House bails early for August, and the old guard and newbie Republicans are cranky about it

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Joan McCarter

The Republican-controlled House had two jobs to complete this week before taking off until Sept. 11. Two appropriations bills were slated to go to the floor and the House was supposed to spend the full week getting them through. Passage of the bills was necessary to give Congress a start on the job of funding the government before the Sept. 30 deadline. Instead, the extremists in and around the Freedom Caucus completely derailed one of the bills, and the House decided to just leave mid-afternoon on Thursday to get an early start on the long break.

That means the bills that are traditionally the easiest to pass—military housing and veterans benefits—will be done and the second easiest—agriculture—will not. The military construction and veterans bill, however, made it to the floor by the skin of Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s teeth, and what he had to concede to the hard-liners could very well jeopardize every other spending bill. That’s got the old guard of Republicans spitting mad, particularly the “cardinals” who head up the powerful Appropriations subcommittee. At the other end of the tenure spectrum, the sizable group of vulnerable freshmen in swing districts are angry over the anti-abortion votes they’ve been forced to take.

The military and veterans bill narrowly advanced to the floor on Wednesday when the procedural vote for it passed with no votes to spare, 217-206. One of the conservative hard-liners, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, claimed his team agreed to allow the bill to move forward because leadership promised to cut the spending levels in the remaining appropriations bills. That got a flat denial from McCarthy.

McCarthy says there is no new deal on spending toplines (also says he hasn’t talked to Norman)
— Jordain Carney (@jordainc) July 26, 2023

But the machinations have finally gotten to the old guard, who are getting pretty sick of this shit and are willing to say so on the record. That includes the Appropriations subcommittee chairs—the “cardinals,” like Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson, who chairs the Interior-Environment subcommittee. The cuts the extremists are demanding, he told Politico, “won’t pass the House.” He went on to make a remarkable threat for a senior member and appropriator: “I won’t vote for them.”

"Right now, small groups of members can exercise an extraordinary amount of power," Rep. Tom Cole groused. He should know—he has three of them on his powerful Rules Committee, the panel that determines what bills do or don’t make it to the floor. His committee spent hours trying to work through the agriculture bill and ultimately failed.

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There are so many Republicans like Simpson who represent farming districts that getting this bill done is usually pretty easy. It’s a huge priority. While there are always fights about food assistance funding from the extremists, there are enough farm state Republicans that the old guard can fight them off, work with the Senate, and get it done. Maybe this is why the old guard is finally saying, “Enough.”

It’s not just the old-timers who are unhappy with what’s been happening in these bills, though. There’s a brewing “revolt” over the anti-abortion poison pills that these funding bills are being loaded up with. In the case of the agriculture bill, which also funds the Food and Drug Administration, it’s the inclusion of an amendment to force the FDA to withdraw approval for abortion pills to be provided by mail.

There are about a dozen of these members, some of them freshmen in swing districts, who are trying to get that provision removed. Axios quotes three of them:

"Some states allow [mifepristone] to be mailed, some states don't, but that should be a decision with the states and the FDA, not Congress," said Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.).

"If that language stays as is, we won't be able to vote for that appropriations [bill]," said Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.).

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) said he told voters he "wasn't looking to disrupt the existing policy" on abortion being a state's issue, adding, "I intend to fulfill that commitment."

Maybe over the long, 47-day “August” recess, the two groups can get together and figure out how to break the Freedom Caucus’ hold over McCarthy. They’ve got the numbers to do it if they’re willing. It’s in their best interest. And unless they get this figured out, the government will shut down.

Democrats introduce resolution to censure Marjorie Taylor Greene

Posted on July 26, 2023 (Updated July 26, 2023) by Joan McCarter

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s revenge porn stunt in last week’s House Oversight Committee hearing was the last straw for Democrats. They’ve introduced a resolution to censure her for her record of “racism, antisemitism, LGBTQ, hate speech, Islamophobia, anti-Asian hate, xenophobia, and other forms of hatred.” Freshman Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont has the honor of sponsoring the resolution.

“For me, censuring Rep. Taylor Greene is about the health of our democracy and faith in government. Her antisemitic, racist, transphobic rhetoric has no place in the House of Representatives,” Balint said in a statement announcing the bill. Because she introduced it as privileged, she can bring it up on the floor at any time and it will have to be considered. It won’t remove Greene from Congress, but it would require a formal rebuke of her by Speaker Kevin McCarthy while she stands in the well of the House chamber. It’s a shaming ritual.

There’s plenty of shameful behavior as evidence in the resolution: four pages detailing around 40 instances of Greene’s violent, abusive, hateful words and acts. Oh, and the conspiracy theories she spouts, everything from 9/11—the government did it—to the 2020 election Big Lie. She has “repeatedly called for violence against elected representatives and their families,” the resolution states, providing the instances, such as when she said former Speaker Nancy Pelosi was ‘‘a traitor to our country, she’s guilty of treason’’ and should ‘‘suffer death or she’ll be in prison.” Or when she “posted an image of herself holding a gun next to images of three Members of Congress with a caption encouraging ‘going on offense’ against them.”

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There’s a litany of instances where Greene “repeatedly espoused antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories, including through inflammatory evocations of the Holocaust.” This includes her association with white nationalist Nick Fuentes and her public slurs against Black people, Asian Americans, and LBGTQ+ people as well as her Islamophobic statements, including against sitting members of Congress who she calls the “Jihad Squad.”

Given Greene’s alliance with McCarthy, he’s not going to be willing to rebuke her. McCarthy has practically made her a member of his leadership team. He’s given her plum committee assignments on Homeland Security and Oversight, where she shared big pornographic posters. McCarthy ignored established procedures and put Greene on the conference committee charged with working with senators to reconcile the National Defense Authorization Act, a seat that would normally be reserved for an Armed Service committee member.

