Monthly Archives: April 2021

Democrats have introduced a bill to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court from nine to 13. Such a move could allow President Biden to swing the current 6-3 conservative majority in favor of liberals.

The effort, condemned by Republicans, faces long odds and has raised questions about why the issue is being raised now and what Congress can actually do.

Heres a look at some key questions:

Democrats say it is in response to Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell.

Early in 2016, McConnell blocked hearings or a vote on Judge Merrick Garland, President Obamas nominee to fill the seat left by the sudden death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

McConnell said that in an election year, the voters should decide who will choose the next justice. When Donald Trump was elected, he chose Scalias replacement. But late in 2020, when liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, McConnell rushed through another Trump nominee to fill her a seat a week before the election which was won by Joe Biden.

The Republicans stole two seats on the Supreme Court, and now it is up to us to repair that damage, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), the bills sponsor, said outside the court on Thursday.

Yes. The Constitution leaves this decision to Congress. It says, the judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.

And from time to time, Congress has indeed changed the number of justices. It was six when Congress passed the first Judiciary Act in 1789 and the number fluctuated in the mid-19th century. But since 1869, the high court has had nine justices.

Yes, but it is dubious precedent.

In 1937, after winning a landslide reelection, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said the Supreme Court justices were old and overworked, and he proposed to add one new justice for every current justice over age 70. This could have expanded the court to 15 justices.

But everyone understood FDRs true motive. He was angry with the old conservative justices who had struck down several of his New Deal measures designed to cope with the Great Depression. They had a horse and buggy view of the Constitution, he told reporters.

Despite huge Democratic majorities, the House and Senate took no action on FDRs plan.

But in the spring, the Supreme Court appeared to change direction. A narrow majority upheld a New Deal measure to protect workers and unions as well as laws setting minimum wages. It was the dubbed the switch in time that saved the nine.

And within a few years, FDR had packed the court the old-fashioned way. As the old justices retired, he replaced all of them with New Deal liberals.

Because it would take four new Democrats to create a liberal majority. With the arrival of 49-year old Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court has six Republican appointees who lean right, and three Democratic appointees who lean the left.

The eldest of the nine is liberal Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who is 82. He is expected to retire this year or next, allowing President Biden to fill his seat. But Republican appointees look to retain a lopsided majority for another decade or more, barring a dramatic change.

Not good. The leading Democrats are lukewarm to the idea.

Biden said he is no fan of court packing and opted to set up a 36-member commission to spend six months pondering possible reforms or changes to the Supreme Court.

And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said she was not enthused about the expansion bill introduced Thursday. I have no intention to bring it to the floor, she said.

Markey acknowledged Democrats would also first have to abolish the filibuster rule in the Senate to have a chance to pass his court expansion bill. And even so, it would require all 50 Democrats to vote in favor.

They say they would do the same as soon as they regained full control of Congress and the White House, and change the number of seats to either add justices or reduce the number if a Democratic appointee retired or died.

One popular proposal would limit the justices to an 18-year term, and have a president appoint a new justice every two years. This would have several advantages. It would allow each president to appoint two justices in a four-year term, and it would end the incentive to choose ever younger justices in the hope they could serve in a powerful position for 30 or 40 years.

But the Constitution may need to be amended, since it says judges and justices, once appointed, shall hold their offices during good behavior.

Not surprisingly, most of them denounce it as a terrible idea.

But some conservative analysts worry about FDR precedent for a different reason. They hope the Supreme Court will wield its solid conservative majority to make major changes in the law on issues like abortion, religion and guns. And they fear some justices may decide now is not the time for a conservative revolution inside the court.

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Can Democrats really expand the Supreme Court? - Los Angeles Times

They might not even be able to do it, but theyve sort of laid down a road map for us, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), a close ally of GOP leader Mitch McConnell, said this week.

As with many things Schumer wants to accomplish in the evenly split Senate, his plan to eke out new filibuster-proof legislating opportunities hinges on the support of Sen. Joe Manchin. And the West Virginia Democrat just firmly reiterated his disapproval of repeatedly working around the 60-vote margin required to pass most bills.

So Schumer might not be able to muster the votes to take another crack at the same budget measure Democrats used to ease passage of the Covid relief bill, never mind the policy limitations he'd face if he pushed ahead. Still, the New York Democrat's highly public flirtation with the maneuver could help Republicans use it against his party whenever the Senate swings back to GOP control.

Hes certainly laying out what future majorities could do, Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) said. That doesnt mean that we should.

The Senate parliamentarian, who serves as the chambers nonpartisan procedural referee, said last week that it is possible to revise a budget measure like the one used to sideline Republicans on the Covid bill. But critical questions about the tactic remain unanswered, including whether Democrats could recycle that same resolution to facilitate passage of Bidens infrastructure plan this year and whether they could take unlimited attempts at legislating via the budget.

