US Congress

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden hails ‘monumental step forward’ as Democrats pass infrastructure bill

      by

      The ObserverJoe BidenBiden hails ‘monumental step forward’ as Democrats pass infrastructure billThe president will sign $1tn package into law after House ended months-long standoff by approving bipartisan deal

      ‘She betrayed us’: Arizona voters baffled by Kyrsten Sinema
      0Martin Pengelly in New York and David Smith in WashingtonSat 6 Nov 2021 12.41 EDTFirst published on Sat 6 Nov 2021 10.45 EDTJoe Biden saluted a “monumental step forward as a nation” on Saturday, after House Democrats finally reached agreement and sent a $1tn infrastructure package to his desk to be signed, a huge boost for an administration which has struggled for victories.Trumpism without Trump: how Republican dog-whistles exploited Democratic divisionsRead more“This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America,” Biden said, “and it’s long overdue.”There was also a setback, however, as Democrats postponed a vote on an even larger bill. That 10-year, $1.85tn spending plan to bolster health, family and climate change programmes, known as Build Back Better, was sidetracked after centrists demanded a cost estimate from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Biden said he was confident he could get it passed.Walking out to address reporters at the White House, the president began with a joke at the expense of his predecessor, Donald Trump.“Finally, it’s infrastructure week,” he said.Under Trump, the administration’s failure to focus on infrastructure amid constant scandal became a national punchline.“We’re just getting started,” Biden said. “It is something that’s long overdue but long has been talked about in Washington but never actually been done.“The House of Representatives passed an Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. That’s a fancy way of saying a bipartisan infrastructure bill, once-in-a-generation investment that’s going to create millions of jobs, modernise our infrastructure, our roads, our bridges, our broadband, a range of things turning the climate crisis into an opportunity, and a put us on a path to win the economic competition of the 21st century that we face with China and other large countries in the rest of the world.”The House approved the $1tn bill late on Friday, after Democrats resolved a months-long standoff between progressives and centrists. The measure passed 228-206. Thirteen Republicans, mostly moderates, supported the bill while six progressive Democrats opposed it, among them Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.Approval sent the bill to the desk of a president whose approval ratings have dropped and whose party struggled in elections this week. Biden said he would not sign the bill this weekend because he wanted those who passed it to be there when he did so.“We’re looking more forward to having shovels in the ground,” Biden said. “To begin rebuilding America.“For all of you at home, who feel left behind and forgotten in an economy that’s changing so rapidly, this bill is for you. The vast majority of those thousands of jobs that will be created don’t require a college degree. There’ll be jobs in every part of the country: red states, blue states, cities, small towns, rural communities, tribal communities.“This is a blue-collar blueprint to rebuild America, and it’s long overdue.”This week, Democratic candidates for governor lost in Virginia and squeaked home in New Jersey, two blue-leaning states. Those setbacks made leaders, centrists and progressives impatient to demonstrate they know how to govern a year before midterm elections that could see Republicans retake Congress.At the White House, Biden said: “Each state is different and I don’t know but I think the one message that came across was, ‘Get something done … stop talking, get something done.’ And so I think that’s what the American people are looking for.“All the talk about the elections and what do they mean? They want us to deliver. Democrats, they want us to deliver. Last night we proved we can on one big item. We delivered.”The postponement of a vote on the spending bill dashed hopes of a double win. But in a deal brokered by Biden and party leaders, five moderates agreed to back the bill if CBO estimates of its costs are consistent with numbers from the White House and congressional analysts.The agreement, in which lawmakers promised to vote by the week of 15 November, was a significant step towards shipping the bill to the Senate. Its chances there are not certain: it must pass on the casting vote of Vice-President Kamala Harris and with the approval of Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, centrists who have proved obstructive so far.The spending bill “is fiscally responsible”, Biden said. “That’s a fancy way of saying it is fully paid for. It doesn’t raise the deficit by a single penny. And it actually reduces the deficit according to the leading economists in this country over the long term. And it’s paid for by making sure that the wealthiest Americans, the biggest corporations begin to pay their fair share.”Republicans have highlighted what they say will be the bill’s effects on dangerous economic inflation.Why does the media keep saying this election was a loss for Democrats? It wasn’t | Rebecca SolnitRead more“According to economists,” Biden said, “this is going to be easing inflationary pressures … by lowering costs for working families.”He also said: “We got out of the blue a couple of weeks ago a letter from 17 Nobel prize winners in economics and they determined that [the two bills] will ease inflationary pressures not create them.”Biden acknowledged that he will not get Republican votes for the spending bill and must “figure out” how to unite his party. Friday was an exhausting day for Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker. She told reporters: “Welcome to my world. This is the Democratic party. We are not a lockstep party.”Biden said he was confident he could find the votes. Asked what gave him that confidence, the president alluded to his legislative experience as a senator and vice-president, saying: “Me.”On Friday night, Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, delayed travel to Delaware as the president worked the phones. Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, leader of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters Biden even called her mother in India. It was unclear why.“This was not to bribe me, this is when it was all done,” Jayapal said, adding that her mother told her she “just kept screaming like a little girl”.
      Associated Press contributed to this report
      TopicsJoe BidenThe ObserverBiden administrationUS politicsUS domestic policyUS taxationUS economyUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Misfire review: a bullseye from Tim Mak – but the NRA isn’t beaten yet

