Latest news with #Capitol
Atlantic
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Atlantic
What the George Floyd Summer Wrought
The social-justice movement that began in earnest with Trayvon Martin's shooting in 2012, and culminated eight years later, after George Floyd's murder, once looked unstoppable. By the summer of 2020, a slew of recorded killings of Black people had seemed to convince a pivotal bloc of Americans that the persistence of racial injustice was both inarguable and intolerable. Yet the ensuing riots—and the disorder they appeared to countenance—prefigured a surge of white grievance that still hasn't subsided. Throughout the summer of 2020, many on the left exalted lawlessness and violence as pardonable offenses, if not political virtues. Within a few months, this impulse had migrated to the right, yielding even worse damage to the liberal order, most notably on January 6, 2021. The mass unrest of the preceding year certainly did not cause the sacking of the Capitol. But that winter siege amounted to an outgrowth of the summer revolt—the rotten fruit of imitation. At the moment of his death, two George Floyds came into public view. First, there was the mortal man, the son and brother, unemployed when law enforcement encountered him dozing in a parked car that long May weekend in Minneapolis. Methamphetamines and fentanyl flowed through his system. Moments earlier, he had allegedly passed a counterfeit banknote, which even the cashier seemed embarrassed to report. This George Floyd had survived a bout of COVID-19, only to be asphyxiated in broad daylight by a police officer he'd once worked with at a nightclub. The mortal man's biography fixed him in a specific time, when the coronavirus pandemic—and Donald Trump's mismanagement of it—had primed the nation for protest. Then there's the immortal George Floyd, whose last breaths exist in a wretched loop that can be conjured on our screens. The man spawned a meme, as Richard Dawkins defined the term—an idea that spreads by means of imitation. In a 10-minute-and-eight-second clip, many Americans found evidence of an idea that had long simmered in the national psyche: By perpetrating violence, the state forfeits its legitimacy and must be resisted, even if that means inflicting violence in return. This immortal Floyd was put to death by horizontal crucifixion in a midwestern Golgotha. A man who died for all Americans on that squalid pavement, not asking why his father had forsaken him but calling for his deceased mother instead. David A. Graham: George Floyd's murder changed Americans' views on policing Floyd's killing inspired a summer of revolt that seemed, to much of the country, obviously justified. The postracial promise of the Barack Obama era had subsided. Some Black Americans and many more of their supporters saw little hope of achieving equality, let alone safety, without rebellion. The following January, this same underlying idea—that the unheard must speak through violence—was used to justify terrible wrong. (A different group of Americans naturally regarded that wrong as indisputably right.) In this way, the summer of 2020 and the siege of the Capitol are fratricidal twins. They imbued all factions of American society with antipathy and certitude, a perilous combination that continues to touch virtually every aspect of our public lives, and much of our private ones also. During the season of rebellion that followed Floyd's death, nearly 8,000 Black Lives Matter rallies took place across the nation—not to mention the mass protests that erupted in places as far away as Paris, Amsterdam, London, Seoul, Taiwan, and Helsinki. Millions of Americans rose up, disgusted by what they saw, taking part in what was likely the largest demonstration against racism in the history of humanity. Hundreds of the protests in the United States involved violence or property destruction, or both—a fact that much of the media addressed by noting that most of the protests were peaceful. That incessant refrain was true, but it obscured the extent of the bedlam that Americans of all political persuasions were witnessing. In Minnesota, the Twin Cities alone incurred some $500 million in damage. Much of this chaos was unrelated to racial injustice. In New York City, one week after Floyd's death, 'hundreds of people who had no apparent connection to the protests commanded the streets of Manhattan's SoHo district,' The Intercept reported. 