Categories Current Events

Democratic Presidential Contenders Criticize New Hampshire Voting Restriction

HuffPost – Several Democrats running for the White House quickly came out against a revision to New Hampshire voting laws that adds a requirement on voters in the state the holds the nation’s first presidential primary.

Source: US Government Class

Elizabeth Warren releases sweeping student debt cancellation and free college plan

(CNN)Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday proposed eliminating the student loan debts of tens of millions of Americans and making all public colleges tuition-free, staking out an ambitious stance on one of the central policy debates of the 2020 Democratic primary.

Student debt and college affordability have become a key dividing line in the Democratic race, between more progressive candidates who favor sweeping new tuition and student-loan benefits and others who support more incremental adjustments to the way Americans pay for education.

Warren’s new plan would forgive $50,000 in student loans for Americans in households earning less than $100,000 a year. According to analysis provided by her campaign, that would provide immediate relief to more than 95% of the 45 million Americans with student debt. The Massachusetts Democrat and 2020 contender is also calling for a drastic increase in federal spending on higher education that would make tuition and fees free for all students at two- and four-year public colleges and expand grants for lower-income and minority students to cover costs like housing, food, books and child care.

The campaign estimates that the plan would cost $1.25 trillion over 10 years.

The revenue from Warren’s wealth tax proposal — a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1 billion — would pay for her newest proposal, her campaign said. According to details shared by her campaign, the massive debt cancellation and free college plan additionally asks states to chip in to cover the cost of tuition and fees. Warren has also said her universal child care proposal would be paid for by her wealth tax.

Asked about connecting the viability of her new proposal to another, Warren insisted that there is broad support for the idea of taxing the ultra-rich.

“For two cents on the dollar, we could pay for universal child care, universal pre-K, universal college and knock back the student loan debt burden for about 43 million Americans and still have nearly, just short, of $1 trillion leftover,” Warren said in an interview with CNN. “It tells you how badly out of whack our economy is right now.”

Warren — a co-sponsor of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2017 legislation that would make four-year public colleges tuition-free for some students — said her new plan is “bigger” and “goes further” than Sanders’, who is also vying for the Democratic nomination.

“It covers more and it addresses both the access question of going to college and the problem of the debt burden for our students,” she said.

The former college dropout and law professor described the proposal as one of the most “personally important” of her growing White House platform.

“I got married at 19 and I took a job answering phones and I thought that was going to be my whole life. And the fact that there was a commuter college about 45 minutes away that I could pay for on a part-time waitressing job — you know, it opened a door,” said Warren, who has made the story a fixture of her stump speech. “It all started with that chance in college.”

“Free college” has become a popular progressive rallying cry in recent years, with Sanders helping bring the idea mainstream during his 2016 presidential campaign. Hillary Clinton also ran on a tuition-free proposal for low-and middle-income students, and several states, including New York, Oregon, Tennessee and Rhode Island have recently implemented some form of a tuition-free plan. Public polls have shown broad support for tuition-free colleges and making higher education more affordable.

But Warren’s proposal of forgiving outstanding student debt goes a significant step further than previous Democratic policy plans. (One bill introduced in Congress last year did call for using revenue from President Donald Trump’s tax cuts to cancel all student loans, but it was largely viewed as a political rebuttal to the President and gained little traction in Congress.)

Warren’s plan would offer debt relief based on income. Households that make less than $100,000 a year would get $50,000 in loan cancellation, with the amount of relief getting gradually smaller as income level goes up, with households that make more than $250,000 not eligible for any debt relief.

Altogether, it would wipe out all student debt — including both federal and private loans — for more than 75% of Americans with outstanding loans, according to analysis provided by Warren’s campaign.

The “Universal Free College” portion of Warren’s plan makes public college free for everyone, regardless of their finances. While Sanders’ 2015 proposal offered free tuition for everyone, a 2017 bill scaled back eligibility based on income — language built on a compromise proposal agreed on between Sanders and Clinton during the 2016 election.

Warren’s proposal also makes significant investments to help lower-income and minority students afford the non-tuition costs associated with attending college. She wants to invest an additional $100 billion in Pell grants over the next 10 years, making them available to more students and increasing the size of the award. Currently, the lowest-income students are eligible to receive about $6,200 a year from the federal Pell program.

