Executive Branch

There’s no reason for Maloney to wield power or influence over federal politics for the foreseeable future, and certainly no reason to promote him to Labor Secretary.

In all, these look like the moves of a White House trying to endear itself to big business, now that the Democratic trifecta is gone.

In a Judiciary Committee hearing last Thursday, Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) seemed to assert that Casey T. Arrowood, President Biden’s initial pick for US Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, would not be renominated in the new session of Congress.

President Joe Biden’s second State of the Union address is next Tuesday. Amid an uprising sparked by yet another horrific video of police violence, deep uncertainty about U.S. fiscal and monetary policy, and continuing wars and threats around the world, the nation — or at least, the politics junkies in the nation — will gather to hear the President lay out his agenda to a Congress absolutely no one reasonably expects will deliver on it, or likely even take it all that seriously.

It’s only natural to infer that Sylvia Burwell would bring Rubin’s values and vision back to the NEC, if given the job.

Zients owes his entire public-policy career to his corporate worldview and connections, which have remained strikingly consistent for over a decade—exactly in keeping with his pre-government history.

Watered-down White House tenant protection measures are a victory for big real estate and private equity lobbyists.

It was a slow fall for independent agency nominations as Senators left chambers for their campaigns and the Biden administration stood paralyzed in anticipation of the midterm Red Wave That Wasn’t. 

As a businessman, Jeffrey Zients embodied much of the corporate misconduct the executive branch ought to be cracking down on.

Pete Buttigieg’s personnel choices were certainly a factor.

We spent October highlighting the perpetual underfunding of most federal departments and agencies, and urging Congress and the Biden administration to use December’s omnibus bill to finally provide them with the money and resources they need. Sadly, while appropriations did increase for FY2023, budgets consistently fell short of what agencies requested. The most jarring example may be the Department of Housing and Development (HUD), whose budget is a whopping $16 billion shy of the requested $77.8 billion. Biden recently announced his goal to cut homelessness by 25 percent in the next two years, but it’s hard to see how even this meager goal will be achieved without a fully funded HUD.

Organizations from at least 20 states signed on, including  states which receive their power from the TVA, such as Tennessee, Alabama, Kentucky, and North Carolina.

As 2022 ends and 2023 begins with record-breaking winter heat blanketing Europe and much of the south and north-eastern United States—68°F and humid in DC, in January!—climate change is in the air, if not on the legislative agenda. We expect that much of the hard-won climate progress in the next year will be in executive branch implementation and regulation, alongside state-level legislation and court cases.