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Jan. 6 panel reaches 'general agreement' on criminal referrals to DOJ

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has come to a “general agreement” to forward some criminal referrals to the Justice Department, its chair told reporters Tuesday.

It was a confusing morning at the Capitol, with Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) walking back statements he made earlier in the day when he told reporters “we will” be making criminal referrals.

“We’re not there yet,” Thompson said later, adding that the earlier “gaggle [with reporters] was wrong.”

The panel will meet later on Tuesday to discuss the issue, following a Friday presentation from a subcommittee of the committee’s four lawyers, who were tasked with tying up unfinished business, including how to address any recommendations to the Justice Department.

“The Committee has determined that referrals to outside entities should be considered as a final part of its work. The committee will make decisions about specifics in the days ahead,” a committee spokesperson said in a statement.

The chairman of that subcommittee, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told reporters they were still making progress on the topic, while Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), another member of that panel, said a formal announcement on referrals could come as soon as this week.

“We’re nearing the end of our work,” she said.

Referrals to the Justice Department would hardly be surprising from a committee that has made clear it believes numerous crimes were committed in the effort to block the transfer of power that culminated in the lawless attack on the Capitol. 

The committee also previously made four referrals for those it argued defied its congressional subpoenas.

But the breadth of the referrals — as well as the specific crimes they list — could be illuminating, particularly as the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation appears to be accelerating.

It remains unclear who would be included or how large a group that could be.

While criminal referrals could target former President Trump, a number of people aided his efforts to stay in power, including various attorneys. Some have already been caught up in the Justice Department’s own Jan. 6 investigation, like campaign attorney John Eastman and former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark, who Trump weighed installing at attorney general to investigate his faulty election fraud claims.

Thompson also said the committee was still weighing whether to make referrals to those who perjured themselves before the panel’s investigators. During their hearings, they also warned that some individuals appeared to be engaging in witness intimidation, another potential crime.

Another outstanding issue for the panel is how to deal with five GOP lawmakers who flouted committee subpoenas, a list that includes House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.).

Mike Lillis and Mychael Schnell contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

McConnell pans proposals to add marijuana, permitting provisions to defense bill 

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Tuesday poured cold water on Democratic efforts to add language allowing banks to do business with state-approved marijuana businesses and permitting reform, a priority of Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), to the annual defense authorization bill.  

McConnell called on Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to strip the pot-related language and Manchin’s permitting reform proposal, which he dismissed as reform “in name only,” from the defense bill.  

“House and Senate Democrats are still obstructing efforts to close out the NDAA by trying to jam in unrelated items with no relationship whatsoever to defense,” McConnell said on the Senate floor, referring to the National Defense Authorization Act.  

“We’re talking about a grab bag of miscellaneous pet priorities, like making our financial system more sympathetic to illegal drugs or permitting reform in name only that’s already failed to pass the Senate earlier this year,” McConnell said.  

The Senate GOP leader noted that Democrats could have brought the marijuana banking bill to the floor earlier this year or even have scheduled it for a vote this week, which instead is being devoted to confirming President Biden’s nominees.  

He called on Democratic leaders to cut the controversial provisions from the defense bill to give it a better chance of passing Congress before the end of the year.  

“My colleagues across the aisle need to cut their unrelated hostage-taking and put a bipartisan NDAA on the floor,” he said.  

Schumer said at a campaign debate in October that “we are getting very close to a deal” on allowing financial institutions to do business with cannabis-related businesses that are legal on the state level but not at the federal level.  

Schumer indicated the legislation would also expunge records for nonviolent marijuana-related crimes.  

“I am working in a bipartisan way with Democrats and Republicans to take the SAFE Banking Act, which allows financial institutions to involve themselves in cannabis companies and lend money to them — but it also does things for justice, such as expunging a record,” Schumer said at the debate hosted by Spectrum News.  

Schumer is also trying to add Manchin’s permitting reform bill to the defense bill after failing to get it attached to the short-term government funding bill that passed Congress in September.  

Manchin told The Hill on Monday that he still thinks he has a shot of passing his permitting reform bill before the end of the year.  

“Well, wait and see,” he said when asked about the likelihood of attaching it to the defense bill.

Rep. Mike Rogers (Ala.), the ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, told reporters last month that there was “zero chance” of adding permitting reform to the defense authorization measure.  

Another obstacle to getting a bipartisan deal on the defense bill is the demand by Republican lawmakers in both chambers to add language to end the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.  

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said that Democratic leaders had previously indicated they would add a provision ending the vaccine mandate to the defense bill but now are asking Republicans to also agree to the marijuana banking and permitting reform legislation in return.  

He said passing a bill with such controversial policy riders would be a “heavy lift.” He suggested that Democratic demands on adding marijuana-banking and permitting reform provisions are a “non-starter” with Republicans. 

“My understanding is they stripped out the vaccine provision in the House bill, which I think is going to make it a heavy lift over here,” he said. 

“The ransom the Democrats wanted for stripping the vaccine mandate is a whole bunch of things — to include the permitting reform — but also some other things that are just going to be, I think, non-starters on our side,” he said. “I don’t think we’re going to get in the business of allowing them to hold us hostage after they already agreed to something.”

“They agreed to put that [vaccine] provision in the House [bill] and then all of the sudden at the last minute they decided they wanted us to pay a big ransom to get it,” he added.  

Source: TEST FEED1

The Hill's Morning Report — It's decision day on Warnock vs. Walker

Upbeat is how Democrats in Washington and Georgia say they’re feeling today about the number 51.

If Georgia voters decide to send Sen. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic preacher, back to Washington next year and if GOP challenger Herschel Walker, the former Heisman Trophy winner who decided to try his hand at politics, loses today’s Senate runoff, as polls are hinting, Democrats gain a majority of 51 in January instead of 50, which amounts to a functioning majority that would deliver some political benefits.  

Warnock, a reverend who serves as senior pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, the former pulpit of Martin Luther King Jr., knows plenty about close elections. He narrowly won a runoff in 2021 and he received more votes than Walker a month ago on Election Day but not enough to avoid a runoff because of a third-party candidate.

