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Today, Playbook co-author Rachael Bade sits down with Murphy to talk about how the Democratic House leaderships insistence on absolute party unity is fracturing the Dems and putting their congressional majority at risk. A transcribed excerpt from that conversation is below, edited for length and readability.

Rachael Bade: You shocked everyone in Washington, including John Mica, when you ousted him. The DCCC after that started to look to you and what you did in this race, talking about national security, about pocketbook issues, as a sort of playbook to replicate in 2018 when they were trying to flip the House. They ended up recruiting a lot of women who had a very similar mold. You worked at the Pentagon. People like Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), folks who were in the CIA, who served in the military, mothers who went onto defeat Republicans in long-held Republican districts, flipped the House by 40 seats. Again, not talking about former President Donald Trump at all, so it was definitely something that rocked Washington.

One thing I thought was interesting about you in particular is you got here, right away. You were seeing results with sort of what you tried to do. Even as a member in the minority in 2017 and 2018 when Republicans controlled everything, you found a way to get a major accomplishment, which is the repeal of the Dickey Amendment. Talk to us a little bit about what that was, how you made a personal appeal to Trump at the time, and that was sort of what got it over the line.

Rep. Stephanie Murphy: Because I had decided to run for Congress, motivated by the desire to change gun safety laws in this country, I thought to myself, What is the most impactful but least likely to receive resistance thing we could move forward? I decided that lifting the 22-year ban on gun safety research was something that we could probably all get around. I mean, everybody has the right to have different political policy approaches to addressing the issue, but lets all have the same set of facts. And so after the Parkland shooting, the president invited members of the Senate and the House to the White House. This was the beginning of his televised meetings, which

Bade: [Laughs] I remember those.

Murphy: Right?

Bade: Televised negotiations. A first for Washington.

Murphy: Exactly. We were all sort of surprised when the media didnt leave and the cameras kept rolling. I was the most junior person sitting at this table and so I was the last to speak. I made my pitch to him, you know, that this is an easy thing to do. We just had to strike a few words and it was something that among all the ideas, this was something I thought we could get done. And it would be important because people want to see us getting something done.

And then after the meeting, my staff had printed out one of these little cards with really simple language, a couple bullet points explaining the proposal I had. They were like, See if you can get him to tweet about it. So I wait until everybody left and I walked up to the president and I handed him the card. I said, You know, if you support this idea, itd be great if you would tweet about it, because remember this was when we were legislating by tweet.

Bade: Yes.

Murphy: And he took the card from me and I saw that he had another card from a senator that had just pictures on it. I thought, Gosh, she outdid me. And then on my way out of that meeting, I stopped and spoke to Vice President Mike Pence. Pence said to me, Of all the ideas that were discussed today, I think we could live with yours.

Bade: So you had success initially doing something that a lot of people in the minority cannot do or are not able to do when the other party controls Washington, which is to get something repealed, a priority of yours. You eventually found a seat on the Ways and Means Committee, which is a huge deal. Obviously, one of the most powerful committees in Congress.

What were some initial frustrations that you ran into when you came here? Was there something in particular that was a rude awakening for you about whether [it was] things being controlled at the top, or enforcing party discipline? What did you see that started to frustrate you?

Murphy: I think in Washington, instead of having substantive policy conversations and negotiations, oftentimes, when theres disagreement, people go immediately to maligning your motivations. So Ill take, for example, Kates Law, which was a bill that would have stricter enforcement rules for people who were multiple offenders of violating immigration rules. Anyways, when it came to Kates Law, I believe in immigration and comprehensive immigration reform and the ability for people to immigrate to the United States in a legal way. But I also believe in law and order and ensuring that we hold people who commit crimes accountable.

I was one of a few Democrats who voted for Kates Law, including my local former sheriff, Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.). She also voted for it. I think it was a bill that people saw as a law and order kind of bill. And the immigrant groups immediately went to Youre anti-immigrant. But look at me. Im a refugee. Im an immigrant. Im not anti-immigrant. I found that they were maligning my motivations as opposed to trying to seek to understand my intentions and to understand the policy concerns I had. We had one meeting that got so heated and passionate that the nun who was there had to stand up and ask everybody to settle down, calm down the hostilities. I mean, thank God for that.

Bade: Did these groups end up coming after you and spending against you? Or was it more just out there, them saying things about, Stephanie Murphy is against immigrants or immigration? How else did it manifest itself beyond just these groups coming at you, angry about that vote?

