, you know, I’ve been able to get the Capitol Police Board to agree to extend it to the age 60. And I have several officers that I’ve spoken with just in the last month who are hitting 60 years old, and they said, ‘Chief, I don’t want to go,’” Manger said. “And you look at them, and they look like they’re 35 and they certainly can still do the job, physically, mentally, and they’re some of the best cops you’d ever want to work with. But I have no ability to hold on to them.” 

Immigrant farm workers harvest broccoli on March 16, 2006, near the border town of San Luis, south of Yuma, Arizona. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —  A top Republican on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that when President-elect Donald Trump takes office and the GOP takes control of the Senate, lawmakers’ first priority will be to pass a border security package through a complex process known as budget reconciliation.

Trump has promised his base his administration will enact mass deportations of people living in the country illegally. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said at a Judiciary hearing that Senate Republicans will focus on increasing beds at detention centers, hiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and purchasing technology for enforcement at the southern border.

“It is our belief that the only way you’ll get control of the border is for deportations to start early,” he said. “If we do not have outflow, the inflow will continue.”

However, a senior fellow at the pro-immigration think tank the American Immigration Council, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, told the panel the endeavor will be expensive.

Carrying out mass deportations of 1 million people would cost about $88 billion a year for arrests, detainment and removal, he said. About 13 million people are living in the United States illegally.

Fixing a broken system

The committee hearing, led by Democrats who control the Senate now but will be in the minority next year, explored the ramifications of the Trump campaign promise of mass deportations.

“Instead of mass deportations, mass accountability,” said the chair of the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. “Let’s fix our broken immigration system in a way that protects our country and honors our heritage as a nation of immigrants.”

The budget reconciliation process cited by Graham that would be used to pass border security legislation, if successful, would allow Republicans to get around the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate.

Reconciliation is generally used when one party controls the House, Senate and the White House, because it only requires a majority vote in each chamber.

Graham added that Republicans will also prevent those people who were paroled into the country through executive authority from employing another avenue for legal immigration status. The GOP has been critical of programs that allow certain nationals from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela to temporarily work and live in the United States.

“So if you’re here illegally, get ready to leave,” Graham said.

DACA program

One of the hearing witnesses, Foday Turay, is in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which is awaiting a federal court ruling on its legality after the Trump administration tried to end it.

Separately, on Monday, a federal court blocked the implementation of a final rule from the Biden administration to allow DACA recipients to have health care access under the Affordable Care Act. 

About 500,000 people are in the program, which is aimed at protecting children brought into the country without authorization from deportation. It also allows them to obtain work permits.

Turay is an assistant district attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and said if he were deported it would devastate his family, as he is the primary income earner in his household.

He said his wife, a U.S. citizen, is the primary caretaker of her mother, a person with disabilities who is undergoing cancer treatments. Additionally, Turay said he would have to leave his son behind if he is deported.

Another witness, Patty Morin of Aberdeen, Maryland, told how her daughter, Rachel, was killed. The suspect, who was charged with first-degree murder and sexual assault, was in the country illegally and had a prior criminal record.

Durbin said Democrats are not opposed to ICE carrying out its duties to deport those with criminal records and stressed that Trump’s plans for mass deportations extend beyond that group and would include people like Turay.

“This man for a living is prosecuting criminals,” Durbin said of Turay. “This other individual is a clear criminal with a record. When we say ‘mass deportation,’ should we consider them the same because they’re both undocumented?”

Graham said when it comes to DACA, “hopefully we can find a solution to that problem.”

Over the weekend, Trump expressed his support for coming to an agreement with Democrats to allow DACA recipients to remain in the country, despite trying to end the program during his first term.

Use of National Guard

Durbin said he is concerned about Trump’s comments about using the National Guard to carry out mass deportations.

One of the witnesses, Randy Manner, a retired major general in the U.S. Army, said he sees problems with using the military for mass deportations.

It could affect military readiness, he said, and the military is not trained in that capacity.

“Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of federal law enforcement agencies,” Manner said.

He added that having soldiers carry out that directive would have a negative impact on morale and recruiting. Manner also said having the U.S. military involved in that kind of political messaging would erode public trust.

Cost of mass deportations

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said not only would mass deportations be harmful to communities, but a financial strain as well.

Reichlin-Melnick said industries that would be hit particularly hard by losing employees would include construction, agriculture and hospitality.

Reichlin-Melnick also argued that ICE already focuses on arresting and conducting deportation proceedings for noncitizens with criminal records.

“The overwhelming majority of people who would be the target of a mass deportation campaign do not have criminal records,” he said. “They are people who have been living otherwise law-abiding lives in this country, living, working and, in many cases, paying taxes.”

Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn suggested that local law enforcement should be empowered to carry out deportations, even though immigration enforcement is a federal issue.

Art Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for sharply limiting immigration, supported that idea.

“They’re going to be the people who are best able to pull those individuals out of the community,” Arthur said of local law enforcement.

Donald Trump, at the time president of the United States, listens to then-Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russ Vought deliver remarks prior to Trump signing executive orders on Oct. 9, 2019, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

WASHINGTON — Incoming White House budget director Russ Vought has spent much of his career learning the detailed, often convoluted mechanisms that make up the Office of Management and Budget.

The agency, little known outside Washington, D.C., is relatively small compared to the rest of the federal government, but it acts like a nucleus for the executive branch and holds significant power.

OMB is responsible for releasing the president’s budget request every year, but also manages much of the executive branch by overseeing departments’ performance, reviewing the vast majority of federal regulations and coordinating how the various agencies communicate with Congress. 

Vought was deputy director, acting director and then director at OMB during Trump’s first term.

Before that Vought worked as vice president of Heritage Action for America, policy director for the U.S. House Republican Conference, executive director of the Republican Study Committee and a legislative assistant for former Texas Republican Sen. Phil Gramm. He has an undergraduate degree from Wheaton College and a law degree from George Washington University Law School.

Following Trump’s first term in office, Vought founded the right-leaning Center for Renewing America. The group’s mission is “to renew a consensus of America as a nation under God with unique interests worthy of defending that flow from its people, institutions, and history, where individuals’ enjoyment of freedom is predicated on just laws and healthy communities.”

Cutting government spending

Vought outlined his agenda for the next four years in Project 2025, a 922-page document from the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation that led to speculation during the presidential campaign about what Trump would seek to do without Congress, including in areas that constitutionally fall within the legislative branch, like government spending.

The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, repeatedly tried to tie Project 2025 to Trump and his campaign, and they sought to distance themselves from its proposals. But Trump has since nominated some of its authors or contributors to run federal departments and agencies.

Vought, in a 26-page chapter on the executive office of the president, wrote the OMB director “must ensure the appointment of a General Counsel who is respected yet creative and fearless in his or her ability to challenge legal precedents that serve to protect the status quo.”

Trump, Vought and many others are bullish about cutting government spending, but will likely run into legal challenges if they try to spend more or considerably less than lawmakers approve in the dozen annual government funding bills. 

Budget request

One of Vought’s most visible responsibilities will be releasing the president’s annual budget request, a sweeping document that lays out the commander-in-chief’s proposal for the federal government’s tax and spending policy.

The president’s budget, however, is just a request since Congress has the constitutional authority to establish tax and spending policy.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill write the dozen annual government funding bills that account for about one-third of annual federal spending. The rest of the federal government’s spending comes from Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are classified as mandatory programs and mostly run on autopilot unless Congress approves changes and the president signs off on a new law.

That separation of powers led to frustration during Trump’s first term in office and will likely do so again, since he spoke during the 2024 campaign about using “impoundment” to prevent the federal government from spending money Congress has approved.

Trump withheld security assistance funding from Ukraine during his first term in office, leading to one of his two impeachments and a ruling from the Government Accountability Office —a nonpartisan government watchdog — that he had violated the law.

“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” GAO wrote. “OMB withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that OMB violated the ICA.”

Trump spoke on the campaign trail about using “impoundment” to drastically cut government spending, but that would likely lead to lawsuits and a Supreme Court ruling. 

Vought’s think tank, Center for Renewing America, published analysis of presidents using impoundment throughout the country’s history, with the authors concluding the Impoundment Control Act is unconstitutional.

‘Every possible tool’

Vought sought to defend the president’s budget request in his chapter in Project 2025, writing that though “some mistakenly regard it as a mere paper-pushing exercise, the President’s budget is in fact a powerful mechanism for setting and enforcing public policy at federal agencies.”

He signaled the second Trump administration would be more nuanced in its interpretation of presidential authority.

“The President should use every possible tool to propose and impose fiscal discipline on the federal government.” Vought wrote. “Anything short of that would constitute abject failure.”

Vought also wrote about the management aspect of OMB’s portfolio, pressing for political appointees to have more authority and influence than career staff.

“It is vital that the Director and his political staff, not the careerists, drive these offices in pursuit of the President’s actual priorities and not let them set their own agenda based on the wishes of the sprawling ‘good government’ management community in and outside of government,” Vought wrote. “Many Directors do not properly prioritize the management portfolio, leaving it to the Deputy for Management, but such neglect creates purposeless bureaucracy that impedes a President’s agenda—an ‘M Train to Nowhere.’”

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks at the Calvin Coolidge Foundation conference at the Library of Congress on Feb. 17, 2023 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday night he will nominate South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which will carry out Trump’s plan to conduct mass deportations of millions of people in the country without proper legal status.

“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security,” Trump said in a statement.  “She will work closely with “Border Czar” Tom Homan to secure the Border, and will guarantee that our American Homeland is secure from our adversaries. I have known Kristi for years, and have worked with her on a wide variety of projects – She will be a great part of our mission to Make America Safe Again.”

DHS is the agency primarily responsible for immigration enforcement and border security and handles temporary protections to allow immigrants to live and work in the United States. As Trump rolls out his nominees, Noem would be the first governor to get the nod for the Cabinet.

DHS has about 260,000 federal employees and a nearly $62 billion discretionary budget authority.

The news had already caused a backlash among Democrats even before Trump’s announcement, as media reports said Noem would be selected.

“With a long history of championing Trump’s draconian immigration policies, Governor Kristi Noem will carry out his cruel plans without a second thought,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement.

Noem said in a statement she is “honored and humbled” to be selected.

“I look forward to working with Border Czar Tom Homan to make America SAFE again,” said Noem. “With Donald Trump, we will secure the Border, and restore safety to American communities so that families will again have the opportunity to pursue The American Dream.”

Noem, a staunch Trump ally, was one of several Republican governors who sent U.S. National Guard troops to the southern border in Texas, in a rebuke to the Biden administration and its immigration policies. She’s also visited the southern border several times.

Noem served in Congress from 2011 until 2019, when she left after winning her 2018 run for governor. She’s in her second term that is set to expire in 2026.

While in Congress, she served on the U.S. House Armed Services, Ways and Means and Agriculture committees.

Noem did not sit on the committee that provides oversight for DHS, the Homeland Security Committee.

Noem joins border czar

In Trump’s second administration, Noem would join several former Trump officials who were the architects and biggest defenders of his hard-line immigration policies. The three are among Trump’s first staffing announcements.

On Monday, Trump dubbed the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the previous Trump administration, Homan, as his “border czar.” Homan backed the controversial “zero tolerance” policy that separated nearly 5,000 migrant families at the southern border.

Stephen Miller, who steered many of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, is set to join the White House as a deputy chief of staff for policy.

Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, said in a statement that the appointment of Miller and Homan signals that “mass deportations will be indiscriminate and unsparing.”

“The Stephen Miller and Tom Homan appointments are disturbing, if unsurprising, signals that we should take Donald Trump seriously and literally about his proposed largest deportation operation in American history and the unsparing, indiscriminate, and costly nature of what’s to come,” Cárdenas said.

Noem’s nomination to Trump’s Cabinet would have to go through Senate confirmation, where she could face questions about an anecdote in her memoir. She retracted a story about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un after reporters questioned whether the meeting actually happened.

Additionally, in the same memoir, she disclosed that she shot her 14-month-old puppy, named Cricket, because of behavioral issues. The revelation drew intense criticism from both sides of the political aisle.

Vast responsibilities

DHS is a sprawling agency consisting of  U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Coast Guard, among other national security agencies.

The Secret Service is under intense scrutiny after major shortfalls in its prevention of the first assassination attempt against Trump last summer, where he sustained an injury to his ear. That first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, led to the director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigning.

Ronald L. Rowe, the U.S. Secret Service deputy director, is currently serving as the acting director, and was praised for the agency’s swift action in the second assassination attempt against Trump at his private golf course in Florida. 

Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Annette Ziegler addresses the Wisconsin Judicial Conference Wednesday. (Screenshot | WisEye)

A shortage of lawyers hampers access to the courts, especially for rural Wisconsin residents, the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s chief justice told a gathering of state judges Wednesday.

Chief Justice Annette Ziegler said that Wisconsin’s chief judges had urged her and the state’s court system to take action in response to a general shortage of attorneys — a problem that other states also experience.

The shortage “is particularly acute in our rural counties, where we often do not even have any available certified attorneys to take cases,” Ziegler said. “When we cannot provide members of the public, who are exercising their constitutional right to be represented by counsel, with an attorney, ‘access to justice’ is seriously compromised.”

Ziegler’s State of the Judiciary Address was delivered at the annual conference of Wisconsin judges and also broadcast on Wisconsin Eye. The conference runs through Friday.

Ziegler established an attorney recruitment and retention committee “to brainstorm potential solutions” to the shortage. The committee works with the state’s chief judges’ committee, the State Bar of Wisconsin and the deans of law schools at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Marquette University.

The committee has examined trends contributing to the lawyer shortage in rural areas and looked at other states’ responses, she said. The group has also discussed trends in law school enrollment and in the places law school graduates choose to work.

“Because most attorneys in Wisconsin are concentrated in urban metropolitan centers, there are legal deserts in many areas of the state, particularly in the northern counties,” Ziegler said.

Ziegler said the state bar association is undertaking a pilot project to create more rural clerkships — positions assisting judges that can provide entry-level opportunities for new law school graduates.

In the coming months the committee plans to look at recruitment and retention for public attorneys, she added, including efforts in other states to provide incentive programs to draw new lawyers to rural and underserved communities.

The lawyer shortage was one of three topics Ziegler highlighted in her address, which lasted just under 30 minutes.

Ziegler praised Wisconsin lawmakers who worked across party lines to pass three bills earlier this year aimed at improving security for judges — a concern arising from “dangerous acts of violence and threats against judicial officers,” she said. She recited a list of incidents from around the country, including the 2022 killing of retired Judge John Roemer by a man whom Roemer had sentenced to prison in 2005. The assailant died of a gunshot that investigators said was self-inflicted.

The laws include: Act 234, outlawing picketing or parading at the home of a judge “with the intent to interfere with, obstruct, or impede the administration of justice”; Act 236, which keeps judges’ security information and emergency response plans from public access; and Act 235, which takes effect April 1, 2025, protecting other information about judges, including the identities of  their immediate family members.

While praising the enactment of those laws, Ziegler said that there was “more work to do on this front,” but did not describe specifics.

Ziegler also lauded steps taken to address how the courts and the justice system approach mental health, including creating dedicated mental health courts in four counties.

The state court system is also testing other tools to help the courts deal with mental health matters. Those include pairing judges and psychiatrists to train the judiciary on mental health disorders and treatment best practices, she said, as well as possibly creating a state-level post in the court system to coordinate mental health responses.

Voters sign in at a polling place in Takoma Park, Md., on Election Day. Voter enthusiasm was high across the country on Tuesday. (Barbara Barrett/Stateline)

America’s voting system was under siege for four years.

Former President Donald Trump’s false claims about fraud in the 2020 election exposed the people who operate our elections to threats and harassment in the run-up to this one. They fortified their offices against potential violence, adjusted to last-minute, politically driven changes in election laws, and fought a relentless stream of lies and disinformation. Going into Election Day, officials and pro-democracy advocates braced for the worst.

