Author: PolitCens

DENVER — The Colorado Republican Party on Wednesday appealed that state’s supreme court decision that found former President Donald Trump is ineligible for the presidency, the potential first step to a showdown at the nation’s highest court over the meaning of a 155-year-old constitutional provision that bans from office those who “engaged in insurrection.”

The first impact of the appeal is to extend the stay of the 4-3 ruling from Colorado’s highest court, which put its decision on pause until January 4, the day before the state’s primary ballots are due at the printer, or until an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court is finished. Trump himself has said he still plans to appeal the ruling to the nation’s highest court as well.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which was added after the Civil War to prevent former Confederates from returning to government. It says that anyone who swore an oath to “support” the constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” against it cannot hold government office.

The Colorado high court ruled that applies to Trump in the wake of his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, intended to stop the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election. It was the first time in history that the provision was used to block a presidential contender’s campaign.

“The Colorado Supreme Court has removed the leading Republican candidate from the primary and general ballots, fundamentally changing the course of American democracy,” the party’s attorneys wrote. The filing was posted on the website of a group run by Jay Sekulow, a former attorney for Trump representing the Colorado Republican Party who announced he was filing the appeal Wednesday. Colorado Republican Party chairman Dave Williams also said the appeal was filed Wednesday.

The attorneys added: “Unless the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision is overturned, any voter will have the power to sue to disqualify any political candidate, in Colorado or in any other jurisdiction that follows its lead. This will not only distort the 2024 presidential election but will also mire courts henceforth in political controversies over nebulous accusations of insurrection.”

The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to take the case, either after the Colorado GOP’s appeal or Trump’s own appeal. If Trump ends up off the ballot in Colorado, it would have minimal effect on his campaign because he doesn’t need the state, which he lost by 13 percentage points in 2020, to win the Electoral College in the presidential election. But it could open the door to courts or election officials striking him from the ballot in other must-win states.

Sean Grimsley, an attorney for the plaintiffs seeking to disqualify Trump in Colorado, said on a legal podcast last week that he hopes the nation’s highest court hurries once it accepts the case, as he expects it will. “We obviously are going to ask for an extremely accelerated timeline because of all the reasons I’ve stated, we have a primary coming up on Super Tuesday and we need to know the answer,” Grimsley said.

More than a dozen states, including Colorado, are scheduled to hold primaries March 5 — Super Tuesday.

To date, no other court has sided with those who have filed dozens of lawsuits to disqualify Trump under Section 3, nor has any election official been willing to remove him from the ballot unilaterally without a court order.

The Colorado case was considered the one with the greatest chance of success, however, because it was filed by a Washington, D.C.-based liberal group with ample legal resources. All seven of the Colorado high court justices were appointed by Democrats.

However, the unprecedented constitutional questions in the case haven’t split on neatly partisan lines. Several prominent conservative legal theorists are among the most vocal advocates of disqualifying Trump under Section 3. They argue the plain meaning of the constitutional language bars him from running again, just as clearly as if he didn’t meet the document’s minimum age of 35 for the presidency.

The half-dozen plaintiffs in the Colorado case are all Republican or unaffiliated voters.

Trump has been scathing about the cases, calling them “election interference.” He continued that Wednesday as he cheered a ruling earlier that day by the Michigan Supreme Court leaving him on the ballot, at least for the primary, in that state.

“The Colorado people have embarrassed our nation with what they did,” Trump said on Sean Hannity’s radio show.
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DENVER — Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert announced Wednesday she is switching congressional districts, avoiding a likely rematch against a Democrat who has far outraised her and following an embarrassing moment of groping and vaping that shook even loyal supporters.

In a Facebook video Wednesday evening, Boebert announced she would enter the crowded Republican primary in retiring Rep. Ken Buck’s seat in the eastern side of the state, leaving the more competitive 3rd District seat she barely won last year — and which she was in peril of losing next year as some in her party have soured on her controversial style.

Boebert implied in the video that her departure from the district would help Republicans retain the seat, saying, “I will not allow dark money that is directed at destroying me personally to steal this seat. It’s not fair to the 3rd District and the conservatives there who have fought so hard for our victories.”

