Pushing through the Biden Cabinet level nominees
White House plans to withdraw Tanden nomination; Biden says U.S. will have enough vaccine doses for every adult by end of May
Latest: White House plans to withdraw nomination of Tanden to head budget office
The White House plans to withdraw the nomination of Neera Tanden as director of the Office of Management and Budget as early as Tuesday evening, according to people familiar with the matter. Tanden was facing bipartisan opposition from senators due to past comments she made on her Twitter feed.
Meanwhile, President Biden said Tuesday that by the end of May, the United States will have enough coronavirus vaccine doses for “every adult in America” who wants one, a goal that he previously projected would be achieved by July.
Here comes H.R. 1 - the bill that just passed Congress. It has been sitting on Sen McConnell’s desk and he was never going to touch it, but now that the Dems control the House/Senate, it could pass…however it is going to be a very tough fight.
It looks to tamp down all the issues with voting rights, gerrymandering, campaign finance, Scotus nominations, and requires a President to submit his taxes.
The ACLU does not seem to support it. I am not sure on what but people are pointing to the PAC money issues, and widening up the amounts people can give. Again, am not sure.
Here’s what H.R. 1, the House-passed voting rights bill, would do
House Democrats passed a comprehensive voting, elections and ethics bill on Wednesday, part of what they say is an urgent effort to fight Republican efforts in states across the country to restrict ballot access. If passed, the bill would mark a huge expansion of voting rights, and a major overhaul of campaign finance and redistricting laws. Republicans say they want to stop it in the Senate.
Republicans at the state level across the country have proposed a wide range of measures, many in response to allowances that were made for voting during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
The measures include curtailing eligibility to vote by mail, prohibiting the use of ballot drop boxes, and in the case of Georgia — where the GOP lost two Senate seats and which voted for a Democratic president for the first time since Bill Clinton’s 1992 win — blocking early voting on Sundays.
That particular measure has been called a flagrant and obvious attempt to disenfranchise Black voters in the state. The chairman of Georgia’s new House Special Committee on Election Integrity, state Rep. Barry Fleming ®, said his committee’s mission is to “restore the confidence of our public in our elections system,” an allusion to the false claims spread by former president Donald Trump about voter fraud in the 2020 election.
GOP officials in Arizona, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — all states that could have an impact on future presidential elections — are also considering legislation that would restrict voting.
That’s why Democrats are moving forward with their bill at the national level, and while it might not pass in the Senate, they want to put pressure on Republicans, who have called it a political power grab.
“It is not designed to protect Americans’ vote — it is designed to put a thumb on the scale in every election in America, so that Democrats can turn a temporary majority into permanent control,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Tuesday.
Here’s what the bill actually contains:
A set of national voter registration and mail-in voting standards: H.R. 1 requires the chief election official in each state — the secretary of state in most — to establish an automatic voter-registration system that gathers individuals’ information from government databases and registers them unless they intentionally opt out.
And it says it’s the government’s responsibility to keep that information up-to-date, based on information from agencies like state motor vehicle administrations, agencies that receive money from Social Security or the Affordable Care Act, the justice system, and federal agencies including the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, the Social Securit The law would also guarantee voters same-day registration either at early voting sites or at precincts on Election Day. Each state would be required to allow at least 15 days of early voting for federal elections, for at least 10 hours a day with at least some time before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m. The law would limit how states can purge voter rolls.
Nonpartisan redistricting commissions: In an attempt to get rid of gerrymandering, the law would require each state to use independent commissions (not made up of lawmakers) to approve newly drawn congressional districts. The commissions would each include five Democrats, five Republicans and five independents, requiring bipartisan approval for districts to be allowed.
“Regardless of whether it’s a red state or a blue state, we are seeing significant manipulation in the legislative redrawing of districts,” said Tom Lopach, CEO of the nonpartisan Voter Participation Center, which has advocated for the bill. “H.R. 1 presents an opportunity for everyone to get onboard with independent, unbiased and balanced redistricting that frankly is good government.”
It would also give the public a whole new level of scrutiny, and a chance to object to badly drawn districts. The law would require a public comment period and give citizens a legal basis to challenge gerrymandering. (Currently, gerrymandering challenges have to be made on constitutional grounds, and if a law were passed, there would be a clearer argument to present in court against gerrymandered districts.)
Big changes in campaign finance law: H.R. 1 would require super PACs and “dark money” groups to disclose their donors publicly, a step Democrats say would eliminate one of the most opaque parts of the U.S. election process. It would establish a public funding match for small-dollar donations, financed by a fee on corporations and banks paying civil or criminal penalties.
