Michigan’s ‘fairer’ election maps challenged for ‘diluting’ Black vote

Michigan’s ‘fairer’ election maps challenged for ‘diluting’ Black vote
Michigan’s ‘fairer’ election maps challenged for ‘diluting’ Black vote
ABC News

(NEW YORK) — Michigan, one of the nation’s hottest political battlegrounds, is being hailed for a citizen-led effort to transform its famously gerrymandered election maps into some of the fairest and most competitive ahead of the fall midterm elections.

“This is just one small step to start taking power back and even the playing field for voters to be able to actually control our elections and get the results we want,” said Katie Fahey, the 32-year-old independent from Grand Rapids who sparked the grassroots redistricting reform movement with a 2016 Facebook post.

The state’s closely watched experiment in redistricting by independent commission — rather than by partisan state legislators — could provide a model for other communities gripped by political polarization, experts say. Only eight other states limit direct participation of elected officials in the drawing of state and federal districts.

“People, when they go to the polls, they want to think that their vote matters. Whereas a lot of the time, when seats are gerrymandered to favor one party or the other, basically no matter what, those elections won’t be competitive,” said Nathaniel Rakich, a FiveThirtyEight senior elections analyst.

“The [new Michigan] map just does a really good job of making sure that neither Democrats’, nor Republicans’ votes are wasted,” Rakich said.

But six months before Michigan’s voters can put the new maps to the test, a barrage of partisan legal challenges threatens to blunt an achievement praised by the likes of former Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Democratic President Barack Obama.

“Are these maps better for partisan fairness? Yes. Could they be better? Absolutely,” said state Sen. Adam Hollier, a Democrat who represents historically majority Black neighborhoods in metro Detroit.

Hollier is among a group of Detroit Democrats who allege in a state lawsuit that the maps “dilute” the power of Black voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act. African American voters are “almost completely politically silenced,” the complaint claims.

Republicans, who have controlled both chambers of the state legislature for years, allege in a separate federal lawsuit that the newly drawn political districts aren’t of equal population size as legally required and unlawfully split up several cities and counties.

“I think we did a very good job of sort of putting our individual feelings on the shelf and making sure we were doing what was best for the people of Michigan,” said Rebecca Szetela, a lawyer, mother of four and political independent who chairs the state’s first 13-member Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission.

“I think that the maps should be fair and balanced moving forward, and I think that people will feel once again that their vote is their voice and that they have the ability to elect someone that represents them,” Szetela said.

Michigan’s old state and federal political districts — in place for the past decade — have been considered some of the most unfair and unbalanced in the country — drawn by Republicans, to favor Republicans. Just two of the state’s 14 congressional districts are rated as competitive by FiveThirtyEight.

“Michigan’s a super purple state. About 50% of us vote for Democrats; about 50% of us vote for Republicans,” said Fahey. “But depending on what party had gerrymandered, that party would have like a supermajority and be able to pass whatever kind of legislation they want, even though theoretically, we should have compromise on almost every single bill.”

The new maps are cleaner, fairer and more competitive for both parties, according to FiveThirtyEight’s nonpartisan Redistricting Tracker. It achieves this by unpacking the gerrymandered majority Black and heavily Democratic districts around Detroit, spreading those voters across new districts creating a blend of urban and suburban voters.

Yvette McElroy Anderson, a longtime community advocate and field director of the Fannie Lou Hamer Political Action Committee, said the disappearance of majority Black districts will make it harder for minority candidates to get on the ballot.

“It’s hurting the ability of Black candidates as well as hurting African Americans to have people that will represent the interests that needs to be represented on their behalf,” Anderson said. “Fifty-one percent or better is what the Voting Rights Act says. So if we don’t do that, then we are doing a disservice to the African American population.”

Hollier, who is challenging the commission to go back to the drawing board before the state’s August primary election, argued that it’s possible to achieve districts that are both majority Black and more competitive.

“Black candidates, particularly from urban communities, and from across our state, have typically raised less money because there’s less money in their districts,” Hollier said, “and we talk about how much money has impacted politics. It changes who can run for things, and where the elected officials come out of.”

Szetela argued that the new maps will enhance the power and influence of Black voters in more races and create more opportunities for representation. The two new congressional districts in metro Detroit would have roughly 44% African American voter representation.

“The data that we were looking at showed that even with lower percentages, that Black voters will be able to elect their candidates of choice,” she said. “And because we divided up some of those districts that were historically 80 to 90% African American into more districts, there should be better representation.”

Rakich said the debate doesn’t have an easy answer.

“On one hand, [the critics] do have a point because certainly a district that is 44% Black is less likely to elect a Black representative,” he said. “But at the same time, because of our system of elections, it’s also very likely that even a 44% Black district would elect a candidate preferred by Black voters.”

State and federal courts will likely decide the fate of Michigan’s new maps, and it’s the voters in November’s midterm elections who will put them to their first big test.

“As a lawyer, I’m never confident on what’s going to happen in a court because courts can rule any way that they want to,” said Szetela. “At the end of the day, we did our good faith effort to come up with very good maps for the people in the state of Michigan.”

Fahey, who is now counseling at least 13 other states on redistricting reform, said she’s confident that no matter where the lines are drawn, the commission’s impact will be a positive change over the old maps.