      by

      BooksMisfire review: a bullseye from Tim Mak – but the NRA isn’t beaten yet The NPR reporter has written an important book about the moral bankruptcy which put the powerful and merciless gun group on the back footCharles KaiserSat 6 Nov 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Sat 6 Nov 2021 02.02 EDTTim Mak has written a sprawling tale of the greed, incompetence and narcissism which has dominated the National Rifle Association throughout Wayne LaPierre’s 30 years as its leader. Abetted by his wife, Susan, LaPierre has allegedly used his members’ dues to fund a billionaire’s lifestyle.‘We have to break through that wall’: inside America’s battle for gun controlRead moreThe LaPierres’ wedding in 1998 was a near miss: he almost ran from the altar, until she and the priest changed his mind. Mak calls this “emblematic” of “a man driven by fear and anxiety over all other forces … his reaction to these emotions is usually to flee and hide”.These qualities, Mak writes, have made LaPierre “prey” to an endless series of conmen, throughout his leadership of America’s most-feared lobbying group.“Pushed and prodded” by his wife to discover “money’s alluring glow”, Mak writes, LaPierre saw his salary balloon from $200,000 in the mid-1990s to $2.2m in 2018. According to the investigation of the New York attorney general, which has done the most to expose serial excesses at the NRA, between 2013 and 2017 the black cars, private jets and hundreds of thousands of dollars of expensive clothing led to $1.2m in reimbursed expenses.Between 2013 and 2018, companies used to book the LaPierres’ private planes received an astonishing $13.5m. There were trips to Lake Como, Budapest and the Bahamas. Just the hired cars for trips to Italy and Hungary cost $18,000. LaPierre spent $275,000 on suits at a single Beverly Hills emporium, including $39,000 on one day in 2015. To disguise such excesses, the bills were sent to an outside vendor which the NRA reimbursed.Mak also does a good job of describing how every mass shooting has pushed the NRA ever further right, transforming it from advocacy group for gun rights into a fully fledged player in the culture war, especially after the massacre of 20 young children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012.Mak offers a particularly depressing account of how the NRA chief lobbyist, Chris Cox, was personally involved in negotiations over the Manchin-Toomey bill, a Senate measure which would have modestly increased background checks if, as Mak points out, not enough to have prevented the Sandy Hook massacre, since that gunman used guns legally obtained by his mother.In any case, after months of negotiation the NRA double-crossed both sponsors, made sure the bill failed to get the 60 votes it needed to pass the Senate, then dropped its A-ratings for Manchin and Toomey to D and C respectively.The NRA’s role in the Trump-Russia scandal was substantial. Maria Butina, eventually convicted as a Russian spy, used “relationships within the NRA to build an informal channel of diplomatic relations with Russia”. Her efforts included a famous public exchange with Donald Trump during his first campaign, in which he expressed his affection for Vladimir Putin and promised to improve relations as president.The NRA spent $30m to help to elect Trump, more than his own fundraising super pac. Ironically, NRA membership dues fell after Trump entered the White House. The organization lost its most lucrative fundraiser when Barack Obama left office.Power struggles and a ‘personal piggy bank’: what the NRA lawsuit allegesRead moreThe great unravelling began on 6 August 2020, when the New York attorney general, Letitia James, filed a lawsuit to dissolve the NRA entirely. She accused LaPierre of using the organization for 30 years “for his financial benefit, and the benefit of a close circle of NRA staff, board members, and vendors”.Six months later, the NRA filed for bankruptcy. But despite endless infighting, Wayne LaPierre remains in charge. And because Trump was elected, with the NRA’s help, the supreme court now includes three justices appointed by him – at least two of whom seemed eager in arguments this week to demolish most of the remaining state restrictions on carrying concealed weapons, in New York and six other states.The passions of gun owners – and the fear they have instilled in a majority of public officials – remain dominant forces in American politics despite the greed and incompetence of their leaders chronicled so thoroughly in this important book.
      Misfire is published in the US by Dutton
      TopicsBooksNRAUS gun controlNewtown shootingUS crimeUS politicsUS CongressreviewsReuse this content More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Setback for Biden as Democrats delay vote on sweeping investment plan

