Tag: Dem

Dem secretaries of state tap former Beasley manager as new committee executive director

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Brimm last managed North Carolina Democrat Cheri Beasley’s 2022 Senate run, and also worked for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden as North Carolina state director for the 2020 primaries. He has also previously managed other congressional races in and outside the Tar Heel State, and worked at the DCCC.
Secretary of state races received an unprecedented amount of attention last year when candidates across the country allied with former President Donald Trump ran to be states’ chief election officials. Many of those candidates ran as part of a coalition, with promises to remake the elections system under the false pretense that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
In the five core battleground states that elected secretaries, those election deniers all lost — one in a Republican primary to an incumbent secretary, and four in a general election to Democrats. DASS raised over $30 million for the 2022 cycle — roughly 7.5 times what the committee raised for the 2018 and 2022 cycles — and other liberal outside groups poured in millions more to win races in Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota and Nevada. A lone disappointment for the party was in Georgia, where Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger cruised to reelection after defeating a Trump-aligned candidate in a primary. Raffensperger famously denied efforts to overturn election results in Georgia.
If election deniers had won, they would have been in a position of overseeing the 2024 election in key battleground states. And despite their losses, many of those candidates did not fade away: Kristina Karamo is now the chair of the Michigan Republican Party, while Nevada’s Jim Marchant announced a Senate campaign earlier this week.
The 2022 elections were one of dramatic expansion for DASS, which had only one full-time staffer at the start of the cycle. Brimm declined to share a specific fundraising or staffing target going forward, but he said: “early benchmarks are making sure that we’re carrying it forward.”
Brimm said a goal of his this cycle is to make sure the committee isn’t “writing off any candidates … making sure that we’re challenging every available race on the board.”
Compared to the midterms — where 25 states elected a chief election official — the next two years will be comparatively sparse. Three red-leaning states are electing chief election officials this year — Republican incumbents Michael Adams of Kentucky and Michael Watson of Mississippi are seeking reelection, and there is an open race in Louisiana.
There are just seven secretaries on the ballot next year, including Washington and Oregon — which despite their overall blue tilt, only saw their secretaries’ office flip to Democrats in 2021. And Shemia Fagan, Oregon’s secretary of state, is resigning from office effective next week after Willamette Week broke the news that she had a consulting contract with a cannabis company while her office was auditing the state’s marijuana program.

But 2026 will be another big year for the committee. Democratic incumbents Adrian Fontes of Arizona, Cisco Aguilar of Nevada and Steve Simon of Minnesota will be eligible to run again, as will Georgia’s Raffensperger. Michigan will be an open-seat race, with Democratic incumbent Jocelyn Benson term-limited. Brimm said he would serve through the 2026 midterms.
“With a four year approach, there are a variety of different pieces that I think are going to be compelling for people to continue to pay attention and continue to support not just DASS as an organization, but also our candidates and incumbents,” he said. “The work of secretaries of states in administering elections is pretty damn important in presidential years.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

May 4, 2023
‘Unacceptable’: Top Dem rips Biden plan to send 1,500 more troops to southern border

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The move comes as Title 42, the public health law that permits the U.S. to deny asylum and migrations claims for public health reasons, is set to expire on May 11. Some senior U.S. officials say the end of Title 42 could entice more people seeking a better life in America to present themselves at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The administration has had over two years to plan for the eventual end of this Trump-era policy in a way that does not compromise our values as a country,” Menendez said. “I have offered them a strategic and comprehensive plan, which they have largely ignored. Trying to score political points or intimidate migrants by sending the military to the border caters to the Republican Party’s xenophobic attacks on our asylum system.”
The service members, mainly coming from Army units, will not have a law enforcement role. They will be armed for self-defense but will be performing monitoring and administrative tasks only, freeing up Border Patrol officials to process migrant claims, officials said.
The additional troops, which are being sent to fill a request from the Department of Homeland Security, will fill “critical capability gaps,” including detection and monitoring, data entry and warehouse support. They will be there for up to 90 days, after which military reservists or contractors will do the work.
“U.S. Customs and Border Protection is investing in technology and personnel to reduce its need for DoD support in coming years, and we continue to call on Congress to support us in this task,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved the official request from DHS, sending soldiers to join 2,500 National Guard troops already activated to assist law enforcement at the border.
The National Guard troops already at the border are deployed in active-duty status, which means their mission is funded by the federal government and not their respective states, according to the DoD official. They are assisting border agents with detection and monitoring.
President Joe Biden last week signed an executive order authorizing the administration to call up active-duty forces to address drug trafficking at the southern border, essentially preapproving the mission. DHS then asked the Pentagon for assistance.

