The Washington Post National Weekly - February 10, 2019

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2019

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ABCDE NATIONAL WEEKLY

The rising Western skyline

Once flat and wide, Western cityscapes are now becoming tall and sleek, changing the character of cities. PAGE 12

Politics Virginia’s growing scandals 4

Nation Billion-dollar disasters 9

5 Myths Rock-and-roll 23

210, 2019 FEBRUARY 10, 2019 EBRUARY SUNDAY,

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POLITICSPOLITICS

Oversight Oversight or harassment? or harassment?

BY S EUNG M IN K IM,BY D AVID S EUNG N AKAMURA M IN K IM, AND J OSH D AWSEY AND J OSH D AWSEY

D AVID N AKAMURA

mer White House staffmer members White House is a bidstaff for members is a bid for inside information that inside couldinformation be particularly that could be particularly damaging — a sign of the damaging growing —alarm a signover of the growing alarm over the president’s vulnerability the president’s in a newvulnerability era of in a new era of resident Trump and his resident adversaries Trump in and his adversaries in divided government. divided government.

Congress plunged into Congress a bitter plunged fight into a bitter fight But former staffers from But former the George staffers W. from the George W. this past week over investigations this past weekof over investigations of Bush and Obama administrations, Bush and Obama as well administrations, as as well as the administration —thebattling administration over — battling over longtime civil servants,longtime said it was civil notservants, unusualsaid it was not unusual subpoena threats as Democrats subpoenabegan threats beefing as Democrats began beefing for government policyforexperts government to leave policy and experts to leave and up committee staff andup laying committee the groundwork staff and laying the groundwork wind up advising or working wind up foradvising lawmakers. or working for lawmakers. for a contentious fight for over a contentious tax returns. fight over tax returns.

“It happens every day,” “Itsaid happens a Capitol every Hill day,” said a Capitol Hill Trump lashed out Thursday Trumpinlashed tweetsout comThursday in tweets comstaffer who is not on Schiff staffer ’s committee. who is not on Schiff ’s committee. plaining about “Unlimited plaining Presidential about “Unlimited HaPresidential HaMeanwhile, a House Ways Meanwhile, and Means a House Com-Ways and Means Comrassment” and criticizing rassment” House and Intelligence criticizing House Intelligence mittee panel held a separate mitteehearing panel held Thursday a separate hearing Thursday Committee Chairman Committee Adam B. Schiff Chairman (D-Ca-Adam B. Schiff (D-CaSCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATED PRESS on obtaining Trump’s tax on obtaining returns, listening Trump’sto tax returns, listening to lif.) after he announced lif.)earlier after he in announced the week earlier in the weekJ. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/ASSOCIATEDJ.PRESS experts who discussedexperts the impact who discussed of legisla- the impact of legislathat his panel wouldthat begin his probing panel would what begin probing what Committee House Intelligence House Intelligence Chairman Committee Chairman tivethe language that would tive language force presidential that would force presidential Schiff called “credible Schiff reportscalled of money “credible laun-reports of B. money Adam Schifflaunis battling Adam withB.the Schiff president. is battling with president. candidates to release candidates 10 years of to taxrelease returns10 years of tax returns dering and financial compromise” dering and financial on the part compromise” on the part after they winblasttheir party’s afternomination. they win their party’s nomination.

In tweets Thursday morning, In tweets Trump Thursday blast-morning, Trump of Trump entities. of Trump entities.

Three officials Three congressional are empow- officials are empowed “nuts” Democrats and for accused going “nuts” andcongressional accused In private, Trump andInhis private, aides Trump grew inand ed his Democrats aides grew for in- going ered ered legally information to seekfrom taxpayer information from Schiff “stealing people Schiffwho of “stealing work at people the wholegally work to atseek the taxpayer creasingly anxious andcreasingly angry overanxious Democrats’ and angry overof Democrats’ thepositions TreasuryonDepartment: the Treasury The chair Department: of the The chair of the as he White staff House” positions as on he the fills staff the maneuvering — sparked maneuvering by news that — Schiff sparked ’s byWhite news House” that Schiff ’s fills House Ways and Means House Committee, Ways and theMeans chair Committee, the chair committee. committee has hired atcommittee least one former has hired White at leastcommittee. one former White of theB.Senate Finance of Committee the Senate and Finance the Committee and the “Sotonow Congressman “So Adam nowB.Congressman Schiff an- Adam Schiff anHouse national security House official national to assist security in its official assist in its chairzero of theRussian Joint Committee chair ofonthe Taxation.

Joint Committee on Taxation. nounces, after havingnounces, found zero after Russian having found oversight of the administration. oversight of the administration.

ButbeRep. MikeatKelly But (R-Pa.), Rep.the Mike ranking Kelly (R-Pa.), the ranking Collusion, that he is going Collusion, to bethat looking he is atgoing to looking The quickly spiraling The tensions quickly underscore spiraling tensions underscore Republican on the Republicanthat on the held subcommittee the that held the aspect of my life, every both aspect financial of myand life, both financial andsubcommittee how acrimonious relations how between acrimonious the White relations every between the White said Congress hearing, is barred said from Congress releas- is barred from releasthough personal, there is noeven reason though to betherehearing, is no reason to be House and Capitol HillHouse will probably and Capitol growHill as willpersonal, probablyeven grow as tax returns for political ing tax purposes. returns for political purposes. doing so,” doing“Never so,” Trump happened wrote. ing “Never happened Trump campaigns forTrump reelection campaigns and Demofor reelection and Trump Demo- wrote.

House Speaker NancyHouse Pelosi Speaker (D-Calif.), Nancy re- Pelosi (D-Calif.), rebefore!” before!” crats look to exercise oversight crats lookthey to exercise insist was oversight they insist was sponding some sponding fromtoliberals some criticism that from liberals that Schiffofresponded in theresponded day with his later in the day to with hiscriticism ignored in the first ignored two years in of theTrump’s first two years Trump’s laterSchiff House leadership has House not moved leadership quickly has not moved quickly owncontrolled tweet. both own tweet. presidency when Republicans presidency controlled when Republicans both enough to is obtain enough to tax obtain returns,Trump’s tax returns, “The idea of congressional “Theoversight idea of congressional is alien oversight alien Trump’s houses of Congress. houses of Congress. saidblame “you have be very, said very “you careful have to if you be very, go very careful if you go to the president, and who to the canpresident, blame him? andFor who can him?to For “You’re seeing the reestablishment “You’re seeingofthe what reestablishment of what forward.” forward.” two years, the GOP didtwo nothing years,but theshield GOP did himnothing but shield him is a normal function of is Congress: a normal function oversight,” of Congress: oversight,” “In terms“Those of the tax issue, “In it’s terms notof a question the tax issue, it’s not a question from accountability,” fromresponded. accountability,” “Those Schiff responded. said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly said Rep. (D-Va.), Gerald a senior E. Connolly (D-Va.), a senior Schiff of just between sending aour letter,”ofPelosi just sending said. a letter,” Pelosi said. days areCommittee. over. We will not dayschoose are over. between We will our not choose member of the Housemember Oversight of Committee. the House Oversight “I know there's impatience know there's because this impatience because legislative oversight legislative responsibilities. and oversight Con- responsibilities.

