Some Republicans on the House panel agreed that the evidence failed to support the intel agencies' conclusions. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the panel, said that Democrats had hoped to at least find agreement with Republicans on the fundamentals of Russia's scheme to interfere in the 2016 election. But that hope evaporated, he said, with the GOP's decision to break from the intelligence community.
"It had been our hope for some time that even if there were areas of disagreement with the majority, that we could at least come together on a report that validated the findings of the intelligence community," he said. "This represents to me the completeness of the GOP's capitulation to the White House, and that leaves very little common ground."
Meanwhile, the Florida Democratic Party says it will spend $2 million in the next year to register 200,000 voters ahead of next year's presidential primary. There are currently 4.96 million registered Democrats in the state compared to 4.7 million Republicans and nearly 3.6 million voters with no party affiliation.
Trump's campaign is heavily focused on Florida, the biggest swing state in the nation, with 29 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win. Without the Sunshine State, Trump's path to victory narrows significantly.
The injunction would seek to reopen voter registration in Georgia to ensure that 53,000 registrants on hold in Kemp's office--and possibly others affected by an outage of the Georgia Department of Driver Services and the state's voter registration website--would be allowed to register for the upcoming election. The last day to register to vote was Tuesday.
The strict policies enforced by Kemp's office for voter registration and verification have been under scrutiny in his gubernatorial campaign. Under Kemp's verification policies, voter application information must perfectly match information on file. If they don't match precisely, officials can put the application on hold.
An analysis conducted by The Associated Press found that almost 70% of the registrants currently on hold are black. Georgia's population is 32% black. [Kemp's gubernatorial opponent Stacey] Abrams needs strong African-American turnout in the state to win the governor's race. Allies of Abrams argue that Kemp is deliberately trying to purge voter rolls to his advantage.
Kemp's office said in a statement in July, "Despite any claim to the contrary, it has never been easier to register to vote in Georgia and actively engage in the electoral process. The numbers do not lie."
It was Tillis himself who first proposed the bill to protect Mueller in a conversation with Coons last summer, an important bipartisan partnership that's survived tough battles over taxes and health care.
Coons was struck by Tillis' fight for reparations for black victims of a North Carolina eugenics program. And Tillis was impressed that Coons was willing to fend off Democrats who wanted to pile on to the special counsel bill and turn it into a partisan attack on Trump. "He was pretty clear," Coons said, recalling how Tillis threatened to drop his support unless each new Democratic co-sponsor was matched by a Republican.
Excerpts from veto message:I am approving in-person absentee voting between Monday and Friday from 8 AM to 7 PM, and prohibiting in-person absentee voting on legal holidays. I am vetoing hiring individuals to assist with in-person absentee voting. I object to a new state expenditure for a function traditionally performed by local governments. We should all be focused on ensuring the integrity of the voting process by making it harder to cheat.
Legislative Outcome:Bill passed Senate 17-16-0 on 3/12; State Sen. Chris Larson voted NO; passed House 56-38-5 on 3/20; vetoed by Gov. Walker on 3/27.
Rep. Chris Stewart (R-Utah) put it bluntly: "The CIA just got it wrong," Stewart said on CNN, saying he had viewed the raw intelligence the agencies used to reach their determination. "The CIA just got it wrong, just like they did, by the way, in the Gulf War, when they said there were weapons of mass destruction."
Some of his colleagues are concerned. "It's not good politics in the end," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). "It says you don't trust the president."
Tillis is working with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on the bill, which would allow a special counsel a 10-day window to fight a potential removal by the Trump administration and could soon see a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Trump's campaign is heavily focused on Florida, the biggest swing state in the nation, with 29 of the 270 electoral college votes needed to win. Without the Sunshine State, Trump's path to victory narrows significantly. If a Democrat can carry Florida in 2020, he or she could win the White House by capturing just one other swing state--WI, MI, OH, or PA--if the remaining states voted the way they did in 2016.
Democrats say they have identified as many as four million Floridians eligible to vote who are not registered. Florida party officials say they plan to partner with data science firms and hire dozens of full-time organizers as part of the new $2 million effort.
"They had that long early voting in Florida. It's so long, and so many things can go wrong when you have that long period of time, right?" Trump told the crowd in Baton Rouge. "That long, long, long period. Used to be you'd have a day, you vote. Now you're going forever. Weeks and weeks."
The president-elect, who continually suggested throughout his campaign that the election was rigged against him, added that he's curious about what occurs when early voting precincts are "locked": "I wonder what happens during the evenings when those places are 'locked,' right?" Trump said, using air quotes.
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member of the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, requested all documents related to the donation, including a copy of the check or money transfer, in a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, giving him until March 26 to comply. In a separate letter, Cummings also pressed the Trump Organization for details on how the amount was calculated.
"There is no legitimate reason for the Trump Organization to withhold information about these payments from Congress," Cummings wrote. "We have an obligation to determine whether foreign governments are spending money at President Trump's businesses, how much they are spending and whether these payments violate the Emoluments Clause."
