That’s it for today’s live politics blog!
Here’s what happened today:
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will be in the 9 May meeting on the debt ceiling, but emphasized that Biden has to negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy. “There is no solution in the Senate,” said McCarthy to reporters on Tuesday.
A Florida woman faces two charges of battery – one a felony – after allegedly throwing a drink at the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats will wait on a 9 May meeting between Biden and congressional leaders to decide if they will move forward on a clean debt ceiling push that would not include spending cuts, but added that Democrats will be pushing for a two-year full extension.
Illinois senator Dick Durbin said that he wants to move on a bill imposing a code of ethics on supreme court justices, but wants to make sure he has the votes, as California senator Dianne Feinstein remains absent from the Senate following a bout of shingles.
New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said late on Monday that Feinstein should resign, joining a bipartisan chorus calling for Feinstein to step down amid absences from the Senate.
A new poll puts Donald Trump ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis among Republican primary voters in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election, as Trump continues to outperform DeSantis in several polls.
Thank you for reading! Check in for more updates tomorrow!
The White House’s economist warned against Republicans “playing games” with the US economy through the debt ceiling debate when interest rate increases are already having an averse impact on the economy, Reuters reports.
“The economy remains, it’s been strong. You don’t want to be pushing it off of the course that it’s on,” said Heather Boushey in an interview with Reuters.
Boushey added: “The Fed is raising interest rates in the hope of reducing inflation. That is having this negative effect on the banking sector. Why would we add to that?”
Boushey noted that raising the debt ceiling could remove the risk of a debt default, one that could take affect on 1 June.
A Florida woman was charged with allegedly throwing a drink at the Florida representative Matt Gaetz. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports.
A Florida woman faces two charges of battery – one a felony – after allegedly throwing a drink at the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.
The Walton county sheriff reportedly said Gaetz insisted on pressing charges. Gaetz maintained he was justified in doing so, saying 41-year-old Selena Jo Chambers “cross[ed] the Rubicon beyond just words to throwing stuff”.
A previous case of a drink being thrown at Gaetz resulted in a woman being sent to prison.
In 2019, Amanda Kondrat’yev, then 35 and a former political opponent of Gaetz, received a 15-day prison sentence for throwing a slushie at her rival.
That beverage-blitzing brouhaha happened at an “Open Gaetz” public event at restaurant in Pensacola appropriately named the Brew Ha Ha.
Read the full story here.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats will wait on a 9 May meeting between Biden and congressional leaders to decide if they will move forward on a clean debt ceiling push that would not include spending cuts.
Schumer added that he wants a two-year extension of the debt ceiling versus a stopgap measures, the Washington Post reported.
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will be in the 9 May meeting on the debt ceiling, but emphasized that Biden has to negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy.
“There is no solution in the Senate,” said McConnell to reporters on Tuesday.
From CNN’s Manu Raju:
Many expect McConnell to ultimately help negotiate a bipartisan debt ceiling agreement, as the Kentucky senator did in 2021.
But McConnell has maintained that Biden must negotiate with McCarthy and House Republicans about the debt ceiling.
Illinois senator Dick Durbin said that he wants to move on a bill imposing a code of ethics on supreme court justices, but wants to make sure he has the votes.
CNN’s Manu Raju noted that with California senator Dianne Feinstein out, Durbin is unsure of when he could forward such legislation.
“I’d like to make sure we have enough folks to pass it,” said Durbin.
Feinstein is a member of the Senate judiciary committee, but has been out due a case of shingles. Durbin confirmed to Raju that he has “not personally” spoken with Feinstein about when she would return.
The defense department and the Federal Aviation Administration have been tracking a balloon that was flying off the coast of Hawaii last week, but a defense official said today there’s no indication it is connected to China or any other adversary, and it presents no threats to aviation or national security, the Associated Press reports.
The balloon was first detected by radar on Friday.