Murphy: Well, it wasnt just that vote. It became what I discovered to be a trend, that a lot of these outside groups that purport to represent a specific interest are just an extension of leadership. Instead of purely focusing on their issue area, they bleed into just advocating for whatever Democratic leadership wants. And its true on the Republican side, too.

For example, the labor unions. The infrastructure bill was one of the most historic job-creating bills for labor. And instead of [being] focused on the bill that would create jobs today for their members, they were focused on carrying out the Democratic leaderships approach to the two bills. I think thats a real tragedy because my dad used to belong in a union and I would imagine that if he didnt see his union leadership advocating for a job today, hed wonder why he should reup his card.

Bade: Youre specifically referring to this fight that happened last year about tying the Build Back Better with the infrastructure bill? Labor groups who you say would have 100 percent been on board with infrastructure, saying, Lets not pass this now until this other bill is passed, which is something the leadership wanted at the time. So you believe, a lot of these outside groups, that this stuff is sanctioned by the higher-ups here in Congress?

Murphy: I think so.

Bade: What makes you think that?

Murphy: Because labor didnt start whipping the infrastructure bill until three months after it had passed the Senate. Until the very last minute, they were waiting. I think there are smoke signals that go up at some point and then when they start whipping, then you know leadership is serious about putting a bill on the floor and having it pass.

I can give you another example. Lets take the environmental groups and their role in this. The infrastructure bill had historic investments in climate. Its the reason why when it passed, we got $1.1 billion for the Everglades. So it had significant investments in climate. We had environmental groups that were calling us before the legislation text for the Build Back Better Act had been put out, calling us saying, If you dont support that, we are going to delist you. We wont support you. We wont endorse you. And when you ask them back, Well, whats in the Build Back Better Act that you are so supportive of, they couldnt define it specifically because nobody had seen the text. But we had the text for the infrastructure bill and not a peep out of them advocating for that.

So I think some of these groups have lost their orientation to the issues that their members are supporting them for. If I give money to an environmental group, I hope that they would advocate to get environmental provisions done as opposed to engaging in the power play of Democratic leadership strategy on how they think they can get these two bills across the finish line.

Bade: I want to go more into this sort of Build Back Better bipartisan infrastructure bill connection and your role in that. But just before that, it seems like Democrats, for a long time, sort of boasted about having a big tent and wanting to have voices from all different sides of the spectrum, whether you were progressive or moderate.

Obviously, you being leader of the Blue Dogs, coming from a more centrist background and advocating for your district, which is more centrist, do you feel like that was sort of acceptable for a time when you were here in Washington and just got progressively worse recently? Or was it always bad from the beginning and sort of a shock to the system?

Murphy: So my first term, I was front line and we had flipped so few seats in 16. I think we flipped six seats in 2016. We were in the minority so it mattered less to leadership whether I voted my district or voted party. So there was a lot more tolerance for, Do what you need to do to hold your seat and come back because were trying to build towards majority.

I think in this term and the last two terms with us being in the majority, that tolerance eroded a bit. Its unfortunate because I think in order for us as Democrats to hold the majority, you have to be able to win in seats like mine and in redder seats. That means you have to cut your members a little bit of leeway to vote their district. This march toward party unity is going to be detrimental to our ability to lead the agenda for this country. And the alternative is really not great. The Republican Party is starting to feel more like a cult of personality than it is a political party. Where are the Reagan conservatives? I dont want to hand this country and the agenda over to a party thats trying to dismantle democracy. But I also dont want to hand my party over to the faction that wants to dismantle capitalism. I think both of those forces are dangerous and detrimental to this country.

Bade: Its almost like by leaning more further to the left, and sort of purging members like you or pushing you guys out or making you feel like you need to retire, that it makes more likely that Republicans will be the ones who win and that the ultimate Democratic agenda long-term suffers. Is that what you say?

Murphy: Yeah. In this term with the fight over infrastructure and BBBA, we had Democratic groups spending millions of dollars against moderate members. I told those groups, For every dollar that you spend against me, its going to take ten to repair that. If you look at some of the other moderates, last year, in an off year, they had kind of on-year October types of spending done against them, both from the Republican and the Democratic side. Why as Democrats we would take money that we need to reserve for the on year to help win and grow the majority, why we would spend that money against our own members is really baffling.