Some Republicans on the House's Russia investigation panel agreed that the evidence failed to support the intel agencies' conclusions. "It is my belief that Russia's intent was to influence our elections by having the American people distrust the institutions that serve them," said Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) in a statement, when asked whether she supported the report's conclusions. "However, I do not believe this interference swayed the electorate to vote for one candidate or another. "
"This is a terrific vote for the US Senate," said Merkley. "The American people want this institution to function. They want to see it take on the big issues. They don't want to see the entire calendar of the year eaten up by paralyzing process on nominations."
Filibuster reform has long been a marquee issue for Merkley (OR) & Udall (NM), who are part of a new breed of Senate reformers who have never served in the minority. Now, they're looking to expand their change to filibuster rules governing legislation--but that's going to be a much harder sell.
Critics of the two first-term senators say they led a movement they don't even understand--they have only served in the majority, longtime GOP senators charge, and don't appreciate ways that the filibuster has been used to the benefit of the country in the past.
PROMISE KEPT: (White House press release, 4/9/21): President Biden will issue an executive order forming the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court, comprised of a bipartisan group of experts on the Court and the Court reform debate. The Commission's purpose is to provide an analysis of Supreme Court reform, including an appraisal of the merits and legality of particular reform proposals, within 180 days of its first public meeting.
ANALYSIS: The proposed reform, which critics call "court packing," would be to add 4 Supreme Court seats, to change the current 6-3 conservative majority to a 7-6 liberal majority.
Some of his colleagues are concerned. "It's not good politics in the end," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). "It says you don't trust the president."
Tillis is working with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on the bill, which would allow a special counsel a 10-day window to fight a potential removal by the Trump administration and could soon see a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
While Republicans privately scoffed at Begich for joining a lobby giant, Begich said he's not registering as a lobbyist. Big firms, he said, were courting him after his election loss with lucrative offers. "I don't want to lobby, & I'm not interested in that."
"Whoever the nominee is likely won't be decided until late into 2020, and whoever that nominee is will face a very large and well-funded campaign in waiting," a Bloomberg adviser, who led Obama's battleground effort in 2012, told POLITICO last month.
"As we looked at the gaps in the current ecosystem, we said, 'Could we set something up right now that could provide the infrastructure, provide the data and technology to whomever the eventually nominee is so they're not at such a disadvantage once the primary is over?'" the adviser said. "We can."
Some of his colleagues are concerned. "It's not good politics in the end," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). "It says you don't trust the president."
Tillis is working with Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chris Coons (D-Del.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) on the bill, which would allow a special counsel a 10-day window to fight a potential removal by the Trump administration and could soon see a vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Murphy, who grew up outside Boston to a family he frequently says was "middle-class on a good day," made his fortune as an executive at Goldman Sachs in the 1990s and early 2000s. The firm is unpopular among liberals and in New Jersey is associated with unpopular former Gov. Jon Corzine--a past CEO of the firm whose time there coincided with Murphy's. The Democratic hopeful has stressed other aspects of his career.
Republicans say Feingold--whose claim to fame is the co-authorship of the sweeping campaign finance law that bears his name--created a campaign-in-waiting using the kind of outside group that he's spent his career railing against. "Mr. Campaign Finance Reform realizes that one of the first things he did when he left office was to set up a PAC," Johnson said.
Tillis doesn't think Trump will ultimately fire Mueller even as the president rages over the expanding Russia probe. But he has an impassioned response for his conservative critics nonetheless:
"Courage is when you know you're going to do something that's going to anger your base," Tillis said in an interview. "The same people who would criticize me for filing this bill would be absolutely angry if I wasn't pounding the table for this bill if we were dealing with Hillary Clinton," he argued. "So spare me your righteous indignation."
"I'm just so encouraged now that we're going to be able to--without filibusters--put people on the courts in an orderly way," Udall said. Filibuster reform has long been a marquee issue for Merkley (OR) and Udall (NM). Now, they're looking to expand their change to filibuster rules governing legislation--but that's going to be a much harder sell.
Udall recalled that he campaigned on the idea when he was first elected to the Senate in 2008. Once he was sworn in, he said he began thinking "immediately" about how to most effectively go about campaigning for such a radical change in an institution that runs on tradition.
Critics say they led a movement they don't even understand--they have only served in the majority, and don't appreciate ways that the filibuster has been used to benefit the country in the past.
Excerpts from veto message: I am approving in-person absentee voting between Monday and Friday from 8 AM to 7 PM, and prohibiting in-person absentee voting on legal holidays. I am vetoing hiring individuals to assist with in-person absentee voting. I object to a new state expenditure for a function traditionally performed by local governments. We should all be focused on ensuring the integrity of the voting process by making it harder to cheat.
Legislative Outcome: Bill passed Senate 17-16-0 on 3/12; passed House 56-38-5 on 3/20; State Rep. Barnes voted NO; vetoed by Gov. Walker on 3/27.
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| 2016 Presidential contenders on Government Reform: | |||
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Republicans:
Sen.Ted Cruz(TX) Carly Fiorina(CA) Gov.John Kasich(OH) Sen.Marco Rubio(FL) Donald Trump(NY) |
Democrats:
Secy.Hillary Clinton(NY) Sen.Bernie Sanders(VT) 2016 Third Party Candidates: Roseanne Barr(PF-HI) Robert Steele(L-NY) Dr.Jill Stein(G,MA) | ||
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