It’s not surprising, but now it’s official: Joe Biden is running for re-election. In a video on Tuesday launching his bid for a second term, Biden cast his administration as standing for personal freedom, democracy and pluralism in contrast to what he called “Maga extremists”. The video emphasized abortion rights and contrasted Biden and the Democrats with unsettling images of the Capitol insurrectionists. Echoing a repeated line from his most recent State of the Union address, the president implored Americans: “Let’s finish the job.”
There will be no primary. True, Biden has disaffected some members of the Democratic party’s precariously large coalition, and he has failed to capture the hearts and imaginations of Americans the way that, say, Barack Obama did. In 2020, a basketball team’s worth of Democrats entered the presidential primary – partly out of perceptions of then president Trump’s weakness, but also partly because Biden seemed like such a poor fit to be the party’s standard-bearer.
He’s an old white man in a party that is predominantly female, increasingly non-white and very young. He is a moderate in a party with a resurgent left. And he is a bone-deep believer in the merits of compromise and bipartisanship, in an era where the Republican party has become anathema to cooperation, hostile to Democratic governance and committed to racial and gender hierarchies that are not worth compromising with. He seemed like a man out of time, responding to the political conditions of a different era; it was unclear, then, that he could see the country as it really was, unclear that he could confront the true threat.
As he announces his re-election campaign, four years after he threw his hat into the ring for 2020, Biden has quieted these fears, if not disproved them. The left, leaderless after Bernie Sanders’s defeat in the 2020 primary, has not formed a cohesive bloc, and their pressures on the Biden administration have been noble but sporadic. Congressional Republicans hamstrung most of Biden’s agenda, causing him to abandon, in particular, promises he made to help Americans get affordable childcare; but he still managed to pass a large infrastructure bill, as well as Covid relief.
The pandemic has largely receded, and both deaths and new infections are down. Inflation is slowing, and jobs numbers are encouraging. The economy, while not perfect, seems to be benefiting from the stability of Democratic leadership, with stock prices no longer beholden to wild fluctuations in the aftermath of an errant comment or impulsive tweet from Trump.
When Russia invaded Ukraine, unleashing horrific humanitarian catastrophes on the people there and endangering other European allies, a trap was laid that could have easily drawn the United States into war. Biden and his administration have deftly kept us out of it. The president who once seemed like an out-of-touch old man has been successfully rebranded as an affable grandfather whose gaffes are thoughtless but aggressively well-meaning.
Even major missteps do not seem to have meaningfully injured Biden. The administration was shockingly tone-deaf and ill-prepared following the US supreme court’s decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, having little in the way of policy proposals to reduce the humanitarian and dignity harms imposed on American women – and at one point, trying to appoint an anti-choice judge to a lifetime seat, before withdrawing the nomination under pressure.
Despite the primacy Tuesday’s campaign announcement gave abortion rights, Biden has generally seemed uncomfortable and incompetent on the issue, even as women face degradation and medical emergencies inflicted at the hands of conservative states; he has largely shied away from directly addressing abortion, and shunted it off to his unpopular, largely powerless vice-president, Kamala Harris – whose own marginalization within the administration is a signal of how little he values the issue.
Even since Dobbs, Biden has been entirely unwilling to confront the federal judiciary – a captured and unaccountable extremist rightwing body that will foil his whole agenda, and gradually eliminate both pluralist society and representative democracy, if it is not reformed. Yet the Republicans’ virulent misogyny and bald sadism on abortion seems poised to be a boon to Democrats anyway: it was mostly abortion that drove voters to give a worse-than-expected showing to Republicans in the 2022 midterms, and to allow Democrats to keep control of the Senate.
In that sense, the political fallout of the Dobbs decision may serve as a good model for the Democrats’ emerging 2024 strategy: they don’t need to be especially good, because the Republicans are so cruelly and chaotically worse. The Republican party is in shambles – internally divided; married to gruesome and unpopular policies, particularly on gender, that alienate voters; branded as violent, antisocial and creepy. There’s still a long way to go, but the Republican party seems only slightly less eager to anoint Trump as their nominee than the Democrats have been to appoint Biden.
It very well may wind up being a rematch of the 2020 election – only now, Trump is even weaker, even more marginal, even more disliked, linked forever the memory of the January 6 violence and devoid of what was once his novelty and comedy and reduced to a rambling catalogue of personal grievances. With an opponent like that, it might not matter much if all that Biden has to offer is a series of charming anachronisms, or grinning photo ops in his aviators.
All the Republicans have to offer is sex obsession and cheesy fraud, parading a series of candidates for state and federal office who talk like a collection of snake-oil salesmen and gun fetishists. Biden isn’t going into 2024 particularly strong. But right now, the Republicans are particularly weak.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Greene is far from alone among Republicans cheering clean energy investments created by Democratic policies they all snubbed. And that’s creating some awkward dynamics for GOP lawmakers who are seeking to wipe out Biden’s clean-energy spending plans as part of any deal to avert a U.S. debt default.
The White House, and supporters of Biden’s clean energy programs, are eagerly seizing on the contradiction.
“The Biden Clean Energy Plan has helped create more than 140,000 clean energy jobs across the U.S. — the majority of which are in Republican-held districts,” said Lori Lodes, executive director of the group Climate Power, citing its own estimates of the law’s economic impact.
“Now MAGA extremists are threatening to implode our country’s economy — and the clean energy manufacturing boom that’s happening in their communities — to protect their own corporate, anti-climate interests,” she said.
