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Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., speaks beside House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at a news conference on Capitol Hill on Jan. 5, 2017.(Photo: Michael Reynolds, European Pressphoto Agency)

Rep. Louise Slaughter ofNew York has been out sick and its unclear whether shell be back Thursday to vote against a Republican proposal to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, according to her office.

Slaughter, the top-ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee, was absent Wednesday as the committee took up the bill and has been out since late last week. The attendance of another Democrat, Rep. Bobby Rush of Illinois,is also in question following the death of his wife, Carolyn.

Democrats are all expected to oppose the bill. With every one of their absences, Republicans can afford to lose another vote from their party and still pass the bill. But conservative Republicans say they likely have enough votes to kill it, regardless.

On Monday, Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said during a committee meeting that Slaughter, 87, was treated over the weekend with antibiotics for an infection.

Getting sick is the price many of us pay for flying twice a week, but Im happy to report that Louise is now feeling much better," McGovern said. "I spoke with her this afternoon and in her words shes 'ready to fight a tiger,'so as soon as her doctor gives her the green light shell be back in action.

McGovern reported Wednesday that he had spoken with her again that morning. I can assure you shes watching all of us today and taking notes, he said.

A spokeswoman for Rush, Stephanie Gadlin, said she wasn't able to say what Rush would do. His wife died on March 13 at age 67 of congestive heart failure. Funeral services are on Friday, she said. He tweeted that a celebration of her life would be held on Saturday in Chicago.

Of course he wants to be there to vote, but hes literally dealing with the death of his wife, she said.

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Two Democrats may miss House vote on GOP health care bill - USA TODAY

In their drive to resist President Trump, Democrats so far have put a lot of political eggs into one basket: immigration. Their strident defense of immigrants past, present and future certainly satisfies the base -- but its a strategic mistake that can only lead to electoral disappointment.

Lets recall why Trump won in November. He is the first president since 1876 to lose the popular vote by more than 2% and still win an electoral college majority. He did so by winning five swing states Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin with less than 50% of the vote. In each case, he attracted large numbers of whites without a college degree who had voted for President Obama twice. Meanwhile, many Republicans who had voted for Sen. John McCain and former Gov. Mitt Romney threw their votes away on write-ins or third-party candidates rather than vote for Hillary Clinton.

If Democrats want to win again, they must do one of two things: Attract back the Obama-Trump voter or win over the Romney-non-Trump voter. Their protestations against border security and the travel ban are not likely to do either.

Surveys show that Obama-Trump blue-collar voters like Trumps anti-immigration stance. These voters are likely to have felt competition from immigrants legal and illegal, and they want that competition to stop. Even though many of these voters agree with Democrats on traditional economic issues like taxes and entitlement spending, their primary concern now is to protect their livelihoods and standard of living by reducing competition from foreigners living at home and abroad.

Loud opposition to Trumps immigration policies reminds those voters every day why they no longer feel at home in todays Democratic Party.

Wavering Romney-McCain Republicans, for their part, may be sympathetic to the plight of economic migrants, but are quite possibly worried about terrorism. By just saying no to Trumps travel bans, the Democrats give nothing to the Republican or GOP-leaning independent who wants a more balanced attitude.

The Democratic Party approach, such as it is, is anything but balanced. In the partys 2016 platform, immigration enforcement is at best an afterthought. The platform emphasizes a path to citizenship, reuniting families and ensuring that as few current immigrants as possible are removed from the country. It also denounces Trumps proposed religious test for immigration as well as what it called his vilification of Muslims.

While a platform is not binding, the partys behavior since inauguration day suggests that it accurately expresses Democrats sentiments. Everything the party and its leaders in Congress have done since the inauguration simply restates these beliefs without modification.

It seems Democrats remain stuck in the rut that led them to electoral disaster in the first place. Firmly convinced that Middle America shared their fear and loathing of Trump, the party ran one of the most issue-free campaigns in modern history. In paid ads, campaign stops and in the debates, Clinton rarely gave people who werent already committed Democrats or progressives a reason to vote for her. That failure explains the most telling and unexpected result on election day: Trump beat Clinton handily among the 18% of Americans who told exit pollsters they disliked both candidates.

Democrats are either unwilling to see the truth or unable to acknowledge it: They cannot win back the presidency without attracting people who disagree with some of their views. Doing that does not mean singing the same old songs louder and more clearly.

When it comes to immigration, Democrats need to ask themselves some hard questions. Can they acknowledge that the large number of immigrants in the country illegally, many of whom are relatively unskilled, gives rise to economic competition that harms job and wage prospects for voters who used to be part of their base?

