About 1 in 3 Californians are signed up with the beleaguered Medi-Cal program, which is intended for low-income residents
Published: March 26, 2015 Updated: 2:57 p.m.
I spend the majority of my time (and space) writing about the new state health insurance exchange, Covered California.
But the behemoth in California’s Affordable Care Act implementation is Medi-Cal, the state’s decades-old version of the federal Medicaid program, which provides publicly funded insurance to low-income residents.
About 12 million Californians are in Medi-Cal now. That’s roughly one in three state residents. By comparison, about 1.4 million Californians are enrolled in Covered California.
Given its size, Medi-Cal’s annual renewal process is now one of its greatest challenges.
Last year’s process was new, messy and confusing, and many Californians – we’re not being told how many – got dropped from the program.
This year, Medi-Cal has changed the process again. Already, people are complaining that they’re getting dropped when they shouldn’t be.
Q: I never received the Medi-Cal renewal application but I just got a notice saying I’m getting kicked off because I didn’t turn it in. What should I do?
A: Michael Gong, an Oakland graduate student, joined Medi-Cal last year when California expanded Medi-Cal eligibility (through the Affordable Care Act) to childless adults and those with higher incomes than before.
Under the new rules, individuals and families earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level can qualify. This year, that equates to about $16,200 for a single adult.
When Gong received the letter in late January saying he was going to be dropped, he began a month-long quest to get reinstated.
He submitted his renewal materials, which is allowed within a grace period. But in response, he received another termination letter in mid-February saying that he can’t be in Medi-Cal because he’s not a California resident.
(Whether or not you think Oakland belongs in California, it is generally accepted to be within our borders.)
At that point, he and his mother, Judyth Collin, made dozens of unanswered calls to county workers, (county workers process Medi-Cal applications and determine eligibility) and visited county offices.
Finally, Collin reached a supervisor by phone who helped Gong get back on Medi-Cal in early March, she says.
Gong’s problems aren’t isolated.
“We’re hearing from people who have been cut off who have turned in their forms,” says Jen Flory, senior attorney at the Western Center on Law and Poverty. “And we’re hearing from people who are trying to contact their county workers and are having trouble getting through.”
Theoretically, this year’s renewal process should be easier than last year’s. If you enrolled in Medi-Cal or completed renewal forms last year and your county can determine that your eligibility hasn’t changed, you should receive a letter this year confirming your enrollment for another year.
“For the first time, we’re not sending out an enormous blank packet for people to fill out,” says Cathy Senderling-McDonald, deputy executive director of the County Welfare Directors Association.
Some people may not qualify for auto-renewal and will receive a notice that requests additional information, such as proof of income or state residency. If you receive that, you will have at least 30 days to respond, she says.
Roughly 1 million Californians will be asked to renew each month, according to the state Department of Health Care Services, which administers Medi-Cal at the state level.
The stakes are high, but it’s hard to gauge the impact because Medi-Cal officials decline to say how many people have been dropped from the program as a result of the renewal process this year and last.
Published: March 26, 2015 Updated: 2:57 p.m.
“These data are not available currently,” says Tony Cava of DHCS.
Here’s my advice: If you’re in Gong’s situation and get a termination notice because you didn’t submit renewal information – whether or not it was your fault – get the paperwork in as soon as possible.
You have 90 days from the date of termination to submit that information. If you do and you’re still eligible for the program, you will be reinstated retroactive to the date you were kicked out, Flory says.
Next, reach out to your county case worker. I know, easier said than done.
The roughly 15,000 county workers dedicated to Medi-Cal are overwhelmed. They’re juggling an onslaught of new applications, the renewal process (some of last year’s load was pushed into this year), plus persistent computer problems.
For instance, the state computer system won’t allow county workers to deny applications themselves or drop people who are ineligible, Senderling-McDonald says. Which leads to backlogs and mistakes.
“There’s a lot of manual work that counties are still doing to get around the issues in the computer system,” she says.
But there’s hope. The state is working on the technical problems. By July, county workers are scheduled to have the ability to deny applications on their own, Senderling-McDonald says.
