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The proposed map of six Oregon congressional districts crafted by Democrats on the Legislatures redistricting committees would likely result in five Democrats and a lone Republican being elected to the U.S. House.

The draft map, released Friday, would pack all of the states most heavily Republican areas into one district and spread Democratic voters among the other five districts in a way that all of them would lean Democratic, although some narrowly so, multiple analyses including one by The Oregonian/OregonLive found.

The proposed map is significantly more partisan than the current map of five districts as evidenced by the fact it would likely yield an Oregon U.S. House delegation that is 86% Democrats, even though Oregon voters in recent years have given the Democratic candidate from 50% (Gov. Kate Brown in 2018) to 56% (President Joe Biden in 2020) of the statewide vote in competitive elections. (Republicans won 44% and 40% of the votes in those two contests, with the remainder going to candidates from minor parties.)

Not surprisingly, the map proposed by Republican lawmakers on the redistricting committees looks starkly different and would likely yield a very different Oregon line-up in the U.S. House. The Republicans would keep heavily Democratic areas of Hood River County and Bend in the same district as heavily Republican eastern Oregon, as is now the case. And it would pack heavily Democratic Multnomah and Washington counties into two overwhelmingly Democratic districts, leaving the remaining three districts fairly competitive. The most likely scenario, depending on the strength of candidates who were to run, would be a three-three Republican-Democratic split.

Among the analysts who have reached those or similar conclusions about the proposed maps, based on voter registration data and recent election outcomes, are PlanScore, a project of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal System; polling, politics and sports statistics website fivethirtyeight.com; and The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Neither of the lawmakers proposed maps, nor the maps each of the parties has proposed for state House and Senate districts, are final. Lawmakers on the House and Senate redistricting committees will hold 12 joint public hearings over four days starting Wednesday and wrapping up Sept. 13. Then the committees will decide, if they are able, on final maps.

Sen. Kathleen Taylor, a Portland Democrat who chairs the Senate Committee on Redistricting, noted Friday morning when releasing her partys proposed maps that they are a work in progress.

Her committee can approve any maps that its Democratic members want, since Democrats hold the majority. So the map as proposed Friday could pass that committee.

But that map wont pass the House Committee on Redistricting, as would be required to get the proposal to the House floor for a vote. Thats because, to bring an end to Republican delay tactics during the legislative session, House Speaker Tina Kotek handed Republicans a favor. Instead of giving her party a majority of seats on her chambers powerful redistricting committee, as is customary, she gave Republicans half the seats.

Thus, any map that House and Senate Democrats favor will have to please House Republicans enough that their three redistricting committee members wont tank it.

Republicans have good reason to get new state House and Senate districts passed in the Legislature, however, even if its not a plan they love, since the job would pass to the secretary of state, Democrat Shemia Fagan, if lawmakers fail.

Even if Republicans agree to a compromise with Democrats and pass a plan through both chambers of the Legislature, Brown could veto it, which would also have the effect of passing the map drawing to Fagan.

Lawmakers tentatively plan to hold a special session the week of Sept. 20 to pass the plans. They face a Sept. 27 deadline under a Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.

-- Betsy Hammond; betsyhammond@oregonian.com; @OregonianPol

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Oregon Democrats propose a congressional district map that would likely give their party 5 of 6 seats in U.S. - OregonLive

Democrats are scrambling to craft their multitrillion-dollar social spending package while seeking to avoid any points of contention that could threaten party unity.

Many key aspects of the package pertain to taxes. Democrats want to extend expansions of tax credits benefiting low- and middle-income households that were enacted under President BidenJoe BidenElder pledges to replace Feinstein with Republican if he wins California recall election Overnight Defense & National Security Out of Afghanistan, but stuck in limbo On The Money Delta variant wallops job market MOREs coronavirus relief law earlier this year. They also want to pay for their proposed spending and tax cuts which focus on areas such as health care, child care and climate through tax increases on corporations and high-income individuals.

The House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over taxes, is expected to start considering its portion of the bill next week. The panel has yet to release any legislative text.

Democratic lawmakers will need to ensure that all of their provisions can garner support from both moderates and progressives sinceDemocrats will need almost every party vote in the House and all 50 in the Senate.

