CWLA continues to support the Child Welfare Emergency Assistance Act (Brown), S4172, which now has 15 cosponsors, including 7 Senators from the Senate Finance Committee. On Thursday, July 2, 2020, Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) introduced the Child Welfare Emergency Assistance Act. The bill’s original cosponsors include Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Bob Casey (D-PA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV).
While the Senate COVID-19 bill provides minimal state supplements, it does provide some funding through the Senate Finance Committee bill and the Senate Appropriations bill for limited child welfare programs. Funding includes an appropriation of $75 million through the Child Welfare Services (Title IV-B part 1),$50 million for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevent (CB-CAP) funds and $65 million for Family
On Friday, July 31, 2020, the House passed HR 7614 a second “mini-bus” legislative package that included six more appropriations bills. Combined with the previous week’s action that moved four appropriations bills, the House of Representatives has passed ten of twelve appropriations bills. Before moving on this legislative package, House leadership removed funding for the Department
As the end of the week approached, Washington was still waiting for a complete initial package from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on what will be a fifth COVID-19 relief measure. Negotiations that had started within the White House on Monday between the President’s staff and Republican Congressional leaders from the House and Senate
Last week the House passed HR 7617 a “mini-bus” legislative package that included funding for four separate appropriations bills. Included in the mini-bus (as opposed to an omnibus bill) were the four appropriations for Agriculture-FDA, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA, and the State Department-Foreign Operations. There is a total of 12 annual appropriations bills. This week
On Wednesday, July 1, 2020, the House passed the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), extending the small business loans until August 8. The bill was passed by unanimous consent after the Senate passed it (S.4116) the previous evening via unanimous consent led by the Ranking Member Ben Cardin (D-MD) of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee.
On Thursday, July 9, 2020, the United States Supreme Court in McGirt v. Oklahoma upheld the sovereignty of Tribal and Indian Country reservations under previous U.S. Treaties. The Court 5 to 4 decision was written by Justice Neil Gorsuch with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Justice Jill Kagan joining in
On Thursday, July 2, 2020, Congressman Danny Davis (D-IL), Congresswoman Roybal-Allard and Senators Bob Casey (D-PA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) officially dropped the Child Poverty Reduction Act (H.R. 7419/ S. 4115), which commits to cutting child poverty in half in 10 years, just as the pandemic pushes child poverty toward record levels.
The 2020 KIDS COUNT Data Book released last week details how children are faring in the United States and in each state based on thee most recent data on key trends in child well-being prior to the coronavirus pandemic. The KIDS COUNT index captures what children need most to thrive, using four domains: (1) Economic
On Monday, June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court struck down state laws that permitted discrimination in employment on the basis of sexual orientation. The decision was a powerful vote of 6 to 3 margin with the majority Supreme Court decision, written by Trump appointee Justice Neil Gorsuch. The dissent was written by Justice Samuel Alito