The moms who left Texas to defend its future: 'She needs a democracy to grow up in'

When Erin Zwiener finished taking the bar exam last Wednesday afternoon and walked out into the Texas heat, the aspiring lawyer was looking forward to one thing: Enjoying the final days of summer vacation with her daughter before she begins second grade.

Then she checked her phone.

Zwiener is a Democrat in the Texas House of Representatives, where since 2019 she has represented a district south of Austin that includes most of Hays County. She saw missed messages about Texas Republicans’ release earlier that day of a new voting map designed to flip five seats in the U.S. House currently held by Democrats — satisfying a demand that came from Republican President Donald Trump’s White House. Zwiener would need to head to the state Capitol, where her caucus would convene that evening to discuss how to respond.

The meeting extended late into the night, and party leaders presented their options, given their minority status. After weighing the pluses and minuses, more than 50 Democratic lawmakers decided they would leave the state they represent to deprive Republican leaders of the quorum needed to approve the new Trump-requested congressional map. With a special legislative session already underway, most traveled together to Illinois, while others headed to New York and Massachusetts. They would close their summers by playing canaries in the coal mine, delivering the message to key Democratic-led states that GOP redistricting efforts in ruby-red Texas would soon arrive at their doorsteps if they do not take action.

“We can’t go gently, we have to fight,” Zwiener told The 19th earlier this week from New York, where she decamped after holding a Saturday town hall on the proposed redistricting with her constituents.

“I haven't gotten to have much of a summer with [my daughter] because I've been studying for the bar,” she added, “but I had made her a big promise that we would go to a water park after I finished the bar, and I was able to do that this weekend before leaving — so I'm grateful we got to have our big summer adventure.”

The Texas lawmakers are now at the center of a national debate about how Democrats should respond to the White House-driven push to shore up Republicans’ slim and endangered U.S. House majority with unprecedented, mid-decade redistrictings that many believe run afoul of state constitutions.

Though leaders in the Democratic Party are more likely than Republicans to favor nonpartisan redistricting done by commissions and other independent entities, Texas lawmakers like Zwiener are warning that if Democrats do not respond by redrawing maps in Democratic-led states like Illinois, Massachusetts and New York with large left-leaning populations, the GOP will be able to cement a House majority that does not reflect the electorate. It would also allow the Trump administration to avoid accountability: The presidential impeachment process, for example, begins in the House.

“If Texas is going to try and break the democratic process in this way, then other states are going to have to counterbalance that in order for our democracy to survive,” Zwiener said. As they began what she described as “outreach” in their chosen states, Republicans in Missouri indicated they are considering redrawing maps there as well.

“Make no mistake about this,” Zwiener said: “This is an attempt for Donald Trump to avoid accountability in Congress.”

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'Make Springfield great!' Haitians brace for what Trump will bring to Ohio town

This story was originally published by The 19th News.

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO — Several minutes into President Donald Trump’s inauguration speech on Monday, as he began talking about immigration, Yvena Jean François dug through a desk drawer for a notebook and pen.

“We now have a government that cannot manage even a simple crisis at home … it fails to protect our magnificent law-abiding American citizens but provides sanctuary and protection for dangerous criminals, many from prisons and mental institutions that have illegally entered our country from all over the world,” Trump said, repeating a frequent 2024 campaign claim for which he has not offered evidence.

Jean François jotted down a thought in the notebook on her lap, the words “FUN STUFF” printed on its colorful cover.

Trump carried on: “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will immediately be halted and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”

Jean François wrote some more.

Once Trump finished speaking, Jean François went over the main takeaways she planned to share on an upcoming episode of the podcast she hosts out of her home studio in Springfield, Ohio, a city of roughly 60,000 residents that became a household name during the 2024 presidential campaign as misinformation and lies spread about its Haitian residents.

“The illegal people will be first to go in mass deportations,” she said.

The exact words Trump used were important to Jean François, who is also a member of Springfield’s Haitian community. She heard “dangerous criminals,” “entering illegally,” “prisons and mental institutions” and “criminal aliens” — and she started to relax. “The president said the first people they’re going to put out are the criminal people who already have deportation papers,” she noted. And that, she said, does not describe her or most other Haitians she knows in this southwestern Ohio city between Dayton and Columbus.

Like Jean François, Springfield’s Haitian migrants were drawn here by the potential for good-paying jobs in a place that had more jobs than workers who were able to do them. Many of these migrants have what’s called Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which gives them the right to live and work in the United States legally and shields them from deportation for a set period of time. They arrived in Springfield as the country emerged from the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, from states like Florida and New York, which are home to the largest communities of Haitian Americans in the United States.

Established in 1990, TPS is a temporary status available to immigrants who come from countries facing exceptional circumstances, like environmental disasters, armed conflict and civil war. TPS was approved for Haitians in 2010 after a major earthquake decimated a large swath of the country. The Biden administration extended it last year until February 2026 amid an ongoing gang war that has cut off access to basic necessities like food and clean water for much of the island.

Haitians are also eligible to ask for humanitarian parole, another temporary legal status available to citizens from certain countries and approved on a case-by-case basis. Some apply for asylum, which, when granted, allows them to remain in the United States indefinitely, become permanent legal residents and, sometimes, citizens. Unlike asylum, neither TPS nor humanitarian parole offers a path to citizenship, so Haitians and other immigrants living in the country under these designations cannot vote.

The 2020 Census put the population of Springfield at 68 percent White, 18 percent Black and 5 percent Latinx, but by some estimates, Haitians now make up as much as a quarter of the city’s population. Many, like Jean François, have arrived since the census, lured by opportunity. While her twin brother moved to Chicago, she came to Springfield. A photographer and broadcast journalist in Haiti, she found work at an Amazon warehouse and saved up to open her in-home studio; she’ll soon move it to a new, professional space, she said.

Jean François sees herself as an important part of a revival in this post-industrial, quintessentially American city, where recent Haitian arrivals have opened at least 10 new businesses — restaurants, groceries and a food truck. The creators of “The Simpsons” set the show in a fictional “Springfield” because there are at least 34 states with a Springfield, each of them in some way representative of “Anywhere, USA.”

In Springfield, Ohio, the population dwindled for decades as auto and farm equipment manufacturers closed and jobs evaporated. Between 1999 and 2014, the city’s median income dropped 27 percent — more than any other metropolitan area in the country, according to analysis by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center. In 2012, the polling firm Gallup reported that Springfield was the country’s unhappiest city.

Just over a decade ago, city officials and business leaders launched a campaign to recruit employers in the manufacturing, insurance and health care sectors, to inject new life into a sputtering economy. Soon, they started to see results. Between February 2020 and March 2024, Springfield reported the second-highest employment growth rate in Ohio, behind only the much larger Cincinnati, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. The rapid influx of Haitians, though a boon for employers who needed workers, also brought its own set of problems. Rental homes became harder to find and more expensive, classrooms got crowded and wait times for a doctor or an appointment at the motor vehicles office became longer.

Then in July, with the 2024 elections underway, JD Vance, then a Republican senator for Ohio vying to be Donald Trump’s running mate, asked Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in a banking panel hearing, “What role do you see illegal immigration driving up housing costs?” Vance continued: “In my conversations with folks in Springfield it’s not just housing.” Springfield Mayor Rob Rue and City Manager Bryan Heck, both fellow Republicans, fanned the flames when they went on the television program Fox & Friends to discuss Biden administration immigration policies. “It’s setting communities like Springfield up to fail,” Heck said, asking for additional federal support. As he spoke, footage played of a chaotic scene from a place thousands of miles away: the U.S.-Mexico border.

Several days later, Trump picked Vance to join him on the GOP ticket, thrusting Springfield — and its Haitian community — squarely into the glare of an increasingly contentious presidential race and a national debate about who deserves to stay in the country.

Trump, whose punitive and restrictive immigration stances have fueled his political rise, spread misinformation from social media accounts that said Haitian migrants were eating people’s pets in Springfield. In a high-profile presidential debate, he repeated the claims. Vance did, too, despite city officials saying there was no evidence to back them up. Trump promised to deport Haitian migrants with legal status. During a September news conference, he said, “They’ve destroyed the place.”

Neo-Nazis and white supremacist groups amplified the lies about pet-eating and descended on Springfield. There were bomb threats. Employers of Haitian workers were harassed. The woman who initially spread the rumor recanted, horrified by what she had wrought. Still, the Trump-Vance ticket kept leaning on the Springfield fable to bolster their immigration stances. “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do,” Vance told CNN.

Republican local and state elected officials like Rue and Heck tried to quell the chaos. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who was born in Springfield, implored: “Everybody needs to lower the rhetoric.” Meanwhile, the community rallied behind Haitian businesses and local law enforcement talked about Haitians as more likely to be victims than perpetrators of crime. A previously informal Haitian Community Alliance cemented its status as a legal nonprofit.

Trump went on to win Clark County, where Springfield is the county seat, with more than 64 percent of the vote.

In the two months since Trump’s victory, some Haitians have left Springfield, according to interviews with residents and community organizations there. They’ve returned to New York or Florida or moved to larger cities in Ohio like nearby Dayton or Columbus, where they might be less conspicuous — but where they lack the community they created in Springfield. Jean François knows some who tested the waters elsewhere only to return.

Jean François sees little reason to leave; the same Trump administration immigration policies would apply anywhere else in the country, she said, because, “Florida, New York — you’re still in America.” Her goal is to continue using her podcast to urge fellow Haitians to stay calm, stay in Springfield and “do the best things for this city.”

“I know Springfield, I love Springfield. Stay, stay here with me,” she told The 19th from her home studio. “Like the president said, ‘Make America Great Again.’ Make Springfield great.”

Hours later, Trump terminated the humanitarian parole program that Biden launched, one that allowed more than half a million migrants from four countries to remain legally in the United States for a two-year period. One of the countries was Haiti.

Trump, contending with unpopular GOP abortion bans, turns his focus to women

There was one group of voters that Donald Trump couldn’t seem to get off his mind last weekend: women.

In overnight social media posts and at a rally in a battleground state, the Republican presidential nominee said that if elected, he would “protect” and “take care of” women and they will “no longer be thinking about abortion.”

In between, he called MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle a “dumb as a rock bimbo” after she criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric during an appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher” and said Oprah Winfrey, who has endorsed Democrat Kamala Harris in the White House race, wasn’t the “real Oprah” after the television personality interviewed the vice president at a campaign event.

“Women, we love you. We’re going to take care of you,” Trump said at Sept. 21 rally in Wilmington, North Carolina, without offering any policy specifics about how his administration would work to boost women’s economic or social stature.

Though national tracking polls offer an incomplete picture of the electorate, those conducted after the party conventions show that the gender gap in the presidential race is widening, with most now showing Harris with a double-digit lead among women voters. Harris held a three-point lead over Trump with registered voters in a national poll conducted in late August and early September by The 19th News and Survey Monkey, with the vice president having a wider advantage with women voters than the former president did with men.

