Schumer seeks to capitalize on voters’ fury over abortion rights
By passing cloture (the official term for cutting off debate), senators will move towards a floor vote Wednesday on legislation proposed by the Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal. Abortion rights defenders have been demanding action ever since the supreme court’s draft ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v Wade opinion was leaked last week.
Democrats know the legislation is doomed to fall, because it won’t reach the 60 votes it needs in the bitterly divided chamber.
But Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer will not consider it an outright failure. He’s playing a longer game, in which he sees Republicans’ refusal to support abortion rights working in Democrats’ favor in November’s midterms. After all, polls show overwhelming support nationally among voters for abortion rights.
“Every American will see how every senator stands,” Schumer said at a press conference Sunday in which he called the supreme court’s draft ruling “an abomination”.
With Democrats predicted to lose control of one or both chambers of Congress in November, some see the abortion debate coming at a fortuitous time. Comments by Mitch McConnell, the Republican senate minority leader, as reported by The Hill, that a national abortion ban “is possible”, will only serve to strengthen pro-choice activists’ outrage.
This Bloomberg article examines how the Democratic party is tapping into voters’ fury over abortion to avoid a midterms blowout.
We’ll keep you abreast of today’s developments as they happen.
While we wait, here’s a look at how Republicans in numerous states are moving in the opposite direction, and towards even more restrictive abortion legislation.
Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state best known for being asked by Donald Trump to “find” enough votes to overturn the former president’s 2020 defeat, has announced plans to solve a problem that doesn’t exist: non-US citizens voting in elections.
Raffensperger has conducted a citizenship audit of the state’s voter rolls, and will integrate citizenship checks into the voter registration process, the Associated Press reports.
He admits noncitizen voting is not a problem and that state law already bars those who aren’t US citizens from voting. And while his audit flagged more than 1,600 potential noncitizens who tried to register over the last 25 years, none was successful.
But Raffensperger, who doubles as the state’s chief elections officer, is making the issue a centerpiece of his effort to win over diehard conservatives ahead of what could be a difficult bid to clinch the Republican nomination for another four year term in office, the AP says.
“I want to make sure that we follow the law, that we follow the constitution, and I want to make sure that only Americans can vote in our elections,” Raffensperger said.
His Trump-endorsed rival, Republican congressman Jody Hice, who objected to Georgia’s electoral votes being counted for Biden, wasted no time in attacking Raffensperger.
“Non-citizens voting in Georgia elections is already illegal,” he said in an emailed statement.
“If Brad worked as hard at executing the responsibilities of secretary of state as he does at political posturing, I wouldn’t be challenging him.”
Peter Stone
Conservative groups perpetuating Donald Trump’s false charges that the 2020 election was rigged have sparked a lawsuit against one in Colorado, and a congressional panel investigation of another in New Mexico, over aggressive tactics allegedly used to seek out possible voter fraud.
The scrutiny and criticism facing these conservative groups underscore how Trump loyalists in several US states are working to sustain falsehoods about Trump’s loss, while launching new drives that voting rights advocates say smack of voter intimidation, often targeting communities of color.
A lawsuit was filed by the NAACP and two other groups in March charging that Colorado-based US Election Integrity Plan (USEIP), which has echoed Trump’s baseless claims about 2020 election fraud, has gone door to door in some counties aggressively questioning residents about their voting status and sometimes bearing arms.
Moreover, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform has been investigating EchoMail, a firm that helped push false claims of election fraud in Arizona and has reportedly been paid $50,000 by a New Mexico county to oversee a local “audit force” doing intrusive door-to-door voter canvassing.
#NM elections are some of the most secure in the U.S. with multi levels of canvassing & auditing & taxpayer $$ should never be spent selling the #BigLie.
“Controversial Otero County Election Audit Canceled, Finds No Fraud”https://t.co/vvxmTl9Ezz#nmpol #nmleg
— New Mexico Secretary of State (@NMSecOfState) May 7, 2022
Other states including Michigan and Utah boast conservative groups that, under the guise of protecting voting integrity by ferreting out fraud, have been criticized for the methods they employed in seeking out potential voter fraud.
“As Americans, we expect and demand an open and participatory democracy that welcomes all voters equally,” said Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “Those engaging in these pressure tactics should know that voter intimidation is a crime with serious consequences.”
The lawsuit against USEIP filed by the NAACP in Colorado, the League of Women Voters in Colorado and Mi Familia Vota charges that USEIP has engaged in “door-to-door voter intimidation”, including taking pictures of some houses, in neighborhoods with a large number of minority residents.