Bade: Lets go more into that BBB and BIF connection because you were really from the beginning out front in terms of saying, Weve got to be realistic about how we are going to pay for this. What do the pay-fors look like? What are we going to prioritize? We have to pass the same bill through the House and the Senate.

Talk a little bit about your role in that. Specifically, there was a moment where you had to tell President Joe Biden no when he asked you to vote for something, specifically the budget to get this process started. That was, I believe, a tense conversation and it didnt go the way the White House expected. Usually when the president leans on a member, they expect the member to flip. And the next day, you release an op-ed saying you are not voting for this. Tell us about that moment and what was going through your head, how that exchange went, and what you were trying to do.

Murphy: You have to understand that my North Star for my entire time in Congress is how to get a bill across the finish line and signed into law. When we were going into this process with the infrastructure bill being passed out of the Senate, it felt like a historic opportunity for us to do just what the administration had promised America, which is to govern in a competent, bipartisan way and get results.

I had always felt that when the Senate passed that infrastructure bill, the House should have taken it up immediately and passed it. So I was really dismayed when the bill was connected to the Build Back Better Act, which had not yet been written. And you remember, it was a stutter step. It was connected and then it wasnt connected, and it was connected and then it wasnt. Then finally, they settled on connecting the two things. And I always believe you vote on a bill on its merits. And if you have to tie one bill to another, then you have to wonder about whats in that bill that you cant pass on a standalone.

I felt from the start that was a failed strategy. I also felt like you cant promise rainbows and unicorns when you know that you dont have the votes for it. Because the difference between rainbows and unicorns and political reality is going to be disappointment and anger. And thats what we saw.

So I began expressing my concern. I always try to give leadership plenty of advance notice, even if Im going to disagree. I had written that op-ed but I was sitting on it because I was hopeful that I could have these conversations not in public, that we could have these conversations privately, and we could adjust course. When I realized that they had chosen this strategy that I just really didnt think we had the votes to get there, I put out the op-ed, kind of laying out where I stood on this issue publicly.

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How Democrats alienated the woman who helped them win the House - POLITICO

WASHINGTON At least nine House Democrats have announced in the last five days that they tested positive for the coronavirus, with more than half of those cases emerging after lawmakers attended a party retreat last week in Philadelphia.

It is unclear what drove the wave of cases or where the representatives had been infected. But members of the House spent hours on the floor without masks for votes that stretched late into the night last Wednesday before Democrats boarded buses to travel to their gathering.

The infections offered a jarring reminder that, even as top officials seek to pivot away from strict restrictions and encourage Americans to learn to live with the coronavirus, the pandemic rages on. The White House announced on Tuesday that Doug Emhoff, the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris, had tested positive for the virus.

The uptick was all the more striking given that Democrats, including members of Congress and President Bidens team, have generally been far more supportive of strict precautions against the virus, while Republicans have been vocal opponents of mask mandates and other measures, arguing that they are excessive and an encroachment on personal freedom.

Still, even as reports of the infections circulated in Washington and cases continued to spike globally, there was little indication that officials at the White House or in Congress would reimpose a series of precautions that they have just begun to roll back. It reflects decisions across the country, where leaders are dropping pandemic-era restrictions and mandates.

The White House announced on Tuesday that public tours would resume in April, after being suspended at the start of the pandemic. At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, senior lawmakers and officials on Capitol Hill are discussing plans to reopen the building to tourists, according to aides briefed on the discussions, after House Democrats moved this month to lift a mask mandate in their chamber.

Fully vaccinated lawmakers will not be required to wear a mask on Wednesday, as members of the House and the Senate gather in a joint session for a virtual address by President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. (Unvaccinated lawmakers will have to wear a mask, though it is unclear how rigorously that will be enforced.)

Representatives Jared Golden of Maine, Joe Neguse of Colorado and Andy Kim of New Jersey announced within about an hour of one another on Tuesday morning that they had tested positive for the coronavirus. Mr. Neguse attended the retreat along with four others who reported testing positive in recent days: Representatives Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania, Zoe Lofgren of California, Kim Schrier of Washington and Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.

Two other House Democrats, Representatives Gerald E. Connolly of Virginia and Peter Welch of Vermont, also said they tested positive on Friday and Monday, respectively. They were not present at the retreat, according to a person in attendance who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss attendance at the private gathering.

Representatives, their staff members and their families were required to take P.C.R. or rapid antigen tests before the event, and attendees were required to take rapid tests in their hotel rooms on Thursday and Friday.