“It’s not just paying the tuition. It’s how they pay for books,” Warren told CNN. “It’s how they pay for the expenses of having a baby taken care of if they already have a child at home or being able to cover commuting expenses or maybe it’s a chance to live in a dorm and have the kind of college experience that other kids can.”

There is broad support among the Democratic presidential candidates for making college more affordable, though they differ on how to do so. Sens. Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, and Kirsten Gillibrand — along with Warren — are all co-sponsors of Sen. Brian Schatz’s Debt-Free College Act. It would establish a matching grant to states that commit to helping students pay for the full cost of attendance without taking out loans.

But other candidates — including Sen. Amy Klobuchar and South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg — have stopped short of embracing a free-college platform.

“I am not for free four-year college for all, no,” Klobuchar said at a CNN town hall in February, though she noted she would support making community colleges free.

Buttigieg has argued that free college would result in those who earn less because they didn’t go to college subsidizing those who did go to college and tend to enter higher-paying careers. But he has called for expanding Pell grants and incentivizing states to invest more money in higher education.

Asked whether she agrees with Buttigieg’s analysis, Warren answered: “No.”

“The way we build a future where everyone’s got a chance is we start out by investing in their education,” Warren said.
Since announcing an exploratory campaign on New Year’s Eve, Warren has released sweeping policy proposals at a rapid clip. They include the wealth tax, universal child care and a proposal to break up the biggest tech companies.

Warren is unapologetic about her heavy focus on policy.

“Look. Policy is personal. It touches people’s lives,” she said. “People come up to me in tears talking about their student loan debt. People talk to me about their fear that healthcare is going to be taken away. People talk to me about drugs, prescription drugs that they take that they simply can’t afford. The way we fixed these problems? It’s with policy. It’s policy that touches where people live.”
C
NN’s Gregory Krieg contributed to this story.

Source: US Government Class

Focus shifts to ‘sacred objects’ in Notre Dame sacristy as flames extinguished

Washington Times – PARIS — Jim Costain, a German-based economist taking in the sights with his wife and two young children, thought at first it was just a reflection of the famed lights of Paris he glimpsed through the restaurant window in the heart of the French capital. It took a few minutes for him to realize that the glare was, in fact, the first flames engulfing the Notre Dame Cathedral, which the family had toured just hours earlier.

“We watched for hours,” Mr. Costain said, as did much of Paris, France, and the world as social media and television cameras tracked the red, yellow and orange inferno spreading remorselessly across the roof of the 850-year-old national symbol. “It seems that they’re saving the majority of the cathedral, but I can only imagine how much is lost inside.”

Over the course the next several agonizing hours, when French Catholics thought they would be preparing for Holy Week and Easter observances, Parisian firefighters raced to save what they could of the iconic structure, even as the cathedral’s signature spire and rose window surrendered to the flames. As night fell on the smoldering church, a sober French President Emmanuel Macron announced that on a bleak day for France, the cathedral’s twin bell towers and basic structure had apparently been preserved despite the devastation.

Officials said the blaze apparently was triggered by repair work on the cathedral roof and the spire, hundreds of feet higher than even the most powerful water cannons could reach. The spire, located above the altar at the end of the cathedral’s wood-framed nave, crashed straight down in a shower of sparks and billows of flame roughly two hours after the fire began.

Mr. Macron said it would be France’s “destiny” to rebuild the Catholic church and announced that a national subscription would be inaugurated Tuesday to finance the reconstruction effort.

“This will be our project for years to come,” he said.

The Vatican issued a statement saying, “The Holy See has seen with shock and sadness the news of the terrible fire that has devastated the Cathedral of Notre Dame, symbol of Christianity in France and in the world.”

The statement added that Pope Francis was praying for the firefighters “and those who are doing everything possible to confront this dramatic situation.”

U.S. President Trump called the fire “horrible to watch” and suggested on Twitter that “flying water tankers” be used to reach the highest flames. Parisian officials said later that the force of water dropped from aerial tankers could have destabilized the venerable structure.

Accident suspected

The exact cause of the blaze was not known, but French media quoted the Paris fire brigade as saying it was “potentially linked” to a $6.8 million renovation project on the church’s spire and its 250 tons of lead, The Associated Press reported. The Paris prosecutor’s office ruled out arson and terror-related motives and said it was treating the case as an accident.

Late Monday, flashlight beams seen through the front windows signaled that the fire was nearing an end. Investigators apparently were inspecting the scene.

