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If Russia Inquiry Is Not 'Legitimate,' Democrats May Abandon It New York Times Representative Adam B. Schiff, right, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, during a news conference with Representative Devin Nunes, the Republican committee chairman, last week. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times. and more »

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If Russia Inquiry Is Not 'Legitimate,' Democrats May Abandon It - New York Times

By Tony Perry By Tony Perry March 11 at 7:02 PM

OCEANSIDE, Calif. For three hours Saturday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) endured pointed questions, jeers and derisive laughter during two successive town halls in this northern suburb of San Diego.

But this wasnt just a moment for Issa to let anxious constituents vent their worries about immigration policy, health-care reform or the first seven weeks of President Trumps tenure. It was a major first test of the Democratic Partys efforts to turn antipathy toward Trump into electoral gains in 2018. It was also a chance for Issa to show that he is willing to stand apart from Trump for a district that has rapidly grown more liberal in recent years.

I do not work for the executive branch, Issa said in an opening statement Saturday at one of two morning town hall meetings at a community center here. I investigated the Obama administration. I also investigated the Bush administration.

Issa, 63, has been distancing himself from Trump for some time. Widely seen as a partisan flamethrower during his years leading the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and its many investigations of the Obama administration, Issa is more likely these days to defend the budget of the Environmental Protection Agency or to demand a rigorous investigation into allegations of Russian intervention in the 2016 election.

He has good reason to moderate: Californias 49th Congressional District, which encompasses the increasingly diverse and liberal suburban cities in northern San Diego County and southern Orange County, is no longer the safely Republican terrain that it was for Issas first eight elections to Congress.

Last year, Issa won narrowly against a lawyer and retired Marine colonel, Douglas Applegate, who has announced plans to challenge him again in 2018. Last week, environmental lawyer Mike Levin, another Democrat, announced that he, too, plans to challenge Issa.

On Saturday, one questioner noted that some Democrats have wondered whether Trump is too emotionally unstable to be trusted with nuclear weapons.

Issas answer stopped short of a full-throated show of support for the new commander in chief. If the issue comes up in front of the appropriate body, he said, I will vote my conscience.

Yet Issas attempts to distance himself from Trump were met with derision and boos. When he referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as an evil son of a blank who sows chaos and then capitalizes on it, an audience member yelled so does Trump. The crowd cheered.

A protester outside the community center held a sign that seemed to sum up the attitude of many, if not most, of the more than 1,000 who attended the two sessions: Repeal and Replace the President.

One man wore a Russian military hat. Another wore a T-shirt that read, Trump-Putin, 16. A woman held a sign: Russia-Gate Follow the Money. Another had a shirt signaling that she is a nasty woman, a jibe Trump aimed at Hillary Clinton during a presidential campaign debate.

Between the two sessions, a reporter asked Issa whether he is worried about the 2018 congressional election becoming a referendum on Trump.

I dont care, he said. Fact is that Im going to be with Trump sometimes, against him sometimes.

Only a few of Issas colleagues held town hall meetings after Congresss workweek ended, but questions about the American Health Care Act, as the House GOP plan to replace the Affordable Care Act is known, were rampant. Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), a supporter of the bill, was confronted in a Friday night tele-town hall by a man named Bill who demanded that Republicans pass the repeal package of 2015. That has been the plan favored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and most of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.

[Will Obamacare repeal break the Freedom Caucus? It depends on Trump.]

Its already done, said the constituent. It doesnt take a PowerPoint presentation. Lets send it up. Collins assured the constituent that the 2015 bill is in this package thats going to be sent to the president, which is not true, as the AHCA keeps some parts of the ACA that Republicans formerly voted to repeal.

Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), a Freedom Caucus member whose district backed Trump by 17points, told a morning crowd in St. Augustine that he wasnt ready to back the bill.

I dont think you can come to grips with the bill in 36 hours. I dont, DeSantis said. Im not sure it does enough to lower the costs of health care.