      by

      US politicsSetback for Biden as Democrats delay vote on sweeping investment planModerates want more details before reconciliation bill advancesPelosi signals she has votes to pass bipartisan infrastructure bill Lauren Gambino in Washington and Adam Gabbatt in New YorkFri 5 Nov 2021 16.43 EDTFirst published on Fri 5 Nov 2021 09.27 EDTDemocrats on Friday once again postponed a vote on the centerpiece of Joe Biden’s economic vision, after lobbying by the president and House leaders failed to persuade a small group of moderates to support the spending package without delay.Despite the setback, the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said she planned to plow ahead on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, another key pillar of the president’s legislative agenda, indicating she had the votes to overcome resistance from progressives who want to pass it in tandem with the social policy and climate mitigation spending package.“We had hoped to be able to bring both bills to the floor today,” Pelosi said at an impromptu news conference on Friday, after a day of frenzied negotiations appeared unlikely to break an impasse over Biden’s agenda.But Pelosi insisted the House was on the cusp of breakthrough that would not only send the infrastructure bill to Biden’s desk, notching a much-needed victory, but would move the party a “major step” closer to approving the social policy package.“We’re in the best place ever, today, to be able to go forward,” she said.A plan to advance both Biden’s social and environmental spending package and a smaller bipartisan public works measure was upended amid pushback from moderates demanding an official accounting of the spending bill.As tensions escalated, Pelosi proposed a new strategy, announcing in a letter to Democrats that the House would hold two votes on Friday: one on the infrastructure measure and a procedural vote related to the spending package.But that plan was thrown into jeopardy by progressives, who had for months said they would not vote for the infrastructure bill without a simultaneous vote on the spending package. That position derailed two previous attempts to advance the infrastructure bill first.The scrambled timeline deflated hopes of giving Biden a much-needed legislative accomplishment after months of false starts and electoral setbacks this week.Biden and party leaders have worked furiously to reach a consensus on the spending bill, which seeks to combat the climate crisis while reforming healthcare, education and immigration, all paid for by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans and on corporations. With razor-thin majorities, they need the support of every Democratic senator and nearly every House Democrat.Centrist lawmakers want to see an independent cost analysis from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office before voting on the $1.85tn package – which could take several days or even weeks.In a statement, Washington congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, signaled that her members had not softened their position on advancing the bills together.“If our six colleagues still want to wait for a CBO score, we would agree to give them that time – after which point we can vote on both bills together,” she said.Biden urges ‘every House member’ to support agenda ‘right now’ as crucial vote nears – liveRead moreNegotiations have seen the initial Biden spending proposal nearly halved from $3.5tn, with many provisions pared back or dropped entirely.Touting a strong monthly jobs report on Friday, Biden implored House Democrats to “vote yes on both these bills right now”, arguing both pieces of legislation were critical to economic recovery.“Passing these bills will say clearly to the American people, ‘We hear your voices, we’re going to invest in your hopes,” Biden said.After his remarks, the president said he was returning to the Oval Office to “make some calls” to lawmakers.Pelosi worked furiously on Thursday to pave the way for a vote before lawmakers leave Washington for a week-long recess, whipping members on the House floor and keeping them late into the night in an effort to shore up support for legislation which runs to more than 2,000 pages.Democrats suffered a series of stinging electoral setbacks this week, including losing the governorship of Virginia and being run to the wire in New Jersey.Major legislative victories will, leaders hope, help regain momentum and improve electoral prospects ahead of next year’s midterm elections.With unified Republican opposition, House Democrats can lose no more than three votes. If passed, the spending bill will go to the 50-50 Senate, where it will face new challenges. Two centrist Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, have already thwarted many proposals and are expected to have further objections.House passage of the $1.2tn infrastructure bill to upgrade roads, bridges, waterways and broadband, which has already passed the Senate with the support of 19 Republicans, would send the measure to the president’s desk.The $1.85tn spending package would provide large numbers of Americans with assistance to pay for healthcare, raising children and caring for elderly people at home. There would be lower prescription drug costs and a new hearing aid benefit for older Americans, and the package would provide some $555bn in tax breaks encouraging cleaner energy and electric vehicles, the largest US commitment to tackling climate change.House Democrats have added other key provisions, including a new paid family leave program and work permits for immigrants.Much of the cost would be covered with higher taxes on those earning more than $400,000 a year and a 5% surtax on those making more than $10m. Large corporations would face a new 15% minimum tax.
      The Associated Press contributed reporting
      TopicsUS politicsDemocratsJoe BidenHouse of RepresentativesUS healthcareUS CongressNancy PelosinewsReuse this content More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The real lesson of the election results? Democrats must go big and bold | Andrew Gawthorpe

