Justin's Political Corner
Edie Windsor lost the love of her life in 2009. They had been together for more than 40 years. They were partners and best friends. They shared everything and honored their responsibilities to one another. Yet, in the eyes of federal law, their marriage was viewed as separate and unequal.
Edie and her late wife, Thea Spyer, are two of millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans denied their fundamental rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness with their families. When Thea passed away, Edie was billed more than $363,000 in federal taxes — because, under the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal government treated her and Thea as complete strangers, thereby denying them the estate tax protections afforded to married couples.
With an unaffordable tax bill and an untenable system, Edie could not remain silent, and she decided to challenge DOMA as a violation of our Constitution. Thankfully, she is not alone.
Citizens across the country have risen up to challenge DOMA, and on Wednesday I will proudly join two of those Americans, my constituents Karen Golinski and Amy Cunninghis, to hear oral arguments before the Supreme Court. They have the support of President Obama, who ordered his administration to stop defending this measure in our legal system, and members of Congress, who have signed amicus briefs reaffirming our belief in marriage equality.
The only national leaders still standing on the wrong side of history are House Republicans, who have used taxpayer dollars to pay outside counsel to defend discrimination. The Republican-approved lawyers have lost in every case and appealed each ruling. So the fight goes on.
Wednesday, Edie’s case will come before the Supreme Court. On Tuesday, justices heard oral arguments on Proposition 8 — the measure that banned same-sex marriages in California.
In both cases, the justices will hear compelling stories of love, commitment and family. They will be asked to consider the individual facts of each argument alongside broader questions of DOMA and Prop. 8’s constitutionality. They will confront values and issues as old as our republic: matters of justice and civil rights, fairness and the role of government, equality and equal protection under the law.
The court’s conclusion must be firm and clear: DOMA and Prop. 8 are unconstitutional. Neither measure meets the standards of our founding principles. Both deserve to take their rightful place in the dustbin of history.
The proponents of laws against marriage equality have long known that such laws would not pass constitutional muster or withstand judicial review as demonstrated by their efforts to preclude judicial review. In 2004, the Republican-controlled House passed the so-called Marriage Protection Act to try to prevent federal courts from ruling on challenges to DOMA. They even claimed that the landmark case, Marbury v. Madison, was “wrongly decided.”
Their idea, known as “court-stripping,” betrays one of the cornerstones of our system of checks and balances: that our judiciary must be independent, free from manipulation by Congress and the president, so that our Constitution and individual rights are always safeguarded. Indeed, defending individual rights and equal protection are core functions of judicial review.
Those rights are at stake in the DOMA and Prop. 8 cases. It is clear that there is no legitimate federal or state government interest in discrimination. Under any standard or by any degree of judicial review, there is no justification for laws against marriage equality.
Both DOMA and Prop. 8 were enacted with motives ranging from “majoritarian prejudice or indifference.” Attempts have been made by proponents of these laws to justify them on erroneous and deeply offensive stereotypes. Yet prejudice — whether motivated by animus or indifference — does not make it right for LGBT families to be punished, stigmatized, or denied their rights.
By overturning DOMA, we will ensure that spousal benefits are provided to the husbands, wives and partners of LGBT service members and veterans. We will strengthen our economy by delivering tax deductions and employee benefits to same-sex couples, in the private sector and the federal workforce. By overturning Prop. 8, California can join the march of states across the country extending the rights and responsibilities of marriage to LGBT Americans.
For Edie Windsor and millions like her, the journey has been long, hard, and defined too often by stigma, injustice and inequality. For all Americans, the fight for civil rights has been a defining cause for our country. With the Supreme Court’s action, that journey and that fight can once again bear the fruits of progress. We can bend the moral arc of history once more toward justice and secure a future of equality for all American families. Today, I hope justice prevails for Windsor and for all LGBT Americans.
Nancy Pelosi, the first female speaker of the House, is the House Democratic Leader and has represented San Francisco in Congress for 25 years.
I wish that she was still the Speaker of the House.
h/t: USA Today
Once again, Dana Loesch is absolutely lying about the Violence Against Women Act, by falsely claiming that the Senate Democrats version of the bill as “pork” and baselessly accusing Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) of “exploiting women.” Remember, she has a long history of misleadingly accusing Democrats and liberals of being ”anti-women.”
Loesch lies about VAWA again on her radio show blog:
The VAWA has enjoyed bipartisan support for years until Leahy tried to exploit the women he claimed to protect with this act by using them as front.
Democrats use VAWA as a litmus test for female concern, so why then are they jeopardizing it?
Speaking of violence against women, let’s revisit the Colorado Democrats and how women should just take the violence visited upon them.