“The Aspen donors, George Soros and Hollywood actors that are trying to buy this seat, well they can go pound sand,” she said.

Boebert called it “a fresh start,” acknowledging the rough year following a divorce with her husband and video of her misbehaving with a date at a performance of the musical Beetlejuice in Denver. The scandal in September rocked some of her faithful supporters, who saw it as a transgression of conservative, Christian values and for which Boebert apologized at events throughout her district.

She already faced a primary challenge in her district, as well as a general election face-off with Democrat Adam Frisch, a former Aspen city council member who came within a few hundred votes of beating her in 2022. A rematch was expected, with Frisch raising at least $7.7 million to Boebert’s $2.4 million.

Instead, if Boebert wins the primary to succeed Buck she will run in the state’s most conservative district, which former President Donald Trump won by about 20 percentage points in 2020, in contrast to his margin of about 8 percentage points in her district. While it’s not required that a representative live in the congressional district they represent, only the state the district is in, Boebert said she would be moving — a shift from Colorado’s western Rocky Mountain peaks and high desert mesas to its eastern expanse of prairie grass and ranching enclaves.

In 2022, Frisch’s campaign found support in the conservative district from unaffiliated voters and Republicans who’d defected over Boebert’s brash, Trumpian style. In this election, Frisch’s campaign had revived the slogan “stop the circus” and framed Frisch as the “pro-normal” alternative to Boebert’s more partisan politics.

In a statement after Boebert’s announcement, Frisch said he’s prepared for whoever will be the Republican candidate.

“From Day 1 of this race, I have been squarely focused on defending rural Colorado’s way of life, and offering common sense solutions to the problems facing the families of Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District.” he said. “My focus will remain the same.”

The Republican primary candidate who has raised the second most behind Boebert in the 3rd District, Jeff Hurd, is a more traditional Republican candidate. Hurd has already garnered support from prominent Republicans in the district, first reported by VailDaily.

Boebert rocked the political world by notching a surprise primary win against the incumbent Republican congressman in the 3rd District in 2020 when she ran a gun-themed restaurant in the town of Rifle, Colorado. She then tried to enter the U.S. Capitol carrying a pistol and began to feud with prominent liberal Democrats like Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
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As mass shootings continue to claim lives in the United States, the Biden administration has announced more support to help states reduce gun violence. But bipartisan compromise in Congress is still elusive. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at the reasons behind the divide.
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US President Joe Biden describes next year’s election as a battle for “the soul” of this nation. His campaign has centered on that – as well as on threats to democracy, abortion access, and his economic accomplishments. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell looks at the issues — and the politics — that will dominate the coming election year.
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WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday signed into law the U.S. defense policy bill that authorizes a record $886 billion in annual military spending and policies such as aid for Ukraine and push-back against China in the Indo-Pacific.

The National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, passed Congress last week. The Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate approved the legislation with a strong bipartisan majority of 87-13 while the House of Representatives voted in favor 310-118.

The bill, one of the few major pieces of legislation Congress passes every year, governs everything from pay raises for service members and purchases of ships and aircraft to policies such as support for foreign partners such as Taiwan.

The act, nearly 3,100 pages long, called for a 5.2% pay raise for service members and increased the nation’s total national security budget by about 3% to $886 billion. It also lists certain Chinese battery companies that it says are ineligible for Defense Department procurement.

The fiscal 2024 NDAA also includes a four-month extension of a disputed domestic surveillance authority, giving lawmakers more time to either reform or keep the program, known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

That provision faced objections in both the Senate and House, but not enough to derail the bill.

The bill extends one measure to help Ukraine, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, through the end of 2026, authorizing $300 million for the program in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and the next one.

However, that figure is small compared to the $61 billion that Biden had asked Congress to approve to help Kyiv combat a Russian invasion that began in February 2022. Republicans had refused to approve assistance for Ukraine without Democrats agreeing to a significant toughening of immigration law.
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NEW YORK — Rudy Giuliani has filed for bankruptcy, days after being ordered to pay $148 million in a defamation lawsuit brought by two former election workers in Georgia who said his targeting of them led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.

In his filing Thursday, the former New York City mayor listed nearly $153 million in existing or potential debts, including close to a million dollars in tax liabilities, money he owes his lawyers and many millions of dollars in potential legal judgments in lawsuits against him. He estimated his assets to be between $1 million and $10 million.

