It was one of House conservatives’ biggest demands: more representation on key committees and in senior roles. They got both, and they’re still bragging about it.
At a House Freedom Caucus fundraiser in Tennessee last month, the conservative group’s chair Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) boasted to donors about what it extracted from McCarthy. That included gaining the Homeland Security Committee gavel for a group member after securing Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) eventual chairmanship of the House Judiciary Committee (he first served as the top Republican on the House Oversight panel).
Jordan’s position, Perry claimed at the event, was based on “leverage, too.” In reality, though, that position had long been expected given Jordan and McCarthy’s increasingly close relationship.
Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.), a member of the Freedom Caucus who was present at the event, now chairs the homeland security panel after the protracted speakership battle.
“Now we knew we were going to have a dog in the fight … we also knew the competition,” Perry said of the homeland chairmanship race – apparently referring to Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) — according to an audio recording obtained by POLITICO.
“And one of the conversations was: If that other person becomes the chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, then you will not be speaker.”
While the GOP Steering Committee mostly decides panel chairs, the process is heavily influenced by the speaker. (Green’s position, as well as other competitive chair positions, were decided by the Steering panel after McCarthy’s election on the floor.) Green’s allies have argued that his win was more than just a tradeoff, saying it was a win-win given his resume and vision for the panel. A Crenshaw aide, responding to Perry’s words, called the apparent deal the “worst kept secret in Washington.”
Additionally, two of the GOP’s most conservative members — Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) — were placed on the lower-profile but powerful Rules Committee. It was perhaps the most decentralizing move McCarthy made; the Rules panel decides exactly the way legislation comes to the House floor, empowering Roy and Massie to block certain bills or push for changes.
Conservatives gained more representation on other key committees, too. Two of the 20 holdout members landed on the Financial Services panel and two others got seats on Appropriations. And even Freedom Caucus members who were supportive of McCarthy landed on other top panels, like Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas), who received a spot on Energy and Commerce.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Ding Liren and Ian Nepomniachtchi drew the 13th and penultimate round of their world championship match in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Thursday as the prospect of another draw on Saturday and a speed shootout for the crown on Sunday loomed closer. Nepomniachtchi, 32, again opened with the Ruy Lopez but stood worse in the middle game until Ding, 30, spoiled his advantage and opted to halve by threefold repetition of position, saying later: “It was still some kind of dark ocean position, so I didn’t go further into it.”
The final outcome now depends on Saturday’s 14th and final classical game. If the score is then 7-7, they go to rapid and blitz tie-break games, the chess equivalent of a penalty shootout, on Sunday. Play begins at 10am BST, and the official website with grandmaster commentary is worldchampionship.fide.com. The games can also be watched on chess.com, chess24.com and chessgames.com.
The speed tie-break, if needed, will consist of four 25-minute games, with a 10-second increment from move one. If they are still tied, up to two pairs of 5+3 games will be played. If tied again, they go to single 3+2 games, with colours reversed each game, until there is a winner.
Deciding the crown by rapid and blitz games has happened four times previously, following a change in title rules which used to allow the champion to keep his title after a drawn match. Vlad Kramnik v Veselin Topalov in 2006, Vishy Anand v Boris Gelfand in 2012, Magnus Carlsen v Sergey Karjakin in 2016, and Carlsen v Fabiano Caruana in 2018 were all decided by speed tiebreaks.
Anand and Carlsen were renowned for their skills at fast chess, This time Ding, who ranks No 2 to Carlsen in rapid, has a slight edge in the ratings, but the outcome may be determined more by who has the better nerves under extreme pressure.
Ding dramatically levelled the scores at 6-6 when he recovered from a lost position in Wednesday’s error-strewn game 12, where a computer analysis showed 21 inaccuracies, mistakes, missed opportunities or blunders and which culminated in Nepomniachtchi’s massive error at move 34.
The howler, which brought gasps of disbelief from the online commentators, gave away a free pawn and opened up his defences to an invasion by Ding’s army. Nepomniachtchi spent all but two minutes of his remaining time seeking a way out, and slumped in his chair as he realised his position was hopeless.
3865: Jiri Stocek v Milo Tomic,Golden Sands, Bulgaria 2012. White to move and win. In the game, White lost after the poor move 1 Rc7. Can you do better?