It would also require Facebook and Twitter to publicly report the source and amount of money spent on political ads.
New ethics rules for public servants: The bill would create the first ethics code for Supreme Court justices, to be created within a year of the bill’s passage.
It would also stop a controversial practice in Congress: When a member of Congress settles a sexual harassment or discrimination lawsuit, in certain cases they can use taxpayer money to settle. H.R. 1 would prevent taxpayer money from being used for such settlements.
The bill would also create more oversight on lobbyists and foreign agents.
A requirement that presidential candidates disclose their tax returns: This one is a little more relevant to recent events. Democrats have been frustrated for years that Trump never released his tax returns, and H.R. 1 would require it by law.
Can it pass in the Senate?
Senate Democrats plan to move the bill forward, but Republicans in the chamber have been very public with their pledge to fight it forcefully. A similar House bill was passed in 2019, and then-Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) refused to bring it to the Senate floor for a vote.
Current Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) has promised to end what he called McConnell’s “legislative graveyard,” and bring more bills passed by the House to the floor to force votes. But if they actually want it to pass, Democrats don’t have a lot of options.
Unlike the coronavirus relief package making its way through the Senate, for which Schumer only needs 50 votes plus Vice President Harris’s tiebreaker, H.R. 1 isn’t being passed through the special reconciliation process that requires a simple majority.
Democrats’ other option is to eliminate part or all of the legislative filibuster — a political bombshell that would allow them to pass much more legislation with just 50 votes and Harris’s tiebreaker.
Even if they do pass it, it would probably come up against lawsuits. The conservative Heritage Foundation has called many of the bill’s provisions unconstitutional, and given how opposed congressional Republicans are to it, legal challenges seem inevitable.
Trump-mandated exams are making it hard to hire rangers & officials for the National Park Service & Bureau of Land Management.
Critics say the complex logic tests & personality assessments are eliminating qualified candidates to care for public lands.
Maybe shaming the R’s will help…but I doubt it.
PBS reporting
Marcia Fudge confirmed as first Black woman to lead HUD in more than 40 years
The Ohio congresswoman has pledged to address systemic racial inequities in housing.
Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) speaks at an event at the Queen theater in Wilmington, Del. (Susan Walsh/AP)
March 10, 2021 at 9:27 a.m. PST
The Senate voted 66-34 on Wednesday to confirm President Biden’s nomination of Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio) as secretary of housing and urban development, making her the first Black woman to lead the agency in more than four decades.
Fudge, who entered Congress in 2008, won bipartisan approval to lead the embattled agency where the morale among civil servants had plummeted under the leadership of Ben Carson, who eviscerated fair housing enforcement and other civil rights protections during the Trump administration.
Fudge, 68, said during her January confirmation hearing that her priorities include ending discriminatory housing practices as part of Biden’s focus on dismantling systemic racial injustice and boosting Black homeownership, a critical component in narrowing the racial wealth gap.
It is done!!
NYTimes: No Republican Votes; Bill Vastly Expands U.S. Safety Net
No Republican Votes; Bill Vastly Expands U.S. Safety Net
Anti-filibuster liberals face a Senate math problem
Sen. Joe Manchin clarified on Tuesday that he continues to support an effective 60-vote requirement for most legislation.
Getting to the next bill - HR 1 and what kind of threat the Republicans pose towards not passing it. Stacey Abrams is taking this straight on…and knows that the Dems need to eliminate the Filibuster and convince Sen Manchin and Sen Sinema to get on board.
As Republicans in the Georgia state legislature passed a series of voting restrictions over the past 10 days, Stacey Abrams, the state’s leading voting rights activist, saw an ever more pressing need to reform the filibuster in the US Senate. And she has a plan for how to do it.
The Georgia legislation and the Senate rules might seem unrelated, but to Abrams, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2018 and founder of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, they’re directly connected. “Republicans are rolling back the clock on voting rights,” she says. “And the only way to head that off is to invoke the elections clause of the Constitution, which allows the Congress—and the Congress alone—to set the time, place and manner of elections at a federal level.”
The problem is that Republicans will surely use the filibuster to set an impossible 60-vote threshold for any such effort—and that two centrist Democratic senators, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, have said they oppose abolishing the filibuster. That’s why Abrams proposes tweaking it to allow major voting rights legislation to pass, and she thinks her plan can get reluctant Democrats on board.
In the same way that Democrats can pass budget bills and confirm judges and Cabinet members with a simple majority, legislation protecting voting rights should also be exempt from the 60-vote requirement, Abrams says.