The Republican football legend, who was endorsed during the GOP Senate primary and general election by former President Trump, was battered by personal controversies throughout the campaign, and his ties to Trump may have hurt him more than helped during the past month, The Hill’s Hanna Trudo and Al Weaver write.

Warnock has barnstormed counties around Atlanta and worked to chip away at rural areas held by the GOP. He also stumped heavily during the fall holiday season, an investment that his campaign argues stands in contrast to Walker, who has been less visible on the trail in recent weeks. There is some evidence that independent voters and some Republicans who would not back Walker may help Warnock hold his seat.

👉 Georgia polls start closing at 7 p.m. (The Washington Post).

The Hill’s Niall Stanage sets the scene in the Peach State with the five key factors to watch as the high-profile Senate contest wraps up. 

The Hill: Here’s a look at five men not on the ballot who may have the most at stake in Georgia’s runoff. Hint: One occupies the White House, one wants to return to the White House and three are exceedingly ambitious senators with divergent aims.

Georgia’s runoff is a window through which analysts are studying the challenges Republicans face while courting Black voters, reports The Hill’s Cheyanne Daniels. An overwhelming majority of Black voters recently indicated in a CNN poll that they planned to cast their ballots for Warnock, the Democrat, rather than Walker. 

“[Black voters] are offended that the Republican Party is attempting to impose their version of what a Black leader should be on the Black community,” said Adrianne Shropshire, executive director of Black PAC, speaking about the Georgia runoff.

Meanwhile, the state is not alone in trying to finish the 2022 election business nearly a month after Election Day. Arizona on Monday certified its election results following GOP challenges (The Hill). 

“Arizona had a successful election,” said Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who was on the ballot on Nov. 8. “But too often throughout the process, powerful voices proliferated misinformation that threatened to disenfranchise voters. Democracy prevailed, but it’s not out of the woods. 2024 will bring a host of challenges from the election denial community that we must prepare for.”

Next year, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), who hopes to be elected Speaker to lead the incoming House Republican majority in the Capitol, would almost assuredly struggle to unify his caucus if he is tapped, according to some Senate Republicans. Doubts about McCarthy and the fate of legislation in the hands of fractious House conservatives help explain why some want to finish major legislation this month, including additional funding for defense and military assistance for Ukraine, opposed by some House Republicans.

McCarthy’s struggles in lining up 218 votes to become Speaker underscore challenges he would face in 2023 to enact major legislation, reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton. It’s clear that McCarthy will have to rely on Democratic votes, which will undercut his negotiating leverage and spark fights with the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Looking ahead, that reality may encourage GOP senators allied with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to try to navigate around political hurdles they see on the horizon. Getting a budget deal by the end of this week is one fallback option.

The Hill’s Emily Brooks explores the major pledges McCarthy has made to woo fellow Republicans to help make him the next Speaker on Jan. 3.

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Trump on Monday insisted he does not want to terminate sections of the Constitution after saying exactly that on his social media platform Truth Social last week. His denial came hours after the White House called on GOP lawmakers to denounce the 2024 presidential candidate’s commentary about the Constitution, which Trump took an oath to defend as president in 2017 (The Hill). GOP senators on Monday panned Trump’s comments (The Hill). 

▪ The Hill: Former Trump White House national security adviser John Bolton said on Monday he will “seriously consider” challenging his former boss for the GOP presidential nomination if other potential candidates don’t try to dim Trump’s chances in 2024. 

▪ CNN: A federal judge on Monday sentenced disgraced former California attorney Michael Avenatti to 14 years in prison and ordered him to pay $11 million after he pleaded guilty to multiple charges of stealing millions of dollars belonging to former clients. Avenatti briefly gained notoriety when he represented adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had an affair with Trump years before he entered politics.

LEADING THE DAY

➤ CONGRESS

Tax credits for individuals and businesses are up for grabs as negotiations on a year-end spending deal are coming down to the wire, write The Hill’s Tobias Burns and Aris Folley. The possible credits range from an expansion of the child tax credit, which was beefed up during the pandemic and raised millions of children out of poverty, to incentives for companies to invest more in research and development. 

Vox: Inside the fight for an end-of-year deal on the child tax credit.

House leaders are expected to bring a compromise version of the annual defense authorization bill to the floor this week, but details of what the massive military policy legislation will include have yet to be released. The House passed its $840 billion version of the authorization bill over the summer.

The Senate has been discussing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for months but appears unlikely to pass its own version now, opting instead to simply approve a compromise draft after the House acts. But that hasn’t stopped McCarthy from calling for the measure to be delayed until after the lame duck session, when his party takes control of the House (Military Times).

▪ The Hill: Progressives push back on effort to put Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) permitting reform deal in the NDAA.

▪ Roll Call: Final NDAA is expected to rescind the Pentagon vaccine mandate.

The White House opposes using the annual defense spending bill to repeal a vaccine mandate for military service members, national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters on Monday. Republican lawmakers have threatened to delay passage of the annual defense authorization bill if the military’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which was instituted last year, is not rescinded (The Hill).

▪ Roll Call and Axios: Senators pitch deal to protect “Dreamers” and boost border security. The proposal by Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) seeks a rare bipartisan agreement on immigration legislation.

▪ Politico: House Minority Leader-elect Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) begin their Democratic buddy act. Blaze trails, it’s the Brooklyn way: One is Congress’s first-ever Black party leader; the other its first Jewish leader. Now they’ve got to build their own chemistry.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants to step down from her post on a high note this year as Democrats seek a string of high-profile legislative victories in the waning weeks of her two-decade run at the top of the party, writes The Hill’s Mike Lillis. 

The post-election lame-duck session offers Democrats a final shot at notching policy wins before Republicans take control of the lower chamber next year, and party leaders have packed it full of weighty policy proposals touching on issues as fraught as gay rights, immigration reform, Ukraine funding and efforts to strengthen America’s election systems. The ambitious to-do list would not only make this year’s lame-duck among the most momentous in modern memory but also enable Pelosi to go out championing some of the same pet issues that have defined her long leadership career.

Her allies in Congress say that’s not a coincidence. 

➤ ADMINISTRATION

Rock-bottom relations between the U.S. and Russia are bleeding into and fracturing one of the most fragile and preserved areas of the relationship — strategic communication over their nuclear weapons. 