'They looted businesses, and robbed each other, with impunity. Burglar alarms blended with the roaring of getaway engines, the chaotic medley punctuated every few moments by tumbling plywood, crashing plate glass, and grating steel. Then a gunshot went off, as a 21-year-old man was shot.' That same night, an off-duty security guard told a New York Times reporter, 'I don't think this has anything to do with Black Lives Matter. It's just chaos. People are just using this as an excuse to act crazy.' The reporter noted that 'the man declined to give his name, because he, too, was looting.' Why did all this come to pass in the summer of 2020 but not after any number of previous killings? In 2014, a New York City police officer, Daniel Pantaleo, dragged the unarmed Eric Garner to the sidewalk for the crime of peddling loose cigarettes, compressing Garner's windpipe beneath his forearm, deafening himself to the dying man's protests. That was when Americans first heard the phrase I can't breathe, which Floyd would echo in Minneapolis (and protesters in Paris would learn to chant in English). Two years later, Philando Castile bled out on Facebook Live in front of his girlfriend and her daughter. Castile had done nothing wrong; in fact he'd done everything right, calmly announcing after being pulled over that he was carrying a licensed firearm. Protests broke out when a jury found the cop who'd shot Castile not guilty, but they didn't compare to what was coming. Sue Rahr: The myth propelling America's violent police culture These are just two examples from a long list of Black men, women, and children whose outrageous deaths could well have triggered sustained nationwide protest. But none of them did—not until the pandemic overturned American life. By May 2020, many of us were sidelined from our daily routines, homeschooling and working remotely or panicking about not working, anxious about a juvenile president whose ineptitude had turned lethal. That's when a fatal confrontation in Georgia came across our screens. Ahmaud Arbery, a young Georgia man, had been ambushed and shot while jogging in a predominantly white neighborhood. A few weeks after Arbery was killed, Kentucky police broke into the home of a young medic named Breonna Taylor and shot her to death. Then the turning point: Derek Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck. 'To draw momentous conclusions from a single video shot on the sidewalks of Minneapolis might seem excessive,' the author Paul Berman wrote in the journal Liberties. 'Yet that is how it is with the historic moments of overnight political conversion.' Berman cited the case of Anthony Burns, who'd fled slavery in Virginia and been captured in Boston, where his ensuing trial inspired protests that drew national attention and galvanized the abolitionist movement. 'There were four million slaves in 1854,' Berman wrote, 'but the arrest of a single one proved to be the incendiary event.' For a significant portion of the American left and center—and even some of the right—the possibility that the country had a racial sickness suddenly seemed undeniable. Many in this group were white people aware of the disproportionate toll COVID-19 was taking on communities they did not belong to. In those early months of the pandemic, whatever illusions these Americans may have had about the robustness of their society, and the general direction of progress within it, was obliterated. Secular social-justice rhetoric took on a religious fervor. In particular, 'whiteness' was reconceived as an original sin. Adherents of this idea became convinced that they were implicated in a constellation of racism and implicit bias. And they believed that these structures had allowed a madman like Trump to hazard American lives with the same lack of concern that a policeman evinced as he knelt on the neck of a handcuffed, writhing civilian. These Americans felt the need to revolt against something. While Trump and his supporters rebelled against stay-at-home orders, progressives found their own outlet for rebellion in the protest against police brutality. They saw their opponents on the right as exacerbating a scourge that disproportionately killed Black people, whose lives they saw themselves as fighting to save. This dichotomy opened a furious new front in intra-white status jockeying. It created a renewed opportunity for 'those who see themselves as (for lack of a better term) upper-whites,' as Reihan Salam wrote in 2018, 'to disaffiliate themselves from those they've deemed lower-whites.' An understandable and even noble regard for the health and safety of Black communities metastasized into something else: an oppressive moral panic in response to Floyd's murder that chased after all real and perceived racial inequity, and resorted to violence and property destruction to make its argument. It helped spawn a counterreaction that America still hasn't escaped. I've rarely felt farther from America than when I was hunched over my smartphone in Paris, watching dozens of people scale the sides of the Capitol. As I witnessed the event in real time—and replayed clips over and over again—I was struck by its artificiality. Rioters wore costumes, draping themselves in tawdry Trump paraphernalia and Stars and Stripes; some came dressed as Founding Fathers. Many wore expressions of disbelief as they meandered the halls of Congress, marveling like tourists amid the pandemonium. Others filmed themselves—simply, it seemed, to prove to themselves that all of this was really happening. That day reminded me of the 'society of the spectacle' described by the 20th-century sociologist Guy Debord, in which 'everything that was directly lived has receded into a representation.' Photos and videos of the melee in Washington began to stand in for the whole of American society, a memeified performance of the country's divisions, which in turn supercharged them. 