(WASHINGTON) — With his widow and former colleagues looking on, the late Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings had his official portrait unveiled Wednesday at the U.S. Capitol.
Cummings died in October 2019, at 68, after longstanding health challenges. He was first elected to the House in 1996 and served as chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform until he died.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and House Majority Whip James Clyburn on Wednesday and delivered remarks honoring Cummings.
“He was a leader of towering integrity, everybody knows that. A man whose life embodied the American dream,” Pelosi, a Maryland native, said.
Cummings’ portrait was commissioned by his widow, Dr. Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, and was painted by Baltimore-based artist Jerrell Gibbs. It will hang in the Rayburn House Office Building Government Oversight and Reform Committee hearing room.
“This entire process has been a beautiful challenge,” Gibbs said Wednesday. “Being tasked with creating a painting of this magnitude for someone as important as the honorable Elijah Cummings to be permanently housed in a place of such significance as the United States Capitol building seemed like an insurmountable feat.”
Rockeymoore Cummings told ABC News that the portrait “is going to help keep his legacy alive, because that portrait is going to actually stand and look over the Government Oversight and Reform Committee members as they deliberate on all matters of issues.”
“And he’s going to be a reminder to them that we have to hold ourselves to the highest levels of integrity, that we have to hold ourselves to the truth,” she said.
(WASHINGTON) — As freight railroad carriers and a coalition of unions representing their workers move ever closer to a potential strike, a clash has erupted in Congress over whether and how to intervene in a labor dispute that could have devastating effects across an economy already buffeted by high inflation and recessionary pressures.
Republican Sens. Roger Wicker and Richard Burr on Monday introduced a resolution to stave off a strike by the industry’s unions, which represent more than 100,000 employees, by imposing what had been non-binding recommendations from the Presidential Emergency Board (PEB).
In a five-year plan presented in August, the board had recommended a 24% pay raise for rail workers retroactive to 2020, with $1,000 annual bonus. All but two of the major unions involved have come to an agreement with the railroad companies, but those two groups have said that unscheduled time off or sick leave continues to be a sticking point — and one that has dogged an industry beset with labor shortages.
The impasse presents a major problem for the unions’ political allies in Congress, largely Democrats, who defended workers against the railroads, which have made record profits through and heading out of the historic COVID-19 pandemic.
On Wednesday, in a sign of the potential conflict to come between lawmakers should Congress act to avert a strike, Sens. Wicker of Mississippi and Burr of North Carolina tried to force their resolution through — only to be blocked by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt, the self-described democratic socialist and prominent union supporter.
“If the trains stop running, our economy grinds to a halt,” Wicker warned. “The last thing we need is shutdown of the nation’s rail service, both passenger and freight, and yet that is what we are facing in less than a day and a half from this moment: a massive rail strike that will virtually shut down our economy.”
Burr noted one assessment that, in a strike, “the economic impact to the American people is $2 billion a day.”
“This is 160,000 trainloads of agriculture product at a time of harvest across this country … They haul coal. They haul gas. They haul petroleum. They haul gasses like helium that are required for manufacturing businesses,” Burr said. “They haul auto parts, which means you’re going to see auto assembly plants that shut down.”
Sanders shot back, “We’re talking about an industry that has seen its profit margins nearly tripled over the past 20 years. What Congress should be doing is not passing the Burr-Wicker resolution and forcing railroad workers back to work under horrendous working conditions. What we should be doing is telling the CEOs in the rail industry, ‘Treat your workers with dignity and respect, not contempt.'”
“It’s time for Congress to stand on the side of workers for a change and not just the head [sic] of large multinational corporations. Rail workers have a right to strike for reliable schedules. They have a right to strike for paid sick delays. They have a right to strike for safe working conditions,” Sanders said. “Rail workers have a right to strike for decent benefits. The Burr-Wicker resolution would take the fundamental rights away for workers.”
Indeed, in 2021, the nation’s largest railroad companies reported record profits coming out of the pandemic.
Burr, in a message to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who must determine what bill to bring to the floor, said he could guarantee 48 Republicans would back his resolution with Wicker, suggesting only two GOP lawmakers did not support it in the 50-member conference.