What a difference a day — and a result — makes.

Aside from a few hiccups, the U.S. voting process went smoothly this year. The winner of the presidential election was declared early the next morning, few people claimed widespread voter fraud, and the losing candidate conceded defeat.

It was a triumph for democracy, said David Becker, founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, a nonpartisan organization that advises local election officials nationwide.

But he wondered what would have happened had Trump, now president-elect, lost again.

“It’s somewhat telling that we’ve seen fewer fraud claims in the aftermath of an election which former president and future President Trump won,” he said. “But if we can get to the point now where President Trump and his supporters believe in the integrity of our elections, believe in the reality of our integrity of the elections, I will take it.”

Those who study the election process say they have questions: With Trump heading back to the White House, will faith in American democracy rebound? Will Republican lawmakers continue to use the myth of widespread voter fraud to implement further restrictions on mail-in and early voting? And will the threats that have hounded state and local election officials continue?

There’s a lot of uncertainty ahead for U.S. elections, said Kathy Boockvar, the former Democratic secretary of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. But what is certain is that by fueling distrust in elections, Trump and his allies have done permanent damage in this country, she said.

“Will there be a bump, maybe, because some of these folks now saw their candidate that they wanted to win? Sure,” she told Stateline. “There may be a bump in trust, but it’s not going to erase years and years of intentional dividing American against American, and intentional fueling of distrust of institutions and media.”

What happened to the election fraud?

In his victory speech on Tuesday night, Trump said his win was “a massive victory for democracy.” He made no mention of widespread voter fraud and gave no indication that there were any attempts to steal the election.

He had struck a different tone just hours before.

Earlier in the day, Trump falsely asserted in a Truth Social post that there was a heavy law enforcement presence in Philadelphia and Detroit. Officials in both cities debunked that claim. He also claimed without evidence that there was “massive CHEATING” in Philadelphia, which local officials, including Republicans, denied.

Trump would go on to win the critical swing states of Michigan and Pennsylvania in his landslide victory.

Election officials faced some falsehoods and disruptions Tuesday. Michigan officials called out what they said was an inauthentic video, allegedly showing boxes of ballots being carried into Detroit’s election office late Tuesday evening. The FBI warned of fabricated videos circulating online and of noncredible bomb threats at polling places in several states, including Michigan, originating out of Russia.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, told reporters at a news conference Wednesday morning those incidents of disinformation felt like things she saw in 2020, as Trump and his allies began to contest his loss.

“I worry and imagine that there was much more planned to drop, potentially, to create confusion and chaos in the hours following the election in an effort to potentially lay seeds to challenge results in the future,” she said. “Of course, we didn’t see that play out.”

U.S. national security officials praised how elections were conducted nationwide this year, as they had in 2020. Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said the election was peaceful and secure, and that malicious activity had no significant impact on the integrity of the process.

“Our election infrastructure has never been more secure and the election community never better prepared to deliver safe, secure, free, and fair elections for the American people,” she said in a press release Wednesday.

Election officials did a heroic job this year, said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, a nonprofit that works with state and local election officials to keep voting systems secure. Officials’ work was built on years of beefing up election procedures, audits and security, and coordinating with nonprofit advisers. Elections are resilient, Smith said.

But she added: “What will it take to get belief in the trustworthiness of elections to a point where it’s true for all of us, all the time? And maybe that is a lofty goal, but it’s worth having.”

There are some challenges that need to be addressed, including long lines on college campuses, how to decrease the number of absentee ballots rejected over incorrect signatures, and how to address the continued threats from foreign bad actors such as Russia.

But the crisis of the past four years did force state and local election officials to be more prepared for all threats, said Boockvar, who is president of Athena Strategies and a member of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections. The committee’s bipartisan group of election and law enforcement officials developed pocket-size guides to election laws for police officers to carry.

“The good news is we have much more cross-sector support,” she said.

Future legislation

After Trump cast his ballot on Election Day in Florida, he went to his campaign headquarters in Palm Beach and laid out what he wished the voting process looked like.

“They should do paper ballots, same-day voting, voter ID and be done,” he said. “One day, same day.”

The makeup of Congress is still unknown as local election offices continue to count ballots. But Republicans have shown a willingness to tackle federal voting legislation, as they did with their failed attempt to insert into a larger funding bill a ban on voting by noncitizens (which already is illegal).

But some of Trump’s ideas, especially moving the country to a system in which voters can only cast a ballot on Election Day, is unlikely, said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. But other suggestions are possible, he added.

There is broad, bipartisan support among voters for mail-in and early voting, along with other protections such as voter list maintenance and audits, Olson said. For example, Georgia is a Republican-run state with robust early and mail-in voting and high voter turnout, with paper ballots, post-election audits and voter ID requirements.

Connecticut voters just approved a constitutional amendment that allows for no-excuse absentee voting. Nevada voters approved a ballot measure that now requires an ID to vote by mail and in person. Voters in eight states, including North Carolina and Wisconsin, also approved ballot measures to make noncitizen voting illegal under state law.

Republican state lawmakers still seem keen to continue finding new ways to tighten procedures in the name of “election integrity.”

This election ran smoothly because of the legislation and proactive lawsuits from the conservative movement, argued Arizona state Rep. Alexander Kolodin, a Republican who was sanctioned by the State Bar of Arizona for his role in challenging the 2020 election.

“Look, there were a lot of vulnerabilities still, but it was a more secure election than the ones we’ve had in the past,” he said in an interview.

Kolodin introduced legislation this year to keep vote centers open longer and give voters more notice to fix signature or date errors on their absentee ballots, among other provisions. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs signed it in February.

He expects Trump to keep election integrity in the public consciousness and continue to pressure conservatives to work on it. For his part, Kolodin will push to scrap Arizona’s larger vote centers and opt for precinct-level polling places for better efficiency.

Before the election, Michigan state Rep. Luke Meerman, a Republican, told Stateline that he would love to see measures that require some sort of ID to vote in person and by mail.

“Something to prove that whoever filled that ballot out was the person that was supposed to be filling it out probably would be at the top of my list,” he said.

Despite Trump’s win, the false narratives around the supposed insecurity of U.S. elections — in which noncitizens and dead people are voting in droves — will likely continue, said the Cato Institute’s Olson; it is baked into the movement that brought the former president back into power.

“Given that so much of this was about Trump’s desire for personal vindication, maybe it’s over, and maybe we won’t face the same kind of systematic attempt to delegitimize the honesty of elections,” Olson said. “But that’s the optimistic view.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

Social Security advocates want any proposals to address a looming shortfall in the system to be developed in the open, not behind closed doors. (Getty Images)

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress enacted the Social Security system in the depths of the Great Depression, a universal retirement plan was supposed to be just the first step.

“People wanted health care in the program initially, but didn’t feel they could get it through Congress at the same time that he did retirement,” said James Roosevelt, grandson of FDR, during a panel discussion in Madison last week.

The panel discussion was organized by the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans as well as the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents Social Security Administration employees.

Roosevelt quoted his grandfather’s explanation of the program at the time of its enactment: “We can never ensure 100% of the population against 100% of the hazards and vicissitudes of life,” he recalled FDR saying. “But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against a poverty-ridden old age.”

FDR envisioned Social Security as part of an economic bill of rights, said Nancy Altman, president of the research and advocacy group Social Security Works, including disability coverage and even universal health care. Those weren’t included from the start, Altman said, “because it was too important to not be successful, and it was the largest undertaking that any government had taken up to that point.”

Administrative funding lags

Today, Social Security faces two major challenges. One is that funding for its administration has not kept up with expenses.

Martin O’Malley, Social Security Administration commissioner and a participant in the panel discussion, said in an interview that the agency’s overhead costs amount to 1.2% of the benefits that Social Security pays out. Private insurers, he said, have overhead costs in the neighborhood of 20%.

Administrative overhead is supposed to come out of the payroll taxes that fund Social Security. “You and I paid for that already — we paid for it out of our benefits,” O’Malley said. “But in a strange anomaly of these more recent times, Congress has chosen to treat the administrative overhead budget as discretionary.”

One example of the impact: In the agency’s Madison field office alone, the staff has dropped by 40% over the last five years, from 28 in 2019 to 17 now, O’Malley said.

Even with that challenge, however, O’Malley said the Social Security Administration has improved its customer service nationwide in the last year. Callers to the 800 number for assistance with benefits now wait 11 minutes on hold on average, he said — down from more than 40 minutes.

Disability applications have been backlogged, but for the last 18 weeks, O’Malley said, the agency has succeeded in chipping away at it, completing more applications than new ones are filed.

Still, there remain 1.2 million people waiting to hear if their claims will be accepted. “It’s not right that people should have to fight so hard to get customer service,” O’Malley said.

The other challenge, long identified, is the looming shortfall in the funding for Social Security. The program is funded on a “pay as you go” basis — with the current generation of workers funding the benefits paid to the current generation of retirees.

With the large bulge of retirees currently, along with a smaller population of working-age people, Social Security’s revenue is expected to fall short of what is needed to fully fund benefits by 2033.

During the panel discussion, O’Malley described a conversation he’d had with an agency actuary. Forty years ago Congress was apprised of the coming bulge of Baby Boom retirees and enacted legislation that built up a surplus in anticipation of that surge in people drawing on the system, he said.

What wasn’t foreseen then, however, was a major spike in income inequality. The trend “took a lot of the earned income in the United States of America and concentrated it in the top 6% of the American public,” O’Malley said. The result was higher Social Security payouts for the highest earners, and a surplus that had been structured to last until 2057 is now forecast to last only until  2035.

Another challenge that the system has faced is misinformation.

One myth is that undocumented immigrants are draining the Social Security system.

“This is categorically, objectively false,” O’Malley said. Immigrants without legal status in the U.S. still have federal taxes withheld from their earnings, and therefore “actually pay into Social Security about $22 billion a year that they will never see a dime of coming back to them.”

Another myth is that Social Security won’t be there for younger workers. J. Michael Collins, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison La Follette School of Public Affairs and the leader of the UW Retirement and Disability Research Consortium, said he hears that often from his students at UW.

In the worst case scenario, however, the shortfall would cut benefits to 72 cents on the dollar, he said.

Advocates point to possible fixes

Such a drastic cut can be avoided, however, panelists said. One fix would be to lift the cap on how much income is taxed to fund the system. Currently that cap is just under $170,000 a year. Proposals in Congress have called for requiring people with higher incomes to pay the Social Security payroll tax on all of their earnings, extending the shortfall deadline several decades.

A related challenge, Altman said, is that the program has been subject to “not just misinformation, but disinformation.”  

In its earliest days, Social Security was opposed by wealthy interests as “socialism,” but as the program has become widely accepted and appreciated, the opposition has shifted to suggesting that “we can’t afford it,” she said.

Altman said the shortfall can be headed off without drastic cuts but that any changes need to be made “in the open, transparently, with votes that are clear.”

She is skeptical of the motives of any attempt to modify the program that isn’t conducted that way. Social Security’s opponents, she charged, want to “go behind closed doors, come up with something or have a fast-track process” that will require an up-or-down vote. “And then that is very dangerous, because that is the way they’ll be able to cut it.”

James Roosevelt said the program his grandfather launched shouldn’t be viewed simply as a benefit for the elderly. Its existence “means kids can go to college because their grandparents have earned benefits,” he said. And it enables adults to have a better life themselves while feeling secure that aged parents also have some continued support.

“Social Security is a family program,” he said.

Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski speaks at a press conference defending ballot drop boxes and local election officials on Oct. 30, 2024 in Madison | Wisconsin Examiner photo

As the 2024 campaign air war reaches a furious crescendo over our battleground state, a few groups of public-spirited citizens have been quietly organizing on the ground to shore up the foundations of our democracy.

Take just three events that occurred during the week before Election Day: 

• A bipartisan group of current and former elected officials signed a pledge to respect the results of the election — whatever they may be.
• A separate bipartisan group of Wisconsin political leaders held a press conference to declare their confidence in the security of Wisconsin’s election system and to pledge to fight back against people who cast doubt on the legitimacy of the results — whatever they may be
• Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski and grassroots pro-democracy advocates held an event in downtown Madison to support the use of ballot drop boxes and to defend local election clerks in a season of threats, intimidation and destabilizing conspiracy theories.

All of these public declarations of confidence in the basic voting process we used to take for granted show just how far from normal we’ve drifted.

As Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan put it in a joint press conference with Republican former U.S. Rep. Reid Ribble, “This is sort of no-brainer stuff.” Yet the two Wisconsin congressmen celebrated the announcement that they got 76 state politicians to sign their pledge to honor the results of the 2024 election.

Notably, however, the list of politicians who agreed to respect what Ribble described as “democracy 101” — that “the American people get to decide who leads them; candidates need to accept the results” — does not include many members of the party of Donald Trump.

Petition signers so far include 64 Democrats, one independent and nine Republicans. Worse, nearly every one of those Republicans has the word “former” next to his or her title. 

Technically state Sen. Rob Cowles is still serving out the remainder of his term. But the legislative session is over and Cowles won’t be back. After announcing his retirement, he made waves this week when he renounced Trump and endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Other GOP officials who pledged to respect the election results include former state Sen. Kathy Bernier, who leads the group Keep Our Republic, which has been fighting election conspiracy theories and trying to rebuild trust in local election clerks, and former state Sen. Luther Olsen, a public school advocate who worked across the aisle back before the current era of intense political polarization.

On the same day Pocan and Ribble made their announcement, a different bipartisan group of Wisconsin leaders, members of the Democracy Defense Project – Wisconsin state board, held a press call to emphasize the protections in place to keep the state’s elections safe and to call out “bad actors” who might try to undermine the results.

Former Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and former Republican Attorney General JB Van Hollen joined the call along with former Republican U.S. Rep. Scott Klug and former state Democratic Party Chair Mike Tate.

“I can speak from personal experience, having won and lost very close elections, that the process here in Wisconsin is safe and secure, and that’s exactly why you have this bipartisan group together,” said Barnes, who narrowly lost his challenge to U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson in 2022.

Barnes said false claims undermining confidence in voting and tabulating election results “have been manufactured by sore losers.”

If you lose an election, he added, “you have the option to run again at some point. But what you should not do is question the integrity or try to impugn our election administrators just because the people have said no to you.”

Former AG Van Hollen, a conservative Republican, seconded that emotion. “I’m here to tell you as the former chief law enforcement officer for the state of Wisconsin that our system does work,” he said.

Van Hollen reminded people that he pushed for Wisconsin’s strict voter I.D. law, which Democrats opposed as a voter-suppression measure. “Whether you were for it or against it, the bottom line is that it is in place right now. If people pretended to be somebody else when they came in and voted in the past, they cannot do that any longer,” Van Hollen said.

For voters of every stripe, he added, “Get out and vote. Your vote will count. Our system works and we have to trust in the result of that system.”

Former Republican Congressman Klug underscored that Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020 “and it had nothing to do with election fraud. It just had to do with folks who decided to vote in a different direction.”

He also praised local election workers and volunteers, like those who take his ballot at his Lutheran church, and “who make Wisconsin’s election system one of the best in the country.”

Tate, the former Democratic Party chair, warned that the unusually high volume of early voting and a state law that forbids clerks from counting ballots until polls close on election night will likely mean delays in results coming in. “There are good reasons for that,” he said, “because our good election workers are exercising extreme due diligence.”

In a separate press conference outside City Hall in Madison, members of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign and Secretary of State Godlewski also chimed in to defend Wisconsin’s hard-working election clerks and combat conspiracy theories.

Nick Ramos, the Democracy Campaign’s executive director, connected recent news stories about drop-box arson in other states to the hijacking of a local dropbox by the mayor of Wausau, Wisconsin, who physically removed his town’s ballot drop box and locked it in his office. The mayor was forced to return the box and is now the subject of a criminal investigation. It’s important to hold people accountable who try to interfere with voting, Ramos said, because otherwise “people will try to imitate those types of bad behaviors.”

