Tag Archives : Build House

Manchin defends climate, tax deal with Schumer in multi-show blitz

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) appeared on all five major political talk shows on Sunday to defend his climate, health care and tax deal reached with Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) while fending Republican senators who called it a betrayal.

Manchin took to the airwaves to portray the package as inflation-fighting legislation, championing provisions like those empowering Medicare to negotiate drug prices and a $300 billion allocation to reduce the federal deficit.

“It’s not a Democrat bill,” Manchin said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “It’s not a Republican bill. It’s definitely not a green bill. This is a red, white and blue bill, and it’s great for America.”

For months, Democrats hoped to pass massive climate legislation through reconciliation, an arcane budget rule that avoids the 60-vote threshold required for most bills. 

Manchin tanked Democrats’ multi-trillion Build Back Better reconciliation package last year, but he privately negotiated with Schumer in recent months on a slimmed-down bill that would also lower health care costs. 

Manchin and Schumer had kept their back-and-forth more private than the Build Back Better negotiations, with some Democrats previously expressing frustration by the drawn out process.

“We’re not spending money, we’re investing,” Manchin said on ABC’s “This Week.” 

“We’ve taken a $3.5 trillion aspirational bill that I never could come to an agreement on in any way shape or form — but I tried, couldn’t get there,” he said. “And we’ve taken $3.5 trillion of spending down to $400 billion of investing without raising any taxes whatsoever.”

After months of private talks, Manchin on Sunday served as a forceful public advocate for the package, which includes hundreds of billions in funding for climate-related programs. 

By appearing on all five major Sunday talk shows, Manchin had been dubbed to complete a so-called “full Ginsburg” but several people, including former officials, wrote to Politico to say that because all of Manchin’s appearances were remote, as opposed to shuttling to all five D.C. television studios, it had only been a modified Ginsburg. The term is named for Bill Ginsburg, former White House intern Monica Lewinsky’s attorney who first completed the feat in 1998.

Nonetheless, Manchin became the 30th person to complete the so-called feat, although some have also considered then-President Obama’s Sunday show run in September 2009 as a modified full Ginsburg when he appeared on Univision rather than Fox News as his fifth appearance of the day.

The most recent person to officially complete the feat was Anthony Fauci, who appeared on the five Sunday shows in March 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic began shutting down normal life.

During his appearances on Sunday, Manchin also pushed back on GOP criticisms that he betrayed them by announcing the deal with Schumer.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had threatened Republican support for a bipartisan bill boosting the domestic semiconductor industry if Democrats moved forward with a reconciliation package.

Talks between Manchin and Schumer broke down on July 14, but hours after the semiconductor bill cleared the Senate on Wednesday, the duo announced the closely guarded agreement.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) called the deal “political warfare” and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) told the Huffington Post that the timing “could not have been worse,” leading some to worry that ongoing attempts for bipartisanship on same-sex marriage and election reform could now be doomed.

“It’s such a shame,” Manchin said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

“John Cornyn is a good friend of mine,” Manchin said. “He’s such a good man. And for the politics to be so toxic right now, first of all, I never thought this would come to fruition.”

Manchin on multiple Sunday shows said he hoped Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), who is seen as the most moderate Senate Democrat beyond Manchin, would vote for the package. Manchin noted that Sinema supports provisions to empower Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

“She has a tremendous amount of input in this piece of legislation,” Manchin said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And I would like to think she would be favorable towards it, that I respect her decision. She’ll make her own decision based on the contents.”

Sinema has not yet announced a position on the bill.

“Senator Sinema does not have comment as she’s reviewing the text and will need to see what comes out of the parliamentarian process,” a Sinema spokesperson told The Hill on Sunday.

When asked by guest host Bret Baier on “Fox News Sunday” about Sinema seemingly being blindsided by the agreement, Manchin said: “You know, the smart political thing is do nothing, I guess. That’s what a lot of people do. Just sit back and do nothing because you can’t get criticized for it.”

