“Arizona House Democrats refused to show up at the Capitol on Tuesday, blocking debate on a budget and a major tax cut primarily benefiting the wealthy,” the Associated Press reports.
“The move kept the House short of the number of lawmakers required to conduct business, forcing Republican House leaders to delay budget work until Thursday, when all GOP lawmakers are expected to be at the Capitol.”
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) vetoed bipartisan legislation that would have banned tethering dogs outside with heavy chains, the Houston Chronicle reports.
The hashtag #AbbottHatesDogs is now trending on Twitter.
Between March 1, 2020 and March 9, 2021, 881 Secret Service members tested positive for COVID-19, according to government records.
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller (R) announced he would seek reelection, putting to rest speculation that he could challenge Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for the top elected position in the state, the Texas Tribune reports.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) he’s reached an agreement with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) where Manchin will vote yes to open debate on the election overhaul bill, CNN reports.
That allows Democrats to stay unified on the bill even though it won’t survive a Republican filibuster.
Politico: “Ilhan Omar started out in Congress as a somewhat lonely critic of decades of U.S. policy in the Middle East. Now, six months into her second term, the Minnesota Democrat has new and diverse allies. … Democrats are showing they’re increasingly comfortable backing her up, particularly as she hammers the Israeli government in ways that buck long-held bipartisan traditions in Washington.”
“That friendlier posture toward Omar indicates that her party’s shift on America’s role in the Middle East was more than just a short-term fixture of the recent 11-day conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza… A generational divide within the Democratic Party has elevated younger lawmakers’ calls for a recalibration in U.S. policy toward Israel.”
“The board of commissioners in a northern Michigan county that supported Donald Trump voted to pursue an audit of its election Tuesday,” the Detroit News reports.
New York Times: “The digital effort will include a series of extensive voter information campaigns, going beyond a more traditional approach that would consist solely of persuasion ads. Their overall goal is to help people navigate a new balloting landscape created by the many new restrictions passed by Republicans in at least 16 states.”
“The campaigns will also provide voting tools like text message reminders to register to vote or request an absentee ballot.”
Playbook: “There are 13 candidates on the ballot, and polls show no one coming remotely close to a majority. That means it’s virtually certain that we won’t have an outright winner tonight, and it will be necessary to move to the ranked-choice, ‘instant runoff’ tabulation to determine the Democratic nominee.”
“But ‘instant’ it is not — far from it. The problem is you need to know which candidates finished the race in which places before their supporters can be reallocated in the correct order. And that’s only possible after all the votes are tabulated.”
“The city board of elections is reportedly not going to run those calculations for the first time until next Tuesday. And that will only include votes cast in person — whether today or during the early-voting period, which ended Sunday. Then there are absentee ballots, which won’t start to be added to the tallies until after the Fourth of July. That means it could be until the middle of next month before a winner can be identified.”
“Every death is tragic. Nearly every death is, at this point, entirely preventable… We know our vaccines work.”
— CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, quoted by The Guardian.
“The Federal Trade Commission will be the agency to review Amazon’s proposed acquisition of Hollywood studio MGM, just as the commission gets a new chairwoman who has been critical of the online giant’s expansion,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) said she would vote against President Joe Biden’s pick to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Monday, making David Chipman’s path to confirmation more difficult,” the Bangor Daily News reports.
Said Collins in a statement: “In recent years, Mr. Chipman has been an outspoken critic of the firearms industry and has made statements that demean law-abiding gun owners. Although he has the right to express his views, I believe this history makes him an unusually divisive pick for this important position.”
With just a few hours left before the Senate vote on whether to advance voting rights legislation, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) told CNN he’s not made up his mind yet.
Said Manchin: “We are still waiting to see the final… I gotta make sure we are going to move to a better compromise… Everybody is working on it real good.”
The Club for Growth released a statement saying “it has already raised $5.125 million to support Rep. Ted Budd’s (R-NC) campaign to become the next Senator from North Carolina.”
Philip Bump: “A pattern has emerged in Republican politics over the past several years, a three-part system by which to generate a cloud of uncertainty about certain things.”
“One component is to suggest a failure to treat something unserious as serious is a reflection of an unwillingness to debate, that the party considering the unserious thing as unserious is somehow afraid to confront it. Another is cherry-picking from huge pools of information, using isolated and usually misconstrued claims to construct alternative narratives. The third is the existence of a sympathetic media and social universe that collectively agrees the unserious and unproven thing is, in fact, both proven and serious.”
Connecticut state Sen. Alex Kasser (D) “announced she is resigning, saying her ability to do her job has been harmed by a bitter divorce battle being waged by her husband,” CNBC reports.
“The stunning move comes two years after Kasser went public with her romantic relationship with a woman who had previously run her first Senate campaign and then briefly worked in her legislative office. Kasser told her husband more than a decade ago told she is a lesbian.”
“Taliban fighters took control of a key district in Afghanistan’s northern Kunduz province Monday and encircled the provincial capital, police said, as the insurgent group added to its recent battlefield victories while peace talks have stalemated,” the Associated Press reports.
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.