Mr. Biden delivered an in-person speech at the retreat on Friday. The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said on Tuesday that because all representatives at the retreat were vaccinated, a change in the presidents behavior would not be warranted according to C.D.C. guidelines. She reiterated that Mr. Biden received a negative test result on Sunday.

Many members of the House were also together on the floor late Wednesday night to pass a major spending bill before they departed for Philadelphia, though it is unclear which members were physically present because remote voting was allowed. Most of the Democrats who tested positive emphasized that they were vaccinated, and said it was a reminder that the pandemic was not yet over.

I caught COVID on 2yr anniversary of pandemic, Mr. Kim wrote on Twitter. Yes I feel miserable. Woke up in middle of night with fever, but Im not scared like I would have been year or 2 ago. That doesnt mean Im not worried.

The outbreak among House Democrats comes amid rising concerns about a surge in coronavirus cases in parts of Europe and Asia, as well as warnings from public health experts that the United States could see a summer or fall surge.

The Democrats were joined on Tuesday by a Republican colleague, Representative Fred Upton of Michigan, who said on Twitter that he was experiencing mild symptoms after a routine test came back positive.

Annie Karni contributed reporting.

Read more here:
Nine House Democrats Test Positive for Covid After Late-Night Voting and Retreat - The New York Times

The Democrats face a tough fight to retain their tenuous hold on the U.S. Senate, but theyve gotten some unexpected help in recent weeks from the Republicans.

The unforced GOP errors include one proposal that would raise taxes on half of all Americans and another to resume the Republican fight to scrap the increasingly popular Affordable Care Act.

Still, President Joe Bidens negative approval rating doesnt augur well for his party. The Senate is currently split 50-50 with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the deciding vote.

Republican recapture of the Senate would likely block Bidens efforts to reshape the federal judiciary and would complicate, for the next two years, most congressional battles over government funding and other issues.

Further raising the stakes is the fact that strategists for both parties and independent analysts expect the GOP to regain the House, despite a better-than-expected Democratic showing in the post-census redrawing of congressional district lines.

More than 30 incumbent House Democrats are retiring, weakening the partys prospects for holding several closely divided districts. Republicans need to gain only five seats to win the majority.

But sweeping congressional triumphs havent always produced similar Senate results. In 2018, when the so-called blue wave enabled the Democrats to flip 41 seats and win the House, Republicans gained two Senate seats.

Ironically, this years most damaging GOP misstep came from the man who is masterminding the partys Senate campaign, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, who chairs the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Flouting the advice of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell to focus the GOP campaign on the Biden administrations short-comings, Scott issued an 11-point plan to rescue America that detailed dozens of Republican goals.

Americans deserve to know what we will do when given the chance to govern, declared Scott, who is widely believed to harbor 2024 presidential ambitions. His platform was an extensive conservative wish list that included finishing former President Donald Trumps border wall, eliminating federal programs that can be done locally, enacting term limits for Congress and federal bureaucrats, re-funding the police and stopping left-wing efforts to rig elections.

Buried in a vow to stop socialism and shrink the federal workforce by 25% was a proposal that All Americans should pay some income tax to have skin in the game, even if a small amount. Currently over half of Americans pay no income tax.

That last statement is true. The percentage actually rose to 61% during the pandemic. But it is misleading because it only refers to those Americans paying no federal income taxes: mostly lower income Americans but also millionaires using tax shelters.

Federal income taxes do not include payroll taxes, notes the non-partisan Tax Policy Center. It says only 20% paid neither federal income nor payroll taxes and nearly everyone paid some form of property tax, sales tax, or excise tax.

Scotts proposal, which is reminiscent of a controversial 2012 comment by then-GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, would raise taxes for half of all Americans. That is a non-starter politically, and Democrats promptly jumped on it.

Republicans Rally Around Their Plan To Raise Taxes and Rip Health Care Away From Millions of Americans, headed a typical Democratic National Committee release, citing Scotts platform and Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnsons call to repeal Obamacare.

Speaking to the right-wing Breitbart News, the Wisconsin senator, who is seeking a third term this year, said if Republicans win back Congress in 2022 and the White House in 2024, they could actually make good on what we established as our priorities like repealing and replacing Obamacare.

