Author: PolitCens

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NEW YORK — Senator Bob Menendez on Wednesday sought dismissal of charges, including bribery, as his lawyers told a judge that New York federal prosecutors are making claims that are “outrageously false” and “distort reality.”

The New Jersey Democrat and his wife pleaded not guilty after they were charged last fall with accepting bribes of gold bars, cash and a luxury car in return for help from the senator that would benefit three New Jersey businessmen, who were also arrested and pleaded not guilty.

The indictment has since been updated with charges alleging that Menendez used his political influence to secretly advance Egypt’s interests and that he acted favorably to Qatar’s government to aid a businessman.

“The Senator stands behind all of his official actions and decisions, and will be proud to defend them at trial,” the lawyers wrote.

A trial is scheduled for May 5. Menendez is free on $100,000 bail.

Menendez’s lawyers said in court papers that their client’s conduct was “constitutionally immune,” and none of it could serve as the basis for criminal charges.

“The government’s accusations in this case — that he sold his office and even sold out his nation — are outrageously false, and indeed distort reality,” the lawyers wrote.

They said the government is free to prosecute members of Congress for agreeing to exchange legislative action for personal benefits, as long as it doesn’t attack the integrity of the legislative acts themselves.

“But here, the Indictment does not try to walk that line; it flouts it entirely,” the lawyers said.

They said prosecutors were wrong to charge Menendez in connection with his decision to contact local state prosecutors to advocate on behalf of New Jersey constituents or to use his decision to invite constituents to meetings with foreign dignitaries as evidence against him.

“And the government goes so far as to impugn the Senator for introducing constituents to investors abroad. None of this is illegal, or even improper,” the lawyers wrote.

The indictment claims Menendez directly interfered in criminal investigations, including by pushing to install a federal prosecutor in New Jersey he believed could be influenced in a criminal case against a businessman and associate of the senator. Prosecutors also alleged that Menendez tried to use his position of power to meddle in a separate criminal investigation by the New Jersey Attorney General’s office.

Menendez’s lawyers said the novel charge that Menendez conspired with his wife and a businessman to act as an agent of the Egyptian government “fundamentally disrupts the separation of powers.”

Menendez, 70, was forced to step down from his powerful post leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after he was charged in September. Prosecutors said the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted bribes over the past five years from the New Jersey businessmen in exchange for a variety of corrupt acts.

In October, he was charged with conspiring to act as an agent of the Egyptian government. As a member of Congress, Menendez is prohibited from acting as an agent for a foreign government.

His lawyers said in their Manhattan federal court filing Wednesday that the charge empowers the executive and judicial branches of government to second-guess the way the senator chooses to engage with foreign representatives as he carries out his duties.

As an example, the lawyers said that a future president might decide to prosecute legislative enemies as agents of Ukraine for supporting aid during its war with Russia or as agents of China for resisting a proposed ban of TikTok, or as agents of Israel for supporting military aid to fight Hamas.

“The Court should not permit this novel and dangerous encroachment on legislative independence,” the lawyers said.

They said there was “overwhelming, indisputable evidence” that Menendez was independent from any foreign official.

“As the government knows from its own investigation, far from doing Egypt’s bidding during the life of the alleged conspiracy, the Senator repeatedly held up military aid and took Egypt to task, challenging its government’s record for imprisoning political dissidents, running roughshod over the press, and other human rights abuses,” they said.

The lawyers said that their arguments Wednesday were just the start of legal challenges to be filed in the next week, including claims that the indictment was filed in the wrong courthouse and unjustly groups separate schemes into single conspiracy counts.

A spokesperson for prosecutors declined to comment.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers came back into session this week after a three-week holiday break to continue work toward a deal on border security in return for Republican votes to send more aid to Ukraine.

“We are closer to an agreement than we have been since the beginning of these talks,” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy, one of the lead negotiators on the deal, told reporters Tuesday.

“I wish that we weren’t in this position. I wish that Senate Republicans supported Ukraine aid because they believe in Ukraine,” he said. “I wish that we weren’t conditioning support for Ukraine upon the resolution of the most difficult issue in American politics — immigration reform.”

The White House’s $106 billion national security supplemental request also includes funding for border security as well as nearly $14 billion in aid to Israel and funding for Taiwan to combat the threat posed by China.

Senate negotiators continued meeting remotely throughout the three weeks Congress was out of session.

“We are working very hard to come up with an agreement to improve our situation at the border. But it’s also important to remember the world is literally at war,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “This is the most serious international situation we have faced since the Berlin Wall came down. We need to pass the supplemental, and there needs to be a strong border provision part of it.”

The United States has dedicated more than $100 billion to arming and supporting Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, and President Joe Biden has asked Congress to approve an additional $60 billion. Republicans in Congress have become increasingly skeptical about the need to continue underwriting Ukraine’s defense.