      by

      OpinionUS politicsThe real lesson of the election results? Democrats must go big and boldAndrew GawthorpeCentrist Democrats may use electoral setbacks to try to water down the party’s legislative plans. That would be a big mistake Fri 5 Nov 2021 06.23 EDTLast modified on Fri 5 Nov 2021 15.56 EDTDemocrats this week suffered a stinging rebuke in elections up and down the country. The damage was most notable in Virginia, where Republican Glenn Youngkin won a state that Joe Biden carried by 10 points just a year ago. But there were warning signs elsewhere, too – from the party’s eroding support in the southern suburbs of New Jersey to its still-declining fortunes in Hispanic areas of south Texas, where Republican John Lujan flipped a heavily Hispanic state legislative district which Biden won by 14 points last year.Although depressing, these results are not entirely surprising. Even as Biden triumphed in the 2020 presidential election, there were ample signs that the suburban voters who propelled him to victory were keeping their options open. Democrats won the presidency, but declining suburban support nearly cost them the House of Representatives. In the Senate, they fought Republicans heroically but unsatisfyingly to a standstill, splitting the chamber 50/50. Voters rejected Trump, but they seemed not to want to pass complete control of government to his opponents, either.These latest results confirm that not much has changed since, and Democrats have only themselves to blame. They have enjoyed unified control of the federal government for a year, but have spent their time trapped in negotiations with one another over a pair of legislative packages covering infrastructure, climate and social welfare. Even seasoned pundits find the process confusing and opaque and, for the busy ordinary voter, the problem is multiplied tenfold. At a time when the coronavirus and its associated scourges – inflation, joblessness and parental panic over their children’s education – are still stalking the land, the party is struggling to break through because it’s too busy talking to itself.There’s a risk that Democrats – or, more precisely, one faction of them – react to this week’s results in a way that makes the problem even worse. Already, “moderate” senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have been the main roadblock to Democrats passing large, popular social welfare bills. They are backed, though more quietly, by other senators and House members who fear that the party will be punished if its agenda becomes too bold and too progressive. If moderates decide that this week’s results represent the beginning of just such a backlash, they may force the party to abandon its plans and retreat into a defensive crouch.This would be an enormous mistake. If Democrats are to reverse their fortunes, they have to be bold and rack up big accomplishments. Rather than backing off expansive legislation, they should double down on it. If Democrats pass an ambitious package to fight poverty, expand healthcare, assist families with childcare expenses, and introduce paid family and medical leave, there will be no mistaking what they stand for. Republicans, meanwhile, will be left arguing against programs that are standard throughout the developed world and – more importantly – popular in the United States as well.Nor is there much reason to believe that Democrats’ recent electoral setbacks resulted from being too progressive. Although a socialist candidate for Buffalo mayor lost out to her moderate rival and a police reform measure failed in Minneapolis, these results reveal nothing about the popularity of the party’s mainstream economic agenda. Democrats struggled not because they appear too progressive, but because, after months of infighting, they don’t appear to stand for anything.The need to move quickly and boldly is underlined by looking at the other factors that are draining the party’s support. The first is inflation, where the party’s plans to expand the social safety net in the future don’t do much to help voters struggling with rising prices right now. Although economic policymakers expect this period to pass relatively quickly, there is little the White House can do to address the fastest price increases in a generation. Even worse, the policymakers might be wrong, leaving Americans still struggling as the midterms approach. Their inability to do much about inflation increases the party’s need to act elsewhere if it is to demonstrate that it can deliver concrete improvements in people’s economic situation.Finally, the outsized role played in the Virginia election by concerns about the teaching of so-called critical race theory in schools is another reason Democrats badly need to change the conversation. As the party has retreated into bickering among itself, the political debate has become increasingly dominated by hyped-up culture war issues to which Democrats struggle to respond.It may be true that concerns about critical race theory are mainly a form of manufactured outrage designed to activate white grievance, but describing them as such doesn’t seem to be a winning political strategy. Even as the party crafts a new message about school curricula which disassociates it from the warped image put forward by the right, it also needs a more concrete response – one that emphasizes how the party is investing in the nation’s schools and families, including through improved access to childcare and paid family leave.But to do that, they need to actually pass the legislation that will create these programs. The painful truth Democrats have to face is that, to many voters, even imaginary claims about critical race theory feel more real right now than the social welfare programs being debated in Congress. To flip that calculus and show that Democratic governance can benefit the country while the culture war is designed to hold it back, Democrats have to be big and bold. Otherwise, they – and, given the Republican party’s extremist turn, the country – are in serious trouble.
      Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States at Leiden University, and host of the podcast America Explained
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionDemocratsUS CongresscommentReuse this content More