“It means that we’ll have more competitive elections; it means that we’ll probably have some more moderate candidates who are actually listening to both Democrats and Republicans,” she said.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Trump-endorsed challengers lag behind incumbent Republicans in fundraising

Trump-endorsed challengers lag behind incumbent Republicans in fundraising
Trump-endorsed challengers lag behind incumbent Republicans in fundraising
Brandon Bell/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — Three of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump have tapped out early to announce they are not seeking reelection in 2022 — but the remaining seven appear to be running strong races, judging by fundraising numbers disclosed in the latest campaign finance filings.

As 2022 candidates were gearing up for the upcoming midterm election none of the Trump-endorsed challengers vying to unseat those seven House Republicans managed to outraise the sitting lawmakers in the last quarter of 2021, filings released this week show.

It’s not uncommon for incumbents to have a big cash advantage over their challengers, but the large fundraising gaps hint at the long way Trump-backed challengers have to go to — despite the former president’s support.

Most notably, Rep. Liz Cheney — with backing from both establishment Republicans and moderate Democrats — has broken her own fundraising records, despite being the most high-profile Republican on Trump’s 2022 hit list.

The Wyoming Republican reported raising more than $2 million in just the final three months of last year, bringing her 2021 fundraising total to $7.2 million. Her Trump-endorsed primary challenger, Harriet Hageman, raised less than half of Cheney’s fourth-quarter haul during the same period, reporting just over $745,000.

As the 2022 election year ramps up, Hageman’s cash on hand is just $381,000 compared to Cheney’s $4.7 million war chest, according to filings.

Cheney, one of two Republicans on the nine-member House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, has also received support from some major liberal donors who typically give only to Democrats, including investor and billionaire John Pritzker of the Pritzker family, who maxed out on his contribution to Cheney by giving $10,800 to her joint fundraising committee earlier last year.

Also among those rallying behind Cheney are Trump critics within the Republican Party, including former Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., who is among several Republican lawmakers who announced their retirement after clashing with pro-Trump GOP forces.

“My wife and I maxed out for Liz and then we held a fundraiser for her because we wanted to speak up,” Rooney, who gave Cheney’s joint fundraising committee $10,800 back in May, told ABC News.

Rooney, who had previously given upwards of $1 million to various GOP candidates groups over the years, told ABC News that he’s no longer giving to the RNC and Republicans except for Cheney and a handful of others, because he’s tired of Trump-dominated narratives within the Republican Party.

Among Cheney’s other donors in the final months of last year was former President George W. Bush, who maxed out on his donation to her campaign by giving $5,800 in October.

Bush also gave $2,800 to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who has been targeted by Trump for being one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict him in his impeachment trial last year, and the only one of them up for reelection this year. Similar to Cheney, Murkowski outraised her Trump-endorsed challenger, Kelly Tshibaka, by more than double in the final three months of 2021, and entered the 2022 election year with $4.3 million on hand.

Reps. Fred Upton and Peter Meijer, both representing Michigan, also boasted major fundraising advantages over their respective Trump-endorsed challengers, Steve Carra and John Gibbs, both bringing in five times the amount their challengers took in last quarter.

In Washington’s 3rd District, Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler held a narrower fundraising gap over Trump-backed challenger Joe Kent, but still entered 2022 with a much larger war chest than his rival.

South Carolina Republican Russell Fry, who Trump endorsed just this week, managed to raise close to the amount raised by incumbent Rep. Tom Rice, but still faces Rice’s big war chest of nearly $2 million.

Former Trump aide Max Miller, who’s running to fill retiring GOP Rep. Anthony Gonzalez’s seat in Ohio, continued to report the strongest fundraising figures among contenders vying for Gonzalez’s open seat. Although his fundraising showed signs of slowing down in the final quarter of 2021, with contributions of $181,000 compared to the nearly $700,000 he raised in the previous quarter, he nonetheless entered 2022 with nearly $1 million in cash on hand.

Miller was one of several big-name Trump-aligned GOP candidates who failed to maintain their massive fundraising momentum from the earlier part of 2021.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who had boasted $3.5 million in donations in the first quarter of 2021, reported a relatively small $1.2 million haul in the final quarter, while Reps. Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert’s fundraising both gradually slowed down throughout the year.

In Senate races, Sen. Tim Scott, who is endorsed by Trump and is also considered a possible 2024 presidential election contender, continued to bring in large sums, raising $7 million in the fourth quarter.

Rep. Mo Brooks, who is running for a Senate seat, was significantly outraised in the fourth quarter by his GOP primary challenger Katie Britt, who raised $1.2 million compared to Brooks’ $385,000 — a huge drop from what he raised in the previous quarter.

In North Carolina, no GOP Senate candidate raised more than a million dollars in the final quarter amid a competitive primary. Trump-endorsed Senate candidate Ted Budd brought in $968,360 while former North Carolina Republican Gov. Patrick McCory raised $748,072 and Rep. Mark Walker brought in only $146,053. The split among Republican donors could make Trump’s endorsement all the more important for Budd, the current leading fundraiser.

In Pennsylvania, the Senate primary field was upended when the Trump-endorsed candidate dropped out in November, leading two relative newcomers to emerge on the campaign trail. TV doctor Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund CEO Dave McCormick are reportedly dropping millions in advertising, but it remains to be seen whether they’re getting any return on their investment. Trump has yet to make an endorsement in the race.

The candidate who appears to have raised the most money of any GOP challenger is Georgia Senate candidate and former football star Herschel Walker, who raised $5.4 million in the fourth quarter to lift his fundraising total to $10 million since the start of his campaign — signaling what could be an expensive general election race between him and Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock, who has nearly $23 million in cash on hand.

