Katko, John (1962- )

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    Members of Congress Weigh Re-Election Bid Ahead of Midterms

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    For members of Congress weighing if another run is worth the hassle, the time to decide is fast approaching.It’s crunchtime in the campaign world.With states wrapping up the redistricting process and filing deadlines approaching for candidates, lawmakers are running out of time to decide whether they want to spend another term in Congress — and whether they have the energy to run the kind of race that would get them re-elected in their newly drawn districts.In the House, up to 435 members must face the voters every two years; and so far, nearly 40 have opted out.But the announcement on Friday by Representative John Katko of New York, who said he won’t seek re-election, is especially newsworthy for what it says about the modern Republican Party. Katko is one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald Trump, which infuriated the former president. With New York’s new congressional map in limbo, he chose to retire without even knowing what his new district might look like. He was an influential moderate who was willing to work with Democrats, including his failed attempt to broker a bipartisan committee to investigate the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.In California, one Republican candidate’s decision to run for re-election is probably the G.O.P.’s only chance of holding on to one of its few seats in the state. And in New Jersey, a Democrat who has everything working against him is trying to hold on rather than cede his new district to Republicans.Given Democrats’ razor-thin majorities, each of these decisions could help determine control of Congress in November. And even if Republicans were never truly at risk of losing a Senate seat in South Dakota, Senator John Thune’s decision to run for re-election after some hesitancy sent an important signal this week about Trump’s hold on their party.A Republican’s vote to impeach Trump could help his partyPresidential candidates don’t “win” individual congressional districts. They win states, along with their Electoral College votes. But political analysts have for years calculated candidates’ performance in counties and congressional districts for the sole purpose of measuring the partisan balance. That’s how we know there are two Republican House impeachers who represent districts that Biden carried: Katko and David Valadao.Unlike Katko, Valadao decided to run again. He has held California’s 21st District, in the state’s Central Valley, for the better part of the last decade, with a brief hiatus when he was swept out of Congress in the 2018 Democratic wave. Two years later, he won his seat back, and now he’s running for re-election in the newly drawn 22nd District, which is even friendlier to Democrats.Valadao’s vote to impeach Trump could be an asset for him in his district. That’s not the case for most of his G.O.P. colleagues who voted the same way. Valadao is one of just nine House Republicans who represent a district that President Biden carried in 2020. And while Republicans who are upset with his vote have already started to jump into the race to challenge him for the G.O.P. nomination, a right-wing candidate would be a hard sell in a general election.A Democrat who drew the short straw is running anywayFirst elected in the anti-Trump wave of 2018, Representative Tom Malinowski, Democrat of New Jersey, has only ever run in competitive House elections. But 2022 might make his previous races look easy.In the redistricting process, two of his Democratic colleagues also elected in the state in 2018 — Representatives Mikie Sherrill and Andy Kim — were drawn into safer seats. As David Wasserman, of The Cook Political Report, put it, Malinowski’s district “was more or less sacrificed” to protect other Democratic incumbents.Malinowski is running in a tougher district in 2022, and likely in a tougher political environment than he’s faced in his previous races. There might be at least one factor that he’s familiar with, however: His G.O.P. opponent, Tom Kean Jr., who came short by just over 5,000 votes when he took on Malinowski in 2020, is running again.Malinowski was one of a handful of Democrats who campaigned as moderates and who won in the 2018 wave. His re-election bid will test whether that kind of independent persona can withstand a potential Republican wave.