Latest news with #partisan
New York Times
16 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Democrats Have Few Tools to Counter G.O.P. Redistricting
With Republicans in Texas planning to redraw more favorable congressional maps this summer, as the party vies to maintain control of Congress next year, national Democratic leaders are vowing to use every tool at their disposal to counter what they see as a nakedly partisan power grab. But the toolbox for Democrats is relatively sparse, aside from litigation or legislative protests. Though Democratic leaders have indicated a willingness to go tit for tat with Republicans, most of the largest blue states do not have a partisan redistricting process akin to the one in Texas, where the governor can simply call in the Legislature to redraw maps. California has an independent commission in charge of drawing maps, which voters applied to congressional districts in 2010. New York also has a commission (though it is subject to potential legislative changes), and New Jersey's political commission is separate from the Legislature. States where Democrats would have complete control over any redistricting, such as Illinois and Maryland, are already gerrymandered heavily in their favor. Squeezing more Democratic seats out of those states would be a challenge. 'Democrats' leverage is quite limited, and that's the problem,' said Steve Israel, a former Democratic member of Congress from New York who led the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee from 2011 to 2015. 'Republicans are just more ruthless than Democrats. They play to break the rules, and Democrats play to enshrine the rules with fairer processes in places like California.' While Democrats have their share of aggressive gerrymanders, blue states have led in embracing reforms to insulate redistricting from politics, such as creating an independent or bipartisan commission to agree on new maps. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump's Epstein problem just won't go away... as MAGA's biggest stars are set to cast deciding vote
Despite the typical partisan battle lines being drawn on most issues in Washington, D.C. these days, one matter in particular has created an unlikely set of bedfellows. Progressive Democrat Ro Khanna and libertarian-minded Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky teamed up last week to introduce the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which would compel Attorney General Pam Bondi to publicly release all unclassified materials relating to Jeffery Epstein. The duo's resolution is receiving the the backing of a diverse set of members, including New York socialist Democrat darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Michigan 'Squad" member Rashida Tlaib on the left, as well as Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Nancy Mace of South Carolina, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia on the right. Khanna noted during a Thursday media appearance that his resolution had the backing of all 212 of his Democratic colleagues in the House. Even if only the 10 GOP co-sponsors of the resolution were to support it, it would easily pass the House. Trump has faced a furious rebellion from his MAGA base over the botched handling of the Epstein files - and while he claims 'nobody cares' about the late financier - the furor isn't dying down. The president last week sued the Wall Street Journal over a report that he wrote Epstein a birthday card with the message: 'May every day be another wonderful secret.' If the vote makes it through the House in the next several weeks, then Trump's Epstein crisis will only deepen. Senator Ron Wyden, D- Ore., is among lawmakers on the other side of the Capitol who are adamant that the president and DOJ make all the Epstein documents public. Wyden, the lead Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee is taking a particular look at the money trail Epstein surely left. 'This horrific sex-trafficking operation cost Epstein a lot of money, and he had to get that money from somewhere," Wyden told the New York Times. The late financier was charged in 2008 for soliciting prostitution with an underaged girl and received a modest jail sentence in Florida. He was later charged with federal sex trafficking crimes in 2019. He hanged himself in prison awaiting his trial, feds say. The DOJ and FBI recently leaked an unsigned memo concluding that Epstein died by suicide in prison that August and did not possess a 'client list' of VIP co-conspirators. The memo said that no more people would be arrested, charged or convicted in the Epstein child sex trafficking case which angered some of members of Congress most in tune with the MAGA base. Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most MAGA-aligned voices on the right said during an appearance on Real America's Voice (RAV) earlier this month that she for one wasn't buying that there wasn't more to the Epstein story. 'I think the Department of Justice and the FBI has more explaining to do. This is Jeffrey Epstein; this is the most famous pedophile in modern-day history,' Taylor Greene told RAV at the time. Progressive Democrat Ocasio-Cortez seemingly came after Trump this week when she wrote sarcastically on X, 'Wow who would have thought that electing a rapist would have complicated the release of the Epstein Files?' Trump was found liable of sexually abusing author E. Jean Carroll in a 2023 civil trial. He was not, however, found liable of rape - a distinction the New York Democrat did not make in her post. 'AOC — look, I think she's very nice but she's very Low IQ and we really don't need low IQ,' Trump told members of the media at the White House on Tuesday, firing back at the Congresswoman's jab. Conservative X users were quick to jump to the president's defense comparing AOC's comments to remarks made by ABC host George Stephanopoulos, which led to Trump suing for defamation and eventually winning $15 million. South Carolina GOP Congresswoman Nancy Mace called AOC's remarks a 'smear campaign.' 'She should lawyer up. Truth still matters, even if the Left's forgotten. We're not done fighting. Not even close,' Mace added. Yet, now Mace and Ocasio-Cortez both find themselves on the same side of the fight to force Trump's DOJ to release the files pertaining to Epstein. Trump has also urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to release additional documents, though the push from Capitol Hill could obtain documents the AG or Trump does not want released.
