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      Trump Impeachment Team Denies Incitement in Legal Brief

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentliveLatest UpdatesKey TakeawaysReporter AnalysisWhere Senators StandHouse ManagersTrump’s LawyersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyDenying Incitement, Trump Impeachment Team Says He Cannot Be TriedThe lengthy legal brief provided the first extended defense of former President Donald J. Trump’s conduct since the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. It arrived as senators locked in rules for an exceedingly fast trial.“This impeachment proceeding was never about seeking justice,” wrote Bruce L. Castor Jr., a lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump, along with the rest of his defense team.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesPublished More

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      How Biden United a Fractious Democratic Party Under One Tent

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      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

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      No More Playing Nice: 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s Race

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceWho’s Running?11 Candidates’ N.Y.C. MomentsA Look at the Race5 Takeaways From the DebateAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNo More Playing Nice: 5 Highlights From the Mayor’s RaceThe candidates make stronger attacks against one another, as a Republican enters the race hoping to court Hispanic voters.Maya Wiley criticized Andrew Yang over his campaign’s use of nondisclosure agreements.Credit…Jose A. Alvarado Jr. for The New York TimesEmma G. Fitzsimmons, Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Katie Glueck, Jeffery C. Mays and Feb. 8, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETWhen New Yorkers vote in the June mayoral primaries, they will get to pick up to five candidates, in ranked order of preference.No one knows exactly how the system, known as ranked-choice voting, might affect the outcome, but plenty of voters were still confused about how it worked when it was used in a special City Council election in Queens last week.The new approach to voting was expected to make candidates refrain from attacks, but the friendly sheen among them is starting to wear off. They are more directly criticizing one another at forums, seeking to highlight their differences.And a new Republican candidate joined the fray. Here are some key developments in the race:The candidates began to take the gloves offScott M. Stringer, the city comptroller, suggested that some of his rivals should exercise better judgment while campaigning during the pandemic.Credit…Chang W. Lee/The New York TimesThe conventional wisdom around ranked-choice voting is that candidates should avoid insulting their opponents for fear of alienating those opponents’ supporters. After all, voters’ second choices could be critical.But now, less than five months before Primary Day, several of the mayoral candidates appear to be making a more straightforward calculation: The time for sharper contrasts has arrived.Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, laced into Andrew Yang over his campaign’s use of nondisclosure agreements, which he said had been discontinued, and highlighted complaints about the culture on his presidential campaign. Shaun Donovan pointedly raised Raymond J. McGuire’s Wall Street background. Mr. McGuire shot back by calling Mr. Donovan “Shaun Obama,” a dig at the former federal housing secretary’s regular mentions that he worked under President Barack Obama. Scott M. Stringer issued barely veiled rebukes of Eric Adams and Mr. Yang over their in-person campaigning during the coronavirus pandemic.And at a candidate forum on homelessness, Dianne Morales contrasted her experience with Mr. Stringer’s, calling him out by name.“Unlike Scott, I’ve actually been talking to the people that are homeless for the last 15 years,” Ms. Morales said. “I’ve been doing the work.”In the scheme of American political discourse, these were, at most, mild exchanges. But they reflect a growing recognition that there is limited time to break out of the pack — and that candidates cannot count on anyone else to negatively define their chief rivals for them.On Sunday, though, advisers to two top candidates certainly tried: Aides to Mr. Yang and Mr. Stringer broke into a sharply personal Twitter exchange tied to the issue of support from the real estate industry.The first ranked-choice election confused votersIt was the debut that wasn’t.A little-known special election in Queens became the testing ground for New York City’s ranked-choice voting system last week, the first time the new system was used ahead of the mayoral primary.How would voters welcome the ability to rank up to five candidates instead of picking just one? Would the system, which could trigger multiple rounds of vote tabulations, be a stumbling block for the traditionally dysfunctional Board of Elections?In the end, however, one candidate, the former councilman James Gennaro, seemed poised to receive more than 50 percent of the vote, making him the likely winner in the City Council’s 24th District. Were he to receive less than 50 percent, the last-place candidate would be eliminated, and that candidate’s votes would be redistributed to the second choices listed on the ballots of voters who favored the eliminated candidate. The process would be repeated until one candidate reached a majority of the vote.Still, the election served as a dry run for a new voting method that will require significant public education.Some voters said they were unfamiliar with exactly how ranked-choice worked, despite being contacted by the campaigns or receiving mailers explaining it.“It didn’t really quite sink in, and I really liked one candidate, so I just voted for him,” said Kanan Roberts, 71, who voted for Mr. Gennaro. Other voters were more aware of its intricacies and appreciative of the ability to vote for several candidates.