Monthly Archives: February 2022

Democrats in New York have redrawn a key congressional district to give former congressman Max Rose a big advantage in his bid to reclaim the seat from Republican incumbent Rep. Nicole Malliotakis packing it with more liberal precincts in Brooklyn to counter conservative Staten Island, political observers said Monday.

Malliotakis and fellow Republicans charge the fix is in after a bipartisan panel all but endured to be at loggerheads failed to come up with a compromise leaving the redrawing of districts in the hands of the majority Democrats.

The 11th District currently includes all of Staten Island along with like-minded neighborhoods in southern Brooklyn just on the other side of the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, including Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights and Bath Beach.

But in what sources say was a clearly partisan gerrymander to boost a Democrats chances of winning the 11th and several other congressional seats, the proposed district snakes from the island to Bay Ridge and then to the northwest to take in the heavily Democratic neighborhoods of Sunset Park, Gowanus and Park Slope ending at the border of Smith Street, State Street and Flatbush Avenue.

The move has left the Malliotakis camp crying foul.

This is a blatant attempt by the Democrat leadership in Albany to steal this seat, even after New Yorkers voted twice by ballot referendum for non-partisan maps, said Malliotakis campaign spokesman Rob Ryan.

These are the same cynical politicians that gave us the disastrous bail reform, released criminals from prison, and raised our taxes. They know Congresswoman Malliotakis is popular and they cant beat her on the merits or public policy, so they are changing the boundaries to tilt the scale.

Former President Donald Trump defeated Democrat Joe Biden 55.3 percent to 44.7 percent in the 2020 presidential election in the 11th CD a solid 10.6 percentage point victory.

Malliotakis defeated Rose by about 6 percentage points.

If the redrawn district were in place in 2020, Biden would have taken about 55 percent of the vote and Trump 45 percent a reversal at the top of the ticket that would have aided Rose.

Independent experts and even Democrats agree that their the lines were drawn for maximum partisan advantage.

Its clear that the increase in Democratic voters in the Brooklyn side of the 11th CD is amazing. Cutting the Republican vote in half in Brooklyn is equally amazing, said Steve Romalewski, director of mapping services at the City University of New Yorks Graduate Center who has analyzed the new districts.

Romalewski noted that voters approved a 2014 ballot measure calling for a more independent redistricting process, but that plan was thrown out the window because of partisan squabbling this year.

I dont think you could find anyone who spoke up at a public hearing saying that Park Slope should be in the same district as Staten Island, he said.

Longtime Staten Island Democratic activist Allen Cappelli admitted the redrawn district is a Democratic gerrymander but insists it is no less a gerrymander than what what Republicans in charge of redistricting do in states such as Texas.

The party in charge draws the lines to their advantage, Cappelli said.

In New York, the Democrats who control the state Senate and Assembly draw the congressional maps every 10 years following the census count.

State Sen. Diane Savino agreed that the newly carved district is a potential gift and pick-up for Democrats.

There are more Democratic-leaning voters on the Brooklyn side of the district. These are high turnout voters. That would benefit a Democratic candidate for Congress, said Savino, a Democrat whose own district includes parts of northern Staten Island and southern Brooklyn.

She noted that Staten Island still makes up about two-thirds of the voters in the district and that the 11th CD is still a very competitive seat.

Its not a walk in the park but its better turf for any Democrat than it was before, Savino added.

Even some Democrats complained the redrawn congressional districts are too unwieldy

Long Island Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi is running for governor instead of seeking re-election to the 3rd Congressional district, which has expanded from three to five counties.

The 3rd CD currently cuts across the north shore of Long Island in Nassau and Suffolk counties and takes in parts of northeastern Queens.

The redrawn 3rd CD runs from Suffolk and Nassau through Queens to a small piece of the Bronx and then into Westchester County.

I understand the goal the legislature is trying to achieve with this map, however I believe it could have been accomplished and served the interests of the residents better by having a more compact 3rd district thats not spread out over parts of 5 counties, Suozzi said.

A Republican mapping expert accused Democrats in the state Legislature of engaging in illegal redistricting for partisan gain.

The notion that Staten Island is connected to Park Slope, or Glencove is connected to Mamaroneck these things are crazy and anyone who looks at this map will realize this is an egregious map, said former GOP Hudson Valley Rep. John Faso.

Its pretty clear the proposal theyve made is unconstitutional. Its a very clear partisan gerrymander. The constitution says these proposals would be a prime example of partisan gerrymander it divides communities and it creates districts that are geographic disparate unnecessarily, he said.

Faso continued, Youre connecting Nassau County with Westchester does the congressman get a rowboat or a yacht to transcend the Long Island Sound?

Meanwhile, state Republican Party Chairman Nick Langworthy said the party will likely file a lawsuit to block the redistricting plan that could cut New Yorks Republican representation in the House in half, from eight members to four.

