Joe Biden is expected to announce three proposed reforms to the US supreme court.
In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post on Monday, the president called for three primary changes to the high court.
Eighteen-year term limits
A binding code of ethics
A new constitutional amendment that would virtually reverse a supreme court decision in July granting former presidents broad immunity from prosecution for actions taken while in office
Biden’s speech comes on the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Hello, I’m Abené Clayton running the blog from Los Angeles. We’ll bring you the latest news and reaction.
Biden just completed his speech and reaffirmed his proposed changes to the supreme court.
One of his proposed changes is to reverse the recent immunity decision poses, which he says gives the president room to “violate our oath, flout our laws, and face no consequences”.
On the issue of term limits, Biden argued that an 18-year cap would make the timing of nominations less “arbitrary” and limit the ability of the president to influence the makeup of the body.
He is also seeking a new code of conduct that will replace the current one that is optional for justices. This new edict would require justices to disclose gifts, recuse themselves from cases that they or their spouses have an interest in, and “refrain from public political activity”, Biden said.
Joe Biden is calling out supreme court decisions that he says have eroded civil rights.
They include the 2013 Shelby County decision that gutted civil rights, the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v Wade, and most recently a decision that gives presidents broad immunity. These actions, Biden said, fly in the face of the notion that “there are no kings in America … No one is above the law.”
“Extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court’s decisions,” Biden added.
At the top of his speech Joe Biden emphasized his admiration for Lyndon B Johnson and reiterated the promises made by his signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The president told the audience:
In a great society no one should be left behind … It’s time for us to come to see that every American gets a decent break and a fair chance to make good.
Joe Biden is now on the stage, he was introduced by Andrew Young, a former congressman and ambassador to the United Nations. Biden walked out to the song Glory, performed by John Legend and Common for the 2015 film Selma.
The live stream is here.
We are still waiting for Joe Biden to take the stage. Less than an hour ago, he arrived in Austin and was greeted by several local and state lawmakers.
Currently, Mark Updegrove, the president and CEO of the Lyndon B Johnson Foundation, the group hosting the Civil Rights Act commemoration event, is giving a speech about the organization’s history and legacy.
Watch the live stream here.
As we await the arrival of Joe Biden on the stage, here are some of the images being sent to us on the newswires of the president arriving in Austin earlier today.
He was met by Democratic state representatives Sheryl Cole and Donna Howard before heading to the LBJ library.
There was music from the concert choir of Huston-Tillotson University, followed by the actor Bryan Cranston reading an excerpt from the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The event marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act is being held at the Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) library in Austin, Texas.
It began with a short film showing previous presidents’ remarks on civil rights, including Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama.
Joe Biden is expected to announce three proposed reforms to the US supreme court.
In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post on Monday, the president called for three primary changes to the high court.
Eighteen-year term limits
A binding code of ethics
A new constitutional amendment that would virtually reverse a supreme court decision in July granting former presidents broad immunity from prosecution for actions taken while in office
Biden’s speech comes on the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Hello, I’m Abené Clayton running the blog from Los Angeles. We’ll bring you the latest news and reaction.
A trial looming in a lawsuit challenging North Dakota’s abortion ban was canceled Monday as the judge in the case, state district judge Bruce Romanick, weighs whether to throw out the lawsuit. It was not immediately clear why the trial was canceled.
The notice comes nearly a week after the state and plaintiffs, who include the formerly sole abortion clinic in North Dakota, made their pitches to the judge as to why he should dismiss the two-year-old case, or continue to trial, the Associated Press reports. The trial was due to begin late August.
North Dakota outlaws abortion as a felony crime for people who perform the procedure, but with exceptions to prevent the mother’s death or a “serious health risk” to her, as well as for cases of rape or incest within the first six weeks.
The plaintiffs, which include the Red River Women’s Clinic and doctors trained in obstetrics, gynecology and maternal-fetal medicine, alleged the abortion ban violates the state constitution because it is unconstitutionally vague about its exceptions for doctors and that its health exception is too narrow. They wanted the trial to proceed.
Kamala Harris highlighted endorsements from mayors of border towns in swing state Arizona today as she looks to blunt the impact of Republican criticism of her handling of illegal border crossings.
Harris’s campaign for president said she was backed by the mayors of Bisbee, Nogales, Somerton, and San Luis, as well as by Yuma county supervisors Martin Porchas and Tony Reyes, the Associated Press reports.
