Category Archives: Democrat

I was surprised, especially given the statements of some of my colleagues who may have supported the waiver in the past but said it was the last time well do it, said Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, a member of the Armed Services Committee. And I was not consulted, no reason I should be, but I was surprised.

Mr. Bidens choices stem from his determination to fulfill his promise of appointing a cabinet that reflects the diversity of the country. Mr. Austin would be the first Black defense secretary, and without him much of the national security apparatus Mr. Biden has put into place would be white. But Mr. Bidens team did little to prepare Black lawmakers and leaders to advocate on behalf of Mr. Austin before announcing his selection, leaving them scrambling to catch up once the appointment was reported in the news media.

In perhaps the most awkward negotiation of the cabinet process so far, Mr. Becerra, who is Hispanic, was nominated for health and human services secretary after it became clear that, much to the dismay of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico would not receive the appointment.

A second candidate for the health position, Ms. Raimondo, faced resistance from labor leaders in her home state. At least two major unions, the public-sector giant Afscme and the American Federation of Teachers, expressed forceful opposition to Ms. Raimondo with the Biden transition team.

Mr. Biden turned to Mr. Becerra almost immediately after members of the Hispanic caucus upbraided top transition aides during a meeting this month about their treatment of Ms. Lujan Grisham, according to Democrats familiar with the timing, even though his public-health experience is more limited than that of the two governors.

Mr. Bidens aides have privately been working to salve wounds by telling them there will be turnover in the top jobs soon enough.

I keep saying: The second wave will be earlier than you think, said one senior Biden official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity about private conversations with cabinet hopefuls. Go deal with your city, your state for now.

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Inside Bidens Struggle to Manage Factions in the Democratic Party - The New York Times

WASHINGTON Democrats on Friday shot down Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs campaign for a prized seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee instead appointing fellow New York Rep. Kathleen Rice.

The New York congresswomen had been jockeying for the seat and lobbying colleagues behind the scenes, but Rice ultimately won in a vote of 46-13, Politico reported Friday.

The committee oversees everything from public health to climate issues, foreign commerce and consumer protection.

Democratic lawmakers on the Steering and Policy Committee were reportedly forced into an awkward vote Thursday when some members presented their views on who should win.

According to Politico, some Democrats cautioned against giving the plum role to AOC, 31, because she had encouraged several liberal challengers to take on her own colleagues.

Im taking into account who works against other members in primaries and who doesnt, Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) said on the call.

Other members on the Energy and Commerce Committee reportedly worried how Ocasio-Cortezs progressive policies, including the Green New Deal, could cause problems in the new Congress, where Democrats will have a slimmer majority.

Rice, 55, a Long Island Democrat and former prosecutor, said she was honored to be selected.

New Yorkers deserve a fighter to lower the cost of prescription drugs, address climate change and improve our drinking water, Rice said in a statement to Patch.

I look forward to working with my colleagues to help the incoming Biden-Harris Administration combat the COVID-19 pandemic and build back our economy.

Rices appointment to the committee marks a huge turnaround in fortunes for the lawmaker, who was denied a seat on the powerful House Judiciary Committee after she spoke out against Nancy Pelosis speakership.

Ocasio-Cortez has recently echoed Rices calls, telling the Intercept she believes the 80-year-old needs to go but has no clear successor.

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AOC passed over by Democrats for spot on key House committee - New York Post

(Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)Overturning the certified results of the election in Iowas second congressional district could cost Democrats in the 2022 midterms.

When Iowa officials certified the results of the November election, Republican House candidate Mariannette Miller-Meeks defeated Democrat Rita Hart by six votes out of 394,000 ballots cast. The margin of victory was one of the slimmest in history: 0.0015 percentage points.

To get a sense of just how close the election was, consider that Joe Bidens tiny margin of victory in the Electoral College tipping-point state of Wisconsin was 0.63 points 20,682 votes. If Biden had won the state of Wisconsin by the same percentage that gave Miller-Meeks a win in her Iowa congressional district, Biden would have carried the Badger State by just 50 votes.

Iowa officials had already conducted a recount before Miller-Meeks was certified as the winner, but Hart is challenging the result before the House of Representatives.

The issue relating to Iowa is an issue for the House Administration Committee, House speaker Nancy Pelosi said at a press conference earlier this month. The House decides who it will seat.