“This massive fundraising haul, likely the largest in the country for a non-incumbent, shows that Georgia Republicans are clearly united behind Herschel Walker and are ready to take on Senator Warnock,” Scott Paradise, campaign manager for Team Herschel, said in a press release last week.

On the Democratic side, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly joins Warnock as the party’s top two fundraisers, with Kelly holding $19 million in cash on hand as both men seek reelection.

In what could be a tight Senate primary race in Pennsylvania, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman held a strong lead in fundraising over the course of last year, but fellow Western Pennsylvanian Rep. Conor Lamb appears to be gaining traction, bringing in $1.35 million in the fourth quarter of 2021.

In North Carolina, leading Senate candidate Cheri Beasley took in $2.1 million in the final quarter of 2021, with 90% of her donations being $100 or less, according to her campaign. Beasley’s campaign manager, Travis Brimm, said in a press release that they are “committed to building a strong, grassroots campaign that touches every corner of the state and helps lead to victory in November.”

And nationally, the Democratic Party and Republican Party fared about even with their national party committees’ fundraising in 2021.

In total, the RNC outraised the DNC by $8 million, but the DNC entered the election year with a bigger war chest, reporting $67 million in cash on hand compared to $56 million for the RNC.

The Senate and House arms of the Republican Party also slightly outraised their Democratic counterparts, and entered the year with a slightly bigger war chest of $111 million compared to the Democratic committees’ $106 million.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Congressional bill seeks to end legacy admissions at colleges

Congressional bill seeks to end legacy admissions at colleges
Congressional bill seeks to end legacy admissions at colleges
Michael Godek/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — A bill introduced in Congress Wednesday by Democratic lawmakers seeks to end legacy admissions at many U.S. colleges and universities.

The so-called Fair College Admissions for Students Act would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to bar institutions of higher education that participate in federal student aid programs from giving admissions preference to applicants with legacy or donor status, a common practice at elite institutions.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Oregon) in an attempt to address what they said is an unfair and inequitable admissions process that disproportionately benefits wealthy, white and connected students.

“All students deserve an equitable opportunity to gain admission to institutions of higher education, but students whose parents didn’t attend or donate to a university are often overlooked in the admissions process due to the historically classist and racist legacy and donor admissions practices at many schools across the country,” Bowman said in a statement.

Merkley said the bill would seek to level the playing field for minority and first-generation students especially.

“Children of donors and alumni may be excellent students and well-qualified, but the last people who need extra help in the complicated and competitive college admissions process are those who start with the advantages of family education and money,” he said in a statement.

The bill would allow the education secretary to waive the legacy preference ban for institutions like historically Black colleges and universities, tribal colleges and minority-serving institutions, which admit high levels of underrepresented students already.

Legacy preferences are common among selective colleges; according to the progressive think tank The Century Foundation, three-quarters of the nation’s top 100 national universities in U.S. News & World Report employ them, and nearly all the 100 liberal arts colleges do.

The legacy preference is worth an extra 160 points for children of alumni, researchers from Princeton University found.

Supporters of legacy preferences argue that legacies can help boost an institution’s ability to award financial assistance to low-income students.

Several institutions, including Johns Hopkins University and Amherst College, have ended their practice of legacy admissions in recent years.

Last year, Colorado became the first state to enact a law banning legacy admissions at public colleges and universities. In the wake of the “Varsity Blues” scandal, California didn’t ban legacy admissions but did require institutions whose students receive state financial aid to disclose how many applicants are accepted through the practice.

The Fair College Admissions for Students Act is introduced as the Supreme Court is poised to hear challenges to affirmative action, which also could have implications for many colleges and universities’ admissions policies.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

American statesman Bob Dole to be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery

American statesman Bob Dole to be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery
American statesman Bob Dole to be laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery
Stephanie Kuykendal/Getty Images

(ARLINGTON COUNTY, Va.) — Former Senate Republican Leader Bob Dole — a decorated World War II veteran and presidential candidate who served in Congress for 36 years — will be laid to rest with military honors on Wednesday at historic Arlington National Cemetery.

Dole died on Dec. 5, 2021, after announcing last February that he’d been diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer and was starting treatment.

Dole’s wife of 46 years, former Cabinet secretary and North Carolina Sen. Elizabeth Dole, and daughter, Robin, are expected to attend the invitation-only, graveside funeral with family members, close friends and former colleagues. Dole was given the rare honor to lie in state in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda late last year before his body was taken to his home state of Kansas for memorials and then back to Washington, where he’ll be laid to rest Wednesday afternoon alongside American war heroes.

Dole, a native of Russell, Kansas, served as an army officer in World War II and was severely wounded in action at age 21, left with permanent limited mobility in his right arm. Overcoming adversity, Dole went on to graduate law school, serve in the Kansas legislature, and represent his home state for four terms in the House of Representatives and five terms in the Senate, where he led the Republican Conference for more than a decade.

In Congress, he was an advocate for the rights of veterans and Americans with disabilities, spearheading the inclusion of protections against discrimination in employment, education and public services in the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Dole also served as national chairman of the World War II Memorial Campaign which raised funds for the World War II Memorial to be built on the National Mall.

He ran three times for president, ultimately winning the Republican party nomination in 1996 but losing the general election to Bill Clinton, who was seeking a second term. Months later, Clinton presented Dole with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House.

