US Politics

As concerns about the debt ceiling heat up, a group of Democratic senators is planning to send Joe Biden a letter requesting he use his authority under the 14th amendment of the constitution to continue paying the US government’s bills, even if the debt ceiling is not raised.Democratic senators including Tina Smith, Elizabeth Warren, Ed Markey and Bernie Sanders, an independent, argued that Republicans are not negotiating “in good faith”. They called into question the GOP’s attempt to apply work requirements to programs like Medicaid and SNAP, which provide healthcare and food vouchers for low income family.“It is unfortunate that Republicans in the House of Representatives and Senate are not acting in good faith. Instead, Republicans have made it clear that they are prepared to hold our entire economy hostage unless you accede to their demands to reduce the deficit on the backs of working families. That is simply unacceptable,” reads the letter obtained by the Guardian.The letter has been circulated amongst lawmakers at a time when Biden has reportedly signaled some support to compromise on work requirements and rules for federal programs. But Democrats are increasingly concerned about what those negotiations could look like and are looking to the 14th amendment, a US civil war-era addition to the constitution, which states that the validity of public debt “shall not be questioned’”. This could potentially allow Biden to override Congress on the grounds that their failure to raise the ceiling is unconstitutional.But Biden previously expressed some doubt on that strategy. “I have been considering the 14th amendment,” Biden said last week. “And a man I have enormous respect for, Larry Tribe, who advised me for a long time, thinks that it would be legitimate. But the problem is it would have to be litigated.”Even so, those behind the letter are up against the Republican party, which has refused to make concessions such as raising taxes on the very wealthy.“We write to urgently request that you prepare to exercise your authority under the 14th amendment of the constitution, which clearly states: ‘the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.’ Using this authority would allow the United States to continue to pay its bills on-time, without delay, preventing a global economic catastrophe.” More

A heckler who was charged with assaulting Rudy Giuliani at a Staten Island grocery store last year – after slapping him on the back and saying, “What’s up, scumbag?” – filed suit against the former New York City mayor and prominent Trump ally on Wednesday, alleging he levied an empty accusation.The lawsuit filed by Daniel Gill in Manhattan federal court also names as defendants the city and several police officers.It says the defendants “participated in an unlawful conspiracy … to deprive [Gill] of his right to liberty, to his right to speak freely without retribution, and to be free from unreasonable seizures, in violation of his rights under the first, fourth and 14th amendments to the constitution of the United States”.Filed by the prominent civil rights attorney Ron Kuby, the civil action seeks monetary damages “for false arrest, civil rights conspiracy resulting in false arrest and false imprisonment, defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent infliction of emotional distress”.The Guardian contacted a Giuliani attorney for comment.On 26 June 2022, Giuliani was campaigning with his son, Andrew Giuliani, a candidate for governor of New York – in what the suit calls a “vanity run” – when Gill, a grocery store employee, walked past and clapped the former mayor on the back, saying: “What’s up, scumbag?”Giuliani, then 78, accused Gill of hitting him – and said the feeling was like being shot or struck with a boulder.In the words of Gill’s lawsuit, “video footage captured the entire encounter. One person called 911 and [officers] arrived on the scene, followed by other NYPD officers.”Gill was arrested and spent 21 hours in jail before being arraigned on misdemeanor charges including third-degree assault.Police on the scene and Giuliani, the suit alleges, “agreed to deprive plaintiff of his liberty”. The suit charges that Gill was “put through the system” at Giuliani’s urging.“They did so despite the fact that the police defendants, and other members of the NYPD, all stated they should watch the video before taking any action,” the suit contends.Gill, the suit says, “explained that he ‘tapped’ … Giuliani to get his attention; a version of events completely corroborated by the video”.The suit also contends that Giuliani welcomed physical contact at the campaign event on Staten Island which, Kuby and co-counsel Rhiya Trivedi argue, is among the last outposts of dogged Trump support in New York City.