As a constitutional matter, Pelosi was correct. The Constitution says that each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members. The most recent historical precedent for the Houses overturning the results of a certified election occurred in 1985. After an Indiana Republican candidate was certified the winner of the 1984 election, House Democrats had the General Accounting Office conduct their own recount, which they said showed Democratic incumbent Frank McCloskey winning by four votes. Outraged House Republicans staged a walkout when McCloskey was seated.

As a practical and political matter, House Democrats will have a more difficult time overturning the results in Iowa in 2020 for a few reasons.

First of all, it was easier for Democrats to act with impunity back in 1985 because the House was a Democratic fiefdom that had been controlled by the party for all but four years since 1933. Tip ONeill had little reason to worry about losing the majority. In 2021, Republicans will be only five to seven seats away from a majority. Pelosi knows a single seat isnt worth inviting a backlash that could cost the party in the midterms.

Democrats will have to decide whether they want to open up this can of worms on January 3, when the next Congress is seated. Thats just three days before Congress counts the Electoral College votes, when at least a handful of House Republicans intend to launch baseless challenges to the Electoral College returns. Bidens slim margin of victory was still big enough that theres no real doubt about the legitimacy of his victory, but Democrat Rita Hart has come under fire from nonpartisan political observers for bypassing the Iowa courts and taking her case directly to the House. (Hart has claimed there wasnt enough time for the courts to hear her case, a claim Iowa Republicans dispute.) Refusing to seat Miller-Meeks on January 3 would somewhat undermine the Democrats messaging against Republicans on January 6.

The biggest problem for Democrats is that in order to seat Hart without paying a significant political cost, theyd need to show in a clear and convincing manner that Hart really had won more votes but theres little reason to believe that could happen. The Iowa recount wasnt perfect, but if anything it likely undercounted Miller-Meekss true tally. In Scott County, 131 more ballots were counted during the recount than on Election Day, but this likely error appears to have benefited Hart: She picked up 26 votes in Scott County, while in other counties the vote margin changed by only a handful of votes in either direction.

If another recount ordered up by House Democrats turns a six-vote Republican victory into a three-vote Democratic victory, there wont be any real confidence that the vote counters got it right the second time around. And thats why Democrats best bet may be to let the certified vote stand and let Rita Hart make her case again in 2022 to the voters of Iowas second congressional district.

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Will House Democrats Seat the Iowa Republican Who Won by Six Votes? - National Review

An example of this ideological moderation is the presidential candidate Andrew Yang. Though his proposal of a universal basic income was relatively progressive, he was hardly a political radical. And though he did not aggressively promote himself as an Asian-American candidate, he did not back away from that identity either (though he did make several awkward or tone-deaf jokes about it).

Asian-Americans have built this political coalition not in spite of identities, but because of identities. Their success is a rebuke to those who denigrate identity politics and call for emphasizing class over race or identity. The cultural theorist Stuart Halls insight is evergreen: Race is the modality in which class is lived. The creation of race and the exploitation of racial difference has always been a part of capitalism. This is why any call for privileging class over race is fundamentally mistaken at best and dishonest at worst.

There are, of course, ineffective and even malicious examples of identity politics. President Trumps mobilization of his base, for example, involved deliberately foregrounding white identity politics, which has always been the latent identity politics of the United States, but has rarely been called such. Mr. Trump simply made the countrys whiteness explicit rather than implicit. But the problem is not necessarily with identity politics per se. The problem lies in Mr. Trumps conjoining of white identity politics with economic policies that favor the wealthy and a political strategy that includes demonizing other races.

The Asian-American coalition, by contrast, is demanding policies that in some way address those who are struggling and in need, and who are often people of color. According to Jennifer Lee, a sociologist at Columbia University and a principal investigator of the National Asian American Survey, Asian-Americans converge in several notable ways, including experiences with discrimination, voting behavior and attitudes on policies ranging from environmental protection to gun control to higher taxation and social service provision.

The question for the Asian-American coalition, as for the Democratic Party as a whole, is what constitutes economic justice: the Clinton-Obama neoliberalism of favoring Wall Street and trade deals, with insufficient attention paid to the middle and working classes? Or a more robust form of economic redistribution that would tax the wealthy at a higher rate, eliminate or greatly reduce student and medical debt, expand health insurance and child care, bolster public schools and enhance access to higher education?

As todays Asian-American coalition sees it, no policy can be carried out effectively without paying attention to identities and differences. The majority of Asian-Americans, for example, support affirmative action, recognizing that it is needed to reduce inequities not only for African-Americans and Latinos but also for Pacific Islanders and poorer Asian-Americans.