It's possible that when you unleash the magic that the magic is a whole lot harder to execute than you would think particularly when you get beyond the traditional uses of raising money or spending money, Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) said.

If Schumer's plan turns out to be workable, the move could afford Senate Democrats at least six chances to stave off the filibuster before the midterm elections next year, rather than the three shots they already get.

How that happens and what way that happens, we have to have discussions with the parliamentarian, of course, Schumer said this week. And we have to decide how to use it. But its something were going to explore using.

"I havent made a decision yet," the majority leader said when asked about the timing for his decision on the so-called budget reconciliation process.

Either way, the procedural insight Schumer is amassing could become source code for his successors to exploit from the outset of their time in control, especially any future Senate leader who has a more substantial majority and policy goals that fit easily within the constraints of the budget process.

For every action, theres an equal and opposite reaction, and this does expand reconciliation. That old door swings both ways, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said.

I would never presume to tell my friend Sen. Schumer how to do his job," Kennedy added. "But I would caution him to be careful with just looking for instant gratification, because its not in the Constitution that Ive been able to find that says hell always be majority leader and that hell always be in the majority.

For Schumer, Manchins resistance isnt the only impediment to pulling off the novel ploy. Utilizing the budget to pass a bill without a 60-vote hurdle is time-consuming, as Democrats were newly reminded during the grueling process of turning the new presidents pandemic aid plan into law in March.

Employing the budget trick even two more times during the current session of Congress as is already allowed would be an ambitious feat on its own. That would mean four more vote-a-rama amendment sessions, much like the all-nighters senators endured in February and again in March to get the stimulus off to Bidens desk.

To work under the budget maneuver, legislation must also be carefully tailored to abide by the so-called Byrd rule designed to ensure reconciliation is only used to advance bills related to spending, revenues or the debt. Democratic priorities like a clean energy standard, paid leave mandates and workers rights could breach those rules, so the tool can be as limiting as it is liberating.

Reconciliation is not a panacea, Cornyn said, noting that Democrats had to ditch major policy goals after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that they wouldnt work in the stimulus. That includes scrapped proposals to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour and fund a California transit project Republicans dubbed Pelosis subway to slam the Speaker.

Democrats acknowledge that Schumers gambit, if successful, could sting should Republicans regain control of Congress and the White House. But limiting Democrats reconciliation options could also prove risky, said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who pointed to the GOPs use of the budget to pass a massive package of tax cuts in 2017.

Listen, we learned this lesson four years ago, Durbin said. Theyll use reconciliation for their highest political priority tax cuts for the rich. They wasted no time doing it. Theyll do it again. Wed be naive to step back and say, Were afraid theyre going to misuse it. Theyre going to use it if they get the opportunity.

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Democrats hand their foes a weapon as they weigh a filibuster loophole - POLITICO

Answers may finally be coming over the cause of an apparent voting discrepancy in a state House of Representatives election last November in Windham which grabbed national exposure and even caught the attention of former President Donald Trump.

Gov. Chris Sununu this week signed Senate Bill 43 into law, which authorizes a forensic audit of the Rockingham County District 7 race in Windham.

The saga began on Election Day last November when Democrat Kristi St. Laurent, a candidate for one of four seats to represent Rockingham District 7 in the state House, was just 24 votes shy of winning. The narrow margin automatically triggered a recount of the ballots.

Then things really got interesting.

The recount discovered that four long-serving AccuVote optical scanning machines that were used on Election Day shorted the four GOP candidates in the contest between 297 and 303 votes. Three other Democratic candidates were shorted 18 to 28 votes, but the recount showed St. Laurent was credited with 99 more votes than were cast for her.

The result of the recount which was witnessed by dozens of officials and observers was, to say the least, puzzling.

With state law only allowing for a single recount in political races, New Hampshires Ballot Law Commission accepted the recounts results. But Republicans asked the state Attorney Generals Office to investigate the matter.

A bill calling for the forensic audit sailed through both the state House and Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support and landed on Sununus desk at the beginning of the week.

New Hampshire elections are safe, secure and reliable, Sununu said in a statement after signing the bill. Out of the hundreds of thousands of ballots cast this last year, we saw only very minor, isolated issues which is proof our system works. This bill will help us audit an isolated incident in Windham and keep the integrity of our system intact.

The audit will take place later this spring in Concord.

So how did Trump hear about the controversy?

Give credit there to Howie Carr, the well-known nationally syndicated conservative talk radio host and strong supporter and ally of the former president.

Carr briefly chatted with Trump in early February while dining at Mar-A-Lago, the former presidents residence and resort in Palm Beach, Florida.

Carr said he told Trump about the vote discrepancy in Windham, which he said piqued the former presidents interest.

After Trump narrowly lost New Hampshire in the 2016 general election to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, he charged without providing any proof that there was massive voter fraud in the state.

And Trump continues to refuse to concede the 2020 election to now-President Joe Biden. He promoted unfounded claims that last years election was rigged and stolen from him as he unsuccessfully tried to reverse his loss to Biden.

