Latest news with #DemocraticMayors
Fox News
10 hours ago
- Politics
- Fox News
People living in the cities just want to be safe: John Ashbrook
'Ruthless Podcast' co-hosts Michael Duncan and John Ashbrook discuss the reaction from some Democratic big city mayors to President Donald Trump's federal takeover of Washington, D.C. on 'The Story.'
The Guardian
17 hours ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
National guard arrives in DC as mayors warn of Trump power grab
National guard troops began to arrive at their headquarters in Washington DC on Tuesday as Democratic mayors warned Donald Trump against expanding his law and order power grab in other major cities. The US president announced on Monday that he was sending the national guard into the nation's capital and putting city police under federal control, even though the violent crime rate is at a 30-year low. 'We have other cities also that are bad,' he told reporters, citing the Democratic strongholds of Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. 'And then, of course, you have Baltimore and Oakland. You don't even mention them anymore, they're so far gone.' Stephen Miller, an influential White House deputy chief of staff, stepped up the rhetoric on Tuesday, tweeting without evidence: 'Crime stats in big blue cities are fake. The real rates of crime, chaos & dysfunction are orders of magnitude higher. Everyone who lives in these areas knows this. They program their entire lives around it. Democrats are trying to unravel civilization. Pres Trump will save it.' All five cities named by Trump are run by Black mayors. Most were outspoken in denouncing the president's move. Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson said in a statement: 'Sending in the national guard would only serve to destabilize our city and undermine our public safety efforts.' Brandon Scott, the mayor of Baltimore, said: 'When it comes to public safety in Baltimore, he should turn off the right-wing propaganda and look at the facts. Baltimore is the safest it's been in over 50 years.' Barbara Lee, the mayor of Oakland, wrote on X: 'President Trump's characterization of Oakland is wrong and based in fear-mongering in an attempt to score cheap political points.' Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, where troops were sent earlier this month in a crackdown on protests, posted: 'Another experiment by the Administration, another power grab from local government. This is performative. This is a stunt. It always has been and always will be.' Trump took command of the Washington DC police department and deployed the national guard under laws and constitutional powers that give the federal government more sway over the nation's capital than other cities. But Democrats raised concerns that Washington DC could be a blueprint for similar strongarm tactics elsewhere. Christina Henderson, a Washington DC at-large councilmember, told CNN on Tuesday: 'I was listening to the president's press conference yesterday, and I think it should be concerning to all Americans that he talked about other cities. 'The District of Columbia, for decades, without statehood, has always been used as a petri dish, where Congress or the federal government is trying out ideas here. So, I would hope that folks don't lose sight of what's happening in the district. And even if they don't live here, they fight hard with us.' California governor Gavin Newsom warned that Trump 'will gaslight his way into militarising any city he wants in America'. JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, insisted that the president 'has absolutely no right and no legal ability to send troops into the city of Chicago, and so I reject that notion'. He added: 'You've seen that he doesn't follow the law. I have talked about the fact that the Nazis in Germany in the '30s tore down a constitutional republic in just 53 days. It does not take much, frankly, and we have a president who seems hell-bent on doing just that.'
Washington Post
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Mayors, doctor groups sue over Trump's efforts to restrict Obamacare enrollment
WASHINGTON — New Trump administration rules that give millions of people a shorter timeframe to sign up for the Affordable Care Act's health care coverage are facing a legal challenge from Democratic mayors around the country. The rules, rolled out last month, reverse a Biden-era effort to expand access to the Affordable Care Act's health insurance, commonly called 'Obamacare' or the ACA. The previous Democratic administration expanded the enrollment window for the coverage, which led to record enrollment.
Bloomberg
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Karen Bass' Response to ICE Is a Model for Democratic Mayors
For now, thousands of National Guard troops will remain on the streets of Los Angeles, following a federal appeals court ruling that found the violent behavior of some protesters had given President Donald Trump reason to deploy them. Trump, of course, immediately hailed the decision as a ' BIG WIN.' But in the court of public opinion, his plan to carry out mass deportations by militarizing more Democratic-run cities is already starting to lose public support — and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has had a lot to do with that. Bass, 71, has quietly leaned on her history of community organizing and coalition politics to redirect an angry populace toward more peaceful demonstrations. In doing so, she has helped build a model for resisting the administration's anti-immigrant agenda that, organizers tell me, is likely to be replicated by other Democratic mayors.