Republicans say Harris did not do enough as US vice-president to clamp down on illegal immigration.
I trust her to meet the needs of border cities and towns without taking advantage of us for her own political gain, like her opponent,” the Somerton mayor, Gerardo Anaya, said in a statement. Somerton is a city of about 14,000 people in the state’s southwestern corner.
As vice-president, Harris was tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts to deal with issues spurring migration in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as pressing them to strengthen enforcement on their own borders. The Biden administration wanted to develop and put in place a long-term strategy that gets at the root causes of migration from those countries.
Border arrests have fallen from record highs last December.
Read my colleague Lauren Gambino’s piece on Harris’s record on immigration policy, here.
The Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, whose state borders Iowa, has also extended a welcome to Iowa residents who are in need of reproductive healthcare, as Iowa’s strict six-week abortion ban took effect on Monday.
Walz, in a post to X, wrote:
In Minnesota, we take care of our neighbors. It’s just what we do. As our neighbors in Iowa are stripped of their fundamental rights, my message is clear: Your reproductive freedom will remain protected in Minnesota.
The House speaker, Mike Johnson, and minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, have announced the seven Republicans and six Democrats who will sit on the taskforce to investigate the assassination attempt against Donald Trump.
The Republican chair of the panel will be the congressman Mike Kelly, who represents the Pennsylvania town of Butler where the shooting took place.
The Democratic ranking member will be the Colorado congressman Jason Crow, who sits on the House intelligence and foreign affairs committee.
Johnson, in a statement posted to X, said he and Jeffries “have the utmost confidence in this group of steady, highly qualified, and capable Members of Congress”.
The Iowa ban, which takes effect today, permits abortions past six weeks in cases of rape or incest, or in medical emergencies.
Fourteen other states, including much of the midwest, enacted near-total bans on abortion since the US supreme court overturned Roe.
Three other states – Georgia, South Carolina and Florida – have banned abortion past about six weeks of pregnancy.
Roe’s demise led to surge in support for abortion rights, even in red states. Sixty-one per cent of Iowans, including 70% of women, say that abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll found last year.
A six-week abortion ban went into effect in Iowa on Monday, cutting off access to the procedure before many women know they are pregnant.
The Republican-dominated Iowa state legislature passed the ban last year, but a lengthy court battle initially stopped it from taking effect. Last month, the Iowa supreme court ruled that the ban could be enforced, leading a lower-court judge to order the ban to take effect at 8am local time.
Leah Vanden Bosch, development and outreach director of the Iowa Abortion Access Fund, said in a statement:
The upholding of this abortion ban in Iowa is an absolute devastation and violation of human rights, depriving Iowans of their bodily autonomy. We know a ban will not stop the need for abortions.
Up until Sunday, abortion had been legal in Iowa up to roughly 22 weeks of pregnancy. Now, abortion clinics in the state have indicated that they will continue offering the procedure to the legal limit.
The closest options for Iowans who want abortions after six weeks of pregnancy will probably be Minnesota and Illinois, Democratic-run states that border Iowa and that have become abortion havens since Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022.
The Iowa ban permits abortions past six weeks in cases of rape or incest, or in medical emergencies.
Two Democratic state governors who are being considered by Kamala Harris’s campaign as her potential running mate, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and JB Pritzker of Illinois, have criticized the strict six-week abortion ban that went into effect in Iowa today.
Shapiro directly blamed Donald Trump for the Iowa law, and urged voters not to re-elect the Republican former president.
Pritzker, whose state borders Iowa, welcomed Iowa residents to visit Illinois if the new law blocks their access to “whatever care they need”. He added:
Please know – as you work to maneuver around this dangerous and unjust law – we are here for you.
Questions continued to mount about the political transformation of Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, after the release of emails from a former friend in which Vance called Trump a “morally reprehensible human being” and said: “I hate the police.”
The messages between Vance and Sofia Nelson, who sent them to the New York Times, were largely dated between 2014 and 2017. In one, Vance sent Nelson a section of Hillbilly Elegy, his bestseller about his Appalachian boyhood. Vance wrote:
Here’s an excerpt from my book. I send this to you not just to brag, but because I’m sure if you read it you’ll notice reference to ‘an extremely progressive lesbian’. I recognise now that this may not accurately reflect how you think of yourself, and for that I am really sorry. I hope you’re not offended, but if you are, I’m sorry! Love you, JD.
Read the full story here: JD Vance calls Trump ‘morally reprehensible’ in resurfaced emails
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