'The spectacle is not a collection of images,' Debord wrote, 'but a social relation between people, mediated by images.' Quinta Jurecic: January 6 still happened Perhaps no American showman has better understood the power of spectacle than Trump. Reality, filtered through his will, amounts to little more than a two-dimensional ruse—a 'stolen' election, say—to market to the public. The insurrection, whipped up by internet conspiracies and spurious videos of 'ballot suitcases,' was a manifestation of a much larger and more sustained assault on truth—what the historian Christopher Lasch identified half a century ago as America's 'pervasive air of unreality.' The rise of mass media has transformed life into a series of 'impressions recorded and reproduced' by modern technologies, he wrote. Today, the tendency to flatten and distort reality extends far beyond Trump, and includes large and influential swaths of the progressive left. Some of the members of the January 6 mob, such as the Proud Boys and other organized militias, had prepared for armed revolt—standing by, as the president had instructed them to do. Many more, however, were neither organized nor trained. They had watched the riots and looting in Ferguson, Minneapolis, Kenosha, Portland, Seattle, and many other theaters of open lawlessness. And they had witnessed a large share of the country pardon these rebellions, even celebrate them. It is fantastical to presume that such sustained chaos—so regularly portrayed as 'mostly peaceful protest'—would exert no influence over the American psyche at a time of heightened tension and pandemic. The right-wing insurrection on January 6 was but the intensification of a pattern already visible on the social-justice left: the belief that one's own moral clarity confers the license to storm the streets the moment political institutions disappoint us. It was a form of hubris for the left to cast its own cause as so righteous that even lawlessness became a kind of virtue. One can easily imagine that the populist right learned from this tendency—or found justification in it—after having endured the previous summer's unrelenting mayhem. Today, lawlessness and spectacle have become a philosophy of government. The second Trump administration has deported American citizens and turned undocumented immigrants into grotesque fodder for the basest social-media engagement. While the president defies court orders and usurps congressional authority, his supporters excuse him with apparent ethical certitude. The arc of the American moral universe, wherever it ultimately bends, has been warped by the competing pressure of a social-justice movement that has grown impatient with the liberal project, and a reactionary populism that both feeds off and weaponizes that impatience. The result is a politics—and a society—dominated by grief and fury. One day, these passions erupt in Minnesota. Later, they rage through Washington, D.C. They can blind as well as ennoble, and we typically don't know which until the hour is late.
CNN
a day ago
- Politics
- CNN
Analysis: Supreme Court shows unflinching regard for Trump
Ever since Chief Justice John Roberts swore in Donald Trump at the US Capitol January 20 – with the eight other Supreme Court justices looking on – the question has been whether they would restrain a president who vowed to upend the constitutional order. The answer, a half-year later, is no. That was underscored this month by the court's decisions allowing Trump to fire another set of independent regulators, to dismantle the Department of Education and to deport migrants to dangerous countries where they have no citizenship or connection. Meanwhile, the fissures among the nine have deepened. They have condemned each other in written opinions and revealed the personal strains in public appearances. The conservative majority that controls the court has repeatedly undercut the US district court judges on the front lines who've held hearings, discerned the facts, and issued orders to check Trump actions. In the most significant case so far related to Trump's second term, touching on birthright citizenship, Justice Amy Coney Barrett pointedly addressed the role of lower court judges, saying they have a limited ability to block arguably unconstitutional moves. '(F)ederal courts do not exercise general oversight of the Executive Branch; they resolve cases and controversies consistent with the authority Congress has given them,' Barrett wrote for the conservative majority as it reversed a series of lower court decisions. 