But one redistricting expert said Malliotakis and the New York Republican Party are screwed because the state and federal courts have historically refused to intervene or overrule partisan-driven redistricting maps.

It would be very difficult to challenge the congressional plan in court. The state courts prefer to leave redistricting to the legislature. No state court has rejected a plan enacted by the state legislature in over 50 years, said Jeffrey Wice, a professor with NYUs Census and Redistricting Institute.

Theres little chance of any court rejecting the new lines for this years elections.

Likewise Wice said federal courts will not hear gerrymandering cases following a 2019 U.S. Supreme Court decision that concluded that partisan challenges do not belong in federal courts.

The redistricting plan also eliminates the 22nd congressional of upstate GOP Rep. Claudia Tenney because of population loss following the census count. She announced Monday that she will for run re-election in another district.

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Malliotakis accuses NY Dems of trying to 'steal' seat with redrawn congressional map - New York Post

A top Democrat is pushing colleagues to pursue all options to revamp the U.S. immigration system and offer a path to citizenship for undocumented individuals.

We need to explore every legislative option and go as big as we can on immigration with the votes weve got, Assistant Democratic Leader Patty Murray (Wash.) said in a statement Monday, adding that shes as committed as ever to updating immigration laws.

Proposals to protect undocumented immigrants and overhaul the legal immigration system suffered procedural defeats in the Senate last year, while Democrats hit an impasse on their broader social spending and tax proposal (H.R. 5376). Now Democrats and advocacy groups are hoping to recapture last years momentum to find a new path forward.

Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Activists rally outside the U.S. Capitol to demand that immigration provisions be included in the Build Back Better Act on Dec. 7, 2021.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, National Domestic Workers Alliance, and other groups on Monday kicked off a two-week lobbying and advocacy initiative focused on securing a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants in the U.S. since 2010.

The Senate rule keeper has already said the approach, along with a less ambitious House-passed plan for temporary parole protections, doesnt comport with the chambers requirements for legislation passed through reconciliationthe partisan procedure Democrats are using for the package.

Bigger questions loom about whether negotiations over the package can be revived after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) in December announced he wouldnt support the House version. Several Democrats have suggested a downsized version of the legislation could move forward, and President Joe Biden said he supported advancing provisions in chunks.

Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) and other top immigration negotiators in the Senate earlier this month said they were pushing to ensure immigration provisions are included in any future version of the package.

Democrats Seek to Salvage Paths for Immigrants in Imperiled Bill

Rep. Chuy Garca (D-Ill.) said that hes frustrated with the pace of immigration negotiations and called on Biden to persuade Senate Democrats to bypass the parliamentarian and pursue the registry update.

Theres simply too much on the line to accept a watered-down deal, he said during a press call Monday. Or worse, walk away with nothing.

Immigrants rights groups are meeting with the Senate Democratic caucus in the coming weeks to keep up momentum, said Luz Castro, national policy advocate for the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ellen M. Gilmer in Washington at egilmer@bloombergindustry.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sarah Babbage at sbabbage@bgov.com; Robin Meszoly at rmeszoly@bgov.com

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Top Senate Democrat Aims to 'Go as Big as We Can' on Immigration | Bloomberg Government - Bloomberg Government

The old saying "the majority has its way, the minority has its say" could come to a crashing halt should lawmakers approve a resolution from Rep. Mike Weissman, D-Aurora.

Weissman's House Concurrent Resolution 1002 would ask voters to end the constitutional requirement to read bills at length. Both parties have deployed the tactic of compelling such a reading chambers can dispense with the rule upon the unanimous consent of the legislators present totry and block or delay the passage of legislation.

But the measure's chances of even making it out of the House appear slim, with support lacking from even some ofWeissman's fellow Democrats.

Currently, bills are "read" three times: the first reading occurs when the bill is introduced and assigned to a committee. That reading, however, is not done at length, a change voters approved in 1950.

The second reading happens when the bill is debated and a voice vote is taken. The third reading, should the measure make it that far, is the recorded vote.

Lawmakers dispense with the full reading of bills most of the time.

But requesting that a bill be read at length on second or third reading is a critical tool that Republicans, who have been in the minority in both chambers since 2019, have employed to slow down the Democrats' agenda or to get the majority party to negotiate.

Weissman told Colorado Politics that people, regardless of party and beliefs, have the right to expect that, in a time-limited session of 120 days, their elected senators and representatives will use that time efficiently.

"It's vitally important," he said, that legislators read bills beforevoting onthem, "and you can do that on your phone, your tablet, your watch, your laptop."

In 1876, legislators didn't have the technological options for reading bills, Weissman pointed out.

Much has changed in Colorado since 1876, but this provision in the state Constitution has not.

"Unfortunately, it's used to delay doing the people's business, and the purpose of this referred measure is to ask the people of this state if they want that to continue to be the case," Weissman said.

