This guy wasn’t term limited, and that turned out awesome. | Photo by FPG/Getty Images

It’s great if you like corruption and incompetence.

Tom Steyer isn’t exactly the breakout candidate of the 2020 Democratic primaries, but he tried to light a fire under his campaign Wednesday night by proclaiming himself the man to support if you believe in term limits.

“I’m the only person on this stage who will talk about term limits,” Steyer declared, promising that if he’s elected, “You’re going to have to have new and different people in charge.” While Steyer did not specify who he intends to term limit, it’s safe to assume that he was speaking about members of Congress; the president is already term limited.

One problem with this proposal is that it is unconstitutional. As the Supreme Court explained in U.S. Term Limits, Inc v. Thorton (1995), which struck down an Arkansas state constitutional amendment that sought to term limit members of Congress, the “fundamental principle of our representative democracy” is that “the people should choose whom they please to govern them.”

If the people want to elect a representative with a long tenure in office, that is the people’s right.

But even if congressional term limits were constitutional, they would still be a terrible idea. A 2006 report from the National Conference of State Legislatures examined states that imposed term limits on their state lawmakers. It found that term limits tend to increase the influence of lobbyists and lead to a “decline in civility” that “reduced legislators’ willingness and ability to compromise and engage in consensus building.”

Term-limited lawmakers, the NCSL explained, “have less time to get to know and trust one another” and “are less collegial and less likely to bond with their peers, particularly those from across the aisle.”

They also aren’t experienced enough to develop the knowledge and legislative skills they need to govern effectively. Term-limited lawmakers cannot spend enough time learning how the legislature works or mastering difficult policy issues. They also can’t rely on senior colleagues to give them this information because there are no senior colleagues.

This problem “forces term-limited legislators to rely on lobbyists for information.” Lobbyists, unlike term-limited lawmakers, are able to spend years mastering legislative process and building institutional memory about reoccurring policy debates. Indeed, in a term-limited legislature, such lobbyists may be the only place lawmakers can turn to for this information. That gives those lobbyists a disproportionate influence over policy.

Term limits also encourage dishonest behavior by those lobbyists. In a legislature with long-serving colleagues, the NCSL explains, lobbyists depend on “their reputation to effectively do their jobs.” A lobbyist caught “lying to or misleading a legislator” risks “a loss of credibility that quickly ends a lobbying career.” For this reason, lobbyists have an incentive “to use reliable information and provide legislators with all sides of a policy debate” when they know that those lawmakers may stay around for a long time.

In a term-limited legislature, however, a lobbyist caught in a lie only needs to wait a little while and everyone who remembers will be gone. There are no senior lawmakers who can warn their colleagues about dishonest lobbyists who should be avoided. As a result, the NCSL warns, “short-term lobbying goals have come [to] outweigh the importance of long-term credibility.”

Of course, as the Supreme Court’s opinion in Term Limits implies, the fact that term limits are not mandated does not mean that they cannot be imposed on individual lawmakers by the voters themselves. If the voters wish to vote a particular lawmaker out of office, they can vote that lawmaker out of office.

But mandatory term limits are a recipe for corruption and incompetence.

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Aji Piper (right), is one of the plaintiffs in the Juliana v. US lawsuit where a group of young people are suing the federal government for pursuing policies that contribute to climate change. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Civil climate lawsuits are already underway as cities and children demand accountability from polluters and the government.

At the fifth Democratic presidential debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders reiterated one of his most aggressive proposals on climate change: As president, he’d like to see fossil fuel executives criminally prosecuted.

“The fossil fuel industry is probably criminally liable because they have lied and lied and lied when they had the evidence that their carbon products were destroying the planet, and maybe we should think about prosecuting them as well,” he said.

And he’s not the only one to raise it. Sen. Elizabeth Warren has also proposed legislation to hold corporate executive, including heads of fossil fuel companies, criminally liable for causing harm to the environment.

Filing criminal charges against coal, oil, and gas companies for causing climate change would be uncharted legal territory. There’s almost no precedent, and it’s not clear which laws the companies have broken. But that’s not the only way to challenge fossil fuels in the courtroom.

Several climate change lawsuits against fossil fuel companies and governments are now proceeding to trial and one suit may even yield a verdict soon. Other Democratic presidential candidates have voiced support for holding fossil fuel companies accountable in civil court. And the courts may soon produce legal precedents that could radically reshape the future of greenhouse gas-emitting industries.

Earlier this month, attorneys delivered closing statements in People of the State of New York v. Exxon Mobil Corp. over allegations that the world’s largest publicly-traded oil company misled investors about the impact of climate regulations on its future business.