Why Congress is involved
All labor disputes in the railway and airline industries — which are seen as critical to the U.S. economy, stretching across major industries from energy to agriculture — are governed by a 1920s-era federal law known as the Railway Labor Act (RLA).
Congress enacted that law after decades of sometimes violent worker strikes and when Americans had grown dependent on many industries, particularly farming and manufacturing.
The RLA is intended to protect employees’ right to unionize and collectively bargain — the first federal law to do this in the U.S. — and ensure timely settlement of any labor disagreements. It dictates the terms of such disputes, including when parties enter an “emergency” phase, as they have now and when a president must appoint a board to try to recommend solutions, though those are non-binding on all parties but are designed to help each side to reach a solution.
In this case, many of the unions accepted the PEB’s recommendations to avoid a strike, though Sanders has noted that the actual workers in the unions have yet to vote to approve the measures.
Under the RLA, if the parties in the rail labor dispute do not reach agreement on a new contract or extend the current cooling-off period by 12:01 a.m. on Friday, the railroads can either impose their own work rules or employees can strike — or both.
At that point, the RLA would no longer set the terms of behavior. Instead, only Congress and President Joe Biden would be empowered to act — as has happened in the past — if a longer-term labor crisis is to be averted.
But Democratic Whip Dick Durbin has urged workers not to lean on Congress to resolve the dispute, warning that, as the deadline looms, lawmakers may not be able to intervene fast enough.
“I think it is naive to believe that we could just quickly come up with an agreement on settling this strike, enacted in the Senate which requires 60 votes. It takes a lot more work than that,” Durbin said on Wednesday. “But I think the message to the railroads as well as the union is get the job done. Don’t count on Congress. Do it yourself. We think they are close, and they’ve got to understand the sense of urgency.”
Congress, acting with authority from the Constitution’s commerce clause, has not voted to end a railroad strike since April 1991 — less than 24 hours after a walkout. At the time, lawmakers approved a joint resolution — with President George H. W. Bush being roused from his bed in the middle of the night to sign the bill — that forced the parties in the dispute into a 65-day binding arbitration process. Had workers not approved the terms in arbitration, Congress mandated that less generous solutions from the Presidential Emergency Board be accepted.
Still, that last example was more than 30 years ago. In this bitterly partisan environment, and less than 60 days from a crucial midterm election when unions typically turn out in large numbers, Democrats — typically pro-union — are hoping that railway negotiations are successful and Congress is not needed.
“We’re all hoping that negotiations will continue so there is no strike, and we’re at the table with the secretary of labor. Secretary [Marty] Walsh has been very much hoping that we can get a resolution,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday. “The main area of disagreement is there is no sick leave for the workers and that’s a problem.”
“I would rather see negotiations prevail so that there’s no need for any actions from Congress,” Pelosi told reporters.
ABC News’ Mariam Khan and Allison Pecorin contributed to this story.
(WASHINGTON) — After Tuesday’s elections in Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, the six-month-long 2022 primary season has finally come to a close — and the party nominees now turn their attention to the eight weeks before November’s midterms.
A lot can change in the close of the campaign — just as a lot has changed throughout this year’s primaries.
Democrats braced at the beginning of the cycle for an expected wave of Republican success, given historical trends, President Joe Biden’s unpopularity and the drag of economic news, including gas prices and inflation.
At the beginning of June, FiveThirtyEight projected Democrats would lose an average of 20 House seats — more than enough to flip the chamber to the GOP.
Now, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast, Democrats are projected to lose an average of 13 seats. And FiveThirtyEight assesses that they are favorites to hold the Senate — albeit narrowly — in another reversal since June.
What shifted? Here’s a breakdown of key dynamics during the 2022 primary season and what it may mean ahead of the midterms.
The overturning Roe v. Wade in June gave a new focus for Democrats on the trail as they increasingly campaigned on abortion rights, which the Supreme Court had ruled should be left up to individual states. The first major litmus test of how Americans felt about abortion after the dismantling of Roe came in the historically red state of Kansas, where in August voters rejected a proposed state constitutional amendment that said there was no right to an abortion.
More than 900,000 Kansans went to the polls to vote, the biggest turnout for a primary election in the state’s history.
