“The Supreme Court is completely out of control, making laws on their own, and has become a public opinion poll instead of a judicial body. If we want to save some money lets just get rid of the court.”
— Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), quoted by the Baton Rouge Advocate, in response to the Supreme Court’s decision legalizing gay marriage across the country.
“Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.”
— Justice Clarence Thomas, in his dissenting opinion on same-sex marriage.
“Across the country, among people of all ages and religions, the acceptance of same-sex marriage has grown with stunning speed. But not in the leadership of the Republican Party,” the New York Times reports.
“There is a striking unanimity among the candidates who are running for the party’s presidential nomination in 2016: Not one supports allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry. And after the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a right to marriage for all couples, regardless of their sexual orientation, the degree of difference among the candidates was largely a matter of how aggressively they would continue to resist.”
With the amazing events of the last 10 days, David Remnick says the idea that President Obama “would play out his Presidency, after the political defeat of the midterm elections, as a professorial lame duck turns out to be without basis. And that gives a certain weight to his remarks in early 2014.”
Said Obama: “We’re on this planet a pretty short time, so that we cannot remake the world entirely during this little stretch that we have. … But I think our decisions matter. And I think America was very lucky that Abraham Lincoln was President when he was President. If he hadn’t been, the course of history would be very different. But I also think that, despite being the greatest President, in my mind, in our history, it took another hundred and fifty years before African-Americans had anything approaching formal equality, much less real equality. I think that doesn’t diminish Lincoln’s achievements, but it acknowledges that, at the end of the day, we’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.”
“It turns out that this was not, for Barack Obama, a rhetoric of resignation at all, but a kind of resolve.”
“Within hours of the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday, gay couples were exercising what the justices said is their constitutional right to marry in states that have long denied them. Of the 14 states where such unions were illegal prior to the ruling, all but two have allowed marriages to proceed,” the Washington Post reports.
“In Louisiana, the attorney general’s office said in a statement that it found ‘nothing in today’s decision that makes the Court’s order effective immediately.’ There have not yet been reports that same-sex marriage licenses have been granted anywhere in the state. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood instructed residents that the Supreme Court decision doesn’t yet apply to the state because Mississippi is entangled in a legal order from an ongoing gay marriage lawsuit.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders “has raised at least $8.3 million online through June 17,” the New York Times reports.
“His campaign won’t file its initial report until July 15, but filings by ActBlue, the online fund-raising committee that serves as a conduit for Democratic campaigns, show that Mr. Sanders has brought in more money in May and the first half of June than any other Democratic candidate using ActBlue.”
“The bizarre story of how Colorado Republicans turned on the state party chairman they helped get elected took another strange twist,” the Denver Post reports.
“The state Republican Party says its attorney approached the state’s top prosecutors — some believe what happened to chairman Steve House amounts to blackmail or extortion — although it’s unclear what concerns were raised… House claimed that Coffman, former Congressman Tom Tancredo and Pueblo GOP chairwoman Becky Mizel met with him and ‘threatened that a potential lawsuit may be filed and that false rumors that I have been unfaithful to my wife would be made public’ if he didn’t resign.”
Colorado Pols has the latest.
Here’s what’s trending on Wonk Wire:
And on Working Capital Review:
“In a long-sought victory for the gay rights movement, the Supreme Court ruled on Friday that the Constitution guarantees a nationwide right to same-sex marriage,” the New York Times reports.
“The 5-to-4 decision, the culmination of decades of litigation and activism, came against the backdrop of fast-moving changes in public opinion, with polls indicating that most Americans now approve of same-sex marriage. As in earlier civil rights cases, the Supreme Court had moved cautiously and methodically, laying careful judicial groundwork for a transformative decision.”
Wall Street Journal: “The opinion by Justice Anthony Kennedy caps a rapid shift in legal and societal acceptance of same-sex marriage over the past decade. It also marks a revolution in American society, one that in the course of a generation saw gay rights move to the front line from the fringes of a national debate over the meaning of equality.”
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s (R) administration “has hired at least seven failed Republican political candidates, largely concentrated in a business development agency charged with implementing one of Baker’s top campaign promises,” the Boston Globe reports.
“In addition, he named an unsuccessful congressional hopeful to be his undersecretary for consumer affairs, a failed candidate for secretary of state to head the state Office on Disability, and a losing candidate for state Senate to a leadership job in the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs.”
