Daniel Sutter: Identifying What Ails Us
This year has seen high-profile litigation involving different products and carcinogens.
Only 7 democrats will be on the stage for the last presidential debate of 2019
A winnowed field of Democratic presidential contenders takes the debate stage for a sixth and final time in 2019, as candidates seek to convince anxious voters that they are the party’s best hope to deny President Donald Trump a second term next year. Thursday night’s televised contest ahead of Christmas will bring seven rivals to heavily Democratic California, the biggest prize in the primary season and home to 1 in 8 Americans. And, coming a day after a politically divided House impeached the Republican president, the debate will underscore the paramount concern for Democratic voters: Who can beat Trump in November? With voters distracted by the holidays and the impeachment proceedings in Washington, the debate in Los Angeles could turn out to be the least watched so far. Viewership has declined in each round though five debates, and even campaigns have grumbled that the candidates would rather be on the ground in early voting states than again taking the debate stage. The lack of a clear front-runner reflects the uncertainty gripping many voters. Would Trump be more vulnerable to a challenge from the party’s liberal wing or a candidate tethered to the centrist establishment? Should the pick be a man or a woman, or a person of color? The Democratic field is also marked by wide differences in age, geography and wealth, and the party remains divided over issues including health care and the influence of big-dollar fundraising. There will be a notable lack of diversity onstage compared to earlier debates. For the first time this cycle, the debate won’t feature a black or Latino candidate. The race in California has largely mirrored national trends, with former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren clustered at the top of the field, followed by South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, businessman Andrew Yang and billionaire philanthropist Tom Steyer. Conspicuously missing from the lineup at Loyola Marymount University on Thursday will be former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who is unable to qualify for the contests because he is not accepting campaign donations. But even if he’s not on the podium, Bloomberg has been felt in the state: He’s running a deluge of TV advertising in California to introduce himself to voters who probably know little, if anything, about him. Bloomberg’s late entry into the contest last month highlighted the overriding issue in the contest, electability, a sign of the unease within the Democratic Party about its crop of candidates and whether any is strong enough to unseat an incumbent president. The eventual nominee will be tasked with splicing together the party’s disparate factions — a job Hillary Clinton struggled with after defeating Sanders in a long and bitter primary fight in 2016. Biden adviser Symone Sanders said to expect another robust exchange on health care. “This is an issue that is not going away and for good reason, because it is an issue that in 2018 Democrats ran on and won,” she said. Jess O’Connell with Buttigieg’s campaign said the candidate will “be fully prepared to have an open and honest conversation about where there are contrast between us and the other candidates. This is a really important time to start to do that. Voters need time to understand the distinctions between these candidates.” The key issues: health care and higher education. The unsettled race has seen surges at various points by Biden, Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg, though it’s become defined by that cluster of shifting leaders, with others struggling for momentum. California Sen. Kamala Harris, once seen as among the top tier of candidates, shelved her campaign this month, citing a lack of money. And Warren has become more aggressive, especially toward Buttigieg, as she tries to recover from shifting explanations of how she’d pay for “Medicare for All” without raising taxes. In a replay of 2016, the shifting race for the Democratic nomination has showcased the rift between the party’s liberal wing, represented in Sanders and Warren, and candidates parked in or near the political center, including Biden, Buttigieg and Bloomberg. Two candidates who didn’t make the stage will still make their presence felt for debate watchers with ads reminding viewers they’re still in the race. New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker and former Housing Secretary Julián Castro are airing television ads targeted to primary voters during the debate. Booker’s is his first television ad, and in it he says even though he’s not on the debate stage, “I’m going to win this election anyway.” It’s airing as part of a $500,000 campaign, running in Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina, as well as New York, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. A pro-Booker super PAC is also going up with an ad in Iowa highlighting positive reviews of Booker’s past debate performances. Meanwhile, Castro is running an ad, in Iowa, in which he argues the state should no longer go first in Democrats’ nominating process because it doesn’t reflect the diversity of the Democratic Party. Both candidates failed to hit the polling threshold to qualify for the debates and have in recent weeks become outspoken critics of what they say is a debate qualification process that favors white candidates over minorities. By Kathleen Ronayne and Michael R. Blood Associated Press Associated Press writer Michelle L. Price in Las Vegas contributed to this report. Catch up on the 2020 election campaign with AP experts on our weekly politics podcast, “Ground Game.” Republished with the Permission of the Associated Press.