The Russian’s greatest strength, his speed of thought in sharp tactical positions, became a weakness as he blitzed out errors and the final blunder. Fabiano Caruana, the 2018 title challenger, was scathing in his chess.com commentary. “I don’t understand this decision to rush every move. It’s a world championship,” he said. “You have one or two chances in your lifetime – how can you play every move like it’s a Titled Tuesday game? These are responsible decisions to make.”
The drama of game 12 was a total contrast not only to game 13, but also to the 10th and 11th games, which were drawn on Sunday and Monday after relatively calm play.
Carlsen, Norway’s world No 1, who has abdicated his world champion crown after a 10-year reign, never had such drama and reversals of fortune in his five title matches. There were long stretches of draws in 2016 and 2018, and even in 2021 there were five draws before the marathon 136-move sixth game and Nepomniachtchi’s subsequent collapse.
The gap between Carlsen and his rivals was not fully translated into overwhelming match results. Instead, his clear superiority on tie-breaks at faster time rates became a kind of goal difference, a potential threat which tempted opponents to overpress in the classical section.
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The combative approach by both players in Astana, a clear contrast to Carlsen’s matches, has split chess fans, with some delighted by the increased fighting spirit but others displeased by the higher percentage of errors.
Will Carlsen be tempted into a comeback against whoever wins in Astana? It seems highly unlikely. The 32-year-old played only 40 classical games in 2022, the smallest number of his career apart from the pandemic-affected 2020. His current schedule for 2023 also plans for only around 40, starting next month with his home tournament of Stavanger. It is possible that he will add the Sinquefield Cup in St Louis, from which he withdrew in controversial circumstances last year following his loss to Hans Niemann, where the fallout included a still unresolved lawsuit.
Instead, Carlsen is giving priority to the online Champions Tour of rapid and blitz games, although he will be absent from the next Tour event, the ChessKid Cup, a five-day knockout starting on 22 May. The No 1 has a growing interest in poker. He has always said that he plans to retire from chess by his 40s, so 2023 could be viewed as the early stages of a winding down.
3865: 1 Rd6! Qxd6 2 f3+ Kh5 3 Kh3 (threat 4 g4 mate) g5 4 Rg7! with 5 g4 mate or 4…g4 5 fxg4 mate or 4…Nf6 5 g4+ Nxg4 6 fxg4 mate. Black can avoid mate by 1…Nc5 2 Rxd3 Nxd3 or by 1…Qe4 2 f3+ Qxf3, but then has a hopeless ending.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Paraguay is bracing for what is expected to be one of the most fiercely contested general elections in the country’s short democratic history, with a vote which may see the ruling rightwing Colorado party defeated after more than 75 years of almost uninterrupted power.
The Colorado stranglehold on power has loosened in an election run-up marked by cries for change, pressure from the US, and the rise of a populist “anti-system” candidate known for punching and defecating his way through disputes.
“There’s an enormous difference with this year’s elections and it has to do with financial resources,” said political scientist Rocío Duarte.
For more than a decade the Colorado party has been bankrolled by the enormous wealth of former president Horacio Cartes, who remains the party president and the political patron of its current candidate, Santiago Peña.
But in January, he was targeted with US sanctions for “rampant corruption that undermines democratic institutions” and alleged links to Hezbollah, starving the Colorado electoral machine of funding and access to bank loans.
The current financial blow, along with deep internal party conflicts, has seen Peña fall in the polls to a statistical tie with third-time hopeful Efraín Alegre. Rightwinger Alegre is a candidate for the Coalition for a New Paraguay, a confederation of opposition parties that includes his own Liberal party, the country’s second-biggest political force.
“I’m optimistic that the opposition can win, but I’m very deeply pessimistic about what the Coalition [for a New Paraguay] will be able to do if it’s actually in government,” said political scientist Gustavo Setrini, pointing to a lack of coherent policy proposals from coalition leaders in response to enormous inequality, recession and rising extreme poverty rates.
“The two candidates are different flavours of clientelist neoliberalism. One is more linked to narcotrafficking and authoritarianism, and the other to the Liberal party and nominally more progressive elites,” he said.
Efraín Alegre, the Coalition for a New Paraguay candidate for the Paraguayan presidency, during a campaign rally on Monday. Photograph: Norberto Duarte/AFP/Getty Images
Both Peña and Alegre have pledged not to raise taxes, despite Paraguay having an underfunded state and the lowest tax burden in South America, which greatly benefits society’s wealthiest.