'When a court concludes that the Executive Branch has acted unlawfully, the answer is not for the court to exceed its power, too.' Dissenting in that late June case, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the majority had essentially 'shoved lower court judges out of the way.' More recently, last Wednesday, the conservative majority overrode US district and appellate court judges to let Trump fire Biden-appointed members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission who'd been confirmed by the Senate and were still serving their terms. To justify the action, the conservative majority referred to an earlier action in May letting Trump remove members of two independent entities that protect private employees and federal workers, respectively, the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board. Neither in the earlier case nor the new one centered on the commission that shields consumers from hazardous products did the majority acknowledge that a 1935 precedent, Humphrey's Executor v. United States, had protected such independent board members from being fired without legitimate reason such as misconduct. As lower court judges have noted, the justices have never reversed Humphrey's Executor, leaving it as a precedent that judges – at least those below the nine justices – must follow. Without formally taking up the issue, calling for briefing and holding arguments, the high court is nonetheless signaling a new course – obliquely. 'Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,' the Supreme Court said in its unsigned order on July 23. 'The stay we issued in (the May case) reflected 'our judgment that the Government faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty.'' The message: They did it before, they can do it again. Referring to the consequences, dissenting Justice Elena Kagan wrote, 'By means of such actions, this Court may facilitate the permanent transfer of authority, piece by piece by piece, from one branch of Government to another.' The high court similarly brushed aside lower court determinations when it ruled on July 14 against states and labor unions that had sued the Department of Education for its actions to dissolve the agency. The majority declined to offer any hint of its rationale. However, the dissenting liberal justices in a 19-page opinion picked up lower court judges' emphasis on the history of the agency created by Congress nearly a half-century ago: '(T)he Department plays a vital role in this Nation's education system, safeguarding equal access to learning and channeling billions of dollars to schools and students across the country each year. Only Congress has the power to abolish the Department.' Referring to Education Secretary Linda McMahon's directives removing half the staff and aiming for an eventual shutdown of the department, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson, added, 'When the Executive publicly announces its intent to break the law, and then executes on that promise, it is the Judiciary's duty to check that lawlessness, not expedite it.' The six Republican-appointed conservatives have expressed no dread, offered no warnings that Trump's actions might ever go too far, unlike the Democratic-appointed liberal dissenters. The conservatives, in fact, took pains to avoid any disapproval of Trump's plan to end birthright citizenship – that is, the constitutional guarantee that children born in the US become citizens even if their parents are not – as they clipped lower courts' power to impose nationwide injunctions. That June 27 decision's effect on his proposed lifting of birthright citizenship is still working its way through lower courts. Sotomayor and Jackson have routinely protested in provocative terms. When Sotomayor dissented in a high-profile deportation case earlier this month, she warned that migrants flown out of the US to South Sudan could face torture or death. The two liberals have also referred to the personal costs. Sotomayor said in a May speech that she sometimes returns to her office after a decision is issued, closes her door and weeps. Jackson, who seems most isolated from the rest of the justices, told an audience earlier this month she is kept up at night by 'the state of our democracy.' The conservatives who dominate have directed any angst or anger not toward the executive branch but toward their judicial colleagues. In the birthright citizenship case, Barrett (in the majority) and Jackson (dissenting) traded insults that suggested a lack of mutual respect. 'We will not dwell on Justice Jackson's argument,' Barrett wrote, even as she criticized her for choosing 'a startling line of attack that is tethered neither to these sources nor, frankly, to any doctrine whatsoever. … Rhetoric aside, Justice Jackson's position is difficult to pin down.' Jackson wrote that the Barrett majority had reduced the case to 'a mind-numbingly technical query.' And Jackson, writing alone, asserted, 'the majority sees a power grab—but not by a presumably lawless Executive choosing to act in a manner that flouts the plain text of the Constitution. Instead, to the majority, the power-hungry actors are … (wait for it) … the district courts.' Roberts signed onto all of Barrett's opinion in that late June case. If he and fellow conservatives engage in any special regard or deference, it's not for their lower court colleagues or the liberals with whom they sit. It's for Donald Trump.
