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      Fact-Checking Trump Defenders’ Claims After Indictment in Election Case

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      Former President Donald Trump’s supporters have made inaccurate claims about the judge presiding over his case and misleadingly compared his conduct to that of other politicians.Allies of former President Donald J. Trump have rushed to his defense since he was charged on Tuesday in connection with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.They inaccurately attacked the judge assigned to oversee the trial, baselessly speculated that the timing of the accusations was intended to obscure misconduct by the Bidens and misleadingly compared his conduct to that of Democratic politicians.Here’s a fact check.What Was Said“Judge Chutkan was appointed to the D.C. District Court by Barack Obama, and she has a reputation for being far left, even by D.C. District Court standards. Judge Chutkan, for example, has set aside numerous federal death-penalty cases, and she is the only federal judge in Washington, D.C., who has sentenced Jan. 6 defendants to sentences longer than the government requested.”— Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, in a podcast on WednesdayThis is exaggerated. Mr. Cruz is correct that Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, the trial judge overseeing Mr. Trump’s prosecution in the case, was appointed by President Barack Obama. While she has gained a reputation for handing down tough sentences to people convicted of crimes in the Jan. 6 riot, she is not the only federal judge who has exceeded prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations.Of the more than 1,000 people who have been charged for their activities on Jan. 6, 2021, about 561 people have received a sentence, including 335 in jail and another 119 in home detention, as of July 6, according to the Justice Department. Judges have largely issued sentences shorter than what prosecutors sought and what federal sentencing guidelines recommend, data compiled by NPR and The Washington Post shows.Senator Ted Cruz described Judge Tanya S. Chutkan’s appointment as “highly problematic,” but in the Federal District Court in Washington, cases are randomly assigned.Haiyun Jiang/The New York TimesJudge Chutkan ordered longer penalties in at least four cases, according to NPR, and appears to have done so more frequently than her peers. But other judges in Federal District Court in Washington have also imposed harsher sentences.Those include Judge Royce C. Lamberth, appointed by President Ronald Reagan, who sentenced a man to 60 days in prison while the government had asked for 14 days. He sentenced another to 51 months, rather than 46 months, and another to 60 days, rather than 30.Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, sentenced another defendant to 30 days, twice as long as the government recommendation. Judge Reggie B. Walton, nominated by President George W. Bush, sentenced a defendant to 50 days compared with the recommended 30 days. And Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, appointed by President Bill Clinton, sentenced a man to 60 days rather than 45 days.Moreover, Mr. Cruz described Judge Chutkan’s appointment as “highly problematic” given her political leanings. But it is worth noting that in the Federal District Court in Washington, cases are randomly assigned — similar to how Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee, was randomly assigned to preside over the case involving Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents after he left office.What Was Said“All of these indictments have been called into question because they come right after massive evidence is released about the Biden family. On June 7, the F.B.I. released documents alleging that the Bidens took in $10 million in bribes from Burisma. The very next day, Jack Smith indicted Trump over the classified documents kept at Mar-a-Lago. And then you go to July 26. That’s when Hunter Biden’s plea deal fell apart after the D.O.J. tried giving him blanket immunity from any future prosecutions. The very next day, Jack Smith added more charges to the Mar-a-Lago case. And now, just one day after Devon Archer gave explosive testimony about Joe Biden’s involvement in Hunter Biden’s business deals, Smith indicts Trump for Jan. 6.”— Maria Bartiromo, anchor on Fox Business Network, on WednesdayThis lacks evidence. Mr. Trump and many of his supporters have suggested that the timing of developments in investigations into his conduct runs suspiciously parallel to investigations into the conduct of Hunter Biden and is meant as a distraction.But there is no proof that Mr. Smith, the special counsel overseeing the cases, has deliberately synced his inquiries into Mr. Trump with investigations into the Bidens, one of which is handled by federal prosecutors and others by House Republicans.Attorney General Merrick B. Garland appointed Mr. Smith as special counsel in November to investigate Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol as well as the former president’s retention of classified documents. After Republicans won the House that same month, lawmakers in the party said they would begin to investigate the Bidens. (The Justice Department separately began an inquiry into Hunter Biden’s taxes and business dealings in 2018.)Over the next few months, the inquiries barreled along, with some developments inevitably occurring almost in tandem. In some cases, Mr. Smith has little control over the developments or when they are publicly revealed.The first overlap Ms. Bartiromo cited centered on an F.B.I. document from June 2020 that contained an unsubstantiated allegation of bribery against President Biden and his son, and on charges filed against Mr. Trump over his handling of classified documents.Jack Smith was appointed in November 2022 to investigate Mr. Trump’s role in the Jan. 6 riot.Doug Mills/The New York TimesRepresentative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the House oversight committee, issued a subpoena in May for the document. The F.B.I. allowed Mr. Comer and the committee’s top Democrat access to a redacted version on June 5. That same day, Mr. Comer said he would initiate contempt-of-Congress hearings against the F.B.I. director on June 8, as the agency was still resisting giving all members access to the document.Two days later, on June 7, Mr. Comer announced that the F.B.I. had relented and that he would cancel the contempt proceedings. Members of the committee viewed the document on the morning of June 8, and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, held a news conference that afternoon describing the document.That night, Mr. Trump himself, not the Justice Department, announced that he had been charged over his mishandling of classified documents, overtaking any headlines about the Bidens. The department declined to comment, and the indictment was unsealed a day later, on June 9.In the second overlap, on July 26, a federal judge put on hold a proposed plea deal between Hunter Biden and the Justice Department over tax and gun charges. Ms. Bartiromo is correct that a grand jury issued new charges against Mr. Trump in the documents case on July 27.The timing of the latest developments in Ms. Bartiromo’s third example, too, was not entirely in Mr. Smith’s hands.Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer was first subpoenaed on June 12 to testify before the committee on June 16. Mr. Comer told The Washington Examiner that Mr. Archer rescheduled his appearance three times before his lawyer confirmed on July 30 that he would appear the next day. Mr. Archer then spoke to the House oversight committee in nearly five hours of closed-door testimony on July 31. Republicans and Democrats on the committee gave conflicting accounts of what Mr. Archer said.Mr. Trump announced on July 18 that federal prosecutors had informed him he was a target of their investigation into his efforts to stay in office, suggesting that he would soon be indicted. Mr. Trump’s lawyers met with officials in the office of Mr. Smith on July 27. A magistrate judge ordered the indictment unsealed at 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 1.What Was Said“All of the people who claim that the 2016 election wasn’t legitimate, all of the people who claimed in 2004, with a formal objection in the Congress, that that election wasn’t legitimate, and in fact, objected to the point where they said that the voting machines in Ohio were tampered with and that President Bush was selected, not elected — and not to mention former presidents of the United States and secretary of states, Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter and a whole slew of House Democrats who repeatedly led the nation to believe — lied to the nation, that they said Russia selected Donald Trump as president, that the election was completely illegitimate — all of that was allowed to pass, but yet, once again, we see a criminalization when it comes to Donald Trump.”— Representative Michael Waltz, Republican of Florida, on CNN on WednesdayThis is misleading. Mr. Trump’s supporters have long argued that Democrats, too, have objected to election results and pushed allegations of voting malfeasance. None of the objections cited, though, have been paired with concerted efforts to overturn election results, as was the case for Mr. Trump.Democratic lawmakers objected to counting a state’s electors after the elections of recent Republican presidents in 2001, 2005 and 2017. In 2001 and 2017, objecting House members were unable to find a senator to sign on to their objections, as is required, and were overruled by the vice president. In 2005, two Democrats objected to counting Ohio’s electoral votes. The two chambers then convened debate and rejected the objections.In each case, the losing candidate had already conceded, did not try to overturn election results and did not try to persuade the vice president to halt proceedings as Mr. Trump is accused of doing in 2020.Mrs. Clinton has said repeatedly that Russian interference was partly to blame for her defeat in the 2016 presidential election. But she is not accused of trying to overthrow the results of the election. Prosecutors have not detailed any involvement on her part in a multifaceted effort to stay in power, including by organizing slates of false electors or pressuring officials to overturn voting results.What Was Said“Indicting political opponent candidates during a presidential election is what happens in banana republics and Third World countries.”— Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland, in a Twitter post on TuesdayThis is exaggerated. Mr. Trump is the first former U.S. president to be indicted on criminal charges, but he is not the only presidential candidate to face charges in the United States and certainly not in the world.Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, was indicted in August 2014 and accused of abusing his power. Mr. Perry, who ran for president in 2012, had hinted that he would run again and set up a political action committee the same month he was indicted. He officially announced his presidential bid in 2015 but dropped out before a court dismissed the charges against him in 2016.Eugene V. Debs, the socialist leader, ran for president behind bars in 1920 after he was indicted on a charge of sedition for opposing American involvement in World War I. He was sentenced in 1918 to 10 years in prison.It is also not unheard-of for political leaders in advanced economies and democracies to face charges while campaigning for office. In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 on charges of fraud and bribery. After losing power, he returned to his post in November 2022 while still facing charges. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi faced numerous charges and scandals over tax fraud and prostitution while he served as prime minister in the 2000s.And in Taiwan, prosecutors said in 2006 that they had enough evidence to bring corruption charges against the president at the time, Chen Shui-bian. Mr. Chen remained his party’s chairman through parliamentary elections in 2008 as the investigation loomed over him, and he was arrested and charged that November. More

