US Senate panel advances nominee to lead consumer watchdog
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Banking Committee voted Thursday to advance the nomination of Jonathan McKernan to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
In a party-line vote of 13 to 11, McKernan was approved by the Republican-led panel, clearing the way for his eventual consideration by the full Senate to lead the agency, which the Trump administration has aggressively moved to curtail.
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CNN
21 minutes ago
- CNN
‘Our constitution is easy prey': GOP lawmakers work to shut down liberal ballot initiatives
In 2018, Toni Easter held a party in her yard in St. Louis to promote what would become a successful ballot initiative on redistricting — only to see it overturned when Republican lawmakers in Missouri put a competing initiative on the ballot. Then last year, she collected signatures in the successful effort to enshrine abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution. This year, the legislature approved a new referendum to try to reverse it. 'Our civil rights are being taken away,' said Easter, a retired fashion industry executive and co-founder of Respect Missouri Voters. Her group is working to put another measure on the Missouri ballot in 2026, one that would bar the state's lawmakers from overturning citizen-approved initiatives. Liberal activists in conservative-led states are facing similar challenges around the country. Republican lawmakers are working to cut off ballot measures that enact progressive policies by making it harder for citizen-led measures to qualify for a vote or be enforced. Locked out of power in Washington and in many statehouses, progressive activists have launched citizen initiatives to try to notch wins. Eleven states, for example, have backed abortion rights through citizen-approved initiatives since the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling in 2022 ending a federally guaranteed right to abortion. 'State lawmakers have been using their power to subvert the will of the people,' said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center's executive director. The center tracks and helps promote ballot measures. 'They can't win fairly, so they've been rewriting the rules, no matter what the majority wants.' Conservative legislators around the country argue that moneyed interests from outside their states are fueling efforts to rewrite state constitutions in irresponsible ways. They argue the process itself is vulnerable to fraud, given the frequent use of paid canvassers to collect the voter signatures needed to put initiatives on the ballot. 'Our constitution is easy prey,' South Dakota state Sen. John Hughes, a Republican, argued during a committee hearing this year. He sponsored a successful resolution that will ask the state's voters next year to increase the threshold for passage to 60%, up from a simple majority. Nearly half the states allow citizen initiatives, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. State legislative efforts to restrict these kinds of ballot initiatives, however, have soared in recent years with at least 148 bills introduced this year, up from 76 during 2023 legislative sessions, according to a tally by the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. South Dakota, which in 1898 became the first state in the country to allow an initiative and referendum process, has seen an array of ballot proposals in recent years. A successful effort in 2022 expanded Medicaid, while a failed initiative last year would have instituted a nonpartisan, top-two primary system for elections like the one used in California. If Hughes' effort is successful, South Dakota will join a handful of states, including Florida, with thresholds greater than 50%. Lawmakers in two other states, North Dakota and Utah, have also moved to ask voters to lift their thresholds to 60%. 'There is a groundswell of out of-of-state interests that want South Dakota to operate on a direct democracy basis, which is not how our government operates,' Hughes testified. 