Fox News
17-07-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Senators push back against Vought's call for more partisan spending process
Senators are not thrilled with a top White House official's comments that the government funding process should become more partisan, and fear that doing so could erode Congress' power of the purse. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told reporters during a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Thursday morning that he believed "the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan." His sentiment came on the heels of Senate Republicans advancing President Donald Trump's $9 billion clawback package, which would cancel congressionally approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, just a few hours before. Unlike the hyper-partisan bills that have dominated the Senate's recent agenda, including the rescissions package and the president's "big, beautiful bill," the appropriations process is typically a bipartisan affair in the upper chamber. That is because, normally, most bills brought to the floor have to pass the Senate's 60-vote threshold, and with the GOP's narrow majority, Senate Democrats will need to pass any spending bills or government funding extensions to ward off a partial government shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who alluded to issues down the line with the appropriations process if Republicans advanced Trump's resicssions package, took a harsh stance against Vought. "Donald Trump should fire Russell Vought immediately, before he destroys our democracy and runs the country into the ground," Schumer said. Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also did not take kindly to Vought's comments. "I think he disrespects it," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. "I think he thinks that we are irrelevant, and I wish I had actually heard the speech, because, you know, again, everything in context." "But you have to admit that when you look at the quotes that are highlighted in the story this morning, it is pretty dismissive of the appropriations process, pretty dismissive," she continued. Vought has no intention of slowing the rescissions train coming from the White House, and said that there would be more rescissions packages on the way. He noted another would "come soon," as lawmakers in the House close in on a vote to send the first clawback package to the president's desk. "There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, 'I'm voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,'" Vought said. "That may be the view of something that appropriators want to maintain." Both Murkowski and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against the rescissions package, and warned of the cuts to public broadcasting, lack of transparency from the OMB and the possible effect it could have on legislating in the upper chamber. "I disagree with both those statements," Collins said of Vought's push for a more partisan appropriations process. "Just as with the budget that the President submitted, we had to repeatedly ask him and the agencies to provide us with the detailed account information, which amounts to 1000s of pages that our appropriators and their staff meticulously review." Fox News Digital reached out to the OMB for comment. Vought's comments came at roughly the same time as appropriators were holding a mark-up hearing of the military construction and veterans' affairs and Commerce, Justice and Science spending bills. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during the hearing that Senate Republicans coalescing behind the rescissions package would only make hammering out spending bills more difficult, and argued that "trust" was at the core of the process. "That's part of why bipartisan bills are so important," she said. "But everyone has to understand getting to the finish line always depends on our ability to work together in a bipartisan way, and it also depends on trust." Other Republicans on the panel emphasized a similar point, that, without some kind of cooperation, advancing spending bills would become even more challenging. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said that finding "critical mass" to move spending bills was important, and warned that people have to "quit saying it's gotta just be my way or the highway," following threats Schumer's threats last week that the appropriations process could suffer should the rescissions package pass. "People better start recognizing that we're all gonna have to work together and hopefully get these [appropriations] bills to the floor and see what we can move," he said. "But if somebody just sits up and says, 'Oh, because there's a rescission bill, then I'm not going to work on Appropriations,' you can always find an excuse not to do something. Let's figure out how we can work forward."
