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Democrats may scuttle tactics used by the rich to pass wealth to heirs with little to no tax, part of a broader plan to raise money for an expansion of the U.S. safety net.

Specifically, the party is considering disallowing some complex trust-planning techniques used by wealthy Americans to avoid estate tax, according to a discussion list of potential tax reforms obtained by CNBC.

Congressional Democrats may also ask the Treasury Department to update regulations to "prevent the abuse of non-economic valuation discounts," according to the list. This concept applies, for example, to entrepreneurs who give a minority interest in their business to their kids at a discounted rate.

The reforms are largely aimed at multimillionaires or billionaires who use the strategies to remove wealth from their estate and transfer it to heirs tax-free, according to estate-tax experts.

"Basically, you've got this basket of loopholes that collectively can be used to defeat the estate tax at really any level, even billionaires," according to Robert Lord, counsel for progressive group Americans for Tax Fairness.

The list, a draft of ideas lawmakers assemble before formally pitching them in the House or Senate, doesn't contain many specifics. It identifies "grantor-retained annuity trusts" and "intentionally defective grantor trusts" as the trusts in question.

More from Personal Finance:Top 1% dodge $163 billion in annual taxes, Treasury saysStimulus payments triggered millions of IRS 'math error' noticesDemocrats may change the rules for 'mega' IRAs over $5 million

Interestingly, Democrats don't seem to be weighing reforms to the estate tax itself, such as a higher tax rate or a reduced asset threshold that would subject more estates to federal levies.

A 40% federal tax rate currently applies to estates and gifts valued at more than $11.7 million for individuals and $23.4 million for married couples.

That asset threshold will fall after 2025 even if Democrats don't touch it, due to sunset provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. (Roughly $6 million and $12 million, respectively, would be exempt from the tax half the current value at that time.)

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, on Capitol Hill on Aug. 9, 2021.

BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI | AFP | Getty Images

The proposed estate-tax reforms are part of Democrats' broader theme of raising taxes on the wealthy to help fund climate, paid leave, childcare and education measures, the cost of which may be as high as $3.5 trillion.

President Joe Biden has said households earning less than $400,000 a year would not see a higher tax bill.

Some of the potential estate-tax reforms share elements of recent Democratic proposals, such as the "For the 99.5% Act" co-sponsored by several lawmakers like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Critics argue the burden of some estate-tax reforms wouldn't only impact the rich but would extend to others like family farmers.

"Many Democrats love to talk about taxing the richest of the rich, but in reality, their proposals would hurt Main Street far more than Wall Street," Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Penn., ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said of the various recent estate-tax proposals.

Let's look at grantor-retained annuity trusts, one of the techniques in question, as an example of how individuals sometimes use trusts to shield wealth from tax.

These trusts also known as GRATs have been leveraged by numerous millionaires and billionaires, including the Trump family, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the Walton family (of Wal-Mart fame) and former Goldman Sachs Chairman Lloyd Blankfein. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, who died earlier this year, reportedly used the trusts to shield billions of dollars from tax.

Individuals often use the trusts to transfer assets that are expected to grow significantly in value, according to Charlie Douglas, a certified financial planner who runs a family office in Atlanta.

Generally, heirs benefit from tax-free appreciation and the owner reduces or avoids a federal estate or gift tax. (The concept is similar for the aforementioned intentionally defective grantor trusts and valuation discounts, Douglas said.)

Let's say an individual puts $1 million of stock into a GRAT with a term of two years. The stock grows 50%, or $500,000, over that period. The trust yields a double benefit: Heirs get the $500,000 growth without tax and the appreciation is removed from the owner's estate, thereby limiting or perhaps even eliminating tax the estate owes upon the owner's death. It becomes the equivalent of a tax-free gift. (The owner would get back the $1 million principal plus a small amount of interest.)

Tax experts say some gaming can also occur, whereby owners intentionally lowball the value of an asset (like real estate) placed in the trust. Heirs would get more tax-free wealth as a result.

The "For the 99.5% Act," a guide for how Democrats may be thinking of new rules, would restrict these trusts as a wealth-transfer tool.

The legislation would increase the amount of time assets must remain in the trust to a minimum 10 years a potential deterrent since tax benefits are lost if the owner dies before the end of the term. Asset appreciation would also no longer be 100% tax-free, for example.

However, these policies may not end up in a final Democrat bill, or may be significantly amended if they do.

"If anybody says they know what's going to happen, they're crazy," Douglas said.

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Democrats may rein in big estates without reforming the estate tax - CNBC

The SALT deduction, as the tax break is known, was pitched as a break for middle-class taxpayers in high-tax states most blue ones by giving them some relief on their taxes in the form of a federal tax deduction for state and local taxes they paid.

But a law ushered by the Trump administration capped deductions at $10,000, a move that mostly impacted the highest-earning residents of high-tax states like Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and California because many top-earning taxpayers could no longer deduct the full amount of their local tax liability.

Now, as Democrats hash out the details of their budget plan a plan that will need near-unanimous support on their side of the aisle in both houses of Congress, given the Democrats razor-thin majorities some lawmakers are drawing a line in the sand on lifting or repealing that SALT deduction limit.

