Joe Biden signs gay marriage bill
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed into law the “Respect for Marriage Act,” a bill codifying protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. “Today is a good day,” “Biden said. “A day America takes a vital step toward equality, for liberty and justice, not just for some but for everyone.” The signing took place after a ceremony and a string of performances from gay entertainers. The bill, which received support from nearly 40 House Republicans last week to send it to the president, repeals the federal Defense of Marriage Act that was signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996. As The Center Square previously reported, U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., helped lead the effort in the Senate, where the bill was first passed. Her office said the legislation would “require the federal government to recognize a marriage between two individuals if the marriage was valid in the state where it was performed.” The legislation would also guarantee that “valid marriages between two individuals are given full faith and credit, regardless of the couple’s sex, race, ethnicity or national origin, but the bill would not require a State to issue a marriage license contrary to state law.” The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2015 on the landmark case Obergefell v. Hodges to make same-sex marriage the law of the land nationwide. That ruling required states to allow same-sex unions under law. The high court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier this year, as well as comments made by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas raised concerns that the court could do the same to the Obergefell ruling. “Passing the Respect for Marriage Act wasn’t just the right thing to do for America,” Democratic Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said. “It was personal to us, to our staff, and to our families.” Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
Joe Guzzardi: U.S. ecological footprint confronts Southwest border crisis
Ask the millions of migrants who have either entered the United States or are lined up at the border what motivated their journeys, and all will answer that they’re in pursuit of the proverbial better life. Translated, a better life means they’re longing to become consumers—consumers of housing, hard goods like cars, and natural resources such as water, electricity, and natural gas. The migrants’ goal is great news for big businesses that never met a consumer they don’t love but bad news for environmentalists who hope to preserve a vanishing America. As conservationists look ahead, the future they see is unsettling. With Title 42 set to expire on December 21st, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district includes 42% of the Texas-Mexico border, predicts a “hurricane” of illegal immigration. Everyone in his district, Gonzales said, is in “batten down the hatches” mode as they await a historic and unmanageable increase in migration—more eventual consumers. Border patrol agents advised Uvalde residents to expect about 150 daily migrant drop-offs indefinitely, evidence which, Gonzales said, proves that the Biden administration has no meaningful plan to cope with the ongoing invasion. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Title 42 has been enforced since March 2020 to expel migrants at the southern border. But, in November, in his 49-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan, President Bill Clinton’s appointee, ruled that Title 42 is “arbitrary and capricious” and violated federal regulatory law. For FY 2022, an estimated 5.5 million aliens, a total that includes the 4.4 million that CBP reported, and 1.1 million gotaways, are in the U.S. interior. Princeton Policy Advisors’ analyst Steven Kopits, who correctly predicted the FY 2022 crisis, wrote that “… based on the last two months [October and November], 2023 should set yet another record for illegal border crossing — and by a substantial margin over 2022.” March, April, and May 2023 will be, Koptis concluded, especially high as part of the illegal immigrant siege. Only if Republicans captured both congressional chambers, Kopits envisioned, could the migrant invasion be halted—wishful thinking as the mid-term results were tallied. The red tsunami that Kopits saw as the vehicle that might level off illegal immigration turned out to be a mere trickle. The House will have a narrow margin, and the Senate remains under Democratic control. All fifty senators have, since 2020, an unbroken voting record that supports open borders. Many of those senators are captives of the corporate donor class that wants the steady stream of consumers to continue unabated. Environmentalists should be front and center in the battle to preserve the nation’s green space and irreplaceable resources. But not only have congressional Democrats abandoned limiting immigration to sustainable levels, but environmentalists have also given up the battle. Although population surges destroy the ecosystems, wildlife habitat, and farmland that exists between their cities and towns, no large environmental group today advocates for saving natural habitat from relentless growth. The Census Bureau projects that by mid-century, immigrants and births to immigrants will drive more than 85% of U.S. population growth and add more than 100 million people to its current 333 million population. America has one of the world’s largest ecological per capita footprints, 8.04. Any and all U.S. population growth— let alone the massive multi-million-person border surge–will grow its existing footprint. The average U.S. citizen’s ecological footprint is about 50% larger than that of the average person in most European countries. The nation has more suburban sprawl and less public transportation than most countries, which means it burns more fossil fuels that add to its per-capita carbon consumption and uses more energy and water per person than most other developed countries. No one in the Biden administration or in Congress, or among the major environmental organizations has meaningfully addressed the open border’s long-term consequences, even though they are potentially dire. E.O. Wilson, a biologist and writer, expressed the ecological threat dramatically but accurately: “The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical concept.” Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
U.S. Senate to vote on Respect for Marriage Act; several groups say it’s unconstitutional
Several groups argue the Respect for Marriage Act (ROMA) currently before the U.S. Senate is unconstitutional and, if enacted, will eventually be struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The bill, HR 8404, was introduced in the House by U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-NY, on July 18 and passed by a vote of 267-157 the next day. The U.S. Senate took it up on Nov. 14. It would provide “statutory authority for same-sex and interracial marriages” and repeal several provisions of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The 1996 law received bipartisan support, including from then U.S. Sen. Joe Biden and U.S. Rep. