Biden, Joseph R Jr

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      How Biden United a Fractious Democratic Party Under One Tent

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyHow Biden United a Fractious Party Under One TentPresident Biden and progressive Democrats are united by a moment of national crisis and the lingering influence of his predecessor. But the moment of harmony may be fragile.Members of President Biden’s administration have sent careful signs that they are listening to liberal Democrats.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesLisa Lerer and Feb. 9, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETFor years, Bernie Sanders and Joseph R. Biden Jr. wrestled over the Democratic Party’s future in a public tug of war that spanned three elections, two administrations and one primary contest.But when Mr. Sanders walked into his first Oval Office meeting with the new president last week and saw the large portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt opposite the Resolute Desk, the liberal luminary felt as if he were no longer battling Mr. Biden for the soul of the party.“President Biden understands that, like Roosevelt, he has entered office at a time of extraordinary crises and that he is prepared to think big and not small in order to address the many, many problems facing working families,” Mr. Sanders said in an interview. “There is an understanding that if we’re going to address the crises facing this country, we’re all in it together.”After a 15-month primary contest that highlighted deep divides within the party, Mr. Biden and his fractious Democratic coalition are largely holding together. United by a moment of national crisis and the lingering influence of his predecessor, the new president is enjoying an early honeymoon from the political vise of a progressive wing that spent months preparing to squeeze the new administration.Democrats have remained resolute about pushing through Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue plan over near-unanimous dissent from Republicans, and they are determined to hold former President Donald J. Trump accountable for his role in the Jan. 6 Capitol violence in the impeachment trial that starts Tuesday.Liberal standard-bearers like Mr. Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are holding their fire. The progressive “Squad” in the House — Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and her allies — have focused their rage on the Republicans who inspired the siege of the Capitol.And activists who have built careers out of orchestrating public pressure campaigns have been disarmed by the open line to the White House they enjoy, and by the encouragement they receive from its highest levels — a signal that the administration is tending to the Democratic base in a way that wasn’t done during the Obama or Clinton years.The moment of unity could be fragile: Sharp differences remain between Mr. Biden and his left flank over issues like health care, college costs, expanding the Supreme Court and tackling income equality. A battle looms over whether to prioritize a $15 per hour minimum wage in the administration’s first piece of legislation; the debate flared anew on Monday when a report from the Congressional Budget Office said the $15 level would significantly reduce poverty but cost hundreds of thousands of jobs.Yet in the embryonic stage of the Biden administration, Democrats appear to be largely coexisting under their big tent.Even Mr. Biden’s decision to hold his first high-profile White House meeting with Republican senators, and not Democrats, didn’t faze progressives who urged him to stand firm in the face of efforts to whittle down his $1.9 trillion stimulus package.“Biden said he would reach out to Republicans,” Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon, one of the chamber’s most progressive members, said in an interview. “He had to give it a shot.”The harmony reflects how far Mr. Biden and his party shifted to the left during the Trump administration. During the campaign, Republicans accused Mr. Biden of being a “Trojan horse” for liberal interests. But the administration hasn’t tried to smuggle in progressive proposals; it has simply rebranded them as its own.Elements of the Green New Deal, economic proposals and initiatives on racial equity and immigration are appearing in the executive orders and legislative plans the administration has issued.Even party moderates like Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia now believe that Democrats must adopt a more aggressive approach to passing their agenda than they used a dozen years ago, when they last held full control of the federal government and spent months negotiating with Republicans. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, second from left, Mr. Biden’s liberal opponent in the Democratic primary last year, has become an influential inside player in government.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesLast week, by contrast, Democrats moved toward passing their expansive coronavirus relief package through reconciliation, a fast-track budgetary process that allows the party to muscle through parts of its agenda with a simple majority vote.Within the Democratic caucus, Mr. Biden’s team has avoided other pitfalls he witnessed during the Obama administration, when White House spokesmen dismissed activists as “the professional left” and banished intraparty critics from the administration’s circles of influence. Instead, Mr. Biden’s White House has welcomed many such critics to virtual meetings, and the chief of staff, Ron Klain, has encouraged progressive criticism on his Twitter feed.The New WashingtonLive UpdatesUpdated Feb. 9, 2021, 9:53 a.m. ETBiden will spend the day focused on the stimulus package and his push to increase the minimum wage to $15.Conservative media, the apparatus that fed Trump’s power, is facing a test, too.Trump’s trial is expected to be brief but may have lasting political repercussions.Melissa Byrne, a progressive activist, discovered as much when she wanted to prod Mr. Biden to focus on forgiving student loan debt. To complement her steady stream of tweets, Ms. Byrne bought full-page ads in The News Journal, a newspaper that was delivered to Mr. Biden’s Delaware house daily during the presidential transition.Ms. Byrne expected some bristling from Mr. Biden’s team over her public protests. Instead, her efforts were encouraged. Mr. Klain told her to keep up the pressure, inviting her to more Zoom meetings with the transition team.