Stoney concedes to Hashmi in Va. Democratic lieutenant governor primary
RICHMOND — Virginia state Sen. Ghazala Hashmi's closest rival in the six-way race for Democratic lieutenant governor conceded Wednesday morning as Hashmi declared victory, but the Associated Press still found the race too close to call.
Hashmi, an Indian immigrant who lives in Richmond, would become Virginia's first statewide officeholder who is Muslim or South Asian if elected in November. She would face Republican John Reid, who would be the state's first openly gay statewide elected official if he wins.
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25 minutes ago
Civil rights agency's acting chief to face questions on anti-DEI, transgender stances
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The acting chief of the country's top agency for enforcing worker rights will face questions at a Senate committee hearing Wednesday over her efforts to prioritize anti-diversity investigations while sidelining certain racial and gender discrimination cases and quashing protections for transgender workers. Andrea Lucas, who was first appointed to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2020 and elevated to acting chief in January, is one of four Labor Department nominees to appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Her nomination to serve another five-year term as an EEOC commissioner requires Senate confirmation, though whether she stays on as chief will be up to President Donald Trump. Lucas, an outspoken critic of diversity, equity and inclusion practices and promoter of the idea that there are only two immutable sexes, has moved swiftly to enact Trump's civil rights agenda after he abruptly fired two of the EEOC's Democratic commissioners before the end of their five-year terms, an unprecedented move in the agency's 60-year history that has been challenged in a lawsuit. Lucas is prioritizing worker rights that conservatives argue have been ignored by the EEOC. That includes investigating company DEI practices, defending the rights of women to same-sex spaces and fighting anti-Christian bias in the workplace. Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate committee holding the hearing, has championed many of those causes. He accused the EEOC under the Biden administration of 'injecting its far-left" agenda into the workplace, including by updating sexual harassment guidelines to warn against misgendering transgender workers and including abortion as a pregnancy-related condition under regulations for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Democrats on the committee are likely to grill Lucas over criticism that she overstepped her authority by profoundly shifting the EEOC's direction to the whims of the president in the absence of a quorum, which commission has lacked since Trump fired the two commissioners. Sen. Patty Murray, a member of the committee, said she will oppose any EEOC nominations unless Trump reinstates the two fired Democratic commissioners, which she and more than 200 other Democratic senators and Congress members condemned in a letter to the president as an abuse of power. 'President Trump is weaponizing the independent EEOC to serve his personal political agenda, firing commissioners without cause and warping the mission of the EEOC beyond recognition,' Murray said in a statement ahead of the hearing. 'Commissioner Lucas is a right-wing extremist who has been in lockstep behind Trump's pro-discrimination agenda.' Lucas has made clear her views of the limitations of the EEOC's autonomy. In a recent memo to employers, Lucas declared that the 'EEOC is an executive branch agency, not an independent agency" that will "fully and robustly comply" with all executive orders. That includes two orders that Trump signed in January: one directing federal agencies to eliminate their own DEI activities and end any 'equity-related' grants or contracts, and the other imposing a certification provision on all companies and institutions with government contracts or grant dollars to demonstrate that they don't operate DEI programs. The EEOC's new approach alarmed more than 30 civil rights groups, which sent a letter to the Senate committee demanding that Lucas face a hearing. The groups argued that the EEOC was created by Congress under 1964 Civil Rights Act to be a bipartisan agency that would function independently from the executive branch. The EEOC, the only federal agency empowered to investigate employment discrimination in the private sector, received more than 88,000 charges of workplace discrimination in fiscal year 2024. Its commissioners are appointed by the president to staggered terms, and no more than three can be from the same party. Much of the EEOC's authority is granted by Congress, including the obligation to investigate all complaints and enact regulations for implementing some laws. Under Lucas, the EEOC dropped seven of its own lawsuits on behalf of transgender or nonbinary workers. It also moved to drop a racial discrimination case on behalf of Black, Native American and multiracial job applicants after Trump ordered federal agencies to stop pursuing discrimination that falls under 'disparate impact liability,' which aims to identify practices that systematically exclude certain demographic groups. Instead, Lucas has turned the EEOC's attention to investigating company DEI practices. In her most high profile move, she sent letters to 20 law firms demanding information about diversity fellowships and other programs she claimed could be evidence of discriminatory practices. Lucas has also repeatedly encouraged workers nationwide to come forward with DEI complaints. She launched a hotline for whistleblowers and said workers should be encouraged to report bad DEI practices after a Supreme Court decision made it easier for white and other non-minority workers to bring reverse-discrimination lawsuits.
Boston Globe
27 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
What does upholding Tennesee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors mean for similar bills in N.H.?