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, and from Democratic President Bill Clinton, who signed it. When a constitutional amendment was proposed to ban same-sex marriage in 2006, Sen. Biden told Meet the Press’s Tim Russert, “I can’t believe the American people can’t see through this. We already have a law, the Defense of Marriage Act … where I voted and others … that marriage is between a man and a woman, and states must respect that. … Why do we need a constitutional amendment? Marriage is between a man and a woman.” Sixteen years later, President Biden now supports replacing DOMA provisions, which “define, for purposes of federal law, marriage as between a man and a woman and spouse as a person of the opposite sex,” with ROMA provisions “that recognize any marriage that is valid under state law,” according to the bill summary. The summary also notes that the Supreme Court ruled three marriage-related laws as unconstitutional: DOMA (U.S. v. Windsor, 2013) and state laws banning same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015), and interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia 1967). The bill would also allow “the Department of Justice to bring a civil action and establishes a private right of action for violations,” its summary states. When filing a cloture motion on a substitute amendment on Nov. 17, now Senate Majority Leader Schumer said the Senate would vote on ROMA when it returned on Monday after Thanksgiving. He said, “Let me be clear,” passing it “is not a matter of if but only when.” He also thanked his colleagues from both sides of the aisle “who led this bill.” Twelve Republicans voted with Democrats to allow it to move forward, eliminating a filibuster threat: Sens. Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Shelley Capito, Susan Collins, Cynthia Lummis, Rob Portman, Mitt Romney, Dan Sullivan, Thom Tillis, Joni Ernst, Lisa Murkowski, and Todd Young. After their vote, Biden said, “Love is love, and Americans should have the right to marry the person they love,” adding their vote made “the United States one step closer to protecting that right in law.” Schumer also said he had “zero doubt” the bill “will soon be law of the land.” But multiple groups disagree, arguing it’s unconstitutional for the same reasons the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. Because the court already ruled Congress doesn’t have the constitutional authority to define marriage under Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution, and because ROMA is nearly identical to DOMA, they argue it will also likely be struck down. In a letter to Congress, the nonprofit religious freedom organization Liberty Counsel argues the court ruled in Windsor, “DOMA, because of its reach and extent, departs from this history and tradition of reliance on state law to define marriage.” It also ruled, “[b]y history and tradition the definition and regulation of marriage . . . has been treated as being within the authority and realm of the separate States.” Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver, said, “The Constitution cannot be said to prohibit the exercise of power to define marriage in one manner yet authorize the opposite definition of that same unconstitutional exercise of power. If Windsor noted that Congress lacked authority in this realm, then it necessarily lacks the power here.” While a bipartisan amendment was introduced claiming to protect religious liberty, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, argues it really doesn’t. “Religious Americans will be subject to potentially ruinous litigation, while the tax-exempt status of certain charitable organizations, educational institutions, and non-profits will be threatened. My amendment would have shored up these vulnerabilities,” he said. Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said, “Conservatives are deeply disappointed by the betrayal of Senate Republicans to protect Americans’ religious freedom and won’t soon forget the votes of the 12 Republican senators who cast aside an essential right in a bill that will weaponize the federal government against believers of nearly every major religion.” Gregory Baylor, senior counsel with Alliance for Defending Freedom, also said the law is “unnecessary and could have a disastrous effect on religious freedom. While proponents of the bill claim that it simply codifies the 2015 Obergefell decision, in reality, it is an intentional attack on the religious freedom of millions of Americans with sincerely held beliefs about marriage.” It also “threatens religious freedom and the institution of marriage” by codifying a “false definition of marriage in the American legal fabric,” ADF argues. It also “opens the door to federal recognition of polygamous relationships, jeopardizes the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that exercise their belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman, and endangers faith-based social-service organizations by threatening litigation and liability risk if they follow their views on marriage when working with the government.” Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
GOP nudges closer to House win; Senate could hinge on runoff
Republicans inched closer to a narrow House majority Wednesday, while control of the Senate hinged on a few tight races in a midterm election that defied expectations of sweeping conservative victories driven by frustration over inflation and President Joe Biden’s leadership. Either party could secure a Senate majority with wins in both Nevada and Arizona — where the races were too early to call. But there was a strong possibility that, for the second time in two years, the Senate majority could come down to a runoff in Georgia next month, with Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Herschel Walker failing to earn enough votes to win outright. In the House, Republicans on Wednesday night were within a dozen seats of the 218 needed to take control, while Democrats kept seats in districts from Virginia to Pennsylvania to Kansas, and many West Coast contests were still too early to call. In a particularly symbolic victory for the GOP, Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, the House Democratic campaign chief, lost his bid for a sixth term. Control of Congress will decide how the next two years of Biden’s term play out and whether he is able to achieve more of his agenda or will see it blocked by a new GOP majority. Republicans are likely to launch a spate of investigations into Biden, his family, and his administration if they take power, while a GOP takeover of the Senate would hobble the president’s ability to appoint judges. “Regardless of what the final tally of these elections show, and there’s still some counting going on, I’m prepared to work with my Republican colleagues,” Biden said Wednesday in his first public remarks since the polls closed. “The American people have made clear, I think, that they expect Republicans to be prepared to work with me as well.” Democrats did better than history suggested they would. The party in power almost always suffers losses in the president’s first midterm elections, though even if the GOP ultimately wins the House, it won’t be by a margin as large as during other midterm cycles. Democrats gained a net of 41 House seats under then-President Donald Trump in 2018, President Barack Obama saw the GOP gain 63 in 2010, and Republicans gained 54 seats during President Bill Clinton’s first midterm. A small majority in the House would pose a great challenge for the GOP and especially California Rep. Kevin McCarthy, who is in line to be House speaker and would have little room for error in navigating a chamber of members eager to leverage their votes to advance their own agenda. In the fight for Senate control, Pennsylvania was a bright spot for Democrats. Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke five months ago, flipped a Republican-controlled Senate seat, topping Trump-endorsed Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz. Georgia, meanwhile, was set for yet another runoff on December 6. In 2021, Warnock used a runoff to win his seat, as did Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff — which gave Democrats control of the Senate. Both Warnock and Walker were already fundraising off the race, stretching into a second round. Both Republican and Democratic incumbents maintained key Senate seats. In Wisconsin, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson prevailed over Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, while in New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan beat Don Bolduc, a retired Army general who had initially promoted Trump’s lies about the 2020 election but tried to shift away those views closer to Election Day. AP VoteCast, a broad survey of the national electorate, showed that high inflation and concerns about the fragility of democracy were heavily influencing voters. Half of voters said inflation factored significantly, with groceries, gasoline, housing, and other costs that have shot up in the past year. Slightly fewer — 44% — said the future of democracy was their primary consideration. Biden didn’t entirely shoulder the blame for inflation, with close to half of voters saying the higher-than-usual prices were more because of factors outside of his control. And despite the president bearing criticism from a pessimistic electorate, some of those voters backed Democratic candidates. Democrats counted on a midterm boost from the Supreme Court’s decision to gut abortion rights, which they thought might energize their voters, and the bet paid off. In four states where the issue was on the ballot, voters backed abortion rights. VoteCast showed that 7 in 10 national voters said overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision was an important factor in their midterm decisions. It also showed the reversal was broadly unpopular. And roughly 6 in 10 said they favor a law guaranteeing access to legal abortion nationwide. In the first national election since the January 6 insurrection, some who participated in or were in the vicinity of the attack on the U.S. Capitol were poised to win elected office. One of those Republican candidates, Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin — who was outside the Capitol during the deadly riot — won a House seat. Another, J.R. Majewski, lost to Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur. Republicans had sought to make inroads in liberal New England but were shut out of House contests, with one Maine race still set to be determined by ranked-choice voting. Governors’ races took on outsized significance this year, particularly in battleground states that could help decide the results of the 2024 presidential election. Democrats held on to governors’ mansions in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, defeating Republicans who promoted Trump’s lies about a stolen 2020 election. Republicans held on to governors’ mansions in Florida, Texas, and Georgia, another battleground state Biden narrowly won two years ago. Trump found some success as well. He lifted Republican Senate candidates to victory in Ohio and North Carolina. JD Vance, the bestselling author of “Hillbilly Elegy,” defeated 10-term congressman Tim Ryan, while Rep. Ted Budd beat Cheri Beasley, the former chief justice of the state Supreme Court. Trump had endorsed more than 300 candidates across the country, hoping the night would end in a red wave he could ride to the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. After summoning reporters
Joe Guzzardi: Bill Clinton’s post-1994 mid-term immigration awakening
Every now and again, both during and after his two-term presidency, Bill Clinton espoused sound immigration thoughts that focused on the nation’s best interests. Most recently, Clinton, without naming Joe Biden, took direct aim at the sitting president’s open border fiasco. On a CNN podcast, and in response to a question about economic migrants who are, in the host’s description, “gaming” the asylum system, Clinton replied that “there’s a limit,” at which point open borders will cause “severe disruption.” Clinton added that the established immigration protocols, presumably a reference to the traditional agencies that assist incoming immigrants, function on the assumption that border conditions would “be more normal.” “Severe disruption” may be the kindest way to describe the chaos in the Rio Grande Valley and other entry points along the Southwest Border. And severely disrupted is an understatement to define the conditions in sanctuary cities New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., where the mayors are grappling unsuccessfully to accommodate the migrants that Texas and Florida governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis send north. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul summoned the National Guard to help Eric Adams with his plan, still in flux, to relocate the migrants to a Randall Island tent city. Adams, who declared the incoming migrants’ need for assistance “a humanitarian crisis,” pleaded to no avail with Biden for a minimum $500 million emergency aid infusion. Having no money to deal with incoming migrants is as disruptive, to use Clinton’s word, as conditions get. Clinton has long been aware of over immigration’s effect on American citizens. In his 1995 State of the Union address, given shortly after Republicans picked up eight Senate seats and a net 54 House seats post a GOP mid-term rout to win congressional control for the first time in four decades, Clinton spoke about the anxiety Americans experience during periods of unchecked immigration. Clinton listed many dangers that illegal immigration presents to Americans that, included illegal hiring, the subsequent U.S. job losses, and providing costly social services. Clinton’s word-for-word conclusion: “It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.” During his SOU speech, Clinton mentioned Barbara Jordan, the former U.S. representative who chaired the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform. The commission’s goal was to establish a “credible, coherent immigrant and immigration policy.” The African-American Democrat from Texas endorsed significant legal immigration reductions, emphasizing high-skilled admissions, fewer refugees, more deportations, and a chain migration overhaul that would limit sponsorship to nuclear family members. Jordan distilled her immigration vision in a sentence: “Those who should get in, get in; those who should be kept out, are kept out; and those who should not be here will be required to leave. However, Jordan died just months after releasing her report, after which a civil rights, Hispanic advocacy coalition opposed to Jordan’s immigration goals strong-armed Clinton into backing away. Had Jordan lived, her presence would have kept Clinton committed to her commonsense immigration reform rules. Should the GOP manage to recapture Congress, no sure thing, the results won’t spawn a 1995-style immigration awareness in Biden similar to Clinton’s. As Vice President, Biden continuously hailed “constant” and “unrelenting” immigration stream “in large numbers” as America’s source of strength. Given the red carpet welcome Biden has extended to millions of illegal immigrants and gotaways, complete with, in many cases, parole and work authorization, a presidential immigration awakening is highly improbable. Joe Guzzardi is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist who writes about immigration and related social issues. Joe joined Progressives for Immigration Reform in 2018 as an analyst after a ten-year career directing media relations for Californians for Population Stabilization, where he also was a Senior Writing Fellow. A native Californian, Joe now lives in Pennsylvania. Contact him at jguzzardi@pfirdc.org.