An ABC News/Ipsos poll released in August asked voters which candidate they would support if one favored keeping abortion legal and available and the other candidate supported limiting abortion except to protect the mother’s life. About half of Americans (49%) said they would be more likely to support the candidate who would keep access to abortion legal compared to the 27% of Americans who would be more likely to support the candidate who favored limiting abortion.
While anti-abortion voters are a core part of the Republican base, leading conservatives remain divided on the issue — some push for stricter restrictions nationwide while others argue for a more moderate position.
On Tuesday, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham introduced legislation that would impose a federal ban on most abortions after 15 weeks, with exceptions for rape, incest and the life of the mother. But Minority Leader Mitch McConnell downplayed prospects for such legislation if his party retakes power, saying, “I think most of the members of my conference prefer this be dealt with at the state level.”
And some Republican candidates in tight races in swing states distanced themselves from a national ban. In Pennsylvania, Dr. Mehmet Oz’s campaign released a statement suggesting he would not support Graham’s legislation.
“Dr. Oz is pro-life with three exceptions: life of the mother, rape and incest. And as a senator, he’d want to make sure that the federal government is not involved in interfering with the state’s decisions on the topic,” spokeswoman Brittany Yanick told ABC News.
Former President Donald Trump continues to be an influential figure for Republican voters, even as others in his party suggested his endorsements were sometimes jeopardizing their general election prospects.
While Trump received mixed results with his endorsed candidates this primary cycle, one fact sticks out: In nearly every battleground Senate race, a candidate he endorsed or with whom he aligns won their primary, sometimes beating more moderate options.
Some exceptions prove that rule: In the Colorado Senate primary, where Trump did not make an endorsement, the candidate who won the primary, Joe O’Dea, has cast himself as a moderate Republican hoping to garner more voters in the purple state.
In August, McConnell predicted the House had a greater likelihood of flipping than the Senate, citing “candidate quality” in the Senate races — a veiled remark that many, including Trump himself, took to be about some of the GOP nominees backed by the former president. Heading into primary season, the party had also failed to recruit some popular names like Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu to target vulnerable Democratic incumbents.
Instead, Blake Masters in Arizona, Herschel Walker in Georgia and Oz in Pennsylvania are some of the first-time Senate candidates running in races that are either rated lean Democrat or toss-up by FiveThirtyEight. (McConnell has since publicly fundraised for Oz and Walker.)
In Maryland and New Hampshire, meanwhile, the Trump-aligned nominees Dan Cox and Don Bolduc triumphed over candidates backed by Hogan and Sununu, who won their blue states with more moderate coalitions. Cox and Bolduc energized their supporters in part by campaigning in Trump’s style, which included baseless attacks on the 2020 race.
President Biden’s approval rating consistently fell for much of the primary season, according to FiveThirtyEight — until gas prices began to fall in the summer and he notched a series of wins in Congress, which Democratic lawmakers have been happy to campaign on while on the trail.
Among the bills that were passed and signed — most of them by bipartisan majorities in Congress — were gun-safety reforms, veterans’ health care and domestic computer chip funding and, along party lines, the climate, health and tax package known as the Inflation Reduction Act.
In August, over Republican objections, Biden also announced he was fulfilling a campaign promise and would be forgiving up to $10,000 of federal student debt and an additional $10,000 in debt for those who received Pell grants.
His approval rating has rallied since a nadir in late July, according to FiveThirtyEight. As one example, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released in August, 40% of Americans approved of the job Biden has been doing compared to 52% who did not approve. This is up 9% from the last month.
The former president made clear that he would use his endorsements during the primaries to try and oust the House Republicans who voted to impeach him after Jan. 6 — and he largely succeeded. Of the 10 Republicans who voted for impeachment, four retired, four lost their primaries to Trump-backed challengers and only two will move onto the general election.
The two Republicans who survived their primarys are Reps. David Valadao of California and Dan Newhouse of Washington state.
Trump’s biggest target was Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, his biggest Republican critic and one of the lawmakers who has led the charge to prevent Trump from, in her words, ever holding office again. Cheney was handily defeated last month by Trump’s pick, attorney Harriet Hageman.
Even though Biden has seen notable improvement in his approval ratings, some Democratic candidates in battleground states still hesitated to campaign with the president.
In Ohio, Rep. Tim Ryan’s campaign told ABC News that they had not asked Biden or anyone from the White House to campaign with them.