Fox News first reported the development.
Last week, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas previewed how his agency would be stretched by the end of Title 42.
“We have been preparing for this transition for more than a year and a half. Notwithstanding those preparations, we do expect that encounters at our southern border will [be] increasing, as smugglers are seeking to take advantage of this change and already are hard at work spreading disinformation that the border will be open after that,” he told reporters. “High encounters will place a strain on our entire system, including our dedicated and heroic workforce and our communities.”
Biden admin to set up migrant processing centers in Latin America ahead of end of Title 42
While the politics of the border crisis have shifted in recent years, Biden could see similar reactions to Menendez’s. Many Democrats fiercely resisted the Trump administration’s deployment of active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, arguing the move was politically motivated, would harm readiness and service members would be quietly involved in law enforcement. The House Armed Services Committee’s first hearing after Democrats took control in 2019, for instance, was on the Pentagon’s support for DHS at the border.
But the Senate’s top appropriator on defense, Jon Tester (D-Mont.), said he wouldn’t object to the move as an emergency measure. He added that the news highlights the need to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security.
“We need a secure border, if that’s what we need to do now, do it,” Tester said. “The real issue here is that we have to empower the Department of Homeland Security, and Customs and Border Protection to do that job.”
The Senate Armed Services Committee’s ranking member, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), said he hadn’t been briefed on the matter.
He said Biden, who’d previously shown “a lack of concern about the border” might now be “reading the polls.”
“If they would begin to resume enforcement of the law, it would be the best step possible,” Wicker said. “We are told by agents along the border that their hands are tied and they’re not allowed to enforce the law as they were earlier.”
The Biden administration’s move continues the trend of presidents using troops to fill in for the personnel-strapped Border Patrol as Congress hasn’t fully funded the agency to do its work.
In 2006, then-President George W. Bush deployed 6,000 troops to the border in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas for Operation Jump Start, which lasted two years. While there, the troops assisted with more than 185,000 apprehensions of undocumented immigrants.
Four years later, then-President Barack Obama and then-Vice President Biden sent up to 1,200 troops to the border during Operation Phalanx, which stretched for about a year. Soon after, the Obama administration also deployed troops, including a Stryker unit, from Fort Bliss to the border communities in Arizona and New Mexico for two months.
In 2018, then-President Donald Trump sent some 2,100 National Guardsmen to the southwest, though they mostly stayed miles from the border and largely performed support tasks for the U.S. Border Patrol. Months later, days before midterm elections, he deployed another 5,200 troops to fortify the border, drawing backlash from former military officials and Democrats who accused Trump of abusing the military to rile up his base.
Matt Berg and Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