“We just kept being able to have people at the table,” she said. “That showed me that we could do cool things like sit-ins and banner drops, but we could also be warm and fuzzy.”The singular focus on the pandemic has enabled Mr. Biden to align the central promise of his campaign — a more effective government response — with the priorities of party officials in battleground states, who say that voters expect Mr. Biden to deliver a competent vaccine distribution along with direct economic relief. Already, there is widespread agreement within the party that Democrats will be judged in the 2022 midterms and the 2024 presidential contest by their handling of the twin crises.“Needles and checks — that’s got to be the focus,” said Thomas Nelson, the executive of Wisconsin’s Outagamie County. Mr. Nelson was a Sanders delegate in 2020 and is running in the 2022 election for the seat held by Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican. “People in my county, we need those checks.”Mr. Biden has also paid attention to other policy matters. He has signed about 45 executive orders, memorandums or proclamations enacting or at least initiating major shifts on issues including racial justice, immigration, climate change and transgender rights.While his inner circle is largely composed of long-serving aides, he has placed progressives in influential administrative posts. He has also avoided selecting figures reviled by the left, like former Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago — who was Mr. Obama’s chief of staff in 2009 — for high-profile positions.“None of the people we were afraid of got into this cabinet,” said Larry Cohen, the chairman of Our Revolution, the political group that formed out of the 2016 Sanders campaign. “It’s fine and well for Rahm Emanuel to be an ambassador someplace.”Mr. Biden has signed about 45 executive orders, memorandums or proclamations enacting or at least initiating major policy shifts on a wide array of issues.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor the first time in his decades in Washington, Mr. Sanders is an influential inside player in governance. He is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and speaks frequently with administration officials including Mr. Klain. He has had a number of conversations with Mr. Biden, whom he considers a friend, and said his calls to the White House were returned “very shortly.”“He sees the progressive movement as a strong part of his coalition,” Mr. Sanders said of Mr. Biden. “He is reaching out to us and is adopting some of the ideas that we have put forth that make sense in terms of today’s crises.”There’s plenty of overlap between Mr. Biden’s agenda and his left flank and some of the praise stems from the new president’s taking steps he had already promised during his campaign, including rejoining the Paris climate accord.Republicans have complained that Mr. Biden is a moderate being led astray by liberals in Congress and the White House. But as Democratic ideology shifted during his decades in Washington, Mr. Biden always recalibrated his positions to remain at the middle of his party. After four years of the Trump administration, that center has shifted decidedly to the left.While Mr. Biden took pains to separate himself from the progressive left during the campaign — “I beat the socialist,” Mr. Biden was fond of saying after he bested Mr. Sanders — he forged a rapprochement last summer when his campaign agreed to policy task forces with members appointed by Mr. Sanders. For his part, Mr. Biden has reinterpreted his campaign promise to bring the country together into the loosest definition of the term. His aides have begun portraying it as finding broad support for their plans among voters — regardless of whether they garner the votes of any congressional Republicans.“If you pass a piece of legislation that breaks down on party lines, but it gets passed, it doesn’t mean there wasn’t unity,” Mr. Biden said recently. “It just means it wasn’t bipartisan.”Still, reconciliation is subject to strict limits, so fights over what policies should be pursued and how to overcome Republican opposition are likely to be unavoidable.Senators Elizabeth Warren and Chuck Schumer held a news conference at the Capitol last week calling for student loan forgiveness.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesBattle lines are already being drawn over whether to eliminate the filibuster, which would allow the party to pass measures with a simple majority. Mr. Biden and moderate Democrats remain committed to keeping the tactic, a decision liberals say could block a robust policy portfolio.“Everyone is trying to make the argument that their priority can move through reconciliation,” said Adam Jentleson, a former Senate aide who recently founded a new organization to help progressive groups push their agenda in Washington. “As people start to see that their thing is not going to get done that way, there will be more pressure.”Mr. Biden’s honeymoon may be short on other issues as well. Advocates working near the Mexican border would like to see Mr. Biden flex his executive power to stop all deportations, going further than his promised 100-day moratorium, which was blocked in court.“The feeling is really, ‘Why did we come up with all this work to come up with this plan only for you to come up with an executive order to say you’re still reviewing it?’” said Erika Pinheiro, the policy and litigation director at Al Otro Lado, a legal aid service for migrants and deportees.Not everyone is quite as impatient. Ms. Byrne, the activist, said Mr. Biden’s executive order extending a pause on federal student loan payments until September served as a sufficient first step.“As long as they keep doing good stuff, we will be happy,” Ms. Byrne said. “You give them a moment to operate in good faith, and you keep the cycle going.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Three false claims about the election made in Mike Lindell’s new film.