Besides sticking up for beleaguered election officials, the pro-drop-box press conference featured testimony from Martha Siravo, a founder of Madtown Mommas and Disability Advocates. Siravo, who uses a wheelchair, explained that having a drop box makes it much easier for her to vote. 

Godlewski described conversations with other voters around the state — a busy working mom, an elderly woman who has to ask her kids for rides when she needs to go out, and a young man who works the night shift — all of whom were able to vote by dropping their absentee ballots in a secure drop box, but who might not have made it to the polls during regular voting hours. “These stories are real and that’s why drop boxes matter,” Godlewski said. Restoring drop boxes is part of “helping ensure Wisconsin remains a state where every vote matters.”

That’s the spirit we need going into this fraught election, and for whatever comes after.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

Yes.

Republican Eric Hovde supports raising the retirement age for receiving Social Security, but only for younger Americans, despite misleading attacks on him.

Hovde is running Nov. 5, 2024, against U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.

Hovde said Oct. 21: “Nobody who’s on Social Security or heading to Social Security with any reasonable time frame should have Social Security touched.”

But because life expectancy has increased since Social Security was created, the retirement age should be raised for younger people. “You could start someplace in the 40s,” Hovde said, reiterating previous campaign comments.

Retirees can start receiving partial Social Security benefits at 62; the age for receiving full benefits varies.

Baldwin in an ad and on social media has attacked Hovde without saying his proposed eligibility change would apply only to younger workers.

Advocates say raising the retirement age would protect Social Security, which is projected to remain solvent only through 2033.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

WisconsinEye: Eric Hovde interview

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Claim that Eric Hovde proposed cutting Social Security is Mostly False

Hovde for Senate: Truth Matters: Eric Hovde Slams Tammy Baldwin For Lying About His Position On Social Security – Eric Hovde

Social Security Administration: Retirement Age and Benefit Reduction

Tammy Baldwin for Senate: Favor Both

X: Tammy Baldwin on X: “Let me tell you about Eric Hovde’s plan for Social Security. (Hint: you’re not gonna like it!) -Raise retirement age as high as 72 -Cut benefits 28% -Rob average retiree of $6K+/y

Congressional Research Service: CRS Updates Report on Social Security Trust Fund Solvency

Does Eric Hovde support raising the Social Security retirement age for younger Americans? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

The U.S. Supreme Court (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

In a significant decision, the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday granted a temporary stay in the ongoing legal dispute over Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order that resulted in the removal of over 6,000 Virginians from the state’s voter rolls.

The stay pauses a lower court’s ruling that would have required the state to restore 1,600 voters to the rolls, allowing Youngkin’s directive to remain in effect and voter removals to continue as the case proceeds.

The court’s six conservative justices supported the stay, with the three liberals dissenting.

Youngkin in a statement hailed the court’s decision as “a victory for commonsense and election fairness.”

“I am grateful for the work of Attorney General Jason Miyares on this critical fight to protect the fundamental rights of U.S. citizens. Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections,” Youngkin said, adding that the ruling would ensure a secure election on Nov. 5.

“Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically-motivated interference,” he said.

The order comes after the Virginia Republican Party filed an amicus brief Tuesday supporting Youngkin’s efforts, arguing that removing noncitizens from the voter rolls should not be delayed due to the federally mandated “quiet period” — a buffer period around elections meant to avoid disruptions to voter records.

The Republican brief argues that the governor’s order was based on data from the Department of Motor Vehicles and focused on noncitizens, and thus does not constitute a “systematic” voter purge restricted by the quiet period.

Opposition to the order has come from various groups, including former GOP lawmakers such as Barbara Comstock, Denver Riggleman, and Adam Kinzinger, who filed a separate brief urging the Supreme Court to deny the stay. They argue that hastily removing voters could lead to eligible citizens losing their rights, citing concerns over the potential exclusion of legitimate voters.

Attorney General Jason Miyares and Youngkin’s administration maintain that the executive order is a necessary step for election security. Critics, however, argue that the purge risks disenfranchising Virginians and disproportionately impacts minority voters, calling the move part of a larger trend of restrictive voting policies.

With the stay in place, the case is likely to continue drawing national attention as the election nears, spotlighting debates over voting rights, citizenship, and electoral integrity.

It could also lead to confusion at the polls next Tuesday, because it remains unclear what information voters who have been purged would need to show for same-day registration, said Henry Chambers, a professor for constitutional law at the University of Richmond School of Law.

“The administration is claiming that there is sufficient evidence to knock someone off the rolls. If that’s true, and if a registrar has said this person shouldn’t be on the roll, I’m not sure what kind of information would convince the registrar that the person should be on the rolls and should have their provisional ballot counted. And that’s a tricky issue.”

Chambers added that it also remains unclear what the Supreme Court ruling means for the federal suit filed by the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the League of Women Voters of Virginia earlier this month which alleges that the process used to purge the rolls violates the 90-day quiet period and therefore disenfranchises eligible voters while raising concerns over transparency and accuracy in the state’s voter registration system.

“In theory, the case goes back to the drawing board and you need to run it as a sort of a regular merits case as opposed to just an injunction case. But the problem with that is that the point of the case is that the 90-day quiet period is going to be over once election day is done,” Chambers said. “Then the question becomes, is the purge program in and of itself unlawful in general?’”

Some state lawmakers have signaled they are ready to tackle that question, and the law that undergirds it.

State Sen. Travis Hackworth, R-Tazewell County, said in a phone interview Wednesday that in the 2025 legislative session, he would “be open to looking at anything” in the 2006 law that would limit potential confusion at the polls. 

“The bottom line is, if you are a U.S. citizen, we want you to vote, it’s your right and duty to vote,” said Hackworth, a member of the Senate Privileges & Election who was “very disheartened” when the lower court ruled to halt Youngkin’s order.

If any among the affected 1,600 Virginians believe they have been removed from the voter rolls in error, Hackworth urged them to still cast a provisional ballot bringing documentation proving their citizenship status and let the local electoral board “figure that out.”

“I think that maybe we are kind of overcomplicating this process, because anybody still has the right on the day of to say, ‘I have been purged from the voter rolls, I am a citizen of the United States, and I want to vote.’ If you have that much conviction to go to the polls and vote provisional, you will bring something that’s going to back up your claim that you are a citizen.”

Virginia Mercury editor Samantha Willis contributed to this report.

Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Samantha Willis for questions: info@virginiamercury.com. Follow Virginia Mercury on Facebook and X.

Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump attacked rival Vice President Kamala Harris over immigration policy in Austin, Texas, on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. In this photo, Trump looks on during a campaign event on Dec. 19, 2023 in Waterloo, Iowa. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump in Austin, Texas, on Friday attacked Vice President Kamala Harris over her approach to immigration and border security, while echoing several false claims.

The respective GOP and Democratic presidential candidates spent one of the final days leading up to the election in the heavily red Lone Star State — not regarded as a battleground in the presidential race — at dueling campaign events.

Polling continues to depict the two in a deadlock nationally, as Nov. 5 rapidly approaches.

While Trump focused on the border and crime, Harris was slated to speak in Houston on Friday night underlining her support for reproductive rights — a key issue for Democrats — in a state with one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country.

“We’re here today in the great state of Texas … which, under Kamala Harris, has been turned into ground zero for the largest border invasion in the history of the world,” Trump said during a campaign stop at an airplane hangar.

Trump baselessly claimed that “over the past four years, this state has become Kamala’s staging ground to import her army of migrant gangs and illegal alien criminals into every state in America.”

The former president also knocked Harris’ actions surrounding border security, calling her approach “cruel,” “vile” and “absolutely heartless.”

He also again incorrectly dubbed Harris “border czar.” President Joe Biden tasked Harris with addressing the “root causes” of migration in Central America in 2021, but he never gave her the title of “border czar.” The U.S. Department of Homeland Security heads border security.

Trump also echoed his recent rhetoric, saying the U.S. is “like a garbage can for the rest of the world to dump the people that they don’t want.”

Speaking to reporters in Houston on Friday, Harris said this rhetoric is “just another example of how he really belittles our country.”

“The president of the United States should be someone who elevates discourse and talks about the best of who we are and invests in the best of who we are, not someone like Donald Trump, who’s constantly demeaning and belittling who the American people are,” Harris said.

Trump also reiterated his commitment, if reelected, to launching “the largest deportation program in American history” immediately upon taking the oath of office.

“We have to get all of these criminals, these murderers and drug dealers and everything — we’re getting them out, and we’ll put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them the hell out of our country, and we’ll get them out,” he said.

Vance in Michigan 

During a NewsNation town hall in Michigan on Thursday, Trump’s running mate, Ohio GOP Sen. J.D. Vance, fielded a series of questions on topics such as immigration, housing and abortion.

One of those questions came from Trump himself.

“How brilliant is Donald J. Trump?” the former president asked Vance over the phone.

Laughing, Vance replied: “Well, first of all, sir, this is supposed to be undecided voters — I would hope that I have your vote, of all people but … sir, of course, you’re very brilliant.”

The Ohio Republican proceeded to talk about his wife, Usha, and Trump speaking with each other.

Trump, who said he watched the CNN town hall with Harris the night prior, then asked Vance: “How brilliant is Kamala?”

“That’s a very tough one, sir,” Vance said. “I’m supposed to say something,” he added, hesitating.

Vance also defended the baseless claims he’s amplified in recent weeks regarding legal Haitian migrants eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio.

“Well, what I said then, and I’ll say now is, you’re hearing a lot of things from your constituents. They’re telling you things, and I think it’s important for me to listen to the people that are coming to me with their problems,” Vance said.

“Now, do I think that the media certainly got distracted on the housing crisis and the health crisis and the crisis in the public schools by focusing on the ‘eating the dogs and the cats’ things? Yeah, I do, and do I wish that I had been better in that moment? Maybe,” he said.

“But it’s also people in my community, people that I represent, are coming to me and saying, this thing is happening. What am I supposed to do? Hang up the phone and tell them they’re a liar because the media doesn’t want me to talk about it?”

The debunked claims surrounding legal Haitian migrants have prompted a series of bomb threats and closures in Springfield.

Donald Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The threat of political violence will likely hang over the nation’s capital in the weeks following Election Day, security experts say, despite intensive preparations by law enforcement officials determined to avoid another Jan. 6 insurrection.

The 2,000-plus officers who make up the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as other federal law enforcement agencies like the Secret Service, have responded to a surge in threats against elected officials during the last few years, including two assassination attempts against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump just this year.

But the threats, attacks and shooting have led to questions about whether the two agencies are truly prepared for the presidential transition, especially after a report released this week said the Secret Service “requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission.”

The agency is tasked with planning and coordinating security for Congress’ certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6 —the first time it’s been designated a National Special Security Event — and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.

Experts interviewed by States Newsroom said there is a very real chance of political violence in the weeks and months ahead, though they said law enforcement agencies have learned from recent events. The unrest could build after what is expected to be a very close presidential election, with results possibly delayed for days or longer or even litigated in the courts.

“Unfortunately, you can never have 100% security,” said Javed Ali, associate professor of practice at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.

“It’s nice to think that would exist. But, if you’re trying to consider all the different kinds of variables that you have to plan for, there’s always going to be a gap or vulnerability — now what you try to do is kind of minimize the big one and hope that the small ones don’t get exploited.”

Darrell M. West, the Douglas Dillon Chair in Governmental Studies at the Brookings Institution, said the risk of political violence could increase following Election Day if one or more political leaders object to the outcome.

“For months, we’ve been hearing extreme and sometimes violent rhetoric,” West said. “And rhetoric has consequences — it can encourage some people to take action.”

Trump has refused to accept the 2020 election results, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, declined to say Trump lost the election. Vance on Oct. 12 said there was a “peaceful transfer of power” in January 2021.

Trump has repeatedly recycled false claims he made following his loss that the system is rigged — a talking point he’s likely to use to rile up supporters should he lose this year’s election. Trump has been charged by special counsel Jack Smith with four felony counts in connection with 2020 election interference, in a complex case that will continue after the election.

Threats against lawmakers

Members of Congress are more vulnerable than presidential candidates, in part because most lawmakers live in normal houses and don’t have security details anywhere close to the kind the Secret Service provides for high-ranking officials.

And unlike the presidency, which has a long line of succession to avoid gaps in authority following a death or a crisis, Congress has been criticized for not having better plans in place to address continuity of government following a mass casualty or similar event.

U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger testified in April the agency was looking for ways to bolster protection for lawmakers in the line of presidential succession, like the speaker of the House and Senate president pro tempore.

Manger told the panel that security for those two officials was substandard to that provided for the Secretary of State, who sits below them in the line of succession.

“We can’t just go back to the days when we said, ‘Well, we’ll just follow them around and we’ll make sure they’re well protected wherever they are,’ because their homes, their families are at risk,” he testified.

Members of Congress who haven’t risen to the ranks of leadership don’t get security details unless there are specific threats to their safety. And those aren’t permanent.

That could present challenges for lawmakers who have higher profiles or who regularly receive threats, especially if people respond violently to the election results and encourage their supporters to take matters into their own hands.

Trump assassination attempts

Making the situation more complicated, this year has shown that substantial levels of security aren’t a guarantee of safety.

Trump has some of the highest levels of protection in the country, if not the world, but that did not stop a man from shooting at the former president during a rally in Pennsylvania this summer. A separate would-be gunman was spotted and apprehended just off Trump’s Florida golf course with a semi-automatic weapon in September.

Both instances raised questions about the Secret Service’s ability to protect Trump as well as others, though agency leaders maintain they’re up to the task.

Trump’s experiences, as the subject of political violence, haven’t deterred him from spreading disinformation about Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris as well as other lawmakers who disagree with him on policy issues.

Trump’s comments about immigrants have also led to threats against everyday people, including Haitian immigrants in Ohio, who are in the country legally.

During an interview with Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News earlier this month, Trump said he may use the National Guard or the military against his political opponents should he win reelection, calling them “the enemy from within.”

“We have some very bad people,” Trump said. “We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”

The military and National Guard have significantly different training programs and missions than local, state, or federal law enforcement, making Trump’s comments somewhat darker than previous claims he’d try to put his political opponents in prison if reelected.

Trump hasn’t committed to respecting the results of the election or supporting a peaceful transition in power should he lose his bid for the White House.

Trump’s comments could indicate that violence is likely following the election, if he loses, or after he regains the powers of the presidency, if he wins.

Delayed election results predicted

West from the Brookings Institution said violence isn’t likely to take place in the days immediately following the end of voting on Nov. 5, since it’s unlikely anyone learns the results of the presidential election for a few days.

The Associated Press didn’t call the race for President Joe Biden until the Saturday after the election in 2020, following days of speculation and ballot counting.

Mail-in ballots, which Democrats tend to submit in larger numbers than Republicans, could lead to confusion in swing states, especially if people don’t understand they tend to boost numbers for Democratic candidates over GOP politicians as they’re counted, he said.

“We could end up in a situation where on election night, Trump is ahead, because we know Republicans tend to vote in person on Election Day, and Democrats often vote via mail ballots,” West said. “And then as the mail ballots get counted on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the numbers may shift from Trump to Harris.

“And I think that’s a very bad combination, because it will look to some individuals like voter fraud, even though there’s a perfectly logical explanation for the change. But that’s a scenario that could lead to violence, because it’ll look like the election is being stolen from Trump.”

While the presidential candidates will play a significant role in stirring up or calming down their supporters, members of Congress, many of whom sought to legitimize misinformation and disinformation four years ago, have responsibilities as well.

“We need leaders who act responsibly, but unfortunately, in the last few months, we have not seen that,” West said. “We’ve seen members of Congress who have promoted misinformation. There’s been a lot of it surrounding the hurricane, and so the fear is that there will be blatant lies that then will incite people to take action.”