By Tuesday, after 12 hours, the fire was finally extinguished.

Those living near the Cathedral were evacuated as firefighters raced to keep the flaming debris from igniting nearby structures.

Paris fire commander Jean-Claude Gallet said a major accomplishment of hundreds of firefighters was stopping the flames from spreading to the north tower belfry, according to the AP.

Remarkably, despite the huge crowds in Paris for the pending Easter celebration and the hundreds of personnel battling the intense flames, just one firefighter was apparently injured as a result of the fire.

Another blow

In a city famed for its beauty and architectural riches, but one shaken by a string of terrorist attacks and economic protests, the Notre Dame fire at the opening of the Catholic Holy Week was the latest — and perhaps most staggering — blow.

“We have enough chaos here right now,” said Parisian resident Cedric Diallo, watching the inferno from across the Seine on the Right Bank. “I mean, every weekend we have to deal with the protests. Business is down and … this is just crazy, this shouldn’t be happening. It’s Notre Dame.”

Notre Dame officials said the “treasure” of the cathedral did not appear to be damaged. “We must see if the vault, which protects the cathedral, will be touched,” Andre Finot, spokesman for Notre Dame, told Le Figaro. “The sacred objects are preserved in the sacristy. Normally, there is no risk of things being burned.”

The purported Crown of Thorns worn by Jesus Christ was saved, media reports said.

Even so, he said, “everything is burning.”

“Of the frame, which dates from the 19th century on one side and the 13th century on the other, there will be nothing left,” Mr. Finot said.

The fire, which spread with stunning speed, ate through the attic of the cathedral, firefighters said. The Interior Ministry said more than 400 firefighters were mobilized.

“My colleagues would probably prefer to go inside, but the goal is not to lose men,” a firefighter told Le Figaro.

The landmark structure, begun in 1160 and essentially completed a century later, has been under reconstruction. Four days before the fire, 16 bronze statues of the apostles were removed from the roof to make way for construction.

Emergency workers and French security forces cleared the area around the cathedral and the Ile de la Cite — an island in the Seine where Notre Dame is located — but hundreds of people gathered on the bridge, the Pont Saint-Michel, and across the river at the Place de l’Hotel de Ville to watch in horror. The spectacle left many speechless and in tears.

Shocking sight

Jin Ha, a tourist from South Korea standing near City Hall, said she was shocked to see the cathedral in flames.

“I was just there two days ago,” she said as one of the cathedral’s millions of tourists a year. “My hotel is near here, and I was walking by and saw it on fire. It’s hard to look at it, but you can’t not look.”

Meanwhile, Deputy Paris Mayor Emmanuel Gregoire told BFM TV that the spire collapsed inward and that workers were scrambling “to save all the artworks that can be saved.”

Eric de Moulins-Beaufort, president of the Conference of Bishops of France and Archbishop of Reims, said he hoped the cathedral could be saved.

“We are in for years of work ahead,” he said in a message on Twitter. “Notre Dame Cathedral is one of the symbols of peace, beauty, hope, faith and even beyond the Christian faith. Without it, we would have an enormous loss.”

Some French lawmakers were echoing Mr. Macron’s call for volunteers and funds to rebuild the cathedral.

Almost four hours after the blaze started, hundreds of people remained on the bridges and the Right Bank watching the fire. Most were quiet. A few prayed or sang songs in tribute to the cathedral such as “Ave Maria” or “Belle” from the musical “Notre Dame de Paris.”

Some chanted Notre Dame softly, and passersby joined in as bells in churches around Paris rang in solidarity with Notre Dame.

• David R. Sands reported from Washington. Dave Boyer contributed to this article, which is based in part on wire service reports.

Source: US Government Class

Average tax refund is little changed at $2,833, IRS chief says

CBS News –

The IRS commissioner, who is overseeing the most sweeping overhaul of the U.S. tax code in a generation, says the $2,833 average refund in this year’s tax-filing season is working out to be close to last year’s.

Taxes and returns for 2018 are due on Monday.

Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Charles Rettig, who testified before Congress Wednesday, said some 65 million refunds totaling about $191 billion have been issued as of March 22. The average amount of $2,833 is close to last year’s $2,864. His comments come at a time when many taxpayers are skeptical about the tax overhaul signed into law at the end of 2017, with a CBS News poll finding a majority believe the changes benefited the wealthy and large corporations while their own taxes did not go down.