One key difference between the candidates is their position on Paraguay’s diplomatic relationship with Taiwan: Paraguay is the largest of 13 countries to still recognise the island.
Alegre said he would consider switching recognition to China over Taiwan, in line with Beijing’s one-China principle, stating that Paraguay “loses many opportunities” that were not sufficiently rewarded by Taiwan.
“It would be a historic mistake for Paraguay,” said Carlos Fleitas, Paraguay’s ambassador to Taiwan, adding that Taipei is closely observing the elections following Honduras’s recent break with the island.
“The relationship with Taiwan isn’t only economic,” he said. “We share the same values of freedom and justice.”
On the street, however, the relationship with Taiwan “isn’t of importance for voters”, said Duarte. In contrast, she said that widespread discontent with state institutions and traditional parties had fed the rapid rise of the “anti-system” candidate Paraguayo “Payo” Cubas, a candidate who has drawn comparisons to Brazil’s far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro and El Salvador’s authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele.
Paraguayo ‘Payo’ Cubas at a rally in San Lorenzo, Paraguay, at the weekend. Photograph: Norberto Duarte/AFP/Getty Images
Cubas, a former senator who was expelled from Congress and is notorious for physical altercations and defecating in a judge’s office, has employed social media to run a bare-bones campaign. He has said he will instate the death penalty and spoke in favour of establishing a dictatorship, and he is currently polling in third at 23%.
“Payo is the only one who can tear it all down,” said Alejandro Daniel, an Uber driver in the Paraguayan capital, Asunción.
Duarte described Cubas as a belated example of the populist trend which swept across Latin America and the world in the past decade. “Everything reaches Paraguay a few years later, so now we’re seeing this anti-system current here,” she said.
Despite palpable disillusionment with traditional parties, many insist that a non-Colorado government is an essential step forward for Paraguay, where democracy was only introduced in 1989 following the 35-year rightwing dictatorship of Gen Alfredo Stroessner, of which the Colorado party itself was an integral part.
The National Campesino Federation (FNC), a powerful peasant farmer organisation, has taken sides in electoral politics for the first time, backing Alegre and the Coalition for a New Paraguay.
“The coalition offers us a respite. The other option is a continuation of the same politics without healthcare, without education, without land, without work, without productive policies for campesinos,” said the FNC leader Teodolina Villalba.
Alegre, should he win, could also face Colorado majorities in both houses of congress, also disputed on 30 April. And to implement any major changes, he would first have to avoid the fate of former president Fernando Lugo, the only non-Colorado president since democratisation began in 1989.
Leftist Lugo was impeached in 2012 by a hostile congress – including then senator Alegre – in what many analysts saw as a coup that truncated a promising process of deep transformation.
For Setrini, an Alegre administration would hold a position of enormous historic responsibility for ensuring progress in Paraguay’s tortuous process of democratisation.
“Interrupting Cartes’s model of the state is positive,” he said. “But the risk is that if you sell the Coalition [for a New Paraguay] as a change, but it’s totally unworkable as a government, you’re going to end up making people even more sour on democracy.”
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
A spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office declined to comment.
Daniels’ meeting with prosecutors comes after a flurry of activity signaling an indictment of the former president is likely imminent.
Earlier this week, the grand jury examining evidence in the inquiry heard from Trump’s one-time attorney Michael Cohen, he confirmed to POLITICO. Cohen facilitated the payment to Daniels and has said in court that he paid hush money to Trump’s accuser “in coordination with and at the direction of” the former president. Trump has denied the Daniels affair.
And an attorney for Trump, Joe Tacopina, said prosecutors had offered the former president an opportunity to go before the grand jury, but that Trump had no plans to do so. Prosecutors typically offer a potential defendant the chance to speak to the grand jury near the conclusion of their inquiry.
Prosecutors are weighing a felony charge against Trump related to how his real estate company, the Trump Organization, reimbursed Cohen for the $130,000 payment. Federal prosecutors, who charged Cohen in a separate case in 2018, said the firm falsely recorded the reimbursement payments as legal expenses. Cohen pleaded guilty in that case.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The debate, part of budget negotiations in Albany, pits Sharpton against NAACP NY President Hazel Dukes, who supports the ban because of the high lung cancer rate in the Black community. So far, it appears that Sharpton’s side will prevail in what could be a preview of the coming battle around a similar ban proposed by President Joe Biden’s Food and Drug Administration.
