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When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer, advocates on either side presumed that the country would divide along the bright color lines: red states completely banning abortion, blue states protecting it.

That prediction failed to anticipate the Sister Senators.

The Sisters, as they call themselves, are the women in the South Carolina State Senate the only women, three Republicans, one Independent and one Democrat, in a legislature that ranks 47th among states in the proportion of women. As a block, they are refusing to allow the legislature to pass a near-total ban on abortion, despite a Republican supermajority.

Three times in eight months, Republican leaders in the chamber have tried to ban abortion beginning at conception. Three times, the women have resisted, even as fellow Republicans have threatened primary challenges and anti-abortion activists have paraded empty strollers and groups of children heckling the women as baby killers.

Before the most recent debate started in April, the anti-abortion group Students for Life dropped off gift bags at the offices of the three Republican women containing plastic spines, infant size but intended to encourage the women to grow one, with notes signed, the pre-born.

The women filibustered, taking the gifts to the podium on the Senate floor to declare themselves even more firmly in resistance. Ive got one hell of a spine already, but now Ive got another backup, Senator Katrina Shealy said, flanked by the two other Republican women, all holding their plastic spines like trophies.

After three days of debate, during which the women spoke for as long as four hours each at a time, Senate leadership acknowledged again that it did not have the votes to pass the ban.

I dont think the Republican Party saw us coming, because we didnt do what they thought we were going to do, Ms. Shealy, the senior member of the group, said in an interview with the other women around a table in her State House office. They thought we would do just what they told us to do.

But as men argued that abortion was killing babies, the five women insisted that abortion bans are about controlling women and that they will not be controlled. They have argued the ban reduces women to baby machines like the dystopia of The Handmaids Tale and rejected as ludicrous claims from male legislators that women use abortion as birth control.

I dont believe any woman goes out on Friday night and has sex and gets pregnant so she can have an abortion the next day, Ms. Shealy said.

The debate in South Carolina, a deeply red state where abortion for now remains legal up until 22 weeks, shows how much has not happened according to plan now that overturning Roe has made abortion bans a reality rather than a symbolic gesture or plank in a party platform.

Many Republican-controlled states have outlawed abortion, largely through bans triggered by the Supreme Court decision in June. But states that were expected to have not, stopped by voters in ballot measures (Kansas and Kentucky), Republican legislators (South Carolina and Nebraska) or courts that have temporarily blocked bans, saying they are likely unconstitutional (Utah and Wyoming).

Pro-life and pro-choice have proven muddy if not increasingly meaningless distinctions. And views on abortion have turned out to be far more nuanced than a red/blue divide: Polls show groups that might have been expected to generally back bans on abortion, Republican women among them, moving away from a desire to make most abortion illegal. Even in South Carolina, polls show most voters support some abortion access and disapprove of overturning Roe.

Theres got to be gray area, said Senator Penry Gustafson, another of the Republicans.

The three Republican women are white, the two others Black, and all describe themselves holding deep religious faith. They are all mothers, and several have fostered children or supported relatives or other young people through college, and they say their experience of pregnancy informs their views on abortion.

All the women support the right to abortion, but with some restriction, though they vary on gestational limits: Senator Margie Bright Matthews, a Democrat, and Senator Mia McLeod, who left the Democratic Party this year, lean toward codifying Roe, which allowed some right to abortion up until fetal viability, around 24 weeks.

Ms. Gustafson and Sandy Senn, the third Republican, would prefer to restrict abortion after the first trimester, with exceptions. Ms. Shealy said if it were up to her personally, she would leave the decision to women, their partners and their doctors: Women know whats best for their bodies.

Still, she and other Republican women describe themselves as pro-life, not pro-choice. They proudly embrace the states Republican creed, which begins I do not choose to be a common man and includes a pledge to think and act for myself. They also believe that women should be allowed to think and act for themselves, and that most would say that the decision on abortion should be left up to them.