North America trade pact deals rare setback to big pharma
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A revamped North American trade deal nearing passage in Congress gives both the White House and Democrats a chance to claim victory and offers farmers and businesses clearer rules governing the vast flow of goods among the United States, Canada and Mexico. But the pact leaves at least one surprising loser: the pharmaceutical industry, a near-invincible lobbying powerhouse in Washington. To satisfy House Democrats, the Donald Trump administration removed a provision that would have given the makers of ultra-expensive biologic drugs 10 years of protection from less expensive knockoffs. Democrats opposed what they called a giveaway to the industry that could have locked in inflated prices by stifling competition. Top examples of the injected drugs made from living cells include medications to fight cancer and immune disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis. “This is one of the first times we’ve actually seen pharma lose,” said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, an Oregon Democrat who leads a subcommittee on trade. “They have a remarkable track record because they are a huge political force. They spend lots of money on lobbying, on advertising, on campaign contributions. But we held firm, and we won on all counts.” The removal of the provision also helped illustrate just how potent a political issue sky-high drug prices have become. It was a reminder, too, that President Donald Trump repeatedly pledged to work to lower drug prices. Last week, drug manufacturers absorbed another — though likely only temporary — defeat when House Democrats passed legislation, along party lines, that would authorize Medicare to use its influence in the marketplace to negotiate lower prices from drug companies. The bill is thought to have no chance of passage, though, in the Republican-led Senate. Yet the revamped U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, Trump’s rewrite of the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Act, seems set to clear Congress without the biologics protection that the drug industry had sought. On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Committee approved the legal text. The full House is expected to approve it Thursday, though the Senate isn’t likely to take it up until January. “It’s not a mystery,’’ said Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Illinois Democrat who helped negotiate with the administration. “If you poll the American people, the cost of pharmaceuticals is a really big deal. It’s at the top of the list.’’ The trade agreement the administration reached last year with Mexico and Canada gave biologics 10 years of protection from cheaper near-copies known as biosimilars. Among the leading biologics are the anti-cancer drug Rituxan and Humira and Enbrel, which fight immune disorders. The industry — and the Trump administration — had argued that manufacturers of biologics require years of protection to profit from their drugs before biosimilars should be allowed to cut into sales. Otherwise, they contend, brand-name drug companies and biotech startups that rely on money from venture capital firms would have little incentive to invest in developing new medicines. “The announcement made today puts politics over patients,” the leading drug industry trade group, PhRMA, said in a statement last week. “Eliminating the biologics provision in the USMCA removes vital protections for innovators while doing nothing to help U.S. patients afford their medicines or access future treatments and cures.’’ The industry also rejected the notion that the biologics provision would keep drug prices high and hurt consumers. Existing U.S. law, they noted, already gives makers of biologics 12 years’ protection, more than the proposed 10 years in the USMCA. But the provision the Democrats succeeded in removing would have forced Mexico to expand biologics’ monopoly from five years and Canada from eight, potentially hurting U.S. consumers who seek lower drug prices in those countries. What’s more, Democrats argued, if Congress had expanded the biologics’ monopoly in the USMCA, it would have prevented lawmakers from ever scaling back that monopoly to, say, the seven years that the Obama administration had once proposed. “We would have been locked in,’’ Schakowsky said. For Big Pharma, the setback marked a sharp turnabout. Four years ago, the drug industry helped scuttle an Obama administration trade deal with 11 Pacific Rim countries, arguing that a provision establishing eight years of protection for biologics was not sufficient. Now the latest U.S. trade deal contains no biologics protections at all. Back in 2006, the industry scored a major victory when it helped push legislation through Congress that added prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients but barred the government from negotiating lower prices. That restriction opened a “Pandora’s box” that paved the way for unsustainable price hikes, said Steve Brozak, an analyst at WBB Securities. Drug makers began raising prices of existing drugs several times a year, sometimes totaling more than 20% annually. They also started launching biologics with list prices topping six figures a year. In May, U.S. regulators approved a one-time gene therapy, Zolgensma, with an eye-popping price of $2.1 million per patient. A backlash has been growing, especially after news reports and congressional hearings exposed stories of patients rationing medicine and even dying because they couldn’t afford insulin or other drugs. Drugmakers have “been on defense more than we’ve ever seen,” said David Certner, legal counsel for AARP. Last year, Certner noted, Congress dealt the industry two losses: First, by increasing the discounts that drug makers must give to seniors with high drug costs who have landed in a Medicare coverage gap. Then, months later, lawmakers rejected industry efforts to reverse that change. And in January, the industry lost perhaps its biggest champion in Congress when Sen. Orrin Hatch, Republican-Utah, retired. Trump has long promised to address drug prices. On Wednesday, the administration moved ahead with a plan to allow Americans to safely and legally gain access to lower-priced medicines from abroad. So far, most of Trump’s drug-price initiatives have gone nowhere. His trade team negotiated biologics protections into the USMCA. Facing public anger, Democratic resistance and the fact that Canada and Mexico had no reason to support the protections for biologics, the administration yielded. When it reached a deal with House Democrats
Forever Wild Land Trust buys land to protect fish near car plant
A state trust is purchasing a nearly 500-acre tract in north Alabama for $10 million to protect the habitat of a tiny fish that had endangered work on a $1.6 billion car plant. The Forever Wild Land Trust bought land where the rare spring pygmy sunfish lives near the Mazda Toyota plant being built in Limestone County, news outlets reported. The fish is listed as a federally threatened species and is known to exist in only two locations in Alabama, including the Beaverdam Spring area near the factory. The Center for Biological Diversity and Tennessee Riverkeeper had threatened to sue to protect the sunfish and its habitat before reaching a deal to protect the fish a year ago. The land purchase was part of that agreement. The car factory is projected to begin production in 2021 with as many as 4,000 employees. Republished with the Permission of the Associated Press.