May 2, 2023
Brutal Dem primary could pit ex-lawmaker against gov’s sister

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Jones’ backers are already peeved at what they see as an unnecessarily messy primary that will detract from efforts to flip the seat. Adding to the angst: Jones and his allies already felt he’d been screwed out of the seat in 2022, after former House Democratic campaign chair Sean Patrick Maloney ran in Jones’ district following a redistricting saga. And then Maloney lost in the general, after an aggressive national GOP campaign, to Rep. Mike Lawler.
“I want him to run. He needs to run,” said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) of Jones. “What Sean Patrick Maloney did was bullshit. That should have been Mondaire’s seat.”
“I didn’t even know her sister lived in the district,” he added, referring to Gereghty. “And I don’t know many people who know her.”
Gereghty supporters note she’s lived in the area for two decades and serves on a local school board. And even some of Jones’ former New York colleagues are tepid about his return after his unsuccessful run for a different seat — miles away from his old one — after last year’s redistricting mess.
Jones has reached out to those members in recent days, according to four people familiar with the conversations, and it’s not clear how many of his former colleagues would support his comeback bid.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a fellow progressive, said she didn’t want to get involved before anyone officially entered the primary.
“Mondaire being in a neighboring district, we’re always kind of talking and chatting,” she said. “I think those are decisions that’s very personal and I think it’s one that I defer to him.”
And Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus’ political arm, said he wasn’t going to weigh in yet, either: “I’ll give everyone the opportunity to make their case to see who would be the best candidate.”

That’s the standard line from most members, for now, but the potential matchup threatens to pit members of the New York delegation against their Michigan counterparts and senior Black Caucus members against allies of the popular Democratic governor.
The race will also test competing views on how the party should run in competitive districts: by juicing up the progressive base or appealing to the center. Jones was a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus while Gereghty seems more likely to carve out a more moderate lane. She met Thursday with the executive director of the New Democrat Coalition Action Fund, the political arm of the centrist group, according to a person familiar with the situation.
New York’s 17th District, which includes parts of Westchester County and all of Rockland and Putnam counties, is a crucial battleground for Democrats who saw Maloney, their own 2022 campaign chief, lose it in the midterms. After a court tossed out the map New York Democrats drew following the 2020 census, Maloney declared he would run in the new 17th district, which included most of Jones’ current turf, leaving the first-term lawmaker with no clear political home.
The bitter feelings haven’t subsided in Jones’ camp, and his allies are eager to clear his path for 2024.
“We saw what happened the last time political elites in Washington tried to determine the Democratic nominee in the district he represented 75 percent of,” Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.) said. She praised Jones as a “highly productive” member who could retake the seat.
Maloney’s shocking upset last year forced the district, which President Joe Biden won by 10 points, to the top of Democrats’ 2024 target list. The party has signaled it’s willing to spend heavily to recapture Biden-won districts in New York after suffering unexpected losses in 2022.
Other candidates could still emerge in the race, but so far, Gereghty is the only Democrat who has filed.
Both Jones and Gereghty bring their own advantages. Jones could draw from wells of support among other national Democrats and the powerful Congressional Black Caucus. As a first-term lawmaker, he had carved out a niche by vocally calling for the expansion of the Supreme Court. He’s stayed active in local politics, too.
“He’s a dear friend, and I’d like to see him come back, and so I would love to be able to support him,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), who served with Jones on the House Judiciary Committee.
Gereghty, for her part, has been reaching out to members in the Michigan delegation, and Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) has been helping with the early stages of her campaign. Gereghty’s campaign manager will be Carissa Best, who led Rep. Hillary Scholten’s (D-Mich.) successful campaign to flip a Grand Rapids-based seat in 2022.
“We love her,” Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) said of Gereghty, though she is not yet endorsing and is also friendly with Jones.
“New York has lost some female leadership over the years,” the Michigan Democrat added. “She’s been steeped in that community for decades and is on the school board and was a small business owner and a mom.”
Jones, first elected in 2020, would not likely not launch a run until the third quarter of the year and wouldn’t make a final decision before May, according to a person familiar with his thinking. But he is starting to assemble his political operation and a campaign staff-in-waiting. Some Democrats on the ground in his district are urging him to jump in, too.
“Mondaire has a great relationship with most of the voters in NY-17 and it’s unfortunate others would risk forcing a divisive primary instead of uniting around our strongest candidate to beat Mike Lawler,” Rockland County Democratic Party Chair Schenley Vital said in a statement.
Jones, he added, was forced out of office by some in “the national party establishment.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 28, 2023
Top Dem super PAC starts Biden ad blitz, pledges $75 million campaign effort