Meanwhile, Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell announced this month that his city and county will sue fossil fuel companies for damages stemming from climate change, following a similar announcement from Maui County.

Last month, the US Supreme Court declined to stay a lawsuit filed by Baltimore against oil companies, bringing the case closer to the discovery phase where plaintiffs can request internal documents from the defendants.

And in Canada, a group of 15 youth recently filed a new suit against the government. The case, La Rose v. Her Majesty the Queen, alleges that the Canadian government violated their rights and the rights of future children to a stable climate by enacting policies that led to greenhouse gas emissions. A similar new case is also underway that targets the government of Alaska.

These cases are part of a rising tide of litigation instigated by young people, local governments, cities, and states seeking to hold private companies and governments accountable for contributing to climate change, misleading the public about it, and profiting from it.

Once viewed as a longshot tactic for spurring action on climate change, several of these lawsuits have overcome attempts to dismiss them. However, many are applying existing laws in new ways. And some courts, including the Supreme Court, have voiced their skepticism about the merits of these cases.

At stake is billions of dollars in liabilities for fossil fuel companies and legal precedents that could burst the dam and pave the way for even more lawsuits. So it’s worth paying attention to how these climate lawsuits are proceeding. Here are some of the bigger recent developments.

Children are suing the government of Alaska for promoting fossil fuels

A new variation on climate litigation is gaining momentum in Alaska, where a group of 16 young climate change activists is suing the state for violating their rights under the state constitution. The plaintiffs in Sinnok v. Alaska, several of whom are members of indigenous groups, allege that Alaska’s government promoted fossil fuel development despite knowing the consequences of climate change.

“The state of Alaska has known of the profound dangers of climate change for decades, and in the midst of that knowledge and in the midst of that climate crisis, enacted an energy policy that makes things worse,” said Andrew Welle, the counsel for the plaintiffs and a staff attorney at Our Children’s Trust.

Last month, the Alaska Supreme Court held an appeal hearing for whether the case will proceed to trial in state court, and parties are waiting for a ruling one way or the other.

The Alaska lawsuit echoes Juliana v. United States, also backed by Our Children’s Trust, and underway in a federal court in Oregon. But there are some key differences.

Olivier Douliery/AFP/Getty Images

For one, the Alaska suit is aimed at the state government rather than the federal government. Also, plaintiffs say that climate change is already leading to problems like coastal erosion that is forcing communities to relocate, and exacerbated wildfires as temperatures rise twice as fast in Alaska compared to the lower 48.

“A lot of this is not about the future damages,” Welle said. “A lot of it is about harms that are happening now.”

While the Sinnok suit is narrower in scope than Juliana, it could serve as a model for similar litigation in other states.

The New York attorney general’s office walked back key claims in its climate fraud lawsuit against Exxon Mobil

New York sued Exxon in 2018, alleging that the company misled investors by exaggerating how well it was planning for a future where greenhouse gases could be regulated. Essentially, this case was not about holding Exxon liable for climate damages, but securities fraud.

The high-profile case involved testimony from Exxon CEO and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who said the company took climate change seriously and conveyed those risks accurately to their shareholders. The New York attorney general’s office revealed in 2017 that Tillerson used the alias Wayne Tracker to internally discuss matters, including climate change, during his time as CEO.

But during closing arguments earlier this month, New York Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Zweig said the state was dropping its claims of common law fraud. Instead, it was narrowing its allegations to violations of the Martin Act, which does not require proof of intent to deceive, or proof that an investor made a decision based on allegedly misleading information.

Analysts said the walkback highlights the weakness of New York’s argument. “They never had much of a case,” James Fanto, a professor at Brooklyn Law School who specializes in securities law told Bloomberg. “They are falling back on the weak case of investor confusion.”

It shows just how tricky it is to establish malfeasance, even at a company that has long studied climate change internally while publicly playing up uncertainties and doubt about the connection between burning fossil fuels and rising temperatures.

However, Exxon is not in the clear. Numerous cities and local governments are still suing the company for contributing to climate change, many invoking public nuisance statutes. Some of those claims have already been dismissed while others, like the suit filed by Baltimore, are working their way through state and federal courts.

Last year, Exxon announced that it would back a carbon tax initiative from the Climate Leadership Council, a Republican-led lobbying effort, with the provision that the company receive immunity from climate liability lawsuits. But in September, the group said it would drop the legal immunity language from its proposal, which means the current iteration would allow climate lawsuits against fossil fuel producers.

However, the wheels of justice grind slowly. Some of these lawsuits have been underway for years and may have years to go. And many of these climate cases are playing out in state courts where a president wouldn’t have much influence. But for those that enter the federal courts, a president could shape the outcomes with judicial appointments, and also show how the government defends itself when it’s named as a defendant.