As The Hill’s Laura Kelly reports, Russia’s rejection of a meeting with U.S. officials this week in Egypt — for nuclear talks related to a soon-to-expire treaty — is raising the risk that Washington is losing its ability to communicate with Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called it “absurd” that Moscow would hold talks with Washington on nuclear stability, criticizing the U.S. as using Ukraine to try to destroy Russia.

“For now, we aren’t hearing any meaningful ideas,” Lavrov said during his annual press conference, referring to nuclear talks. “[But] if there will be proposals from the president [Biden] and from other members of his administration, we’ll never shy away from contacts.” 

The Pentagon secretly modified advanced rocket systems it sent to Ukraine to make the weapons unable to fire into Russia and escalate the war. Since June, the U.S. has supplied Kyiv with 20 of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), but the weapons are uniquely modified so they can’t fire long-range missiles, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal.

The Biden administration said the modifications were a precaution necessary to reduce the risk of a wider war with Moscow.

When President Biden announced the Defense Department was shipping the HIMARS and ammunition to Ukraine at the end of May, he said they would be used only for defense and the administration was “not going to send to Ukraine rocket systems that strike into Russia” (The Hill).

Politico: “We haven’t got this figured out just yet”: Pentagon, industry struggle to arm Ukraine.

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, in a speech in Washington on Monday, said the United States faces “a new kind of warfare” that he described as a byproduct of global interconnectedness, emerging technologies and economic and political instability that mean national security and homeland security are interwoven (CyberScoop).

Meanwhile, Mayorkas on Monday extended immigration protections for Haitians in the United States, granting work permits and deferral from deportation to Haitians in the country as of Nov. 6 (The Hill).

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and other U.S. officials met on Monday in Brazil with President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and invited him on behalf of Biden to visit Washington (Reuters). Lula will be inaugurated on Jan. 1.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ INTERNATIONAL

Explosions rocked two Russian airbases far from the frontlines with Ukraine on Monday as Kyiv appeared to launch a preemptive strike on bombers that the Kremlin has used to try to cripple the country’s electrical grid.

The Russian defense ministry confirmed the attacks, claiming two of its warplanes had been damaged when they intercepted two Ukrainian drones. The strike represented an unprecedented Ukrainian operation deep inside Russia to disrupt the Kremlin strategy of provoking a humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine on the verge of winter (The Guardian).

Russia, meanwhile, has fired a barrage of missiles at targets across Ukraine for the eighth time in eight weeks. Significant disruptions to the power grid were reported, mainly in the east. But the strikes, which came nearly two weeks after the last, may have done less damage than on previous occasions. Ukraine says it shot down 60 of the 70 missiles fired by Russia, while Moscow says it hit all 17 of its targets (BBC).

▪ Reuters: Ukrainian officials search for evidence of Russian war crimes.

▪ The New York Times: Russian cruise missiles were made just months ago despite sanctions.

▪ The Hill: A price cap on Russian oil imposed by leading industrialized nations in the Group of Seven, designed to be a punishment for the Kremlin’s war with Ukraine, took effect on Monday.

India will prioritize its own energy needs and continue to buy oil from Russia, its foreign minister indicated Monday. 

Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said it isn’t right for European countries to prioritize their energy needs but “ask India to do something else.”

“Europe will make the choices it will make,” he told reporters. “It is their right.”

▪ Reuters: Beijing drops COVID testing burden as wider easing beckons across China.

▪ CNN: Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Saudi Arabia, sources say, amid frayed ties with the U.S.

OPINION

■ North Carolina’s dubious constitutional theory could undermine elections, by Karen Tumulty, deputy opinion editor, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3F3N6KU 

■ Strengthen the child tax credit before expanding it, by Ramesh Ponnuru, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion. ​​https://bloom.bg/3BdV17r

■ Donald Trump is … the Terminator: He wants back in the White House and forget about the Constitution, by The Wall Street Journal editorial board. https://on.wsj.com/3HcZgDQ

WHERE AND WHEN

👉 The Hill: Share a news query tied to an expert journalist’s insights: The Hill launched something new and (we hope) engaging via text with Editor-in-Chief Bob Cusack. Learn more and sign up HERE.

⭐ INVITATION to The Hill newsmaker event: Tuesday 1 p.m. ET, “Reimagining the Pharma Supply Chain,” with Reps. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.), Darren Soto (D-Fla.) and other expert panelists. Information and registration HERE. 

The House will convene at 9 a.m. and is expected to consider a final version of marriage equality legislation.

The Senate will convene at 10 a.m. and resume consideration of judicial nominations.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 8:45 a.m. Biden will travel to Phoenix to visit TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturing plant at 1:30 p.m. MT. He will speak at 2 p.m. MT with an announcement that the company plans to invest another $40 billion in the U.S. (The Hill). The president will depart Phoenix and return to the White House tonight.

Vice President Harris will be in Washington and has no public schedule today.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin co-host Australia-U.S. ministerial consultations at the State Department. They will meet with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defense Richard Marles.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will meet Moldovan President Maia Sandu at the Treasury Department at 4 p.m.

Economic indicator: The Bureau of Economic Analysis will report at 8:30 a.m. on October data about U.S. international trade in goods and services.  

ELSEWHERE

➤ ECONOMY & WORKERS

The effort by major U.S.-based companies to adjust revenue projections and cut costs before the new year continues with PepsiCo., which will lay off hundreds of workers at the company’s headquarters for its North American snacks division, based in Chicago and Plano, Texas, and its beverages division, based in Purchase, N.Y., according to The Wall Street Journal.

Railroad workers are threatening to leave the industry after Congress forced through a contract agreement that does not provide paid sick leave, writes The Hill’s Karl Evers-Hillstrom. An exodus of rail workers would pose a serious threat to the U.S. economy, which relies heavily on freight railroads to transport most goods.

▪ PBS: Rail workers say quality-of-life concerns are not resolved under a contract deal imposed by Congress to avert a strike.

▪ The Independent: Railroad workers were given a “one-two punch” from the White House and Republicans. They say they aren’t giving up.