According to data provided by Climate Power, which was then reviewed, vetted and confirmed by POLITICO’s E&E News, at least 37 congressional districts now represented by Republicans have welcomed expansions of new clean energy operations fostered by three major Biden-era laws — last year’s Inflation Reduction Act, the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law or the CHIPS and Science Act.
A POLITICO analysis early this year similarly found that Republican districts were home to about two-thirds of the major renewable energy, battery and electric vehicle projects that companies had announced since Biden signed the IRA in August.
House Republicans all opposed the Inflation Reduction Act. All but 13 opposed the infrastructure law, and all but 34 voted against the CHIPS and Science Act.
Three House Republicans who are poised to see new chip manufacturing booms in their districts — Reps. Mike Simpson of Idaho, John Curtis of Utah and Richard Hudson of North Carolina, who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee — were among those who scorned CHIPS.
In its reporting, E&E News found that 21 projects in Republican-led districts were a result of benefits from the IRA, while 15 were made possible by the infrastructure law. Some Republicans had multiple projects in their districts due to one or both of these laws.
Eleven Republicans responded to requests for comment or made themselves available for interviews to explain how they squared their opposition to these laws with their support for the jobs in their districts. They include Greene, who denied that any contradiction exists in her stance on Biden’s programs.
“I don’t think the government should be controlling our energy sector,” Greene said in an interview Thursday on Capitol Hill.
‘Height of hypocrisy’
Greene also insisted that the climate law’s enactment was not the catalyst for the expansion of QCells, despite the company’s statements asserting as much.
“Those jobs were jobs in my district under the Trump administration,” she said. “QCells … gave all the credit to the local counties there that helped them get started, and [Republican] Gov. [Brian] Kemp and the Trump administration.”
The company announced in January that it would add to existing facilities in Greene’s Dalton district, plus add a new facility in Cartersville, the district of Republican Rep. Barry Loudermilk. Qcells said at the time that the action “follow[ed] the passage of the Solar Energy Manufacturing in America Act within the Inflation Reduction Act.”
In April, Qcells further celebrated a deal that would require the Dalton plant to manufacture 2.5 million solar panels — the largest community solar order in American history — made possible by the 2022 climate spending law. Vice President Kamala Harris attended the festivities.
“It’s the height of hypocrisy for [Republicans] to be blasting the president and all he’s done to address climate change and build a clean energy economy that is directly benefiting people in their districts,” Craig Auster, vice president for political affairs at the League of Conservation Voters, said of the GOP lawmakers.
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates similarly scorned the GOP position in a memo Thursday that was later provided to news outlets including POLITICO’s E&E News. “Killing newly-created American manufacturing jobs just so the super wealthy and big corporations can enjoy tax welfare would be a gut-punch to America’s competitiveness and to thousands of working families in red states,” he wrote.
In South Charleston, West Virginia, GreenPower Motor Co. has said its electric school bus facility benefited from the infrastructure law’s clean school bus program, and it has highlighted how its buses can also get tax credits worth up to $40,000 from the Inflation Reduction Act.
Republican Rep. Carol Miller, who represents that area, said in a statement that while “hardworking businesses like GreenPower Motor are responding to the rules set by the federal government to bring much needed investment to West Virginia … we should have provided them with the ability to grow without sending American tax dollars to the Chinese Communist Party.” (The administration insists its agenda is meant to provide jobs and economic security inside the U.S., not China.)
Miller added that “the jobs West Virginia is creating through the so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ come nowhere close to replacing the opportunities that liberal activists destroyed in my state. The faster we can repeal these IRA tax credits and replace them with incentives that fully support American manufacturing and energy production, the better.”
Elsewhere in West Virginia, Sparkz Inc. — an energy startup producing lithium-ion batteries — is growing operations in Republican Rep. Alex Mooney’s district.
In March, Sparkz CEO Sanjiv Malhotra told an audience at the premier annual energy conference CERAWeek by S&P Global that he had Biden and Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chair Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to thank for the Inflation Reduction Act, which led to the massive investment the company has made in the state.
Mooney, who is vying to unseat Manchin in 2024, issued a statement that didn’t address how he reconciled his opposition to the climate law with jobs coming to his community.
“The Inflation Enhancement Act is a $745 billion spending spree that alone adds $146 billion to the national debt,” he said. “West Virginians are paying more at the pump and the grocery store as they suffer from Biden’s regressive inflation tax.”
Justifying the disconnect
Not every Republican had an explanation ready for how they squared their positions.
In Clarksville, Tenn., for instance, which is part of Rep. Mark Green’s district, Texas-based Microvast Holdings plans to expand an existing facility with a new plant for battery components. The Department of Energy picked the plant in October for a $200 million award under an infrastructure law program meant to boost battery materials processing and battery manufacturing.
GOP lawmakers are scrutinizing that award because of Microvast’s significant presence and operations in China. DOE officials have said the money has not yet gone out while the agency continues to vet all of the award recipients.
Green said while he was concerned about the China connections, he didn’t feel prepared to talk about how the existence of the facility colors his view of the infrastructure law, which he voted against.
“I have to get some more information on it to answer the questions,” he said.
Others, however, sought to justify the disconnect.
Republican Rep. Mark Amodei of Nevada has two battery manufacturing facilities in his district that received incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act — Zinc8 Energy Solutions and Redwood Materials. The district is also home to a lithium manufacturing plant from Lilac Solutions because of the infrastructure law.