In 2017, they tried and failed to scrap Obamacare when they controlled the White House, the House and Senate. The non-profit Kaiser Family Foundations polling shows the health laws approval among all Americans has risen five points in the past two years to 58%.

While Democrats try to wrap Scotts and Johnsons statements around the GOP, other Republican candidates have been having their troubles.

In North Carolina, a verbal duel broke out between two GOP Senate candidates when former Gov. Pat McCrory accused Rep. Ted Budd of being friendly to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Budd, whom Trump endorsed in the race, called Putin a very intelligent actor, though he also said he was evil.

North Carolina is a state where Democrats hope to flip a GOP seat, along with Pennsylvania and Ohio. In the latter, at least five Republicans are vying in the May 3 primary with four of them seeking Trumps backing.

Meanwhile, Democrats have their own problems, starting with Bidens low job approval.

A recent Georgia poll showed likely Republican nominee Herschel Walker, the former University of Georgia football star recruited by Trump, four points ahead of freshman Sen. Raphael Warnock. Bidens Georgia approval is in the mid-30s.

Handicappers rate at least three other Democratic-held Senate seats as toss-ups: Arizona, where former astronaut Mark Kelly is seeking a full term; Nevada, where Catherine Cortez Masto is seeking re-election; and New Hampshire, where Maggie Hassan seeks a second term after winning by just 1,017 votes in 2016.

Historically, the same party tends to win all close Senate races. The current political climate suggests Democrats face an uphill fight to hold their 50 seats, but, in an unpromising year, a little GOP help could prove a big asset.

Carl P. Leubsdorf is the former Washington bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News and a frequent contributor. Email: carl.p.leubsdorf@gmail.com

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Biden's low approval rating and unpopular GOP proposals are in a race to the bottom - The Dallas Morning News

Despite making some changes to U.S. border policy, the Biden administration has maintained the most sweeping border restriction enacted by former President Donald Trump: a pandemic-era order known as Title 42 that has led to the quick deportation of hundreds of thousands of migrants in two years.

President Biden has recently come under intense pressure from his own party, including top Democrats in Congress, to discontinue Title 42, which progressive advocates denounce as an illegal relic from the Trump presidency that denies due process to asylum-seekers.

Despite supporting the end of other pandemic-related restrictions, Republicans have vocally backed Title 42, urging Mr. Biden to keep it. In fact, Republicans have accused the administration of not using the policy extensively enough amid an unprecedented spike in migrant apprehensions along the southern border this past year.

What exactly is Title 42, and how has it been used by both administrations to expel migrants? Here are the facts.

On March, 20, 2020, at the outset of the COVID-19 public health emergency, Trump previewed a measure to curb "mass uncontrolled cross-border movement," a move that would ultimately go further in restricting migration than any of his administration's previous hardline border policies.

That day, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield invoked a World War II-era public health law to authorize U.S. border officials to promptly deport migrants. The law, found in Title 42 of the U.S. code, grants the government the "power to prohibit, in whole or in part, the introduction of persons and property" to stop a contagious disease from spreading in the U.S.

The order Redfield signed said the deportations were necessary to control the spread of COVID-19 in border facilities, protect U.S. agents from the virus and preserve medical resources. While Redfield's initial order was enacted for 30 days, he extended it for another month in April 2020 and then indefinitely in May 2020.

Despite its stated public health justification, the CDC order authorizing the deportations was signed over the objection of top experts at the agency who did not believe the unprecedented policy was justified, according to congressional testimony and CBS News reporting.

Officials refer to a deportation under Title 42 as an "expulsion" since it is not carried out under immigration law, which imposes further penalties on those who are removed, such as multi-year banishments from the U.S.

On paper, a Title 42 expulsion is supposed to occur soon after migrants are taken into custody, since the stated objective is to minimize the chances of them spreading the coronavirus inside U.S. detention facilities.

Most migrants processed under Title 42 have been expelled by land to Mexico, and that process can take just a few hours. However, the Mexican government has only formally agreed to accept the return of expelled migrants if they are Mexican, Guatemalan, Honduran or Salvadoran.

A smaller number of migrants are expelled through deportation flights, usually to their home countries. The U.S. is currently expelling some migrants to Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras and southern Mexico. Expulsion flights to El Salvador and Nicaragua were discontinued.

Last September, the Biden administration launched the largest Title 42 air expulsion blitz to date, expelling 10,000 deportees to Haiti in three months after the sudden arrival of thousands of migrants from the Caribbean country in Del Rio, Texas.