This stance on affirmative action acknowledges the need for a multiethnic Asian-American coalition and for a multiracial American coalition. Group interest and self-interest sometimes align and sometimes dont, but solidarity entails that a coalitions members sometimes seek justice for themselves, and sometimes for others.

A crucial lesson of the Asian-American coalition is that although celebrating diversity can sometimes draw attention away from issues of economic inequality, that does not mean that a focus on diversity, difference or identity ignores economic inequality. On the contrary, economic inequality in this country has always been built on racial differences. Only the affirmation of racial differences, harnessed with a robust approach to economic justice, can help alleviate the many economic problems this country faces.

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Opinion | What the Asian-American Coalition Can Teach the Democrats - The New York Times

In this contentious election year, I kept having a feeling that something wasnt right within my local chosen political party.

While the Democrats had an overwhelming presence in the victory lane, it was not without some collateral damage. Did the San Diego County Democratic Party squander some of the wealth it inherited from the voters in 2020?

Harvey Levine

(Courtesy photo)

During the election cycle, the signs of dysfunction emerged in the heated battle between two Democrats who had earned their way into the final round for San Diego mayor, after a contentious three-way contest in the March primary. Instead of counting their blessings, the party leadership, after choosing Todd Gloria as their flag-carrier (as is their privilege), then set out to attack the other Democrat. After running a strong campaign to beat out Scott Sherman (the sole Republican), Barbara Bry found herself to be the target of animus from the party leadership.

This questionable policy of bias in the party leadership presented itself in vivid colors over the past few weeks as a cavernous divide materialized within the incoming San Diego City

Council. With an 8-1 Democratic majority in the new council, their first task was to select a council president. Normally, this is not a contentious matter, but this year two candidates vied for this important leadership role.

While initial polling indicated a 5-to-4 preference for Councilmember Jen Campbell over Councilmember Monica Montgomery Steppe, the party leadership again exercised its political muscle to push for the latter. Once again, the party leaders stated their preference by endorsing Montgomery Steppe. But they didnt stop there. They mounted a campaign to pressure the council members to pull their support away from Campbell. And they reached out to the party faithful to flood all the council members with requests to support Montgomery Steppe. This was followed by what might be called malicious attacks on Campbell, from members of her own party. This is madness.

Surprisingly, after nearly seven hours of public testimony during the council meeting, with some 300 speakers, mostly against Campbell, the final tally was unchanged. Campbell emerged as the winner in a 5-to-4 vote.

But, was there actually a winner? Does Campbell now have to lead under a cloud of hostility from four of the other council members and from the party leadership? Was this dispute necessary, and was the ethically-questionable power politics in good taste?

Delving further into the morass, there is a common thread that weaves its way through. And its a serious one. Its the question of addressing apparent inequality attributed to the diversity of the San Diego population. Montgomery Steppe and her supporters, including the party leadership, were out in the open about their intent to raise the level of attention to inequality issues to a Red Flag Alert. This can also be traced back to the Gloria-Bry contest. One cannot read a statement from Gloria or Montgomery Steppe that does not refer to the residents south of I-8. Have they given any thought to how this plays north of State Route 52? Will Gloria be the mayor of San Diego or just south of the 8?

Certainly, this is a sensitive concern. We must not belittle the economic and social disparity in certain geographical areas of the county. But we must ask if our elected officials and party leaders should focus on economic and racial issues in one segment of the city, to the extent that they blot out concern for any of the citys other major issues. Is it not a form of racism to insist that only a Black person or person of color can lead the city government? This is apparently what caused the confrontation on the city council and its not in the best interests of the entire population. It is critical that we have diversity on the council and in the mayors office, and we do have that. That diversity is awesome. But we have other issues in San Diego as well.

We need leaders that can handle real estate acquisitions and management. We need to address housing and transportation on a large, systemic level. We have to get serious and creative on homelessness, affordable housing, public safety and habitat preservation. We have to find the right balance between high rises and spreading development between short-term rentals and vacation restrictions between rail transit, roads and bikeways. These are important to the people throughout the City of San Diego, including Rancho Bernardo (and the adjacent City of Poway as well).

