IN THIS EDITION, YOU WILL FIND:
- News from the historic vote in the Senate making Ketanji Brown Jackson the newest Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
- News around the nation and in your region.
Federal Legislative and Policy Updates
- Senate confirms Ketanji Brown Jackson to Supreme Court, making her the first Black woman to serve as a justice. The 53-47 final vote tally showed bipartisan support for Jackson, with three Republicans joining all Democrats to elevate the 51-year-old federal judge to a lifetime appointment.
- The surprising unionization victory late last month at the Amazon warehouse facility on Staten Island known as JFK8 has had seismic ripple effects in the week-plus since. Late last week, Amazon formally lodged objectionsto the validity of the election, seeking to nullify its results and force a do-over. It filed an array of challenges, both against the organizing group and the National Labor Relations Board.
- Today, National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo issued a memorandum to all Field offices announcing that she will ask the Board to find mandatory meetings in which employees are forced to listen to employer speech concerning the exercise of their statutory labor rights, including captive audience meetings, a violation of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
- U.S. House Democrats have passed a bill to legalize cannabis use for adults, for the second time. The vote fell upon party lines with only 3 republicans voting yes. The bill is a solid start in creating a national, and legal cannabis market but more work need to be done to ensure workers are given necessary protections. The bill now moves to the Senate where more debate is needed.
News From Around the Nation
- The Delaware House has fast tracked legislation to provide $300 of relief money to all Delaware residents in the wake of rising fuel costs and grocery prices. The legislation, which would base the receipt of relief upon a 2020 tax return, now heads to the Delaware Senate, where it enjoys support from both Democratic and Republican leadership.
- Workers’ unions have been cropping up in non-traditional places in Texas over the last few months. The trend gained widespread recognition when employees at a Buffalo, New York, Starbucks store unionized in 2021. Now, in Texas, at least five workplaces have filed for unionization, four of them Starbucks stores in San Antonio and Austin.
- In a move to upend 50 years of political tradition, The Democratic National Committee has a plan to restructure the Democratic party’s presidential nominating calendar that would remove the Iowa Caucus from the top of the political calendar, reducing its influence in the selection of its party’s nominee for President.
- Nursing home workers may soon be paid at least $15 per hour under a state-funded minimum wage increase approved by the Colorado legislature. The state Senate passed House Bill 1333 which changes the definition of “eligible nursing facility provider” and makes other conforming changes to allow any Colorado nursing facility that meets the defined criteria to be eligible to receive wage enhancement supplemental payments, as defined in the bill, to increase the minimum wage for nursing facility employees to at least $15 per hour.
- New Mexico will provide new payments totaling $500 for individual adults or $1,000 per household to offset steep prices for fuel and raging inflation, under a bill approved by the state Legislature. In all, the aid package would distribute nearly $700 million to adult residents of all income levels, including elderly people with little or no income who don’t ordinarily file taxes and undocumented immigrants.