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Campaign to Subvert the 2020 ElectionTrump’s RoleKey TakeawaysExtremist Wing of G.O.P.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThree false claims about the election made in Mike Lindell’s new film.One America News ran an extensive disclaimer before the broadcast.Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, has long been a vocal supporter of former President Donald J. Trump.Credit…Al Drago for The New York TimesKellen Browning and Feb. 5, 2021, 7:22 p.m. ETThe 2020 presidential election was three months ago, but one of the biggest backers of the false theory that it was rigged against former President Donald J. Trump has not given up his hope of overturning the results.On Friday, Mike Lindell, the embattled chief executive of MyPillow who helped finance Mr. Trump’s legal efforts to challenge election results, aired a falsehood-laden film about election fraud on One America News.The network promoted the two-hour film, titled “Absolute Proof,” on Twitter Thursday, urging viewers to join Mr. Lindell “for a never-before-seen report breaking down election fraud evidence & showing how the unprecedented level of voter fraud was committed in the 2020 Presidential Election.”There has been no substantial evidence of fraud in the election, which President Biden won. Mr. Lindell’s theories have led to Twitter removing him and MyPillow from its platform and several major retailers cutting ties with the pillow manufacturer.Before showing the film on Friday, the network ran an extensive disclaimer that described Mr. Lindell as “solely and exclusively responsible for its content,” and noted that “this program is not the product of OAN’s reporting” and was “presented at this time as opinions only.”YouTube took down “Absolute Proof” on Friday, saying it violated the company’s presidential election integrity policy, which prohibits false claims that widespread fraud, errors or glitches changed the outcome of the vote.Two companies that provide election technology, Dominion and Smartmatic, have filed defamation suits in recent weeks against people and organizations that have made baseless claims about the companies.Here are three much-examined areas that come up in the film. One America and Mr. Lindell did not respond to requests for comment.1. No, Dominion files were not manipulated.The crux of many arguments that election fraud occurred, and repeated in Mr. Lindell’s film, is the unsubstantiated claim that Dominion software was somehow manipulated to delete votes for Mr. Trump, or to hide some sort of conspiracy.Many of these unsubstantiated claims stem from an instance in Antrim County, Mich., when a clerical error in reporting results led the county to initially show a landslide vote in favor of Mr. Biden. The error was soon corrected, but conspiracy theorists have latched onto the incident as evidence that voting was rigged.Files “were deleted from the Dominion system in Antrim County. We know that for a fact,” Matt DePerno, a lawyer who has fought to investigate the incident, told Mr. Lindell in the film. “Wow,” Mr. Lindell responded.There has been no evidence that votes were manipulated in the county, and a hand-counted audit of votes in December affirmed the outcome there.2. No, foreign countries did not interfere with voting machines.Mr. Lindell interviewed retired Army Col. Phil Waldron, another member of the movement that fought to overturn the election. Mr. Waldron, who said his military background involves “information warfare,” pushed the unfounded claim that the Chinese government invested money in Dominion and therefore has access to its files and data.“A lot of movements of votes, direct access to Pennsylvania voting precincts, county tabulation centers, Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, all of that coming directly from foreign countries, China being the predominant one,” Mr. Waldron said.He also claimed that overseas servers in Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom somehow played a role in manipulating results. The manipulation, Mr. Waldron said, was “part of a coup that was aided and abetted by a foreign-threat nation-state, a peer enemy nation-state: China.”Election officials and cybersecurity experts have said there is no credible evidence that China helped Mr. Biden win the election.3. No, votes for Biden were not counted multiple times.Melissa Carone, an information technology worker who said she was contracted by Dominion for the election, was brought on the show to tell Mr. Lindell that she watched thousands of ballots run through voting machines without ever seeing a single vote for Mr. Trump.Ms. Carone, whose testimony was ruled “not credible” by a Michigan judge in November, told Mr. Lindell that when ballots jammed inside the machine, people tabulating the votes were re-scanning dozens of ballots and counting them twice.“It’s like counting a deck of cards, you could sit there and run the same deck of cards through this tabulator over and over and over again,” Mr. Lindell observed.Michigan election officials have said that ballots were “not scanned multiple times inappropriately.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 100 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Automakers Drop Efforts to Derail California Climate Rules

      by

      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Climate and EnvironmentExecutive OrdersWild WeatherBlack FarmersReversing Trump’s RollbacksAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAutomakers Drop Efforts to Derail California Climate RulesMomentum is shifting toward a clean-car future as more automakers end their legal efforts to block California’s tough fuel economy standards.New cars on a dock at the Port of Los Angeles in April.Credit…Lucy Nicholson/ReutersFeb. 2, 2021, 4:52 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Toyota, Fiat Chrysler and several other major automakers said Tuesday they would no longer try to block California from setting its own strict fuel-economy standards, signaling that the auto industry is ready to work with President Biden on his largest effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.The decision by the companies was widely expected, coming after General Motors dropped its support for the Trump-era effort just weeks after the presidential election. But the shift may help the Biden administration move quickly to reinstate national fuel-efficiency standards that would control planet-warming auto pollution, this time with support from industry giants that fought such regulations for years.