“President Joe Biden on Wednesday said he would ‘strongly support’ moving the Major League Baseball All-Star Game out of Atlanta in response to Georgia’s newly passed voting law that critics say restricts voting access,” Politico reports.
Atlanta Journal Constitution: Coke, Delta leaders call Georgia’s voting law “unacceptable.”
New York Times: “It has been 40 years since President Ronald Reagan declared in his first inaugural address that ‘government is not the solution to our problems, government is the problem.’ The infrastructure plan that President Biden described on Wednesday … is a bet that government can do colossal things that the private sector cannot.”
“It will take years to know whether Mr. Biden’s initiative will have the lasting power of the New Deal or the Great Society, or whether it can ‘change the paradigm,’ as he argued a few weeks ago. Yet it is already clear it is based on the gamble that the country is ready to dispense with one of the main tenets of the Reagan revolution, and show that for some tasks the government can jump-start the economy more efficiently than market forces.”
Politico: “Absent a seismic political shift, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will have to draft a sprawling bill that can only afford to lose three Democratic votes in the House and zero in the Senate. Because Democrats are expecting to use their budget powers to steer the bill past a Senate filibuster, Biden’s infrastructure plan would also need to survive a slew of procedural hurdles that could further split the party.”
“The infrastructure debate amounts to a political ultra-marathon for Biden and his Democratic-led Congress, a stark contrast with the mostly breezy path to approving Biden’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill. Party leaders will be under immense pressure from their base to deliver, while also protecting the political future of their most endangered members, some of whom are already anxious about GOP attacks on proposed tax hikes, ahead of the midterm elections.”
Axios: How Biden is selling his infrastructure plan to Democrats.
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“If the federal government imposes new restrictions on guns it will have to enforce them without Arizona’s help,” the Arizona Daily Star reports.
“The state Senate approved legislation Tuesday — already passed by the House — that would make it illegal for state and local governments and employees to enforce, administer or cooperate with any federal law, act, treaty, rule or regulation that is ‘inconsistent with any law of this state regarding the regulation of firearms.’”
“Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood took $50,000 from an associate of a Lebanese-Nigerian billionaire at the center of a sprawling scheme of illegal foreign campaign contributions,” Axios reports.
“LaHood, a former Republican congressman from Illinois and a member of President Obama’s Cabinet, agreed to repay the money, pay a $40,000 fine and cooperate with prosecutors to settle the matter.”
“President Joe Biden’s first big legislative package sped through Congress. The next one could take at least half a year to pass — if it can get to his desk,” Politico reports.
“Biden and Hill Democrats on Wednesday began a months-long sprint to pass a $2.5 trillion bill to shore up the nation’s physical infrastructure, paid for by hiking taxes on corporations. Republicans are already balking, dismissing Biden’s attempted outreach as disingenuous, and preparing a messaging campaign against the package that will almost certainly force Democrats to go it alone as they juggle competing wish lists from their members across the ideological spectrum.”
John Harwood: Biden made stimulus look easy. Selling tax hikes for infrastructure will be harder.
“As the coronavirus subsided in New York last year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo had begun pitching a book proposal that would center on his image as a hero of the pandemic. But by early last summer, both his book and image had hit a critical juncture,” the New York Times reports.
“An impending Health Department report threatened to disclose a far higher number of nursing home deaths related to the coronavirus than the Cuomo administration had previously made public. Melissa DeRosa and other top aides expressed concern about the higher death toll, and, after their intervention, the number — which had appeared in the second sentence of the report — was removed from the final version.”
“At stake was not just the governor’s reputation, but also, potentially, a huge payoff: a book deal that ended with a high offer of more than $4 million.”
The audit team that Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R) selected to examine the 2020 general election in Maricopa County will be led by a company owned by an advocate of the “Stop the Steal” movement who repeatedly alleged that the election was rigged against former President Donald Trump, the Arizona Mirror reports.
“Facebook removed a video featuring former President Donald Trump, citing his indefinite suspension from the platform,” NBC News reports.
“The removal tests just how far Facebook is willing to interpret its suspension, which followed the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The video featuring Trump was posted by his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, who was interviewing the former president.”
Virginia state Sen. Amanda Chase (R) claims she will run as an independent if one of her rivals for the Republican nomination for Virginia Governor in 2021–businessman Pete Snyder (R)–wins the nominating convention, reports the Virginia Scope.
Chase claims the May 8th nominating convention is being rigged to favor Snyder, and that if Snyder wins, she has already collected enough signatures to run as an independent.
Miami Herald: “Rick Scott is laying the groundwork for a potential 2024 presidential run, and his path — if successful — will look a lot like his three statewide races in Florida. In 2010, 2014 and 2018, Scott outspent the competition.”
“But $150 million won’t buy the presidency in 2024 … If he wants to outspend the 2024 competition, he’ll need help from national donors.”
“The federal investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is focused on allegations that the junior congressman had a sexual relationship with at least one minor, and is scrutinizing the Republican’s conduct not only in Florida but in other states too,” ABC News reports.
Politico: “A list of more than 80 upcoming fundraisers for House Democrats sent out by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Friday includes no in-person events…”
“A list of upcoming fundraisers sent out by the National Republican Congressional Committee on Friday lists 204 upcoming events, more than half of which are described as ‘in person.'”
Fox News host Tucker Carlson was angered after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) attempted to rope him into a scandal involving allegations related to sex trafficking of a minor, CNN reports.
Said a source: “It pissed him off.”
Charlie Harper: “Somewhere along the way, media outlets decided that public opinion polls were the best tools to explain public policy questions in their 90 second news packages and 14 paragraph print stories. Over time, telling the public what others support or oppose has been prioritized as a shortcut over detailed analysis with pros and cons of proposals.”
“These polls are often used to pigeon hole elected officials into support of popular proposals instead of good policy. Too many reporters load up with righteous indignation before asking, ‘77 percent of voters support getting something for themselves and having someone else pay for it. Why are you out of step with your voters?’”
Danny Moore, the chairman of the Colorado’s independent redistricting commission, questioned the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Facebook, calling it “the Democrat steal” and repeating the untrue assertion that Joe Biden did not get more votes than Donald Trump, the Colorado Springs Gazette reports.
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott told the Des Moines Register that he’s believes that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) will seek an eighth term in 2022.
Said Scott: “I’m very optimistic that Sen. Grassley’s going to run. Actually, I’d be surprised if he doesn’t.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
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