Meanwhile, Manchin championed the package’s $369 billion in proposed investments for energy-focused climate programs, arguing it would reduce high energy costs that have contributed to recent high inflation.

“You’ve got to produce,” Manchin said on “Fox News Sunday.” 

“And if you’re going to produce, you have to be able to have more energy so you can get the gas prices down, have more production and more manufacturing, so you get people working and not having layoffs and things of that sort,” he said. “It’s going to take some investments.”

He also argued the bill’s raising of new revenues — like a 15-percent corporate minimum tax, stronger Internal Revenue Service enforcement of the nation’s tax law and a closure of the carried interest loophole for money managers — did not constitute raising taxes.

“We did not raise taxes,” Manchin said on Fox News. “We’ve closed loopholes. That’s all we did.”

Manchin and Schumer are aiming for the bill to pass before the upcoming August recess.

Source: TEST FEED1

Toomey defends burn pit vote, citing 'false accusations' by Jon Stewart

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on Sunday defended his no vote on a bill to aid military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits against what he called “false accusations” from comedian Jon Stewart.

Toomey during an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” with host Jake Tapper called the former “Daily Show” host a “pseudo-celebrity” and accused the bill’s Democratic backers of “the oldest trick in Washington.”

“People take a sympathetic group of Americans — and it could be children with an illness, it could be victims of crime, it could be veterans who’ve been exposed to toxic chemicals — craft a bill to address their problems, and then sneak in something completely unrelated that they know could never pass on its own, and dare Republicans to do anything about it,” Toomey said.

The legislation’s supporters, Toomey said, will then “unleash their allies in the media and maybe a pseudo-celebrity to make up false accusations to try to get us to just swallow what shouldn’t be there.”

Toomey insisted that he and his fellow Republicans don’t oppose the bill itself, but are worried instead about Democrats using it to acquire funds for unrelated matters and switch discretionary funding to mandatory.

Stewart has knocked the GOP for holding up the bill’s progress and for misinterpreting the proposal.

“Their constituents are dying,” Stewart said in D.C. last week.

On Sunday, Stewart blasted Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for voting no and called claims about the spending language in the bill and the potential to misuse included funds “factually incorrect.”

All Democrats and eight Republicans voted for the bill when it was first introduced last week, but the tally fell five votes short of the amount needed to bypass the filibuster.

Toomey on Sunday emphasized the Republican push for an amendment vote on the bill. 

“This is why they do this sort of thing, Jake, because it gets very deep in the weeds and very confusing for people very quickly… We are spending way too much money to use — to hide behind a veterans bill the opportunity to go on an unrelated $400 billion spending spree is wrong. And we shouldn’t allow it,” the Pennsylvania senator said.

Source: TEST FEED1

Climate change and the Supreme Court’s version of police abolitionism

West Virginia v. Environmental Protection Agency, which in June gutted the Biden administration’s ability to reduce the electrical power industry’s carbon emissions, may be the Supreme Court’s most reckless and lawless decision (in an extremely competitive field). The court comes close to anarchism, crippling Congress’s capacity to protect the country from disaster and undermining the fundamental purpose of the Constitution.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the court, embraced a newly bloated version of the “major questions” rule for interpreting statutes, one that Congress could not have known about when it gave the president the power to create environmental regulations: “there are extraordinary cases . . . in which the history and the breadth of authority that the agency has asserted and the economic and political significance of that assertion provide a reason to hesitate before concluding that Congress meant to confer such authority.”  The challenged Obama-era plan would have restructured an entire industry, and Roberts declared that there was “little reason to think Congress assigned such decisions to the Agency.”

If you need a reason, how about the plain words of the statute? Section 111 of the Clean Air Act instructs the EPA to select the “best system of emission reduction” for power plants, as part of its mandate to regulate stationary sources of any substance that “causes, or contributes significantly to, air pollution” and “may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.” 