Americans across income groups are more likely to say their taxes are now higher than lower. Those earning less — with household incomes under $50,000 — are the most likely to say their taxes haven’t been affected by the law.

Rettig also said that an increase is urgently needed in the agency’s budget to modernize antiquated computer systems and protect taxpayers’ data.

Source: US Government Class

WikiLeaks’ Assange arrested in London, accused by U.S. of conspiring in 2010 computer hacking attempt

Washington Post –

Nearly seven years after WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange sought refuge in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, Ecuador revoked his asylum Thursday. Here is what has happened since.

● London’s Metropolitan Police entered the embassy and arrested Assange “on behalf of the United States.”

● Assange was found guilty in a British court of breaching bail in 2012.

● A U.S. federal court unsealed a 2018 indictment charging Assange with conspiring to hack a Defense Department computer to publish classified U.S. documents.

LONDON — British authorities arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Thursday in response to an American extradition request, and a U.S. federal court unsealed an indictment charging him with a single count of conspiracy to hack a classified Defense Department computer.

Assange was taken into custody by British police after Ecuador rescinded his asylum at its embassy in London, ending a media-saturated standoff that lasted nearly seven years.

London’s Metropolitan Police said that Assange, 47, was “arrested on behalf of the United States authorities.” British authorities originally sought custody of Assange for jumping bail after Sweden requested his extradition in a separate case stemming from sexual assault allegations.

In an indictment unsealed hours later, Assange was accused of conspiring in 2010 with Chelsea Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst then known as Bradley Manning, and others to illegally obtain secret U.S. military and diplomatic documents whose dissemination could be used to injure the United States.

In his subsequent appearance in court in London on Thursday, Assange was quickly found guilty of breaching his bail, an offense that carries a prison sentence of up to 12 months. He pleaded not guilty to the bail-jumping charge.

Judge Michael Snow reprimanded Assange and said he demonstrated “the behavior of a narcissist.” The court was told that Assange resisted arrest at the Ecuadoran Embassy, shouting, “This is unlawful!”

Assange is due to appear at a later date to be sentenced for the bail charge. He is due to appear again in Westminster Magistrates’ Court via video link on May 2 regarding the extradition matter.

Outside court, one of Assange’s attorneys, Jennifer Robinson, said Assange would fight extradition to the United States. She called the action against him “a dangerous precedent for all news media.” Robinson said she was seeking medical care for Assange, whose health she said has suffered during his time in the Ecuadoran Embassy.

The lawyer said Assange told her to thank his supporters and to say, “I told you so,” to the world — presumably a reference to Assange’s long-held prediction that the United States would seek his arrest and extradition if he left the embassy.

In Washington, President Trump was asked Thursday about his professed “love” for WikiLeaks during the 2016 election campaign when the organization was publishing stolen emails damaging to Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

“WikiLeaks — I love WikiLeaks!” he said in October 2016 at a rally in Pennsylvania, waving a report on the latest disclosures. “Boy, I love reading those WikiLeaks,” Trump said a few days before the election after a new dump of emails.

Trump told reporters Thursday: “I know nothing about WikiLeaks. It’s not my thing. And I know there was something having to do with Julian Assange.” He said Attorney General William P. Barr would deal with the matter, adding: “I know nothing really about it. It’s not my deal in life.”

The U.S. indictment, filed in federal court in March 2018 and unsealed Thursday, accuses Assange of agreeing to help Manning break a password to the Defense Department’s computer network in 2010. That, prosecutors alleged, would have allowed Manning to log in with another username. The indictment includes no evidence that the password-hacking effort actually succeeded.

Even before the attempt to secure a password, Manning had given WikiLeaks hundreds of thousands of classified records, prosecutors alleged. The material allegedly included four nearly complete databases, comprising 90,000 reports from the Afghanistan war, 400,000 reports from the Iraq War and 250,000 State Department cables.

Manning was imprisoned for seven years for violations of the Espionage Act and other offenses.

Robinson told The Washington Post that Assange met Thursday morning with the Ecuadoran ambassador, who notified him that his asylum was being revoked. Then the Metropolitan Police were invited into the embassy, where they arrested him, she said.

Video of the arrest showed a gray-bearded Assange being pulled by British police officers down the steps of the embassy and shoved into a police van. Assange appeared to be physically resisting. His hands were secured in front of him, but he appeared to be clutching a copy of Gore Vidal’s “History of the National Security State.”