“If you want to take a risk on a candidate that you don’t know whether they have a realistic shot of winning, but they’re your candidate of choice, they don’t have to be a spoiler anymore under ranked-choice voting,” said Peter Sullivan, 39. “You can pick them first, then pick the safer, ‘electable’ candidates second and third.”Could the city’s first Hispanic mayor be a Republican?Fernando Mateo in December, before he shaved his head last week during his mayoral launch.Credit…Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesA key question in the mayor’s race is which Democratic candidate will win support from the city’s sizable Hispanic community. Ruben Diaz Jr., the Bronx borough president who is of Puerto Rican heritage, was viewed as a top contender before he dropped out of the race last year.But what if that candidate turned out to be a Republican?Fernando Mateo, who was born in the Dominican Republic, announced his mayoral campaign in an unusual video on Facebook last week where he shaved his head — a nod to new beginnings as New Yorkers look forward to the end of the pandemic.“I wanted to show my beauty,” he said in an interview. “I’m the cutest candidate in the race.”Mr. Mateo runs a restaurant, Zona de Cuba, in the Bronx and has led trade groups for livery drivers and bodega owners. He has been involved in politics for years but was also linked to a scandal over Mayor Bill de Blasio’s fund-raising.His campaign website boasts that he was once named “One of the Five Most Influential People in the Country” by The New York Times. That article, in 1994, reflected the results of a survey of senior executives shortly after Mr. Mateo had created a program to trade guns for toys.Mr. Mateo said he wants to to revisit bail reform, keep the jail on Rikers Island open and “re-fund the police” — instead of defunding the department. He distanced himself from former President Donald J. Trump and said he was embarrassed by the riot at the U.S. Capitol.“That’s not what the Republican Party is all about — that’s not what we’re about,” he said. “I’m an urban Republican. I believe in cities and immigration. I don’t believe in hatred.”There has been some debate over whether the city has already had a Hispanic mayor. John Purroy Mitchel, who was mayor from 1914 to 1917, was descended from Spanish nobility.A homeless expert on homelessness grills the candidatesShams DaBaron won praise for his aggressive questioning as a moderator at a mayoral forum on homelessness.Credit…Amr Alfiky/The New York TimesTen mayoral candidates took part in a Zoom forum on homelessness Thursday night, but the standout speaker was one of the moderators: a homeless man who goes by the name Shams DaBaron.Mr. DaBaron, 51, who emerged last fall as the self-appointed spokesman for homeless men battling to remain in the Lucerne Hotel on the Upper West Side over objections from neighbors, demonstrated a grasp of the issues that comes from having lived them.When the candidates were asked if they would disband the police unit that tries to move homeless people from street to shelter, one of them, Loree Sutton, said she would not, and that she would “team up police with peer-to-peer counselors.”Mr. DaBaron explained to her how “outreach” is practiced by the police. “Where they were telling me they were going to help me, and I submitted to the help, I ended up in handcuffs,” he said. “They brought me to a police station, made me take off my sneakers and threw me into a cell and then threatened to give me a ticket unless I entered the shelter system.”In response to a question about plans for the unsheltered people the city has placed in hotels during the pandemic, Shaun Donovan, a longtime government official, offered a mini-filibuster touting his college volunteering, his work with veterans under Mr. Obama and the importance of “reimagining the right to shelter as a right to housing.”Mr. DaBaron asked his co-moderator, Corinne Low of UWS Open Hearts, an organization that supports shelters on the Upper West Side, to pose the question to Mr. Donovan again, suggesting that the candidate had not really answered it.Mr. DaBaron, who tweets as Da Homeless Hero, garnered some raves on Twitter.One person praised him for “not letting any candidate talk about anything other than the content of the questions”; another suggested he might consider running for office.“@homeless_hero for mayor!” the user @SoBendito wrote.Maya Wiley chose Gracie Mansion over her own TV showTwo candidates had to abandon high-profile jobs as television pundits to run for mayor: Ms. Wiley, a legal analyst at MSNBC, and, Mr. Yang, a commentator at CNN.But for Ms. Wiley, the sacrifice might have been more substantial. Speaking to more than 170 women on a “Black Women for Maya” virtual event on Wednesday, Ms. Wiley said she had an opportunity to audition to replace Joy Reid’s weekend talk show “AM Joy” as Ms. Reid was being promoted to host her own prime-time show.Ms. Wiley, a civil rights lawyer, said that she “loved MSNBC” because “it felt like a family” and that she was proud of being a Black woman who was being paid to deliver legal analysis.After Ms. Reid “broke a Black glass ceiling” and received her own prime time show, “MSNBC knew one thing; They’d better put somebody Black in that seat, they knew it,” Ms. Wiley told the audience.She said that she decided not to take the network’s offer of an audition, because “as much joy and as big a paycheck as that MSNBC slot would have been, I knew we had so many treasures that could fill that seat.” She ultimately decided that “in this moment, to me, the greatest gift and privilege would be making people’s lives better.”Mr. Yang said he made a similar deliberation when deciding to leave his position at CNN.“I was very appreciative of my time at CNN. I made a lot of friends,” Mr. Yang said. “But I’m someone who is looking to help people at scale, and New York City is in a lot of pain right now. I’m more of a doer than an analyst.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      ‘The Pressure Is On’: Will Schumer Satisfy the Left?

