| | |  | BY MYAH WARD | Presented by The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) | With help from Renuka Rayasam and Tyler Weyant LATEST FROM THE HILL — As of 7:55 p.m., the Senate clerk is 254 pages into reading the 628 pages of the Senate Covid bill, thanks to Ron Johnson’s move to force the reading on the floor. The reading of the bill started at 3:21 p.m., the beginning of a grueling consideration of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill in the Senate. IMAGINING THE POST-PANDEMIC OFFICE — With a nation’s worth of vaccines arriving by the end of May, an end to isolation and remote work seems within sight. But before employees restart their commutes, they will need to feel safe in their offices. Nightly asked architects and workplace design experts to sketch how they envision the post-pandemic workplace, and to describe how it would function. These responses have been edited.
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Aimee Taylor, design director, Gensler San Francisco | “Meet the new 9-to-5, a hybrid approach to work predicated on the idea that the physical workplace provides a structure capable of actually enhancing our ability to work. The Mid-Door Space, pictured here, is at the intersection of all three. No longer just an outdoor patio for phone calls and happy hours, the Mid-Door Space takes the activities of the interior workplace — the team meetings, the coffee breaks with colleagues, the quiet moments spent messaging friends — and provides a structured environment for these things to happen organically.” — Brian Stromquist, design manager, Gensler San Francisco. Sketch by Aimee Taylor, design director
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Amelyn Ng, Rice Architecture Wortham Fellow at Rice University | “Post-pandemic, the workplace would be something like a ‘loose fit’: permeable to natural environments and shared uses over time. Instead of the airtight curtain-wall towers that populate so many downtowns, the new workplace will be porous, shaded and potentially more locally embedded across neighborhoods. The unsustainably large air-conditioned office interior is now reduced to a smaller footprint, and its exterior shell enlarges to create more outdoor shaded spaces for working. After hours, this outdoor room is public grounds. “Eschewing the locked glass lobby or office-block enclave, the loose-fit workplace opens up their porous envelope to common use on evenings, weekends and during periods of reduced work. Rather than a single front door, multiple entry points allow the building to cater to different constituencies day and night. In another pandemic, the building’s ground floor might be used in the same way schoolyards have been used to distribute food or supplies to local residents. As the space of work swings between home and office, this new proposal turns the prospect of redundancy into possibilities for neighborhood resilience.” — Amelyn Ng, Rice Architecture Wortham Fellow at Rice University
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Joanna Frank, president and CEO of the Center for Active Design | “Enhancing air quality, updating cleaning protocols and facilitating access to PPE and hand hygiene stations are just a few of the minimum requirements. Some examples of office enhancements found in many workplaces include access to roof gardens and other outdoor spaces, operable windows, healthy food options, ample daylight and spaces to work more collaboratively.” — Joanna Frank, president and CEO of the Center for Active Design
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Eric Gannon, workplace studio leader Gensler Chicago | “We are consumers in nearly all aspects of our lives; we control our environment and experiences by leveraging choice and requiring immediacy. The next-gen workplace will contain a program that enables workers to pull these levers, engaging in spaces that support varying aspects of focused and collaborative work, socialization, learning, care and connection. Workplaces should allow people to feel individually cared for, be empowered to be their best, and be met with the opportunity for discovery in their workdays. If we don’t give them a reason to commute in, they’ll return to their basements to do their work.” — Eric Gannon, workplace studio leader, Gensler Chicago Read Friday’s edition of Nightly to see the rest of the sketches. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news and tips at mward@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @myahward and @renurayasam.