In a USA Today op-ed he finished on pen and paper less than two weeks before his death, Dole wrote Congress needs teamwork now more than ever, writing, “Those who suggest that compromise is a sign of weakness misunderstand the fundamental strength of our democracy.”

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Gaetz’s fundraising dips as sex trafficking investigation intensifies

Gaetz’s fundraising dips as sex trafficking investigation intensifies
Gaetz’s fundraising dips as sex trafficking investigation intensifies
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — As the federal investigation into possible sex trafficking allegations against Rep. Matt Gaetz continues, his campaign’s fundraising has been dwindling.

In its latest campaign finance disclosure filed on Monday, the Gaetz campaign reported raising $534,000 in the final three months of last year — a major drop from the $1.8 million he raised in the first three months of the year, fresh off the 2020 election.

Overall, Gaetz’s fundraising has been gradually slowing down, dropping to $1.4 million in the second quarter and then to $527,000 in the third quarter.

A dip in fundraising between election years isn’t uncommon, and some of Gaetz’s GOP colleagues, like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, saw a similar slowdown in fundraising from their earlier hauls. A joint fundraising operation between Gaetz and Greene also reported bringing in only $19,000 in the final quarter of 2021, compared to the nearly $360,000 it raised in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, as the sex trafficking investigation unfolded over the past year, disclosure records show that the Gaetz campaign’s legal bills rose significantly.

In total, from July 2020 through the end of December 2021, the Gaetz campaign reported spending nearly $200,000 on legal bills, minus $25,000 that was returned by a firm named Zuckerman Spaeder LLP two months after the Gaetz campaign paid that amount to the firm.

In the first few months of 2021, as news of the investigation into Gaetz and his associates emerged, the campaign also spent more than $800,000 on strategic consulting by PR firm Logan Circle Group — but the campaign’s payments to the firm dropped to under $3,000 in the final three months of 2021.

The latest financial disclosure filing also shows the Gaetz campaign has continued to pay the office of New York criminal defense attorney Marc Fernich, who lists on his website “notable clients” that include convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Among Fernich’s other clients are Mexican drug lord El Chapo, former mobster John “Junior” Gotti, and “alleged propagandist in Nazi Hungary” Ferenc Koreh, according to his firm’s website.

The Gaetz campaign made a $50,000 payment to Fernich’s firm in October, according to the latest filing — its second payment to the firm after a payment of $25,000 in June of last year.

As his fundraising slowed down last year, Gaetz’s campaign spending also dropped significantly, with disclosures showing most of his money going to direct mail messaging and fundraising.

“I’m the only Republican in Congress who doesn’t take lobbyist or PAC money. I rely exclusively on donations that average around $38,” Gaetz said in a statement to ABC News. “HBO made a movie about it called The Swamp.”

The financial disclosures come as the federal probe into possible sex trafficking allegations against Gaetz continues.

Earlier this month Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend, a one-time Capitol Hill staffer, testified in front of a federal grand jury that’s hearing evidence in the investigation, according to multiple sources. The ex-girlfriend, who ABC News is not naming, was one of the women allegedly on a 2018 trip to the Bahamas with Gaetz and others that prosecutors are investigating.

Sources familiar with the grand jury proceedings said the woman provided information regarding a phone call that prosecutors say occurred between her, Gaetz, and another woman who is also a witness in the sex-crimes probe and who met the congressman through his one-time friend, former Florida tax collector Joel Greenberg.

A week after Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend testified in front of the grand jury, Joe Ellicott, a close friend of Greenberg — who himself pled guilty last year to multiple charges including sex trafficking a minor — also agreed to plead guilty to fraud and drug charges. Ellicott, like Greenberg, allegedly attended multiple gatherings that involved drugs and young women who were paid for sex, sources told ABC News.

Ellicott also allegedly knows the one-time minor at the center of the sex trafficking investigation into Gaetz, as well as another woman who is involved, sources said. ABC News previously reported that in a private text exchange over the encrypted messaging app Signal, Ellicott allegedly told Greenberg in August 2020 that a mutual friend was worried she could be implicated in the investigation into the sex ring involving a minor.

The attorney for Gaetz’s ex-girlfriend, Tim Jansen, declined to comment when reached by ABC News.

The latest developments come after Greenberg, as part of a plea deal, had been steadily providing prosecutors with information that allegedly included years of Venmo and Cash App transactions and thousands of photos and videos, as well as access to personal social media accounts, ABC News previously reported.

Gaetz has denied all wrongdoing and has not been charged with any crimes. In a statement to ABC News responding to Ellicott’s guilty plea agreement, Gaetz’s chief of staff Jillian Lane Wyant, said, “After nearly a year of false rumors, not a shred of evidence has implicated Congressman Gaetz in wrongdoing. We remain focused on our work representing Floridians.”

Ellicott’s guilty plea hearing is set for Feb. 9, while Greenberg’s sentencing is slated for the end of March after being pushed back multiple times amid the ongoing investigation.

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Biden seeks Supreme Court nominee advice amid criticism over promise to name Black woman

Biden seeks Supreme Court nominee advice amid criticism over promise to name Black woman
Biden seeks Supreme Court nominee advice amid criticism over promise to name Black woman
Win McNamee/Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden began what he has said would be a bipartisan process to pick his Supreme Court nominee, hosting meetings at the White House on Tuesday amid Republican criticism of his history-making move to nominate the first Black woman to the bench.