Hours before the North Carolina rally, shortly after midnight, Trump had written on his social media site Truth Social in an 181-word, all-caps post that women are less healthy, less safe, and more depressed and unhappy than they were when he was president. He offered no data or evidence to back up his claims, which are not reflected in polling or government data. He also again repeated an abortion-related lie that Democrats want to execute babies.

“I WILL FIX ALL OF THAT, AND FAST, AND AT LONG LAST THIS NATIONAL NIGHTMARE WILL BE OVER. WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION, BECAUSE IT IS NOW WHERE IT ALWAYS HAD TO BE, WITH THE STATES,” Trump wrote. “I WILL PROTECT WOMEN AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE. THEY WILL FINALLY BE HEALTHY, HOPEFUL, SAFE, AND SECURE. THEIR LIVES WILL BE HAPPY, BEAUTIFUL, AND GREAT AGAIN!”

The post followed a Harris rally in the political battleground of Atlanta, where she blamed “Trump abortion bans” for the “preventable” deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, two women in the state whose stories were reported last week by ProPublica. “And those are only the stories we know,” Harris told the crowd. The day before, she had met with Thurman’s family.

Trump frequently touts his role in nominating three of the conservative justices who overturned Roe v. Wade. He often says that returning the issue to the states was widely supported, though polling showed that a strong majority of Americans disagreed with the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Trump has declined to endorse a federal abortion ban, saying during a debate earlier this month that “we’ve gotten what everybody wanted” by leaving it up to the states.

Other than support the status quo, Trump has said little about how his administration would approach abortion, offering few to no specifics on two priorities of the anti-abortion movement: undoing the 2000 approval of the abortion drug mifepristone and reviving an anti-obscenity law from the 1800s known as the Comstock Act to prohibit shipping it by mail. The former president has also provided muddled answers on other issues related to reproductive health, saying, for example, he supports in vitro fertilization, without addressing that his party platform’s support for fetal personhood is in conflict with protecting access to the assisted reproductive technology.

Harris, meanwhile, has made protecting abortion rights central to her campaign after replacing President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket in late July. Abortion was front-and-center at the Democratic National Convention in August and Harris brought it up in her own primetime speech accepting the party’s nomination. She frequently frames abortion as an issue of essential freedom and her campaign has a Fight for Reproductive Freedoms bus that is touring political battleground states where the future of abortion access is in question. She has declined to say whether she would support any restrictions at all in the final trimester of pregnancy. Harris’ campaign on Sept. 23 released an ad that features an Arizona woman who is undergoing IVF with her husband who serves in the military, and highlights their worry that state abortion bans could block access to the treatment.

Harris is running to be the first woman president and she would also be the second Black president and the first of South Asian descent. She has not focused on her gender or her racial identity on the campaign trail, or the potentially historic nature of the election. Trump and his fellow Republicans, meanwhile, have highlighted Harris’ gender and race while emphasizing a traditional brand of masculinity rooted in physical prowess, strength and dominance. Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, would like to roll back aspects of the 1960s sexual revolution, during which the first reliable oral contraceptives emerged and a feminist movement took hold that sent women into the workforce at record levels.

At the Republican National Convention, there were appearances from Ultimate Fighting Championships President Dana White and professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. The former president walked out to James Brown’s “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World.” Trump has been making overtures to young men in an attempt to shore up support among young people and also make up for declining support from women.

Dozens of women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Several have described him forcibly reaching under their skirts, others have said he kissed them without consent. Courts awarded the writer E. Jean Carroll $5 million and $83.3 million after finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, though not for rape.

It is unclear what inroads Trump will be able to make with women in the closing stretch of the race. Six weeks out from Election Day, a Suffolk University/USA Today poll showed that women picked Harris over Trump as their likely candidate by 21 points, indicating there could be a historic gender gap this year. In 2020, Biden beat Trump among women by about 11 points; in 2016, Democrat Hillary Clinton beat Trump among women by about 16 points.

The GOP had already mostly lost unmarried women — then came J.D. Vance

A Republican Party that has for decades alienated single women seems to have found its champion in JD Vance. A potentially bigger problem? Donald Trump’s pick of Vance as his running mate could cement the chasm between the GOP and unmarried women while also driving away married women, and even some married men, who lean Republican.

Since Trump put the Ohio senator on his presidential ticket, Vance’s past statements about “childless cat ladies” who are “miserable,” his opposition to no-fault divorce, his hostility to reproductive rights and his agreement with the belief that the “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female” is to raise their grandchildren are getting renewed attention.

Vance’s resurfaced comments draw on long-standing tropes about unmarried women and women without children. They have sparked mockery, but also ire. Experts say Vance’s rhetoric and policy proposals could exacerbate a gender gap that started to develop between the two major parties in the 1980s. And it’s a gap that already had the potential to become a gulf in the first White House contest after the Supreme Court in 2022 overturned nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

“The reason Vance is turning out to be a disaster is all of his statements about cat ladies, that people who have children should have more votes than people who don’t have children … you’ve got the makings of a real, you know, revolt among women,” said Elaine Kamarck, a scholar with the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution.

“The gender gap has persisted but Dobbs, I think, is going to just drive a truck through it — the Dobbs decision is obviously bigger than anything we’ve ever seen,” she added.

Since rising to the top of the Democratic ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris has doubled down on running to restore reproductive rights and personal freedoms — and the message resonates with the never-married women who make up a key part of the Democratic base. It’s been reinforced by her pick of running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has used his post as the state’s top executive to protect abortion access.

Trump, meanwhile, has taken credit for ending federal abortion rights with his Supreme Court nominations and has already alienated women by objectifying and insulting them based on their gender, along with being credibly accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. His selection of Vance appears to be amplifying that alienation; Vance’s derisive comments about women have negatively defined how many voters viewed him as a VP pick out of the gate.

“JD Vance’s views on women and positions on the issues that affect women…the most acutely are off-putting to the entire electorate because they’re just not reflective of broadly held values,” Evan Roth Smith, lead pollster for the Democratic survey research initiative Blueprint, said on a Thursday call with reporters. “They’re reflective of an ideology that is incompatible with the electorate.”

Pew Research Center data from 2023 shows that women who have never been married identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party by a margin of 48 points — 72 to 24 percent. Meanwhile, married women identify or lean Republican by a margin of five points, or 50 to 45 percent.

Never-married women are 11 points more likely than never-married men to identify or lean Democratic.

Never-married voters of both genders turn out at lower rates than their married or divorced counterparts, a trend likely also associated with the never-married voting bloc skewing young. However, inflammatory statements such as those made by Vance and GOP policies that could curtail widely popular reproductive health care such as IVF could prompt them to vote, experts said.

Mallory Newall with the IPSOS polling firm said that the marriage gap is not a new phenomenon, but what “is happening is that there’s more of a spotlight being shown on this gap that does exist.” Part of the reason, she said, is the Dobbs decision and also “a vice presidential nominee using rhetoric to disparage single women.”

“Can this burgeoning enthusiasm among Democrats pull some unmarried women off the bench and up to the polls in November, whether that’s in response to Vance’s rhetoric, or whether that’s in response to actual policy change?” Newall asked.

The Harris-Walz campaign has had to do little to draw connections between Vance’s sentiments and the policies he has advocated for, which would disproportionately impact women. Vance has made clear on his own that he believes a person’s value to society — particularly when they are a woman — is linked to marriage and childrearing.

During his 2022 Senate campaign, Vance asserted that the Democratic Party was led by too many politicians who did not have biological children and because of that, had no stake in the future of the country. He repeatedly called them “childless cat ladies” — a term he has applied to men, women and sometimes also to people in parenting and other caregiving roles. Those on the receiving end of his criticism included Harris, who has two stepchildren.

In a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, then of Fox News, Vance said: “We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too.”

Vance stood by the comments once Trump put him on the Republican ticket, saying he was being “sarcastic.” Then, he made an effort at clarifying his words — “I have nothing against cats,” he said. He criticized Democrats as “anti-family,” telling Megyn Kelly on her Sirius radio show, “Look, people are focusing so much on the sarcasm and not on the substance of what I actually said …And the substance of what I actually said is true.”

The National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, which advocates for family and caregiving policies, recently conducted a poll with Morning Consult that broke out women who do not have children but who have cats or dogs as subgroups.

The poll, which surveyed 1,766 registered voters from August 1-2, found that women without children as a group and the smaller subset of women without children who had cats were equally or more likely than parents to support policies including comprehensive investments in education, guaranteeing access to child care, expanding the child tax credit and passing paid medical and family leave.

“As a childless cat lady myself, I’m not surprised by these results, which directly refute JD Vance’s insulting claim that women without children don’t have a stake in the success of our nation’s children and families,” said Sandra Markowitz, the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund’s director of research.

The share of 40-year-olds who have never been married shot up from just 6 percent in 1990 to 25 percent as of 2021, according to the Pew Research Center. And the gap in marriage rates between Democrats and Republicans “cracked open in the 1980s and has widened in the past quarter century,” according to the leading research firm Gallup.

Gallup attributes the trend not primarily to economic or demographic differences, but to cultural ones regarding the value of marriage. Between 1988 and 2012, the share of adults under 50 who said they believed married people are generally happier fell by 33 percentage points among Democrats, but just 13 points among Republicans.

Gaps in voting behavior between divorced men and women are also widening. Data from the Survey Center on American Life at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI) showed 56 percent of divorced men support Trump, but just 42 percent of divorced women do.

“More than any time in the recent past, American politics is pushing men and women apart rather than bringing them together,” wrote Daniel Cox, the center’s director and a senior fellow at AEI who has written extensively on the marriage gap.

The trend has not gone unnoticed by Republican commentators. Fox News personality Jesse Watters was quick to place Republican losses in the 2022 midterm elections at the feet of single women, saying, “We need these ladies to get married. It’s time to fall in love and just settle down. Guys, go out and put a ring on it.”

Some research indicates that Vance’s views, in particular, may also be unappealing to men.

Blueprint, a center-left polling initiative backed by Democratic mega-donor Reid Hoffman, conducted surveys on Vance’s favorability and testing messages against him in July, when he became Trump’s running mate, and again in August.

Their research found that as more voters became aware of Vance and his stances, his favorability ratings fell from -7 in the July survey to -11 in August. The survey also asked voters if they had heard of 11 of Vance’s past statements. The highest share of voters — 50 percent — had heard of the “childless cat ladies” comment. Of those, 56 percent said it bothered them, including 45 percent who said it bothered them a lot. Over 60 percent of respondents also said they were bothered by Vance’s past stances defending a lack of exceptions in abortion bans; he has since expressed support for exceptions.

Smith said that Vance received meager support from women to begin with, and men contributed much of the drop in his favorability between the two surveys.

“There are those erosions beyond just the people and the women who would be affected by his policies,” he said. “A lot of men don’t like hearing how he talks about women.”

The most effective messages opposing Vance tested in the August poll were rooted in Vance’s past comments about women and his anti-abortion stances.

