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Americans tuning in to President Bidens State of the Union address on Tuesday could be forgiven for thinking that Democrats have decisively won the cultural war over abortion rights. In a speech that clocked in at just over an hour, Biden studiously avoided using the word abortion a single time. His only reference to abortion rights came in passing.

The constitutional right affirmed by Roe v. Wade, standing precedent for half a century, is under attack as never before, Biden said. If we want to go forward, not backward, we must protect access to health care. Preserve a womans right to choose.

What constitutional right affirmed by Roe v. Wade? A womans right to choose what? In too many situations, the right to choose has become a phrase without an ending the final, crucial word omitted to satisfy political strategists who believe the Republican myth that even uttering the word abortion will spell electoral doom.

The State of the Union was Bidens biggest opportunity to reset that received wisdom and rally the Democratic base by condemning fully and clearly the GOPs scorched-earth war on women.

The situation is acute. On one side, the Supreme Court is likely to hand down a decision on Texass restrictive new abortion law later this year that legal experts argue would effectively end abortion rights as we know them. On the other, Senate Democrats fell short this week in their effort to codify abortion protections into law. There has never been a more urgent time to mobilize the nearly 60 percent of Americans and one third of Republicans who support legal abortion.

Republicans have good reason to try and dissuade Democrats from making abortion a major issue in the upcoming midterm elections: a Hart Research survey of Americans in 11 states found that when elections focus on abortion, voters support Democrats over Republicans by 71 points. And in the suburbs that decided the 2016 and 2020 presidential contests, voters are deeply wary of an America without Roe v. Wade. If Republicans lose those suburban voters because they chose to burn down abortion rights, their electoral victory path practically disappears.

We need to stop equating peoples discomfort with talking about sex, sexuality, gender identity, abortion all of these things pregnancy, with the political opinions or where the country is at, We Testify Executive Director Renee Bracey Sherman told TIMEs Abigail Abrams. Bracey Sherman is right; for all the GOPs doomsaying about the political suicide of mentioning abortion, the Republican position is out of step with the majority of the nation and even with a growing number of self-identified conservatives. Theres a reason House Republican hopefuls have been eager to talk about anything but abortion.

For every other issue, he painted a picture of what hell do to rebuild America, from electric-car charging stations and high-speed internet, BraceySherman said of Biden. But he refuses to build back better for abortion.

Biden and Democrats shouldnt relegate the historic fight over abortion rights to an afterthought. It should instead be the centerpiece of an ambitious Democratic effort to build a new political coalition that realigns suburbs out of the GOPs orbit. For a party badly in need of unity after a year that saw surprisingly public displays of intra-party hostility, making the midterms a referendum on abortion offers a path forward that energizes base voters and party activists across racial, ethnic, age and class lines. In addition to being the morally right thing to do, shaking up the electoral map is smart politics and one of the few ways Democrats can hope to escape a bludgeoning in November.

Its clear from Bidens remarks that he understands Roe is under direct assault, and any Democratic approach must be about more than just politics. Around the nation, but especially in Texas, women are facing an unprecedented stripping of their fundamental legal rights. They pleaded to their elected officials, but to no avail. They took their case all the way to a Supreme Court that took the extraordinarily unusual step of allowing Texass draconian law to remain in effect while the court considered the case.

Democrats should not be ashamed to make abortion a major issue. For millions of women across the country, it is the major issue. An unexpected or unwanted pregnancy in a post-Roe America will determinemany other factors in their lives. Its time Democrats found their voice and unified once again to protect abortion rights in America.

MaxBurnsis a Democratic strategist and founder of Third Degree Strategies, a progressive communications firm. Follow him on Twitter @themaxburns.

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The nominations for President Joe Biden's Democratic appointments to the Federal Communications Commission and Federal Trade Commission advanced at the committee level Thursday, bringing them closer to help implement Biden's technology and telecommunications agenda.

The Senate Commerce Committee deadlocked 14-14 along partisan lines to advance the confirmation of FCC nominee Gigi Sohn, a prominent liberal activist and a former Democratic staffer at the commission, and FTC nominee Alvaro Bedoya, a Georgetown University law professor and prominent privacy advocate. Still, their nominations will move to the Senate floor, where Vice President Kamala Harris can provide the tiebreaking vote for Democrats if necessary.

The shortage of personnel at both agencies has hampered Democrats from moving forward with their ambitious antitrust, broadband, and telecommunications agendas.

Sohn and Bedoya are expected to face hurdles and procedural difficulties getting confirmed on the Senate floor because of Republican opposition to their nominations, causing the deadlocked vote Thursday.