Here’s the real truth about VAWA that Loesch intentionally decided to distort in order to defend the House GOP version, via Jennifer Bendery at the Huffington Post:
The House GOP bill entirely leaves out provisions aimed at helping LGBT victims of domestic violence. Specifically, the bill removes “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” from the list of underserved populations who face barriers to accessing victim services, thereby disqualifying LGBT victims from a related grant program. The bill also eliminates a requirement in the Senate bill that programs that receive funding under VAWA provide services regardless of a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Finally, the bill excludes the LGBT community from the STOP program, the largest VAWA grant program, which gives funds to care providers who work with law enforcement officials to address domestic violence.
Another notable difference in the House bill relates to a provision targeting Native American victims. Under the Senate bill, tribal courts would gain new authority to prosecute non-Native American men who abuse Native American women on reservations. The House bill also grants that new authority — a major change from the bill House Republicans put forward in the last Congress — but adds a caveat that would allow those people to move their case to a federal court if they feel their constitutional rights aren’t being upheld.
Congress failed to reauthorize VAWA last year for the first time since the law’s inception in 1994, due in large part to House Republican opposition to the tribal provision. The fact that the House bill includes some kind of tribal provision reflects some movement by GOP leaders toward a bill that can pick up broader support. But even some House Republicans who have advocated for a compromise on the tribal piece say the bill needs to go further on that front.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) trashed the GOP proposal altogether.
“House Republicans just can’t help themselves,” Pelosi said in a statement. ”Even with a strong, bipartisan bill passed by the Senate for the second Congress in a row, even with countless women in need of support and protection, Republicans are still turning the Violence Against Women Act into a partisan political football.”
On Twitter, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA12) rightfully slammed the House GOP version of VAWA as a “non-starter”:
House Republican VAWA bill is a non-starter for our nation’s women. America’s mothers and daughters deserve better. 1.usa.gov/VBC3h8
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) February 22, 2013
Nancy Pelosi went on Fox News Sunday and absolutely destroyed the false premise that video games, not guns, are the main cause of gun violence.
WALLACE: Gun control will be a big part of the president’s agenda in the State of the Union address Tuesday night. But I want to ask you about another part of the effort to stop these horrible, repeated acts of mass violence. As part of your plan, you call for more scientific research on the connection between popular culture and violence.
We don’t need another study, respectfully. I mean, we know that these video games, where people have their heads splattered, these movies, these TV shows, why don’t you go to your friends in Hollywood and challenge them, shame them, and say, “Knock it off”?
PELOSI: Well, I do think, whatever we do, because when you talk about evidence-based, we have that throughout our proposal. In other words, we don’t want to just anecdotally writing bills. We want to have the evidence to say –
WALLACE: Well, I’m not sure you want to write bills anyway. But don’t you — I mean, what would — you have a lot of friends in Hollywood. Why don’t you go to them and publicly say I think challenge you to stop the video games?
PELOSI: I do think — see, I understand what you’re saying. I’m a mother, I’m a grandmother. But, they tell — not they, not Hollywood, but the evidence says that, in Japan, for example, they have the most violent games and the rest, and the lowest — death, mortality from guns. I don’t know what the explanation is for that except they may have good gun laws.
But I think you took one piece of it. We are talking about — we are talking about stop — no further sales of assault weapons. What is the justification for an assault weapon? You know, no further sales of those.
No further sales of the increased capacity, 30 rounds in a gun. We are talking about background checks which is very popular, even among gun owners, and, hunters. We avow the First Amendment, we stand with that, and say that people have a right to have a gun to protect themselves in their homes and their jobs, whatever. And that they — and their workplace — and that they, for recreation and hunting and the rest.
But we are in the questioning their right to do that —
Doing an interview on Fox News must be a lot like talking to small child. Pelosi actually had to explain to Wallace why it is important to have evidence of a problem before a bill is written to address it. Wallace’s notion of “knowing” why a problem is occurring without research or study is a very Republican way of governing. It is just like how Republicans “know” that there is voter fraud, so they pass voter ID laws.
Pelosi ripped apart the NRA’s favorite excuse that guns don’t cause gun violence, but video games do. Pelosi asked a good question. If violent video games cause gun violence, then why isn’t the problem as severe around the world as it is in the United States? They play lots of violent video games in Canada, Europe, and Asia too, yet other parts of the developed world don’t have the same level of gun violence as the United States.
The difference, as Leader Pelosi pointed out, is the laws. The Japanese play lots of violent video games, but they have the lowest mortality rate from gun violence because of strict gun laws.