The Pentagon announced on December 27 a new $250 million security assistance package for Ukraine, which included additional munitions for surface-to-air missiles systems, artillery rounds and more air defense components. The Pentagon still has $4 billion available to provide Ukraine with military aid, but no funds are available to replenish the U.S. military’s stockpiles. Officials tell VOA that no new aid packages are expected until Congress provides more funding.

Republicans in the Senate have conditioned approval of any additional money for Ukraine on the simultaneous strengthening of immigration rules aimed at reducing the number of people illegally entering the United States at its southern border and expelling some who are already in the country.

According to multiple news organizations, an estimated 300,000 people crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in December 2023. That estimate marks the highest recorded number of U.S.-Mexico border crossings.

Even if an agreement passes in the Senate, it might not survive in the House, where Republicans hold a very narrow majority. A significant group of Republican House members oppose additional aid to Ukraine, and the party in early October voted out a speaker who partnered with Democrats to pass legislation.

Last week, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson led a delegation of 60 House Republicans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border at Eagle Pass, Texas.

“If President Biden wants a supplemental spending bill focused on national security, it better begin with defending America’s national security,” Johnson told reporters at a news conference on the border.

Republicans have proposed their own legislation, H.R. 2, which would resume construction of a border wall as well as impose new restrictions on asylum-seekers.

VOA Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb contributed reporting.
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On January 15, the 2024 U.S. presidential election season will officially kick off with the Iowa caucuses. Republican candidates including Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, and Vivek Ramaswamy will seek to unseat the current front-runner, former President Donald Trump, as the party’s eventual nominee to challenge incumbent President Joe Biden in November’s general election. (Produced by: Alex Gendler)
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LONDON — 2024 will pose a major test of democratic rule as an estimated 4 billion people in more than 50 nations — almost half the world’s population — are set to vote in national elections, with the outcomes likely to shape global politics for years or decades to come.

Bangladesh began 2024 with the first major election of the year as Sheikh Hasina won a fifth term as prime minister Saturday. Opposition parties boycotted the vote over complaints that it was neither free nor fair.

A crucial presidential election is due to take place on the self-governing island of Taiwan on January 13. China’s threat to retake the island by force looms over the vote, with political parties divided on how to approach Beijing.

“We are not only choosing Taiwan’s future leaders to decide on the country’s future but also deciding on the peace and stability of the Indo-Pacific region,” William Lai, the presidential candidate for the ruling Democratic Progressive Party, told supporters at a campaign rally earlier this month. Lai is ahead in the polls.

In February, Indonesia is set to choose a new president to rule the nation of 277 million people, making it one of the world’s biggest votes held on a single day.

Pakistan will hold parliamentary elections in February; opposition leader and former Prime Minister Imran Khan remains jailed on charges of leaking state secrets, which he denies.

Russians will vote in presidential elections in March — although observers predict incumbent Vladimir Putin is all but certain to win as he is able to control the electoral process and state media.

“Putin is not going to have any genuine opponents,” said Ian Bond of the Center for European Reform. “He has control of all the administrative machinery required to make sure that a crushing vote in favor of him is delivered and we get another six years of Putin up to at least 2030.”

Largest democracy

India — the world’s biggest democracy — will hold parliamentary elections in April and May, with the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, ahead in the polls.

Veteran Indian political journalist Pushp Saraf believes the opposition will struggle to make headway.

“It all depends how united they are,” Saraf said. “Otherwise, if they stay disunited, as they appear to be many times, they have little chance of succeeding against BJP, which is organizationally very strong, and with Narendra Modi, who is riding high on the popularity wave, at least in the Hindi heartland.”

“These are very significant elections because there are clearly two opinions in the country at the moment. One is that BJP is polarizing society along the communal lines. And on the other hand, there is the opinion that BJP is focusing more on national security,” Saraf told The Associated Press.

On June 2, Mexico is due to hold its presidential election, which could herald a new milestone for the country, “because of the possibility that, for the first time, a woman will govern Mexico,” according to Mexican pollster Patricio Morelos. Mexico’s ruling party has selected Claudia Sheinbaum, a former mayor of Mexico City, as its candidate.

The European Union, representing more than half-a-billion people, is set to hold parliamentary elections in June. Polls suggest a resurgence in support for right-wing populist parties in many countries, including France, Germany and Italy.

“There is a real possibility, I think, that the far right will do well in European elections. Not to the point of running the European Parliament, but conceivably to the point where anyone who wants to run the European Parliament has to take account of what they’re saying and doing,” Anand Menon, professor of international politics at Kings College London, told VOA.

Britain is scheduled to hold elections before the end of the year, with polls suggesting opposition Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is on course to end a tumultuous 14 years of Conservative rule, with five different prime ministers.

“We had the Brexit wars that dominated everything, then we had COVID-19, now we’ve got the cost-of-living crisis. We’ve had government instability… the instability itself has become a political issue,” Menon said.

On November 5, the United States is due to hold a highly anticipated presidential election as Americans decide whether to give Democrat Joe Biden a second term as U.S. president or choose a Republican alternative, with Donald Trump seemingly his most likely opponent — although the challenger faces numerous legal hurdles in the run up to the vote.

