Category Archives: Democrat

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

One of President Joe Bidens favorite sayings from the campaign trail is, "Dont compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative." And it seems, less than 100 days out from the 2022 midterm elections, voters are doing just that: comparing each candidate on their own individual merits. The oft-repeated mantra that "candidates matter" is proving true as Republicans are consistently underperforming their Democratic counterparts in the polls and nominating extreme candidates far outside the mainstream. In an evenly divided U.S. Senate, every candidate and battleground state matters.

Here's a look at three critical factors working against Republican hopes for returning to power in the upper chamber this fall.

Money Talks

Second quarter fundraising numbers released just last month paint a very different picture between rival camps, with Democrats posting "blockbuster" hauls while GOP candidates have mostly flopped. Arizona, Georgia and New Hampshire are must-win states for Team Reds chances of flipping the Senate, but the incumbent Democrats wiped the floor with their Republican challengers. Arizona provided the starkest financial divide as incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly raised $13.6 million during the quarter, compared with just $827,000 for Blake Masters, the Republican nominee.

BLAKE MASTERS WINS ARIZONA'S REPUBLICAN SENATE PRIMARY IN KEY BATTLEGROUND STATE SHOWDOWN

In New Hampshire, incumbent Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan raised just over $5 million in Q2, compared to just $538,000 for challenger Chuck Morse, the state Senate president. In the Peach State, Trump-backed Herschel Walker, who easily bested his GOP rivals in May, posted a respectable $6.2 million, but Sen. Raphael Warnock raised nearly three times as much, bringing in $17.2 million during the same period.

Herschel Walker speaks at Save America event in Perry, Georgia. (Herschel Walker campaign)

With a handful of GOP retirements in states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Carolina, Democrats are on the offense in a midterm year that could actually buck historic trends and headwinds. In the Keystone State, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman raised $11 million, nearly three times the $3.8 million raised by Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz, despite the latters backing by former President Donald Trump and Ozs primary victory in June. Populist Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan also trounced his opponent J.D. Vance in Ohio last quarter, raking in $9.1 million to just over $2.3 for the author-turned senate hopeful.

Fractured Base

Long dead are the days when Ronald Reagans eleventh commandment, "Thou shall not speak ill of another Republican" prevailed. In 2022, the Republican primary elections were cruel, filled with political and personal attacks and a bitter divide among candidates.

Brutal primary campaigns in Ohio and Pennsylvania, pitting Trump-backed candidates against more establishment supported challengers, have left the victors struggling to pick up the pieces ahead of November. In Pennsylvania, recent polling has Oz down double digits against his Democratic rival Fetterman, due in large part to inability to unite Republicans across the Commonwealth, including locking in voters who backed rivals David McCormick and Kathy Barnette during the primary.

In neighboring Ohio, Vance narrowly secured a primary win in May, thanks in large part to his backing from Trump. That endorsement caused a schism from within the primary electorate, pitting Vance against former Ohio State Treasurer Josh Mandel, who enjoyed the support of the Club for Growth, among others. In the end, more than $66 million was spent by GOP Senate candidates vying for the open seat with the vast majority of that spending going toward negative advertising specifically driving down Vances approval ratings.

In Arizona and Missouri, GOP primary voters went to the polls last night to choose their Senate candidates. In Arizona, venture capitalist Blake Masters won the GOP nod with just 39% of the vote in a hard-fought, contentious primary. In Missouri, current Attorney General Eric Schmitt fared better in the primary, netting just over 45% of the vote in an even more heated race against former Gov. Eric Greitens and two sitting Republican congressmen. In both races, a majority of Republicans supported different candidates and have followed in the wake of others highlighted above with some of the most negative campaigning we have seen in GOP contests, which in the end only benefits Democrats in November.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE OPINION NEWSLETTER

Roe Matters

Prognosticators in both parties believed that the Supreme Courts decision in Dobbs to overturn decades of precedent on abortion rights might have impacts just on the margins of a handful of key races. Yet, voters in deep-red Kansas last night overwhelmingly voted to keep that states constitutional right to abortion, including from large numbers of Republican voters. This shows that Dobbs is a much bigger issue for voters than was presumed. That vote, in a state Trump won easily in 2020, demonstrates that voters in both parties soundly reject the anti-choice rhetoric coming from Republicans. This landmine will be tough for Republicans to navigate not only in close races, but in races where the GOP thinks they have a greater margin of likely victory. Voters, especially women, are angry, and they are turning out in large numbers to have their voices heard.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

One hundred days is a lifetime in politics, and Republicans could certainly rebound should their base begin to consolidate around their candidates, if Democratic fundraising starts to dwindle, or if key indicators on the economy do not improve. But as former House Speaker Tip ONeill famously quipped, "all politics are local," and the Senate majority will not be decided in Washington nor what decisions happen in Washington, but will rather be by voters who look at their candidates as binary choices. And, with a fractured slate of less than stellar Republican candidates, I like my partys chances in November.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM KEVIN WALLING

Kevin Walling is a Democratic campaign strategist, former Biden 2020 campaign surrogate, vice president at HGCreative. Follow him on Twitter @KevinPWalling.

See the original post:

I'm a Democrat and here are 3 reasons why we'll hold the Senate in 2022 - Fox News

WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Bipartisan legislation has been introduced in both houses of U.S. Congress to establish a path to American citizenship for thousands of Afghan evacuees admitted to the United States on temporary immigration status, the sponsors announced on Tuesday.

The bill also would expand eligibility for Special Immigration Visas (SIVs) beyond Afghans who worked for the U.S. government to those who fought alongside U.S. forces as commandoes and air force personnel, and to women who served in special counterterrorism teams.

Identical versions of the bill were introduced days before the first anniversary of the final U.S. troop withdrawal and the chaotic evacuation operation that ended America's longest war and saw the Taliban overrun Kabul.

