Tag: Republican Party

Trouble is, they can't agree on when. Nothing was going to get in the way of a ferocious assault on terrorists. Chris Christie blamed Barack Obama for failing to grasp "that the most basic responsibility of an administration is to protect the safety and security of the American people." Marco Rubio defended mass electronic surveillance, arguing that after the next attack, "the first thing people are going to want to know is, why didn't we know about it and why didn't we stop it?" After mass shootings, Democrats demand legislation to ban certain weapons or accessories and restrict access to guns. On firearms, the two sides are far apart. Many Democrats have scant regard for the constitutional rights of gun owners. The court has said that it's fine with a host of existing gun restrictions, such as "laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms." To demand a law against so-called assault weapons requires forgetting that the federal ban that existed from 1994 to 2004 had no discernible impact on gun violence. The federal government requires licensed firearm dealers to perform a background check for each purchase.

But now Democrats plan to turn the tables on the GOP, using the GOP’s failed attempts to repeal ObamaCare as a cudgel in the 2018 midterms. “The Republicans’ toxic health care agenda that spikes costs, strips coverage for pre-existing conditions, and imposes an age tax on older Americans will be the defining issue of the midterms,” said David Bergstein, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC). In early May, the House narrowly passed an ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill in a 217-213 vote. Even without a new GOP-made health care system to run against, Democrats believe they have enough ammo to hit Republicans by pointing to the previous repeal attempts, all of which scored badly in approval polls. The attack ads have already started. But Republican strategists say their candidates have plenty of material of their own to use against Democrats, arguing that Democrats are responsible for problems in the health care system. A House Republican strategist said the GOP will attack the recent push by some Democrats and championed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) toward a single-payer health care system. Democrats face a daunting Senate map in the midterms, with 23 of the party’s members up for re-election, plus two seats held by independents who caucus with the Democrats. During the health care debate, pro-ObamaCare groups were quick to point out how the bill could impact certain states — particularly Republican states that expanded Medicaid, some of which are represented by vulnerable senators like Heller and Flake. Senate Republicans aren’t calling ObamaCare repeal dead, instead saying the effort will resume after passing tax reform.

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Gill v. Whitford, a case challenging Wisconsin's legislative district lines as an unconstitutional Republican gerrymander. Democratic voters are heavily clustered in central cities, sympathetic suburbs, and university towns, while Republican voters are more evenly spread around. Actually, the roots of the equal population requirement go back much further, to July 1787, when members of the Constitutional Convention agreed on clauses requiring that a federal census be conducted every ten years and that each state's number of representatives in the House be determined by the results of that census. The Framers were endorsing the principle that representation should be directly related to population. The Framers did not specify just how members should be chosen within a state. In 1842, Congress passed a statute requiring states to create districts with equal populations. Rural folk in return eliminated the equal population requirement so that rural-dominated legislatures in big states could create low-population rural districts that would elect Republicans and conservative Democrats. Of course, that's a consequence of clustering. The Wisconsin plaintiffs are, in effect, insisting that the Constitution requires proportional representation, a system widely used in foreign countries but not required by the Framers or by past Congresses. Republican redistricting advantages didn't prevent Democrats from winning House majorities in 2006 and 2008 and might not in the next two elections.

. Former New York Representative Anthony Weiner, who pleaded guilty in May to transferring obscene material to a minor, was sentenced to 21 months in prison. The Supreme Court canceled oral arguments for two cases related to President Trump’s travel ban, after the administration issued a new update to the ban. Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy will debate Senators Bernie Sanders and Amy Klobuchar on health care at 9 p.m. ET on CNN. : Alabama’s GOP Senate primary between Senator Luther Strange, a candidate backed by President Trump, and Roy Moore, backed by conservative firebrands like Steve Bannon, is testing Trump’s bond with his base.

. GOP leadership is heading toward a potential vote this week on a bill from GOP Sens. Two more senators on Sunday indicated resistance to the bill in its current form, and if they turn into hard "no" votes - added to the opposition already announced - then Republicans will not be able to pass the bill. Backers of the bill—including Cassidy and Graham, as well as Trump administration officials—insisted during Sunday show appearances that the legislation, that replaces ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion and insurance subsidies with block grants, could still pass the Senate this week. Short added that he anticipated a vote on the healthcare legislation to come up on Wednesday. "I think we're going to get the votes next week. GOP leadership faces no room for error if they want to pass the legislation by Cassidy and Graham, which is also co-sponsored by GOP Sens. They took our edits and then a day later they removed our edits," Cruz added. Senators and the White House are involved in a spate of final hour negotiations as they try to win over several key holdouts. Graham, echoing a tweet from Saturday by President Trump, said he thought they could potentially win back Paul—an uphill effort that could give them more leeway.