“The judicial appointment exception, the Cabinet appointment exception, the budget reconciliation exception, are all grounded in this idea that these are constitutionally prescribed responsibilities that should not be thwarted by minority imposition,” she says. “And we should add to it the right to protect democracy. It is a foundational principle in our country. And it is an explicit role and responsibility accorded only to Congress in the elections clause in the Constitution.”
Stacey Abrams speaks at campaign event for Rev. Raphael Warnock in Atlanta on November 3.Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.
As Republicans in the Georgia state legislature passed a series of voting restrictions over the past 10 days, Stacey Abrams, the state’s leading voting rights activist, saw an ever more pressing need to reform the filibuster in the US Senate. And she has a plan for how to do it.
The Georgia legislation and the Senate rules might seem unrelated, but to Abrams, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in 2018 and founder of the voting rights group Fair Fight Action, they’re directly connected. “Republicans are rolling back the clock on voting rights,” she says. “And the only way to head that off is to invoke the elections clause of the Constitution, which allows the Congress—and the Congress alone—to set the time, place and manner of elections at a federal level.”
The problem is that Republicans will surely use the filibuster to set an impossible 60-vote threshold for any such effort—and that two centrist Democratic senators, West Virginia’s Joe Manchin and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, have said they oppose abolishing the filibuster. That’s why Abrams proposes tweaking it to allow major voting rights legislation to pass, and she thinks her plan can get reluctant Democrats on board.
In the same way that Democrats can pass budget bills and confirm judges and Cabinet members with a simple majority, legislation protecting voting rights should also be exempt from the 60-vote requirement, Abrams says.
“TThe judicial appointment exception, the Cabinet appointment exception, the budget reconciliation exception, are all grounded in this idea that these are constitutionally prescribed responsibilities that should not be thwarted by minority imposition,” she says. “And we should add to it the right to protect democracy. It is a foundational principle in our country. And it is an explicit role and responsibility accorded only to Congress in the elections clause in the Constitution.”
I spoke to Abrams on Monday, just hours before the Georgia Senate repealed no-excuse absentee voting, part of a series of bills passed in recent days to restrict voting rights that Abrams called “Jim Crow in a suit and tie.”
Abrams testified before the House in late February in favor of HR 1, the most ambitious democracy reform bill since the Voting Rights Act, which would boost voting access through policies like automatic and Election Day registration, early voting, and expanded voting by mail. “It’s the reform we need that will provide protection, provide a foundational level of access, regardless of your geography,” she says. She also urged passage of another House proposal, the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, which would require states with a history of discrimination to once again get federal approval for any changes to voting laws and procedures, after the Supreme Court struck down this requirement from the 1965 Voting Rights Act in 2013. The measure is needed, she says, “to make certain we don’t watch [voting rights] be butchered or eviscerated.”
But neither bill will pass the Senate if Democrats don’t eliminate the filibuster, which Abrams calls “a racist procedural rule that is grounded in this notion that the minority must be protected unless we disagree with what the minority needs.”
I asked Abrams what she would say to Democrats like Manchin and Sinema to persuade them to go along with a “democracy exception” to the filibuster.
“This isn’t about retribution or revenge,” Abrams says. “This is about protection of the fundamentals of our nation, that if we do not protect the participation of voters in our election system, if we do not permit states to do what they must to protect their voters, then we will find ourselves losing our democratic values, losing our democracy. And so I would say to Democrats who are hesitant that short of completely revising the filibuster, we have to make certain that a minority of people cannot be in power in the Senate, and therefore deny the basic principles of citizenship to millions of Americans.”
Sen. Jeff Merkley ( D-Ore. ) has floated a similar idea, and an increasing number of Democratic senators are now expressing openness to eliminating the filibuster, especially for bills like HR 1.
“I would get rid of the filibuster,” Amy Klobuchar, the chair of the Senate Rules Committee and a member of the Senate Democratic leadership, told me on March 3, when the House passed HR 1. “I have favored filibuster reform for a long time and now especially for this critical election bill.”
Manchin said on Sunday he’s open to changes to the filibuster, such as forcing Republicans to continuously occupy the Senate floor to block bills. And if Republicans keep passing restrictions on the right to vote, a proposal like Abrams’ could start to find a broader consensus.
Got to get the ERA ratified…
How to size up where all the voters are…brings up the issues of gerrymandering and urban/country splits.