However, the chances that HCR 1002 will gain the two-thirds vote in both chambers to get to the ballot are virtually nil, Republican lawmakers said.

It would take at least three Republican votes in favor in the House, in addition to the 41 Democrats, for the measure to pass, and at least four Republicans in the state Senate must also support it, along with the 20 Democrats.

The resolution is also raising eyebrows among House Democrats, several of whom indicated they cannot support it.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have used the tactic over the years. For Democrats, the most notable example occurred in 2003, when Republicans, then in the majority in both chambers, rammed through a bill redrawing congressional maps, including a new 7th congressional district, in the last three days of the session.

Senate Democrats attempted a delay by asking that the 28-page bill, which contained mostly thousands upon thousands of numbers tied to each congressional district, be read at length. In political lore, it became known as the "midnight gerrymander."

The issue most recently became a flash point in March 2019, when Senate Republicans asked for a 2,023-page bill to be read at length in an attempt to get Democrats to the negotiating table. Democrats responded by breaking the bill down into multiple sections and setting up a bank of computer reading programs to read the bill aloud.

The reading was unintelligible, at around 600 words per minute.

Senate Republicans sued Senate Democrats in Denver District Court, winning an injunction against the speed readings. The lawsuit, on appeal, went to the Colorado Supreme Court, which agreed with the Republicans on a 4-3 vote a year ago.

The justices agreed with the district court's view that unintelligible computer sounds did not constitute reading.

The justices, however, took issue with Denver District Court Judge David Goldberg's directions on how to read a bill.The lower court told the legislature how to comply, and that was a mistake, the majorityjustices concluded.

That error, the Supreme Court said, stems from directing the reading to be "in anintelligible and comprehensive manner, and at an understandable speed."

That's problematic, the Supreme Court opinion stated, because "it imposes parameters around the form or manner by which the legislature" complies with the reading requirement.

Senate Republicans rarely use the tactic, and even less so since winning the court case.

Senate President Leroy Garcia, D-Pueblo, keeps a copy of HB 19-1172 on his desk as a reminder of what's important and when things don't work the way they're supposed to.

Garcia, who served as assistant minority leader before becoming minority leader in the 2018 session, has a strong memory of those days.

"I care about the institution. We have term limits, and if the [legislature] doesn't function the way it's supposed to, that's a travesty for Colorado," he said.

Senate President Leroy Garcia keeps a copy of HB 19-1172 on his desk as a reminder of what's important and when things go off the rails.

"I've always carried those values, that we work together," he said, adding that includes his belief that government works better when everyone is at the table and work together. He said that's what's wrong with Washington, D.C., and the 2019 session headed in a direction he described as "unbecoming" of the Senate.

Since then, the Senate has shown more collegiality among lawmakers from both parties.

"We have this collegiality that needs to exist, so it doesn't become so political," Garcia said.

It's a different matter in the House, where requests to read bills at length take place far more often and where collegiality isn't always obvious.

House Minority Leader Hugh McKean, R-Loveland, pointed to several examples where the bill reading isn't just a dilatory tactic.

In 2019, McKean offered an amendment to a sunset bill on the Public Utilities Commission to rename it the "Turducken Act of 2019."McKean's amendment lost by only two votes. During the last week of the 2019 session, then-Rep. Chris Hansen, D-Denver, successfully offered two amendments that inserted the language of two other bills into the PUC measure. Those two bills HB 19-1037 and HB 19-1313 both failed in the state Senate.

A more recent example took place on June 8, the last day of the 2021 session, and on the last bill voted on by the House.

House Bill 21-1266 was amended in the Senate to include language from another bill, SB 21-200, which died in the Senate the day before. That was in part because Gov. Jared Polis threatened a veto. Both bills dealt with greenhouse gas emissions.

HB 1266 showed up in the House on June 8 with several Senate amendments, including a 26-page amendment that included the language of SB 200, which had never been considered in the House.

McKean complained thatlawmakers had just 34 seconds to consider how the amendments fit into the bill.

"We had no idea" what was in the bill, he said.

During debate on June 8, McKean pointed out that HB 1266 was effectively a brand new bill.

Rep. Perry Will, R-New Castle, said the bill he heard in a House committee was 15 pages, but it came back with 55 pages.

"We heard the bill number, not the bill," he said.

Republicans could have asked for a recess, which was a gamble, McKean told Colorado Politics. The alternative was to ask for a reading of the bill, which he didn't do, instead focusing on language from SB 200 that found its way into HB 1286.

"It should have been read at length," he said, upon reflection.

McKean pointed out that reading a bill at length is also a tool for the public to learn how a bill has been changed.

HCR 1002 was assigned to the House State, Civic, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee. No date has been set for a hearing.

Correction: A previous version said the Constitutional change would require 55% voter approval, and while the bill includes language about Amendment 71's requirement for 55%, Rep. Mike Weissman pointed out that a repeal of language in the Constitution requires only a simple majority.