Worldwide effects

The impact of many of these elections in 2024 will likely be felt around the world, said analyst Menon.

“Yes, all politics is local — but there are global trends. Immigration is going to figure a lot in many elections around the world. It will figure in the U.S. election, it will figure in the European elections, it will figure in the U.K. election,” Memon said.

“Insecurity will be a major factor. One of the things we’re living with in the West now is an increased sense of insecurity, both economic — but also in security terms, given the war that’s going on in Ukraine and given the doubts about what the Taiwanese election later this month might mean for Taiwan-Chinese relations.

“So, there are common factors, but those are refracted through the prism of the local and domestic in each country, so they play out in different ways,” Menon said.
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NEWTON, Iowa — Former President Donald Trump, campaigning in Iowa on Saturday, marked the third anniversary of the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by casting the migrant surge on the southern border as the “real” insurrection.

Just over a week before the Republican nomination process begins with Iowa’s kickoff caucuses, Trump did not explicitly acknowledge the date. But he continued to claim that countries have been emptying jails and mental institutions to fuel a record number of migrant crossings, even though there is no evidence that is the case.

“When you talk about insurrection, what they’re doing, that’s the real deal. That’s the real deal. Not patriotically and peacefully — peacefully and patriotically,” Trump said, quoting from his speech on January 6, before a violent mob of his supporters stormed the Capitol as part of a desperate bid to keep him in power after his 2020 election loss.

Trump’s remarks in Newton in central Iowa came a day after Biden delivered a speech near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, where he cast Trump as a grave threat to democracy and called January 6 a day when “we nearly lost America — lost it all.”

With a likely rematch of the 2020 election looming, both Biden and Trump have frequently invoked January 6 on the campaign trail. Trump, who is under federal indictment for his efforts to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, has consistently downplayed or spread conspiracy theories about a riot in which his supporters — spurred by his lies about election fraud — tried to disrupt the certification of Biden’s win.

Trump also continued to bemoan the treatment of those who have been jailed for participating in the riot, again labeling them “hostages.” More than 1,230 people have been charged with federal crimes connected to the violence, including assaulting police officers and seditious conspiracy.

“They ought to release the J6 hostages. They’ve suffered enough,” he said in Clinton, in the state’s far east. “Release the J6 hostages, Joe. Release ’em, Joe. You can do it real easy, Joe,” he said.

Trump was holding the commit-to-caucus events just over a week before voting will begin on January 15. He arrived at his last event nearly three-and-a-half hours late due to what he said was a mechanical issue with a rented plane.

After Trump spoke in Newton, he signed hats and other items people in the crowd passed to him, including a copy of a Playboy magazine that featured him on the cover.

One man in the crowd, Dick Green, was standing about 15 feet away, weeping after the former president autographed his white “Trump Country” hat and shook his hand.

“It’ll never get sold. It will be in my family,” Green said of the hat.

A caucus captain and a pastor in Brighton, Iowa, Green said he had prayed for four years to meet Trump.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “It’s just the beginning of his next presidency.”

Trump spent much of the day assailing Biden, casting him as incompetent and the real threat to democracy. But he also attacked fellow Republicans, including the late Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whose “no” vote derailed GOP efforts to repeal former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare law.

“John McCain, for some reason, couldn’t get his arm up that day,” said Trump of McCain, who was shot down over Vietnam in 1967 and spent 5½ years as a prisoner of war. The injuries he suffered left him unable to lift his arms over his head for the rest of his life. His daughter, Meghan McCain, responded on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, calling Trump an expletive and her father an “American hero.”

Earlier Saturday, Trump courted young conservative activists in Des Moines, speaking to members of Run GenZ, an organization that encourages young conservatives to run for office.

Trump’s campaign is hoping to turn out thousands of supporters who have never caucused before as part of a show of force aimed at denying his rivals momentum and demonstrating his organizing prowess heading into the general election.

His chief rivals, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, were also campaigning in the state as they battle for second place in hopes of emerging as the most viable alternative to Trump, who is leading by wide margins in early state and national polls.

Trump has used the trip to step up his attacks against Haley, who has been gaining ground. He again cast her Saturday as insufficiently conservative and a “globalist” beholden to Wall Street donors, and accused her of being disloyal for running against him.

“Nikki will sell you out just like she sold me out,” he charged.

On Friday, Trump had highlighted several recent Haley statements that drew criticism, including her comment that voters in New Hampshire correct Iowa’s mistakes (“You don’t have to be corrected,” he said.) and her failure to mention slavery when asked what had caused the Civil War.

“I don’t know if it’s going to have an impact, but you know like … slavery’s sort of the obvious answer as opposed to her three paragraphs of bulls—,” he told a crowd Friday.

In Newton, he said that he was fascinated by the “horrible” war, which he suggested he could have prevented.

“It’s so fascinating,” he said. “It’s just different. I just find it… I’m so attracted to seeing it… So many mistakes were made. See that was something I think could have been negotiated, to be honest with you.”

