Another question on this thread, can anyone remove their signature. I.e Bobert/Greene/Mace getting a call from the dear leader telling them to remove their signature or else and then one of them doing so saying they've seen the light and the petition is all part of the Soros space laser liberal communist organic gardening agenda etc. etc.
The AZ special election is tomorrow. Grijalva will be that 218th signature and that forced floor vote will happen before the November gubernatorial elections.
Can someone with more knowledge give some insight to this? As far as I understand, this discharge petition is for a resolution (H.Res. 581) that amends a bill (H.R. 185) to require the DOJ to disclose records related to Epstein and Maxwell. The bill would then have to go to the Senate. How likely is it to pass? It seems like this bill also has a bunch of other stuff in it unrelated to Epstein.
That's an eloquent post, and you make a lot of good points, but I really don't think any of those things cost the Democrats the election. Inflation did, and the fact that they elected Trump says to me that anyone running against the Democrats would have won the presidential election, because a plurality of American voters are ignorant and stupid and don't care about democracy or anything else when they've decided to punish the party in power. But all this other stuff does have effects on the margins, at least, and can do a lot more over a longer period of time, as we've seen for the right-wingers starting with Rush Limbaugh on the radio.
The other thing I wonder about is: is it really true that all the more senior Democrats do nothing much to keep their constituents engaged and enthusiastic?
Steve Cohen (D-TN): "It'd be a mistake for somebody to run against me" "Whoever succeeds me will probably not be somebody who runs against me, but somebody whom I choose to endorse."
A primary to Cohen might have the potential to be interesting. He's consistently been able to win renomination as a white representative in a majority Black district. His first primary in 2006 was hard-fought (he won with 30%) but after that his closest primary was 2014 when he got 66%, and all others he's won with anywhere from 70-90%.
If anyone here is from TN and able to provide more insight, that would be intresting
I am only going by what the discussion of this thread is dictating. I have no personal views or opinions of Cohen otherwise.
That said, if Cohen has a great voting record and fits the distinct, I am not worked up about getting a primary challenger against him as it’s extremely low on my radar compared to the main concern at hand:
Defeating Republicans, electing Democrats and winning control of the House and Senate.
It's probably true, though. He's been very popular and defeated primary challenges over and over. All that said, he's 76, so his emulating Jerry Nadler would be welcome, although I don't know of any health problems Cohen has.
So many of them insist on their seniority being critical. Legislation and budgets are more and more top down affairs, negotiated between leadership in each chamber and the president. Being on appropriations is only worth so much influence, and being around a long time but not in appropriations is borderline worthless.
For that matter there isn't all that much major legislation making its way through congress anyway.
They might have built their career in the congress of the 90s and early 00s, but those days are gone now. The traits they insist on being critical for their constituency lack the importance of yesteryear.
I was thinking about that -- just how important is seniority actually? Larson specifically talks about that, but if we compare him to Jahana Hayes (elected in 2018) for example, what advantages does he have that Hayes doesn't? Is Larson able to bring more back to his district than Hayes?
seniority mattered when committees mattered, not to sound like a republican of 2014 desiring a return to "regular order," but since the advent of non-stop CR's I have no idea what the purpose of building up seniority on many of the committees are. Recissions renders even Appropriations as largely a relic of an era when good government reined.
After the Republican majority in our state legislature can't agree on a budget bill that can survive a veto, the lazy ass leaders Phil Berger and Destin Hall summoned lawmakers back to Raleigh to pass smaller policy or funding bills.
I honestly thought prop 50 would be a heavier lift. Since people are generally opposed to gerrymandering, I thought polling would show the “no” side ahead initially. But the “yes” side has been ahead the whole time. Interesting that some in the media are making this out to be bad for dems. We’ll see how many of the “undecideds” even turn out for an off-year election.
Dems in distress and doomed narrative gets the media clicks plus helps them push their corporate centrist agenda i.e a second coming of a modern-day Bill Clinton who aggressively attacks the left can only save the Democratic party.
California ballot measures tend to start with more support and then lose some of it over the course of a campaign. Opponents need only to create enough doubts about the merits or effectiveness of a proposition to defeat it.
Prop 50 is a little different from most in that it is clearly associated with a nationwide partisan battle over power in Congress. It also has handy villains to point at with Gov. Abbott of TX and of course Donald Tr*mp. California has almost twice as many Democrats as GOPers, so that gives Yes on 50 a head start. 51% is not a strong majority but it is at least leading at this point. I would call it a tossup until we see whether that lead can hold up.
My earlier weak attempts at humor should not detract from the main point that Prop 50 is maybe leading now, but is not secure.
100% There is zero reason to use language like that. To be honest, I have all of the political nicknames we see on here "Yertle the Turtle", "Dumpf" etc. There's enough to despise about these folks without using juvenille nicknames.
I feel it's worth going into why it's particularly poor form.