In the meantime, several important decisions will likely emerge in the coming months in cases including Juliana, Sinnok, and the New York complaint against Exxon.

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Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Democratic presidential candidates appear in the fifth debate; Israeli prime minister will push for Jordan Valley annexation bill.

Vox Sentences is your daily digest for what’s happening in the world. Sign up for the Vox Sentences newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox Monday through Friday, or view the Vox Sentences archive for past editions.

Presidential candidates gear up for DNC debate

• Ten candidates for the Democratic nomination for president will take the stage in Atlanta at 9 pm ET Wednesday. [CNBC / Jacob Pramuk]
• Former Vice President Joe Biden, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, California Sen. Kamala Harris, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, billionaire and climate advocate Tom Steyer, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard are set to appear in the fifth Democratic presidential debate. [Washington Post / Terri Rupar]
• There was a notable dropout in the race by former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro’s failed to qualify for the DNC-sponsored event. The field still has expanded, with Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick entering the race, but not the debate stage. [ABC News / Kendall Karson]
• Wednesday’s qualifiers have 165,000 individual donors, hit a minimum of 3 percent in four Democratic National Committee (DNC) approved polls or at least 5 percent in the first four primary states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina. [Vox / Li Zhou]
• With less than three months to the Iowa caucus, clashes between the four top-polling candidates, Biden, Buttigieg, Sanders, and Warren, are to be expected along with more discussion on issues like health care, impeachment, and electability. [New York Times / Reid J. Epstein and Shane Goldmacher]
• Co-hosted by MSNBC and the Washington Post, the debate will be hosted by four female moderators, MSNBC anchors Rachel Maddow and Andrea Mitchell, NBC News White House correspondent Kristen Welker, and Washington Post White House reporter Ashley Parker. This is only the third time in American history that any primary debate was hosted by only women. [Vox / Li Zhou]
• FiveThirtyEight, in partnership with Ipsos, plans to run polls before and after the debates to quantify the impact of the debates on public opinion. [FiveThirtyEight / Aaron Bycoffe, Sarah Frostenson and Julia Wolfe]
• Vox’s policy guide can help you keep track of where the candidates stand on the issues throughout the night. [Vox]

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Israel eyes the Jordan Valley

• Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to make a bill on the annexation of the Jordan Valley a priority if a unity government comes together. [The Media Line / Charles Bybelezer]
• Netanyahu and his political rivals are under pressure to form a government, but talks appear to have broken down, which could bring another election. [Haaretz]
• The announcement came only a day after US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s statement that the Trump administration would reverse longstanding US policy by asserting that it will no longer view Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal. [Wall Street Journal / Felicia Schwartz]
• In a video posted to Twitter, Netanyahu spoke in Hebrew about “the historic decision by the American administration from yesterday hands us a unique opportunity to set Israel’s eastern border and annex the Jordan Valley.” [The Times of Israel / Michael Bachner]
• Netanyahu’s fellow Likud Knesset member Sharren Haskel proposed the bill several weeks ago, with the US’s announcement resulting in the opportunity to fast track it. [Jerusalem Post / Lahav Harkov and Tovah Lazaroff]

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Miscellaneous

• One reporter tests a psychologist’s claim that some languages’ “untranslatable words” are the key to happiness. [Vox / Sigal Samuel]
• A third judge blocks the Trump administration’s “conscience exemption” policy. [San Francisco Chronicle / Bob Egelko]
• A Navy SEAL pardoned by Trump is likely to be ousted from an elite commando force. [New York Times / Dave Philipps]
• Despite a record number of FDA drug approvals, prices keep patients from purchasing the medical treatments they need. [Wall Street Journal / Jared S. Hopkins]
• The menu before a debate between Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnson: Caesar salad and tea. [Eater / Adam Coghlan]

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Verbatim

President Zelensky “loves your ass.”

[A comment from Ambassador Gordon Sondland to President Trump brought up in the impeachment hearings]

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Watch this: Why movies went from 15 minutes to 2 hours

How the modern movie standard length grew to around two hours. [YouTube / Phil Edwards]

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Read more

Trump didn’t want an investigation into Biden. He wanted a political show.

DoorDash and Uber Eats aren’t collecting sales tax on delivery fees in some states. That could be a problem.

Trump’s agreements in Central America are dismantling the asylum system as we know it

Read Trump’s very large, very strange Sharpie notes on impeachment

Kamala Harris’s decline in the polls, explained

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Ivanka Trump and Google CEO Sundar Pichai arrive together at a roundtable discussion focused on assisting American workers for the changing economy, on October 3, 2019, in Dallas, Texas. | Ron Jenkins/Getty Images

Google’s decision puts new pressure on Facebook to change its policies on political ads.

