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June 25, 2021 | Austin, Texas | Press Release

Office of the Governor Press Secretary Renae Eze today issued a statement regarding a lawsuit filed by Texas Democrat state representatives and others to halt the execution of the Governor's veto of Article X:

The governors veto power is granted by the Texas Constitution, and the Texas Supreme Court has recognized that the Governor has power to disapprove any bill.Also, the Texas Court of Criminal Appealshas made clear that the Constitution does not 'impose any restriction on the[governors] veto power.More to the point,that court alsoruled that the governors power to exercise a veto may not be circumscribed by the Legislature [or] by the courts. This is not the first time, and undoubtedly will not be the last time, that a governor vetoes funding for government positions and salaries. Any limitation on that authority directly contradicts the Constitution and decades of vetoes by governors.

The Democrats claims about the governors veto cancelling the legislative branch are misleading and misguided. The Constitution protects the legislative branch, and as the Democrats well know, their positions, their powers and their salaries are protected by the Constitution. They can continue to legislate despite the veto.

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Office Of The Governor Issues Statement On Democrats' Lawsuit To Overturn Article X Veto - Office of the Texas Governor

But Democrats see a changed landscape. The ProPublica report added fodder. But even before the pandemic recession, corporate tax receipts had plunged 40 percent after the Trump tax cuts. Though the 2017 tax law ostensibly lowered the corporate income tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, the effective business rate has fallen to 8 percent, said Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas, a senior Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee.

Theres been a big change in voter attitudes on taxes, Mr. Wyden said. In the last 10 years, Republicans always want to talk about taxes, nail those Democrats on taxes, tax-and-spend and all the rest. Now, the American people are sympathetic with our point, which is that everybody ought to pay their fair share.

Democrats are divided about how far to go. Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, pressed Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen last week on Ms. Warrens proposed wealth tax, which would impose a 2 percent surtax on the value of assets owned by people worth more than $50 million and raise at least $3 trillion.

This is about choices, she told a reluctant Ms. Yellen. We can fund universal child care, or we can hand Jeff Bezos enough tax savings to build a superyacht.

Other Democrats, even liberals, are not so sure.

The whole term of a wealth tax scares an awful lot of people who are hoping to achieve some wealth, Mr. Doggett said. We dont want to discourage economic success. We just want to level the playing field.

Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, is stuck in the middle. As a pro-business Democrat, he was tapped by Mr. Wyden to hash out a corporate tax package with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, a pro-labor Democrat. But he is also a member of the group negotiating the bipartisan infrastructure deal.

He said he was confident there would be unanimous support among Democrats to include the international tax framework in a reconciliation bill that followed a narrower infrastructure compromise, because its just so darned complicated.

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Infrastructure Bill Talks Collide With Democrats Goal to Tax the Rich - The New York Times

Her selection was foreshadowed weeks ago, after the website IrishCentral reported she was set to soon be revealed as Bidens choice, fueling speculation about her future. At the time, two people with knowledge of the process told the Globe that the five-term lawmaker from Easton was being vetted by the Biden administration.

I am deeply honored to be nominated by President Biden for ambassador to Ireland, especially given the Presidents and my own Irish roots, Cronin said in a statement released by the White House Wednesday. If confirmed, I look forward to serving as ambassador and working with our partners in Ireland on both the challenges and opportunities ahead of us.

Her selection could remix House Speaker Ronald Marianos relatively new leadership team. As the Houses majority leader, Cronin was the first woman to be named the chambers number two Democrat, and she has been viewed in the State House as a potential successor to Mariano.

Cronin previously chaired the Legislatures judiciary committee, where she helped usher a sweeping criminal justice overhaul into law in 2018, and last year she was among the Houses chief negotiators on a high-profile police accountability bill.

Elected to the House in 2012, Cronin is also a lawyer and served as an arbitrator in a landmark Catholic clergy sexual-abuse settlement.

Cronin has been among a few people viewed as potential nominees for the post in Ireland, including former US senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Anne Finucane of Bank of America. If confirmed, she would live at an estate in Dublins Phoenix Park, surrounded by 62 acres of lawn and gardens. The property was once described by The New York Times as one of Dublins most spectacular houses.

She is among a second slate of ambassador nominees announced by the Biden administration, which last week unveiled picks for a series of sensitive posts in Mexico and Israel and at NATO.

Cronin is set to join a long list of former Massachusetts elected officials nominated to be diplomats.

Former governor Paul Cellucci left the State House to serve as President George W. Bushs ambassador to Canada, just a few years after his predecessor, former governor Bill Weld, resigned after he was nominated by President Clinton to be ambassador to Mexico. (Weld ultimately withdrew after he was blocked from having a hearing by conservative Republicans in the US Senate.)

Former US senator Scott Brown served as ambassador to New Zealand in the Trump administration; former Boston mayor Ray Flynn was ambassador to the Holy See under Clinton; and former congressman and onetime gubernatorial candidate Brian Donnelly was named ambassador to Trinidad and Tobago, also under Clinton.

Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this story misstated Cronins role in a landmark Catholic clergy sexual abuse settlement. She was an arbitrator. The Globe regrets the error.

Matt Stout can be reached at matt.stout@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mattpstout.

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Claire Cronin, Mass. Houses number two Democrat, will be nominated as ambassador to Ireland - The Boston Globe

It is often hard to try to derive a national message from a single byelection. The effect on party morale usually dwarfs that felt on government policy. The election of Liberal Democrat Sarah Green as the MP for Chesham and Amersham, a commuter-belt seat north-west of London, stuns on both counts. The result will make Conservative MPs in relatively liberal and educated constituencies very jumpy. But it will also slow the progress of Boris Johnsons planning reforms. Voters in bucolic Buckinghamshire plainly feared that these would make it easier for developers to concrete over the countryside.