NYTimes: A Close-Up Picture of Partisan Segregation, Among 180 Million Voters
A Close-Up Picture of Partisan Segregation, Among 180 Million Voters
The broad outlines of America’s partisan divides are visible on any national map. Republicans typically dominate in most Southern and Plains states, and Democrats in Northeastern and West Coast ones. Democrats cluster in urban America, Republicans in more rural places.
But keep zooming in — say, to the level of individual addresses for 180 million registered voters — and this pattern keeps repeating itself: within metro areas, within counties and cities, even within parts of the same city.
Democrats and Republicans live apart from each other, down to the neighborhood, to a degree that raises provocative questions about how closely lifestyle preferences have become aligned with politics and how even neighbors may influence one another.
As new research has found, it’s not just that many voters live in neighborhoods with few members of the opposite party; it’s that nearly all American voters live in communities where they are less likely to encounter people with opposing politics than we’d expect. That means, for example, that in a neighborhood where Democrats make up 60 percent of the voters, only 50 percent of a Republican’s nearest neighbors might be Democrats.
Democrats and Republicans are effectively segregated from each other, to varying degrees by place, according to the Harvard researchers Jacob Brown and Ryan Enos. And at least over the past decade, they believe this partisan segregation has been growing more pronounced.
Listen to Biden’s press conference now - Talks about Immigration, filibuster…and more
The part where the GOP can now take over any county election board in Georgia and overturn its results, as well as having taken over the state election board to make it 100% partisan, turning Georgia into a dictatorship, is definitely a problem going forward, especially since they’re doing the same elsewhere…
Here comes the big gamble…will the new proposed taxes on the wealthy get tagged to support these new Democratic legislature wants.
President Biden is preparing to make an enormous political gamble: betting that Americans will support as much as $3 trillion in new tax hikes — mostly on wealthy individuals and corporations — to help pay for a jobs and infrastructure package costing up to $4 trillion over the next decade.
Biden is set to announce the first phase of the package during a visit to Pittsburgh on Wednesday, kicking off a legislative battle that could help decide which party controls both the House and the Senate after the 2022 midterms.
The undertaking will mark the first major test of the Biden administration’s ability to shepherd a traditional legislative spending package through a Congress narrowly held by Democrats — while presenting the administration with an enormous political challenge in persuading lawmakers to pass a package that would represent the largest tax hike in generations.
The legislative push also comes on the heels of a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package that Biden signed into law earlier this month. The rescue plan — which provides money for vaccines and $1,400 stimulus payments to many Americans — remains popular among a majority of Americans, according to polling. But it could complicate Biden’s appeal to the American people to support another high-dollar package in such short order — especially one that costs even more, will require tax hikes to pay for it and will promise results that are less immediate.
If successful, Biden’s package would mark the largest spending bill in sheer dollars in the nation’s history. But as a percentage of gross domestic product on a yearly basis, the overall 10-year package is actually much smaller than other major economic packages, including the most recent stimulus package, according to Richard Kogan, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Biden allies and advisers argue that the infrastructure proposal represents the policies and promises that the president campaigned on and that it will prove popular with the public, if not necessarily Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill. They say the lessons they learned from the coronavirus relief package — as well as President Barack Obama’s mixed success in selling his 2009 stimulus bill — is that the real risk is not being sufficiently ambitious.
But they are also prepared for a more complicated legislative process than they faced with the relief bill, with more negotiation and attempted compromise with their Republican counterparts.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden’s speech Wednesday will lay out his vision for fixing the nation’s infrastructure challenges, which she characterized as something the entire country should be able to agree on.
“Fundamentally, we don’t believe that making a historic investment in American workers and rebuilding our infrastructure across the country to help us compete with China is controversial,” Psaki said. “And while the president will lay out a plan for paying for it over time, we’re also open to having a discussion about alternatives.”
Republicans, who have so far struggled to effectively undercut Biden’s early moves on the pandemic and vaccines, are hoping the infrastructure package gives them a new attack line against Democrats as they head into the midterms. They are especially optimistic that they can use the expected tax increases as well as the Democratic priorities in the legislation — such as an expected $400 billion in clean-energy credits and another $400 billion toward care for the elderly and people with disabilities — to paint the Democrats as out of touch and hostage to their liberal base.
Speaking on the Senate floor Monday, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he expected the infrastructure bill to be “a Trojan horse for massive tax hikes and other job-killing left-wing policies.”
Chris Hartline, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Republicans see a political opportunity in the legislation because of its cost and its reach beyond building roads and bridges.
“It’s one thing to do a big spending bill on covid,” Hartline said. “The public’s view on this will be different for a bill this big that is not directly related to covid and, to be honest, a bill that’s not directly related to infrastructure.”