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      Can Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden Fix Washington?

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      Among the various reassessments of Kevin McCarthy following his successful debt ceiling negotiations, the one with the widest implications belongs to Matthew Continetti, who writes in The Washington Free Beacon that “McCarthy’s superpower is his desire to be speaker. He likes and wants his job.”If you hadn’t followed American politics across the last few decades, this would seem like a peculiar statement: What kind of House speaker wouldn’t want the job?But part of what’s gone wrong with American institutions lately is the failure of important figures to regard their positions as ends unto themselves. Congress, especially, has been overtaken by what Yuval Levin of the American Enterprise Institute describes as a “platform” mentality, where ambitious House members and senators treat their offices as places to stand and be seen — as talking heads, movement leaders, future presidents — rather than as roles to inhabit and opportunities to serve.On the Republican side, this tendency has taken several forms, from Newt Gingrich’s yearning to be a Great Man of History, to Ted Cruz’s ambitious grandstanding in the Obama years, to the emergence of Trump-era performance artists like Marjorie Taylor Greene. And the party’s congressional institutionalists, from dealmakers like John Boehner to policy mavens like Paul Ryan, have often been miserable-seeming prisoners of the talking heads, celebrity brands and would-be presidents.This dynamic seemed likely to imprison McCarthy as well, but he’s found a different way of dealing with it: He’s invited some of the bomb throwers into the legislative process, trying to turn them from platform-seekers into legislators by giving them a stake in governance, and so far he’s been rewarded with crucial support from figures like Greene and Thomas Massie, the quirky Kentucky libertarian. And it’s clear that part of what makes this possible is McCarthy’s enthusiasm for the actual vote-counting, handholding work required of his position, and his lack of both Gingrichian egomania and get-me-out-of-here impatience.But McCarthy isn’t operating in a vacuum. The Biden era has been good for institutionalism generally, because the president himself seems to understand and appreciate the nature of his office more than Barack Obama ever did. As my colleague Carlos Lozada noted on our podcast this week, in both the Senate and the White House, Obama was filled with palpable impatience at all the limitations on his actions. This showed up constantly in his negotiation strategy, where he had a tendency to use his own office as a pundit’s platform, lecturing the G.O.P. on what they should support and thereby alienating Republicans from compromise in advance.Whereas Biden, who actually liked being a senator, is clearly comfortable with quiet negotiation on any reasonable grounds, which is crucial to keeping the other side invested in a deal. And he’s comfortable, as well, with letting the spin machine run on both sides of the aisle, rather than constantly imposing his own rhetorical narrative on whatever bargain Republicans might strike.The other crucial element in the healthier environment is the absence of what Cruz brought to the debt-ceiling negotiations under Obama — the kind of sweeping maximalism, designed to build a presidential brand, that turns normal horse-trading into an existential fight.Expectating that kind of maximalism from Republicans, some liberals kept urging intransigence on Biden long after it became clear that what McCarthy wanted was more in line with previous debt-ceiling bargains. But McCarthy’s reasonability was sustainable because of the absence of a leading Republican senator playing Cruz’s absolutist part. Instead, the most notable populist Republican elected in 2022, J.D. Vance, has been busy looking for deals with populist Democrats on issues like railroad safety and bank-executive compensation, or adding a constructive amendment to the debt-ceiling bill even though he voted against it — as though he, no less than McCarthy, actually likes and wants his current job.One reason for the diminishment of Cruz-like grandstanders is the continued presence of Donald Trump as the G.O.P.’s personality-in-chief, to whose eminence no senator can reasonably aspire. At least through 2024, it’s clear the only way that Trump might be unseated is through the counterprogramming offered by Ron DeSantis, who is selling himself — we’ll see with what success — as the candidate of governance and competence; no bigger celebrity or demagogue is walking through that door.So for now there’s more benefit to legislative normalcy for ambitious Republicans, and less temptation toward the platform mentality, than there would be if Trump’s part were open for the taking.Whatever happens, it will be years until that role comes open. In which case Kevin McCarthy could be happy in his job for much longer than might have been expected by anyone watching his tortuous ascent.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. More