Biden met with Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and the committee’s top Republican Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, on Tuesday afternoon to consult with them on the nomination and confirmation process. Vice President Kamala Harris, who Biden has said will advise him on his selection, was also on hand for the Oval Office event.

“The Constitution says ‘advise and consent, advise and consent,’ and I’m serious when I say I want the advice of the Senate as well as the consent,” Biden told reporters at the top of the meeting.

“I’m looking for a candidate with character, with the qualities of … a judge in terms of being courteous to the folks before them and treating people with respect. As well as a judicial philosophy that is more one that suggests that there are unenumerated rights to the Constitution and all new members mean something including the Ninth Amendment,” Biden said.

He also reiterated his intention to announce his nominee by the end of the month.

“I think I’ll be courteous to the president and try to answer his questions,” Grassley told reporters on the Hill earlier Tuesday morning. “I don’t know what those questions are going to be, but I’m going to take the approach that we need somebody that’s going to interpret the law and not make a law because that’s Congress’s job.”

While some in the GOP have criticized Biden’s campaign pledge to nominate the first Black woman to the court, arguing all nominees should be considered for their qualifications, Grassley said he wouldn’t enter that debate until he sees the nominee.

“The president makes a nomination. That’s his privilege,” Grassley said.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, meanwhile, doubled down on his belief to reporters that Biden’s pledge is “offensive” to Black women and claimed Tuesday that Democrats are “very comfortable discriminating based on race.”

“When Joe Biden throws out a quota that the only people he will consider for this nomination are African American women. He is number one rejecting regardless of merits everybody else, whether they are white or Black or Hispanic or Native American,” Cruz said.

Despite some Republican opposition, the White House has dug into the commitment, pushing back on the idea of Biden choosing a candidate just to get bipartisan support.

“The president is going to select a woman, a Black woman, who is qualified, who is prepared, who has impeccable experience to serve on the court,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. He’s going to do that based on her credentials, of course having a discussion with her and not through gaming out the system.”

Psaki said Biden will also begin consulting with legal experts and scholars on the decision this week.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer applauded the president for his commitment to nominating a Black woman to the high court in an earlier floor speech and called on members from both sides of the aisle to embrace his efforts to diversify the court.

“Every single member of this chamber regardless of party should embrace the president’s commitment to make sure that our courts and especially the Supreme Court better reflect our countries diversity. And nominating a Black woman as justice is a long-overdue step to achieving that goal,” Schumer said.

“The more our judges reflect our nation’s vibrancy and diversity, the more effectively they will be able to administer equal justice,” he added.

Biden has not yet named a nominee but said he anticipates making a formal nomination before the end of February. Supreme Court nominees only require a simple majority of senators to vote for confirmation, which means there is little Republicans can do to block a Biden nominee if all Democrats — holding 50 seats in the Senate, and Vice President Kamala Harris acting as a tie-breaking vote — stick together.

No Black woman has ever been nominated or served on the U.S. Supreme Court. Two Black men and five women, in total, have served on the bench. There have been 115 justices.

ABC News’ Allison Pecorin contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Trump’s fundraising extends massive $122 million war chest

Trump’s fundraising extends massive 2 million war chest
Trump’s fundraising extends massive 2 million war chest
Drew Angerer/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump announced Monday night that his political committees raised more than $51 million over the second half of last year, to buttress what is now a massive $122 million war chest.

Trump’s latest fundraising haul is a drop from the first half of last year, when his various committees together raised a total of $82 million from January through June of 2021.

It is possible that the $82 million sum Trump’s team announced for the first half of last year included transferred money raised in the final weeks of 2020, though the exact amount transferred from the previous year is unclear.

Trump’s war chest puts him in a uniquely strong position heading into the 2022 midterms and ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run.

The Republican National Committee also reported having $56.3 million cash in hand at the end of December 2021.

In a press release Monday, Trump’s Save America political action committee said that the $51 million was raised by the former president’s multiple committees from July 1 through Dec. 31, 2021.

The average donation Trump received between his committees was $31, with a total of 1,631,648 donations, the release said.

Notably, Trump doesn’t appear to be sharing many of his donations yet. With over $122 million in cash on hand, Trump says his PACs have only donated $1.35 million to “to like-minded causes and endorsed candidates.”

Save America’s filing shows that $1 million of that contribution went to the nonprofit Conservative Partnership Institute, which is led by a slew of Trump’s close allies, including Mark Meadows, Jim DeMint and Ed Corrigan.

Much of Save America’s money in the latter half of 2021 was spent on Facebook ads, payroll, and consulting fees for various firms, including $1.5 million paid to Tim Unes’ firm Event Strategies and $60,000 paid to former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale’s firm Parscale Strategy, according to the filing. More than $240,000 also went to legal spending, the filing shows.

Over the past year, Trump has been fundraising with numerous allies through various vehicles, including his Save America PAC and his presidential campaign committee-turned PAC, Make America Great Again PAC.

Save America, in particular, was set up as a leadership PAC, which is designed to allow former and current lawmakers or prominent political figures to raise money and boost their allies, often with the purpose of advancing their political influence.

Last year, Save America raised $700,000 in a joint fundraising operation with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. More recently, the PAC raised roughly $202,000 with Trump-endorsed Florida House hopeful Anna Paulina Luna, new disclosure filings show.