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Democrat seeks measure to get rid of constitutional rule of "reading the bill at length" - coloradopolitics.com

Introduction

As President Biden begins his second year in office and the battle for control of Congress in 2022 heats up, Democrats find themselves in a deep hole. Early in Bidens administration, 55% of Americans approved of his performance; today, his job approval has fallen to 42%. Polls conducted during the past three weeks show Democrats trailing Republicans by an average of 4 percentage points in the aggregate vote for the House of Representatives.[1]

This disadvantage in the generic House vote is even more significant than it appears. Because Democratic votes are distributed less efficiently among congressional districts than are Republican votes, Democrats need an edge of at least 2.5 percentage points to retain control. In 2016, a Republican advantage of just 1 percentage point translated into a 47-seat House majority. In 2012, a 1-point Democratic popular vote advantage left Republicans with a 33-seat majority. By contrast, it took a massive 8.6 percentage popular vote victory to give Democrats a comparable 36-seat majority in 2018.

Contrary to early expectations, the redistricting process after the 2020 Census is likely to leave the Houses existing partisan tilt about where it is now. But the parties have pursued different strategies. While Republicans have focused on making their seats safer, Democrats have sought to increase the number of districts where they have a reasonable chance of winning. This strategy will increase Democratic gains when the popular vote balance is favorable to them, but at the cost of increasing their losses when the vote turns against them. In these circumstances, the Republicans current 4-point edge in the generic House vote would likely produce a massive seat swing in their direction.

There is a strong relationship between President Bidens public standing and Democrats prospects in the forthcoming midterm elections. A recent study found that in this era of polarized and nationalized politics, a presidents job approval does more to influence midterms than does any other factor. Another analysis shows that Bidens low job approval in swing states is weakening Democratic candidates for the Senate. Unless Biden can move his approval from the low to the high-40s, Democrats have virtually no chance of retaining their House majority or of continuing to control the Senate.

Voters have downgraded their evaluation of the presidents performance across the board, but his losses on two key issues that were key to his campaigndealing with the pandemic and bringing the country togetherhave been especially steep.

To understand what it would take for President Biden to improve his public standing, lets examine which voters have moved from approval to disapproval, and why. A recently released report from the Pew Research Center offers some answers.

In early 2021, when public approval for President Biden was at its peak, support among Independent voters who said they lean toward the Democrats stood at 88%, nearly as high as among voters who identify as Democrats (95%), and differences between strong and not-strong Democrats were insignificant. Since then, the gap between these groups has widened significantly. While the presidents ratings among Democrats have declined by 19 percentage points (from 95% to 76%), they have declined by 32 percentage points among Leaners, and a 22-point gap has opened between those who say they are strong and not strong Democrats.

Data provided by Pew show a strong correlation between these shifts and ideological differences among Democratic support groups. Simply put, strong Democrats, a group dominated by liberals, continue to approve of the presidents performance much more than do not-strong Democrats and Democratic leaners, who have strong majorities of moderate and conservative voters. Liberals make up 56% of strong Democrats, compared to just 40% of not-strong Democrats and 36% of Independents who lean toward the Democrats.

Other survey data supports Pews findings. For example, compare two polls conducted by the Economist and YouGov, the first in mid-March of 2021, the second in the third week of January 2022. Among all voters, President Bidens job approval has declined by 15 points. But it has declined by 21 points among Independents and 22 points among moderates.

A Gallup survey, which examined the impact of partisanship but not ideology, found that the decline in Bidens personal ratings was driven mainly by shifts among Independents.

A key reason for these shiftsmoderates and Independents now view President Biden as less moderate and more liberal than they did at the beginning of his administration. When asked to place Biden on the ideological spectrum from very liberal to very conservative, heres what they said:

During this period, moreover, the share of these voters who saw Biden as very liberal rose by 6 percentage points among both moderates and liberals.

While President Biden has suffered reverses across the board, he has lost more ground among voters in the center of the electorate than on the left. If he is to regain support among moderates and Independents, he must work harder to overcome their objections to the way he has positioned himself during his first year in officeincluding their perception that he has governed farther to the left than they expected when they voted for him in 2020.

[1] Source: authors calculation based on polls conducted January 12-26, 2022.

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Can President Biden and the Democrats get out of the hole? - Brookings Institution

Welcome to FiveThirtyEights politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): President Biden has had a couple of rough months, but on Wednesday, he was thrown a lifeline with the news that Justice Stephen Breyer plans to retire from the Supreme Court at the end of its current term.

Getting to nominate a Supreme Court justice is a big deal for Democrats, too, as liberal justices havent always left the bench at an opportune time (the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg is just the most recent example). Itll be a history-making appointment, too, because Biden is expected to honor his campaign promise of appointing a Black woman to the court.

