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      Danger and deja vu: what 2011 can tell us about the US debt ceiling crisis

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      Angry at the size of the government debt, House Republicans have passed a bill that ties spending cuts to any lifting of the US’s debt limit. A tense fight is escalating, with Democrats refusing to budge and hard-line Republicans digging in. Without a solution, economists and others warn, the US could be plunged into an “economic catastrophe”.You can be forgiven a sense of déja vu. This has all happened before. Only this time, it could be worse.The federal government has a legal maximum on how much debt it can accumulate –often called the debt ceiling or the debt limit. Congress has to vote to raise that limit and has done 78 times since 1960 – often without fuss. But in recent years, the debt negotiations have become Washington’s most heated – and potentially dangerous – debate.This year’s fight looks like the most high-risk one since 2011, when Republicans used the debt limit debate as a bargaining chip for spending cuts. It was a fight to the bitter end. One former congressman told the New York Times that the battle drew “parallels and distinctions with other tumultuous times such as the civil war”.With stock markets reeling and 72 hours left before the US would have defaulted on its debts, a disaster that threatened to wreak havoc on the economy, Republicans and Democrats finally agreed on a bill that raised the debt ceiling by $900bn and cut spending by nearly the same amount.For Republicans, particularly the new rightwing Tea Party members who refused to budge even as default loomed, it was a political win.Politics are once again deeply embedded in this year’s debt ceiling debate and many see a mirroring of the debt ceiling crisis of 2011.The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is caught between his party’s moderate and far-right factions. Though McCarthy rallied his party behind a House bill, Democrats are so far refusing to negotiate.The US treasury is already running on fumes. In January, the treasury started using “extraordinary measures” to avoid defaulting on US debts while the debate over raising the limit started. Some estimate that the US government’s default date – the so-called “X date” when the government officially runs out of funds to pay its bills — will arrive in late July, giving the GOP and Democrats less than three months to find a solution.The US has never defaulted on its debt. Failure to find a solution would send stock markets reeling, recipients of federal benefits might not get their monthly checks, parts of government would grind to a halt and “long-term damage” would be inflicted on the US economy, according to the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.Fights over the US debt ceiling are common and usually resolved after a session of bloviating. Wall Street has so far ignored this scrap, betting on a repeat. But, as in 2011, all that could change as the X date approaches. This time the Tea Party Republicans have been replaced by even more hardline politicians – the Freedom Caucus – who begrudgingly signed on to McCarthy’s plan but have sworn to hold out for cost cuts no matter the price.“What will damage the economy is what we’ve seen the last two years: record spending, record inflation, record debt. We already know that’s damaging the economy,” Representative Jim Jordan, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, told Reuters.David Kamin, a New York University law professor who served as an economic adviser to the Obama and Biden administrations, including during the 2011 crisis, said: “Congress has negotiated [the debt ceiling] over the many decades that it’s been in its current form. But what is different about this episode, and the episode in 2011, is the very credible threat from the Republican side to not raise the debt limit, to demand a large set of policy in exchange for a vote.” He added: “That then sets up a dangerous negotiation where what’s at stake is severe repercussions for the economy.”A default would be catastrophic for the US and global economy, creating instability in financial markets and interrupting government services. But, as the 2011 crisis showed, even getting close to default comes with a price. Markets plummeted and the ratings agency S&P downgraded the US’s credit rating for the first time in history, making it more expensive for the country to borrow money. The cost to borrow went up $1.3bn the next year and continued to be more expensive years later, essentially offsetting some of the negotiation’s cost-cutting measures.To some economists, that was just the short-term impact. The spending cuts ushered in years of budget tightening whose impacts were felt for years.“We were still in a pretty depressed economy and in recovery from the great recession when those cuts were instituted. They just made the recovery last far longer than it should have,” said Josh Bivens, chief economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a leftwing thinktank. “Over the next six or seven years, really valuable public goods and services were not delivered because they were cut so sharply.”Government spending tends to rise after recessions but per-capita federal spending fell after the debt crisis. Bivens argues that if government spending had continued at its normal levels, the unemployment rate would have returned to its pre-recession level five or six years before 2017, when the job market finally recovered its losses.This time around the Republican bill, called the “Limit, Save and Grow Act”, would increase the debt ceiling by $1.5tn in exchange for $1.47tn in cuts during the next fiscal year and a 1% spending increase cap thereafter. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would cut federal spending by $4.8tn over the next 10 years.The bill would mean cuts to things like defense, education and social services over time, though Republicans have outlined few specific cuts in the bill. House Republicans are proposing scrapping Joe Biden’s student relief program, making more stringent work requirements for government benefits, namely Medicaid, and rolling back several Inflation Reduction Act investments, particularly clean energy tax credits.The IRS would lose $71bn in funding under the new bill, a move that would lead to more lenient tax collection and ultimately cost the federal government $120bn over the next decade. Republicans have been targeting the IRS for budget cuts for over a decade, weakening the agency’s tax enforcement over corporations and the wealthy and allowing $18bn in lost government revenue, ProPublica estimated in 2018.While Republicans are using old tricks from 2011, Democrats appear to have learned some lessons from the Obama-era spat. After 2011, the Obama administration refused to negotiate over the debt ceiling. Biden and other Democratic leaders have continued the practice: the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, called the Republican bill “dead on arrival” when it got to the Senate.