Haley’s campaign has pointed to his escalating attention, including a new attack ad, as evidence Trump is worried about her momentum.

“God bless President Trump, he’s been on a temper tantrum every day about me … and everything he’s saying is not true,” Haley told a crowd Saturday in North Liberty, Iowa.  
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Focusing heavily on the threat he says former US President Donald Trump poses to American democracy, President Joe Biden kicked off his reelection campaign by pledging to make the defense of the country’s democratic system the central theme of his 2024 campaign and potential second term. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has this report.
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NEW YORK — New York state lawyers increased their request for penalties to over $370 million Friday in Donald Trump’s civil business fraud trial. He retorted: “They should pay me.”

The exchange came as lawyers for both sides filed papers highlighting their takeaways from the trial in court filings ahead of closing arguments, set for next Thursday. Trump is expected to attend, though plans could change.

It will be the final chance for state and defense lawyers to make their cases. The civil lawsuit, which accuses the leading Republican presidential hopeful of deceiving banks and insurers by vastly inflating his net worth, is consequential for him even while he fights four criminal cases in various courts.

The New York civil case could end up barring him from doing business in the state where he built his real estate empire. On top of that, state Attorney General Letitia James is seeking the $370 million penalty, plus interest — up from a pretrial figure of $250 million, nudged to over $300 million during the proceedings.

The state says the new sum reflects windfalls from wrongdoing, chiefly $199 million in profits from property sales and $169 million in savings on interest rates, as calculated by an investment banking expert hired by James’ office.

Trump bristled at the proposed penalty in an all-caps post on his Truth Social platform, insisting anew that “there was no victim, no default, no damages.”

He complained that the attorney general was seeking $370 million and instead “should pay me,” asserting that businesses are fleeing New York.

According to the state Labor Department, the number of private sector jobs in New York increased 1% in the year that ended this past November, compared to 1.6% nationally.

James’ office argued in a filing Friday that Trump, his company and executives clearly intended to defraud people.

“The myriad deceptive schemes they employed to inflate asset values and conceal facts were so outrageous that they belie innocent explanation,” state lawyer Kevin Wallace wrote.

The state alleges Trump and his company ginned up exorbitant values for golf courses, hotels, and more, including Trump’s former home in his namesake tower in New York and his current home at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida. The numbers were listed on personal financial statements that netted him attractive rates on loans and insurance, leaving him money to invest in other projects and even his 2016 presidential campaign, James’ office says.

The defendants, including Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric, deny any wrongdoing. The former president has painted the case as a political maneuver by James, Judge Arthur Engoron and other Democrats, saying they’re abusing the legal system to try to cut off his chances of winning back the White House this year.

He asserts that his financial statements came in billions of dollars low, and that any overestimations — such as valuing his Trump Tower penthouse at nearly three times its actual size — were mere mistakes and made no difference in the overall picture of his fortune.

He also says the documents are essentially legally bulletproof because they said the numbers weren’t audited, among other caveats. Recipients understood them as simply starting points for their own analyses, the defense says.

None of Trump’s lenders testified that they wouldn’t have made the loans or would have charged more interest if his financial statements had shown different numbers, and 10-plus weeks of testimony produced “no factual evidence from any witness that the gains were ill-gotten,” attorneys Michael Madaio and Christopher Kise wrote in a filing Friday. Nor, they said, was there proof that insurers were ripped off.

Separately, defense lawyers argued that claims against Executive Vice Presidents Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. should be dismissed because they never had “anything more than a peripheral knowledge or involvement in the creation, preparation, or use of” their father’s financial statements.

The sons relied on the work of other Trump Organization executives and an outside accounting firm that prepared those documents, attorneys Clifford Robert and Michael Farina said, echoing the scions’ own testimony.

Their father also took the stand, disputing the allegations, decrying the case as political and criticizing the judge and the attorney general. James’ office argued in its filing Friday that Trump was “not a credible witness.”

“He was evasive, gave irrelevant speeches and was incapable of answering questions in a direct and credible manner,” Wallace wrote.

The verdict is up to the judge because James brought the case under a state law that doesn’t allow for a jury. Engoron has said he hopes to decide by the end of this month.

He will weigh claims of conspiracy, insurance fraud and falsifying business records. But he ruled before trial on the lawsuit’s top claim, finding that Trump and other defendants engaged in fraud for years. With that ruling, the judge ordered that a receiver take control of some of the ex-president’s properties, but an appeals court has frozen that order for now.

During the trial, Engoron fined Trump a total of $15,000 after finding that he violated a gag order that barred all trial participants from commenting publicly on the judge’s staff. The order was imposed after Trump maligned the judge’s principal law clerk.

Trump’s lawyers are appealing the gag order.
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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA — The January 8 inauguration of Jeff Landry as Louisiana governor consolidates Republican Party control of statehouses in America’s Deep South and the region’s shift to more conservative governance.

Nearly 60% of Louisiana voters chose Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election.