As the first special election legislative election in New Hampshire this year, the showdown in Merrimack for the state House of Representatives seat left vacant by the December death of House Speaker Dick Hinch grabbed tons of attention in recent weeks, both in the Granite State and even nationally.

Merrimack town councilor Bill Boyd succeeded in his mission to keep the seat in Republican hands, defeating Democratic candidate and former state Rep. Wendy Thomas by a roughly 53%-45% margin.

Both parties spent a good amount of time and resources on the race.

Two potential 2024 GOP presidential contenders, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, each headlined virtual New Hampshire GOP fundraisers to help raise money for Boyd.

And state Democrats, looking to rebound from losing the majorities in the both chambers of the New Hampshire legislature as well as the Executive Council in the November elections, raised more than $32,000 and contacted over 10,000 voters on behalf of Thomas.

Special elections tend to draw outsized attention, and both sides were spotlighting the potential political ramifications of the contest.

First Congressional District 2020 Republican nominee Matt Mowers, who helped the NHGOP organize the Pompeo and Cotton fundraisers for Boyd, characterized Merrimack as a swing town.

You saw a lot of ticket splitting last year, he said.

He argued that Boyds win spells a lot of problems for Democrats in the midterms and its certainly encouraging for those of us who want to see more common sense, whether thats in Concord or down in Washington.

Longtime New Hampshire Democratic Party chair Ray Buckley rejected the notion.

Merrimack is a traditionally Republican town, and the fact that Wendy Thomas came so close to victory shows just how strong our Democratic values are in red areas across the state, he said.

Buckley said the special election results were another step in the continued journey to turn Merrimack blue.

The participation by Pompeo and Cotton to help raise money for a special state legislative election should come as no surprise. This is New Hampshire, which for a century has held the first in the nation presidential primary.

With the early pre-season moves in the 2024 GOP presidential nomination race already underway in New Hampshire as well as Iowa, South Carolina, and Nevada, the other three early voting states in the primary and caucus calendar along the road to the White House, its never too early to make friends that could pay dividends down the road.

After Boyds victory, he received congratulatory calls from Pompeo, Cotton, as well as former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a 2016 presidential candidate whos mulling another stab at the White House in 2024.

Later this month, on April 28, Christie will make a remote appearance before a virtual meeting of the Right of Centergroup of leading Granite State conservative activists and leaders thats co-chaired by NHGOP chair Steve Stepanek and former state House Speaker Bill Obrien.

Christie will become the second potential GOP White House hopeful this year following Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair to headline the groups regular meetings.

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On the Trail: Unravelling how Democrats in one NH race wound up getting extra votes - Concord Monitor

Everybody agrees the polls missed the mark in 2020, as they had four years earlier. But nobodys certain why.

In search of answers, five competing Democratic polling firms have decided to put their heads (and their data) together, forming a group that will undertake a major effort to figure out what went wrong in 2020 and how the polling industry can adjust.

The team released a memo today announcing the project and offering some preliminary findings that seek to address why polls again underestimated support for Donald Trump. But over all, the message was one of openness and uncertainty. The big takeaway: Things need to change, including the very nature of how polls are conducted.

The authors wrote that their analysis thus far had pushed them toward thinking that pollsters must take a boldly innovative approach when mapping out the road ahead.

We know we have to explore all possibilities, Fred Yang of Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, one of the five firms involved in the study, said in an interview today.

That will probably mean embracing some tools that had been considered too untested for mainstream public polling: Officially, the survey-research community still considers live-interview phone calls to be the gold standard, but there is growing evidence that innovative methods, like sending respondents text messages that prompt them to respond to a survey online, could become essential.

And it could also mean going back to some methods that have become less common in recent decades, including conducting polls via door-to-door interviews, or paying respondents to participate.

We are going to put every solution, no matter how difficult, on the table, the memo read.

The consortium of Democratic firms plans to release a fuller report this year; so will a number of traditional survey-research institutions. The American Association for Public Opinion Research, which undertook a widely discussed post-mortem analysis in 2016, is already at work on another. AAPOR is a bastion of polling traditionalism, but if the Democratic groups preliminary report is any indication, even the associations coming analysis might acknowledge that the industry should embrace more experimental approaches to data collection.

In a separate analysis released late last month, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight found that traditional, live-interview phone polls werent meaningfully more accurate than others. In fact, out of dozens of polling firms analyzed, none of those with the lowest average error had exclusively used live-interview phone calls (and some hadnt used them at all). Two of the three most accurate firms were Republican-aligned companies that are held in suspicion by most leaders in the social-science world, partly because they use methods that have long been considered suspect including robo-calling, as well as newer techniques like contacting respondents via text message.

The Democratic firms memo said polls had slightly missed the mark when determining the makeup of the electorate last year. This means they misunderstood, to some degree, who was likely to vote and who wasnt: a crucial X factor in pre-election polling.