“President Biden will never force middle class and working families to bear the burden of tax cuts for the wealthiest, as this bill does,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in a statement Wednesday. “Congressional Republicans must act immediately and without conditions to avoid default and ensure that the full faith and credit of the United States is not put at risk.”The question now is: what are the political costs for the Democrats and Republicans? As the crisis deepens, how long will they hold and who will fold?Despite Republicans preaching fiscal discipline, US debt actually rose by $7.8tn under the Trump administration. Spending cuts would also likely target GOP-friendly expenditures. The party has already had to make a tough compromise over ethanol tax credits, which were ultimately left untouched at the behest of “Corn Belt” Republican lawmakers. And McCarthy still lost four Republican votes, the most he can afford to lose with the Republicans’ slim House majority. He has little room to compromise even if he can get Biden to negotiate.Matt Gaetz, a Republican representative from Florida and another Freedom Caucus member, voted against McCarthy’s bill and said in a statement that it would “increase America’s debt by $16tn over the next ten years”.“Gaslighting nearly $50tn in debt to America is something my conscious [sic] cannot abide at this time,” Gaetz said.Kamin pointed out that Republicans only focus on the debt ceiling as a leverage point when there is a Democratic president – the debt ceiling was raised three times during Trump’s presidency – showing that their objective is less about actually reducing the deficit than it is about playing politics.“The Republican party – at least elements of the Republican party – have organized themselves using this as a litmus test for adherence to their beliefs and are really focused on it as a central element of their agenda,” Kamin said. But the fight is “not fundamentally about deficits and debt”, he said. It is a fight about politics.As in 2011, the two sides are locked in a game of chicken and waiting for the opposition to cave. If neither side blinks, the impact on the economy will be felt for years to come. More

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      ‘We need to read the room’: GOP divided on abortion as Democrats unite for 2024

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      Hours after Joe Biden announced his re-election campaign on Tuesday, his vice-president and 2024 running mate, Kamala Harris, delivered a fiery call to action for voters alarmed by the loss of constitutional protections for abortion.“This is a moment for us to stand and fight,” she said to a packed auditorium at Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington and her alma mater. To the “extremist so-called leaders” rolling back access to reproductive rights, Harris warned: “Don’t get in our way because if you do, we’re going to stand up, we’re going to organize and we’re going to speak up.”Across the Potomac, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley appealed for a “national consensus” on abortion in a carefully worded speech delivered earlier that day from the Arlington headquarters of a leading anti-abortion group. Sidestepping the thorny policy debates already animating the Republican primary contest, she said her focus was on “humanizing, not demonizing” the conversation around abortion.“I believe in compassion, not anger,” she said. “I don’t judge someone who is pro-choice any more than I want them to judge me for being pro-life.”Nearly a year after the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the battle over abortion rights is shaping the opening stages of the 2024 presidential contest.In dueling speeches this week, Harris and Haley previewed sharply contrasting approaches to an issue that is energizing Democrats and dividing Republicans. It’s a sign of just how dramatically abortion politics have shifted in the post-Roe era.Republicans, who for decades championed the anti-abortion agenda of the religious right, are now wavering on their positions, no longer sure of how to navigate an abiding principle of American conservatism in their quest to win control of the White House and Congress.Meanwhile, Democrats running for office at every level of government – from the presidential ticket on down – are placing abortion rights at the heart of their campaigns, presenting themselves as bulwarks against Republican extremism on the issue. It was a strategy the party used to surprising success in the 2022 midterm elections last year, when voters in red states, blue states and swing states resisted attempts to advance abortion restrictions.And it worked again earlier this month, when a liberal judge won a pivotal Wisconsin supreme court race after clearly telegraphing her support for abortion rights. Her victory likely guarantees the court’s new liberal majority will strike down the state’s 1849 abortion ban.“This is a defining issue for millions and millions of Americans,” said Cecile Richards, a former CEO of Planned Parenthood who is now a co-chair of Democratic Super Pac American Bridge 21st Century. Abortion rights, she predicted, would be “even more important” in 2024 than they were last year, as Americans grapple with the consequences of abortion bans and restricted access.“I think the harm to American people, to women, to families is going to continue to be on display and that you can lay directly at the feet of the Republican party,” Richards said.Democrats are almost universally aligned in their support for abortion rights, and largely unified in their messaging: Republicans, they warn, will not stop until abortion is outlawed in all 50 states.“Their ultimate goal is clear: a total ban on abortion nationwide,” the Democratic senator ​Dick Durbin​ of Illinois​ said this week, in remarks opening a committee hearing titled “The Assault on Reproductive Rights in a Post-Dobbs America”.The high court’s June decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, he said, “paved the way for activist judges and Republican lawmakers to try to impose their anti-choice agenda on everyone else, even in states that have protected the right to abortion”.During the session, Democratic senators assailed a ruling earlier this month by a conservative judge in Texas to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. Republicans, meanwhile, were largely muted in their response to the decision.If allowed to stand, the Texas order would have far-reaching implications for access to one of the most common methods of terminating a pregnancy in the US, including in places where abortion remains legal. For now, the supreme court ordered the pill to remain widely available while the appeals process plays out.Republicans are divided over how to counter the attacks. Some Republicans have argued that abortion is a matter best left to the states, a position recently endorsed by Donald Trump. Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups, fired back with a warning to the party’s 2024 hopefuls: any candidate who does not endorse a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy will not receive their support.The rift between Trump and the movement leaders who once anointed him the “most pro-life” president in history for his role delivering the conservative supreme court majority that struck down Roe underscores the challenge for Republican candidates as they seek to appeal to their party’s socially conservative base in the primary without alienating independents and swing voters in a general election.Haley sought to strike that balance In her speech from SBA’s headquarters this week. Emphasizing her “pro-life” record both as the governor of South Carolina and Trump’s ambassador to the UN, she said there was a role for the federal government to play in regulating abortion, but largely avoided specific policy prescriptions.In a statement after the speech, SBA said Haley had made “clear” to the group that she was committed to “acting on the American consensus against late-term abortion by protecting unborn children by at least 15 weeks”. (A spokesman for the Haley campaign said she wanted to build “consensus to ban late-term abortion” but did not say whether she supported such a proposal. SBA did not respond to an email seeking clarity.)Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina waffled on his position in the days after launching a presidential exploratory committee, declining to say if he would support a national 15-week ban. He later backed a 20-week ban before saying in an interview that he would sign “the most conservative pro-life legislation you could bring to my desk”.Anti-abortion advocates applauded Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, seen as Trump’s most formidable challenger for the nomination, after he signed into law legislation banning abortions after six weeks, before many women realize they are pregnant. But the decision to do so has alarmed some Republicans, including a top party donor who cited abortion as one of the reason he was pausing plans to fund DeSantis’s yet-to-be announced presidential bid.Perhaps no potential Republican contender has taken a harder line on abortion than the former vice-president Mike Pence, a staunch social conservative. He has embraced a national ban and recently welcomed the Texas decision on medication abortion, calling it a “victory for life”.Disagreement among the party’s notional field of Republican presidential contenders all but guarantees a robust policy debate on the issue, forcing them to articulate a federal plan that details how early in a pregnancy to restrict abortion and when to allow exceptions.Americans almost universally agree that women should be able to terminate their pregnancy in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, according to a new NBC poll. And a survey by the Pew Research Center recently found that Americans, by a margin of two to one, believe medication abortion should be legal.“As Republicans, we need to read the room on this issue because the vast majority of folks are not in the extremes,” the Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina said in an appearance on ABC News’s This Week. Mace, who like most of her party describes herself as “pro-life”, is part of an increasingly vocal group of Republicans urging her party to avoid politically perilous positions that risk alienating the broader American public that supports legal abortion.“We’re going to lose huge if we continue down this path of extremities,” she said.Leaders of the anti-abortion movement say Republicans’ silence on the issue, not their policy positions, is to blame for the string of recent electoral setbacks. They point to DeSantis, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine as examples of Republicans who sailed to re-election last year, after signing into law new restrictions on abortion. All are from right-leaning but still-contested states.Republican “strategists are advising Republican candidates to talk as little as possible about abortion. Meanwhile, Biden plastered ABORTION all over his new campaign video,” Kristan Hawkins, the president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, wrote on Twitter. “They are talking about it, so we 100% should be too.”Speaking recently at the Reagan Library, Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, urged the party faithful not to impose “rigid, ideological purity tests” while pushing her candidates to lean into the debate over abortion rights.“We can win on abortion but that means putting Democrats on the defense and forcing them to own their own extreme positions,” she said, citing polling that showed support for a 15-week federal ban.But corralling her party behind a unified policy is no easy task. After a half-century of pushing to eliminate federal abortion protections, conservatives feel emboldened to push ever more restrictive laws in places where they hold power.This week, North Dakota became the latest state to dramatically limit abortion, banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. And a new law in Idaho would criminalize those who help a minor obtain an abortion in another state without a parent’s permission.Meanwhile, in South Carolina and Nebraska, the state’s conservative-majority legislatures failed to pass new bills banning abortion, another sign of just how complicated the issue has become for Republicans.Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster who has studied public attitudes on abortion, said voters are highly attuned to the fast-changing legal and political landscape. And repeatedly since Roe’s demise, she noted, they have made clear their opposition to further restrictions.“What voters want is for Republican politicians to stay out of their personal lives,” Murphy said. Until then, she said abortion rights would continue to be a powerful motivator for Democrats.“The energy has not waned,” she said. More

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      Biden v Trump: US is unenthused by likely rematch of two old white men