Register

"We must keep our commitment to provide safe, legal refuge to those who willingly put their lives on the line to support the U.S. mission in Afghanistan," Democratic Representative Earl Blumenauer, co-sponsor of the House bill with Republican Peter Meijer, said in a statement.

Three minority Republicans, including Senator Lindsey Graham, joined three majority Democrats in introducing an identical version of the Afghanistan Adjustment Act in the thinly divided Senate, enhancing its chances of passage.

Even so, a congressional aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the measure likely will face "resistance" from anti-immigration Republicans.

Many of the 76,000 Afghans flown out in last year's evacuation operation entered the United States on humanitarian parole, a temporary immigration status that typically only lasts up to two years.

The legislation would allow those evacuees to apply for permanent legal status if they submit to additional background checks.

Generally, those Afghans only can gain permanent legal status in the United States by applying for asylum or through SIVs, programs beset by major backlogs.

Register

Reporting by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Sam Holmes

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Read more from the original source:

Democrats, Republicans sponsor bill to give thousands of Afghans path to citizenship - Reuters.com

On a muggy evening last week at a golf course in southern Brooklyn, more than 200 Democratic Party judicial delegates packed into a large white tent. Theyd been elected in June from across the borough to be the peoples voice at the annual convention where the party decides on its nominees for Brooklyns Supreme Court.

In reality, however, their choices were predetermined.

Two days earlier, Kings County Democratic Party executives had hashed out a single slate of 12 candidates for the delegates to vote up or down on, leaving them no chance to weigh individual contestants for the bench.

Standing at the front of the tent with a microphone, Jeffrey Feldman, a longtime party operative in a black suit and light blue tie, read off the pre-selected names, and asked for the delegates to say AYE or NAY.

After hearing shouts from both sides for a few seconds, the party functionary had made up his mind. The ayes have it, he told the crowd to applause.

Feldman was still reading off a sheet of paper ratifying the vote, when Katie Walsh, a first-time judicial delegate from Sunset Park, walked up to a microphone stand in the crowd and interrupted him.

You havent got evidence that the nays were the minority so you have to go and do a roll call vote, she said.

Motion for roll call vote, Walsh continued. Motion for roll call vote!

Within seconds, her mic was cut off.

The brief public spectacle that got those 12 names on the November ballot for Brooklyn Supreme Court offers only a hint of the true nature of the process which began behind closed doors months before the official convention.

It featured significant sums of money moving between campaign and committee accounts, phone calls from party leaders strategizing on how to best get their picks through, and even near fisticuffs at a private meeting of party executives deciding on the candidates.

And this was a relatively harmonious year.

From the outside, the process couldnt appear more democratic: judicial screening panels, elected delegates, and a public vote on which names make it to the general election ballot.

But in practice, critics have contended for decades, its a system thats been designed to allow the Brooklyn Democratic Party leaders to hand-pick the boroughs Supreme Court justices, who preside over life-changing cases for residents ranging from criminal felony charges to intra-party election disputes to high-dollar civil matters.

While the party nominees still have to win on the general election ballot in November, in blue Brooklyn, convention endorsements almost guarantee candidates a seat on the bench.

Its a little skit, a little theater skit, where the party leaders essentially with different criteria thats known only to themselves select people, and delegates just go along, said Margarita Lopez Torres, a former Brooklyn Surrogates Court judge who challenged the process in a failed lawsuit that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2007.

Its certainly not the best way to select judges, she added. Were all kind of stuck with it.

Two days before the convention, the real decisions were hashed out at Nicks Lobster House, an old-school seafood joint on Brooklyns southeastern shoreline.

There, over plates of calamari and chicken wings, party executives haggled over their preferred candidates for the bench many of whom had hobnobbed at their local political clubs, helped them with their candidate petitions, and made more than $108,000 in combined campaign contributions to party leaders election accounts and clubs in the months and years beforehand.

Cheryl Gonzales, a Housing Court judge whom party executives decided to reward with a nomination that day, had previously shelled out nearly $12,000 in campaign contributions to party leaders, the party committee and affiliated Democratic clubs.

She received 40 votes from party leaders, more than any other candidate in the pack.

Aaron Maslow, a former election attorney for Brooklyns Democratic party boss, Flatbush Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn, also got the nod from the executive committee.

Over his career as an attorney, Maslow had spent more than $30,000 on mailers and campaign contributions to help party executives close to the establishment with most of it going to his wife, a former party leader who last year chose to resign from her post over her racially charged comments about Chinese and Palestinian people.

And in the months leading up to the June primary, the election attorney had also worked to help numerous establishment-backed Democrats, including some of the party leaders weighing in that day, with their signature petitions.

If you had your petitions filed this year they were done by Aaron Maslow for free night after night, said Frank Seddio, an influential party executive from Canarsie, speaking on Maslows behalf at the secret pre-meeting.

Seddio, who clashed with progressives in his previous role as party boss, closed his speech for Maslow by noting that the party chairs former election attorney would be an outstanding judge especially in the election part, a reference to the courtroom where establishment and progressive Democrats litigate pivotal intra-party disputes.

Other district leaders, hailing from self-styled reform clubs, immediately pushed back during the meeting, pointing out that Maslow was vying for the Supreme Court nomination despite having never served as a lower court judge a typical stepping-stone position.

We have a list of people who have served in the civil court for a length of time with stellar records who arent being considered, said Doug Schneider, a party executive from Park Slope and a civil rights attorney by trade, to the gathering. And theyre not being considered because Aaron Maslow did a lot of favors for people.

Those arguments coming from the reform faction didnt move the majority of party executives allied with Bichotte Hermelyn, all of whom voted him in.

Despite considerable alignment between the Democratic establishment and party dissidents on most of the other candidates, the night ended with Seddio having to be held back from fighting another outgoing party leader, David Schwartz.

