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Seeking a path back to power in Congress, Democrats first want to hold on to the governorship in Virginia this year. Then theyre setting their sights in 2018 on crucial governors contests in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.

The targeted races are part of a strategy by a new Democratic coalition led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that aims to undo what he denounces as the rigged political process that has favored Republicans since congressional and state legislative districts were redrawn after the 2010 Census.

To win in Washington, Democrats have come to believe that they must first gain ground locally through elections for governors and state legislators, court cases or ballot initiatives. Most governors elected in 2017 and 2018 will still be in office when the next round of redistricting occurs after the 2020 Census, wielding a potential veto pen over maps drawn by legislatures.

Democratic-backed legal challenges to the current districts in some states also could set new precedents for how redistricting must occur nationally. And in some states, Democratic-aligned groups are considering state ballot initiatives that could diminish the power of legislatures to draw districts, instead entrusting the process to bipartisan or independent commissions.

Republicans won a 241-194 majority over Democrats in last years U.S. House elections, claiming more than 55 percent of the seats even though they edged Democrats by just 1 percentage point in the nationwide popular vote. Holder contends that disproportionate ratio is partly the result of partisan gerrymandering engineered by Republicans, who now control about two-thirds of all state legislatures.

The will of the people, I think, has ultimately been frustrated both at the state level and at the federal level, Holder said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Because of the way districts are drawn, Holder says it will be difficult for Democrats to regain control of Congress in the 2018 elections during the middle of Republican President Donald Trumps term. But hes hopeful of laying a foundation for future success.

Holder, who was attorney general under former President Barack Obama, is chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a new alliance of Democratic leaders, unions and progressive groups trying to bolster Democratic prospects ahead of the next round of redistricting.

The mission is simple: Better maps in 2021 than we got coming out of the census in 2010, Holder told a group of reporters in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

He views the effort as a continuation of his work as attorney general protecting voting rights against Republican initiatives such as photo identification requirements, although the new committee will leave it to others to challenge such laws.

Obama also will be involved in the redistricting effort and already has helped with fundraising, Holder said. He declined to say how much money has been raised so far.

The Democratic initiative is modeled after the Republicans successful Redistricting Majority Project, which contributed to a wave of state legislative and gubernatorial victories in 2010. Those new Republican majorities then were able to control the 2011 redistricting, helping to lock in favorable political maps for years to come.

Since then, Republicans have seized even more states, now controlling the governorship and full legislature in 25 states while total Democratic control has diminished to about a half-dozen states. Republicans contend their dominance is due primarily to superior candidates and issues, not manipulated maps.

Right now, the Democrats are in their nightmare scenario, and theyre responding with talented strategists and fundraisers, said Matt Walter, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee.

But he said if Democrats take a top-down approach to targeting local races, well continue to win.

Many Democrats say the party failed to focus enough on local candidates during Obamas tenure. Newly elected Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez is pledging to rebuild the party at all levels, from the school board to the Senate.

Holders redistricting initiative is dividing states into four tiers, focusing foremost on those with the largest gaps between the partisan popular votes and seats won, and where Democrats can have the greatest impact by winning a key election or court battle. At the bottom are states with few members of Congress, unlikely to flip to Democrats or where there is little ability to influence the redistricting process.

Among their top targets is Virginia, where Democratic congressional candidates received about 16,000 more votes than Republicans last November yet won just four of the states 11 U.S. House seats. Even that marked a gain: Democrats flipped one Republican seat after a federal appeals court ordered new district boundaries because too many black voters had been packed into a single district under the Republican-drawn maps.

Democrats want to retain the governors office, now held by term-limited Gov. Terry McAuliffe, to provide leverage during the 2021 redistricting against a state legislature currently led by Republicans.

A similar scenario exists in Michigan, where Republican congressional candidates edged Democrats by a single percentage point in last years statewide vote yet won 9 of the 14 districts, which were drawn under a GOP legislature and governor. Democrats are taking a three-pronged approach: considering filing suit against the current districts; backing a ballot initiative to change the future redistricting process; and trying to win the governors office being vacated by term-limited Republican Rick Snyder.

There are a lot of big governors races in states where maps are particularly egregious, said Kelly Ward, executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

Where Republicans control the state legislature, those governors are essential to get a Democrat at the table in the redistricting process, she added.

Governors races also will be the top targets for Democrats in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two places with Republican state legislatures where GOP congressional candidates received a mid-50s percent share of the statewide vote yet won around 75 percent of their U.S. House seats.

Florida is another high-stakes state, with a term-limited Republican governor in 2018, a GOP-led state legislature and a 16-11 Republican advantage in U.S. House seats.