Save America had also raised massive sums with the Republican National Committee in the weeks following the 2020 election, but the two have since stopped officially fundraising together. The RNC and other GOP party committees, however, continue to frequently appeal to donors by using Trump’s name in fundraising emails and messages.

The RNC has also continued to help cover Trump’s legal bills over the past few months. As previously reported by ABC News, the national party committee has paid at least $720,000 to law firms representing the former president in various legal challenges, including criminal investigations into his businesses in New York, according to campaign finance records.

In the past few months the RNC’s fundraising has dipped in comparison to the substantially larger amounts it used to report every month while it was fundraising with Trump during the 2020 election cycle. However, the RNC’s fundraising still topped the DNC’s in the second half of 2021.

Between July and December 2021, the GOP national committee reported raising a total of $74 million, while the Democratic National Committee reported raising $65 million during the same period, disclosure filings show.

In all of 2021, the RNC raised $159 million while the DNC raised $151 million.

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Ex-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany turned over text messages to Jan. 6 committee

Ex-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany turned over text messages to Jan. 6 committee
Ex-White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany turned over text messages to Jan. 6 committee
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Jonathan Karl, Benjamin Siegel and Will Steakin, ABC News

(WASHINGTON) — Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany turned over text messages to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, according to a source familiar with the investigation — the latest indication of the extensive level of cooperation the committee has received from many witnesses.

McEnany, who was at work in the White House and around then-President Donald Trump before and during the Capitol attack, was subpoenaed by the panel for records and testimony in November, and turned over text messages to committee investigators.

A source familiar with her interactions with the committee has told ABC News that text messages from McEnany’s phone were quoted in a recent letter the committee sent to Ivanka Trump. The texts came directly from documents turned over by McEnany, said the source.

“1 – no more stolen election talk,” Fox News host Sean Hannity texted McEnany, according to the records. “2- Yes, impeachment and the 25th amendment are real and many people will quit.”

“Love that. Thank you. That is the playbook. I will help reinforce….,” McEnany replied, per the documents.

McEnany did not respond to calls and messages from ABC News seeking comment or to an email sent to a spokesperson for Fox News, where McEnany currently co-hosts the show “Outnumbered.”

A committee spokesman declined to comment and would not provide details on other text messages and documents turned over by McEnany.

McEnany appeared virtually before investigators for several hours on Jan. 13, according to a source familiar with her testimony, and did not appear that day on her midday Fox News program.

The committee was interested in her repeated false claims of widespread voter fraud from the White House Briefing Room podium, and in her interactions with Trump on Jan. 6, according to a letter the committee sent to McEnany along with the subpoena.

In addition to text messages and any other materials McEnany turned over to the committee, investigators are expected to receive her White House files from the National Archives, some of the many White House records Trump unsuccessfully tried to prevent the Archives from sharing with Congress.

The House select committee has interviewed more than 400 people as part of its investigation, and committee leaders say that most witnesses have cooperated with the panel’s requests and subpoenas.

“In general, people have been extremely cooperative. The closer we get to Trump, the more difficult it becomes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., recently told ABC News about the panel’s progress.

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who worked closely with Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani to seek out evidence of voter fraud, recently complied with the panel’s subpoena for records and testimony, as did former Trump campaign spokesperson Jason Miller.

However Trump ally Steve Bannon and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows have openly challenged the committee’s subpoenas, leading Congress to hold both men in contempt and issue criminal referrals to the Justice Department.

The department has not acted on the Meadows referral, but Bannon was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress in November. He has pleaded not guilty, and his trial is set to begin in July.

Meadows challenged the committee’s requests only after voluntarily turning over thousands of documents to the panel, a tranche that included emails and text messages that committee members say have helped them piece together conversations around Trump and the White House as the Jan. 6 attack unfolded.

Copyright © 2022, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

What is the Electoral Count Act and why does it present problems?

What is the Electoral Count Act and why does it present problems?
What is the Electoral Count Act and why does it present problems?
Senate pages carry the Electoral College ballot boxes on Jan. 7, 2021 at the Capitol, in Washington. – Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — With voting rights legislation all but dead in the Senate, and the former president now openly suggesting he tried to use a vaguely-worded 19th-century law to try to manipulate the last presidential election, a growing group of bipartisan lawmakers is backing the idea of changing how Congress tallies presidential election results by reforming the 1887 Electoral Count Act.

The law was intended to set up a peaceful transfer of power after an election dispute, but it’s one former President Donald Trump and his allies sought to exploit in a scheme to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump made his clearest statement yet this week that he believed Pence could and should have simply overturned the results himself, responding to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who was asked about efforts to reform the law on ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos.

He said, “…how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?”

“Actually, what they are saying, is that Mike Pence did have the right to change the outcome, and they now want to take that right away. Unfortunately, he didn’t exercise that power. He could have overturned the Election!” Trump falsely claimed in a statement late Sunday.

By pressing then-Vice President Mike Pence to interfere with the ceremonial counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, as well as outlining how states could — and several would — send conflicting slates of electors to Congress, and urging lawmakers to object to results, to which 147 Republicans followed, Trump took advantage of ambiguities in the law’s language.

Republican leaders have signaled an openness to amending the text, but Democrats argue the effort, while potentially bipartisan, does not address what they call state voter suppression tactics they say will be felt in the midterms and could be a distraction from larger voting reform.