“Republicans had already priced in the impact of their reproductive policies when it comes to single women of childbearing age and younger women,” he added. “But they had not priced in the thinking that voters outside of that group could be turned off by how the Republican Party nominee vice president would talk about women … that they would suffer electoral losses outside of that cohort.”

Trump shooting puts spotlight on Secret Service leadership — and the women serving in it

Originally published by The 19th

The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump has put a new spotlight on the U.S. Secret Service and its director, Kimberly Cheatle, with prominent conservatives also raising questions about the fitness of women serving in the agency tasked with protecting current, former and would-be presidents.

Rep. James Comer, a Republican from Kentucky who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, announced late Saturday that he had asked the Secret Service for a briefing and would call Cheatle to testify before the panel later this month.

Arizona Rep. Ruben Gallego, a military veteran and the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Cheatle calling on “all those responsible for the planning, approving, and executing of this failed security plan to be held accountable and to testify before Congress immediately.”

On Saturday evening, a man on a nearby rooftop fired shots at Trump’s outdoor rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Trump was injured, and one attendee was killed and two others were wounded before Secret Service agents fatally shot the suspected gunman. As of early Monday, there was no known motive for the gunman’s actions. At the time of the shooting, Cheatle was in Milwaukee, preparing for the Republican National Convention being held there this week.

On Monday, Cheatle said in a statement: “Since the shooting, I have been in constant contact with Secret Service personnel in Pennsylvania who worked to maintain the integrity of the crime scene until the FBI assumed its role as the lead investigating agency into the assassination attempt.”

She added that the Secret Service is working with other law enforcement agencies to “understand what happened, how it happened, and how we can prevent an incident like this from ever taking place again. … We will also work with the appropriate Congressional committees on any oversight action.”

Cheatle later said in an interview with ABC News that the shooting was “unacceptable” and while the “buck stops” with her, she had no plans to resign.

Neither Cheatle or the Secret Service’s communications office have weighed in on criticism of women in the agency more broadly.

Cheatle served in the Secret Service for nearly three decades before leaving in 2019 to serve as PepsiCo’s senior director of global security for two years. She returned to the law enforcement agency when President Joe Biden tapped her to be its 27th director — the second woman in the role — starting in September 2022, as the agency continued to contend with the fallout from the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Before PepsiCo, Cheatle served on Biden’s detail when he was vice president and was a member of the Secret Service team that evacuated then-Vice President Dick Cheney following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The Secret Service describes Cheatle’s director role as “leading a diverse workforce composed of more than 7,800 Special Agents, Uniformed Division Officers, Technical Law Enforcement Officers, and Administrative, Professional, and Technical personnel.” In her first interview after being tapped to lead the agency, she told CBS News that it was a goal to have women make up 30 percent of recruits by the year 2030. Women currently represent 24 percent of the Secret Service’s ranks, according to the agency.

“I’m very conscious, as I sit in this chair now, of making sure that we need to attract diverse candidates, and ensure that we are developing and giving opportunities for everybody in our workforce, and particularly women,” Cheatle told CBS News.

The first women agents were sworn into the Secret Service in 1971. When they were hired, the agency said they would be “expected to do everything that men do and receive equal pay.” The women are trained in hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, first aid, and search and seizure. There are different point systems for physical assessments based on age and gender. Men aged 20 to 29 years, for example, must complete 11 chin-ups to receive an excellent rating, while women of the same age must complete four. When the 387th Class of agents graduated 50 years later, it marked the first time that women trainees outnumbered men trainees.

Some prominent conservatives immediately zeroed in on Cheatle’s gender, along with that of several of the women agents assigned to Trump in Pennsylvania. Many are critics of initiatives that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), frequently blaming problems on attempts to diversify workplaces.

Republican Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee wrote on the social media site X: “I can’t imagine that a DEI hire from @pepsi would be a bad choice as the head of the Secret Service. #sarcasm.”

Democrats and Republicans keep colliding over contraception

This story was originally published by The 19th, a nonprofit news organization.

Democratic efforts to protect contraception access — and Republican opposition — were thrust into the 2024 spotlight last week when Donald Trump told a Pittsburgh CBS affiliate that his GOP White House campaign was “looking at” restrictions on contraception, and that he ultimately expected “some states are going to have very different policies than others.”

Trump was correct — states are taking very different approaches to contraception access, depending on which party is in control. On the federal level, there is also a partisan divide, but Republicans in Congress lack the votes to restrict access, and Democrats lack the votes to protect it.

Democratic lawmakers across the country have pushed to preserve access to any type of reproductive care they can, including contraception, since the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2022 overturned the federal right to abortion in the case Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But in the current state legislative sessions alone, Republicans in 12 states have blocked Democratic bills aimed at shoring up contraception access, with Republican governors vetoing measures in the swing states of Nevada and Virginia, according to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

“The policy agenda of the Republican Party is being accomplished in the states and it looks like abortion bans, it looks like bans on contraception, it looks like bans or challenges to IVF and personhood — this is what they’re about,” DLCC President Heather Williams told The 19th.

Also this week, in the U.S. Senate, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced after Trump’s interview that he will tee up a vote on a bill called the Right to Contraception Act to coincide with the June 7 anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1965 ruling in Griswold v. Connecticut, which found that state contraception bans violated married Americans’ constitutional right to privacy.

In 2022, shortly after Dobbs, the then-Democratic-controlled U.S. House approved the Right to Contraception Act — but the effort failed in the Senate. Now, the House is controlled by Republicans and the Senate still by Democrats, but the measure is still expected to lack the votes it needs to clear the 60-vote threshold required in the upper chamber. One of the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, told The 19th that it was nevertheless important to hold another vote because it “will put every member on the record on where they stand, and it will show the American people whether they are willing to protect Americans’ health, freedom and equality.”

The Right to Contraception Act would establish a statutory right to contraception that no other law could impede, including a 1993 religious freedom law — an aspect that conservatives find problematic. It requires no new funding. Some Republicans also believe that it would protect access to mifepristone, which is typically used for medication abortion but can be used as contraception, though it is uncommon. The bill does not mention the drug by name. A group of anti-abortion doctors challenged the Food and Drug Administration’s 2000 approval of mifepristone and the case is currently before the Supreme Court.

Trump’s interview — and the fracas that followed — highlighted the dilemma facing Republican candidates in competitive states and districts in November. The anti-abortion groups with whom their right wing has become aligned are pushing policies that are unpopular with voters, including Republicans. Poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans want access to legal abortion, and an even greater percentage support access to contraception.

After a series of questions about abortion, Trump was asked: “Do you support any restrictions on a person’s right to contraception?” He answered: “Well, we’re looking at that and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly. And I think it’s something you’ll find interesting.”

The news anchor followed up with: “Well, that suggests that you may want to support some restrictions like the morning after pill or something?” Trump responded: “We are also, you know, things really have a lot to do with the states. And some states are going to have different policies than others.”

Within hours, Democratic President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign blasted out a press release with the subject line: “Trump on Restricting Contraceptives: ‘We’re Looking at That.’” Trump volleyed back on his social media platform that it was a “Democrat fabricated lie” that he might impose “RESTRICTIONS ON BIRTH CONTROL” and “I DO NOT SUPPORT A BAN ON BIRTH CONTROL, AND NEITHER WILL THE REPUBLICAN PARTY!”

Trump’s campaign suggested he had conflated contraception with abortion medication by pointing reporters to a recent interview with Time magazine, in which he teased an announcement on mifepristone. His campaign did not respond to The 19th’s request to discuss his reproductive health care policies in more detail.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision was made possible by a Trump-cemented conservative majority. Its unpopularity with voters was one reason why Democrats fared better than history predicted in the 2022 midterms — and its fallout is continuing to create headaches for Republicans in moderate areas.

The Right to Contraception Act, meanwhile, is popular with voters. When the advocacy group Americans for Contraception conducted a recent national poll on the legislation, it showed that 81 percent of voters supported it, including 94 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans. But GOP lawmakers across the country, including in political swing states, have blocked state-level versions from becoming law — including with gubernatorial vetoes in Nevada and, just last week, in Virginia.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks in front of a group of people in RichmondVirginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin speaks after the end of the Virginia legislative session, addressing the media at Eggs Up Grill in Richmond, Virginia, on March 14, 2024. Minh Connors for The Washington Post via Getty Images.

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed a version of the Right to Contraception Act that was passed by the only state legislature in the South controlled by Democrats. Youngkin, a Republican, said he supported contraception access but wanted a more “robust conscience clause for providers” who object to prescribing it. Plus, he added, “the Code of Virginia already protects access to contraception through health insurance plans.”

Democrats in Virginia and elsewhere say it isn’t that simple.

Democratic lawmakers interviewed by The 19th pointed to the same thing when asked why they felt legislation was needed: Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the Dobbs case. In it, Thomas wrote that now that Roe v. Wade was gone, “we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents,” including Griswold; Lawrence v. Texas, on adult non-procreative sex; and Obergefell v. Hodges, on marriage equality.

“There have been mumblings about contraception for a few years, but it’s just so widely popular that we weren’t really paying attention until the Dobbs decision came down and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas mentioned the Griswold case and that it needed to be looked back into,” said Virginia Del. Marcia Price, a primary cosponsor of the Right to Contraception Act in that chamber.

Ofirah Yheskel with the Democratic Governors Association said that GOP opposition to protecting contraception “goes to show that Republicans were never going to stop at Dobbs. When Glenn Youngkin had the chance to protect reproductive rights, he put this veto forward — I think there’s a clear contrast here” between the two parties.

The Right to Contraception Act has also failed in other states key to both parties’ chances in November.

In Wisconsin, abortion has been legal since September 2023 after a court put a 1849 ban on hold and abortion rights figured prominently in a 2023 state Supreme Court race. But the Republican-controlled state legislature refused to hold a vote on the Right to Contraception Act before their session ended in March.

In Arizona, backlash over a series of competing abortion bans dating back to before the Civil War played a role in electing a Democratic governor and attorney general in 2022. Yet the Right to Contraception Act did not make it to Gov. Katie Hobbs’ desk because Republicans still have slim majorities in both legislative chambers and united against it.

One reason that Republican lawmakers are increasingly unwilling to codify the right to contraception is because the anti-abortion groups that wield immense power with the party’s right wing are lobbying against the bills — in part because for more than a decade now they have been trying to redefine some forms of contraception as abortion, abortion law historian Mary Ziegler said.

“One of the fronts in the war on contraception is ‘What is contraception?’ We’re already seeing the meaning of abortion contested in medical emergencies. … There are parallel moves to say ‘Well, actually an IUD is an abortion, it turns out this isn’t contraception at all,” Ziegler said.

Intrauterine devices, or IUDs, are small, T-shaped devices that a health care provider inserts into the uterus to prevent pregnancy — some use hormones, some don’t. They are one of the most effective forms of reversible, long-term contraception. Emergency contraception is often called the morning-after pill, and is a hormonal medication you take within several days of having intercourse. Neither are forms of abortion.