Despite all this activity, he said, “when you look at the overall policy, let’s just say for Nevada, these two pieces of funding do not make up for the damage these two pieces of legislation can do or are threatening to do.”
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee, the top Republican on the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, was emphatic that a grant made possible by the infrastructure law for Novonix Ltd. to produce battery components in his district did not depend on protecting that piece of legislation in the long term.
In fact, he argued, the appropriations process has been filling the coffers of this project and others like it for some time now.
The infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act “were like a false positive, if you will … the money’s there.”
Rep. Dan Newhouse, the chair of the Congressional Western Caucus, represents Moses Lake, Wash., where Sila Nanotechnologies received a $100 million award through an infrastructure law Energy Department program. Separately, REC Silicon, a solar-grade polysilicon manufacturer, said last year that the Inflation Reduction Act “underpinned” its decision to reopen its own closed plant in Moses Lake.
“Rep. Newhouse had fundamental disagreements with the massive infrastructure package that spurred a socialist spending spree and led to record-high inflation,” said spokesperson Mike Marinella.
“While he acknowledges that the bill did more harm than good for the American people, he will always recognize and applaud economic opportunity for the hardworking men and women in his district.”
Concerns for projects despite ‘no’ votes
Some Republicans also laid bare how complicated the dynamics can be.
Just outside Charleston, S.C., in Rep. Nancy Mace’s district, the battery minerals recycling company Redwood Materials is working to build a $3.5 billion manufacturing campus.
“When paired with the benefits of the recent Inflation Reduction Act, this strategic location also allows us the opportunity to invest more heavily at home while potentially exporting components in the future, allowing the U.S. to become a global leader in this manufacturing capability,” the company said in announcing its plans.
J.B. Straubel, the company’s CEO, told The Wall Street Journal that the Inflation Reduction Act “has gently shifted our priorities to really accelerate investment in the U.S. a little bit ahead of looking overseas.”
Mace, in an interview, said the Redwood plant doesn’t change her opposition to the climate law: “It doesn’t do anything for inflation,” she said. “It was really just a gift to the Green New Deal.”
On the other hand, Mace is leaning against supporting House GOP leadership’s debt limit deal because of its rollbacks to the IRA’s clean energy provisions.
“I’m concerned about some of the things that’ll hurt some green energy like solar,” she said. “Solar is huge — not only in the Lowcountry, but across the entire state of South Carolina, it’s huge. This would adversely affect solar.”
Curtis, the chair of the Conservative Climate Caucus, has a semiconductor wafer plant from Texas Instruments booming in his Utah district thanks to an investment from the CHIPS and Science Act.
In a statement this week, he intimated that he would support the GOP debt limit bill but acknowledged it “also proposes cuts to clean energy tax credits” that he supported in previous legislative iterations before they were packaged in the partisan Inflation Reduction Act.
“I … will continue to advocate for policies that lead to affordable, reliable, clean energy,” Curtis said.
‘Candy apples’ and ‘toads’
Many of the GOP’s allies in the advocacy and industry community are likewise gritting their teeth at the party’s demands in the debt standoff.
“In the last nine months, the clean energy industry has announced 46 major manufacturing facilities and scores of clean energy projects in communities across the country,” said Jason Grumet, the CEO of the American Clean Power Association — the largest clean energy trade group — in a statement. “If enacted, [the GOP bill] would jeopardize these investments and thousands of good paying American jobs.”
But Heather Reams, president of the right-leaning Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, said in an interview Thursday that she couldn’t fault Republicans for rejecting the one-sided political process that surrounded the drafting, and enactment, of the Inflation Reduction Act.
“I don’t think you’re seeing Republicans turn their backs entirely as a party on clean energy; I think you’re seeing conservatives turning their backs on out-of-control spending, and the IRA being ground zero for partisan spending,” she said.
Luke Bolar, who leads external relations and communications at the conservative clean energy group ClearPath, dwelled on Republicans’ complicated relationship with the IRA’s clean energy tax credits during a keynote speech in March at the Conservative Climate Leadership Conference.
He urged citizen lobbyists to press for implementation of elements of the climate law, but conceded: “That’s a tricky one, right? Zero Republicans supported that. … However, some of the tax incentives that were included in the IRA had tremendous Republican support.”
Bolar mentioned the law’s incentives for carbon capture and sequestration, which can offer fossil fuel companies payments for corralling greenhouse gases.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) put the GOP’s green jobs predicament more colorfully.
“I always refer to pieces of legislation as having either candy apples or toads,” Griffith observed. “If there’s enough candy apples, you can swallow a toad or two. Some of the renewable or biofuels tax credits, those are the toads you may have to swallow in order to set the stage and have some candy apples and try to rein in some of this government spending.”
Jeremy Dillon contributed to this report.
A version of this report first ran in E&E Daily. Get access to more comprehensive and in-depth reporting on the energy transition, natural resources, climate change and more in E&E News.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
And the GOP can’t avoid abortion following last year’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, from the looming Supreme Court decision over abortion medication to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R-Fla.) approval of a six-week abortion ban just last week. Every new possible abortion restriction animates Democratic attacks — and it’s taking a toll, from Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court race this month to last year’s disappointing finish in Senate races.
“We’ve got to come up with a position that’s a winning one,” Thune (R-S.D.) argued in an interview. “Our guys say, ‘well, it’s a states issue.’ Great, but the Dems are going to be out here advocating for what I think is a very extreme position. And we want to be able to contrast ours with theirs.”