Learning from 2020

Ali, from the University of Michigan, said he expects federal law enforcement will be better prepared for post-election violence than they were four years ago, though there are still chances for violent people to slip through the cracks.

The most likely scenario, Ali said, is a single actor or “lone wolf” attack and not a mob marching to the Capitol, the way Trump supporters did on Jan. 6.

“I still think it’s relatively low,” Ali said of the likelihood of violence. “But as we’ve seen, all it takes is one person to really shake up the perception of security. And if they’re aiming at President Trump or Vice President Harris, well then, you know the stakes are even higher.”

Ali said he’s confident that the Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., area are preparing for various scenarios, though he’s less sure about what would happen if there’s violence at state capitals.

“There might be a little more vulnerability there,” Ali said. “But I still think, at least when we’re getting to the Electoral College (certification) day, that January 6th-type insurrection will be almost impossible to pull off.”

When it comes to spreading disinformation, Ali said, he expects there will be a combination of foreign adversaries, including Iran and Russia, as well as domestic actors.

“You’ll probably see a lot of disinformation, especially if Vice President Harris wins, sort of casting doubt on the integrity of the voting, the credibility of the process, maybe going after specific individuals and key swing states, or even counties,” Ali said.

“All those things that were happening in 2020. But there were also costs to doing that, as we’ve seen too, with the civil charges and some of the potential criminal ones as well,” he added. “So I think that’s also an area domestically, where people will have to tread very cautiously. That doesn’t mean that you won’t see it, but again, there might be a line that gets crossed where people will be held accountable for that.”

‘More prepared than ever before’

U.S. Capitol Police Inspector General David T. Harper said USCP leadership has implemented the 100-plus recommendations put forward by his predecessor following the Jan. 6 attack, closing gaps that existed that day.

“I think they’ve made a lot of improvements, and I think that they’re more prepared than ever before,” Harper said, though he later added he couldn’t “say for certain that they are prepared to handle anything that can come up” due to the unpredictable nature of domestic terrorism and political violence.

The OIG is also “prepared to be all hands on deck” in the event of another attack on the Capitol or lawmakers takes place, to analyze what went wrong and make recommendations for USCP to implement, he said.

Harper, whose tenure as inspector general began earlier this year, noted during the interview that much of what he can publicly discuss is restricted by national security concerns.

The U.S. Capitol Police declined an interview request from States Newsroom, but provided written information about changes that it’s implemented during the last few years.

Among those is a law approved by Congress that allows the USCP chief to request the National Guard without the approval of the three-member Capitol Police board.

USCP has also overhauled its intelligence-gathering activities and established partnerships with other law enforcement agencies to bolster its ranks ahead of major events.

Secret Service planning for Jan. 6

The Secret Service is one of those partners and it will take the lead this year planning security for major events during the presidential transition, even those undertaken by Congress inside the Capitol.

While Inauguration Day has traditionally been categorized as a National Special Security Event, the Department of Homeland Security has extended that classification for the first time for Congress certifying the winner of the presidential race on Jan. 6.

Nate Herring, spokesperson for the United States Secret Service, said part of the process includes planning with other law enforcement agencies for “various scenarios” that could take place, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Metropolitan Police Department.

“We work very closely with our partners throughout the whole planning process,” Herring said. “And D.C. is especially unique because National Special Security Events occur fairly frequently.”

But the Secret Service’s leadership and structure have come under scrutiny during the last few months.

The four-member panel tasked with investigating the Pennsylvania assassination attempt against Trump wrote in the 52-page report released in mid-October that the Secret Service “has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved.”

“This is a zero-fail mission, for any failure endangers not only the life of the protectee, but also the fundamentals of our government itself,” they wrote.

Without substantial changes to the Secret Service, the independent review panel wrote, it believes the type of deadly attack that took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, “can and will happen again.”

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas released a written statement after the report’s release, saying the department had begun “taking the actions needed to advance the Secret Service’s protection mission,” including addressing the “systemic and foundational issues” described by the review panel.

D.C. planning

District of Columbia Assistant City Administrator Chris Rodriguez said that city officials will be watching for any indications people intent on violence begin traveling or gathering inside the city following Election Day.

“We are obviously attuned to what happened last time. I mean, I don’t think we can ignore that, and we’re not,” Rodriguez said, referring to the Jan. 6 attack. “But we also are in a place where we have great relationships among our agencies within the region, with the federal government in terms of coordination, and we will be prepared to adapt our operational posture in any way that we need to.”

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser originally requested the NSSE designation for Jan. 6, which Rodriguez said has increased planning and coordination, in hopes of avoiding any violence.

Rodriguez also stressed D.C. officials and the city’s police department are used to planning for the large crowds and protests that tend to take place whenever there’s a presidential transition.

“We are a city that prides itself, as the nation’s capital, to ensuring that there is a peaceful transition of power,” he said. “And we will do our part to ensure that.”

How to address projected shortfalls for both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will become an increasingly important topic for the president and Congress during the next decade. (Photo by Getty Images)

This is one in a series of States Newsroom reports on the major policy issues in the presidential race.

WASHINGTON — The presidential debate in early September included just one mention of Social Security and three references to Medicare, making the safety net programs a minuscule part of the policy discussion, despite their importance to tens of millions of Americans.

Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump have both mentioned the programs numerous times during appearances, though neither campaign has sought to elevate the financial stability of the two programs as a core issue.

More often than not, Harris and Trump rebuke their opponent, while committing to “save” Social Security and Medicare — skipping over the details or the role Congress must play in the discussion.

How to address projected shortfalls for both the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will become an increasingly important topic for the president and Congress during the next decade.

The latest Social Security trustees report expects the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and the Disability Insurance trust funds will be able to pay full benefits until 2035, after which, without action by lawmakers, benefits would drop to about 83%.

The trustee report for Medicare shows the funding stream for the hospital insurance trust fund can cover all of its bills through 2036 before it would only be able to cover 89% of costs.

There are currently 67.5 million people enrolled in Medicare, which provides health insurance and prescription drug coverage for people over the age of 65 as well as younger people who have certain severe illnesses or disabilities.

Nearly 68 million people receive some level of benefit from Social Security each month, accounting for about $1.5 trillion in spending by the federal government annually, according to a fact sheet.

While the issue is somewhat less pressing for Trump, who would be term limited to another four years, Harris could theoretically spend the next eight years in the Oval Office, making the solvency of the trust funds an issue she would likely need to address with Congress.

Protecting seniors

During the September debate, Harris brought up Social Security and Medicare following a question about how her policy beliefs on fracking, assault weapons and border security have changed over time.

“My work that is about protecting Social Security and Medicare is based on long-standing work that I have done. Protecting seniors from scams,” Harris said as part of a longer answer. “My values have not changed. And what is important is that there is a president who actually brings values and a perspective that is about lifting people up and not beating people down and name-calling.”

Harris later brought up Medicare again, noting that legislation Congress approved during Biden’s term in office allowed program administrators to negotiate certain prescription drug prices for the first time. That law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, also capped the cost of insulin for Medicare enrollees at $35 per month.

Trump didn’t broach the subject of Social Security or Medicare during the September debate with Harris, but he did speak about the two programs during an earlier summer debate with President Joe Biden, before he stepped aside as the Democratic nominee.

During that debate, Trump claimed the Biden administration was going to “destroy” the two programs by allowing noncitizens to draw down benefits.

FactCheck notes on its website that comments and viral posts about noncitizens receiving Social Security benefits don’t always represent reality and sometimes confuse different programs.

“Immigrants who are lawfully living or authorized to work in the U.S. are eligible for a Social Security number and, in some cases, Social Security benefits. But viral posts make the false claim that ‘illegal immigrants’ can receive Social Security numbers and retirement benefits, and they confuse two programs managed by the Social Security Administration.”

KFF writes on its website that whether legal immigrants are eligible for Medicare depends on several factors, including how long they’ve paid into the system.

“New immigrants are not eligible for Medicare regardless of their age. Once immigrants meet the residency requirements, eligibility and enrollment work the same as they do for others.”

Trump on entitlement programs

Trump’s comments on entitlement programs haven’t always been consistent or entirely clear, but his campaign and he both maintain they will “save” the program.

During an interview with CNBC in March, Trump said that there are numerous things lawmakers could do to address solvency.

“There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting and in terms of also the theft and the bad management of entitlements,” Trump said, declining to list any of those policy proposals.

Trump’s campaign website posted a video of him back in January 2023, saying Republicans “should not cut a penny” from Medicare or Social Security to pay for other legislation.

The problems facing Social Security and Medicare aren’t related to Congress reducing the amount of tax dollars flowing into the programs. Rather it is the structure for the programs lawmakers set up previously.

Without action by Congress, the trust funds won’t be able to account for benefit payments in the long term.

So the challenge for the next president won’t be preventing lawmakers from taking action related to Social Security and Medicare, but helping find a bipartisan path forward on legislation to change revenue, spending, or both.

Trump does want to end taxes on Social Security benefits, writing on social media in July that “SENIORS SHOULD NOT PAY TAX ON SOCIAL SECURITY!”

Henry Aaron, the Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Chair and senior fellow in the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a detailed analysis of the platform that Trump’s proposal to end income tax on Social Security benefits “would accelerate trust fund depletion by about two years and deepen the long-run funding gap by more than 7%.”

Harris policies

Harris’ campaign website says she would “protect Social Security and Medicare against relentless attacks from Donald Trump and his extreme allies.”

“She will strengthen Social Security and Medicare for the long haul by making millionaires and billionaires pay their fair share in taxes,” the policy page states. “She will always fight to ensure that Americans can count on getting the benefits they earned.”

Harris announced in early October during an appearance on “The View” that if elected she would work toward including long-term home care for seniors enrolled in Medicare.

“There are so many people in our country who are right in the middle: They’re taking care of their kids and they’re taking care of their aging parents, and it’s just almost impossible to do it all, especially if they work,” Harris said during the live interview. “We’re finding that so many are then having to leave their job, which means losing a source of income, not to mention the emotional stress.”

The proposals would likely need partial, if not complete, buy-in from Congress to move forward and could come with a $40 billion annual price tag, though the campaign noted in a fact sheet that there are pay-fors.

“These new benefits will be fully paid for and extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by expanding Medicare drug price negotiations, increasing the discounts drug manufacturers cover for certain brand-name drugs in Medicare and addressing Medicare fraud,” it states.

A Harris administration would also “crack down on pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs) to increase transparency, disclose more information on cost, and regulate other practices that raise prices” and “implement international tax reform” to pay for the changes.

The National Association for Pupil Transportation is honoring the life and work of George Edward (Ed) Donn, who died on Thursday at a hospital in Marietta, Georgia. He was 85.

Donn was a sitting board member on the NAPT Foundation, the member education vehicle for NAPT that he helped form in 1999 with the late Don Carnahan and Tom Celitti. He served two terms as NAPT president in 1986-1987 and 1995-1997, only the second to be elected twice along with Carnahan.

NAPT recognized Donn with its Distinguished Service Award in 1992 and inducted him into the Hall of Fame in 2006.

“Ed was an amazing gentleman, leader, and colleague. I valued his wisdom and dedication to our industry. His unwavering commitment to the organization will leave an indelible mark on our community,” said NAPT and Foundation Executive Director and CEO Molly McGee Hewitt in an email to members on Saturday.

An accompanying NAPT statement added that Donn “played a crucial role in shaping NAPT’s mission that promoted safety, education and support for all involved in the student transportation sector.

“His insights and expertise were invaluable, guiding many initiatives that have benefited countless individuals. Beyond his professional contributions, Ed was known for his kindness and generosity; he took the time to mentor fellow members by sharing his knowledge, embodying a spirit of collaboration and teamwork.”

He helped develop and implement the NAPT Professional Certification Program and served as a state delegate for five National Conferences on School Transportation. He served as co-chair of the school bus specifications section at the 11th NCST in 1990 and the 12th NCST in 1995. He was also a board member on the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS) Supplier’s Council.

On Monday, NASDPTS released a statement calling Donn “an industry icon and gentleman.”

After retiring from Whitfield County Public Schools in Georgia as director of transportation in 2001, Donn co-founded school bus surveillance company 247 Security in 2005 with his Bus Vision business partners Rick Oram and Robert Scott after the company was purchased by Quang Nguyen, the owner of Toronto MicroElectronics and current CEO and CTO of 247 Security.

“Ed offered his vision of the school bus industry, after a long career in pupil transportation, and was a huge influence on the development of 247 Security into a leading brand in the school bus industry,” Scott said in an email to School Transportation News on Saturday. “Ed was a dear friend over these past 20 plus years up. He was our roadmap across the country as we worked to build 247 Security from the ground up. I don’t know if I have ever met someone as well liked by all as Ed. He always wanted to know what he could do to help.”

Scott added that Donn “was like a big brother to me” and called him “generous with his advice and had a keen sense of the needs of those around him.”

“I will miss our long talks that covered a broad range of topics. Those talk could turn into debates and I’m pretty sure he figured that he never lost one! I will miss my friend,’ Scott concluded.

Several times a year, STN would seek Donn’s counsel on a variety of topics related to the school bus industry and its history.

His career began in 1962 as a biology teacher and track coach for Prince George’s County Public Schools in Maryland. He told STN that he became the assistant director of transportation in 1966 because the role resulted in a pay increase. What he didn’t know about student transportation he learned over the next eight-plus years.

He then accepted a principal position with Washington County Schools, also in Maryland, in 1972 and within three years was named the director of transportation. He remained in that position until his retirement in 1991 and his move to Georgia and Whitfield County Public Schools. He was also an active member of the Georgia Association for Pupil Transportation.

After co-founding 247 Security, Donn was a fixture at industry trade shows representing the company, where he served as a consultant. He also owned his own consulting company, Donn Associates, since 1985.

Donn attended the University of Maryland on a track scholarship and graduated with a biology degree. He later obtained is master’s degree in administration and supervision from Frostburg State University.

Donn was preceded in death by Sandi, his wife of 60 years. He is survived by daughters, Cheryl Melis and Leslie Watt (Don Watt); four grandchildren, Chelsea Melis, Gabriella Melis, Lauren Watt Luke (Patrick Luke), and Adam Watt (Lauren Johnson Watt); and sister-in-law Delores (Dodie) Kennedy Barnes.

His funeral is planned for Oct. 19 at Calhoun First Presbyterian Church in Calhoun, Georgia. More details are available online.

Related: Industry Legend Ed Donn Retires from 247 Security
Related: NAPT Awards Highlight Individuals for Outstanding Achievements, Excellence
Related: Esteemed Figures in School Transportation Awarded NAPT’s Highest Honor

The post NAPT Hall of Famer Donn Remembered for ‘Crucial Role’ Played in Industry appeared first on School Transportation News.

This chronology of major events related to the development and use of occupant securement systems in motor vehicles, including school buses, may provide some perspective and details to anyone who is unfamiliar with this topic.

Information presented here is based on research by the National Transportation Safety Board, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the European Commission and other sources, as well as School Transportation News reporting. The following chronology has been pieced together from sources including the HAR NTSB/SS-86-03, NTSB Safety Study: “Performance of Lap Belts in 26 Frontal Crashes,” pp. 225-230. Dates and developments from 1967 onward pertinent to safety belt systems on school buses has been added by the editors of School Transportation News. Information about safety belt developments in Europe is drawn from the European Commission website. (School Transportation News is solely responsible for the contents of this history.)

2024

School bus manufacturer Blue Bird announced in June it was making lap/shoulder seatbelts standard equipment in all models at no additional cost, starting in the fall.

An Ohio School Bus Safety Working Group initiated by Gov. Mike DeWine following a school bus crash in 2023 that fatally ejected a student concluded that a state law requiring the restraint systems was not necessary. A resulting list of 17 recommendations issued on Jan. 31 included the recognition individual school districts should be able to invest in seatbelts, if they fit their unique needs.