She’s McCarthy’s pet, or maybe his puppet master. It’s hard to tell. At any rate, leadership isn’t going to allow her to be censured. One way or another, they’ll get the resolution off the floor without condemning her, but it will still put Republicans in a bind. The resolution and all of the evidence collected in it will be read on the floor, and every Republican will be forced to say whether they stand with Greene or condemn her actions.

You wouldn’t think that would be a tough call for any member considering the Freedom Caucus decided she was too toxic to be in their club. Instead, they’ll probably reject the censure, condone her behavior, and embrace her as one of them.

Freedom Caucus: ‘We don’t fear the government shutdown’

Posted on July 26, 2023 by Joan McCarter

Hapless House Speaker Kevin McCarthy handed his gavel over to a group that can’t even decide whether shutting down the government is a good thing to do. On Tuesday, members of the Freedom Caucus held a press conference hosted by Freedom Works, the Koch-funded dark money organization that basically created the far-right caucus. They were there to make more of their incoherent and ever-changing demands for government funding. The “demands” boiled down to basically no government funding.

But don’t worry, said Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona: “I don't believe you’re looking at a government shutdown.” Instead, Biggs said that some of the 12 necessary appropriations bills will go to the floor, and then “what we call a minibus” will combine the rest, and “then you’ll see a short-term continuing resolution to continue spending.” Never mind that one of the things the caucus demanded McCarthy agree to was that no appropriations bill could get a vote until all 12 were approved by the committee. And that there wouldn’t be any kind of “omnibus” that combined the bills.

Then Rep. Bob Good piped up. “We should not fear a government shutdown,” he said, because, “[m]ost of what we do up here is bad anyway.” Bring it on!

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“Most of the American people won’t even miss if the government is shut down temporarily,” Good continued. McCarthy, he said, “has an opportunity to be a transformational historical speaker that stared down the Democrats, that stared down the free spenders, that stared down the president and said no.”

So that’s what Good wants out of all this: for McCarthy to just say “no.” Add that to all the other constantly moving goalposts these guys have erected:

Funding levels at fiscal year 2022 levels.
Funding levels at FY22 and also no emergency funding bills.
Funding levels at FY22 and no emergency funding bills and lawmakers have to claw back money handed out last year.
Pre-COVID funding levels for everything but defense.

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The demands from the caucus as a whole are never-ending, and then there’s what the individual members want. For example, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said Monday that he would only “consider” passing funding if Congress reduces spending to pre-COVID levels, ends the border “invasion,” defunds the FBI, ends federal diversity policies, ends Ukraine support, and ends the “War on Reliable Energy,” whatever that is supposed to mean. What Roy wants matters because McCarthy gave him a seat on the powerful Rules Committee, the one that decides what goes to the floor for a vote.

These are not people who are going to be happy to go along with stopgap funding bills to keep the government open until somehow they work this all out. It will take just five Republican House members to stop one unless McCarthy decides to work with Democrats to pass it, which would only enrage the Freedom Caucus anew. It’s going to take a miracle, or McCarthy becoming an actual leader (which would also be a miracle), to avoid a shutdown this fall, which is bad for the country and worse for Republicans.

“What would happen if Republicans for once stared down the Democrats and were the ones who refused to cave and to betray the American people and the trust they put in us when they gave us the majority?” Good asked Tuesday. “We don't fear the government shutdown.”

What would happen is that Republicans would lose that majority in 2024. And the Senate, and the White House. But you do you, Congressman Good.

McCarthy tells Hannity that Biden investigation is ‘rising to the level of impeachment inquiry’

Posted on July 25, 2023 (Updated July 25, 2023) by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is cementing the narrative that he will tell anyone whatever it is they want to hear. Whether or not he can deliver is a different story. McCarthy told Fox News’ Sean Hannity what every Fox viewer wants to hear: He’ll get vengeance for the Donald Trump impeachments by initiating an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden.

“We’ve only followed where the information has taken us. But Hannity, this is rising to the level of impeachment inquiry, which provides Congress the strongest power to get the rest of the knowledge and information needed,” McCarthy said Monday.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Monday night said the House's investigation into the Bidens is "rising to the level of impeachment inquiry." pic.twitter.com/uMFXWA9JSj
— The Recount (@therecount) July 25, 2023

Revenge for twice-impeached Donald Trump. That’s what this is really about, not whether anyone believes President Joe Biden had anything to do with Hunter Biden’s leaked dick pics or whatever it is that House Republicans are “investigating.” McCarthy, however, pretended to Hannity that all of this is a very real scandal rather than the fever dream of Rudy Giuliani.

The “information” McCarthy is referring to, as Mark Sumner wrote last week, consists of: “Seventeen audio tapes that don’t exist; One WhatsApp message that’s a fake; One “informant” who has been dead for over a decade; One “informant” who is on the run from international authorities after skipping bail; One disagreement by a disgruntled IRS employee who thought he deserved a promotion.”

But sure, go ahead and do an impeachment. The government is two months—and just 16 legislative work days—away from running out of funding. How can the American people expect the Republican House to do the work of governing when they have this Donald Trump agenda of revenge to carry out?

Is anyone who doesn’t watch Fox News or exist on a right-wing media diet really clamoring for the impeachment of Joe Biden? Not even close. CNN’s Bakari Sellers sums up what the rest of American is wondering: WTF? “I am not sure where Joe Biden falls in any of this,” Sellers said Tuesday morning. “I think most of America is like, what are we doing? Are you impeaching Hunter Biden? That appears to be decently asinine.”

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Kevin McCarthy made another stupid promise that's coming back to bite him

How far can McCarthy bend for extremists? Not far enough

Posted on July 25, 2023 (Updated July 25, 2023) by Joan McCarter

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had a steep learning curve when he got hold of the gavel in January and so far, he seems to have learned nothing about negotiating. Specifically, he seems clueless about the most important lesson: Don't negotiate with terrorists.