The biggest debt is the $148 million he was ordered to pay a week ago for making false statements about the election workers in Georgia stemming from the 2020 presidential contest.

Ted Goodman, a political adviser and spokesperson for Giuliani, a one-time Republican presidential candidate and high-ranking Justice Department official, said in a statement that the filing “should be a surprise to no one.”

“No person could have reasonably believed that Mayor Giuliani would be able to pay such a high punitive amount,” Goodman said. He said the bankruptcy filing would give Giuliani “the opportunity and time to pursue an appeal, while providing transparency for his finances under the supervision of the bankruptcy court, to ensure all creditors are treated equally and fairly throughout the process.”

But declaring bankruptcy likely will not erase the $148 million in damages a jury awarded to the former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss. Bankruptcy law does not allow for the dissolution of debts that come from a “willful and malicious injury” inflicted on someone else.

Last week’s jury verdict was the latest and costliest sign of Giuliani’s mounting financial strain, exacerbated by investigations, lawsuits, fines, sanctions and damages related to his work helping then-President Donald Trump try to overturn the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

In September, Giuliani’s former lawyer Robert Costello sued him for about $1.4 million in unpaid legal bills, alleging that Giuliani breached his retainer agreement by failing to pay invoices in full and a timely fashion. Giuliani has asked a judge to dismiss the case, claiming he never received the invoices at issue. The case is pending.

Costello represented Giuliani from November 2019 to this past July in matters ranging from an investigation into his business dealings in Ukraine, which resulted in an FBI raid on his home and office in April 2021, to state and federal investigations of his work in the wake of Trump’s 2020 election loss.

In August, the IRS filed a $549,435 tax lien against Giuliani for the 2021 tax year.

Copies were filed in Palm Beach County, Florida, where he owns a condominium, and New York, under the name of his outside accounting firm, Mazars USA LLP. That’s the same firm that Trump used for years before it dropped him as a client amid questions about his financial statements.

Giuliani, still somewhat popular among conservatives in the city he once ran, hosts a daily radio show in his hometown on a station owned by a local Republican grocery store magnate. Giuliani also hosts a nightly streaming show watched by a few hundred people on social media, which he calls “America’s Mayor Live.”
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WASHINGTON — A jury awarded $148 million in damages on Friday to two former Georgia election workers who sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation over lies he spread about them in 2020 that upended their lives with racist threats and harassment.

The damages verdict follows emotional testimony from Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, who tearfully described becoming the target of a false conspiracy theory pushed by Giuliani and other Republicans as they tried to keep then-President Donald Trump in power after he lost the 2020 election.

There was an audible gasp in the courtroom when the jury foreperson read aloud the $75 million award in punitive damages for the women. Moss and Freeman were each awarded another roughly $36 million in other damages.

Giuliani didn’t appear to show any emotion as the verdict was read in Washington’s federal courthouse after about 10 hours of deliberations. Moss and Freeman hugged their attorneys after the jury left the courtroom and didn’t look at Giuliani as he left with his lawyer.

Giuliani had already been found liable in the case and previously conceded in court documents that he falsely accused the women of ballot fraud. Even so, the former New York City mayor continued to repeat his baseless allegations about the women in comments to reporters outside the Washington courthouse this week.

Giuliani’s lawyer acknowledged that his client was wrong but insisted that Giuliani was not fully responsible for the vitriol the women faced. The defense sought to largely pin the blame on a right-wing website that published the surveillance video of the two women counting ballots.

The judgment adds to growing financial and legal peril for Giuliani, who was among the loudest proponents of Trump’s false claims of election fraud that are now a key part of the criminal cases against the former president.

Giuliani had already been showing signs of financial strain as he defends himself against costly lawsuits and investigations stemming from his representation of Trump. His lawyer suggested that the defamation case could financially ruin the former mayor, saying, “It would be the end of Mr. Giuliani.”

Giuliani is still facing his biggest test yet: fighting criminal charges in the Georgia case accusing Trump and 18 others of working to subvert the results of the 2020 election, won by Democrat Joe Biden, in that state. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and characterized the case as politically motivated.