When we insult a bad person for reasons that are (a) completely unrelated to them being a bad person, and (b) are characteristics of themselves that they have no control over, we are ultimately insulting everyone with those uncontrollable characteristics. Attacking Abbott for being in a wheelchair, and making heavy conflation of that with him being a terrible person, is insulting everyone in a wheelchair. Intentional or not. That insult, that conflation of trait and bad character, does not stop at Abbott, even if it is meant to stop with him.
There is a lot for us to work with on saying bad things about Abbott that limit our focus to him and his bad actions, his bad character. No need to resort to insults with collateral damage.
Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1 of the constitution:
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."
The constitution says directly, in unambiguous terms, that congress has the authority to "make or alter" the regulations of elections. This authority is already used in legislation to limit how states draw their districts, and in fact is used to require representatives be elected by districts in the first place. It's used to require equal population of districts, and in the past was used to require contiguity.
While our current SCOTUS is more than willing to rule that the constitution is unconstitutional, the body of history and directness of the text is cut and dry. This clause of the constitution has already been used to regulate how districts are drawn. We do not need an amendment for this.
Jasmine Crockett is fine in the House but I am concerned she keeps on getting distracted with trying to elevate her image and stature too quickly.
First she just a few months ago was putting herself in the running of being House Committee & Oversight Chair and said, “I’m made for this moment” only then to not get close to being elected as chair.
Now she wants to look at running for the Senate, where Colin Allred and James Talarico are already dominating Democratic primary race. Seems to be too much too quickly if you ask me.
The way I see it right now in the TX-SEN race, Colin Allred and James Talarico are taking up too much steam. It will be hard for Jasmine Crockett to even emerge as a credible Senate candidate to begin with as well as running a campaign that has legs.
A good reason why I think Talarico has a shot at winning the primary next year is that he’s able to elevate the discourse and inspire voters, especially those who don’t normally warm up to Democrats. Crockett appeals mostly to the partisan side of the base and that’s it.
Regarding the polling of the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates listed, it’s a mess.
Katie Porter seems to be well positioned ahead of the primary as she’s the only Democratic candidate polling in double digits. However, all other candidates in both on the Democratic and Republican Party side are polling in single digits, which means anything could happen.
In normal primaries in other states (and CA for many years before the newer top two system came in), polling could be more straight forward across political parties. Not in this case.
Frankly, if the top two primary system were eliminated, it would make it easier to assess the race from a polling standpoint.
That said, right now Porter looks like she's getting most of the attention in the race and it's not as competitive on the Democratic Party's side as what I had thought it would be. Still more than 7 months away from the CA State Primary.
Porter's pulling about the same % she got in the Senate primary, and it's probably from mostly the same people. All the current numbers tell us is that the campaign hasn't really started yet, and few people are thinking about it.
This is the RW rag Politico, the same one that gave several gushing writeups of Ron DeSantis.
The Respect for Marriage Act was passed on a bipartisan level and signed into law during the 2022 lame duck session before the House went under Republican control.
States with SSM bans still have to recognize marriages performed in other states if Obergefell is overturned. And marriage equality is still very popular -- this would be a Dobbs sized backlash the year it's overturned.
I see Politico's op-ed as wishful thinking. Both Barrett and Jackson shut down the possibility of Obergefell being overturned, but then Barrett and her RW cohorts on SCOTUS have lied before.
A reasonable assumption. That said, Dobbs turned a would-be bloodbath midterm into what was more or less a draw. Even a boost half that size would be a tremendous boon for us. Not saying that would happen either, just that we wouldn't need as big of a backlash to have an electoral benefit.
Even if SCOTUS did do something to reverse or undermine Obergefell, ROMA remains in effect.
The best the far-right can hope for is preventing couples from getting legally married in a particular state. While an out-of-state drive to get a marriage license can be a barrier for some couples, the vast majority will still be able to get legally married in one state and then celebrate with family in their home state.
I really despise ALL the billionaires for what's happening in our country, but Thiel deserves a special place in hell for backing that couch humper back in 2022.
UT Redistricting: Can someone smarter than me parse this out? Republicans are trying to change the definition of partisan fairness when it comes to the citizen-initiated redistricting law
The judge who required UT lawmakers to revise the congressional map to be fairer was appointed by Cox's predecessor (also a Republican). And the UT Supreme Court unanimously has her back on this.
““This bill rewrites Proposition 4 to allow the very thing the initiative prohibits — maps that favor a single political party,” said Mark Gaber of the Campaign Legal Center. “By reverse engineering a metric to cement Republican control, the proposed bill unconstitutionally neuters Proposition 4,” he said.
That bias test requires a judge to average statewide elections, excluding the Senate races for the last three election cycles, and average each party’s results. Then, they must calculate the difference each party would get if they received exactly 50% of the vote.
Partisan bias exists if one party wins more than 50% of the districts in this hypothetical election.”
I’ve never seen anything so ridiculously convoluted.
Yes, they are trying to create a pretense for maps that remain 4-0 Republican.
According to a thread from legal writer Michelle Quist on BlueSky, the proposed definition of "fairness" and the currently proposed maps are the work of a Republican operative, Sean Trende, who also works at the conservatively biased news and poll aggregator Real Clear Politics.
