Democrats building two-tiered justice system to make Latinos ‘permanent underclass,' says LA GOP leader
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Politico
11 minutes ago
- Politico
Senate passes first funding package ahead of shutdown cliff
'It's taken a great deal of work, good faith and negotiation to get to this point,' Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine). 'Congress has a responsibility, a constitutional responsibility under Article I, for the power of the purse. We are executing that responsibility.' The package would provide almost $154 billion for military construction and veterans programs. It would send more than $27 billion to the Agriculture department and FDA. Both represent a roughly 2 percent boost over current levels. The Senate rejected an amendment from Sen. Jeff Merkley, an appropriator and the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, that would bar the rescission, or clawback, of funds in the bill by the White House. Democrats are worried that the administration will send another rescissions package ahead of the fall funding deadline, which would likely implode any hopes of getting a larger funding deal. Still, Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, defended the smaller deal reached among senators, saying that the package 'rejects damaging cuts from Trump and House Republicans.' The Senate adopted by voice vote an amendment from Democratic Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Alex Padilla of California that would bar the use of any funds in the bill to reduce services provided by the Veterans Crisis Line. Senators rejected other amendments from Democrats including one that would have halted funding of the Agriculture Department reorganization and another to require a report on staffing reductions at the VA. They also rejected amendments from Sens. John Kennedy (R-La.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) that would have made deeper cuts to the Agriculture-FDA bill. The chamber also voted 75-21 to reject a proposal from Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin that would bar lawmakers from taking credit for earmarks. It would require the funding to be revoked if a lawmaker were to ever tout their earmarks in interviews, mailings, speeches or even on the campaign trail.
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Democrats say a GOP plan to redraw House districts in Texas harms Black and Hispanic voters
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Democrats argued Friday that a Republican plan for redrawing districts in Texas to create more winnable U.S. House seats for the GOP is not only a power grab by President Donald Trump but also an attack on Black and Hispanic voters that violates the landmark federal Voting Rights Act. The plan's Republican author acknowledged during a state House committee hearing that his proposed map is designed to help the GOP pick up five seats in Texas, something Trump is pushing to preserve the party's now-slim House majority. The Texas House committee expected to vote on the plan by Saturday, allowing the full House to vote as early as Tuesday, before going to the Senate. Democrats have few options for thwarting the Republican plan during a 30-day special session called by GOP Gov. Greg Abbott, and calls for offsetting efforts in Democratic states intensified among Democrats outside Texas. Democratic legislators in Texas can walk out, go to another state and prevent either chamber from conducting but would face fines — and also block relief for victims of deadly flash flooding last month in the state's Hill Country. Republicans disputed that their plan dilutes the power of Black and Hispanic voters to elect candidates of their choosing and said it could give them better representation by uniting some communities that previously have been split. But the new lines likely would make it harder for four Hispanic incumbents and two Black incumbents to retain their seats in 2026. The Texas delegation would go from a 25-13 split in the GOP's favor to a 30-8 advantage. 'I've never seen anything this brazen, this broken and this spineless,' said former Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, who's running for the U.S. Senate. 