'Our constitution needs to be soberly and cautiously amended.' Florida's 60% bar led to the defeat of two recent citizen-led initiatives that won majorities – a move to enshrine abortion rights, which received 57% of the vote, and to legalize recreational marijuana, which drew 56%. Here are several other examples of recent changes made by Republicans: In Arkansas, the state's GOP-controlled legislature mandated that petition canvassers review a photo ID from each potential signer. And a new law gives Attorney General Tim Griffin the authority to reject proposed constitutional amendments with ballot language deemed higher than the eighth-grade reading level – a power Griffin has already exercised to disqualify potential measures this year. In Florida, a new law limits who can collect signatures to put proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot and bars an organization from sponsoring more than one initiative at a time. It also requires voters to include identifying information – such as the last four digits of their Social Security number – when they sign a petition. In Montana, a new law requires paid signature gatherers approaching voters to wear badges disclosing that they are paid and listing their state of residence. In Oklahoma, Gov. Keith Stitt recently signed a law mandating that no more than 10% of signatures for a ballot measure can come from counties with 400,000 or more people. Critics say the capping the number of signatures gathered in cities will make it nearly impossible to put initiatives on the ballot. Supporters say it will give rural voters a greater voice in the process. The fight over citizen-led initiatives dominated Missouri's legislative session, which saw the Republican-controlled legislature approve overturning a measure passed by voters last year that guaranteed paid sick leave and cost-of-living increases to the minimum wage. Missouri lawmakers also voted to put a new abortion referendum on the ballot that would repeal one approved by voters just seven months ago, guaranteeing a right to abortion until fetal viability. Doctors believe fetus viability to be around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The new initiative, authored by GOP state Sen. Adam Schnelting, would ban most abortions, with exceptions only for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies and cases of rape and incest, up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. An aide to Schnelting declined an interview. During floor debate last month, the Republican argued that proponents of the 2024 abortion-rights initiative had misled Missourians into believing women would be 'dying in our hospitals' because they were denied care. 'But most Missourians do not want abortion on demand,' he said. Respect Missouri Voters, the group Easter helped found, is now seeking volunteers to get an initiative on the 2026 ballot that would bar lawmakers from overturning citizen-led initiatives. If successful, it would demonstrate that 'people can reclaim their power,' she said, 'and we could actually have effective governance that represents us and our needs.' The group is hoping to raise $300,000 and recruit 2,500 volunteers by the end of this month so it can start collecting signatures in July.
CNN
21 minutes ago
- CNN
‘Our constitution is easy prey': GOP lawmakers work to shut down liberal ballot initiatives
In 2018, Toni Easter held a party in her yard in St. Louis to promote what would become a successful ballot initiative on redistricting — only to see it overturned when Republican lawmakers in Missouri put a competing initiative on the ballot. Then last year, she collected signatures in the successful effort to enshrine abortion rights in the Missouri Constitution. This year, the legislature approved a new referendum to try to reverse it. 'Our civil rights are being taken away,' said Easter, a retired fashion industry executive and co-founder of Respect Missouri Voters. Her group is working to put another measure on the Missouri ballot in 2026, one that would bar the state's lawmakers from overturning citizen-approved initiatives. Liberal activists in conservative-led states are facing similar challenges around the country. Republican lawmakers are working to cut off ballot measures that enact progressive policies by making it harder for citizen-led measures to qualify for a vote or be enforced. Locked out of power in Washington and in many statehouses, progressive activists have launched citizen initiatives to try to notch wins. Eleven states, for example, have backed abortion rights through citizen-approved initiatives since the Supreme Court's Dobbs ruling in 2022 ending a federally guaranteed right to abortion. 'State lawmakers have been using their power to subvert the will of the people,' said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center's executive director. The center tracks and helps promote ballot measures. 'They can't win fairly, so they've been rewriting the rules, no matter what the majority wants.' Conservative legislators around the country argue that moneyed interests from outside their states are fueling efforts to rewrite state constitutions in irresponsible ways. They argue the process itself is vulnerable to fraud, given the frequent use of paid canvassers to collect the voter signatures needed to put initiatives on the ballot. 