Can they be pro-Muslim immigration without being blind to the fact that the very few Muslim immigrants inclined to terror can undermine public tolerance with just a few fatal attacks?

Can they admit that one can have concerns about either type of migrant without being prejudiced or racist that there might just be some rational reason for Americans to be wary of a lax or overly trusting approach to immigration?

If Democrats can entertain and act on these thoughts, then they can begin the hard work of uniting the anti-Trump majority into a political majority. If they cannot, their resistance will be futile.

Henry Olsen is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of the forthcoming book, The Working Class Republican: Ronald Reagan and the Return of Blue Collar Conservatism.

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The Democrats' stance on immigration will lead to electoral ...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says the proposed Republican health bill would lead to an enormous transfer of wealth from poorer Americans to richer ones. Marian Carrasquero/NPR hide caption

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says the proposed Republican health bill would lead to an enormous transfer of wealth from poorer Americans to richer ones.

When Democrats held a majority of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Rep. Nancy Pelosi was the House speaker, she helped pass the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

Now, after more than six years in the minority party, she is watching House Republicans move to repeal and replace parts of the law.

She says that although Democrats don't have the votes to stop the GOP legislation alone, they can still show their opposition to it.

"In my office I have a painting of Abraham Lincoln, who said, 'Public sentiment is everything,' " Pelosi told NPR's Robert Siegel. "Regardless of the number of Democrats in the House, the number of people who are affected, 24 million [people] who would lose their care, I'm depending on public opinion. ... The fact is the more we point out the shortcomings of the legislation, the fewer votes [Republicans] will have."

The interview below has been edited for length and clarity.

On the shortcomings of the Affordable Care Act

Let's go back to where we were before the Affordable Care Act, because that was a time where [some people] wouldn't even be able to have any insurance. So what was the purpose of the Affordable Care Act? [It was] threefold. One, to lower cost. Two, to improve benefits. And three, to expand access for millions more people. And it's done all three. ...

Look, there hasn't been a bill ever passed of this magnitude, whether it was Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, voting rights, civil rights bill, that was not revisited. Some of the improvements we [could] have [had] in the Affordable Care Act were there, but the Republicans prevented them from happening. So you can be a self-fulfilling prophecy and say, "I'm gonna make sure this doesn't work now. Now see, it didn't work."

On whether the Democrats could work with President Trump or House Speaker Paul Ryan on health care legislation

We have a responsibility to the American people to find as much common ground as we can. There has to be sincerity, though. ... I don't think he has the faintest idea the president about the health care thing.

[But Rep. Paul] Ryan ... is [a] philosophical, right-wing, anti-government [person], and so an act of mercy for him is to reduce the government's role. So we're talking about two different things. They're debating whether it's "Trumpcare" or "Ryancare," but neither of them wants it identified with themselves because it's such a failure in the public mind.

On Trump's knowledge of health care

The more the president might learn about [health care], then he might see where there's a path [to working with Democrats], because to tell you the truth, the Affordable Care Act is a private sector initiative. It contains many Republican ideas.

Understand this about Republicans, and then you'll understand part of what our challenge is here: They always are gearing whatever they do to benefit the high end. This is the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of our country, in terms of hundreds of billions of dollars going into the pockets of the top 1 percent of the people in our country, at the expense of the good health of our middle class and those who aspire to the middle class.

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WASHINGTON On the same day President Donald Trumps intemperate wiretapping tweets gained him a sharp rebuke in Congress, Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch began the process of asserting his independence from him in the Senate,which is considering his nomination to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia.

As Gorsuch sat silently Monday through several hours of opening statements by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, it was Democratic senators who did all they could to throw down the gauntlet for his confirmation hearings on the themes they hope to explore:

The judges independence from Trump. The treatment of previous Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. Rulings in which Gorsuch is accused of favoring the powerful over the powerless. His views on whether judges should second-guess the expertise of administrative agencies. His constitutional vision for the rights of women, minorities, workers, the poor and religious minorities. The role of money in politics.

All of these were hot topics for Democrats, who dont have the votes to reject Gorsuch outright but could try to block him on the Senate floor, an option Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has left on the table. The progressive base, meanwhile, just wants the party to fight the nominee tooth and nail and so the hearings, which are set to last through Thursday, are their chance to grandstand about the issues Democrats care about.

Youre going to have your hands full with this president, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) told Gorsuch, who sat attentively as both Democrats and Republicans took turns in praising or raising doubts about him. Hes going to keep you busy.

Trumps controversial policies and imbroglios came up several times at the hearing, but Gorsuch didnt engage any of them head on when it was his time to address the committee later in the afternoon. But while discussing the role of the judiciary,he did point out that the robes judges wear are meant to signify impartiality toward all.