Jurors in the defamation case heard recordings of Giuliani falsely accusing the election workers of sneaking in ballots in suitcases, counting ballots multiple times and tampering with voting machines. Trump also repeated the conspiracy theories through his social media accounts.

Lawyers for Moss and Freeman, who are Black, also played for jurors audio recordings of the graphic and racist threats the women received.

The women’s lawyers asked for at least $24 million for each woman in defamation damages alone. They also sought compensation for their emotional harm and punitive damages.

On the witness stand, Moss and Freeman described fearing for their lives as hateful messages poured in. Moss told jurors she tried to change her appearance, seldom leaves her home and suffers from panic attacks. Her mother described strangers banging on her door and recounted fleeing her home after people came with bullhorns and the FBI told her she wasn’t safe.

“It’s so scary, anytime I go somewhere, if I have to use my name,” Freeman said, gasping through her tears to get her words out. “I miss my old neighborhood because I was me, I could introduce myself. Now I don’t have a name, really.”

Defense attorney Joseph Sibley told jurors they should compensate the women for what they are owed, but he urged them to “remember this is a great man.”

An attorney for Moss and Freeman, in his closing argument, highlighted how Giuliani has not stopped repeating the false conspiracy theory asserting the workers interfered in the November 2020 presidential election. Attorney Michael Gottlieb played a video of Giuliani outside the courthouse on Monday, in which Giuliani falsely claimed the women were “engaged in changing votes.”

“Mr. Giuliani has shown over and over again he will not take our client’s names out of his mouth,” Gottlieb said. “Facts will not stop him. He says he isn’t sorry, and he’s telegraphing he will do this again. Believe him.”

The judge overseeing the election workers’ lawsuit had already ordered Giuliani and his business entities to pay tens of thousands of dollars in attorneys’ fees. In holding Giuliani liable, the judge ruled that the former mayor gave “only lip service” to complying with his legal obligations while trying to portray himself as the victim in the case.
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WASHINGTON — Jurors began deliberating Thursday to decide how much Rudy Giuliani must pay two former Georgia election workers for spreading lies about them that led to a barrage of racist threats and upended their lives.

The jury left for the day without announcing a decision and were expected to resume deliberations at Washington’s federal courthouse Friday morning.

Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, are seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages over Giuliani’s false claims accusing them of ballot fraud while the former New York City mayor was fighting to keep Republican Donald Trump in the White House after the November 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

The potential hefty damages come at the same time Giuliani is gearing up to defend himself against criminal charges stemming from his legal representation of Trump. Giuliani’s lawyer told jurors the damages the women are seeking “would be the end of Mr. Giuliani.”

In his closing argument, an attorney for Moss and Freeman highlighted how Giuliani has not stopped repeating the false conspiracy theory asserting the workers meddled in the 2020 presidential election. Attorney Michael Gottlieb played a video of Giuliani outside the courthouse earlier this week repeating the false claims about his clients. Giuliani had previously conceded in court documents that he made public comments falsely accusing the women of ballot fraud.

“Mr. Giuliani has shown over and over again he will not take our client’s names out of his mouth,” Gottlieb said. “Facts will not stop him. He says he isn’t sorry, and he’s telegraphing he will do this again. Believe him.”

Giuliani’s attorney acknowledged that his client was wrong but insisted that he was not fully responsible for the vitriol the women faced. He sought to largely pin the blame on a right-wing website that published the surveillance video of the women counting ballots.

Gottlieb described Freeman and Moss as “heroes,” adding that “after everything they went through, they stood up and said, ‘no more.'” He also read from a chapter in Giuliani’s book on leadership where the former mayor said his father told him never to be a bully. The lawyer said: “If only Mr. Giuliani had listened.”

“The lies in this case became a sustained, deliberate, viral campaign, the purpose of which was to overturn an election and have these statements rocket around the world millions and millions of times,” Gottlieb said.

The women’s lawyers are asking for at least $24 million for each woman in defamation damages alone. They’re also seeking compensation for their emotional harm and punitive damages. Gottlieb asked the jury to send a message to other powerful people with the amount they award.

“Facts matter. Truth is truth, and you will be held accountable,” he said.