Thats easier said than done, especially since some members have started to raise concerns about several of Bidens proposed tax increases. Lawmakers will also have to figure out how they want to design provisions that would cut taxes.

Here are five tax issues to watch as Democrats draft the legislation.

Child tax credit

Democrats broadly support extending the one-year expansion of the child tax credit enacted earlier this year. However, lawmakers face questions about the duration of an expansion.

As a result of Bidens $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief law, the maximum credit amount was increased from $2,000 to $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for older children. The credit was also made fully available to the lowest-income households, and the IRS started issuing advance payments of the credit on a monthly basis. These changes are in place only for 2021.

Many Democratic lawmakers want to make the expansion of the credit permanent. But the longer the extension of the expansion, the greater the cost.

The White House proposed making the credit permanently fully available to the lowest-income households while extending the increased credit amount only through 2025. The Treasury Department has estimated that would cost nearly $450 billion over a decade.

Id prefer permanency, but I know that there are competing views from the White House and others, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard NealRichard Edmund NealProgressives prepare to launch counterattack in tax fight Democrats brace for new spending fights over Biden agenda Pelosi sets up risky House vote to deem .5T budget approved MORE (D-Mass.) told reporters in late August.

Corporate tax rate

Biden has proposed raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent after the GOP tax law in 2017 cut it from 35 percent to 21 percent.

Some moderates have indicated that they want a smaller rate increase than what Biden has proposed. Notably, Sen. Joe ManchinJoe ManchinPresented by Schneider Electric Overnight Equilibrium/Sustainability Mars rover drills first successful sample Alyssa Milano blasts 'Texas Taliban' over new abortion law More than 100 Democrats back legislation lowering Medicare eligibility age to 60 MORE (D-W.Va.), a key moderate, has said he would prefer a corporate tax rate of 25 percent.

The smaller the corporate rate increase, the less revenue would be generated that could be used to offset the cost of Democrats spending priorities. The Treasury Department estimated that raising the corporate rate to 28 percent would bring in about $858 billion over 10 years.

SALT deduction

Democrats are expected to include some type of change to the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction that Republicans enacted as part of their 2017 tax law. But it remains to be seen exactly how lawmakers plan to roll back the cap.

Many lawmakers from high-tax states, such as New York, New Jersey and California, strongly oppose the cap, and some have threatened to vote against the final bill if it doesnt repeal the $10,000 limit.

But fully repealing the cap is expensive, and analysts across the ideological spectrum have estimated that doing so would primarily benefit high-income households. When the House voted on a bill to temporarily repeal the cap in 2019, a handful of Democratic lawmakers, including some moderates and progressives, voted against it.

Democrats have several options if they want to make changes to the cap but not fully eliminate it. For example, they could decide to raise the limit, or they could undo the cap only for people under a certain income level.

Capital gains changes

Democrats have some major issues to wrestle with when it comes to capital gains taxes, which are taxes that people pay on investment gains.

One issue is where to set the top capital gains tax rate. The current top rate is 20 percent, but Biden has proposed significantly increasingitso that capital gains and ordinary income are taxed at the same rates for individuals and households with income above $1 million. Biden has proposed a top rate for ordinary income of 39.6 percent.

Some Democratic lawmakers would prefer a smaller increase in the capital gains rate. For example, Manchin has said hed prefer an increase to 28 percent.

A second issue relates to the tax treatment of capital gains at death. Capital gains are not taxed at death, and when heirs sell investments they inherited, they have to pay tax only on the difference between the sales price and the value of the investments when they received them.

Biden has proposed taxing capital gains at death, with an exemption of $1 million per person. Under the presidents proposal, taxes would not be due on gains on the value of family-owned businesses and farms until the businesses are sold or cease to be family owned and operated.

Even though Bidens proposal includes provisions aimed at protecting family farms, some Democrats from agriculture-heavy areas have raised concerns about the proposal.

A document obtained by The Hill outlining Senate Finance Committee Democrats revenue-raising options calls for providing more generous exemptions than Biden has proposed. The document floats an exemption of $5 million per person from taxing capital gains at death. It also suggests a potential $25 million exemption per couple for family farms, which would be in addition to the general exemption.

A separate item on Senate Democrats list calls for billionaires to pay taxes on their investment gains annually, as opposed to when the investments are sold. Biden has not offered a similar proposal.