Leading the call to repeal the SALT deduction cap altogether is Tom Suozzi, a Democrat from New York.

That would be a great political victory because it would help a lot of people in my district and in many districts throughout the country, Suozzi said last week.

Certainly high earners in Suozzis district and elsewhere would reap the benefit of his proposal. But studies, including one by the Tax Policy Center, showed that 96 percent of the savings from the SALT deduction went to the top 20 percent of wage earners, proof that it is not at all a lifeline for the middle class.

On its face, it sounds good to say that Congress should offer tax relief during a pandemic, said Richard V. Reeves, a senior fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution.

But the people who will benefit from lifting the SALT cap are not the people who were hurt by the pandemic, Reeves said. If the idea here is to help the people who were hardest hit, then this is the least well-targeted policy in economic history because the pandemic disproportionately hit people in lower-income jobs.

Few, if any, essential front-line employees and wage workers who suffered the most economically over the last year and a half are in the position to claim enough itemized deductions to even qualify for the SALT deduction. And the top 20 percent didnt feel the pandemic pain in nearly the same way.

Margaret Boyle, spokeswoman for House Ways and Means Committee chairman Richard Neal, who is helping hash of the bill, said in an e-mail that Neal is continuing to work with members on a path forward on this issue.

Meanwhile, some of the wealthiest earners in several states, including Massachusetts, already got a big boost from state law workarounds to the SALT deduction caps, allowing them to still claim federal deductions for state and local taxes if they have a pass-through company that will let them do so.

That too is an unfortunate move depriving federal coffers of needed funding for other crucial programs, but it also undercuts the urgency of calls from Suozzi and others that the budget bill should be held up on this issue if states are acting on their own.

Lawmakers should draw their own line and send a clear message: There is no good time to push tax breaks for the rich at the expense of programs for the lower and middle classes. But during a pandemic recovery is the worst time.

Editorials represent the views of the Boston Globe Editorial Board. Follow us on Twitter at @GlobeOpinion.

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Its the worst time for Democrats to push tax breaks for the rich - The Boston Globe

Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee are set to begin considering a huge chunk of their party-line bill on Thursday, yet are already privately predicting they'll end up getting strong-armed by the White House and Senate into taking the Medicare expansion championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders at the expense of the ACA.

And the angst on the left is more complicated than the typical progressives-versus-moderates dynamic it's the latest chapter in a long-running debate between those who want to focus on shoring up Obamacare and those who want to move toward a "Medicare for All"-style model. As both factions battle, the bulk of President Joe Biden's domestic agenda is hanging in the balance.

Im not going to be quietly sitting on the sidelines and watching all the people eligible for Medicare treated royally and the people who depend on Medicaid be neglected, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said, noting hes made Biden aware of his preference for solidifying an Obamacare Medicaid expansion aimed at low-income Americans, including minority communities in red states like his. Ill stand up to anybody with that position. I dont care who it is.

On its surface, the health care clash pits Sanders, the Senate Budget Committee chair, against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership team, who are leading the charge to shore up the Affordable Care Act. Yet its roots go deeper: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who never signed onto Sanders' Medicare for All bill, is in his corner for the current clash as the upper chamber digs in to defend its approach to the multitrillion-dollar social spending bill. Schumer touted a "robust and historic expansion of Medicare" to reporters on Wednesday morning.

While Pelosi and her allies also support the Medicare benefits a senior Democratic aide noted that theyve been part of the speakers drug bill for years they and several outside advocacy groups are pushing the party to prioritize the populations most vulnerable to prospective GOP rollbacks of the health law.

On Wednesday, Pelosi publicly downplayed the battle, saying "both will be present; thats not a problem." But behind the scenes, the House leadership camp argues that taking away benefits from seniors on Medicare would be more politically difficult for a future Republican Congress.

Meanwhile, the House progressive camp wants to spend significant money on expanding Medicare to cover vision, hearing and dental benefits for seniors. But despite the massive size of Democrats bill, theres not enough money in their pot to please everyone. Even the ambitious draft plan released by Ways and Means Chair Richard Neal (D-Mass.) Tuesday night, which a source close to the negotiations warned had not received White House or Senate buy-in, caused agita on the left.

That's because the Ways and Means proposal wouldn't fully phase in dental benefits until 2032. Progressives say theyve already compromised enough, arguing that they've already backed down on Medicare for All and lowering Medicare's eligibility age.

"We need to be 100 percent for universal health care, and we are so far from that today," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the Progressive Caucus chief who is pushing for Medicare to cover more people with more generous benefits. "We need to recognize that while the ACA did many good things, just providing subsidies to private insurance is not the way to move forward."

The left's disappointment extends beyond the pace of the dental benefits roll-out, though negotiations are ongoing. Only half the cost of major dental procedures would be covered far less than the 80 percent some advocates had demanded. And many key expenses, like over-the-counter hearing aids, wouldnt be covered at all.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who chairs the Ways and Means subcommittee that will begin marking up the legislation on Thursday, is concerned that the limited coverage previewed Tuesday would put the new dental benefits out of reach for low-income seniors.