DeSantis was booed when he praised the idea of expanding health savings accounts, a part of the GOPs plans; he also said that a viral moment from a CNN interview he did, where he appeared to be saying that cancer patients could get coverage at emergency rooms, was misinterpreted. He was received more sympathetically when he criticized the bill, saying that as structured, it might lead to higher premiums.

If you do it right, people are going to have access to cheaper plans, DeSantis said. If you dont, Im not sure its going to reduce costs.

Issa faced questions about the Affordable Care Act, too. He did not fully buy into the current GOP plan being promoted by House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.). But he didnt help himself with many in the crowd when he referred to the ACA as Obamacare, which prompted the audience to boo and cry out, the Affordable Care Act.

Issa responded sharply, Hey, its not affordable.

As at so many other town halls across the country in recent weeks, no one asked Issa about local issues, not even about a recent deployment of Marines from nearby Camp Pendleton to Syria. The only local issue was brought up by Issa: removal of nuclear fuel from the San Onofre power plant.

That suggests that the electorate is primed to turn the 2018 election into a referendum on Trump something of which Democrats are likely to try to take advantage.

After last years squeaker election in the 49th District, Democrats listed Issa as among the most vulnerable Republican incumbents in 2018. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has hired a full-time organizer in the district. In response, the GOP campaign committee has included Issa among 10 House incumbents who will receive additional help from the party.

While most of the crowd Saturday was markedly anti-Trump, a smattering of the presidents supporters were present, some wearing the red Make America Great Again campaign hats. A bare-chested man outside held a sign asking Whats Not To Like? about Trumps views.

Repeatedly, Issa asked questioners to be succinct and implored the rest of the audience to not drown out the question or answer. His goal for the meeting was modest, he joked with the crowd.

The only thing I ask is that it not end like [the play] Hamilton, he said, referring to Alexander Hamiltons untimely death in a duel with Aaron Burr.

David Weigel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., contributed to this report.

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GOP's Darrell Issa represents a clear test for anti-Trump Democrats trying for electoral gains in 2018 - Washington Post

With 27 GOP-controlled governorships up for election in 2018, national Democrats envision the midterm elections as a chance to rebalance the scales at the state level, where there are currently twice as many Republican governors than Democrats.

But already, party leaders are running into a complication unresolved issues left over from the Hillary Clinton-Bernie Sanders presidential primary. Far from defeated, Sanders-aligned progressives are nationalizing their fight, showing less patience than ever for Democrats who dont agree with them. And thats generating fear and nervousness in the South in places like Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee where some promising Democratic candidates who are looking at running statewide in 2018 could face resistance from the left.

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Heres the challenge in many Southern states now: You have a more liberal primary base, because the more moderate voters are less likely to participate in Southern primaries, so it makes it more dicey. That certainly presents an opportunity for candidates who want to make a point rather than win an election those candidates are less likely to be successful in a general election, said South Carolinas last Democratic governor, Jim Hodges. In Southern states youre going to need candidates who have more moderate stances to be successful."

No Sanders-wing candidates have declared their candidacies yet in these Southern races. But the ambitions of Sanders' post-presidential political operation, Our Revolution and the wake of the Tom Perez-Keith Ellison proxy battle for the DNC chairmanship has establishment-oriented Democrats worried about the prospect of grueling primaries or policy litmus tests in a region where the party can least afford to be divided.

It is critical to recognize that there is a different set of policy issues in the Deep South that are not in play in the coastal areas or the West, said Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams, a likely 2018 gubernatorial candidate, pointing to organized labors historic economic centrality in parts of the Midwest, and its relative absence in the South, as an example.

My hope is that Our Revolution or anyone else will understand that purity to a progressive ideal does not [necessarily] mean purity in service of the community, she added.

People close to Sanders political arm insist theres no evidence that the group or its affiliates will try to mount candidate challenges or ideology tests especially not in the Southern states where the senator was squashed by huge margins in the 2016 Democratic primaries, and where his relationship with local leaders has been strained.