“It’s a good bill with bad consequences,” Garner’s mother, racial justice activist Gwen Carr, said at a City Hall rally last week. She believes the ban would increase the underground market for untaxed cigarettes and lead to more police stops in communities of color.
“They say it’ll only be a civil penalty,” Carr said about Hochul’s proposal that would fine retailers who sell flavored tobacco, but not individuals who purchase it. The City Council has proposed a companion bill.
“When my son was murdered, that’s all that should have been — a civil penalty. But he paid for it with his life. We know it’s no such thing as, ‘It’s just civil, they going to play nice.’”
An NYPD officer put Garner in a fatal chokehold in 2014 during a crackdown on people hawking untaxed cigarettes. Hochul’s bill would indeed allow regional health departments to contract with police officials to enforce the ban, but officers would only be handing out fines, not making arrests.
If the bill were to pass, New York would become the third state after California and Massachusetts to ban menthols. The flavored cigarettes can be easier to smoke, more addictive and harder to quit, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Black New Yorkers make up 85 percent of menthol smokers, according to the CDC. Flavored cigarettes account for nearly 40 percent of all tobacco sales nationwide and 378,000 premature deaths between 1980 and 2018, the CDC said.
Tobacco companies have long targeted Black consumers, from pouring advertising dollars into periodicals like “Ebony” and funding civil rights groups, including Sharpton’s National Action Network.
But the money lavished on Black lobbyists in California, who also cited the deaths of Floyd and Garner in their campaigns against the ban, failed to defeat a 2020 measure outlawing flavored tobacco. Voters last year rejected a subsequent ballot initiative to overturn the law. The defeat did not deter Sharpton from attacking the F.D.A. ban that’s pending at the federal level, saying it would “exacerbate existing, simmering issues around racial profiling.”
Leaders like Sharpton, with his Harlem-based National Action Network, and Carr whose son’s death in Staten Island sparked a national movement against police brutality, have outsized influence in New York.
“People are listening, and they’re listening because Gwen Carr had this terrible tragedy in her family and has been a voice,” David Paterson, New York’s first Black governor, said in an interview.
Paterson favors the bill, describing tobacco-related deaths as a “health crisis.” But he still thinks Sharpton and Carr, who are close, have been effective in spreading their concerns.
“I would admit that, if not for Rev. Sharpton and Gwen Carr, I wouldn’t have even thought about the ancillary effects,” he said.
Their involvement has also created tensions with other Black leaders, who are usually on the same side of racial justice issues.
NAACP NY’s Dukes and former National Action Network regional director Rev. Kirsten John Foy led a rally by NYPD headquarters supporting the ban last week, less than an hour after Carr’s anti-ban demonstration at the nearby City Hall.
“I’ve been to jail holding the police accountable with Reverend Foy. Why would I, at this age and this time, bring police into my community knowing the tragedies that have occurred?” Dukes, 90, said.
Foy added, “Big tobacco has been lying to people like my friend Gwen Carr, they’ve been lying on the other side saying you have to accept the status quo because if not then the bad police are going to come and they’re going to get you.”
Carr said in an interview she hasn’t taken any funding from the tobacco industry. “Nobody is paying me to do anything. I’m just doing what I feel is right,” she said.
Sharpton declined multiple interview requests. A spokesperson, Rachel Noerdlinger, would not say if his organization NAN still accepts tobacco funding, but pointed out that former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who backs anti-smoking efforts, also donates to Sharpton.
“NAN is unequivocally against smoking but has real concerns about the unintended consequences as Rev. Al Sharpton has expressed in the past,” Noerdlinger said. “Rev. Sharpton has 127 chapters in 35 states and he doesn’t show up all the time to local issues. Nor does the national president of NAACP.”
While Dukes, a past national president of NAACP, and Foy were joined by dozens of anti-tobacco advocates, Carr’s group numbered closer to 10 people.
George Floyd’s brother, Philonise Floyd, and his wife, Keeta, flew to New York from their home in Houston to join Carr at the rally. Philonise Floyd quickly pivoted from remarks against the ban to the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that received renewed life in Congress following the death of Tyre Nichols, who in January was fatally beaten by Memphis police.