Among so-called low-propensity voters that is, the ones pollsters consider the least likely to turn out Republicans proved four times as likely as Democrats to actually end up casting a ballot in November. This can be taken as another indication of how effective Donald Trump was at expanding the Republican electorate, and pollsters difficulties accounting for that, particularly among white voters without college degrees and those in rural areas.

Tellingly, the researchers found that voters who considered Trump presidential were underrepresented in polls.

But a greater source of concern was so-called measurement error. Thats a fancy way of saying polls have had trouble figuring out what percentage of people in certain demographic groups plan to vote for one candidate over the other.

The report proposed some explanations for why there was significant measurement error in 2020 pre-election polling, and it landed on two big potential culprits. One was the higher prevalence of anti-institutional views (sometimes referred to as social distrust) among Trump supporters, meaning those voters would be less willing to respond to official surveys. The second explanation was the lower incidence of pandemic-related fears among Trump voters, meaning they were more likely than Biden voters to be willing to turn out to vote.

What we have settled on is the idea there is something systematically different about the people we reached, and the people we did not, the reports authors wrote. This problem appears to have been amplified when Trump was on the ballot, and it is these particular voters who Trump activated that did not participate in polls.

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Can These Democratic Pollsters Figure Out What Went Wrong? - The New York Times

Half of Americans approve of Democratic congressional leaders' performance compared to only about a third who said the same of their GOP counterparts, according to a new Pew Research Poll out Friday.

The poll found that 50 percent of respondents overall approved of Democratic leaders in Congress and 47 percent disapproved.

Sixty-four percent of respondents disapproved of Republican congressional leaders, while 32 percent approved.

The support for Democratic leaders in Congress has jumped 9 points since the spring of 2019 in a time of divided government, when Democrats controlled the House and Republicans still held the Senate.

Pew attributed the increase in approval to higher approval ratings among Democratic voters.

Democrats were also found to be more supportive of their party's congressional leaders compared to Republicans.

The poll found 84 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents approved of their party's leaders in Congress, while only 55 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents approved of their party's leaders.

By contrast, 69 percent of Democrats approved of their party's leaders in 2019.

Aside from the support for Democratic leaders in Congress, the poll found that a majority of Americans approve of President BidenJoe BidenFour members of Sikh community among victims in Indianapolis shooting Overnight Health: NIH reverses Trump's ban on fetal tissue research | Biden investing .7B to fight virus variants | CDC panel to meet again Friday on J&J On The Money: Moderates' 0B infrastructure bill is a tough sell with Democrats | Justice Dept. sues Trump ally Roger Stone for unpaid taxes MORE's job performance.

A total of 59 percent of respondents approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, while 39 percent disapproved.

The number marks an increase of 5 points since March, when 54 percent said they approved of Biden's job performance.

Biden has spent his first few months in office focusing on legislative priorities that are broadly popular with the public, including pandemic relief and infrastructure.

The poll showed that the $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief measure he signed into law in March, for example, was approved by 67 percent of respondents.

Other polls have indicated that the provision authorizing another round of stimulus checks, this time of up to $1,400 for individuals, proved to be particularly popular.

Pew's poll also found that 72 percent believe the Biden administration has done an excellent or good job in handling the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. The views differed by party, but overall a majority approved: 88 percent of Democrats approve, compared to 55 percent of Republicans.

The poll was conducted April 5 to 11, with a 2.1 percentage point margin of error.

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Pew poll: 50 percent approve of Democrats in Congress | TheHill - The Hill

What theyve been very forthright about is protecting the institution against pressures from their own party. I know what thats like, McConnell said, referring to former President Donald Trumps demands that he kill the filibuster. Every time I said no. And its nice that there are Democrats left who respect the institution and dont want to destroy the very essence of the Senate.

Its a surprising turn for McConnell and his party, who tried unsuccessfully to defeat both centrist politicians in the 2018 election and only occasionally tried to woo the pair while they held the majority. But in a 50-50 Senate where Democrats are eager to sidestep Republicans, Sinema and Manchin are the GOPs most important allies under the dome. The more that duo resists liberal entreaties to gut the filibuster and fall in line, the more reassured Republicans are that the upper chamber can remain a check on their partys most left-leaning impulses while Democrats control Washington.

McConnells top lieutenant, John Thune of South Dakota, chats up both Democrats frequently on the floor and sometimes hangs out with them outside the Senate. He spoke of Manchin and Sinema in almost reverential terms on Wednesday.

For me right now, theyre almost guardians of democracy because theyre trying to protect us from the loss of the legislative filibuster and everything that would come with that. Theyre good people, Thune said in an interview. They want to do the right thing.

Manchin didnt quite return the compliments when asked about Republicans praise. Sure, hes sincere about working with them, but at some point he hopes the GOP budges a bit on its unrelenting criticism of President Joe Bidens domestic agenda.