“That’s what people in the district like,” noted Sean Darcy, a New Jersey-based political consultant. “He’ll have five or six months to introduce himself to his new constituents while Republicans beat each other up.”Republican senators brush off TrumpGiven how red the state has become, there’s really only one way that a South Dakota race could get interesting: intervention by Trump. Concerned about that possibility, Senator John Thune had been waiting on making a decision to run again. After all, Trump threatened to support a primary challenger to Thune, the second-ranking Senate Republican, because he accepted the 2020 election results. And recent reporting suggests Trump hasn’t quite yet given up on Kristi Noem, who has already said she’s running for re-election as South Dakota’s governor, as a potential primary threat.“I don’t think that Senator John Thune is intimidated by Donald Trump,” Dick Wadhams, a Republican strategist, told us.Neither, apparently, is South Dakota’s other senator, Mike Rounds, who stood his ground this week after the former president called him a “jerk” for saying during an appearance on ABC News that the election was not stolen in 2020.The filing deadline for Republican candidates in Thune’s Senate race is not until the end of March, leaving Trump plenty of time to cause trouble.What to readOhio’s Supreme Court struck down the state’s proposed new congressional map, ruling that the Republican-led plan was “infused with undue partisan bias.” The court instructed lawmakers to redraw the lines to be more fair, Trip Gabriel reports.Tensions are rising between the United States and Russia. On Friday, the Biden administration accused the Russian government of “sending saboteurs into eastern Ukraine to stage an incident that could provide President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with a pretext for ordering an invasion,” according to David E. Sanger. In a separate story, Helene Cooper reports that U.S. officials are contemplating support for a possible Ukrainian insurgency in the event that Russia invades the country.President Biden announced “a slate of candidates that would make for the most diverse Fed Board of Governors in the institution’s 108-year history,” Jeanna Smialek writes, including Sarah Bloom Raskin as the Fed’s vice chair for supervision and Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson, both of whom are Black, as governors.viewfinderDoug Mills/The New York TimesWe’ll regularly feature work by Doug Mills, The Times’s longtime White House photographer and a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Here’s what Doug had to say about capturing the shot above. He took it on Tuesday, after a joint appearance by President Biden and Vice President Harris at Clark Atlanta University and Morehouse College:Being on that campus, you feel the weight of history. Both Vice President Harris and President Biden made passionate remarks about civil rights and voting rights. When Biden finished speaking, Harris joined him onstage. As they departed, he put his arm around her and they shared a moment we don’t see that often. It reminded me of the time my colleague Steve Crowley captured President Obama in 2015 putting his arm around then-Vice President Biden after the Supreme Court endorsed the Affordable Care Act.Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      Republican Who Voted to Impeach Trump Won’t Seek Re-election

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      Increasingly marginalized from conservatives at home and in Washington, Mr. Katko also faced a brutal general election campaign in his left-leaning New York district.WASHINGTON — Representative John Katko of New York, a centrist Republican who broke with his party last year to vote to impeach former President Donald J. Trump, announced on Friday that he would not run for re-election.Mr. Katko was one of 10 House Republicans to vote to impeach Mr. Trump and is the third member of that group to announce his retirement.In a statement that fell almost exactly one year after that vote, Mr. Katko said he decided to call it quits in order to “enjoy my family and life in a fuller and more present way.” He added that the loss of both his own parents and his wife’s parents in the last three years “provided life-changing perspective for me.”“My conscience, principles, and commitment to do what’s right have guided every decision I’ve made as a member of Congress, and they guide my decision today,” he said.Mr. Katko, a former federal prosecutor, had grown increasingly marginalized by conservatives at home and among House Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have demanded total loyalty to Mr. Trump, played down the severity of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and eschewed working with President Biden. Those who veer off that course have found themselves attracting primary challengers, being pushed to the party’s sidelines, or both.A Look Ahead to the 2022 U.S. Midterm ElectionsIn the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are 10 races to watch.In the House: Republicans are already poised to capture enough seats to take control, thanks