Redefining them as methods of abortion also supports the anti-abortion movement’s end goal of establishing fetal personhood, which would extend the rights of already born babies to fetuses, or even fertilized eggs. A Republican bill introduced last year in the U.S. House, for example, would establish personhood rights for even fertilized eggs that have not implanted in the uterine wall — the stage at which most medical professionals say a pregnancy begins.

Prominent anti-abortion group SBA Pro-Life America opposed the Right to Contraception Act when the House voted on it in July 2022, as well as when it came up in Virginia. The group said in a statement provided to The 19th that it “is a single-issue organization focused on abortion. We do not take a stance on contraception.” They have, in the past, promoted the idea that IUDs and emergency contraception can be abortion.

The leader of Alliance Defending Freedom, which helps lawmakers write anti-abortion legislation and is representing the group of anti-abortion doctors challenging mifepristone, told Politico in March that “ADF has never advocated for limitations on access to contraception.” But ADF has in recent years represented a nurse practitioner and a pharmacist who refused to dispense emergency contraceptives, arguing they were “abortion-causing drugs.” “No one should be forced to violate his conscience in the workplace, and that includes dispensing drugs that can cause an abortion,” an ADF attorney wrote on behalf of the pharmacist who refused to dispense the morning-after pill ella.

The Heritage Foundation has crafted a blueprint for Trump’s potential transition period before a second term called Project 2025. In it, they encourage him to remove emergency contraception from the coverage mandate contained in the Affordable Care Act, saying it is a “potential abortifacient” and “close cousin” to mifepristone. Heritage Foundation alumni also hold key posts in Youngkin’s administration and at state entities.

Price, the Virginia delegate, said that it is clear to Democrats there that anti-abortion groups are aiming to “redefine and also to shift public opinion” on what is and isn’t contraception. In her private conversations with Republican women lawmakers, she said, they acknowledged that contraception is widely popular with voters and can also be used to manage conditions such as heavy menstruation, endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome. When it came time to vote, though, all Republican senators voted against the Right to Contraception Act; only a few Republican delegates from the most competitive districts joined Democrats.

When the Virginian-Pilot asked Republican state Sen. Emily Jordan why she voted against protecting contraception she gave them a two-word answer: “Ask caucus,” she said, in a reference to party leadership.

Price said that “contraception helps us leave the house, whether it’s birth control or IUDs, so our quality of life is wrapped up in these conversations.” She and other Virginia Democrats plan to reintroduce legislation to protect contraception next year, when Youngkin will be in his final year.

“There is no way we will stop having these conversations,” she added.

West Virginia governor’s race is a battle of who can be the most anti-trans

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The Republicans vying to be governor of West Virginia are trying to outdo one another on how much they aim to restrict LGBTQ+ rights, with transgender individuals specifically in their bull’s-eye.

Ahead of the state’s May 14 primary elections, the two candidates leading the GOP field are Patrick Morrisey, the current attorney general, and Moore Capito, who resigned from the West Virginia House of Delegates at the end of last year to focus on his bid to be the state’s top executive.

Recent independent polling shows Morrisey and Capito neck and neck, with Chris Miller, the owner of a chain of car dealerships, in a distant third place, followed by Mac Warner, the current secretary of state.

All four candidates — all White, cisgender, straight men — are fervent backers of former Republican President Donald Trump, who won the state by more than 38 points in 2020 and remains highly popular. With little daylight between them on guns (they love them) and immigration (securing the U.S.-Mexico border some 1,500 miles away is often cited as a top failure of Democratic President Joe Biden), the final weeks of the gubernatorial contest have featured a series of one-upmanship ads about who will be the most anti-trans governor.

The ads have accused rivals of supporting LGBTQ+ people while private citizens and criticized the records of those who have held elected positions for being insufficiently committed to restricting LGBTQ+ rights. One particularly harsh ad supporting Morrisey suggests being LGBTQ+ is a slur.

At least 589 pieces of anti-trans legislation were considered by lawmakers at various levels of state and federal government last year, according to an analysis by the Trans Legislation Tracker, representing what the group called “an escalation against transgender people at both the state and national levels.” Most bills were in deep red states. Wyoming attempted to make the provision of gender-affirming care to minors a form of child abuse; Oklahoma considered a ban on gender-affirming care up to 26 years of age.

A poll conducted last year by Survey Monkey for The 19th showed that just 17 percent of Americans — and only 29 percent of Republicans — believe that politicians should focus on restricting access to gender-affirming care. GOP politicians in West Virginia and elsewhere — including in the Republican presidential primary — have nevertheless made pushing anti-trans policies central to their campaigns, seeing it as a way to communicate their political identity to the most fervently anti-LGBTQ+ portion of the Republican base.

An analysis done in early April of the West Virginia governor’s race by AdImpact Politics, which tracks political advertising, showed that nearly $14 million had been spent on ads related to the GOP candidates and that the most-mentioned issue was support for Trump. Morrisey led in ad support, with about $7.3 million spent to bolster his chances by his campaign or other groups. Miller, the son of GOP U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, was next, with about $3.6 million. Capito, the son of Republican U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, rounded out the top tier with about $1.5 million, the analysis showed.

After Trump, the second-most-mentioned issue was LGBTQ+ rights — specifically, ads touting the candidates’ attempts to restrict them or leveling accusations that their opponents have done too little.

Morrisey, as attorney general, has often attempted to use litigation to limit the ability of LGBTQ+ individuals to fully participate in public life. In 2019, when the case Bostock v. Clayton County reached the U.S. Supreme Court, Morrisey filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing the Trump administration’s position that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not protect workers from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The high court disagreed in a 6-to-3 ruling. Just in the past couple of weeks, Morrisey has pledged to appeal to the Supreme Court rulings that allowed a transgender girl to compete on her middle school’s sports teams and one that determined the state’s Medicaid health insurance program had to pay for gender-affirming surgeries. (Some treatments are covered and not at issue in the litigation.)

A recent ad run by Black Bear PAC, which supports Morrisey’s candidacy, charged that when Miller was on the board of a state university he “looked the other way as pro-transgender events happened on his watch.” It shows a man in women’s clothing, makeup and a blonde wig. The captions are framed in rainbow colors associated with the Pride flag. “Chris Miller protected they/them, not us,” the narrator states.

An ad made by Miller’s campaign, meanwhile, features a high school student who says that when she went to the locker room to change for dance practice “there was a boy in there, he’s trans, he would go in there every day and just watch.” “There was a politician that claimed to have our back for a minute,” the girl’s mother said, referring to Morrisey. “He’s not a strong man, we need a strong man, with a strong voice and he’s not that.”

Capito, like his mother, has at times taken positions that support LGBTQ+ rights. In 2019, for example, he sponsored a bill that would ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ minors — efforts to change someone’s sexual orientation through a process not backed by science or supported by major medical associations. But in ads he too has touted his anti-trans record. In a recent one, Capito reminds voters he “wrote the bill banning puberty blockers for children while Morrisey got rich lobbying for the puberty blocker companies.” Morrisey’s past work for private-sector clients included some in the pharmaceutical and health care industries.

The anti-trans focus from the three leading GOP gubernatorial race prompted a rebuke last week from the editorial board at the Dominion Post, the daily newspaper in Morgantown, home to West Virginia University and the state’s third-most populous city. “Three of the top GOP candidates for West Virginia governor have been running almost exclusively anti-transgender ads for well over a month,” the editorial stated, noting that just 0.4 percent of the state’s adult population identifies as transgender. “This is an infinitesimal amount of our populace, yet these three gubernatorial candidates have based their campaigns on punching down at this minority. Specifically, going after literal children.”

The 19th’s queries to the campaigns of Capito and Miller were not answered. Morrisey’s campaign provided a statement that read: “Morrisey has consistently advocated for women and girls to have access to womens-only sports and spaces. Morrisey has never in his life worked to advance any kind of policies that promote transgender ideology. Morrisey is going to continue being the champion for women when he is elected Governor.”

All have shown a reluctance to speak with the news media about their candidacies. Of the four contenders, for example, only Warner participated in a candidate issues forum with the Mountain State Spotlight — Morissey, Capito and Miller did not sit for an interview or respond to the nonprofit news organization’s candidate questionnaire.

In a recent poll of West Virginia’s Republican voters, more than half said that the economy was the most important issue facing the state, followed by the quality of education, health care, immigration, and energy and coal issues. The Dominion Post editorial lamented that with the candidates focused on being the most anti-trans, these issues have gotten very little oxygen in the Republican gubernatorial primary.

A Republican is heavily favored to win the governor’s race in the general election. The only Democrat in contention is Steve Williams, the mayor of Huntington, the state’s second-largest city. Early voting is already underway and ends May 11.

The 19th is an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy.

What happens if the government shuts down?

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Congress has until October 1 to pass a spending package for the 2024 fiscal year or the federal government will shut down, triggering furloughs that could affect as many as a million federal workers and have economic impacts across the country.

When the Senate and House of Representatives returned to Washington earlier this month, their first order of business was to finish negotiating the 12 appropriations bills that will fund the government’s discretionary spending next year.

But negotiations have stalled due to efforts by some House Republicans to fund the government at lower levels than previously agreed upon, and their addition of off-topic riders to restrict abortion and gender-affirming care. To buy more time, congressional leaders are exploring what’s called a continuing resolution, or a CR, that would keep the government open for a short period of time — a week, a month — at or near current funding levels while they broker a long-term deal.

Here’s what happens if Congress hasn’t hammered out a deal by midnight on the last day of September and the government shuts down.

What is a government shutdown?

A shutdown means that all federal agencies must stop functions that are deemed “nonessential” until money is appropriated for the next fiscal year. Mandatory spending — money for programs including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security — is not affected. Government functions deemed essential by individual agencies, along with the Office of Management and Budget, continue.

What government functions could shut down?

Every shutdown is different and there’s a lot we won’t know until it starts and federal agencies begin to furlough workers.

While shutdowns do not necessarily affect the benefits that Americans receive, such as SNAP, the food assistance program for low-income people that is administered by the Agriculture Department, a shutdown could impact how these benefits are distributed if it lasts beyond 30 days, according to the liberal-leaning Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonprofit group that analyzes budget policy. Likewise, Social Security and Medicare benefits would continue as normal for most people, but checks to new beneficiaries could be delayed. During the 1995-1996 shutdown, more than 10,000 Medicare applicants were temporarily turned away, according to the CRFB.

Past shutdowns have impacted national parks, which continued to admit visitors in some cases but stopped many services and closed buildings.

The White House said last week that a government shutdown would, among other things, result in active-duty military personnel and federal law enforcement officers working without pay until they are retroactively made whole after funds are appropriated; undermine clinical trials related to cancer and Alzheimer’s research at the National Institutes of Health; cause 10,000 children to lose access to the early-education program Head Start; force air traffic controllers and TSA agents to work without pay until the shutdown ended, potentially resulting in longer wait times and travel delays; and increase the risk that the Federal Emergency Management Fund will be depleted and complicate new emergency response efforts.

