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McConnell, McCarthy public splits raise questions about ability to govern

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have drifted apart over the past two years, raising questions about whether they’ll be able work together if Republicans win back the House. 

Republicans who know both men say they have a good relationship and continue to meet regularly, but also acknowledge their different jobs and constituencies will invariably drive them apart publicly.  

Working hand in glove next year also is complicated by their strikingly different relationships with former President Trump, who remains the dominant force in Republican politics.  

McConnell’s willingness to compromise with Democrats on bills that he sees as moving the country forward has drawn fierce criticism from Trump over the past two years.  

McCarthy, by contrast, has had the luxury of opposing almost everything Democrats bring to the floor, without having to worry about causing a shutdown or a default on the federal debt.  

All that will change if Republicans win the House and McCarthy is elected Speaker, giving him control over the House agenda.  

“There’s a lot of tension because they have very different views toward Trump and different visions for the future of the Republican Party,” said Darrell West, director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank.  

“McCarthy is more of a populist while McConnell is an establishment Republican, so that leads to policy differences on a range of issues,” he added. 

McConnell helped fashion a compromise in December that allowed Democrats to raise the debt limit through the Senate with a simple majority vote.  

McCarthy and other House GOP leaders, by comparison, made raising the limit harder by saying they would not vote for such a measure even if it were attached to popular defense legislation.  

This is already fueling anxiety that Congress is heading for another debt-limit standoff next year, with Republicans potentially in control of the House this time. 

In 2011, the nation came perilously close to defaulting on its obligations with a Democrat in the White House and a GOP House. It prompted Standard and Poor’s to downgrade the nation’s credit rating.  

A Republican leadership aide said any talk of strained relations between the two leaders is overblown.  

“They have a good relationship and meet regularly,” said the aide, who explained that McConnell and McCarthy try to meet at least once every congressional work period and rotate meetings between their two offices, using a private hallway to travel between the two chambers.  

Publicly, however, McConnell has rarely acknowledged his House counterpart, and McCarthy has done nothing to defend McConnell from Trump. 

McCarthy stayed silent when Trump declared that McConnell had a “death wish” after he cut a deal with Democrats to fund the government until mid-December and disparaged his wife, Elaine Chao , who served as Trump’s secretary of Transportation, as “China loving … Coco Chow.”

Since denouncing Trump on the Senate floor in February 2021, McConnell has become a symbol of establishment GOP opposition to the ex-president’s special brand of populism. McCarthy has carefully tended his relationship with Trump to avoid angering the populist conservative faction of the House GOP conference.

Scott Jennings, a Republican strategist who has advised McConnell’s past campaigns, said the two leaders “have a good working relationship,” but he acknowledged they “have to maneuver around each other” because of “the vast differences of their conferences.”  

“McCarthy’s conference is much different in its reaction to all events than McConnell’s, and some of that is rooted in natural differences between the Senate and the House, but some of it is also rooted in the differences in the personalities that each of them are managing and their policy preferences,” he said.  

He added it is easy to “overread” their relationship since “the biggest issue is the tint of the conference when it comes to Trump.” 

McConnell’s office provided to The Hill a statement he made to another press outlet this summer when asked about his relationship with McCarthy.  

“No one is pulling harder than I am for him to win back the House so we can stop the Biden administration’s liberal agenda,” he said.  

McConnell and McCarthy have split on several of the biggest bipartisan bills to become law during President Biden’s first two years in office.  

McConnell voted for the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, gun violence legislation responding to the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, and the $280 billion CHIPS and Science Act. McCarthy voted against all three, slamming legislation to help the nation’s semiconductor industry as a “blank check” and “corporate welfare to be handed out to whoever President Biden wants.”

The two leaders diverged at the start of this Congress when McConnell urged members against supporting objections to Biden’s victory in the Electoral College while McCarthy joined more than 140 of his House GOP colleagues in voting to overturn the election results.  

They also adopted different strategies in response to the fallout of Jan. 6, 2021, with McConnell calling Trump’s actions before the riot at the Capitol “a disgraceful dereliction of duty.” He said there was “no question” that Trump was “practically and morally responsible” for the attack. 

McCarthy initially told fellow House Republicans in a private call that Trump bore some responsibility and that he would recommend that Trump resign. He then changed course and swiftly rallied to Trump’s defense. McCarthy visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort later that January in a public — and widely criticized — show of loyalty. 

Republican strategists and aides said McCarthy felt compelled to quickly make amends with Trump because he worried that his bid to become Speaker could become derailed. 

Unlike the Senate, where McConnell only needs a majority vote of his own conference to become majority leader if Republicans win back the upper chamber, McCarthy needs a majority vote of the entire House to become Speaker. That means he can afford only a few defections in his conference on the Speaker’s vote, depending on the size of his majority.

This has been a key factor driving McConnell and McCarthy apart since Trump lost reelection.  

Despite the different pressures they face, Republican strategists predict McCarthy and McConnell will be able to find a way to work together to keep the government funded and the nation from defaulting on its debt if Republicans seize control of one or both chambers.  

Vin Weber, a Republican strategist, said McCarthy knows he’ll have to show he can work with McConnell and Democrats to govern to increase Republicans’ chances of holding onto the majority, should they win it next month, and defeat Biden in 2024.

“They are different, not incompatible in my view,” he said. “McConnell is very much an institutionalist but he’s also a strong partisan. McCarthy is also a strong partisan.” 

Previous Republican Speakers John Boehner (Ohio) and Paul Ryan (Wis.) also faced major headaches managing different Republican House factions.  

Weber said McCarthy “will want to do whatever is necessary to stay in the majority and part of that is not getting into a fight with Mitch McConnell.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Elite public colleges slash acceptance rates, raising pressure on students

Not long ago, a student with a high class rank and solid SAT scores could count on a seat at the local state university. 

No more. At the most prestigious public institutions, admission rates now hover in the 10- to 20-percent range, a tier of selectivity once reserved for the Ivy League. 