to redistricting and gerrymandering alone.Governors’ Races: Georgia’s race will be at the center of the political universe this year, but there are several important contests across the country.Key Issues: Both parties are preparing for abortion rights and voting rights to be defining topics.Mr. Katko’s sins in the eyes of his own party included supporting the creation of an independent commission to investigate the Capitol riot and backing a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan championed by Mr. Biden. He had already drawn three primary challengers and, if he survived that, was facing the likelihood of a brutal general election campaign.New York Democrats, who tried and failed for years to oust him from the Syracuse-based seat, are currently eying new congressional lines that could make the district virtually unwinnable for Republicans, even in a year that officials in both parties believe favors the G.O.P.Democrats and Mr. Trump found rare common ground to cheer Mr. Katko’s decision.“Great news, another one bites the dust,” Mr. Trump, who had offered to help those vying to unseat Mr. Katko in a primary, said in a statement.Abel Iraola, a spokesman for House Democrats’ campaign arm, said the retirement highlighted how the Republican Party’s rightward drift has made it “toxic for so-called G.O.P. moderates.”Mr. Katko had been among a shrinking group of lawmakers who appealed to voters outside of his own party. When Mr. Biden won his central New York district in 2020 by 9 points in 2020, Mr. Katko prevailed by 10.But the same centrist credentials that allowed Mr. Katko to hang onto his seat made him a target in conservative circles. After Republican leaders tasked him to work with Democrats on a proposal to create an independent Jan. 6 commission, they then abandoned the effort in favor of shielding Mr. Trump and the party from further scrutiny, urging lawmakers to oppose the plan Mr. Katko had negotiated.When Democrats formed their own select committee to investigate the riot anyway, Mr. Katko infuriated hard-right members by voting in October to hold Stephen K. Bannon in criminal contempt of Congress for stonewalling their inquiry.And Mr. Katko was one of 13 House Republicans who voted in November for the infrastructure bill, leading some in his party to brand him and the other G.O.P. supporters of the legislation “traitors,” and to call for Mr. Katko to be stripped of his leadership role on the Homeland Security Committee. He had been in line to become the panel’s chairman if Republicans won control of the House.The anger from his right flank followed Mr. Katko home. The Conservative Party, a minor party in New York that backs Republicans in most races, had denounced him last April and formally withdrew its support from his re-election bid after he voted for a Democratic bill extending protections for gay and transgender rights.Bernard Ment, the party chairman in Onondaga County, home to Syracuse, said that position was the last straw. In an interview, he called Mr. Katko a “Democrat,” though he retained support from his local Republican Party organization.“He’s been the one guy who’s tried to work on both sides of the aisle,” Mr. Ment said. “The problem is he’s managed to alienate a lot of conservative voters and tick off a lot of Republicans, and I don’t think he can make up the ground with Democratic voters.”Democrats who control New York state government in Albany are widely expected to try to pad the district with new Democratic voters as they redraw the state’s congressional districts in the coming weeks, giving their party a stark advantage in November. Three Democrats — two of them veterans — have already entered the race.With Mr. Katko and his crossover appeal out of the way, Democrats are likely to be less fearful of a Republican winning his district, giving them more wiggle room to further expand their majority as they redraw the map. New lines could yield as many as four new seats for Democrats in the House and deny Republicans five they currently hold. (New York is slated to lose one congressional seat this year after nationwide reapportionment.)Mr. Katko, for his part, has maintained that he was focusing on supporting his party’s policy priorities, lashing against Mr. Biden’s immigration policies in particular, and working to bring home results for his district. In a statement last year, he made clear how dangerous he believed the former president’s conduct was in the run up to Jan. 6.“To allow the president of the United States to incite this attack without consequence is a direct threat to the future of our democracy,” Mr. Katko said. “For that reason, I cannot sit by without taking action.”Nicholas Fandos More

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      10 Republicans Voted to Impeach Trump. What's Become of Them?