Record home prices and rising rents are hurting the ability of Americans nationwide to secure housing, write The Hill’s Adam Barnes and Brooke Migdon, and LGBTQ Americans in nearly half of the U.S. already can be evicted, denied home loans and turned away from rentals due to their sexual orientation or gender identity. Those states include Idaho, Montana and Arizona, where average year-over-year home prices have skyrocketed nearly 30 percent, and transgender people often bear the brunt of this type of discrimination. 

➤ SUPREME COURT

Some justices on Monday hinted at support for a Colorado website designer who says she has a constitutional right to create websites only for opposite-sex weddings. Hearing arguments for more than two hours, the high court’s conservative majority considered what some justices described as a narrow exemption from anti-discrimination laws for businesses that engage in expressive activities (Bloomberg News).

▪ CNBC: The Supreme Court is likely to rule that the Biden student loan plan is illegal, experts say. Here’s what that means for borrowers.

▪ The Hill: The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a 2020 case against Dominion Voting Systems, Facebook. 

The court on Wednesday will hear oral arguments in a case concerning North Carolina’s congressional map that could give state legislatures more sway over federal elections. Members of the state’s GOP-controlled legislature have argued the state Supreme Court overstepped its bounds earlier this year when it ruled its newly redrawn congressional districts violated the state constitution through partisan gerrymandering.

The state court approved a new congressional map for the 2022 midterm elections that was less favorable overall for Republican candidates, and the legislators want the court to find that it violated the Constitution. But those who first challenged the map, as well as outside experts, say that siding with the legislators would cast questions over hundreds of election rules across the nation — as broad as congressional maps or as local as the locations of polling places (Roll Call).

FiveThirtyEight: How North Carolina’s political warfare in a case known as Moore v. Harper, which will be heard by the Supreme Court this week, could impact the entire country.

➤ PANDEMIC & HEALTH 

Pfizer on Monday applied to the Food and Drug Administration for emergency use approval of its COVID-19 omicron vaccine for children ages 6 months to 4 years as the third shot in a three-dose series.

If authorized, children would still receive two doses of the original vaccine and then a third dose that specifically targets the omicron variant of the coronavirus. The vaccine is currently authorized for children 5 and older. 

“With the high level of respiratory illnesses currently circulating among children under 5 years of age, updated COVID-19 vaccines may help prevent severe illness and hospitalization,” the company said in a statement (The Hill).

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky on Monday urged Americans to get up to date on flu and COVID-19 vaccinations amid high levels of respiratory illnesses and hospitalizations as winter begins. Fourteen children have died in the United States from the flu so far this season (The Hill).

▪ CNBC: Exercise may increase the effectiveness of your COVID-19 vaccine, a new study found: Here’s how to get the most benefit.

▪ WHYY: If you don’t want to give COVID-19 for Christmas, experts recommend the bivalent booster.

The year without germs changed kids, The Atlantic reports. Children who spent their formative years in the bleach-everything era will certainly have different microbiomes. The question is whether “different” means “bad.”

Information about COVID-19 vaccine and booster shot availability can be found at Vaccines.gov.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,081,638. Current U.S. COVID-19 deaths are 1,780 for the week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (The CDC shifted its tally of available data from daily to weekly, now reported on Fridays.)

THE CLOSER

And finally … 🏛️ Because we’re The Hill, we hopped into the wayback machine to bring you a reminder that on this day, Dec. 6, in 1790, the nation’s capital moved from New York City to Philadelphia where it remained with that designation until 1800, when the District of Columbia became the capital and seat of federal legislative governance. 

At the time, House members were divided over whether to remain in New York City or to move to Baltimore or Philadelphia. With a vote of 38 to 22, they chose Philadelphia as a temporary capital from 1790 to 1800, largely because the city blended economic and cultural hubbub with a convenient seaport along the East Coast. Philadelphia’s Congress Hall managed to squeeze in the House and Senate chambers, although the structure was not originally designed for that purpose. 

Construction of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., began in 1793. The House occupied its current chamber in Washington beginning in 1857 and the Senate moved in by 1859. The structure has undergone near-constant decluttering, expansions, upkeep and modernizations ever since.

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Pelosi, Democrats seeks string of victories in final days

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is aiming to go out on a high note as Democrats seek a string of high-profile legislative victories in the waning weeks of the 117th Congress that will mark the end of her two-decade run at the top of the party.

The lame-duck session offers Democrats a final shot at notching policy wins before Republicans take control of the House next year, and party leaders have packed it full of weighty proposals touching on gay rights, immigration reform, COVID-19 aid, Ukraine funding and efforts to strengthen America’s election systems.

The ambitious list not only makes this year’s lame duck potentially among the most momentous in modern memory, but would also enable Pelosi to go out championing issues that have defined her long leadership career. 

Allies say that’s no accident.

“I don’t think it is ever the case that the management and the workflow of the United States Congress under the leadership of Speaker Pelosi is ever left to chance or coincidence,” said Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.). “More than anything, this final group of bills are a reflection of the extraordinary amount of work that has been done in this Congress under the Speaker’s leadership.”

Congress last week already rushed through contentious legislation to impose a labor agreement on clashing rail operators and their unionized workers — a rare bipartisan compromise that averted a railroad shutdown. That, combined with a host of other pressing issues — including the potential for a government shutdown next week — has heightened the stakes surrounding this year’s closing agenda. 

“Lame ducks is not where they’d like to deal with big issues,” Mick Mulvaney, former budget director and chief of staff in the Trump White House, told the Fox Business Network last week. “But they don’t have any choice this year.”

Perhaps the most prominent proposal on the docket is the Respect for Marriage Act, which would provide federal protections for same-sex marriage nationwide. Those rights were explicitly denied by the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which Pelosi had fiercely opposed, breaking at the time with her White House ally in President Clinton. 

For Pelosi, representing liberal San Francisco, that fight is decades in the making. And she’s made clear that sending the bill to President Biden’s desk, as the House is set to do on Tuesday, will bring a special kind of swan-song satisfaction.

“The bill ensures that, regardless of what the MAGA majority in the Supreme Court may do in the future, the federal government will never again stand in the way of marrying the person you love,” she told reporters Thursday in Washington. “I’m particularly happy because it’ll be one of the last bills that I will sign as Speaker in an enrollment ceremony.”