Roberts says the court should look to the “history and breadth of the authority” asserted by the agency as well as the “economic and political significance” of the regulation, and then speculate as to whether Congress really “meant to confer such authority.” But the best evidence of what Congress meant is the language it enacted. 

“The current Court is textualist only when being so suits it,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan, dissenting. “When that method would frustrate broader goals, special canons like the ‘major questions doctrine’ magically appear as get-out-of-text-free cards.” (A few months ago, she made the same point about the court’s invalidation of OSHA’s rules to limit COVID-19 in workplaces.) The court’s decision is already being cited in challenges to regulations of pipelines, asbestos, nuclear waste, corporate disclosures and highway planning.

Roberts observes that the EPA has rarely used its Section 111 power. But statutes don’t disappear because they aren’t being used. They remain in effect until they are repealed.  Right now, we are seeing antiabortion laws that have been dead for half a century suddenly spring back into life.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, concurring, offers a more specific account of how one decides what counts as a “major question,” explaining that the first question a court should ask is whether “an agency claims the power to resolve a matter of great ‘political significance.’”  

How does a court know what gives a matter great political significance? Gorsuch cites “earnest and profound debate across the country” — not at the time of enactment, but decades later. OSHA’s effort to prevent thousands of COVID-19 deaths was improper because it came “at a time when Congress and state legislatures were engaged in robust debates over vaccine mandates.”

I thought I was offering a reductio ad absurdum last January when I wrote that the Supreme Court was making Fox News a source of law. But Gorsuch isn’t even hiding it: If the conservative press raises enough of a fuss to trigger a political fight, then government action that was previously authorized will become illegal. 

Congress in the 1970s was under the impression that air pollution and workplace dangers were unquestionably evils, and that creating agencies was the best way to address those threats. The court declared way back in 1819 that Congress has broad discretion to choose the most convenient means for carrying out its powers. Kagan observed: “A key reason Congress makes broad delegations like Section 111 is so an agency can respond, appropriately and commensurately, to new and big problems. Congress knows what it doesn’t and can’t know when it drafts a statute.”

It knew that scientific knowledge would improve. For instance, now we understand that coal – the leading source of water and air pollution— is the worst fossil fuel: When one accounts for the costs it imposes, every unit that is burned has negative economic value. The EPA aimed to have coal provide 27 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030, down from 38 percent in 2014.

Most Americans once would have been astounded to learn that anyone would ever try to block efforts to contain a pandemic or prevent environmental catastrophe. The court’s decision reflects the growing influence of libertarianism, which thinks that liberty means a government that is small and weak. Libertarians have been unable to think clearly about environmental harms. That’s why, for all their purported cold rationality, they are drawn to daffy climate change denialism and, more recently, antivaxx ideology. The libertarians’ capture of the Republican Party is so complete that its members will not give President Biden a single vote for his climate plan. Actually, from a libertarian standpoint, the effects of climate change involve clear violations of property rights that the state must remedy: One isn’t permitted to devastate other people’s land.

The slogan “abolish the police,” embraced by some on the left, is foolish because it focuses on government dysfunction while failing to notice what government is for. The court has now embraced its own form of reckless anarchism — and at the worst possible time. In the midst of deadly plague and worsening climate catastrophe, it has blocked Congress’s ability to choose the tools it deems most effective — and left unclear what Congress or the EPA is now allowed to do to protect the human race from impending disaster.

Gorsuch presumes that an agency exceeds its authority when it “seeks to regulate‘ a significant portion of the American economy,’” or “require ‘billions of dollars in spending’ by private persons or entities.” Both he and Roberts tell us, in effect, that the bigger the problem, the less capacity Congress has to address it by delegation. This is like a weirdly selective form of police abolition that abolishes only the homicide squad or yanks police out of high-crime neighborhoods.