Addressing reforms to the law, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the White House has “been open to and a part of conversations about the Electoral Count Act,” but that it shouldn’t be a “replacement” for larger voting reforms. She also called attention to Trump’s statement as representing a “unique and existential threat to our democracy.”

Some scholars warn that if lawmakers don’t join together to reform the process, it will be weaponized again.

“There’s enough focus now on the ambiguities of this statute that if it isn’t Donald Trump in 2024, you could easily imagine a number of other actors taking a page from his playbook,” Rebecca Green, co-director of the election law program at William and Mary Law School, told ABC News. “But the ECA is not just specific to one presidential election or one person. It’s just become a more apparent problem to address after Jan 6.”

Here’s a look at the Electoral Count Act and why people are calling for it to be reformed:

What is the Electoral Count Act?

The Electoral Count Act is the law that governs how Congress counts electoral votes following a presidential election.

It essentially sets up a timetable for when different parts of the counting process must take place and sets up a dispute resolution process for how Congress will resolve irregularities in accepting electoral slates from states.

How did the law come about?

The law was crafted in response to a contested presidential election in 1876, when several states under the control of Reconstruction governments sent multiple slates of electors to Congress post-Civil War.

Samuel Tilden, a Democrat, had won the popular vote, but after Congress created an ad hoc commission to deal with the dispute, Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was ultimately declared the winner.

Democrats refused to accept the results until the Compromise of 1877, which called for an end to Reconstruction and the withdrawal of federal troops from former Confederate states. A decade later, Congress passed a law that lawmakers hoped would prevent a future process from being upended.

But it has presented problems.

What problems does it present?

While there are several proposals for ways to reform the law, such as changing the timeline for “safe harbor” status — when electoral votes are considered “conclusive” — or resolving questions around judicial review following election disputes, there are two glaring areas that Green told ABC News lawmakers need to address.

The role of the vice president is unclear

The vice president’s role in what usually is a ministerial proceeding — simply counting and announcing the votes — is extremely unclear.

The Constitution dictates that the president of the Senate, or the vice president, open the certificates of electoral votes from each state. Additionally, under the current Electoral Count Act, the president of the Senate carries over the proceedings and calls for objections.

The act says, in long, convoluted language, the each state’s slates or “all such returns and papers shall be opened by him” — the vice president, or president of the Senate — “in the presence of the two houses when met as aforesaid, and read by the tellers, and all such returns and papers shall thereupon be submitted to the judgment and decision…”

“Does this run-on sentence mean that Mike Pence shall open only the ballots that he wants? Or does he have to open if there’s more than one slate from a state — how does he know which ones to open?” Green posed. “None of those questions are answered by the face of the statute.”

She added, “Those vagaries produced the mischief that we saw in the 2020 election,” she added.

ABC News Senior Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl reported in his book Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show that then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows emailed to Pence’s top aide a detailed plan penned by Trump’s campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis outlining how Pence was to send back the electoral votes from six battleground states that Trump falsely claimed he had won.

Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa also revealed in their book, Peril, a memo written by John Eastman, whom Trump introduced at the Jan. 6 rally as “one of the most brilliant lawyers in the country,” outlined another plan for how Pence would hand the election back to Trump on Jan. 6.

According to their reporting, Eastman instructed Pence to say, at the conclusion of counting, “because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States.” Then, Pence “gavels President Trump as reelected.”

Pence would have declared the seven states that submitted the alternate slates of electors as being in dispute, and ultimately hand the election to Trump in the alleged plot. However, Pence rejected the pressure to do so, sticking to his strictly ceremonial role, and the National Archives never accepted the uncertified documents for congressional counting.

Despite all the manipulation, scholars argue it isn’t reasonable to suggest the vice president would have been granted such interference.

“There has never been the kind of pressure that Mike Pence experienced on Jan. 6, 2021, before,” Green said, “but it would be extremely illogical for the system to instill that much power in sitting vice presidents, particularly since sitting vice presidents are so regularly on the presidential ballot.”

Additionally, the Justice Department and lawmakers on the House select committee investigating Jan. 6 are looking into those individuals who falsely signed on as alternate electors to declare Trump the winner in states he actually lost to Biden.

It’s ‘too easy’ for lawmakers to object to a state’s slate.

The law allows one congressman paired with one senator to object to the results submitted by each state — which last year, made way for a long, drawn-out process as Republican after Republican, including several freshmen, contested results. Eight senators and 139 representatives, all Republicans, voted to sustain one or both objections to electoral votes in Arizona and Pennsylvania.

If a congressman finds a senator to join in their objection, both the House and Senate chambers are forced back to their chambers for two hours of debate and a vote, which some argue is an invitation for political grandstanding.

The objection tool was used only once in its first 100 years. In all three recent cases, the attempts have failed.

In 2001 and 2017, no senator would join with a representative to object. (Biden, then serving as vice president, was the one to gavel out a handful of Democrats’ challenging Trump’s electors.) In 2005, a representative and a senator objected to counting Ohio’s electoral votes cast for George W. Bush, but the challenge was not successful.

Some lawmakers are now coalescing around the idea of raising the threshold for objections beyond just a single senator and representative — or to creating a list of valid ground for objecting results.

One proposal raises that at least one-third of each chamber would be needed for an objection to be heard — or more than 30 senators and 140 House members.

“The idea is that the current process is too easy and that perhaps it should be made a little bit harder to object, so that there’s more consensus required and a couple of people can’t kind of gum up the works as easily,” Green said.