'If you do this, we'll see you in court and at the ballot box.' Defending the map and partisan motivations Texas once was required by the 1965 Voting Rights Act to submit its redistricting plans to the federal government for review because of its past history of discrimination, but the U.S. Supreme Court declared in 2013 that the requirement was outdated and unconstitutional. The act requires states to have the number of districts in which minority voters can elect a candidate reflect their percentage of the population. The GOP plan creates five new districts without any incumbents, and sponsoring Republican state Rep. Todd Hunter noted that in four of them, at least half of the voting-age U.S. citizens are minorities, and there would be 10 Hispanic-majority districts, rather than the current nine. 'It's a good plan for Texas,' Hunter said. Hunter acknowledged that the lines were being redrawn 'for partisan purposes,' which he said is allowed by the U.S. Supreme Court. He said a law firm was consulted as the map was being drawn. Other Republicans testified in favor of the plan for other reasons, many of them mayors or local party chairs. Melinda Preston, Denton County's GOP chair, said the new maps will reflect the booming population in the state of 30 million. The redistricting push could move to other states Democrats argued that if Republicans succeed in redrawing the districts in Texas, Trump will push other states to redraw theirs before they'd normally do so, which would be in 2031 or 2032, after the next nationwide census. States are required to adjust the lines at least once every 10 years to keep the districts as equal in population as possible after population shifts. That's led Democrats in California and New York to consider redrawing their states' lines to help Democrats, though each state has an independent commission for drawing the lines. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, chair of the Democratic Governors Association, also said Democratic governors should retaliate, if they can. 'We need to respond in kind, which I think we do to protect the American people,' Kelly said Friday at news conference during a DGA meeting in Madison, Wisconsin. 'I hate the fact that we're here, that we even have to consider something this drastic.' Why walking out is hard for Democrats Texas is unusual in requiring two-thirds of members to be present for the House or Senate to conduct business. That rule would allow Democrats, particularly in the House, where they hold 62 of 150 seats, to shut the chamber. But Democrats haven't publicly promised to do that, though they've used the tactic in the past. House members now face a fine of $500 each day they're absent, and the chamber's rules prohibit lawmakers from tapping campaign funds to pay them. In addition, the chamber also couldn't consider flood relief proposals — which Democrats have insisted should be the focus of the special session. Democratic state Rep. Rhetta Bowers accused Abbott and his fellow Republicans of holding that relief hostage so they could 'slice up Black and Latino communities just to please Donald Trump." 'Let me be clear: We will not allow flood relief to be used as a bargaining chip for racially rigged maps,' Bowers said during a briefing for reporters and others. How the map could change the partisan balance Under the exiting lines, which were in place for the 2022 and 2024 elections, Republicans won all of their seats in districts carried by Trump by at least 10 percentage points. Democrats won all 11 districts carried by Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar and Vincente Gonzalez won reelection in districts that Trump won by less than 10 points. If the GOP's proposed map had been in place in 2024, Harris would have won eight districts, and Trump would have won the other 30 by at least 10%. In San Antonio, Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro would be drawn out of a safe blue district into one that Trump would have won by nearly 22 points. And in Houston, Democratic Rep. Al Green would live in a majority-Hispanic district — but 72% of the Black voters he now represents would not. He would go from being in a district that Harris carried by 44 percentage points to one Trump would have carried by 15 points — with a GOP incumbent. 'This is not democracy,' Amanda McLaughlin, a North Texas resident, said. 'Is it worth destroying Texas to give the president five more seats?' ___ Hanna reported from Topeka, Kansas. Also contributing were videojournalist Lekan Oyekanmi in Austin; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin, and Brian Witte, in Annapolis, Maryland.
Yahoo
43 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Chabria: Whom should Democrats back, 'a straight, old white guy' or Kamala Harris?