There have always been some Americans who did not like the Constitution, who thought that it created government that was too powerful. In 1788 they almost prevented it from being ratified. Most voters, however, have repeatedly rejected the radical libertarian notion that liberty means a government too feeble to solve the nation’s most urgent problems. They voted that way when the Constitution was adopted, and again when Congress created these agencies. Today’s Supreme Court perversely interprets law as if the Constitution’s opponents had won.

Andrew Koppelman, John Paul Stevens Professor of Law at Northwestern University, is the author of “Burning Down the House: How Libertarian Philosophy Was Corrupted by Delusion and Greed” (St. Martin’s Press, forthcoming). Follow him on Twitter @AndrewKoppelman.

Source: TEST FEED1

Biden feels well after COVID 'rebound positivity,' physician says

President Biden is feeling well after testing positive again for COVID-19, his physician said Sunday.

An update from White House physician Kevin O’Connor says the president is isolating in the executive residence and conducting his duties remotely.

Biden first tested positive for COVID-19 last week and tested negative after completing a five-day regimen of the antiviral Paxlovid. 

The president briefly ended his isolation before testing positive again Saturday in what his physician called a “rebound positivity” case, which occurs in a small number of individuals who undergo Paxlovid treatment.

Fully vaccinated and boosted, the 79-year-old Biden is in the high-risk category for severe illness from the virus, but White House officials reported he experienced only mild symptoms during his initial bout of sickness.

On the second day of rebound positivity, the president “continues to feel well,” O’Connor reported Sunday, adding that the additional positive test was not suprising.

Source: TEST FEED1

Republicans leading midterm race for House: CBS poll

New CBS News Battleground Tracker polling shows Republicans in the lead for control of the House ahead of this year’s midterm elections, with 230 seats projected for the GOP and 205 for Democrats.

GOP wins in 230 districts would give Republicans 12 seats more than the 218 needed to control the chamber.

Democrats currently claim a slim majority of 221 seats to Republicans’ 214.

The poll’s margin of error for the parties’ projections is 12 seats. 

The survey also found that Democrats are disenchanted with current affairs and less likely to show up to vote than their Republican counterparts.

Sixteen percent of Democrats and 43 percent of Republicans, meanwhile, said that they feel that congressional Democrats have not delivered on promises made in their last campaign cycle.

Sixty-seven percent of Democratic voters say congressional Democrats have delivered on “some” of those promises, and 17 percent believe they’ve delivered on “most or all.”

Sixty-eight percent of Republicans and a mere 7 percent of Democrats feel that congressional Republicans are fighting for them on the Hill.

Just half of surveyed voters felt enthusiastic about turning out for the vote in November.

And more Democrats reported being spurred to vote by former President Trump than by their own party leader.

Just 39 percent of Democrats say their midterm congressional vote is “a lot” about President Biden, compared to 62 percent of Republicans. By comparison, 46 percent of Democrats say their midterm vote is “a lot” about Trump, as did 47 percent of Republicans.

Conducted July 27-29, the tracker surveyed 1,743 registered voters weighted for gender, age, race, education and 2020 presidential vote. The margin of error is 3 points.

–Updated at 12:50 p.m.

Source: TEST FEED1

Toomey says Manchin-Schumer deal is 'gimmick' with 'very dubious' projections

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) on Sunday cast doubt on Democrats’ claims that a newly announced climate, health care and tax package would reduce the deficit and inflation, instead calling its cost projections a “gimmick.”

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” with guest moderator John Dickerson, Toomey said the projected revenues from tax changes will be accrued over 10 years, while the projected expenses assume the package’s health care subsidy extension will ultimately expire.

“That’s an obvious political payoff,” Toomey said. 

“The last time they had to do this, they said it would only be for two years,” he said. “It’s about to expire, and they can’t have it expire before an election, so they’re extending it but only for three years. They have no intention of ever ending the Obamacare subsidies over a 10-year window. That wipes out the purported deficit reduction.”

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Wednesday announced a deal on the reconciliation package, which is a slimmed down version of the multi-trillion Build Back Better plan Democrats had hoped to pass last year.