There’s also $150 million in the current-year state budget to beef up county Medi-Cal resources, including money for overtime pay, she says.
Until things get better:
�• Don’t ignore letters you receive from Medi-Cal. Because the forms are changing, your annual renewal probably won’t look like it has in the past.
�• Ask for a supervisor if you’re having trouble reaching someone at your county human services agency. Be persistent.
�• Request an eligibility hearing by calling 800-952-5253 if you receive a notice that you’ll be losing your benefits. Doing this will flag your case for attention and it may get resolved before your hearing date.
The CHCF Center for Health Reporting partners with news organizations to cover California health policy. Located at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, it is funded by the nonpartisan California HealthCare Foundation.
I keep wrestling with this question. Before Elizabeth Warren's interview in January in Forbes Magazine, I thought the odds she would run were 50/50. While she kept saying she was not running for president, she stopped short of saying she wouldn't. It was clear to me that she knew what reporters were trying to get her to say, but she refused. She has also been acting like a candidate for president, as she did when she joined Joe Biden, Jim Webb, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley at the International Association of Firefighters Legislative Conference & Presidential Forum on Monday, March 9th.
It is true, she has not done the traditional things a presidential candidate would have done by now. She has not formed a presidential exploratory committee she could use to start raising funds. She has not hired any staff yet. But does she have to? In 2015 the game has changed.
There is a larger campaign for her on the ground in Iowa and New Hampshire than there is for any other prospective candidate. In Iowa there is a staff of eight that includes a state director, four regional field directors, and three campus organizers. There are two offices in Iowa, one in Cedar Rapids and one in Des Moines. The state field director, Blair Lawton, was a regional field director in Iowa for Obama in 2012. There is staff on the three major university campuses, Drake University, University of Iowa, and Iowa State. They are holding visibility events (even in zero-degree weather) and what they are calling "emergency caucus meetings." Phone banking and outreach to past caucus-goers is under way.
In New Hampshire, the state director and veteran organizer Kurt Ehrenberg was most recently legislative and political director for the New Hampshire AFL-CIO, and previously served for seven years as the Sierra Club's representative in New Hampshire and the other New England states.
Most prospective candidates are polling in single digits. Warren, despite saying she isn't running, is polling at 19%. That is a strong number. Obama had already declared by this time in 2007 and had surged to 25% in the polls. Warren has not declared and is already close to 25%.
Nate Cohn of The New York Times wrote a thoughtful piece March 10th arguing that Warren could not build the kind of coalition that Obama built. He argued that she would not get beyond the traditional liberal/progressive base that supported past candidates that fell short.
I think he is dead wrong. None of the candidates he mentioned -- Bill Bradley, Gary Heart, Paul Tsongas, or Jerry Brown -- had the populist message of Elizabeth Warren. Only Brown had any outsider appeal.
Cohn said there is no hot-button issue like the war in Iraq for Warren to capitalize on. I believe there are issues that Warren champions that a candidate who people believe is genuine can ride to victory.
Income Inequality
Even the Republicans are talking about income inequality in their speeches. Their solution is the same old entitlement reform, meaning Social Security, Medicare, Welfare, and every other social program being cut. Elizabeth Warren has credibility on this issue. She has been talking about how the system is rigged for the wealthy since she emerged on the political scene. She is ready to fight, and only one other candidate has the credibility on the issue that she has: Bernie Sanders, who despite actively campaigning can't get out of single digits in the polls. I always hear the same thing when talking to progressives here in Iowa, including "Run Warren Run" supporters: "Bernie is great but most people are not going to vote for a Socialist."
If Warren doesn't run and Bernie does, he will do a fantastic job of raising the issues, and I would love to see a groundswell of support. Sanders may even be better than Warren on some issues, but Warren has struck a nerve with the American people that Bernie hasn't.
Student Loan Debt
Elizabeth Warren: "Rising student-loan debt is an economic emergency. Forty million people are dealing with $1.2 trillion in outstanding student debt. It's stopping young people from buying homes, from buying cars and from starting small businesses. We need to take action."