2022

IMMI crash-tests two school buses at its Center for Advanced Product Evaluation (CAPE) for attendees of the STN EXPO East conference to highlight the differences between belted and unbelted passengers.

2019

IMMI conducted a crash test by launching a school bus off a ramp and onto its side at CAPE for STN EXPO East attendees to demonstrate what happens to both the school bus and the belted and unbelted occupants in the event of a rollover, when compartmentalization by federally regulated high-back, padded school bus seats is ineffective. IMMI said the event was the latest reminder that compartmentalization only works in frontal- and rear-impact crashes, and that students who don’t wear lap/shoulder belts in side impacts and rollovers are susceptible to serious injury or death.

2018

Montana PBS airs a 57-minute documentary in November that explores the question asking if school buses are “Safe Enough?” without lap-and-shoulder seatbelts. The report by Anna D. Rau looks back at a 2008 school bus crash that killed 7-year-old Sarah Fark and led several school districts, led by Helena Public Schools, to voluntarily add the seatbelts despite repeated, failed efforts to pass state legislation that would require them. The documentary discusses how compartmentalization is inadequate protection for students in side-impact and roll-over crashes and how lap-shoulder seatbelts improve student behavior on the school bus to limit driver distraction.

On Aug. 25, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signs A4110 into law, which updates existing law to require lap-shoulder seat belts in newly manufactured school buses, from the previous requirement for lap belts. Law goes into effect in January 2019.

The National Transportation Safety Board on May 22 recommends that all states enact laws requiring lap-shoulder seat belts in school buses.

2017

The Nevada Assembly passed AB485 on June 1 to require lap-shoulder seat belts on newly purchased school buses as of July 1, 2019. Gov. Brian Sandoval signed the bill into law on June 4.

In March, Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson signed into effect HB 1002 that states that if 10 percent of local voters to sign a petition seeking lap-shoulder belts on the school district’s school buses, then the school district must propose a levy on property taxes to raise funds for purchasing the occupant restraint systems and training students on their use.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbot signed into law a new school bus lap-shoulder seat belts requirement that removed a previous provision hat the legislature must appropriate funding for school district implementation. Instead, the SB693 requires school districts to install the occupant restraints in model-year 2018 and newer school buses, unless local school boards vote during a public meeting that they do not have the funds necessary. The law goes into effect on Sept. 1, 2017.

Metro Public School Board in Nashville, Tennessee, unanimously passed a one-sentence resolution to commission an impact study to determine whether seat belts on buses are in the best interest for the safety of students.

Due to the deadly school bus crash that recently occurred Chattanooga, the Metro Public School Board asked Director of School, Shawn Joseph to study the correlation between seat belts and safety, as there have been contradicting reports.

The report’s findings are expected by early February and will be discussed on the board floor in order to decide on which measure the board will enforce. However, the resolution does not state which restraint systems will be required depending on the findings.

A Kansas bill to equip seat belts on every school bus is being considered by Kansas Legislature. House Bill 2008 was pre-filled by State Rep. Susie Swanson in light of a deadly school bus crash that killed six elementary students in Chattanooga, Tenn. On Nov 21.

If passed, the bill would lead to higher costs for the purchase of school buses. It could add upwards of $10,000 to the cost of a new school bus. The bill would also require all buses purchased after Jan. 1, 2018 to have seat belts on all seats and does not require the retrofitting of buses already on the road.

2016

Washington State House of Representatives passed legislation to proceed with a study on the cost and feasibility of equipping school busses with seat belts and harnesses. The bill was passed early February with a vote of 87 to 9.

The bill would require the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction to analyze the costs and the benefits of requiring each new school bus purchased after December 2017 to be equipped with seat belts, safety harnesses or other approved restraint systems.

The study would include the different seat belt and safety harness options available, the potential pros and cons of each, as well as the approximate cost.

If the legislation passes through the state senate, OSPI will need to submit its study’s results to the legislature by Oct. 15, 2016.

In November Louisiana Legislators began examining a law requiring lap-belts on school buses that has been in existence for more than 12 years, but does not have funding to enforce it.

After the fatal Chattanooga, Tenn. school bus accident that claimed the lives of six elementary school children in late November, the restraint issue was re-visited.

Louisiana revised Statute 17:164.2 and was enacted in 1999 and required all school buses used in the state primarily for the transportation of students to be equipped with occupant restraint systems by no later than June 30, 2004, if the legislator appropriates the necessary funds.

State Sen. Troy Carter authored Louisiana State Resolution 122 that directs the Department of Education “to establish a task force to study and make recommendations regarding student transportation and school bus passenger safety.” The task force report is due no later than Jan 31, 2017.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) requested a public comment on a published proposal that focused on obtaining data collection regarding the application and cost of three-point seat belts on school buses.

NHTSA’s proposal identifies school districts that implemented the lap-shoulder systems on school buses, whether voluntarily or in response to a state or local law. It also seeks a stronger understanding of the decisions school districts make to install the occupant restraints and the funds necessary to pay for them.

The proposal also includes a web-based survey to gather additional information regarding bus driver distractions correlating to student behavior caused by using seatbelts. The findings will be used as a base model to develop a potential policy and guide to assist jurisdictions that will consider the use of seat belts on school buses

2015

Houston Independent School District announced November 17th that all new school buses the district purchases will be equipped with three-point seat belts. The decision was made due to the fatal accident that claimed the lives of two high school students last September.

The announcement comes a week after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration updated its position to recommend occupant restraints on all school buses at the National Association for Pupil Transportation’s Annual Summit.

This makes HISD the first school district in Houston, and among the first in the state to implement such a measure, according to a district statement.

2014

State Rep. Robert L. Kosowski introduced two bills in March to the Michigan House. Both bills aimed at requiring all school buses to be equipped with seat belts. The first bill (HB 5436) would mandate that all new school buses provide a seat belt for every pupil, yet does not specify if it must be a lap or a lap/shoulder belt. The second bill (HB 5437) would allow districts with voter-approved sinking funds to use these monies to buy school buses equipped with restraint belts. However, the bills would present a funding dilemma for districts that contract with intermediate school districts for transportation, as intermediate districts cannot seek sinking funds under state law.

2013

IMMI, the manufacturer of the SafeGuard line of seat belts and child restraint systems for school buses and other vehicles, crashed a 1981 model-year Type C conventional school bus head-on into a concrete barrier at 25 mph. The crash was done to demonstrate the impact seat belts have on students.

The crash, Safety 101, was held on Aug. 8 at IMMI’s Center for Advances Product Evaluation (CAPE) at the company’s headquarters in Westfield, Ind. The live simulated crash used the largest barrier block in the world and used an 800-foot track before meeting the wall. On board the school bus were several dummies that doubled as young children and teens.

The crash concluded, thanks to video footage, that the unrestrained dummies were thrown from their bus seats, while those that were restrained using three-point, lap-shoulder belts struck the back of the cushioned seats in front of them, but otherwise remained within their compartmentalized area. During the Safety 101 crash the chassis separated from the bus body, with the chassis being moved backwards about 16 inches.

2012

An amendment to legislation in Missouri on allowing external advertisements on the sides of school buses includes a provision that advertising will only be allowed in newly purchased buses with model years of 2015 or newer that are equipped with safety restraint systems for students.

The National School Transportation Association publishes a paper in March that outlines the safety, cost and operational factors that state and local policymakers should consider when looking at developing a mandate for seat belts in school buses.

In February, Collins Bus Corporation announced its line of Type A Collins Bus, Mid Bus and Corbeil school buses will come standard with the SafeGuard XChange seat from IMMI that allows bus operators to convert a base bench seat to one with three-point, lap-shoulder belts.

2011

The industry awaited the Oct. 21 effective date of NHTSA’s upgrade to school bus passenger crash protection that was finalized in 2008. The new rule requires all Type A school buses under 10,000 pounds to roll off manufacturing lines with installed three-point, lap/shoulder restraints. The update also publishes performance standards for these lap/shoulder belts voluntarily installed on large Type C conventional or Type D transit-style school buses with a gross vehicle weight rating of more than 10,000 pounds. Seat backs mus also be raised to 610 mm (24 inches) from the previous standard of 508 mm (20 inches), and the seats must come equipped with a self-latching mechanism on seat bottom cushions that are designed to flip-up or be removable without tools.

In August, NHTSA denied a petition brought by the Center for Auto Safety and 21 other organizations or individuals that sought a federal requirement for lap/shoulder seat belts on large school buses. NHTSA said school buses are already one of the safest vehicles on the road, and a requirement for the three-point restraints could actually result in more student fatalities each year because of reduced ridership on buses. NHTSA estimates that the seat belts incur an incremental cost of $5,485 to $7,345 per bus.

IC Bus announced in July that it had partnered with IMMI to develop the BTI Seating System that makes it easier for school districts to upgrade to three-point seat belt systems. The entire seat back can be removed in a matter of minutes and replaced with a seat back equipped with the seat belts or integrated child safety restraints without the need to reconfigure the bus floor. The BTI Seating System was expected to be in production by October.

In May, IMMI announced that it was finalizing testing on a new seating line that would enable customers of Thomas Built Buses to more easily upgrade existing bench seats to three-point, lap/shoulder belts or integrated child safety seats. The XChange Seat allows school bus operators to swap out existing seat back modules and replace them in a matter of minutes with modules equipped with the restraint systems. IMMI said the new seat was expected to go into production in the fall.

2010

On Oct. 29, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published three proposed changes to the October 2008 final rule on seat belts in school buses centering on how the height of occupant torso belts are measured, integrated seat belts for wheelchairs and the self-latching requirement for seat cushions.

A University of Alabama study group formed in response to a fatal Huntsville school bus crash three years earlier published its final report to Gov. Bob Riley and the Alabama Department of Education that the funds required to equip school buses with seat belts is best spent mitigating student injuries and fatalities that occur during loading or unloading.

Passed in 2007, a Texas law requiring lap/shoulder seat belts on newly manufactured school buses went into effect on Sept. 1 only for those school districts seeking to receive reimbursement for the additional cost of these school buses from the state. This makes the state requirements for implementation of school bus seat belts voluntary, only holding school districts to the letter of the law if they received state funding. But absent was the $10 million in funds authorized by the state legislature to reimburse school districts. That pot of money shrunk to $3.6 million in January by the Texas Education Agency after Gov. Rick Perry ordered at least a 5 percent cut of programs statewide. The Legislative Budget Board signed off on the allocation of funds on Sept. 2. At this writing, TEA was working out details before issuing further guidance to school districts informing them of the procedures to follow when applying for the grant money. This was likely to occur in October 2010 with funds being disbursed by the end of the year, according to a TEA spokesperson. The Texas Transportation Institute completed a draft implementation plan in June and submitted it to the Legislative Budget Board, which released the plan publicly on Sept. 2. TEA issued guidance to school districts in October on how to go about applying for the voluntary funds.

In response to the Jan. 9 death of a 16-year-old boy during a crash involving a school bus and a car driven by another teen, the first school bus fatality in the state over the past four decades, a Quinnipiac University survey of nearly 1,600 voters in Connecticut found that three out of four respondents favored a new law requiring seat belts on school buses. Resulting legislation to require three-point belts statewide eventually reached the compromise of an optional program that provides a revenue stream to school districts and private school bus operators that choose to purchase new school buses equipped with the occupant restraint systems.

A Minnesota state legislator introduced a bill in January that would require 3-point lap/shoulder restraints on all large buses manufactured after Dec. 31, 2010. The bill would also protect school districts, school bus drivers, other school employees or volunteers from wrongful death lawsuits brought about by any student fatality the might occur onboard the school bus that was related to the use of seat belts or lack thereof. All students would be required to buckle up in school buses equipped with the passenger safety restraints unless the school received and filed a letter from a child’s parents or guardians that excused them from wearing their seat belt.

Meanwhile, for the second consecutive legislative session, Colorado lawmakers reject a bill that would have mandated three-point lap/shoulder restraints on school buses. They cited as reasons the added cost to vehicle purchases and the existing safety record of school buses. The state has not seen a fatality on board a school bus since 1989.

2009
NHTSA conducted a follow-up study that agreed with a 1986 study that concluded that school buses without seat belts have little if any carryover effects to school children and if they use a seat belt in a personal vehicle.

No new state legislation had yet passed to require seat belts in school buses, although Wyoming came close to seeing a law.

2008
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued on Oct. 15 a long-awaited final rule that updated FMVSS 207, 208, 210 and 222 by requiring all new Type A school buses that weigh 10,000 pounds or less and that are manufactured on or after Sept. 1, 2011 be equipped with three-point, lap/shoulder belt systems. NHTSA stopped short of requiring the seat belts on all school buses, instead opting for voluntary requirements for equipping large buses weighing more than 10,000 pounds with systems. NHTSA said the requirement will cost the industry about $100 million to implement and on average will save one life a year

The NPRM also called for seat back heights in all buses to be raised to 24 inches from the current requirement of 20 inches and for a self-latching mechanism on all seat bottom cushions.

Later in October at annual conference of the National Association for State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services. Dr. Roger Saul, director of NHTSA’s Vehicle Research and Testing Center, said further side-impact crash testing was not necessary to show whether lap/shoulder belts in large buses should be a requirement and that their installation should be a voluntary choice made by states or local school districts.

2007
U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Mary E. Peters announces “first ever federal rules for three-point belts” the morning of Nov. 19 at Morrisville Elementary School in Raleigh, N.C. A Noticed of Proposed Rulemaking calls for three-point lap/shoulder belts on all Type A school buses (GVWR of 10,000 pounds or less) due to their higher rate of rollover in crashes than large Type C and Type D school buses (GVWR greater than 10,000 pounds). While calling lap/shoulder belt and school bus compartmentalization “optimum protection,” NHTSA only issues guidelines for voluntary use of the passenger safety systems in large school buses due to potential reduced passenger capacity, which could lead to more student deaths each year in other vehicles during the normal school commute. NHTSA also cites the increased costs of three-point belts. Instead, NHTSA calls for an increase in seat back heights to 24 inches from their current 20 inches, implementing test procedures for all three-point seat belts in buses to ensure strength of the anchorages and the compatibility of the seat with compartmentalization and requiring all school buses with seat bottom cushions designed to flip-up for easy maintenance to have a self-latching mechanism.

The NPRM was based on a NHTSA-sponsored school bus seat belt summit held in Washington, D.C., on July 11 to discuss the feasibility of three-point lap/shoulder belts on school buses.

A month earlier, on June 8, Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed House Bill 323, the nation’s second state law requiring three-point lap/shoulder belt systems on all new school buses. It goes one step further than a similar law in California by including charter and multi-function school activity buses purchased after Sept. 1, 2010. There was no funding immediately appropriated. An aide of Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr., the bill’s primary sponsor, said the legislature will be tasked with appropriating the difference between the current cost of newly purchased school buses and that of new buses equipped with the new occupant securement systems.

2006
A Missouri legislator introduced on Feb. 6 House Bill 1673, which would have required all newly purchased school buses to be equipped with 3-point lap/shoulder belts as of Jan. 1, 2007. Click here to read the article. The bill failed but the legislator vowed to try again.

2005

On Dec. 14 several Michigan legislators introduced a curiously worded bill that would require safety belts on public and private school buses “owned, leased or operated” beginning Jan. 1, 2006. It was unknown if House Bill 5519 contained typos. Calls by School Transportation News to Rep. Lamar Lemmons III, the bill’s primary sponsor, for clarification was never returned.