Tour groups walk through the rotunda of the Capitol.Tour groups walk through the rotunda of the Capitol. (Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)

Has the government shut down before?

There have been 21 government shutdowns of at least one day since 1977. Many of these were short — a single day, a weekend — and did not meaningfully impact government services.

The longest government shutdown was during the Trump administration in early 2019, which lasted a full 34 days, weeks longer than past shutdowns.

How will workers be affected?

As many as 4 million workers could be affected, labor unions told ABC News.

About 2.2 million civilian workers are employed by the federal government, many of whom would either work without pay until a shutdown ends or be furloughed. During the 2019 shutdown, about 800,000 federal workers were furloughed. Government contractors could likewise go without pay and may not be reimbursed. Active-duty military service members and law enforcement are deemed essential and would therefore continue working, but their pay would be delayed.

Regions with higher concentrations of federal workers would be disproportionately affected. There are about 370,000 federal workers in the Washington, D.C., area, for example. Democratic Rep. Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, pointing to the number of federal workers in her state who would be impacted, earlier this year introduced a bipartisan bill that would block members of Congress from being paid during government shutdowns.

A government shutdown has cascading effects. The economy in Washington, for example, is dependent on tourism. In 2019, the Smithsonian institutions shut down after they ran out of cash reserves, and the District of Columbia government estimated that the shutdown was costing the city as much as $12 million a week, mostly from lost sales tax revenue from restaurants, hotels and retail establishments. It also impacted food banks and other support services in Washington and elsewhere as they served an influx of furloughed workers trying to make ends meet.

The 19th is an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Top Democratic firm SKDK linked to both sides of #MeToo scandal

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Top Democratic strategy firm SKDK told The 19th on Wednesday that it was an “error” to have advised a since-indicted Illinois House speaker on #MeToo claims against his aides as SKDK representatives also worked with one of the women who had levied them.

SKDK was addressing newly released court records that show how in 2018, as the #MeToo movement gathered force, Anita Dunn and her firm, SKDK, advised then-Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan on sexual harassment claims made against his longtime chief of staff, Tim Mapes, and political operative Kevin Quinn. Dunn is one of the most sought-after Democratic strategists and a longtime confidante of President Joe Biden, whom she now advises from within the White House.

SKDK, through its public relations work for the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, assisted Quinn’s accuser, Alaina Hampton, without disclosing to her that they were also working on Madigan’s behalf. SKDK had a public relationship with the since-shuttered Time’s Up, and its affiliated legal defense fund was a partnership between the strategy firm and the National Women’s Law Center. Hampton’s case highlights the complex power hierarchies that survivors of sexual harassment and assault must navigate as they pursue accountability.

“Had I known they were working with him I would have never applied for funding or PR support with the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund,” Hampton told The 19th. “I think, at a minimum, it is a gross conflict of interest and happened at a time when I was so vulnerable, and I couldn’t trust anyone, and I was being blackballed in the state of Illinois where I worked.”

SKDK spokesperson Michael Czin told The 19th his firm “judged that helping [Madigan] and his staff to take responsibility and correct systemic workplace issues benefited the movement as a whole.”

Alaina Hampton speaks during a news conference.Alaina Hampton, a campaign worker for Illinois Democrats speaks during a news conference in Chicago in February 2018. Hampton addressed reporters after House Speaker Michael Madigan dismissed political consultant Kevin Quinn after an investigation found Quinn sent her inappropriate text messages. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times/AP)

“We understand the concerns that have been raised. In retrospect, we realize that the decision to work with then-Speaker Madigan’s campaign on these matters was an error in light of the support Ms. Hampton was receiving from another firm through a separate initiative we were proud to support,” Czin said in a statement.

“We apologize to Ms. Hampton and her allies and reiterate our full support for the survivor community,” he added.

As of publication time, Hampton had not heard from SKDK directly.

Hampton was a client of the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which was co-founded by Hilary Rosen, then a vice chair at SKDK, who also served on the Time’s Up board. SKDK provided public relations advice to the fund and its clients, and SKDK representatives connected the fund’s clients with local public relations consultants. In 2020, the National Women’s Law Center paid SKDK more than $300,000 for its consulting work. SKDK has also advised survivors on a pro bono basis.

Time’s Up was launched by a group of Hollywood women in early 2018, and its fund was created to provide financial resources to survivors of workplace sexual harassment and assault. Time’s Up ran into trouble a few years after its launch, when it came to light that board co-chair and its legal defense fund co-founder Roberta Kaplan had advised then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his staff as they tried to discredit a woman who accused Cuomo of sexual harassment. Kaplan resigned. Then Time’s Up’s chief executive, Tina Tchen did too. Tchen told The 19th shortly before her resignation that she had a “blindspot” regarding leaders’ relationships with powerful Democrats and their donors. Time’s Up disbanded earlier this year, transferring all remaining funds to the legal defense fund at the National Women’s Law Center.

SKDK’s ties to the Time’s Up apparatus added to a perception of partisanship for some survivors. The “D” in SKDK stands for Dunn, the longtime Democratic strategist who advised Madigan. Dunn has a low profile outside of Washington but her influence is well known inside the Beltway. She was a senior communications adviser to former President Barack Obama and is now a senior adviser to Biden. NBC News recently described her as Washington’s “grande dame of public relations.” The White House referred The 19th to SKDK for comment on this story as it relates to Dunn’s work while in the private sector.

Hampton, a Democratic campaign operative, filed a federal lawsuit in March 2018 that accused Quinn of inappropriate sexual behavior and Madigan’s inner circle of retaliation. Knowing it would be difficult to challenge the most powerful political operation in her state, she hired a local attorney and public relations adviser. At the end of that year, Hampton applied to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund for financial assistance. “Time’s Up was an organization that made me feel safe and like I had support,” Hampton told The 19th.

Michael Madigan speaks during a committee hearing in Chicago.Illinois’ former Speaker of the House Michael Madigan speaks during a committee hearing in February 2021 in Chicago. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times/AP)

While Hampton did not know it at the time, Dunn and SKDK were already advising Madigan. Hampton mostly dealt with Melody Meyer, who used an SKDK email address and was listed in the 2018 Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund’s annual report as “PR Counsel & Coordinator for the Fund, SKDKnickerbocker.” SKDK said that Meyer was a contractor who was brought in to coordinate communications representation for survivors and did not work on behalf of other SKDK clients.

The full scope of Dunn’s work on behalf of Madigan is not detailed in the court records, but exchanges between his associates discussing Dunn’s involvement in advising the speaker on #MeToo accusations in his office were made public during a federal trial last month. Mapes was convicted of perjury over his efforts to protect Madigan, who was indicted in 2022 on federal bribery and racketeering charges and will go on trial next year.

A September 2018 email exchange between Mapes and a longtime Madigan confidante discussed the genesis of an op-ed that Madigan published in the Chicago Tribune related to the #MeToo accusations levied against his aides. In it, he said that it was his “personal mission to take this issue head-on and correct past mistakes. I wish I would have done so sooner.” A Madigan associate wrote to Mapes: “We landed on SKDKnickerbocker, the lead is Anita Dunn. She met with us and the Speaker and laid out a plan. The S[peaker] liked it and he hired her.” Political committees connected to Madigan paid SKDK at least $87,500 between August and October 2018.

Hampton’s case settled in 2019 and Madigan-affiliated political committees agreed to pay her $275,000, most of which went to legal fees and to reimburse the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund. An Illinois legislative inspector general also determined in 2019 that the accused Madigan aides had created a “hostile, and offensive working environment.”

Throughout her legal proceedings, Hampton would regularly share upcoming case developments with SKDK so they could help her prepare for media coverage. She said that it was “shocking but not shocking” to find out during Mapes’ trial that SKDK was working with the very man sitting atop the power structure she was navigating as she went public with her #MeToo claim.

“A lot of people who work in politics prioritize power and money, and being close to people who are powerful,” Hampton said.

Disclosure: Hilary Rosen has been a financial supporter of The 19th.

The 19th is an independent, nonprofit newsroom reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Is Florida still a political battleground? Senate candidate Val Demings thinks so.

Originally published by The 19th

JACKSONVILLE — It wasn’t long after Rep. Val Demings took the microphone at a campaign event at a Florida union hall that she acknowledged it was perhaps a curious time for a Democrat to give up their spot in the House to try to flip a Senate seat in the country’s southernmost state.

“You may be saying: ‘Why on Earth, why would you want to run for the United States Senate now?’” Demings said to murmurs and nods from the crowd at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) hall in Jacksonville.

As of 2021, there were more registered Republicans than Democrats in Florida for the first time in at least 50 years. Donald Trump won there in 2016 and again in 2020, even as neighboring Georgia backed a Democrat, President Joe Biden, for the first time since 1996. In 2018, for the first time since the 1980s, Florida elected two senators from one party: the GOP. There is a political trifecta, with Republicans controlling the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the statehouse. But Gov. Ron DeSantis won by less than a half a point in 2018 in an election that went to a recount.

“We are living in some strange times, we’re living in some unbelievable times, we’re living in some difficult times, and we’re living in some crazy times,” Demings continued, “But I didn’t come tonight to just bring you bad news. I came tonight to bring you some good news too: I’m running for the United States Senate and, doggone it, I am going to win.”

“Why? Why is directly tied to my personal story,” Demings added.

These are the contours of Demings’ personal story: She grew up around Jacksonville. Her dad was a janitor who also picked oranges and mowed lawns. Her mother was a maid. She is the youngest of seven children and the first in the family to graduate from college. She was a social worker before joining Orlando’s police force. She made history as the city’s first woman chief of police in 2007, and violent crime dropped 40 percent during her tenure. In 2016, Demings was elected to the House of Representatives, where she serves on the Judiciary, Intelligence and Homeland Security committees. She was one of seven managers who made the case for Trump’s impeachment during the first Senate trial. Now, she is aiming to be the third Black woman ever elected to the Senate, following former Sens. Carol Moseley Brown of Illinois and Kamala Harris of California, whose elevation to vice president left the upper chamber with none. Demings was also on Joe Biden’s VP shortlist.

“I learned to fight a long time ago,” Demings said.

A Democrat will need to be a fighter to win a statewide race in Florida this year. Midterm elections are historically challenging for the party in the White House, and Biden’s approval rating is below 40 percent. DeSantis is a popular governor with high name recognition, seen as an early front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, and his presence at the top of the ballot will likely motivate the party’s base voters to turn out.

Among the states that are current or recent political battlegrounds, Florida stands out in the latest iteration of U.S. culture wars. DeSantis and the GOP-led legislature have pursued restricting abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, voting, and the discussion of history and gender in public schools. The moves appeal to the Republican base, but Democrats are hoping that this could hurt DeSantis in November with moderate and independent voters. They’re also hoping there will be a carryover effect on Republicans such as Sen. Marco Rubio, who have not denounced — and at times lauded — the actions DeSantis has taken.