. President Trump on Saturday chided Democrats who praised Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) opposition to Senate Republicans' latest effort to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act. "Tell that to the people of Arizona who were deceived. 116% increase!" ), which seeks to repeal certain provisions of ObamaCare and replace them with federal block grants. Early studies predicted that states such as Arizona and Alaska would lose funding under the Graham-Cassidy ObamaCare repeal. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kent.) But McCain's defection could prompt other GOP senators to follow suit.

. The interim Senator, Luther Strange, is facing former State Supreme Court Chief Judge Roy Moore in the GOP run-off. The poster child for the establishment Republicans is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who has been in the U.S. Senate for almost 33 years. The President has been tweeting messages of support for “Big Luther,” and will lead today’s rally on his behalf. This runoff election pits a Beltway “swamp creature” McConnell and his establishment colleagues against the true conservative reformers who supported President Trump in the 2016 election. Evidently, the President is supporting Strange to bolster the standing of McConnell before important Senate votes on tax reform and repealing Obamacare. While Strange is currently supporting the President’s agenda, his true allegiance is with McConnell and the Republican Party establishment. Later, Strange changed his view to align with President Trump, but only after finishing second to Moore in the Senate primary election. While the President signed the legislation, he was clearly perturbed at the infringement on his executive authority. Judge Moore is the type of anti-establishment Republican that the U.S. Senate desperately needs.

2 GOP heavyweights brawl over Obamacare bill. “The Finance Committee is free to deal with these same issues if it would like to. It’s unclear so far whether Democrats will go along with the changes — or whether Republicans like Hatch will agree the flexibility goes far enough to warrant continued funding of subsidies to shore up the Democrats’ health law. “If Congress doesn’t act by the end of the month, premiums go up 20 percent, 5 percent of the counties have no insurance companies selling and the federal debt goes up by nearly $200 billion to pay for increased subsidies,” Alexander said. A bill dealing with waiver funding would land in Finance. If it’s about insurance markets, it would go to HELP. For instance, the parliamentarian ruled that a Senate Obamacare repeal bill that changed waivers was in HELP’s jurisdiction. “We’re certainly not going to try to mark up a bill in our committee that doesn’t belong in our committee,” Alexander said. But the Affordable Care Act, including the state waivers, muddied the well-defined jurisdictional lanes a little bit. “We have shared jurisdiction on health care and it’s awkward but it’s no reason for inaction.” In fact, it may make his effort to pass a bipartisan bill to try to stabilize the markets an even heavier lift.

WASHINGTON -- Meet President Donald Trump's new best friends. He calls them "Chuck and Nancy," not Senate Minority Leader Schumer or House Minority Leader Pelosi. He met with them Wednesday morning, along with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan. Later that afternoon, appearing before supporters in North Dakota, Trump crooned about their "great bipartisan meeting." Both leaders have said they will support the resulting measure, which sailed through the Senate on Thursday. At a Thursday press conference, Pelosi said that an 18-month window would have destroyed "any negotiating leverage that we have." The Republicans have the Senate, White House, and the House. Seventeen GOP senators voted against the debt/ disaster/spending bill on Thursday. Republicans are adjusting too slowly to this new way of governing, and if they aren't careful, Trump will bulldoze right over them to get to a win." With Trump, you never can tell.

Strange Money, Strange Politics. With a Republican commander-in-chief in the White House, both houses of Congress in Republican hands, and a majority of the U.S. Supreme Court appointed by Republican presidents, it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that Democrats and progressives would be unhappy with Washington, D.C. What might be surprising is how unhappy rank-and-file Republicans and conservatives are with Washington, D.C. Voter surveys have found the GOP-controlled Congress to be more popular among self-described Democrats than self-described Republicans. The Senate Republican caucus elects him leader. He is not so popular outside Washington, though. .” After his first-place finish in the primary, Judge Moore also pointed to the massive Washington influence, declaring plainly, “The attempt by the silk stocking Washington elitists to control the vote of the people of Alabama has failed.” Sen. McConnell has so far poured nearly $7 million from the Senate Leadership Fund into the ’Bama special election, giving Strange what the Birmingham News called “a staggering financial edge over Moore.” This is official Washington instructing Alabamans as to who they should send to Washington to represent . Who will the next senator from Alabama represent? Strange — 52 to 36 percent. GOP advertising in Georgia’s June special election mostly bypassed Jon Ossoff, the fresh-faced Democrat running for the seat, instead making Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) the face of opposition Democrats. I wonder if, in that same way, in these last weeks, Roy Moore’s campaign will make Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the face of the opposition Washington establishment. The slogan might be: “The Washington establishment’s choice is Strange.”