Con- this “I “It looks a little overwhelming “It looks aonly littlebecause overwhelming only and because people want to know, people that answers want to the know, ques-that answers the quesgress Zero. must So do to both.” gress must do both.” you’re so used to zero oversight. you’re so used Zero.toSozero to go oversight. go tion,have but we have to do tion,it but in awe very have careful to do it in a very careful Someyou senior Trump aides Some have seniorprivately Trump aides privately from zero to something from looks, zero to yousomething know, looks, know, way.” way.” n concern that expressed Schiff ’s hiring concern of that for- Schiff ’s hiring of forhumongous when in fact humongous it isn’t.” when in fact itexpressed isn’t.” n

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CONTENTS

This publication was prepared This publication by editorswas at The prepared by editors at The Washington Post for printing Washington and distribution Post for printing by our and distribution by our partner publications across partner the publications country. All articles acrossand the country. All articles and columns have previouslycolumns appeared have in The previously Post orappeared on in ThePOLITICS Post or on washingtonpost.com andwashingtonpost.com have been edited toand fit this have been editedTHE to fitNATION this format. For questions orformat. comments For questions regarding or content, comments regarding THE content, WORLD please e-mail weekly@washpost.com. please e-mailIfweekly@washpost.com. you have a If youCOVER have aSTORY question about printing question quality, wish about to subscribe, printing quality, or wish to subscribe, or ENTERTAINMENT would like to place a hold would on delivery, like to place please a hold contact on delivery, your please contact your BOOKS local newspaper’s circulation local newspaper’s department. circulation department.OPINION © 2019 The Washington Post /©Year 2019 5, The No. Washington 18 Post / Year 5, No. 18 FIVE MYTHS

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CONTENTS 4 8 10 12 16 18 20 23

ON THE COVER Downtown Denver ON THE COVER Downtown Denver POLITICS 4 is experiencing a construction is experiencing a construction THE NATION 8 boom, with more developments boom, with more developments THE WORLD 10 choosing to go up12 ratherchoosing than out.to go up rather than out.

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OPINIONS

Addressing a nation with its mind already made up DAN BALZ is chief correspondent at The Washington Post. He has served as the paper’s deputy national editor, political editor, White House correspondent and Southwest correspondent.

There are few bully pulpits bigger than the annual State of the Union address. Yet, the question before President Trump on Tuesday night was not who was watching, but rather who was listening. ¶ There was little new in his address. Even if there were, the president was speaking to a country that for the most part has firm convictions about their feelings toward him. His poll numbers have moved little during two years in office, hovering in one of the nar­ rowest ranges of any modern president. His floor and his ceiling appear to be relatively close together.

As president, he has shown no particular ability — or desire — to expand his support or his coalition. Despite some of the flourishes Tuesday, the reality is that he has turned to fear and caustic criticism of his opponents when in a political fight.

Tuesday’s address was two speeches in one. One part was a plea for unity and a recounting of legislative progress and economic success. The other was a combative message that highlighted deep divisions between the president and Democrats.

The coming year promises to be especially challenging for the president. Events on the horizon are likely to stoke more conflict with congressional Democrats. At some point, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III will deliver his report to the Justice Department, a moment that could put Trump in peril. Other investigations probing the Trump Organization and the inaugural committee are underway.

In the days after the midterm elections, Trump warned that if Democrats launched investigations, any hope for cooperation would be gone. On Tuesday, he signaled his unease about what might be coming when he warned that “foolish wars, politics or ridiculous partisan investigations” could

derail the economic progress underway. “If there is going to be peace and legislation, there cannot be war and investigation.

It just doesn’t work that way.”

The image of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) over the president’s shoulder underscored one way in which things have changed for the president and what could be coming. He has found in Pelosi, likely to his dismay, a skilled and steely adversary who leads a diverse new House majority.

Those Democrats ran and won on an agenda that, in almost all respects, is the antithesis of the president’s program.

In normal times, a State of the Union can be used to reset and restart, to move to an agenda for the future. But the opening weeks of the 116th Congress have been a time of rancor, division and gamesmanship. They set a tone that an address that included calls for bipartisan cooperation and American greatness will not easily overcome.

The standoff over funding for a border wall, which led to the 35day partial government shutdown, is a more telling indicator of the mood in Washington than calls for cooperation. When the president sought to project a more unifying message, the reaction of Democrats conveyed the skepticism with which they

TONI L. SANDYS/THE WASHINGTON POST

President Trump delivers his address with Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi listening from behind.

received those words.

Like all presidents, Trump used part of his speech to point to his successes. The economy is one of the biggest, with unemployment low, wages rising, growth continuing on a solid pace and a jobs report just last week that showed 304,000 new jobs in January, despite the shutdown.

All things being equal, that is the kind of record that any president would welcome two years ahead of a reelection campaign. But to date, there is little evidence that the economy has changed many minds about Trump’s overall performance.

Trump pointed to more than the economy as evidence that he has gotten things done in the face of deep partisan divisions in the country. Last year, Congress came together on criminal justice reform, took steps to combat the deadly opioid crisis that ravages many parts of the country and passed a farm bill.

On Tuesday, he talked about areas of possible agreement. One is an infrastructure initiative.

Another is trying to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

Republicans, even those who are not true supporters of the president, can cheer other areas of success by the president, among them the big tax-cut bill, the paring back of the regulatory structure that has been a

hallmark of his executive actions, and the steady remaking of the federal judiciary through the nomination and confirmation of conservative justices and judges.

With the opening stages of the 2020 presidential campaign already underway, the window for cooperation will be fast to close. In reality, support for bipartisan cooperation appears further away than ever, based on some recent polling by the Pew Research Center.

For example, 58 percent of Americans currently oppose any significant expansion of the wall along the border with Mexico.

That is not much different from a year ago, but the Pew survey last month found that the spread between Republicans and Democrats has widened.

Last fall, Pew found that majorities wanted to see more cooperation between Trump and Democrats. But last month, 7 in 10 Democrats said their leaders should hang tough and not give in to Trump. Republicans are more divided on whether to compromise or confront the Democrats, but overall, 7 in 10 Americans say they expect more, not less, partisan warfare in 2019.

That’s the country that tuned in — or didn’t — to the address on Tuesday, a country long divided and one as deeply polarized as ever over the Trump presidency.n

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OPINIONS

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TOM TOLES

BY WASSERMAN FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

Bezos Ted Bundy exposes is still Enquirer’s fooling sleaze people MARGARET DAVID VON SULLIVAN DREHLE is writes The Washington a twice-weekly Post’s media columncolumnist. for The Washington Post. He was previously an editor-atlarge for Time Magazine and is the author of four books, including “Rise to Greatness: Abraham Lincoln and America’s Most Perilous Year” and “Triangle: The Fire That Changed America.”

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FIVE MYTHS

Rock-and-roll BY

S TACEY A NDERSON

In 1958, Danny and the Juniors crooned “Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay,” and they’ve yet to be proved wrong. Rock music has been part of the American pop­culture bedrock from the 1960s heyday of the Beach Boys and the Beatles through the arch ’70s punk of the Ramones and Patti Smith, on through the ’90s alternative rock of Pavement and Liz Phair.

Today, thoughtful artists like Mitski, St. Vincent and the Arctic Monkeys keep the torch lit. As long as there have been rock stars, though, there have been misconceptions about the genre. We dispel five of them as a prelude to Sunday’s Grammy Awards.

MYTH NO. 1 Only teenagers embraced early rock-and-roll.

It’s integral to the romance of rock-and-roll — the idea that in the early ’50s, the nascent genre was too radical for grown-ups, leaving kids as its most fervent proponents.

But teenagers weren’t the only ones hip to the sound. When Time covered rock in 1965, it reported that more than 40 percent of the “teen beat” records sold in the United States were bought by people over 20. Time wrote: “The sudden public acceptance of rock ‘n’ roll by so many people who supposedly should know better came as no surprise to the record and radio industries. Their surveys have long shown the existence of a vast underground of adult rock ‘n’ roll fans.” For example, when a rock radio station asked listeners to rate records, it was deluged with 18,000 calls, “all but a few from housewives.”

MYTH NO. 2 Grunge was the province of white guys from Seattle.