This is all while the Democratic agenda has largely stalled in Washington, with legislation related to voting access, policing, codifying abortion rights and other top priorities unable to get through the Senate.

But if any Democrat has a chance in Florida it is Demings, some in her party told The 19th. Though she still polls behind Rubio, the gap between them has narrowed. It is one of just three Republican Senate seats the Cook Political Report rates as leaning Republican, the second most competitive rating. DeSantis has pursued controversial bills related to the teaching of race and gender, and a 15-week abortion ban after the Supreme Court overturned 1973’s Roe v. Wade decision that could motivate Democratic voters to turn out in opposition. Plus, the ongoing House hearings related to the January 6 insurrection have lent credibility to the prior impeachment proceedings with voters already conflicted about Trump, strategists have said.

Demings raised a record $12.2 million in the second quarter, with about $13.2 million in the bank, and an average contribution around $30, according to her campaign. During the same time period, Rubio raised about $4 million, and has about $14.5 million still in the coffers. Both are the presumptive winners of their primaries, which will be held on Aug. 23.

Steve Simeonidis, a lawyer and former chair of the Democratic Party in Miami-Dade County, said Demings has “amazing name recognition because she’s been so involved, not only with her own community in Orlando, but helping out the entire state of Florida while representing us in Congress.”

Demings told the crowd at the IBEW hall that she is running so others can experience their own version of her “only in America” story, wherein the Black daughter of a maid and a janitor can ascend to police chief, then the House, now potentially the Senate.

“I am on a mission to make sure that every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, regardless of the color of their skin, where they live, how much money they have in the bank, their sexual orientation, sexual identity or religion, will have an opportunity to succeed,” she said to applause.

Demings was campaigning in Jacksonville shortly after a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion indicated that the conservative justices were poised to overturn nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights. The actual decision came the next month. The eight voters who spoke to The 19th at the IBEW event all brought up abortion access — and the Supreme Court — as a primary concern. The justices this term ended federal abortion rights and made it more difficult for states to regulate guns. They’re poised to hear a major case related to voting next term.

Verona Mitchell, 73, said she believes that concerns about the highest court would result in better-than-expected showings for Democrats in Senate races. “Democrats are going to surprise people this year — we’re going to overtake the Senate. There’s going to be an upset. Democrats are upset, but we’re quiet,” she said.

Mitchell’s friend, Gwen Coleman, also 73, agreed. She also believes that increasingly conservative cultural positions taken by DeSantis will make some of Florida’s independent or moderate voters think twice about backing Republicans up and down the ballot.

“I’m part of a powerful prayer group and we’re praying for God to touch these Republican minds,” she said.

Demings told The 19th that Democratic Senate candidates, herself included, “certainly understand the significance of the U.S. Supreme Court.” The Dobbs decision was “the first time the court has not protected a constitutional right, but chose to overturn one.”

“We are not going to tolerate it, we are not going to stand for it. … If they think that we are going away or shutting up or sitting down, or accepting this vicious attack on women’s rights, they are sadly mistaken,” she continued.

“I have three sons. I did not ask my congressman, I didn’t ask the governor, and I certainly didn’t ask my senator for permission to do that,” Demings said.

DeSantis, meanwhile, signed a 15-week abortion ban into law that took effect this month. He has also become embroiled in a spat over gender and sexuality with Walt Disney Co., the state’s largest employer with 70,000 workers in Florida. After the entertainment company’s executive criticized a DeSantis-led “Don’t Say Gay” bill that restricts elementary classroom discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity, the governor quickly signed into law a retaliatory bill that dissolves the special district in which Disney has operated with special authorities and tax breaks since 1967. The 19th has reported on how the roughly 9,000 current openings for school personnel in the state is in part due to the anti-educator rhetoric coming from the DeSantis administration.

Rubio backed DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” bill, said Disney was lying about the legislation, accused the company of liberal activism, and has introduced federal bill that would block companies from taking a tax deduction for reimbursing employees who have to travel out of state for their child’s gender-affirming care or an abortion. Rubio was not one of the 15 Senate Republicans — including members of leadership and multiple lawmakers with “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association — who voted for a moderate, bipartisan gun bill last month. He has said the Disney spat is a “state fight” and that he plans on focusing on “federal problems that matter to real people” such as gas prices. He told reporters that a marriage equality bill pending in the Senate is a “stupid waste of time.” His campaign did not respond to a request to comment for this story.

Ione Townsend, head of the Hillsborough County Democratic Executive Committee, said that she thinks DeSantis “has probably hurt himself significantly with suburban women,” ticking off “the whole Disney thing;” a bill that has allowed parents to object to books in schools that have ranged from Harry Potter to Toni Morrison’s ‘The Bluest Eye”; and asking a group of middle school students at a March 2022 televised event to remove their protective masks because it was “ridiculous” to continue wearing them.

Townsend is one of many Democratic operatives who believe that women will be particularly strong candidates this year as both parties attempt to woo suburban women who may be upset with GOP stances on abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

Plus, Townsend said of Demings: “She’s a law-and-order person, so I think she’ll be attractive to some of the softer Republicans, so I think she has a good chance … it all depends on voter turnout.”

In a sign that Rubio’s campaign also believes Demings’ background as a police chief likely has crossover appeal, his first campaign ad of the cycle, released last week, touts his endorsement from law enforcement officials and features one who says Demings did not “condemn radicals who wanted to abolish police.”

As of last month, Florida had 14.2 million registered voters, including roughly 5.2 million Republicans, 5 million Democrats, 256,000 affiliated with minor parties and 3.9 million independents with no party affiliation. Last year was the first time that Republican registrations outnumbered Democratic registrations in the state since at least 1972, the earliest year for which the state provides online records.

Florida is the only battleground state that Trump won by a larger margin in 2020 than in 2016. Clinton won Miami-Dade by more than 30 points in 2016; Biden carried the county by less than seven points in 2020. His performance was so poor among Latinx voters there that prominent strategists said it could be a broader warning for the party.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), which supports Democrats in Senate races, said it has made clear from “day one that this will be a competitive race.”

“We’ve included Florida as part of the Defend the Majority program and know that Florida will be a competitive battleground,” according to spokesperson Amanda Sherman Baity.

The DSCC’s Defend the Majority program made an initial $30 million investment in September in nine Senate races in Florida, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The DSCC provides the candidates with field staff and offices, along with outreach advice to reach the Latinx community, AAPI voters and other critical Democratic blocs.

Demings told The 19th she would be traveling from “the Panhandle to the Keys … talking to people about things that keep them up at night.” She is talking to voters about not just the Supreme Court and abortion rights, but about issues like the economy, inflation, supply-chain holdups and housing prices, all of which GOP leaders have advised their candidates to focus on. She said her career in policing has prepared her well for the campaign trail.

It was a “nontraditional career for any woman and it was not easy to do,” Demings said.

“I am doing what a lot of candidates do not do: I’m not just going into places where it’s comfortable for me to go, like Marco Rubio does. I’m talking to Republican voters, Democratic voters and independent voters about the things that matter to them,” she said.

“I didn’t care as a law enforcement officer what your political party was. My message resonates with people throughout the state. And I’m going to continue to tell that story and not sit back and feel I’m entitled to their support.”

Here's what you need to know as Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking trial begins

Originally published by The 19th

The sex trafficking trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, the former girlfriend and alleged accomplice of wealthy investor and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, begins in New York on Monday.

Maxwell, 59, faces six charges related to her involvement helping Epstein “recruit, groom, and ultimately abuse victims” for at least a decade, according to the indictment against her. If convicted, she could face more than 40 years in prison.

The trial of the well-connected British socialite has gotten a lot of media attention given the circles in which she and Epstein traveled. They were both photographed socializing at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort; Maxwell attended the wedding of former President Bill Clinton’s daughter.

Here is what we know about Maxwell, her links to Epstein and the case against her:

Who is Ghislaine Maxwell?

Maxwell is the youngest of nine children born to Elizabeth and Robert Maxwell. Her father was a Jewish refugee who fled Czechoslovakia during World War II and went on to become a member of the British parliament, rumored Israeli spy and media mogul who owned the Mirror Group Newspapers and the New York Daily News. In 1991, at 68, he went overboard his yacht, the Lady Ghislaine, and drowned in the Canary Islands, sparking conspiracy theories; Ghislaine has said she believes he was murdered.

After Robert’s death, hundreds of millions of dollars were found missing from the pension funds of his companies, which subsequently filed for bankruptcy. Two of his sons were tried for conspiracy to defraud and acquitted.

Over the years, the Oxford-educated Maxwell worked in various capacities at several of her father’s companies. She founded a now-shuttered charity to support the oceans. In 2016, she married a tech entrepreneur.

Maxwell started associating with Epstein in the early 1990s when she moved to New York City after her father’s death. The two dated for a period then remained close friends. Maxwell introduced Epstein to politicians, celebrities and even members of the British Royal Family, and the duo appeared separately and together at high-profile society events.

Who was Jeffrey Epstein?

Epstein was born in Brooklyn and, after a brief stint as a teacher, became an investment adviser known for his associations with high-profile individuals, including politicians, and a luxurious lifestyle that included homes in New York City and Palm Beach, a ranch in New Mexico, and a private island in the Caribbean. Epstein was a convicted sex offender, having pleaded guilty to the solicitation of prostitution involving a minor in Florida, but a 2008 non-prosecution agreement allowed him to avoid federal charges at that time.

Epstein was arrested in July 2019 after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of sex trafficking minors and the conspiracy to commit it. The indictment describes how Epstein allegedly “enticed and recruited” minors to abuse at his homes in New York and Florida, then would pay them to help recruit additional girls.

Epstein died by apparent suicide in August 2019 in a New York jail while awaiting trial. He was 66. After his death, some of Epstein’s accusers appeared in court to describe their alleged abuse, with several mentioning Maxwell’s involvement. A compensation fund for Epstein’s sexual assault victims established by his estate has paid out more than $120 million to at least 135 people.

What are the allegations against Maxwell?

Federal prosecutors say that starting in 1994, Maxwell “enticed and groomed multiple minor girls to engage in sex acts with Jeffrey Epstein” by developing friendships with them, then tried to “normalize sexual abuse” by “discussing sexual topics, undressing in front of the victim, being present when a minor victim was undressed, and/or being present for sex acts involving the minor victim and Epstein.”

In July 2020, she initially faced a six-count indictment: conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts; enticement of a minor to travel to engage in illegal sexual acts; conspiracy to transport minors with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity; transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity and two counts of perjury. In March 2021, a grand jury added sex trafficking charges. The two perjury charges will be tried separately. Maxwell has pleaded not guilty to all.

Where is Maxwell now?

Maxwell’s requests for bail have been denied multiple times, and she has been held in a Brooklyn jail since her arrest in July 2020. She will return there after trial proceedings end each day. Her legal team has said in court filings that the jail’s conditions are “reprehensible” and that Maxwell has suffered “physical and emotional abuse by the corrections officers, poor and unsanitary living conditions, insufficient nutrition, difficulties reviewing the millions of legal discovery documents in the case against her, and sleep deprivation.”