Obamas return to the White House, unveil official portraits
Former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, returned to the White House Wednesday, unveiling official portraits with a modern vibe in an event that set humor and nostalgia over his presidency against the current harsh political talk about the survival of democracy. While her husband cracked a few jokes about his gray hair, big ears, and clothes in his portrait, Mrs. Obama, a descendant of slaves, said the occasion for her was more about the promise of America for people like herself. “Barack and Michelle, welcome home,” declared President Joe Biden as the gathering cheered. Biden, who was Obama’s vice president, praised his former boss’ leadership on health care, the economy, and immigration and said nothing could have prepared him any better for being president than serving with Obama for those eight years. “It was always about doing what was right,” he said. The portrait of Obama, America’s 44th and first Black president, doesn’t look like any of his predecessors, nor does Michelle Obama’s look like any of the women who filled the role before her. Obama stands expressionless against a white background, wearing a black suit and gray tie in the portrait by Robert McCurdy that looks more like a large photograph than an oil-on-canvas portrait. The former first lady, her lips pursed, is seated on a sofa in the Red Room in a strapless, light blue dress. She chose artist Sharon Sprung for her portrait. Scores of former members of Obama’s administration were on hand for the big reveal. Obama noted that some of them in the East Room audience had started families in the intervening years and feigned disappointment “that I haven’t heard of anyone naming a kid Barack or Michelle.” He thanked McCurdy for his work, joking that the artist, who is known for his paintings of public figures from Nelson Mandela to the Dalai Lama, had ignored his pleas for fewer gray hairs and smaller ears. “He also talked me out of wearing a tan suit, by the way,” Obama quipped, referring to a widely panned appearance as president in the unflattering suit. Obama went on to say his wife was the “best thing about living in the White House,” and he thanked Sprung for “capturing everything I love about Michelle, her grace, her intelligence — and the fact that she’s fine.” Michelle Obama, when it was her turn, laughingly opened by saying she had to thank her husband for “such spicy remarks.” To which he retorted, by way of explanation, “I’m not running again.” Then the former first lady turned serious, drawing a connection between unveiling the portraits and America’s promise for people with backgrounds like her own, a daughter of working-class parents from the South Side of Chicago. “For me, this day is not just about what has happened,” she said. “It’s also about what could happen, because a girl like me, she was never supposed to be up there next to Jacqueline Kennedy and Dolley Madison. She was never supposed to live in this house, and she definitely wasn’t supposed to serve as first lady.” Mrs. Obama said the portraits are a “reminder that there’s a place for everyone in this country.” Tradition holds that the sitting president invites his immediate predecessor back to the White House to unveil his portrait, but Donald Trump broke with that custom and did not host Obama. So, Biden scheduled a ceremony for his former boss. Mrs. Obama said the tradition matters “not just for those of us who hold these positions, but for everyone participating in and watching our democracy.” In remarks that never mentioned Trump but made a point as he continues to challenge his 2020 reelection loss, she added: “You see the people, they make their voices heard with their vote. We hold an inauguration to ensure a peaceful transition of power … and once our time is up, we move on.” McCurdy, meanwhile, said his “stripped down” style of portraiture helps create an “encounter” between the person in the painting and the person looking at it. “They have plain white backgrounds, nobody gestures, nobody — there are no props because we’re not here to tell the story of the person that’s sitting for them,” McCurdy told the White House Historical Association during an interview for its “1600 Sessions” podcast. “We’re here to create an encounter between the viewer and the sitter,” he said. “We’re telling as little about the sitter as possible so that the viewer can project onto them.” He works from a photograph of his subject, selected from about 100 images, and spends at least a year on each portrait. Subjects have no say in how the painting looks. McCurdy said he knows he’s done “when it stops irritating me.” Obama’s portrait went on display in the Grand Foyer, the traditional showcase for paintings of the two most recent presidents. His portrait replaced Bill Clinton’s near the stairway to the residence, the White House tweeted Wednesday night. George W. Bush’s portrait hangs on the wall opposite Obama’s in the foyer. Mrs. Obama’s portrait was hung one floor below on the Ground Floor, joining predecessors Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, and Laura Bush, according to the tweet. Two spokespeople for Trump did not respond to emailed requests for comment on whether artists have begun work on White House portraits for Trump and former first lady Melania Trump. Work, however, is underway on a separate pair of Trump portraits bound for the collection held by the National Portrait Gallery, a Smithsonian museum. The White House Historical Association, a nonprofit organization founded in 1961 by first lady Jacqueline Kennedy and funded through private donations and sales of books and an annual Christmas ornament, helps manage the White House portrait process. Since the 1960s, the association has paid for most of the portraits in the collection. Congress bought the first painting in the collection, of George Washington. Other portraits of early presidents and first ladies often came to the White House as gifts. Republished with the permission of The