Pacific Air Forces launched three F-22s to assess the situation and visually identified a spherical object. We monitored the transit of the object and assessed that it posed no threat,” US Indo-Pacific Command said.
The defense official said the balloon was floating at about 36,000ft (11,000 meters), and it did not fly over any critical defense infrastructure or sensitive sites.
After determining that the balloon presented no threat to people on the ground or to aviation over Hawaii, the military took no action to bring it down, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.
It’s not clear who owns the balloon, which has now passed out of Hawaii’s airspace, the official said.
The latest balloon sighting comes about three months after the US military shot down what officials said was a Chinese spy balloon that crossed Alaska and part of Canada before returning to the US and triggering widespread interest as it flew across the country.
It was shot down over the Atlantic off the South Carolina coast on 4 February. Large portions of the balloon were recovered by the US military.
US officials said it was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program that targeted more than 40 countries. Beijing insisted the balloon was just an errant civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research that went off course due to winds and had only limited “self-steering” capabilities.
The US military acknowledged there have been several other balloons that have been tracked over and near the US in recent years, but none lingered over America for as long as that one did. The incident further eroded relations between the US and China.
At a press conference just now, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre elaborated on what Joe Biden will discuss with House majority leader Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling next week:
“The president is going to make it clear to them that they have to avoid a default. It is their constitutional duty to do this. It is their constitutional duty to the American people for them to do their jobs. He will also say we will have a conversation about the budget and appropriations, and that is something that he will be very clear about. We can have a conversation about that, but it is important to not default.
“The president is going to continue to make that clear. He is going to make that clear and have that conversation.”
The Biden administration will temporarily send an additional 1,500 troops to the US-Mexico border as pandemic-related restrictions to migration are set to expire on 11 May.
An unnamed US official told Reuters on Tuesday that the additional troops will be part of a supplementary preparation for an increase in illegal immigration as Title 42 comes to an end. Title 42 allowed the US to expel migrants amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The troops will not carry out any law enforcement operations and will assist US border patrol that is currently in the area, said the US official who asked to stay anonymous.
The number of Americans listing guns and crime as a top issue for them has increased, according to a new Gallup poll.
Of those polled for Gallup’s Most Important Problem list, seven percent said that guns and gun control were a priority issue for them, the Hill reported. Six percent listed crime and violence.
In polling done months earlier, only 3% listed crime as their top issue and 1% listed crime.
Both issues were listed below problems such as government and poor leadership, immigration and the economy.
House Democrats have quietly started taking steps to introduce a rare legislative procedure that could force a debt limit increase and bypass Republican legislation for cuts.
The New York Times just reported that Democrats are trying to set up a discharge petition that would allow Democrats to force a bill onto the floor if they get enough signatures – 218. This would mean all 213 house Democrats would need to sign the petition, and five Republican representatives would have to join.
Though the House is in recess today, House Dems held a pro forma session and introduced an emergency rule that would give them two weeks, until 16 May, to collect the 218 signatures.
Though Democrats see the bill as a gamble, Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic House minority leader, sent a letter to fellow Democrats today expressing a tone of defiance and saying that House Dems “are working to make sure we have all options at our disposal to avoid default”.
Oklahoma is the latest state to pass legislation banning gender-affirming care for minors, as several states pass bills targeting the rights of transgender people.
The Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, signed a bill on Monday making it a felony for healthcare practitioners to provide children with gender-affirming care, including puberty-blockers and hormones, the Associated Press reported.
The bill comes as parents of transgender children, healthcare workers, and transgender people say that such care is essential.
“Gender-affirming care is a critical part of helping transgender adolescents succeed, establish healthy relationships with their friends and family, live authentically as themselves, and dream about their futures,” said Lambda Legal and the ACLU in a joint statement, PBS Newshour reported.
At least 15 other states have taken similar measures, with over 500 bills introduced in 2023 that target aspects of life for transgender people.