What will happen during the trial?

A potential jury pool of hundreds is expected to be winnowed to 12 jurors and six alternates who will be seated Monday ahead of opening arguments in what is expected to be a six-week trial.

Some or all of the four alleged victims in the indictment are expected to testify. Prosecutors are also likely to focus on Maxwell’s “black book.” Both Epstein and Maxwell are believed to have kept bound books of social contacts and notations. When Gawker published Epstein’s in 2015 it listed Trump, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and conservative billionaire David Koch — along with details about Epstein’s alleged underage victims. Britain’s Prince Andrew, who is himself being sued for sexual abuse by one of Epstein’s accusers, was listed multiple times.

Maxwell’s prosecutors said in court filings that a former Epstein employee is expected to testify that there were “two sets of contact books maintained in Epstein’s residences, both of which were printed and bound in a distinct format” and that the second is Maxwell’s. They say it will show she knew Epstein’s victims and was aware at least some were minors. Prosecutors are also expected to call as an expert witness a clinical psychologist to talk about how minors can be “groomed” for sexual assault.

Maxwell is not expected to testify in her own defense. Some of her siblings are likely to attend the trial. Maxwell’s attorneys are expected to call a series of expert witnesses, including some to counter the prosecution’s clinical psychologist or to create doubts about the veracity of trauma-related memories. One expert will “explain how it is that a person might go from having no memory of sexual abuse, and even denying sexual abuse, to later having ‘memories’ for numerous abusive acts, if the memories are false,” and another will testify to “hindsight bias” in cases where alleged grooming has occurred, her lawyers told the court. Maxwell’s attorneys did not respond to a request to comment.

Laurie Levenson, a criminal law expert at Loyola Law School Marymount who is not involved in the case, said the “most natural defense is to point to the guy who’s not there” and make the argument that his death “doesn’t mean you just go after the next person in line.” The questions prosecutors will need to answer are: “Did she participate in her own right?” and “How much did she know?”

Levenson said she expects a focus on texts, email messages and other communications between Maxwell and Epstein, or Maxwell with Epstein’s victims, or Maxwell and other men implicated in the sex trafficking ring.

“I think there will be a lot of finger pointing at people who are not in the courtroom, and Epstein will be the biggest ghost there,” she said.

Amy Coney Barrett has energized Supreme Court's rightward turn after just one year

Originally published by The 19th

When Justice Amy Coney Barrett was sworn into the Supreme Court just days before the 2020 elections, conservatives lauded her installation as a victory that would define Donald Trump's presidency and liberals lamented it as a death knell for abortion rights.

One year later, Barrett's influence on the court is still coming into focus, and the extent of her deference to the court's 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade is likely to become more clear over the next couple months as the court holds oral arguments in cases related to restrictive abortion laws.

Until then, there are hints in the court's record about Barrett's impact. They are seen less in the opinions she has authored and more in the strength she has given the court's conservative majority, with which she has sided to expand the use of what legal scholars call the court's “shadow docket," or procedural rulings in ongoing cases that are meant to be temporary but in reality can be the final word, such as in cases in which an abortion clinic shuts down while a law is in place.

It is the shadow docket — expedited orders and decisions the Supreme Court issues without oral argument, sometimes without providing vote breakdowns or signing names — that offers some clues about the Barrett-bolstered conservative majority's thinking as it begins a term with highly anticipated cases, experts told The 19th. Those include two related to restrictive abortion laws in Texas and Mississippi, slated for oral arguments on November 1 and December 1.

Abortion-rights advocates worried the September 2020 death of longtime liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had argued landmark gender equality cases before the court before joining it, would spell the end for Roe, which established the right to an abortion before fetal viability outside the womb.

When Trump nominated Barrett, a former Notre Dame Law School professor and appeals court judge, to replace Ginsburg, many left-leaning women said she would be a “disaster" for abortion rights and the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people overall, in part due to her religious beliefs. Many conservative women, meanwhile, praised the mother of seven as a “new feminist icon." More than 200 women lawyers of various political leanings urged the Senate to confirm her, saying they rejected the idea that Barrett's Catholic faith should be disqualifying. Barrett clerked for now-deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who was also a conservative Catholic. She is now one of three women on the court, its only conservative woman and its only mother.

Like most first-term justices, Barrett was assigned noncontroversial opinions that were decided either unanimously or with coalitions across the ideological spectrum. Though her opinions — on the application of public information records to executive branch agencies, a dispute over interstate waters, when an individual has exceeded the authorized use of computerized government records and the certification of a class in securities lawsuit — didn't dominate headlines, her effect on the court's majority in other ways is clear.

Barrett's addition to the court further tilted the court's ideological makeup from 5-4 to 6-3 in favor of conservatives. The swing vote is now less likely to be conservative-but-centrist Chief Justice John Roberts, nominated by President George W. Bush. It's now Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another Trump nominee, who is a potential deciding jurist.

In September, Roberts and the liberal justices said that a Texas law that effectively bans abortions after six weeks should not be in effect as it was challenged in the courts. The other conservative justices, with Barrett and Kavanaugh among them, disagreed — and had a majority. As a result, the law, known as SB 8, has been in place since September 1, save a 48-hour window in October.

Emergency applications give the Supreme Court an opportunity to change the status quo as it waits to hear a case. An applicant must show that their underlying case is likely to succeed and that in the interim they would suffer irreparable harm. Stephen Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said the increasingly conservative court is “intervening earlier and much more often, deciding whether to let the law go into effect or not."

Before Barrett joined the court, it had issued only four emergency injunctions in the 15 years Roberts has been chief justice. Since November 2020, justices have issued seven. The court's total grants of emergency relief in the 2005 term were six, in the 2018 term were 15 and in the 2020 term were 20. “Part of where Justice Barrett made an immediate impact was in further accelerating that trend," Vladeck said.

Vladeck said these high-court interventions often allow laws passed by conservative lawmakers to remain in place or put laws that are passed by liberal lawmakers on hold.

Justice Stephen Breyer, one of the liberals on the court, recently told the New York Times in an interview pegged to his book release that the court should use the shadow docket less, and when it does, explain its reasoning. Justice Samuel Alito, a conservative, meanwhile said during a recent lecture at Notre Dame that there is nothing new about the court deciding emergency applications and that the portrayal of the shadow docket has been “sinister" and “misleading."

One of the earliest emergency rulings in which Barrett played a pivotal role was on Thanksgiving Eve 2020, when the court decided 5-4 in favor of Catholic and Jewish groups that were challenging then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's COVID-19 restrictions on the number of congregants who could gather for a service. Before Barrett joined the court, the justices had reached the opposite conclusion, allowing similar restrictions in California and Nevada to take effect.

Subsequently, in April of this year, Barrett was in a 5-4 majority that said people of faith could gather in homes, though a California coronavirus restriction limited in-home gatherings to three households. Though the injunctive orders were not signed, legal experts said they show how Barrett has tipped the balance of the court in cases where the conservative majority is showing it is unlikely to allow policies that could infringe on religious liberty to remain in effect while they are appealed.

Barrett's Catholic faith came up frequently during her confirmation hearings, when she was asked about how she would decide cases related to abortion rights and capital punishment if and when they overlapped with her religious beliefs. (The Catholic Church is against both the death penalty and abortion.)

Barrett wrote a 1998 law review article about how death penalty cases put Catholic judges “in a moral and legal bind" but they “cannot — nor should they try to — align our legal system with the Church's moral teaching whenever the two diverge."

In February, she openly sided with the court's liberal justices, along with at least one other conservative justice who did not sign their name, to rule that Alabama could not execute a prisoner without a requested pastor present. But in November 2020, when the court allowed the execution of a federal prisoner in Indiana to move forward, Barrett did not sign a dissent with the liberal justices. She likewise allowed executions to proceed when she was a judge on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Though the Supreme Court has not heard any abortion-related arguments since Barrett joined its ranks, it has handled emergency applications that reinstated federal requirements that abortive medicines be picked up in person during the coronavirus pandemic and allowed Texas' ban on abortions after six weeks to go into effect while the case wound its way through lower courts. The first order was unsigned and did not provide a vote breakdown. Barrett sided with the conservative majority on the Texas order but did not sign it.

Jill Wieber Lens, a professor at the University of Arkansas Law School, said that such procedural rulings “aren't supposed to be about the merits — they're about what do we need to do in the meantime, and who will be injured in the meantime."

“I think it says a lot that [SB 8] will be in place" until the Supreme Court hears the case on November 1," Lens said.

Trump explicitly said before appointing Barrett to the Supreme Court that he wanted to fulfill his campaign promise to install anti-abortion justices. Barrett has noted that her church considers abortion to be immoral and signed a 2006 newspaper advertisement opposing “abortion on demand." But she also said in a 2016 speech of Roe's “core holding that women have a right to an abortion, I don't think that would change."

It's impossible to know how justices will vote in different cases. On a different issue, for instance, Justice Neil Gorsuch, a conservative Trump nominee, authored the opinion in a closely watched case last year that found employment descrimination protections applied to LGBTQ+ workers. Nicole Huberfeld, a law professor at Boston University School of Law, said, “There's a long history of presidents appointing justices and then those justices vote in very different ways than those presidents anticipated."

Many legal experts are nevertheless expecting that Barrett's addition to the court, and its decision to leave SB 8 in place until a decision next year, augers an increased hostility to abortion rights that could result in Roe being weakened, if not overturned. It's already doing that, experts said, with clinics being shut down in Texas.

“It's clear [Texas's] goal is to shut down abortion clinics hoping they will never reopen — and history will show that's an accurate assumption," Huberfeld said.

“So waiting for the law to be applied to see if it violates constitutional rights is problematic," she added.

Greer Donley, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh law school, agreed that while the court's interim ruling in SB 8 was not on the merits of the law, which she called “obviously unconstitutional in a lot of ways," she thinks the procedural order makes the court's thinking clear.

“It speaks volumes about what the court thinks about abortion rights, right now," Donley said.

Liz Cheney raises $1.5 million amid battle with Matt Gaetz and other Trump defenders

Rep. Liz Cheney raised $1.54 million for next year's reelection campaign during the first quarter of 2021 as she fended off calls to step down from Republican party leadership over her vote to impeach Donald Trump during the final days of his presidency.

Originally published by The 19th

The Wyoming lawmaker's first-quarter fundraising is a five-fold increase over the amount her campaign raised during the first quarter of 2019, the last off year in which she did not face reelection. More than $1 million of it came from individual donors, her campaign said.

Cheney has held Wyoming's sole U.S. House of Representatives seat since 2017. In the last full quarter before Cheney's reelection in November, which she won with nearly 70 percent of the vote, her campaign raised about $443,000, according to campaign finance filings.

“Liz Cheney raised more money this quarter than ever before for a simple reason: People are responding to her effective, principled leadership," said Kevin Seifer, Cheney's political adviser.