The bill’s other provisions include $369 billion in energy-focused climate investment programs over the next 10 years.

To pay for the new programs, Democrats say the bill would raise $739 billion in new revenue, including $313 billion through a 15-percent corporate minimum tax and $124 billion from strong Internal Revenue Service (IRS) enforcement of tax law.

Toomey on Sunday pushed back on those revenue estimates.

“They’re also counting huge amounts of additional tax revenue from giving more tax money to the IRS, which the [Congressional Budget Office] does not agree with,” he said.

“They’re also not taking into account how much our economy will slow down from this big corporate tax increase that will mostly hurt manufacturing and domestic investment,” Toomey added. “These numbers are very, very dubious.”

Source: TEST FEED1

What to expect from the DOJ’s investigation of Donald Trump

In the history of our country, no attorney general has ever prosecuted a former president in federal court for crimes committed while in office. 

The Jan. 6 congressional hearings credibly present a damning narrative that then-President Donald Trump was the driving force behind a massive conspiracy to obstruct justice, interfere with the official Jan. 6 congressional proceedings and defraud the citizens of the United States of a fair election outcome.

While there appears to be little in the hearings that would undercut a successful criminal prosecution of the former president, neither do the hearings guarantee a successful prosecution.

Unlike congressional hearings, in a criminal prosecution, the former president will challenge all the evidence that prosecutors hope to present before a jury in a criminal trial. The process will test the credibility, biases and memories of witnesses. Federal rules of evidence may exclude certain key evidence or testimony disclosed in the Jan. 6 hearings. In every American courtroom, the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and the burden of proof is on the prosecution. No matter what we may think of Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, the picture before 12 open-minded jurors may look quite different once the defense presents its case.

Some have criticized the pace of the Department of Justice’s investigation, while others insist the public record already clearly supports an indictment and likely conviction of the former president. As to timing, it appears the investigation is proceeding in a deliberate fashion, careful and methodical. Out of fairness to prospective targets, the work of any federal investigation is confidential. Grand jury proceedings require confidentiality. The investigation will take as long as it takes. The attorney general will make a charging decision, whether it takes six weeks or six months, only after collecting and analyzing all the evidence, including the work of the Jan. 6 committee.

DOJ guidelines about the timing of a prosecution in proximity to an election are just that — guidelines. To be sure, these guidelines are important to maintain a degree of uniformity among federal prosecutions and to protect the reputation of the department against charges of favoritism and bias. However, in the end, the attorney general has wide discretion, guided by what is in the interest of justice. 

Whether Congress makes a criminal referral of former President Trump to the Justice Department will matter little in Garland’s final decision. For example, Congress may decide that the facts support a referral yet may decline to do so because of concerns it will make their work look political. No one should expect the attorney general to blindly follow decisions or recommendations by the committee or to be constrained by regulations intended to guide decisions by line prosecutors in routine cases across the country.

Finally, the midterm elections will not dictate the timing or decision of the attorney general. Those on the Jan. 6 committee may feel a sense of urgency to complete its work given widely reported views that Republicans will retake control of the house and then disband the committee or undermine its work. Whatever happens this November, the department will continue its investigation and Garland will make a decision based on the evidence.

As to the strength of the government’s case, only Garland and his highly experienced team of prosecutors can best assess which crimes they can prove have been committed, if any, by the former president and others. They have tools that private individuals and congressional committees do not have to gather evidence and compel testimony.

A primary reason to punish criminal acts is to discourage future behavior. Here the nature of possible offenses is serious and requires accountability. This is especially relevant here given growing signs that former President Trump again intends to run for office. Even if a future prosecution is unsuccessful, the investigation and trial would nevertheless likely provide a strong future deterrent.