Floyd invoked former Rep. Kendrick Meek (D-Fla.) as a backer of the act that seeks to eliminate racism and the use of force in police departments. Reynolds American, the company behind the popular menthol cigarette brand Newport, paid Meek to lobby against the California and the FDA ban, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Dukes, at a rally in the state Capitol last week, explained why she presumed Sharpton wasn’t out front against the ban this time.
“I think that Reverend Sharpton is hearing about the death rates and probably rethinking it,” she said in an interview after the event. Black men are 10 percent more likely to die from lung cancer than their white counterparts, according to the Lung Cancer Research Foundation.
At the Manhattan rally a few days later, Dukes told POLITICO she was “having conversations” with Sharpton and Carr about changing their position.
Paterson said the disagreement between the civil rights leaders actually speaks to how much political power the Black community has gained in New York over the past decades.
“Years ago when similar issues came up, there was a feeling that we had to stick together or no one would hear us,” he said.
Dukes acknowledged the bill faces steep opposition in the Legislature where the Senate and Assembly are unlikely to include the proposal in their own budget priorities due out this week.
Hochul has indicated she will continue to push for the measure in the final budget deal — where she would have the power of the state’s purse strings to try to include the ban.
“What we’re concerned about is the highly addictive properties of menthol, because it has more soothing ingredients that makes it easier to smoke more,” she told reporters earlier this month. “And it’s more of an attraction to young people to start out on the path of a lifetime of smoking addiction.”
Mary Bassett, the state’s former health commissioner and a longtime backer of the ban, said in an interview she was hopeful about its fate. She noted that Carr’s fears haven’t been borne out in states where menthol bans are in effect.
“We have an example in Massachusetts where it hasn’t given rise to the concerns, legitimate concerns, that have been raised about the potential for increased police encounters,” said Bassett, a physician who now runs Harvard University’s Center for Health and Human Rights.
Anna Gronewold contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
The White House has been mulling the Willow decision for weeks. The deliberations have focused on the legal constraints posed by the fact that Conoco has held some leases for decades and “has certain valid, existing rights granted by prior Administrations, limiting the Biden Administration’s options,” the official continued.
Stopping new oil leases, plus other measures meant to conserve the Arctic from new drilling, is meant as a “fire wall” to protect 16 million acres of land and water in the state, said the official.
The Sierra Club environmental group gave tempered support to any new rules.
“These unparalleled protections for Alaskan landscapes and waters are the right decision at the right time, and we thank the Biden Administration for taking this significant step,” Sierra Club Lands Protection Program Director Athan Manuel said in a prepared statement. “However, the benefits of these protections can be undone just as quickly by approval of oil and gas projects on public lands, and right now, no proposal poses a bigger threat to lands, wildlife, communities, and our climate than ConocoPhillips’ Willow project.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: With the arrest of Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia in the excise policy scam case, uncertainty looms over several critical Delhi government projects, including streetscaping and traffic decongestion plans, ahead of the G20 summit.
Sisodia, who held 18 of the 33 Delhi government departments, was the administrative face of the AP-led dispensation, and was also handling crucial departments like education, health, PWD, among others.
Departments like health and home were handed over to him following his cabinet colleague Satyendar Jain’s arrest in an alleged money laundering case in May last year.
A special CBI court on Monday remanded Sisodia to five-day custody of the central probe agency till March 4.
The CBI on Sunday evening arrested Sisodia in connection with alleged corruption in the formulation and implementation of the now-scrapped liquor policy for 2021-22
Under the streetscaping project, 16 stretches are being revamped and is aimed at decongesting, redesigning and beautifying 540 km of roads across the national capital.
Nearly 1,300 kilometre roads fall under the Public Works Department of the Delhi government.
The beautification of roads includes well-designed pedestrian-friendly footpaths, development of green stretches through plantations, creation of open air sitting areas, cycle tracks, selfie points, public facilities like water ATMs, toilets and street furniture.
Sisodia was keenly involved in checking progress of the work under the project by holding regular meetings with officials and carrying out inspections.
His arrest will definitely hinder the progress, said party functionaries.
“It was estimated that more than Rs 1,000 crore will be spent by the Delhi government on events related to the G20 Summit.
“The deputy chief minister had been holding various meetings to review projects related to the G20 Summit and to expedite other ambitious works of the government, including making roads akin to European standards. These projects will of course be hindered,” said an AAP functionary.