After several past attempts by the Virginia General Assembly to introduce seat belts on school buses, Del. Robert G. Marshall offered a bill requiring either 2-point lap belts or 3-point lap/shoulder belts, with the variety of securements to be approved by the superintendent of state police, on school buses purchased on or after July 1, 2006. The motion was prefiled on Dec. 13, with the intent to formally offer it on the General Assembly floor on Jan. 11, 2006. HB 51 says “The Board of Education must adopt policies, guidelines, and regulations to ensure that all passengers, including the driver, wear these belts or harnesses or both, whenever the bus is in motion. However, a school bus driver may not be held personally liable for the failure of passengers to wear safety belts as required by the Board’s regulations.” Meanwhile, HB 84 prefiled by Del. Lionel Spruill on Dec. 16 uses similar language sans a provision reducing driver liability, with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2007. The bills died in a House committee but Spruill told the Associated Press he would try again.

Despite a letter from former NHTSA Administrator Jeffrey Runge to congressional committees in the fall detailing the administration’s intent to develop a tool to measure the economic impact of installing the safety belts on school buses, School Transportation Director reported Dec. 7 that NHTSA currently does not have funding in place to fund such an effort during the upcoming fiscal year. A NHTSA spokesman told School Transportation Director, a publication of the Federal News Service, that the administration’s School Bus Safety: Crashworthiness Report (see details below under 2002 events) was comprehensive and no new plans existed to study the requirement of lap-shoulder belts on school buses. Charlie Hott, NHTSA’s school bus administrator, meanwhile told members of the National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services and the National Association of Pupil Transportation that proposed rulemaking would most likely occur in late 2006 that would change the federal requirement for seat belts on Type A special needs buses to the 3-point lap-shoulder variety from the currently mandated 2-point lap belt systems. Also, NHTSA would look into proposed regulations for making the 3-point harnesses voluntary on large school buses.

Kansas became the latest state on Nov. 18 to introduce a proposed lap-shoulder belt law for school buses. The state legislature would require all school buses to be equipped with lap-shoulder belts for all seating positions, including a retrofit of the state’s fleet of approximately 5,600 existing buses. If passed, House Bill No. 2546 would require all bids for the purchase of any bus to include requirements for the 3-point harness systems. School districts and contractors would be held responsible. Usage of the lap-shoulder belts would be mandatory for all passengers; congruently, the law would neither hold liable the school district, school-bus company nor the driver in the event of passenger injury due to improperly adjusted or fastened seat belts. The Kansas State Department of Education would be responsible for developing and implementing a school bus safety program that covers behavior of students in the loading/unloading zone, including boarding and egress, and the proper use of the lap-shoulder belts.

On Nov. 6, Western Australia Premier Geoff Gallop announced that seat belts would be introduced throughout the state’s “orange” school bus fleet, with retrofits at a price of about $18 million for 800 buses, speculated one local media outlet. The government later said the seat belts would be of the 3-point lap/shoulder variety. Priority was set for those vehicles that operate on country roads. Non-governmental schools were expected to follow suit and Gallop added that he would push for legislation to ensure compliance. A total cost was said to be forthcoming by the end of the year. The decision was made following an Oct. 21 school bus crash in Baldivis, where emergency responders credited the occupant belt systems with minimizing injuries. Other states were urged to also implement school bus seat belts. The National Transport Council Planning accepted the proposal from Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan on Nov. 18. Reece Waldock, CEO of the Public Transport Authority Administration, told SCHOOL TRANSPORTATION NEWS the new 3-point lap/shoulder belt and seating configurations will be compliant with the National Australian Design Rule Standards set forth by the Department of Transport and Regional Services. They will also follow the guidelines of the “National Code of Practice – Retrofitting Passenger Restraints to Buses,” which is currently being developed by the National Transport Commission. Western Australia transports approximately 24,000 students to and from school.

Effective July 1, California required all new large school buses (Type I or Type C or D) purchased and/or leased by school districts to be equipped with three-point lap/shoulder belts, bringing in line all state school buses regardless of size (see the 2004 entry, below). The securements will be phased into fleets meaning it could be decades before all state school buses have the 3-point lap/shoulder belts.

Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt took a school bus task force recommendation one very large step further in August by calling for legislation requiring three-point lap/shoulder belts in all state school buses. The governor called to order the task force in the spring after a spate of highly publicized school bus accidents in the Kansas City area. By the end of the summer, and after taking testimony from a host of school industry experts, safety consultants and seat belt proponents – and taking into consideration the safety benefits of school bus compartmentalization and high seat backs and the recognition by NHTSA and NTSB of the school bus’ exemplary safety record, task force members concluded that school districts and school districts alone were in the best position to decide if three-point occupant protection systems on school buses would be both beneficial and financially affordable. Instead, Blunt opted for the legislative route to potentially force all school districts to add the occupant safety belts. He said he will work with legislature to come up with whatever funding is necessary to assist school districts with compliance.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee state legislature formed a committee to investigate the possibility of requiring three-point lap/shoulder seat belts on school buses and was planning the bill draft process. The committee was unanimously approved in both the House and Senate following a 2003 school bus crash left a 7-year-old girl with a serious brain injury. But a study was never performed. WTVF-TV in Nashville in November questioned House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh on why the committee never met. The media attention prompted him to name members and the committee first met on Dec. 1. If a seat belt mandate is passed, he told School Transportation News the state should provide the necessary funding instead of placing the burden on local government or school districts. An analysis prompted by a separate bill in April 2004 determined that it would cost $84 million to retrofit all school buses in Tennessee . A phase-in, as old school buses are retired, would cost less than $6 million a year. The Tennessee Association of Pupil Transportation also told STN that it was in the process of conducting its own cost study and survey to determine the level of support for seat belts on school buses from school transportation officials.

2004
Effective July 1, three-point lap/shoulder belts are required on all new small Type II (also known as Type A or A-1) school buses, carrying 16 or less passengers, in California. On Nov. 9, the state Department of Education issued regulations pertaining to the training of students on how to use the passenger restraint systems. Title 5, Section 14105 of the California Code of Regulations says that all students riding school buses, including the School Pupil Activity Bus (SPAB), “shall be instructed in an age-appropriate manner” on the proper fastening and release of seat belts. The new code, which does not apply to special needs students or in cases of emergency evacuation, describes the appropriate positioning of the lap-shoulder belt snug across the shoulder and chest, away from the neck, and low and tight across the pelvis area, not the stomach. When not in use, “passenger restraint systems shall be fully retracted into the retractors so that no loose webbing is visible, or stored in a safe manner per the school bus manufacturer’s instructions.”

2003
On 20 June 2003 the European Commission adopted a Directive making installation of safety belt systems in all types of vehicles placed on the market effective in July 2004. Whereas only private cars have had to be fitted with seat belts to date, this requirement will extend in future to all other categories, particularly minibuses, coaches, light commercial vehicles, lorries and the like. It will affect nearly two million commercial vehicles every year. Click here for further details.

Directive 2003/20/EC [PDF or HTML] of the European Council and the European Parliament, adopted on 8 April 2003, amended 1991 Council Directive 91/671/EEC, and will, when it comes into force in Member States, require the use of seat belts, where provided, in all vehicle categories (M1, N1, M2, N2, M3, N3). In addition, under this new directive, children must use appropriate child restrains in passenger cars and light vans (M1, N1).

The C.E.White Co. introduces the Student Safety Seat, an integrated 3-point lap/shoulder belt seats for use in school buses. The company begins working with school bus OEMs to gain final certification of the system.

IMMI of Indiana introduces the SafeGuard seating system. Safeguard offers a 3-point lap/shoulder belt system for application in school buses. Girardin Minibus is the first school bus manufacturer to offer final certification of the occupant restraint system.

IC Corp. offers an optional 3-point lap/shoulder belt system of its own design in the company’s new 2005 CE series of school buses.

2002
The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration publishes School Bus Safety: Crashworthiness Report, its study about the next generation of occupant protection in school buses that Congress ordered in 1998. [large PDF file]. This report is the first to suggest an active occupant restraint system for school buses; previously, compartmentalization offered only a passive occupant restraint system.

2001
The state of California extends implementation of AB 15 that requires lap/shoulder belts on all new school buses purchased after January 1, 2002. The new law, SB 568, requires lap/shoulder restraint systems in new Type 2 small school buses by July 1, 2004, and lap/shoulder restraint systems in new Type 1 large school buses by July 1, 2005. The measures only affect new school buses procured after those dates. Retrofitting would not be permitted.

The country of England requires compliance with an EU Directive that minibuses, coaches and buses (apart from those designed for urban use with standing passengers) first used on or after 1 October 2001 must have seat belts fitted by the manufacturer. The seat belts must be fitted in all forward and rearward facing seats. Moreover, children on organized trips in minibuses and coaches must be provided with forward facing seats with seat belts. In minibuses and coaches first used on or after 1 October 2001, which have seat belts and anchorages that meet the EU Directive requirements, children may also be provided with rearward facing seats with seat belts.

2000
Minnesota State Legislature enacts the Education Omnibus bill which includes language authorizing seat belts installed in new school buses. The bill mandates education of proper use, model training and addresses liability issues. See Minnesota Seat Belts in School Buses Bill H.F No. 935. No funds were appropriated to implement the law, and the appropriation expired June 30, 2001.

1999
Florida enacts law requiring that “each school bus that is purchased new after December 31, 2000, and used to transport students in grades pre-K through 12 must be equipped with safety belts or with any other restraint system approved by the Federal Government ….” The law does not require school buses purchased prior to December 31, 2000 to be equipped with safety belts. Legislation also required 28″ seat backs. See Title XXIII Motor Vehicles Chapter 316 Florida State Uniform Traffic Control 316.6145

California enacts law requiring improved occupant restraint systems on large school buses. California law specifically mentions “lap and shoulder restraints.” For new buses purchased after January 1, 2002.

Louisiana enacts law requiring school buses used to transport children be equipped with occupant restraint systems. The law to become effective June 30, 2004.

Officials in Louisiana, California and Florida announce they will wait for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to complete an occupant protection study before deciding the exact system to use.

1998
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration sends a report to Congress titled, “School Bus Safety: Safe Passage for America’s Children,” announcing a two-year research project to develop the next generation of occupant protection systems for school buses. The study is expected to be complete by the July 2000.

1996
Economic Commission of Europe approves amendments to three directives relating to: [1] seat belts, [2] seat belt anchorages, and [3] seat strength for Minibuses and Medium and Large Coaches. Requires 3-point seat belts in all seating positions of minibuses (vehicles of less than 3.5 tonnes) and at least 2-point belts.

1995
Great Britain requires seat belts on mini buses used in school transportation

1992
New Jersey becomes the second state in the nation to require seat belts on large school buses. Use is mandatory. Legislation also required 28″ seat backs.

1991
The European Union adopted Directive 91/671/EC on 16 December 1991 imposing the compulsory use of safety belts in all seats, where fitted, starting January 1993. The Directive applies to vehicles of the categories M1 (i.e. private cars) and N1 (light vans), and also the category M2 (minibuses, i.e. buses weighing less than 5 tons ). This included minibuses used in school transport. The directive also applies to vehicles weighing less than 3,5 tonnes or minibuses containing specially designated standing areas. This Directive does not cover buses and coaches carrying more than 9 persons, but there are requirements regarding the fitting or installation of seat belts for these vehicles.

1987
New York becomes the first state in the nation to require two-point seat belts on large school buses. Use of the lap belts is not made mandatory but is dependent on individual school districts adopting a policy requiring their use. Legislation also required 28″ seat backs.

1986
A NHTSA study conducted by Gardner, Plitt, and Goldhammer concludes that whether seat belts were installed on school buses had little effect on a student’s use of seat belts in personal vehicles. Students reported that parents and mandatory seat belt laws played a significant role on their seat belt use in personal vehicles.

1985
Nova Scotia makes belt use mandatory, front and rear

Norway makes rear seat belt use mandatory in vehicles registered after 1/84 (front seat use mandatory since 9/75)

New York makes belt use mandatory, front and rear (in rear for persons 10 years or older)

Mercedes-Benz introduces driver side air bag with knee bolster (in addition to pre-tensioned 3-point belts) in U.S. market

1984
Austria makes belt use mandatory in rear for cars with vehicle approval after 1/84 (front seat use mandatory since 7/76)

West Germany makes rear seat belt use mandatory in cars manufactured since 5/79 (mandatory use in front since 1/76)

Seven of Canada’s 10 provinces by this time require occupants of moving vehicles to use whatever set belt system is available to them

1983
New Brunswick and Ontario make belt use mandatory, front and rear (front seat use mandatory in Ontario since 1/76)

Saab introduces 3-point in rear in all models sold in U.S. (had provided “for years” in Scandinavia and Europe)

1981
NHTSA rescinds requirements for eventual installation of passive restraint systems

1980
Mercedes-Benz provides driver side airbag and knee bolster, and pre-tensioner an all 3-point belts

1979
France mandates seat belts in rear: either 3 lap belts or 3-points at outboard positions and lap belt at center (most manufacturers choose latter option)

New Zealand requires 3-point belts, front and rear outboard positions

1977
Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 222 “School Bus Passenger Seating and Occupant Protection” promulgated through rulemaking by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The European Union adopted a directive about the fitting of occupant restraints.

1976
The first European Union Directive concerning seat belt anchorage was adopted in this year.

1975
Sweden requires 3-point, ELR belts in rear; mandates front use by persons 15 and older

1974
GM becomes the first automaker to develop and offer air bags in production vehicles. Offers dual air-bag-equipped Cadillacs, Oldsmobiles and Buicks, hoping to sell 100,000 a year. Drops effort three years later after selling only 10,000 ***

Mercedes-Benz provides ELR on 3-point belts in midsize (300 Series) cars

Sweden requires ELR on belts in front seats

NHTSA requires 3-point belts (i.e., nondetachable shoulder straps) in front outboard positions

U.S. cars provide “vehicle-sensitive” ELRs in front outboard shoulder belts (lap belt portion has ALR)

First production tension relief device on U.S. vehicle.

1973
Mercedes-Benz provides ELR on 3-point belts in large (“S” class) cars

General Motors manufactures 1,000 Chevrolets equipped with experimental air bags and provides them to fleet customers for testing

An Oldsmobile Toronado, first car with a passenger air bag intended for sale, rolls off assembly line

1972
NHTSA begins rulemaking leading to Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 222: Occupant Seating Protection in School Buses

Volvo introduces adjustable B-post anchor point (not standard) to permit better fitting of shoulder portion of front lap/shoulder belts

Last Australian state law requiring belt use, front and rear, goes into effect 1/1

New Zealand requires belt use, front and rear

1. Germany requires 3-point belts, front and rear

NHTSA requires anchorages for (detachable) shoulder straps for rear outboard (FMVSS 210)

VW displays 3-point belt system with webbing pre-tensioner (Transport 72, Washington, D.C.)

1971
Ford builds experimental air bag fleet

Volvo provides ELRs as standard in rear, all markets

NHTSA amends FMVSS 208 to require passive restraints in front, to be effective 1973

New South Wales requires use of seat belts

1970
Sweden requires belts in rear (diagonal and static allowed; lap-only not approved)

Victoria, Australia requires 3-point belts, front and rear and mandates use, front and rear

1969
Sweden requires 3-point belts of approved type in front

Volvo provides 3-point belt in rear as standard, all markets

Mercedes-Benz adds 3-point belt in rear outboard seats as standard, all markets

Japan requires seat belts, front and rear

Australia requires 3-point belts, front outboard seats, all cars registered since 1965

1968
Volvo provides emergency locking retractors (ELRs) as standard in front, in Sweden

Great Britain requires retrofit of 3-point belts in front in MY 65 and newer cars

Many U.S. cars this MY provide ALRs.

1967
Society of Automotive Engineers study at UCLA leads to calls for two-point seat belts, high back seats and other occupant protection strategies for school buses.