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      Ten House Republicans voted to charge President Donald J. Trump with inciting the Capitol attack. All of them are still struggling with the consequences.WASHINGTON — The 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Donald J. Trump did so with the same conviction — that a president of their party deserved to be charged with inciting insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 — and the same hope — that his role in doing so would finally persuade the G.O.P. to repudiate him.But in the year since the deadliest attack on the Capitol in centuries, none of the 10 lawmakers have been able to avoid the consequences of a fundamental miscalculation about the direction of their party. The former president is very much the leader of the Republicans, and it is those who stood against him whom the party has thrust into the role of pariah.Since they cast their impeachment votes on Jan. 13, Representatives Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois have announced their retirements amid death threats from voters and hostility from colleagues. Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming has gone from a star in the House Republican leadership to an exiled party gadfly and truth teller.Representatives Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington, Peter Meijer of Michigan and Fred Upton of Michigan have Trump-endorsed primary challengers on their heels and uncertain political futures. Four others — John Katko of New York, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Tom Rice of South Carolina and David Valadao of California — have gone to ground, silent if not silenced, in the apparent hope that the entire episode will be forgotten.The fate of the 10 over the past year has offered a bracing reality check about the nature of today’s Republican Party, one that has fully embraced the lie of a stolen election and its main purveyor, and sidelined the few remaining members who have dared to publicly question Mr. Trump or his actions.“There’s been this waiting game and an arbitrage between an individual’s political future and the trajectory of that guy, assuming the apex has passed,” Mr. Meijer said in a lengthy interview, referring to Mr. Trump. “The view among some was that this would be essentially a self-correcting issue,” and that Mr. Trump’s power would fade.“I think that’s proven overly optimistic,” Mr. Meijer added.The 10 could be forgiven for believing that their votes last January would not leave them so exposed. In the immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot, some of Mr. Trump’s most stalwart allies quit the government in disgust. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the House Republican leader, voted against impeachment but declared, “The president bears responsibility for Wednesday’s attack on Congress by mob rioters.”The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, orchestrated Mr. Trump’s acquittal after a hasty Senate impeachment trial. But he had let it be known that he considered the president culpable, and said as much in a scathing speech afterward: “There’s no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”But the rhetorical cover fire proved as ephemeral as it was useless. Mr. Gonzalez, deluged with threats and fearing for the safety of his wife and children, announced in September that he would not seek re-election — and called Mr. Trump “a cancer for the country.”After receiving threats, Representative Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio announced in September that he would not seek re-election.T.J. Kirkpatrick for The New York TimesA Cuban American who starred as a wide receiver at Ohio State, Mr. Gonzalez had been considered the kind of politician who would ensure the Republican Party’s future in a multiethnic, multiracial country after his election in 2018. But he found little support from the party that recruited him into politics once Mr. Trump endorsed a primary challenger and the threats began.Understand the Jan. 6 InvestigationBoth the Justice Department and a House select committee are investigating the events of the Capitol riot. Here’s where they stand:Inside the House Inquiry: From a nondescript office building, the panel has been quietly ramping up its sprawling and elaborate investigation.Criminal Referrals, Explained: Can the House inquiry end in criminal charges? These are some of the issues confronting the committee.Garland’s Remarks: Facing pressure from Democrats, Attorney General Merrick Garland vowed that the D.O.J. would pursue its inquiry into the riot “at any level.”A Big Question Remains: Will the Justice Department move beyond charging the rioters themselves?Mr. Kinzinger, who announced his retirement in October, has faced similar threats. But he has turned his opposition to Mr. Trump into a capstone of his career, defying Republican leaders to join the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, laying into Mr. Trump and his defenders at every opportunity, and promising not to leave the political stage once his House career ends this year.