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      It is the envy of the world for its diversity and vitality. Yet America appears on a likely course for a presidential election between a white man in his 80s and a white man in his 70s. And yes, they’re the same guys as last time.Joe Biden, the 46th president and oldest in history, this week formally launched his campaign for a second term in a video announcement. The 80-year-old faces no serious challenge from within the Democratic party and told reporters: “They’re going to see a race, and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it.”Donald Trump, the 45th president and second oldest in history, is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. He holds a 46-point lead over Ron DeSantis in the latest Emerson College poll amid growing doubts over the Florida governor’s readiness for the world stage. Trump, 76, has chalked up far more endorsements from members of Congress.There is a very long way to go, and Trump faces myriad legal perils, but most pundits currently agree that a replay of the 2020 election is the most likely scenario next year – one that polls show voters have little appetite for.“I don’t think Americans want to see a sequel,” said Chris Scott, a 34-year-old Democratic strategist from Detroit, Michigan. “Americans are fed up with the Donald Trump saga, even though he still has a number of acolytes in the GOP. They’re just ready to be over that chapter and move on.“With Biden, there’s a lot of people that question: does he have the stamina to do another four years, even though there’s things in his record that have been effective and he’s gotten done? I don’t think anybody wants to see exactly the same rematch that we got four years ago.”Biden’s re-election bid was all but inevitable. This will be his fourth run for the presidency in four decades and, having finally achieved his ambition in 2020, he has little cause to walk away. He can point to arguably the most consequential legislative agenda since President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s and sealed the deal with a better-than-expected performance in last year’s midterm elections, where abortion rights were a pivotal issue.Furthermore, he has no obvious challenger with the Democratic party and benefits from the same conditions as 2020: the fear that Trump poses an existential threat to democracy and the calculation and Biden is best placed to beat him.The president duly promised this week to protect American liberties from “extremists” linked to Trump. A video released by his new campaign team opened with imagery from the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.Biden said: “When I ran for president four years ago, I said we’re in a battle for the soul of America, and we still are. This is not a time to be complacent. That’s why I’m running for re-election … Let’s finish this job. I know we can.”To retain the White House, Biden will need to enthuse the coalition of young voters and Black voters – particularly women – along with blue-collar midwesterners, moderates and disaffected Republicans who helped him win in 2020.But while the leftwing senator Bernie Sanders and most Democratic elected officials are backing him, voters have doubts about a man who would be 86 by the end of a prospective second term, almost a decade older than the average American male’s life expectancy.Some 44% of Democratic voters say he is too old to run, according a Reuters/Ipsos poll, although it showed him with a lead of 43% to 38% over Trump nationally. Trump also faces concerns about his age, with 35% of Republicans saying he is too old.The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that a majority of registered voters do not want either Biden or Trump to run again. But they may be stuck with it as both men are difficult to dislodge. Biden has the advantage of incumbency while Trump, as a former president with an iron-like grip on his party’s grassroots base, is a quasi-incumbent on the Republican side.Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “Until both parties put something different on the ballot, what’s America going to do? Now the challenge becomes how to keep the respective party bases animated, how to engage independent voters and young people to participate in an election that they’re not thrilled about.”He observed bleakly: “There’s nothing inspirational about American politics today.”Bill Galston, a former adviser to President Bill Clinton, said: “I’ve believed for a long time we’re in for a rematch. There is not a lot of enthusiasm for the rematch but, in the end, people are going to choose sides very firmly and I do not expect it to be a low-turnout election.”America is diversifying culturally and racially but it is also ageing – since 2000, census records show, the national median age has increased by 3.4 years. Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington, added: “It is still the case that people above the age of 50 vote in much higher percentages than people below the age of 50 and especially below the age of 30.“The new generation will become much more decisive when it begins to vote in numbers commensurate with its potential demographic clout. But not before.”Following Hillary Clinton v Trump in 2016, and Biden v Trump in 2020 (which saw the highest turnout in more than a century), a rematch between the two men would be the third consecutive election to foreground negative partisanship, with many voters animated by their dislike of other side’s candidate.John Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “Republicans have been worked into a frenzy about Biden and Democrats view Trump as the devil incarnate.“Significant numbers of ‘antis’ really hate the other person. That in itself is a driver. That helps turnout for both sides. At this moment I’ve got to think advantage Democrat. But there’s a long way to go here. There is pressure on Biden. He can’t stumble physically, he can’t make a horrible gaffe, and that’s enormous pressure.”A Biden v Trump rematch would also leave America facing its 250th birthday in 2026 with no female presidents and only one Black president in its history. It fares poorly by comparison with Australia, Britain, Finland, Germany, New Zealand and numerous nations that have elected women as leaders.Trump could choose a female running mate, with potential candidates including Nikki Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN and one of his rivals for the Republican nomination. Biden will be joined in his 2024 bid by his vice-president, Kamala Harris, who features prominently in his campaign video.Bonnie Morris, a history lecturer at University of California, Berkeley, and author of books including The Feminist Revolution, said: “An interesting question is, given the concerns about Biden’s age or his possible frailty, it sets up the potential for a Black woman to take over should he be elected and fall ill.”The race is not a foregone conclusion, however. Some Republicans say they are weary of Trump’s grievance politics and boorish behaviour – and his repeated electoral defeats. DeSantis has not yet formally launched his campaign and Trump could also face competition from his former vice-president, Mike Pence, Senator Tim Scott and others.Trump is uniquely vulnerable this time after becoming the first former president to face criminal charges and because of an array of investigations. In a jarring contrast to Biden’s campaign announcement, Trump was on trial in a civil lawsuit this week over writer E Jean Carroll’s accusation that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. He has denied raping Carroll.But if Trump does prevail, Democrats insist that they can overcome voter fatigue.Malcolm Kenyatta, 32, the first openly LGBTQ+ person of colour elected to the Pennsylvania general assembly, said: “This campaign is going to be the clearest contrast that maybe you’ve ever seen because I do believe Donald Trump is going to be the nominee. A lot of times you have somebody who’s never been president running against the incumbent and they’ve talking about what they want to do. You have two presidents who have actual records.