    • 238 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      If Americans can’t have basic things like childcare, our democracy is a sham | David Sirota and Andrew Perez

      by

      OpinionUS politicsIf Americans can’t have basic things like childcare, our democracy is a shamDavid Sirota and Andrew PerezCorporate influence and corruption defines American politics. No wonder most think the country is headed in the wrong direction Fri 5 Nov 2021 06.22 EDTLast modified on Fri 5 Nov 2021 13.28 EDTIn 2014, Northwestern and Princeton researchers published a report statistically documenting how lawmakers do not listen or care about what most voters want, and instead mostly care about serving their big donors. Coupled with additional research documenting the discrepancy between donor and voter preferences, they bluntly concluded that the “preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically nonsignificant impact upon public policy”.Seven years later, America is witnessing a very public and explicit illustration of this situation in real time – and the country seems pretty ticked off about it, in the lead-up to Tuesday’s off-year elections and in advance of the upcoming midterms next year.Over the last few weeks, Joe Biden and Democratic lawmakers have been making headlines agreeing to whittle down their social spending reconciliation bill at the demand of corporate donors and their congressional puppets.The specific initiatives being cut or watered down in the Biden agenda bill share two traits: 1) They would require the wealthy and powerful to sacrifice a bit of their wealth and power and 2) They are quite literally the most popular proposals among rank-and-file voters.New polling demonstrates the silencing effect that systemic corruption is having on voter preferences:
      82% of registered voters support adding dental and vision benefits to Medicare – and this is voters’ “top priority” for Democrats’ social spending bill, according to survey data from Morning Consult. Conservative Democratic senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona have pushed to keep these benefits out of the bill, following an aggressive lobbying campaign by health insurers who enjoy massive profits from the privatized Medicare Advantage program.
      Another top priority for voters is allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices, with 72% saying they support the idea, according to Morning Consult. Sinema and a few House Democrats backed by the pharmaceutical industry managed to block the party’s original drug pricing measure from being put into the reconciliation bill. On Tuesday, Democrats announced they had reached a deal on a drug pricing plan, which Politico described as “far weaker” than Democrats’ promised legislation. One industry analyst said the deal “seems designed to let legislators claim an achievement while granting pharma protection”.
      The poll also found that 70% of voters support including paid family and medical leave for new parents in Democrats’ spending bill. Manchin has demanded this item be cut.
      After railing against the Republicans’ 2017 tax law for years, Democrats have largely refused to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and their final bill may even end up being a net tax cut for the rich. This, even though Biden’s own pollsters found that raising taxing on the wealthy was “the most popular of more than 30 economic proposals” they tested during the 2020 presidential campaign.
      The flip side of all this also appears to be true – Democrats have protected initiatives to enrich powerful corporations, even though some of those measures aren’t very popular. One example: subsidies for health insurance plans purchased on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace that shower money on for-profit insurers. Morning Consult reports that extending new ACA premium tax credits passed by Democrats in March “is the lowest-ranking of all the health measures included in the poll”.The results of this latest middle finger to voter preferences? New polling data shows that almost three-quarters of Americans now think the country is headed in the wrong direction.Taken together, this is the democracy crisis thrumming underneath all the media noise – the day-to-day erosion of democracy by corporations that use a system of legalized bribery to buy public policy, which then erodes Americans’ faith in their government. And yet this erosion does not get discussed in a media-directed democracy discourse that focuses almost exclusively on the 6 January insurrection or Republican efforts to deny election results and limit voting.This is what my 2006 book called the “hostile takeover”: the conquest of democratic institutions by moneyed interests, to the point where “the world’s greatest democracy” routinely rejects the commonsense policies that the vast majority of voters want and that every other high-income country has already adopted.The hostile takeover is not just the rejection of the most popular policies – it is also the media discourse itself. The Washington press is constantly portraying industry-sponsored opponents of majoritarian policies as “moderates” or “centrists” and depicting supporters of those policies as fringe lunatics who refuse to be reasonable and compromise.Meanwhile, there is a pervasive omertà that silences most media discussion of the corporate influence and corruption that so obviously defines American politics – and there is scant mention that the “moderate” obstructionists are bankrolled by the industries lobbying to kill the popular policies that Americans want.There is some encouraging proof that more and more Americans innately understand the kleptocratic nature of their government, and want explicit accountability journalism to uncover it. Also mildly encouraging is the impact of that reporting in the reconciliation bill battle: Democrats tried to get rid of all the drug pricing provisions, but were successfully shamed into adding at least a few of the (pathetically weak) provisions back in after independent media aggressively exposed the pharma ties of key lawmakers.It’s not a huge victory and not worthy of some effusive celebration of Democrats because the provisions are watered down and a betrayal of the party’s promise to do something a lot better. But it’s a minimal proof-of-concept win.It may at least get the idea of Medicare negotiating drug prices into law for the first time. And as important, it shows that when there is a robust press willing to challenge power, the government can be forced – kicking and screaming – to respond, or at least pretend to respond.It’s going to take a whole lot more of that kind of reporting and a whole lot more movement pressure to secure real wins and beat back the hostile takeover.The silver lining here is that at least that takeover is now explicit. The polls showing what people want compared to what’s being excised from the reconciliation bill make this part of the democracy crisis impossible to deny – and ending that denial is a prerequisite for achieving something better.
      David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor-at-large at Jacobin, and the founder of the Daily Poster. He served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriter
      Andrew Perez is a senior editor at the Daily Poster and a co-founder of the Democratic Policy Center
      This article was originally published in the Daily Poster, a grassroots-funded investigative news outlet
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionDemocratsUS CongresscommentReuse this content More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Body blow for Biden as voters in Virginia and New Jersey desert Democrats