'Our constitution is easy prey,' South Dakota state Sen. John Hughes, a Republican, argued during a committee hearing this year. He sponsored a successful resolution that will ask the state's voters next year to increase the threshold for passage to 60%, up from a simple majority. Nearly half the states allow citizen initiatives, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. State legislative efforts to restrict these kinds of ballot initiatives, however, have soared in recent years with at least 148 bills introduced this year, up from 76 during 2023 legislative sessions, according to a tally by the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center. South Dakota, which in 1898 became the first state in the country to allow an initiative and referendum process, has seen an array of ballot proposals in recent years. A successful effort in 2022 expanded Medicaid, while a failed initiative last year would have instituted a nonpartisan, top-two primary system for elections like the one used in California. If Hughes' effort is successful, South Dakota will join a handful of states, including Florida, with thresholds greater than 50%. Lawmakers in two other states, North Dakota and Utah, have also moved to ask voters to lift their thresholds to 60%. 'There is a groundswell of out of-of-state interests that want South Dakota to operate on a direct democracy basis, which is not how our government operates,' Hughes testified. 'Our constitution needs to be soberly and cautiously amended.' Florida's 60% bar led to the defeat of two recent citizen-led initiatives that won majorities – a move to enshrine abortion rights, which received 57% of the vote, and to legalize recreational marijuana, which drew 56%. Here are several other examples of recent changes made by Republicans: In Arkansas, the state's GOP-controlled legislature mandated that petition canvassers review a photo ID from each potential signer. And a new law gives Attorney General Tim Griffin the authority to reject proposed constitutional amendments with ballot language deemed higher than the eighth-grade reading level – a power Griffin has already exercised to disqualify potential measures this year. In Florida, a new law limits who can collect signatures to put proposed constitutional amendments on the ballot and bars an organization from sponsoring more than one initiative at a time. It also requires voters to include identifying information – such as the last four digits of their Social Security number – when they sign a petition. In Montana, a new law requires paid signature gatherers approaching voters to wear badges disclosing that they are paid and listing their state of residence. In Oklahoma, Gov. Keith Stitt recently signed a law mandating that no more than 10% of signatures for a ballot measure can come from counties with 400,000 or more people. Critics say the capping the number of signatures gathered in cities will make it nearly impossible to put initiatives on the ballot. Supporters say it will give rural voters a greater voice in the process. The fight over citizen-led initiatives dominated Missouri's legislative session, which saw the Republican-controlled legislature approve overturning a measure passed by voters last year that guaranteed paid sick leave and cost-of-living increases to the minimum wage. Missouri lawmakers also voted to put a new abortion referendum on the ballot that would repeal one approved by voters just seven months ago, guaranteeing a right to abortion until fetal viability. Doctors believe fetus viability to be around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The new initiative, authored by GOP state Sen. Adam Schnelting, would ban most abortions, with exceptions only for medical emergencies, fetal anomalies and cases of rape and incest, up to 12 weeks of pregnancy. An aide to Schnelting declined an interview. During floor debate last month, the Republican argued that proponents of the 2024 abortion-rights initiative had misled Missourians into believing women would be 'dying in our hospitals' because they were denied care. 'But most Missourians do not want abortion on demand,' he said. Respect Missouri Voters, the group Easter helped found, is now seeking volunteers to get an initiative on the 2026 ballot that would bar lawmakers from overturning citizen-led initiatives. If successful, it would demonstrate that 'people can reclaim their power,' she said, 'and we could actually have effective governance that represents us and our needs.' The group is hoping to raise $300,000 and recruit 2,500 volunteers by the end of this month so it can start collecting signatures in July.
Atlantic
26 minutes ago
- Atlantic
Where Is Barack Obama?