U.S. manufacturers provide lap belts at rear outboard positions (MY 1967)

NHSB issues initial Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards 208, 209, setting standards for lap and shoulder belts in front outboard positions, lap belts in all other positions (to take effect 1/1/68 and 3/67, respectively)

Volvo introduces 3-point belt in rear as standard, certain markets

Great Britain requires 3-points in front outboard positions

Australian standard for belt anchorages issued

South Australia requires seat belts (lap belts OK) at front outboard positions

1966
Swedish regulations prohibit 2-point cross-chest diagonal belt at seats next to a door, and Y-type of 3-point belt altogether

U.S. Commerce Dept. issues revised seat belt standard (SAE j4c)

U.S. Congress passes P.L. 89-593, establishing National Highway Safety Bureau (now NHTSA)

Sports Car Club of America requires competing drivers to wear a shoulder harness as well as a lap belt (perhaps 1967, according to ref. 131)

1965
Rules for School Bus Passengers were published in the NSC Fleet Safety newsletter.
U.S. Commerce Dept. issues first seat belt standard (adopted SAE standard)

SAE issues revised standard (J4c)

All U.S. manufacturers providing lap belts in front outboard positions by this time

Some U.S. manufacturers provide automatic locking retractors (ALRs) in front seat belts

1964
About half the U.S. States require seat belt anchorages at front outboard

Most U.S. manufactures provide lap belts at front outboard seat positions

Victoria and South Australia require seat belt anchorages at front outboard positions in new cars (either 2- or 3-point permitted)

1963
Questions of whether to install seat belts in school buses were answered by the director of Florida’s State Department of Education at the National Safety Council’s Division Midyear Meeting.

Volvo introduces 3-point belt in front as standard, in USA

Some U.S. manufacturers provide lap belts in front outboard positions (23 States have laws to requires belts in front, most effective 1/64)

SAE issues revised standard (J4a)

U.S. Congress passes P.L. 88-201 to allow Commerce Department to issue mandatory standards for seat belts sold in interstate commerce

1962
Virginia Trailways reported to be the first U.S. bus company to install passenger safety belts.

Association for Aid to Crippled Children and Consumers Union sponsor landmark conference on “Passenger Car Design and Highway Safety” with occupant protection the sole theme

Six U.S. States require front outboard seat belt anchors

U.S. manufacturers provide seat belt anchors in front outboard as standard

1961
SAE issues standard for U.S. seat belts (J4)

New York requires seat belt anchors at front outboard seat positions (effective January 1, 1962)

Wisconsin requires seat belts in front outboard seat positions

Standards Association of Australia issues standard for “safety belts and harness assemblies”

1960
New York again considers and again rejects seat belt bill

1959
Volvo introduces 3-point belt in front as standard, in Sweden

New York considers and rejects bill to require seat belts in new cars sold in State

1958
Nils Bohlin, a design engineer with Volvo in Sweden, patents the “Basics of Proper Restraint Systems for Car Occupants,” better known as a three-point safety belt. The device comprises two straps, a lap strap and shoulder strap. **

Volvo provides anchors for 2-point diagonal belts in rear

1957
Volvo provides anchors for 2-point diagonal belts in front

Special Subcommittee on Traffic Safety, U.S. House of Representatives, opens hearings on effectiveness of seat belts in automobiles

1956
Volvo markets 2-point cross-chest diagonal belt as accessory

For and Chrysler offer lap belts in front as option on some models

Ford begins 2-year ad campaign based on safety, focusing heavily on belts

1955
California Vehicle Code is amended to require State approval of seat belts before their sale or use

National Safety Council, American College of Surgeons, International Association of Chiefs of Police vote to support installation of lap belts in all automobiles

Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) appoints Motor Vehicle Seat Belt Committee

1954
Sports Car Club of America requires competing drivers to wear lap belts

American Medical Association House of Delegates votes to support installation of lap belts in all automobiles

1953
Colorado State Medical Society publishes policy supporting installation of lap belts in all automobiles

1930s
Several U.S. physicians equip their own cars with lap belts and begin urging manufacturers to provide them in all new cars

Sources:

Dates and developments from 1977 to present pertinent to occupant protection in school buses, added by School Transportation News.

* HAR NTSB/SS-86-03, NTSB Safety Study: “Performance of Lap Belts in 26 Frontal Crashes,” pp. 225-230

** “TRAFFIC SAFETY,” National Safety Council, March/April 1998

motorvista: History of Airbags

*** GM Canada website

The post The History of Seat Belt Development appeared first on School Transportation News.

A new survey of state chief information and security officers finds them better prepared to protect their networks from cyberattacks than four years earlier, but still worried about limited staff and resources. (Bill Hinton | Getty Images)

Many state chief information and security officers say they don’t have the budget, resources, staff or expertise to feel fully confident in their ability to guard their government networks against cyber attacks, according to a new Deloitte & Touche survey of officials in all 50 states and D.C.

“The attack surface is expanding as state leaders’ reliance on information becomes increasingly central to the operation of government itself,” said Srini Subramanian, principal of Deloitte & Touche LLP and the company’s global government and public services consulting leader. “And CISOs have an increasingly challenging mission to make the technology infrastructure resilient against ever-increasing cyber threats.”

The biennial cybersecurity report, released today, outlined where new threats are coming from, and what vulnerabilities these teams have.

Governments are relying more on servers to store information, or transmit it through the Internet of Things, or connected sensor devices. Infrastructure for systems like transit and power is also heavily reliant on technology, and all of the connected online systems create more opportunities for attack.

The emergence of AI is also creating new ways for bad actors to exploit vulnerabilities, as it makes phishing scams and audio and visual deep fakes easier.

Deloitte found encouraging data that showed the role of state chief information and security officer has been prioritized in every state’s government tech team, and that statutes and legislation have been introduced in some states which give CISOs more authority.

In recent years, CISOs have taken on the vast majority of security management and operations, strategy, governance, risk management and incident response for their state, the report said.

But despite the growing weight on these roles, some of the CISOs surveyed said they do not have the resources needed to feel confident in their team’s ability to handle old and new cybersecurity threats.

Nearly 40% said they don’t have enough funds for projects that comply with regulatory or legal requirements, and nearly half said they don’t know what percent of their state’s IT budget is for cybersecurity.

Talent was another issue, with about half of CISOs saying they lacked cybersecurity staffing, and 31% saying there was an “inadequate availability” of professionals to complete these jobs. The survey does show that CISOs reported better staff competencies in 2024 compared to 2020, though.

Staffing of CISOs themselves, due to burnout, has been an increasing issue since the pandemic, the report found. Since the 2022 survey, Deloitte noted that nearly half of all states have had turnover in their chief security officers, and the median tenure is now 23 months, down from 30 months in the last survey.

When it came to generative AI, CISOs seemed to see both the opportunities and risks. Respondents listed generative AI as one of the newest threats to cybersecurity, with 71% saying they believe it poses a “high” threat; 41% of respondents said they don’t have confidence in their team to be able to handle them.

While they believe AI is a threat, many teams also reported using the technology to improve their security operations. Twenty one states are already using some form of AI, and 22 states will likely begin using it in the next year. As with with state legislation around AI, it’s being looked at on a case-by-case basis.

One CISO said in the report their team is “in discovery phase with an executive order to study the impact of gen AI on security in our state” while another said they have “established a committee that is reviewing use cases, policies, procedures, and best practices for gen AI.”

CISOs face these budgetary and talent restrictions while they aim to take on new threats and secure aging technology systems that leave them vulnerable.

The report laid out some tactics tech departments could use to navigate these challenges, including leaning on government partners, working creatively to boost budgets, diversifying their talent pipeline, continuing the AI policy conversations and promoting the CISOs role in digital transformation of government operations.

Voters in Grand Rapids, Mich., cast their ballots during the state’s August primary

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Some voters are already casting early ballots in the first presidential election since the global pandemic ended and former President Donald Trump refused to accept his defeat.

This year’s presidential election won’t be decided by a margin of millions of votes, but likely by thousands in the seven tightly contested states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

How legislatures, courts and election boards have reshaped ballot access in those states in the past four years could make a difference. Some of those states, especially Michigan, cemented the temporary pandemic-era measures that allowed for more mail-in and early voting. But other battleground states have passed laws that may keep some registered voters from casting ballots.

Trump and his allies have continued to spread lies about the 2020 results, claiming without evidence that widespread voter fraud stole the election from him. That has spurred many Republican lawmakers in states such as Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina to reel back access to early and mail-in voting and add new identification requirements to vote. And in Pennsylvania, statewide appellate courts are toggling between rulings.

“The last four years have been a long, strange trip,” said Hannah Fried, co-founder and executive director of All Voting is Local, a multistate voting rights organization.

“Rollbacks were almost to an instance tied to the ‘big lie,’” she added, referring to Trump’s election conspiracy theories. “And there have been many, many positive reforms for voters in the last few years that have gone beyond what we saw in the COVID era.”

The volume of election-related legislation and court cases that emerged over the past four years has been staggering.

Nationally, the Voting Rights Lab, a nonpartisan group that researches election law changes, tracked 6,450 bills across the country that were introduced since 2021 that sought to alter the voting process. Hundreds of those bills were enacted.

Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, cautioned that incremental tweaks to election law — especially last-minute changes made by the courts — not only confuse voters, but also put a strain on local election officials who must comply with changes to statute as they prepare for another highly scrutinized voting process.

“Any voter that is affected unnecessarily is too many in my book,” he said.

New restrictions

In many ways, the 2020 presidential election is still being litigated four years later.

Swing states have been the focus of legal challenges and new laws spun from a false narrative that questioned election integrity. The 2021 state legislative sessions, many begun in the days following the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, brought myriad legislative changes that have made it more difficult to vote and altered how ballots are counted and rejected.

The highest profile measure over the past four years came out of Georgia.

Under a 2021 law, Georgia residents now have less time to ask for mail-in ballots and must put their driver’s license or state ID information on those requests. The number of drop boxes has been limited. And neither election officials nor nonprofits may send unsolicited mail-in ballot applications to voters.

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp said when signing the measure that it would ensure free and fair elections in the state, but voting rights groups lambasted the law as voter suppression.

That law also gave Georgia’s State Election Board more authority to interfere in the makeup of local election boards. The state board[AS1]  has made recent headlines for paving the way for counties to potentially refuse to certify the upcoming election. This comes on top of a wave of voter registration challenges from conservative activists.

In North Carolina, the Republican-led legislature last year overrode Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto to enact measures that shortened the time to turn in mail-in ballots; required local election officials to reject ballots if voters who register to vote on Election Day do not later verify their home address; and required identification to vote by mail.

This will also be the first general election that North Carolinians will have to comply with a 2018 voter ID measure that was caught up in the court system until the state Supreme Court reinstated the law last year.

And in Arizona, the Republican-led legislature pushed through a measure[AS2]  that shortened the time voters have to correct missing or mismatched signatures on their absentee ballot envelopes. Then-Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, signed the measure.

“Look, sometimes the complexity is the point,” said Fried, of All Voting is Local. “If you are passing a law that makes it this complicated for somebody to vote or to register to vote, what’s your endgame here? What are you trying to do?”

Laws avoided major overhauls

But the restrictions could have gone much further.

That’s partly because Democratic governors, such as Arizona’s Katie Hobbs, who took office in 2023, have vetoed many of the Republican-backed bills. But it’s also because of how popular early voting methods have become.

Arizonans, for example, have been able to vote by mail for more than three decades. More than 75% of Arizonan voters requested mail-in ballots in 2022, and 90% of voters in 2020 cast their ballots by mail.

This year, a bill that would have scrapped no-excuse absentee voting passed the state House but failed to clear a Republican-controlled Senate committee.

Bridget Augustine, a high school English teacher in Glendale, Arizona, and a registered independent, has been a consistent early voter since 2020. She said the first time she voted in Arizona was by absentee ballot while she was a college student in New Jersey, and she has no concerns “whatsoever” about the safety of early voting in Arizona.

“I just feel like so much of this rhetoric was drummed up as a way to make it easier to lie about the election and undermine people’s confidence,” she said.

Vanessa Jiminez, the security manager for a Phoenix high school district, a registered independent and an early voter, said she is confident in the safety of her ballot.

“I track my ballot every step of the way,” she said.

Ben Ginsberg, a longtime Republican election lawyer and Volker Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the think tank Hoover Institution, said that while these laws may add new hurdles, he doesn’t expect them to change vote totals.

“The bottom line is I don’t think that the final result in any election is going to be impacted by a law that’s been passed,” he said on a recent call with reporters organized by the Knight Foundation, a Miami-based nonprofit that provides grants to support democracy and journalism.

Major expansions

No state has seen a bigger expansion to ballot access over the past four years than Michigan.

Republicans tried to curtail access to absentee voting, introducing 39 bills in 2021, when the party still was in charge of both legislative chambers.

Two GOP bills passed, but Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vetoed them.

The next year, Michigan voters approved ballot measures that added nine days of early voting. The measures also allowed voters to request mail-in ballots online; created a permanent vote-by-mail list; provided prepaid postage on absentee ballot applications and ballots; increased ballot drop boxes; and allowed voters to correct missing or mismatched signatures on mail-in ballot envelopes.

“When you take it to the people and actually ask them about it, it turns out most people want more voting access,” said Melinda Billingsley, communications manager for Voters Not Politicians, a Lansing, Michigan-based voting rights advocacy group.

“The ballot access expansions happened in spite of an anti-democratic, Republican-led push to restrict ballot access,” she said.

In 2021, then-Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a Democrat, signed into law a measure that transitioned the state into a universal vote-by-mail system. Every registered voter would be sent a ballot in the mail before an election, unless they opt out. The bill made permanent a temporary expansion of mail-in voting that the state put in place during the pandemic.

Nevada voters have embraced the system, data shows.

In February’s presidential preference primary, 78% of ballots cast were ballots by mail or in a ballot drop box, according to the Nevada secretary of state’s office. In June’s nonpresidential primary, 65% of ballots were mail-in ballots. And in the 2022 general election, 51% of ballots cast were mail ballots.

Last-minute court decisions

Drop boxes weren’t controversial in Wisconsin until Trump became fixated on them as an avenue for alleged voter fraud, said Jeff Mandell, general counsel and co-founder of Law Forward, a Madison-based nonprofit legal organization.

For half of a century, Wisconsinites could return their absentee ballots in the same drop boxes that counties and municipalities used for water bills and property taxes, he said. But when the pandemic hit and local election officials expected higher volumes of absentee ballots, they installed larger boxes.

After Trump lost the state by fewer than 21,000 votes in 2020, drop boxes became a flashpoint. Republican leaders claimed drop boxes were not secure, and that nefarious people could tamper with the ballots. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, then led by a conservative majority, banned drop boxes.

But that ruling would only last two years. In July, the new liberal majority in the state’s high court reversed the ruling and said localities could determine whether to use drop boxes. It was a victory for voters, Mandell said.

With U.S. Postal Service delays stemming from the agency’s restructuring, drop boxes provide a faster method of returning a ballot without having to worry about it showing up late, he said. Ballots must get in by 8 p.m. on Election Day. The boxes are especially convenient for rural voters, who may have a clerk’s office or post office with shorter hours, he added.

“Every way that you make it easy for people to vote safely and securely is good,” Mandell said.

‘A case of crying wolf again’: Election experts say Wisconsin is prepared to avoid conspiracies

After the high court’s ruling, local officials had to make a swift decision about whether to reinstall drop boxes.

Milwaukee city employees were quickly dispatched throughout the city to remove the leather bags that covered the drop boxes for two years, cleaned them all and repaired several, said Paulina Gutierrez, executive director of the City of Milwaukee Election Commission.

“There’s an all-hands-on-deck mentality here at the city,” she said, adding that there are cameras pointed at each drop box.

Although it used a drop box in 2020, Marinette, a community on the western shore of Green Bay, opted not to use them for the August primary and asked voters to hand the ballots to clerk staff. Lana Bero, the city clerk, said the city may revisit that decision before November.

New Berlin Clerk Rubina Medina said her community, a city of about 40,000 on the outskirts of Milwaukee, had some security concerns about potentially tampering or destruction of ballots within drop boxes, and therefore decided not to use the boxes this year.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, who serves the state capital of Madison and its surrounding area, has been encouraging local clerks in his county to have a camera on their drop boxes and save the videos in case residents have fraud concerns.

