Reps in the News: Two Rep. Kitchens Bills Pass Assembly

Governor Scott Walker

Gov. Walker on Tuesday endorsed West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, who is seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.). Walker, who ran an unsuccessful presidential campaign in 2016, praised Morrisey for his conservative record and for fighting Obama-era coal regulations. “Patrick has fought for West Virginians while defending the rule of law, and he is ready to keep fighting for them as a champion of conservative reform in Washington, D.C.,” Walker said in a statement.

Source:  thehill.com

Representative Joel Kitchens

Rep. Kitchens released the following statement after the Assembly voted to pass Assembly Bill 569 and Assembly Bill 731:  “I am delighted that my colleagues in the Assembly voted to pass my School Report Card Publication Date Bill, AB 569, which will change the publication date for the school and school district accountability reports that DPI puts out annually from September to November 30th. Since annual testing in our schools moved up from the autumn to the spring several years ago, the existing timeline is simply impossible for the department to follow. They are not currently able to submit complete, valuable accountability reports in September. This adjustment will be a benefit to the department and to all the school districts in our state.

“Another great win for our district was the passage of my bill, AB 731, which will allow free newspapers to receive compensation for publishing legal notices and serve as the paper of record for certain municipalities. For some rural areas in Wisconsin, free local newspapers are the most widely circulated source of news and therefore the only viable option to publish any legal notice. This bill will provide opportunities to rural newspapers to better serve the public and especially rural constituencies.

“I am proud to have introduced these two bills. Our citizens have a right to be accurately informed and I firmly believe that these bills go a long way in supporting that right.”

Source:  Kitchens press release

Senator Tammy Baldwin

Sen. Baldwin joined her colleagues in sending a letter, led by Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH), to Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao urging the Department of Transportation (DOT) to consider the rights of consumers before rolling back critical protections in the commercial aviation sector. The letter follows requests from DOT for a list of rules and regulations that are good candidates for repeal, replacement, suspension or modification. The airline industry filed a 222-page response, including requests to eliminate the requirement for airlines to display the full price of a ticket to consumers when they shop, and a potential weakening of requirements that airlines provide “prompt” service for wheelchair assistance for passengers who experience disabilities, among others.

“It is unacceptable that the DOT is considering rollbacks of critical aviation protections, particularly when the agency has failed to comply with directives in the 2016 FAA extension law mandating refunds of fees for checked baggage that is delayed and requiring airlines to seat families together whenever possible,” the Senators wrote.

Source:  Baldwin press release

President Donald Trump

President Trump suggested that the FBI’s Russia investigation had caused the agency to divert resources or attention that could have prevented last week’s school shooting in Parkland, Florida.

“Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign – there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!” Trump tweeted Saturday.

His message came just one day after special counsel Robert Mueller charged 13 Russians for their alleged roles in a complex operation to sway the 2016 presidential election.

Federal law enforcement officials say Trump’s posting misstates how the FBI actually works. The FBI has a broad mandate and spends every day focusing on multiple threats at once – terrorists, bank robbers, child predators, cyber criminals, corrupt politicians, gun traffickers, foreign spies, and many more. There are about 35,000 people working for the FBI, including about 12,000 agents, according to FBI statistics.

The FBI has “a lot of people,” one federal law enforcement official told ABC News. “They’re not all working on Russia, I can tell you that. There’s a lot of other stuff going on.”

Source:  abcnews.go.com