In my opinion she has to go further than she has so far on this issue. I understand that she is trying to take action in the Senate that is achievable and knows the votes are not there for free college education for all. Her leadership on the issue has not gone unnoticed, and despite her age, I think young people would return to the polls for a Warren candidacy. She has fought to lower interest rates, to allow the current debt to be refinanced at lower interest rates. I would think that a candidate Warren would have bolder proposals and, because she has already fought so hard, would have credibility on the issue.
Elizabeth Warren: "Today, if a Wall Street bank goes out and makes the wildest bet on earth, it will keep the profits if the bet pays off and you and I and millions of other American taxpayers could be on the hook if the bet falls short. But if a family gets into trouble, if a family loses a job, if they've been tricked into some crazy payment scheme or if someone in the household has gotten sick, the answer is that you are on your own. The same is true for small businesses -- you are on your own. Those are the rules we're operating under, and those rules are wrong."
This is her appeal. She articulates better than any other politician what so many people in America are feeling. When Elizabeth Warren talks about injustice people believe her. When Jeb Bush talks about it people are skeptical.
Trade
There is a huge opening here for any candidate who is not Clinton. All of the Republicans are free-traders, and so is Hillary. Labor has got to be searching for a way to find someone who can win the White House who is not for more trade deals that will ship jobs overseas. O'Malley, Webb, and Sanders will try to fill this void, but would labor be wise to back a candidate who hasn't shown that they have what it takes to win?
The TPP will likely be signed by President Obama before he leaves office. If it isn't, Hillary or any Republican would likely sign it. In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Elizabeth Warren blasted a provision in the deal called the investor-state dispute settlement mechanism, an independent, international court with the power to force the U.S. government and American corporations to abide by its rulings. "The name may sound a little wonky, but this is a powerful provision that would fundamentally tilt the playing field further in favor of multinational corporations. Worse yet, it would undermine U.S. sovereignty," said Warren. On the same day, the AFL-CIO announced plans to freeze political contributions to Democratic lawmakers who support fast-track trade authority for Obama. Hillary Clinton supports the trade deal.
Nate Cohn is right: Elizabeth Warren can't build Obama's coalition, but she can build a different coalition, a coalition that is fed up with the rigged system. She won't need 80% of the African American vote to win the nomination. There are plenty of white voters who are fed up with the different rules for those at the top.
Hillary Clinton leads the polls and is the favorite to become the next president of the United States. There is no doubt she would make a better president than anyone in the GOP field. Not being a career politician, I believe Warren needs convincing that she is up to the task. The American people are looking for a champion who has not been a career politician, that is part of her appeal.
I believe that every time Warren says no, it is because she doesn't want to run for president. Hillary, Bernie, Jeb, and the rest want to be president. Elizabeth Warren may not want the job. When someone is appointed to direct a recovery project after a national disaster, it is a job they wish they didn't have to do. If Elizabeth Warren realizes that her country needs her to lead, she might just just answer the call.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
By Sean CaptainAt long last, the Federal Communications Commission has released the full version of the net neutrality rules it approved (3 to 2) on Feb. 26 — all 400 pages of them. The first few pages contain no surprises for anyone who has been following the issue at all. They include rules against blocking and slowing Internet traffic and ban "fast lanes" for content providers who pay for better access, among other things.
But devils and angels are in the details. For example, Netflix still has to pay for a fast connection to your ISP, and now the FCC has some responsibility for your online privacy. Here are five lesser-known parts of the FCC net neutrality regulations that directly affect you. Except for a few exceptions, these rules apply equally to wired ISPs (such as Comcast) and wireless ISPs (like T-Mobile).
1. Netflix still has to pay for a fast connection to your ISP
The FCC said that its expertise is in what happens inside an ISP, not in what happens when ISPs connect to the larger "backbone" companies that link ISPs around the world. But the so-called interconnections could be the next battleground for net neutrality.
In May 2014, an executive at mega-backbone-provider Level 3 asserted that five American ISPs and one European ISP were deliberately maintaining poor, outdated connections to Level 3, creating artificial congestion for Internet traffic coming into the network.