There are millions of women who feel like they have not been heard, Ms. Gustafson said during their filibuster last month. And thats why Ive been standing up here this long.

Their positions hardly make them champions to reproductive rights groups. Two of the three Republican women, Ms. Shealy and Ms. Gustafson, voted in favor of a six-week ban, which the Senate passed. This is before most women know they are pregnant. The Republican women successfully insisted on adding exceptions for medical emergencies or cases of rape, incest or fatal fetal anomalies.

They call it a compromise between the ban at conception and bills they put forward that would have placed the question of abortion rights to voters on the ballot, or banned abortion after the first trimester, with exceptions. The Republican leadership in the Senate declined to put those measures to a vote. Ms. Senn voted no on the six-week bill, saying any ban should begin at the end of the first trimester, no earlier.

The House has refused to vote on the six-week bill, holding out for the ban at conception, but still has until Thursday to do so. Instead, it has pressured the Senate to repeatedly vote on the ban at conception. Senate leadership has done so, despite having acknowledged it did not have the votes.

If they had done it the one time, thats one thing, Ms. Senn said. But then a second time and a third time. They knew what the outcome was going to be. They were forewarned.

Its like they dared them, agreed Ms. Matthews.

Im like, youre going to get it, Ms. Senn added. Youre going to get an earful.

An earful she delivered: We the women have not asked for, nor do we want, your protection, she said, addressing her male colleagues on the floor, wearing flip flops for comfort during the filibuster. We dont need it. We dont buy into the ruse that what you really want is to take care of us.

Ms. Gustafson, elected in 2020, got her first taste of politics when a friend took her to a Tea Party rally in 2016. She had owned a restaurant and acted in community theater, including in the role originated by Dolly Parton in the classic film about strong Southern women, Steel Magnolias.

Banning at conception allows nothing for the in-between or things we cant even conceive of, she said. There are too many things that can happen.

The women have found support from a few male Republicans in the chamber. But others have accused them of betraying the party by seeking bans short of onestarting at conception.

Im not willing to sit by and let the goal posts be moved for what it means to be pro-life for the Republican Party, Senator Richard Cash said.

As other states in the region have restricted abortion, the Republican women worry that South Carolina has become a destination for it. The number of abortions has risen since Roe was overturned, and nearly half are women coming from other states, according to state figures.

The South Carolina legislature is an unexpected place to find so much talk of womens rights. It took until 1969 to formally ratify the 19th Amendment, which gave all American women the right to vote in 1920.

Abortion rights supporters were shocked in January when the states highest court declared that privacy protections in the state Constitution extended to a right to abortion, overturning a six-week ban with limited exceptions.

That opinion was written by the only woman on the court, who has since retired, and the legislature replaced her with a man. The Republican leadership is trying to pass the new six-week ban in the hopes the new court will overturn the decision.

Both Ms. Shealy and Ms. Gustafson knocked off popular incumbents to win their seats; Ms. Shealy ran as a petition candidate against a Republican, and wore bedazzled Wonder Woman sneakers to win it. (I still wear them when I get mad, she said.) A newspaper editorial at the time accused her of an over-eager desire to be liked.

For three years, she was the only woman in the chamber, and leaders continued to address the body as Gentlemen of the Senate. One Republican colleague said women should be barefoot and pregnant, not in the legislature, and later told her women were a lesser cut of meat.

Now chair of the committee on family and veterans services, Ms. Shealy is the self-described Mama Hen of the five women. Come girls, she said, herding them to a photograph, Chop chop.

Female legislators are still unusual enough to attract attention. The women! a lobbyist exclaimed as the quintet passed him on the escalator. I need to go with yall!

A parent in the Upstate region of South Carolinaobjected to The Handmaids Tale in a school library after Ms. Senn mentioned the book during the filibuster. But she and the other senators say most of their constituents agree with them. Older women in particular, Ms. Senn said, have sent notes with small donations. One of them said, This old crone is proud of you.