When it comes to the rock subgenre grunge, certain bands pop up in the discussion as often as plaid flannel: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Alice in Chains. In the late 1980s and early ’90s, these bands entwined elements of punk and metal into their scrappy, boisterous rock. Oh,

and they were all men from Seattle and nearby cities, and almost entirely white.

But grunge was hardly homogenous. The scene was also a wellspring of female empowerment, with borders far beyond Washington and many strong feminists at the fore alongside Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain and Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder.

Many women-led bands were integral to the scene, including L7 (from Los Angeles), Lunachicks (from New York) and Babes in Toyland (from Minneapolis).

Karen Schoemer, writing in the New York Times in 1992, described Kat Bjelland, vocalist and guitarist of Babes in Toyland, as having “the kind of voice that would be more suited to a hoary, string-haired death-metal dude than to a cute 28-year-old blonde.” Hole (from Los Angeles), led by Courtney Love, sold more than 3 million albums, according to Billboard.

MYTH NO. 3 Woodstock was a joyful bohemian paradise.

It’s true that Woodstock offered a kind of drug-addled commune for the estimated 400,000 bohemians in attendance, but they thrived despite the conditions around them. Woodstock was so disastrously organized, it was nearly the Fyre Festival of its day.

As Rolling Stone initially reported, food and water

IAN HODGSON/REUTERS

Not all grunge bands were white guys from Seattle. Many bands were led by women, such as Courtney Love’s “Hole” from Los Angeles.

shortages, fields of mud, and daylong traffic jams created a landscape that resembled “a ravaged refugee camp,” and a 17year-old boy died after he was run over by a tractor. Entertainment Weekly pointed out that an estimated 5,000 people were treated for medical issues, including heatstroke and drug overdoses. As the Times reported, the site of the “sometimes excruciating, sometimes ecstatic” weekend was even declared a state disaster area.

MYTH NO. 4 A disproportionate number of rockers die at 27.

“The 27 Club” is the idea that more famous, self-destructive musicians die at that age than at any other. Cobain, Joplin, Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, Brian Jones and Jim Morrison are the most cited examples.

While many talented musicians were lost at 27, the age is meaningless — and focusing on it irresponsibly mythologizes mental illness and the “tortured artist” stereotype. In truth, the most common age for musicians to die is 56, according to the Independent and the Conversation. Also, as many

notable musicians have died at ages 26 (Gram Parsons, Otis Redding, Mac Miller, Nick Drake) and 28 (Tim Buckley, Shannon Hoon, Bradley Nowell, Big Pun).

MYTH NO. 5 Men invented rock-and-roll.

Rock-and-roll was built on cultural appropriation; early white artists did borrow, modify and outright steal from Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters and other black male R&B musicians.

In fact, black women predated Berry in influencing the music we know today as rock-and-roll.

Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, a singer-songwriter from Alabama, first recorded “Hound Dog” in 1952, scoring a No. 1 hit — three years before Berry released his first single, “Maybellene.” Sister Rosetta Tharpe from Arkansas combined guitar with gospel in the 1930s, bringing the previously pious form a fresh, fingerpicked style and secular audiences. Called the “first guitar heroine of rock” by the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Tharpe was finally nominated for induction in 2018. n Anderson is a senior editor at Pitchfork.

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WORLD

A hard line on imprisoned journalists B Y S HIBANI M AHTANI

W

hen Vice President Pence met with Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi last November, they found themselves at odds over one issue in particular: The case of two Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar for investigating suspected atrocities.

Pence pushed repeatedly for Suu Kyi — Myanmar’s de facto leader and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate — to have her government pardon the pair, according to senior Trump administration officials.

She, in turn, raised her voice and insisted the reporters crossed a line by publishing what the government described as state secrets.

“There was virtually no common ground in regard to the journalists,” said a U.S. senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter with the media. “I didn’t see any sense she would reconsider in any way.”

The meeting, at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit, presented another chance for Suu Kyi to acknowledge world leaders’ concerns over Myanmar’s curbs on free expression amid a wave of violence and expulsions targeting the Rohingya, a mainly Muslim ethnic minority group. Myanmar’s campaign of violence against the group has prompted accusations of possible genocide from the United Nations and human rights groups.

Instead, Suu Kyi appeared to double down on the court’s ruling, rejecting the notion that the journalists are innocent.

It also underscored how Suu Kyi — once exalted as a champion of human rights — has tied her reputation to hard-line elements within her country who have sought to silence critics and others seeking accountability.

The Reuters journalists, Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, saw one of their last legal avenues collapse in January. A court rejected their appeal of a seven-year

BERNAT ARMANGUE/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Myanmar leader Suu Kyi, one-time recipient of Nobel Peace Prize, now works to silence critics sentence for violating a colonialera law on state secrets for reporting on the killing of 10 Rohingya Muslim men.

Earlier this month, lawyers for the journalists submitted their last chance at an appeal, to Myanmar’s Supreme Court.

As of December, more than 250 journalists were jailed around the world, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists, with Turkey and China among nations cited for the harshest clampdowns. Saudi Arabia — whose rulers are widely suspected of authorizing last year’s killing of Washington Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Arabian consulate in Istanbul — has also “stepped up its repression at home,” the CPJ report said.

The Reuters journalists jailed in Myanmar, also known as Burma, stand out in one regard. Their hopes rest with a Nobel recipient

who has experienced firsthand persecution by its military junta, which ran the country for a half-century. Suu Kyi spent 15 years under house arrest and now effectively leads the government as state counselor, a role that gives her wide powers.

Suu Kyi could order a pardon through her control of the presidency.

But that appears improbable, according to interviews with almost a dozen diplomats, government officials and others who have privately raised the case with her. They suggest it is Suu Kyi, not the country’s powerful military, playing the most pivotal role in keeping the journalists behind bars.

“We didn’t necessarily think she’d change her mind, but she was somewhat indignant,” the Trump administration official said. “This is a woman who had a reputation as an incredible free-

Vice President Pence and Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi at a summit in November.

The two are at odds over the case of journalists Wa Lone, below, and Kyaw Soe Oo, bottom, who are jailed in Myanmar for investigating suspected atrocities.

dom fighter.”

Stephen J. Adler, Reuters editor in chief, said in a statement to The Washington Post that Reuters has “undertaken every possible effort” to secure Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo’s release. He declined to comment on possible exchanges with Suu Kyi or other members of the Myanmar government.

“In addition to the domestic legal proceedings, we have engaged in extensive outreach and advocacy to make clear that these two admirable reporters were not, at any time, acting as spies to harm Myanmar,” Adler said.

On Tuesday in Washington, a group of 22 bipartisan senators introduced a bill calling for the release of the Reuters journalists and for the safe repatriation of the Rohingya.

“Burma’s human rights violations and persecution of a free press are hallmarks of authoritarian rule, not a fledgling democracy,” said Sen. Jeff Merkley (DOre.), one of the bill’s sponsors.

“We cannot allow this to stand.”

In private conversations, Suu Kyi has expressed disdain for the international media, who she believes have exacerbated the Rohingya crisis in western Myanmar’s Rakhine state and is biased in their reporting, according to a person who has discussed this directly with Suu Kyi and requested anonymity for fear of reprisals.

Sui Kyi has chided some of her party’s executive committee members for speaking to the foreign media, the person said.

In a notable shift, Suu Kyi permitted President Win Myint to intervene on behalf of three Myanmar journalists for the local Eleven Media Group, which published a journal in the Myanmar language. The three were charged with incitement over an article critical of the regional government’s business dealings.

Charges against the three were dropped in November.