It won’t be the only one. 

At the top of the Democrats’ must-pass list is legislation to fund the government and prevent a federal shutdown at the end of next week. 

The massive package provides Pelosi and Democrats perhaps their best opportunity to adopt their eleventh-hour fiscal priorities — including new funding to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic — before the House changes hands. Pelosi has made clear Democrats are seeking to maximize their influence by demanding a lengthy spending extension — in the form of either an updated omnibus or a current-level continuing resolution (CR) — through the fiscal year. 

“Passing an omnibus is our strong preference,” she said last week. “But if we can’t have a solution, we have no choice but to keep government open with a yearlong CR.”

Pelosi’s negotiating skills will be put to the test in the Senate, given that Republican support will be needed to send any spending bill to Biden’s desk. But Pelosi’s position has emboldened other Democratic leaders to hold firm in their spending demands. 

“We do not want to leave that to the hands of the GOP, who are already threatening to take down our economy and hold our budget hostage,” Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), who will rise to become the Democratic whip in the next Congress, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.  

Democrats are also hoping to solidify a new round of aid for Ukraine amidst Russia’s long onslaught — a push that has gained urgency given recent warnings from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who’s vying to replace Pelosi as Speaker, that Republicans would not provide Kyiv with a “blank check” when the GOP takes the majority. 

“That’s an important piece, and time and time and time again we have heard recently [that] Republicans now want to condition Ukraine aid,” Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), who will be the House Democratic Caucus chair next year, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday. “So we can’t have that. We need to make sure we’re doing everything we can to stand up to the authoritarianism of Russia.”

Democrats are also on the verge of passing historic legislation to clarify the mechanisms surrounding the transfer of power from one president to the next — legislation that took on new significance following last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol by a pro-Trump mob seeking to overturn his 2020 election defeat. The House and Senate have pushed different versions of that legislation, but even the less stringent Senate bill would mark a victory for Democrats — Pelosi in particular — who were targets of the rioters and have sought to defuse former President Trump’s false claims that the White House is rightfully his. 

“Either bill would be a very, very substantial improvement in the specificity and process that is pursued under law in the electoral count of the Electoral College votes,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) told reporters last week.  

In a longer-shot effort, House Democrats are also vowing to pass legislation granting new rights to undocumented immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, the so-called Dreamers. The bill has a tough road in the Senate, but highlighting that issue on their way out would mirror the Democrats’ strategy in December of 2010, which marked the first time Pelosi negotiated a lame-duck session after losing the House majority in a midterm cycle.

However their lame-duck agenda fares, Democrats say the party’s legislative victories over the last two years — a list that includes COVID-19 aid, massive infrastructure funding, gun control reform and historic climate spending — already mark a fitting finale to Pelosi’s 20 years at the helm. 

“If this Congress had ended a month ago it still would have been a historic — by any measures — a historic Congress. And I think this is an important capstone,” said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.). “A remarkable end to an even more remarkable tenure.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump digs deeper hole with Constitution comments

Former President Trump keeps digging a deeper hole for himself in just the first few weeks of his latest bid for the White House.

Trump, who last week drew condemnation from several high-profile conservatives for dining with a white nationalist, found himself in hot water again over the weekend when he claimed fresh talk of Twitter’s handling of a controversial story about Hunter Biden meant parts of the Constitution should be disregarded so he could return to the White House.

Some Republicans already viewed Trump skeptically after many of his hand-picked candidates in key Senate and gubernatorial races lost their elections last month. The latest controversies risk accelerating calls for the party to look elsewhere moving forward.

“If you’re one of these other people who’s interested [in] running this year, this is certainly an opportunity to create some contrast,” Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the second-ranking Senate Republican, said Monday, calling it “grist” for potential challengers.

An Economist-YouGov poll released last week showed Trump at 36 percent and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) at 30 percent in a potential GOP primary field, a fairly narrow margin for a former president.

Trump is less than a month into his 2024 bid for the White House, a campaign launched with his grip on the GOP at an ebb because of underwhelming midterm results. His most notable moments since launching the campaign have underscored the risks many Republicans see in nominating him for a third time.

Last week, Trump was in hot water after he hosted the rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, who has espoused antisemitic views. Ye and Trump were joined at their dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort by Nick Fuentes, a known white nationalist and Holocaust denier.

This week, Trump is again at the center of controversy over his response to internal Twitter communications that showed company officials in 2020 discussing their decision to limit the spread of a New York Post story that contained allegations about President Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Trump has seized on the internal communications, which were shared with select individuals by Twitter owner Elon Musk, to claim the 2020 election was fraudulent and therefore should be redone or that he should be declared the winner.

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump posted on Truth Social, suggesting there should either be a new election or he should be declared the winner retroactively.

On Monday, amid extensive coverage of Trump’s comments over the weekend, the former president claimed he did not want to “terminate” the Constitution, but he stood by his belief that there should be a do-over of the 2020 election or that he should be returned to the White House.

Many Republicans spoke out to condemn Trump’s meeting with Fuentes and Ye and their antisemitic views, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

But the response to Trump’s weekend comments about the Constitution has been comparatively quiet among Republicans.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said on a South Carolina radio show on Monday morning that “everyone that serves in public office, everyone that aspires to serve or serve again should make it clear that we will support and defend the Constitution of the United States,”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who defeated a Trump-backed challenger in November, said suggesting the Constitution should be terminated “is not only a betrayal of our Oath of Office, it’s an affront to our Republic.”

McCarthy, McConnell and other top Republicans have yet to weigh in, however.

Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio) largely sidestepped answering whether he would still support Trump as the 2024 nominee after his suggestion about the Constitution. 

“He says a lot of things, but that doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to happen,” Joyce said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”

One former Trump White House official argued that the type of media furor over Trump’s rhetoric is only likely to harden the former president’s base supporters, who already believe the media will twist his words.

The official suggested Trump’s campaign ambitions may not suffer significantly given the fairly muted GOP response, and because it’s so early in the race with no other challengers officially declaring yet. Trump will remain the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination until someone can unseat him, the official argued.