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A message from The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL): As of January 2021, nearly two-thirds of long term care providers are operating at a loss – and without assistance, they won’t make it another year. We need to make long term care residents and staff a priority for funding before it’s too late: https://saveourseniors.org | | | | | THE BIDEN REPUBLICANS — Magazine digital editor Zack Stanton emails Nightly: For four decades, politicians have been crossing 8 Mile Road to visit Macomb County, Mich., the closest thing white middle America has to a de facto national capital. There’s one man responsible for this: Stanley Greenberg. In 1985, he came to Macomb to figure out how this place — the most heavily Democratic suburban county in America in 1960 — had swung so hard in the other direction. His answer: The “Reagan Democrats” — socially conservative, blue-collar voters who historically identified as Democrats but came to see the party as disinterested in their lives and more invested in people of color, social issues and cultural elites. Now, Greenberg sees something like a mirror-image voting bloc taking shape: The Biden Republicans — socially moderate, highly educated and affluent suburbanites who historically identified as Republicans but have come to see the party as more invested in white grievance politics and “owning” the libs than in affordable childcare or college tuition. Biden seems intent on an audacious gambit that’s gone largely unnoticed, but, if successful, could kneecap national Republicans for a decade: Recapturing the support of the Reagan Democrats. How could that work? I decided to ask Stanley Greenberg himself. “Biden is very self-consciously campaigning for Macomb County-type, white working-class voters [for whom] race is not the only thing driving their vote, but who went to Trump [in 2016] because of globalization and their belief that Democrats are not fighting for American workers,” Greenberg told me. “‘America First’ rhetoric was a part of Biden’s campaign. It’s still part of ‘build back better.’” I first became familiar with Greenberg as a young political obsessive growing up in Macomb. I was born there in 1985, the same year he put it on the national political map, and came of age amid a steady stream of visits from presidential candidates, including that time in 2000 when Al Gore embedded himself for a day as a 6th grader at a neighboring middle school (at lunchtime in the cafeteria, per the NYT, the VP “wolfed down two slices of pepperoni pizza, two chocolate chip cookies and half a brownie”). What’s striking now is that Macomb County — or, more accurately, the type of voters who live there — are back in the spotlight because by swinging back to the Democratic column, they have the potential to do to the GOP in the 2020s what they did to Democrats in 1980: Foreshadow a decade of electoral disaster and self-recrimination that totally upends politics. What could that look like? Here’s the rest of my conversation with Stan Greenberg.
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| | DON'T MISS "THE RECAST": Power dynamics are changing. "Influence" is changing. More people are demanding a seat at the table, insisting that all politics is personal and not all policy is equitable. "The Recast" is our new, twice-weekly newsletter that breaks down how race and identity are recasting politics, policy, and power in America. And POLITICO is recasting how we report on this crucial intersection, bringing you fresh insights, scoops and dispatches from across the country, and new voices that challenge "business as usual." Don't miss out on this important new newsletter, SUBSCRIBE NOW. Thank you to our sponsor, Intel. | | | | | | | BIDEN’S TOUGHEST SELL — House Democrats are moving fast on almost all of Biden’s priorities, except, that is, immigration. Biden is now facing the same reality as his predecessors: The immigration reform he promised during the campaign won’t come quickly, if at all. Nightly’s Renuka Rayasam chatted with immigration reporter Sabrina Rodríguez over Slack today about whether Democrats can pass any immigration reform and why it’s so hard to fix. This conversation has been edited. What happens now that it looks like Dems can’t pass a big bill in the House? The House is expected to move on more targeted bills — which could offer legal status for Dreamers, TPS recipients and farmworkers — in the coming weeks. Right now, much of the talk is surrounding a pair of popular bills — the American Dream and Promise Act, and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act. Dream and Promise have received strong support from a large swath of Democrats and was previously passed in the House. And the Farm Workforce bill has bipartisan support and also previously passed in the House. