Dear Commons Community,

Maggie Haberman of The New York Times is reporting this morning that President Trump filed a “declaration of domicile” last month saying that his property in Palm Beach will be his permanent residence.   He came of age in Queens, built Trump Tower, starred in “The Apprentice,” bankrupted his businesses six times, and drew cheering crowds and angry protesters to Fifth Avenue after his election. Through it all, President Trump — rich, bombastic and to many Americans the epitome of a New Yorker — was intertwined with the city he called his lifelong home.  No longer.  As reported:

“In late September, Mr. Trump changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Fla., according to documents filed with the Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Melania Trump, the first lady, also changed her residence to Palm Beach in an identical document.

Each of the Trumps filed a “declaration of domicile” saying that the Mar-a-Lago Club, Mr. Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, will be their permanent residence.

The president confirmed the decision on Twitter after The New York Times reported on the move, saying that he would “be making Palm Beach, Florida, our Permanent Residence.”

 “I cherish New York, and the people of New York,” he added, “and always will.”

But he didn’t have much nice to say about the public officials of New York.

“I have been treated very badly by the political leaders of both the city and state. Few have been treated worse,” he said, describing his decision as the “best for all concerned.”

Some New York leaders shared the sentiment. “Good riddance,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo tweeted. “It’s not like Mr. Trump paid taxes here anyway. He’s all yours, Florida.”

In the documents, Mr. Trump said he “formerly resided at 721 Fifth Avenue,” referring to Trump Tower. That has been his primary residence since he moved into the skyscraper off 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan in 1983.

An attachment lists his “other places of abode” as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the address for the White House, and his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he spends warm-weather weekends and a few weeks every summer.

Since becoming president, Mr. Trump has spent 99 days at Mar-a-Lago compared with 20 days at Trump Tower, according to NBC News. Although Mr. Trump ran his presidential transition from Trump Tower and some aides had expected him to spend many weekends there in his Louis XIV-style triplex on the 58th floor, his presence created traffic headaches for New Yorkers and logistical and security challenges for the Secret Service.

White House officials declined to say why Mr. Trump changed his primary residence, but a person close to the president said the reasons were primarily for tax purposes.

In his Twitter posts on Thursday night, the president claimed that he paid “millions of dollars in city, state and local taxes each year.” There is no way to fact-check his assertion; he has never released his tax returns.

Mr. Trump, who is deeply unpopular in New York, was infuriated by a subpoena filed by Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, seeking the tax returns, the person close to the president said. Changing his residence to Florida is not expected to have any effect on Mr. Vance’s case, which Mr. Trump has sought to thwart with a federal lawsuit.

It was unclear how much time he would spend in New York in the future or if he would keep his triplex at the top of Trump Tower. Under New York law, if he spends more than 184 days a year there, he will have to pay state income taxes.

Florida, which does not have a state income tax or inheritance tax, has long been a place for the wealthy to escape the higher taxes of the Northeast.

Changing his primary residence could carry significant tax implications for Mr. Trump, although how much is unclear without seeing his returns. But in changing his residence to Florida, he would most likely be avoiding New York State’s top tax rate of nearly 9 percent and New York City’s top rate of nearly 4 percent.

Leaving New York could also save money for Mr. Trump’s heirs at the time of his death. New York imposes a top estate tax rate of 16 percent for estates larger than $10.1 million.

In an article in the Florida Bar Journal in January 2019, three lawyers with Proskauer Rose wrote about the recent wave of people moving from New York to Florida in “large part” because of the repeal of the state and local tax deduction that was a byproduct of the tax bill that Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017.

“While it may be easy enough for an individual to buy a home in Florida and move, the act of physically moving to Florida is only part of the battle,” the three wrote.

“The real challenge is proving by clear and convincing evidence that the individual is no longer a New York domiciliary and does not qualify as a New York statutory resident for New York State income tax purposes,” they said.

Beyond taxes, Mr. Trump has repeatedly signaled the importance of Florida to his 2020 re-election effort and kicked off his campaign with a rally in Orlando. And he has often mentioned Mar-a-Lago when promoting his ties to the state.

In the longer term, the change could speak to Mr. Trump’s plans after his presidency ends. It has been an open question whether he would ever return full time to New York City.

In addition, Secret Service protection for Mr. Trump after his presidency ends would continue to snarl traffic in Midtown Manhattan — as would tourists and potential protests in front of Trump Tower — particularly if Mr. Trump chose to live there full time.

David Pratt, a partner at Proskauer Rose and one of the authors of the Florida Bar Journal piece, said Mr. Trump had probably changed his primary residence for the same reason other people have left New York.

“What he’s doing is not any different than what a lot of individuals from New York are doing, and they’re becoming Florida residents,” Mr. Pratt said.

Mr. Trump is due to travel to New York City this weekend for an event at Madison Square Garden, the rare instance of him visiting when he has no fund-raiser or official event scheduled. He is due to spend Saturday night at Trump Tower.