I think it will be tough for this ploy to work. They're on a tight deadline, and I'm not even sure they'll find 2/3 votes to override a likely veto from Governor Gox.
It feels like they are trying to jam the court to further delay action, like adding excessive subroutines to a program. I don't know the procedure, but they should issue an injunction on the grounds that it's a dilatory tactic or something like that.
"‘Look at the charts’: Democrats desert legacy media for new outlets
Establishment media corporations’ capitulation to the Trump administration has alienated Democrats — and opened the door for a new crop of independent partisan outlets hoping to capitalize on left-of-center audiences’ discontent."
I mean, you can't argue Comey ended Clinton's chances of being elected as POTUS and ignore her making a big mistake about apologizing for her language over talking about the reality of the coal mining industry and the need to transition to renewable energy.
The original comment did more direct damage but apologizing for what she said without even going at length to explain why didn't make it any easier. It only added complications to Clinton's candidacy which she did not need at the time. There was no need for her to apologize.
The original language in her comment about coal mining would have been better if she had been less polished and better connected with labor and unions in WV.
Candidates who run bad campaigns win sometimes, too.
I think there's too often an obsession with conflating defeat with bad campaigns. As if that is the only thing that determines elections. I wouldn't say that Biden 2020 was all that impressively superior to HRC 2016 from a *campaign quality* perspective, but one of them won and one of them lost. There is a lot that goes into who wins and loses, and I'm not even sure the candidates' campaigns is the biggest of those reasons.
So, yeah, HRC did run a poor campaign. And she lost by a small enough margin that her defeat can be attributed to a lot of factors. But, personally, when I state X lost because of Y, I'm going to pick the most atypical Y present. If there's an economic depression, or aliens invade, or nuclear war, those are very abnormal events and if we can assign those events as favoring a candidate, I'm going to say that those events are the fundamental cause of victory or defeat.
That in mind, the sitting director of the FBI going against DOJ protocol at the last minute in an election to insert himself and his opinions into an election only to walk it back right after as a nothingburger, with the media eating it up as the most breaking news earth shattering event ever... is extremely atypical. That is the most abnormal, out of the ordinary event that swung the 2016 election and we do all of us a disservice when we sweep it under the rug by insisting on "she ran a bad campaign" as the real reason.
Right. It's an easy way to ignore the other factors in play that might be entirely out of our control. Or to they extent we can influence those factors, it's not easy or requires decisions we dislike, or both. It absolves everyone else in the electoral process of any influence or responsibility. You'd think the only way to lose as a democrat is to run a bad campaign based on that response.
If for no other reason than spending differential, the gap between Obama's and McCain's campaigns might be the largest in modern history. Despite that, I don't think anyone would look askance at his margin of victory even against a good campaign that year, due to all of the other factors at play: Bush being insanely unpopular, the Iraq War being insanely unpopular and Obama being the only candidate opposed, and the start of the economic recession.
How much is a good campaign actually worth relative to a bad one? It cannot be that much, at least in a hyper-polarized general election for president.
The mainstream media outlets got bailed out by Trump going after them so much in 2017, with them pushing back. Supporting them became a way to resist him, and thus a lot of democrats and independents gravitated towards them.
This time around they are surrendering to his demands with nary a peep of resistance or reluctance. Sometimes even outright complying in advance, not even needing to see a demand or threat. Little wonder that the results for them is wildly different.
It's a pity that Soros or Steyer or Buffet or some billionaire on the left didn't take the opportunity to realize the political power of controlling media outlets and shifted some of their political spending towards creating/buying some alternative outlets. Not that I want to rely on billionaires anyway, but you'd think they'd at least recognize the potential influence there.
Steyer seems like a bit of a fraud to me, but it's insane to me that Soros and Buffet haven't added significant media assets to their holdings, both from their clear understanding of the political landscape and just for diversification/marketing purposes.
Well, Steyer did join Bill McKibben at the anti-Keystone Pipeline rally and the two did discuss strategy about it. Can't be all bad.
FYI, Steyer's brother Jim Steyer is even more liberal than him. Jim Steyer's Common Sense Media, which he founded and serves as CEO, is located at the same building as my company was for years. Great company.
Steyer, hoping for greater political influence, also has flirted with the idea of buying the Los Angeles Times, and is considering running for office in California. His brother Jim is a law professor and the founder and C.E.O. of Common Sense Media, which rates movies, books, apps, and video games to help parents find age-appropriate material for their kids. Jim Steyer told me that a friend had asked him if he and Tom were aspiring to be the Koch brothers of the left. “Yeah, I like that!” Jim replied. Tom dismissed the analogy. “I completely disagree, because what they’re doing is standing up for ideas that they profit from,” he said of the Kochs. “We think we’re representing the vast bulk of citizens of the United States. We’re not representing our pockets.” Bill McKibben, the environmental writer and advocate, who has met extensively with Steyer to discuss the strategy against Keystone, said, “After years of watching rich people manipulate and wreck our political system for selfish personal interests, it’s great to watch a rich person use his money and his talents in the public interest.”