The administration’s plan to pay for the package, including through taxes on high-income individuals and companies, is likely to negatively impact even everyday Americans, Hartline said. “I don’t see how this doesn’t include taxes for small businesses, workers — all the people Joe Biden said he’d never raise taxes on,” he said.
During the campaign, Biden vowed that Americans making less than $400,000 a year would not pay higher taxes, a stance he has reaffirmed since taking office. But the White House has already found itself grappling with the potential land mines in discussing raising taxes, after Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had to quickly walk back comments last week he made about a potential mileage tax or higher gas taxes.
White House officials are signaling to allies on Capitol Hill that they want to take a substantively different approach to the legislative process than they did when they jammed through the stimulus package earlier this month. They are gearing up for more negotiations and potentially significant changes to the bill, and say they will be more open to input and alternative proposals from members of Congress in both parties.
A White House aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the administration’s thinking, said the administration wants Congress to make progress on the legislation before Memorial Day and will consider breaking the legislation up into more parts if necessary.
Jonathan Alter, the author of “The Defining Moment” — a book about President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first 100 days in office that Biden and some members of his team have read — said the backdrop of crises could help Biden extend his ability to pass bold Democratic prescriptions on a range of issues.
“When there’s a crisis, all this talk about small government and ‘Get the government out of my pocket’ goes away, and people need the government to stay afloat,” Alter said.
The results, not the process or price tag, is what ultimately matters, he said. When Roosevelt was once asked about the political philosophy behind the Tennessee Valley Authority — an immense public power project that he signed into law — Alter summarized the former president as quipping, “It’s neither fish nor fowl, but it sure does taste good to the people of the Tennessee Valley.”
Republicans, however, are skeptical of the administration’s promises that this legislation will be more collaborative. Several have pointed to the relief package, saying the White House merely feigned interest at bipartisanship before steamrolling Republicans and pushing through their original proposal, largely unchanged.
“There isn’t a Republican in Washington holding his or her breath,” said one Senate Republican aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss the process. “Democrats showed us their playbook on their so-called covid-relief package: Take an issue with bipartisan support, stuff it full of trillions of dollars’ worth of unrelated far-left priorities, and then jam it through on a party-line vote. We were paying attention. Regardless of what they call it, that isn’t negotiating. And it isn’t bipartisan.”
Democrats are also seeking to avoid a situation like in 2009, when Republicans pounced on the Obama administration for alleged wasteful spending in the administration’s stimulus package. In one example, Solyndra, a clean-energy company, misled the federal government to obtain millions of dollars in loans and then filed for bankruptcy.
Democrats say the Biden administration will also need to be careful to explain the details of the new package, especially as Americans will not see the immediate effects of the spending as they did when stimulus payments hit their bank accounts. Many Democratic lawmakers in swing districts or purple states say they are willing to support the large price tag — but only if the final package reflects critical infrastructure projects rather than what they view as auxiliary Democratic goals, such as efforts aimed at mitigating climate change.
John Anzalone, Biden’s top pollster on the campaign, said the president’s high approval ratings on the coronavirus relief package should buoy Democrats in their efforts to pass another expansive package, especially one in which Biden will clearly outline how he will pay for much of the spending.Anzalone also brushed aside criticism from Republicans about the federal debt or raising taxes, saying the party approved freewheeling spending under past Republican administrations and pointed to polling showing that most Americans think the wealthy and corporations should pay more.
“The American people feel they get screwed constantly and they’re the target of taxes, and they believe the wealthy and big corporations should pay their fair share,” Anzalone said.
House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), a close Biden ally, said the massive price tag on Biden’s proposal simply reflects the severity of the nation’s crumbling infrastructure and the need for historic investment.
“I don’t know why people think you’re going to get broadband into American homes by clipping coupons from the Sunday papers,” he said. “That’s not going to happen. You’re not going to fix the roads and bridges that we all know need to be fixed in this country by praying about it. You got to spend the money.”
Clyburn said he is confident that Democrats will fall in line behind tax increases on the rich despite early warnings from some moderates. Democratic Reps. Bill Pascrell Jr. (N.J.), Josh Gottheimer (N.J.), Mikie Sherrill (N.J.) and Thomas Suozzi (N.Y.), for instance, have said they will oppose any change to the tax code unless Biden lifts a cap implemented by President Donald Trump on the deduction for state and local taxes. Democrats’ slim majority in the House — they can only afford three defections — gives them little wiggle room.
“People are already going to grumble about taxes,” Clyburn said. “They are going to grumble no matter what.”