There are other serious issues confronting our country today, from abortion and gun rights to the growing threat from China and the war in Ukraine. Our government leaders must focus on these internal and external challenges. A trial of former President Trump will dominate the news and captivate the attention of the public and likely our government leaders for months. President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon for acts relating to the Watergate break-in, in part because Ford believed it was time for the nation to move on and heal. He thought it best to exercise the power of the sovereign to forgive transgressions by Nixon. President Biden has the power to do the same if he chooses, but granting a pardon is neither within the power of the attorney general nor within his discretion. The job of the attorney general is to prosecute wrongdoing no matter how popular or unpopular.

Merrick Garland enjoys a reputation of integrity and courage. I expect he will be fair in his charging decision with respect to former President Trump as he would with any other potential defendant. However, I suspect that here he will proceed with extra caution. If the government prosecutes a former president, the government should be especially confident of success.

Attorney General Garland will make his charging decision at a time of his choosing. He will not make this decision in a vacuum, nor rely solely on his own experiences. He will consult and listen to the views and recommendations of his senior team. He will weigh all of the evidence gathered by both the Jan. 6 committee and investigators at the Justice Department. 

Whatever the decision, at some point Garland should explain how his decision advances the rule of law, and defend it to the American people, Congress and Justice Department personnel. He will have to explain his decision for history.

Alberto Gonzales was the 80th Attorney General of the United States and counsel to the president in the George W. Bush administration. He is now the Dean and Doyle Rogers Distinguished Professor of Law at Belmont University College of Law. 

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Pompeo targets Biden over possible Pelosi trip to Taiwan

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo knocked the Biden administration for not backing a trip to Taiwan by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). 

“To allow America to be bullied by Chinese propaganda, right after, frankly, President Biden has had a phone call, a long phone call, with [Chinese President] Xi Jinping… would send a really bad message to our friends in the region: the Australians, the South Koreans, the Japanese,” Pompeo told host John Catsimatidis on WABC 770 AM “Cats Roundtable.”

Pelosi announced Sunday that she was setting off on a four-country tour of Asia, slated to lead a six-member congressional delegation to Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Japan. She included no mention of Taiwan in her plans, despite multiple reports of her intent to visit the territory.

“I don’t agree with Speaker Pelosi very often, but she made it clear that she wanted to go visit, on her own, to visit Taiwan, an independent, sovereign nation. And now, the Biden administration is saying, ‘Well, maybe that’s not smart,’” Pompeo said. 

President Biden said earlier this month that the U.S. military “thinks it’s not a good idea right now” for Pelosi to touch down on the island. 

China warned that the trip could “have a severe negative impact on the political foundation of China-US relations, and send a gravely wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces.” 

Under the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979, the U.S. is committed to helping self-governed Taiwan defend itself against Beijing, but the U.S. has remained strategically ambiguous about its position on Taiwan, which China claims as part of its own.

Source: TEST FEED1

Three ‘trigger ban’ states move closer to restricting abortion

A trio of conservative states with so-called “trigger bans” on the books have moved closer to enacting a new set of abortion restrictions as a result of the circuitous domino effect that began with the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe v. Wade.

In Texas, Tennessee and Idaho, the justices’ decision was not the relevant event springing the new limits to life. Rather, the landmark ruling was only the first falling domino, followed by the court’s issuance Tuesday of its formal judgment in the case, followed next by a 30-day period before the laws take effect.

The elaborate procedural circuitry has added an additional layer of complexity to the already confusing patchwork of state laws — and lawsuits — that emerged soon after the court upended the nearly 50-year constitutional right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.  

“Right now, there’s a lot of confusion,” said David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University. “It may all shake out in the very near future to a stable landscape of some states with bans, other states with restrictions, and other states very permissive. But, it also may continue to have lots of uncertainty.”

“The more uncertainty, the more difficult it is for patients to navigate the process and get the care they need.”

Abortion is now banned in at least eight states, following the Supreme Court’s decision last month to overturn Roe and hand states virtually free rein to regulate the procedure.

