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      Democratic leaders want House votes on Biden domestic agenda by Tuesday

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      Biden administrationDemocratic leaders want House votes on Biden domestic agenda by TuesdayAnonymous sources outline ambitious timetable for spending plan so far stymied by centrist senators Associated Press in WashingtonSat 30 Oct 2021 16.01 EDTDemocratic leaders are hoping for House votes as soon as Tuesday on the two pillars of Joe Biden’s domestic spending agenda, two Democrats said Saturday, as the party mounted its latest push to get the long-delayed legislation through Congress.Joe Manchin single-handedly denied US families paid leave. That’s just cruel | Jill FilipovicRead moreTop Democrats would like a final House-Senate compromise on Biden’s now $1.75tn, 10-year social and environment plan to be written by Sunday, the Democrats said.Talks among White House, House and Senate officials were being held over the weekend, said the Democrats, who described the plans on condition of anonymity.An accord could clear the way for House passage of that bill and a separate $1tn measure funding road, rail and other infrastructure projects, the Democrats said.It remains unclear whether the ambitious timetable can be met. To clear the Senate, any agreement will need the backing of centrist Democrats Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona.The two senators have forced Biden to retreat from his plan for a $3.5tn social and environment bill and to remove some initiatives from the measure.Republican opposition to the social and environmental bill is unanimous. Democrats hold the House and Senate but in the latter are 10 votes short of the necessary super-majority to pass legislation.They must therefore use reconciliation, a process for budgetary measures which allows for a simple majority. As the Senate is split 50-50 and controlled via the casting vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris, Manchin and Sinema have a tremendous amount of power.The Senate approved the infrastructure bill in August on a bipartisan vote. House progressives have since sidetracked that bill, in an effort to pressure moderates to back the larger social and environment bill.TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenUS domestic policyUS politicsDemocratsJoe ManchinUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Are lobbyists trying to gut Biden’s budget? No one knows – and that’s the problem | David Litt

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      OpinionUS politicsAre lobbyists trying to gut Biden’s budget? No one knows – and that’s the problemDavid LittOur campaign finance system makes it nearly impossible to track money in politics or hold our representatives accountable Fri 22 Oct 2021 06.27 EDTLast modified on Fri 22 Oct 2021 06.32 EDTJoe Biden’s Build Back Better reconciliation bill has been stuck in limbo – and conservative Democrats are in fundraising heaven.West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, who raised more than $400,000 from the oil and gas industry while the bill was being negotiated, is now poised to gut Biden’s clean-energy plan. Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema spent the summer and fall collecting checks from corporate groups and Trump donors who oppose the Biden agenda, then helped cut the size of the reconciliation package by approximately half.Biden’s budget could transform life for working women. Don’t let Manchin gut it | Moira DoneganRead morePolitical horse-trading is nothing new, and the version of Build Back Better that seems likely to pass would improve tens of millions of American lives. But there’s still something unseemly about the way this bill has been negotiated. Were the Senate’s holdouts demanding a principled compromise? Acting out of genuine concern for their constituents’ interests? Or were they trading favors for campaign cash?It’s impossible to know for certain which provisions, if any, were cut because of wealthy campaign donors. But that’s precisely the problem, and it goes far beyond one bill and two senators. Our campaign finance system – one that has existed for barely more than a decade – makes it nearly impossible to distinguish between politics-as-usual, influence peddling and outright bribery. That’s not just a threat to individual policies or pieces of legislation. It’s a threat to public trust in our system of government, and by extension, to democracy itself.For most of the last half-century, it was widely understood that democracy depends upon voters’ trust that their representatives will represent them. That’s why, in 1976, the supreme court ruled that the public interest was served not just by preventing corruption, but by preventing “the appearance of corruption”. The court’s decision made both legal and intuitive sense: if voters decide that the political process is corrupt, they’ll stop engaging with the political process, thus reducing public accountability and opening the door to more corruption.But in 2010, a new, far more conservative supreme court took a completely different view. “We now conclude,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy in Citizens United, “that independent expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” In a series of follow-on decisions, the court’s rightwing majority expanded on this idea: not that the appearance of corruption was good, but that no amount of money in politics could possibly appear corrupt.In the real world, the court’s assertion was almost immediately proven false. In a divided country, one thing Americans can agree on is that rich people and corporations have way too much political power. According to the Pew Research Center, for example, 90% of Americans think it’s important for society that wealthy donors have no more influence than other people – but just 26% of people think that is now