Steyer is, at first glance, an unlikely leader of the environmental movement. He is rangy and square-jawed, and he has exquisite establishmentarian credentials, to say nothing of a vast pile of money. He honed his raffish sense of humor at Phillips Exeter Academy, and went on to get degrees from Yale and Stanford business school. Before starting his own fund, he worked at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. According to a Forbes estimate, Steyer’s net worth is $1.4 billion, although one of his aides says, “The general assumption is it’s a lot more than that.”
Wtf does being rangy and square-jawed have to do with anything? The New Yorker always has good writing in terms of the reader's reading experience, but they sometimes go off on dumb tangents like this.
Good question although I’ve always viewed Buffett more apolitical than he is political.
However, Buffett has before on more than one occasion been receptive to paying higher taxes and has said befor he doesn’t need his tax cuts. Also prefers the banking system pre-Glass Steagall repeal.
Most of what he believes in that is political is banking and financially-based. Otherwise, I don’t see him really coming out there and being political like other billionaires.
He's hardly a lefty but I believe he would view most of the current Republican party as abhorrent and have an express interest in limiting their power. He doesn't seem to be doing jack shit though, so who knows.
A D to R party switch in the SD Assembly. The seat (27th District, Top 2 elected) has a substantial Native American population and is very competitive in general elections.
BREAKING: In a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS allows Trump to dismiss the last Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, signaling a potential overturn of a 90-year-old ruling protecting independent agencies from executive control.
We have radical right politicians on our Supreme Court.....They are hell bent on turning America into an electoral autocracy where we elect a King every 4 years!
Not really a “decision.” But letting precedent be violated while they make a decision. As they did with the Texas abortion law. A clear signal. As Kagan said today:
the court’s emergency docket “should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars.” She added that “it should not be used, as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the president, and thus to reshape the nation’s separation of powers.”
Another question on this thread, can anyone remove their signature. I.e Bobert/Greene/Mace getting a call from the dear leader telling them to remove their signature or else and then one of them doing so saying they've seen the light and the petition is all part of the Soros space laser liberal communist organic gardening agenda etc. etc.
The AZ special election is tomorrow. Grijalva will be that 218th signature and that forced floor vote will happen before the November gubernatorial elections.
Can someone with more knowledge give some insight to this? As far as I understand, this discharge petition is for a resolution (H.Res. 581) that amends a bill (H.R. 185) to require the DOJ to disclose records related to Epstein and Maxwell. The bill would then have to go to the Senate. How likely is it to pass? It seems like this bill also has a bunch of other stuff in it unrelated to Epstein.
Here are some links to the resolution and bill
H.Res. 581: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolution/581
H.R. 185: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/185
The next NJ governor won't be sworn in until mid-January, so Sherrill if victorious can presumably serve in the House up to that point.
Seems like a lot of the voters have gotten the message.
I guarantee they will make TACO front and center for the attack ads for Prop 50.
Now that they have live footage of him talking about how he hates his enemies, which is practically everyone, it'll be even easier.
Commentators already trying to pass ot off as a joke. I haven't seen the clip live.
FFS...Trump himself has said that he doesn't joke.
They already are.
Jake Sherman works for the Republican Party is the only conclusion I can draw about that clown.
He used to follow Kevin McCarthy around adoringly like Lindsey Graham followed John McCain.
Their statements are revealing to say the least.
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/04/hakeem-jeffries-democrats-age-old-nadler-doggett
https://www.axios.com/2025/09/05/house-democrats-old-retire-holmes-norton-nadler-jeffries
There's a paywall, could you summarize?
That's an eloquent post, and you make a lot of good points, but I really don't think any of those things cost the Democrats the election. Inflation did, and the fact that they elected Trump says to me that anyone running against the Democrats would have won the presidential election, because a plurality of American voters are ignorant and stupid and don't care about democracy or anything else when they've decided to punish the party in power. But all this other stuff does have effects on the margins, at least, and can do a lot more over a longer period of time, as we've seen for the right-wingers starting with Rush Limbaugh on the radio.
The other thing I wonder about is: is it really true that all the more senior Democrats do nothing much to keep their constituents engaged and enthusiastic?
Just enter any random email, it's a phony paywall.
Steve Cohen (D-TN): "It'd be a mistake for somebody to run against me" "Whoever succeeds me will probably not be somebody who runs against me, but somebody whom I choose to endorse."
What an arrogant statement
A good reason for Congressman Cohen to get a primary challenger.
And we shouldn't have to even worry about holding TN-09 as it's a D+23 deep blue district.
A primary to Cohen might have the potential to be interesting. He's consistently been able to win renomination as a white representative in a majority Black district. His first primary in 2006 was hard-fought (he won with 30%) but after that his closest primary was 2014 when he got 66%, and all others he's won with anywhere from 70-90%.
If anyone here is from TN and able to provide more insight, that would be intresting
Do you have any particular objection to Cohen as a rep? Seems to be a progressive Dem who represents his district well....
I am only going by what the discussion of this thread is dictating. I have no personal views or opinions of Cohen otherwise.