Whatever he does to appease the extremist members, it’s not enough. They simply come back with more demands. A strong leader might recognize that he would have numbers on his side if he chose not to let a dozen or so House members dictate what the rest of the 435 can do, and that he could work with the majority to shut the Freedom Caucus down. Kevin McCarthy, however, is not a strong leader.

At the moment, the biggest challenge he faces is finding a way to keep the government from shutting down, which at this point seems nearly impossible. McCarthy bowed to the extremists on government funding levels, reneging on the deal he made with President Joe Biden to resolve the debt ceiling crisis. He and his leadership team agreed to make sharp cuts to the previously agreed-upon numbers, and the Freedom Caucus came back with a demand for more cuts, leading to a delay in committee work on the spending bills that are required to fund the government.

With the House ready to attempt passage of two of those appropriations bills this week, Freedom Caucus ringleader Chip Roy of Texas is upping the ante. The congressman’s demands: “1) Return Federal Bureaucracy to Pre-COVID, 2) End Border Invasion & fed attack on Texas, 3) End FBI Weaponization, 4) End Racist DEI Govt Policies, 5) Make Europe Handle Ukraine, 6) End War on Reliable Energy.”

There’s so much nonsense to sift through, but don’t miss the part where he’s threatening continued U.S. aid to Ukraine.

That would be on top of the wide-ranging culture war matters the extremists are forcing into every spending bill, with a particular focus on abortion. It’s just like what they did with the National Defense Authorization Act after McCarthy insisted to the rest of the Republican conference he was going to make sure they had a clean bill and not a “Christmas tree” of a bill, chock-full of poison pill amendments on every branch. He didn’t stop the extremists from adding extraneous amendments to that bill, so now they’re proliferating through every appropriations bill.

While the Freedom Caucus is itching for a showdown in order to get what they want, McCarthy’s trying to keep his head above water on these spending bills and he’s fighting the hard-right wing of his party over a promise he may or may not have made to expunge Donald Trump's two impeachments. This just might be the lamest thing McCarthy has done to date, all to appease Trump’s fury after mentioning that the indicted former guy might not be the strongest presidential candidate.

McCarthy denied making that promise, which only gave the story more legs and also made the MAGA crowd in the conference even more intent on forcing that expungement vote. For what it’s worth, expunging an impeachment isn’t a real thing. Trump was impeached—twice. There were votes. They were recorded. They were put in the Congressional Record. There are no take-backs. There aren’t going to be thousands of people hired to go through every copy of the Record with their bottles of Wite-Out, erasing the evidence. But here’s McCarthy, setting up what is quite possibly the most absurd legislative push ever, and getting himself in a jam over it.

Whatever McCarthy does, it will not be enough to appease the extremists. They have no reason to back down—not when they’re getting what they want and being rewarded mightily for it. Now the Club for Growth is backing all the rabble-rousers who have opposed McCarthy all these months. The conservative organization says it is planning to spend millions to reelect the 20 members who opposed McCarthy’s bid to be speaker through 15 rounds of balloting. That, the group insinuated, is to keep McCarthy and his allies from backing any of their primary opponents.

McCarthy is going to bumble the country into a shutdown, making the House of Representatives look more ridiculous and dysfunctional along the way. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi nailed it this weekend on CNN when she said, “These people look pathetic.”

Kevin McCarthy made another stupid promise that's coming back to bite him

‘MAGA circus’ steamrolls over McCarthy, again

McCarthy caves to rebels for temporary truce

Kevin McCarthy made another stupid promise that’s coming back to bite him

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Laura Clawson

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy is bad at this. The frantic bargaining he did to squeak into the speakership after 15 rounds of voting set the stage for how he would perform in the role he wanted so badly, and the answer is … badly. This is a man so weak that anytime anyone gets mad at him, he offers up a major concession that will just cause him more problems down the road. And he’s done it again.

Politico reports that after McCarthy dared to suggest Donald Trump might not be the strongest Republican presidential candidate, not only did McCarthy grovel publicly for Trump’s forgiveness, he made another of his foolish promises. McCarthy promised Trump a House vote on expunging his two impeachments, and Trump plans to hold him to it, reminding him of the promise every time the two men talk.

Trump is already angry that McCarthy has refused to endorse him so far. Add to that his anger at McCarthy’s late-June comment—“[t]he question is, is he the strongest to win the election; I don’t know that answer”—and McCarthy is on thin ice. If he doesn’t give Trump that impeachment expungement vote before August recess, as he reportedly promised, all bets are off.

Trump apparently thinks having his two impeachments expunged would in some way counterbalance the dozens of criminal charges he faces, with more expected soon. This is about as ridiculous a thing as Trump has ever thought, which is saying something.

But there are significant dangers to holding such a vote—dangers like losing the vote. “I’m for Trump,” an unnamed “senior GOP member” told Politico. “The problem is: If you have an expungement, and it goes to the floor and fails—which it probably will—then the media will treat it like it’s a third impeachment, and it will show disunity among Republican ranks. It’s a huge strategic risk.”

Republicans have a mere five-seat majority in the House, and two current Republican members voted to impeach Trump the second time. There are a total of 18 House Republicans representing districts that voted for President Joe Biden. While the pattern is for those people to complain loudly to the media about what a terrible position they’re being put into by being forced to take votes on unpopular things like impeaching Biden, they usually fall right in line when it’s time to vote. But it wouldn’t take many of them to sink the vote.

Additionally, Politico reports, “there’s the clutch of constitutionally minded conservatives—who, we are told, have privately voiced skepticism that the House has the constitutional authority to erase a president’s impeachments.” Again, however many of these people actually exist, most of them will fall in line. But with such a small majority, it doesn’t take many defections to turn the vote Trump is demanding into yet another disaster for him.

McCarthy, meanwhile, has once again put his pathetic failure of leadership on display. If he holds the vote, he puts many of his most vulnerable members in a difficult position and risks embarrassing himself and Trump if the vote fails. If he doesn’t hold the vote, Trump is going to put him on blast or extract another equally or more damaging promise from him.

