Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio and chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, was one of nine people arrested during a voting rights protest at the US Capitol on Thursday. Beatty was participating in a protest calling for the Senate to pass a sweeping election reform bill. The bill passed the House in March but is being held up in the Senate because of a Republican filibuster. Beatty and others were arrested by Capitol police for 'demonstrating in a prohibited area on Capitol grounds', said police
Continue reading...Category Archives: US Senate
Democratic congresswoman arrested during voting rights protest at Capitol
Joyce Beatty, chair of Congressional Black Caucus, was calling on the Senate to pass a key election reform bill
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, a Democrat of Ohio, was one of nine people arrested during a voting rights protest at the Capitol this afternoon.
Beatty, who serves as the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, shared a photo on Twitter of US Capitol police (USCP) officers putting a zip-tie on her and escorting her out of the building.
Continue reading...‘Have you no shame?’: Biden decries Republican attacks on voting rights
President condemns Trump’s ‘big lie’ about a stolen election but fails to mention filibuster in 20-minute Philadelphia speech
Joe Biden has made an impassioned attack on racist voting laws sweeping America, warning that “the 21st-century Jim Crow assault is real” and demanding of Republicans: “Have you no shame?”
Related: Biden defends voting rights – but no word on ending the filibuster
Continue reading...Biden to visit Miami on Thursday as 150 still missing after condo collapse – live
- Eleven people dead amid calls for investigation into incident
- Trump in danger as company faces possible charges
- President’s contempt for Covid taskforce revealed in new book
Here’s where the day stands so far:
The mayor of Miami-Dade county said there were no new fatalities confirmed today, as search-and-rescue efforts continue at the site of the Surfside condo collapse.
The mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, added that each of the families of the 11 confirmed victims have been notified.
Miami-Dade County mayor updates on building collapse:
- No new fatalities confirmed since last briefing
- Families of all 11 deceased victims have been notified
- 210 people working on mound
- Pres. Biden to meet with families, first respondershttps://t.co/lHgwAdKz7Z pic.twitter.com/qC3naJmNti
Republicans will ‘move forward’ on infrastructure after Biden veto threat
- Portman says GOP will back bill after Biden climbdown
- ‘We have a deal’: but will the Biden infrastructure bill pass?
A lead Republican negotiator has welcomed Joe Biden’s withdrawal of his threat to veto a $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure bill unless a separate Democratic spending plan also passes Congress.
Related: White House seeks to put infrastructure deal back on track after Biden blunder
Continue reading...How Mitch McConnell has unified Republicans as a red wall against Biden’s agenda
The Senate minority leader has filibustered voting rights legislation, halted a pay gap measure and threatened to block a supreme court nominee
It was a glimpse of Washington past. Beneath the vaulted ceiling and stained glass windows of the national cathedral, Joe Biden greeted Mitch McConnell and other senators in the pews, then offered a hymn to bipartisanship.
“Empathy is the fuel of democracy,” the US president told mourners on Wednesday at the funeral of John Warner, a Republican senator he praised for working across the aisle. “The willingness to see each other as opponents, not as enemies. Above all, to see each other as fellow Americans even when we disagree.”
Continue reading...Kamala Harris to visit US-Mexico border for first time as vice-president – live
- Vice-president under pressure from Republicans over lack of visit
- Biden and Harris criticized for not doing more to help voting rights
- President to discuss gun crime prevention with attorney general
- Democrats seek way ahead after voting rights bill hits roadblock
Rising homicide rates and gun violence has become a major issue in local political races, including in the New York mayoral primary elections.
For Joe Biden, rising concern about crime has proved to be a politically convenient opportunity for him to boost gun control reforms he touted as a candidate. But the president’s wide-ranging policy proposals are sure to divide Democrats.
We can't let legitimate concerns about shootings and homicides undermine momentum to overhaul law enforcement. We can't repeat the mistakes of the past and think that we can arrest our way out of rising gun violence. https://t.co/0ifVpEJCFE
Biden is speaking at the White House to explain his administration’s plans to address crime and gun trafficking.
My colleague David Smith is covering the event live:
Joe Biden: “Crime historically rises during the summer.” As we open after the pandemic; the summer spike might be higher than usual. pic.twitter.com/XfWoQ0JGQd
Continue reading...Democrats seek way forward after voting rights bill hits Senate roadblock
The White House warned democracy was ‘in peril’ but while key Democrats stay committed to the filibuster, progress looks difficult
After nearly six months of watching Republicans relentlessly make it harder to vote in the US, Democrats suffered a major blow on Tuesday after GOP senators used a legislative maneuver to halt a sweeping voting rights and ethics bill.