Its false hope for poor people, he lamented. They wont be able to use the service.

But while skimping on new Medicare benefits may anger progressives, it frees up scarce dollars for shoring up Obamacare and expanding Medicaid to cover 2 million uninsured people in red states that didn't expand their programs under Obamacare top priorities for Pelosi and House moderates, as well as progressives like Doggett who represent states that have refused to expand Medicaid on their own.

House leadership argues that the enhanced Obamacare subsidies Congress approved in March, which are set to expire at the end of next year, have to be made permanent given the likelihood that a future Republican majority could refuse to extend them later on. ACA supporters point to the fact that the temporary Obamacare enhancements were a major reason why the rate of uninsured people didnt soar when millions lost their jobs during the pandemic.

Im not going to pick among my children, said Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), referencing the different Democratic health components of the social spending bill. But we need to keep the ACA subsidies thats what is enabling millions of people to get health care coverage.

The House committee markups that will last through this week and next wont fully resolve the dispute. Not only does the full House still have to debate, amend and pass its bill, but the Senate where Democrats have a much slimmer majority and a more centrist caucus that will likely chafe at the Ways and Means approach will have its say in the coming months.

And the health care question is just one of many consequential policy battles Democrats will have to litigate quickly if they want to get the social spending plan to Bidens desk this fall, as planned. The ambitious legislation will try to encompass everything from paid family leave to action on climate and an overhaul of the nations immigration laws.

But the mounting tension over health care goals is pushing leadership to investigate every option. Aides to Pelosi this week embarked on a long-shot search for more sources of revenue or savings in addition to the hundreds of billions of dollars expected from the bill's bid to let Medicare negotiate the price of some drugs, according to two Democratic sources. If that pays off, it could allow more spending on both public and private insurance.

Yet most Democrats see inevitable and tough choices on how to spend the health care dollars on the table.

Im very much aware of the competing priorities here, and theyre all meritorious, Doggett said. But theres clearly not enough revenue to do all that needs to be done."

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Democrats reopen old health care wounds with $3.5T mega-bill on the line - POLITICO

Low-income communities and people of color tend to be especially vulnerable to the effects of climate change because of historic inequities. In recognition of that fact, legislation introduced by Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, both Democrats, would require that at least half the members of a climate corps come from under-resourced communities of need. In addition, at least half the investment would support projects in underserved communities, with at least 10 percent spent in Native American lands.

Their bill, which has support from major environmental groups like the Sunrise Movement, would create the climate corps as part of AmeriCorps.

Tens of thousands of young people are going to be working to future-proof our country, Mr. Markey said. Within five years, he added, a Civilian Climate Corps will become part of the personality of the country in terms of how a whole new generation views climate change.

That has some Republicans worried.

What exactly does that mean? Representative Tom McClintock of California asked at a recent hearing. Does it mean a taxpayer funded community organizing effort? Young climate pioneers in every neighborhood to report on who is watering their lawn, whose fireplace is smoking, who is spreading forbidden climate disinformation?

Others noted that President Franklin Delano Roosevelts conservation corps was created when the United States was suffering from 20 percent unemployment. Thats not the current situation, where the national unemployment rate was 5.2 percent in August and many companies are having difficulty finding workers.

Representative Bruce Westerman of Arkansas, the top Republican on the House Committee on Natural Resources, called the Civilian Climate Corps a make-work program that will compete against American businesses at a time when help wanted signs remain in the windows.

Ultimately, however, Republicans are not in a position to influence the package since the party has already signaled members will unanimously oppose the broader $3.5 trillion budget bill. The fate of the program is up to Democrats and whether they can reach agreement, supporters of the climate corps said.

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Democrats Want a Climate Corps. They Just Cant Agree How to Create It. - The New York Times

HOUSTON For weeks, Democratic lawmakers in Texas were hearing that select members would be breaking ranks and returning to the Capitol.

But as they gathered on Thursday morning for their daily Zoom call, there was no indication their 38-day walkout was about to fall apart.

More than 50 Democrats in the Texas House of Representatives fled Austin for Washington last month to prevent a quorum and effectively kill a sweeping election overhaul bill that would have introduced new restrictions to voting. Just one member, Garnet F. Coleman, had been expected to return to the Capitol on Thursday, still leaving Republicans two Democrats short of a quorum.

Later that same day, however, many Democratic legislators were shocked and disappointed when they saw two other members enter the House chamber with Mr. Coleman enough to call the House to order and begin work on a lengthy list of conservative goals set by Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican.

By Friday, the tenuous alliance among Democratic House members split into open confrontation, as 34 of them released a joint statement criticizing their colleagues who returned to the Capitol. The caucus chairman, Chris Turner, did not sign on.

We feel betrayed and heartbroken, the Democratic members wrote in their joint statement. But our resolve is strong and this fight is not over.

State Representative Jessica Gonzlez, a Democrat from near Dallas, said she was particularly frustrated with the suddenness of the decision, with no advance warning that the other Democrats would be returning.

Whats most disheartening, Ms. Gonzlez said, is that so many of us have stuck together on this, so many of us have made sacrifices, and the least that people can do is just at least have a conversation as a caucus, as a whole. That way people can make their own decisions, too.