The Biden and Trump administrations have argued that Title 42 supersedes U.S. asylum law, which allows migrants on U.S. soil to seek protection, regardless of their legal status. Hence, those processed under Title 42 are not allowed to file an application for asylum as a means to stop their expulsion.

Only an extremely limited number of migrants processed under Title 42 are screened for a lesser form of protection if they make "an affirmative, spontaneous and reasonably believable claim that they fear being tortured in the country they are being sent back to," as outlined in internal DHS guidance.

Since March 2020, U.S. authorities along the border with Mexico have carried out more than 1.7 million migrant expulsions under Title 42, according to government statistics, as of the end February 2022.

While Title 42 applies to both land borders, U.S. officials along the Canadian border, who process a substantially lower number of migrants compared to their southern border colleagues, have used the policy on a limited basis, carrying out 15,000 expulsions in two years.

Title 42 expulsions do not represent the number of people expelled because some migrants, primarily single adults, are expelled multiple times. The expulsions have fueled an unusually high rate of repeat border crossings by migrants expelled to northern Mexico, because they do not carry legal consequences.

In nine months, the Trump administration carried out over 400,000 Title 42 expulsions along the southern border. During Mr. Biden's first full 13 months in office, U.S. border authorities have carried out over 1.2 million expulsions, an analysis of Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data shows.

While the Biden administration has carried out 800,000 more expulsions than the Trump administration, Mr. Biden has also enforced Title 42 longer and faced a record number of migrant arrivals at the southern border.

Between March 2020 and January 2021, when the Trump administration enforced Title 42, U.S. border officials recorded 552,919 migrant apprehensions, 83% of which resulted in expulsions. During the Biden administration, the U.S. has reported 2,276,871 migrant arrests, 63% of which turned in Title 42 expulsions.

Like the Trump administration, Biden officials have used Title 42 to expel most migrant adults traveling without children. Seventy-five percent of 1,429,988 U.S. border encounters with single adults in the past 13 months have led to a Title 42 expulsion, CBP statistics show.

The Trump administration expelled 69% of the migrant families who entered U.S. border custody between March 2020 and January 2021. Conversely, during Mr. Biden's first full 13 months in office, border agents have expelled 25% of migrant parents and children processed as families.

But 656,951 parents and children traveling as families have entered U.S. border custody during Mr. Biden's tenure, compared to 25,790 during the time the Trump administration enforced Title 42.

Under Mr. Biden, Mexican officials along some of the busiest parts of the border refused to accept migrant families with young children. In 2021, U.S. border authorities also encountered record numbers of Venezuelans, Nicaraguans and Cubans, who generally can't be expelled to Mexico or their home countries.

The Biden administration has declined to revive the Trump practice of using Title 42 to expel unaccompanied children. The Trump administration expelled nearly 16,000 unaccompanied minors before a federal judge in November 2020 halted the practice, finding it unlawful.

Most unaccompanied children are transferred to shelters overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for their care until it can place them with sponsors, who are typically family members living in the U.S.

Since the Biden administration discontinued family detention, most migrant families with children who are not expelled are released with a notice to appear in an immigration court, where they can seek asylum. However, that process can take years, due to the immigration court system's backlog of over 1.7 million unresolved cases.

Almost half of 176,359 immigration court cases completed in fiscal year 2020 ended up with a judge issuing "in absentia" deportation orders to immigrants who did not attend their hearings, Justice Department figuresindicate. That rate plummeted to 10% in fiscal year 2021, when the pandemic postponed many hearings, leading to fewer completed cases.

Some families could also be quickly deported to their home country under the "expedited removal" process if they do not pass initial asylum screenings or if border officials determine that they did not ask for asylum.

Single adult migrants who are not expelled under Title 42 are typically sent to immigration detention facilities or deported under expedited removal. In some cases, single adult migrants are released with court notices.

In February, for example, U.S. border officials carried out 91,513 expulsions, representing 55% of migrant arrivals that month. Another 8,335 migrants were quickly deported under regular immigration procedures, government data submitted to a federal court show. U.S. border officials released 39,069 migrants.

Another 21,426 migrants were transferred to detention centers run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which later released 15,974 of them, according to the statistics.

For over a year, the Biden administration has resisted criticism from advocates and outside public health experts and strongly defended Title 42, including in federal court. But recent court defeats could prompt the administration to scale back or even terminate the policy in the next few weeks.