“Under Trump, you saw the most job losses of any president in American history, an economic moment of turmoil coming out of Covid. I’m excited to get out there and be a part of telling the story of what the president’s real successes have been. You don’t have to sadly vote for President Biden. I’m going to be happily, vigorously excited to vote for him because he has accomplished so much and frankly I don’t give a damn how old he is. I give a damn about what it would mean for working families like mine.” More

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      in Elections

      Mike Pence interviewed by grand jury investigating Capitol attack – live

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      From 2h agoHere’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell about Mike Pence’s interview with federal investigators, and why his testimony may be so important to any case against Donald Trump:Mike Pence testified before a federal grand jury on Thursday in Washington about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to a source familiar with the matter, a day after an appeals court rejected a last-ditch motion to block his appearance.The former vice-president’s testimony lasted for around seven hours and took place behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors hearing evidence in the case remains uncertain.His appearance is a moment of constitutional consequence and potential legal peril for the former president. Pence is considered a major witness in the criminal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith, since Trump pressured him to unlawfully reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden at the joint session of Congress, and was at the White House meeting with Republican lawmakers who discussed objections to Biden’s win.The Biden administration announced on Thursday a set of new initiatives to discourage immigrants from illegally crossing into the US via the US-Mexico border.The measures include harsher crackdowns on those who do come and new pathways that offer an alternative to the dangerous journey, the Associated Press reports.Such alternatives include setting up migration centers in other countries, increasing the amount of immigrants allowed in, and faster processing of migrants seeking asylum. Those not eligible for asylum who cross over will be penalized, AP further reports.The policies come as May 11 approaches, which will end the public health rule instituted amid the Covid-19 pandemic that allowed for many migrants to be quickly expelled.The Montana governor was lobbied by his non-binary child to reject several bills that would harm transgender people in the state, according to the Guardian’s Sam Levine.
      The son of the Republican governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte, met their father in his office to lobby him to reject several bills that would harm transgender people in the state, the Montana Free Press reported.
      David Gianforte told the paper they identify as non-binary and use he/they pronouns – the first time they disclosed their gender identity publicly. They told the outlet they felt an obligation to use their relationship with their father to stand up for LGBTQ+ people in the state.
      “There are a lot of important issues passing through the legislature right now,” they said in a statement. “For my own sake I’ve chosen to focus primarily on transgender rights, as that would significantly directly affect a number of my friends … I would like to make the argument that these bills are immoral, unjust, and frankly a violation of human rights.”
      Read the full article here.A Tennesee lawmaker who was previously outsted for calling for gun control after a Nashville mass shooting has spoken about Zephyr being silenced.In an interview with Democracy Now, Tennessee representative Justin Jones spoke with Zephyr about the need for continued solidarity.“An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,” said Zephyr, after Jones said that several communities stood with Zephyr amid attempts to silence her.Earlier this week, Republicans in Montana barred the state’s sole transgender lawmaker, Democrat Zooey Zephyr, from the floor of the state House of Representatives.Their justification? That Zephyr’s interaction with protesters who were demonstrating against her earlier silencing by the House’s Republican majority amounted to “encouraging an insurrection.” The Associated Press reports that such claims have become increasingly common in recent months in state legislatures where Republicans rule. Case in point, the rhetoric used by GOP lawmakers to briefly expel two Democrats from the Tennessee state House of Representatives earlier this month.Here’s more from the AP:
      Silenced by her Republican colleagues, Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr looked up from the House floor to supporters in the gallery shouting “Let her speak!” and thrust her microphone into the air — amplifying the sentiment the Democratic transgender lawmaker was forbidden from expressing.
      While seven people were arrested for trespassing, the boisterous demonstration was free of violence or damage. Yet later that day, a group of Republican lawmakers described it in darker tones, saying Zephyr’s actions were responsible for “encouraging an insurrection.”
      It’s the third time in the last five weeks — and one of at least four times this year — that Republicans have attempted to compare disruptive but nonviolent protests at state capitols to insurrections.
      The tactic follows a pattern set over the past two years when the term has been misused to describe public demonstrations and even the 2020 election that put Democrat Joe Biden in the White House. It’s a move experts say dismisses legitimate speech and downplays the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of former President Donald Trump. Shortly after, the U.S. House voted to impeach him for “incitement of insurrection.”
      Ever since, many Republicans have attempted to turn the phrase on Democrats.
      “They want to ring alarm bells and they want to compare this to Jan. 6,” said Andy Nelson, the Democratic Party chair in Missoula County, which includes Zephyr’s district. “There’s absolutely no way you can compare what happened on Monday with the Jan. 6 insurrection. Violence occurred that day. No violence occurred in the gallery of the Montana House.”