“She thinks local media can be controlled on what they report on and are not biased like the international media,” said the person who spoke to Suu Kyi. n

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WORLD

KLMNO WEEKLY

Populism’s broken promise in Italy

BY C HICO H ARLAN AND S TEFANO P ITRELLI

in Rome

T

he building is seven stories tall, not far from the main train station, surrounded by cheap motels.

Once, it was bureaucratic headquarters for a government pension fund. Now, it is an illegal home for 450 people who sleep in the old office rooms, share bathroom clean-up duties, and take turns standing guard at the front entrance, ready to press an alarm button if and when authorities show up and order them to leave.

Some people in the building are newly arrived immigrants — the targets of a law-and-order clampdown by Italy’s populist government.

Others, though, might have expected support from a government that has promised to put “Italians first.”

“I am an Italian,” said Maurizio Zanga, 62, a laid-off garbage collector who lives on the seventh floor next to a family of Somalis.

“But I am not one of the first. I am one of the last.”

If Italy’s government offers a test case of what happens when populists come to power, the threat to clear illegally occupied buildings shows how defend-thecountry measures can end up hurting citizens, too.

Interior Minister Matteo Salvini — head of the far-right League party — has said all squatted buildings in Rome will be cleared, “none excluded.” The Salvini decree, as his signature policy is known, is a sweeping security measure passed by the government in November and presented as a tool to push back against migration. It also raises penalties for squatters, no matter their nationality or legal status, who can face steeper fines and up to four years imprisonment.

Last December, when authorities in Rome cleared a particularly ramshackle building, Salvini showed up at the site and streamed a four-hour video of the operation. He posted on Facebook that the squatters were “mostly

GERALDINE H. GHELLI FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

The government vowed to put ‘Italians first,’ but its anti-squatting policies are hurting citizens, too migrants.” The video footage included an interview with a man who said he was from Gambia and would sleep on the street that night.

“Send them back to Africa,” one poster wrote below.

“Bravo, Matteo,” another said.

But the prevalence of squatters in Rome speaks not only to a fiveyear influx of people coming from the Middle East and Africa, but also to a generation-long economic stagnation — and the failure of one government after the next to provide a safety net.

With a dearth of public housing, in a city plagued by economic misfortune and mismanagement, between 10,000 and 11,000 people live as squatters in abandoned factories, office buildings and other properties, according to city data.

Fabrizio Nizi, a housing activist, estimates that 30 to 40 percent of the squatters in Rome are Italians.

Some lost their jobs before retirement age and couldn’t find new

positions. Others have struggled to enter the workforce entirely.

Some have applied for public housing, but the city faces a logjam, and new units are not being built.

“People wait up to 10 years for a home,” Nizi said. “You need to wait for somebody to die.”

Rome has not taken an official stance on the squatters, but a city spokesman said that “plenty of the squatted buildings put the safety of their own squatters at risk. The goal is that of offering a dignified alternative.”

Some of the buildings are in dire shape — no windows, trash everywhere. The old pension building, though, more closely resembles a tidy low-income housing complex, albeit one with no heat. The nameplates of old bureaucrats remain posted outside the office rooms.

But some of the occupants have decorated their doors with stickers and art. Residents stage theater performances. Handwritten

Maurizio Zanga is among the 30 to 40 percent of squatters in Rome who are Italian.

signs provide rules for a “civil coexistence.” The complex is managed by the residents with help from Action, a housing activist group.

Experts say authorities are unlikely to forcibly clear all squatted buildings, as Salvini has promised.

Still, Salvini has managed to raise the anxiety everywhere.

“Day and night, my children are suffering just thinking about it,” said Gianfranco Meneghetti, 53, a resident on the seventh floor of the pension building. Gianfranco was born in Ethiopia but is an Italian citizen. His eldest child, who is 15, sometimes asks what the family would do after eviction. “There is nothing I can say to reassure him,” Meneghetti said.

Pension building residents said Salvini’s threats have also heightened an us-versus-them mentality.

People said they notice changes in people on the outside, or even in themselves. Some of the Italian squatters have begun to grumble about the noise and cooking odors made by families from other countries, or about how Ramadan forces changes to building meeting times, or about how foreigners beat them out for low-paying cleaning and caretaking jobs.

Sabina Aristarco, 53, an Italian who lives on the first floor, said she’d encountered employers who wanted only people from Africa.

“You’d have to put on blinders not to see the problems with migration,” she said. But, at the same time, she saw the benefits to migration, too. Her closest friends in the building were non-Italian. Her partner was from Tanzania. She saw how people from all over — those fluent in Italian and those just learning — could bicker but then settle disputes at weekly building meetings.

At those events, it has been Zanga who often played mediator — stepping into others’ arguments with the gruff and avuncular demeanor of the union boss he once was.

But Zanga still doesn’t grasp the goal of clearing out squatters entirely. If he’s kicked out, where would he go? For him, there is no country to return to.n

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NATION

1 in 4 poor Americans don’t get aid B Y T RACY J AN

M

ore than a quarter of people living in poverty in the U.S. receive no help from food stamps and other nutrition programs, subsidized housing, cash benefits, or child care assistance, according to a new Urban Institute analysis examining the reach of the social safety net.

That means 13 million people at the poverty line, with household incomes below $25,100 a year for a family of four, are disconnected from federal programs for the neediest Americans.

Among the very poorest Americans — families of four making less than $13,000 a year — nearly a third receive no benefit from the federal safety net.

“There are a lot of people in this country who are not attached to our major systems of support, and they are in desperate need,” said Gregory Acs, vice president for income and benefits policy at the Urban Institute.

Black Americans are most likely to receive assistance, with 85 percent of those in poverty receiving at least one form of aid.

Hispanics and Asians are least likely, with 66 and 67 percent, respectively. Among whites, 70 percent receive at least one benefit.

Researchers who study poverty and government assistance programs suggested multiple reasons some groups are more likely to receive benefits than others.

Studies have shown that lower-income white families have more resources to fall back on than lower-income nonwhite families.

Among black and white families with equally low incomes, the assets and net wealth of poor African Americans tend to be well below those of whites — leaving them with fewer alternatives to government assistance programs, said Arloc Sherman, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Families with even a small amount of savings — between $250 to $750 — are less likely to

MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST

13 million people in poverty are disconnected from the federal safety net. Most are white. receive public benefits when faced with job loss, unexpected medical bills and other income disruptions, said Signe-Mary McKernan, an economist at the Urban Institute whose research focuses on financial security.

Whites are more likely than blacks and Hispanics to own homes, have retirement savings, and inherit money, even at lowerincome levels, she said.

“That’s money that can be used to tide families over in an emergency,” McKernan said.

In addition to family wealth, immigration status and the social stigma surrounding federal benefits may also play a role in the gap, researchers said. Undocumented immigrants — of whom a fifth live in poverty, according to the Pew Hispanic Center — are not eligible to receive benefits.

In Mississippi, where poor whites are twice as likely as their

black counterparts to not receive federal assistance, advocates say the racial stigma surrounding government help hurts lawmakers’ will to expand the safety net.

Instead, the deeply red state has enacted policies that make it more difficult to access food stamps, welfare and child care assistance, said Carol Burnett, executive director of the Mississippi Low-Income Child Care Initiative.

“There is a real racial undercurrent in our state in attitudes toward public assistance,” said Burnett, who is white. “Public assistance is maligned by white conservative policymakers the same way it is nationally — that it serves as a disincentive, that people are too lazy, that people don’t deserve it — this whole set of descriptors that functions as code language in Mississippi to basically mean black people.”

Valorie Ladner said she has had to brush aside the judgment of extended family members and seek government help to feed her four children.

Valorie Ladner, a white mother in Waveland Miss., said she’s had to brush aside the judgment of extended family members and seek government help to feed her four children. She receives about $750 a month in food stamps, a fact she used to try to hide from strangers at the grocery store by quickly swiping her EBT card.