Republicans will be mounting similar offensives in Illinois and Maryland, hoping to hold on to GOP governorships as a redistricting buffer against Democratic-dominated state legislatures that drew congressional maps in their favor after the 2010 Census.

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Associated Press writer Mark Sherman in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.

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Follow David A. Lieb at: http://twitter.com/DavidALieb

Excerpt from:
Democratic effort led by ex-AG Holder targets swing states - The Seattle Times

Newly elected DNC Chair Thomas Perez shown here in June 2016 as the secretary of the Labor Department under President Obama says Democrats need a "50-state strategy" to defeat Republicans at all levels of government. Pete Marovich/Getty Images hide caption

Newly elected DNC Chair Thomas Perez shown here in June 2016 as the secretary of the Labor Department under President Obama says Democrats need a "50-state strategy" to defeat Republicans at all levels of government.

When President Trump delivers his speech at the Capitol on Tuesday, he'll be looking out at a GOP-controlled Congress. It's now new DNC Chairman Tom Perez's job to coordinate the opposition to change that dynamic.

The former labor secretary was elected on Saturday in Atlanta.

Perez tells NPR's Steve Inskeep Democrats have a lot of work to do.

"We need a 50-state strategy plus the territories, and that's what we talked about down in Atlanta last week, making sure that we redefine our mission as a Democratic Party so that we're not simply electing the president, but we're also working to elect people from the from the school board to the Senate across the nation," he says.

On whether a 50-state strategy has a realistic way of competing in red states

Well, absolutely. You look at what happened in Kansas. Donald Trump won by 14 points, and [Democrats] picked up 14 seats in the state legislature because there's radical social engineering going on by Gov. Brownback. [Editor's note: Democrats in Kansas netted 12, not 14 seats in the legislature.] In Alaska, for instance, the House of Representatives flipped Democratic. When we invest in these states and when we have an "every ZIP code strategy," we can succeed because our values and our message, I think, it resonates with the American people. We are the party that fights for Medicare. We're the party that fights for Social Security. We're the party that fights for good wages and we have to communicate that.

On opposing a president who says he wants to preserve Medicare and Social Security

Well, that budget will not allow him to preserve Medicare and Social Security. He talks the talk but they don't walk the walk. He's talked the talk of "I'm going to help the little guy" and ... one of the first things he does on Jan. 20 is to take executive action to make it harder for first-time homeowners to buy a home. A few days later he's making it harder for people to save for retirement. We implemented an overtime rule at the Department of Labor, and he's seeking to roll that back. So he talks the talk, but the reality is he's not draining the swamp. He's filling it with billionaires.

On whether Democrats in Congress will work with Republicans on an Affordable Care Act replacement

The reality is the Republicans don't have ... a replacement. This is a repeal, and when you repeal, what you're saying to people like Ward, who I met a long haul truck driver who in 2015, March 1, got his coverage, on March 15 got his liver transplant. And when I asked him "What do you want to do now, Ward, that you have your life back?" He said, "I want to work again." That's what the Affordable Care Act has done. It has been a lifesaver for people. And when you are trying to repeal something that has created access to health insurance for so many people, that makes no sense. And that's why we're fighting against it.

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With Republicans In Charge, Democrats Plan To Redefine Their Mission - NPR

President Trump on Tuesday saidhe is open to an immigration reform billthat could provide a pathway to legal status but not citizenship for potentially millions of people who are in the United States illegally but have not committed serious crimes.

At a private White House luncheon with television news anchors, Trump signaled an openness to a compromise that would represent a softening fromthe crackdown on all undocumented immigrants that he promised during his campaign and that his more hard-line supporters have long advocated.

The time is right for an immigration bill as long as there is compromise on both sides, Trump told the anchors. His comments, reported by severalof the journalists present, were confirmed by an attendee of the luncheon.

Trump said he hopes both sides can come together to draft legislation in his first term that holistically addresses the countrys immigration system, which has been the subject of intense and polarizing debate in Washington for more than a decade.

The comments were particularly striking given Trumps long history of criticism of U.S. immigration policy and a presidential campaign centered on talk of mass deportations of the estimated 11million undocumented immigrants in the United States.

The remarks came shortly before he met at the White House with family members of Americans killed by illegal immigrants. Trump also invited those family members to attend his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, part of an emotional appeal by the president and his administration to build support for stronger border-control measures.

[Trump prepares to address a divided audience: The Republican Congress]

At the meeting with television anchors, Trump suggested he is willing to address legal status for those who are in the country illegally but have not committed crimes. But he would not necessarily support a pathway to citizenship, except perhaps for Dreamers, who were brought into the country illegally as children, according to a report by CNNs Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper, who attended the luncheon.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House principal deputy press secretary, said she could not confirm Trumps comments in the private luncheon.