      This week’s events in the Montana Legislature drew comparisons to a similar demonstration in Tennessee. Republican legislative leaders there used “insurrection” to describe a protest on the House floor by three Democratic lawmakers who were calling for gun control legislation in the aftermath of a Nashville school shooting that killed three students and three staff. Two of them chanted “Power to the people” through a megaphone and were expelled before local commissions reinstated them.
      The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports on the latest steps in Florida authorities’ march to tighten down on voting access, as the state’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis edges closer to announcing a presidential campaign:Florida Republicans are on the verge of passing new restrictions on groups that register voters, a move voting rights groups and experts say will make it harder for non-white Floridians to get on the rolls.The restrictions are part of a sweeping 96-page election bill the legislature is likely to send to Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk soon. The measure increases fines for third-party voter registration groups. It also shortens the amount of time the groups have to turn in any voter registration applications they collect from 14 days to 10. The bill makes it illegal for non-citizens and people convicted of certain felonies to “collect or handle” voter registration applications on behalf of third-party groups. Groups would also have to give each voter they register a receipt and be required to register themselves with the state ahead of each general election cycle. Under current law, they only have to register once and their registration remains effective indefinitely.Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports that a 2018 investigation that played a role in Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the supreme court was less thorough than it appeared. If you read one Guardian story today, make it this one:A 2018 Senate investigation that found there was “no evidence” to substantiate any of the claims of sexual assault against the US supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh contained serious omissions, according to new information obtained by the Guardian.The 28-page report was released by the Republican senator Chuck Grassley, the then chairman of the Senate judiciary committee. It prominently included an unfounded and unverified claim that one of Kavanaugh’s accusers – a fellow Yale graduate named Deborah Ramirez – was “likely” mistaken when she alleged that Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a dormitory party because another Yale student was allegedly known for such acts.Here’s more from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell about Mike Pence’s interview with federal investigators, and why his testimony may be so important to any case against Donald Trump:Mike Pence testified before a federal grand jury on Thursday in Washington about Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to a source familiar with the matter, a day after an appeals court rejected a last-ditch motion to block his appearance.The former vice-president’s testimony lasted for around seven hours and took place behind closed doors, meaning the details of what he told the prosecutors hearing evidence in the case remains uncertain.His appearance is a moment of constitutional consequence and potential legal peril for the former president. Pence is considered a major witness in the criminal investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith, since Trump pressured him to unlawfully reject electoral college votes for Joe Biden at the joint session of Congress, and was at the White House meeting with Republican lawmakers who discussed objections to Biden’s win.Good morning, US politics blog readers. On Thursday, former vice-president Mike Pence appeared before the grand jury empaneled by special counsel Jack Smith to consider charges against Donald Trump over the January 6 insurrection. The possibility that Trump could face a federal indictment over the attack, as well as his involvement in plots to stop Joe Biden from taking office and the classified materials found at Mar-a-Lago, is a major unknown in the presidential race, particularly since polls show Trump as the most popular Republican candidate. There’s no saying when Smith could make his charging recommendation, but Pence’s testimony is a reminder that the investigation remains a real threat to the former president.Here’s what’s going on today:
      House Democratic leadership will hold their weekly press conference at 10.30am eastern time. Expect plenty of railing against the debt limit proposal Republicans passed earlier this week.
      Joe Biden is keeping it low key, presenting the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy to the Air Force Falcons, champions of last year’s Armed Forces Bowl, at 2.30pm, then heading to a Democratic fundraiser in the evening.
      Joe Manchin, the conservative Democrat representing deep-red West Virginia, yesterday afternoon again called on Biden to negotiate with Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy on an agreement to raise the debt limit. The president has thus far refused to do so. More

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      Florida school superintendent who criticized DeSantis could lose job

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      Florida officials are threatening to revoke the teaching license of a school superintendent who criticized the governor, Ron DeSantis.The educator is accused of violating several statutes and DeSantis directives and allowing his “personal political views” to guide his leadership.A revocation by the state education department could allow DeSantis to remove the Leon county superintendent, Rocky Hanna, from his elected office.The Republican governor did that last year to an elected Democratic prosecutor in the Tampa Bay area who disagreed with his positions limiting abortion and care for transgender teens and indicated he might not enforce new laws in those areas.Disney sued DeSantis this week, saying he targeted its Orlando theme parks for retribution after it criticized the governor’s so-called “don’t say gay” law that banned the discussion of sexuality and gender in early grades and has now been expanded.Hanna has publicly opposed that law, once defied the governor’s order that barred any mandate students wear masks during the Covid pandemic, and criticized a DeSantis-backed bill that will pay for students to attend private school.The Leon county district, with about 30,000 students, covers Tallahassee, the state capital, and its suburbs.“It’s a sad day for democracy in Florida, and the first amendment right to freedom of speech, when a state agency with unlimited power and resources, can target a local elected official in such a biased fashion,” Hanna said.A Democrat then running as an independent, Hanna was elected to a second four-year term in 2020 with 60% of the vote. He plans to run for re-election next year and does not need a teacher’s license to hold the job.