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The president’s long-awaited announcement on Tuesday allows Biden to begin fundraising for what will be an expensive campaign. But his April launch also gave the green light for Democratic groups like Priorities USA to jumpstart 2024 efforts backing the president.
“It is essential to remind voters of what’s at stake in 2024, and to do so online. Issues such as abortion access, protecting our climate, curbing gun control, making health care more affordable and making our economy work for every American will be the centerpieces of this campaign,” said Danielle Butterfield, the group’s executive director.
Founded in 2011, Priorities USA is among the Democratic Party’s largest political action committees. But it won’t be the only one supporting Biden, or the main one for that. Future Forward, which already has been running TV ads, will likely be Biden’s primary outside spending apparatus, though American Bridge and others are also expected to have a share in the campaign’s portfolio.
There was also some uncertainty about the role Biden-allied Building Back Together might play after the 2022 election. But instead of paid media campaigns, BBT will focus on coordinating among Democratic groups to highlight the Biden administration’s efforts to implement the president’s agenda.
Priorities’ ad, titled “Our Strength, Our Champion,” focuses on the Biden administration’s accomplishments and echoes the tone of Biden’s announcement video — with imagery of Jan. 6 and Biden’s leading GOP opponent, former President Donald Trump. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another expected 2024 GOP candidate, make appearances as well. The ad will stream in English and Spanish.
The ad then runs through a list of Biden’s accomplishments, noting that he has “worked across the aisle,” “protected marriage equality,” “took historic climate action,” and “lowered health care costs.”
In the final seconds of the video, with Biden’s voice playing in the background, “Joe Biden is fighting with us. Let’s finish the job together” flashed across the screen.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 26, 2023
GOP tries to paint Biden’s labor nominee as radical, hoping to turn Dem votes against her

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A handful of Senate Democrats have yet to commit to confirming Su, who stepped in as acting secretary after Marty Walsh left the Labor Department’s top job in mid-March to take over as head of the NHL players’ union.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), one of Su’s chief proponents, downplayed concerns about her confirmation, saying her endorsement from Walsh, who was popular with some Republicans, and meetings with senators will help convince moderates to vote for her.
“She’s doing the best job of the whole thing, which is she’s sitting down and making herself available and she’s had a very good meeting with a large number of” senators, Duckworth said in an interview. “And so I think it’s progressing very nicely.”
Duckworth added: “I think she’s making the case for herself. And I think Marty Walsh coming out as strongly as he has in support of her work, is a very helpful voice to have out there.”
Su told the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which is weighing her nomination, she would be an honest broker in the job.
“I have been a leader dedicated to finding and expanding the vast areas of common ground between employers and employees,” she said. “I believe that the Department of Labor should make it as easy as possible for employers to keep workers safe on the job.”
Business groups have targeted Su, fearful that she would pursue regulations that would have major ramifications for app-based companies like Uber and Lyft, franchise restaurants and other employers. The gig-job companies, for instance, are battling efforts to make it easier to reclassify some workers as as employees, which would strain their business models.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who chairs the Senate committee considering Su’s nomination, cited that industry pressure in his opening remarks Thursday praising Su.

“The debate over Ms. Su really has nothing to do with her qualifications,” he said. “This debate really has everything to do with the fact that she is a champion of the working class in this country.”
Republicans spent much of Thursday’s hearing trying to poke holes in Su’s record at the Labor Department and as a top labor official in California before that, hoping to crack Democratic unity.
Republicans hammered Su for her stewardship of California’s unemployment insurance system, which issued tens of billions in wrongful or fraudulent payments in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. As labor secretary, Su would be in charge of the federal-state partnership on UI.