University of California flagships in Los Angeles and Berkeley admitted 9 and 11 percent of applicants, respectively, to the 2022 fall class. UCLA fielded 149,813 applications, enough students to populate Jackson, Miss.  

At the universities of North Carolina and Virginia, admission rates narrowed to 17 and 19 percent, respectively, for the new freshman class. Flagship campuses in Georgia, Illinois and Wisconsin all admitted less than half of their applicants this year. A decade ago, all three reported admit rates over 60 percent. 

Simply put, the admissions crunch bespeaks more students applying to the same number of top-tier public universities. The college-age cohort is growing apace with the U.S. population. Students are applying to more schools, thanks to the internet and the easily replicated Common Application.  

College enrollment declined during the pandemic. Now, students who paused their studies may be returning to campus. College administrators and consultants expect admission rates at elite schools to dip further in the 2023-24 cycle, which is already underway. Many schools have early-decision deadlines on Nov. 1.  

“It’s a little like the Wild West in admissions these days, filled with uncertainty,” said Caroline Fisk, an educational consultant in Cary, N.C., who has watched the dwindling admission rate at the flagship North Carolina campus in Chapel Hill.  

Vegas-style odds are not the norm in higher education. The average collegiate admission rate stands at roughly 70 percent, according to U.S. News & World Report, publisher of the best-known college rankings.  

Today’s middle-aged parents attended college in an era when only a few dozen elite universities, nearly all private, could boast truly daunting admission rates. Harvard, Princeton and Yale, the cream of the crop of the Ivy League, admitted roughly 15 to 20 percent of applicants in the late 1980s. This fall, Harvard’s admission rate reached an infinitesimal low of 3.19 percent.  

No public flagship approaches that plateau of single-digit selectivity, but a few are getting close. An analysis of enrollment data at 18 elite public universities by The Hill found an average admission rate of 31 percent in 2022, down from 47 percent in 2012 and 52 percent in 2002.  

For a prestigious private campus, a low admission rate is a bragging right, a branding tool, a mark of pedigree. For a public flagship, a declining admit rate is all of that – and also a public-policy headache. 

Public flagships face a singular challenge: providing access to the highest-performing students in their states, while also cultivating a global reputation and collecting sufficient funds to finance their academics.  

Building global currency and raising funds means courting out-of-state students, who bring a sense of worldliness, and who generally pay tuition at much higher rates. But each of those students takes a seat from a local taxpayer.  

This summer, the ten-campus University of California (UC) system announced plans to add 23,000 students by decade’s end. Some of the extra capacity will come at the expense of out-of-state students, the ones who pay higher tuition.  

“In the last four years, California has dramatically increased funding to the UCs, but on the condition that they dramatically increase enrollment of California residents,” said Ozan Jaquette, an assistant professor of higher education at UCLA. 

Perhaps no state university system has seen such a surge of applicants as UC. Population growth is but one factor. Several UC campuses occupy picture-postcard settings and perch near the top of the collegiate rankings, qualities that put them in perennial demand among high-school seniors around the globe. The system’s recent decision to ignore standardized tests removed a longtime barrier to entry. Two years of COVID-19 isolation have only heightened the appeal of any campus with year-round warmth and a nearby beach.  

At UC Irvine, on the Orange County coast, the first-year applicant pool has swelled from 30,630 in 2002 to 119,165 in 2022. In that span, the admission rate has plummeted from 59 percent to 21 percent.  

California admission rates might have dipped lower still. A group called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods has fought steady enrollment growth at the flagship campus. A judge capped Berkeley’s enrollment last year, almost forcing the school to cut 2,600 students. Legislators swept in to override the cap, prioritizing student access over potential harm to Berkeley’s infrastructure and environment.  

California guarantees a seat at UC to any Californian who finishes among the top 9 percent of all high-school students, as divined by a complicated formula. The guarantee doesn’t promise applicants their choice of campus.  

The University of Texas guarantees admission to its Austin flagship to students at the top of their high-school classes. But Texas, too, has struggled to find space: This year, the state’s Top 10 Percent Law applies only to students in the top 6 percent.  

As admissions tightened, flagship universities in Texas and Illinois endured highly publicized scandals alleging backdoor admissions that helped well-connected applicants skirt the rules. The Illinois investigation found preferential admissions for children of politicians and university trustees in the late 2000s. The Texas inquiry found that UT Austin President Bill Powers overruled his staff to admit students of well-connected Texans in the 2010s.  

As a result, both systems adopted reforms to root out potential bias in the selection process.  

At the flagship University of Illinois campus in Urbana-Champaign, the admission rate has dwindled from 63 percent in 2012 to 45 percent in 2022. In a bid to expand access, the university asks students to list ranked choices among several schools, each with its own admission rate: 50 percent in liberal arts, 7 percent in computer science. 

“We have plenty of seats for qualified residents,” said Andrew Borst, director of undergraduate admissions. “But that doesn’t stop frustrated parents – it’s usually parents – from calling and saying, ‘I can’t believe that my son or daughter didn’t get X.’”  

Of the more than 50,000 students at Urbana-Champaign, 71 percent are Illinoisans. The legislature has set no quota, but “they want to see that percent go up, and so do we,” Borst said. 

Access isn’t the only problem. The university is accepting “more Illinois students than ever before,” Borst said, “but fewer of them are accepting our offer, and many of them are citing cost.” 

The annual tab for a University of Illinois education ranges from $33,500 to $38,750, including room and board, for an in-state student. A year at Harvard, by contrast, tops out around $77,000. 

Yet, Illinois students cite cost as their top reason for choosing not to attend Urbana-Champaign. Many families commit to public and private schools in far-flung states that offer massive discounts, often tendered as merit aid. A 2018 investigation by the Chicago Tribune unearthed a colony of Illinois students at the University of Alabama, lured by generous offers of aid.  

A new national poll echoes this trend: 52 percent of Americans consider the local public university unaffordable.  