The return of the three absent Democrats on Thursday injected a new wave of uncertainty into the national battle over voting rights, one that will most likely be felt as far as Washington. The sudden crumbling of the Democratic blockade opened the door to passage of a new voting law containing restrictions Texas Democrats considered so strident they broke quorum twice.

But with passage of federal voting legislation still a long shot in Washington, Democrats in Texas find themselves with no clear path forward, and divisions remain on the best course of action.

The Texas House remains adjourned until Monday afternoon with no planned activity over the weekend. The voting bill, known as S.B. 1, passed the State Senate last week but has not advanced at all in the House. It was scheduled for a committee hearing on Monday, and would still need to go through another committee before it could come to the floor for a vote, setting up a potential showdown next week.

Some Republican representatives were not physically present in the Capitol on Thursday, despite being counted toward the total number there, leading many Democrats to claim the quorum was illegitimate.

But Rafael Ancha, a Dallas Democrat who is the chairman of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said he believed the Republican leadership would rally their members by Monday and that it made sense for him to return to Austin now.

There are a lot of bad bills, Mr. Ancha said. In no particular order, Ive got a large L.G.B.T. population that I need to go fight for. I need to go fight for the parents of school-aged children who are unvaccinated.

With a quorum in the House, Republicans could try to vote to suspend the normal rules and speed through a vote on the election bill and other bills on Monday. He said that in order to prevent that from happening, Democrats would be needed to vote against it.

We need a core group of members there to make sure there is no vote to suspend the rules, Mr. Ancha said.

Yet other Democrats held out hope that they could again prevent a quorum, given the thin margins involved.

There is a core of us, myself included, who still want to continue this fight, and still want to hopefully bring enough Democrats back into our coalition of holding the line, Ms. Gonzlez said. And so we havent given up.

The anger some Democratic lawmakers felt toward their colleagues was palpable on Friday. But for John Whitmire, a long-serving Houston state senator, such a reaction was a waste of time.

You cant stay gone forever, even if some members would suggest such a move, said Mr. Whitmire, who was among 11 breakaway Democrats who denied a quorum to the State Senate in 2003 to halt a redistricting bill by Republicans. After five weeks, he returned to Austin the first among his colleagues to do so.

Mr. Whitmire said he had spoken with several of the absent House members about whether or not to return.

I told them to do what they thought was best, to think for themselves and represent their districts, Mr. Whitmire said.

Though the current election bill in Texas resembles the version from May that first sparked a Democratic walkout, Democrats did win some concessions and Republicans altered or removed some of the most restrictive provisions. Sunday voting hours remain protected, and Republicans added an extra hour of mandatory early voting for weekdays. A provision that was designed to make it easier to overturn elections was also completely removed.

But the bill still bans voting advancements from Harris County, home to Houston, that were enacted in the 2020 election, including drive-through voting and 24-hour voting, and it bans election officials from proactively sending out mail ballot applications, or promoting the use of vote by mail.

The bill also greatly empowers partisan poll watchers, weakening an election officials authority over them and giving them greater autonomy at polling locations, and creates new barriers for those looking to help voters who require assistance, such as with translations.

The voting bill is far from the only item on Mr. Abbotts agenda. The list also included a host of conservative goals, like restricting abortion access, limiting the ways that students are taught about racism, restricting transgender student athletes and tightening border security.

As Democrats fretted, Republicans celebrated, racing to the Capitol to fill ranks and give Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, enough members for a quorum.

The rush was enough to pull one member, Steve Allison, a Republican from near San Antonio, from isolation after he tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week. He remained by himself in a side room of the House chamber but was counted as present.

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End of Walkout Splits Texas Democrats on Voting Rights - The New York Times

Earlier this month a coalition of progressive groups announced they were going to spend upwards of $100 million on television and digital ads to boost President BidenJoe BidenBiden to address nation on Afghanistan evacuation Sunday afternoon Pelosi says House working to pass infrastructure bills by Oct. 1 Facebook report finds top link in 3-month timeframe was about doctor who died after getting COVID-19 vaccine MORE and the Democrats. When in doubt, flood the airwaves. What a waste!

I have a serious confession: For decades I have specialized in doing television and radio ads for Democratic candidates and groups. From the 1980s to the early 2000s our firms primary method of delivering a message and communicating with voters was paid ads. In a course on campaign advertising that I taught at George Washington Universitys Graduate School of Political Management for 20+ years, and in counseling candidates, I used to hold fast to the notion that 70-80 percent of most candidates budgets should be devoted to paid ads.

No more.

Is paid media important? Of course, but these ads dont do what they used to in the era of three major networks, very limited cable and no such thing as the internet. Not to mention when Amazon and Netflix and a myriad of other ways to watch programming without advertising came on board.

Yet we are stuck in the practices of yesteryear and instead of using our funds to enhance political organization, personal door-to-door campaigning, sophisticated targeting and communication, we throw what we have against the wall and see what sticks.

Democrats have tended more than Republicans to focus on the shiny objects of TV ads, instead of organizing and motivating our base to reach out and convince potential voters on the ground.