CBS News
2 days ago
- Politics
- CBS News
Walz eyes security changes to Minnesota Capitol after naked man accesses Senate chamber after hours
Gov. Tim Walz says security changes are coming after a naked man was caught inside the Minnesota Capitol in the middle of the night. The man was found in the Senate chamber Friday night and was taken to the hospital before he was released. He returned to the capitol grounds early Saturday morning and was taken into custody after he showed up at the Capitol complex a third time. "This is a serious situation and it's dangerous," said Walz. "And of course we are balancing against a very Minnesota tradition of open governance and walking through the door." Walz acknowledged that the breach — happening just over a month after the politically-motivated attacks of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, along with Sen. John Hoffman and his wife Yvette — have left lawmakers badly shaken. A tribute to Hortman, who died along with her husband in the attack, still frames the doorways to the House chamber. A locked gate marks the entrance to the Senate chamber. It's always locked when the Senate is not in session, and when it is, the gate is open and flanked by guards. Because the Senate hasn't been in session in weeks, it's not clear how the intruder gained access to that part of the building. House Speaker Lisa Demuth and Senate Majority Leader Mark Johnson expressed concern that the man was not arrested the first time. Criminal Defense Attorney Joe Tamburino says they are right to be upset. "So it's right for our state lawmakers to be worried about this because a couple of things fell through the cracks," Tamburino said. Visitors to the Capitol, like Todd Redmond, aren't sure what should be done. "It's the people's house. People's business is conducted. And I would like to see people still be able to get in and out of here because it belongs to all of us," said Redmond. The accused intruder was in Ramsey County Jail on Monday evening. He is being held on a Wisconsin warrant for failing to appear at a restitution hearing. Walz says a thorough investigation is underway, but added Minnesota does have a less secure Capitol than most states. Earlier this month, the top law enforcement official in Ramsey County urged lawmakers to consider additional security measures at the Capitol amid what he called "a troubling increase in the use of political violence, threats and intimidation."
CNN
3 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
California Democrats debate what a Harris governor run could mean for them
Rep. Dave Min was chatting with reporters at the US Capitol when the California Democrat was asked about whether he wants Kamala Harris to run for governor. Suddenly, Min no longer had time to talk. 'I have no comment,' he said. Asked what he thought a Harris run would mean for his own reelection prospects, Min repeated, 'I have no comment on that, sorry,' and bolted onto the House floor, away from reporters. Rep. George Whitesides, another Democratic freshman from California who beat an incumbent Republican by 8,000 votes, took a long pause before answering whether he wanted to see the former vice president run. 'I welcome her to the race. I'm just really focused on my own race, but if that's what she feels calls to do, that's her prerogative,' Whitesides told CNN. As Harris deliberates on whether she should run for governor or hold out for another potential presidential bid, California Democrats are quietly asking themselves the same question. Her critics say that while she would be a favorite to win the governor's race in a deep-blue state, possible ambivalence about her candidacy could hurt Democratic chances in swing districts as the party tries to retake the US House. Some top donors and interest group leaders insist that Harris will have to answer for former President Joe Biden, whose decision to run for reelection before making way for her remains a sore subject for Democrats, and whether Harris could have done more to prevent President Donald Trump's return to the White House. Harris has plenty of allies who want to see her run. Several leading elected officials in the state told CNN that they do not believe the candidates already running have either the stature or experience to stand up to Trump's pressure campaign against California on everything from immigration raids to funding cuts. 'As someone who served as district attorney, attorney general and senator from California, she would have the experience, leadership and understanding of the state legislature to tackle two of the biggest problems in the state: the lack of affordable housing and a sense of a lack of public safety,' said Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents the Silicon Valley area and has had an uneasy relationship with Harris at times. Rep. Mike Levin, who held his San Diego County district by 17,000 votes last year, said he believed a Harris run could help in 2026. 'She knows the state well, she knows the electorate well and I think she'd be a very formidable candidate,' he said. The Harris critics — few of whom will put their names to their complaints — are doing their own math: She would probably win if she runs, they say, but if she doesn't generate enthusiasm or if she fires up Republicans, she could prove a drag on vulnerable Democrats like Min and Whitesides as well as State Assembly and State Senate districts where Democrats don't have votes to spare. 'There's no groundswell for her candidacy. In fact, I think it would only fire up Republicans and hurt our ability to win the four to five seats that we need to win to win the House and hold on to three seats that we just flipped in 2024,' said one California House Democrat who asked not to be named in order to speak candidly about a candidate widely expected to be the party's front-runner if she enters the race. 'She comes in with baggage.' Part of the issue for many Californians, said Rep. Jimmy Gomez, who represents a reliably Democratic district in Los Angeles, is that no matter what kind of campaign Harris might run, people believe that being governor wasn't her first choice. 