Last month, while Donald Trump was in the Middle East being gifted a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar, Barack Obama headed off on his own foreign excursion: a trip to Norway, in a much smaller and more tasteful jet, to visit the summer estate of his old friend King Harald V. Together, they would savor the genteel glories of Bygdøyveien in May. They chewed over global affairs and the freshest local salmon, which had been smoked on the premises and seasoned with herbs from the royal garden. Trump has begun his second term with a continuous spree of democracy-shaking, economy-quaking, norm-obliterating action. And Obama, true to form, has remained carefully above it all. He picks his spots, which seldom involve Trump. In March, he celebrated the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and posted his annual NCAA basketball brackets. In April, he sent out an Easter message and mourned the death of the pope. In May, he welcomed His Holiness Pope Leo XIV ('a fellow Chicagoan') and sent prayers to Joe Biden following his prostate-cancer diagnosis. No matter how brazen Trump becomes, the most effective communicator in the Democratic Party continues to opt for minimal communication. His 'audacity of hope' presidency has given way to the fierce lethargy of semi-retirement. Obama occasionally dips into politics with brief and unmemorable statements, or sporadic fundraising emails (subject: 'Barack Obama wants to meet you. Yes you.'). He praised his law-school alma mater, Harvard, for 'rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt' by the White House 'to stifle academic freedom.' He criticized a Republican bill that would threaten health care for millions. He touted a liberal judge who was running for a crucial seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. When called upon, he can still deliver a top-notch campaign spiel, donor pitch, convention speech, or eulogy. Beyond that, Obama pops in with summer and year-end book, music, and film recommendations. He recently highlighted a few articles about AI and retweeted a promotional spot for Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds, a new Netflix documentary from his and Michelle's production company. (Michelle also has a fashion book coming out later this year: 'a celebration of confidence, identity, and authenticity,' she calls it.) Apparently, Barack is a devoted listener of The Ringer 's Bill Simmons Podcast, or so he told Jimmy Kimmel over dinner. In normal times, no one would deny Obama these diversions. He performed the world's most stressful job for eight years, served his country, made his history, and deserved to kick back and do the usual ex-president things: start a foundation, build a library, make unspeakable amounts of money. But the inevitable Trump-era counterpoint is that these are not normal times. And Obama's detachment feels jarringly incongruous with the desperation of his longtime admirers—even more so given Trump's assaults on what Obama achieved in office. It would be one thing if Obama had disappeared after leaving the White House, maybe taking up painting like George W. Bush. The problem is that Obama still very much has a public profile—one that screams comfort and nonchalance at a time when so many other Americans are terrified. 'There are many grandmas and Rachel Maddow viewers who have been more vocal in this moment than Barack Obama has,' Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Institute, told me. 'It is heartbreaking,' he added, 'to see him sacrificing that megaphone when nobody else quite has it.' People who have worked with Obama since he left office say that he is extremely judicious about when he weighs in. 'We try to preserve his voice so that when he does speak, it has impact,' Eric Schultz, a close adviser to Obama in his post-presidency, told me. 'There is a dilution factor that we're very aware of.' 'The thing you don't want to do is, you don't want to regularize him,' former Attorney General Eric Holder, a close Obama friend and collaborator, told me. When I asked Holder what he meant by 'regularize,' he explained that there was a danger of turning Obama into just another hack commentator—' Tuesdays With Barack, or something like that,' Holder said. Like many of Obama's confidants, Holder bristles at suggestions that the former president has somehow deserted the Trump opposition. 'Should he do more? Everybody can have their opinions,' Holder said. 'The one thing that always kind of pisses me off is when people say he's not out there, or that he's not doing things, that he's just retired and we never hear from him. If you fucking look, folks, you would see that he's out there.' From the April 2016 issue: The Obama doctrine Obama's aides also say that he is loath to overshadow the next generation of Democratic leaders. They emphasize that he spends a great deal of time speaking privately with candidates and officials who seek his advice. But unfortunately for Democrats, they have not found their next fresh generational sensation since Obama was elected 17 years ago (Joe Biden obviously doesn't count). Until a new leader emerges, Obama could certainly take on a more vocal role without 'regularizing' himself in the lowlands of Trump-era politics. Obama remains the most popular Democrat alive at a time of historic unpopularity for his party. Unlike Biden, he appears not to have lost a step, or three. Unlike with Bill Clinton, his voice remains strong and his baggage minimal. Unlike both Biden and Clinton, he is relatively young and has a large constituency of Americans who still want to hear from him, including Black Americans, young voters, and other longtime Democratic blocs that gravitated toward Trump in November. 