 Georgia Tech in Atlanta charges $28,000 a year for in-state students, less than some of its public peers. The school has added seats for Georgians in recent years. And so, while the school’s overall admission rate has declined to 17 percent, the rate for in-state students is 35 percent.  

“Our first-year class is 600 bigger than it was three years ago,” said Rick Clark, executive director of undergraduate admission. “We’ve been trying to meet demand.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Congress eyeing ‘NOPEC’ bill to take on Saudi Arabia

Momentum is building in Congress in support of legislation that would take on the OPEC+ group of oil-producing nations that just announced cuts in production likely to help Russia and raise prices in the United States.Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) recently floated using the legislation, known as “NOPEC,” as one way to respond to the group, which includes Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Some lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have gone even further, saying that the decision by the Saudi-led group to reduce production by 2 million barrels a day is a reason to significantly shift relations with Riyadh.

The White House has not explicitly backed the bill, but said following the production cut announcement that it would “consult with Congress on additional tools and authorities to reduce OPEC’s control over energy prices.”

On Tuesday, the White House told reporters that President Biden believes the U.S. should review the Saudi relationship given the production cuts.

“Certainly, in light of recent developments and OPEC+’s decision about oil production, the president believes that we should review the bilateral relationship with Saudi Arabia and to take a look to see if that relationship is where it needs to be and that it is serving our national security interests,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters during a call.

The NOPEC legislation would enable the Justice Department to bring lawsuits against the OPEC+ countries and their state-owned oil companies under U.S. antitrust laws.

Durbin has called for its passage in the lame-duck session after the November midterm elections.

Schumer has said he was “looking at” the bill but stopped short of calling for its passage.

“We are looking at all the legislative tools to best deal with this appalling and deeply cynical action, including the NOPEC bill,” he said in a recent statement.

A number of Democrats have expressed a desire to respond to the cuts.

“There’s got to be consequences … whether it’s lifting the cartel’s immunity, or whether it’s rethinking our troop presence there, I just think it’s time to admit that the Saudis are not looking out for us,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in a recent CNN interview.

On the other side of the aisle, the bill’s GOP sponsors have also argued that recent developments bolster the legislation’s importance.

A statement released by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) last week said that the senator would add the NOPEC bill, which he sponsored, as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress is expected to take up when it returns in November.

“My bipartisan NOPEC Act would crack down on these tactics by the foreign oil cartel. It’s already cleared the Judiciary Committee on a bipartisan basis, and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t pass as a part of our upcoming defense authorization effort. Our energy supply is a matter of national security,” Grassley said in the statement.

Grassley spokesperson Taylor Foy told The Hill this week that he believes there’s “bipartisan support” for including the legislation in the defense bill.

The NOPEC bill was spearheaded by Grassley, as well as Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt).

Lee’s office similarly said via email that the senator believes “recent events have demonstrated why it is so needed now more than ever, and he looks forward to working with his colleagues in the Senate to get it to the President’s desk as soon as possible.”

The bill advanced out of the Judiciary Committee in a bipartisan 17-4 vote, winning support from every committee Democrat as well as GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Tom Cotton (Ark.), Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), Grassley and Lee.

But some Republicans oppose the legislation, and the party may be hesitant to hand Democrats a win.

In a Fox News interview last week, No. 3 Senate Republican John Barrasso (Wyo.) said “that’s not going to go anywhere,” when asked about the bill and other Democratic policy suggestions.

“We need American energy. We have it here,” he said.

Democrats in particular are under pressure to show they are doing something to address high gas prices as Republicans make the issue part of their midterm attacks.

Analyst Claudio Galimberti told The Hill he did not think the NOPEC bill would actually solve the price problem.

“The impact of this NOPEC bill on the market is minimal as it is self-defeating,” he said in an email.

“A lawsuit is open to all sorts of retaliation from OPEC, which would actually decrease, not increase the supply of oil. The only solution to low supply from OPEC is more supply from elsewhere,” he added.

Similar bills have been considered in the past.

In 2007, the House passed a version of the bill in a widely bipartisan vote, but it was opposed by the Bush administration.

The threat of retaliation by the Saudis and other OPEC members has been a reason for opposition in the past.

“One interesting question is … the US also authorizes certain types of cartels, especially in agriculture,” said former Federal Trade Commissioner William Kovacic, who is now the director of George Washington University’s Competition Law Center. “Would the OPEC countries adopt legislation that subjects those government-authorized collusive schemes to prosecution as well, where they seek to retaliate by going after basically U.S. agricultural products?”

Historically, Kovacic said, the State Department in particular has been apprehensive about the impact of such a law, “because these involve extraordinarily delicate questions of foreign policy and international relations.”

“If you want to resolve the disputes and disagreements with these countries, do you use diplomatic negotiations and leverage as the method to do it? Or do you say ‘to hell with it’?” he said.

Alexander Bolton and Alex Gangitano contributed.

Source: TEST FEED1

The Memo: Democrats in tough races stiff-arm Biden

Democrats in some of the nation’s battleground races are trying to separate themselves from President Biden.

It’s likely a necessary tactic. But it’s also a difficult needle to thread, given that Democratic candidates need to energize the party’s base while also winning the backing of moderate voters.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) offered the most prominent example yet of the trend on Monday evening, when he reiterated his belief that Biden, 79, should not run for a second term during a debate with Republican J.D. Vance.

“I’ve been very clear. I’d like to see a generational change,” Ryan said at the debate in Cleveland. Ryan and Vance are vying for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Rob Portman (R).

Ryan also took aim at Vice President Harris and her recent assertion that the southern border is secure.

“Kamala Harris is absolutely wrong on that. It’s not secure,” Ryan said. “I’m not here to just get in a fight or just toe the Democratic Party line. I’m here to speak the truth.”

The border was also on the mind of Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) at his debate last week with Republican opponent Blake Masters.

Kelly called the situation on the border a “mess” and linked his view of that particular issue to a broader willingness to buck the administration. 