It is incumbent upon the mayors office and the city council to vigorously address inequities and obstructions to opportunities that continue to block any ethnicities, races or gender from their place in society and economic justice. That should be an underlying concern of any government or business entity. But it cant be their sole reason for being. Political leaders must make this policy an integral part of the larger challenge to address all of the issues and to assure that competent, dedicated people are in charge.

A Rancho Bernardo resident, Levine is a retired project management consultant and the author of three books on the subject.

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Levine: Distractions in the local Democratic party - The San Diego Union-Tribune

House Democrats on Friday filed a two-day continuing resolution (CR) to prevent a government shutdown come midnight.

The bill would put off the deadline for both an omnibus bill to fund the government throughfiscal 2021, and the $900 billion COVID-19 relief bill that is supposed to pass alongside it.

The American people urgently need coronavirus relief and this short stopgap bill will allow bipartisan, bicameral negotiators to complete their work on this important issue, said House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita LoweyNita Sue LoweyHouse passes two-day stopgap bill to avoid shutdown Democrats file two-day extension to avoid shutdown DeLauro intends to be 'strong chair' as Appropriations leader MORE (D-N.Y.).

I look forward to swiftly passing omnibus appropriations and coronavirus relief legislation through the House as soon as possible, she added.

The House is expected to take up the legislation by unanimous consent Friday evening. Senate Republicans are also hoping to approve it through unanimous consent.

Many of the major issues in the COVID-19 bill have been worked out, paving the way for Congress to extend expiring unemployment benefits, renew aid to small businesses and send out another round of stimulus checks.

But sharp disagreements over whether to extend or block emergency lending facilities from the Federal Reserve have proven a hard sticking point, delaying agreement on a final deal.

Democrats say blocking the facilities would kneecap the recovery and hamstring the incoming Biden administration, while Republicans say the facilities would provide a loophole to circumvent Congress on issues such as state and local aid.

Jordain Carney contributed.

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Democrats file two-day extension to avoid shutdown | TheHill - The Hill

Leonard C. Goodman is a Chicago criminal defense attorney and co-owner of the newly independent Reader.

I have written many columns at the Reader and other alternative publications warning that corporate control of the federal government will bring catastrophe for our children and for the planet. I receive a lot of pushback, especially from liberals who argue that Trump is/was such a unique menace that the Democrats had no choice but to join with corporate America to assure victory.

The Democratic Party sold out working people long before Donald Trump. It was President Bill Clinton who pivoted to Wall Street. Clinton then ended the main federal antipoverty program (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), passed NAFTA, escalated the drug war, and ended the New Deal restraints on big banks, leading directly to the housing meltdown and the Great Recession of 2008.

Later, Barack Obama took in record amounts of Wall Street cash for his 2008 presidential campaign. Then, as e-mails obtained by WikiLeaks later revealed, he allowed Citigroup to select nearly his entire cabinet, which helped funnel trillions of bailout dollars to the banks, declined to prosecute a single Wall Street executive for mortgage fraud, and blocked legislation capping executive pay at bailed-out firms.

The Democratic Party now uses this same fear-based argument every four years: support our corporate-backed candidates or else you will get someone more horrible. By allowing the party to control us by fear, we invite further betrayals.

Nor should we accept the premise that Democrats have to sell out to win. Bernie Sanders relied on small donors rather than corporate bundlers and PACs, and he raised plenty of money to compete. Indeed, Sanders likely would have won the nomination had not the corporate-backed candidates joined together, at Obamas urging, to support Joe Biden before Super Tuesday.

Moreover, candidates who take policy positions favoring the 95 percent rather than the five percent are much cheaper to sell and thus dont need to raise huge sums of money. For one thing, they can call out their opponents for being tools of corporate interests, a devastatingly powerful argument that is unavailable to most Democrats and Republicans. Yes, its true, voters prefer representatives who are not in the pocket of big business.

To illustrate this point, in the elections last month, voters approved dozens of ballot initiatives brought by public interest groups that relied on grassroots organizing rather than expensive media campaigns. Arizona voters said yes to a tax surcharge on incomes above $250,000 a year specifically to raise teacher pay and recruit more teachers. Oregon voters approved a populist proposition to put strict controls on the corrupting power of big-money corporate donations in elections. Floridians voted to raise the states minimum wage to $15 an hour, a working-class advancement vehemently opposed by corporate giants. Colorado voted yes to require corporations to let employees earn paid time off for medical and family needs. Voters in six states including in such supposedly conservative bastions as Arizona, Montana, Mississippi, and South Dakotaapproved initiatives legalizing marijuana and other drug use.