Schwartz had recently lost his seat as district leader in a close race after facing considerable opposition from party boss Bichotte Hermelyn and her ally Mayor Eric Adams, after Schwartz endorsed Andrew Yang rather than Adams in last years mayoral race.

That night at Nicks Lobster House, Schwartz questioned whether Seddio had misrepresented which nominees were backed by a party leader who was absent from the meeting. Following the meeting, Seddio had to be restrained from physically going after him, video of the incident shows.

What I am is a fucking Sicilian who will take your fucking heart out, the septuaginarian shouted as Schwartz pointed his cell phone camera at him. You should only suffer a terrible death.

Seddio and Schwartz didnt respond to voice messages seeking comment.

A number of witnesses said the group was kicked out of the restaurant after the blowup.

The restaurant staff was like, Everyone needs to leave, recalled Julio Pea III, a Sunset Park party executive affiliated with the New Kings Democrats, a dissident progressive caucus. Its embarrassing that were resorting to violence and aggression at that level.

Two days later, hundreds of judicial delegates ventured out to the Marine Park Golf Course for the official vote.

As the proceedings began, Seddio congregated on the left side of the clubhouse with the dozen pre-selected nominees while the delegates who were nominally voting on the candidates went to the right from the clubhouse, noisily filling more than 200 white folding chairs assembled neatly in rows.

The quicker we can get started the quicker we can leave, party leader Joe Bova said shortly after 6:30 p.m. in a bid to hush the crowd.

In an oddity of the rules governing the evenings process, the attendees were required to spend more than 45 minutes conducting a roll call vote to nominate the person who would chair the convention vote. The meeting chair, Feldman, was approved by a vote of 167 to 38.

But there was no count of votes for the actual nomination of judges, despite Walshs subsequent attempt to request one from the crowd of delegates.

How can you possibly take this vote of something that is so critically important, like voting for New York State Supreme Court judges, and do it in such a way that its based on the loudest yelling of voices? Walsh said in a subsequent interview with THE CITY.

The entire affair including thank you speeches by most of the nominees concluded in 99 minutes.

Afterward, in a press release, party spokespeople declared the convention was a success, with delegates civically engaged in a fair and transparent process, and pointed to the historic diversity of the nominees.

The final slate included the nomination of six Black female candidates including one who is likely to be the first ever Haitian-American on the bench in Brooklyn.

Congratulations to all the nominees, who have proven track records of progressive judicial and courtroom achievements and will continue to help bring fairness and impartiality to the courts, said party chair Bichotte Hermelyn. Im ecstatic to see these groundbreaking nominations happen under my leadership, and Im confident Brooklyns judicial system will remain in extremely capable hands when the nominees are elected in November.

The formal process for landing a nomination begins earlier in the year with screenings that determine which candidates are eligible for the partys approval but the glad-handing, schmoozing and campaign donations are a years-long endeavor.

Some good government groups have also questioned the makeup of the judicial screening panel, whose attorneys sometimes land paid assignments from sitting judges whose qualifications they review.

Former judge Lopez Torres filed her lawsuit challenging the process for picking Supreme Court nominees in 2004 after she was repeatedly prevented from participating in the partys screenings and encountered obstacles in her bid to identify the names of judicial delegates whom she might convince to nominate her to a seat.

While the lawsuit ultimately failed in the countrys highest court, the Brooklyn federal district court ruling unequivocally agreed with Lopez Torres that the process was rigged to preclude any challenges from judges not endorsed by party leaders.

The plaintiffs have demonstrated convincingly that local major party leaders not the voters or the delegates to the judicial nominating conventions control who becomes a Supreme Court Justice and when, wrote former federal judge John Gleeson in a January 2006 ruling. The result is an opaque, undemocratic selection procedure that violates the rights of the voters and the rights of candidates who lack the backing of the local party leaders.

Gleeson found that while technically there were other paths to the ballot available to candidates not backed by county leaders including petitioning to get on the ballot themselves or convincing judicial delegates to nominate them from the convention floor the obstacles were such that these options were practically impossible in the real world.

He noted in his ruling granting a preliminary injunction that in the four decades prior, no one recommended for the ballot by county leaders had failed to secure a nomination by the judicial delegates.

Reasonably diligent candidates who lack the support of entrenched party leaders stand virtually no chance of obtaining a major party nomination, no matter how qualified they are and no matter how much support they enjoy among the registered voters of the party, he wrote.

Lopez and self-styled party reformers thought Gleesons blistering decision, which was subsequently affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, signaled the end of Brooklyns top-down convention process.

But two years after that initial victory, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the lower court findings.

The question of whether New Yorks convention system ensured judicial candidates had a fair shot was for the legislatures, not judges, to determine, noted Justice Antonin Scalia in the 9-0 opinion.

Wrote Scalia: Party conventions, with their attendant smoke-filled rooms and domination by party leaders, have long been an accepted manner of selecting party candidates.

Get THE CITY Scoop

Sign up and get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning

Thank you for your submission!

Continue reading here:

Holding Court: How Brooklyns Democratic Party Execs Select the Judges on Your Ballot - THE CITY

Todays newsletter is a guest dispatch from Georgia, where my colleague Maya King covers politics across the South.

ATLANTA Long before Georgia became the center of the American political universe, Stacey Abrams and leagues of Democratic organizers across the Peach State were testing out a new strategy to help their party win more top-ticket elections.

National Democrats largely dismissed their calculations, which called for exhausting voter turnout in the reliably blue Metro Atlanta region while investing more time and money in turning out rural, young and infrequent voters of color outside the capital city instead of the moderate and independent white voters in its suburbs.

There were strong civil rights interests at stake, given the history of discrimination against Black voters in Georgia and across the South.

But there were hardball politics at play, too, in Abramss push to register millions of new voters. She and her allies hoped they would become the backbone of a coalition that could turn Georgia blue for the first time since Bill Clinton won the state in 1992.