The lawsuit alleges, without providing specific cases, that USEIP representatives have at times worn badges or carried firearms when visiting voters’ residences, although they are not government officials.
Read more:
Following last Monday night’s leak of a supreme court draft opinion that would overrule Roe v Wade, the 1973 case that guaranteed the right to an abortion, Republican state lawmakers are working to make sure they are ready to limit access as soon as is legally permissible.
The language of the court’s decision will probably change at least somewhat when it is ultimately issued by the end of June. But its central, top-line declaration – a 5-4 majority issuing a clear, unequivocal overturning of Roe – is widely expected to remain.
Here is what Republican state lawmakers across the country are doing in the lead-up to the decision to assure that abortion restrictions will swiftly go into effect:
John Oliver delivered an impassioned episode of his HBO show after the “catastrophic” news that the supreme court is poised overturn the basic right to an abortion.
On the latest episode of Last Week Tonight, the host said that “while the fate of Roe might not have been a surprise, the draft itself was still a horror show”, referring to Samuel Alito’s leaked draft calling for the 1973 decision to be reversed.
Oliver said that “we need to be able to talk about abortion like adults”, which means focusing on the “immediate and devastating consequences” this will have.
He referred to it as “catastrophic” as it will quickly trigger bans on abortion in 22 states. He noted that approximately 25% of women have had an abortion and said this reversal is ultimately about “bodily autonomy”.
He played a clip from Fox News where a host said that people can just move to a different state if they want an abortion.
“It’s not about merely having the right to go somewhere else, it’s also about whether you have the resources and ability to do that and many may not,” Oliver said.
Pelosi: ‘Republicans will take aim at basic human rights’
Nancy Pelosi has assailed Republicans in her weekly “Dear Colleague” letter to fellow Democrats, saying once Roe v Wade abortion protections are overturned, basic human rights will be next.
In the missive, the House speaker says it is “urgent and essential” that Democrats share with the American public the “dangers of the Republican agenda” in the wake of the supreme court’s draft ruling ending almost half a century of constitutional abortion protections:
Republican state legislators across the country are already advancing extreme new laws, seeking to arrest doctors for offering reproductive care, ban abortion entirely with no exceptions, and even charge women with murder who exercise their right to choose.
These draconian measures could even criminalize contraceptive care, in vitro fertilization and post-miscarriage care, dragging our nation back to a dark time decades into the past.
Make no mistake: once Republicans have dispensed with precedent and privacy in overturning Roe, they will take aim at additional basic human rights. At this pivotal moment, the stakes for women – and every American – could not be higher.
Pelosi in Dear Colleague letter to House Dems says Republicans “want to punish & control women for exercising their constitutional rights”.
“It is urgent and essential we remain disciplined and focused in sharing … the dangers of the Republican agenda.” https://t.co/zQ0v2dNQtj
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) May 9, 2022
Authorities in Wisconsin are investigating an arson attack on an anti-abortion group’s office in the early hours of Sunday, the Associated Press reports.
According to police in Madison, a Molotov cocktail thrown into the building at about 6am yesterday, starting a small fire at the Wisconsin Family Action office. Nobody was present and damage was minimal.
The words “if abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either” were spray-painted on the building’s exterior, according to a statement from police chief, Shon Barnes.
Tony Evers, the Democratic Wisconsin governor, condemned the attack in a meeting with reporters on Monday, calling it “horrible”.
“This is unacceptable. Violence does not solve the issues we’re facing as a country,” he said.
“Our department has and continues to support people being able to speak freely and openly about their beliefs.
But we feel that any acts of violence, including the destruction of property, do not aid in any cause.”
— Madison Police (@madisonpolice) May 8, 2022
Martin Pengelly
The Republican governor of Mississippi has refused to rule out attempting to ban some forms of contraception if the supreme court ruling which guarantees the right to abortion should fall.
“That is not what we’re focused on at this time,” Tate Reeves said.
The ruling, Roe v Wade, seems likely to fall this summer, after the leak of a draft supreme court decision supported by five conservatives on the nine-member court.
The leak set off celebrations among conservatives and protests among liberals, as a near 50-year battle over a key privacy right approached a decisive moment.
Like other states, Mississippi has a “trigger law” which if Roe falls will outlaw almost all abortions, with exceptions in cases of rape or threat to the life of the mother. The case at issue in the draft ruling, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, originated in Mississippi.
Speaking on CNN on Sunday, Reeves confirmed that his state’s trigger law would go into effect if Roe fell.
Reeves’ host on CNN, Jake Tapper, then referred to neighbouring Louisiana, where Republicans have advanced a bill to make abortion a crime of murder.