So lets discuss the effects we expect Democrats Supreme Court nomination to have:

Lets start with that first question. Democrats can get their Supreme Court nominee through right?

ameliatd (Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior writer): If the Democrats cant get this nominee through, they should just pack up and go home.

sarah:

ameliatd: Im serious! Theyve got the votes, theyve got time, theyve been holding together on other judicial nominees. If they cant make this happen, then thats a sign of much bigger dysfunction than what were seeing currently on legislation.

Who knows when theyll be able to get another Democratic nominee onto the court?

alex (Alex Samuels, politics reporter): Well, the good news for Democrats is that Republicans cant block a Supreme Court nomination in the judiciary committee or on the floor as long as all 50 Senate Democrats Im looking at you, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema! hold their ground and back Bidens nominee. Based on Nathaniels recent story, that seems likely, but you really never know.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior elections analyst): Yeah, despite Manchins and Sinemas high-profile defections from the party on major votes lately, I found somewhat surprisingly that no Senate Democrat has ever voted against any of Bidens federal-court nominees so far.

The caucus has been remarkably cohesive and unified on the issue of judges:

How often each senator has voted for and against President Bidens district-court and appeals-court nominees, as of Jan. 26, 2022

Excludes votes a senator skipped.

Source: U.S. Senate

alex: Manchin also said last week that hed support a justice who is more liberal than he is which is a good sign that Democrats will be able to get this through. And its also not completely out of the question that a handful of Senate Republicans back Bidens nominee!

I was pretty shocked at House Majority Whip James Clyburns claim that the two Republican senators from South Carolina Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott would potentially back Democrats if Biden tapped J. Michelle Childs for the role.

ameliatd: You found that a couple Republicans might cross the aisle, right, Nathaniel? At least based on how judicial votes have been going so far?

nrakich: Right, Amelia. Sen. Susan Collins has voted for Bidens judicial nominees 86 percent of the time, Sen. Lisa Murkowski has voted for them 85 percent of the time and Graham who is kind of old-fashioned in that he still defers to the president on his nominees, the way senators used to do 30 years ago has voted for them 84 percent of the time.

sarah: But do we think that analysis of federal judicial nominees will be applicable to the Supreme Court? Asking as maybe the biggest thing working against Democrats is that the nomination process for a Supreme Court justice has become increasingly rancorous, meaning they cant really count on any GOP support, right?

ameliatd: Appeals court nominations are also getting more rancorous, though, Sarah. Judicial nominations in general are just getting more acrimonious but this is so high-stakes that it seems unlikely to me that Democrats would fall apart here.

nrakich: I think thats right, Sarah for instance, I doubt Murkowski, who is up for reelection this year, will want to anger the Republican base by casting such a high-profile vote in Bidens favor.

But I also think theres less incentive for Republicans to block this nominee than usual. Control of the court isnt at stake, since this would be going from a liberal judge to a liberal judge, and conservatives majority is pretty secure now at 6-3.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Yeah, this might be the last time Democrats have control of the Senate when a Supreme Court vacancy occurs for some time, so this is a pretty pivotal appointment for them to not screw up. And as Nathaniels analysis found, theres probably a good chance they remain united.

Still, if a Democrat or two breaks from the party line, counting on Republican support could be dicey. If we look back at recent confirmation votes, theyve become increasingly close because fewer and fewer senators cross the aisle to back the other partys nominee.

ameliatd: If Democrats cant get this nomination through and they lose the Senate in November, Breyer doesnt have to leave. He conditioned his retirement on his successor being nominated and confirmed. But hes retiring now for a reason hes in his 80s and who knows when the Democrats will control the White House and the Senate again. Its possible that if Breyer cant retire now, a Republican president will end up replacing him.

Ill never say never politics now is too weird for me to bet the farm on anything. But this really is Democrats seat to lose, and they have to know that.

sarah: OK, weve talked about how important every vote is in the nomination process, but what are some of the other stakes of this process, especially considering Biden has said he plans to uphold his promise to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court?

alex: Theres probably a strategic reason behind the White House wasting no time confirming that Biden would follow through on his campaign promise to nominate a Black woman. I wouldnt be surprised if they view this as a motivator for Black voters who are souring on Bidens presidency.

geoffrey.skelley: Black women are the most reliable voting bloc for Democrats, and such an appointment would make history. So politically, on top of Bidens previous campaign promise, this makes a lot of sense.

There have been a lot of ridiculous takes on the right about the nature of this appointment being promised to a Black woman, but that ignores the fact that presidents have historically considered identity when making appointments. President Ronald Reagan promised to appoint a woman, for instance, and chose Sandra Day OConnor; George H.W. Bush appointed Clarence Thomas to succeed another Black man, Thurgood Marshall.

alex: To your point, Geoff, the racial breakdown of Supreme Court members over time is pretty striking: Of the 115 justices who have served, all but seven (Thomas, Marshall, Sonia Sotomayor, OConnor, Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Amy Coney Barrett) have been white men.

ameliatd: A handful of Black women are being floated as possible replacements for Breyer, and three of them Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whos currently an appeals court judge on the D.C. Circuit; Justice Leondra Kruger, whos a justice on the California Supreme Court; and Judge J. Michelle Childs, whos a district court judge in South Carolina appear to be the top contenders.