Thirteen states had trigger bans on the books, three of which were set to take effect immediately upon Roe’s toppling. Trigger laws in seven other states required some additional action by officials before the bans kicked in. And three states — Texas, Tennessee and Idaho — had laws with a 30-day clock that started upon the Supreme Court’s formal judgment being issued.

Idaho’s trigger law is one such example, with the law set to kick in on Aug. 25. The new rule will make nearly all abortion illegal, with exceptions for rape, incest and to protect the life of the mother.

Several Idaho abortion restrictions are tied up in legal challenges. Planned Parenthood has sued over the abortion ban, saying it violates the Idaho Constitution. The group has a separate pending lawsuit that takes aim at Idaho’s Texas-like civil enforcement abortion ban.

Given the flood of litigation across the states, experts cautioned that these new trigger bans — once they take effect — could still get hung up in court fights.

“Even where bans have gone into effect, they could get challenged in court, they have to be interpreted with regulation, in some places,” said Rachel Rebouché, a professor at the Temple University School of Law. “Even when a ban goes into effect, I think we still can expect to see a lot of confusion.”

In mid-August, Tennessee’s trigger ban, known as the Human Life Protection Act, is set to take effect.

When it does, it will take precedence over a statewide abortion ban that kicks in around six weeks, when fetal cardiac activity can typically be detected. Tennessee’s new trigger ban will go even further, outlawing abortion at the time of fertilization, with only narrow exemptions.

In Texas, the state legislature in 2021 passed two major bills limiting abortion. The first law, known as Senate Bill 8, gained national attention for its novel enforcement mechanism that lets private citizens bring lawsuits for $10,000 or more for violations of the six-week abortion ban.

The state also passed a trigger ban during last year’s legislative session, which is set to kick in 30 days after the Supreme Court’s formal judgment issued. Under this trigger ban, abortions would be generally outlawed.

The Texas law imposes criminal and civil penalties, as well as professional discipline on abortion providers who violate the law. Those who run afoul of the trigger ban face second-degree felony charges, as well as a fine of at least $100,000.

In his majority opinion overturning Roe v. Wade last month, Justice Samuel Alito said that the five-decade abortion law framework under Roe and related cases had become unworkable. He suggested in the decision, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that handing control over to states would ultimately calm the fiery debate that has raged over abortion access in America for decades.

But the complicated state of the law surrounding abortion that has begun to emerge tells a different story, some court watchers say.

“We’re seeing that post-Roe and Casey, nothing could be further from the truth than to say this is a more workable system — and the trigger laws are a good example,” said Rebouché.

The shifting landscape creates uncertainty not only for people seeking to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, but also for medical providers and even those on the periphery of the medical decision.

“It creates confusion for anyone seeking an abortion, friends and family members of those seeking an abortion, and health care professionals seeking guidance on what kind of treatment they can provide —not just for abortion care — but for reproductive health care more generally,” said Naomi Cahn, a professor at the University of Virginia Law School.

Source: TEST FEED1

No quiet August this year

August usually is rather quiet politically — Not this year.

August will see 15 primaries, Donald Trump struggle to maintain his hold on the Republican party and Democrats scramble to avoid a midterm debacle.

The first big test — on Tuesday — isn’t a primary but a referendum in Kansas on whether to overturn the state’s constitutional protection for the right to an abortion. This is the first direct citizen vote on the issue since the Supreme Court overturned an almost half-century constitutional protection for a woman’s right to an abortion.

The anti-abortion side starts with an advantage. Kansas is a deep red state that Donald Trump carried by 15 points. Conservatives slated the vote for the primaries, which are mostly Republican, as more advantageous for their position than in November.

Both sides are waging an intense and expensive struggle. If the pro-choice side ekes out a victory, retaining the constitutional right to abortion in the state, it would unnerve anti-abortion Republican candidates around the country — worrying even in Kansas.