Since he became president, Mar-a-Lago remains Mr. Trump’s favored retreat. He has a residence on the grounds, enjoys easy access to one of his nearby golf clubs, entertains foreign visitors like Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan and also plays host to a regular cast of visitors and members.

Still, Manhattan has been like Oz to him.

“I believed, perhaps to an irrational degree, that Manhattan was always going to be the best place to live — the center of the world,” Mr. Trump wrote in his book “The Art of the Deal.”

I agree with Andrew Cuomo!  Good riddance. 

Tony

Chicago Teachers Celebrating the End of Their Strike

Dear Commons Community,

Yesterday, Chicago’s leaders announced an end to the teachers’ strike that lasted 11 days, the longest there in decades, and turned life upside down for families across the nation’s third-largest school district.  More than 300,000 public school students prepared to return to school with this announcement.  As reported by The New York Times:

“… the clash between the teachers and Chicago’s new mayor, Lori Lightfoot, appeared to have brought mixed results. The city agreed to spend millions of dollars on reducing class sizes; promised to pay for hundreds more social workers, nurses and librarians; and approved a 16 percent salary increase over the coming five years. But not all union members were satisfied; a vote to approve a tentative deal was noticeably split, and some teachers wanted to press on to seek steeper reductions in class sizes, more teacher preparation time and aid for special education.

Still, the strike in Chicago, which followed a series of major teacher walkouts in conservative states like West Virginia and Oklahoma as well as liberal cities like Los Angeles and Denver, reflected a renewed wave of activism from teachers.

“What it says is that West Virginia and Oklahoma wasn’t sui generis; it wasn’t an isolated moment,” said Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, who made several trips to Chicago during the strike. “This is now a strategy.”

Teachers in Chicago drew attention to matters far beyond salary to broad issues of social justice, casting their fight as a battle for equity among the city’s poor and rich families, for safety for immigrants and for affordable housing in an ever more expensive city. And some Democratic presidential hopefuls and others were quick to line up behind the teachers, a pivot from the political mood a decade ago when even some on the left criticized the power of teachers’ unions.

“I think the entire wave of teachers’ strikes that we’ve been seeing should have school boards quaking in their boots,” said Ileen DeVault, a professor of labor history at Cornell University. “I think more and more teachers are going to be saying, ‘Gee, I have some of the same problems. Look what the Chicago teachers, look what the L.A. teachers, look what all these other groups of teachers got when they went on strike.’”

The strike was a blow to Ms. Lightfoot, a political novice five months into her first term as mayor. Elected by winning all 50 of the city’s wards, the mayor has portrayed herself as a reformer who wants many of the very goals that the teachers were demanding, including full-time nurses, social workers and librarians in all city schools; expanded counseling services; and recruitment of more black and Hispanic teachers.

Yet throughout the walkout, Ms. Lightfoot found herself pitted against the teachers, many of whom said she was failing to keep her promises. At the same time, opponents of the teachers’ strike said Ms. Lightfoot was giving too many concessions at a time when the school system’s finances, like that of the city, are shaky. And all the while, residents spoke of the tumult that the strike created for parents with few child-care options, for student athletes who could not play in games and for high school students with standardized tests that had to be delayed.

In an interview on Thursday, Ms. Lightfoot, who had been a target of protest signs along picket lines, said that the agreement was “without a doubt” good for the city — for the city’s students and teachers and for taxpayers.

“When you pick apart the pieces of this deal, whether it’s individual pieces or comprehensively, what you’re going to find is a lot of things that are focused on advancing the educational gains and outcomes for our students,” she said.

Jesse Sharkey, the Chicago Teachers Union president, held a news conference that made no secret of lingering bitterness on both sides.

“We feel like we achieved a lot of things,” he said. “There’s some things we didn’t achieve. But it’s not a day for photo ops.”

Chicago’s finances are deeply troubled, struggling with huge unfunded pension liabilities and budget shortfalls that have led to tax increases in recent years. In recent days, the editorial boards of the city’s two major newspapers, The Tribune and The Sun-Times, cited those difficulties repeatedly and wrote critically about the teachers’ union.

“They made outlandish demands as if City Hall owed teachers not just a big wage bump but a utopian version of Chicago,” The Tribune’s editorial board said.

With an annual budget of $5.98 billion, the city’s school system has also long faced fiscal struggles. In recent years, major credit agencies have rated the school system’s bonds below investment grade, though over recent months, its financial outlook has stabilized somewhat, in part because of increased state aid.

Laurence Msall, the president of the Civic Federation, a Chicago-based budget watchdog, said the school district had little room to spend more at a time of tight budgets and sustained enrollment losses. “The long-term sustainability of Chicago Public Schools remains a question,” Mr. Msall said, “and the viability of this contract and what has been offered remains to be seen.”