A year ago, a national late-term abortion ban had strong backing among congressional Republicans, nearly all of whom voted for late-term abortion bans when they came to the floor. But Roe‘s demise and the ensuing political fallout scrambled all that, factionalizing a GOP that had become nearly uniformly anti-abortion rights just as Democrats largely adopted a pro-abortion rights stance.
“The [Republican] Party, I don’t think, really is setting any sort of guidelines, or coming to some consensus,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
Complicating Republicans’ decision-making, polls and election results over the past year show an electorate mostly moving away from the GOP on abortion, even in red states like Kansas. Yet the party’s base and anti-abortion rights lobby is not backing away from the debate.
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks, while allowing states with stricter bans to supersede the national policy. The South Carolina Republican introduced the bill last year in the wake of Roe‘s reversal, roiling a Senate GOP that in many ways was pivoting to viewing abortion limits as a state-level decision, save for a handful of supporters like Thune.
These days Cornyn’s stance of leaving abortion to the states probably commands majority support in the Senate GOP.
“The answer is that those decisions should be made at the state level, instead of here in Washington D.C.,” said Cornyn, describing himself as an “unapologetically pro-life Republican.”
“I know that’s not entirely satisfactory for those who’d like to impose a national standard.”
As to whether restrictions on a national level would get a vote under a future GOP Senate, Cornyn replied: “I don’t think so. But I know that there are those who would disagree with me.”
Cornyn and Thune agree that the Republican Party needs to more directly confront the potential that abortion continues to drag down their party. The Texan, a former party whip, said “Republicans need to learn how to talk about it” by highlighting Democrats’ views on late-term abortion access.
Thune was even more blunt, observing that “the messaging around it right now is just making it more challenging for our side.” He described his party’s presidential field as “getting hammered” on the matter.
Other than a handful of votes, including Wednesday’s unsuccessful attempt in the Senate to roll back abortion policy at the Veterans’ Affairs Department, Republicans in Congress are keeping a lower profile on the issue. The new House majority has not yet voted on the type of sweeping abortion ban the party once supported.
What’s more, Graham’s 15-week ban bill drew only nine co-sponsors last year, including Thune. That relatively scant support shows how few Republicans want to touch the issue since Roe got overturned.
“it was a significant factor in the last election. And I think it’ll be an issue going forward,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who backs the Graham bill.
Nonetheless, Cramer advised fellow Republicans to “pick your place and articulate your position and then move on to other topics. Don’t try to get too cute .”
Meanwhile, even lower-level judicial confirmations are boomeranging on Republicans. The party’s unilateral confirmation of Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in 2019 is drawing fresh scrutiny after Kacsmaryk ruled against abortion medication in the case that’s now at the Supreme Court.
Cornyn blanched at Kacsmaryk’s ruling, concluding that “judges are not supposed to make policy … the remedy for judges making an erroneous decision is an appeal to the higher court.”
“It’s quite telling that with basically the same case, a different judge in a different jurisdiction ruled exactly the opposite way,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is openly regretting her vote for Kacsmaryk.
Some reliably red states have learned that lesson firsthand. Kansas voters handily rejected a referendum to remove abortion rights from the state Constitution last August, the first signal after June’s Supreme Court ruling that abortion is no longer breaking along traditional conservative and liberal voting lines.
“Does this matter to Americans? Does it affect the way they vote? The answer is yes,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). “When Roe v. Wade was overturned, it caused people to think about this topic on both sides of the issue. And Kansans and Americans have strong feelings about it.”
Still, just a few weeks after that Kansas abortion vote, Moran’s fellow Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall signed onto Graham’s bill.
Graham devised his bill as a preelection landing place for Republicans, defining what he saw as a defensible position heading into the midterm election. And he still believes it’s a useful tool: “We need to be really clear: We’re against late-term abortions at the federal level.”
He’s still got some boosters. Steve Daines, who runs the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said that a 15-week national ban represents “ground we can bring our country together on.”
“Where the majority of the American people are on late term abortion, with exceptions, that’s where I think we should be on it,” the Montana Republican said in an interview.
Yet as long as the legislative filibuster remains in place, there’s a scant chance of any abortion bill getting 60 votes in the Senate. And don’t expect many in the GOP, even those who believe banning abortion is a moral imperative, to start clamoring for a stronger congressional role.
“There’s a lot of concern out there in terms of how to properly address it. And this is a sensitive issue,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “It’s a state’s tissue. And I think it should be that way. Because I don’t think at the federal level, we should be moving it back and forth between Republicans and Democrats.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
And the GOP can’t avoid abortion following last year’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, from the looming Supreme Court decision over abortion medication to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R-Fla.) approval of a six-week abortion ban just last week. Every new possible abortion restriction animates Democratic attacks — and it’s taking a toll, from Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court race this month to last year’s disappointing finish in Senate races.
“We’ve got to come up with a position that’s a winning one,” Thune (R-S.D.) argued in an interview. “Our guys say, ‘well, it’s a states issue.’ Great, but the Dems are going to be out here advocating for what I think is a very extreme position. And we want to be able to contrast ours with theirs.”
A year ago, a national late-term abortion ban had strong backing among congressional Republicans, nearly all of whom voted for late-term abortion bans when they came to the floor. But Roe‘s demise and the ensuing political fallout scrambled all that, factionalizing a GOP that had become nearly uniformly anti-abortion rights just as Democrats largely adopted a pro-abortion rights stance.