Google is sharply restricting how political candidates can use its advertising tools in a set of policy changes it announced on Wednesday that may transform how elections unfold in the digital arena going forward.

In the most important, even if not the most aggressive, move yet by the tech giants to curtail misinformation shared by political campaigns on their platforms, Google said on Wednesday that it would no longer permit campaigns to micro-target voters with certain ads based on political attributes. That move is likely to make political advertising on Google far less effective than it has proven in previous cycles.

Campaigns will still be able to target voters by age, gender, and geography across Google products ranging from Search to YouTube. But valuable advertiser options like Customer Match, where campaigns can upload a list of prospective voters’ emails or phone numbers and then have that “matched” with their online profiles, will no longer be available to political candidates. Google informed 2020 campaigns of the change directly on Wednesday.

Google’s decision, coming a few weeks after Twitter altogether banned political ads on its platform, immediately gins up new pressure on Google’s principal competitor in digital advertising: Facebook. The social media giant has said that it, too, is considering changes to its targeting practices, although that message has gotten muddled at times by some of its executives, most recently during an interview with Recode’s Peter Kafka at the Code Media conference on Monday.

Facebook has stubbornly refused to bring fact-checking to bear on political ads, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg defending candidates’ ability to speak freely, even if that means lying in ads. Google and YouTube, too, are willing to let politicians lie in ads, a policy that Google did not change or address in its announcement on Wednesday.

Google did say that it would take new steps to curb misinformation, though, by changing its policies to forbid the presentation of “deep fakes” and ad spots that are “demonstrably” false.

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 Laura Cooper, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, arrives for testimony before the House Intelligence Committee on November 20, 2019 in Washington, DC. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

It looks like Ukrainian officials may have known about the freeze on military aid on July 25 — the same day as Trump’s troubling call with Ukraine’s president.

For months, Republicans argued there was no quid pro quo with Ukraine because the country wasn’t aware of the hold the Trump administration placed on roughly $400 million in military aid.

But during an impeachment hearing on Wednesday, a top Pentagon official suggested Ukraine may have known about the frozen funds on July 25 — the same day as the famous call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Laura Cooper, the Defense Department’s deputy assistant secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia and thus the top Pentagon official working on Ukraine, told the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday evening about two emails her staff received from the State Department, both related to the withheld aid. Cooper had not been aware of those messages during her closed-door deposition last month, she said.

The first email was received on July 25 at 2:43 pm, roughly five hours after Trump and Zelensky spoke on the phone and briefly discussed the military support Ukraine sought. “That email said the Ukrainian embassy and House Foreign Affairs Committee are asking about security assistance,” Cooper told lawmakers.

She then described a second email received on July 25 at 4:25 pm, nearly two hours after the first message. “That email said that the Hill knows about the [aid] situation to an extent, and so does the Ukrainian embassy.”

She continued: “I do not have any additional information about precisely what the Ukrainians may have said, what may have been their source of information about a hold or any possible issues about the flow of assistance, or what the State Department officials may have told them.”

But wait, there’s more. Also on July 25, a member of Cooper’s staff was contacted by someone at the Ukraine embassy “asking what was going on with Ukraine’s security assistance?” the Pentagon official detailed.

Put together, it’s entirely possible Ukraine was thoroughly aware of — and worried about — the Trump administration withholding the military aid. If so, one of the Republicans’ talking points was just severely undercut.

This new information changes our understanding of Ukraine’s actions

Last November, staunch Trump ally Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told CBS’ “Face the Nation” there was no quid pro quo with Kyiv because “the Ukrainians didn’t know that their aid was held at the time of the call, and most importantly, they didn’t do anything.” That’s no longer as clear, as it looks like Ukrainian officials in Washington knew about the freeze and specifically asked their American counterparts about it.

If that’s the case, it completely changes the context of how we understand Ukraine’s interactions with the Trump administration. Knowing it needed the millions in support to fend off Russia’s invasion, Ukraine would have little choice but to bend to America’s will to get the money and a much-desired White House meeting. That would make Kyiv more susceptible to the president’s demands for investigations into Joe Biden, his son Hunter, and Democrats.

There is a generous read of all this: Ukrainians didn’t get much clarity about the aid’s status after the Trump-Zelensky call, and so they followed up with their US counterparts to get more information. Ukraine’s outreach could be completely innocuous and routine.

Still, Cooper’s testimony, along with that of US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland this morning who admitted there was a quid pro quo scheme, has led to a devastatingly effective day for Democrats. Some of Republicans’ strongest defenses are now severely weakened, making the forecast gloomier and gloomier for Trump.