And women who staff the legislative offices have flashed them thumbs up. One stopped Ms. McLeod as she got out of her car on Wednesday. She said thank you for what you did last week, she said. Many of them work for Republican men.

Ms. Matthews added: They always say, We cant say what we think.

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The Unexpected Women Blocking South Carolina's Near-Total ... - The New York Times

Republican lawmakers are pushing new bills that could further regulate which books should be allowed or disallowed in Maine's school libraries.

One would create a rating system and ban books from elementary or middle school libraries if they're not rated as age-appropriate. Another would issue a cease-and-desist order to schools that disseminate content that's found to be obscene by the attorney general or a district attorney.

That bill's sponsor, Republican Sen. James Libby of Standish, says it comes in response to recent efforts by parents to ban particular books, including the graphic novel "Gender Queer," from school libraries. He says his measure would offer a compromise that would only redact particular lines or images.

"We'd just be redacting some parts of some controversial books. And if you read the definition of what's obscene, we're drawing a line, but it's a pretty low line," he says.

But the measure faced opposition from teachers and librarians, who say it would override local control and the local book vetting process managed by educators and administrators as well as harm marginalized students.

Heather Perkinson, the president of the Maine Association of School Libraries, says schools already have a process for challenging books, and she worries the proposal would have a chilling effect.

"Who gets to decide what is obscene? I fear it would quickly become a politicized metric that would censor ideas and identities, targeting topics that get at the very heart of what the First Amendment enshrines," she says.

Attorney General Aaron Frey also says that the bill is unnecessary, as his office and district attorneys already have the authority to respond if someone is disseminating obscene material to minors.

Read more:
Republican proposals would add restrictions to books in Maine ... - Maine Public

At least eight of the 16 Georgia Republicans who convened in December 2020 to declare Donald Trump the winner of the presidential contest despite his loss in the state have accepted immunity deals from Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating alleged election interference, according to a lawyer for the electors.

Prosecutors with the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis told the eight that they will not be charged with crimes if they testify truthfully in her sprawling investigation into efforts by Trump, his campaign and his allies to overturn Joe Bidens victory in Georgia, according to a brief filed Friday in Fulton County Superior Court by defense attorney Kimberly Bourroughs Debrow.

Willis has said that the meeting of Trumps electors on Dec. 14, 2020, despite Republican Gov. Brian Kemps certification of Bidens win, is a key target of her investigation, along with Trumps phone calls to multiple state officials and his campaigns potential involvement in an unauthorized breach of election equipment in rural Coffee County, Ga.

Georgia was among seven states where the Trump campaign and local GOP officials arranged for alternate electors to convene with the stated purpose of preserving legal recourse while election challenges made their way through the courts. Among the questions both Willis and federal investigators have explored is whether the appointment of alternate electors and the creation of elector certificates broke the law. Another question is whether Trump campaign officials and allies initiated the strategy as part of a larger effort to overturn Bidens overall victory during the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021.

The news that some but likely not all of the electors will not be charged raises new questions about the scope of Williss examination of the meeting of electors, all of whom she had previously identified as criminal targets in her investigation. The electors who accepted immunity did so without any promise that they would offer incriminating evidence in return, and they all have stated that they remain unified in their innocence and are not aware of any criminal activity among any of the electors, Debrow said.

In telling the truth they continue to say they have done nothing wrong and they are not aware of anyone else doing anything wrong, much less criminal, said an individual familiar with the investigation who requested anonymity to discuss the case.

Among the electors who appear to remain targets are David Shafer, the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party who presided over the gathering, and Shawn Still, a state senator who at the time was state finance chair for the party and who told congressional investigators he played a role confirming electors identities and admitting them into the room at the Georgia Capitol where they convened.

None of the electors responded to efforts by The Washington Post to reach them. Shafer has denied that convening to cast electoral votes for Trump was improper, saying repeatedly including during the gathering itself that the electors were meeting on a contingency basis to preserve Trumps legal remedy in the event that he prevailed in an ongoing lawsuit challenging the Georgia result.