“After four years of putting us in reverse, it is time to restart and build a sustainable future, grow domestic manufacturing, and deliver clean cars for America,” said Gina McCarthy, the senior White House climate change adviser. “We need to move forward — and fast.”The auto giants’ announcements come on top of a 2020 commitment by five other companies — Ford, Honda, BMW, Volkswagen and Volvo — that they would abide by California’s tough standards. And last week, G.M. pledged to sell only zero-emissions vehicles by 2035, a move that would put the company in line with another recent California policy banning the sales of internal-combustion vehicles by that year.Tuesday’s move also marked a stark reversal for California’s influence on Washington policymaking. After President Donald J. Trump rolled back Obama-era auto pollution rules that had been modeled after California’s state-level rules, he then blocked the state’s authority from setting such rules. Now Mr. Biden is expected to use California as a model for swiftly reinstating national rules.“We’re going to continue to play an important role in pushing the federal government and the auto companies,” vowed Jared Blumenfeld, the California secretary of environmental protection, who added that Mr. Biden had recently spoken with Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, about using the state’s auto emissions polices as a guide to federal policies.California Gov. Gavin Newsom, left, and Jared Blumenfeld, the state’s secretary of environmental protection, in 2019.Credit…Justin Sullivan/Getty ImagesIn a statement, the auto companies, represented by the industry group Coalition for Sustainable Automotive Regulation, said the lawsuit started by the Trump administration to block California’s fuel economy rules no longer had their support: “We are aligned with the Biden Administration’s goals to achieve year-over-year improvements in fuel economy standards that provide meaningful climate and national energy security benefits.”They added, “In a gesture of good faith and to find a constructive path forward, the C.S.A.R. has decided to withdraw from this lawsuit in order to unify the auto industry behind a single national program with ambitious, achievable standards.”Mr. Trump had made the rollback of Obama-era fuel economy standards the centerpiece of his deregulatory agenda. The Obama-era standards, which were modeled on California’s, would have required auto companies to make and sell vehicles that reached an average fuel economy of about 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. The standards, which would have eliminated about six billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution over the lifetime of the vehicles, stood as the single largest federal policy ever enacted to reduce climate change.The Trump administration last year rolled back that standard to about 40 miles per gallon by 2026 — a move which would have effectively allowed most of that carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. California, however, reached a separate deal with the five automakers, in which they agreed to reach a standard of 51 miles per gallon by 2026. The Trump administration, backed by G.M. and other automakers, blocked California’s legal authority to set those standards.Now that G.M., Toyota and Fiat Chrysler have dropped out of that lawsuit, Biden administration officials have one less speed bump ahead of a new federal standard. The White House is also expected to explore ways to adopt the California policy requiring all new vehicles sold after 2035 to release no emissions.Pete Buttigieg, U.S. secretary of transportation nominee, leaving a Senate confirmation hearing last month.Credit…Pool photo by Stefani ReynoldsThe Biden administration is already moving swiftly to craft that new standard, which will be jointly released by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation. On Wednesday, the Senate confirmed the new Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg. In his confirmation hearing, Mr. Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., and a 2020 presidential contender, vowed to make tackling climate change a guiding principal of his tenure — a first for a transportation secretary.And he will be aided by a new top official who helped broker the California deal with the five automakers: Steven Cliff, formerly the deputy executive officer with the California Air Resources Board, has been appointed by Mr. Biden to lead the Transportation Department’s National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, the agency that will oversee the rewrite of the new auto fuel economy standards.“He’s probably the most knowledgeable person anywhere on the planet about how these auto companies align on this and how we push on this,” Mr. Blumenfeld said.Ms. McCarthy is expected to meet this week with the heads of several major auto companies and representatives from the United Auto Workers and other unions as she begins to sketch out the details of the new rules.Though the California deal sets a standard of 51 miles per gallon for model year 2026, the coming Biden rule will likely take a year or more to complete. So its first targets will be later, 2028 or 2029. California and environmental groups are likely to push for standards that are even more aggressive to help meet the goal of ending sales of gasoline- and diesel-powered cars by 2035.Crafting such rules could be a lengthy and complex process, but several people close to the administration say they expect that the E.P.A. and Transportation Department to publish a “notice of proposed rule making” — essentially, a document that launches the one-to-two-year legal process of drafting and implementing such rules — by March.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 125 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Why Arizona’s Senators May Collide With Democrats Who Elected Them