To be blunt: Democrats are not putting nearly enough of the billions raised into early, hard-core organization and way too much into glitzy TV ads.

How much of that $100 million goes to organizing? How much PAC money or candidate money goes to hiring staff and paying people to contact voters? How much goes to identifying voters interests and learning about what interests them?

Look what is happening to rural voters. Trump won rural voters with 59 percent of the vote in 2016; he won with 65 percent in 2020, despite losing the overall popular vote by over 7 million votes. Have you driven through rural America lately? Have you seen the signs and the barns painted TRUMP, the caravans during opening day of fishing season in Minnesota with flags flying and horns honking, even the t-shirts being worn at Target and Walmart?

Where are the Democrats? Where are the yard signs and supporters outside metro areas? Where are the local neighborhood headquarters in peoples living rooms? Have we given up on independent minded, less politicized citizens who may not always vote in every election? That is a big mistake.

An important recent Pew poll shows that of those who did not vote in the high-turnout election of 2020, Biden was favored over Trump by 15 points. Many of these were voters under 50 years of age and are not obviously committed voters by any means. These are critical voters for Democrats to target.

Many pundits and prognosticators have written the Democrats political obituary for the 2022 off-year elections. They are usually a disaster for the party in power, losing on average 26 House seats and 4 Senate seats. Their other reasons are many: the razor thin margin of less than a half dozen Democratic seats in the House and an even count of 50 in the Senate; redistricting that will cost Democrats seats, as Republicans game the system in southern and western states; a polarized nation where President Biden hovers around 50 per cent popularity.

Now, those are serious head winds. But one way to counter them is to increase our focus as Democrats on voter identification, turnout, and serious persuasion. We have the right messages for many of these voters child care and early childhood education, expanded community college, child tax credits for struggling families, direct care worker help for seniors, expanded Medicare coverage for dental care and prescription drugs. This is a pro-work, pro-families and pro-community agenda. And, by the way, solve COVID, pass the infrastructure and budget legislation before Congress that truly helps people and show ourselves to be the party that gets the job done.

If we organize around these messages and go after voters with sophisticated targeting, starting early, and go back to the future with person-to-person and door-to-door engagement, we might find ourselves maintaining the majority. This means real political money for rural areas, tracking our base, keeping a focus on less-likely voters and convincing them of what is at stake in 2022 and, yes, not wasting so much on expensive and less impactful TV ads.

Peter Fenn is a long-time Democratic political strategist who served on the Senate Intelligence Committee, was a top aide to Sen. Frank Church and was the first director of Democrats for the 80s, founded by Pamela Harriman. He also co-founded the Center for Responsive Politics/Open Secrets. Follow him on Twitter@peterhfenn.

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How to prevent Democrats from digging their own grave in 2022 | TheHill - The Hill

A Republican investment analyst who narrowly won a vacant state Senate district in the heart of Connecticuts wealthy suburbs this week has some Democrats nervous about their partys standing ahead of crucial off-year and midterm elections.

Ryan Fazio, 31, claimed 50.1 percent of the vote ahead of Democrat Alexis Gevanter, a gun safety advocate making her first run for public office in the Greenwich-based district. A former Democrat running as an independent claimed another 2.3 percentage points.

It is the first special election held since President BidenJoe BidenBiden to address nation on Afghanistan evacuation Sunday afternoon Pelosi says House working to pass infrastructure bills by Oct. 1 Facebook report finds top link in 3-month timeframe was about doctor who died after getting COVID-19 vaccine MORE took office in which a Republican won a seat formerly held by a Democrat.

Fazio presented himself as a typical Republican who opposed the tax hikes that are a constant presence in Connecticut politics. But Blake Reinken, Gevanters campaign manager, told The Hill on Friday that Fazios real edge came from an excited Republican base.

Turnout was high, for a special, and turnout was much higher than we thought it was going to be. It was much higher than anyone thought it was going to be because their base turned out, and we had to push our base to turn out as well. But it was clear there was a lot more enthusiasm, not among the activists necessarily, but among the voters than there was on our side, Reinken said.

Reinken said the race could be a harbinger for other contests both this year, when Virginia voters head to the polls to elect a new governor and legislators, and in next years midterms. Republican activists loudly protested against mask mandates and critical race theory at several events Gevanter attended in the weeks before Election Day.

I saw a preview of what may be coming in 2021 and 2022, and I just want to warn other Democrats just to not take anything for granted, he said. Now that Trump is gone for the most part, we have to fight double as hard to make sure that we protect our gains.

Fazio will reclaim a seat that Republicans held from Franklin Roosevelts administration to the 2018 midterm elections, when opposition to then-President TrumpDonald TrumpDemocrats sound alarm over loss in Connecticut suburbs Abbott Laboratories directs employees to dispose of rapid COVID-19 test materials Sunday shows preview: Chaos in Kabul mars US evacuation efforts MORE drove a Democratic tide in suburban districts across the country. Trump lost the district to President Biden by more than 20 percentage points in 2020.

The fact that this seat that Biden won by about 20 points should be scaring people, Reinken said. It could be really scary this time.