Ours is a judiciary of honest, black polyester, he said. He added that when judges put on robes, its time to lose our egos and open our minds.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the committees ranking Democrat, said the Senates job is to determine if Gorsuch will bea reasonable mainstream conservative on the Supreme Court as well as someone who will protect the rights of all Americans, not just the powerful few.

She criticized Scalias constitutional views, which she said wouldve kept segregation and discrimination against women and LGBT people on the books, then wondered aloud about what Gorsuchs appointment would mean for the future of abortion rights. Feinstein said that Gorsuchs writings have been read by both anti-abortion and pro-abortion rights activists to mean that hed vote to overrule Roe v. Wade, and she pointed out that Trump had campaigned specifically on the promise of nominating pro-life judges.

Jim Bourg / Reuters

Several Democratic senators highlighted the role two conservative groups, the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, played in shaping Trumps selection of Gorsuch.Leonard Leo, who leads the Federalist Society, took a leave to advise the president on his court selection.

I do not know of any other Supreme Court nominee who was selected by interest groups rather than by a president in consultation with the Senate, as required by the Constitution, said the No. 2 Democrat on the committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

Time and again, Democrats on the committee lauded Garland,the esteemed appeals judge President Barack Obama nominated a month after Scalias death but whose nomination was never given the kind of hearing Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is now promptly offering Gorsuch.

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Gorsuchs home state senator who introduced him alongside Sen. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), urged his colleagues to give the judge a hearing out of respect for him and for Garland, and to do it in the manner that his predecessor deserved but was denied. Bennet is taking heat in Colorado over whether hell vote for Gorsuch.

Since Scalias death more than a year ago, the Supreme Court has carried on with only eight justices four appointed by Democratic presidents, four by Republican presidents. The addition of Gorsuch would bring the court back to its prior status quo, with ideologically close rulings depending on Justice Anthony Kennedy, a conservative centrist who has often pivoted on hot-button constitutional issues.

Perhaps because the stakes are high for Democrats, who fear that Trumps agenda and an entrenched conservative majority on the court put the causes they care about at risk, Leahy posed a series of rhetorical questions of the nominee, who will no doubt get them again once the formal question-and-answer sessions begin Tuesday.

Will you allow the government to intrude on Americans personal privacy and freedoms? Will you elevate the rights of corporations over those of real people? Will you rubber-stamp a president whose administration has asserted that executive power is not subject to judicial review? Leahy asked.

If progressives are worried that Democrats might botch the Gorsuch confirmation battle,Rhode Islands Sheldon Whitehouse delivered whats likely the most potent moment for their base: a spirited speech listing all the cases on which Republican appointees to the Supreme Court have voted in five-justice blocs in important cases that, in Whitehouses view, have given Republicans more power.

I cant help but notice the long array of 5-to-4 decisions with all Republican appointees to change the law to the benefit of distinct interests: Republicans at the polls and big businesses pretty much everywhere, Whitehouse said. Among the cases he listed were one that gutted an key section of the Voting Rights Act and the Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations and unions to spend unlimited amounts in elections.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who last month revealed that Gorsuch had told him during a private visit that Trumps attacks on the judiciary were demoralizing, insisted that hed demand that Gorsuch be more forthcoming with his condemnation.

It isnt enough to do it in the privacy of my office or with our colleagues behind closed doors, he said, adding that he should condemn Trump publicly and explicitly about the presidents verbal assaults on the courts.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

After taking the oath in the afternoon, Gorsuch finally got a chance to speak about himself and his record, following introductions by Bennet, Gardner and Neal Katyal, an experienced Supreme Court lawyer who was acting solicitor general in the early years of the Obama administration.

Skirting the kinds of controversial subjects that often divide the high court,the nominee stuck to pleasantries, speaking fondly about his Colorado roots, his family and his legal heroes including Kennedy and the late Justice Byron White, for whom he clerked. Justice Scalia was a mentor, too, Gorsuch said.

Indirectly, the judge pushed back against Democrats attempts to paint him as someone whod rule against the less powerful, noting that, in his years as appellate judge, hed sided with Native Americans, class-action plaintiffs suing corporations, prisoners, criminal defendants and undocumented immigrants.

Sometimes, too, Ive ruled against such persons, he added. My decisions have never reflected a judgment about the people before me.

He then repeated a line that he used on the day he was nominated to the Supreme Court, emphasizing how judges should stick to the letter of the law no more, no less.

A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is probably a very bad judge, stretching for policy results he prefers rather than those the law compels, Gorsuch said.