But if I had to pick, I would bet on Jackson being the nominee. She has all the right credentials two degrees from Harvard, extensive judicial experience, even a clerkship with Breyer himself! And Biden appeared to be teeing her up for this spot by nominating her to the D.C. Circuit last year its often a feeder to the Supreme Court. (Justices Thomas, John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh all served on the D.C. Circuit before the Supreme Court.)

sarah: Geoffrey raises an interesting point: How much is this appointment meant to play to Democrats base?

As Alex pointed out, Biden and Democrats have taken a hit recently with Black voters. Thinking ahead to the 2022 midterms the timing of when the nomination vote will actually happen is still unclear, but assuming it will be relatively close to the midterms how much does a partys base care about Supreme Court nominations?

I also think one thing thats particularly complicated about this nomination process is that this term has already had a number of high-profile, contentious cases. Will those cases weigh more in voters minds?

alex: Some polling taken over the last few years suggests that the Supreme Court has never been a top priority for either Republican or Democratic voters. In 2020, for instance, shortly after former President Donald Trump released a short list of potential Supreme Court nominees, Morning Consult/Politico found that only 48 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans said the Supreme Court was very important in deciding their vote that year. I realize 48 percent and 50 percent arent nothing, but at the time, it ranked below issues like the economy, health care, national security, taxes and COVID-19 for members of both parties.

ameliatd: Supreme Court nominations have traditionally been an issue thats mattered more to Republicans. But theres evidence that Democrats are tuning more into the importance of the court, too.

And if the court overturns Roe v. Wade or expands gun rights this term, that will definitely focus negative attention on the justices as both would be out of step with public opinion. Overturning Roe in particular would be highly unpopular. There arent many issues that could plausibly cause a backlash against the court, just because so much of what they do is technical and under-the-radar, but thats one of the big ones.

geoffrey.skelley: I think where the Supreme Court pick matters when looking ahead to the midterms is that its a chance for Biden to make history and receive some positive coverage in the process.

That could help shore up his base, which has been flagging, as Alex mentioned earlier. (Maybe it even helps Biden regain some support among independents, where hes really lost support.) Im not sure its the sort of thing that can dramatically change the trajectory of his approval rating, but it could tick up slightly afterward.

nrakich: I agree with that, Geoffrey. A successful confirmation would also be a concrete win for Biden that could change this narrative of incompetence and failure hes been stuck in.

I dont really think this nomination fight will affect the midterms much, though. If anything, it makes the Supreme Court less relevant for the midterms. As long as Breyer was still on the court, Democrats had an argument for saying, You have to keep us in control of the Senate so we can appoint a liberal justice to replace Breyer! Now, they cant make that argument.

ameliatd: My feeling is that the bigger question here is what the courts conservatives do. If the term ends up to be less headline-making than court watchers are expecting, Im not sure how much people will care. After all, this isnt a liberal replacing a conservative most people dont even know who Breyer is.

sarah: Yeah, thats a good point, Amelia. But if the court is as conservative as court watchers expect, the timing could be an important factor here, too. We did find, after all, that Kavanaughs nomination to the Supreme Court affected the 2018 midterms, especially in Senate races.

alex: We cant rule out the possibility, either, that this motivates Republicans more than Democrats.

The fact that the White House made it clear early on that Biden intended to stick to his word and nominate a Black woman already has some Republicans up in arms, and I think that, especially after the racial reckoning of 2020, there are a lot of white voters who are angry about their perceived loss of power and status. Replacing a white man with a Black woman even if they are similar ideologically could stir up angst among conservatives who already believed they were losing political clout to Black voters. As Geoff mentioned earlier, there have already been a number of racist takes from GOP pundits that Im going to refrain from linking to, but I can only imagine how bad things will get from here

If its not about race (which I doubt), Id expect the GOP to simply attack Bidens appointee as too liberal. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley already tweeted that Biden faces a choice of nominating either someone who loves America and believes in the Constitution or a woke activist.

ameliatd: Yeah, Alex, I think this is going to be a nasty confirmation hearing. There are already people attacking Biden for appointing a less qualified person before hes even named his nominee!

And even though we found that Biden is actually nominating more Ivy League and top law-school grads than previous presidents, this is a familiar trope for women of color in lots of professions, not just law. You have to be the best of the best to make it to the top and people still question your credentials.

alex: Exactly. And Republicans are also already reminding voters that the court should be a factor for voters this fall. Just look at Grahams tweet thread on this from a few days ago.