To get around such congestion into an ISP, real or manufactured, Netflix and other content companies are building their own direct connections into Comcast, Verizon and other ISPs. Essentially, Netflix has built its own small piece of the Internet backbone, just for Netflix. In essence, Netflix is picking up the cost of getting content into your ISP, but you are are still paying full freight.
Today's regulations don't directly address any chokeholds or discrimination upstream that ISPs might provide at the interconnections. But the rules do set up a complaint process so content providers like can challenge ISPs in hearings before the FCC.
2. The government has no say over your broadband bills.
Lots of people complain about high fees for their Internet service, including wireless plans, but the FCC won't help those individuals out. Despite charges by opponents of net neutrality that the FCC would oversee rates for Internet access the way governments do for utilities like electricity or water, the FCC's plan clearly refutes that. "We expressly eschew the future use of prescriptive, industry-wide rate regulation," states the document.
3. ISPs have to reveal nearly every detail of plans and pricing.
This is not new, per se, but the FCC has strengthened its authority under its transparency requirement to make sure you know everything about an ISP. Here are the major categories of information that ISPs must release:
Price: full monthly service charge, promotional rates, how long the promotions last and what the rate goes up to after the promotion expires.
Other fees: one-time or recurring fees, such as modem rental fees, installation fees, service charges and early termination fees.
Data caps and allowances: any restrictions on how much data you can use and what happens if you exceed that limit, such as extra charges or loss of service.
Performance: ISPs have to reveal real access speeds, latency (how long it takes packets to arrive) and if the service works for real-time applications (such as Skype). This requirement extends to specific technologies. If AT&T or Verizon claims the country's fastest LTE network, the company needs proof.
4. Your school or café isn't covered by the rules.
The FCC specified that its net neutrality rules do not apply to locations that provide Internet access — such as coffee shops, bookstores, airlines, libraries and universities — affirming a policy it's had for years. Net neutrality rules protect "end users," which these locations are. The regulations say nothing about how those end users dole out service, whether it's free or paid, to others.
5. The FCC now has (some) authority over online privacy
Private data is leaking all over the place, from health care companies like Anthem to banks like Citibank and stores like Target. Now the FCC will keep an eye on how data is collected and stored by ISPs, using a legal provision called Section 222 within Title II of the Communications Act. (Title II is the basis for the FCC's new authority over ISPs.)
As the regulations state, "Among other things, section 222 imposes a duty on every telecommunications carrier to take reasonable precautions to protect the confidentiality of its customers' proprietary information." As an example of a violation, the FCC referenced an action it took against two companies that stored unencrypted customer information on publicly accessible servers.
The FCC's new powers won't prevent the NSA or FBI from snooping on you. Requests by law enforcement are exempt from the privacy regulations, but the rules could affect the dossier that Time Warner Cable or AT&T can keep on your online activities.
FILE - In the March 10, 2015 file photo, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the reporters at United Nations headquarters. The Associated Press filed a lawsuit Wednesday against... (Associated Press)
By STEVE PEOPLES | ASSOCIATED PRESS |
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Associated Press filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the State Department to force the release of email correspondence and government documents from Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as secretary of state.
The legal action comes after repeated requests filed under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act have gone unfulfilled. They include one request AP made five years ago and others pending since the summer of 2013.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, comes a day after Clinton broke her silence about her use of a private email account while secretary of state. The FOIA requests and lawsuit seek materials related to her public and private calendars, correspondence involving longtime aides likely to play key roles in her expected campaign for president, and Clinton-related emails about the Osama bin Laden raid and National Security Agency surveillance practices.
"After careful deliberation and exhausting our other options, The Associated Press is taking the necessary legal steps to gain access to these important documents, which will shed light on actions by the State Department and former Secretary Clinton, a presumptive 2016 presidential candidate, during some of the most significant issues of our time," said Karen Kaiser, AP's general counsel.
Said AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, "The Freedom of Information Act exists to give citizens a clear view of what government officials are doing on their behalf. When that view is denied, the next resort is the courts."