A risk of confusing voters

Many local election officials in Wisconsin say they worry that court decisions, made mere months before the November election, could create confusion for voters and more work for clerks.

“These decisions are last-second, over and over again,” McDonell said. “You’re killing us when you do that.”

Arizonans and Pennsylvanians now know that late-in-the-game scramble too.

In August, the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated part of a 2022 Arizona law that requires documented proof of citizenship to register on state forms, potentially impacting tens of thousands of voters, disproportionately affecting young and Native voters.

Whether Pennsylvania election officials should count mail ballots returned with errors has been a subject of litigation in every election since 2020. State courts continue to grapple with the question, and neither voting rights groups nor national Republicans show signs of giving up.

Former Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, who is now president of Athena Strategies and working on voting rights and election security issues across the country, said voters simply need to ignore the noise of litigation and closely follow the instructions with their mail ballots.

“Litigation is confusing,” Boockvar said. “The legislature won’t fix it by legislation. Voter education is the key thing here, and the instructions on the envelopes need to be as clear and simple as possible.”

To avoid confusion, voters can make a plan for how and when they will vote by going to vote.gov, a federally run site where voters can check to make sure they are properly registered and to answer questions in more than a dozen languages about methods for casting a ballot.

Arizona Mirror’s Caitlin Sievers and Jim Small, Nevada Current’s April Corbin Girnus and Pennsylvania Capital-Star’s Peter Hall contributed reporting.

Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski in her office, displays real and fake electors' documents | Wisconsin Examiner photo

Over the past four years, Congress and state governments have worked hard to prevent the aftermath of the 2024 election from descending into the chaos and threats to democracy that occurred around the 2020 U.S. presidential election.

A new federal law cleaned up ambiguities that could allow for election subversion. New state laws have been enacted across the country to protect election workers from threats and harassment. Technology experts are working to confront misinformation campaigns and vulnerabilities in election systems.

But untouched in all of these improvements is the underlying structure of presidential elections – the Electoral College.

Here is a quick refresher about how the system works today:

After citizens vote in the presidential election in November, the Constitution assigns the task of choosing the president and vice president to electors. Electors are allocated based on the number of congressional representatives and senators from each state. The electors meet in their separate state capitals in December to cast their votes. The ballots are then counted by the vice president in front of members of Congress on Jan. 6 to determine which ticket has won a majority.

The widely varied pros and cons of the Electoral College have already been aired and debated extensively. But there is another problem that few have recognized: The Electoral College makes American democracy more vulnerable to people with malicious intent.

A state-centric system

The original brilliance of the Electoral College has become one of its prime weaknesses. The unusual system was devised at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 as a compromise that prioritized the representation of state interests. This focus helped win over reluctant delegates who feared that the most populous states would disregard small states’ concerns.

Nowadays nearly every state has chosen to award all of its electoral votes to whichever ticket wins more votes in the state. Even if a candidate gets 51% of the popular vote, use of the winner-take-all rule in these states means they will be awarded 100% of the electoral votes.

This is what leads to the “battleground state” phenomenon: Presidential candidates focus their rallies, advertisements and outreach efforts on the few states where campaigns could actually tip the balance. In 2020, 77% of all campaign ads ran in just six states that were home to only 21% of the nation’s population.

In this way, the Electoral College system naturally draws campaign attention to issues that might tip the balance in these hotbeds of competitiveness.

A road map for bad behavior

By doing so, the system essentially identifies the states where malicious people who want to alter or undermine the election results should focus their energies. The handful of battleground states are efficient targets for harmful efforts that would otherwise not have much success meddling in elections.

Someone who wants to infiltrate the election system would have difficulty causing problems in a national popular vote because it is decided by thousands of disconnected local jurisdictions. In contrast, the Electoral College makes it convenient to sow mischief by only meddling in a few states widely seen as decisive.

In 2020, the lawsuits, hacking, alternative electors, recount efforts and other challenges did not target states perceived by some to have weaker security because they had less strict voter ID laws or voter signature requirements. Opponents of the results also did not go after states such as California and Texas that account for a large share of the country’s voters.

Rather, all of the firepower was trained on about a half-dozen swing states. By one account, there were 82 lawsuits filed in the days after the 2020 presidential election, 77 of which targeted six swing states. The “fake elector” schemes in which supporters of Donald Trump put forward unofficial lists of electors occurred in only seven battleground states.

The popular vote alternative

A majority of Americans say in surveys they prefer to scrap the Electoral College system and simply award the presidency to the person who gets the most votes nationwide.

Dumping the Electoral College would have a variety of consequences, but it would immediately remove opportunities for disrupting elections via battleground states. A close election in Arizona or Pennsylvania would no longer provide leverage for upending the national result.

Any election system that does not rely on states as the puzzle pieces for deciding elections would remove opportunities like these. It could also seriously reduce disputes over recounts and suspicion about late-night ballot counts, long lines and malfunctioning voting machines because those local concerns would be swamped by the national vote totals.

Although not without its own concerns, an agreement among the states to award their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote is probably the most viable method for shifting to the popular vote, in part because it does not require passing an amendment to the Constitution.

There is no ideal way to run a presidential election. The Electoral College has survived in its current form for almost two centuries, a remarkable run for democracy. But in an era where intense scrutiny of just a few states is the norm, the system also lights the way for those who would harm democracy.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

José Patiño, a 35-year-old DACA recipient and Arizona community organizer, says it took him a long time to overcome the fear of sharing his personal information — including his legal status — on social media. (Photo courtesy of José Patiño)

For more than a decade, San-Francisco-based Miguel has been successfully filing renewals for his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status every two years, at least until 2024.

For some reason, this year, it took more than five months to get approval, during which his enrollment in the program lapsed, leaving him in a legal limbo.

He lost his work visa and was put on temporary unpaid leave for three months from the large professional services company where he’s worked for a decade.

“In those three months, I was trying to do a lot of damage control around getting an expedited process, reaching out to the ombudsman, congressmen — all of the escalation type of actions that I could do,” he said.

He was also being cautious about what he put in his social media and other online postings. Like many, he realized such information could put him at risk in an uncertain political environment around immigration.

“Given my current situation, I try not to brand myself as undocumented, or highlight it as the main component of my identity digitally,” Miguel said.

Miguel, who came to the United States at age 7 with his parents from the Philippines, says he was already mindful about his digital footprint before his DACA protections lapsed. His Facebook and Instagram accounts are set to private, and while amplifying the stories of immigrants is one of his goals, he tries to do so from an allyship perspective, rather than centering his own story.

While his DACA status has now been renewed — reinstating his work permit and protection from deportation — and Miguel is back at work, he’s taking extra precautions about what he posts online and how he’s perceived publicly. It’s the reason that States Newsroom is not using his full name for this story.

Miguel’s company is regulated by the SEC, and has to take a nonpartisan approach on political issues, he said, and that extends to employees. Staying neutral about political issues may be a common rule for many American workers, but it’s more complicated when an issue is a part of your core identity, Miguel said.

“I think that’s been a huge conflicting area in my professional journey,” he said. “It’s the separation and compartmentalization that I have to do to separate my identity — given that it is a very politicized experience — with my actual career and company affiliation.”

Digital footprints + surveillance

It’s not unusual for your digital footprint — the trail of information you create browsing the web or posting on social media — to have real-life ramifications. But if you’re an immigrant in the United States, one post, like or comment on social media could lead to an arrest, deportation or denial of citizenship.

In 2017, the Department of Homeland Security issued a notice saying it would begin tracking more information, including social media handles for temporary visa holders, immigrants and naturalized U.S. citizens in an electronic system. And Homeland Security would store that information.

But in recent years, there’s been more data collection. In 2019, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was found to have contracted with commercial data brokers like Thomson Reuters’ CLEAR, which has access to information in credit agencies, cellphone registries, social media posts, property records and internet chat rooms, among other sources.

Emails sent by ICE officials were included in a 2019 federal court filing, showing that information accessed via the CLEAR database was used in a 2018 deportation case, the Intercept reported. ICE agents used an address found in CLEAR, along with Facebook posts of family gatherings, to build a case against a man who had been deported from his home in Southern California and then returned. The man had been living in the U.S. since he was 1, worked as a roofer and had children who are U.S. citizens.

Ultimately, a Facebook post showing the man had “checked in” at a Southern California Home Depot in May 2018 led to his arrest. ICE agents monitored the page, waited for him to leave the store, then pulled him over. He was charged with felony illegal reentry.

Ray Ybarra Maldonado, an immigration and criminal attorney in Phoenix, said he’s seen more requests for social media handles in his immigration paperwork filings over the last few years. It can be nerve-wracking to think that the federal government will be combing through a client’s posts, he said, but clients have to remember that ultimately, anything put on the internet is for public consumption.

“We all think when we post something on social media that it’s for our friends, for our family,” Ybarra Maldonado said. “But people have to understand that whatever you put out there, it’s possible that you could be sitting in a room across from a government agent someday asking you a question about it.”

Ybarra Maldonado said he’s seen immigration processes where someone is appealing to the court that they are a moral, upstanding person, but there are screenshots of them from social media posing with guns or drugs.

Ybarra Maldonado suggests that people applying for citizenship or temporary protections consider keeping their social media pages private, and to only connect with people that they know. He also warns that people who share info about their legal status online can be the target of internet scams, as there’s always someone looking to exploit vulnerable populations.

But maintaining a digital footprint can also be a positive thing for his clients, Ybarra Maldonado said. Printouts from social media can provide evidence of the longevity of someone’s residence in the U.S., or show them as an active participant in their community. It’s also a major way that immigrants stay connected to their families and friends in other countries, and find community in the U.S.

Identifying yourself online

For José Patiño, a 35-year-old DACA recipient, that goal of staying connected to his community was the reason he eventually began using his full name online.

When he was 6, Patiño and his mother immigrated from Mexico to join his father in West Phoenix. From the beginning, he said, his parents explained his immigration status to him, and what that meant — he wasn’t eligible for certain things, and at any time, he could be separated from them. If he heard the words “la migra,” or immigration, he knew to find a safe place and hide.

In Patiño’s neighborhood, he described, an ever-present feeling lingered that the many immigrants living there felt limited and needed to be careful. He realized he could work, but it would always be for less money, and he’d have to keep quiet about anything he didn’t agree with. Most people in his neighborhood didn’t use social media or didn’t identify themselves as “undocumented.”

“You don’t want your status to define your whole identity,” he said. “And it’s something that you don’t want a constant reminder that you have limitations and things that you can’t do.”

But like most millennials, when Patiño went to college, he discovered that Facebook was the main way of communicating and organizing. He went “back and forth at least 100 times,” over signing up with the social media platform, and eventually made a profile with no identifying information. He used a nickname and didn’t have a profile photo. Eventually, though, he realized no one would accept his friend requests or let him into groups.

“And then little by little, as I became more attuned to actually being public, social media protected me more — my status — than being anonymous,” he said. “If people knew who I was, they would be able to figure out how to support me.”

Patiño and others interviewed for this story acknowledged that the DACA program is temporary and could change with an incoming federal administration. In his first few months of his presidency in 2017, Donald Trump announced he was rescinding the program, though the Supreme Court later ruled it would stand.

That moment pushed Patiño toward community organizing. He is now very much online as his full self, as he and his wife, Reyna Montoya, run Phoenix-based Aliento, which aims to bring healing practices to communities regardless of immigration status. The organization provides art and healing workshops, assists in grassroots organizing, and provides resources for undocumented students to get scholarships and navigate the federal student aid form.

Now, Patiño said, he would have very personal conversations with anyone considering putting themselves and their status online. The community has gained a lot of positive  exposure and community from immigrants sharing their personal experiences, but it can take a toll, he said. His online presence is now an extension of the work he does at Aliento.

“Basically, I want to be the adult that my 17-, 18-year-old-self needed,” he said. “For me, that’s how I see social media. How can I use my personal social media to provide maybe some hope or some resources with individuals who are, right now, maybe seeing loss or are in the same situation that I was in?”

Tobore Oweh, a 34-year-old Nigerian immigrant who arrived in Maryland when she was 7, has spent the last decade talking about her status online. After she received DACA protections in 2012, she felt like it was a way to unburden some of the pressures of living life without full citizenship, and to find people going through similar things.

“That was like a form of liberation and freedom, because I felt like I was suppressing who I was, and it just felt like this heavy burden around immigration and just like, it’s just a culture to be silent or fear,” Oweh said. “And for me, sharing my story at that time was very important to me.”

She connected with others through UndocuBlack, a multi-generational network of current and former undocumented Black people that shares resources and tools for advocacy. Being open about your status isn’t for everyone, she said, but she’s a naturally bold and optimistic person.

She referred to herself as “DACA-mented,” saying she feels she has the privilege of some protection through the program but knows it’s not a long-term solution. She’s never felt “super safe,” but was uneasier through the Trump administration when he made moves to end the program.

“Everyone with DACA is definitely privileged, but you know, we all are still experiencing this unstable place of like, not knowing,” she said.

Since sharing more of her experiences online, Oweh said she feels a lot more opportunities and possibilities came into her life. Oweh moved to Los Angeles seven years ago and runs a floral business called The Petal Effect. She feels safe in California, as the state has programs to protect immigrants from discrimination through employment, education, small businesses and housing.

For Oweh, it was never a question of if she’d use social media, but rather how she would. She feels the accessibility to community and for sharing resources far outweighs the risks of being public about her status.

“Growing up, it wasn’t like what it is now. I feel like, you know, future generations, or you know, the people that are here now, like we have more access to community than I did growing up just off of social media,” Oweh said. “So it’s been instrumental in amplifying our voices and sharing our stories.”

Being vocal about your status isn’t right for everyone, Beleza Chan, director of development and communications for education-focused Immigrants Rising, told States Newsroom.

Social media, student organizing, protests and blogging led to the passing of the DREAM act and DACA in the last two decades, and those movements were essential to immigrants rights today. But those feelings of security come in waves, she said.

“I think the political climate certainly affects that,” Chan said. “…In the previous years, it was ‘undocumented and unafraid,’ and since Trump, it’s been like ‘you’re undocumented and you’re very afraid to speak up.’”

A protester holds a Trump flag inside the U.S .Capitol Building near the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police are welcoming a special security designation from the Department of Homeland Security for Jan. 6, 2025, when Congress will gather to certify the Electoral College vote count for the winner of the presidential election.

The last time Congress undertook the responsibility, a pro-Trump mob attacked the building, eventually breaking through police barricades, severely injuring officers and disrupting the process.

The rioters were spurred on by false claims from former president and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that he won the 2020 election when he had in fact lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College.

Members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated or told to shelter in place in their offices as one of the most secure buildings in the country was overrun.

Federal prosecutors have since secured convictions or plea deals for hundreds of the people who attacked law enforcement and obstructed Congress’ responsibility to certify the vote that day.

United States Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger released a written statement Thursday saying the “National Special Security Event designation will further strengthen our work to protect the Members of Congress and the legislative process.”

“The United States Capitol Police has been preparing for the January 6 count, as well as the Inauguration, for several months,” Manger added. “We have made hundreds of changes and improvements over the past three years, and we are confident that the Capitol will be safe and secure.”

National Special Security Events, or NSSEs, are somewhat expected for major events, like State of the Union speeches, presidential inaugurations and the presidential nominating conventions that the Democrats and Republicans hold every four years.

This, however, will be the first time that one has been issued for Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote.

The designation means the U.S. Secret Service will be the lead federal law enforcement agency planning security for the event, despite it being held in the U.S. Capitol, where USCP typically holds the top jurisdiction.

“National Special Security Events are events of the highest national significance,” Eric Ranaghan, special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Dignitary Protective Division, said in a written statement released Wednesday. “The U.S. Secret Service, in collaboration with our federal, state, and local partners are committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated security plan to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants.”