#Senate now going through nonsensical #Republican motions re #Mayorkas#impeachment that are all being rejected. There will likely be more before a real vote on Schumer’s point of order that article I is unconstitutional.
#HouseRepublicans are expected to send over articles of #impeachment against #DHS Sec #Mayorkas on Tues afternoon, kicking off what is likely to be a brief trial in the upper chamber that could conclude as soon as Wed.
Led by 11 impeachment managers appointed by #House Speaker #MikeJohnson, House #Republicans have demanded a full trial, while Senate Democrats, who hold a 51-49 majority, are planning to band together to dismiss or table the trial.
Most #Senate#Republicans, despite previously voicing issues w/the substance of the articles of #impeachment against #Mayorkas, have echoed the lower chamber’s calls for the Senate to adhere to the rules of impeachment & hold a #trial.
At least one Republican — Sen #MittRomney — has said he plans to vote against a full trial. Several others who have been critical of the impeachment have yet to stake out their position, including Sens #SusanCollins & #LisaMurkowski.
"Rural white voters have long enjoyed outsize power in American politics. They have inflated voting power in the U.S. Senate, the U.S. House and the Electoral College. …
The unfortunate fact is that polls suggest many rural white people’s commitment to the American political system is eroding."
#Trump saw more turnover in his #Cabinet than any other recent president, & it’s not even close. #POTUS#Biden, on the other hand, has had relatively little change in his admin’s top roles so far.
As Trump & Biden barrel toward a fall rematch, The WaPo is examining the numbers behind their time as president. In this case, we reviewed how they ran the vast #ExecutiveBranch of govt through the lens of the #stability of their Cabinets.
The Cabinet consists of the leaders of the 15 major executive depts — think #Defense, #State, #Justice — as well as additional snr ofcls. These can include the #EPA admin & #SmallBusiness Admin chief, ambassador to the #UN & US #trade rep. The VP & the WH #ChiefOfStaff, who are not #Senate-confirmed appointments, are also in the Cabinet.
About ¾ of #Trump’s initial Cabinet picks were GONE by the end of his 4 yrs in office, while only a handful have left #Biden’s almost 3½ yrs in.
"Freedom. Prosperity. Strength. That's what America stood for under the leadership of President Donald J. Trump -- the best president of my lifetime. [🤣] That's why I'm introducing legislation to rename Dulles as the Donald J. Trump International Airport," Rep #GuyReschenthaler said on X.
The bill, was referred to the #House Transportation & Infrastructure Cmte for consideration.
It's not yet clear how the bill will fare in the #GOP-controlled House, tho it's likely to be DOA in the Democrat-controlled #Senate -- meaning it would not become #law.
#HouseRepublicans urged Schumer to "schedule a trial on the matter expeditiously."
#Schumer & his staff have promised to start the process of swearing senators in as jurors the day after the articles are received in the chamber. Washington Senator Patty Murray, the #Senate President Pro Tempore, will preside over the #Mayorkas#impeachment trial.
The articles accuse #Mayorkas of "willful & systemic refusal to comply w/the #law" in enforcing #border policy & "breach public trust." After passage, #ChuckSchumer called the #impeachment …a "sham” & said #HouseRepublicans failed to demonstrate the Secy committed any impeachable offenses.
The #Senate is widely expected to acquit…. #Republicans in the upper chamber also expressed doubts Mayorkas' actions rise to "high crimes & misdemeanors" the standard set by the #Constitution for impeachments.
#JosephLieberman, the doggedly independent 4-term #US#senator from #Connecticut who was the Democratic nominee for VP in 2000, becoming the first Jewish candidate on the national ticket of a major party, died March 27 in NYC. He was 82.
The cause was complications from a fall, his family said in a statement.
His full-throated support of the 2003 invasion of #Iraq & the increasingly unpopular #war that followed doomed #JoeLieberman’s bid for the Democratic presidential nom in 2004 & led to his rejection by #Connecticut#Democrats when he sought his 4th #Senate term in 2006. He kept his seat by running that Nov as an #independent candidate & attracting substantial support from #Republican & unaffiliated voters.