“I’m not going to let my kids go without because of my pride,” said Ladner, 36, whose husband, who is in construction and plumbing, is out of work. Ladner recently got a temporary $1,200-a-month job as a janitor at her daughter’s school.

Ladner said she was also set to apply for subsidized housing but her father, a retired fireman, allowed her family to live in his house rent-free.

“If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have a roof over my head,” Ladner said. “I’m lucky to have help from my family. Not everybody has that safety net.”

Overall, the federal safety net reaches nearly one in five Americans each month, including nearly a third of all children, according to the Urban Institute analysis. Among the 59 million Americans receiving some type of assistance, 43 percent are white, 26 percent are Hispanic, 23 percent are black, and 8 percent are Asian.

The Urban Institute study, which adjusts for the underreporting of benefits, did not examine how much individuals receive in benefits or whether the assistance meets their needs.

The reach of the safety net differs across states, the analysis found. On average, the estimated percentage of people with household incomes below $50,200 for a family of four who receive help from at least one of the programs ranges from 36 percent in Utah to 67 percent in Washington, D.C. Some states make it easier to enroll in safety net programs through active outreach or additional state funding. Other states have enacted policies such as work requirements that the Trump administration is seeking to expand. n

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KLMNO WEEKLY

The price of extreme weather

BY B RADY D ENNIS AND C HRIS M OONEY

T

he number of billion-dollar weather disasters in the United States has more than doubled in recent years, as devastating hurricanes and ferocious wildfires that experts suspect are fueled in part by climate change have ravaged swaths of the country.

Since 1980, the United States has experienced 241 weather and climate disasters where the overall damage reached or exceeded $1 billion, when adjusted for inflation, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Between 1980 and 2013, according to NOAA, the nation averaged roughly half a dozen such disasters a year. Over the most recent five years, that number has jumped to more than 12.

“We had about twice the number of billion dollar disasters than we have in an average year over the last 40 years or so,” Deke Arndt, chief of the monitoring branch at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, told reporters Wednesday.

NOAA said 14 separate weather and climate disasters, costing at least $1 billion each, hit the United States during 2018. The disasters killed at least 247 people and cost the nation an estimated $91 billion. The bulk of that damage, about $73 billion, was attributable to three events: Hurricanes Michael and Florence and the collection of wildfires that raged across the West.

Yet 2018 did not set the record for the most expensive year for such disasters. That distinction belongs to 2017, when Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria combined with devastating Western wildfires and other natural catastrophes caused $306 billion in total damage. They were part of a historic year that saw 16 separate events that cost more than $1 billion each.

But the most recent numbers continue what some experts call an alarming trend toward an increasing number of billion-dollar

NOAH BERGER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Fourteen disasters cost the nation 247 lives, nearly $100 billion in damage during 2018 disasters, fueled, at least in part, by the warming climate.

“There’s this knot in your stomach where you know there is some big piece of this that is probably coming from climate change, but at the same time, there are a lot of moving parts,” said Solomon Hsiang, a public policy professor at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied how natural disasters affect societies.

Many factors contribute to the cost of any one disaster. For instance, a hurricane that hits a heavily populated area, such as Hurricane Sandy in 2012 or Hurricane Harvey in 2017, is likely to have a far higher economic impact than one that hits a less crowded part of the country. The nation’s growing population, inconsistent building codes and the fact that many cities and infrastructure sit near coasts or along rivers also play a role. But increasingly, experts say, so does climate change.

“The recent past is likely pro-

logue,” said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, who has studied the economic impact climate change is likely to have on different parts of the country in the coming decades.

Separately this past week, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and NOAA released data that officially made 2018 the fourth-warmest year since 1880.

The last four years have been the warmest on record, and nine of the 10 warmest years have been since 2005. Analyses from NASA and NOAA also show that in most or all of these years, the Earth was at least 1 degree Celsius, or 1.8 degree Fahrenheit, warmer than it was in the preindustrial era of the middle to late 1800s.

“It was quite clearly the fourth warmest year in our record, which goes back to 1880, and probably was warmer than many hundreds of years before that,” said Gavin

Homes leveled by the Camp Fire line the Ridgewood Mobile Home Park retirement community in Paradise, Calif., in December.

Insurance claims from California’s deadly November 2018 wildfires have topped $11.4 billion, state officials have said.

Schmidt, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies at NASA, which produces the temperature record.

The agencies’ data also showed that 2018 was the wettest in the past 35 years in the U.S., and the third wettest since record keeping began in 1895.

Hsiang said that climate models predict that the country can expect more of the most catastrophic and costly events over time — namely, more powerful hurricanes slamming into the East and Gulf coasts and more intense wildfires in the West. Scientists also have predicted that a warming climate will fuel more severe droughts, longer wildfire seasons and more frequent floods.

Climate change has helped to shape the severity of at least some of the natural disasters in recent years, said Kerry Emanuel, a top hurricane expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For instance, Emanuel has published research suggesting the enormous rainfall Hurricane Harvey dumped on Houston was made more possible because of climate change.

However, that’s different than saying that the overall aggregate damage figures are definitely rising because of climate change.

That hasn’t been proven to a 95 percent certainty, Emanuel said, but there are reasons to suspect climate change is playing a notable role.

“If you’re assessing a risk, a risk you have every reason to think exists, nobody would ever require that certainty,” Emanuel continued. “Generals in the battlefield would never wait for 95 percent certainty.”

There are also projections that the impact of climate change should soon be making itself felt in the cost of at least some disasters. A 2014 analysis by the Rhodium Group, for instance, projected that by 2030, the average damage from hurricanes and nor’easters, to the East and Gulf coasts in particular, should be $3 billion to $7.3 billion higher each year.

That’s if climate change continues unabated. n

10

SUNDAY, February, 10, 2019

COVER STORY

Downtown Denver is experiencing a construction boom, fueled by rapid city growth and a need for housing.

PHOTOS BY CHET STRANGE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

11

SUNDAY, February, 10, 2019

SOaring to new heights In the West, skylines are rising as cities grow up instead of out

BY SCOTT WILSON in Denver

The Western skyline is rising.

From the Rockies to the Pacific, cities are seeking to accommodate increasing populations amid housing shortages by growing up instead of out. A number of them, including this mile-high city hard against the Front Range, are considering projects that would construct some of the tallest buildings in the West.

The towers are the showpieces, but across these urban centers, which have sprawled into suburbs for years, new housing and office projects also are being built taller than ever before. The construction is focused around public transportation centers, and, in some cases, cities are allowing heights to rise beyond original zoning rules as a reward for builders who contribute more to affordable housing.

The development that will take place across the West during the next few years will change the character of these cities, once as flat and wide as the original frontier. Structures, some of which will reach above 70 stories, will threaten mountain and ocean views, and historic neighborhoods are being squeezed by projects designed to attract new business and wealthier residents.

Here in the Rockies, where housing costs are rising along with Denver’s population, there is mounting concern that height might soon come at the expense of its high-mountain character and neighborhood culture. Antique pockets of the changing downtown, such as Five Points, once called the “Harlem of the West” for its historic African American population, is increasingly falling into the shade of the skyline around it.

“People in Denver are happily spoiled by the fact that we can look left and right and see the mountains,” said Teague Bohlen, a Five Points resident and professor of creative writing at the University of Colorado at Denver.

“That is certainly being threatened, and it will likely get worse.”

But even skeptics of the push for height are largely convinced that, given the inexorable growth, it is the right course to better protect the environment, increase apartment stock and add to affordable housing funds.

Cranes loom over construction sites. Scaffolding around newbuilding skeletons has become an architectural signature of the city, if only a temporary one. Yet it is still possible to see the distant snow caps through the corridors of the rising urban canyons.