Under federal law, electors for the winning presidential candidate in each of the states must meet on the first Monday after the second Wednesday of December to cast their votes. The Republican electors said that if they had not met and voted, and if Trump had prevailed in his lawsuit, Bidens electoral votes would have been invalidated but there would have been no Trump votes to replace them.

Fridays filing was the latest in an escalating back and forth between prosecutors and attorneys for the Republicans electors, who have traded allegations of unethical conduct since last summer.

In the latest volley, Debrow accused prosecutors of misrepresenting the facts a reference to an April 18 motion from Willis asking a judge to block Debrow from any further participation in the case, claiming the attorney did not tell her clients they had been offered potential immunity in the investigation.

That motion also claimed Debrow had committed an ethical breach by representing so many clients simultaneously, including some that prosecutors said had incriminated others that Debrow represents in interviews with prosecutors conducted last month. Willis argued that was a conflict of interest.

In her response Friday, Debrow vehemently denied both allegations and accused prosecutors of knowing that their allegations were not true. She cited a letter to her clients dated last August that laid out early discussions of potential immunity offers. She also said that all eight of her current clients have accepted immunity, making it impossible for them to implicate each other. She added that after reviewing audio recordings and transcripts of her clients interviews with prosecutors, which she attended, she has found no evidence that any of them implicated anyone else.

This statement is categorically false, and provably so, Debrow wrote. None of the interviewed electors said anything in any of their interviews that was incriminating to themselves or anyone else, and certainly not to any other elector represented by defense counsel.

She added that Williss motion was reckless, frivolous, offensive, and completely without merit and she asked court to impose sanctions on prosecutors in the form of payment of the cost of responding to the motion.

Debrow also accused Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor in the case, of attempting to mislead at least three of her clients by asking confusing questions about when they had first been presented with offers of immunity.

Debrow claimed in the filing that when she sought to clarify Wades questions about immunity during an interview with one of her clients, identified in the filing as Elector E, Wade ordered a prosecution investigator in the room to shut off a recording device before engaging in what she described as overt threats and attempted intimidation against both her and her client.

According to the filing, the exchange was captured on Debrows tape recorder, which continued to run.

Heres the deal. Heres the deal, Wade allegedly said, according to a partial transcript included in Debrows filing. Either [Elector E] is going to get this immunity, and hes going to answer the questions and talk (inaudible) wants to talk or or were going to leave. And if we leave, were ripping up his immunity agreement, and he can be on the indictment. Thats what can happen.

A spokesman for Williss office declined to comment.

The dispute touches on a key uncertainty about Williss investigation, which is exactly what crimes she and her team believe may have been committed. In her April 18 filing, Willis indicated her belief that some electors, but not all of them, broke the law. Those who planned and helped manage the elector meeting including Shafer and Still appear still to be targets.

During these interviews, some of the electors stated that another elector represented by Ms. Debrow committed acts that are violations of Georgia law and that they were not party to these additional acts, Williss filing said.

According to two individuals with knowledge of the elector interviews with prosecutors, many of the questions centered around Stills role restricting admission to the room in the state Capitol, and also around who mailed the signed electoral certificates to Washington. Debrow made clear in her response Friday she does not believe either action broke any law.

In testimony last year to the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, Still said he had been asked to verify electors identities before admitting them to the room. The meeting itself was open to the public and the press and was reported, with video, that day.

The legal back and forth comes just days after Willis said in letters to state and local law enforcement that she expects to announce a charging decision in the case between July 11 and Sept. 1 and urged a need for heightened security and preparedness in coming months due to this pending announcement.

The letters were the strongest indication yet that Willis may file criminal charges in the high-profile case, which not only has cast scrutiny on the actions of Trump and his closest allies but also has ensnared a litany of prominent Republicans, including former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C.