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions confirmation hearing for Julie Su to be the Labor Secretary on Capitol Hill, April 20, 2023.
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Alex Brandon/AP Photo
“The buck stops at the top,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said. “You’re the person running UI, you’re the one who decided to waive the guardrails … the idea of promoting a person who’s had that experience to a position of leadership of the entire Department of Labor makes no sense at all.”
GOP senators also pressed Su for regulatory commitments on independent contractor and joint employer regulations. Su reiterated the Labor Department’s position that it does not have the authority to impose a test similar to California’s controversial “ABC” test for whether a worker is an employee or not and said that the department does not plan to pursue a joint employment rule, which could make companies like fast-food chains liable for violations at their franchises.
“There’s not a joint-employer rule on our regulatory agenda,” Su said, adding that she understands the value of the franchise model given her family’s experience running a pizza shop after immigrating from China.
Republicans also criticized her for a relative lack of experience brokering collective bargaining negotiations — a specialty of Walsh’s — a move geared at sowing doubts among the undecided cohort that includes Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).
Su’s nomination is a high-stakes test for Sanders, who took the committee’s gavel in January, as well as the White House, which has at times struggled to shepherd labor nominees through the narrowly divided Senate.
The HELP committee has scheduled a confirmation vote for Su next Wednesday, which would clear the way for a final floor vote later in the year.
Kelly and Tester both said Thursday they’re still undecided on whether they will support her for the position, with Tester saying that he plans to meet one-on-one with Su next week “hopefully.”
Democrats’ calculus is further complicated by the ongoing absence of Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.), who is recovering from shingles and has not been in Washington for several weeks.
When asked about any concerns to get Su confirmed, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer dodged the question and said: “She’s a great nominee and we’re working hard to get her confirmed.”
Su has won the support of some business groups, such as the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, but her strongest support comes from labor unions and organizations representing Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. If confirmed, Su would be Biden’s first AAPI Cabinet secretary and join three other AAPI Cabinet members.
Unions have recently begun stepping up their efforts on behalf of Su. The AFL-CIO is rolling out a six-figure campaign that includes ads in D.C. and Arizona — home to Kelly and Sinema, both of whom voted to confirm Su as deputy secretary but are on the fence — and is considering whether to expand to other states.
“This is the time for them to show who they stand with: Is it workers, or is it big corporations?” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler told reporters Wednesday. “If you voted for her as deputy secretary, the only thing that’s changed is that she has actually more experience and more expertise.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 20, 2023
Biden eyes seasoned Dem operative to be State spokesperson

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“We’re looking forward to announcing a new State Department spokesperson soon but have no personnel announcements to make at this time,” department spokesperson Vedant Patel said in a statement.
Miller did not respond to a request Monday for comment.
Miller is currently a partner at the strategic advisory firm Vianovo, where he advises boards, executives and well-known individuals on “government investigations, congressional inquiries, high-stakes litigation, activist campaigns, and social and political issues,” according to his firm’s biography. He is also an MSNBC analyst.
Miller served as director of the office of public affairs at the Justice Department in the Obama administration and has also worked as communications director for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.).
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 10, 2023
Tennessee House expels one Dem over gun protest, targets two more

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State Rep. Justin Jones was removed from office in a largely party-line vote, 72-25, that was led by the Republican supermajority. The votes for the other two targeted Democrats are expected to have similar results.
Republicans dominate both chambers in the state Legislature, and the GOP reinforced its supermajority in the midterms by picking up more seats in the House. Democrats hold just 23 seats to Republicans’ 75.
Dubbed “the Tennessee Three” by fellow Democrats, Jones, Johnson and Pearson represent the three largest cities in Tennessee.
Ahead of the vote, Jones, a freshman lawmaker and community organizer, admonished Republicans for not enacting gun reform laws after multiple tragedies — inaction he said has sparked a movement for change.
“Your flexing of false power has awakened a generation of people who will let you know your time is up,” Jones, 27, warned Republicans.
A number of Republicans questioned Jones over the order of events the day of the protests, trying to pin them down on rule violations. Republican Rep. Gino Bulso, a sponsor of the expulsion resolutions, said that Jones “shows no remorse” when addressing the chamber before the vote.
The move by Republicans is remarkable for its naked partisanship and the speed with which it was executed. The process of removing lawmakers is usually a bipartisan undertaking in most states, often involving internal investigations following criminal charges or ethical lapses. In Tennessee, only two other House members have been removed before today’s proceedings, both after criminal violations or sexual misconduct.
Should all three members be expelled, special elections will be held in the three districts encompassing Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis. Nothing would hold those members back from running again in those races. Johnson suggested in an interview with POLITICO that if she’s voted out, she would try to return to the statehouse if her constituents desired it. The state constitution forbids lawmakers from being removed from office twice for the same offense.