In 2018, Abrams, Georgias current Democratic nominee for governor, came extraordinarily close to winning her first campaign for the office. In 2020, her organizing helped Joe Biden narrowly win the state before boosting the fortunes of two Democrats who won both of the states Senate seats two months later.

The strategy is now widely accepted on the left although it is expensive. But Abrams, her fellow Democratic candidates and several voter-focused organizations in Georgia are counting on it again this year to prove that their wins in 2020 were not a fluke made possible by former President Donald Trumps unpopularity, but rather the continuation of a trend.

Its why Way to Win, a collective of progressive Democratic donors and political strategists, is pouring $8.5 million into Georgias voter mobilization efforts ahead of November, according to plans first shared with The New York Times.

The group has already shelled out nearly $4 million to more than a dozen organizations in Georgia, including the Working Families Party and the New Georgia Project, which Ms. Abrams founded in 2014 and whose board Senator Raphael Warnock, a Democrat who is running for election to a full term, chaired from 2017 to 2020. The groups goal is to provide the financial backing for Democrats to continue turning out the same broad swath of voters that they did in previous cycles, and blunt the effect of national trends working against them.

They also feel like they have something to prove to skeptics in Washington yet again.

If you talk to these voters every voter that has been ignored by traditional pundits and traditional institutional leaders if you build a big tent, they will come, said Tory Gavito, co-founder, president and chief executive of Way to Win. I cant tell you how many rooms I still go to where traditional operatives will say, Is Georgia really a battleground? And its like, are you kidding? How many cycles do we have to go through where Georgia leaders really show the power of a multiracial coalition?

To win the big statewide races, Georgia Democrats are counting on high turnout from the same coalition that brought them success in 2018 and 2020: a mix of loyal, rain-or-shine voters in addition to a critical mass of moderate, independent and infrequent voters.

But the outside forces getting them to the polls, or not, look very different than they did in the two previous election cycles. Where anti-Trump sentiment, a nationwide movement against systemic racism and coronavirus-related provisions that expanded access to the ballot fueled record turnout in 2020, voters this year are keeping rising prices and concerns about an economic recession front of mind, dampening their enthusiasm. They are also contending with a new, more restrictive voting law passed by the Republicans who control the state legislature and governors mansion.

The state of the midterms. We are now over halfway through this years midterm primary season, and some key ideas and questions have begun to emerge. Heres a look at what weve learned so far:

Way to Wins investment reflects a growing understanding among Democratic donors that early money matters even more in a tough midterm cycle.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll out Wednesday found that just over 60 percent of likely Democratic voters said they believed the country was on the wrong track. That same poll showed Abrams trailing her Republican opponent, Gov. Brian Kemp, by five percentage points. Warnocks Senate race against Herschel Walker, the first-time candidate and former University of Georgia football icon, is statistically tied. Political operatives and observers in both parties are expecting the campaigns to be among the most costly in the country this year.

And, as long as the economy remains the elections top animating issue, Georgia Republicans are pinning the nations economic woes directly on Democratic leaders in Washington, warning that President Joe Bidens policies will trickle further down south should Abrams win in November.

In a speech to supporters in McDonough, Ga. on Friday morning, Kemp railed against what he called the Biden-Abrams agenda for Georgia.

Stacey Abrams campaigned for Joe Biden, publicly auditioned to be his vice president, celebrated his victory and took credit for his win, Kemp said. He also condemned her for listening to TV hosts on MSNBC, her big donors in New York and California and liberal elites who can stay in their basement for months on end.

Democrats are also throwing their weight behind a number of races down the ballot, including for attorney general and secretary of state two offices that have proven their importance in light of developments on abortion and election security.

Many groups, particularly those led by people of color, have long decried money dumps from big, national donors that dont come in until September or October or, as Britney Whaley of the Working Families Party describes it, the holiday, birthday and special occasion giving.

By then, said Whaley, who spearheads the progressive groups southeast regional organizing, its often too late for the groups aiming to mobilize hard-to-reach voters to make a big difference.

If we hadnt created the conditions on the ground that prepared us for Jan. 5, all of the money in the world would have been for naught, she said, referring to the day Warnock and Senator Jon Ossoff were elected in 2021. Those two victories allowed Democrats to claim a majority in the Senate, unlocking the billions in spending that Republicans now criticize as wasteful and inflationary.

Spending money several months before voting begins, Whaley added, should actually be the standard.

The Working Families Partys national organizing arm has also taken notice of both the strategy and its implications for future elections. Maurice Mitchell, the partys national director, said the Georgia model of balancing reliably blue voters in cities with new groups of voters in rural areas could be replicated in other battleground states, like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

And he warned against making too much of the debates among pundits and Democratic strategists that have continued since Warnock and Ossoffs seemingly improbable wins: Should the Democratic Party exert more effort to win back the working-class white voters theyve steadily lost since the 1980s, go after upscale college-educated suburbanites who are repulsed by Trump, or stick with Abramss approach of bringing new voters and communities into a multiracial, rural-urban alliance?

The framework is there, and I think theres been enough examples in recent history of it working, Mitchell said. I think we should fight for every vote, but the idea that we would de-emphasize or de-prioritize communities of color or progressives or young people in a sort of zero-sum to reach out to moderate or swing voters, I think that is a dangerous strategy.

Democrats on the House panel investigating the events of the Jan. 6 attack are skeptical of a bipartisan Senate proposal to reform the Electoral Count Act, Politico reported this week.

Alan Feuer and Katie Benner explained former President Donald Trumps fake electors scheme.

In The Atlantic, Barton Gellman writes about how just six states could subvert the 2024 election.

viewfinder

On Politics regularly features work by Times photographers. Heres what Kenny Holston told us about capturing the image above:

As a photojournalist who has covered former President Donald Trump in some capacity since 2016, I know a chaotic scene is never too far behind him.