The vote doesn’t kill the bill, but it marks one of the most significant setbacks for Democrats in Joe Biden’s presidency so far. Democrats heralded the legislation as their No 1 priority, even knowing they were unlikely to get any Republican votes for it. The bill would amount to the most significant expansion of the right to vote in a generation, requiring early voting and automatic and same-day registration, while prohibiting excessive manipulation of electoral district boundaries, a process often called gerrymandering.
Continue reading...Republicans set to sink Democrats’ effort to advance key voting rights bill – live
- Senate Democrats to fall short of 60 votes needed to begin debate
- New Yorkers vote in Democratic primary for New York mayoral pick
- Obama backs Joe Manchin compromise before crucial Senate vote
Good morning, live blog readers. Yesterday may have been the longest day of the year but today may feel longer for Democrats as tension builds in Washington towards the big vote on whether to advance legislation on massive voting rights reforms. It’s going to be a lively day, so let’s get started.
Continue reading...Democrats’ domestic agenda bogged down by Republican obstructionism
Key issues such as election reform, voting rights and gun control have seen Republican pushback
Joe Biden’s far-reaching domestic agenda in the US is facing serious setbacks on a range of issues as the political quagmire of a tightly contested Senate is seeing Democratic ambitions sharply curtailed in the face of Republican obstruction.
On a number of key fronts such as pushing election reform and voting rights, gun control and moving forwards on LGBTQ civil rights, there has been an effective pushback by Republicans – and a handful of conservative Democrats – that is forcing Biden and the wider Democratic party on to the back foot.
Continue reading...Covid ‘remains a serious and deadly threat’ for unvaccinated people, Biden says – as it happened
- President hails 300m vaccine doses administered since January
- Mike Pence heckled at conservative Christian summit in Florida
- McConnell says voting rights proposal is ‘rotten to the core’
- The inner circle egging on Trump and fueling his election lie
– Joan E Greve and Maanvi Singh
The history of the race massacre in Elaine, Arkansas, has always been contested.
It is widely accepted that in 1919, a group of white men, with the backing of federal troops, tortured and killed scores of Black residents – the exact number is disputed but assumed to number at least in the hundreds – who were starting to organize against the exploitation of their labor. The massacre came at the tail end of what would become known as the “red summer”, a season of racial terror fueled by white resentment of the strides Black people were making across the country.
Related: ‘We want our land back’: for descendants of the Elaine massacre, history is far from settled
Continue reading...Joe Biden signs bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday – as it happened
- ‘Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,’ president says
- ‘It is time to move forward,’ Biden says after supreme court decision
- Supreme court votes 7-2, preserving healthcare for millions
- House votes to repeal measure that gave Bush authority to invade Iraq
- New York grand jury stores up trouble for Trump Organization executives
A Republican congressman “ran as quickly as he could, like a coward” when a police officer injured in the attack on Congress on 6 January saw him and tried to shake his hand, the officer said.
“I was very cordial,” Michael Fanone told CNN on Wednesday of his interaction with Andrew Clyde, in a Capitol elevator earlier that day.
Related: Officer injured in Capitol attack says Republican ran from him ‘like a coward’
Continue reading...China denounces US Senate’s $250bn move to boost tech and manufacturing
Beijing says bill seeks to exaggerate ‘so-called China threat’ and is ‘full of cold war thinking’
China has denounced a US Senate bill worth about $250bn (£175n) that aims to boost American technology and manufacturing prowess as an example of the US hyping up “the so-called China threat”, and accused Washington of attempting to hinder its development.
The Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved the Innovation and Competition Act, in a rare show of unity in a chamber often filled with political division between Democrats and Republicans.
Continue reading...Joe Manchin to face critics in meeting with Black civil rights leaders on voting – live
- Democratic senator said in op-ed he won’t vote for voting rights legislation
- Manchin’s hard no on voting bill leaves Democrats seeking new path
- Senate report on US Capitol attack finds broad failings
- Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by email
Vice-President Kamala Harris, who has been taking some criticism for her blunt speech in Guatemala to Central American migrants to “do not come” to US, is now getting some backlash from Republicans for an NBC interview she did on this same trip.
Reminder: Joe Biden tasked Harris in March with efforts to stem migration at the US-Mexican border. On her first foreign trip, NBC’s Lester Holt asked if she had any plans to visit the border.