Asked whether the party has thought of anyone to replace Sisodia, the functionary said it is ‘too early’ to think about it.
“Sisodia will continue to be part of the cabinet like Jain. His portfolio will be distributed among the existing ministers like Kailash Gahlot, Imran Hussain and Gopal Rai.
“There is a possibility that Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal might assume charge of some key portfolios. But meetings will be held among the party’s top brass to decide the future course of action,” he said.
Karachi: Ahead of Ramazan, the price of black tea (loose) in Pakistan has swelled to Rs 1,600 per kg from Rs 1,100 in the last 15 days as around 250 containers are still stuck at the port that arrived from late December 2022 to early January, local media reported.
A retailer said a leading brand has raised the price of 170-gram Danedar and Elaichi packs to Rs320 and Rs350 from Rs 290. The 900 and 420-gram packs now cost Rs 1,480 and Rs 720 as against Rs 1,350 and Rs 550. Other packers are set to follow suit, Dawn reported.
Zeeshan Maqsood, Convener Standing Committee of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Tea, said that imports are currently under crisis which may lead to huge shortages in March, Dawn reported.
He said banks say they have instructions from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) to release documents on 180-day defer contracts or 180-day letters of credit (LCs).
He added that the situation is getting worse because if anyone gets these containers released on 180-day deferred payment then how he would calculate the cost of imported tea as nobody knows what would be the dollar rate after six months on the interbank market, Dawn reported.
Zeeshan, who is also an executive member of the Pakistan Tea Association (PTA), said the banks are not opening LCs saying they do not have any instructions from the SBP for new contracts.
He feared that tea price may hit Rs 2,500 per kg in Ramazan in case stuck-up consignments were not released, Dawn reported.
As a result, the welfare associations may not be able to distribute tea in ration bags due to shortage and high cost, he added.
Zeeshan suggested that Pakistan should sign a Prefrential Trade Agreement (PTA) with Kenya. “We import 90 per cent of Kenyan tea from a weekly auction in Mombasa where all African Origin tea are sold.”
Kenya is the gateway to Africa connecting seven landlocked countries. Pakistan imports tea worth around $500m annually from Kenya and exports only $250m of different items, Dawn reported.
The stalemate over the nation’s debt ceiling was a prime example of how the shift in congressional power could shape the rest of Biden’s term, as Republican lawmakers push for spending cuts before agreeing to Democrats’ requests to increase the debt limit.
At the start of the meeting, Biden said: “I have no intention of letting the Republicans wreck our economy, nor does anybody around this table.” He is expected to meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to discuss the standoff, though White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday said she had no updates about timing for when.
Later, Schumer said the White House and Democratic leaders were on the “same page” regarding the debt ceiling. White House officials have continued to stress that Congress must pass a clean limit increase, noting that lawmakers raised the debt ceiling three times under former President Donald Trump without demanding spending cuts.
“One of the things we want to do on the debt ceiling is say to Republicans, show us your plan,” Schumer said. “Do they want to cut Social Security? Do they want to cut Medicare? Do they want to cut veterans benefits? Do they want to cut police? Do they want to cut food for needy kids? What’s your plan? We don’t know if they can even put one together.”
Jeffries described the meeting as “wonderful,” adding that the group discussed jobs, infrastructure and the administration’s accomplishments. Schumer also said the group agreed to lean into implementation of the bills they’ve passed.
“One of the things we’re going to work together on, the president, the House, the Senate, is making sure that implementation of all the good things that we did in the last two years gets to the people quickly, in a real way, and gets to the right people — the working families of America,” Schumer said.
Schumer and Jeffries were joined by House Democratic Whip Katherine Clark, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) and Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.)
The Democratic leaders retreated back into the White House without taking questions on the president’s handling of classified documents, a storyline that has dominated the new year for Biden.
The White House on Tuesday evening also hosted new members of Congress for a reception in the East Room.
Olivia Olander contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
And it came off to many as a clear, though not irreparable, miscalculation that was an embarrassing loss to start her term and one that could weaken the moderate governor’s standing at the state Capitol with an emboldened Legislature that has increasingly moved to the left.
How both sides react next could set the tone for the next six months as the governor and Democrats in the Senate and Assembly negotiate a $220 billion state budget. After narrowly winning election last year, she’s also looking at proposals to reinvigorate New York City and the state with a massive housing plan and make further changes to the state’s controversial bail laws.