Talking to reporters after Day 1 of the hearings, Grassley said that he expects the Senate to vote on Gorsuchs nomination before Congress Easter recess, which is scheduled to begin April 8, and that he expects some Democrats to join Republicans in putting him through.

Tuesdays session is expected to be a marathon for Gorsuch, with all 20 senators on the judiciary committee posing questions in 30-minute intervals. Thats at least 10 hours in the hot seat.

UPDATE: This article has been updated with more details from Mondays hearing.

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With Democrats On The Offensive, Neil Gorsuch Takes The Stand In The Senate - Huffington Post

After losing a presidential election it thought it had in the bag, the Democratic Party is still very much in soul-searching mode. While progressivemembers of the party have been extremely vocal that the party should shift to the left, a quieter, moderate section of the party is urging caution in that move. Former senator Mark Begich (D-Alaska) recently hosted a gathering of moderate Democrats in Denverto find a way to insert themselves into the Democratic-rebirth conversation. The Fix talked to Begichafter the gathering. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

THE FIX: So, what was the takeaway from thisDenvermeeting of moderateDemocrats?

BEGICH: It was a very healthy discussion. I first thought, honestly, we'd all come together and be griping about the world, which anybody in politics can do any time. But it didn't turn out that way. You saw people motivated and interested in figuring out: How do we keep our values under what progressive want? Not to take away from their values, but in red states, we have to look at things a little differently.

What's your pitch to the liberal wing of the party to let you guys have that conversation?

I'm an oil-and-gas, gun-supporting Democrat. I support gay rights, I support pro-choice, but I'm also focused on theeconomy and a deficit hawk and a defense spender. So does that fit or not fit with the Democratic Party? The answer is: It should. For the Democrats to be the majority party in any of the categories from statehouse to governor to House members to Senate and so forth you have to win some of these red states.

Okay, so how do Democrats win some of these red states?

We have to shift from just dictating what we think are the right answers to engaging with people at all levels within the Democratic Party, including the independents.

I think the 2016 election really highlighted the need to talk about four principles [we came up with in Denver]: security, opportunity, results and compassion.I think those four issues do not conflict at all with anybody in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.And we have to put it in a more concise, direct message that I think we missed during the 2016 elections.

You must be very cognizantthat progressives are arguably the loudest wing of the Democratic Party right now.

We like to call ourselves more centrists than independent Democrats. What we represent is an independent thinking within the Democratic Party, but we're not pulling away from the values of the Democratic Party.

I think what happens in Washington is it's always either that side or the other side, and they say:"You must be against progressives." And the answer is: No, we just have a different approach.

[Winners and losers from the Democratic National Committee Chairman's race]

What do you mean by different approach?

I'm a hardcore climate change believer, but I'm also a believer in oil and gas development. When I talk about climate change, you may not hear me talk about a lot from the emissions standpoint, but you'll hear me talk about the economic benefits dealing with climate change could have.

On tax policy, you might see me emphasize small and independent and mid-size businesses. You may have progressives focused on what you do to lower the tax rate for a low-income individual. Neither of those are independent of each other.

After November, liberal icon Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)said the party's failure to reach out to white working-class voters was "an embarrassment." Where do you diverge from him?

During an interview on CBS News' This Morning, former presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) claimed the Democratic Party is out of touch with ordinary people. Sanders said, "I am deeply humiliated that the democratic party cannot talk to the people from where I came from." (Reuters)

I would say talking to the working class is very important, and I think that's what we missed in 2016. We didn't talk about growing the economy, about small business being the backbone of this country.

Minimum wage is important, but what's more important is a good job so peopledon't have to work three different jobs to make ends meet. That's the real missing link. It's great to talk about the minimum wage, but at the same time, if we're not talking about how to create jobs, increasing the minimum wage is irrelevant if you don't have jobs.

It feels like 2018 could be a test case for your ideas, giventen Democratic senators are running for reelection in Trump states.

The 2018 map is tough for Democrats in today's world right this second, but you know the way politics works. I have a button that says: "Every week in politics is a lifetime."

I'll use Alaska as an example: People would say "Alaska is red." Well, we won the statehouse under Trump, the first time since 1992. We have a first-time-ever Alaska Nativeas the speaker of the Alaska House. The mayor of Anchorage is a Democrat. Our governor is an independent. We have slowly in the last two years built what people said can't happen. So politics today can radically change.

Speaking of changes, do youhave any interest in running for public office again?

We'll see what the future holds. I like what I'm doing right now.

Correction: The Fix originally mis-heard Begich's description of the heritage of Bryce Edgmon, speaker of the Alaska House. He is an Alaska Native.

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'You have to win some of these red states': Why moderate Democrats can't be ignored - Washington Post