That said, if Cohen has a great voting record and fits the distinct, I am not worked up about getting a primary challenger against him as it’s extremely low on my radar compared to the main concern at hand:
Defeating Republicans, electing Democrats and winning control of the House and Senate.
The arrogance some of these "leaders" have. It's no wonder the Democratic Party is so unpopular.
It's probably true, though. He's been very popular and defeated primary challenges over and over. All that said, he's 76, so his emulating Jerry Nadler would be welcome, although I don't know of any health problems Cohen has.
So many of them insist on their seniority being critical. Legislation and budgets are more and more top down affairs, negotiated between leadership in each chamber and the president. Being on appropriations is only worth so much influence, and being around a long time but not in appropriations is borderline worthless.
For that matter there isn't all that much major legislation making its way through congress anyway.
They might have built their career in the congress of the 90s and early 00s, but those days are gone now. The traits they insist on being critical for their constituency lack the importance of yesteryear.
I was thinking about that -- just how important is seniority actually? Larson specifically talks about that, but if we compare him to Jahana Hayes (elected in 2018) for example, what advantages does he have that Hayes doesn't? Is Larson able to bring more back to his district than Hayes?
seniority mattered when committees mattered, not to sound like a republican of 2014 desiring a return to "regular order," but since the advent of non-stop CR's I have no idea what the purpose of building up seniority on many of the committees are. Recissions renders even Appropriations as largely a relic of an era when good government reined.
After the Republican majority in our state legislature can't agree on a budget bill that can survive a veto, the lazy ass leaders Phil Berger and Destin Hall summoned lawmakers back to Raleigh to pass smaller policy or funding bills.
https://www.wral.com/story/state-lawmakers-return-to-raleigh-focused-on-crime-health-care-spending-and-more/22169800/
I really REALLY hope Berger loses his primary next March. I DESPISE this man.
I honestly thought prop 50 would be a heavier lift. Since people are generally opposed to gerrymandering, I thought polling would show the “no” side ahead initially. But the “yes” side has been ahead the whole time. Interesting that some in the media are making this out to be bad for dems. We’ll see how many of the “undecideds” even turn out for an off-year election.
Dems in distress and doomed narrative gets the media clicks plus helps them push their corporate centrist agenda i.e a second coming of a modern-day Bill Clinton who aggressively attacks the left can only save the Democratic party.
California ballot measures tend to start with more support and then lose some of it over the course of a campaign. Opponents need only to create enough doubts about the merits or effectiveness of a proposition to defeat it.
Prop 50 is a little different from most in that it is clearly associated with a nationwide partisan battle over power in Congress. It also has handy villains to point at with Gov. Abbott of TX and of course Donald Tr*mp. California has almost twice as many Democrats as GOPers, so that gives Yes on 50 a head start. 51% is not a strong majority but it is at least leading at this point. I would call it a tossup until we see whether that lead can hold up.
My earlier weak attempts at humor should not detract from the main point that Prop 50 is maybe leading now, but is not secure.
Come on. Everyone knows that the "Gov. Hot Wheels" crap is a reference to the fact that he uses a wheelchair.
Jasmine Crockett got in a lot of trouble for that, and she tried to do the same dance. Let's not do that here. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/25/jasmine-crockett-greg-abbott-reaction-027823
100% There is zero reason to use language like that. To be honest, I have all of the political nicknames we see on here "Yertle the Turtle", "Dumpf" etc. There's enough to despise about these folks without using juvenille nicknames.
Oh you mean calling him DRUMPF every day on social media didn't win the election? I don't believe it!
I feel it's worth going into why it's particularly poor form.
When we insult a bad person for reasons that are (a) completely unrelated to them being a bad person, and (b) are characteristics of themselves that they have no control over, we are ultimately insulting everyone with those uncontrollable characteristics. Attacking Abbott for being in a wheelchair, and making heavy conflation of that with him being a terrible person, is insulting everyone in a wheelchair. Intentional or not. That insult, that conflation of trait and bad character, does not stop at Abbott, even if it is meant to stop with him.
There is a lot for us to work with on saying bad things about Abbott that limit our focus to him and his bad actions, his bad character. No need to resort to insults with collateral damage.
This is very well put and sums up my feelings on the matter far more eloquently than I could have.
California dems should have been more aggressive and dumped the whole commission.
Let's hope that we are able to totally ban gerrymandering in 2029 somehow.
That might require a constitutional amendment but it remains to be seen.
Article 1, Section 4, Clause 1 of the constitution:
"The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators."
The constitution says directly, in unambiguous terms, that congress has the authority to "make or alter" the regulations of elections. This authority is already used in legislation to limit how states draw their districts, and in fact is used to require representatives be elected by districts in the first place. It's used to require equal population of districts, and in the past was used to require contiguity.
While our current SCOTUS is more than willing to rule that the constitution is unconstitutional, the body of history and directness of the text is cut and dry. This clause of the constitution has already been used to regulate how districts are drawn. We do not need an amendment for this.
And also the fact that John Roberts actually said that banning gerrymandering had be done by legislation, not through litigation. His own words.