Ecuador, which took Assange in when he was facing the Swedish rape investigation in 2012, said it was rescinding asylum because of his “discourteous and aggressive behavior” and for violating the terms of his asylum.

The British government heralded the development. “Julian Assange is no hero and no one is above the law,” Jeremy Hunt, Britain’s foreign secretary, said. “He has hidden from the truth for years.”

Hunt said it was Assange who was “holding the Ecuadoran Embassy hostage in a situation that was absolutely intolerable for them.”

The foreign secretary praised Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno for making “a courageous decision.”

Sweden dropped its sex crimes inquiry in May 2017. Assange had always denied the allegations. But he faces up to a year in prison in Britain for jumping bail in 2012.

More than anything, however, he fears extradition to the United States, which has been investigating him for alleged espionage, the publication of sensitive government documents and coordination with Russia.

 The Russian government accused Britain of “strangling freedom” by taking custody of Assange.

Source: US Government Class

FoxNews -vEx-spy Valerie Plame is considering running for an open U.S. House seat in New Mexico after previously saying she would launch a Senate bid. Plame, a Democrat, said she will make a decision soon about going after the seat currently held by Democrat U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, who is stepping down to run for the U.S. Senate. “Right now, I am going around and meeting with people,” said Plame, a Democrat. “I have a lot to learn and I would like another opportunity to serve my country.” Her decision to focus on the House after indicating interest in the Senate stems from wanting to “continue Ben Ray’s legacy.” Plame, 55, told media outlets last month that she planned to run a for Senate seat being held by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., after he announced he would not seek re-election. Plame has been highly critical of President Trump. In 2017, she crowdfunded nearly $90,000 to buy a stake in Twitter in an unsuccessful effort to ban the president from the platform. The former CIA operative was thrust into the national spotlight when she was outed in a 2003 column that cited officials with the George W. Bush administration as sources of a leak. Plame maintained the revelation was an effort to discredit her then-husband Joe Wilson, a former diplomat who was critical of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP Plame wrote a memoir: “Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House,” which was later made into a film. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

FoxNews -vEx-spy Valerie Plame is considering running for an open U.S. House seat in New Mexico after previously saying she would launch a Senate bid.

Plame, a Democrat, said she will make a decision soon about going after the seat currently held by Democrat U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, who is stepping down to run for the U.S. Senate.

“Right now, I am going around and meeting with people,” said Plame, a Democrat. “I have a lot to learn and I would like another opportunity to serve my country.”

Her decision to focus on the House after indicating interest in the Senate stems from wanting to “continue Ben Ray’s legacy.”

Plame, 55, told media outlets last month that she planned to run a for Senate seat being held by Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., after he announced he would not seek re-election. Plame has been highly critical of President Trump. In 2017, she crowdfunded nearly $90,000 to buy a stake in Twitter in an unsuccessful effort to ban the president from the platform.

The former CIA operative was thrust into the national spotlight when she was outed in a 2003 column that cited officials with the George W. Bush administration as sources of a leak. Plame maintained the revelation was an effort to discredit her then-husband Joe Wilson, a former diplomat who was critical of Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Plame wrote a memoir: “Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House,” which was later made into a film.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Source: US Government Class

Death of the filibuster? With McConnell and Reid changes, it may be just a matter of time

FoxNews –

Commentators spilled a lot of ink this week, forecasting the end of the Senate filibuster.

They didn’t have to. The filibuster’s days have been numbered for years.

The Senate’s tinkered around the edges of the filibuster – as it pertains to nominees – three times in five-and-a-half years. Squeezing available debate time was the case this week. The chamber lowered the bar to crush filibusters for nominees via what’s billed as “Nuclear Option #1” in 2013 (under Democratic control) and Nuclear Option #2 in 2017 (under Republican control). But both of those schemes only dealt with nominations. There is nothing in the mix yet about abolishing filibusters for legislation.

McConnell says the Senate doesn’t have the votes to euthanize the legislative filibuster. He’s right. But only for now. That may change. The Senate previously lacked the votes to lower the standard to squelch filibusters for executive branch nominees, except the Supreme Court. That was the case until then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., deployed Nuclear Option #1 in 2013. McConnell then dropped the requirement of 60 votes to quash a filibuster on Supreme Court nominees with Nuclear Option #2 in 2017. The Senate didn’t have the support to accelerate the confirmation of lower-tier nominees — until McConnell meddled with Senate procedure this week.