Democratic lawmakers have invited residents of Newtown, Conn., the place where 26 people were slain during a shooting at an elementary school in December, to attend President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday in Washington.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi announced on Friday that she will bring a fourth-grade child from Newtown who launched a petition to change gun laws after the shooting. Pelosi declined to name the child, but said she attends a school near Sandy Hook Elementary, where the mass killing took place. Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro will bring Carlos Soto, the brother of Sandy Hook teacher Victoria Soto, who was killed in the shooting. Another lawmaker from Connecticut, Rep. Elizabeth Esty, will bring Natalie Hammond, a Sandy Hook teacher who survived after being shot in the leg and foot. Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen also invited a guest affected by gun violence, Maryland woman Carol Price, an anti-gun violence advocate whose son was killed in 1998 by a neighbor with a 9 mm Luger pistol.
The presence of the Newtown residents and others at Obama’s address suggests that the president will discuss the topic.
H/T: Yahoo! News
An outspoken Republican congressman castigated House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s looks during a radio interview Friday.
Speaking with guest host Larry O’Connor on The Dennis Miller Show, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) argued that House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was functionally equivalent to Pelosi because both held one-on-one backroom negotiations with the president. Gohmert then went on to deride Pelosi’s appearance: “Well, let’s give him credit. There’s no facelift with John Boehner.”
O’CONNOR: So basically John Boehner became Nancy Pelosi without the charm?
GOHMERT: For the last two years. Well, let’s give him credit. There’s no facelift with John Boehner. He is who he is.
O’CONNOR: Oh!
As of this writing, every single state except Hawai’i has finalized its vote totals for the 2012 House elections, and Democrats currently lead Republicans by 1,362,351 votes in the overall popular vote total. Democratic House candidates earned 49.15 percent of the popular vote, while Republicans earned only 48.03 percent — meaning that the American people preferred a unified Democratic Congress over the divided Congress it actually got by more than a full percentage point. Nevertheless, thanks largely to partisan gerrymandering, Republicans have a solid House majority in the incoming 113th Congress.
A deeper dive into the vote totals reveals just how firmly gerrymandering entrenched Republican control of the House. If all House members are ranked in order from the Republican members who won by the widest margin down to the Democratic members who won by the widest margins, the 218th member on this list is Congressman-elect Robert Pittenger (R-NC). Thus, Pittenger was the “turning point” member of the incoming House. If every Republican who performed as well or worse than Pittenger had lost their race, Democrats would hold a one vote majority in the incoming House.
Pittenger won his race by more than six percentage points — 51.78 percent to 45.65 percent.
The upshot of this is that if Democrats across the country had performed six percentage points better than they actually did last November, they still would have barely missed capturing a majority in the House of Representatives. In order to take control of the House, Democrats would have needed to win the 2012 election by 7.25 percentage points. That’s significantly more than the Republican margin of victory in the 2010 GOP wave election (6.6 percent), and only slightly less than the margin of victory in the 2006 Democratic wave election (7.9 percent). If Democrats had won in 2012 by the same commanding 7.9 percent margin they achieved in 2006, they would still only have a bare 220-215 seat majority in the incoming House, assuming that these additional votes were distributed evenly throughout the country. That’s how powerful the GOP’s gerrymandered maps are; Democrats can win a Congressional election by nearly 8 points and still barely capture the House.
Partisan gerrymanders, like the one that now all but locks the GOP majority in place, have been the subject of repeated court challenges. America can thank the five conservative justices on the Supreme Court for allowing these gerrymanders to continue.
“Let’s remember our social compact that government will be there when people are in need. House GOP leaders should allow #Sandy relief vote.”
Pelosi’s right.
House Republicans have decided to vote Tuesday night on Senate-passed legislation to avert the fiscal cliff — without any amendments.
The news that the Rules Committee will move the bill to the House floor in the evening comes after drama-filled day that nearly scuttled the bipartisan deal that passed the Senate by a 89-9 vote in the first few hours of 2013.
Rep. Rich Nugent (R-FL) predicted that the fewer than half of all House Republicans would vote for the bill without an amendment to add spending cuts. He said Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has indicated he would vote for it but said the speaker isn’t pushing GOP members to do so, saying they should vote their consciences.
Boehner probably won’t need half of his members because House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said the legislation would garner strong Democratic support. The move still represents a landmark for the speaker, who has habitually refused to bring up legislation that lacks the support of at least half of his members. But by breaking his rule this time, Boehner insulates himself from the blame for the fiscal cliff.