Republicans are ready for change at the statehouse in Baton Rouge.

As a candidate and as the state’s attorney general, Landry backed banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, expanding rights for gun owners and enacting a near-total abortion ban without exceptions for rape and incest.

“I’m tired of the government doing everything for everybody, because it makes people lazy,” said retired firefighter Robert Caretto. “I believe in peace through military strength, I believe we shouldn’t make decisions that hurt children with gender changes based on what a small percentage of gay or trans people want, and I believe in strict borders that protect Americans.

“I want to leave this country better for my grandkids, so I want a government that shares my values,” he told VOA. “I’m excited because I think this incoming Louisiana government is a step in the right direction.”

New Orleans event coordinator and Democratic voter Tana Velen sees the new governor as a step backward.

“I’m so worried, especially as a woman, about the direction we’re heading,” she told VOA. “I’m afraid women will lose their lives and their ability to have children because of these decisions being made by politicians instead of doctors, I’m afraid the trans community will no longer have access to gender-affirming care, and I’m afraid his policies will cause Louisiana’s public schools to fall even further behind the rest of the country.”

Outgoing Governor John Bel Edwards “governed for the last eight years as a conservative on most issues even though he was a Democrat,” said Barry Erwin, CEO of the public policy group Council for a Better Louisiana. “When it came to abortion, the right to bear arms and even most fiscal issues, he often sided with Republicans.”

With a legislative supermajority, Erwin said, Republican lawmakers “were able to get most of what they wanted anyway. What they couldn’t do, they’ll be able to do now with Landry as governor. But after they get a few of those higher profile things done in the first year or two, I don’t think things will feel too different.”

Shifting Louisiana follows a shifting South

Shifting from a Democratic governor to a Republican governor is part of a decadeslong trend in states across the Deep South. Dillard University professor of Urban Studies and Public Policy Robert Collins said it is partly because past political nuances in the region are gone.

“In America today, politics are more nationalized,” he told VOA. “Democrats are liberal, and Republicans are conservative. You basically either support Trump or you don’t. And everyone basically fits into one of those two categories.

“But from before the Civil War in the 1860s until after the civil rights battles of the 1960s, you had more factions. Rival Democrats could be liberal or conservative, and the GOP was split into liberal and conservative camps, as well.”

There were very few Republicans in the pre-Civil War South because the party’s policies were considered anti-slavery. The economies of southern states, including Louisiana, depended largely on slavery, so voters in the state — who were all white because slaves didn’t have the right to vote — were largely conservative Democrats.

That was mostly unchanged until the Civil Rights Act of 1965, which struck down the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War and finally made it possible for Black Americans at large to vote.

“You would have expected Black voters to align with the Republican Party because they were the party seen to abolish slavery during the Civil War,” Collins said, “but there was no Republican Party in the South in the 1960s. If you wanted your vote to count for something, you had to vote Democrat. So Black southerners became Democrats along with the pro-racism whites — white people were conservative Democrats while Black people were liberal.”

Republicans focused on white, southern Democrats, many of whom were fearful that Black voters were becoming too powerful and were disenchanted with their party for helping pass civil rights laws.

“Republican leaders like Barry Goldwater and future President Richard Nixon saw this disenchantment and offered the Republican Party as an alternative via what is called the ‘Southern Strategy,’” Collins said. “It took decades, but slowly, the conservative Democrats of southern states like Louisiana became Republicans.”

National politics take over

Since Edwards first took office as governor in 2016, Democrats’ share of seats in the Louisiana House of Representatives fell from 41 to 32 out of 105. And within the Republican Party, moderates are losing to more conservative challengers, pushing Louisiana governance further to the right. 

“The other states in the Deep South had already transitioned away from the nuance of local politics,” Collins said, “and with the election of Jeff Landry as governor, it seems Louisiana has finally fully transitioned to the duality of national politics, as well.”

“How do I feel about the direction of our state?” asked Larisa Diephuis, a New Orleans Democrat. “Well, we’re leaving.”
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WASHINGTON — A chaotic year for the House is coming to a close with more Democrats than Republicans deciding to leave the chamber, a disparity that could have major ramifications in next year’s elections.

About two dozen Democrats have indicated they won’t seek reelection, with half running for another elected office. Meanwhile, only 14 Republicans have said they are not seeking another term, with three seeking elected office elsewhere.

More retirements can be expected after the holidays, when lawmakers have had a chance to spend time with families and make decisions ahead of reelection deadlines. But so far, the numbers don’t indicate the dysfunction in the House is causing a mass exodus for either party.

“Members sort of knew that this is what the institution is currently like when they chose to run for office,” said Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a think tank that maintains a database of vital statistics on Congress, including retirements. “Some of them may well be feeling frustrated at this point in time, but anybody who has been elected to Congress in recent years, they’re not surprised at what they’re finding when they are getting to Washington.”