A Montana lawmaker is suing the state, Montana’s house speaker, and the sergeant of arms of the state’s house after she was censured, asking to be fully reinstated to her position.
House GOP voted to ban representative Zooey Zephyr on Wednesday from the state’s floor, gallery and anteroom after Zephyr, who is the state’s first openly transgender representative, criticized legislators for supporting a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.
Zephyr is now suing to be allowed back onto the house floor as she is only allowed to vote virtually. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, argues that limiting her ability to vote violates “free speech and expression rights,” the Washington Post reported.
“House leadership explicitly and directly targeted me and my district because I dared to give voice to the values and needs of transgender people like myself,” said Zephyr in a statement.
“By doing so, they’ve denied me my own rights under the constitution and, more importantly, the rights of my constituents to just representation in their own government.”
We’ve reached the midpoint for today’s politics live blog.
Here’s what’s happened so far:
New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said late on Monday that the California senator Dianne Feinstein should resign, joining a bipartisan chorus calling for Feinstein to step down amid absences from the Senate.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said during a Tuesday speech on the Senate floor that Democrats will only pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase, as a 1 June debt default looms.
A new poll puts Donald Trump ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis among Republican primary voters in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election, as Trump continues to outperform DeSantis in several polls.
Debt ceiling talks have gained a second wind after a warning on Monday by the US treasury secretary Janet Yellen that the US could default on its debt as soon as 1 June, as Biden confers a 9 May meeting with top congressional leaders.
Here is reporting on the Senate judiciary committee meeting from the Guardian’s Chris Stein, who is currently in the hearing room.
Partisan splits were apparent in the Senate judiciary committee today as it kicked off a hearing on the supreme court’s ethics, with Democrats accusing the nation’s highest court of believing itself to be outside the law, and Republicans defending the justices from what they said were attacks motivated by bitterness over its recent rulings.
“Ethics cannot simply be left to the discretion of the nation’s highest court,” the committee’s Democratic chair Richard Durbin said. “The Court should have a code of conduct with clear and enforceable rules so both Justices and the American people know when conduct crosses the line. The highest court in the land should not have the lowest ethical standards. That reality is driving a crisis in public confidence in the supreme court.”
Durbin called the hearing after a series of reports about entanglements between the court’s justices, particularly its six conservatives, and lawyers and donors with interests in the court’s outcome. Chief justice John Roberts was invited to testify, but declined, instead sending a document signed by all of the court’s nine justices that outlined their approach to ethics.
Lindsey Graham, the judiciary committee’s top Republican, said the Democrats were using the hearing to retaliate against justices who authored opinions they didn’t agree with. Last year, the court’s conservatives upended nearly a half-century of precedent by overturning Roe v Wade and allowing states to ban abortion entirely, cut into the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plant emissions and weakened laws on possession of concealed weapons.
“This is not about making the court better,” Graham said. “This is about destroying a conservative court. It will not work.”
The Senate judiciary committee is holding a meeting to discuss whether the US supreme court should bolster its ethics rules following a series of reported conflicts between supreme court justices and personal interests.
The Tuesday meeting comes after several scandals that have called into question the ethics of the court and diminishing public confidence in the institution, the Washington Post reported.
Most recently, supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has come under fire after media organization ProPublica publicized that the longest-serving justice accepted luxury travel and vacations over two decades from the real estate mogul and Republican donor Harlan Crow.
Such gifts and a real estate deal between Thomas and Crow were undisclosed by Thomas.
Ahead of today’s meeting, Chief Justice John Roberts declined an invitation to appear and testify about judicial ethics. The justice instead forwarded a three page “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices”, which is signed by all nine justices. The non-binding memo is meant to “reaffirm and restate foundational ethics principles and practices to which they subscribe”.
But Roberts himself is facing scrutiny after a whistleblower alleged that Roberts’s wife, Jane Roberts, made millions through recruiting for top law firms.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