The fireworks between Willis and defense lawyers began last summer, when she first sought electors testimony before a special purpose grand jury convened to investigate alleged election interference in Georgia.

In July, Debrow and Holly Pierson, her then-co counsel, asked a judge to quash those subpoenas, revealing their clients had been informed they were targets of the investigation after some electors, including Shafer, had already voluntarily spoken to prosecutors.

They accused Willis of improper politicization of the case and later asked for her office to be blocked from investigating their clients requests that Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, denied.

In October, Willis sought to disqualify Pierson and Debrow from the case, claiming it was unethical and a conflict of interest for them to represent so many clients simultaneously.

Pierson and Debrow have strongly denied a conflict. In a November filing, they said even if a judge were to determine there was a conflict, their clients had been fully apprised of the necessary information to make an informed choice to waive any such conflicts and remain in the joint representation.

They insisted their clients were innocent of any crimes and pointed to the 1960 presidential election in Hawaii, when Democrats created an alternate slate of electors while the state conducted a recount. The recount flipped the outcome in the state from Richard M. Nixon to John F. Kennedy, and Congress ultimately accepted the Democratic electors votes, which could not have occurred had they not convened and voted in December.

McBurney later ordered Pierson and Debrow to split up their 11 clients ruling that Shafer was substantively differently situated than the other 10 GOP electors jointly represented by attorneys.

He is not just another alternate elector; his lawyers repeated incantation of the lawfulness of the 2020 alternate electoral scheme and invocation of a separate electoral process from 60 years ago and 4,500 miles away do not apply to the additional post-election actions in which Shafer engaged that distinguish him from the ten individuals with whom he shares counsel, McBurney wrote. His fate with the special purpose grand jury (and beyond) is not tethered to the other ten electors in the same manner in which those ten find themselves connected.

Pierson remained with Shafer, while Debrow took on the other 10 clients. Last week Cathy Latham, one of Debrows clients, indicated she had retained a new attorney in the case.

Latham, a former chairwoman of the Republican Party in Coffee County, Ga., has drawn scrutiny for her role as an alternate elector but also for her alleged involvement helping Trump allies copy sensitive election data information from voting machines in the county.

On April 28, Kieran Shanahan, a North Carolina attorney, gave notice that he was representing Latham in the case and filed a motion joining Trumps attorneys in their recent request to remove Willis from the case and block evidence gathered as part of the special grand jury from being used any future legal proceedings.

Shanahan did not respond to a request for comment.

Another elector formerly represented by Debrow is also seeking a new attorney, according to Fridays filing, but it did not say which one. That leaves Debrow with eight electors as clients, all of whom have immunity.

On Monday, McBurney gave Willis and her team until May 15 to respond to the Trump motion, which also claims Willis violated prosecutorial standards and Trumps constitutional rights in part by publicly commenting on the case.

Magda Jean-Louis contributed to this report.

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At least 8 Republican fake electors agree to immunity in Georgia ... - Press Herald

Weeks after revelations that migrant children are being regularly exploited for cheap labor in the United States prompted bipartisan outrage and calls to action on Capitol Hill, Congress has moved no closer to addressing the issue, which has become mired in a long-running partisan war over immigration policy.

Legislation to crack down on companies use of child labor has gone nowhere and currently has little Republican backing, while Democrats efforts to increase funding for federal agencies to provide more support services to migrant children who cross the border by themselves face long odds in the House, where the G.O.P. has pledged to slash agency budgets.

At the time, Republican proposals to institute tougher vetting of adults in households sponsoring migrant children and expedite the removal of unaccompanied minors stand little chance of gaining ground in the Democratic-led Senate.

Instead, as Congress prepares to wade into a bitter debate over immigration policy in the coming days, Republicans and Democrats have retreated to their opposite corners, abandoning whatever initial hope there may have been for tackling the issue of child labor in a bipartisan way.