Republicans certainly had the most high-profile exits. Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., became only the third lawmaker to be expelled by colleagues since the Civil War. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was the first-ever speaker removed from that office by his colleagues. He opted to leave effective December 31 rather than serve among the rank-and-file.

But it’s the departure of a handful of Democrats in competitive districts that has Republicans thinking the overall retirement picture gives them an advantage in determining who will control the House after the 2024 elections.

Reps. Katie Porter of California, Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia proved they could win toss-up congressional districts in good election cycles for Democrats and not-so-good cycles. They are all seeking higher office within their home states. Porter and Slotkin are running for the U.S. Senate. Spanberger is running for governor in 2025.

Democrats are also losing six-term Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan to retirement, leaving them with another competitive open seat to defend in a state that will be crucial in the presidential election. Rep. Jennifer Wexton, D-Va., is not seeking reelection due to health challenges in a district that leans Democratic but is more competitive than most.

On the other side of the aisle, the Republicans leaving office generally represent districts that Democrats have little chance of flipping. They’ll be replaced by Republicans, predicted Rep. Richard Hudson, the chairman of the House Republican campaign arm.

“Retirements are a huge problem for the Democrats. They’re not a problem for us,” Hudson said.

The exception is Santos, who represented a competitive New York district. Democrats hope former Rep. Tom Suozzi can win back the seat, which he gave up when he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2022.

Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma said he found it “a bit of a surprise” that the number of Democrats leaving office exceeded the Republican exits given all that has transpired this year.

“Politically, I think we’re very well positioned for 2024,” Cole said. “I just think the margins are going to remain narrow no matter who wins. The number of competitive seats is so much lower than it was even a decade ago, the polarization is so much greater, that it’s hard to move big numbers. Whoever wins the presidency probably wins the House.”

Sometimes, legislators in the states tip the scales in determining the makeup of Congress. It’s one reason there are so few competitive races.

Three incumbent House Democrats from North Carolina have essentially been left with little opportunity to return after GOP lawmakers in the state drew new boundaries for their congressional districts. What were once competitive seats became near locks for whichever Republican emerges from the state’s primary elections.

Democratic Rep. Jeff Jackson decided to run for attorney general rather than attempt to run again for a Charlotte-area seat that he had just won in the 2022 midterms. Rep. Wiley Nickel, a fellow freshman who flipped a toss-up district in the last election, also announced he would not be running, and would focus instead on a potential U.S. Senate bid in 2026. And Rep. Kathy Manning said she won’t file for reelection under the current maps but would run if a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn the new districts is successful.

Manning said the city of Greensboro in her district was split into three pieces and combined with rural counties. She won in 2022 by a margin of 9 percentage points, but she said the new district gives a 16-point advantage to a Republican candidate.

Democrats are hoping court-ordered redistricting in Alabama and Louisiana will favor their side and effectively make the redistricting battles a wash.

Ambition is also playing a role in the retirement trends. About half of the Democrats not seeking reelection to the House are seeking office elsewhere. That includes three members running for the seat once held by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who entered the Senate in 1992 and served more than three decades before her death in September. Slotkin is running for the seat Sen. Debbie Stabenow has held for more than two decades. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota is running for president against fellow Democrat Joe Biden.

“If you are interested in a higher office, you’re going to be sensitive to when those things come up. They don’t always come up,” Reynolds said.

Still, a few lawmakers do attribute their leaving, at least in part, to the dysfunction they’ve witnessed in Congress.

Democratic Rep. Brian Higgins of New York doesn’t plan to wait for the election to get out. He’s retiring sometime in February.

“We’re spending more time doing less. And the American people aren’t served,” he said when announcing his retirement last month.

Republican Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., described a similar sense of frustration in his retirement announcement. He’s been critical of Republican leaders for “lying to America” that the 2020 election was stolen and downplaying the January 6 insurrection.

“Our nation is on a collision course with reality and a steadfast commitment to the truth,” Buck said. 
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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — More than 700,000 immigrants living illegally in California will gain access to free health care starting Monday under one of the state’s most ambitious coverage expansions in a decade.

It’s an effort that will eventually cost the state about $3.1 billion per year and inches California closer to Democrats’ goal of providing universal health care to its roughly 39 million residents.

Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers agreed in 2022 to provide health care access to all low-income adults regardless of their immigration status through the state’s Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal.

California is the most populous state to guarantee such coverage, though Oregon began doing so in July.

Newsom called the expansion “a transformative step towards strengthening the health care system for all Californians” when he proposed the changes two years ago.

Newsom made the commitment when the state had the largest budget surplus in its history. But as the program kicks off next week, California faces a record $68 billion budget deficit, raising questions and concerns about the economic ramifications of the expansion.

“Regardless of what your position is on this, it doesn’t make sense for us to be adding to our deficit,” said Republican Sen. Roger Niello, the vice-chair of the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee.

Immigration and health care advocates, who spent more than a decade fighting for the changes, have said the expanded coverage will close a gap in health care access and save the state money in the long run. Those who live in the state illegally often delay or avoid care because they aren’t eligible for most coverage, making it more expensive to treat them when they end up in emergency rooms.