What the result shows is that the Liberal Democrat cause is not a hopeless one. With just 11 parliamentarians and languishing at 7% in national polls, Sir Ed Davey appeared to be taking his depleted ranks and marching them towards the sound of gunfire. Chesham and Amersham has been held by the Conservatives since its creation in 1974. Yet Ms Green overturned a 16,000-strong Tory majority to take the seat by just over 8,000 votes, a swing of 25%, and upset the odds. The energy of the Tories vaccine bounce seems dissipated. Clearly the death of Liberal England has been prematurely foretold.

But is this a successful revival or a false dawn? In 2016 a swing of 22% saw Londons Richmond Park won by the Lib Dems. Three years later the party won the Brecon and Radnorshire byelection in Wales with a swing of 14%. What was telling was that on both occasions, the Lib Dems benefited from electoral pacts that consolidated a part of the remain vote. These divisions have not been erased just because Britain has left the European Union. Chesham and Amersham voted remain, and it would appear that substantial numbers of pro-EU Labour supporters voted Lib Dem.

The Compass thinktank has identified two clear battlegrounds in England: one between Labour and the Conservatives, another between the Lib Dems and the Conservatives. There are few seats where Labour and the Lib Dems square off. It makes sense to join hands to defeat a common enemy. This thought also dovetails with a creeping political realignment in British politics.

The trend is for older, school-leaver Brexit supporters in the north switching to the Conservatives while the ruling party is losing ground among the more middle-class suburban graduates who leaned towards remain. Mr Johnsons divisive nationalism and levelling up rhetoric risks trading red wall gains, such as in Hartlepool last month, for blue wall losses. The new Tory coalition can be divided in other ways: the HS2 high-speed railway is widely welcomed in the north and the Midlands where it ends, but less so in the leafy southern constituencies, such as Chesham and Amersham, that it runs through.

To keep the momentum going will require more than the politics of protest. Sir Ed must see the possibility of a major political restructuring and shape it. He should make a virtue of positions that decentralise power, free the individual citizen and promote quality in public services. He needs policies that are not only popular but also clearly associated in the minds of voters with the Lib Dems. Being a responsible partner to the EU, rather than a troublesome neighbour, would be a good start. Liberalism is its own creed, and its adherents ought to make the case that it remains the one most capable of meeting the challenges ahead.

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The Guardian view on the Liberal Democrats: seeing and shaping politics - The Guardian

Rep. Thomas Suozzi (D-N.Y.), a member of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said that hes exploring the idea of a one-time tax on the wealth of the richest Americans as Democrats seek to increase taxes on the rich in order to pay for spending priorities.

In an interview with The Hill on Friday, Suozzi said hes in the early stages of looking at what he called a patriot tax. This would be a one-time surcharge of 2.5 percent on wealth between $50 million and $100 million and a 5 percent tax on wealth above $100 million. Wealthy people would be able to pay the tax over five years.

Research provided by Suozzis office estimates that such a tax could raise about $450 billion.

Suozzi said that the surcharge hes exploring would reflect the fact that many wealthy Americans were less hurt by the coronavirus pandemic than people with less income.

We all know that people who are wealthy did very well during the pandemic and people that were low-income people did not do well, he said.

He said that for wealthy people, the surcharge would be a way to help your country to build back better.

Suozzi has yet to introduce any legislation based on his idea, and the tax he's considering could face challenges with being enacted. The Biden administration has not endorsed proposals for wealth taxes, and the idea would be sure to face opposition from Republicans.

Suozzi said that the revenue raised by the tax could help to offset the cost of President BidenJoe BidenObama: Ensuring democracy 'continues to work effectively' keeps me 'up at night' New Jersey landlords prohibited from asking potential tenants about criminal records Overnight Defense: Pentagon pulling some air defense assets from Middle East | Dems introduce resolution apologizing to LGBT community for discrimination | White House denies pausing military aid package to Ukraine MOREs infrastructure proposals, as well as restoring the full state and local tax deduction, a top priority for the New York congressman and other lawmakers in his state.

Suozzi spoke to The Hill days after ProPublica published a report detailing how prominent U.S. billionaires pay little in taxes when compared to their wealth gains. The U.S. federal tax system is based on income, not wealth.

Democrats in recent years have increasingly floated ideas aimed at making the wealthiest Americans pay more in taxes. The idea from Suozzi, a member of the moderate, bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus, has some similarities to wealth taxes proposed by progressive lawmakers such as Sen. Elizabeth WarrenElizabeth WarrenDemocrats have turned solidly against gas tax Overnight Health Care: Takeaways on the Supreme Court's Obamacare decision | COVID-19 cost 5.5 million years of American life | Biden administration investing billions in antiviral pills for COVID-19 Democratic senatorspressPhRMA over COVID-19 lobbying efforts MORE (D-Mass.), but Warrens proposal would create an annual tax rather than a one-time tax.

Suozzis comments also come amid a debate over how to pay for infrastructure spending. Biden has called for paying for his two proposed packages, which combined would cost about $4 trillion, through tax increases on high-income households and corporations. Republicans, however, oppose rolling back their 2017 tax-cut law.

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Exclusive: Democrat exploring 'patriot tax' on multimillionaires' wealth | TheHill - The Hill