Correct. But we know how much value his words have - or, rather, those who are paying him off know.
That wouldn't have passed. The commission is fine for non-federal districts.
"Democratic Rep. Vasquez"
FYI, that should be Gabe Vasquez
Ah thanks for the catch!
The article you guys linked for Jasmine Crockett's statement doesn't mention her.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/houston/article/former-politician-erica-lee-carter-won-t-run-21055040.php
Crockett has mentioned in an interview she is not planning to run for the Senate.
https://youtube.com/shorts/6XivG_bqT0E?feature=shared
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/greg-abbott-democrats-midterms-21043411.php
She reversed her position.
Just changed her mind days later?
Jasmine Crockett is fine in the House but I am concerned she keeps on getting distracted with trying to elevate her image and stature too quickly.
First she just a few months ago was putting herself in the running of being House Committee & Oversight Chair and said, “I’m made for this moment” only then to not get close to being elected as chair.
Now she wants to look at running for the Senate, where Colin Allred and James Talarico are already dominating Democratic primary race. Seems to be too much too quickly if you ask me.
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/05/01/congress/crockett-maneuvers-for-oversight-00321736
She's such a polarizing figure, I hope she doesn't run. She'll take down the entire ticket.
The way I see it right now in the TX-SEN race, Colin Allred and James Talarico are taking up too much steam. It will be hard for Jasmine Crockett to even emerge as a credible Senate candidate to begin with as well as running a campaign that has legs.
A good reason why I think Talarico has a shot at winning the primary next year is that he’s able to elevate the discourse and inspire voters, especially those who don’t normally warm up to Democrats. Crockett appeals mostly to the partisan side of the base and that’s it.
Thanks for the catch! Here's the right link: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/greg-abbott-democrats-midterms-21043411.php
CA-GOV:
Regarding the polling of the Democratic and Republican gubernatorial candidates listed, it’s a mess.
Katie Porter seems to be well positioned ahead of the primary as she’s the only Democratic candidate polling in double digits. However, all other candidates in both on the Democratic and Republican Party side are polling in single digits, which means anything could happen.
In normal primaries in other states (and CA for many years before the newer top two system came in), polling could be more straight forward across political parties. Not in this case.
Frankly, if the top two primary system were eliminated, it would make it easier to assess the race from a polling standpoint.
That said, right now Porter looks like she's getting most of the attention in the race and it's not as competitive on the Democratic Party's side as what I had thought it would be. Still more than 7 months away from the CA State Primary.
Porter's pulling about the same % she got in the Senate primary, and it's probably from mostly the same people. All the current numbers tell us is that the campaign hasn't really started yet, and few people are thinking about it.
5 Reasons the Supreme Court Might Change Its Mind on Same-Sex Marriage
Marriage equality is popular, but a lot has changed since Obergefell.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/22/same-sex-marriage-might-be-unsafe-00568474
This is the RW rag Politico, the same one that gave several gushing writeups of Ron DeSantis.
The Respect for Marriage Act was passed on a bipartisan level and signed into law during the 2022 lame duck session before the House went under Republican control.
States with SSM bans still have to recognize marriages performed in other states if Obergefell is overturned. And marriage equality is still very popular -- this would be a Dobbs sized backlash the year it's overturned.
Politico is centre right and everything it publishes is not false. RFM Act doesn't codify Obergefell.
I see Politico's op-ed as wishful thinking. Both Barrett and Jackson shut down the possibility of Obergefell being overturned, but then Barrett and her RW cohorts on SCOTUS have lied before.
I don't trust Barrett. At all.
I don't think there would be nearly as big of a backlash as with Dobbs.
A reasonable assumption. That said, Dobbs turned a would-be bloodbath midterm into what was more or less a draw. Even a boost half that size would be a tremendous boon for us. Not saying that would happen either, just that we wouldn't need as big of a backlash to have an electoral benefit.
Even if SCOTUS did do something to reverse or undermine Obergefell, ROMA remains in effect.
The best the far-right can hope for is preventing couples from getting legally married in a particular state. While an out-of-state drive to get a marriage license can be a barrier for some couples, the vast majority will still be able to get legally married in one state and then celebrate with family in their home state.
Gay Libertarian billionaires like Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, etc., who are married, would have a say on this as well.
I really despise ALL the billionaires for what's happening in our country, but Thiel deserves a special place in hell for backing that couch humper back in 2022.
Libertarian Fascists. Economic libertarianism protected by an anti-democratic government and enforced by a police state.
Sure but would both Altman and Thiel's marriages be forced to be rendered invalid?
From a core Libertarian standpoint, I'm not sure the two would give the Supreme Court a pass over this.
Altman's gay? TIL
Curious why Hidalgo isn’t running for higher office considering the hype around her a few years back
UT Redistricting: Can someone smarter than me parse this out? Republicans are trying to change the definition of partisan fairness when it comes to the citizen-initiated redistricting law
https://www.abc4.com/news/politics/utah-legislature-redistricting-law-change/
Are they just trying to screw over Dems while pretending they're not?