In Wisconsin over the Labor Day weekend, Democratic Senate nominee and Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes was absent as President Biden touted the power of union workers at a “Laborfest” in Milwaukee.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democrat running for governor, did not join Biden when he visited Pittsburgh during his Labor Day stop after appearing with Biden at an official White House event in Wilkes-Barre the previous week.
In May, Shapiro told CNN that he would “welcome” Biden in Pennsylvania to campaign for him, adding that he was “focused on running a race here in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, listening to the people of Washington County, not Washington, D.C.”
Trouble continued to brew for Biden with the latest inflation report, which showed prices were 8.3% higher in August compared to a year ago — higher than expected. Food, shelter, medical care and education were among the categories that increased over the month. But the price of gasoline did fall, alleviating what voters have said is a major concern.
Republicans seized on the persistently high inflation as Biden released a statement that responded to the report, contending that “it will take more time and resolve to bring inflation down.”
The same day, Senate Republicans blasted the White House for celebrating the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act while inflation rates kept rising over last year.
“So they may be taking a victory lap at the White House but I can tell you one thing: The American people are not, because they are feeling the direct impact of this every single day,” Republican Whip John Thune said.
A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll showed that only 29% of Americans said they approved of the way Biden has been handling inflation — while 69% disapproved.
Heading into the general election, some firebrand Republicans who ran on Trump’s endorsement in swing states have started switching their tune on hot-button issues such as abortion.
In Pennsylvania, for example, state Sen. Doug Mastriano initially campaigned for the GOP nominee to be governor in part on a near-total ban on abortions — a portion of his platform he virtually stopped mentioning since winning the nomination.
Other Republican hopefuls downplayed their previous attacks on the 2020 race that Trump lost to Biden.
“If they want to be successful, they have to broaden their message,” Mike DuHaime, who helped former Republican Gov. Chris Christie twice get elected in New Jersey, previously told ABC News. “Yeah, you need the Republican base to be fired up — but you need to win over independents, and you need to win over some conservative, moderate Democrats. And you’re not going to do that by carrying Trump’s water about an election that happened two years ago. They need to move forward.”
In some key competitive races, candidates have rebranded their websites to appeal to more moderate voters, including removing their stances on abortion entirely. In North Carolina’s 13th Congressional District, GOP nominee Bo Hines, who proudly proclaimed that he was anti-abortion and touted his endorsement from Trump, has now removed both from the home page of his website.
“I think, many, many undecided voters won’t be tuning into this race until October,” DuHaime told ABC. “So, there’s certainly time. But you need to make that decision.”
(DETROIT) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday touted his administration’s work on electric vehicles while touring the 2022 North American International Auto Show in Detroit, describing a future where charging stations are as easily available as gas stations.
“The great American road trip is going to be fully electrified,” Biden said as he announced the first round of federal funding for electric vehicle chargers from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law he signed last year.
“We’re approving funding for the first 35 states, including Michigan, to build their own electric charging infrastructure throughout their state,” Biden said. “And you are gonna be part of a network of 500,000 charging stations.”
According to a White House official, the $900 million investment will help build chargers across 53,000 miles of the national highway system.
Biden also took a moment to promote the new EV tax credits included in the Inflation Reduction Act. The law, signed last month, includes a $7,500 credit for new vehicles and a $4,000 credit for purchases of used EVs.
The Inflation Reduction Act also requires that an electric vehicle and its batteries must be assembled in North America in order to qualify for the federal tax incentive.
“It used to be that to buy an electric car you had to make all sorts of compromises, but not now,” Biden said. “Thanks to American ingenuity, American engineers, American auto workers, that’s all changing. Today, if you want an electric vehicle with a long range, you can buy one made in America.”
Several states are beginning to phase-out gas-powered vehicles and shift to electric cars. California became the first state in the U.S. to implement regulations that ban the sale of new gas-engine vehicles by 2035. The Golden State will require all new cars to run on electricity or hydrogen.
Biden, a self-professed car enthusiast, toured the showroom alongside General Motors CEO Mary Barra and its president Mark Ruess. At one point, the president got inside a bright orange Chevrolet Corvette Z06 — which has gasoline-fueled V8 engine — and revved the engine.