The big test for Trump on Tuesday is Arizona. A bitterly contested gubernatorial contest between Kari Lake, who’s supported by Trump, and Karrin Taylor Robson, who is backed by most of the Republican establishment and Trump’s Vice President, Mike Pence. Although both are staunch conservatives and 2020 election deniers, a Lake win would be a boost to the former president amid signs that his standing is declining.

The winner is likely to run against Katie Hobbs, currently Arizona’s secretary of state. Incumbent Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is retiring.

In Arizona’s Senate primary, Blake Masters, the Trump-backed candidate, is expected to win; the former libertarian has gone full Trump, bashing immigration and suggesting Biden should be impeached for his border policies. He once embraced radically fringe views, writing — among other things — that America shouldn’t have entered World War II. The general election is a must-win for Democrats, with incumbent Mark Kelly, a former astronaut.

In Michigan, Trump is waging a revenge campaign against Rep. Peter Meijer, a mainstream conservative and one of the ten house Republicans who voted to impeach him. Democrats currently are trying to help Meijer’s Trump-backed right-wing opponent, figuring that would give them a better shot in November.

In Michigan’s governor contest, all the GOP front-runners embrace the baseless claim the 2020 election was fraudulent. The winner faces an uphill battle in the fall against Democratic incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.

Trump almost certainly will score a get-even victory in two weeks with his vitriolic campaign against Wyoming conservative Rep. Liz Cheney, the vice chair of the Jan. 6 House Select Committee and the most forceful and articulate critic of the former president’s offenses. Polls show Cheney losing by double digits to a Trump stand-in.

Even in defeat Cheney will remain a powerful presence nationally and can be expected to campaign against Trump if he seeks the 2024 presidential nomination.

The ex-president also is going after two Washington state House Republicans who voted for his impeachment: Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse, both conservatives. I’m relying here on a fabulous stringer: Robert W. Merry, an historian who also was — and is — a great reporter. The Merrys live in Washington state. Both Beutler and Newhouse are likely to win on Tuesday, since Washington has an open primary with Republicans, Democrats and independents all eligible to vote; the top two finishers move on to the general election. Newhouse would be a strong favorite in November, but Beutler — in a more evenly divided district — would have a competitive contest.

On the Senate side, two August primaries aren’t going as well as Democrats had hoped.

One is Missouri, where Republican Eric Greitens, who was forced out as governor on ethics charges and has been accused of assault by both his wife and his mistress, was leading in GOP primaries as recently as June — but Greitens has slipped significantly and with him Democratic hopes for an eventual upset in this deeply red state.

The most vulnerable Republican incumbent is Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, who’s ensnared in a number of weird controversies and semi-scandals. Lt. Governor Mandela Barnes, a staunch liberal, will win the Aug. 9 Democratic primary, but Democrats fear he may be vulnerable to GOP attacks, especially on crime. Most every poll shows Johnson trailing.

These Senate primaries matter, as currently the November outlook is as divided as the current 50-50 Senate. Democrats see three takeover possibilities — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and North Carolina — with a chance, at least, in Ohio and even Iowa, where seven-term incumbent Chuck Grassley would be 95 at the end of his next term. Likewise, Republicans see three possible pickups in three Democratic-held seats — in Nevada, Arizona and Georgia — and maybe an upset in New Hampshire.

The conventional wisdom, probably correct, is Republicans will win control of the House, where Democrats currently have a five-seat margin. The Cook Report’s David Wasserman, the resident guru on House elections, says to keep the majority, Democrats would need to win the overall popular vote for the House by 2 percent to 3 percent. There have been four recent non-partisan polls on congressional preference, all giving Democrats an advantage averaging four points.

The odds remain with the GOP, though it may be closer than anticipated.

Al Hunt is the former executive editor of Bloomberg News. He previously served as reporter, bureau chief and Washington editor for The Wall Street Journal. For almost a quarter century he wrote a column on politics for The Wall Street Journal, then The International New York Times and Bloomberg View. He hosts Politics War Room with James Carville. Follow him on Twitter @AlHuntDC.

Source: TEST FEED1