“When Democrats are wrong, like on the border, I call them out on it, because I’m always going to stick up for Arizona,” Kelly said at the debate.

Kelly went on to note he had also dissented from Biden’s restrictions on new oil and gas leases. “I told him he was wrong,” Kelly said. 

Other candidates have sounded similar notes, though without being quite so emphatic.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that the Democratic Party needs “new blood” — while also saying that she would support Biden if he sought a second term.

Slotkin is one of a handful of House Democrats who represent districts that were carried by former President Trump in the 2020 election.

These battleground moves are striking because they keep the fires of speculation burning around whether Biden will, or should, seek a second term. Statements of Democratic dissent on emotive topics like immigration are also sure to be seized on by Republicans at a national level as they try to make a broad case against the president.

But Democratic candidates in competitive states and districts may have little choice, given Biden’s mediocre approval ratings. 

The president’s job performance draws the support of about 42 percent of Americans, by contrast to the 52 percent who disapprove, according to the weighted average maintained by data and polling site FiveThirtyEight.

“Look, I think President Biden has been around long enough to understand the practicalities of where people need to be politically,” Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky told this column.

“A president has to get elected across a cross-section of the country — he can’t just win border states or ‘coastal elite’ states,” Roginsky added. “But Mark Kelly has one job, which is to win Arizona. Tim Ryan has one job, which is to win Ohio.”

There are specific challenges there for each man. 

Biden won Arizona in 2020, but he did so by less than half a percentage point — and was the first Democrat to carry the state since former President Clinton in 1996. 

Ryan, who like Kelly endorsed Biden in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, has an even steeper hill to climb. 

Ohio, seen as a presidential bellwether for many decades, has trended Republican in recent years. Even though former President Obama carried it twice, so too did former President Trump — and by comfortable margins — in both 2016 and 2020.

“Ohio is now considered to be more of a red state,” said Ohio-based Democratic strategist Jerry Austin. “So what [Ryan] is doing is saying, ‘My voting record shows I vote with my constituents. When I think the White House is right, I vote with them; and when I think they are wrong, I vote against them.’ ”

However, Democratic candidates hoping to run district- or state-specific campaigns have to deal with a president — and vice president — who are increasingly willing to insert themselves into the midterms campaign.

Biden, who has hit out at Trump-style Republicans several times recently, was scheduled to be interviewed by CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday. He gave an interview to CBS’s “60 Minutes” last month.

Harris made a rare late-night talk show appearance on Monday night, on NBC’s “Late Night with Seth Meyers.” In the interview, she contended that Republican governors who were transporting migrants to Democratic-run areas of the country were guilty of “an absolute dereliction of duty.”

Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to connect vulnerable Democrats as closely as possible to the president. 

The House Republicans’ campaign arm this week, for example, is targeting Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa) with an ad that begins with the words “Cindy Axne & Joe Biden” emblazoned across the screen, together with the charge that they support doubling the size of the IRS.

Axne, like Slotkin, represents a district Trump carried in 2020.

Democratic candidates in purple districts and states might have a route to victory by proudly proclaiming their independence. 

But the path is narrow, uncertain and hard to navigate.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.

Source: TEST FEED1

Why the Supreme Court is taking on so many politically divisive cases

On Fridays at the Supreme Court, justices gather behind closed doors to discuss the petitions for appeal filed from across the country. Roughly 98 percent of the time, the justices deny an appeal, a result which leaves intact the decision of a lower court and consigns the unsuccessful petition to the trash heap.

For the slim fraction of cases the court does hear each term, however, the dynamics surrounding the selection of these disputes represent a huge source of the 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court’s power as it remakes constitutional law. 

Yet despite being highly consequential, the court’s critical gatekeeping stage is perhaps one of the least well-understood aspects of how the Supreme Court goes about its business. Here’s a snapshot of how the conservative supermajority is using the Supreme Court’s docketing process to flex its muscle. 

The court’s 6-3 conservative majority wants to go big

The Supreme Court has near total discretion over the cases it hears. This power is subject to the so-called “rule of four,” an informal rule stipulating that four or more justices must agree to grant an appeal.

This was not always the case. During its roughly first hundred years, the Supreme Court decided the merits of virtually all appeals within its jurisdiction, but over the course of its lifetime, justices have gained an increasing amount of control over the court’s caseload.

The present-day docket is now shaped according to the preferences of the justices, though certain factors — like the existence of conflicting decisions among intermediate appeals courts — make the justices more likely to take up a case. It’s worth noting that this procedure does not reflect the activity that occurs on an emergency basis under the court’s so-called “shadow docket.”

With a 6-3 conservative supermajority, the court has shown ample appetite to hand-pick bold slates of cases with the potential to move constitutional law very far and very fast to the right.

“Last term showed six conservative justices who have a very conservative agenda for the law and are aggressively implementing it,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. “I think we’ll see that again this year.”

Last term, the court chose to confront the constitutional right to abortion, which it scuttled; took on the Second Amendment, which it expanded; and chose to confront the federal government’s power to regulate the environment, which it narrowed. This term, the court is weighing voting rights, affirmative action in higher education and LGBTQ discrimination.

Of course, agreeing to hear a case is not the same thing as deciding a case. And the court has declined to hear a number of hot-button issues already this term, turning away a challenge to the ban on gun bump stocks and a push for the legal recognition of fetal personhood, for instance. It’s also worth noting that the court often issues unanimous opinions on below-the-radar legal disputes concerning civil procedure and other technical matters.

Still, court watchers have grown less tentative about predicting that the most politically divisive cases placed on the court’s docket will ultimately shake out along ideological lines. 

While previewing the court’s new term, Irv Gornstein, executive director of Georgetown Law’s Supreme Court Institute, said last month that “there’s no reason to think this coming term, or any term in the foreseeable future, will be any different” from last term’s outcome.

“On things that matter most,” he said, “get ready for a lot of 6-3s.”