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWhy Arizona’s Senators May Collide With Democrats Who Elected ThemSenators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly ran on bipartisan approaches to governing, but some Democrats in Arizona view their openness to Senate Republicans with skepticism.Senator Kyrsten Sinema, Democrat of Arizona, at the 2020 State of the Union address. She and Senator Mark Kelly have assumed unusual stature amid all the talk about bipartisanship.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 2, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ETDemocrats control the U.S. Senate by a single vote. President Biden has placed bipartisanship near the top of his agenda. Republican senators are pushing for deals, including on Covid-19 during a meeting on Monday with the president. On the economy, on immigration, on health care — the Biden administration will need votes from every senator it can get.Which is where Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly come in.Arizona’s two Democratic senators, both moderates, have assumed unusual stature amid all the talk about bipartisanship. Ms. Sinema made waves and frustrated progressives last month when she aligned with Republicans to maintain the filibuster, which empowers the minority party. Mr. Kelly was part of a bipartisan group of 16 senators who recently met with White House officials to discuss Covid relief. The pair represent a state that Mr. Biden narrowly flipped in November; pleasing Arizona is a new Democratic priority.But if Ms. Sinema and Mr. Kelly are emerging as players in Washington, the politics back home are more complicated. Arizona Democratic Party officials and activists threw themselves into the two senators’ races, despite the fact that many of these Democrats are more progressive than either Ms. Sinema or Mr. Kelly. Now they are eager for their senators not just to embrace the middle, but also to adopt the policies the left is pressing for as well. Many view the senators’ openness to Republicans with skepticism.Mr. Kelly and his wife, former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, after his swearing-in ceremony in December.Credit…Al Drago for The New York Times“So many things went into Kelly and Sinema’s victory that no one effort can take credit, but also everything was necessary, so nothing can be sacrificed,” said Ian Danley, the executive director of Arizona Wins, who helped coordinate voter outreach among dozens of liberal organizations last year. “They’re both in a tough spot. Those different strategies from a policy perspective can be in conflict.”Ms. Sinema, who was elected in 2018, and Mr. Kelly, who won last year, both ran for office on bipartisan approaches to government. And given the narrow Democratic control in the Senate, both senators are likely to prove essential to the Biden agenda as well as any major legislative deal-making on issues central to the state, including immigration, health care and Covid relief.Their importance was on clear display last week when Vice President Kamala Harris included the Phoenix ABC affiliate and The Arizona Republic’s editorial board in a round of interviews as she promoted the administration’s Covid relief package. Though Ms. Harris did not mention Ms. Sinema or Mr. Kelly by name, she left no doubt that their loyalty was paramount.“If we don’t pass this bill, I’m going to be very candid with you: We know more people are going to die in our country,” Ms. Harris said in the interview with The Republic. “More people will lose their jobs and our children are going to miss more school. We’ve got to be here collectively to say that that is not an option in America.”That same day, Ms. Harris offered similar comments to a television station and newspaper in West Virginia. Later, Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat who has represented the state since 2010 and relishes his reputation as an independent, voiced his own frustration, saying her interview was “not a way of working together.”Ms. Sinema and Mr. Kelly made no such comments, and some progressives viewed their silence as worrisome.“We need to be able to depend on these senators that we worked so hard to elect,” said Tomás Robles, an executive director of LUCHA, a civil rights group that knocked on tens of thousands of doors in Arizona for Democrats last year. “If they’re going to act like a moderate Republican, we will remember by the time elections come. We expect them to recognize that Latinos voted overwhelmingly for those two, and we expect them to repay our loyalty.”Nayeli Jaramillo-Montes, a canvasser with the Arizona advocacy group LUCHA, which knocked on tens of thousands of doors for Democrats last year.Credit…Gabriella Angotti-Jones for The New York TimesFor many immigration activists, a sense of pessimism has already begun to sink in. They fear that Democrats will try to strike a deal with Republicans who are unlikely to approve the sweeping changes Mr. Biden has proposed — similar to the strategy that failed during the Obama administration.Erika Andiola, a Phoenix-based immigration activist, became the first known undocumented congressional aide when she worked for Ms. Sinema in 2013, drawn to what she saw as Ms. Sinema’s intense interest and commitment in the issue. Now, Ms. Andiola said she viewed her former boss as moving to a more conservative stance on immigration — more often emphasizing border security than creating a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States.“There is a window of time now and there is a way for Democrats to get something done on immigration — and they can do it on their own,” Ms. Andiola said. “In the moment of crisis, you have to choose your battles, you have to choose what you can win. Pick the right strategy. Compromising with Republicans is not going to get us anywhere.”Both Ms. Sinema and Mr. Kelly declined to be interviewed for this article, but statements from their offices emphasized bipartisanship and border security, as well as support for Dreamers, who were brought to the United States as children of unauthorized immigrants and have been threatened with deportation at times. Mr. Kelly is already part of the group of 16 senators tasked with finding bipartisan agreement on the relief package. Ms. Sinema has been one of the most outspoken critics of Arizona’s response to the pandemic, and some Arizona Democrats believe she will be supportive of the Biden administration’s package.Raquel Terán, the newly elected chair of the Arizona Democratic Party and a state representative, acknowledged that the two senators “didn’t campaign on the progressive end of spectrum.” But she said that while there might be some disagreements, she expected both to side with Mr. Biden on the relief package, health care and immigration.Raquel Terán, the new chair of the Arizona Democratic Party, said she expected the state’s senators to back President Biden’s agenda.Credit…Bob Christie/Associated Press“They will vote for the Democratic agenda, the agenda that Joe Biden has put forward — they supported him in the election and what they put on the table, so I am hopeful,” Ms. Terán said. “I hope that they will do everything to ensure that his agenda is not blocked.”Arizona has a long history with high-profile, independent-minded senators willing to buck party lines, and others who amassed political power — John McCain and Jon Kyl were long seen as two of the most influential senators during their time in office, and Jeff Flake became one of the first Republicans in the Senate to openly criticize former President Donald J. Trump.