'Should Obama get out and do more? Yes, please,' Tracy Sefl, a Democratic media consultant in Chicago, told me. 'Help us,' she added. 'We're sinking over here.' Obama's conspicuous scarcity while Trump inflicts such damage isn't just a bad look. It's a dereliction of the message that he built his career on. When Obama first ran for president in 2008, his former life as a community organizer was central to his message. His campaign was not merely for him, but for civic action itself—the idea of Americans being invested in their own change. Throughout his time in the White House, he emphasized that 'citizen' was his most important title. After he left office in 2017, Obama said that he would work to inspire and develop the next cohort of leaders, which is essentially the mission of his foundation. It would seem a contradiction for him to say that he's devoting much of his post-presidency to promoting civic engagement when he himself seems so disengaged. To some degree, patience with Obama began wearing thin when he was still in office. His approval ratings sagged partway through his second term (before rebounding at the end). The rollout of the Affordable Care Act in 2013 was a fiasco, and the midterm elections of 2014 were a massacre. Obama looked powerless as Republicans in Congress ensured that he would pass no major legislation in his second term and blocked his nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. 'Obama, out,' the president said in the denouement of his last comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, in 2016. In Obama lore, this mic-drop moment would instantly become famous—and prophetic. After Trump's first victory, Obama tried to reassure supporters that this was merely a setback. 'I don't believe in apocalyptic—until the apocalypse comes,' he said in an interview with The New Yorker. Insofar as Obama talked about how he imagined his post-presidency, he was inclined to disengage from day-to-day politics. At a press conference in November 2016, Obama said that he planned to 'take Michelle on vacation, get some rest, spend time with my girls, and do some writing, do some thinking.' He promised to give Trump the chance to do his job 'without somebody popping off in every instance.' But in that same press conference, he also allowed that if something arose that raised 'core questions about our values and our ideals, and if I think that it's necessary or helpful for me to defend those ideals, then I'll examine it when it comes.' That happened almost immediately. A few days after vowing in his inaugural address to end the 'American carnage' that he was inheriting, Trump signed an executive order banning foreign nationals from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the United States for 90 days. The so-called Muslim travel ban would quickly be blocked by the courts, but not before sowing chaos at U.S. points of entry. Obama put out a brief statement through a spokesperson ('the president fundamentally disagrees with the notion of discriminating against individuals because of their faith or religion'), and went on vacation. Trump's early onslaught made clear that Obama's ex-presidency would prove far more complicated than previous ones. And Obama's taste for glamorous settings and famous company—Richard Branson, David Geffen, George Clooney—made for a grating contrast with the turmoil back home. 'Just tone it down with the kitesurfing pictures,' John Oliver, the host of HBO's Last Week Tonight, said of Obama in an interview with Seth Meyers less than a month after the president left office. 'America is on fire,' Oliver added. 'I know that people accused him of being out of touch with the American people during his presidency. I'm not sure he's ever been more out of touch than he is now.' Oliver's spasm foreshadowed a rolling annoyance that continued as Trump's presidency wore on: that Obama was squandering his power and influence. 'Oh, Obama is still tweeting good tweets. That's very nice of him,' the anti-Trump writer Drew Magary wrote in a Medium column titled 'Where the Hell Is Barack Obama?' in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. 'I'm sick of Obama staying above the fray while that fray is swallowing us whole.' Obama did insert himself in the 2024 election, reportedly taking an aggressive behind-the-scenes role last summer in trying to nudge Biden out of the race. He delivered a showstopper speech at the Democratic National Convention and campaigned several times for Kamala Harris in the fall. But among longtime Obama admirers I've spoken with, frustration with the former president has built since Trump returned to office. While campaigning for Harris last year, Obama framed the stakes of the election in terms of a looming catastrophe. 