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already made clear the House will move those two bills. The thought is that these two bills could receive floor votes in the Senate. But we know the realities of getting to 60 for any legislation. Add in that it’s immigration legislation and it’s going to be a tough sell. Why is immigration such a politically sensitive issue? Everyone agrees that the system is broken, so why has it been so hard to get agreement on a fix? When we get into the specifics it gets complicated and touchy. For example, for years now, there has been broad support for offering protections to undocumented immigrants. But it’s never as simple as passing a clean bill with just that. And centrist Dems don’t want to be perceived as being for open borders or blanket amnesty. So, some moderates and Republicans continue to push for immigration-related bills to include money for border security and ensure that a path to citizenship excludes certain people, such as those with any kind of a criminal record. Meanwhile, progressives don’t necessarily want to see a bill that increases enforcement or border security. This time, at least, we’re seeing Congress take an early interest in immigration — giving them some wiggle room to think the issue through before they’re back in an election year in 2022. Tell me what’s going on along the Southern border and how it’s affecting Biden’s immigration plans. There’s an uptick in the number of migrants, particularly unaccompanied children, arriving at the border right now. The vast majority are being turned away almost immediately as Biden uses a Covid-19 emergency declaration first invoked by former President Donald Trump last year to effectively seal off the border. But, unlike Trump, Biden is not immediately sending back the unaccompanied children arriving. He’s figuring out how to house them while they get united with vetted family members. So far, that’s meant putting them in shelters — but those are filling up quickly given 1) the big increase and 2) that they’re all running at about half capacity due to Covid protocols. And some families are also not being accepted in Mexico due to a new law there, resulting in the U.S. letting them stay here. All that’s to say: Biden officials are repeatedly telling migrants that now is not the time to come. But that doesn’t mean they’re stopping. And in the meantime, Democrats are navigating how to message on this, while Republicans are already raising alarm. Did Trump change the immigration debate? His anti-immigrant rhetoric really struck a chord among some groups and in some unexpected places in South Texas and South Florida. Trump’s immigration legacy was all about stopping all forms of immigration — and given his recent speech at CPAC and Republicans’ early reactions to Biden’s immigration agenda, it looks like that view of immigration will remain dominant within the GOP. Trump — and his officials, like Stephen Miller — really leaned into policy and rhetoric that all immigrants are bad and should be kept out. And he performed better in 2020 than in 2016 with immigrant communities in places like South Texas and South Florida. I’m curious to see if some of the new, more diverse faces in the Republican Party, like Florida’s Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, will succeed in moving the conversation on immigration to a different place. But as of now, it doesn’t look like that’ll be happening.
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| — Capitol Police requests extended National Guard presence: The Capitol Police has asked the National Guard to extend its deployment to the Capitol beyond next week due to mounting concerns over domestic extremists seeking to target Congress, according to two sources familiar with the matter. — Cotton to block quick Garland DOJ confirmation: He said Garland refused “to answer basic questions” in his written answers on immigration, the death penalty and guns. — AFL-CIO to explore taking a stance on eliminating filibuster: The AFL-CIO’s executive board will meet next week to determine its position on eliminating the filibuster, the labor federation’s president, Richard Trumka, told POLITICO today. — Republicans rip Pentagon policy pick over past tweets, Middle East policies: Colin Kahl, the nominee to be the top policy official at the Pentagon, came under fire from Senate Republicans today over his past policies on several Middle East issues and past tweets criticizing GOP officials and Trump administration policies.
| | NORM! Three working vaccines. Ramped-up production. Falling hospitalizations. “Normal life” feels within reach. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, health care reporter Erin Banco tells us that, actually, it’s still gonna be a bit.