“There is no state in America that is going to play a more pivotal role in the direction of congressional legislation in the next two years,” said Glenn Hamer, the president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce. “Every major piece of legislation is going to go right through Arizona, and the role many of us want our senators to play is as someone who reaches across the aisle.”Many Democrats point out that the political atmosphere of the state has changed drastically since 2018, with voters flipping both Senate seats and a Democrat presidential candidate winning in Arizona in November for only the second time in five decades. And since the riot in Washington last month, more than 5,000 Republicans have dropped their party affiliation.Still, Mr. Hamer warned that both senators were in a precarious political position, particularly Mr. Kelly, who won a special election and is up for re-election in 2022. (The Chamber of Commerce endorsed his opponent in the election last year, and did not make an endorsement in Ms. Sinema’s race.)Approving major changes like a $15-an-hour minimum wage or an immigration package that does not include more enforcement, Mr. Hamer said, would turn off the moderate voters who also helped propel the pair to Washington.“I don’t believe you can have unity in America without bipartisan legislation, and I really believe both of them have a role to play in that,” he said. “That would be far better and more durable than trying to blow up the filibuster.”Mr. Danley, a longtime liberal activist, similarly warned that the two senators could not take new voters in the state for granted.“If we’re going to turn out voters who support you, we need ammunition, we need to have something that is real and legitimate,” Mr. Danley said. “We can’t keep going out saying they are better than the bad guys — that is too low of a bar. What about actually being good for these folks who showed up and who have expectations?”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      A Letter to My Liberal Friends

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storyA Letter to My Liberal FriendsIf you want to know what worries conservatives, look at California.Opinion ColumnistFeb. 1, 2021, 8:08 p.m. ETCredit…Jeff Chiu/Associated PressLast Wednesday, Nick Kristof addressed his column to his conservative hometown friends in Yamhill, Ore., urging them to hold liberals accountable while doing the same for right-wing extremists, kooks and charlatans. In that spirit — and with Nick’s cheerful acquiescence — I offer a rejoinder in the form of a letter to my liberal friends.Dear Friends,No, I can’t relax! And no, I’m not worried that the Biden administration is going to send Trump voters to “re-education camps,” impose Cuban-style socialism or put out the welcome mat for MS-13. I’m just afraid that today’s Democratic leaders might look to the very Democratic state of California as a model for America’s future.You remember California: People used to want to move there, start businesses, raise families, live their American dream.These days, not so much. Between July 2019 and July 2020, more people — 135,400 to be precise — left the state than moved in, one of only a dozen times in over a century when that’s happened. The website exitcalifornia.org helps keep track of where these Golden State exiles go. No. 1 destination: Texas, followed by Arizona, Nevada and Washington. Three of those states have no state income tax, while Arizona’s is capped at 4.5 percent for married couples making over $318,000.In California, by contrast, married couples pay more than twice that rate on income above $116,000. (And rates go even higher for higher earners.) Californians also pay some of the nation’s highest sales tax rates (8.66 percent) and corporate tax rates (8.84 percent), as well as the highest taxes on gasoline (63 cents on a gallon as of January, as compared with 20 cents in Texas).Some of my liberal friends tell me that tax rates basically don’t matter in terms of the way people work and economies perform. Uh-huh. Still, I’d have an easier time accepting the argument if all those taxes went toward high-quality government services: good schools, safe streets, solid infrastructure or fiscal health.How does California fare on these fronts? The state ranks 21st in the country in terms of spending per public school pupil, but 37th in its K-12 educational outcomes. It ties Oregon for third place among states in terms of its per capita homeless rate. Infrastructure? As of 2019, the state had an estimated $70 billion in deferred maintenance backlog. Debt? The state’s unfunded pension liabilities in 2019 ran north of $1.1 trillion, according to an analysis by Stanford professor Joe Nation, or $81,300 per household.And then there’s liberal governance in the cities. In San Francisco, District Attorney Chesa Boudin has championed the calls for decriminalizing prostitution, public urination, public camping, blocking sidewalks and open-air drug use. Click this link and take a brief stroll through a local train station to see how these sorts of policies work out.Predictably, a result of decriminalization has been more actual criminality. Recent trends include an estimated 51 percent jump in San Francisco burglaries and a 41 percent jump in arsons. For the Bay Area as a whole, there has been a 35 percent spike in homicides.Yes, homicides have been rising in cities around the country. But those