The judge who required UT lawmakers to revise the congressional map to be fairer was appointed by Cox's predecessor (also a Republican). And the UT Supreme Court unanimously has her back on this.
This power grab will be slapped down in court.
““This bill rewrites Proposition 4 to allow the very thing the initiative prohibits — maps that favor a single political party,” said Mark Gaber of the Campaign Legal Center. “By reverse engineering a metric to cement Republican control, the proposed bill unconstitutionally neuters Proposition 4,” he said.
That bias test requires a judge to average statewide elections, excluding the Senate races for the last three election cycles, and average each party’s results. Then, they must calculate the difference each party would get if they received exactly 50% of the vote.
Partisan bias exists if one party wins more than 50% of the districts in this hypothetical election.”
I’ve never seen anything so ridiculously convoluted.
Yes, they are trying to create a pretense for maps that remain 4-0 Republican.
According to a thread from legal writer Michelle Quist on BlueSky, the proposed definition of "fairness" and the currently proposed maps are the work of a Republican operative, Sean Trende, who also works at the conservatively biased news and poll aggregator Real Clear Politics.
https://bsky.app/profile/michellequist.bsky.social/post/3lzgp2zosos2c
I think it will be tough for this ploy to work. They're on a tight deadline, and I'm not even sure they'll find 2/3 votes to override a likely veto from Governor Gox.
It feels like they are trying to jam the court to further delay action, like adding excessive subroutines to a program. I don't know the procedure, but they should issue an injunction on the grounds that it's a dilatory tactic or something like that.
I feel like separation of powers would prevent a court from issuing an injunction on a pending bill.
I meant when it gets passed.
Ah gotcha
Keep up the good work fellas!
https://www.semafor.com/article/09/21/2025/look-at-the-charts-democrats-desert-legacy-media-for-new-outlets?
"‘Look at the charts’: Democrats desert legacy media for new outlets
Establishment media corporations’ capitulation to the Trump administration has alienated Democrats — and opened the door for a new crop of independent partisan outlets hoping to capitalize on left-of-center audiences’ discontent."
https://www.gelliottmorris.com/p/a-lot-of-powerful-people-just-dont
While corporate media keeps reminiscing about the 1990s and Bill Clinton, the ground is shifting beneath their feet.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/ Nate Silver on Comey and the media reaction
https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/1/11/14215930/comey-email-election-clinton-campaign
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/02/why-im-defending-hillary-clinton-commentary.html
Clinton ran an awful campaign. That’s why she lost.
I mean, you can't argue Comey ended Clinton's chances of being elected as POTUS and ignore her making a big mistake about apologizing for her language over talking about the reality of the coal mining industry and the need to transition to renewable energy.
Apologizing for that didn't hurt her.
The original comment did more direct damage but apologizing for what she said without even going at length to explain why didn't make it any easier. It only added complications to Clinton's candidacy which she did not need at the time. There was no need for her to apologize.
The original language in her comment about coal mining would have been better if she had been less polished and better connected with labor and unions in WV.
I see what you mean.
Candidates who run bad campaigns win sometimes, too.
I think there's too often an obsession with conflating defeat with bad campaigns. As if that is the only thing that determines elections. I wouldn't say that Biden 2020 was all that impressively superior to HRC 2016 from a *campaign quality* perspective, but one of them won and one of them lost. There is a lot that goes into who wins and loses, and I'm not even sure the candidates' campaigns is the biggest of those reasons.
So, yeah, HRC did run a poor campaign. And she lost by a small enough margin that her defeat can be attributed to a lot of factors. But, personally, when I state X lost because of Y, I'm going to pick the most atypical Y present. If there's an economic depression, or aliens invade, or nuclear war, those are very abnormal events and if we can assign those events as favoring a candidate, I'm going to say that those events are the fundamental cause of victory or defeat.
That in mind, the sitting director of the FBI going against DOJ protocol at the last minute in an election to insert himself and his opinions into an election only to walk it back right after as a nothingburger, with the media eating it up as the most breaking news earth shattering event ever... is extremely atypical. That is the most abnormal, out of the ordinary event that swung the 2016 election and we do all of us a disservice when we sweep it under the rug by insisting on "she ran a bad campaign" as the real reason.
Yeah, Comey did damage for sure.
I’m sure one of Obama’s biggest regrets is nominating him for FBI Director.
I think we do too often say "they lost, that must mean they ran a terrible campaign", when the truth might be less comforting than that.
Right. It's an easy way to ignore the other factors in play that might be entirely out of our control. Or to they extent we can influence those factors, it's not easy or requires decisions we dislike, or both. It absolves everyone else in the electoral process of any influence or responsibility. You'd think the only way to lose as a democrat is to run a bad campaign based on that response.
If for no other reason than spending differential, the gap between Obama's and McCain's campaigns might be the largest in modern history. Despite that, I don't think anyone would look askance at his margin of victory even against a good campaign that year, due to all of the other factors at play: Bush being insanely unpopular, the Iraq War being insanely unpopular and Obama being the only candidate opposed, and the start of the economic recession.