After Sanders lost across the South by wide margins from North Carolina by 14 points to Mississippi by 66 in early 2016, party chairs and top regional officials sent him a stern letter asking him to stop minimizing Hillary Clintons wins there by characterizing the South as especially conservative. That dismissal of Southern primary results was viewed as a diminishment of the importance of African-American voters, who make up much of the Southern Democratic electorate.

Among Sanders loyalists, though, theres disbelief and frustration that other Democrats remain wary of their movement, rather than more eager to channel its energy and money.

The party needs to not see the progressive, Bernie wing of the party as a problem, but rather see it as an asset, said Mark Longabaugh, a senior Sanders advisor. The fact that, broadly speaking, candidates and operatives in the establishment wing see the Bernie wing the activist part of the party as a problem? Thats a problem in and of itself."

Georgia state Sen. Vincent Fort, the Our Revolution-backed candidate for Atlanta mayor who made waves during primary season for switching from Clinton to Sanders, said the party establishment still fails to understand or believe in the power of Sanders-style grassroots organizing.

What people have been talking about, they talked about it last year, and the discussion of it this year is increasing, is 2017 and 2018 are part of a whole, that we need a progressive mayor elected in Atlanta in 2017 as a prelude to electing a Democratic governor in 2018, he said. We need a progressive Democrat running in 2018, somebody who understands that trying to be Republican-lite is not a way to get elected. I anticipate this playing out in the primary, I know progressives are going to say, which of the candidates is a real progressive? Which candidate can we depend on to remain progressive?

With Republicans in near-unified control of every governorship and legislature in the South, the region remains little more than an aspirational target for national Democrats. But the emergence of strong potential gubernatorial candidates like Abrams and former state Sen. Jason Carter, President Jimmy Carters grandson, in Georgia, and former Nashville mayor Karl Dean in Tennessee, has spurred hopes that a 2018 snapback election framed as a Trump referendum could sweep out some Republicans associated with him.

Thats also the hope in South Carolina, where GOP Gov. Henry McMaster was one of candidate Trumps loudest early supporters.

I hope all of these [progressive] groups will go out and help recruit candidates, because the hardest job for any party is recruiting candidates: theres no mythical candidate tree where you can go and pick candidates. So they can help fill some of the holes we have, said South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Jaime Harrison, who is considering a governor run of his own. Im looking for whos going to be my gubernatorial candidate here in South Carolina: Im looking for someone who can reflect the values of our party and energize our base, but also who can win. So I dont know if there needs to be a litmus test."

In several states, establishment efforts to work with Sanders backers are picking up. Georgia Democratic Party chair DuBose Porter noted his vice chair for recruitment was a Sanders supporter. And candidates such as Floridas Andrew Gillum are openly courting the Sanders wing the Tallahassee mayor is speaking to his states Democratic Progressive Caucus later this month.

No one should be afraid of folks with differing views or differing stances on policy. Were all in the same party, said Tennessee Democratic Party chair Mary Mancini.

These Democrats believe that as Sanders turns his movement toward near-term battles he was in Mississippi for a unionization drive last weekend his supporters firepower can be directed toward 2018.

Our Revolution has expressed interest in having a 50-state strategy, and while their depth of field in the South is weaker than in the coastal areas, any group that can generate additional voters is a benefit to candidates in 2018, said Abrams. There is a specific group of non-engaged midterm voters who I think were animated by Senator Sanders campaign and who could tip the balance, especially in states like Georgia where youre talking about a narrow window of 200,000 voters.

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Governors races test Democrats' rift - Politico

WASHINGTON Running for Congress under even the best circumstances is a grind: Up early for breakfast meetings, on the trail all day and finish with an evening event. The time between your head hitting the pillow and your alarm going off gets squeezed until theres little of it left.Then you get up and do it again.

Doing all that to win is one thing. Doing it just to get wiped out at the polls requires a level of dedication bordering on bonkers.