Tapper said: “They’re talking about not only criminally charging girls and women who get abortions as committing homicide, but they’re also talking about defining the moment of conception as fertilisation, which would theoretically … mean if you use an IUD [intrauterine device], you are committing murder.
“… I’m not making this up. These are the conversations going on in legislatures in your area. So, just to be clear, you have no intention of seeking to ban IUDs or Plan B [morning-after pills]?”
Reeves said: “That is not what we’re focused on at this time.
“We’re focused on looking at – see[ing] what the court allows for. The bill that is before the court is a 15-week [abortion] ban. We believe that the overturning of Roe is the correct decision by the court. And so, in Mississippi, we don’t have laws on the books that would lead to arresting individuals or anything along those lines.”
Asked if that meant he would arrest doctors who performed abortions, Reeves said: “I don’t think that you’re going to see doctors performing abortions if we have a state statute which says that they’re not allowable, except for those exceptions that we have mentioned earlier.”
Read more:
Biden to lift Ukraine steel tariffs: report
The Biden administration is reversing Trump-era tariffs on Ukrainian steel for an initial period of one year, the New York Times is reporting, citing a document it says is a copy of an announcement coming from the White House later in the day.
Trump imposed a 25% tariff on foreign steel in 2018, the former president claiming at the time that cheap overseas metal was harming the US steel industry and posing a threat to national security.
The newspaper says that although Ukraine is only a minor provider, its 218,000 metric tons of steel to the US in 2019 ranking it 12th in overseas suppliers, the administration sees it as an important additional way to assist the country as it fights the Russian invasion.
The Ukraine prime minister Denys Shmyhal, in a visit to Washington DC last month, told administration officials that some Ukrainian steel mills were starting to produce again after initially shutting down because of the invasion.
The Times said Shmyhal asked the Biden administration to suspend the tariffs, citing a senior commerce department official, who was not authorized to speak publicly before the official announcement.
New York expands abortion access, including for non-residents
New York’s attorney general Letitia James has just given a press briefing at which she announced a program to expand abortion access to residents, and those from states where the procedure will become illegal if Roe v Wade is overturned:
We know what happens when women are unable to control their own bodies and make their own choices and we will not go back to those dark times.
New York must lead the fight to keep abortion safe and accessible for all who seek it.
According to an accompanying statement released by James’s office, clinics in New York already perform at least 7,000 abortions a year for women from out of state, 9% of its annual total.
New York must lead the fight to protect the fundamental right to choose.
Today, @SenatorCCleare, @votejgr, and I are announcing legislation to create a new program that will expand abortion access for New Yorkers and people living in other states that ban abortion. pic.twitter.com/0jAmr8iS1p
— NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) May 9, 2022
If the supreme court ends almost half a century of abortion protections, as last week’s leaking of its draft ruling suggested it was about to do, New York expects a massive surge from states with “trigger laws” that would immediately make the procedure illegal.
From Ohio and Pennsylvania alone, the statement predicts, an additional 32,000 women will come to New York each year seeking an abortion.
The measure announced by James includes a reproductive freedom and equity program within the New York state department of health “that would provide funding to abortion providers and non-profit organizations to grow the capacity of providers and meet present and future care needs”.
The White House is previewing Joe Biden’s lunchtime appearance in the Rose Garden, at which he will announce that 20 internet companies have agreed to provide discounted service to people with low incomes.
More than $14bn from the $1tn bipartisan infrastructure package passed last year went towards $30 a month subsidies for lower income families to pay for internet service.
The internet providers have agreed to drop their prices to match the subsidy, Biden will announce today, the Associated Press reports, making about 48m households will be eligible for fully paid for $30 monthly plans for 100 megabits per second, or higher speed.
According to a White House fact sheet posted Monday, Biden will say:
High-speed internet service is no longer a luxury – it’s a necessity. But too many families go without high-speed internet because of the cost or have to cut back on other essentials to make their monthly internet service payments.
The 20 companies that have agreed to lower rates provide service in areas where 80% of the US population, including 50% of the rural population, live, according to the White House.
Participating companies that offer service on tribal lands are providing $75 rates in those areas, the equivalent of the federal government subsidy in those areas.
Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris will meet telecoms executives and members of Congress before the Rose Garden announcement, according to the AP.
Starting today, the cost of internet is fully covered for millions of eligible American families under a new Biden-Harris Administration initiative. Learn if you are eligible and how you can apply at https://t.co/rYeK5u6Ho7.
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 9, 2022
Hugo Lowell
Members on the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack on 6 January are moving closer to issuing subpoenas to Republican members of Congress to compel their cooperation in the inquiry – though it has started to dawn on them that they may be out of time.