How much is a good campaign actually worth relative to a bad one? It cannot be that much, at least in a hyper-polarized general election for president.
Well said. The harsh truth is that it is possible to run a great campaign and lose, and a terrible campaign and win.
And we're getting results:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/22/2344911/-ABC-ends-Jimmy-Kimmel-s-suspension-Here-s-when-his-show-will-return?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=top_news_slot_1&pm_medium=web
The mainstream media outlets got bailed out by Trump going after them so much in 2017, with them pushing back. Supporting them became a way to resist him, and thus a lot of democrats and independents gravitated towards them.
This time around they are surrendering to his demands with nary a peep of resistance or reluctance. Sometimes even outright complying in advance, not even needing to see a demand or threat. Little wonder that the results for them is wildly different.
It's a pity that Soros or Steyer or Buffet or some billionaire on the left didn't take the opportunity to realize the political power of controlling media outlets and shifted some of their political spending towards creating/buying some alternative outlets. Not that I want to rely on billionaires anyway, but you'd think they'd at least recognize the potential influence there.
Steyer seems like a bit of a fraud to me, but it's insane to me that Soros and Buffet haven't added significant media assets to their holdings, both from their clear understanding of the political landscape and just for diversification/marketing purposes.
Steyer came out of the shadows to promote a housing bill recently.
My guess is because Soros and Buffet both are legitimate businessmen, they look at media assets and view them as net losers for their portfolios.
That being said...some radio stations are far cheaper to buy than whatever they've been donating to Priorities USA and other SuperPACs.
Well, Steyer did join Bill McKibben at the anti-Keystone Pipeline rally and the two did discuss strategy about it. Can't be all bad.
FYI, Steyer's brother Jim Steyer is even more liberal than him. Jim Steyer's Common Sense Media, which he founded and serves as CEO, is located at the same building as my company was for years. Great company.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/16/the-president-and-the-pipeline
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Steyer, hoping for greater political influence, also has flirted with the idea of buying the Los Angeles Times, and is considering running for office in California. His brother Jim is a law professor and the founder and C.E.O. of Common Sense Media, which rates movies, books, apps, and video games to help parents find age-appropriate material for their kids. Jim Steyer told me that a friend had asked him if he and Tom were aspiring to be the Koch brothers of the left. “Yeah, I like that!” Jim replied. Tom dismissed the analogy. “I completely disagree, because what they’re doing is standing up for ideas that they profit from,” he said of the Kochs. “We think we’re representing the vast bulk of citizens of the United States. We’re not representing our pockets.” Bill McKibben, the environmental writer and advocate, who has met extensively with Steyer to discuss the strategy against Keystone, said, “After years of watching rich people manipulate and wreck our political system for selfish personal interests, it’s great to watch a rich person use his money and his talents in the public interest.”
Steyer is, at first glance, an unlikely leader of the environmental movement. He is rangy and square-jawed, and he has exquisite establishmentarian credentials, to say nothing of a vast pile of money. He honed his raffish sense of humor at Phillips Exeter Academy, and went on to get degrees from Yale and Stanford business school. Before starting his own fund, he worked at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. According to a Forbes estimate, Steyer’s net worth is $1.4 billion, although one of his aides says, “The general assumption is it’s a lot more than that.”
Wtf does being rangy and square-jawed have to do with anything? The New Yorker always has good writing in terms of the reader's reading experience, but they sometimes go off on dumb tangents like this.
I don't think Buffet is on the left. Am I wrong?
Good question although I’ve always viewed Buffett more apolitical than he is political.
However, Buffett has before on more than one occasion been receptive to paying higher taxes and has said befor he doesn’t need his tax cuts. Also prefers the banking system pre-Glass Steagall repeal.
Most of what he believes in that is political is banking and financially-based. Otherwise, I don’t see him really coming out there and being political like other billionaires.
He's hardly a lefty but I believe he would view most of the current Republican party as abhorrent and have an express interest in limiting their power. He doesn't seem to be doing jack shit though, so who knows.
A D to R party switch in the SD Assembly. The seat (27th District, Top 2 elected) has a substantial Native American population and is very competitive in general elections.
https://dakotawarcollege.com/south-dakota-democrat-rep-switches-party-affiliation-to-republican/
BREAKING: In a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS allows Trump to dismiss the last Democratic member of the Federal Trade Commission, signaling a potential overturn of a 90-year-old ruling protecting independent agencies from executive control.
https://x.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1970211902195224838
We have radical right politicians on our Supreme Court.....They are hell bent on turning America into an electoral autocracy where we elect a King every 4 years!
Not really a “decision.” But letting precedent be violated while they make a decision. As they did with the Texas abortion law. A clear signal. As Kagan said today:
the court’s emergency docket “should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars.” She added that “it should not be used, as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the president, and thus to reshape the nation’s separation of powers.”
If the King/Queen somehow has a D next to their name they will quickly remember separation of powers.
More insanity from the MAGA Majority at SCOTUS.
On the last item, Letitia Plummer is still a current city councilwoman