That means that one of the first questions top potential candidates ask party handlers before making the decision is a simple one: Can I win? If so, show me the numbers.

But a funny thing is happening this time around: Democratic prospects, in conversations with party elders, are skipping that question. Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that the question of how winnable a race is is often among the top concerns. This year, the energy among Democratic activists has persuaded potential candidates that anything is possible.

So far, this cycle is very different, she said. People are coming to us in a way thats new and exciting, and its clear that we will have strong candidates across an expanded battlefield in 2018.

Finding good candidates has been even easier this year than it was in 2016,bucking a years-long trend.

Despite the fact that presidential cycles tend to benefit Democrats in terms of turnout, recruitment was not easy last cycle, Kelly said. Our political department ultimately recruited a number of strong, successful candidates, but it was only after camping out in districts and going person to person, sometimes for months, until they found someone qualified and interested in running.

It started with the Womens Marchevents in January, when around 4 million peopletook to the streets around the country, for the largest single-day rally in American history. It continued with surging turnout in special elections from Minnesota to Iowa to Virginia, Connecticut and Delaware. It has flowed down to Georgia, where a 30-year-old Democrat, Jon Ossoff, is attempting to take Republican Tom Prices House seat. Ossoff is breaking fundraising recordsthanks to a burst of small-dollar support from around the country. And now in Montana, Rob Quist, a bluegrass legend, has jumped into the race for the Democrats to fill the seat vacated by Ryan Zinke, who, like Price, joined PresidentDonald Trumpscabinet.

Quist has a long history of public service and charitable work and is wildly popular in Montana, but he has never run for office. Trump has changed things. Groups that have exploded since the election, like Swing Left, Flippable and the Sister District Project, are funneling money and volunteer resources from blue districts to where its needed more.

Democrats have been bad at getting out their base in recent midterm elections although history is on their side this time around, since the party in control of the White House traditionally suffers losses in these off-year elections. But with midterm turnout low, the best candidates often take a pass at making a bid. Without good candidates, turnout falls lower, accelerating a vicious cycle.

The Democratic Party is face an uphill climb in the Senate in general, but particularly this year: Democrats are defending 25 of the 34 seats up for grabs. Winning the 218 seats needed to take back the House of Representatives is a daunting task as well, no matter how much energy is in the streets, because Republicans have used their power at the state level to redraw districts to favor them. The fact that Democrats tend to cluster in major cities also plays a role in sorting voters in a way that allows Republicans to claim 55 percent of the seats, even though more people voted for Democrats for Congress.

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But Republicans cant gerrymander a state and 36 states have governors races in 2018. Those elections will be critical in helping to un-gerrymander the damage that was done after the 2010 census. Nine of those are in currently Republican-governed states that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton won in 2016, and at least another half dozen are well within reach. Another nine are currently held by Democrats.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already had more than 175 serious conversations or meetings with potential recruits in more than 55 districts far more than in past cycles. The group said its seeing more interest from veterans, who are concerned about Trumps views on national security and see running for office as a second call to duty.

Theres also been a surge of interest from people who have never run for office and now want to at least explore stepping up to the plate. This trend is happening even in GOP bastions like Utah and South Carolina. When the state party opened up registration for a March candidate training, officials sold out of their 50 tickets in the first day. A week later, the party expanded it to 200 spots and again immediately sold out.

In a wave election, districts that are evenly split swing toward the party that is surging Democrats in 2006 and 2008, then Republicans in 2010 and districts that lean toward the majority party become winnable. In a district which went for Trump by 10 points, its not hard to see how that becomes a tight race under the right circumstances.

Mark Fraley, chairman of the Monroe County, Indiana Democratic Party, said that Democrats on the ground are fired up, and Republicans are checking out. Stephanie Hansen, who won a Delaware special election in February, saw the same thing, moving what was a two point race to an 18 point blowout.