“This investigation has nothing to do with these spurious allegations, but rather everything to do with attempting to silence myself and anyone else who speaks up for teachers and our public schools in a way that does not fit the political narrative of those in power,” Hanna said.He said the investigation was spurred by a single complaint from a leader of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group.“We are fighting tirelessly with our local school board to no avail,” Brandi Andrews wrote to DeSantis, citing Hanna’s mask mandate, opposition to new education laws and directives and public criticism of the governor.Andrews noted she had appeared in a DeSantis re-election TV commercial. Her letter was stamped “Let’s Go Brandon”, a code used by some conservatives to replace a vulgar chant against Joe Biden. Andrews said her complaint against Hanna was one of many.An education department spokesman, Alex Lanfranconi, said that while officials would not discuss the Hanna investigation in detail, “nothing about this case is special”.“Any teacher with an extensive history of repeated violations of Florida law would be subject to consequences up to and including losing their educator certificate,” he said.The threatened revocation was first reported by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.Hanna can have a hearing before an administrative judge, attempt to negotiate a settlement or surrender his license. He said he had not decided what to do.Hanna received a letter from the education commissioner, Manny Diaz Jr, earlier this month saying an investigation found probable cause he violated a 2021 directive barring districts from mandating that students wear masks.Hanna required students to wear masks after a Leon third-grader died of Covid. The fight went on for several months until Leon and other districts had their legal challenge rejected.Diaz also cited a memo Hanna issued before this school year telling teachers, “You do You!” and to teach as they always had, allegedly giving approval to ignore laws enacted by DeSantis.His letter also cites the district’s failure for a month in 2020 to have an armed guard or police officer at every school as required after the 2018 Parkland high school shooting. Hanna said there were not enough available officers to meet that requirement. The education department cleared him of wrongdoing.Diaz also complains parents were told children could get an excused absence if they chose to attend a February protest at the state capitol opposing DeSantis’s education policies.Offering students a “free day off of school” to attend the rally “is another example of [Hanna] failing to distinguish his political views from the standards taught in Florida schools”, Diaz wrote. More

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      ‘A dangerous trend’: Florida Republicans poised to pass more voter restrictions

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      Florida Republicans are on the verge of passing new restrictions on groups that register voters, a move voting rights groups and experts say will make it harder for non-white Floridians to get on the rolls.The restrictions are part of a sweeping 96-page election bill the legislature is likely to send to Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk soon. The measure increases fines for third-party voter registration groups. It also shortens the amount of time the groups have to turn in any voter registration applications they collect from 14 days to 10. The bill makes it illegal for non-citizens and people convicted of certain felonies to “collect or handle” voter registration applications on behalf of third-party groups. Groups would also have to give each voter they register a receipt and be required to register themselves with the state ahead of each general election cycle. Under current law, they only have to register once and their registration remains effective indefinitely.Groups can now be fined $50,000 for each ineligible person they hire to do voter canvassing. They can also be fined $50 a day, up to $2,500, for each day late they turn in a voter registration form.Those restrictions are more likely to affect non-white Floridians. About one in 10 Black and Hispanic Floridians registered to vote using a third-party group, according to Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida who closely studies voting rights. Non-white voters are five times more likely to register with a third-party group in the state than their white counterparts, “a fact likely not lost on those pushing the legislation”, Smith said.“This will likely be the final nail in the coffin for third-party groups to be able to register voters in Florida,” added Smith, who has served as an expert for groups challenging similar new restrictions.The bill passed the Florida senate on Wednesday and is expected to clear the Florida house later this week.The measures are the latest in a wave of new restrictions Florida Republicans and DeSantis, who is on the verge of a presidential bid, have enacted in a little over four years. After the 2020 election, the state passed sweeping legislation making it harder to request and return a mail-in ballot. Republicans have also made it nearly impossible for Floridians with a felony conviction to figure out if they are eligible to vote. Last year, DeSantis created the first of its kind state agency to prosecute election crimes.The new measure marks the second time since the 2020 election that Florida Republicans have raised the maximum fine for third-party voter registration organizations. In 2021, the legislature raised the maximum fine groups could face in a year from $1,000 to $50,000. The new bill would increase the maximum fine to $250,000.The higher fines will probably cause some groups to stop registering voters, said Cecile Scoon, the president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters, which frequently hosts voter registration drives.“I think there are a lot of small organizations that don’t feel they can play in that league of fines,” said Scoon. “I think you’re going to get a lot of people that say, ‘hey we can’t handle this. We’re just a little church. We’re just a little chapter of a sorority. We don’t have the resources.”Republicans dispute that the bill will make it harder to vote.“This bill does not and will not hinder anyone’s right to vote, nor would I ever subscribe my name to something that could even remotely be concluded to be voter suppression. There is nothing in this bill that makes it harder for a lawfully registered voter to cast their ballot,” state senator Danny Burgess, a Republican who chairs the state elections committee, said during debate on the floor, according to the News Service of Florida.The office of election crimes and security, a new office created under DeSantis to target voter fraud, has targeted voter registration groups during its first year in operation. In 2022, the agency levied $41,600 in fines against voter registration groups, and made several criminal referrals.A spokesman for the Florida department of state, which oversees the agency, did not provide a detailed breakdown of the groups fined or their offenses.In an annual report filed with the Florida legislature, the office said that it had reviewed “a large number of complaints” involving voter registration applications that were turned in late.The new legislation would make it even harder for groups to turn in applications on time, giving them four fewer days to do so. That cut increases pressure on groups that take time to review the applications they collect to ensure that the information in them is accurate and that the voter is eligible.