the case. A handful of justices chose to ignore the “appearance of corruption”, but it hasn’t gone away just because a conservative supreme court closed its eyes.Fortunately, even in the Citizens United era, there are ways to reduce the political influence of corporate donors and wealthy individuals – and to restore Americans’ faith that government can work for the people.First, we can make it more difficult for lawmakers and wealthy interests to engage in outright, quid-pro-quo corruption. Just this week, a grand jury indicted Congressman Jeff Fortenberry, a Nebraska Republican, for allegedly lying to federal investigators about $180,000 in illegal campaign contributions. This development was remarkable precisely because it was so rare. It’s an open secret that even the campaign finance laws that remain post-Citizens United are broken with impunity. (Two years into his presidency, Donald Trump himself tweeted that campaign finance violations “are not a crime”.) If law enforcement investigated and prosecuted corruption more aggressively, lawmakers might become more careful about crossing, or merely approaching, legal lines.Second, we can do what election law expert Rick Hasen calls “leveling up”. Rather than limiting the amount of corporate money in politics – an impossibility so long as conservatives control the court – we can give ordinary Americans more influence. So-called “democracy vouchers” could give voters tax credits for small-dollar donations to causes they believe in. We could also increase the amount of public funds available for candidates who agree not to take private donations. (Lest anyone try to paint this as some kind of socialist plot, Ronald Reagan, George HW Bush and George W Bush all accepted taxpayer dollars to fund their campaigns.)Finally, we can limit the influence of the other side of the influence-peddling equation: lobbying. In the Citizens United era, corporations and wealthy individuals can spend unlimited sums of money on politicians’ campaigns, then spend unlimited sums of money on lobbyists who ask those same politicians for highly specific favors. It’s hard to imagine a system better suited to erode Americans’ trust in their elected officials. But imagine a sliding-scale tax on registered lobbying, far stricter disclosure requirements on corporate political spending, or perhaps even an Office of Public Lobbying to advocate for groups well-represented in America but poorly funded on Capitol Hill.These changes won’t undo all the damage caused by conservative justices’ Citizen United ruling. But they will help stem the tide. They would give candidates without access to deep-pocketed donors a more level playing field. They would give lawmakers like Manchin and Sinema an alternative to funding their campaigns via wealthy interests – and no excuse not to take it. Most of all, they would give Americans more confidence that the legislative process, while never straightforward or without compromise, is designed to benefit all the people, and not just a privileged few.Democracy is not just under attack from insurrectionists who would commit political violence or would-be autocrats who would overturn an election. It’s under attack from those who seek to undermine its central promise – that representative government can make a positive difference in people’s lives.Ultimately, reducing the influence of corporate and megadonor money isn’t about smoothing the next reconciliation bill’s passage, or even fixing a broken campaign-finance system. It’s about bolstering the American republic as it faces its toughest test in decades.
      David Litt is an American political speechwriter and New York Times bestselling author of Thanks Obama, and Democracy in One Book or Less. He edits How Democracy Lives, a newsletter on democracy reform
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      Manchin thwarts Biden’s climate plan: Politics Weekly Extra

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      As Joe Biden gears up for his trip to Glasgow for the Cop26 summit, Senator Joe Manchin continues to try to water down the reconciliation bill, which as it stands includes transformational provisions to stem the adverse affects of the climate crisis. Joan Greve and Oliver Milman look at the potential fallout for the world if Manchin gets his way

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      ‘No more time to waste,’ chair of House climate panel warns ahead of Cop26

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      Climate crisis‘No more time to waste,’ chair of House climate panel warns ahead of Cop26Democrat Kathy Castor warns that even Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better bill ‘doesn’t really get us to net zero by 2050’ Lauren Gambino in Washington@laurenegambinoThu 21 Oct 2021 03.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 21 Oct 2021 03.01 EDTThe alarm bells are ringing. A code red has been declared. With no less than the future of the planet at stake, Kathy Castor, chair of the select committee on the climate crisis, has warned Democrats that there is precious little time left to enact the US president’s aggressive climate agenda and avert the most catastrophic impacts of global warming.“We just don’t have any more time to waste,” the Florida congresswoman said in an interview with the Guardian ahead of crucial UN climate talks in Scotland. “We have got to act now or else we’re condemning our children and future generations to a really horrendous time.”