“The area is a bastion of white conservatism and Trump support,” the suit says. “It is one of the vanishingly small venues in New York where the fabulist, election-denying, disbarred attorney and late-night-talk-show-punchline former mayor Rudolph Giuliani could expect to find a mostly affectionate audience.”At the grocery store, the suit says: “Giuliani mingled with the shoppers, who variously shook his hand, patted him on the back and shoulders, tapped him on the arm, and generally told him what a great guy he was.“Indeed, a woman is shown in the video affectionately patting and rubbing Giuliani’s back, demonstrating at least that minor physical contact was welcome at the event.“Not everyone present … was thrilled at Giuliani’s appearance … Gill worked at the ShopRite and had done so for many years, in contrast to Giuliani who has not held an actual job in over a decade.“[Gill] took a break from his work, walked up to … Giuliani, patted or tapped him on the back, said ‘What’s up, scumbag?’ and walked away.“That was the entire encounter between the two men.”After Gill’s arrest, amid widespread outcry, the Legal Aid Society, which provides public defenders, said: “The charges facing Daniel Gill, who has no previous contact with the criminal legal system, are inconsistent with existing law.“Our client merely patted Mr Giuliani, who sustained nothing remotely resembling physical injuries, without malice, to simply get his attention, as the video footage clearly showed.“Mr Gill was then followed and threatened by one of Mr Giuliani’s associates who allegedly poked Mr Gill in the chest and told him that he was going to be ‘locked up’. He was then needlessly held by [New York police] in custody for over 24 hours.“Given Mr Giuliani’s obsession with seeing his name in the press and his demonstrated propensity to distort the truth, we are happy to correct the record on exactly what occurred over the weekend on Staten Island.”The current New York mayor, Eric Adams, also questioned Giuliani’s account of the event.“Someone needs to remind former mayor Giuliani that falsely reporting a crime is a crime,” Adams told reporters. “When you look at the video, the guy basically walked by and patted him on the back. It was clear that [Giuliani] was not punched in the head. It was clear that it didn’t feel like a bullet. It was clear that he wasn’t about to fall to the ground.”The charges were dismissed. Shortly after that, Gill filed a civil claim against the city, alleging false arrest.His lawsuit against Giuliani comes at a time of growing legal woes for the former mayor.On Monday, a former associate filed suit against Giuliani, seeking $10m and alleging “abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft and other misconduct” including “alcohol-drenched rants that included sexist, racist and antisemitic remarks”.Noelle Dunphy alleges that Giuliani “often demanded oral sex while he took phone calls on speaker phone from high-profile friends and clients, including then-President Trump”.She also alleges Giuliani asked “if she knew anyone in need of a pardon”, as “he was selling pardons for $2m, which he and President Trump would split”.Dunphy also claims Giuliani directed her to refer pardon-seekers to him, eschewing the “normal channels” of the justice department.Giuliani also faces possible indictment over his leading role in Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. 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Joe Biden and the Republican speaker of the US House, Kevin McCarthy, said on Wednesday they thought a deal to avoid a US debt default was in reach.Speaking at the White House, Biden said: “I’m confident that we’ll get the agreement on the budget, that America will not default.“We’re going to come together because there’s no alternative way to do the right thing for the country. We have to move on.”On Tuesday, Biden and McCarthy met for an hour at the White House, a meeting the president called productive.Biden, who has faced some criticism for his handling of the issue, is due to travel to the G7 summit in Japan but has cut the trip short to pursue a debt ceiling deal. Plans to visit Papua New Guinea and Australia were postponed.On Wednesday, the president said: “I’ll be in constant contact with my team while I’m at the G7 and be in close touch with speaker McCarthy and other leaders as well.“What I have done in anticipation that we won’t get it all done till I get back is, I’ve cut my trip short in order to be [here] for the final negotiations and sign the deal with the majority leader.”Biden said he expected to return to Washington on Sunday and hold a press conference. Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told CNN that Biden’s decision to cut short his Asia trip sent “the message that … America does not default on its debt”.Also on Wednesday, McCarthy spoke to CNBC.He said: “I think at the end of the day we do not have a debt default. The thing I’m confident about is now we have a structure to find a way to come to a conclusion. The timeline is very tight. But we’re going to make sure we’re in the room and get this done.”A failure to honour US debts could have catastrophic impacts on the US and world economies. The US treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, has indicated that without agreement, default could come as early as 1 June.Republicans want sharp spending cuts. Democrats say Republicans should agree to a “clean” debt bill, the sort they repeatedly passed under Donald Trump. But Biden also seemed ready to make some compromises, including some work requirements on federal programs, though not on healthcare programs.Financial markets appeared to be buoyed as McCarthy joined the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, and the White House in pledging the US would not fail to pay its debt obligations. US stock indexes opened higher on Wednesday.Biden was widely reported to have agreed to a key demand from McCarthy: that negotiations be carried out by a small group of aides, removing, for now, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.Politico said Biden was now represented by the White House counselor Steve Richetti, budget director Shalanda Young and legislative affairs director Louisa Terrell. Garret Graves, a Louisiana Republican and McCarthy ally, was leading the Republican team.McCarthy, who controls the House by just five seats, is widely seen to be at the mercy of the far right of the Republican caucus. But according to Politico, Graves “isn’t a bomb-thrower or grandstander, and Democrats told us they’ve seen him as a steady hand in other bipartisan policy negotiations”.Politico reported that the new negotiators “huddled on Capitol Hill last night to start negotiations, reflecting the time crunch as the clock ticks toward a possible 1 June default”. Punchbowl News said “full-scale negotiations [were] set to kick off” on Wednesday.It will not be a simple process. The negotiators, Punchbowl said, had “a very difficult task ahead of them. They need to find a deal that can pass Congress in the next 15 days. To do that, they’ll have to come up with a framework over the next few days.“This is a massive lift that will require deft negotiating, cooperation from all sides and incredible flexibility on behalf of our national political leadership. Basically everything that Congress hasn’t done at all this year and traditionally isn’t very good at.”House Republicans are demanding $4.8tn in spending cuts, mostly to Democratic priorities including welfare and environment spending. Demonstrating the political vice in which Biden finds himself, progressives have warned him not to give in.“It’s really important we don’t give ground,” Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told Axios. “We have made it clear … that if they give on these core Democratic values, there will be a huge backlash.”Jean-Pierre told CNN that Republicans “want to cut healthcare, they want to increase poverty, and it’s not going to save much money”.Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, also spoke to CNBC.“It creates uncertainty that’s bad for the American people. It’s bad for the economy. That’s bad for business,” he said. “And so our view has consistently been that any resolution of this matter has to be at least two years in nature. And that was a position that was once again made clear in the meeting yesterday.”Punchbowl said: “If Democrats want to hike the debt limit until 2025, McCarthy is going to demand a lot in return.”Jeffries insisted: “Our view is that if we’re going to have a thoughtful conversation about deficit reduction, that conversation can’t simply be one-sided, based on the rightwing ideological perspective of a handful of extreme Maga Republicans.“That’s not how you make public policy.” More

From “America’s mayor” to a human punchline, Rudy Giuliani’s descent continues unabated. On Monday, news broke of the septuagenarian Giuliani being slammed with a $10m sexual harassment and unpaid wages lawsuit brought by Noelle Dunphy, 43, a former aide. The mighty have fallen.Once he was the toast of town. As a federal prosecutor he sent a congressman to jail, locked up mobsters and indicted white-collar criminals. As mayor, he made the streets again feel safe. Love him or hate him, crime precipitously dropped on his watch.In the days and months following 9/11, he projected strength, confidence and reassurance. He had braced himself for a calamity; he just didn’t know its source or when it would happen. He was steady when crunchtime arrived.As mayor, his tenure was consequential. His eight years at city hall rank up there with Fiorello La Guardia, Michael Bloomberg and Ed Koch. All that feels like aeons ago.These days, Giuliani and the words “defendant” and “buffoon” stand adjacent. He remains under criminal investigation by a Georgia prosecutor. Beyond that, he is a defendant in at least three separate pending election-related defamation lawsuits.His life is tumultuous. He is plagued by an image problem. His appearance in Borat 2 will forever haunt him.Watching him shove his hands down his pants was pathetic and pitiable. His awkwardness