GOP leadership could also face a lawsuit from the members, although it’s unclear at this point what grounds they could sue on.
The drama has skyrocketed the three to the national stage as Democrats have rallied around them and tried to steer that attention toward enacting gun reform laws in Tennessee and beyond. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday that Tennessee Republicans are “shrugging in the face of yet another school shooting.”
The expulsion vote marks “just another anti-democratic effort to silence the American people for speaking out against the devastating consequences of gun violence,” Neha Patel, co-executive director of the State Innovation Exchange, a nonprofit supporting progressive state lawmakers, said in a letter released Thursday that was signed by hundreds of lawmakers from across the country.
Jones, talking with reporters after his expulsion, said the proceedings do “not seem like America.”
“To expel voices of opposition and dissent is a signal of authoritarianism and it is very dangerous,” he said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 7, 2023
Why Tennessee GOP’s effort to oust 3 Dem lawmakers is so unusual

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“It will echo across the country. I think it will have a chilling effect on all states where there’s supermajorities or very red states,” Rep. Gloria Johnson, one of the Democrats under threat of expulsion, said in a phone interview Tuesday. “This is chipping away at our democracy, there’s no question, because everybody’s going to wonder, ‘am I next?’”
The ACLU in Tennessee also issued a warning the effort “undermines Democracy.”
“Expulsion is an extreme measure that is used very infrequently in our state and our country because it strips voters of representation by the people they elected,” Kathy Sinback, the executive director of the ACLU in Tennessee, said in a statement.
State legislatures often go decades without taking such an action against members.
The dustup began last week, when hundreds of protestors gathered at the capitol in Nashville to urge lawmakers to pass gun safety measures in the aftermath of a shooting at a local school that left three adults and three children dead.
Amid the protests that leaked into the building, Reps. Gloria Johnson, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson led chants on the House floor in which they called on their colleagues to pass new gun laws. The lawmakers were aided by a bullhorn.
Their stunt enraged Republicans, who promptly introduced resolutions calling for their removal, sparking further chaos on the House floor.
Now, Republican leaders — who likened those actions to an “insurrection” — will vote Thursday on whether the members should be allowed to continue serving in the House or be removed from office. The Democrats have already been stripped of their committee assignments.

Resolutions filed against the three declared that they had participated in “disorderly behavior” and “did knowingly and intentionally bring disorder and dishonor to the House of Representatives.”
Critics of the move to evict the members argued that Republicans have failed in the past to remove their members of their own party who acted egregiously, such as a former representative who was accused of sexually assaulting teenagers when he was a basketball coach.
“It’s morally insane that a week after a mass shooting took six lives in our community, House Republicans only response is to expel us for standing with our constituents to call for gun control,” Jones tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “What’s happening in Tennessee is a clear danger to democracy all across this nation.”
The group of Democrats faces tough odds surviving the vote: Both chambers of the Tennessee legislature are controlled by a Republican supermajority. Special elections will be held if the resolutions pass.
Johnson, a former teacher who survived a school shooting that left one student dead, said she plans to bring an attorney to Thursday’s vote and “defend herself.”
“I’m happy to show up and make my case heard, because I will always lift up the voices of the people in my district who want to see gun sense legislation,” Johnson said.