Republicans have pointed to exploitative conditions at companies employing migrant children, documented in an investigation by The New York Times, to justify a hard-line immigration package. The Times reported in February that as the number of children crossing the southern border alone has soared to record levels, many have taken on dangerous jobs that violate longstanding labor laws, including in factories, slaughterhouses and at construction sites.

The G.O.P.s legislation, headed for a House vote this week, would restore a series of stringent policies championed under the Trump administration, including measures to hold migrant children in detention centers and expedite their deportation.

Democrats, desperate to avoid any appearance of aiding Republicans in their fight against Mr. Bidens immigration policies, have quieted their criticism of the governments handling of the situation, instead directing their anger at the companies that employ migrant children.

The result is that the political space is vanishing for any consensus in Congress on a policy solution to help protect these children from exploitation.

I know its complicated, but this really needs to be about protecting kids, and not about the bigger politics of the border," Janet Murgua, president of the Latino civil rights advocacy organization UnidosUS, said in an interview, accusing Republicans of playing politics and Democrats of being skittish in confronting the problem. Its a no-brainer. It should be easy to find bipartisan support on this.

The Biden administration has taken steps to change some of its policies and practices since The Times revealed the explosion in child migrant labor. The Health and Human Services Department, which is responsible for placing unaccompanied migrant children in the care of trustworthy adults, has designated a team to support children after they leave government shelters, and is providing more children with case management and legal services. The departments inspector general is also conducting an evaluation of the vetting system used to place migrant children in homes.

The Labor Department has begun several initiatives to enhance its enforcement of child labor laws, and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas said last month that his department was adding a new mission to address crimes of exploitation, including a focus on migrant child labor victims.

Still, there is little sign of meaningful momentum to enact legislation that could stop the exploitation of child migrants as workers. In the opening throes of lawmakers outrage, Republicans and Democrats alike spoke out angrily about the issue, taking the Biden administration to task. Leading members of both parties sent rounds of letters to Cabinet secretaries demanding to know how unaccompanied minors ended up filling dangerous jobs on grueling factory shifts. Rank-and-file lawmakers drafted bipartisan legislation to raise fines against companies violating child labor laws.

But by the time Congress held its first oversight hearings on the issue last month, the subject had been subsumed into a looming fight in the House over a border security bill, and a ramped-up Republican campaign to impeach Mr. Mayorkas over the state of the southern border.

Even in a series of hearings organized expressly to address the trend of migrant child labor, Republicans have used the topic to condemn the Biden administrations overall immigration policies.

This is a crisis made worse by President Bidens open-border agenda, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Washington Republican and the chairwoman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said last month during an oversight hearing with the inspector general of the Health and Human Services Department.

At a Senate Judiciary Committee oversight hearing, Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, berated Mr. Mayorkas on the issue, suggesting it should cost him his job.

You have at every stage facilitated this modern-day indentured servitude of children, Mr. Hawley yelled. Why should you not be impeached for this?

At the same time, Democrats have tempered their criticism of the Biden administration for the crisis, even as some of them have continued to declare the governments handling of the matter unacceptable. They have reserved their toughest words for Republicans, whose proposed policies they argue would worsen a humanitarian crisis.

It is hard to take seriously the party that boasts of its concerns for exploited children while simultaneously stripping vital protections from unaccompanied children, Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said during the recent hearing.

He defended the administrations handling of the matter, including its vetting of sponsors.

Despite the fact that there have been some pretty heartbreaking stories of sponsors being traffickers or using the children to work, its my understanding that this past fiscal year over 85 percent of sponsors are close family members, Mr. Nadler said during a recent Judiciary subcommittee hearing on migrant child labor.

These relatives are often uncles or cousins who the arriving children hardly know, and some of them push the minors to work hazardous jobs, The Times found in its reporting.

In the Senate, Richard J. Durbin, Democrat of Illinois and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said last week that he was working to bring in senior officials to testify about migrant child exploitation. Mr. Durbin was one of the first Democrats to send letters to the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, demanding to know what steps were being taken to protect children from the conditions laid out in the Timess reporting.