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“There are very few cities that have faced the growth we’ve seen in recent years,” said Mayor Michael B. Hancock (D), who took office in 2011. The city has grown by 110,000 people, or 18 percent, since then, and it is now roughly 40,000 houses and apartments short of meeting demand. “So we’ve been in the laboratory,” Hancock said. “And there is no doubt that it’s more economically and environmentally efficient to go higher.”

Across the West, a thriving economy has attracted businesses and workers, drawn in part to the region’s natural beauty and outdoor ethic. The growth has driven up housing prices at a time when states, led by California, are seeking to slow suburban development to meet environmental goals undermined by long commutes and thick traffic.

The changing Western cityscape will bring some of its urban areas closer in appearance to those along the Eastern Seaboard, where height has long been a priority — “as much for ego as for functionality,” said Nicholas de Monchaux, a professor of architecture and urban design at the University of California at Berkeley.

He said the skyscraper, far from conflicting with the frontier design here, is “a quintessentially Western artifact.” The iconic building set within the dramatic natural settings of the West, he said, is consistent with the same design priorities behind the Golden Gate Bridge and the Hoover Dam, two of the nation’s great engineering feats.

“These buildings are also a quintessential vote of confidence in the city, which the West has often struggled with,” de Monchaux said.

“The hazard is that we only create these skyscrapers as places to drive to rather than places to also live in. That will make these cities more livable, and making places more livable is what the West has always been about.”

But building inside crowded cities raises its own challenges and has prompted some radical proposals amid a deepening housing shortage. A bill in California last year would have allowed the state to overrule local government decisions on housing projects built near transportation hubs, the ideal “infill” developments that residents nonetheless often oppose.

The measure failed. Its author, State Sen. Scott Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat whose city has become the emblem of high housing costs and economic inequality, has reintroduced the legislation after spending time talking with local leaders in neighborhoods that could be affected, especially those with black and Latino majorities.

“This is an incredibly hard bill,” Wiener said. “But this extreme local control with no balance is not working anymore.”

Wiener said ideally the measure would allow more “three-, four-, five-, six-story buildings that fit nicely into middle-class neighborhoods,” many now consisting of the city’s trademark two-story Victorians and apartments. He said the intent is to increase “the diversity of housing” available in California cities, many of which are confronting widespread homelessness and accompanying pub-

lic safety consequences.

“This applies across the West,” Wiener said.

“We hear the same things from Denver, Seattle, Portland and others. If California can be seen as the historic example of how to meet growth and housing needs as badly as possible, then this discussion is going to be productive everywhere.”

SEATTLE Seattle and San Diego are considering projects — mixes of housing and office space — that would rival the cities’ tallest buildings. David Boynton, a Seattle architect and photographer, began tracking the roughly 300 new building projects in his city with a visual computer program. He is modeling the city’s changing appearance and looking for how it translates into daily life.

“The character of a city to me is less about its skyline than it is about its street life,” said Boynton, who occasionally presents his computer visualizations to the City Council. “This is what big Western cities are trying to achieve — urbanity. And it comes with density.”

Los Angeles is considering a 77-story tower in the Bunker Hill neighborhood, a project that would be the city’s highest. To the south in Long Beach, developers are preparing to begin construction on a 40-story tower along the waterfront.

The Westside Gateway project also includes

CHET STRANGE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

As construction continues in downtown Denver, more and more developments are choosing to go up rather than out, leading to a surge in skyscrapers and large multistory buildings being developed.

a 22-story tower and several “mid-rise” buildings. It eventually will exceed in height the 35-story tower under construction on the other end of Ocean Boulevard, seizing its briefly held title as the city’s tallest building when finished.

“We’re trying to make more productive use of our land,” said Alan Pullman, an architect with Studio One Eleven, the Long Beach firm that designed both projects. “There’s obviously a lot of pressure to do that, and the most efficient way to do it is vertically.”

SACRAMENTO Some of these projects are echoes of past plans derailed by recession.

At the entrance to Sacramento, a largely low-rise government town that is among California’s oldest cities, is an empty lot that for more than a decade has been known derisively as “the hole in the ground.”

Before the 2008 recession, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, or CalPERS, planned to build two, 53-story luxury condominium towers on the site, which city officials call “the front door” to the palm-lined Capitol Mall and the two-year-old Golden 1 Center, home of the Sacramento Kings NBA franchise.

The early advertising for The Towers on Capitol Mall showed an artist’s rendering of the buildings looming above the city, the

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COVER STORY

Sacramento River just beneath its windows.

Against a gold background, the marketing slogan read: “Where Donald Would Live.”

The faltering economy wiped out those Trump-scale plans. Now CalPERS has proposed a 30-story tower for the site at a cost of $550 million. The building, comprising apartments, shops and offices, would edge out the Wells Fargo Center as the city’s tallest at a time when an arriving exodus from the Bay Area is driving up housing costs and providing opportunities to diversify a mostly public-sector economy.

“This is a city in the midst of real transformation,” said Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg (D), who has been in office a little more than two years after a long career in the state legislature.

“There is an intangible specialness about this place. But we’re changing as a necessity because a government base is no longer enough to provide opportunity for all our people.”

From Steinberg’s fifth-floor office window, the Sacramento skyline appears mostly flat, nothing but a church steeple or two rising higher than his view. Just out of sight is the State Capitol dome, a landmark that the new projects could obstruct from some vantages.

But the office space that will come with projects such as the CalPERS tower will help speed along Steinberg’s hoped-for economic transformation.

Sacramento has a homeless problem — tents and sleeping bags circle the courtyard at the entrance to city hall — and Steinberg said the

CHET STRANGE FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

More than a dozen hotel, office and residential buildings are under construction in Denver’s greater downtown, a boom the scale of which many say is unprecedented.

development must be in service to the larger goals of increasing housing stock and preventing the kind of neighborhood displacement happening in many other California cities.

“The ‘G’ word is not allowed in this office,” Steinberg said, referring to gentrification. “I want the city to have all of the great things that cosmopolitan cities have. But if that’s all we do, we’ll only be good. To be great, we have to be intentional about tying that prosperity and that growth to our neighborhoods, especially our disadvantaged neighborhoods, and housing affordability is a key element.”

DENVER More than a dozen hotel, office and residential buildings are under construction here in Denver’s greater downtown, a boom the scale of which many say is unprecedented. There are also designs on the drawing board that would alter the top of the Denver skyline.

Plans for a 1,000-foot skyscraper at 17th and California streets, which would dwarf the next-tallest building, were presented last year.

But there has been a delay involving the purchase of the property. For now the project, a mix of luxury condominiums, a hotel, restaurants and shops, is on hold.

Michael Santora, the principal partner of Crown Architecture and Consulting, which is helping manage the project, said the plans went through a preliminary zoning review last

KLMNO WEEKLY

year and is “still a go.” He traveled to Denver to see the site and was amazed by the amount of construction and renovation taking place across the city.

“It’s constantly changing now, all of these neighborhoods,” Santora said. “The Colorado lifestyle is a thing that people flock to. And businesses see a lot of talent and are now following it there.”

During his time in office, Mayor Hancock has established programs that encourage developers to build up — higher than previously permitted, in some cases — in exchange for larger contributions to the city’s affordable housing fund. It is an incentive that is lifting Denver’s skyline.

In December, the City Council approved plans to develop what is known as River Mile, a stretch of land along the South Platte River that at the moment is occupied by a rarely used amusement park surrounded by the Pepsi Center and the Broncos’ Mile High Stadium.

The development could one day be home to 15,000 people.