Nancy Mace and the myth of the moderate Republican

Posted on July 14, 2023 (Updated July 15, 2023) by Kerry Eleveld

One of the supposed "moderates" in the House Republican caucus railed on Thursday against several right-wing amendments to the military budget bill. First, she did so privately.

“We should not be taking this fucking vote, man. Fuck,” Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina fumed, venting to her staff about an extremist measure overturning Pentagon policies to facilitate abortion access for service members. “It's an asshole move, an asshole amendment,” she added, according to Politico.

But once on the House floor, the 'moderate' Mace voted to pass the very amendment she had privately blasted. The anti-abortion measure is now attached to the National Defense Authorization Act House Republicans approved Friday, 219-210, with the help of four Democrats.

Since the Democratically controlled Senate will never agree to the GOP's radical provisions, House Republicans' poison pill amendments risk delaying the must-pass funding bill, which includes raises for service members, among other critical needs. In other words, House Republicans are threatening national security and military readiness in order to advance their wildly unpopular culture warring.

Yet after voting in favor of the forced birther measure, Mace got on her public soap box, telling reporters, “We got to stop being assholes to women, stop targeting women and do the things that make a real difference.”

If she felt so strongly about it, reporters wondered, why had she voted for the amendment?

Mace offered the rather thin reasoning that, because the military doesn't reimburse travel expenses for service members getting elective procedures, it shouldn't reimburse troops traveling to get abortion services. She was, in her telling, trying to be "consistent."

Mace justified her decision to vote for the amendment by insisting it is not “military policy” to reimburse for travel expenses for an elective procedure and she is just trying to be “consistent.”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) July 14, 2023

Kudos to Mace for the spectacular mental gymnastics. To her credit, she is consistent. But Mace isn't alone as a so-called "moderate" who continues to vote for measures advanced by the most radical members of her caucus.

In fact, all but three of 18 Republicans who currently represent districts Joe Biden won in 2020 voted along with Mace to deprive service members of both time off and reimbursement if they have to cross state lines to access standard reproductive care. The three Republicans who balked were:

Rep. Brandon Williams (New York’s 22nd) abstained from voting.
Rep. John Duarte (California’s 13th) voted against the anti-abortion measure.
Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania’s 1st) voted against the measure.

For reference, here's a chart of the Republican Biden 18, compiled by Daily Kos Elections.

Per @DKElections' calculations, these are the 18 House Republicans who sit in districts that Joe Biden would have carried (Why "would have"? Because of redistricting. We've recalculated the 2020 presidential results for the new districts that have since been adopted) pic.twitter.com/SRjbjUcE5B
— Daily Kos Elections (@DKElections) July 14, 2023

It's worth remembering those 18 because, like Mace, they are often referred to as moderates yet they vote completely in sync with the Republican extremists now running the House. There is little, if any, daylight between them and the far-right extremists in the party when it comes to their votes.

Certainly, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York wanted the public to remember the five GOP members of the New York delegation who failed to vote in favor of preserving service member access to reproductive care. At a Friday press conference regarding the NDAA and the GOP’s poison pill amendments, Jeffries had a helpful visual display of each Republican, in keeping with a specific New York Democratic strategy to unseat every one of them next year.

Jeffries presser prop has an eye towards 2024, singling out NY Rs in Biden-won districts who voted for NDAA amendment on abortion pic.twitter.com/5wTptrppc0
— Nicholas Wu (@nicholaswu12) July 14, 2023

But again, poisoning the NDAA with an anti-abortion measure (along with anti-transgender and anti-diversity provisions) certainly isn't an isolated incident for endangered Republicans in moderate districts.

Last month, all but one of the 18 Biden-district Republicans voted to refer a completely baseless resolution to impeach President Biden to a pair of committees for further investigation. The only Republican in the Biden 18 club who didn't support referring the resolution was Rep. Marc Molinaro (NY-19), who skipped the vote altogether.

Any of those so-called moderates could have voted against referring the resolution, sponsored by extremist Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado. Voting against referral would have been a vote to kill Boebert's harebrained antics, but none of them did.

The fact of the matter is that GOP extremists are now running the House Republican caucus, with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy hopelessly trying to mitigate the damage. Because McCarthy owes his gavel to the extremists, he can't risk shutting down any of their maneuvers, no matter how radical, ridiculous, or ruinous they are to the Republican majority.

It follows that the Republican "moderates" exist simply to cast votes in support of the extremists' agenda and complain to reporters while doing it—a role the traditional media clearly relishes. But voters in those moderate districts should take note, because the Republican Party gets more extreme every cycle. There's no room for Republican moderation anymore, except in name only.

Morning Digest: He ranted about ‘European cheese weenies.’ Now he’s running for Congress

Posted on July 14, 2023 by Daily Kos Elections

The Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, and Stephen Wolf, with additional contributions from the Daily Kos Elections team.

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Leading Off

● CO-08: Weld County Commissioner Scott James announced Wednesday that he'd seek the Republican nomination to challenge freshman Rep. Yadira Caraveo in Colorado's 8th District, prompting Democrats to immediately blast him for an anti-abortion, Islamophobic rant he delivered as a talk radio host in 2007.

James, as Media Matters documented at the time, declared "the civilization that you know ... will be overtaken by those who would like you to practice Sharia law ... just by mass numbers" because "the European cheese weenies simply aren't breeding." James continued, "You can do the math and see the rapid decline of ... civilization," before saying of the United Kingdom, "Their birth rate declining, the abortion rate increasing. You do the math. You don't have the sanctity for the life like that, your society will simply extinguish."

Democrats also went after James, who remained on the radio after winning his seat on the county commission in 2018, for his vote the next year to designate Weld County as a "Second Amendment sanctuary." That action, which authorized the county sheriff to "exercise of his sound discretion to not enforce against any citizen an unconstitutional firearms law," came in response to a new red flag law that allows family and household members, as well as law enforcement officials, to petition a judge to confiscate firearms from an individual they fear is dangerous. "Taking constitutional rights away from citizens under the guise that it is for the 'greater good' is a very dangerous path to walk down," James said at the time, "and one we do not support."