But some Democrats say that their party has been too timid in confronting the Biden administration on the crisis.

What we see is Republicans not wanting to hold Republican administrations to account, and Democrats not wanting to hold Democratic administrations to account, Representative Katie Porter, a California Democrat, said in an interview.

Several Democrats have sent letters to the companies named in the Times investigation, asking them what steps they have taken to ensure they do not employ minors going forward. A group of a dozen major institutional investors, including state officials from New York, Connecticut and Maine, sent their own letters, and New Mexicos treasurer placed several of the companies on a list barring future investments. Ford said it wouldrequire staffing agencies to provide better age verification, and Ben & Jerrys, which is facing a class-action lawsuit over the presence of young workers in its supply chain, pledged to suspend dairy farms that use child labor.

Other Democrats have held their public fire, as the companies pressure lawmakers to give them more time.

In March, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus drafted letters to send to the chief executives of companies implicated in the use of child labor, in which they said each corporation must take necessary measures to remove child labor throughout its supply chain and requested briefings, according to a draft shared with The New York Times. The group informed the White House that the letters were coming.

But the effort stalled as companies including PepsiCo and General Motors lobbied members of the caucus to hold off, according to two people familiar with the initiative.

The letters were never sent.

At the same time, the two parties have pursued divergent legislative paths. In late March, Representatives Hillary Scholten of Michigan, a Democrat, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina, a Republican, joined forces on a bill to increase civil penalties for individual child labor law infractions almost tenfold from their current caps ofabout $15,000 per routine violation. It mirrored a measure introduced several weeks earlier by Senator Brian Schatz, Democrat of Hawaii.

But since then, House Democrats have rallied around a more aggressive proposal from Representative Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat, that would set the maximum civil payouts even higher, and establish new criminal liabilities for companies that repeatedly flout child labor laws. Democrats in the House and the Senate have also introduced legislation to deny Agriculture Department contracts to companies that commit egregious violations of labor laws, including exploiting children, whether directly or through subcontractors. No House Republicans other than Ms. Mace have signed on to the measures.

Republicans have only just begun to propose similar legislative changes. On Wednesday, Mr. Hawley introduced a measure that would impose fines of up to $100 million against violators of labor laws and $500 million against willful violators, but only for the largest corporations those that do at least half a billion dollars in business annually.

Many other Republicans argue that going after companies is simply not a priority.

Im fine thinking about that, but at the end of the day, stop the magnet, said Representative Chip Roy of Texas, a chief architect of his partys strict border security bill, arguing that policies allowing migrant children to enter the United States were the main reason children were being put to work.

When it comes to companies exploiting children, he added, Im pretty sure thats already against the law.

Originally posted here:
Migrant Child Labor Debate in Congress Becomes Mired in ... - The New York Times

House Republicans are floating investigating the Department of Veterans Affairs or cutting its communications budget as they fume about the Biden administration's messaging on the House GOP's debt limit proposal.

The potential reprisals were suggested by a couple of lawmakers during a press call over the weekend hosted by the No. 3 House Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., in which Republicans insisted the debt limit and spending cut bill they recently passed would not result in reductions to veterans health care and benefits, contrary to recent VA warnings.

"Obviously, they have too much money in the communications department if they're spending it on political purposes," Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said in suggesting cuts to the VA's press office.

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At issue is a bill passed by House Republicans last week that would raise what's known as the debt ceiling in exchange for placing a cap on the overall amount of money the government can spend. The bill does not specifically mandate cuts to the VA or any other department, but it also does not specifically protect any department. Instead, lawmakers would determine later which agencies would take cuts and which ones wouldn't during the annual appropriations process.

While some congressional Republicans have vowed to protect the Pentagon from budget cuts as part of the debt ceiling fight, the Biden administration has issued warnings based on the assumption that every other federal department would face a 22% cut in order to meet the cap in the GOP bill.