International tax changes

Biden and many congressional Democrats have taken issue with the international provisions in the GOPs 2017 tax law and want to increase taxes on U.S. companies foreign earnings. But Democrats have yet to reach consensus on all of the details.

The White House has proposed increasing a minimum tax on U.S. companies foreign earnings to 21 percent. At the same time, the administration is negotiating an agreement with other countries, through the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, for a global minimum tax rate of at least 15 percent.

A group of House Democrats, including several Ways and Means Committee members, raised concerns last month about raising the rate on the U.S. tax to a level that is higher than the rate established by a multilateral agreement.

Treasury Secretary Janet YellenJanet Louise YellenClimate hawks pressure Biden to replace Fed chair Medicare reserves unchanged despite COVID-19 pandemic Social Security reserves estimated to be depleted earlier than previously expected MORE defended the White Houses proposal on Friday.

The U.S. can impose a 21% tax on U.S. corporate foreign earnings -- still far less than what's paid by businesses on Main Street that make their profits at home and still have our corporations be more competitive than they were before,she tweeted.

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Five tax issues to watch as Democrats craft $3.5T bill | TheHill - The Hill

This past spring, Representative Jim Banks of Indiana, chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, wrote a curious policy memo, with the subject line URGENT: Cementing GOP as the Working-Class Party. He argued that Republicans should look to nail down working-class support through tough immigration policies, a crusade against Wokeness, and attacks against tech companies that censor Donald Trump and other conservatives, among other policies. The memo honored a time-tested Republican tradition: Wooing working-class voters by focusing not on economic issues like higher pay and runaway health care costs, but on polarizing social issues, like abortion and same-sex marriage.

Ahead of the 2022 midterms, Democrats may be inclined to dismiss such Republican attempts to appeal to working-class voters. Backed by President Bidens 21st Century New Deal, which includes an infrastructure plan that he says would create millions of middle-class jobs, the facts are on his partys side, dating back to F.D.R.s New Deal, that the Democrats are far more the party of the working class. Yet in an era when politicians often woo blue-collar voters by staging photo ops at coal mines and wearing hard hats, style and theatrics have often trumped substance and policy.

To many Democrats, including Representative Tim Ryan and Robert Reich, it is preposterous that Republicans, long viewed as the party of corporate America, suggest theirs is the party of the working class. Even so, Democrats must resist complacency. They cant stop fighting for the support of workers, no matter how ludicrous the Republican attempts at rebranding may seem. To do so, Democrats must deliver on their promises to workers or else hammer home the point that Republicans blocked their efforts.

When Republicans attempt to style themselves as the party of working people, it can be awkward. In 2019 when the House voted to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour from $7.25 a move supported by 62 percent of Americans only three Republicans backed the increase; the then-G.O.P.-controlled Senate, led by Mitch McConnell, refused to allow a vote on the increase. But the G.O.P. continues to maintain its chosen fiction: The uniqueness of this party today is were the workers party, Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader, said in an interview early this year. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, agreed, tweeting, The Republican Party is not the party of the country clubs, its the party of hardworking, blue-collar men and women.

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Opinion | On This Labor Day, Here's How Biden Can Help Democrats Become the Party of the Working Class Again - The New York Times

In the GOPs action in Fulton County, Democrats see the makings of a grand design to take control of local election offices in the metro Atlanta region, which would give Republicans the power to challenge election results, hold up certification and announce investigations in the counties that produce the most Democratic votes. In other words, it would enable them to execute the pieces of the Trump playbook that failed in 2020.

While the law only allows election boards in four counties at a time to be disbanded, that would be more than enough to swing a statewide election if those counties happened to be Fulton, Gwinnett, Cobb and DeKalb the states four most populous counties where the bulk of Georgias Democratic votes are concentrated.

It's hard to see how this isn't just a cursory act before the takeover, said Erick Allen, a Democratic state representative and candidate for lieutenant governor whose district sits in Cobb County, north of Atlanta. I don't know anyone that's thinking that this is not going to lead to what we think.

Fulton and neighboring Gwinnett, DeKalb and Cobb counties played key roles in turning the longtime red state into one of the most competitive battlegrounds in the nation. In a state that hasnt voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1996, those four counties combined netted Joe Biden a 625,000 vote margin over Donald Trump, enough to offset Trumps rural performance in Georgia.