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Capitol Riot FalloutTracking the ArrestsVisual TimelineInside the SiegeMurder Charges?The Oath KeepersAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘The Pressure Is On’: Will Schumer Satisfy the Left?As he prepares for an impeachment trial this week, Senator Chuck Schumer is at the height of his political power in Washington. At home in New York, he is taking steps to head off a primary challenge from the left.Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, is presiding over an evenly  divided chamber and faces re-election in 2022.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesFeb. 7, 2021Updated 9:59 a.m. ETOn a recent Sunday evening, about a dozen liberal housing activists from New York gathered for a virtual meeting with Senator Chuck Schumer. Though the newly anointed majority leader had served in Congress for four decades, a number of participants had scarcely interacted with him before, and some regarded him as an uncertain ally.But Mr. Schumer was eager to offer reassurance. At one point, he described himself as a former tenant organizer who was now in a position to deliver on housing issues on a grand scale, several participants recalled.“He had done a bunch of homework and knew everything that we were going to ask about and made a bunch of commitments with us to make it happen,” said Cea Weaver, a strategist for New York’s Housing Justice for All coalition. “He was like: I’m talking to Ilhan Omar, I’m talking to Bernie Sanders, I’m talking to A.O.C.”The January meeting was one in a series of steps Mr. Schumer has taken to win over leaders of the left in New York and Washington ahead of his campaign for re-election in 2022. Armed with a sweeping set of policy promises, he is courting the activists, organizers and next-generation elected officials in New York who would likely make up the backbone of an effort to dethrone him, should one ever arise.He is facing an extraordinary balancing act in the coming days as he seeks simultaneously to forge a massive relief bill to counter the coronavirus pandemic while managing the impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump. Both tasks are seen as urgent, practical and moral imperatives by the Democratic Party’s electoral base.Mr. Schumer, 70, has been attempting to channel his party’s sense of impatient purpose: In recent days, he has publicly urged President Biden to “go big and bold” with his economic policies and executive actions, defying pressure from Republicans and a few centrist Democrats to pare back campaign promises. Over the last week, Mr. Schumer has backed a new push to decriminalize cannabis; signed on to Senator Cory Booker’s Baby Bonds proposal, a plan to address the racial wealth gap; and appeared with Senator Elizabeth Warren and other progressives to call on Mr. Biden to cancel student debt.On impeachment, too, Mr. Schumer has taken an into-the-breach approach, demanding Mr. Trump’s removal from office the morning after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and casting the upcoming trial as a crucial ritual of accountability even if it is highly improbable that two thirds of the Senate will vote for conviction.Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, said Mr. Schumer was emphatic in private conversations that he intends to “get really big things done” despite the daunting Senate math. Mr. Mitchell said he spoke frequently with Mr. Schumer but had not yet discussed the 2022 campaign with him.“He’s going to have to use all the tools at his disposal to keep his caucus together; he gets that, we all get that, it’s not a surprise,” Mr. Mitchell said. “I think he’s also really clear that the alternative is unacceptable — that he absolutely has to deliver.”Mr. Schumer with new Democratic senators last month.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesThe new Senate leader appears to recognize that his political playbook requires updating. A compulsive retail politician and prodigious fund-raiser, Mr. Schumer climbed to power less as a legislative engineer and an author of big ideas than as a campaign tactician with a financial base on Wall Street and a keen eye for finding the political midpoint between liberal New York City and its historically conservative suburbs. David Carlucci, a former state senator from Rockland County who lost a House primary in 2018 to a more progressive candidate, Representative Mondaire Jones, said a diverse new generation was transforming state politics. Mr. Schumer appears relatively secure, he said, but no Democrat should feel immune.“Any politician that’s part of the old guard has to be very concerned about a potential primary,” said Mr. Carlucci.That’s a lesson that progressives delivered to establishment Democrats in the last two election cycles, when losses by Joseph P. Crowley and Eliot L. Engel, two senior House members, marked back-to-back breakthroughs for left-wing politics in downstate New York.Unlike Mr. Crowley and Mr. Engel, the Senate leader remains a ubiquitous presence around New York. But his ability to match the passions of his own party is another question.Mr. Schumer drew periodic complaints from the left throughout the Trump years for taking a generally cautious approach to messaging and campaign strategy, including in key Senate races last year where Mr. Schumer handpicked moderate recruits who eventually lost in states like Maine and North Carolina. There is limited patience now among Democrats for the kind of incremental maneuvering and horse-trading that is traditionally required to pass laws in the Senate.In a statement, Mr. Schumer said he was trying to “do the best job for my constituents and for my country” and acknowledged a shift in the scope of his governing goals.