James Carville to speak to PARCA in September
The Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama (PARCA) is hosting an evening with Clinton-era Democratic political consultant James Carville in Birmingham on September 29. “The PARCA Speaker Series invites important, relevant voices to Alabama for an evening of conversation with our state’s thought leaders and opinion makers. Past speakers were George Will (2021) and Jon Meacham (2019). This year, we welcome James Carville,” the group announced in a statement. James “The Ragin’ Cajun” Carville is one of America’s best-known political consultants. His career has spanned five decades during which time he has represented a long list of candidates across the globe. But Carville is probably best known for his work with the campaigns of former President Bill Clinton and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barack. He also was a consultant for then U.S. Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton’s failed 2008 presidential run. Carville has a long list of electoral successes. He has most recently focused on campaigns in more than 23 countries around the globe, stretching from the continents of South America to Europe to Africa and, most recently, Asia. Most Americans recognize Carville from his many appearances on television. From 2002 to 2005, he even hosted the CNN program Crossfire. The event will be at the Red Mountain Theater at 1600 3rd Ave. South: Birmingham, Alabama 35233. The evening will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a welcome reception. Carville is scheduled to deliver his remarks at 7:00 p.m. Afterwards, there will be a question-and-answer session. Dessert and book signings will follow at 8:00 p.m. Tickets start at $125. According to their website, PARCA works to support and inform policymakers at all levels, from state-wide elected officials to Legislators, to city and county officials, to public school administrators, and to nonprofit leaders. PARCA is Alabama’s first and only nonprofit, nonpartisan, good government research center. To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Terri Sewell lone legislator to vote in support of Respect for Marriage Act
Six of the seven U.S. Representatives for Alabama are Republicans, so it is no surprise that all six voted against the latest bill to pass the House. The Respect for Marriage Act aims to repeal and replace laws that would outlaw same-sex or interracial marriage. The U.S. House overwhelmingly approved the legislation with 267 yeas and 157 nays. That means 47 Republicans — almost one-fifth of the GOP lawmakers — voted in favor of the bill. Rep. Terri Sewell was the lone Alabama leader who voted in support of the bill, while Congressmen Robert Aderholt, Mo Brooks, Jerry Carl, Barry Moore, Gary Palmer, and Mike Rogers were nays. In 1996, the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was passed and signed into law by Bill Clinton. The bill defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman and allowed states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages granted under the laws of other states. However, the Supreme Court ruled the laws unconstitutional in the cases of United States v. Windsor (2013) and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015). With the current conservative majority in the U.S. Supreme Court, and because that court has already reversed the controversial abortion rulings in Roe v. Wade, leaders are trying to protect other rights that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas already asked his colleagues to rule on. Thomas wrote that past rulings from the Court regarding gay rights and contraception rights should be reconsidered and that those rulings “were demonstrably erroneous decisions.” Justice Samuel Alito argued for a more narrow interpretation of the rights guaranteed to Americans, noting that the right to an abortion was not spelled out in the Constitution. The cases Thomas mentioned were Griswold vs. Connecticut, the 1965 ruling in which the Supreme Court said married couples have the right to obtain contraceptives; Lawrence v. Texas, which established the right to engage in private sexual acts; and the 2015 ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which ruled there is a right to same-sex marriage. “Today, I proudly voted to protect marriage equality in Alabama and across the country,” stated Rep. Sewell in a press release. “As the Supreme Court comes after our hard-fought personal liberties, right-wing extremists are now threatening to strip away Americans’ right to marry the person they love. With the Respect for Marriage Act, House Democrats are taking urgent action to enshrine marriage equality into federal law and prohibit states from discriminating against same-sex and interracial couples. We will not go back!” While Sewell described this legislation as needed and urgent, Rep. Moore disagreed, arguing that the court’s ruling on those issues were set precedent. “With inflation at a 41-year high, a new record for border crossings set in June at over 191,000, and violent crime plaguing the country, it is outrageous that Democrats are focused on unnecessary legislation that repeals a law struck down by the courts years ago,” said Moore in a press release. “Despite mischaracterizations Democrats are using to justify their urgency, the Supreme Court made it clear in Dobbs that their decision should not be used to cast doubt on precedents that have nothing to do with abortion.” The bill now heads to the Senate. .