Voters in the area were no Trump fans to begin with Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonDemocrats sound alarm over loss in Connecticut suburbs GOP senator calls on Biden to fire Sullivan, national security team Jake Sullivan becomes public face of Biden's crisis on Afghanistan MORE won the district by 18 points in 2016, four years after Republican nominee Mitt RomneyWillard (Mitt) Mitt RomneyDemocrats sound alarm over loss in Connecticut suburbs Lawmakers flooded with calls for help on Afghanistan exit Bipartisan group of lawmakers call on Biden to ensure journalists safe passage out of Afghanistan MORE carried the district by9 points over then-President ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaDemocrats sound alarm over loss in Connecticut suburbs Powell reappointment to Fed chair backed by Yellen: report Five takeaways from Biden's week of chaos in Afghanistan MORE.

In a very educated place and a very socially liberal place, Reinken said. We connected [Fazio] to Trump and we connected them to these issues and they didnt have to run from it as much as wed think.

Both Democrats and Republicans routinely downplay the importance of special elections, which are usually held away from regularly scheduled contests, feature low turnout and earn little attention from voters or the media.

Christina Polizzi, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said they did not see the Connecticut loss as evidence of any wave building on behalf of the GOP.

Democrats have had a string of special election victories in highly competitive districts across the country. In several of those races, the Democratic candidates outperformed President Biden's margin of victory. So make no mistake, we are fully prepared to challenge Republicans head-on and will continue to do so, Polizzi said in an email. This Connecticut district was previously held by a Republican for nearly a century before it flipped blue in 2018 and now its competitive. This is hardly a boon for Republican prospects in Connecticut or elsewhere.

But some special elections in recent years have foretold of trouble ahead: Two special elections in May 1994, in which Republicans won ancestrally Democratic seats in Oklahoma and Kentucky, were a preview of the Republican wave that swept Democrats out of control for the first time in 40 years. Two special elections in May 2008 when Democrats won deep-red seats in Mississippi and Louisiana hinted at the blue wave that would accompany Obama into office.

Biden won office, and Democrats saved control of the House in 2020, on the strength of his performance in suburban areas not unlike Greenwich. The narrow Democratic majority in the House means the party can ill afford any slippage in those neighborhoods.

We need to get our base fired up, Reinken said. We cant be afraid to admit that were on defense, in some ways. If you dont acknowledge the problem, it never gets addressed.

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Democrats sound alarm over loss in Connecticut suburbs | TheHill - The Hill

The view from the Nantucket Ferry. (Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

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Some recent US figures on the distribution of income by party: 65 percent of taxpayer households that earn more than $500,000 per year are now in Democratic districts; 74 percent of the households in Republican districts earn less than $100,00 per year. Add to this what we knew already, namely that the 10 richest congressional districts in the country all have Democratic representatives in Congress. The above numbers incidentally come from the Internal Revenue Service, via Bloomberg, and are likely to be more reliable than if they came from Project Veritas via theblaze.com.

We have known for some time that the dark money of Charles Koch is answered by the conspicuous money of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, George Soros, Bill Gates, and a swelling chorus of others, none of whom identify Republican. Yet it has been comforting, in a way, to continue believing that real wealth resides with the old enemy: Big Oil and Big Tobacco and the rest. They were the ultimate source of the power that distorted American society and politics.

The income of their voters aside, Democrats enjoy the active, constant, all-but-avowed support of The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, all three of the old television networks, CNN, NPR, and the online mainstream of Slate, Salon, and HuffPost. Any sentient reader can easily add a dozen more outlets. But along with the benefits of this mutual understanding comes a liability. The warm handshake with a friendly media establishment can grow so familiar that you get out of the habit of seeing what it looks like when you strut your stuff in public. And no longer seeing what it looks like, you stop asking what it might look like to people not already on your side.

For Barack Obamas 60th birthday, a celebration in Marthas Vineyard was planned for 500 guests and a staff of 200. Scaled back to minimize the bad optics, the numbers still looked to be in the hundreds; and this at a time when President Biden had lately advised Americans to re-mask and not assemble in large gatherings. Tom Hanks, Chrissy Teigen, Bradley Cooper, Beyoncall were present, making the scene, trailing clouds of glitz. The birthday message couldnt have been plainer: We work so hard, we are doing so much that you are not, every exception should be made for us. The leaked pictures were of undoubtedly cool people, worthy of their very cool host. MORE FROM David Bromwich

The display, however, brought back the memory of Gavin Newsom, caught dining unmasked with some donors after he declared his mask mandate, and more recently Muriel Bowser, caught doing the same just hours before declaring hers. Another dip into the past might recall the moment when Wolf Blitzer, at the height of the budget crush last October, confronted Nancy Pelosi over her stalling tactics on an emergency package to deny Donald Trump an assist at the polls. Blitzer said that he noticed people in city streets, hungry, homeless, and in immediate need. With an air of affronted virtue, Pelosi replied that no action taken by a Democrat like herself could be questioned: We feed them!