State Department spokesman Alec Gerlach declined to comment. He had previously cited the department's heavy annual load of FOIA requests — 19,000 last year — in saying that the department "does its best to meet its FOIA responsibilities." He said the department takes requests "first in, first out," but noted that timing depends on "the complexity of the request."
Carroll said the AP intends to file additional requests using FOIA and other tools following the disclosure last week that Clinton used a private email account run on a server on her property outside New York while working at the State Department.
Clinton on Tuesday said she sent and received about 60,000 emails from her personal email address in her four years as President Barack Obama's secretary of state. She said roughly half were work-related, which she turned over to the State Department, while deleting tens of thousands more that were personal in nature.
The department says it will take several months to review the material Clinton turned over last year. Once the review is complete, the department said, the emails will be posted online.
The AP had sought Clinton-related correspondence before her use of a personal email account was publicly known, although Wednesday's court filing alleges that the State Department is responsible for including emails from that account in any public records request.
"State's failure to ensure that Secretary Clinton's governmental emails were retained and preserved by the agency, and its failure timely to seek out and search those emails in response to AP's requests, indicate at the very least that State has not engaged in the diligent, good-faith search that FOIA requires," says AP's legal filing.
Specifically, AP is seeking copies of Clinton's full schedules and calendars from her four years as secretary of state; documents related to her department's decision to grant a special position to longtime aide Huma Abedin; related correspondence from longtime advisers Philippe Reines and Cheryl Mills, who, like Abedin, are likely to play central roles in a Clinton presidential campaign; documents related to Clinton's and the agency's roles in the Osama bin Laden raid and National Security Agency surveillance practices; and documents related to her role overseeing a major Defense Department contractor.
The AP made most of its requests in the summer of 2013, although one was filed in March 2010. AP is also seeking attorney's fees related to the lawsuit.
Other organizations have also sued the State Department recently after lengthy delays responding to public record requests.
In December, the conservative political advocacy group Citizens United sued the State Department for failing to disclose flight records showing who accompanied Clinton on overseas trips. Last week, the National Security Archive, an organization that gathers declassified government records, filed a lawsuit after waiting more than seven years for the State Department to release of details of former secretary of state Henry Kissinger's telephone conversations.
Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, predicted the State Department would speed up its review facing legal action, particularly given that Clinton has said that her email correspondence doesn't include classified material.
"When the government is under a court deadline, or really wants to review, they can whip through thousands of pages in a matter of weeks, which they should do here," Blanton said.
The State Department generally takes about 450 days to turn over records it considers to be part of complex requests under the Freedom of Information Act. That is seven times longer than the Justice Department and CIA, and 30 times longer than the Treasury Department.
An inspector general's report in 2012 criticized the State Department's practices as "inefficient and ineffective," citing a heavy workload, small staff and interagency problems.
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Follow Steve Peoples on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/sppeoples
from nytimes By MANNY FERNANDEZ and RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑAMARCH 10, 2015
NORMAN, Okla. — Officials with theUniversity of Oklahoma here on Tuesday expelled two students they had identified as playing a leading role in singing a racist chant on a busover the weekend that has sparked outrage across the country.
The university’s president, David L. Boren, a former Oklahoma governor, expelled the two students but did not identify them, saying in a statement that they had “created a hostile learning environment for others.”
Mr. Boren said the university was continuing its investigation of all the students involved in singing the chant, and that once the identities of other students had been confirmed, “they will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action.”
The expulsion letter to the students states that the action takes effect immediately and that they can contact the university’s Equal Opportunity Officer to contest the decision.
The campus here has been reeling since members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon were shown in two videos chanting a song whose lyrics included racial slurs boasting that there would never be an African-American member and referring to lynching, with the words, “you can hang ‘em from a tree.”
A protest was held on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman after a video was posted online appearing to show members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity singing an antiblack chant.
Publish DateMarch 9, 2015. Photo by Bijan Hosseini.
The university’s president as well as the fraternity’s national headquarters in Illinois shut the chapter after the first video was released on Sunday, and university officials severed all ties to it on Monday. The fraternity’s house was ordered closed by midnight Tuesday and the national fraternity suspended all of the members.