Id expect that Republicans double down on this argument, particularly in competitive states where Democratic senators are defending their seats.

ameliatd: I guess the flip side of what youre saying, though, Alex, is that a confirmation hearing where the first Black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court is subjected to a bunch of racist questioning about her qualifications could make Democratic voters pretty angry, too.

geoffrey.skelley: Definitely a potential boost for the GOP, although I wonder how much more energized can Republicans get? Theyre already more likely to turn out in a midterm with a Democrat in the White House, and if the 2021 gubernatorial elections were any indication, turnout will likely be very high again for a midterm this November.

ameliatd: This is a bit of a nerdy point, but Ill be interested to see how the hearings go. Traditionally, nominees studiously avoid saying what they think about any high-profile issue or precedent that comes before the court. And that makes the hearings pretty snoozy for the most part. But in a moment when precedents like Roe v. Wade are actively threatened does that change?

Probably not, but itll be more complex for the nominee to navigate.

geoffrey.skelley: Fair question, Amelia. If the nominee were to make more assertive comments on a topic like Roe, I could imagine that getting a lot of play on the news. Im not sure whether thats good or bad for one party or the other, though maybe it reminds some Democratic voters of the stakes for the court, but it could also, to Alexs point, further energize social conservatives to show up in the midterms.

sarah: On that point, lets talk a little bit more about the overall importance of whomever Biden nominates to the court. As Amelia flagged, the court is currently in the throes of a 6-3 conservative revolution. That isnt going to change with whomever Biden nominates liberal justices will still be in the minority but this justice, whoever she might be, will still play an important role in shaping the court. Lets talk about that a little more and what the consequences of that are.

ameliatd: Breyer was very much an old-school Supreme Court justice. He staked out a place on the courts center-left and tried to compromise with the conservatives on some big issues, like religious liberty. He basically spent the last year trying to convince Americans that the court is nonpartisan. Of course, thats a line weve heard from other justices recently too. But it felt with Breyer that he was trying to operate on a court that no longer existed.

Someone like Jackson, on the other hand, is presumably well aware of the political moment. She was the judge in a case that came out of Democrats investigation into special counsel Robert Muellers report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. (Remember that thing that feels like it happened 75 years ago?) So youd imagine her potentially staking out a position more like Sotomayor, who has been calling out the conservative justices right and left this term.

Theres evidence, too, that diversity makes a difference in cases on issues like affirmative action at least on lower courts. And the court just so happens to have taken an affirmative action case for what will likely be next term. Do I really think that will change the outcome on this Supreme Court? Probably not. The conservative justices have been gunning for affirmative action for years. But having another nonwhite justice could affect how they handle the case.

nrakich: One thing that I always thought was interesting about the Supreme Court is that, historically, whether a justice was appointed by a Republican or Democratic president wasnt super predictive of where theyd end up ideologically. Im curious, Amelia: Do you think that era is over?

In other words, is there any chance for one of the conservative justices to get more liberal over their tenure, or vice versa?

ameliatd: That era is definitely over, Nathaniel. It ended along with the era of unanimous votes for Supreme Court nominees.

Some people say Roberts is getting more liberal. I am not in that camp. I think whats happening is that he cares about institutional credibility, and as the court gets more conservative, its getting increasingly out of step with public opinion. Thats where his breaks with the conservatives (which are few and far between) come from.

nrakich: It does kind of feel like Roberts is standing still and its the other conservative justices who are moving to the right.

ameliatd: The conservative legal movement has spent the past 40 years working to get justices on the court who wont get more liberal. It seems like theyve been extraordinarily successful.

sarah: Yeah, Amelia, its hard to see outcomes on the Supreme Court changing anytime soon. Itll be interesting, though, to see what this means for the three liberal justices and most likely three liberal female justices to be in the minority for years to come.

ameliatd: What it means for the liberals, Sarah, is that they have to figure out how to make being in the minority work for them. Breyers approach (and also Kagans) was to try to stanch the bleeding keep the court from moving to the right too quickly and compromise with conservatives to get not-terrible outcomes.

But that approach actually resulted in some pretty big concessions for the liberal justices, including last terms religious-liberty case. And I dont see a lot of evidence that the conservative justices with the exception of Roberts are interested in compromising with the liberal justices on anything at this point.

So I would suspect were going to see a lot more of dissents like the one we just got from Sotomayor, who said that the courts decision to let Texass highly restrictive abortion law stay in effect was a disaster.

nrakich: Its interesting to me that were seeing basically the same institutional dynamics play out on the Supreme Court that weve seen in Congress over the past decade: the rise of a conservative wing that is totally uninterested in compromise (the Freedom Caucus), and now a more assertive progressive wing, too.

ameliatd: Yeah, Nathaniel, I also wonder if it will lead to a growing perception among Americans that the court is political. I think thats an increasingly unavoidable conclusion. But if Americans start to think that way how does it change their perception of unelected justices who serve for life and rule on some of the countrys most important issues?

alex: Dont Americans already think that, Amelia?

ameliatd: Well, look at Congresss approval rating, though! The Supreme Court is still doing a lot better, relatively speaking.