New Hampshire Get N.H. Morning Report A weekday newsletter delivering the N.H. news you need to know right to your inbox. Enter Email Sign Up If either becomes law, New Hampshire would be the first state in New England to enact such bans, joining 25 other states that have banned such care for youth, according to the that provides research to promote equality. Advertisement A Advertisement Erchull said the US Supreme Court ruling finds that a ban on medical care for minors is not sex-based discrimination, but rather a regulation of medical procedures based on age. He disagrees, and notes that legal avenues are still available to challenge HB 377 should it become law in New Hampshire. That could include a challenge based on the New Hampshire constitution, arguing that the intent of the law was to harm transgender people, or a challenge on the basis of parental rights. 'It's legislation that very clearly impacts a family's ability, a parent's ability, to make important decisions with medical consultation about how to care for their children,' he said. 'And this is coming from the same exact people, the same exact legislators who tout National Center for LGBTQ Rights Legal Director 'Healthcare decisions belong with families, not politicians. This decision will cause real harm,' he said. Some New Hampshire Republicans celebrated the US Supreme Court decision. 'I applaud Tennessee for protecting children from irreversible harm by banning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors,' said New Hampshire state Representative Sayra DeVito, a Danville Republican who is a co-sponsor of HB 377. 'Children deserve the chance to grow, mature, and fully understand themselves before making permanent decisions about their bodies,' DeVito said in a statement. 'There's no discrimination in protecting children. Tennessee is leading with courage and common sense.' Advertisement Representative Erica Layon, a Derry Republican, said she hoped the Supreme Court's decision would 'bring reason back to healthcare for young people.' 'I believe that history will view these surgeries as just as harmful as other conversion therapies practiced in the past upon gay, lesbian and bisexual youth,' she said. Democrats in New Hampshire, however, are criticizing the decision. House Minority Leader Alexis Simpson of Exeter said the decision cuts off parents' access to critical, evidence-based treatment for their children. 'These attacks aren't about protecting kids, they're actively putting lives at risk, with anti-trans laws tied to a New Hampshire families with transgender children had been anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Supreme Court case. Rosie Emrich sits for a portrait with her eight-year-old transgender child at their house in Hooksett, N.H., on April 17, 2025. Emrich said that her family is considering moving from New Hampshire to Massachusetts because of a series of bills that could limit her child's ability to access gender-affirming care. Brett Phelps for The Boston Globe Rosie Emrich, who has a transgender child said the US Supreme Court's decision was 'heartbreaking.' 'I feel sort of gutted,' she said. 'I think maybe I let myself get a little too hopeful.' Emrich has been weighing whether For now, she said, she plans to focus her attention on urging New Hampshire's Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte to veto HB 377. 'It does definitely bring a lot bigger sense of urgency to the stuff going on here in New Hampshire and the push to try to have the governor hear the impacts of this,' she said. Advertisement Lawmakers from the House and Senate met this week for negotiations over which version of HB 377 should proceed. The House has agreed to the Senate's position on the bill, and lawmakers have until Thursday afternoon to sign off Ayotte has not said if she supports a ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Amanda Gokee can be reached at
New York Post
29 minutes ago
- New York Post
Sen. Ron Johnson tears into White House's ‘misleading' claims about the true cost of Trump's ‘big beautiful' bill
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), a former accountant, unveiled a detailed analysis of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and concluded that the Republican-backed measure will blow up the deficit — despite opposite claims coming from the White House about its budgetary effects. Johnson's 31-page analysis ran through multiple projections of the tax-and-spending megabill's impact before accusing the White House of 'misleading' budgeting tricks to paint a rosier picture of the marquee agenda package. The deficit will increase by a whopping $24.1 trillion over the next 10 years and at least $3 trillion of that would come from the GOP's bill, according to the analysis which cites the Congressional Budget Office's scoring of the legislation. His analysis also ripped into a recent White House memo suggesting that there are plans to slash the deficit by $6.7 trillion to $6.9 over the next 10 years through tariff revenue and discretionary spending cuts. In reality, he found the best-case scenario would see a $2.5 trillion reduction over the next 10 years to the 'current law' baseline from those policies. 3 Sen. Ron Johnson has long urged Republicans to be more aggressive about reining spending in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Getty Images But he later cautioned that the best-case scenario isn't even likely because Democrats will almost certainly challenge the planned discretionary cuts and the courts may shut down President Trump's tariffs. 'It's my humble attempt not being a professional economist, to just lay out what we ought to be looking at,' Johnson told reporters Wednesday. 'The kind of information we ought to be analyzing as we move forward to pass a very consequential, massive piece of legislation.' The Badger State senator gave his analysis to the Trump's economic adviser Kevin Hassett last week to give the Trump administration a chance to spot any errors in his analysis. 'I hope this report sparks the debate,' Johnson told reporters. 'I hope this report causes other economists to bring forward their scenarios, because right now, but all we rely on is that the black hole of the CBO.' 3 Senate Majority Leader John Thune is working to wrangle the One Big Beautiful Act through the upper chamber. REUTERS The Wisconsin senator, who has opposed the House-passed version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in its current form due to its deficit impact, hinted that he is flexible on a lot of the details of the legislative but needs it to get 'spending under control.' His report noted that there is a 'legitimate criticism' of the CBO's scoring in that it is premised on 1.8% gross domestic product growth, when the average between 2000 to 2024 was 2.21%. But the analysis also tore into well-worn Republican claims that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act paid for itself after adjusting for pandemic-induced inflation. 'The claim that the TCJA paid for itself in seven years is hard to support,' the report stated bluntly. A central component of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is that it renews and makes permanent key provisions within the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Johnson stressed that he doesn't 'want to increase taxes,' which is what will happen if the key provisions of the 2017 cuts are allowed to expire at the end of the year, but stressed that Republicans need to do more to curb spending. One potential remedy Johnson suggested is for Congress to conduct a forensic audit of government outlays, something that would have more teeth to cut spending than the current iteration of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 3 President Trump's signature agenda package is facing headwinds in the Senate. AP The senator also beliefs that the Fourth of July time frame to get the One Big Beautiful Bill Act across the finish line in the Senate isn't realistic and would like to see Republicans attempt other reconciliation bills to rein in spending further. He also predicted that the megabill will get voted down if it comes up in the Senate next week. Johnson is joined by at least three other fiscal hawks in the upper chamber who are concerned that the legislation doesn't do enough to curb spending. On Tuesday, the CBO released a new dynamic scoring estimate concluding that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would add $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years when accounting for its impact on economic growth. That's higher than the $3 trillion it initially forecasted on a static basis, which doesn't account for economic growth. Usually the CBO's dynamic scoring projections find less deficit increases than statis estimates. Johnson's analysis used the CBO's static project before it was conducted before the dynamic scoring was released.