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| | | | | THE SOUTH’S MASK DIVIDE — The “neanderthal” flap after the removal of mask mandates in Texas and Mississippi obscure a broader trend: There is no consensus among Southern Republican governors over the right direction to go with Covid restrictions. Over the last two days, three GOP governors not named Greg Abbott or Tate Reeves took notably pro-mask positions, at least for the immediate future. — Alabama: Gov. Kay Ivey announced today the state would extend its mask mandate to April 9 , but would not extend it past that, allowing private businesses a month to determine their own post-mandate policies. Ivey added she would continue to wear a mask around people, but that masking would become “a matter of personal responsibility and not a government mandate.” — Georgia: The Atlanta Journal Constitution put it bluntly: “Don’t count Gov. Brian Kemp among the ‘neanderthal’ state leaders.” While Kemp has never imposed a statewide mask mandate, he has enacted dozens of measures for localities and businesses to allow them to set their own safety standards after a legal feud. And he doesn’t believe it is time to start rolling those back: “We can’t let our guard down,” he said. “We’ve got to keep doing this for another month or two, to get closer to true herd immunity. I just feel like we’re starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.” — West Virginia: Gov. Jim Justice continues to chug along with one of the nation’s most successful coronavirus vaccination drives, announcing Wednesday he was expanding eligibility to residents older than 50. Justice will be announcing changes in restrictions on Friday, but West Virginia still has a mask mandate, and the governor is hesitant to move quickly to remove it. “I don’t know what the big rush is to get rid of the masks. These masks save lives,” he said in a CNN interview. “We’re going to do the smart thing in West Virginia. We’re not going to do the thing that’s politically correct.” Farther north: Southern states with Republican governors aren’t the only ones making moves to loosen Covid restrictions: Connecticut’s Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont announced today the removal of capacity caps for many businesses and institutions, including restaurants, on March 19, with more restrictions easing in the weeks ahead. The state’s mask mandate will remain in effect.
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| | FIND OUT THE LATEST WHISPERS FROM THE WEST WING : What's happening inside the West Wing, and what are the real conversations taking place behind-the-scenes in the halls of power? Who really has the ear of the president? What's going to happen across the executive branch next, and why? Transition Playbook chronicles the people, policies and emerging power centers of the Biden administration. Don't miss out. Subscribe today. | | | | | | | VIVE LA DIGITAL PASSES? The French government is discussing conditions that would allow bars and restaurants to reopen with representatives from the hospitality industry. Speaking at the weekly press conference on Covid-19 today, Prime Minister Jean Castex said “we might be able to loosen some restrictions” by mid-April, “that’s our clear objective.” “We are not facing an exponential increase of the epidemic and cases among the elderly continue to drop,” he said, adding that vaccinations would speed up over the coming weeks. Currently, there are more than 20,000 new cases of Covid-19 in France every day. Last week, President Emmanuel Macron floated the idea of introducing a digital Covid pass to allow places to reopen. People could store their health information, whether it’s negative test results or vaccinations, on an app and use this to get access to public venues. The proposal has sparked controversy in France and on Tuesday Health Minister Olivier Véran demurred on the topic. “We are not on the cusp of bringing in a Covid pass in our country, we’ve only vaccinated several million French citizens,” Véran told MPs in the National Assembly. “There are technical issues, what app do we use? Is it [French tracking app] TousAntiCovid? And political and ethical questions. What do we do about people who have not been vaccinated or who could not be vaccinated?”
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55 percent The percentage of New Yorkers who said Gov. Andrew Cuomo should not resign in the wake of allegations of sexual harassment and claims he hid the number of deaths of nursing home residents, according to a new Quinnipiac poll. |
| | | SMASH THAT LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE — YouTube will reinstate Trump’s channel once the “elevated risk of violence” has passed, the Google-owned video sharing site’s CEO said today. “We will lift the suspension of the Donald Trump channel when we determine the risk of violence has decreased,” Susan Wojcicki said at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council. She noted a warning from the Capitol Police that militia groups were plotting a potential attack on the U.S. Capitol today as an example of the continued “elevated risk of violence.” The warning led the House to adjourn Wednesday, Leah Nylen and Cristiano Lima write. “We will turn the account back on, but when we see reduced law enforcement in capitals in the U.S. and fewer [threat] warnings,” she said. “Those would be signals to us [that it is] safe to turn the channel back on.”
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A message from The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL): The high cost of personal protective equipment (PPE), testing and staff support have caused long term care providers to close, leaving vulnerable residents without the care they need. We’re calling for adequate funding to help keep staff and residents safe from COVID-19 – and to continue delivering the high quality of care seniors depend on: https://saveourseniors.org/ | | | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
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