The president has been very clear in his process that the immigration system is broken and needs massive reform, and hes made clear that hes open to having conversations about that moving forward, Sanders said in a Tuesday afternoon briefing with reporters. Right now his primary focus, as he has made [clear] over and over again, is border control and security at the border.

Trump has vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and increase funding for federal law enforcement efforts in border areas. He also has instructed the Department of Homeland Security to round up and deport those in this country illegally who have committed serious crimes or caused violence.

The president likened recent immigration raids to a military operation, although Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly made clear the military was not involved in conducting them.

[Trump touts recent immigration raids, calls them 'a military operation']

It is unclear whether Trump will follow through on pursuing an immigration compromise. The president in the past has made comments, in private or in media interviews, that have not been borne out by his administrations policies. For example, he has yet to follow through on his pledge to investigate alleged voter fraud in the 2016 election.

In early February, Trump expressed openness to revisiting past immigration reform efforts, including the failed 2013 Gang of Eight bill, which drew opposition from Republicans. At a meeting with moderate Democratic senators, Trump told them he thought that bill was something he was interested in revisiting, according to the senators.

The White House later denied that Trump was open to the legislation and said that he considered the bill to be amnesty.

After his meeting with the anchors Tuesday, Trump met in the Oval Office with Jamiel Shaw Sr., whose son was shot by a gang member in Los Angeles in 2008, and Jessica Davis and Susan Oliver, who were married to California police officers killed in the line of duty in 2014.

Their presence in the presidential box in the House chamber Tuesday evening represented a pointed message about the costs of illegal immigration a week after the DHS rolled out sweeping new enforcement guidelines. Trump said the measures are aimed at ramping up the deportations of immigrants who present a public safety risk, part of a broader effort that includes plans for a border wall with Mexico and attempts to restrict refugees from seven majority-Muslim nations.

Trumps spotlight on the victims families has sparked an outcry among those who charge that the president is exaggerating the risks to sow public fear and make his proposals more politically expedient. Studies have shown that immigrants, including the estimated 11million living in this country illegally, have lower crime rates than the native-born population.

It is consistent with the campaign and also with the political tone of the executive orders he signed, said Randy Capps, director of research at the Migration Policy Institute. They are very clearly trying to highlight a criminal element that does exist in the unauthorized population. But they are implying its a broad population, when we believe its a narrow population from the statistics weve seen.

Proponents of stricter immigration policies said the president is trying to reframe the debate by focusing it around the harmful effects that U.S. immigration laws can have on Americans.

The media tends to cover immigration issues through the frame of how it impacts everybody but actual citizens of the United States, Stephen Miller, Trumps senior policy adviser, said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published Tuesday.

In many cases, immigrants convicted of crimes are released from federal custody because of a Supreme Court ruling that prevents indefinite detention if their countries will not accept them back.

In other cases, local jurisdictions known as sanctuary cities have passed laws that prohibit officials from sharing information with federal authorities about illegal immigrants who pass through the judicial system. In 2015, Kathryn Steinle, a San Francisco woman, was shot and killed by an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who had been deported five times, a case that drew national attention.

Continue reading here:
Trump says he is open to immigration compromise that provides a pathway to legal status - Washington Post

President Trump indicated again Tuesday that heis open tooverhauling the countrysimmigration laws, including a path to legal status for nonviolent offenders, a departure from the harsh crackdown on illegal immigration that he has instituted since taking office.

Trump was considering calling foran immigration reform bill in his high-profile speech to Congress on Tuesday night, he told a group of television anchors earlier in the day.

Trump has expressed a willingness to soften his stance before. He told senators as recently as two weeks ago that they should revive the 2013 proposal that died in the House.

Such a move would be a dramatic about-face from the actions he has taken so far, chieflysigningorders last month that subject to deportation virtually all of the 11 million people in the U.S.

Nonetheless, Trumpsaid Tuesday during a lunch with television anchors that the time may be right for immigration reform if both sides compromise, according to PBS NewsHour correspondent John Yang and others present.

Trump believes Congress may be in a position to navigate one of the thorniest policy thickets after two failures to pass a bill in the last decade, including the 2013 effort.

The president has been very clear in his process that the immigration system is broken and needs massive reform, and hes made clear that hes open to having conversations about that moving forward, Sarah H. Sanders, White Housedeputy press secretary, told reporters Tuesday.

She wouldn't say whether Trump will include a call for immigration reform in his address to lawmakers.

Right now, his primary focus, as he has made clear over and over again, is border control and security at the border and deporting criminals from our country, and keeping our country safe, and those priorities have not changed, Sanders said.

During his first week in office, Trump wiped away restrictions on immigration officers, opening the door to deportations for millions of immigrants in the country illegally.