That metro Atlanta coalition of Black, Latino and Asian voters also fueled the success of Sens. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, whose campaigns ginned up historic turnout in the region during both the November general election and January 2021 runoffs.

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) on Capitol Hill July 15, 2021. | Francis Chung/E&E News / Francis Chung/E&E News

Hanging over our heads, we're thinking, Big Brother's watching, said Jacquelyn Bettadapur, chair of the Cobb County Democratic party. If [Republicans] don't like what they see, are they gonna roll into town and want to do a performance review?

Republicans have largely dismissed Democratic concerns as overblown. Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller, who is running for lieutenant governor, said that his statehouse colleagues have not yet made plans to establish election review panels in the counties around metro Atlanta.

We will get to those counties as time comes, if that's appropriate, but we're not going after [them], Miller, who co-sponsored the legislation, said. There's no, quote, hit list, unquote. We're just trying to take care of the business at hand.

The Fulton County review was initiated after Republican lawmakers sent two letters to the state elections board last month, citing long lines, administrative issues and late distribution of absentee ballots during the 2018 and 2020 elections.

Its true that there is a high bar to taking over a countys election board. While creating a review panel requires little more than a letter to the state elections board from at least one representative and one senator who represent an individual county, the process of disbanding a county election board is cumbersome.

It requires the review panel to find and document a breach of election law or multiple instances of wrongdoing over the last two years of elections before the state election board decides whether or not to vote to disband the county board. The wrongdoing is defined as demonstrated malfeasance or gross negligence.

Democrats, however, point to the partisan backdrop behind these efforts, which come after Trump pressured state elections officials to find 12,000 nonexistent votes in Fulton County in 2020. An independent elections monitor had already found no evidence of fraud in the county.

They note that Republicans will have a majority on Fulton Countys three-person election review panel and envision a troubling specter of white, conservative state election officials taking over county election boards in heavily Democratic, racially diverse counties.

All these things combined could have a negative impact on the minority vote in Fulton County, said Rob Pitts, chair of the Fulton County Board of Elections. And we are the reason for Biden winning, Ossoff winning and Warnock winning.

Statewide, Democrats are piecing together a strategy to fight the law, as activists vow to oppose it and fundraise to bring more suits against it. In Congress, Warnock and Ossoff have proposed a slimmed-down version of the For the People Act that would establish stricter guidelines for disbanding county boards of elections.

Several opponents of the law have challenged it in the courts, though few suits have directly challenged the election board provisions, however, and instead cited its voter ID requirements and ballot dropbox limitations, which they say unfairly handicap low-income voters and people of color.

Other groups say they plan to challenge the takeover provision if Republicans use their influence on county boards to alter election results. So far, several organizations including Fair Fight, the American Civil Liberties Union and NAACP Legal Defense Fund have brought nearly a dozen lawsuits against the state law, according to a tracker from the Brennan Center for Justice.

At the county level, text chains and phone conversations between party chairs have occurred with greater frequency over the last few weeks since the formation of the Fulton County review board.

Some have aimed to learn more about the makeup of Fultons three-member review panel and its sole Democrat, Stephen Day. Day chaired the Gwinnett County election board during the 2018 midterm elections, in which Gwinnetts disproportionate rejection of mail-in ballots made it the center of a fight over election administration.

When reached via email, Day declined comment for this story, adding that all members of the election review panel have agreed not to discuss it publicly until the review is complete.

According to several county leaders, the main goal is to establish a playbook for how to navigate a possible review panel in their county.

It was a discussion in a potential way before. But now of course, it is in practice, actually, said Brenda Lopez-Romero, chair of the Gwinnett County Democratic party.

Still, all of those efforts might not be enough since Republicans control both state legislative chambers and the governorship, which will have total oversight over how the new provision will be implemented.

It does feel like our hands are tied in terms of what we can do, said state Rep. Bee Nguyen, a Democrat who is running for secretary of state. I think any voter in the state of Georgia, when they go to cast their ballot under the new provision, they will recognize that it was not as easy to be able to vote as it used to be.

The dire predictions are also stirring fears about the effect on Black, Latino and Asian turnout in the future if their votes are called into question in the counties where they are most concentrated.

It's targeting, literally, the sovereignty of the counties who run their elections. And they are targeting counties that are heavily Black, Allen said.