trends themselves owe much to liberal governance in like-minded jurisdictions like Seattle and New York, with their recent emphasis on depolicing, decarceration, defunding, decriminalization and other deluded attempts at criminal-justice reform.Funny, you don’t hear this about the places Californians are fleeing to. Austin, the preferred destination of San Francisco exiles, remains one of the safest big cities in America (and it’s run by a Democrat). Another thing you don’t hear from Texas: a board of education voting — as San Francisco’s just did — to strip the names of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Paul Revere from their respective schools, on grounds of sinning against the more recent commandments of progressive dogma. Not that it really matters, since all these schools remain closed for in-person learning thanks to the resistance of teachers unions.And then there is California’s political class. Democrats hold both U.S. Senate seats, 42 of its 53 seats in the House, have lopsided majorities in the State Assembly and Senate, run nearly every big city and have controlled the governor’s mansion for a decade. If ever there was a perfect laboratory for liberal governance, this is it. So how do you explain these results?For four years, liberals have had a hard time understanding how any American could even think of voting for Republicans, given the party’s fealty to the former president. I’ve shared some of that bewilderment myself. But — to adapt a line from another notorious Californian — Democrats won’t have Donald Trump to kick around anymore, meaning the consequences of liberal misrule will be harder to disguise or disavow. If California is a vision of the sort of future the Biden administration wants for Americans, expect Americans to demur.My unsolicited advice: Like Republicans, Democrats do best when they govern from the center. Forget California, think Colorado. A purple country needs a purple president — and a political opposition with the credibility to keep him honest.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

    • 100 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Watchdogs Appointed by Trump Pose Dilemma for Biden

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyWatchdogs Appointed by Trump Pose Dilemma for BidenRemoving inspectors general installed by the former president under a political cloud could have the consequence of further eroding good-government norms.Only one Democrat in the Senate voted to confirm Brian D. Miller, who had been a White House lawyer for President Donald J. Trump, as an inspector general hunting for abuses in pandemic spending.Credit…Pool photo by Salwan GeorgesFeb. 1, 2021Updated 8:08 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — Even as the Biden administration has moved aggressively to undo Donald J. Trump’s policies and dislodge his loyalists from positions on boards and civil-service jobs, it has hesitated on a related choice: whether to remove two inspectors general appointed by Mr. Trump under a storm of partisan controversy.At issue is whether the new administration will keep Eric Soskin, who was confirmed as the Transportation Department’s inspector general in December, and Brian D. Miller, a former Trump White House lawyer who was named earlier in 2020 to hunt for abuses in pandemic spending.Both were confirmed over intense Democratic opposition after Mr. Trump fired or demoted a number of inspectors general last year, saying he had been treated “very unfairly” by them.By ousting or sidelining inspectors general who were seen as investigating his administration aggressively, Mr. Trump set off a partisan backlash that undercut a tradition under which nearly all inspectors general since Congress created the independent anti-corruption watchdog positions in 1978 were confirmed unanimously or by voice vote without recorded opposition.The Biden team wants to repair what it sees as damage to the government wrought by Mr. Trump through his many violations of norms. It also wants to restore and reinforce those norms, according to people briefed on its internal deliberations about inspectors general dating back to the campaign and transition.But in the case of inspectors general like Mr. Soskin, those two goals are seen as conflicting, those people said. To remove him would itself be another violation of the norm of respecting such officials’ independence and not firing them without a specific cause, like misconduct.“It’s very possible — and it would be a real mistake — for the Biden people to remove those I.G.’s because they were appointed by Trump,” said Danielle Brian, the executive director of the Project on Government Oversight, a government watchdog group. “That would be essentially exacerbating the problems he created in the first place.”Ms. Brian in December was one of the few outside observers to call attention to a little-noticed push by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, then the majority leader, to get Mr. Soskin confirmed as the Transportation Department inspector general. The 48-to-47 vote to confirm Mr. Soskin made him the first such official to take office on a purely party-line clash.The office Mr. Soskin now controls has been investigating whether Mr. Trump’s Transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, improperly steered grants to Kentucky as her husband, Mr. McConnell, was seeking re-election there. During the lame-duck session, Mr. McConnell used his power to prioritize getting Mr. Soskin confirmed over four other inspector general nominees who had been waiting for floor votes longer, raising the question of why he was trying to ensure that a Republican appointee would control that post even after Mr. Biden took office.“Hmm why would Majority Leader McConnell be pushing this nomination for Dept of Transportation IG today?” Ms. Brian wrote on Twitter on Dec. 18, a day after he filed a so-called cloture motion to end debate and hold an up-or-down vote on Mr. Soskin. “Perhaps it has something to do with the allegation of wrongdoing that office is reportedly handling against his wife, the Sec of Transportation?”Elaine Chao, then the transportation secretary, and her husband, Senator Mitch McConnell, in the Capitol last month.