The first months of Cheney's third term turned politically tumultuous after she said Trump “assembled the mob" that orchestrated the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, then voted to impeach the outgoing president. Trump was subsequently acquitted by the Senate, which was then under Democratic control.

Cheney was one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach. She is the highest-ranking GOP woman in the House, the only woman in her party's leadership and the only member of Republican leadership to cast a vote for impeachment.

In reprisal for Cheney's vote, the Wyoming Republican Party decided overwhelmingly to censure her; two state lawmakers announced they would challenge her in next year's primary; Trump-allied colleagues such as Rep. Matt Gaetz flew to Wyoming to campaign for her defeat; and a group of conservative House lawmakers launched a failed effort to oust her from leadership. She retained her post after a 145-to-61 party vote done by secret ballot.

“She resoundingly won the support of the House Conference in February and she will continue to generate support from those who are concerned with the future of the Republican Party," Seifer said.

“The people of Wyoming deserve a representative who is principled and unwilling to buckle when the going gets tough," he added.

Political strategist Sarah Longwell, who is part of the Republican Accountability Project, which has pledged $50 million to defend lawmakers who backed Trump's impeachment, said Cheney's fundraising haul amidst the tumult signals continued support for the lawmaker.

“I think there are a lot of old-school Republicans who appreciate her principled stand against Trump after his incitement of the attack on the Capitol and wanted to send a message that she continues to have serious support, despite silly stunts like being censured by the local GOP or Matt Gaetz's visit to Wyoming," Longwell said.

Deb Haaland makes history as first Native American Cabinet secretary

The Senate on Monday confirmed Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico to head the Interior Department, marking the first time in U.S. history that a Native American will be Cabinet secretary of an executive branch agency.

In the 51-to-40 vote, four Republicans joined with Democrats to confirm the lawyer, climate activist and two-term House of Representatives lawmaker to the post overseeing more than 500 million acres of public land.

President Joe Biden has pledged to make his Cabinet secretaries — a president's inner circle — the most diverse group in history, and Haaland's confirmation furthers that goal. Of the 23 individuals Biden has nominated to his Cabinet, 17 have been confirmed thus far, including Haaland, with eight women among them.

Tribal leaders, environmental groups and progressive activists had pushed early on in Biden's administration for a Native American to lead the Interior Department, given the agency also manages most federal programs related to more than 550 recognized tribes. Haaland emerged as a top choice.

With the 100-seat Senate evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, and Vice President Kamala Harris as the tiebreaker, nominees cannot afford to lose the support of any Democratic senators if they do not have some Republican support.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia indicated early on he had some reservations about both Haaland and Neera Tanden, Biden's pick to lead the Office of Management and Budget. His skepticism raised concerns that women of color faced steeper odds for confirmation in the chamber.

Manchin ultimately supported Haaland after she appeared before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources that he chairs. His opposition to Tanden, however, helped derail her confirmation. She is thus far the only nominee that the White House has had to withdraw. Manchin, along with some Republicans, said tweets sent by the leader of the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, might make it difficult for her to negotiate with lawmakers. She would have been the first woman of color and South Asian American in the role.

When Haaland appeared before the Senate energy panel, she faced questions from Manchin, and committee Republicans, about progressive policy stances that included her support for the Green New Deal and her opposition to fracking. Manchin ultimately said he would support Haaland despite their differences because both parties needed to be “committed to a new era of bipartisanship."

Haaland said repeatedly in the panel hearings that if confirmed she would be implementing not her own agenda, but Biden's, which includes a moratorium on new permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands but does not ban fracking outright.

While Haaland hails from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party — she co-chaired Sen. Elizabeth Warren's 2020 presidential campaign — she introduced more bills that had bipartisan sponsorship during her first year than any other first-term representative.

The Energy and Natural Resources Committee ultimately voted 11 to 9 to send Haaland to the full Senate for confirmation. Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska joined the Democrats on the panel. Alaska Republican Rep. Don Young, who is not on the panel, had introduced Haaland in a show of support. Roughly a fifth of Alaska's population is indigenous, and more than half of the state's land managed by the Interior Department.

The Interior Department employs about 70,000 people to oversee more than 500 million acres of public land, including 423 national park sites. It contains the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which administers most programs related to more than 550 federally recognized tribes.

In the 2018 midterm elections, Haaland was elected to represent New Mexico's 1st Congressional District. She was one of two Native American women elected that year who were the first to serve. She said when sworn in that “Congress has never heard a voice like mine."

At her confirmation hearings for the Interior post, Haaland said: “the historic nature of my confirmation is not lost on me, but, I will say, it is not about me. Rather, I hope this nomination would be an inspiration for Americans, moving forward together, as one nation, and creating opportunities for all of us."

Originally published by The 19th

Elizabeth Warren renews push for wealth tax after joining Senate finance panel

Originally published by The 19th

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Monday renewed her push for an “ultra-millionaire" tax, reviving the proposed wealth tax that defined her own White House campaign to make the case that President Joe Biden could use it to finance his broad economic agenda.

As the Senate takes up the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed by the House last week, with a provision to raise the hourly minimum wage that is expected to be stripped out, the White House and Democratic lawmakers are already looking ahead to Biden's “Build Back Better" plan that is expected to be used as a vehicle to update infrastructure and create jobs, including in clean energy.

During the Democratic presidential primary, Biden did not support a wealth tax like the one offered by Warren and other progressive-leaning lawmakers such as Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, who are spearheading the effort in the House. The introduction of the proposal could mark the first notable policy conflict between Biden and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party if the administration does not consider it.

“It is time for a wealth tax in America," Warren told reporters on Monday.

She added that a wealth tax would “level the playing field a little bit and create the kind of revenue that would allow us to build back better, as Joe Biden says."

The proposal unveiled by Warren, Jayapal and Boyle, which mirrors the one detailed by Warren during her White House bid, would levy a 2 percent annual tax on the portion of households and trusts valued between $50 million and $1 billion, with an additional 1 percent tax on any wealth beyond $1 billion.

It would affect the top 0.05 percent of taxpayers, or about 100,000 of the wealthiest U.S. households. University of California-Berkeley economists have estimated that it would generate $3 trillion in revenue over a decade — even more than they estimated during Warren's presidential bid due to an economic downturn that has exacerbated income inequality and left ultra-wealthy individuals in even better financial shape.

The clean energy component of Biden's Build Back Better plan has an estimated price tag of $2 trillion. The full implementation cost will depend on whether other components, such as Biden's plans to support the caregiving workforce, are included and in what form.

The White House said last week that it did not expect to preview Build Back Better in detail until after the COVID-19 relief package is signed into law. Congressional Democrats aim to send the latest COVID-19 relief package to the White House by March 14, when previously passed unemployment benefits related to the pandemic expire. Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday that Biden “strongly believes the ultra-wealthy and corporations need to finally start paying their fair share." She did not elaborate on what that might look like.

“Joe Biden is about to propose a multi-trillion Build Back Better plan that will likely need to be funded in significant part by taxing the rich," said Adam Green with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which supports liberal candidates and policies.

“Putting this out before he proposes his Build Back Better plan is absolutely strategic and gives him a pay-for on a silver platter," he added, referencing revenue-generating proposals lawmakers often pair with spending on social programs.

Jayapal said at Monday's news conference that when you look at racial inequality as it relates to wealth and not just income it is “particularly staggering." The wealth gap between White households as compared with Black and Latinx households left non-White households less able to weather the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Boyle reiterated a point that Warren frequently made on the campaign trail to support the idea of a wealth tax: that the type of wealth held by most Americans — their house — is already taxed.

Polls consistently show that the public broadly supports the implementation of a wealth tax and it crosses ideological boundaries.

Democrats control the House and legislation there passes by a simple majority whereas in the evenly split, 100-seat Senate, most legislation, including a wealth tax or broader economic package, would likely require 60 votes.

Warren noted last month when she joined the Senate Finance Committee that the introduction of a bill to implement a wealth tax would be among her first moves. The proposal is also co-sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, all Democrats.

As the Senate takes up the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed by the House last week, with a provision to raise the hourly minimum wage that is expected to be stripped out, the White House and Democratic lawmakers are already looking ahead to Biden's “Build Back Better" plan that is expected to be used as a vehicle to update infrastructure and create jobs, including in clean energy.

During the Democratic presidential primary, Biden did not support a wealth tax like the one offered by Warren and other progressive-leaning lawmakers such as Reps. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, who are spearheading the effort in the House. The introduction of the proposal could mark the first notable policy conflict between Biden and the liberal wing of the Democratic Party if the administration does not consider it.

“It is time for a wealth tax in America," Warren told reporters on Monday.

She added that a wealth tax would “level the playing field a little bit and create the kind of revenue that would allow us to build back better, as Joe Biden says."

The proposal unveiled by Warren, Jayapal and Boyle, which mirrors the one detailed by Warren during her White House bid, would levy a 2 percent annual tax on the portion of households and trusts valued between $50 million and $1 billion, with an additional 1 percent tax on any wealth beyond $1 billion.

It would affect the top 0.05 percent of taxpayers, or about 100,000 of the wealthiest U.S. households. University of California-Berkeley economists have estimated that it would generate $3 trillion in revenue over a decade — even more than they estimated during Warren's presidential bid due to an economic downturn that has exacerbated income inequality and left ultra-wealthy individuals in even better financial shape.

The clean energy component of Biden's Build Back Better plan has an estimated price tag of $2 trillion. The full implementation cost will depend on whether other components, such as Biden's plans to support the caregiving workforce, are included and in what form.

The White House said last week that it did not expect to preview Build Back Better in detail until after the COVID-19 relief package is signed into law. Congressional Democrats aim to send the latest COVID-19 relief package to the White House by March 14, when previously passed unemployment benefits related to the pandemic expire. Press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday that Biden “strongly believes the ultra-wealthy and corporations need to finally start paying their fair share." She did not elaborate on what that might look like.

“Joe Biden is about to propose a multi-trillion Build Back Better plan that will likely need to be funded in significant part by taxing the rich," said Adam Green with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which supports liberal candidates and policies.

“Putting this out before he proposes his Build Back Better plan is absolutely strategic and gives him a pay-for on a silver platter," he added, referencing revenue-generating proposals lawmakers often pair with spending on social programs.

Jayapal said at Monday's news conference that when you look at racial inequality as it relates to wealth and not just income it is “particularly staggering." The wealth gap between White households as compared with Black and Latinx households left non-White households less able to weather the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Boyle reiterated a point that Warren frequently made on the campaign trail to support the idea of a wealth tax: that the type of wealth held by most Americans — their house — is already taxed.

Polls consistently show that the public broadly supports the implementation of a wealth tax and it crosses ideological boundaries.

Democrats control the House and legislation there passes by a simple majority whereas in the evenly split, 100-seat Senate, most legislation, including a wealth tax or broader economic package, would likely require 60 votes.

Warren noted last month when she joined the Senate Finance Committee that the introduction of a bill to implement a wealth tax would be among her first moves. The proposal is also co-sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, all Democrats.

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