Democrats, Republicans fight to a redistricting stalemate
After nearly a year of partisan battles, number-crunching, and lawsuits, the once-a-decade congressional redistricting cycle is ending in a draw. That leaves Republicans positioned to win control of the House of Representatives even if they come up just short of winning a majority of the national vote. That frustrates Democrats, who hoped to shift the dynamic so their success with the popular vote would better be reflected by political power in Washington. Some Republicans, meanwhile, hoped to cement an even larger advantage this time. But both parties ultimately fought each other to a standstill. The new congressional maps have a total of 226 House districts won by Biden in the last presidential election and 209 won by Trump — only one more Biden district than in 2020. Likewise, the typical congressional district voted for Biden by about two percentage points, also almost identical to 2020. “It’s almost perfect stasis,” said Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a Harvard law professor who follows congressional redistricting. “If you compare the maps we had in 2020 to the maps we’re going to have in 2022, they’re almost identical” in terms of partisan advantage, he added. The specific lines of congressional districts have, of course, changed as some states added new ones — or lost old ones — to match population shifts recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2020. Redistricting is the once-a-decade adjustment of legislative lines to match the Census’ findings. It is typically an extraordinarily partisan process, with each major party trying to scoop up enough of its voters to guarantee wins in the largest number of districts. This cycle was no different, but the end result is virtually no change to the overall partisan orientation of the congressional map. That leaves the map tilted slightly to the right of the national electorate since Joe Biden won the presidency by more than four percentage points. In a typical year, Democrats would have to win the national popular vote by about two percentage points to win a House majority, while the GOP could capture it, theoretically, with just under 50%. Republicans pointed to that as a victory. “If we’re fighting to a draw on a map that everyone agrees is good for Republicans, that’s good for Republicans,” said Adam Kincaid, executive director of the National Republican Redistricting Trust, which coordinates redistricting for the party. Democrats noted that it’s still a far better place than where they were after the last round of redistricting in 2011, fresh off a GOP sweep of statehouses that allowed them to draw a far more slanted series of congressional maps. “We are in a stronger position than in 2020 and in a way stronger position than in 2012,” said Kelly Ward Burton, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. The assessment became possible this week after New Hampshire became the final state to adopt a congressional map on Tuesday. On Thursday, Florida’s Supreme Court ruled it wouldn’t consider a Democratic challenge to a map pushed by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis before the November election, ending the last significant legal uncertainty over the maps this year. The odds are the national map will improve for the GOP after November, however. If Republicans do well in the election — as is widely expected — they could capture seats on state supreme courts in North Carolina or Ohio that’d allow them to redraw more slanted maps previous courts rejected. Similarly, if the GOP seizes power in some other state legislatures or governor’s mansions, the party could redraw new maps in those states in 2023 that would be implemented for the coming decade. And the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority has indicated it will reconsider some of the guidelines that govern legislative line-drawing nationally next year, which could open the door to even further Republican gains. It’s a reversal from earlier this year, when Democrats were poised to lessen the partisan bias of the congressional map, at least in 2022. But the centerpiece of that effort — an intensely pro-Democratic map in New York state — was ruled an illegal partisan gerrymander by the state’s Democrat-appointed top court, and the court’s redrawn map favored the party less. A similarly pro-Democratic map in Maryland was replaced by a more equitable map. But Florida’s strongly pro-GOP map, which DeSantis pushed the Republican-controlled legislature into adopting, was not overturned by its majority-GOP-appointed high court, bringing the national partisan pendulum back to the center. Democrats were already fighting on an uneven playing field during this round of redistricting. They only controlled the drawing of maps in states representing 75 House districts, while Republicans held the pen in ones with 187 districts. That’s partly because of GOP statehouse gains in 2010 lingering, partly because many Democratic-controlled states like California, Colorado, and New Jersey ceded their power to draw lines to independent commissions to take partisan politics out of redistricting. The Democratic Party has embraced that approach nationally, pushing for it in all 50 states as part of its voting overhaul that floundered in the Senate earlier this year amid unanimous GOP opposition. But some members of the party have questioned whether it amounts to unilateral disarmament in the partisan cage match of redistricting. After this cycle, Stephanopoulos said, there’s no longer much debate. “If all the blue states reform and all the red states run wild, that’s not a good outcome,” he said. Though the map’s partisan lean didn’t change, the number of competitive House seats diminished. That’s partly because Republicans, who maximized their gains in the post-2010 redistricting cycle, focused on packing as many GOP voters as possible into the districts of some of their incumbents who had tough re-election campaigns. The number of House seats decided by a 10-point margin or less dropped from 89 to 76, largely by the GOP changing 14 of its competitive seats into safe ones, Kincaid said. Advocates of sweeping changes in redistricting warn the loss of competition is dangerous for democracy. “Partisan balance is one thing, but it’s much more important to think about how gridlock and extremism
William Haupt III: We need a new contract with America
“Until someone is prepared to lay out the systemic problem, we will simply go through cycles of finding corruption, finding a scapegoat, and eliminating the scapegoat.” – Newt Gingrich Bill Clinton’s first term in office marked the beginning of the Republican Revolution. His promise to reform health care was soundly defeated. His executive order lifting the ban against gays in the military failed to energize leftist activists. And a barrage of political and personal scandals plagued the Clintons during his first term. The most deleterious scandal was that Clinton illegally profited from a back door involvement in a failed savings and loan on the Whitewater River in Arkansas. But none was more injurious to Clinton than the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). NAFTA created a common market for goods, services, and investments with Canada and Mexico. U.S. workers were forced to compete with global competition for jobs that hurt their standard of living and threatened their future. This ill-fated agreement angered the unions and labor-friendly Democrats who needed union support. And America turned to the GOP to right the sinking ship. Prior to 1994, Democrats controlled the House for 40 consecutive years, with a coalition of liberals in the north and east with southern blue-dogs. Since Democrats held the House for 58 of the last 62 years and the Senate for 34 out of 40 years, they had no fear of Republicans in the 1994 