Giuliani’s lawyer has said any award should be much less, describing the damages the women are seeking as the “civil equivalent of the death penalty.” Attorney Joseph Sibley told jurors they should compensate the women for what they are owed but urged them to “remember this is a great man.”

“I want you to send a message to America, we can come together in compassion and sympathy,” he said.

His lawyer has argued there is no evidence Giuliani himself encouraged the harassment. Sibley told jurors that right-wing website Gateway Pundit was “patient zero” in spreading the conspiracy theory about the women and said Giuliani was sued because he is “patient deep pockets.”

“Just because these things happened — and they did happen — doesn’t make my client responsible for them,” Sibley said.

Giuliani’s defense rested Thursday morning without calling a single witness after the former mayor reversed course and decided not to take the stand. Giuliani’s lawyer had told jurors in his opening statement that they would hear from his client but after his comments outside court, the judge barred him from claiming in testimony that his conspiracy theories were right.

Giuliani’s lawyer said his client was not testifying because Freeman and Moss had “been through enough.” His testimony also could have been used against him in the criminal case in Georgia.

On the witness stand, Moss and Freeman recounted receiving a torrent of hateful and threatening messages after they became the targets of the conspiracy theory pushed by Giuliani and other Trump allies. The women told jurors the lies made them fear for their lives and described how they remain scared to go out in public years later.

Despite already being held liable in the case, Giuliani repeated his false claims about the women earlier this week. On Monday, he told reporters outside the courthouse that everything he said about the women was “true,” again accusing them of “engaging in changing votes.”

The case is among mounting legal and financial woes for the man once celebrated as “America’s mayor” for his leadership after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Giuliani is among 19 people charged in Georgia in the case accusing Trump and his allies of working to subvert the state’s 2020 election results. Giuliani has pleaded not guilty and characterized the case as politically motivated.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. House of Representatives is pushing toward a vote Wednesday to formally authorize the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden as Republicans rally behind the charged process despite lingering concerns among some in the party that the investigation has yet to produce evidence of misconduct by the president.

The vote comes as House Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team face growing pressure to show progress in what has become a nearly yearlong probe centered around the business dealings of Biden’s family members. While their investigation has raised ethical questions, no evidence has emerged that Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.

Ahead of the vote, Johnson called it “the next necessary step.” He acknowledged there are “a lot of people who are frustrated this hasn’t moved faster.”

But Johnson said on Fox News he believes the resolution will pass the House and “we’ll be in the best position to do our constitutional responsibility.”

By holding a vote on the floor, the speaker, who has been on the job less than two months, will be putting his conference on record in support of an impeachment process that can lead to the ultimate penalty for a president: punishment for what the Constitution describes as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which can lead to removal from office if convicted in a Senate trial.

A successful vote would also ensure that the impeachment investigation extends well into 2024 when Biden will be running for reelection and seems likely to be squaring off against former President Donald Trump — who was twice impeached during his time in the White House. Trump has pushed Republicans to move swiftly on impeaching Biden, part of his broader calls for vengeance and retribution against his political enemies.

In a recent statement, the White House called the whole process a “baseless fishing expedition” that Republicans are pushing ahead with “despite the fact that members of their own party have admitted there is no evidence to support impeaching President Biden.”

Some House Republicans, particularly those hailing from politically divided districts, have been hesitant to take any vote on Biden’s impeachment, fearing a significant political cost. But GOP leaders have made the case in recent weeks that the resolution is only a step in the process, not a decision to impeach Biden. That message seems to have won over skeptics.

“As we have said numerous times before, voting in favor of an impeachment inquiry does not equal impeachment,” Representative Tom Emmer, a member of the Republican leadership team, said at a news conference Tuesday.

Emmer said Republicans “will continue to follow the facts wherever they lead, and if they uncover evidence of treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors, then and only then will the next steps towards impeachment proceedings be considered.”

Most of the Republicans hesitant to back the impeachment push have also been swayed by leadership’s recent argument that authorizing the inquiry will give them better legal standing as the White House rebuffs their requests for information.

A letter last month from a top White House attorney to Republican committee leaders portrayed the GOP investigation as overzealous and illegitimate as the chamber had not yet authorized a formal impeachment inquiry by a vote of the full House. Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, also wrote that when Trump faced the prospect of impeachment by a Democratic-led House in 2019, Johnson had said at the time that any inquiry without a House vote would be a “sham.”

