Getting It Right

What to Know: A new report gets the First Step Act wrong—blaming it for policies that clearly predate the landmark criminal justice reform package signed into law last year.

“More than a hundred violent criminals and sex offenders have been released under the First Step Act, President Trump's signature bipartisan criminal justice reform package, according to data from an administration official provided to Fox News on Monday,” Fox reported. “The data, first obtained exclusively by ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight,’ seemingly contradicted promises from lawmakers and the White House that the legislation would largely affect only prisoners sentenced for minor drug-related offenses.”

The TPPF Take: Fox dropped the ball on this report.

“The First Step Act made no substantive changes to a policy that has been in place since 1984,” TPPF’s Derek Cohen explains. “It is a shame criminal justice hardliners and cooperative propagandists are using this small tweak to undermine the Trump administration’s laudable work to improve public safety.”

Heartwarming Story

What to Know: Lost in the noise of the illegal immigration crisis are the many, many stories about legal immigration. Vice President Mike Pence recently attended a naturalization ceremony for 44 new American citizens.

“All of you aspired to be Americans,” Pence said. “You stepped forward. You followed the law. You went through the process to immigrate into this great nation.”

He continued, “The 44 of you and your families are hardly alone. Last year, more than three-quarters of a million people raised their right hand and swore the very same oath that you just took.”

The TPPF Take: TPPF’s own Igor Magalhaes has one such story.

“I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1996,” he says. “Growing up in Brazil, I never thought I would live anywhere else. But that all changed when my father sat my older sister and I down on the couch and told us that there was the possibility of us moving to Texas. Going through the legal avenues of immigration shows respect to the country that one seeks to be a part of. That is what my family did, and that is what I will continue to advocate for.”

Mandating Benefits

What to Know: The legal battle over Dallas’ mandatory paid sick leave ordinance is about to begin.

“There was never any way Dallas was going to make it all the way to Aug. 1 without a legal challenge to its paid sick leave ordinance, but now it's official: the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the conservative think tank helping represent business groups suing to stop similar ordinances in Austin and San Antonio, wants in on the action in Dallas, too,” the Dallas Observer reports. “In a letter sent to interim Dallas City Attorney Chris Caso on Tuesday, the foundation's general counsel, Robert Henneke, said he would sue to stop the ordinance if Dallas did not agree by the close of business Tuesday to hold off on implementing the ordinance until Dec. 1.”

The TPPF Take: Mandatory paid sick leave ordinances violate state law.

“Leave policies are best negotiated between employer and employee without the imposition of a one-size-fits-all mandate from the city that may not be in either party’s best interests,” says TPPF’s Rob Henneke. “And because mandatory paid sick leave requires a higher level of compensation than the Texas minimum wage, these ordinances run afoul of the Texas Minimum Wage Act. That’s why TPPF sued the city of Austin, why San Antonio agreed to abate its nearly identical ordinance, and why the same Dallas ordinance could wind up in court, too.”