DEMS TAKE AIM AT FILIBUSTER

Like everything on Capitol Hill, it comes down to the math. That’s why Reid and McConnell carried out these ploys. They had the votes on their side. So they went ahead and executed their plans.

Reid and McConnell both administered their filibuster-related contrivances to boost Presidents Obama and Trump, respectively. So why wouldn’t a Senate majority try to boost a president of their own party by ending the legislative filibuster?

Trump repeatedly browbeat McConnell over the current filibuster rule for legislation. Sixty votes are necessary to terminate a legislative filibuster. A filibuster prevented Trump from scoring a big win two years ago to repeal and replace ObamaCare. At the time, Republicans only held a 51-49 advantage in the Senate. Senate Republicans fretted that eliminating the legislative filibuster could backfire. Democrats would only have to poach the votes of a couple of Republican senators to advance their own legislative priorities – despite GOP Senate control. For instance, a coalition of Republican senators worked with Senate Democrats last year to undercut a Trump administration policy about net neutrality.

It would take a lot to kill the legislative filibuster.

Forty-four Standing Rules govern the Senate’s operations. Senate Rule XXII (22) deals with filibusters. Rule XXII enables the Senate to thwart a filibuster. Sixty yeas are needed to halt a filibuster on legislation (called “invoking cloture”). A simple majority of senators are needed to end debate or a filibuster on nominations, thanks to Nuclear Options #1 & #2.

The Senate can vote to change any of its rules. But altering the rules is subject to a filibuster itself. The threshold to kill the filibuster of a proposed rules change is an eye-popping 67 yeas. Two-thirds of the Senate.

So, it’s nearly impossible to change the Senate’s rules.

But there’s the rub. The Senate conducts much of its business via precedent. There are only 44 standing rules. Yet the book of Senate precedents is immense. Neither Reid nor McConnell could amass 67 votes for a rules change. But they sure could steer the Senate into the appropriate parliamentary posture to implement a precedent change. A precedent change entails a mere 51 votes (or a simple majority). That’s precisely how Reid and McConnell effectuated the latest parliamentary shifts for filibusters. And if the Senate would ever eliminate the legislative filibuster, senators would likely follow the course burnished by Reid and McConnell for the Nuclear Option.

Americans romanticize the filibuster. They think of stem-winding, all-night orations and Jimmy Stewart. But most filibusters aren’t that intriguing.

Seizing the Senate floor and speaking for hours on end isn’t always a filibuster. Blocking something constitutes a filibuster. Remember the “filibuster” just before the 2013 government shutdown by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas? Cruz spoke on the floor for 21 hours and 18 minutes. It was the third-longest speech since 1900. But Cruz wasn’t filibustering. Cruz had to yield the floor around noon the next day because Reid locked the Senate in for a procedural vote. So, even though Cruz spoke for a really long time, it truly wasn’t a filibuster. The Texas Republican simply delivered an exhausting speech.

The public rarely notices filibuster, even though they go on all the time. Dozens of bills never make it to the floor because a senator or a group of senators are filibustering the bill. You just don’t see them doing it publicly. The Senate majority leader knows if he has the votes to complete a bill. If he doesn’t, the leader usually doesn’t try to force the issue because of a phantom filibuster. So the Senate never even tackles those bills.

That said, the Senate votes to break filibusters constantly. The Senate vanquishes filibusters by “invoking cloture.” In those instances, the filibuster is real. Senators usually aren’t on the floor talking all day and night. But in order to move on, the majority leader initiates the process via Rule XXII to “bring debate to a close.” The leader typically knows he has 60 votes to “invoke cloture” and kill the filibuster.

There is some thought on Capitol Hill that the filibuster could evaporate if Republicans maintain control of the Senate in 2020 and Trump wins a second term. Perhaps the same scenario is in play if Democrats win the Senate and the White House in 2020, too. Others suggest the demise of the legislative filibuster won’t come until 2025.

But one thing’s for sure: a weapon exists to get rid of the filibuster. Harry Reid invented the Nuclear Option stratagem. McConnell’s now perfected it. The only difference is if the Senate has the political will to eliminate this Senate tradition.