“The 2020 election was not stolen,” Mr. Kinzinger said in a lengthy video message on Wednesday for the anniversary of Jan. 6. “Joe Biden won, and Donald Trump lost. We have to admit it. But the leadership of the Republican Party won’t. They lied to the American people and continue to push the big lie and echo the conspiracy theories that line their pockets, keeping them in power.”Mr. Upton has never been one for flash, yet his future is no more secure, despite 35 years in the House. He could face Steve Carra, a state representative endorsed by Mr. Trump, who would have to move homes to mount a primary challenge against Mr. Upton because of new congressional maps drafted by a bipartisan commission.“I’m 100 percent running for Congress, it’s an honor to have President Trump’s endorsement, and Fred Upton will not be a congressman in 2023,” Mr. Carra said in a text message.Even if Mr. Upton does not have to face Mr. Carra, his impeachment vote has placed him at risk. The new map pushed Mr. Upton into the same district as Bill Huizenga, a more conservative congressman who voted against impeachment.Under the circumstances, Mr. Upton is showing clear signs of fatigue.“You’ve got metal detectors now going on the House floor. We get really nasty threats at home. The tone gets, you know, tougher and tougher, and it’s a pretty toxic place,” he said last month on CNN. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”None of the 10 have fallen so far in the Republican firmament as Ms. Cheney, nor risen so high in the esteem of many in both parties who fear and loathe Mr. Trump. The daughter of a former vice president who was once the embodiment of confrontational conservatism, for better or worse, Ms. Cheney started 2021 as the chairwoman of the House Republican Conference, a political knife fighter believed by many to be destined for the speakership.Her vote to impeach, and her outspoken denunciations of the lie — pushed by Mr. Trump and embraced by many of her colleagues — that the 2020 election was “stolen,” cost her dearly. She was ousted from her leadership post, ejected from the Wyoming Republican Party and targeted repeatedly by the former president, who has tried to unite Wyoming voters around the primary opponent he has endorsed, Harriet Hageman.Ms. Cheney has soldiered on, becoming the vice chairwoman of the House select committee investigating the riot, the face of Republican resistance to Trumpism and a one-woman wrecking crew for Mr. McCarthy’s ambitions to become speaker next year if the party retakes control of the House.Looking back, Ms. Cheney said in an interview that her fall from Republican leadership was inevitable as long as she had to share the stage with Mr. McCarthy, whose brief denunciation of Mr. Trump after Jan. 6 quickly gave way to a resumption of fealty.“It was increasingly clear that staying as conference chair was going to require me to perpetuate the lie about the election,” Ms. Cheney said. “I was simply not willing to look the other way and accept what he did.”Mr. McCarthy, by contrast, visited Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla, near the end of January, making it “pretty clear the path that he had chosen,” Ms. Cheney added. “It was one that was not faithful to the Constitution.”Never one to let bygones be bygones, Mr. Trump has relentlessly pursued retribution against those who voted to impeach him.In September, he endorsed a square-jawed, Army Special Forces veteran, Joe Kent, to challenge Ms. Herrera Beutler, who before her vote had revealed one of the most damning vignettes of Jan. 6 for Mr. Trump. She recounted a phone call in which Mr. McCarthy had personally pleaded with the president to call off the rioters during the assault. Mr. Trump had responded, “Well, Kevin, I guess these people are more upset about the election than you are.”Key Figures in the Jan. 6 InquiryCard 1 of 10The House investigation. More

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      Leaders Position House G.O.P. Against Independent Accounting for Jan. 6 Riot

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      Representative Kevin McCarthy, the top House Republican, said he would oppose the independent commission, and urged the party’s rank and file to do the same.WASHINGTON — Top House Republicans urged their colleagues on Tuesday to oppose bipartisan legislation creating an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, positioning their conference against a full accounting of the deadly riot by a pro-Trump mob.Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California and the minority leader, announced his opposition in a lengthy statement on Tuesday morning, and his leadership team followed up later to recommend that lawmakers vote “no” on Wednesday. Together, the actions suggested that the House vote would be a mostly partisan affair, highlighting yet again Republicans’ reluctance to grapple with former President Donald J. Trump’s election lies and their determination to deflect attention from the Capitol assault.Mr. McCarthy had been pushing for any outside investigation to include a look at what he called “political violence” on the left, including by anti-fascists and Black Lives Matter, rather than focus narrowly on the actions of Mr. Trump and his supporters who carried out the riot.