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On Politics With Lisa Lerer: This Quiet Change Could Be a Big Deal in 2020

Howard Dean, the former national party chairman, will lead Democrats’ new data-sharing initiative.Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. I’m Lisa Lerer, your host.

Before we get to today’s newsletter, we wanted to let you know about some big news that’s developing this evening.

Today, the Senate voted to approve a compromise on the border that includes funding for some security measures, but not for President Trump’s wall. The bill would prevent another government shutdown, and the president was expected to sign it.

Just minutes before the vote, though, the White House announced that Mr. Trump plans to declare a national emergency to build the wall. The story is still developing; you can read the latest here.

(And for those of you wondering, here’s an explanation of the president’s emergency powers, and what exactly they allow him to do.)

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While we wait for the dust to settle from this latest fight between President Trump and Congress, we wanted to tell you about an under-the-radar change the Democrats are making in how they handle voter data — and why it could make a big difference in the 2020 presidential race.

Political campaigns collect all kinds of information. Your address, of course, but also things like your age, your interests, if you have kids, your donation records. The more they know, they better they can target ads — so, say, a retired veteran in Oshkosh, Wis., doesn’t get the same message as a vegan freshman at New York University.

For years, Republicans had an edge in gathering this kind of information. They had developed a platform that allowed them to share data among state parties, the national party, campaigns and outside groups like PACs. When Mr. Trump became the Republican nominee, the G.O.P. exchange was there to make up for his lack of political organization.

Now, the Democrats are taking concrete steps toward establishing their own, similar organization. While the Democratic Data Exchange isn’t as headline-grabbing as the president declaring a national emergency, it might just be one of the most significant steps Democrats can take in their efforts to win in 2020.

“What we are announcing today is something that should have been in place years ago,” said Tom Perez, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who negotiated the deal. “In 2016, it appeared all too frequently that Republicans knew more about voters than we did.”

The exchange will be an independent, for-profit enterprise that will allow the national party, state parties and some independent groups, like Planned Parenthood or labor unions, to share data. Organizations won’t know which groups contributed which information, keeping the system from running afoul of Federal Election Commission rules.

Democrats have tried to set up such a system twice in the past and failed. Friend of the newsletter Julie Bykowicz broke the news in December that the D.N.C. and state parties were locked in a deep internal battle over who would control the data. Essentially, state parties didn’t want to get shut out of controlling their own voter files — a step they believed would put them on a slippery slope toward irrelevance.

It’s a fear rooted in recent history: Advisers to Barack Obama scoffed at the Democratic establishment, believing that running against the state parties would help cast him as the outsider against Hillary Clinton in 2008. After Mr. Obama won the election, his team established its own organization, Organizing for America, and let the Democratic National Committee languish.

But Mrs. Clinton’s loss in 2016 helped Democrats realize they could not depend on a presidential nominee to reach voters. They have appointed Howard Dean, the former D.N.C. chairman who still has a strong following among state party leaders, as head of the new exchange, helping to reassure local parties.

“People have spent years and millions of dollars collecting that information and ultimately no one wants to give it away,” said Ken Martin, president of the Democrats’ organization of state party leaders. “But what good is data if it just sits in your file?”

Want to read more about the Democrats and 2020? Today the party unveiled a new system for their first debate in June. And this graphic looks at the historical precedent for the field being so large, so early (spoiler: there is none).

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We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We’ll try to answer it. Have a comment? We’re all ears. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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A .223 cartridge for an AR-15, the rifle used in the Parkland shooting.Credit...George Frey/Getty Images

It has been a year since a gunman walked into a high school in Parkland, Fla., and killed 17 people. We were curious what, if anything, has changed politically since then. So we asked Margaret Kramer and Jennifer Harlan, who wrote about the post-Parkland landscape for The Times. Here’s what they told us:

From walkouts and calls to action to a national bus tour, the movement led by the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland has had a clear message: Gun control is imperative, and young people’s votes are critical to making it happen.

Their message seems to have resonated at the state level. Over the last year, states have passed 76 gun-control laws. Here are three big ones:

• The Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act in Florida. The bill expanded mental health services, raised the minimum age for all gun purchases to 21, established a waiting period for background checks and allowed superintendents and sheriffs to arm school personnel. It also banned bump stocks, but not the AR-15, the gun used in the Parkland shooting.

• Ban on the sale of semiautomatic assault rifles to people under 21 in Washington State. I-1639 raised the age of assault rifle purchases to 21, mandated enhanced background checks and added a required firearm safety course for buyers. But sheriffs are reportedly not enforcing the initiative, and the N.R.A. has filed a lawsuit to have it overturned.

• The Safe Act in New York. The state banned bump stocks, extended the waiting period for buyers, prohibited teachers from carrying guns in school and blocked individuals who pose a threat from buying or possessing guns — a provision known as a “red flag law.”

But aside from a bump stock ban — spurred on by the 2017 Las Vegas massacre — partisan gridlock blocked any national changes in the last year, even as gun deaths rose to their highest rates in 50 years. Democrats, now in control of the House, passed two gun-control bills on Wednesday, the day before the Parkland anniversary. But Senate Republicans and President Trump will most likely prevent the bills from ever becoming law.

Read Margaret and Jennifer’s story: Parkland Shooting: Where Gun Control and School Safety Stand Today

And for more coverage, read about how Parkland students remembered the day, a moving story about the survivors in their own words, and a look at how many children have been killed by guns since Parkland.

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Amazon canceled its plans to build an expansive corporate campus in New York City after facing an unexpectedly fierce backlash. The decision — a victory for left-wing politicians and activists — represented a reordering of New York’s political power structure.

This visual article takes you to the Alps, to see how climate change is destroying glaciers there — and how Switzerland plans to handle it.

Vicki Ibarra, an I.R.S. worker, prided herself on her self-sufficiency. Then came the government shutdown. From The Washington Post, a haunting portrait of the long-term effects of the 35-day stalemate.

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Sure, Valentine’s Day is sappy, overly commercialized and out of step with modern relationships. But a pickle, bacon or doughnut bouquet? That’s an idea we can get behind.

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Thanks for reading. Politics is more than what goes on inside the White House. On Politics brings you the people, issues and ideas reshaping our world.

Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

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