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Javier Zarracina/Vox

Keep up with the policy debates that will shape the Democratic 2020 primary.

The 2020 primary season is well underway, and Democratic veterans and newcomers alike are lining up to challenge President Donald Trump. Sens. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris have entered the fray. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg has emerged as a surprising standout. Former Vice President Joe Biden announced his candidacy after months of speculation.

With the field more crowded than it’s been in years, it can be easy to get lost in the horse race — and hard to keep track of where candidates stand on the issues that affect people’s lives. Where are there real, meaningful differences between competitors? Who supports Medicare-for-all? Who would do the most to alleviate poverty in America?

Here, you’ll find everything you need to know about the policy debates that will define the 2020 primary — from health care to climate change to criminal justice. While the Iowa caucuses are still months away, this guide will get you up to speed. We’ll update it as Vox continues to cover candidates’ policy proposals throughout the campaign.

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Trump talks to reporters outside the White House on Wednesday. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Trump claims a phone call with Sondland is evidence of his innocence. It might just be evidence he knew he got caught.

President Donald Trump claims a call he had with US Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland on September 9 proves that his dealings with the Ukrainian government didn’t stem from corrupt motives. It’s a nice talking point, but the reality is much more complicated.

Sondland offered testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday that implicated pretty much all the top Trump administration officials in a scheme to use official White House acts to leverage the Ukrainian government into doing political favors for the president. Trump responded to this testimony by repeatedly citing the September 9 call — one in which Trump reportedly told Sondland, “I want nothing … that’s what I want from Ukraine” — as smoking-gun evidence that the impeachment inquiry is nothing more than a partisan witch hunt.

Trump did so first while reading from handwritten notes just outside the White House; he emphasized it again in breathless tweets he posted a short time later.

But an examination of the context surrounding Trump’s September 9 call with Sondland indicates that it’s not as exonerating as Trump would like people to believe.

“Getting caught is no defense”

The timeline is key. The call happened more than a week after then Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire informed the White House counsel about the existence of a whistleblower complaint detailing how Trump abused his power by trying to leverage the Ukrainians into doing political favors for him.

So, assuming word of the whistleblower’s complaint percolated up to the president, Trump’s call with Sondland came after he knew the jig was up. Indeed, that very same day, Michael Atkinson, inspector general for the intelligence community, notified the House Intelligence Committee of the whistleblower complaint and said he found that the accusations rose to the level of “urgent concern.”

Viewed in that context, Trump’s comments to Sondland about “no quid pro quo” and wanting “nothing” from Ukraine may have just been a way to cover his behind. But during Wednesday’s hearing, Republicans — following Trump’s lead — decontextualized the call and cited it as evidence that the president did nothing wrong.

Toward the end of the hearing, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) forced Sondland to acknowledge the timeline of the September 9 call is consistent with the idea that Trump was merely trying to cover his tracks. And despite what Trump said on that specific call, he had already communicated to Ukrainian officials that he wanted them to investigate the Bidens and right-wing conspiracy theories as a “favor” to him.

On Wednesday, Trump and his Republican defenders also cited the fact that Ukraine ultimately received hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid that was being withheld as of September 9 as evidence the president did nothing wrong.

But as House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) pointed out, the timeline of the aid being released looks similarly suspicious. That happened on September 11, the same day that leaders of three House committees announced they “launched a wide-ranging investigation into reported efforts by President Trump, the President’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and possibly others to pressure the government of Ukraine to assist the president’s reelection campaign.” So, once again, Trump and company may have been trying to cover their butts.

Schiff wrapped up the hearing by making a case that “getting caught is no defense.” But during a news conference minutes later, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) found a new method of explaining away the suspicious timing: making a case that the whole thing was merely a coincidence.

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The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.

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John Dean, presidential adviser and Watergate conspirator, testifies before a Senate committee during the Watergate hearings, circa 1973. | Gjon Mili/LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

An administration insider just rolled on the president. We’ve seen this movie before.

Forty-six years ago, President Nixon’s former White House counsel took an oath before a congressional committee and delivered testimony that eventually brought down the president.

On Wednesday, not long after Gordon Sondland, President Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, took a similar oath, journalists and historians alike started comparing Sondland to John Dean, the former Nixon aide who testified nearly half a century ago.

Like Dean, Sondland is an administration insider who delivered damning testimony implicating the president in serious wrongdoing. Like Dean, Sondland appears to be a central figure in a scandal.

Dean’s fateful testimony began with a confession. “I was involved in obstructing justice,” he said of his efforts to cover up a botched attempt to break into the Democratic National Committee offices at the Watergate Hotel at the behest of Nixon’s reelection campaign. “I assisted another in perjured testimony. … I made personal use of funds that were in my custody.”