The White House, meanwhile, has seized on Trump’s comments. Administration officials have said they do not plan to respond to every one of Trump’s attacks or controversies, but his meeting with a white nationalist and his calls for the “termination” of the Constitution marked instances where they were happy to go on offense.

Deputy press secretary Andrew Bates over the weekend condemned Trump’s rhetoric as “anathema to the soul of our nation” and said it should be “universally condemned.”

The White House on Monday sought to put pressure on congressional Republicans hoping to dodge the controversy.

“Every President and every member of Congress swears to ‘defend’ the Constitution of the United States,” Bates said in a statement. “Asking Members of Congress to reaffirm their oath of office and uphold the Constitution should not be a heavy lift. Congressional Republicans need to do that immediately, instead of repeatedly refusing to answer the most basic question.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Senate GOP skeptical on McCarthy

Senate Republicans are skeptical about House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (Calif.) ability to unify his conference next year.

That concern has Republican senators pushing to pass a year-end spending package, including an increase in spending for defense and military assistance for Ukraine.

With a narrow majority in 2023, McCarthy’s struggles in lining up 218 votes to become Speaker have underscored the challenges he will face passing spending bills or any other major pieces of legislation next year.

Senate Republicans say McCarthy will likely have to rely on Democratic votes to pass spending bills next year to make up for defections within his own conference, which will undercut his negotiating leverage and spark fights with the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

Republican senators allied with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) want to avoid a messy political situation at the start of the new Congress, which could put the defense budget and other federal spending priorities in limbo for months.

This dynamic may prove decisive in getting a budget deal by the end of December, even though conservatives led by Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) are pushing for a stopgap spending bill that would fund the government at current levels until Republicans take control of the House next year.

McConnell’s allies are speaking out against freezing federal spending levels until 2023, when they could be negotiated by the new House GOP majority, at a time when the Senate GOP leader is coming under heavy pressure from conservatives to do just that.

Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee who challenged McConnell last month for the top Senate GOP leadership job, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal Monday urging colleagues to reject an omnibus.

“Anyone supporting a bloated omnibus that spends taxpayer dollars on radical waste, like 87,000 IRS employees, has surrendered to massive debt and raging inflation, which are affecting every American family,” he wrote.

Some Senate Republicans worry that kicking spending decisions until next year could risk a legislative pileup in the House, and a potential standoff with Senate Democrats and President Biden with the threat of a government shutdown looming over it.

“There are those who believe that moving something this year takes one issue off the table, off the plate, next year that they’d have to deal with right away,” said Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) about the reluctance among Senate Republicans about dumping a messy spending negotiation for fiscal 2023 onto the incoming House GOP majority.

“They’re going to, obviously, have their hands full. Any narrow majority, Democratic or Republican — as the Democrats found the last two years — creates a real challenge from a managing-the-institution standpoint. I don’t think a narrow Republican majority will be any different,” Thune added.

Asked for comment for this article, McCarthy’s office pointed to recent statements made by the House GOP leader.

McCarthy told reporters after meeting with Biden and fellow congressional leaders last week that he wanted to wrap up work on the omnibus spending bill before the new year but emphasized that Democrats would have to make concessions.

“What I explained to all them is that I can work with anyone who is willing to get our spending under control, to work to make America energy independent, to secure our borders,” he said. “[Continuing resolutions] are not where we want to be, but if we cannot get our work done now — the outgoing majority, if they don’t want to work with us — we can get this work done in January as well.”

However, Senate Republicans are skeptical that McCarthy and the rest of the House GOP leadership would be able to get a spending deal worked out in the first few weeks — or months — of next year given all the challenges they face organizing their new majority.

McCarthy hasn’t yet locked down the votes he needs to be elected Speaker, and there are growing questions about whether he will even lead the House GOP conference next year.

If he does emerge as Speaker, he likely will be weakened given the battle he will have fought with conservatives in his conference just to wield the gavel next year, Senate sources predict.

Senate Republicans say the prospect that a newly minted House Republican majority will be able to negotiate a spending package anytime soon is a fantasy and warn that could have serious consequences for military readiness and support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.

“The House with the new majority, they’re going to have to get organized. I think dumping this in their laps” is a “worse choice” than passing an omnibus this month, said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to the Senate Republican leadership team.

He predicted that could delay increases in military spending for months and create a legislative logjam at the start of the new Congress.

“They’re not going to be able to do this right away. It will take them months to get organized in order to pass a bill, so I think the lesser of evils is to pass an omnibus bill this year,” he said.

Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman Roy Blunt (Mo.), who served as House majority leader before being elected to the Senate, predicted that punting spending decisions into next year would create a train wreck in early 2023.

“I think the worst thing we could do to a newly formed Republican House is send them a [continuing resolution] into early in the year,” he said. “I just don’t think they’ll be ready for it — for good reasons, even if they were totally prepared and capable.

“This is something that takes quite a while to deal with, and it will be a mistake for them and us both if we make it,” warned Blunt, who is retiring at the end of this Congress.

A Senate Republican aide said it would be virtually impossible for McCarthy to negotiate a spending deal with Democrats early next year given how narrow his majority will be and how much pressure he is currently under from discontented House conservatives.

“I don’t think there is a word to describe how impossible it will be,” the aide said. “I think that everybody understands that we have to do an omnibus. I think the challenge is that Schumer thinks he has more leverage than he really does.”

The aide said Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) is trying to take advantage of what he sees as Senate Republicans’ desperation to get an omnibus bill passed and is pushing to keep increases in nondefense discretionary spending on par with increases in defense spending and other concessions that are tough for Republicans to swallow.

“There’s only so much we can spend. He doesn’t have an unlimited blank check,” the aide said.

That’s why Sen. Richard Shelby (Ala.), the retiring ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee who wants to pass an omnibus bill next month, is trying to keep expectations in check.

“McConnell and others, we’d like to get an omnibus if we can, but not at any cost,” he told reporters last week.

Source: TEST FEED1

Five things to watch in the Georgia Senate runoff

The last act of the 2022 midterms plays out on Tuesday, when voters in Georgia go to the polls in the Senate runoff election.

More than 1.8 million Georgians have cast their ballots prior to Election Day as Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) and former football star Herschel Walker (R) duke it out.