This was the case earlier this week when Trump returned to Washington, D.C., for the first time since he left office.

Officers from the Metropolitan Police Department lined the street in front of the Marriott Marquis hotel, where Trump spoke at a gathering of the America First Policy Institute. On one side of the police line stood anti-Trump protesters, and on the other, Trump supporters.

Officers broke up a few scuffles between the dueling demonstrations as hotel guests watched the disorder unfold from the lobby window, all while a large box truck projecting oscillating images of Trump and his 2020 election loss on its sides circled the block repeatedly.

In an effort to convey this scene in a single photo, I decided to use the reflection in the hotel window. I got very close to the glass with my camera and tilted the camera slightly, allowing me to partially see through the glass while also capturing everything reflected in it, as seen in the photo above.

Thanks for reading. Well see you Monday.

Blake

Is there anything you think were missing? Anything you want to see more of? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.

See more here:

Democrats Plan to Win in 2022 Looks a Lot Like 2020 and 2018 - The New York Times

WASHINGTON With an extended summer recess looming and their majority at risk in November elections, Senate Democrats were facing the prospect of allowing dozens of judicial vacancies to go unfilled by President Biden this year, and under pressure from progressive activists to move more quickly and aggressively to push them through.

Mr. Biden and Democrats have installed scores of the presidents picks on the federal bench to offset the conservative imprint of the Trump era, a bright spot for the Biden administration despite Democrats tight majorities in Congress. But progressive groups warned that unless Democrats took more aggressive steps and quickened their pace, the party could lose its chance to reshape the courts.

Progressives have called for Democrats to stay in session in August, when they were scheduled to have a four-week recess, to hold hearings on nominees, teeing them up for floor votes later this fall. And they have pushed Democrats to abandon the blue slip practice that effectively grants home-state senators veto power over candidates for federal district court judges in their states, which has limited the administrations ability to win confirmation of district court nominees in states represented by Republicans.

Time is of the essence, the activists argue, because Republicans are likely to drastically slow if not halt the confirmation of Biden-nominated judges if they win the majority in midterm elections this fall. At their current pace, Democrats face the prospect of not being able to fill as many as 60 district and appellate court vacancies by the end of the year. Federal judges have been retiring or taking senior status faster than the White House has been able to identify nominees and send them to the Senate for consideration, a process that can consume months.

This is a historic opportunity to continue the wonderful progress that has been made under the Biden administration to correct the harm that has been done to the federal judiciary, said Russ Feingold, a former Democratic senator from Wisconsin who leads the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal group. This is a moment to play hardball.

The advocacy groups have applied pressure through a digital advertising campaign aimed at Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the Judiciary Committee chairman, and op-eds, among other tactics.

Though some Democratic allies were clamoring for the Senate to stay in session through August to vote on judicial nominees, that appeared unlikely. But Mr. Feingold and others said that, at a minimum, Democrats should use the time to conduct Judiciary Committee hearings. In a break with past practice, Republicans in 2018 began holding confirmation hearings during their October recess.

The groups would also like to see Democrats increase the number of nominees considered at each hearing.

Republicans held hearings during recess to move more Trump judges, and Democrats should now do the same, said Chris Kang, general counsel for Demand Justice, a progressive group. This is not radical there is recent precedent for it that just needs to be followed.

When the Republican majority and Donald J. Trumps presidency seemed in danger in 2020, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who was then the majority leader, adopted a mantra of leave no vacancy behind and followed a policy of trying to fill every possible judicial opening before a shift in power. But Republicans had not been at the mercy of Democrats for cooperation, since they had a slightly larger majority that provided more flexibility.

Senate Democrats say no one wants to keep confirming Biden-nominated judges more than they do, but given the 50-50 Senate and the evenly divided Judiciary Committee, they do not have the latitude that Mr. McConnell did in years past. They see the confirmation of 74 judges so far over the past two years including a new Supreme Court justice as a major accomplishment, and they say there is a real possibility of exceeding 100 by the end of the year.

We are doing fantastic, said Senator Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat and majority leader, who has long had a deep interest in judicial confirmations.

Democrats have also warned about the hazards of getting too aggressive in advancing nominees given the 11-11 split on the judiciary panel, which oversees the confirmation process. The committee has already had to juggle regular absences by lawmakers because of the coronavirus and other health issues.

The Judiciary Committees rules require at least one Republican to be present to conduct business, such as voting to send nominees to the floor, and Democrats say that a backlash by Republicans to Democratic heavy-handedness could lead to fewer judicial nominees advancing, not more.

We have done very well so far, we have a number of judges going through, Mr. Durbin said. If I get confrontational, it is just tempting fate.

Mr. Durbin and other Democrats said they were considering the idea of holding confirmation hearings even while the Senate was on break, since they could point to Republicans doing so in the past.

We are discussing options based on precedent, Mr. Durbin said in an interview. We have to be able to say to the Republicans, Here is what you did; here is what we want to do.

Mr. Durbin has leveraged his working relationship with top Republicans on the committee to keep the confirmation train running despite intense partisanship over many nominees. A few Republicans, including Senators Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, have also provided some support, sparing Democrats from time-consuming floor votes to discharge nominees from committee in the event of a deadlock.

Several Republican senators have been accommodating, Mr. Durbin said.

He and his fellow Democrats fear that such cooperation may disappear should they push Republicans to the wall. And Democrats are concerned that eliminating the blue slip power could backfire on them during a future Republican presidency.

The worry for Democrats is that if Republicans take control of the Senate at the start of next year, Mr. McConnell, the minority leader with a history of playing hardball on judicial nominees, will prevent Mr. Biden from filling most of them in hopes of a Republican winning the White House in 2024. When Mr. McConnell became majority leader in 2015, he slowed judicial confirmations to a trickle for the final years of Barack Obamas administration.