But it is relevant that more Americans are seeing the court as too conservative. That being said, Gallup found that only 37 percent of Americans have that view.

nrakich: Interestingly, that Gallup poll didnt find a huge partisan split on approval of the Supreme Court; as of September 2021, 45 percent of Republicans approved of the court, while 36 percent of Democrats did. I feel like that is the next frontier for public opinion. Especially if the court overturns Roe v. Wade and delivers other conservative victories this term, I bet youll see its approval skyrocket among Republicans and plummet among Democrats.

ameliatd: The fact that most of the Supreme Courts cases even important ones are highly technical works in their favor here. Its easy for them to do radical things, like diminish the power of federal agencies, without anyone really understanding what theyre doing.

But I think some of that is already happening, Nathaniel. The question for me is whether the court does something so obviously political that public opinion really starts to mirror the polarized nature of the court.

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What Will Bidens Supreme Court Nominee Mean For Democrats And The Midterms? - FiveThirtyEight

Decades of polling have suggested that, in general, more Americans sympathize with the Democratic Party than with the Republican Party. This advantage has been so durable that its become conventional wisdom in American politics. But a recent Gallup poll shows Republicans taking the lead over Democrats, 47 percent to 42 percent, in terms of how Americans identify. The poll has been the subject of plenty of commentary, and in this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses whether those takeaways and underlying data are a good or bad use of polling.

The team also talks about the Senate races in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Georgia and New Hampshire and debates which are most important in determining control of the upper chamber next year.

You can listen to the episode by clicking the play button in the audio player above or bydownloading it in iTunes, theESPN Appor your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts,learn how to listen.

The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show byleaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for good polling vs. bad polling? Get in touch by email,on Twitteror in the comments.

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Politics Podcast: Are There More Republicans Than Democrats In America? - FiveThirtyEight

Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia and chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.

Al Drago | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Sen. Joe Manchin's reelection campaign raised nearly $300,000 from corporate political action committees and executives days after the conservative Democrat said he would oppose President Joe Biden's $1.75 trillion social and climate spending package, according to a CNBC analysis of Federal Election Commission filings.

Some of the executives who donated to his campaign also previously contributed to Republican leaders' political operations, including former President Donald Trump's.

Manchin is up for reelection in 2024. His campaign raised just more than $1.5 million in the fourth quarter, ending the period with over $6 million on hand. Manchin's campaign has never raised that much money over the October-December quarter, according to a campaign finance expert.

More than $280,000 from corporate PACs and influential donors came after Manchin announced on Fox News on Dec. 19 that he would not back Biden's major spending bill, which is known as Build Back Better.

Manchin, who represents West Virginia, has a pivotal vote in the Senate, which is split 50-50 between the two parties. That has made him and his political operation a magnet for lobbying from business leaders and special interestgroups.

Following his announcement last month that he would not vote in favor of Biden's Build Back Better plan, records show that his campaign received contributions from companies such as Facebook (now known as Meta), CVS Health, Lowe's, Anthem, Cigna, Boston Scientific, Cheniere Energy and Emergent BioSolutions. Those donations ranged from $1,500 to $5,000.

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Manchin's campaign also received individual contributions from leading executives after he effectively blocked Build Back Better, including $5,800 from Republican megadonor and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone. The billionaire also separately gave to Manchin's PAC, which is called Country Roads. Langone had previously supported Trump when he ran in 2016 and endorsed many of the former president's economic policies.

Real estate magnate Richard LeFrak, who has mainly given to Trump's and Republican candidates' committees, donated $5,800 to Manchin's reelection campaign after he opposed the Build Back Better Act. LeFrak's sons, Harrison and James, who have given big money to Democrats and Republicans, combined to contribute over $10,000 to Manchin's campaign.

David Fischer, a Trump donor who also served as the then-president's former ambassador to Morocco, gave $5,800 to Manchin on Dec. 20. Other donors who have financed GOP campaigns and gave to Manchin's reelection effort late last year include real estate titan John Cushman III, veteran lobbyist Catherine Finley, health-care executive Robert Patricelli and Joel Myers, CEO of AccuWeather.

A month before his contributions to Manchin's operations, Langone praised the senator live onCNBC. Langone also said he intended to host a massive fundraising event for the conservative Democrat.

"I don't see leadership any place in this country. Thank God for Joe Manchin," Langone said at the time. "I'm going to have one of the biggest fundraisers I've ever had for him. He's special. He's precious. He's a great American," he added.

Representatives for Manchin did not return emails seeking comment.

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Companies, executives donated nearly $300,000 to Manchin's campaign after he rejected Biden's Build Back Better bill - CNBC