Senate Republicans strongly oppose Sohn's confirmation, criticizing her as a left-wing ideologue who would favor heavy-handed regulation threatening censorship of conservative speech and for her alleged conflicts of interest.

THE SURPRISING GROUP OF CONSERVATIVES WHO SUPPORT BIDEN'S LEFT-WING FCC NOMINEE

Sohn also favors net neutrality, stronger government regulation of the broadband industry, and the breakup of Big Tech companies.

She would be the third Democrat on the commission, a five-member agency regulating the TV, radio, and telecommunications industries and ensuring broadband internet access. Democrats have lacked a majority despite Biden becoming president at the beginning of last year.

Biden's FTC nominee, Bedoya, who founded the Center on Privacy and Technology at Georgetown, has been at the forefront of research into how facial recognition technology and other surveillance tools have been used by the government and tech companies to discriminate against immigrants and minorities.

Bedoya previously worked as a staffer for Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota on the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law.

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If confirmed, Bedoya would strengthen the Democratic majority at the FTC by giving a 3-2 advantage during commission votes related to the regulation of Big Tech companies and on questions related to antitrust, data privacy, and security.

Original Location: Democrats closer to full control of tech regulators as Biden nominees advance

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Citing the financial toll that the pandemic has taken on many Connecticut residents, progressive Democratic lawmakers and advocates on Thursday renewed calls for higher taxes on the states wealthiest.

While Gov. Ned Lamont, planning re-election this year, opposes raising more revenue from the rich, the legislative Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, during a day-long, virtual public hearing, heard impassioned calls for the highest earners to pay more for state services.

Republicans on the tax-writing panel oppose the three bills that are the focus of the progressive push, including an added tax on houses worth more than $1.2 million; a capital gains surcharge of one percent on the sale or exchange of assets; and a permanent Earned Income Tax Credit of 41.5 percent of the federal EITC.

As our country and our state continue to recover from the brutal physical and emotional trauma of COVID-19, we cannot forget the financial toll it has taken on many of us, especially our working poor and middle-class wage earners who have borne the brunt of the economic crisis, said Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, who submitted all three bills. Meanwhile, many at the high end of the income scale have prospered like never before.

Under questioning from committee members, Looney quoted non-partisan legislative staff who estimated that the one-percent capital gains surcharge would generate about $131 million in annual revenue.

Similar bills in recent years failed, except for an increase in the EITC, which Looney and Speaker of the House Matt Ritter this week vowed to make permanent at 41.5 percent. Last year the committee approved a so-called consumption tax that would have hit Connecticuts wealthy, but the proposal died without action in the biennial budget-setting process.

Ed Hawthorne, president of the state AFL-CIO, said that while people such as Connecticuts 13 billionaires have gained wealth during the pandemic, most of the rest of the state has struggled.

Hundreds of thousands of working people, especially working people of color and our essential workers that went to work every day saw their lives upended, Hawthorne said. The ultra-wealthy have been allowed to rig the rules in their favor for years. Theyve skirted their responsibility to fund our schools, our education infrastructure, healthcare programs and other vital public services.

He also supports a 10-percent tax on digital advertising on corporations with income over $10 billion, to bring in about $140 million in new revenue.

Like other speakers in favor of the bills, Hawthorne had a digital backdrop of the Recovery for All CT, an umbrella group of faith, community and labor organizations, behind him as he spoke.

Across Connecticut, regardless of our race, gender, income level, or town in which we live, we have all pulled together to navigate the pandemic and its ensuing financial devastation. But not all of us suffered equally, said Beverly Brakeman of West Hartford, regional director of the United Auto Workers, Region 9A, which has 30,000 members in New England, New York City, and Puerto Rico.

In 2022, we remain a state of vast inequality despite being one of the wealthiest states in the nation, she said. This is not something of which we should be proud because the result of such disparity is despair and suffering. We see this vast inequality play out every day in income, wealth, housing, food security, health and health care outcomes, education, and access to public services.

The lowest earners of our state are paying 26 percent of their income to state and municipal taxes, while those making $1.6 million and above are only paying 6.67 percent, said state Rep. Kara Rochelle, D-Ansonia, whose district includes part of Derby. This is obviously incredibly unfair and creates a deep burden that goes beyond just the numbers. She said her district includes 12,463 households classified as the working poor. These are folks living from paycheck-to-paycheck and cannot even afford a $500 crisis.

The Connecticut Business and Industry Association testified against the legislative proposals. It is clear that towns and cities cannot rely solely on property taxes and inconsistent state aid to fund essential services and often mandated programs, the CBIA said in prepared testimony. Adding 2 mills to high-end homes is not the answer.