Kamala Harris does not want to be governor of California, which has a whole lot of contenders (and some voters) doing a happy dance this week. But with her announcement Wednesday that she is bowing out of a race she never officially entered, Harris has ignited a flurry of speculation that she's warming up for another run at the White House in 2028. Whether you like Harris or not, a possible run by the XX chromosome former vice president raises a perennial conundrum: Can a woman win the presidency? "This question is legitimate," Nadia E. Brown told me. She's a professor of government and director of the Women's and Gender Studies Program at Georgetown University. She points out that post-election, Democrats can't figure out who they are or what they stand for. In that disarray, it may seem easy and safe in 2028 to travel the well-worn route of "a straight, old white guy who fills the status quo." Read more: Run for president? Start a podcast? Tackle AI? Kamala Harris' options are wide open That may be especially true in the Trump era, when an increasingly vocal and empowered slice of America seems to believe that women do, in fact, belong in the kitchen making sandwiches, far away from any decision beyond turkey or ham. Brown points out that even Democrats who flaunt their progressive values, including how much they'd love to vote for a female president, may harbor secret sexism that comes out in the privacy of the voting booth. Post-2024, Harris' defeat — and deciphering what it means — has caused a lot of "morning-after anxiety and agita," she said. "We're all doing research, we're all in the field trying to figure this out." While confused Democrats diddle in private with their feelings, Republicans have made race and gender the center of their platform, even if they cloak it under economic talk. The party's position on race has become painfully clear with its stance that all undocumented immigrants are criminals and deserving of horrific detention in places such as "Alligator Alcatraz" or even foreign prisons known for torture. The Republican position on women is slightly more cloaked, but no less retrograde. Whether it's the refusal to tell the public how Trump is included in the Epstein files, the swift and brutal erosion of reproductive rights, or claims, such as the one by far-right podcaster Charlie Kirk, that the only reason for women to attend college should be to get a "Mrs." degree, Republicans have made little secret of the fact that equality is not part of their package. Although Trump's approval ratings have tanked over immigration, he did win just over half of the popular vote last fall. So that's a lot of Americans who either agree with him, or at least aren't bothered by these pre-civil rights ideas on race and gender. Add to that reality the eager pack of nice, safe Democratic white guys who are lining up for their own chance at the Oval Office — our current California governor included — and it does beg the question for the left: Is a woman worth the risk? "I've definitely seen and heard consultants and, you know, even anxious women donors say, 'Maybe this means we can't run a woman.' And I think it's completely normal for certain elements of the party to be anxious about gender," said Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, a grassroots advocacy group. She too thinks the gender question is "logical" since it has been blamed — though not by her — as "the reason we lost to Donald Trump twice in a row, right? Whereas Biden was able to beat him." While Timmaraju is clear that those losses can't — and shouldn't — be tied to gender alone, gender also can't be ignored when the margins are thin. Read more: Chabria: 3 things that should scare us about Trump's fake video of Obama Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive political organizing group Our Revolution, which backed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016, said that gender and race are always a factor, but he believes the bigger question for any candidate in 2028 will be their platform. Harris, he said, "lost not because she was a woman. She lost because she did not embrace an economic populist message. And I think the electorate is angry about their standard of living declining, and they're angry about the elites controlling D.C. and enriching themselves." Geevarghese told me he sees an opposite momentum building within the party and the electorate — a desire to not play it safe. "Whoever it is — male, female, gay, straight, Black, white, Asian — the candidate's got to have a critique of this moment, and it can't be a normie Dem." Brown, the professor, adds, rightfully, that looking at the question of a female candidate's chances through the lens of just Harris is too narrow. There are lots of women likely to jump into the race. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are just two names already in the mix. Brown adds that an outside contender such as a woman from a political dynasty (think Obama) or a celebrity along the lines of Trump could also make headway. The criticisms of Harris, with her baggage of losing the election and critiques of how she handled the campaign and the media, may not dog another female candidate, especially with voters. 'Whether Kamala runs again or not, I'm optimistic that the American people will vote for a female president," Vanessa Cardenas told me. She is the executive director of America's Voice, an advocacy group for immigrants' rights. Cardenas points out that Hillary Clinton received more than 65 million votes (winning the popular vote), and Harris topped 75 million. If just Latinos had gone for Harris, instead of breaking in an ongoing rightward shift, she would have won. Cardenas thinks Latino votes could shift again in 2028. "After the chaos, cruelty and incompetence of the Trump presidency, Latino voters, like most Americans, will reward candidates who can speak most authentically and seem most ready to fight for an alternative vision of America," she said. "I believe women, and women of color, can credibility and forcibly speak to the need for change rooted in the lived experiences of their communities." Timmaraju said that regardless of what Harris decides, Democrats will probably have one of the most robust primaries in recent times — which can only be good for the party and for voters. And rather than asking, "Can a woman win?" the better question would be, "Do we really want a system that won't let them try?" Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