The new dynamic has left the court’s conservative supporters electrified. 

The chief justice’s influence has waned

The conventional wisdom is that the conservative Chief Justice John Roberts, sensitive to the court’s standing among the public, prefers incremental rightward movement in the law to radical change.

But the addition of former President Trump’s three nominees to the court means Roberts is now outflanked by five justices to his right who can form a majority without him.

An example of Roberts’s diminished authority arose last term in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down Roe v. Wade. Although Roberts agreed with the judgment in the case, his concurring opinion said he would have reached the judgment on much narrower grounds, using a rationale that would have preserved Roe while chipping away at the federal right to abortion. 

But the court’s five most conservative justices — Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh — had the numbers to disregard Roberts’s more measured approach. This five-member conservative majority opted instead to strike down Roe in a decision that was significantly more conservative than the views held by most Americans, according to public opinion polling.

Roberts does retain some procedural arrows in his quiver that he can use to rein in some of the court’s conservative impulses. For instance, Roberts wields control over which petitions the justices will discuss at their Friday conferences. 

Another source of leverage resides in Roberts’s status as the court’s senior-most justice. This means when Roberts is in the majority in deciding a case, he chooses who will write the opinion. 

But when the chief is not part of the majority — as in the Dobbs case — the duty of assigning the opinion-writing falls to the senior-most justice who is among the majority. In Dobbs, that justice was Clarence Thomas, who handed the pen to fellow hard-right conservative Justice Samuel Alito, whose opinion overruling Roe was criticized not only for its substance, but for its defiant tone and potentially sweeping implications for other constitutional rights.

A weakened Roberts appears to have emboldened the court’s more conservative members to be more aggressive about the cases they select.

“It puts the four most conservative justices in a position where they can actually choose the legal vehicles for achieving whatever agenda they’re seeking to achieve,” said Steven Schwinn, a constitutional law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago. 

Liberals have less power than in decades

With only three members, the court’s liberal justices lack even enough votes to satisfy the “rule of four” needed to add cases to the court’s docket without conservative support. The court does not typically disclose how the justices voted on a petition for appeal. But logic dictates that if a case was added to the court’s docket, it was not done so by the liberals acting alone.   

The Supreme Court’s liberals, outnumbered 6-3 last term, repeatedly found themselves on the losing side of landmark rulings, which seems likely to continue going forward.

Increasingly, the liberal wing has used dissenting opinions as a platform for articulating the role of liberal judicial ideas in public life, to lay down a historical marker for a future court and to sound the alarm over the conservative-led legal upheaval. Dissenting from the court’s abortion ruling in June, liberal Justices Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor accused their conservative counterparts of sowing legal chaos.

It’s the culmination of a decades-long effort

The rise of the 6-3 majority marks the culmination of a decades-long effort by the conservative legal movement to take control of the bench. 

Many conservatives are quick to blame Democrats for turning court battles into partisan warfare, pointing to the scuttling of Reagan-nominated judge Robert Bork’s nomination 35 years ago in a historical chapter that left deep wounds. Led by the Federalist Society and enabled by then-Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), this grievance helped fuel a retaliatory campaign that shifted the court dramatically to the right over a generation.

An abridged version of what transpired since then includes the GOP’s norm-shattering “constitutional hardball” to block President Obama from filling the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s vacancy, as well as the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, which allowed Trump to seat his third justice over the course of just a single presidential term.

The end result has been the reshaping of American law in a conservative mold, a project that continues apace in the court’s new term that began earlier this month.

Chemerinsky, of Berkeley Law, said he expects the court this term to eliminate affirmative action in both public and private colleges, further narrow the Voting Rights Act and allow violations of anti-discrimination law based on claims of free speech and free exercise of religion.

“Again, we’ll see dramatic changes in the law,” he said, “all in a very conservative direction.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Future Ukraine aid faces bumpier road in House Republican majority

Republican divisions on foreign policy and aid could become more consequential if Republicans win control of the House in the midterm elections, creating a rockier road for future humanitarian or military assistance to Ukraine.

The GOP is widely projected to win control of the lower chamber in this year’s elections, which would give the “America First” wing of the party that is resistant to foreign intervention a larger voice and potentially more power. 

Uncertainty remains about the course of the war and how much more aid Ukraine will request from the U.S., but many expect the issue to come up again at some point. Republicans have been broadly supportive of Ukraine, but questions over everything from how the aid is being used to whether nonmilitary aid is warranted have spanned from the party’s fringes to the conservative mainstream.

“Unless Russia decides to pack up and head home, I suspect that there are going to be continued requests,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, said. 

“We all want to help. At the same time, you know, we’ve got problems in our own country that remain unresolved, and we have no idea what the administration’s plan is. Like, what’s the end state? Where are we headed?” Perry said. “Are our tax dollars being used wisely?”

In May, 11 Republican senators and 57 House Republicans — a quarter of the House Republican Conference — opposed a $40 billion security supplemental for Ukraine. 

The loudest criticism to Ukrainian funding has come from the outspoken right flank of the conference. Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) tweeted last month that President Biden “needs to understand that we are the USA not the US-ATM,” and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has been against “every ounce” of spending to Ukraine.

In a break from some past hawkish tendencies, Heritage Action, the advocacy arm of the conservative Heritage Foundation, came out against the $40 billion May package. 

“Ukraine Aid Package Puts America Last,” the Heritage Action statement’s title read, arguing that the spending was “reckless,” “without any accountability” and diverted funds away from other priorities like the U.S.-Mexico border and crime.

Garrett Bess, vice president of Heritage Action, said that the group’s position is not necessarily that the U.S. should not send any aid.

“I mean, when does this end?” Bess said. “If Ukraine and Russia keep up a conflict for two, three, four years, are we going to be expected to send $50 billion a quarter to keep the conflict going?”

Asked about Heritage Action’s opposition to the aid package in a press conference last month, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) noted a sense among Republicans of wanting more accountability.