Democrats say their chance to push judges through might not come around again for some time should they lose the majority.

The fact that you are going to leave 60 vacancies open for McConnell to block should be very alarming to everybody, said Mr. Kang, who worked on judicial nominations in the Obama White House and was also a former counsel to Mr. Durbin.

In a recent interview, Mr. McConnell appeared to suggest that liberal activists were right to be worried about what he and Republicans would do on judge seat vacancies if Democrats came up short in their push to hold on to the Senate.

If they lose the Senate, Id keep everybody here as long as I could get enough attendance to fill every vacancy I possibly could before the end of the year, he said. Which is not to say we are going to shut down everything. But thats what Id do.

Read the original here:

Despite Bidens Success on Judges, Progressives Demand Faster Pace - The New York Times

As national Democrats strategize ahead of the midterms, the party would be wise to take note of the Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio, Rep. Tim Ryan. Ryan is emerging as a sleeper candidate to flip a solid red seat blue and is arguably becoming a model for the Democratic Party going forward.

Indeed, amid a national political environment that is highly unfavorable toward Democrats, Ryan has a realistic chance of winning a reliably Republican Senate seat in a state that Donald Trump won by 8-points in both2020and2016.

Recent polling from Suffolk University shows Ryans opponent, Trump-endorsed Hillbilly Elegyauthor J.D. Vance, leading by justthree points, while some polls conducted by Democratic strategy groups put Ryanslightly ahead.

Ryans relative strength in the race is largely due to his campaigns strategic successes in three crucial areas: He is running toward the center on key issues, appealing to blue-collar voters and making a concerted effort to reach out to both Republicans and Democrats.

To be sure, this used to be the overarching campaign strategy for the Democratic Party however, to the partys detriment, the establishment and leadership have abandoned this approach in favor of promoting a far-left agenda that appeals to a small fraction of the electorate.

To his credit, Ryan is running to the political center and has moved to the right of President Biden and party leadership on key issues like crime and policing, China, trade and the economy.

One of Ryanscampaign adsmakes clear his unequivocal opposition to defunding the police, andanotherunderscores his views on the need to fight back against China and invest in Ohio manufacturing. In addition, he routinely criticizes his own party for not doing enough to counter inflation.

To that end, Ryan is making a concerted effort to appeal to working class and blue-collar voters a coalition that was once the core of the Democratic base, but slowly moved away from the party as it has become more progressive and woke. Put another way, these are the voters that backed Barack Obama in 2008 but voted for Donald Trump in 2016.

Regaining the support of these voters especially those concentrated in the rust belt is essential to the Democrats chances of keeping the White House in 2024 and winning closely contested races in this years midterms.

Ryan has connected with these voters by staying on message about making the economy work for the middle class again by bringing manufacturing jobs back to the state, taking an aggressive stance on inflation and proposing a working-class tax cut.

Perhaps most importantly, Ryan has attempted to do during his campaign what President Biden promised to do during his presidential run: take a conciliatory tone, stop finger-pointing and listen to the other side.

It is a near-extinct approach in American politics today yet it is one that Americans so desperately want to see resurrected.

Ryan has embraced it. His campaignreleased an adthat ostensibly combines Bidens Soul of the Nation appeal with Trumps America First stance and argues that we cant afford to be Democrats and Republicans right now, we have to be Americans first. Another ad supports and applauds a signature Trump policy tariffs on China where Ryan says that he agreedwith Trump on trade.

Ryans frequent appearances and ads on Fox News are helping him connect with voters on the other side of the aisle. Currently, his campaign is running a spot on the conservative news network, which features prominent network hosts Tucker Carlson and Bret Baier heapingpraiseon him and his policies.

In addition, Ryan, as a lifelong Ohioan, has been running a relentless campaign ground game, making campaign stops at county fairs, small businesses and factories to talk about state-specific issues rather than national feuds or culture wars.

While Ryans approach has regrettably lost its prominence in Democratic politics over the last decade, this strategy is clearly his best path to winning the Ohio Senate seat and is also Democrats best path to remaining politically viable in 2022, 2024, and beyond.

Of course, it will still be an uphill battle for Ryan, a 10-term congressman, to win in a state Donald Trump carried easily in the past two elections. That being said, even a narrow loss for Ryan will be a win for Democrats and will give them a roadmap for staying competitive in battleground races in future elections.

Douglas E. Schoen is a political consultant who served as an adviser to former President Clinton and to the 2020 presidential campaign of Michael Bloomberg. He is the author of The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise and America in Retreat.

View original post here:

Democrats across the country can learn from Tim Ryans success - The Hill

Whether its Ronald, Donald or Arnold, Americans are all too familiar with the phenomenon of the second-tier celebrity turned politician. So when the TV doctor Mehmet Oz decided to run for Senate in Pennsylvania, his background as a B-lister seemed well suited to the role.

As he proudly notes in his official biography, Oz has won Emmys, has written eight bestsellers, and was featured on six seasons of The Oprah Winfrey Show. He is a master of traditional media. But now the daytime TV star is facing a Democratic opponent who has proved himself a media success story in his own right though his area of expertise is Twitter, not television.

When John Fetterman entered the race, the relatively little known lieutenant governor had his work cut out for him: a Bernie Sanders backer who supports universal healthcare and a $15 minimum wage, he is running to replace a Republican in a swing state.

But he has rapidly made himself a national name as he tears into Oz on social media hammering him, in particular, on the question of whether hes really from Pennsylvania at all. Oz has said he moved there in 2020 to a place his wifes parents own. Before that, he lived in New Jersey for decades.

In Fettermans view, Oz is still a Jersey boy, and the Democrat has weaponized meme after meme against his rival. Fetterman has posted a picture of Ozs face on a Pennsylvania drivers license, labeled McLovin in an homage to cinemas best known fake ID. He has mocked his rival for apparently filming an ad for his Pennsylvania campaign in his New Jersey mansion. And he has employed the services of the most Jersey person this side of Bruce Springsteen: Nicole Snooki Polizzi.