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Live updates: Trump will pitch his agenda to lawmakers in speech before Congress - Los Angeles Times

President Trump plans to call on lawmakers to expand health insurance access and lower costs as part of ObamaCare replacement legislation, according to excerpts of his Tuesday night address to a joint session of Congress setting ambitious goals for the bill Republican congressional leaders are drafting.

In the excerpts of prepared remarks, obtained by Fox News, Trump says: Tonight Im also calling on this Congress to repeal and replace Obamacare with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs and at the same time provide better health care.

The president also plans to tackle everything from immigration to national security in his address.

According to prepared remarks, he will cast his tough immigration policies as an economic issue.

By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions of dollars and make our communities safer for everyone, he plans to say.

On another key campaign promise, Trump says in the prepared remarks that his team is developing historic tax reform that will reduce the tax rate on our companies so they can compete and thrive anywhere and with anyone, along with massive tax relief for the middle class.

He says: The time for small thinking is over, the time for trivial fights is behind us, we just need the courage to share the dreams that fill our hearts, the bravery to express the hopes that stir our souls, and the confidence to turn those hopes and dreams to action. From now on, America will be empowered by our aspirations not burdened by our fears.

He also vows that his budget will boost funding for veterans. And he says the U.S. cannot allow a beachhead of terrorism to form inside of America. We cannot allow our nation to become a sanctuary for extremists.

On the domestic policy front, he says, Education is the civil rights issue of our time.

The excerpts were released just over an hour before Trump was set to enter the House chamber for his address. Earlier Tuesday, Trump also voiced tentative support for immigration legislation.

The time is right for an immigration bill as long as both sides are willing to compromise, Trump said at a lunch with news anchors.

He reportedly is open to considering a pathway to legal status for some illegal immigrants. But its unclear how far Trump might press the issue in his address Tuesday night, as he also pushes for increased border security and other priorities.

The hint at renewing the immigration reform debate in Congress drew a mixed response late Tuesday from Senate leaders.

Asked about the prospect, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said, If he's got an idea, we'd be happy to take a look at it.

But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., voiced doubt. He's got a lot to undo, I mean, the immigrant community is rightfully scared, of what President Trump has done, he said.

Democrats official response will come from former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear. According to excerpts of prepared remarks, Beshear will blast Trump and fellow Republicans efforts to repeal ObamaCare.

This, he warns, would rip affordable health insurance away from millions of Americans who most need it.

He says every GOP plan to replace the health care law so far would reduce the number of Americans covered, despite promises to the contrary.

The speech comes at critical moment, as Trump tries to galvanize a Congress that, despite being under full Republican control, still has not advanced legislation to deal with key campaign vows to replace the Affordable Care Act and reform the tax system. He is under pressure Tuesday to unite party allies behind a common agenda.

On ObamaCare, some Republicans already have seized on a leaked repeal plan draft to blast GOP leaders efforts. Conservatives like Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., and Mark Walker, R-N.C., both have criticized the outline, including its treatment of tax credits.

Ahead of Tuesday nights speech, House Speaker Paul Ryan played down divisions.

This is a plan that we are all working on together, he told reporters. There arent rival plans here. Were going to be unified on this.

But Ryan, at a separate briefing, voiced some concerns about Trumps approach to the federal budget a day after White House officials previewed a plan to boost military spending by $54 billion, cut other agency budgets by the same amount and leave entitlements like Medicare untouched.

Asked about the presidents apparent reluctance to cut entitlements, Ryan said, "There is an open question on long-term entitlement reform."

Trumps forthcoming budget faces pitfalls on other fronts, as some defense hawks think it doesnt go far enough to rebuild the military, deficit hawks think it doesnt go far enough to cut spending and others are worried about cuts to nondefense accounts.

Hours before the speech, McConnell cast doubt on whether the Senate could pass a budget proposal that seeks steep cuts to the State Department, one of the ways Trump might fund the increase for the military.

Aside from internal GOP tensions over legislative goals, Trump continues to grapple with numerous leaks from inside his administration and intermittent staffing controversies that most prominently included Michael Flynn resigning as national security adviser over apparently misleading Vice President Pence on past contacts with the Russian ambassador.

Multiple media reports, which Trump repeatedly decries as bogus, have raised questions about additional contacts between his allies and Moscow another issue that has divided Republicans, with some seeking an independent probe and others rejecting those calls. And most immediately, Trumps team is looking to rewrite and reissue his controversial executive order suspending the refugee program and admissions from seven mostly Muslim countries, after it was blocked in court amid widespread protests.

Fox News John Roberts, Mike Emanuel and Bret Baier contributed to this report.

Originally posted here:
Trump to call on Congress to expand access, lower costs with ObamaCare replacement - Fox News