Apr 25, 2017
Dr. Maya Rockeymoore (@MayaRockeymoore) leads Global Policy Solutions, a Washington, DC-based policy firm that makes policy work for people and their environments.
A former adjunct professor in the Women in Politics Institute at American University, Maya has also served as the vice president of research and programs at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), senior resident scholar at the National Urban League, chief of staff to Congressman Charles Rangel (D-NY), professional staff on the House Ways and Means Committee, and as a CBCF legislative fellow in the office of Congressman Melvin Watt (D-NC) among other positions.
Maya’s areas of expertise include health, social insurance, income security, education, women’s issues and youth civic participation. She is the author of The Political Action Handbook: A How to Guide for the Hip-Hop Generation and co-editor of Strengthening Community: Social Insurance in a Diverse America among many other articles and chapters. Rockeymoore serves on the board of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare and the National Association of Counties and is a member of the National Academy of Social Insurance. The recipient of many honors, she was named an Aspen Institute Henry Crown Fellow in 2004 and is the recipient of Running Start’s 2007 Young Women to Watch Award.
A regular guest on radio and television shows, Maya has appeared on NPR, CNN, Black Entertainment Television, ABC World News Tonight, Fox News, Al Jazeera and C-SPAN. Her opinions have also been quoted by the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, LA Times, Boston Globe, Black America Web, and Houston Chronicle among other prominent national news sources.
In this episode, we discussed:
- the potential impact of autonomous vehicles on driver jobs.
- how the impact of autonomous vehicles will affect people of color, particularly men, in the driver job market.
- policy recommendations for ensuring the downside economics of autonomous vehicles will not disproportionately impact drivers along racial and gender lines.
Resources
Center for Global Policy Solutions
PAPER: Stick Shift: Autonomous Vehicles, Driving Jobs, and the Future of Work by Dr. Algernon Austin, Cherrie Bucknor, Kevin Cashman, and Dr. Maya Rockeymoore (Center for Global Policy Solutions, 2017)
Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance
NEWS ROUNDUP
The Department of Justice is now officially considering charges against individual members of WikiLeaks. The Obama administration did not press charges against WikiLeaks on First Amendment grounds, saying that WikiLeaks should be considered a news organization. The Trump DOJ is looking to reverse that course. Matt Zapotsky and Ellen Nakashima report in the Washington Post.
The FCC deregulated broadcasters and companies offering business data services in orders released during the Commission's open meeting last week. The FCC voted to allow market forces to solely govern the prices for business data services that small businesses, schools, police departments, schools and other organizations pay for data. Democratic Commissioner Mignon Clyburn issued a strong dissent saying it is "one of the worst she has seen in her years at the Commission". The Small Business Administration's Office of Advocacy opposed the changes, as did the EU ambassador to the U.S., who said the changes would favor U.S. companies in violation of World Trade Organization norms. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and supporters of the rule changes argued the FCC had accumulated plenty of data over the last 12 years to make an informed decision about the BDS rules.
And as far as the broadcast rules -- the Commission reinstated the UHF discount allows broadcasters to count only half of viewers who receive tv broadcasts via UHF towards the 39 percent market ownership cap. Amir Nasr has this story in Morning Consult.
FCC Chair Ajit Pai has publicly stated that he wants his agency to stay out of the federal government's review of AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner. The way to do that is to ensure that no broadcast licenses are at stake, since broadcast licenses are firmly within the FCC's jurisdiction. Well, the FCC last week approved Time Warner's sale of WPCH-TV in Atlanta to Meredith broadcasting, thus removing a broadcast license, but as Jon Brodkin notes in Ars, Time Warner still holds several additional licenses that enable Time Warner to transmit its cable network programming on HBO, CNN and its other properties. At over $2 million, AT&T contributed more than any other company to Trump's transition team.
The FCC is still working on overturning net neutrality, but Ajit Pai reportedly held meetings with several tech companies to get their insights on what revised rules might look like. Last week, Pai spoke with representatives from Facebook, Oracle, Cisco and Intel--Cecilia Kang has more in The New York Times.