Even when a dissident wing of the party succeeds in a worthy causeas with the extension of the eviction moratorium effected by Cori Bush and her congressional alliesa suggestion of deserved status appears in an unpleasant light. A CBS reporter asked Bush about spending $70,000 on private security guards while less fortunate persons would be left to fend for themselves without the police she wants to defund. Bush pointed out that in earlier years she had been evicted three times, and yet she spoke in a voice weirdly similar to Pelosis: I have too much work to do. There are too many people that need help right now. So if I end up spending $200,000, if I spend 10, 10, 10 more dollars on [private security], you know what, I get to be here to do the work. So suck it up. And defunding the police has to happen. A Missouri TV station carried widely different reactions to her stance, from a woman who approved and a man who was having none of it. The citizen opposed to defunding was Black, working-class, in his middle years; the defunder was young, white, professional.

What has drawn the most attention around the eviction moratorium is Bidens risky politics in admitting that his extension probably wouldnt pass constitutional muster, but he was going to try it anyway. Just as interesting was the fact that Bush and her allies thought of landlords as the enemy. It did not occur to them to look higher up and ask for an extension of mortgage due dates to protect middle-class landlords (who depend on rent) from predatory banks.

The partys general tone sometimes seems to disparage the mass of people it cannot patronize. The truth is that property owners and shopkeepers of the middling sort, hard hit by the past 18 months if not the past 18 years, are pretty much off the radar of the new party of the rich. Even if, under Biden, the Democrats are union-friendly to an extent unimaginable in the Clinton and Obama years, the party as a whole remains closer to Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood than it is to the merchants who lost their livelihoods in the summer riots of 2020.

For all the good things they do, there are some things you can rely on the Democrats not to do. They wont push hard for a genuinely progressive income tax. They wont raise corporate taxes in a way that would darken the brow of Bezos and Dorsey, Zuckerberg and Gates, or increase the inheritance tax in a way that might make an impression on the grandchildren of the Stanford class of 1985. They have learned to talk about racism, which is good, with intellectual labor-saving devices like systemic, which is not so good. Will they ever talk so frankly aboutas Dickens put it in Our Mutual Friendmoney, money, money, and what money can make of life?

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Have Democrats Become the Party of the Rich? - The Nation

COLUMBUS, OhioWith just 5 months to go until Ohios primary candidate filing deadline, theres an unusual dearth of Democratic candidates for most statewide offices in 2022.

While there are competitive Democratic primaries on tap for the two top statewide offices U.S. Senate and governor so far the only Democrat to launch a down-ticket statewide campaign is Chelsea Clark, a relatively unknown city council member from suburban Cincinnati, for secretary of state.

No Democrats have announced or are even publicly exploring campaigns for attorney general, state treasurer or state auditor. By comparison, by mid-August 2017, the eventual Democratic nominees for all four executive down-ticket offices had announced their intention to run months earlier.

You would think that things already would be ramping up, particularly in terms of challengers to incumbents, but it just hasnt happened, said Paul Beck, a political scientist at Ohio State University.

Ohio Democratic Party spokesman Matt Keyes said state party leaders are still recruiting candidates ahead of the Feb. 2, 2022 primary filing deadline, and some have expressed interest though he declined to name who those people are.

Weve had some good conversations, and were confident that were going to have a strong, diverse ticket, he said.

According to conversations with Keyes, other Democratic officials and Ohio political observers, here are three reasons that so few Democrats have thrown their hats into the ring for statewide offices so far:

In 2018, in addition to winning the governors race, Republicans swept races for attorney general (Dave Yost), secretary of state (Frank LaRose), state treasurer (Robert Sprague), and state auditor (Keith Faber). Next year, all four are expected to run for re-election, and theyre considered to be even stronger candidates this time around. Not only are they incumbents (which makes it easier for them to raise money and have a name familiar to voters), but conventional political wisdom dictates that the party controlling the White House tends to face problems during midterm elections. In 2018, Republican Donald Trump was president; this cycle, its Democrat Joe Biden. In addition, many Democratic rank-and-file members are paying more attention to the races for governor and U.S. Senate, which they see as more important and potentially more winnable.

Perhaps the biggest factor giving Democrats pause is redistricting. As Ohio like other states is launching its decennial process of redrawing its congressional and legislative districts, many Democrats are waiting to see what the new maps look like before deciding on their 2022 plans. Democrats in the state legislature (a frequent source of statewide candidates for the party) want to see if the redrawn districts put their re-election chances into jeopardy, and Democrats both in and outside of the legislature are keeping open their options of running for Congress or another legislative seat if redistricting gives them a good shot at winning.

For the past decade, Ohio Democrats have faced the same knock on their election chances: with Republicans holding control over all three branches of state government (and dominating Ohios congressional delegation), there arent as many prominent Democratic officeholders rising through the ranks to run a competitive campaign for statewide office. That often means that Democrats who do run have to spend more time introducing themselves to voters, raising money and building a statewide political campaign.

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Here are 3 reasons why there arent more Ohio Democrats running for statewide office in 2022 - cleveland.com

Newsoms dismissal would be painfully demoralizing to Democrats who wield total control over Californias government. It could also energize Republicans by showing they can win even in the bluest parts of the country. The GOP would inevitably frame Newsoms defeat as a repudiation of Democratic governance.