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesMr. McConnell had on the same day also filed a cloture motion for a second inspector nominee, but not enough Republicans were in town when the clotures votes were held on Dec. 19 to constitute a majority, and both votes to end debate failed. He then successfully tried again for Mr. Soskin on Dec. 21 and got him confirmed, while abandoning the other nominee without explanation.Earlier in the year, only one Democrat voted to confirm Mr. Miller, who had worked in the Trump White House, with others rejecting him on the grounds that he was seen as too close to the Trump administration to aggressively hunt for waste or fraud in pandemic spending during an election year.Amid competing priorities, the Biden team appears not to have reached any decision about what, if anything, to do about Mr. Soskin and Mr. Miller. In a statement, a White House spokesman, Michael Gwin, extolled the general virtue of keeping politics away from such positions.“President Biden believes strongly in the role of inspectors general in keeping government honest and protecting taxpayer dollars, and he’s committed to protecting their independent role in his administration,” Mr. Gwin said in a statement. “Any politicization of the inspector general community is highly inappropriate and has no place in government.”Scrutiny of Mr. Miller has stemmed partially from the fact that he produced scant public sign of activity in his first eight months on the job.But his office delivered a report to Congress on Monday describing some investigative work, including developing 69 leads about suspected fraud that were referred to law-enforcement partners and opening five new preliminary investigations. A person familiar with his office said he had hired 34 staff members by the end of January.“I try to be bipartisan and nonpartisan — certainly as an inspector general and in everything that I do,” Mr. Miller said in an interview.During Mr. Soskin’s confirmation hearing last summer, he also pledged to do his job impartially. Through a spokesman, he declined to comment about the status of the Chao-McConnell investigation.A spokesman for Mr. McConnell, while not directly responding to a question about whether he prioritized Mr. Soskin because of that inquiry, pointed to a 2019 statement in which Mr. McConnell had made no apology for using his position “to advance Kentucky’s priorities” after Politico reported on arrangements under Ms. Chao favoring grants to Kentucky.At a time when the Senate is narrowly divided and the Biden team is trying to get major legislation passed, ousting Mr. Soskin would most likely anger other Republicans as well — particularly Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, a champion of inspectors general.Mr. Grassley scolded Mr. Trump last year over his failure to articulate a concrete reason for his removal of one such official, Michael Atkinson, who had sought to bring to Congress’s attention the whistle-blower complaint that led to Mr. Trump’s first impeachment. He also chastised President Barack Obama in 2009 for initially giving little explanation for removing the AmeriCorps inspector general.“It’s hard to imagine how President Biden could have a good reason to fire an I.G. who’s only been on the job less than a month,” Mr. Grassley said in a statement. “If he chooses to fire any I.G., he’d better have a darn good reason to do it, and he’d better notify Congress well in advance, as the law requires. If he doesn’t, he’ll get the same earful from me that Presidents Obama and Trump got.”Mr. Trump nominated Mr. Soskin in May, around the time he was moving against numerous independent inspectors general. The purge included firing some Senate-confirmed officials on the vague basis that he purportedly lacked confidence in them. He also appointed outsiders to serve as new acting heads of offices whose top positions were vacant — layering over the career deputy inspectors general who had been temporarily in control.Mr. Biden sharply criticized the purge at the time during a Yahoo News town hall and pledged to act differently.Some of the targeted officials had attracted Mr. Trump’s personal ire, such as Mr. Atkinson. Others were leading investigations that threatened Trump allies and other Republicans; he removed Steve A. Linick as the State Department’s watchdog, for example, at the request of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was facing several potentially damaging investigations. (A subordinate to Mr. Pompeo later did accuse Mr. Linick of specific misconduct, but an inspector general council investigated and found that the evidence refuted his accusations.)Filling the Transportation Department inspector general post last year had political sensitivities for both Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell, then the two most powerful Republicans in Washington. In 2019, Politico reported that the department’s longtime inspector general, Calvin L. Scovel III, was overseeing an investigation into whether the department under Ms. Chao was improperly favoring grants to Kentucky as her husband sought re-election there.In January 2020, Mr. Scovel retired for health reasons, and his deputy, Mitch Behm, took over as acting head. But in May, Mr. Trump installed a different acting head: Howard Elliott, a political appointee known as Skip who, in an unorthodox arrangement, remained subordinate to Ms. Chao. Mr. Trump also nominated Mr. Soskin, then a Justice Department lawyer, for the role.Under Mr. Elliott’s tenure, the election came and went, and the office issued no report about grants to Kentucky. Mr. McConnell won re-election, but Mr. Trump lost, meaning political appointees like Mr. Elliott were set to leave by the inauguration. Had Mr. McConnell not pushed Mr. Soskin through, the office would have reverted to Mr. Behm’s control until Mr. Biden nominated and the Senate confirmed a new inspector general.Still, Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who co-wrote a book proposing post-Trump reforms to government, said that no matter how well Mr. Biden might couch a justification to remove such an inspector general, it would further damage the notion that presidents ought not remove them without cause.“If Biden refrains from firing Senate-confirmed but disfavored inspectors general, that will buck up the norm of independence,” Mr. Goldsmith said. “The ostensible norm is not an actual norm if it doesn’t constrain the president in painful ways.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More