Representative Dusty Johnson, a Republican from South Dakota, said Monday that while there was no evidence to impeach the president, “that’s also not what the vote this week would be about.”

“We have had enough political impeachments in this country,” he said. “I don’t like the stonewalling the administration has done, but listen, if we don’t have the receipts, that should constrain what the House does long term.”

Representative Don Bacon, a Republican from Nebraska who has long been opposed to moving forward with impeachment, said that the White House questioning the legitimacy of the inquiry without a formal vote helped gain his support. “I can defend an inquiry right now,” he told reporters this week. “Let’s see what they find out.”

For the impeachment probe vote to succeed, nearly all House Republicans will have to vote in favor. It will amount to a major test of party unity, given its narrow 221-213 majority. House Democrats are unified in their opposition to the impeachment process, saying it is a farce used by the GOP to take attention away from Trump and his legal woes.

“You don’t initiate an impeachment process unless there’s real evidence of impeachable offenses,” said Representative Jerry Nadler, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee who oversaw the two impeachments into Trump. “There is none here. None.”

Democrats and the White House have also defended the president and his administration’s cooperation with the investigation thus far, saying it has already made a massive trove of documents available.

Congressional investigators have obtained nearly 40,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records, dozens of hours of testimony from key witnesses, including several high-ranking Justice Department officials currently tasked with investigating the president’s son, Hunter Biden.

While Republicans say their inquiry is ultimately focused on the president himself, they have taken particular interest in Hunter Biden and his overseas business dealings, which they accuse the president of personally benefiting from. Republicans have also focused a large part of their investigation into whistleblower allegations of interference in the long-running Justice Department investigation into the younger Biden’s taxes and his gun use.

Hunter Biden is currently facing criminal charges in two states from the special counsel investigation. He’s charged with firearm counts in Delaware, alleging he broke laws against drug users having guns in 2018, a period when he has acknowledged struggling with addiction. Special Counsel David Weiss filed additional charges last week, alleging he failed to pay about $1.4 million in taxes over a three-year period.

Democrats have conceded that while the president’s son is not perfect, he is a private citizen who is already being held accountable by the justice system.

“I mean, there’s a lot of evidence that Hunter Biden did a lot of improper things. He’s been indicted, he’ll stand trial,” Nadler said. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that the president did anything improper.”

Nonetheless, Republicans had subpoenaed Hunter Biden to appear for a private deposition Wednesday, the same day of the scheduled vote to authorize the inquiry. His attorney has offered for the president’s son to come and testify in a public setting, citing concerns about Republicans manipulating any private testimony.

But GOP lawmakers have warned that if Hunter Biden does not appear, they will move to hold him in contempt of Congress.
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Houston elected Democratic state Sen. John Whitmire as its next mayor on Saturday night, elevating a Texas lawmaker who has represented the city for 50 years by giving him a victory over U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in a runoff.

Whitmire, 74, who is one of Texas’ most powerful Democratic legislators, will now be at the helm of America’s fourth-largest city. His campaign focused on reducing crime, improving streets and bringing people together. He heavily outspent Jackson Lee, who was running to become Houston’s first Black female mayor.

The congresswoman’s campaign also had to deal with fallout from the release in October of an unverified audio recording that purported to capture her profanely berating staff.

Whitmire built an insurmountable lead among early voters, winning among those voters by 30 percentage points.

Whitmire and Jackson Lee had made it to Saturday’s runoff after emerging from a crowded field of nearly 20 candidates in the Nov. 7 general election.

Both candidates — two of Houston’s biggest political fixtures — touted their decades-long political experience as strong qualifications to lead a growing city facing challenges that include crime, crumbling infrastructure and potential budget shortfalls.

Whitmire started in the Texas Legislature in 1973, first as a state representative and the majority of his time as a state senator. Jackson Lee has represented Houston in Congress since 1995 and before that had served on Houston’s City Council.

Booming growth over the last decade has caused municipal headaches but has also turned the Houston area into an expanding stronghold for Texas Democrats. Although the mayoral race is nonpartisan, Whitmire and Jackson Lee are both Democrats.