Officials were still piecing together the exact price of the deal, which some have estimated to cost about $500 million, but Ms. Lightfoot said that fiscal limits had been carefully weighed throughout weeks of negotiation. “We were very, very conscious of making sure that we only agreed to things — on an individualized basis but also in the aggregate — that were sustainable and financially responsible, and that’s part of the reason we weren’t able to reach an agreement any sooner,” Ms. Lightfoot said.

Chicago was a birthplace of unionization among teachers in the late 1800s, and the heavily Democratic city has remained a center of teacher activism. For days, clusters of teachers — many of them wearing red — gathered outside schools, marched through downtown and met in parks for rallies.

Returning to work on Friday will be about 25,000 educators in the city’s schools, where about 47 percent of students are Hispanic, 37 percent are African-American and 10 percent are white; some 76 percent of students are economically disadvantaged.

The strike, which was the first multiday work stoppage by Chicago Public Schools teachers since 2012, lasted longer than any teachers’ strike in Chicago since 1987. The Chicago Teachers Union clashed with Rahm Emanuel, Ms. Lightfoot’s predecessor as mayor, during the 2012 strike, which lasted seven school days. In December 2018, Chicago was the site of the first teacher strike at a charter school network.”

Congratulations to Chicago’s Teachers and the City for reaching an agreement!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

When Governor Gavin Newsom of California signed a law last month granting college athletes in the state the right to profit from their name, image, and likeness, a wave of elected officials in other states began introducing their own legislation or announcing their intention to do so.

In response, the NCAA issued a statement on Wednesday, that will allow college athletes to receive “benefits” from their name, image, and likeness as long as the regulations around those benefits fit within the “collegiate model.”  By issuing this statement, the NCAA hoped it could quell the growing state-by-state movement for change, which various NCAA officials have spoken out against over the past month.  Fifteen states presently are proposing legislation similar to California.  As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“Mark Emmert, the NCAA’s president, even admitted after Tuesday’s meeting of the NCAA Board of Governors that the various state laws had spurred its response.

“There’s no question the legislative efforts in Congress and various states has been a catalyst to change,” Emmert said after the meeting, at Emory University, in Atlanta. “It’s clear that schools and the presidents are listening and have heard loud and clear that everyone agrees this is an area that needs to be addressed.”

Jeff Bridges, a Democratic state senator and co-sponsor of Colorado’s bill, said he was “proud of the pressure that we helped build” on the NCAA. “It looks like we won,” Bridges said of the fight to allow athletes to generate compensation for their labor. “And it’s about damn time.”

But neither Bridges nor any other lawmaker who has proposed legislation said that they intended to retract it in light of the NCAA’s statement. In fact, many indicated the next step was the exact opposite: keeping up the pressure.

“I take them at their word that they’re going to change the rules,” said Marlon Kimpson, a Democratic state senator and co-sponsor of South Carolina’s bill. “But we can’t retreat until we see something in writing that fairly encompasses what these players are entitled to.”

He added that all the NCAA has provided so far is a news release with some “clever wordsmithing,” but nothing substantive about carrying out a new policy. Many lawmakers raised concerns over the NCAA’s lack of specificity in its statements, and several said that “the devil is in the details” now.

Nolan West, a Republican in the Minnesota House and sponsor of that state’s bill, said in a written statement that the organization should clarify what it means by “benefit.” Hunt, who campaigned on legislation to compensate athletes, said she had seen nothing in the statement that suggested the NCAA would expand existing benefits, all of which are tethered to education through scholarships or the like. And Dan Miller, a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and co-sponsor of the bill in his state, took issue with the insistence that any benefit be “consistent with the collegiate model.”

The collegiate model arose around the turn of the millennium, and was described by the former NCAA president Myles Brand as “a term of art.” It was meant to supplement the age-old idea of amateurism. Richard M. Southall and Ellen J. Staurowsky wrote in their paper “Cheering on the Collegiate Model” that the NCAA had created the collegiate model as a new definition of amateurism that “isolates the principle to the way in which student-athletes are viewed without imposing its avocational nature on revenue-producing opportunities.”

Essentially, the collegiate model allows the NCAA and institutions to collect revenue while preventing athletes from doing the same.

As such, Miller thinks the debate at hand is a definitional one that cannot be solved in the framework of the collegiate model. “It is tough to say that there is no difference between an ‘amateur’ over-30 basketball league and using ‘amateur’ to describe college sports,” Miller said. “We are still dealing with an anachronistic use of terms to describe a multibillion-dollar industry.”

Regardless, Hunt described the NCAA’s statement as a “first step” but said that the NCAA still must be proactive instead of reactive in addressing college athletes’ rights to their name, image, and likeness.

NCAA officials are “starting to see the writing on the wall that a lot of other states are bringing legislation,” Hunt said. “They’re going to have to make a decision and not stall, but actually do something productive.”

This issue will dominate collegiate athletics for the near future. 

Tony