Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew: Mamdani's policies are not good for New York
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Politico
16 minutes ago
- Politico
Why Senate Republicans won't scrap the ‘blue slip'
It also doesn't look like their position will change heading into the fall, either, as Republicans have indicated they'll seek a rules change to speed up the confirmation process for certain Trump nominees on the Senate floor but not at the committee level. 'As a practical matter, the Senate's not going to give up the blue slip,' said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, in an interview. 'So my appeal to the president is: please reconsider. Why do we want to have this fight for nothing?' It marks a rare instance where Hill Republicans have publicly broken with the president, underscoring how even Trump's most loyal allies are willing to stand up to him when it comes to protecting their institution's traditions — and their own ability to exert influence back home. 'The Senators have a real vested interest in what happens in their states,' said Mike Fragoso, a former chief counsel for nominations and constitutional law for the Senate Judiciary Committee. 'At the end of the day, there's probably very little support for what Trump wants within the conference.' Fragoso, who also served as chief counsel for former Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, argued that even Republicans wary of crossing the president now have taken advantage of the blue slip policy when Democrats held power. He added that there are relatively few bench seats in solidly Democratic states that Trump could even fill now without consent from Democrats. Ultimately, said Fragoso, the blue slip's elimination would just expose future seats in reliably red states like Florida and Texas to being filled with progressive judges by future Democratic administrations — and without the GOP getting much in return. Grassley has also already made changes to the blue slip practice once, in 2017, when he announced he would move forward with circuit court nominees over home state senators' objections. Although Judiciary chairs over the years had not always strictly followed that precedent, Grassley's decision to consistently disregard it helped Trump see hundreds of judges confirmed during his first term in the White House.
NBC News
an hour ago
- NBC News
Iraq and Afghanistan veteran launches Democratic campaign against Sen. Susan Collins in Maine
Graham Platner, a 40-year-old Army and Marine veteran who served four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, launched his campaign for the Senate in Maine on Tuesday, joining a growing Democratic primary field seeking to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Platner, an oyster farmer who was born and raised in Sullivan, Maine, will run on a platform of universal health care, housing affordability and ending U.S. involvement in foreign wars. 'I feel an obligation to protect this place and protect the people in it,' Platner said in an interview. Platner joins a growing Democratic primary field that features Jordan Wood, a former chief of staff to former Rep. Katie Porter, D-Calif., and David Costello, who challenged independent Sen. Angus King last year. Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has said she is considering getting into the contest, while Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, has opted against joining the budding primary in what, on paper, might look like Democrats' best opportunity to flip a Senate seat in 2026. Collins is the only Republican senator who represents a state Kamala Harris carried in the last presidential election. But she has proven a tough opponent in blue Maine. In her last campaign, in 2020, she beat Democratic opponent Sarah Gideon by more than 8 percentage points, even as Donald Trump lost Maine by more than 9 points. Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate, meaning Democrats would need to flip four seats in the 2026 midterms to take the majority. Platner said his experience in the military helped shape his political perspective as he prepared his campaign. 'When I joined the Marine Corps, I joined up because I really, truly believed in the American project,' he said. 'I wanted to fight for something I loved and that I thought was good in Iraq and Afghanistan. I watched both failed policies, failed strategies, failed tactics being used over and over and over again.' 'There's a point where you have to start asking yourself what is the point of this,' he added. 'Why are you doing this? And when I went back as a security contractor in 2018, what I began to realize is that I was just watching vast amounts of taxpayer money getting put into the pockets of defense contractors, of security contractors, of this whole apparatus that almost seemed to exist merely to take taxpayer money and put it into somebody's private bank account. And in seeing that up close for a while, it turned me into a deeply, deeply cynical and angry guy. From that I began to kind of look at our larger political system, our larger economic system, and you just begin to see the same exact thing.' Platner is seeking to connect with working-class voters who've migrated toward the GOP in recent cycles. He pointed to Golden, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., as figures offering hope for the Democratic Party nationally and in his state. 'If we focus primarily on fighting for working-class values, fighting for policies that help working-class people, clawing back a lot of the power that has been consolidated in the kind of higher establishment-class politics, I think if you stick to that stuff, you can win,' Platner said. 'And getting dragged into many of these minor culture war fights is not remotely the answer.' 'I don't just identify with the more of the left parts of the party. People like Jared Golden are doing an excellent job. That's why he's been able to hold on to a Democratic seat in a Trump district,' Platner said. In his launch video, Platner excoriated 'billionaires and corrupt politicians profiting off and destroying our environment, driving our families into poverty and crushing the middle class,' saying his military experience made him unafraid to 'name an enemy, and the enemy is the oligarchy.' 'I'm not fooled by this fake charade of Collins' deliberations and moderation,' he said.
an hour ago
What to know about redistricting fights as Texas Democrats return and California starts work
Republicans can move ahead with redrawing Texas' congressional districts now that Democratic lawmakers have returned to the state. Efforts to thwart President Donald Trump's push to tilt the political map for next year's midterm elections in his favor shifted to California. Dozens of Texas Democrats ended a two-week walkout Monday after Democrats in California heeded Gov. Gavin Newsom's call to counter the GOP effort in Texas. In California, the Democratic-supermajority Legislature faces tight deadlines, and a plan would have to be approved by voters in November. Republicans have more options for mid-decade redistricting than Democrats because they control more statehouses, and they've talked about redrawing districts in Florida, Indiana and Missouri. Here's what to know. Both Trump and the Democrats are looking ahead to the 2026 midterms knowing that they often go against the president's party, as they did during Trump's first term in 2018. Republicans currently have a seven-seat majority in the 435-member House. State legislatures draw the lines after each U.S. census in most states — including Texas — and only a few dozen House districts are competitive. In Texas, Republicans hold 25 of 38 seats, and they're trying to increase that to 30. In California, Democrats have 43 of the 52 seats, and they're trying to boost that to 48, to wipe out the advantage the GOP would gain from redrawing lines in Texas. In some ways, the nation's most-populous state, California, is a reverse-mirror image of the nation's second most-populous state, Texas. Democrats are even more firmly in control of state government there than Republicans are in Texas, with Democratic supermajorities in both California legislative chambers. But California's districts were drawn by an independent commission created by a statewide vote in 2008 after years of intense partisan battles over redistricting. Democrats are trying to avoid legal challenges to a new map by asking voters to approve it as an exception to the normal process, which would require a special election in November. Texas has no such commission, so its Legislature doesn't have to seek voters' approval for its maps. California lawmakers were returning Monday to the state capital from a summer break. They are scheduled to remain in session through Sept. 12. Republicans have solid majorities in both chambers of the Texas Legislature, and a Democrat hasn't won statewide office there since 1994. But Texas is among a handful of states where two-thirds of each chamber must be present to conduct business, and the GOP majorities are not that large. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott already had called a special legislative session when Trump began pushing for a new congressional map, but GOP lawmakers could not conduct business after most Democratic lawmakers left for blue states, including California, Illinois and Massachusetts. But there were pressures on Democrats against holding out longer. They were away from their families and nonlegislative jobs, and their walkout also prevented lawmakers from providing relief to the Texas Hill Country ravaged by deadly flash flooding in July. They also faced fines of $500 per day, as well as efforts to oust some of them from office.