“Move out of the way everybody, this thing flies,” the president said to the press. Biden has his own vintage 1967 Corvette.
After turning off the engine, Biden joked that he was going to tell his Secret Service detail he was driving home.
Biden also stopped to check out a bright blue Electric Chevy Silverado, a yellow-orange Mustang, and a group of new plug-in electric vehicle Jeeps before getting behind the wheel and driving an electric Cadillac Lyriq.
“Come on jump in, I’ll give you a ride back to Washington,” Biden quipped.
(ALBANY, NY) — Charlotte Bennett, a former aide who has accused ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo of sexual harassment, sued him Wednesday in federal court, alleging gender discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation.
In addition to Cuomo, the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, also named three of his top aides: Melissa DeRosa, Jill DesRosiers and Judith Mogul.
Bennett was among 11 women a New York Attorney General’s report found Cuomo harassed, which led to his resignation from office in August, 2021.
“Throughout her employment as Defendant Cuomo’s Executive Assistant, the then-Governor subjected her to sexualized comments about her appearance, assigned her humiliating and demeaning tasks, and beginning in early June 2020, subjected her to invasive and unwanted questions about her personal life, romantic and sexual relationships, and history as a survivor of sexual assault,” Bennett’s lawsuit said.
When Bennett reported her claims and her fear of retaliation to chief of staff DesRosiers Bennett, she was transferred “to an inferior position,” the lawsuit said.
“The Governor has always said he didn’t harass anyone and with each day that goes by more and more information is uncovered showing how evidence favorable to the Governor was suppressed and crucial facts ignored or omitted that undermined witness credibility. What else will come out during the discovery process? We’ll see them in court,” Cuomo attorney Rita Glavin said in a statement to ABC News on Wednesday.
Bennett went public with some her claims in a February 2021 article in The New York Times after another former Cuomo staff member, Lindsey Boylan, published her account. Cuomo claimed at the time that his actions involving Bennett were misunderstood.
The allegations in the lawsuit expand upon many of the public claims Bennett previously made, including an Oct. 4, 2019, phone call when she said Cuomo began singing the words, “Are you ready?” to the tune of “Do You Love Me?” by The Contours.
“When Plaintiff told Defendant Cuomo she did not recognize the song, Defendant Cuomo sang several lines from the song: ‘Do you love me, do you really love me? Do you love me, do you care?’ Defendant Cuomo’s singing to her made Plaintiff uncomfortable and she laughed awkwardly,” the lawsuit said.
A few weeks later, Cuomo asked Bennett a series of pointed questions about the size of his hands, the suit said.
“Given the common association between the size of a man’s hands and the size of his penis, Plaintiff understood Defendant Cuomo to be encouraging her to comment on the size of his genitals, which made her extremely uncomfortable,” the lawsuit said.
Bennett accused Cuomo of asking her uncomfortable questions about a time when she was sexually assaulted during college, the suit said.
“Defendant Cuomo’s questions made Plaintiff extremely uncomfortable, but she felt she could not decline to respond and briefly described an incident in which her then-boyfriend ejaculated on her clothing without her consent,” the lawsuit said. “Defendant Cuomo responded with something to the effect of, ‘Well, some people have it much worse.'”
Cuomo resigned last year after a five-month investigation by New York State Attorney General Letitia James. The 168-page report said “the governor engaged in conduct constituting sexual harassment under federal and New York State law.”
“Specifically, we find that the Governor sexually harassed a number of current and former New York State employees by, among other things, engaging in unwelcome and nonconsensual touching, as well as making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women,” the report said.
In announcing his resignation, Cuomo said his first instinct was to fight the allegation, which he said were politically motivated. However, he said it would save the taxpayers millions of dollars for him to step down. “The best way I can help now is if I step aside,” he said last year.
However, he said, “Don’t get me wrong — this is not to say that there are not 11 women who I truly offended. There are. And for that, I deeply, deeply apologize.”
(CHARLESTON, W.Va.) — West Virginia legislators approved a bill that bans nearly all abortions in the state, sending it to Gov. Jim Justice’s desk for approval before it becomes law.
Known as HB 302, the bill approved by state legislators Tuesday prohibits the procedure at virtually every stage of pregnancy.