The groups sponsoring these voter initiatives did not have corporate backing. They won because ordinary people liked what they were offering.

Contrary to what you hear in corporate media, the policies pushed by progressives are not radical or scary to ordinary people. Recent polls show that three in five Americans favor Medicare for All, two in three support a wealth tax, and even higher numbers support free college tuition. The Green New Deal is likewise broadly popular, even when respondents are informed that it will cost trillions of dollars.

In other words, the story propagated by corporate media that Americans are afraid of change is a lie. A recent New York Times article illustrates how the deceptive game is played. The piece tries to make the point that Americans dont want real change by quoting South Carolina representative James Clyburn, who cautioned that if Democrats pursued policies like Medicare for All, were not going to win. What the article didnt mention was that Clyburn has taken more money from the pharmaceutical industry in the past decade than any other member of the House or Senate.

Some readers accuse me of unfairly painting all corporate leaders as evil. This is untrue. I come from a family of corporate leaders who have high integrity. The reality is that publicly traded companies have no morality. They are profit-seeking engines. The personal views or morality of corporate directors is immaterial. They are under fiduciary obligation to seek maximum profits for the shareholders. Thus, if greater profits can be made by offshoring production to a country with lower wages and less environmental restrictions, this will be done even if it means screwing American workers and destroying the environment.

Allowing these profit-seeking engines to direct public policythe current practice of D.C. Democrats and Republicanswill bring destruction to our country and planet. This is not hyperbole.

Consider the example of foreign policy. The American people dont want forever wars or the bloated Pentagon budget that currently consumes well over half of our discretionary funds, and is greater than the military spending of the next nine countries combined. Meanwhile, one in eight Americans dont have enough food to eat and 30 million Americans will soon be at risk of losing their homes.

But the American people have no say in the matter. Tragically, Americas foreign policy is controlled by the military-industrial complex and by the resource extraction industries. Bomb makers like Raytheon demand zones of active conflict to keep its assembly lines moving. Under Trump, our bombs fell at the rate of one every 12 minutes, killing thousands of defenseless Black and Brown people in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen; surpassing Obamas record of one bomb every half hour. Many of the people we slaughter are civilians; none were threatening to invade the United States.

Manufacturers of big-ticket items demand hostile relations with larger nations like Russia and China to justify new sales of aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, F-35 fighter jets, and new generations of nuclear bombs. The mineral extracting industries demand that we maintain our empire of nearly 800 foreign military bases to crush the will of local people who oppose foreign exploitation of their lands.

None of this will significantly change under President Biden. Just this month, while Congress bickered over whether to provide relief to desperate Americans, both parties joined together to approve $741 billion for the Pentagon, assuring that the war machine will be well funded for another year.

The status quo also ensures the continued deterioration of the planet. The U.S. war machine is one of the largest polluters in history, consuming more liquid fuels and emitting more climate-changing gases than most medium-sized countries. In 2017, the U.S. military bought about 269,230 barrels of oil a day and emitted more than 25,000 kilotons of carbon dioxide by burning those fuels.

If the American people could choose our next secretary of statethe nations chief diplomatthey would select someone skilled at negotiating with our adversaries and easing tensions around the world. But the war industry demands a toady with the opposite skill set. So Biden has selected Antony Blinken, a man whose career has been a pendulum between government and the defense industry, where he made himself rich by writing memos advocating for new smarter more sustainable wars, and by selling his Rolodex of government contacts to help clients obtain defense contracts. Within the Obama administration, Blinken backed the interventions in Libya and Syria as well as the 2014 Ukraine coup, and he was a major proponent of backing the Saudi-led mass atrocities in Yemen. The fact that all these policies were disastrous for the people on the ground is not a negative for Blinken, because they were also highly profitable for the war industry. Blinkens greatest career achievement appears to be his ability to keep Pentagon budgets rising while transitioning from Bush-era ground wars to smaller scale sustainable operations.

Thus, under Biden, we must expect more dead children, more destabilization and suffering, and more global warming.

Some believe that the Democratic Party can still be rescued from the clutches of its corporate masters by electing progressives. This strategy is currently being tested. Progressives get themselves elected to Congress promising to stand up to the establishment Democrats and to fight for things like universal health care. Right now, they have a chance to demand a debate and floor vote on Medicare for All (MFA), a bill introduced in February 2019 by Representative Pramila Jayapal with dozens of cosponsors, but never brought to the floor despite its overwhelming popularity with Democratic voters. Because the Democrats now have such a slim majority in the House, a handful of progressives in Congress could force a vote on Medicare for All in exchange for their support for Nancy Pelosis reelection as speaker.