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      It’s Beginning to Feel a Lot Like 2016 Again

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      Around the time that Donald Trump announced his presidential campaign, there was a lot of chatter about how anti-Trump Republicans were poised to repeat the failures of 2016, by declining to take on Trump directly and letting him walk unscathed to the nomination.This take seemed wrong in two ways. First, unlike in 2016, anti-Trump Republicans had a singular, popular alternative in Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, whose polling was competitive with Trump’s and way ahead of any other rival. Second, unlike in 2016, most Republican primary voters have now supported Trump in two national elections, making them poor targets for sweeping broadsides against his unfitness for the presidency.Combine those two realities, and the anti-Trump path seemed clear enough: Unite behind DeSantis early, run on Trump fatigue, and hope for the slow fade rather than the dramatic knockout.But I will admit, watching DeSantis sag in the primary polls — and watching the Republican and media reaction to that sag — has triggered flashbacks to the 2016 race. Seven years later, it’s clear that many of the underlying dynamics that made Trump the nominee are still in play.Let’s count off a few of them. First, there’s the limits of ideological box-checking in a campaign against Trump. This is my colleague Nate Cohn’s main point in his assessment of DeSantis’s recent struggles, and it’s a good one: DeSantis has spent the year to date accumulating legislative victories that match up with official right-wing orthodoxy, but we already saw in Ted Cruz’s 2016 campaign the limits of ideological correctness. There are Republican primary voters who cast ballots with a matrix of conservative positions in their heads, but not enough to overcome the appeal of the Trump persona, and a campaign against him won’t prosper if its main selling point is just True Conservatism 2.0.Second, there’s the mismatch between cultural conservatism and the anti-Trump donor class. Part of DeSantis’s advantage now, compared with Cruz’s situation in 2016, is that he has seemed more congenial to the party’s bigger-money donors. But many of those donors don’t really like the culture war; they’ll go along with a generic anti-wokeness, but they hate the Disney battles and they’re usually pro-choice. So socially conservative moves that DeSantis can’t refuse, like signing Florida’s six-week abortion ban, yield instant stories about how his potential donors are thinking about closing up their checkbooks, with a palpable undercurrent of: “Why can’t we have Nikki Haley or even Glenn Youngkin instead?”This leads to the third dynamic that could repeat itself: The G.O.P coordination problem, a.k.a. the South Carolina pileup. Remember how smoothly all of Joe Biden’s rivals suddenly exited the presidential race when it was time to stop Bernie Sanders? Remember how nothing remotely like that happened among Republicans in 2016? Well, if you have an anti-Trump donor base dissatisfied with DeSantis and willing to sustain long-shot rivals, and if two of those rivals, Haley and Senator Tim Scott, hail from the early primary state of South Carolina, it’s easy enough to see how they talk themselves into hanging around long enough to hand Trump exactly the sort of narrow wins that eventually gave him unstoppable momentum in 2016.But then again, a certain cast of mind has declared Trump to have unstoppable momentum already. This reflects another tendency that helped elect him the first time, the weird fatalism of professional Republicans. In 2016 many of them passed from “he can’t win” to “he can’t be stopped” with barely a way station in between. A rough month for DeSantis has already surfaced the same spirit — as in a piece by Politico’s Jonathan Martin, which quoted one strategist saying resignedly, “We’re just going to have to go into the basement, ride out the tornado and come back up when it’s over to rebuild the neighborhood.”Influencing this perspective, again as in 2016, is the assumption that Trump can’t win the general election, so if the G.O.P. just lets him lose it will finally be rid of him. Of course that assumption was completely wrong before, it could be wrong again; and even if it’s not, how do you know he won’t be back in 2028?Then, the final returning dynamic: The media still wants Trump. This is not offered as an excuse for G.O.P. primary voters choosing him; if the former president is renominated in spite of all his sins, it’s ultimately on them and them alone.But I still feel a certain vibe, in the eager coverage of DeSantis’s sag, suggesting that at some half-conscious level the mainstream press really wants the Trump return. They want to enjoy the Trump Show’s ratings, they want the G.O.P. defined by Trumpism while they define themselves as democracy’s defenders.And so Trump’s rivals will have to struggle, not only against the wattage of the man himself, but also against an impulse already apparent — to call the race for Trump before a single vote is cast.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. More

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      Rep. Colin Allred of Texas Will Challenge Ted Cruz for Senate