I just hope they help me a little bit in bipartisanship, Manchin said of Republicans. Thats all."

Though moderation and deep relationships with the GOP unite them, Sinema and Manchin have yin-and-yang personalities. Sinema zips into votes quietly and rarely utters a word to the plethora of media stationed around the Capitol. Manchin is a gregarious backslapper who revels in a hallway gaggle or Sunday show appearance, an old-school retail politician who cant resist jumping into a bipartisan gang to try to make a deal.

And the two are dominating the otherwise barren fields of bipartisanship in todays Senate. Republicans are under the impression that both are sincere about pursuing a bipartisan infrastructure deal, not another party-line proposal.

Sinema is talking to Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) about infrastructure, working with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) on minimum wage legislation and trying to write a bill addressing the migration surge at the border with Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). A spokesman for Sinema said she believes the best way to achieve lasting results for Arizona is through bipartisan negotiations.

And Manchin is the only Democrat not supporting the massive voting rights measure passed by the House, trying to force a bipartisan negotiation on infrastructure and digging in against the White House's initial offer on corporate tax hikes. He said he believes Republicans arent all talk and no give, that "they really want to work.

But what makes Manchin and Sinema particularly valuable to Republicans is their defense of the filibuster, which gives the GOP's 50-vote minority significant sway over the agenda. Both have recently dug into their defense of the 60-vote requirement to pass most bills, an indication that Democrats may simply lack the votes to squash the minority party's legislative power during this Congress.

Cornyn compared Sinema to former Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), beloved in his party, after she urged senators to change their habits instead of messing with the Senate rules. I thought that was a pretty profound statement on her part," the Texan said.

Theyve both taken strong stands against the filibuster, and [Republicans are] very much committed to that, said Capito, Manchin's junior senator and friendly with Sinema since their days in the House.

Manchin and Sinema's frequent defense of the filibuster, Capito added, helps "reinforce how valuable that is to the institution but also, obviously, to us as Republicans.

Romney said he speaks to both of them every day, describing the two prominent filibuster backers as proxies for a larger group of Democrats who more quietly voice their own concerns about killing the 60-vote threshold.

There are a number of Democrats that are appreciative of the fact that Manchin and Sinema are standing tall [and] taking the slings and arrows, Romney said.

Whats more, Republicans acknowledge the duo are the Hill's most effective advocates for moderation as Democrats eye a go-it-alone approach on huge spending bills. When they can't drive compromise directly through legislation that's passed through budget reconciliation, GOP senators can influence the process by keeping close ties to Sinema and Manchin.

Notably, Manchins personal relationship with Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) ended up forcing Democrats into a last-minute paring back of unemployment benefits during debate on Biden's $1.9 trillion coronavirus aid bill. No Republicans supported that legislation, but they were able to make their mark through Manchin.

If Democrats do pursue infrastructure legislation along party lines, Republicans will once again look to their two buddies across the aisle to exert a centrist pull -- whether or not progressives howl in protest.

Manchin and Sinema's influence has "been very helpful, said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.). Now, I dont want to overstate that. I dont think either one of them have fundamentally changed the direction of important Democratic legislation just yet. But theyve certainly slowed down a lot of the more radical ideas.

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Mitch McConnell wants his conference to say nice things about these 2 Democrats - POLITICO

BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. A lawsuit has been filed to prevent a number of Saratoga County Democrats seeking elective office in November from getting the Working Families Party ballot line.

The filing on behalf of Thomas J. Sartin, Jennyfer L. Gleason, Julia L. Spratt, Robert J. Decelle, Jeremy B. Fifield, Stefanie E. Music, Michael J. Music Jr. and Jeffrey D. Cleary was submitted April 7 in Saratoga County State Supreme Court. The lawsuit was filed by the plaintiffs attorney former Congressman John Sweeney.

The filing requests that the Working Families designating petitions naming the Democrats and the respective offices they seek be declared insufficient, defective, invalid, and null and void to designate or authorize them as candidates for the partys June 22 primary.

It also requests the court direct and compel the Saratoga County Board of Elections not certify, print, or place the names of the candidates on the Working Families primary election ballot.

Upon receiving the lawsuit Judge Dianne Freestone ordered representatives for the opposing parties to show cause before a special term of the court at 3 p.m. Wednesday April 14 at the Saratoga County Courthouse in Ballston Spa.

The defendants in the case are candidates Jerome Holland, Melissa L. Boxer, Jennifer P. Jeram, Alexander CD Patterson, Michael J. Williams, Cynthia C. Young, John T. Fealy, Christopher Scarincio, Erin H. Trombley, Tara N. Gaston, John E. Bishop and Barbara K. Turpin. Included also as a defendant is the Saratoga County Board of Elections.

Jeram is running for Clifton Park Town Judge trying to oust longtime Judge James Hughes, a Republican. Boxer is challenging incumbent Clifton Park Supervisor Philip Barrett, also a Republican, while Patterson is running against three Republican incumbents for a seat on the Clifton Park Town Board.