“The [Republican] Party, I don’t think, really is setting any sort of guidelines, or coming to some consensus,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.).
Complicating Republicans’ decision-making, polls and election results over the past year show an electorate mostly moving away from the GOP on abortion, even in red states like Kansas. Yet the party’s base and anti-abortion rights lobby is not backing away from the debate.
Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks, while allowing states with stricter bans to supersede the national policy. The South Carolina Republican introduced the bill last year in the wake of Roe‘s reversal, roiling a Senate GOP that in many ways was pivoting to viewing abortion limits as a state-level decision, save for a handful of supporters like Thune.
These days Cornyn’s stance of leaving abortion to the states probably commands majority support in the Senate GOP.
“The answer is that those decisions should be made at the state level, instead of here in Washington D.C.,” said Cornyn, describing himself as an “unapologetically pro-life Republican.”
“I know that’s not entirely satisfactory for those who’d like to impose a national standard.”
As to whether restrictions on a national level would get a vote under a future GOP Senate, Cornyn replied: “I don’t think so. But I know that there are those who would disagree with me.”
Cornyn and Thune agree that the Republican Party needs to more directly confront the potential that abortion continues to drag down their party. The Texan, a former party whip, said “Republicans need to learn how to talk about it” by highlighting Democrats’ views on late-term abortion access.
Thune was even more blunt, observing that “the messaging around it right now is just making it more challenging for our side.” He described his party’s presidential field as “getting hammered” on the matter.
Other than a handful of votes, including Wednesday’s unsuccessful attempt in the Senate to roll back abortion policy at the Veterans’ Affairs Department, Republicans in Congress are keeping a lower profile on the issue. The new House majority has not yet voted on the type of sweeping abortion ban the party once supported.
What’s more, Graham’s 15-week ban bill drew only nine co-sponsors last year, including Thune. That relatively scant support shows how few Republicans want to touch the issue since Roe got overturned.
“it was a significant factor in the last election. And I think it’ll be an issue going forward,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who backs the Graham bill.
Nonetheless, Cramer advised fellow Republicans to “pick your place and articulate your position and then move on to other topics. Don’t try to get too cute .”
Meanwhile, even lower-level judicial confirmations are boomeranging on Republicans. The party’s unilateral confirmation of Texas Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in 2019 is drawing fresh scrutiny after Kacsmaryk ruled against abortion medication in the case that’s now at the Supreme Court.
Cornyn blanched at Kacsmaryk’s ruling, concluding that “judges are not supposed to make policy … the remedy for judges making an erroneous decision is an appeal to the higher court.”
“It’s quite telling that with basically the same case, a different judge in a different jurisdiction ruled exactly the opposite way,” said Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who is openly regretting her vote for Kacsmaryk.
Some reliably red states have learned that lesson firsthand. Kansas voters handily rejected a referendum to remove abortion rights from the state Constitution last August, the first signal after June’s Supreme Court ruling that abortion is no longer breaking along traditional conservative and liberal voting lines.
“Does this matter to Americans? Does it affect the way they vote? The answer is yes,” said Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.). “When Roe v. Wade was overturned, it caused people to think about this topic on both sides of the issue. And Kansans and Americans have strong feelings about it.”
Still, just a few weeks after that Kansas abortion vote, Moran’s fellow Kansas GOP Sen. Roger Marshall signed onto Graham’s bill.
Graham devised his bill as a preelection landing place for Republicans, defining what he saw as a defensible position heading into the midterm election. And he still believes it’s a useful tool: “We need to be really clear: We’re against late-term abortions at the federal level.”
He’s still got some boosters. Steve Daines, who runs the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, said that a 15-week national ban represents “ground we can bring our country together on.”
“Where the majority of the American people are on late term abortion, with exceptions, that’s where I think we should be on it,” the Montana Republican said in an interview.
Yet as long as the legislative filibuster remains in place, there’s a scant chance of any abortion bill getting 60 votes in the Senate. And don’t expect many in the GOP, even those who believe banning abortion is a moral imperative, to start clamoring for a stronger congressional role.
“There’s a lot of concern out there in terms of how to properly address it. And this is a sensitive issue,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). “It’s a state’s tissue. And I think it should be that way. Because I don’t think at the federal level, we should be moving it back and forth between Republicans and Democrats.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
During debate over the bill on Wednesday, several GOP lawmakers argued the bill was necessary because of the Biden administration’s new Title IX rule on athletics eligibility that would allow transgender girls to play sports with some limitations. Democrats pushed back by invoking Utah Gov. Spencer Cox in their defense of transgender women and girls. Cox, a Republican, vetoed a similar sports ban in the state and acknowledged several challenges transgender students face.
The bill has no chance of becoming law as it is likely to stall in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and President Joe Biden has already announced that he would veto the bill if it were to reach his desk.
Several lawmakers did not vote on the bill, including 10 Democrats and 3 Republicans.
Amendments: Lawmakers passed by voice vote an amendment from Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) that would clarify that the term “athletic programs and activities” in the bill includes any activities where you have to participate on a team.
Additionally, Republicans shored up enough votes to add an amendment from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) that would direct the Government Accountability Office to lead a study on “the adverse psychological, developmental, participatory and sociological results to girls” from allowing transgender girls to play sports. GAO would also investigate “hostile environment creation, sexual assault and sexual harassment” from a decision to allow transgender students to play on girls sports teams.