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      Mr. Allred, a Democrat and former N.F.L. linebacker, said he would try to unseat Mr. Cruz, who held off Beto O’Rourke in 2018.HOUSTON — Representative Colin Allred, a Dallas-area Democrat who defeated an incumbent Republican to gain his seat in 2018, announced on Wednesday that he would challenge Senator Ted Cruz of Texas next year.In a three-minute video, Mr. Allred, 40, a former civil rights lawyer who played as a linebacker in the N.F.L., presented himself as a bipartisan politician whose working-class upbringing would enable him to overcome the long odds: No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since the 1990s.“We don’t have to be embarrassed by our senator,” he said, after describing Mr. Cruz as someone who “cheered on the mob” during the Capitol riot and who left Texas to go to the resort city of Cancun, Mexico, during the 2021 winter storm and power grid failure that killed hundreds of Texans. “We can get a new one.”Mr. Allred came into office riding a wave of Democratic enthusiasm that nearly unseated Mr. Cruz during his last re-election fight, a 2018 victory over Beto O’Rourke, then a little-known representative from El Paso. Mr. O’Rourke lost by about 2.5 percentage points, a thin margin in the Republican-dominated state.The same year, Mr. Allred defeated Representative Pete Sessions, a Republican, in a Dallas-area district that has since been redrawn to become more favorable for Democrats.Almost from the start, Mr. Allred has shown an ability to attract interest from donors, outraising Mr. Sessions and continuing to demonstrate the kind of strong fund-raising ability that would be necessary in a statewide race in Texas.Mr. Cruz is highly unpopular among Texas Democrats, but he has so far survived all attempts to oust him.Enthusiasm is also low among many Texas Democrats, who watched Mr. O’Rourke lose badly to Gov. Greg Abbott last year despite his well-funded campaign.And Mr. Allred, whose decision to enter the race began emerging in news reports before Wednesday’s announcement, has seen expectations for his campaign set low: The magazine Texas Monthly suggested that he was a “replacement-level candidate.” In other words, as good as any other Democrat but not a star.Nick Maddux, a spokesman for Mr. Cruz’s campaign, described Mr. Allred as a “far-left radical” in a statement on Wednesday. “His voting record is completely out-of-touch with Texas,” he said. “For over a decade, Sen. Cruz has been leading the fight for jobs, freedom, and security in Texas.”Mr. Allred’s announcement video acknowledged that he was a long shot, presenting himself as an underdog who “never knew” his father, and pulled himself up into elite football, law school and Congress. He said he would focus on Texas issues, not divisive cultural ones, discussing rural hospital closures and prescription drug prices in his video.As for Mr. Cruz, he said: “All hat, no cattle.” More

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      Why Ron DeSantis Is Taking Aim at the Federal Reserve

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      Florida’s governor has been blasting Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, while spreading misinformation about central bank digital currency.WASHINGTON — Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is preparing to take a widely anticipated leap into a 2024 presidential campaign, appears to have discovered something that populists throughout history have found to be true: Bashing the Federal Reserve is good politics.Mr. DeSantis has begun to criticize Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, in speeches and news conferences. He has alleged without evidence that the Biden administration is about to introduce a central bank digital currency — which neither the White House nor the politically independent Fed has decided to do — in a bid to surveil Americans and control their spending on gas. He has quoted the Fed’s Twitter posts disparagingly.His critiques echo a familiar playbook from the Trump administration. Former President Donald J. Trump often blasted the central bank during the 2016 campaign and while he was in office, as policymakers lifted interest rates and slowed economic growth. Mr. Trump at one point called Mr. Powell — his own pick for Fed chair — an “enemy,” comparing him to President Xi Jinping of China.Because the central bank is responsible for controlling inflation, it is often blamed both for periods of rapid price increases and for the economic damage it inflicts when it raises rates to bring that inflation under control. That can make it an easy political target.And populist skepticism of government control of money dates back centuries in America. The nation’s first and second attempts at creating a central bank failed partly because of such concerns. The Fed, set up in 1913, was designed as a decentralized institution with quasi-private branches dotted around the country in part to avoid concentrating too much power in one place. It has been the subject of conspiracy theories and political attacks ever since.“In many ways, it is not surprising at all,” said Sarah Binder, a political scientist at George Washington University who has studied politics and the Fed. Mr. DeSantis is placing himself to Mr. Trump’s right, she said, “and it sounds like many populist right-side critiques of the Fed, of monetary control, that we’ve heard throughout history.”Mr. Powell has stated that the Fed “would not proceed” on a digital currency “without support from Congress.”T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesWhile Mr. DeSantis’s Fed-bashing is not new, some of his remarks have strayed into misinformation, said Peter Conti-Brown, a lawyer and Fed historian at the University of Pennsylvania.