But Dean also implicated the president, recounting a meeting where he unsuccessfully urged Nixon to stop the coverup and to come clean himself.

Sondland’s testimony on Tuesday, by contrast, was less contrite. In his opening statement to the House Intelligence Committee, Sondland paints himself as a reluctant participant in Trump’s attempt to condition military aid to Ukraine on that country’s willingness to open up an investigation that could damage Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. “This security aid was critical to Ukraine’s defense and should not have been delayed,” Sondland told the committee, adding that his “goal” was “to do what was necessary to get the aid released.”

But Sondland’s testimony is, if anything, even more damning than Dean’s. Sondland speaks of two quid pro quo bargains that Trump hoped to strike with Ukraine, the aid-for-an-investigation bargain and a related attempt to trade a White House meeting with Trump for such an investigation.

Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani “conveyed to Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and others that President Trump wanted a public statement from President Zelensky committing to investigations of Burisma and the 2016 election,” according to Sondland. “We all understood that these prerequisites for the White House call and White House meeting reflected President Trump’s desires and requirements.”

Yet, while Sondland and Dean resemble each other in that they are political insiders delivering damaging testimony about the president they serve, the Watergate scandal and the Trump Ukraine scandal are playing out in very different ways.

Ultimately, Dean’s testimony proved significant not because he levied accusations about the president but because he speculated — correctly, as it turns out — that Nixon may have recorded damning evidence against himself. Sondland, by contrast, largely confirmed facts we already knew: that Trump sought a quid pro quo arrangement with Ukraine to undercut a political rival.

Who was John Dean?

On the day Dean took his oath before the Senate Watergate Committee, he seemed to be leading a charmed Beltway life. Just 34 years old, Dean had recently finished a nearly three-year stint as counsel to the president of the United States. Contemporary reports of his testimony speak of his expensive suits, his Porsche, and his “beautifully groomed” wife Maureen, who sat behind him during the hearings.

But his career was hardly spotless. He lost his first legal job at a Washington, DC, law firm for allegedly engaging in “unethical conduct” — Dean was accused of competing with one of his own clients for a television station license — although the firm later characterized the reason for his firing as a “basic disagreement over … the nature and scope of an associate’s activities.”

Dean later described himself as the “desk officer” for the White House coverup of the Watergate break-in. In that role, he shredded incriminating documents and paid hush money to people involved in the break-in.

The most significant portion of Dean’s Watergate testimony, however, involved what happened after he told Nixon that he was no longer comfortable playing this role. Dean famously testified that he told Nixon “that there was a cancer growing on the presidency and that if the cancer was not removed that the president himself would be killed by it.”

During that conversation, Dean told the Watergate Committee, Nixon got up from his chair, walked to a corner of the office, and whispered that he was “probably foolish” to have discussed giving clemency to one of the Watergate burglars. Dean speculated that maybe Nixon moved to another part of the room and whispered because he was recording the conversation and didn’t want this one statement to be picked up by the recorder.

That speculation planted a seed that bore fruit weeks later when Nixon Deputy Chief of Staff Alexander Butterfield testified before the Watergate Committee. Butterfield was asked whether Nixon had a system to record White House conversations and Butterfield testified that such a taping system was installed in the Oval Office.

The Supreme Court eventually ordered Nixon to turn these tapes over to a special prosecutor, and one of the tapes revealed that Nixon discussed using the CIA to obstruct the FBI’s investigation into the Watergate break-in.

Days later, Nixon resigned.

Pierre Manevy/Express/Getty Images

Dean served a brief prison term for his own role in Watergate; he was also disbarred. He’s since reemerged as a vocal critic of the kind of corruption that poisoned the Nixon White House. Indeed, he compared the case Special Counsel Robert Mueller laid out against President Trump to the Watergate scandal in June testimony to the House Judiciary Committee.

Is Sondland the new John Dean?

As discussed above, Dean and Sondland do have much in common. It’s not just that they both testified against a president who appointed them to prestigious jobs. Just as Dean was a central figure in the Watergate coverup, Sondland appears to be an important figure in the Ukraine scandal.

Last month, for example, text messages between Sondland and his diplomatic colleagues revealed them discussing the effort to pressure Ukraine into opening a political investigation. In one of those messages, Bill Taylor, the senior US diplomat in Ukraine, tells Sondland, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.”

Sondland, moreover, admitted in his testimony on Wednesday that he told a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, “I believed that the resumption of US aid would likely not occur until Ukraine took some kind of action on” a public statement about the investigation Trump sought.

There is, however, one important way in which Sondland’s testimony differs from Dean’s.