However, there are exceptions if the mother’s life is in danger, if the fetus is “non-medically viable” or for an ectopic pregnancy, which is when a fertilized egg implants and grows outside of the uterus. Psychological or emotional conditions are excluded, according to the bill.
Physicians who perform unlawful abortions could lose their license to practice medicine and face criminal charges.
Additionally, the bill states that miscarriages and stillbirths are not considered abortions.
The bill passed both chambers last week, but returned to the House for a vote after an amendment by the Senate stripped a section of the bill that would see doctors imprisoned for up to 10 years if they perform abortions outside of the exceptions.
The Senate also changed the bill’s exceptions for rape and incest. In the House-backed version, rape and incest were excluded from the ban until about 14 weeks’ gestation and as long as a report is filed with a “qualified law enforcement officer.” In the Senate, the exceptions are until eight weeks’ gestation.
The bill passed by legislators requires physicians to report any abortions they perform to the commissioner of the state’s Bureau for Public Health within 15 days, including a justification for why the care was provided.
On July 25, the state legislature was initially called into a special session to consider Justice’s proposal to reduce personal income tax rates.
But that morning, as lawmakers were gaveling in, Justice amended the call and said he would also be asking lawmakers “to clarify and modernize the abortion-related laws currently existing as part of the West Virginia Code.”
“From the moment the Supreme Court announced their decision in Dobbs, I said that I would not hesitate to call a Special Session once I heard from our Legislative leaders that they had done their due diligence and were ready to act,” Justice said in a statement. “As I have said many times, I very proudly stand for life, and I believe that every human life is a miracle worth protecting.”
(WASHINGTON) — ABC News reports that retired Army Brigadier Gen. Don Bolduc is projected to win the Republican nomination in New Hampshire’s Senate race, handing a victory to a controversial candidate in one the nation’s marquee midterm contests.
Bolduc defeated a field including state Senate President Chuck Morse. With 87% of the vote in, Bolduc led the field with 37% of the vote, compared with 36% for Morse.
Bolduc hailed his win, saying his victory helped put Republicans “one step closer towards defeating” first-term Democrat Maggie Hassan, one of the Senate’s most vulnerable incumbents.
Morse, meanwhile, tweeted overnight that “It’s been a long night & we’ve come up short” and said he “called and wished all the best” to Bolduc.
Bolduc’s primary win marks a defeat for establishment Republicans in New Hampshire and Washington, D.C., seeking to elevate Morse, whom they viewed as a more electable candidate to put up against Hassan.
Morse boasted that he’d look to work across the aisle while Bolduc sparked worries over a years-long reputation of courting controversy.
Among other things, Bolduc called popular Republican Gov. Chris Sununu a “Chinese Communist sympathizer,” said U.S. forces should “get in there on the ground” in Ukraine, advocated for the repeal of the 17th Amendment codifying direct popular election of U.S. senators and accused then-President Donald Trump of rigging the 2020 Senate primary that Bolduc lost by endorsing an opponent.
Neither Bolduc nor Morse has as beefy a war chest as Hassan, though Bolduc’s fundraising has been particularly anemic.
Amid rising concern over Bolduc’s polling lead late into the primary race, Republicans in Washington and Concord mobilized to blunt his momentum.
White Mountain PAC, a political group with reported ties to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., dumped millions into an ad buy highlighting Bolduc’s “crazy ideas.” Sununu, who routinely wins reelection by yawning margins, also endorsed Morse, blasting Bolduc as a “conspiracy-theory type” candidate who would struggle to unseat Hassan.
Some Democrats, meanwhile, sought to undercut Morse, seemingly in the belief that elevating Bolduc would net them a more beatable foe. Senate Majority PAC, which has ties to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., released an ad tying Morse to McConnell, who has drawn the ire of Trump and his diehard supporters in the grassroots.
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in its coming term on the legitimacy of a controversial legal theory about who oversees elections and whether that authority has limits.
The “independent state legislature” theory, backed by a group of conservative advocates, contends that state lawmakers have the ultimate power to regulate federal elections. That power of elected representatives, the theory’s supporters argue, isn’t subject to the traditional restrictions provided by state constitutions, state courts and governors’ vetoes.
But the theory, if embraced by the justices in its most extreme application, could have a dramatic impact on how congressional maps are drawn, voting rules are written and more, according to election experts who spoke with ABC News.