Young is running to retain her seat on the Malta Town Board. Fealy is running to join Young on the town board and Williams is running for town supervisor.

Holland is running for Saratoga County Sheriff, Scarincio for Moreau Superintendent of Highways, Trombley for a seat on the Moreau Town Board and Gaston is running to retain her seat as one of two Saratoga Springs County Supervisors. Bishop and Turpin are running for council seats in the Town of Waterford.

The filing states that the plaintiffs are challenging the Democrats designating petitions for the Working Families ballot line because they are photocopies of the signed petitions and signatures rather than the hard copy petitions themselves. As such, the filing states, they do not comply with election law.

The lawsuit claims those Democratic candidates who are not enrolled members of the Working Family Party took a shortcut in the petitioning process by using the photocopies rather than getting them signed by the presiding officer and secretary of the Working Family Party.

There is no basis in law or in equity for a court to waive the strict statutory language and requirement of a duly executed Certificate to allow a non-enrolled candidate to carry the banner and name of a political party in which they chose not to enroll, the filing states.

Though the Saratoga County Board of Elections had not ruled on the petitions validity as of the filing, the lawsuit asks the court to make sure the board adheres to the plaintiffs version of the law and rule the Working Families Party authorization of the petitions to be invalid.

In an email about the filing Jeram said as a newcomer to the intricacies involved in running for elective office she is troubled by the filing in general and in particular with her race because it is her belief that the lawsuit has no merit whatsoever.

The statute they relied on in their filing does not apply to judicial candidates, she said.

Additionally, Jeram feels the lawsuit may get tossed because an Executive Order by Governor Andrew Cuomo in 2020 states that due to the public health emergency posed by the COVID-19 virus, notary publics are authorized to officiate documents remotely and can use audio-video technology to witness a document being signed and then notarize it.

Jeram said she has retained counsel and believes the county Board of Elections has also.

Im still excited to be running for town office but it is frustrating that the Republican Party does not seem to want voters to actually have a vote, she said.

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Lawsuit seeks to disqualify Democrats from Working Families Party support - The Saratogian

Illustration: Jonathan Djob Nkondo for Bloomberg Businessweek

Illustration: Jonathan Djob Nkondo for Bloomberg Businessweek

Super Bowl flyovers, TV commercials celebrating veterans, yellow-ribbon bumper stickers: Its long been reflexive for Americans of all political persuasions to support our troops. Following Sept. 11 and the deployment of troops to Afghanistan and Iraq, pride in the U.S. military and gratitude for troops service ran high, even among people opposed to those conflicts. In the years since 2000, multiple surveys have shown the public trusts the U.S. military more than any other public institutionmore than organized religion and the Supreme Court, and vastly more than Congress.

But the increasing politicization of the military, a string of sexual assault scandals, the role of dozens of enlisted troops and veterans in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, and other factors have shaken that trust. According to a Reagan Institute survey conducted in February, confidence in the military has fallen by 14 percentage points since 2018from 70% to 56%. The drop was significant regardless of age, gender, or party affiliation, and is in line with trends other researchers have observed.

Share with a great deal of trust and confidence in U.S. institutions

Data: Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute

Criticism of the military on Capitol Hill has intensified. Democrats say the Pentagon must do more to stamp out extremist ideology in the ranks following Jan. 6. The news is full of examples of service members who have extremist beliefs, Representative Adam Smith, the Washington Democrat who leads the House Armed Services Committee, said at a March 24 hearing on the issue. It is also obvious that our military leaders are untrained in the symbols and language of these hate groups.

Conservatives are lambasting military policies they regard as woke. Fox News host Tucker Carlson last month called maternity flight suits for women troops a mockery and a distraction from combating China and other threats. When military leaders rebuked Carlson, Senator Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican, took his side, claiming that the officers were stifling public dissent. He asked for a meeting with the commandant of the Marine Corps over the issue.

Jim Golby, who studies civil-military relations at the Center for a New American Security, says he cant remember a time when perceptions of the military have been so polarized. Different parts of the public are looking at the military and creating narratives that they dont like, he says.

Share with a great deal of trust and confidence in U.S. institutions

Data: Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute

Former President Donald Trump had a large role in driving this politicization. At the beginning of his presidency, Trump with great fanfare named retired generals to leading positions, including former Marines Jim Mattis as defense secretary and John Kelly as White House chief of staff. Almost as quickly as he claimed them as my generals, he turned on them. Trump also drew the military deeper into the culture wars, banning transgender people from serving (a policy undone by President Joe Biden) and opposing the Pentagon when it began a process to remove the names of Confederate leaders from military bases.