“It’s a win-win, because it allows us to provide comprehensive care and we believe this will help keep our communities healthier,” said Dr. Efrain Talamantes, chief operating officer at AltaMed in Los Angeles, the largest federally qualified health center in California.

The update will be California’s largest health care expansion since the 2014 implementation of former President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, which allowed states to include adults who fall below 138% of the federal poverty level in their Medicaid programs. California’s uninsured rate dropped from about 17% to 7%.

But a large chunk of the population was left out: adults living in the United States without legal permission. They are not eligible for most public benefit programs, even though many have jobs and pay taxes.

Some states have used their tax dollars to cover a portion of health care expenses for some low-income immigrants. California first extended health care benefits to low-income children without legal status in 2015 and later added the benefits for young adults and people over the age of 50.

Now the last remaining group, adults ages 26-49, will be eligible for the state’s Medicaid program.

The state doesn’t know exactly how many people will enroll through the expansion, but state officials said more than 700,000 people will gain full health coverage allowing them to access preventative care and other treatment. That’s larger than the entire Medicaid population of several states.

“We’ve had this asterisk based on immigration status,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California, a consumer advocacy group. “Just from the numbers point of view, this is a big deal.”

Republicans and other conservative groups worry the new expansion will further strain the overloaded health care system and blasted the cost of the expansion.

State officials estimated the expansion will cost $1.2 billion the first six months and $3.1 billion annually thereafter from the budget. Spending for the Medi-Cal program, which is now about $37 billion annually, is the second-largest expense in the California budget, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Earlier this month, the state Department of Finance sent a letter urging state agencies to cut costs in light of the deficit. It has not given specific directions about the Medicaid expansion, state officials told The Associated Press in December.

California’s expansion of Medicaid will face other challenges. The state is chugging through a review of Medicaid enrollees’ eligibility for the first time in more than three years that was prompted by the end of some federal pandemic policies. Many immigrants who had their coverage protected during the COVID-19 pandemic now find themselves ineligible because they no longer financially qualify.

John Baackes, CEO of L.A. Care Health Plan, the state’s largest Medi-Cal plan with nearly 2.6 million members, said roughly 20,000 members have lost their Medicaid coverage during the review process this past year and are looking to secure new insurance plans. His organization is juggling to help people navigate through both processes.

“People are being bombarded with information,” Baackes said. “I can’t imagine if somebody were having to maneuver through all this, why they wouldn’t be terribly confused.”

“The phones are ringing off the walls,” he said.

Fear and distrust are also barriers for the expansion, said Sarah Dar, policy director for the California Immigrant Policy Center. 

Many immigrants avoid accepting any public programs or benefits out of fear it will eventually prevent them from gaining legal status under the “public charge” rule. The federal law requires those seeking to become permanent residents or gain legal status to prove they will not be a burden to the U.S., or a “public charge.” The rule no longer considers Medicaid as a factor under President Joe Biden’s administration, but the fear remains, she said.

More resources and effort are required to reach this population “because of the history of just being completely excluded and not interfacing with the health care system or with government programs at all for so long,” Dar said. 

California has more work to do to see the state’s uninsured rate hit zero, known as “universal coverage,” Dar said.

For one thing, immigrants living in the U.S. without legal permission are still not eligible to purchase insurance from Covered California, the state-run exchange offering steep discounts for people who meet certain income requirements. A bill pending in the state Legislature, supported by the California Immigrant Policy Center, would change that.

“It’s going to be another really big undertaking,” Dar said. “And we know that revenues are down … but it’s our job to make the case that, in times of economic downturn and whatnot, these are the communities that need the support the most.”
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portland, maine — Maine’s Democratic secretary of state on Thursday removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s presidential primary ballot under the Constitution’s insurrection clause, becoming the first election official to take action unilaterally as the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to decide whether Trump remains eligible to continue his campaign.

The decision by Secretary of State Shenna Bellows follows a ruling earlier this month by the Colorado Supreme Court that booted Trump from the ballot there under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. That decision has been stayed until the U.S. Supreme Court decides whether Trump is barred by the Civil War-era provision, which prohibits those who “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.

The Trump campaign said it would appeal Bellows’ decision to Maine’s state courts, and Bellows suspended her ruling until that court system rules on the case. In the end, it is likely that the nation’s highest court will have the final say on whether Trump appears on the ballot in Maine and in other states.

Bellows found that Trump could no longer run for his prior job because his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol violated Section 3, which bans from office those who “engaged in insurrection.” Bellows made the ruling after some state residents, including a bipartisan group of former lawmakers, challenged Trump’s position on the ballot.

“I do not reach this conclusion lightly,” Bellows wrote in her 34-page decision. “I am mindful that no Secretary of State has ever deprived a presidential candidate of ballot access based on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. I am also mindful, however, that no presidential candidate has ever before engaged in insurrection.”