“Republicans are following the science,” Mace said on the floor. “We are not confused about the differences between biological men and biological women. And as a woman who is pro LGBTQ, I don’t care how you dress, I don’t care what pronoun you take, I don’t care if you change your gender, but we ought to protect biological women and girls and their athletics and their achievements.”
Reaction: Several Democratic and civil rights groups supporting transgender students slammed the bill’s passage as a political attack under the guise of protecting women’s sports.
“We will not let anti-LGBTQI+ Republicans — who have refused to work with us on addressing real gender equity issues— use ‘protecting women’ as an excuse to attack trans youth,” said Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Lois Frankel in a statement. “When my Republican colleagues want to join with us to address the actual pressing issues impacting girls’ and women’s sports, I stand ready to work with them.”
The Human Rights Campaign said 40 athletes, including Megan Rapinoe, CeCe Telfer and Chris Mosier, signed a letter this month that rebuked a federal anti-transgender sports ban. HRC President Kelley Robinson in a statement said because the bill has no chance of becoming law, “this is purely a waste of time at the expense of an already marginalized population.”
“Rather than focus their energy on doing literally anything to improve the lives of children, House Republicans have prioritized attacking transgender youth purely as a political ploy,” Robinson said.
Conservative groups and cisgender women athletes they represent lauded the bill’s passage saying it reaffirms the promise of equal opportunity for women in Title IX.
“I want to ensure no other girl experiences the emotional pain and lost opportunities I experienced in high school,” said Selina Soule, a former high school track and field athlete whose challenge against a Connecticut policy on transgender athletes will be heard by the full 2nd Circuit, in a statement. “There are clear biological differences between men and women and I experienced that firsthand, which is why I’m very grateful for the U.S. House passing this bill.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Mastriano, who attempted to overturn the 2020 election and sought to outlaw abortion with no exceptions, lost Pennsylvania’s gubernatorial contest last November by 15 percentage points. His tease of a comeback bid has sparked alarm within GOP circles that he would cost the party any conceivable chance they had of unseating Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) in 2024.
“Trump’s not dumb,” said a top GOP donor who was granted anonymity to speak frankly about private deliberations. “He knows Mastriano will hurt him in Pennsylvania.”
Trump has also relayed to Republicans, including at least one senator, that he would be reluctant to endorse Mastriano for Senate because of his concerns that he would pull him down, the three people said. That’s not the only reason he may stay out: A person close to Trump said it is unlikely he will be as involved in 2024 down-ballot races across the country since he is busy running himself. Trump is currently more interested in seeing who endorses him.
Snubbing Mastriano would be a 180 from last year, when Trump defied Republican leaders in the state and D.C., and officially backed him days before the primary.
“He regrets endorsing him in [2022],” said an adviser to Trump who was granted anonymity to speak openly. “He says, ‘Doug blew it.’”
The adviser, along with another person close to Trump, said the former president took issue with Mastriano embracing a platform that included no abortion exceptions, including for the life of the mother. The person close to Trump insisted that was not how Mastriano presented his position privately to the former president. Though Mastriano did state his no-exceptions position in a primary debate prior to Trump’s endorsement, the adviser said that Trump never would have endorsed had he been more aware of Mastriano’s support for that policy.
Trump, after appointing the Supreme Court justices needed to overturn Roe v. Wade, has nevertheless taken to social media to blame GOP losses in the midterms on Republicans who “firmly insisted on No Exceptions, even in the case of Rape, Incest, or Life of the Mother.”
The Trump campaign declined to provide a comment for this story.
In the conversation with the senator, which took place in recent weeks, Trump expressed reservations about Mastriano being a “drag” on him as the nominee, according to a GOP strategist familiar with the discussion. Those reservations extend to others associated with the Pennsylvania Republican. Trump, according to an adviser, is “done” with Jenna Ellis, a former Trump attorney who pushed for Mastriano during the primary and served as a lawyer for the then-president during his post-election efforts to contest the 2020 vote.
Mastriano did not respond to a request for comment. Ellis said that since declining to work for Trump’s 2024 campaign, she has been “called a porn star, sexually harassed, and stalked in the media by the unnamed male ‘Trump Advisors.’”
“If President Trump was so ‘done’ with me, why did he literally call me two days ago?” she added. “These ‘advisors’ are clearly misrepresenting their positions and proximity in an effort to intimidate women who stand on principle by attacking them on social media and anonymously in the press.”
Trump’s machinations in the Keystone State could have a major effect on the GOP’s efforts to take back the Senate. Republicans need to flip just two seats to win the chamber and Casey is among their top targets. After a disappointing midterm election, the Senate Republican campaign arm sees Mastriano as unelectable. The group is recruiting ex-hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick, who narrowly lost the Pennsylvania Senate primary to celebrity physician Mehmet Oz in 2022, to challenge Casey.
“Republicans are scared to death of Mastriano being on the ballot again,” said Josh Novotney, a GOP consultant in Pennsylvania. “He tanked the entire ticket last year.”
It is far from certain that Trump’s reservations about Mastriano mean he would endorse McCormick in the primary. Last year Trump backed Oz while blasting McCormick as a “liberal Wall Street Republican.” The former president also has his own intraparty politics to consider. If the primary is still competitive during Pennsylvania’s primary in late April — or state lawmakers move up the voting date like they are considering — Trump may determine he needs to avoid disappointing Mastriano’s base.
Trump has had no problem abandoning allies in the past after they’ve lost elections. Last year, he decided not to endorse former Rep. Lou Barletta in his bid for governor of Pennsylvania after he had backed him in an unsuccessful Senate run four years prior. Trump privately called Barletta a “loser,” according to multiple sources.