and desperation remain indelible.But it doesn’t end there. In the aftermath of Donald Trump’s defeat at the hands of Joe Biden, hair dye running down Rudy’s face became another unforgettable scene in American political lore.It presaged what followed. In that moment, you knew that Rudy had gone off the rails, worse that he possessed no limits when it came to Trump.Yet Giuliani’s latest woes cannot be described as wholly surprising. He always possessed a penchant for drama and a tropism for the transgressive. He loved the opera and his life emerged as operatic. As a prosecutor, he dressed up “undercover”. Then as mayor, he performed onstage in drag with Trump.All that came with a darker side. The warning signs were there. We just chose to ignore them.Amid his first campaign for mayor, in 1989, a story broke of a concentration camp survivor, Simon Berger, being held in federal custody, facing a blackboard that read “Arbeit Macht Frei”, the slogan written across the gates of Auschwitz. Berger would be acquitted. Decades later, Dunphy alleged that Giuliani has a problem with Jews.Fast forward to May 2000. Giuliani publicly announced that he was leaving Donna Hanover, his second wife. No one was more shocked than Hanover. Rudy had shredded the boundary between public and private.A year later, Rudy attempted to stretch out his term as mayor beyond its legal limits. Then again, his mother was a fan of Mussolini and his father spent time for armed robbery at Sing Sing, a prison located in upstate New York.Rudy also sought to make Bernie Kerik, his police commissioner, head of US homeland security. That went badly. Kerik eventually wound up in prison and George W Bush was left to do clean-up on aisle seven.During the 2016-17 presidential transition, rumours swirled of Giuliani coveting an appointment as secretary of state. That moment never arrived.There were “whispers from the staff ‘about his health and stability’,” Michael Wolff wrote in Fire and Fury, his 2018 blockbuster.To be sure, they were the same whispers echoed at a pre-inaugural lunch held at a Manhattan steakhouse by veterans of Giuliani’s time at city hall, and those with significant ties to the Trump administration.For the record, Dunphy’s pleadings are replete with references to Giuliani and alcohol.Giuliani and Ukraine made headlines, too. He and his buddies played Inspector Clouseau. In the end, Giuliani avoided prosecution, but Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas were convicted on federal charges.The political dexterity and judgment that Giuliani once demonstrated has vanished. He is conscious of the decline. “I don’t care about my legacy,” he adds. “I’ll be dead.”Nearly three years after the 2020 election, Trump refuses to concede and remains the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. “Giuliani, on the other hand, [is] finished in every conceivable way,” wrote Giuliani biographer Andrew Kirtzman.Along the way, Rudy’s future grows bleaker and more mirthless. More

PEN America, a non-profit US organization that works to protect freedom of speech, along with publishing company Penguin Random House, and individual parents, have filed a lawsuit against a Florida school district for implementing book bans.The suit argues the removal and restriction of access to books discussing race, racism and LGBTQ+ identities violates the first amendment. It comes after rightwing groups have sought to remove books from libraries and schools in the US – often ones that address issues of racism or sexual identity.The book ban movement, led by conservative groups – some of whom aren’t even currently parents of school children – gained special traction last year, spearheaded by groups like Moms For Liberty and No Left Turn in Education.In an interview with the Guardian, Nadine Farid Johnson, the managing director of PEN America Washington and Free Expression Programs, said Florida’s Escambia county school district in particular, was at the heart of the recent book ban movement.“Looking at the landscape of what is happening and recognizing Escambia county, in particular, and its efforts to restrict and remove these books – it is time now to challenge this for the unconstitutional act that it is,” she said.The district first began banning books by placing them in restricted sections of the district’s school libraries and only granting access to students who had parental approval. Some of the books placed in the restricted sections include Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky.Other books were flat out banned like And Tango Makes Three, a story about two male penguins who created a family together, and All Boys Aren’t Blue, a memoir about growing up Black and queer in New Jersey written by George M Johnson.“It’s important that these books go back on the shelf so that student can access the books, as is their first amendment right,” Johnson said.