If our people are mobilized and Trump supporters are demoralized, then yes, some of these races that have nine-point Republican advantages start looking close, Fraley said. A lot of Trumps core supporters arent going anywhere, but you start seeing demoralization among working people they voted for Obama twice, then Trump. If were not seeing the changes they hoped to see youll be able to see disengagement on that part.

There are, meanwhile, eight districts that could be easier picking for Democrats. These seats one each in Arizona, New Jersey and Kansas, two in Texas and three in California are all congressional districts that voted for the GOP presidential candidate in both 2008 and then 2012 and then went for Hillary Clinton this past cycle. Theyre also all still represented by GOP House members. It wont be easy, of course. Texass 7th district hasnt elected a Democrat to Congress since 1967.

One of those seats is currently held by veteran congressman Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), an eccentric libertarian-leaning Republican whos been in office nearly 30 years. He faced his toughest challenge in 2008, but still won by some 10 points and hasnt faced a true challenge since. That changed this year, thanks in large part to the endless demonstrations local Democrats have held against Rohrabacher.

Local businessman Harley Rouda, seeing the energy in the streets, decided to jump in and challenge Rohrabacher.

The energy is what motivated me to get in the race, hands down, he said. The Womens March, coupled with the activist movement here ... was the biggest motivation that now is the time for all of us to get involved and be the change we want to see.

It mattered to Rouda that, with the uptick in anti-Trump energy, the race seems winnable.

Ill be straight with you, he said. The fact that midterms dont typically draw voters out ... is tempered by the populist movement weve got going here. Now is the time to tap into that crowd who really want to get engaged and committed to making that difference.

In some rare cases, there may even be too much engagement. California has a top-two primary system, meaning the top two finishers, regardless of party, go on to compete in the general election, even if both are from the same party.

Christy Smith, a progressive school board president in the Los Angeles region, had her eye on Californias 25th congressional district, a seat held tenuously by Republican Stephen Knight, but one carried in 2016 by Clinton. The DCCC in 2016 had backed Bryan Caforio, who raised a lot of money but never connected with voters and lost by six points. With the energy coursing through the district, a campaign began to draft Smithto jump in the race. Hes popular with both supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and those who backed Clinton. Smith gave it a lot of thought, and when first interviewed by The Huffington Post this month, she was undecided. I was riding two horses with one ass, she joked a week later, having finally made up her mind to run for state assembly rather than Congress.

Her reasoning, she said, was two-fold.

California is on the leading edge of whats possible with effective government, she said. To be able to be a part of that could be tremendous and allow me a lot of latitude to really get things done for people in my district and bring resources back.

Strategically, though, it was also the smarter move. With all of this newfound energy, theres not a lot of understanding of strategy with those folks, because theyre new to the game, she said. Theres a broad yall come attitude, with people coming out of the woodwork.

Thats great when it comes to turnout, but California has a top-two system, meaning that the top two finishers in the primary, regardless of party, go on to the general election. If a big batch of Democrats run, then Republicans tend to run only two candidates. That can allow those two candidates to finish one and two, while Democrats split the remainder among themselves. That puts two Republicans on the general election ballot.

We need to be smart if were going to flip this district, she said.

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Anger At Donald Trump Could Break The Democrats' Midterm Curse - Huffington Post

SATURDAY, MARCH 11, 2017, 11:31 A.M.

In this Sept. 9, 2009, photo, Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., center, listens during President Barack Obama's speech on health care to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington. It took former President Barack Obama and his Democrats more than a year to pass the Affordable Care Act, a slow and painstaking process that allowed plenty of time for a fierce backlash to ignite, undermining the law from the very start. Some congressional Republicans are expressing some amazement at finding themselves, eight years later, undoing the law Democrats forged through those many months of turmoil and debate. Im pleasantly surprised, said Wilson, who gained notoriety for yelling You lie! at Obama during the health care speech in 2009. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / File/Associated Press)

WASHINGTON It took former President Barack Obama and his Democrats more than a year to pass the Affordable Care Act, a slow and painstaking process that allowed plenty of time for a fierce backlash to ignite, undermining the law from the very start.