This idea that progressives might use their leverage to force a vote on Medicare for All was not proposed by any member of Congress but by Jimmy Dore, a comedian and activist, on his YouTube show. Yet his plan has gained wide support on social media. Dore has called out Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other progressives for shrinking away from the fight over MFA after running on the issue and promising to stand up to Pelosi and the corporate Democrats. Forced to respond, AOC called Dores strategy too risky because the Dems might lose the speakership. But Speaker Pelosi can guarantee her reelection simply by scheduling a floor vote on a bill introduced almost two years ago with dozens of cosponsors, supported by 85 percent of Democratic voters, and about half of Republican voters. That is not an unreasonable demand of the speaker.

AOC also says we might lose the vote on MFA. But if not now, when? We are in the middle of a deadly pandemic, and we all need our neighbors to be able to go see a doctor if they feel sick without fear of bankrupting their families. Fifteen million Americans have already lost their health insurance and their jobs. Dore asksare the House progressives fighters or are they posers?

The progressives had similar leverage back in the spring when the big donors demanded that Congress pass the CARES Act, giving Wall Street $5 trillion and an assurance that it would face no hardship from the shutdown. But progressives let that leverage slip away and then accepted only scraps for working people, many of whom have been forced to stay home for months with no income. Now is the time to demand that the richest country on Earth provide health care to its people.

Of course, a government-run health care system will hurt the profits for big pharma, big insurance, and big hospital groups. But we all must sacrifice in times of great struggle.v

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Democrats and ruling by fear - Chicago Reader

California Republicans have spearheaded multiple efforts to recall Gov. Gavin Newsom in the past, but the latest attemptcould get an extra push because some Democrats are lining up behind it, Politico reports.

"Weve gotten calls from Democrats who are already kicking the tires, a Sacramento insider aligned with a major special interest group told the news outlet.

Newsom initially received praise for his handling of the COVID-19pandemic, but his credibility took a hit in the wake of an expensive dinner he had last month at French Laundry while telling Californians to stay at home.

CALIFORNIA GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM COULD HAVE EMERGENCY POWERS TAKEN AWAY

"What makes this different is it's Gavin Newsom itself," Recall Gavin Newsom senior adviser Randy Economy told "America's Newsroom" Tuesday.

"This governor is his own worst enemy, and every day he does something more that puts him deeper and deeper into controversy, and he's become a problem here in California. He shut down the fifth-largest economy in the worldthe last nine months, and every single person out there in California should be outraged by that."

Economy saidhis group already has collected 820,000 signatures of the 1.5 millionneeded by mid-Marchto getthe recall effort on the ballot.

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Newsomrevamped his staff amid therecent stumbles,naming former White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers as director of the Office of Business and Economic Development, and hiring California political veteranJim DeBoo as a senior adviser.

There have been dozens of attempts to recall a sitting California governor in the past century, but the only successful one was in 2003, when Democratic Gov. Gray Davis was replaced by RepublicanArnold Schwarzenegger.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Some Democrats supporting moves behind the scenes to replace Gavin Newsom: report - Fox News

In addition to keeping tabs on agency-specific initiatives, Zients may also build out his own White House team of specialists focused on specific elements of the response.

Ill be totally blunt: If they hadnt put Jeff in that chair then I would say this is all going to fall on Ron, and hes got too much to do, said Andy Slavitt, a former Obama administration acting Medicare and Medicaid chief. But Zients is the kind of person who people will be talking to him on the phone seven, eight, nine times a day.

In the Biden administrations first months, Murthy is expected to work closely with the White House on pandemic messaging serving as one of the most visible faces of the push to sell Bidens Covid-19 response and encourage hundreds of millions of Americans to get vaccinated.

That effort will also feature Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert who will be Bidens chief medical officer alongside his existing role at the National Institutes of Health. And at the CDC, Walensky a well-known infectious disease expert will be charged chiefly with restoring trust and morale at an agency that was sidelined and subjected to months of political pressure by the Trump White House.

In theory, Democrats said that should leave the broader health agenda to Becerra, whose pursuit of dozens of legal challenges to the Trump administrations most divisive policies puts him in a position to immediately begin unraveling much of Trumps health legacy.