The Trump campaign immediately slammed the ruling. “We are witnessing, in real-time, the attempted theft of an election and the disenfranchisement of the American voter,” campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.

Legal experts said that Thursday’s ruling demonstrates the need for the nation’s highest court, which has never ruled on Section 3, to clarify what states can do.

“It is clear that these decisions are going to keep popping up, and inconsistent decisions reached (like the many states keeping Trump on the ballot over challenges) until there is final and decisive guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court,” Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California-Los Angeles, wrote in response to the Maine decision. “It seems a certainty that [the Supreme Court] will have to address the merits sooner or later.”

In her decision, Bellows acknowledged that the U.S. Supreme Court will probably have the final word but said it was important she did her official duty.

That won her praise from the former state lawmakers who filed one of the petitions forcing her to consider the case.

“Secretary Bellows showed great courage in her ruling, and we look forward to helping her defend her judicious and correct decision in court. No elected official is above the law or our constitution, and today’s ruling reaffirms this most important of American principles,” Republican Kimberly Rosen, independent Thomas Saviello and Democrat Ethan Strimling said in a statement.

But other Republicans in the state were outraged.

“This is a sham decision that mimics Third World dictatorships,” Maine’s House Republican leader, Billy Bob Faulkingham, said in a statement. “It will not stand legal scrutiny. People have a right to choose their leaders devoid of mindless decisions by partisan hacks.”

The Trump campaign on Tuesday requested that Bellows disqualify herself from the case because she’d previously tweeted that January 6 was an “insurrection” and bemoaned that Trump was acquitted in his impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate after the capitol attack. She refused to step aside.

The timing on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision is unclear, but both sides want it fast.

The petitioners in the Colorado case on Thursday urged the nation’s highest court to rule before March 5, known as Super Tuesday, when 16 states, including Colorado and Maine, are scheduled to vote in the Republican presidential nominating process.

The high court needs to formally accept the case first, but legal experts consider that a certainty. The Section 3 cases seem tailor-made for the Supreme Court, addressing an area of U.S. governance where there’s scant judicial guidance.

The clause was added in 1868 to keep defeated Confederates from returning to their former positions of power in local and federal government. It prohibits anyone who broke an oath to “support” the Constitution from holding office.  
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WASHINGTON — U.S. presidential candidate Nikki Haley faced a firestorm of criticism Thursday after failing to mention slavery as a cause of the American Civil War when asked what led to the conflict at a campaign event.

Less than three weeks before voting begins in the race for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, it was the first major stumble for a candidate whose campaign has seen her propelled from an unlikely outsider to front-runner Donald Trump’s biggest threat.

The former U.N. ambassador told a town hall crowd Wednesday in Berlin, New Hampshire, that the cause of the bloody 1861-65 war was “basically how the government was going to run” and “freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do.”

She added that “it always comes down to the role of government and what the rights of the people are.”

Apparently caught off guard, she turned the question back at the questioner, who responded that he was not the one running for president and that it was “astonishing” that slavery had not come up in her answer.

Scholars agree that slavery was the main driver of the Civil War, and Haley’s obfuscation prompted swift rebuttals.

“It was about slavery,” President Joe Biden said, responding on social media to video footage of the town hall.

Haley, 51, attempted to clear up her comments in a local radio interview Thursday in New Hampshire, affirming that “of course the Civil War was about slavery, that’s the easy part.”

She accused the town hall questioner — who refused to identify himself to reporters — of being a “Democratic plant” sent to damage her campaign and boost Trump, who is considered by many to be a weaker prospect against Biden in the general election.

Trump commands a lead of more than 20 points in polling for New Hampshire’s January 23 primary, but Haley has been gaining ground — overtaking Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as the former president’s biggest threat.

DeSantis spokesperson Andrew Romeo called Haley’s clarification “embarrassing.”

“If she can’t handle a question as basic as the cause of the Civil War, what does she think is going to happen to her in a general election. The Democrats would eat her lunch,” he posted on X, formerly Twitter.

The Florida governor, who is a distant second behind Trump in nationwide primary polling, has sparked controversy in his own state over the teaching of race, a delicate issue that divides Americans.

Trump himself has been berated on both sides of the political divide and accused of echoing Adolf Hitler for remarks about undocumented migrants “poisoning the blood” of the nation.

Haley, who has a history of stirring controversy on America’s Confederate past, raised eyebrows over her views on the Civil War during her successful run for South Carolina governor in 2010.

Characterizing the conflict as a fight between “tradition” and “change,” she told a private meeting of Confederate heritage groups there were “passions on different sides.”

She was praised in 2015 when she signed legislation removing the Confederate flag from the State House after a white supremacist killed nine people at a church in Charleston.

But she had vowed to leave the flag up during her election campaign, arguing that “every state has different conditions, and every state has certain things that they hold as part of their heritage.”

Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison said her latest remarks were “not stunning” to any Black residents of South Carolina during her term in office.

“Some may have forgotten but I haven’t. Time to take off the rose-colored Nikki Haley glasses folks,” he said.
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