“The Fed can and should take this seriously,” Mr. Conti-Brown said.While the Fed is independent of and largely insulated from the White House, it does ultimately answer to Congress. And a lack of popular support could curb the Fed’s room to maneuver: If the government decided that pursuing a digital currency was a good idea, for instance, the backlash could make it more difficult to do so.Mr. DeSantis’s tone could also offer hints about the future. Starting from the early 1990s, presidential administrations have largely respected the Fed’s independence, avoiding commenting on monetary policy. Mr. Trump upended that tradition. President Biden has returned to a hands-off approach, but the recent criticism offers an early hint that the détente may not last if a Republican wins in 2024.Mr. DeSantis has faulted Mr. Powell’s policies for failing to control inflation, recently calling the Fed chair a “complete disaster.”In Mr. Powell, the potential presidential candidate has a rare opportunity to criticize Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden simultaneously: The Fed leader was first nominated to the central bank by President Barack Obama, then made chair by Mr. Trump and renominated as chair by Mr. Biden.Mr. DeSantis has focused much of his attention on a central bank digital currency, or C.B.D.C., which would operate like electronic cash but with backing from the federal government. The Fed has been researching both the potential uses and technical feasibility of a digital currency, but has not yet decided to issue one. Mr. Powell has made clear that the Fed “would not proceed with this without support from Congress.”The digital money that Americans use today — whether they are swiping a credit card or completing a Venmo transaction — is issued by banks. Physical cash, by contrast, comes directly from the Fed. A central bank digital currency would effectively be the digital version of a dollar bill.Many people who think the Fed should seriously consider issuing a central bank digital currency suggest that it could help improve access to banking services. Some have argued that it is important to develop the technology: America’s global competitors, including China, are researching and issuing digital money, so there is a risk of falling behind.Yet critics have worried about the privacy concerns of a centralized digital dollar. And the dollar is the most important reserve currency in the world, so any technological issues with a digital offering could be catastrophic. That is why the Fed has pledged to proceed carefully — and why the idea of issuing a digital currency in America is only in its formative research stages.Though there is no plan to issue a digital currency, Mr. DeSantis on March 20 proposed state legislation to “protect Floridians from the Biden administration’s weaponization of the financial sector through a central bank digital currency.”He then warned during an April 1 speech, with no factual basis, that Democrats wanted to use a digital currency to “impose an E.S.G. agenda,” referring to environmental and social goals like curbing consumption of fossil fuels or tightening gun control.Mr. DeSantis “is heading off any attempt to control people’s behavior through centralized digital currency,” his press secretary, Bryan Griffin, said in response to a request for comment.Mr. DeSantis’s claims echo those on right-wing social media, and they are in line with the interests of important Republican donors: Many banks and cryptocurrency firms are adamantly opposed to the idea of a central bank digital currency, worried that it would take away business.Florida, in particular, has been friendly to the digital currency industry, with lawmakers passing favorable legislation.And people with stakes in cryptocurrency are among Mr. DeSantis’s top political donors. Kenneth Griffin, the billionaire hedge fund executive and crypto skeptic turned investor, gave $5 million to a political action committee that supported Mr. DeSantis’s 2022 re-election. Paul Tudor Jones, a billionaire investor who had significant shares in the now-bankrupt crypto trading platform FTX, contributed $850,000 to the group, according to campaign finance filings.Nor is it just Mr. DeSantis who is expressing opposition to the idea of a central bank digital currency: Prominent Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia have joined in.Mr. Cruz and Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the Republican whip, have introduced legislation to block the Fed from creating such a currency. Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, another potential Republican presidential contender in 2024, recently vetoed a state bill that she claimed would have opened the door for a C.B.D.C.Some political figures are also incorrectly conflating a possible central bank digital currency with the central bank’s FedNow initiative, a separate effort to modernize America’s payment system to make transactions quicker and more efficient. A Fed spokesperson underlined that FedNow and the research into a possible digital currency were entirely different.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent figure in the anti-vaccine movement who recently announced his intention to run for president as a Democrat in 2024, wrongly conflated FedNow and the digital currency, claiming that it would “grease the slippery slope to financial slavery and political tyranny.”Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic presidential candidate and representative from Hawaii who is now independent, echoed warnings that a digital currency would undermine freedom, incorrectly stating that the government “has just begun implementing” such a currency.Incorrect statements about FedNow and digital currency have proliferated on social media, spread by influential political figures as well as conspiracy theorists.The Fed has tried to push back on the swirling misinformation.“The FedNow Service is neither a form of currency nor a step toward eliminating any form of payment, including cash,” the central bank posted on Twitter on Friday. Its six-tweet F.A.Q. made no mention of politics, but nevertheless read like a rare public rebuke from an institution that diligently avoids wading into political commentary.“The Federal Reserve has made no decision on issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC) & would not do so without clear support from Congress and executive branch, ideally in the form of a specific authorizing law,” the Fed said — in a tweet that Mr. DeSantis quoted.“It is not merely ‘ideal’ that major changes in policy receive specific authorization from Congress,” Mr. DeSantis said in a reply.By Tuesday afternoon, the Fed had updated its F.A.Q. online to be even more explicit: The central bank “would only proceed with the issuance of a CBDC with an authorizing law.” More