Collins, who is leading discussions with a group of 16 senators to reform the law, said she’s hopeful it can be done on an “overwhelming” bipartisan basis.

“I’m hopeful that we can come up with a bipartisan bill that will make very clear that the vice president’s role is simply ministerial, that he has no ability to halt the count, and that we’ll raise the threshold from one House member, one senator, for triggering a challenge to a vote count submitted by the states,” she told ABC’s This Week With George Stephanopoulos. “This is no small thing. I think it is really important that we do this reform.”

Why act now?

Earlier this month, a Democratic-led committee released a 31-page report on potential reforms to the Electoral Count Act.

“As the events leading up to the violent attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, demonstrated, the Electoral Count Act of 1887 is in dire need of reform. It is antiquated, incomplete, vague, and open to exploitation,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., chairperson of the Committee on House Administration. “But to be clear — reforming the Electoral Count Act, necessary as it is, would not restrain the erosion of democracy or the dishonest efforts across the nation to diminish and impede the equal freedom to vote.”

Key Republicans including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have expressed a willingness to back reforms, but Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has argued the reforms don’t go far enough in addressing threats to democracy and restrictions to the vote in elections beyond the race for president.

As the movement gains new bipartisan traction, election experts are calling for lawmakers to keep the momentum up.

“If these disputes aren’t resolved, then partisan actors are going to act a certain way and try to exploit ambiguities to their favor whereas if you sort of close those gaps prior to the election, then you’re more likely to have a fair process that produces an outcome without dispute that it’s legitimate,” Green said.

She added, “We only have until 2024 to fix this.”

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DNC pulls record fundraising end-of-year hauls leading into critical midterm election year

DNC pulls record fundraising end-of-year hauls leading into critical midterm election year
DNC pulls record fundraising end-of-year hauls leading into critical midterm election year
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — The Democratic National Committee announced it hit new fundraising highs, raking in $10.7 million in December and $157 million in 2021. Both figures are records for the committee in a non-presidential election year.

The haul by the DNC and its joint fundraising arm, first published by ABC News, provide a war chest to a party that’s set to face tough midterm election races across the country as the Biden administration sees poor polling numbers across a wide range of issues.

A new ABC/Ipsos poll finds troubling disapproval numbers for the administration’s handling of inflation, the economy, crime, among other issues. Only 1% of Americans believe the state of the economy to be “excellent,” according to the polling data, a clear series of hurdles the campaign arm of the Democratic Party must overcome if it wishes to maintain its razor-thin majority on Capitol Hill. Republicans only need to flip five House seats and one Senate seat currently held by Democrats to take both chambers of Congress.

The DNC, helmed by former Senate candidate turned Biden ally Jaime Harrison, was able to rake in large sums of cash, but recent reports allege fissures between Harrison and the White House, according to a report from NBC News.

Neither Harrison nor the White House reportedly have a clear strategy on how to rebound Biden’s struggling reputation, either, according to the report. Questions remain if those are obstacles the DNC — and Harrison — will navigate alone.

Without mentioning the report by name, Harrison took to Twitter Sunday to defend himself and his work.

“Only in DC … can you break a fundraising record & have folks complain it isn’t enough. That’s what the DNC did in ’21! The DNC work isn’t always easy & covid has created its own challenges. Our offices have been closed since 2020, but despite barriers we are making a difference,” Harrison tweeted as part of a longer thread.

“To unnamed sources … if you expect me to go away or roll into a ball and whimper… you picked the wrong one. The focus is upending the party of fraud, fear and fascism. You have the mission, now get with the program,” Harrison continued.

An advisor to President Joe Biden told ABC News Sunday that it has full confidence in Harrison’s leadership at the DNC.

“President Biden and Democrats are united – we’re focused on lowering costs for the American people while talking to the American people about our accomplishments – we created more jobs than in any one year in the history of the country and passed a historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law,” the advisor said. “Jaime Harrison has been a critical partner in this effort, helping share our message with the American people, while working to put Democrats in the best position to win in 2022 and 2024.”

Democratic South Carolina Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., defended Harrison’s leadership in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” Sunday morning, saying that the DNC leader believes in “fighting rather than switching.”

“He knows what it is to run. He knows what it is to lose,” said Clyburn. “Jaime Harrison is just what we need.”

And despite potential tumult between leadership and the White House, the DNC saw particular gains in its grassroots fundraising program, which also saw its best off-year pull. The grassroots team brought in $6.1 million in December, while the group’s major donor team raised $2.5 million over the last December averages.

One million people donated to the committee in 2021, beating out the previous record set in 2009 by at least 200,000 donors. Its end-of-year push surpassed the group’s $9.1 million haul in November.

The DNC now has $65 million cash on hand, a spokesperson told ABC News, which puts the group near even with late winter totals from the Republican National Committee, who ended November 2021 with more $65 million cash on hand. More recent RNC disclosures are not yet public.

Back in April, the group announced at least a $20 million investment in midterm battlegrounds, sending resources, such as increasing staffing, to key states such as Georgia, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Wisconsin, hoping to replicate the successes in the Georgia runoff elections for this upcoming cycle, Harrison said at the time.

“We’re going to start our coalition-building earlier,” Harrison said in April, during the announcement of the multi-million dollar investment. “You’ve heard the criticism of the Democratic Party, ‘Why are they just sending people to our community three months before the election?’ Well, folks, we are going to end that right now. We are going to start sending people to your community now.”

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