“I think what you’re seeing is there are a lot of members that want to see more accountability in the Department of Defense and more of a focus on the threats that are out there,” Scalise said.

He did not commit to keeping the same level of financial support for Ukraine in the future.

Concerned Veterans of America, which is part of the network funded by billionaire conservative donor Charles Koch, has also been wary of U.S. aid to Ukraine. A September poll sponsored by the group found that 54 percent of Americans said the U.S. should only provide aid to Ukraine if Europeans match that support.

John Byrnes, deputy director of Concerned Veterans for America, criticized the quality of care from the Department of Veterans Affairs and said his group would “welcome a new Congress with a majority that would focus on America’s veterans, rather than on supporting a war abroad.”

Polls find majorities of Americans supportive of the U.S. providing weapons to Ukraine, with an Oct. 4-5 poll from Ipsos finding 66 percent support for providing weapons and 59 percent support for providing financial aid.

But a Pew Research survey last month found that support among Republicans for providing U.S. support to Ukraine has diminished. In March, 9 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning adults said the U.S. was providing too much support to Ukraine. That shot up to 32 percent in September.

Varying critiques of aid have come across the House GOP spectrum.

Another $12.3 billion in aid was tacked on to a stopgap government funding bill that passed in September, and all but 10 House Republicans opposed it mostly due to being locked out of negotiations and because the funding only lasted until December.

The Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House, critiqued the Ukraine funding supplemental portion by saying that most of the $12.2 billion to Ukraine was for humanitarian aid rather than military aid.

Heritage Action’s position surprised Luke Coffey, a senior fellow analyzing national security at the conservative Hudson Institute who had then been at the Heritage Foundation for a decade and was arguing in favor of funding to Ukraine.

“I think that there’s a very small but vocal segment of the Republican Party who take these more isolationist, restraint views on U.S. engagement in the world,” Coffey said. “We have to be a little more sophisticated in our approach to foreign policy.”

“One of the ironies here is that Trump was the first president to finally give Javelin weapons to Ukraine. And in the case of Georgia, another country that Russia partially occupies, he gave Stingers and Javelin missiles,” Coffey said “He did something in eight months that Obama wouldn’t do in eight years.”

A Georgian friend, Coffey said, remarked at the time that Trump’s willingness to give weapons to partners rather than aiming to engage with adversaries like Iran and Russia was an expression of America First foreign policy.

“Those who are calling for us to just narrowly give military support failed to see the bigger picture of the crisis in Ukraine,” Coffey said. “We have to want Ukraine to win more than we hope Russia will lose.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) has also called on the Biden administration to “finally provide longer-range artillery” to Ukraine and for allies to transfer additional systems to Ukraine.

Asked if he expected House GOP leadership in a majority to adequately address concerns about keeping any aid accountable, Perry said: “They better. … That’s why it’s called leadership.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said in a statement that there is “strategic value” for the U.S. to stand with allies, but that it should do so “responsibly” and have a “robust debate” on U.S. strategy in the country. 

“It’s indefensible for the Biden administration to ask for never-ending billion-dollar blank checks to Ukraine, while the American people struggle with sky-high inflation, and the national debt surpasses $31 trillion. Too many of my colleagues — even on my side of the aisle — are willing to green-light more unpaid-for spending without rigorous oversight or accountability so they can sport a blue and yellow lapel pin,” Roy said. 

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Biden says he has 'great confidence' in Hunter amid reports of possible charges

President Biden on Tuesday said he has confidence in his son, Hunter Biden, amid reports that federal agents believe there is enough evidence to charge Hunter with tax crimes and a false statement on a gun purchase.

“Well, first of all, I’m proud of my son. This is a kid who got, not a kid — he’s a grown man. He got hooked on — like many families have had happen, hooked on drugs. He’s overcome that. He’s established a new life,” Biden told CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview.

Biden noted his son acknowledged in his book that he wrote on a gun application that he was not using drugs at a time when he was battling addiction. But the president said said he didn’t know anything about it at the time.

“So I have great confidence in my son,” Biden said. “I love him and he’s on the straight and narrow, and he has been for a couple years now. And I’m just so proud of him.”

The Washington Post first reported that federal agents believe there is enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden over the false answer on his application for a gun in 2018, as well as whether he failed to properly report all of his income.

The decision of whether to charge Hunter Biden ultimately lies with U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who is a holdover from the Trump administration.

The president has repeatedly said he is proud of his son for overcoming his addiction issues, and he has been adamant that he would not interfere in any Justice Department investigation.

That investigation into Hunter Biden has been ongoing for years, and Republicans have tried to use questions around Biden’s son against him. Former President Trump during the 2020 campaign repeatedly highlighted Hunter Biden’s foreign business interests to paint the Biden family as corrupt.

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Republicans eye Trump midterm spending with relief and concern

Republicans are breathing a little easier after former President Trump opened the financial spigot and began spending on behalf of GOP Senate candidates involved in tight battles that could determine which party controls the upper chamber.

As of Monday, the Trump-sanctioned super PAC MAGA Inc., which the former president’s allies formed in late September, had poured $5 million into five competitive states with ads focusing on key Senate and gubernatorial races. 

The financial foray came after weeks of criticism from corners of the party that, outside of his trademark rallies, Trump wasn’t doing enough to support the very Republican candidates he had propelled to primary wins in crucial battlegrounds.

“Any money to send Republicans is helpful. It’s smart politics for Trump. He wants to help the team. It’s a win for everybody,” one GOP strategist involved in the midterms told The Hill. “I think every one of these races is close. … It’s helpful. The more money spent attacking Democrats, the better. It helps him to look like a team player.”

According to AdImpact, an advertisement tracking firm, MAGA Inc. has dropped money into Ohio, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada — all of which are hosting some of the tightest Senate races of the cycle. A second GOP operative told The Hill that they expect the former president’s newly minted group to spend in one or two more states. 