Were Trump merely to stay out of any potential primary between Mastriano and McCormick, many Republican officials in the state and nationally would be relieved.
“There’s a lot of concern amongst party leaders about the effect that Mastriano would have on the down-ballot,” said Rob Gleason, former chair of the Pennsylvania Republican Party. “I don’t think [Trump] is going to endorse anybody. He has to worry about himself.”
Trump was ambivalent about Mastriano before he endorsed him. Mastriano had been a loyal soldier in the MAGA movement, using his position as a state senator to become the face of the effort to overturn the 2020 election in Pennsylvania. But Trump wanted more action from Mastriano on his promises surrounding an audit of the election results, and some of Trump’s advisers were concerned that Mastriano was unelectable.
Several Republicans in Trump’s orbit believe the former president ultimately endorsed Mastriano because he wanted to burnish his win-loss record in Republican primaries. Trump’s move enraged GOP officials in Pennsylvania who were attempting to mount a last-ditch effort to stop Mastriano in hopes of avoiding an onslaught in November.
This time around, Trump’s circle is more dubious about Mastriano’s chances of winning a general election, believing he simply can not beat Casey. A recent poll by Franklin & Marshall College found that Casey leads Mastriano by 16 percentage points in a hypothetical matchup, while he is ahead of McCormick by 7 points.
Mastriano has also come under blame by some people around Trump for contributing to Oz’s loss, a sore spot for the former president, who himself has blamed his wife and others for counseling him to back Oz.
But there are still a handful of Mastriano fans in Trump world. Christina Bobb, who has worked as a lawyer for Trump, was a featured speaker at a rally Mastriano held in south-central Pennsylvania last month. She praised Mastriano as a MAGA warrior who bravely fought to rectify the 2020 election.
She told the crowd that she had talked to Trump before the event. “He goes, ‘Tell him I love them, tell him I love them all,” she said.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Harsh words were expected at the hearing. For months, Republicans have vocally criticized Mayorkas for his handling of the border and have called for his removal. DHS’ bill would allow the agency to hire another 1,400 personnel to secure the border and earmark over $800 million for new technology to protect the border and fight fentanyl trafficking.
At the center of much of the debate was Mayorkas’ previous comments to Congress that the border is secure. Republicans have charged that he lied under oath when he said that to Congress, though Mayorkas said he interprets “operational control” in a different way.
If it’s seen as preventing all unlawful entries into the United States, as the Secure Fence Act states, then “no administration has ever had operational control,” Mayorkas said during a Senate hearing in late March.
Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said during the hearing that Republicans have acknowledged in the past that the “operational control” definition is “unreachable” or “impossible” to achieve, citing comments made by former committee chairs Peter King and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas).
“Republicans are criticizing you for not achieving something that no secretary has ever achieved. It seems like their standard changes dependent on the administration,” Thompson said.
Mayorkas, who has visited the border 16 times since taking the post, emphasized during the hearing that the border situation has been an issue for decades and a bipartisan approach is needed to fix the current crisis.
“If our budget were reduced … it would seriously, gravely harm our ability to apprehend individuals who are attempting to cross our border illegally,” as well as the ability to disrupt drug trafficking, Mayorkas said, adding “this is a challenge that we all have to work together to address. We’re dealing with a broken system and we need reform.”
A DHS spokesperson added in a statement to POLITICO that “instead of pointing fingers and pursuing baseless attacks, Congress should work with the Department and pass legislation to fix our broken immigration system, which has not been updated in over 40 years.”
Democrats attempted to quell the flames by praising Mayorkas for his efforts despite the difficult situation, which several members blamed on the Trump administration.
The Biden administration inherited a DHS that had been “beleaguered by four years of political polarization and mismanagement,” Thompson said. “Among Secretary Mayorkas’ predecessors were so-called leaders, often unqualified and sometimes unlawfully appointed, who did the former president’s bidding.”
Later in the hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) was blocked from participating further after she called Mayorkas a “liar” while questioning him.
“While you live in denial and sit over there with this attitude that you’re doing everything right … you are killing Americans with your policies,” she said.
Thompson then interrupted her questioning, asking for her words to be “taken down.”
“We can disagree, but just the fact that we have people watching, you don’t have to call a witness a liar,” he said.
When asked by McCaul if she would modify or withdraw her remarks, Greene stood firm “because the facts show the proof.”
Green, the chair, then interjected: “It’s pretty clear that the rules state you can’t impune someone’s character. Identifying or calling someone a liar is unacceptable on this committee, and I make the ruling that we strike those words.”
The members then clarified the motion, barring Greene from speaking further.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Conservatives are triumphant about the recent legislative victories they see as shoring up support among their base and solidifying future success at the ballot box. And that’s left many Democrats, who are facing dwindling numbers in state legislatures throughout the South and parts of the Midwest, feeling deflated and helpless.
“If people are power-hungry enough, they’ll do whatever they can to keep power and control it,” North Carolina state Sen. Sydney Batch, a moderate Democrat representing parts of Raleigh, said in an interview.
The rise of these 29 supermajorities — seven of which emerged since the 2022 midterms — can be attributed to two things: GOP-crafted redistricting that protects the party’s candidates, and the polarization of the nation’s politics. And while anti-transgender laws have been passed in places like Idaho, Indiana, Iowa and Arkansas, the consequences are particularly challenging for the Democratic governors of Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana and North Carolina, who joust with a GOP legislature. (Vermont’s Phil Scott is the only Republican governor with a Democratic-controlled supermajority legislature.)