“The world has changed and the needs of families have changed,” he said, “income and racial inequality has worsened, the climate crisis has become more urgent, Trump has attacked our democracy — all of these things require big, bold action and that is what I am fighting to deliver in the Senate.”At the moment, the most serious potential challengers to Mr. Schumer — Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez chief among them — have not taken steps toward a campaign. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, the 31-year-old Queens lawmaker, has told associates that she has not decided whether to run but that she believes the possibility of a challenge serves as a constructive form of pressure on Mr. Schumer, people who have spoken with her said.Other potential opponents appear more focused on assembling a bid to unseat Gov. Andrew Cuomo.Yet Mr. Schumer seems to want to deter even a quixotic opponent who could become a nettlesome distraction or worse. He has taken to using Twitter and cable-news interviews to demand that Mr. Biden take bold executive actions on matters like student debt and climate change. And as he assumes the expanded powers of the Senate majority, Mr. Schumer is drawing on old and new alliances to help him govern.Starting last spring, Mr. Schumer convened several conference calls to craft pandemic relief plans with some of the big policy minds of the Democratic Party. They included more centrist voices, like the former Treasury Department official Antonio Weiss; progressive economic thinkers like Felicia Wong of the Roosevelt Institute and Stephanie Kelton of Stony Brook University; and liberal think-tank leaders Heather Boushey and Michael Linden, who now serve in the Biden administration.Mr. Schumer’s regular meetings with national liberal advocacy groups have intensified in recent weeks, and he has been spending time with a cohort of New York progressives elected over the last year. In December, he met with State Senator Jabari Brisport, a 33-year-old democratic socialist elected last fall, at a bar in Bedford-Stuyvesant, and stressed his support for addressing climate change.“We joked about me being a socialist in Brooklyn,” Mr. Brisport said, recalling that Mr. Schumer had noted he works well with Mr. Sanders, who is also a socialist from Brooklyn.Mr. Schumer must corral unanimous support for President Biden’s agenda from an eclectic Democratic caucus.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesRepresentative Ritchie Torres, a 32-year-old progressive who captured an open House seat in the Bronx last fall, said Mr. Schumer was the first official to contact him after Mr. Torres won a contentious primary; soon afterward, Mr. Schumer visited his district for a meeting about expanding the federal child tax credit..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-c7gg1r{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:0.875rem;margin-bottom:15px;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-c7gg1r{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-yoay6m{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-yoay6m{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1dg6kl4{margin-top:5px;margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-1amoy78{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1amoy78{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-1amoy78:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-1amoy78[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-k9atqk{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-k9atqk strong{font-weight:700;}.css-k9atqk em{font-style:italic;}.css-k9atqk a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-k9atqk a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-k9atqk a:hover{border-bottom:none;}Capitol Riot FalloutFrom Riot to ImpeachmentThe riot inside the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 6, followed a rally at which President Trump made an inflammatory speech to his supporters, questioning the results of the election. Here’s a look at what happened and the ongoing fallout:As this video shows, poor planning and a restive crowd encouraged by President Trump set the stage for the riot.A two hour period was crucial to turning the rally into the riot.Several Trump administration officials, including cabinet members Betsy DeVos and Elaine Chao, announced that they were stepping down as a result of the riot.Federal prosecutors have charged more than 70 people, including some who appeared in viral photos and videos of the riot. Officials expect to eventually charge hundreds of others.The House voted to impeach the president on charges of “inciting an insurrection” that led to the rampage by his supporters.Mr. Torres said he intended to back Mr. Schumer in any contested primary. “Without a doubt, he deserves to be re-elected,” Mr. Torres said.Should Mr. Schumer struggle to turn his splashy endorsements of bold action into law, or come to be seen as balking at certain clashes with Republicans, a serious challenge could well emerge. Mr. Schumer faces a dense ideological minefield on matters ranging from economic recovery legislation to abolishing the filibuster and achieving statehood for Washington, D.C.