Last June, during a summer of nationwide protests against police violence, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, marched across Washington, D.C.s Lafayette Square with Trump for a photo op outside St. Johns Church. Law enforcement officers used chemical irritants to clear the park of peaceful protesters just prior to the event. Critics including prominent Democrats and former high-ranking officers said Milleys presence lent the militarys imprimatur to a political event that undercut freedom of speech and assembly. Milley, who wore battle fatigues that day, later apologized for his role.

President Trumps rhetoric, particularly against senior officers toward the end of his term, probably helped open some of the gates to distrust of the military among Republicans, says Golby. The response to Lafayette Square helped open the floodgates on the Democratic side.

Criticism over Lafayette Square may have contributed to the National Guards slow mobilization to help the U.S. Capitol Police on Jan. 6. The commanding officer of the D.C. National Guard said a senior Army officer expressed concern about the optics of sending troops.

Meanwhile, reports of sexual assault in the ranks have been rising. The killing of 20-year-old Army Specialist Vanessa Guillen at Fort Hood in Texas last year sparked outrage. Guillens family said she was harassed before being murdered (a soldier suspected in her death killed himself). The Army went on to fire or suspend 14 base leaders over a culture that it said fostered harassment and sexual assault.

With the racial issues, with the sex assault issues, with the misogyny issues, the average American is saying, Maybe the military isnt the leader in all these areas, says Don Christensen, president of Protect Our Defenders, a group that works to end sexual violence in the military.

The Pentagons inability to curb rape in the ranks has led lawmakers to push for legislation that would move handling of sexual assault cases outside the chain of command, something the department has resisted. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered a review of all the actions that have been taken on the issue to date. And on April 9, after a mandated period for all units to discuss the problem of extremism, the Pentagon announced plans to crack down on it with new regulations, screening, and training.

The military is still the most trusted institution in America, and we take that trust and confidence very seriously, Pentagon spokesman JohnKirby said in a statement. While hyper-partisanship today is certainly a concern, the men and women of the Department of Defense are focused on doing their job of protecting and defending the United States, and always earning and deserving the trust of the American people.

The military still enjoys more support than most institutions in American life. In polls, clear majorities of respondents consistently say they have confidence in the military, a rarity for any public institution, according to Jeff Jones at Gallup. But opinion has been so high for so long that even a slight change is cause for concern among people who follow the issue closely. Its possible, Golby worries, that the military could become like the Supreme Court, with Republicans and Democrats alike viewing some high-ranking officers as theirs and others as political opponents.

If the military becomes politicized, it becomes more and more likely that the military could intervene in politics, says Elliot Ackerman, an author and former Marine who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. And a military intervention in politics concerns me the most, whatever shape it would take. With Travis Tritten

(Updated with a statement from the Pentagon in 13th paragraph. )

BOTTOM LINE - Rising politicization of the military, a sexual assault crisis on bases, and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack have lowered public trust in the institution, a trend that worries experts.

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Trust in US Military Is Falling Among Democrats and Republicans - Bloomberg

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) More than a dozen Senate Democrats sent a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday complaining of a woeful environmental track record by his Brazilian counterpart, Jair Bolsonaro, and urging him to condition any support for Amazon preservation on significant progress reducing deforestation.

The letter was signed by senators including Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, and Bob Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee. It comes just days before Biden is expected to meet with Bolsonaro and other foreign leaders at a U.S.-organized climate summit that was a major plank of his campaign pledge to more aggressively fight climate change.

The letter seems aimed at curtailing a fledgling bid by Bolsonaro, a far-right climate skeptic who was a staunch ally of former President Donald Trump, to refashion himself as a willing partner of Biden on the environment in the hopes of securing billions of dollars in foreign aid to promote sustainable development in the Amazon.

The senators warn that failure to slow deforestation will also affect their willingness to support Brazils bid to join the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development a long-sought goal of Bolsonaro.

The 15 senators, who also include former presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, said they support cooperation on the Amazon between the U.S. and Brazilian governments, but questioned Bolsonaros credibility.

President Bolsonaros rhetoric and policies have effectively given a green light to the dangerous criminals operating in the Amazon, allowing them to dramatically expand their activities, the senators wrote in the letter obtained by The Associated Press, citing recent reporting on abuses by Human Rights Watch.

A U.S.-Brazil partnership can only be possible if the Bolsonaro administration begins to take Brazils climate commitments seriously and only if it protects, supports, and engages meaningfully with the many Brazilians who can help the country fulfill them, the lawmakers add.

Bolsonaro has sided with powerful agribusiness interests, cast aspersions on environmental activists and snarled at European leaders who decried deforestation in the Amazon as destruction of the worlds largest rainforest has surged toward its worst level since 2008.

On the campaign trail, Biden proposed countries provide Brazil with $20 billion to fight deforestation and said the country should face repercussions if it fails. At the time, Bolsonaro labeled Bidens comments as regrettable and disastrous.

Bilateral talks on the environment with Brazil began on Feb. 17, led by Bidens special climate envoy, John Kerry, The two sides have held regular technical meetings in the run-up to the April 22-23 climate summit, which is taking place online due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Brazil is striving to show its shift in rhetoric amounts to more than empty talk.