James launched his campaign to unseat Caraveo hours after fellow Republican Barbara Kirkmeyer, the GOP's nominee last year, announced that she would seek reelection to the state Senate rather than try to avenge her narrow 48.4-47.7 general election loss. The commissioner is the first notable Republican to join the contest for this constituency in the northern Denver suburbs and Greeley area, turf Joe Biden carried 51-46 in 2020, but he's not the only one who is thinking about running here.

State Rep. Gabe Evans reiterated his interest Tuesday to the Colorado Sun, while Weld County Commissioner Steve Moreno and former state Rep. Dan Woog both said they were mulling over the idea last month. Multiple publications also reported in June that Joe O'Dea, who unsuccessfully challenged Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet last year, is considering as well, though he's shown no obvious sign that he's preparing for another run.

Redistricting

● NY Redistricting: A divided state appeals court ordered New York's redistricting commission to draw a new congressional map ahead of the 2024 elections on Thursday, overturning a lower court that had previously ruled in favor of retaining the state's current court-drawn boundaries. Republicans opposing the Democratic-backed lawsuit, however, immediately vowed to appeal in an effort to prevent the adoption of districts that would be less favorable to them.

The dispute wound up in court after the evenly divided bipartisan commission failed to reach an agreement on a single set of redistricting plans for Congress and the state legislature last year. Instead, it forwarded dueling proposals—one batch supported by Democrats, the other by Republicans—to lawmakers, who rejected them both. After that failure, the commission refused to try again, which led the Democratic-run legislature to pass its own maps.

However, the state's highest court struck down that attempt last year in a 4-3 decision, saying that because the commission had never sent a second set of maps to the legislature as contemplated by the state constitution, lawmakers could not act on their own. As a remedy, an upstate trial court instead imposed maps drawn by an outside expert that saw Republicans make considerable gains in the November midterms.

A group of voters, though, filed a suit demanding that the commission be ordered back to work. While a lower court initially rejected that argument, the Appellate Division agreed with the plaintiffs. The commission still "had an indisputable duty under the NY Constitution to submit a second set of maps upon the rejection of its first set," wrote the majority in a 3-2 opinion, concluding that the court-ordered maps used in 2022 were interim in nature.

If New York's highest court, known as the Court of Appeals, upholds this decision, then the commission will again have to try to compromise on a new congressional map. If it again fails to produce an acceptable map, though, Democrats in the legislature—who enjoy two-thirds supermajorities in both chambers—would, this time, very likely be entitled to create new maps of their own design. That possibility could spur Republican commissioners to accept lines that tilt somewhat more in Democrats' favor than the current districts rather than face the alternative of an unfettered partisan gerrymander.

2Q Fundraising

The deadline to file fundraising numbers for federal campaigns is July 15. We'll have our House and Senate fundraising charts available soon afterwards.

AZ-Sen: Ruben Gallego (D): $3.1 million raised
CA-Sen: Katie Porter (D): $3.2 million raised, $10.4 million cash on hand
WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D-inc): $1.3 million raised, $10.7 million cash on hand
LA-Gov: Jeff Landry (R): $4.5 million raised, $9 million cash on hand
NC-Gov: Mark Robinson (R): $2.2 million raised (in six months), $3.2 million cash on hand
AZ-06: Juan Ciscomani (R-inc): $815,000 raised, $1.6 million cash on hand
CA-45: Michelle Steel (R-inc): $1.1 million raised, $1.7 million cash on hand
IA-02: Ashley Hinson (R-inc): $690,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
IA-03: Zach Nunn (R-inc): $729,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
IL-17: Eric Sorensen (D-inc): $515,000 raised, $770,000 cash on hand
MI-10: John James (R-inc): $1.1 million raised, $1.7 million cash on hand
MT-01: Ryan Zinke (R-inc): $786,000 raised, $876,000 cash on hand
NC-14: Jeff Jackson (D-inc): $507,000 raised, $663,000 cash on hand
NJ-05: Josh Gottheimer (D-inc): $1.2 million raised, $15.1 million cash on hand
NJ-07: Tom Kean Jr. (R-inc): $860,000 raised, $1.47 million cash on hand
NY-02: Rob Lubin (D): $343,000 raised (in five weeks), additional $7,000 self-funded
NY-03: Anna Kaplan (D): $455,000 raised
OR-05: Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-inc): $717,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
TX-15: Monica De La Cruz (R-inc): $833,000 raised, $1 million cash on hand
WA-03: Joe Kent (R): $245,000 raised, $392,000 cash on hand

Senate

● FL-Sen: Politico reports that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and the DSCC are trying to recruit former Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell to take on GOP incumbent Rick Scott, but another Democrat appears ready to launch his campaign before she makes up her mind.

Navy veteran Phil Ehr, who raised $2 million for his 2020 bid against the nationally infamous Rep. Matt Gaetz in the safely red 1st District, confirms he's interested and will decide in the coming weeks. An unnamed source, though, says that Ehr, who lost to Gaetz 65-34 as Trump was taking the old 1st by a similar 66-32 margin, is planning to get in "soon."

● MI-Sen: The Daily Beast's Ursula Perano reports that, while actor Hill Harper says he's lived in Michigan for the last seven years, the new Democratic candidate's residency "may be more complicated." Perano uncovered a 2020 Seattle Times article saying that Harper moved to that city during the first season of production for his show, The Good Doctor, so his son could attend school there. (That season aired in 2017 and 2018.) That same story said that "Harper commutes from Seattle to the show’s set in Vancouver, British Columbia."