“The pressure is on now that he is one of the most powerful politicians in the entire country,” said Assemblyman Ron Kim, a progressive legislator. “If he can’t deliver, it’s not just him — it’s the party that will suffer in two years or four years.”State Senator Jessica Ramos, a Queens Democrat who in 2018 beat a conservative incumbent in a primary, said she believed Mr. Schumer had been responsive to liberals but that she was waiting to see hard results before endorsing him. She said she had been “disappointed” that Mr. Schumer did not take a harder line in his power-sharing negotiations with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.“We have to stand up to these people who don’t care to put forward legislation that is humane and that takes care of the people of this country.” Ms. Ramos said. Mr. Schumer is seeking to avoid the fate of two senior House Democrats from New York who were defeated in primaries by progressive candidates in recent election cycles.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesPeople who have spoken with Mr. Schumer about a possible primary challenge say he is confident about his chances against Ms. Ocasio Cortez or anyone else; he points to his support in the suburbs and among Black voters in New York City, arguing it would be difficult for an opponent from the left to overcome those advantages. As the first-ever Jewish Senate majority leader, he would likely have considerable strength among an important population of left-leaning whites.But Mr. Schumer surely also knows that coalitions can be fleeting and flexible. He is said to have kept a close watch on Senator Edward Markey’s primary campaign in Massachusetts last year against Joseph P. Kennedy III. Mr. Markey, a fellow septuagenarian, bested his younger and better-known rival by campaigning as an environmental justice champion and aligning himself closely with Ms. Ocasio-Cortez and groups like Sunrise.A few days after Mr. Markey won his primary, Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, a liberal Manhattan Democrat, spoke briefly with Mr. Schumer at a Sept. 11 memorial event in her district. Frustrated by Mr. Cuomo’s opposition to increasing taxes on the wealthy, Ms. Niou said she appealed to Mr. Schumer for help raising direly needed revenue. He was supportive, she said, but at the time Republicans controlled the Senate.Ms. Niou said she was supportive of Mr. Schumer and believed it was “really important that New York has the majority leader as their member.” But she said she intended to push Mr. Schumer to make the most of the job.“Every single thing I asked for, I’m going to ask for five thousand times harder,” she said.John Washington, a Buffalo-based housing organizer who participated in the January meeting with Mr. Schumer, said he had seen a marked shift in the senator. In the past, he said, Mr. Schumer would seek out support for his own priorities and offer “radio silence” on activist goals.“I think it’s clear to everyone that there is kind of a new age of politics,” he said.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Clemency for Older Prisoners

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      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storylettersClemency for Older Prisoners“It is time for immediate action,” a law professor writes. Also: Angry Democrats; better ways to declutter.Feb. 4, 2021, 2:48 p.m. ETMore from our inbox:Enraged DemocratsNew Homes for Clutter, Not the Trash Can Credit…Seth Wenig/APTo the Editor:“Hard-Hit by Virus, Inmates Struggle to Find Place in Vaccine Line” (front page, Jan. 26) is an insight into the state’s failure to care for this highly vulnerable population. But it does not mention one simple option: clemency for older prisoners.Releasing the many long-serving prisoners over 65 who are not a danger to society would reduce crowding and the need for vaccination in prisons, while safeguarding the lives and health of these most vulnerable inmates. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has the power to do this right now (with appropriate quarantine). In many cases, he has clemency petitions on his desk.Governor Cuomo has promised rolling clemencies. When the new and highly transmissible Covid variants inevitably appear in prisons and their surrounding communities, vulnerable prisoners will face a death sentence, and all New Yorkers will be at risk from these hot spot facilities. It is time for immediate action.Cynthia Grant BowmanIthaca, N.Y.The writer, a law professor at Cornell, helped draft a clemency petition on behalf of one aged prisoner and filed amicus briefs in several New York State cases seeking release for others.Enraged Democrats Credit…Audra Melton for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump’s Base Nurses Anger Over Election” (front page, Jan. 19):Trump supporters are not the only ones enraged by the 2020 election. Many Democrats are enraged by the uphill battle necessary to overcome Republican gerrymandering and voter suppression targeting minorities. Many Democrats are enraged by being falsely accused of fraud and election interference by the Republicans who themselves undermined and attempted to overturn the election.Many moderates and progressives are angry at the far-right groups, including major media, that accuse the left of inciting the violent riot by the Trump mob at the Capitol. And many of us are furious at Donald Trump and his supporters for making public health measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19 and save lives into a political issue.The overwhelming majority that voted against Donald Trump have every reason to be angry at Mr. Trump and his supporters who feel so entitled that they are willing to bring down