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      To Boldly Go Where No President Has Gone Before

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      Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I have a clear memory of Democrats defending Bill Clinton tooth and nail for lying under oath in the Paula Jones case, about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. At the time, they said it was “just about sex” and that Clinton lied to protect his family and marriage.Morally speaking, is that better than, worse than or equal to the allegation that Donald Trump falsified business records to cover his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels (and possibly another paramour, too)?Gail Collins: Bret, sex scandal aficionado that I am, I’m sorta tempted to go back and revisit Clinton’s argument that he didn’t lie about Monica Lewinsky because it doesn’t count as having sex if … well, no. Guess not.Bret: To say nothing of Clinton parsing the meaning of the word “is.”Gail: Still, I’d say the Stormy Daniels episode — an ongoing, well-financed cover-up during a presidential campaign — was worse.Bret: Hmm. Trump wasn’t president at the time of the alleged affair the way Clinton was. And Daniels wasn’t a starry-eyed 22-year-old intern whose life got destroyed in the process. And lying under oath is usually a felony, unlike falsifying business records, which is usually treated as a misdemeanor.Gail: If you want to argue that Trump’s not the worst sex-scandal offender, I’m fine with it. Won’t even mention Grover Cleveland …Bret: “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?” Always liked Grover.Gail: Of all the investigations into Trump’s egregious misconduct, this strikes me as almost minor compared with, say, trying to change presidential election results, urging a crowd of supporters to march on the Capitol or illegally taking, retaining and hiding secret government documents or …OK, taking a rest.Bret: Totally agree. My fear is that the indictment will focus the media spotlight on Trump, motivate his base, paralyze his Republican opponents and ultimately help him win the G.O.P. nomination. In the first poll after the indictment, Trump’s lead over his Republican rivals jumped. Maybe that will make it easier for Democrats to hold the White House next year, but it also potentially means we could get Benito Milhous Caligula back in office.The only thing that will hurt Trump is if he’s ignored in the press and beaten at the polls. Instead, we’re contributing to the problem just by speaking about it.Gail: OK, now I’m changing subjects. It hurts my heart to talk about this, but we have to consider the terrible school shooting in Nashville — it doesn’t seem to have moved the needle one centimeter on issues like banning assault weapons or 30-round magazines. Pro-gun lawmakers, in light of the Covenant School shooting, are once again arguing that schools would be safer if the teachers could have their own pistols.Bret: I’m not opposed to an armed cop or a well-trained security guard on school campuses, who might be able to respond much faster to an emergency than the police could. Teachers? Seems like a really, really bad idea.With respect to everything else, I’m sometimes inclined to simply give up. Gun control isn’t realistic in a country with more guns than people. Even if stringent gun control were somehow enacted, it would function roughly the same way stringent drug laws work: People who wanted to obtain guns illegally could easily get them. I think we ought to repeal the Second Amendment, or at least reinterpret it to mean that anyone who wants a gun must belong to a “well-regulated militia.” But in our lifetimes that’s a political pipe dream.So we’re left in the face of tragedies like Nashville’s feeling heartbroken, furious, speechless and helpless.Gail: Your impulse to give up the fight is probably sensible, but I just can’t go there. Gotta keep pushing; we can’t cave in to folks who think it’s un-American to require loaded weapons be stored where kids can’t get at them.Bret: Another side of me wants to agree with you. Let’s ban high-capacity magazines, raise the age threshold for gun purchases and heavily fine people if they fail to properly store weapons. I just wonder if it will make much of a difference.Gail: Well, it sure as hell wouldn’t hurt.Bret: Very true.Gail: Let’s move on before I get deeply depressed. We’re slowly creeping toward an election year — close enough that people who want to run for office for real have to start mobilizing. Anybody you really love/hate out there now?Bret: Next year is going to be a tough one for Senate Democrats. They’re defending 23 of the 34 seats that are up for grabs, including in ever-redder states like Montana and West Virginia.I’d love to see a serious Democratic challenger to Ted Cruz in Texas, and by serious I mean virtually anyone other than Beto O’Rourke. And I’d love to see Kari Lake run for a Senate seat in Arizona so that she can lose again.You?Gail: Funny, I was thinking the same thing about Ted Cruz the other night. Wonderful the way that man can bring us together.Bret: He even brings me closer to Trump. “Lyin’ Ted” was priceless.Gail: Another Senate Republican I hope gets a very serious challenger is Rick Scott of Florida, who made that first big proposal to consider slashing Social Security and Medicare.Bret: Good luck with that. Florida may now be redder than Texas.Gail: You’re right about the Democrats having to focus on defense. The endangered incumbent I’m rooting hardest for is Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who’s managed to be a powerful voice for both liberal causes and my reddish home state’s practical interests.Bret: I once got a note from Brown gently reproaching me for using the term Rust Belt about Ohio. The note was so charming, personable and fair that I remember thinking: “This man can’t have a future in American politics.”Gail: And as someone who’s complained bitterly about Joe Manchin over the years, I have to admit that keeping West Virginia in the Democratic column does require very creative and sometimes deeply irritating political performances.Bret: Aha. I knew you’d come around.I don’t know if you’ve followed this, but Manchin is now complaining bitterly that the Biden administration is trying to rewrite the terms of the Inflation Reduction Act, which, with Manchin’s vote, gave the president his biggest legislative win last year. The details are complicated, but the gist is that the administration is hanging him out to dry. Oh, and he’s also skeptical of Trump’s indictment. Don’t be totally surprised if Manchin becomes a Republican in order to save his political skin.Gail: Hmm, my valuation of said skin would certainly drop . …Bret: Which raises the question: How should partisan Democrats, or partisan Republicans, feel about the least ideologically reliable member of their own parties?Gail: Depends. Did they run as freethinkers who shouldn’t be relied on by their party for a vote? Manchin got elected in the first place by promising to be a Democrat who’d “get the federal government off our backs.” But often this explosion of independence comes as a postelection surprise.Bret: Good point. There should be truth in advertising.Gail: Do they — like Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — forget their nonpartisanship when it comes to dipping into donations from partisan fund-raisers?And probably most important — is there a better option? If Sinema had to run for re-election this year, which she doesn’t, I would be a super-enthusiastic supporter if the other choice was Lake, that dreadful former talk show host.Any thoughts on your end?Bret: In my younger, more Republican days, I used to dislike ideological mavericks — they made things too complicated. Now that I’m older, I increasingly admire politicians who make things complicated. I know there’s a fair amount of opportunism and posturing in some of their position taking. But they also model a certain independence of thought and spirit that I find healthy in our Age of Lemmings.Gail: Hoping it’s maybe just the Decade of the Lemmings.Bret: If I had to draw up a list of the Senate heroes of my lifetime, they’d be Daniel Patrick Moynihan, John McCain, Howard Baker, Bob Kerrey and Joe Lieberman. And lately I’d have to add Mitt Romney. All were willing to break with their parties when it counted. How about you?Gail: Well, you may remember that a while back I was contemplating writing a book called “How Joe Lieberman Ruined Everything.”Bret: I recall you weren’t his biggest fan.Gail: Yeah, still blaming him for failing to give Al Gore the proper support in that 2000 recount. But I’ve come around on Mitt Romney. He’s become a strong, independent voice. Of course it’s easier to be brave when you’re a senator from a state that would keep re-electing you if you took a six-year vacation in the Swiss Alps. Nevertheless, I’ve apologized for all that obsessing about his putting the dog on the car roof.Bret: I came around on him too. I was very hard on him in 2012. Either he got better or I got wiser.Gail: I was a big admirer of John McCain. Will never forget following him on his travels when he first ran for president in 2000. He spent months and months driving around New Hampshire talking about campaign finance reform. From one tiny gathering to another. Of all the ambitious pols I’ve known he was the least focused on his own fortunes.Bret: I traveled with McCain on his international junkets. He was hilarious, gregarious, generous, gossipy — a study in being unstudied. If he had won the presidency, the Republican Party wouldn’t have gone insane, American democracy wouldn’t be at risk and Sarah Palin would be just another lame ex-veep.Gail: So, gotta end this with the obvious question, Bret. Republican presidential race! You’re a fan of Nikki Haley, but her campaign doesn’t seem to be going much of anywhere, is it? I know you’ve come to detest Ron DeSantis. Other options?Bret: Biden, cryonics or some small island in the South Atlantic, like St. Helena. Not necessarily in that order.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. More

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      M.I.A. in 2024: The Republicans Trump Vanquished in 2016