Republicans are trying to avoid that pitfall as they attempt to fulfill years worth of promises to repeal and replace Obamas law.

After going public with their long-sought bill on Monday, House Republicans swiftly pushed it through two key committees. They hope to pass the legislation in the full House during the week of March 20 before sending it to the Senate and then, they hope, to President Donald Trump all before Congress can take a recess that could allow town hall fury to erupt.

Democrats are crying foul, accusing Republicans of rushing the bill through before the public can figure out what it does. Republicans dispute the criticism, arguing that their legislation enshrines elements of a plan House Republicans worked on for months last year and campaigned on under House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.

We offered it up in June. We ran on it all through the election. And now weve translated it into legislation, Ryan said.

Yet after seven years of Republican promises to undo Obamas signature health law and without ever uniting behind a plan to achieve that, the fact that they produced a bill at all came as something of a surprise.

And now, after months of confident predictions that Republicans would not be able to get their act together on health care, Democrats find themselves wondering anxiously whether the GOP could actually succeed in wiping away those arduous months of work from the dawn of the Obama administration.

Nobody believed Republicans had a bill, said the No. 2 House Democrat, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, until Monday night.

Its a far cry from eight years ago, when Democrats held countless hearings and debated at length, in public and private, how to enact the most significant changes to the nations health care system in a generation.

While Republicans are not trying for bipartisan support on their repeal bill, Democrats spent arduous months in the Senate with a bipartisan working group of three Republican and three Democratic senators, known as the Gang of Six, trying to agree on a bipartisan bill. That effort ultimately failed.

The GOP legislation is 123 pages long. The Affordable Care Act rang in at more than 900 pages.

We held hearings and we just spent seemingly endless hours working it over very different from what the Republicans are doing, said Rep. Sander Levin, D-Mich.

To be sure, creating an enormous federal program requires more time and effort than jettisoning some pieces of an existing one while replacing others with new, or in some cases retooled, conservative-friendly solutions.

The GOP legislation would eliminate the current mandate that nearly all people in the United States carry insurance or face fines. It would use tax credits to allow consumers to buy health coverage, expand health savings accounts, phase out an expansion of Medicaid and cap that program for the future, end some requirements for health plans under Obamas law, and scrap a number of taxes.

Republicans have proceeded thus far without official estimates on how much the bill will cost or how many people will be covered, though its expected to be millions fewer than under Obamas law. The Congressional Budget Office estimates are expected Monday, and that could affect Republicans chances.

Despite the momentum claimed by GOP leaders and the White House, deep divisions remain in their party. Conservatives argue that the legislation doesnt do enough to uproot the law. Other Republicans express qualms about the impact on Medicaid recipients in their states. Some Republicans accuse Ryan and House GOP leaders of moving too quickly.

We should have an open process, we should allow all of the members to amend legislation, within reason, said GOP Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan, a perennial leadership foe.

But Democrats paid a price for their lengthy process, and there was second-guessing even then over the length of time Obama allowed the Senates Gang of Six group to spend in its ultimately fruitless quest. As the months dragged on, public opposition grew. Over Congress August recess in 2009, that rage overflowed at town halls that spawned the tea party movement, which would take back GOP control of the House the next year.

Theres little question that if the GOP process were to drag out for months, especially over a long congressional recess, a similar dynamic could emerge, especially given the consumer and senior groups that have lined up against the legislation and the energized Democratic base already on display at marches and town halls this year.

If Republicans succeed in shoving the bill through this month, such opposition will have less time to make itself known.

Instead, even some congressional Republicans are expressing some amazement at finding themselves, eight years later, undoing the law Democrats forged through those many months of turmoil and debate.

Im pleasantly surprised, said GOP Rep. Joe Wilson of South Carolina, who gained notoriety for yelling You lie! at Obama during a health care speech to Congress in 2009.

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GOP acts fast on health care, aims to avoid ire Democrats faced - The Spokesman-Review