‘This is our last chance’: Biden urged to act as climate agenda hangs by a threadRead moreClimate scientists say the world must keep the average global temperature from rising more than 1.5C (2.7F) compared with the pre-industrial era, or risk catastrophically more dangerous effects of climate change. Upon rejoining the global effort to confront the climate crisis, Joe Biden vowed that the US would cut emissions by 50% to 52% below 2005 levels by the end of the decade.Perhaps the best hope of achieving that goal is embedded in legislation pending before Congress that must overcome the objections of a coal-state senator and razor-thin Democratic majorities. If enacted, Castor said the plan to slash planet-heating emissions by accelerating America’s transition away from fossil fuels would be “the most important and far-reaching clean energy and climate bill ever passed by the US Congress”.But with days left before Biden is expected to depart for the summit, significant obstacles remain.Senator Joe Manchin, one of the party’s last remaining holdouts, made clear that he would not support a proposed clean electricity program, effectively gutting the most powerful piece of Democrats’ climate plan. The $150bn proposal, known as the Clean Electricity Performance Program, used a carrot-and-stick approach to reward energy utilities that transitioned from coal and natural gas toward clean power sources like wind, solar and nuclear energy, and penalizing those that do not.Now White House officials and congressional negotiators are scrambling to salvage pieces of the plan while finding alternative policies that will keep the US on track to meet the president’s emissions targets, including, potentially, a tax on carbon dioxide pollution.“It’s clear that investing in clean electricity is one of the most effective ways to unlock emission reductions and create good-paying jobs across our economy, which is why we’ve fought to include a robust Clean Electricity Performance Program in the Build Back Better Act,” Castor said in a statement following news of Manchin’s objection to the program. “Every step we take now to clean up our electricity sector will make a world of difference in the decades to come – and we cannot afford to keep kicking the can down the road.”After the Democratic takeover of the House in 2018, Castor was tapped to lead the newly created House select committee on the climate crisis. Its task was to conduct research and hearings that would educate the public about the threat posed by climate change and pave the way for mitigation legislation.Last year, the panel’s Democratic members released a sprawling climate plan that aimed to put the nation on the path to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. It also aimed to make environmental justice a priority by focusing on the communities that are the most vulnerable to climate change.A summer of devastating heatwaves, wildfires and hurricanes has made the risk of inaction painfully clear to Americans across the country, Castor said, speaking from Tampa, Florida, where rising sea levels are no longer a threat but a costly reality for many residents.“When you have farmers whose crops or livestock have been flooded out or dropping from an extreme heat, or wildfires are burning through your town, or your electric grid isn’t resilient and people die in Texas because of a cold snap, that’s a wake-up call,” Castor said. “And I think now people are really looking at policymakers and asking, ‘What are you going to do about it?’”Republicans remain a chief obstacle to Democrats’ climate goals.After years of denialism, there is a growing acceptance of climate science among rank-and-file Republicans, particularly those representing frontline districts battered by climate-fueled disasters. And yet, the party remains largely opposed to plans to stop burning fossil fuels, which climate scientists say is the most efficient and effective strategy to guard against an even hotter planet.Castor said Republicans are missing a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity. Democrats have touted the transition to clean energy as an economic boon, with the president repeatedly promising “jobs, jobs, jobs”.“As clean energy grows in districts across the country, you’ll see more Republicans finally understanding it creates jobs and is less costly for the folks they represent,” Castor predicted. “That’s kind of the only pathway out of the trap they’ve gotten themselves into – to talk about climate but not do anything about it.”Democrats face a difficult electoral map in 2022, with their control of both chambers at risk. Many activists and Democratic lawmakers believe they have one, perhaps fleeting, chance to aggressively confront climate change before possibly losing their majorities to Republicans, who are far less likely to act on the crisis.Castor believes that the Democrats’ spending bill cannot be the last legislative action taken by this Congress. But she is less concerned by the political deadline than the scientific one.Despite the difficulty of finding a consensus among Democrats on climate legislation, Castor believes there is more Congress can do this term. As an example, she pointed to a funding bill passed by the House that aims to minimize the carbon footprint of the Department of Defense, by making military bases more resilient and bolstering investments in research to better understand the security implications posed by climate change.At the same time, she expects the president will continue to use his executive authority and the rule-making powers of the Environmental Protection Agency to combat climate change.“We’ll have a lot more to do,” she said. “Even if we pass the Build Back Better Act as it is, that doesn’t really get us to net zero by 2050, which is the goal.”Democrats are increasingly optimistic that they will send Biden to Glasgow with an agreement that proves the US is capable of making good on its climate promises. How Democrats accomplish this – and whether they can do it by 31 October, when the summit is due to begin – is unclear.TopicsClimate crisisHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsBiden administrationCop26featuresReuse this content More

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      ‘Tired of broken promises’: climate activists launch hunger strike outside White House