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      If Donald J. Trump were not running for president in 2024, there’s a group of Republicans who could be expected to vie for the White House: the ones Mr. Trump beat in 2016.Instead, many of these once high-wattage candidates are either skipping the 2024 cycle or have bowed out of national politics altogether. Jeb Bush is mostly a political recluse. Three senators, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, all capitulated to Mr. Trump and became sometimes unconvincing acolytes. After losing re-election for governor in Wisconsin, Scott Walker now runs an organization for young conservatives and hosts a podcast.None have shown much interest in facing the wrath of Mr. Trump again.For all of the chatter about how the former president has grown weak politically and is ripe for overthrowing as the Republican Party’s dominant figure, and for all the polling that shows large numbers of Republican voters would prefer that Mr. Trump not run again, the will to challenge him is small, and the few contenders brave enough so far are inexperienced on the national stage.That has left Mr. Trump as potentially the only Republican candidate in 2024 who has run for president before. The last time an open Republican presidential primary featured just one candidate who had previously sought the office was in 1980.The relatively small size of the prospective 2024 field of Trump challengers, with several potential candidates dragging their feet on entering the race, may have something to do with the debasing experience of the Republicans who battled him in 2016 and came away with nothing to show for it but insulting sobriquets like Low-Energy Jeb, Lyin’ Ted and Liddle Marco.Mr. Trump still commands the loyalty of about a quarter of Republicans, who say they would vote for him even as an independent candidate.Nicole Craine for The New York Times“I was just wise enough to see it before everybody else, so I didn’t get a nickname,” Mr. Walker said in an interview of his 2016 campaign, which he ended after 71 days with a warning to consolidate behind one candidate or risk nominating Mr. Trump. “I could see the phenomenon that was Donald Trump going into the 2016 election. And it just took others longer to figure that out.”Several of the other Republicans who lost in 2016 have made clear that they have absolutely no intention of confronting Mr. Trump again.“I will always do what God wants me to do, but I hope that’s not it,” said Ben Carson, the pioneering neurosurgeon who became Mr. Trump’s housing secretary after his primary loss. “It’s not something I particularly want.” Mr. Carson went so far as to say he never wanted to run for president in the first place. “I didn’t particularly want to do it then,” he said. “There were so many pushing me to do it. I said, ‘If people really want me to, I will,’ but it was never anything that I wanted to do. I certainly don’t want to do it now.”Mr. Cruz, who has said repeatedly that he is running for re-election to the Senate and not for president, predicted last fall that if Mr. Trump chose to bow out, “everybody runs.” And Mr. Walker, in his interview, said he still harbored presidential ambitions — but not right now.“I’m a quarter-century younger than Joe Biden, so I’ve got plenty of time,” Mr. Walker, 55, said. “But not in ’24.”Running for president, Mr. Carson said, “was never anything that I wanted to do. I certainly don’t want to do it now.”Lexey Swall for The New York TimesEven as the G.O.P. salivates to take on President Biden, many ambitious Republicans sense that it may be wise to wait for Mr. Trump to depart the national scene. This apparent reluctance to join the 2024 field — which early polling suggests will be dominated by Mr. Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida — shows that high-level Republicans still view the former president as a grave threat to their political futures, and see more long-term costs than benefits in challenging him.Mr. DeSantis, former Gov. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and several other Republicans are angling to topple Mr. Trump, but the expected field will probably fit easily on one debate stage.Already, personal ambitions are colliding with a desire to avoid fracturing the opposition to Mr. Trump. Warning of “another multicar pileup,” former Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland announced this month that he would not run for president. And Paul D. Ryan, the former House speaker, recently reiterated his call for a narrow primary field.The don’t-run stance upends decades of political wisdom. Even long-shot presidential bids have provided a path to national relevance and laid the groundwork for subsequent campaigns — or at least cable TV shows. Before Mr. Trump won in 2016, seven of the previous eight Republican presidential nominees had either run for president before or been president — and the other was the son of a president. Mr. Biden won the office on his third try.Mr. Cruz has said repeatedly that he is running for re-election to the Senate and not for president.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesNearly all of the Democrats who ran and lost to Mr. Biden in 2020 ended their campaigns in better political shape than they began them, either with larger national and fund-raising profiles or with consolation prizes that included the vice presidency, a cabinet post, a key Senate seat, Senate committee chairs, influence on the Biden administration and a major platform as a right-wing pundit..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.But Republicans eyeing 2024 appear to see less to gain. They are well aware of Mr. Trump’s cutthroat political approach and his impulse to tear down in personal terms anyone he sees as a threat — even if those traits helped win him the undying loyalty of many Republican voters and created a cult of personality that has at times consumed his party.Though his political strength has ebbed, he still commands the loyalty of about a quarter of the party’s voters, who say they would vote for him even as an independent candidate.For the 2016 Republican field, losing to Mr. Trump was a springboard to party obsolescence.Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina became one of Mr. Trump’s most fawning supporters and has endorsed his 2024 campaign. Mr. Rubio, still a Florida senator, is now the fourth most influential Republican in his own state. Former Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Carly Fiorina, the former corporate executive whose signature campaign moment came in response to Mr. Trump’s denigrating her appearance, emerged in 2020 as surrogates for the Biden campaign in its effort to court moderate Republicans repelled by Mr. Trump.George Pataki, the former three-term governor of New York, acknowledged in an interview that by the time he ran in 2016, he was past his own viability.“Politics is about timing, and I should have run before the time I did,” Mr. Pataki said. He explained that he had never considered a 2024 campaign and that most people could plainly see the race was shaping up as a Trump-DeSantis contest.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who has been a confidant, competitor and critic of Mr. Trump, is now one of the few prospective 2024 candidates willing to publicly disparage the former president by name. (Gov. Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, who is toying with running, has morphed into a dial-a-quote for Trump criticism.)In a recent interview, Mr. Christie said presidential campaigns exposed politicians, like Mr. DeSantis, whose experience in the spotlight was limited to smaller press corps in secondary media markets.“We’ve seen plenty of people just go, whoosh, all the air comes out of the balloon, because they get on that stage and either they’re not smart enough or they’re not skilled enough or experienced enough,” he said.Mr. Christie is the only other 2016 candidate who has said he is even considering running again in 2024, though an aide to Mr. Rubio said he had not formally ruled it out. Neither man has taken any concrete steps toward building a campaign.No one else other than Mr. Trump in the current or prospective field of 2024 candidates has run for president before. That is unlike 2016, when the field included Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, the two previous winners of the Iowa caucuses, and Rick Perry, the former Texas governor whose 2012 effort flamed out after he forgot a key part of his signature campaign pledge on a debate stage.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is thought to be Mr. Trump’s chief rival for the 2024 nomination.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesFor months, Mr. DeSantis has been the lone Republican who is competitive with Mr. Trump in polls. He has drawn public praise from a flotilla of prominent Republicans eager to move on from Mr. Trump but conscious of how he has transformed the party.Mr. Bush, a fellow Floridian who as the early front-runner in 2016 drew the harshest attacks from Mr. Trump, emerged last month to heap praise on Mr. DeSantis.“He’s been a really effective governor,” Mr. Bush said in a Fox Nation interview. “He’s young. I think we’re on the verge of a generational change in our politics. I kind of hope so.”Mr. Bush did not respond to emails for this article.As Mr. Bush showed, early strength in a presidential primary can be perilous, especially for untested candidates. Bad first impressions in front of a national audience can doom a campaign and sully a career.Mr. Christie said the platform he built for himself as governor and in 2016 would allow him to enter the 2024 race late if he chose. He has repeatedly said that Republican voters are tired of Mr. Trump and suggested that there could still be room for a battle-tested late entrant.“I’ve never seen in my adult life the person who everybody thought was going to be the guy be the guy,” Mr. Christie said. “Conventional wisdom was Jeb Bush was going to be the nominee. He raised $150 million and he was going to win, OK? He got one delegate, I think.”Mr. Bush in fact took four delegates from Iowa and New Hampshire before dropping out of the race after placing fourth in South Carolina. More