Source: US Government Class

Senate Democrats to introduce constitutional amendment to abolish Electoral College

NBC News – WASHINGTON — Leading Democratic senators are expected to introduce a constitutional amendment Tuesday to abolish the Electoral College, adding momentum to a long-shot idea that has been gaining steam among 2020 presidential candidates.

Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii plans to introduce the measure, along with Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2-ranking Democrat in the Senate, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Also signed on to the legislation is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, one of a growing number of presidential candidates who have called for electing presidents by popular vote, even though changing the Constitution is seen as virtually impossible today.

A constitutional amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds supermajority in both the House (about 290 votes) and Senate (67 votes) and requires ratification by 38 states.

Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas, Pete Buttigieg, the Democratic mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro are among the presidential candidates who have expressed openness to abolishing the Electoral College.

“We should abolish the Electoral College,” Castro said at a 2020 Democratic candidate forum in Washington on Monday. “It doesn’t reflect the will of the people of the country.”

Two of the last three presidents have lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College, leading critics to charge that the system is undemocratic and threatens the legitimacy of the American political system.

Those calls have been led primarily by Democrats, since they lost out in both 2000, when George W. Bush beat popular vote winner Al Gore, and 2016, when Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton even though she had almost 3 million more votes.

The current system assigns electoral votes on a state-by-state basis according to the size of their congressional delegations, which gives an advantage to smaller states and a disadvantage to bigger states since all states have the same number of senators.

Defenders of the Electoral College say it protects the interests of smaller and more rural states and warn that presidential candidates would only campaign in major population centers like New York City and Los Angeles if the popular vote alone mattered.

Source: US Government Class

Rep. Luján enters U.S. Senate race

Santa Fe New Mexican –

U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Luján is running for Senate.

The Democratic congressman from Nambé said in a video posted online Monday morning that he will seek Tom Udall’s seat next year.

Udall announced last week he would not campaign for a third term in 2020 and Luján quickly emerged as one of the potential Democratic nominees to succeed him.

But running for Senate will also mean forgoing another term as assistant speaker of the House of Representatives, a leadership post Luján just assumed this year.

Luján nodded Monday to the new Democratic majority in the House.

But referring to the Republican majority in the Senate and its Republican leader, he added: “To move forward, we’ve got to fix the Senate where Mitch McConnell stands in the way of progress.”

While a logical next step for Luján, who won Udall’s former congressional seat about a decade ago and has enjoyed a steady rise through the ranks of Democratic leadership, this campaign will also be his first test on a statewide ballot.

And several other Democrats have said they are considering running for Senate, too, from U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland to Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and former CIA agent Valerie Plame.

Indeed, Luján could be vulnerable to a challenge from his left. As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he helped the party win back a majority in the House but also rankled plenty on the Democrats’ left flank, who have come to see the party’s leadership in Congress as out of touch with its base and their vaunted rising stars.

The Progressive Change Campaign, a Democratic group, surveyed its members in New Mexico last week and found 39 percent would support Luján and 32 percent would back Haaland. Another 15 percent would support Toulouse Oliver and 14 percent said they had no preference.

In the survey, members alternately described Luján as best positioned for the race, given his prominence, and as too far to the middle or right, praising Haaland as more progressive.

The big question now may be whether Luján’s entrance into the race keeps away competitors or invites just such an opponent to come forward from the left.

Meanwhile, Udall’s plans for an exit could embolden Republicans. Though many observers still view the race as at least leaning towards the Democrats and it is unclear who might run for the Republican nomination, the GOP may have an easier time running for an open seat instead of challenging an incumbent.

Source: US Government Class

How gerrymandering became one of the biggest issues in politics

CBS News – As the 2020 Democratic primary takes shape, progressives across the country are once again taking aim at gerrymandering, the process by which state legislatures draw congressional maps to benefit one party over the other.

On Tuesday, for the second time in two years, the Supreme Court heard arguments about limiting the practice. The last time the high court considered gerrymandering, the justices declined to rule on the merits. And given the court’s conservative lean, they could do so again in this most recent case, which involves House district maps drawn by state legislatures in Maryland and North Carolina.

The hope among those challenging gerrymandering is that these district maps were drawn in such a partisan manner that they violate the Constitution. And while liberals have taken the lead in challenging gerrymandering in recent years, the Maryland map was drawn up by Democrats, who also had partisan aims.