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      Climate crisis‘Tired of broken promises’: climate activists launch hunger strike outside White HouseThe protest comes a day after Joe Biden appeared ready to settle for a smaller environmental proposal ahead of the COP26 summit David Smith in Washington@smithinamericaWed 20 Oct 2021 15.20 EDTLast modified on Wed 20 Oct 2021 16.59 EDTWith little more than sun hats, placards and folding chairs, five young activists have begun a hunger strike in front of the White House urging Joe Biden not to abandon his bold climate agenda.The protest came a day after the US president threatened to water down his $3.5tn social and environmental legislation and with Washington’s commitments about to face scrutiny at the COP26 summit in Glasgow.The five protesters said they will eat no food and drink only water. They intend to gather in Lafayette Park every day from 8am to 8pm until their demands – which include a civilian climate corps, clean energy performance program and funding for environmental justice – are satisfied.The climate disaster is here – this is what the future looks likeRead moreOn Wednesday, in bright autumn sunshine, the quintet stood in a row holding signs including “Hunger striking for my dreams” and “Hunger striking for my future children”. They then sat down in red folding chairs with the words “Hunger strike day one” written in giant letters on the pavement before them.“I’m nervous in that I know that I will go on hunger strike until the demands are met, until I’m absolutely physically unable to,” said Ema Govea, a high school student who turned 18 on Tuesday. “That’s scary and I know my parents are worried and my friends back home are worried.”Biden met privately on Tuesday with nearly 20 moderate and progressive Democrats in separate groups as he appeared ready to ditch an ambitious $3.5tn package in favour of a smaller proposal that can win passage in the closely divided Congress. A provision central to Biden’s climate strategy is among those that could be scaled back or eliminated.Joe Manchin, a conservative senator from coal-rich West Virginia, has made clear that his opposes the Clean Energy Performance Plan, which would see the government impose penalties on electric utilities that fail to meet clean energy benchmarks and provide financial rewards to those that do, in line with Biden’s goal of achieving 80% “clean electricity” by 2030.The hunger strikers, who have worked with the Sunrise Movement youth group, warned that such concessions would be disastrous for the planet.Govea, from Santa Rosa, California, said: “Joe Biden made these campaign promises and we worked really hard on his campaign and to get him elected so that he could stop the climate crisis on these promises that he made.”Abandoning Biden’s commitments would signal to Cop26 that America has failed, Govea added. “I won’t let Joe Biden send a message to the world that he’s willing to give up on climate because I know that the American people, and young people across the country and across the world, are terrified but they’re ready to fight.”The hunger strikers drew TV cameras and curious glances from tourists in an area close to the White House that has reopened after months of security restrictions. As they sat, they spoke to reporters, checked emails and contemplated the long haul ahead.Paul Campion, 24, had skipped his usual breakfast of a bagel with cheese and eggs. He said: “I’m nervous about losing my my body weight, my muscles, about what it will do to my energy, to my brain, but I’m putting my body on the line because I’m here to remind Joe Biden of the promises that he’s made and that the stakes are this high, that young people are out here not eating because it’s this urgent and it’s this important.”Campion, a community organizer from Chicago, and his fellow protesters are “sick and tired of broken promises” from Biden and the Democrats, he continued. “I’m hunger striking because I want to live a full, beautiful life without fear of the climate crisis and I want to have children, I want to play with them in the park and I want to have community dinners where I invite my friends and family over and we sing and we have a bonfire.“That’s the future that we can have if Joe Biden will side with the people and deliver on his own agenda and actually fight for it instead of siding with ExxonMobil executives who are trying to gut his climate agenda and trying to prevent any significant federal action on climate change.”TopicsClimate crisisActivismJoe BidenBiden administrationUS politicsUS SenateUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump files lawsuit to block release of Capitol attack records

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      US Capitol attackTrump files lawsuit to block release of Capitol attack recordsEx-president challenges Biden’s decision to waive executive privilege that protects White House communications Associated Press in WashingtonTue 19 Oct 2021 04.38 EDTLast modified on Tue 19 Oct 2021 04.55 EDTDonald Trump has sought to block the release of documents related to the Capitol attack on 6 January to a House committee investigating the incident, challenging Joe Biden’s initial decision to waive executive privilege.In a federal lawsuit, the former president said the committee’s request in August was “almost limitless in scope” and sought many records that were not connected to the siege.He called it a “vexatious, illegal fishing expedition” that was “untethered from any legitimate legislative purpose”, according to the papers filed in a federal court in the District of Columbia.Bannon and other top Trump officials face legal peril for defying subpoenasRead moreTrump’s lawsuit was expected – as he had said he would challenge the investigation – and at least one ally, Steve Bannon, has defied a subpoena.But the legal challenge went beyond the initial 125 pages of records that Biden recently cleared for release to the committee.The suit, which