Perano also found a pair of websites used to book the actor for speaking engagements, both of which appear to have been in use in recent years: One said that Harper would be traveling from California, where he also owns a condo, while the other said he'd be coming from Seattle. "Hill Harper began spending time in Michigan because of work, but quickly realized the greatest people in the world live in Michigan and decided to move there full time," his campaign told the Daily Beast for the story, "Ever since moving to Michigan in 2016, he’s voted as a Michigander, paid taxes to the state, and runs a small business in Detroit."

Governors

● IN-Gov: Howey Politics relays that there are still "rumors" that state Commerce Secretary Brad Chambers is considering seeking the GOP nod to succeed his boss, termed-out Gov. Eric Holcomb and would likely self-fund. There is no other information about Chambers' interest.

● MO-Gov: Businessman Mike Hamra, whose eponymous company operates almost 200 restaurants nationwide, tells the St. Louis Business Journal he's "seriously considering" seeking the Democratic nod and will "likely to have a final decision later in the fall." Hamra made his interest known days after state House Minority Leader Crystal Quade launched her own bid to lead what's become a tough state for Democrats.

● MS-Gov: Republican incumbent Tate Reeves is airing a transphobic new TV ad where the governor, after praising his daughter for working to earn a soccer scholarship, declares, "Now, political radicals are trying to ruin women's sports, letting biological men get the opportunities meant for women." Reeves, as Mississippi Today notes, signed a 2021 law banning trans athletes from women's sports even though the bill's sponsor acknowledged she didn't know of this happening in the state.

House

● AK-AL: Businessman Nick Begich on Thursday became the first notable Republican to announce a campaign against Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, who twice beat him last year for Alaska's only House seat. But Begich is unlikely to have the top-four primary to himself, especially since many Republicans made it clear last fall that they still harbor a grudge over how he acquitted himself during the final months of longtime Rep. Don Young's life.

Begich, who is the rare Republican member of Alaska's most prominent Democratic family (his grandfather and namesake was Young's immediate predecessor, while his uncle Mark Begich served one term in the U.S. Senate), was initially a Young supporter, and he even co-chaired the congressman's 2020 campaign. But, as the Anchorage Daily News' Iris Samuels reported in April of 2022, Begich spent about a month working in the congressman's office the next year—at Young's invitation—only to launch a bid against Young soon afterward. "It was just such an invasion of our goodwill and the Congressman's goodwill," one unnamed staffer later told Insider's Bryan Metzger, adding, "We were completely hoodwinked and betrayed."

Young, who'd represented the state in the House since 1973, died before that faceoff could occur, and Begich was one of the 48 candidates who filed to run in a special election that featured America's first-ever top-four primary. But after Begich advanced to the general against former GOP Gov. Sarah Palin and Peltola (a fourth finisher, independent Al Gross, dropped out), it looked likely that one of the two Republicans would prevail in a state Donald Trump took 53-43 in 2020.

Begich and Palin, though, instead went negative on one another while ignoring Peltola (that is, when they weren't smiling in selfies with her), which helped give the Democrat the opening she needed. Begich was only too happy to portray Palin as a disastrous governor who only cared about being a celebrity, while Palin hit back by castigating Begich for supporting his Democratic relatives.

An unscathed Peltola went into ranked-choice tabulations with 40% of first-choice votes, with Palin edging out Begich 31-28 for second. But following the fratricidal GOP campaign, Begich's backers only went for Palin by a 50-29 margin as a crucial 21% didn’t express a preference for either finalist. As a result, Peltola pulled off 51-49 upset.

All three candidates, plus Libertarian Chris Bye, competed again in November for a full two-year term, but things went even worse for the GOP this time. Begich and his allies pointed to data from the Alaska Division of Elections saying that he'd have defeated Peltola 52-48 had he come in second place in the special election to make his case that conservatives should choose him over Palin. But several of Young's former staffers not only endorsed Peltola, who had enjoyed a close relationship with the late congressman for decades, they also vocally aired their grievances against Begich for what they saw as his duplicity.

One particular incensed Young aide was a former communications director, Zack Brown, who posted a picture of Begich's congressional intern badge in a since-deleted tweet. "Begich was planning on primarying Young all along," he wrote. "He used DY & staff to secure inside info." Brown followed up, "According to FEC docs, he claimed campaign expenses BEFORE he came on as an INTERN in Don Young's office. He KNEW he was going to primary Young before he joined our office, but used the Congressman and staff for his own ends anyway. Disgraceful."

Peltola this time almost took a majority of first-choice ballots, scoring 49% of them as Palin once again staggered into second place, beating out Begich 26-23. Peltola then crushed Palin in a 55-45 drubbing after the instant-runoff process was finished. To add insult to injury for Begich, election data showed he would have lost by a slightly larger margin than Palin this time―just under 11 points―had he taken second.

Republicans are likely to make a priority of beating Peltola, who represents the reddest Democratic-held seat in the chamber, but it remains to be seen who else will join Begich in the top-four. The Anchorage Daily News writes that Palin, who rather prematurely named her congressional chief of staff the day after the November election [i]In anticipation of an announcement of victory," hasn't shown any sign she's thinking of trying a third time, though that hardly means she won't surprise everyone like she did when she decided to run last year.

● MD-06: Hagerstown Mayor Tekesha Martinez on Wednesday joined the busy primary to succeed her fellow Democrat, Senate candidate David Trone, for a seat based in western Maryland and the northwestern D.C. exurbs. Martinez, who was elected to the city council in 2020, became this northwestern Maryland community's first Black mayor in February after her colleagues appointed her to fill the vacant post. She joins Dels. Lesley Lopez and Joe Vogel, as well as think tank founder Destiny Drake West, in seeking the Democratic nod for this 54-44 Biden constituency.

● NJ-07: Former state Sen. Ray Lesniak tells the New Jersey Globe he's "still waiting until this November" before deciding whether to seek the Democratic nod to take on GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr.

● NY-22: New York State United Teachers, which is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association, has endorsed Democratic state Sen. John Mannion's bid to take on GOP Rep. Brandon Williams. Mannion is a former public school teacher, and City & State says the labor group has enthusiastically backed him in past races.