midterms. According to the University of Colorado’s Paul Teske, both Bill and Hillary Clinton were easy campaign targets for the GOP. From Hillary Clinton’s failed health care bill to numerous corruption cases in Congress and Bill Clinton’s foray into NAFTA, America was ripe for the GOP revolution. “Every revolution seems impossible at the beginning, and after it happens, it was inevitable.” – Bill Ayers It was obvious America needed a change. Liberal Democrats in the north and the good-ol-boy-left in the south had dictated Congressional policy for almost five decades – which wasn’t working. They were about to be reminded that the “political pendulum always swings both ways if it is balanced.” The late senator Bob Dole reminded Republicans that they had been the minority in Congress for so long that they had forgotten how to take charge and govern. He said in order to win, they needed a platform that had national appeal with universal solutions for all Americans, not just Republicans. In an effort to unite Americans under a common goal, six weeks before the 1994 midterm elections, House Reps. Newt Gingrich and Dick Armey introduced a “Contract with America.” As ballots were cast, this not only gave Republicans control of Congress, it would also save the Clinton presidency. The Contract with America was a legislative agenda by the Republican Party for all of America. It detailed the actions the GOP promised to take – if they became the majority in the U.S. House for the first time in four decades. This was a true bipartisan effort to solve major problems confronting our nation. “We are in a struggle over whether or not we are going to save America.” – Newt Gingrich The contract’s text included eight reforms the GOP promised to enact and ten bills they committed to bring to the floor if they took over the House. It included issues that had been polled during the first years of the Clinton administration that 60% of the American voters collectively wanted remedied. The text of the proposed bills included in the Contract was released before the election. They represented significant changes in federal policy that included a balanced budget requirement and tax cuts for businesses, families, and seniors. It also included term limits, reforms to Social Security, and tort and welfare reform. It avoided controversial matters such as abortion and school prayer. Gingrich purposely excluded how these bills and policies would be enacted and what they would cost. He did not want to distort his goals. He knew these issues concerned voters, and they wanted them fixed. And if he didn’t deliver, it would cost him his job. He only wanted to impress voters that if the GOP took over Congress, they would make changes in government that all of America wanted. Lou Cannon of the Washington Post wrote, “Democrats attacked the plan as extreme and radical, and its solutions would make America worse.” They claimed that a balanced budget, tax cuts, and welfare reform would hurt the poor and do irreparable damage to institutions that had been in place for decades.” Clinton confidant Vernon Jordan protested, “This contract is a ‘hit job’ on Americans!” Although the liberal media and the polls minimized the importance of “The Contract with America,” Election Day 1994 proved fatal for Democrats. According to Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, Gingrich was responsible for the “Republican Revolution,” with the GOP easily taking control of the House and the Senate. They also won 12 governorships and took control in 20 state legislatures. As predicted, many of the elements of Gingrich’s “contract” that passed in Congress were vetoed by Clinton, and the ones that he signed did not radically change America as the left had predicted. Although the proposed balanced budget Constitutional Amendment failed to pass, Newt Gingrich and the Republicans led the crusade to end 30 years of federal red ink and balanced the budget. Joe Biden’s regressive “contract for our nation” was to turn America into a progressive Shangri la, with no strings attached. He promised to redistribute wealth from the rich with punishing new taxes. He vowed to stop drilling for oil, increase welfare, pay people not to work, and to open our borders. “I promise that all increased spending on federal programs will be paid for by the rich.” – Joe Biden Last election, the liberal media convinced America to buy into Biden’s “contract with America” and take out Donald Trump. We are now energy dependent on rogue nations with record-high inflation, a broken supply chain, a labor shortage, and have security issues due
Joe Biden calls former VP Walter Mondale ‘giant’ of political history
President Joe Biden saluted his “friend of five decades” Walter Mondale on Sunday, traveling to the University of Minnesota to remember the former vice president and Democratic Party elder whose memorial service was delayed for a year due to the pandemic. Mondale died in April 2021 at age 93. He is credited with transforming the office of the vice presidency — which Biden himself held for eight years under President Barack Obama — expanding its responsibilities and making himself a key adviser to President Jimmy Carter. Mondale “was a giant in American political history,” Biden said of Mondale, known to friends as “Fritz.” He added that Mondale was one of the “toughest, smartest men I’ve ever worked with” both as Senate colleagues and as a mentor when Biden was Obama’s No. 2 and then later as president. Biden emphasized Mondale’s empathy, recalling his own promise during the 2020 presidential campaign to unite the country. That’s something the president has strayed from a bit in recent weeks as he seeks to draw a starker contrast between his administration and congressional Republicans who have opposed it on nearly every major issue. “It was Fritz who lit the way,” Biden said. “Everybody is to be treated with dignity. Everybody.” Biden added of Mondale: “He united people sharing the light, the same hopes — even when we disagreed, he thought that was important.” “It’s up to each of us to reflect that light that Fritz was all about.” The invitation-only, 90-minute service Sunday inside a stately campus auditorium featured plentiful organ music. Biden, who received a standing ovation, said he spoke with Mondale’s family beforehand and “got emotional” himself. Democratic Sen. Tina Smith called Mondale a “bona fide political celebrity” who still dedicated time to races large and small back in their home state. Minnesota civil rights icon Josie Johnson spoke of what a good listener Mondale was and how he championed inclusiveness. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar described once being an intern who climbed under chairs and a table to carry out a furniture inventory when Mondale was vice president. “That was my first job in Washington. And, thanks to Walter Mondale, this was my second,” Klobuchar said of being a senator, noting that Mondale encouraged her to run and taught “the pundits in Washington how to say my name.” Democratic Gov. Tim Walz said Minnesota may be better known as Mondale’s home state than its moniker “The Land of 10,000 Lakes” and praised Mondale’s intellect, humility, humor, and optimism. “He embodied a sense of joy. He lived his life every single day,” Walz said. “At 91, he was still fishing for walleye. Unlike me, he was catching some.” A booklet given to attendees for the “afternoon of remembrance and reflection” quoted from Mondale’s 2010 book, “The Good Fight”: “I believe that the values of the American people — our fundamental decency, our sense of justice and fairness, our love of freedom — are the country’s greatest assets and that steering by their lodestar is the only true course forward.” Its back cover showed Mondale’s face next to the slogan, “We told the truth. We obeyed the law. We kept the peace,” which Klobuchar