The panel is expected to make a final decision on the subpoena question over the next couple of weeks, according to sources directly familiar with internal deliberations, with House investigators needing to start wrapping up their work ahead of public hearings in June.
While the members on the select committee remain undecided about whether to subpoena Republican members of Congress, their refusal to assist the investigation in any form has caused the sentiment to turn towards taking that near-unprecedented action, the sources said.
The shifting view has come as a result of the dismay among the members in January, when House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and others turned down requests for voluntary cooperation, turning to anger after three more of Donald Trump’s allies last week refused to cooperate.
What has changed in recent weeks in the select committee’s assessment is that they cannot ignore the deep involvement between some Republican members of Congress and the former president’s unlawful schemes to overturn the results of the 2020 election, the sources said.
The recent letters to House Republicans Mo Brooks, Andy Biggs and Ronny Jackson – Trump’s former White House doctor – provided just a snapshot of the entanglement, the sources said, with the Trump White House, and potentially the militia groups that attacked the Capitol.
House investigators are particularly interested in any potential connections between Republican members of Congress and the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys militia groups, the sources said, since those groups were actually involved in the riot element of January 6.
Read more:
New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has emerged as one of her party’s leading voices for abortion rights. She tore into the supreme court at a press conference at the Capitol last week, her fury evident during a three-minute tirade in which she framed the issue as a “life or death” battle.
On Sunday, she followed up with an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union in which she called it the “biggest fight of a generation”.
Gillibrand urged her party to stand up to Republicans seeking to abolish the constitutional right, and called the draft US supreme court opinion leaked last week, revealing a conservative-leaning super-majority supports overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision, “bone-chilling”.
She told CNN:
This is the biggest fight of a generation … and if America’s women and the men who love them do not fight right now, we will lose the basic right to make decisions, to have bodily autonomy and to decide what our futures look like.
Here’s the Guardian’s Maya Yang on Gillibrand’s call to action:
Schumer seeks to capitalize on voters’ fury over abortion rights
By passing cloture (the official term for cutting off debate), senators will move towards a floor vote Wednesday on legislation proposed by the Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal. Abortion rights defenders have been demanding action ever since the supreme court’s draft ruling overturning the 1973 Roe v Wade opinion was leaked last week.
Democrats know the legislation is doomed to fall, because it won’t reach the 60 votes it needs in the bitterly divided chamber.
But Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer will not consider it an outright failure. He’s playing a longer game, in which he sees Republicans’ refusal to support abortion rights working in Democrats’ favor in November’s midterms. After all, polls show overwhelming support nationally among voters for abortion rights.
“Every American will see how every senator stands,” Schumer said at a press conference Sunday in which he called the supreme court’s draft ruling “an abomination”.
With Democrats predicted to lose control of one or both chambers of Congress in November, some see the abortion debate coming at a fortuitous time. Comments by Mitch McConnell, the Republican senate minority leader, as reported by The Hill, that a national abortion ban “is possible”, will only serve to strengthen pro-choice activists’ outrage.
This Bloomberg article examines how the Democratic party is tapping into voters’ fury over abortion to avoid a midterms blowout.
We’ll keep you abreast of today’s developments as they happen.
While we wait, here’s a look at how Republicans in numerous states are moving in the opposite direction, and towards even more restrictive abortion legislation.
Good morning, happy Monday, and welcome to the blog! It’s a brand new week in US politics, but some familiar themes are playing out.
The Senate will pass cloture (that’s the official term for cutting off debate) today to set up a vote Wednesday on legislation to codify a woman’s right to abortion, following last week’s bombshell supreme court draft ruling ending almost half a century of constitutional protections for the procedure.
The vote will fail, because it won’t reach the required 60 votes. But that’s not the point. The Democrats’ strategy is to force Republicans to vote to defeat it, thus showing where every senator stands on the issue and providing a stick to beat them with for the midterm elections later this year. Polls show overwhelming support nationally among voters for abortion rights.
What else we’re watching today:
- Joe Biden and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, will speak from the White House at lunchtime about expanding high speed internet access. We’ll see if they take questions about the abortion debate.
- The House panel investigating the 6 January insurrection is closer to issuing subpoenas for senior Republicans, but beginning to realize it’s running short on time.
- The House itself is not in session, but the Biden administration is keeping up pressure on lawmakers to pass requests for Covid-19 funding and $33bn in aid for Ukraine.
- White House press secretary Jen Psaki delivers her first briefing of the week at 3pm.
And a reminder that we’re covering all the developments in the Ukraine conflict in our live 24-hour blog here.