● RI-01: Lincoln Town Councilor Pamela Azar at some point quietly ended her campaign for the Democratic nod and endorsed one of her many former rivals, state Sen. Ana Quezada.

● TX-34: House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has endorsed former GOP Rep. Mayra Flores in her rematch effort with Democratic incumbent Vicente Gonzalez.

● UT-02: State election officials confirmed this week that both former RNC member Bruce Hough and former state Rep. Becky Edwards have turned in enough valid signatures to make the Sept. 5 special Republican primary to succeed outgoing Rep. Chris Stewart. The pair will face Celeste Maloy, a former Stewart aide who qualified for the ballot by winning last month's party convention. The winner will be favored on Nov. 7 against Democratic state Sen. Kathleen Riebe in this gerrymandered 57-40 Trump seat.

● WI-03: Both state Rep. Katrina Shankland and former La Crosse County Board chair Tara Johnson tell the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that they're interested in joining the Democratic primary to take on GOP Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

Mayors and County Leaders

● Houston, TX Mayor: Former Republican City Councilmember Jack Christie tells the Houston Chronicle he's considering entering the Nov. 7 nonpartisan primary to succeed termed-out Democratic Mayor Sylvester Turner, though he said he was still "far from signing up." Attorney Tony Buzbee, an independent who lost the 2019 runoff to Turner 56-44 after spending $12 million, likewise says he hasn't ruled out another campaign even though he's representing Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Republican's upcoming impeachment trial. The filing deadline is Aug. 21, weeks before Paxton's Sept. 5 trial starts.

● Indianapolis, IN Mayor: Democratic incumbent Joe Hogsett has gone on TV well ahead of the Nov. 7 general with a spot hitting his wealthy foe, Republican Jefferson Shreve, that utilizes footage from the ads Shreve ran during his failed 2016 state Senate bid. "Jefferson Shreve will fight for the right to life," says Shreve's old narrator, "and our Second Amendment rights." Indianapolis backed Joe Biden 63-34, but Republicans are hoping Shreve's resources will help him argue that change is needed after Hogsett's two terms.

● Nashville, TN Mayor: The Nashville Scene reports that a conservative group called Save Nashville PAC is spending $150,000 on TV ad campaign to help the one notable Republican in the race, party strategist Alice Rolli, advance past the Aug. 3 nonpartisan primary. The messaging, unsurprisingly, invokes the specter of crime in big cities … other big cities, that is. "How many once-great cities around the U.S. are now complete disasters?" asks the narrator, "Is Nashville next? Alice Rolli will protect Nashville and keep it a clean, safe city."

The offensive comes at a time when two wealthy Democrats, former AllianceBernstein executive Jim Gingrich and former economic development chief Matt Wiltshire, continue to dominate the airwaves in the contest to succeed retiring Democratic Mayor John Cooper. AdImpact relays that Gingrich and his allies have outspent Wiltshire's side $1.6 million to $1.2 million in advertising, while Democratic Metro Council member Freddie O'Connell is far back with just $190,000.

A firm called Music City Research, though, has released a survey showing that, despite being heavily outspent, O'Connell leads with 22% as Wiltshire outpaces Rolli 17-13 for the second spot in the likely Sept. 14 runoff. The pollster is affiliated with Harpeth Strategies, which is run by one of O'Connell's supporters, fellow Metro Council member Dave Rosenberg. Rosenberg tells us this poll was conducted for a "private entity and not a mayoral campaign or an organization associated with a mayoral campaign." He added that, as far as he is aware, the sponsor is not backing or opposing anyone.

The last poll we saw was over a month ago, and it showed a far more unsettled race. The Democratic firm Public Policy Polling, working for real estate development group NAIOP Nashville, had O'Connell at 10% as two Democratic members of the state Senate, Jeff Yarbro and Heidi Campbell, respectively took 9% and 8%.

Democrat Adam Frisch raises $2.6 million in 2nd quarter for 2024 rematch against Lauren Boebert

Posted on July 8, 2023 by Charles Jay

Democratic challenger Adam Frisch has raised more than $2.6 million in the second quarter for his rematch against MAGA Republican extremist Rep. Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District. Frisch almost pulled off one of the biggest upsets in the 2022 midterms when he lost to Boebert by a mere 546 votes in what surprisingly turned out to be the closest House race in the country.

Frisch’s campaign, in a statement released Thursday, described the second-quarter fund-raising haul of more than $2.6 million as “shattering the record for the largest quarterly fundraising for a U.S. House challenger in the year before an election, excluding special elections and self-funded campaigns.”

The campaign said the average donation was just over $32 coming from over 81,000 individual donations from all 27 counties in the district and all 50 states. He is not accepting donations from corporate PACs.

In the statement, Frisch, a businessman and former Aspen city council member, thanked everyone who had donated to his campaign “to give the people of Southern and Western Colorado a representative who will take the job seriously and work across the aisle to find solutions to the problems facing the district.”

“Boebert continues to vote against the interests of her constituents while devoting her time to ‘angertainment’ antics that do nothing to help CO-3," Frisch said. "We can do better than Boebert, and thanks to our generous supporters, we will defeat her in 2024.”

Honored and humbled. Thank you to everyone of you who has donated, RT'ed, messaged, and joined this growing coalition. We are just getting started! pic.twitter.com/HxdsZVQ6c6
— Adam Frisch for CD-3 (@AdamForColorado) July 6, 2023

So far this year, Frisch has raised $4.4 million which is nearly two-thirds of the $6.7 million he raised for the 2022 campaign, much of which came in during the final weeks of the campaign after polls showed the race to be competitive.

In the first quarter of 2023, Frisch’s campaign brought in nearly $1.75 million compared to just over $763,000 for Boebert. Boebert has not yet reported her second-quarter fund-raising totals. She raised $7.85 million for the 2022 campaign.

Frisch filed his paperwork for a 2024 rematch with Boebert on Feb. 14.