“Given the political misdirections that have marred this process, given the now duplicative and potentially counterproductive nature of this effort, and given the speaker’s shortsighted scope that does not examine interrelated forms of political violence in America, I cannot support this legislation,” Mr. McCarthy said in a statement.His opposition raised questions about the fate of the commission in the Senate, where Democrats would need at least 10 Republicans to agree to support its formation. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said he and other Republican senators were undecided and would “listen to the arguments on whether such a commission is needed.”House Republican leaders had initially suggested that they would allow lawmakers to vote however they saw fit, too. But they abruptly reversed course on Tuesday, releasing a “leadership recommendation” urging a “no” vote in an apparent bid to tamp down on the number of members embracing the bill.Mr. Trump himself put out a statement on Tuesday night calling the commission a “Democrat trap.” He urged Republicans to “get much tougher” and to oppose it unless it was expanded to look at “murders, riots, and fire bombings” in cities run by Democrats.“Hopefully, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy are listening!” he said.In rejecting the commission, Mr. McCarthy essentially threw one of his key deputies, Representative John Katko of New York, under the bus in favor of shielding Mr. Trump and the party from further scrutiny. Mr. Katko had negotiated the makeup and scope of the commission with his Democratic counterpart on the Homeland Security Committee and enthusiastically endorsed it on Friday.It was all the more striking coming just days after Mr. McCarthy had maneuvered the ouster from leadership of his No. 3, Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, because she refused to drop criticisms of Mr. Trump and Republicans who abetted his election falsehoods. Ms. Cheney has said that the commission should have a narrow scope, and that Mr. McCarthy should testify about a phone call with Mr. Trump during the riot.Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, immediately slammed Republican opposition as “cowardice” and released a letter Mr. McCarthy had sent her in February showing that Democrats had incorporated all three of his principal demands for a commission modeled after the one that studied the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.In it, Mr. McCarthy said he wanted to ensure any commission had an even ratio of appointees by Republicans and Democrats, shared subpoena power between the two parties’ appointees and did not include any “findings or other predetermined conclusions” in its organizing documents.Democrats ultimately agreed to all three, but in his statement on Tuesday, Mr. McCarthy said Ms. Pelosi had “refused to negotiate in good faith.”“I presume Trump doesn’t want this to happen,” said Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader. “Enough said.”Mr. Katko predicted a “healthy” number of Republicans would still vote for it.“I can’t state this plainly enough: This is about facts,” Mr. Katko told the House Rules Committee at a hearing on the bill. “It’s not about partisan politics.”But by encouraging Republicans to vote no, Mr. McCarthy positioned the commission as yet another test of loyalty to Mr. Trump, spotlighting a rift within the party between a small minority that is willing to question him and the vast majority that is not.Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, vowed to press the issue with Senate Republicans by quickly bringing the legislation up for a vote in that chamber.“Republicans can let their constituents know: Are they on the side of truth?” Mr. Schumer said. “Or do they want to cover up for the insurrectionists and Donald Trump?”Mr. McCarthy’s biggest complaint was the panel’s narrow focus on the riot itself — carried out by right-wing activists inspired by Mr. Trump — when he said it should take a broader look at political violence on the left, including a shooting by a left-leaning activist who targeted congressional Republicans at a baseball practice four years ago.Some Republicans have gone much further in recent weeks, trying to whitewash the violence on Jan. 6 that left five people dead, injured 140 police officers and endangered lawmakers’ lives along with that of Vice President Mike Pence.In remarks on the House floor on Tuesday, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said a commission was needed to study “all the riots that happened during the summer of 2020 after the death of George Floyd,” not the attack on the Capitol. She also accused the Justice Department of mistreating those charged in connection with the attack.“While it’s catch and release for domestic terrorists, antifa, B.L.M., the people who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6 are being abused,” she said.Catie Edmondson More