Dont think for a second this isnt also about 2022 and being able to hold the House. The consequences are profound," Newsom said at a get-out-the-vote rally in San Jose on Monday. A no vote would be heard loud and clear, not only across this state, but across the country."

The White House has contemplated getting more invested in Newsoms defense in recent days, and the governor said Saturday that the two camps are in the process of trading schedules to see when President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris would be available to join the campaign trail.

Though the outcome of the recall is still weeks away, some Democrats are already fretting about the potential knock-on effects in New Jersey and Virginia, the only other states with gubernatorial elections later this year and ones that are often viewed as weather vanes for national political currents.

Other than the Virginia governors race, this is the most important thing going on in the United States, veteran Democratic strategist Garry South who advised Gray Davis, the only previous California governor to be recalled said of the Newsom recall effort.

Newsom himself has employed that siren as he and his supporters are dialing up their rhetoric as polls show a tightening race, warning Democrats that his loss would reverberate beyond California and broadly imperil progressives agenda.

States have gained outsized influence during the pandemic through their different strategies of combating the coronavirus, and California and New York have set the tone for Democratic regions. This summer, Newsom was first to require that all students wear masks in schools and led the way on mandating vaccines for teachers getting ahead of the Biden administration.

The leading Republican recall candidate, Larry Elder, has vowed to remove those restrictions immediately and suggests he can turn California into a red state on Covid rules. Republicans are giddy at the prospect of improbable reversals in the two biggest Democratic strongholds where governors were being celebrated last year.

One down. One to go, tweeted conservative radio host Eric Metaxas about Cuomos resignation, along with side-by-side photos of the New York and California governors.

It's been a remarkable fall from grace for Cuomo, who was widely praised for his daily coronavirus briefings, which even won him an honorary Emmy Award. And it would have been difficult a year ago to imagine Newsom being ousted, given that his approval ratings early in the pandemic soared far higher than during his first year in office.

National Republicans smell blood in the water and are eager to yoke Democrats to Cuomo after he announced plans to resign following a damning New York attorney general report detailing a pattern of sexual harassment and a lingering cloud of investigations into several other matters.

While Newsoms woes and Cuomos toppling stem from different sources, both men losing their jobs could bolster a message about the larger failures of Democratic governors, said Republican Governors Association spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez. Voters have been paying closer attention to their governors as state governments lead the response to coronavirus, Rodriguez argued.

Either way, the California recall is likely to be a major test case of electoral politics in the Biden era.

The GOP would be able to convey a sense that Republicans have the wind at their back and that voters are turning against the Democrats whereas among the Democratic base, a lot of activists and contributors would be rattled, said Jack Pitney, a professor of politics at Claremont McKenna College and former Republican campaign operative.

Leading Democrats are warning voters that the effects would go well beyond Covid-19 and political momentum. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, at a South Central Los Angeles gathering of teachers and parents to celebrate the Biden child care tax credit, called the California recall a GOP effort at skullduggery aimed to undo the national Democratic agenda.

Our system allows it ... but we do not like it, and we will defeat it, Pelosi said, seated alongside Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), surrounded by crowds of children and mothers in a packed community room.

While Republicans have found periodic success in congressional races or various local offices, their repeated statewide failures in California and New York have often hindered their ability to generate investments from the national party apparatus.

For Republicans, it's a very difficult place to compete, so it's sometimes off the table as they look at allocating their resources, New York Republican operative Dave Catalfamo said.

The collapse of Cuomo, and potentially Newsom, could be a jolt of adrenaline to two state Republican parties that have atrophied in recent years amid a succession of statewide political losses. Arnold Schwarzeneggers 2006 victory was the last for the GOP in California; George Patakis second reelection in 2002 was the last time for New York Republicans.

Such a result might offer some silver linings for Democrats, like allowing leaders from states outside of the New York-California bipolarity to fill the void left by Cuomo and Newsom. And New York Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is due to become the states first female governor, has reportedly had to relocate fundraising venues because of surging donor interest, a sign of a burst of enthusiasm among Democrats eyeing a post-Cuomo life.

The flip side, of course, is that a Newsom victory would be a reassuring sign for Democrats that theyd be able to hold up as proof of the partys electoral durability, and provide a useful counter to Republican attempts to wield Cuomo as a cudgel against them.

However the larger battle in New York will not be for more than a year, when Republicans will go up against Hochul in her quest for a full term or whomever Democrats nominate. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) is the partys presumptive choice, but he is still fending off an underdog fight from Andrew Giuliani, and the GOP is having to retool its messaging with Cuomo on the outs.

Likewise the parties will also square off again for control of the California governorship in 2022, a contest whose contours will undoubtedly be sculpted by the results of the recall vote. Newly energized Republicans could lead to higher turnout and more GOP investment in the states congressional swing districts next year.

California Democrats are urging their voters to stop Republicans in their tracks now.

If they get this state, Newsom told supporters on a recent get-out-the-vote call, they can weaponize it from a national meta-narrative, the impacts are profound for Chuck Schumer, for Nancy Pelosi, for President Biden.

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Democrats stunned by prospect of losing 2 biggest governors within weeks - Politico