“We have to deal with what's happening at the border.”@VP Kamala Harris spoke exclusively with @LesterHoltNBC on her first trip overseas, how the administration is addressing the immigration crisis, and if she plans to visit the southern border herself. pic.twitter.com/sA4We7peeR
LESTER HOLT: You haven't been to the border.
KAMALA HARRIS: And I haven't been to Europe. pic.twitter.com/Vj6M261Nx3
Vice-President Kamala Harris is in Mexico now, meeting with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
President Lopez Obrador shows Vice President Harris a Diego Rivera mural at the national palace. Asked if he will do more about border enforcement, Lopez Obrador said “We will touch on that subject but always addressing the fundamental root causes” pic.twitter.com/URiJdWaUM9
Continue reading...US Capitol attack was planned in plain sight, Senate report finds
Despite ample evidence of plots there was an intelligence breakdown and lack of preparation but report skirts causes of riot
The deadly insurrection at the US Capitol was “planned in plain sight” but intelligence failures left police officers exposed to a violent mob of Trump supporters, a Senate investigation has found.
Related: Trump feared Democrats would replace Biden with Michelle Obama, book claims
Continue reading...Joe Manchin’s hard no on voting bill leaves Democrats seeking new path
The West Virginia senator has stated, in an op-ed, that he will not back the For the People Act unless it has bipartisan support
For months, Democrats in the US Senate have danced delicately around Joe Manchin, giving him space and holding out hope that the West Virginia Democrat would eventually come around and give his must-win vote to legislation that would amount to the most sweeping voting rights protections in a generation.
Continue reading...How Mitch McConnell killed the US Capitol attack commission
The story of how Republicans undermined the 6 January inquiry is informed by eight House and Senate aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity
Days before the Senate voted down the creation of a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol attack, the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, was adamant: he would oppose the bill, regardless of any amendments – and he expected his colleagues to follow suit.
The commission that would have likely found Donald Trump and some Republicans responsible for the insurrection posed an existential threat to the GOP ahead of the midterms, he said, and would complicate efforts to regain the majority in Congress.
Continue reading...Joe Biden seeks Republican buy-in but how long before patience snaps?
Talks continue on a compromise over infrastructure but GOP intransigeance on a Capitol riot commission does not bode well
It’s become a familiar process in the Joe Biden era.
Biden and Democrats say they will work with Republicans. Republicans say they want a seat at the negotiating table. Then the prospect of Democrats going alone begins to hover over the negotiations.
Continue reading...Republicans’ blocking of the Capitol commission shows how deep the rot is
Analysis: one of America’s two major parties now falls outside the democratic mainstream but are Democrats taking the existential threat seriously?
The question now is not so much whether the Republican party can be saved any time in the foreseeable future. It is what Joe Biden and the Democrats should do when faced with a party determined to subvert democracy through any means necessary, including violence.
On Friday Republicans in the Senate torpedoed an effort to create a bipartisan commission to investigate the deadly insurrection by Donald Trump’s supporters at the US Capitol on 6 January, deploying the procedural move known as the filibuster to stop it even being debated.
Continue reading...Republicans propose nearly $1tn counteroffer to Biden’s infrastructure plan – live
- Republican team is calling for $928bn over eight years
- Manchin lambasts Republican opposition to 6 January commission bill
- Sign up to receive First Thing – our daily briefing by email
Democratic Senator Bob Casey signaled this morning that it may be time to move on from negotiating with Republicans and instead pass an infrastructure bill using reconciliation, allowing Democrats to circumvent the Senate filibuster.
Asked whether it was time to focus on setting up a reconciliation pathway for the infrastructure bill, Casey told CNN anchor Jim Sciutto, “I think we’re getting to that point, Jim. It’s an old expression, fish or cut bait.”
Me: “IS IT TIME TO MOVE ON TO RECONCILIATION (on infrastructure)?”@SenBobCasey: “I THINK WE'RE GETTING TO THAT POINT, JIM. IT'S AN OLD EXPRESSION, FISH OR CUT BAIT” pic.twitter.com/T0HLUKygrL
The Guardian’s Sam Levine and Daniel Strauss report:
After six months of aggressive Republican efforts to restrict voting access, Democrats are facing new questions about how they will actually pass voting rights reforms through Congress.
Related: ‘A ticking timebomb’: Democrats’ push for voting rights law faces tortuous path
Continue reading...