our democracy after they lost an election.Michael E. MahlerLos AngelesNew Homes for Clutter, Not the Trash Can Credit…Trisha KraussTo the Editor:Re “How to Declutter Quickly” (Here to Help, Jan. 27):I wish Melissa Kirsch had pointed out that the result of impulsively throwing things into the garbage is overflowing landfills that are a big problem for municipalities and the planet. The cake-decorating tips that she left at the curb might have been donated to a thrift store and then, for a dollar, might have provided a child being driven crazy by Zoom school with a fun activity. Clothing that was annoying Ms. Kirsch could have been donated to a local charity.It’s liberating to throw something into the garbage and be done with it, but it’s more considerate to try to find a new home for something we have purchased improvidently or no longer use.Diane S. GreenbergPalo Alto, Calif.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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      Impeachment Case Argues Trump Was ‘Singularly Responsible’ for Capitol Riot

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Trump ImpeachmentDivisions in the SenateList of Senators’ StancesTrump ImpeachedHow the House VotedKey QuotesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyImpeachment Case Argues Trump Was ‘Singularly Responsible’ for Capitol RiotThe House managers cited the Constitution’s framers in urging that Donald J. Trump be convicted and disqualified from holding office. Mr. Trump’s lawyers said the Senate had no jurisdiction.“If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,”  Donald J. Trump told his supporters at a rally in Washington on Jan. 6. Credit…Kenny Holston for The New York TimesNicholas Fandos and Feb. 2, 2021Updated 8:35 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — The House impeachment managers on Tuesday laid out their case against Donald J. Trump, asserting that he was “singularly responsible” for the deadly assault on the Capitol last month and must be convicted and barred from holding public office.In an 80-page brief filed on Tuesday, the managers outlined the arguments they planned to make when the Senate opens Mr. Trump’s trial next week, contending that the former president whipped his supporters into a “frenzy” as part of a concerted campaign to cling to power. Spinning a vivid narrative of a harrowing day when lawmakers were forced to flee as a violent pro-Trump mob breached the Capitol, the prosecutors also reached back centuries to bolster their case, invoking George Washington and the Constitutional Convention.“The framers of the Constitution feared a president who would corrupt his office by sparing ‘no efforts or means whatever to get himself re-elected,’” wrote the nine House Democrats, led by Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, quoting directly from the 1787 debate in Philadelphia. “If provoking an insurrectionary riot against a joint session of Congress after losing an election is not an impeachable offense, it is hard to imagine what would be.”In Mr. Trump’s own shorter filing, specked with typos and stripped of the former president’s usual bombast, his lawyers flatly denied that he had incited the attack and repeatedly argued that the Senate “lacks jurisdiction” to try a former president. They repeatedly urged an immediate dismissal of the single charge against him, “incitement of insurrection.”“The Senate of the United States lacks jurisdiction over the 45th president because he holds no public office from which he can be removed, rendering the article of impeachment moot and a non-justiciable question,” the lawyers, Bruce L. Castor Jr. and David Schoen, wrote in their 14-page response to the charge.Their other broad argument was that Mr. Trump’s remarks on Jan. 6 and in the weeks before were constitutionally protected. While they did not argue explicitly that Mr. Trump had won the 2020 election, as some said he wanted his legal team to do, the lawyers sought to shroud his false claims of widespread voter fraud in free-speech arguments.They effectively argued that Mr. Trump believed he “won it by a landslide,” and therefore was within his First Amendment rights to “express his belief that the election results were suspect.” His claims could not be disproved, they added, because there was “insufficient evidence.”President Biden won the election by about seven million votes, according to results certified by every state. Dozens of cases Mr. Trump brought alleging voting fraud or improprieties were tossed out or decided against him, many times by Republican-appointed judges, for lack of evidence.The impeachment filings provided the clearest preview yet of the legal strategies that are likely to shape a politically fraught impeachment trial of Mr. Trump — his second in just over a year — that is scheduled to begin in earnest in the Senate on Tuesday. They indicated that both sides expected drawn-out debates over the constitutionality of a trial, as much as Mr. Trump’s culpability for what took place.Despite their initial criticisms, a majority of Republican senators now appear to be lining up once again to acquit Mr. Trump. But the arguments could determine the difference between a near-party-line verdict like the one that capped the former president’s first trial in 2020 or a more bipartisan rebuke that could constrain any future political ambition he harbors.Though senators have yet to agree to a final set of rules to govern the proceeding, both parties appear to share an interest in an exceedingly swift trial, without new witnesses or fact-finding, that could conclude as soon as Saturday, Feb. 13. That would be far shorter than any presidential impeachment trial in history. But Republicans are eager to turn a page on a divisive former president, and Democrats are impatient to turn to advancing the agenda of the current one.The House impeachment managers, led by Representative Jamie Raskin, right, submitted an 80-page brief blaming Mr. Trump for the violent attack.