“I think the important point here is ensuring students have access to books on a wide range of topics expressing a diversity of viewpoints. It really does implicate a core of public education, which is preparing students to be thoughtful and engaged citizens. And our supreme court has made clear that the government cannot be censoring books just because officials disagree with ideas they contain and that’s what’s happening here. And that’s why we are taking this action.”PEN America began tracking book bans in schools across the country in the 2021-2022 school year. During the first half of the 2022-23 school year, it found 1,477 instances of individual books banned, affecting 874 unique titles.States with the most book bans are Florida, Texas, Utah, Missouri and South Carolina.In a statement, PEN America’s CEO, Suzanne Nossel, said: “Children in a democracy must not be taught that books are dangerous. The freedom to read is guaranteed by the constitution. In Escambia county, state censors are spiriting books off shelves in a deliberate attempt to silence pluralism and diversity. In a nation built on free speech, this cannot stand. The law demands that the Escambia county school district put removed or restricted books back on library shelves where they belong.” More

Donald Trump scored a proxy victory over Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, the Republican presidential frontrunner’s preferred candidate beating the choice of the Florida governor, Trump’s closest rival, in a gubernatorial primary in Kentucky.Daniel Cameron, the first major-party Black nominee for governor in Kentucky history, will face the Democratic incumbent, Andy Beshear, in November.Cameron, the state attorney general, claimed a convincing victory over a 12-candidate field including Kelly Craft, who was United Nations ambassador in the Trump administration and who won a late endorsement from DeSantis.Beshear easily beat two challengers in his own primary.Cameron is the first Black Kentucky attorney general and would be its first Black governor. He played up the historic nature of his nomination in his victory speech, saying he would “embody the promise of America, that if you work hard and if you stand on principle, anything is possible”.“To anyone who looks like me, know that you can achieve anything,” Cameron said. “Know that in this country and in Kentucky, all that matters are your values.”Kentucky will be one of the most closely watched states in November, analysts seeking clues for the 2024 presidential race. Beshear is a popular governor but he will face a tough re-election bid in a Republican-dominated state after a first term marked by the Covid pandemic, natural disasters and a mass shooting that killed one of his closest friends.Beshear touted his stewardship of Kentucky’s economy and blasted the tone of the Republican primary.“Right now somewhere in America, there is a CEO deciding where to move their business and they’re considering Kentucky,” Beshear told supporters on Tuesday. “Let me ask you: is seeing people talk down our state and our economy, insult our people and stoke divisions going to help that next company choose Kentucky? Of course not.”In 2019, Beshear used the attorney general’s office as a springboard to the governorship. As attorney general, he challenged executive actions by the then Republican governor, Matt Bevin, who he then beat narrowly.If Beshear follows his campaign formula from 2019, he will avoid talking about Trump or dwelling on polarizing national issues. He is also expected to draw on his family’s strong political brand – his father, Steve Beshear, is a former two-term Kentucky governor.Cameron succeeded Beshear as attorney general and mounted numerous challenges against state and national Democratic policies, essentially halting Covid-era restrictions. Beshear says his actions saved lives and that he leaned on guidance from Trump’s Covid taskforce.A former aide to the Republican US Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, Cameron is one of the most prominent Black Republicans. His victory will play into Trump’s efforts to solidify his lead in the presidential primary.Rivalry between Cameron and Craft dominated the Kentucky primary. Cameron endured an advertising blitz by Craft’s campaign and an outside group that portrayed Cameron as an “establishment teddy bear”. A pro-Cameron group returned fire.Cameron’s handling of an investigation into the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police in 2020, which contributed to nationwide protests for policing reform, could now come under renewed scrutiny.Announcing a grand jury’s findings, Cameron said jurors “agreed” homicide charges were not warranted because officers were fired upon. Three jurors said Cameron’s staff did not give them an opportunity to consider homicide charges.Cameron must also build party unity. He has previously bridged the rift between Trump and McConnell. Previously the senator’s legal counsel, he made a high-profile pitch for Trump at the Republican convention in 2020. More