On March 4, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., barred the administration from expelling migrant families with children to countries where they could be harmed, agreeing with the American Civil Liberties Union's argument that Title 42 does not override humanitarian safeguards for asylum-seekers in U.S. law.

Later that day, a federal judge in Texas blocked the administration from exempting unaccompanied minors from Title 42, saying the exemption harmed Texas financially because of costs associated with medical services and schooling for migrant children.

In response to the latter ruling, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky revoked her agency's Title 42 directives as they pertain to unaccompanied children, saying their expulsions are not warranted due to widespread vaccine availability, testing and improved pandemic conditions.

If upheld, the other court ruling, which has yet to take effect, would require U.S. border officials to interview families to assess whether they could face harm if expelled, or prompt them to end Title 42 for this population, as the administration has done for unaccompanied children.

The CDC has until March 30 to complete a new review of Title 42 and determine whether the policy should be kept, changed or terminated.

Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.

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What is Title 42, the COVID-19 immigration policy Democrats want Biden to end? - CBS News

March 17, 2022

In this issue: Former Minneapolis Council member challenges Ilhan Omar and a hypothetical matchup poll shows Kathy Hochul and Andrew Cuomo about even

California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D) faces Republican and independent challengers in the states top-two primary. Politicos Jeremy B. White said the attorney general race could be the most consequential contest in the deep-blue state a bellwether of Democratic voters commitment to criminal justice reform.

White wrote that two of Bontas primary opponents, Sacramento County District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert (independent) and former U.S. Attorney Nathan Hochman (R), have sought to connect Bonta to two California district attorneys facing recall efforts this year: Los Angeles County D.A. George Gascn and San Francisco D. A. Chesa Boudin.

White said, District attorneys wield far greater influence than the attorney general over whom to prosecute and what sentences to seek. But Schubert and Hochman argue Bonta should have used the power of his office to rein in progressive prosecutors.

The Boudin recall is on the June 7 ballot, and signature gathering is underway in the Gascn recall effort. Organizers of the recall campaigns allege that each D.A.s policies led to an increase in crime. Bonta endorsed Gascns D.A. bid and worked with Boudins office on legislation when Bonta was in the General Assembly.

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) appointed Bonta in 2021 after Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) became U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services. Bonta served in the General Assembly from 2012 to 2021, where his record included co-writing bills to end cash bail and requiring the attorney general to investigate fatal police shootings of unarmed people.

Bonta says he holds those who break the law especially those in positions of power accountable and that in his first 100 days as attorney general, he won a settlement for families harmed by opioids, defended an assault weapons ban, and prosecuted major polluters.

Hochman says he will protect our neighborhoods, get fentanyl off our streets, get tough on crime, and find compassionate solutions to homelessness.

Schuberts campaign slogan is Stop the chaos. She says shell step in and take over cases from district attorneys when those district attorneys are not protecting Californians.

Republican Eric Early is also running. He says, It is time for someone new, an outsider who supports law enforcement and wants a California with low crime, good schools, thriving businesses, secure borders, fair elections, a strong Second Amendment, and government overregulation out of our lives.

California has had Democratic attorneys general since 1999.

Former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels announced his Democratic primary bid for Minnesotas 5th Congressional District. Samuels says incumbent Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) has demonstrated shes out of touch with the residents of Minneapolis in the last election, referring to her support for a 2021 ballot measure to replace the citys police department with a Department of Public Safety. Voters rejected the measure 56%-44%.

Omars campaign said in a fundraising email following Samuels announcement, [Samuels] was one of the most vocal opponents of a ballot amendment in Minneapolis that would have established a public safety system rooted in compassion, humanity and love, and delivering true justice. We cant let him win and put a stop to all our work for progress.

Samuels was part of a group of residents who sued the city in 2020 alleging it did not have enough police officers to meet the city charters requirements. A Hennepin County judge ruled in favor of the group in 2021, ordering the city to hire more officers. On Monday, the Minnesota Court of Appeals reversed the decision, stating that the mayor is responsible for determining police staffing levels.

Samuels also criticized Omars vote against the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. Omar was one of six Democrats to vote against the bill. Samuels said, Too many D.C. politicians find their success through the division and purity politics that have defined our era, and, unfortunately in this case, Rep. Omars position was quite literally my way or the highway, a position that fails to recognize the tremendous infrastructural needs of our community.