As of the end of July, Trump’s Save America PAC had raised $135 million since he left office and spent $36 million of that total, leaving him with $99.1 million in the bank that Republicans clamored for him to spend ahead of next month’s elections. 

In an interview last week, shortly before Trump’s spending began, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) told The Hill that it was “disappointing” to see that the former president had not stepped in to deliver monetary help to Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania and other GOP Senate candidates he had endorsed. Santorum added the message Trump had been signaling to those campaigns was “you’re on your own.” 

Now, however, Republicans believe Trump’s decision was not just good for the campaigns, but also for him personally as he continues to tease a 2024 presidential run.

“It is wise and super important that he engaged in some of these races. There was a fair criticism going around if he were to not spend,” the second operative said. “Certainly, any place he spends, he’s going to talk about it for months to months on end.”

There are still concerns surrounding the timing of Trump’s spending. 

The late ad reservations coupled with the rate outside groups usually secure mean he is not getting the bang for his buck that he could have gotten if he made the move earlier. 

They also come as Democratic nominees across the country are breaking fundraising records.

As a third GOP strategist noted, candidate dollars go roughly 30 percent further than those spent at this point by a third-party group.

“It doesn’t have the same impact,” said the strategist, who is involved in races on the midterm map. “The support is helpful. Making it about candidates, not Trump, is important. This is about electing Blake Masters. This is about electing Adam Laxalt. This is about electing Mehmet Oz. … This is about them and their races, and it’s not about Donald Trump.”

“The rising tide lifts all boats and if Trump helps them across the finish line, this is helpful to Donald Trump,” the strategist continued.

Republicans are also waiting to see whether the former president’s spending will extend to the House map.

Thus far, the ads released in all five states are focused on Senate contests, with only one focusing any attention on a gubernatorial race — for Arizona Republican nominee Kari Lake. 

Some strategists believe Trump’s financial might would go farther if targeted in key districts that feature Democratic incumbents in toss-up races. 

If Republicans keep hold of the seat being vacated by Sen. Pat Toomey (R) in Pennsylvania, they just need one seat to retake the majority. On the House side, Democrats hold a four-seat majority, but the GOP holds the edge to retake the chamber, according to the Cook Political Report. 

The second operative said that it would be a “surprise” if the PAC makes a House investment at this point. A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment over whether they plan to engage in House contests.

“We’re looking at a situation in the House where months ago, we were talking about a red wave and 235 to 240 seats. Now we’re talking about 223 to 227. Trump’s help could get that to 230, maybe,” the third strategist said, noting that Trump’s spending now is taking place in expensive cities such as Philadelphia, Atlanta, Phoenix and Las Vegas. 

The strategist used Republican Zach Nunn’s battle against Rep. Cindy Axne (D-Iowa) as a prime example, as spending would center on the Des Moines, Iowa, and Omaha, Neb., markets, where Trump’s dollars would have a “real, real impact.” The strategist said they do not have a client running in the district. 

“Nobody is spending serious money in those markets. You could help flip those seats for a lot smaller of a financial impact,” the strategist said.

Source: TEST FEED1

How latest strikes show Putin will stick with Russia’s hawks on Ukraine war 

Russia’s air strikes on civilian targets across Ukraine this week are the latest sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin is inclined to escalate the war amid mounting losses on the battlefield and rising criticism at home. 

The Kremlin has also promoted military leaders known for their brutality, ramped up troop deployments, and is once again calling to “completely dismantle” the government in Kyiv.  

However, while Putin is clearly attempting to signal an escalation in Ukraine to appease hawkish elements in Russia, experts said it’s unlikely his current actions or posturing will slow Moscow’s losses or Kyiv’s momentum.  

“Putin is losing and that is causing him to escalate in some ways, kind of as a defensive measure,” said Jeffrey Pryce, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. 

“He has silenced most of the voices that would counsel restraint in Ukraine and created this kind of echo chamber of aggressive nationalism, and now that it’s going badly, I think he has to respond to it.” 

Upping air strikes 

Putin followed through on his threat of “harsh” retaliation this week after an explosion destroyed a section of a bridge connecting Russia and the occupied Crimean peninsula, which Putin personally opened in 2018.  

A barrage of air strikes on Monday hit more than a dozen cities, killing at least 19 people and injuring more than a hundred. The U.N. human rights office described the attacks as “particularly shocking” and amounting to potential war crimes.

The bridge explosion was the latest embarrassment for Putin, coming after Ukrainian counter-offensives that have liberated occupied areas in the northeast and south.  

But while the air strikes were exceptional in their volume, Russia has been shelling Ukraine throughout its invasion.  

“We shouldn’t buy in too much to the Russian government’s claim that there’s something new,” said Chris Miller, an associate professor at the Fletcher School at Tufts University who researches Russia. 

“It’s an escalation in terms of the quantity of missiles relative to the average in the last couple of months, but there’s nothing new and dramatic in this, I don’t think really at all,” he said, adding Russia is already “all in” militarily.  

“The one thing that remains is obviously the nuclear question. But beyond that, from a conventional perspective, they’re doing everything they can do and it’s just not working.” 

Military leadership changes 

Putin has made two eyebrow-raising changes to Moscow’s military leadership in recent days.  

On Saturday, the Defense Ministry appointed Gen. Sergei Surovikin to lead what the Kremlin is still calling its “special military operation” in Ukraine.  

Russian military analysts say Surovikin brings a long track record of corruption and brutality — and human rights groups have said he bears responsibility for many of the atrocities committed by Russian forces he led in Syria.  

The head of Ukraine military intelligence said in July that Surovikin “knows how to fight with bombers and missiles — that’s what he does.” 

His appointment was cheered by Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group who has been a leading hawk on Ukraine.  

Last week, Chechnya’s warlord Ramzan Kadyrov announced that Putin has promoted him to the rank of colonel general. Kadyrov has consistently pushed for a more aggressive approach to Ukraine and recently called for nuclear attacks.  