The bill, if it becomes law, would avert most tax hikes on middle class earners and postpone automatic cuts to defense and domestic programs by two months.
h/t: Sahil Kapur at TPM
According to a new poll by Rasmussen Reports, House Speaker John Boehner now has the dubious honor of being the nation’s least popular member of congressional leadership. With 51 percent of voters disapproving of his performance, Boehner replaces Nancy Pelosi as the least liked member of congressional leadership, a post she held for several years.
With a net favorability rating of negative 20, Boehner’s approval numbers are at the lowest point since he accepted the position of House Speaker. Even among his own party the results aren’t much better: only 55 percent of Republicans approve of his performance.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) didn’t fare much better, with an unfavorable rating of 36 percent.
Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid rounded out the Democratic leadership, with unfavorable reviews of 50 percent and 42 percent, respectively.
The only Congressional politician to get overall positive remarks was Vice President Joe Biden, with a 49 percent favorability rating versus 45 percent unfavorable.
The Rasmussen poll surveyed 900 likely voters by phone between Dec. 18 and Dec. 19, and reporter a 3 percent margin of error.
h/t HuffPo
In the wake of House Speaker John Boehner’s Plan B debacle, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is calling on him to consider bringing President Obama’s most recent fiscal cliff offer — which includes $1.2 trillion in new tax revenue, and hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to safety net programs — to the House floor.
But though she evinced little appetite for moving the framework to the left, and expressed willingness to “iron out” differences with Republicans, she made clear that Democrats won’t tolerate any further significant concessions for Republicans. And in effect, she called on Boehner to be prepared to lose more than half of his conference in pursuit of a deal, if that’s what it requires to pass a bill.
“The fastest thing we can do is bring it to the floor for consideration,” Pelosi said at her weekly press availability Friday.
Asked if Democrats would accept further concessions — spending cuts or lower tax revenue — Pelosi was nonplussed.
“In return for what?” she asked.
For 120 Republican votes — half of Boehner’s conference.
“No, no, no,” Pelosi laughed. “The package is the package. It’s not about us, it’s about what it means to America’s great middle class.”
Pelosi again recalled the difficult choice to advance an Iraq War funding bill earlier in her tenure as speaker. “There were 86 Democrats voting for over 140 Democrats voting against. I had 60 percent of my caucus against what I brought to the floor. So 120 is not the number.”
Meanwhile Boehner’s desperate for an entirely different process — to toss the hot potato out of his chamber. He wants the Senate to amend House legislation extending all the Bush tax cuts with a plan to avoid the fiscal cliff, and send it back to the House for consideration. That approach would limit the damage to the GOP, and likely yield a much more modest fiscal cliff plan than the one Boehner and Obama were negotiating. Democrats, unsurprisingly, aren’t enthusiastic about that idea.
H/T: Brian Beutler at TPM
She’s threatening to force a vote on extending the Bush tax cuts for the middle class, since House GOP leaders seem to only look out for the top 2%.
(via liberalsarecool)
House Speaker John Boehner says budget negotiations with the White House have stalled.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi thinks she can get them started again.
In her weekly Capitol briefing Friday, Pelosi said she’ll take a procedural step to force a vote on extending the middle-income Bush tax cuts, if Republicans don’t put that legislation on the schedule themselves.
“We’re calling upon the Republican leadership in the House to bring this legislation to the floor next week,” Pelosi said. “We believe that not doing that would be holding middle-income tax cuts hostage to tax cuts for the rich. … If it is not scheduled, then on Tuesday we will be introducing a discharge petition.”
Pelosi would need 218 signatures for her discharge petition to succeed, which means a lot of Republican support. And though that support may exist in principle within the Republican conference, it’s quite another thing for members to break ranks with their leadership and enlist in a Democrat-led effort to force a vote on President Obama’s top legislative priority.
GOP leadership has dismissed this and other efforts to force a vote on Senate-passed legislation to extend most of the Bush tax cuts. And Pelosi acknowledged during her press availability that no Republicans have approached Democratic leaders to signal their support for her efforts. Indeed, discharge petitions are rarely ever successful.
H/T: Brian Beutler at TPM
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi couldn’t be more clear: The Bush tax cuts for the rich have to expire.
When ABC’s Martha Raddatz asked Pelosi in an interview whether she would accept a deal that did not include tax rate hikes for the rich, the House’s top Democrat had a short answer: “No.”“The president made it very clear in his campaign that there is not enough—there are not enough resources,” Pelosi said in an interview aired Sunday on ABC’s This Week.
“Just to close loopholes is far too little money … If it’s going to bring in revenue, the president has been very clear that the higher income people have to pay their fair share.”
Despite that, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is trying to pretend otherwise, telling Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer that Pelosi and President Obama aren’t on the same page on the budget.