The theory could undermine how American democracy works now, these experts said, raising concerns about what it could mean for how the 2024 presidential race and other contests are run.
The concept is at the center of Moore v. Harper, a redistricting case out of North Carolina, and concerns how two key clauses in the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted.
The Elections Clause states that “the Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.”
And the Presidential Electors Clause reads: “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors.”
Jason Snead, the executive director of the Honest Elections Project, a conservative-aligned group which filed an outside amicus brief in Moore v. Harper supporting the theory, said in an interview in August that the issue gets to “the very core of what it is to have a free election.”
“If the Supreme Court comes down with a ruling that says, in fact, the word ‘legislature’ means legislature, I think that’s a win for voters who want fair rules. I would define ‘fair’ as rules written by the people that they elect to write the law,” Snead told ABC News in a separate interview.
But critics of this view say that overstates the intended dominance of one branch of government.
The theory “fixates on the word ‘legislature’ and makes the leap that because the Constitution uses that word, it means to allow a legislature to regulate federal elections absent all those ordinary checks and balances,” said Ethan Herenstein, counsel with the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice, an advocacy group and think tank focused on the “values of democracy” and “the rule of law.”
The Supreme Court’s justices rejected aspects of the “independent state legislature” theory as recently as 2019, when they found that state courts and constitutions could be a check on gerrymandering. But since then, a key number of them have indicated they’re open to exploring the issue again — though it’s unclear if their underlying opinions have changed.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in an opinion in March that “we will have to resolve this question sooner or later, and the sooner we do so, the better.”
“It takes four justices to decide to take a case, so there are at least four justices interested in resolving whether the independent state legislature theory is an appropriate reading of the Constitution, but that doesn’t mean that the court is prepared to adopt this idea,” said Eliza Sweren-Becker, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program.
At the heart of the dispute in Moore are Republican lawmakers in North Carolina who want to resurrect a congressional map that the state Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional for violating free speech, free assembly and equal protection provisions of the state constitution. A map approved by a state court was instead put in place for this year’s midterm elections.
Here’s a breakdown of the possible changes voters and election administrators might experience if the theory were put into practice:
What voters can expect if it’s affirmed
Much of what voters deal with when they go to the polls is determined by state and local lawmakers, and most state election laws generally apply to both federal and state elections. States generally have one voter registration system, for example.
But the “independent state legislatures” theory, if sanctioned by the Supreme Court, would allow state lawmakers to rewrite the rules for federal races, including those for president, according to the experts who spoke with ABC News. Any election provision included in the state constitution — some of which have been adopted through citizen ballot initiatives — also could be restricted or eliminated completely for federal races.
Mail voting, same-day voter registration, ranked-choice voting systems, secret ballots and other statutes for federal races could be threatened, experts said.
“I think what voters can expect is reduced access to the ballot, more partisan manipulation of maps and more opportunities for partisan interference in elections,” said Helen White, a counsel at the nonpartisan group Protect Democracy.
If the theory is affirmed by the court, gerrymandering is also a top concern for the election experts.
The theory, the experts said, would grant authority to state lawmakers to disregard any oversight by state courts — and gerrymandering could go unchecked.
Snead, whose group is supporting Moore, called such concerns “overblown and overplayed.” State legislatures, he said, would still need to be checked by federal law and Congress.
What election officials can expect
“It would create a two-tiered system where one set of laws applies to federal elections and another set of laws applies to state elections, which were becoming incredibly difficult to administer and be very hard for election officials let alone voters to understand what is required of them,” said election attorney Sweren-Becker.
Another likely side effect of the theory being embraced, experts said, would be federal courts becoming inundated with lawsuits about federal election rules because state courts would no longer have a role to play in such issues.
“If anything, the [theory] will promote unending election litigation, bringing uncertainty and disruption,” Carolyn Shapiro, a founder and co-director of Chicago-Kent’s Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States, told House members in a congressional hearing in late July.
Experts warn elections staff could be overwhelmed and overburdened as a result and congressional maps could become more partisan than ever if state legislatures are allowed to operate with limited constraints — all of which would disenfranchise and devalue the voice of the voter.
ABC News has reached out to North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, who is leading Republicans in the case, for comment but did not receive a response.