Many will be living vertically. The agreement allows the developer to build apartment towers higher than five stories in exchange for a percentage of the additional housing to be affordable. The design calls for several buildings in the 30- to 40-story range and perhaps one as high as 59 stories, which would be the city’s highest.

“Denver is a place where now, if you don’t have a brand-new building, you don’t stand out anymore,” said Charles Bernard, a 45-yearold developer walking along the South Platte on a chilly recent morning. Bernard said he would lose the view from his sixth-floor apartment of the amusement park’s illuminated Ferris wheel when the work is complete. But he said the construction is essential to keep pace with Denver’s growth.

“This is a place people really don’t go to much now,” he said. “This will make it more useful.”

Hancock said planners are taking into consideration the mountain views that make Denver a city among the most evocative of the historic West. But with height comes obstruction, and some neighborhoods in the shadow of the most intensive development are experiencing it already.

Bohlen, the creative writing professor, chose Five Points as the place he wanted to raise his children because of its enduring ethnic diversity.

The construction and real estate speculation is changing the neighborhood, a process of gentrification easily identifiable in many other Western cities. Some longtime residents are moving out, newcomers taking their places in taller buildings.

It is the natural “push and pull of gentrification,” Bohlen said, but with the height and shifting demographics, he worries that “we are losing the texture and culture of these neighborhoods.”

“But I don’t know if we are at the stage yet where it is changing the culture of the whole city,” Bohlen said. n

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SUNDAY, February,10, 10, 2019 20197 SUNDAY, FEBRUARY

POLITICS

POLITICS

KLMNO WEEKLY

Warren’svacancies Agency identity back worrying underthe spotlight GOP

BY A NNIE L INSKEY AND A MY G ARDNER

BY J ULIET E ILPERIN, J OSH D AWSEY AND S EUNG M IN K IM

No lizabeth Warren was a law nominees professor at the Univerrom the Justice Departsity of Texas when she ment to Veterans Affairs, for 150 filled out a form from the vast swaths of the governstate bar that asked her to list her ment have top positions top jobs race. Her answer, printedfilled in careby officials serving in an ful block letters: “American Indiacting capacity — or no one at all. requiring an.”

More than two years into Trump’s Thirty-three years later — the as president has an acting term, approval she was nearing the chief official of staff, attorney general, launch of her presidential run —secretary, interior secredefense

by Senate that newly disclosed document tary, Office of Management and

E

F

Large federal departments lack permanent leadership Share of key positions filled, by department or agency as of Jan. 28 Filled

Nomination pending Senate approval

Acting secretary 100%

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Veterans Affairs Energy Defense Health and Human Services Commerce

83% 78% 77% 76% 71%

emerged as a political flash point, Budget director and Environmen65% forcing Warren to reckon a talwith Protection Agency chief.

Homeland Security question that has been dogging To deal with the number of 64% her for years and that vacancies she has in the upper ranks of State never put to rest: why, departments, through agencies have been much of her life and legal career, relying on novel and legally ques63% Education she claimed to be Nativetionable Ameri- personnel moves that 62% can despite being white. could leave the administration’s Agriculture

By Wednesday, after policies the baropen to court challenges. registration card was published The lack of permanent leaders 57% Treasury SALWAN GEORGES/THE WASHINGTON POST

by The Washington Post,has Warren started to alarm top congresfaced new doubts aboutsional her viaRepublicans who are press57% Transportation bility in the presidentialing race, for as key posts to be filled. activists and strategists evaluated “It’s a lot, it’s way too many,” 57% Environmental Protection Agency how much damage the Sen.issue James Lankford (R-Okla.) might do — especially given saidDemof the acting positions in 54% Housing and Urban Development ocrats’ focus on finding Cabinet a candi- agencies. “You want to date who can defeat President have confirmed individuals there 43% Labor Trump — and what she might dotheytohave explain her past because a lot more au- claims of pal chief of the Cherokee tribe, Sen. Elizabeth to move past it. has though members of the tribe had41% Warren, seen on thority to beNative able toAmerican make deci-identity,Justice Liberal activists have sions long and de- implement promptedpolicy some Democrats to mixed reactions. when Capitol Hill on scribed cultural appropriation as a confirmed take a harder lookin at herInterior own you have person Republicans have sought to41% Tuesday, has faced hurtful, since someone isthat assumspot.” actions. scrutiny over her take advantage. Trump told the KEVIN UHRMACHER/THE WASHINGTON POST Source: Partnership for Public ing the identity of a groupBy withThe matter now to any standard, Trump’s ad-threatens past claims of Native New YorkService Times, “I do think out having faced the suffering or overshadow thepredimage Warren ministration lags behind its American ancestry.

Elizabeth Warren’s been hurt very discrimination that group en- when hasitsought foster of tion a truthecessors comes to filling at Justice — which, like InThewould latestbe disclosure badly with the Pocahontas trap,” who secretary the first dured. The question is top whether telling consumer advocate who posts throughout the governterior, has been operating without raised doubts noting that the controversy hadto head woman the new Pentagon.

Democratic primary voters would campaign for the White mentwill — even though the presia permanent secretary for weeks about need her viability undermined her credibility.“We absolutely to haveina punish Warren for actions as a champion dent’sfor partyHouse has controlled the —forhasthe been vacant for nearly a the presidential The more immediate problem nominee,” permanent said Ernst, which she has apologized. class. is now Senate for hisworking entire time inInstead, office. she year, with noWarren nominee in sight. race. faces is within aher own who veteran sits on the Senate “This was about 30 yearsRepublicans ago,” seeking to combat the portrait have largely One of vacancy senators have fixparty.

Armed Services Committee. “I do said Warren, when blamed asked Senate someone who for years insufDemocrats for was ated on is at the Pentagon, where identity “To claim native — confidence in Patrick have great Wednesday why she filledslowing out thedown ficiently sensitive to former a long- defense the consideration Jim appropriate clearlysecretary it wasn’t the Shanahan, I know he is the acting bar form. She explained of that as a branch oppressed minority. TheMattis matter executive nominees. resigned in December after thing to do,” said Aimeesecretary Allison, right now. But I do feel girl in Oklahoma she’d learned also to is an arising at by a time when with But according analysis clashing Trumpofover founder Shehis thedePeople,that a group in order to reassure allies and stories about her familythe history issues racialService and cultural idenPartnership forof Public cision to begin withdrawing U.S. women focused on electing of back on our adversaralso to push from her parents and and siblings, tity are increasingly The Washington Post, the sensitive troops in from color.

Syria. “Was Patrick sheShanatrying toies, indicate it’s very important that we leading her to believe the family Party.

White Housethe hasDemocratic not bothered to han has beenher serving in an acting solidarity with thehave group? a permanent secretary of was Native American. “But that people Adding troublessince nominate for 150to outWarren’s of 705 capacity Jan.was 1. it like that for her Why in the defense.” said, there really is an important are her fumbling efforts in recent key Senate-confirmed positions.

Some Senate Republicans have 1980s?

I think she has moreTrump to say does not share the urdistinction of tribal citizenship,” monthsoftothe getInterior ahead of the issue. on on Only 41 percent lobbied behalf that.” of potential gency of some in his party to name For Democrats, the issue was Department’s Many activistsSenatecomplained whensuccessors. and Justice Mattis Ina along private There’s history in Ameripermanent Cabinet secretaries, long eclipsed by anger atconfirmed Trump’s posts she released the results a DNAcall ca are filled, and of phone shortly aftermaking Mattisunsubstantiof people largely because he sees leaving ridicule of Warren, especially testofshowing she had aannounced distant his just 43his percent these positions impending ated claims todeparNative American people as interim to his benefit. use of the nickname “Pocahonancestor wasDeNativeture, Amerihave been filled at thewho Labor Sen. Joni Ernsta (R-Iowa) heritage, practice objected to The president has told others it tas.” But Warren’s presidential phone partment. can. Warren apologized by urged Trumpstrongly to nominate Heath-members by tribal makes as the secretaries more “rerun, coming as she has struggled recentlyranking to Bill John The third-highest posi-Baker, erprinciWilson, the current Airculture Force and diluting their shared an administration offisponsive,”

Newly disclosed form shows her claiming Native American heritage on Texas bar registration card

cial said. experience.