The changes also come as the Kremlin appears to be tacitly endorsing criticism on state television of the generals who have been in charge of the fighting in Ukraine thus far.  

The shifts are a sign that Putin is siding with hawkish figures like Prigozhin and Kadyrov against the military, said Branislav Slantchev, a political science professor at University of California, San Diego, who blogs about the Russia-Ukraine war.  

“And that’s dangerous in the sense that this is the side that’s been clamoring for escalation,” he said.  

Troop mobilization 

Putin’s mobilization of hundreds of thousands of military reservists last month was the clearest sign yet of his commitment to a long war in Ukraine.  

Defense experts say any boost from the reinforcements won’t be felt for months, but the move has drawn fierce resistance at home, forcing Putin to make a rare admission of “mistakes” in its implementation.  

Barry Pavel, vice president of the RAND Corporation’s national security research division, said the mobilization was causing more “pain points” for Putin than other decisions, as it exposes the Russian public to the reality in Ukraine.  

“So how do you deflect from the domestic criticism that he’s getting? This is what we’re seeing, is partly, you know, reaction to some of that increased domestic discontent, especially from the hawk side.” 

Pavel noted, however, that Putin’s own hawkishness had been on display throughout the war — and even before it, when he conducted nuclear exercises as tensions soared before the invasion.  

“So to really screw up a metaphor, the hawk has not changed its stripes,” he said.  

Miller said the mobilization was a clearer sign of Putin’s “resolve” in Ukraine than the recent missile strikes. 

“Mobilization was a costly step for Putin to take, so that demonstrated a willingness to bear even more costs than was previously demonstrated, but the missile strikes are kind of minor by comparison,” he said.  

Bellicose rhetoric  

Putin’s allies responded to this week’s missile salvo by calling for more.  

“It is time for fighting! Fiercely, even cruelly. Without looking back at whatever censures from the West,” senior Russian lawmaker Sergei Mironov, who leads the state-backed A Just Russia party, tweeted Saturday.  

“The first episode was played. There will be others,” former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now deputy chairman of the country’s Security Council, said on Telegram, calling for “a full-fledged dismantling of the political regime of Ukraine.” 

Pryce, a former special counsel for international affairs at the Defense Department, said there’s only one voice is Moscow that really matters when it comes to the direction of the war.  

“There’s an ecosystem where people seem to be competing for who has the most bellicose rhetoric, but my sense is that it’s really only one person whose opinion really matters,” he said, “that’s Putin.” 

If the Russian leader’s mobilization and airstrikes fail to turn the tide of the war, some Russia experts worry he could become cornered and turn to nuclear attacks as a last resort.  

“We have been warning that Putin could escalate against cities because of his failures on the battlefield. That’s what’s happening,” a White House National Security Council spokesperson told The Hill on Tuesday.  

“We don’t expect this is the last of it. But it’s too soon to predict what happens next.” 

Brett Samuels and Associated Press contributed reporting 

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Graham asks appeals court to reject Georgia subpoena

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Tuesday detailed to a federal appeals court why it should quash a subpoena compelling him to testify before a Fulton County, Ga., special grand jury probing former President Trump’s alleged interference in the 2020 election. 

A federal trial court last month partially rejected the subpoena, but in a 72-page filing, Graham’s attorneys laid out three constitutional arguments they say should each independently merit a complete blocking.

It’s the latest move in Graham’s months-long attempt to avoid testifying before the special grand jury.

District Attorney Fani Willis (D) has expressed interest in hearing from Graham about calls he made to Georgia’s top election official, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), following the election.

She opened the probe shortly after a call went public between Trump and Raffensperger in which the former president told Raffensperger to “find” the roughly 11,000 votes he needed to win the state. 

As he has argued for months, Graham said the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause — which protects lawmakers from lawsuits for actions taken within the sphere of legitimate legislative activity — prohibits his testimony about the calls in their entirety.

Graham has suggested the calls fall within the clause’s scope because the conversations helped him declare President Biden the legitimate election winner and support reforms to the Electoral Count Act in his purview as a senator.

The trial court responded to those arguments by partially quashing the subpoena for questions about Graham’s “investigatory fact-finding” on the calls.

But the court otherwise permitted his testimony, including communications with the Trump campaign, public statements on the election and his alleged effort to “cajole” Georgia election officials.

Graham’s attorneys argued that would allow the senator to be asked about his legislative activities.

“These are backdoor ways to question Senator Graham about the motives for his legislative activity; unsupported by evidence; and outside the scope of the subpoena and special grand jury anyway. Full quashal is thus proper,” Graham’s attorneys wrote of the trial court’s arguments.

Graham’s attorneys also wrote that sovereign immunity, which prevents a state court from compelling a federal official to testify about actions taken in their official capacity, applies.

Willis’s office has argued that Graham’s argument would give senators absolute immunity from all state grand juries and that the South Carolina Republican had not cited cases with comparable authority.

In their third and final argument, Graham’s attorneys said he is protected from testimony under the “high-ranking-official doctrine.” 

The doctrine requires parties seeking high-ranking officials’ testimony to “present extraordinary circumstances” for the request.

Graham’s attorneys argued Willis had not met the necessary burdens under the doctrine of showing his testimony would be both “unique” and “essential,” because the substance of his testimony could be discerned from other witnesses.

“What Senator Graham said to various people is available from those other people,” the filing states. “And what Senator Graham said publicly is available from a quick Google search.”

Graham is one of multiple officials Willis has subpoenaed as part of the election probe.

On Friday, she requested that a court compel testimony from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump White House attorney Eric Herschmann and others to testify in the investigation. 

Willis has indicated she will suspend her investigation’s public activities until after the November midterm elections and that she expects to make a decision about whether to seek Trump’s testimony later this fall.

At least 17 people have been notified that they are targets of a criminal investigation from Willis. Those people include former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and the 16 people put forth as unofficial or “fake” electors who had not actually been selected as Electoral College electors by their states.

Source: TEST FEED1