      by

      US politicsBody blow for Biden as voters in Virginia and New Jersey desert DemocratsGovernor’s races bring more bad news for president whose domestic agenda hangs in the balance Lauren Gambino in Washington@laurenegambinoWed 3 Nov 2021 12.04 EDTLast modified on Wed 3 Nov 2021 15.33 EDTLess than a year after taking control of the White House and Congress, Democrats were reeling on Wednesday from a shocking defeat in Virginia and a too-close-to-call governor’s race in New Jersey as Joe Biden’s popularity sinks and his domestic agenda hangs in the balance.Democrats suffer disastrous night in Virginia and a tight race in New Jersey – liveRead moreIn Virginia, a state that had shifted sharply left over the past decade and that Biden won by 10 points in 2020, Republican Glenn Youngkin, a political newcomer, defeated Democrat Terry McAuliffe, the state’s former governor. And in New Jersey, the Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, was struggling to turn back a challenge from Republican Jack Ciattarelli, an unexpected turn of events in a state that is even more reliably Democratic.“Together, we will change the trajectory of this commonwealth and, friends, we are going to start that transformation on day one. There is no time to waste,” Youngkin said, addressing jubilant supporters in the early hours of Wednesday.Republicans’ resurgence after five years of stinging defeats during the Donald Trump era offers a stark warning for Democrats already wary of next year’s midterm elections. Their wins have echoes of 2009, when Republican victories in Virginia and New Jersey presaged their stunning takeover of the House in the 2010 midterms.“In a cycle like this, no Democrat is safe,” said Tom Emmer, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. On Wednesday, the group announced it was expanding its list of Democratic targets for the 2022 midterms following Youngkin’s victory.The final weeks of the governor’s race in Virginia were dominated by education, as Youngkin, a 54-year-old former business executive, sought to harness parents’ frustration over school closures, mask mandates and anti-racism curriculum.Exploiting the nation’s culture wars over race and education, Youngkin repeatedly promised to outlaw “critical race theory”, an academic concept about the effects of systemic racism that is not taught in Virginia schools but has nevertheless galvanized conservatives across the country.McAuliffe, 64, worked relentlessly to tie his opponent to Trump in an attempt to revive the backlash to Trump that powered Democratic gains in recent years. But the effort was in vain.Exit polls showed Biden was nearly as unpopular as Trump in Virginia, with Youngkin outperforming the former president in counties across the commonwealth. His success offered Republicans a strategy for how to mobilize Trump’s most ardent supporters while appealing to moderate voters in the suburbs who felt alienated by the former president.Tuesday’s elections were the first major test of the national mood since Biden took office in January, and the results were deeply disappointing for the president and his party as they try to keep control of wafer-thin majorities in Congress.Democrats were not well served by Biden’s sagging poll numbers, which have slumped to near-historic lows after months of infighting among Democrats over his nearly $3tn legislative agenda on Capitol Hill, a devastating evacuation from Afghanistan and the ever-present threat of the coronavirus.