Republican push back on the committee was led by lawmakers including Rep. Devin Carney of Old Lyme and Rep. Laura Devlin of Fairfield.

I just think we give certain urban leaders a pass when policies that they put into place that negatively affect students and I think they did during this pandemic, Carney said during an exchange with Brakeman, who had pointed out the disparity between school systems in wealthy suburbs and those of the inner cities. I think, honestly, those leaders have gotten a pass for a long time. Coming to the Finance Committee and asking for us to make changes in the things that happen in Hartford and New Haven may be a little bit short-sighted.

I would say that I think what this committee can do, with your charges, is to look at the system of taxation, which is not fair, Brakeman replied. And that is a way to equalize how we mete out our education, housing and all those kinds of services.

Devlin during an exchange with a representative of state certified public accountants, warned that the wealthy can easily leave the state if they believe taxes are too high.

This years short, 12-week session that ends at midnight on May 4, is focused on adjusting the second year of the budget, which starts on July 1. Lamont wants to focus on property tax credits, a statewide tax rate for motor vehicles that would lower taxes for many, as well as ending income taxes for pension income.

kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT

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The Democratic National Committee (DNC) is out with a new set of ads knocking Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) over a recently released memo laying out what he thinks the GOP agenda should be if Republicans recapture control of the Senate this year.

The four-figure digital ad buy is set to begin running on Saturday in the Villages, Fla., ahead of Scotts speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla.

Rick Scott and the Republican Party have made their agenda crystal clear: they want to raise taxes on over half of Americans including seniors and retirees without offering a single proposal to lower costs for hardworking families, Allyson Bayless, a spokeswoman for the DNC, said in a statement.

This is the Republican Partys official platform, and the DNC will use every resource at our disposal to make sure voters know exactly what Republicans stand for, she added.

Scotts 31-page memo, which he released on Tuesday, offers a glimpse of his vision for what a Republican majority in the Senate might pursue. Among the ideas outlined in the memo is a call for all Americans to pay at least some income tax.

The plan was met with immediate criticism from Democrats, who accused Scott of pushing for new taxes for low-income Americans. But the memo also received some criticism from Republicans, who have sought to make the 2022 midterm elections a referendum on Democratic control of Washington.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnellAddison (Mitch) Mitchell McConnellOvernight Health Care Presented by Alexion Battle lines drawn over COVID-19 funding Pelosi says Boebert and Greene 'should just shut up' Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey tells donors he won't run for Senate MORE (R-Ky.) notably declined last year to release an agenda ahead of the midterms.

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The bills enjoy broad support the 42 co-sponsors of Ms. Spanbergers TRUST in Congress Act include Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Andy Harris of Maryland, all firmly in the Trump wing of their party and if anything, they are putting Ms. Pelosi in the spotlight.

You have the speaker of the House out there trading, and her husband making millions and millions of dollars a year, Mr. Hawley said.

Democrats are just as eager to contrast their position with Ms. Pelosis. They said her refusal in December to consider a stock trading ban Were a free-market economy, she said when asked about the push made the issue a cause clbre.

The speaker, I dont want to directly call her out, but handfuls of members have put dozens and dozens of years here. They come at this from a different time and a different perspective, said Ms. Stevens, who has found herself almost certainly facing another Democrat, Andy Levin, in the upcoming House primaries in redistricted Michigan. Both signed on to last weeks letter demanding action on a trading ban.

Democratic leaders remain leery. They argue that once Congress begins trying to regulate its own members out of investments, it is difficult to draw the line between what is permissible and what is not. If stock ownership is forbidden because it could create a conflict with legislating, would having student loan debt make it inappropriate for a member to press for loan relief? Would owning real estate confer an improper personal interest in environmental or land-use policy?

Mr. Roy allowed that there were complexities, but, he said, a line had to be drawn.

If youre talking about dirt, well, are you talking about your family farm or are you engaging in thousands of real estate transactions? he asked. Are you buying and selling and engaging in commercial real estate transactions development while youre in Congress? There are limits to what were supposed to do.

Drew Hammill, Ms. Pelosis deputy chief of staff, said the speaker had asked Representative Zoe Lofgren, Democrat of California and the chairwoman of the Committee on House Administration, to examine an array of proposals to regulate lawmakers trading, including a ban on owning stocks. Ms. Lofgren is also looking at increasing penalties for unacceptable noncompliance with the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a 2012 law that mandates that lawmakers disclose their stock trading, a step he said Ms. Pelosi supports.

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