Watergate was, in many ways, like a mystery novel. The hearings gathered evidence and they built toward an uncertain outcome. Dean’s speculation about the Nixon tapes inspired a new line of inquiry from Watergate investigators. That led to Butterfield’s revelation, which ultimately led to the narrative’s denouement: the “smoking gun” tape implicating Nixon in obstruction of justice.

The Ukraine scandal, by contrast, began with a smoking gun. Democrats opened an impeachment inquiry into Trump after the White House released a readout of a phone call where Trump sought a quid pro quo deal with Zelensky. There’s very little mystery surrounding the Trump impeachment hearings. We already know that Trump did it.

Sondland and other witnesses have filled in some blanks. The question now is whether Senate Republicans will do something about it.

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Discrepancies between the sales tax practices of companies like DoorDash, as well as its competitors like Uber Eats, Postmates, and Grubhub are raising questions | Getty

It could be the latest business practice in the gig economy to raise regulatory questions.

The food delivery company Grubhub said it has collected hundreds of millions in taxes for delivery and service fees in dozens of states since at least 2011. But Recode has found that in some of those same states, Grubhub’s top rivals in the delivery space, including DoorDash, Postmates, and Uber Eats, don’t appear to be collecting a cent. This discrepancy puts those rivals in a precarious position if regulators take notice and object.

Several tax experts Recode interviewed said food delivery app companies’ tax practices could raise legal concerns. The sales taxes in question are on fees that can amount to as much as a third of the total price of food orders — or at least $120 million per year of taxable dollars on the sales of major food delivery companies in California and New York alone, based on Recode’s calculations on an estimated market size from research firm Forrester. If you account for all of the US, that could amount to hundreds of millions of dollars per year.

The experts told Recode these tax practices could be a liability not just for the food delivery apps but also for the restaurants whose food they deliver. Both the apps and the restaurants could later be on the hook for paying taxes that apps aren’t currently collecting. It’s another example of how existing laws haven’t yet adapted to the gig economy — and in the meantime, these tech companies are taking advantage of the loopholes.

“I would feel very uncomfortable if I were tax counsel for one of those companies if those taxes weren’t being collected,” said Hayes Holderness, assistant professor at the University of Richmond School of Law and a state tax policy expert. Holderness called it an “aggressive” and “risky” decision for companies not to charge sales taxes on delivery — but a “not necessarily unreasonable” stance, and one that could be debated in court. For companies in the competitive food delivery market, the immediate business benefit of keeping sales taxes lower could also outweigh the legal risks, he said.

Gig economy companies have historically loosely interpreted the law — or in some cases skirted it entirely — to benefit their business models, and regulators are increasingly examining their behavior.

The Washington, DC, attorney general announced earlier this week he’s suing DoorDash, arguing that the company misled customers and pocketed workers’ tips. Earlier this year, politicians raised concerns about wage theft when Instacart, DoorDash, Uber Eats, and several other companies were found to be using workers’ tips to subsidize their own costs (the companies all eventually revised their policies — with DoorDash being the slowest to do so — and many workers continue to report low pay). In September, Uber made a baffling argument that its drivers aren’t core to its business as part of its rationale for why a new labor law targeted at gig economy apps didn’t actually apply to the company. And ride-hail companies have similarly been accused of not doing enough to prevent and investigate sexual assaults that occur during rides.

In every case, gig economy companies have argued that they are digital marketplaces matching sellers and buyers and are therefore not financially or legally responsible for things that happen on their platforms.

When it comes to sales tax, companies have an obvious business incentive to avoid charging it: keep prices low, keep customers happy, and keep sales up. And in the food delivery space, which is an increasingly competitive industry with tight margins, that’s an acute pressure.

“Right now there’s an arms race for customer acquisition,” said Sucharita Kodali, a principal analyst at Forrester who specializes in e-commerce. “As venture capital startups, the more growth they can exhibit, that’s still the signal of success, and any lever they can use to help showcase those metrics helps.”

In the past year, DoorDash has emerged as the unexpected market leader and fastest-growing food delivery app in the US, according to research firm Edison Trends, unseating market incumbent Grubhub. The company has aggressively expanded its business, putting pressure on an already crowded market.

If tax laws were more clear, food delivery companies would probably just absorb the cost of charging sales taxes on delivery fees and “move on,” Kodali told Recode. But, Kodali said, in “an age of ambiguity, if it helps them to showcase a better result then why not?”

But it also poses a risk. If states or cities find companies liable for taxes later, they could sue for years of back taxes, several tax experts told Recode. That’s what happened to travel website Expedia, which several cities accused of avoiding as much as $847 million in taxes on room fees. The company has long been embroiled in legal battles over these cases. More recently, the state of New Jersey recently sued Uber for over $650 million in unemployment and disability insurance taxes for allegedly misclassifying its workforce as independent contractors instead of employees.