'Once you're the vice president of the United States, there's only one place to go. It's president,' Gomez told CNN. 'For me, if I was vice president and all of a sudden I lose, it would be a fallback to me. I hate to put it so bluntly.' Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has had a tough relationship with her fellow San Francisco-rooted politician. Asked by CNN whether she wanted to see Harris run for governor as she left the Capitol last week, Pelosi said only, 'I want her to do whatever she wants to do.' Harris is once again earning her reputation for long, drawn-out deliberation. Several people who have spoken to Harris told CNN she has asked them whether they think she should run. Some of those people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private conversations, say they have turned the question back to her. She has also reached out to former California governors to ask what she could get done on the job, though not all have agreed to speak with her about it. Harris canceled a long-planned August vacation, a move that one person familiar with her deliberations does not mean she's decided what to do. Besides talking about a potential governor's race, that person said, Harris has in the last few weeks asked her closest aides for research and memos that outline other options. Among those options: Starting a 501(c)(4) organization focused on the information ecosystem and how to empower younger voters while rethinking institutions key to democracy, creating a political action committee to raise money for other candidates, and doing a listening tour of Southern states with a 2028 presidential bid in mind. Her thinking, the person said, is that she would have time for all of these if she doesn't run for governor. While nursing some worries that Harris has let the governor's race take shape too much in her absence, confidants have also kept tabs on the other candidates, who include former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, former US Rep. Katie Porter and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Harris allies privately scoff at the insistence of several candidates that they'd remain in the race if she enters it or that they would retain much support if they did. And few voters are focused on a governor's race when the primary isn't until next June. The top two finishers in that contest, regardless of party, will advance to the November 2026 ballot. Supporters and rivals are not waiting for the fall book tour for Harris' soon-to-be-published memoir or a decision on the race to choreograph around her. Several pro-Harris Democrats have been passing around numbers from private polls conducted for others in the state showing her popularity among Democrats is much higher than any declared candidate. Supporters of others have been seeding chatter that people don't want her back on the ballot, often with data that shows a drop-off of support for Democrats across California races when she was the presidential nominee last year. Burning over Trump's time in office, Harris is eager to stay involved, several who have spoken with the former vice president told CNN. She wants to at least keep open the option for another White House campaign in the future. That's different, though, from delving back to the hand-to-hand politics that advisers feel this kind of run for governor would require, if only for Harris to stave off looking like she was taking the race for granted, and for grappling with big challenges in Sacramento that are getting bigger. Harris' decision is not just intertwined with closing the door on a 2028 presidential run, but weighed against the quieter, wealthier existence that key members of her family have suggested to others they'd prefer. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a California Democrat, said that especially among fellow Black women she speaks with, 'they're still healing and they want to make sure that she is fully healed.' 'She should certainly run if that's the thing that she wants to do. She is certainly California's girl. We have been rooting for her for so long,' Kamlager-Dove said, adding that though she thinks having yet another big personality as governor is important, 'those decisions are incredibly personal.' One factor in how vulnerable California Democrats feel about a Harris run wasn't in the conversation just a few months ago: the prospect that their districts may be redrawn in the middle of the decade. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott called a special session to consider a rare mid-decade redistricting at the behest of Trump and the Justice Department. Trump says he wants to eliminate as many as five Democratic seats in Texas ahead of the midterms. That's led leaders of Democratic-run states — including California Gov. Gavin Newsom — to threaten their own redrawing of lines to push out Republicans. In California, Democrats who won by small margins could face harder races as they lose friendly territory to other districts. California Democrats who argued Harris' weaknesses to CNN could not, when pressed, say any of the other candidates would be more of more help for down-ticket candidates. And Harris supporters point out that if the argument holds, any statewide dynamics are likely to be subsumed to nationalized energy in a midterm year when Democrats will be mobilizing to take the majority in the House as a check on Trump. Rep. Mark Takano, who represents the Southern California city of Riverside, told CNN that not only does he hope Harris considers running, but that enthusiasm for her and for Democrats overall has resurged in the last few months in response to Trump. 'After the Los Angeles protests, the 'No Kings' march, any drift to the right among certain parts — Latinos, African Americans, Asians — I think that's been staunched, to say the least, and it's moved the other direction,' Takano said. But Rep. Young Kim, a Republican who represents an Orange County seat that is once again near the top of Democrats' wish list to flip, laughed when asked about Harris running. 'Seriously, good luck to her,' Kim said with a laugh. She clarified she was being sarcastic.