Thedeal To first with known the lack instance of Senateof Warren being confirmed officials identified in key as having posts, Native American several agencies ancestry have employed was in 1984, when unusual legal her gambits. name appeared in a Acting cookbook interior called secretary “Pow David Wow Chow,” compiled Bernhardt amended by aan cousin order tohis be sold at a fundraiser. predecessor, Ryan Zinke, signed in Warren November listed to keep herself eight as ahand“minority” deputies picked in the inAssociation place without of American Senate approval.

Law Schools Underdirectory the restarting vised order, in 1986, these appointees and presented can herselfinthat serve their way posts in the fordirectory another for nine four months, years. unless That same theyyear, are she refilled out placed or the bar department card, which decides The Post to extend obtained the deadline via once an again. openrecords At both request the departments to the State Bar of Inof Texas. and Veterans Affairs, offiterior cials There’s havenoassigned indication deputies that Warto ren gained perform theprofessionally critical functions by reof porting herself as Native Senate-confirmed officers Ameribut can onstopped have the card.short Aboveofthe calling lines for race, them “acting” national to avoid origin the legal and handicap status, requirements of the theFederal card says, Va“The following cancies Reform information Act. That 1998 islaw for statistical that stipulates purposes individuals only and cannot will not be disclosed occupy Senate-confirmed to any person posts or in organization an acting capacity without for longer the express than written 300 daysconsent during of a president’s the attorney.” first year, TheandAALS more directories than 210 days were in used by law years. subsequent schools when searchingAfter for new VA’s acting professors, deputy promptsecreing some tary Jim Byrne Republicans hit histo210-day charge that she mark last month, was claiming SecretaryNative Robidentity ert Wilkie togave get ahead. him a new job as of Jan. Warren 14 — “general moved from counsel, the Uniperversity ofthe forming Texas duties to the of the University deputy of Pennsylvania secretary of Veterans in 1987.

Affairs,” After she acworked at cording to Penn department for about spokestwo years,Curt man the Cashour. university changed her recorded Left unclear race isfrom whether white these to NativeofAmerican, types personnelschool movesrecords could show. Warren cause legal headaches has told the for the Boston adGlobe that she requested the ministration. change, A Congressional saying it was important Research for her report Service to reflect published what she in July believed to bethat concluded her family “an action heritage. taken

by Several any person months who” is after not complyWarren started ing withworking the Vacancies at Harvard Act “inLaw the School in lateof1995, performance any Harvard function reor corded duty of her a vacant ethnicity officeas. . Native . shall American, have no force according or effect.” to Theuniverreport sity recordsthereported addresses Vacancies

by Act the Globe. and broadly The not records any specific include stepsa memo by taken showing the administration. that Warren signedthe While off position on the change. outlined in the report Harvard has continued not been tested reporting in Warrenseveral court, as a legal Nativeexperts American said until it2004, that at least theraises records a question show.

Warrenthe about hasdurability never explained of policies what happened that undertaken by year officials to prompt who lack the change.approval.

Senate n n

15 SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2019

SUNDAY, February, 10, 2019 18

KLMNO WEEKLY

BOOKS

A tale of Native American exceptionalism N ONFICTION

l

REVIEWED BY

P AUL A NDREW H UTTON

D THE HEARTBEAT OF WOUNDED KNEE Native America from 1890 to the Present

By David Treuer Riverhead. 512 pp. $28

avid Treuer — a talented novelist and essayist with a doctorate in anthropology who is also a literature professor at the University of Sourthern California — writes in a fashion as unconventional as his own life’s journey. Treuer was raised on the Ojibwe reservation at Leech Lake in Minnesota, the son of a Jewish father and an Ojibwe mother, and his vision of America derived from his upbringing informs every page of his new book, “The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present.” His is a fascinating personal vision and in its own way uniquely American.

Readers in search of conventional history may be disappointed, for although somewhat chronological the book’s structure is hardly linear, and the historical content, while sound, is minimal. As in his previous book, “Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation Life,” Treuer relies on extended interviews and personal memoir to tell his tale.

Treuer wishes to revise the image of the Indian long prevalent in American literature and historiography as the Vanishing American, a race so compromised by disease, war and intermarriage that it is destined to disappear.

His perspective is one of Native American resiliency and survival.

The popular image of Native American death and destruction took shape as far back as James Fenimore Cooper’s novel “The Last of the Mohicans,” published in 1826. In 1881, Helen Hunt Jackson put a historical perspective on the mistreatment, removal and massacre of Native Americans in her pathbreaking classic, “A Century of Dishonor.” In 1970 Dee Brown popularized perceptions of Indian victimization with “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.”

While Treuer appreciates the importance of the contributions of previous historians, he believes that since the Wounded Knee massacre in 1890, Native Ameri-

NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST

The sun sets over the site of the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota.

cans have overcome despair and destruction through their resilence, carving out a unique place in this country. The U.S. government, Treuer correctly points out, did everything in its power to make the original Americans vanish through unrelenting violence, physical removal and finally forced assimilation. All three methods failed. What the government (and most of the people it represented) could never fully comprehend was that Indians never wished to be assimilated.

Treuer’s impassioned book is more the literary child of Vine Deloria’s 1969 “Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto” than Brown’s “Wounded Knee.”

Deloria argued that native peoples had retained their tribal identity while adapting to modern American society and struggling for their treaty rights and human rights. The embrace of American life along with a demand for special status has always placed Indian people in an awkward position.

In his search for identity — a primary thread of the book — Treuer is seen to embody the contradictions of being Native Ameri-

can. He is educated and successful and moves easily in the world of white America. But he has no wish to relinquish his Ojibwe identity.

Treuer briefly charts Native America from prehistory to the Wounded Knee massacre, then outlines the perils of federal “benevolence” exerted through sometimes well-meaning but continually misguided policies and the horrors of tribal dependency.

Indians suffered through Orwellian boarding schools meant to erase any vestiges of native culture or loyalty in their children, and the allotment of Indian land through the Dawes Act with a promise of eventual citizenship if the tribe was abandoned. Later came the “gift” of citizenship in 1924 and the Indian New Deal in 1934 that reaffirmed tribal rule.

Next was the contradictory effort to terminate all reservations in the 1950s and to integrate their inhabitants into the greater U.S. population, which in turn led to the rise of the violent and, according to Treuer, counterproductive American Indian Movement in the late 1960s.

For Native Americans the game

changer was gambling. An obscure Minnesota property tax case led to a 1976 Supreme Court ruling that denied the right of states to tax or regulate Indian reservations. Tribal leaders across the country quickly seized on this ruling to start selling tax-free tobacco products and running bingo parlors, and later they upgraded to casinos.

This new wealth allowed some tribes to employ high-powered law firms to protect their interests and sue for the return of lost land and abrogated treaty rights. This rise of Indian sovereignty has gone hand in hand with increasing gaming revenue, as has the growing influence of tribes in political contests in several Western states. It is all, as Treuer wryly notes, so very American.

Treuer is an easy companion: thoughtful, provocative and challenging. He tells a disturbing yet heroic story that may very well be seen as a definition of “American exceptionalism.” n Hutton is Distinguished Professor of History at the University of New Mexico.

His latest book is “The Apache Wars.”

16

SUNDAY, February, 10, 2019

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