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesIf Mr. Trump’s lawyers were trying to reassure Republican senators that they could dismiss the case without confronting its merits, the House managers were aiming instead to force them to confront the terror of the Capitol riot with an unusually visceral prosecution. They have compiled hours of footage from Parler, Twitter and elsewhere that they plan to play from the well of the Senate next week to compel Republicans to face Mr. Trump’s conduct head on, rather than retreating behind arguments around the process.The approach was evident in their legal brief, which was more dramatic in parts than a typical courtroom filing. It follows Mr. Trump from his early-summer warnings about a “rigged” election up to his last, futile attempts to target Congress’s Jan. 6 counting session to snatch victory away from President Biden.All the while, the managers argued, Mr. Trump was issuing a “call to mobilize” to his supporters to “stop the steal.” He invited them to come to Washington in early January. Then used a speech on the Ellipse outside the White House just before the attack to urge them to “fight like hell” and march to the Capitol to confront members of Congress and Vice President Mike Pence.The calls incited the mob to action, they argued, citing videos posted on social media in which supporters of Mr. Trump can be heard yelling “invade the Capitol building” after he urges them to “show strength.”“He summoned a mob to Washington, exhorted them into a frenzy, and aimed them like a loaded cannon down Pennsylvania Avenue,” the managers wrote.Unlike the first impeachment case against Mr. Trump, which centered on his pressure campaign on Ukraine, this one has bipartisan support and the prosecutors appear poised to make frequent use of Republicans’ own criticisms of Mr. Trump. Their brief quoted Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach, as well as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, who said publicly that Mr. Trump “provoked” the mob.In making constitutional arguments in favor of Mr. Trump’s conviction, though, they reached hundreds of years further back, arguing that Mr. Trump had not only prompted violence but threatened the tradition of the peaceful transfer of power begun by Washington. They also cited debates by the founders about who would be subject to impeachment and when, as well as a 19th-century impeachment trial of a former war secretary, to assert that the Senate clearly had a right to try Mr. Trump even after he left office.“There is no ‘January exception’ to impeachment or any other provision of the Constitution,” the managers wrote. “A president must answer comprehensively for his conduct in office from his first day in office through his last.”They also insisted that the First Amendment right to free speech could not shield Mr. Trump from responsibility for inciting violence that would seek to do harm to the Constitution, undermining all the rights enshrined there, including free speech.The president’s filing was narrower by design, with a lengthier, more detailed brief due from his lawyers early next week. Still, the contours of their defense were becoming clear.The lawyers said Democrats had misinterpreted Mr. Trump’s actions and his intent, denying that he was responsible for the Capitol riot or that he intended to interfere with Congress’s formalizing of Mr. Biden’s win. They said his words to supporters on Jan. 6 — “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore” — were not meant as a call to violent action, but were “about the need to fight for election security in general.”“It is denied that President Trump incited the crowd to engage in destructive behavior,” they wrote. In another section, they denied that Mr. Trump had “threatened” Georgia’s Republican secretary of state or “acted improperly” when he demanded during a January phone call that the official “find” the votes needed to overturn his loss in that state and vaguely warned of a “criminal offense.”The lawyers reprised an argument against the constitutionality of the trial popular with Republican senators. They asserted that a plain reading of the Constitution — which does not explicitly discuss what to do with an official impeached but not tried before he leaves office — does not permit the Senate to try a former president.But they also said that Mr. Trump “denies the allegation” that his claims that he won the election were false. If that argument plays a central role in the trial, Republican senators could quickly find themselves painfully wedged between a conspiracy theory they fear could do lasting damage to their party and millions of their own voters who believe it.Mr. Trump’s response appeared to be somewhat hastily assembled after the former president shook up his legal team just 48 hours before the brief was due; the response, for example, was addressed to the “Unites States Senate.”In an interview later, Mr. Schoen pointed to another potential argument that could help Mr. Trump: that at least some of the Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol planned their attack in advance, suggesting that the former president was not the inciting force.“I have no reason to believe anyone involved with Trump was in the know,” he said of the violence that unfolded at the Capitol. Still, he conceded the heart of the defense would lie elsewhere.Nicholas Fandos More