In a seven-page letter addressed to Biden on April 14, Bolsonaro recognized that his government needs to boost its performance curtailing illegal logging. He also said he supports sustainable development with economic alternatives for the regions impoverished residents and that he is committed to eliminating illegal deforestation by 2030.

To accomplish those goals, he said Brazil will require outside resources, adding that aid from the U.S. government would be very welcome.

Rubens Barbosa, a former Brazilian ambassador to the U.S., said it remains to be seen whether the tone of Bolsonaros letter will match his speech at the summit.

Brazils Environment Minister Ricardo Salles recently told reporters he is seeking $1 billion in foreign assistance to support efforts to reduce deforestation by 30% to 40% in 12 months and that, without that sum, he would be unable to set a target. Brazilian spending to protect the environment has been sliding for years, and under Bolsonaro the ministrys budget outlook plunged another 25% this year, the lowest level in two decades.

The ministry didnt respond to an AP request for comment about its proposals.

The U.S. senators argue Biden must see success before writing a check. They argue Bolsonaro has derided the environmental regulator and sabotaged its enforcement capabilities, sought to weaken protections for Indigenous territories, exhibited contempt for environmentalists and been reluctant to curb lawlessness that fuels destruction and violence.

Any U.S. assistance to Brazil related to the Amazon should be conditioned on the Brazilian government making significant and sustained progress in two critical areas: reducing deforestation and ending impunity for environmental crimes and acts of intimidation and violence against forest defenders, the senators wrote.

Climatologists have warned that continued deforestation will push the Amazon beyond a tipping point, and its subsequent decomposition would release hundreds of billions of tons of carbon dioxide, making the Paris Agreements climate goals even harder to achieve.

However, Brazil has shown itself capable of driving down Amazon deforestation in the past, having reached all-time low in 2012. That started ticking upwards in the years thereafter, then exploded in the first year of Bolsonaros administration and rose again last year.

Amid outcry from European governments and threats of divestment by institutional investors, Bolsonaro in 2019 placed the army in charge of tamping down deforestation, despite experts criticism that soldiers are both costly and untrained for such missions.

Preliminary data indicates deforestation has started declining from its record level, though it remains well above the average of the preceding decade. Vice President Hamilton Mouro, a general who leads the program, announced earlier that the army-led program will end at the end of April, returning enforcement duties to environmental agencies.

Brazilian officials have been scrambling to present Bolsonaro as a committed ally of the Biden administration on climate issues, said Daniel Wilkinson, who runs Human Rights Watchs environmental program. His new climate-friendly rhetoric simply cannot and should not be taken seriously in the absence of actual results.

The senators rebuke comes amid a flurry of domestic efforts in Brazil to cast Bolsonaros administration as a bad-faith negotiator.

More than 200 nongovernment organizations and networks signed a letter that said climate negotiations with the U.S. and other foreign governments are taking place out of the public view and that no Amazon solutions can be expected from closed-door meetings. They said talks shouldnt advance until Brazil has cut deforestation rates.

A video produced by the Association of Brazils Indigenous Peoples also warned Biden not to trust Bolsonaro to negotiate the Amazons future.

Barbosa, who was Brazils ambassador to the U.S. for both center-right and leftist governments from 1999 to 2004, said Bolsonaro will face difficulty overcoming the credibility gap created by his newfound discourse about fighting deforestation and the negative results of the last few years.

Those two things must be reconciled, he said. Until then, no one will enter into serious negotiations with Brazil to transfer resources.

___

Goodman reported from Miami.

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Senate Democrats urge Biden to condition aid to Brazil - The Associated Press

On Friday's edition of "Hannity," Fox News host Sean Hannity slammed the Democrats for their push to "cement their power" with legislation to pack the Supreme Court, plan for D.C. statehood, COVID relief and more. Hannity commenting that the American people will soon see if President Biden is indeed in charge of his party.

HANNITY: This week, while we focused on the growing tensions in America's major cities, theDemocratic Party has been very busy. Just as we predicted on the campaign trail, the left is now plotting to cement their power in perpetuity with a series of illicit moves.

...

Were watching what are statist, authoritarian measures that are insane.That would forever change this country in ways most people cant even imagine. By the way, last year, candidate Joe Biden flatly told we the American people that he supported "none" of these proposals. Maybe he forgot.

...

In the coming weeks we're going to see if Joe Biden is even actually in charge. Because he seems to be led by the most radical elements of his party. The radical socialists, the squad seems to be in control of pretty much everything. So is he going to stand by his decades-long convictions? Or will he change his position at the drop of a hat because he is governed by the radical socialists?

CLICK HERE TO WATCH HANNITY'S FULL COMMENTARY

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Hannity: Democrats seeking to 'cement their power in perpetuity' with illicit moves - Fox News