Fox News
22-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Broken cities, bad governance: Blue state city residents voting with their feet
On the surface, newly-released data from the Census Bureau looks to be good news for big cities. In the wake of the Covid panic that drove residents to the suburbs and beyond, city populations generally rebounded. "Cities of all sizes grew on average from 2023 to 2024," the Bureau reported. "Cities of all sizes, in all regions, showed faster growth and larger gains". The number – 94 percent of cities showing population growth – is impressive, overall. But a closer look tells another story – about some of the largest "blue" state cities, governed by Democratic mayors. New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Philadelphia continue to have lower populations than in 2020. New York City has had the largest drop – from 8.805 million to 8.478 million, or 3.7 percent. Philadelphia's population has fallen by 1.9 percent; Chicago's by 1 percent, and LA's by .5 percent. An even slightly-closer look at these cities' quality of life and affordability – factors that are the function of the effectiveness of their local governments – offers explanations for the trend. Housing costs in New York, according to the national tracking service RentCafe, are 21.8 percent higher than the national average – despite the fact that the city has more price-regulated and public housing than any other. Low turnover rates in the nearly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments help drive up the price of the remaining market-rate housing, as city residents play a costly game of housing musical chairs, with those not able to get apartments priced artificially low forced to pay more. Where is housing cheaper? Look to Houston, which has gained 3.9 percent in population. Its housing costs are the mirror image of New York City's – 21 percent lower than the national average. Not surprisingly, Houston's population, per the Census, is 3.9 percent higher than it was in 2020. To explain Chicago's population loss, look to its crime rate. The Windy City last year led the nation in murders – 653 – almost twice the number of Baltimore, the city with the second-highest number. Instances of gang violence have spread from the low-income South Side to the "miracle mile" of downtown's Michigan Avenue. Yet for the privilege of being subjected to high crime, Chicagoans have paid more and more – and more – in property taxes. As the civic group Chicago Federation reports, between 2014 and 2024, Chicago increased its property taxes by $2.7 billion, or 53.3 percent, compared to an inflation rate of 35 percent. The separate property tax levied by the Chicago Public School (CPS) district, increased $1.4 billion, from $2.4 to $3.8 billion. Yet, according to the Illinois Policy Institute, "in spring 2024, 30.5% of CPS students in third through eighth grade met proficiency standards in reading and 18.3% were proficient in math." A 2022 report found that, in 55 Chicago public schools, zero percent of students were proficient in either. Los Angeles, another population loser, stands out on another measure: street homelessness, as exemplified by the tent encampments in its Skid Row area. The city's 71,000 homeless constitute, per the Brookings Institution, 670 for every 100,000 residents. Even more notably, 70 percent of LA's homeless, some 472 per 100K are "unsheltered", higher than any major city except San Jose—which is also among the few cities with lower populations than in 2020. It's no wonder that California Governor Gavin Newsom, with his eye on higher office, has moved to ban street encampments in the state. The other population-losing cities have their own versions of the same stories. Philadelphia ranks among the homelessness leaders, with 18 percent of the homeless among the "unsheltered", the highest number among cities in the Northeast. The unsheltered homeless rate in San Jose, down 1.6 percent in population, stands at 77 percent, the nation's highest. It's fair to argue that the combination of mild weather and air-conditioning, over the long term, has lured Americans from the Northeast and Midwest to the Sunbelt. But the new Census data shines a light on what's happening right now, as cities even in California as well as the Rust Belt and the Northeast, fail to recover their pre-Covid population levels. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that ineffective governance has played a role; crime and homelessness, high tax levels and poor-performing public schools are not magnets to draw back former residents or draw in new ones. The fact that all the population-losing cities are run by Democratic mayors helped Donald Trump win the popular vote; even in New York City he ran better than he had in 2020. Cities can be the engines of economic innovation and prosperity. But not if local government fails to provide effective essential services. Americans have given a negative Census report card on just those services, delivered to some of our largest cities.