“Governing is about compromise, but it’s also about understanding when you have leverage, how you use it, and never forfeiting it needlessly, which is what she’s appeared to do in the last few weeks,” said Bob Bellafiore, an Albany-based communications consultant and a former press secretary for Republican Gov. George Pataki.
For example, a bargaining chip could have been to refuse to sign off on lawmakers’ pay raise in December until they could assure LaSalle would be approved, but she approved the raise and didn’t appear to offer any other enticement to get him over the finish line, two people close to the Senate and familiar with the negotiations said.
Hochul also erred by not lining up support early for LaSalle, who would have been the first Latino chief judge, or perhaps pulling the nomination when it was likely to fail. Instead, she set herself up for defeat by trying to force it through the Senate when powerful unions — including CWA and the AFL-CIO — had already opposed him because they viewed a few of his court decisions as anti-abortion and anti-labor, which he refuted.
“There was a lot of energy around this,” Sharon Cromwell, deputy state director for the Working Families Party, which opposed the nomination, said Thursday. “We understood the stakes of what it means to have a chief judge that has a track record of not standing with unions and working people — and a track record to make some anti-abortion decisions.”
How does Hochul respond after the loss? She didn’t rule out a lawsuit to try to force a full Senate vote, but also vowed not to let it derail her agenda.
“I did not say what course we’re taking,” Hochul told reporters Thursday. “I just said we’re weighing all of our options. But I put forth an ambitious plan for the people of New York. And I believe that there’s a lot of common interest between the executive and the legislative branch.”
Senators who opposed LaSalle early on framed the historic rejection as the right and responsibility of the Senate, perhaps a nod to confirmations with governors past that have been nothing more than a rubber stamp, including the last one, Janet DiFiore in 2016 who was widely panned for her leadership and left under an ethics cloud last summer.
LaSalle’s rejection is the first for a New York governor under the current nomination system that dates to the 1970s.
“The Senate has now set a new standard in thorough, detailed hearings — an achievement for our democracy and a harbinger of future proceedings,” Deputy Senate Majority Leader Mike Gianaris said in a statement. LaSalle didn’t fit the wish list for a new chief judge that he and his colleagues had sent to the nominating commission months earlier, he said.
Bronx Democrat Sen. Gustavo Rivera said in a statement he hoped everyone could move forward in round two. Hochul would have to select from a new list of candidates from the Commission on Judicial Nomination.
“It is unfortunate that this process has become so acrimonious, and I implore the governor to work collaboratively with the Senate so that we may approve the nominee she selects next,” he said.
While the state Constitution says a judge to the Court of Appeals nominated by a governor has to be confirmed with the “advice and consent” of the Senate, it’s not explicit about whether the committee membership adequately represents the chamber. Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins says it does. Hochul says it does not.
Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in constitutional law, said it is unclear whether Hochul would win a lawsuit to force a full Senate vote.
“The Constitution speaks about the Senate taking up the matter, but it doesn’t say what it means ‘by the Senate,’ and another provision of the constitution says the Senate can determine its own rules or proceeding,” Briffault said.
Former Gov. David Paterson — a Hochul supporter who is also a former Senate minority leader — said he would have expected senators to bring the matter to a full Senate vote as Hochul wished as a way to avoid any legal uncertainty. The nomination was likely to fail on the Senate floor anyway — and would still if Hochul were to win a lawsuit.
But Paterson noted that leaders in Albany have long memories.
“It was a bad day for the governor,” Paterson said, but added, “The governor has four more years of days to establish who she is. Sooner or later, you know what they say: What goes around comes around. They are going to need her for something, and they are going to find out.”
The former executive doesn’t see Hochul’s adherence to her pick as an error.
“She picked a candidate that she knew they didn’t like. But she’s not supposed to be political here,” he said. “She’s supposed to be picking who she thinks would be the best judge at this time.”
In the aftermath of the hearing, several senators said that despite the clash, they could easily maintain a working relationship with Hochul, who came into office after years of adversarial relations between the Legislature and her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo.
She agreed. When asked Thursday if the LaSalle denial — and a potential legal battle — would hurt her housing, mental health and public safety priorities in the budget this year, she responded: “Nothing like this could detract from that.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