In their petition seeking the Supreme Court’s review, the attorneys for Moore and the state Republicans wrote that clarity was urgently needed at a local level. They argued that the lawmakers’ authority was unduly usurped over concerns about protecting elections.
“The question presented in this case, concerning whether or to what extent a State’s courts may seize on vague and abstract state constitutional language requiring ‘free’ or ‘fair’ elections to essentially create their own election code, could scarcely be more significant,” the petitioners wrote.
What about presidential electors?
The 2020 election, when some conservatives wanted to create slates of false electors pledged to Donald Trump in states that he had actually lost to Joe Biden, drew national attention to local lawmakers’ ability to try and interfere in election results after voting had ended.
The “independent state legislature” theory could bolster future attempts, experts warned.
“This has the potential to change the rules of the game in far-reaching ways in time for the next presidential election,” ABC News Political Director Rick Klein said. “Depending on how far the Supreme Court goes, it could virtually invite Republican-controlled legislatures to rewrite centuries-old laws ensuring that the candidate who gets the most votes in a state gets its electoral votes — and it even could free legislatures to pick electors on their own.”
Snead acknowledged that if the theory is embraced, state lawmakers could decide to pass a law before Election Day that says the legislature is going to set electors rather than the voters.
But experts — Snead included — agreed that the theory doesn’t allow a legislature to retroactively change the rules if they don’t like the outcome of the election. The lawmakers would have to still have to enact such changes before the election.
“The independent state legislature is not a license to coup,” Sweren-Becker said.
Federal law, she said, prohibits state legislatures from overturning the results of elections.
(WASHINGTON) — My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell says the FBI seized his cellphone on Tuesday as he waited for his food order in a Hardee’s parking lot in Minnesota.
In a phone interview with ABC News Tuesday night, Lindell, a fierce supporter of former President Donald Trump who has continued to try and overturn the 2020 election while pushing baseless conspiracy theories, said three cars with FBI agents pulled in front of his vehicle in the fast-food parking lot and issued the pillow maven a search warrant for his cellphone.
Lindell, who received a subpoena from a Colorado grand jury, according to photos of the document provided to ABC News, said he has not been contacted by any other grand jury investigating Trump’s alleged efforts to obstruct the 2020 election.
The My Pillow founder also claimed that the grand jury subpoena he received requested information about Dominion Voting Systems machines and a Colorado clerk, Tina Peters.
The FBI did not comment when asked. The Denver FBI provided the following statement: “Without commenting on this specific matter, I can confirm that the FBI was at that location executing a search warrant authorized by a federal judge.”
When asked if he’s worried about law enforcement seizing his phone and any potential criminal charges, Lindell told ABC News, “I’ve been to many jails. I’m not scared to go to jail. I’m trying to save my country.”
(WASHINGTON) — ABC News reports that Karoline Leavitt is projected to win Tuesday’s GOP primary to take on Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., setting up a general election matchup in one of the nation’s most competitive House races.
Leavitt, a former White House press staffer under President Donald Trump, defeated Matt Mowers, another Trump administration aide, and Gail Huff Brown, the wife of former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown. With about 57% of the expected vote in, Leavitt led the field with 34% of the vote, compared with 25% for Mowers in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District.
The results conclude what morphed into a bitter battle between two ideologically aligned foes who found a sliver of difference within the GOP’s right flank.
Both Leavitt and Mowers cast themselves as staunch Trump allies and had big name Republican backers to boot: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 3 House Republican, and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz backed Leavitt while House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana were among those supporting Mowers.
Yet where Mowers called for audits the 2020 presidential race, Leavitt adamantly — and baselessly — denied the results. And while Mowers has said he would examine a push to impeach President Joe Biden, Leavitt has said she would support impeachment.
The result marks a setback for McCarthy, who is setting himself up to serve as speaker if Republicans flip the House in November. The affiliated Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC spent more than $1.3 million supporting Mowers, who said he would back a McCarthy speakership bid. Leavitt, meanwhile, initially said she would support Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, as speaker before changing to say she’d support McCarthy.
Leavitt will now face Pappas in one of Republicans’ top flip opportunities. Pappas defeated Mowers in the 2020 election by 5 points, though the district has flipped between the two parties five times since the start of the century.