The video has also left the national headquarters of Sigma Alpha Epsilon defending itself against claims that the racist song has been used for years, not just at Oklahoma but on other campuses as well.
Former fraternity members in other states have claimed on social media that the same chant was used at their colleges, and University of Oklahoma officials who are investigating said they do not believe the song originated on their campus.
“I’m not sure that it’s strictly local,” Mr. Boren said.
One Oklahoma student told NBC News that she heard fraternity members chant the same song two years ago while on a bus to a fraternity party. “I would definitely say this is not an isolated incident,” said the senior, who had asked not to be identified.
The Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter at Oklahoma has had black members, but very few, and none recently, according to alumni. William Blake James II wrote on his blog that when he joined in 2001, he was only the second black member, “and there still hasn’t been a third black man” and some of his former fraternity brothers, writing on Facebook, supported that account.
“I don’t want to be angry, but I can’t help but feel grieved,” Mr. James said in an interview with a local television station, KFOR. “I feel like I’ve lost a family member.”
In a statement, the fraternity’s national headquarters said it was investigating several other incidents involving other chapters and members, but did not elaborate. “Some reports have alleged that the racist chant in the video is part of a Sigma Alpha Epsilon tradition, which is completely false,” the fraternity said in the statement. “The fraternity has a number of songs that have been in existence for more than a century, but the chant is in no way endorsed by the organization nor part of any education whatsoever.”
The fallout continued to reverberate far from the University of Oklahoma campus. One of the nation’s most sought-after high school football players, Jean Delance of Mesquite, Tex., who is black,withdrew his previous commitment to play for Oklahoma, citing the videos.
On Tuesday morning in Norman, a U-Haul truck sat in the parking lot of the fraternity’s beige-brick house. The Greek letters have been removed from a wall, and someone spray-painted “Tear It D,” apparently for “tear it down.”
Mark Zachary, 54, pulled his truck into the lot and went inside. Mr. Zachary was a member of the fraternity when he was a student at Oklahoma State University in the late 1970s, and he said he had asked the members if they needed help in moving. They declined his offer, he said.
“These guys messed up real bad, and I think they know they have,” Mr. Zachary said, adding that the house was barren and the students were quiet. “Everybody’s sick to their stomach. The guys that actually did the chanting, trust me, they feel worse than anybody in the country right now.”
The videos were recorded on Saturday night as members of Sigma Alpha Epsilon and their dates rode on a bus to a formal event celebrating the national fraternity’s Founders Day. The fraternity was founded on March 9, 1856, in Tuscaloosa, Ala. It celebrates that Southern heritage in its online magazine, The Record, describing a recent initiative “to bring Sigma Alpha Epsilon closer to its antebellum roots, closer to the original experience and goals shared by the Founding Fathers.”
To the north, in Stillwater, the Oklahoma State University student newspaper published pictures of a Confederate flag that was visible in the room of a Sigma Alpha Epsilon member at the fraternity’s house there over the weekend. The chapter’s president told the newspaper, The O’Colly, that the Confederate flag had never been a symbol of the fraternity and that he and other chapter leaders asked the student to remove the flag.
In its statement, the national Sigma Alpha Epsilon denied that it was in any way a racist organization.
“This type of racist behavior will not be tolerated and is not consistent with the values and morals of our fraternity,” the statement read, referring to the Oklahoma chant. “We have more than 15,000 collegiate members across the nation, and this incident should not reflect on other brothers because this type of hateful action is not what Sigma Alpha Epsilon stands for. This is absolutely not who we are.”
But the song is not the first time a Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter has been involved in a racially charged episode. The fraternity’s chapters at universities across the country have faced sanctions or have been forced to participate in cultural awareness programs over their members’ use of racial slurs and their roles in theatrics deemed offensive to African-Americans. Since the 1980s, there have been at least 10 such episodes.
In 1982, the University of Cincinnati issued a two-year suspension on its Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter after members held a “trash party” on the eve of the holiday honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and passed out fliers encouraging revelers to bring canceled welfare checks and “a radio bigger than your head.” The editor of the college newspaper said the flier also listed a Ku Klux Klan hood and a portrait of James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Dr. King.