“I have not always fit comfortably into conventional political boxes,” #JoeLieberman said near the end of his #Senate career, an understatement that tiptoed around the anger his maverick ways stoked among many liberals.
His transition from #AlGore’s running mate in 2000 on the Democratic ticket to high-profile cheerleader for #JohnMcCain 8 yrs later was a turnaround unmatched in recent American politics.
#JoeLieberman generally voted w/his party (#Democrats), but he sided w/ #Republicans on cutting the capital gains tax, vouchers for parents to send their children to private schools, & placing restrictions on consumer lawsuits against corps, the latter of special interest to #Connecticut’s large #insurance companies.
His willingness to buck his party put him at odds w/teachers, trial lawyers & other powerful Dem constituencies. But it gave him influence w/in the increasingly #polarized#Senate….
…in #JoeLieberman’s 2012 farewell #Senate speech. “The greatest obstacle I see standing between us & the brighter American future we all want is right here in Washington,” he told colleagues. “It is the #partisan#polarization of our #politics which prevents us from making the principled compromises on which #progress in a #democracy depends.”
[just take a look at the House of Representatives for confirmation. Not that I’d go along w/any of House Republicans inane performative policies.]
“Name a force or impulse that threatens the stability of the American political system – distrust in the fairness of elections, conspiracy theorizing, the embrace of authoritarianism – and it is always more prevalent among rural Whites than among those living elsewhere."
~ Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy (New York: Random House, 2024), p. 5
“Because it violates the ‘one person, one vote’ standard, malapportionment in the Electoral College and especially the U.S. Senate is the primary means by which White voters—and rural Whites most of all—retain electoral advantages at the national level. ...
No group was ever dealt a better electoral hand than rural White Americans."
"The inflated power of rural White voters confers upon them an unusual ability to force state and national governments to cater to their preferences and grievances. Herein lies the danger: precisely because they wield inflated power, rural Whites’ increasingly tenuous commitments to democratic norms and traditions are magnified across the U.S. political system in many of the same ways their preferences have been for two centuries.”
“The malapportioned Senate assigns more power to smaller, more rural states, and this small-state tilt of malapportionment is greater now than when the U.S. constitution was ratified. ...
Los Angeles County has more people than any of the forty smallest states, but its 10 million residents must share two senators with nearly 30 million other Californians."
"There are a remarkable 120 U.S. counties that have more people than the entire state of Wyoming. Yet the Cowboy State’s 581,000 citizens enjoy the same two votes in the Senate as the other forty-states do. ...
These perversions of power will worsen in the decades ahead. By 2040, 70 percent of Americans will reside in the fifteen most-populous states and choose thirty of the one hundred U.S. senators. "
"Concentrated in smaller and more rural states, the remaining 30% of the population will elect 70 per cent of senators. No matter how distorted these population ratios become, each state is guaranteed its two senators – past, present, and forever.”
#Shutdown deadline passes as #Senate votes on spending bill
The #House already passed the $1.2T bill. Funding for parts of the #FederalGovernment expired at 12:01AM Sat — but the Senate was working its way through a series of amendments to fund agencies for the next 6 months, which means the lapse in funding could end before fed #workers come in Mon.
The #legislation’s passage in the #Senate is not in doubt — it has the support of President #Biden (cuz it’s better than nothing), Senate Majority Leader Chuck #Schumer & Minority Leader Mitch #McConnell. But a single senator can throw up procedural roadblocks & push the govt past the #shutdown deadline….
…>½ of #IRS employees would face furloughs at the height of #tax filing season. #Border Patrol officers & about 1.3M active-duty #military#service members would remain on the job #withoutPay.
"The Republican Party, eyeing control of the Senate next year, is trying to mimic [Trump's] success with a cohort of candidates who in the past might have been attacked as a bunch of rich men but this year will be sold as successful outsiders in the Trump mold."
"The decision by Ohio voters on Tuesday to nominate Bernie Moreno to take on Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, is the capstone of a year that has crowned nominees — or anointed clear front-runners — with remarkable wealth in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Montana and now Ohio."