Ahead of the House vote on the bill, the VA said that a 22% cut would mean being able to handle 30 million fewer outpatient visits than planned, eliminating 81,000 Veterans Health Administration jobs and 6,000 Veterans Benefits Administration jobs, and increasing the disability claims backlog by an estimated 134,000 claims.

The VA warning, along with subsequent statements from congressional Democrats and the White House framing the cuts as written into the GOP bill, infuriated Republicans. On the weekend press call, Stefanik accused the Biden administration of "shamelessly lying" about the contents of the bill.

Citing federal laws against government officials making false statements, Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., also said that "we need to investigate this."

"It is nothing more than a fear tactic," Clyde continued. "When the Democrats don't have the facts on their side, they use lies, emotion and volume. President Biden is abusing veterans once again, and I think Congress should investigate this."

In response to the latest GOP defenses of their bill, the White House issued a statement Tuesday accusing Republicans of wanting to "hollow out" the VA.

"Unless moderates are willing to stand up to the extreme MAGA groups that have taken over the conference, the House GOP is going to define themselves as so indentured to multinational corporations and billionaires that they're willing to make the biggest cuts to veterans benefits in American history," White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in the statement, using the abbreviation for former President Donald Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan.

The political posturing comes as the Treasury Department warned Monday that the U.S. could hit the debt ceiling as soon as June 1, bumping up its previous estimate of defaulting on U.S. debts from somewhere between July and September. The debt ceiling or limit is the amount of money the Treasury Department can borrow in order to pay for spending Congress has already approved through the annual appropriations process. Economists and administration officials have warned that an unprecedented default could cripple the American economy by reducing faith in U.S. credit and increasing interest rates.

Under the House GOP plan, the debt ceiling would be raised by $1.5 trillion or to March 31, 2024 -- whichever comes first. In exchange, discretionary spending in 2024 would be capped at 2022 levels, which is about $130 billion less than this year's spending level. Spending growth over the next decade would also be capped at 1%.

While it would be possible to meet the cap without cutting either the Pentagon, which makes up about half of the discretionary budget, or the VA, which represents more than one-sixth of the non-defense discretionary budget, doing so would require steep cuts to other government agencies that Democrats are not likely to agree to. Left-leaning think tanks have estimated protecting both Pentagon and VA spending would mean more than 30% cuts to everything else.

The bill is dead on arrival in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but House Republicans view the measure as their opening offer in debt ceiling talks. After the Treasury's announcement Monday, the White House said President Joe Biden invited congressional leaders to a meeting next week. The White House has said that it will not negotiate a budget deal tied to the debt ceiling, which it insists should be raised without other stipulations.

Asked Thursday about GOP complaints that the VA's warnings about the effects of the bill were fearmongering and lies, VA Secretary Denis McDonough maintained he had not seen the Republican criticism but said that "if there's something for me to say to my Republican colleagues on the Hill, I'll say that to them personally."

"A fair reading of that [bill] would suggest that we, as we prepare for the provision of care in the next year, be ready for the full range of options, the full range of outcomes," McDonough said at his monthly press conference, while incorrectly asserting the GOP bill includes a carveout for the Defense Department. "And that's what we're doing."

On the House Republican press call over the weekend, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said he spoke with McDonough on Sunday morning. Bost said he told McDonough that he was "disappointed" but that "the conversation didn't go much past that."

"No veteran will lose benefits," Bost vowed. "In my nine years as a member of Congress, I have never seen the use of an agency that is so vitally important to so many people be used as a political hammer to deliver a message that is false so that it would stir people up to cause our veterans to be used as pawns."

-- Rebecca Kheel can be reached at rebecca.kheel@military.com. Follow her on Twitter @reporterkheel.

Related: Veterans Health Care and Benefits Become Flash Points in Debate over Debt Ceiling and Spending Cuts

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House Republican Threatens to Cut VA Budget over Agency's Warnings About Budget Cuts - Military.com