Omar said in November, I have been clear that I would not be able to support the infrastructure bill without a vote on the Build Back Better Act. Passing the infrastructure bill without passing the Build Back Better Act first risks leaving behind childcare, paid leave, health care, climate action, housing, education, and a roadmap to citizenship.

The Star Tribune reported that Joe Radinovich, who managed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Freys successful re-election campaign last year, is managing Samuels campaign.

Samuels served on the city council from 2003 to 2014. He then served a term on the Minneapolis Board of Education from 2014 to 2018. Omar was first elected to the U.S. House in 2018. She served in the state House of Representatives from 2017 to 2019.

U.S. Reps. Sean Casten and Marie Newman are both running in Illinois 6th Congressional District Democratic primary as a result of redistricting. Both have garnered endorsements from members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), of which Newman is a member and Casten is not.

Most recently, Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), deputy chair of the CPC, endorsed Casten. CPC Chair Pramila Jayapal has endorsed Newman.

In addition to Porter, 14 U.S. representatives have endorsed Casten, including four CPC members. Seven U.S. representatives in addition to Jayapal have endorsed Newman, six of whom are CPC members. The Progressive Caucus PAC endorsed Newman.

Forty-one percent of the newly drawn 6th Districts population comes from the old 3rd District, which Newman currently represents. Twenty-three percent comes from the old 6th District, which Casten represents.

Casten was first elected to the House in 2018 and won re-election in 2020 by 7 percentage points. Newman was first elected in 2020, defeating then-U.S. Rep. Dan Lipinski in the Democratic primary by 3 percentage points before winning the general election by 13 percentage points.

The primary is scheduled for June 28.

As of the end of Februaryeight months before the general election45 members of the U.S. House had announced they would not seek re-election. At the same time in the 2020 election cycle, 34 representatives had announced they wouldnt seek re-election. That number was 46 in 2018.

Emerson College and The Hill released a poll showing that in a hypothetical primary matchup, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) had 37% support and the incumbent she replaced, former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), had 33%. The poll had a +/- 4.3 percentage point margin of error.

U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi had 7%, New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams had 4%, Paul Nichols had 2%, and 16% were either undecided or voting for someone else.

Cuomo resigned during his third term last August after New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) released reports on investigations into Cuomos handling of the coronavirus in nursing homes and accusations of sexual harassment. Cuomo made his first public remarks since leaving office on March 6, saying that no legal charges were brought against him. A week later, Cuomo released an ad in which he says, I havent been perfect, Ive made mistakes, but I also made a difference. Ive never stopped fighting for New Yorkers, and I never will.

AdImpact reported on Tuesday that Cuomos campaign committee had spent $2.4 million on ads since he left office, including a new buy to run from March 16 to March 25. Cuomo has not made any announcements regarding another run for political office.

Emerson College/The Hill also asked respondents who theyd vote for between current gubernatorial primary candidates, which showed Hochul at 42%, Williams at 10%, Suozzi at 7%, Nichols at 5%, and 36% either undecided or voting for someone else.

The poll surveyed 504 registered Democratic voters and was conducted March 9-10.

The filing deadline is April 7, and the primary is scheduled for June 28.

On March 8, North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) endorsed Val Applewhite, who is challenging incumbent state Sen. Kirk deViere in the Democratic primary for Senate District 19. Cooper said Applewhite isnt afraid to stand up to Right Wing Republicans.

DeViere said, This primary challenge is a direct result of putting my community over partisan politics and not being a rubber stamp.

DeViere, first elected in 2018, was one of four Democrats who voted for a version of the 2021 state budget that the Republican majority supported. Among the items other Senate Democrats, along with Cooper, disagreed with Republicans on were raises for teachers and noncertified school employees. Cooper called for 10% teacher raises and a $15 minimum wage for noncertified employees. The Senate budget called for 3% teacher raises and a $13 minimum wage for noncertified employees. All four Senate Democrats who supported that version of the budget served on the committee responsible for negotiating a final budget with Cooper.

DeViere and Applewhite were candidates in the nonpartisan election for Fayetteville mayor in 2013. Applewhite finished first in the primary with 44% and DeViere was third with 20%. Applewhite lost the general election to Nat Robertson 50.5%-49.4%.

Ed Donaldson is also running in the Democratic Senate District 19 primary. The primary is scheduled for May 17 and will be open to registered Democrats and unaffiliated voters only.

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