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Man with mental health issues found naked in Minnesota Capitol, raising new security concerns
A naked man with apparent mental health issues was found in the Minnesota State Capitol late at night, officials said Saturday, raising questions about security after the top Democrat in the state House was killed in what authorities have called a political assassination. The discovery just six weeks after the fatal shooting of Democratic former House Speaker Melissa Hortman prompted the top House and Senate Republican leaders to demand answers about how it happened and what steps might be taken to prevent it from happening again. The man was found in the Senate chamber around 11:30 p.m. Friday, the chief House sergeant-at-arms, Lori Hodapp, said in an email to representatives. 'The individual made statements indicating a belief that he was the Governor, among other remarks, and was found disrobed,' Hodapp said. Capitol Security responded promptly, she said, and the man was taken to a St. Paul hospital for evaluation. He was deemed not to be a threat to himself or others and was released, but he returned to the Capitol grounds at 7:30 a.m. Saturday. 'An investigation is currently underway to determine how the individual gained access to the Senate Chamber and Capitol facilities after hours," Hodapp wrote. "We are examining all aspects of this incident to address any security concerns.' The sergeant-at-arms also said the man had an active probation-violation warrant from Wisconsin on his record, but that it did not initially allow for his transfer. It has since been updated, she added 'and appropriate measures will be taken upon next contact.' 'It's frustrating that an individual with a criminal history was able to allegedly vandalize the Capitol and unlawfully trespass in the Senate chamber without being taken into custody,' Republican House Speaker Lisa Demuth, of Cold Spring, said in a statement. 'Anyone who trespasses in any building — let alone the State Capitol — should be arrested and prosecuted for breaking the law, and I look forward to learning why this did not take place in this highly disturbing incident.' GOP Senate Minority Leader Mark Johnson, of East Grand Forks, also expressed disappointment. 'We are living in a heightened threat environment,' Johnson said in a statement. "I expect the State Patrol and Capitol Security teams will thoroughly review what happened and give Capitol officials and staff, and the public, their assurances that this will not happen again.' The head of the State Patrol, Col. Christina Bogojevic, said there was no immediate indication that the man broke into the Capitol, which is open to the public during business hours. She said officials were reviewing security video to try to determine his exact whereabouts while he was inside. Bogojevic said the man was nonviolent when he was spotted on the Capitol grounds Saturday morning, and he was taken back to the same hospital for another evaluation. 'The safety and well-being of everyone who works at and visits the Capitol is our top priority,' Bogojevic said in a statement. 'We take this situation seriously and are committed to understanding how it occurred.' Legislative and administration leaders have begun discussions about whether security at the Capitol and for lawmakers should be tightened following the June 14 shootings that left Hortman and her husband dead, and a state senator and his wife seriously injured. Authorities say they were attacked at their homes by a man disguised as a police officer. The alleged gunman, Vance Boelter, 57, of Green Isle, is facing federal and state murder charges and other counts. His lawyer says he plans to plead not guilty at his federal arraignment, which has been rescheduled to Aug. 7 from Sept. 12.
