In the News
Often the most critical parts of major legislation are the most boring. For those of us working to bring government into the digital age, the bipartisan 21st Century Integrated Digital Experience Act, known as the 21st Century IDEA Act, is an incredibly important piece of legislation which gets the big things right. Its downside is that it's not boring enough.
It's no secret that the situation in Yemen is grim. The numbers are repeated in press reports and diplomatic statements ad nauseam: likely tens of thousands of civilian casualties; more than a million cases of cholera over the past year; 8 million people in danger of facing starvation, 5 million of them children; 22 million in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. Civilians are getting blown up at weddings, at funerals, while fishing. They're selling organs to make ends meet and cooking tree leaves to survive. It's "the world's worst humanitarian crisis."
Google, Facebook Inc. and other online companies can expect greater scrutiny and possibly legislation from a Democratic-led Congress, a Silicon Valley lawmaker close to the party leadership said.
Representative Ro Khanna, whose California district is home to companies including Apple Inc. and Intel Corp., said in an interview that episodes like the leak of Facebook users' data to Cambridge Analytica and last year's breach of consumer information by Equifax Inc. had amounted to a "wake-up call" that rules are needed.
If Democrats win the House of Representatives in November, they'll be pushing for sweeping consumer privacy protections, including making it so you'd have to opt in to data collection and also ensuring net neutrality.
The so-called Internet Bill of Rights was drafted by Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat who represents Silicon Valley. Rather than a bill, for now it's simply a list of 10 principles that Khanna hopes will become part of a comprehensive legislative package that could be voted on next year.
With Democrats expecting to take back the House in November, party leadership has been quietly assembling a laundry list of policies they intend to highlight—and investigations they plan to launch—as soon as the speaker's gavel is handed back to Nancy Pelosi. Most seem designed to make Donald Trump's life hell, such as issuing subpoenas for his tax returns, or for records related to his botched hurricane response in Puerto Rico. But Democrats are also circling legislation that could help rebrand the party, and bolster their political position, ahead of the 2020 election.
By July 2019, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) aims to see the House of Representatives pass landmark legislation shielding consumers from the onslaught of data breaches and the anxiety and confusion over the misuse of their personal information on the Web.
To nudge such legislation along, Khanna recently unveiled a list of 10 principles amounting to a draft Internet Bill of Rights he hopes will inform sweeping data privacy laws to protect U.S. citizens in the digital age.
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) wants some credit for Amazon's new company-wide policy to hike its minimum wage to $15.
The progressive congressman representing California's 17th district has sponsored a House bill to complement Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-VT) "Stop BEZOS Act." Khanna said Tuesday in an interview on Cheddar he thinks his legislation applied more pressure to Amazon ($AMZN), which was already under scrutiny for the working conditions of its factory employees.
"It's a major, major victory," Khanna said. "I think [Bezos] has really set the bar."
Two progressive lawmakers are lauding Amazon's decision to raise the wage of its lowest-paid employees to $15 an hour following pressure on the company to pay its workers more.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who had criticized Amazon for low wages, both praised the company's CEO Jeff Bezos on Tuesday following the announcement.
"I'm very glad that [Bezos] took this action. He deserves a lot of credit," Khanna told The Hill. "This is going to not just put money in the pocket for Amazon employees, but also set the bar for other retailers to follow."
Democrats are pledging to rein in or reverse President Trump's defense agenda if they take back Congress in November.
From seeking to ensure that transgender troops can continue to serve to blocking the administration from building low-yield nuclear weapons, Democrats have in their sights several moves Trump made in his first two years in office.
One of the most popular policy ideas to reduce rising inequality and automated job loss is the expansion of the government's current wage subsidy program, the Earned Income Tax Credit. I recently advised one member of Congress, Ro Khanna, on a bill to massively increase the EITC, and increase its payout to $3,000-6,000 per year at a cost of $1.4T over a decade.
But, how would the government afford such a large expansion? And, how much would this method of payment hurt economic or job growth?