Wall Street Journal: “Victories for President Obama this week on health care and trade have provided a rare jolt to a second-term White House that has struggled to advance its agenda.”
“The question now is whether it also marks a turning point in the remaining 18 months of Mr. Obama’s presidency as he faces challenges to significant agenda items that are pending. The president’s next major goal—the conclusion of diplomatic talks with Iran—is unlikely to yield such a clear-cut victory.”
Byron York: “I sent notes to several Republican operatives, some working on presidential campaigns and some unaffiliated. How do GOP candidates deal with a president on a winning streak? How does it affect the campaign? Does it give Clinton a stronger hand? The answers that came back showed a party struggling to figure out exactly how to deal with the Democrats’ recent run.”
First Read: “On the one hand, 84% of Republicans want the law to either be totally eliminated or majorly overhauled, according to our most recent NBC/WSJ poll. On the other hand, after the second Supreme Court decision upholding the law, there really isn’t much the GOP can do about it — even if Republicans take back the White House in 2017.”
“Why? Think about it: Say Republicans control the White House and Congress in 2017, say Republicans are able to use reconciliation (and a favorable ruling from the Senate parliamentarian), and say they have actual legislation to replace the health-care law. Then what? That new GOP president would see his entire presidency defined by health care (just like the current president). He’d own the implementation and all of the problems associated with it (just like the current president); he’d own premiums going up, even though premiums usually go up (just like the current president); and he’d face an opposition unwilling to help him even one inch (just like the current president). Does all of that sound familiar?”
Maine Speaker of the House Mark Eves (D) accused Gov. Paul LePage (R) of absuing his power in order to fire him from the position of president of Good Will-Hinckley School, WCSH reports.
“Eves alleges that LePage threatened the Good Will-Hinckley School to either fire him or lose over $500,000 in budgeted state funds and thereby lose another $2,000,000 in private funding. Eves’ lawyer David Webbert said they have the threat in writing.”
Said Eves: “It is a new, dark day in Maine politics. This is why people hate politics. The governor has stepped outside of the political world into my personal life and my ability to provide for my family. It’s extremely upsetting.”
Bloomberg: “All the major candidates in the 2016 race will have super PACs working on their behalf, but Bush and Murphy are trying something unprecedented in U.S. presidential elections: building a separate, and better-funded, organization that will in some ways eclipse the official campaign as a vehicle for promoting the candidate. Murphy’s Los Angeles-based team will produce digital marketing, television ads, and opposition research on behalf of Bush, whose campaign headquarters are across the country in Miami.”
Said Bush: “He’s a good friend, and I’m going to miss him. I hope to see him on election night and give him an embrace. But from here on out, I won’t be talking to him.”
Politico: “He has virtually zero chance of winning the presidential nomination. But insiders worry that the loud-mouthed mogul is more than just a minor comedic nuisance on cable news; they fret that he’s a loose cannon whose rants about Mexicans and scorched-earth attacks on his rivals will damage the eventual nominee and hurt a party struggling to connect with women and minorities and desperate to win.”
“Those risks were amplified this week after a trio of polls showed him likely to earn a coveted invitation to the party’s debates, which ironically were restructured with the very goal of avoiding the circus-like atmosphere of 2012. Having Trump introduce the 2016 field to a national audience was not exactly the Big Tent the party’s bigwigs had in mind.”
“Conservatives were left baffled after Chief Justice John Roberts saved Obamacare three years ago. On Thursday, as the George W. Bush appointee again helped President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement avoid a potentially devastating blow, they felt betrayed,” Politico reports.
“Adding to the sting: The chief justice wasn’t just along for the ride. When the court’s ruling allowing the law’s insurance subsidies to be offered nationwide emerged, he wrote the majority opinion and delivered it from the bench.”
Wall Street Journal: “The ruling, however, made clear the chief justice is building another kind of legacy, one in which he is trying to keep the Supreme Court out of Congress’s way in important and potentially divisive policy areas.”
“The point is, this is not an abstract thing anymore. This is not a set of political talking points. For all the misinformation campaigns, all the doomsday predictions, all the talk of death panels and job destruction, for all the repeal attempts — this law is now helping tens of millions of Americans.”
— President Obama, quoted by the New York Times, on the Supreme Court’s vindication of the Affordable Care Act.
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.