Fox News
17-07-2025
- Business
- Fox News
'Irrelevant': Senators push back against Vought's call for more partisan spending process
Senators are not thrilled with a top White House official's comments that the government funding process should become more partisan, and fear that doing so could erode Congress' power of the purse. Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought told reporters during a Christian Science Monitor Breakfast Thursday morning that he believed "the appropriations process has to be less bipartisan." His sentiment came on the heels of Senate Republicans advancing President Donald Trump's $9 billion clawback package, which would cancel congressionally approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting, just a few hours before. Unlike the hyper-partisan bills that have dominated the Senate's recent agenda, including the rescissions package and the president's "big, beautiful bill," the appropriations process is typically a bipartisan affair in the upper chamber. That is because, normally, most bills brought to the floor have to pass the Senate's 60-vote threshold, and with the GOP's narrow majority, Senate Democrats will need to pass any spending bills or government funding extensions to ward off a partial government shutdown. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who alluded to issues down the line with the appropriations process if Republicans advanced Trump's resicssions package, took a harsh stance against Vought. "Donald Trump should fire Russell Vought immediately, before he destroys our democracy and runs the country into the ground," Schumer said. Members of the Senate Appropriations Committee also did not take kindly to Vought's comments. "I think he disrespects it," Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. "I think he thinks that we are irrelevant, and I wish I had actually heard the speech, because, you know, again, everything in context." "But you have to admit that when you look at the quotes that are highlighted in the story this morning, it is pretty dismissive of the appropriations process, pretty dismissive," she continued. Vought has no intention of slowing the rescissions train coming from the White House, and said that there would be more rescissions packages on the way. He noted another would "come soon," as lawmakers in the House close in on a vote to send the first clawback package to the president's desk. "There is no voter in the country that went to the polls and said, 'I'm voting for a bipartisan appropriations process,'" Vought said. "That may be the view of something that appropriators want to maintain." Both Murkowski and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, voted against the rescissions package, and warned of the cuts to public broadcasting, lack of transparency from the OMB and the possible effect it could have on legislating in the upper chamber. "I disagree with both those statements," Collins said of Vought's push for a more partisan appropriations process. "Just as with the budget that the President submitted, we had to repeatedly ask him and the agencies to provide us with the detailed account information, which amounts to 1000s of pages that our appropriators and their staff meticulously review." Fox News Digital reached out to the OMB for comment. Vought's comments came at roughly the same time as appropriators were holding a mark-up hearing of the military construction and veterans' affairs and Commerce, Justice and Science spending bills. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said during the hearing that Senate Republicans coalescing behind the rescissions package would only make hammering out spending bills more difficult, and argued that "trust" was at the core of the process. "That's part of why bipartisan bills are so important," she said. "But everyone has to understand getting to the finish line always depends on our ability to work together in a bipartisan way, and it also depends on trust." Other Republicans on the panel emphasized a similar point, that, without some kind of cooperation, advancing spending bills would become even more challenging. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., said that finding "critical mass" to move spending bills was important, and warned that people have to "quit saying it's gotta just be my way or the highway," following threats Schumer's threats last week that the appropriations process could suffer should the rescissions package pass. "People better start recognizing that we're all gonna have to work together and hopefully get these [appropriations] bills to the floor and see what we can move," he said. "But if somebody just sits up and says, 'Oh, because there's a rescission bill, then I'm not going to work on Appropriations,' you can always find an excuse not to do something. Let's figure out how we can work forward."
CNN
03-07-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Many Americans want a third party. But where would it fit?