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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 5, 2023
Dem fundraising giant ActBlue lays off 17 percent of workforce

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“But we need to ensure we are serving our users as sustainably and effectively as possible during the 2024 cycle and beyond,” Wallace-Jones said. “The center of our work is providing a technology platform for campaigns, organizations, and donors to drive change, and we are looking to focus our efforts on innovating and expanding our product while also controlling our costs.”
ActBlue workers are unionized under two unions. In a release, the company said it was committed to working with both unions in accordance with “contractual and bargaining obligations.”
In a release on Monday, ActBlue Union, which ratified a contract in February, said 32 of 54 employees laid off were members of its union, criticized ActBlue management, saying the organization had refused to explore alternatives to layoffs such as pay cuts, and called on the organization to not pursue further layoffs.
During the 2022 cycle, ActBlue reported processing more than $3.5 billion for Democratic candidates and progressive organizations, more than double the total it had raised during the 2018 cycle, from more than 7.4 million individual donors. The platform, founded in 2004, has been widely credited with supporting Democrats’ substantial small-dollar donor fundraising advantage.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 3, 2023
Dem AGs clash with Biden admin over abortion pill restrictions

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Should the judge rule in their favor, the case could eliminate restrictions in those states — broadening access to the drug for tens of millions of people. But the oral arguments also come as a federal judge in Texas is set to rule on whether to ban the pills entirely, and the potential for clashing federal court decisions could push the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
The Biden administration has repeatedly criticized GOP officials and corporate entities in recent months for moving to curb access to abortion pills — noting that they have been deemed safe and effective by the FDA for nearly 25 years and have become the most popular way of terminating a pregnancy in the U.S.
Yet it is also in court fighting to maintain restrictions on the pills known as REMS — or Risk Evaluation & Mitigation Strategies — that the FDA places on a narrow class of drugs. Namely, Biden administration is defending requirements that patients sign a “Patient Agreement Form” acknowledging the risks of the medication and that health care providers who prescribe the drug first obtain certification and prove they can accurately date pregnancies, diagnose ectopic pregnancies, and provide or arrange for a follow-up care if needed.
The FDA declined to comment on the case, citing the ongoing litigation.
Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum is co-leading the lawsuit with Ferguson, and they are joined by the Democratic attorneys general representing Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The pill restrictions, the group claims, are burdensome for both patients and doctors and the documentation requirements put them at risk for harassment or violence.
The Justice Department, meanwhile, is arguing that the attorneys general challenging the FDA rules waited too long to do so, didn’t follow the proper procedure and have failed to prove the remaining pill restrictions are harming patients in their states.
“They cannot credibly claim to be irreparably harmed by FDA’s decision to retain two 22-year-old requirements,” Biden administration attorneys wrote in a brief filed earlier in March. “Their delay shows that any harm is not so significant as to justify a preliminary injunction that would upset the status quo.”

Even as the Democratic officials and the FDA face off in Washington State on Tuesday, they’re on the same side in the Texas case, arguing that the anti-abortion groups suing the agency have no standing, haven’t proved the pills are causing harm and are infringing on the FDA’s authority to regulate the drugs. The same group of Attorneys General, plus several others, submitted amicus briefs in the Texas case backing the FDA rules around abortion medication.
When the FDA originally approved mifepristone for market in 2000, after many years of debate, the agency said the pills could only be dispensed in person by a certified physician. The Biden administration has acted multiple times to loosen those restrictions. In 2021, soon after Biden took office, the FDA allowed the drugs to be prescribed via telemedicine and delivered by mail — at first only for the duration of the Covid-19 pandemic and then permanently. Then, this January, the FDA announced that retail pharmacies could dispense the pills to patients with a prescription and the Justice Department reaffirmed that mailing the pills is not considered a federal crime under the Comstock Act.
Still, Ferguson and his fellow attorneys general argue the remaining restrictions on the pills are not justified given their well-documented safety record and lower rate of complications compared to many other over-the-counter medications. They also say the restrictions prevent providers in their states from serving both their own residents and the high volume of patients coming in from states with abortion restrictions.
“The FDA has approved over 20,000 drugs without limitations. So why is mifepristone listed along with fentanyl as one of only 60 drugs that have limitations?” he said. “It doesn’t make sense from a science perspective. And that’s why we think we’re going to prevail.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 28, 2023