'These aren't ordinary times, and these are not ordinary elections,' he said at a campaign stop in Pittsburgh. Yet now that the impact is unfolding in the most pernicious ways, Obama seems to be resuming his ordinary chill and same old bits. Green, of the Progressive Change Institute, told me that when Obama put out his March Madness picks this year, he texted Schultz, the Obama adviser. 'Have I missed him speaking up in other places recently?' Green asked him. 'He did not respond to that.' (Schultz confirmed to me that he ignored the message but vowed to be 'more responsive to Adam Green's texts in the future.') Being a former president is inherently tricky: The role is ill-defined, and peripheral by definition. Part of the trickiness is how an ex-president can remain relevant, if he wants to. This is especially so given the current president. 'I don't know that anybody is relevant in the Trump era,' Mark Updegrove, a presidential historian and head of the LBJ Foundation, told me. Updegrove, who wrote a book called Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House, said that Trump has succeeded in creating a reality in which every president who came before is suspect. 'All the standard rules of being an ex-president are no longer applicable,' he said. Still, Obama never presented himself as a 'standard rules' leader. This was the idea that his political rise was predicated on—that change required bold, against-the-grain thinking and uncomfortable action. Clearly, Obama still views himself this way, or at least still wants to be perceived this way. (A few years ago, he hosted a podcast with Bruce Springsteen called Renegades.) From the July 1973 issue: The last days of the president Stepping into the current political melee would not be an easy or comfortable role for Obama. He represents a figure of the past, which seems more and more like the ancient past as the Trump era crushes on. He is a notably long-view guy, who has spent a great deal of time composing a meticulous account of his own narrative. 'We're part of a long-running story,' Obama said in 2014. 'We just try to get our paragraph right.' Or thousands of paragraphs, in his case: The first installment of Obama's presidential memoir, A Promised Land, covered 768 pages and 29 hours of audio. No release date has been set for the second volume. But this might be one of those times for Obama to take a break from the long arc of the moral universe and tend to the immediate crisis. Several Democrats I've spoken with said they wish that Obama would stop worrying so much about the 'dilution factor.' While Democrats struggle to find their next phenom, Obama could be their interim boss. He could engage regularly, pointing out Trump's latest abuses. He did so earlier this spring, during an onstage conversation at Hamilton College. He was thoughtful, funny, and sounded genuinely aghast, even angry. He could do these public dialogues much more often, and even make them thematic. Focus on Trump's serial violations of the Constitution one week (recall that Obama once taught constitutional law), the latest instance of Trump's naked corruption the next. Blast out the most scathing lines on social media. Yes, it might trigger Trump, and create more attention than Obama evidently wants. But Trump has shown that ubiquity can be a superpower, just as Biden showed that obscurity can be ruinous. People would notice. Democrats love nothing more than to hold up Obama as their monument to Republican bad faith. Can you imagine if Obama did this? some Democrat will inevitably say whenever Trump does something tacky, cruel, or blatantly unethical (usually before breakfast). Obama could lean into this hypocrisy—tape recurring five-minute video clips highlighting Trump's latest scurrilous act and title the series 'Can You Imagine If I Did This?' Or another idea—an admittedly far-fetched one. Trump has decreed that a massive military parade be held through the streets of Washington on June 14. This will ostensibly celebrate the Army's 250th anniversary, but it also happens to fall on Trump's 79th birthday. The parade will cost an estimated $45 million, including $16 million in damage to the streets. (Can you imagine if Obama did this?) The spectacle cries out for counterprogramming. Obama could hold his own event, in Washington or somewhere nearby. It would get tons of attention and drive Trump crazy, especially if it draws a bigger crowd. Better yet, make it a parade, or 'citizen's march,' something that builds momentum as it goes, the former president and community organizer leading on foot. This would be the renegade move. Few things would fire up Democrats like a head-to-head matchup between Trump and Obama. If nothing else, it would be fun to contemplate while Democrats keep casting about for their long-delayed future. 'The party needs new rising stars, and they need the room to figure out how to meet this moment, just like Obama figured out how to meet the moment 20 years ago,' Jon Favreau, a co-host of Pod Save America and former director of speechwriting for the 44th president, told me. 'Unless, of course, Trump tries to run for a third term, in which case I'll be begging Obama to come out of retirement.'
