1. School reopenings in 1918
2. U.S. Senate committee approves REINS Act
3. Oil and gas ballot measures won't appear on Colorado ballot

School reopenings in 1918

As the beginning of the school year approaches, we’re bringing you updates on the status of public school reopening plans by state.  We provide detailed information about these plans in both our Coronavirus Weekly Update and Documenting America’s Path to Recovery newsletters. 

As the pandemic has unfolded, we’ve been interested in its historical context of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. Earlier this year, we focused our look back on how elections were handled during that cycle. With all of the attention lately on schools, we thought it would be interesting to dig a bit into how schools were handled in 1918. Here’s an excerpt from last Thursday’s weekly update newsletter discussing how Alabama handled school reopenings in 1918:

On Oct. 30, The Birmingham News reported that Alabama schools would be reopening soon, after having been closed for a number of weeks in response to the influenza pandemic.

“Practically all schools of the State will reopen Monday after having been closed for several weeks on account of the influenza epidemic, according to State Superintendent of Education Spright Dowell, who passed through Birmingham Wednesday en route to Colbert County. 

Mr. Dowel said that the influenza had caused closing of all schools in the State except in four or five counties. However, no time would be lost as the teachers have been doing their State reading circle work. He gave several different ways in which the time would be made up by the pupils. One of the most practical, he suggested, would be to teach one hour later in the afternoons, do some work on Saturday and cut the holiday time down usually taken for Christmas. One county, he said, instead of taking 10 days for Christmas holidays as is the custom, would only take two days this year.”

Click here to read the original article, courtesy of the University of Michigan Center for the History of Medicine and Michigan Publishing's Influenza Encyclopedia.

Speaking of school reopenings, we asked you on Friday about how closely you’ve been following the school reopening plans in your area. Here are the results:

Find out the status of your state’s reopening plan—click the link below.

Learn more

       

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U.S. Senate committee approves REINS Act

On July 22, the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs voted 8-5 to send the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny Act (REINS Act) to the full U.S. Senate for a vote without offering any amendments.

In case you didn’t catch it in our post last week on Ballotpedia News, here’s a quick rundown about the REINS Act.

• The REINS Act is a proposal designed to amend the Congressional Review Act (CRA) of 1996. 

• Under the CRA, Congress has the authority to issue resolutions of disapproval to block new agency regulations.

• The REINS Act would broaden the CRA not only to allow Congress to issue resolutions of disapproval, but also to require congressional approval of major agency regulations before those regulations go into effect. 

  • The REINS Act defines major regulations as those that have annual economic effects of $100 million or more, that increase consumer prices, or that have significant harmful effects on the economy.

Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) introduced the REINS Act in the Senate for the 116th Congress. Representative James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) introduced a companion version of the REINS Act in the U.S. House. Members of Congress have introduced versions of the REINS Act since the 112th Congress (2011-2013).

Oil and gas ballot measures won't appear on Colorado ballot

On July 24, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced he would oppose all oil and gas related measures in 2020 and 2022 in order to allow Senate Bill 181 of 2019 to take full effect. SB 181 would change the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, create "additional public welfare protections," and implement new rules related to oil and gas operations. 

Several groups sponsoring potential initiatives announced they were ending their initiative campaigns: 

• Initiative #284 would have prohibited laws limiting use and installation of natural gas. Protect Colorado sponsored it.

• Initiative #304 would have required fiscal impact statements to appear on the ballot for future initiatives. Protect Colorado also sponsored it.

• Initiative #312 would have prohibited the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from amending or repealing certain rules—including those regarding safety, aesthetics and noise control, reporting, and emissions. 

Initiative #174 also won’t be on the November ballot. It would have created distance setbacks for new oil, gas, and fracking projects in the vicinity of occupied buildings. The campaign ceased signature gathering on July 2 after the Colorado Supreme Court blocked Polis' executive order allowing remote signature gathering.

Polis said, "In recent years, those conflicts [between the oil and gas industry and environmental groups] resulted in expensive, divisive fights at the ballot box and the courtroom, which did not satisfy homeowners, environmentalists, or the oil and gas industry. There are no real winners in these fights, and for most of this election season it looked like we might see another round of the oil and gas ballot wars in 2020. But today, I’m very proud to report that we have a path before us to make those divisive oil and gas ballot fights a thing of the past."

The executive director of Colorado Rising, a group that self-describes as challenging “the power of the oil and gas industry,” responded to Polis’ comments: “I don’t know what he means by a truce...We are keeping everything on the table — we are not saying yes and we are not saying no.”

Likewise, Protect Colorado said that if environmental groups propose restrictions on drilling, Protect Colorado will “respond if adverse measures are filed or regulations are advanced that don’t reflect a collaborative process.”

A $50-million battle largely between oil and gas interests and environmental groups took place in 2018 over two ballot initiatives, both of which were defeated:

• Proposition 112 would have required minimum setbacks for oil and gas development.

• Amendment 74 would have required that property owners be compensated for any reduction in property value caused by state laws or regulations.

To get an initiative on the November ballot, proponents need to collect 124,632 valid signatures by the Aug. 3 deadline. The remaining 13 initiatives that were cleared for signature gathering concern a variety of topics including elections, taxes, education, gambling, and paid family and medical leave.

As of July 24, seven statewide ballot measures are certified to appear on Colorado’s November ballot.

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