Whitmire will be the oldest big city mayor in the U.S. He is set to lead a city which is becoming younger, with a median age of around 35 and with 25% of its population below 18, according to census figures.

The choice between Whitmire and Jackson Lee, who is 73, frustrated some Democratic voters, particularly younger ones, at a time when the party is searching for new political stars in Texas who might end 30 years of GOP dominance statewide.

The new mayor will have to deal with new laws from the GOP-led state government over control of local elections and the ability to impose local regulations.

Whitmire will replace Mayor Sylvester Turner, who has served eight years and can’t run again because of term limits.

Whitmire will also lead what is considered one of the country’s most diverse cities. Of the city’s 2.3 million residents, 45% are Latino, with 23% Black and 24% white. One in every four Houston residents was born outside the U.S.

Known as the energy capital of the world, Houston’s economy has long been tied mainly to the oil industry. But the city is working to become a leader in the transition to cleaner energy. Like other large U.S. cities, Houston is also dealing with a lack of affordable housing and concerns among residents over growing gaps between the rich and poor.
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U.S. presidential candidates are crossing paths again in Iowa just days after a fractious debate and with the leadoff Republican caucuses about a month away.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy are aiming to make their respective campaign cases Saturday — this time without the others interrupting — in northwest Iowa, a more rural, conservative corner of the state.

Each is getting time onstage at Dordt University in Sioux Center with U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra and his wife, Lynette, to discuss faith, family and politics. Hundreds of people, including many students at the small Christian college, filled the auditorium.

The three candidates made stops across Iowa on Friday as pressure mounts for an attention-grabbing performance in the January 15 contest that kicks off the GOP nominating calendar.

Former President Donald Trump, who was not at Saturday’s event, sits comfortably atop the field in polls of Republicans in Iowa and nationwide.

DeSantis, Haley and Ramaswamy last appeared together in Iowa before Thanksgiving, at the Family Leader’s roundtable discussion, which was an uncommonly friendly gathering.

They next look to take the stage at Drake University in Des Moines for a Republican debate five days before the caucuses.
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A federal appeals court in Washington largely upheld a gag order on Donald Trump in his 2020 election interference case on Friday, but narrowed the restrictions on his speech to allow the former president to criticize the special counsel who brought the case.

The three-judge panel’s ruling modifies the gag order, permitting the Republican 2024 presidential front-runner to make disparaging comments about special counsel Jack Smith, but it reimposes limits on what he can say about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses in the case and about court staff and other lawyers.

The unanimous ruling is mostly a win for Smith’s team, with the judges agreeing with prosecutors that Trump’s often-incendiary comments about participants in the case can have a damaging practical impact and rejecting claims by defense attorneys that restrictions on the ex-president’s speech amount to an unconstitutional muzzling. It lays out fresh parameters about what Trump can and cannot say about the case as he both prepares for a March trial and campaigns to reclaim the White House.

“Mr. Trump’s documented pattern of speech and its demonstrated real-time, real-world consequences pose a significant and imminent threat to the functioning of the criminal trial process in this case,” Judge Patricia Millett wrote for the court. She noted that many of the targets of Trump’s verbal jabs “have been subjected to a torrent of threats and intimidation from his supporters.”

The case accuses Trump of plotting with his Republican allies to subvert the will of voters in a desperate bid to stay in power in the run-up to the Capitol riot by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. It is scheduled to go to trial in March in Washington’s federal court, just blocks away from the Capitol.

Friday’s opinion says that though Trump has a constitutional right to free speech and is a former president and current candidate, “he is also an indicted criminal defendant, and he must stand trial in a courtroom under the same procedures that govern all other criminal defendants.”

The appeals court also said that a comment on court staff, other lawyers or their family members was off-limits “to the extent it is made with either the intent to materially interfere with their work or the knowledge that such interference is highly likely to result.”

In a social media post responding to the ruling, Trump said his team would appeal, and he complained anew about restrictions on his speech.

“In other words, people can speak violently and viciously against me, or attack me in any form, but I am not allowed to respond, in kind,” he said. “What is becoming of our First Amendment, what is becoming of our Country?”