In a clip that has received more than 84,000 likes on Twitter, the Jersey Shore reality star offers some savage sympathy: I heard that you moved from New Jersey to look for a new job, she says. I know youre away from home and youre in a new place, but dont worry, because youll be back in New Jersey soon.

Fettermans attacks arent limited to the digital world. He had a pilot fly a banner over the Jersey shore saying, Hey Dr Oz. Welcome home to NJ! John. He posted the image online, flexing Pennsylvania credentials by dedicating it to yinz and youse down the shore today a combination of Pittsburgh and Philly-speak. Hes also selling a Dr Oz for NJ sticker. And in a coup de grce on Thursday, Fetterman confirmed that he had launched a petition to have Oz honored in the New Jersey Hall of Fame, which celebrates the accomplishments of state residents.

Oz himself has a ways to go when it comes to the art of the political stunt. He posted pictures of himself visiting Pats and Genos, the dueling cheesesteak shops, across the street from each other, that are a Philadelphia landmark. It was a rookie error, akin to a New Yorker taking a selfie at Times Square any local can list at least five cheesesteak places theyve deemed better than those two. Fetterman called Oz a tourist, and even Pats itself replied: Do you even live in [Pennsylvania]? And can you spell the town you live in? (Oz misspelled the name of his supposed home town, Huntingdon Valley, in a campaign filing.) When youre getting burned by a cheesesteak shop, you know you need to up your social media game.

While Fetterman has proved himself a natural in the art of trolling, you can almost feel the blood, sweat and tears poured into Ozs efforts. When he posted a doctored image of Bernie Sanders with Fetterman labeled best friends, Fetterman replied with a meme mocking Ozs graphic design skills. When the Republican shared a picture of a dictionary definition of John Fetterman a Bernie Sanders socialist who is wrong for Pennsylvania it felt like exactly what it was: an attempt to crowbar old-fashioned political boilerplate into a modern format. (It also placed John Fetterman between justice and jurisdiction, which, as several people pointed out, is not how the alphabet works.)

Perhaps in desperation, Oz has recently adopted a new tactic: a John Fetterman basement tracker that records how long its been since the Democrat has held a public event. But instead of coming off as a blow to his opponent, the strategy just seems mean-spirited. What took Fetterman off the campaign trail was a stroke on 13 May.

Despite his pause from IRL campaigning, Fettermans strategy appears to be working. Polls have repeatedly put the Democrat on top in the race, and he has raised about nine times as much as his opponent since April. A win in November may serve as a political lesson about the importance of carving out a digital identity and could be crucial to Democrats chances of holding the Senate. Like so many others these days, Fetterman is working from home and finding that he can still get things done.

More here:

Has Democrat John Fetterman found a way to beat the reality-TV politician? - The Guardian US

UPDATE, Wednesday, 5:13 AM PT: Hulu will now accept political issue ads, a change in the policy of the streaming platform after Democrats chided the company for rejecting spots on abortion and guns.

In a statement, The Walt Disney Co., parent of Hulu, said, After a thorough review of ad policies across its linear networks and streaming platforms over the last few months, Disney is now aligning Hulus political advertising policies to be consistent with the Companys general entertainment and sports cable networks and ESPN+. Hulu will now accept candidate and issue advertisements covering a wide spectrum of policy positions, but reserves the right to request edits or alternative creative, in alignment with industry standards.

Hulu had previously had a policy prohibiting ad content that takes a position on a controversial issue of public importance (e.g. social issues). It would accept spots for political candidates and campaigns, but they were to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

The executive directors of the Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blasted the company after Hulu refused to stream ad spots on abortion and guns.

PREVIOUSLY: Leaders of three top Democratic committees blasted Hulu for its decision to reject advertising spots on abortion and guns, calling out the streaming service for censorship of the truth.

The spots here and here were turned down, with Hulu citing a long standing policy to reject spots related to controversial issues. Its guidelines prohibit content that takes a position on a controversial issue of public importance (e.g. social issues).

In a statement first made to the Washington Post, the executive directors of the Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said, Hulus censorship of the truth is outrageous, offensive, and another step down a dangerous path for our country. Voters have the right to know the facts about MAGA Republicans agenda on issues like abortion and Hulu is doing a huge disservice to the American people by blocking voters from learning the truth about the GOP record or denying these issues from even being discussed. The three committees called on the company to reverse the policy. A spokesman for the DGA said on Tuesday that they had not heard back from Hulu and they still have our money.

Hulu and its parent company, The Walt Disney Co., have not commented, but a source familiar with the situation cited the streamers policy, noting that it applied not just to abortion and guns but other controversial topics.

No election cycle passes without candidates and campaigns seizing on an outlets rejection of one of their advertisements, something that inevitably calls more attention to the spots in question. But Hulus rejection of the spots reflects the growing attention to streamers policies when it comes to political advertisements, as they are given more leeway to reject such spots than are broadcasters, who are bound by FCC rules set by federal statute. (Stations are all but bound to run spots from candidates, but they have leeway when it comes to issue ads.)

The prohibition on such topical advertising spots is likely to become even more of an issue as campaigns increasingly look to streaming services to reach voters, in particular younger voters. But platforms have different policies. The non-subscription platform Pluto TV in the Washington, D.C. area is full of issue ads, many of them from lobbying groups trying to reach lawmakers about controversial legislation. The subscription platform Peacock, meanwhile, lists controversial issue and political advertising as among the categories of spots that require review by NBCUniversal at least 72 hours before streaming.