Laws haven’t caught up with the gig economy

The tax codes governing food delivery apps like Grubhub, DoorDash, and Postmates vary significantly state by state, and they are changing as local governments grapple with how to adapt old laws to the new gig economy.

Generally, some laws in states like California and New York have provisions that could call for sales taxes on delivery and service fees to be collected, according to Scott Groberski, a managing director in state and local tax groups at accounting and tax firm Grant Thornton. Still, it’s very much a gray area and would vary based on the specifics of the contracts between restaurants and food delivery providers.

“With new technology, it’s extremely complicated determining what’s taxable and what’s not — I think this is something that continues to evolve even as we speak,” Groberski told Recode.

In California, for example, it depends if the company contracts with restaurants to “provide a delivery service only” or if it acts as a “retailer” of the food, according to Casey Wells at the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.

Whether or not a food delivery app company is a retailer depends on the contracts it has with restaurants, Wells said, as well as if the app is marking up the price the restaurant normally charges for the food.

Wells declined to comment on whether or not the law would classify specific companies like DoorDash or Grubhub as retailers or not.

Some tax experts said it comes down to whether these companies are charging the restaurants they work with or only charging consumers. Grubhub, DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates all regularly partner with restaurants and charge them commission fees.

“I have a real doubt that Grubhub is overtaxing — the default rule should be that it’s taxable, that is the safer position,” said Holderness.

“In some cases, it may not be a question of tax avoidance or uncertainty so much as legitimate uncertainty about what the rules are,” said Steve Rosenthal, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Policies vary state to state, and the rules around taxing delivery fees are myriad and often outdated.

When asked about concerns tax experts raised about Uber’s sales and delivery tax policies, a spokesperson for Uber responded with the following statement:

“We collect sales tax on delivery fees where required, with particular attention to recently enacted marketplace facilitator laws. Although California has enacted similar legislation, there is an exception for delivery network companies. Accordingly, we do not believe it is appropriate for Uber Eats to collect sales tax on delivery fees from our users in California at this time. We are deeply committed to compliance, which includes ongoing assessment of developments in local legislation and state-issued guidance.”

DoorDash (which also owns Caviar) declined to comment.

In a statement to Recode, Postmates said it is in compliance with all regulations and tax laws in jurisdictions where it operates, and that it is “[w]orking with lawmakers across markets, both to ensure our operations remain consistent with evolving state-by-state guidance on the tax code, and to balance the unique nature of on-demand products with the goal of ensuring taxable revenues are always collected by the state.”

Grubhub, meanwhile, maintains that it’s in the right for collecting these sales taxes and denied that the food delivery app business models exempt companies from these collections.

“We have been audited by multiple states, multiple times, and in every case we were required to collect and remit sales tax on delivery fees,” said Grubhub’s CEO Matt Maloney.

The threat of regulation

In recent years, local lawmakers have increasingly scrutinized the tech industry. For example, more states are now charging sales tax on products that are purchased online. That’s because of a June 2018 Supreme Court Ruling, South Dakota v. Wayfair, which gave states the rights to demand more tax revenue from online companies that sell goods in their state, even if those companies don’t have a physical location in the area.

California politicians told Recode that they’re also thinking about how the gig economy collects taxes.

“I’m concerned about what appears to be a pattern of activity of these gig companies to not even find out what they should be doing by law,” said California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, who authored the landmark labor legislation AB 5 that legally pressures companies like Uber and Lyft to reclassify contractors as employees. “It’s unfair competition. If you have a Dominos, for example, that is abiding by the rules, they’re taking the appropriate sales tax out, they’re not going to be able to compete with an app that’s doing all those things.” Dominos is one of the only major pizza chains that does its own delivery, independent of food delivery apps.

If there’s a lesson to be learned by food delivery startups from tech successes of the past, it’s that creatively interpreting outdated regulations can help them get ahead. Amazon largely skipped out on collecting sales tax for third-party seller products until a few years ago when it was facing state regulations to do so — but by then it was already the top online retailer. Uber ignored licensing rules in many states but became the leading ride-hail company in the meantime. And Airbnb delayed its obligation to collect taxes and enforce zoning rules by suing several cities where it operated.

In all those fights, regulators were slow to keep up with tech companies, which took advantage of that to quickly become market leaders, meaning they could afford costly legal battles. But in an era when tech is facing a reckoning with the public and increased political scrutiny, that might change, and regulators may start applying stricter rules to companies like DoorDash and Postmates.

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