Americans are entrenched into their partisan corners, but the party lines keep moving in weird new ways. Republicans who grew up in the Grand Old Party might not recognize a party overtaken by the Make America Great Again movement. Democrats who cheered when President Bill Clinton declared the era of big government to be over might wonder how it is that a democratic socialist is their party's candidate for mayor of New York City. Others have followed Democratic expat and scion of Camelot Robert F. Kennedy Jr., with his Make America Healthy Again mantra, to vote for Trump. For a variety of structural reasons, two options is what most Americans get, even though poll after poll suggests few are happy with either party. Against that backdrop, it's interesting to consider Elon Musk's pledge to form an 'America Party,' an alternative to Republicans and Democrats, if President Donald Trump's megabill becomes law. 'Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE,' he wrote on his social media platform. Musk's primary concern is that the megabill adds to the national debt, he said – and not, as Trump alleges, that he's sore about the end of tax credits to encourage Americans to buy electric vehicles. The third-party pledge follows Musk's musings last month that the US needs a party 'that actually represents the 80% in the middle.' It's an interesting thought experiment to consider what the political middle might look like to a space and computer nerd and technocrat like Musk. He cares deeply about climate change and wants desperately for humans to be interplanetary and to live on Mars, but he opposes the megabill for all its government spending. He has strong thoughts about encouraging more American women to have babies, but thinks the addition of people to the country through illegal immigration is an existential threat to the US. The same thought experiment crossed my mind last month when Karine Jean-Pierre, who was White House press secretary under former President Joe Biden, announced in the run-up to the publication of her memoir that she's leaving the Democratic Party. 'We need to be clear-eyed and questioning, rather than blindly loyal and obedient as we may have been in the past,' she said in a statement to CNN. But it doesn't seem like Jean-Pierre's version of independence will be in the same galaxy as Musk's. One of the more interesting political campaigns of the coming months is likely to be the New York City mayor's race, in which the upstart Democrat (and democratic socialist) Zohran Mamdani will take on Eric Adams, the sitting mayor who is also a Democrat but is running as an independent. Also on the ballot as a 'Fight and Deliver' independent will be former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, another Democrat, although it's not clear if he'll seriously campaign between now and November. That's a lot of different versions of Democrats New Yorkers will be able to sort through. There are, of course, existing third parties in the US. The Green and Libertarian parties appear on most ballots for president, which means they have dedicated followings across the country, but they lack the power to get anyone elected to either the House or Senate. Former Rep. Ron Paul of Texas mounted presidential campaigns as both a Libertarian and a Republican, but he got the most traction as a libertarian-minded Republican. His son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, is one of the few Republicans now willing to cross Trump and oppose the megabill. Paul, like Musk, is worried about the national debt. A senator closer to the middle, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, did vote for the bill, but only after securing carveouts that will help her state – but could aggravate every other American. Murkowski is that rare moderate who can survive without party backing. She won a write-in reelection campaign – the triple lindy of politics – after losing the Republican primary in 2010. That was before her party veered even more toward Trump, but Murkowski recently told CNN's Audie Cornish there are more quiet centrist Americans than people realize. She's representing them, she said, even if Washington is a dangerous place to be a moderate. 'You're roadkill in the middle,' Murkowski told Cornish for her 'The Assignment' podcast. Another Republican who opposed the megabill is Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. He said cuts to Medicaid would cost too many North Carolinians their health insurance. But prioritizing the people you represent rather than the national party is anathema in today's political environment. 'In Washington over the last few years, it's become increasingly evident that leaders who are willing to embrace bipartisanship, compromise, and demonstrate independent thinking are becoming an endangered species,' Tillis said in a statement Sunday. Fearing a primary and Trump's wrath, or maybe just tired of defending the shrinking middle ground in the Senate, Tillis also announced he would not seek reelection next year, which immediately made his North Carolina seat Democrats' top pickup priority. Democrats must hope that a moderate like former Gov. Roy Cooper will jump in the race and defy Democrats' national branding. Perhaps Cooper would play the same kind of role as former Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Manchin voted with Democrats most of the time, but his tendency to buck the party leadership made him a thorn in the side of progressives. Coincidentally, when Manchin left office, Democrats lost their majority in the Senate. On his way out the door, Manchin said it was time for a third-party alternative, but he opted not to run for president. Kennedy did run for president after leaving the Democratic Party and his ultimate support for Trump likely brought in some new support for the president, who is now letting Kennedy rethink US vaccine policy to the consternation of the scientific community. Kennedy is also trying to take on the food industry. Help from Kennedy's independents probably helped Trump win, but maybe not as much as the nearly $300 million Musk is known to have spent, mostly on Trump's behalf. Musk's political ventures may have now turned off Tesla's natural climate-concerned consumer base as well as the MAGA faithful. Regardless of the wealth he could spend, what middle would his America party fit into?