Hulus policy does say that they will review on a case-by-case basis certain political ads. That was the case with Suraj Patel, running for Congress in New York. He protested after submitting an ad spot that made mention of abortion, guns and climate change. In a letter he shared with the site Jezebel, he wrote to Disney CEO Bob Chapek and Hulu president Joe Earley, claiming that his campaign received a call from a Hulu representative, explaining that there was an unwritten policy to not include topics considered too sensitive. He noted that TV and cable outlets accepted the spot.

He also wrote that given the decline in cable subscriptions, your network is a key source for information and entertainment for many viewers in the country. Patel later told the Washington Post that the ad ran after his campaign made edits to it, replacing the words climate change with democracy and substituting footage of the attack on the U.S. Capitol with a shot of Donald Trump. Later, though, Hulu contacted his campaign to tell him the original spot would be accepted, according to the Post.

Hulu evaluates how they review candidate ads, with candidates given greater flexibility to explain their positions, the source said. Although those guidelines are not disclosed, they do reserve the right to ask for edits.

Disney ran into a political buzzsaw earlier this year over a Florida law that restricted K-3 teachers from talking about sexual orientation and gender identity, legislation that came to be known by opponents as the Dont Say Gay bill. After initially declining to weigh in on the bill, the company reversed course and condemned it, leading to the states governor, Ron DeSantis, to lead an effort to strip Disney of its special district status at its Florida theme parks.

Read this article:

Democrats Blast Hulu For Rejecting Political Issue Ads On Abortion And Guns; Streaming Service Cites Ban On Spots With Controversial Topics - Deadline

A group of Democrats introduced a bill Tuesday that would impose term limits on Supreme Court justices.

According to a report in Axios, the bill would let the president appoint a justice in the first and third years of his term and each justice would serve for 18 years before retiring from regular active service.

Democrats said the current court, consisting of members appointed for life, is illegitimate because of the popular vote and such recent decisions as its refusal to continue upholding abortion as a right.

Five of the six conservative justices on the bench were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote, and they are now racing to impose their out-of-touch agenda on the American people, who do not want it, Rep. Hank Johnson, Georgia Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said in a statement.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democrat, will introduce the bill in the Senate, Axios reported.

The bills chances of becoming law and taking effect are very slim on two counts.

First, the near-certain lack of Republican support dooms it in a 50-50 Senate where most business requires 60 votes.

Its constitutionality is also dubious since one of the few specific provisions of Article III, which established the judicial branch, states that The judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behaviour, i.e., for life barring impeachment for misconduct.

But Democrats remain undeterred.

Term limits are a necessary step toward restoring balance to this radical, unrestrained majority on the court, said Mr. Johnson, who is chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on courts.

The Axios report said the bill would keep the number of voting justices at nine by moving an existing justice, the longest-serving first, to senior status upon each biennial appointment.

The senior justices, as is the case in lower federal courts, would retain pay and some official duties, including voting if the number of justices drops below nine for any reason.

Read the original:

Democrats introduce bill to impose term limits on Supreme Court justices - Washington Times

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

Democrat strategist Lis Smith, who worked for Pete Buttigieg's 2020 presidential campaign, recalled how she felt while helping disgraced former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo respond to sexual assault allegations during an interview with the Washington Posts's Jonathan Capehart on Tuesday.

Smith also served as an aide to former New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and has recently appeared on several shows to discuss her new book "Any Given Tuesday: A Political Love Story."

Smith told Capehart that she had never heard a "whisper" of any sort of sexual behavior coming from Cuomo.

"So I went to advise him, and he swore. He looked us each in the eye when we met with him, and he just said, Nothing else will come out. There is nothing else that will come out," Smith told the Washington Post writer and MSNBC host.

ANDREW CUOMO GOT ADVICE FROM BILL CLINTON ON HOW TO HANDLE SEX SCANDAL

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo speaks during the daily media briefing at the Office of the Governor of the State of New York on June 12, 2020 in New York City. (Photo by Jeenah Moon/Getty Images)

"And I found myself in a situation that it felt like a little bit like quicksand, that I was, like, getting pulled in over my head, and there's no way for me to get out. But I trusted him. You know, you have to understand, this was someone that I really did believe in, and so it was really hard for me to grapple with the fact that maybe he wasn't being truthful to me," Smith said.

She said loyalty was important to her and that while working in politics she had come across many politicians that were quick to "disappear" at the first sign of trouble.

Smith added that she never wanted to be that person.

"But, ultimately, it was by the time the AG report came out and there were new allegations in there that he, one week prior to the report dropping, had looked us all in the eye and said there's going to be nothing new in, even though he knew that it would be in there, it was beyond clear to me that, you know, my loyalty had been abused."

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio blasted "disgraced" now-former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. (John Lamparski/Getty Images; Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

NY GOV. CUOMO RESIGNS AMID SEXUAL HARASSMENT SCANDAL

"I felt like my gender had been weaponized and been used sort of to provide him cover as an advisor. I mean, I was really a behind the scenes advisor. I wasn't really going out in the press and talking that much to reporters. It was mostly helping to prep him for stuff, but I did still feel like my gender had been weaponized," Smith told the Post.

She said that she learned to not conflate loyalty with integrity and added that she was "employing blind loyalty" towards Cuomo at the time.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Former New York state Gov. Andrew Cuomo (C), former New York City Mayor Bill DeBlasio (R) and New York state Department of Health Commissioner Howard Zucker hold a news conference on the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in New York on March 2, 2020 in New York City. (David Dee Delgado/Getty Images)

Smith called de Blasio "childish" and "annoyingly condescending" in her new book, and said the former New York City mayor was also "intellectually lazy."

During an appearance on MSNBC, Smith compared de Blasio to an "unshowered" college student who believed he was smart because "hed read one line of a Communism for Dummies book."

Hanna Panreck is an associate editor at Fox News.

Read the original here:

Democrat strategist on advising Andrew Cuomo on sexual assault allegations: 'My loyalty had been abused' - Fox News