names the committee as well as the National Archives, seeks to invalidate the entirety of the congressional request, calling it overly broad, unduly burdensome and a challenge to separation of powers. It requests a court injunction to bar the archivist from producing the documents.The Biden administration, in clearing the documents for release, said the violent siege of the Capitol more than nine months ago was such an extraordinary circumstance that it merited waiving the privilege that usually protected White House communications.Trump’s lawsuit came the evening before the panel was scheduled to vote to recommend that Bannon be held in criminal contempt of Congress for his defiance of the committee’s demands for documents and testimony.In a resolution released on Monday, the committee asserts that the former Trump aide and podcast host has no legal standing to rebuff the committee, even as Trump’s lawyer has asked him not to disclose information.Bannon was a private citizen when he spoke to Trump before the attack, the committee said, and Trump had not asserted any such executive privilege claims to the panel.The resolution lists many ways in which Bannon was involved in the lead-up to the insurrection, including reports that he encouraged Trump to focus on 6 January, the day Congress certified the presidential vote, and his comments on 5 January that “all hell is going to break loose” the next day.“Mr Bannon appears to have played a multifaceted role in the events of January 6th, and the American people are entitled to hear his first-hand testimony regarding his actions,” the committee wrote.Once the committee votes on the Bannon contempt resolution, it will go to the full House for a vote and then on to the justice department, which will decide whether to prosecute.In a letter obtained by the Associated Press, the White House also worked to undercut Bannon’s argument. The deputy counsel, Jonathan Su, wrote that the president’s decision on the documents applied to Bannon, too, and “at this point we are not aware of any basis for your client’s refusal to appear for a deposition.“President Biden’s determination that an assertion of privilege is not justified with respect to these subjects applies to your client’s deposition testimony and to any documents your client may possess concerning either subject,” Su wrote to Bannon’s lawyer.Bannon’s attorney said he had not yet seen the letter and could not comment on it.While Bannon has said he needs a court order before complying with his subpoena, the former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former White House and Pentagon aide Kashyap Patel have been negotiating with the committee. It is unclear whether a fourth former White House aide, Dan Scavino, will comply.The committee has also subpoenaed more than a dozen people who helped plan Trump rallies before the siege, and some of them have said they would turn over documents and give testimony.Lawmakers want the testimony and the documents as part of their investigation into how a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in a violent effort to halt the certification of Biden’s election win.The committee demanded a broad range of executive branch papers related to intelligence gathered before the attack, security preparations during and before the siege, the pro-Trump rallies held that day and Trump’s false claims that he won the election, among other matters.Trump’s lawsuit says the “boundless requests included over 50 individual requests for documents and information, and mentioned more than 30 individuals, including those working inside and outside government”.The files must be withheld, the lawsuit says, because they could include “conversations with (or about) foreign leaders, attorney work product, the most sensitive of national security secrets, along with any and all privileged communications among a pool of potentially hundreds of people”.The suit also challenges the legality of the Presidential Records Act, arguing that allowing an incumbent president to waive executive privilege of a predecessor just months after they left office is inherently unconstitutional.Biden has said he would go through each request separately to determine whether that privilege should be waived.While not spelled out in the constitution, executive privilege has developed to protect a president’s ability to obtain candid counsel from his advisers without fear of immediate public disclosure and to protect his confidential communications relating to official responsibilities.But that privilege has had its limitations in extraordinary situations, as exemplified during the Watergate scandal, when the supreme court ruled it could not be used to shield the release of secret Oval Office tapes sought in a criminal inquiry, and after 9/11.Monday’s lawsuit was filed by Jesse Binnall, an attorney based in Alexandria, Virginia, who represented Trump in an unsuccessful lawsuit last year seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in Nevada. Trump and his allies have continued to make baseless claims about voter fraud in the 2020 election.Trump’s suit quotes from the supreme court’s 2020 ruling in a case by House committees seeking the then sitting president’s tax returns and other financial records. But that case involved courts enforcing a congressional subpoena. The high court in that case directed lower courts to apply a balancing test to determine whether to turn over the records. It is still pending.The White House spokesperson Mike Gwin said: “As President Biden determined, the constitutional protections of executive privilege should not be used to shield information that reflects a clear and apparent effort to subvert the constitution itself.”The select committee did not have immediate comment.TopicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpUS elections 2020US politicsJoe BidenTrump administrationBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More