The runoff was required because, under Georgia law, a candidate needs to win more than 50 percent of all votes cast in order to be elected.

Warnock topped the poll on Nov. 8 but fell just short of 50 percent in a field that included a Libertarian candidate.

What are the things to watch on Tuesday?

Can Election Day turnout save Walker?

Early voting turnout for the runoff has been exceptionally strong — something that almost certainly benefits Warnock.

The state repeatedly broke its one-day record for early voting in recent days, topping things off with a turnout of more than 350,000 voters last Friday.

That’s important for Warnock for several reasons.

First, Democrats generally benefit from high turnout.

Second, there have been long lines in the heavily Democratic counties in the Atlanta area. 

Third, Democrats cast about 52 percent of early ballots whereas Republicans cast only 39 percent, according to data provided by TargetSmart to NBC News.

Those figures suggest Walker has a significant hill to climb. 

On the other hand, the same-day vote tends to favor Republicans. 

The former University of Georgia football star will be desperately hoping for a big turnout on Tuesday.

Are the polls wrong, again?

Opinion polls taken since the Nov. 8 general election clearly point to a Warnock victory, albeit a narrow one.

There have been five major polls released since the start of December. Walker has not led in any of them. 

A poll for The Hill from Emerson College, released Dec. 1, put Warnock up by 2 percentage points. 

The same survey also pointed to pessimism among Georgia Republicans. 

Spencer Kimball, the executive director of Emerson College Polling, said at the time that despite Warnock’s advantage “being well within the poll’s margin of error, a Walker win would surprise the majority of voters. About 1 in 5 Republicans expect their nominee to lose.”

The four other major polls put Warnock ahead by between 3 and 5 points.

All of that being said, pollsters have hardly had a stellar record in recent years, missing former President Trump’s 2016 victory, overestimating President Biden’s likely 2020 margin and, just last month, pointing to a better Election Day for the GOP than what actually materialized.

The same goes for the Georgia contest. 

Right before the first round of voting, data and polling site FiveThirtyEight gave Walker a 63 percent chance of prevailing, while the RealClearPolitics polling average had the Republican up by 1.4 percentage points. 

When the votes were counted, Warnock had an advantage of about 1 point.

Walker needs the polls to be wrong again — this time in the opposite direction — on Tuesday.

How does Trump react?

Trump had a very disappointing midterm elections, with many of his most high-profile endorsees losing.

The poor performance began a cascade of events that have left the former president looking weaker than he has for some time.

First, Trump-skeptical Republicans were newly emboldened to argue he was hurting the party. Next, Trump delivered an underwhelming speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Nov. 15 to launch his 2024 candidacy. Then, he was enmeshed in controversy for a full week after having dinner with two prominent antisemites: Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, and Nick Fuentes. 

On Saturday, Trump incited yet more controversy with a social media posting calling for his own reinstatement as president and the “termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

In Georgia, Trump prodded Walker to run in the first place and endorsed him.

But Walker’s many weaknesses as a candidate are a problem. 

The Republican nominee has been accused of encouraging two ex-girlfriends to have abortions despite his public anti-abortion position, as well as exaggerating his business successes and ties to law enforcement.

If he loses, watch whether Trump disowns him, tries to place the blame elsewhere or simply goes quiet.

Either way, such an outcome would again strengthen the case of those Republicans arguing the party needs to move on from the 45th president.

Of course, if Walker wins, Trump can draw a belated measure of vindication from the result.

Has Walker lost the middle?

One data point from Nov. 8 was especially stark: Walker won roughly 200,000 fewer votes than his party colleague in the state, Gov. Brian Kemp. 

Kemp won reelection comfortably over Democrat Stacey Abrams.

That pointed to a potentially grave problem for Walker — a seeming inability to connect with moderate Republicans and independent voters.

Exit polls indicate that Warnock bested Walker by 11 points among the roughly one-in-four voters who consider themselves independent. Among self-described “moderates,” Warnock’s margin was much larger again — more than 30 points.

Since then, Walker has been caught up in yet another furor, this time amid reports that he got a tax break on a property in Texas that is only intended to be used for someone’s primary residence.

Again, it is possible that Walker pulls out a surprise on Tuesday. But that scenario requires a significant improvement among independent voters

Does Warnock thank Biden?

Warnock has played a shrewd political game in a state where Biden’s approval ratings are well underwater.

The incumbent Democrat has stressed his efforts to reach across the aisle, working with Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on highway improvements and maternal mortality, respectively, 

He has also been more eager to stress local, practical gains, like securing investments in the port of Savannah, than to wrap himself in the Democratic flag.

Biden, for his part, has also kept his distance. The president on Friday showed up to support volunteers making phone calls to help Warnock — from Massachusetts.

If Warnock wins, it’ll be worth noting whether he name-checks Biden in a victory speech or tries to maintain his independent image.

Source: TEST FEED1

Rail workers warn of exodus after Congress forces through deal

Railroad workers could leave the industry after Congress forced through a contract that does not provide them any paid sick days, an exodus that would ripple through an economy reliant on freight railroads to transport goods.

The exit of thousands of train conductors and engineers would be felt by major corporations and U.S. consumers alike. It could slow the delivery of food, fuel and online orders while strangling already-shaky supply chains.

The economy was almost upended by a nationwide strike before lawmakers intervened last week to enforce a deal many workers found lacking.

Those who were holding out hope for a strong contract might look for a new job after the deal failed to provide paid sick leave or put an end to strict attendance policies and strenuous schedules that require workers to be on call constantly, rail workers say. 

“I don’t think you’ll just see half of the workforce disappear, but you’ll see a good percentage, and we can’t afford for anybody to leave because we’re so undermanned as it is,” said Hugh Sawyer, an Atlanta-based engineer at Norfolk Southern.

Any exodus of workers would only exacerbate staffing shortages brought on by railroads laying off around 30 percent of their workforce over the past six years. That, in turn, has led to exhausted workers and persistent delays and cancellations when demand for shipped products spiked. 

Business groups have warned that the disruptions, which are driven by staffing shortfalls, helped fuel inflation.

