At the New York Times, Gary Rivlin discusses the question of free college, and suggests that the first two years of college should be free for anyone attending a public school (i.e. community college or the first two years of a four-year state school).  The idea comes from Professor Sara Goldrick-Rab, who first laid out her theory in a 2014 paper co-written with Professor Nancy Kendall.  In it, Goldrick-Rab and Kendall proposed the following: “If you complete a high-school degree, you can obtain a 13th and 14th year of education for free in exchange for a modest amount of work while attending school.” The authors pinpointed large sums of federal money, including billions of dollars in Pell grants that have ended up going to for-profit colleges, that could be used to fund their plan.  The proposal is not without its critics, and as Rivlin puts it, “Two years of free college is not a panacea.” However, it “would give more people hope, at least, in an economy that now pretty much requires skills well beyond the ones taught in high school.”

WNYC reports that Rodney Frelinghuysen, the most powerful congressman in New Jersey, wrote a fundraising letter to a board member of a local bank in which he warned the board member about the political activities of one of the bank’s employees. The letter asked Frelinghuysen’s supporters to donate to his next election because he is under attack, and included a handwritten asterisk positing that “One of the ringleaders [of the groups attacking Frelinghuysen] works in your bank!”  Attached to the letter was also a news article quoting the employee, Saily Avelenda, who was later confronted by her boss with both the letter and the article.  According to Avelenda, “I had to write a statement to my CEO, and at my level as an assistant general counsel and a senior vice president, at this employer it was not something that I expected.”  Coverage is also available at the Washington Post, NPR, and Slate.

Moreover, as a result of Frelinghuysen’s actions, the Campaign for Accountability has filed a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics.  According to The Hill, the Campaign for Accountability “noted that that the House Ethics Committee has warned lawmakers that communicating with private businesses could be construed as ‘pressure to take action in order to please the Member.’ ”

Politico has obtained an early “discussion draft” of the Cornyn-McCaul Border Bill, and weighs in with the details.  The draft legislation would, inter alia, increase the use of mandatory detention, “particularly for undocumented immigrants arrested within 100 miles of a border and from a country other than Mexico or Canada.”  It would also require the sponsors of unaccompanied minors aged 15-17 to wear ankle bracelets while the child remained in removal proceedings.  Nothing in the bill addresses the plight of the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants.  A congressional aide with knowledge of the bill told Politico in an email that the discussion draft “is really old and is nowhere near the current text.”  As Politico notes, it remains unclear whether even a modified version of the bill has a chance of becoming law.