Former Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley in a 2017 deposition, admitted his party’s goal in its 2011 redistricting efforts was to make a GOP-held district in Maryland much more favorable to Democrats. In a 2018 USA Today op ed, O’Malley explained that 2010 had been a terrible year for Democrats, who helplessly watched “Republican governors carve Democratic voters into irrelevance in state after state in order to help elect lopsided Republican congressional delegations.”

O’Malley said he saw it as his duty to “provide some check” against GOP governors by drawing a Democrat-friendly map. His effort was successful, and John Delaney won the seat from longtime GOP congressman Roscoe Bartlett in 2012. Delaney is now a Democratic candidate for president.

But by 2018, O’Malley regretted the move and said he hoped the high court would ban partisan redistricting.

The current governors of North Carolina and Maryland, Democrat Roy Cooper and Republican Larry Hogan, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post earlier this week arguing that the Supreme Court should “end gerrymandering once and for all.” Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat running for president, has made anti-gerrymandering efforts a central plank of his platform.

But ending gerrymandering might not be that easy, in part because both parties occasionally benefit from the process.

What is gerrymandering?

The word “gerrymandering” dates back to the early 19th century. The name comes from Elbridge Gerry, a Massachusetts governor who signed a redistricting bill that benefited his Democratic-Republican Party against the Federalists. One of the new districts was said to resemble a salamander, and so a Boston newspaperman decided to call the new map a gerrymander.

“The epithet at once became a Federalist war cry, the map caricature being published as a campaign document,” wrote Charles Ledyard Norton in his 1890 book “Political Americanisms.”

So gerrymandering is not a new phenomenon, having been a political issue for over 200 years. Since nearly the creation of the United States, House district maps have been littered with oddly-shaped seats that try to group together voters according to their partisan lean.

How gerrymandering works

In most states, the legislature draws up new congressional maps following the conclusion of the U.S. census, which takes place every ten years. The state’s governor then has to approve the new map by signing it into law.

This system was generally good news for Republicans following their landslide victories in the 2010 elections, which occurred the same year as the last census. The next round of redistricting is due to start in 2021, following the completion of the 2020 census.

It’s impossible to know which party will enjoy the upper hand in drawing new maps following the 2020 elections, or whether the Supreme Court will step in to limit redistricting in the interim. A number of states, most recently Utah, have tried to sidestep partisan redistricting by creating independent commissions tasked with drawing maps that better reflect the will of voters.

How activists are looking to block partisan gerrymandering

Even if the Supreme Court chooses to once again sit out the fight over gerrymandering, state courts can sometimes step in. In 2018, for example, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court threw out a Republican-drawn map and instituted a new one that helped Democrats pick up several seats in the most recent midterms.

The rules governing redistricting are different from state to state, meaning that activists can’t always depend on judges stepping in to redraw maps they see as unfair. At this point, four states use independent nonpartisan commissions to draw district lines.

States like Utah are also trying this approach, creating independent commissions that would limit legislatures’ involvement in redistricting. The Utah law, which was narrowly passed by voters in the state last November, created a seven-person commission to draw up new maps and send them to the legislature for approval. California, the largest state with an independent redistricting commission, has a 14-member panel consisting of 5 Democrats, 5 Republicans, and 4 independents to draw new maps.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder now leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group that looks to back independent commissions and reduce GOP control of state legislatures. But given the Republican electoral success at the state level during the Obama years, Democrats still have their work cut out for them.

Democrats have scored major victories at the state level in recent elections, and according to The Washington Post, they would now have the ability to draw the boundaries of 76 House seats nationwide should redistricting happen tomorrow. But buoyed by its strength in southern states, the GOP would still be able to redraw 179 seats. Another 113 seats would be drawn by independent commissions, while 60 would be redrawn in states where Republicans and Democrats share control of the state government.

Why 2020 matters for gerrymandering

Unless the Supreme Court intervenes, the 2020 elections remain Democrats’ best hope of undoing Republican gerrymanders and instituting new maps. And that means Democrats will have to expend major resources on capturing state legislatures and governorships while still looking to retake the Senate and the White House.

It’s also something of an open question whether Democrats would restrain themselves from partisan gerrymandering in any states they take control of in 2020 and put in place independent commissions. It’s easy to talk a big game about reform and fair maps in the minority. But as history has shown again and again, both parties tend to indulge in gerrymandering when given the chance.

Source: US Government Class