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett was in Dallas when the shocking news broke. At a shopping mall in the suburb of Allen, a gunman shot and killed eight people, including three children. He was later revealed to have posted photos online displaying Nazi tattoos on his arm and torso.“I was texting my mom to see where she was, because it’s a suburb 30 miles north of my district, and on the weekends she usually goes shopping,” Crockett, 42, recalls in an interview at her office in Washington. “She texted me: ‘I’m at my friend’s house. Why?’ ‘Because of Allen.’ ‘What’s going on in Allen?’ And I’m like, ‘There’s a shooting at the mall.”Crockett was already scheduled for an interview on the MSNBC network and spent the next hours responding on air to a developing story that now has a sickening deja vu quality in America with the nation’s political class seemingly paralysed.The Democrat reflects: “It’s heartbreaking. At the end of the day, as we saw the carnage, I wasn’t thinking or wondering, well, is that a Democrat or Republican or independent? I was thinking, ‘We’ve got to do better,’ and honestly, those bullets didn’t have R, D or I on them, either.”Crockett can see the failings and follies of Washington on this and other issues through fresh eyes.The former lawyer and Texas state representative was sworn in last January to represent Texas’s 30th congressional district, which is home to 750,000 people and includes portions of Dallas and Tarrant counties. She is the first Black woman to serve as freshman leadership representative.After the mass shooting in Allen, she saw firsthand Republicans’ refusal to budge on gun safety. Ted Cruz, senator for Texas, and Keith Self, a freshman congressman who represents Allen, both offered prayers for the families but offered no meaningful solutions.Crockett adds: “No one seemingly wants to take up the conversation about the far- rightwing extremism that he had. No one wants to accept that part of the chaos and carnage is actually being stoked by the rhetoric that is being spewed by the Republican party.”If Congress took responsibility, she argues, it could pass smart gun legislation instead of staging yet another partisan brawl. “I myself am a Texan. I own a gun – or a couple. I am licensed to carry. I am all the things. But it’s all or nothing, ‘Oh, well, Democrats just want to take your guns away.’ No.”She does support Joe Biden’s call for an assault weapons ban. “There are definitely guns that we want to take away because it’s the equivalent of some of these people having cannon; I’m sorry, but it’s not OK for my next door neighbor to have a cannon.“If we want to minimise the carnage and damage that is done when someone is evil and is just going to do what they do, this is about mitigation, this is about saving lives. People literally have almost no chance of surviving when some of these weapons are used. I don’t understand why we need them.”She describes Republicans as “cowards” on the issue and believes that their stance can be explained by a primary election system that rewards extremism and discourages moderation. This, in turn, flows from gerrymandering – the manipulation of district boundaries to favor one party – made easier by erosion of the Voting Rights Act.“People have told me, ‘I’ll lose my primary if I don’t do this,’ even if it’s completely against what even the majority of their district wants because of who’s going to show up in that primary.”Two years ago Crockett was among Democrats in the Texas legislature who fled Austin for Washington to deny a quorum to Republicans seeking to overhaul elections and impose new voting restrictions. The standoff lasted for 38 consecutive days and remains one of the dramatic showdowns over voting rights in America. Crockett believes there was a lesson for national Democrats: sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.“I’ve been all over the state of Texas for various campaigns and I talk to people and ask them, why is it that you don’t want to vote? Honestly, I have heard more than once that Democrats are weak. We are not weak, but there is this perception.”She added: “I was only the 22nd black woman ever elected to the Texas House, and I wouldn’t be here but for people having courage. At some point in time we can’t just rely on the traditions and sit here because it doesn’t work if both sides aren’t in and, at this point in time, I’ve decided that the Republicans are not in for democracy. So we have to be in.”Republicans are determined to retain power by any means necessary, she argues, because they know their policies do not align with the majority of Americans. She cites examples such as abortion bans, firmly rejected by voters in Kansas, and student loan forgiveness, popular in opinion polls, as evidence that Democrats are more in touch with public sentiment.Yet this does not always translate at the ballot box as Republican tout themselves as the party of middle America and Democrats as the party of coastal elites. “It’s hard to understand how we are failing at communicating that, no matter if you’re in urban America or if you’re in rural America, we’re fighting for you.”Is it lonely to be a Democrat in Texas? The Lone Star State has gone red in 11 consecutive presidential elections from Ronald Reagan in 1980 to Donald Trump in 2020. Both its senators and its governor are Republicans. Counterintuitively, however, Crockett contends that Texas is already a blue state.