Prior to taking Californias attorney general post, Becerra as a House lawmaker sat on the Ways and Means health subcommittee and aided the ACAs passage in 2010 credentials that allies have wielded against suggestions he lacks the experience to run Bidens expansive health department.

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Tracking the appointments, the people, and the power centers of the next administration.

He wont be able, as HHS secretary, to work full time on Covid, said former Obama administration HHS chief Kathleen Sebelius. You cant put everything else on pause while you deal with Covid, because theres too much else in that department thats absolutely essential.

The transition team has also resisted calls to elevate Murthy to a Cabinet-level position, despite criticism that Bidens Cabinet lacks a public health expert a decision seen at least in part as an attempt to further delineate top officials roles.

In the hours between Trumps exit from the White House and Bidens entrance, a team of cleaners will wipe down every surface and mist the air with disinfectant. After that, masks will be mandatory and testing will be constant. POLITICOs Alice Miranda Ollstein breaks down how Biden and his team are working to transform the White House from hotspot to bubble.

Still, Murthy is likely to retain significant clout simply by virtue of his close relationship with a president-elect who relies heavily on a small circle of confidants. Becerras backers have also taken note of Bidens nomination of Neera Tanden to run the Office of Management and Budget a choice that would grant the former Obama HHS senior adviser broad power over the administrations policy agenda.

There are a lot of very experienced and talented cooks in the pandemic kitchen, said Larry Levitt, the Kaiser Family Foundations executive vice president for health policy and a former Clinton White House official. The Biden transition team may have a very clear idea of how the responsibilities shake out, but it will also likely take some working out.

Any honeymoon period for Bidens health leadership wont last long, if it exists at all. The U.S. is likely to be in the middle of both the deadliest stage of the pandemic and the largest mass immunization campaign in decades by the time Biden is sworn in, requiring the administration to work at full speed and under intense scrutiny from its first day.

Its a challenge that Democrats say will immediately test the Biden team, and its ability to balance the competing urgencies of curbing the pandemic and putting its stamp on the broader health landscape.

What most people are hoping for is confidence and a willingness for ambitious health care policy, and there are some big moves in that direction, said Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. The question is who on the team is charged with the theory of that [political] fight.

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Democrats ask of Bidens health team: Whos in charge? - POLITICO

Assembly Democratic Sponsors Issue Joint Statement on Passage of Economic Recovery Plan and Tax Incentive Reform Legislation by Assembly, Senate Panels

(Trenton) Supporting small businesses, driving sustainable economic growth, and the long-overdue reform of our tax incentives system the legislation to put New Jersey on a path to economic recovery post-COVID-19 and into the future cleared the Assembly and Senate Appropriations panel today.

The bill (A-4) is sponsored by twelve (12) Democratic members of the Assembly. Assembly members Lou Greenwald (D-Gloucester, Camden), Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen), Benjie Wimberly (D-Bergen, Passaic), Nicholas Chiaravalloti (D-Hudson), Annette Chaparro (D-Hudson), Anthony Verrelli (D-Mercer, Hunterdon), Vincent Mazzeo (D-Atlantic), Linda Carter (D-Middlesex, Somerset, Union), Eric Houghtaling (D-Monmouth) and Andrew Zwicker (D-Somerset, Mercer, Middlesex, Hunterdon) issued the following joint statement on the bill:

With the New Jersey Economic Recovery Act of 2020, weve created a path to economic rebound for the states businesses and our most pandemic- affected communities. This legislation nurtures the states long-standing role as the hub of innovation and tech in the Northeast. It continues to help us attract viable businesses, and grow Main Street programs, boosting job creation statewide. Getting residents back to work and creating job opportunities for those who have lost jobs as a result of this pandemic was a priority of this legislation.

COVID-19s devastating impact on our states economy requires bold steps to ensure our economy rebuilds stronger and better, stabilizing families and their communities.

A robust incentive package is a necessary economic stimulus. This legislation proudly focuses on many concerns of historically underserved communities spurring remediation and redevelopment of Brownfields sites; the rehabilitation of historic properties; and improving access to nutritious food options by creating a program to help food desert communities.

This long-awaited legislation is what New Jersey needs to begin to heal our economy from a national public health crisis, and an unprecedented moment in recent history.

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Assembly Democratic Sponsors Issue Joint Statement on Passage of Economic Recovery Plan and Tax Incentive Reform Legislation by Assembly, Senate...