described as being memorialized after the then-vice president said them at the end of the Carter administration. Mondale was a graduate of the University of Minnesota and its law school, which has a building named after him. During Sunday’s remembrance, Biden wiped his eyes as a performance of “Tomorrow” from the musical “Annie” played, and the service closed with the university’s marching band, which sent people away with the “Minnesota Rouser” fight song. Mondale followed a trail blazed by his political mentor, Hubert H. Humphrey, serving as Minnesota attorney general before replacing Humphrey in the Senate. He was Carter’s vice president from 1977 to 1981. Mondale also lost one of the most lopsided presidential elections ever to Ronald Reagan in 1984. He carried only Minnesota and the District of Columbia after bluntly telling voters to expect a tax increase if he won. But he made history in that race by picking Rep. Geraldine Ferraro, of New York, as his running mate, becoming the first major-party nominee to put a woman on the ticket. Mondale remained an important Democratic voice for decades afterward and went on to serve as ambassador to Japan under President Bill Clinton. In 2002, at 74, he was drafted to run for the Senate again after Sen. Paul Wellstone was killed in a plane crash shortly before the election. Mondale lost the abbreviated race to Republican Norm Coleman. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
January 6 committee votes to hold Dan Scavino, Peter Navarro in contempt
The House committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol voted unanimously Monday night to hold former Trump advisers Peter Navarro and Dan Scavino in contempt of Congress for their monthslong refusal to comply with subpoenas. The committee made their case that Navarro, former President Donald Trump’s trade adviser, and Scavino, a White House communications aide under Trump, have been uncooperative in the congressional probe into the deadly 2021 insurrection and, as a result, are in contempt. “They’re not fooling anybody. They are obligated to comply with our investigation. They have refused to do so. And that’s a crime,” Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in his opening remarks. The recommendation of criminal charges now goes to the full House, where it is likely to be approved by the Democratic-majority chamber. Approval there would then send the charges to the Justice Department, which has the final say on the prosecution. At Monday’s meeting, lawmakers made yet another appeal to Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has not yet made a decision to pursue the contempt charges the House set forward in December on former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows. “We are upholding our responsibility,” Rep. Adam Schiff, a member of the committee, said in his remarks. “The Department of Justice must do the same.” The committee is investigating the circumstances surrounding January 6, when pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol, fueled by his false claims of a stolen election, in hopes of blocking Congress from certifying election results showing Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump. Ahead of the committee’s vote, the panel scored a big legal victory in its quest for information from Trump lawyer John Eastman when a federal judge in California asserted Monday morning that it is “more likely than not” that Trump committed crimes in his attempt to stop the certification of the 2020 election. With that argument, U.S. District Court Judge David Carter, a Bill Clinton appointee, ordered the release of more than 100 emails from Eastman to the committee. Charles Burnham, an attorney representing Eastman, said in a statement Monday that his client has a responsibility to his attorney-client privilege, and his lawsuit against the committee “seeks to fulfill this responsibility.” Navarro, 72, was subpoenaed for his testimony in early February. The panel wants to question the Trump ally who promoted false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election that the committee believes contributed to the attack. “He hasn’t been shy about his role in efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election and has even discussed the former President’s support for those plans,” Thompson, the committee’s Democratic chairman, said in a statement at the time. Though Navarro sought to use executive privilege to avoid cooperation, the Biden administration has denied claims from him, Scavino, and former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying an assertion of executive privilege was not justified or in the national interest. On Thursday, Navarro called the committee vote “an unprecedented partisan assault on executive privilege,” and said, ”The committee knows full well that President Trump has invoked executive privilege, and it is not my privilege to waive.” In a statement Sunday night, Navarro said the committee “should negotiate this matter with President Trump.” He added, “If he waived the privilege, I will be happy to comply; but I see no effort by the Committee to clarify this matter with President Trump, which is bad faith and bad law.” In a subpoena issued to Scavino last fall, the committee cited reports that he was with Trump the day before the attack during a discussion about how to persuade members of Congress not to certify the election for Biden and with Trump again the day of the attack and may have “materials relevant to his videotaping and tweeting” messages that day. In the recent report, the committee said it also has reason to believe that due to the 46-year-old’s online presence, Scavino may have had advance warning about the potential for violence on January 6. Scavino and his counsel have received at least half a dozen extensions to comply with the subpoena, according to the committee. “Despite all these extensions, to date, Mr. Scavino has not produced a single document, nor has he appeared for testimony,” the report stated. A lawyer for Scavino did not return messages seeking comment. As the committee enforces its subpoena power, it is also continuing to branch out to others in Trump’s orbit. Lawmakers now plan to reach out to Virginia Thomas — known as Ginni — the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in regards to her reported text messages with former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on the day of the attack, according to two people familiar with the investigation who were granted anonymity to discuss the panel’s private deliberations. But the panel has not decided what their outreach to Thomas, a conservative activist, will look like and whether that will come in the form of a subpoena or a voluntary request to cooperate. Also, later this week, the committee plans to interview former Trump adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, one of the people said. The committee previously voted to recommend contempt charges against longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon after he defied a congressional subpoena, as well as against Meadows after he ceased cooperating with the panel. The full House then approved both contempt referrals. Bannon was later indicted by a federal grand jury and is awaiting prosecution by the Justice Department. The Justice Department has not taken any action against Meadows. The central facts of the January 6 insurrection are known but what the committee is hoping to do is fill in the remaining gaps about the attack on the Capitol, and lawmakers say they are committed to presenting a full accounting to make sure it never happens again. The panel is looking into every aspect of the riot, including what Trump himself was doing while it unfolded and any connections between the White House and the rioters who broke into the Capitol building. Republished with the permission