“People think I’m crazy because it’s so extreme and all we get is the extreme stories. But I believe my state is blue because we’re probably the only majority-minority state that is ‘red’; most majority-minority states are blue. So demographically it’s there.”But despite record turnout in 2020, Texas ranked 44th out of 50 states in terms of ballots counted as a proportion of the total voting-eligible population, according to the United States Elections Project.Crockett said: “We continually have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the entire country. If you make it difficult to access the ballot box, then you can have this minority rule.”Another opportunity to change the narrative of Texas politics will come in next year’s presidential election. When Crockett speaks to young people, she finds that their first concern is guns and their second is voting rights. Since the overturning of Roe v Wade by the supreme court, Republicans have been struggling to defend unpopular restrictions on abortion or even a potential national ban.“As a criminal defence attorney, I have had to deal with cases where fathers were raping their little girls. This is the reality of some of the things that happen and then telling that little girl you can’t do anything about it? There are people that aren’t necessarily for abortion for whatever reasons but they understand that you can’t just say under no circumstances, we’re not doing this, period, ever. Honestly, the Republicans have thrown us a bone and it is going to be moms and young people.”Biden was elected on a vow to heal the soul of the nation after the horror of white supremacists and neo-Nazis marching in Charlottesville, Virginia. But the president’s efforts to pursue racial justice through police reform and voting rights stalled in the Senate while Trump still looms large in the political landscape. The government has warned racially motivated extremists pose a bigger terrorism threat than potential attacks from overseas.Crockett admits: “We’ve got an affirmative action case in the supreme court and I’m sure the darkest one [Justice Clarence Thomas] on the supreme court is probably gonna lead the charge in getting rid of it. Then it’s like, ‘Oh, see? The Black man on the supreme court said it.’ It’s ridiculous. We also know, especially in the state of Texas, that our governor is going after DEI [diversity, equity and inclusion].”But, if Biden faces Trump in the race for the White House again, Crockett believes the Democrat will repeat his 2020 victory, in part because of LGBTQ+ voters and young voters who feel they are under attack. But what of the Black voters who were so fundamental to Biden’s success?“It’s always complicated for the African American community but, if we make the investments, then we’re fine. Black people for the longest have felt like they have carried this country, whether it is building literally these houses that I sit in right now, or showing up and being the backbone of the Democratic vote. It is a tough conversation to have with Black folk.”This was a crucial motivation for Crockett to become the freshman representative to leadership. “I thought, golly, I have enough on my plate trying to figure out how to be a member of Congress but it was time that we are at the table. There had not been a Black woman elected to leadership in the Democratic caucus since Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman in Congress.“It is important I make it clear that we are making strides, ever so slightly. It’s even a fight within our party. A lot of times there’s this idea that we should paint everything as if it’s perfect and I don’t subscribe to it. I subscribe to being real and most people respect when they feel like you’re being honest and real.”Crockett has to head off to the House chamber to cast a vote. But first she shares another thought. “Nothing in this world is perfect but at least the Democrats are fighting for a more perfect union. The Republicans are not.“I am in leadership because I think a Black woman’s voice needs to be at the table as we are crafting our messages, as we are prioritising our voters. That’s necessary, and so that’s the role that I intend to continue to play – fight for the courting of Black voters, fight for listening to what their priorities are, fight for them to truly believe that they will be heard if they show up.” More