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen a group hosts a registration drive, they will often get people signed up from many counties who pass by. But a law passed in 2021 makes it so voter registration groups have to turn in applications they collect to the county in which the voter resides – they previously could return it anywhere – making it even more difficult to turn in the forms on time.“You’re either gonna burn gas and find the time to drive an hour or two hours to wherever it’s located from wherever you are. And where your volunteer is. Or are you gonna put it in the mail and cross your fingers,” Scoon said.Burgess, the Republican pushing the bill, said that it would ensure voters can get on the rolls.“The reality is if a third-party voter registration organization fails to submit timely somebody’s voter registration, that voter is disenfranchised,” he said, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.The language in the bill barring non-citizens from participating in third-party voter registration groups will also make it harder to reach immigrant communities, said Andrea Mercado, the executive director of Florida Rising, a non-profit group.“When we do our work to help register new citizens, it makes sense to hire people who come from that community. Sometimes they’re on the path to getting their US citizenship, but they don’t have it yet,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that they’re not excellent at reaching out to other people in the Colombian community, in the Venezuelan community, in the Jamaican community and talking to them about why voting matters and why you should be registered to vote.”The bill also appears poised to cause even more confusion about voting eligibility for people with felony convictions. The measure would change the language on the card people in Florida receive after registering to confirm their addition to the voter rolls to say that possession of the card is not proof of eligibility to vote. Republicans are making the change after reporting revealed that 19 people with felony convictions who were charged with illegal voting last year had received voter registration cards in the mail and had not been warned they were ineligible to vote.The sweeping changes are the latest move to restrict voting rights for people with felonies after Floridians approved a constitutional amendment in 2018 expanding the right to vote to many people with criminal histories. After the measure passed, the Florida legislature passed a law that required those with felonies to pay off any outstanding debts before they can vote again. Florida has no centralized database where people can look up how much they owe, and the state has been backlogged reviewing the applications.“Changing the law and adding such a disclaimer to Florida’s voter ID cards is a direct admission by the state that it is unwilling to or incapable of creating a centralized voter system to determine voter eligibility,” the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, the main group that pushed the constitutional amendment in 2018, said in a statement.The bill is an alarming attack on voters in Florida, Mercado said. “It represents a really dangerous trend in Florida and across our country that is moving away from democracy,” she said. More

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      Montana governor lobbied by non-binary son to reject anti-trans bills

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      The son of the Republican governor of Montana, Greg Gianforte, met their father in his office to lobby him to reject several bills that would harm transgender people in the state, the Montana Free Press reported.David Gianforte told the paper they identify as non-binary and use he/they pronouns – the first time they disclosed their gender identity publicly. They told the outlet they felt an obligation to use their relationship with their father to stand up for LGBTQ+ people in the state.“There are a lot of important issues passing through the legislature right now,” they said in a statement. “For my own sake I’ve chosen to focus primarily on transgender rights, as that would significantly directly affect a number of my friends … I would like to make the argument that these bills are immoral, unjust, and frankly a violation of human rights.”The governor, who assaulted a Guardian reporter in 2017, responded with an email that said: “I would like to better understand your thoughts and concerns. When can we get together to talk about it? Love, Dad.”Brooke Stroyke, a spokesperson for the governor, declined to comment to the Montana Free Press.“The governor loves his family and values their thoughts, ideas and perspectives,” Stroyke said. “Our office will not discuss private conversations between the governor and members of his family.”Republicans across the US have moved to restrict transgender rights. Ten bills in the Montana state legislature this session target transgender people, according to translegislation.com, an online tracker.Those bills including measures that would deny gender-affirming care to minors and limit the definition of sex in state law, which could limit legal protections for transgender people. Another bill prohibits drag shows on any public property or places where minors are present.On Tuesday, the state legislature voted to ban Zooey Zephyr, a transgender Democratic lawmaker, from the statehouse floor. Zephyr previously told lawmakers they would have “blood on their hands”.David Gianforte told the Montana Free Press they didn’t expect their lobbying to ultimately change the outcome of the bill.“I feel like I have a voice and I can be heard,” they said. “And I feel, not only in communicating with my father, that’s not necessarily the main point, but also just showing support for the transgender community in Montana. I think that could be meaningful, especially at this time.”Greg Gianforte pleaded guilty in 2017 to a charge of misdemeanor assault after he attacked the Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs on the eve of his election to the US House. Gianforte received a six-month deferred sentence and served no jail time. He became Montana governor in 2021.A few weeks after the meeting between the governor and David, the governor sent the legislation banning transgender-affirming care back to the legislature with revisions. David said the press release accompanying those changes was “bizarre”.“It’s bizarre to me to read the press release that my father put out,” David said. “He talks about compassion toward children, the youth of Montana, while simultaneously taking away healthcare from the youth in Montana.“It’s basically a contradiction in my mind.” More