Cooper, of North Carolina, has highlighted his role in stopping “bad culture war legislation” coming from a GOP legislature he’s faced since stepping into office in 2017. But Republicans have a supermajority in the Senate and, until recently, a working supermajority in the House by tapping persuadable Democrats to join their causes.
Last month they bypassed Cooper’s veto on a bill that eliminates a requirement for sheriffs to issue a permit before someone buys a handgun, marking the first time Republicans successfully overrode him since 2018.
Since that vote, however, a House Democrat has switched parties, giving Republicans an official supermajority in that chamber.
Under the new law, sheriffs will no longer have the authority to deny permits based on criminal background checks or mental health evaluations. Bill supporters had argued that the handgun permitting process was burdensome for sheriffs and duplicative of the national background check system.
“After years of Gov. Roy Cooper obstructing our Constitutional rights, today marks a long overdue victory for law-abiding gun owners in our state,” a group of Republican lawmakers said in a joint statement the day the legislation was approved for the second time. They also issued a warning for the term-limited Democrat: Their veto “set forth a path to overcoming any future impediments from the lame-duck governor.”
They’re likely right that more veto overrides may be coming down the pipeline. Democrats are on edge about the prospects of Republicans agreeing to abortion restrictions that they have little means of stopping. Under current law, the procedure remains legal for up to 20 weeks of pregnancy but Republicans are considering rolling back the threshold to 12 weeks or less. Cooper has vowed to reject such legislation.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, another Democratic leader of a red state, is dealing with a similar situation. Last month, Republicans dismissed his refusal to sign legislation banning transgender children from receiving gender-affirming health care and dictating what bathrooms they can use.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
There are other ideas floating around, but the one thing they all have in common is that they rely on the Federal Reserve’s cooperation and its willingness to continue acting as the government’s “fiscal agent” — essentially its banker, a role established by the Fed’s statute.
Under one scenario, for instance, if the Treasury Department decided to switch to issuing low face value, high coupon bonds, the Federal Reserve would have to facilitate the creation of such bonds in their book entry system, facilitate their sale and make periodic interest payments on Treasury’s behalf. Alternatively, if the Biden administration decided to declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional, or made other similar maneuvers, the Fed would again have to facilitate auctions of securities and defer to Treasury legal interpretation. In this sense, the platinum coin option is the most straightforward one since it draws on the Federal Reserve’s most basic “fiscal agent” responsibilities — accepting deposits.
Naturally then, the conversation around unilateral White House options has come to focus on the Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell. When asked inFebruary whether he’d follow Treasury’s direction in issuing payments amid a debt ceiling crisis, Powell dodged, cryptically stating “In terms of our relationship with the Treasury, we are their fiscal agent. And I’m just going to leave it at that.”
In fact, in a largely overlooked episode from the recent past, Powell already showed he’d be willing to do whatever it takes to avoid the catastrophic consequences of federal default. To truly understand what Powell’s Fed is prepared to do, go back to what he said when he was a Fed governor during 2013’s debt ceiling crisis.
Despite the Federal Reserve’s uneven record on transparency, it does eventually release transcripts of some of its most critical meetings in the years after they happen. And in an October 2013 conference call, Fed officials discussed a memo with options for how to respond to a government default. On that call, Powell and most of his colleagues reluctantly endorsed buying defaulted Treasury securities — an unprecedented move to maintain financial stability —if a legislative debt ceiling solution did not come in time.
Here’s the key exchange between Powell and then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke (options “8 and 9” in the memo are purchases of defaulted Treasury securities and the Fed “swapping” non-defaulted Treasury securities for defaulted Treasury securities):
Powell’s willingness to purchase defaulted Treasury securities — however “loathsome” he finds it — casts the entire debate over bypassing Congress on the debt ceiling in a new light. No option under discussion is more extreme, from the Federal Reserve’s point of view, than stepping in and buying compromised securities of uncertain underlying value. If Powell will buy Treasury securities in the face of government default, he will almost certainly fulfill the Federal Reserve’s legal responsibilities as a fiscal agent and allow the Treasury Department to avoid government default in the first place.
In fact, Powell’s comments on disclosure in this meeting are especially revealing in that they signal he won’t be more forthright about what he will do in public until the last minute:
In short, not only will Powell likely not interfere with any of the White House’s options to make an end run around the debt ceiling, his deflection on how he would respond to the Biden administration is consistent with what he said privately back in 2013.
The moves up for debate should also be considered less “loathsome” to the Fed because they would involve doing as the Treasury directs, rather than stepping into a charged political environment on its own. Buying defaulted Treasury securities would stem from the Fed’s independent judgment about its own financial stability mandate. In contrast, if the Treasury mints a trillion dollar coin, Powell could accurately tell the press that he did so at Treasury’s order to fulfill the Fed’s legal obligation as the government’s banker.
No doubt the Fed would experience some political blowback from the right if it went along with a unilateral White House maneuver. But clearly Powell sees the prospect of an actual federal default as far more explosive and worth avoiding at all costs.
Given that the Federal Reserve is not a real barrier to solving the debt ceiling crisis without Congress, the White House has the freedom to be bolder. Joe Biden and Janet Yellen should threaten to deploy any of the alternative options being proposed, and if Republicans don’t pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase, simply use one of them. The White House doesn’t have to negotiate with hostage takers, so it shouldn’t.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