“People want the circus to stop. They want someone to focus on the district, not on themselves,” Frisch said. He added that the issues in CD3, such as water, mental health, agriculture, and the importance of domestic energy, are not “red and blue."https://t.co/5ghBlqTIwu
— Adam Frisch for CD-3 (@AdamForColorado) February 16, 2023

Boebert is considered the most vulnerable of the big-name MAGA Republican extremists in the House, most of whom represent deep-red congressional districts. Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District is rated as +9 GOP.

By contrast, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene won reelection by a 66% to 34% margin over Democrat Marcus Flowers in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District even though part of Democratic-leaning Cobb County was added to her district as a result of gerrymandering to give Republicans a bigger advantage in neighboring districts. Flowers raised more than $15.6 million in a totally noncompetitive race.

In 2022, both national parties mostly ignored Colorado's Republican-leaning 3rd Congressional District, which was considered solidly Republican by nearly all election forecasters.

In April, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee listed Boebert as among the Republican incumbents it considers most vulnerable. House Republicans have also put Boebert on their list of most vulnerable incumbents.

At the time, DCCC spokesperson Tommy Garcia told the website Colorado Politics in an email:

“Lauren Boebert is more obsessed with catching headlines and being the token MAGA extremist than actually working for everyday Coloradans. Between her dangerous conspiracies and outright racist bigotry, CO-03 voters can see that Lauren Boebert is an unserious member of Congress, unwilling to go to bat for them on issues facing Colorado. Her time in Congress is ticking down.”

A poll released in April by a Democratic firm showed that Boebert and Frisch were in a dead heat in the 3rd Congressional District, Colorado Politics reported.

The Global Strategy Group's Mountaineer poll, conducted March 29-April 2 in partnership with liberal advocacy group ProgressNow Colorado, found Boebert and Frisch tied at 45% each among likely voters, with the remaining 10% split between voters who are undecided and those who say they plan to vote for someone else. Cook Political has shifted the district to Leans Republican from Safe Republican.

Despite her razor-thin victory margin, Boebert has done little to tone down her extremism in the new Congress. Boebert was among about 20 extreme right-wing House Republicans who opposed Kevin McCarthy’s speakership bid until the very end. She also pushed for the House to vote on a resolution to impeach President Joe Biden—a move that McCarthy dismissed as “premature.”

Frisch still has his work cut out for him. This time he doesn’t have the advantage of surprise, and turnout will be greater in a presidential election year. As a national figure, Boebert can raise lots of funds from MAGA Republicans across the country.

The last Democrat to represent Colorado’s largely rural 3rd Congressional District was three-term Rep. John Salazar, who lost his bid for reelection in 2010.

Freedom Caucus members are turning on each other

Republican disarray is somehow, miraculously, getting worse

McCarthy isn’t endorsing Trump yet. America will pay the price

Posted on July 8, 2023 (Updated July 10, 2023) by Kerry Eleveld

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has reached that stage of a GOP-controlled congressional session where he is simply perfecting the art of playing political Whac-A-Mole—nothing more, nothing less.

Whatever supposed agenda House Republicans were pursuing, that all ended when McCarthy struck a deal with the White House on raising the debt ceiling that miraculously avoided a catastrophic debt default. While the country undoubtedly benefited from that relatively reasonable outcome given McCarthy’s band of heretics, we will all be paying the price for his betrayal of the caucus extremists for the remainder of his speakership.

The first bill came due in early June, when House GOP extremists shut down the floor and McCarthy was forced to recess the chamber for the better part of a week. Several weeks later, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna went on a censure crusade against Rep. Adam Schiff of California over comments he made several years ago about Donald Trump's ties to Russia. Luna originally folded a $16 million fine into the measure, which she pushed in the form of a privileged resolution in order to skip going through committee and using regular order. But when 20 vulnerable Republicans sided with House Democrats to table the resolution, McCarthy sprang into action, trying to convince Luna that this very bad look for the GOP was only benefitting one person: Schiff, who ultimately raked in more than $8 million in second-quarter donations for his Senate bid. Luna dropped the fine, McCarthy backed the measure, and the censure passed on a party line vote, 213-209.

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That same week, McCarthy went through the exact same drill with a privilege resolution pushed by Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado to impeach President Joe Biden: no investigation and no high crimes, misdemeanors, or explicit violations of the Constitution. She just felt like it—so there.

McCarthy once again convinces this low-level GOP talent that her resolution will fail, embarrass the Republican majority, and be a boon to Biden. Instead, she agrees to refer the articles to the Homeland Security and Judiciary Committees in return for bragging rights that she initiated the impeachment push.

But that's what McCarthy exists for now—he's a glorified cat herder in a necktie.

"The best he can do in these situations is mitigate the damage," remarked The New York Times' Annie Karni on The Daily podcast. "And he knows every day that his troubles are not behind him and are only probably getting worse."

McCarthy's next challenge is avoiding a massive rift within his caucus over which 2024 Republican hopeful to back. For now, he has declined to endorse Trump—yet another slap in the face to the MAGA misfits who would just as soon burn the House down as build bridges.

It's a placeholder position that could yield fast considering how quickly McCarthy walked back his recent observation that Trump might not be "the strongest" Republican candidate in the GOP field.

Trump fumed over McCarthy’s disloyalty and, in a near-immediate clean up interview with Breitbart, McCarthy asserted, “Trump is stronger today than he was in 2016.”

Sure, watching McCarthy squirm amid the MAGA death grip is entertaining. But the longer McCarthy holds out on endorsing Trump, the bigger the price we'll pay. McCarthy owes his precious speaker’s gavel to Trump, and when Trump wants something, he'll hang McCarthy's delinquency over his head like the Sword of Damocles.

And more than likely, Trump will extract the biggest pound of flesh he can get from McCarthy, whether that's a massive investigation escalation into Biden’s son Hunter, or a full on impeachment proceeding. One way or the other, Trump will get his due.