Nancy Pelosi says impeachment leaves ‘spring’ in people’s step
Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that people have a “spring in their step” after the House impeached President Donald Trump, but she insisted the Senate must provide more details about the expected trial in that chamber before she agrees to send the House charges over. Pelosi’s unexpected procedural delay — looking for leverage in trial arrangements — was getting a sour response from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and from Trump himself. McConnell said Democrats are “too afraid” to send the charges to the Senate, where Trump would be expected to be acquitted by the Republican majority. Trump tweeted, “Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles.” He claimed that if the Democrats didn’t transmit the articles of impeachment “they would lose by Default,” though there is no constitutional requirement to send them swiftly, or at all. Some White House officials argued that delaying the trial indefinitely actually would play to their advantage and help them make the case that Democrats have manipulated the impeachment process. The trial has been expected to begin in January. Pelosi was upbeat the morning after the historic vote that made Trump only the third president in U.S. history to be impeached. The House impeached Trump on two charges — abusing his presidential power and obstructing Congress — stemming from his pressure on Ukraine to announce investigations of his political rival as Trump withheld U.S. aid. “We’ve been hearing from people all over the country,” Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol. “Seems like people have a spring in their step because the president was held accountable for his reckless behavior.” Pressed about next steps, Pelosi wouldn’t say. Democrats are insisting on more witnesses, testimony and documents than McConnell appears willing to provide before they name the House “managers” who would prosecute Trump in the Senate. “The next thing will be when we see the process that is set forth in the Senate,” Pelosi said. “Then we’ll know the number of managers we may have to go forward and who we would choose.” She said the previous night, “So far we haven’t seen anything that looks fair to us. So hopefully it will be fair. And when we see what that is, we’ll send our managers.” The Democratic speaker and the top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, met privately Thursday at the Capitol after Republican Senate Leader McConnell signaled in the strongest terms yet that his chamber intended to hold a swift trial and acquit the president of both charges. McConnell denounced the “most unfair” House impeachment and reassured Trump and his supporters that “moments like this are why the United States Senate exists.” As for what the Senate would do, he said, “It could not be clearer which outcome would serve the stabilizing, institution-preserving, fever-breaking role for which the United States Senate was created and which outcome would betray it.” McConnell described Trump’s impeachment as “the most rushed, least thorough and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.” Fighting back and using McConnell’s own words, Schumer said the Republican leader was plotting the “most rushed, least thorough and most unfair” impeachment trial in history by declining to agree to call witnesses including former Trump national security adviser John Bolton, who declined to testify before the House. “McConnell claimed the impeachment was motivated by partisan rage,” said Schumer. “This from the man who said proudly, ‘I am not impartial.’” “What hypocrisy.” Pelosi said that McConnell “says it’s OK for the foreman of the jury to be in cahoots with the lawyers of the accused. That doesn’t sound right to us.” McConnell was meeting later Thursday with Schumer to begin negotiations on how to conduct a Senate trial. The two leaders have a tense relationship, and McConnell holds a tactical edge if he can keep his 53-member Senate majority united. Complicating any decision to delay are House Democrats’ arguments in recent weeks that Trump’s impeachment was needed “urgently,” arguing his actions were a threat to democracy and the fairness of the upcoming 2020 election. By Mary Clare Jalonick, Laurie Kellman, and Zeke Miller Associated Press Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report. Republished with the Permission of the Associated Press.