“This election is a warning for all Democrats,” Guy Cecil, chair of the Democratic political group Priorities USA, said in a statement. “While DC Democrats spent weeks fighting each other, Republicans were focused on mobilizing their base and peeling away voters from the Biden coalition using deceptive, divisive tactics.”It remains unclear whether the defeat in Virginia will spur Democratic lawmakers to action on a shrunken version of Biden’s agenda – or if it will cause them to retreat from the sweeping plans.On Wednesday, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, signalled that Democrats were prepared to charge ahead as planned. She announced that the rules committee would hold a hearing on the $1.75tn domestic policy and climate mitigation bill, paving the way for a vote on the legislation and a companion $1tn infrastructure measure.“Today is another momentous day in our historic effort to make the future better for the American people, for the children, to Build Back Better with women, to save the planet,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to Democrats on Wednesday.Arriving at the Capitol on Wednesday morning, Pelosi brushed off any suggestion that McAuliffe’s loss changed the outlook for their agenda. “No, no,” she told reporters.But in the wake of Tuesday’s elections, some Democrats expressed fresh doubt about the party’s resolve to enact both pieces of Biden’s agenda. Centrist lawmakers said the defeat was reason to swiftly pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, regardless of what happens with the larger spending measure, amid concern that the effort would further alienate moderate and suburban voters who were critical to Biden’s victory in 2020 but shifted back toward Republicans in Virginia on Tuesday.But progressives argued that abandoning their ambitious policy proposals would only spell further doom for their party, in desperate need of an economic message.“The lesson going into 2022 is that Democrats need to use power to get big things done for working people and then run on those accomplishments. Period,” the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said in a statement.“Democrats won’t win simply by branding one opponent after another as a Trump clone, and then hoping to squeak out a razor-thin win. When Democrats fail to run on big ideas or fulfill bold campaign promises, we depress our base while allowing Republicans to use culture wars to hide their real agenda.”Democrats have only a five-vote margin in the House and are tied in the Senate, relying on the vice-president’s casting vote. Historically, the party in power in the White House almost always loses seats in Congress.Elsewhere across the US, it was a night of historic firsts for Asian American candidates, a sign of the growing political strength of the AAPI community amid a rise in anti-Asian hate.Michelle Wu became the first woman and person of color elected to be mayor of Boston in the city’s 200-year history. Wu, a progressive Democrat endorsed by her former Harvard law professor, the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren, defeated fellow city councilor Annissa Essaibi George, who ran as a pragmatist with the backing of the city’s traditional power players.In Cincinnati, Aftab Pureval, the son of immigrants from Tibet and India, defeated the former Democratic congressman David Mann. In Dearborn, Michigan, voters elected Abdullah Hammoud, a state lawmaker, as its first Arab American mayor.In New York City, Democrat Eric Adams, a former NYPD police captain, was elected mayor of the nation’s largest city. He will be the second Black mayor in the city’s history.TopicsUS politicsVirginiaDemocratsJoe BidenUS CongressHouse of RepresentativesNancy PelosinewsReuse this content More