Three US appeals court judges who have previously favored abortion restrictions prepared to hear oral arguments on Wednesday on the future of the major abortion drug mifepristone.The case – which has landed before judges Jennifer Walker Elrod, James Ho and Cory Wilson – essentially calls on them to rule on whether the federal government should suspend or scale back the federal Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of mifepristone in 2000, along with later actions that made the pill more widely accessible.Mifepristone has consistently been found to be safe and effective, and advocates argue that it is safer than the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra and low-level pain reliever Tylenol.But an emboldened anti-abortion movement set its sights on mifepristone after the US supreme court’s conservative majority last year eliminated federal abortion rights that had been established by the Roe v Wade decision in 1973.After a coalition of groups brought a lawsuit in November against the FDA’s approval of the drug, Texas-based federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in April issued a ruling suspending the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. Joe Biden’s administration appealed, sending it to the appellate court in New Orleans where Elrod, Ho and Wilson sit – and to the supreme court, which indefinitely blocked the suspension as the case proceeds.The plaintiffs in the dispute are an alliance of physician groups who generally argue they have standing to bring the case because they have members in Texas and elsewhere in the US who have treated women and girls experiencing complications after taking mifepristone for abortions. The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, the American Association of Pro Life OB-GYNs, the American College of Pediatricians and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations contend that the complications – bleeding and pain – are dangerous, and have trotted out unproven arguments that women who have abortions are prone to suicide and depression.Studies have shown that 95% of women who had abortions reported five years later that it had been the right decision for them.Their effort to in essence ban mifepristone also hinges on a 150-year-old law known as the Comstock Act, which criminalizes the mailing or shipping of any “lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy or vile article”, along with anything that is “advertised or described in a manner … for producing abortion”.Interpreted widely enough, opponents of the plaintiffs say, the previously dormant Comstock Act could prohibit the legal mailing of any abortion instrument, even to states which have chosen to keep abortion legal since last year’s supreme court ruling, bringing the US one step closer to a national abortion ban that – according to polling – most Americans would not support.Meanwhile, the FDA’s efforts to rebuff the physician group has involved defending mifepristone’s approval process against claims that it was inadequate, along with characterizing the plaintiffs as lacking standing despite their contentions to the contrary.Jennifer Dalven, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, on Monday described the fifth circuit panel hearing the case as “one of the worst panels of judges that could have been assembled for those who believe mifepristone should remain on the market”.“This case should’ve been laughed out of court from the start – it has no basis in science, it has no basis in law, it’s been roundly criticized by experts from across the ideological spectrum,” Dalven said during a virtual briefing with reporters. “But we’re living in strange times, and some judges have shown that they’re willing to blatantly ignore the rule of law to achieve their own ideological goals.”Donald Trump nominated Ho and Wilson to their posts during his presidency. (He also nominated Kacsmaryk, whose ruling is the subject of Wednesday’s hearing.)Trump’s fellow Republican president George W Bush nominated Elrod.All three in 2021 upheld a Texas law which outlawed an abortion method commonly used to terminate pregnancies in their second trimester.A 2018 opinion from Ho called abortion “a moral tragedy”. And in 2019, though he concurred with an opinion which found that an abortion ban in Mississippi had to be struck down under legal precedent then in effect, he asserted: “Nothing in the text or original understanding of the constitution establishes a right to an abortion.”For her part, Elrod not only wrote the 2021 opinion addressing Texas’s ban of the second-trimester pregnancy abortion method, but also an opinion that same year which declined to order Louisiana state officials to issue a delayed license for a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in New Orleans. The opinion declared no one had the federal right to operate an abortion clinic.Either side could appeal any ruling from Elrod, Ho and Wilson to the supreme court, which could take a year or more to issue the final word on the matter.The Associated Press contributed reporting More