In 1992, Texas A&M University fined its Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter and put it on probation after it held a “jungle fever” party, where pledges in blackface and grass skirts were chased by members dressed in safari gear. The university fined the chapter $1,000 and canceled all sorority mixers the following spring and fall semesters. The chapter’s president apologized, but denied claims that members had used racial slurs and were portraying African slave hunts.
In 2006, the University of Memphis called for a temporary suspension of its Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter after members made derogatory racial remarks about the black girlfriend of a white fraternity member. The national fraternity suspended two of the college’s members for making comments that “were inappropriate and unbecoming,” a spokesman said.
Former secretary of labor Robert Reich says Hillary Clinton should face “a tough primary challenger” and he knows who he would like to see mount a run against the presumed Democratic front-runner.
“I wish that challenger would be Elizabeth Warren,” Reich explained Friday, in a short statement that has energized supporters of a burgeoning movement to draft the senator from Massachusetts as a populist alternative to Clinton.
Battered in recent days by revelations about her use of a private e-mail account when she served as the Obama administration’s secretary of state, and by reports of foreign donationsto the Clinton Foundation, Hillary Clinton has been scrambling to retain the presumption of inevitability that has framed her potential candidacy.
Reich is not suggesting that the controversies will necessarily derail Clinton, who is well ahead in the polls. Rather, as an ardent advocate for a progressive populist response to the crisis of income inequality, he is arguing affirmatively in a Facebook post for the logic of a Warren run.
Reich has always spokenwell of Warren, with whom he shares many positions. They haveworked together. And he has spoken about the prospect that she might might challenge Clinton. But this is more than just an expression of ideological sympathy, and more than punditry. This is a former Bill Clinton cabinet member saying, specifically, that he hopes Warren will run.
Coming as the current Clinton controversies are grabbing headlines, Reich’s move is going to garner attention.
Reich knows this. He is a savvy veteran of the political fights of the past four decades (who has campaigned for many Democrats, advised many more and once sought the Democratic nod for governor of Massachusetts). He is an important figure on the left of the Democratic Party. And he has a following—indeed, there has been soft speculation about the prospect that Reich, himself, might be a presidential prospect.
With all of this is mind, here’s how Reich frames his intervention in the current discussion about 2016:
I’ve been getting lots of calls from reporters wanting to know if Democrats should have a “plan B” if Hillary’s candidacy implodes. I tell them (1) it’s still way too early (there’s not even a plan A because she hasn’t yet declared, and it’s more than a year and a half before Election Day anyway), (2) if she runs the odds of her imploding are very low; she’s been through all this three times before (once as a candidate and twice as Bill Clinton’s de facto campaign manager) and will be a strong candidate, (3) but it would be good for the Democrats and the country—and good for her (it will make her an even stronger candidate)—to have a tough primary challenger, and (4) I wish that challenger would be Elizabeth Warren.
Reich’s statement was seized on by backers of the movement to draft Warren, who noted that barely a month ago Politico reported that Clinton’s aides were were seeking Reich’s backing as part of an effort to increase her appeal among progressives.
“One component of Hillary Clinton’s emerging strategy involves quietly but aggressively courting key endorsers from the left, who could help increase progressives’ comfort level and take the wind out of a potential challenge,” read the Politico report. “Two top targets: Robert Reich, the economist and former labor secretary in her husband’s administration, and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), the civil rights icon.”
Lewis said several years ago, when discussing the possibility of a Clinton 2016 run, “I won’t make an endorsement, but I will say this: If she makes a decision to run, I would be with her.” Of course, it can be noted that, in 2008, the Georgia congressman initially endorsed Hillary Clinton and then switched to Barack Obama.
Because of his long history with the Clintons, Reich has often been portrayed as a Clinton ally. But now he’s talking up Warren.
And “Draft Warren” campaigners say he is not alone.
Neil Sroka of Democracy for America, a group that has highlighted Reich’s work to address income inequality, noted Friday that “Reich’s comments are very much in line with what we’re hearing from many who are backing the Draft Warren effort.”