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      Republicans Revive a Debate on Term Limits

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      Similar proposals to restrict lawmakers’ tenures that the party pushed in the 1990s went nowhere. In this new Congress, the result is likely to be the same.WASHINGTON — In grabbing control of the House, Republicans promised a vote on a proposition that always strikes a chord with frustrated voters: imposing term limits on members of the House and Senate to finally depose those entrenched, out-of-touch lawmakers.Within months of taking power, the new majority put the idea on the floor, where it flopped spectacularly. That episode was in 1995, when Republicans, led by newly installed Speaker Newt Gingrich, pledged a vote on term limits as part of their vaunted Contract with America, only to have the proposal rejected by some of the same folks who signed off on the contract. Voters get much more excited about term limits than do those who would be bound by them.Now the new House Republican majority is again pursuing limits on how long members of Congress can serve, and the result is likely to be the same: failure to garner the votes needed to send a constitutional amendment to the states for approval. But that won’t deter the backers of the plan, who once again say the public is fed up with career politicians and that those who reject term limits do so at their political peril.“This is a long stairway, but you take the first step,” said Representative Ralph Norman, the South Carolina Republican who is the lead backer of term limits in the House. “Let everybody vote up or down. This time I think there will be consequences for those who vote against it. There is a time for politicians to go home and live under some of the rules they have passed.”Mr. Norman said he expects Speaker Kevin McCarthy to allow a vote on the idea in the next few months. A similar resolution in the Senate sponsored by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, is unlikely to get a vote because it is opposed by both Democratic and Republican leaders.“Leadership in both parties is opposing the overwhelming consensus of the American voters on this issue,” Mr. Cruz said. “The one group that doesn’t support term limits are career politicians in Washington. If it comes to a vote, I think it is hard for elected officials to vote against it.”Critics assail the effort as gimmickry, an easy show vote for lawmakers who want to be seen as fighting the status quo in Washington while knowing they will not have to abide by term limits themselves since there is little chance they will be imposed. Opponents also say that enacting term limits would deprive Congress of the experience and savvy that lawmakers develop over years of serving.“The fact that I have had the institutional memory that I’ve had here has always been helpful to the national debate and certainly back home as well,” said Representative Richard E. Neal, Democrat of Massachusetts and a former Ways and Means Committee chairman just elected to his 18th term. “If you want to turn Congress over to the amateurs and the antis and the special interests, embrace term limits.”Newt Gingrich first oversaw a vote on term limits, which failed decisively, back in 1995.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesThe call for term limits was a central part of Republicans’ takeover of the House in the 1994 midterm elections, helping them build the case that Democrats had become corrupt and arrogant after four decades in power. The “citizen legislature” was a major plank of the contract, pledging a “first-ever vote on term limits to replace career politicians with citizen legislators.” Republicans had also been heartened by seeing state legislatures around the country impose term limits on their office holders.After Republicans won that November, the vote finally rolled around on March 29, 1995. The day before, Mr. Gingrich published an op-ed in The Washington Post laying the groundwork for a loss by blaming Democrats, since the House could not muster the two-thirds majority necessary to send a constitutional amendment to the states — 290 votes — without significant Democratic support.“This vote says to the American people that this is their country,” Mr. Gingrich wrote. “It says to our citizens that they are entrusted with greater control.”Despite his pleas, the vote to impose 12-year limits on both the House and Senate attracted a bare majority of just 227 votes, significantly short of the required supermajority threshold. A barbed Democratic alternative that would have imposed term limits retroactively, knocking out scores of lawmakers of both parties, did not even attract a majority.While Republicans tried to hold Democrats responsible for the failure, 40 Republicans also balked, and 30 of them were among the most senior Republicans in the House. That included Representative Henry J. Hyde, of Illinois, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, who won an ovation for his speech in opposition to the proposal.“I just can’t be an accessory to the dumbing down of democracy,” Mr. Hyde told his colleagues.After the defeat, Republicans sought again to make term limits a major issue in the 1996 elections and staged another vote in February 1997. The proposal fared even worse than before, barely surpassing a majority, let alone a supermajority, and any momentum for imposing term limits slowed.The momentum for adhering to personal pledges also dissipated. In one of the best-known cases, George Nethercutt, a Washington Republican who ousted Speaker Thomas S. Foley in 1994 almost solely on the basis of Mr. Foley’s opposition to term limits, reneged on his promise to serve only three terms in the House and was elected twice more.Last year, Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, won a third term in the Senate despite promising to serve only two terms, saying he broke his pledge because the nation was in too much peril for him to leave.The concept of term limits has always been more popular in the House than in the Senate, where seniority is extremely advantageous. Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader who this year broke the record for the longest-serving Senate leader, has been particularly opposed, arguing that elections already serve as term limits.But Mr. Norman, who is in his third full term after winning a special election in 2017, dismisses the idea that experience is a plus in Congress.“Look at the shape of the country,” said Mr. Norman. “I could pick 435 people off the streets to get a better return on investment than with politicians.”The resolution being pushed by Mr. Norman and Mr. Cruz is more restrictive than the ones defeated in the 1990s and would allow just three terms in the House and two in the Senate. Mr. Norman said he is open to slight upward adjustments in House tenure and has said he expects to run just a few more times himself.But Mr. Cruz, who will complete his second term next year, said his support of a two-term limit on senators does not mean he won’t be seeking a third term for himself in 2024, in line with his own bill.“I have never suggested that I support unilateral term limits,” he said. “I would happily comply with them if they applied to everyone. I never said I would do it alone if no one else complied.” More