Sawyer, who serves as treasurer of grassroots rail reform group Railroad Workers United, said that younger workers who place more emphasis on work-life balance will be the first to leave.

“Most of these people live in or around metro Atlanta. The economy’s booming. They will find a job elsewhere,” Sawyer said.

Workers say that some employees could leave as soon as they receive back pay and cash bonuses, which will average roughly $16,000 per person. Railroads will dole out that money within 60 days.

The Association of American Railroads (AAR) said in a statement that carriers hear workers’ concerns and agree that “conversations about work-life balance issues must continue.” The industry group said that railroads’ train and engine workforce has grown 8 percent since January. 

“The benefits and compensation packages are part of why that is the case — both of which are seeing historic increases through this deal with average wages and compensation rising to $160,000 over the course of the contract,” an AAR spokesperson said. “Railroading is difficult work, and our employees are compensated accordingly in recognition of that.” 

The contract signed into law Friday, negotiated with the help of the Biden administration, provides 24 percent raises over five years and allows workers to take three unpaid days off for medical appointments, a provision that wasn’t included in previous proposals. 

But it doesn’t offer any paid sick days, adjust schedules or remove attendance policies that penalize workers for missing time to attend family gatherings or other scheduled events.

“They talk about the money in this contract. It’s just not worth it to have to give up what these people have to give up,” said Jeff Kurtz, a Railroad Workers United member who worked as a locomotive engineer in Iowa for 40 years. 

Kurtz said that railway workers might take less money to work factory or trucking jobs that offer consistent hours and are always hiring. 

Congress last week overrode four unions that had not ratified agreements with railroads. Those include train and engine workers at SMART-TD, the largest rail union, who rejected the tentative contract last month. 

Unions lobbied lawmakers to add seven days of paid sick leave to the deal, while railroads pushed back, arguing that Congress would set a dangerous precedent by modifying the contract. 

The House passed the sick leave measure with the support of every Democrat and three Republicans. Just six GOP senators voted for the proposal, dooming its chances in the upper chamber. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) was the only Democrat to vote against it. 

“The senators who opposed the measure all have paid sick days, as do their staff. Apparently, they believe the nation’s rail workers are ‘essential’ to the American economy and supply chain, but not essential enough to deserve the same protection as them when becoming ill,” SMART-TD said in a statement following the vote.

Union officials have sought to keep hope alive by assuring workers that they are still pushing for paid sick leave. That could come in the form of another legislative effort or an executive order that requires federal contractors, including railroads, to provide paid sick days.

At the bill signing, President Biden said he would continue to fight for paid sick leave, but didn’t offer specifics on how he would go about it. 

“It’s a really good bill lacking only one thing, and we’re going to get that one thing done before it’s all over,” Biden said. 

And on Monday, activist investors filed proposals requesting that Norfolk Southern and Union Pacific provide paid sick leave, arguing that the companies must provide the benefit to stay competitive and keep workers safe.

“Focusing on the short term at the expense of workers poses potential risks to the company and the economy,” Kate Monahan, who leads shareholder advocacy at Trillium Asset Management, said in a statement. “As shareholders, we are asking management to reprioritize and take the longer-term view that safeguarding the health and safety of their workers will better position them for the future.”

Paid sick leave would represent a significant consolation prize for rail workers who are fed up with a system that they believe allows railroad executives to ignore their demands. 

Railroads and unions engaged in tenuous negotiations for more than three years and remained at a standstill until a Biden-appointed board of experts released contract recommendations in July.

While workers in other essential industries took part in a wave of strikes this year, rail unions must overcome a series of roadblocks authorized by Congress that are explicitly designed to make a walkout difficult, if not impossible, taking away a key source of leverage. That system won’t change anytime soon. 

“The federal government inserted itself into the dispute between the railroads and the railroad workers under the premise that it must protect the American economy. Yet, when the federal government makes that decision, its representatives have a moral responsibility to also protect the interests of the citizens that make this nation’s economy work — American railroaders,” Tony Cardwell, president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division, said in a statement. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Senate GOP pans Trump call to terminate Constitution

Former President Trump’s weekend call to terminate parts of the U.S. Constitution in order to overturn the 2020 election results was met with derision and opposition by Senate Republicans on Monday. 

“I think it’s ridiculous talk,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), a newly minted member of GOP leadership. “To besmirch our dedication to the Constitution is ridiculous.”

“Very inappropriate,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), an ally of the former president. “The statement was inappropriate and I’m glad to see him clarify. 

“Most Republicans are frustrated, but that wasn’t the answer,” he added.

Trump’s remarks came in a post on Truth Social on Saturday and bookended a crazy news cycle for the former president, even by his own lofty standards. They came only days after news emerged that he dined with Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, and white supremacist Nick Fuentes, both of whom have openly and widely made antisemitic remarks. 

On Monday, Trump tried to back away from his Saturday remarks. 

“The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and all of their other HOAXES & SCAMS,” Trump wrote Monday afternoon, adding that he meant for “steps must be immediately taken to RIGHT THE WRONG.”

In a separate post written in all caps, Trump said that “if an election is irrefutably fraudulent, it should go to the rightful winner or, at a minimum, be redone. Where open and blatant fraud is involved, there should be no time limit for change!”

Nevertheless, Senate GOP members had an array of responses to Trump’s suggestion but, in typical fashion, avoided criticizing the former president himself.

“I don’t know why anybody would say something like that, certainly not an ex-president,” said Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). “I think that’s irresponsible.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a self-proclaimed supporter of the nation’s formative document, told reporters that the Constitution “is enduring and it will be for millennia to come.” He declined to respond when asked if the 45th president was wrong. 

At one point, a reporter asked Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) about the ex-president’s remarks. After saying that she hadn’t seen them, she asked incredulously, “Which election?” and audibly laughed after being told Trump was talking about the 2020 contest.

Trump is the lone entrant so far in the 2024 race for the Republican nomination. That has not stopped other potential entrants in the primary battle from criticizing his latest round of remarks.

Former Vice President Mike Pence told a South Carolina radio station on Monday that anyone who runs for the party’s presidential nomination “should make it clear that we will support and defend the Constitution.”

Alexander Bolton contributed. 

Source: TEST FEED1