The special counsel has separately charged Trump in Florida with illegally hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House following his 2020 election loss to Democrat Joe Biden. That case is set for trial next May, though the judge has signaled that the date might be postponed.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing and has claimed the cases against him are part of a politically motivated effort to keep him from returning to the White House.
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Two months after his historic ouster as leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy of California announced Wednesday that he will resign from his congressional seat by the end of the year.

His announcement capped a stunning end for the one-time deli owner from Bakersfield, who ascended through state and national politics to become second in line to the presidency before a contingent of hard-right conservatives engineered his removal in October.

McCarthy is the only House speaker in history to be voted out of the job.

“No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing,” McCarthy wrote in The Wall Street Journal, announcing his decision.

“It is in this spirit that I have decided to depart the House at the end of this year to serve America in new ways,” he wrote.

An announcement on McCarthy’s future had been expected, with the filing deadline to seek reelection only days away. But his decision ricocheted across Capitol Hill, where his departure will leave the already paper-thin House GOP majority even tighter, with just a few seats to spare.

It comes during a wave of retirements in the House, which has been riven by Republican infighting and the rare expulsion last week of indicted Republican Representative George Santos of New York, dashing hopes for major accomplishments and leaving the majority straining to conduct the basic business of governing.

McCarthy had brought the Republicans into the majority but found it was much more difficult to lead the GOP’s hard-edged factions.

His toppling from the chamber’s top post was fueled by grievances from his party’s hard-right flank, including over his decision to work with Democrats to keep the federal government open rather than risk a shutdown.

McCarthy, 58, arrived in the House in January 2007 after a stint in the California Assembly, where he served as minority leader. In Congress, he maneuvered through his party’s hierarchy — serving as majority whip and Republican leader along the way — before being elected speaker in January 2023.

The dayslong floor fight that preceded his elevation to the House’s top job foreshadowed a stormy tenure, at a time when former President Donald Trump remained the de facto leader of the party and deep divisions within the GOP raised serious questions about the party’s ability to govern.

It took a record 15 votes over four days for McCarthy to line up the support he needed to win the post he had long coveted, finally prevailing on a 216-212 vote with Democrats backing leader Hakeem Jeffries and six Republican holdouts voting present. Not since the Civil War era has a speaker’s vote dragged through so many rounds of counting.

McCarthy emerged from the fight weakened, especially considering Republicans held only a fragile margin in the chamber after a predicted “red wave” failed to materialize in the 2022 elections.

Once installed as speaker, his well-known savvy for fundraising and political glad-handing appeared ill-suited for corralling his party’s disputatious hard-right faction. And deals he cut to become speaker — including a rules change that allowed any single lawmaker to file a motion to remove him — left him vulnerable.

When he became speaker, “he faced new challenges that required a different skill set,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney, a one-time domestic policy analyst for House Republicans. “The deals he made to become speaker made it almost impossible for him to succeed as speaker.”

McCarthy, the son of a firefighter and a homemaker, has long depicted himself as an unflagging battler. He is fond of quoting his father, who told him, “It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.”
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U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville announced on Tuesday that he’s ending his blockade of hundreds of military promotions, following heavy criticism from many of his colleagues in the Senate and clearing the way for hundreds to be approved.

Tuberville maintained that his blockade of military promotions was over a dispute about a Pentagon abortion policy. The Alabama Republican said Tuesday he’s “not going to hold the promotions of these people any longer.”

Almost 400 military nominations have been in limbo due to Tuberville’s blanket hold on confirmations and promotions for senior military officers. It’s a stance that has left key national security positions unfilled and military families with an uncertain path forward.

Tuberville said he was blocking the nominations in opposition to new Pentagon rules that allow reimbursement for travel when a service member must go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care. President Joe Biden’s administration instituted the new rules after the Supreme Court overturned the nationwide right to an abortion and some states have limited or banned the procedure.

Critics said that Tuberville’s ire was misplaced and that he was blocking the promotions of people who had nothing to do with the policy he opposed.

“Why are we punishing American heroes who have nothing to with the dispute?” said Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska. “Remember we are against the Biden abortion travel policy, but why are we punishing people who have nothing to do with the dispute and if they get confirmed can’t fix it? No one has had an answer for that question because there is no answer.”
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