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      Andrew Yang Says He Has Tested Positive for the Coronavirus

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }N.Y.C. Mayoral RaceA Look at the Race5 Takeaways From the DebateAndrew Yang’s CandidacyWho’s Running?AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyAndrew Yang Says He Has Tested Positive for the CoronavirusMr. Yang, a New York mayoral candidate who had suspended in-person events after a campaign staff member had tested positive, said he was experiencing mild symptoms.“After testing negative as recently as this weekend, today I took a Covid rapid test and received a positive result,” Andrew Yang said in a statement on Tuesday.Credit…Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesFeb. 2, 2021Updated 8:14 p.m. ETAndrew Yang, a leading New York mayoral candidate who has pursued extensive in-person campaigning amid the pandemic, announced on Tuesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.“After testing negative as recently as this weekend, today I took a Covid rapid test and received a positive result,” Mr. Yang said in a statement. “I am experiencing mild symptoms, but am otherwise feeling well and in good spirits. I will quarantine in accordance with public health guidelines and follow the advice of my doctor.”Perhaps more than any other candidate in this year’s race, Mr. Yang has sought to forge an in-person campaign trail, holding multiple events outdoors since declaring his candidacy last month.His approach has generated enthusiasm on the ground and attention in the news media, but even before Mr. Yang tested positive, the risks were clear: A staff member tested positive less than a week after he announced for mayor, forcing the candidate to quarantine.But Mr. Yang had since returned to a robust in-person schedule. He said his campaign had begun the contact-tracing process.“During this time, I will continue to attend as many virtual events as possible, in addition to working with our incredible campaign team to continue our mission of getting New York City back on its feet,” Mr. Yang, 46, said in the statement. “When the time is right, I look forward to once again hitting the campaign trail and advancing a positive vision for our city’s future.”In addition to the health considerations, the developments offer a vivid illustration of the campaigning challenges facing the mayoral candidates as they scramble to stand out before June’s Democratic primary. Many worry about their ability to connect over livestreams and wonder about how many voters they are truly reaching with virtual events. But the health risks — to the candidates, their staffs and their supporters — remain real.Scott M. Stringer, the city comptroller whose mother died of complications from Covid-19, and Maya Wiley, a former counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio, have both had to quarantine recently, though they have generally been far more cautious about in-person campaigning.Pursuing a vigorous in-person schedule also may carry some political risk, especially in a Democratic primary.Throughout the presidential campaign, the Democrats drew sharp contrasts with their Republican rivals over the matter of taking the virus seriously. President Biden’s staff members argued that by pursuing a lighter in-person campaign schedule, they were respecting scientific and medical recommendations and offering a glimpse of how Mr. Biden would lead the country through the pandemic — contrasting with President Donald J. Trump’s large in-person rallies.None of the Democratic mayoral hopefuls are holding large rallies, though Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president, has faced criticism for fund-raising indoors. But they do face the challenge of breaking out of a crowded field while also signaling that they take seriously a pandemic that has devastated the city.In an interview, Mr. Stringer wished Mr. Yang a quick recovery, but he also cast the development as a “wake-up call” to the mayoral field — a sign that some of the candidates are increasingly willing to draw mild contrasts with one another, and in particular with Mr. Yang.“This is a dangerous business now, as long as this virus is raging, and we do have a special obligation to keep our people safe,” Mr. Stringer said.“Nobody wants to see, you know, a colleague get sick,” he added. “But you don’t want to be the one to expose people. So, you know, whether it’s indoor fund-raising or up-close campaigning, we have to write new rules to keep people safe while we inoculate as many people as possible.”A spokesman for Mr. Adams declined to comment on the reference to indoor fund-raising. In a statement, Mr. Yang’s co-campaign manager, Sasha Ahuja, said that the team’s strategy is informed by public health guidance.“We hope every other campaign does the same and does as much or as little as they are comfortable with,” the statement said.On Twitter, Mr. Yang used the moment to suggest a balm to speed his recovery.“In all seriousness if you want me to feel better donate to my campaign!” he wrote. “Then I can relax.”AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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

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      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