It could totally harm Democrats chances in 2022, said Lewanna Heard-Tucker, chair of the Fulton County Democratic party.

If we win these seats like we expect to, there is no stopping them [from coming for other metro Atlanta counties] at that point. They are going to pull out every single stop, Heard-Tucker said. Theyre trying to make sure that they secure a lineage for a decade or more.

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The election gambit thats sending Georgia Democrats into a frenzy - POLITICO

The U.S. Supreme Court's failure to block a restrictive new Texas abortion law may have handed "ammunition" to progressives who want to see the court expanded, but reform remains unlikely, experts have told Newsweek.

The 5-4 decision not to grant an emergency application for a stay of Senate Bill (SB) 8 has renewed the debate about adding more justices to the nation's highest court, an idea referred to as court packing

Critics of the decision, including Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, have said the Texas abortion ban violates the precedent set in the landmark 1973 case Roe v. Wade and criticized the majority for allowing the law to go ahead.

Calls to reform the Supreme Court are likely to become more urgent following the decision, while some Democrats were already public supporters of expansion.

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the progressive "Squad" renewed her calls for expansion this week, as did Senator Ed Markey (D-MA), who is the cosponsor of a bill that would add four seats to the court.

Experts who spoke to Newsweek said that President Joe Biden would be under greater pressure, but it still remained highly unlikely that he would support the idea.

Paul Collins, a legal studies and political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, in Amherst, told Newsweek the Supreme Court may have bolstered proponents of expansion.

"The Supreme Court's five most conservative justices handed progressives substantial ammunition in the battle to expand the Supreme Court. By refusing to halt the law from going into effect, the court effectively overruled Roe v. Wade in the state of Texas, at least temporarily," Collins said.

"And they did it without giving the case full consideration, which will lead to calls not only for court expansion, but also for limiting the court's use of its shadow docket to make public policy."

"If the court were interested in avoiding being in the political thicket, it's difficult to imagine a dumber move. And other conservative states are likely to pass similar laws as Texas, adding more fuel to the fire," he said.

Gregory Caldeira, a professor of law at the Ohio State University who specializes in the Supreme Court, told Newsweek that Biden has other priorities.

"Of course, the court's response to the Texas abortion law will accelerate and intensify pressure on President Biden to support expanding the court," Caldeira said.

"But I doubt whether this pressure will move the president. First of all, he has shown little enthusiasm for the task of enlarging the court. Second, he has other, more pressing priorities in Congress; attempting to expand the court would tie up Congress and drag down his legislative program."

"Third, it seems to me, and I suspect to President Biden, expanding the court is a last-gasp move, if and when the court sets itself against all or nearly all of his legislative and executive priorities. We are far from that day," he said.

Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on U.S. Politics, told Newsweek the court's inaction would lead to more progressive calls for reform.

"SCOTUS' failure to take action on the Texas abortion law will likely cause more rumblings among progressives to expand the size of the courtbut that doesn't mean it will lead anywhere," Gift said.

"Biden doesn't have anywhere near a mandate to pursue such a substantial reform, and he's personally too much of an institutionalist to go down that route," he went on.

"Earlier this year, the president did convene a commission to study the Supreme Court, including its size, but that was pure window-dressing to appease the left flank of his party. Biden has signaled no genuine intention of making court reform a priority, and SCOTUS' inaction on the Texas decision does nothing to change that," Gift said.

Susan Dunn, humanities professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, is the author of several books about Franklin D. Roosevelt, including 2018's A Blueprint for War: FDR and the Hundred Days that Mobilized America. She has previously argued that Roosevelt's plan to reform the court in the 1930s could still be used.

Dunn told Newsweek on Thursday that conditions today are different.

"The country is deeply divided and polarized now, in a way it wasn't when FDR proposed expanding the court," she said. "In the 1936 election, FDR's opponent Alf Landon, the governor of Kansas, won only two states: Maine and Vermont."

"FDR had a huge mandate to govern, and yet the Supreme Court was declaring his New Deal legislation unconstitutional. Citizens were rightly asking who is sovereign - 'We the people' or nine unelected old men, appointed for life?" Dunn said.

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Supreme Court Shoot Themselves in Foot as Democrats Prepare for Battle to Expand Court - Newsweek